React Fiber Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/acdlite/react-fiber-architecture/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> This looks quite interesting - I got the impression that React would need quite a rewrite internally to accomplish incremental rendering.

One thing I noticed with the priority mechanism proposed - Angular 1 has something like this, but it turns out to be a complex api to understand and use. In fact, just about everyone stays away from mucking around there, and all usages of it I have seen in the wild is a straight up hack/misusage. I suspect that something like this would increase complexity dramatically.

Animation is a problem I feel might be worth studying different systems on, maybe not even just the browser. For example, Angular's implementations have ended up mirroring how Chrome handles animations after collaboration with the Chrome team. It probably shouldn't be singularly focused on how one browser has implemented it, but studying these systems is probably best for maximizing extensibility and performance.

<comment><USER3> Wow I'm at the bottom of the page and this is the first post about the actual article. One thing I was wondering was whether the approach they are taking might actually increase the complexity rather than decrease it. For example, when writing games, it's pretty common to have your physics engine and your rendering engine run at different frame rates. You get the incremental rendering by separating the two. This approach seems to tie the rendering of the internal model to the final rendering.

To be fair, I haven't really spend much time considering the JS animation API. I suspect this is really what's at fault here -- there may be no easy way to update the animation after the fact. Still, I can't help thinking that it would be better to try to separate the screen rendering from the internal model rendering...

<comment><USER4> Yes, this was my thoughts also. I've got a hunch that concerns have been incorrectly mixed here, leading to unnecessary complexity. But it's too soon to tell for sure

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain the benefits of React's DOM diffing model?

Rather than try to diff two DOM trees and optimize reconciliation, why not use one-way data binding and update exactly what has changed, with 0 reconciliation cost? Either way, the upfront work - linking DOM elements with model attributes - is the same. In JSX this is done by interpolating variables into the template, and in one-way data binding this is done via data attributes.

Anecdotally, I've found one-way data binding (using Rivets[1]) to be very fast in practice for a view hierarchy ~10 layers deep.

[1] [http://rivetsjs.com/](http://rivetsjs.com/)

<comment><USER6> I'm with you. All this complexity is baffling, when there's a very optimized rendering engine sitting there in the form of the browser, and soon a suitable component model.

If you wire up your components so that you just re-render the components that have data changes, you get the benefits of dom diffing, without having to diff.

You can skip all this framework JS, and just directly write an async-rendering Web Component. It's pretty compact and easy to understand. I just wrote up a sketch that would work with one of the incremental-dom-based template libraries:

        class AsyncWebComponent extends HTMLElement {
          constructor() {
            super();
            this.isLayoutValid = true;
            this.attachShadow({mode: 'open'});
            this._foo = 'bar';
          }

          // Accessors could be generated with decorators or a helper library
          set foo(value) {
            this._foo = value;
            // You could check for deep equality before invalidating...
            this.invalidate();
          }

          get foo() {
            return this._foo;
          }

          connectedCallback() {
            this.invalidate(); // trigger the initial render
          }

          render() {
            // Call into template library to re-render component.
            // If the template is incrementally updated (say with incremental-dom),
            // then only child components with data that changes will be updated.
            templateLib.render(this.template, this.shadowRoot);
          }

          invalidate() {
            if (this.isLayoutValid) {
              this.isLayoutValid = false;
              // scheduleRenderTask enqueues tasks, so they'll be run in order down the component tree
              // A simple and correct scheduler is to just enqueue a microtask with Promise.resolve().then(task)
              scheduleRenderTask(() => {
                this.render();
                this.isLayoutValid = true;
              });
            }
          }
        }

edit: example uses. In a template:

        <async-web-component foo="[[foo]]"></async-web-component>

When the parent component renders and sets `foo`, the child will schedule a task to re-render.

In JS:

        let e = document.querySelector('async-web-component');
        e.foo = 'baz'; // e schedules a task to re-render
        e.foo = 'qux'; // e doesn't schedule a task, because one is pending

<comment><USER7> Of course you can do manual dirty tracking. But why would you ever want to do that on every single component when you could get it for free?

React's DOM digging has zero cognitive overhead so the benefits are essentially free to me as a developer.

<comment><USER6> This is a sketch of a raw custom element with no library for sugar. A library that assisted in the pattern would presumably implement the accessors for you.

ES/TypeScript decorators would be an easy way to do this, or just a function that fixes up the class after declaration.

<comment><USER7> So implement the accessors logic and invalidation logic, centralize the rerender scheduling and you've rebuilt React.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is very cool, but the nagging issue I have with React is this desire to reimplement everything in JavaScript and bypass the Browser, DOM, CSS, etc. I've lost track of what benefits this really offers?

<comment><USER9> I agree. All in the name of writing code that makes it easier to do what? Not lose track of your own javascript?

<comment><USER10> As if "losing track of your own Javascript" is something that:

a) does not happen

or:

b) is OK?

Might as well have written your sneer like: "All in the name of writing code that makes it easier to do what? Simplify development?"

<comment><USER11> Well it doesn't simplify development and that's the point, it's not a clean separation of concerns. It defies the whole purpose of using CSS, the DOM API and keeping your javascript's structural patterns cohesive. This is why Webcomponents are now part of the living standard. The browser runtime nullifies whatever React was trying to achieve.

<comment><USER10> > _Well it doesn 't simplify development and that's the point, it's not a > clean separation of concerns._

On the contrary, it's very clean.

The real separation of concerns is between business logic and view code, and React does that perfectly.

Not between HTML, CSS, DOM etc which are artificial inflated concerns due to how the browser ended up as an ad-hoc application coding platform (from it's "document" viewer beginnings, which is where the "D" in the DOM comes from).

(And of course nothing stops you from using CSS and external styles with React, separating style from behavior).

> _This is why Webcomponents are now part of the living standard._

Web components only solve the non-interesting parts of what React does. Namely, isolated components. All the state and management mess for the entire app is still yours to deal with. Even React alone does more, nevermind React+Redux/FLUX etc.

Which is also the reason React caught like wildfire, and nobody much cares for Webcomponents (e.g. not any statistically significant numbers).

<comment><USER12> I generally agree with your position here, but I think you're giving React a bit too much credit for separating business logic and view code. In practice, anything complicated probably requires shouldComponentUpdate for acceptable performance. Writing reasonably efficient shouldComponentUpdate in turn requires underlying data that can be compared quickly, hence for example the current interest in immutable data structures that can be tested for equality by checking a single reference. And so the choice to use React for rendering does have implications for how the underlying data is stored as well, which undermines any claims about truly separating the view logic from the business logic.

<comment><USER10> Sure, all abstractions are leaky one way or another, but in the end React gives you much better separation than what we had before.

Having to deal with shouldComponentUpdate is a blessing compared to having to juggle 4-5 different concepts and web technologies, plus manage state, plus separate logic yourself, etc.

Heck, in Backbone, which is as bare as it gets, and you needed to wrap your data in specific classes...

And that's IF (and it's a big IF) you have some very complex performance case. In most cases I never needed it, and tons of stuff can just be a pure render function.

<comment><USER12> Again, I generally agree with your comments here. I just think it's important to point out that this particular leak exists, because a lot of React advocacy completely glosses over the point. The need to have a data model that supports quick diffs one way or another has profound implications for the scalability of your front-end code and it's an architectural decision that will be expensive to change later if you get it wrong initially and learn that the hard way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What is the "incremental rendering" that this article is talking about?

<comment><USER14> It's rendering part of the virtual DOM in one cycle, rather than the full thing. This goes hand-in-hand with the ability to prioritize the rendering of different components.

For instance, when you're scrolling through a large table, you may want to prioritize the rendering of a custom scroll bar over the rows themselves. With the Fiber architecture, you can do that so the scroll bar can hit a responsive 60fps and the rows can fill in when there are spare cycles.

<comment><USER13> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does it strike anyone else that the entire battle cry of react reeks of pre- mature optimization?

Let's load a giant javascript framework, slow our onload and page ready event by half a second, overcomplicate our build infrastructure with JSX, mixing up our declarative code with non-standard imperative/functional javascript and HTML, start importing sass and CSS into our javascript files, and use an API that is weird and borrowed (componentDidMount?).

What exactly is the savings here? I fail to see it. When and if you have 100,000 DOM elements on a page and need to do efficient rendering and reconciliation of what has changed? Poor code organization? Adherence to a weird and clunky API? Because Facebook does it?

I'm sorry but I've had the displeasure of working on a few apps where developers have used React and I could have done the same thing, without all the bloat, achieving much faster performance, both measured from first byte to when the page was ready for the user to use, to any interactions on the page. All of these apps were relatively simple single page apps.

What has happened to us as developers that this sounds like a good idea? Whatever happened to pragmatism? Has that just lost by the wayside of the new shiny?

<comment><USER16> It isn't so much pre-mature optimization rather than having the next step of the evolution of modern webdev.

Let's go back 6 years in webdev land. jQuery was king, Angular was the up-and- comer. You have a fairly complex jQuery site probably rendering most things from ruby or php. The only way to debug it was with console.log and refreshing the page.

Angular comes around introduces modules and unit-testing, cool! You hook up grunt and protractor, you install angular batarang. Everything is good. But you end up building this huge angular app. You try to debug this edge case when you have this panel open under this tab. You get frustrated that you have to click on the same things over and over again. Livereload can inject css but not js. When you change the html of your angular directive you have to reload the page too.

This is where React comes in. React + Redux + Webpack makes it such that you can apply livereload to _everything_. The css that your component imports, the html it renders, what actions happen when you click a button. Everything. It's not necessarily the new shiny rather than just the next step to making things _easier_ for devs. It gets out of your way so you could focus on styling, structure and business logic.

<comment><USER17> Exactly! Not to mention the reusability benefits of components - rather than passing around JQuery selectors and objects.

The cognitive load of using plain React is unparalleled for me. The effort to setup the tooling is a bit of a hassle though..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So how does React know which parts of the model need reconciling, without traversing the complete model and/or the complete state on every update?

<comment><USER19> When you call setState on a component, only that component's subtree is reconciled and re-rendered.

<comment><USER18> Okay. But how do you know what components to call setState on then? Is state spread over components, or is it stored centrally?

<comment><USER19> setState is a public API, usually triggered in response to a user event like a click or an input change event.

State in React is local to a component, but it can be passed down to a component's children in the form of props.

Centralized state can be achieved using a library like Redux, where an individual component subscribes to an external data store's changes. Redux abstracts the details away, but under the hood it's still just setState.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has this something to do with Preact, which started as an animation experiment and became a React alternative?

<comment><USER21> No, not related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> And I clicked this thinking it was some competitor to Google Fiber, to describe their networking architecture.</comment>


Elon Musk at MKBHD: EVs at $25.000 in less than 3 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MevKTPN4ozw&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Having been sold the idea of the Three at $30,000 us and finding they have no intention of making at that price point while they can sell at $60,000+ I am.. not surprised.

Inside three years other manufacturers will occupy the $30k price point. I doubt as nice as a tesla, but sellable cars at a price and range i can afford.

I like the tesla product. I do not like the airgap between marketing hype and delivery. I believe tesla was consciously vague on when low cost cars would eventuate and let enthusiastic fans front run reality.

The $25k price is worth shooting for. Volume lies here.

<comment><USER3> I'm glad Tesla is at least considering that price-point. When they announced the Model 3 they said they wouldn't go any lower. I instantly thought that would have been a big mistake for Tesla, because not going lower means they won't get anywhere close to being a "leader" in EVs in the future. You still need a significant market share, even if it's not the largest. But you shouldn't be drowned out by competitors either and just remain a "niche luxury carmaker".

Maybe Tesla doesn't need to compete with the cheapest EVs in 10 years (which will probably sell for under $15,000), but they should be "within reach" for _most people_ that _aspire to get a Tesla_.

They should make it so that people think "Well, I could get this Ford model that I can afford now, or I can save 50% more and get a faster/better built/safer Tesla" \- that should be Tesla's goal, to get everyone to think like that.

And to your point about them not being able to fulfill their promise of a cheaper Model 3, I think that's primarily because all of them come with the Autopilot 2.0 hardware. I think this was also a big mistake, and it also pissed me off, because I knew they were making this compromise and why they said they wouldn't go lower in price, too - they focused too much on the self- driving capabilities of the car.

Model 3 _didn 't have_ to have self-driving capabilities. I think it was a strategic mistake for them to compromise on price by adding that hardware to all Model 3s, especially since I think Tesla as well as everyone else _understimated_ how much longer it will take to get virtually flawless self- driving. They thought it's going to take 2 more years, but it's probably closer to 10 more years.</comment></comment>


Anti-Pattern: Iteratively Building a Collection - <AUTHOR> http://robots.thoughtbot.com/iteration-as-an-anti-pattern/ <comment><USER2> There are some issues with the "good" examples; e.g.

def signer_keys_and_uids signers.inject({}) do |result, signer| result.merge(signer.key_id => signer.uids) end end

builds not only one but two new hash objects on each iteration, while the "bad" code does neither. Array to Hash is probably best done using Hash[]

</comment><comment><USER3> The signer_keys_and_uids example can be much cleaner using Enumerator#with_object:

signers.map.with_object({}) { |signer, result| result[signer.key_id] = signer.uids }</comment>


The Logan Paul "Suicide Forest" Video Should Be a Reckoning for YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/logan-paul-video-youtube-reckoning/ <comment><USER2> He went into the forest purposely looking for a dead body. He didn't feel remorse for the person who had committed suicide. He showed no empathy for the now deceased person.

There's a huge difference in bringing awareness to "Suicide Forest" versus going there just to find a dead body to taunt.

<comment><USER3> Nobody discusses that this body and whole event could have been staged/fake/setup. Youtubers have done this before.</comment></comment>


The Mastermind (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://longform.org/posts/the-mastermind <comment><USER2> I heard about this on Gimlet's Reply All podcast[1] last week. It's a great overview of what went down with Evan Ratliff himself.

Immediately after listening I bought the book from Amazon. I'm only a few pages in and there's already so much more to the story which is great as I found it really fascinating.

It's a big book, so be prepared for some good bed time reading!

[1] [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/the-founder#episode- pl...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/the-founder#episode-player)

<comment><AUTHOR> > Gimlet's Reply All

yepp that's what brought me down that rabbit hole too. I've spent the last 3 days reading this story and related court documents.

some interesting conclusions were that TrueCrypt came out and claimed their software now no longer secure[1] because they assumed that Paul Le Roux might be working with the Feds on breaking its security ...

there is an interview[2][3] from last week where they discuss with investigators how they hunted him and what motivated him

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814725](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814725)

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

[3] [https://www.vulture.com/amp/2019/02/michael-mann-and- elaine-...](https://www.vulture.com/amp/2019/02/michael-mann-and-elaine- shannon-talk-on-hunting-leroux.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you read the Evan Ratliff's full book, you'll hear how Paul Le Roux was able to avoid having his domains seized by becoming a registrar himself.

I know that it's not really relevant to the narrative, but I'm curious about what level of interaction that law enforcement had with ICANN and Verisign in regard to Le Roux, and what sort of policies they have on law enforcement cooperation.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just re-read the Atavist piece the other day, as Le Roux made one of his first public appearances at a hearing. A truly awe-inspiring piece of journalism about a man who seems to have already lived multiple lives in his 46 years.

His message board and mailing list comments were especially fascinating to me, as I spent time lurking on those lists and others as a teen. Cannot recommend Mr. Ratliff's work enough.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's been on the site a few times. I had some comments on it here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496782)

Great piece of journalism, though. Also, one of few long forms I read. There's so many other potentially-good stories in this yet to be reported on. Hope people get at them. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've listened to the audiobook a few weeks back. Fascinating story no doubt!

</comment><comment><USER7> I worked with this guy for a few weeks well before he started his criminal organization. Seemed bright but odd.

</comment><comment><USER8> The story of his life is suitable for a good crime film.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wonder how much of his profits went to pay-pal and other payments processing from the early 2000s.</comment>


One shot, once a minute catches a Tit. - <AUTHOR> http://ildekon.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-08-05T05:41:00-07:00&max-results=1

<comment><USER2> Interesting photo, bad statistical analysis.

The probability of a bird flying in front of the camera exactly as it takes a photo is in no way dependent on how long the camera has been running. Every image capture is an independent event.

There are also many, many webcams in existence, and while there is a low probability of a bird appearing in a photo captured by any specific camera, the probability of _some_ bird appearing in front of _some_ camera at _some_ time would be much higher, and would likely have resulted in a similar amount of attention from bloggers.

<comment><USER3> Every image is an independent event so the likelihood of a bird appearing in a specific image is unrelated to how long the camera is up. However the likelihood of the bird appearing in any of the images the camera has taken depends on the total number of images. So the analysis is sound.

However I do agree with the second half of you post, the probability of some bird clearly appearing in some shot from some webcam somewhere in the world is very likely near 1.

<comment><USER4> The probability of an event occuring once you know it occured is, surprisingly, "very likely near 1".

<comment><USER2> Sure, if you're looking at the probability of that specific event occurring.

But if you want to generalize about kinds of events, rather than a single specific one, it's useful to use past events as sample data to estimate probabilities of similar events occurring in the future (provided, of course, that you have defined meaningful categories for entities and events.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll admit I had no idea what I was getting into when I clicked...

<comment><USER6> I had a very clear idea... I left extremely disappointed.

<comment><USER7> I was expecting an office webcam and a clothing malfunction, not a titmouse from a webcam I have no clue where it's mounted.

I mean is this out of someones apartment window, is the next screen a bird- splat? Or is this a traffic cam, but if it is why on this puny double-way-road and not a 3-lane highway or on-ramp cam? If this is on a street light, why is it easily 2-stories higher than all the streetlights in the photo.

I'm not so much interested in the bird, but where the heck is this camera mounted?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It isn't one in 2.4 million frames--it's the one that got found out of all N webcams running since the beginning of time.

Glad the title wasn't replaced with '* * *'. Nice tit. Thanks for finding this, hackers.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's definitely a cool shot, but I'm not sure what the point is in trying to calculate the probability of it happening after the fact.

<comment><USER10> Good point. If the bird builds a nest in front of the camera, that blows your expected value out of the water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unless that bird can hover, I'd hate to think what the next frame looked like.

<comment><USER9> Probably a smear, since the next frame would have been 60 seconds later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Somewhat misleading title.

</comment><comment><USER12> The only reason you calculated the probability is because you observed such an event. Person throws 10 dice and observes 4123532156. "Wow, what are the odds of that?!"

</comment><comment><USER13> Are there many webcams that do 1280x800 resolution? Or is it more likely a photo?

<http://plastik.hu/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/cinke.jpg>

Occasionally an ant or fly will crawl across my security webcam and scare the heck out of me for a moment.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd say the probability is however many birds have been caught on a webcam in however many webcam pictures have been taken. Roughly.

</comment><comment><USER15> Destined to become a meme.</comment>


Show HN: Massively Multiplayer HTML5, Node.js, MongoDB Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.crpg.me/c

<comment><USER2> Using the latest version of Firefox, this is what happens...

1\. It loads up and I'm on the casino floor with some slot machines, blackjack, poker etc. I assume I'm the character that's just standing solo in the room (woman in yellow), so I try to move. This does nothing.

2\. I mouseover the games, and they say _play slots_ , or _play poker_ , so I click them, and nothing happens.

3\. A box appears in the top left saying _create character_. I click that, and an error flickers saying the connection was lost.

4\. Instantly I'm forwarded to a page that looks like an advertisement for the game, with a big button to _play now_.

5\. Before I can do anything, it forwards to the original loading screen, and I'm back to number one in the casino room.

Chrome...

1\. It loads and I actually see other players and their names in the casino room.

2\. Similar to above, the buttons do nothing, and should at least have a popup asking me to register.

3\. The _create character_ button doesn't display an error, but forwards me to the game advertisement, and then loops back into the game like Firefox before I can click anything.

In both browsers I'm in an endless loop. You should really consider letting the user play for 5 minutes or 10 minutes without needing to register, and then once they're hooked, prompt them to register to continue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, looks like there's an error in the guest view from a recent update, should have the updated soon. As to the looping you are referring to, that one is stumping me at the moment as none of us here are able to get that behavior to happen. Still digging...

Edit: Okay, the bug with clicking on things not working is fixed, still haven't been able to reproduce this looping issue.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I'm in now. I used Chrome, and during the loop, I clicked the create a goldfire account button before it automatically forwarded. Then I created an account, and it gave me the option to select one of three games. I selected the casino game, and it loaded and went back to square one, in the casino room, with the _create character_ button. I clicked that button and went into the loop again, clicked the goldfire button once more, and then it loaded the game and I was suddenly logged in.

I played around for 20 minutes, but I don't think I'll return. It's clear _a lot_ of time and effort went into this game. It's missing the two most important things I enjoy in a game though, it needs to be fun, and it needs to be simple. I'm likely not your target user though, since I've never been too involved in online casino games. Congrats though, I'm impressed at how much is built into this game, and how much you achieved here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry you had to go through all of those hoops, had never seen that issue or had it reported before. I think I've found the problem and fixed it now anyway. Our early player flow certainly has some issues that we are putting a lot of work into redoing right now (mainly it takes too long to get into the meat of the game). If you don't enjoy casino games then true, you probably wouldn't enjoy the early gameplay. Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hate and ignore those apps which require registration w.o. displaying the main page. Quora is another example to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an MMO, it requires registration, but we display information, screenshots and video about the game on the main page. This link is also the guest view, which lets you see inside one of the casinos live without needing to be logged in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blog post and trailer video about the game: [http://goldfirestudios.com/blog/134/CasinoRPG-Official- Launc...](http://goldfirestudios.com/blog/134/CasinoRPG-Official-Launch-and- Trailer)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey James I have been following you guys for a while, great concept and looks pretty smooth. Reminds me a lot of Habbo Hotel, great market with lots of revenue potential. Keep it up.

</comment><comment><USER6> I liked the look of the first page I saw, where I could click on tables in the game room. But after going through registration via Facebook, I got back, and it looked like a boring web page. Whatever that page was, it was boring, so I closed the site. I forgot to get a screenshot, but it mostly was a solid green background.

<comment><AUTHOR> Solid green background? I'd be really curious to know what page you are talking about as I can't think of any page or screen that is solid green besides the felt on the poker/blackjack tables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been following this for a while. Great progress, great play experience, great game!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is very impressive! Good work, I can only wish to be half as good with Node.js

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice. What libraries/technologies are you using to render the front end?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are using a modified version of the Isogenic Game Engine and a little over 2 years of work (there's a whole open world outside of the casino floors).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wanted to inspect the network tab in Chrome and it froze the whole browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that has actually been an issue for us during development. Something like this requires quite a few more assets than a normal webpage, and clearly Chrome's Dev Tools don't handle that too well.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't really have a good solution so far. We mainly try to avoid the network tab, but if we must use it, we pause the game to free up some extra resources and generally it won't crash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I dislike having to create a separate account to play this game. Using twitter still requires a separate password and account to create. In firefox the game loops when clicking create character.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, not seeing the looping issue you are referring to in Firefox. The game is an MMO, so we need some way to keep track of your player and sync with everyone else.

<comment><USER11> With Oauth you should be able to use a twitter account as your account without having to sign up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1st freeze with mirror 2nd at the table. couldnt do any moves. and now I cannot join "premium members can only play at 2 tables"

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, haven't heard a report of that before. Looks like you got automatically cleared out of that table now though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Latest chromium on ubuntu: 1 Loading up a room with a bar and slot machines 2 i click on the bar 3 screen fades to 50% black the end

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm missing something but this game didn't work at all for me in Firefox

<comment><AUTHOR> What version of Firefox? The game works on every browser newer than IE8. As long as there is HTML5 Canvas it should work. That being said, Firefox does tend to have the worst performance of all of the major browsers.

<comment><USER14> Huh, seems to be working now. Maybe it was a poor connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought it was going to be a game where I could use node.js against my enemies ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, I guess I could have phrased the title a little differently. That would be fun though too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sooo they found a way to gamify the gamified process of handing over your money!

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks really great! Are you monetizing this (if you don't mind answering)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we actually first built a social gaming platform ([https://goldfire.me](https://goldfire.me)) and built this game around that. Through the platform we monetize with virtual currency purchases and an optional monthly subscription, though we've been careful to balance things so that no spending is ever required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The fish tanks look like the most interesting thing in the room.</comment>


Vinyl album sales outperform digital downloads for the first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/vinyl-sales-digital-downloads-albums-record-store-day-a7458841.html <comment><USER2> The bigger story here is that year on year revenue was down almost 20%.</comment>


Ballmer on Android: "Blah dee blah dee blah" - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10083590-94.html

<comment><USER2> Well... given his track record, I'd say this sets up Android to be an enormous success.

This says a lot about Microsoft's stance on the phone market as well (we won't innovate unless we can make serious money!).

Edit: I'm not the only one! (<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/11/06/ballmer-android>)

<comment><USER3> Obviously Ballmer doesn't see the big picture.

Android is not free! (It is but they have a revenue model)

Google pays out 1$ for every Firefox install for a search box. Android bundles all google services...

Also, Google is very interested in the mobile networks and this is a good way to develop relationship with carriers.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure he does see the big picture, he's probably just spreading FUD.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He is just trying to publicly discredit the competition. If you actually think Microsoft is ignoring Android internally, then you are very mistaken. He was asked a question about it and answered it. His only realistic options were to do what he did and talk about it in a negative sense or politely refuse the question. What else would you expect him to say? He's not going to legitimize a competitors product, especially this early in Android's life cycle.

<comment><USER6> Sure he's trying to publicly discredit them, but the point is he's doing a terrible job of it. By saying things that are obviously false, he discredits himself and Microsoft. Here's a realistic option you didn't mention: _reposition the competition_.

For example, he could say, "We've had a look, and it certainly has its niche, but ultimately it's just another Google Labs experiment in Perpetual Beta. Anybody remember ___ or ___ or ___ (he names some Google Labs has-beens), experiments that didn't turn into anything?

We'll have more to say when they release a version with fewer bugs and rough corners in a year or two."

Then he smiles and shuts up, refusing to say exactly what the bugs and rough corners are. This is a lot more believable, and it positions the phone as an experiment. That would be close enough to the truth to raise some doubts. And even fans might be reminded to wait for a faster, cheaper, better version down the road, which would undermine their sales.

Or he could reposition the phone as being hard-to-use, which some of his market believes is the case about Linux. Or "incompatible." Or any of half a dozen reasonable quasi-objections that spread Uncertainty and Doubt. But a bald-faced dismissal runs smack against reality.

<comment><USER7> > But a bald-faced dismissal runs smack against reality.

Gives me the mental image of Balmer head-ramming a wall.

<comment><USER6> Stop it! You're making my mouth water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this is how AltaVista felt about Google.

"Don't those propellerheads from Stanford know that we already have perfectly good search engines? Interesting, but not _compelling_."

</comment><comment><USER9> He also dismissed iPhone initially and didn't understand why people would buy it. How can the CEO of one of the world's most well-known technology companies be so completely clueless about technology?

<comment><USER10> Hey, if he's a good reverse-oracle, then that's valuable too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I would do for the audio of Ballmer saying "blah dee blah dee blah"....

<comment><USER8> After audio and video of him hooting, howling and above all sweating profusely to the sounds of Gloria Estefan surfaced on the Internet, perhaps audio/video of his appearances has become restricted.

<comment><USER12> "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Android, Chrome, and much of the other cool tech Google builds are not focused on "winning". They are focused on changing the game. It is not about gaining market share percentage-wise, it is about growing the market.

Phones are the primary way a large portion of the world will be introduced to the internet. The more people on the net using Google's products, the more money Google makes. If Android never sells one phone, but Apple and Microsoft have a fire lit under their asses to make better phones, then Android is a success.

</comment><comment><USER14> As eloquent and thought-provoking as ever...

The dancing gorilla image of him has stuck for more reasons than that video...

</comment><comment><USER15> if you're going to get talking about a competitor making a big move, never say "i don't understand their strategy" or "they don't have a strategy"

of course they do. and you just look like a schmuck when you tell the world basically that you don't care enough to do some simple research and come up with some pretty common sense conclusions.

if search is your money maker, and mobile is the new vogue, what do you do to get it so that your search is what everyone will be using?

android is a genius solution, google paid mozilla for years for control of search on firefox, then they came to their senses and made chrome. android is simply a leapfrog of a similar mistake. sure they can partner with RIM and Winmo and Symbian and Apple, OR they can make their own platform, innovate its features, open it to attract a huge base of developers and manufacturers, and tie core features to its own products seamlessly.</comment>


California Wants to Teach Your Kids That Capitalism Is Racist - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-wants-to-teach-your-kids-that-capitalism-is-racist-11564441342?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Feminism has infected California's education system too. :/</comment>


How many languages are there in the world? - <AUTHOR> https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages <comment><USER2> I found this article to be rather more illuminating on this question, as it addresses the ambiguity in how you slice up the world into distinct linguistic chunks: [https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many- languages...](https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages- are-there-world)

<comment><USER3> Much more interesting article at least mentioning the difficulties that came to mind reading the other one. Like exactly how do we distinguish a different language when some say it's a dialect of another language? At exactly what point is it and is it not another language?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the meantime;

– Wikipedia is available in 299 languages [1];

– Facebook is localizing into 117 languages [2];

– Unicode is covering 139 modern and historic writing system [3].

To cover the other half of the speakers of these 7099 languages, the community of software and digital technology practitioners have a long way to go and much to do.

[1]: [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias)

[2]: [https://m.facebook.com/language.php](https://m.facebook.com/language.php)

[3]: note that language:writing system could be n:1

Edit: formatting.

<comment><USER5> The full Bible has been translated into 636 languages. Parts have been translated into 3,223 languages.

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

A convenient feature of Bible translations is that the text is truly bilingual. Every sentence is numbered (verses) and lines up nicely with the corresponding verse in other languages.

Using the Chinese/English Bible text to improve a Chinese dictionary and teach me Chinese is one of the main motivations behind Pingtype.

[https://pingtype.github.io](https://pingtype.github.io)

<comment><USER6> Using the Bible for language learning is perhaps better than nothing, but one does get frustrated by the very limited lexicon used within. For many languages, even those with few speakers, there are often resources available that better prepare you to use the language in a 20th/21st century context, not the Middle East of 2000 years ago+.

As for Bible translations matching up perfectly, one has to consider that a great many New Testament translations are in fact translations of translations, and this process has sometimes introduced some striking innovations. A good example of this are the Bible translations produced for Russia's minority peoples by the Stockholm Institute for Bible Translation. Most of these are translations from Russian, not Greek, and in using them you have to be aware of quirks introduced by that intermediary layer.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple updates broken for iOS 3.x devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/24428/The_Next_Brick_to_Decorate_Your_Wall_iOS_3_x_Devices

<comment><USER2> I once submitted an app which crash on 3.x firmware and Apple let it went through. Before this I thought they test the app on every single firmware version which i supported, but from the log on my server (my app requests some images from server) they only tested it on the latest version. It wasmy fault that it crashes, but I expected Apple to be a gatekeeper to NOT let it goes through.

<comment><USER3> Why do you expect Apple to do your QA?

<comment><USER4> He doesn't, but he does expect them to make _some_ QA (that's one of the purpose of the appstore: not letting broken applications go through), and it's sad they've dropped QA-ing 3.x at all, especially since there is now a generation of devices stuck there.

Should we expect Apple to also drop QA-ing 4.x as soon as 5.x is out the door?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone want to trim down that hyperbolic 887-word rant into a concise bug report? I just don't have the energy to do it myself. Something about Remote.app on OS 3.1.x? That's as far as I could get.

<comment><USER6> Someone forgot to configure an update to the Remote app to have a minimum iOS version of 4.x, apparently.

Though the fact that apparently apple were going to send engineers to his house (... really? I pretty much don't believe that _at all_ ), if true, implies that something about his iPod touch is something that apple can't possibly reproduce with their own bug-testing facilities. He also hasn't installed the update on his other 3.x device (understandable but it would be a helpful datapoint).

Oh also the AppStore apparently has some broken Javascript on 3.x devices, meaning if you want to selectively update (to avoid the one (1) Remote app update this post is mostly about), you are completely doomed forever and cannot, for example, use the update mechanism in the desktop iTunes software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know why everyone is coming down so hard on Apple, he should have just deleted the app from iTunes and used the previous app file, probably still in his trashcan.

Apple is far far better than other companies with software updates, ahem Samsung/Motorola. And at what point can you stop offering software updates for a device and that is acceptable? 3-4 years to me is a long time to continue supporting a now out of date device.

Also: "When Macs stopped getting support for new OSX versions for example, they still worked for years to come, and new apps or software updates simply didn't install/showed on them! But this is a different case! This is a case of FORCEFUL BREAKAGE (as in the case of the remote App Store update), or apps showing as compatible, leading users to update and break them (as in the case of "Remote" app)!"

Fallacy, attribution to malice, which goes back to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor>

Heavy lies the crown.</comment>


Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246429/microsoft-excel-covert-photos-data-tables-editable-table-ai-feature <comment><USER2> Relevant XKCD (from Monday of this week):

[https://m.xkcd.com/2116/](https://m.xkcd.com/2116/)

(And this was interesting, linked from the XKCD cartoon page above:

[https://twitter.com/openelex/status/853977391747801088](https://twitter.com/openelex/status/853977391747801088) ).</comment>


Microsoft is beating Apple at its own design game - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1411866/microsoft-is-beating-apple-at-its-own-design-game/ <comment><USER2> I wonder why there are so many Microsoft branded Apple Stores then?...

</comment><comment><USER3> We will know for sure once the Surface has a touch bar.</comment>


Eating Tomatoes on Cereal Does Make a Certain Amount of Sense - <AUTHOR> https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2016/eating-tomatoes-on-cereal-does-make-a-certain-amount-of-sense/ <comment><USER2> adding frosted flakes and cherry tomatoes to my grocery list</comment>


Microsoft Word for Windows Version 1.1a Source Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsoft-word-for-windows-1-1a-source-code/

<comment><USER2> Make sure you read through the comments - lots of interesting discussion around how the work Microsoft did for their Macintosh version of Word gave them about a 7 year headstart on Wordperfect for the windows version.</comment>


Goldman warns on inflation threat to dollar as reserve currency - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/goldman-warns-dollar-s-role-as-world-reserve-currency-is-at-risk <comment><USER2> There's no risk of the USD not remaining the world reserve currency as long as oil is being purchased.

The US spends more than 144 countries combined[1] on their military. The US protects the middle-east oil supply, the middle-east agrees to only sell oil in US dollars. Therefore, demand of USD remains consistent and strong.

Ask Iran and Venezuela how it's working out for them trying to skirt that arrangement.

[1] - [https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2019/07/18/us- spends...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2019/07/18/us-spends-more- its-military-176-countries-combined/)

<comment><USER3> +1 I'd also like to note the, not obvious fact, that the "wealthy" have no other meaningful choice but to put their money in dollars. No other country, or group of countries, even comes close to providing the liquidity, safety, and flexibility of the US dollar. The US has never halted trading, has continuously paid its debts, and has shown zero meaningful (congressional shenanigans aside) intention of stopping.

That's not to say one day, another country won't have the burden of being the world's reserve currency, but for at least the next 20-30 years it's very likely going to be the US.

<comment><USER4> Wealthy people have other people who manage their money. Only part of that money is in U.S. dollars/bonds at any given time, because it is less risky to have money in various different assets such as land, buildings, stocks.

<comment><USER3> Yes, wealthy people do pay others to manage their funds... I'm failing to see how that's a revelation here.

The people who manage that money, assuming they are responsible, or remotely- qualified, have only one option; which, is going to be investing primarily in securities/assets backed by US dollars. Land, buildings, and stock are all assets because you can get money back for them. That money is only good if its spendable and can be extracted from the asset... which is my point.

/shrug I'm just a bit lost at what you're trying to say...

<comment><USER4> > The people who manage that money, assuming they are responsible, or > remotely-qualified, have only one option; which, is going to be investing > primarily in securities/assets backed by US dollars.

That may be a strategy of single person with a little money trying to not lose it long term. But it would be foolish for the really big investors. They don't do that. Wealthy people diversify in different asset classes, not just in US stocks/bonds.

Real world assets such as gold, stocks, art, land, buildings, private companies etc. are not in general "backed by US dollars". They can have value largely decoupled from the value of US dollar or its status as top world currency. Which is why those clever managers invest also in those assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someday, it will be true. But, it's telling that they don't even pretend that there is another currency poised to take the dollar's position; they posit gold returning as the world reserve currency.

Regardless of my opinion on whether or not such an event would be good (I don't particularly have one), I don't think it's likely.

<comment><USER6> Why should there be only one? I get financial advisor emails every week that pretty much always tell me to diversify where I put my money. If I were an independent nation that needed reserve currency, I wouldn't want to bet it all on the US, China, or Europe. They've all got their own risks ahead. And there's no clear winner for the next decade or two to get on the good side of.

<comment><USER7> > _Why should there be only one?_

Network effects.

Every marginal dollar spender, dollar acceptor, dollar lender, dollar borrower, dollar investor and dollar investment makes the dollar more attractive to use for all. That makes it more attractive to intermediate, which results in more services around U.S. dollars which keeps the flywheel going. As financial and trading and distribution relationships become more complicated, these advantages grow.

<comment><USER8> I agree with this, but, I've become very comfortable with TransferWise, which is kinda like Libra without the blockchain bullshit. I can move between currencies effortlessly and inexpensively (and I don't want an index currency that trades a basket of currencies beneath it, an unnecessary abstraction in my opinion). I provide charity to a friend down on their luck in CAD. I buy SaaS services in USD and EUR. I pay an Australian mortgage for a vacation home and investment property in Tasmania in AUD. From an iOS app!

As FinTech velocity accelerates, the value of network effects will diminish. It'll all be IP between fintech providers (mostly like SWIFT, but not quite).

<comment><USER9> All of those transactions are settled in USD. Just because it's happening behind the scenes doesn't mean it's not happening at all.

<comment><USER8> But it can be settled in _any_ currency trivially. All you want in a currency is acceptance and value stability, and the infrastructure to support rapid changes in currency polices.

Disclosure: I work in financial services and am familiar with this infrastructure.

<comment><USER9> Then you should almost certainly aware of the fact that the spreads on USD currency pairs are extremely low. Low enough where it ends up being cheaper to go Currency A -> USD -> Currency B than it is to go Currency A -> Currency B. If all you want is acceptance and value stability, it doesn't get a whole lot more stable than that.

<comment><USER8> You're missing my point (which is probably my fault). It's not about the financial mechanisms of currency exchange, it's about the financial infrastructure. How does a crypto exchange support a new coin at genesis? They just add it to the platform. We're arguing about the window dressing (currency spreads), and I'm talking about the technical implementation and fundamentals of supporting global treasury management.

Edit: @JumpCrisscross I am familiar with how TransferWise works under the hood. The underlying settlement system is the legacy slowly being replaced.

<comment><USER7> > _We're arguing about the window dressing (currency spreads)_

TransferWise is the window dressing. It is bolted onto an international credit and settlement system which is built on dollar settlement rails. The fact that it's turned every other currency into, in effect, a feature, underscores the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Goldman warns the next big crash is around the corner"

"Gold warns about the end of QE in terms of effectiveness"

"Goldman warns about the rise of China"

It goes on and on. It's all marketing, they have to say something.

The dollar has no risk, the demand for dollars is massive.

<comment><USER11> _The dollar has no risk, the demand for dollars is massive._

As is the supply of dollars. To say it has no risk is absurd; the dollar is created out of thin air by trading its future value.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2)

<comment><USER10> Yes it is. But the Fed is not stupid. This whole dollar losing its status fear is similar to "the next big depression, worse than 1929" or "the next big earthquake to knock California into the ocean".

It's just human nature to fear these events.

The us economy is rock solid and is basically the only economy innovating at all. This doesn't mean that wages aren't stagnant or that wealth inequality isn't a problem.

<comment><USER11> The Fed is run by human beings, whom have biases and flaws.

The US economy is strong, however its fiscal discipline is not. Federal debt to GDP ratio is at an all time high, and will only go higher. Abstract this graph out at current trends:

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S)

Public debt growth is outpacing GDP growth, so its only a matter of time.

Do we anticipate that politicians will suddenly become conservative and start paying down debt? Unlikely. The pressure to keep the economy going and win elections is too strong. The power to create money (or artifically low interest rates) is a heroin addiction, impossible to wean your economy off of.

If you had to lock your wealth in over the next 10-25 years, you're not buying US government bonds. You're hiding out in gold, housing, and stocks. The dollar is not an asset you want to be part of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I understand the fears of inflation because of the additional money printing the fed has been up to, but what I think everyone is missing is that this time around, everyone around the world is also printing money. As long as eventually the economy gets up and running, the relative demand and value of dollar should stabilize.

<comment><USER13> I'm less concerned about inflation between currencies and more concerned about the "hyperinflation" of financial assets due to ZIRP, low debt yields, and extreme multiple expansion for equity.

In particular, I'm curious about the domestic political consequences: if financial assets are inflated to the point where you can only tap a 1% yield in retirement (versus the 3-4% today), what does the typical middle/upper middle class family do? What happens to newcomers in the FIRE movement? High housing costs can be escaped by moving to a LCOL area, but if/when the idea of a privately-funded retirement floats out of reach, how does the overall electorate respond?

<comment><USER14> No pensions, no (worthwhile) 401k's. We all become indentured servants renting for the rest of our lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Look: the stock market is in a massive, unprecedented bubble and has been for years. But, every time asset prices try to fall, the fed jumps in and does _whatever it takes_ to keep that from happening. So asset prices no longer have any relation to reality. Where does that end? It's just the gamblers paradox writ large: the perfect gambling strategy is that every time you lose, you double down. You have to win eventually, right? Wrong, because in reality your cash supply is limited and you will at some point go bankrupt. This is the same. They are doubling down, doubling down, doubling down.. there's only one way that ends. If asset prices cannot fall, then the whole economy eventually implodes under its own weight and we lose the reserve currency status. Any seismic event _feels_ impossible right up till the moment that it happens. None of us thought that nationwide stay home orders were possible until one morning, it happened. A big enough crisis makes the impossible suddenly inevitable. All the things people are saying are reasons it can't happen- oil prices in dollars, no better alternative- at some point they just won't matter.

Trump and the rest of the political establishment consider that a stock market crash can not be allowed to happen while they are in office. So they are 100% willing to just keep kicking the can harder and harder just to hold things together until November. It's a cycle of short term thinking. If the smaller crises are not allowed to happen, then the big crisis that wipes out the whole economy eventually _willl_.

</comment><comment><USER16> The dollar has been weakening precipitously, with the dollar index declining nearly 10% over the past few months.

I'm curious to hear tomorrow how the Fed intends to address this.

<comment><USER17> That's not much perspective. It's down 10% but part of the reason why is that it was up quite a bit earlier this year. There was a dollar shortage and the fed opened swap lines to alleviate. It's not that weak, and would need quite a bit of weakening to get to where it was in 2018, further weakening to get to where it was in 2013, not to mention 2011.

<comment><USER18> Versus what? USD has been in a steady decline vs. CHF over the past year. USD is in fact at a five-year low vs. CHF. It's also at a 2-year low versus the Euro.

<comment><USER17> Was looking at DXY. The dollar currency index which looks at a basket of currencies, but weighs heavily towards the euro. Still hasn't dropped even to early 2018 levels against the Euro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The US is making lots of steps typical of falling empires. This includes blind belief in the strength of its currency. Even big investors are starting to get worried about the sustainability of what the Fed is doing.

<comment><USER20> I believe you are referring to Rome? In the west, they debased their currency in order to pay for wars, which wreaked havoc on the economy and Supply chain. I'm not aware of it being a factor in Alexander's empire, the Russians in 1918, Napoleon, the Japanese after wwii, or the decline of the British empire. Most came from exhaustion or defeat from to war. Debasing the currency is not something that only falling empires do. Look at Venezuela or Zimbabwe

<comment><USER21> Japanese did it. Their model for economic growth was late 19th century Germany, which was largely based on financial repression.

The British did it. The UK had a huge stock of foreign assets at the start of the 20th century. They had to be sold to pay for war, and that crushed the currency (they also had to do a huge amount of financial repression). The exchange rate in the mid-20s was $5, $2.50 after WW2, and is now closer to $1.

The Russians didn't have an Empire. The extent of their ambition was interfering repeatedly in the Balkans/Turkey for no reason, and (briefly) in Europe with the Prussian/Austrian war (and then having to dial back once Prussia gained in strength/Germany appeared/etc.)

The point about "debasing currency" is, however, nonsense and based on a misunderstanding of almost everything at play here. Perhaps most important: the US isn't an empire, having a large army doesn't mean you are an empire (if that were true, North Korea would be a world power), the role of the US is and has always been collaborative (this hasn't changed with Trump either, observing that Europe pays almost nothing into NATO seems quite fair).

<comment><USER19> > the US isn't an empire, having a large army doesn't mean you are an empire

An empire is a political unit that controls vast parts of the world and dictate their policies through military and economic means. This fits well on how the US operates. Unlike any other country, the US has military deployed practically in all continents and major oceans. The only difference between the US empire and the British empire is that the US likes to propagandize about the apparent freedom of their vassal states. In many part of the world, elections are only uphold if the elected support US policies (mainly through economic coercion), and when this doesn't happen the country is a target of coups, "regime change", or enters the "black list" of sanctions. For this reason, the US has several foreign spying and "regime changing" institutions, including the most famous CIA and NSA. All of this supported by mainstream US media, which has international reach and influence media in other countries. This is obvious with what happens at Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. More recently, China is entering the black list because it is increasingly seen as a threat to the US political hegemony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This isn't really a criticism, and I get that the article's purpose was to focus on gold price as a signal for potential debasement…BUT…it seems like a miss to not even allude to or link out to commentary on the tremendous political power being the reserve currency affords the US, and the long term incentive for others to provide an alternative.

<comment><USER23> More information on this topic can be found on the Wikipedia article for Exorbitant privilege. [0]

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can anyone game out what would happen if the dollar dropped dramatically? My understanding is that would be a very good thing for American exports, which would become cheaper and increase sales. And it would be bad for Americans traveling/spending abroad, as their purchasing power would decline.

What else would happen, and what would the interactions between these effects be? It seems like the boon for American exports would mediate the effect of the drop in the dollar.

<comment><USER5> It's not really even that much of a problem, long term, and it might help out certain sectors of the U.S. economy, given that we produce a fair amount of our own raw materials so that we don't suffer as much from a weaker currency in buying raw inputs. It would make our exports more price competitive.

HOWEVER, the effects of a rapid, uncontrolled fall would be quite disruptive, and a lot of people who had their savings in $$ would now have no savings, and that could be very bad, especially since most of those with their savings in currency would be small time investors, retirees, etc. who cannot afford an advisor to help them diversify.

It should be mentioned that many nations have, at various times in the past, intentionally devalued their own currencies. We have at various times in the past accused Japan, China, Germany, etc. of intentionally preventing their currency from appreciating. But, major swings in short periods of time can be painful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Gold goes up when interest rates go down. The interest rate on gold is always negative - there is cost to storing it. But usually you can find someone who will pay interest on dollars. So there is a cost to holding gold over dollars, the lost interest plus the storage cost. Right now that number is close to zero. It may become negative, that is, cheaper to store gold than hold dollars. That's why gold is going up.

<comment><USER26> On the other hand, gold has historically kept up with inflation. So it's also going up when interest rates are high. Just look at its performance in the 2000s before 2008.

Also there have been periods where it has been going down even though interest rates were low (e.g. after 2011).

I would much rather argue that the value of gold is loosely correlated with money supply over the long run.

The current short term surge in gold prices seems to be driven by fear and lack of other secure investment opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The dollar index is 50% or more Euro and there's been a big shift there, probably driven by the fact that the EU appears to be making progress towards a fiscal union - in the mean time supporting (hopefully) a rescue package that transfers funding from the wealthier to less wealthy states. (Something we don't think about much but happens in the US as normal course, think CA taxes going to AL.)

Combine that with the absolutely incompetent response to the pandemic and economic situation, whereas Europe has handled it well and managed to keep everyone on payrolls the US went down the massive unemployment and potential evictions route and is now squabbling over what's the least amount of money we can give all these people. Even Wall St knows we need to give these people more money, the extra unemployment benefits have been keeping retail sales up, and keeping evictions down.

In the longer term the USD not being a reserve currency is probably good for everyone including the US.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. US dollar being propped up has undermined manufacturing sector by making exports artificially expensive, and imports artificially cheap.

<comment><USER29> Where I live, undergrads have to present their capstone graduation paper to a committee, much like PhD students do. I've had a handful opportunities to ask, after a presentation about this very subject: why is this bad?

I never got good answers. Maybe the PhDs did, but PhD committees draw from their own discipline.

<comment><USER30> It's not bad in the short-term. You trade stamped paper for complex goods and services. The problem is when people don't want to make that trade anymore. One side is left with the ability to print stamped paper, the other has the means of production for goods and services desired. The U.S. "allowed" many domestic industries and supply chains to leave/fail/etc. because it was "better" to print paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [http://archive.is/YJrsc](http://archive.is/YJrsc)

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe I'm naive, but given the level of unemployment and the decrease in consumer demand across a wide array of markets and fields, don't we see an increased risk of deflation without printing more money?

<comment><USER26> Consumer price inflation depends on four main factors: The velocity of money (how much it moves around), the amount of money available, supply, and demand. With the latter two being a potential result of the former two (amongst other external factors that have an influence on supply and demand).

So yes, if people don't move (less velocity) and if less money is available (lost job), then that will be deflationary. This effectively yields lower demand. At the same time, if less supply is available, that's inflationary.

Now, good luck at predicting how supply and demand will behave, especially if you add more money to the game.

For example, it could happen that if the crisis ends faster than anticipated, too much money has been injected into the economy and demand picks up much faster than projected. This would be highly inflationary, especially if you add a drop in supply simultaneously (more money chasing less goods).

On the other hand, it may happen that regardless of how much money you add, people are just not going to spend it, because they can't (low velocity). Then you might end up with deflation anyway, conclude that you should add even more money, and eventually end up in the scenario described above.

Too make it even more complex, you might end up with inflation in one class of goods and deflation in another at the same time. Looking at a broader picture by including not only consumer goods, you might for example inflate an already existing asset bubble (housing) even more, while simultaneously suffering from deflation in another area.

It's really really hard to judge what will happen. We're in the midst of a big experiment.

<comment><USER17> Just nit picking:

> and if less money is available (lost job)

that's less velocity. The employer keeps that money, and if it's because of less sales then it's because someone else kept their money. Right now velocity is dropping. The number of dollars stays the same in a lost job scenario.

<comment><USER26> True, but I am looking at it in a simplified way by only talking about one individual here instead of looking at the whole economy's money supply. Makes reasoning about consumer price inflation easier for me, as an employer would usually not use the money for their own grocery shopping anyway.

It's less money available to the individual who has lost their job in this example. That may of course be caused by less velocity. Or it may be caused by a business closing down defaulting on their loans which actually shrinks overall money supply in the economy.

The resulting effect on prices is likely going to be the same anyway (in the short run).

It remains to be seen whether lower velocity will keep being the only deflationary driver over the long run. If businesses default en masse, then I think we will see real money supply deflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Last week the currency panic was about deflation. As a simple software developer, I just feel lost

<comment><USER26> That's because it's really hard to predict right now what will happen, even for most experts.

Both inflation and deflation are equally probable outcomes, if you look at it from a broad perspective and with limited data. If demand goes down, that's deflationary. If supply goes down, that's inflationary. Money printing is always inflationary, but so far, the US has been able to "print" without the money actually ending up causing inflation in consumer prices. It's also unclear whether this is going to change after the COVID crisis is over.

Where we already see massive inflation is in the stock market and in asset prices. So a "currency panic about deflation" is also a really narrow way to look at it.

Sorry if I managed to confuse you even more.

<comment><USER17> It looks like the FED figured out how to conquer deflation and showed that it would do whatever it takes to defeat it. The amount of money printing earlier was a demonstration. In a sense they are fighting the last war. 2008 was all about deflation.

Inflation could help in some ways because the economy is over leveraged and inflation is a transfer from lenders to borrowers. I recently refinanced my mortgage and would really not want to be on the other side of that transaction.

On the other hand the government is spending money without even a thought of how to pay for anything, deficits are huge and the only reason it all works is because interest rates are low. Higher rates due to inflation could stop this.

Historically governments tend to choose inflation over deflation.

Interest rates rising due to inflation could stop the government from spending without constraint, but then again government is 35% of GDP(in the US), so perhaps consumer choice making a greater impact on an economy might be ok.

<comment><USER26> Interest rates cannot rise significantly anymore or the debt will become uncontrollable.

On the other hand, I'd say it's very likely that a continued low interest rate environment will drive the societal divide even further and won't be politically sustainable in the long run.

Exciting times we live in.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. With the recent course of US gov./FED decisions, debt seems pretty much already uncontrollable, it just keeps soaring and current powers at helm won't touch that problem with a ten foot pole.

However, it seems to me that as long as US gov. is maintaining world dominance of US dollar and the US population is kept disorganized to prevent a major coherent political action, this can probably go on indefinitely.

I would like to know what has to happen for the US gov. to change its fiscal behaviour. Maybe the internal turmoil like we see these months is what eventually breaks the camel's neck. What do you think will happen then? Maybe we will see some extraordinary government actions reforming debt/currency or work/incorporation laws to start over? Or maybe the situation will be managed by spraying little money to the poor people to keep up? I can imagine with some helicopter money the current mess can go on for next 100 years...

<comment><USER26> It can go on for a really long time unfortunately. Impossible to predict timing. And I don't think the social unrest will change the US's fiscal behavior unless it's really getting messy (civil war messy).

When looking at history, debasing the currency has always produced inflation at a certain point, which then usually leads to the downfall of the predominant power structure. This then causes things to reset and start over eventually. It's highly likely it will be the same again.

Hypothetically, if China was to decide it wouldn't export anything to the US anymore tomorrow, we could see inflation pretty quickly. The same is true for the USD as the reserve currency. Hypothetically, if other nations were capable of organizing a viable alternative, that would be the end for the current fiscal behavior. Both are highly unlikely to occur anytime soon...

A major supply shock seems to be the biggest real risk in the short and medium term, as demand issues can easily be controlled with "Money printer go brrrr" again and again if you are in control of the planetary reserve currency, but supply issues cannot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Assuming we could convince individuals and the public, is there any feasible scenario where Americans would resolve to work hard, live briskly, save and defer 'wanton' type behavior for 24-months? And simultaneously allow the government to spend less and perhaps a one-time 2 tax as a way to save the fiscal system of the US.

The only way it would work is if we could somehow dramatically the improve the lives of say 100 million people. (Ignoring all the common objections and fallacies.)

<comment><USER34> Paradox of thrift. If everyone saves, there's nothing to do hard work on, so currency inflates.

The approach only works if we can use our work to stockpile durable goods.

<comment><USER35> Investing in things that increase future productivity also works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Could this also explain the latest BTC uptick?

<comment><USER37> Maybe as a straw that broke the camel's back. BTC and Ethereum have been poised to move upward for a while now due to market dynamics/cycle reasons. Markets have their own internal dynamics and do not have to be "news" driven.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> [https://archive.is/YJrsc](https://archive.is/YJrsc)

</comment><comment><USER39> Goldman realizes that soon there will be a Democrat in the White House, so now they and the rest of the right-wing is getting ready to be "fiscally conservative" again! Funny how that always happens just as liberals take power. A few weeks ago the problem was deflation, but Goldman can read polls as well as anyone and are changing their tune.

(This comment will soon be flagged because it's "too political", but oh well.)

</comment><comment><USER40> Basic question: why is it bad for the US if the dollar stops being the reserve currency?

<comment><USER26> The US couldn't consume goods from other countries based on cheap debt anymore, but would have to increase their own exports to match up their deficit.

That's because if other countries aren't forced to purchase USD, there's a much smaller market for the US currency. This means the US's ability to print money without causing domestic inflation would be much more limited.

It would have to consume less and produce more.

<comment><USER41> How so? The yen isn't even close to USD as a reserve currency and yet their central bank has about a 95% asset balance to gdp ratio compared to the US that has about a 33% asset balance to gdp ratio [0, 1].

[0]: [https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/central- bank](https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/central-bank)

[1]: [https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL- CENTRALBANKS/010041ZQ4B7...](https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL- CENTRALBANKS/010041ZQ4B7/index.html)

<comment><USER26> Well, Japan actually has potent production assets and exports a lot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Must be that time of the year.

<comment><USER43> Month

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This administration is ruining American hedgemony. We are weaker and stupider as a nation.

<comment><USER45> As evidenced by what? A pandemic that gripped the nation during one of our greatest economic booms ever?

<comment><USER46> Do you think NATO's position is stronger or weaker now than it was 4 years ago? The UN? US/EU relations? US/UK relations? US/China relations?

Is the Department of State better or worse off than it was 4 years ago? Is US soft power stronger or weaker than it was 4 years ago?

The answer to all of these is pretty obvious, damning, and moving in the same direction.

<comment><USER45> All of these types of power hinge upon our economy/military and the economy/military of other countries. This whole, "he has bad manners" have zero effect on relations. Whoever told you that is brainwashing you

<comment><USER46> > This whole, "he has bad manners" have zero effect on relations. Whoever told > you that is brainwashing you

Complete strawman, since you don't have an actual leg to stand on in defending this administration. Never did I say (nor would I) that Trump's "bad manners" had any affect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Called it. Decades of neoliberalism have rendered the United States government unable to take care of its own population and infrastructure, and this is the end result. Hope those tax cuts were worth it!

This explains why the stock market is up so much too. It's not that they are expecting profits- they are pricing in inflation.</comment>


Why universities should hate the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/05/17/why-universities-should-hate-the-ipad/

<comment><USER2> How many colleges still run their own bookstores? I just checked six in Washington, DC: four stores are run by Follett, one by Barnes and Noble, Howard runs its own. Of course, I have no idea how many the schools get. But it was my impression long ago that many college bookstore managers are happier selling sweatshirts and mugs, and regard books as a nuisance.</comment>


Dnote – A Simple Notebook for Developers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dnote/dnote <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I created this tool about two years ago to take simple notes in the command line. Since then, I have been using it and improving it every day at work and home.

I think it has become quite mature with useful features such as end-to-end encrypted backup, spaced repetition, etc. So I would like to share it with you.</comment>


Study: if you want to reach 100, keep your inflammation levels low - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/08/09/study-if-you-want-to-reach-100-keep-your-inflammation-levels-low/

<comment><USER2> They don't explain what is inflamation. Are bone fractures relevant to inflamation? Chronic asthma? Surgery? Does eating less impact inflamation?

<comment><USER3> Inflammation is, under ordinary circumstances, part of how your body reacts to damage to itself in one area or another. When it's a short-term traumatic injury you see it as, say, a swollen ankle. Chronic inflammation is different, but if I understand correctly, involves the presence of the same molecules in your blood. I'm not sure anybody _completely_ understands what causes chronic inflammation or exactly _how_ it drives diabetes, heart-disease, etc., but there's a lot of evidence for this.

OTOH, there is quite a bit of information on how to lower inflammation, and a lot of it involves changes to your diet. It's also pretty easy to measure inflammation. To some extent, when you have a blood lipid profile done, your triglyceride count correlates positively with inflammation. There's a also a separate, more specific test you can have done, which tests for something called high sensitivity c-Reactive Protein. If you have high triglycerides and/or high cRP, then you probably have some level of chronic inflammation.

How to lower it? Well, some people argue that triglyceride level (and inflammation) directly correlate with carbohydrate intake. These people advocate something like the ketogenic diet to lower inflammation. There are also specific foods / supplements which are known to be anti-inflammatories. Offhand I can think of fish / fish-oil, cherries / cherry-extract, cayenne pepper, and, IIRC, turmeric. Possibly garlic as well, but I'm a little fuzzy on that. Google "anti inflammatory foods" or something like that and you can find a list easily enough.

Also, a good book that I recommend is "Cholesterol Clarity" by Jimmy Moore and Dr. Eric C. Westman. It goes into some of this stuff.

See also: [http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2014/10/why-you-should- pay...](http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2014/10/why-you-should-pay- attention-to-chronic-inflammation/)

<comment><USER4> Great description. I didn't know about the diet angle. I was just prescribed anti-inflammatory meds for pinched nerves and now I can alter my diet to help.</comment></comment></comment>


The Fear-Factor: hacking your motivation - <AUTHOR> http://franzisk.us/2013/02/28/the-fear-factor-hacking-your-motivation/

<comment><USER2> Controversial topic... but I agree, it speeds things up a lot when under pressure of failing!</comment>


Why We're in a New Gilded Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/

<comment><USER2> The problem with redistribution of wealth is that if the very wealthy have, say, 50% of their income taken away, they have 50% less reason to earn it in the first place, by creating goods and services that other people want to buy. And when they do, they necessarily must transfer wealth to other people, in the form of wages, payment for goods and services, and eventually selling the final product (which the purchaser views as a net benefit, and which he necessarily can afford to purchase). That is why the US, which has high wealth inequality, also has high standards of living overall.

A million people with $300 each will not be able to create a million washing machines, but one man with $300 million can make 2 million of them, and when he sells them they will improve the lives of the purchasers in a way they could not do by themselves. If 50% of his profits were to be taken away, he will make a decision such as moving his business to another country or state, which has less taxes. This will result in less income to workers and businesses in the original location, and less taxes for that government.

If wealth inequality is an evil, it is an evil of the most necessary kind.

<comment><USER3> "That is why the US, which has high wealth inequality, also has high standards of living overall."

I see. So countries with more redistributive policies, like Canada, obviously have lower standards of living than the US.

Right?

It couldn't be that your ideology doesn't actually match reality, could it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Why didn't the universally enfranchised citizens of France vote in politicians who would take on the rentier class? Well, then as now great wealth purchased great influence—not just over policies, but over public discourse. Upton Sinclair famously declared that "it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Piketty, looking at his own nation's history, arrives at a similar observation: "The experience of France in the Belle Époque proves, if proof were needed, that no hypocrisy is too great when economic and financial elites are obliged to defend their interest."_

This is why Ronald Reagan is referred to as "The Great Communicator" by the right. He turned "greed is good, greed works" into something that could be sold to the white working class.</comment>


Google Reader Down? - <AUTHOR>

On multiple accounts all that loads is the top switcher bar and the logo. Otherwise, it's a white page with javascript errors. Anyone else seeing this? It was doing this to me last night too. <comment><USER2> No errors, no problems. Reader was fine this morning, and last night too. I'm running Firefox. Are you running anything like greasemonkey? Anything that would modify the results? Can you try another browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> I get the same result in firefox and safari. Well, i get the google logo in safari, and not firefox, but neither load the actual app.

<comment><USER2> How about other Google services, gmail, documents, etc. ?</comment></comment></comment>