Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge? - <AUTHOR> What are the tools, tricks, systems you use to record things you learn? Notebooks, text files, software or cloud apps? Do you have any custom, inventive ways to maintain your personal knowledge base? <comment><USER3> Plain text files in a synced directory (I use sparkleshare, but any dropbox- like system will do the trick).

I tried many, cloud apps, desktop apps, wikis. But in the end, I was never comfortable with putting all my thoughts in documents in a weird format (at best) or in the cloud (at worst). And most apps didn't offer any huge advantage to compensate for that.

I have backups of my notes folder. I can grep through it when I'm looking for something. I can edit it from any computer. And I know it will still be readable in 10 years.

<comment><USER4> I can attest to this, having gone through pretty much the same cycle of apps and wikis. Finally settled on plain text files with cloud sync. Except I use a bit of YAML to give the material some structure.

But I use this to write down things I would consider more 'information' than 'knowledge'. If it's a new cloud app I found on HN that I might need later, I write it down. If I learned something new (for example, I recently learned about phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics), I resist the temptation and try to integrate it into my existing body of knowledge. In my opinion, if you have a 'fact' that needs to be _memorized_ , then it is either a bit of arbitrary information or it is not yet tethered to the rest of your knowledge and is therefore banging around in your head. I usually find a link to nail it down. I wouldn't exactly call it a 'memory palace' but it's sort of like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> After playing with various (note-taking) applications/apps I found all of them severely lacking (for several reasons). I was always for the lookout of the one-size-fits-all application, which I obviously never found.

Realizing that there is no such system/app I split things out:

* Important Stuff as well as trivia -> CalDav... believe it or not, but CalDav beats most other systems/apps out there, it's accessible on almost any device and you usually have a wide variety of applications to edit your "calendar events", use different calendars for important vs trivia

* Stuff you read on the internet -> obviously (synced) bookmarks (firefox, chrome, opera and others have builtin sync)

* Ideas, plans, drawings -> A5 pen and paper notebook (most people will advocate moleskine, I prefer Leuchtturm notebooks (to each his/her own)

* Research, papers, references -> good old text files, index + txt + pdf + bib (vim + vimwiki + git + some zsh alias like wiki="cd ~/wiki/; git pull; vi index.wiki; git commit -a; git push; cd -")

So far, this works quite well, although I have to admit that while separation is king, it also hinders creativity at times, so I'm slowly starting to integrate other things into the wiki (write firefox bookmark and caldav importer/parser, thinking about scanning/digitizing notebooks...) to be able to cross-reference things. The long term goal is to create a visualization that allows me to visualize ( _duuuh_ ) all this data in different ways (especially useful for research and _connecting the dots_ ).

Hope this helps and I would really be interested how others manage this, especially regarding research, papers etc (Mendeley and others just aren't flexible enough for me...).

<comment><USER6> I use Gitit [1] as my personal wiki for notetaking. I've been pretty happy with it so far, as it uses the excellent Pandoc as the backend. I have not heard of Vimwiki until now - can you tell me your favourite features?

[1] [http://gitit.net/](http://gitit.net/)

<comment><USER5> Favourite features:

* plain text edited in vim ;-)

* links (to other wiki pages and content), move cursor over link and <Enter> will open wiki page, link in browser, image in image viewer, pdf in ... all from your console

* manages todo lists (including status indicator auto update for sublists: [.]->[o]->[O]->[X])

* headers (mostly useful when exporting to html)

* table creation and management

Overall a very lightweight and tightly integrated vim plugin, but gitit looks quite interesting, might give it a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wrote a personal wiki like 10 years ago... In addition to being a great productivity boost for me, it helped me learn a lot about web programming. It's continued to evolve over the years.

I have 1899 active pages now (some pages were deleted over the years).

I try to keep it very close to plain text, and don't have a lot of doodads in the wiki syntax.

I don't think plain text is sufficient for taking notes, because it lacks _hyperlinks_. Hyperlinks are incredibly important because they are associative and non-hierarchical... that is exactly what you need for note taking and brainstorming.

I do everything with vim/bash/tmux but you still want to be able to click links with a mouse when reviewing notes, and create them effortlessly when writing.

<comment><USER8> > _I don 't think plain text is sufficient for taking notes, because it lacks > hyperlinks._

Org mode files are plain text and they support links:

[http://orgmode.org/manual/Hyperlinks.html](http://orgmode.org/manual/Hyperlinks.html)

> _Hyperlinks are incredibly important because they are associative and non- > hierarchical... that is exactly what you need for note taking and > brainstorming._

I organize my Org mode wiki like Wikipedia: each document/topic can be linked from multiple parent documents/topics. So documents/topics are organized using a combination of both tagging and hierarchies. I've heard this type of organization referred to as hierarchical tagging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have written a few scripts to manage my abundant note taking.

In a specific directory, I arrange notes according to subject in directories, and the script parses them and spits out HTML files that displays them in a fashion I find useful. With MathJax, I can render LaTeX. It also spits out an index files so I can see at a glance my subjects and notes on those subjects.

I've been giving some thought to doing something more involved, so I can get full text search capabilities from the index page. It's something I play around with every so often as the inspiration hits me. I will not be surprised if this posts leads me back to playing with it for a bit, although I am busy for the upcoming week already.

You can trivially get something similar with something like vimwiki [0]. The only reason I went further was that I wanted greater levels of customization.

[0] [https://code.google.com/p/vimwiki/](https://code.google.com/p/vimwiki/)

Edit: The full text search from the index is just a nicety given the way I like having the notes displayed. I can already grep from the command line, of course. I have other ideas about nice-to-have dynamic behaviour, but a lot of the stuff falls into the lower percentages of the 20% of the 80-20 split.

In The Pragmatic Programmer, one of the tips advocates keeping knowledge in plain text:

> Keep Knowledge in Plain Text

> Plain text won't become obsolete. It helps leverage your work and simplifies > debugging and testing.

The full text expands on the benefits, such as searchability and other stuff I can't recall at the moment.

I try to stay as close to possible to plain text as I can. Even Markdown is a bit heavy for the task, although I have given some thought to adopting it and avoiding needing any custom parsing.

Lastly, I wasn't clear why I output to HTML. I put them up on a server so that I can access them remotely. I can also upload notes, or input a quick note to a textarea and submit it. It's device-agnostic; I just need a browser. I haven't bothered to implement making currently existing notes editable.

<comment><USER10> I've been trying to take note in plain text. One issue that I have is math note, I ended up having to use markdown + pseudo latex for the note + math symbol, and output to HTML. I'm definitely not happy with the current setup. Is there any good solution for math symbols in general?

<comment><USER11> Org-mode[1] has support for embedded latex math fragments[2] which might be worth trying.

[1]: org-mode is a mode for the emacs editor - [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/)

[2]: [http://orgmode.org/manual/LaTeX-fragments.html#LaTeX- fragmen...](http://orgmode.org/manual/LaTeX-fragments.html#LaTeX-fragments)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Four parts:

== Emacs Org Mode ==

      - all capture

      - all notes in general that I take while working (live) on a computer

      - all meeting notes

      - all drafts - usually via org-babel

      - <USER2>

Also, a type of code analysis where I make the code column 1 in a table and use columns 2+ for notes

This is sync'd via git across machines. Version Control + diff's are useful, but multiple branches for this hasn't been worth the additional complexity.

I've got a specific emacs daemon just for org. It's got a special -name argument that tells my window manager (xmonad) to bring up each window as a pop-up. That integrates with chrome and org capture to capture web bookmarks right from the chrome bookmarks bar.

== A paper notebook (leuchtturm 1918) and a grossly expensive fountain pen (MB) for all deep analysis. ==

      - Good thinking is a lot easier when you look at paper instead of a screen.

The tactile feel of that pen on that paper feels so smooth and free that I write substantially more, and faster. I can only explain it like typing on your favorite mechanical keyboard vs using a blackberry to write long essays.

== MindJet for brainstorming. ==

So far, awkwardly on a Nexus 7 and a BT keyboard. I'm still looking for a better mind-mapping setup.

== GTasks (android app) ==

With Google's "Tasks" list for my to-do lists and random thought capture on topics I'm still not ready to properly sit-down and mind-map.

</comment><comment><USER13> Emacs (naturally), with org-mode[1]. ssh replication along with the mobile org-mode app on Android [2] meets all my needs.

[1] [http://orgmode.org](http://orgmode.org)

[2] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mo...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mobileorg) (there are others... /search?q=orgmode&c=apps for more)

<comment><USER12> How do you use MobileOrg? I've tried several times. It's hard to tell what works (capture widget?), how to use the parts that do work, and how to use it effectively. I paid for the 'donate' app with no real intent of using it further -- just a "thanks for trying" donation.

<comment><USER13> Hmm, I haven't had much issue with it, although the functionality is pretty bare bones, I don't use the capture widget thingy... no need to. I can create and transition (todo) items in my existing .org files, use the agenda, and that's about as complicated as I want to get on my phone.

For anything more, I use my laptop where I can take advantage of all the proper org-mode functionality.

It might come down to how you use org-mode, as well. I create a .org file for each client/project. If I'm using org-mode to write a document (beats markdown IMO), I'll create a separate file and store it in the client/project registry (my own mgt system, outside of org-mode scope but implemented with org-mode knowledge).

Having lots of relatively sparse but easily identifiable (and discoverable) .org files makes mobileorg quite usable, for me.

ps: I see you commented on org-mode elsewhere in this topic. I also make heavy use of a notepad (unlined paper please - you're not the boss of me!), but prefer pencil to pen. I have about 6 or so high quality pencils I keep on high rotation, nice and sharp courtesy of a burr sharpener.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Prepare yourself... [1]

I have quite a system, but it works. I'm a student, and I utilize Evernote, Google Keep, Microsoft OneNote, Pocket, 8x11 ringed notebooks, and a small field book.

Evernote is for items I may need to a long time: recipes, guides from the internet, personal notes, etc. I'm finding I don't use it much, actually. :-/

Google Keep is incredible for to-do lists, quick notes, this sort of thing.

OneNote is my primary note-taking program, for meetings, for class, anything. I just bullet everything and go at it.

Pocket for saving articles. It has an incredible search function.

8x11 ringed notebooks for times where a laptop is inappropriate, or when I need to physically draw something.

The field notebook was a gift. I use it to host my big ideas and inspirations.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIAAeb2WVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIAAeb2WVA)

</comment><comment><USER15> Dropbox + plain text (markdown) in ~/Dropbox/Notes, where every file starts with some simple categorisation ("personal- _" , "snippet-_", etc..). I keep everything in there, from personal thoughts to terminal commands I use very rarely (and don't want to add to aliases), code snippets for simple things, meeting notes, etc. I have one important file called "drafts", that's always opened in vim/notational velocity, and to which I can append from drafts app on iPhone. It acts as scratchpad, and almost everything nowadays starts in this file.

I can edit notes in terminal (vim), gui (notational velocity), ios (I use byword, but there are multiple dropbox-syncing text editors). I have command in vim called :Notes, that displays Unite window with my notes, so I can access them quickly when I need to, and I have zsh alias "ns" (note search), that displays notes which match my search ("ns mongo" displays snippets- mongodb.txt).

I store links in pinboard, articles to read in pocket, and inspiration images/videos on pinterest.

For tasks I have very similar system around taskpaper file format and listacular on iOS, with :Tasks command in vim. All project related notes go into taskpaper file, and if project is finished, and there are some notes I'd like to keep for future reference (but not in my notes folder), I typically store it in project root as notes.md, this might be setup instructions, notes on bugs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> I use text files with tagging and a simple naming convention to manage my web development projects, my house rentals, car insurance, vacation plans, contacts, and more. Most projects have the same core things to keep track of... analytics, adwords, ad campaigns, webmaster tools, hosting details, etc... I use txt files that are backed up with Dropbox.

I add tags within each file like project-businessName tag-adwords tag-campaign priority-high etc.

I use xplorer2 ( a windows explorer replacement $40 ) to filter by tag and or filename.

Example: Say I want to see all outstanding campaigns for a certain client.... I apply the following filter ( alt+h ) then type +tag-campaigns,+project- businessName . Same works for to do lists.... +priority-high,+project- businessName .

I also use a file name convention for super quick opening of whatever customer file I need.

Example: Say I want to check on a clients adwords situation... I hit alt+h to invoke the filter tool.... type adwords businessName to see the exact file I need.

I use two extra free software apps to speed things up further... FindandRunRobot - a launcher Everything ( from voidtools ) - plugs into the above launcher for super fast file opening by name. For example: Say I'm in my browser and want to open up my main file for my client.... I hit alt+space to invoke the launcher tool... then type any part of the file name ... hit enter to open.

I've used wikis before as well as enterprise crm... this is a breath of fresh air!

</comment><comment><USER17> 90% of my knowledge is in a bunch of text files handled by nvalt [1], a fork from notational velocity [2]

It is so convenient and quick to make notes and hyperlink notes between them and do full text search.

[1] [http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/) [2] [http://notational.net/](http://notational.net/)

<comment><USER18> Combined with Dropbox, this is a fantastic setup for the desktop. On the iOS side, I use Notesy[1] to access the same data on-the-go.

[1] [http://www.giantyak.com/notesy/](http://www.giantyak.com/notesy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Emacs org mode and Dropbox. I also keep a notebook for sketchnotes and mindmaps.

<comment><USER20> Yep same here. org-mode FTW! You can use it as a personal wiki only able to keep all your data in plain text: no web server or database required. I still use filesystem as my primary organization so I only use hyperlinks occasionally. I put the whole load in dropbox so I can access any of it from my phone.

<comment><USER8> > _org-mode FTW! You can use it as a personal wiki_

Yeah, I use Org mode for my personal wiki. I previously had notes in hundreds of files of various formats, and I eventually moved all of my notes to an Org mode wiki. Also, my wiki has replaced my collection of thousands of bookmarks. I couldn't imagine living without my wiki at this point. It's such an important part of my workflow.

Years ago when I decided to switch to a personal wiki, Org mode met my requirements far better than the dozens of other wiki solutions that I evaluated. I'd be interested to know if there are any new wiki or note-taking solutions that have as many features[1] as Org mode.

[1] [http://orgmode.org/manual/](http://orgmode.org/manual/)

<comment><USER20> Out of interest how does your wiki integrate with your workflow? Or, in other words, what do you use it for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm the founder, so I'm biased, but I use Fetchnotes for storing most things like this: links, things to check out (books, music, movies, apps, restaurants, places etc), ideas, resources, random thoughts, knowledge/trivia I come across, reminders/tasks and a ton more.

We built it to be simple, lightweight and flexible. Just add a hashtag to a word in a note, and it groups that thought with anything else with that hashtag. Involve another person? I just @-mention their username, email or phone number, or I can send them a link to the note. There's no system to learn — when you want to find something, just click on the tag you used.

Specifically for things I learn, I have a #randomfacts tag that I add things to when I come across an interesting piece of trivia (mostly from articles or audiobooks), and a #thoughts tag for things I think of on my own.

Check it out at www.fetchnotes.com and let me know what you think! I'm at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER22> What a good question.

Personally I curate a directory structure served off an old linux box in my house. Items created on other machines get synced in by hand. Data is stored in whatever source format it was created in, and obscure formats get a pdf version stored alongside.

The thing is, it's absolutely stone age - not automatically synced with my laptop or phone, not available remotely, and not conveniently set up to be able to share files or offer use of the server to my partner or family. It also only has 'files', there's no calendar-type data and things like mail and contacts only get placed in by hand as backups. I could totally cobble things together to provide extra features but I am thinking of starting again with a server 'in the cloud'. I would love to know what people do, with a longer term view than just stashing stuff in the popular note-taking app of the moment.

</comment><comment><USER23> For notes, I rely 100% on paper. I don't remember things as well when I type them out, and keeping it on paper gives me a sort of spatial awareness on where to find what I need.

However, with research papers now, I've started to use Mendeley. Imports downloaded pdfs and automatically has author, title etc filled in, can download pdfs from a number of the major publication websites and automatically add to your collection, allows sorting via author, year, etc., allows you to take notes and highlight, and has a search bar that searches through all of the papers you have. It additionally can keep your pdfs synced between computers, creates BibTex entries and I believe can help you find related papers, although I haven't used that function. It's a great way to keep semi-organized, and works a lot better than any file-naming system I've tried.

</comment><comment><USER24> Obsessive note-taking lab-journalling knowledge organizer here.

* For years simplenote, first using RespohNotes under Wine, then writing [https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy](https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy) \- a cross-platform and open source simplenote client in Python with tikinter. Currently looking for a new maintainer, because:

* Currently in an in-between phase editing Gollum wiki markdown pages with emacs 24 (sometimes I also use gollum to access and edit), all synced with unison, and using Google Keep on my phone.

* Currently working on hobby project, which will be the non-linear super visual (spatial perception and memory FTW!) cross-platform (large displays!!) note- and file-organizing interface I've been dreaming about for months now.

<comment><USER25> > Currently working on hobby project, which will be the non-linear super > visual (spatial perception and memory FTW!) cross-platform (large > displays!!) note- and file-organizing interface I've been dreaming about for > months now.

That sounds like what I've been dreaming of for years - and be something with multiple views of the same data too. Keep us informed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> * Brain

* Bullet Journal ([http://bulletjournal.com](http://bulletjournal.com))

* Instapaper -> Pinboard.in

* Research Diary in LaTeX ([http://www.writelatex.com](http://www.writelatex.com))

* Markdown (pandoc) and git for each and every project

</comment><comment><USER27> I just use Google. Keep, Gmail, Calendar for most things. I have a few text documents for recording important information I keep in Google Drive as well. Emails and sometimes even pitches / speeches I keep in gmail as a draft. Used Evernote for a while, but it's just bloat, I don't need another app.

I often have a text file open on my computer that I write quick notes in. Most of my knowledge that isn't like a random reminder note lives in my head though, I'm pretty solid on my memory.

We use Trello for business, so I keep anything business related in there, so other people have access to it if need be.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have discovered, before the recent studies, that when I take paper notes during anything, I remember the meeting/lecture/whatever quite well.

So I use paper notes as a backup, but as someone else noted, good old fashioned Brain 1.0.

But when that isn't enough, paper files are good for formal stuff.

On the computer, well, it's kind of a disaster. Gmail has helped here. But there is no compelling note organization system. And I'm not sure you'd want one, I think we've learned is that 'findability' is the most important feature, and organization isnt the only way to achieve that.

</comment><comment><USER29> I use Workflowy ([https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/)) for everything: note-taking, planning and even project management (see [https://medium.com/no-label-inc/4e911278c902](https://medium.com/no-label- inc/4e911278c902)). I always have it open on my desktop and with their mobile app I'm always in sync. Workflowy is an excellent app and it keeps my thoughts organised.

For longer documents that don't fit in the bullet-organized workflow of Workflowy I use Markdown.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've recently (this year) taken to writing more blog posts[1]. It helps me make sure that what I'm writing will be readable by me X years from now and also could help other people. For more private thoughts or thoughts I haven't developed into posts yet I use text files and Dropbox or Evernote.

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

</comment><comment><USER31> I dump stuff in one big TextEdit/Notepad file that sits on my desktop. It is really easy to arrange stuff in it, take notes for meetings, etc. TextEdit/Notepad loads really really fast. I can move stuff out of it easily (say contact information into my phone) and every once in a while I clean it up.

I've tried so many other things but a single text file sitting on my desktop just seems to work really well.

<comment><USER32> I wonder what will it look like after a year, when you work on mutiple project,multiple poeple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I spent a _long_ time looking for my ideal knowledge organizer, and eventually settled on Notecase Pro ([http://www.notecasepro.com/](http://www.notecasepro.com/)).

It's cross-platform, with a functional free version. I have no problem paying for good, useful software, especially (as in this case) when it's produced by a dedicated individual or small company.

Evernote is overrated...

<comment><USER34> I don't know if I agree that Evernote is overrated, but I personally don't like them for what they did to one of my favorite apps, penultimate (iOS notebook app). I specifically bought that app so I could have my notes always with me. Then Evernote buys the company and makes it so I can only access my notebooks if I am online, or if I pay for a pro version. So I buy something for a specific feature, and they take it away but offer to sell the feature back to me.

Shame, as I really liked penultimate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I throw every random information in an Evernote notebook. For more complex stuff, like what are my priorities this month, I draw a mindmap using MindNode. Also, I've got in a habit of reviewing all my important notes and trim them every month.

Finally, I put all the interesting web articles in Pocket, because I search them later.

I tried to make flashcards in Anki for random stuff, but it didn't work out.

<comment><USER36> hi, you do know that every single word you submit to the evernote service becomes their intellectual property and can be used without your consent, do you?

<comment><USER37> That's simply not true. In fact, it's explicitly excluded in the TOS.

<comment><USER36> So what exactly this means? "... This means that by using the Service and uploading Content, you grant Evernote a license to display, perform and distribute your Content..."

Source: [https://evernote.com/legal/tos.php](https://evernote.com/legal/tos.php)

<comment><USER37> You ignored the important qualifier at the end of the sentence: _...to enable Evernote to operate the Service._

And the preceding clause: _In order to enable Evernote to operate the Service, we must obtain from you certain license and other rights to the Content you submit so that our processing, maintenance, storage, technical reproduction, back-up and distribution and related handling of your Content doesn't infringe applicable copyright and other laws._

You can't read half of a line of a TOS and assume it means something separate from the totality.

<comment><USER38> exactly right. Under US copyright law, Evernote could be deemed to violate your exclusive right (as copyright holder of your content) to make copies whenever they made a backup. So to avoid any opportunist litigation, you grant them a limited licence to copy your work. The same goes for your right to display/perform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Manpages!:

[https://github.com/pjungwir/manpj](https://github.com/pjungwir/manpj)

You don't even need to learn man macros unless you want to (and I have `man pj man` for that). I usually just give text files a .pj extension and add formatting later if I need it.

I bet someone has even written a markdown-to-man converter, now that I think about it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Deft in emacs synced over dropbox. I get notational velocity like UI for searching/manipulating notes, evil mode so I have vim key bindings and I can pull stuff up on my phone whenever required. It's also easy to just send a link to someone to share a file because it's all on Dropbox.

Pen and paper when I'm thinking through something.

</comment><comment><USER41> I use Http://www.teamgum.com, I just gum whatever articles and web pages I like. I import content from my pocket, twitter accounts as well. And it automatically builds a knowledge base. Then when I do a google search for any knowledge bit. It shows all relevant gums from me and my team on right side. Bingo! Do give it a spin.

</comment><comment><USER42> I used to use KeyNote also but I didn't really care for the underlying RTF storage format especially when it came to images... and the program had some other limitations.

[http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html](http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html)

<comment><USER42> I think my other comment got lost. I use OneNote and UltraRecall now.

I used to use Macropool ContentSaver (now known as WebRecall) and gladly bought a license, but I didn't upgrade when their browser extensions quit working in newer browsers without paying to upgrade. I had also moved on because of breaking changes to the underlying storage/functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I simply use a dedicated Gmail box with many different folders like "events", "todo", "links" etc. where I send emails ("notes") to myself. This way I can easily access them using any platform and it doesn't require any additional software.

</comment><comment><USER44> [http://www.mymundus.com](http://www.mymundus.com)

I am the cofounder of MyMundus, so my opinion is quite biased. We started MyMundus because conventional note taking apps such as bookmark services did not suffice, especially when you forgot to create a bookmark.

</comment><comment><USER45> I use [https://rawgit.com/lollipierre/react-bullet- app/master/index...](https://rawgit.com/lollipierre/react-bullet- app/master/index.html) \- based on bullet journaling concept

</comment><comment><USER46> Github repository, I wrote a simple app to pull in a repo and I can view, edit and delete and also create new files. All the files are markdown so I can export to PDF or HTML if I need them outside the app.

</comment><comment><USER47> Brain 1.0

<comment><USER48> I use it too, but it needs a constant supply of caffeine or it crashes.

<comment><USER49> Try the hidden feature, it's a defrag storage procedure called "sleep". You can start it up by putting the brain in a dark room, and make it count an array of the species Ovis aries.

Does wonders.

<comment><USER50> Unfortunately it takes, like, 8 hours (I'm not kidding) to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I use Mindown ([http://mindown.com](http://mindown.com)) on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.

(Sorry for the shameless plug, but it's true)

</comment><comment><USER52> Wow. What I haven't tried before... One html file wiki (tiddlywiki i think). Something like 3 self written web task editors before DropBox happened. Mori (kind of evernote from the past), Google Wave (still missing it), made couple of money tracking apps with couchdb, remotestorage and other offline capable but syncing apps for personal use on mobile.

Currently

Notes: Plain text notes with markdown elements synced via DropBox edited in NvAlt on Mac, and Notesy on iOS.

Sketches: Moleskine notebooks of various sizes (mostly Reporter). Currently experimenting with even smaller ones (Cahier journals)

Visual References: After years of screenshots on my desktop and reference folders full of unnamed images I made lightweight pinterest clone [https://github.com/vorg/kollektor](https://github.com/vorg/kollektor)

Articles: Pocket as 'todo readme' solution but currently working on and app for hyperlinking pdf's for computer graphics papers.

ToDo: Gave up on per project hierarchical task list as they always get old and dusty. So instead I split information into long living stuff and references (links, project requirements, hardware specs etc) that goes into notes. And one task list for MIT (most important tasks) daily similar to Autofocus system (Autofocus system - [http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2009/1/6/autofocus-s...](http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2009/1/6/autofocus- system-instructions.html?printerFriendly=true)) + smaller ones for bug lists per project, TaskPaper for Mac, and TaskMator / Listacular for iOS. I even wrote custom editor for TaskPaper notes that takes advantage of fullscreen (think TweetDeck for todos).

Bookmarks: Everything after delicious got bought [http://pinboard.in/](http://pinboard.in/) (but moving to Kollektor more and more)

Mindmaps: For notetaking (FreeMind on Mac, MindNode on iPad) and monthly planning where I list all my current projects, incoming ones, ideas, goals etc.

Limitations: \- NvAlt search is fast but sucks if you have long notes (hard to search inside them) \- Still haven't found good outliner for iOS. Taskpaper was promising but died (discontinued on iOS). \- Plain text is cool and durable but missing possibility of dropping images here and there

Dreaming: \- not sure if one size fits all will ever happen but something like pinterest mashup with workflowy with one data structure but multiple editing modes (list, outline, mindmap, spatial) \- i'll call it RAM (Remote Access Memory)

<comment><USER25> > Dreaming: - not sure if one size fits all will ever happen but something > like pinterest mashup with workflowy with one data structure but multiple > editing modes (list, outline, mindmap, spatial)

That would be amazing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Pretty simple - I try to put them on my Blog. It's public, I know I'm backing it up always, and it helps others.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have been using google keep for a bit and it seems to just work for me, but its just for simple notes really.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have used evernote for a long time.But Onenote is my new fav after they release a free desktop app.

</comment><comment><USER55> Notational Velocity, Dropbox, and Workflowy

There's a lot of synergy between the three.

</comment><comment><USER38> www.CleverNote.co, kinda like Evernote over Google Drive. The cool Android app allows notes to float over whatever else you're doing.It's currently free while in beta.

</comment><comment><USER56> Evernote, works perfectly for me.

</comment><comment><USER57> Evernote is perfect for me.

</comment><comment><USER58> Google tasks + dokuwiki

</comment><comment><USER59> Paper notebook.

</comment><comment><USER60> simplenote + notational velocity

<comment><USER61> Simplenote for me too on all my devices.

<comment><USER62> Me too.. until recently, because there's no way to switch to a fixed width font. So I've moved to the built in mac Notes app. You can hack the resources files to set a plain background and better default font.

As soon as Simplenote allow font changes, I'm going back though for the Android cross platform support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Evernote

</comment><comment><USER64> Evernote

Github wiki</comment>


The Strange Inevitability of Evolution - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/the-strange-inevitability-of-evolution-rp <comment><USER2> "You don't have to be a benighted creationist, nor even a believer in divine providence, to argue that Darwin's astonishing theory doesn't fully explain why nature is so marvelously, endlessly inventive."

Interesting article but why are we still bringing up creationism. This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed. It adds no value to the article except ridicules itself.

<comment><USER3> _This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed_

I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind.

A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing more enlightened than a lack of independent thinking in an environment where atheism is in fashion among the cool kids.

I'll have to say that I'm astonished again and again when I write code that uses some "mindless" search process (including numerous experiments with evolutionary algorithms) and it finds the answer to some problem that I couldn't reason through. I can't seem to get over the feeling that if I have to reason to solve a certain problem, and I can't reason well enough to solve it, and another "thing" does solve it, it must reason better than I do--be smarter than I am--even when _I wrote the code_ that did it.

It gives me a sense of "awe" for the power of evolution and a lasting "sympathetic attitude" toward those who just can't believe that it could work this well. Like the power of a simple, naive bayes spam sorter to "interpret the text of email", evolution is one of those things that, even when I can explain it well enough to actually implement it with my own hands, it's still hard for me to believe.

<comment><USER4> A theory makes predictions that can be tested. Creationism is a faith, not a theory, as it makes no predictions.

For example, Einstein's relativity theory predicted that gravity bends light, an effect that had never been observed. Decades later, the theory was confirmed when bent light was detected and the amount of the bend matched the theory's prediction.

<comment><USER5> I'd say that for a typical religious person, "theory of evolution" as a source of life is akin to saying "Einstein's theory predicted gravity bends light, therefore my sun burn was really caused by a black hole over at Proxima Centauri". There's _kind of a huge gap_ to cover between directly testable predictions and what's trying to be explained. So it boils down to whether or not you believe a complex chain of reasoning made by smart people, and there's plenty of things that can influence what you believe and who you trust.

<comment><USER6> > There's kind of a huge gap to cover between directly testable predictions > and what's trying to be explained.

The thing is, evolution is really simple. First there are random mutations, which are directly testable. Your DNA will be slightly wrong from your parents DNA. Secondly, there is environmental selection, also easily testable. Drop a house cat in the middle of the arctic and you'll see how it works, although there are much better (and humane) experiments that have been conducted. The testability is much more accessible to ordinary folk than Einsteins theory will ever be.

The final component is time, which is really what creationist take issue with. That's why you'll see them reject every branch of science except evolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't like the anthropomorphization of evolution. It's a bad angle to view the subject

>If evolution is "searching" for that function by natural selection...

Evolution is "doing" nothing. It has no particular purpose and it is not "searching" for the particular life forms of this planet. The true shaper of the life-forms we know is death. Death (by resource starvation) is the knife cutting the uncontrolled growth of life, uncontrolled growth in number and variations.

<comment><USER8> I agree. The difficulty people, including myself, have of realizing that evolution is actually a impersonal, negative process (resource starvation and the culling of the unfit) rather than a sentient, positive process is astounding.

<comment><USER5> I'd say it's simple when you actually "step through" a few steps of a simplified simulation. On paper or in your head, picture a few critters reproducing and dying, with random feature changes occuring every reproduction step and with chance of death being directly tied to those features. Step a few generations and you can clearly see that what really drives the evolutionary process is the criterion you chose to determine which critters die and which survive.

But yeah, I know most people have problem grokking processes like these. School definitely doesn't teach it - not in a proper, abstract, "algorithmic" way. Only with stories about butterflies and dinosaurs. I know I finally grokked evolution somewhere in my mid 20-s, after a) reading enough Less Wrong articles, and b) simulating it in my head, pretty much in the way I described above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "You don't have to be a benighted creationist, nor even a believer in divine providence, to argue that Darwin's astonishing theory doesn't fully explain why nature is so marvelously, endlessly inventive."

I used watch those Dawkins v the true believers videos and I suspect such opinions are promoted to discredit Darwinian Evolution acting on the genome. Regardless of the unknown nuances of DNA, Evolution is the environment acting on the species to further adapt it to the environment. Here's another quote from Philip Ball: "What often goes unremarked among the revisionism that current research is prompting is that DNA was supposed to be the missing part of the puzzle in evolutionary theory: the repository of Mendelian hereditary factors."

So if DNA doesn't act on the units of inheritance, there must be some kind of spooky spirit entities acting on matter,

[http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/images/miracle_sharris.gi...](http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/images/miracle_sharris.gif)

[http://www.philipball.co.uk/images/stories/docs/pdf/genes%20...](http://www.philipball.co.uk/images/stories/docs/pdf/genes%20and%20evolution%20full.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> As usual, this article makes me think of Wittgenstein, who would probably say, "I agree with everything you're saying, except the word 'strange'."

The content is interesting, definitely, but you could save some time and potentially misleading "appreciation of strangeness" by stating that neutral drift allows for dramatically more random possibilities than those offered by one-time random mutations.

Not that Wittgenstein (or I) want to poopoo the "wonder" element of science or life in general... but I think it's telling that the author, as other comments point out, mentions creationism, as if that's a natural motivator for "wonder" (or a natural view to take in light of "wonder"). But creationism is simplistic, incoherent, and wrong. If "strange" is adding nothing to the truth or falsity of any of the statements involved, and "strange" is somehow an excuse for creationism, perhaps we should take issue with this being "strange" at all.

<comment><USER11> A maybe relevant Wittgenstein quote: "It is not _how_ the world is, that is the mystical, but _that_ it is." Tractatus 6.44

<comment><USER10> indeed, the early wittgenstein thinks _that_ the world is must be one of those things we must pass over in silence, while _how_ the world is is exactly the kind of thing about which we can talk and reason.

the later wittgenstein (still?) thinks that explanation comes to an end somewhere, and just wants to make sure one doesn't append "and isn't that _mysterious_?" to the end of a good explanation (ie one that sets out to answer a precise question, then does so).

but who knows. wittgenstein and mysticism is an interesting topic... for the early wittgenstein, it's crystal clear that he's saying there are 2 domains: stuff that admits of being talked about in a propositional way, and stuff that doesn't. all the latter stuff is mystical; it's not necessarily supernatural, it's just that we can't get anywhere talking about it with true/false (or satisfaction-condition or whatever) talk.

but what about the later wittgenstein? he thinks that the domain of things we can talk about has opened up considerably, because he no longer things that language functions as a mirror of "the world", nor should it even try to. now he thinks that utterances are tools to get this or that done. this does not neatly carve out anything to be called mystical.

\---

relating this back to the article, the idea is that we sort of put an air of magic about the mystical, and when we treat something for which we can create an adequate explanation as mystical or magic (or "strange"), we lead ourselves and others into getting perplexed.

and if there is something to be said for religion or purpose, it's not to be found in something we can explicate adequately by adverting to neutral drift, etc. that being the case, we want to be careful about what we call strange. what are we endorsing when we see strangeness in something we can understand?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you put an boulder in front of a blind wanderer traveling in a straight line, they'll bump into it and stop. If they're wandering in a plane, however, they might wander past it.

You can install a line of boulders instead. But if it's a blind drifter drifting through a 3D volume, they might drift past the string of boulders.

For every increase in the number of dimensions N the wanderer can move through, an obstacle must block that many more pathways, in order to remain an obstacle.

Complex genomes, having high-dimensionality phase spaces, present fewer systematic barriers to genetic drift, allowing populations to spread out through more of the phase space, which in turn ratchets up the probability some mutation would emerge that increases fitness.

</comment><comment><USER13> Evolution does give us a tool to make predictions, and yes, some of those predictions come true. Unfortunately, humans don't always heed those predictions:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702430/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702430/)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you enjoyed this, you might like _The Vital Question_ by Nick Lane ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD8Z4JW](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD8Z4JW)), which discusses the origin of life, and the jump from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, focusing on energy.

</comment><comment><USER15> What if evolution is... Intelligently Designed?</comment>


Death of Agile - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/radar/the-death-of-agile/ <comment><USER2> I remember learning about Agile and Scrum when I was in college. The material I read back then gave me the feeling that they were tools to extract a maximum amount of labor out of your workforce, and that I would dislike working in an environment where this was practiced. In retrospect, I may have been mistaken about the intent of Agile. Working under a Scrum regime certainly hasn't been nearly as stressful as I had expected it to be.

Still, I have grown weary of Agile. It seems to have grown into religious dogma. Agile "best practices" are continuously changing, and I can't shake the feeling the changes are there to justify the existence of the army of coaches and certificate factories. An industry has formed around Agile, and that industry has been successful in making anything that doesn't fit into some brand of Agile absolutely taboo.

Has anybody else recently tried discussing the merits of a "waterfall" approach with their colleagues, even if only for the sake of argument? Last time I did, it felt as if I were blaspheming.</comment>


Babel.js REPL + import NPM modules = ESNextbin - <AUTHOR> http://esnextb.in/ <comment><AUTHOR> Create browser programs with ES2015 and using modules from NPM directly in the browser.</comment>


Show HN: Dolli Pre-Release – Digital Collectibles - <AUTHOR> https://cargo.build/pages/dolli <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone. To expand on the description - after the Dolli mobile app was built and ready to be launched there were several road blocks. The first was Stripe - they wouldn't turn on the Dolli live account. I found a new processor and laucnhed the app. The Apple app store rejected it, but it was live on the Google Play Store. A day after launch the payment processor cut us off. This led to a scramble to find a new payment processor. The process was long and there were many rejections. At the end I realized this is the problem blockchain technology was built to solve. There is a centralization of power that has the ability to block creativity. Dolli was started with an attitude of rebelliousness and it makes the most sense to not work with any banks, or Stripes. Dollies should be available on the free and open internet and available for anyone to buy using cryptocurrency.

Dollies are licensed under CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International [https://creativecommons.org/lice...](https://creativecommons.org/lice...). You get access to the raw PSD file when you buy a Dolli.

Currently there is a limited release of 3 out of 10 Pizza Robs and 5 out of 20 Ghosts. I used Cargo to get the page up quickly, but a more featured, customized web app experience is coming soon.</comment>


Paul Graham Knows How To Scale - <AUTHOR> http://getoffmyinternets.net/2011/11/25/paul-graham-knows-how-to-scal

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't do an attack on Paul that directly (I like his essays), but I agree about this site and the Google snafu.

The 'more' button is just lame (and annoying, intentional or not) and that Google thing was quite weird; what technical person tries blocks Google search engines via ips? But one? Because it overloads their site? It's quite insane if you think about it. It also makes no sense in this 'big scale' world.

I would love a contest for bigmouths who think they can do better than Paul to make a HN clone which scales and have the functionalities needed without 'weird bugs'. Version that handles all HN traffic first without problems for long periods of time wins. Next stop, Reddit :) I know on both sites there are plenty of people (Disclaimer: I am one of these persons) who think they can do better than both, so let's make that interesting so we can have some fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want to point out a few things:

1) How important is Hacker News towards YC's bottom line?

2) How much is PG's time worth?

3) How much time would it take to fix YC's software so it will scale properly?

My guess is that #1 is moderate, #2 is high, and #3 is even higher. If that's the case, then of course he's going to go with a quick fix.

I almost feel like the HN community would like to be unlisted on Google. It adds to the exclusivity and elitism the site seems to breed.</comment>


How Not to Be Stupid - mix0-12 https://fs.blog/2019/01/how-not-to-be-stupid/ <comment><AUTHOR> GPT3 generated article?

<comment><USER2> I don't know - the anecdote about being asked to do a talk by a conference investor is very specific. GPT-3 would have to be willing to just plagiarize that story from elsewhere, or synthesize/invent it, which is outright lying. Perhaps it does that, though - access is too restricted to get a clear picture, and I'm beginning to think it will stay that way.</comment></comment>


You keep using that word "distributed"… - <AUTHOR> http://avdi.org/devblog/2008/10/08/you-keep-using-that-word-distributed/

<comment><AUTHOR> I do sense a bit of fail reading some of these Twitter messages. Pull from your co-developers, or clone on a shared box somewhere and use it, or use the hypertrophic patch management. Some guy is editing code in prod? Why, you can't change one line in your deploy process (config/deploy.rb in Rails) to point it at your local repo?

GitHub is a success because it's incredibly convenient, but it doesn't add functionality to git.

</comment><comment><USER2> Since they make a repo mirror every time they pull, why don't they have a backup? Do their developers never communicate with each other? (Why are they using github as their build repo?!)

> Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that git makes hosting your own > public repository absurdly complicated > ([http://weblog.masukomi.org/2008/03/11/sharing-a-public- > git-r...](http://weblog.masukomi.org/2008/03/11/sharing-a-public-git-repo- > over-http-flow-chart)) compared to other tools > ([http://weblog.masukomi.org/2008/03/11/sharing-a-public- > darcs...](http://weblog.masukomi.org/2008/03/11/sharing-a-public-darcs-repo- > over-http-flow-chart)).

With mercurial, you can just run "hg serve" or "hg -p [port] serve", FWIW. (That's for a read-only repo, though. There's a bit more setup involved before people can push to an http repo.)

With monotone ("mtn serve", done. Auth is taken care of at the repository level) and darcs it looks even easier.

<comment><USER3> For the record, the author of those flowcharts is completely missing the point. You can just as easily call `git update-server-info` and copy the .git from your repo into a web-accessible directory, and just be done with it, the same as Darcs.

The reason people do it other ways (either via git-daemon, gitosis or ssh) is because Git uses a special transport protocol that's _far_ more efficient than a dumb HTTP session. It's not that Git _won't_ work over a dumb HTTP session, it'll just be a lot _faster_ using it's own server/protocol.

<comment><USER4> All of the alternative tools - bzr, hg, darcs - have highly optimized protocols as well. This may be a documentation issue - I've never seen documentation for using a dumb server with git. Also, can clients submit changesets _back_ via simple FTP? Darcs can, IIRC.

<comment><USER3> No FTP support, but that's insecure; what's wrong with using SSH? And there is documentation on the Git website (and in the source tarballs) on how to set up an HTTP-hosted repo, and even how to set up for a WEBDAV-enabled push repo, although I've never attempted the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2 things. 1) many people who use GitHub do not understand distributed VC, and treat it as a central repo. GitHub is trying to do education here, and has published the disaster guide sant0sk linked to.

2) GitHub is more than just a git repo. It's a social network. People use it to find code, explore code, paste code snippets...so when GH is down, a lot of interaction can't take place.

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://github.com/blog/175-github-disaster-guide>

</comment><comment><USER6> It's not tough to heap together a few complaints out of a day's worth of tweets. The fact is that many GitHub users, myself included, noticed GitHub was down and went on our merry way coding and working and doing whatever.

This is a non-issue imo.

<comment><USER4> I didn't "heap together a few complaints out of a day's worth of tweets". That's a single contiguous chunk (spanning less than an hour, as you can see) of the results for "GitHub" on search.twitter.com yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, I was annoyed that GitHub was down, and twitted about it. And then a minute later I was pulling fro a co-worker across the room. (Life goes on; twitter is fun for near-frictionless griping.)

It's not that a GItHub failure makes everything stop, it's the convenience factor, and that they are offering this as a for-pay business service, that makes it irksome.

</comment><comment><USER8> I always knew github wasn't as good as its cracked up to be.

I never understood why you need a single site for distributed code.

<comment><USER2> Nah, it's probably just a good sign that some people don't really understand what makes git different from svn, they just keep hearing it's " _the best_ ", so they use it.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Unmasked.poker – video-chat with your friends while playing cards - <AUTHOR> https://unmasked.poker/ <comment><USER2> What to do when you don't have any friends? Can you play with strangers?

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be a lobby for public tables at some point in the future, but at the moment you would have to organize it your self (e.g. by posting a link to a table here)</comment></comment>


Preparation Tips for 2nd Round Y Combinator Interviewees - <AUTHOR> http://jeffjv.com/?p=45

<comment><USER2> Generally great, but I disagree with "get there an hour early". (15-30 minutes, sure)

Actually, I got kicked out for being there too early. I got in around 0800 (I was staying nearby), and figured I'd eat free YC food (which YC alums lied and said was present in large quantities and of exceptional quality; in the morning it was just some bottled water and sodas...). There were only construction contractors, and so I internetted while waiting for my cofounders to arrive (from SF and RWC).

Kirsty suggested politely that I go to downtown castro street so I wouldn't be bothered by the noise as they were setting up; I went to Hacker Dojo (nearby, a great place, 100mbps internet!) for a bit, then met up with my cofounders for out interview.

(apparently showing up too early doesn't get you banned or anything; we got the call from pg in the late afternoon and accepted, so we're in S2011)

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats on getting accepted!

Yeah, we didn't have an issue getting there about an hour early but ours was at 2:45. Maybe since it was later in the day there was less of an issue.

My main reason for suggesting an hour is so if something happens (you get lost, forget something, etc.) you have breathing room fix the problem. Sounds like Hacker Dojo is good suggestion if you are too early.

<comment><USER2> If anyone is interviewing on Wednesday or Thursday, it might be fun to hang out at the Dojo; I normally work from Sunfire (downtown MV), but maybe I'll move over to the dojo instead for the next couple days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "a previous YC funded company most of us know about, Square,"

Last I checked, Square was not a Y Combinator company.

But good writeup! I laughed at the anecdote towards the end ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, right, that was a quiz to see who could catch that mistake and uhhh YOU WON! hehe

No, my mistake. I think my still semi-hungover mind was thinking Bump but wrote about Square. I'll fix that.

And can somebody please create that hangover cure app soon please? Cuz that would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone.

Just posted some tips gleaned from our experience interviewing with YC yesterday and thought it may help those awaiting their interview.

Good luck!

<comment><USER4> Small fix in your titles: "Preparation"

<comment><AUTHOR> Ouch! Good catch, thanks. Just fixed that.</comment></comment></comment>


AWS Outposts Now Available - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-outposts-now-available-order-your-racks-today/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone taken a stab at pricing up comparable rack of conventional gear? I realise that wouldn't be exactly fungible, because it wouldn't have the cool integration with the AWS mothership, but it would be an interesting point of comparison.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess if you need on prem and want to code to a single unified API?</comment>


GNU Guix 0.7 released - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-07/msg00292.html

<comment><USER2> As I said on reddit, I love the s-exp based system definition. [http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Using- the-...](http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Using-the- Configuration-System.html)

        (use-modules (gnu)   ; for 'user-account', '%base-services', etc.
                     (gnu packages emacs)  ; for 'emacs'
                     (gnu services ssh))   ; for 'lsh-service'

        (operating-system
          (host-name "komputilo")
          (timezone "Europe/Paris")
          (locale "fr_FR.UTF-8")
          (bootloader (grub-configuration
                        (device "/dev/sda")))
          (file-systems (cons (file-system
                                (device "/dev/sda1") ; or partition label
                                (mount-point "/")
                                (type "ext3"))
                              %base-file-systems))
          (users (list (user-account
                        (name "alice")
                        (password "")
                        (uid 1000) (group 100)
                        (comment "Bob's sister")
                        (home-directory "/home/alice"))))
          (packages (cons emacs %base-packages))
          (services (cons (lsh-service #:port 2222 #:allow-root-login? #t)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A summarized version of the release notes can be found here: [https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8034](https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8034)

Noteworthy features for the release are:

* The GNU operating system can now be installed. Try it out!

* To make it possible the guix system command has been augmented with new options, and support for 'operating-system' declarations has been vastly improved.

* Programming has been simplified with the introduction of "G-expressions", which capture dependencies used by build-side expressions.

* More than 130 packages have been added, including "big ones" like the GIMP and Maxima.</comment>


Data leak reveals China is tracking almost 2.6m people in Xinjiang - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/9ed9362e-31f7-11e9-bb0c-42459962a812 <comment><USER2> This is so sad: [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special- report/muslims-...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special- report/muslims-camps-china/)

<comment><USER3> Indeed, what a brave New world.

People do not forget abuse on such a level, and collective trauma does not go away overnight. I am sure there will be more sadness in the future, when people will discuss effects of the repressive policies on the Uigurs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure China thinks this is a really great idea, but seriously, what a waste of resources. This goes against the very existential reason for organizing into complex societies in the first place, and second if the powers at be were students of philosophy and especially history they would know that this kind of behavior never ends well for the ruling class.

<comment><USER5> I don't think we have seen anything like this in history. In past it was different, because your possibilities for collecting and processing information were much more limited. Also the security apparatus had to employ huge number of people, making it harder to control and less reliable.

<comment><USER6> Agree that we've never seen anything like current surveillance capabilities, but there have been big jumps before. For example, IBM famously supplied equipment that made it possible for WW2 Germany (did I dodge Godwin's law?) to collate evidence of ethnicity at a scale not known before, with disastrous results [1].

I think that to some, surveillance often looks like a way to get the efficiency of distributed decision making while keeping central control (which has definitely been the philosophy behind China's economic experiments of the past 30y). But historically, it has arced towards enforcing centralized organization for reasons that have nothing to do with the efficiency of the tech involved - and that pattern has proven both bad for a population and self-defeating for regimes.

[1] [http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black- ibm.html](http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black-ibm.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's roughly 10% of the population (23M). At its peak, the Stasi in the DDR had files on about 30% of the East German population.

<comment><USER8> The population of East Germany was 18 million in 1950 and 16 million in 1990. On the same order of magnitude. But I think it would be much easier for China to keep tabs on millions nowadays than the Stasi back then.

<comment><USER9> Completely agree. If I was sadistic enough, a few web scrapers and .csv files and some workers on fiverr could keep enough tabs on millions of people so as to be scary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is just what leaked, they are undoubtedly tracking a lot more people than this.

</comment><comment><USER2> My friend from China explained to me that the surveillance of people is as much top down as much as its bottom up.

\- At every village level they have "informants" for the communist party who inform their higher ups regularly about village level activity. They are financially supported with healthcare and education subsidies and so it makes sense for everyone to join in and inform, especially the poor.

\- At the city level they have more ways to collect information about people like companies feeding data bases, people interacting with the internet and retail.

He explained that the idea is even if 10% of the population is brain washed they can keep tabs on the 90% and when shit hits the fan they want to be in the know. After Tiananmen they have followed a formula: Keep enough people happy and conforming with economic prosperity and get ahead of the curb for restive remainder.

<comment><USER11> China also tolerates civil unrest and civil disobedience as long as it's not directly challenging the authority of central government. Official name for it is "mass incidents" or "mass frustration".

There are almost 200,000 of these incidents every year. Several of them grow into large demonstrations with barricades, sit-ins, and rioting. They are usually reactions against come companies, local government, land seizures, or some corrupt individuals.

As long as people don't demand changing of the system, government often gives in at least a little. People can be changed, more investigations, some government actions can be cancelled.

It's clever way to bend without breaking. Allow people to show their frustration against things that are wrong but control tightly what kind of targets are allowed.

<comment><USER12> China could probably go much further. In America, you're shut down and surveilled for demanding systemic changes to the system (just try to build a movement in the United States for a change of government; see where that gets you). Much of that surveillance is automatic, and fed into police threat scores and FBI databases based off of online conversations (like this one) and other information (including financials, purchase history, social circle, etc).

Now, in the United States, if you want to disrupt some other kind of corruption (say, farming industry practices around the treatment of animals) - this will get you on terrorist watchlists, and the FBI will infiltrate and seek the arrests of that behavior as well, enforcing the strict relationship that wealthy families have in the enforcement of American societal structure.

<comment><USER11> This is a false equivalence. Your second paragraph is just conspiracy theory. "It's all same" is cynical and unintelligent attitude.

<comment><USER13> I'm so absolutely tired of people dismissing very real concerns and positions of people with the term "conspiracy theory"! First of all, gp isn't wrong, those things do happen in America and we have had plenty of proof leak over the years to back that up. Second, the entire history of the world is chock- full of conspiracy, so to dismiss points so blithely and naively as " conspiracy theory" indicates a lack of knowledge of history. Third, has everyone just forgotten that the term itself was pushed post JFK assassination as a psyop tool by the CIA to discredit anyone who questioned the Warren commission?

If it weren't for Snowden many of us who had been ranting about the NSA would still be getting dismissed with off-hand remarks of "conspiracy theorist" with a condescending undertone. Yet even as those of us warning about these issues move on to tell people about the next thing, we get the same thing. Even worse, after being proved right by Wikileaks or Snowden etc, those same people are still making excuses for their failure to heed those warnings. For example, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to start talking about NSA and to get "yeah we'll, we knew about echelon, it wasn't a surprise" type comments. Yes, those of us paying attention knew, but the problem is that we all got dismissed by smugly idiotic people with phrases like "crackpot conspiracy theorist"...

<comment><USER11> "Those things do happen" is not proper counterargument. I'm aware that they happen and I'm worried.

They just don't happen in the same scale and they don't have as bad consequences for people.

<comment><USER14> There is a huge difference between " _that 's not true, it's a conspiracy theory_", and " _oh sure it does happen, but at a different scale and with less bad consequences [not that I would want to suffer the worst consequences in either scenario]_ ".

> "Those things do happen" is not proper counterargument.

To "that's a conspiracy theory" it actually is, and though I still agree that it's a red herring to talk about the US when China is brought up (and China or Russia or human nature when the US is brought up), it's not a "conspiracy theory" at all.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth- insight/2013/j...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth- insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism)

> It is therefore not surprising that the increasing privatisation of > intelligence has coincided with the proliferation of domestic surveillance > operations against political activists, particularly those linked to > environmental and social justice protest groups.

> Department of Homeland Security documents released in April prove a > "systematic effort" by the agency "to surveil and disrupt peaceful > demonstrations" linked to Occupy Wall Street, according to the Partnership > for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).

> Similarly, FBI documents confirmed "a strategic partnership between the FBI, > the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector" designed to > produce intelligence on behalf of "the corporate security community." A PCJF > spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies functioning > as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is just part of the reason mass tracking is bad, you never know who is going to end up with the data.

<comment><USER16> What do you mean? Simply because they have it means it's bad, regardless of what they do with it? Seems you've already formulated an opinion.

<comment><USER17> Well, one thing can be bad in itself.

Breach of privacy is bad in itself. Thats not the parent's "formulated opinion", it's something well discussed, with extended arguments, that many people agree on.

So it doesn't matter "what they're going to do with it".

The same way your spouse going over and tracking your internet searches and mails is bad, no matter if they don't do anything with it.

(This of course holds for the whole world states that do that shit, not just China).

<comment><USER16> There is no universal "evil" or "band". Everything is context sensitive.

Is killing evil? In some contexts, yes, in others no.

The issue is a lack of context in affairs on the other side of the world, in a culture and the lives one has no knowledge about. To levy moral supremacy over others without an attempt at context is what starts wars and disagreements.

Take this thought experiment on the importance of understanding context: If i walk into a room and levy my supreme morality by shooting you in the face because i Just saw you shoot a man would be a crime, because perhaps I did not witness the context from 5 minutes earlier of that man shooting another man (which is why you shot him in the face, and ultimately why I shot you). Who's right? Who's wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most people look at Orwell's "1984" as a warning; China seems to be using it as a How-to manual.

</comment><comment><USER19> China views this is a matter of NatSec. Right or wrong they view it this way and states spare nothing at this. The extremely bad news is that China has virtually unlimited resources, in money, tech and manpower. And no one can stop them. Not via war, not via UN. Even if they hire a minder for every 2-3 Muslims the Chinese Gov will probably do it. But tech has made their job very easy.

My guess is that they think that by flooding the place with Han Chinese and making their (Muslims) lives miserable, they will break them.

<comment><USER9> And they probably will, sadly. It just takes time. If you remove their cultural identity through mixing of cultures, erasure of "non-sanctioned" cultures, then over time it will happen.

When displaying your non-Han-ness becomes something that will lead to you being imprisoned or denied jobs/housing/food, gradually all that will remain is Han.

<comment><USER20> There are definitely other, more humane ways to make the indigenous population join the melting pot. China should really look at how Hawaiians were integrated. aside from the initial war, there wasn't that much bloodshed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why did that take a data breach? I already assumed they were tracking 300+mm of thier population.

<comment><USER22> Are you asking why reputable news organizations don't publish assumptions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Without the paywall: [https://outline.com/bMxgSG](https://outline.com/bMxgSG)

</comment><comment><USER24> Article is paywalled.

<comment><USER25> Not with a Google referrer. Simple way to get it is to search for the FT article title. FT is nice enough to include it on their paywall. _Subscribe to the FT to read: "Data leak reveals China is tracking almost 2.6m people in Xinjiang"_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> can't read an article behind a paypal.

but how is this facial data collection any different than Facebook's?

<comment><USER27> > but how is this facial data collection any different than Facebook's?

Does Facebook have cameras everywhere that feed facial recognition and location data into a database that correlates it with government-id information?

No, Facebook does not. That is how it is different.

<comment><USER26> likle anyone walks on a sidewalk in california!

facebook have everyone around you uploading photos. google and amazon have microphones in your house and houses you visit. considering the social settings on both countries it is the same coverage.

<comment><USER27> >>> but how is this facial data collection any different than Facebook's?

> facebook have everyone around you uploading photos. google and amazon have > microphones in your house and houses you visit. considering the social > settings on both countries it is the same coverage.

The _main_ differences here aren't technical (such as camera coverage per person), but political. China is installing facial recognition cameras to non- consensually monitor an unwilling minority population in order to subjugate and eventually forcibly assimilate it. Facebook does facial recognition on images voluntarily given to it to further some creepy ad-pushing. _Those are very different things_.

<comment><USER26> most people on FB never signed up for it. they have my phone number and social graph because my acquaintances let the app upload their contact list, and same for photos.

also, can you say that facebook, advertising and thinktanks are not political in the US?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Americans are afraid of being invaded by Chinese _army_ , while completely omitting the fact that both Chinese police and 3 letter services _have few times bigger budgets_ (literally, MPS has around 3 times bigger budget than regular land forces,) more men, better training (armed police officers don't spend 50% of their time reading Marx, unlike army officers,) and, in some times, better equipment including heavy weaponry (in China, armed police forces, and "men in black" each have few armoured divisions, and are rumoured to have own heli force)

So, in the end, if West is to be afraid of Chinese invasion, they should be afraid of Chinese armed police, not the regular army.

<comment><USER29> Given the US has nuclear weapons, I doubt they're afraid of invasion. There can't really be a conventional war between nuclear powers. Any future conflicts will be proxy wars.

<comment><USER30> Agreed.

The point of course in having both conventional and nuclear weapons is so that your range of responses is wider than between nothing and a mushroom cloud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> By the social contract theory you give up some freedom to have a better quality of life.

I.e. I prefer to give up my freedom to kill others at will if everyone around me would do the same.</comment>


20+ millions Ubuntu users according to Canonical - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/04/17/tendering-with-ubuntu/

<comment><USER2> Using ubuntu for desktop was a no brainer for me, since a long time now. Was just easy to install and to use, and debian based so I wouldn't be lost.

I was aware of their leadership problems, like for MIR or upstart and then decided to address them by looking for other Linux desktops.

And I've installed Fedora from USB on my new laptop, just "to see" and realized that the main pro for Ubuntu (it works out of the box) belongs to the previous decade. All modern Linux distrib have that now.

And fedora didn't not deliver a desktop with a big amazon icon for whatever i know.</comment>


O'Reilly is celebrating Day Against DRM, 50% off on videos and ebooks - <AUTHOR> http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/day-against-drm.do?code=DRM2015 <comment><USER2> Can anyone suggest some great books to buy while this is on?</comment>


30 books to help entrepreneurs sell more (some hidden gems here) - <AUTHOR> http://www.shopify.com/blog/7250594-reading-list-30-books-that-will-help-increase-sales

<comment><USER2> Glad to see some books on behavioral economics in here, as that's the only true way to understand what factors contribute to our decision to (or not to) purchase. Some good reads I haven't heard of before... although Tony Robbins? Seriously? I would remove that book for the sake of your credibility.</comment>


Fully automated delivery system without a single line of code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@michaeloblak/fully-automated-delivery-system-without-a-single-line-of-code-25b556c7742a#.ejooahtxe <comment><USER2> Hey Guys! I'm the founder of mailparser.io and I'm super happy to see this showcase of Michael on Medium. Please let me know if you have any questions about mailparser.io or how to pull data out of e-mails.

<comment><USER3> Curious about the security infrastructure and data retention policies because emailed information is traveling over the wire and processed in a cloud.</comment></comment>


The Rise of the 'Brogrammer' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-01/the-rise-of-the-brogrammer

<comment><USER2> I hate the term "Brogrammer" and everything it stands for. I hope this fad ends soon.</comment>


Post-IPO Nonprofits - <AUTHOR> http://postipononprofits.com

<comment><USER2> The quotes are cherry-picked from the "Risk Factors" sections of the S-1 filings, and are not the "trend" the author is implying - the point of the risk factors is exactly to detail that the company might fail to make a return on investment.</comment>


Show HN: Tinytetris – 80 x 23 Terminal Tetris - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/taylorconor/tinytetris <comment><USER2> Friendly reminder: Tetris is one of the most valuable, and vigorously defended, game IPs in the world. Such aspects of the game as the dimensions of the playfield and the shapes of the tetrominoes are protected by copyrights and trademarks belonging to Tetris Holdings LLC -- and Tetris Holdings is Oracle-tier litigious. Yes, this has stood up in court. Hope you like unfriendly C&Ds from powerful attorneys.

<comment><USER3> Have they ever actually ended up in court? I was on the receiving end of one of these letters many years back for a clone I was involved with, but we just kept distributing it for a long time and they just sent basically the same letter a few years later. The primary developer eventually stopped the project only because he moved on to other things.

I feel like back then we didn't find any cases backing up TTC's claims, but I haven't kept up over the years.

<comment><USER2> Look up _Tetris Holdings, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc._ The court found 100% in favor of Tetris Holdings, in particular noting the shape of the tetrominoes, the way the tetrominoes spun and fell, and the dimensions of the game board as protectable elements under U.S. copyright law. Since this ruling was handed down, Tetris has applied for and received U.S. trademarks on the tetromino pieces.

The upshot of this is that it is illegal to develop a clone of Tetris. It doesn't matter whether you call it Tetris or not, or whether you use "ripped" or copied assets or not -- the _very fact that you have copied Tetris_ means you are infringing. It may be illegal to develop a video game that uses tetrominoes _at all_ since the tetromino pieces are protected trademarks of The Tetris Company.

<comment><USER4> Copyright does not protect game mechanics and rules. In _Tetris v. Xio_ , they successfully argued that the game infringed on trade dress.

They claimed that the pieces looked like ones in other games, which in my view is impossible not to infringe on since there have been hundreds of Tetris games with every type of piece design possible.

They claimed that they used tetrominos, and the playfield was twice as high as it was wide, and so on. What Xio failed to point out was that all of these are functional aspects of the game, which means it is not protected by trade dress. Even the original creator, Alexey Pajitnov, has said that he originally tried pentomonoes, but that was too difficult, so he used tetrominos instead. That's functional, not trade dress.

Do you have a source for Tetris's trademarking tetrominos? Perhaps you're referring to their "tetrimino" label, which their own term for what the non- branded world refers to as "tetrominos."

<comment><USER2> Xio did, in fact, attempt to point out that the shapes of the tetrominos are functional elements and not subject to trade dress. The judge disagreed.

The judge also said that while copyright does not protect the abstract concept of a falling block game, he _specifically_ cited the shapes of the blocks and the playfield size as copyrightable.

It's settled U.S. case law. If you develop a clone of Tetris, you are infringing on The Tetris Company's copyrights and trademarks and may be subject to civil and criminal penalties under U.S. law.

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SUED, DON'T EVER WRITE A TETRIS CLONE. PERIOD.

<comment><USER4> In the ruling, the judge states, "The style, design, shape, and movement of the pieces are expression; they are not part of the ideas, rules, or functions of the game nor are they essential or inseparable from the ideas, rules, or functions of the game."

Clearly the judge disagreed that these elements weren't protectable, but do you agree? I'm say that _I don 't agree with the judge._ Changing the the kind of polyominoes will make the game easier or harder (imagine how easy it would be with dominoes). Changing the playfield dimensions also changes the difficulty: a lower ceiling as well as a narrower well makes it much more difficult to survive.

<comment><USER2> Well if you're sitting on a pile of startup exit cash and can hire a Boies- tier attorney, go ahead and write that Tetris clone. You'll get your day in court to test those theories of yours, soon enough, and you can appeal it all the way to the Supremes if you wish.

As things stand, though, the law of the land as established in federal courts says those elements are copyrightable, and under copyright. So it doesn't matter a fig what you or I think of the judge's ruling -- the law is clear.

<comment><USER4> If you are new to programming, I would actually recommend making a Tetris clone. It's a great learning experience. Obviously if you're worried about receiving a cease and desist, then don't put it on sale on the app store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There used to be a playable Tetris in the favicon, which I found from HN[1], but it looks like the website[2] is dead now :(

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3873623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3873623)

[2] [http://favris.info/](http://favris.info/)

<comment><USER6> There was also a suite of Windows games I played back in ~2003 that occupied maybe a 32x64 window each, and one of them was mini Tetris. As I recall, the developer was Israeli. Anyway it was awesome for playing casually in stealth mode; there were no window decorations and the games were well made. I think one of the other games was pool. I haven't been able to find them since.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried asking in the subreddit "tip of my tongue" [0]? I have been amazed at what they can figure out about obscure stuff with very abstract clues.

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/)

<comment><USER6> Good idea! Thank you for the suggestion.

Edit: Actually just found the old site thanks to Google Groups :-)

[http://web.archive.org/web/20030501044223/http://www.tinywin...](http://web.archive.org/web/20030501044223/http://www.tinywindowsgames.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool! I made a demo playable in the browser: [https://repl.it/@amasad/tinytetris](https://repl.it/@amasad/tinytetris)

Or run it directly here: [https://tinytetris.amasad.repl.run/](https://tinytetris.amasad.repl.run/)

<comment><USER9> > Or run it directly here: > [https://tinytetris.amasad.repl.run/](https://tinytetris.amasad.repl.run/)

I needed to allow requests to five 3rd party domains for this tiny Tetris to load (uMatrix)

<comment><USER8> Absolute madness.

<comment><USER9> right... it is pretty bad for something that is supposed to be minimalistic

<comment><USER8> Abhorrent.

<comment><USER9> not the end of the world, just something to think about

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't think i'd ever read a Tetris implementation more incomprehensible than sedtris [1], but here we are.

[1] [https://github.com/uuner/sedtris](https://github.com/uuner/sedtris)

<comment><USER11> Here it is in a rather ambitious toy assembler language created specifically to play tetris using Conway's Game of Life rules. Trying to grok it will melt your brain on multiple levels.

[http://play.starmaninnovations.com/qftasm/#jllHdnBGSP](http://play.starmaninnovations.com/qftasm/#jllHdnBGSP)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To quickly build and run from your terminal:

       git clone https://github.com/taylorconor/tinytetris && cd tinytetris
       gcc tinytetris.cpp -lcurses -o tetris && ./tetris

<comment><USER13> Or straight from curl:

        curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/taylorconor/tinytetris/master/tinytetris.cpp | gcc -x c++ - -lcurses -o tinytetris

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nice; writing minified code is a challenge I've never been particularly good at.

As it happens, though, I had a university assignment due today to write a WebGL falling-triomino game:

      Start game: space
      Rotate: a/z s/x d/c
      Move: arrows
      Drop: space

[http://2-71828.com/T%C3%B6lvugraf%C3%ADk/Verkefni03/tris.htm...](http://2-71828.com/T%C3%B6lvugraf%C3%ADk/Verkefni03/tris.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> You could probably go even smaller by using higher resolution characters, like Braille, but without the per-block colors.

<comment><USER16> One time in high school I made a Tetris clone (in one lunch hour!) with single pixels as the squares, and used the VGA video memory itself as the data structure for the current board state. It was in 320x200 resolution, so the pixels were pretty big (the game area itself was only a small rectangle of them). My version didn't detect when the pieces reached the top or keep score or anything, just the basic playable mechanics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With ncurses it runs out of the box on my POWER6 AIX machine, so A for portability. I'd give you an A+ if I had xlc installed locally, but I cheated a little and used gcc. (For ncurses, I used the perzl pre-built library.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Fascinating! Are there any easy to follow tutorial on how to manipulate _pixel blocks_ (I wonder what the right term is) inside terminals?

<comment><USER19> If you're referring to the game pieces, the creater probably just used these Unicode characters: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements)

<comment><USER20> As you can see from the program and screenshot right in front of you, xe did not.

It's one of only two printw()s in the code, and the screenshot shows the result quite clearly.

<comment><USER19> You are correct; the code to print the blocks is on lines 35-37 of tinytetris- commented.c.

But the large comment at the top of the tinytetris.c file _is_ made of the block drawing characters :)

The attron sets terminal attributes which presumably cause it to flip the " " into a solid block. I haven't decoded what exactly the number it's feeding in represents, but 262176 is 0b1000000000000100000, and the attributes are defined around line 1100 of curses.h on my system (/A_NORMAL will find it).

<comment><USER21> the attron() used is attron(A_REVERSE | COLOR_PAIR(n)). The OR operator is used to combine attributes in curses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> amazing op! tetris is one of those game on my need to implement list and never actually finished an implementation :)

<comment><USER23> Don't let yourself get hung up on doing anything fancy, it's just fun to do. Seriously, just implementing tetris in processing is a fun way to spend an hour, and a great way to remind yourself of why programming is fun. It doesn't involve anything crazy as far as algorithms, but is a fun challenge to do. It's definitely worth it to implement a version, it is just fun to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1! And there are plenty of helpful tutorials around if you get a bit stuck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's a quine

<comment><USER25> Is it? I see no mechanism for outputting anything other that the game board.

And theres no mention on the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a quine :)

<comment><USER25> How has the parent not been downvoted to oblivion then?

Edit: I see you're the author, I'll take your word for it :) Nice work btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here's a 509 byte JavaScript Tetris [https://github.com/veu/mini- tetris](https://github.com/veu/mini-tetris)

</comment><comment><USER27> On my Mac I can just type:

'emacs -f tetris'

<comment><USER28> Yes, but that's rather besides the point. It's not the fact that it's Tetris in a terminal; it's also the fact that it's minified code. Look at the GIF on the Github page; that's the code of the game.</comment></comment>