The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/150497/vanishing-idealism-burning-man <comment><USER3> I started and ran a science-oriented theme camp out there for over a decade as an impoverished academic, and a lot of my friends in the Bay Area help build or manage the event. I'm neither rich nor a hippy.

To me, the fundamental idea of the event is that we've become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation due to being enmeshed in a highly commodified, transactional society and that it's worth trying to address that. Most people can't use a torque-driver or recognize a turnbuckle. But people can learn, and when they get involved in build projects or camps out there they do. They start trying. It's amateur art hour write very large, but the beauty of it is how many people start trying to make something of their own, sometimes with amazing results.

The event is flawed as hell and always has been, but it remains an astounding expression of labor devoted to the amateur's search for meaning through creation. It's art will never appeal to the traditional critic who worries more about the statement of art than it's artifact. They can look down their noses at the idealism of those who thought to try to make something for once, instead of leaving the important job of art to those who know better, who have the right ideals, the right politics, the right message. We're going to continue to do carpentry, to make circuit boards, to write software, and to teach others to get involved in the art of trying.

<comment><USER4> You may not be rich, but you are not poor. How can these projects be about civic participation if they're not inclusive to the kinds of people that can't afford to take time off work and trek across the country to go camping in the desert?

There are lots of ways people try to address the problems of our "highly commodified, transactional society" within their own communities, where everyone is capable of participating. For some reason, however, many of the people I know that go to Burning Man, and many of the kinds of people that typically do go, are never involved in those kinds of local organising initiatives...

It would be nice if these ideals about art were more commonly expressed and engaged with in the areas where they are really sorely needed, rather than in a remote place that people need to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get to and be in.

<comment><USER3> No one is claiming that BM is a replacement for local civic involvement! But I also don't like the moral tone of claims about what other people -should- be doing with their time. Sure, some people just go out there to party - <USER2> cares? I recall H. L. Mencken: "Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." As much as we'd like to make it more accessible, it -is- a weird art event in the remote desert, logistically limited to a small number of people. Look, the first step to civic engagement is actually thinking it's something worth caring about. I grew up in an impoverished, hollowed-out place - I know it might sound ridiculous, but as an American in my generation the very idea of 'society' can be a hard concept to pick up as we don't always get the chance to experience it growing up. Even a toy example can be illuminating to idiots like I was...

<comment><USER4> Many people talk about burning man as if it is an experiment for a new kind of alternative society and your comment was reminiscent of that kind of talk - "we've become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation... it's worth trying to address that". This rhetoric always sounds to me like burners believe they have found the cure and if only everyone would see the world as they do we would live in harmony.

I've never been to a burn but I do agree with these diagnoses about the shortcomings of our society. I also make efforts in my community to confront these problems and it is a whole lot harder to change things than just going out and partying in the desert. I have no problem with people going out and partying but I don't think people should be claiming that it is much more than just that - a party.

<comment><USER5> It is different than a party because of how participant driven it is combined with the scale. Sure you can see your friend's band at a house party, but most parties the size of Burning Man are entirely controlled by a single large entity, like Budweiser. When people talk about _the fall of Burning Man_ they are really lamenting a trend to more centralized control and less participant interaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been precisely once, and only in the last few years, so I am far from an expert on the trajectory of the event or any community surrounding it.

But my observations were:

* Any single characterization of an event that is partly defined by its city-sized number of participants is going to be incomplete.

* There's a variety of different experiences to be found there. Chances are good you can find an experience to your liking.

* There's better chance that you can _bring_ an experience to your liking, and as in other situations, a lot of what you get out of it related to what you put in. If I go back, I'm mostly likely to do so as part of a camp that's doing something I'm excited about. The blank-canvas aspect of it might be the most interesting part.

* Among other things, it's a pop-up art festival in the middle of a particularly dusty lake bed with lots of interesting pieces, some of building-sized scale. No matter what else is going on, if you're into art, chances are good you will like this (unless you also hate camping and don't prepare for that).

* To whatever extent specific norms and stated values are different than mainstream, people are still people. You can expect to see some of the best on display and some things that are disappointing.

Is it still "in its prime" or is it "over"? Have the values been commodified or sold out? I don't know. I think the questions that matter to the average person thinking of going are whether it's still interesting to you, and what values you're going to try to bring to it. I don't know if I brought enough to the time I went, but I'm glad I did it, and under the right circumstances, I'd do it again.

<comment><USER7> Isn't one of the issues that many of the people who come now don't bring their own experiences? Are they there to consume experience rather than creating it?

<comment><USER8> Is that an issue?

<comment><USER5> To some extent it is because the extra participants still bring all the negative impacts of extra people, like lines and overflowing porta potties, without offering something back in kind (more experiences to alleviate the lines, more rusted bike repair, whatever). Also people who are less participatory are less invested in the event and more likely to carelessly vandalize the works produced by others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having participated in a lot of countercultural gatherings, I was initially intrigued about Burning Man. But if you hear about an event from the mass media, instead of through word of mouth in your own small countercultural community, chances are that the event is already past its prime. After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s, and then hearing more recent attendees describe their experiences, I have long since got the feeling that BM is now as played out as, say, Goa was after 1972, or Nimbin after about 1980.

<comment><USER10> > After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s

But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite the criticism

The founding members weren't serious about "radical self reliance" as their congregation now repeats without practicing

Its also more of a heroin hit for these people, the second hits will never be as good as the first, but its still the first hit for everyone else.

The expense also invites the criticism, it is ironic and funny. Wage workers can't take a week and a half off for burning AND have another vacation somewhere else that year, and thats if they can rationalize the cost to begin with. So it invites quirky tech CEOs and socialites and DJs, along side the actual counterculture people who barely have a social security number. For a festival in an inhospitable environment that prides itself on decommodification, it is ALWAYS going to have criticism.

SEE YA THERE! :D

<comment><USER9> > But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite > the criticism

Perhaps you misunderstand. I did not mean that those old-timers complained about Burning Man today and said it was passé. Some of them have not even gone again since that era two decades ago. But simply talking to a 1990s participant and a more recent participant about what they remember of the event reveals details of logistics, close-knitness, and interaction with the outside world that tell me that I would find the event much less enjoyable these days than if I had been able to participate in the 1990s.

<comment><USER10> I see

Some of that crowd does to the area on the 4th of July week now. They say its more like how it used to be

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm turned off from going by the fact that it seems the only friends I know that go are a narrow demographic of your typical techie. They plan their entire year around it and act like it's their sole purpose in life. Honestly I don't want to end up like that, thinking that the real world offers no thrill or spectacle or surprises such that I need to reduce my life down into a few weeks in the desert at the end of the year.

<comment><USER12> I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.

<comment><USER13> Why is that sad? She found something she enjoys doing. Better than someone who has yet to find that spark that gives life meaning.

Is everyone in the advertising business supposed to love making adverts?

I certainly feel more alive camping with friends than I do debugging JavaScript. I'm lucky enough to have a life where I can go on 2 or 3 major vacations a year with friends and family with another couple smaller trips spread throughout the year. For people with a busier schedule, I can see them taking great pleasure in the one time a year they get to escape.

Especially since so many people never get to escape. I know plenty of people who never have had a vacation, and may very well die without ever having a day off from work and life and stress.

<comment><USER14> If you're an advertising executive or a software developer and decide that you'd be happier living in the desert and making weird sculptures from scrap, _that is very much an option_. Living in a cabin in the woods or sailing around the world or establishing a commune for circus artists is a thing that you can do, and you don't need to be a millionaire to do it.

<comment><USER15> I don't think you know how expensive it would be to sail around the world. Especially if you'd like to do it somewhat comfortably.

<comment><USER14> You've fallen into the trap of believing that there's only one way of doing things - the preposterously expensive way that's promoted in lifestyle magazines.

How much does it cost to learn to sail? If you take a Yachtmaster Offshore course, it'll cost you somewhere in the region of $15,000. If you show up at any marina and look keen, someone in need of crew will take you on board and show you the ropes for free. Many people have sailed around the world at almost no cost by crewing on other people's boats.

How much does a sailing boat cost? A brand new 50 footer with all the trimmings will cost you upwards of $400,000. You can buy a rough little boat and properly fit it out for bluewater sailing for about $20,000. It'll be ugly, it'll be cramped, it'll have faded gelcoat and threadbare upholstery, but it'll safely take you across oceans. That's not a trivial sum of money, but it's well within reach of most skilled professionals. If you look after it, you'll be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it.

What are your other costs? Mainly food, running repairs and mooring fees. If you want to do everything in five-star luxury, expect to spend about $80,000 over the course of a circumnavigation. If you don't mind sleeping at anchor and eating from dented cans, you could easily circumnavigate for under $8,000 - less if you avoid the Panama Canal.

There's a widespread belief - particularly in America - that adventurous lifestyles are the exclusive domain of the gratuitously wealthy. The reality is very different, especially if you're young, childless and have marketable skills. Even if you're none of those things, your options are far wider than you might imagine as long as you're willing to think creatively and live modestly.

[https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie- Hill/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie- Hill/dp/1888671378)

<comment><USER16> My dad bought a 22ft ketch rig for £28k and sold it about 6 years later for around £22k. It was in good condition, certainly nothing threadbare, but no luxury either. He had it around my late teen years, some of the best memories of my childhood were on that boat. So it cost about £1,000 / year split between 4 (2 adults 2 teenagers). Much better experiences than crappy beach holidays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Straight from the BM blog: _A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man_. (TLDR: nobody).

[https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical- center/...](https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical- center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Things change, whatever. Burning Man is now it's a luxury art and music maker festival where the rugged conditions are part of the appeal in the same way that they are for Mount Everest. If you want the old Burning Man you'll have to start a new thing.

</comment><comment><USER19> I went 6 years in a row, and I haven't been since they screwed up the ticket system with a lottery, introducing scarcity that wasn't there before and encouraging people to over-buy tickets out of fear and game the lottery website.

In my mind it's turned into a side gag from HBO's Silicon Valley, where entitled tech bros throw money at plug-and-play camps in the hopes of seeing world famous DJs play unannounced sets, so they can post selfies on Instagram.

It's all of that and also none of that. It's the most exhausting vacation.

<comment><USER20> My understanding was that BLM limited the number of tickets they could sell, and they decided to make the tickets go by lottery rather than raise the price. If I were planning to go to Burning Man, I would just plan to buy the $1,200 ticket and skip the angst.

<comment><USER5> If you become part of an established camp that contributes significant art or experiences back to the community BMorg also offers directed group sales allowing your key contributing members to skip the lottery at the regular price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Earlier this year there was a good EconTalk episode[1] with the CEO of the Burning Man Project. I've never been to the festival, but I'm fascinated by the economic and logistical challenges of keeping the thing going (in contrast to something like Woodstock, whose 30th anniversary event in 1999 was a train wreck).

[1] [http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning- man/](http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/)

</comment><comment><USER22> The main focus of the story is actually on the "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man" art exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

[https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning- man](https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man)

</comment><comment><USER23> Burning Man's predecessor beach parties sound a lot like how events in the UK 'rave' scene happened. The commercial clubs took over what was once fun, spontaneous, non-hierarchical and free in the rave/festival scene.

Having a spectacular, out of the world location was always important with 'rave', this could be the grandeur of the great outdoors or an illegally occupied premium site, e.g. the council's own offices rigged with 40K of sound with the place completely off limits for the authorities.

To some degree, whether in town or in remote countryside there was always an aspect of squatting to a true 'rave' event. Even if a venue was legit, e.g. a farm with the farmer being in on the deal, there would be laws, neighbours and active policing with searches. Once inside the autonomous zone life was lived with a very different, trusting 'security model' of community. There was an alternative world there, the same thing Burning Man attendees go to seek but get a ritualised, pastiche of.

In time the law banned 'repetitive beats' and people got old. The dance music that was a big part of 'rave' did live on in the commercialised club scene and with DJs doing legit concert style events, nowadays to fill stadiums. The 'rave' free party scene died along with the ability to temporarily live 'free' from a world of conventional law and order.

Burning Man might not be ideal and far too American for the tastes of many however it offers the illusion of being able to live in that way the UK free party scene offered. Even if it is more akin to an organised festival you can at least pretend that you are living as a 'free man'. Maybe Burning Man can only ever offer a glimpse at the ideals that it is supposed to be about just because there has to be some organisation rather than it being utterly spontaneous. This matters not, Burning Man is established as its own thing and it has been that way since the end of the beach party scene it inherited.

</comment><comment><USER24> Burning Man is a made up history of what used to go on in the 90's- namely everyone brought guns and got fucked up, under the misdirection of situationist artists.

My friend who went to early ones and said his role was "armed postal worker" said they were pretty boring because lots of business people tried to make it a scalable festival quickly, and that the only fun part of it was Mutant Fest, which happened the week before Burning Man opened (at least, historically, I think it still exists).

Mutant Fest was just people driving around in fucked up cars shooting guns playing heavy metal.

</comment><comment><USER25> The only part of this article I find annoying is the artistic elitism. Burning Man is great because any asshole can create art and have lots of people see it and interact with it without it being judged by an art critic, or have to somehow get accepted into an art show or museum.

The purpose of Burning Man, and a burn in general, is to participate. If you're not participating, there is no purpose to Burning Man. This creates a good deal of the confusion and indifference to the event by spectators, and the world at large.

</comment><comment><USER26> As an outsider with little interest in ever attending burning man, it appears to me to be little else other than a social media spectacle, these days (but perhaps that's everything).

<comment><USER27> Could it be that, with no interest in ever attending burning man, the only perception you have of the event is through social media?

<comment><USER26> That's a great point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I recall reading an article a few years ago about how every year, people declare burning man "dead" or dying. People write articles about how it's not how it used to be. How the message is lost. Every year.

When I talk to people who go, most of them seem to suggest it's still an amazing place. I guess it largely depends on who you are. I really dislike the society we've built. It feels too focused on work (I live in the Bay Area) and not enough on community. So burning man sounds ideal for me, it's just been scheduling issues that have so far prevented me from going.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that apparently these articles come up every year. Take them with a grain of salt.

Edit: here's the article. [https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical- center/...](https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical- center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/)

<comment><USER29> You can find much of what you might find at Burning Man in other places in the world. I think it's amazing primarily to people who've never been or aren't regularly exposed to those things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've always toyed with the idea of going to Burning Man but I'm turned off by how popular (read: the big, comfy trailers and the stratification of attendees) it has become. Is there a retreat that still is all about art / society-in-a-box?

<comment><USER31> I don't go to BM, but my teenage son does (with his mother).

His mother and her BM crew make some of the big art you see pictures of every year.

They think it's still great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Leave no trace" has always been a fake Burning Man ideal. Sure, they clean up after themselves, but hauling a mini city onto the desert and back (incl. water and sewage) leaves a relatively large per-attendee carbon footprint. That's a trace! Plus there's dumb stuff like straining water resources just to wash off all the dust.

Usually when you bring this up they'll say "it's worth it" for all the other ideals. But irrefutably it's still a fake ideal, which calls into question the authenticity of all of them.

<comment><USER33> LNT predates burning man, and has nothing to say about carbon footprint. Take it up with the National Park Service and the Sierra Club if you don't like it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Burning Man was a once in a lifetime thing for me. I heard it was like a massive rave, and it was better than that! It definitely is a better fit for the party people than I thought. It's a no fear environment that is generally safe. Plus it's desert camping, so it's logistically a blast as well.

For people who don't party, they get a chance to decompress and live at a different pace.

As an old school massive promoter in SF/SoCal and CO, it's great it comes back year after year! Time to one up the previous!

</comment><comment><USER35> I know that Reno locals hate Burning Man and burners in general. Whenever Burning Man comes to town, a lot of canned food and bottled beverages are sold out, they don't spend much money in town, and on the way home, they're still in party mode, and spun out of their mind, and raise hell in local establishments.

</comment><comment><USER36> Not going this year; have gone maybe 20 times starting in 95.

There was IMO and experience genuinely something special (I won't say unique, but probably... unique) there, which is now vestigial. Still discoverable but at a time, in some strata of the event, all but axiomatic.

I would describe that special thing as an emergent aspirational culture of techno-utopianism made possible by expending profound resources in the service of simulating (creating if you like, temporarily) an environment best described as "plenty."

Much about our culture is defined by axiomatic scarcity, from which competition emerges.

The thing that made me keep going back was the recurring experience of an inverted order, in which a uniquely large scale collaborative game was being played, in which the rules were changed. Lots of rules. This created open social space and possibility. Guards went down and spontanaeity blossomed. Altruism and kindness and generosity were, quite often, emergent.

This was of course highly imperfect in a very long list of ways. And there were of course as always, bad actors, bad experiences, and a shadow side.

But that does not diminish the power of experiencing the potential of existing in a culture in which the competitive instinct can be harnessed to drive collective rather than individual benefit.

Many aspects of the now ossified and largely ignored "precepts" attempted to define and explain the constituent aspects which made this emergent culture function. A fools' errand but an absolutely necessary one in the face of massive growth and the encroachment of the outside rules.

Many (most all) cultures have some sort of time-out-of-time in which traditional norms are suspended. It's a pressure valve and a laboratory in which the culture can tinker.

I consider myself unspeakably blessed to have lived in SF at a moment when my culture and generation experimented at this scale, thanks to the (at the time permanent-seeming) very temporary apex of the post-Cold War internet boom, when the Bay was still a meeting point between a lot of very creative, very iconoclastic people, and, suddenly, a f--k ton of money and resources.

We still have the latter, and it shows in the preposterous scale of very cool vanity projects on the playa now.

But we are in a much much darker moment historically and generally, the culture of the Bay is now within the event horizon of money and conventional rules of power.

I still have fun when I go, and there is still idealism.

But the safety, risk taking, collaborative play from a smaller city and the sense of fellow travelers who frankly were a lot more freakish and non-normal than attend now, lives on only in individual interactions and nooks and crannies.

It's still the background radiation shows, and to the extent the "precepts" are pursued, still leads to magic.

And it's still a great gathering of freaks, and celebration of potential.

Still worth it IMO if you can find the right people.

Never expect to see something ignite at that scale again in my lifetime. For a while Occupy had potential to be something more. Ah well.

<comment><USER37> You'll always find the freaks in society if you're authentic about your freakish nature, to address one point in your comment.

It's simple but I really do have this kind of emergent, creative, slightly anarchist experience in every day life simply by stepping out the front door. As long as I have the presence of mind to recognize myself in someone else (and empathy, and genuine other-love with that self-love) something fantastic will happen, something strange that changes me and others.

Other than this I really don't know what you're saying about burning man, but I think the concept as I understand it can flourish under modern city- conditions, maybe only in such conditions. There never will be a time when the dam isn't about to burst, unless it already has and we're in that moment of filling up again. That's what's wonderful, there is no permanence. That essential property underlies everything, there is nothing to worry about, no potential lost just funneled elsewhere. Maybe when people recognize this they won't go looking for love at burning man. I'm sure it's still worth it for the surrealism.

edit: and you can't get by on just a feeling and a quick session of analysis.

<comment><USER36> Another way to put what I was trying to say about the genuine uniqueness of living in a culture of plenty, instead of scarcity, is that it was a particularly affecting variation the experience of immersion in a different culture.

The closest comparison I have in my own life is what it's like when you're somewhat self-aware and find yourself in a culture where the social norms and expectations are different.

In the case of my own experience at BM, I consistently found a hybrid synthesized culture which clearly emerged from the people who chose to be there and put themselves 'out', but also, transcended any particular subculture or precursor.

I used to randomly encounter and take long walks with another artist who'd started going around the same time, and a recurring topic for us was what happened when the ravers colonized.

My take was that if it was a choice between them and their MDMA-fueled energy, and the much darker FSU punk acid/speed/alcohol faction which was the primary counterbalance for a long time, I'd take the ravers.

But that changed thing and dilluted the weird equilibrium and skewed it a lot more towards "conventional" (sic) rave culture. Which is a fine thing but not the same exactly.

Yet a different take would be to simply observe that never and nowhere have I experienced what it means to live in a city for a week, year after year after year, which is intentionally constructed by and for and populated by a lot of people who take their psychedelic experience seriously (c.f. Pollan's Changing Your Mind). That sounds hokey or derisively dismissible, and it absolutely meant a lot of superficial edges which were...

...but it also created a social space that is truly a foreign place, not least, when it's inhabited not for a night or a weekend but for a week or more.

Totally unsustainable, under the requirements of current civilization, and not advisable IMO even if it were.

But as a place to suspend the norms for a week and be reminded that this is all of it a collaborative consensual construction and what we assert as "normal" is merely the artifact of our own limitations and historical moment?

Unspeakably valuable and unique in my experience...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Nothing last forever.

Ideal, and idyllic, things often seem to be ruined by popularity (and the commercial or other exploitation popularity brings?).

See "overtourism" as another example (and somewhat related).

</comment><comment><USER39> All the idealism of burning man pretty much dies as soon as you realize that everybody's on drugs. It's a dark path. Some people do alright. On a long enough timeline, most don't.

<comment><USER5> While there's definitely a larger percentage of the public "on drugs" than you find in day to day life (and a lot more people drunk on alcohol), there are still many sober people at the event. I'd posit at any given time the _majority_ of participants are sober, with the exception, perhaps, of Friday and Saturday night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The successor to Burning Man is probably Wasteland Weekend. Even that's getting commercial. It's turning into a music festival.

</comment><comment><USER41> Fuck Yer Burn!

</comment><comment><USER42> There's a lot of people whom just go to Burning Man to get high and fuck.

</comment><comment><USER43> Vanishing? Folks, it's been gone for years. It's now summer camp for well-off techies.

<comment><USER44> I don't think you read the article.. it's about how the idealism of the artwork vanishes once it's left the playa. It has nothing to do with the changing nature of burning man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> "Leaving no trace"

What is the carbon footprint of this festival?

They should rephrase that to "Leaving no visible trace"

<comment><USER46> "Leave No Trace" is a term of art: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace)

It's not without criticism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are people in this world who have no creativity. They are desperate not to be living the lives they've chosen. Eventually, they are going to show up in your creative venture with their other, not creative friends. They are going to bring the money they made doing their not creative work. They are well-intentioned but they are going to ruin everything. They are trying so hard to escape the assholes that ruin things. They don't realize they are the assholes that ruin things.</comment>


Closing out an incredible week in Rust - <AUTHOR> http://aturon.github.io/2018/02/09/amazing-week/ <comment><USER2> It's really exciting to be a member of the Rust community, right now. I'd encourage every programmer who still enjoys the magic to try it out for at least a hobby project. It's completely rekindled my love for programming.

<comment><USER2> And my project is a GUI app, which is among the weakest stories remaining for Rust!

<comment><USER3> Cool, are you using gtk-rs? I've been using that a bit.

<comment><USER2> I'm currently using orbtk, the GUI toolkit for Redox OS. It has the least boilerplate and most pleasing API of the ones I've researched so far. (It targets SDL2 in addition to Orbital, so it's not just for Redox.) I'm looking forward to limn reaching maturity, though!

I've been enjoying orbtk, but I'm considering trying to re-implement in rust- sciter, which I stumbled across recently. The examples are really cool.

The GUI scene is very active right now, but it still requires pouring over raw, API-only documentation and simple examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The blog post by nikomatsakis describing the specialization breakthrough has now been published:

[http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2018/02/09/maxi...](http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2018/02/09/maximally- minimal-specialization-always-applicable-impls/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Two that really are eye-poppingly exciting to me personally are:

\- borrowing in async/await \- embedded work getting first-class attention, led by @japaric

My excitement over these two specifically, of course, reflects the idiosyncrasies of my focus, but yay!

</comment><comment><USER6> I quite like rust as a language but the community is just so toxic. I just want to code...</comment>


Hackers Explain Why They Supposedly Took Down PSN and Xbox Live - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/hackers-explain-why-they-supposedly-took-down-psn-and-x-1675448709 <comment><USER2> Those asshats. They can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day they did it to be asshats.</comment>


Facebook Rings - <AUTHOR>

Try this while on Facebook: On your keyboard, press UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, ENTER and then scroll up OR down. You'll see something amazing.
Later on, whenever you click on the page. You see those rings!
How can this happen? <comment><USER2> That sequence is called the Konami code, which you can read more about at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code>

If you're interested in seeing other sites that use it, check out <http://konamicodesites.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Try doing the samething on the google reader. You will get the Ninja !!!

</comment><comment><USER4> That, my friend, is the Konami code.

<comment><AUTHOR> ohk!.. the sequence of key strokes is similar.. what significance on FB homepage?

<comment><USER5> This came out around the time of the Star Trek movie. It's a reference/parody of the absurd lens flares in that movie.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript changes for Facebook's OAuth 2.0 upgrade - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sociablelabs.com/2011/09/16/javascript-changes-facebook-pauth-2-0-upgrade/

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a followup post that covers the server-side here: [http://blog.sociablelabs.com/2011/09/19/server-side- changes-...](http://blog.sociablelabs.com/2011/09/19/server-side-changes- facebook-oauth-2-0-upgrade/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, while all of Facebook's SDKs already support OAuth 2.0, starting on October 1st they will _only_ support OAuth 2.0 - anything that depends on the older authentication system will break.</comment>


Ask HN: ROR or Angular for career development? - <AUTHOR>

Hello!
I'm a software developer new to the bay. I'm starting to feel like my overly generalist skill set is holding me back at this point and I would like to spend a year or so extremely focused on learning one technology. I'm pretty sure that technology would come down to Ruby on Rails or Angular.
I have about 6 months experience in each. I enjoy angular.js more, but I'm okay with Rails. My perception is that the job market is hotter for Rails. I also perceive that angular.js has more potential for growth in a year, but also potential to shrivel up.
I don't really care much about making more than 90k or so, so higher income potential doesn't matter much to me. I'd really like to land in a start up in the SF, but I'm open to other locations + types of work. <comment><USER2> I think the rails team is showing us they are willing to adapt to future trends in web development.

The guys running the show are also basing most of their business on it because they use it every day to develop basecamp and have been doing it successfully for like 10 years.

I would definitely choose rails.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rails.

a)At this point, you need both a backend framework and a frontend JS framework. Backend is typically Rails or Django, with Rails taking 60-80% of the jobs I've seen. Front you can do Angular, Backbone, Ember.. probably others. These are the ones I know.

b)You don't need 1 year of experience in either Rails or Angular to be able to do great work in them and get a good job. With 6 months in each, you should be fine and easily make $100-$150k in the Bay Area.

c)Your perception is correct, Rails will currently get you more jobs than Angular. That's because Rails is more stable and versatile. Personally I think Angular is pretty lame and I hope it doesn't go anywhere, but even somewhat objectively, Angular can't "be the next Rails". Pure JS frontend frameworks just don't have the room to grow that much in the next few years. Maybe much further down the road (5y+), but then it won't be Angular, but FancyNewFramework(tm).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input!

Curious: Why do you think Angular is pretty lame? Are you against client-side MVC frameworks or something about Angular in particular?

(If anyone wants to talk to me about one of those jobs, email in the profile!)

(Also, my question my not have made it adequately clear: I don't think that Angular can "be the next rails". They're not equivalent except in that I've seen a lot of startupy postings looking for experience in both and they're on the top of my list of things to learn more about. I do think there's a possible future in lightweight node.js + heavy weight angular, though.)</comment></comment>


The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Theoretical Physics: Why Gravity Is So Weak - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2015/12/11/the-greatest-unsolved-problem-in-theoretical-physics-why-gravity-is-so-weak/ <comment><USER2> I remember reading a comment somewhere on the web that made it "click" for me:

 _" Gravity is so weak that force of a tiny fridge magnet is able to counter gravity pull of the whole planet"._

<comment><USER3> Yes but on average, the mass of the planet is 4000 miles away. Put the magnet 4000 miles away and see how much pull you get.

<comment><USER4> That's a confusing way to look at things. Lets make the two scenarios more similar.

Say "earth" is a sphere with radius 1 meter and you're 1 meter away. And that puny magnet defeats its gravitational pull in the same way it defeats earth. How heavy would our sphere have to be in order to have the same pull as earth if it has a radius of 1 meter and our magnet is 1 meter away?

If you remember Newton's law of gravitation the force an object will feel looks like: F=Gm/r^2. G is small, 10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2, m is the mass of earth 10^24 kg, r is normally 10^6 m (the radius of the earth). Plug in these numbers you get 10 m/s^2. The real answer is closer to 9.8, but we're looking for the order of magnitude here. We're still remarkably close for how much rounding we did.

How lets say that we're now 1 meter away. How heavy would the mass have to be to still pull with 10m/s^2, which we know our magnet can defeat. (10^6)^2 ~> 10^12 so we have to be 10^24/10^12 ~> 10^12 kg.

So to defeat a tiny magnet 1 meter away you need 10^12kg. Lets pretend our mass is a cube whose volume is 1m^3. That's 10^12kg/m^3. The center of the sun has a density of 10^5kg/m^3. This is 10^7 times denser! We're lucky that our sphere is far too light by many orders of magnitude to collapse into a black hole (maybe not so lucky because it's going to explode immediately!) but it's even denser than a white dwarf. This is on the order of the mass of Mt. Everest (this is a very rough and unprincipled comparison and when you unpack it can mean many different things, but it's something easy to visualize).

So you can see. Gravity is indeed insanely weak. A magnet can defeat Mt. Everest.

<comment><USER5> This is much more confusing than the previous, one-line view.

<comment><USER6> That the comment as a whole is confusing doesn't matter.

The point is that you should use something human-scale to show off the strength of gravity.

So if you want a fridge-sized block that can hold things with gravity like a normal fridge holds a magnet, how heavy does it have to be? As heavy as an entire mountain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand why this is a problem.

It might sound silly, but isn't it like asking why blue is blue?

If Gravity is a fundamental force, isn't it like a mathematical axiom? We can't really prove or explain it, it's just the basis for all the other rules.

<comment><USER8> Electricity and magnetism used to be considered separate phenomena, but then they were found to be two aspects of a single electromagnetic force.

Electromagnetism and the weak force used to be considered separate phenomena, but then they were found to be two aspects of a single electroweak force.

Progress can't be made if we just accept everything as-is and don't investigate more deeply.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, and the interesting fundamental thing we discover this year sometimes has practical applications 30 years down the line.

The semi-conductor wouldn't have existed except for such fundamental work in prior decades.

I dislike the "well, that's just the way it is" response to our not understanding something (as do fortunately the smarter people than me scientists!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A related issue is "If electricity and magnetism are so strong, why do we feel the effects of gravity more?"

To see why this is the case, let's look at magnetism first. Every magnet is composed of a north pole and a south pole. If you split a magnet in two, you get two magnets, each with a north pole and a south pole. You _never_ get a magnet with more "north" charges than "south".

This means that the "north" and "south" portions of the field right are always next to each other. Which also means that when you go very far from a magnet, the _net_ effect of the magnet is zero. Because the two fields cancel each other out.

So we should expect that magnetism doesn't have many practical impacts on our daily life. If you're close to a magnet, you might feel it. But if you're far away, you won't be able to feel a magnetic field.

Electricity is a bit different. The positive and negative charges can be separated from one another, unlike magnetism.

This means that when electrical charges are separated, there is a force pulling them together for differing charges, or separating them for similar charges. The net effect over time is that most objects should be electrically neutral. Because the charges will naturally come together.

So we should expect that electricity has an impact on our daily life. We should be able to tell when the charges are separated. This occurs only for a short time, until the charges move and cancel each other out.

Gravity is different again. There is no "positive" and "negative" charges with gravity. It's _all positive_.

This means that when two gravitational bodies are separated, there will be a force pulling them together. The net effect is that all objects with "gravitational charge" will tend to clump together.

So we should expect that gravity has a _huge_ impact on our lives. We should always be able to tell that gravity exists.

Note that these conclusions are _independent of the relative strengths of the forces_. Magnetism and electricity will generally have net zero impact. Gravity will have net positive impact.

If gravity was _strong_ , like the other forces, then gravitational objects would group together. A _lot_. Which means that the universe would end up as one big clump of matter.

It's only because gravity is _weak_ that we have gravitational objects which are separate from each other for any extended period of time.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure why physicists think gravity is a force and Pauling exclusion principle isn't.

Gravity is fake "inertial" force caused by shape of the space time. Why do they insist that it should have gravitons when everything so far show it doesn't fit quantum field models?

<comment><USER12> >I'm not sure why physicists think gravity is a force and Pauling exclusion principle isn't.

>Gravity is fake "inertial" force caused by shape of the space time.

Because all forces are like that? Electromagnetism is just a force created by the shape of the electromagnetic gauge field.

In mathematical terms: it is the curvature of the gauge connection. In exactly the same way that gravity is a force created by the curvature of the metric connection.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure if this comparison holds.

Space-time is the environment that matter moves through. Curvatures in spacetime affects how matter moves.

What is the electromagnetic gauge field? Why does it only affect charged particles? Why does it affect particles differently depending on the type of charge they hold (positive/negative)?

It doesn't seem to be the same thing as spacetime.

<comment><USER12> Given the nature of this subject not all your questions have definitive answers, but I'll try to give it my best shot. You should probably consider these answers a subjective interpretation, rather than objective facts.

The most consistent interpretation of QFT I've seen so far views gauge fields as principal bundles. This implies that matter not only propagate through space-time but also through the gauge field, and the way it is 'changed' as it passes through the gauge field is related to the charge.

Now technically the electromagnetic gauge field (and others) also affects uncharged particles, mainly because it couples to gravity, but perhaps also in more subtle ways (think of the way light can be affected by simply passing through a piece of matter).

Admittedly there are quite a few differences (since the metric has a somewhat special position) but there are also quite a few similarities. Unfortunately nobody has yet found a (testable) theory that either unifies the forces or can treat the separately. I'm placing my bets on the 'unification' side though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Being so weak is not the only disturbing attribute of gravity. It's also being the only far-reaching attracting force. Far reaching, not connected to mechanical forces is only explainable with the wave model, not the mechanical counterpart, and attractive is only similar to electro-magnetism, with a completely different explanation.

That's what made Newton think of being a supernatural force created by god to hold all the planets and the universe together.

And that's what made Heisenberg say: "Are you silly? An attracting force having the mechanical interpretation, the Higgs boson, which jumps on each other nucleons back to create an attraction?" That cannot be it.

</comment><comment><USER15> One of my favorite possible explanations is the Large Number Hypothesis (LNH) by Dirac

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o8mUyq_Wwg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o8mUyq_Wwg)

</comment><comment><USER16> But physics doesn't answer this kind of question. We don't know _why_ magnetism, for example, works the way it does - we just measure it's effects and model it with mathematics.

OTOH I think it's interesting to imagine universes with stronger or weaker gravity, and to realize that in most of them it's hard to imagine life being possible at all. (Life would not arise without gravity (since you need to smush matter together to get life) but it also wouldn't arise with super strong gravity (since life needs to be able to move around).)

</comment><comment><USER17> > science will never progress unless we try, and that's what these ideas and > searches are: our attempt to move our knowledge of the Universe forward. And > as always, as the LHC's Run II has already begun, I can't wait to see what — > beyond the already-discovered Higgs boson — just might turn up!

If they want data from colliders, I would say it's a problem for experimental physics, or physics in general.

</comment><comment><USER18> The reason is because of the anthropic principle.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like to think of Gravity as a result of mass deforming space in the same way a brown turd deforms toilet water as it spins inevitably toward the outlet during flushing. Standing atop the turd you are affixed to its mass, but the entire system is affixed to the spinning, evacuating forces of the great flush. The Bono/Kurick South Park episode was instrumental in this theory's formulation.</comment>


Rosling's World: The best statistics you've ever seen - <AUTHOR> http://svtplay.se/v/1654393/dokumentar/rosling_s_world

<comment><AUTHOR> "Hans Rosling is a professor in international health, who has made an unlikely global success. His presentations on global development evokes laughter, rejoice and reflections. People with power, like Al Gore or Bill Clinton, ask for his advice. He wants everyone to question their prejudices about the world - as he himself has needed to do. A documentary by Pär Fjällström, SVT."</comment>


Ask HN: What about 5G are you excited about or working on? - <AUTHOR> This recent post [1] made me think that I've heard a lot about 5G in mainstream media but almost nothing on HN.<p>[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22163244 <comment><USER2> Honestly, there's nothing about 5G that actually excites me. Almost all of the hype I've seen about the benefits of 5G is just that -- hype.

The Big Win of 5G is that it can increase load-carrying capacity of the cell system, so if you live in an area where the cell system is frequently overloaded, then you should see an increase in quality. Outside of that, though, I'm not feeling it.

</comment><comment><USER3> 5G to me sounds like the tipping point. Who needs gigabit connectivity on data? Seems a bit needless.

Not to mention the fact that the technology makes the coverage so spotty there's hardly any time you'll actually be able to utilise it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Realistically, I'm excited to pay even less attention to page weight. Shipping 10 megs of garbage javascript, even to mobile browsers? Bring it on!</comment>


Why F#, and Why Not Windows - <AUTHOR> http://compositecode.com/2015/05/10/why-f-and-why-not-windows/ <comment><USER2> 1st part: reasonable 2nd part: fedora tier

oh and below he 'prefers os-x', got a good laugh out of this article.</comment>


Skyrim and Hackernews are ruining my life - <AUTHOR>

just another 5min <comment><USER2> Here is some information about procrastination. Hilariously, it is too long for anyone who procrastinates to actually read.

([http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts- demos/writin...](http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts- demos/writing-the-paper/procrastination))

</comment><comment><USER3> go into your settings by clicking on your username and turn on "noprocrast" (no procrastination)</comment>


Virtual DOM is not a feature - <AUTHOR> https://uniphil.github.io/virtual-dom/ <comment><USER2> I think the beginning of this article is spot on. A declarative UI library for the web needs to have something like virtual DOM so that the actual DOM is strategically updated when a higher level component updates. No DOM state like input focusing is lost. The part that I don't understand is when the author mentions that the "nifty algorithms that operate on the Virtual DOM" are the key to React's speed. It was my understanding that 1: There are no algorithms that operate _on_ the virtual dom. It is blindly updated every time a component update happens. And 2: That the algorithms that compare the virtual dom and the real dom are the essence of the "Virtual DOM" idea. In this sense, React is no different from the other declarative UI frameworks out there and this is where the point of the article was lost to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Does this difference in semantics matter? Probably not. Even React's own > documentation gets it wrong.

First of all, if you are arguing that they're different things then it isn't a argument in semantics. Secondly, the docs don't get it wrong. Conceptually it presses the refresh button... there not saying it literally presses the refresh button.

That said, I liked the example of making it slow. Perhaps it's just my mind playing tricks on me but the button counter felt slower when clicking it rapidly. Pretty amazing that such a bare-bones example "felt" different.

</comment><comment><USER4> My problem with this article (apart from the title of the submission) is that the author's point is, IMHO, not very well thought out. It's not a question of "using the virtual DOM or not", it's a question of "use immediate rendering" (what the author attempts) or "use a diff-and-patch algorithm" (what React does).

</comment><comment><USER5> Why the more strongly worded title?

<comment><AUTHOR> The title in the article changed after submission.

[https://github.com/uniphil/uniphil.github.io/commit/230de9cf...](https://github.com/uniphil/uniphil.github.io/commit/230de9cf6a1e41cabb8b9406446eb0c424034cd8#diff-8018522fe7d646a82658459f346f8029)</comment></comment>


Git in six hundred words - <AUTHOR> http://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/git-in-six-hundred-words <comment><USER2> "You go to commit some code to a public repo. The maintainer scolds you for using merges instead of fast forwards."

"You decide to bring in some more code from the public repo. Here is a 6000 word essay on what rebase means."

"You try to look at an old version of the code. Suddenly you are in 'detached HEAD' state. The End."

I love git, but simple intros like this hide all the confusing complexity and awkward UI that quickly comes to the forefront when using git for everyday work.

<comment><USER3> I teach courses on Git, and I couldn't agree more. _Many_ of my students have been told that Git is simple, and they just need to know 10 commands. Or they can think about it like SVN. Or that they should push, pull, and that's about it.

Which has the effect of (a) making them fear Git, (b) making them feel like they'll never figure it out, (c) and convincing them that they're always on the verge of losing data. I've literally had students at the start of my course refer to Git as "that system that makes me lose files."

Once I teach people about Git's objects and data structures, things suddenly become much more obvious to these people. Git becomes less of a mystery.

I'm not saying that Git is easy for people to understand or use, because it isn't. It has a steep learning curve -- one which I think is worth the effort. But I think that it does a disservice to Git newbies to try to summarize all of Git's functionality in a short essay, and then proclaim, "See? There's not that much to learn here!"

<comment><USER2> I would be grateful for your course. I've used git now for 3+ years and still don't feel like I understand Git's objects and data structures. Maybe it's because I didn't finish my PhD.

<comment><USER3> Finishing a PhD gives you bragging rights, but it doesn't make you any smarter! (Believe me, it took me 11 years to do mine... and I've got the bills and emotional scars to prove it!)

I might start to teach courses online at some point, but I'm right now so busy with in-person classes in Israel and China (with a bit in Europe probably happening soon) that I haven't had a chance to consider it. But hmm, maybe...

Meanwhile, see my above reply with some suggested resources to learn about and understand Git. I hope that they'll help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is perhaps too few words to elucidate git. I appreciate that Ms. Cook links to other articles on her own site that go into much greater detail. However, I still think the best self-contained and relatively brief explanation of Git is "The Git Parable."[1]

[1] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git- parable.htm...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.html)

<comment><USER5> In fact, the Git Parable specifically addresses this articles approach to teaching git in the introduction:

"Most people try to teach Git by demonstrating a few dozen commands and then yelling "tadaaaaa." I believe this method is flawed. Such a treatment may leave you with the ability to use Git to perform simple tasks, but the Git commands will still feel like magical incantations. Doing anything out of the ordinary will be terrifying."

Makes the 600 words achievement seem less impressive, if you put it in the context of existing git education.

<comment><USER6> I can't agree with this. The 600 word article explicitly does not simply demonstrate some commands and go "tadaaaa". Quite the contrary, it demonstrates some commands and explains how they work, a very impressive achievement for something so terse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And here, perfectly illustrated, is a reminder why I don't like using some source code version control systems. I don't want to understand the precise implementation of my source code control system, and I don't personally believe that I should have to for effective use.

I realise this is likely an unpopular opinion, but I would challenge you to reply with justification rather than inevitably downvoting me into oblivion.

One of my software development mentors (a long time mechanical engineer who has done UNIX OS development for 20+ years) often has this as his email signature and I think it's rather apt in this context:

      Civilization advances by extending the number of
      important operations which we can perform without
      thinking about them.

With that said, I'm not advocating complete ignorance of _how_ a version control system "works", I just find the philosophy of "you must learn the internal data formats and workings of this system to use it effectively" more than a bit distasteful.

<comment><USER8> Just how does using `git init`, `git add`, `git commit`, `git push`, `git merge`, `git pull` force one to know Git's implementation details?

Even thinking of Git as a security camera watching your shop (working tree), a VCR (record, forward, rewind history), a videotape copier (branching, pushing) and video editor (pulling, merging) wouldn't be too far off the mark, without the need for any reference to Git's inner workings.

Sure, a lot of Git talk mentions SHAs, trees, blobs, etc., but they could just as well have been brownies, blurfls, gizmos or whatever, as long as the practical context in which one needs these things is clear. Branches, tags and remotes are still the most useful top-level concepts, with no need for knowing their implementation details.

Only when one needs to do really low-level stuff like efficient import/export, history rewriting (ugh) etc. does one need to know a little more about _how_ Git works. Many people have used Git for years without knowing anything about the plumbing beneath its porcelain.

<comment><USER9> With that usage, you don't need to understand the implementation. But in my experience of using Git without really understanding it, there is about a 90% chance of destroying your repository when you try to revert something. I have never had this problem with any other VCS.

I'm sure simple reverting is super easy once you know what you're doing, but you need to know what you're doing.

<comment><USER10> Reverting a commit is trivial. There is zero opportunity of destroying a repo. From my notes,

# revert a commit

git revert dd61ab32

<comment><USER9> Well that does look simple, but first of all, it doesn't really revert a commit. It makes a new commit to cancel out the old one, or something. Not intuitive, unexpected results if you don't know what you're doing.

But the situation I got into was when I did something stupid and just wanted to undo it. Let me go back to an hour ago before I screwed up my project. That's not revert, it's reset, but reset only reverts the commit history, you really want reset --hard. And of course you need to be pointing to the right place for this to work, and there are other ways for it to go wrong. It might be hard to imagine if you're at all competent with Git, but trust me when I say you can get yourself into some very frustrating scenarios if you just Google "undo push" and blindly follow the instructions.

Here's another simple scenario: I'm working on a bug, my friend fixes it first and pushes his version. I just want to pull his changes and throw away whatever I was working on. Ok, so I find this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1125968/force-git-to- over...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1125968/force-git-to-overwrite- local-files-on-pull?rq=1)

Look how many different methods there are. Look how many warnings of "THIS WILL DELETE ALL UNTRACKED FILES" there are. Why is this necessary? I could rant for a while longer, but this stuff is so incredibly unfriendly and frustrating to newcomers. I don't want to think about this stuff, I just want to go back to the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a cool essay! It's very approachable. I would really like to understand git under the hood one day, but I'm intimidated by how much it does with such a small memory footprint.

My group project partner and I were having the toughest time with git last night. I thought we were all ready to walk out the door and then we ended up monkeying around with it for an hour and a half.

The atlassian visual guides really helped:

[https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/)

They're great for people who know the names of all the git commands but who are still thrown off in really basic situations, ie 'Is it merge master? Merge origin master? Merge origin/master? Why does it say already-up-to-date?'

</comment><comment><USER12> What git needs is a simple undo command, as in

        git undo

and it just undoes whatever you just did. There seems to be a way to undo pretty much anything, but I usually end up googling and deciphering the likes of

        git reset HEAD hard -f --now origin/master --no-rebase %${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER")

Then when that goes wrong, you're in real trouble and left scratching your head at git's error message.

<comment><USER13> Hmm, the reflog usually (always?) provides all the info you need to undo the last action. I wouldn't be surprised if it were possible to build a "git undo" command on top of that. The fact that no one has yet done so is a great illustration of your point, though.

<comment><USER14> The reflog just lets you undo commits (whether created by `git commit` or rebase or merge or whatever), while actions like `git reset`, `git checkout`, `git add`, `git gc`, and `git rm` cannot be undone with the reflog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is some subset of all VCS software that contains the handful of commands that 80% of coders need 80% of the time. Conceptually, these commands are very nearly isomorphic for individuals making changes to files by themselves.

These paragraphs do indeed cover those commands for git, although I can't see why this presentation is particularly useful, even for a beginner. It's just a condensed HOWTO that doesn't actually explain what it's doing.

Newcomers would be better advised to sacrifice the 30 minutes and read the first three chapters of the storied git book: [http://git- scm.com/book/en/v2](http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2).

<comment><USER16> As a new user of Git, I cannot support this comment enough. The Pro Git book is a fantastic resource that cleanly and concisely outlines the command AND the conceptual framework upon which Git operates.

I strongly recommend that all new users read at least those first 3 chapters, but also the very useful chapters on using GitHub - a website that I have personally found extremely unintuitive to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm an SVN user, and I'll have to move to git some day, but it's not winning any points for me :-( . I got bit by it recently. I had cloned a repo, and then a few weeks later, did

        % git status
        On branch master
        Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
        nothing to commit, working directory clean

I assumed the working copy was up-to-date, as git states.... but alas, no. I had to do a "git pull" to get the latest changes. Why doesn't git tell you that your copy is out of date?

<comment><USER18> Git does not check with the remote unless you tell it to. So "origin/master" points to what master on origin pointed to the last time git contacted the origin remote.

To have git contact the remote again, you can do "git fetch origin" (or just "git fetch"). Then git will tell you your copy is out of date compared to origin/master, if there's been commits on origin since.

If you commit things, then _your_ copy will be ahead of origin/master, so origin/master is what is out of date and you need to git push:

        ~/dotfiles % git status            ✓✗ master:c024cb4 - dotfiles 
        On branch master
        Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
          (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

<comment><USER19> Yeah, but your branch isn't up-to-date is it? It's bad wording.

<comment><USER20> It's up to date with origin/master, which is the local copy of the remote master. 'git fetch' updates those local copies. 'git pull' does a fetch and then merges origin/master into master.

It makes sense when you consider that there are other ways that origin/master could be updated. You could apply commits that someone emailed you (a common workflow in the Linux kernel that git was designed to support), or someone could push commits directly to you over SSH or the filesystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fast-forward 5 years into using Git, I learned that _git add_ and _git commit_ is all you need to know to get started. I learned everything else, on the job and by need.

\- _git push_ when I needed to take work to Github

\- _git checkout_ when I needed to move between branches

\- _git merge_ when I needed to merge someone else work into master

\- _git cherry-pick_ I needed this to take commits from a non-fork to my project

\- _git bissect_ Debugging a bug introduced between releases

I also learned to use Github tools, SourceTree, the Command-Line and Bitbucket. If you want to learn git, just make a commit. Everything else will be mastered down the road.

</comment><comment><USER22> For me, the hardest thing about learning Git is the lurking feeling that I have to learn it because it has become an unavoidable fad, not because it is the best approach to version management for most common use-cases.

<comment><USER23> I think your attitude is completely reasonable, and I'm with you on your skepticism. However I am pleasantly surprised that, for once, a software fad lines up with what is actually technically superior. Linus knows how to design software correctly.

<comment><USER24> Debatable. In the two dimensional space of UI quality vs adoption, git seems to be way out on a frontier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The page is just pure white for about 30 seconds before it loads for me. (Gentoo Firefox on Linux.) I don't know why but all the items on the page are positioned off page with "visibility: hidden".

Anyway, in case the author sees I thought they might want to know. And if it doesn't load for someone here, wait 30 seconds and it probably will.

I can see in the console your fonts are failing to load. Perhaps this is causing the issue?

</comment><comment><USER26> That was a completely confusing entry. If I didn't already have a pretty good handle on git, I would be hopelessly confused.

</comment><comment><USER27> [http://www.sbf5.com/~cduan/technical/git/](http://www.sbf5.com/~cduan/technical/git/)

"The conclusion I draw from this is that you can only really use Git if you understand how Git works. Merely memorizing which commands you should run at what times will work in the short run, but it's only a matter of time before you get stuck or, worse, break something."

</comment><comment><USER28> This might be useful for someone who is managing a personal project on Github.

Add a couple of additional developers with 600 words of git understanding would result in chaos.

</comment><comment><USER29> I see a blank page.

Is this a joke I don't get?

edit: [https://i.imgur.com/TQxyQES.png](https://i.imgur.com/TQxyQES.png)

<comment> meta-coder Probably due to HTTPS Everywhere. Try disabling the rule for Fonts.net.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Git in six words: content addressable filesystem with linked revisions.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anyone know of a point and click graphical tool for git? I've seen the branches and merges from the console but if I simply want to take git to a specific commit hash, it can easily devolve into hours of research.

I believe the problem here is that even though there are only a finite number of choices (less than a dozen in everyday life) representing what I want to accomplish, there are countless ways of getting there with commands. I just don't remember having these kinds of problems with svn, so I think the difficulty is not conceptual, but due to a poor mapping between the concepts and the interface.

I'm thinking something like Apple's Time Machine, where you click a commit and the repo shows up on the desktop as a mounted drive. We could use ordinary tools to edit the image and when it's unmounted it becomes a new commit (or something along those lines).

<comment><USER32> SourceTree (by BitBucket) has a decent GUI Git client.

The official github client is trash. The last time I used it was a year ago, so it might have improved since then.

<comment><USER33> Still is.(gave it a try yesterday. Not a lot has changed.)

I do like the git-bash on Windows, though. For some reason I've avoided installing cygwin.... ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I remember seeing this posted on HN a few months back.

Here's the link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8932737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8932737) (see the comments for the correct link..)

I remember liking reading it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've definitely found git confusing to understand. I've had to write myself a tutorial to get my head around the concepts and day-to-day workflow:

[http://freetexthost.com/pe020d1b41](http://freetexthost.com/pe020d1b41)

</comment><comment><USER36> "It points the master branch on beta at the commit object that the master branch points at on the alpha repository."

Yes, as clear as mud. This is why I hate git. Why should code versioning be SO bloody complicated?!. Give me SVN or ( _shudder_ ) CVS anyday.

</comment><comment><USER37> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first couple of sentences seems wrong. Git can only be initiated in an empty directory.

Other than that: This is a very short and concise introduction, especially the merging.

<comment><USER38> Nope, git can be initialized in directories with files in them.

      ➜  ~  mkdir test1
      ➜  ~  cd test1
      ➜  test1  echo "hello" > hello.ttx
      ➜  test1  ls
      hello.ttx
      ➜  test1  git init
      Initialized empty Git repository in   /home/david/test1/.git/
      ➜  test1 git:(master) ✗ git status
      On branch master

      Initial commit

      Untracked files:
        (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

      hello.ttx

      nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
      ➜  test1 git:(master) ✗

<comment><USER37> I stand corrected, wonder where I got that misconception from.

<comment> mh- you can't _clone a remote repo_ into a non-empty directory.

from `man git-clone`:

        Cloning into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is empty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> i'm just waiting for git to flame out

<comment><USER40> Agreed, it's like the perl of vcs. Please go away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UllNDRXR1vM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UllNDRXR1vM)

</comment><comment><USER41> almost git internals

</comment><comment><USER42> FWIW, the syntax highlighting is a little overwhelming for me.

</comment><comment><USER43> I am looking forward to a time when memorizing commands seems archaic.

<comment><USER44> Hear, hear.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A ridiculous counter using only CSS and <marquee> - <AUTHOR> https://marquee-48pfywnhezjd.runkit.sh/ <comment><AUTHOR> Looks a bit weird in Edge.</comment>


How to Force Facebook into Handing Over their Secret Tracking Data - <AUTHOR> http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Get_your_Data_/get_your_data_.html

<comment><USER2> Unbelievable: <http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html>

They delete sh*t, if you delete your posts they don't remove them from their databases.

This makes me really angry, there is a reason why i delete this stuff. I can't believe this, they have a responsibility.

Edit: WTF [http://europe-v- facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html#Mac...](http://europe-v- facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html#Machines)

This is maybe the most frightening: [http://europe-v- facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html#Mes...](http://europe-v- facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html#Messages)

<comment><USER3> Best advice I ever heard (and it came from an ex-Facebook employee), "treat communication ("private" & "public") on all services, including Gmail, Facebook, and Tumblr, like a million people are listening."

<comment> X-Istence Or better yet start using OTR on these services and verify the "key" on each end before continuing to talk about private matters.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't account for the times the receiver decrypts your communication and then intentionally makes it public.

There's a deep wisdom to the idea that one ought not put into words that which they wouldn't want the world to see... Once it's out of your head, your ability to control it diminishes if not outright vanishes... Just say'n is all..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So let's say I launch TrackMyEatingHabits.com. If a user that happens to live in the UK signs up, they can send me a request for all of their data and I have to comply, right?

So this means that when I design the software for TrackMyEatingHabits.com, I should also be mindful to have a process (and data model) that makes it easy to locate this user data quickly, right?

Also, I should have in place processes to verify the identify of the requester too, right?

Or alternatively, I can just limit my market to the U.S.

<comment><USER6> No, probably not. Usually you only have to abide by a countries laws if your server are based there, or you have a company incorporated there. If you have a US company with servers hosted in the US, acbd an EU citizen uses it, and claims you are breaking their laws, then there its nothing the courts in that country can do to make you abide them.

To put it another way, are you worried if your US company breaks Chinese censorship laws? That's illegal in China. Are you worried if your company denies that the Holocaust happened? That's illegal in Germany.

You only need to abide by laws in the country you are in. Unless you have a EU server you don't have to abide by EU laws.

<comment><USER7> Like most legal matter it's a bit more complex than that. As far as I know, you can be targeted by foreign laws with a .com domain, and servers physically in the US.

If you specifically target/advertize (e.g. with translated interfaces) your services to EU citizens, a judge _might_ decide that EU laws apply to you.

<comment><USER8> Is this just your opinion or do you have some examples to back it up? I don't see why a US judge would care at all if a US company breaks laws of another country.

<comment><USER7> Check "conflict of laws" and "conflict of jurisdiction". I don't know the US legal system well enough to find it, but it happens in European countries (e.g. french judge applying US laws), so I guess it would be similar.

Moreover a US judge might not care, but a French or German judge might decide he is competent (if there are good reasons to think the website is not US only).

<comment><USER8> If a french or german court decides that a foreign company is violating their laws, they can do little besides preventing them from reaching their market, which would in this case mean that they can order ISPs to block the site. I'm pretty sure that there is no way that they can actually _make_ a foreign-based company abide by their laws. How would they enforce the ruling?

Of course, if the company in question also owns a EU-based daughter company through which it operates on EU market (as Facebook apparently does), then that's a whole different ballgame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There doesn't appear to be any non-facebook.com data in the example PDFs -- i.e., no "you commented on TechCrunch" or "you visited TechCrunch which has our widgets".

I would suspect this means Facebook just simply did not provide it?

<comment><USER10> It's surprising that the PDF I looked at (the first one) doesn't contain any access-log data at all. Shouldn't it contain the time, date, and IP address of every time she's viewed a page on Facebook, at least as far back as they keep HTTP access logs? Or do they not log the user ID when they log HTTP accesses? Someone (in Europe, therefore not me) should ask the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to get an answer to these questions.

<comment><USER11> I doubt they HTTP access logs are tied directly to the user id.

It might be possible to derive this information by linking on the IP address, but that isn't the same thing as a direct link at all.

<comment><USER12> Facebook is able to tell which profiles you view more frequently than others, so _some_ sort of log data correlated with users is being kept.

<comment><USER11> That's different to HTTP access logs.

If I view a profile on the mobile app or on the web page it is (presumably) measured the same, presumably in the application layer. That's different to recording the your id in the HTTP access logs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know if requests made by Americans are honored? I'm guessing we don't have the same privacy protections here in the US, but maybe I've assumed incorrectly?

</comment><comment><USER14> Facebook knows too much about us, let's all send them a scanned copy of our passport!

<comment><USER15> You're allowed to (and should) black out your photograph and your social security number, they don't need those for ID. Only your government, your employer and a list of government-sanctioned organisations can require social security numbers for ID purposes. the rules for photo ID are even more strict.

Additionally you should write in big letters over the scan "Request to access Facebook Data <date>", so that nobody else can use the scan of your ID-card for anything else.

The rest of the data, Facebook already knows (name, date of birth) or is useless (passport/ID document number).

Source: <https://pim.bof.nl/gebruikers/geef-niet-meer-dan-nodig/> (Dutch)

<comment><USER16> > _Additionally you should write in big letters over the scan "Request to > access Facebook Data <date>", so that nobody else can use the scan of your > ID-card for anything else._

This serves no purpose as it is trivial to 'shop these big letters out of the image.

<comment><USER15> I dunno what your ID cards look like, but ours have intricate patterns all over them. Additionally there's a punctured-hole pattern that vaguely corresponds to the photograph, so that's unique for every ID.

I can't really imagine how you'd want to reconstruct that, and even if you could I'd hardly call it trivial.

<comment><USER16> No need to reconstruct anything, just save the image with a higher JPEG compression and all the intricate patterns will be well blurred. I really doubt FB is spending any time whatsoever on validating these patterns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if anyone has tried to do this with google?

<comment><USER18> Google already provides a pretty good interface for exporting your data..

<http://www.dataliberation.org/>

Or, from your Google+ page, click on your picture in the top right corner, then Account Settings, then on the new page click on Data Liberation on the left hand side.

<comment><USER19> You cannot get all your logins, session time, IP address, etc. This is what you have a right to get out of a EU based company. Yes, this means that as a business, it is pretty hard to comply with the law.

<comment><USER2> When they don't save it there is nothing to get. They have a policy to remove personal data after 3 months or so.

<comment><USER20> It's at least six months, and they don't do a very good job of anonymizing: they scrub the last two digits of the IP, but not tracking cookie logs. DataLiberation further contains no information they keep when you are not logged in, and only a fraction of what they have (and keep) when you are logged in. The "privacy dashboard" points to several chunks of data that are retained but not accessible, and there is far more that actually is kept.

A simple but perhaps inconvenient way to verify this is to be criminally prosecuted for something where your Google account is relevant. Google will hand over what they have to the prosecution, and as the defendant, you'll be entitled to see the evidence. (I've not tried this and don't recommend it, but do know someone that this happened to, and have examined the contents of the provided CD.)

DataLiberation is mostly a PR site, and it's main use is migrating what data Google feels is useful to you, not finding out what Google knows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The missing data is what's interesting. The data they provided isn't surprising or shocking at all, it's exactly what I'd expect to get from this type of request.

</comment><comment><USER22> Facebook also tracks what profiles I view. Looks like that data isn't released here.

</comment><comment><USER23> what bothers me - or has me in awe even (to some extent) is how early on in the process facebook started storing all this information! I've had status updates from years ago show up in my "this day in 2009" pop-up on the sidebar. And clearly from the content of these files on the above website - they have stuff on you that goes way -way back. It seems almost sinister - as if they knew all along that they would aggregate so much information - althought on the face of it - it was just another social networking site. Which I would assume like any other website or web-app would delete unneccesary stuff in order to save space / efficiency etc (atleast before they got huge and had their own server farms). At the same time - one cant help but wonder if having all this data (and probably a lot lot more that we dont see from an outsider's perspective) - is really what is responsible for facebook making the "right" moves every now and then with regards to really delivering features that its users will use and growing at unbelievable rates? Might be food for thought - after all - the more you know about your users - the better you can serve them!

</comment><comment><USER24> why they keep those data in their data base. If i deleted a content, i meant it to be deleted forever. and knowing the fact "Note: According to facebook's privacy policy, messages on facebook can not be deleted anymore. If you click on 'delete' the messages will only be invisible to you. US law enforcement agencies can access this information at there own liking, without judicial review."

by @nextparadigms I'm thinking of quitting facebook

</comment><comment> ldd- I have a dual citizenship . . . U.S./France. While I live in the U.S., I may try this with my French passport.

<comment><USER25> Facebook TOS says:

"If you are a resident of or have your principal place of business in the US or Canada, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook, Inc. Otherwise, this Statement is an agreement between you and Facebook Ireland Limited."

So if you're living in USA it seems like they don't need to comply with your requests.

<comment> ldd- Thanks for the head's up on the TOS. Actually, there WAS a period of time when I was on FB when I was living in Germany. In fact, when I signed up for FB, I was living in Germany (not in the military), so still probably worth a shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't find any of this surprising. All of the data Facebook has on me I have given to them. Just like anywhere else on the internet or not, if you don't want somebody to know about something then don't share or keep a record of it. Privacy is not absolute, it is contextual.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is the sort of thing that causes governments to enact legislation. Either you self-regulate and do a good job of it or sooner or later you get a bunch of rules forced upon you that may be far more impractical and expensive to implement.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wouldn't that be giving FB more data? You need to send either a driver license, national ID, passport.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if there's a way to do this in the US. I will look into this.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is there a similar law in the United States? If so, I've never heard of it.

<comment><USER12> No, there's no general right-to-data law. There are general right-to- _government_ -data laws, so you can e.g. request your own FBI record. But private businesses don't normally have to disclose what data they collect on you. There are a few exceptions for specific areas; for example, the credit- ratings agencies have to provide you with a copy of your credit report, and in some cases an employer may be required to provide you with a copy of certain personnel records. But they apply to fairly limited situations.

<comment><USER31> So for those of us that live in the US, is it not possible for us to request to have the data that Facebook stores about us???

Related (well, maybe): You can easily download a copy of your Facebook data no matter where you are located, by logging in and clicking "Account Settings" > "Download a copy of your Facebook data". This will include all things like messages, pictures, etc., but I am positive that it isn't nearly as in depth as what is outlined in that article.

<comment><USER30> I would like to see the data they're using to target ads at users (i.e. the metadata assembled from a user's input).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> ha. this is smart by fb. if they follow the yahoo model, access to that data is sold to the agencies that want it. they don't get access for free. so fb has an interest in having a nice store of data on offer. it's a nice business unit on its own in addition to their ad selling pursuits.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand this community. I thought you were wolves, but here you are taking the part of the sheep. Instead of being outraged, you should be trying to get your own piece of the data pie. Every single web startup is doing exactly that.

<comment><USER34> I don't think you understand communities. People acting in a group will act similarly and be derided by you as 'sheep.' It it is the type of thing that motivates group action that determines whether you think group members are 'wolves.'

Wolves move in packs, too.

<comment><USER33> It was a predator/prey metaphor, not a individual/group metaphor.

<comment><USER35> It's out of date. The planet has enough resources for everyone. Humans do not need to prey on our own species.

<comment><USER33> Predator/prey is also a metaphor. People aren't actually being eaten. They are voluntarily sharing data that is used to provide them with a service that they want. I'm so depressed that I have to spell everything out.

<comment><USER35> And in these threads where you call us sheep, we are deciding that the data price is too high for the service rendered.

We have the right to use government to nationalize these programs if they are going to be so deceptive and intrusive.

Facebook falsely advertises their service as free. They don't tell their users that they are collecting unnecessary amounts of data to violate people's privacy, and that this data is payment for the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Thanks to the Google employee ring for voting this one up too, I found that the 5 breathless Facebook articles already on the front page weren't sufficiently satisfying my intellectual curiosity. Now you may proceed to transition into downvote mode.

I really hope one day pg changes it so that all votes on articles and comments are publicly available, so that we can run our own analysis' using it. It would be interesting to see how much of the content on HN has become dominated by these employee rings over time.

<comment><USER37> Woah, less of the crazy conspiracy theories.

If you're so out of the loop that you didn't know about f8 and 'frictionless sharing' then read up about those things and viola, you'll realize why these stories are all popping up the rankings.

FB is creepy and keeps getting creepier.

Keep your tinfoil hat on though if you want.

<comment><USER38> Some of the other recent posts about facebook have similar comments from low karma accounts. I'm just writing it off as some facebook employee ring.</comment></comment></comment>


Repository for Old Macintosh Software - <AUTHOR> https://www.macintoshrepository.org/ <comment><USER2> Note well that this is not a public archive: it is a paid subscription site.

This organization is profiting from the distribution of abandonware, which is unethical at best and illegal at worst.

They've also started big feuds with other people who mirror the abandonware. I don't recall the details but you shouldn't be giving them any money.

<comment><USER3> I'm not familiar with all of the details, but a lot of the people behind Macintosh Garden[1] believe that Macintosh Repository scraped their content directly. I suppose it's not like either of them owns the rights to this stuff, but it definitely feels scummy.

If you have anything to upload, please use Macintosh Garden. If you want to download something, I guess you could use Macintosh Repository instead, so you use up their bandwidth, but please don't give them any money!

I'm sure the submitter didn't know better, but I _really_ wish Macintosh Garden was the site that got submitted...

1: [https://macintoshgarden.org/](https://macintoshgarden.org/)

<comment><USER4> > It's not like anyone owns the copyright to this stuff

I would think the copyright still exists. Maybe the owner just isn't aware of the infringement.

<comment><USER3> Oh, by "anyone" I meant, "any of the sites currently hosting this content". This should be clearer in my edit; sorry for the confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does this site offer anything that macintoshgarden.org doesn't?

<comment><USER6> Not that I have seen. Macintosh Garden's repository is available for free on the Internet Archive[1]. MR requires an account registration and MG does not.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/Macintosh_Garden_Collection](https://archive.org/details/Macintosh_Garden_Collection)

<comment><USER7> Macintosh Garden is available free on its own site, with browseable pages full of screenshots and descriptions of everything, too. [http://macintoshgarden.org/](http://macintoshgarden.org/)

<comment><USER6> I didn't mean to imply MG didn't carry their own wares, bad wording on my part. Yes MG hosts their own content _and_ is available on the Internet Archive.

Macintosh Repository hosts the same content but puts it behind a registration/paywall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> w-ll Whats the current best way to emulate a OS 7 machine, and pass in files from a site like this?

<comment><USER8> I've had the most luck with Mini vMac. Shoot me an email if you need a bootable image, I have one for System 6 and System 7.

<comment><USER3> Mini vMac is _excellent_ , but I'm not sure it's the best for OS 7, because it can't emulate a color display.

<comment><USER9> I've got Mini vMac Color working with System 7.5, send me an email if you want it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to get all my Mac software from an archive hosted at MIT. I can't remember the name now. Is there a mirror of it anywhere?

<comment><USER2> Hyperarchive, formerly of hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm glad I read the comments. Thanks for the information/links to other repository and abandonware sources.

</comment><comment><USER12> Year of release could use a from-to range selector.

</comment><comment><USER13> Cool!

Any version of this for modern MacOS?

<comment><USER14> Apple and OEMs still care about modern MacOS apps and will issue takedown notices.

Abandon-ware is your best bet for the classic MacOS stuff.

Also some Mac stuff here along DOS and Windows stuff: [http://vetusware.com/](http://vetusware.com/)

<comment><USER13> Oh wow, I didn't realize you could download ISOs. I just thought the repository was listing the software and telling you about it.

Which is why I wondered at first upon reading your response? "What's the problem?" isn't it just sort like free advertising?</comment></comment></comment>


Leaked north korean documentary exposes western propaganda. - <AUTHOR> http://superchief.tv/leaked-north-korean-documentary-exposes-western-propaganda-and-its-scary-how-true-it-is/ <comment><USER2> How do you imagine a world without "propaganda"? Mine would be one without this documentary.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's propaganda about propaganda and it seems targeted at westerners. Too many sensitive subjects for Dear Leader's flock.

</comment><comment><USER4> The definition of "reality tee vee" given: shows about "talentless narcissists who like to talk about themselves and go shopping".

This is the kind of material that has endeared North Korea to propaganda cognoscenti everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> The film was produced in New Zealand. Here is a link to a video report which includes an interview with the producer:

[http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Media-3-Season-1-Ep-16/tabid/59/ar...](http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Media-3-Season-1-Ep-16/tabid/59/articleID/8890/MCat/540/Default.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER6> Let's take a moment here and wonder a "documentary team" in a country with the kind of dictatorial control that North Korea has would have access to so much American TV footage.

"Leaked"? You mean "released by the North Korean government"?

<comment><USER7> If you read the back story the translator believes exactly that, which is to say that the DPRK created it for westerners. What is interesting is that the website its on has completely bought into the message. They say things like "And jesus, is it on the f&k*g money."

That suggests that it was targeted exactly to the sort of non-critical thinker/reader that the site "superchief" represents, and by all indications manages to hit on all of the sensitive spots. That is the point of propaganda, and whether it is anti-Semitic white supremacist crap or DPRK crap it requires that the person reading it check their assumptions at the door.</comment></comment>


Yet another but different searchengine on the way - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkanu.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> more precise: It's a recommendation-engine with a new approach. It allows users to explore the web without being stucked with Facebook and Google. :)</comment>


N. W. Ayer and Son - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._W._Ayer_%26_Son <comment><USER2> One of my favorite stories about corporate influence appears in this article: how the "tradition" of the diamond engagement ring was created by a U.S. ad agency to prop up the falling price of diamonds on behalf of a huge South African diamond company:

 _N. W. Ayer & Son created one of the most recognized slogans of the 20th century, A diamond is forever.

Harry Oppenheimer of De Beers and Ayer president Gerold M. Lauck discussed a marketing campaign in 1938 that would change the falling price of diamonds at the time. The idea of engagement rings decorated with diamonds wasn't very popular in Europe, but interest in diamonds was high in the U.S. Because of this, Oppenheimer decided to promote the idea in the U.S. and told Lauck that, if Ayer's plan was successful, De Beers would have Ayer become the exclusive agency for its American interests. Ayer was motivated to propose that its campaign should move the American spending demographic towards larger and more expensive diamonds.

To successfully achieve its goal, Ayer suggested a reinforcement of the relationship of diamonds with love and romance. This proved successful, as both men and women were caught in the relationship of diamonds being a gift of love. The slogan created for De Beers remained memorable for many years._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._W._Ayer_%26_Son#De_Beers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._W._Ayer_%26_Son#De_Beers)</comment>