Lisp support in vim - <AUTHOR> http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/if_mzsch.html

<comment><USER2> I recently (about 6 months ago, I think) switched from Vim to Emacs + Evil (a really good Vim emulator) and the switch can only be described as awesome:

I feel (and this may be just me) that Lisp in Emacs is easier to learn, better integrated, and offers more flexibility than VimScript in Vim. Thus, while my whole of custom VimScript over 5 years of usage can be reduced to around 20 lines in my vimrc, I've already written several small scripts, plugins, and more in emacs lisp since I started using emacs.

Also, the plugin / extension ecosystem is fantastic, the editor has a lot of great features, and almost every customization I could think of was easily (or sometimes not so easily done).

All the while, I kept using the deeply-in-muscle-memory-ingrained Vim normal mode syntax and I use and act in Emacs just like I would in Vim. There're very very few differences. (In fact, I regularly fire up vim for quick config file editing, and there's no _getting used to it_ because it really feels the same, only looks different and has less functionality, something which I don't need when I'm quickly changing a couple of lines in a config file).

If you like Vim but are wishing for a better integration language and possible more IDE like features, give Emacs + Evil a try:

[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil)

<comment><USER3> I gave it 21 days. Evil is by far the best vim emulator I have ever used. Seriously, nothing else comes close. It is also fairly trivial to fix the rough edges via the init.el.

> Lisp in Emacs is easier to learn

Agreed, not so much because the baseline is simpler, but because it is consistent -- everything is a function call -- and once you get over the hump, this is a huge benefit. Vimscript has gobs of gotchas.

> Also, the plugin / extension ecosystem is fantastic

Can't agree here. The plugins are often hard / annoying to use and missing critical features. I still think (despite vimscript) that the vim plugins are far better in most cases. Decent fuzzy finding across everything I care about (files, tags, buffers, etc) is a rather robust example of where emacs falls down... I tried literally dozens of extensions.. to get basically a "meh" solution.

At the end of the day, after using Evil 10 hours a day for 3 weeks -- I came the the conclusion that it is very good and very usable... some rough edges when you break out of evil mode, annoying console support (you need sr- speedbar, not speedbar), and annoying color schemes.

It did make me focus my vim workflow a little more with tools like vimux (works with tmux), expandregion, easymotion and a few other tricks that I learned to love from emacs.

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-levin Vim-fireplace with Clojure is really awesome. Check it out [1]. It's written by Tim Pope, who is a very active developer of Vim related tooling. The setup is simpler than Emacs, and works out of the box (cider for Emacs gave me endless headaches [2]).

I recommend it highly because it shortens your code-run-feedback cycle dramatically.

[1] [https://github.com/tpope/vim-fireplace](https://github.com/tpope/vim- fireplace) [2] [https://github.com/clojure- emacs/cider/issues](https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider/issues)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm interested in creating my own scheme interpreter and I've used /n?(vi)|m?|(e(x|d))/ for many years. For any external script the end user can stream back the transform simply by using the bang operator. How would I go about calling one of my scripts in vimscript so I could create named macros without the bang operator? Is there a library function which I can create a small system wrapper to call _any_ language on the system to extend it without bang?

</comment><comment> francis- Vim gets threading support via LISP before Emacs does - good for you guys.

(I'm a LISP + EMACS user who desperately needs threads in EMACS)

</comment><comment><USER5> ...or you could use Emacs viper-mode and get lisp support in vim in lisp.

<comment><USER6> Yo dawg, I heard you like Lisp so we...</comment></comment>


Forget Rock Stars, Gurus, Ninjas and Zen Masters  - <AUTHOR> http://www.rubyrailways.com/forget-rock-stars-gurus-ninjas-and-zen-masters/

<comment><USER3> Web 2.5 Code Terrorist - that is just so freakin' funny. How about coming up with similar programmer metaphors for job posts....

Looking for a Rails Black Magician who actually worships the Devil himself everyday before coming in to work to sell their soul to our start up in exchange for a crappy salary and some probably worthless 'stock options'. Perks include unlimited animals for use in ceremonial debugging sacrifices and root access for everyone. Login now and take a look at our servers - <USER2> PrinceOfDarkness. If you are truly an evil coding bastard send us your resume today!

<comment><USER4> Please accept my toad as he ate my resume while performing some voodoo. Cutting his belly should reveal my crappy resume...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wanted:

DHTML Rapist to demoralize and abuse Internet Explorer's layout and javascript bugs...

<comment><USER6> So, neither DHTML nor Rape are hyped in the media anymore. The reason the original post is so poignant is that it takes the current trends and out- trendies them, whereas your post is a regression of the current trends, and so is just annoying.

That being said, I hate internet explorer enough to upmod you.

<comment><USER5> You're right, just regular old "rape" is so passe these days.

What about "Web 3.0 Pedophile who can assault web browsers with JQuery and CSS, and convince them not to tell anyone, leaving them with life-long issues." (SVU's still on TV, right?)

<comment><USER7> You need to include "Global warming denying athiest" in there somewhere also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is why it is good to be a lisp pacifist in times of conflict. It may mean being largely ineffectual to the eyes of mere mortals but at least deep inside you know you are being more effectively ineffectual.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looking for code terrorist to constantly introduce new bugs, leave files checked out from source control, and generally impede progress.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am now styling myself as a Ruby Bionic Commando.

</comment><comment><USER11> Tis summer, the middle east meets the far east in an epic battle for the west! WEB 2.5: Ninjas vs Terrorists The movie!

</comment><comment><USER12> Hi, I am a web 3000 Jehadi :P

<comment><USER12> I am CSS Husain now I got weapons of mass development

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Code terrorist: the person that you blame things on to draw attention from the fact that your project was already screwed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wanted: People to give up kitchsy names altogether.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this the level right before JavaScript Martyr?

</comment><comment><USER16> anyone need an osama bin XHTML ?

</comment><comment><USER17> it would be nice to have your employees categorized like Diablo 2 Characters. :P (slayer, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER18> It's all about Heroes, Warriors, et al now.

Wanted: Wizard, Level 14 or better with INT 18, WIS 16+. Please submit current character sheet including THAC0 and base armor class.

<comment><USER19> Screw wizard I'd rather have a Sorceror with Charisma 18. That way he can cast spells and do sales at the same time.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have your weekends evolved into "workends"? - <AUTHOR> I used to view weekends as my "free time" to relax/enjoy.
However, within the past couple of years I've noticed my weekends filling up with unfinished work tasks from the week before. I now spend most weekends in (more or less) a "work from home" state.
On the one hand it's nice because I have fewer interruptions.
On the other hand I have very little time that isn't spent working.
Has your definition of weekend changed as well? <comment><USER2> When you work you're selling your effort and time for money. When you work during the weekend without compensation you're just giving your employer free labor.

Lots of people do this because they want to appear reliable, competent or dedicated. But usually it ends up just becoming an expectation of you and people around you.

The day you won't do it anymore you will be criticized (maybe not in your face) for it. And it would become expected of you.

If the workload is consistently overflowing to your weekend that means you are having issues estimating the time/effort it takes to finish your tasks.

<comment><USER3> > If the workload is consistently overflowing to your weekend that means you > are having issues estimating the time/effort it takes to finish your tasks.

It could also mean that your employer is having issues estimating the time/effort it takes to finish your tasks. Or that they aren't, and just don't care.

<comment><USER2> From my (limited) experience teams usually estimate tasks themselves à-la "agile".

Overconfidence or people trying to show-off can have you underestimating the time it takes for things to be delivered thus causing these kind of situations.

<comment><USER4> I've seen it go bad both ways. Inexperienced leaders often pressure them to push their estimates down.

Also working excess hours tends to screw with estimates as something in the head clicks that you can always work longer if the estimates are off. My estimates are strictly 40 hours/week, no more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've gone out of my way, likely at the detriment of my career, to make sure my personal time stays personal. Obviously in a few extenuating circumstances there are exceptions - but other than that I don't even check email once I'm done for the day.

I watched my father work weekday and weekend throughout his life and never seeming to enjoy a minute of it. I knew that wasn't the life for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a young family, there's no way I'm working more than 40 hours a week unless a rare emergency comes up. Raising healthy children and having a happy wife are far more important to me, my family, and society.

If I were single I'd be less of a stickler about this, but would still not be ok doing more than 45 on a regular. After 30-40 hours, more working hours rarely translates to more productivity.

<comment><USER4> I find about 20 hours/week to be the cap. The remaining 20 hours is just sitting around the office recovering from the intensity of flow. Working a full 40 hours usually translates to _less_ productivity and my workplace has recognized that.

<comment><USER6> I suppose it depends on the type of work, but as a web developer I'd be very unsatisfied with my team if we only got 20 real hours of work. On my previous team we did pair programming and had a very sustainable 30-32 hours a week. Now this did include ~3 hours of meetings, but they were always productive, good meetings.

Our trick was to work in 90-minute bursts, with 30 minute breaks where we actively stepped away, took a walk, played ping pong or Nintendo, got coffee, stretched, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No. I leave my work laptop in the office Friday at 4pm and don't open it or think about it until Monday at 9:30am.

Unless you're self-employed or at a bootstrapped startup, why give your employer your free time?

</comment><comment><USER8> I am fortunate enough to work remotely, so I can have a very productive environment during the week, too.

And what's not done by Friday, is not done, not my problem really since I'm paid by the hour.

</comment><comment><USER9> I work some weekends, but only because the job is so interesting.

Here's an example: our R&D team needs various national ID documents to train their AI (text recognition). But they hit a wall - where does one obtain 10s or 100s of IDs? Governments aren't handing out specimens. You can't walk up to random people on the street and ask to scan their ID card. Friends and family - too few!

So the only solution is to 'forge' documents... That's what I've been having fun with over the last few weekends!

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone reading this who finds themselves in this situation- Quit that job and find a new one. There are too many opportunities in this industry to spend your time in a situation like this. Especially if you find yourself regularly working weekends and it's for someone else... not even your own startup.

</comment><comment><USER11> Where are you from? Is it culturally expected of you to donate your time off to your employer?

My employer gets 36 hours a week as per the contract agreed between us. Incidental favours aside, any structural deviation of those hours comes at a significant cost to my family and my personal welfare (e.g., not getting round to odd jobs around the house, domestic chores, hobbies, leisure, sex, and raising a child).

So why are you working in your weekends?

If you enjoy working with distractions and it benefits your work, why not figure out a way to work from home on certain days in the week?

It is not normal to keep on working beyond the agreed upon hours if you are a salaried employee. You're life is simply too short to throw it away like that.

</comment><comment><USER12> You're paid by the hour and getting time and a half, right? If not you are devaluing the labor pool for your coworkers. They make less money because of you. Maybe you think worldwide income inequality hasn't grown large enough and it's your job to push money upward toward ownership at the expense of your coworkers. If so, keep it up.

</comment><comment><USER13> Are you asking as salaried staff, a contractor or startup founder?

Seems to me that many managers will extract as much work out of you as they can get away with. In some companies you are simply expected to work 70-80 hours a week - not only in programming, but in accounting and law firms too.

</comment><comment><USER14> No I intentionally only work the 37.5hours I'm contracted to and no more, hoping to get it down to 30hours this year. I'd only ever make an exception to that if I was working for myself.

</comment><comment><USER15> What's your age? I've noticed in my circle that single unmarried people have less pressing things to do after work, thus are open to working in the weekends, unlike people with families.

</comment><comment><USER16> No weekends, no work outside of business hours.

</comment><comment><USER17> Evolved? I think you mean de-evolved!</comment>


Impact on mood and productivity of daily schedule - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-be-healthier-happier-and-more-productive-its-all-in-the-timing-1514560647 <comment><USER2> Archived link: [https://archive.fo/ZdlW4](https://archive.fo/ZdlW4)</comment>


Show HN: Bootstrap 4 Upgrader - <AUTHOR> http://demo.bootstraptor.com/bootstrap4/ <comment><AUTHOR> Upgrade Bootstrap 3.* to Bootstrap 4.* in 1 click</comment>


MongoHQ public beta Heroku addon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/4/30/mongohq_add_on_public_beta/

<comment><USER2> This is great since I use both Heroku and MongoDB. Pardon the self-plug, but I wrote an article a few months ago about using Heroku with external MongoDB servers: [http://www.developer.com/lang/rubyrails/article.php/3860616/...](http://www.developer.com/lang/rubyrails/article.php/3860616/A-Rails- Cloud-Implementation-Using-MongoDB-and-Heroku.htm)

Last year I tried to talk a customer into using Heroku for a medium size web deployment. They didn't go for it, and so we spent a fair bit of money setting up Elastic Load Balancing, EC2s, etc. Unless you expect a zillion users, it just does not make sense to spend the effort on custom deployments. Same positive comment for using high quality VPS hosting where you can expect your hosting company to do frequent incremental backups, proactively repair RAIDs, get VPS instances back on line quickly after hardware failures, etc.

It is a lot of fun setting up servers but the question is whether that is worth being pulled away from application development. Anyway, good news re: MongoHQ being an add-on product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Heroku is to hosting and deployment what Rails is to web development. It's so easy. And it keeps on getting better and better.

<comment><USER4> It would be really interesting if James could write something on how the company works. It seems like they are only a three people company. But, they got a lot of things done.

<comment><USER5> We currently have sixteen employees, though that number is growing monthly. I suspect we work like any other young company - what would you like to know?

<comment><USER6> 18 now. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, I missed the new pricing on MongoHQ. Having Heroku and MongoHQ free for basic setup is pretty awesome for trying out new stuff.</comment>


BitBucket now has voting on issues. - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/3674/add-ability-to-vote-for-issues-bb-3647

<comment><AUTHOR> Issues for BitBucket itself, sorted by votes. [https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues?status=new&status=o...](https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues?status=new&status=open&sort=-votes)</comment>


Why would a front-end developer on OS X use any editor besides BBEdit? - <AUTHOR>

I have tried Sublime and Atom, BBEdit is better. Atom is slow and Sublime hard to grep and multi-file search/replace. <comment><USER2> You have violated the First Law of Computering

"Thou shall not start an editor war, for they are without end, lacking all rigour and decorum."

</comment><comment><USER3> Because "grep and multi-file search/replace" is not exactly what a front-end developer does.

If you try to do actual programming, instead of grepping and replacing, SublimeText (and Atom, though slower) are much more featured. From build systems integration, to "go to function" and myriads of plugins for linting, AST based auto-complete, etc etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> to me a lot of "features" just get in the way. i code css/html/javascript, and for that bbedit seems to work better than submlime or atom.

however i guess for other, more complex situations, having more add-on options and such might be beneficial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sooooo many reasons. Here are a few:

* [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/)

* [http://www.gnus.org/](http://www.gnus.org/)

* [http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JabberEl](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/JabberEl)

<comment><AUTHOR> those don't convince me, though maybe i'm not reading far enough in to see their significant use point. bbedit does what i need and does it well. i write css/html/javascript for dev work, and it works fine for keeping notes or whatever like that first link mentions.

<comment><USER4> I have the nasty feeling I'm being trolled, but ... try watching these to get a feel of what a proper programmable editor is capable of:

* [https://vimeo.com/13158054](https://vimeo.com/13158054)

* [https://vimeo.com/30721952](https://vimeo.com/30721952)

Basically, the idea is that your editor becomes your entire world. News, email, chat, source control, code, running code ... everything merges into the one system, and efficiency gains in one area tend to be applicable to others.

All your keyboard accelerators, macros, etc. etc. are available to _all_ functions. Want to kill to the end of the line? It's C-k ... in everything. In your editor, in your email client, in your scheduler ...

<comment><AUTHOR> not trying to "troll", my question was genuine, though i admit i could have phrased it more narrowly.

personally i prefer not having to learn new keyboard shortcuts to style a todo list for example as that first video discusses. i just write it out, use an asterisk or some easy system to show points, outline levels or whatever. if it's important to get done that day i note that in plain text. this is faster and easier to remember than learning a whole system for todo lists and marking up the different items importance, etc.

i want my email client to be focused on email, and a scheduling or calendar program to be focused just on that. for me bbedit is a swiss army knife of text editors in that it does lots of things to text - grep, search over huge numbers of directories, whatever. but i don't want one environment for things beyond that. for me those do many things badly, instead of one thing well.

<comment><USER4> Ah, but that's just the point. Emacs doesn't do many things badly, it does many things better than the alternatives :)

E.g. take one case, recurring appointments. You can do the usual (monthly, weekly, etc.) or embed a snippet of Lisp code in your org-mode file; if it evaluates true when your agenda is being generated, then the item is deemed to be repeating that day.

So, let's say you want your calendar to contain an event if the weather is forecast to be over 40 degrees C on that particular day[1]. Easy if you're using org-mode, but basically impossible with every other system I've seen.

The point behind using a programmable editor is that their programmability allows you to extend them in ways that their original creators never intended. Whereas, say, a conventional email client is designed to be used in just the way its creators intended, and never extended.

I gave a presentation on this topic (the power of programmable UIs) a while back:

[https://github.com/duncan- bayne/presentations/blob/master/pr...](https://github.com/duncan- bayne/presentations/blob/master/programmable- interface/programmable_interfaces.pdf)

 _Edited to add_ : in fact, lack of programmability is basically what's broken about modern computing environments. People are so used to software being non- programmable that they don't know what they're missing. It's no accident that even rudimentary programmable environments like Excel are so popular.

[1] ... which is a reasonable requirement for me; the work done by the systems I help to build is highly dependant upon weather.

<comment><AUTHOR> well i don't care about appointments from my text editor... i think i should delete this question and re-phrase it more narrowly, unfortunately it seems it's impossible to delete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because front end is so much more than vanilla html css etc. You have Sass, handlebars, svg and more to deal with. If you only use the basics, maybe a simpler solution works for you. But calling the others into question just because they don't work for you is pedantic.

<comment><AUTHOR> i deal with all of those - sass, handlebars, svg.</comment></comment>


How to form a new habit – and make it stick - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/how-to-form-a-habit <comment><AUTHOR> do any of these work for you?</comment>


Show HN: Boardist – personal workspace for all the data - <AUTHOR> https://boardist.io/ <comment><USER2> I like the landing page. The screenshots and videos make it quite clear what to expect. The pricing looks good and there's even a free tier. I am writing a similar (open-source) tool [1] and always looking for inspirations ;)

[1] [https://dashboard.darekkay.com/](https://dashboard.darekkay.com/)

<comment><USER3> Agree that it's a nice landing page. They mention importing data - so where is the privacy policy, export ability, delete my data if I want. This sounds like what I want but I'd like to pay you for the right to run my own stack for privacy. I just have no interest in exposing my entire life to another Corp. I grudgingly do it with Google but I'm trying to get away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback! You can delete all your data at any moment. Unfortunately, for now, there is no export option. Could you please also specify your concerns in a more detailed way so we could address them in a full way? We highly appreciate your privacy and we would love to know the needs of the users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks really cool! However, as an Evernote and Notion customer (yes, I use and pay for both), I would love to know what would make me switch tools, or add this to my subscriptions?

<comment><USER5> right... I primarily use Notion and I'm trying to wrap my head around what value the "Board" paradigm has over Notes and Blocks

<comment><USER6> Same, Notion feels like a more powerful generalist tool for this case with the power of tables and collaboration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems very interesting but closed the tab after seeing google login

</comment><comment><USER8> Out of curiosity I Would love to know the techstack behind this

<comment><USER9> My naive assumption would be React + Material UI for the frontend based on what they're using on the landing page and how the components looks in the screenshots. Could be wrong, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Login with Google, Chrome only extension... no thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't expect that login with Google will confuse people so much as it's just a popular auth provider. However, thank you for the note, I will take it into account for the future.

Unfortunately, Firefox has issues with WebAuthFlow and I wasn't able to deliver extension on this stage. Definitely, Firefox extension is a Must and I will work on a workaround to deliver it later on. I hope for your understanding.

<comment><USER11> Confuse is not the verb you are looking for. Repel is. You should have expected it would repel some people. Then, if it is an issue or not, that, is up to you to decide.

<comment><USER10> It's a shame because it looks very interesting. But I'm not going to use chrome nor any of google services if I can avoid it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a local auth now [https://boardist.io](https://boardist.io) It will be great to have you onBoard

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this "personal" workspace hosted on someone else's computer?

<comment><AUTHOR> I truly understand your concerns but for now Boardist can only provide the cloud solution. One of the future improvements will include the encrypted widgets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The landing page looks sleek, but what can it do that Trello cannot?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are more about data organization and management while Trello is more about list-making</comment></comment>


Here are the differences between attendees of the DNC and RNC, according to Yelp - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/difference-between-rnc-and-dnc-on-yelp-2016-7 <comment><USER2> Have they compared this to ordinary levels of query volume fluctuations and considered other events that may have been happening in those regions at the same time?

<comment><USER3> Probably not.

If you look at the top 100 pages on Wikipedia from one month to the next you see a huge amount of variation and churn on the list.</comment></comment>


Lisp: love the language, hate the people - <AUTHOR> http://nothinghappens.net/?p=217#comments

<comment> tac-tics I visited #lisp only a handful of times, but the one time I tried asking a question, I received a flamebath along with my answer. If newcomers step on your toes, channel regulars should have the maturity to deal with it respectfully. I'm not entirely new to Lisp, and I'm not stupid, so why not take the time to try and educate instead of discourage? I asked just that, and I got very close to, "why waste the energy, you'll never learn." Ten minutes in an IRC channel isn't enough time to make such a judgement.

The article above may be a bit blunt about it, but I think the term "douchebaggery" is pretty darned accurate from my experience with #lisp.

</comment><comment><USER2> Do you think the problem is that LISP has been tied up with academia for too long for the community to be friendly?

<comment><USER3> I think the problem is mostly imaginary.

<comment><USER4> It's not imaginary, but it is unimportant. Spend a day in #haskell, #python, or #ruby asking basic questions about the language, then repeat in #lisp.

There are helpful people in the CL channel, but most newbie assistance ends with the veteran delivering a scolding. That doesn't consistently happen in other language channels, but perhaps it should.

<comment><USER5> It shouldn't if said language wants to stay popular. Community will always trump any flaw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I visit #lisp for about a year and the guys are cool. Good discussions with maintainers of some projects like Zach. I agree with PG, it's mostly imaginary.

</comment><comment><USER7> A pity that just a few eccentric people can actually destroy the reputation of a programming language.

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://programming.reddit.com/info/updn/comments/>

<comment><USER9> That was unfortunate. But the community did jump in and tried too help. There was no one else saying or doing anything weird. Anyone can do something stupid. It was stupid and mean.</comment></comment>


Why the Desktop Gets No Respect, and Should - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367202,00.asp

<comment><USER2> The article started off okay, but then when he suggested requiring licences to use a computer and removing infected machines from owners by court order it got completely ridiculous. We should be working towards making it even easier to get people online, not constructing more artificial barriers to prevent it. If someone choses to remain ignorant and not learn about their computer (leading to an infected machine) this is not a legal problem. Getting more people access to the largest information medium in human history is the goal, sure some will use it for trivial purposes, but that isn't our concern and certainly not our prerogative to regulate it. This article incorrectly assumes there is no future for both the computer as an 'appliance' and as a more powerful tool and I think we can be assured there is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones exist along a continuum of preference, price, and individual desires. It's not that desktops don't get respect—it's that the market for them is saturated and unlikely to grow, so few manufacturers focus much on them.

Look, I use an iMac and like desktops enough for their advantages (price, power, etc.) to have written a whole post on the subject: [http://jseliger.com/2008/12/26/computer-post-desktop-or- lapt...](http://jseliger.com/2008/12/26/computer-post-desktop-or- laptopnotebook/) . But that doesn't mean desktops should "get more respect" or that because most apps are dumb tablets and smartphones are any less useful.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've recently been thinking about whether there is a genuine role for serious computing ability at "home" (even if accessed over the air via an iPad-like device) and clicked on this article .. and was utterly disappointed. The article doesn't present _any_ valid _arguments_ for the value of the desktop.

If people want to use phone apps as conversation starters, so what? .. and how many really want to fool around with Illustrator? .. and a licence to use computers? really?

</comment><comment><USER5> Taken with a grain of salt since it's written by a magazine that basically has the word 'desktop' in its name...

</comment><comment><USER6> what a random rant...</comment>


Fundamental RPGology - <AUTHOR> http://rpgmaker.net/events/rpgology/ <comment><USER2> An idea, stolen from the "The Dark Eye" (TDE) (pen&paper RPG) is that different weapons have different distance ranges, and you need successful actions to change the current distance. (Yes, I know, it introduces a second gauge)

IIRC in TDE there are four distances, one for very long weapons (like Halberd), one in between for two-handed swords and the like, one for normal sword fights, and one for hand fights and knifes.

And of course a Halberd is no use to use if the opponent is only half a meter away with a knife.

So different weapons have different penalties based on the distance; changing weapons costs time, which your opponent can use against you; changing distance also costs time (for example with feints that keep the enemy at their current spot, and give you freedom to move away).

Then you have different skills for different weapons, and general skills for actions like switching weapons, changing distance and the like.

I'm now tempted to try making a battle system based on that, but I fear time constraints (two small children at home...) make it unlikely that something good comes out.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Button Men got short mêlée fighting just right.

A handful of dice and a few minutes.

[http://www.cheapass.com/node/39](http://www.cheapass.com/node/39)

</comment><comment><USER4> Very intrigued. I want to draft some "one-hour RPGs" \-- short stories instead of the usual epic -- and this research will help.

And if you're a HN reader familiar with RPG Maker, give me a shout (rpg at thirdtruck dot org). I'm excited at the prospect of collaborating.

<comment><USER5> Short story equivalents of RPG's sound interesting. I still enjoy RPGs, but often can't make the time commitment to play them. Do you know of commercial or polished freeware examples of games like that? At the extreme end of the spectrum is Half-Minute Hero[1]. (As one of the reviews says, maybe more puzzle than RPG). If you haven't played it, you might want to check it out.

[1] [http://store.steampowered.com/app/214830/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/214830/)

<comment><USER6> I really enjoy Desktop Dungeons. It's easy to pick up for a short play session and then put it down. The game mechanics are simple on the surface, but some deep thinking is required to master the more difficult dungeons.

[http://www.desktopdungeons.net/](http://www.desktopdungeons.net/)

It's also available on Steam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I want to combine this with my idea of accidentally summoning elder gods with the forgotten Greek alphabet ASCII character set...

</comment><comment><USER7> With this and kivy (posted yesterday) I now have a new project to work on :)

</comment><comment><USER8> So who is actually doing this?</comment>


Ask HN: In theory, how would you monetize HN? - <AUTHOR> How would you do it? How much do you think monetization would be worth?<p>Seems like an interesting marketing thought exercise. <comment><USER2> I'd start a seed fund that specialized in startups driven by technical entrepreneurs and mentor them / provide them with connections to investors. HN would be the major channel for getting new startups to apply.

<comment><USER3> Didn't YC precede HN?

<comment><USER4> Yes; The observation is that HN _does_ monetize. It's effectively a filtering mechanism and advertising tool for YC and YC companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd change all amazon links to affiliate links (assuming they weren't affiliate links already, not that I've seen very many here). There are a boat load of posts devoted to books here, and lots of book recommendations going on outside those posts. The big book threads get linked to again and again.

The only other thing I can suggest that I think would appeal to the community would be to sell ads to ycombinator startups at ridiculously low rates. One to two ads per page, nothing obscene.

<comment><USER6> The problem with that would be that it would encourage spam. I would only have affiliate links in quality filtered lists (Top Picks/Most Recommended, Editors Choice, and personal lists that users could maintain on their profile page).

Advertising inherently seems to warp content, I think a premium membership option would put the incentive on satisfying user interests, rather than marketers.

<comment><USER7> It would only encourage PG to spam. :p (I think the idea behind this is that the site converts them to PG's amazon affiliate account, so he's making the referral bonuses.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> HN is already monetized. It's one of a couple effective vehicles for YC awareness. I have no doubt that many applicants first encounter YC via HN.

That's a radically different monetization model than you might be thinking of, but many other shorter term models would have a negative impact on the HN experience and the YC promotion effect.

<comment><USER9> I'm sure some do, but YC is already in the news heavily. If you look at it as 80/20, I doubt 80% of the people first learn about YC through HN.

<comment><USER10> I'm in the 20, then.

<comment><USER11> Interesting...in my techphilia, I found HackerNews through just following interesting stories, and landing on a singular discussion, which is now a daily obsession of going through the posted articles :D

This exposure is one of those hard to ROI measure functions (press) etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Add a job board. 375$ per job posting.

<comment><USER13> While I think HN should have this too, I think you're setting that cost pretty low. I've often wished there was a way to post (non-YC, non-startup) jobs to HN. It would be at least as good as if not more effective than what you get from a professional recruiter. I'm pretty certain a rate of $1500 would be reasonable. Especially given the huge savings in time that I don't have to spend filtering the total bozo applicants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Premium membership: $1/month, provides ability to collapse the comments below any given comment.

<comment><USER15> I would pay happily. Sometimes the discussion gets derailed and there is no way I can effortlessly skip it.

<comment><USER16> [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hockhafcdegocajmjh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unless the ethos of the site were changed, you'd have to have any features limited to gold members limited because they're computationally expensive, and not just to encourage payment -- the way reddit lets gold members have different sort orders on eir profiles, or view more comments in one page. Arbitrarily picking (i.e. "you can't see dead comments unless you're gold") would make the site worse.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would turn HN itself into a startup company. Have some dedicated people working on the problems of scaling, adding new frequently requested features, and community management. It could be monetized by a mix of relevant ads and paid premium accounts allowing access to additional aspects of the site.

<comment><USER19> So... reddit?

<comment><USER18> If reddit doesn't have scaling issues, then yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Easy, charge for a monthly fee to access the site. Period. Sort of along the lines of Metafilter's one time fee, in order to keep the commentary and content both relevant and interesting you could raise the barrier to entry.

<comment><USER21> I think this may harm the quality. I believe there are many students here who contribute a lot and if you set the barrier too high, they wouldn't be able to afford it.

<comment><USER22> If you honestly think a college student can't find $5 somewhere to paypal for a one-time fee, you're kidding yourself. And I say that as a college student.

<comment><USER21> I am a college student and 10$ is my monthly allowance

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Primarily Google Ads (or equivalent).

If HN has reached some critical mass of readers I'd (in a craigslist-fashion) charge small fees for certain types of commercial posts (job postings, review my startup/webservice etc).

</comment><comment><USER24> I know searching the site is something I want to do constantly. I would offer some sort of pay-for-search credits system or a membership $5-7 per month that simply lets me search.

<comment><USER17> Did you know about <http://searchyc.com/> ? It's a good search engine for HN.

<comment><USER24> awesome thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Thank you all: Relaunching after feedback from this thread - <AUTHOR>

Just wanted to thank everyone for feedback on my site. Here is the relaunch
Few days ago I read a post here by @berube on testing new ideas. http://startupbound.com
A bit late for me to implement that concept as I already invested and launched my product. In that thread I had asked for some feedback on my product site because I was having good success selling offline but not from my website. I got some good feedback about the site and also some hints from @berube's post. So here is the redesign and re-launch with new bold domain to match the game http://FuckThisCardGame.com . Already seeing positive response and inquiries from retail.
for those interested in seeing the old site here u go http://FuckThisCardGame.com/oldsite.png <comment><AUTHOR> fyi I will be posting on the marketing of this game on <http://littlebookoflearning.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> any chance for more non video content about how the game works?

Also, the backstory sounds interesting. It might make me want to buy the game.

So it'd be cool to see it on the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi johnny22 Backstory and card photos are added</comment></comment>


US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/08/us_navy_linux_drones/

<comment><USER2>
      The US government can directly combine GPL and
      proprietary/classified software into a single program
      arbitrarily, as long as the result is never conveyed
      outside the U.S. government

Just to be clear, this is true for any organization using GPL materials, correct?

<comment><USER3> Yes, though, as I understand it in this case the government is the user _and_ the developer where as a lot of large companies avoid sharing changes by offering their software as a web service (ie: they don't have to distribute the binary) something which I believe changes to the GPL in v3 were supposed to address.

<comment><USER4> Even if the government was buying it from Raytheon, this would only mean that the government must receive a copy of the source code under the GPL. It does not mean the software must be distributed freely to everyone.

As I understand it.

<comment><USER5> That's my understanding as well. If you distribute the software, you must distribute the source upon request. You're under no obligation to distribute something you develop for your own use, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now if only I could get Linux on my Navy desktop, instead of winXP under NMCI. I have all but fired my issued desktop and do as much as possible on my iPad and MacBook.

<comment><USER7> Is virtualbox (or some other VM) not an option for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> First of all, how in the world are they "buying" Linux from Raytheon? They're apparently buying 28M of "services" from Raytheon, not "Linux."

Second of all, what's up with all the stuff that one would think should be classified info showing up all over the media lately?

<comment><USER9> Political cheer-leading in an election year.

[http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/08/obama-im-offended- that...](http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/08/obama-im-offended-that-my- hyperpolitical-administration-is-being-accused-of-leaking-classified-info-for- electoral-gain/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Guess they went with Redhat then?

</comment><comment><USER11> They were controlling drones...with Windows XP? Oh my. Don't tell me they were logging through IE6, too.

<comment><USER12> Had some fun on a Virgin Atlantic flight the other day. Entertainment system wasn't working and got to watch an attendant rebooting into Windows 98 over and over.. turns out the reason it takes 30+ minutes for the system to "reboot" is because ScanDisk is forced to run on every boot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> asked rms few months ago if it wouldn't make sense to change the gpl in the direction of "no military use allowed". he replied that would destroy the "free software philosophy". i disagree. hate the idea that human beings are killed with the help of gnu/linux and/or free software.

<comment> why-el I have to agree with rms here. No _X_ allowed is inherently anti-free software. In cases like this one has to think long term, as in how freer software can lead to freer societies, i.e. societies that escape government coercion. That itself I think will lead to a significant decrease in military activity because free uncoerced citizens can stop their governments from engaging in such self-destructive acts.

<comment><USER13> i know this all-or-nothing-argument and yes it is correct. it's about purity of the idea of free software, but killing humans is not pure. so how can the idea stay pure therefore?

and what do i tell my grandchildren if the ask me one day: "grandpa, why exactly did you write that big while-switch-statement which killed 6.000.000 people in 2016?"

<comment><USER14> "I didn't write it so that 6 million people would be killed, nor did i write it for those people to use specifically. I wrote it to make people's lives easier and to advance human knowledge. I wrote it to create a tool that other could use. Like how people use a hammer. And just like a hammer, while most people used it how it was intended, some people used it to kill other people or to destroy things. Despite that, though, we don't ban hammers and stop making them.

Yes, some people used my code badly, and did horrible things with it, but others used it in spaceships and self driving cars. Ultimately what I made was a tool, and once something like code or an idea or a design is given to the world and the world sees how good it is, there is no way to restrict who uses it or how they use it.

My code is not inherently evil, nor is it inherently good. It just is. Others can use it to do good or to do bad, but at the end of the day, they are just using a tool to multiply the effects of their actions."

<comment><USER13> well, i sleept on that and came to the point that this problem is similar to the knife-problem: you can use a knife to butter your bread or to cut someone into little pieces - but that's not the knife's fault or the fault of the guy who made the knife or the guy who invented the concept of the knife.

therefore rms and you other smart bastards;) were right - i was wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Content Marketing Tool - <AUTHOR> http://digitalcontenthacks.com/uprise-io-brand-new-content-marketing-tool/

<comment><USER2> Like on many websites, there is just too much clutter for me here to stay longer then a second. I made a screenshot and marked everything I hate about that page. I wish all that noise would go away. Then I would read the text.

[http://i.imgur.com/aUH3CjM.png](http://i.imgur.com/aUH3CjM.png)

Am I the only one that feels this way?</comment>


City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23665490 <comment><USER2> For those unaware, this is not "London" that's stopping the tracking bins, it's the City of London. This is the historical center and current financial district. It is ~1 square mile out of ~600 for the. There are all sorts of curiosities around the City - it is not governed like the other boroughs and is extremely wealthy in its own right. Conspiracy theorists have found much fodder in the City government and control.

The current set of bins are claimed to all be in the City , but this move is not the end of of the tracking of people in London via their phones.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, the same City of London that is surrounded by the "Ring of Steel"[1] - described as a "surveillance cordon" with almost half a million CCTV cameras. At the checkpoints police had near-carte-blanche to search any vehicle they liked.

From a different era, granted, but a strange entity to be kicking up a fuss about privacy.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_\(London\))

<comment><USER4> Wealthy people like to protect their personal privacy.

<comment><USER5> Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system.

There's gotta be money in that, eh?

<comment><USER4> Think of all the fun you can have too. You could potentially fake a person's electronic signature and then visit strange places.

<comment><USER5> Kind of reminds me of Ghost in the Shell philosophy[0]:

What good is electronic surveillance when people who can run scripts and programs to imitate other people to the point that it will be indistinguishable from the real thing?

Thinking about this stuff gets me excited about the future. I'm deff going to be involved making stuff like this happen, haha.

Edit: Already getting myself involved with it now…

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_She...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell)

<comment><USER6> I JUST finished watching (for the nth time) episode 6 of SAC, and this is where the laughing man case takes form. I feel that if you're on Hacker News, it's a must watch because it blends philosophy and technology with a bit of ethics and possibility very very well.

Heck, I won't be surprised if someone's startup is inspired by that. I can already see usage of some tech that vaguely resembles the Oculus Rift (and yes, the Virtual boy of the past), ah you know what, just go watch it. You will not be disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one who finds that a bit silly? Perhaps the next step will be that we won't be allowed to look at other people on the street anymore, because we would gather too much information. What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail?

I wouldn't be surprised if every smartphone with WLAN also "tracks" other people on the street - if it keeps a list of WLANs it recently encountered.

Offering HotSpots would become troublesome, too.

And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every one of us? Should only big companies be allowed to collect data?

<comment><USER8> > And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every > one of us?

Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people. They specify what data they are collecting, and why, and they are subject to regulations about what they can do with the data and how long they can keep the data.

> What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a > potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail?

You can count people. What you can't do is take an identifying piece of information about that person and store it.

<comment><USER7> "Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people."

And it's probably really easy for "the little man" to register with the Data Protection Agency? Or do you need lots of lawyers and lots of money?

<comment><USER9> What's the Data Protection Agency?

Data protection is a law, it applies to anyone. There's no such thing as the data protection agency, just the information commissioner.

There's no money and no lawyers fees, do you care to explain yourself?

<comment><USER10> Is the Information Commissioners Office, which used to be the Data Protection Registrar, which deals with the Register of Data Controllers. Registration requires a fee which funds the Information Commissioners Office, however this fee is only £35, or £500 if you have a turnover of more than £25 million.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Note that it's the 'City of London Corporation' [1] that's called for a halt. The title at the moment implies that the authorities of London as a whole have gotten involved.

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

<comment><USER12> Yes. When most people say London they mean Greater London, not The City.

<comment><USER13> Well we mean "The City known as London". Most people outside of those that live there wouldn't understand the difference between the history of Londinium and its founding all the way back to Roman times. And the "suburbs" if you will that most people would identify to be the city itself. It is much like most people don't always distinguish the boroughs of New York from the City of New York until they need to have a reason to.

TLDR: I agree, and disagree simultaneously and think that the whole rats nest of London and who controls what with things like the "Mayor" to be... stereo- typically British for lack of a better term. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I keep seeing these Renew people dance around this whole "identifying information" thing.

Maybe they clarified it somewhere along the line, but I read the quartz article and the one before.

I can't think of anything more identifying that I carry than my MAC address(es). So say my MAC is 01:23:45:67:89:ab and Renew anonymizes this to "0001", clearly that's just as identifiable.

I genuinely can't think of a reason to gather MAC addresses other than to use them for profiling.

The human footfall/bean counter thing is great [1], but not worth any money to anyone. Seems more like a PoC...

I don't know a lot about AI recognition but I'd have thought you could have a camera counting people fairly easily.

I actually don't personally mind, I think it's fair game unless the government says it isn't - and then I can go back to just the worry of blackhats.

So unless I'm very mistaken this Reveal/Orb company are either building profiles, plan to, or have a business plan [1] that is going nowhere big.

[1] [http://www.littlesheep- learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.j...](http://www.littlesheep- learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.jpg)

<comment><USER15> It seems pretty clear from the way they talk about it that they're tracking who sees each ad on each bin in exactly the same way google tracks who sees each ad on each web page. The obvious next step for such a technology is to show specific ads only when people who might care about them are nearby. It's pretty genius really - it would put them miles ahead of other physical ad companies, at least until the rest started doing it too.

But yes, the obvious downside is that instead of worrying about google knowing everywhere you go on the internet, you now have companies that know everywhere you go physically as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1) Good.

2) who the hell wrote this article?

 _" The UK and the EU have strict laws about mining personal data using cookies, which involves effectively installing a small monitoring device on people's phones or computers, but the process of tracking MAC codes leaves no trace on individuals' handsets."_

I'm sorry, what now? a small data file is _not_ a "device." (answer: Joe Miller, apparently.)

<comment><USER12> Actually, a cookie could be considered a device, it would just be an unusual use of the word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I figured it to be a publicity stunt, the bins are selling advertising, this gets their description and capabilities into the press.

But it twigged an interesting idea (probably impractical) of a personal version of this device. It could give just watch for mac addresses (or bluetooth addresses) that got into range or stayed in range. If someone was following you in a car it might show up as continued presence of an unrecognized cell phone MAC address.

If done right you could do "recognition" with Glass using cellphone MAC rather than facial. Not sure if that counts in the rules, but people do inadvertently carry around an ID tag with them that is broadcasting their identity to anything that knows how to ask for it.

<comment><USER18> Those cost $57.

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap- spyi...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spying-tool- with-a-high-creepy-factor/?from=global.home)

<comment><USER17> Yup pretty much, although for mobility reasons you'd want it to be battery powered. I was thinking more like re-purposing a late model Android handset. Root it, put a kernel on it which was designed for surveillance rather than telephony, have it spool to it's microSD drive and get analyzed each evening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How hypocritical. Governments love to limit companies from tracking data and talk about citizen privacy. Meanwhile, they're tracking everyone, everywhere they can.

</comment><comment><USER20> Powerful bankers and lawyers do not like to be tracked, that is only good for the rest of us.

</comment><comment><USER21> Do as I say, not as I do.

(though not to say I approve of phone tracking).

</comment><comment><USER22> Sounds kind of like someone walking down the street repeatedly shouting out their name, and then getting offended that you write it down.

Maybe you should just stop shouting your name.</comment>


1,200 screenshots of computer interfaces from old movies - <AUTHOR> http://screen.waxy.org/screenshots/

<comment><USER2> N.S.A. Official use only - [http://screen.waxy.org/screenshots/ENEMYO34.jpg](http://screen.waxy.org/screenshots/ENEMYO34.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> ... "as of 2004."

<comment> jack-r-abbit Alien and Jurassic Park are from 2005. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At least two people aren't typing on the same keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER5> :( This is no longer on the front page... anyway, here is a simple viewer of this gallery: [http://jsfiddle.net/qgbE2/5/embedded/result/](http://jsfiddle.net/qgbE2/5/embedded/result/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Priceless.</comment>


Is sorted using SIMD instructions - <AUTHOR> http://0x80.pl/notesen/2018-04-11-simd-is-sorted.html <comment><USER2> When compiling with GCC, the option `-fopt-info-vec-all` gives you information about the vectorization of the code. In this case, GCC reports

       // the for block
       <source>:10:24: note: ===== analyze_loop_nest =====
       <source>:10:24: note: === vect_analyze_loop_form ===
       <source>:10:24: note: not vectorized: control flow in loop.
       <source>:10:24: note: bad loop form.
       <source>:5:6: note: vectorized 0 loops in function.

       // the if block inside the for block
       <source>:11:9: note: got vectype for stmt: _4 = *_3;
       const vector(16) int
       <source>:11:9: note: got vectype for stmt: _8 = *_7;
       const vector(16) int
       <source>:11:9: note: === vect_analyze_data_ref_accesses ===
       <source>:11:9: note: not vectorized: no grouped stores in basic block.
       <source>:11:9: note: ===vect_slp_analyze_bb===
       <source>:11:9: note: ===vect_slp_analyze_bb===
       <source>:11:9: note: === vect_analyze_data_refs ===
       <source>:11:9: note: not vectorized: not enough data-refs in basic block.

edit: with intel compiler using `-qopt-report=5 -qopt-report-phase=vec -qopt- report-file=stdout`

       Begin optimization report for: is_sorted(const int32_t *, size_t)

            Report from: Vector optimizations [vec]

        LOOP BEGIN at <source>(12,5)

           remark #15324: loop was not vectorized: unsigned types for induction
                          variable and/or for lower/upper iteration bounds make
                          loop uncountable

        LOOP END

<comment><USER3> You can get automatic vectorization (with -O3) like this:

        bool is_sorted(const int32_t* input, size_t n) {
          int32_t sorted = true;

          for (size_t i = 1; i < n; ++i) {
            sorted &= input[i - 1] <= input[i];
          }

          return sorted;
        }

And the performance is similar to the AVX version (benchmarked on a MacBook Air early 2015):

        $ ./benchmark_avx2 1048576
        input size 1048576, iterations 10
        scalar         : 6379 us
        SSE (generic)  : 3544 us
        SSE            : 3704 us
        My example     : 2769 us
        AVX2 (generic) : 2679 us
        AVX2           : 3360 us

So I'm getting 2769us with the above 5 simple lines of code. It's just 3% slower (that might be noise).

<comment><USER4> Though this does throw away early-exit, which means it will be many times slower for unsorted cases.

<comment><USER3> True, I had hoped GCC would optimize that -- it doesn't :(.

<comment><USER5> It would make no sense for GCC to automatically add early-exit: that requires a judgement call about the vectors the function is intended to run on. A priori, the function might be intended to run on vectors that are almost always sorted, in which case the extra branch would be severely suboptimal.

<comment><USER6> I agree that the optimization isn't possible but this is for correctness reasons. The performance penalty of the extra branch is almost negligible due to branch prediction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the reduction in the number of branches inside the loop is a significant factor here, i.e. the _if_ statement is performed per 4,8 or 16 elements instead of per value element. Branches invoke branch prediction logic which is non trivial, thus even though it may not slow execution it may increase power consumption.

On this basis another way of approaching the problem is to loop over the whole array and return the result at the end, but this of course would take N/2 loops on average, whereas the nested _if_ can exit early. A compromise might be to loop over short sub-spans of the array, and do an exit early test at the end of each sub-span.

A good sub-span length for scalar code might be around 16, for one because we hit the law of diminishing returns for longer spans.

Also I think is_sorted_asc() or is_sorted_ascending() might be a better name if this were for a function in a general purpose library.

<comment><USER8> > A compromise might be to loop over short sub-spans of the array, and do an > exit early test at the end of each sub-span.

Another good use of Duff's device!

<comment><USER7> For reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff%27s_device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff%27s_device)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that the early exit (the return false) in the middle of the loop prohibits the compiler from vectorizing the loop. The compiler can't know if part of the memory is inaccessible and so reading memory not being sure that the loop would run up to this point is illegal.

If you introduce a result variable and set it during the loop, the compiler can vectorize the loop. At least icc does, but I didn't play with the compiler settings of the other compilers too much.

Also compilers can still exit the loop early and at least MSVC does, because a segfault is UB and can be "optimized away".

</comment><comment><USER4> FWIW HeroicKatora gives an improved version on Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/8bkaj3/is_sorted_using...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/8bkaj3/is_sorted_using_simd_instructions/dx7jj8u/)

</comment><comment><USER10> using a bit more arcane (but not crazy) method for determining sorted-ness - [https://godbolt.org/g/MKN9HP](https://godbolt.org/g/MKN9HP) \- clang, and icc seem to have no problem vectorising the inner loop.

gcc manages it too, but emits a huge amount of code, though. and setting -Os seems to stop it from vectorising the code. shame.

edit: replaced with more correct version..

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be interesting to see how the SIMD versions work for small arrays. I suspect in this case the naive version better, and this could be the reading why compilers do not convert the code to SIMD instructions...

<comment><USER12> SIMD tends to always win for pretty small arrays, like around ~25 elements, and probably any size that is evenly divisible by the vector width.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generic code yields better results than SSE/AVX optimized ones. I wonder why that could be.

<comment><USER14> It's just replacing extra loads with a bunch of other instructions. In reality loads are cheap (and cached), it turns out to be cheaper than doing permutes to shuffle the vectors around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _i += 7;_

Wouldn't this cause a sizable performance hit due to being misaligned most of the time?

<comment><USER16> No: many (most?) modern SIMD instructions don't require alignment. From the Intel Intrinsics Guide (can't figure out how to link directly to it, sorry) on _mm_loadu_si128:

> Load 128-bits of integer data from memory into dst. mem_addr does not need > to be aligned on any particular boundary.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't need, but is there a performance difference? I seem to remember there is no difference between _mm_load_si128 and _mm_loadu_si128 on modern CPUs, but I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another possible implementation which is log^2(n) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitonic_sorter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitonic_sorter)

<comment><USER19> No, you can't even read the whole array in O(log^2(n)). It's not possible to do better than O(n) without "cheating."

<comment><USER20> I think the trick is you can run it in parallel. Which under ideal circumstances may give that kind of performance. But this is the first I've heard of this algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always miss multithreaded benchmarks when using SSE/AVX instructions. AFAIK AVX processing units are oversubscribed, there are less of them than CPU cores.

I can imagine that running AVX is_sorted (or any other AVX procedure) in multiple threads would be actually slower than running non-vectorized procedure.

Of course, that's my purely anecdotal opinion.

<comment><USER22> Here is an experience report on how AVX-512 instructions impact CPU performance [https://blog.cloudflare.com/on-the-dangers-of-intels- frequen...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/on-the-dangers-of-intels-frequency- scaling/)

<comment><USER23> Note that Skylake-SP and Xeon-W/i7/i9s behave very differently in this regard. On Skylake-SP (eg Xeon Silvers like they're using) it's over 50% clockrate reduction when AVX-512 is in the pipe, on Xeon-W and the HEDT chips it's more like 10-20%.

[https://twitter.com/InstLatX64/status/934093081514831872](https://twitter.com/InstLatX64/status/934093081514831872)

<comment><USER24> On HEDT (and mainstream desktop) you can actually adjust AVX offset manually. With 0 offset and 5GHz clock, you can consume 500W (in Prime95 AVX) :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This assumes unaligned access is cheap.

<comment><USER26> See this thread (posted 7 hours before your comment): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16842012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16842012)

<comment><USER25> Which is OK in this case but for any of the arch independent (SWAR) bit hacks it would probably be better to have a loop to align.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Unfortunately SSE doesn't speed-up huge data much. It's only fast when everything's in the cache.

<comment><USER28> Not sure what you mean, I can process _non-cached_ sequential data from RAM over 20 GB/s by using SSE/AVX.

There's no chance you could achieve same by using scalar instructions. SIMD can access memory _a lot_ faster than scalar.

Random access is another matter. The trick is of course to avoid non- sequential access patterns.

<comment><USER29> Isn't the bottleneck in any sequential access case the memory bandwidth?

IOW: Are the scalar instructions slower than memory bandwidth?

<comment><USER30> you can saturate memory bandwidth without SIMD, since you can issue at least 2 8-byte scalar loads per cycle. it does not leave much room for actual processing though</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you send email blasts to your customers? - <AUTHOR>

I have a forum which now has about 22,000 users.  I wanted to send an email newsletter to the ones that checkboxed that they didn't mind.<p>However I don't know what software to use.  Does anyone have recommendations? <comment><USER2> I'm in Atlanta, so [Decatur-based] Mailchimp's been great for me and 4-5 of my clients. They've a pretty workable free tier too.

Alternatively, I have a colleague who raves frequently about 'Ask Emma'

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions. Mailchimp wants me to include a mailing address which would be my home address so I really don't want to use them considering 22,000 random people would know where I live. I'll check out Ask Emma.</comment></comment>


Ice Poseidon's Lucrative, Stressful Life as a Live Streamer - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/ice-poseidons-lucrative-stressful-life-as-a-live-streamer <comment><USER2> > _The restaurant starts getting a lot of unusual phone calls... An employee > asks the man if he is Paul Denino. He says yes, but then explains that the > callers are pranking him. He is live-streaming through the camera on the > stick, and some of the thousands of people watching are trying to fuck with > him. The calls grow more disturbing... The restaurant manager asks Denino to > leave. Almost immediately, the restaurant's rating on Yelp begins to > plummet. Dozens of one-star reviews flood the page within seconds._

It's hard for me to see things like Ice Poseidon's stream as media or entertainment, really. If this is a predictable consequence of streaming which restaurant he's going to, then Denino is basically just ruining someone's day (and possibly much more) because he thinks he'll make money off of it. Nor is this anywhere near the bottom of the pile. Trollstation has picked up jail time over three different 'pranks' \- a bomb threat, a fake armed robbery, and a fake kidnapping. Which puts "fire in a crowded theater" to shame, honestly - waving a fake gun around specifically to frighten people isn't even something that gets _considered_ in most free speech debates, and rightly so. (I shudder to think how that prank might have ended in the US.)

My favorite example, though, is still RossCreations. Whose idea of a prank was... taking down stopsigns. Just that, going to an intersection and taking away stopsigns so maybe some people would get in a car accident. He was apparently charged with felony grand theft (stop signs aren't cheap), but I'm a bit surprised no one threw in a public endangerment charge alongside it.

I guess I don't understand how we got here. I know people doing stupid stuff and misjudging pranks is nothing new, this isn't a "kids these days" complaint, but where did people get the idea that "it's for my channel" changes the ethics or legality of things they _know_ will go wrong?

<comment><USER3> I never even heard of this guy until I was in a bar in Phoenix Arizona and listening to a flight attendant tell the story about how her plane was raided by SWAT armed response earlier that day, because of him. It looks like that was April 28 last year.

She was absolutely terrified and all of the passengers were asked to keep their window covers shut while armed personnel surrounded the plane and prepared to board from the rear entrance and take him out of there. It's a predictable consequence of him going places and streaming. He'll even say things like "I hope nobody figures out what plane I'm on and calls in a bomb threat" but honestly what actual law is being violated and by whom in this situation?

I mean I can personally see he knows he has antagonists and he is specifically egging them on, and he is profiting from it, but I don't know the specific actual law that he'd be breaking in this case, as much as I'd like for there to be one. Ruining dozens of peoples' day just isn't a violation of the law in and of itself.

<comment><USER4> Terrorism "conspiracy" charges can be pretty wide-ranging. It sounds like that incident alone would have incurred tens of thousands of dollars of costs for both law enforcement and the airline.

<comment><USER3> Yes but how do you prosecute someone because a bomb threat was called in against them?

Which part of what he was doing should he not be doing? It was all external parties that caused the kerfuffle. He's obviously a successful broadcaster, and he's making money at it without himself breaking the law, so you can't tell him not to do that anymore. (That's a prior restraint, no?)

I agree that it's problematic and it's costing money, but if those trolls that called in the bomb threats cause his show to be closed, isn't that basically the end of free speech? The fraudulent reporting caller should be prosecuted, sure.

Anyone can call in a SWAT raid on anyone else. I myself haven't watched the show, so I don't know to what extent a conspiracy charge would stick, but ...

If I go somewhere and start a Live Vlog, and someone watching figures out where I am and manages to put the police onto my camera, "for the lulz," and that's the whole story, then why should my "broadcasting license" be revoked? Never mind no such license is required, just hypothetically.

<comment><USER5> If I remember correctly, he wasn't even streaming during the whole thing. The fans simply pieced it together by things like departure times and roughly where he's going etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Man, Adrien Chen has done some really interesting pieces while at the New Yorker. I'm constantly impressed by his ability to cover niche parts of web culture and technology in a way that is always engaging and at least close to topical.

Other recommended reads:

A "Daily Show" style satirical program tries to get off the ground in Nigeria: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/using- comedy-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/using-comedy-to- strengthen-nigerias-democracy)

Making ironic, absurd art and gaining an internet following: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/brad- troemel-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/brad-troemel-the- troll-of-internet-art)

Lessons from the radio era for the "fake news" era: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/the-fake- news-...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/the-fake-news-fallacy)

<comment><USER7> He also wrote about Russian troll farms back in 2015: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the- agency.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Denino often lands at the top of a message board called LivestreamFails

This is no longer true. His stream has been banned on that subreddit for producing scripted content. [https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/8p7sib/ice_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/8p7sib/ice_poseidon_is_now_banned_from_rlivestreamfail/)

</comment><comment><USER9> There was an interesting event recently that happened to another live-streamer named Arab Andy. Arab Andy streams himself walking around with a speaker strapped on that plays text-to-speech and audio clips of whatever his viewers send him in their twitch donations. One viewer sent him a sound clip of a bomb countdown and detonation, and Arab Andy was subsequently arrested and last I heard was possibly facing prison time on a felony charge. Personally I don't think he should have to go to prison, but it's an interesting question what, if anything, should happen in cases like this.

Here's a video of the incident: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVWX7r1WQLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVWX7r1WQLg)

<comment><USER10> "Arab Andy" cared more about the donation than his own life. He clearly let the bomb sound happen on purpose for the sake of fame. He didn't even bother muting it or at least muffling it.

Weakly moaning "It's TTS!" (Text-to-speech) as an excuse to the officer that arrested him not so long later is enough of a proof that this guy was disconnected from reality and just doing that for the money.

It doesn't matter where you're coming from, you just don't play a bomb countdown - especially not in a room crowded full of people. You're scaring people on purpose, and that's called terrorism. He deserves that prison sentence.

<comment><USER11> Isn't one of the main caveats of the first amendment that you can't say "Fire" or "Bomb" in a crowded theater?

As someone who watches live streams normally, it's weird to see the clashing of the online world with its disdain for social norms and encouragement of casual racism mix in with the normal day to day lives of people. A future where a good chunk of people walking on the streets are disconnected from the people around them and instead are trying to please a faceless mob which demands that life constantly be reality TV is a weird one to think about but I honestly believe that this is a future that is possible.

<comment><USER12> > Isn't one of the main caveats of the first amendment that you can't say > "Fire" or "Bomb" in a crowded theater?

It's a complicated and, IMO, interesting topic.[0][1]

[0] - [https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a- ha...](https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed- apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/)

[1] - [https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no- law/2018/06/fi...](https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no- law/2018/06/fire-in-a-crowded-theater/)

<comment><USER13> I confess to having read the Popehat link quickly (I do not have audio right now to be able to listen to the podcast) and it is possible I missed some subtext, but the link seems more to speak to that the quote was made in a context many today would find disagreeable as part of a series of bad rulings, and that it has subsequently often been invoked to support restrictions on speech as though the existence of some restriction on speech automatically justifies others. Both points are well taken.

But this is quite literally a situation where a person shouts about a fake threat so as to cause alarm in a crowded fora -- the article does not seem to argue that doing so would be legal or that it would not be a permissible restriction on speech.

So I defer to anyone who knows more than I do about speech law -- to be clear, it is still impermissible to (falsely) shout fire in a crowded theater, right?

<comment><USER12> > it is still impermissible to (falsely) shout fire in a crowded theater, > right?

The underlying point is that, it's a complicated topic that is not easily answered. This is like saying "Shooting someone is illegal, right?" Well, it's complicated. You have Murder 1, Murder 2, (sometimes more), Manslaughter (Voluntary, or Involuntary), and you have shootings of self-defense which are legal. It entirely depends on the circumstances under which you shout "Fire!" and the outcome of that situation.

There are legal principles involving whether or not you caused harm, whether or not you intended to cause harm, whether or not you reasonably knew it _could_ cause harm but proceeded anyway. These questions will have outcome on which charges are applicable, if any are at all.

Should you shout fire in a crowded theater, and folks stampede. Expect to be charged for inciting a riot or at least disturbing the peace. Should nothing happen? You might be asked to leave and not come back by staff and have a no- trespass order, you may even get picked up on a disturbing the peace charge. One of the "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That was a really interesting piece. All I can think of after reading it is Grandpa's quote from the Simpsons:

I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It'll happen to you!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY)

<comment><USER15> If you don't get the whole Twitch/YouTube live streaming concept, then sure, but don't mistakenly think that Ice Poseidon is what's mainstream and "it."

This is essentially social media 2.0 for 4channer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought this was a good article.

I think the relationship between streamers and their audience is a more extreme form of the relationship between celebrities and their fans (some of whom may tend toward fanatical).

It's not surprising that things end up this way. When you remove the music/movies/whatever that the celebrity is producing and give the fans direct, real-time access to the celebrity's life things were bound to get weird.

One area where I disagree with the article is this characterization:

> [Viewers] are immersed in an online culture that believes that "social- > justice warriors" and political correctness are the main obstacles to self- > actualization

In my opinion this kind of "extreme speech" should rarely be taken literally. Instead, misogny/racism/xenophobia/ranting about "SJWs" on the internet should be viewed as a weird kind of performance art rather than an expression of genuine beliefs.

None of that makes it pleasant to an uninitiated spectator, but I'd compare that to how someone might find a dead baby joke terribly offensive. Really, I'd compare the whole thing to an inside joke between friends that would be considered "over the line" if someone else heard it. There's nothing new about that.

<comment><USER17> > In my opinion this kind of "extreme speech" should rarely be taken literally

That's what surrogates said about donald trump before the election. The muslim ban was just hyperbole. Then he got elected, and people were getting detained at the airport.

Now I'm not naive, and I know that some of the outrageous speech of online trolls is just for show. The problem is, you can't detect sarcasm online. White supremacist groups are actively recruiting on chan boards. You can't say it's all just a joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That was a disturbing read. That guy is practically a slave to his followers. There may be money in it, but I have the impression he is beyond the point of no return. Even if he would want to stop streaming, the more sociopathic lot of his "community" will probably sniff him out and expose him.

> "It was just easier to break up with her than to deal with it."

I don't know whom I find more pathetic, him or his followers. This is just sick.

<comment><USER19> A while back I had the chance to watch user research interviews of streamers. People clearly loved doing it, but also struggled to find a healthy balance. Being on camera that much, especially with the expectation of continuous engagement with lots of followers, is an extraordinarily intense situation.

Long ago I was an exchange student in Ecuador, where some workers would still chew coca as they worked, basically the same way people consume coffee. It was normal and boring for locals. Refine that same leaf, though, to cocaine and crack, and you get something so compelling that it becomes dangerous.

I sort of think of streaming as a similar thing: it takes normal human sociality and refines is to a degree previously never seen. I'm sure some people will find healthy ways to deal with it, but I'm not shocked at all that it breaks people.

<comment><USER20> The problem I keep hearing from gamer streamers is searching for your niche, and stumbling into something you dont enjoy, but suddenly you start making real $$. Jump from streaming for 20-50 people to 2000-3000 does things to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What an oddly modern version of The Truman Show (I guess?).

> Denino resisted for months—Caroline made him happy—but eventually he > relented. "It just got too much, dude," he told me. "It was just easier to > break up with her than to deal with it.

There's something really deeply somber about that.

I'm always curious what happens to these people in twenty (or even ten) years. I imagine this isn't a long-term career, but obviously I could be 100% wrong about that (e.g. Reality TV doesn't just star young adults anymore).

Of course some of these people are also earning (maybe just near) pro-athlete levels of income, so I guess with some foresight maybe they don't have to work ever again after retiring, really.

<comment><USER22> Come on:

> Yet he felt that he had to act as if he didn't care, or his viewers might > suspect that he and Caroline hadn't actually broken up.

There's some hope for humanity, isn't there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My favorite story about Ice Poseidon was when he and his friends were at a Denny's talking shit about black people and a person comes up to them and calls them out to fight outside for being racist. They backed down so fast.

That's the problem with people who grew up streaming their lives, there is no normal life for them. Everything is a meme, etc.

Regardless of his political views, they can't be that important to him to back down from his toxicity when called on it.

</comment><comment><USER17> How did we become so lonely and disconnected that watching a stranger's live- stream became a substitute for human contact?

It's something I see in all online video. Lets plays, mukbangs, makeup tutorials.. the game, the eyeshadow, the food is not important. It's having someone talk to you about their day. It makes you feel like you're not alone. Take ReviewBra for example. He barely reviews food anymore. He just sits at a table and says comforting things.

At least he's trying to use this for good. But why has this content taken off in the first place? So many young people I encounter are practically hikikomori.

<comment><USER24> I get your point, but aren't you writing this on an online message board that's essentially a slightly different kind of substitute for human contact?

<comment><USER17> Digital communication is not inherently substituting human contact. It can be used to augment our relationships - organizing meetups in real life, and keeping in touch with long distance friends. It can also help you make new friendships in real life, or online-only. Online-only friendships are not a problem, as long as you have IRL friendships also.

But read the article. When they talk about this streamers fan base. How some of them felt so depressed, and the stream made them feel like they had a friend. Maybe the stream kept them from ending their life. What makes people so lonely that the stream is the only thing keeping them going?

I'm not critiquing online video. There will always be a need for entertainment. What I'm asking is why so much of it, lately, seems designed to comfort lonely people. And why are so many people in need of that?

<comment><USER25> > How some of them felt so depressed, and the stream made them feel like they > had a friend. Maybe the stream kept them from ending their life. What makes > people so lonely that the stream is the only thing keeping them going?

> depressed

> Maybe the stream kept them from ending their life.

Did you not answer your own question? As someone with a lot of social anxiety (it's hard for me to even comment in forums/here) Twitch streams make it feel like I'm getting human interaction. But it's mainly a distraction from the feeling of loneliness, obviously. Hopefully it gives these people the time they need to deal with their social anxiety/depression rather than progressing further down the spiral.

<comment><USER17> Thank you for commenting. I know it can be hard with the anxiety. I appreciate getting your insight.

I agree with you. These streams can distract you when you feel alone. That might even be a good thing for some.

But I'm trying to figure out why so many people are lonely in the first place, that we would need these streams to fill the void. Maybe we've always been this disconnected, and it just feels worse now. But I have noticed more people feeling isolated and alone.

I remember when I was in college, I felt so much pressure with my courseload that I hid away for days binge watching a tv show. I was avoiding writing a term paper. I was also avoiding my classmates.

I work with teenagers in my profession. And I'm seeing lots of high school students dealing with the same type of anxiety and withdrawl. Is it normal? At that age? Is this becoming more widespread? And if so, what is causing it?

I read this last year, and it confirms what I'm seeing. One of the schools mentioned is actually in my area.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more- ame...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-american- teenagers-than-ever-suffering-from-severe-anxiety.html)

Again, thank you for your comments.

<comment><USER25> I have no idea why that is, honestly. I think, at least for me, there's always some sort of pressure to have a lot of friends or social interactions. Go on FB, everyone's hanging out with each other and posting about it or talking. Snapchat, same thing. Dating sites everywhere. Dating apps.

But that's about all I can think of. There's probably more going on. I'm just personally thankful that I was able to get that anxiety out of the way via Twitch/streams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The dystopian literature of the last century tended to view the TV as a device that enslaved the masses, turning them into obsessive, entertainment consuming automatons. I feel like we're living in that dystopia, only with the Internet taking over TV.

<comment><USER27> Worse than that, it's faceless people taking willing participants and turning them into amusement bots.

<comment><USER28> Two things comes to mind:

First of all, Max Headroom. I think there it was a felony to turn your TV off or some such.

Second, Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It is a anime tv series that involves an undercover security force in future Japan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Ice Poseidon's subreddit is also drawing absurd engagement numbers for a subreddit devoted to a single person: [https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1004387299273027584](https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1004387299273027584)

<comment><USER30> Their presence is ... easily felt on other subreddits. It's like saying "Bloody Mary" to a mirror.

<comment><USER31> That's great. It's a really good take on the phenomenon. You see it between different subreddits frequently these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The thing Ice Posidean has going for him is an almost cult like following. Unfortunately the way that plays out is often quite negative who people who aren't a part of the community. I wonder if building a community with this level of dedication is even possible without victimizing people or causing mayhem.

<comment><USER33> There are other streamers who have a cult like following that isn't toxic. Some of the Twitch streamers pull this off, if the streamer has mods who wield the ban hammer hard and earlier, it is possible to shape the community that grows up.

All of the cult of personality type of streamers are going to have a viewer base that is a bit odd, but they don't have to be malicious.

As an example, one community I'm part of decided one day that we were going to play punk music on stream. Since on Twitch, $=free speech, music requests are $3 a minute or so.

It (de?)volved into a battle of the bands as fans of different bands went back and forth.

<comment><USER5> I think it's rather that people like Ice Poseidon do everyone else a favor by being a magnet for all of those toxic people so they don't go and be toxic elsewhere.

<comment><USER31> IRL streamers as a containment board. Not far from the truth...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've never understood what "Ice Poseidon" was, but I notice at any given point on Reddit if you search by "NEW" posts basically 25% of posts will be in the Ice Poseidon subbreddit.

It's really the only community that keeps pace with r/The_Donald.

</comment><comment><USER35> Newspaper headlines sound like taken from a Black Mirror episode by the day.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find myself thinking of how for a few years the local TV channels offered night time SMS driven chat services.

The thing was that said chat had a 30 second delay, because every message was read by channel staff before being allowed on the air.

On a different note, i can't shake the thought that there was an uptick of "pranksters" online after the whole Anonymous circus hit the airwaves...

</comment><comment><USER36> Who's more obnoxious, the streamer or the viewers? I really can't decide.

</comment><comment><USER37> So many people Seem to be extrapolating this into something it just isn't. He could stop tomorrow and live a normal life in a couple of months. This isn't the trueman show or someone propelled into international fame against their will. It's the long tail of the network effect. You can sustain yourself by being moderately entertaining to some 50k people but you have to stick to the role. Ice Poseidon has chisen a role of being a huge jackass who runs the border of criminal behavior. That was his choice, not something his fans pushed on him, and honestly I wish serious media like HN and the New Yorker would just ignore him. There are NeoNazi personalities and Scientologist preachers with more followers than him, and we'd don't give them screen time because they don't contribute anything to society so why wast your attention on this but?</comment>


Want a passport? State Department wants your life story. - <AUTHOR> http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/25/state-department-wants-passport-applicants-to-reveal-lifetime-employment-history/ <comment><USER2> Making it hard to for others to enter the US is a just a nuisance. Making it hard for US citizens to _leave_ the US is one of the most terrifying things I can think of.

<comment><USER3> You lack imagination.

<comment><USER2> I'm having no trouble imagining all of the wonderful reasons the government might have for preventing Americans and their money from escaping it's borders. And all of the things that come after that. I suppose I can think of worse, but I'm afraid because we already know what happens when countries slam the door on their citizens and allow only the annointed to travel. It's never ever anything but reactor-grade awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I believe Obama was born in the US, it's interesting that you can become President of the US without having to show a birth certificate, but you can't leave the country without producing one. Doubly interesting because the Constitution specifically requires the President to be US-born, but says nothing about passports.

<comment><USER5> Well, you can walk right out the door to Mexico, if one were so inclined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Glad I got mine recently. I was freaked out by the fact that when I handed them my birth certificate, they didn't hand it back. "It will be returned to you by mail" they said; I'm not sure _why_ they needed to keep the birth certificate, but it did in fact come back to me. (I was more freaked out over the fact that I had paid 50 dollars for the birth certificate and didn't want to lose it (plus dropping another 220 to get the passport rushed))

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a US citizen, with a US birth certificate, but to apply for a social security number I had to provide proof of address for every year of my life. The process took a year.

It's in the nature of bureaucracies to accumulate information, the larger and more inefficient, the more paperwork they demand to fulfill their 'process'.

</comment><comment><USER8> > _when the applicant submits citizenship or identity evidence that is > insufficient or of questionable authenticity_

So the vast majority can stick with driver's license and birth certificate. I think this is overblown.

</comment><comment><USER9> It looks to be a typically outrageous limitation introduced without much thought or reason.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't understand why people would actually want a US passport.

<comment><USER2> That would be because they are already in the US and they'd like to go somewhere besides the US. The importance of the freedom to actually _leave_ a county when you so desire can't be overestated.</comment></comment>


Covert cache-based channel between EC2 instances (demo) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPZmiRi_c-o <comment><AUTHOR> This is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Paper: [https://gruss.cc/files/hello.pdf](https://gruss.cc/files/hello.pdf)</comment>