1987: Kid submits 7 Robotron bugfixes using only the machine code from the ROMs - <AUTHOR> http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/ <comment><USER3> The most amazing thing about this to me is the description of the internals of Robotron... Given a lot of the 8-bit machine code I've read it's simply astonishing to hear about a game of that era being so structured rather than the more typical approach of the day of hardcoding data all over the place (some games even used the on screen life counter as the actual "variable" holding the number of lives left, often full of bugs like not overflow checking the values) and using a basic event loop hanging off the irq. A lot of the time it was seen as necessary in order to fit everything in the small amount of memory, and so even on larger machines like the Amiga a lot of programmers kept manually laying out data structures for many years...

Compare the recently released Prince of Persia code to that description, for example. I found the Prince of Persia code very clean and readable for the period when I read it, but still relatively typical of the style of 80's 8-bit machine code programs even if it looks like it avoided the dirtiest tricks.

A game from that era using dynamic memory allocation, multi-tasking and an object oriented structure just sounds totally alien. Even Amiga games, running on a system with substantially more memory, and on an OS with substantial built in support for it mostly, - with some honourable exceptions - <USER2> disabled the multi-tasking entirely and often hung everything off a loop tied to an interrupt handler or at most an interrupt handler and a separate "main" thread.

<comment><USER4> That's a Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar game. He also co-wrote Defender, Smash TV, and other classics with DeMar. Eugene now teaches at DePaul in Chicago.

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

<comment><USER5> Jarvis also owns/runs Raw Thrills, a game design company outside of Chicago.

[http://www.rawthrills.com](http://www.rawthrills.com)

DeMar owns/runs Leading Edge Design, a slot machine design company. He also cofounded Spooky Cool Labs, a social game design firm. Spooky Cool was sold to Zynga late last month.

[http://www.spookycool.com](http://www.spookycool.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to read a bit more about Robotron, there's another good write-up by someone who did the same thing: reverse engineered Robotron. It's a much shorter article, but includes some C# representations of the process management:

Steve's Tech Talk: Robotron and OOP [http://www.atalasoft.com/cs/blogs/stevehawley/archive/2006/0...](http://www.atalasoft.com/cs/blogs/stevehawley/archive/2006/03/03/9632.aspx)

<comment><USER7> There is an old programmer joke that goes "I can write BASIC code in any language!" which is a lament about people writing spaghetti type code (which was normal for early programs in BASIC) even when the language supported much more elegant constructs. But the inverse is also true (although people rarely complain about it :-) since ultimately you're compiling into machine code, if you're writing in machine code you can write as elegantly as you could in the most beautiful high level code, its a function of the programmer, not the language.

There are people who write solid, supportable, code in any language. keep those people around as they will ultimately create the most code with the least technical debt.

<comment><USER8> The original joke is "The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language." It's from an essay written by Ed Post titled "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal". It's before BASIC :)

<comment><USER9> Nitpick: it can't be from "before BASIC" if it mentions Pascal. BASIC is older than Pascal (1964 vs 1970, according to Wikipedia)

Also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Programmers_Don't_Use_Pasc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Programmers_Don't_Use_Pascal) (with links to the essay; look at the email address. That alone shows that we are talking of a real programmer) says it's from 1983.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cached link, because I couldn't get it to load: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HIzQu_b...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HIzQu_bwBgkJ:www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER11> More caches:

Part 1 - [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/chri...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/christiangingras/)

Part 2 - [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/chri...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/christiangingras/part2/)

Part 3 - [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/chri...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/christiangingras/part3/)

Technical information about the shot-in-the-corner patch - [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/chri...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/christiangingras/patch/)

Photo album - [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/chri...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com.nyud.net/technical/christiangingras/photos/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That was absolutely crazy. He decoded a 48K assembly program on _paper_ , while working as a security guard? Just amazing.

<comment><USER3> I don't want to diminish what he did, but consider that this was one of the most common methods of learning assembler programming in depth in that era. Most books on the subject were relatively primitive in the context of games and demo programming, and so if you didn't want to lag behind, you needed to figure out techniques by studying disassembled programs.

(EDIT: Just to add that this is in reference to the disassembling bit. Pulling eproms to dump them and studying them so intently you start to fix bugs the game designers hadn't managed to solve is certainly dedication well above the typical level)

Many large demos at least for 8-bit computers, and quite likely some games too, were written even without a symbolic assembler, but instead entered using a simple machine code monitor (think just one step above debug.com on MS DOS, and decidedly more primitive than programming directly in gdb...) using hardcoded address references instead of labels.

I'd actually been programming on the C64 for a couple of years before I got an assembler that supported labels that was good enough to use (I had some before that, but they wasted too much memory and/or were too slow to seem worth it) and from people I met I gather that's a fairly common experience.

<comment><USER13> The printout-and-highlighters method of reverse engineering was indeed common way back then. It became even more well known in 1982, when Don Lancaster wrote a book entitled _Enhancing your Apple II_. In it was a chapter on "Tearing into Machine-Language Code," in which he explained a method for using a disassembly printout and colored highlighters to quickly reverse-engineer machine code. This method soon spread beyond the Apple II community. For example, from a 1983 book review in _Microcomputing Magazine_ :

        Software buffs are likely to vote for the
        third chapter ("Tearing Into Machine-
        Language Code") as the jewel of the
        collection. It is a unique contribution that
        applies to all machine languages, of
        which Apple is only one. Possibly no
        manual anywhere that describes the use
        of disassemblers and techniques for ex-
        tracting hidden code can equal this
        60-page adventure in decryption. Pro-
        grammers would do well to look into this
        chapter to check on techniques they
        might have missed; commercial software
        vendors may want to know some things
        that hackers do to defeat them.

        Source: Microcomputing Magazine (October 1983) [1]

[1] [http://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1983-10/Microcomp...](http://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1983-10/Microcomputing_1983_October_djvu.txt)

<comment><USER3> Interesting... The Apple machines were pretty much unknown in large parts of the world outside the US, so I've actually to this date not even seen an Apple II in person as far as I'm aware, and didn't come across Don Lancaster's stuff until a year or two ago either.

Europe was dominated largely by Commodore, with Sinclair, and Atari and maybe Amstrad in "supporting roles" far ahead of the usual suspect of weirder machines for pretty much the entire 80's, until the PC finally got the upper hand.

The computer shops near me in the early 80's at one point or another probably stocked about 20-30 distinct home computer brands, but I can't remember seeing any Apple products at any of them until the Macintosh.

It's fascinating how the view of home computing is often so completely different from the US vs Europe as a result.

<comment><AUTHOR> Were there large import tariffs or something making it prohibitively expensive to get Apple computers from the US, or did Apple not market the machines internationally?

Countries such as the USSR and Brazil simply made their own Apple clones. I'd suspect Western Europe did not do so because of legal ramifications.

<comment><USER3> No it wasn't down to tariffs. Keep in mind Commodore did immensely well in Europe despite being a US company (though in name from some point in time it was a Bahamas corporation for tax reasons)

It was many factors I think.

Apple indeed was not set up to handle international sales well, while Commodore had a huge international channel owing to a much longer history (the progenitor of Commodore Business Machines was founded in 1954).

But all indications are that Commodore (and probably Tandy) outsold Apple substantially in the late 70's in the US too. At that point Apple got the "hacker" market, Commodore focused on the business market.

It wasn't until the VIC 20 that Commodore started aggressively going after the consumer market, but the VIC 20 was a low end product, and it was probably first with the C64 that Commodore had a product going after some of the same market as the Apple II.

At this point Apple increasingly was the expensive choice, and the European market was apparently a lot more price sensitive. On top of that Apple had much more aggressively pursued schools in the US, and so I guess US parents might have seen the Apple II as a more "serious" choice at a time when Commodore was increasingly getting associated with games.

Commodore thoroughly trounced Apple in worldwide sales of 8-bit machines and probably for quite some time in 16 bit models from soon after the introduction of the Amiga, but more and more of their output went to Europe for these reasons (eventually quite a lot of Commodores machines were also manufactured in Germany) but also because Tramiel quickly realized that the European markets were higher margins, and so any if supply couldn't be ramped up quick enough for certain models, Europe got priority.

Commodore also burned itself in the US, and its US dealer network, through extreme price war with Texas Instruments and Tandy (pushing things so far that TI pulled out of the market and posted massive losses, but also massively hurting Commodore's profitability - likely a major factor when Jack Tramiel was ousted) and the damage it did to its good will with its US dealer network probably shouldn't be under estimated.

(If you're interested in the Commodore/non-Apple view of the early home computer market, "Commodore: A company on the edge" by Brian Bagnall is a fascinating read)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Part 3 is also really interesting.

[http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christianging...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/part3/) (cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SOgJkJa...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SOgJkJa0cbwJ:www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/part3/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us))

Incredible that he was working for minimum wage after completing this. And he is true on saying that we value too much a university diploma (but this is slowly changing).

</comment><comment><USER15> There is an interesting bug which I think has been left even in the ROMs which fix the more annoying problems like the corner shoot crash.

The objective of the game is to dodge and kill all the Robotrons on each screen while "saving" as many humans as possible by touching them. One of the Robotron models is the Brain, which reprograms the humans and sends them chasing after you. On the first level with the Brains, though, there are a whole bunch of Mommies on the screen and one Mikey (a little kid dressed in red). It turns out that the Brains won't start reprogramming humans until you save Mikey, so if you avoid him and gather up all the Mommies, you can rack up a lot of points and make the level much easier.

So, kind of a bug that turned into a feature. It's a one-off thing and probably not too relevant to people scoring well over 2 million points, but for a guy like me (many heartbreaking runs ending in the 900,000s), a good score on that level could be make-or-break for a whole 10-15 minute run.

Some of the scores guys put up on the original machines in the early 80s are even more impressive when you consider they could end their game at any time by shooting into the corner the wrong way.

</comment><comment><USER16> What an abrupt ending... no resolution or anything, just this random tidbit!

"Larry insisted to come back and drive us to the airport. When he aggressively honked at a city bus driver for trying to cut him, this felt like a life lesson for me"

<comment><USER17> There's another page that explains what happened after - they offered him a job after he'd finished college but the video game crash ended up stopping that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why was he working as a security guard instead of writing programs?

<comment><USER19> In one of the later parts, he complains that employers only look at diplomas instead of what you can actually do. His prospects opened up a bit after he graduated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think this is him now -> [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=73484462](http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=73484462)

</comment><comment><USER21> What does he mean by partner? The partner seems twice his age so perhaps it's a poor translation for friend, professor, father, etc?

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome !! Is there so info on -

\- which country was he from ? \- Did he become a successful coder ??? \- What is he upto these days ??

This story is incomplete !!

<comment><USER14> There is a part 2 and 3. I believe he was Canadian:

\- [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christianging...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/part2/) \- [http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christianging...](http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/part3/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I loved this game. Great read thank you.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is truly an amazing feat. What an awesome thing to do. My hat is off to him.

</comment><comment><USER19> In part 3 a controller is mentioned called a "wireball". What is that?

<comment><USER5> It sounds like a messy translation of "mess of wires", like Christian had soldered on a bunch of extra wires to scope out various signal lines and interrupt the clock, etc.

<comment><USER25> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Epic, pure epic.</comment>


Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-usc-poll-bullet-train-20180525-story.html <comment><USER2> This is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won't be. It'll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (schools, public transit for lower income people, etc.).

For example, the $100+ billion this will eventually cost could create a fund that would perpetually pay (with inflation increases) about $1,200 to every low-income K-12 student in the State.

<comment><USER3> No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attendant externalities in the form of health problems for those living near the roads, and end-of- civilization CO2 pollution problems for people living everywhere.

The cost of HSR suddenly sounds so much more reasonable if you frame it in terms of the road budget. HSR's all-in cost for right-of-way, tracks, stations, and trains is about four years worth of California's current road budget.

<comment><USER2> That's completely divorced from reality. Even poor people own cars! 80% of people in poverty have access to a vehicle.[1] $0.55/mile is about $120 for an LA to SF trip. For a family of four, this train is $350. Which one do you think a low-income family is going to take to visit relatives for Christmas?

In any case, poor people who don't own cars rely on busses and subways--which this boondoggle does nothing for.

[1] $77 billion would also create a perpetual fund that would be able to buy a $10,000 used car for every household in poverty every 5 years.

<comment><USER3> That's cherry-picking a favorable example for the car. It's always better to take your car when you fill it up with people, compared to other modes that charge per person. It's true locally - always cheaper to drive from Oakland to San Francisco vs. four round-trip BART tickets - and it's true regionally - cheaper to drive the whole family than to fly, if you don't value your time. Of course both of those assume that you can afford the car and that the car you can afford will survive the trip.

Anyway, your last sentence is wrong. Much of the money under the HSR project is going to local transportation projects. So far they have spent or committed seven billion dollars for Caltrain, BART, Muni, Sacramento RT, Capitol Corridor, ACE, LA Metro, Metrolink, San Diego Blue Line, and Coaster, among others.

<comment><USER2> It's a highly relevant example. What are the reasons a lower-income person might travel from LA to SF? Traveling to visit family is probably the primary reason.

You can see this play out with the Acela on the east coast. It's almost all business travelers or nicely dressed professional looking people. People who can't afford $100+ per ticket take the bus ($35).

Likewise, even lower income people traveling alone aren't going to spend $86 for a ticket on HSR (if it's not more like $100+ by the time it's finally open). They'll pay $35 for a Bolt bus.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of disconnected from reality, you seem to be claiming that poor people travel, which they don't. In yet another example of American inequality, the bottom income quartile of families are quite stationary; they can neither afford to move about nor do they have "days off" as such because an American is not legally entitled to any.

The supermajority of American families cannot even afford an unexpected $500 expense; they sure as hell aren't going to blow hundreds to drive to LA.

<comment><USER4> 'rayiner seems to have argued you in a circle here. He is the one claiming the poor aren't going to ride this train; you hardly contradict him when you argue they aren't going to use cheaper transportation either.

<comment><USER3> Not at all. He hasn't addressed my point which is that for individuals travelling alone the train will be dramatically cheaper than driving over long distances.

<comment><USER5> You haven't come close to establishing that either. Bus fare from SF to LA is less than half that train ticket price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a very misleading headline. 49 percent support the high speed rail project in this poll, based on a neutrally worded question. The 31% figure comes from a leading question that starts with "The latest estimates for California's high-speed rail project are that it will cost up to $77 billion dollars and will be finished in 2033. This estimate is nearly twice as much as the original estimated cost."

The full survey is here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-I...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-IvalVz/view)

<comment><USER7> Totally misleading to be up front about expanding costs. No one has to right to know what the taxpayer could be on the hook for...

<comment><USER8> It's a classic loaded question technique. Emphasise the bad things before asking the question. This is pretty obvious.

Do you think they would have got the same result if it was worded "A high speed train will reduce journey times by X%, reduce congestion by Y% on the roads and reduce CO2 pollution by Z%. Do you think we should build one?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When you sell voters the sizzle and not the steak; this disillusion is just a matter of time.

It was sold on an impossible premise; \- Minimum 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) where conditions permit \- Maximum travel time between SF and LA not to exceed 2 hr 40 min \- Financially self-sustaining (operation and maintenance costs fully covered by revenue)

A flight to SF is 1.5hrs from LA (take off and landing). And only costs $150 round trip. If you could reduce the hassle of "security" you have a better, faster, cheaper high speed transit system.

It was supposed to cost $30b. It will cost north of $90b. And it will still need to be subsidized. And it will be slower than 2hr 40min.

If you could possibly deliver what was sold - I'm sure the polling would reflect that. But what the people are getting is a shadow of what they approved.

<comment><AUTHOR> The SF/LA route has an even bigger problem: once you get to LA, then what? There's not really enough transit in the LA area to get where you actually mean to go, and that's almost certain to be true even if all the current transit projects finish. The Bay Area frankly isn't much better. You'll very likely to need to take a car (maybe an autonomous one) from the end points. And given that, flying seems even better. There are 3 big SFBA airports and 5 in the LA metro area; direct flights between those are more likely to get you closer to your endpoints.

The more legitimate case for CAHSR is really opening up the middle of the state. But that could have been done much cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Killing it would be short-sighted. If it gets killed, there would probably never be the opportunity to build it ever again. California is flush with tech money, put some of it to good use.

<comment><USER11> Killing it would be far sighted. Technology is improving transportation methods, we have buses and planes that can do the same thing as this train at much cheaper rates and without tax dollars to construct or maintain.

<comment><USER3> There is no bus or plane that can do anything like what HSR can do. That's the entire point of the project. It will triple the capacity of our north-south transportation system at a fraction of the cost of equivalent airport capacity.

This is something that people don't understand when they haven't travelled enough to experience good rail systems. Rail has massive capacity, 100k people per hour per track direction. That's 500 lanes of theoretical freeway capacity, or 1000 lanes under realistic operating conditions, and it's more than the total capacity between all Bay Area and all L.A.-area airports, even if you operated that route solely with widebody jets, which we don't.

<comment><USER12>
      100k people per hour per track direction

Your source for this statistic?

<comment><USER13> I don't have any primary sources offhand, but the closest thing I last looked at was [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail) which has a number of 25k/h for light rail (pretty low speed, single-deck, presumably short trains).

I'd say 4x that amount for a full-sized HSR train is credible. It's just that that's a _maximum_. I don't believe that ridership will _ever_ be high enough to approach that number, unless air travel is outlawed.

<comment><USER8> > I don't believe that ridership will ever be high enough to approach that > number

Trains in the rush hour in the UK are pretty much always full, with people standing up. The tube at rush hour looks like this:

[https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs- public/thumbnails/image/2...](https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs- public/thumbnails/image/2016/05/06/15/tube.jpg?w968h681)

If it's not too expensive or infrequent I imagine it will be very popular.

<comment><USER13> > Trains in the rush hour

Especially given the picture you provide, I think you're talking about intra- urban rail (subway, metro, even suburban commuter).

That's a far cry from a 350-mile, 3-hour inter-city link.

Show me the picture for the London-Edinburgh "rush hour".

<comment><USER8> Done: [https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTE...](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/a-busy- train-carriage-from-southend-to-liverpool-pic-jk-press-781702887.jpg)

Southend to Liverpool is 3-4 hours on the train.

<comment><USER12> How close does it get to the stated _25,000 passengers per hour_ throughput metric?

<comment><USER13> Keep in mind that's for light rail, only 1/4 of what the commenter claimed for HSR.

With 3 occupants per vehicle, 4 freeway lanes could carry 25k, not as outlandish-sounding as 25.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The cost argument is always interesting to me, when you consider it in context. We (in America) recently passed a tax cut that will cost around $150B/year for the next 10 years, and likely more if the temporary parts are made permanent. Even with cost overruns, that's almost enough to pay for 2 California bullet trains PER YEAR for the next decade.

And yes, I know California is just 1 state out of 50, but even still, it just seems like people have really bad context on what is / is not an outrageous cost for government.

<comment><USER2> The tax cut is at least money back in peoples' pockets. This is a huge subsidy that'll benefit a tiny fraction of people who need to routinely travel between LA and SF, and can afford to spend $86 doing so (probably over $100 when it finally opens, its gone up a lot already).

<comment><USER15> > The tax cut is at least money back in peoples' pockets.

s/people/corporation

<comment><USER16> It's quite nice for small business too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From Wikipedia:

"In July 2014 The World Bank reported that the per kilometer cost of California's high-speed rail system was $56 million, more than double the average cost of $17–21 million per km of high speed rail in China and more than the $25–39 million per km average for similar projects in Europe."

"As of May 2015, both construction packages awarded have come in significantly under staff estimates."

"In December 2016, an internal-use-only draft risk assessment produced by the Federal Railroad Administration was delivered to the California Rail Authority which warned that the ICS (Merced-Bakersfield) segment could cost as much as $9.5 billion instead of the $6.4 billion originally budgeted"

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High- Speed_Rail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail)

</comment><comment><USER18> Link to the Methodology and Survey: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-I...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-IvalVz/view?usp=sharing)

Question 26 is the headline.

Question 25 is In general, do you [oppose] or [support] California's project to build a high-speed rail system connecting Los Angeles, the Central Valley, and San Francisco?

Strongly/somewhat Support =49 Strongly/somewhat Oppose = 43

Cross Tabs break these question down by race, education, political party, age, region, etc: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1sIIQSUED6MwcGxVYcImDAsn7e...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1sIIQSUED6MwcGxVYcImDAsn7e-nY-E/view?usp=sharing)

</comment><comment><USER19> Key graphic: [https://www.trbimg.com/img-5b0779e9/turbine/la-pol-g-ca- usc-...](https://www.trbimg.com/img-5b0779e9/turbine/la-pol-g-ca-usc-poll- bullet-train_web_2/)

31% for, 48% against, 19% undecided for all Californian voters.

<comment><USER20> Also worth noting the huge disparity between Bay Area voters (overwhelmingly FOR continuing the project) vs. LA voters (this is an LA Times article).

<comment><USER4> Is LA Times against it because LA residents are, or are LA residents against it because LA Times is?

<comment><USER21> People think of California as one of the bluest blue states, but it's very far from homogeneous. The LA metro area, for example, contains several affluent and strongly Republican communities, which means that if you poll educated/affluent/traditional-news-reading people in that area you're going to get results that lean more conservative than what people often expect (and Republicans/conservatives in the US are generally against public transit and public-works projects).

You can get the same thing in the Bay area if you poll in the right places. See Atherton's lawsuits to try to stop Caltrain electrification, for example.

<comment><USER20> Politics aside, is there any more practical reason Bay Area would prefer to have this train more than LA (e.g. people in Bay Area visit LA more often than people in LA visit Bay Area)?

<comment><USER21> SFO and LAX send a lot of traffic to each other (each one is the other's top domestic destination), and there doesn't seem to be a directional preference:

[https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=LAX&...](https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=LAX&carrier=FACTS)

[https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=SFO&...](https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=SFO&carrier=FACTS)

There may be a practical argument that the HSR would make it easier to commute to SF from further away, which might relieve housing pressure a bit.

But I really do think it mostly comes down to politics, and to there being more people in the SF area whose politics lean toward public transit/public works than in the LA area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How does China build 14,000 miles of high-speed rail, with another 10,000 on the way, while the United States essentially has zero miles?

Countries are the same size.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- speed_rail_in_China#/me...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- speed_rail_in_China#/media/File%3ARail_map_of_PRC.svg)

Their cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is could to pay dividends over the next few decades.

<comment><USER23> Disregard of labor regulations and property rights, as well as cheap labor.

<comment><USER7> tl;dr [https://ibb.co/iEPiao](https://ibb.co/iEPiao)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This website is blocked in Europe.

<comment><USER25> Ask your representatives in parliament to consider implementing less internationally expansive laws or use a VPN.

<comment><USER26> Ask your newspapers in the U.S. to consider respecting user privacy.

<comment><USER27> The easiest and cheapest answer is the status-quo, which is ambiguity on whether you're compliant with GDPR, so it's completely logical they would just block access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Let's call it the monkey defense. If you don't like something the majority supports, scream and fling as much shit at it for as long as possible until no one is left that can bear the stench or the spectacle. Then claim you were right about it being a failure all along.

<comment><USER29> The people who said this would be a massive boondoggle and voted against the bond in the first place _were_ right all along.

<comment><USER4> _Every_ big public project is a massive boondoggle. Should we just stop doing things?

<comment><USER30> The Golden Gate Bridge was finished ahead of schedule and under budget.

<comment><USER31> Maybe, but the Bay Bridge wasn't, and they were built around the same time. [http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont- forget-...](http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont-forget-the- bay-bridge-project-was-a-boondoggle)

<comment><USER4> That link discusses the renovation of the eastern section that took place since 2000? Hardly comparable to the original construction of either bridge...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> many hidden assumptions and divisions here.. \- Bay Area / Sacramento area voters versus LA versus who \- the traffic and pollution of cars fits many individuals just fine, and the ability to think and act in larger groups is rarer than one might think \- every govt project has cost problems, why is this different

Trains with modern power sources seem like a really good idea; the rest is project management.

<comment><USER12>
      Trains with modern power sources seem like a really good idea

Tell BART that. Their new Antioch extension will be _diesel powered_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Normally the majority will not support a public transportation project simply because the majority can not use it.

</comment><comment><USER34> I flagged this article is geoblocked in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can you imagine if you put every public infrastructure project to a vote?

<comment><USER3> We did put this to a vote and it passed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What web framework should I learn as a freelancer? - moraya-re Hi, I've been using Laravel since a year. But what I've seen, mostly, programmers working in other ecosystem than PHP get more per hour billing. Please shade some light.
Thanks a lot in advance.
Happy weekend :-) <comment><AUTHOR> Not a real answer, but more like some food for thought:

[https://kukuruku.co/post/do-not-learn-frameworks-learn- the-a...](https://kukuruku.co/post/do-not-learn-frameworks-learn-the- architecture/)

<comment><USER2> Where would be a good place to start for learning the architecture?

edit: Found a couple links from the comments:

[https://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/b...](https://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/)

[http://aosabook.org/en/index.html](http://aosabook.org/en/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The two big obvious ones are Rails and Django. If you want a less common, more mind bending, more cutting edge experience, try Phoenix.

</comment><comment><USER4> Rails and/or Django. Check what's more popular in your area.

</comment><comment><USER5> React. A lot of demand right now, great for freelancing.</comment>


Facebook Login and What We Learned from our Show HN - <AUTHOR> http://neiljoglekar.com/fb-login-and-what-we-learned-from-our-show-hn/

<comment><USER2> If you want a service that hacker news readers will use to find new friends, then listen to their advice about logins. If you want lay people to use it, Facebook login is clearly the way to go, which you'll learn once you start talking to people (e.g. soccer moms) who don't operate inside hacker/internet engineering echo chamber.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are hoping to give people the best of both worlds, get started and opt-in to FB login.

<comment><USER2> Clearly, you'll want local login, and then integration to as many services as you can stand: fb, twitter, google, etc. There are some pretty robust solutions that are almost drop-ins that do this kind of thing for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your feedback sample is HN; of _course_ these guys are going to dislike signing in with Facebook.

Fact is, for normal people (think: your mom, aunt betty, cousin Joe) Facebook login is easier and looks safer to them.

It circles back to the ancient proverb: Know your audience.

<comment><USER4> Not true. All the metrics I've ever seen for Facebook Connect usage are abysmal regardless of audience.

<comment><USER5> I worked on a project that had incredibly positive results using Facebook Connect. So I guess we're at one anecdotal data point on each side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know about the others, but the reason I didn't comment was precisely because I didn't want to log in using Facebook. Your giant trees were blocking my view of the forest.

Giving the choice between a third-party and a classic profile is the best way to go. It complicates things a bit but no one has a reason not to try your service out.

</comment><comment><USER7> Lesson #1: _Hacker News is not your audience!_

Just forget about the nerds with a megaphone up their collective butts yelling about the evil Facebook and go for your actual market: _everyone else._

</comment><comment><USER8> I've considered GitHub and Bitbucket logins to be great options if you have a product that targets developers, but want to try and avoid (for a while, or forever) handling usernames/passwords/password resets/etc yourself. Both seem to have a general sense of "trust" that many do not have for Facebook.

I'm implementing Google & GitHub (w/ BitBucket to follow just after) OAuth2 flows on a small project I'm building now. Both services are extremely pervasive amongst the specific developers I'm targeting, so I consider users unwilling to sign-in with either of those services a minority (but one that I won't ignore, if they clamour for it!). I just had to draw the line in the sand somewhere if I'm going to get this out the door this summer (winter, here).

</comment><comment><USER9> What does this say about HN -- that commenters here would rather troll and complain about FB login than to talk about the value behind a new social service?

<comment><USER10> I have no idea how criticisms over only allowing logins to a service through facebook could ever possibly be construed as trolling.

<comment><USER9> Because it's an easy argument to bait others into, but doesn't solve anything. Offensive nerd sniping is another way to look at it.

<comment><USER11> "Bait" someone, "troll"ing....to observe that demanding a Facebook login might not work for everyone?

Give me a break. Save the outrage for a case where it might be appropriate, however thus far the only troll here is you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You might want to check out combosaurus.com . It's by the same people who run OkCupid and quite interesting. They are also quite good at predicting things I like based on the things I've already told it I like. What they don't have is a focus on actually meeting people.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very nice writeup of the original thread and lessons to learn. Also I commend you for listening, learning and improving. I am not in your current markets but I'll be watching for when you expand to other areas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words, hopefully we have helped improve our feedback channels even more and can expand to your area soon.

</comment></comment><comment> X-Cubed > "The email people used to sign up for Facebook was not one that they checked > every day (which is especially important if that's how you want to schedule > events)."

That doesn't strike me as an issue that's unique to using Facebook Login. There are plenty of people that don't check their email on a daily basis.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, what I meant was people use emails that they never check period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't think you can really get a feel for the site without signing up for it. I wonder if you'd have gotten better feedback from HN if people could actually use it without signing up. This is probably a different issue entirely than relying solely on Facebook Login.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure why you want to restrict your audience to the SF area. I can understand if you're shipping a product or delivering a physical service, but this is just people matching.

</comment><comment><USER16> these are some valuable insights regarding something people default to without considering the tradeoffs.

I'd be interested to see a more in-depth analysis across products/companies and wider demographics regarding the disparity between an inferred personality (via likes) and actual preferences.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't know whether it's a mistake or not but I see a lot of new location/locality/city specific apps/startups coming out as _only in city A,B_ or maybe _works only in the USA_. Though I'm sure majority of HNers are north Americans, most of these starups/services could actually open up to the world.

What happens is you see an app and from the outside it seems promising, you go inside and it's like "oh, great! USA only" or maybe "SF only" etc. One solution would be to just put a banner on home page "ABC only as of now" or whatever.</comment>


U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it's cracking open - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/20/us-put-nuclear-waste-under-dome-pacific-island-now-its-cracking-open/ <comment><USER3> PDF of report done in 2013 [1] which basically says and leaks will rapidly dilute. The key to remember is the lagoon and surrounding areas are already far more polluted than what this dome may leak.

Besides, if ever want a real scare go look at the maps for all the chemical munitions dumped in our oceans that we know about [2] - does not include normal munitions and such.

So while it is a problem it is not the real problem that already exist.

[1] [https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/ccc/Hamilton_LLNL- TR-648143...](https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/ccc/Hamilton_LLNL- TR-648143_final.pdf)

[2] [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/decaying- weapo...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/decaying-weapons- world-war-II-threaten-waters-worldwide-180961046/)

<comment><USER4> News from a few weeks ago [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/first- world-war-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/first-world-war- mustard-gas-leaks-belgian-underwater-grave/):

 _"Deadly mustard gas has leaked from a First World War underwater "weapons cemetery" in the North Sea, close to the Belgian coast"_

Those were trace amounts, so there is not much immediate danger, but things can get worse.

And for normal munitions, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messines_\(1917\)#List_of_the_mines) probably lists a few of the scariest (a few 10,000+ kg stashes of explosives buried in Belgium since World War One. One of them exploded in 1955 after a lightning strike, showing that they were still dangerous after fortie-is years; a few others still buried somewhere)

<comment><USER5> And also -

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

The Doomsday Wreck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The US needs to go in and clean up this mess and should feel very obligated to move quickly on this, but is hasn't. See also this article from 2015 [1] and folks may enjoy this video for the visuals of it [2].

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome- pac...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific- radioactive-waste)

[2] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA)

<comment><USER7> That would be a nice thing to do, but per the article in 1983 the Marshall Islands traded US liability for nuclear issues as part of their move to self- government.

That is not to say that some Federal-level support is not warranted like other Superfund sites, but that it may not be the total and complete responsibility of the US Federal government to resolve the issue, as agreed to legally by both parties.

<comment><USER8> >the Marshall Islands traded US liability for nuclear issues as part of their move to self-government.

This is classic over-the-barrel negotiating tactics used by colonizing nations over their former colonies. The Marshall Islanders had few options here. Continue to have their sovereignty dictated from and literal lands and lives ruined by a foreign nation, or take liability for the colonizer's experimentation and some control of their future back.

Just because a choice was made, doesn't make the process _just_ or _right_. It may release the United States from a _legal_ obligation, but it doesn't excuse any _ethical_ or _moral_ obligations of the state to the people of the islands.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree with you.

It is unfortunate, however, that states do not often act out of ethical or moral obligations unless it serves some other, broader interest. It's my fervent hope the United States chooses to act on its ethical and moral obligations, but overall a regression to the mean of state behavior can also be expected from time to time.

My more cynical self sees many more pressing and dangerous environment disasters domestically that are readily apparent and not being dealt with properly - in places where people actually vote for US politicians. This indicates to me that a fix in a United States associated state will unfortunately likely not merit the expenditure for awhile unless some legal case could be brought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pretty bad reporting. OK, it contains Pu-239, but how much? If it leaks, what effects will that have?

<comment><USER10> This is the correct thought process. The linked article from llnl [1] states that "The final plan called for (1) removing all radioactive and non- radioactive debris (equipment, concrete, scrap metal, etc.), (2) removing all soil that exceeded 14.8 Bq (400 pCi) of plutonium per gram of soil, (3) removing or amending soil between 1.48 and 14.8 Bq (40 and 400 pCi) of plutonium per gram of soil, determined on a case-by-case basis depending on ultimate land-use, and 4) disposing and stabilizing all this accumulated radioactive waste into a crater on Runit Island and capping it with a concrete dome." It goes on to state that "A estimated total of 73,000 cubic meters of surface soil...was recovered by scapping and deposited in Cactus crater on Runit Island."

Unfortunately, it does not provide an average specific activity for the material stored, only a lower limit threshold. If we assume it was near this lower limit of 14.8 bq threshold (could be the case depending on how often case (3) was used) and assume mostly plutonium-239. Since isotopic distribution is unknown, this is a conservative assumption because the longer half-life will yield a larger mass in the calculation. The molar density can be calculated from the specific activity listed:

Na/m = a x hl/ln(2) = 14.8[decay/s] x 23110[yrs]/ln(2) = 1.57e13 atoms/gram = 2.61e-11 mol/gram

The mass of the dirt collected will be assumed to be wet sand with a density of 1905 kg/m^3 [2] (note that density is actually slightly higher than this due to the plutonium contained). And finally, the volume collected is 73,000 cubic meters, or 1.39e11 grams. So the total amount of plutonium is:

2.61e-11[mol/g] x 1.39e11[g] = 3.63 mol

So our envelope calculation yields about 870 grams of plutonium. So how accurate is this? It is probably on the high side after reading the paper posted by Shivetya [3]. They cite a total inventory of 545 GBq. Using the assumptions above, one would expect an inventory of 2058 GBq.

As for the effects, that's difficult to tell. Really the two scenarios that come to mind are a constant leaching into the environment or a disaster that results in the total mass being dumped. In the latter case a disaster of that magnitude would likely disperse the material in a biased direction. In this case it would dilute relatively quickly. Impacts from the radiation would probably be apparent close by in the biased direction. A constant leak would depend on the leach rate and leak locations. The NRC defines monthly sewer release limits of material in Table 3 of 10 CFR Part 20 Appendix B - <USER2> for protection against radiation. The number given for Pu is 84 uCi or 3.108e6 Bq. Based on the plutonium inventory calculated and neglecting material decay, the material could leach out within NRC limits over a period of 55 thousand years (2058e9/3.108e6/12). Note that this number is likely highly inflated given the assumption that all radioactive material is Pu-239 and the comparison in [3]. Using the number from [3] and assuming all activity is Pu, the duration would be 14 thousand years. However this is a rough analysis that does not account for isotopic distributions, so please take the results with a grain of salt.

[1]:[https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/enewetak.php#cleanup](https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/enewetak.php#cleanup)

[2]:[https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/amp/dirt-mud-densities- d_...](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/amp/dirt-mud-densities-d_1727.html)

[3]:[https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/ccc/Hamilton_LLNL- TR-648143...](https://marshallislands.llnl.gov/ccc/Hamilton_LLNL- TR-648143_final.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Just wanted to add that the mass leakage rate to remain under NRC limits would be 1.39e11 [g] / 55000 [yrs] = 2527 [kg/yr] = 7 [kg/day]

Put into that context, it might not be too absurd to think leakage would remain under NRC limits if only small cracks were present (assuming those limits are actually applicable to this scenario)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One "meta" way of looking at things like this is that it represents a part of the technical debt left behind by the industrial revolution. Eventually we have to go back and fix this stuff, but as with technical debt in most code bases we tend to ignore it. Unfortunately technical debt is subject to compound interest, so the longer we ignore it the more costly it is to eventually deal with.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some messes are just too big to clean up. They knew going into the testing that it was going to kill thousands and thousands of natives and effect native people in a terrible way for generations to come but they didn't give a shit then and they dont give a shit now. That's why most of the natives have 6 fingers and 4 toes, are sterile and the land is poisoned and will stay poisoned. You can deny it all you want but if it was not true shit like this wouldn't be so common place. We aren't the only ones and this isn't the only site and it's not just radiation, its carbon, its carcinogens, it's plastic... there is a whole boat load of shit like this that everyone pretends to care about when their talking about it with their husband or best friend but seems to have no trouble sleeping off the next day. What makes us think we can all just act like animals one day and civilized humans that next... I have no clue but that's reality. People ask: "Oh what can I do, I am so small and the problem is so big!" idk but I do know this if you ACTUALLY cared you would figure out some way to help. What's the difference between pretending to care and actually caring you ask? It's simple, doing something about it versus talking about doing something about it, it's that simple, that's the difference. Write your governor, send some money, do anything or just admit you don't care, and do nothing. That's what the US government is counting on you to do and that's why they got away with this and that's why they will get away with similar shit in the future.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great documentary on this, free to watch. [0]

[0] [https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dome/](https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dome/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone else feel helpless when reading stuff like this? Is there anything I can do to make things better in these scenarios?

<comment><USER15> Tell people around you to stop implicitly trusting centralized power.

<comment><USER16> But whom has the power to clean something like this up except for centralized power?

<comment><USER17> "The market."

Just kidding.

<comment><USER18> The market is irresponsible.

Not kidding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tangentially related: What ever became of Taylor Wilson? > [https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-wilson-taking-the- ene...](https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-wilson-taking-the-energy- industry-by-storm-2017-11)

</comment><comment><USER20> The people who designed it have now passed on so it has met its designed lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER21> so we just have to go in and fix it up. No big deal.

</comment><comment><USER22> Paywalled so I cant read but that dome in cover something with a porous bottom and rising sea level isn't helping either.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA)

<comment><USER23> Clear site cookies and local storage, or open in private session.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't think there's so much activity left after so many years

<comment><USER25> Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,110 years. Source: Wikipedia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

<comment><USER27> Ironically, if we did go full nuclear, the oceans probably wouldn't have risen, saving us from a cracking nuclear dome and an untold number of other hassles.

Sure, nuclear power is not 100% safe, but its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100."

I'm OK with building, say, solar instead of nuclear. I'm definitely NOT OK with keeping fossil fuel where nuclear is available, while paying a lip service saying "Oh don't worry, in 30 years maybe we will switch to renewables."

<comment><USER28> I can't see why solar isn't now the leading candidate. Nuclear is cool and all, but the simplicity of a butt-tonne of solar in a field can't be overlooked. It's not likely to fail catastrophically, maintenance is modular and low-impact. The skills needed are trades not degrees and if we can get the power output/battery/backup balance right, as a society we have clean, reliable energy indefinitely.

I say that knowing we are barreling toward fantastic solar participation in the grid in many countries, and I feel it's just a matter of time before it becomes the dominant source of our energy, especially as battery solutions come into play. It's also not the end of the world to have some backup gas generators that fire up once in a blue moon. Compared to 100% fossil fuels, the occasional gas turbine firing up on a stormy week would be negligible. Alternatively, novel storage methods such as hydro storage could make even backup energy green.

There are probably cities where it wouldn't work right now, but I can't imagine there being many places where it couldn't work at all.

<comment><USER29> Solar and nuclear are complementary technologies. Nuclear produces power at night when solar doesn't, solar produces power during the day when the demand is higher. It significantly reduces the amount of storage batteries you need, which is the primary impediment to using solar exclusively.

Solar is also problematic during winter. We need to replace fossil fuels as a heat source, but when heating with electricity at scale during winter, the demand _rises_ at night meanwhile the days are shorter and solar generates less. Heating New York and Chicago in winter using solar and batteries doesn't have promising economics.

<comment><USER30> Storage is easy for renewables, regardless of local geology, using already existing tech.

In many places, the winds blows powerfully at night. With a capable grid like the one China has build in the last 10 years, that energy can be efficiently moved a thousand miles.

<comment><USER29> > Storage is easy for renewables, regardless of local geology, using already > existing tech.

By the time you generate power from some actual generation source, pay the conversion losses both ways and then pay the equipment, land and maintenance costs of the storage technology, it isn't cost-competitive. And then people keep burning carbon.

> In many places, the winds blows powerfully at night. With a capable grid > like the one China has build in the last 10 years, that energy can be > efficiently moved a thousand miles.

Wind is regionally intermittent. If it's a still night in one place there is a significant probability that it will also be a few miles from there. But transmitting power over a thousand miles isn't cost-competitive. Both the infrastructure cost and the transmission losses scale with the distance, making the cost quadratic with the transmission distance. On top of that, it multiplies your costs for the generation, because if you're not going to use storage you need enough generation in Region A to power both Region A and Region B when it's a still night in Region B, but you also need that much in Region B for when it's still in Region A. Even if that only happens one night out of five.

There are also national security implications. For all but a small handful of countries "1000 miles away" is in another country. Who does Israel connect its grid to? Or Japan? Does Germany enjoy buying power from France? What do you do when your neighbor raises the price?

Then everyone, including the bigger countries, takes on a large-scale dependency. Lose the long-distance transmission lines and the brownouts aren't just regional, it's the whole continent. There are ways to harden against that but then we're raising the cost even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> More FUD. Nuclear energy is the safest energy.

<comment><USER32> Can we ship all the nuclear waste to your house? Don't worry, it's the safest kind of energy there is.

Or maybe "safe" isn't the right term for something that also produces some of the most deadly substances that we know of? It's "safe" so long as nothing goes wrong, and everything is stored correctly. Of course, that regularly proves to not be the case: [https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-school-closed- enriched-uranium...](https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-school-closed-enriched- uranium-discovered-radiation-cancer-1424704)

<comment><USER33> It's very worrying to see comments like this become more and more common on HN.

Yes, I will take the waste. If it's in the containers we've developed specifically for this purpose, yes. It beats the current situation in the US where everyone stores waste on site because politicians can't decide where to put it because of people like you.

Modern waste, with proper precautions, is safe for long term disposal and storage. I cannot stress this enough.

If you don't believe me, this website has plenty of information regarding nuclear power, straight from the source. It is developed and run by the UN. Based on your misinformation, I strongly urge you to pore over this content and then attempt to reevaluate your own question.

[http://www.world-nuclear.org/Information-Library.aspx](http://www.world- nuclear.org/Information-Library.aspx)

<comment><USER34> > world-nuclear.org

There is nothing more sad out there than linking to a homepage the nuclear lobby uses to drive this artificial nuclear hype we've seen here in the last months.

<comment><USER33> The page is run by the UN. Who, in your opinion, would be a more reputable source?

<comment><USER35> What makes you think this site would be "run by the UN"? The WNA is a nuclear industry lobbying organization. Nothing more, nothing less.

<comment><USER33> My personal experience with interacting with the WNA revolves around their interactions with the WNU, which is the World Nuclear University. It's a partnership between the WNA, IAEA, and others. Their goal is to promote education in the field and having significant experience with the WNU, and having noticed no irregularities, it would be very unlikely if the WNA was simply making things up, or if they were spreading falsehoods. The WNA site is consistently pointed to as a global source of truth by the WNU and by the IAEA.

Could you enlighten me as to who would be a more reliable source on nuclear technology?

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

[http://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/what-we- do/worl...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/what-we-do/world- nuclear-university.aspx)

[https://www.iaea.org/services/technical-cooperation- programm...](https://www.iaea.org/services/technical-cooperation- programme/world-nuclear-university/wnu-school-on-radiation-technologies)

Would an organization evidently so deeply ingrained with and tied to the UN and the UN's nuclear-specific arm, backed by numerous experts, really be in the business of misleading anyone? Would you disregard a pro-climate change website for its pro-climate change bias as well?

If you still don't believe me, feel free to drop your email and I can setup a time for you to meet several physicists or engineers in the NYC area for lunch, for an educational session free of charge.

<comment><USER34> What is "pro-climate" today if the main line of this recent out of "nothing" nuclear hype is: "It's either nuclear or coal", which is a lie painting people who don't want to have nuclear as some kind of idiots with a phobia.

> If you still don't believe me, feel free to drop your email and I can setup > a time for you to meet several physicists or engineers in the NYC area for > lunch, for an educational session free of charge.

Oh please...what are the chances that the person is even close to the NCY area...? I'm from Germany. You know...the country with no nuclear issues at all anymore...besides with the waste of it of course.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wikileaks release "PlusD": Database of 1.7 million diplomatic cables - <AUTHOR> http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/ <comment><USER3> I have an American friend (we met when we were both living overseas) who has been all over the world because he works for the international travel industry. He hasn't lived in the United States for at least a decade. If I remember correctly, he hasn't even visited the United States for at least four years. He and I have both long been skeptics about the United States Department of State and especially the Foreign Service. But after the Wikileaks release of many United States diplomatic cables, he told me that his respect for the United States Foreign Service had increased enormously. The members of the Foreign Service are actually quite astute about what a clash in values is involved in maintaining peaceful, normal diplomatic relations between their free, democratic country and many other countries around the world. Diplomatic business has to go on day by day even while countries are painfully slow in their evolution to civil liberties and representative governments.

<comment><USER4> It's funny you mention this when a lot of these cables show how the US government was pressuring the Spanish government to join NATO and more recently to legislate in favor of the American media lobby. Obviously it's both parties fault, but I don't particularly like when my country and the people who are supposed to be my representatives are constantly subject to American wishes. They are definitely polite, but their requests and intentions are as selfish as it can be.

<comment><USER5> They are operating in their own interests. I would expect Spain to also being doing this, obviously some countries hold more sway than others.

<comment><USER6> This is a common argument, that I've seen at lot here on HN as well. It boils down to "every country should act in only its own direct best interest, and assume that every other country will or should the same". If I'm not mistaken, that's called classical realism[1] by political scientists.

Now, why do things have to be this way? Are you certain that, even while we the people are perfectly capable of being nice to each other, the countries that represent us must act like immorally self-centered egoists? Why is that a justification for crap behavior?

Despite all its flaws, the EU has shown that it does not have to be this way. Countries _can_ cooperate and look beyond their own immediate interests. I'm not saying that that's the only right way, and I'm very much not saying that the EU is doing it right, but classical realism isn't the only approach to international relations out there. Saying that something must be so "because countries should act in their own interests only" is a sloppy argument.

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

<comment><USER7> >>Now, why do things have to be this way? Are you certain that, even while we the people are perfectly capable of being nice to each other, the countries that represent us must act like immorally self-centered egoists?

That is a very common opinion (yes, I'm calling you naive).

You are making an analogy between civil society (where people are nice) to states, where there is "realpolitik".

You forget that there is a violence monopoly (police etc) to keep rule of law in a society, but not between countries. Before states that enforced a violence monopoly, there were clan societies.

Simplified for clan sovieties think vikings, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan/Iraq, etc. Not so nice... in fact, you can probably do good analogues between (especially non-democratic) countries and big clans.

(Yeah, the above is a bit simplified -- democracies are e.g. quite nice as long as the opinion at home cares. The point should be clear.)

Edit: AnthonBerg, ok it was not necessary to point out that an opinion is naive. I used to have that opinion myself, so it irritates me. (I grew up reading Swedish media; stupid and simplified world view.)

<comment><USER6> Then explain the EU to me? Especially the beginnings of it? E.g. France, UK and Germany, mortal enemies for centuries, shifting focus from self-interest defense thinking to collaboration?

<comment><USER8> Or was it collaboration in defense of their self-interest? After WWII Europe was in ruin, the USA and USSR had taken over as the world powers, and the sentiment "never again" clearly had not proven to strong enough in the past. Making the same mistakes as after WWI was not an option this time.

Furthermore, Western Europe found in the USSR a common and real enemy. As Germany was divided into four (later two) parts, the power balance between France and Germany favored France at that time. That allowed for the idea of a collaboration that would connect the re-development of Germany to the development of Western-Europe as a whole. As a result, so hoped the Europeanists, France and Germany would become co-dependent to that extent that a military solution would not be in the interest of either country. To keep that balance, however, neither country could afford to annex some of the smaller countries. That would make the European idea attractive to these smaller countries.

All idealism aside, all this can be explained from a Realpolitiker point of view.

PS It has been a while I since studied International Relations and Modern History, however, so take the above more as informed speculation than historical analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This stuff is fun:

Commercial Opportunities in Iraq Oil Sector:

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973BAGHDA00111_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973BAGHDA00111_b.html)

Earliest record for Megabyte

<https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973OECDP12963_b.html>

Opening up a 50 kilobit connection in moscow:

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976MOSCOW16762_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976MOSCOW16762_b.html)

US shipping a Graphical Display Unit to the USSR in 1973

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973STATE229113_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973STATE229113_b.html)

Romanians love Columbo:

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01611_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01611_b.html)

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01912_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01912_b.html)

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01936_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01936_b.html)

[https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR02356_b.htm...](https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR02356_b.html)

<comment><USER10> "The original series, which ran from 1971 to 1977, was so popular in Romania it was broadcast there twice a week. When ``Columbo`` stopped production in the U.S., suspicious Romanians thought their government had canceled the show because of import quotas. Fearing riots, the Romanian government begged the U.S. State Department to have the show`s star, Peter Falk, make a public- service announcement explaining the real reason for the demise of ``Columbo.`` Falk obliged and taped a TV spot, which he read phonetically in Romanian."

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-04-02/features/89033...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-04-02/features/8903310956_1_peter- falk-bodyguards-gideon-oliver)

<comment><USER11> That's hilarious. Columbo was my grandfather's favorite show on Hungarian TV back in the day. Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - <USER2> couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language.

<comment><USER12> "Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language."

OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different, not to mention the length of sentences, double entendres that are impossible to translate, etc?

<comment><USER13> > but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, > the form of the lips while speaking is different

It will be different but unless you read lips or pay close attention you won't notice it (too much). IIRC dub translators try to match end vowels of sentences.

> not to mention the length of sentences

A good adaptation will account for that and translate for matching durations.

> double entendres that are impossible to translate

That's not a problem unique to dubbing. When a joke is impossible to translate it isn't. Good translators will compensate for dropped jokes by adding other jokes when possible. Translated comedy is rarely good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Usual disclaimer applies for those with a clearance: by accessing classified documents on your home computers you could get yourself in serious trouble (in theory). In light of this particular situation I don't know if anyone has ever been punished but you should be careful.

<comment><USER15> Is it still classified if it's public? Doesn't a thing stop being secret automatically when it leaks out?

If it does not then I wonder why they even called it "classified" or "secret". They should call it "blargh" and avoid the confusion.

<comment><USER16> No. Whether something is classified or not has nothing to do with who has read it or whether its common knowledge or leaked or not. Classified is classified until its officially declassified, period.

<comment><USER17> lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only one genuinely afraid of clicking any of cables with keyword SECRET ?

<comment><USER14> If you have a clearance you should absolutely not be clicking on it (if you are also paranoid and don't want to possibly fail your polygraph test -- "have you accessed or downloaded classified documents on your personal computer...?" er...oops).

Otherwise if you don't hold a clearance, I don't think they can do anything to you (however, I am not a lawyer so don't take this as a legal advice etc etc...)

<comment><USER19> Actually don't worry too much about the polygraph, it's complete pseudoscience. <http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Polygraph>

<comment><USER20> and yet, still used

<comment><USER21> They're using the _idea_ of the polygraph, the actual measurements could mean anything. It's the "conversation" during and after the test that counts.

Of course it's also a great medium to screw someone over, but that's a whole other thing.

<comment><USER14> Yap it is just an interrogation. However, knowing about how the polygraph is ineffective and letting the administrator know will often result in 'FAILURE'. They will specifically ask questions related to polygraph terminology (lingo, abbreviations) to see if you are familiar.

It effectively lets through psychopaths, very good liar or those that know how polygraphs work and presumably practiced passing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I love how they thoughtfully go ahead and provide a headline-ready name for the data set now.

"Cablegate."

At this point the Watergate should just assign rooms scandal names ending in -Gate instead of room numbers.

<comment><USER23> There's a nice British comedy sketch about naming everything -gate <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w>

<comment><USER24> The advert I got for that YouTbue video started with a Lionsgate logo...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am mildly disappointed that there is not a torrent seed of the whole dataset...

It might be interesting to see what sort of correlates could be inferred by a crowdsourced analysis.

<comment><USER26> It's not the whole dataset, but the cables from 2003-2010 are downloadable here:

<http://cryptome.org/z/z.7z>

<comment><USER25> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know the verification process Wikileaks uses? Ie, if I anonymously send them some "cables", how do they know I'm not trolling them with disinfo?

<comment><USER28> The modern cables are from a single source, and that source is in a military prison.

<comment><USER29> Bradley Manning Admits to Being Wikileaks Source ( [http://mashable.com/2013/02/28/bradley-manning-reveals- how-a...](http://mashable.com/2013/02/28/bradley-manning-reveals-how-and-why- he-leaked-secret-documents/))

<comment><USER30> He was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. Can someone explain the logic behind this? In Nobel's will it is said:

      > one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best
      > work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction
      > of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
      > congresses

If Manning/Wikileaks did anything of this nature, I missed it a big way :(

<comment><USER31> With Obama/EU(not a person at all) winning Nobel peace prize, its obviously just political showmanship.

Obama is a controversial because he expanded definition of combatant and expanded military reach.

EU is a state. Not a person...

<comment><USER32> Not that I disagree with your assessment as such, but the peace prize as been award to institutions and organizations lots of times. So in and of itself there is nothing strange or unusual about the EU getting the prize.

<comment><USER31> It's especially weird that it got awarded sometimes when the crisis escalated, while Greece was slipping into fascism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This one is interesting: 30 day mandate for computers sold in China to install filtering software called "Green Dam - Escort of the Youth Flowers" , besides the great name it even comes with a backdoor.

<https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING1520_a.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is a Google trends style search tool for the database here: <http://wikileaks.org/plusd/graph>

<comment><USER34> One minor caveat is:

>This tool only searches the Kissinger Cables (1973-1976) dataset

Would have loved to play around with Iraq-related terms... But maybe that's still to come.

<comment><USER35> Check out "Document sets to search" at the top of the search tool.

It looks like you select "The Kissinger Cables" (1,707,500 diplomatic documents from 1973 to 1976) and/or "Cablegate" (251,287 diplomatic cables, nearly all from 2003 to 2010)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Weird prediction: some 22 year old is reading a bunch of these now. He/she will enter the foreign service of his/her respective country and become a great career diplomat as a result.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is this the same thing as the cables from about 2 years before, or something new?

edit: oh OK, those are cablegate + some new cables from seventies. Well.... all right, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER38> They seem to be using CloudFlare. That's good PR!</comment>


IBM builds exascale supercomputer for largest telescope - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/124561-ibm-to-build-exascale-supercomputer-for-the-worlds-largest-million-antennae-telescope?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ibm-to-build-exascale-supercomputer-for-the-worlds-largest-million-antennae-telescope

<comment><USER2> Reading about projects like this always helps me when I ask myself the question whether I'm working on "stuff that matters". Not that I think everything could (or should) be on the same scale as huge science projects that lay the groundwork for our species' future, but it provides a reference point for comparison.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, this was my same response. I may enjoy what I'm doing, but to be a part of something like this. Wow. I can't even imagine what it would be to be a part of something this amazing and huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As usual, the news article is maddeningly short on details, but I assume they're going to be using this for interferometry between all those radio telescopes -- combining the signals with some really heavy DSP to get a relatively high-resolution raster image of a portion of the sky.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_interferometer>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array>

<comment><USER5> I agree with the assumption of this projects application though I find it maddening that they're choosing to look 'up' instead of _down_. I believe more practical value can be obtained if that enormous computing resource were used to investigate the smallest components of the cosmos. Take Test4Theory[1] for example whose stated goal is to help in refining the accuracy of the Standard Model of Particle Physics; this would create the ability for us to derive a more accurate understanding of Nature and would exponentiate our development of technologies that are key to our species survival.

[1] <http://lhcathome2.cern.ch/high-energy-physics-simulations></comment></comment>


Diamonds are a lab's best friend - <AUTHOR> http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/12/diamonds-are-a-labs-best-friend/ <comment><AUTHOR> "A neuron's magnetic field causes a change in the fraction of spins in one of the two quantum states. Using a laser constrained to the diamond, the researchers can detect this fraction, reading out the neural signal as an optical image, without light entering the biological sample."

Amazing research and great science writing!

This is also a good example of how a clever headline doesn't have to be clickbait.</comment>


μPlot v1.1 – now with log scales support - <AUTHOR> https://leeoniya.github.io/uPlot/demos/log-scales.html <comment><USER2> I integrated uPlot into my small SaaS product a few weeks ago. Not only was it easy to do, leeoniya quickly answered a question of mine on GitHub about custom line shapes.

leeoniya, if you're reading this, please apply to GitHub sponsors so I can give you money.

</comment><comment> dan-robertson This library is great.

Computers are so fast these days. It's amazing how crap they do often are when it comes to plotting a few thousand data points.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> i tagged v1.1 a bit ago, with lots of goodies and new demos.

main project page: [https://github.com/leeoniya/uPlot](https://github.com/leeoniya/uPlot)

<comment><USER3> If you have the bandwidth to write a Python wrapper and a Jupyter extension (in JS [0]), you would make uPlot appealing to quite a few data science folks (like me).

0\. [https://jupyter- notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/extending/...](https://jupyter- notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/extending/frontend_extensions.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm a bit worried this will be a pretty deep rabbit hole in terms of unpaid support issues. since i'm not a python dev nor am familiar with Jupyter, this will likely occupy too much of my time.

if someone more familiar is willing to contribute an integration, i'd be happy to review it and answer questions.

it may help to use [https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py](https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py) as a starting point, then gut the relevent parts.

<comment><USER4> If you want to make a way to earmark contributions toward this feature, I'd be happy to help support (and probably many others).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With all due respect for the library and its beautiful showcase of demos, why do we apparently keep having to re-invent the wheel? Log-scaling axes seems like one of the most fundamental features in any plotting library. How many dev hours are wasted implementing logarithmic axis scaling for the umpteenth time?

<comment><AUTHOR> you can dismiss almost anything by that logic.

why do we need 100 implementations of SQL parsers & relational dbs?

why do we need to have 4 different js engines? graphics APIs? memory allocators? operating systems?

why do we need 100 different companies making slight variations of a smartphone?

why did i write uPlot when there are already 100 js charting libs out there?

> Log-scaling axes seems like one of the most fundamental features in any > plotting library.

the overwhelming majority of line charts in this world are not logarithmic. the only things which are "most fundamental" are axes lines, axis ticks/labels, series legend, chart title and connected datapoints.

if you've ever implemented anything even as simple as a log axis, you would realize there is not just 1 way to do it, despite the math being the same. there was no way for me to simply "use" someone else's already-invented log axis because it would not fit properly into uPlot's architecture. so it had to be re-implemented.

> How many dev hours are wasted implementing logarithmic axis scaling for the > umpteenth time?

rest assured that the amount of dev hours "wasted" on this feature is many orders of magnitude less (see what i did there?) than it took to re-invent yet another message board that you're using right now :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> uPlot really is amazing. My dream is that one day all the CSS Houdini[1] tech will be finished and widely supported and someone will create a version of it on top of the layout/painting/font-metrics APIs that is equally performant while fully responsive w.r.t. to container size and dynamic data.

[1] [https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/](https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The log demo only shows Log Y Scale. Am I to assume that it can also do Log/Log scales or Log X scale too?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, it can do both. though the default tick & axis label metrics are probably biased towards vertically stacked labels. so that would probably be tweaked for horizontal log x since the default label density will cause run-ins.</comment></comment>


Programming Languages are not Languages - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@old_sound/programming-languages-are-not-languages-c6f161a78c44?source=twitterShare-d51331cdd716-1535848309 <comment><USER2> It's interesting to see this topic from a linguistic PoV. As an utilitarist, I'm using programming languages that give me a maximum of compilation target and deployment options. So I'm finding myself spending my time using languages that have an "official" ISO (or other) spec and multiple implementations; that would be C, (vanilla) JavaScript, SQL, and Prolog, plus Java for a living. But I've noticed in the last decade or so there are developers who really are mentally blocked when not using a "perfect" language that can express their exact thought process. I have a similar blockade when I'm about to start writing a program at a time when the design and requirements are grossly unclear - every keystroke hurts as it gets you farer away from an actual solution. I'm just not into the quest for the perfect language; when I'm reading code, I can skim over implementation details and see the high-level design with relative ease, regardless of the language used. Paradoxically, modern, expressive languages such as Haskell, Rust, and Scala really don't reveal that kind of information to me at all.

"Programming isn't poetry" and "you should model the solution domain rather than the problem domain" really resonates with me.</comment>


Card Trick Leads to New Bound on Data Compression - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26078/?p1=Blogs <comment><USER2> Summary: Any sufficiently complex Markov source is indistinguishable from random (until you read enough characters).

A mathematical re-evaluation of the limits on data compression? No, not really.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this somewhat how time-coding vinyl is configured (i.e. Final Scratch and Traktor?)</comment>