Ask HN: Whom do you admire most? - <AUTHOR> Whom do you admire most? In what way does that person inspire you? <comment><USER2> Mr. Rogers. The guy was amazing on so many levels; there are lots of examples but I'll go with a HN related one. He contributed valuable testimony to the betamax case.

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

<comment><USER3> Here's the Junod profile of Mister Rogers (it's never, _ever_ "Mr."): [http://www.thedqtimes.com/pages/castpages/other/fredrogersca...](http://www.thedqtimes.com/pages/castpages/other/fredrogerscanyousayheropg1.htm)

It will make you cry.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this link. I read it. It is very nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Leo Szilard. Had the idea for fission chain reaction, realized what would happen if Hitler got hold of it, and kept his mouth shut... while browbeating the skeptical Fermi into starting the Manhattan Project, and ghostwriting Einstein's letter to Roosevelt.

Right up there with Norman Borlaug and Stanislav Petrov on the list of people you've never heard of because CNN is too busy covering Michael Jackson.

<comment><USER6> Is the Hitler story true? Wikipedia says that he got the idea in London, where he filed a patent (!) for the fission chain reaction.

Here's the link to his patent, btw: [http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&...](http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&NR=630726&KC=&FT=E)

<comment><USER5> I think he filed the patent and then got the patent classified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes).

He created an epic masterpiece, never sold out, and left at the top of his game. He achieved fame without being drawn into celebrity, and his ideas have permeated our culture in a deep and wonderful way.

<comment><USER8> Bill Watterson had an ability to capture such emotion and life like expression with a small 2d comic strip like no other comic or graphic I've ever seen.

The guy was amazing, and I love that he lives as a recluse in a town that won't give him up to the media either. In fact, not many people even know what he looks like anymore from what I've read.

The never selling out part is also awesome. He refused to allow even one Hobbes stuffed tiger to be made because it would devalue his character...simply amazing, he really did it for the art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> John Carmack. I think I've just always been an Id fan since I grew up with Quake, and I was just blown away the first time I read the Quake 1 source. I have just always dreamed of being a great C hacker like him. And he's doing even more amazing stuff now with Armadillo.

<comment><USER10> Seconded. I remember reading his .plan files in the 90s when he was working on Quake II, and I was amazed at how much he'd get done in a day. If you want an education in programming, download some of his source code:

<http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My grandfather. You guys have probably never heard of him, but he rocked.

<comment><USER12> I am sure many of us look to our parents, grandparents, and other relatives as heroes.

For me, I look to my dad as a hero, which is kind of funny considering how often have disagreements. I'm reminded of that line from Randy Pausch's last lecture, "Just remember, when your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans." Growing up I always heard stories about what my dad was like and what he was doing when he was in college, and the stories always seemed so distant. Now, I am going through those same years, and it blows me away to think about what my dad went through when he was at the same point in my life as I am.

Coming to the US with only a few dollars in his pocket, not knowing the language, working full time at bad jobs in rough neighborhoods in Houston, going to school full time in engineering, and building a life based around making sacrifices for the benefit of his family -- comparing this to my own life, which has been free of these hardships ('cept full time school in engineering, of course!) largely due to his efforts, I can't help but be inspired.

Thanks dad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Craig Newmark for being truly a nerd, yet having an enormous impact on society. He spoke at my undergrad commencement (also his alma mater), and what really hit me from his speech was, wow, you WERE an engineering nerd just like all the rest of us.

He inspires me because through his great success, he's remained extremely humble and down to earth. It really seems like he just wants to keep his site going as a public service. They donate a large portion of their income to charity as is.. if only all public services could be run as well that they GIVE extra money away!

</comment><comment><USER14> Richard Feynman, because he showed me through his writing that we all, no matter our backgrounds, can be enthralled by the mysteries that surround us.

<comment><USER15> And that through charisma, you can become more famous than physicists that do better physics than you.

<comment><USER16> Any examples?

<comment><USER15> Murray Gell-Mann

<comment><USER17> Yeah, but I wonder how much of Gell-Mann's fame comes from his sometimes derogatory comments about Feynman

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Walt Disney doesn't get the credit he deserves as an innovator and entrepreneur. His legacy has been tarnished a bit my the hyper-consumerism that the Disney company is famous for. That said he:

1\. Invented the feature length animated movie. A multi-billion dollar business that paved the way for Pixar, Aardman, and all the other great creators we admire in that industry.

2\. Invented the modern theme park. The "Second Life" of 1955! This is another massive multi-billion dollar business. It is also impressive in its technical scope employing physicists, pyrotechnic folks, and a bunch of roboticists who work on the audio-animatronic robots.

3\. The Disney "Imagineering" crew is probably one of the most interesting interdisciplinary groups around combining nearly every kind of engineer with every kind of artist to create amazing things on an ongoing basis.

4\. Before he died he was applying his ideas on art and technology to urban planning. Not in the way you would expect (e.g. No mouse ears), but marrying ideas of "New Urbanism" with technological futurism to rethink how we live and work.

His story is also a classic one of entrepreneurial striving, failure, and an unwillingness to give up. Check out this book for more inspiration:

[http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American- Imaginati...](http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American- Imagination/dp/0679757473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254997213&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER19> the unsung heroes who don't make time for brown-nosing and fame-whoring

<comment><USER20> is this the same termie from back in the flock day? <http://www.flickr.com/photos/foolswisdom/43145184/>

<comment><USER19> No, I recently resurrected this handle from my 80s BBS days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> David Chappelle

I hate that he has faded so much from the public eye. If you've never seen Dave Chappelle's Block Party get it and watch it, whether you enjoy hip-hop or not. If you've seen that and are otherwise interested his Inside the Actors Studio interview is pretty solid too.

He is basically the type of role model I wish I could be someday.

<comment><USER22> I like Chris Rock, I like it that he is frank and forthcoming and always thinks a lot about what he says, whatever he says is logical and makes sense, sometimes you get inspired by watching his shows, especially with all the crowd !

Try _Bigger and Blacker_ and _Bring the Pain_ , two of the funniest shows I have ever seen !

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Steve Jobs. (1) He has amazing taste. (2) He did it twice.

<comment><USER24> Thrice. Twice at Apple, once at Pixar. (I'm counting NeXT as the second time at Apple. Though perhaps they should count separately.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A few off the top of my head (most are self-explanatory):

Charles Darwin, Richard P. Feynman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John Von Neuman, Paul Erdos, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Thomas Jefferson, Aubrey de Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Douglas R. Hofstadter

<comment><USER15> Aubrey de Grey? You mean the crazy dude that tells people we're going to live forever without any evidence to support his claims?

And Hofstadter, the guy who wrote that really dumb book? (Here I admit that I only read the introduction before being disgusted by his treatment with concept of things which are self referential. It's kind of a noob outlook to find something mind boogling about the fact that a mind can contemplate itself.)

Pity, because the rest of your list is pretty damn classy. Those two are pretty weird additions.

<comment><USER26> I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims that we'll live forever for considerably more speculative reasons than any that de Grey asserts. Any explanation of the distinction other than that EY is probably reading this comment and that de Grey probably isn't?

<comment><USER15> The answer to your query is that I confess a blazing ignorance of EY. Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever, like my ex (who regularly makes donations to fund longevity research).

Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they _evolved_ to be that way. It's a little unintuitive, but consider the tarantula. The female tarantula lives 8 years; the male tarantula only about 2. This is because it's advantageous for females to live longer. For the males, it's more advantageous to live for shorter periods, so they age and die earlier.

You're not going to be able to _treat_ aging because it's programmed in. The only solution is to fix the source code.

<comment><USER25> > Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to > evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved > to be that way.

That's incorrect. Our genes don't care if they carry on by reproduction or by living longer in a single individual, but we care. How a body ages after reproductive age is in an evolutionary blind spot. Individuals with mutations that promote longer life aren't passing those genes on so the selective pressure if very small.

We don't have a clock that runs out of time. We just keep accumulating long- lived damage (misfolded proteins, advanced glycation endproducts, etc) until its enough to cause pathologies, from which we eventually die.

You are not the cells that you were a few years ago. Most have been replaced. But there are certain types of damage that your body can't fix, which is where an engineering approach could come in (for example, say we could have a vaccine that would make your body target beta amyloids in your brain, so you'd clear those misfolded proteins before they accumulate enough to give you alzheimer's).

<comment><USER15> It's true that individuals that live a little bit longer but have the _same_ end of their reproductive period do no better in the gene pool. However, if it _were_ advantageous to live longer, and those folks had a slightly longer reproductive period, then we would expect the lifespan-while-fertile to increase. Presumably this would also increase the overall lifespan as well, but really that's irrelevant to this discussion.

Yes, we keep accumulating damage. But we have mechanisms to control that damage. And clearly there's not a set limit on it. Tarantulas that only live 2 years are not constrained by cell damage. Cell damage is _allowed_ to happen.

<comment><USER26> Through your own argument, you've conceded that aging happens when the body doesn't invest enough resources in controlling damge, and that the amount of investment made can vary widely between species and even within a species. So then what in the world leads you to believe that, provided with appropriate medical support, the body can't be made to invest far more?

<comment><USER15> I conceded nothing. You're confusing investment on an evolutionary timescale with investment on an individual timescale. A male spider couldn't spontaneously decide to live another 6 years- it would take hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to achieve that.

On a physiological level, increasing investment in the individual is difficult because so much about how we are built is developmentally fixed. You can't cure a kid with Down's Syndrome by taking out every extra third chromosome in every cell.

However, we know what genotype would produce a non Down's baby. In the near future, we might be able to clone a trisomy 21 person and produce a non Down's syndrome clone. But we can't produce a clone of that person that won't age.

We have no idea which genes contribute to aging, and how, and even how many. In all likelihood a simply astronomical number of genes would have to be altered to extend life.

<comment><USER25> Here's you've just shown that you have no idea what Aubrey and SENS are proposing. Maybe, like with Hofstadter's book, you've just "read the introduction" and then stopped?

>We have no idea which genes contribute to aging, and how, and even how many. In all likelihood a simply astronomical number of genes would have to be altered to extend life.

The whole point of SENS is that it DOESN'T try to fiddle with metabolism (our genes). All of the genetic diseases you mention are different from the diseases of aging, so they're a bad example.

SENS is all about maintenance and periodical repair (like with an antique car, for example). Every, say, 10 years you go in and they remove accumulated damage (which can only be present in a limited number of long-lived molecules) BEFORE it causes pathologies. Most of this can probably be done with your own immune system (you train it to recognize some molecules), and some of it will have to be done other ways (gene therapy to make your body produce certain enzymes, etc).

<comment><USER25> > I know exactly what he's proposing. What I am saying is that it won't work, > because aging has to do with developmentally fixed processes.

No you don't know "exactly" what he's proposing, and you don't understand what senescence is, as you've made clear many times here. I'm starting to feel this isn't very productive so we should probably stop this conversation.

> Sure, you can replace blood cells, but do you really think we can replace > all your cells, including your neurons? If you want to go in for a complete > brain transplant, be my guest.

Here you show again that you have no idea what SENS is proposing and you are making up strawmen. If you want to criticize something, please learn about it first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Thomas Jefferson.

A man who saw the world as it could be and did everything he could to get it there.

<comment><USER28> Alexander Hamilton: The Man who enabled Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase with his shrewd policies (like debt assumption - cool economic hack) as Secretary of the Treasury. Federalist Papers are/were invaluable too.

Bonus point for not having a mausoleum, library or any other grand memorial as a monument to him.

<comment><USER17> ...though he does have an entire Manhattan neighborhood named after him!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Benjamin Graham, Claude Hopkins. Both wandered into fields full of failed artists and wild gamblers, and turned them into something closer to a science. _The Intelligent Investor_ and _Scientific Advertising_ are the only two books I know of that can give the same person the same epiphany twice.

</comment><comment><USER30> Deng Xiaoping. In the pure utilitarian sense, he may have had the greatest positive impact of any person in the 20th century. In a century wracked by war between the ideologies, his philosophy was just the tonic the world needed: "Who cares if the mouse is black or white, as long it catches the mouse".

<comment><USER31> "Don't care if the cat is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches the mouse, it's a good cat."

Basically for those who are interested in the background of the quote, Deng arose to power at the end of the Cultural Revolution, at the height of Chinese communism ideology when the government was so communist that they broke away from the Soviet's and accused of USSR as "revisionist"; destroyed all of the Buddhist temples in China as "backwards and Confucius," imprisoned the sons and daughters of former capitalists (because there were no current one's left) for being "Western corrupution," and stripped intellectual's of their post in Universities and forced them to "country-side re-education camps" for being "radical leftists against communism." Before he rose to power, Deng himself was denounced and stripped of his political post, and sent down for "re- education."

In little as four or five years, in that kind of environment, Deng has reformed the former Chinese market-command economy to become more capitalistic. Liberalized the political and free-speech in China, that allowed for media/film/journalism criticize the Chinese Communist party which eventually led to the Tienanmen Incident. Deng, confronted tremendous criticism and resistance from the hardliners of the Community party when he tried enact his reform. He used this quote about "black cat" or "white cat" in a speech he delivered to the political cadres to persuade them to be a bit more pragmatic and less ideological about their communism, after 43 million people have died from Great Leap Forward and the Culture Revolution. It was also Deng who eventually issued the order to strike down the student protesters in Tienanmen.

This ambivalent character of Deng, of balancing liberalization versus stability has become a hallmark quality of the Chinese government. See how the Chinese government encourages citizens towards private asset ownership and entrepreneurship, but not towards democratic representation. See how the Chinese government agrees in principle to a Korea/Iran nuke disarmament, but they are more so wary of the stability of Korea/Iran region in the event of a international escalation - that they block the UN Security Council sanctions. Whether the current Chinese/Russian model of free markets but central strong political oligarchy without an ideological emphasis, versus the American model of free markets and free democracy with a strong ideology (leader of the free world), the viability of either models remains to be seem.

<comment><USER32> > he viability of either models remains to be seem.

I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do _what they want._ So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely.

<comment><USER33> > _And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. > It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with > an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than > individual people managing themselves freely._

I actually completely agree with this, but regarding your first sentence:

> _I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual > freedoms would be superior._

I agree with this, too, but neither of the two models being discussed here actually does this. Perhaps the question, then, is which of the two models does a _relatively_ better job, and the answer is not so obvious. There are some who would argue that the Chinese model does a better job of it, and they are _not_ completely nuts.

Edit: I wanted to add that your post deserves praise, because you have made an essential connection that few people have. It _is_ more efficient when people do what they want, this does indeed apply to schools/education as well as large-scale economic organization, and _in no way is this a coincidence!_

<comment><USER32> I agree, people who praise China's system isn't _completely_ nuts. I have lived in China though, and I have a bunch of relatives there. I also visit regularly. But the fact is that the general consensus among Chinese youth (both from those I've encountered and from sentiments I've read on the web) is that even they _don't_ like their current system. Even older generations acknowledge the fact that their standard of living is lower, and that China is basically unstable, and hostile to free individual thought. My dad grew up in in China (grew up poor might I add) and does not believe in the Chinese system.

What does China have right now? Authoritarian style government. It's not near pure communism, just as America is not near pure capitalism. But the main difference between China and America is that China is authoritarian and America (and all the developed world) is democratic.

I agree mob rule is bad. Can democracy work for China? Maybe. Democracy depends on the population to be educated in order to work ideally. Obviously 40 years ago many Chinese were uneducated and poor. Today many are still poor, but there is a growing middle class. More people are educated now and that number is continuously increasing. And as evident in the development of a society: as the standard of living and education of the population rises, they tend to convert to democracy. This is probably why all developed nations are democratic.

Obviously uneducated poor populations cannot govern themselves. One bad idea from one uneducated person will be echoed by 100 uneducated if democratic rule would take place. Therefore it is up to the few in that society who _are_ educated to take charge. So in such situations an authoritarian style may be more effective. But when there is less of an education gap, it not only becomes more fair to adopt a democratic process, but more effective since there is inherent risk in granting power to select few in a more equal society. Of course the same risk is present in a society with a large education gap, but the benefits of having the smart making the decisions outweighs that risk. In the United States there is less of an education gap and people are more equal. Therefore the risk in having the smartest and best govern is not worth the fewer benefits (because an authoritarian regime can definitely be more effective if done right than a slow democratic system).

The risk I am talking about is of course having someone corrupt step into power. Democracy is slow and ineffective by design _for this very reason_.

Establishing country is analogous to a startup (I love startup analogies). You start with a startup and few people have complete and utter control. These few people mean less checks on bad decisions. Why? Because if it fails, there is very little to lose, and if it succeeds, very much to gain. This is analogous to the authoritarian phase of a society where it is much more ideal to take big risks since everyone's life is already _shit_ (excuse my language). Of course once your company hits it big and has lots more to lose if a bad decision is made, your company has to be very careful. This is analogous to the democratic phase of a society where incremental benefits in management or efficiency no longer outweigh the risks which could topple the established welfare of said society/company.

So the question now is what stage is China at? Are the citizens of China smart enough to make their own decisions now?

<comment><USER33> > _But the main difference between China and America is that China is > authoritarian and America (and all the developed world) is democratic._

The problem is that "democratic" is not the opposite of "authoritarian". China and the US both have authoritarian governments, although they do of course differ in certain ways.

> _And as evident in the development of a society: as the standard of living > and education of the population rises, they tend to convert to democracy. > This is probably why all developed nations are democratic._

I don't think this is what has happened at all. Your suggestion that

> _the few in that society who are educated...take charge_

is not too far off from describing the strategy of the ruling class in most modern democracies. Take the US, for example. It is run by a massive, _permanent_ bureaucracy. In practice, a democracy always grants power to a select few; democracy is inherently unequal in this sense.

> _Democracy is slow and ineffective by design for this very reason._

The key question when it comes to political systems is, _who is making the decisions?_ Let's take education, a subject I think we're both interested in.

In Country A, the decision of how a person is to be educated is made by a large, government bureaucracy, supposedly filled with experts. The decision is _not_ made by the person in question or even his/her parents. They have no choice but to pay for the government schools.

Meanwhile, in Country B, a student and/or his/her parents have full control over their own education and what is spent on it. In this case, they are making the decisions.

I would call Country A "authoritarian" and Country B "free". My question is, which is the US, and which is China?

<comment><USER32> > The problem is that "democratic" is not the opposite of "authoritarian".

Sorry bad choice of word I guess. What I meant is that China's government is authoritarian but it is also closed, whereas the US government, although it has authority, it is responsible to the people, even though indirectly.

> is not too far off from describing the strategy of the ruling class in most > modern democracies.

The ruling class in modern democracy is composed of those naturally fit to rule. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. So basically what I'm saying in that when a society advances and more people are educated, there are enough people to fill in that _ruling class_ naturally.

> In practice, a democracy always grants power to a select few; democracy is > inherently unequal in this sense.

Democracy's advantage is not in _equality_ , but in allowing those fit to have more, have more, and those fit to rule, to rule. Those fit to rule would,on average, rule better than constantly selecting random small group of people to rule.

As for your education point, China has restrictions on information, and it has a similar style of education as the US, but with an even more mechanistic approach.

So while the education system in US is not ideal, the one in China is less ideal, but in the US you at least have freedom of information, which permits and promotes anyone to self educate if he or she wants to.

<comment><USER33> > _What I meant is that China's government is authoritarian but it is also > closed, whereas the US government, although it has authority, it is > responsible to the people, even though indirectly._

Every government answers to the people in some sense, because no government really wants all of its people to be against it. That would cause problems. This is one reason both the Chinese and US governments expend so many resources on propagandizing their populations.

> _The ruling class in modern democracy is composed of those naturally fit to > rule. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. So basically what I'm > saying in that when a society advances and more people are educated, there > are enough people to fill in that ruling class naturally._

I have to disagree with you here. As you pointed out, it's more efficient when people are generally left to do as they wish, including in the area of education, for example. Yet, the ruling classes in both countries have decided against this and are enforcing their views. In fact, your idea, fully applied, precludes the existence of a ruling class.

> _Democracy's advantage is not in equality, but in allowing those fit to have > more, have more, and those fit to rule, to rule. Those fit to rule would,on > average, rule better than constantly selecting random small group of people > to rule._

This paragraph would honestly make more sense if you replaced "democracy" with "aristocracy". In fact, many proponents of aristocracy make essentially the same argument you just did.

> _So while the education system in US is not ideal, the one in China is less > ideal,_

I agree, China's education system is even worse. But my main point is that we're talking about two bad options now, not one good option and one bad option.

<comment><USER32> Yes every government has to satisfy it's people, or it will be overthrown. The question is which typed of government is _designed_ to satisfy the people. Whether or not it satisfies the people is up to reality to determine and enforce. The idealogies of the governments may not necessarily account. I think the current gov't in china, an authoratative oligarchy, is designed so that the majority of people are kept from weighing in on the decision making. This is again because of the assumption that the majority is uneducated and therefore unfit to rule. The democratic style in the US is by design meant to give people more power, and make the government _more_ accountable to the public. It does his because of it's design of seperation of powers, so that no one entity can take over _all_ governmental bureaucracies. This also makes it _easier_ for dissenting groups to introduce disruptions to the government, which is so slow, ineffective, divided, and powerless. Since everyone is striving for power, and it's so easy to disrupt power if any one entity gains too much power, the government never becomes a _single_ ruling class or entity that may significantly alter the status quo for better, but more horrifyingly, for worse. So it introduces stability. Of course this gets into the other topic about conformists killing society. But in a democracy nonconformist still have more freedom to thrive.

For your second point, I have to say while the US has a formalized education system, the very concept of freedom of speech information is freely accesible and propogated outside of the education system, independent of government control. Compare this to China where the government has the final say on information on top of control of he education system. Also not everyone has to attend government schools in he US. So ultimately in the US you definitely have more freedoms in terms of doing what you want.

For the third paragraph, I am not talking about rule based on hereditary titles or class. In fact I am talking about the exact opposite. The US system promotes a smart business man to run a business because he will have the best practical results, and a smart person to run a state, presidency, etc. This is what I mean those fit to rule will rule. The democratic process naturally weeds out those who suck so that those deserving, by merit, will come out on top.

In terms of efficiency, the American system may not be that great, but it is stable, and this stability means any attempt to radically improve it's system will be tough since there is always the risk it could fail miserably. Democracy is the stage for when people are comfortable, and stability is needed.

Obviously the education system needs reform and more freedom, but I think democracy is heading in the right direction.

<comment><USER33> > _the government never becomes a single ruling class or entity that may > significantly alter the status quo for better, but more horrifyingly, for > worse._

This has already happened to a greater degree than most people realize. "Separation of powers" has been a complete failure. Just take the present time as an example. All three branches are currently controlled by the same faction.

> _So ultimately in the US you definitely have more freedoms in terms of doing > what you want._

I agree, but it is not very difficult to beat China in this respect.

> _The democratic process naturally weeds out those who suck so that those > deserving, by merit, will come out on top._

This is not what actually happens. In practice, the US is an oligarchy.

> _Obviously the education system needs reform and more freedom, but I think > democracy is heading in the right direction._

Unfortunately it isn't heading in the right direction at all. Parents in many states are having to fight government officials just for the ability to opt out of the govt. school system. Govts. are trying to make it harder and harder to do this. If you look at who is actually causing all of this, democracy has to take the blame.

<comment><USER34> I hate to be jingoistic or defensive here, but you guys are way out there.

 _In practice, the US is an oligarchy_

Let's review the last 30 years or so of U.S. political history, shall we?

We had a president that was tossed out of office by his own party when he covered up a political crime. We had a peanut farmer with little political clout become president. We had an actor who was on a TV show with a monkey become president. We had another president impeached for lying in court. During this same time, we've had expansionist foreign policies, realistic policies, conservative policies. We've had all sorts of financial policies. Our court system has swung both left and right.

I'm not arguing that there isn't a ruling class of bureaucrats and rich politicians in key roles, but the government has effectively changed up policies, executives, and legal theory in surprisingly quick order.

With all due respect, China just doesn't compare here at all. They're great people and all, but if they have that kind of flexibility in governance I haven't seen it.

<comment><USER33> The reason you see us as "way out there" is because if you limit your vision to a fairly small area, the relatively minor policy changes you mention appear to be far more important than they actually are.

The office of President and the scope of presidential power have changed little even as the person holding the office has changed. Foreign policy has not changed as much as it seems, either. The US has been consistently running an empire for decades now. Take a look at what the State Dept. does. The financial system is a particularly bad example, as core financial policies have not changed at all.

For whatever reason, you're focusing on flexibility in governance, but are you really suggesting the Chinese government has been less flexible than the US on policy changes in the last 30 years? If there is any giant government that has been making rather sudden and extreme changes in short order, for better or worse, it's China's.

<comment><USER34> So your argument consists of -- my points don't matter?

That's all you got?

The neat thing about such arguments about systems is: time will tell. When China is at 250 years with the same system, we can compare notes! (grin). But throwing away each others' points is not exactly a good way to continue a conversation. I'm of the opinion that real changes occurred, in all areas of policy. You are not. No amount of my explaining the changes is going to convince you, I'm afraid. You already know what you believe and no amount of discussion is going to persuade you otherwise.

Perhaps we can agree to disagree. I'm not going to play advocate of everything the U.S. does, and if you want to play that role for China you would be a fool as well (which I hope not).

Meanwhile I'll work on "expanding my vision." I commented because I thought you might help in this area. It appears not, though.

<comment><USER33> Please don't be offended. You did start by saying we were "way out there," and I don't think you meant in a good way. I think that does imply that you are "zoomed in" on a smaller range of policy options and that does make small changes look big.

I'm not sure if you thought I was advocating everything that China does, or that I was somehow taking China's side in a US vs. China debate. That wouldn't be the case at all. If you read my other posts in this thread, I criticize both the US and China.

I'm also not sure if I misunderstood what you said about flexibility of governance. Whether or not you support the changes, I don't see how the Chinese government can be seen to have changed policies less in the entire Deng era than the US in the same time period.

<comment><USER34> Not offended. Nothing to worry about.

You were having a conversation with a lot of hidden assumptions and definitions that were not clear to me -- to me, that's "out there". I was unable to gather anything useful from your stream, and that always interests me. It's a chance to either prove or disprove my own assumptions and definitions.

If you say things are not big, and I provide examples of where they are big, and then you throw away my examples, we're done. I can't well argue with myself, and unless you put forward a working definition of what "big" is we don't have anywhere to go.

I see the change in China as very incremental, done under duress, and done to the least amount possible in order to maintain control. Perhaps that's uncharitable of me but that's my current viewpoint. In the U.S., on the other hand, we seem willing and able to make change on a whim. We get tired of one set of philosophies and switch off to another every so often.

Now you can certainly argue that the underlying drivers of the U.S/, commercialism, haven't changed any, and that this lack of change means an underlying common theme in governance. But I think that begins to dilute the conversation so much as to make it meaningless -- and once again, you have me arguing with myself.

<comment><USER33> It's true, my views are not mainstream, but I think even mainstream observers would disagree with you here. In the last 50 years China has seen the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the transition to a corporatist economy in the Deng era.

What was the last change in the US approaching this magnitude? Possibly the New Deal, but even that is quite a stretch. It does not really compare to going from the deadly Great Leap Forward (20-43 million dead, 53% poverty rate under Mao) to the current corporatism (around 6% poverty rate) in less than half a century.

That being said, I'm not sure if or why you're using flexibility in governance as a metric for good government. The government having the ability to change policies quickly is not necessarily a good thing all the time. It seems to me the actual policies themselves matter more.

<comment><USER34> _It seems to me the actual policies themselves matter more._

Not at all.

Look at it this way: what do you want, to be able to get the answer exactly right the first time, or to have a bunch of iterations optimizing each time?

Societies are complex chaotic systems. There probably is no "right" answer. Instead, it's important for there to be a dance between policy and marketplace. The dance is much more important than the policy itself. [insert long economics discussion here]

<comment><USER33> To clarify, I don't mean the actual policies just at any one time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Ayn Rand, for her development of Aristotelian philosophy (normative ethics, hierarchical nature of knowledge, theory of concept formation)

<comment><USER36> From the guidelines:

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."

<comment><USER35> The question was "Whom do you admire most?", which I answered honestly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Jesus, because the world would be a better place if we were more like him.

<comment><USER30> Hmmm. So imagine tomorrow everyone in the world started acting like Jesus. We all throw away our possessions, and wander around preaching to whoever would listen about being nice to each other. How long before everyone starved?

<comment><USER38> at least we could turn the whole red sea into red wine!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Gandhi. For being fearless _and_ inspiring an entire country to be fearless without a single weapon in hand. Think about it, it's nothing short of a miracle.

<comment><USER30> Gandhi is not the man you think he is: <http://history.eserver.org/ghandi- nobody-knows.txt>

<comment><USER40> I'm sure the authors put as much effort into the conspiracy theory as they did the spelling of his name.

<comment><USER41> I am unsure of what you mean. I have no love lost for the author of that article: parts of that article are true but he seems clearly biased to the point of having included outright fabrications in other parts.

But, Gandhi is correctly spelt Gandhi in the article and not Ghandy or Ghandi as others often do.

Edit: Ah I see, the link spells it Ghandi. The article, however, gets it right.

<comment><USER30> What are the outright fabrications?

<comment><USER41> The implication that Gandhi supported Bose and his Indian National Army, as I mentioned in my comment below.

<comment><USER30> The article did not make any "outright fabrications" with regards to Bose, see my comment below.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Joss Whedon.

Because damn, Buffy was a brilliant show.

<comment><USER43> don't forget about Firefly

<comment><USER15> and Dr. Horrible

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The folks who've lead the development and improvement of Unix over the years: dmr, bwk, jkh, tdr, cgd, ...

<comment><USER45> Who are the last three and did you intentionally omit Ken Thompson?

<comment><USER44> The last are a few folks behind *BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD) whose logins/monikers I happened to recall. I only omitted Ken (and others too numerous to mention) mainly because I've not had the pleasure of corresponding with him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Albert Einstein. The greatest scientist ever lived.

</comment><comment><USER47> The guys who did the moon landings. What an amazing display of engineering and courage.

<comment><USER48> They don't make guys like that anymore...

<comment><USER5> [Citation needed.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ian MacKaye - he lives his life completely on his own terms; maintains a purity about what he is doing; is able to see straight through roadblocks; and creates great music. I want to be an entrepreneur like Ian is a musician.

</comment><comment><USER50> people like _"shooter"_ who stay positive & contribute even in the face of adversity ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=868325> & <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=867623>

</comment><comment><USER51> In the 20th Century, John VonNeumann. He was a hacker through and through. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann>

</comment><comment><USER52> Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Carnegie, Phil Knight, Steve Fosset...

The founders - Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Washington - the world owes them a debt of gratitude.

Ernest Shackleton, Pat Tillman, Chuck Darwin, (politics aside)Barack Obama, Samuel Clemens, Einstein, Micheal Jordan, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Emerson, Jon Stuart, Ron Paul, MacGyver, Elon Musk, Hugh Hefner, Tiger Woods, Feynman, Socrates, Lewis & Clark, my mother. (don't mind the order)

Funny, I think all of these people, except my mother, are athiest/agnostic, goes to show you...

<comment><USER53> > Funny, I think all of these people are athiest/agnostic, goes to show you...

Why do you think that? Dylan famously converted to Christianity, BHO is a long time churchgoer, and Ron Paul is supposedly a creationist Christian. I don't really know about the others (obviously Einstein had a lot to say about god and dice and so on, but that hardly makes him a believer...)

<comment><USER52> Oh yes, overlooked Ron Paul, Obama too, as religious people. Jury is out on Einstein, hes has made comments both ways. I'm probably wrong about a few others too.

And for some reason I wrote Steve Fossett when I meant Richard Branson.

Long day. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The Woz for being the hacker he is and being different from other Steve.(I'm not sure. Few people came in mind, RMS, Linus, My friend geekaholic, But Woz was strong.)

</comment><comment><USER55> My grandfathers.

Both left eastern Europe, alone, as teenagers, to come to the U.S., knowing that they would never see their birthplace again, and that they probably would never see most of their relatives again. They did this because they knew they had much better chance for a better life, for themselves and for their unknown children and grandchildren.

Every time things get tough, I remind myself, "They came here for me," and then my challenges seem awfully small.

</comment><comment><USER56> Leonardo da Vinci because he didn't limit himself to the art/science divide.

</comment><comment><USER57> I admire Carl Djerassi. He created the first oral contraceptive and made a lot of money off of it, and then as a chemistry professor he did first-class research in organic chemistry for many years (according to my dad who is a chemistry professor, Djerassi's contribution can totally be considered Nobel- prize-worthy.)

But that's not what I admire him for the most. What really gets to me is that at the age of sixty five, he said, hey, let's try something new, and started writing fiction. He wrote several books, and they are really good and a pleasure to read, and if you took one in a bookstore and started reading it you would say it's a very fine novel even if you didn't know the first thing about the author. Why don't you give it a shot: [http://www.amazon.com/Cantors-Dilemma-Novel-Carl- Djerassi/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Cantors-Dilemma-Novel-Carl- Djerassi/dp/0140143599/)

Think about it. He was sixty five. What will you be doing that age.

<comment><USER31> When I'm sixty five, I'll be playing WoW and listening to the nostalgic popular records of my day, from fine artists such as Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and T-Pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> pg, because this is a cult. ;)

<comment><USER59> Google Suggest always wants to autocomplete my searches for "site:news.ycombinator.com" as "site news.ycombinator.com pg cult." (try it yourself)

Do people actually search for the term "pg cult?"

<comment><USER25> I wasn't sure if you were kidding so I tried it. It's true!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Carl Sagan.

<comment><USER61> If you wish to make a hero from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This reminds me of George Washington's words: Whatever you do, please don't build a monument for me. I'm happy just serving.

So what did they do? Built a huge freaking stone phallus in the middle of the nation's capital.

I admire a lot of people. Too many to try to narrow it down. The difficult part about choosing one is that you're always looking at _relative_ progress. At the end of the day, doing something admirable means measuring the delta between what most people like you accomplished and what you accomplished. That means that famous president with a big monument probably isn't as impressive as poor, uneducated grandfather who did something to make a lot of people's lives' better.

But I think you measure greatness in making people's lives better in the long run. So if I don't have candidates, I definitely have the metric.

</comment><comment><USER62> I like George Carlin, but I do not admire him. I called that name here, because _currently_ he gets a lot of my attention (haven't seen all of his performances yet). I find Carlin views very close to mine and admire professionalism and desire to work hard on his job.

But I don't think we should admire people, especially for a long time in our lives. I guess, it's like "liking -> falling in love -> peaceful loving or forgetting (if it didn't work)". I think it's healthy to find things you don't like in the person you admire and enjoy accepting them as is and gain understanding of your own views this way. I guess this would be the way you build your own personality.

</comment><comment><USER63> Isaac Newton - Newton's Laws, Theory of Gravity _and_ Calculus.

and

William Shakespeare - basically invented modern english.

</comment><comment><USER64> Burt Rutan - the Ruth/Gretzky/Bradman of aviation engineering

</comment><comment><USER65> Emmeline Pankhurst, because without her activities, and their effect on society, I would never have had the chance to achieve what I have. Also my grandmother; entrepreneur, politician and pillar of her local society.

(I felt this list needed more oestrogen, though both of the above are completely genuine. I'd add Thatcher, but I don't think I could survive the pitchforks - nevertheless, I _do_ admire what she achieved.)

</comment><comment><USER66> Fravia for creating <http://searchlores.org/> and inspiring me and I bet countless other seekers/hackers/reverse engineers. His website has articles on everything from "reality cracking" to searching the deeper web. His recent death saddened me deeply but I hope that his website will hopefully taken over by someone who will continue updating it.

</comment><comment><USER67> Winston Churchill. Saved western civilization.

<comment><USER68> _Saved western civilization._

From western civilization.

Other than that, I pretty much agree with you.

<comment><USER67> I admire him for saving it. Whether he saved it from a rouge element of fringe western civilization (most of Germany not being part of the Roman Empire,) or the Muffin Man doesn't take away from his accomplishment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Marcus Aurelius - relentless in his quest for self perfection even while ruling one of the most powerful empires in the world.

</comment><comment><USER70> Immanuel Kant, if nothing more than realizing he was wrong and spending over 10 years trying to discover what may be right.

</comment><comment><USER71> Teddy Roosevelt. They don't make presidents like that anymore, in any country.

Also my buddy, who, whilst being induced into the Catholic confirmation process whilst in primary school, refused, saying that "I'm not convinced. It sounds like some sort of cult". I wish I had been so self-confident (not that being confirmed hurt me).

</comment><comment><USER72> Yukichi Fukuzawa anyone?

<comment><USER30> His biography has been sitting on my shelf for a while, I really need to find time to read it.

<comment><USER72> my favorite book to date

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Dean Kamen. So much more than the Segway.

</comment><comment><USER74> John Resig.

<comment><USER75> In what way does he inspire you, though?

<comment><USER74> In so many ways. Starting with the dedication he has for his work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Albert Einstein - for being different and being the smartest _person_ who ever lived.

</comment><comment><USER76> Elon Musk, a man who tries to change the world through his businesses.

</comment><comment><USER77> Literary:

        george orwell
        douglas adams
        leonard cohen

</comment><comment><USER78> Arnold Schwarzenneger. The dedication required to make it as an immigrant from nothing to the stage he currently is at is nothing short of amazing.

</comment><comment><USER79> Doug McIlroy

<http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sinclair/doug/?doug=mcilroy>

</comment><comment><USER80> Richard Feynman. For his boundless curiosity and his ability to convey that love of finding things out and making things to others.

</comment><comment><USER81> Benjamin Franklin.

</comment><comment><USER82> My Dad. because of the person he is & i want to be. Steve Wozniak.because of the engineer he is & i want to be.

</comment><comment><USER83> I admire the amazing people I know, the ones who make me think, if I try just a little harder, I can be like them.

</comment><comment><USER84> Eckart Wintzen

<http://extent.nl/about-eckart/>

Unfortunately he's no longer.

</comment><comment><USER85> Donald Knuth needs no introductions.

</comment><comment><USER41> Feynman, Einstein, Jiddu Krishnamoorthy, Sardar Patel, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin..

</comment><comment><USER86> Edmund Hillary. For using his fame only to help people, and always being humble.

</comment><comment><USER87> Bill Mollison. Hilarious, Intelligent, and a Revolutionary (in my mind).

</comment><comment><USER88> Elon Musk

</comment><comment><USER89> Ralph Nader... he's one of the great American patriots

</comment><comment><USER90> Carl Gustaf Emil von Mannerheim; the guy who rocked

</comment><comment><USER91> Billy Mays because he was a brilliant salesman.

</comment><comment><USER92> Alan Kay, for constantly inventing the future.

</comment><comment><USER93> Henry Rollins.

Creative, productive, knowledgeable, and funny.

<comment><USER94> ...and kind of a jerk, in his early days.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3g4QPojMc>

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> homer simpsons. i know, i know, his totally a jerk, but i wish i could spend just one day with him.

</comment><comment><USER48> Noam Chomksy.

</comment><comment><USER96> Nikola Tesla

<comment><USER97> Indeed, the guy was really a genius. He pushed the whole of humanity towards using alternate current and it saddens me to see that he didn't (and still doesn't) get the credit he deserves. In my mind he's the only true genius.

<comment><USER96> He was one in at least 20 billion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> George Washington.

The one of two people in all of history I know of who truely didn't want power.

After the war the British Monarch asked what Washington wanted to do; he was then informed that he planed to return to his farm (which he did) upon which the king commented that if he did that he would be the greatest man in the world.

You have to be some person to get your greatest enemy to say that you are the greatest man in the world.

<comment><USER99> The other person being, presumably, Cincinnatus?

<comment><USER98> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> George Foreman....because without him I'd have to use my barbecue ALL the time</comment>


Fjord – F# programming language for the JVM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/penberg/fjord

<comment><USER2> To save anyone the trouble, this project is totally empty yet.

It doesn't say anything about the ability of the owner to port F# to the JVM, but just know that it is just a readme, three almost empty java classes, and the beginning of an ANTLR parser.

So to answer other questions here, you can't even compare it to F# on Mono. F# on Mono works perfectly. The F# compiler and runtime is huge, and getting to parity will probably take at least a year to a very dedicated team.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps of more interest is Frege, which is basically Haskell for the JVM. Seems to be coming along nicely: <https://github.com/Frege/frege>

<comment><USER4> surely you could just run lljvm on the llvm IR that ghc emits and have haskell code on your JVM?

<comment><USER5> could you get the kind of adhoc library interop you get with other on-the-jvm languages like this with llvm?

<comment><USER6> probably not if you did it this week :)

That said, there is some very interesting work going on towards having a sane call out to JVM / .net code from haskell, though nothing will realistically be in a truly usable for in the next 12-18th months

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very pleased to see this. F# is a really exciting language, hamstrung by being tied to the MS platform. Hoping we'll see more opensource F# projects as a result.

<comment><USER8> F# has an open-source compiler and runs well on non-microsoft platforms using Mono. How is it tied to the MS platform?

<comment><USER9> What's the quality of code produced by Mono? How does it compare with Microsoft's compiler? I'd like to see Mono C# and F# numbers compared against Microsoft's compilers. Will I get 90% of the performance?

<comment><USER10> There are games running on Mono (e.g. Unity C# scripts, Bastion was ported to Mono to run in Chrome, etc..). I'm sure the performance of Mono may depend on your specific application but many people have been using it without any issues.

<comment><USER11> the c# performance over mono is really different to the f# performance..while c# has a decent performance on mono, f# doesn't performance so well......

<comment><USER12> You can run F# on the old "stable" branch of Mono (2.10.x), but I'd highly recommend running Mono 3.0.x instead. The older version uses an older, simpler GC which works OK for C#, but which seems to have trouble with F# (which generates more G0 objects than C#). The new 'sgen' GC in Mono 3.0 is a huge improvement though, so you shouldn't see much (if any) performance difference between F# and C# apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since F# was derived from OCaml, I think readers may also be interested in taking a look at the OCaml-Java project: <http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/>

(It's essentially what it says in the tin...)

<comment><USER14> Or scala, which is an acceptable ML if you ignore the OO parts :-).

<comment><USER15> It's really not. Scala is a very interesting language, and it incorporates many functional features, but it's not at all ML-like. In particular, type annotations are needed in many, many places where they would be superfluous in an ML-derived language.

<comment><USER16> As a recent migrant from Ocaml to Scala (due to stagnation of Ocaml), I have to say that you are quite right about type-annotations, but the style of programming that an Ocaml/F# person would be accustomed to is quite easily replicable using Scala.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by "stagnation of OCaml"? There was a period some 4-5 years ago where it did seem like there was little development on the language, but things have changed quite a lot since then. Lots of developments in the core language (including first-class modules and GADTs!), and a blossoming of the ecosystem around it. To me, it seems OCaml has never been livelier than now...

<comment><USER16> Let me start by saying that I <3 Ocaml. I've used it intensively for over 10 years.

By stagnation I mostly meant the comparatively tiny ecosystem of libraries vis-a-vis, e.g. JVM-based languages. In particular, with Akka, Scala has much nicer support for concurrency. The ability to call, and be called by, Java code in the smoothes possible way is also beneficial for my use cases.

I'm surprised that GADTs were added, because a few years ago I visited the Gallium team at INRIA who develop Ocaml, and asked about GADTs. I was told by one of the senior Ocaml developers that there were no plans for the inclusion on this feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has anyone tried running the F# through IKVM[1] (.Net <-> java)? That wouldn't solve this, but it should be possible to run F# on a JavaVM.

[1] <http://weblog.ikvm.net/>

<comment><USER18> IKVM runs JVM code on .NET, not the other way around.

<comment><USER19> That may not be a practically relevant difference. Why would you want to run F# on the JVM? To interface with JVM code. IKVM lets you do that already.

I've rolled out multiple .NET programs that contain Java open source libraries through IKVM. It works just fine, and the amount of extra work you need to do to make the JVM->.NET mapping work is remarkably little.

<comment><USER20> Or perhaps you'd wish to run F# on the JVM because you like the language, but don't wish to depend on .NET (or Mono).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is this supposed to work given the JVM does not support tail calls?

<comment><USER22> In general speech, I can get behind the idea that you shouldn't correct someone if you understand what they mean. In programming, however, I think it's important to be pedantic.

You must mean tail call optimization/elimination here. Clearly, the JVM supports tail calls.

<comment><USER21> If you want to be pedantic, the JVM does not support tail (function) _calls_, but jumps, which may be the result of tail call optimization or elimination.

As far as I know, we still cannot efficiently turn mutual recursive calls into a chain of jumps, but I'll be glad to be corrected here.

<comment><USER22> I think there may be a misconception here: A tail call is NOT a call that doesn't allocate a stack frame. A tail call is a call that is the return value of a function. This is why we refer it the stack frame-eliminating optimization as "tail call elimination". We are taking a jump-to-subroutine (call) instruction and replacing it with a normal jump instruction, thus eliminating a "call" from our program.

The JVM most certainly does support general tail calls through its invoke instruction, which supports calls to arbitrary methods of arbitrary objects (which, of course, includes tail calls).

Some compilers also support the optimization of _some_ recursive tail calls (usually recursive tail calls to final or local methods) into loops using the goto instruction, which supports jumps within the current method (essentially optimizing the tail-recursive method into a non-recursive method containing a loop).

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the clarification.

If I read you correctly, you say, the JVM 'supports tail calls', because it can call other methods. I think, the phrase 'supports tail calls' is as meaningful as 'supports function calls' then.

In any case, I don't think this is a question of optimization. I don't see how, for example, an F# program written in CPS can ever run on the JVM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How does mono's F# coverage compare to this?

<comment><USER24> F# works very well on Mono. You can compile and use the open-source edition of the F# compiler [1] on both Linux and on OS X (though I haven't tried OS X).

This port is in very early stages, and only has the start of a lexer as far as I can see.

[1] <https://github.com/fsharp/fsharp>

<comment><USER12> FYI, F# 3.0 is shipped as part of the Mono package for OS X.

It's also available through the FreeBSD ports system: <http://www.freshports.org/lang/fsharp/>

<comment><USER12> (Replying to myself, since I can't edit the post now...)

More info on F# 3.0 + Mono 3.0 + FreeBSD can be found here: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/fsharp-o...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/fsharp- opensource/lKLFxHq4oc8)

Arch Linux users: the thread I linked also has instructions on how to build/install F# 3.0 and Mono 3.0, if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is a good technical thread started on stackoverflow [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15731724/whats-the- easies...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15731724/whats-the-easiest-way- to-build-an-f-compiler-than-runs-on-the-jvm-and-generate)

</comment><comment><USER26> F# <\- Ocaml <\- ML language

Have a look at Yeti ? <http://mth.github.com/yeti/></comment>


Ask HN: Spotify session take over? - <AUTHOR> Today I have such situation:
1. Listening to Spotify on the desktop in the app
2. Suddenly my music stops, and I see it's streamed on some different device - unknown for me.
A guy sitting next to me in the office has the same thing with his Spotify account. We are both family accounts owners. We both change passwords and logged out all devices. It didn't occur again yet.
Does anyone have a similar situation?
Btw. the worst thing in this whole situation is that person was listening to really not my kind of music :-) <comment><USER2> A week or two ago, there was a suspected/unconfirmed leak of usernames/passwords for paid account owners. It's possible your account details were among them. If the password change has solved the issue, you're probably safe for the moment.

The HN thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16773719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16773719)

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like it might be worth reporting this to Spotify's support team.

They may be able to help determine whether your account was compromised.</comment>


What does the for(;;); at the front of AJAX response do? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6339790/what-does-ajax-call-response-like-for-json-data-mean

<comment><USER2> Open for 2 months without anyone mentioning CSRF?</comment>


Google's 3 Top Executives Have 8 Private Jets - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/11/googles-3-top-executives-have-8-private-jets/

<comment><USER2> And I bet they own multiple houses to! Quickly, _to TechCrunch_!

</comment><comment><USER3> So when is Google Air coming ? :D</comment>


Motorola Moto 360 Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Moto+360+Teardown/28891 <comment><USER2> Two things that are relatively surprising for me from the teardown.

One, I'm surprised that they include a USB PHY on board. Given that the machine has no externally accessible USB interface, that seems like a waste of power, BOM cost, and board area. The only thing I could imagine it being used for is through the mystical 5-pin programming header, for initial device programming; even still, I would imagine they'd prefer to cost-reduce and use JTAG (or another glueless interface) to do initial programming.

I could imagine that they'd use it for bringup, but even still, it seems like they'd want to have a non-bringup SKU for mass production that didn't have the USB PHY populated, and would just drop down the part if needed...

The other surprise was the MIPI DSI-DSI bridge. Having a DSI-DSI bridge that supports panel self-refresh allows them to keep the display alive even without having the OMAP (and its DRAM) turned on. The bridge seems to have 28Mbit of SRAM on it as a frame buffer, though, and that can't be cheap: I suppose the learning is that on OMAP, even keeping the DRAM powered on for a minimal refresh is more expensive in terms of power than a big external bridge.

Additionally, I'm vaguely curious about the external DSP; I wonder what they're doing with it? It's probably some operation to save power while the AP is turned off, but I wonder just how much power it really can save.

Neat device. It'll be interesting to hear the explanations of how people designed these first gen devices as they show up over the next decades.

<comment><USER3> They might be using the DSP for the "OK Google" hotword detection -- at least, that's what they used on the Moto X 2013 (not sure about this year's).

<comment><USER4> Hot word detection is not always on with the 360. Gesture recognition is, though. I'd put my money on that.

<comment><USER5> It's on when the screen is illuminated, which is "always" for most intentional use.

<comment><USER4> What? It's only on for about 3 seconds when you are looking at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's Motorola's statement:

The typical battery capacity for Moto 360 is 320 mAh and the minimum is 300 mAh. In the mobile industry, sometimes both the minimum and typical capacity is listed on the battery, with the typical capacity quoted as the official battery size. Both figures are included on the batteries of our Moto X, Moto E and Moto G devices. In the case of smaller devices, we aren't always able to list both figures. For Moto 360 we only had room for one figure and choose to list the minimal capacity of the battery. We see how this can be confusing and we will look into ways to add the typical capacity as well in the future.

<comment><USER7> For anyone who hasn't paid close attention to the gory details of battery specs, this is pretty normal - most of them have both a typical and a minimum capacity. Which one gets advertised is mostly a marketing decision.

<comment><USER8> What's the difference? (Or rather: why don't they know the exact value?)

<comment><USER9> Probably manufacturing differences and legal reasons. If the average battery life is x and someone gets a battery they can prove is x - 50 they might get sued, where as if they put a generous minimum battery life they can cover their asses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did I hear that right? Did they say OMAP 3? I didn't know anyone was still using OMAP3 outside of charity organizations trying to provide very basic tablets to children living in terrible conditions in the third world.

Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch?

<comment><USER11> _Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch?_

More expensive also tends to imply more processing power, which also implies more power consumption.

More is not better, considering what's going to fit on your wrist.

Also, with an older platform, if they've had time to work out all the issues and greatly refine the power management (so that everything stays active for only as long as necessary), it can end up using less power than a SoC that uses a better process technology but doesn't have as good software support.

<comment><USER10> Its not like OMAP4 is some lightly used, power-hungry, and untested platform.

<comment><USER11> It is physically larger, and costs more. It has a ton of I/O, supports high resolution cameras, can do HD video recording, encoding and decoding.

So what exactly is the justification that a watch needs all that? What is the OMAP3 missing that you think a watch needs?

<comment><USER10> Have you seen the size of a Moto360? It is thick!

The Apple Watch is much slimmer. Part of the reason for that is the SoC that Apple uses is more modern and compact than OMAP.

OMAP3 isn't the best processor to use for a watch. I'm sure if we spend some time going back and forth we will identify at least one or two more modern processors that beat OMAP3 on efficiency, size, AND performance.

I don't thin Motorola should be skimping on the processor for their first watch, if they are trying to convince us its a premium product that we should feel proud to wear on our wrists. People see watches as prestige items, and they will pay more for a well constructed and designed device. There's already enough competition in the plastic trashy wrist-wear segment.

<comment><USER11> _Have you seen the size of a Moto360? It is thick!_

Both the OMAP3 and OMAP4 are 12mmx12mm BGA packages, with pop-memory (package on package). This does add to the height, but the alternative is to put the SDRAM on the board which chews up a lot of board real estate.

 _OMAP3 isn 't the best processor to use for a watch._ ... _I don 't thin Motorola should be skimping on the processor for their first watch,..._

You still haven't explained what the OMAP3 watch doesn't do now, that it could do with an OMAP4.

 _There 's already enough competition in the plastic trashy wrist-wear segment._

That's actually likely to be a problem with the Apple watch too. If it doesn't prove to be too popular, then will future versions of iOS support it? Sure, 8 will, and possibly 9. But after that? In a couple years there will be a watch with some other whiz-bang feature and everyone will want to upgrade to that.

These tiny wearable computers will suffer just as much obsolescence as our phones do. A Seiko mostly just tells time, and the standards for don't change much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How do you program the circular screen on this thing? Is it a radial coordinate system (which would make it hard to draw parallel and perpendicular lines). Or is it a rectangle but you have to keep track of when you're inside the circle? Or maybe you're not even allowed to draw on the thing and you have to use higher level api functions?

<comment><USER13> As the other poster said, it's a square with bits cut off. You can program it per pixel if you want to, but for most typical use-cases developers will be using higher level APIs that handle the details for you.

You can try out developing for both the square and round screens for free using the provided emulators: [https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creati...](https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creating.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Url changed from [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open- th...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open-the- moto-360-finds-smaller-battery-than-advertised/), which points to this.

<comment><USER15> This bit from ifixit about the battery saying 300mAh vs 320mAh is about a day or two old, but ArsTechnica is the one who got the actual clarification/explanation from Motorola.

<comment><USER14> Should we change the URL back?

<comment><USER16> I think so, so the user doesn't have to read the comments to get the full understanding.

<comment><USER17> As ifixit included Ars' update in their teardown, there is no need to switch back.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who owns the IP you create in your spare time? - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightjourney.com/q/working-company-intellectual-property-rights-stuff-spare-time <comment><USER2> TIL Zynga is not dead yet.

They threatet 13yo me with a lawsuit because i made a "bot" (read: iframe and some javascript) for one of their shitty games.</comment>


Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.denverpost.com/2018/02/25/uber-lyft-congest-cities/ <comment><USER2> Cars congest cities. Articles like this encourage policy makers to target users of ride sharing, while ignoring the obvious broader problem.

If cities build appropriate multi modal transportation networks and restrict the amount of space allowed for vehicle traffic, people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are preferable to being stuck in traffic.

<comment><USER3> > people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are > preferable to being stuck in traffic.

Maybe for you but my girlfriend could write a book about all of the harassment she has received from random strangers in Seattle. She has even been assaulted which is why we are now car shopping after trying to go without one for 2 years and that is just so she can feel safe traveling. She would easily drive multi hour commutes to avoid having our future kids risk/deal with what she experiences while walking around downtown.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry for your girlfriend's experience. If it makes you feel any better, it cuts both ways.

For example, I was in an Uber Pool yesterday in SF. My driver picks up the next passengers (two women), and they refuse to get in after asking what my name is. (Who even asks that?!)

They cancel, and we pick up another passenger who's also female. Keep in mind that my driver and I are both of Indian descent. She instantaneously showed signs of fear and pretended to be asleep while throwing herself on me. I felt a mixture of pity and anger. Mostly anger though, why would you assume that two brown guys are going to rape you? Not to trivialize what happens to women, but it's certainly an odd reaction to have.

In short, I'm glad I don't live in SF anymore. I thought things were bad in 2015-2016, but what happens there now is much, much worse.

<comment><USER5> > why would you assume that two brown guys are going to rape you? Not to > trivialize what happens to women, but it's certainly an odd reaction to > have.

Because of the extreme cost of a false negative, ...

<comment><USER6> I wish i could give you more votes. Without race the equation says high if still small chance of something very bad happening vs guaranteed delay but large percentage decrease in odds of a very bad result.

Add in unconscious bias (by race or culture) and the risk seems larger before even without explicitly racist thoughts.

Experience what women do for as long as women do, and the odds rank much higher than they do to a man making that evaluation. I'm sure women sharing stories within their cohort for mutual awareness (odds that a woman has heard more horror stories about women in uber/lyft the a man has heard are higher) further alter the different cost/benefit results by gender, though that doesn't say their calculations are unrealistic, just different.

I'm guessing many men make subconscious choices about what is "safer" (locking your door, deciding where to park, not flashing any wad of money you might have, etc.) but are baffled that women would do so for decisions where a man doesn't (I know I have been) which just highlights how our culture hasn't discussed the threats to/experiences of the various genders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Autonomous fleet parking has all the 3D density advantages of robot parking structures[1], but at dumb concrete prices. There's no aisle because there's no "random access" of a particular vehicle. No extra headroom (because they're identical) extra width (because they're precise), ventilation (because they're electric), or even lights. It's the best of both worlds.

Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines).

The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking lot.

I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers soon.

This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3].

Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced it's optimal.

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

[2] [https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear- spiral](https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral)

[3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too

<comment><USER8> > [no] ventilation (because they're electric)

This seems... iffy. For one thing, my computers run on electricity, and they need ventilation. For another, I think it makes sense to have it be _possible_ for humans to enter the car storage.

On a similar note, it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot.

<comment><USER7> >This seems... iffy. For one thing, ...

At first I wrote "no _oversized_ ventilation," but I shortened it during revision after thinking, "no, no-one would think I meant something so dumb." Thanks for the correction. :P

Yes, there will be ventilation, emergency lighting, and access paths. Those contingency systems are still much cheaper and take up less volume than the corresponding full-time systems.

>it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot

You say that as though it's obvious, but why? Parking lots are $$$, and this ~quadruples the density. It's not like you're paying drivers, so the only cost is a tiny amount of electricity (a parking robot would certainly use more, since A) it's heavier and B) it moves faster). I also presume the vehicles will be stationary most of the time, allowing them to de-energize power electronics in the common case.

Wear-and-tear at those speeds is negligible, and multiple "lanes" means that if a car breaks down the other cars simply drive around it. Heck, at those speeds the following vehicle could _push_ a disabled car out of a bottleneck (mature shared-use vehicle designs will likely feature non-scratch bumpers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps carpooling hasn't been incentivized enough: the current in-app economics for 'pooling' appears to be an increased time to destination but decreased fare (+/\- social interactions with driver and passenger(s)). If congestion is a function of cars on road, car size, number of passengers, and path to destination, then perhaps shorter rides with more passengers in smaller cars should be incentivized more. This seems to lend itself to toll- roads/congestion-charges for different locations; this may be a gateway to a managed congestion area that is served exclusively by human-driver ride-share vehicles - could this improve congestion in those areas?

"Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if you're lucky, you'll be the only person in it?" Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay.

<comment><USER10> A bus with 50 people is 49 cars taken off the road.

Even with a self driving carpool option the bus still takes off 9 other vehicles (assuming 5 passengers in a vehicle).

<comment><USER11> What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard? That is a very common sight in my town. There are a few routes that are heavily used, but the rest of them are just huge vehicles very inefficiently transporting a couple of people and blocking lanes of traffic and frustrating drivers at the same time.

<comment><USER12> > What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard?

A poorly designed bus route. But, that's not surprising giving the state of urban sprawl; it's quite a hard problem to design a route that maintains ridership, simply because everything that people need access to is so spread out and randomized that people will prefer cars/lyft and 15 minutes of travel time to taking three buses over 50 minutes and then walking the last mile to get to where they want to go.

Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too - other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses ("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes. But it's already hard enough for these transit agencies to maintain budgets when ridership is so poor that it's difficult for them to spend money to try something new - it's a self- defeating cycle.

<comment><USER13> "Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too - other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses ("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes"

Has that _worked_ (financially) anywhere? This model was a catastrophic failure when tried in Santa Clara County ("Dial-a-ride").

<comment><USER14> The list is long: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney)

<comment><USER13> Instead of "anywhere", I should have written "anywhere in the USA".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This result is not surprising at all. When these taxi service becomes much more affordable, more people will use them instead of other transportation and more people will be stuck in traffic. Uber has been giving me tons of discount last year, making it even cheaper than Muni, so I've been taking Uber a lot more than necessary.

The reduce congestion, we need much better train system like those in east Asia so that people would love to take trains. Trains can also go much faster and they are much more predictable during busy hours

</comment><comment><USER16> This makes total sense. Uber & Lyft lowered the barrier to entry for private transportation. Instead of paying $20,000 for a car, I only need $10 and I can ride in comfort from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.

<comment><USER17> Another point is, private car owners now has been incentivized to cover their gas tank so they can stay on the roads even more.

<comment><USER11> I'm not following. "Cover their gas tank" ? You mean lock it in some way? Are Uber drivers siphoning gas from other parked cars?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to propose the following: public-private ride share. In short, US Federal Gov't buys or finances the development of ride-sharing software and licenses it to cities. Cities act as Uber does now, skimming a (much smaller) percentage of their revenue as a tax, adjusting the variables in favor of local interests (e.g. incentivizing carpooling or service in lower-income areas), and studying the ways that ride sharing can complement existing transit options.

I know that's a socialist longshot in capitalist America, but I really think that going forward the government is going to have to take a larger stake in tech in order to avoid the types of conflicts we've been seeing between private companies and public interests.

<comment><USER19> After having lived in Russia for a bit, I'm mildly surprised that a US equivalent of Marshrutki [1] haven't really popped up in US cities. While St. Petersburg and Moscow have really well built out public transit systems, the urban sprawl and construction of the cities just doesn't allow for access by anything but non-bus-sized vehicles. The tl;dr of the wiki link below is imagine a passenger van that runs a fixed route - you can board or exit anywhere along the route by signaling the driver, and while slightly more expensive than public transit, you get the benefit of flexibility.

Here in SPB the marshrutki usually run parallel to major routes for a bit then deviate to hit residential areas or give fast-access to shopping centers, and combined with public transport you have just about everything you need to get around fast and conveniently. I suppose that such a system would suffer from the same issue of "everyone already has a car" that public transit in the US does, but it's a nice trade off.

(An aside, it's also a thrill ride each time, but when you need to get 10 km in a few minutes and have no care for your well-being, it's the best way to travel)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Solution: Toll roads.

<comment><USER21> The freedom of travel now being open to all, you declare 'Tax the poor! They're clogging up the roads.'?

If anything I see this as a remarkable step forward for equality.

<comment><USER22> Why shouldn't cars be a premium product? Buses and subways are so much more efficient, and if Europe or Hong Kong is anything to go by, they can be nice, clean and faster than driving. If people want to spend the extra money to drive by themselves that is a luxury not a right, and we should be open to charging it accordingly. I feel ridesharing services have a place, but less so than then Zipcar.

Lastly, I don't think that it's fair to call this a step forward for equality, as free parking throughout town is a tax on everyone who doesn't own a vehicle, or takes public transit, paid out to those wealthy enough to afford cars and their own parking spots at home.

<comment><USER23> When Parisian subways show up in NYC, then make your argument about shafting the poor because you're currently not one of them.

<comment><USER24> NYC has fantastic transit. Maybe not as good as Paris, but that is an extremely high bar to meet.

Poor people already don't drive in NYC because it is already too expensive for them, so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are being shafted by making it more expensive.

<comment><USER23> The chief of the MTA doesn't agree with you.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/nyregion/subways-new- york...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/nyregion/subways-new-york-lhota- mta.html)

<comment><USER25> Because the state and the city have criminally underinvested in it and diverted MTA money to bail out upstate ski parks and build roads to nowhere. And forced the MTA to take up high interest rate bonds instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is fairly obvious because it generates extras trips while drivers are en route to pick up someone and don't have a passenger. If everyone had their own car and infinite parking existed, these trips wouldn't exist. And those additional trips as to traffic.

These services have advantages, but reducing the number of cars on the road isn't one of them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can confirm with intuitive certainty. For 2 days in Q4 of 2017 here in Bangalore, India, the ride sharing companies (Uber and Ola) were on a strike and those 2 days were the best in terms of traffic (or the lack of it) for us. I'm sure a small segment of the population decided to work-from-home, but since it was bang in the middle of the week, I'm sure most of them availed public transport like buses or used their two wheelers. Of course, some of them used their own cars, but even if they did, it did not reflect in the form of enhanced or even the usual amount of traffic. I've been thinking about this ever since and it feels bittersweet to read this. The validation is good, but the fact that it's actually true to some extent and not just in my head, is sad.

</comment><comment><USER28> Kind of surprising they didn't mention Waze Carpool at all, since it is operating in a similar space and could help cut down on congestion. Since it doesn't pay as much as Uber/Lyft, it's likely to only encourage true carpooling—where people who were already planning similar trips end up riding together. Uber and Lyft are different because even if you have multiple riders going in the same direction, there's always a driver who goes to pick them up, idles while waiting for riders, etc.

Related note: what would happen if Ubers/Lyfts/taxies couldn't use HOV lanes unless they had multiple passengers? It's always struck me as odd that a taxi can go HOV with one passenger, since the whole point of HOV is to encourage carpooling.

</comment><comment><USER29> Can driverless taxi and quadcopter technology have a risky love child already and let us hurtle towards a future where roads are rare, landing pads are ubiquitous, and the swarm of rush hour commuters blots out the sun?

C'mon Elon, get on it!

<comment><USER30> Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis? I assume it would be better than with roads, but air capacity is not infinite, and you can only land a small amount of taxis on top of a building at a time. Many buildings probably can't even support a single landing spot.

<comment><USER31> _Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis_

You mean... helicopters? Because they already exist and have limited use cases.

<comment><USER30> No, I mean the self-flying electric vertical takeoff drones people are building that I'm pretty sure the GP was talking about, eg

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber- looks-soar-flying-taxis-2020.html)

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana- evt...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evtol-first- test-flight)

[http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding- fly...](http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-flying-car- companies-zeeaero-kitty-hawk-2380033)

Etc

I don't know how seriously to take all these projects, but they are clearly quite different to helicopters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I experienced this first hand in Bangalore last year, when Uber and Ola (a company offering similar services) drivers went on strike for a week or so. Roads were much less congested during that time period.</comment>


Kkk.africa - <AUTHOR> .africa will soon be a new domain name. Let's make sure kkk.africa is not owned by racist assholes. <comment><AUTHOR> or a kickstarter campaign to cycle through moveon.org, or the like.</comment>


Show HN: ekill – Like xkill, but for annoying web page elements - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rhardih/ekill <comment><USER2> If you're using ublock origin on Chromium, you already have this.

Go to chrome://extensions/shortcuts and set a shortcut on "Enter element zapper mode".

I set it to ctrl+shift+q because I kept accidentally closing my browser and I needed something to override it ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you look at that. I've actually been using uBlock since forever, but had no idea it could do that. Oh well, I guess sometimes you just can't see the forest for trees.

<comment><USER3> I'd love for the extension to collect what elements are being killed by other users and kill them automatically for me. Specially on mobile.

I don't think that feature exists anywhere else and seems a trivial implementation of collaborative filtering to decide what to delete preemptively for each user.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be an awesome feature, but would mean sticking your hand into the whole data-collection/user privacy/GDPR rats nest. Not a ship I'm too keen to captain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well if you already use uBlock Origin you have multiple mode like this all with possible custom hotkeys if you want something like this

<comment><USER5> And if you want to hide the cookie notices, just check Fanboy's Cookiemonster List in the Annoyances section.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I use it a lot to hide sticky menus, the open in app button of sites hosted on Medium and more or less everything that wastes space on the screen of my phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For Firefox, there's Nuke Anything Enhanced [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/nuke-anything...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/nuke-anything-enhanced) The removals are temporary though. There used to be an addon called "Remove it permanently", but I guess it didn't make the transition to a web extension.

For a general slide-in/pop-up blocker, try Kill It [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kill- it/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kill-it/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for this! I've been using Kill Sticky [https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky- headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/) and am now looking forward to an expanded arsenal in the fight against anti-human web elements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For any tridactyl ([https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl](https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl)) users out there: ;k

</comment><comment><USER10> Great idea. I found Saka Key [0], an extension (Chrome and Firefox) for general re/binding of keyboard shortcuts, similar to the various vim extensions, but more general, though it has two vim variants amongst the binding templates. Seems well done. I've felt dissappointed by the other vim extensions. Maybe I'll be able to bind the ublock origin zapper.

[0] [https://key.saka.io/](https://key.saka.io/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Use [http://prebake.eu/](http://prebake.eu/) for uBlock Origin on Firefox.

<comment><USER12> To anybody wondering, the link in parent is for a filtering list that blocks annoying EU cookie notifications on websites. I had been wishing for this so thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had a bookmarklet that did this that I've lost ... I'm interested in it if anyone here has it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone opened an issue with just such a thing:

[https://github.com/rhardih/ekill/issues/1](https://github.com/rhardih/ekill/issues/1)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, that is close to what I had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The web-application can tell when you have deleted elements (and in some cases might even crash, and perhaps even deliberately).

How this should _really_ work is by maintaining two DOMs, one which the application sees, and one which the user sees.

<comment><AUTHOR> > This is half-baked

Half baked is an understatement, but I guess it works sorta-ok for a half-day project. Pull requests are very welcome though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> <3 this idea!

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been happy to discover that AdBlock can be used to do this, though perhaps less slickly than this extension.

</comment><comment><USER17> It doesn't kill the clock in my toolbar on osx. That's what I came for.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure why you thought that would be possible, as it says "web elements" in the title.

<comment><USER19> I'm using it on Android and it's not killing the robocalls I often receive. That's what I came for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use it to feed my pet rock and now it's never hungry!</comment></comment></comment></comment>