I still use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411333 <comment><USER4> It is amazing how much we regress as software gets bloated with feature creep.

Modern web apps are so much more inferior in certain areas when speed, immediacy and efficiency is required. They do have their upsides but more often than not, it is just a mess. I recently logged into my medical insurance website and the fucking thing ajaxing all day and I have no idea what part of the page is waiting to load. I don't have a speedy internet connection. I actually prefer the page to refresh than some small segment of it reload without any indication. Sometimes spinners are fixed in place to indicate "loading" but it is just a frustrating thing to look at.

I've used IBM AS400 and a bunch of factory management software - it is an absolute pleasure to use. Yet, most operators on the factory floor complain "We are just stuck with this old archaic system". Every single day. I feel like one of these days some asshole consultant company is going to convince our upper management for a web-based MRP.

Large percentage of people do not appreciate old pieces of software. They look at the aesthetics of it and write it off. I really think an average joe off the streets can be completely bedazzled by a modern React app with animations and frivolous bells and whistles that takes 5 seconds to load. Joe does not know the difference between aesthetics and functionlism. Jill on the other hand is a linux aficionado and goes out of her way to make things hard. Spends ages perfecting her vim config file, and looks down on anyone that doesn't use Arch Linux and some form of a window manager.

Perhaps there is a sweet spot between Joe and Jill's philosophy towards useful, easy to learn and efficient software that doesn't require an obsessive linux nerd to use. Like WordPerfect 6.2.

The world is really a sad place. :-(

<comment><USER5> The beauty of the web as we know it has nothing to do with its efficiency. For applications, it is, as you wrote, inferior in speed, as well as many other attributes (memory usage, CPU usage, plenty of others). That is not the point. The point is that web apps are distributed instantly to users, on demand, anywhere, extremely cheaply, with no middlemen necessary. (The web is not the only technology with these traits, but in practice it is the only widespread one.)

Back before the web was prominent, software had to be distributed via physical media, usually floppies and later CDs. This inherently limited the reach and complexity of software - physical media is expensive, especially floppies - <USER2> it required either the mailing of software by the creator(s) to users, who would have to pay a fee, or a substantial investment by a publisher, which again incurs a (larger) cost to the end user. Almost any widespread software would require a middleman (publisher) and the end user having to go to a store to purchase it.

Allowing anyone to create and distribute software in a format simple enough to be used easily by anyone has democratized this system. With more programmers who might not practice the craft professionally, and a desire for speedy development, higher-level languages and frameworks sprung up to fill the knowledge gap and enable even easier development.

That's not to say that we should not appreciate older software - as you wrote, the aesthetics ought not belie the challenge and art of software which had to fit into tight spaces, and the constraints required usually forced developers to place function over form. It's a different, not necessarily better or worse, software development paradigm, and older software can be as impressive as or even more so than newer software. But we shouldn't write off the new things either, even if they're worse in areas.

(I don't think all of it looks completely ugly, either: Windows 3.1, for example, exhibits a number of traits of modern flat design - single colors, mostly a lack of shadows, many simple icons and interface elements. Windows 1.0 even used the hamburger menu icon. What's old is new again.)

<comment><USER6> _For applications, it is, as you wrote, inferior in speed, as well as many other attributes (memory usage, CPU usage, plenty of others). That is not the point. The point is that web apps are distributed instantly to users, on demand, anywhere, extremely cheaply, with no middlemen necessary. (The web is not the only technology with these traits, but in practice it is the only widespread one.)_

Apart from the speed and convenience of clicking a link to visit a web app, those attributes all sound to me like tradeoffs that benefit the developer at the expense of the user.

The software I remember, from the 90's and earlier, put the user in control. Licenses were one time costs and they were perpetual. Software was much more thoroughly tested before being released to manufacturing (through the golden master process) since it was a major gaffe to release a broken app that had to be updated with fresh physical media.

Unlike today, there was never any sense that the developer could pull the rug out from under your feet, at any moment. The title of the article is a testament to the (now archaic) notion that software might be considered "complete". That it seems so quaint is such a terrible shame.

Now we have so much software offered for rental only, like Adobe stuff, or ad- driven free sites which are liable to changed drastically (with no option to skip the "upgrade") or cancelled outright like so many Google products [1].

Somehow, in the past few years I've picked up a nostalgic fever for retro computing [2] which has only intensified since Covid began. I don't know how to explain it, but here we are. Perhaps I'm just getting old and finding it increasingly difficult to relate to young people, who seem to jump from one social media fad to another, like locusts.

[1] [https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/)

[2] [https://medium.com/message/networks-without- networks-7644933...](https://medium.com/message/networks-without- networks-7644933a3100)

<comment><USER7> > The title of the article is a testament to the (now archaic) notion that > software might be considered "complete". That it seems so quaint is such a > terrible shame.

Your comment reminds me of a pretty jarring experience moving from embedded systems into mobile (iOS) apps. I asked the lead how we know the software is "done" and can ship. He looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head. "We are never done. We just keep developing and releasing until they tell us to work on something else." This idea that your program can be done and you release the final version is turning into a relic from a lost age.

It's also sad from the user's point of view: as updates get more automatic, you have to take deliberate action to stay on an old, working, familiar version. If you're not careful, you can reboot and your software looks and behaves entirely different. And in the web world it's impossible! You don't even have a choice. You are running whatever version the developer decrees you should be running.

<comment><USER8> Oh man. So painfully true. As I write this message on the latest firefox mobile that upgraded automatically. And is one of the worst software upgrade I have ever seen. And there is no easy way to revert to what worked before of course. At least the most recent patch brought back the back button (no joke). What a treat!

<comment><USER9> That reminds me, I need to go dig an old version of Firefox out of one of those shady APK websites so I can get tab queue functionality back. I used that easily 20 times every day to remember URLs and such ("Share > with Firefox").

It'll reappear eventually. But until it does, Mozilla has decreed that I shall use an out of date web browser.

Bring on the vulnerabilities...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If anyone's interested in Microsoft Word for DOS 5.5, there's a free download from Microsoft. (Microsoft released this as freeware some years ago)

[http://download.microsoft.com/download/word97win/Wd55_be/97/...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/word97win/Wd55_be/97/WIN98/EN- US/Wd55_ben.exe)

To install: C:\> Wd55_ben.exe - <USER3>

(note the spaces; or just use unzip on Linux)

I just installed it on DOSBox. Works great! (brings back memories of Doogie Howser typing on a blue-screen on his PS/2)

<comment><USER11> Word 5.5 was incredibly powerful and amazingly stable. I used it to generate 1,000+ page manuals. Word has progressed in many ways but it is generally not better for huge documents than it was then.

<comment><USER10> I'm thinking this could still be useful as a distraction-free word processor for writers today.

It runs under DOSBox perfectly, saves Word .doc files to the underlying file system (which could well be a Dropbox folder if cloud syncing is needed). Or Google Drive even, which makes it interoperable with Google Docs.

And because it's a completely text-based UI, there's no temptation to mess around with formatting (except maybe bold text).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like the screenshot (the Twitter link). Looks like he is:

        - Running WP 6.2
        - Inside a dosemu2
        - Inside a Linux VM (WSL, likely)
        - In a Windows 10 terminal window

I'm not sure if dosemu2 includes actual DOS code, but if so it's an MS OS running a Linux running another MS OS running Word Perfect. Either way, amazing inception.

I'm assuming he's using that odd WSL+dosemu2 detour and not a native Windows DOSBox build because afaik DOSBox makes its own fake terminal (it simulates the pixels, not the text). So with it he can't just WP6.2 straight from the active terminal window.

It's also kind of a testament to how well WSL works in practice that one can go "I want $OBSCURE_THING. Damn, doesn't work on Windows, hmm I'll try the Linux version ok that works done". This is the same thing that finally got me, a lifetime Windows user, access to important productivity software such as gti, sl, cowsay and lolcat.

<comment><USER10> Looks like there are ways of running WP DOS on Windows 10 64-bit with fewer layers of abstractions

[http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/64bitwindows.html](http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/64bitwindows.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My favorite editor of all time was "Leading Edge Word Processor" which was a lightening fast piece of word processing software for DOS w/ all the trimmings that comfortably fit in a floppy disk with ample room for documents. The company that made it "Leading Edge" was primarily a PC clone vendor and all their software disappeared overnight when they were acquired by another clone maker and their entire brand winked out.

For writing batch scripts and reading large text files I would use a utility called sled "slick little editor". That was some hand coded assembly language program that was only a couple kilobytes but could do most of what vi does and work with anything that fit into memory. It seems to have completely disappeared from history.

Wordstar was big in school - first half of class was always everyone passing around the DOS and Wordstar disks to boot their computers. Great way to start your day or wind down, really sucked at lunch because you were hungry and nothing to do but watching the second hand spin while everyone was booting up.

<comment><USER14> OH MY GOD I remember LEWP, but my nostalgia here is fundamentally grounded in its instability. See, I kept myself in beer money by helping a few grad students recover LEWP documents that LEWP had obligingly munged badly.

Great tool -- for people who charge money to fix it when it breaks!

<comment><USER13> I remember there was a master index file which implemented a sort of virtual filesystem allowing long document names w/ spaces. If that got corrupted it was a bad thing - only happened once but I lost an evening of work. Otherwise it never gave me any problems. I remember that document recovery used to be a big thing so I guess a lot of programs had issues - or maybe it was just the technology at the time was less reliable.

I remember one of my school teachers seemed to think that inserting a floppy disk required you to slam it in with as much force as possible, and she could never understand why the disks stopped working [point to crease in media, point to abrasion on media, point to tear in jacket] -- complete mystery, can't have been anything she was doing. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER14> It was something about LEWP's goofy virtual filesystem, absolutely. Contemporary tech was really stable when crappy developers didn't get overcute.

I made literally thousands of dollars solving issues with LEWP among a cohort of grad students between 1990 and 1992.

I was never called upon to do similar magic for anyone who used a more serious and less idiosyncratic tool (at my university, Word was the mainstream option).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> unclesams-uncle A close relative of mine swears by WP 5.1 and running as many programs as he can from the command line.

He also:

\- Refuses to upgrade to Windows 10 (he's trying desperately to stay on XP for as long as he can, although I think either 98 or even 3.1 is his favorite. He has, however, made peace with Windows 7)

\- Will buy out-of-date but refurbished laptops to achieve this goal.

\- Prefers obscure browsers over Chrome, IE/Edge and even Firefox.

\- Will actively block JS from loading in browser. It makes for a 'unique' browsing experience.

As a result, I get the impression that he's created some sort of high-end IT security policy in the sense that no nefarious hacker would bother even looking for hardware and software that obsolete and obscure.

He's in his mid 70s. I've tried to get him to migrate to a lighter-weight Linux distro running XFCE or MATE but he seems adamant on sticking to his guns. I kind of respect that dedication, even with the mind-boggling frustration it comes with.

<comment><USER15> > _I kind of respect that dedication, even with the mind-boggling frustration > it comes with._

I dunno. I get the "respect the dedication" thing, but at some point this person is so afraid of change that they'd rather become a burden to others who have to deal with them rather than adapt to a changing world. At least for developers, part of the job description is to actually make an effort to learn and use new things.

I've worked with a number of these people, where whenever you introduce a concept that they haven't worked with for 25 years (e.g. a new VCS, a new/upgraded programming language, a new way of building, a new framework, even minor changes to code they wrote 15 years ago, really anything), they become incredibly resistant and intransigent, and they make change significantly harder than it needs to be.

People who are adaptable are forced to work with their ancient (and not always better) systems, because it's the path of least resistance. These kinds of people can be a real problem.

<comment><USER16> But it makes sense to be resistant - you're trying to change something that they perceive to have worked for 25 years (or whatever). I bet that if they perceive that something to not work they'd accept that fix, but despite what some will say, more often than not if something isn't broken then it is a bad idea to try and fix it.

Part of gaining experience over the years is also gaining the experience that people often want to mess things that work (often with good intentions) and end up making things worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> George RR Martin notoriously uses a DOS box with WordStar 4.0 to write his novels.

I get it, my mother stuck with WordPerfect for her entire career as an academic publishing editor. The reason was the "reveal codes" feature: without the ability to "pop the hood" and directly edit the representation of the document, fixing various weird edge cases was an exercise in frustration.

<comment><USER18> I used to love WordStar, it was an excellent Ctrl-Key editor.

I'm sure you could probably convert GRR to use something like Sublime Text and keep all his only WordStar shortcuts. Pick a nice font and size and just start typing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My grandfather, who's in his 80s and has been using WP for the longest, has switched to WordGrinder about 8 years or so ago. He co-wrote several books with WG as well. He likes it a lot but it'd definitely not as feature-complete as WP. He mentioned to me that he still starts up WordPerfect every now and then to do some task.

When I bought a computer for him, an iMac, he asked me about WP and I setup a DOSBox with it for him. But then I managed to compile Wordgrinder and showed him how to use it and he's been using it since. Wordgrinder used to be a pain in the neck to compile on a Mac but it's much easier now after 0.7.x version was released. I still update it for him when I visit him.

You can see what WordGrinder looks like here: [https://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/](https://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I find it strange that nobody seems to be directly commenting on the whole arms race we have with constantly upgrading operating systems, browsers, and software in the name of security or features, and how we end up abandoning perfectly good software, the sum of countless of human-hours of work, and all for what?

What would help is if the operating system was no more than the hypervisor, and we run every single application in their own VM that includes all their dependencies.

<comment><USER21> That's why I'm happy to use a tiling window manager that I've setup years ago (bspwm) and never touched since. Likewise, I learned how to use emacs over 10 years ago and, while it got some nice improvements over time, it never changed in any significant way. I now use it for coding, taking notes, and emails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I still use Excel 3 and Word 2.

They both use GDI to print and support all the latest printers. It just works!

WineVDM is an awesome tool to keep running Win16 apps on Windows.

[https://github.com/otya128/winevdm](https://github.com/otya128/winevdm)

The best part is that it being 32bit means it runs fine on Windows for ARM.

</comment><comment><USER23> Modern software is nearly always worse than the ones decades ago. I still use MS Office 2003 as that was the last version with Clippy

<comment><USER24> I still use Office 2003 as it is the last version without the ribbon. The ribbon is still a really bad idea and I can't wait for it to go out of fashion again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wasn't aware of the dosemu2 method of converting text mode DOS programs into calls to native text routines. Will try this with Grandview, a great old DOS outliner.

<comment><USER26> [https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6291](https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6291) "I have put together a version of GrandView 2.0 for DOS that is completely portable, fully functional, and ready to run on any modern version of Windows, using vDos-lfn, a variant of the excellent DOS emulator vDos.*"

I have used this off and on for a few years with relative success (and pleasure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Well this is awesome: dosemu2 seems to work well in 64-bit Linux. I just tried it with old DOS OrCAD (a schematic design tool).

32-bit Windows-XP still works a little better in one way: OrCAD has a plug-in graphics driver architecture. Some sneaky person wrote a driver that uses DPMI to make Windows graphics calls. The result is that you can do things like resize the window or switch to full screen mode and the ancient DOS program thinks it's attached to a monitor of that size. So dosemu2 needs to merge with Wine for this work properly...

Some screen shots of Old DOS OrCAD:

[https://visio-for-engineers.blogspot.com/2019/11/old-but- not...](https://visio-for-engineers.blogspot.com/2019/11/old-but-not- obsolete.html)

<comment><USER28> It'd be interesting to read more on that DPMI driver, do you have any links?

<comment><USER27> Well it's here, but you probably have to join the group to get access:

[https://groups.io/g/dosOrCAD/files/OrCAD%20driver%20without%...](https://groups.io/g/dosOrCAD/files/OrCAD%20driver%20without%20bug)

I put a copy in one of my github repositories:

[https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/blob/master/pcb/orca...](https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/blob/master/pcb/orcaddrv.zip)

I think this is a description of what's going on:

[https://airborn.com.au/layout/vddtest.html](https://airborn.com.au/layout/vddtest.html)

Well this is getting really off topic, but it appears that you can run DOS programs in 64-bit Windows 10:

[http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html](http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html)

[https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64](https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The 'reveal codes' functionality is something that I always liked with WP, and that no other word processors seems to have implemented.

<comment><USER30> Libreoffice writer has this: [https://help.libreoffice.org/6.0/he/text/swriter/01/03100000...](https://help.libreoffice.org/6.0/he/text/swriter/01/03100000.html)

<comment><USER31> I could be mistaken, but it looks like that feature is mainly for showing whitespace characters (space, tab, carriage returns), while reveal codes showed the _formatting_ , like bold and italic. A bit like showing the HTML tags that make up a webpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wrote a ton in WordPerfect. During college, they had WordPerfect on the UNIX and OpenVMS systems. Then, at a job, we did all our documentation using Wordstar, WordPerfect was only for the legal team.

Because of that, I still tend to install joe and use jstar quite a bit on any box I use with any regularity.

<comment> bjelkeman-again I wish I had WordPerfect 4.2 still. It is probably nostalgia, but this on an amber screen, and the reveal codes feature felt like the perfect tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> WordPerfect was awesome. I constantly want to press "Reveal Codes" when editing in some crappy WYSIWIG markdown editor (looking at you Evernote) that is causing me trouble.

For the youngsters, Reveal Codes would show in reverse text, things like "[Boldface On]". As you were pressing your cursor past it, that would be considered a single character. You could copy, paste, or delete it. It would be as if <b> were a single character that you could manipulate.

</comment><comment><USER27> Do you have the giant function key overlay needed for WordPerfect?

[https://tmft.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/wpoverlay.jpg](https://tmft.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/wpoverlay.jpg)

[http://gordogato.com/oscommerce/catalog/product_info.php?pro...](http://gordogato.com/oscommerce/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=580)

</comment><comment><USER34> I remember that the FAT filesystem had a limit of 8 characters for filenames, so you had to be creative with document names.

I do not remember ever having problems with WordPerfect or Quattro Pro. The only friction I experienced was with the dot matrix printer I used at that time.

I remember WordPerfect 6 having a mouse enabled GUI mode in DOS, as well as the text UI.

</comment><comment><USER35> Not using WP but have gone back to using Eudora 7 for Windows after Gmail got even slower after the redesign. Eudora is lightning fast for handling mailing list cruft; alt click on sender or subject to group matching emails.

<comment><USER36> at least 3 remote exploits [https://www.exploit- db.com/search?q=Eudora](https://www.exploit-db.com/search?q=Eudora)

<comment><USER24> Yeah but who honestly is going to try to exploit Eudora 7 in 2020 unless they are deliberately targeting you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I remember it being loved by lawyers. The Mac version for the old System OSes was pretty damn nice, especially compared to the crappy versions of Word.

I get the feeling that someone looking at the post for [1] might not do badly by cloning WP or more probably WordStar for the terminal.

1) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24412687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24412687)

<comment><USER38> The lawyers we consulted for liked it because they had to deal with 8.3 DOS file names.

DOS WordPerfect let them view the next file with a key press. Click click click found it.

The Windows version required them to go to File, Open, choose the file...

<comment><USER39> I bought a washer/dryer at a regional appliance chain recently. Checkout was at a desk with a terminal. The implementation was modern, with high contrast colors and nice fonts, but unmistakably still "ANSI" [0]. The employee who checked me out absolutely flew through the invoice, contact, and delivery forms. It was really nice after dealing with so many companies that just use web apps with obviously overloaded backends.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wow, the really brings me back. I'm certain that my old WP floppies are gone at this point... is there a place to get a safe (from malware) and preferably legal copy of WP for DOS?

<comment><USER41> [https://archive.org/details/WordPerfect5.1.1989-11-06](https://archive.org/details/WordPerfect5.1.1989-11-06) (Also check out [https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22WordPerfec...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22WordPerfect%22) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I am still using Paint Shop Pro 7.04 Anniversary Edition from 2000. It is fast and very intuitive and has all the functionality that I need from an image editor. I tried several newer versions and other programs (yes, this includes Gimp) but always came back to my beloved PSP 7.04.

</comment><comment><USER43> I still use a program called "iPhoto Plus 4!" for basic image editing.

It came with an old Mustek paralell port scanner that came with an equally old 533Mhz AMD K6-2 Compaq Presario runniung Windows ME (initially 98 and later upgraded to XP), that I bought off of a friend in 1999. The scanner is long since dead (stopped using that in '02 I think).

It loads quickly, has basic functions but is better than MS Paint, I'm used to the interface, and have never needed to stop using it. For more sophisticated things I will use Gimp or other programs, but this program has always been there when I've needed it and it still works on the latest Windows 10 builds.

</comment><comment><USER14> This feels performative and not like a well-reasoned choice that the poster would make in the absence of any observers.

I used WP for DOS back in the day. It _sucked_ out loud, especially when compared to more modern word processors already available, like Word (for DOS! I don't even mean the Windows version). (The reasons are legion and really beyond the scope of this post.)

At the same time, yeah, it sucks that feature creep and whatnot often bloats good tools into something unwieldy and slow. But there are other, modern options available that wouldn't require having to shift your brain back to 1995 or whatever.

<comment><USER44> Shrug, I only mentioned it because there was a thread about using old word processors.

Regarding Word for DOS, I did try it out, but I think you're mistaken - it's capable but not as powerful or configurable as WordPerfect. I think you're calling it "modern" because by default it has CUA key bindings (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Shift+Arrows to select, etc.). WordPerfect has those too, File->Setup->Keyboard Layout and then switch the default "Original" bindings to "CUAWP". This is better than Word, because you can edit and rebind the layout, even to macros. For example, I always use Ctrl+W to delete a word, so in WordPerfect I bound it to DeleteToBeginningOfWord. I don't believe that's possible in Word.

Another major drawback of Word for DOS is that it's fixed at standard VGA text resolutions (e.g. 40x25 characters), where as WP supports arbitrary resolutions. I can resize my xterm any size up to 255x128 and WP just works.

What are the "other, modern options available", with the requirement I've already stated - that I want it to run in a terminal? I would be very happy if there was a vim plugin that makes it a word processor, but I really think I've tried them all.

<comment><USER14> >I think you're calling it "modern" because by default it has CUA

No. I'm calling it modern because it was stylesheet-based, and followed the eventual dominant paradigm of working with ranges of text and attaching formatting, not inserting codes.

CUA menus and keybindings aren't part of my opinion of Word. (In fact, the eventual grafting of CUA menus to it really ruined it, IMO.)

Your "major drawback of Word for DOS" is really only a drawback for people _trying to run it in an xterm in 2020, decades after its last release_ , so, uh...

I'm baffled at the insistence of a word process in a terminal, honestly.

<comment><USER44> > I'm baffled at the insistence of a word process in a terminal, honestly.

I don't know what to tell you, some people are more productive working in a terminal.

I like being able to ssh in, reattach to a screen/tmux session that has my email (mutt), development environment (gdb+vim+ycm), word processor (dosemu+wp), and so on. This is how I've worked for a long time.

I agree that everything I use a computer for could be achieved (far less efficiently, but without the steep learning curve) using GUI tools, but I value the efficiency gain and don't mind investing in learning new powerful tools.

<comment><USER14> I hear people insist they're more efficient in a terminal, and some tasks are friendly to this bias -- but not all of them. And when it comes to the ones not fundamentally text-mode in nature, I have yet to really SEE that happen from those same people when I've worked closely with them.

IME, these people are also the ones who insist that the tasks a terminal is bad at, and that they consequently have trouble doing efficiently (e.g., well- formatted text, or formatting text in line with a shared template) are somehow not important or legitimate. The super common pattern is a refusal to engage in HTML email, for example. Sure, mutt is fast for plaintext mail, but if you have to engage in some additional toolchain machinations to read (let alone create) an HTML mail, you lose a bunch of those efficiency points.

Maybe you're different! It's possible! But I haven't seen it.

As for myself, I absolutely still do composition in plain text 99% of the time, because I've been bitten by extinct file formats too many times. But I'm running native emacs under OSX, in a graphical environment, when I do it. When I need to do something for production to a client, I'm in Word, because it makes creating an attractive document far, far easier than with any prior tool.

(Including, it chagrins me to note, Word 5 for DOS.)

<comment><USER44> I think I'm pretty efficient, but maybe you're right and I'd be even more effective if I just used Microsoft Office and Outlook, but I doubt it. It's not like I don't know how to use an graphical email client, and I believe I can achieve tasks that would take you many minutes in a few keystrokes.

It seems like you have strong opinions on how a word processor should operate, but this seems like calling emacs more modern than vim, because it uses elisp (i.e. just your opinion, and not a universal truth).

I don't really mind what word processor you use, and think Microsoft Word is a perfectly valid choice if it works well for you. I think I'm happy with my workflow at the moment, and don't plan on changing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Anyone with a TheC64 Maxi and looking for an ascetic, hair-shirt level of simplicity and focus should check out "Kwik Write!" Basically notepad.exe. You can get about 5 or 6 thousand words of prose in memory. Has search and replace, soft line wrap, etc. It's my NaNoWriMo environment for 2020 (assuming I can keep away from Wizball.)

I have to so I can eject the USB and plug it in to my RPi and it will extract the files using the c1541 tool and git commit them somewhere. Delightfully pointless.

</comment><comment><USER46> I still use vim.

And I have supported the children in Uganda.

<comment><USER10> So specifically on vim as a word processor: I've tried using vim as a word- processor and it doesn't work that well even with wordwrap configs enabled up to the wazoo. (and I've been vim user since 1998)

I did use vim to write my dissertation but it was in LaTeX.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, vim doesn't really do format at all.

That being said, I feel like Latex has just too many features - making it more like words. I like .md format much better particularly a blend of markdown and latex for the occasional need of equations.

I feel like eventually we'll return to the root of writing - to communicate. That process can take years but I'm so so happy that light formats like markdown is making inroads to businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's worth making a tiny repository of tools that are light in resources, light on features, but satisfying to use from simple and clear ergonomics.

</comment><comment><USER48> I learned on WordPerfect for DOS because that was what my dad used at work. Then, when I was in high school, we moved to WordPerfect for Windows when we moved to Windows 95.

I always missed the simplicity of WordPerfect for DOS, but WYSIWYG always kept me in the Windows version. For some reason, I always had some kind of irrational fear of MS Word; but I switched in college and never looked back. Ever.

</comment><comment><USER49> Hmm, not really related to the story (or HN comment), but I thought HN comments became automatically dead when submitted... [0] I guess someone decided to vouch for this?

Is my guess right? Can someone shed some light on how this is not dead?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ycombinator.com) (view it with showdead on)

<comment><USER50> You guessed right: someone vouched for this, and it created such a good thread that I think we'll protect this one. Cases like this are one reason why HN's systems are so porous—e.g. submissions to HN posts get autokilled but someone vouched for it so it came back.

Also, allowing weird exceptions keeps things unpredictable, which makes things more interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I guess that means one could make portable programs by targeting the "dos-vm".

<comment><USER52> I've said as much multiple times. If you want write it once and run it on nearly every platform with a screen, write it for DOS (or more specifically, DOSBox).

<comment><USER53> ...and if you want an actual GUI, then Win32 (and WINE for those not on Windows.) I have utilities I wrote in the Win95 era that I still use daily, the binaries continue to work fine in Win10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Wow, the picture[1] he links to in the comment makes it look surprisingly capable. I remember using WordPerfect for DOS way back in the early 90's for writing elementary/middle school papers, but don't remember it being this capable. Either I wasn't aware of the features (likely, I was young and trying to do homework, not explore a word processor), or they were added afterwards.

1: [https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1272670107043368960/photo/...](https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1272670107043368960/photo/1)

<comment><USER55> I remember when Word for Windows came out for win 3.1 and being deeply unimpressed with its features compared to wordperfect 5.1 for dos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I remember wiring up one of the founders houses in Utah. Hope he reads this.

<comment><USER57> Not a founder, but this comment immediately popped, "Orem, Utah USA" out of 30 years of my brain's cold storage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> WordPefect was the first software that showed me the power of user programmed macros. I think I was in high school at the time.

</comment><comment><USER59> Where would one get this today? Also, what else should I try to get the proper DOS vibes from back in the day?

<comment><USER60> Wordperfect is available on WinWorld:

[https://winworldpc.com/product/wordperfect/5x-dos](https://winworldpc.com/product/wordperfect/5x-dos)

That said, I know for fact that WP is _not_ abandonware, so I'm not sure about the legality of this.

<comment><USER61> The entire download of the executable is less than 4MB! and the manual is 26.2 MB! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I used to be a wiz at WP5/6/7, often taking tech support calls from remote family members at 3am. I could typically answer their questions with opening my eyes. I hate the bloat in most of todays "office" software, but I go along out of convenience.

</comment><comment><USER63> [https://web.archive.org/web/20020214094236/http://www.columb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20020214094236/http://www.columbia.edu:80/~em36/wpdos/linux.html)

</comment><comment><USER64> I still run Quicken 6 for Windows from around 1995. Runs fine using Windows 10 in VirtualBox on my Mac. Tried newer versions of Quicken and really don't like them. Can't find anything open source that is as simple and easy to use.

</comment><comment><USER65> Reminded me of the guy used Python with nEdit and produced the first BitTorrent client.

</comment><comment><USER66> What a luddite, he still writes _letters_.

</comment><comment><USER67> I love this. I grew up using this and still have the software on floppies, I may try this out.

</comment><comment><USER68> Upvoted for being a HN story whose OP is a HN comment.

</comment><comment><USER69> So... much... churn...</comment>


Mongo Dynamic Fixture: testing by dynamically creating Mongo fixtures in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/se7entyse7en/mongo-dynamic-fixture <comment><AUTHOR> I would like to have some feedback either positive or negative about this library. Some ideas about future improvements are:

\- generating more specific fields by using `faker`,

\- integration with orm layers (`mongoengine` for example) to guess the structure of the data instead of defining it.

<comment><USER2> It might do better as a "Show HN". Link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)

See the rules here: [http://www.africantechroundup.com/rss/](http://www.africantechroundup.com/rss/)</comment></comment>


Google glass now in UK - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Glass_Explorer_Edition_Shale?id=glass_shale

<comment><USER2> I really don't think Google should be rolling out Glass more broadly, given the state it's currently in. The software's just not ready. They had a bad release in April which removed video calling, Bluetooth keyboard support, and the ability to navigate Android apps with the touchpad, and introduced frequent kernel panics. They've cut down on the crashing a little bit since then, but still not fixed it entirely, but none of the missing features have come back. Add that to the dismal battery life, general bugginess and lack of features, and absence of developer support, and they really have no business rolling it out in new markets; the only value to them is collecting bug reports, and they've got way more than they can handle.

<comment><USER3> Maybe they are hoping to catch some international issues sooner this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those of us not in the UK; could someone list the price?

Just interested to know if this is still the same $1.5k explorer dev kit that was in the US, or a consumer priced version.

Edit: a friend in the UK says its £1,000 - so still the crappy priced dev kit.

<comment><USER5> The page as seen from the UK: [http://i.imgur.com/3vI6Xpv.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/3vI6Xpv.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really never understand googles retail strategy.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't want to get punched, so won't be buying one. But eagerly await seeing my first glasshole in the flesh.

<comment><USER8> Anybody could be recording you with a camera in their hat or on their lapel or a microphone embedded in their clothes that you would never see, but you're worried about someone wearing incredibly obvious glasses.

 _You 're_ the glasshole. Live and let live.

<comment><USER9> Anyone recording me with a camera in their hat or on their lapel or a microphone embedded in their clothes would be treated in roughly the same manner as someone recording me using Glass.

Just because the act of wearing the recording device is in plain-sight doesn't make it anymore acceptable to people who find it objectionable.

<comment><USER8> With a truly hidden camera, you would never know. So you're freaking out over someone who _might_ be able to record you, ignoring the fact that _everyone_ could be recording you without you knowing it.

<comment><USER9> Either you're wilfully ignoring the point I'm making, or you've missed it completely.

I get that I might never know if or when I'm being monitored by some device, but that in no way justifies explicitly recording someone without their permission.

<comment><USER8> I get the point you're making. But if you're in a public place in the US or UK, you have given your consent to be recorded. The difference between Glass and smaller, less conspicuous recording devices is that with Glass at least you know there's the possibility of being recorded by that person (same way with cell phones). If someone really wanted to record you without your permission, there are cheaper and sneakier ways to do it. Also, it's not that hard to pull out a phone and pretend to text while actually recording video. No one would ever know.

So the idea that people wearing Glass are assholes is a ridiculous notion because there are already numerous ways to record someone without explicit approval, you already have the right to record anyone in a public place even without explicit permission, and it's already possible (and already happens) with existing smartphones. So if you're getting mad at Glass wearers for something that people are already doing, _you 're_ the asshole. The only difference between Glass and other technology is that Glass is newer and less common. That's it.

<comment><USER9> The photography of an individual can constitute harassment even in a public place - there is no implied consent involved. Even if it were, as you implied, perfectly legal in all cases then this in no way makes the act ethical. This is especially true when concerning a new technology which makes it trivially easy to perform. I'd expect if Glass, or some descendant of it, becomes more ubiquitous, then social guideline and laws would eventually prohibit it's use in certain situations. Would you, for example, be happy with someone recording you in a public restroom?

You're also repeatedly missing the argument I've already made twice in this thread with your second paragraph,

<comment><USER8> Filming someone is rude. What are you going to do about it? Ban smartphones? It's trivially easy to pretend to use your phone while secretly recording. Ban DSLRs? I could pretend to be taking static pictures while actually running a video. Ban video cameras? They might look like they're idle, but maybe they're recording with the "recording" light turned off. Ban surveillance cameras? Hell, _anyone_ can hang one of them on a building, and who knows where the video will end up?

I'm not missing the argument. You're just not making an argument worth refuting. "Oh no, someone has a device capable of recording me" so fucking what? Welcome to 1975, you can buy recording devices at a dollar store. No one looks twice when there's a CCTV camera or a smartphone out in public.

You hate Glass because it's unusual, not because it's capable of recording you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The website doesn't load for me (I'm in the UK).</comment>


Trying LXD Virtual Machines - <AUTHOR> https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/trying-lxd-virtual-machines/6182 <comment><USER2> Congratulations to all the team members of LXD project. This is another stride in project. Although Kubernetes and Docker gets all the press due to money poured in it for marketing, LXD is a dark horse continuously moving forward.

Hopefully people will slowly move towards it given the simplicity of orchestration and ease of use. But its a battle like Mercurial and Git, where Mercurial even with better ease of use and feature parity with git (at times better), still couldn't capture developer mind share, because for most git is github. So even though git is clouded by a proprietary closed source github eco-system it continue to thrive.

Also with VM support in LXD, not sure how the integration with OpenNebula and OpenStack play out as both have LXD drivers besides VM. Probably it will move LXD in another competing platform.

We have been using LXD for almost 5 years in production with minor teething issues and one major things are fine.</comment>


Inside the Apollo Guidance Computer's Core Memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2019/01/inside-apollo-guidance-computers-core.html <comment><USER2> If you look at the youtube channel "CuriousMarc" (just search for it, they have multiple restoration videos), you can look at this project in video, the latest video shows their attempt at finding the module's problem via XRay at the end, the other videos detail earlier parts of the operation, including booting up the AGC with original code fed from a ducttape-design FPGA/microcontroller. It's a very interesting video series to follow.

</comment><comment><USER3> My dad spent his career as a customer service engineer for IBM. When I was about seven years old, back in the '70s, he took me to work at one of his accounts, the Washington Post. He showed me their room full of mainframe, and opened up a cabinet of core memory, thousands of wires and tiny donuts. Now and then, when I use a thumb drive with hundreds of billions of stored bits, I think of the day when I could see every individual bit in a box almost as big as I was.

</comment><comment><USER4> _We attempted to find the location of the broken wire with X-rays, but couldn 't spot the break. Time-domain reflectometry suggests the break is inconveniently located in the middle of the core planes. We are currently investigating options to deal with this._

Depending on what it was potted with, dissolving the potting to repair it might be feasible. Many others have done this with (admittedly less rare and fragile) not-easily-replaceable electronics before, but it's a difficult and time-consuming process. The 38AWG wire is ~0.1mm so the traditional "pick out bits of potting" method is unlikely to keep the wire intact --- something more like dissolving and gently washing away the compound would be preferable.

<comment><USER5> We figured that if the break was near the outside of the module, we might be able to dissolve the potting around the break. But unpotting the entire module to search for the break has way too big a chance of breaking more wires or causing more damage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great write-up. If you haven't seen it yet I'd highly recommend watching the entire YouTube series (part 6 is linked at the end). Some fantastic engineering!

</comment><comment><USER7> Fantastic article. I wish I was born a lot earlier so I could work with these discrete and semi-integrated devices. they looked so much more fun than modern electronics which is just "bus the ICs together".</comment>


Show HN: React-live - <AUTHOR> https://dariocravero.github.com/react-live

<comment><USER2> FYI:

        Refused to execute script from 'https://rawgithub.com/ajaxorg/ace-builds/master/src/ace.js' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not executable, and strict MIME type checking is enabled.

in chrome

<comment><USER3> To me: "Please contact its owner and ask them to use cdn.rawgit.com instead, which has no traffic limit."

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I am having this problem in another browser, who should the GP contact?

<comment><USER3> Sorry, that was another error that I got!

<comment><USER4> No worries! I've been swapping between laptop and personal litigious fruit pad so I wasn't sure if it was me or you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I built something similar. It's meant to duplicate the live editing functionality on the React homepage. My repo has components for live compilation of react code, the codemirror editor, and using both of them together.

demo: [http://joelburget.github.io/react-live- editor/](http://joelburget.github.io/react-live-editor/)

code: [https://github.com/joelburget/react-live- editor](https://github.com/joelburget/react-live-editor)

</comment><comment><USER6> From the Safari console:

       SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<' [ace.js:0]

       ReferenceError: Can't find variable: ace

       TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'this.state.editor.getSession')

Aha: hosting ace.js on rawgithub has earned you a blacklisting for abuse, on the grounds of too many requests. Using cdn.rawgit.com instead of rawgit.com should fix it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Any hint on what I should do to try it out? How do I dump something on #el?

</comment><comment><USER8> While the asset URLs are updated to the CDN, here's the GitHub repo: [https://github.com/dariocravero/react- live/](https://github.com/dariocravero/react-live/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Worked well for me in Chrome. One very minor suggestion - perhaps you should add the text "You can dump stuff on #el" to the code to show beginners where to edit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not working for me. Firefox 35 on Linux. No console error. I have it working in Chromium.</comment>


The TTY demystified - <AUTHOR> http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/index.php <comment><USER2> Linus Akesson is quite a character, and you can certainly spend some time on his website. Be sure to check out his chip music <http://www.linusakesson.net/music/chipmusic.php> and especially the piano music paired with chip tunes; <http://www.linusakesson.net/music/piano.php>

<comment><USER3> You're quite a character yourself!

...When do we get more cooking videos?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, I should send him pictures of the guts of my ASR-33 a "real" teletype, aka tty. :-)

And for the record it is much safer to pronounce it 't-t-y' rather than 'titty' as one professor at school was fond of doing. I was in the unfortunate situation of being in a meeting to analyze image data where he said "Ok, everyone grab a titty and lets get to work." Sigh.

According to Gordon Bell, one of Digital Equipment's top engineers, originally the consoles that computer companies first built used typewriters from the typewriter companies. Unfortunately the typewriters were found to be unreliable as they were not designed for continual typing. So they took a "cheap" teletype from Teletype corporation (which had made Teletype machines that ran 24/7/365) the model 33 and used that. Even though it was the 'cheap, lightweight' version of a Teletype it was 100x more reliable than the typewriters it replaced. Only IBM stuck with their Selectric typewriters as consoles (but they were the manufacturer of the Selectric so they could beef them up accordingly, and they could change the font with a type ball).

</comment><comment><USER5> Blocked by Fortiguard, and reported.

Edit: To clarify. It was blocked. I reported this 'false positive' to Fortiguard to remove it from their list. They normally clear it in 24 hours.

<comment><USER6> I had a look at the page source and didn't find anything remotely "dangerous" there. There's just a bit javascript to (de)obfuscate the author's email address, the rest is pretty standard stuff.

When I read this comment, I immediately asked myself: "What's wrong with the site?"

Now, I'm asking myself: "What's wrong with tools like Fortiguard?"

<comment><USER5> The category was: Proxy avoidance.

Yes, Fortiguard is a POS, but some of us have no choice behind corporate firewalls/proxies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"We have already seen that a TTY device may be configured to give certain data bytes a special treatment. In the default configuration, for instance, a received ^C byte won't be handed off to the application through read(2), but will instead cause a SIGINT to be delivered to the foreground job. In a similar way, it is possible to configure the TTY to react on a stop flow byte and a start flow byte. These are typically ^S (ASCII code 19) and ^Q (ASCII code 17) respectively. Old hardware terminals transmit these bytes automatically, and expect the operating system to regulate its flow of data accordingly. This is called flow control, and it's the reason why your xterm sometimes appears to lock up when you accidentally press ^S."_

A 12-year-old mystery to me is finally solved.

<comment><USER8> Remember when emacs used these as shortcuts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm old enough to have hung out with others breaking into mainframes to play Star Wars inspired text games on printed-paper TTYs. (I was in grade school at the time.)

<comment><USER10> I'm younger than that even, but I think its invigorating there is a generation trying to re-discover the innovations from that era. I wish HN had more links like this, and not just Facebook/Groupon/Bitcoin market-o-rama.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing missing... all the bugs and misinterpretations in all the various unixes around this stuff :-)

</comment><comment><USER12> OOhhhh ! `kill -l` !!!</comment>


Mike Arrington: Turning the drama down on Y Combinator v. Google Ventures - <AUTHOR> http://uncrunched.com/2012/09/07/turning-the-drama-down-on-y-combinator-v-google-ventures/

<comment><USER2> There's something ironic about combination of "Mike Arrington" and "turning the drama down".

<comment><USER3> After being on this site for 5 years, I am still surprised to not see a blacklist solely for techcrunch submissions.

<comment><USER4> I wish this could happen, if only so their stupid splash screen stops breaking my iPad. I doubt it will ever happen though, YC and techcrunch seem to enjoy a very symbiotic relationship

<comment><USER5> They should disclose it. It's clearly there, every YC company gets a TechCrunch splash, and assuming Mike was involved in setting up such an arrangement, then Mike is looking after both his past and future interests.

Read like that, Mike's post is then clearly just a little bit of politics. It's not turning the drama down, it's looking after someone that looked after him at some point and may do in future.

Viewed from outside the valley, whenever I see stuff like this I wish we had journalistic standards rather than blogger opinions. Declare your interests, state any arrangements you've got in place. Then I'll read the opinion without feeling I am being duped. Without that you just get noise chambers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I also think VentureBeat should fully disclose any other issues they have > that might be affecting their judgement about Y Combinator, but I'll leave > it at that.

Strong hint that there is more to this.

<comment><USER7> My outsider guess: VB is unhappy YC companies seem to favor other outlets with their announcements.

I can't see how opining that YC is 'predatory' will help VB/O'Dell here. (Such a derogatory allegation would seem to require some on- or off- record aggrieved sources, rather than just an appeal to "acknowledge the obvious"... at least in the non-Marxist business press.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Turning the drama down..." Mike says with a nudge and a wink.

Mike knows how to stir the pot in more ways than Rachael Ray.

<comment><USER9> ...while positioning himself as the adult.

<comment><USER10> Yep, there seems to be a theme in tech world at the moment. Semi-fashionable bloggers jumping on hot topics and taking the high-road. I won't name names, but there are a few name brand VC's who are just writing columns for the sake of getting their name out there, adding no value what so ever and then doubling down on Twitter.

Tiresome at best, misleading at worst.

To note, I'm not talking about Arrington here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _An aside – Most stuff like this from Y Combinator doesn't leak. The fact that this did leak is the most interesting part of all this for me. It may be because there are so many companies coming out of YC now that there isn't the same sense of loyalty to the program. Or it may be a sign of stress because some of the startups may be finding it much more difficult to raise funding than previous classes._

This is the second time I recall seeing any kind of leak from a pg email. The first being the "warning of bad times" email in regards to Facebook's IPO.

Anyone know if there's any credence to Arrington's theory?

</comment><comment><USER12> Ha! He's just perpetuating it by giving it more attention.

</comment><comment><USER13> This feels like one of those eonline stories.

The fact that pg actually took the time to explain himself on HN (even though he didn't have to) is enough explanation i think. VB wrote the article, it was inaccurate, but everyone went on with their lives. Now mike comes back to stir the pot again.

</comment><comment><USER14> Mike Arrington is a limited partner of SV Angel.

SV Angel (along with Yuri Miller) is the fund that offers the 150k convertible note to all YC startups.

Mike Arrington has a clear undisclosed conflict of interest here.

</comment><comment><USER15> I had no idea there was "drama" to turn down. I saw a headline, I read some comments, I moved on. Did I forget to come back after more comments had been posted? I seriously don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't have much to add, but pg clearly made a mistake by not cc'ing Google Ventures on the original email. GV got sucker punched by the press because of that mistake and now the drama is playing out publicly. If pg had the foresight to cc Google Ventures, then he likely would have edited out the 'm.o.' in the original email.

That being said, what is more interesting is that pg will now have to be more reserved about communicating with his people. That is sad, because honest and unfiltered communication is a hallmark of startups. Has YC grown too big for unfiltered communication?

<comment><USER17> > I don't have much to add, but pg clearly made a mistake by not cc'ing Google > Ventures on the original email.

Why would he do that? He is advising the startups which has sought his/firm's mentorship that taking gv's investment will irk existing investors and will make people think you are deep down in the drains as you are devaluing yourself. This wasn't a negotiation with GV.

> If pg had the foresight to cc Google Ventures,

I don't see how gv would have appreciated this foresight. GV is in talks with X, pg comes in and asks X not to take the investment and cc'c GV. GV won't like it and now X which might or might need GV's money is in difficult position.

Also, the foresight he should have is mails can be leaked(even those addressed to people he personally knows), and write mails as if they are public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The combination of Tech Crunch and Mike Arrington is deadlier than the plague.</comment>


This is what it looks like when society collapses - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-society-collapses-2016-8 <comment><USER2> Basically predicted by Tainter's _Collapse of Complex Societies_ ; functionally, the idea is that societies evolve complex institutions to maximize value extraction from a particular set of circumstances, but over time they also lose the ability to adapt to rapid changes in the environment. Complexity becomes rigidity, and when things go wrong enough the whole edifice can't maintain itself. The idea that a slowdown caused by organizational maladaptation is very much in line with his thesis.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well judging by how little is going on in music and movies in the US, compared to how it was in the 60s-80s, with only corporate-made dreck to be found now, it looks like our society is headed for collapse too.

<comment><USER4> Music, I can't really say, for I don't pay much attention to today's popular music. But I can say that there were a lot of terrible movies made then, and there are some made now that can stand up to what was made from 1960 through 1989. Everyone has had twenty-six years to forget the worst movies and music of 1989, but the worst of 2016 is on the screen or in our ears.

<comment><USER3> >Music, I can't really say, for I don't pay much attention to today's popular music.

Well just as an example, in the 60s-70s we had stuff like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and many other bands that are now called "classic rock" and have their own radio stations. I don't think these were ever technically considered "pop" (Disco was "pop" back in the 70s), they were always "rock". There is nothing these days that has the musical impact that Led Zeppelin did.

>But I can say that there were a lot of terrible movies made then

There were a lot of terrible movies (and every other art form) in every period. We memorialize the best, not the dreck. This has never changed, it's human nature. I'm sure there was a bunch of second-rate and third-rate junk in Mozart's day too, and we've forgotten it all.

>and there are some made now that can stand up to what was made from 1960 through 1989.

Like what? In the sci-fi genre, for instance, I sure haven't seen anything that matches classics like 2001, Alien, and Aliens, and several attempts (Prometheus, Avatar) were made by the same, now nearly elderly, directors who made two of those! Where's young directors making great new sci-fi films? There aren't any. Instead, we just have not-so-serious comic-book movies. We haven't had any classic horror movies like The Shining or The Thing (1982).

I'm sorry, but this isn't just older generations sneering at the younger generations; things have really changed, and it coincides with the rise of the internet, and some significant changes in society.

Look at movies: movie ticket prices have gotten insane in recent years, and it just isn't that fun an experience now with stupid parents bringing their too- young kids to movies they have no business watching (because the parents are helicopter parents and/or are too cheap to hire a babysitter for their movie night) and the kids end up pitching a screaming fit and annoying everyone, or rude people texting during the movie or talking on their phones, etc. With modern big-screen TVs costing so little, and the availability of DVDs, Blu- Rays, and on-demand internet viewing, it's easier to just stay at home and watch movies there in the comfort of your own home, where you can eat and drink whatever you want without paying extortionate prices and where you can pause to go to the bathroom and rewind if you didn't understand someone.

With music, it seems that musical tastes have splintered so much now, combined with record labels not bothering to seek out quality acts to promote, so now we just have a bunch of decades-old bands running around touring their asses off to take advantage of the new wave of nostalgia for classic rock but nothing new coming out that really gains much of a following.</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin sinks after exchange pauses withdrawals - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57618543-93/bitcoin-sinks-after-exchange-pauses-withdrawals/ <comment><USER2> This guy went to Tokyo to "protest" at Mt. Gox' offices, staying in their lobby for days until he met key people at the company. No way to know if there is any causality, but soon after he talked to them, they halted BTC withdrawals. "I think [I] just witnessed MtGox die today." [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x9gue/my_protest_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x9gue/my_protest_at_mtgox_offices_5_to_7th_february/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the biggest fault with bitcoin is the name, coin.

People like coins and cash to be liquid, stable, and ultimately not a ponzi scheme (by this I mean growing by an ever slowing amount, that gives added value to those who mined early and held, punishing any sizeable withdrawal, dividends paid only due to more outside money coming to the fund..).

Too many people have taken to investing in it with the attitude that it always rises, yet in a classic characteristic of a bubble backed entity it doesn't take much to crash the value of the asset.

<comment><USER4> This is no different than gold coins.

And it doesn't matter what "people are used to", they will still see value in it eventually, just like they did for thousands of years before the central banks took over and started messing everything up, including our education. No wonder nobody understands that just a few centuries ago, private money was already a thing.

<comment><USER5> Not everyone has such glowing memories of private money: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip)

<comment><USER4> Private money is obviously not the problem in those cases.

It's like saying "Not everyone has such glowing memories of gold", and you link an article that talks about inhumane working conditions in gold mines.

<comment><USER5> Yeah...well...now that you mention it, that is a major downside of having gold play a crucial role in the world economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's not why the price is sinking.

It's sinking because Russia banned bitcoin yesterday.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197173)

Exchanges are losing liquidity because too many people selling on the news, hence amplifying the price drop.

<comment><USER7> __Exchanges __should not be affected by a loss of liquidity, if exchanges are well managed then a dip in liquidity would just be expressed as a wider margin between their bid and offer prices. The exchanges themselves should have no "skin in the game" and should not be affected by price fluctuations or by liquidity.

That's with a lot of _should_ though, and there's little to no transparency in the bitcoin community to suggest whether any or all of those things are fulfilled in the exchanges currently being operated.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I think only companies like Coinbase lose money in such situations because they keep their Bitcoins stored away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin value didn't sink. The exchange rate on MtGox took a dip from $930 to $760 between yesterday and now but on other exchanges like Bitstamp it may have gone from $790 to $750.

The rate on MtGox was higher than on other exchanges because it was hard to get cash out of MtGox. Hence if you had money on it, the easy way to get it out was to buy bitcoins, transfer them to another wallet and sell them on a more liquid exchange like Bitstamp or btc-e where USD withdrawals are quick. This created too much buy pressure on MtGox and this pressure faded when they made it hard to even withdraw bitcoins. That explains the crash on MtGox but its amplitude was nowhere as large as on other exchanges who by the way handle larger transaction volumes now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this not being overblown since it only really pertains to BTC on MT. Gox? Since yesterday the Coinbase price has gone from $800 to $670 to $750. Given the typical volatility of BTC and the apparent rebound in price on Coinbase, I'd hardly consider "Bitcoin sinks" as being accurate. Perhaps the title should read "Bitcoin on Mt. Gox sinks..." or "Bitcoin lists as Mt. Gox pauses withdrawals".

</comment><comment><USER11> How about, prices start reflecting true market sentiment without a huge manipulator artificially propping prices up on its own make-believe exchange that doesn't allow withdrawals and reports fantasy trades?

<comment><USER12> Could you please elaborate on your fantasy trades remark? I was aware of Mt. Gox fiat issues, and now the BTC hold. Were they accused of booking fictitious trades?

<comment><USER11> Gox had a huge gap in its price to other exchanges. This gap came to be because Gox replaced USD with Goxdollars (a kind of currency that only exists inside of Gox). Therefore arbitrage was not capable of closing this gap, because Goxdollars could not be converted to USD.

If you are trading Bitcoins for Goxdollars, that's fantasy trades.

However this novel introduction of Goxdollars was now consequently followed by the introduction of the Goxcoin which marks the migration complete. Goxcoins cannot be converted to Bitcoins. However you can now trade Goxcoins vs. Goxdollars.

All trades on Gox are now pure fantasy. Seeing as Gox is the Magic the gathering exchange, I find this strangely appropriate.

<comment><USER13> >If you are trading Bitcoins for Goxdollars, that's fantasy trades.

Uh, no, it's real trades. That's the same argument as 'IF you're trading USD for BTC, it's fantasy trades!'

<comment><USER14> It's not the same argument...

I can buy food and cars and real-estate properties with USD. I can also buy BTC with USD which I can use to order stuff online or which I can use to convert back to USD... To buy food, cars and real-estate properties.

The point GP is making is that once things make it into Gox, they can't get out: your USD become "Goxdollars" and your BTC become "Goxcoins".

I don't know if Gox is going to resolve the issue but, in any case, it's certainly not the same argument.

As of now you can't buy anything else than Goxdollars/Goxcoins with Goxcoins/Goxdollars. Hence the "fantasy trades".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought the price was going down because of the news that Apple is "blocking" bitcoin apps (aka the bitcoin apps were breaking the App Store rules)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193327)

<comment><USER16> It's probably a combination of the effects of Russia's "ban," Apple's "blocking," and MtGox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Bitcoin is antifragile. It always seems to bounce right back from bruises like this.

</comment><comment><USER18> And then it bounces back

<comment><USER19> Mt. Gox didn't say they were resuming withdrawals, only that they had an announcement to make. There will definitely be a market reaction based on what they say (or if they instead keep silent, it'll likely be perceived as negative).

Also note that Mt. Gox tends to trade at a 10-15% premium to other exchanges, since most fiat currencies take weeks if not months to withdraw. Right now it's like 3%, and overnight, it actually dropped BELOW some exchanges. It'll be interesting to see what happens when things get back to "normal". Will Mt. Gox's premium return? Will it return in the form of the market discounting other exchanges?

It's scary that such a poorly run operation (what they have right now is essentially a software bug, due to not accounting for a types of BTC transactions; but they've crashed due to volume and have been hacked, to say nothing of the actions taken against them) can influence the price so strongly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Question: How easy is it for, say, a minority of large holders to stave off drops in value? For instance, if I am holding ~250k BTC and notice an oncoming sell-off, how easy would it be for me to trade back enough in order to reinstate confidence on an exchange?

Is it a viable enough scenario to make it plausible? I'm not a BTC holder, so I'm curious as to how easy the market is to "prop up" in short term panics like this.

<comment><USER21> It actually doesn't take much to move BTC price up or down.

For instance, buying 16.6K BTC on Bitstamp would move the price to $2000. Selling the same amount would move the price to $360.

[http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD](http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD)

<comment><USER7> It would move the buy price to $2000, but in theory the sell price wouldn't be moved and so there would simply be a large margin until liquidity improved.

If no one is willing to buy a bitcoin for $700 right now, there's no reason to think anyone would be willing to buy a bitcoin for $700 even if you were offering $2000 for any bitcoins on the market. Of course people aren't rational and you might catch out people ignorantly trying to follow a graph they don't understand.

This is in part why it is irresponsible for exchanges such as mtGox to report a single "price" for bitcoin, they should always report the current prices as a tuple of (Offer, Bid) prices.

<comment><USER21> > _This is in part why it is irresponsible for exchanges such as mtGox to > report a single "price" for bitcoin_

No, it's not. They are reporting the price of an actual trade, where buyer met the seller. At that point the spread is effectively zero.

<comment><USER7> The spread is only zero instantaneously however, and is much more open to manipulation than (bid, offer) is.

In reality all three should be reported together when one is as they are all very important.

<comment><USER21> The whole market depth is very important. Should they report thousands of numbers now?

Just because there's a buy bid at $700 for 1BTC and a sell bid at $703 for 200BTC, doesn't make these two prices equivalent or equally important.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Fire Phone unveiled - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-amazon-phone-20140617,0,3143545.story

<comment><USER2> There is another discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911165](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911165), so I guess we'll bury this one as a dupe.

The best url for this story isn't obvious. Suggestions are welcome.

</comment><comment><USER3> So far to me it just seems like another smart phone with nice specs. The big Firefly feature doesn't seem to be a ground breaking change on how smart phones are used.

Maybe I'm not the target market?

EDIT: Tangle free earbuds included? This is the future, I'm sold!

<comment><USER4> Unlimited photo storage is kinda nice. I think it's mostly about the services, not the phone itself necessarily.

<comment><USER3> I agree about the photo storage and the services, but I don't know that it's enough for me to jump ship to an Amazon phone. As a Android user I love Amazon Prime, but I'm perfectly happy with opening a web browser to order, and using a console to stream videos.

For those who aren't already embedded deep into Android or Apple I wonder if the services will have enough of a pull?</comment></comment></comment>


Computer 'Web' to Change Billion of Lives (Yeah, Right) - <AUTHOR> https://image-store.slidesharecdn.com/e57f172c-fc88-4bce-8401-795a8012db92-original.jpeg

<comment><USER2> Gave me a good laugh... but hey, i'm not sure I wouldn't say the same thing today about something that seems crazy then turns out to change the world.</comment>


US elections remain 'dangerously vulnerable' to cyber-attacks - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/13/us-election-cybersecurity-hacking-voting <comment><USER2> Friendly reminder: electronic voting is totally unnecessary. Many highly developed democracies (e.g. France) have totally paper voting where the ballots never leave the public eye.

If the past is any indication, there will almost certainly be a lot of comments on this article proposing complicated schemes for making electronic voting secure and verifiable. Consider when evaluating these schemes whether there is any benefit or upside at all over good old fashioned unhackable paper.

<comment><USER3> The best benefit I've heard about paper voting is the mechanism by which trust in the count is ensured.

With paper voting, all votes are counted by several people, with oversight and random recounts. It is _possible_ to cheat, but it would require a local conspiracy for a limited number of votes.

With electronic voting, the counting is done by machines and the mechanism is obfuscated and unverifiable. If it's working correctly, it should be perfect; but if the machines were hacked, it could be done through a network and the impacts could be massive. It would require a large conspiracy to pull off, but the number of votes that could be affected could change an election.

So in summary: paper voting = higher chance of small irregularities, with limited impact; electronic voting = lower chance of massive irregularities with election changing consequences. In paper voting, the trust is distributed, while in electronic voting, it is centralized.

<comment><USER4> Overall, well put, and those points are tough to discount.

 _> With electronic voting, the counting is done by machines and the mechanism is obfuscated and unverifiable._

Could a blockchain not address that with public/private keys? Why is this ridiculous?

<comment><USER5> Okay, let's start with the idea that it isn't ridiculous. For the sake of argument, let's say a blockchain-based voting system could be as verifiable as paper.

So what problem does it solve? What does the blockchain accomplish that a paper ballot does not? And what are the costs in terms of user interface and voter education, relative to paper?

<comment><USER6> It makes voting faster and less expensive (practically free). That means you could have the public voting at arbitrary frequency. You could imagine a system where the public is voting every month, week, or day on what the country should do next.

I'm not saying this would be good necessarily, only that such a technology would enable fast, frequent, continuous control distributed across the population. Such a country would be very different from anything that exists today.

<comment><USER7> This is assuming that the system would be inherently trustworthy and trustable with no human oversight. I have a nagging suspicion that over time this system would still settle in a state where we have just as many humans involved in ensuring everything is kosher as we have now, but compounded with a system that is less transparent for someone who is blockchain illiterate.

Assuming that voting would become effectively free, the second point does sound quite intriguing. It's the sort of direct democracy that is practiced by some countries (e.g. Switzerland). It does require a certain level of voter education though - so people look at the longer term. Otherwise you'll never push through an initiative that raises taxes for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Worth repeating: Senator Ron Wyden has a bill that would require paper ballots. Worth calling your lawmakers to support.

 _Edit_ : press release with link to the full text of the bill - [https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden- gilli...](https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-gillibrand- markey-merkley-murray-and-warren-introduce-bill-to-secure-elections-)

<comment><USER5> I would love to see Democrats pick up a blanket ban on paperless electronic voting as an issue. The GOP won't, for, um, reasons. This is a marvelous partisan opportunity, if the Democrats are wise enough to pick it up.

<comment><USER9> Republicans won't for the very simple reason that it's supported by democrats. The Republican party made it abundantly clear for the last decade that their primary platform is "don't let the left have any wins."

<comment><USER10> Party over country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's insane that we have systems using 100% electric vote counting.

Any system, even 100% paper ballots, are hackable. They key is making the hack difficult to scale.

Computer systems are easy to hack from a distance and in large numbers. Theoretically, one person could hack many devices from another country.

Paper ballots require someone to change/stuff in person. One person can do limited damage and would have to be in the country. You'd need to recruit large numbers for an effective operation.

Electric assistance is fine but ultimately you need a paper result that a human can read.

A computer can help you make selections and fill out the ballot but the voter must be able to read the printed result and confirm their vote was properly printed.

I'd be against any computer counting for the initial count. Manual is slower and expensive but it's worth the added cost to have a more secure voting system.

<comment><USER12> _> A computer can help you make selections and fill out the ballot but the voter must be able to read the printed result and confirm their vote was properly printed._

And that would essentially make the voting machine a very expensive pen.

<comment><USER11> Which is perfectly fine. Remember the hanging chad issue from 2000 presidential election? This expensive pen would eliminate that issue. Also, with clearly filled out ballots, manual counting would be more reliable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think there's a good chance the 2016 US elections were in fact manipulated, and the upcoming mid-terms are not gonna be any different.

"[The hackers] wouldn't need too heavy a hand... just a couple of tweaks here and there." [1]

Sadly, it's in the interest of the ruling party to look the other way.

[1] [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-russia-could- steal-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-russia-could-steal-the- midterms/)

<comment><USER14> A hostile nation targeted our elections in 2016. We know that much.

In February, the NY Times writes, "The Justice Department charged 13 Russians and three companies on Friday in a sprawling indictment that unveiled a sophisticated network designed to subvert the 2016 election" [1]

OK, so Russia had this expensive, sophisticated operation to influence the election. It wasn't a half-assed effort.

So why wouldn't this operation include attacking voting machines? Especially if the machines are vulnerable and virtually unprotected?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/politics/russians- indi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/politics/russians-indicted- mueller-election-interference.html)

<comment><USER15> > A hostile nation targeted our elections in 2016. We know that much.

I hope there can be some sort of a partial agreement that Noam Chomsky isn't a partisan hack, let's see what he has to say on the matter:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vVXlLgifxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vVXlLgifxQ)

I encourage everyone to watch the whole video, as there is some interesting (in that is it rather contradictory to the current mainstream narrative) footage of various Democrat opinions on Russia, and the degree to which they should be considered a threat to America. I feel fairly confident this footage predates "Deep Fakes" technology, if anyone suspects it isn't legit please let me know.

<comment><USER16> I appreciate your attempt to have a rational, polite discussion about this issue.

Unfortunately, your desire to apply some critical thinking, places you in a minority.

This is confirmed every time I see a post such as yours, and the inevitable downvoting.

<comment><USER15> It took time (in hours, and years) to get to this point, it will take time to get back. The human psyche has never been subject to this level of propaganda before, in volume and sophistication, you can hardly blame people.

I'm patient, and stubborn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This numberphile video does a good job explaining why electric voting is a terrible idea. [https://youtu.be/w3_0x6oaDmI](https://youtu.be/w3_0x6oaDmI)

</comment><comment><USER17> I think we're going to find out that election machines have been regularly hacked since they were first released and that they were in fact designed to be insecure. It's been well known that they were broken and unauditable going back to the Black Box Voting days of 2004 when everyone thought Bev Harris was some kind of paranoid nut job.

<comment><USER3> Former CEO of Diebold, in 2003 when the first electronic voting machines were used (back when it was controversial, and people hadn't given in to this idea that it is inevitable and inherently "better" than paper voting):

"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just to add my 2 cents. I participated in elections before, both as a candidate and as member of the voting table (at instances at the same time as well). If there is some complicit agreement you can see certain leaning votes being discarded as not being clear enough, mostly because they are too left for the table or the inverse. This is widespread and a mostly unknown phenomena, since no one is going to recount a table for a small percentage of discrepancy.

I don't know anything about electronic voting but if it can guarantee there is no personal opinion in the middle, good.

</comment><comment><USER19> Considering how militant US politics is I wouldn't be too surprised if the people in power are actually OK with cyber-attacks as long as they go their way.

Coming from Germany I don't even comprehend how the US is not able to run elections in a way that can be trusted. The 2000 Supreme Court decision should have been a big warning. I really believe there are a lot of people who don't want to fix the system because it would take away the opportunity to create more theater and conspiracy theories along party lines

<comment><USER20> After the 2000 (record speed) SC ruling, many people were vocal and protesting.

Then that died out around September...

<comment><USER19> When Trump came out claiming that millions of illegal voters had voted there should have been a huge alarm and everybody should have worked on making sure there are no doubts. Instead it seems the partisans are perfectly fine with a lot of citizens not trusting the election system.

This is a really dangerous game. Once people don't trust elections or the judiciary democracy is in grave danger.

<comment><USER3> Why do you think Trump is continuously attacking the integrity of the very institutions that are meant to keep democracy intact? (the legislative bodies, the judiciary, and the fourth estate).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone on HN provide me a good article or explanation as to why digital voting machines could be considered better for democracy?

My intuitive reckoning is that making the "verifiability check" for a given vote something that non-technical people could carry out would increase the number of eyes on both sides which could point out inconsistencies.

EDIT: added/removed words for clarity

<comment><USER22> I don't have any articles, but I think I could come up with one reason why electronic voting may be preferred.

The last time I voted was a municipal election in my city. I was given 3 separate ballots (mayor, my city councillor and my school board trustee). My understanding is that many elections in the states also have multiple propositions and other things the citizens are asked to vote on. So the paper system could become cumbersome and confusing with many issues on the ballot. Therefore, an electronic system where you are presented a single item at a time could be easier.

I'd still argue that paper ballots are better for security issues, but the above could be one argument against paper ballots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Doesn't going paper-only make it difficult to switch to alternative voting systems like RCV (as Maine is) or multiple-member districting at anything beyond a local level? FPTP is fairly simple to count by hand and other methods can be more labor-intensive as the total number of votes increases.

I am all for having a paper trail, mandatory audits, and secure infrastructure. I agree with those who thing the current private sector systems for voting have huge issues. What I don't understand is what I see as media pushing a false choice between paper or digital.

Estonia has been using e-voting alongside paper ballots for years without serious issues. (Of course, they have national ID and have digitized a lot of their gov't functions, so maybe this is a special case.)

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/estonia-the- di...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/estonia-the-digital- republic)

There are a lot of ways to improve our elections, from social engineering (France's media blackout a few days before elections, moving voting day to the weekend, making it multiple days, or just using the mail system) to improved systems like Scantegrity or increased use of optical scanning.

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

The cynic in me fears this is a push designed to make it harder for us to use things like RCV and entrench FPTP.

<comment><USER24> How are paper ballots at all an obstacle here? RCV is just a different format for the ballot. You can still input the votes and calculate the runoffs digitally to save time, you just have the benefit of verifiable paper records for the raw data.

<comment><USER23> Paper ballots are not the obstacle. (I like paper ballots with optical scanning, as in my main post.) The obstacle is that there are some who want there to be no machine involvement in tabulation of results.

Media is hyping the fear of 'election hacking' to the point where people I know personally want everything to be done manually, no machine or computer involvement at all.

<comment><USER25> >"Media is hyping the fear of 'election hacking' to the point where people I know personally want everything to be done manually, no machine or computer involvement at all."

Whats wrong with this?

<comment><USER26> It takes time - we wouldn't know who was elected president until several days after the election was over.

I tried to write that in a neutral tone. However you might find it as amusing as me to read it (with required word changes) in different dialects. I think the stereotypical "valley girl" best captures how I feel about it.

<comment><USER25> That doesn't seem like much of an issue to me when the alternative is nobody trusts the results.

<comment><USER26> To you. But it is a big deal some someone else. Your task is to figure out who, and why. (why tends to be obvious once you realize who)

<comment><USER25> Why are you speaking in riddles?

<comment><USER26> there is more than one correct answer.

I come up with the news media who need to excitement of the vote to not wane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Electronic voting without paper trail should be illegal. Flat out.

But it won't ever be so, which is curious.

</comment><comment><USER27> Congress recently failed to pass a bill which would add election security funding, so we know where they stand.

<comment><USER28> But VoterID!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."

</comment><comment><USER30> Karma

</comment><comment><USER31> >Donald Trump publicly invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's email server

I find statements like this to be immediately discrediting of journalistic integrity. The intent was not to enter into an illicit agreement with a third party. Reacting in this ridiculous fashion only aids in his popularity. I think Democrat (obviously false) hyperbole is in danger of giving us a second term

<comment><USER32> >""I will tell you this: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," he said. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

The president was encouraging a foreign adversary to illegally hack into messages by a former secretary of state that might contain sensitive information, then release them publicly."

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/russia-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/russia- hacking-trump-mueller/565157/)

Did he or did he not say that?

<comment><USER33> It is a fact that he said those words.

It is not a fact that "[He] was encouraging a foreign adversary to illegal hack into messages by a former Secretary of State...." That is an interpretation of the fact. Likely he is aware that Russia and other adversaries have already attempted such hacks.

One can disagree with him making such a statement without offering interpretations that are more complex than the obvious: a jab at Clinton. And one can offer more complex interpretations without resorting to obvious hyperbole.

The media "on both sides" is filled with hyperbole and rhetoric, and I am saddened that it is controversial to point this out, just because the underlying event is controversial.

The GP's point seems to be that we should attack things on merits rather than resorting to hyperbole and mischaracterization. In any other context, I think most of HN would agree with this idea, but whenever politics are mentioned, HN posters and voters seem to become a microcosm of American politics at large: anything is justified because the other side is wrong.

<comment><USER3> Give me one example of a criticism of Trump that his supporters feel is "valid on its merits"?

The beginning and end of support for Trump is that we he says, goes, period, and anything that criticizes him is being unscrupulous in some way. There is no way to legitimately criticize Trump in the eyes of his supporters. It is a cult.

<comment><USER34> I am sorry but this kind of cult behavior is a major part of political polarization and occurs on both side. After the DNC leak and people started to accuse Clinton of not playing fair a lot of Clinton support rejected that criticism and accused those that did of being unscrupulous in their conviction. It would not be called polarization and extreme-right and extreme- left if those voters accepted criticism based on its merits.

What is left is the wast majority in the middle and both left and right depend on their support to win elections. Those voters are usually receptive when politicians are criticized and may swing. The 2016 election had both side accusing the other of committing crimes worthy of jail time, which is when criticism in politics took a very dark turn. When you ask the public to conduct criminal trials through public debate and voting it should come as no surprise that criticism based on merits will fall on deaf ears at both camps, and anyone suggesting any validity in the criticism are labeled a traitor to the cause.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>