Google Admits Streetview Cars Collected "Entire Emails, URLs and Passwords"   - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/google-admits-streetview-cars-collecting-entire-emails-urls-and-passwords

<comment><USER2> FTA:

> their investigations revealed that some incredibly private information was > harvested in some cases.

Well now, slow down. If someone transmits information into the public airspace in a public street, that data can no longer be referred to as _private_.

If Google had been breaking WEP while they drove along they would be violating people's "reasonable expectations" of their privacy. But there's no reasonable expectation of privacy if you're broadcasting radio signals that contain your passwords. That's just dumb.

<comment><USER3> Why were they collecting this information in the first place? I don't understand how they could just accidentally grab passwords.

<comment><USER4> It's because they reused some code to grab the MAC addresses, which was also grabbing packets (which it shouldn't have).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a pity that _this_ is the digital privacy case that the media and politicians decided to run with.

There are legitimate unanswered questions about what privacy means in an increasingly networked world... but what to do with personal information broadcasted in the clear and recorded _by accident_ is not one of them.

</comment><comment><USER6> This quote is taken out of context. Google was not specifically collecting emails, URLs, and passwords. They were collecting packets. Collect enough packets, and you will wind up with emails, URLs, and passwords in the data.

From the article, from Alan Eustace's (Senior VP Research & Engineering) quote:

>It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, these people should be using secure wireless. If I have a loudspeaker playing my phone call into the air, I wouldn't complain that someone else heard it. If I taped a giant banner with my email into the side of my house, someone might take a photo.

If Google cracked my WEP key or something, that would be notable.

</comment><comment><USER8> This makes Google a white-hat hacker that shows a security problem. I've just been to Spain and was able to connect to unencrypted wifi spots on almost every street-corner with my phone.</comment>


Indian Railway Plans to have airport like security - <AUTHOR> https://www.timesnownews.com/amp/business-economy/industry/article/railway-plans-airport-like-security-at-stations-know-how-early-you-have-to-arrive-before-station-is-sealed/342571 <comment><USER2> Looking for solutions to problems that are not there. Given the volume of traffic I am surprised this is even a starter. If the goal is revenue, e.g. some paid for card that lets you skip the security checks that is a possibility. I doubt anyone can correctly verify identity of all passengers without impacting travel time. So even with a card it is security theater and more of a revenue generation scheme.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is a trend. Ever been on one of China's subways or intercity trains? Scrutiny has increased over time, and the checks especially for intercity travel are near what one expects for a plane ride.

A thorough security system would also look into other data associated with the ticket buyer.

Somewhere in there is a privacy issue. How much info does the state need on a passenger to quantify risk, based on an intention to board a train or plane?</comment>


Satellite Internet: 15Mbps, no matter where you live in the US - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/satellite-internet-15mbps-no-matter-where-you-live-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> I've never seen one of these, so excuse my ignorance if the following question is a stupid one:

Are these solutions available as a mobile unit that you can travel with or do you need a large bulky satellite like the DirectTV ones?

<comment><USER3> These things are not mobile by a longshot. They are transmitting to a geosynchronous satellite 22k miles up. The dish is a little bulkier than a satellite TV dish but needs a lot more precision when aiming. Then it is locked down _tight_.

I used StarBand about 10 years ago in its early days and it was boggling that the thing worked at all. It still amazes me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can confirm the newer home units are much improved. I was getting 23Mbps down and 4Mbps up, with an 820ms ping on one of these over the holidays. This is an enormous improvement for rural Internet users.</comment>


Ask: What's your pick b/w Python(Django), PHP or RoR? - <AUTHOR>

Hey Guys,i have been working on PHP 5./Mysql for a long time and thinking of learning Python or Ruby. But I am pretty confused with this : DO I need to switch to Python or Ruby? Or, Rather stick to PHP ? <comment><USER2> It's a personal preference thing. Do you _need_ to? No. Should you? Personal preference.

A lot of people dislike PHP but it does get the job done. However, the only way for you to tell is to try each and see which you like best. As long as PHP serves your needs and you're happy with it, you're fine for the most part.

There are some arguments on technical debt, clean syntax, and scalability. In which case you can explore the other two options. Worth a try.

Disclaimer: I went from PHP to Python. I prefer Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having been a long term supporter of RoR (and still am to a degree, it is very good for some things), I recently tried out Tornado. Very, very impressed, I personally have been much more immediately productive with tornado than I was with RoR. Worth a look, YMMV.</comment>


Best Screen for Coding on the Beach? - <AUTHOR> Summer is here for most of us, and the ability to get stuff done from the beach would be amazing.
How can it be done?
Sandproof, waterproof, sunlight readable, all-day battery powered computing device wanted with sufficient power for compiling stuff.
Bonus points if it has an ice-maker.
Does it exist?  What's the closest? <comment><USER2> No ice-maker but I'll second mymail about Panasonic toughbooks. I used to be involved with 911 systems in the U.S. (EMS/Fire etc) and we provided the crews all with toughbook laptops on the ambulances and eventually toughbook tablets for electronic medical records. If anyone can kill a computer it is a paramedic, I took grief in the press because some police agencies were using cheaper toshiba's in their cars which were like $1k where my toughbooks were like $4k, difference was every-time we did have one break, Panasonic replaced it for FREE, even out of warranty the costs were minimal to get a new machine essentially. And they didn't break often so I could go for 3 years on a single machine, the toshiba's were good machines but replaced annually typically.

I live in a coastal community and literally the crews had these things on the beach, a couple of times dropped in the shallows and picked back up and still fully functional. Those machines are insane. Had one medic drop one in a horse trough full of water, he literally called me and was worried about picking it up out of the water. I told him pick it up, dry it off and let me know if he was good, he did and used the computer the rest of his shift.

One drawback is they typically aren't the latest CPU or the fastest machines but they were always solid. I haven't used one in years but I would venture to bet they are still the same way.

</comment><comment> a-saleh What I tried to do was buying Onyx Boox Nova Pro [1]

It is a fairly decent ebook reader, with decent PDF support, stylus and a nice note-taking app.

The interesting thing is, it has bluetooth-support and runs Android 6 (heavily modified, it still is a reader-first) but you can run Termux on it.

I ran into some problems with 32bit processor it runs and it isn't the fastest, but I was able to do some i.e. Rust excercises :-)

It even has blue-tooth, so you can hookup a real keyboard to it.

[1] [https://onyxboox.com/boox_novapro](https://onyxboox.com/boox_novapro)

</comment><comment><USER3> Speaking from recent experience, do NOT use a 2016 Macbook Pro. Ambient humidity in Cancun snuck into the screen and I've had it sitting in front of a large dehumidifier for a couple weeks. It's noticeably better, as in it's Japan-shaped instead of Africa-shaped, but it's still present. It was nowhere near water and had no pre-existing physical defects.

</comment><comment><USER4> I need a real, full sized keyboard. I can't do real work on a laptop keyboard. Worse, I can't do real work on a laptop that has a touchpad just below the keyboard. I'm always bumping the touchpad and having the mouse jump to a different part of the window. That's very very not good when editing code...

<comment><USER5> Palm rejection is a thing even on Linux

<comment><USER4> This sounds like something that could make my life better. How do I enable it or activate it or whatever, on Windows? Any gotchas that I ought to know about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those toughbooks are getting more and more powerful. They're made for jungle and desert (military contractors), have replaceable batteries, can be operated with gloves.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnJAtSapAnQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnJAtSapAnQ)</comment>


Pressure to do something meaningful and useful - <AUTHOR> Lately I've been feeling what I think is too much pressure to do something meaningful and useful.
I've found it hard to focus on my regular work and other trivial tasks because they don't feel meaningful enough - but not just that!
It seems that even things that are at first glance meaningful, such as learning more about AI or getting into game development or testing SaaS ideas, have become not the "perfect" use of my time.
It seems like I'm not satisfied unless I find the holy grail of how to spend my time.
It might be that I spend too much time on my own and my brain is trying to tell me that I need to have more people around me and a shared purpose, otherwise the survival instinct of not being on my own in the woods kicks in.
I feel like I need to explore all the communities, know what's going on in every industry, think about the best way to help society & make money & save the planet at the same time, and what happens is I just end up browsing the internet and consuming other people's content instead of actually creating something.
There might be some value in consuming a lot of content I'm sure, but is not having any output because other people's output is already better a justification?
Have you guys dealt with this before? How do you accept that there's no perfect way to spend your time and doing anything is better than doing nothing at all? <comment><USER2> You need to explore the landscape to come to understand what a great solution to some problem could be. You might think of being "T" shaped in your knowledge and dive deep into a subject that interests you.

Note that most things that would benefit society require a behavioral change. Whether the product is good enough to inspire this change, or even can, is another can of worms</comment>


Smartphone-based Ultrasound device Clarius passes FDA tests - <AUTHOR> https://www.clarius.me/fda-510k-clearance/ <comment><AUTHOR> There was a couple of interesting threads on HN about ultrasound machines recently: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230741) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13241295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13241295)

I stumbled upon this startup [https://www.clarius.me/](https://www.clarius.me/) which provides an existence proof for a decent ultraportable stethoscope-like ultrasound machine.

Any thoughts on this? How does it change the arguments from these earlier threads?</comment>


Ask HN: Good remote developer workstation setup? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to setup a remote developer workstation environment on an Ubuntu server (behind an lxc container, accessing with a Mac client), but the results are far from satisfying.
I've tried the following: native X forward, vnc (with and without xvfb), xrdp, x2go, even guacamole (with both vnc and rdp), but some things seems to be hopelessly broken across the board, e.g. there is no clipboard sharing/sync, non-US keyboard layouts do not really work, and TAB and other special keys usually don't work the way I expect them.
Do you have a remote workstation setup that does not suck? <comment><USER2> Nomachine. It's licensing is somewhat confusing; it is free for "personal use" but clarifies that you as an individual accessing a non-shared machine dedicated to you is under that umbrella; what they don't want you doing is setting up shared terminal servers &c. without paying them money.

I have no idea if the above would be covered under that, but it is so much better than any remote setup I've used that I would pay for it in an instant.

Link: [https://www.nomachine.com/](https://www.nomachine.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I just run my editor locally on my personal machine, and have it access all the files on the remote machine via SSH. In Emacs, this is as easy as typing in a slightly longer filename: /remotehost:path/to/file.cpp. Everything else about the editing session is the same as it would be if the file were local. The compile command operates in the remote directory, debugging operates out of the remote directory, all as you would expect.

Just make sure you configure your local machine so that all ssh commections to the remote machine use key-based authentication, so that Emacs doesn't have to prompt you for a password when it connects. SSH can also share connections between ssh processes, which speeds everything up. In the ssh_config documentation look for the ControlMaster option for how to set it up.

The advantage of this setup is that your editor stays on your local machine where your keyboard is correctly configured, but your work is all on the remote machine as desired. I'm sure other editors can be configured similarly.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, I've ended up using guacamole close-to-nightly with xvfb+x11vnc, and the experience is great, I can only recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can you share any details on what dev tools you plan on accessing via your Mac connecting to Ubuntu?

</comment><comment><USER5> NoMachine.</comment>


Lightbeam: A Highly-Optimising Streaming WebAssembly Compiler (2019) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8c5n_1dQm4 <comment><USER2> Nowdays merged into wasmtime: [https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime](https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime)

<comment><USER3> Do you know how wasmtime comapres to wasmer?

<comment><USER4> I was looking that up myself and came across a reddit thread [1] with a Wasmer employee seemingly equitably laying out the general differences.

This, however, elicited a response from a Mozilla employee claiming it wasn't telling "the whole story."

Does anyone know what the differences in perspective are here?

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/cx4nj3/comment/eykkie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/cx4nj3/comment/eykkieb)

<comment><USER5> wasmer used a large amount of wasmtime code without proper attribution. I'm not sure this is a problem anymore but habits die hard and the owner of the company has not been shown to be the best person (won't go into that here since it's not as tech related)

<comment><USER6> We used the mmap implementation (20 lines of code) which is also reflected in our attributions :)

[https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer/blob/master/ATTRIBUTIONS....](https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer/blob/master/ATTRIBUTIONS.md)

Perhaps I'm missing something. Were you referring to some other code I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER5> Yeah I think you're missing the part where you only added that file after being called out on twitter lol. The only reason I say "habits die hard" is because you consistently refuse to acknowledge that this ever happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you can't watch the video, there's a blog post writeup of Lightbeam by the presenter here - [http://troubles.md/posts/lightbeam/](http://troubles.md/posts/lightbeam/)

</comment><comment><USER8> > but for a streaming compiler... you just don't have liveness analysis

I understand that streaming compilation wants to start compiling before the entire _module_ has been read, but is it really that important to start compiling _functions_ before their entire definition has been read? Seems like a huge artificial hurdle.

<comment><USER5> functions are the part you compile, everything else is just runtime data

<comment><USER8> The question was why one would want to start compiling a function before all of its code is available.

<comment><USER9> Purely guessing, but: gigantic generated funcs are A Thing™, and pretty often I'd expect that you don't even need to know the full contents of a func to being executing it. Some structures would require it, sure, but not all. You could treat it as speculative execution up to the point where you can't, and then you just wait and continue-or-error when you know more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: you got here before me but this is precisely the right answer, although it's more about not needing the full contents to start _compiling_, rather than executing necessarily. Supporting streaming execution parallel to compilation is absolutely possible, but a tougher challenge that isn't necessarily for our purposes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: how in the heck do you find iOS Developers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a general web developer and a buddy of mine asked me the other day if I could refer an IOS dev. Then I realized I don't know one App developer. Do they actually exist?
The friend is pretty well up there at a sophisticated recruiting firm so I'm assuming he has a budget, so the question would be: where would one find an App dev starting with no contacts?
I'm thinking, post in the HN Jobs thread, backtrace authors of similar Apps... Actually after that I'm out of ideas. <comment><USER3> As an iOS Freelance Developer myself - Meetups. Through Meetup.com, I am connected with about 100 developers, many of which I would (and have) recommend in a heartbeat. I have also had many people that are looking for an iOS Developer contact me through Meetup.com . If you go this route, you can generally post in the comments section about who you are and what you're looking for.

If you're looking to cast a wide net that will earn you MANY responses, post a message to Google+ Communities and LinkedIn groups. The downside is that you will probably have to sift through many emails until you find a potential right fit.

Here are some useful places:

 _iOS Meetup Groups in San Francisco_

[http://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=ios&radius=25&userFreef...](http://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=ios&radius=25&userFreeform=San+Francisco%2C+California%2C+USA&mcId=c94101&sort=default&eventFilter=mysugg)

 _iOS Developers across the globe_

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/11202662879070871797...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/112026628790708717979)

 _Subreddit dedicated to posting available work_

[http://www.reddit.com/r/forhire](http://www.reddit.com/r/forhire)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. I've met a few people in my own line of work through local Meetups. Can't believe I didn't think of that. Thanks a ton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are many ways. None of them involve a short-time commitment. They all involve building a loose relationship over time.

Approach 0) Spam everyone on LinkedIn. Bad.

Approach 1) Go to a Hackathon. Maybe even participate (marketing/consumer research/design/code - if you can). Sponsor really good pizza OR really good coffee (not crap DD). Talk to developers. Find out what kinds of apps they like to work on. Follow-up.

Approach 2) Throw your own mini conference. Can be anything from a panel. Make it valuable to the attendees. Ask for emails but don't spam the attendees. Ask them what kind of gigs/jobs they are looking for - tell them you'll keep an eye out.

Approach 3) Since your friend works at a recruiting firm, have them hold a developer-only mixer, bring in someone who can give a bunch of tech talks. Give away a door prize of an iPad or a Raspberry Pi.

Approach 4) Lots of developers would like to encourage younger developers. But they don't know how. Take the lead and sponsor and organize a hackathon with a local school (just one). Background checks aside (they may be necessary - <USER2> working with minors), the recruiting firm gets good press, the developers get good press, non-direct coding resume bullets.

Approach 5) Build an app for a deserving non-profit who has a mission you believe in with college CS/design students who may want to get an app on their resume. Building the right team may be difficult.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. If you're the same wallflower that ripens the events, just wanted to say thanks for that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As wallflower pointed out there are plenty of ways. If I needed to find someone I would ask here (HN) as you said on a job offer. Anyway, I'm a developer and I'm looking to do apps to create a more concrete resume and experience, if you need more information I have a thread here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6077474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6077474)

By the way, don't use approach 0 (spam everyone on LinkedIn) it's horrible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you lorenzo for the reply. Be sure to ping me when you complete your App. I'll probably be in the market for an app of some time in about 3 months.

<comment><USER5> Sure! If you need anything just send me an email and I'll be glad to help :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where are you located? I know there are plenty iOS developers in Los Angeles (where I am). A couple links that may be of some use:

[https://jobs.github.com/](https://jobs.github.com/)

[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in San Francisco and the person commissioning the project is also in SF. Thanks for the links.</comment></comment>


Caltrain Electrification Grant Deferred - <AUTHOR> http://www.caltrain.com/about/MediaRelations/news/Caltrain_Electrification_Grant_Deferred.html <comment><USER2> Diesel engines that pollute, dozens of dangerous grade crossings, doors with steep steps -- Caltrain is a 19th century style railroad in a region of California that desperately needs modern transportation services. The short- sighted decision by Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to turn their backs on BART, made 50 years ago, continues to play itself out.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a key decision that derails the timeline of a decade-long project, potentially irreversibly, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. This decision, and the fact that it could be made and can have these consequences, is a prime example of Americans' unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. Caltrain electrification is as vital and representative an infrastructure project as you can find anywhere in Northern California.</comment>


5 Tips for Writing Better Examples - <AUTHOR> http://www.dcaulfield.com/5-ways-to-write-better-examples/ <comment><USER2> Yet another article about writing that is itself laden with grammar and usage errors.</comment>


The Immigration Ban Is a Headfake, and We're Falling for It - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jakefuentes/the-immigration-ban-is-a-headfake-and-were-falling-for-it-b8910e78f0c5#.9hbbusxs2 <comment><USER3> If the goal is to test the extent that checks and balances can be circumvented/authoritarianism implemented, then showing up in protest is absolutely effective, especially when it pressured CBP officials to follow the court order. At airport protests, the illegality of the order and executive coup when the courts were not complied with was a huge, huge focus.

<comment><USER4> It's important to remember that no part of the order has been deemed illegal yet. The NY court just granted a stay so that people affected would be able to proceed with the case on American soil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Before November I would not have upvoted this story. But given that Steve Bannon is in WH to come up with ideas to 1) end international co-operation 2) destroy existing democratic institutions 3) create a nation state on the shared heritage identity (descendants from a specfic group of European countries practicing a specific religion), such theories do not seem out of place

<comment> norea-armozel If you have the time, you should look up the transcript of the 2014 speech Bannon gave regarding some of his views. I think Buzzfeed has a copy (I know Buzzfeed sucks but this is one of the rare times there's a gem on that site). To break it down, Bannon seriously believes the West has lost its way since the fall of the USSR. And that he wants to bring it back into balance for Christianity. That includes manipulating capital owners into conformance any way he can. Basically, Dominionism 2.0. It's weird how this flew under the radar but I suspect it's intentional because most people in the US aren't the kind of Christian that would sign up for any kind of Dominionism anymore since the generational split on this is firmly established. I think it's a question of whether or not Bannon and his ilk realize you can't engineer people to accept it. But then again this is the same guy who got violent on Biosphere 2 with researchers when things didn't go his way. When reality smacks him a few times in Congress I expect either he'll try to force Trump to be more draconian than even he's capable of being or misstepping big time and winding up getting fired (I can see Kellyanne Conway or Reince Preibus pulling this off against him).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Second, pay journalists to watch for the head fake. That's their job. Become > a paying subscriber to news outlets, then actively ask them to more deeply > cover moves like the NSC shakeup. We can no longer breathlessly focus media > attention on easy stories like the immigration ban. The real story is much > more nuanced and boring — until it's not.

This finally convinced me to get an online subscription to the New York Times, after trying to avoid paying anything for news for years. It makes sense to me to think of a subscription not so much as product-purchase, but more like a patreon-like pledge of support.

I kinda wish I could get one to the WSJ too, but their prices seem too high :/

<comment><USER7> The same New York Times who delayed publication of NSA spying until after Bush's re-election, and would have buried the article entirely had the author not threatened to publish a book [1]? I think it's great you're willing to pay for news, but I urge you to find a source that's less cozy with those in power, such as The Intercept, of Snowden fame.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_times#Delayed_publica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_times#Delayed_publication_of_2005_NSA_warrantless_surveillance_story)

<comment><USER8> What would HN recommend for a news source that is worth paying for lately?

<comment><USER9> Wondering the same thing myself. In the U.K. I can attest to the quality of The Guardian although it does get a little emotionally charged - <USER2> its editorials - excellent paper otherwise. The Financial Times is another excellent paper and funnily enough regarded by Noam Chomsky as the most accurate.

As far as US papers go The NY Times has a pretty spotty history. It is still a very good paper, just gotta be aware of its short comings.

I hear The Wall Street Journal is also very good but never really read it personally - usually pickup The Economist instead (despite all its problems).

As far as free stuff goes Democracy Now is up there with any news I've seen on television and since it refuses corporate, advertising or government funding is entirely reliant on donations to remain as unbiased as possible. Very good indeed and worth supporting.

<comment><USER10> Democracy Now is certainly not an unbiased news source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Although I agree this is likely a setup for more to come, I disagree that this is a "headfake".

A "headfake" implies it achieves nothing if one's opponent ignores it. In this case, if there was no pushback, then he would have successfully banned green card holders from seven nations. Then it would receive even less coverage/reaction when he adds an eighth nation, a ninth, a tenth, and so on... Pretty soon, you'll only have legal immigration from nations Steve Bannon deems worthy.

</comment><comment><USER12> I loathe Trump, and despise Bannon, and I wouldn't put it past them to have some dirty tricks, but this conspiracy theory doesn't pass muster

The political optics of having to 'roll back' are not beneficial for POTUS, because it would be an admission that he's 'wrong' \- and he does not like to be wrong.

Second - if the ACLU can 'win' cases against the administration - this is hugely damaging for them, as it speaks to their lack of credibility to everyone except the hardcore followers - it gives momentum to their opponents - and a 'permanent record' of things to wail about for 4 years.

More importantly - it weakens them vis-a-vis the GOP controlled congress.

Right now - Trump is strong, only because he has a very solid base support. The GOP do not like Trump, but right now they are afraid of his wrath - politically. And Trump will go a long with most of what they want so it's not so bad.

But - if Trump is weakened too much, then the GOP don't have to listen to him, and they'll start fighting him on agenda issues.

The reason Trump is rushing through this stuff is not for issues of power - it's popular politics: he has the power 'now' to do some things - and may not have it later. He's trying to appear as though 'he's done what he's said he's done'.

Also - the refugee ban is not even meaningful, other than in terms of perception. There will be some disruption for 90 days, and then things will be as they were. This is political theatre, not a conniving power grab.

A few more things like this from Trump and he will be weakened, he could feasibly be the biggest 'lame duck' president ever, though surely he will make a lot of noise during that period.

If the GOP abandons him, he can only scrawl together so many executive orders - granted, he'll wield his veto power like a drunk king ...

<comment> brian-armstrong As the article points out, he doesn't have to admit to being wrong. By making the order overly broad, he is able to later claim that a future implementation is what he intended all along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> During the 20 years of Berlusconi in Italy, we called this tactic "weapons of mass-distraction". Indeed, they worked.

</comment><comment><USER14> Trump did promise to make our country more secure. Whether he is testing power at the same time or not, it doesn't really matter. We have allowed the President too much power and it needs to be fixed.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is always obvious to me. I think at this moment Trump's wet dream is that some frustrated person from these 7 nations might do something really stupid that will help him go even harder after Muslims and other minorities.

Asians, Mexicans etc. are next on the anvil.

</comment><comment><USER16> This should be downvoted as horribly misleading. This idiot is FACTUALLY and PROVABLY wrong.

One instance which is easy to demonstrate is the line that the President "removed a permanent military presence from the NSC".

The military is on the Council according to LAW. No president can change that.

SOURCE: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3021](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3021)

Now stop repeating crap that isn't true. It takes away from real issues, and divides the country on YOUR Headfake.

HN readers deserve better. Much better.

<comment><USER17> _" removed a permanent military presence from the NSC"_

This is a reference to Trump downgrading the Joint Chiefs of Staff (as well as the director of national intelligence) from the principals committee of the NSC. Rather than attending every meeting, they'll only be asked to attend if the topic of discussion pertains to their area. They're no longer permanently in attendance: just occasionally.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/stephen-bannon- donald-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/stephen-bannon-donald-trump- national-security-council.html)

<comment><USER16> My key point is that they are not removed. The NSC is huge. It has groups and subgroups galore. Every president moves people around between committees. The law allows for that, but still stipulates they are members of the committee.

Best breakdown I found is this page - see the tables for an easy visual): [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2017/jan/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2017/jan/31/sean-spicer/spicers-misleading-claim-trumps- national-security-/)

<comment><USER17> Then you're willfully misrepresenting the author's intent to show that they're wrong (and using all caps to emphasize how wrong it is). This makes it difficult to take on good faith the rest of what you say when you're not interpreting the author in the same vein.

If, on the other hand, you'd make a reasoned argument like, "It's likely the author means this, but here's why I don't believe that's a valid representation of the facts", I'd be more willing to consider the rest of what you have to say.

I think his use of the word permanent is valid: they're no longer permanent members. I can understand your point of view as well. I also don't see him making the argument that doing so is against the law, or even implies that it's illegal: just that it's a significant change from the past (or, in his words "a _much_ bigger deal). Bringing this legal aspect up as to why he's being misleading is a bit of a straw man, in my opinion.

Anyway, I find arguments made calmly and reasonably, and in good faith (of which there sometimes seems to be an ever-dwindling supply) unless there's an abundance of evidence to believe otherwise to be much more persuasive.

<comment><USER16> One other thought I meant to mention. His "recommends" list links to an article that Trump is trying to stage a coup. Seriously?? Now maybe he thought it was funny, but based on _his own writing_, I doubt it.

I welcome your thoughts. (And appreciate your civil tone, which has been commendable)

<comment><USER17> Thanks. I appreciate it.

Unfortunately, this exchange has exhausted what was left of my good will, at least for now. It's decidedly not effort-free yet for me. The past couple of days have been particularly taxing. The last three comments I've written I've immediately deleted because they weren't up-to-snuff. I'll keep at it, though, because I think it's a very important practice to keep.

If that's something you value, and would like to further cultivate in yourself, I've got some references I rely on in my profile. I encourage you to check them out.

Cheers.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for dropping those links, grzm. Between them and the content of your comments I have been reminded what civil disagreement is supposed to look like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> At least I don't feel so crazy now for thinking this...

</comment><comment><USER20> How many sheep will read this, assume it's true, and not realize it's somebody's daydream?</comment>


Show HN: Neon Jack, my VR racing game prototype - <AUTHOR> http://www.shinyfish.com/neonjack/

<comment><USER2> Somehow whenever I spin out I manage to find myself facing directly into the opposite wall. Is this by design?

This is then hard to get out of. It is like the wall is pulling you back in as you try to turn away from it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not by design. You may still have a non-zero commandedSpeed. There's an internal commandedSpeed variable that should get set to 0 on a crash stop, but that's a bit of a hack.

Try reversing (pressing brake or down-arrow or S) out of the wall, instead of turning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe offtopic, but just a quick question about "You can use a wired Xbox controller (recommended)". Why not wireless? I thought they were the same from Windows point of view.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose you could try one. To be honest, I just don't know how to connect the wireless controller to a PC / Mac.

<comment><USER4> You need an adapter like this [http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Wireless-Gaming- Receiver-Wind...](http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Wireless-Gaming-Receiver- Windows/dp/B000HZFCT2)

<comment><USER5> There is, BTW, an excellent chance that it won't work, since Microsoft stopped making them ages ago and 90% of the available models are shitty Chinese knockoffs with Microsoft branding.

<comment><USER4> Ah, I did not know that. Last time I looked into these things must have been 4 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This would work great with Google Cardboard, if you want to spend some more time and energy to port this to Android :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Silly question: how do controls work? I.e. I assume you can't tap the screen with it attached to your face. Maybe lean-to-turn?

<comment><USER7> Android supports bluetooth game controllers, including the PS3 Dualshock if you're willing to jump through a couple hoops to pair it with your phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I'll pick one up and try that. It still seems like a way to greatly reduce the market. Isn't the whole point of Cardboard to be a kind of cheap VR? I can't imagine the target market going out to buy a controller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No Linux? :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> I could make a Linux build, but I'm not willing to test it or support it right now. Want to test it? I mean just a minimal smoke-test to see if it runs.</comment></comment>


The Polygons of Another World - <AUTHOR> http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons/index.html <comment><USER3> Love this, love the write up.. but on the amiga...

the A500 had 6 bitplanes, not 5, also, with PAL being the most popular region, I'd say 320x256 was the more popular resolution over 320x200. 6 bitplanes are used for Hold and Modify (HAM mode, where 2 bits select Red, Green, Blue or Palette, and the remaining 4 bits indicate either R G or B values, or the index of the color.) The other 6 bitplane mode is "Halfbrite" which doubles the palette size for a total of 64 colors, where the second half 32 colors are half the intensity of the first half. When running with 6 bitplanes, agnus (the memory controller if you will) steals a lot of cycles for Denise (the display chip) from both the 68K and the blitter. The blitter being crucial for drawing filled polygons.

The second thing that made the Amiga revolutionary (and one could argue, for this reason, that the PCI architecture of Hombre/AAA is not a true Amiga no matter Commodore's demise) - the second thing is the way that Agnus orchestrates memory access much like the microcode inside a CPU orchestrates registers and ALUs. In particular, Agnus controls the memory address lines and chip-register-address lines; the chip-register-address and the memory address lines are opened up simultaneously against eachother with one reading and the other writing. So, for instance, when reading bitplans, agnus opens the chip bus using one of the register addresses 0x110-0x11A for BPL1DAT to BPL6DAT depending on which of the 6 bitplanes is being read; while at the same time driving the appropriate memory address by putting the contents of agnus registers 0x0E0-0x0F6 for BPL1PTL/H to BPL6PTL/H on the address bus of the "chip memory" DRAMs. The datalines of the DRAM and the special chips (Denise here) directly open on eachother (eg. DRAM and Paula chip-selected at the same time.)

I'm not sure if I did it justice and got the elegance of this architecture across in this short post. I'm sure many enthusiasts like me who got their start on the Amiga programming 68K continue to discover new things about this machine.

Good times, warm memories.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the correction. I will update the drawings asap.

Since you seem to know the machine well, maybe you can shed some light on something i was unable to clarify: What is the fastest way to clear a framebuffer to a desired color on an Amiga. My hypethesis is that it was done with the Blitter, by disabling all DMA entries "doing something else". Do you have any idea?

<comment><USER3> To set the framebuffer to a single color, consider that there are actually up to 6 "framebuffers" (one for each bitplane.) Consequently, it is to either set all bits for a given bitplane to 1 or to set them all to 0. To control the actual word that is blitted without DMA, you would use BLTADAT, BLTBDAT or BLTCDAT registers to control the corresponding blitter input word with DMA disabled (so the blitter does not write into these registers itself.)

A common technique to avoid having to blit each bitplane independently (esp. for BOB sprites where the blits are small and plentiful) is to interleave the bitplanes by row using the BPL1MOD and BPL2MOD register values; these values are added to each bitplane pointer address at the end of each row to move the pointer to the start of the next row; consequently a single blit operation can capture all bitplanes as in memory a row can consist of all row bits belonging to bitplane 0, all row bits belonging to bitplane 1, all row bits belonging to bitplane 2 and so on.

If this is the bitplane layout used then a single blit can only set the values to 0 or 15 (all 0's or all 1's for 4 bitplanes enabled); note however that the blitter too has modulo registers (BLTA/B/CMOD for each input and BLTDMOD for the destination) so perhaps best examine how fancy the programmer got with it (eg. multiple blits to clear the screen to a specific color even if the bitplanes are interleaved using BLTDMOD.)

Obviously I'm a bit rusty given it's been a few years, but I hope this helps. I'm a fan of your work, thank you.

<comment><USER4> I had no idea about the BPL1MOD and BPL2MOD. Now that i know they exist I don't see why a game developer would not use them.

I will try to double check with Eric Chahi but this is so much more efficient that it has to be the way he drew polygons (instead of drawing into a scrap buffer and blitting four times, he used BPL*MOD to draw and blit only once).

<comment><USER5> Unless I'm wrong, a drawback of using interleaved bitplanes to do fewer but larger blits is that the mask for the sprite shape gets bigger too.

If you do several blits, one per bitplane, you get to use the same mask data, but when using interleaved data the mask needs the same shape data * number of bitplanes involved.

It's still a pretty small price to pay compared to Atari ST/ZX Spectrum preshifted bitmaps.

<comment><USER4> Does that mean you cannot use the Blitter to draw lines and fill area as described in the article?

<comment><USER3> You'd use a single multi-bitplane interleaved fill-blit if the background surrounding it did not need to be preserved (eg. no mask requirements as per Flow - demos tend to do this for its speed).

I'd imagine Another World creates an off-screen single-bit deep bitmap and uses that as a mask. I sent you an email if you'd like to explore more, however the original programmer probably just remembers what he actually did.

Also note that non-overlapping polygons can be grouped together in both approaches by line-blitting with XOR destination (adjacent polygons share an edge and so the edge is XOR blitted twice); so there are substantial speed-ups to be had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Traditionally some corrections for the author:

>The Amiga 1000 could not boot by themselves, they had no ROM. The bootloader was on a floppy and you better not lose or damage it!

Amiga 1000 has bootloader (Kickstart loader) in ROM, chips U5N and U5P - <USER2> 256Kbit EPROMs/mask ROMs, 64KB in total. What it didnt have was firmware(Kickstart, like PC bios) or system(Workbench, like PC DOS/Windows) in ROM. You can see chips containing A1000 bootloader on the motherboard picture, its the two with stickers, right below two 8250 CIA chips [https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/media/download_...](https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/media/download_photos/a1000mbrev6.jpg)

You __cant __boot(load) without a bootloader. Trivia: Back in the day Bill Gates held a record of writing the shortest bootloader for Altair 8800, computer with nothing but LEDs for output and switches for input. You had to input said bootloader every single time you wanted to load something (like BASIC) from tape. 'Computer Notes Volume 1, Issue 6, 1975' Page Twenty-One, Author Bill Gates: "I've written a bootloader that only takes 13 bytes of keyed-in data, but anything smaller than 20 bytes isn't easy to use.". He was finally beat by one byte in 2017 [http://just8bits.blogspot.com/2017/03/doing- it-in-less-than-...](http://just8bits.blogspot.com/2017/03/doing-it-in-less- than-bill-gates.html)

>It was Commodore best selling product with an estimated 6 millions units shipped from 1987 to 1991

other than you know, C64 ;-) and thats not counting other products like Datasette Commodore 1530, shipped with every VIC-20 and C64.

>amiga_arch.svg

Chip RAM is not directly connected to CPU, its gated behind AGNUS [https://www.pmsoft.nl/amiga/A500-block- diagram.jpg](https://www.pmsoft.nl/amiga/A500-block-diagram.jpg) DBR signal is what switches CPU data bus access.

<comment><USER7> Since you seem knowledgeable, and this seems surprisingly hard to google, do you know why it was named "Amiga"? I know the codename was "Lorraine" and, because I'm a native Spanish speaker, I know "amiga" means "female friend", but why was this name chosen? Did they simply pick a random name, and if so, why Spanish?

<comment><USER8> The team that designed (which Commodore later bought) was called Amiga Corporation.

They were initially called Toro, but there was another company with that name.

As for the choice - they just wanted a nice friendly name, and Amiga was that, being simultaneously a nice sounding foreign word (for the English speakers) by with the known friendly Spanish connotation to many.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another World was _astounding_ when it came out. Although the Amiga was considered a high spec machine at the time, its graphics hardware was oriented around scrolling, sprites, and rectangular blits. This is good for the typical platformers and shoot-em-ups that dominated gaming at the time but useless for the type of full motion video the AW was attempting.

The Amiga's blitter could write almost 4Mbs per second (if you set things up juuuust right and you had the wind behind you). On a modern monitor (a modest 1920 * 1080) the Amiga's blitter would take almost 2 seconds just to clear the screen.

<comment><USER10> I think the coolest part about many games from this time period is how vastly differently they were developed compared to modern games from modern game studios.

"...it is the original version built from 1989 to 1991 by then 21 years old Eric Chahi working alone in his bedroom."

Because he got royalties from an earlier game, and that paid enough for him to take on this project. And he did pretty much everything except the music: Programming, graphics, story, box art. One dude. One 21yo dude. In his bedroom. And he wrote a VM! He wrote his own bytecode! He wrote his own VM host in assembly!! And then he wrote the game in his own bytecode!!!

And then you have the people who ported games in this time period, who often got _nothing_ to work with. No code, no comments, no assets. Disassemble the thing yourself on a platform you might know very little about, and re-write the thing on a platform you do know a lot about. You get a couple of months. Chop chop, the publisher is waiting.

And if you haven't read Jordan Mechner's journals of him writing Prince of Persia from the same era, you should. It's equally bananas. And impressive.

<comment><USER11> Eric Chahi (and Jordan Mechner) undoubtedly have genius-level IQs which is to say that they stood apart even in that time period.

The more important thing to note is that the brutal constraints of the day and the extremely high bar to entry acted like a pre-sorting mechanism but also fueled the best and brightest to exceed their perceived limitations and unleash their creativity.

Compare and contrast with today, where the low bar to entry has led to a proliferation of garbage-level work (on all levels, not just games) that tends to not only drastically decrease SnR but calibrate the "standard". When everything looks like mediocre garbage, this is what everyone expects.

<comment><USER12> You take the good with the bad. There may be more "garbage" work as you put it, but that's because there is more work overall, likely by several orders of magnitude..

And with that still comes some gems to go along with the garbage, so in the end, we win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you haven't played this game I strongly recommend it. It's on GOG. It's on old emulators too but the graphics and input handling can be pretty rough and unforgiving.

<comment><USER14> I second this. Another world was a fantastic, innovative game.

Also look for Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition.

<comment><USER15> Didn't realize they released an updated version. Just found this graphics comparison[1]. Looks like they mostly just smoothed out the lines.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86QXaOdgX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86QXaOdgX8)

<comment><USER16> What I found funny about watching that is that the 2014 version is exactly how I remembered the 1991 version. Memory smoothed it all out I suppose.

<comment><USER17> The magic of CRT :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Amazing, as everything in Fabien's site.

I rushed, hoping to find some oldskool tricks and remember my time spent reading Denthor's VGA Trainer[0].

It seems I'll have to wait some more chapters for that, though. :-)

[0] [http://textfiles.com/programming/astrainer.txt](http://textfiles.com/programming/astrainer.txt)

</comment><comment><USER19> Another World's original author Eric Chahi gave a great GDC "Classic Game Postmortem" talk about creating the game:

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

</comment><comment><USER20> Using a custom VM was certainly a clever and efficient at the time. LucasArt used the same trick for a lot of point and click games.

I don't think this idea would scale well for much bigger projects, as debugging internal scripts can quickly become a bottleneck.

<comment><USER21> Another example of custom VMs from that era is Infocom's Z-machine, used for text adventure games.

The strategy of using a bytecode VM to ship cross-platform games seems to have been pretty popular back then, which is a little surprising to me -- I thought Java came up with that idea first!

<comment><USER22> I guess Java's "innovation" with VMs was requiring the user to download it separately from the programs it runs.

<comment><USER23> Its older than that. There was the p-code machine used for Pascal. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-code_machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-code_machine)

<comment><USER24> There was also a (brief) period in the early 90's where Microsoft's C++ had an option to compile to p-code. IIRC this was to reduce executable size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Now that the Atari ST part of the article is out as well, I'll add some corrections regarding ST graphics format. The article states that "There are no bitplanes here like on the Amiga we saw in the previous entry." This is slightly inaccurate. ST does have bitplanes, but the organization is interleaved to 16 bit words, unlike on Amiga where the bitplanes are stored as separate memory regions.

So in 1 bpp hires mode, there's just a single bitplane (and the memory layout is identical when comparing to Amiga 640x400 interlaced hi-res 1 bpp screen mode). In 2 bpp medium res (640x200, 4 colors), there are two bitplanes, alternating bitplanes for every 16-bit word. So 16 bits of bitplane 0 for the first word, then 16 bits of bitplane 1 for the second word (these together form the first 16 pixels), and so on. In the 320x200 low res mode there are four bitplanes interleaved in the same way.

What this means from the programmer's perspective is that you can do similar bitplane tricks as with Amiga, e.g. modify just one of the bitplanes independent of the others. For instance effects where car headlights change the background image colors can be done the same way on both machines: render to just one bitplane and use the palette to achieve the change in colors.

However, when with Amiga it's trivial to modify bitplane pointers independent of each other to scroll graphics around, on Atari ST all bitplanes are tied to the same base pointer (because they are interleaved in the memory). (And to make things like full-screen scrolling even more difficult, this base pointer is aligned to 256 bytes, i.e. the low byte of the video memory base address is always 0 on Atari ST - on STE this is programmable.)

There are some cases where the interleaved bitplane format gives benefits: while neither of the machines are good for writing texture mappers (or other effects that require manipulation of single pixels), it's slightly more efficient on Atari ST because the layout allows some tricks (e.g. using MOVEP instruction to write 8 pixels to all 4 bitplanes at once from a single 32-bit register).

From the point of view of a game like Another World, the bitplane arrangement of Atari ST doesn't really cause additional problems when comparing to the Amiga. The issue is the lack of blitter (and STE blitter isn't that great improvement, it doesn't have the line drawing capabilities of Amiga blitter and has less flexible src/dst mechanism, so no wonder it isn't utilized by the game).

</comment><comment><USER26> The SNES was the platform I played "Out of this World" on.

The interesting thing about it was, it was a polygon game that ran without using the SuprFX chip.

With the SNES being sprite-based I could never figure that out.

<comment><USER27> I've always wondered, did Nintendo demand that all games have continuously running soundtracks? I remember playing this game and Prince of Persia on the SNES and being really put off by these soundtracks someone shoehorned in.

<comment><USER28> Funny trivia about this:

>[...] They also wanted to replace all the music made by Jean-François. I had yielded for the extra songs, but I wanted to keep the music of the introduction, as it perfecly matched the atmosphere and the animation timing. This became a real struggle [...] So I took drastic measures. I thought of creating an endless fax. A huge fax of a meter long in which I wrote in big letters "keep the original intro music". I would insert it in the fax, enter the number, and when the transmission started, I would tape both ends of the letter together, which would create a circle that went on and on until there was no paper left in the offices of Interplay, at the other end.

[http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/another_world.htm](http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/another_world.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think hardware limitations were a huge source of creativity in games. If you want to make an interesting game, tie a proverbial hand behind your back and see where it forces you to go.

<comment><USER30> Game developers are ALWAYS held back by hardware limitations.

<comment><USER29> I think a lot of the time that just results in framerate or resolution or draw distance knobs being adjusted.

<comment><USER30> Biggest hardware hold back right now is all of the real time lighting and ray tracing stuff. Eventually that will be solved, then it will be something else that hardware hasn't caught up to yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Fabien's blog is a pot of gold. I love this "archeological" approach to programming. He also makes the articles feel like documentaries. It's just unique.

<comment><USER32> Couldn't agree more. His two books are also phenomenal [1]. If anything, worth getting a copy just to support his amazing work.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fabien- Sanglard/e/B075Q5W35H](https://www.amazon.com/Fabien-Sanglard/e/B075Q5W35H)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was one of the few kids who got a 3DO (yes really), and I had a copy of Another World for it, after already having played it on the Genesis, and I was a bit underwhelmed, since moving to comparatively more-powerful hardware didn't make the game look a million times better.

After a bit, though, I realized it wasn't that the 3DO version was underwhelming, but instead that the Genesis version was _amazing_. It already felt like a next-gen game, and so the upgrade to the 3DO didn't make a huge change.

In the end, it has become one of my favorite games. I love the art, the style, the cutscenes, and even though it's incredibly short, I love the story.

I never played Heart of the Alien, because I never had a Sega CD, but I'd like to play it at some point on an emulator.

<comment><USER34> "The 3DO version of Out of This World is quite different from the other versions in terms of graphics and sound. The polygon backgrounds have been replaced by hand-drawn versions, the quality of which varies from stunning to amateurish."

[https://www.mobygames.com/game/out-of-this- world](https://www.mobygames.com/game/out-of-this-world)

<comment><USER33> Yeah, I realize I didn't make it super clear; there were _some_ enhancements, but it wasn't this huge thing like I was expecting. I was expecting it to be like the Genesis vs 3DO versions of Road Rash, where the 3DO version is _vastly_ superior graphics-wise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's available on Nintendo Switch for those who are interested in trying it out.

</comment><comment><USER36> I played this game in the PC, back then. It was one of those games I've consireded like "top game" for D.O.S. What a nostalgia bump I've got.

<comment><USER37> I played this for the first time on the Nokia N900 (armv7-a). I thought it pretty, but unplayable. Had no idea of the porting history until this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I was just eyeing the game on my steam library early in the day. Fantastic title, shame he went on to produce so few follow ups.

<comment><USER22> Eric is clearly a genius, I assume he hit a sophomore slump. He's only made a couple games since, many years later.

<comment><USER39> Even with just one major game to his name, its legacy lives on. Another World set the template for the "cinematic videogame" and even today you can see the influence of its cutscenes and minimalist gameplay on games like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus and a plethora of modern indie games. It accomplishes with wordless dialog what Hideo Kojima tries to do with 20 hours of overwrought monologues.

<comment><USER22> I couldn't agree more. It's one of my all-time favourite games. I replay it every few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Another World was so far ahead of it's time. I have such find memories of playing it on my brother's Amiga :)

It's also just a lovely piece of art.

<comment><USER40> fond memories ... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Awesome read

</comment><comment><USER42> amazing stuff, give a try also to the video from the snes conversion programmer

</comment><comment><USER43> who remembers... Bard's Tale?? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_(1985_video_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_\(1985_video_game\))

<comment><USER44> If you install the 2004 version of the game on iOS ([https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-bards- tale/id480375355](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-bards-tale/id480375355)), the old 1980's versions are also installed as extras. I spent so much time on these, but never finished III, I remember the combats taking forever almost like infinite loops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is truly amazing.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is there a known Javascript VM implementation of this game?

</comment><comment><USER47> This is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER48> Third time this has been posted in 17 hours:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931895)

<comment><USER49> Tell the mods: firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Let's bring back the Sabbath as an act against 'total work' - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/ideas/lets-bring-back-the-sabbath-as-a-radical-act-against-total-work <comment><USER2> As an Orthodox Jew who observes the Sabbath every week, while sometimes finishing up work and preparations beforehand can be stressful at times, there's no feeling like turning off all phones/laptops/etc Friday evening and leaving it all behind. There's a supreme serenity that comes with the knowledge of "I can't do anything about it, so there's no point in worrying". As soon as Sabbath starts I'm totally focused on the now -- I can't do anything to prepare for what comes after, and due to the restrictions of the day I've done all my preparations for Sabbath before it begins. There's a saying in Judaism that Sabbath is "me'ein olam haba", meaning "of the next world", and it rings true every week when I can't wait for it to begin and feel sadness when it ends and I have to return to the mundaneness of work and logistics and emails. It's just the right amount of a great thing.

<comment><USER3> I'm Jewish but not religious anymore, and I know a lot of people that keep Shabbat that talk like this.

Frankly, I don't buy it. If we have a problem with detaching from technology, then, stopping all usage of it only one day a week is maybe 90% as unhealthy.

It would be like saying you have a healthy relationship with smoking because you don't smoke at all for one day a week, but after that you can chain smoke 24/6.

Now, I definitely don't think that social media/technology/<modern_thing> is nearly as bad as smoking. But if we accept the premise that maybe we're using it too much, then I think it's delusional to believe that stopping it for just one day a week is going to do anything substantial.

<comment><USER4> > If we have a problem with detaching from technology, then, stopping all > usage of it only one day a week is maybe 90% as unhealthy.

> It would be like saying you have a healthy relationship with smoking because > you don't smoke at all for one day a week, but after that you can chain > smoke 24/6.

I don't buy this at all (sidenote: interesting that you decided to use a throwaway for this comment?) - taking a vacation from distractions and a smartphone even for a week helps me for months afterwards because it allows me to realize that the pull isn't important - daily use builds up the idea, being able to not use it without consequences stops the FOMO.

<comment><USER5> And you want to stop the pull of a light switch? Or carrying things outside the house?

However if there's a magic rope round the town you can carry things outside?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article raises good points about the need for formal societal taboos against constant work. The ideal (often violated, though) in our modern society of the "40-hour week" as a reasonable amount is one of them. Having regular times for contemplation and separation from the bustle of the world is important.

The gig economy has dangers in it. There's a liberating aspect in that people "can choose their own hours," but then that means that they have to work more to keep up with someone else who is working a few extra hours to get ahead in their own lives. It seems like the world of labor has a tragedy of the commons aspect to it, where it's in everyone's immediate individual interest to work just a little bit longer, but the end result is that everyone has to work more for the same reward. A bit like the two-income trap: some benefits, some liberation, but there's also a cost.

I do wish, though, that the article fully grappled with the issue of the 'shabbos goy.' It praises the virtues of having everyone able to participate in a time of separation from work, but then there's this practice where the conveniences of life are still indulged in by having an outsider labor for you.

<comment><USER7> >where it's in everyone's immediate individual interest to work just a little bit longer, but the end result is that everyone has to work more for the same reward

If everyone is working more, more value is being created in total. So it's not zero-sum. You might then say "Yes, sure, but is working more hours to buy more things really better than a culture where we work less and spend more time eating dinner with our families?", which I would agree with, but is more of a cultural comment than an economic comment.

<comment><USER8> > If everyone is working more, more value is being created in total.

That's often false. It's very easy to create negative value, and it becomes easier the less you rest. It's also hard to measure when additional work starts creating negative value, so you can easily end up in a downward spiral of productivity as people compete for not just illusory but counterproductive gains.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, I was going to disagree with you, but as I reflect on my time in Tokyo I have to admit you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm Jewish and I observe the sabbath. It's quite a liberating experience that the whole world aught to experience. It's a time when I sleep better knowing that I can't turn on my phone or check my email. I eat great sit-down meals with my family and friends, with no outside distractions; no one is eyeing their cellphone or worrying about getting back to work because they can't do either of those things. We'll often meet our friends to play boardgames or hang out in the park.

There are definitely times when it's tough. A tight deadline is coming up at work and Friday's sundown is just hours away. But I plan around those things and I find that on the whole, having a day (completely) off of work relaxes me a ton.

These days, technology is literally built to be addictive. I'm sure there are people who resist checking their phones, writing emails at 2am and reading hacker news better than I do, but I think the majority of people would benefit from an occasional day away from these things.

<comment><USER10> > These days, technology is literally built to be addictive.

This is very true and a lot of companies make as much use of it as they can. [1] I think it can be dealt with with some diligence from ourselves though. I would find it impossible to disconnect completely during weekends, since I have many close friends in different countries, and the internet is the only way I have to keep in touch with them. So what I do is disable all mail/notifications from every app that is not the apps I use to talk to them. It's liberating. And most importantly: Disable notifications from the #random channel in the company Slack. That goes for the whole week :p

[1]: [https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-notifications-alert- us...](https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-notifications-alert-users-when- they-not-cu-1819577354)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Plenty of religious things are not superstitious, but based on real psychological needs.. people who dismiss them as pure fantasies are missing the point. New Testament is full of such things helpful for psychological maintenance and emotional well-being, if you can get the metaphors. It's why the stories and practice of them have survived so long (because the practicioners survived more frequently and/or saw the value in repeating/practicing them). Take as many grains of salt as you need; there is a great treasure there.

<comment><USER12> Well of cause. People don't dismiss "religious things" like singing, gathering together or confiding in others. They dismiss the religious part of those things. And the assumption that wearing spaghetti strainers or turning off your phone on the weekends will somehow bring you closer to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky.

> It's why the stories and practice of them have survived so long (because the > practitioners survived more frequently and/or saw the value in > repeating/practicing them).

Yes. That's a hypothesis... another hypothesis that has a lot more backing in history is that the practitioners literally killed people who disagreed with them. Religions didn't survive because of minor health benefits or great mental advantages of regular praying. They survived because they where the mafia of yesterday who administered justice without regards for morals or popular opinion because they claimed to act in the name of gods.

<comment><USER13> > to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky.

It seems like you could make your point without going out of your way to insult people. You don't have to believe in anything, but wouldn't it be considered "hate speech" to essentially besmirch those that believe in God? If we said something about an ethnicity's cultural traditions, would that be acceptable on HN? Of course not. But somehow making fun of someone's religion, provided it's Judeo-Christian, seems to be acceptable.

<comment><USER14> I think we should be able to make fun of anything. I like that world better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here in Utah it is very common for local businesses to be closed on the sabbath and there is strong cultural pressure among Mormons to not work or do anything that would cause someone to have to work on Sunday (e.g., shopping and going out to eat, though some take it even further by abstaining from things like online shopping or even watching television).

I don't see us headed in that direction though. It's it's becoming more and more common for businesses which had long been closed on Sunday to cave and begin opening on Sunday (it seems like it often coincides with when the children of a business owner take over). With the share of practicing Mormons in the state less than half (and falling) there is just too much missed opportunity.

Also, my own impression is that the younger generation of practicing Mormons don't seem to follow the older generations sabbath restrictions nearly as strictly. My siblings and Mormon friends almost all seem to not keep the sabbath quite as holy as our parents did.

I do wonder though if I would have spent nearly as much time as a kid dinking around on the computer and learning what became my career if my parents had let me play with friends on Sunday.

<comment><USER16> I grew up Mormon as well and have since left. But I find a lot of value in traditions like this. We (post-Mormons) tongue-in-cheek call the Sabbath "Second Saturday," but I do think there's a loss that includes both the Sabbath as a communal good and the individual "day of rest" (except for lay member leaders who are exhausted at the end of a 10-hour meeting-filled Sabbath).

Another tradition I value is the monthly single-day fast. There are contemplative, compassionate, and health benefits to fasting.

But traditions don't require you to know all of the benefits before you start doing them--they just give you the program and ask/cajole you to get with it. IMO, a memeplex that comes with "arbitrary traditions bundled with turns-out- to-have-good-reasons traditions" is better than arriving in life with a zero vector for direction--i.e. no tradition at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kind of have this in Germany, where many businesses are prohibited from being open on Sunday. For example, grocery stores can't be open unless they're at a central train station or airport.

In practice, to me it just feels really annoying and limiting. Means I basically have to plan any larger shopping trips for Saturday, even if that doesn't work well for my schedule. I get that they want to make sure workers have enough time off, but you could mandate days off for each worker without banning Sunday for everyone.

Not to mention that it being Sunday very obviously favors Christianity over other religions that might have a different holy day. The integration of church and state here turned out to be more than expected.

<comment><USER18> As we live in a society, it makes sense to have a common day of rest - consider that schools, hospitals, public transit etc. are also resting. Plus your family and friends.

<comment><USER17> > consider that schools, hospitals, public transit etc. are also resting.

Pretty sure two out of three of those aren't really resting. You think hospitals stop working or trains stop running?

> it makes sense to have a common day of rest

Eh, nah. I'm mostly a social democrat, and I'd be all for better worker protections in general in the US, but I haven't heard any socialists or labor advocates pushing for "oh yeah, let's pick one day and force everyone to have it off". If nothing else, in the US this would be seen as a pretty gross abrogation of separation of church and state to make it Sunday (and every other day of the week would be even less practical).

People should absolutely have time off, but I think being more flexible is generally preferable.

<comment><USER16> There was a study 4 years ago regarding weekends--specifically, why do the unemployed also experience greater emotional well-being on Saturdays and Sundays, if they have basically free time any day of the week? It turned out that having a designated day (or days) for time off is a "network good"\--felt by the entire network because it allows for more coordinated time together, all things considered.

"Increasingly, however, people are looking for individual time off when it is individually convenient. But personal flexibility can be a double-edged sword, the researchers found.

"Time flexibility is good for an individual, but it is bad for groups," Young said. "To make the most of modern life, we should search for temporal coordination – to work at the same times, and have time off together."

[https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/time-value- jobl...](https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/time-value- jobless-022014.html)

<comment><USER19> I heard an advocate for the sabbath who was an observant jew but felt that in the US we should protect Sunday, essentially for this reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _a pharaonic economy driven by anxiety begets violence, dishonesty, jealousy, theft, the commodification of sex and familial alienation. None of these had a place in the Torahic economy, which was driven not by anxiety but by wholeness, enoughness. In such a society, there was no need to murder, covet, lie, commit adultery or dishonour one's parents._

Lol. All of that existed in the torahic economy. It never ceases to amaze me at the things people will forget to idealize the past. And from a history professor no less.

But on the point of the article: I'm against all laws that force others to participate in your religion, including preventing people from working on days your religion says are sacred. It's anti-freedom and pro-religion... if you want to force your religion on others, go live in a theocracy.

<comment><USER21> He's not idealizing the past. Keep reading:

"It is unknown if these radical commandments were ever followed to the letter."

The "Torahic economy" as referenced by the author in this context is clearly the _idea_ of an economy that does follow the ideals of the Torah. The way things played out in reality could more accurately be referenced as the "Hebrew economy" or something like that.

<comment><USER20> If that was his intention (I don't agree), then it is not unknown. It is known they were not followed.

If a torahic economy is only an idea... then why use it as an example at all. We know that's not how it played out in practice.. He holds the current economy to reality, but the torahic economy only to an idea. We aren't striving for violence and murder either... they exist, just like they would exist in a torahic economy too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is aimed at religious people. It's fine. Good writers know their audience and write to them. This would make a fine sermon or lecture. But you can see how the context collapse has led to lots of snark here.

My advice: read it with the understanding that it's not _for_ you (or me), and that it offers a perspective you might not have gotten if it targeted a more general audience.

Seneca might have been writing to his boyfriend Lucilius in his famous letters, but anyone who's read them will agree they got something out of it despite not being the target audience.

<comment><USER23> > This article is aimed at religious people.

I didn't get that at all. I think the author was trying to explain that the concept of the Sabbath (ie take a day of rest) has important psychological and societal value, irrespective of its religious origins.

<comment> maze-le Yep, I concur. As an atheist I am as detached from religion as you can get, and I still think this article has some valuable insight. I know it from experience, as I am from Germany and most workers actually do have Sundays off (there are exceptions of course: doctors, nurses, gas station workers, police officers...). In retrospective, I very much appreciated having it as a kid. My parents were pretty busy otherwise but Sundays were always different and brought us together as a family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > But observing this weekly day of rest can actually be a radical act. Indeed, > what makes it so obsolete and impractical is precisely what makes it so > dangerous.

It was a radical act when introduced. The very religion that inspired it was radical and counter-intuitive. It's fun to see people rediscover that every few years.

edit: the article was way too informed about religious history to be anything other than a snow job by a religious society. Indeed, at the bottom it states that the article was funded by the Templeton Religion Trust.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel like observance of the Sabbath is actually one place where Christianity diverges[1] pretty clearly from many stricter Jewish traditions. Jesus pretty much straight up tells his disciples that Sabbath is for people to relax and that the weird laws around it were meaningless. But in general I'd say the author's sentiment is definitely on target. Guaranteed time off makes sense from many perspectives, morally and ethically. It's actually the one thing I kind of give credit to Chick-fil-a for. They'd make a killing if they opened on Sundays, but the owner genuinely believes he's morally obligated to give everyone Sunday off, so every single one closes on Sundays.

[1] quote below for reference:

 _At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,'[a] you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."_ \- Matthew 12

<comment><USER26> I'm LDS, and though I can feel the downvotes coming, I also feel like I can share some relevant personal experience here. We consider ourselves Christians and do not work on the sabbath, or I should clarify, are _encouraged_ not to (at an individual level all Mormons observe their religion differently, so some will work on the sabbath, or feel they have to in order to fulfill a sort of higher law of providing for their family, or whatever).

I guess I'd also add that in the general Christian view, the specific, older- testament-era laws around the sabbath had a meaning, but they were really pointers to higher laws and concepts rather than, or possibly in addition to, being materially meaningful standalone practices. And as you rightfully point out, those "little laws and practices" were also subject to a higher law. I remember when I lived in Japan, I was working outside as very hungry young missionary one day and a kind old woman grabbed some fruit and a bag of chips off of her family altar and gave them to me, demanding that I eat. This had similar significance to me and is an experience that's very close to my heart.

IMO sabbath observance a great practice. There are few things like the feeling of a day that is uninterrupted by work concerns. And going beyond the limitation to what we _don't do_ on that day, it's also a day that's set aside for meditation, big-picture thinking about life, spirituality, and connection with the universal. In the past I let it slide a lot more than I do now, but in the past I was also a much less-healthy workaholic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm a North American who moved to France (not Paris) for a few years where _everything_ is closed on Sundays even most restaurants.

At first, I thought it was ridiculous.

But only after a few months did I come to appreciate it very much. People are with their families, doing 'whatever'.

When 'everyone else is off' there's so much less pressure. It's kind of like being disconnected.

Living in, Germany there are many holidays wherein it felt like this as well - quiet.

After experiencing 'Quiet Sundays' as an adult, think the economic case for 'Sunday Shopping' is overstated, and I actually wish we'd roll that one back.

It's a difficult argument to make in a 'GDP-driven and culturally secular world' ... but it makes sense in ways that are just a little too nuanced to make a public case for.

</comment><comment><USER28> The result will be the same whether it's called sabbath or "the right to disconnect".

Wages have stagnated and organizations are trying to squeeze more work out of each worker. All that while simultaneously reducing the organization's full- time staff or just cut the total amount of employees.

At some point people will snap or breakdown from working two 12 hour shift jobs each day. I'm joking obviously but it seems like that's what people have to work just to barely survive.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. And job insecurity is still a thing so even those who aren't overtly required to do so put in more than the expected amount to help reduce the likelihood they'll be in the discard pile the next time cost cutting measures come around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > what our society would need to look like for the Sabbath to be possible.

Keeping sabbath is possible, though sometimes difficult.

Coming from a fairly conservative presbyterian background, the hardest part for me was on-call responsibilities. There are exemptions for emergencies (for doctors, police, fire fighters, etc), but in some software jobs "emergencies" happen nearly every day and it didn't seem like that was adhering to the spirit of the rule.

But outside of that it just means you need to be better about planning to make sure you get work done on Saturday, or early Monday morning.

Once you get in the habit of disconnecting its totally worth it though.

<comment><USER6> I grew up LDS and remember a church youth speaker saying something like "It's OK to pull the ox out of the mire on Sunday as long as you didn't push him in on Saturday." :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think forcing people to be prepared for a day each week without any services (grocery, gas stations) would lead to better emergency preparedness in general. And better planning. (I still remember when people needed to withdraw cash during bank hours and thus had to plan ahead.)

I'd also be curious what the Sabbath would be. Sundown Friday to sundown Saturday? Saturday only? I believe the Christian conflation of church day with the Sabbath is a misapprehension of scripture, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER32> Eh, I don't think so. As mentioned above, almost all stores are closed in Germany on Sundays (not gas stations though, they will sell you emergency groceries for 2-3 times the usual price), and I don't think Germans are prepared that well. I think the frequency of natural disasters is more important for that (we have basically none in Germany).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > In a Sabbatarian economy, the right to rest – the right to do nothing of > value to capital – is as holy as the right to work.

I realise this article is for American readers, and I'm not sure how to compare the holiness, but the EU Working Time Directive includes the right to a day off. It's more flexible than a simple day off, and has other rights.

Enforcement against the gig economy companies might need to be improved, but otherwise seems to work fine.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive_2003)

</comment><comment><USER34> What we need is something we had in the union era - time and a half after 40 hours, time and a half on weekends, and double time on the seventh day. That kept employers from overdoing overtime.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm an atheist living in Israel. There is nothing more annoying to daily life then the Sabbath.

If you embrace it, then you must accept that no one works on saturday. You can't go to the store. There are no kids entertainment. Restaurants. Theaters. There is no public transportation because drivers need their rest too.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sabbath is not enough. There is so much progress in automation yet it has been so long since the last time the standard work week length has been decreased. Why the heck is it considered a norm that all the people are supposed to spend almost all the time (that is left after sleeping, home maintenance and gym) at work?

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm in. I don't roll on Shabbos!

</comment><comment><USER38> We get _both_ the Jewish and Christian Sabbaths off each week. We have more leisure and chance to reflect then ever before. It's our fault if we burn it up playing video games, watching tv, or working.

I've found that since I've started in software engineering I have much more trouble calming my mind down and thinking deeply. I'm trying getting up early in the morning, getting some exercise, food, and reading the Bible, which tends to get me into a more contemplative state. I just started, it's brightened my outlook and made me feel like I have more time in the day, though I can't tell if my work is benefiting yet.

</comment><comment><USER39> Another article in favor of the Sabbath:

[http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/sabbath-hard-and-go- home/](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/sabbath-hard-and-go-home/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Shades of National Sunday Law!

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/National_Sunday_law](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/National_Sunday_law)

> National Sunday law is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the United > States government is on the verge of enacting a national blue law that would > make Sunday a day of rest and worship. The theory is based on the idea that > the Pope is the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast is worshipped on > Sunday. Sinister forces (read: the Vatican) are conspiring to enact a > national Sunday law in the United States, which would be the trigger that > unleashes the fulfilment of the prophecies found in the Biblical books of > Daniel and Revelation. In addition, this law would outlaw worshipping on > Saturday, thus beginning a period of persecution of those who worship on > Saturday, or Sabbath.

> This idea originated within Seventh-day Adventism (which considers the > Sabbath to be Saturday), and some on the fringes of the SDA church have > taken a handful of failed Congressional bills and Papal writings and > inflated them into the trigger of the apocalypse. This is quite ironic > considering that you would think blue law opposition would come from more > secular groups.

I joke, but barely: Making any day a day of rest would play into religious persecution, and fears of same, in a nasty, nasty way.

</comment><comment><USER41> As a student in Cambridge MA in the late 70s, very few stores were open on a Sunday. I often played rugby matches on Saturday and I remember having to often find a few hours in the afternoon free of classes when I could do various shopping.

Just an anecdote but you don't have to go back to the truly distant past to find the vast majority of stores closed on Sunday.

<comment><USER42> Lots of (smaller) towns in Europe are still like this. It's very difficult to find stores open on Sunday, usually the only ones that are open are the large chain grocery stores.

<comment><USER43> Here in Norway shops that open on Sunday must be less than 100 square metres in area or sell only perishable goods. There really is no need for anyone to have to shop on Sunday. We need a day when it is quiet. Most people here generally avoid doing noisy diy or mowing the lawn on Sundays too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> How about we just work fewer/flexible hours, and spend our spare time on secular pursuits if we so choose?

<comment><USER45> Read the article...

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Chick-fil-a is notably one of very few restaurants closed on Sunday.

> all franchised Chick-fil-A Operators and their Restaurant employees should > have an opportunity to rest, spend time with family and friends, and worship > if they choose to do so

</comment><comment><USER47> "The Kapauku people of Papua think it is bad luck to work two consecutive days."

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

</comment><comment><USER48> I bet this audience would get a lot out of a teleological exposition of sabbath observance. The article doesn't touch on this. . . . Shabbat as a technology for transforming the world over time and the origins of the laws of shabbat as a program running (executed by people) to build the microcosmos into the macrocosmos, culminating in a world where we don't have to work anymore. But that might be too emic.

</comment><comment> d--b I've removed work emails from my phone 4 years ago. That's way more effective than turning everything off for 24 hours. First I'm still reachable if there's an emergency. Just call me (people don't call anymore so that almost never happens) and if no one calls I know it's because everything's fine. Second it's all the time, not just the Saturday.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is a possible idea for well-paid engineers. But many minimum wage people trying to get ahead appreciate the time and a half extra pay they get for working Sundays. Why would think we have a right to stop them from getting ahead by banning work on Sunday.

</comment><comment><USER50> Reminds me of the 'Blue Laws' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law)) that used to exist.

I think some good came with those, but also a lot of inconvenience for people who don't work 5x8.

<comment><USER51> They still exist. Paramus NJ mostly shuts down on Sunday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wonder how our concepts of work and rest have changed over time?

Is tending to your home, family, or garden considered work?

<comment><USER18> Well for Jews observing Shabbas that is answered in more details than you would possibly like to know...

<comment><USER53> True, but even the ancients of other cultures largely considered them odd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If this doesn't work out, can we at least keep one day a year? Please don't shop on Thanksgiving!

<comment><USER55> It actually used to be against the law. The King of England would put people in jail (or bring them to court at least) if they were caught working on a day of thanksgiving. This was 1600s of course...

There's a funny story about a guy in court being taken to task, but he said he didn't work, but his son did, and shenanigans ensued. Evidently it was a sign of protest against the king to work on thanksgiving days. Mainly because the king would declare them for his own purposes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I have been doing production the whole weekend with just few hours of sleep. I like the idea of this article. The pressure from work is intense and would love to observe the Sabbath just so that I can spend some time with the family.

</comment><comment><USER57> You know what would be _really_ cool? 365 / 5 = 73.

So if we eliminated Saturday and Sunday, we could work all year round. 73 weeks of fun-filled, delicious work each year!

</comment><comment><USER47> I also highly recommend Stefan Sagmeister's ted talk about sabbatical. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuOmTQdFjA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuOmTQdFjA)

</comment><comment><USER58> Bring back Saturnalia so we all get the week off between Christmas and New Years.

<comment><USER43> Move to Norway. In 32 years here I think I have only worked a couple of days in total between Christmas Eve and 2nd of January.

<comment><USER59> Literally move to anywhere in Europe, and save holidays. I always take minimum 10 days around the turn of the year, and its wonderful because the likelihood of coming back to 1k+ emails and 23 problems is reduced, as many other people will do the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I was raised Catholic and the Sunday day of rest has the same positive value. In Switzerland most shops shut on Sunday, so most people get a real break

</comment><comment><USER61> Hah,let's talk about why 'we' got rid of it to begin with.

Also, sabbath means "you can't work" not "you don't have to work if you don't want to"

</comment><comment><USER37> oh how i wish chick-fil-a didn't observe the [christian] sabbath!

</comment><comment><USER45> While we're at it, let's follow the jubilee calendar as well!

EDIT: downvotes?

</comment><comment><USER62> "The Sabbath's radicalism should be no surprise given the fact that it originated among a community of former slaves"

Just a reminder to readers, there is no historical evidence for the mass jewish enslavement by egyptians as described in the torah.

<comment><USER52> Isn't pretty much any historical text also historical evidence?

Maybe you mean archeological evidence, or corroberating historical evidence?

<comment><USER63> It's also corroborated by the other Abrahamic texts from what I understand. Let's not just throw out historical sources because of a personal agenda. It's unscientific.

<comment><USER64> The overwhelming consensus among (secular) biblical scholars and historians alike is that the Egyptian Exodus very likely never occurred.

The Pentateuch is a work of mythology. There is strong textual evidence that it's a compilation of many different stories and sources over the course of many years. It was most likely written centuries after the events it purports to describe. It is full of wildly unrealistic claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This article is ridiculous on a number of different levels. Its entire premise -- that everyone is working constantly -- is utter bullshit. Some are, but as I see it, that's entirely their business. This author wants to make it society's business.</comment>