The Zen of HN - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/mcav/zen-of-hn/raw/df10634090b6ee024978949c18a885218f128a65/zen-of-hn.txt <comment> cool-RR I don't think downvotes should be used for disagreeing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right; that was intended to mean that people sometimes use them for disagreement, despite that they probably shouldn't. Any thoughts on a better wording?

<comment><USER2> Actually, there should be no correlations between votes and agreement.

Upvotes should reward civil comments that feed the conversation constructively.

Aggressivity, and empty posts ("cheerleaders", etc.) should be downvoted.

Flags are for grossly offensive or illegal content.

That was the original intent IIRC: encouraging civil conversation. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink. We should encourage diversity unless we want to become a close-minded community, reinforcing it's own biases.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree that you've described the ideal.

Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement.

And there's a certain alluring efficiency to it: once there's a couplet of opposed viewpoints, just weigh in with your "vote". That's what "votes" are for in a democracy, right?

The habit of only using downvotes to signal disagreement when a comment is highly-rated helps a bit, but isn't universally applied and and throws time- of-vote in as a confounding signal. (There are comments that I will upvote if <0, abstain if 1-2, and downvote if >2 -- so it all depends on when I see it. With others doing the same, totals are more reflective of 'the last few voters' than the community.)

These could be addressed by UI changes. One idea I've plugged before would be to offer a separate axis of voting which is explicitly agree/disagree -- so people aren't tempted to use promote/demote that way.

Agreement scores could also be hidden until a user votes -- so each vote is independent. This makes more sense on a pure agree/disagree scale than promote/demote. PG clearly wants to discourage demote piling-on; he first tried through suasion and when that failed now enforces in software the -8 floor. And discouraging piling-on makes sense: demotion-votes sting with a sense of community censure, while disagreement is just a normal healthy part of conversation. My ideal comment would be a +50 on the promote-scale, and a -50 on the agree-scale. It means people appreciate having heard something they disagree with, so some novelty/signal/thought is occurring.

<comment><USER4> _Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement._

At the moment yes, but why not:

Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution.

Instead of just up/down.

<comment><USER5> I concur with your proposal and suggest fleshing it out by having 4 directional modifiers:

 _UP_ for agree (Propably the most common action)

 _LEFT_ for good contribution / insightful / well-constructed argument

 _DOWN_ for disagree

 _RIGHT_ for bad contribution / troll

This would enable rating of votes in 2 dimensions and may possibly map to a page layout (ie agree+good at top left, then the not so good but still agreed being placed further to the right)

Could alternatively have the comments coloured based on good/bad value (probably some sort of logarithmic scale) and sorted vertically by agree/disagree value, which would still allow conversation threads...

<comment><USER6> I'd use right for agree. The mnemonic is easier. And up for a good contribution, because it ups the level of discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Python has cool, witty Zen. This is not as cool and hardly witty, but I figured I'd take a stab at it and let the rest of you improve or rewrite it. It's on GitHub, and I'm no poet, so feel free to edit/fork/dismiss as you see fit.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could add something to the effect of 'say nothing you wouldn't say to our face'.

<comment><USER8> perhaps "say nothing rude you wouldn't say to my face".

There are lots of constructing things you can contribute here which you might not want to say to someone in a live debate (Im thinking, for example, the drugs discussion that went on a while back) :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ironically, this article violates its urge to "meta-discuss sparingly" by meta-discussing for a whole article. (Attempts to point out the same irony in this comment will suffer from the same problem.)

<comment><USER10> I think the article counts as "sparing".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It might be a personal thing, but I never submit anything I've personally written. I leave it to others to figure out if it warrants being on Hacker News.

(in reference to posting stuff from one's own blog lines)

</comment><comment><USER12> test

</comment><comment><USER12> this is good

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally, I always downvote based upon human worth. Upvotes? Only if I think you're hot.

<comment> cool-RR I think not many people feel attracted to you right now.

<comment><USER13> I know. My self-appraisal of my own human worth just went down the toilet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In clapping both hands a sound is heard: what is the sound of the one hand?

</comment><comment><USER15> If the crowd does not vote up the prophet, the prophet shall vote up himself

</comment><comment><USER16> Downvotes are nothing less than barbaric. You are hurting someone just because you disagree with their point of view.</comment>


Decoding Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/decoding-clojure <comment><USER2> As far as I'm aware, there's not a true templating system around for Compojure. There's Enlive, but that's kind of weird. From what I can see, you write all your HTML and then perform operations on the HTML completely from Clojure. If you were looking at the HTML you wouldn't know that it was going to be modified by another program. It's one of the reasons that I haven't spent more time working in Compojure - it assumes that everyone wants to spend all their time in Clojure.

The problem (to me) is that s-exprs just make sense for representing HTML. Every time I've tried to think of how a "perfect" templating language would look for Clojure, all options have seemed silly next to just using Lisp. I guess that's part of its charm (and its curse).

[Enlive: <http://github.com/cgrand/enlive>]

<comment><USER3> Clojure is powerful enough that its easy to write a "true" templating library along the lines you describe. I wrote a very simple templating tool (47 loc) that allowed clojure to be evaluated within PHP style tags -- I didn't use it because I felt it doesn't add anything other than familiarity i.e. it was a step backwards.

If you write your own html then compojure is, without question, the way to go. S-expressions require less typing than html and you can write functions or define snippets that build webpages up without the need to repeat yourself. Its an end to copy and paste. Also, stylesheets are your friend and can do most of the work of presentation.

If you work with designers who require full access to the HTML then Enlive is a good option -- as you said there is no template code in with the html! Surely this is a step forwards from custom comment fields or custom tags?

<comment><USER2> Rolling your own templating library would certainly work, but then you're stuck maintaining your own templating library.

I like the concept of Enlive, but I have concerns about troubleshooting it. I feel like you're asking for trouble any time you have to look at multiple files just to figure out what's going on in one page. Troubleshooting a page that's been modified with Enlive would require you to have the HTML open, and then mentally translate all the operations so that you can see what changes what. I'm just not smart enough to be able to hold entire documents in my head when things approach even moderate complexity, and I want to be able to scan a document to see what's going on; not read the HTML document and then go through the list of operations to see how that document is being modified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> jacques, never put a lisp paren on a line by itself. K&R is for cc-mode languages.

P.S. I see clojure uses // for a comment, a la C++; See if it accepts semi- colons as well. That's quicker to type and easier on the eye.

<comment><USER5> Clojure doesn't accept //, ; or (comment ) are used for comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone recommend a good introductory book for learning Clojure?

<comment><USER2> Mark Volkmann's Clojure page is a nice start: <http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html>

(He has a bunch more content here: <http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/> )

There is only one book out there currently, but it's pretty good: _"Programming Clojure"_ by Stuart Sierra (there are 3 more coming, see below)

<http://pragprog.com/titles/shcloj/programming-clojure>

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Upcoming books:

○ Clojure in Action - <http://manning.com/rathore/>

○ The Joy of Clojure - <http://manning.com/fogus/>

○ Practical Clojure - <http://apress.com/book/view/1430272317>

<comment><USER7> I've read programming clojure and I found it very good. I also liked the videos on <http://clojure.blip.tv/> and also I bought the peepcode screencast with an intro on clojure. It's pretty good: [http://peepcode.com/products/functional-programming-with- clo...](http://peepcode.com/products/functional-programming-with-clojure)

This one is free and well worth the look: [http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/12/clojure-101-gett...](http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/12/clojure-101-getting- clojure-slime-installed/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A good editor with rainbow parentheses and parentheses matching makes lisp code infinitely more readable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll be looking around for that.

It would save me a ton of time when looking at code I do not yet understand.</comment></comment>


She was a star of New York real estate, but her life story was a lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/nyregion/faith-hope-consolo.html <comment><USER2> Had a family member like this. She would lie in the most outrageous fashion, right to your face ("I slept with JFK! We flew to Bermuda for a week 1st class together, just the two of us!" that sort). If you called her out on it, she would just stare blankly--any rational response just doesn't land. Laughter or praise, on the other hand...

I believe that New York attracts these people, from all over the country. Maybe it's the accent, but I spot this trait in a few other famous/powerful people, especially if they're associated with nyc -- Giuliani, Donald Rumsfeld, and (guess who) come to mind.

It's absolutely possible for people to just straight lie, under any circumstances, for any reason, straight to your face, with zero cognitive overhead, zero concept of what a lie even means/is. It's just a default mode.

They live among us. And usually they're immensely charismatic, larger-than- life.

<comment><USER3> More likely than not, its easier for a liar to get by in densely populated areas. Get caught in a lie, or marked as a liar in a small town can hurt social standing.

However, I wonder if this changes now with social media - for better or worse, accusations (true and false) are quite quickly thrown.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand, most people lie (or at least exaggerate) on social media. So maybe everyone stays silent in order not to get called out themselves.

<comment><USER5> There's likely a lot of truth to this. They say that every human is a liar. But I wonder if every human has the courage and ambition it takes to lie big?

Most of us are way too fearful to even lie to low ranking people, so of course we'll never be caught in enormous lies to high ranking people. So when you imply all people are liars, yes, that's true without question. However, I'd wager that only a select few have the guts or desire to go all the way to the top with a lie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't read the NYT article but I assume this article is roughly similar: [https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/luxury-real- estat...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/luxury-real-estate/sns- nyt-faith-hope-consolo-real-estate-legend-20200113-5ggejikgfzelfjnfpumdzstjtu- story.html)

tl;dr. Said she was born rich. Was actually born to a hairdresser and a con- artist. Really she was rags to riches which is pretty inspirational I think.

<comment><USER7> You don't often get in with rich people, who likely had parents that were likely rich given her profession and location, by saying you come from a rough background. That just makes most rich people feel uncomfortable, which isn't a useful feeling if you want said rich people's money.

<comment><USER8> So you don't think rich people like to hang out with athletes? Actors? Musicians? Totally gives them credibility. Look at Ben Horowitz hanging with rappers.

<comment><USER9> Yeah but she wasn't an actor or a musician. Most of the time they hang out with other rich people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My brother had an ex-girlfriend who was the same, always spinning a different version of her life. Another friend briefly shared a house with her and discovered that she kept two diaries. One detailing the things she had done - and the other detailing what she _said_ she had done.

To be a good liar you need a good memory.

<comment><USER11> A wise friend once said to me:

"Always tell the truth, it is the easiest thing to remember."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do we have an increase of Narcissists with the increase of Social Media?

<comment><USER13> No, just an increase in their visibility. Same with exhibitionists.</comment></comment>


How my todo list works - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/post/my-todo-list.html

<comment><USER2> Personally, I'm very bitter/blasé toward any talk of todo systems, because the problem most often does not exist at that level.

The main thing for my productivity has been figuring out what I want and don't want in life. That's a big rabbit-hole; to do it properly you need multiple Phd's in psychology, it feels like sometimes. Much easier to just dick around with this or the other Getting-Widgets-Cranked app.

Once you know what you want and don't want, everything becomes much easier. Don't fall into the trap of procrastiplanning, is what I'm saying.

<comment><USER3> You're completely right.

For the most part, it doesn't matter what tools you use if you (1) have developed discipline, and (2) have actually defined what you want to accomplish.

The key hill to climb, where most would-bes are going to fail is at this sentence: "READ THE DAILY LIST EVERY DAY once you sit in front of the computer".

To do that, you've first got to develop the will and desire to accomplish stuff -- and if you had that, you probably wouldn't be fiddling around with the todo-method-du-jour.

<comment><USER4> As a former member of the GTD and Seven Habits cults, I think the weekly list is more important than the daily list. If you are always heads down focused on your daily list, you will be stuck in fire-fighting mode. Weekly lists provide a chance to balance your personal priorities and see big picture opportunities when you start thinking beyond one day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Deletion forces you to rewrite the items on a new piece of paper often.

I find this one of the best features of a paper system. Every time you copy it over, you reevaluate your items.

<comment><USER6> One person's bug is another person's feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love it when people post their todo lists because you can learn something each time. Everyone has a different way of doing it, and inevitably ends up being a combination of a bunch of techniques that are out there.

Right now I have two lists, a "hopper" list where all goals go - it gets filled at the start with everything I want to accomplish that week - and a "do today" list which is populated from the hopper and organized the night before each coming day. Technique stolen from someone here on HN. Simpler seems to work better for me, even though my days are jam packed with multiple clients/projects/etc; I have tried all the notes apps and the complexity adds extra work, time and mental effort that is not worth it in my opinion. I keep my 2 todo lists in a memo on my phone and that's all there is to it.

<comment><USER8> Hey awesome I have been in the same boat using the Pomodoro Technique where they have an Activity Inventory ("hopper") and a To Do Today List ("do today"). It's just this technique has a process for unproductive people like me to follow hehe.

<http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually do find 'todo management' methods to be useful, if only to the extent that they help me figure out what I should be working on _right now_. When faced with multiple overlapping projects/clients/deadlines, it can be very difficult to keep all this stuff straight in my head.

One of the most useful 'todo system' concepts I have encountered is the notion of 'hiding' a todo item (i.e. keeping it from distracting me) until it is relevant [idea from <http://bitliteracy.com/>, a book by Mark Hurst]. For instance, I shouldn't need to see anything about filing taxes on my todo list every single day of the year—this shouldn't show up until the relevant time. The OP's method addresses this with the 'weekly' and 'monthly' lists that are read less frequently, allowing reminders to become daily only when they are relevant. The system Mark Hurst designed (<http://goodtodo.com>) instead allows you to specify a sort of 'start date' for a todo item, and it won't show up until that date. I have found this idea, however implemented, to be very useful in allowing me to get things out of my head and into an organized system, but not let them distract me until relevant.

[Full disclaimer: I have no connection with Mark Hurst other than having read the book linked above and attended one of his talks.]

</comment><comment><USER10> Hey, I use almost exactly the same system, except that instead of evernote I use backpack (<http://backpackit.com/>), and instead of the three sections being day, week, and month, I have "Next", "Soon", and "Backlog". Also, I have two todo lists - one for work, and one for non-work.

I like backpack because I can reorder and drag items between lists easily. There is even a checkbox beside each item, which I get an unreasonable amount of satisfaction by clicking.

</comment><comment><USER11> Clever idea. I'll implement that using a text file and dropbox (specially with Epistle on Android). Every time that I try Evernote on OS X it feels alien.

<comment><USER12> " _Every time that I try Evernote on OS X it feels alien._ "

Yeah! Weird, but I get this too! What _is_ it that makes it feel so strange on OS X?

But yeah, a text file on Dropbox is my favorite solution.

Edit: I do actually use and like todo.txt, myself. Worth getting to know.

<comment><USER11> For me it feels like a beta app. Things works in a strange, kinda buggy way of an unfinished product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's how my todo list work. Each project directory has an org mode file named todo- _project_.org. The org mode file has a current product version todo list and a general todo list. When the current version has been released, its list is moved to the bottom, a new version todo list is added.

The general todo list is for things not fitted in the current version. Its items can be done in parallel to the current release list or moved into the next version list.

The Emacs org mode is just a plain text file and make it very easy to organize the todo list.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm currently setting up my home away on a shiny new vps (with lots of goals like 'try blogging for the nth time' & 'really migrate away from gmail' being on top).

I discovered taskwarrior [1] and fell in love. So far it's blissfully simple. No syncing (I guess I could easily tack it on though), but I'm on that machine anyway, always (irc, mail, tinkering).

So far it's the most natural interface that I could imagine.

1: <http://taskwarrior.org/projects/show/taskwarrior>

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been using trello, works well and it could fit this model easily.

<comment><USER16> I love Trello, simply because it's such a generalized way to organize thoughts. I use it for everything from project outlines to detailed to-do, to- read and to-watch lists.

One thing I've found convenient for my high priority to-do card is a script that prints it on to my desktop. Trello already has a fairly solid API.

In my opinion the biggest challenge for to-do solutions is how to stay in the users face all the time. Which is probably why sticky notes on the monitor are still popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The amount of time i used to waste deciding what to do next completely out- weighted the benefit it provided. Your approach is very similar to mine, love it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Emacs org mode works great for this sort of thing. I create a different agenda file for each project where I keep todo's and general notes for the project. I can then do a C-c a t to view the global list of todo's. Org mode can also be combined with the calendar to view items by day / week, etc. I'm still new with it so I'm not a guru, but so far it works great.

</comment><comment><USER19> My to-do list isn't so detailed (but it is LONG), though my appointment planning is. I use Calcurse so I can manage both in the same terminal. <http://www.calcurse.org> may be worth a look if you have to manage appointments along with your to-do list.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's fascinating that despite all the to-do apps, people still resort to home- grown, highly manual solutions. Do people think there will eventually be an app that works for the masses, or will planning continue to be a personal, isolated experience?

<comment><USER21> I think there are two reasons for this:

a) It's extremely hard to make todo list app that accommodates all workflows that people want well. For example, RTM is not that well suited for GTD, but wouldn't you expect each of the most popular to-do list app to be well suited, for, you know, the most popular todo-ing method?

b) Sometimes manual steps are the point - rewriting list actually gives you time to review the items, so some people opt out for paper and such. I usually use RTM, but, for example, one-off packing lists I do on paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> No wunderlist fans here. Available on every system. Multiple List. It does pretty much everything you need in a simple TODO list manager.

</comment><comment><USER23> is anybody else disappointed with evernote's minimal todo features. I think that if they include an special todo note with some of the remember the milk features, evernote would serve as a superior todo note medium</comment>


Booting Linux in One Second [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://elinux.org/images/9/97/Boot_one_second_altenberg.pdf <comment><USER2> Linux can be so amazing when configured especially for some tasks. For example, Jack on linux can deliver audio latencies under 2ms! The problem is that configuring Linux like this almost requires a CS degree.

<comment><USER3> I once had a brief conversation (via Reddit) with a guy using JACK for a commercial (embedded Linux) networked audio system. I wasn't aware of the exact specifics but I understand it was Sonos-style, embedded boards inside speakers. He wasn't particularly interested in talking about the work his team had done :P

I think that proves your point.

<comment><USER4> This is a quite paradoxal phenomen that happens to some open source projects. The code is open and free, but some of the experts hold their knowledge very close to their chest. It's totally understandable since they of course need to make a living somehow, but it kind of defeats some of the benefits with open source.

<comment><USER5> Roughly speaking it levels the playing field. With Open Source smart people and companies that attract smart people get an edge.

<comment><USER4> Good point! But the hazard is that the we risk getting FOSS software that is unnecessarily complex to configure because of this.

<comment><USER5> In my experience proprietary software is often far more complex, in fact in another league than most FOSS SW for now (source: have installed and reinstalled so many Oracle databases, Enterprise Manager and APEX installations I have lost count.)

<comment><USER6> Depends on the software and author. Case in point: sendmail; virtually everything ever made by RedHat (the software is free, but there's no useful documentation if you're not a paying customer… cf. NetworkManager, PulseAudio, GlusterFS … only systemd seems an exception, for now).

<comment><USER4> Good point! However, I would agree that server/system software that is "best- in-breed" tend to be FOSS. But I'm afraid I have no studies or other hard facts to support my case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's another example of the same sort of idea:

[http://elinux.org/images/f/f7/RightApproachMinimalBootTimes....](http://elinux.org/images/f/f7/RightApproachMinimalBootTimes.pdf)

Also under 1 second, and the approaches this guy took are seriously impressive. Lots of educational tidbits and "good-to-know"s in here even for non-embedded types. Reads very quickly too.

</comment><comment><USER7> 1 seconds seems a rather arbitrary measure. In HCI 100ms seems to be the value that's generally taken under which an action seems to be happening instantaneously [1]

It's quite sad to see how we hardly use the computing power offered by our modern computers to actually speed up common tasks, but instead bloat it up with all kinds of stuff.

[1] [http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1664/what-is- the-t...](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1664/what-is-the- threshold-where-actions-are-perceived-as-instant)

<comment><USER8> I completely agree with the general idea. Bloat is too high and has far reaching consequences.

And it's actually even worse than that. 100ms is nowhere near enough to be sufficient for all applications.

For audio applications you need 10ms [[http://superpowered.com/androidaudiopathlatency](http://superpowered.com/androidaudiopathlatency)] which incidentally is the reason why Android is unusable for any interactive audio applications.

Same applies to Virtual Reality. You need sub 20ms latency for head tracking to eyes latency or you will feel sick (effectively less than 10ms from the cpu side. Display scanning is summed on top).

The 100ms figure applies mostly to traditional UI workflow. Whenever you need a realtime interaction that's 10x too high.

<comment><USER9> > which incidentally is the reason why Android is unusable for any interactive > audio applications.

Everybody says this and yet programs like Caustic seem to do a fine job in my experience.

<comment><USER10> Have you tried performing using an android app? I used a drum-pad app the other week and the latency makes it unplayable.

There's a great explanation here as to why it's so bad: [http://superpowered.com/androidaudiopathlatency](http://superpowered.com/androidaudiopathlatency)

<comment><USER11> This is fixed in newer Android phones: [https://source.android.com/devices/audio/latency_measurement...](https://source.android.com/devices/audio/latency_measurements.html)

<comment><USER8> That's a relief. They are finally taking the issue seriously then.

There are also indications that they are going to lower the display path latency, which also stands several times higher than what is in iDevices. It just takes some time to get a certain class of software architects to realize that buffering a frame several times each step might not be the smartest way after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone booted the pdf in a minute?

<comment><USER13> If you use an actual pdf reader instead of the JS-based in-browser crap, it's quite instantaneous.

<comment><USER14> But javascript is so cool!

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1049218](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1049218)

<comment><USER15> JS is also sandboxed, which seems to be a particular problem for traditional readers. I'd trust PDF.JS to get faster more than I trust PDFium to not have security issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Was looking to boot to Qt under a couple of seconds for a camera use case a few months back, and came across similar demos. Can work well for very specific applications/products.

Here's a video of a talk by the author of this particular pdf

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTRA1PRJWH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTRA1PRJWH8)

Will be interesting to see what impact Intel's 3D Xpoint will have on boot times too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's a video the same talk by the author - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTRA1PRJWH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTRA1PRJWH8)

</comment><comment><USER18> What about shutdown time?

(the steady state is that computers are running, so if it takes 30sec to cleanly shutdown then your cycle time is 31secs... obviously, this doesn't apply to stateless servers or that use write-through caching...)

<comment><USER19> The kind of device this kind of optimization applies to typically runs with readonly flash, maybe only writing some config rarely... So, just pull the plug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why isn't any phone doing it? (either smart or feature variety)

<comment><USER16> phones need to load a lot of stuff a boot time - this fast boot times are achieved by stripping a hell of a lot of stuff out

<comment><USER20> I would love to have a phone with a hell of a lot of stuff stripped out. I guess manufacturers don't.

<comment><USER21> Sure they do, they're called "feature phones". Wiko sells some decent dual-sim models for $20.

<comment><USER20> I have included "feature phones" in my original comment. None boot close to 1 second, and these, too, include a lot of functionality that I would like stripped out.

<comment><USER21> My $20 Wiko Lubi does boot in a second, or barely more (not counting PIN input, I don't know if it's booting the background), and I can't complain about having too much functionality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> An OS is recomputing the same functions over and over again when booting, so why not cache all of this, and make it instant?

<comment> psi-squared How much do you cache? Hardware is difficult because you could add/remove/swap it at any time, and software information is already partly cached depending on your OS.

IIRC, Windows a) builds a list of files to pre-load from disk based on your usage, and b) doesn't actually fully shut down by default (it goes to hibernate mode: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/olivnie/archive/2012/12/14/windows-8...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/olivnie/archive/2012/12/14/windows-8-fast- boot.aspx)). I don't know if any Linux distros do either of those by default, but it is certainly possible.

Also, some BIOSes already have a "quick boot" setting which caches some hardware information, particularly about memory. It usually comes with a warning that you need to disable the setting for at least one boot when installing RAM.

<comment><USER23> But an embedded system wouldn't change between two reboots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That's very impressive. Great for embedded devices, where the hardware profile doesn't change from boot to boot.

</comment><comment><USER25> Our team was working on a vehicle telmatics platform ( connected cars ). We had a requirement in which the remote engine start time should be within 15 seconds from the time the customer clicked the start button on his phone. For this the QNX running in the vehicle had a fastboot mode , which came up within that timeframe , brought up the interfaces & established network connection to our server and started the car. Once the car is started , the system will go down and come back up in normal boot.

Now I know !

</comment><comment><USER26> Presented by Montavista already in 2009: [https://youtu.be/-l_DSZe8_F8](https://youtu.be/-l_DSZe8_F8)

There is also some documentation from Montavista from that time.

EDIT: The presentation by Montavista from 2008: [http://www.freescale.com/files/training_pdf/VFTF09_MONTAVIST...](http://www.freescale.com/files/training_pdf/VFTF09_MONTAVISTA_LINUXBOOT.pdf?lang_cd=en)

<comment><USER27> And QNX before that. But, that's a well-engineered, UNIX-like microkernel rather than Linux. Oh well...

<comment><USER28> QNX was open source for a while, what is surprising is that there doesnt appear to be an easily searcable version of the code available on google.

<comment><USER27> That was a bait and switch by management that I could tell. They got a bunch of contributions from the community then pulled it. Or just felt that it wasn't worthwhile after little contributions. I can't be sure.

Nonetheless, underlying technology is solid with that showing in Blackberry Playbook.

<comment><USER28> I regret not downloading the source code while it was available.

<comment><USER27> I lost my copy. Regrets here, too. Minix 3 is fortunately coming along nicely and already resilient against driver faults.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> People are OK with frequently booting their mobile devices to temporarily "fix bugs", which can take up to tens of seconds, but waiting a moment to boot a desktop device? Nuh uh.

Of course there might be some market advantage to be had with faster booting and it's a plus for the whole UX. And optimisation is definitely cool, though I think many more problems would be solved if people were forced to think once in a while, whether it's while waiting for the bootup sequence to complete or a train to arrive.

<comment><USER30> The problem with a desktop is that most people have at least one and mostly several applications running. Those need maybe saving as well, before quitting. The mobile phones are better in that way: all apps are required to save their state at any time. So rebooting can be a mindless procedure.

<comment><USER29> You made me suddenly aware of the fact that I do not actually know how other people use their phones.

<comment><USER30> 'Mindless' ?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Had to once more flog systemd as it that is the only fast alternative to systemv...

</comment><comment><USER32> [deleted]

<comment><USER33> I think you've replied in the wrong tab.

<comment><USER32> Thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


AMD's Zen Family Moves into the Long-Life Embedded Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.eejournal.com/article/dude-my-embedded-processor-is-epyc/ <comment><USER2> If someone from AMD is reading this, why are there no decent GPU workstation motherboards for EPYC? The CPU is basically tailor made for this. There's a lot of demand. Why not satisfy the demand?

<comment><USER3> Well it's not really up to AMD which motherboards get manufactured. Besides the fact the EPYC processor is better suited to database and storage solutions with high core counts and support for massive amounts of RAM.

The high core counts, high ram, and lots of PCIe lanes make EPYC CPUs perfect for flash based storage arrays and databases.

<comment><USER4> The large amount of IO to the GPU has some great potential too.

AMD should make some reference boards if the OEMs won't.

<comment><USER2> And large number of cores comes in handy as well for the more efficient neural network architectures with complex data augmentation. I have several such networks where 16-core Threadripper is a bit of a bottleneck on a 4-GPU machine. We do the usual stuff: random scaling, cropping, rotation, noise, etc. Super easy, parallelizable stuff. That bottleneck will get worse once Volta consumer cards start showing up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow! Key takeaway for me was built in ram encryption transparent to the os/software. That's cool!</comment>


Blood Will Tell - <AUTHOR> https://features.propublica.org/blood-spatter/mickey-bryan-murder-blood-spatter-forensic-evidence/ <comment><USER2> Shameful. A good reminder too how much bullshit get's passed off as science in police investigations and forensics in general. Add to it homophobia and police eager to mark a case closed and this is what you get.

<comment><USER3> God help any of us if the police can use this kind of "evidence" to make us a suspect in a murder:

'Suddenly, the very qualities that had endeared Joe to his community — his demonstrativeness, his warmth, his volubility — were cast in a different light. "Homo tendencies?" one investigator jotted down during an interview. Similar observations were scrawled in notebooks and on scraps of paper that litter the case file: "He gay?" "Feminine acting." "Absolutely no homosexual advances but Joe is a 'toucher' when talking to people." "Joe would bake pies & cook etc rather than fish, play poker." One theory that investigators entertained was that Joe killed Mickey because she had discovered his dark secret.'

<comment><USER4> Consider the context: in 1985 in Texas:

"Until" "2003" "certain sexual acts between persons of the same sex were a criminal offense in Texas, termed "deviate sexual intercourse",[1] The offense was a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not to exceed $500.[2]"

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

Moreover:

"Prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every [U.S.] state, punished by a lengthy term of imprisonment and/or hard labor."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well-written, maddening story. If nothing else, I'm at least glad the death penalty didn't come into play so there's still a tiny chance at a shred of justice if some DNA evidence can absolve him.</comment>


Tell HN: GitHub now leaks if you're a paying customer - <AUTHOR> If you're a paying Github user you may now notice a badge on your profile, denoting your subscription level (Pro, etc).<p>I'd prefer this information not be made automatically public. <comment><USER2> It's on the mouseover of profiles as well :/

I also dislike this gamification of subscriptions</comment>


New Dropbox for Mac Client requires 0.5GB of RAM - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1138686582859239425 <comment><USER2> I wonder what the other 495MB of code does.</comment>


Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance - <AUTHOR> http://www.hulu.com/watch/27800 <comment><USER2> Koyaanisqatsi is my favorite movie. I saw a part of it while skipping channels on late night TV about 10 years ago and had my mind blown. I've since seen it a ton of times, including live with Philip Glass's "Ensemble". Big thumbs up. Startup types might enjoy much of the San Francisco footage, including the long gone double decker Embarcadero Freeway.

It's amazing how many references (subtle or not) to Koyaanisqatsi you see in other movies or even commercials that ape its style. My favorite, however, has to be The Simpsons' Koyaani-SCRATCHY: [https://vimeo.com/21283911](https://vimeo.com/21283911) :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I agree it's memorable, but favorite? 10 years ago you weren't even watching it like it's supposed to be watched on laser disk or blu-ray. Thanks for Koyaani-SCRATCHY I think :-).

<comment><USER3> I think we all just take HD for granted these days. Back then everyone was watching everything in SD and we just didn't know any better.

<comment><USER2> I'm considering downgrading my HD cable to standard to save $15/month. I mean I can see the difference but it's a bit of a meh difference to me. But then I did spend 20+ years with standard and the quality of the shows themselves was even higher back then ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, no, no. Don't watch it on Hulu. Experience the Criterion Collection Qatsi Trilogy Blu-ray [1] instead.

Then share it with friends and family, and eventually donate it to your local public library.

Win, win, win.

[1] [http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/934-the-qatsi- trilogy](http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/934-the-qatsi-trilogy)

<comment><AUTHOR> But hulu has ads. In the middle of a geico commercial, if you listen closely, you can hear someone chanting koyaanisqatsi.

<comment><USER5> Since you brought it up... Hulu has some of the worst ads I've ever seen. In my geographic region I have to suffer through upwards of three Cricket Mobile ads in an hour long program and they are the WORST. The Geico commercials are pretty bad too - I have a friend who likes them, but he's a cheese ball.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From movie critic Leonard Malton: (4-stars, highest rating) "Spellbinding, senses-staggering nonnarrative film soars across the United States in search of vistas both natural and man-made. Much of the photography is slow-motion or time-lapse (the title is Hopi Indian for "life out of balance"), all of it set to a mesmerizing score by Philip Glass. So rich in beauty and detail that with each viewing it becomes a new and different film. Should be seen in a theatre for maximum impact. Followed by POWAQQATSI and NAQOYQATSI"

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a film which, if you watch it all the way through and don't let your brain argue with what you're seeing, will help you think about the earth and what people are and what they're trying to do, and other things that are hard to describe.

<comment><USER8> It's one of those movies that take on whatever theme you feel is appropriate.

It made me think of the scale of human achievement, how we move so much from place to place, how we build, pollute and destroy, how we care for others around us but know so little about the people we cross every day on our daily commute.

It's like being high without taking any drugs really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my mind this work is the GEB of video. And its themes are related.

Seen the movie approx 20 times. For me it's the most successful work of minimalist music ever, the best music to footage match I've seen (Danny Elfman does pretty well too I guess) and a deeply important view of earth, life and humanity that invites you to transcend your individualism and individualistic vantage point for a short while.

Brian Eno, speaking at the long now foundation recently, referred to long term patterns in human life as 'the cycles of time' vs 'the arrow of progress' and there is absolutely no movie that better shows this odd meta-pattern on Earth of cycles and lines combining, sometimes very obviously and sometimes more subtly. Watch it anywhere but watch it without ads [turn off your phone, get over your worry about being bored and see if your mind won't tune in]

</comment><comment><USER10> Ron Fricke was involved in the making of this film. I whole heartedly recommend his two films Baraka and the more recent Samsara. The latter is the most stunning film I have ever seen and I recommend that everyone should see it. It is absolutely amazing! Baraka is fantastic too.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you liked Koyaanisqatsi, you'll love Baraka [1] and Samsara [2], both also Ron Fricke.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_\(film\))

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_(2011_film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_\(2011_film\))

</comment><comment><USER12> The entire trilogy is fantastic: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted this in response to Life is a game, this is your strategy guide [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7182636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7182636), so people could see the headlines together. Did you notice that? Life is more complicated than a game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> and he just released a new film last week, after years working on it:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/movies/godfrey-reggios- vis...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/movies/godfrey-reggios-visitors-is- a-slow-parade-of-faces.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> You might want to check out Ron Fricke's movies, they are a splendid window into human's life and their relation to this planet.

Specifically Baraka which is to my taste his best, but also Samsara and Chronos.

</comment><comment> the-kenny Please not that Hulu has stupid georestrictions. Please think of the people outside US.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hulu cannot do this film justice. This film deserves to be watched in the highest quality medium available, no interruptions.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised to see this posted on HN.

If you're interested in this genre of film, I happen to have just uploaded a video in a similar style which you can watch here:

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

My brother shot the footage while traveling the world, I edited, and music is by 'Jupi/ter' on Soundcloud. The production value may not be as high as Koyaanisqatsi, but it wont' cost you anything but your time.

Currently it's restricted to 30fps by Youtube, but I'm going to try iron out a few technical problems and upload a 60fps torrent version later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm surprised it got so far on hn too. Thank you for the video. I didn't realize this was a style, so I'm excited to see it.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for watching if you get a chance. Glad to hear your feedback too. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been watching this since I could catch it as a teenager on SuperChannel in the early 80's. The entire trilogy are still among my favourite films.

</comment><comment><USER18> I remember seeing this at a repertory theatre about 15 years ago and having my mind blown. Yes Baraka and Samsara are both beautiful but IMO they lack the cohesiveness of Koyaanisqatsi, especially considering the interplay of music + images.

I echo the others who say that watching this with ads is a terrible idea. It completely kills the flow of it. I can't think of a worse movie to have interrupted by ads.

If you can, watch it any other way.

</comment><comment><USER19> I haven't seen the film, but the sound track is a classic by Phillip Glass, part of which (Pruit Igoe) was used on the GTA IV radio/soundtrack.

<comment><USER20> the Pruit Igoe music has been repurposed for a number of other films. You will hear it a lot in the Watchmen adaptation. Also visually, this film basically invented the city-as-a-circuit-board visual metaphor.

<comment><USER21> "She drove into San Narciso on a Sunday, in a rented Impala. Nothing was happening. She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she thought of the time she'd opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit. The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. (...)"

From Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, 1966

<comment><USER20> Which I've read many times, but nonetheless, the imagery of highways shot at slow frame rates with long exposures creating a visual metaphor similar to a circuit, used many times in later works (even commercials) originated here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Man With A Movie Camera and Sans Soleil are two good ones in a similar vein (better, I think)

</comment><comment><USER23> This was one of the few titles available on CAV laser disc in 1990 -- I watched it over and over in the course of working on MediaMaker, but for some reason I didn't discover the title till stumbling across it online a couple of years ago.

</comment><comment><USER24> A recent interview with Godfrey Reggio (the director of Koyaanisqatsi), [http://www.singularityweblog.com/godfrey-reggio- koyaanisqats...](http://www.singularityweblog.com/godfrey-reggio- koyaanisqatsi/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Baraka and Samsara beat this movie hands down. I know this is sacrilegious, but that Philip Glass soundtrack is awful.

<comment><USER26> Booooo

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I grew up in Stuttgart where some of Philip Glass' operas had their premiere. Absolutely awesome experience.

</comment><comment><USER28> Which ad do you prefer?

<comment><AUTHOR> The radio shack ad where the 80s calls and wants their store back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Best. Fucking. Movie. Ever.

</comment><comment><USER30> One of my favorite films when I was younger. I discovered the music composers Phillip Glass and subsequently Steve Reich through the films. Many documentaries and media productions play on the audio visual styles Reggio popularized in the film. It's interesting how often I detect sqatsi-ism in modern film (1). Just a couple days ago while watching "Home" I felt it's presence (2).

Koyaanisqatsi was the first of a trilogy of films:

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi) Trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ)

Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powaqqatsi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powaqqatsi) Trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNVTmWRcUbY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNVTmWRcUbY)

Naqoyqatsi: Life as War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqoyqatsi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqoyqatsi) Trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PxT3MtTedw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PxT3MtTedw)

The films creator, Godfrey Reggio has recently created a new work:

Visitors: 2013 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitors_(2013_film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitors_\(2013_film\)) Trailer: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ZwYJI55Rs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ZwYJI55Rs)

The original cinematographer for Koyaanisqatsi, Ron Fricke, went on to produce similar styles of films:

Samsara: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_(2011_film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_\(2011_film\)) Baraka: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_\(film\)) Chronos: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronos_(film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronos_\(film\))

Phillip Glass: Music Composer: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Glass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Glass) Sample of Phillip Glass's music: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK-- Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y)

Steve Reich: Music Composer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich) Sample of Steve Reich's music: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU23LqQ6LY4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU23LqQ6LY4)

\---

(1) Sqatsi-ism: Made up word to describe the type of audio visual style created and popularized in the original film, which can now be seen throughout media.

(2) Home: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU). Interesting fact, the narrator of the film sounds almost identical to the woman in Phillip Glass's song "Einstein on the Beach Play 5", which was created back when he did the score for Koyaanisqatsi. Play 5: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX_GgozpQs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX_GgozpQs).

Note: If you enjoy documentaries TrueFilms a great resources to discover new titles you may not have seen before: [http://truefilms.com](http://truefilms.com). In fact, many of the titles listed above are on this list.</comment>


VUE, Behavioral analytics for mobile users is crowdfunding - <AUTHOR> https://ramen.is/projects/get-vue-analytics

<comment><USER2> How does this affect the speed of the app...?

<comment><USER3> Hey Kumarski, the app performance change is negligible and a majority of the work is done in the background, being a UX/Behavior analytics tool, focusing on not changing the application performance at all is key.

<comment><USER4> blaurenceclark - When you say "one line of code to add the SDK" can you add some light? Is your plan to track ALL interactions of the user...thats a lot of data to triage :)

<comment><USER3> We track interactions/behaviors that matter. From working with a number of apps we've been able to identify and combine interactions to make the amount of data to manage much smaller and easier to triage

<comment><USER3> Using similar language to the asked question :)

<comment><USER4> could become a scaling problem quick...but i suspect those are problem for future blaurenceclark to solve after the customers start flowing in ... im intrigued indeed</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oral Sex linked to rise in some head and neck cancers - <AUTHOR> http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/cancer/story/2011/01/Study-Rise-in-some-head-and-neck-cancers-tied-to-oral-sex-/43056302/1

<comment><USER2> _The other good news — at least for the younger set — is that there is a relatively new vaccine to prevent against HPV infection._

My press-release sonar is pinging:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html></comment>


Why Would Anyone Want To Host The Olympics? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/economist-explains-0?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ee/hostOlympics <comment><USER2> I think there's an important psychological dimension that's often missed from these calculations, particularly for countries that have a chip on their shoulder. It's a way for the entire world to be focused on something that you're doing well (hopefully) for a few weeks. Before the Beijing olympics many Chinese would ask you how you liked China, and when you replied, "yes" they would say China is "luo hou", which means backward. China is still luo hou to most who don't live in the richest eastern seaboard cities, and being able to watch China do something amazing for weeks on end is more than worth the 40 billion that was spent.

Lets not forget that in developing countries, massive investments are often sped up just to get the opportunity to bid - in 1999, the Beijing subway was almost nonexistent. Today it's one of the largest systems in the world, and was largely constructed prior to the Olympics. Other improvements included the Beijing airport. Of course, you could say that I'm cherry picking the Chinese olympics as one of the few examples, and maybe there aren't many advantages for a city like Tokyo or London, but even here in the UK, many people were inspired and proud of how their country handled the events. That may not be worth what it cost, but it is worth something, and I think it's a bit bizarre that the Economist seems to be puzzled as to why these events poll well with voters.

<comment><USER3> The transformation of East London which I believe to have been the main reason for choosing to host the Olympics in London, has been fairly spectacular. The Stratford area where the Olympic park was built, used to be a wasteland. Although I don't know this, I conjecture that the Olympics were used as a mechanism to force through a substantial number of planning permissions that would not have been granted otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Visually, it's changed - sure. There's a nice big stadium there that can be used every so often. It doesn't look as bad as it once did. It's changed very little of the outside area as far as I can tell though.

Stratford was recently named as the countries worst crime hotspot[0].

According to the FT, "the bounce" has failed to materialise [1].

I would not recommend a walk around the outskirts of the Olympic stadium for all but the very brave, it's still an area in much poverty with many social issues completely unresolved, notably violent crime (3.5 for every 1,000 people) [2].

[0] - [http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/westfield-stratfords- po...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/westfield-stratfords-postcode-is- the-countrys-worst-crime-hotspot-8756741.html)

[1] - [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/543cabaa-8a41-11e2-9da4-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/543cabaa-8a41-11e2-9da4-00144feabdc0.html)

[2] - [http://crimeinlondon.com/newham/stratford-and-new- town/viole...](http://crimeinlondon.com/newham/stratford-and-new-town/violent- crime/)

<comment><USER5> It's rough, but not that bad - I live locally (well in the even 'rougher' Forest Gate) and in the 15 years I've been in the area I've never personally had or seen any trouble - the kids who might look scary are well brought up - there isn't the crippling poverty (or as in other parts of London, poverty next to excessive wealth) that blights other parts.

Much of the crime is theft, rather than violent crime that south London sees - the postcode mentioned in the link above is the postcode of two shopping centres and transport interchange - the places you would expect to see high pick pocketing and shoplifting, which is what the majority crime mentioned in the report is.

I think the adjacent areas have changed, Leyton and Leytonstone are both far nicer - and in the last years have had new interesting pubs, cafes and shops open up.

Would this have happened anyway? Maybe - but most people I talk to are pretty happy with the changes the area has seen.

I'm still a little sad the plan to open Google offices in the Olympic park was shelved - that would have brought in a whole heap of jobs and new people to the area.

<comment><USER6> >in the even 'rougher' Forest Gate

The setting of the movie 'Ill Manors'?

<comment><USER5> Yup, but I'm living in the leafy suburban Victorian bit with a massive park at the end of my road, I love it here, really culturally diverse but with a real London history here too, and loads of people that have chosen to make London there home or grew up in the area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Current politics seems to demand that everything be an investment. Education, roads, stadiums. It is supposed to create growth. Stimulate. Save on future healthcare or welfare costs. etc.

Realistically, the way to think about almost all government spending is consumption. By spending on health we (hopefully) get to be healthier. By spending on entertainment we are more entertained. The Olympics or any other public prestige projects are like when billionaires and dictators do stuff, but for cities and nations. They get to feel prestigious. Prestige might have some economic benefits but thinking of it that way misses the point. Prestige is an end in itself.

<comment><USER8> It's a question of how much happiness you generate for the cash. The UK Arts Council gets about £500million to spend. The Olympics cost the UK 18 times that much.

If the Olympics also produces 18 times as much happiness, then that's a worthwhile investment. If not, then maybe that money could have been better spent elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> Flawed logic, that "18 times" depends on the initial 500 million so the cut- off happiness value is now determined by the initial investment? Nope. The only way to determine if it makes sense is if there is way to specify happiness per pound for the olympics. I for one couldn't care less about the olympics by the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Same reason you'd host any sort of expensive party. To look cool and feel cool. A lot of international politics make a lot more sense when you remember we're all in high school.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I was _very_ skeptical about the London Olympics before the event. However, I thought the whole thing went splendidly and arguably did give the whole of the UK a bit of a lift in national morale just when we really needed it.

Compared to other megaprojects that we seem to be happy to splurge taxpayers money on (e.g. silly aircraft carriers) it actually seemed pretty good value for money.

<comment><USER12> Current estimate for the QE Carrier project is £5.5 billion, or about 60% of what the Olympics cost.

In comparison to a few weeks of enabling professional athletes 'perform' , the carriers should give at least 45 years of service life. A tangible contribution to UK security, rather than just a TV event.

I'm not a fan of how the carrier project has been managed but to say it's worse value than the Olympics surprises me.

<comment><USER11> Well, I'm not a fan of the carrier project _or_ the utterly idiotic way it was managed.

If I'd been given the chance to give my vote on the Olympics I'd have said "no" \- but given the fact that it was a done deal I decided to enjoy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Only an economist could ask a question of the form "why would anyone want to do <activity without clear economic benefit>?"

I wonder how they manage to reproduce.

<comment><USER14> Are you suggesting that hosting the Olympics is a terminal goal, like having children is?

<comment><USER15> Being entertained is, as feeling a global spirit of humanity, as being proud to be a good host to the world. That are a lot of positive emotions I connect with the Olympic Games. It's quite expensive, but you only do it all 20-odd years (considering also Winter Olympics and Soccer Worldcup). Some modesty is in place, but it would be such a shame if we did not have these events anymore.

<comment><USER16> I understand that as a community we need children but personally I don't see myself having kids.

>Some modesty is in place, but it would be such a shame if we did not have these events anymore.

This might be another reason to do such events (haven't read the article yet). To make people think the city is "happening", to retain people and dissuade them from leaving for seemingly more fertile pastures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> First prestige and second corruption opportunities.

Basically its like a high school party for cool kids, with an added bonus that some of the cool kids get a lot of money at the expense of others.

</comment><comment><USER18> If I were a mayor, hosting the olympics would seem like a good way to shove infrastructure improvements past all the NIMBY assholes that always block them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Its a bit like saying why would anyone want to host a huge dinner party.

<comment><USER20> Except that etiquette would dictate that the individual host foot the bill for a huge dinner party, whereas the taxpayers foot the bill for the Olympics.

<comment><USER21> Anyway, UK taxpayers don't foot the bill for Beijing Olympics - so it's their (UK as a whole) choice to offer to throw the huge dinner party, or just visit someone else's party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> politicians love big money moving around so they can grab a bit for themselves. Many big projects in Italy shows this seems to be the main, if not unique, drive for events like the Olympics.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting that it got published just now(8th). Oslo,Norway just voted yes to ask the government for financial guarantee in order to try to get the Vinter Olympics in 2022.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also for Turkey, It means government gets an excuse for building landmarks to north Istanbul. Expanding city and continue benefiting from a never-ending real estate gold rush in Istanbul. Both bidding of big projects and real estate benefits will go to "friends" of government.

Also they will use this excuse for removing poor people, and destroying houses that have much higher real estate value than their residents.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you have most of the infrastructure already, like Sydney, it makes sense.

Whereas Montreal is still paying debts from hosting the Olympics in 1976.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Istanbul would be a perfect place for an Olympics, except Erdogan ruined it for them. Did you know that Istanbul is already third most internationally traveled city?

<comment><USER26> Even though I'm very anti Erdoğan I would not be happy If we got the Olympics with or without Erdoğan. Our Economy is projected as a heaven and Turkey as in growth but on the contrary it's way too bad and currently sky diving. Putting one more economic burden as big as the Olympic games would be catastrophic. We are nearly paying taxes just to breath. (exaggeration yes but not too well off.) Getting the games would mean more "temprorary but never to be lifted" taxes to fund the games but in realty just for making more funding for politicians.

I'm really happy for Istanbul to loose and feeling bad for Tokyo to win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> On top of my head: not all is lost. So if it costs $50 Billion, a lot of it is recouped via jobs, taxes, infrastructure that would have been built anyway, tourism etc. Some is lost but that's life. There's the "Made in Japan ...USA, China" brand and other geopolitical benefits as well. So money might be lost or it will be lost but so what? Greece has no business in doing them but Japan, China, USA, Russia and countries alike can afford to lose a (relatively) little bit of money for indirect benefits. Sometimes people buy a Lexus when a Toyota does the job just as well, or eat a $100 per head restaurant instead of a $7 Chinese buffet. Are they dumb?

Politicians also win, there's euphoria in Japan right now and those involved will see some benefits, just as those been seen during the opening ceremony, medals etc.

<comment><USER28> Although economically true these days, I found "Greece has no business in doing [the Olympics]" ironic.

<comment><USER27> I meant to say that bigger countries can absorb a loss, smaller ones like Greece might even go down (at least faster) because of Olympic losses.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple acquires sleep tracking company Beddit - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/apple-acquires-sleep-tracking-company-beddit/ <comment><USER2> Oh please please please make a smart alarm that will make me up by only vibrating on my wrist. I want to be able to wake up early for stuff without having to wake up my wife and dogs.

I want an alarm app on my Apple Watch that:

1) Wakes me up when I'm in light sleep rather than REM

2) Only vibrates on my wrist at first (let's say for 5 minutes) and then falls back to a traditional alarm sound so I get my ass up just in case

I've gotten to the point of almost buying some Udemy courses on Apple Watch development to build the damn thing myself. Only thing really holding me back is figuring out the algorithm for sleep tracking, but I'm sure that wouldn't be really hard to do.

Maybe I'll just do it still.

<comment><USER3> Surely the reason this isn't a thing is because the watch needs to be charged every night?

<comment><USER4> At least for Series 2 this isn't that much of an issue any more: despite tracking a 2 hour workout every day, the battery easily lasts through the day and the night. And it recharges fully while I'm showering on the next day.

I could easily use the watch for sleep tracking, but the SDK is a bit limited for 3rd party apps to be able to automatically start and stop tracking.

I hope Apple will either improve the SDK or add a built-in sleep tracker and alarm feature as described by OP (though in my case the point is moot as I have a very efficient fur-based alarm clock that will claw my face on the first sign of daylight in order to be fed)

<comment><USER5> I agree; I charge it while I'm in the shower and so does everybody I know who actually uses their Apple watch (which means, about 15% of those people I know who bought one).

The battery (in the second version of the product) now lasts long enough to make that work — except sometimes on the weekend when I might go a day without a shower.

I also want the smart sleep tracking app badly. The reason I bought this crappy watch was solely for the vibration-on-wrist when you have to make a turn when using navigation.

Unfortunately, that iOS feature is horribly broken — it automatically switches to "car mode" when you go faster than a brisk walk, which means it doesn't work for navigating on a bicycle, skateboard, foot scooter, or even just running.

So the device has very little utility for me as it stands — but a sleep-cycle- aware, vibrate-only alarm clock would make it worth the purchase price for me.

And Apple (since I know you clearly must lurk on every hacker news thread waiting for unsolicited advice from strangers on how to fix your lame products): fixing the stupid "automatically switch to car mode" misfeature would _also_ make the watch worth its price to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read this as "BBEdit" at first and thought wow, they pivoted to sleep tracking?

<comment><USER7> I read "Apple acquires... Reddit"

<comment><USER8> The humor is, someone else probably read it that way, but had to do something else and is thinking about it now...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was thinking of getting one of these, but now it's only a matter of time before they remove Android compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER10> Since sleep tracking dramatically increases the need for robust battery life without having to resort to very specific charging rituals, I hope this means that Apple will finally debut an Apple Watch strap which utilizes the electrical contacts hidden away in the lower strap retention channel. Officially, the contacts make up a diagnostic port, but it's been proven that the contacts support charging. Apple has been expected to release a segmented battery strap for quite a while, but it's never materialized.

Even in the sport band, where the portion of the lower retention strap usable for battery placement is severely limited by the clasp-holding punctures, you can easily double or triple the battery capacity of the Apple Watch and maintain flexibility of the band by using a dozen or so interconnected segmented batteries. [1]

The pleated leather loop bands do not have punctures since they utilize magnetic retention, and can easily be adapted to hold one battery segment per pleated portion. As many as two dozen battery segments can be sewn into the loop, assuming that a magnet and a battery can coexist in a single pleat. [2]

[1]: [https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLKX2ZM/A/38mm- midnight-b...](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLKX2ZM/A/38mm-midnight- blue-sport-band-s-m-m-l)

[2]: [https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLHL2ZM/A/42mm- midnight-b...](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLHL2ZM/A/42mm-midnight- blue-leather-loop-medium)

</comment><comment><USER11> Did beddit actually ever make a product that worked? Certainly the indiegogo version I got never worked in any useful way.

<comment><USER12> Is it possible for a sleep tracking app to work in a _useful_ way? It could tell you that your sleep is interrupted a lot, restless, rarely goes in to deep sleep - but is that actually useful information? How could you use what it's telling you? It's not enough to only know what's happening. You need to know _why_ it's happening in order to affect changes that might improve things, else you could make things worse, or just waste any time/money you're spending trying to improve, or miss an underlying cause that indicates something is seriously wrong..

<comment><USER13> Gwern uses a sleep tracker for self-experimentation: [https://www.gwern.net/Zeo](https://www.gwern.net/Zeo)

<comment><USER14> This article is amazing. Thank you for reminding me about gwern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the factors holding me back from buying an Apple Watch is the need to charge overnight. I wear a Fitbit overnight for sleep quality and duration tracking - imperfect as it is. An iPhone- or iWatch-integrated solution would push me over the edge.

<comment><USER16> _I wear a Fitbit overnight for sleep quality and duration tracking_

Are any of these overnight sleep trackers effective?

I'm curious if they cause any changes in your life, or if it's mostly just fulfilling curiosity.

<comment><USER17> It certainly changed my life, and it's the only reason I keep wearing this decaying fitbit.

I did a bio major in college and had researched as much as I could about sleep, so I went into it informed, but could never really 'figure out' anything to my satisfaction.

That all changed when I got the fitbit, which tracks your sleep 100% automatically. I was able to piece together my complete story about sleep debt, the effects of drinking, caffeine, anticipation, and exercise on my sleep quality, and exactly how much sleep I actually need in a night. (All of which had elements of mystery to them before)

This has put me FAR more in tune with my body and mind. It explains the ADD- like symptoms I've coped with, as well as other negative effects that I now realize are due to sleepiness, but had believed were natural variance in life. It gave me control of my life by allowing me to figure out exactly what I need to do to regain my sleep balance when I lose it- something that seemed like an art or even magical before.

I think a skeptic's first thought might be along the lines of "How could someone not be able to tell their body's sleep situation- sounds like a high tech solution to a non-problem." If you've studied sleep, you should know that after a few hours sleep debt (even before you go to bed) your body compensates by increasing the release of dopamine in your head, which provides stimulation and euphoria that _inhibits your ability to sense your own disability_ That should explain the benefit of an objective robot that tells you whats up, and if you're a true skeptic, it should make you wonder a bit about the accuracy of your own self perceptions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Sleep Cycle app does a pretty good job at sleep analysis and gentle waking and you don't have to wear anything.

<comment><USER19> I was a first adopter for this app, and I have seen way too many scientific journals / papers by PhD candidates or from researchers saying that the Sleep Cycle app is not anywhere close to identify the correct sleep cycles.

After using it for a few years, I stopped using it because how I felt in the morning had no correlation to what the app was saying how my sleep was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I really really want is: a fitness tracker that does not look like a watch and can be worn with a normal watch.

I prefer wearing classic watches, surely I cannot be the only one out there with this need?

Do not care about notifications, viewing messages etc. So something that has HR and great sleep tracking.

<comment><USER21> Is the Alta HR slim enough? [https://www.fitbit.com/shop/altahr](https://www.fitbit.com/shop/altahr)

To get anything on your wrist slimmer than that you'll have to give up heart rate tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have had a Beddit for many years now. It's a great device and hope they can make some waves with Apple.

<comment><USER23> Do you sleep alone? I have GF, cat, dog all of whom move differently. Can it filter one person from the noise?

There's also the kid-jumping-on-bed problem but that is pretty rapidly an "awake" case.

<comment><USER24> Their FAQ says it can:

Absolutely, Beddit 3 is designed for sleep tracking in a shared bed. However, this requires one sensor per person, per phone. You may track sleep one or two-at-a-time

[http://www.beddit.com/faq/](http://www.beddit.com/faq/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Before going to bed, try telling yourself to wake up at a particular time and you will be amazed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not to be confused with BBEdit.

</comment><comment><USER27> I miss Apple's innovation.

</comment><comment><USER28> We've tracked down in all sort of ways while awake ... now are we going to be tracked also while sleeping? We should try to figure out how to not be a data source without being paid for..</comment>


"Sleep We Have Lost" - <AUTHOR> http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html <comment><USER2> I may not understand what this page is. Is it simply a collection of quotes presented out of context? (for instance, any of these quotes might on the next page of the original work be refuted by the same person, and so their value is unknowable without significant additional work, making the aggregation as a useful resource questionable at best).

<comment><USER3> Are you confused because that resource doesn't try to convince of you of any particular standpoint, omitting contrary positions in the process, and instead gives you a collection of thoughts and viewpoints on the matter?

In my opinion this is vastly more "useful" than the alternative: This is a nice overview and invites you to dive deeper into any of these sources.

Edit: Though after skimming over the rest of them, most of them seem to be referencing pretty much the same thing. I can kind of see what you found odd.

Edit 2: Definitely looks like this is just a list of commentary specifically about the work of Roger Ekirch, who is is also the owner of that site - definitely might be biased (as in not an exhaustive list) then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > from the dawn of literature in ancient Greece until well into the Industrial > Revolution it was customary for us to snooze for a few hours, wake and > toddle around doing chores in the middle of the night, and then go back to > bed until morning.

I've read this a few times. I think it may not necessarily be a bad thing that we get all of our sleep in one continuous block. It may have been as vestigial behavior from our ancestors -- fearing predators and other threats.

The advent of artificial light has brought lots of benefits but it clearly has some big drawbacks wrt sleep.

<comment><USER5> The "two sleeps" thing is entirely about long nights far away from the equator. It never really happened in tropical climes, or during summer.

Cheap lighting has simply allowed people away from the equator to sleep in the more natural pattern, if you grant that humans are less adapted to cold climes than to tropical ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate articles like this. Studies of hunter-gatherer tribes isolated from the rest of society [1] show that, without technology, humans sleep for 6 to 8 hours in one chunk, starting a few hours after sunset, exactly as we do today. The only difference is that they don't get insomnia.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the- many...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths- of-paleo-sleeping/410707/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The irony of reading this at 2:16am pt...

<comment><USER8> Yes, currently watching the world blitz chess championship (started at 03:00 pt). Amazing performance by 15-year-old Andrey Esipenko, currently with 8 points in 12 rounds (6 wins and 4 draws against grand masters) tied for 9-19 places with others including world champion Magnus Carlsen.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would an HN story source URL stats index page be interesting? - <AUTHOR>

I always find it interesting to see all the different sources of stories that make it to HN, and was just wondering if people would find it interesting to see a page which listed the base URLs all the stories came from in order of frequency. Like maybe for the first 100 stories on either the main or new pages.
Maybe if pg doesn't want to add such a feature, a creative web dev could create such a page on their site for us to see?
I'd try but I don't code. <comment><AUTHOR> I made a suggestion in the official 'Feature Request' thread, in case anyone wants to vote for it there:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5807651></comment>


Can to do lists make you unproductive? - <AUTHOR>

I just read the article by Derek Sivers about not speaking in the future tense ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961654 ). In it, he references another of his articles that argues announcing your plans decreases the likelihood of achieving them ( http://sivers.org/zipit ). It has been said that writing a letter to a dead relative can be a cathartic experience despite the intended recipients of the letter never reading the contents. So in the same vein can writing to do lists simulate communicating our intentions and consequently widen the intention behaviour gap? <comment><USER2> Well, I think that's what "Think and Grow Rich" is all about, isn't it? As my wife's mother says, "What you think about, you bring about."</comment>


Coffee – Resources for home espresso - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~bayer/coffee/ <comment><USER2> Amusing but outdated. Maybe check out [https://www.49mmtamper.com](https://www.49mmtamper.com) for more up-to-date information on the La Pavoni and other espresso machines.</comment>


Show HN: KinWin.js – a minimalist DOM manipulation framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aliirz/kinwin.js

<comment><USER2> I don't mean to be a downer...but at this point, wouldn't it just make sense to use vanilla JS? I guess I'm not seeing the use case...

When I don't use jQuery, I've been using Sprint[1] (another lightweight jQuery-like library). If I need anything lighter than that...I just assume use plain JavaScript.

[1] [https://github.com/bendc/sprint](https://github.com/bendc/sprint)

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I wrote this as more of a learning exercise for me. Definitely vanilla js is the fastest way and libraries like Sprint are the source of inspiration. I wrote kinwin to sort of like create my own utility belt. I will try to improve it over the course of time. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> why name it as "Framework"? it is more of a library

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What browsers are it tested on?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tested on Chrome, Firefox, Safari. I will test on Opera and IE tomorrow and update the README.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why '=' instead of nothing for tag names?</comment>


Datablindness - <AUTHOR> http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/06/datablindness.html <comment><USER2> I love the idea of ringing a bell for a sale (when you getting higher rates you could ping less often with a different pitch). I think sounds are a great side channel for event notifications.

<comment><USER3> IIRC, in one of Wil Shipley's presentations, I think he mentioned that they did this at Omni, and while the constant ringing of cash-register sound effects was nice at first, it got old fast.

<comment><USER4> I think that definitely counts as a "nice problem to have" :-)

<comment><USER3> Oh, I definitely agree, but after a while it might make sense to only play a sound every _n_ sales. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I certainly agree, and I think this applies to more than just businesses. Blogs, for example, greatly benefit from live stats. Which is why it's so annoying that Google Analytics doesn't offer live stats.

Being able to quickly spot where the traffic to an article is coming from allows you react to it, and maybe go to that traffic source and help shape the discussion there. When submitting articles to multiple sites, it also gives you a better idea of how your article is performing. Sometimes, this has allowed me to tweak an article after posting it, to fix perceived errors that were hurting it in some way.

And of course, this applies even more when you're looking at a business.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend a payment platform for my saas project? - <AUTHOR> I'm ready to add subscriptions to my consumer saas project. It is a Gmail addon accessed through a web app and chrome extension.
I have a fremium model, with multiple levels of upgrades.
Can anyone recommend a solid payment platform that a one person dev can implement with minimal fuss?
I need subscription support (monthly, annual), security, and straightforward apis. Also, I don't want to store any card numbers in my app.
Is anyone using chargify to handle the account management part? I like the feature set but it gets expensive as you scale. I could spend time upfront to code those features myself.
My app is written in Python running on Google app engine.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Chargebee looks interesting, also gumroad. How about stripe?

<comment><USER3> Yep. Looking to use Chargebee + Stripe for my Saas offering later this year.

<comment><USER2> Needs Stripe? I thought it was a standalone solution, thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Parrot 2.0.0 "Inevitable" Released - <AUTHOR> http://use.perl.org/~chromatic/journal/40114?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PlanetPerl+%28Planet+Perl%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> I'll believe that it will support "all dynamic programming languages" when they support Python.

Note that I used to believe in the project. I donated money to help them. Then I started to wonder what was going on there. Then for me the clincher was listening to Sam Ruby's presentation at OSCON a few years ago about his experience in trying to get Python running. From then on I've regarded Parrot as a fun project for those involved which I won't take seriously. Since then they've cleaned up development, they are making progress towards a far less ambitious Perl 6 than they set out to create, and I wish them well. But I personally doubt it will ever become widely used as a production platform, and I guarantee that it will never be widely viewed as the prime platform for running a wide variety of dynamic languages. If for no other reason than the fact that they don't have the people and resources to match what is being done on other platforms. (Have you paid attention to what Google has done for JavaScript execution?)

Just consider the facts. Python is a well defined target with multiple ports to different virtual machines. It is basically a perfect example of a realistically complex language in wide use. If you look at his background (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Ruby>), Sam Ruby is pretty much the ideal person to work on a cross-language virtual machine. There has been literally no person that I've heard of in the Parrot project before or since who has as much relevant experience. And he failed.

The reasons why he failed are complex. But the biggest were all related to specific people problems (luckily mostly fixed since), and a design myopia that believes that Perl 6 subsumes all other dynamic languages, and therefore internal conventions that support Perl 6 efficiently will support everything else well (emphatically not true). Half those problems are gone. The people issues have improved, the design myopia has not.

Wake me up when they get serious about supporting Python. Until then any claims of "all dynamic languages" should come with huge disclaimers.

<comment><USER3> As I've posted elsewhere, the project to support Python 3 on Parrot is Pynie. Its repository is: <http://bitbucket.org/allison/pynie/>

You can see the entire list of languages supported and in development on Parrot at: <http://www.parrot.org/languages>

<comment><USER2> And I've responded elsewhere at [http://use.perl.org/comments.pl?sid=44429&threshold=0...](http://use.perl.org/comments.pl?sid=44429&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread). For those who don't want to follow the link the short version is that I am unconvinced and still think the claim is false advertising.

<comment><USER3> > I am unconvinced and still think the claim is false advertising.

A port of Python 3 to Parrot is under active development (with the knowledge of PSF, which will probably hold the copyright on the project soon). It needs more developers, but what project doesn't?

Pynie is also a first-class project. Any changes it needs to run well it will get. (In truth, we test it and a few other high-level languages against Parrot trunk before we release our monthly versions.)

If you refuse to believe that Parrot developers are sufficiently serious about achieving our goals and that we work on them with every release, well, that's your prerogative. It would have been nice if you'd looked at our Languages page first, however.

<comment><USER2> You're criticizing me for not looking at your Languages page, when in fact that page has nothing to say that diminishes any point I've been making.

As I already pointed out to you, Python 3 is far from the most widely pointed out version of Python. The actual versions people are use in the wild are the 2.x line. Judging from <http://pirate.tangentcode.com/>, the unsuccessful attempt to port Python 2 has been abandoned for several years.

When it started it was called a first class project as well. There was theoretically lots of visible support. There is lots of prior art on how to successfully port it to a virtual machine. Some really good people tried to make it work. And the failure to port it resulted in literal pie in the face for the lead developer of Parrot.

I know that a number of things have improved about the project. Parrot is much healthier than it was. But I can't personally bother caring about it until after I see it succeeding with what should be the relatively easy stuff.

<comment><USER3> > ... what should be the relatively easy stuff.

Volunteer time, interest, ability, and resources aren't fungible. Find us a willing cadre of developers to work on Pynie and I'll accept that writing and maintaining a full Python implementation is indeed "relatively easy".

<comment><USER2> Well you _had_ Sam Ruby. But then burned him out...

If you can get Jim Hugunin involved then I'm sure you'll succeed. Actually you should reach out to him in any case, because he has more direct understanding of experience in making Python work with VMs than anyone else out there. Even if he isn't interested in putting out effort, I'm sure that any pointers he gives you will prove very helpful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>