The Roots of Lisp (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html <comment><USER3> > In 1960, John McCarthy published a remarkable paper in which he did for > programming something like what Euclid did for geometry.

One could argue that Church's (1930s) lambda calculus, which underlies LISP, is a closer analogue to Euclid's distillation of the essence of Geometry.

With the minimal addition of pure binary IO, the lambda calculus is easily transformed into an untyped programming language [1]. On the other hand, full blown and richly typed pure functional programming languages like Haskell remain semantically faithful to their lambda calculus underpinnings.

[1] [https://tromp.github.io/cl/Binary_lambda_calculus.html](https://tromp.github.io/cl/Binary_lambda_calculus.html)

<comment><USER4> i don't think it's accurate to say lambda calculus underlies lisp, is it?

certainly lambda calculus was used to define functions in lisp, as seen in the original lisp paper (or the most famous one).

[http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/recursive.html](http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/recursive.html)

lambda calculus was a tool, but it seems godel and turing's work on computing machines and recursive functions were more fundamental to the original lisp.

<comment><USER5> The claim seems accurate to me, at least for Scheme: that is, lambda calculus does underlie Scheme.

Lambda calculus, as articulated in Church's 1935 paper, gives us a way to understand computability. But if we look specifically at Operation II in the paper (p. 347), what we have is the lambda function in Scheme. Given that every function in Scheme (including special forms) is equivalent to some lambda function, it seems that in virtue of Operation II we can say that lambda calculus underlies Scheme.

Whether we can push this further to say that lambda calculus underlies McCarthy's initial conception of LISP, or some arbitrary version of Common Lisp, I do not know for certain. But if all these versions treat lambda functions the same way as Scheme does (in relevant respects), then the claim holds for Lisp generally.

[1]: Church. An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory. _American Journal of Mathematics_, Vol. 58, No. 2. (Apr., 1936), pp. 345-363.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Recently had a conversation on how functional programming and declarative programming were somewhat linked, and how i observed that languages that started to go down the functional road slowly tried to add more and more capabilities for DSLs, and then slowly moved toward becoming a lisp. But that was just my feeling.

is this theorized somewhere ? Or am i just dreaming ?

<comment><USER7> Anecdotal experience:

(dynamic) functional programming enables very 'easy' succinct abstractions through combing out concretions and composing functions out of a general tool- set. Think code-reuse in the small.

With some discipline you naturally end up with a very data-oriented codebase, where the specificity of your application/library ends up in your data- structures.

Now these data-structures are really just plain data, without specific behavior attached to them, so they embody the (maybe almost) declarative part of your program/system. The next step would be to polish them to make them more human readable.

An additional feature of Lisps is their homoiconicity and macros. These come into play when plain data-structures are not the right fit anymore. Typically you want to handle some user/client defined behavior. You can now transform the syntax of the language itself to clean up your API to reduce boilerplate and increase readability.

In a sense you have now programmed your own DSL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> McCarthy wasn't just interested in making Lisp for AI, he was thinking about the possible applications AI, with Lisp as a platform to get to more advanced states of understanding. An example of this is in his paper "Computer Control of a Machine for Exploring Mars." Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project, Memo N. 14, June 15, 1964, Author: McCarthy, John, 1927-2011; Stanford University Library collections.

[https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:qh147kq8662/SC1041_SA...](https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:qh147kq8662/SC1041_SAIL_AIM_014.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> If I look at the operon structure of a genome, and squint a bit, it looks very similar to the LISP structure:

(func var0 var1 ... varn)

Could it be that the design of LISP is inspired by the structure of the genetic code?

<comment><USER10> I always thought this as well. In Lisp, data is the program similar to how DNA is data as well as the program.

<comment><USER11> We are all just mutated Lisp...and mutts.

[https://xkcd.com/224/](https://xkcd.com/224/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Funny to see this after all these years. I read this paper just before starting college in 2003 and it inspired me to spend most of the summer writing a rudimentary Lisp interpreter in rudimentary C++. That was my first piece of my code that actually worked, and was more than a dozen or so lines. Good memories.

</comment><comment><USER13> I get that Lisp is popular because of its meta-programming abilities, ie its macro system. And the reasoning was that you didn't have to wait for the language writers to implement the feature you wanted, since you could implement it yourself as a macro.

But this presented other problems, namely that you might end up coding your libraries on an island, and no one else could understand your code. This is probably why Lisp is mostly more powerful when there is only one or a few programmers working on the code base.

But with the increase in other programming languages, and the massive amounts of other libraries out there, then is this macro system really all that necessary anymore?

<comment><USER14> Clojure is a lisp that runs on top of Java, JavaScript and a couple of others and has access to all of those libraries via npm and maven

Having more libraries than most languages doesn't nullify the use of macros, macros are usually discouraged in application code because they don't compose well, don't make a macro if a function will do

However having macros meant that when go popularised CSP concurrency at the language level it meant we didn't need to change the language (for all variants of Clojure) it just meant we could make a library with macros to do CSP concurrency and it works on the browser on the server etc

Completely opt in, well documented as a library and we didn't weigh down the language with this feature, if or when the next big concurrency thing comes along we won't be looking to deprecate go channels from the language

Macros are incredibly powerful and you probably won't need them often but for those small cases of scratching a particular itch they're a get out of jail free card

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It amazes me how @pg managed to conquer the business side of startups and started YC given his very technical background!

To me it is not very common for (very) technical people to be good at both tech and business!

<comment><USER16> Yet some of the most successful business people seem to be good at tech. I heard that half of the CEOs of the top 500 fortune companies have a STEM degree.

<comment><USER17> My guess: STEM degrees require and foster critical thinking, logic, and abstraction skills, which are all very conducive to being a good business person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Which is the better introduction to Lisp: On Lisp (by pg), SICP, or another text (maybe on Common Lisp)?

Or is it better to just go straight to Clojure these days?

<comment><USER19> Clojure is always the wrong option to get into the principles of Lisp.

* Clojure utilizes non-standard Lisp syntax like []{}, weird function declaration and differ semantics of some forms (like cond usage, a powerful specie of switch-case of Lisp);

* Clojure don't have cons pairs, neither car and cdr operators. Cons pairs are fundamental Data Structures to build compound data, very well explored in SICP and any LISP text book.

* Clojure has the batteries of Java, so you will own a giant ecosystem to build complex software, but the evil parts of jvm will be inherited too. For the first contact with Lisp, this can be a unnecessary pain in the ass.

I would recommend to start a LISP journey with Land of Lisp or Practical Common Lisp (PCL), both focused in Common Lisp. Land of Lisp has a lot of history about the beginning of Lisp and the author write the book in a fun way, lot of charges and xkcd-like humor. The book has a collection of game projects per chapter, one at time, teaching principles of the language. PCL it's very useful for understanding specific parts of the language, I used as complement when Land of Lisp was not sufficient (loop topic on PCL is very good).

<comment><USER20> another angle:

while Clojure is a Lisp with its own distinct flavor it gives you …

* a large community of practitioners and professionals (great for asking questions, finding collaborators, …)

* easy access to libraries in the js/jvm/.net ecosystems

* a style that relies more on data and transformations of data (illuminating simplicity)

in any case: it is worth digging deeper, one thing that kept me away was not knowing where to start (analysis paralysis). in hindsight picking any Lisp would have been great (instead of postponing).

Find a thread and start pulling :)

Rich Hickey's talks were a great entry point for me [https://github.com/tallesl/Rich-Hickey- fanclub](https://github.com/tallesl/Rich-Hickey-fanclub)

e.g. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0) (the "Simplicity Matters" keynote at Rails Conf 2012)

edit: Land of Lisp is a great book as well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> IMO Lisp is just overrated, it lacks visual clues, reads right to left with horrible nesting etc..

Sure it has some good concepts. But fanboys on internet make it seem like some God tier thing.

<comment><USER22> "Some good concepts"?

It was the first language to add "if/else" constructs, GC, closures, first class functions, reference semantics, and recursion.

It took between 5 to 40 years before these became available in mainstream languages (conditionals like if/else were adopted early, GC not so much, closures took even more). Add to that macros and the flexibility of runtime evaluation / code creation, which most mainstream languages still lack.

And of course, Lisp's rules remain (and will always be) the most succinct way to define a full blown programming language with meta-programming facilities to boot -- as opposed to a mere Turing machine like thing or assembler.

> _IMO Lisp is just overrated, it lacks visual clues, reads right to left with > horrible nesting etc.._

This doesn't make any sense...

The nesting is the same as in almost any language.

"reads right to left" \- huh?

You know that Lisp code can be indented right?

<comment><USER11> As far as "Lisp lacks visual clues", after many heated debates on this, I've concluded that the ugliness and rigidness of "production" languages enforces certain visual and syntactic standards that makes reading others' code easier. Indentation of Lisp won't "solve" this because production languages also can be indented. It's not a difference maker.

Parameter lists are wrapped in parenthesis and separated with commas, while code blocks are wrapped in curly braces and separated with semi-colons.

Lisp won't do this because it's then harder to blur/merge/change the distinction between code and data, which is the very power of Lisp.

Building architectural eyesores is probably not a rational plan for a city, but dammit, those eyesores help you know and remember where you are.

Some people have a certain kind of eye and/or brain that allows them to read Lisp quickly, but this may not be universal. Some say "with enough time you'll get used to it", but the fact Lisp has been around for 60 odd years without catching on in the mainstream is evidence of this. Somebody would be rich by now off its alleged advantages if they were real (beyond a "write-only" startup language).

Functional languages are better at expressing ideas but slower at communicating them to other readers, on average. I also personally find them difficult to debug because they don't have enough "intermediate state" to x-ray for debugging purposes. Here's a conceptual illustration:

          // imperative:
          a = af(param);
          b = bf(a);
          c = cf(b);

          // functional
          c = cf(bf(af(param)));

In a debugger and/or Write statements I can readily examine intermediate values "a" and "b". Not so with functional. SQL presents a similar issue. Its new WITH statements help out, but only partly. Divide-and-conquer works better if you can examine the divisions.

<comment><USER23> You know your brain adapts so you can read something easier/faster the more you are exposed to it. For me, Lisp code couldn't be easier/faster to read and comprehend.

I'm convinced most of the people making jokes about parentheses or Lisp code being hard to read are superficially dismissing it without putting in even a minimal effort of working with it.

Things that don't immediately click are discarded. Individual curiosity ("Really smart people say great things about this, I wonder why that is..") leading to individual effort leading to deep understanding is not the prevailing attitude.

Sad state of affairs.

<comment><USER24> I think that the syntax has some hurdles, but it's not the parentheses: It's to mentally understand when lists and symbols are data and when they are code. That's a problem not found in other programming languages and at the same time it is an interesting feature. Lisp is not alone to have such hurdles - <USER2> example would be Haskell which is also more difficult to learn than the average programming language (lazy evaluation, type system, monads, ...).

Often Lisp had been used as a teaching language for computer science concepts (recursion, evaluation models, algorithms, etc.) and thus it was associated by students with novel concepts they struggle with and not with solving practical problems. A typical example is the SICP book. It's great, but mostly CS and mathematics oriented -> the result is that the feedback is mixed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chili's Has Installed More Than 45,000 Tablets in Its Restaurants - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/chilis-is-installing-tablet-ordering-at-all-its-restaurants/372836/ <comment><USER2> _The machines automatically suggest a tip of 20 percent; you can go lower than that (or higher), but you 'll need to actively decide to make that change._

So waiters who do _less_ than typical waiters automatically get a _bigger_ tip? Yet another reason to pay with cash. Overall this system seems like a benefit, however.</comment>


Genode – The microkernel approach (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://genode.org/documentation/general-overview/ <comment><USER2> Rather than that basic page that hasn't been updated in forever, it would have been better to link the "Genode Book"

[https://github.com/nfeske/genode-manual](https://github.com/nfeske/genode- manual)

Or a prebuilt version from months ago: [https://genode.org/documentation/genode- foundations-17-05.pd...](https://genode.org/documentation/genode- foundations-17-05.pdf)</comment>


Luxem is a better JSON - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Rendaw/luxem

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there's an obvious case that JSON is better purely by virtue of being widely adopted, but for projects that don't need immediate external compatibility luxem is a good choice.

I haven't tried it myself, but I think most JSON documents can be read with no modification by a luxem parser.

(Also, I uploaded the Python modules to pypi: luxem and luxemx)</comment>


Remind HN: Posts tomorrow may be for our April 1st enjoyment - <AUTHOR>

Tomorrow is April 1st. Keep that in mind when we read/submit posts tomorrow :-) <comment><USER2> Personally, I would rather we didn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> In some places, it is already April 1st.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point.</comment></comment>


Game of Life implemented in 5 minutes using APL (amazing video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4

<comment><USER2> Submitted 26 minutes ago by someone else ... <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=451923></comment>


Ask HN: Describe my start up in one sentence - <AUTHOR>

Following on from my post on Tuesday [0], I'm really struggling to come up with a good tag line for BugMuncher [1]. Maybe I'm too close to it, so I thought I'd see if the kind folks of HN can come up with something.
Thanks in advance
0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152465 1 - http://bugmuncher.com <comment><USER2> BugMuncher: Instant and complete bug reports

BugMuncher: Full bug reports in an instant

BugMuncher: Bugs reported and squashed in an instant

BugMuncher: Your bugs shot and munched on-site

Something to seed the idea pool...

</comment><comment><USER3> [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152465)

[1] [http://bugmuncher.com](http://bugmuncher.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> here is one: point out the bug, then get the point.a company who make the point.</comment>


Matrix Multiplication - <AUTHOR> http://matrixmultiplication.xyz <comment><USER2> 1\. Needs a back button.

2\. It might be more illustrative if the transposed vectors pass over the matrix one by one. In the default example - you take the [2 6 1] vector and show how its dot products populate the final matrix, then do the same for the [5 7 8] vector. That's closer to the way I think about matrix multiplication.</comment>


Show HN: Jeremy's Art Generator - <AUTHOR> http://zeug.eiszblu.me/jeremy/gallery/

<comment><USER2> I'm a huge fan of gen art and I really like this. It took a while to figure out - but it was straightforward once I read the manual. I think a big button that just gave a bunch of random cards and settings would be useful and interesting to see what kind of 'complete' random works would be created. Thanks for making and showing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! All credits go to [https://twitter.com/eiszfuchs](https://twitter.com/eiszfuchs)

There actually already is a "button" to generate random art, although not visible, really. In the headline (on the generator page) it says: "Good evening, Jeremy. What's life without randomly generated art?" Just click "randomly generated art" and it will random all the way.

You can also try the beta version and press "dream();" in the navigation. :-)

[http://zeug.eiszblu.me/jeremy/beta.html](http://zeug.eiszblu.me/jeremy/beta.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More details can be found here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/2pl07h/jerem...](http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/2pl07h/jeremys_art_generator/)</comment>


Hackers Remotely Steer Tesla Model S Using Autopilot System - <AUTHOR> https://securityledger.com/2019/04/hackers-remotely-steer-tesla-model-s-using-autopilot-system/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19536375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19536375)

</comment><comment><USER3> > caused the Tesla to veer into the reverse lane by placing interference > stickers on a road, which confused the lane-recognition system

So it makes you lose control of the car except you can easily regain control of the car by manually steering it. How is this better than a spike strip?

<comment><USER4> What's the point of a self driving car if it cannot even do the most basic task of following lanes? Tesla isn't exactly ahead of the competition and now they might even be behind regular lane assist.</comment></comment>


Deciding on which ideas to pursue - <AUTHOR> http://sameernoorani.com/deciding-on-which-ideas-to-pursue/ <comment><USER2> Read Hamming's famous talk on how to decide what to work on. He wrote it for research scientists but the same logic applies: [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

(The talk is entitled "You and Your Research" so if this site I liked to gets overloaded, just search for that).

</comment><comment><USER3> Finding the right mentor takes time but is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with finding a mentor.</comment>


Smart CSS Coders use CSS Pre-Processors, so should you. - <AUTHOR> http://brajeshwar.com/2011/stop-torturing-yourself-with-plain-css-code-with-a-css-pre-processor/

<comment><USER3> 1) By all means write about what you like or what helps you. But please don't tell me what I should do. Worse, don't imply I'm dumb if I don't.

2) In my experience, beginners are best served learning "pure" CSS first. After they get their bearings, I point them to resources like OOCSS or SMACSS. Once they demonstrate a solid appreciation of concepts like specificity, modularity, etc, I feel much better about their prospects using a pre- processor.

3) Power tools like pre-processors amplify bad code. Blanket statements that everyone should use them - particularly "non-experts and geniuses" - <USER2> dangerous advice.

disclaimer: I like and use pre-processors myself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Extremely tough to read.</comment>


My Dentist's Murder Trial - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/my-dentists-murder-trial <comment><USER2> As is often the case with articles like this, I'm wondering if there's anything the author has neglected to mention that might otherwise sway my opinion. I am reminded of "My Family's Slave" and the ensuing skeletons falling out of that guy's closet.

Edit: That said, I would not be surprised if this account was 100% accurate.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Kolman's death occurred before dawn on November 29, 2011

That's exact time I got married too.</comment>


Use rsync to deploy your website - <AUTHOR> http://breckyunits.com/code/use_rsync_to_deploy_your_site

<comment><USER2> well, all i get is a blank page right now, so assuming this site was deployed using rsync, this isn't a real good advertisement for the process.

<comment><AUTHOR> Real post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008802>

Oops! I learned 2 things:

1\. I should have copy pasted the url instead of typing it. 2\. The blog software needs a 404 page.

Thank you for alerting me to this.</comment></comment>


Electric cars and cheap solar 'could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/02/electric-cars-cheap-solar-power-halt-fossil-fuel-growth-2020 <comment><USER2> Interesting. And much different from IIRC what a recent episode of Nova[1] said. Nova claimed that our worldwide power needs would be 3x current by the end of the century.

No way we can get to that point on mostly renewable energy. The show visited a large battery installation in China. The installation was _huge_ (many many acres) for IIRC 20 MWh. The batteries helped smooth the power output from a PV solar installation.

So batteries were great in that example, but I just can't see how they can replace a nuke plant for base load. How do you go from 20 MWh to replacing a nuke producing 1000 MW * 15 or more hours of low sunlight in winter? Just like in Jaws ("you're gonna need a bigger boat"), you're gonna need square miles and square miles and square miles of batteries.

And if it's not a nuke, then it's a big combined cycle natural gas plant. Or a coal plant. Something, anything, that can keep the lights on at night.

I think this Guardian article is nothing more than wishful thinking.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/treasures-earth- power.htm...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/treasures-earth-power.html)</comment>


The first paramedics were young black guys from Pittsburgh - <AUTHOR> https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/freedom-house-ambulance-service/ <comment><USER2> Not really? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_ambulance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_ambulance) lists countless earlier examples that could be classed as 'paramedics':

 _Shortly before World War II, then, a modern ambulance carried advanced medical equipment, was staffed by a physician, and was dispatched by radio._

</comment><comment><USER3> And?</comment>


Ask HN: What new inventions are you working on? - <AUTHOR> Either individually or in a corporate setting.What new inventions/innovations can be expected from fellow hn comrades? <comment><USER2> IMHO the greatest inventions are those of the highest utility relative to cost of implementation. Such inventions usually arise from tenaciously scratching a particularly bothersome itch.

For example, I've seen many Scala programmers struggle with achieving maximal type safety due to getting bogged down in boilerplate. To attack this problem (as I see it anyway, but that's all which matters for now) I'm researching ways of utilizing Scala macros to cut down on such boilerplate while retaining type safety.

This has been huge for my own side work (which means the utility is definitely there), but I'm still uncertain as to the cost, i.e. what effects my approach might have on a "serious" commercial project. I'm just going to have to find out the old fashioned way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Water machine. Air + electricity -> freshwater. (No, it's not a refrigerated air unit; in fact, it works in the driest climates)

</comment><comment><USER4> We just launched a new developer tool named Coati, which is designed to navigate and understand source code: [https://www.coati.io/](https://www.coati.io/)

The idea was based on our experience that you spend too much time searching through code as a developer. Coati makes it much easier to see how the different parts of the software play together.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am building a cloud based FEM (finite element) simulation tool which you can run in the browser

<comment><USER6> As a mechanical engineer, I thank you and how you succeed. If you need a tester for UX feedback, I'd love to help. My email is in my profile.

I checked out your profile and saw you're an ME and developer as well, but also see you're self employed. Do you do freelance programming? And what type of development do you do? Sorry for all the questions, I'm always curious to see what others in the same field are up to.

<comment><USER5> i'll come back to you when the beta version is online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Although not me, but I have played the role of the engineer in the research going on currently in our lab for developing a more advanced brain computer interface, to help people in need that can't move their bodies, we're doing pretty well, I will share the realization soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm building a new communication interface for humans and machines.

</comment><comment><USER9> No invention per se, but integration of various hardware parts into a much better hardware part. I just wanted to buy something like it, and all offers on the market are shit compared to what I want, compared to what I can make by buying various parts myself and connecting/programming it all together.</comment>


10 times the explosive power of all explosives used in WWII - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

<comment><USER2> It created a fireball 5 miles in diameter, destroyed all buildings up to 34 miles away, and could give 3rd degree burns to people 62 miles away. I can't even comprehend how one bomb could do so much damage.

<comment><USER3> its ground zero is readily findable _by sight_ on Google Maps:

<http://goo.gl/maps/w9teB>

Notice the scale by zooming out ever so slightly. Also, _time_ scale, because it happened _decades_ ago.

This has to be the only man-made _de_ struction that can bee seen with the naked eye from space.

<comment><USER4> "This has to be the only man-made destruction that can bee seen with the naked eye from space."

No, you can see Los Angeles from space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a segment from a Discovery channel documentary on the Tsar Bomba[1]. It is pretty difficult to visualise the kind of impact this bomb would have if actually dropped on a city. It would obliterate London (and large parts of England), as well as Paris, Madrid, Athens, Berlin, Vienna and countless other cities around the world if dropped.

I also read somewhere (but can't find the link) that although the Soviet pilots had special shutters and goggles to keep the flash out, when the bomb exploded they claimed they could see their bones through their hands.

Of course, the damage from this bomb (in terms of fallout) was much less than that resulting from the Castle Bravo test[2].

[1] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGk90-zvWOo>

[2] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo>

</comment><comment><USER4> I read this headline with the narrator's voice from "Dr. Strangelove" (who had a similar line).

"Each B-52 can deliver a nuclear bombload of 50 megatons, equal to 16 times the total explosive force of all the bombs and shells used by all the armies in World War Two."

</comment><comment><USER6> "10 times the combined power of all the conventional explosives used in WWII, or one quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa."

Looks like we still have a way to go.

<comment><USER7> Well, that's the most powerful ever _detonated_ , not necessarily the most powerful ever designed or built. Also I assume the current best is classified. We've probably surpassed that by a margin, given that FIFTY years have passed. The time between the first nuke and Tsar Bomba was 15 years. Now we have better science, more money, computers, and a 50 year lead.

<comment><USER8> However, as the "analysis" section of the wikipedia article mentions, ever since the invention of ICBMs and other more accurate and faster methods of delivering nuclear bombs, the trend has been towards carpeting the target area with smaller and more numerous bombs. Since the energy of the explosion is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, for destroying a specific area I suspect having multiple smaller explosions would be more effective than one large explosion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just hope that the work that resulted in this device will produce many benefits to nonweaponary nuclear science.

<comment><USER10> Main designer became firm opponent of weaponized nuclear energy and advocate/researcher for peaceful use of nuclear power

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> HN or Digg?</comment>


Ask HN: Website Design Based on Internet Connection Speed - <AUTHOR>

I just got done reading an article that I originally stumbled upon through HN by Stephanie Rieger where she describes her frustration with Camper.com via a slow internet connection where the designer's user of technology triumphed the site's usability. (See article here: http://stephanierieger.com/its-about-the-content-stupid/)
Well, this got me thinking. Would it be possible to load different site designs based on the internet connection speed of the user? Basically something similar to that of the way we utilize certain style sheets (CSS) based on screen size.
P.S. Just as a heads up I am new not only to HN, but the entire programming world. I have intermediate knowledge in HTML & CSS, and I've just started learning JavaScript. If anyone has tips or advice I would love to hear from you!
Respect, Alex <comment><USER2> Not that I'm aware of out the box. There are multiple good practices to follow. YSlow and Google Pagespeed are both great indicators of what you're doing wrong.

What you need to remember is that you should only 'load' what you need. Don't load a 1920x1200 size image if you're only displaying it as 240x150. Combine your stylesheets, create sprite images, load only javascript you need - try to stay away from flash and similar embedded objects. Make sure your files are served compressed (except images) and that proper caching is in place.

You can't always blame the technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the words of advice, Kellros. And I totally agree, you can't always blame technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My mentality is that as long as you can present your content well to a vast majority of your users, you don't need the experience to be perfect for 100% of them. There is always going to be that one guy on IE6 and dial-up, but you shouldn't have to cater to his needs.

This doesn't mean aim for a really big, rich design that takes forever to load, it just means that you shouldn't have to compromise for the micro- minority.

About web development tips, read as much as you can about JavaScript and go with Node.js for the server. :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips, Mappum! I've definitely been on the hunt for some good JavaScript material, so if you know of any please shoot it my way. I'm not familiar at all with Node.js, but I'm going to take some time to look into it now that you've mentioned it.

Respect, Alex

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> it is possible but not usefull. Opera has "Opera turbo" and when connection is slow, it's adjusting all websites. I thinks there is no need to do that for each website.</comment>


Reader, Marry Him (Megan McArdle) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/04/reader-marry-him/39342/ <comment><USER2> The planet is in no dire straits for additional children. Remove this factor and the only use for binding someone to a marital contract is strictly for financial and emotional property reasons. The term 'soulmate' is as ambiguous and silly as the term 'god'.

</comment><comment><USER3> People settle down (with or without explicit contract) because the good outweighs the bad. People provide all sorts of justifications but in the end, it's a good/bad tradeoff. If you don't like living with compromise, then don't settle down.

And if you won't revisit your choices, at least do others the favor to not whine about them :-).</comment>


Coronavirus and the blindness of authoritarianism - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/ <comment><USER2> This seems a little hypocritical given that the US still doesn't have an adequate SARS-2 testing regime in place, and will almost certainly see the first real rise in cases once a cluster of locally transmitted infections start becoming severely ill/dying, as in Italy/Iran. Calling China blind while we still have our eyes shut. It is possible we'll luck out and escape Wuhan- level consequences, but I'm predicting this piece may age very badly.

<comment><USER3> I'm "curious" how things will work out in the US when people

1) show up to work at, say, McDonalds even if they're not feeling great.

2) wait until the last minute to seek health care because it's expensive

And by "curious" I mean "extremely worried".

Edit: I'm certainly no expert though; it'd be nice to consider some actual data about how these things spread (is the flu a similar enough model?). Maybe the above points don't really matter that much. I'm still worried in any event. Several relatives-in-law live in one of the affected areas of Italy.

<comment><USER4> > 1) show up to work at, say, McDonalds even if they're not feeling great.

The US generally has extremely strict guidelines regarding food safety and hygiene. In terms of food safety, America ranks above all but the Nordic countries.[1]

I can assure you that American restaurants absolutely will not tolerate a food worker with an active upper respiratory infection. If anything US restaurants are more likely to order a worker to stay home, because unlike Europe they generally don't have to give hourly workers paid sick time.

[1] [https://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Index](https://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Index)

<comment><USER5> While this is true, what worries me about Coronavirus is its weeks-long incubation period, where you can spread the virus even without any symptoms attached.

The obvious "dude is coughing / sneezing" case simply doesn't apply to Coronavirus. It can spread long before you show any symptoms.

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

There are even cases where people are passing the virus on without ever actually getting, or feeling, sick. [https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers- confirmed-patients-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-confirmed- patients-can-transmit-the-coronavirus-without-showing-symptoms)

Coronavirus is deadly enough to kill some people, but weak enough that some people's immune system represses it entirely.

In some ways, something like Ebola is easier to control. Because everyone who gets sick with Ebola actually shows symptoms (because Ebola is so deadly).

<comment><USER3> As above/below though, that goes for pretty much any country and if it's the biggest factor in contagion, then maybe we won't see large differences between wealthy-ish countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's more about not wanting to take responsibility at all levels than not knowing it. Though party mouthpieces love this angle to spin the supreme leader as kind-hearted whenever possible.

Cersorship serves to make the people feel good, but general hospitals are almost all state-owned thus the infomation flow is not that impeded.

The system punishes those who take risks (right or wrong) and rewards those who obey orders, display loyalty and don't make mistakes.

In this case, low level officials waited for orders, the national level agency went to the site fairly early on but they too waited, here's the catch, high officials and Xi don't want to make mistakes too. The power dynamics were on display when the governor knew he's about to be sacrificed so he went on a high profile live interview to accuse Beijing of inaction, couple days later, Xi released his own version of the story, replaced the local boss with his old sport, gaining even tighter grip on local governments.

Every body in this system avoids doing things with the slightest possibility of harming their political careers, but doubles down on the things that make them politically safe (heavy-handed/draconian lockdown measures).

</comment><comment><USER7> It seems like in a situation like this authoritarianism is a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, you get fed deceptive information by your local officials, but on the other hand, you have the power to enforce city-scale quarantines rather effectively.

It's not immediately clear to me which of these is actually more important, but it doesn't seem quite as simple as this article is portraying it to be.

<comment><USER8> Why should a democracy not be able the enforce a city-scale quarantine effectively? Italy did it on a smaller scale in no time yesterday. I do not see why this should not work for example for Milano too.

<comment><USER7> > Why should a democracy not be able the enforce a city-scale quarantine > effectively?

Because decision making here is less centralized. People have rights, and they will agitate about them. It's not clear where the governmental authority to quarantine an entire city would come from in say, the US. It might be constitutionally challenged, people would get mad and sue. None of that happens in China.

<comment><USER9> According to Wikipedia the authority comes from H.R. 5122 signed into law by G.W. Bush in 2006, which "gave the president the power to declare martial law and to take command of the National Guard units of each state without the consent of state governors."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Japan, Korea and Italy are Authoritarianism as well?? They are losing grip even after Chinese and WHO warned them.

<comment><USER11> The WHO has been repeating the ridiculous lines that travel restrictions don't work and that China is doing a wonderful job containing the virus.

<comment><USER10> Italy applied travel bans long time ago, apparently didn't work?

<comment><USER12> Italy banned direct flights from China, but not indirect flights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As my wife and I were talking about this, one thing that came to mind was the Chernobyl disaster, which both of us saw on TV as kids when it unfolded. The CPSU also initially attempted to sweep it under the rug, and for about 3 days you could only find out about it from e.g. Voice of America broadcasts (which people would get on shortwave radio in regions which weren't covered by jamming).

After a few days it became clear even to the party bosses that this is not an ordinary disaster, and it can't be swept under the rug entirely, so we got some reporting from the site of the disaster, mixed with a heavy dose of propaganda. They'd show trucks, workers, views of the reactor from a helicopter (which was probably getting a bunch of radioactive dust in the air), speak of heroism of those who tried to douse the fires in spite radiation and later died of radiation poisoning, stuff like that.

What they did not do, however, is make any attempt at explaining the magnitude of the disaster, so while the populace was pacified by "reporting" we didn't really know its true effects until many years later.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure I agree with this article - there is plenty of evidence to suggest that China knew about C19 well ahead of the media, but choose to ignore it to save face and/or not create panic.

<comment><USER15> Isn't that the point though? That sweeping things under the rug in order to save face is what allows these issues to spiral out of control.

<comment><USER16> But did they really sweep things under the rug or is that just what people casually like to say without fact checking? Here is the coronavirus timeline: [https://youtu.be/kO5EXjFKE7U](https://youtu.be/kO5EXjFKE7U)

<comment><USER17> Nathan Rich is notorious for spreading Chinese communist propaganda. You should post a better source.

<comment><USER16> You say it is propaganda but do you have an argument against his actual claims? Can you point out factual inaccuracies or omitted facts that are relevant?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm all for hating on authoritarians but this is nonsense. If anything, authoritarianism allowed China to build facilities and implement ridiculous quarantine measures in record time.

<comment><USER11> It really depends how much you care about your parents/grandparents. If the projections out of Harvard today are correct and 40-70% of the world population ultimately contracts the virus, and if the mortality rates of those over 60 are correct - then there's a very real chance that many of the people on this thread will be attending the funerals of family members within the next 18-24 months.

The internet is full of people in the younger demographic, so it's not surprising they are not overly concerned.

<comment><USER18> >> projections out of Harvard today

Link?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I agree with the point about suppressing dissent being a vulnerability because it suppresses information, I don't think this is something democracies are so great at. The UK's response to mad cow disease, for example, does not look much better, if as good.

The flupandemic in 1918 was not handled appreciably better in the democracies than it was in the empires.

People in authority reacting too slowly to an epidemic, is not unique to authoritarian states.

</comment><comment><USER20> This and another article today on the Atlantic seems to be implying that this type of epidemics are better dealt with in democratic countries. To me, that isn't that much clear, to see how the AIDS was handled in the United States during the 80's.

Even democratic governemnts are succesptible to staging coverups to save face.

<comment><USER21> Was that really a coverup or willful neglect due to a cultural atmosphere that was massively homophobic? From what I understand the Reagan administration was reluctant to put resources into something that was considered a "gay mans disease", really wouldn't have played well with the majority of the electorate at the time.

<comment><USER22> >From what I understand the Reagan administration was reluctant to put resources into something that was considered a "gay mans disease"

indeed, let us not forget that "AIDS" was originally called "GRID", "Gay- related immune deficiency" and was also called things like "gay cancer" and "gay plague". It was unfortunate events like Ryan White's infection [1] that started to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White#Ryan_White_and_publ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White#Ryan_White_and_public_perception_of_AIDS)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Indeed. See When Fury Overcomes Fear: www.chinafile.com/reporting- opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear

</comment><comment><USER24> Seems to be working pretty well in Vietnam.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is an excellent article also showing the danger of censorship, which on HN happens via the voting and flagging system as well as shadow bans. People become afraid to speak their minds and you end up with dangerous conformity.

<comment><USER26> Yes.

> One could go so far as to say that from the highest echelon to the very > bottom of the system, this lot represent the worst political team to have > run China since 1978. That is why I believe that it is imperative that the > nation act on and truly put into practice [Article 35 of the > Constitution][1]. That is to say [we ourselves should advance Five Key > Demands]:

> 1\. Lift the ban on independent media and publishing;

> 2\. Put an end to the secret police surveillance of the Internet and allow > people their right to freedom of speech so they can express themselves with > a clear conscience;

> 3\. Allow citizens to enjoy their right to demonstrate as well as the > freedom of assembly and association;

> 4\. Respect the basic universal rights of our citizens, in particular their > right to vote in open elections.

From an [essay][2] by Xu Zhangrun, translated and annotated by Geremie R. Barmé.

[1]: [http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/...](http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372964.htm)

[2]: [https://www.chinafile.com/reporting- opinion/viewpoint/viral-...](https://www.chinafile.com/reporting- opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hopefully we'll get lucky with this one and it will "only" be a bit worse than the flu. We don't know. The risks lie in the unknown.

But, if this thing (or some other thing down the road) is bad, then won't democracies essentially be faced with the decision to suspend liberty in a martial-law type situation? Effectively becoming (at least temporarily) authoritarian?

If not, what's the Democratic model for addressing a situation requiring mass quarantine? Seems like a good question to ask _before_ facing such a crisis, even if it seems outlandish or fringe.

<comment><USER22> I don't think this will be 'that bad' in the end, I think far worse will come in the future though without a doubt. The Chinese growth seems to be mostly just a result of people living in rather large concentrations with generally poor hygeine. The South Korean spread seems to largely stem from a single religious group (and it appears they are a doomsday cult that may be attempting to spread the virus intentionally [1][2][3]).

Ok, I _hope_ this won't be bad. I'm getting married in 89 days and in my religion the weddings are at one of our temples... we've closed 2 in Asia indefinitely already due to the virus and I'm _hoping_ it doesn't get bad here in the United States and result in the same. I'm already looking at a punk concert I have tickets for the week of my birthday next month and thinking "yeahhh, maybe I should just eat the cost and not go" but it also has my fiance and I a bit on edge for our wedding and what the earliest we can get the marriage license and other necessary paperwork so that if things start to get bed we can look at all the temples near us and schedule a different date within a few days to make sure we are married before we see any potential closures. _sigh_

A thought I've had is I wonder how much genes have to do with the severity of this. I have not looked at the data for a racial component, nor am I remotely qualified to, but I wonder if there isn't some genetic variable in Asian populations that is causing this to be more severe. Perhaps there is something there that will see a less severe response in other populations. _shrugs_ just throwing an idea out there.

[1] - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/south- kore...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/south-korean- coronavirus-spike-linked-to-doomsday-sect-with-messianic- leader/2020/02/21/cd3e1220-54c2-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html)

[2] - [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/how-coronavirus- hit-s...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/how-coronavirus-hit-south- korea/11993682)

[3] - [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus- latest...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-latest-south- korea-super-spreader-cult-church-diamond-princess-uk-a9348646.html)

<comment><USER9> So, just one person to another on the internet: best of luck to you both, and congratulations on your upcoming wedding :) I remember very well the stress of wedding planning. In the end we eloped!

<comment><USER22> Thanks! This is going to be an interesting year for me. I hit 7 months sober last week which is easily the longest sober stretch I've had since the first time I had alcohol around age 15, I'm getting married (never thought that would happen) and she makes more than me plus adding her income will finally give me some breathing room to start to entertain pursuing some sort of training/education other than a degree (college just isn't for me) to try and finally improve my situation as I move into being 35, we plan to try and have a house this year which will be a huge thing and nice to have space I can finally make mine... just gotta get through a potential epidemic that might kill people i know and/or leave me unemployed since I work in international freight _wince_.

Going to be an interesting year one or more ways.

<comment><USER27> Congrats on your sobriety! I stopped drinking 4 years ago, because it tended to make me depressed and anxious. I'm very happy with my decision.

<comment><USER22> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Claims unequivocally that the virus originated in the wet market. However, Chinese scientists are saying it possibly did originate from a Wuhan lab:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC0gww2yznI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC0gww2yznI)</comment>


GitKraken: git GUI Client for Windows Mac and Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.gitkraken.com/ <comment><USER2> The applicatino asks you to register with my email address for further "communications related to GitKraken or Axosoft". There is no way to skip this step, you have to provide an email address ––and pay attention to "OR"... No thanks, buddy.

First thing I tried is dropping a git repo folder to the window, didn't work. When I click the open button I can see the Javascript animation glitching on my 'Early 2015 i5 2.7 Ghz MacBook Pro'.

The commit list UI is kind of alright but it doesn't show you the diff anywhere. So that's not exactly a Git UI, buddy. And this is not open source either, that's a lot of strikes. No thanks.

<comment><USER3> If you're on OS X I recommend gitup. Very fast and clean. Although if I remember correctly, it does ask for an email address.

<comment><USER4> GitHub Desktop[1] runs on both OS X and Windows. It works with non-GitHub git repositories too.

[1] [https://desktop.github.com/](https://desktop.github.com/)

<comment><USER5> I wish the GitHub Desktop app would be more of a browser for GitHub.com, including issues.

GitHub's site is not really convenient for me, the notifications aren't very useful, it generally feels like a clunky way to work.

If GitHub were smarter, they could have become the Slack of development. There's so much room for improvement there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not open source: [http://www.gitkraken.com/faq](http://www.gitkraken.com/faq)

<comment><USER7> Yeah. I don't know when this happened, but that's become a deal breaker for me. Strange, right?

Edit to add: It's particularly strange because I wouldn't depend on this tool in some infrastructural way -- I could switch clients anytime without any lock in. But I'm no longer willing to even try anymore. Odd.

<comment><USER8> I don't think this is a dealbreaker for 99% of people. I currently use Tower ([https://www.git-tower.com/](https://www.git-tower.com/)), a closed-source Mac Git client that costs $70.

It's beautiful, it speeds up my work day to day, and it's been worth every cent. Open source is great and I spend my days building an open-source mail client, but I have no problem paying for great tools.

<comment><USER9> I hate to be that guy, but you're paying $70 for that? What does that offer over, say SourceTree, Atlassian's _free_ offering. From a quick glance, they look pretty similar to me.

<comment><USER10> Am I the only one who remembers when $70 was cheap for anything development related? Either it's good enough to save you 5-10 minutes a day where it's obviously worth $70 or it's not, and isn't worth any price (well maybe a dollar or two if you are, say, a collector of git clients).

<comment><USER11> Somehow new generations of developers want all their tools for free, but expect to get money for their work.

Strange profession, when compared how much some of other professionals pay for their tools.

<comment><USER12> Why is it strange? Lots developers who write free software get paid for their work.

<comment><USER11> Only in areas where software is not the main product.

<comment><USER12> How did you come up with that?

Mozilla is a clear example of people paid to write FLOSS. I used to work at a foundation that did that too. There's plenty going around.

<comment><USER11> Mozilla is a clear example of a software that isn't the product being sold.

The product being sold is the service to access online web sites, sell search data to engines and online advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I personally never use GUI clients for git, the CLI does exactly what it's supposed to do, efficiently, quickly in a stable reproducible manner, most GUI clients are for people who just don't want to learn to use the CLI properly.

But some tips for your project: 1-Lose the forced email registration 2-Easy on the Luxury, we're devs not divas 3-The beta agreement is just way too scary to take the product seriously, examples:

>Company grants Recipient a nonexclusive, nontransferable license to use the GitKraken ("Product") for a period designated by the Company for the purpose of testing and evaluating the Product.

>This Product is a beta release offering and is not at the level of performance of a commercially available product offering. The Product may not operate correctly and may be substantially modified prior to first commercial release, or at Company's option may not be released commercially in the future.

How do you expect to compete with other existing and stable products ? I'm not trying to sound harsh, this is just my views and I think I've got a point right?

<comment><USER14> "most GUI clients are for people who just don't want to learn to use the CLI properly"

Ridiculously arrogant comment with nothing to back it up. GUIs exist; get over it.

"How do you expect to compete with other existing and stable products?"

It's a beta. The T's & C's pretty much translate as "it's a beta". What do you want them to do, NOT release a beta? Fair enough if so, but a lot of software is released this way. And pretty much all FLOSS software excuses itself from any kind of warranty too.

<comment><USER15> I use both with git, nothing wrong with that. A GUI client for committing which allows me to better look at diffs and makes selecting files for staging easier, not having to do `git status` all the time; and the command line for everything else - pulls, merges, rebases, cherry picking etc etc.

<comment><USER16> You might also like: [https://github.com/magicmonty/bash-git- prompt](https://github.com/magicmonty/bash-git-prompt)

Basically shows you 'git status' at a glance, all the time. More for bash people: [https://github.com/Bash-it/bash-it](https://github.com/Bash-it/bash- it) (similar to ooh my zsh)

[https://github.com/alebcay/awesome-shell#for- developers](https://github.com/alebcay/awesome-shell#for-developers)

PyCharm / any IntelliJ-based IDE, Atom, vim, emacs etc can also all nicely show git status of your current project. I'd suggest one of those as well in whatever flavor of editor you prefer.

<comment><USER15> I'm using mostly IntelliJ / PyCharm and Atom which indeed show me that status. I usually commit either with IntelliJ directly (though sometimes it's too inclusive which is annoying), or with gitg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is an Electron app, meaning it does not look, feel, or perform like a native Mac app. FYI in case that's important to you.

<comment><USER18> To be honest, html-based scroll lists are usually much faster than native one. Reason: Very obsolete UI framework for Mac.

<comment><USER17> This is totally backwards. HTML has no good elements for long lists at all, leading to janky techniques like "infinite scroll." But NSTableView was designed from the start with very long lists in mind.

Try opening a large repo and scrolling a list of commits in GitKraken. You'll see large blank areas that get filled in after a few seconds. Now try it in, say, GitUp, which uses NSTableView: it is perfectly smooth.

<comment><USER18> I don't see any complex NSTableView in GitUp, they definitely use something other. When i worked at Telegram, we worked hard to make default lists smooth and it is almost impossible. Eventually main client became Qt-based instead of native frameworks. All other Git tools also very slow on my MPB Retina. All of them are laggy in lists and only lists.

Having nothing good for long lists doesn't matter as rendering pipline on OSX didn't updated for a years. Almost everything in UI on OSX is still software rendered instead of GPU. And Chrome extensively use GPU for rendering and that outperforms everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I keep seeing this promoted on Twitter, but there's nothing on the site that gives any idea of what it does better than SourceTree/Tower or any of the dozens of other Git GUIs.

<comment><USER20> But did you see they have a cool background? If someone has that cool of a background you can trust the software is A+.

<comment><USER21> And a... well, I'm not sure how to describe this promo video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE1ImXs2LnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE1ImXs2LnI)

<comment><USER22> Sigh.. again with the "I have no idea what to put in this promo, so let's make it a parody video instead".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Love the interface, dark theme and super intuitive. Could use syntax highlighting in diffs, though. It will need that feature to convince me to pay money, later.

One weird thing: it'd be great to have the option to show a name, instead of a shrunken avatar in the commit log, perhaps configure how this is shown, so I can choose the format of the name and if I want to see an avatar or not... I may be the only one, but seeing a 100+ row long column of just my face (I have worked on a few projects solo) kind of creeps me out.

Any idea when the product is going to be ready and how much it will cost?

<comment><USER24> Not sure when they plan on releasing 1.0 but it's going to be free

[https://twitter.com/GitKraken/status/692866148199591936](https://twitter.com/GitKraken/status/692866148199591936)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here are the things every git client should have before opening up:

1) side by side comparison—seems like it only has vertical, which means for heavy changes it's basically useless.

2) conflict resolution.

3) search (it seems like gitkraken does this well from the screenshots)

4) Interactive rebasing, the bread and butter of clean git usage.

Without the above _as a minimum_ , I might as well just use the git cli all the time. It's not worth using two git tools when the cli is already so powerful.

<comment><USER26> 1 and 2 can be handled by meld[1], available both on Linux and on OSX (via brew).

It integrates with git with just `git mergetool -t meld`.

      1: http://meldmerge.org/

<comment><USER27> In particular, you really want a 3-way merge tool (which compares yours and theirs to the common ancestor) for resolving conflicts. Meld didn't used to have this, but it looks like it does now. FWIW, on OS X you can also configure git to use opendiff (which opens FileMerge). It does the job pretty well.

Source: my day job used to involve daily merging of Chromium with Rockmelt and I probably evaluated every merge tool that existed at the time.

Tip: git config --global merge.conflictstyle=diff3

<comment><USER28> A little off-topic: since 10.10 or so, FileMerge has started opening the bottom, free-editing pane by default—and at a random height, at that. Has anyone figured out how to disable that? It's driving me into the arms of a different, otherwise inferior diff tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Serious question, never used a git GUI in my life, is there a practical point to it ? I just can't see myself doing it without zsh, my nested .dotfiles, fasd and so on. And worst case scenario, I can always _git_ them back.

<comment><USER30> Believe or not, there are a number of cases where you can work faster in a GUI than the CLI: many operations on the topology of the repo for instance. See somes examples at [http://gitup.co/](http://gitup.co/).

Disclaimer: I made GitUp for that very reason ;)

<comment><USER31> Looks awesome, any chance of a port to Linux? Perhaps via GNUStep?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does it have per-hunk and per-line staging/unstaging like sourcetree? That's an absolute must for me.

<comment><USER33> It does not, which is also a dealbreaker for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The lack of screenshots above the fold fails my sniff test. If it's so great show me, if not I wondering what's hiding.

The same thing applies for languages and frameworks, if the code is great show it off.

<comment><USER35> There are screenshots -- [http://www.gitkraken.com/screenshots](http://www.gitkraken.com/screenshots)

<comment><USER34> You missed the point of the post.

edit: When you load the page there is nothing to convince someone to dig further. All it says is "trust us it's better".

<comment><USER36> So you're basically just arguing that their webpage doesn't have a good layout. If you want to dismiss the product because of that, that's your choice, but I wish people would keep complaints about website design to themselves. They're so _boring_. I come to HN to read insightful commentary about articles and projects, and complaints about the websites themselves just make me roll my eyes.

<comment><USER37> To be honest, this is actually a good strategy ... producing a poor layout that is. I've found a lot of times, a post either has a lot of comments/votes because the product idea was stupid and/or something unrelated about the product was less than impressive.

So if you are launching a product on Hacker News, it might be worthwhile to create two separate landing pages. Create one that is less than informative/provocative to get the votes/comments and then switch to a more informative one when you have secured a front page position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Title seems a bit misleading. From the FAQ:

 _Does GitKraken support GitHub Enterprise /Bitbucket Server?_

 _GitKraken currently does not support these services but support is planned for a future release._

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that GitKraken supports one or more specific git based services that aren't GitHub Enterprise or Bitbucket, both of which use git.

I'm assuming that the service it _does_ support is GitHub, but maybe the title and website should reflect that limitation.

<comment><USER6> Not sure how the title is misleading. It supports any git remote, but it has a few extra features (GH-style pull requests for example) that aren't really a part of Git. Those features are only possible on a GitHub or Bitbucket server, not just any git remote, but it currently only supports using them on the main public GitHub/Bitbucket servers.

<comment><USER38> If not the title, the FAQ is misleading. If it supports any git remote it supports Bitbucket and GitHub enterprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've played around with it for a bit, and will probably continue to do so - but my initial take on it is that it isn't very intuitive, especially compared to SourceTree. SourceTree has had some struggles lately with performance and bugs in their new 1.8.x version, but those aside, it does everything I need it to, and it was very intuitive to pick up. In contrast, the UI for GitKraken is just...odd.

</comment><comment><USER40> 8.67 Meg videos as wallpaper is a little excessive?

</comment><comment><USER41> PSA: Writing desktop apps in node.js and bundling a portable instance of Chromium to view them is not a sane thing to do.

<comment><USER42> i take it you're not a fan of electron.

<comment><USER43> There are people who don't like using 200MB of RAM for a git client, plus 200MB per browser tab, plus the few gigabytes for their IDE, etc...

Because very quickly you reach a point where 10GB RAM are not enough — I know, I've had that very issue.

Replaced every electron app with a native or Java alternative, now I can actually work without swapping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Lots of negativity here. I use SourceTree normally and although I'm a command- line comfortable vim/tmux/fugitive/etc kind-of-guy I've decided I like GUIs for GIT. GitKraken is worth watching IMO. So far I've liked using it (I started trying it at 0.5 and just came back to it now with this 0.8 announcement).

I don't care that it's an Electron app. It seems snappy enough for me. Isn't Slack on Electron? I have that running all day too.

This whole "it's not open-source anymore" thing kind of sucks though. If this is just gearing up to be a paid application then it's really got to step up to SourceTree. I initially figured it was just the rowdy javascript crowd flexing their muscles and playing with things like Electron and that it would remain open-sourced.

<comment><USER45> It was and is developed by Axosoft, a competitor of Atlassian (JIRA). Atlassian has SourceTree, Axosoft now has GitKraken. I'm assuming they'll keep GitKraken free for a long time in an effort to be able to market Axosoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> If you had to put this line in your FAQ:

> I hate blind dates. Can I see some screenshots?

> You can see some screenshots of GitKraken's UI here.

You may want to rethink the design of your homepage.

</comment><comment><USER47> Does GitKraken support git Large File Storage? If so, I could see this becoming an excellent tool for non-programmers who have to use git(designers, game artists, etc.) and don't really want to get involved with some of the complexities that come with git.

<comment><USER48> We actually have _programmers_ who don't want to get involved with git...

<comment><USER25> > We actually have programmers who don't want to get involved with git...

What do they prefer? Zip files, or something with a slightly different interface but equivalent complexity (e.g. mercurial) ?

<comment><USER47> I know some people who prefer svn or mercurial over git.

<comment><USER25> Sure, that's normal! I'm curious whether the OP was saying that programmers didn't like git specifically vs version control in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> If you're on windows, GitExtensions is pretty awesome. (open source too). I made a donation to the author because that client saved me from a team mutiny after I introduced git on the command line.

<comment> V-2 I agree. I use it on a daily basis. It has a lot of shortcomings, but I still find it more convenient to use than SourceTree. I'm not aware about any other sensible GUI clients for Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Nice, well done done on the UI, I have a few issues though.

1\. I shouldn't need to sign up with your service, this also makes me distrust the product.

2\. There is no Gitlab login option.

3\. It looks to be written in Javascript and thus uses a lot of resources: [http://imgur.com/a/uEH4U](http://imgur.com/a/uEH4U)

So it's not /really/ a desktop app, it looks like it's just a chrome wrapper for some javascript?

<comment><USER51> It seems weird to me that in this day and age people would be making negative comments about an app with this one's functionality being written in JavaScript/ecmascript. This app looks awesome and performs well on my platform, not sure if I'll continue to use it over the CLI client but so far I'm impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I tried this today. Pretty okay. A bit light on features, but it has the most important ones.

However, it kept on creating temporary files (copies of the files I staged), and they showed up as stageable files. Very confusing.

There also needs to be an option to truncate file paths in the staging area box. Middle truncation that responds to the box width, or an option to only show the file names, because right now file names are just completely unreadable.

Also, there are stage hunk buttons, but no discard hunk buttons.

Configurable diff font size too.

I'll be still using SourceTree for now (even though they had that catastrophic broken release last week).

Performance is a lot better than SourceTree though, which can be a real dog sometimes. It's definitely showing that Electron is a viable choice to make desktop apps.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'd like to see it honor the settings defined in ~/.ssh/config . Currently you can only choose one key in the settings which doesn't work so well if you have both github and bitbucket repos to manage let alone repos from 2 github and 1 bitbucket accounts.

<comment><USER54> You can configure different keys for generic/github/bitbucket. Only one each, but I think the default github workflow is to have a single user account that belongs to different organizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> First thing I searched for on your screenshot page: "merge" and "conflict" \-- didn't see anything. Other than that, it looks pretty sweet.

</comment><comment><USER56> For those looking for an alternative, SourceTree is the best GUI git client I've found. I used to pay for it, before it was acquired by Atlassian.

</comment><comment><USER57> This makes repos look cool, but I'm not quite sure what benefit this offers over just using cli git in combination with gitk (for easy visualisation). I like the icon/gravatar thing, but since most people don't use gravatar there is just a lot of "space invaders" and no names unless I click on the commit.

</comment><comment><USER58> has anyone ever found the spaghetti tangle of branches diagram useful for anything?

every git gui provides one but I've never managed to parse any useful info from it. maybe you have to be supernaturally disciplined about your commit history or something. or maybe they're just fun to build, yay data visualisations etc

</comment><comment><USER59> Sorry, I am that guy.

Linux support means source, deb _and_ rpm!

RPM is the Redhat and SUSE which are major commercial players in Linux. My library was Redhat only in the college I worked at (I actually got to make that switch happen)and still is. Now I work with OpenSUSE at my company.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Company grants > Recipient a nonexclusive, nontransferable license to use the GitKraken > ("Product") for a period designated by the Company for the purpose of > testing and evaluating the Product.

Uhm, WHAT? No thanks!

</comment><comment><USER60> Wait, this is the same axosoft that makes ontime? I use ontime every day, and generally hate it. But I'm not sure if that's their fault, or my company's fault in the setup process :)

<comment><USER61> The UI is designed well enough, I just wish the application wasn't basically a web-view.

<comment><USER26> Or, rather, it could be outright a web page, capable of being integrated to whatever repo web tool you're using.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I prefer a CLI. But thanks! Intro page looks great, by the way!

</comment><comment><USER63> I can't use this. It gets stuck on step 4 of the tour; clicking "Next" doesn't do anything, and everything but the name and email field is greyed out.

</comment><comment><USER64> Nice, I like the dark theme - switching between IDEA's Darcula to Sourcetree's white background is eye straining.

</comment><comment><USER65> Please give support for Gitlab login.

</comment><comment><USER66> Can I hook this into a self-hosted github? Or does it only talk to github.com

<comment><USER67> I'm not sure but they describe it as a git client, not a github client so I guess you can hook it up to whatever you please.

<comment><USER67> ups... on the faq "Does GitKraken support GitHub Enterprise/Bitbucket Server?

        GitKraken currently does not support these services but support is planned for a future release."

<comment><USER68> I guess by support they mean creating PRs etc directly from the client. Which from the screenshots seems to currently to be the public github.com and bitbucket.org.

However I would very surprised if they did not support normal git remotes so it is irrelevant if that is Github Enterprise, Bitbucket server(Stash), Gitlab or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> not happy about the registration part !</comment>


Surgery free, 3D printed implants - <AUTHOR> http://www.bioimplant.at/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.bioimplant.at/faq-2/](http://www.bioimplant.at/faq-2/)

> Are there any long-term follow up publications?

> We have attempted to publish papers in leading journals, but have repeatedly > encountered resistance to this innovative idea from "The Establishment". > Dental industry perferes to sell simple titanium screw type variations at > the price of 200 Euros (a middel class cellphone!) and industry recruited > experts simply prefere to make money with risky and costly operations and > love to teach confusing drill sequences and fill guide lines.

Why not make the paper available anyway, like on arxiv.org?

<comment><USER3> Might as well have bright red flashing letters at the top of the page saying "WE ARE QUACKS." It's possible this product is great, but my immediate reaction to any medical product that positions itself as the underdog fighting against the evil establishment is to run far, far away.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, as much as I would like the content all to be true, 'Quack' is my assessment too. They say they have been selling this in Austria for 11 years but want crowdfunding to take it abroad. Somehow that does not add up.

And in my experience dentists are really pretty open to innovation, especially 3d scanning and machining. Most recently I got a grinding guard and instead of taking an impression my dentist actually used a Danish scanner that pieced together a couple of hundred individual photos.

<comment><USER5> Not every great inventor is also a great businessman.

Actually, this is rather rare.

History is full of examples of superior tech/ideas struggling or even failing because of this.

Allow yourself to assume this is one of these cases before dismissing it based on the reverse assumption.

Also consider that Austria != the valley.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I work with Dr Pirker (CEO/developer of BioImplant).

AMA!

BioImplant is one of those truly disruptive technologies: a new paradigm. It's interesting (as a HN reader) to see such a tech story unfold in 'real time'.

The biggest obstacle so far has been to foster awareness of this treatment option via popular media (ie. an article in an English-language newspaper/magazine). The dental world is fixated on simple screw type implants, which are costly, unnatural, and very rarely satisfactory.

<comment><USER7> Since you don't get a mold beforehand I'm guessing this is 3d printed. How do you get the 3d image of the tooth ?

<comment><USER6> Yes, the title is slightly incorrect, there's no 3D printing involved.

The implant is milled from a 3D scan of the extracted tooth. It's very much an artisan process, which we're hoping to make entirely digital.

<comment><USER8> There are fully automatic machines for making crowns (I have two made on such a machine), surely the process should be much the same.

<comment><USER6> A crown is just the external part of the tooth. That's relatively easy to scan and reproduce. It's much more difficult to scan the root while it's 'in situ' in the jaw. Hence the careful extraction...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious as to the long term failure rate of this type of implant. Teeth shift and there will be bone loss around it to some extent. It may be a better option but I don't think it is as perfect as the marketing makes it seem.

<comment><USER10> It's so cheap, it almost doesn't matter.

<comment><USER6> Well, no, it's not _that_ cheap... The upfront cost is as much as a regular titanium implant.

The real savings come later: there's no subsequent treatment to deal with infections (peri-implantitis) or other complications.

BioImplant is basically 'fit and forget'.

<comment><USER11> Computer crowd say "plug and play" ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thank you for posting this! I have a tooth I need extracted due to a fracture from stress, and have dreaded getting the screw implant in my lower jaw. Science to the rescue!

<comment><USER6> If you're planning on getting this treatment, it's very important _NOT_ to have your tooth extracted beforehand.

<comment><USER12> Noted!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds amazing. Just one question. Is there any possibility of this technology being licensed out to other countries in the near (or mid term) future? I live in India and would love to get this done, but travelling to Europe for this is not all that feasible.

Edit: corrected the country

</comment><comment><USER14> Tell me this is true! Because it does make sense. I want this to be true :).

I would totally be game to go to Vienna, provided I can pay for procedure (well and need one). Implants, the ones with screw are supposedly one of the most durable ways to fix your tooth.

</comment><comment><USER15> Seeing this on HN is a little confusing because I will hopefully be soon getting an implant by Dr. Pirker. I was in has practice a couple of weeks ago and we had a long, for me very inspiring talk not only on my implant but on the worrying state of medicine and society in general. And yeah, from what I understood, he is looking for investors for a more automated manufacturing process for the currently hand-crafted implants.

<comment><USER16> Heh Heh Heh

HN has a pretty open submission mechanism, and gets all kinds of nifty stuff submitted here that people could find interesting.

It's not a call for "Hackers" (of the evil system cracking kind, etc) to do anything nasty with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Non Implant", "Dental"... should be in the tittle. In saying that, pretty cool. I'd love to see consumers be able to do this.

<comment><USER18> I was expecting breasts.

<comment><USER19> I was expecting knees

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sounds reasonable. Obvious limitation is that it is applicable only right after extraction and with healthy bone at the site.

</comment><comment><USER21> Quick heads up that your website doesn't display properly (I can zoom out so that your entire site is a thin column on the left of the screen) on my phone. I'm on Chrome on a Samsung Galaxy S5.

</comment><comment><USER11> What is funny to me is that by avoiding "geometry" the tech looks very primitive; but if thinking in terms of tissue and context, it's so much better than a screw.</comment>


Q&A with Sam Altman - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542206/startup-incubator-y-combinator-opens-research-lab-to-tackle-big-problems/ <comment><USER2> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10348533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10348533)

(But neither has discussion yet)</comment>


Stacks of bricks keep showing up in a lot of cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/craftofintelligence/comments/gueefx/stacks_of_bricks_keep_showing_up_in_a_lot_of/ <comment><USER2> The probability of people noticing a stack of bricks during these protest is VASTLY greater than the probability of people noticing a stack of bricks in regular times.

Without positive evidence of a conspiracy, this seems rather conspiratorial to me.

<comment><USER3> In NYC construction was one of the first things to restart after the virus

Unlikely folks on a worksite would've thought 'there might be a riot this weekend - we should move these bricks somewhere else'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I saw a pallet of bricks that had been dropped off in San Diego. Now a pile of bricks I can understand as an anarchist preparation, but a pallet? Could it be a group doing the equivalent of leaving a loaded gun around hoping someone would use it?

</comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't seem like there's enough evidence that this is actually happening. The video from the reddit post has scaffolding to the left. And why surround the bricks with fences and signs?

The reddit poster dismisses this with "look at the other links people have posted here". These are basically 3 or 4 photos or grainy videos of bricks in a city. Some photos don't have bricks at all.

There is the supposed video of police leaving bricks. They seem to be examining bricks in the back of their car, and lining a few up on the side of their car (not on the roadside). Not very convincing.

Not saying this isn't happening, but the evidence is literally a few photos of bricks in cities at this point. I expect most of the time we pass by piles of construction bricks without noticing them

<comment><USER6> Evidence left me with the same idea. With the amount of construction going on there's bound to be a pile of bricks somewhere

Also cops were being very careful with bricks and in no hurry to dump/unload

Unconvincing

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Strange also saw a couple instances of this on Twitter. Seems to be happening around the country.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're looking for conspiracy theories/FUD everywhere, you'll surely find it. This is what happens when people don't temper the hobgoblins of their minds with facts and the acceptance of unknowability.</comment>


Ask HN: Which technology wasn't as big of a deal as you thought it would be? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Home 3D printers. I think they should still be around but I imagined that they would be more widespread and practical.

</comment><comment> video-host Google wave</comment>


Ask HN: Why is XML so prevalent in describing GUI views? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Maybe 'cause of HTML? Depends on what framework you look at. Web tech is everywhere, so you see HTML alot. In some senses, I'd say it's more structured and readable that formats like JSON. e.g. compare:

Hello World

div: { id:"parent", members: { div: { id:"child", content:"Hello World" } } }</comment>


Why McDonald's Flopped in Vietnam - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9pthhpd7So <comment><AUTHOR> My question: Is there an idea or ideas here, in terms of price and/or efficiency, that the Vietnamese street food vendors understand better than the undisputed king of price and efficiency, McDonalds?

Maybe the question should be phrased as an apparent paradox, which is:

"Can McDonalds, despite being the leader of efficiency and price consciousness, _be even more efficient and price conscious_?"

?</comment>


Is this the structure of New York City? - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/6747484741/in/set-72157628993413851/

<comment><USER2> Very neat. Someone should package this kind of data and sell it to city planners, transportation regulators, and the like.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Glad you liked it.</comment></comment>


Convert your Pi 2 into a Web Server and host your own Web site - <AUTHOR> http://projpi.com/diy-home-projects-with-a-raspberry-pi/pi-web-server/ <comment><AUTHOR> About security: [http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/1247/what- sho...](http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/1247/what-should-be- done-to-secure-raspberry-pi)

Next step: [http://mattrichardson.com/Raspberry-Pi- Flask/](http://mattrichardson.com/Raspberry-Pi-Flask/)

Thought I'd share</comment>


Show HN: a drawing app inspired in brite lite - <AUTHOR> http://memela.com

<comment><USER2> Looks like you are missing some sort of rewrite rule. I was given this link: <http://memela.com/12/> \- which gives me a 404 - but this works: <http://memela.com/index.php?id=12>

(pardon my immature drawing ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up, your drawing is now showing up :)</comment></comment>


A Better Way of Incorporating JavaScript Ecosystem into Rails - <AUTHOR> https://hackhands.com/fast-rich-client-rails-development-webpack-es6-transpiler/

<comment><USER2> Very in depth, clearly written how-to on efficient and quite elegant integration of Rails and Node packages via Webpack. Sure it may be going outside a vanilla Rails setup but it still follows Rails (Ruby) philosophies by being elegant and modular.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, love the detail. And they even dropped the source code at the end to let me play around with it. Going to have to give this a try to see if the setup is worth the time versus just plugging in an existing javascript framework. ES6 has no bounds.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As someone who has been using Rails for a long time, being able to leverage some of the JS frameworks within that universe is huge. I know DHH has a different approach, but this article helps show how to go off the reservation.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Heartbleed just another Y2K - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I do not personally believe so. Much of the fear and paranoia surrounding the Y2K never materialized. Most organizations and companies made sure any of their affected systems were patched/updated prior to the year 2000. Heartbleed represents a rather different scenario. One where a very serious, unpatched bug was out in the wild for at least 2 years. And nobody really has an idea to the degree to which this bug was used for exploits.

Comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges, if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, as there was a lot of warning. Many enterprises spent the two or three years prior to it patching or (less often) reengineering systems, and folks were on watch during the last month of 1999 and first week or so of 2000.

Many very large dollars were spent.

Heartbleed, on the other hand, came out of nowhere.</comment>


What do you use for product delivery (software)? - <AUTHOR>

I'm selling an app over at http://zazensuite.com/mac and though it's soon to hit the Mac App Store, I prefer to sell it on my own as well.
The issue I'm facing is product delivery. I'm using E-Junkie/Paypal, but I'm not happy with that solution because the interface is confusing to customers, and it's more difficult than I like for email follow up and delivery.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> If you have a bit to invest, aMember is really a fantastic solution and will allow you to expand your business in many ways. The software is the best on the market as far as I'm aware and goes for $180.

I'm finishing up deep integration of aMember, vBulletin and WordPress now and it is going very well. I'm very excited about launching.

aMember is built to manage recurring subscriptions first, but you can set products to "lifetime" and users will only have to make a single payment if needed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Addition:

As I was thinking about it, why isn't there a Bandcamp.com for software?

Some of the things I'd like to handle are:

1\. Updates (email list) 2\. Storage 3\. Integrated shopping cart (like Big Cartel or Storenvy) 4\. Tied to Mailchimp's API</comment>


LulzSec's Instant Fame is Bad for Hacker Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/06/28/a-former-script-kiddie-puts-lulzsec-in-perspective/

<comment><USER2> Sensationalist journalism sucks regardless of arena. In the mean time this is nothing new. Breathless media coverage of hacker exploits has been a media mainstay since the days of RTM and (later) Mitnick, and is just another manifestation of "if it bleeds, it leads".

I do think the author makes some fine points about root causes of this kind of behavior and the joys of rehabbing one's worldview with honest coding. I'm working with a skiddie right now patiently trying to bait him over from the dark side with honest code assignments. Unfortunately it looks like he just might get caught in the dragnets Anon & Lulzsec have provoked. Time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hasn't mainstream notoriety always been one of the reasons young kids get into cracking?

Twitter may amplify this a little, but its not exactly a paradigm shift.</comment>


Theora More of a Patent Threat than H264? Wait, What? - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/23058/Theora_More_of_a_Patent_Threat_than_H264_Wait_What_

<comment><USER2> This article is an attempt to win support for Theora over H.264 not by refuting the basic facts of the case, but by making us feel angry about those facts.

Gruber in fact does _not_ appear to be wrong: there are indeed two classes of patents that Theora is exposed to (general but poorly known patents covering modern codecs, _and_ the patents MPEG LA owns). There clearly are codec patents that MPEG LA doesn't own. There clearly are codec patents that they do own. MPEG LA clearly isn't going to sue, in the immediacy, over their own patents.

Meanwhile, it is indeed entirely in MPEG LA's own hands whether or not they will sue over use of Theora. They sure are a bunch of evil jerks. But that changes the facts of the case not one whit. Being upset about MPEG LA's IP position doesn't change what that position is.

<comment><USER3> The article refutes the assertion that Theora is infringing on patents held in the MPEG LA patent pool. The MPEG LA has been shaking a stick over Theora's head, but has yet to point out which specific patent(s) Theora is indeed infringing.

In fact, noone has come forward with a specific patent that has been shown to infringe after scrutiny and noone has yet sued Firefox for shipping this so- called infringing codec.

The tone of the article is basically a "put up or shut up" directed at the MPEG LA members. When someone is trying to spread FUD about your product, there's not much else you can do except ask that they stop talking and start showing evidence. Since they've been unwilling to do so for some time, it's natural to conclude that this is nothing more than sabre-rattling to try and drum up some extra MPEG LA licensees.

<comment><USER2> Do people familiar with the state of the art in codecs seriously think that MPEG LA doesn't have patents they could reasonably claim are infringed by Theora? That isn't the impression I had.

<comment><USER3> Noone, either familiar with the state of the art in codec or not, has come up with a reasonable set of patents that Theora's ancestor codec from 2001, VP3, could have possibly been infringing. Individuals are free to believe whatever they like, but there hasn't been any evidence of infringement beyond the MPEG LA's CEO making vague assertions.

The MPEG LA has a financial interest in keeping the patent situation around Theora murky, which they've clearly done well.

Just so it's clear (and some of the quotes by the MPEG LA's CEO make more sense from this page <http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11746>):

* Theora _is_ a patented codec (ie: there are active patents today on the concepts used within VP3)

* One of the MPEG LA's patent holders, On2/Google _does_ hold those patents

* On2 has, however, licensed those patents globally, indefinitely and royalty-free, making the above two points true but entirely a non-issue

<comment><USER4> Google/On2 are not members of the MPEG-LA patent pool. Google has an H.264 licence which is separate.

 _The MPEG LA has a financial interest in keeping the patent situation around Theora murky_

Web streaming is free until 2015. Theora will not be found in Set-top-boxes and mobile phones which is where the real money is made in licensing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be some confusion around the term "submarine patent".

One use of the term, which came around during the 1995 GATT/WTO debate and which is described in the Wikipedia article, refers to patent holders manipulating the PTO in order to keep them from issuing a patent until later when they are ready to sue. This practice was struck down by the courts and made impracticable by the 1995 law.

The other use of the term is to refer to unknown patent infringement. This comes about because software patents are such a joke that nobody knows who exactly owns the patent to what. Even the inventor might not know that something infringes on their patent until lawyers start rummaging through their patent war chest looking for something to sue with.

This second use of the term seems to be what Apple and MPEG LA are referring to.

</comment><comment><USER6> _"No one in the market should be under the misimpression that other codecs such as Theora are patent-free," Horn claims, "Virtually all codecs are based on patented technology, and many of the essential patents may be the same as those that are essential to AVC/H.264._

Translation: There's enough vague patents floating around out there that read "Its like TV but on the inter-computer-web-thingee" that no coding technology can ever be considered demonstrably free from infringement.

So just pick a codec and know that if you make money, the trolls are going to be at your door, no matter what the pretext. If its not your video codec, it'll be your "one click shopping cart" or something else equally inane.

<comment><USER7> Big games are shipping with both theora and vorbis. Nobody sued them. Also Youtube used VP6 and VP7 for a while which were just slight modifications of VP3, just like Theora. And nobody sued Youtube. So why would they wait for theora to become used if they could have just sued google? Doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER4> Whilst there are many big games which use Vorbis (Halo comes to mind) as far as I know there are none that use Theora. Most use Bink because of its simplicity.

<comment><USER8> <http://wiki.xiph.org/Games_that_use_Theora>

That's not a complete list since it is missing e.g. Starcraft 2

<comment><USER4> None of those I would consider "big games"

<comment><USER8> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman> ?

<comment><USER4> It would be if "big games" was as clear a category as "Scotsman".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can't write an open letter and expect patent owners to tell you if you're infringing or not. The accepted thing is to conduct patent searches (money and lawyers), and make sure that your product does not run afoul of something that's already in there.

I'm not saying that this system is ideal, (It is not! Let's make something better to replace the patent system - something based on private contract alone) but Theora is not necessarily legally OK (under the existing patent regime) just because some guy wrote a few open letters and posted them to a website.

What would I do? I would go with whatever is the better technology. (And from what I've read, Theora is a terrible format.)

<comment><USER8> Xiph and Mozilla have both done patent searches. The lawyers that they spent the money on told them that publicizing the results would reduce their options if they were ever sued so the only evidence they haven't found problems is that they haven't altered Theora to work around problems and that they ship it in their product, respectively.

I would assume Google (and Opera and a bunch of other companies with slightly less impressive amounts of cash and lawyers) have done the same, though I don't think they've mentioned it if they have.</comment></comment>


The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericsink.com/laws/Immutable_Laws_Marketing.html

<comment><USER2> 1\. Market your book with the formula "The $NUMBER $IMPORTANT_THINGS of $TOPIC_NOBODY_UNDERSTANDS". The goal here is to sound like you did a lot of research to pare down a complex topic to a few easily-masterable rules.

2\. $NUMBER: If marketing to idiots, make the $NUMBER be a lucky one, like 10, 7, 5 or 3. If marketing to middlebrows, make it a "funny" number like 17 or 43 so they can congratulate themselves on not falling for that Top 10 bullshit.

3\. $IMPORTANT_THINGS: Imply hard, empirical knowledge. Not "observations"; try "principles" or "laws".

4\. $TOPIC_NOBODY_UNDERSTANDS: To pick your topic, go to the local big chain bookstore. If the shelves are small to nonexistent, people know a hell of a lot about that topic. Whichever shelves are the largest are the topics that nobody knows anything about, such as business, marketing, religion, relationships, and so on.

<comment><USER3> It's actually a pretty good book, in my opinion. Short and to the point.

<comment><USER2> So the word "immutable" doesn't make you want to punch the authors in the face? Even physicists hesitate to put the word "immutable" on the laws they discover.

<comment><USER3> _Shrug_ \- they're marketers, it wouldn't be the first time some small amount of hype has been produced by them... It doesn't mean that what they say isn't sensible though, and that the rules they present aren't very generally applicable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>