React v0.12 - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/28/react-v0.12.html <comment><USER2> I don't know if I'm reading the changes wrong, but I'm not liking how I have to do an extra step if I don't use jsx. I want to use coffescript and not have to do extra stuff.

I definitely feel this forced vibe around making everyone use jsx, but have yet to hear any compelling reasons why it's better.

<comment><USER3> Hi, this was a tough call for us to make. We wanted to everything we could to avoid extra bloat for everyone. In the end, most people tend to use some kind of extra helper, even if it's not JSX. E.g. a custom library or another third party language.

One reason for this change is to make it possible to use object literals or record syntax where that is more appropriate than function calls. We don't currently recommend it because there's no validation in that case, so you probably want static analysis to catch errors. I would encourage you to play with the idea of using object literals instead of function calls though.

One compelling reason for this change is that in 0.13 you will be able to build components using plain CoffeeScript classes instead of relying on React.createClass. So, in the end, you will be getting some of that bloat/overhead back.

We're definitely not making React depend on JSX. We will continue to support non-JSX and fully support compile-to-JS languages. Unfortunately, that sometimes means a trade-off. In this case trading React.createClass for React.createFactory. Some would've preferred it be the opposite tradeoff but React.createFactory gives us more benefits than the opposite.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the response.

Could you give me a quick example of calling a component with object literals instead of functions? I'm not understanding how that will play out in the final code.

Also, isn't it just adding React.createFactory, not replacing React.createClass?

<comment><USER3> In CoffeeScript it might look something like this:

element = type: 'div' props: className: 'container', children: [ type: 'span', props: className: 'foo' type: CustomClass, props: className: 'bar' ]

(This doesn't fully work in 0.12 because we also have some extra properties on there but that's the direction we're going.)

0.12 is just adding React.createFactory. 0.13 will optionally replace React.createClass.

We do this so that there's a seamless upgrade path. We have to remove the warnings to fix the classes.

<comment><USER4> I guessed that indentation:

        element =
          type: 'div'
          props: className: 'container'
          children: [
              type: 'span'
              props: className: 'foo'
          ,
              type: CustomClass
              props: className: 'bar'
          ]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm disappointed that JSX is now so coupled to React. I was looking forward to JSX being used by many different JavaScript frameworks[1], but this change reveals the devs are not interested in moving that direction.

[1] Example: [https://github.com/mrsweaters/mithril- rails](https://github.com/mrsweaters/mithril-rails)

<comment><AUTHOR> We do actually want JSX to be flexible and usable for not just React, which is why we're trying to write a formal specification of the syntax with multiple parser implementations:

[http://facebook.github.io/jsx/](http://facebook.github.io/jsx/)

We intentionally don't specify semantics to give different transpilers the flexibility to compile the JSX into whatever's appropriate for the library you're using.

<comment><USER5> A specification is great, and I'm happy to see that. However, even though it's true that transpilers can compile JSX with arbitrary semantics, it still requires _writing your own transpiler_.

JSX is a great syntax, and these changes mean nothing if you're a transpiler writer. What I was hoping for was the JSX transpiler _that React uses_ would become flexible enough for any library to use, without the need to modify/rewrite the transpiler itself.

Yes it's possible for someone _else_ to write something like this, but writing a compiler is no small feat =/

<comment><USER6>
        JSX is a great syntax

It's really not. It's just mixing syntaxes to solve the problem that mixed syntaxes causes. Higher order functions (i.e. createFactory) is a much better solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What options are there for syncing flux stores on the server and client?

I ask this because the increasing move towards microservices seems to suggest that "joins" are going to start taking place on the client via waitFor.

For example, if I get model A and it depends on Models B, C and D. I don't want to have to wait for the client to fetch model A before it knows it needs to fetch models, B, C and D. Ideally, as model A passes through the server side store layer, it already starts fetching models B, C and D so it has those ready to serve to client, (or better yet it anticipates that the client is going to want B, C and D and eagerly sends that data to the client).

<comment><USER7> That sounds like a problem of pushing too much processing to the client side.

<comment><USER7> A downvote for pointing that out.

Can someone explain why I would want to do joins on the client side, when there is mature, well tested, well understood technology for doing joins on the server side? All the data is going to be on the server, so no danger of loosing a connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a huge problem with this change explained here: [https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/da8c020662ea8e6002dc](https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/da8c020662ea8e6002dc)

<comment><USER9> Rest assured, see sebmarkbage's and my reply here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8523732](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8523732)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524465)

<comment><USER8> The object literal syntax also sucks :(

[https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/79c09610cac5a67f4a5d](https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/79c09610cac5a67f4a5d)

<comment><USER10> Agreed.

* JSX more tightly coupled,

* less straightforward JSX->JS mapping - I used to be so excited to tell people how JSX simply maps to function calls in JS... well, now it generates boilerplate instead.

* worse non-JSX syntax

I don't buy the ES6/CS/TS argument - wrapping classes with createFactory before exporting seems fine to me, and I use typescript. Also, from what I can see the object literal syntax is always worse.

So its basically all about Jest. The only reason I see is that a mocking tool can't handle factories. Makes me a bit sad. Seems like a good example of "test induced design damage" to me. How about adding plugins to that mocking tool instead?

<comment><USER11> If you wrap the class in createFactory() then you break instanceof; how is this fine?

<comment><USER10> True. But I can't come up with an example where I'd use instanceof on react components, can you give me one?

<comment><USER12> Just wondering .. maybe it's used internally by the library?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A sincere and big thank you for building and evolving this awesome tool that simplified UI madness in browsers. :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> As a person who is using react, this is a welcome change! I'm glad they're taking time to get rid of the kludgy code that wasn't quite consistent.

<comment><USER2> Hey can you explain how they improved consistency because I just don't understand how the new changes help. I may just not understand what they did at a fundamental level.

<comment><USER14> IMHO it's more consistent because the things that react has been modifying have been Elements all along (DOM Elements).

React called them components, and it's always felt like a kludge to create some thing that WAS a DOM element (boiling down to React.DOM), and then set it's "tagname" as an after-thought.

Things like prop are tied directly to the DOM Element, further suggesting that the "thing" the component was, was actually a DOM Element.

I guess it's really subjective, but I think it'll be clearer to explain to people now:

"React manages creation and rendering of dynamic/intelligent (DOM) Elements"

(bonus points for no overlap with the Web Components terminology)

But then again a lot of this is just my opinion, consistency

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Always really happy to see a ton of breaking changes in a pre-1.0 release, and very pleased that they're all moving towards simplifying the public API.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ouch. I've been building dynamic components using transferPropsTo(), which is now deprecated. It's very flexible and working well, so I'm a bit bummed to see it go.

      render: function() {
        // after building up some object, propsObj that is determined by state

        return this.transferPropsTo(
          Component(propsObj)
        );
      }

<comment><USER17> No problem, just do this instead:

      render: function() {
        // Assign propsObj here

        return <Component {...propsObj}/>;
      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't get the React.isValidComponent -> React.isValidElement change. Wasn't "class" the name of the abstract idea of component and "component" the name of the actually rendered component, the class materialized in a DOM?

<comment><AUTHOR> See this post for a description of our terminology:

[http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/14/introducing-...](http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/14/introducing- react-elements.html)

If I write

      var C = React.createClass(...);

      var e = <C />;
      var c = React.render(e, document.body);

then _C_ is a class, _e_ is an element (previously "descriptor"), and _c_ is the actual mounted component. Components are generally accessible only through "this", refs, and the return value of React.render.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my favorite patterns in React is using functions to wrap a React component.

It goes something like this:

      App.Button = React.createClass({
        render: function(){
          var className = 'btn '+this.props.className
          <a href className={className}>{this.props.children}</a>
        }
      });

      App.BigButton = function(props){
        props = props || {};
        props.className = 'btn-large '+props.className
        return App.Button.apply(null, arguments)
      };

How would you do something like this?

<comment><USER3> This is actually an anti-pattern that we're explicitly trying to get rid of. The fewer components you have, the fewer optimization hooks you have. This also have subtle changes in semantics, and disables local optimizations in the consuming files.

The idea of a lightweight declaration of a component (e.g. a just function) is definitely still on the table and might be resurrected in a different form.

[https://github.com/reactjs/react- future/blob/master/01%20-%2...](https://github.com/reactjs/react- future/blob/master/01%20-%20Core/03%20-%20Stateless%20Functions.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So are ES6 classes for components coming in 0.13?

<comment><USER17> You can use ES6 classes today:

        class Button {
          render() {
            return <button>{this.props.label}</button>;
          }
        }

        Button = React.createClass(Button.prototype);

Of course, it would have been nice to be able to skip that last line, and extend/mix in some React base class instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been looking into React.js recently and I have a general question. Is it possible to use React.js with zurb foundation cleanly? It appears that it will not work well because Foundation expects to modify the state of the DOM for Foundation elements. Are there any workarounds?

<comment><USER21> After looking into this I've come to the conclusion that rewriting the JavaScript to handle events through React's system is the best way to include Foundation's JS components. (This is something I'm planning to do with Foundation-for-Apps since I won't be using Angular).

That said, the styles are still usable without modification and you could tell React to not handle pieces of the DOM in some cases for the existing JS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The license change paragraph mentions patents. Anyone knows which Facebook patents are used in React?

</comment><comment><USER23> How are bindings in React not two-way? Update an input field and it updates the underlying JS object. Update the object and it updates the input field. I thought that was the definition of two-way, regardless of what happens behind the scenes.

<comment><USER24> It doesn't update the underlying object for you by default.

If you use an uncontrolled component (by giving it a defaultValue/defaultChecked prop) you have to pick up the new value using an event or directly via the DOM. If you do it this way, you can't update the displayed value by changing the props passed to it.

If you use a controlled component (by giving it a value/checked prop), its displayed value won't update unless you pick up the new value from an event and set it in whichever JS object you have holding its state for the next render. There's a helper for doing that, or it's easy enough to roll your own event handler which takes care of all your fields.

[http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/forms.html](http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/forms.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can someone explain what the "spread operator" is and how to use it?

<comment><USER26> [https://gist.github.com/sebmarkbage/07bbe37bc42b6d4aef81](https://gist.github.com/sebmarkbage/07bbe37bc42b6d4aef81)

<comment><USER27> Wow, the example in that gist:

      var component = <Component {...props} foo={'override'} />;

Wha?? For me, there's a point in a language where the benefits of syntactic sugar are outweighed by readability concerns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Are the v0.11 docs available anywhere other than the Github markdown files?

</comment><comment><USER29> off topic a bit, but why do the CDN urls 301 redirect?

<comment><USER30> Mostly what @BinaryBullet said. fb.me is a urlshortener and then it hits real CDNed files. I (as maintainer of React) suggest not actually using fb.me urls in production. Use cdnjs or jsdelivr. Or host it yourself. We've been meaning to put together a proper CDN hosting setup for JS libraries but just haven't gotten around to it.

<comment><USER29> Out of curiosity why don't you suggest using the fb.me urls in production? It would be nice to take advantage of the reach of Facebook to know that a decent percentage of users would have hit the CDN'ed react url before hitting non-fb site(s).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really don't see the point of making so much breaking changes just to simplify the public API. The thing was working, it was good. It didn't need any changes. God would have rested.

But well, the developers were there and, you know, they cannot see a repository without commits for much time, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> We made these changes to try to make React better for everyone, but if you would like to continue using React 0.11, please do.

<comment><USER18> Please, don't take this as an offense. I didn't mean to. This was an attempt of a joke, but it clearly didn't come out the way I wanted.

I love React, I love you guys for making React and I'm sorry for this comment.</comment></comment></comment>


How to remove Google Search new left sidebar - <AUTHOR> http://webtrickz.com/removehidedisable-sidebar-in-new-google-search-results/ I find the left sidebar annoying. I wish there was a feature do enable/disable the sidebar like in the old interface. <comment><USER2> Also go here>> <http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all> for the classic interface

</comment><comment><USER2> well, this topic has been discussed too much on HN. Please stop this topic. GOD!!!!

Well, follow this discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329784> Also, the best remedy is here: <http://goo.gl/qzlL></comment>


Scobleizer: This is why I love the tech industry… - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/24/this-is-why-i-love-the-tech-industry/ <comment><USER2> Okay, someone care to define what Scoble means by "The Insiders" and "World Wide High School", because unless I'm just plain naive, Scoble just came out of the closet and affirmed to us that he thinks a bit too much of himself.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I focus on building apps or practicing coding tasks to get a job? - <AUTHOR> Which is more valuable for interviewers: having couple of working and deployed projects or be good at doing coding tasks?<p>I have 3 year programming experience but feel lack of confidence when I think about interview. And I wonder if having couple of projects on Github can replace whiteboard coding. <comment><USER2> Problem solving is a pretty important skill; very few whiteboard interviews address the day-to-day issues you'll see in a large production environment. Task organization is an extremely close second.

Get yourself a (public) cloud account of some sort (AWS, Azure, Google, etc.) and work on having some functional infrastructure (containers, DNS, applications, content delivery) along with the requisite monitoring and security.

Anything you do from that point should live atop that infrastructure, with the same expectations that a prospective employer might have when working on a production team (DevOps, pure dev, pure ops, whatever).

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're young and beginning your career, start with coding practice. As you gain years of experience, the incentive and time you can afford to scruff your way through it keeps declining.

Keep building apps/websites/tools/scripts on the side (after works, weekends, day offs, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you can pre-verify the need for your app by getting people to sign up for a mailing list or otherwise, then go for the app, otherwise get a job.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, I wasn't clear.

I mean: Which is more valuable for interviewers: having couple of working and deployed projects or be good at doing coding tasks? (I have 3 year programming experience)

<comment><USER3> At top companies, there's very little chance you are getting through without being convincingly good at CS heavy topics (DataStructures, efficient algorithms, etc.)

Case in point: [https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en)</comment></comment></comment>


Starship Troopers: one of the most misunderstood movies ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/ <comment><USER2> I don't get why people wouldn't see it.

At the beginning it has a speech about the failure of democracy, how violence is the only legitimate force in the universe. Government by an elite, with restricted rights for civilians (want children? become a citizen), a propaganda network, a perpetual state of war; including belittling the enemy ("I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive") and belittling anyone who wants to live differently (mormon extremists).

What it doesn't have is any major character questioning the state that they are living under - but then looking around today, sometimes that seems pretty accurate as well.

<comment><USER3> > What it doesn't have is any major character questioning the state that they > are living under - but then looking around today, sometimes that seems > pretty accurate as well.

That's the "problem" \- the film assumed the viewer had enough brain to see the satire instead of spelling it out. Apparently that wasn't true of most reviewers at the time. (I saw it when it came out and loved it. Much more than the book which was depressingly fascist apologetic.)

<comment><USER4> _I saw it when it came out and loved it. Much more than the book which was depressingly fascist apologetic._

Maybe people were projecting the book onto the movie?

<comment><USER5> I suspect they were projecting the book onto the movie so strongly that it actually drown out the movie. That or they were just upset that the movie didn't feature the wildly unfilmable powered suits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This movie isn't misunderstood or clever at all. It was originally exactly as dumb as people think it is (working title: "Bug Hunt On Outpost Nine), but the studio realized they could get the license to Starship Troopers for free.

Verhoeven didn't even read Starship Troopers-- he skimmed a few chapters, decided it was depressing and that Heinlein was a fascist, and made the movie a parody of the book, and a lazy parody at that.

When people call this movie dumb, they're completely right, albeit not for the reasons they may think.

<comment><USER5> I've read the book, and seen the movie. Let me tell you, I can't say that anything more than a skimming of that book is necessary. It's about as one dimensional as sci-fi gets. Worse even than Scott Cards work, and I don't say that lightly. Both _Enders Game_ and _Starship Troopers_ replace that tedious work of actually figuring out what sort of character development you want to be in your story with _" young naive guy matures as he learns the value of war."_

The movie, for all of its _self-aware_ cheese, has much more to offer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I saw it, the thing that shocked me the most was that the people around me just didn't get it. I came out of the theatre (Manns Chinese in Hollywood) dumb-founded at the snippets of conversation I heard that revealed that, honestly, kids just didn't get that the target of the satire was _them_.

I wasn't prepared for the enlightenment that this movie gave me. I came to realize that we were living in the exact world that the movie depicts - teenage morons controlled by masters of jingo'ism, sending their sons and daughters off to fight in totally senseless, pointless wars.

It was shocking to me that, while I was able to see that it was a political statement masquerading as sci-fi, the kids only saw it as 'dumb sci-fi'. What was going on, I wondered to myself, that there are people who really just do not get it?

That question was answered a few years afterwards, on 9/11\. I'll never forget the wide-eyed enthusiasm of an 18-year old I met in the days afterwards, who was preparing his life to sign up and go to war. It reminded me precisely of that movie, and that frankly scared the hell out of me.

I'm glad that this is getting some attention now, but I fear its too late. Too many kids grew up thinking that war was good for them and good for society, and it was the only option they had for employment, after all, so why not ..

<comment><USER8> Young _homo sapiens_ males have a natural instinct for war, which can be expressed or not depending on circumstances. Going to war is the historical high risk + high reward option: you might be killed, but if you survive, you have a good shot at becoming richer, more powerful, and having offspring (both by becoming a desirable husband/son-in-law, and through the pervasive rapes in which victors indulged after a won battle). Founding a startup is a modern incarnation of that instinct, appealing mostly to the same young males demographic, albeit skewed toward those with very favored socio-economical backgrounds.

So, the less hope people have to thrive the "regular" safe way, e.g. because of durable economical crisis and loss of upward social mobility, the more likely they are to respond well to jingoism.

As a side-note, polygyny and jingoism are strongly correlated. Indeed for each man with several spouses, there are unwilling bachelors. They're willing to take the high-risk road and fight battles to become patriarchs; as a bonus, war casualties increase the female/male ratio.

I recommend reading _The Red Queen_ if you're interested by all aspects of mating strategies and risk acceptance, not limited to human beings nor even whole organisms ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature)).

<comment><USER7> I think these sorts of glib 'truisms' are used to justify an awful lot of bad behaviour. Just ask the feminists if they think its an acceptable justification for young male misogyny .. its not going to help anyone if we justify continued transgression against our species with "natural law requires this 'natural' behaviour".

<comment><USER8> Beware not to get confused between explanation and justification. Whenever a social issue is worth struggling for, that's precisely because of the mismatch between how things are and how they ought to be, it's essential to have a fair assessment of things as they are.

Those who suffer from mental confusion between how things are and how they ought to be, tend at best to be ineffective, and often to discredit the cause they wish to defend. As you hinted, some variants of feminism are confronted with such issues.

Another kind of confusion to avoid is between "natural" and "legitimate". "Natural" means "spontaneous", it's almost the exact opposite of "civilized". Describing something as natural is certainly not justifying it. Some forms of populisms abuse the natural/legitimate confusion to manipulate masses, but that's no reasoning, let alone sound reasoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another unsung layer to this movie is just how well it ties into key influences on Heinlein prior to his writing the novel. The novel itself is heavily influenced by WWII wartime military and popular culture, and roots its social thought experiments in that context. The movie turns this into visual leverage, weaving together elements from WWII era propaganda films and Hollywood's subsequent decades of iconography of that era.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to like Starship Troopers more but I can't.

Starship Troopers had a couple smart things to say but said it through a shit movie. Turgid dialog, horrible acting, repugnant characters and general cheesiness. I know the writers wanted to say all these people are idiots but society doesn't go astray because everyone is an idiot – you have to show how smart characters are caught in situations that constrain them to be idiots or at least a have few characters that realise the ridiculousness but are overridden or sidelined. You can't just write a bad movie and blame the characters for being stupid.

My standard rule is that to properly satirise or ridicule something, a story must simultaneously be a good example of target being parodied as well as having a strong parody element.

Starship Troopers tries to parody the military machine but it fails because its a terrible military action movie. To be a good parody of the military (and the political and social machine around it), it must also be a good military action film – both levels must work for the film to be good.

I like to give Galaxy Quest as a good example of a film that's both excellent parody and an exemplar of the genre being parodied. It absolutely pillories Star Trek, bad sci-fi writing, unbelievable monsters, magic science, red- shirts, ridiculous sets with no purpose and humanoid aliens-of-the-week but at the same time it has likeable characters, excellent acting, a properly scary villain and has a real sense of "earning" the ultimate victory at the end.

Starship Troopers has none of this and tries to use cheesiness and parody as an excuse for failing to make the movie better. Sorry, I have to evaluate a film based on more than its satirical message.

<comment><USER11> > My standard rule is that to properly satirise or ridicule something, a story > must simultaneously be a good example of target being parodied as well as > having a strong parody element.

The obvious counterexample that leaps to mind is Catch-22, which isn't a good war novel at all but is a brilliant antiwar satire.

<comment><USER12> I agree. The grandparent's rule seems to exclude many of the classics of satire.

Consider Voltaire's _Candide_. Taken at face value, its genre is somewhere between "young man's growth story" and "colony-era adventure novel". Is it a good example of high-quality writing in those genres? Certainly not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I watched Starship Troopers a few months back. One of the thing I loved the most about the movie is those TV segment where it just broadcast propaganda and always ends with: "Do you want to know more?"

It remotely felt like when I read 1984 for some reason. Couldn't entirely tell why.

<comment><USER14> If you liked Starship Troopers, watch their straight-to-video sequels. Low production value, kitschy special effects, but written by the same guy.

They're terrible movies really, but a nice dose of the ultra-blatant satire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Odds are that, if you read the book first, you'll probably hate the movie. They really are totally different. Personally, I don't believe fidelity to the source is necessary for an adaptation to be successful. Plenty of films have been made that are slaves to the source and are terrible as a result! Great films are often made from bad books, so why can't great films just be different from the great books they're based on?

I do think there's room for a more faithful adaptation of the book, but that doesn't change the fact that Verhoeven's film is brilliant and hilarious. If you go in expecting it to be faithful to the book (or you're a bit of a hawk yourself to begin with), I can see why you might interpret it as a serious, but _bad_ flick. Great films aren't always intended for all audiences however!

If Verhoeven can be faulted, it's for making "Hollow Man". Now _that_ flick sucked!

<comment><USER16> Knowing that the movie was coming prompted me to read the book first, having seen it discussed fondly.

I enjoyed the book, but was surprised by its unfashionable celebration of martial values: in particular a viewpoint about the necessity and inevitability of war. They couldn't possibly get that into a modern mass- market sci-fi action flick, I thought.

But Verhoeven did! And he managed to work in overlapping layers of both respect _and_ criticism for the militaristic source material. He makes the jingoism and quasi-fascism alternately seem attractive, clownish, revolting, and necessary.

Preserving some of the book's rhetorical case for warmaking, even though Verhoeven also simultaneously mocks that case, is a subversive achievement as interesting, and in a way as faithful to the book's ideas, as a film featuring more of the "super suits" and infantry-tactics would have been.

<comment><USER17> Verhoeven said in an interview that he never read the source material, only the screenplay. (sorry, no source online)

Fair enough - he was making a movie, not a book report for Heinlein fans.

<comment><USER16> Verhoeven may have said that. Whether it's true is another matter; he could have been trolling the book's fans.

For a project that supposedly started as another entirely unrelated movie, by a director who hadn't read the book, it managed to fit in a _lot_ of the book's particular rhetoric and plot points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> After reading this, watch Robocop again. Same director, same critique on society.

Really adds another layer to it.

<comment><USER19> My memories are hazy, but Robocop felt very different. It did not criticize the establishment (i.e. the police) very much. In fact, the main character was a cop who got fatally wounded by "the bad guys" and then was resurrected as a badass robot and delivered sweet payback.

Most of the satirical elements in Robocop were directed at corporations.

<comment><USER20> Watch it again.. the bad guys are not some random street thugs, it is OCP, a mega corporation that produces the robots and is essentially a government organization (since that world is a "corporatocracy").

<comment><USER14> More specifically, "the bad guys" and OCP were actually in cahoots. The CEO of OCP has the main villain kill a junior OCP executive after the executive humiliates the CEO.

There is also a subplot where OCP is deliberately working with street gangs to drive up the crime rate and gather public support for demolishing the entirety of old Detroit and building the corporate-owned "Delta City" in its place.

The movie does criticize the establishment, it just stops short of criticizing the actual street cops.

Side note: I'm actually looking forward to the remake. I had strong fears that the reboot would be strictly all-action and contain none of the social commentary. While it looks like the movies will lose its satirical elements, the cynicism will remain. I watched another movie by Jose Padilha recently and I'm hopeful.

<comment><USER19> >>The movie does criticize the establishment, it just stops short of criticizing the actual street cops.

That is what I meant. Contrast that to Starship Troopers, where the military (the organization the main characters are a part of) is spared no criticism.

<comment><USER21> The central characters in Robocop were treated empathetically, the scathing social satire and black comedy were not central to the main storyline of heroes and villians, so there was still an engaging film even for those viewers lacking the social awareness needed to appreciate irony.

In Starship Troopers, every character was disposable, hence the gigantic 'whoosh'.

I recommend 'Hollow Man', Verhoeven's last, and largely forgotten Hollywood film, released in 2000. It's even more subversive, and the subversive message is even more subtle. So subtle in fact that I doubt even the film's producers were aware of what was going on. It's either a terrible B-grade hollywood sci- fi thriller, or brilliant black comedy, depending on whether or not you latch on to the subtext.

<comment><USER22> Another movie in the same vein is "Battleship." It "woooshed" a lot of people, but there are some controvertible clues that it was more than just an "America, fuck yeah!" movie. Most notably the song during the end credits which is Creedence's "Fortunate Son." I'm sure some people won't even be convinced by that fact, but then Reagan used Springsteen's "Born in the USA" during his campaign in 1984, so I guess some people just aren't wired for satire.

For me, the best thing about "Battleship" is how the director convinced the US military to donate the use of all that hardware to a movie with such an anti- military message. The DoD doesn't do that sort of thing lightly, they require script approval and have a strict policy that they won't help with a movie that is at all critical. Slipping that right under their noses like that was a real coup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When this first came out, the adverts on TV showed a movie full of action and dripping in coolness, I went to the first day of opening and the audience was dumbstruck about 15 minutes in, it was so 90210-esque. The social satire was brilliant in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Why Everyone Gets Robocop But Nobody Gets Starship Troopers"

[http://www.overthinkingit.com/2009/11/26/starship- troopers-f...](http://www.overthinkingit.com/2009/11/26/starship-troopers- fascism/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't get it. Very much at the beginning of the movie a paraplegic army recruiter proudly proclaims: "Mobile infantry made me the man I am today."

How can anyone take that at face value?

<comment><USER11> As satire the brilliant part about that, and a few of the other really shocking things like the drill sergeant beating up a new recruit to establish himself as head of the pack, or the whipping, is that it's lifted fairly directly from the book.

A subset of the fans of the book get mad because the violence and fascism seemed so much cooler in their heads. Other fans recognize that Heinlein's books were to some degree experimental (it's science fiction!) and enjoy the joke. I've always been surprised at how many people who knew the book didn't get it, but that's life.

<comment><USER26> The problem I had with the movie is that it took a well thought out book and reduced it to hollywood stereotype.

For example, later on in the book and the movie, a recruit asks why they learn to throw knives when guns make them obsolete. In the book, the sergeant gives an explanation of tradition and admits that knife throwing is a fairly useless skill for mobile gundam suit pilots. In the movie, the sergeant just throws the knife at the cadet's hand. Towards the end of the book it's revealed that drill sergeants are carefully screened not to be sadistic jerks, but to actually be decent people who are carefully calculating the best way to train their cadets.

The book was well thought out. The movie was just stereotype and mockery.

<comment><USER27> The book showed its fascist world in a somewhat flattering light, or at least explaining it as necessary. The film rightly mocked that attitude by showing just how close the US already is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I love, _love_ this film. I remember being a bit disappointed by it when it first came out because of how different it was from the book. But after Sept. 11, one of the cheap cable channels, either TBS or TNN, put it on constant rotation...I don't know if _they_ were in on the joke! but after the fifth or so viewing of it, and while the whole War on Terror was emotionally raw...I finally saw the brilliance in SS

Verhoven's other work is brilliant too, but SS is one of my most treasured DVDs

</comment><comment><USER29> So, you take a famous sci-fi novel, completely change it, then use it's good name to make money and push your own politics. What exactly is misunderstood? You love money, you have a particular agenda, and you fuck over something else to achieve your personal goals. Other people are upset about this. Again: What is misunderstood?

<comment><USER30> Quite, if you wanted to make a satire then start with a blank slate.

Do not take a known work (of which the audience will have their pre- conceptions if they read it) then eviscerate it for your own satirical needs then act surprised when said audience gets pissed off for the butchery.

<comment><USER31> Isn't the point that it's satirizing its own source material?

<comment><USER5> In the broad sense, it is satirizing a sort of militaristic/jingoistic mentality. Specifically it does this by satirizing one particular manifestation of this mentality, its source material.

<comment><USER30> That is the problem though, it doesn't satirize the source material.

It satirizes a strawman of the source material since it cuts out or alters almost every part of the book that does not support the movie's satirical objective.

I think that is what pissed a lot of people off who read the book.

If they wanted to satirize jingoistic mentality they could have done it without butchering the book by starting with a new IP (but then they couldn't have taken advantage of the "Starship Trooper" title.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love Verhoeven and the long running joke he played at the expense of Hollywood (mostly with Starship Troopers, Robocop, Basic Instinct and Showgirls - Flesh + Blood is great but not as sarcastic as his later american movies).

Starship Trooper, the novel, is hilarious on its own, with its hawkishness and interesting political views (it's less creepy than Ender's Game in that aspect though). But Heinlein is a much better writer than Card and Stranger in a Strange land makes up for the juvenile tripe he wrote earlier. I guess Vietnam had to happen for some people to reflect on the Rah-rah-rah kind of military Sci-Fi.

(I know there's a cult of Heinlein on HN - I've always wondered if there was an intersection with the Cult of Rand and the Cult of Card)

Edit: as a thought experiment, it would be interesting (as in "depressing") to imagine the exact opposite: an adaptation of Old Man's War by the current Hollywood industry.

<comment><USER33> I've never understood the praise for Old Man's War; I read it, and it felt like a Heinlein tribute act, with no creativity or originality, and saying nothing that Heinlein and his contemporaries hadn't already said. Did I miss the point?

<comment><USER32> Old Man's War is an ironical counterpoint to Starship Troopers (something that becomes more blatant in the later novels). It's a bit like Hadelman's Forever War mixed with slapstick. It's no masterpiece, but the humor makes it a great read.

<comment><USER33> I mean, I read it all the way through, but yeah, there didn't seem to be anything that wasn't in The Forever War. Did it really top the Locus poll just because of slapstick humour? _shakes head_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> As someone who saw a lot of satire in flicks Robocop and Red Dawn in the 80's, it bugged me when people took Troopers at face value years later.

I mean, did Neil Patrick Harris have to do a German accent or what? Did the Gestapo coat not make it obvious?

</comment><comment><USER35> A comment to the article paraphrases Verhoeven's DVD commentary track as "yes, this was a satire, and I'm baffled that people don't get that".

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm surprised the author never even mentions the book by Robert Heinlein. Granted the movie tells a different story than the book but they share the similarity in that on the surface they both preach of the virtues and nobility of war but upon closer inspection, we see that they're telling a different story entirely.

<comment><USER37> I don't know about that. Heinlein seems pretty keen on his notion of citizenship through military service, albeit perhaps as a means of preventing "unnecessary" wars rather than enabling them. Either way, it's a pretty terrible political philosophy.

That aspect of serious advocacy is completely absent from the movie.

<comment><USER38> The problem with Heinlein's corpus is there are so many characters who _can_ be read as author avatars representing his views that it's hard to tell if any of them _should_ be read that way.

<comment><USER39> I actually think that _all_ of them should be, but in a nuanced way -- that is, they all represent points of view that Heinlein wanted the reader to _think about_ , but not necessarily points of view that Heinlein _held_ , or wanted the reader to _adopt_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Roger Ebert, who had praised the "pointed social satire" of Verhoeven's Robocop, found the film "one-dimensional," a trivial nothing "pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans."

I was about that age when it came out. Still one of my favorite movies, sci- fi, satire and all. I think I'll sit down and watch it this weekend.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's funny the article mentions rifftrax. For their halloween special they did a live performance over night of the living dead. One of the jokes during the movie was the fact that online bloggers will never stop trying to educate the rest of the world about the brilliance of starship troopers.

</comment><comment><USER42> Really? There were people who didn't understand that the movie was satirical? Even though it was made by Paul Verhoeven?

I just lost some respect for Roger Ebert. I thought he was more perceptive than that.

<comment><USER43> I strongly suspect Ebert and the other critics were in on the joke. They knew if they played it straight and panned the movie, even more unwitting teenagers would pour into the theaters on opening weekend.

(At least, I had no idea the movie was satire until the opening scene started playing. The early internet reaction was mostly nerdrage from Heinlein fans.)

Edit: In retrospect, I was very familiar with Verhoeven's films, but somehow still bought into the hype that he may have 'sold out' until the movie started playing. This movie really had some great marketing/pr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Starship Troopers 3 is great too, with a lower-budgeted, more aggressive critique of patriotism, nationalism, propaganda and religion. It's also hilarious. Avoid part 2 like the plague.

<comment><USER45> This. The moichendizing was a riot - "It's a good day to... buy!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have to wonder if the failure of so many people to pick up on the blatant satire in, for example, Starship Troopers and Robocop is due to something akin to Poe's Law as applied to so many other films which were not satirical muddying the waters.

Dirty Harry is, seemingly, not satirical, yet it is every bit as ridiculous as Robocop.

</comment><comment><USER33> Science fiction has always had a somewhat uncomfortable relationship with fascism; I'm reminded of the response to Spinrad's "The Iron Dream", where he was trying to point out the fascism inherent in a lot of sci-fi stories:

 _To make damn sure that even the historically naive and entirely unselfaware reader got the point, I appended a phony critical analysis of Lord of the Swastika, in which the psychopathology of Hitler 's saga was spelled out by a tendentious pedant in words of one syllable. Almost everyone got the point... And yet one review appeared in a fanzine that really gave me pause. "This is a rousing adventure story and I really enjoyed it," the gist of it went. "Why did Spinrad have to spoil the fun with all this muck about Hitler?"_

</comment><comment><USER47> Communication is the writer's job, not the reader's. If a creator sets out to convey a message and 99% of the audience does not receive the message, it's not the audience that has failed.

<comment><USER48> I watched Robocop as a boy, a film about a cop that gets "killed" and comes back as a robot. Awesome.

I watched Starship Troopers as a Uni student, a film criticising the military- political attitudes and that prevail in [Western] society. Awesome.

If however I'd watched ST as a child then it too, I imagine, would have merely been a film about soldiers who go in to space to fight bugs.

The inability of a viewer/reader to understand the message being conveyed doesn't mean that a writer should dumb it down. It's grown-up food.

Presumably the ability to read Animal Farm as a story about farm animals means, for you, that Orwell failed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I always saw it as satire, as I'm on&from the eastern side of the Atlantic the references to facism was unavoidable.

The thing is that it's stopped being satire after 9/11\. Just replace "bugs" with "islamists" and it becomes depressingly prophetic. I end up thinking of Pat Tillman every time I see the mobile infantry.

</comment><comment><USER50> I was too young to understand it, but I did really like Robocop and I thought it was really cool when I was a kid.

</comment><comment><USER51> The movie had some satirical elements, but regardless, it was mostly just crap. This is just revisionist hipsterism, just like the script writer of Far Cry 3 claiming it was all satire of "tropes" after it caught some flak.

</comment><comment><USER52> I always described it as happy hardcore.

Everyone doing it was in on the joke and played for it. At first glance it was Ken & Barbie go to Space War, but then there was sooooo much blood...

</comment><comment><USER53> Okay, so a movie about all-out war for survival against genocidal aliens is supposed to be a good setting for an _anti_ -war story?

No wonder so many missed the satire.

<comment><USER54> The genocidal aliens were the humans. Seemed pretty subversive to me.

No-one else has noted that Paul Verhoeven was a young boy in Nazi occupied Holland. There's no way he didn't know what he was conveying...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Pretty much on the money. Another greatly misunderstood masterpiece would be Natural Born Killers.

<comment><USER52> Actually, it's quite the opposite. Starship was a tongue-in-cheek war satire. NBK was a hyper-saturated parody of satire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I still don't understand why didn't they just bomb-carpet that worthless bug planet.

</comment><comment><USER57> At what point is the satire become so thickly veiled that it's not actually satire?

</comment><comment><USER58> are Americans that daft? seriously, how can one _not_ see this movie for what it is?

feels like a giant whoosh.

<comment><USER59> I mean, there are some really terrible sci-fi B-movies out there. It's sometimes hard to tell satire from actual terribleness.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

I didn't really see it as satire until I read articles saying it was. I thought it was just a really campy military sci-fi movie. I also don't really see how the movie portrayed the bugs as acting in self-defense. The movie begins with them slinging an asteroid that destroys Buenos Aires.

<comment><USER60> It's been a while, but I think the movie makes it relatively clear that the asteroid attack was in response to violent colonization by the humans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Wow, The Atlantic sure is on a streak of foul smelling turds lately.

<comment><USER53> Going on a couple of years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> i instantly understood it was sarcastic

</comment><comment><USER63> Wow, what a smart, timely and appropriate comment. However, making a smarter and even more condescending one is too easy. Here:

Folks, consider this for a moment: the movie is better than that crappy blog post, the book is better than the movie, it isn't the best book of that author, and that the author, while good, isn't the best the literature can offer.

Why waste time discussing the blog post?</comment>


Bringing Like to Mobile - <AUTHOR> https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/06/20/bringing-like-to-mobile/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that for this mobile like you need to authenticate, while for the web-like you only need to embed an iframe, and Facebook handles authentication.

<comment><USER3> my understanding is.. the current like button is used by the the user through the iframe, while this is an action completed on behalf of the user through the graph api?

<comment><USER4> It might also have to do with the concern that on mobile, the like button could be somewhat disguised visually and might it might not be immediately obvious that liking on the app will mean liking on Facebook.

<comment><USER5> The big problem on mobile is that the Like button is extremely tiny, and not all platforms can utilize the iFrame version of the Like plugin. By making it available through an Open Graph action, developers can embed it into apps, on web pages with a better target than the standard Like button, and on web pages as well in a way that fits the design scheme of the website.

It seems like it allows Liking of any page with Open Graph tagging, only question I have is if you can use it to Like a Facebook page still. I plan to test that out shortly, probably tomorrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me, or does the word "like" make it _really_ hard to grok the blog post and documentation? I think it's the fact that they don't capitalize the word. That one change would make it so I don't have to force my brain into not reading it as though a ditzy girl wrote the post.</comment>


Minneapolis Blogger's Case Now on First-Amendment Appeal - <AUTHOR> http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/06/05/first-amendment-blogger-johnny-northside-and-jerry-moore-saga-continues

<comment><USER2> I don't get it. The jury found that Hoff's statements on the blog were "not untrue", but he's guilty of "tortious interference". Could someone with a better understanding of civil law clarify how exactly that works?

<comment><AUTHOR> The best-considered view is that the trial court muffed up. Truth is well known to be a defense against a defamation claim, but because the lawyers for Jerry Moore made a claim of tortious interference with Moore's employment, the trial court judge got confused, perhaps with assistance from lawyers who argued the case poorly on both sides, and still allowed a verdict of liability and a LARGE damage award. Most observers here in Minnesota with legal training have been expecting this odd trial court result to be reversed on appeal. Now the appeal is in process.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Local (Communist etc.) Party Infrastructure? - <AUTHOR> Can anyone describe how local party committees work(ed) in the USSR, China, Russia, wherever?
I would welcome anecdotes or references, but I draw a blank when I search (yes, Google sucks now and we should probably go back to reference librarians...)  Especially:  How have these committes been used to help China's pandemic response?
Rationale:  Besides just being curious, I think the U.S. needs something to better organize the entire population, and I think the main models are the Church and the Communist party. Civil defense organizations?  Bowling leagues? ?? <comment><USER2> If you can read Chinese, there are plenty of anecdotes/propaganda on the role of local party committees in fighting the epidemic to be found by searching for 地方党委 and 疫情. If you can't, this article at least contains examples of specific actions taken between all the propaganda slogans, and Google does a decent job translating it: [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=zh- CN&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=http://gzw.hunan.gov.cn/gzw/gzjg/gzyw/202002/t20200204_11169669.html&usg=ALkJrhgaz_5ugZqZgkXVMfE33q0D4TRSnQ)</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone else annoyed by smartphone animations? - <AUTHOR> Android user here. I'm talking about the little transitions when you switch between apps, opening menus, etc. I wonder how much faster it would be to navigate around the OS without these animations. I feel like even the simplest task switching takes too long -- about a second, when I mentally expect that it should take only milliseconds (i.e. appear to be instantaneous).<p>I remember that on Windows OS in the pre-smartphone days, you could  turn off animations for opening menus or minimizing windows. I wish there were such an option in Android. <comment><USER2> It is a developer option in Android 5. Go to Settings->About Device. Tap Build Number 10 times (you'll see a countdown for the last few taps). When it says you're a developer go back one menu. You will see developer options. In there under the drawing section you can change animation duration or disable it entirely.

</comment><comment><USER3> With a GPU, you're not saving noticeable time or battery life if you turn off animations, and it's been several years since anyone built a phone without a GPU.

In the case of an embedded system using and extremely low-cost CPU, you might consider turning off transition animations as a build option.</comment>


Show HN: A Job Board to Filter Software Jobs by Interview Type - <AUTHOR> https://softwarejobs.xyz <comment><AUTHOR> I built this around a year ago, but never really officially launched it. I got a reminder that the domain was about to expire and thought to myself "Why not post on HN and see what happens!?"

Would love to hear feedback on the idea / site itself, but would love it even more if people post a job or two! Here's some info from the about page that explains what I'm trying to solve / improve in the hiring process for software developers etc.

A huge number of software developers believe that the interview process for developers is broken. Some interviews suit certain people while to others it frustrates them to the point that they don't even want to continue the hiring process. We believe that this isn't good for the company looking to hire a candidate or the candidate themselves. While there's no silver bullet for this problem, we certainly think that things can be better – much better in fact.

This is why SoftwareJobs.xyz was created. Imagine you could filter jobs by the interview type – now you can! Do you hate whiteboard interviews – fine, you'll never have to write pseudo code ever again in front of a bunch of other developers. Maybe you prefer to do take home tests so to show your full potential so that you don't feel under as much pressure and can use your own IDE etc. Or maybe you even refuse to do interviews unless you're compensated for your time by doing paid interviews?

<comment><USER2> I like the idea - but you need hiring managers to post jobs before it will be worthwhile. What is in it for them? Because it sounds to me like a way to voluntary have talent filter my jobs out of their search.

<comment><USER3> I honestly think a lot of hiring managers don't know what is the best way to hire. So many things in life are based on copycat culture (every NBA team shoots 3s now like the Warriors all of a sudden for example), and every software company now needs to make sure all their candidates know how to write optimal algorithms like Facebook/google candidates. But a lot of these companies are not google or Facebook or amazon, so they rely on stuff like Codality to essentially copy the hiring process of a top company when they really don't even solve the kinds of problems google engineers deal with.

Basically need a Codality for normal companies with reasonable mixture of real world practical problems, and reasonable algorithm questions. Then hopefully the copy cat culture can pick up on that and we'll have an organic fix to the shitty programming interview puzzle garbage filtering out decent developers who are just fine for most companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like the idea, but what would be really valuable to me is filtering by does the company use trivia problems like leetcode.com or does it use real world scenarios.

As a seasoned developer, I always have to practice those types problems before interviewing for a new position. It's a complete waste of time as they don't represent actual development work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, the feedback has been good in general when I've showed people it. My plan was to start filtering by the current filters, and then if it works out I can have additional filters (think of it as an "advanced filter") where you can be really specific.

Everybody has their own preference, and I'd love a jobs board that lets you actually search by those preferences.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: An international solution to Kickstarter? - <AUTHOR>

I've learned today that you can't start a project on Kickstarter without first having a US address and credit card. This totally sucks. My buddy and I have been working on a sweet online community for the open source world and we planned on getting some funds through kickstarter for some hosting upgrades and to get some help with the python coding.
So my question is this: is there a way around the US-only kickstarter rule? I'm not talking about anything illegal, just maybe they make exceptions (I know this is a long shot).
If not, are there any other reputable alternatives which can give good results and exposure like kickstarter does and are open to international creators? How else would you recommend we look for quick community-generated funds? <comment><USER2> I've thought about this too. I think it's more than just a US address and credit card. I think you also have to have a social security no and state ID.

The only thing I can think of is to bring someone on board to the project that meets this criteria. You'd have to trust them completely and it would probably be wise to have a contract drawn up too

I really wish there was a trustworthy company that filled this role.

Other sites like indieGoGo are fine but they just don't attract the same level of funding.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right about the SSN, which makes things a lot more difficult.

I came across indieGoGo and thought about it, but it just doesn't seem like I would get the same kind of exposure as Kickstarter would give me. I'm contemplating just posting our launch page on HN and hoping for a decent amount of votes, but that doesn't solve the funds issue.

<comment><USER3> Where are you from? I've been thinking about setting up a third-party service to do just that in fact, but given my involvement in other investments the liability issue is concerning--mainly fraud and tax. I would seriously consider running through the numbers and viability of certain projects if I was made an executive partner and held a permanent accountant/consultant position for the life of the project and negotiate the terms and fees for my service accordingly.

But then I guess the allure of 'staying indie' that KS affords goes out the window, doesn't?

Tell you what, pitch the idea on HN update this thread with the links and gauge the Market; lets keep in touch. (I have an account and an open non-tech project on KS in the popular section under Design as we speak.)

No promises made, of course, and the matter is strictly discretionary on my end (I'm not going to even consider working with the relative of an alleged lost Nigerian monarch); but I'm intrigued enough to see what an idea I had in the back of mind may look like in practice.

Just as a side note: there are also further rules on KS that you aren't made aware of until you submit your project and it has been approved for the second time prior to launching. I could discuss them with you if you do the leg work mentioned above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, but this is one of the reasons we built <http://ignitiondeck.com>, and we're hearing a lot of encouraging feedback from those outside the US trying to raise money.

If something like that isn't an option, I believe Indie GoGo also offers campaigns outside the US.</comment>


Reading Files (Python in 30 Days - Day 5) - <AUTHOR> http://rodriguezcommaj.com/python-in-30-days-day-5/

<comment><USER2> These are pointers for the future, you're probably not ready for them yet in your journey, but I have a few thoughts for you.

        # Import your modules
        from sys import argv

        # unpack argv
        script, filename = argv

If zero or more than one arguments were passed on the command line, this will throw an error. You need to think about what your program should do in those cases.

        # assign the opened file from argv to the variable txt
        txt = open(filename)

"txt" is a bad name. This is a file handle, or open file object, it is not text. Consider using a name that describes what it is or does.

Also, what happens if the file doesn't exist?

        # print what you opened and then read the file to the console
        print "Here's your file %r: " % filename
        print txt.read()

Once you are done with a file it is polite to close it: txt.close(). This isn't essential in Python because it will eventually be garbage collected and the close will be called for you, but it's worth knowing.

        # get the filename from the user and assign it to the file_again variable
        print "Type the filename again: "
        file_again = raw_input("> ")

        # open that file and assign the opened file to the variable txt_again
        txt_again = open(file_again)

And again, bad variable name.

        # read that file to the console
        print txt_again.read()

And again, it's polite to close the file when you're done with it.

<comment><USER3> Even better when handling files is to use the with statement.

        with open(filename, 'r') as myfile:
            data = myfile.read()
            # do something with data

The nice thing about with is that it doubles as a try...except block and automatically closes the file for you.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but when you're just three days into learning it's good to do things the direct way using fewer language facilities, then grow into the more powerful constructs later when you can better appreciate their value.</comment></comment></comment>


Estonia's voting system: a python program on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vvk-ehk/evalimine <comment><USER2> I love how the code is in English but the comments are in Estonian :)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I sell a premium domain name? - <AUTHOR> I bought a nice domain name many years ago, but now the Covid-19 situation has affected me and my family financially so I've decided to try to sell it.
It's a good name for a blog/cms/publishing startup.
What's my options here? <comment><USER2> The same way you sell anything: find a buyer who will agree to your price.</comment>


Reddit: Help us raise awareness about SOPA in the mainstream and local media - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/nmz43/reddit_we_need_your_help_raising_awareness_about/

<comment><USER2> [http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/nmz43/reddit_we_need_y...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/nmz43/reddit_we_need_your_help_raising_awareness_about/c3af65q) My attempt to transform the anti-SOPA movement into the bigger picture; protecting Internet Freedom.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree that there need to be some strong laws protecting the Internet. But I think nothing short of a Constitutional amendment will stop future laws like these, though. But I agree after we stop SOPA and PIPA, we'll need to focus on bills that can ensure nothing like SOPA can even be proposed again. There needs to be an "Internet first" stance.

The Internet is probably the most important thing humanity has built so far, and I think we're just at the beginning with this. And our clueless politicians already want to mess around with it to stop a few old business models from failing. And they want to do that by trying to pass a bill a week before Christmas, without any serious debate and disregarding the experts. I think that's very dangerous and foolish.

<comment><USER3> _But I think nothing short of a Constitutional amendment will stop future laws like these, though. But I agree after we stop SOPA and PIPA, we'll need to focus on bills that can ensure nothing like SOPA can even be proposed again._

I expect nothing short of endless vigilance and occasional internet smackdowns of bills like these will prevent them from becoming law.

You can amend the Constitution and pass all the laws you want, but those are just inconveniences that can be overcome with a big enough advertising and legal budget.

<comment><USER2> They'd have to repeal the relevant law/amendments. I'd prefer the direction to go towards INTERNET FREEDOM rather than INTERNET CONTROL in any case.

If the anti-SOPA movement stops SOPA, there will still be momentum towards INTERNET CONTROL with future bills. In fact, PROTECT-IP is a reincarnation of a former attempt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just had a thought: following all of the idiotic "facebook will start charging!" posts, what if they actually posted a note to American users that SOPA would, in fact, force them to do so due to increased legal costs? Pie in the sky, I know, but not so fantastical as to be unrealistic.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't it be easier to have sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. raise awareness by publicly displaying information about SOPA on highly visible parts of their own sites?

As well as having Google remove search results for SOPA supporting organizations or have Facebook remove pages like facebook.com/visa? It's playing dirty, but why not?

<comment><USER6> Because removing search results for SOPA supporting organizations would be censorship, just as much as SOPA is censorship if it gets accepted AS-IS today.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do in a household where self-isolating could be difficult? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Find a roommate? Or is that the problem? I think the question needs to be a bit more specific.

<comment><USER3> Possibly the roommate is the problem? Shared kitchen/bathroom etc.</comment></comment>


Google's Biggest Threat Is Google - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/googles-biggest-threat-is-google/ <comment><USER2> "Google 'should stand for a beauty, technological purity of innovation and things that are important to people,' he said. It should also be a trusted brand, he said."

I love this statement, I just hope Google means it. I have a feeling Page does, as you never hear other big tech CEOs speak like this, but the "innovation" and "trusted brand" bits are debatable. Yes, Google is extremely innovative, but they show time and time again they're not above copycatting others' innovations, a concerning thing especially for startups. If you reach a point, it's either sell to Google or Google will enter the market and become your competitor (Dropbox is next up apparently). That's neither innovative or trusted.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, people have been talking about gdrive since way before dropbox. It's just that now is the right time, they have a successful mobile OS, google docs is taking off and chrome OS people need a hard drive. It was a given that they were going to release something like that if only for Chrome OS.

<comment><USER4> Also, Dropbox wasn't revolutionary because of what it was on paper. If you told me "file sync made easy" I would've been skeptical a few years ago. The simplicity of Dropbox's interface made it popular, not the actual concept. Which makes Google's "GDrive" a little more interesting as far as strategy. If I'm Google, I would want people to stop using Dropbox. Not because I want to make a competitor to Dropbox, but because I want more people on the web seeing my ads. If people get used to syncing their files effortlessly, they'll stop using web-based software and go back to the more responsive, feature-rich, and integrated desktop tools (eg MS Office vs Google Docs). Less people using the web = less revenue.

GDrive won't be a "drive." It will be an attempt to get rid of our notions of files and applications on our computers. Or at least that's my prediction. They won't bother making a Dropbox clone because it doesn't help them in any way if it's successful (it'll probably wind up costing them more money than it's worth) because Dropbox encourages users to use desktop apps and save files using a traditional file system on their computer.

<comment><USER5> They already tried that - it's Google Docs. It's been only moderately successful, so to boost adoption they're going to hook up a Dropbox interface to it and pick up all the Dropbox users that also have Google accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is arrogant statement. It assumes that CEO's vision and leadership is great but just that inside politics make it not so great.

Google's biggest threats are Apple (mobile front), Facebook (social front), Amazon (cloud front), and Microsoft (search front).

EDIT: of course I will be downvoted. But this is my honest opinion I would like to somebody explain me why think this not an arrogant statement.

<comment><USER7> I'd much rather have an "arrogant" CEO who is aware of how internal processes slow down and spend time thinking about it than someone who don't know or care. Obviously, some companies are better at this than others (as you yourself hinted at in another comment). Page just wants Google to be best at this. Ambitious, perhaps. Arrogant, not so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Larry Page is right: internal problems dominate large companies.

Microsoft is more "mature" corporation and they have much more severe internal problems.

<comment><USER6> That is not true. Why internal problems don't dominate Amazon? Why interal problems don't dominate Oracle (100K+ people)? Google is not so big and old to claim that is the problem. I think Google's problem is lack of leadership and vision.

<comment><USER8> Why do you think internal problems are not dominant in Amazon and Oracle?

<comment><USER6> First hand experience (not very recent, but I doubt it changed a lot). For example, Oracle is very customer focused in many teams. I heard many times: "The only person responsible your salary is customer". That really keeps things moving smooth.

I understand problem with Google: all these products and projects are free, so it is really hard to put $$ sign on them. Politics emerges because it is hard to decide when a paying customer is not your main objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google's Biggest Threat Is Google failing to innovate. They're still a one- trick pony after all these years.</comment>


Chinese Agents Helped Spread Messages That Sowed Virus Panic in U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/coronavirus-china-disinformation.html <comment><USER2> This article is largely devoid of details that can pin down Chinese state involvement. Long on innuendo but short on actual specifics. It would be quite shocking if the Chinese state apparatus is involved. However as their recent diplomatic offensive shows the CCP's capacity for overreach is unparalleled. At the same time, I am surprised the NY Times would publish such a low-quality piece.

<comment><USER3> Op. Mockingbird sings, even today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Western propaganda. Pass.</comment>


Tiny diamonds wrapped in graphene get rid of friction - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/tiny-diamonds-wrapped-in-graphene-get-rid-of-friction/ <comment><USER2> For those interested, there actually a sub field of mechanics called Tribology [1] that deals with friction, lubrication, wear, and more generally interacting surfaces in relative motion. I was surprised when I took this class in grad school because it actually involves some heavy math [2].

For instance, turns out you can model the lubricant's motion by simplifying the Navier-Stokes equations using a few assumptions [3] in order to get the Reynold equation, notably:

\- the oil film mass is negligeable

\- because the film is thin, you can assume constant pressure in it

\- the classic no slip boundary condition

\- because the fluid's characteristic length (it's thickness) is negligeable, you assume the flow to be laminar

\- inertial forces and surface tension is negligeable compared to viscous forces

\- newtonian fluid [4]

\- etc...

EDIT: This wasn't entirely relevant to the article, but I thought it was kinda cool and worth mentioning :)

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

[2] [http://www.nptel.ac.in/courses/112102015/26](http://www.nptel.ac.in/courses/112102015/26)

[3] [http://tinyurl.com/lvshdp7](http://tinyurl.com/lvshdp7)

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

</comment><comment><USER3> It stops working above 30% relative humidity, so practical applications are unfortunately still far off.

<comment><USER4> It could work in a sealed system, such as a hard-drive bearing or a flywheel similar to what is used in some hybrid vehicles.

Flywheels are a pretty exciting application actually. They're basically mechanical capacitors. The upper limit on the energy they can store is determined by the tensile strength of the material used for the rotor, but the bearings the rotor spins on are responsible for how long energy can be stored before being transformed into heat. Magnetic bearings are far more efficient than mechanical bearings, but are costly to implement. A mechanical bearing system with a graphene and nano-diamond coating could allow us to produce flywheels that are simple, cheap, and able to store energy for a long period of time. This might even make flywheels a viable alternative to chemical batteries in some applications.</comment></comment>


Why the CDC Tracks Wireless-Only Households and Their Risky Behavior - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/12/03/458225197/the-daredevils-without-landlines-and-why-health-experts-are-tracking-them <comment><USER2> It's interesting that the article doesn't address this, but the reason I think that relying only on cellphones without a landline is risky has to do with emergency situations, and for some reason I thought the CDC would tie into that, but maybe I've just been watching too much of the walking dead.

In the case of a cellphone-only household, it's really easy to think of a time when all of the cellphone holders are not present, so that there's no real contact into or out of the house, potentially with people present. In the case of a 911 situation like someone choking or having a heart attack (or a fire) that could come down to going up and down the street knocking on a neighbor's door, or jumping in a sedan to race to the hospital.

I also wonder how accurate geo-location would be for 911 calls, where it's very easy (I would hope) for 911 operators to know the exact street address of someone making an emergency call, even if they ask for the address as well.

<comment><USER3> That used to be a problem, but by now cell phones are just as useful in emergency scenarios.

The CDC isn't saying that only having a cell phone is itself risky. They're saying it correlates with risky behavior.

<comment><USER4> > That used to be a problem, but by now cell phones are just as useful in > emergency scenarios.

It is much less of a problem then it used to be, but cell phones haven't reached 100% parity with landlines.

Consider:

1\. Cell phones require reception. At my house, cell reception is universally awful for all providers. I may not be able to even make a call to 911 on a cell phone and, if I do, I am not sure I can trust the reliability of e911. Work arounds include in-home Wi-Fi and femtocells, but...

2\. Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage (or in the case of my daughter, even a five minute one), I can't gaurantee there will even be a working cell phone on the premises. Wi-Fi won't work, and the femtocell won't work, either.

3\. Cell phones get misplaced. In an emergency will I even remember where in the house I set it down?

That's not to say that cell phones don't also offer many advantages in an emergency. They do. Cell phones are usually available and usually close to a person. They can be turned on and hidden but still allow 911 operators to hear what is going on. There is usually about one cell phone per person, etc., etc.

But, at my house at least, I can't completely forgo a landline (although I have at other locations in the past).

<comment><USER5> _Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage (or in the case of my daughter, even a five minute one), I can 't gaurantee there will even be a working cell phone on the premises. Wi-Fi won't work, and the femtocell won't work, either._

In my experience in a ice storm with long lasting effects, the days when all landlines were adequately powered from a central office are long gone. Your local box's smallish battery will run out no longer than a day or two (others in this discussion say 12 hours), at which time you're better off having a cell phone, which you can arrange to power in a variety of ways. And I'm appalled that after my mother switched to U-verse DSL, her home telecom is now powered through a UPS supplied by AT&T.

If you take no preparations, though, you're better off with a landline. If you're paranoid like me and my family, you have both, I pay ~$12/month for a Consumer Cellular (AT&T MVNO that doesn't suck) candybar that stays off the air most of the time, and is priceless even at 25 cents/minute in emergencies.

<comment><USER6> You can further minimize your cell phone backup costs with PTel.com, a T-Mobile MVNO, which costs $5/month (minimum spend) and $.05/minute. I had them for my (lightly used) cell service until recently, when I switched to Google's Project Fi, which opportunistically connects to either T-Mobile or Sprint, as needed. From a reliability standpoint, Project Fi might offer a bit more piece of mind with dual providers available, though it requires late model Nexus phones at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The rise of cellphone-only households why I'm skeptical of presidential polling. Don't most of these polls rely on those with landlines?

<comment><USER8> I am also skeptical because the people answering polls are people who answer robocalls/spam/surveys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm actually surprised at how many people still have landlines. I switched over to wireless in 1998 and never looked back.

<comment><USER10> It used to be the case that a landline was required to get DSL. I don't know if it still is, but that would be a reasonable explanation.

<comment><USER11> DSL is available without telephone service, at least with Verizon in Pennsylvania. It is called "dry loop DSL." 3 Mbps / 768 kbps is costing me more than the price they are advertising for 50 Mbps / 50 Mbps FiOS (which I can't get) without contract. So it exists but it sucks, and I'm not sure you actually save much (or anything) by getting DSL without telephone service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't smoke and rarely drink, but we're also considering dropping our landline. Mainly because we rarely use it, few people ever call us on it, the phone itself is crap, and we don't care enough to replace it with a properly working phone.

A friend has dropped his landline ages ago, but he does enjoy drinking a good whisky, and he even smokes occasionally.

</comment><comment><USER13> My wife & I were wireless-only until we had our first child.

It turns out 911 is handled very differently (at least in California). If I were to call 911 from my landline I'm connected to our local dispatch & my address is automatically sent. If I were to call from our cell phones, only the cell tower is sent (and _maybe_ that), and the call is routed through a statewide system.

I hope to never have to actually call, but figured it's worth the small fee if seconds matter.

That said, it still seems backwards. My cell phone has GPS coordinates. I would hope that someone in the not-too-distant-future we can make calling 911 as good (if not better) on a cell phone.

<comment><USER14> GPS will only be helpful on flat terrain. If you live on the 25th floor, your location may be ~a block away from where you really are. Subscription address will be again more useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here I thought I was going to find CDC secretly studying the effects of cell phone exposure on people's health and behavior. Would've been fun and controversial. Gotta be something boring I guess.

</comment><comment><USER16> For those interested in digging into the facts and data, this FCC document is actually pretty good and no white wash in my view: [https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Do...](https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet65/oet65b.pdfhttps://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet65/oet65b.pdf) I hope that link works but you can google the title "Evaluating Compliance with FCC Guidelines for Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields" and it comes right up. There are some interesting tables and graphs for the TL;DR Figure 1 on page 30, shows the relationship between distance and ERP to the power density. Then Table 1, Page 72. Most cell phones operate in the .6 - 2.5 Ghz range and the power is ~ 100mw range. Cell towers operate at about 40 - 60 W ERP, the distance depends on where you are.

</comment><comment><USER17> Contrary to my paranoid reading of the title, I get from the article that the CDC does not individually _track_ wireless-only households. They are apparently just looking at aggregate statistics. However, I do wonder whether they retain any individualized data.

<comment><USER18> It's not just you. It's a pretty click-baity, low-information title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a hard time seeing how they can control for age in their analysis of this trait, as I'm not aware of a single person under 30 who has a landline, or any intention of ever acquiring one.

</comment><comment><USER19> The mind blowing fact is people still pay for long distance calls on landlines and it's not cheap.

Free internet calls have not only existed for years but you can even get free cell service these days with services like ringplus.

So landlines are the new AOL users (and probably a huge intersection at that).

<comment><USER20> Land line user here. Don't get cell service at my house, the WISP we use for internet is usually fine but occasionally unreliable. Also, a couple years ago we lost power for almost a week. So I think there is still a good reason for some people to keep a land line for backup/emergency purposes.

<comment><USER21> We had a land line for a while as it actually LOWERED our overall bill with Comcast, but we only ever had the fax machine plugged into it or used it to call our missing cell phones. The problem I see about the emergency backup situation is that if we lost power for more than a few hours, our phone wouldn't work either because the battery backup would eventually die in the modem. The same was true of our old FiOS install at the last place (though the battery was much larger and not in the modem, at the fiber junction). So if you don't have an old copper phone line that doesn't need power from your house, what's the point of even having a landline 'in case of emergency'?

<comment><USER22> Seems to me you're describing VoIP, not a landline. It also seems that the definition has shifted. So is landline still POTS, or does VoIP from your cable provider count?

<comment><USER23> Don't telcos also do this? IIRC Verizon's voice service is over FTTx/VOIP

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We use our cell phones for all actual calls, but about 6 months ago decided to get a copper telephone line to the house in case of emergencies. I don't even recall what our landlines number is. Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out.

<comment><USER25> In general, you don't have to have a subscription to a landline service to have 911 access on POTS. Federal law requires the phone companies to provide access to 911 dialed from a landline phone whether there is current service or not, and they have to ensure the line from the pole to the house/apartment is live to facilitate this (it is still the homeowner's responsibility to deal with the in-house wiring, of course).

That said, if you live in one of the increasing number of states trying to circumvent these federal requirements, you may indeed have to keep paying just to have emergency access, or you may end up being forced out of landline access altogether:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline- rul...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rules- frustrate-telecoms/2012/04/12/gIQAG2XvDT_story.html)

<comment><USER26> Same with cell phones. 911 access works even without active cell service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The percentage of households with a landline was quite shocking. Based on quick googling the percentage here in Finland is ~11%. Gives perspective to the pricing of internet services in the USA vs Europe.

<comment><USER28> Multiple reasons.

(And they pretty much boil down to: "why put hundreds/thousands of expensive cell towers in the sparsely populated cornfields and plains that cover the country")\

1) The USA is geographically _massive_. Infrastructure between isolated "neighbouring" cities can be hundreds of kilometers. Cell towers, needless to say, are more expensive when attempting to cover a larger geographical area.

2) The population density varies dramatically

3) There are many rural pockets of thinly-distributed populaces, which can make the ROI lower in aforementioned large coverage areas

4) There are many mountainous, isolated communities, whose topography negatively affects coverage

5) Unlike Finland, where coastal/southern communities contain the vast majority of the populace, and nobody living up north,[1] the US Midwest contains a large populace, thinly spread over an enormous area... [2]

Copper landlines are reliable and simple to fix.

Cellphone towers are expensive, have a limited range, are highly affected by topography, and thus only make sense in areas above a certain threshold of population densities. And even still, living in a _neighbouring community_ of a metropolitan area, you may be out of range of the metro's cell towers, and the ROI for your smaller community may not justify the expense!

1 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Finland#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Finland#/media/File:Population_map_of_Finland.svg)

2 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_states_showing_pop...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_states_showing_population_density_in_2013.svg)

Size comparison: [http://overlapmaps.com/index.php](http://overlapmaps.com/index.php), or [http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/FI](http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/FI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder how the number of people with only with mobile Internet is developing. It's definitely doable with LTE today. However the problem are traffic intensive things: Videos, Updates, Audio

<comment><USER30> Go to Finland. 17€ for over 150GB and counting LTE. A friend of mine is studying there and I thought she was joking me - I get 3GB 3G traffic and a call flat for 25€ in Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This was a a pretty lame article. Correlating binge drinking with lack of landlines -- what?

How about the correlation between longer 911 response times with lack of landlines? Now that would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm pretty surprised that the better quality of the actual sound of a call on a landline is seldom (at least here) given as a reason for keeping/preferring a landline.

<comment><USER23> I've always had mobile sound a lot better. This might vary by location or provider?

<comment><USER33> For me, landline (POTS) is better than cell. However VoIP on either wifi or wired network is generally much better than either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How come the graph accounts for only 97% of the people?

<comment><USER35> The obvious answer is phonelessness. Sure enough, that's what the paper linked to in the article says: 3.4% of households surveyed did not have a phone.

[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless20151...](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless201512.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> [http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations](http://tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations) does have some interesting correlations too. For example, [http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=28580](http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=28580)

<comment><USER37> The site has plenty of good ones, but that one's not interesting at all. The correlation between any two data series _consisting of two points each_ is ±1 by definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As of 2013 only 17.8% US adults smoked.

What is this article on about?

<comment><USER36> 17% of americans read a newspaper every day. Now if only we knew if they all smoke and if they have a landline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Am I the only one who parses CDC as Cult of the Dead Cow?

</comment><comment><USER40> Dupe detector? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684054)</comment>


Why rising temperatures don't make solar power rise - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Why-rising-temperatures-don-t-make-solar-power-11234047.php <comment><AUTHOR> The shocker to me was that your roof under Tesla's glass solar roof can reach 160 degrees! While that may not catch your roof on fire does anyone know if it would raise your air conditioning costs?

Elon Musk's sales pitch for the solar roof is so persuasive that here in America's second cloudiest city I personally know of people who have already ordered a Tesla roof. Luckily the temperature locally only exceeds 100 degrees once a decade.</comment>


Google+ is the social backbone - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/google-plus-social-backbone.html

<comment><USER2> Great piece! This is the aspect of Google+ that excites me the most, that the one company whose incentives are most closely aligned with a vibrant and open web has finally released a social product to mostly positive critical and popular sentiment.

As you note, the examples of Buzz and Wave (not to mention PubSubHubbub) and especially their open federation architectures indicate Google's open intentions and seriousness on the subject.

The other great example of Google entering an industry to crack it open, which you neglected to mention in the article, is Android. While critics have challenged Google's claims to openness in that arena, I have always found it pretty clear that their intentions there have been to open the field, and the setbacks that they've encountered were due to the inherent tension between openness to carriers/vendors and openness to users/developers. As far as I can tell, that tension doesn't exist in the social space.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a lot of wishful thinking in this piece. Google would have to do a lot of things that don't seem to be in their nature in order for Edd's dream to come true.

For example, it's not good enough to export the user's data in zip archives. It should be possible to access the user's data without it moving. If Google could share some of their huge bandwidth for storage of simple structured _static_ files in easy-to-use formats, then we might have something.

I say might because it would have to stay in place for a long time, without breakage for the "social backbone" effect to start to take place.

That would take buy-in from the whole company over a long period of time for it to work. Big companies don't have the discipline to keep people from ripping up the pavement on a regular basis. Small ones too. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a long bet, but I think the inherent advantages (in both improving search quality and in declawing Facebook) for Google of making the social features commodity will lead this to happen. It needs to happen slowly, as there are lot of unknown unknowns. The first release of the G+ API will set the tone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not going to believe this unless I'll see a federation protocol (or at least official promise of such), so I could possess and host my own identity (not Google Account) hosted on my own physical server, possibly integrated with my own services (XMPP, email) and communicate with G+.

Maybe I've not looked much (I've just Googled a bit and had no results) and there's some?

For now, G+ is just another Facebook. With a minor differences.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't exist yet. But Google's history of trying to adopt federation and with open source in general give me hope that that's part of the plan.

I guess it seems to me like, from their perspective, their previous two attempts, Wave and Buzz, failed at a user experience level, and so never achieved wide adoption. With +, it looks like they're trying to really nail the user experience first. Which strikes me as a plausible strategy.

<comment><USER4> I know only two cases Google ever allowing to use externally-hosted identities to interoperate with their services: GTalk and Wave, both having such possibility only due to XMPP as their base.

If I understand it correctly, Buzz has interoperability by some means, but not in area of user identities - only Google users may use Buzz.

I sincerely hope G+ will have strong federation support someday. But for now, such articles, telling that "G+ is about federation" (while there's even no API yet, or I missed something?) are over-optimistic and sound more like an advertisement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In this regard, I found the Diaspora federation protocol docs quite interesting:

[https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Diaspora%27s-feder...](https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Diaspora%27s-federation- protocol)

While Diaspora itself might not fly, the protocol could quite easily be implemented in a bunch of different systems, creating a real federated social network.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm rather skeptical at this stage; the article could have been titled "Google+ could be the social backbone" but that isn't so provocative. When the APIs appear and we see how easy it is to get data in AND out via them, then it'll be clear.

</comment><comment><USER7> Where are the API specifications for developing on top of google+?

<comment><AUTHOR> They're not out yet. I'm waiting eagerly to see what degree of openness they offer. My bet is that in this first release they'll offer a compromise between openness and Google's desire to keep Google+ a service that works well for its users.

To me, that's the biggest challenge in an open interoperable social layer: preserving a good user experience.</comment></comment>