Mitre Systems Engineering Guide (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/se-guide-book-interactive.pdf <comment><USER2> Another great resource for Systems Engineering is the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook: [https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/nasa-systems- engineering...](https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/nasa-systems-engineering- handbook)

NASA's guide is a more general engineering approach, since their projects are aerospace instead of IT. Chapter 4 has a great overview of requirements and traceability.

</comment><comment><USER3> This material is concerning to me on a base level.

To me, it doesn't reflect positively on the cost and complexity to implement a large scale system. It presents much of the material without a simple guide to what should be optional, when, and where.

You almost need a huge number of people to even digest the material and then make decisions about it. It feels like a massive reflection of the government contracting industry. I see it illustrating the value of editorial or architectural control and a willingness to take risks by saying "no".

<comment><USER4> Systems engineering in its very nature is a huge task. You're trying to balance the various tug of war battles between everything. Cost, performance, reliability, weight, etc... How light is this material vs how strong is it? What kind of tooling do we already have that can we use vs do we need to invent new tooling? Inventing new tooling is expensive. Inventing new tooling requires training on new tools. Training is expensive. The list goes on and on. Systems engineering is preventing deadlock.

I'm speaking in the physical world (aircraft) but the same concepts apply to software. If your system is small, sure you can do it all in your head. But if it's large, you need to put a cohesive plan together that accounts for _everyones_ issues, even if they aren't going to get solved right away.

So yeah, you do need a whole team to do this kind of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone shed light on what MITRE Corporation is and what kind of systems they build?

I could not find that information from Wikipedia or the official web page.

<comment><USER6> I worked at Mitre for 5 years in the 1990s in their DC area campus. Some of their core business has changed since then, but not what makes them special.

Mitre serves two primary roles. First, they're a technical advocate for various US military and intelligence agencies, representing their interests at conferences and in committees and helping them shape policy and practices in that advisory role. As such, Mitre is granted levels of trust and access to agency materiel that no contractor has. As such, Mitre is not supposed to take work that might compete directly with the financial interests of contractors and thus must engage only in activities that are non-competitive: advising or coordinating, rather than building systems.

The second role Mitre plays is as a FFRDC (Federally Funded R&D Center), a long term R&D facility dedicated to one government agency, directly serving their interests (as Jet Propulsion Labs serves NASA). In Mitre's case, the clients are the FAA, Homeland Security and cybersecurity, or the US military's (C3I) Command Control Communications and Intelligence interests (mostly run by the army).

An FFRDC maintains staff with various specialized technical subject matter skills that serve the needs and plans of the agency, who often act on behalf of the agency with the internal access and authority equal to that of a government employee. But this close relationship with the government often extends to the non-FFRDC parts of Mitre too.

[https://www.mitre.org/centers/we-operate- ffrdcs](https://www.mitre.org/centers/we-operate-ffrdcs)

Advancement at Mitre is unlike the typical contractor, where you manage increasingly large parts of contracts. Mitre benefits most when you establish an ever closer relationship with the government agency and people therein. The higher the governmant authority you report to, the more valuable you become within Mitre.

Publishing papers and reports to and on behalf of your agency makes you (and your team) more visible and useful to that customer, increasing the agency's desire to engage more Mitre services and rely on them for more uses. Mitre tech staff (usu software developers) often build and show lots of demos before agency managers (and generals) that prototype capabilities they want to explore and advance.

<comment><USER7> For any interested gubmit workers, a lot of red tape has been cut here. You deal with the IRS' contracting officer directly to start, since they already went through the competitive bid process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Compared to the INCOSE SE handbook, this guide has much simpler, direct, easier to understand language that feels more natural.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this the same Mitre from The Cuckoo's Egg?

<comment><USER10> Appears so. From Wikipedia's page about _Cuckoo 's Egg_: _" eventually tracked the intrusion to a call center at MITRE, a defense contractor in McLean, Virginia"_

Page 4 of this PDF shows McLean, Virginia as the HDQ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is anyone aware of a good lecture series on Youtube or equivalent about Systems Engineering. I covered it in Uni, but it would be nice to go through a refresher.

<comment><USER12> You can try the MIT one [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP60jIMmB53zl...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP60jIMmB53zl6awCKMnABhYx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is both high-level and low-level at the same time; I'm not sure juniors would grok it all, so perhaps this is more of a reference for SEs?

<comment><USER14> Yes, this is intended as a reference/best practices document for systems engineers.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Errordite, a new approach to exception management - <AUTHOR> https://www.errordite.com

<comment><USER2> (disclaimer: I know the founders; and I wrote the python / django client libraries)

When we started YunoJuno we hooked up Sentry, as we are a django app, and it's the default option for error management (oh, and it had an Heroku add-on available). It's a great product, but I got frustrated early on with how it was aggregating errors - and ended up in a public StackOverflow confessional during which I unpicked the source and tried to work out what was going on ([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13331973/how-does- sentry-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13331973/how-does-sentry- aggregate-errors)).

I started using Errordite when it became available (I had to write the python client first!) and ran both in parallel for a couple of months. Both do a great job of helping manage exceptions, but the killer for us (and the reason we dropped Sentry recently) is that Errordite allowed us to determine the rules around grouping exceptions ourselves.

I won't say any more for fear of sounding like a plant, but in answer to those who have posted 'what's the difference' - it's (IMO) the ability to set custom rules around how errors are handled.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the concept but I don't like your pricing model. For what it is, even $19 a month feels like a lot. I would love to add this to the couple of web apps I run but at that cost it'd run parallel to the cost of my AWS overhead.

Semi-seriously, you should add a PAYG model that costs by the error, thus incentivising me to make my code less error-prone!

<comment><USER4> > For what it is, even $19 a month feels like a lot.

Please read [http://wadefoster.net/post/49775946303/startups-you- should-v...](http://wadefoster.net/post/49775946303/startups-you-should-value- software-more) :)

EDIT: What I am trying to say is that the comment is underestimating the value of something like an error tracker, vastly - especially when managing several web apps.

<comment><USER5> That response can be generalized to "you should always give people whatever they ask". What if he already _is_ valuing the app a lot, but the app just isn't worth the price compared to other apps, or he just doesn't find it that useful?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What your onboarding flow needs is "How this is different from X." Adding this to my app may be easy, but switching has cost (lost data, time spent, etc).

X includes at least: Honeybadger (what I use presently), AirBrake (just switched from this), NewRelic (also does what you do, and everybody uses it), BugSense, Errormator, Sentry, and I'm sure there are others in this field (for some reason).

<comment><USER7> See also ErrPlane (ycomb winter 2013)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> looking at your homepage, i don't get what makes this different from airbrake.io, which i've been using for years.

I'd really love to have a well-rounded error management service (and airbrake isn't perfect), so I'm generally interested. But if you want to win me over as a customer, you might need to clarify on your homepage what's new in your approach.

Best wishes :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Out of interest, did you read the about page or watch the video? Is it expecting too much for casual visitors to do that (genuine question)?

<comment><USER9> Yes (genuine answer).

I have been passively searching for a new error monitoring service, so I clicked this link from my phone while on a train to work. I'm not going to find headphones, wait on a video to load, and then hope it's high enough quality on my phone to be a useful look at what you're offering. And the About page is hidden beneath a 'Docs' menu, which is actually right next to two links that take me to a sign-in form, so it never even occurred to me to look for it. I thought 'How It Works' was all you had besides the video.

So I added it to my "hey maybe come back and look at this some day" list of TODOs. That's a very big list. I rarely actually go back and look.

Had it been two screenshots of a decent UI and a quick blurb about your (likely very useful!) grouping/filtering functionality, I'd have been much more likely to make sure I went back to view the video.

That said, I'm now watching the video, and this looks pretty nice. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. In case people are wondering what the new approach is, Errordite allows you to look at your list of errors and by highlighting properties of the error define the rules by which errors are grouped into issues. See the video for a demo.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, I don't understand how this is different from BugSense or Sentry? Don't they already group errors together too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup but only automatially. Our matching default to automatic but you can redefine the matching rules.

Examples:

1\. your exception messages contain the id of the entity you're dealing with "FooBar 1234 has broken". You only want to match then on the FooBar has broken bit, not the 1234.

2\. for whatever reason, some IP address keeps sending you dodgy requests that break your server. You can filter all errors requests from this IP address so you don't get swamped with these errors.

3\. The same bug deep down in your code is causing different errors higher up. You can choose to match on the part of your stack trace that is the common cause and get all these errors attached to the same issue.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I see, thanks. I guess I just haven't had trouble with this in all my years working on web development, it's always the same error (the error doesn't vary on ids), if an IP address keeps sending me things that break my server, I fix my server, and if the same bug is causing different errors, I'll fix it quickly.

I guess #3 is the only example that might apply to me, but I have literally never had this happen, so I don't know. Then again, I don't even use Sentry, I get the issues emailed to me and I fix them on the spot (they're usually 1-line fixes, typos, or something like that).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep - if you're totally organised and completely on top of your app, then there may be little need for a service like this (although I'd say there's still value in the graphs, the multiple alerting channels and all the other good stuff).

We developed Errordite as a result of working on large(ish) eCommerce websites where the wide variety of errors produced made it impossible to understand exactly the different things that could be going wrong - and I think for this kind of thing, where you are not going to always be on top of your errors, Errordite is invaluable.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. I imagine that if you're using someone else's codebase, you'd be in a much worse position to fix bugs immediately, I hadn't considered that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This product looks great - should help avoid frustrating situations when sifting through massive error logs looking for THAT pesky bug.

</comment><comment><USER11> this is amazing, just what i've been looking for

</comment><comment><USER12> looks good, best wishes

</comment><comment><USER13> This looks great</comment>


What is a hacker? ...or, let me know if I'm wasting my time. - <AUTHOR> http://overnumerated.com/what-is-a-hacker

<comment><USER2> a good description is found in _"How To Become A Hacker"_ ~ <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny. That's exactly what I cited in my blog post! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> just say you found article on ycombinator.</comment>


Amazon's Updated Bandwidth Prices Still Can't Beat Ours - <AUTHOR> http://joyeur.com/2011/06/30/amazons-updated-bandwidth-prices-still-cant-beat-ours/

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, Amazon's site doesn't crash my browser by using that Onswipe theme. Even worse, the link on the bottom to view the non-intercoursed site doesn't work.

Edit: leaving and going back let me get to the non-Onswiped site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Keep going with your table. Show 500TB.

Oops.

</comment><comment><USER4> Except that server costs are kind pricey.</comment>


The art of long-term world travel - <AUTHOR> http://tim.blog/2008/09/15/rolf-potts-qa-the-art-of-long-term-world-travel-and-travel-writing/ <comment><USER2> I'm a Software Engineer who decided there must be more to life than sitting at a desk.

I saved as hard as I could for 12 months, and set-off for 2 years and drove 40,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina. That trip changed my life. ([http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition- overview](http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview))

I returned to a desk and saved and saved and saved for over four years, built my dream Jeep, and am right now driving all the way around Africa, probably for about 2 years and 80,000 miles through ~30 countries. ([http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition- overview](http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview)) I am in Cameroon, and meeting all kinds of interesting people and learning so much more than I have up until now in my life (I'm 35).

I am living almost entirely on savings, though I am attempting to move into photography/writing as a "career" and currently earn a little from that.

If anyone is interested, AMA.

<comment><USER3> >I saved as hard as I could for 12 months, and set-off for 2 years and drove 40,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina. That trip changed my life. ([http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition- overview](http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview))

How'd you cross the Darien gap?

<comment><USER2> > _How 'd you cross the Darien gap?_

I put it in a shipping container in Panama and flew to Colombia to meet it and continue the trip.

Details & price here:

[http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap- pt-...](http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just build an affiliate marketing site that teaches people how to build affiliate marketing site and you can travel the world in perpetuity and work two hours a week!

</comment><comment><USER5> The link to "Storming 'The Beach'" in the article leads to nowhere, but the feature can be found on Rolf's own page at [https://rolfpotts.com/storming- the-beach/](https://rolfpotts.com/storming-the-beach/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have mastered annual 2 week travel instead. Much harder.

Not joking. You have to plan well, you don't have the luxury of slipping dates, you want to optimise dead-time, compromise between time and cost, synchronise with your project's schedule, family and of course be patient enough to last until its beginning.

<comment><USER2> I am always shocked when I bump into Americans traveling.

With only two weeks, they are always stressed and rushing. When timelines do slip, they have to throw money at private taxis etc. It is fascinating they are spending more in 2 weeks than I spend in 2 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Shameless Tim Ferris self promotion

</comment><comment><USER7> This site is a perfect example of intrusive and exit-intent advertising. It is near unusable on mobile and exit-intent is exactly the wrong time to ask more of someone - like hanging into someone's sleeve as they try to leave your store.

</comment><comment><USER8> 2008

</comment><comment><USER9> Advertisement</comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension that replaces words into a different language - <AUTHOR> http://alpharabi.us <comment><USER2> Cool, but the example has a few errors. "students" in spanish is "estudiantes", the example is missing an S.

Also, "more" is "más" in spanish. Accents are important for meaning in a lot of languages.

</comment><comment><USER3> Same thing:

* [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-im...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-immersion/ddkbjollcgaccneogdbnjadkcbocgcof)

* [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjla...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjlaokbhaoehejcoblhahcekmogbom)

* [http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-...](http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-teaches-you-a-new-language-while-you-browse-the-web)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh neat. Yeah, definitely going to check this out, and do an analysis on what these guys get right and features that might need to be improved on. Appreciate the links!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sigh. I was working on EXACTLY the same idea. Well, looks like these guys have the momentum now and the product looks good. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the support! But yeah, what lotyrin said. You should keep working on it because making a genuinely helpful language learning service isn't an easy problem by any means.

EDIT: And it needs all the help it can get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey Guys, love the idea... since I have the "not invented here" syndrome I am building my own version for quite some time now :) ([http://www.langulearn.com](http://www.langulearn.com))

Next step to implement would be nlp, if you need help or just want to talk -> email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER6> Similar browser extensions are made before.

HN discussions:

Language Immersion for Chrome

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773)

Polyglot

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162)

<comment><USER7> Polyglot:

"UPDATE: Due to the shutdown of the Google Translate API, Polyglot is no longer being maintained. It's been ported to use Bing Translate but due to rate limits the service is relatively unreliable and cannot be guaranteed to work consistently."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's not forget this one! [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to- sna...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-snake- peop/jhkibealmjkbkafogihpeidfcgnigmlf)

</comment><comment><USER9> I am using the extension now as I am currently learning Spanish. The previous languages that I have learned I have learned through a formal education (English, French and German) but this is the first one that I am just learning on my own, as my SO's family mainly communicates in Spanish.

The idea of this plugin is a neat way to increase my vocabulary a bit and thus I have installed it. But one annoying thing is that I need to open the extensions popup page to click on "translate". I think that it would be nicer if the translation would just happen on pageload.

I will look into doing that myself maybe since the project is on github anyway, but I am at work now. :-)

EDIT: Created an issue for it now ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> The same idea has implemented a while ago by [http://readlang.com/](http://readlang.com/)

Being able to repeat the words i "looked up" is essential for me.

<comment><USER11> Creator of Readlang here. This extension is a little different to mine since it works in the other direction. Readlang allows you to read articles in your target language more easily by offering tap-to-translate. This one gives you occassional exposure to target language words while reading articles in your first language.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone's interested, the repo's right here: [https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius](https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice work so far.

I'm not convinced by this approach since I prefer to learn Spanish words in the context of Spanish sentences, but I haven't given it a fair shot. Of people who have tried this or similar extensions, did you a) find that you learned much? and b) keep using it for a prolonged period?

</comment><comment><USER12> Very cool idea but slightly disappointed by the language options and constraint on websites. I barely use any of the sites it supports and don't learn any of the languages.

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to pipe random words into google translate and replace them.

<comment><AUTHOR> OH! And it works on other sites too, but that's "experimental" since it's not tested on all sites (which is why we put the on/off slider). Might be interesting to build a DOM parser- in the future -that figures out where relevant, "could be translated" content is in the webpage.

<comment><USER9> It was not very clear to me what the slider meant. Good thing that I read this comment section I guess. The slider 'on' means that the translation happens on all websites, whereas off it only happens on the selected sites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm going to make that clearer in the next update. It's much simpler, 'ON' means make the page translatable and 'OFF' means to leave the page alone. Because sometimes you just want to read the damn thing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice. Would love support for German!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, working on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My extension did not gather as many upvotes :'( [https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/](https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/) but I find it as useful as this =D

</comment><comment><USER15> Brilliant, keep up the good work

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, there's a LOT of room for growth and definitely not an easy problem to solve. More updates in the future, though!</comment></comment>


Chicago Workshop on "How to Build a Web App Business" (Dec 8) - <AUTHOR> http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/11/12/chicago-workshop-on-december-8th/ <comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't put this in the title, but it's being presented by Freshbooks' CEO, Mike McDerment.

(Disclosure: I don't work at Freshbooks, but some friends do. Also, I'm considering going because of my own startup.)</comment>


For Sale: "Your Name Here" in a Prestigious Science Journal - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-sale-your-name-here-in-a-prestigious-science-journal/ <comment><USER2> It's kind of bizarre that this article focuses on the plagiarism issue, but seems to miss the even bigger problem: It doesn't appear at all clear if these published studies are actually done!

If they aren't done and yet are published in fairly high impact journals, presumably people are relying on their conclusions. Even worse, increasingly automated systems are relying on journal articles for automated diagnosis.

OTOH, if the studies actually are done... I guess it's a new avenue for funding science!

<comment><USER3> > Even worse, increasingly automated systems are relying on journal articles > for automated diagnosis.

Where can I learn more about this? Without hearing more, it sounds like a terrible idea.

As a scientist, if my beliefs were based on an unweighted sample of claims made in journal articles, I can tell you, I would believe a lot of nonsense. I hope no one is practicing medicine that way.

<comment><USER2> On mobile ATM, but IBM Watson does it. It is generally more accurate than humans, and able to keep up with latest research much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article actually frustrates me. I rarely comment but for some reason this stirred me to comment. The fact is: the research is important not the wording. Many academics 'plagiarize' wording but change it to fit the experiments that they actually ran. Especially foreign ESL researchers who want to convey similar information. Ex/ Performing the exact same experiments just with different chemicals. The papers could be almost exactly the same wording but the data and graphs would be different. This doesn't make the research or experiments fake or any less meaningful. I do understand that this could be used as an indication that the research is not novel but by no means is it definitive proof.

<comment><USER5> The linked original research into textual similarity[1] offers more compelling examples than those in the Scientific American article (which could plausibly be the innocent consequence of researchers diligently following a Chinese language "how to structure a publishable meta analysis study" guide and incorporating a few turns of phrase from the example papers)

Especially, the use of a definition copied verbatim from Wikipedia...

[1][http://blog.thegrandlocus.com/2014/10/a-flurry-of- copycats-o...](http://blog.thegrandlocus.com/2014/10/a-flurry-of-copycats-on- pubmed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _" Sometimes there are minor variations in the wording but in more than a > dozen articles we found almost identical language with different genes and > diseases seemingly plunked into the paragraph, like an esoteric version of > Mad Libs, the parlor game in which participants fill in missing words in a > passage."_

Though programs to auto-generate academic papers have existed for quite a while, and the garbage output papers have even been published in journals, I think a Mad Libs based program to generate "human-guided" academic papers would be a whole lot of fun at parties.

> _" Now that a number of companies have figured out how to make money off of > scientific misconduct, that presumption of honesty is in danger of becoming > an anachronism."_

Just wait until a rowdy game of Academic Mad Libs at a party or pub is more fun than quarters or beer pong as a drinking game. It would mean everyone could be Alchodemic and Sloshfisticated.

(All joking aside, the frightening thought is it would be fairly easy to automate human-guided plagiarism/fraud paper creation. It's already a solved problem in the automated "news" webspam regurgitation space.)

</comment><comment><USER7> "Scientists, for whom published articles are the route to promotion or tenure or support via grants"

This is the problem. It's not about the quality of the science being produced, it's about how many times your name shows up.

I'll tell you how one of my former bosses did it. He would do his work at a discounted rate in exchange for them adding him onto their paper. He did good work, but many of the papers he was added on were of a questionable scientific nature. He didn't care though, because he could claim to be published in over 1,000 papers!

The other issue besides quality of science, is the blocking of information. I hate hearing about new research paper on X, only to find it hidden behind a paywall. For the journals it has become very much about the almighty dollar and restricting access is part of that. Papers should be free to read in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> The idea that quantity strictly beats quality is not uncontroversial, however. There is plenty of evidence of people doing great work (usually also coming from a small-ish set of "superstar" labs), and still doing just fine. See, for instance, this list: [http://www.thespectroscope.com/read/its-not-publish-or- peris...](http://www.thespectroscope.com/read/its-not-publish-or-perish-but- rather-do-great-science-by-lenny-teytelman-258)

I think the fact that all the paper mill instances cited in the OP are from Chinese groups suggests that this is a problem driven by a few broken systems (primarily in the developing world), and not the modern scientific enterprise as a whole.

<comment><USER9> I am sympathetic to your argument, but I would say that the quality dimension is also heavily corrupted, especially in basic science where people rarely retrace experiments, and there is no requirement for a "working product".

The word "superstar" labs is itself loaded. Scientific discovery has always been heavily influenced by chance, and the fact that certain labs regularly publish in high profile journals has more to do with political connections rather than the intrinsic quality or impact of their work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know a section editor of a top medical journal. I sent him this article, and he was absolutely shocked. He knew about plagiarised content (although I had to explain "Mad Libs" to him) but he had utterly no idea about authorship being sold.

I asked him if changes to authorship are common, and he said it sometimes happens for legitimate reasons -- for instance, the journal may send back the paper to the original authors and say "you need to perform additional analysis on XYZ before we can publish." If someone else needs to be consulted for this to happen, it's not unusual to add that person's name on the paper at a later date.

</comment><comment><USER11> I only skimmed the article but does that mean that the research itself is fake as well?

</comment><comment><USER12> The "Your Name Here" is a requirement for medical doctors. Medical doctors are highly skilled craftsmen, but not scientists. Still the need to write a doctor paper, and this causes authoring services that had been common in the first universities ages ago. The other evil side is, that the research is sponsored by big pharma, who has vital interest that their snake oil performs well on paper.

<comment><USER13> M.D. programs don't _in general_ have a thesis/dissertation requirements (its a professional rather than research degree), though there are M.D. programs with thesis requirements, and they tend to have more prestige (either more research-oriented options at some institutions, and all M.D.s at certain institutions.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like journal editors should run everything through TurnItIn (or other similar service).

<comment><USER15> Is that not already done?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you replacing IndexTank? - <AUTHOR>

We have a site that's based on IndexTank, which has since been acquired by LinkedIn, and their service is scheduled to end by April.  They recently release their software as open source, but its documentation is thin. https://github.com/linkedin/indextank-engine I'd like to hear what others who used IndexTank are doing about replacing it, or if anyone is thinking of offering a hosted version of IndexTank open source.  If so, there would definitely be a base of past customers ready to sign up. <comment><USER2> I'm trying to get it running on a local instance of my site. I'm hoping that works out OK. I'll be testing that out in the next week or so. If that doesn't work, I'm going with Solr. If it does, then I'll go live with that.

<comment><USER3> Why not ElasticSearch?</comment></comment>


AngelConf 2010 streams live on Justin.TV - <AUTHOR> http://justin.tv/ycombinator

<comment><USER2> Some good stuff here. I'm speaking on a little bit.

<comment><USER3> Just some scattered notes I took on broad trends identified during the presentations:

1\. Old way of raising rounds (lead investor, minimum investment amount, fixed amount for round) is dead and is now being displaced by founder-controlled rounds with rolling closings - only a few companies are doing this as yet but they are among the _best_ companies and thus it likely signifies a trend (pg).

2\. Last year's huge unexploited opportunity for angels to fill the gap for fundings in the few hundreds of thousands range has now been capitalized upon, and it is now easy to raise funds in that range, with many angels having rushed in to fill the gap - the number of angels now investing is plentiful and growing (pg).

3\. One of the downsides to the new investing ecosystem is that too many entrepreneurs are thinking small and executing small (Mike Arrington, in a quite wittily presented twist of the knife with, I think, tongue at least partly in cheek).

4\. Key is to invest in people, as ideas can morph (Ron Conway - the man exudes character).

5\. Angels can make money and have fun (the two primary motivators) and will find themselves more easily being able to align their sympathies with the entrepreneurs in the early stages than would be possible under the rules of the VC game (Mitch Kapor - who has been on both sides of that fence).

6\. Even top-tier VCs are looking for angels to co-invest with in early-stage companies or from whom they can cooperate in receiving deal-flow (Greg McAdoo of Sequoia Capital).

7\. It is critical to individual angels (as opposed to institutionalized super-angels) to apply some strict filtering rules, and to be disciplined in doing so, as a way of screening their potential investments - the field lends itself to a systematic approach (Joshua Schachter - very nice presentation, by the way).

8\. Three major factors identified by YC companies in informal survey in deciding which to take among competing angel offers: (a) quality and reputation of the angel; (b) clean terms; and (c) willingness to move quickly and decisively (pricing of the deal as a factor came in nowhere near these three) (Sam Altman, in a subtly spirited presentation that emphasized the entrepreneur's perspective).

9\. On the legal side, some 80% of recent early-stage funding deals in the presenting lawyer's recent experience have involved convertible notes (John Battista of Orrick - this surprised me, as such notes have fallen into some disfavor over the past year in my experience).

10\. On the darker side, there is a trend of sorts in which entrepreneurs are doing quickie acquisitions involving, e.g., $20M deals coupled with rich option packages for themselves, leaving angels with basically a return of their money with little or no premium (a couple of the speakers referred to this).

And, last but not least, time to write that check (!), as there are an abundance of opportunities out there for angel investors.

Speaking from my own experience, this is undoubtedly true about the opportunities, as the investing ecosystem has shifted significantly toward the angels and away from the VCs in many ways during recent years - it is now almost axiomatic in founder thinking that VC funding is to be at least deferred while a company goes through at least one angel round in order to avoid too heavy a dilutive hit out the gate.

There were a variety of other excellent points made along the way as well, by Aydin Senkut, Andrea Zurek, and Mike Maples, among others, sharing points they have learned through some fairly extensive investing experiences. I would have jotted more detail on these as well but only had a 2 x 3 card to write on and ran out of space!

All in all, a quite stimulating conference. Thanks to pg and YC for making this possible (and for the invite).

<comment><USER2> grellas, you are too kind. i stumbled hard in the middle. it was a pleasure to meet you.

i forgot to say a bunch of stuff. most of it was targeted at how to actually be an angel.

\- stop going for crazy protective terms - if stuff goes pear-shaped, you lose your money. period. and it makes life harder for entrepreneurs as terms given up in the first rounds are never recovered.

\- invest in people you would consider working for and with. you will be.

\- learn to give a clean, proper no. it's hard, and i do this badly.

\- don't sit on deals hoping they get hot.

<comment><USER3> joshu, very nice to meet you as well - your investment philosophy and methodology came across nicely in what you presented and the minor glitch in the middle only left one wanting to hear more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you missed any of it, the archive is here: <http://www.justin.tv/ycombinator/b/267534289>

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like they need to do some work on Safari support: <http://i.imgur.com/OJJkU.png>

<comment><USER4> Forwarded to our QA guy, thanks very much for reporting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A fun afternoon and a chance to speak to great people; not just speakers but also the fine audience. Sound in the room was a bit rough at times..

Format needs tweaking IMHO. Geoff tried to get some more audience interaction going but would be nice to have a more workshop type feel. Afterwards was good but a bit longer break in the middle may have been useful.

Shame Arrington ran for the door after his dipshit company comment..

<comment><USER2> I thought Arrington was right on the money. Best talk out of all of them.

<comment><USER6> For sure - a relief from the cheerleading or timeshare selling feel it otherwise had at times. I would have enjoyed some more to & fro on that. My startup was acquired in more than a talent acquisition deal but far less than a big swing for the fences (55MM but entirely founder funded).

Thinking of the powershift to founders.. and future bigger attempt, I'm not convinced yet to even consider outside money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How long will angel con be and is there a list of scheduled speakers?

<comment><USER4> Here's a partial list of speakers at least: <http://angelconf.org/></comment></comment>


Some Ugly Code Can Get Nvidia's Linux Driver Working with Accelerated XWayland - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GLX-Delay-Accel-NV-XWayland <comment><USER2> I tried for a while to get Wayland working in order to get rid of tearing I saw in X Windows, until I found out a kernel module parameter for the Nvidia driver fixed tearing in X. I run xmonad as well, which doesn't work with wayland. Don't see any reason to run Wayland at the moment.

<comment><USER3> How about "X is insecure, flaky, unsupported, and solves problems nobody actually has"? Such is the considered opinion of just about anybody who knows spit about the Linux graphics stack. Hint: The major Wayland devs are former Xorg devs.

<comment><USER4> > _Hint: The major Wayland devs are former Xorg devs._

But notably, major Xorg developer Keith Packard is missing from that list.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, which means that right now Keith Packard is about the only person or entity keeping X alive. Red Hat have washed their hands of it. When the legacy versions of RHEL that still use it go out of support, maintenance on Xorg will pretty much grind to a halt. It is a moribund project, and that presents considerable risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a recurring pattern I keep seeing come up again and again with open source / Linux. I still don't see any real benefits to switching to Wayland as a user other than it being a Shiny New Thing. In fact, this is a net negative for me.

When I previously tried Wayland, my DE wasn't compatible and most of my software had to be run through their XWindows compatibility layer and required myriad workarounds and tuning just to get a basic desktop environment running. This NVIDIA hack is yet another example.

It still felt like alpha quality software even though it has been in development for 10 years(!) now. Why would users ever not stick with something that is stable and just works?

<comment><USER6> I agree _in general_ that too many things pop up because people want change without good reason. But Wayland is a highly needed replacement, not just in my opinion, but according to the X.org developers themselves. See e.g. this [1] talk by someone who has worked on both X.org and Wayland.

> Why would users ever not stick with something that is stable and just works?

As a user, I switched to Wayland 1.5 years ago for two reasons. The first is that Wayland has way better performance than X. It solves some long-standing and highly irritating issues with e.g. screen-tearing that I and others have been experiencing with X. The second is security. Wayland is nearly a prerequisite for proper sandboxing of GUI apps, as X apps can all keylog each other, screen-record each other, inject keys into each other, and so on, without much restrictions. Since Wayland is backwards-compatible with X via XWayland, which these days has quite good performance, I haven't yet run into an X-only app that didn't just work.

As for the issues with nVidia, that's mostly due to nVidia implementing their own Wayland backend (EGLStreams) that is different from what every other graphics card driver uses (GBM), resulting in every desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, etc.) having to implement nVidia support separately from generic Wayland support. The single biggest factor holding Wayland back at the moment is nVidia; my experience is that currently Wayland already works way better than X.org if you have an Intel or AMD card, but is highly broken on nVidia.

The second factor holding it back would be that the number of window managers (compositors) for Wayland is lower than for X, currently the main ones are GNOME, KDE, and Sway. But this is changing fast: when I first switched only GNOME worked well; now both KDE and Sway are stable and fully usable on Wayland; and thanks to wlroots, a lot of new window managers for Wayland have popped up [2] and should mature over time.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44)

[2]: [https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/wiki/Projects-which-use- wl...](https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/wiki/Projects-which-use-wlroots)

<comment><USER7> Why did Nvidia decide to do that anyway? I understand they have a history of being annoying on Linux, but I'm having trouble seeing what value there is in implementing this with your own backend.

<comment><USER8> Minimum effort. On Linux they are basically only interested in Cuda and Mining working.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How much it cost? - <AUTHOR>

I got a social networking site that has chatroom, photo album sharing, music sharing, users can create friends list, one-on-one chat, messaging, personal calendar.Right now it has more than 700 members, anybody got an idea how much I can sell it or can I find somebody to finance it specifically in advertising and operational expenses? <comment><USER2> I know I'll get downvoted for this but it's worth it anyway:

LOL.

</comment><comment><USER3> i have a $10 php script that does just about the same.

Wohoo!

<comment><USER4> Well, in all fairness, he also has a community of 700.

Problem is, there are a zillion of these out there. If he's not getting some revenue from it right now it's unlikely to be worth much to a generic investor.</comment></comment>


The periodic table, colour coded by the likely origin of each element - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/olivertlord/status/1292562140776271872 <comment><USER2> The image shown by wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element) seems more complete and better laid out, and is also by cmglee ([https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee)), based on data from Jennifer Johnson at Ohio State University ([http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/](http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/)):

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nucleosy...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nucleosynthesis_periodic_table.svg)

<comment><USER3> Brown: made by monkeys on terrestrial planets

<comment><USER4> Also made in the similar ways as their surrounding elements, but generally don't stick around for long enough for anyone to really care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some completely irrational reason I was slightly disappointed that the gold in my wedding ring was only from a neutron star merger and probably not from a supernova.

However, reading the relevant wikipedia page I came across this part:

 _" this single neutron star merger event generated between 3 and 13 Earth masses of gold"_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Gold_production_in_the_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Gold_production_in_the_Universe)

Can't wait to refer to that in the next discussion on HN about gold as a store of value.... ;-)

<comment><USER6> Neutron Star Mergers & Acquisitions sounds like a great title for book or TV show.

<comment><USER7> I have a very-soon-merging neutron star pair to sell to you.

<comment><USER6> "You want to be on the ground floor of this IPO because I'm telling you it's going to just be exploding gold (and other elements)."

<comment><USER8> Radioactive gold, at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wikipedia original:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element#/media/File:N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element#/media/File:Nucleosynthesis_periodic_table.svg)

</comment><comment><USER10> How did elements created by a merging neutron stars and dying low-mass stars get down to our planet?

<comment><USER11> The follow up question is, how come the different elements aren't uniformly mixed within the earth. Or perhaps formed into stratified layers with the densest at the centre? E.g. Why are there 'deposits' of gold relatively close to the surface? Something to do with interaction of the physical and chemical properties of the elements with local variations in conditions?

<comment><USER12> Yes you're right. Geologic and biologic processes unevenly distribute the elements

<comment><USER13> The keyword is "Goldschmidt classification": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification)

Those who would like to know more could do worse than pick up Greenwood's & Earnshaw's book (this one: [https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/0750633654](https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/0750633654)) from the nearest university library, it has a chapter on nucleogenesis and cosmic and geologic abundances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't like that these don't also take into account secondary events (like non catastrophic fusion nucleosynthesis, or radioactive decay). And maybe some indication that nearly all helium on earth is not primordial, which is not the case in the universe.

</comment><comment><USER15> Based on _Mineral Evolution_ [1] as popularized in the books and lectures of Robert M. Hazen [2].

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

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

</comment><comment><USER16> The unlabeled color is for human synthesized elements without a stable isotope. Thanks wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER17> As you walk your way down the table is there a correlation with elements being more "recycled" for lack of a better term?

Ie. H and He are the basest elements and then everything else is formed through increasing amount of processes? Having a hard time articulating this one.

<comment><USER11> The process that drives stars is fusion, which turns light elements into heavier (strictly greater atomic number) elements, up to iron. Elements heavier than iron are created in supernovas, neutron star collisions etc.

Many heavier elements are unstable and will radioactively decay into light elements.

So it is a continual process both ways.

<comment><USER17> Do they decay to some stable middle region or are they decaying right back down to hydrogen? I'm guessing this is about entropy to an extent.

<comment><USER11> Memory is a bit rusty on this (30 years since I did nuclear physics) but elements have stable and unstable isotopes (with the same number of protons and a different number of neutrons). E.g. Carbon 12 and 13 are stable and Carbon 14 is unstable (half-life 5730 years). An atom will keep decaying until it reaches a stable form. Then it will stay like that until some nuclear fusion or fission event occurs.

<comment><USER11> Consequently most chains of decay will reach a stable form long before they get to Hydrogen.

<comment><USER4> For heavy elements this usually means a terminal at the 206, 207, or 208 isotopes of lead or thallium-205; radioactive isotopes smaller than that usually quickly hit a "nearby" stable isotope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even though I've seen that before, it never properly registered with me that Boron and Beryllium are made by a separate process: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation)

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's a great resource for the basics from professor Anna Frebel at MIT: [https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of- the...](https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of-the-chemical- elements-fall-2019/)

</comment><comment><USER20> It would be cool to see this made into a series of pie charts (one for each element) where the relative area of each pie chart is dictated by the relative abundance of each element.

<comment><USER21> 100+ pie charts? That sounds even worse than just one pie chart -- though given H and He make up ~98% of everything, squeezing the data into one pie chart would make it extra-awful.

<comment><USER20> I don't see how it would be awful. It would give the same information but also show how much matter is from each source. Vector graphics eliminate resolution concerns. Just zoom past hydrogen if it's taking up 98% of the screen.

Edit: to be clear: the reason it would "be cool to see" is because it's visualizing data. It's what graphs are for. I don't care about the pies of the pie charts. I care about being able to see the relative quantity of the colors and to also see the distribution of discrete element quantities in one image. There are many ways to do this. If you have a better suggestion, suggest it.

<comment><USER21> So you want to see the ratio of origin of all elements, but grouped by element? (one chart per element I think you said originally).

This is what the image in TFA actually has -- each element has one or more colours within its rectangle, and I assume that the proportion of each colour reflects relative provenance for that particular element.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but the information of the abundance of each element is not present. If that information was added into this plot then the relative amount of each color would be the relative abundance of the origin of elements.

<comment><USER21> I think it'd be a fairly difficult breakdown to represent usefully, given four elements (H, He, O, C) make up 99.4% of all matter.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Universe)

<comment><USER20> I don't see how an extreme distribution makes the representation less useful. See: vector images. In fact, the large disparity is relative abundance of elements is why it would be even more useful. A periodic table says next to nothing about how much matter has gone through nucleosynthesis since the big bang. You could show that with one pie chart, but then you lose the information about the distribution of masses. You haven't given a good reason why it wouldn't be useful to have all three pieces of information in one graph.

<comment><USER21> Well, firstly, I look forward to seeing your visualisation for these data - I'm curious how you can portray these 3 dimensions.

Secondly, you originally wrote:

> It would be cool to see this made into a series of pie charts (one for each > element)

so now when you say:

> You haven't given a good reason why it wouldn't be useful to have all three > pieces of information in one graph.

it feels like I'm not the person who needs to show this set of 100+ charts / one graph.

<comment><USER20> You left out the second half of my short first comment:

>where the relative area of each pie chart is dictated by the relative abundance of each element

I suggest reviewing HN's comment guidelines. They're the only reason anyone comes here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER21> Oh, I expect people come to HN to _see_ interesting things.

"It would be nice to ..." may not fit into that category.

Anyway, as I understand it, on an A4 infographic, you'd be expecting to see one pie chart (H) taking up 3/4 of the page.

Almost all the other 1/4 of the page would be taken up by an He circle.

Then you'd have a (still recognisable as a circle) for Oxygen, at about 6mm wide, the next would be 4mm wide for Carbon.

After that I'd guess we're at ~1mm pie charts for Neon, Iron, Nitrogen.

After the first 7 pie charts, each subsequent pie chart would be the size of a pixel (or sub-mm on a printed page). So it'd look like a hundred or so tiny dots.

Have I misunderstand the visualisation you're describing?

<comment><USER20> You seem to miss the point of HN, or in fact the very concept of communities in general.

Why do you think the graphic would be printed? If printed, why would it be smaller than 20 feet across? I am confused by these unreasonable assumptions.

<comment><USER21> Yes, quite. I certainly don't have your level of experience in HN and communities, so I appreciate your patience.

In any case, it sounds like you have two things:

a) an interest in having this visualisation, and

b) access to all the tools & data needed to make it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This chart brings up the question of HOW exactly each element is created...

A long time ago, in Alchemy, there was the idea that certain elements could be transformed into other elements by alchemical processes. This idea, back then, was called "Transmutation".

Now, scientists of today know transmutation as possible, but only with select heavy elements, and only in atom smashers/cyclotrons/large hadron colliders -- call them by whatever name you will.

Also, there exist radioactive elements which, over (usually!) very long periods of time, decay or transmute, into lighter elements.

The common theme, in all of the above, is radiation.

In other words, radiation is somehow linked to the transformation of elements.

Now, with that in mind, if I may posit an impromptu hypothesis, and that is, _not all radiation is created equal_...

In other words, you have alpha rays, beta rays, x-rays, gamma rays, etc. Or call them particles instead of rays if you prefer.

Anyway, Each of these particles/rays has different penetrating power. An alpha ray/particle (if I recall correctly) is blocked by a piece of paper, but it takes yards and yards of cement or metal to block a gamma ray -- and that's even if you can do it.

But, here's the thing.

Usually we see heat in the role of transforming things, not so much from element to element, but from compound to elements (i.e., refining iron from iron ore).

So, with that in mind, here's the hypothesis:

 _Perhaps heat -- is actually radiation, but at a lower scale /magnitude/area of effect/penetration-of-space/ability to traverse a distance, power_.

In other words -- heat is _localized radiation_.

Or, phrased another way, radiation is _heat -- but sent outward to a non-local distance._

So why is radiation "cold" at a distance to us humans?

Well, remember that that's a scale effect (the underlying energy should have the same pattern regardless of scale, that is, scale could be much smaller), and the Inverse Square Law ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse- square_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law)) still applies.

So, heat as localized radiation, and radiation as larger-in-scale-with- respect-to-distance heat.

A crackpot theory?

Perhaps!

You be the judge!

<comment><USER2> Riddle me this.

Why are there 4 fields (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity).

What even is a 'field'.

Why does gravity affect the other three?

What is time? What is space? What is quantum entanglement?

Why is there a universal speed limit?

Why do you need an 'equal and opposite reaction' to gain momentum, why can't you just convert angular energy directtly into linear energy in a single direction?

Why is there a universe at all, instead of nothing?

Etc, etc.

But as far as 'what is heat', you should read more, or just google your questions.

You might be surprised at how many other people have asked the same questions, and then set out to answer them, but with evidence. It's called "Science".

<comment><USER22> >Riddle me this.

>Why are there 4 fields (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity).

Why is it that certain pairs of things in the universe can influence each other at a distance, and other pairs of things cannot? (For example, a musical instrument resonating at the fundamental pitch of a wine glass can vibrate and/or potentially shatter the wine glass).

Why are there 4 fields? Well, potentially there are an _infinite_ number of fields -- but each one's "sphere of influence" is "local" to a specific scale. Some span the smallest units of distance; others span much larger scales...

>Why does gravity affect the other three?

Why do non-prime integers have multiple factors that divide into them; Conversely, why can larger integers be made by multiplying two or more integers; Think of this with respect to vibrations; with respect to waves; if something in the universe is affected by or affects something else, generally speaking it's because they vibrate sympathetically at some level or other. Also, it's possible that the other three forces are influenced by gravity because _gravity is the fundamental constituent of them_ , that is, they are all _created by gravity_ in various different configurations, just like larger integers are created by multiplying smaller ones, or larger patterns are created by smaller ones.

In other words, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and electromagnetic forces -- _ARE gravity_ \-- in its various modes/oscillations/vibrations/patterns/configurations/structures, etc.

Phrased another way, Gravity is the _Y Combinator_ of the other forces, the central low-level pattern from which the other higher-level patterns are built...

>What even is a 'field'.

In classical physics, you have the particle/wave duality. Basically, one is the other, depending on frame of reference.

That particle wave duality (I've determined) is actually a particle/wave/field TRINITY.

That is, particles ARE waves (depending on how you look at them), waves are particles (depending on how you look at them), BUT ALSO waves are fields (depending on how you look at them), and fields are waves (depending on how you look at them), and fields are particles (depending on how you look at them) and particles are fields, again, "depending on how you look at them".

Google "Starlings". A single starling at rest is a particle, in motion, it's a wave, and many of them together moving in unision, that's a field.

Also (and this is the advanced lesson), you can have various degrees of recursion in this, for example, a whole field of starlings could be viewed as a single particle, then that could comprise multiple particles if teamed up with other fields of starlings, and then those things could move like wave.

Think nested particles/waves/fields -- inside of other particles/waves/fields.

Also, the smallest unit of space (to implement all of the others), DOESN'T NEED TO PHYSICALLY MOVE; that is, it only needs to state-change, like a pixel, if it were a magnet, it could change from a North Pole to South Pole (or possibly neutral), if charged, the charge could go from positive to negative and back, if a region of force, the force could push one way and then the reverse, etc., etc.

But the smallest units of space... DON'T NEED TO PHYSICALLY MOVE. There's absolutely no motion on a TV or monitor screen; these are ILLUSIONS created by the mind's observation...

>Why does gravity affect the other three?

Asked and answered. See above.

>What is time? What is space? What is quantum entanglement?

You forgot "distance" and "velocity". What are they?

Space can be defined in terms of _speed (velocity) and time_ , i.e., if you travel 60 MPH for one hour, you've travelled one mile.

Time can be defined in terms of distance travelled relative to speed (velocity) -- if you travel at 60 MPH, and you don't know what time it is or when you started, but you know you've travelled 60 physical miles, then you know you've travelled for one hour.

And of course, speed (velocity) can be defined in terms of time and space.

But the problem is, try to separate one from the other two and define it by itself -- you can't do it. You need the other two to define the third one. Which means that they are all interrelated, and possibly aspects of the same basic thing...

>Why is there a universal speed limit?

There is none; this is fake news; "speed" is always relative to local distance, which is relative to scale. In the time it takes your local watch's second hand to move one second, Cesium will have osciallated 9,192,631,770 times in that second. Elephants move faster than Ants, but they're also physically larger. The Earth rotates at 430 meters per second, much faster than an Elephant walks -- but the Earth is much bigger in scale. The Earth revolves around the sun at 30 Kilometers/second but again, that's a larger scale. The Sun's motion in space, relative to the gravity well in our galaxy which it revolves around will be much faster than that, but again, it's relative to scale.

>Why do you need an 'equal and opposite reaction' to gain momentum, why can't you just convert angular energy directly into linear energy in a single direction?

If you were in outer space, pitch-black empty space, and there were no planets, stars, or other celestial objects by which you could compute your rate of speed, how would you know that:

A) You were stopped? B) That you weren't going at some rate of speed? C) That you weren't travelling at INFINITE SPEED?

In other words,

1) HOW WOULD YOU KNOW YOUR RATE OF SPEED, and

2) IF YOU COULD NOT KNOW YOUR RATE OF SPEED, THEN WHAT WOULD THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS STATE, AND THE STATES OF BEING STOPPED, TRAVELLING AT A SPEED, AND TRAVELLING AT INFINITE SPEED BE?

In other words, it's paradoxical. In this state 0 speed (stopped) = some speed = INFINITE SPEED. How would you know the difference? You couldn't...

Say it with me, "Speed is RELATIVE to a FRAME OF REFERENCE", if you're moving at a rate of 60,000 MPH away from a planet, _that planet is equally-and- oppositely moving at a rate of 60,000 MPH away from you_ (and it didn't invest any energy, not one drop, to gain that speed! <g>)

>Why is there a universe at all, instead of nothing?

Why are there billions of web pages, book pages, and other written documents in English, and yet, there are only 26 characters in its alphabet (or 52 if you count lower-case letters). Heck, 53 if you count 'space' as a character.

 _That 's one heck of a lot of things constructed from so small a set of repeating entities_. <g>

Etc, etc.

>But as far as 'what is heat', you should read more, or just google your questions.

I quote to you Socrates: "The true knowledge consists of knowing that you know nothing".

>You might be surprised at how many other people have asked the same questions, and then set out to answer them, but with evidence. It's called "Science".

Yes, but Science and all Scientific Evidence -- must be consistent _with itself_.

It's called "Logic".

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I (and no doubt all physicists) eagerly await your papers supporting these comprehensive theories.

<comment><USER22> I seek Principles.

I do not seek Accolades.

What's the difference?

Well, this brings up an interesting (to me at least! <g>) philosophical discussion about Principles Vs. Accolades, specifically as they relate to Science and Scientific Thought, in this day and age.

A Principle is any cause-effect relationship that is guaranteed to work consistently (e.g., Newton's Third Law).

An Accolade, on the other hand, to explain it, it requires the point-of-view of someone who has already attained one -- so let's use Albert Einstein as that first person point of view...

From Einstein's perspective then, things look like this: "Hey Einstein, you won the Nobel Prize, now you get these awards, honors, fame, privileges and benefits (and whatever else you get!) as a result of <papers written and/or other actions taken> to advance science, etc., etc."

An Accolade exists solely as privilege of some sort or sorts, and exists _solely in the social sphere_.

An Accolade might exist as fame, power, money, respect, influence, being attractive to the opposite sex, and/or series of privileges, such as being able to get an academic paper read, published, or combinations of one or more of the above, etc.

They're nice and all (I am not knocking them), but they exist on the other side -- as the EFFECT -- of having engaged in the work that someone like Einstein engaged in.

Again, I am not interested in Accolades.

To understand this, let's talk about Principles.

Principles do not just exist in physics, in science -- _principles exist across the whole spectrum of any subject that can be learned_ , from business and salesmanship to law and public policy, from finance and economics to psychology and human relationships, from writing and language to even such areas as comedy and movie production!

In short, there is no shortage of Principles that can be learned, in every field of human endeavor.

Having/Knowing/Understanding the right principle or principles for a given situation -- is not unlike having a pool table, and needing to make a specific shot, put a specific ball in a specific pocket.

The pool table is not unlike the current state of the Universe, and the ball to be sunk, in the pocket that it is to be sunk in, is not unlike the next succeeding desired state of the Universe.

Well, if the principles applied are the correct ones (in pool table terms, this would be the correct angle and correct velocity applied to the cue ball via the cue, pre-calculating all of the bounce angles and patterns of other balls), then whoever applies the correct principle(s) should get the change to the Universe desired, guaranteed every time, no questions asked!

Such is the power of Principles -- correctly applied.

You can get anything and everything you want in the Universe (I really believe that), but you must know the correct principle or principles, and you must know exactly when and under what circumstances to apply them ("timing is everything"...)

You see, anything that an Accolade could or ever would do for a person, a person could get by a different route, if they knew the correct principles, and when to correctly apply them...

Accolades fade and disappear as enough time passes, much like fame does.

Principles, on the other hand, are eternal.

They do not change over time, at least, not if they're true principles.

Also, with the right Principles applied correctly, you could get as many Accolades as you wished -- but the reverse is not true!

Accolades themselves do not make the recipient any more knowledgeable about, nor able to apply Principles!

Phrased another way, "Wisdom avoids vanity".

Now, with respect to physics papers, there are probably people today in physics (like Ramanujan was in his day in mathematics) who are utterly brilliant -- but their work is never read by mainstream physicists!

Why?

Well, think of physics papers in this day and age as not unlike what makes clothing fashionable...

In the fashion industry, in order to create a best-selling new fashion, the rule of thumb is that _you have to be slightly different, but not too different_ , from last year's best-selling fashions.

Applied to physics (or science in general then), _you have to be slightly different, but not too diffrent_ , from what's currently popular in the mainstream.

In other words, writing a scientific paper (if you want it read, published, lauded, etc., etc.) is no different than a _popularity contest_.

Sort of like, to quote the Zoolander movie, _" You duplicate, then you elaborate"_.

If I were going to write a paper and I wanted to make it popular and well- received, first I'd _duplicate_ (all of the trendy ideas and theories of the day, and that would be about 95% - 98% of the paper! <g>), then I'd _elaborate_ (add about 2% - 5% of something novel-sounding and attention- getting, regardless of whether it was logical, compatible, or even well- thought-out, or even the baseline assumptions were well-thought-out...).

But unfortunately, I have several "mental blocks" towards such an act... some of them are called: Ethics, Morals, Integrity, Honesty, Virtue, Values, Lawfulness, "Not wanting to waste other people's time by creating more B.S. for the world", etc.

You know, your basic _mental illness_! <g>

I claim being _intellectually handicapped_ in this area! <g>

So, to sum it all up, people can seek Principles (and not write papers!), or they can seek Accolades (and probably have to write a few papers, and do god- knows-what-else! <g>)

Principles are a _superset_ of Accolades, because with one, you can get the other, but not the other way around!

Accolades are a _subset_ of Principles (if set A is a superset of B, then set B must be a subset of A).

So, that is why I care about _Principles_ , not Accolades.

And that is why I don't really care to write papers... Who am I trying to impress, and WHY (key point!), WHY am I trying to impress them? What would I be trying to get out of that equation? Wouldn't there be another way to get those things via the proper application of the correct Principles?

As far as I know, Elon Musk doesn't write any papers, yet he has applied Principles (both in Science and Business) correctly(!)

Does he lack for any form of social privilege that might be bestowed by an Accolade?

?

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." (<\- Example of Principle)

-Archimedes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This table raises a lot of questions for me:

How does a "merged" neutron star, "unmerge?" Or is most of the Au of the universe tied up in neutron stars? And how does that work given that neutron stars are mostly... neutrons?

<comment><USER24> A neutron star "merger" is a collision between two of the hottest, densest objects in the universe that are still objects. These collisions are incredibly messy and energetic. Stuff gets blown everywhere - a lot of stuff.

Once freed and blown out into space, the remaining neutronium is incredibly unstable without the intense gravitational pressures holding it together. It will rapidly decay into relatively stable material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cool!</comment>


Ask HN: What Linux distro do you use for work, and why? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> debian

a) It just keeps on working.

b) They are conservative with new technology. This means that by the time things hit debian theyre well thought through.

c) The community behind debian is principled.

d) The debian package repository is very exhaustive.

e) They offer a small net install iso which is ~180 megabytes. This makes a fantastic foundation for a minimalistic linux install with a tiling manager (without pulling in monstrosities like libre office).

<comment><USER3> debian here too for most of these reasons

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Friends and family new to Linux: Mint. (Best interface options, great community, not sending your search query to amazon.com, very polished.)

Personal systems: Gentoo. (easiest to customize and automate for me, time investment required.)

Nginx/Apache: Debian. (stable security updates, minimal install)

MariaDB/Postgres: Debian. (security updates, stable branch, well tested.)

Other unless I am stuck with RPM: Debian (long term stability)

RPM: Fedora (works, but EOL is always soon, so make sure the server does only one thing)

</comment><comment><USER5> Ubuntu - because I can find answers for just about any problem easily.

In the past we started with Redhat then Centos, that was back in the day of more simple RPM where you had to resolve dependencies manually. We were mainly using the unit as an internal LAMP and file server, nothing exotic.

After Ubuntu went into creating server versions we went that route. The on- line community was way more active and the package manager just worked.

Ubuntu is definitely a route of lower frustration when things go wrong.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, isn't this timely? I've been running Xubuntu. I've been feeling like it's a little overkill. It may be time to give Crunchbang a try.

<comment><USER6> Yep, #! is what I'll be using moving forward. My needs are basic: vim, terminator (default on #!), vagrant, and virtualbox. #! just stays out of the way and needed very little keybinding changes out of the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> RHEL-derivatives (Scientific Linux, CentOS) for work since we deploy to RHEL for clients in production.

Mint 15 on my laptop

Switched my home desktop to Debian. Would want to switch my work laptop to Debian for longer term stability but not sure if all drivers are available (couldn't get Realtek HD SPDIF to work on my desktop). Can anyone with a Thinkpad T500 confirm that it works flawlessly?

</comment><comment><USER8> Ubuntu 12.04 with GNOME. For a couple of years I ran it with Unity out of the box, but then one day it crashed so badly I could not use the system at all, then I switched to GNOME and never turned back since then. Of course, you have to stop by gnome extensions website and tweak your UI a bit to smooth the rough edges found in default mode.

</comment><comment><USER9> I work on my dev server, CentOS 6.5. Last year I choose Ubuntu 10.04 on my old laptop (Intel Dualcore), but now I still can't decide best linux distro for my laptop, last time I try L/X/K/Ubuntu 13.04, but it make my laptop battery drain faster and really hot (AMD quadcore) and some of those distro can't work properly like has buggy in graphics, I already install the driver too.

<comment><USER10> I have CentOS on my main computer in part because of it's long support cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fedora. I've been using Redhat-flavored distros since the 90s, and we deploy on RHEL at work. Running Fedora gives me a RHEL-like environment with access to all the cutting-edge goodies.

I don't particularly have any issues with stability with it, despite its reputation for being bleeding edge.

</comment><comment><USER12> Elementary OS, just because it's Debian/Ubuntu based so it's nice and easy to use, but it's also fairly light-weight. I think because it's quite a nice looking distro as well, it just makes work a bit more of a pleasure. I feel sorry for the others still using Windows 7!

<comment><USER13> Isn't it just a linux distro with gnome3?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> On my work desktop and home laptop: Ubuntu. I just like Unity and I have got used to it now.

On our servers, we use CentOS though, so consequently, I keep a bunch of CentOS virtual machines for testing too. I think CentOS was chosen for our live servers because of it's stability.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ubuntu 12.04 on my servers, giving Elementary OS a try on my desktop.

</comment><comment><USER16> kubuntu. I came from Windows and love the ui. Ubuntu under the hood means noob and advanced support. Also, IMHO Konsole is one of the best terminal emulators around.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is a Chinese distro : [http://www.linuxdeepin.com/index.en.html](http://www.linuxdeepin.com/index.en.html) not bad.

</comment><comment><USER18> These days I mainly use Ubuntu. Love the package manager. Also, Ubuntu works well for openstack dev. Exploring FreeBSD since I want kqueue.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ubuntu. I would have went for Debian, but Ubuntu has better hardware support and more/better quality 3rd party repositories (PPAs).

</comment><comment><USER20> Ubuntu 13.10 with Mate desktop. The only solution I could find to use three screens on two nVidia GPUs with the propietary drivers.

</comment><comment><USER21> Technically I (have to) use Windows for work but for real 'work' I use Arch and push to an Ubuntu server if it needs to.

</comment><comment><USER22> crunchbang.org, simply because it gets out of the way while I work. I also use an arch/ob setup on my main laptop but that requires a fair amount of upkeep / fiddling and such isn't very suitable as a work horse.

</comment><comment><USER23> Ubuntu. It just works without hassle, especially when non-free drivers are involved.

</comment><comment><USER24> Elementary OS is great! I use it on all of my machines, it's very polished!

<comment><USER25> Elementary here as well! I just wish they updated a bit faster, I need a newer version of glibc and I can only get it from Ubuntu 13.10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Debian for personal computers and servers. OpenWRT for embedded devices.

</comment><comment><USER27> OpenSUSE for the latest and greatest stable packages.

</comment><comment><USER28> centos 6.x at work

I also have a centos 5.x box running personally

</comment><comment><USER29> Elementary OS, cool one.

</comment><comment><USER30> mint 14

</comment><comment><USER31> Ubuntu, am soo used to the Unity interface, when i try to move to other interfaces such as KDE or GENOME3 they just feel _bulky_

though if you are not a "beginner", i highly recommend ArchOS [https://www.archlinux.org](https://www.archlinux.org) \- by far the active- est community out there</comment>


Miguel De Icaza: Microsoft promises to never sue anyone regarding Mono. - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html

<comment><USER2> Miguel posted about this on proggit. Read the fine print. [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8yrtt/miguel_de...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8yrtt/miguel_de_icaza_microsoft_promises_to_never_sue/)

.

 _"The title of this submission is incorrect.

Microsoft promised not to [sue] over the ECMA parts of Mono. They made no declaration about ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms or other "up the stack" APIs.

That is why my blog post talks about splitting Mono's source code in two, the ECMA core and the rest.

I believe that both Debian and Ubuntu do fine-grained packaging and might already have this, but the source split will make it simpler for others._"

<comment><USER2> And (imo) there's no telling which way a judge might rule. Eg see the email exchange betwen rms & Bruno Haible on why CLISP is under gpl: [http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/...](http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why- CLISP-is-under-GPL)

" _I say this based on discussions I had with our lawyer long ago. The issue first arose when NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, following reasoning like what you are using; but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer.

What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is "really" one program, rather than how it is labeled._"

<comment><USER3> I think the point here is to protect end developers: if you want to be safe from future patent issues, they are making it easier to opt out of even installing any of .NET besides the ECMA core on your development systems, thus providing a decent guarantee that even if the rug gets pulled out from under Windows.Forms or ADO.NET, your app won't be impacted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't really see Microsoft as the enemy anymore, but playing in their back yard is still really, really foolish.

It's not like there's a shortage of cross-platform languages or good JIT VMs.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing how much paranoia and hate gets dumped on the Mono team around this issue. It must be seriously disheartening.

They just can't win. They need to spend so much of their time proving to everybody how open source they are, and how they hate Microsoft like everybody else (honest!), that they end up with pragmatist clowns like me griping at them for dragging their feet. And still there is this vocal part of the open source movement that will always hate them with a passion no matter what they do, because they dare to trust an evil corporation that eats babies and whatever else Microsoft is supposed to be up to these days.

This whole license things seems like such a non-issue to an outsider. It's just readily apparent that it's not in Microsoft's best interest to squash a project like Mono. Here they are saying it again, in the form of a legal contract, and STILL the die hards don't believe them.

Amazing.

<comment><USER6> Remember, the leader of the pack on this issue is RMS. He's not looking for a world of coexistence with Microsoft -- he wants them to go away and not come back. If you try to get inside of how he'd be approaching this issue you get to, "What about when Microsoft is on the way down? Will they fire back with these things?"

However, RMS is also pretty true to his stated purposes there; he'll welcome things back to the fold when situations change (e.g. the Qt / KDE schism over Qt's licensing), but he's not one to look at things from a good faith perspective when there's no guarantee of followthrough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is strange:

"Q: What if I don't implement the entire specification? Will I still get the protections under the CP? A: The CP applies only if the implementation conforms fully to required portions of the specification. Partial implementations are not covered."

<comment><USER8> The CP is then more or less useless for free and open source software---the freedom to modify and redistribute the software is worthless if any feature you choose to add, remove or modify makes you fair game for a patent lawsuit. The users have no real control over this sort of software, because they can't legally distribute modifications which violate the letter of the specifications.

It sounds like C# and the CLI is still best avoided for open source software.

<comment><USER9> It is not just a specification, it is a standard. Why would you even want to implement something violating the standard?

>It sounds like C# and the CLI is still best avoided for open source software.

Why? How does the language or compiler matter for writing open source or not? I think the sentence should read:

It sounds like Mono is still best avoided if you are paranoid

And moreover this news is about microsoft promising not to sue mono. It has nothing to do with microsoft suing or not suing you for writing code.

<comment><USER10> My kernel is pure .NET, but it will most likely never be a complete implementation. Why? Because many parts of it (e.g. the file stream APIs) are completely extraneous with my design. It may eventually have the unimplemented parts as wrappers for other components, but I find it highly unlikely it'll ever be a completely standards-compliant implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No company in the world has a technology comparable to .net/WPF on any platform, let alone all major platforms. Microsoft is giving it away. Show me the evil.

Google et al are taking your data and I defy you to reach a human being on the phone or by e-mail. It's already plain this approach will prevail, at the expense of the entirety of human discourse being 20% paid-for. This is really nothing against Google but it is a far more serious phenomenon than anything of the Microsoft/Stallman era in terms of individual liberty, and of reality not sucking.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not quite sure why Mono is so important. Technically, it's an interesting accomplishment to be sure, but I don't see that it gives you anything you can't get elsewhere. Particularly on the web front, MS is certainly not leading edge anymore.

On the desktop application front, this is certainly better than coding GTK apps in C, but other alternatives to that already existed (namely the Ruby and Python bindings for GTK).

The bottom line is that while C# and the .NET framework are certainly better than MS's previous development offerings, it still offers very little of interest in my opinion. Ruby, Scala, Clojure, and Python have much more compelling features for most problems.

<comment><USER13> Yes. Anyone care to give a short explanation of what exactly is so promising about Mono that it's worth all the worrying? Whether or not these fears pan out to anything, they're substantial enough that there should be a pretty good motivation for not just switching to another development platform.

<comment><USER14> The only thing I've ever heard is that some people _like_ programming in C# and refuse to learn other languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hate do do it (no, not really), but I told you so. :-)

Mono _is_ a patent minefield and trusting Microsoft not to sue based on a promise of good behaviour is ludicrously optimistic, at best.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone else think that trusting Microsoft (or any other corporation/business for that matter) with a PROMISE is a bad idea?

<comment><USER17> Maybe... Are these sort of "promises" legally binding?

<comment><USER18> Remember when Microsoft promised an open document standard for the next Office -- and it was many thousands of pages that was less than trivial to implement?

(Without looking, I assume that to add maiming to injury, the standard allowed variations, so non-Microsoft documents could be made incompatible between versions of Office?)

I haven't played the game, but the idiom these days seems to be "the cake is a lie".

<comment><USER19> Did you really expect the document standard to be 10 (or even 100) pages long and trivial to implement?

How long is the full spec for HTML, or PDF? Are either of those "trivial" to implement? Both of those formats are, IMNSHO, inherently simpler than the sum total of complexity of all the Office document formats. (Even if you just include Word and Excel)

Microsoft can't win here. Either they document the simple middle-of-the-road, 90% of Word docs conform, case, and get skewered for not being open enough. Or they release the full spec and get skewered for "Wow, writing a competitor to the most common word processing and spreadsheet application is actually harder than creating hotornot or million-dollar-homepage."

<comment><USER18> A competing standard, which didn't have to do dirty tricks to get ISO certified, was a fraction (tenth?) of the size.

Also, claims of innocence is extra absurd here:

[http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Microsoft_offers_to_pay_blogger_...](http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Microsoft_offers_to_pay_blogger_to_%27correct%27_Wikipedia_article)

<comment><USER19> The file formats for other competing formats (like say, .txt or .csv) are also very simple.

They also don't fully interoperate with Word or Excel.

<comment><USER18> You have a point, I guess it would be impossible to define a better format for use with the Office package. (Sadly, that wasn't a joke.)

I talked about compatibility in another comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=691268>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone here know if their promise will cover future versions? Or if they can sue an implementation of an older version of ECMA 334 and 335 if they chose to extend it?

And how much ECMA standards are worth if Microsoft decides to extend them in their implementations? It seems to me whatever comes with the latest Visual Studio is the de-facto standard, not whatever ECMA publishes.

</comment><comment><USER20> If a "promise" holds any weight in court, why do contracts ever have to be written and signed?

<comment><USER21> Because they're much easier to pin down and enforce than spoken promises: or even publicly published ones. Note that they often have clauses indicating that they supersede any prior agreements [read - the salesman's "promise" isn't enforceable].

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> note this isn't for everything, but only some parts.

</comment><comment><USER23> That's excellent news.

<comment><USER24> Yes it is :) But unfortunately it won't put a stop to all the flames. Many people just like being anti-something.

<comment><USER25> _Many people just like being anti-something._

People weren't anti-Microsoft without reasons.

<comment><USER24> Giving logical arguments that are anti-Microsoft is perfectly reasonable. Dedicating your life to being anti-Microsoft and blaming people for their choices, yelling "wolf" every time someone does something cool (and starting a blog in the process that explains on a weekly basis how free-software is at peril) ... is just insane.

Unfortunately I've been there ... back in the day I posted a couple emails on mono-list about how Gnome is poisoned (with all the bells and whistles of an anti-MS propaganda, GNU/Linux and all that crap). I ignited flame-wars that probably ruined the day for some people.

In retrospect I really regret that.

Young people want to be a part of something. If that something promises to save the world from evil, it's even more alluring.

For me the day came when I got married :) Since I believe in "doing what you love" it can be unbearable at times while working hard for an income to support your family, to still work on cool shit, and to still have valid arguments for a religion that promotes and even requires "free as in speech" for products of essentially _very_ hard work.

<comment><USER18> Oh, everything in moderation. But personally, I don't buy stuff from criminal monopolists.

In some situations, I assume I might buy from criminals -- but I avoid monopolists like the plague.

The problem with monopolists is that they have business reasons to not be compatible. That means they have to keep their systems so complex that they can't easily be cloned -- and also to be a bit incompatible between versions.

That damages my life quality, if I worked with their stuff.

That was a logical argument. After someone damaged my life quality, I will be pissed off. That is human nature.

Edit: The ending was too harsh, I do believe you didn't intend an ad hominem... you just think that it is meaningless to be upset about Microsoft. I hope you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> thats a good news.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bwhahahahahaha.

You want to trust Microsoft to keep their words? Really? When has that ever happened in the past, ever.

You can trust them to do everything in their power to screw you over and nothing short.

This isn't a fanboy hate post either. From a purely business perspective aligning with Microsoft is toxic.

<comment><USER24> You don't have to trust Microsoft. If trust was required for collaboration, contracts would've been useless.

You can trust the legal system though ... what you're looking for it's called "estoppel": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel>

<comment><USER28> Interesting, but I don't think that this concept applies to the "civil law" countries.</comment></comment></comment>


It was inspired by James Bond's Lotus Esprit submarine after all - <AUTHOR> https://carbuzz.com/news/elon-musks-says-the-tesla-cybertruck-can-float <comment><USER2> Floating too easily is dangerous [1] Modern cars don't sink as quickly as old cars because the cabin is sealed better but this actually traps people inside the car whilst the car is floating to a more dangerous location.

[1] [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-18/research-shows- cars-d...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-18/research-shows-cars-deadly- in-floodwaters/7522798)</comment>