Ask HN: As a Python developer are you interested in learning Go? - <AUTHOR> Hey,
May I ask you to help me in my research with some information? I'm trying to find out which groups of software engineers are interested in the Go programming language. I've been using it for a few years now and heard that mainly Python devs were moving towards it. Is this true in your opinion?
I've been thinking about putting a book together about Go which would follow the philosophy of "Learn Code The Hard Way". Readers would be required to actively participate in creating a fully fledged RESTful back-end application by the end of the book. I wouldn't like people to just type pieces of code, but I would rather ask them to work simple problems out with a test case provided. What do you think about this approach?
I'd really appreciate if you gave me some feedback.
If you have a minute to fill a formal survey out, that would help me most to have an accurate picture what you guys need and interested in to learn. Please submit your answer here: http://bit.ly/1sGWBs9
Many thanks!
Cheers, László <comment><USER2> Been writing Python code for about 10 years (C/Pascal/Assembly-style languages for 20 years prior to that) and was interested in Go for specific advantages: \- coroutines \- channels \- simple one-file delivery \- cross platform (I tend to develop on Mac and deploy on Linux or Windows)

After writing Go for about a year now, I'm switching back to Python -- specifically Python 3.5.

My (personal) issues with Go: \- No basic support for NULLs in database responses (yes, there are third-party modules). \- XML manipulation is a pain. \- third-party module management problematic. \- poor debugging environment. Switching back to Python and stepping up to Python 3.5 (and pyInstaller for single-file builds) addresses all the above pain points, plus introduces asyncio which is a seriously pleasant way to build asynchronous web/database applications. Rewrote a 1,000 line Go application in about 300 lines of Python using asyncio.

In addition to the specifics, writing in Go simply was not enjoyable. A typical end of the day with Go felt like I'd (usually) gotten the tool to do what I needed. Contrast that to a typical end of the day with Python feeling like I'd been using a tool that always supported me.

I'll continue to watch what Go is doing, but I'm back in Python (and playing with Elixir) for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback! I've also heard that devs are tend to move back to Python after having a journey in Go.</comment></comment>


Beware the UIKit Visitors - <AUTHOR> http://blog.benjamin-encz.de/post/disassembling-uikit-tintcolor-visitor/ <comment><USER2> Good sleuthing, sounds like an instance of "accidentally quadratic"[1]. It's a very easy thing to miss, especially if _n_ is usually small.

[1] [http://accidentallyquadratic.tumblr.com](http://accidentallyquadratic.tumblr.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Using a binary library is always a nightmare. That aspect in Cocoa is terrifying after Java. With all that openness I really don't understand why Cocoa is closed-source. They could open it with "read only" license, it's not like someone could get any benefit from it.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps for fear of private APIs being used/abused by 3rd party?

<comment><USER5> We can already do that with dissemblers and objective-c header creators.

It's the apple way, closed by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To make working with the assembly code easier, I've found Facebook's Chisel (specifically the "pinvocation" command) to be really useful: [https://github.com/facebook/chisel](https://github.com/facebook/chisel)

<comment><USER7> Chisel is awesome. pviews is another great command, it prints the view hierarchy along with the object addresses so you can easily send messages to a specific view. This is handy for changing properties during runtime, for example.

<comment><USER8> Reveal[0] is super useful for doing view introspection at runtime. Easily paid for itself.

[0] [http://revealapp.com/](http://revealapp.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see why the debugging had to take place on 32bit binary. From experience, the debugger disassembly for 64bit is much more "readable" \- as in much of the symbols called are spelled out a lot more, and accessing function arguments are much much more friendly - "po $arg1" instead of register math.

Hopper is capable of parsing 64bit disassembly and create pseudo code from that as well, if you need it.

<comment><USER10> Since when has Hopper been able to generate pseudocode for 64-bit ARM?

<comment> Ben-G Author of the post here: this was my first serious foray into disassembly land and I remember one post pointing out that Hopper had a harder time with disassembling 64-bit slices. However, it appears that was wrong! About to add an update to the post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ive had performance issues with UIColour and NSColour in the past as well, specifically to do with colour space conversion in my case.

<comment><USER12> Did you mean UIColor and NSColor? :)</comment></comment>


Box Breathing - <AUTHOR> http://quietkit.com/box-breathing/ <comment><USER2> It's been known for thousands of years in yoga as "samavritti pranayama", or "square breath". The advice is to count on the finger of one hand. Inhale while stepping 1 2 3 4, Hold 1 2 3 4, Exhale 1 2 3 4 and Hold 1 2 3 4. All of this without mentally counting, just use your fingers to do the steps. It is recommended before meditation for calming the agitated mind.

Another method is to count breaths in increasing cycles: 1; 1 2; 1 2 3; ...; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7;... Each number corresponds to one inhalation and exhalation. See how high you can count before making a mistake. This comes from Buddhism.

<comment><USER3> > All of this without mentally counting

Wait, some people can count on their fingers without in their head going "One, Two, Three, Four"?

I can't. Suggestions for how to gain this skill first?

<comment><USER4> Instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, in your head say "left, middle, middle, right." Repeat until natural, then change it to be "this one, this one, this one, this one." Repeat until natural, then repeat some more until you can do it by the pattern alone without verbalizing anything internally.

Or don't think of it as counting, just think of it as a drumbeat. Bah-bah-bah- BAH. Bah-bah-bah-BAH. Make sure to go slow enough that it's actually four seconds and not two (whole beats, not half-beats). But the end goal is to not have to think about it at all. It may require thousands of repetitions.

<comment><USER5> that's cheating! we want the power to instinctively tell how many seconds have elapsed. maybe even what time it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OK I got calmer, but then I got stressed out! the blue circle is not in the center of the black ring.

<comment><USER7> I'm just learning CSS animations and thought I'd do one that way.

Or, as a data URI:

        data:text/html;charset=utf-8;base64,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

(Be sure to triple-click to select all.)

<comment><USER8> I would leave a slight gap between the outer edge, it just feels claustrophobic when the blue and black parts touch. Also it needs some fancy speed up/slow down parts at the end of the exhale/inhale parts, it stops and starts too abruptly.

Otherwise it's pretty bang on.

<comment><USER9> >

 class="inner circle breathe">

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's growing evidence that breathing is linked to brain activity in interesting ways [1]. There's also the "4-7-8" breathing technique that is supposed to help you fall asleep faster. [2]

On top of that, concentrating on breathing takes your focus away from other inner monologue and intrusive thoughts; meditation programs typically start you off on that path.

[1] [https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/12/rhythm-of- brea...](https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/12/rhythm-of-breathing- affects-memory-and-fear/)

[2] [http://www.medicaldaily.com/life-hack- sleep-4-7-8-breathing-...](http://www.medicaldaily.com/life-hack- sleep-4-7-8-breathing-exercise-will-supposedly-put-you-sleep-just-60-332122)

<comment><USER11> Here are a couple relevant studies:

Resonant breathing biofeedback training for stress reduction among manufacturing operators [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23294659](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23294659)

Effect of Fast and Slow Pranayama Practice on Cognitive Functions In Healthy Volunteers [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3939514/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3939514/)

Both citations from [https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/25kfkf/breath_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/25kfkf/breath_of_fire)

<comment><USER12> I remember reading a long walk technique from middle east, where they would hold their breath a few seconds on each cycle. Supposed to augment your range significantly.

I also found out while trying to hold my breath above 2 minutes, that slowly swinging my shoulders to massage my lungs would delay the feeling of syncopation. Maybe, mayyyybe, because it would help enforce more gaz movement thus exchange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Point of note: those of you who also have their animated gifs set to run once and not loop, you're only supposed to stay exhaled for 4 seconds.

Don't do what I did.

<comment><USER14> Out of curiosity, why do you have them set to only run once?

<comment><USER15> I started doing this after encountering articles that abused this with annoying looping memes; very distracting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this what "Breathe" on the Apple Watch tries to help doing?

I never bothered to measure the intervals, so does anyone know if there's more to it? (the watch has access to heart rate and shows a current rate result afterwards; maybe it's adjusting heart rate goals over time?)

</comment><comment><USER17> I got a laugh out of this.

You used a _circle_ to depict "box breathing"; when you could just as easily have utilized a box.

<comment><USER18> Here's a CSS animation version, then, with illustration of the "box" aspect: [https://jsfiddle.net/6937jx4L/](https://jsfiddle.net/6937jx4L/)

<comment><USER19> Sooo much better in so many ways. OP's had me anxious not to miss the transitions. The dot navigating the square communicates timing. Could you make into a GIF?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Any one interested in how changes in breathing affect their mood and physiology should check out Wim Hof: [http://discover.wimhofmethod.com/sq/31699-welcome-to-the- wim...](http://discover.wimhofmethod.com/sq/31699-welcome-to-the-wim-hof- method)

<comment><USER21> A word of caution about him: I spent some time recently researching into his method, and there were too many red flags coming up.

These included not summiting and having to be evacuated in poor condition from mountains that he was claimed to have climbed (often the claims are not made by him directly, but also not contradicted by him). Having run a half-marathon distance while a full marathon is claimed. And acting evasive in interviews, while seemingly trying to hide it with excitement.

On the plus side he does hold documented world records in withstanding cold -- although his twin brother that has not trained is also reported to have higher than normal ability, but I didn't find details about it. He has also participated in a scientific study about his method, although the results of it are exaggerated by his followers.

The breathing method/trick itself is hyperventilation followed by long periods of holding the breath (a trick I suspect most kids will discover at some point). He claims that this somehow charges the body with oxygen and has various amazing health effects.

As far as I can tell (without medical training), the actual effect is to suppress the CO2 level in the blood. This disrupts the automatic breathing reflex which is driven by the blood CO2 levels, allowing you to hold your breath for extended periods. This is the same method used by free-divers, and many people have drowned after passing out due to lack of oxygen (including people specifically following the Wim Hof method).

<comment><USER20> I support skepticism about things like this, but I will say: Wim is not scamming people. He's showing them how to do something that works to lengthen his breath retention underwater and the regulation of his body heat. What he does is similar to pranayama, and dissimilar to hyperventilating in that he's pausing between the inhale and the exhale, a lot like the Navy SEALS.

Wim is not a great public speaker, and English is a second language to him, so what you see as evasion appears to me as a non-scientist trying to explain his experience in a language he hasn't mastered.

If you are going to claim that people have drowned by following his methods, you should link to it. Wim and his website are careful to say that this breathing technique should only be done in a safe place, sitting down. And if people go into ice water they should be supervised.

There is some scientific support, published in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for a breathing technique that can affect our autoimmune responses.

[http://www.icemanwimhof.com/files/pnas.pdf](http://www.icemanwimhof.com/files/pnas.pdf)

Briefly, sustained deep breathing mimics and breath retention stimulates the production of epinephrin/adrenalin and influences the autonomic nervous system.

When he came to the Bay, Andrew Huberman brought him into his neurobiology lab at Stanford to run some tests on him. Wim is doing something that deserves attention, and his breathing exercises can help change your mental and physical state. You don't take his word for, or mine. Just try it.

<comment><USER21> >If you are going to claim that people have drowned by following his methods, you should link to it.

[http://www.parool.nl/binnenland/-iceman-oefening-eist- opnieu...](http://www.parool.nl/binnenland/-iceman-oefening-eist-opnieuw- leven~a4332186)

I did not say, nor do I think, that Wim Hof is scamming people. He appears genuine, although often evasive. And I do not think it has anything to do with English being his second language.

However, I do get a feeling that _someone_ is using him behind the scenes to make money, due to the false/exaggerated claims made about the results of his method and the related publications, and the method getting heavily commercialised and promoted.

As for the method itself, like I wrote before, it is nothing new. It is controlled hyperventilation (and cold showers). Like many kids, I discovered it when competing with friends in who could hold their breath the longest.

It has also been used by free-divers for a long time, and there is evidence that it may cause brain injury when done repeatedly (in addition to blacking out and drowning). Which is why I would not recommend anyone to "just try it".

Too many red flags for me personally, and I just wanted to share that since the topic came up.

<comment><USER20> Fair enough. Wim Hof and his organization have warnings on every single page of their tutorials telling people not to do the exercises in a swimming pool, like the guy did who died. Below is a screenshot of them. Saying that people die following his method, when they do the exact opposite of what he says, is inaccurate. Nobody should try it near water, or driving, or anywhere but sitting in a meditative position.

[http://imgur.com/a/j8F7o](http://imgur.com/a/j8F7o)

Wim's marketing is crap, and frankly, he's not making a lot of money off of this. No one is.

The method may not be new, but many old things are not known or popularized. Kids may discover it, but we are still learning about the effects of this technique on the body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Playing with your breath is the ultimate hack of the human mind. There are seemingly endless combinations of techniques that each have a unique physiological impact on the body. Use the right one at the right time and life flows smoothly.

<comment><USER23> Can you give more examples or provide a source? The only examples I encountered are breathing cycles during exercise and stress-relief techniques.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Science is verifying a lot of the value in breathing practices. Check out this article on a specific technique as a treatment for depression. [https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news- releases/2016/novembe...](https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news- releases/2016/november/yogic-breathing-helps-fight-ma)

The box breathing works because it slows the breath down and brings it to a standard rhythm. Think of it this way, every emotion has a specific type of breath. When a person is experiencing sadness, happiness, anger, etc. there is specific pattern of breath that can be observed with regards to speed, length of inhale and exhale, depth, etc.

Emotion and breath are linked, and as the box breathing shows, it is a two way street. As emotions change, the breath does, but if we change our breath, our emotions do too. Have you ever been told to count slowly to ten when you're angry? Same principal.

<comment><USER25> this is not a solution

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you're ever in a " _hold your breath_ " contest do this right before it starts.

You'll crush the competition by a wide margin (assuming they're not doing the same) and be amazed at how many minutes you can go.

<comment><USER27> Not sure that that would beat someone doing hyper-ventilation. Hyper- ventilating easily adds 1:30 - 2 minutes of time holding my breath.

<comment><USER28> This is only because you're not able to recognize your urge to breathe for what it is...a buildup of CO2 rather than a need for O2. With practice in breathing exercises, you learn to recognize the start of contractions (in the diaphragm) as a stage in the breath hold that's typically around 1/3 of your maximum. With more practice, you can start to recognize more subtle symptoms of low O2...tingling in the extremities is the easiest to notice, but there's a few more.

Hyperventilation is stigmatized in the apnea community because it doesn't increase the level of O2 in the blood. This can be measured with an oximeter...you'll never get above the 94%-98% saturation you achieve at rest while breathing comfortably. All hyperventilation does is purge CO2. During a breath hold, CO2 levels rise and O2 levels fall. The body detects the CO2 rise easily since the PH level becomes more acidic (carbonic acid). But if you've purged your CO2 from your body, it's entirely possible to run out of O2 without the buildup of CO2 being great enough for the body to register the change in acidity and trigger the urge to breathe. And running out of O2 underwater leads to black outs, especially in shallow water as water pressure drops fastest when surfacing those last 10m-20m.

Source: I've practiced apnea/freediving for the past ~7 months and my personal best is 6:48. My training plan is to hit 8 minutes on my 1-year anniversary of beginning my training. Hyperventilation is counterproductive for me since I need to be as relaxed as possible during my holds. My current breathe-up is a 2-1 short to long breath cycle for about a minute then a 3/4 breath, full exhale and a full breath in. This is a slight over-breathe, but not enough to purge much CO2.

<comment><USER29> > And running out of O2 underwater leads to black outs, especially in shallow > water as water pressure drops fastest when surfacing those last 10m-20m.

Because people swim faster when they're close to the top?

<comment><USER28> Maaaats' answer is excellent, but I thought I'd add one bit for non divers.

When you learn to dive, the most fundamental fact you learn is that the every 10.5m you descend under water adds 1 atmosphere (bar) of pressure. It's customary to round that down to 10m to make the calculations both easier and more conservative. But the important realization from this calculation is that pressure changes more rapidly near the surface. Descending those first 10m doubles the pressure. From 10m to 20m only adds 50%. From 20m to 30m adds even less, 33%.

And it's that percentage change that is most noticeable underwater. You have to equalize the pressures in your ears and sinuses most in the first 10m under water. And since pressure effects your body's ability to deliver oxygen to the brain, that rapid decrease in pressure near the surface when surfacing is where someone low on oxygen will pass out.

This also explains another part of maaaats' answer. Since a freediver is wearing a wetsuit that compresses with pressure (and the lungs also compresses with pressure), their buoyancy will depend on depth. Being neutrally buoyant at 10m deep is a common practice for all but the most experienced freedivers. This means for those first 10m, you actually have to kick your fins to go down or else you'll just float back up to the surface. But beyond 10m, you can just let gravity take you down. And it works the same way coming up. You actually have to kick to get back to 10m, but once you pass that point, the buoyant force starts to help you get to the surface. Experienced freedivers might actually exert themselves less in those last 10m since they've got that assist from buoyancy.

<comment><USER29> > it's that percentage change that is most noticeable underwater

Ahh! I figured I was missing something, because the pressure change is linear, but yeah... the percentage change is different. Interesting, and thanks for explaining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Nice way to get into focus on breathing. Mind is like a monkey, it keeps wandering. Keep it busy by asking it to watch or focus on breathing. De-stress and bringing emotions under control are just starting point of meditation. The next stage is achieved when we can do "Balancing breath". Our guru calls it "Gayathri sthithi". In this stage, both of our breaths (left and right nostrils ) are balanced. In normal conditions, either your left ( Ida or moon nadi) or right nostril ( pingala or surya) only has the air flow, based on your body type. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadi_(yoga)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadi_\(yoga\)). When both the breaths are balanced, your sushumna Nadi is activated. This is when you could achieve Spiritual state and a fantastic experiences will unfold before your inner vision. I am yet to experience it.

Our Guru, With his tough practices of Kriya yoga and other meditating techniques, could achieve this state and He can get into this Gayathri state at any time. This is THE ultimate state to experience the Universal source of energy. This is where every soul came from and will get into.

As technologists we are materialistic and we are operating in lower dimension.The other dimension (spiritual), once opened/experienced, can answer any question in this universe. This is how RUSHIs and yogis could fathom universal truths with out any scientific tools, eons before our modern science.

</comment><comment><USER31> Shameless mention of a related app that I built: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calmly/id998619858?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calmly/id998619858?mt=8)

Struggled with severe stress and IBS during my youth; controlled breathing was really one of the only things that had an (near-immediate) effect.

<comment><USER32> Relaxation has immensely decreased my IBS symptons. Wished that somebody advised me years ago that yoga and relaxation could be so beneficial to your body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> [https://breathe.now.sh](https://breathe.now.sh) add to your home screen

</comment><comment><USER34> I feel short of breath when I try this.

<comment><USER35> You might want to see a doctor about that.

<comment><USER36> yep. as someone who has suffered sleep apnea for a while once your oxygen levels get so low that you can't hold your breath for 4 seconds it's time to get checked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Weird, I was just playing Wolfenstein: The New Order today, where the main protagonist uses this technique all the time. I'd never heard of this technique before that.

What's the phenomena called - where you encounter the same new thing multiple separate times within a short time frame?

<comment><USER38> Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

<comment><USER39> Fun fact about that phenomenon: no one really knows why it's called that. Someone just picked what seems to be a random name and it stuck. It has nothing to do with the real life Baader-Meinhof group.

<comment><USER40> I thought the reason for that name was that it was the original example: someone who had never heard of that group learned about it and suddenly noticed they saw it mentioned or referenced everywhere.

EDIT: Source: [https://psmag.com/there-s-a-name-for-that-the-baader- meinhof...](https://psmag.com/there-s-a-name-for-that-the-baader-meinhof- phenomenon-e5bf3ea87cd2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Many more related techniques in this book: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188192.Light_on_Pr_n_y_m...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188192.Light_on_Pr_n_y_ma)

</comment><comment><USER42> This is something I started doing in my teenage years, to help measure and equalize my breathing while running. Count 1-2-3-4 while inhaling, then 1-2-3-4 while exhaling - while running. After some time, I could only count 1-2-3, measuring my fatigue through lack of breath. I thought it was just something my odd self made up, and never knew this was a significant activity.

</comment><comment><USER43> I thought it was more important to have a constant rhythm to your breathing, not necessarily how long you inhale/exhale.

</comment><comment><USER44> Listen to "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" by The Flaming Lips and breathe with the background piano chords. Great for square breathing.

For vortex breathing (in 3, out 5, no pause between either phase), listen to "Breathe (in the air)" by Pink Floyd.

</comment><comment><USER45> I found an App which does a great job!

Relapps - [https://appsto.re/us/8PGcfb.i](https://appsto.re/us/8PGcfb.i)

</comment><comment><USER46> There's a great app in the Android store that has a variety of breathing based meditations - Prana Breath.

</comment><comment><USER47> Meh, breathing in or out for 4 seconds is at least 2 seconds too long for me.

</comment><comment><USER48> Isn't this Pranayama?

</comment><comment><USER49> `That's it! Repeat for as many times as you need to calm down.`

hmm.. you could apply that to anything

<comment><USER50> Including banging your head against the wall!

<comment><USER51> Do that with sufficient gusto and you'll be calm in no time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wished this followed the 4-7-8 breathing technique. I have been practicing this for the last few weeks and it has been a really positive experience for me.

</comment><comment><USER53> It is nice to see a demonstration of the fundamental principle, described in the Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, in contrast to the cascades of bullshit of the Yoga Pradipika.

Humans bullshit everything, painting degrade to the modern colorful Warkshok inkblots, music - to sophisticated noise, yoga became a method of hipster's public snowflakery. Philosophy - Hegelian nonsense, politics - vagina marches.</comment>


FBI File for Russell Tyrone Jones (Ol' Dirty Bastard) - <AUTHOR> https://vault.fbi.gov/russell-tyrone-jones <comment><USER2> I have to wonder if this is on the front page as part of a marketing campaign for the new Showtime Docuseries.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish it were although I had no idea. If it is then you've just contributed to it (seriously thanks for pointing me to it - I'm a big fan and most likely going to watch).</comment></comment>


Technology is not the solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technology-solution-abe-clark <comment><USER2> Messaging is a trivial example compared to what is currently going on in blockchain.

<comment><USER3> Agree. People are forcing blockchain technology into places where it's not actually helpful. Will be interesting to watch as many of these coins bust when they find their ideas look better on whitepapers than in real life.</comment></comment>


The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/the-uncertain-future-of-ham-radio <comment><USER2> This summer I was supposed to go on a week long backcountry hike with a youth group. The youth would be split into multiple teams and they wanted an adult with a ham radio to be with each team. I volunteered to get a license since there was only one adult who already had his license and was experienced with ham radio. Getting the license was interesting. I've never studied engineering or electronics and a lot of the test was things like being able to read circuit schematics, understanding how inductors/capacitors/tranformers/etc. work, learning ohms law and the power law and being able to solve equations with them, learning laws around ham radio, etc.

What you don't learn as part of getting a license is what do you do after you have a license. Where do you buy equipment? What kind of equipment do you need? How do you use a radio? What do all the buttons on the radio do? Etc.

I asked someone about this and they said I needed to join my local club to learn this stuff. But, I don't want to join a club. I have a family, 2 jobs, home remodeling, and various hobbies (woodworking, drawing, reading, board games, baking, gardening, etc.) The last thing I have time for is to join a club ;-)

So I'm in this weird spot where I have a license, but don't actually know what to do with it. Due to the pandemic, the youth trip was cancelled. But it may be rescheduled for a future year. I'll need to figure all this stuff out before then.

<comment><USER3> What's the actual point of having to learn all that for the license? What's the actual point for the license in the first place?

<comment><USER2> The license is an FCC requirement. They are also the ones who come up with the test questions. You would have to ask them. I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham radio. I don't understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram to get a license. I assume that if I was going to build my own equipment that I would need to know a lot more than what I needed to learn to pass the test.

<comment><USER4> > I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham > radio. I don't understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram > to get a license.

You need to consider the big picture. Ham radio is just one of several radio services. They have different licensing requirements depending on their purpose and/or who is meant to use them.

For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting a license won't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is even required.

The ham radio service's target is radio geeks. Hams are given considerably more leeway in what they can do with radio than are users of most other services, and so the licensing requirements include more things concerning the underlying technology than you need to just operate a radio reasonably.

<comment><USER5> > _For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting > a license won 't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is > even required._

For people who might be interested in what those 'unlicensed' services are, they include:

\- FRS (the Family Radio Service[0]), which is typified by the sort of $20 bubble pack radios you can buy at a sporting goods store;

\- MURS (the Multi-Use Radio Service[1]), which is common in commercial radios used by e.g. staff at big box stores;

\- CBRS (the Citizens Band Radio Service[2]), which is probably familiar to most from "any movie involving truck drivers".

These services may have licensing/approval rules for equipment, but not for individuals using them.

[0] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- division/family-radio-service-frs)

[1] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- division/multi-use-radio-service-murs)

[2] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility- division/citizens-band-radio-service-cbrs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not. Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license.

In short, it sucks. Some observations:

\- the exams are oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. They should really restore the novice license. Give it the same privileges as technician with no rights to broadcast over 10w or construct towers

\- there is MASSIVE underutilization of spectrum. not just at the tech level due to inefficient coding but in general, the airwaves are not busy at all whatsoever. I live in NYC and there are rarely more than a dozen or so people on across the entire tech band at any given time.

\- conversations are dull. the weekly nets can be interesting but pretty much the subject of conversation always revolves around call quality or someone's rig or something to do with radio. It's boring!

\- proprietary. all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. brandmeister is closed-source. echolink is closed sourced and rarely updated. DSTAR is proprietary. DMR isn't proprietary but the vocoder is. want to setup a repeater? sure, go pay a shady motorola VAR a few bucks and he'll sneak you a unit and user manual.

<comment><USER7> HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty, but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the whole area just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I got into ham radio almost a year ago. I did so as my software and web development hobby became my career.

Ham radio is a very interesting hobby with a large variety of activities and operating techniques. It's been great to learn about how to make direct contacts across the world using just a small antenna and coil using the HF bands.

I certainly understand the potential commercial value of spectrum currently allocated to amateurs, though it's a shame to see it constantly under threat, with little regard to its usefulness as an emergency communication service.

While it's true that most amateurs are older, I'm 24 and I would encourage anyone looking for something else to do to get licensed and get on the air. There's always something more to learn and do, and many hams are happy to help with choosing and setting up equipment.

Check out hamstudy.org if you want to get licensed. It's pretty easy, especially to get a basic Technician class license, and online testing has begun due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

<comment><USER9> Where are you seeing results for online testing? Seems to be tricky to find as most of the ones I have seen have been cancelled or "no walk-in / call ahead". Also thanks for prompting this and keep ham radio alive :)

<comment><USER2> Someone in my local area told me about them. Apparently you normally have to go to a community college for 2 days of classes and then take the exam in person. But they did the classes over zoom and the testing over zoom too. I didn't even need to leave my home to get my license. Nice.

The exam system was figured out by some group in Texas. Their system was approved by the FCC so my local group piggybacked off of the Texas group to do the online exam.

There was a zoom call at a certain time. You had to do certain things to your computer ahead of time to get it ready. When it was time they had me turn the laptop all around to show my room to prove there was no one and nothing other than a plain sheet of paper, a basic calculator, and a pencil nearby. I had to prove the paper was blank and the calculators memory was wiped. I had to have all family members leave the house during the exam. There were five other people on the call all watching me over my camera while I took the test. The proctor took control of my computer to see what I had running and to start the exam. Then I took the exam. I missed one question, but they can't tell you which one you missed. I really thought I got them all right and it still bothers me not knowing which one I got wrong ;-)

Afterwards the Texas group was given my information and they submitted it to the FCC. I got my license a few weeks later in an email.

<comment><USER10> That test protocol sounds needlessly invasive and dehumanizing.

<comment><USER2> Nah, it didn't bother me at all. It actually made a lot of sense. The test proctors were all very nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've had an amateur radio license since I was 14, and I got it through a collaboration with our local radio club and the boy scouts. I don't use my license enough, but I love having it.

One of my absolute favorite memories growing up was when we did a camping trip during a field day. A field day is basically an annual global contest to see who you can contact and how far you can reach out. We setup a massive portable antenna in the woods, and I stayed up ALL NIGHT on one of our more powerful SSB radios reaching out to people all across the world. Like Ukraine, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, and more (I'm in the US). Young me was so fascinated with talking with those people, that I'm pretty certain it was one of the first times I experienced sonder.

SDR is fun, but no where near as rewarding as using analog.

<comment><USER12> 1000% this. Same story - was one of the highest of highlights of my ham youth. The local club's field day operation happened literally a day after my license arrived in the mail and I vividly remember staying up all night totally immersed in this crazy hobby that I'd only been reading about.

Huge fancy Kenwood and Icon HF rigs (the amazing ones I could only dream about buying as a 12 y/o), tons of people having fun, and CQ Field Day CQ Field Day into the wee hours. Super fun experience and memory.

(Ps - DE K2KD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Personally as a HAM I think our technology is becoming too stale.

Commercial tech is now migrating towards high-speed data networks to be used even for voice. With HAM radio we're still stuck with analog voice and very low-bitrate voice codecs in the digital standards. None of which really offer much that analog (and linking tech) didn't. APRS is a joke with its low speeds.

The whole idea about ham radio was to innovate... We're not doing that at all, at best we're just using commercial technology. Some advancements to adapt firmware of commercial rigs (MD-380tools, OpenGD77) are amazing, but we're still lifting on what's commercially possible. This is not the ham spirit :(

We really need something good to offer and at the moment we haven't. It used to be so cool you could talk to people around the world for free. Now anyone with a phone in their pocket can do that.

<comment><USER14> There's still plenty of innovation left to do. Low bandwidth, low power, long distance signalling is interesting. As are ridiculously high frequencies. Also new modes and repurposing some of the modern radio ICs you can get.

But the issue I found is that the technical community is about as dead as it gets. It created a stereotype and then proceeded to get stuck in a hole. This was around 1970. Any newer thinking made it into appliances which cover the 95% of the rest of the user base. Most hams can barely solder a PL259 without destroying it. Even talking modulation schemes solicits a glazed look and some mumbling about 80m QRM. I was about done.

This year I didn't renew my RSGB sub and sold all my radio equipment and test gear. I spent the money on an iPad Pro with Procreate and and a new Mac and am in a better place with respect to personal satisfaction and have some cash left over to spend on experiences and not things.

<comment><USER15> Compared to innovation in radios for commercial telecom microwave and millimeter wave radios (2.4 all the way up to 86 GHz), ham radio is moribund.

There's a whole lot more on the ground real world innovation happening in people building WISPs in very rural, challenging locations with no pre- existing telecom services (except by two-way satellite) than there is happening in ham radio.

<comment><USER14> Now you see that's a thousand times more interesting. It's providing utility to people and that has a purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I got a general license in the US since it seemed like an interesting hobby, but haven't used it much. Sometimes I feel bad about that, and I've thought a bit about it.

Radios are fascinating to learn about, but our HAM regulations seem mired in the past and overly restrictive. You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting with people.

For example, I don't believe you can cipher communications unless they're being used to control an RC vehicle. That rules out a lot of DIY-style projects. The regulations and terminology around automated "beacons" are also a tad confusing, and the potential fines are quite heavy.

And if you do spend the time reading rules, going to a class or doing flash cards, taking your test, buying a starter radio, and finally talking with some people on a local repeater...then what? Try to contact a different country or continent? You can, but talking to someone across the world feels very pedestrian in this day and age.

And while it is technically possible to set up a beacon for something like data collection or remote monitoring on HAM frequencies, it's much easier these days to use an off-the-shelf radio module. You don't need a license to use a $5 LoRa module with an arduino or raspberry pi, and there's no red tape.

It's too bad, because I really admire the amateur operators who step in during disasters to keep information flowing. But I can also see why HAM radio is sort of a dying art in the US; like many relics of an optimistic past, it's been left to rot for decades.

<comment><USER17> > You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting > with people.

Here's a fun thing you can do: 802.11b channel 1 is in the amateur band, so as long as you don't use encryption, you can use quite a lot more power than the 802.11 band would normally allow. (Remember that you should only use the amount of power you _need_ , though.)

Our amateur rocketry group used ordinary wifi, amplified to 1W and run through a custom cylindrical antenna, to communicate between the rocket (breaking the sound barrier) and the ground.

<comment><USER18> Now that's cool!

But rocketry is also pretty tightly-regulated in my area. So that's two high- attention hobbies, and it starts to seem like a bit much.

<comment><USER17> You don't have to do amateur rocketry to have fun with high-powered long- distance wifi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong If you're reading this and you're thinking about getting into radio, you can get a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio which works on the 2m and 70cm bands for $25. It has never been cheaper or easier to get into radio than it is now. These radios are completely portable and will let you "work" the repeaters local to you and can be received 10-15 miles away even without a repeater at 5W power [https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio- Black/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio- Black/dp/B007H4VT7A)

Do I need a license, you ask. Yes, you'll need to get a technician's license to transmit, though you can receive on the radio without it. The test has no morse code requirement, and it's entirely multiple choice. The entire question pool is freely available and it only takes a couple weekends to prep for and pass. It'd be an easy task for anyone here. Most of the questions pertain to FCC policy as well as radio safety, just enough to make sure you don't injure yourself or interfere with other radio users.

73s :)

<comment><USER19> Please don't get a Baofeng. Those things put out incredibly dirty signals. They are RF polution you can carry in your pocket.

<comment><USER20> Quite apart from their quality, a VHF handheld is possibly the most boring possible introduction to amateur radio. There is so much more you can do that is so much more interesting than hearing 80 year old retirees talk about their prostates on the local repeaters.

<comment> brian-armstrong Does this imply there's a radio frequency that's not dominated by retirees? ;)

HF feels considerably harder to get into. If you're a city dweller your only antenna choice is probably a magloop. VHF has options for things like satellite and ISS contacts, and the fact that it's local makes it seem a bit more relevant and community-driven.

<comment><USER21> 2.4 GHz ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am working on my HAM General-class license. I have young and non-engineer friends who are into it. It is mostly interesting to them because they have never done something highly technical, and here is a relatively approachable technical hobby.

However, I'm decreasingly enthused about HAM. I got my license so I could interact with devices that I wanted to build. However, there are almost no use cases where HAM helps. I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a commercially available product. It's only at the extreme, un- useful cases that HAM becomes a thing. (Want to bounce signals off the moon?)

What I'd like to see from HAM:

\- More, different competitions. Long-term monitoring, stealthy side-channel transmissions, digital and analog networking competitions (like hackathons: Get a signal from A to B with minimal loss / delay using teams in disparate areas of the country --- internet OK), recovery games (set up a network serving x users with max datarate or voice capacity using this equipment), or encoding / decoding games, and so on.

\- More support from local governments and infrastructure. I want to know where to sign up to be useful if telecommunications suffers a hiccup. If that is not useful, I want to know and be told how to be useful (esp studying different technology). Some certifications beyond HAM, and specializing in different niche areas would be nice.

\- More training on HAM-adjacent technologies. To be useful / innovative requires knowing the telecommunications space, and sticking to SSB voice + FT8 for DXs is great, but not helpful when trying to understand telecommunications and make an impact on the world. God forbid a disaster did happen and the HAMs showed up with their 10m antennas and were useful for 30 minutes until the Verizon tech arrived. It'd be more useful if they could bridge 3G / UHF by setting up an adhoc repeater network to actually extend the range of whatever equipment didn't die in the zombie apocalypse.

For example: In the IoT area, I thought for sure HAMs would be front-and- center with new mesh networking technologies, WAN, etc. But no, we got another AWS product with minimal device-device communication and called it a day.

<comment><USER23> > I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a > commercially available product.

Not sure what you are looking to do, but there are plenty of inexpensive radio designs. Consider the Pixie or the SMT version, the Knight SMiTe, either can be built very cheaply.

Onr could also put an amplifier on inexpensive IMS chips for really inexpensive radio projects.

A Raspberry Pi Zero can be bitbanged into a transciever using PWM and SDR and can operate pretty much any mode. It's a very noisy, low power output signal and will need filtering and amplification. Still better than a spark gap transmitter, the ultimate low cost radio.

For cheap recievers, look into foxhole radio designs.

<comment><USER24> I made it across the pond to UK from NY on WSPR 20 meter amateur band using the ~10dBm output of a Raspberry Pi on its IO pins. It's quite capable. That was ~7 years ago when the atmosphere/sun was a bit more ham friendly however.

<comment><USER23> You should see what the QRSS guys are doing down in the noise floor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is something soul destroying that comes with the demographic. Long, ill informed, right- wing speeches. Politics is supposed to be a taboo subject, of course.

I was listening to a repeater in the UK one day and heard this,

"I don't follow the news, I don't follow politics, I don't know the first thing about it. But in my opinion... blah blah Brexit blah"

Or another on air every night without fail on 2m FM in the SSB segment... " These modern planes are all auto-pilots, the pilot is just sat there. No skill at all."

That's the reality that greets us after we get our licence. You would also be hard pressed to join in with them either, they are just chatting to their mate up the road. I tried to get my boys interested, but they heard this stuff and now make their own jokes about ham operators.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, too bad there's people using a communication tool to share their opinion with their friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> HAM radio is a complete luxury with today's networks _right up until the point that you really need it_ , for instance during some kind of natural disaster. With high speed satellite internet maybe even that function will be superseded.

<comment><USER28> If "some kind of natural disaster might happen" is your only argument, then you're basically being a prepper.

<comment><USER27> Natural disasters happen all the time, and HAM radio in the past has traditionally been the last to go down and the first to be back up in those situations because it needs no infrastructure at all to work.

<comment><USER28> > […] _HAM radio in the past has traditionally been_ […]

You know what's not like the past? The present, and, even less so, the future. 3G/4G/5G/Satellite phones are rapidly progressing, and everybody already has one.

But even if you were right, how does that address my point that arguing for HAM radio with the argument "it might be useful in a disaster" is basically being a prepper?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In my country (Luxembourg) is only one place where you can take the courses. That place is in the south of the country and the courses are held in the evening. Their schedule is impossible to combine it with public transportation and their sessions/courses are only done once per year, meaning that I'd have to wait an entire year to be able to apply to their courses. As a young person, it is nearly inpossible to participate without relying on somebody with a car or living somewhere closer.

<comment><USER30> It seems easier in Canada but what always puts me off is that there isn't any formal resting center. You need to find an examiner and they set the price. A bunch of them insist on lessons which be useful for some but if like to just write the test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing I noticed when getting my license was that broadcasting is not allowed. That makes sense, because you're not supposed to hog the airwaves.

But I think they could create room for some kind of amateur programming. For instance, you have to pause every 5 minutes so people can either join the conversation or ask questions. And maybe it would have to be a human speaking live, not a recording or machine. And I'm sure you'd need certain channels and parts of the spectrum for this.

The advantage is that this gets content on the airwaves and gives people a chance to get involved. After the program, you can jump onto another part of the spectrum for free-form chat. Like: "That's all for now, but join the discussion starting right now on [callsign of repeater]".

It would have to be non-commercial, but people like talking about their hobbies, etc. I could easily see a lot of people doing scheduled 30-minute programs about cars or gardening or whatever.

<comment><USER31> This isn't precluded under US regulations. Broadcasting means transmissions intended for the general public, as opposed to other amateurs. One way communications are generally prohibited too (except in certain cases like beacon stations and remote control), but as you note-- what you want doesn't need to be one way.

It's not even uncommon on HF for people to blather on for many minutes at a time without pause.

People could totally do lectures with Q&A, and I imagine many repeaters would be perfectly fine with that use.

<comment><USER32> Yeah also many people have been duplexing over the years, upstreaming on 2m and downstreaming on 70cm for example. That is allowed as long as you mention your call every few minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Got the Baofeng and the callsign, in that order. Got licensed because it costs around $10 for the exam with no mandatory classes and to use Echolink. Don't see much point in it as I don't like to talk and the funny chatter is on the unlicensed bands anyway.

Seriously, PMR446 near hotels and nightclubs is pure gold. Local gangsters' seating preferences, awkward staff romance, weird room service orders, you name it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Licensing is the worst part. In my country you have to sit through about 20 2h lessons and then take an examination. No way to just study on your own

</comment><comment><USER35> I got my ham license at 16, later used it at work extensively (non-commercial, research projects), but mostly set it aside in 2016 due to the incessant discussion of hateful politics on the local 2m band. I upgraded to general but my HF setup is portable (no permanent antenna) so it's harder to hop on, but I hope those bands are less bigoted, or at least, the bigots keep to themselves.

</comment><comment><USER36> I am a paper HAM, that is a derogatory term in the amateur radio community for us operators who only have a license and don't use it.

In short, it sucks. HAM radio is full of old weird people, talking about bodily functions. Wanna go to a HAMfest? If you're under 50years old, you well get weird looks. And weird interactions. The learning curve is brutal to do anything other than exchange callsigns with randos, or talk to old people about communism and their bodily functions.

HAM radio has outlived its usefulness. It is really sad, and I regret that. But there is just no point to it.

</comment><comment><USER37> > The 66-year-old from Dartmouth, Mass., credits his career in electrical and > computer engineering to an early interest in amateur radio.

I initially studied electronic systems before later studying computer science, which I credit to my dad's interest in ham radio.

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if Negativland tracks documenting the history and art of "jamming" might be a way of sparking the interest of young people. Track and sound arts are popular new sounds and radio is a great way to expose lots of people to compositions.

</comment><comment><USER39> The original article talks about attracting newcommers to the ham radio community, on the other hand I'm here to complain about the trouble of staying in the community.

From my experience, one major killer of ham radio is the horrible and dehumanizing electromagnetic interference in modern cities from 0 to 30 MHz. HF/shortwave remains the most interesting spectrum in ham radio - it's the only spectrum capable of international communication without specialized equipment or infrastructure, just throw a random wire out of the window, how wonderful it is.

Unfortunately, 0 to 30 MHz is also where most electrical and electronics devices operate at. A cheap bike charger with PWM control can easily disable all HF communication around it, so can a cheap switched-mode power supply, also, yes, builders of transparent PCs without metal enclosures, I'm looking at you (although it's not much of a problem compared to commercial devices)! Government regulations on EMI/RFI is useless when tons and tons of nonconforming devices made by the cheapest vendors are flooding the market. While it's easy to add filters or stop using them if they are yours, but in cities, you often cannot possibly know where they are coming from. And even worse, nobody cares - without a spectrum analyzer (or an SDR equivalent), nobody can see or smell it. Remember those stories about car key fobs being jammed? The media makes them sound almost mysterious, because EMI/RFI is unknown to the general public. Car keys are only a tip of the iceberg, VHF is actually pretty clean, HF is horrible. And even to some people with respective knowledge on the subject, many still don't care - the worst offenders, such as VDSL and Ethernet over Powerlines technologies, are fundamentally harmful to radio communication and can disable all HF receivers in sight. In an ideal world where telecommunication regulations are faithfully enforced, nobody should be allowed to use them, yet the interests of ISP trumps HF amateur services and governments allowed their deployment.

Even with all these jammers, HF is still somewhat usable, but only for picking up powerful stations, or using slow, digital modes designed for weak-signal communications. It's better than none, but quite limited (this includes digital modes that requires a higher signal-to-noise radio). When HF becomes a lost battle, the enjoyment and capabilities of amateur radio is reduced greatly. So one is forced to go somewhere else, either physical moving your home or your radio (not an option for most), or moving the spectrum of your operation: VHF (without special setups) is only capable of local communication. Then the only remaining choices for international communication are satellite communication, meteor scatters, and tropospheric scatter. They are interesting technical challenges much in line with the tradition of amateur radios, but far from easy like HF. For example, satellites at Low Earth Orbit are only usable when they are passing your location.

With the launch of the first geostationary amateur radio satellite, QO-100 (Es'hail 2), I can only hope the situation of amateur radio without HF will continue becoming better at the next decade and enjoy global coverage by geostationary satellites.

<comment><USER40> Noise is pretty bad in the city. You have to realize that you are going to be responding to other people's CQs, not calling your own. There is just too high a risk of the receiver being able to hear you, but you not being able to hear the reply.

I routinely operate out of my 1st floor apartment in Brooklyn with 5W into a magloop antenna and can make contacts across the country. I've had the best luck on 40m, and 30m works well too. 20m is pretty much unusable for me, and it's a popular band, so that kind of hurts. Using FT8 or CW works better than voice (par for the course when running QRP). If you take your rig out to a park, the noise floor drops dramatically.

You certainly have to make more of an effort than someone in the country with a 5 element beam on a tower, but you can still make a lot of QSOs in subpar conditions.

(Also worth noting is that we're at the bottom of a solar cycle, so HF isn't amazing for anyone right now. A few years ago, I could reliably listen to WWV and WWVH at the same time. But I haven't heard WWVH for ages. Aloha!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If anyone in the UK is thinking about getting a foundation license, you might like to know you can now sit the exam entirely online, as the practical assessment component is currently waived.

</comment><comment><USER42> As a guy in his 30s who got his ham license last year, there are two major things I think the ham radio community needs to change if they want to increase membership. Firstly, they need to target the right demographic for recruitment. Right now they're laser-focused on targeting teens, since that's the age many of these older guys originally got into the hobby, however (as the article acknowledges) what draws people to amateur radio today is very different to what drew people back then. I think the demographic they need to be targeting is engineers and scientists of all types and electronics hobbyists in their 20s-40s, i.e. people who have an aptitude/knowedge base to build off and who can imagine applications for radio, and who have the income and physical space to invest in the hobby. (Don't get me wrong, if younger people want to get involved they absolutely should be encouraged to do so, but I don't think there is enough interest there to rebuild the base the hobby needs to continue.)

Secondly, the ham community needs a _much_ better presence on the web. ARRL's site has a lot of information but if you don't know what you are looking for it can be a bit of a maze to navigate. Also, they _really_ want to sell you their books, which means some of that vital information about being an amateur radio operator is not available for free on their site.

The web presence of local clubs is highly variable but often poor. For example, the club I took my license exam through has two different web sites with different information in them, one of which is apparently no longer maintained and the other of which is "temporary". I got a free 1-year membership to the club when I passed my exam so I get a ~monthly newsletter from them, but it's sent from a personal e-mail account in the form of a PDF attachment. I actually deleted those newsletters for the first few months because I didn't know who was sending them or why I was getting them!

The club doesn't have any social media presence and meetings were strictly in- person before the Coronavirus. Because I live a 45-minute (in good traffic) drive away from where they hold meetings I hadn't attended any before they held those online ones.

Clubs really need to invest in their online presence as that's where people under the age of 50 will first encounter them. They should have a decent- looking site with a dedicated domain, photos/blog posts about activities they do and, if possible, _recordings of their meetings_ so people can see what joining the club brings them. They should also maintain a presence on Facebook and Twitter, if only to post the occasional updates and links to their main site.

Online forums aren't much better. QRZ Forums, the largest English-language online amateur radio community, has such a reputation for being hostile to newcomers to the hobby that I haven't even bothered looking at it. r/amateurradio, by nature of being on Reddit, has a much younger and more welcoming demographic than QRZ Forums, but it has the problem of being on Reddit which is not conducive to any kind of long-running discussions which makes forming a community hard.

On YouTube channels that focus on amateur radio rarely seem to cover topics related to getting people interested in the hobby or the basics of the hobby, and those that do generally seem tsrgetted at the "prepper" community (which is not me). What got me to take the time to get my license was a guy on a programming forum I follow posting that he was going to do live streams of himself making contacts and otherwise doing projects related to radio. Just seeing the practical side of the hobby was enough to push me from a vague interest to getting my license. Unfortunately he stopped streaming after a few months, but this is _exactly_ the type of content organizations like ARRL or local clubs should be putting out to get people interested.

<comment><USER43> r/amateurradio & Han Radio Crash Course on YouTube are about the only thing that keeps me interested in HAM; everything else is octogenarians with Angelfire-esq websites.

For myself, late 30's IT profesional, I've found the European Twitter scene of Satnogs, Amateur TV, QO-100, and microwave comms much more interesting than anything that's come out of the LF OMs in the states. Hell, I saw a French person create a high speed VHF/UHF system that's technically illegal in the US due to regulations/encryption.

What I have seen from Reddit is there's a lot of "listener" trans operators and one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses, past and present. Even myself, I almost never give out my call sign online since it has my government name and home addresses, even If I've updated to a PO Box it still has historical info. I can only imagine what it's like for a LGBTQ person in the Midwest calling CQ and being deadnamed, or worse in return.

In my ideal world Amateur Radio would be packed to the gills by people of all stripes using it as free communication for ad-hoc cell phone networks, free WiFi/internet, and DIY wireless systems. I know there's limitations but politically I want it to become available and free for everyone against the oppression of paying for communications.

<comment><USER44> > one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses, > past and present

That is creepy. No wonder why people shy away from HAM. Even privacy conscious geeks would just object to that!

In practice, how does it works?

Does the FCC gets its data from Experian?

<comment><USER45> The law says you have to get a license from the FCC to operate your radio, and getting the license requires sending them your name and addresses. It's that simple.

<comment><USER44> Then they shouldn't complain too loud that HAM is dying.

Between us privacy minded geeks who don't want our records out in the public, and the queer teens who don't want their old names out in the public as explained by the parent poster, it doesn't leave much of a demography.

Nobody wants their archaic rules. It's that simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> ham is not an acronym, dont write it HAM :-)</comment>


What the World Would Look Like if Countries Were as Big as Online Populations - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/what-the-world-would-look-like-if-countries-were-as-big-as-their-online-populations/280358/

<comment><USER2> So Antarctica has the biggest online population?

[http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/population.png](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/population.png)

<comment><USER3> you should read about: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_cylindrical_projection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_cylindrical_projection)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I see warped maps like this, I intuitively compare it to the standard map. Which, if you think about it, is a ridiculous comparison since one is based on population and the other is based on land mass.

</comment><comment><USER5> In India there is huge potential , with mobile penetration increasing exponentially, its a big market waiting.

</comment><comment><USER6> South America is basically the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, Canada is really tiny inspite of being huge geographically. And I don't see Africa at all. Powerful visualization.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, Canada is only 34 mln population! I was really shocked when I learnt that recently.

<comment><USER9> Fun fact: over 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> why is alaska so large? The entire state population is only 780k.. so even if it were 100%, it should only be about two dots

Edit: also it says this data was published by the world bank in 2011

<comment><USER11> Data isn't shown for every subunit of every country, the whole US have been sized according to their internet population, not each state.

What I find missing is mostly Taiwan, which should be the size and colour of Australia between Philippines and Korea on this map.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps they bundled it in with China? A political minefield there, of course...

<comment><USER11> Sure, that might be why they avoided it.

Since I still think it's an interesting to have it for comparison, I added it along with Hong Kong, taking my data from Wikipedia (respectively 17 and 5 million users, and 76% and 72% penetration):

[http://ssz.fr/brdl/internet-pop-hk-tw.png](http://ssz.fr/brdl/internet-pop- hk-tw.png) (I'm no graphic artist and just fiddled a bit with Gimp to get something that looks acceptable - obviously the whole map would need to be redrawn to better take geography into account).

The two places do make up a sizable part of Internet population in east Asia, and make it look less like a region with only two isolated developped countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Japan is big.</comment>


Show HN: Customer Analytics for your Websites - <AUTHOR> https://statvoo.com/ <comment><USER2> I have a question: I want to know more about your product. Since I'm the guy who would be selling this to my team and implementing it, I wanted to get a high level view of what your product does.

However, when going to the site, I only got blurbs, a sign up/form/you-want- my-info form and all the interesting stuff scrolling in the background.

I'm not going to click your links. In most cases, I wouldn't even post a comment (I was just genuinely curious about your customer tracking and hopefully this comment is constructive).

Dear developer, please sell me your wares. I don't care about the carefully crafted blurbs or delusions of grandeur that you promise. Please say "we help track your front-end bugs, errors, and customer action. We achieve this via loading this script file and attaching these event listeners that populate the following reports. Here's a demo of what it can do."

This seems straight forward and targets your desired demographic. I wish you best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your honesty and comments, they are much appreciated.

I will look into putting this information down on a developers page so that individuals (such as yourself) who want more detailed information don't have to look too far; while others are not forced to know all the ins-and-outs as soon as they land on the homepage.

If you have any specific questions or concerns until then, I am happy to answer them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Footer:

> © 2013 - Date.Now() - Statvoo Analytics. All rights reserved. > Realtime > analytics for the web - Part of the Statvoo.com network

To be honest, the design indeed looks a bit old fashioned ;-)

You should add some comparison to other services, like Google Analytics. Because I use that regularly and was wondering how your service would be different. And then there are many more alternatives. Your added value is not clear. Don't make me think (why you are better, cheaper, more safe, extra features, ....).</comment>


Traps, Gotchas, and Common Mistakes for New Golang Devs - <AUTHOR> http://devs.cloudimmunity.com/gotchas-and-common-mistakes-in-go-golang/index.html#compare_struct_arr_slice_map

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like I messed up the URL and included an anchor link. Should be:

[http://devs.cloudimmunity.com/gotchas-and-common-mistakes- in...](http://devs.cloudimmunity.com/gotchas-and-common-mistakes-in-go- golang/)</comment>


Parallel Programming and Optimization with Intel Xeon Phi (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://inside.mines.edu/~tkaiser/csci580fall13/one-day-2.pdf

<comment><USER2> Interestingly, Xeon Phi processors draw between 200 and 300 W alone, cost between under 2000 and up to 5000 USD.

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

The cheapest one has 57 cores, 28.5 MB L2 cache, up to 6 GB RAM but 240 GB/s RAM bandwidth over 12 channels:

[http://ark.intel.com/products/75797/Intel-Xeon-Phi- Coprocess...](http://ark.intel.com/products/75797/Intel-Xeon-Phi- Coprocessor-3120A-6GB-1_100-GHz-57-core)

Anybody knows some "prosumer" product (and its price when equipped with 6 GB) that uses Xeon Phi?

<comment><USER3> I recently ordered a Xeon Phi 31S1P. They're under $200 at the moment[1]. The biggest problem I have is that you can't just plug them into any computer like you would a graphics card. You need a compatible motherboard, and those tend to be in the high price range and 2011 sockets (which means expensive CPU). Most of the time, you won't find out if a board is compatible until you plug a card in and try it out.

I'm curious how well the card will work, I'd love to see something like Erlang on such a thing.

[1] [https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/special- promotion-...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/special-promotion- intel-xeon-phi-coprocessor-31s1p)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've stared at that promotion (and even submitted it here, I think) but I haven't really understood it. Who did you end up buying from? Are there limitations on who can participate? How are you going to deal with the passive cooling aspect?

<comment><USER3> Colfax International. No restrictions, although they can't ship to Europe unless you have a DHL/FedEx/UPS/... freight collect account.

They've been very helpful, agreed to ship the cards to a friend in the US, and were patient as my bank blocked my credit card twice because of the "suspicious" transaction. I ended up wiring the money instead.

I ended up paying 492 euros for 3 cards (2 of my friends also ordered one).

I'm just an individual enthousiast, and my friends are researchers at the local university. You don't need a company, you don't need to order a lot of them, you can just order a single card as a private individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many times I have had programming problems that would have usefully been able to use a lot of cores especially with reasonable IO wait on each of the threads of execution. But in order to really have just been able to use this it needs:

1) The cores need to run modern x86 so its a simple matter of just running the binary. 2) The offloading and concept of heterogeneous cores needs to be added into the operating system. All the cores should be exposed to programs and then putting threads onto accelerators ought to be something a hint can suggest or maybe a special type of parallel thread created. In essence the OS needs to be exposing them like any other core with shared memory and everything else this entails to make it native.

The current model that GPUs use is very good for doing matrices of data but it really doesn't lend itself to agents or other types of concurrency. Its a bit of a stretch to be writing in a restricted form of C which is pretty low level with openCL or DirectCompute combined with all the API and data passing overhead its a very specific type of program that benefits and it requires rewriting your code completely. The future can't possibly be this in the general case and its not really being adopted all that widely, some people are using it of course but most aren't.

In my opinion lots of low power cores that run the same instruction set as the primary CPU gives us a useful middle ground that is easier to use and optimise for and can be used alongside the primary fast cores of the main CPU. That is the future I am hoping for.

<comment><USER5> AMD/ARM's HSA doesn't need OpenCL (although it will support OpenCL 2.0 which is much more optimized for heterogeneous computing). I guess you're talking about the _current_ state of GPU computing. The next-generation, that will be based on HSA, should be much better. You can even use Java or other languages to write for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For what I thought was a good, short, clear intro to programming the Phi,see [1]

[1] [http://www.drdobbs.com/240144160](http://www.drdobbs.com/240144160)

</comment><comment><USER7> The linked pdf is of chapters 3 and 4, but chapters 1 and 2 are also available:

[http://inside.mines.edu/~tkaiser/csci580fall13/one- day-1.pdf](http://inside.mines.edu/~tkaiser/csci580fall13/one-day-1.pdf)

All the other files from "Advanced High Performance Computing CSCI 580" class also look interesting:

[http://inside.mines.edu/~tkaiser/csci580fall13/](http://inside.mines.edu/~tkaiser/csci580fall13/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The Xeon Phi is a fascinating exercise in futurology. It may face strong competition from GPUs in HPC environments, but future end-user non-specialised processors will probably have more cores than current designs and any effort optimising code to run on more cores than currently available is an investment that'll bear fruit in the future.

<comment><USER9> The Phi is SIMD with a thin memory hierarchy. So it's not really that different from a GPU...it definitely isn't general purpose.

<comment><USER8> It is different in that it _looks_ general purpose enough (it looks like a lot of Atom-like cores with wider SIMD units hooked up to a pool of shared memory) and in that it can run off-the-shelf software (albeit poorly).

Learning to make it run effectively may give you some insight on how to persuade your personal computer of 2024 to use all its cores and make your browsing experience better.</comment></comment></comment>


Collection of awesome projects, blog posts, books, and talks on quantifying risk - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/veeral-patel/awesome-risk-quantification <comment><USER2> Good ressources. I've been following Ryan Mcgeehan for a few years, and he's really dedicated to the development of simple risk management techniques. Risk management can be really difficult to grasp.

Additional interesting ressources: \- Implementing Enterprise Risk Management by James Lam [https://www.amazon.ca/Implementing-Enterprise-Risk- Managemen...](https://www.amazon.ca/Implementing-Enterprise-Risk-Management- Applications/dp/0471745197/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=enterprise+risk+management&qid=1585660164&sr=8-3) \- Protivi Guide to Enterprise Risk Management [https://www.protiviti.com/sites/default/files/protivitierm_f...](https://www.protiviti.com/sites/default/files/protivitierm_faqguide.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting approach for information security. A lot better than doing nothing, but the blog post states Netflix has 2 full time engineers thinking just about risk.

But they've kinda just recreated a simplified traditional DFMEA... with some questionable choices on process and math.

Odd that they didn't reference p/DFMEA or what failures they saw with that approach. Normally you'd model the risk of failure with a weibell curve. The Monte Carlo approach they use is ok but assumes all risks are equally weighted in time for a distribution. You then look at pre-mitigation and post mitigation risk to determine which actions to take.

That said, maybe they've never heard of the traditional dfmea process? Unlikely I would hope but possible.

<comment><USER4> do you have any recommendations on books/references about this dfmea ?

<comment><USER3> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_mode_and_effects_ana...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_mode_and_effects_analysis)

Will give you a starting point. But there's a lot of experienced engineers who know more. It's something you learn mostly by doing as it needs to be adopted for each project type.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> one of my favorite thinkers is Taleb: [https://twitter.com/nntaleb](https://twitter.com/nntaleb)

Taleb books: [https://www.amazon.com/Nassim-Nicholas- Taleb/e/B000APVZ7W](https://www.amazon.com/Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb/e/B000APVZ7W)

also the USCSB youtube channel has post-mortems on industrial engineering accidents and disasters which I find really insightful [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIkr0SRTnZO4_QpZozvCCA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIkr0SRTnZO4_QpZozvCCA)

any books / resources about a) complexity and b) D/FMEA!

also avoid clueless academics and Steven Pinker or anyone invited to Davos/WEE like the plague!

<comment><USER6> >"clueless academics"

Spoken like a true cult member, that's one of Taleb's personal favourite sayings. For everyone else, why you should ignore him

[https://www.linkedin.com/content- guest/article/antifragility...](https://www.linkedin.com/content- guest/article/antifragility-fragile-concept-casey-rosenthal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can I mention Risk-First? All about applying risk to software development.

[https://riskfirst.org](https://riskfirst.org)

</comment><comment><USER8> """Risk quantification attempts to assign numeric values to risks, instead of qualitative labels such as "Critical" and "High"."""

Nitpicky...but...

Shouldn't risk always be quantified? I thought that's what sets it apart from uncertainty. Also I'd argue that "critical", "hight" etc. is also quantification (ordinal scale). I guess the argument is that it should be quantified on a nominal scale?

That being said, love the list :)

<comment><USER9> Quantification of risk from natural language is handled in the first 10 minutes of the video 'Forecasting, Browsers, and "In The Wild" Exploitation by Ryan McGeehan (2019)' in the OP link.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, specifically this is what Ryan discusses:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probabilit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probability)</comment></comment></comment>


Notes+Cartoons on Andrew Ng ML Course W1-5 - <AUTHOR> https://theptrk.com/2020/02/12/notes-for-coursera-ml-course-week-1-5/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, wanted to share illustrated notes I took on the Coursera Machine Learning course from Andrew Ng. This covers weeks 1-5.</comment>


Fly over a reconstruction of 4th century Rome [video] - <AUTHOR> https://smarthistory.org/ancient-rome/ <comment><USER2> I have trouble understanding why people here say "the modeling is bad" (I think what is really meant is the level of detail).

If this is meant to be an "as realistic as possible" representation of ancient Rome, then the level of detail is linked to our knowledge of what specific buildings may have looked like back then. That's why eg some of the statues have a very high LOD because they were preserved until today.

Now, comparing this against a multi-hundred-million budget for-profit video game seems a bit pointless, because in a video game (apart from time and money invested) there's no need for historical accuracy. But if we assume that standards of scientific accuracy apply to this visualization, then it makes a lot of sense that they didn't just invent a bunch of details. Imagine them publishing a paper and just filling some historical gaps with "this is how we think it might've looked"..

<comment><USER3> You can create most of the details using procedural modeling, automatically. We also know enough about the actual detailing of the buildings to create much more detailed representation of Rome than we see in this video.

See e.g.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx_8RbFNjes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx_8RbFNjes)

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dxQbqVB7iU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dxQbqVB7iU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this.

Nitpick: Rome was a city with a population of up to 1 million people plus millions of animals. We see a few plumes of smoke coming up from bath complexes, but that would just have been a few of thousands. Even if this was in the middle of day in the middle of summer, we should expect to see plumes of smoke coming up from tens of thousands of fireplaces. How else would they cook, bake bread etc. This was a very dense city, so I would expect to see haze over Rome even at noon in July. I would also expect to see soot on all the buildings and dirt in the streets.

I know this is just a model, but it leaves you with the impression that everything was white and clean, which sort of plays well with the thought of Rome as an advanced civilization that gave us a lot of our concepts and ideas for government and law. But it likely wasn't that pristine. It was probably a dirty, stinky, smoke filled, decease ridden place.

But still a wonderful model. I wish we had had these kinds of videos, when we sat through history classes.

<comment><USER5> I mean, it's clearly a very abstract representation based on archaeological data. There's no people or animals in the streets, which wouldn't have been the case even at night let alone midday, and all the houses except the famous landmarks are basic geometric boxes. It's not intended to be a video-game like living city, but rather a semi-immersive virtual museum.

What you're asking for would have required an entirely different budget and likely would run counter to the point of the model. It's not a simulation.

<comment><USER4> Agreed and its very good without. I only mentioned it because they already put smoke from different temples/ baths :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something seemed fishy about this as soon as I started reading the About page. A little digging turned up this great bit of reporting from HyperAllergic from January 2019: [https://hyperallergic.com/480239/a-virtual-reality-app- that-...](https://hyperallergic.com/480239/a-virtual-reality-app-that- reconstructs-ancient-rome-may-have-exploited-its-developers/).

EDIT for tl;dr purposes: the models and textures have almost entirely been developed through public funding over a 20 year period but have recently been trademarked by Bernie Frischer Consulting (AKA Flyover Zone Productions) which this website is serving as a shop window for. Seems pretty sleazy and a bit of a shame to me as: 1) it's a great if slightly patchy resource which sounds like it really should be under public access somehow; 2) a couple of hours in the hands of a decent 3D artist to setup lighting and cameras correctly would do this model so much more justice.

<comment><USER7> Not sure I follow. You say they have been trademarked. The reference from the article that mentions trademark:

"As a staunch proponent of open data and open access to cultural heritage, I am disappointed to learn that the contributions made in good faith to promote the free and open proliferation knowledge have been commercialized. I am shocked that a project developed largely with taxpayer funding has been trademarked by a private company registered to Bernie Frischer himself."

It seems to me the word trademark actually refers to some kind of copyright? I agree that taxpayer's money should contribute to something that can be reused by others, and/or owned by public institutions. In this case it seems unclear what has happened. Is the data available so anyone can create the same kind of "product" or is the data copyrighted?

<comment><USER6> I would point you (and anyone else asking similar questions) to the article I linked above as it's well written and definitely better informed than I am.

Briefly, it sounds like the dataset is not copyrighted, but is also no longer publicly accessible. The artifacts produced from it (the 360 VR app, and this fly-through video) are copyrighted, proprietary products being marketed to schools, for profit.

I'm definitely not opposed to the use of open access data sets in creating commercial products, I think that's a great idea and I've done it myself in the past. But it does seem a shame in this case that the people doing the commercialising haven't done a great job of acknowledging others who've done the really hard work of creating the assets in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is fantastic. I'm a sucker for history from the "as lived" point of view - and there is little more "as lived" than the streets and houses and apartment blocks. (The posh floors were ground floors - the poor has to schlepp up all those stairs)

And Circus Maximus ... it could seat 1/4 Million people !! Holy Moly - that's bigger than stadiums today. (different Health and Safety rules I know) but still ... that's insane.

</comment><comment><USER9> Video is 11 minutes long. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The quality can only improve over time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Would have been nice if they had showed at least parts of the "slummy parts" of Rome (as they put it) where most people lived too.

</comment><comment><USER11> This "Rome Reborn 1.0" layer from 2008 still works with some broken links but buildings are there: [https://mw2.google.com/mw-earth- vectordb/gallery_layers/rome...](https://mw2.google.com/mw-earth- vectordb/gallery_layers/rome/en/ancient_rome_regions.kmz)

</comment><comment><USER12> I look forward to the day when I can walk around Rome viewing something like this on my phone and augmented reality on google maps!

</comment><comment><USER13> This is awesome, but...why are there tourists standing around in modern-day clothing like flannel shirts and leather jackets?

<comment><USER14> For scale and because they've recreated the buildings but not gone back in time I think

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Their VR product is tragically disappointing. It's all prerendered 360. I can't work out why as the poly count doesn't seem so high to have prevented working in real-time.

I could forgive the crude, flat lighting if it was true VR but we get the worst of both worlds - low-quality rendering and the lack of presence you get from non-volumetric content.

Hopefully they will improve their offering in future as this is exactly the kind of thing that VR was made for.

[https://www.romereborn.org/](https://www.romereborn.org/)

EDIT - addressed in their FAQ:

Q: Do you plan to offer open-world VR?

A: Yes. "Open world" means that the user can move at will through the virtual space. At the moment, our users are fixed to a single vantage point, around which they can pivot at will to obtain a 360 panoramic view of the scene. We consider this a temporary expedient necessitated by the frame-rate requirements of the VR stores we use and by the computational limits of some of the VR headsets we support (e.g., GearVR and Go). As soon as the stores change their minimum hardware requirements to the point where our open world apps can meet their frame rate benchmark, we will release our apps in both the current panoramic flavor (which will probably continue for some time to be needed for headsets not reliant on external computing resources) and in the open-world flavor. We definitely want to be the first to realize Palmer Luckey's original motivation in creating consumer-level VR headsets of making it possible to walk down the streets of ancient Rome.

</comment><comment><USER16> Really bad quality of 3D modeling.

<comment><USER17> I hate to agree with you, but yes. This is a project that started in the late 1990s, and while it was state-of-the-art then, not so much now as compared to the near photo-realistic environments of today's video games. That being said, the point of this is to be a realistic depiction, and the more detailed the modeling gets the more would have to be invented rather than being historically documented.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that's the point. There _is_ no recorded detail. Existing remnants are highly eroded. Just seeing all those buildings in context is wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice work. I always wondered why has been working on and AR app to navigate through the Palatine. I suppose you need to go through the 3D modeling step first.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice idea, but the saccharine voiceover made it impossible to listen to for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting. But I like Assasin's Creed's modeling better. Maybe they should have teamed up?

<comment><USER22> For one, I imagine since this project is more academic in nature (as opposed to commercial or for entertainment) they aren't optimizing for flashiness but for historical accuracy based on the archeology. Second they probably have a lot less funding than a high budget video game. It would be cool though if the makers of Assassins Creed could devote some of their big budget and expertise to helping this project shine, as long as it doesn't detract from their core mission of historical inquiry and accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting that 'smart history' chooses a picture of the circus maximus that obscures the fact that it is now st peters basilica in rome, itself no small historical detail..

<comment><USER24> I don't think that's right. Circus Maximus is near the Colosseum and still exists as a park.

<comment><USER25> Not to mention the Vatican is on the other side of the river Tiber!</comment></comment></comment>


HTML5: Don't Believe the Hype Cycle - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/08/html5-ready-for-prime-time-dont-believe-the-hype-cycle.php

<comment><USER2> You can get the "What is HTML5" book on kindle from amazon for free right now:

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Is- HTML5-ebook/dp/B005ISQ7JM/ref=...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Is- HTML5-ebook/dp/B005ISQ7JM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital- text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345579951&sr=1-1&keywords=html5)

You could read it in two hours. I see a nice incremental improvement and standards for UI controls (canvas, etc) but nothing that blew my mind. Given the context, I'd say that would make the article spot-on.</comment>


The Post-Capitalist Interregnum - <AUTHOR> https://neweconomics.opendemocracy.net/the-post-capitalist-interregnum/ <comment><USER2> This person uses a lot of big words and is not very concise. But interesting point and world view.

Long story short capitalism has exhausted all of its options, and will die from 1,000 paper cuts.

There is nothing (yet) to replace it.</comment>