Do nations go to war over water? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7236/full/458282a.html <comment><USER2> We might, but it'd be short-lived. The gating factor to desalination is the cost of energy. Massive conflict or war by decently-wealthy actors will spur development of more efficient desalination techniques as the money invested and the money to be made from such an innovation would be _insane_. (Desalination plant or tens of thousands of troops? Easy call.)

</comment><comment><USER3> There are lots of conflicts over water, and sometimes violence. Mexico and the US fought over the Rio Grande for 70-odd years.

I think we don't fight full-scale wars because rivers are hundreds of miles long. You can't defend a river like you would an oil field. It forces people to get along.

<comment><USER4> Could you point out some historical examples of fighting over the Rio Grande please? I can't think of any real war or major fighting that happened strictly because we wanted to control the Rio Grande to gain water.

Maybe you mean fighting along the Rio Grande, during the Manifest Destiny era? But that took place because we wanted land. The Rio Grande just happened to fall on land we wanted. That it is a large body of water was largely irrelevant.

<comment><USER3> "I can't think of any real war or major fighting that happened strictly because..."

That's the point. :) You don't fight over the river per se because _it's impossible_. They fought over all the land right up to the river. Presumably the riverfront on the other side is just as valuable, and total control over its water would make it more so. So why not take both sides? Because the land immediately after the river is indefensible. It's indefensible because _your back is to a river_.

You can fight and win a war over land but you can't normally take a river. You don't even think about it. Thus you don't "fight a war" over it, even though the land you say you're really fighting for would be useless without it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Summary: By importing a year's worth of food for one person, you save the 1,000 cubic metres of water per year that would be required to grow it. Thus, you import 1,000 cubic metres of _virtual_ water (perspective: you only drink _1_ cubic metre pa). Lesson 1: you need a cool pitch to sell your thesis/product.

 _my publishers pointed out that predicting an absence of war over water would not sell._ Lesson 2: not every cool thesis/product has a market.

</comment><comment><USER4> No. For the most part, it isn't scarce yet.

But, if there was to be a water war, Lake Baikal in Russia would be near the top of my list of "bodies of water to fight over." It's the largest freshwater lake, near(ish) to the Russian border, and with ~24,000 cubic kilometers of water, it has 20% of the world's surface freshwater that's drinkable.

<comment><USER6> _No. For the most part, it isn't scarce yet._

Sorry, this isn't true - water is an issue in numerous regions of the world.

<comment><USER4> With the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa or areas recently devastated by a natural disaster*

Other parts of the world lack water, but not due to the lack of freshwater sources. Just the lack of technology to access or purify what was once clean water that they have.

But even so, there still aren't wars with countries that have water over _water_ in the areas where the lack of water is a major issue. Over other things, yes. But not water.

<comment><USER6> _Other parts of the world lack water, but not due to the lack of freshwater sources._

I live, and have lived in numerous places that have a lack of water.

Water restrictions are commonplace in Australia - most major cities are facing the real prospect of running out of water. In many cities you can't water your lawn, wash your car, fill your pool, etc, etc. Some smaller town and regions are already in total crisis.

When I mention the Murray-Darling Basin in my other comment - that's a big issue. The federal government basically had to step in and take over the control of water from the states. This might not sound like a lot, but it was a big deal, one of the biggest uses of federal muscle in Australia's history.

Even in the UK and New Zealand -- which you'd imagine as having a lot of water -- have issues with water infrastructure and population. I've heard the Bay Area is also facing the prospect of water restrictions... If you do a search on "water restrictions" it doesn't look like this issue is unique: [http://www.google.com/search?q=water+restrictions&ie=utf...](http://www.google.com/search?q=water+restrictions&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a)

Technologies such as desalination don't necessarily solve the issue. It's simply not economic or feasible in most parts of the world. Australia is already heavily invested in water saving technologies - low flow showerheads, low volume toilets, grey-water, rainwater tanks.

There are large areas of Australia that have had their ground water massively overused - causing massive issues with salination (in some places you literally have salt forming on the ground). The fresh water sources in these regions is totally collapsing.

Sorry to go on about it. But where I live, water is a real issue. I can completely imagine it becoming an issue great enough for a country to war over.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps we're having a slight misunderstanding as to what we mean when saying "lack of water." By that, I don't mean having to limit showers to 5 minutes or not being able to wash your car every week. I mean not having the bare minimum amount of water to drink and keep from dying of dehydration. There's _very few_ countries that have water problems that are that serious.

<comment><USER6> No, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER4> People in Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand can't get 25oz (minimum needed to survive) of water a day? Even with water restrictions, I find that hard to believe.

<comment><USER6> That's (apparently?) the minimum amount of clean water for a person to survive a single day.

Water contributes to long term survival in so many other ways. You need water to cook, grow food, maintain basic hygiene by washing you hands. You need water to clean a wound. You need water for sanitation. You need water for industry, so you can actually work.

Even in the most basic circumstances, this is a lot more than 25oz (many, many times more). In urban circumstances it's vastly greater. And this isn't even accounting for losses, contamination, interruptions in supply.

Anyway, I can see we're not going to convince each other either way. I'd encourage you to do a search around on the topic though -- there is a lot of material on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. I had never thought about the implicit assumptions behind the term "water wars". I figured that just because I couldn't think of a significant example off the top of my head, I wasn't thinking hard enough.

I am confused by their figures, though. "If they were to be self-sufficient in food, they would need ten billion cubic metres of water per year. As it is, they have only about one-third of that: enough to grow 15-20% of their food." Ten billion would grow 100%, but a third of the water grows no more than a fifth of the food? It shouldn't be that some of the current water supply goes to other uses; a couple of sentences later is a note that domestic and industrial uses should find rainfall alone to be enough.

How would tripling the amount of water available allow them to increase domestic food production by five or six times?

<comment><USER8> >> How would tripling the amount of water available allow them to increase domestic food production by five or six times?

I believe they can reuse water in irrigation systems.

I'm not particularly shocked that "water wars" aren't common: no one really wants to be the nation that thrives by denying their neighbours basic resources for human survival.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> But why are oil and water treated differently? After all, serious interruptions of food (virtual water) would also stop highly developed economies in their tracks. It seems a crucial test for his thesis, but he doesn't clearly address it.

Is it just that trade in oil is more easily controlled because (1) it has few sources, and (2) the economy of a country that sells food is itself hugely dependent on those sales? (that is, symbiosis is the best foreign policy?)

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/opinion/edchellany.ph...](http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/opinion/edchellany.php)

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, Israel - Palestina conflict seems also be a bit about water...

Although there might be some other issues as well.

</comment><comment><USER11> The real question is not "do" but "when".

<comment><USER12> If water wars become an eventuality, will that then extend to breathable air, as well? Basically, almost any finite resource, right?</comment></comment>


Evolving Faster Haskell Programs (now with LLVM) - <AUTHOR> http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/evolving-faster-haskell-programs-now-with-llvm/

<comment><USER2> The article seems to ignore code size completely, which seems to matter in real world apps.

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841874>

<comment><USER3> From the article:

"Computing fitness

The programs we want to improve have to report their fitness. To do this I'll use criterion's timing function, wrapping up the code we actually want to optimize in some measurement functions. This will just report total wall clock running time for the code under analysis."

They only care about speed. And if code size turns out to have an impact on speed, it won't be ignored by this metric.</comment></comment>


One must imagine Sisyphus LOL-ing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@visakanv/one-must-imagine-sisyphus-lol-ing-565f2bad0340#.4tmg83pz6 <comment><AUTHOR> The title of the post is a riff off of Albert Camus's essay The Myth Of Sisyphus [1]. He made a comparison between the absurdity of Sisyphus's curse (to roll a stone up a hill, over and over, forever) and the absurdity of everyday existence. He concluded that we should imagine Sisyphus happy.

I think Camus was indulging in some wishful thinking there. I think happiness is too much to expect or demand, and having that expectation ironically leads to dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

The only "way out" (or "way in", if you like to be Eastern/Zen about it) is to learn to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

_____

[1] [http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm](http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm)</comment>


Facebook security bug exposed 6 million users' personal information - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/important-message-from-facebooks-white-hat-program/10151437074840766

<comment><USER2> So it sounds like when people give Facebook access to copy their contact lists / address books from an email account or phone, Facebook tries to match those email addresses and phone numbers to other Facebook accounts. Sometimes, those email addresses and phone numbers aren't already part of the Facebook account they're matched with, but Facebook is pretty confident of the match. So Facebook stores those addresses and numbers as part of the matched account's "shadow profile".

The problem they're reporting here seems to be that when one used the tool to download one's account, the addresses and phone numbers from friends' "shadow profiles" were included.

It makes you wonder what other invisible data is attached to a Facebook profile...

<comment><USER3> I work at Mailgun and this may explain why when our customers use Facebook as a customer acquisition tool they inevitably end up with a large amount of bad email addresses, leading to a poor email sending reputation or worse.

While I'm not familiar with the information Facebook shares through Facebook Connect, this seems to be a big short coming. You may not be getting the customer's real, current email addresses.

We have to tell people that Facebook is not a reliable way to obtain valid email addresses. The only way to properly do this is to have customers submit their email addresses directly to your own signup form and then validate them with a confirmation link sent to that address (double opt-in).

<comment><USER4> The issue is that when you use Facebook connect and get the user's email it returns the email originally used to sign up for facebook. Since people signed up years ago, many no longer have that as an active address, which leads to the poor email quality.

<comment><USER5> Wow - I expect most Facebook users have invalid e-mail addresses if that's the case. Originally, you could only sign up with a college or university e-mail address, and pretty much all of those addresses are now dead because people graduated or left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This blog post does not identify exactly where the leaked data is.

I have an DYI export of my account from 3/26/13 and am trying to determine where the data is. Can anyone help?

DYI's have the following directory structure:

last name

\- html

\- videos

\- photos

\- photo

index.html

The html folder contains many files including "friends.html," where each friend is listed as a div. I believe normal data, i.e. friends who did not upload address book have the structure:

[Friend's Full Name]

Whereas users who have had their data inadvertently leaked due to Friends who uploaded address books containing their contact data (confusing but I think that's right) have the following structure which contains leaked data:

[Friend's Full Name] ([Friend's email address])

I have three of these entries with email addresses, but am not seeing any phone numbers. Can anyone else corroborate this structure, add how the phone numbers were stored, and verify an example case where a known friend uploaded their contact data matching the leak?

edited for clarity

<comment><USER7> It was 'addressbook.html ' from your extended data download, not the normal data download.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess I am part of 6 million since I got a message from Facebook regarding this.

The weird part of it is that email address they say to have been exposed is not even part of my facebook profile.

<comment><USER9> Same here, I had three e-mails listed: my personal email I used for Facebook, my @facebook.com email, and a work e-mail that I don't appear to have listed in my profile or settings anywhere and don't recall even giving to Facebook.

Perhaps the "merged" contact information that got leaked included e-mails for you that your acquaintance had that you perhaps never told Facebook about?

EDIT: that would seem to be supported by this line:

"This contact information was provided by other people on Facebook and was not necessarily accurate, but was inadvertently included with the contacts of the person using the DYI tool."

<comment><USER8> Yes, indeed, it says so in the blog post, though not in the email itself.

Basically, it means that facebook has more (much more?) information about me, than they show to me in the profile. Not that I am surprised by that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, to clarify: if you downloaded your info, you would also download email addresses and phone numbers that other people thought were yours...that doesn't sound so bad.

<comment><USER2> No--it seems that if you downloaded your info, you would also download email addresses and phone numbers _of your friends_ that other people had in their address books, _without your friends ever knowing Facebook had that information_.

<comment><USER11> To make it clearer, I don't have a FB account but from what I get from the article:

John add Bob in his friends.

Alice add Bob in her friends, and while crawling her contacts infos (say, on her smartphone), facebook finds a phone number for Bob that Bob himself didn't give.

Facebook remember the phone number on Bob's "shadow" account.

John download his infos, and for his friend Bob he can see the phone number. Bob never gave it to Facebook, never gave it to John. Facebook never told Bob they had it.

<comment><USER12> This is exactly what happened. I never entered my phone number into anything Facebook, and today I received an email that referenced an old phone number of mine being inadvertently released. My strong suspicion is that Facebook crawled a friend's phone contact list, and linked my phone number to my name/Facebook profile.

LinkedIn did something equally as shady with their iOS app. I kept the email addresses of people I met on a trip to Europe on my phone, but never communicated with them. After installing the LinkedIn app on my phone, the "People You May Know" section for my account on the website starts recommending these same people that I met in Europe. I had no idea how this happened until the Path controversy started.

I never consented to anyone stealing my information -- whether it's on my phone or someone else's. What if my social security number or credit card number was stored in my or someone else's contacts? No company has the right to steal this information without consent.

I realize Apple eventually locked down access to Contacts but as far as I'm concerned, that was too little, too late. This never should have been "public" for any app to access, and I really don't think this was just an oversight from the company responsible for the fastest-growing ecosystem ever seen. This was not a misstep...they had to realize that this data could and would get out.

Even worse are the companies that stole from phones while knowing full well that what they were doing was wrong, and that they probably had a small window in which to scrape as much data as possible. Scum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Move fast and break things.

</comment><comment><USER14> Said bug is known as the Facebook corporate sales team.

<comment><USER15> I have heard this sentiment echoed by others - several industry insiders included - before.

If this is indeed true that the sales and marketing honchos are exclusively running large tracts of key operations, aren't the resulting missteps going to be deleterious to Mark's record as the chief?

This sentiment was echoed by Dalton Caldwell about Facebook's "M&A" team, last year:

      I am not sure if this bubbled up to you, Mark, but after this all happened I
      directly communicated my feedback regarding just how unhappy I was with this
      situation to one of your executives. The executive apologized and said he would
      take my feedback under consideration.

      Mark, I know for a fact that my experience was not an isolated incident. Several
      other startup founders & Facebook employees have told me that what I experienced
      was part of a systematic M&A "formula". Your team doesn't seem to understand
      that being "good negotiators" vs implying that you will destroy someone's
      business built   on your "open platform" are not the same thing. I know all
      about intimidation-based negotiation tactics: I experienced them for years
      while dealing with the music industry. Bad-faith negotiations are inexcusable,
      and I didn't want to believe your   company would stoop this low. My mistake.

Does Mark maintain control of all of the operations or has he got petty feudal lords running various units and operations?

Source:

[http://daltoncaldwell.com/dear-mark- zuckerberg](http://daltoncaldwell.com/dear-mark-zuckerberg)

Edit: Cleanup

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So... People who already had my email/phone in another service were able to get it as part of downloading all their facebook data. Consequently, my email/phone was not disclosed (by Facebook) to anybody who didn't already have it. I don't really see an issue here.

<comment><USER17> I think you misunderstand; If friend A had information about you in their address book (stuff you didn't have on Facebook) and uploaded their contacts to Facebook, and friends B and C downloaded their Facebook data, it would contain the fields gathered from friend A's address book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Forget PRISM, they practically gave away your personal info for free.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how much Facebook will reward for this bug?

<comment><USER20> much less than govt penalties they might end up paying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Who cares they give it away anyway.

</comment><comment><USER22> So, Facebook poses a privacy risk to many people who hand it their information freely. In other news, the sun rose again today at the expected time.</comment>


The Lone Wolf Coder - <AUTHOR> http://ladycoders.com/2013/02/14/the-lone-wolf-coder/

<comment><AUTHOR> This would be less funny to me if I wasn't sitting in the dark with two IDEs open in my pyjamas.

</comment><comment><USER2> I call it being a Cowgirl Coder.</comment>


Will Homo Sapiens evolve further? - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091124-origin-of-species-150-darwin-human-evolution.html <comment><USER2> No. We're perfect as it is, so evolution ceased to advance.</comment>


Chat server on a WiFi-enabled SD card - <AUTHOR> https://l-o-o-s-e-d.net/wartor <comment><USER2> It appears that the linked web page may also be running on a WiFi-enabled SD card and can't handle the load.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, I need to figure out how to handle traffic better/dynamically.. Still learning. I was thinking it would be cool to leave websites "in the wild" though, like something solar powered that would stay alive and could be accessed in the area. Or something with a short lifespan that's battery powered...

<comment><USER3> We actually did something like this at uni. Meshnet using low-power radio receivers with arduino uno and whatever else you want (gps?), a few power- stations that had solar powerbanks and 3G connection. Power stations were collecting data from the mestnet and sending it to a server. Weak nodes only required battery to be changed less often than every 3.5 month. I thought it was pretty cool.

<comment> m-p-3 I'm wondering how doable it would be to make such a mesh network but using LoRaWAN instead, and ensuring privacy using E2EE.

That'd be a nice project to work on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the reason most WISP's are done with industry-grade receivers/transmitters (like Unifi) is the bandwidth/speed limitations of LoRa. I think, for the most part, LoRa is used mainly for remote monitoring and other low-bandwidth applications. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The site is down but I'm assuming that this is making use of one of those old SD-cards that had wifi built in to turn old old point and shoot cameras into wifi devices.

I remember someone got linux running on one of them and ever since then I wish that that form-factor for small computing had taken off.

Imagine if the raspberry pi people made devices like this.

<comment><USER5> "... and ever since then I wish that that form-factor for small computing had taken off."

I know how you feel, but the form factor I prefer is PCMCIA[1].

Interestingly, someone did, in fact, attempt to create a small, modular, computing standard based on PCMCIA - the card was a compute module that could be inserted into a shell laptop ... I cannot find the link, unfortunately ...

[1] "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms"

<comment><USER4> Totally man, the path I had envisioned SBCs going was PCMCIA form factor and SD form factor. Imagine a PCMCIA computer with an SD slot to put your SD form factor computer into.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE5ROl2YPbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE5ROl2YPbs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> noman-land Since this site is dead right now. Here's something similar to read about in the meantime.

[https://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/transcend-wifi-sd-card- is-a-...](https://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/transcend-wifi-sd-card-is-a-tiny- linux-server/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry mane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm mostly of the opinion now that we should just treat our computers as a network of connected computers all doing special jobs.

For instance, why not treat a hardware RAID controller as on-board NAS, or even run PostgreSQL (or even just SQLite) directly on the card?

You buffer a bottleneck by controlling the ingress, the egress, or both (eg, a caching proxy server with gzip compression), but these days we don't see 'or both' as often as maybe we used to.

<comment><USER7> You can treat your NAS as a hardware RAID controller. You will get similar performance as you would get from treating your hardware RAID controller as an on-board NAS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is how you start ftp-server in the SD-card. I have never found any other useful application you could start yourself:

        SDCARD/$ cat autorun.sh
        telnetd -l /bin/bash &
        tcpsvd -vE 0.0.0.0 21 ftpd &

<comment><USER8> Oh. There is telnet too. Funny but not useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> archived google cache: [https://archive.vn/pYoTM](https://archive.vn/pYoTM)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, that's cool! thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Needs _moaarr_ links for sinking time, like so:

[0] [https://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/transcend-wifi-sd-card- is-a-...](https://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/transcend-wifi-sd-card-is-a-tiny- linux-server/)

Modifying Transcend WiFi SD Card Firmware (fernjager.net) Apr 25, 2014

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7647434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7647434)

[2] [https://web.archive.org/web/20160509130411/http://www.fernja...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160509130411/http://www.fernjager.net/post-8/sdcard)

[3] [https://jamesone111.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/exploring- the-t...](https://jamesone111.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/exploring-the- transcend-wifi-sd-card/)

Transcend WifiSD / PQI AirCard / FluCard Pro, 16 Aug 2013

[4] [https://forum.archive.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=45820&p=1](https://forum.archive.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=45820&p=1)

[5] [http://haxit.blogspot.com/2013/08/hacking-transcend-wifi- sd-...](http://haxit.blogspot.com/2013/08/hacking-transcend-wifi-sd- cards.html)

[6] [https://elinux.org/Wifi_SD](https://elinux.org/Wifi_SD)

Now the only question reamains if this applies to any currently available product at all, or if things changed so much that it doesn't work anymore.

</comment><comment><USER11> Site is down. The words 'WiFi-enabled SD card' makes my imagination flow. I think in the future you'll have one SD card with all the electronics/computing power and you just insert it into various dummy devices to change it's capabilities.

<comment><USER12> The original NeXT vision was optical drives. You'd keep your $HOME directory on one and plug in to whatever machine you were in front of.

I remember when the iPhone came out, I wondered if the idea would be updated, but no.

Of course the world went more in the direction of Sun's network computer/JavaStation idea, where other people's computers substitute for the optical/SD card.

<comment><USER13> There was a "Home on iPod" feature available in at least a beta version of OS X [1]. I remember testing it at one point.

[1] [https://appleinsider.com/articles/03/12/01/apple_tweaking_ho...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/03/12/01/apple_tweaking_home_on_ipod_feature_for_release)

<comment><USER14> i remember that feature and dreaming of how awesome it would be... sigh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember when these cards were new, every month or so you'd see a story about someone recovering their fancy digital camera because the doofus who stole it didn't realize the SD card was phoning home.

</comment><comment><USER15> wish I still had all of those old Eye-Fi cards</comment>


Atlas Van Lines Migration Data 2002-2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.weogeo.com/blog/Data_Blog_Atlas_Van_Lines_Migration_Data.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious how much the movement toward the mid-Atlantic states is the growth of federal government consulting jobs over the past 10 years.</comment>


Opera mobile store - unencrypted credit card form - <AUTHOR>

http://i.imgur.com/GWLAz.png<p>I'll take Tesco's attempt over that. <comment><USER2> Wow, that is not only worrying, but I'm fairly sure it's breaking PCI compliance. I don't have an account so I can't check, but is it possible the payment form is in an HTTPS iframe? If not what happens if you manually put https in the url?</comment>


Memory Allocation Benchmark - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rbehrends/btree-alloc <comment><USER2> I always knew malloc/free is much slower than a good GC.

In my testcase I need 4min on freeing libredwg datastructures with ordinary sized samples. free is insanely slow, malloc is just normally slow. A GC bump allocator is 0 cost, just like a stack alloca. But it is safe, unlike alloca (search the rust issues for stack overflow => 700 issues) or malloc/free with manual management.

<comment><USER3> [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is...](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+%E2%80%9Cstack+overflow%E2%80%9D) shows 108 open, 309 closed for me, not 700. And that's out of the almost 30,000 issues reported so far.

You can do bump allocation in non-GC'd languages too; here's an example with Rust: [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/fast-bump-allocated- virtua...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/fast-bump-allocated-virtual-doms- with-rust-and-wasm/)</comment></comment>


Why I Don't Like Pair Programming (and Why I Left Pivotal) (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://mwilden.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/why-i-dont-like-pair-programming-and.html <comment><USER3> As time goes by a skill gap grows between the developers and one will become the go to person while the other just watches. Especially if one part of the pair develops outside of work and the other does not. This creates resentment and results in the more skilled developer having to use less elegant solutions to a problem so that the other developer can understand what is happening.

Additionally, I feel long term pairing creates tunnel vision and stifles innovation as there is no time to stop pairing and think out a solution. The focus is cranking out features without spending the time that you get working alone to get more creative.

The lack of creativity is actually a side effect of the increased productivity. You are definitely more productive working as a pair because there are no breaks. You can't check hackernews, reddit, etc when you have some watching everything you do. I view this as a good thing, but I wouldn't be checking those sites during work time anyway. Sometimes I just need a few minutes to research alternative solutions instead of just going for the first one that the pair comes across.

In my view, pairing works best when used in moderation. Adding a new team member? Have them rotate and pair with different team members for the first 4 months. Pairing will get them up to speed with the rest of the team in no time. The new hire will learn the programming culture of the company and experience various team members insights.

I think pairing together to work on a feature on an occasional basis is also a great team building strategy. The key is moderation and rotating the pairs so that it doesn't become stale.

Having experienced the Pivotal way for a good amount of time, I feel they have taken pairing too far.

</comment><comment><USER4> The distraction: It's not (only) "nervousness", it's divided attention.

Those most aware of (and, perhaps, considerate of) other people may be the worst off in such a pair (or, open space) environment.

This is not something that is readily under one's conscious control. Which is a particularly malicious element of such communal or public paradigms -- they insist that it is under your control, "if only..."

When I code _alone_ , I am often more "communal" than many of my contemporaries. Because I actually think through various usage scenarios and other perspectives. In doing so, I draw upon past experience as well as speculation. ('No, I guess the specification as written doesn't specify the order of those parameters.... but, on multiple occasions including particularly in this environment, I've observed people to use and to rely on such ordering -- de facto if not explicitly -- being consistent and meaningful.')

Such deeper, broader thought goes lost in the distraction of shared environments. It takes some serious, uninterrupted attention and reflection.

Too much of this is akin to the recent Yahoo "no work from home" policy. Which is perhaps one reason that that has struck such a nerve. People decide and mandate "the right/only" way of doing things, instead of allowing individuals to find and use individual, optimized solutions.

Hypocrisy, when on the one hand you want everyone to maximize their contribution, while on the other you hamstring them and disempower them to do so.

If you want individual excellent, pay attention to and manage people as individuals. If you want "cogs" and pieces, don't shovel such lip service about the individual.

I don't feel my comment quite does justice to some of the attitude in pair programming. But, generally, it still applies. Not everyone is good in or suited for a pair programming environment. Many people who aren't, are -- in my experience -- some of the highest, most effective contributors. So... don't shovel pair programming at me as "the answer".

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone practice part-time pair programming? A day a week, or early on a project, perhaps when laying out the API for some larger system which is then worked on by individuals?

Curious, as I've never done pair programming. I'm instinctively against it, but with thought I can see it having value in certain parts of the development process.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I practice part-time pair programming, as do a lot of programmers I know. Frankly, I think it's good to pair full-time while you (you, personally or your team) are learning it, but not beyond that. The OP tried pairing for a month - not enough time to learn how to do it well, IMO.

People pair for all sorts of reasons - as a continuous code review, knowledge sharing, and mentoring; but as the OP described, it comes at a cost - <USER2> flexibility, and of innovative design[1]. It takes experience to learn how the cost/benefit of pairing stacks up for any given situation[2].

One of these days I'll get around to documenting pairing ant-patterns I've witnessed. For now, here's one:

Guerrilla Pairing: Programmer A is in the middle of a task. Programmer B is blocked waiting on something so feels the need to pair, notices Programmer A is unpaired, and jumps in. Programmer A will now spend time bringing Programmer B up to speed, at which time, Programmer B becomes unblocked on her original task and jumps back to that, rendering the disruption in Programmer A's day pointless.

[1] Any design that cannot be communicated orally or sketched out in code in under 5 minutes is unlikely to emerge from a pair.

[2] Situations including type of work, availability of a pair, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article seems to only apply to situations when you're stuck with the same person (pair) every day.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have to agree pair programming is generally a pretty awful way to do software programming. Inevitably the most extroverted, loudest person will dominate and it is these people that are often design the worst code.

Far better off having a design session with a team of other developers to agree on a preferred approach and then individually develop.</comment>


New human rights to protect against 'mind hacking' and brain data theft proposed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/26/new-human-rights-to-protect-against-mind-hacking-and-brain-data-theft-proposed <comment><AUTHOR> Paper (Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology) here: [https://lsspjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40504...](https://lsspjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1)

</comment><comment><USER2> Id be more concerned about the state of advertising when this tech arrives.

I do so hope that somehow it is abolished, ads that manipulate us without our consent

</comment><comment><USER3> rape of mind and soul, we should need to write it down as a law so we know it's wrong /s</comment>


Ask HN: Application review by YC Alumni - <AUTHOR>

Hi YC Alum, We've randomly cold emailed a few YC Alumni asking for help reviewing our application to YC. I know most founders are really busy so I don't want to keep bothering them. Instead, we decided to post a question here.<p>If there are any YC alumni who have a few minutes to spare to review our application and guide us we would be extremely grateful. <comment><USER2> Feel free to shoot me a mail, email's in profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent. Thanks a ton :)</comment></comment>


Why the Climate Corporation Sold Itself to Monsanto - <AUTHOR> http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/why-the-climate-corporation-sold-itself-to-monsanto.html?mobify=0

<comment><USER2> So why is Monsanto genetically modifying plants? In their propaganda, they say "to be resistive." They don't say to what, or they mention everything but the main goal: to make their patented plants resistive to herbicides, the chemicals that kill all other plants, herbicides made by Monsanto: [http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/agricultural- herbicid...](http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/agricultural- herbicides.aspx)

Then they sell the farmers the seeds and the herbicides. Moreover, "More than 80% of US corn and more than 90% of soybeans planted each year are attributable to Monsanto and monopoly comes to mind."

[http://www.gmeducation.org/latest- news/p207220-the%20monsant...](http://www.gmeducation.org/latest- news/p207220-the%20monsanto%20monopoly.html)

They also "control 95 percent of the market for insect and herbicide resistant cotton traits."

[http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/11/the-monopoly-named- monsa...](http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/11/the-monopoly-named-monsanto/)

<comment><USER3> Bt-Corn is resistive to insects and has nothing to do with herbicides. The goal is to not require as many pesticides.

Also, Roundup is no longer under patent protections ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_\(herbicide\))), so farmers can buy roundup from a variety of sources.

<comment><USER4> Also, accq stated (my emphasis):

> their patented _plants_

Levering patent law to deny farmers the right to manage their own seed corn is akin to privatizing water tables or charging for oxygen. Sure, it's a great business model, but it's also immoral, evil and hard to see as something that brings us as a global collective to a better place.

From the letter:

> Humans have genetically engineered seeds for 11,000 years, primarily through > seed breeding, where we "got rid of" the traits we didn't want and > introduced the traits we did.

That doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so, without a lot of thought towards the common good. We're down a few hundred species of corns that can be used to make flour -- and among the problems resulting for that is that we don't have as many hardy species that can grow in subarctic regions. Another problem of this "natural" monoculture is vulnerability to insects, pests and diseases.

GMO, in and of itself, isn't evil -- it may be dangerous (messing with biotopes is a risky business) -- and leaving it up to a for-profit multinational seems like an extraordinarily bad idea.

<comment><USER5> Relatively recently, almost all of the corn grown in the US was about 3 from one of 3 common "immortal" varieties (~40/50 years ago.) The amount of seed diversity that have been introduced by this breeding is actually substantial, Monsanto is more or less combing the earth for diverse varieties of corn.

<comment><USER4> > Relatively recently, almost all of the corn grown in the US was about > 3 > from one of 3 common "immortal" varieties (~40/50 years ago.)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, I suspect a typo? (I gather the gist is that there used to be roughly three species of grain in the US, in the past 50 years -- down from what was introduced with the colonization some four hundred years ago (note, I'm not being snarky about the colonization, but AFAIK there didn't "use" to be _any_ grain grown in most of what is the US today (not sure about California (old Mexico))).

Note, I said corn in my original post (which I gather means the same in Scottish English, as it does in the Norwegian (almost) homonym) -- I _meant_ grain.

> The amount of seed diversity that have been introduced by this breeding is > actually substantial,

I thought Monsato generally sold Roundup. Are you saying they've increased the variety of corn (or grain) that is grown in the US substantially (and how much of that is patent encumbered)?

> Monsanto is more or less combing the earth for diverse varieties of corn.

Sure they are. And they patent it (which is a failing on so many governmental and international levels I find it painful to think about -- I'm all for cataloguing species and genes, but granting patent on something you literally found -- that's even worse than software patents).

Now, if all they did was donate some to the world seed bank, and allow everyone to share in their (non gmo) discoveries -- I'd have no problem. But the idea that you might be committing a felony by planting a carrot you bought at the market is revolting.

<comment><USER5> Yep, that was supposed to be

Sorry, late night! That first line was supposed to say:

> Relatively recently, almost all of the corn grown in the US was _from_ about > of 3 the common "immortal" varieties (~40/50 years ago.)

Not 3 types of grain, 3 types of corn. People have been aggressively breeding seed for a long time. Monsanto has offices all over the world and tries to bring the best varieties of corn and breed them into a number of different high performing lines. I know Monsanto breeders feel like the genetic diversity argument is a little silly because they think they introduce a lot of genetic diversity.

>Sure they are. And they patent it (which is a failing on so many governmental and international levels I find it painful to think about -- I'm all for cataloguing species and genes, but granting patent on something you literally found -- that's even worse than software patents).

Typically what's patented is the GMOs, not the corn that is bred traditionally (which is where > 50% of Monsanto's R&D budget goes to.)

>Now, if all they did was donate some to the world seed bank, and allow everyone to share in their (non gmo) discoveries -- I'd have no problem. But the idea that you might be committing a felony by planting a carrot you bought at the market is revolting.

I agree. To my knowledge, it's only been farmers who had an agreement with Monsanto and violated that who have been sued. See the Schmeiser/Monsanto case for an example.

<comment><USER6> What agreement did Schmeiser have with Monsanto? He never interacted with Monsanto to get the seeds, right? He intentionally collected and replanted them, but that didn't involve any interaction with Monsanto, either. I guess he purchased roundup from them. Does that involve some agreement? Or are you saying there was an implicit agreement because he chose to live in a country with patent laws he should have known he was violating? It does seem what he did was illegal given our patent system (regardless of whether it should be), but your wording seems to imply more than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found this remarkably unpersuasive -- one irrelevant factoid after another.

Tellingly, the word "glyphosate" does not appear in it. And the part about the Monsanto Protection Act -- yes, I know that's not its official title -- is just a gem:

 _protecting [farmers] from emerging state propositions that aren't based on science or research_

... because we've assumed the conclusion, that there couldn't be objections to GMOs that _are_ based on science or research.

I understand that GMOs have to be evaluated individually -- GMO technology _per se_ is not necessarily dangerous. That said, I think there's sufficient evidence of the toxicity of glyphosate -- and that it remains in food grown with it -- that I strongly prefer not to eat such foods.

Also -- we're talking about our _food supply_. Doesn't it stand to reason that the burden of proof should be on those who claim the resulting foods are safe, rather than on those who claim they are dangerous?

<comment><USER8> Is it true the Monsanto's approach is threatening the genetic diversity [1] as @e12e mentioned?

If it's true, we're going to rely on a much smaller gene pool for food production in next decades, which will cause severe genetic information loss and more vulnerability to new crop diseases. Another potato famine disaster but in global scale?

Do we have any measure to protect the gene pool? Do we need something like Gene Tax to curb the genetic convergence? I've no idea how Carbon Tax helps solving the global warming issue, but it seems a good idea to invest some money to protect those 'useless' genes and make all reserved natural seeds open for public access.

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

<comment><USER9> This is exactly the biggest problem that comes with commercial GMO plants. GMO companies are massively buying smaller seed producers and are actively reducing the food genpool, they are clearly out to control the global seed market - from a business perspective this absolutely makes sense.

For future generations this is a total catastrophe - reducing the available food genpool is is the maximal possible damage you could apply to the human kind.

This is not a theoretical scenario - india has lost big parts of it´s genpool for many food plants since the indian government is pushing gmo company products. The results are a complete disaster today, but this is just a foretaste what will happen on a global scale in a few years. Especially Africa, now beeing invaded by mega-industrial agro-projects backed by hedgefonds, will be hurt massively in the coming years.

Local seeds are of immeasurable value - it is conserved knowledge of hundreds, sometimes thousands of years that is deleted forever, when a variety disappears. This are not "failed experiments of nature" that vanish not able to survive the test of life - instead we are actively eradicating very good functioning and over a very long time optimized varieties, just because of some short-term experiment, that usually fails, and was only motivated by short-term profit-think.

GMOs are not "evil" or "good" \- it´s the extremely short-sighted and brutally enforced business-model that translates the totally stupid short-term profit- think into very destructive consequences for global biodiversity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "From Galileo to Servetus to Mendel to Einstein. Revolutionary science has always incited visceral hatred on a mass scale."

Okay I'm done here

<comment><USER11> "Allow me to set your mind at ease with regards to potentially questionable judgement by comparing myself to some of the greatest thinkers of all-time."

Honestly, I don't care what this guy does with his company, but it seems like a PR effort to salvage whatever reputation the Climate Company had built up before this acquisition by Monsanto.

<comment><USER12> ... via a letter intended to be an internal communication? That seems a bit round-about.

<comment><USER11> I'm not claiming that this was some sort of nefarious plan.

It seems like this sort of PR effort might be even more important internally than externally. Presumably there are some portion of employees that are also emotionally invested in the "grand mission" beyond just being a job and interesting work. In that situation, releasing the "internal communication" just a freebie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "In addition to "reading your emails" [when google introduced gmail, and funded it with ad-sense], Google was accused of storing all your email for the Federal government to read, and Google now CONTROLED ALL YOUR INFORMATION."

Well, thankfully, that never happened!

<comment><USER5> I definitely LOL'ed at that. David's has been working pretty hard on the acquisition the last few months and may not have been watching the news lately...

On the other hand, that should be proof that no marketing/PR person touched the email, I guess?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I have read (and granted, that's in main stream news) are two things 1) the unsure long term effect of the particular techniques Monsanto use 2) the forcing of farmers to use the products they make. For 2) there seem to be laws passed (in EU recently) for farmers to only allow Monsanto (and a handful of other vendors) their seeds; they cannot use their own seeds anymore.

Is that correct? Because 1) is a choice (IF 2 is not true that is); for instance I grow my own vegetables and fruit year round with my own seeds (by now) so I don't particularly care about 1) unless it would jump to my plants. I'm not sure what the chance is of that as all my neighbors for miles and miles around use their own seeds.

But if 2) is, even slightly, true then they should just boycot / eradicate this company and all Climate Corp employees should leave this instant imho. That's why I think it cannot be true or at least not the total truth; who would allow that to happen? So I guess it's a media-enhanced dark side which happens but is not common? I cannot really find objective info on that.

<comment><USER14> > 2) there seem to be laws passed (in EU recently) for farmers to only allow > Monsanto (and a handful of other vendors) their seeds; they cannot use their > own seeds anymore.

I would love to see some references for this.

I know that there is a list of seeds that can be used for commercial purposes. That means that people cannot sell "heritage seeds". One way to work around that is to set up a subscription club. Membership gets you a newsletter and membership of the club. And they send free heritage seeds every month.

[http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/](http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/)

Until now the rules have been relaxed for amateur seeds so other places just sell the seed direct. [http://www.realseeds.co.uk/](http://www.realseeds.co.uk/)

Here's some information about the EU law, and about proposed changes to it. The source is obviously biased. [http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw2.html](http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw2.html)

<comment><USER15> The big problem with charging money for the approval of all kinds of seeds, is that it makes large scale commercial seeds a lot more attractive than smaller scale "heritage" seeds, and that creates a drive towards monoculture.

If you ask me, projects to preserve seed diversity should be subsidized, rather than being charges the same costs as big commercial seeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a climate corp. employee who's happy to answer questions. I'd prefer to remain anonymous, but would generally be cool with answering questions.

Edit: I'll be back around tomorrow to answer questions.

<comment><USER16> Were you unhappy about the acquisition by Monsanto before you read the letter, and did you feel differently having read it? If so, or not, why?

<comment><USER5> A) Were you unhappy about the acquisition by Monsanto before you read the letter,

Yes, and to some extent I still am unhappy about the acquisition. They have a pretty terrible reputation and that's definitely causes an impact.

> and did you feel differently having read it? If so, or not, why?

No, not really. All of the eng/product people went to Monsanto and got a chance to ask very blunt questions. There are definitely some things they do that I don't agree with (see their lobbying in seattle to oppose the anti-GMO labeling effort,) but overall I'm convinced that they're a vital part of the current food supply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whelp, I predict he will come to regret is decision. Either that or this is just a PR farce and it wasn't really about climate idealism to being with.

Any company based around 'owning' biological progeny into subsequent generations on the basis of parents' genetics is too offensive and bile inducing to have a good side...

If the company is successful I sure can't imagine this turning out any other way than Monsanto holding farmers hostage over the climate and weather just like they do now over seeds.

<comment><USER5> They apparently have a > 90% approval rating amongst US Farmers for what it's worth. They're generally seen to be a solid investment by most farmers. This is what I'm told from internal statistics, so if it's entirely possible it's a bald face lie.

If you have statistics to the contrary I'd love to bring it up our company meeting and get back to you, personally or here.

Disclosure: I'm a Climate Corp Employee.

<comment><USER17> Hey, Kool-Aid has a 90% approval rating among Kool-Aid drinkers...

When water problems start becoming more widespread, problems with much of the current system will be more obvious, so to be fair this is an amazing hedge for Monsanto.

I'm also conflating to some extent high-yield strains with GM strains, but the overlap is pretty huge so consider it minor.

<comment><USER5> I've been told that a lot of their work on drought resistance is having good preliminary impacts on reducing water consumption. They've also purchased us at least in part because of the work we're doing on Climate Pro which is a tool to provide agricultural management for things like irrigation.

But again, give me studies and specific questions and I'll have answers from either the CEO or COO by Friday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The letter makes the same mistake it points out in Monsanto critics: lack of sources. Basically, his argument amounts to: "I'm a good and smart person. Trust me." But his misrepresentation of the Galileo situation doesn't instill much trust in me.

It is true that a lot of companies get called "evil" when the reality is a lot more complex and nuanced, but that observation by itself doesn't automatically make Monsanto one of the good guys.

It is interesting that Monsanto apparently got rid of their chemical arm. Does that mean they don't rely on the sale of Roundup anymore?

The claim that we've been using genetic engineering for centuries is one I see a lot, and it's false. As he points out immediately after, we have not been introducing totally new genes that never existed before. We've been breeding existing organisms and selecting for existing traits. It is the fact that it's a much slower process that also makes it safer; we get to see the effects of this breeding on a small scale before they get introduced on a wide scale. Monsanto's GMOs on the other hand often have a lot of unintended and unexpected side effects once released into existing ecosystems. (Like pests developing resistance to pesticides because those pesticides are not permanently available.)

I understands he wants to continue to believe he's a good person while still taking that billion dollars, but I need a bit more evidence before I'm willing to accept Monsanto as a positive influence.

</comment><comment><USER18> Now be honest, how many here wouldn't dance on the grave of their morality, just like Friedberg, for the sweet sum of $1 billion?

Be honest.

<comment><USER19> There is more complexity to the GMO / Monsanto issue than Food, Inc (and sadly the HN demographic) give credit. If you'd like to dig deeper there has been very balanced, good faith reporting from Nathanael Johnson on the topic: [http://grist.org/author/nathanael- johnson/](http://grist.org/author/nathanael-johnson/)

<comment><USER18> Let's not conflate the two issues here:

1) GMO or anti-GMO

2) the question of Monsanto's evilness (which has really nothing to do with the science of GMO's but their heavy-handed tactics and lobbying).

Personally, I am on the side of the scientific consensus when it comes to GMO.

But that doesn't mean that that gets Monsanto off the hook for being one of the vilest organizations on the planet right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem with his letter (and those against Monsanto) is that it is a huge corp with a long history. It (as far as 'it' can be applied, Ship of Theseus territory here.) has done terrible things that anyone can cherry pick to make it the most evil company in the world; but it does great things that people can cherry pick to make it seem great!

So people arguing about The Climate Corporation joining Monsanto will never agree because they each have their picked samples and there is no "Evil formulae" for determining the overall evilness of a company.

Having said that, the fact that he is being offered $1 Billion before knowing about the company does make one wonder how much research he did into the dark sides of Monsanto of if he avoided / rationalized it to support his bias, even if subconciously. He comes out overall positive it is easy for people to accuse him of not researching the bad things.

</comment><comment><USER9> To get knowledge about some basic facts please read at least

[http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths- and-t...](http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths-and-truths)

if you want to understand better, take some time and dig into [http://gmwatch.org](http://gmwatch.org)

</comment><comment><USER21> I am always surprised to see that the stance toward Monsanto is so different in US than in France. In France, we have quite often TV documentaries about ecology and monsanto. Almost everybody in France associates Monsanto with devil.

</comment><comment><USER22> The same company which makes RoundUP tolerant seeds also suing farmers in the US if they use their own seeds not bought from Monsanto also made Agent Orange pesticide agent during the Vietnam war.

[http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-named-2013s-most-evil- corpor...](http://www.ibtimes.com/monsanto-named-2013s-most-evil-corporation- new-poll-1300217)

<comment><USER23> > The same company which makes RoundUP tolerant seeds also suing farmers in > the US if they use their own seeds not bought from Monsanto

Yeah, that actually never happened and is a persistent urban myth.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Converting Ask HN Threads to GitHub Repos - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gutfeeling/beginner_nlp <comment><AUTHOR> Ask HN threads contain a lot of valuable information. So I decided to categorize and organize this information in a GitHub repo. Would appreciate your feedback on the following:

1\. Do you find this to be of any value?

2\. Any suggestions on what you would like to see in such repositories?</comment>


Launching airbnb.jp in record time - <AUTHOR> http://nerds.airbnb.com/launching-airbnb-jp/

<comment><USER2> Great post. I wonder whether the admin interfaces for translating, inline translating in particular, are custom made or at least based on some open source libraries?

<comment><USER3> Also wondering the same thing. The most impressive part of the translation system is the suite of admin tools that they have built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Never thought of doing huge website translations like this before, excellent post!

</comment><comment><USER5> Great story, and some useful insights on the logistics of translation...but a couple of questions were raised for me:

1\. How long does it usually take to launch a foreign language branch of Airbnb? Is the actual language (and its characteristics) the primary factor in the technical work involved?

2\. I take it that the Japanese localized site was aimed at Japanese wanting to travel overseas...but Airbnb (US) was already handling foreigners-to- Japanese translations, right? What was the amount of Japanese text that had to be translated to English?</comment>


Evolving Lindenmayer Systems - <AUTHOR> https://jobtalle.com/evolving_lindenmayer_systems.html <comment><USER2> "The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants" is an awesome book on L-systems: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algorithmic_Beauty_of_Plan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algorithmic_Beauty_of_Plants)

<comment><USER3> Seconded. It's really fascinating for anyone who is interested in the relationships between mechanistic generation and biological/natural artifacts.

For me, this book fits in the same family as Benoit Mandelbrot's "The Fractal Geometry of Nature", and Ulf Grenander's work on stochastic models for the generation of shapes like hands. And see also, cellular automata.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with Ulf's work, but it sounds very interesting. I tried finding his work on stochastic models for shape generation but didn't find it. Mind pointing me in the right direction?

<comment><USER3> I like the approachable monograph —

[https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387973869](https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387973869)

But there is also the magisterial —

[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/pattern- theory-97801...](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/pattern- theory-9780198505709?cc=lt&lang=en&)

There is a lot of published work from this school, including the seminal Geman and Geman paper from 1984, one of the most cited works in engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really love the YouTube channel Coding Train [0] - he also made some videos about L-Systems which he also explains in his free book The Nature of Code [1].

My username for HN was inspired by the creator of L-Systems, hehe.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1B4UoSQMFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1B4UoSQMFw)

[1] [https://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-8-fractals/](https://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-8-fractals/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm always happy to see L-Systems! I find them really awesome, the base principle is very simple: string rewriting. But the results can really be impressive for such a simple concept.

I can't help but do a shameless self-plug: I'm developing an interactive L-System generator : [https://github.com/epholys/procgen](https://github.com/epholys/procgen).

Here is a little demo: [https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/b4kpa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/b4kpaw/weekly_lsystem_special_edition_demo/)

And here are the L-System I've produced: [https://imgur.com/a/0Rx7uln](https://imgur.com/a/0Rx7uln)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been seeing yours on reddit lately, very nice stuff!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"the deepest thing I would like to communicate with you today...is we don't know how to design systems yet" ~ Alan Kay, OOPSLA '98

What would a Lindenmayer "toy" look like, I wonder?

<comment><USER8> pretty cool? See the 3D examples at the bottom of this post: [http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural- content-g...](http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content- generation-l-systems/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is an absolutely awesome reading, thanks for the upload.

Genuinely fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER10> The most interesting thing I've seen done with L-systems is algorithmically compose music, which can have interesting self-similar, fractal like structures.

<comment><USER11> [http://modularbrains.net/portfolio/do-digital-monkeys- inhabi...](http://modularbrains.net/portfolio/do-digital-monkeys-inhabit- virtual-trees/)</comment></comment>


Please Calculate This Circle's Circumference | Random ASCII - <AUTHOR> http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/please-calculate-this-circles-circumference/#more-1701 <comment><USER2> This is why I love C++. It turns even the most basic programming tasks into orgies of systems programming pedantry.</comment>


Highly performant list and datagrid for AngularJS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/webux/ux-angularjs-datagrid?

<comment><USER2> Based on the examples, this looks just like a list, not a DataGrid. I don't see column headers or even a clear separation of columns.

When clients say they want "something like excel" in an application; I often use a DataGrid. Based on the samples, this component doesn't provide that.

Am I misunderstanding something?</comment>


Facetime + iPad + Segway = Virtual Physical Presence - <AUTHOR> http://taptictoys.com/

<comment><USER3> We use VGo telepresence robots at our company right now; there are a few other companies in the space as well.

An engineer from Google has semi-famously made a nice homebrew rig with an iRobot base and a netbook: [http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/02/low- cost-video-...](http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/02/low-cost-video- chat-robot.html)

I'm guessing this unit would run around 12-15k as a product, based on the hardware involved. Right now, the VGo, which I consider the best solution on the market, costs $6k per robot.

The big advantage I'd see from a Segway-based solution would be stability and driveability.

What's really needed is better peripheral vision and A/V qualities - <USER2> something the iPad can deliver right now, but something I think this kind of rig would really do well if it had.</comment>


What happened to Magic Leap? - <AUTHOR> I haven't heard anything about them in awhile. <comment><USER2> Only in the US you see a startup getting over 1300 million USD of investment that is still working on their first product since 2010, and hasn't yet made a public release.

From what it seems, they are doing internal events to figure out what they should be doing. This basically sums up what they is happening there: "what he really wants to do is make the stuff of his childhood become real. A robot that can do Luke Skywalker's surgery. A way to see day dreams all the time" [https://www.wired.com/2016/04/went-inside-magic-leaps- myster...](https://www.wired.com/2016/04/went-inside-magic-leaps-mysterious- hq-heres-saw/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-07-11-so-what- the...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-07-11-so-what-the-hell-is- magic-leap-doing)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've tried it. It didn't work.

Or well it did, but so poorly that it's not worth the hassle. This was a couple a years ago tho

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I've heard a claim that it wasn't good. Everyone that has tried it has apparently said it was awesome. How did you get a chance to try it?

<comment><USER4> Father in law bought one and as i was doing 3d modelling at the time he thought that i could use it to manipulate the z axis easier so i got to set up and borrow it for a while.

But the sensors were so off that i mostly spent time spasming my hand above it.

Cool idea, no feasible applications

<comment><USER5> I believe you are speaking about a leap motion rather than a magic leap. I used to get the two product names confused also.

<comment><USER4> oohhh..! Yes! Yes exactly..! My bad

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, ok i can see getting those two confused, but it is a rather large confusion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A quiz based on your git repo - <AUTHOR> http://gitquiz.com

<comment><USER2> This is cool and fun.</comment>


13 Infographics For Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://williamgriggs.com/resources/top-13-startup-infographics/

<comment><USER2> Great list of infographics for entrepreneurs. Here is another [http://thelifestreaming.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-are-you- entr...](http://thelifestreaming.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-are-you-entrepreneur- or-not.html)</comment>


Los Angeles adopts Google e-mail system for 30,000 city employees - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/city-council-votes-to-adopt-google-email-system-for-30000-city-employees.html <comment><USER2> My first reaction was "WTF". But really it does make a ton of sense. I'll bet this deal, more than any other, scares the crap out of Balmer. If Google can get big organizations living inside the browser they're going to win the whole game.

<comment><USER3> Who said anything about living in the browser? Google provides my email service too and I hardly ever use the web interface.

<comment><USER2> Presumably this is a gateway drug for Google Docs.

<comment><USER4> The professionally acceptable term is "candy"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was on site at one of my clients, a top investment bank, and was surprised to see the guy I was visiting was using Google Apps for his work email. Turns out they were piloting it as a potential replacement for Lotus Notes (yikes). I don't think they actually decided to go with it, but the fact that a big firm would even consider a hosted solution for something like email -- especially in the financial sector, where there's constant obsession over security and regulatory compliance -- rocked my world a bit.

</comment><comment><USER6> What is the current cost of LAs email system? How much is LA supposed to save by switching? How long are the terms of the deal?

<comment><USER7> And what happens if Google loses interest in this product?

<Edit> My first line comes across as snarky, and I apologize.

But it still concerns me about relying on on-line services when I have read so many articles about one company or another either losing information, selling the product to someone else who has a different agenda, or deciding to abandon a product (among other actions).

<comment><USER8> This is a good point. As much as I like google, I've been bitten by the "google discontinues service xyz" problem a couple times in the past.

<comment><USER3> Not services that you had a 5 year SLA agreement for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I live in LA and this is the best use of tax money I've seen in a while =)

</comment><comment><USER10> $241 per account, that's some expensive email.

<comment><USER11> Not compared to the cost of exchange admins, project managers, licenses, production servers, QA servers, test servers, power, cooling, load balancers, web servers for OWA, etc.

<comment><USER12> spam filters....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So gmail will let the city of LA do litigation holds on e-mail, right?!??</comment>


Rapid Development and Performance in Spark for Data Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2015/10/06/spark-for-data-science/ <comment><USER2> Pretty good overview of a complex topic

</comment><comment><USER3> great introduction to spark! definitely would recommend reading it

</comment><comment><USER4> This is great!

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome

</comment><comment><USER6> very thorough

</comment><comment><USER7> nice read</comment>


200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sokanu.com/200-countries-200-years-4-minutes

<comment><USER2> The original video link (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo>) was submitted 5 days ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1954315>). Then a slightly different url ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jbkSRLYSojo#!)) was submitted 10 hours ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1973202>)

It seems quite unfair to me that the person who submitted this content first, and did so without linking to their own blog, gets none of the recognition and karma. While 100% of sthomps submissions (<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=sthomps>) are links to his own blog, where he mirrors or links to the original content.

I just said it (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1974170>) but I'll say it again: I think this is a flaw in HN's ranking scheme. If the original link isn't upvoted quickly, it never gets on the front page. After that, the rewards (recognition, traffic, and karma) go to people who mirror the original content or simply link to it from their own websites.

<comment> mike-cardwell How would you improve the ranking system?

<comment><USER2> I don't know of a complete fix, but a start would be to rank based on upvotes in the past hour (or 2 hours, or whatever works best) instead of since submission. This would allow links submitted days ago to end up on the front page if they were recently upvoted a lot. The new algorithm could be put on an alternate front page (similar to <http://news.ycombinator.com/classic>) until it was tweaked to get the desired result.

Since detection of duplicates and content mirrors is currently done best by humans, I think another aspect of the solution is cultural. If we want to stop this sort of thing, people need to point out mirroring/linking and flag submissions. If we do it enough, the incentives will change to discourage this behavior.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like a good solution that would also decrease the asymmetry between first submission, new submission and up-voting. (There's one asymmetry that we'd like to keep: Who gets the karma, but the asymmetry of those actions on ranking aren't as interesting.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He gave a similar presentation at TED. It's a lot longer though.Check it out. -> Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen: [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html)

More stuff from Rosling: -> <http://www.ted.com/search?q=hans+rosling>

<comment><USER5> In the documentary Swedish national television made about him, he says this regarding that TED video:

 _"If I count the number of minutes I've been teaching, this video teaches more than anything I've done in my life. All the articles, books, courses... None of it can compare with this one video. That's a humbling experience."_

The documentary is now available on youtube, with English subtitles: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7howQzatw>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> His visualization reminds me A LOT about gapminder (<http://www.gapminder.org/world/>), if anyone wants to play with this kind of data with this kind of visualization.

<comment> a-priori Shouldn't be surprising since Hans Rosling (the guy in the video) co-founded Gapminder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This data, and tons more, has been available through Google's public data explorer (<http://www.google.com/publicdata/home>)

Albeit, without an enthusiastic British (Edit: Swedish!) guy's explanations...

<comment><USER8> Swedish (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting that around the 70's the Asian countries (mostly China) spiked in life expectancy but still are at the same income level. There's a year where China's life expectancy just drop dramatically. I wish he had explained why.

<comment><USER9> Just found out that it's the Great Chinese Famine (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice use of sound effects too!!

</comment><comment><USER11> Income is not linear. So the disparity in income today is less evident. Thus helping paint the picture of a perfect future.

That and the selection of medians for thing like income and life expectancy makes that a very poor data viz choice. But a very good motivational talk. Really Ted material...

<comment><USER12> Income is not supposed to be linear. It makes it easier to see the relationship between log(income) and life expectancy visually.</comment></comment>