All officially released cables including content - WikiLeaks - <AUTHOR> http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ <comment><USER2> I wonder what happens the first time that there's a credible link to someone dying as a results of Wikileaks leaking a document.

You know, if you keep leaking any and all classified information you can, inevitably some informant or logistics route or defensive position is going to get routed or assassinated. It's just a matter of time - while the government does some bad stuff, I'd reckon the majority of classified documents are classified for decent reasons. It's not just a bunch of wild animals running the show.

And when an operative or informant or ally or supply team or soldier or law enforcement officer eventually gets killed as a result of a leak, I wonder what the government's response will be.

Edit: Knock off the downvoting and make a reply. There's an informant in the Chinese politburo who is risking his life to protect the dissidents that the Chinese government targeted with the Google attacks. His life is at risk now. If you have _any_ credible argument for why releasing _any_ information related to the man, let's hear your argument. Because I think his life is at risk, and that's a bad thing. If you disagree, let's hear your reasoning of why it's okay to do that.

<comment><USER3> >You know, if you keep leaking any and all classified information you can, inevitably some informant or logistics route or defensive position is going to get routed or assassinated.

Risky business is risky.

>It's not just a bunch of wild animals running the show.

They did unilaterally invade Iraq, killing, by their own records, tens of thousands of civilians in the process. They may not be animals, but their hands are far from clean.

<comment><USER2> Did you read any of the leaks? It's talking about how there's an American informant in the Chinese Politburo... you know the Chinese are going to be looking for him now. What are they going to do to him and his family if they find him?

What happens if friendly politicians in Yemen are bombed by al-Qaeda when their role in counter-terrorism comes out? What if their wives and children are beheaded on television, as has happened in the past?

Leaking war documents to show what's happening - questionable.

Leaking anything and everything possible, with no particular objective in mind - reckless and insane.

<comment><USER3> >It's talking about how there's an American informant in the Chinese Politburo... you know the Chinese are going to be looking for him now. What are they going to do to him and his family if they find him?

You don't think the Chinese knew that already?

>Leaking anything and everything they can, with no particular objective in mind - insanity.

They are not leaking everything they can. Wikileaks is not releasing all cables and if you actually read the cables, sensitive names are redacted. They also offered to talk to the US authorities, which could have allowed them some say in what got released, but US authorities refused.

<comment><USER2> > You don't think the Chinese knew that already?

Dude, cantelon, drop the partisan stuff and think for a second. A single offhand mention like, "Donated to informant's mother's pension fund" might be enough to identify an informant, round up him and his family, and torture them to death.

I get it. You're in favor of Wikileaks and don't like the U.S. government. But they're doing reckless crazy stupid shit here. Everyone regardless of politics should be able to see that, if you look at the summaries of what they released.

<comment><USER3> >But they're doing reckless crazy stupid shit here. Everyone regardless of politics should be able to see that, if you look at the summaries of what they released.

Looking at things objectively isn't "partisan stuff". I'm hearing the same hysteria that accompanied the Afghan War Diary release, yet noone was ever able to point out one life lost because of that leak. Wikileaks is doing even more this time to mitigate any fallout and their work is going to save many lives in the long term. For example: the next time the US decides it wants to invade another country they might find it harder to justify.

Anti-Wikileaks hysteria reminds me of the way child porn has been used to justify the creation of state censorship mechanisms: an attempt to use edge cases to justify protecting the interests of the status quo.

<comment><USER2> > Looking at things objectively isn't "partisan stuff".

It's okay to dislike the U.S. government, be pro-Wikileaks, and think Wikileaks still did some stupid stuff here.

> For example: the next time the US decides it wants to invade another country > they might find it harder to justify.

And the next time they try to negotiate nuclear disarmament with Pakistan, the Pakistani negotiator has to be worried about looking weak publicly. I can't believe I'm defending the U.S. government here, I'm quite a critic of it. But they actually do do lots of good stuff. Working to protect Google and internet infrastructure and working for nuclear disarmament are good things. Working to take out people who blow up buses of school children in Israel is a good thing.

You can be a critic of the U.S. government and think Wikileaks is being reckless here. The positions aren't incompatible.

<comment><USER4> possibility of disarmament Pakistani nuclear is the funniest thing I have read in some time. In case you don't know USA is _heavily_ investing on Pakistan and training them how to secure their nuclear facilities.

How about the so-called terrorist who have been funded by USA government in the first place?

Securing internet infrastructure has less to do with the "good stuff" and more to do with self preservation. As for Nuclear disarmament, USA don't really have a moral high ground telling other countries to not produce nuclear weapons when they are sitting on the one of the largest nuclear stockpile (and actively developing new generations of nuclear weapons) and the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons during a war.

You can cherry pick "good stuff" USA government did, but the end up day if were to draw a line and sum up the "good stuff" and the bad stuff the government did, the bad stuff overwhelms what you claim to be "good stuff".

<comment><USER2> > possibility of disarmament Pakistani nuclear is the funniest thing I have > read in some time. In case you don't know USA is _heavily_ investing on > Pakistan and training them how to secure their nuclear facilities.

So I take it you didn't actually read the articles or dispatches at all? This was the _very first part_ of the New York Times summary:

> A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United > States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove > from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American > officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In > May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing > to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani > official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they > certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear > weapons,' he argued."

<comment><USER4> This has nothing to do with disarmament.

<comment><USER2> Trying to remove weapons-grade uranium that you're afraid can be used in nuclear weapons doesn't have anything to do with disarmament? C'mon dude. Seriously.

Anyway, I'm done here. I'm getting my morning started in Malaysia, and I need a little extra time to make sure there aren't any dispatches likely to cause a storm this morning in Kuala Lumpur.

<comment><USER5> Unless your national leader is one of those discussed in the first batch of leaks, I don't see Malaysia mentioned in any of the upcoming topic-specific leaks, so you'll have a breather: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8165041/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8165041/Embarrassment- for-Coalition-as-Wikileaks-prepares-to-release-secret-US-papers.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's interesting that Wikileaks have been 'late' on actually releasing the cables directly to the public. At the time of writing only 219 cables are available out of what is supposed to be 250k+.

Sure, that could be because of the DDOS attack but it looks as though this leak is taking place via a new server at cablegate.wikileaks.org which presumably anyone DDOS'ing wouldn't have had prior knowledge about to route attacks against.

It has meant that the newspapers (who were given pre-public access to the dumps) have effectively "leaked" the information as NYTimes and Guardian have started publishing the details before Wikileaks actually does the leaking.

I'm wondering if there was an agreed embargo when Wikileaks was supposed to actually "press the button". I further wonder if this will negatively effect the relationship between Wikileaks and the media going forward. Interestingly, Guardian which always prides itself on having data driven processes on stuff like this, has only released the metadata so far [1] -- I guess so that they are not the ones to do a complete leak before Wikileaks.

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/29/wikileak...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/29/wikileaks- cables-data)

</comment><comment><USER7> View-source:

        CONFIDENTIAL
        CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
        SECRET
        SECRET//NOFORN

<comment><USER8> care to explain?

<comment><USER9> As the NYT explained it - I believe the classifications organize the cables into degrees of secrecy. 'Top secret' is the highest secrecy in the US Gov't, so I would imagine 'secret' is therefore more secret than 'classified'. 'Noforn' apparently means 'this should not be seen by foreign [individuals'.

<comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_U...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_United_States)

The classification levels are "Top Secret", "Secret", and "Confidential". "Classified" just means that it's been assigned to one of those levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apparently while we are busy getting fondled by the TSA, this is what the rest of the world was ignoring:

 _North Korea secretly gave Iran 19 powerful missiles with a range of 2,000 miles. The missiles, known as the BM-25, are modified from Russian R-27s, which were submarine-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons_

How insanely scary is that?

<comment><USER12> So what? US (and other countries) has much worse missiles. US is the only country who used nuclear weapons in war.

Why do you fear Iran so much? US, Russia, China seem much more dangerous from the point of view of the weapons.

Iran is being bullied by the US for no real reason. Even if they were building nuclear weapons, it's their right. A bunch of countries have them.

<comment><USER13> The issue most likely is not the weapons themselves, but who controls them. A stockpile of weapons are only dangerous in the "wrong" hands. If Iran is being bullied, as you put it, then it's not just by the U.S. Quite a few other countries apparently feel those weapons would essentially be in the "wrong" hands if Iran acquires them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can someone who support this release care to explain this. I seriously don't understand how can publishing someone's conversations be good.

1) How should communication with foreign embassies be done? Publicly via twitter?

2) Do you think that absolutely all information that gov has and exchange should be public? If not who should decide which info can be published?

3) What if somebody from Google get all you gmail conversations and publish it? If you dont like this idea, please explain why you support somebody publishing gov conversations then?

Thank you.

<comment><USER12> Transparency. There's a lot of important shit going on without public's approval. Do you want to live in a world where important things are decided by a bunch of corrupt politicians with no oversight?

<comment><USER15> Of course not, but Wikileaks is an adversary with an agenda, not an independent government oversight organization with the peoples' interests in mind. Certainly not that of residents of the US.

We need oversight and transparency concerning policy, prevention of the violation of constitutional and human rights, and any actions that violate the sovereignty of our allies and friends.

Not transparency of every communique between our embassies.

<comment><USER16> Remember as well that some of us in "foreign countries" want some oversight of the U.S. as well.

I sometimes joke that we're second-class citizens, much like in Rome (1) - we're affected by what the U.S. decides (as a kind of "world government"), but we cannot vote on it.

1) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_citizenship>

<comment><USER15> The "[don't] violate the sovereignty of our allies and friends." clause covers your concerns.

I'm not advocating US unilateralism. Your comment was apropos of nothing in what I said. Your rhetoric is misplaced.

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I didn't want to sound that way.

What I wanted to convey is that Wikileaks is interesting for people outside the U.S. that are not necessarily enemies of the U.S.

I don't know which organization should provide some oversight, I guess the United Nations would be the closest (despite it being a bloated bureaucracy, it does manage some useful activities sometimes)

<comment><USER15> I'd rather see that kind of oversight facility independent of the United Nations.

Interesting is a pretty shallow rationale for what's being done. They have an agenda and I'm not going to pretend Wikileaks is some kind of openness nerd savior. I had hoped they were the counter-balance I was seeking, but it's clear from the manipulation of releases and footage that Wikileaks is hellbent on attacking the US and its allies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting that November 2008 is missing.

<comment><USER5> No kidding. What were the diplomats' reactions to Obama's being really truly elected? What last minute orders came down from the Bushies? What new !orders were issued by Obama's newbies?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Only 219 cables released so far. It is mind-boggling to think how much there still is left, although WikiLeaks presumably started off with some of the most juicy bits to get press coverage.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think Wikileaks main site is down.

"It works!

This is the default web page for this server.

The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet."

Going to their IP 188.8.131.52:

We are sorry,

WikiLeaks is currently underoing scheduled maintenance. We will be back online as soon as possible. For status updates you can follow our twitter feed.

You can still visit our IRC channel:

        * Using the web interface available here
        * Using regular IRC client, connect to chat.wikileaks.org SSL port 9999

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support>

"Not Found"

There's irony for you.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why weren't they able to get there hands on Classified content? I bet that would make for good reading.

</comment><comment><USER20> what is "the cables"?

<comment><USER21> Diplomatic communications.

<comment><USER20> thanks. but i'm a little more in the dark about their physical representation.

Is it email? analog audio via oceanic cables?

the wikipedia page is blank now. but it's history show that someone described it simply as "oceanic cable" sometime.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_cable>

<comment><USER21> It's a transcript, an official record, of a diplomatic communication. The communication itself might have been by email, voice or anything. A cable is its official transcript.

[http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010112519014...](http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101125190143AA6w8IS)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"No Man's Sky" Displayed on the Amiga 1000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bytecellar.com/2018/03/14/a-planetary-anachronism-no-mans-sky-beautifully-rendered-on-the-amiga-1000/ <comment><USER4> I agree that this is not really "rendering" the image on the Amiga, it's merely using the Amiga's display hardware but no processing is happening on the machine. Converting the image to HAM is a bit like (re-)rendering, but that's a one-time operation and done elsewhere.

Anyway, the HAM converter used sounded interesting (ham_convert [1]), it does various optimization/search passes to try to generate good HAM.

There's similar code in gimpilbm, the ILBM plugin for the GIMP [2], but not quite as advanced. Perhaps something worth looking at and adding. Disclosure: I happen to be the maintainer of gimpilbm.

1: [http://mrsebe.bplaced.net/blog/wordpress/?page_id=374](http://mrsebe.bplaced.net/blog/wordpress/?page_id=374) 2: [https://github.com/unwind/gimpilbm](https://github.com/unwind/gimpilbm)

<comment><USER5> HackerNews: may contain up to 25% "posts whining about titles" by weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The OCS Amigas were amazing, way-ahead-of-their-era machines. I can't tell you how many times, in need of inspiration or just to be amazed for five minutes, I'd load up a demo from Sanity or Phenomena and just let it all sink in - <USER2> code, the graphics, the music, all in Assembly and all from pure imagination.

I'm being nostalgic - and super preferential to the things that I enjoy - <USER3> nascent and emerging technology for me seems to have always generated the most exciting art. The demoscene from the early days of the PC, the ANSI/artzine scene from the early days of BBSes and telecommunication, the personal home pages from the early days of the web.

I'm going back and forth about whether or not I see the same art in today's emerging tech. I think I see where the tech is going and I'm excited by it, but I don't think I see the art as much. Happy to be convinced otherwise!

<comment><USER7> Ah, Phenomena - that reminded me of one of my favourite demos back then:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpU3DicbLQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpU3DicbLQ)

I was a bit involved in the Norwegian Amiga scene then back in Norway. Nothing major, but very formative - and those were good times.

<comment><USER8> Enigma is one of the very best demos I've ever experienced on any platform. Pygmy Project's Extension is another Amiga favorite of mine. I've never lost my love for the demoscene, but I far prefer new demos on retro systems over, say, Windows 10-based 3D demos. Very much so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> fake-name What part of this is rendering? It's just file format conversion, with a oddball output format.

If they actually ran the no man sky engine on the amiga, even if it was 1 frame per hour, /that/ would actually be impressive.

<comment><USER9> OK.

 _" No Man's Sky" viewed through the lens of old technology._

Now go enjoy the beauty.

<comment><USER10> I find a bit sad that the beauty has to be directly given to you. I will always remember the first games of the Amiga as the most beautiful graphics I've ever seen, the imagination completed the part that the technology missed.

This 'lens of old technology' as you call it made the dreams of many come true, without 4k or anything. The beauty is in your mind, not in the amount of pixels that reach your corneas.

<comment><USER9> Oh, I am with you 100%. My go to example were flight simulators. The plain colors, filled vector, no shading, no textures, fixed palette were the most beautiful to me. I don't think even now the best graphics beats the imagination of that. The same goes for NES 8 bit Mario. The pixelness is great, even compared to the latest Mario, which is a really, really good game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was surprised to see that the images were 320x400. I completely forgot that this resolution existed and supported HAM6.

I converted the images with imagemagick and it really achieves a retro SF look, e.g. [https://bhaak.net/nms/3_output.png](https://bhaak.net/nms/3_output.png), [https://bhaak.net/nms/9_output.png](https://bhaak.net/nms/9_output.png)

Although I think this images might be a bit better than how they would be shown on an original Amiga. I don't see any of the typical HAM6 artefacts one would expect.

<comment><USER9> It's because 400 is interlaced, and thus it's really the same as 200, only with every other line shifted half a line's width to the left (or right, I don't think it makes a difference).

<comment><USER12> Interlace displays every other field shifted half a raster line _down_ \-- it doubles the vertical resolution not horizontal.

<comment><USER9> ... down, right, whatever. "Delaying" it half a line might have been better worded to describe what's happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article is rendering No Mans Sky on Amiga 1000 in the sense that looking on a photo of a beautiful landscape is the same as visiting it.

Ie. it just displays a slideshow of screenshots on the Amiga 1000, which might as well have been vacation photos.

</comment><comment><USER14> Could someone explain why there is such a cult following behind these old Amiga machines? I see them mentioned a lot on HN and would like to understand the interest...

<comment><USER15> Imagine that tomorrow a company started selling a game console that does VR perfectly. No lag, fully immersive, it just blows everything else out of the water. And it's cheaper than a PlayStation, although sadly few people buy the thing and the company completely mismanages the sales and marketing and it's ten years before another consumer device comes close.

That's what the Amiga was like in the 80's.

<comment><USER16> Just to clarify for those not familiar with the Amiga, it wasn't a game console but a fully featured computer with a custom OS that supported preemptive multitasking a decade before Windows and Mac did. Graphics hardware was just one part of what made the total package so innovative.

<comment><USER17> I must say I like the static priority of the threads in the AmigaOS.

On the fat iMac I use, doing some video conversions in the background makes it impossible to play TF2 at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Could you do this in real-time with a post-process shader on PC? shadertoy.com?

<comment><USER19> I don't think fragment shaders are suitable for this, since the HAM modes are very stateful. In HAM6 for example, a screen is composed of a bunch of 6-bit instructions encoding one of four operations each with four bits of data. You can either set the color directly to any of the colors from a 16-color palette, or you can use the color of the previous pixel, modifying one of its RGB channels.

This is similar with HAM8 but in order to be able to use more of the 24-bit color space the instructions are 8-bit wide with six bits of data, and you can only modify the six most significant bits of a color channel and directly use a 64-color palette instead.

<comment><USER20> FWIW, you can do plenty of stateful things on shadertoy, as long as feedback and multiple buffers are allowed. There are complete interactive games on shadertoy. I think it wouldn't be hard to render HAM in a fragment shader. If you're okay with very non-optimized colors, of course, you can use the direct set instructions only, and skip the neighbor modify instructions. But I've done several shaders on shadertoy with neighbor-modify type functionality, including a Floyd-Steinberg like dither, it just takes multiple frames.

<comment><USER19> Sure, you can maintain state in a texture and iteratively re-apply the shader to it. The problem with HAM is that it potentially requires many iterations. Consider the worst case scenario of an input resulting in a single set color operation followed by width x height-1 modify operations. Not too bad for a simple stateful loop on the CPU, always keeping the last color in a register, but with a shader re-applied once per frame to 320x200 pixels you'd be waiting for ~20 minutes for the complete result at 60 fps.

Then there's the problem of selecting a useful base palette, if you want consistently decent results regardless of the input. That's maybe the kind of optimization problem that OpenCL can be applied to.

So I don't mean to say unsuitable as in impossible, just in the sense that it's exactly the kind of problem that the shader model wasn't designed to solve.

<comment><USER20> I don't disagree with the idea that ShaderToy wasn't designed for this, or with the idea that it'd be harder to do in a fragment shader than a CPU program. But fragment shaders weren't designed for most of the things you see on ShaderToy. ;) The question is whether it was possible in real-time, and I still think it is.

I'm not very interested in the worst case, I think a HAM image with width * height modify ops is _very_ unlikely. I might even be surprised if such a HAM image has even ever existed, outside of perhaps a contrived programmer's example.

The average case for a direct HAM implementation would probably be more like hundreds of frames, or a couple of seconds, not tens of thousands.

If a modified HAM is on the table, the worst and average cases could be improved considerably. I modified Floyd-Steinberg (which is worst case) so that it runs in more like 10-20 frames, by making it radially symmetric and limiting the propagation distance, which results in negligible differences but vastly improved run times.

The palette optimization is also possible in a fragment shader, not quite as easily as OpenCL, but possible.

If the question were about transcoding a video stream in real time, that will be harder to do real time. If the optimized palette is fixed, it will be easier. Either way, I wouldn't rule it out. But I would agree it's "hacking" in the sense of abusing things they weren't designed for.

<comment><USER19> > I'm not very interested in the worst case, I think a HAM image with width * > height modify ops is very unlikely.

Sure, but maybe not as far off in some real world cases. Say, black-but-not- perfectly black letter box bars where the nuances could result in long sequences of small alterations to the base black color. This becomes less likely with an optimized palette, and of course you could set a hard limit to length of modify sequences in conversion, though that would have to compromise the quality of conversion.

> The average case for a direct HAM implementation would probably be more like > hundreds of frames, or a couple of seconds, not tens of thousands.

Then the problem, with respect to the original question, is the definition of real-time. For the purpose of a game like No Man's Sky for example I'd think hundreds or even tens of frames would be unacceptable.

Don't get me wrong, I love technology applied to the "wrong problem" and see that as an end in itself sometimes :). I'm just considering the feasibility of accurate HAM in realtime using shaders, and am really enjoying the discussion on what compromises have to be made for it to perform adequately in a shader. But with respect to the original question I can't quite bring myself to say "yes"

<comment><USER20> > Then the problem, with respect to the original question, is the definition > of real-time.

Yeah, true. But there are two factors here that still meet a reasonable definition of real-time, which is >= 30fps in my book. First, a predictable number of frames of latency still allows 30fps throughput. Second, this encoding can be done in multi-pass batches in a single frame. The dependency of one sweep of modify ops doesn't need to wait for a full frame to do the next sweep. This is very common on ShaderToy where people build dependent buffer chains. It's perfectly reasonable (outside ShaderToy) to do 10 sweeps in a one frame cycle. I don't know what the limit would be on a standard GPU these days, it might be much higher. Consider that shaders on ShaderToy are routinely doing several hundred tap texture samples per pixel, and/or several hundred Ray marching iterations per pixel. The amount of work the GPU can do now in real time is incredible.

You can combine the inter-frame sweeps with cross-frame passes, and you only lose latency but not throughput. There's a likely chance you can also unroll once or twice for a single pass. If you unrolled once, and had 10 passes inter-frame, and had a 10 frame latency, you could in theory get a modify radius of 200 pixels, while maintaining 30fps throughput with 10 frames of latency, assuming I haven't taxed out the GPU at this point.

So, you're right, it would be silly & hard to do this, but I still think HAM encoding could probably be done in real time, with perhaps some compromises or quality limitations to keep the encoding predictable, or at least have a known reasonable upper bound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really wish that the Amiga had caught on in the US. Things like this never cease to impress me. It feels like Amiga was lightyears ahead of its PC Counterparts; my dad's 1985 IBM PC junior could never display a picture that well (as far as I know).

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing OP. This is a lovely little blog in general, not just the main post, glad its popped up on my radar as I hadn't heard of it before.

<comment><USER8> Thank you, and you're welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> we should all by on amigas right now, commodore just sucked at marketing.

<comment><USER24> The Amiga architecture was very limited in regards to 3D (or pseudo-3D), so was pretty much left in the dust when Doom came out.

Very awesome at 2D, though.

<comment><USER9> Doom was not very 3D, it just could address 1 byte = 1 pixel on VGA. That would have been trivial to fix in the mythical AAA chipset, which was scrapped, then replaced years later with the slightly better AGA chipset in the A4000 computer.

Commodore was in a (brief) position to destroy Apple and ridicule IBM, but the execs preferred to "Toys-R-Us"-it and take the bonuses.

<comment><USER25> You've identified a major reason the Amiga failed. The chipset was originally great, but Commodore should have spent the money to keep up with Moore's Law. Something like AGA should have arrived in 1988, not 1992, and with a blitter four times the power as OCS, not just twice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This has nothing to do with rendering a game engine on an Amiga.

<comment><USER27> Rendering the game engine was not mentioned in the title.</comment></comment>


Nuremberg Trials' Last Prosecutor Says We're Committing Crimes Against Humanity - <AUTHOR> https://eand.co/the-last-prosecutor-from-the-nuremberg-trials-says-were-committing-crimes-against-humanity-4ab06053014f?gi=f91a8d090520 <comment><USER2> Constantin, a 4-month-old baby boy was separated from his father, who was subsequently pressured to sign a paper agreeing to be deported. He thought his son would be reunited with him, but he was deported without his son. When the family was finally reunited, Constantin was 9 months old and had spent the majority of his life in foster care.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/baby-constantine- roman...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/baby-constantine-romania- migrants.html)

<comment><USER2> "For weeks afterward, his mother struggled to get him to eat or sleep and exchanged text messages with his foster mother, who offered advice on how he liked to be cuddled and fed."

He seems to be developmentally delayed. He is late to walk on his own and late to speak.

What happened in this case was state-inflicted child abuse.

<comment><USER3> > state-inflicted child abuse

Everyone that had anything to do with this belongs in prison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what he thinks of Israel. Is it okay for their soldiers to unload bullets into children? Is it okay that they're just following orders?

</comment><comment> a0-prw What about the illegal war of aggression in 2003. Our (western) leaders are war criminals.

</comment><comment><USER5> Old man watches fake news, gets confused. Details at 10.</comment>


How to waste 90,000 Dollars in three months - <AUTHOR>

Take a busy entrepreneur, throw in some megalomania, let it simmer in a sauce of confidence and voilà: the money is gone!
One day, I dropped my computer. It gave me an idea: setup a network to connect freelance computer specialists with individuals with computer problems. It was the start of Guidion which now serves 500,000 customers with a turnover of millions of Euros a month in The Netherlands.
But I wanted more. The power of working with freelancers fascinated me. This evolved to Hoofdkraan.nl, a Netherlands focused Odesk type business.
We have been working at this for three years now and it's going well. But when I was offered the chance to buy the website pimtim.com that was serving the entire world, I couldn't resist.
It sounds a lot better when you're able to say you lead a global company than when you're about to conquer Maastricht. Pimtim.com was like 99 Designs but without the clever business model. I thought it should take off by simply changing the model and adding marketing.
After we made the first adjustments, we waited. And we waited and waited. Nothing changed! The only noticeable change was that we were a lot busier than before, now running two companies.
The international aspect that sounded so cool also meant working with foreign languages and various currencies. People designing logos from within a Mongolian yurt had to be paid in their local currency, the Tugrik. To sum it up: we failed.
What did I learn? Don't get distracted. Perform a lot more research before getting involved in any new activity and thoroughly assess how much distraction that new activity gives.
Besides knowing when to start it is also important to know when to pull the plug. Sometimes the only good decision is to say goodbye. Was that the best solution? We'll see. Rest in peace pimtim. <comment><USER2> I don't understand - if Pimtim was worth $90k three months ago and not much has changed, why not sell it?

</comment><comment><USER3> How did you "waste" $90,000 on this? Spent it on servers, coding, etc?

</comment><comment><USER4> There's other ways to waste $90k, you could just send it to me!</comment>


Show HN: ttystudio – a terminal-to-gif recorder without the headaches - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chjj/ttystudio

<comment><USER2> Every time I see posts about recording GIFs, I'm always surprised Byzanz ([https://github.com/GNOME/byzanz](https://github.com/GNOME/byzanz)) isn't more well known. Here's a GIF I just recorded with it: [http://i.imgur.com/kQl7qHp.gif](http://i.imgur.com/kQl7qHp.gif).

The colors aren't perfect, but the file sizes are always surprisingly small. The one linked is 10 seconds long and about 500kB.

It's kind of janky, but here's the script I've been using for the past year or so without fault for recording: [https://github.com/zachlatta/dotfiles/blob/master/local/bin/...](https://github.com/zachlatta/dotfiles/blob/master/local/bin/byzanz- record-window).

<comment><USER3> byzanz records desktop, while ttystudio records merely terminals.

The former not only requires Xorg running, but also gnome. The latter runs on any WM, or even via SSH. Quite different goals.

<comment><USER2> Ah – didn't think about the dependency on Xorg.

I don't think Byzanz requires GNOME though. I've been happily using it with i3.

<comment><USER4> It uses libglib, etc, from the GNOME project, even if it doesn't require the GNOME desktop environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who grew up in the 90s where GIFs became popular for their use in looping animations, I don't understand why these files became popular for this kind of use case of step-wise instructional material (or even worse, as general-purpose video containers). Sure they may be more lightweight than videos, but isn't it frustrating to miss a step and have to wait for the entire GIF to loop all over again? This can happen especially with tutorials that use GIFs sprinkled throughout. By the time you scroll to them you end up halfway through the animation or aren't sure what step you're at and how long you need to wait for the repeat.

Maybe this is more of a browser-issue and if we're going to embrace abusing GIFs as video containers perhaps browser vendors should give the user video player-style controls?

<comment><USER6> At least one image hosting site[1] is going in the opposite direction, converting GIFs to H.264 videos to save bandwidth and CPU time. They don't show playback controls - although (in Chrome, at least) you can right-click and enable controls.

1: [https://imgur.com/blog/2014/10/09/introducing- gifv/](https://imgur.com/blog/2014/10/09/introducing-gifv/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like that there is no required GUI, but needing to install the node.js dependency sounds like a "headache" to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry you feel that way. This project came out of my own need I guess. I had too much trouble with ttyrec+ttygif: glitchy/corrupt gif frames (bad dispose ops maybe?), clunky interface, requires terminal playback on a GUI, concatenation of gifs, etc. It really drove me nuts.

Typing one command to record and output a gif/apng works better for me. If you can get over the node.js part, I'd wager it's likely to be less of a headache.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can it properly record zsh's completion dialogs? I recently spent two hours trying to record a 5 seconds terminal sequence [0] and all terminal recording tools I tried failed. I ended up using a screen recording tool.

[0] [http://imgur.com/BxGppbA](http://imgur.com/BxGppbA)

</comment><comment><USER9> I use LICEcap: [http://www.cockos.com/licecap/](http://www.cockos.com/licecap/)

<comment> squeaky-clean I love LICEcap, so simple, and Cockos are awesome. LICEcap is Windows/OSX only though. There's no Linux build, and I have no idea if you could compile it on Linux.

This seems like it'll run on any environment that supports node.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really nice feature for the cli. The generated images could get a _lot_ of more optimized though. The example.gif file ~2.5 MiB large, uses 100 ms frames and each frame updates the whole area. Some optimization suggestions:

* Use variable length frames * Only update areas that change between frames

For apng: * Use a palette, it can even handle 4 bits per channel palettes which could be enough for terminals.

Maybe these are all not necessary, a naive "gifsicle --optimize" reduced example.gif's size to ~150 KiB. It didn't remove frames though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with the gif optimization. It's on the todo list. The most important part is actually the x and y offsets for each frame, like you said: the damage to the image. It should be possible since ttystudio uses a blessed terminal cell buffer, which already has some code that could be borrowed for damage checks between frames.

The APNGs already use a palette (3). RGBA (6) is opt-in only. Although, it should probably just be RGB if people want to use it since the alpha is useless for terminal recordings anyway.

The only reason the --rgba option exists is because I ended up OOMing the process once or twice when compiling palettes for huge animations (1000s of frames) - this is before palette generation was optimized more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What are people's experiences with asciinema? It's always seemed mindblowing to me to be able to search a screencast, and to be able to pause and scroll around.

<comment><USER3> It does not work on IPv6 due to some upstream issue (IIRC, the issue was that it was written in golang). I could not use it on most of the hosts I usually work on, so quickly discarded it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are a few sites that let you stream terminals directly via telnet.

For example telnet://termcast.develz.org/ for the Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup community or telnet://termcast.org/ for general content.

From time to time people do live-coding on this, too.

</comment><comment><USER13> I see the note about rendering with a custom font. Will that screw up recording for those with special fonts being used (powerline for example)? How does it play with ncurses displays, or even tmux? I assume vim session recording is fine?

<comment><AUTHOR> The default font (terminus) supports 891 glyphs. However, ttystudio can support any font you find in .bdf format. The readme explains how to use them.

Terminus works fine with tmux, vim, ncmpcpp, mutt, irssi, cmatrix, hundreds of pieces of ansi art, and everything I've tried it with.

As far as powerline goes: I think powerline changes some unicode glyphs for its own purposes, so you would need to grab the powerline .bdf if there is one and compile it to ttystudio's bdf .json format.

Font formats other than .bdf may be supported in the future. This was a weekend project for me and .bdf happened to be the most convenient (and I use terminus in my own terminal so I'm biased).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > without the headaches

> nodejs

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm intrigued that this uses a built-in terminal emulation library instead of doing screen recording, which makes this different from most (all?) other solutions I've seen. Nifty!

</comment><comment><USER16> What's the average size per minute with ttystudio? I'd think that x264 or mp4 compression would be more efficient, but I am not sure if that would be more practical and doable for terminal sessions.

</comment><comment><USER17> So it says that there are no external dependencies yet the package has third party dependencies, what's the deal?

<comment><USER18> Not to mention that it requires node.js, which is quite a massive dependency.</comment></comment>


Show HN: SMaaS – Short Messaging as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.smaasproject.com/

<comment><USER2> Could work in many cases. I've always liked this concept for email in a similar way. I'm already in my email all day on all of my devices and utilize it in a number of ways. Let me stay in my email and you don't have to entice me to your site or app to actively use your service. I like the way [http://www.statlogger.com](http://www.statlogger.com) has integrated both SMS and email in this way. I'm trying something similar with [http://tuduli.com](http://tuduli.com) (email-based to do list). SMS could work, too.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Title's a tad misleading but kind of catchy :)

TL;DR version is a project about solving tech gaps by redesigning useful online services as SMS products. It's a pretty fun UX challenge to do, thought I'd share</comment>


It's a London underground map and a working circuit board. - <AUTHOR> http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/23445/yuri-suzuki-london-underground-circuit-map-radio.html

<comment><USER2> Having worked in an art museum for a while, I gained an appreciation for artwork I never really knew I had.

One area I really liked was using newer technology in unexpected ways -- not just using Photoshop to make a cool image. A good example, and not totally unrelated to this piece, would be the Something Awful GIF exhibit:

[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=348...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3487352)

I love seeing people take something that exists now and molding it. Art has always been about this in some form, but now, with the digital age, manipulating the visual (and auditory) senses has become easier.

One thing that really has come from this age is the imperfections in the digital medium: glitches. We now have the Glitch genre of music and art as well.

<http://www.evanmeaney.com/glitches.html>

All of the way art has evolved, and in such a short period, really catches my fancy for some reason or another. I'd love to go to a museum full of just thing kind of stuff.

<comment><USER3> I hope you would like this:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XPpWE29yeiE)

It's a manifestation of El Lissitzky's idea - digital/electronic library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a design perspective this actually brings Harry Beck's inspiration for modern 'tube' maps full circle.

The 'electrical schematic concept' revolutionized the way these maps were drawn -

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Beck>

</comment><comment><USER5> Really cool, though it might be a little dangerous to use as an actual map in the London Underground.

</comment><comment><USER6> I saw this at the design museum, he also made a denki puzzle radio

[http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/23447/yuri- suzu...](http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/23447/yuri-suzuki- technology-will-save-us-denki-puzzle.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> An interview with the designer is available at <https://vimeo.com/album/2067663/video/48937359>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the most beautiful circuit board I've seen since <http://www.esarcasm.com/wp-content/01-geek-tattoos.jpg>

<comment><USER9> PNSFW</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good Amazon EC2 tutorials for beginners? - <AUTHOR> I'm new to Amazon EC2. Having setup an EC2 instance after following AWS' getting started guide, I'm looking for some simple tutorials to get an experience with the EC2 workflow and recommended frameworks to use in different scenarios.<p>Just to begin, I'm trying to code a program as follows: 1. Query few open datasets (eg. weather datasets) 2. Retrieve the data 3. Save the data on Parse.com to make it searchable <comment><USER2> If I were you I would just become familiar with ubuntu command line commands, and supplement that with reading the official aws documentation (which has a tutorials in it).</comment>


Inside continues to bet on email, the "largest social network" - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/08/inside-the-collection-of-industry-newsletters-continues-to-bet-on-email-the-largest-social-network/ <comment><USER2> "[...] People seem to hate email for the same reasons they once loved it. Email's underlying triumph, the quality that made it revolutionary, was that you could instantly deliver a written message to someone even if they weren't there to receive it. [...] Email is neutral, meaning that anyone can email anyone else with an email address. If you have a person's email address, your message will be delivered no matter who you are - whether the recipient is your oldest friend, your granddaughter, your boss's boss, or Beyoncé. The year the web was born, this flattening effect was astonishing. Anyone in an organization could communicate directly and immediately with anyone else, "regardless of rank" [...]" \- Adrienne LaFrance, [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/what-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/what- comes-after-email/422625/)

I'd like to add one more very important aspect: you don't need to register with any or with yet another service, which will eventually fade into oblivion within a few years - or which will become so ignorant to privacy, like Facebook, that you end up deleting their apps and accounts.

Email is a set of protocol and thus it _will_ outlive any centalised, closed, walled garden.

(BTW this is what decentralisation people should understand: you need to build services using common protocols, not services which can be installed; mastodon is a bad example, activityfeeds or linked data are good ones)

<comment><USER3> > Email is a set of protocol and thus it _will_ outlive any centalised, > closed, walled garden.

What stops email going the way of XMPP?

<comment><USER4> What happened to XMPP? Not trying to be snarky, I still use it. Is there an issue I should be aware of?

<comment><USER5> The big companies gave up on it. Google, Facebook, etc.

Everyone wants their product to be the new hotness. See the copying of stickers, voice messages, and payments from Chinese/Japanese messaging products. Or how Skype became a Snapchat clone.

<comment><USER6> Companies giving up on open standards in favor of their own walled gardens does not really provide a meaningful commentary on the open standards themselves.

XMPP itself is a bit of a mess, but it's a standard with a lot of adoption, which has its own value.

<comment><USER7> A lot of adoption? How many users does XMPP have? I'm glad that XMPP is open, but as a standard, it's useless to me if none of my friends are using services that support it.

<comment><USER8> Not sure about the actual statistics, but XMPP is not just a standard for messaging between people: I think it's also intended as a backend technology for communication behind automated services. So even though there may not be many humans using XMPP as a messaging application, there may be many people who "use it" without noticing (as in, use a website, etc., which relies on XMPP somewhere).

<comment><USER9> I don't have experience with xmpp protocol but how is it better than an http or soap for example?

<comment><USER10> XMPP Core is a protocol at (roughly) the same level as HTTP: it provides basic semantics for sending and getting data, and you can build your own application level protocols on top of it. XMPP IM is an application level protocol built on top of it that does something specific (instant messaging). It could have been built on HTTP as well, but they were designed to work well together.

If we're comparing XMPP core to HTTP, the difference is that XMPP core is async and stateful (like instant messaging sessions) and HTTP is synchronous and stateless (great for fetching documents).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe in US this holds, but things may be different in different places.

I'm a Chinese living in the bay area. I think people here treat E-mails as part of their daily life probably because most of them began to use it before the mobile internet is a thing. On the contrary, in China where the majority internet users are mobile-savvy, WeChat is the new email. Actually E-mails are only for official communications there, and I don't think official communications can be treated as "social networks".

I'm wondering if the same thing is happening in other developing countries where people first touched facebook/whatsapp before even knowing E-mail exists.

<comment><USER12> When you lease an apartment, do you get the details via WhatsApp/WeChat/TodaysChatApp or email? How about receipts, bank statements, anything where deliverability actually matters?

Email is infrastructure; people invest in it. If the only people investing in these chat apps are themselves people, these apps could be ghost towns in years.

In some sense you're right; in another sense, it still seems like email is likely to outlive walled gardens because there's no long-term reason to use them.

In particular, unless there's a decent way to ensure that nobody can take my received messages away from me, i'm unlikely to adopt it for anything but chatting with friends.

<comment><USER13> In China, you will probably do all of the above in WeChat rather than email. Whenever I need to conduct business with someone in China, it's always over WeChat rather than email.

One of the Chinese court systems actually sends notifications through their WeChat account. I believe there are even pilot programs where you can initiate court cases through WeChat as well.

<comment><USER14> As a non-Chinese, this seems... problematic to say the least. What if you don't have WeChat, or prefer not to use it? Are there standards-based alternatives offered? Off-line alternatives, maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most important thing about email is that you get your own, immutable copy of every message. You can keep your copy and know that it will be exactly the same when you look at it next week, it won't have been silently (or even not silently) "corrected".

It's both a blessing and a curse, as anybody who's accidentally emailed the wrong people or hit send before finishing editing knows, but it's the most powerful thing about email (and SMS or even fax for that matter!) - you get your own copy.

<comment><USER2> That is only one important aspect. It's also provider-independent (as long as you own the domain, that is true) and is, by nature, decentralised. (Like really decentralised, even by redundancy provaded by MX record priority in DNS.)

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately very few people have their own domain for email (although they should!).

When companies have kindly sent me their entire customer list (by using CC in place of BCC) I see there are very few domains in it outside of the major free email providers, and those that remain are mostly for their work or small business. A personal or family domain is very rare.

<comment><USER17> I have my own domain, and I really should be using me@myowndomain but I don't. I use gmail. One reason is that so many people and services already know the gmail one so it's hard to change, but the biggest reason is that I don't trust myself nor the place where I registered for my domain to actually maintain the domain name registry and email delivery for say 10 or 20 years without any maintenance. The value of these behemoth services is that they are more or less guaranteed to be more stable than anything you can configure yourself. They are too big to fail. Even just pointing my me@myowndomain to gmail doesn't help here. It just adds a new weakest link to the chain.

<comment><USER16> I've had domains registered for over 20 years already, much longer than gmail has existed.

You can renew a domain for ten years in advance and easily transfer between registrars (and email providers, I use Fastmail), so it's a lot more reliable for the (very) long term than a third-party service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is tangential, but needs to be stated:

What I've learned from email newletters is that Microsoft Outlook needs to die a swift and horrible death.

There is absolutely no good reason why we should have to create email newsletters that require tables for layout.

<comment><USER19> I'm surprised we haven't seen the mIRC's of email yet (or maybe there have but that just didn't work?). mIRC was a popular client for IRC on Windows. It extended IRC with features such as color and formatting in your messages, which was beyond the protocol. A feature like that worked just fine because the color codes were mostly invisible to those who weren't using a client that supported them. In this way, mIRC and other clients could move the protocol forward via graceful degradation without having to wait for a new IRC specification update.

I can imagine the same thing being done to email, where modern features could be built on top of email, which just gracefully degrade if those features aren't available in the client (e.g. something similar to inline source maps, which can decorate parts of the email for clients that support it, but are otherwise out of view for clients that don't). If the feature is useful enough, other clients will adopt them, pushing the protocol forward.

<comment><USER20> That can be done easily enough with @media queries, I suppose. It's possible to send a table-less, fully responsive, modern HTML email that is invisible for less-modern clients. It doesn't require anything special and is possible today.

The problem is that people who send email need it to look a certain way, and leaving older clients behind, just like you'd have done in IRC/mIRC, is not an option. So having the option to use modern features doesn't change anything, at least for email.

<comment><USER21> > The problem is that people who send email need it to look a certain way

I think it's fair to say that actual _people_ don't need any of this. It's businesses and advertisers that would be the overwhelming consumer of these abilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Email is like the one and only vendor/device/programming language independent way of communication.

<comment><USER23> If you want to send plain text, yes. There is a lot of variation among clients when it comes to formatting and layout however.

But then by those constraints you can also count HTTP or SSH or Telnet or any other protocol at that layer.

<comment><USER21> Nobody outside of business and advertising cares how annoying it is to write carefully formatted HTML emails.

For any end user, email is the universal communication mechanism.

<comment><USER23> For text based communication SMS absolutely dwarfs email.

<comment><USER12> In what respect? I don't think i've ever gotten an important SMS outside of personal communications, let alone the 50+ emails I get a day that are considered "important" in some way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A shameless plug, but if you like HN and email, my side-project, [http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/), might be worth a look. Rolling past 50k subscribers this month.

<comment><USER25> > All links are curated by hand from Hacker News.

My fear is that I have a different taste than you. How do you curate it?

<comment><USER24> That is 100% fair, but not an easy question to answer!

I curate by hand using a custom tool that helps me search/filter articles and basically find a mix of things I like along with things that subscribers tend to click on. I tend to avoid "click-bait" type articles with little substance and try to get a good mix of things that were popular with things that should of stayed on the home page more. I've been doing this for seven years now, so I feel like I have something that works... but ultimately you'll have to see if it fits what you're looking for. :)

A recent issue just so you can see an example: [http://mailchi.mp/hackernewsletter/360](http://mailchi.mp/hackernewsletter/360)

<comment><USER26> I've been subscribed for a while, and I think this approach works great! There's plenty of links and sections to click on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I enjoy email, but get frustrated when conversations get long. Here is my favourite quote about email, which explains the issue lovingly:

      --
      A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
      Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
      A: Top-posting.
      Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in email?

<comment><USER28> Run into this sort of problem all the time using Jira service desk, internal view of a ticket is new comments add to the bottom, customer view of the same ticket is that comments add to the top.

Results in everyone using 'please see below' or 'above' and everyone being confused

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So glad to see the pro-email comments! People seem so down on email, I made buttons for those of us who still like it: [http://giantcatco.bigcartel.com/](http://giantcatco.bigcartel.com/)

</comment><comment><USER30> > For others, it might mean one original article blurred out in a newsletter. > (Inside's newsletter CMS is built to handle toggling between paid-for and > free content.)

Anyone know of an open source or paid Newsletter Management CMS? I'm working on a content site like inside, for a very small sports niche, and am thinking of making it a daily newsletter with paid subscriptions, instead of a regular website driven by WordPress or some other CMS, with ads, which would be super annoying and not monetize well these days.

<comment><USER31> Check out [https://www.getrevue.co/](https://www.getrevue.co/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is an interesting alternative to having a newspaper website: a newspaper via email.

Not the first, I'm sure, but possibly the best organised.

<comment><USER33> A... news letter, if you will?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Besides search-ability, one thing I love about email is that I know the sender isn't going to be notified when I read it. Contrast that with FB where I know the sender will see a little "read" notification, and then I have pressure to respond, etc.

</comment><comment><USER35> Google's Inbox is basically an email client reimagined as a social network feed. They might have cocked up g+ (and whatever is was before that), but this one they've done pretty well (as long as you don't think of it as just another email client).

</comment><comment><USER36> If you're more into the social part of networking than newsletters and don't mind a bit of privacy, Snackis might be worth a look:

[https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis](https://github.com/andreas- gone-wild/snackis)

</comment><comment><USER37> I was intrigued, so I just looked at the "Inside Premium" plan -- $10/mo for one newsletter?? You can get a digital subscription to Washington Post and NYT for basically half that!

<comment><USER38> NYT and Netflix are an exceptional value at $10 a month, but those are large scale consumer content. In the B2B content space, any content that saves folks a couple of hours a week is worth a LOT of money.

in this case, $10-25 a month is nothing... really, it's like zero dollars in the context of a business executive making six figures.

<comment><USER37> I'm a business executive making six figures ;)

Still not sure I'd pay for it out of pocket (but who knows!), but I missed the B2B angle on the first read and was reacting to the price point as a news consumer. IMO neither the article nor the premium page does a great job of showing me that kind of value -- the only allusions to B2B value I saw were "research reports" in the article and "let us be your research team" on the page. But I suppose that's because you're still figuring out what premium should be.

Hope you figure it out and wishing you success here. I love me some email.

<comment><USER39> I'm a longtime subscriber to Launch Ticker (their tech/startup newsletter). It lets me very quickly be kept abreast of fundraising and M&A activity relevant to my startup. Saves me about 30 minutes a day of visiting several popular tech news sites, so well worth $10/month to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sorry to be negative but 300k subs for an email newsletter is not a lot.

<comment><USER39> 300k PAID subs is kind of a lot.

<comment><USER41> I re-read the article and it does not explicitly say that the 300K are paid subscribers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Been a subscriber to a few of their newsletters for a some months now and have to say the content is great. Can't wait to see what else the Inside team rolls out.

</comment><comment><USER43> e-mail seems to be dying fast. I have several friends (all under 30) who are only reachable via facebook or SMS; e-mail is an afterthought.

<comment><USER44> Even in a professional setting?

<comment><USER43> Define "professional;" inter-office communication, e-mail still wins.

Independent contractors I've hired all prefer text.

The gym I'm a member of uses a facebook group rather than e-mail for communcating things like changes to the regular hours or special events.</comment></comment></comment>


U.K. police allegedly arrest Lizard Squad hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/crime/lizard-squad-vinnie-omari-arrested/

<comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/latest-security- ne...](http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/latest-security-news/second- member-of-hacker-group-lizard-squad-allegedly-arrested/), which points to this.</comment>


MBA or Learn to Code? - <AUTHOR> http://www.lindventures.com/blog/2012/01/13/mba-or-learn-to-code/

<comment><USER2> This article bothered me. First off, it seems like a false dichotomy: the ideal situation is to have the hard skills afforded by a computer science education (something that irked me as the article seemed to equivocate 'learning to code' with 'knowing computer science') while having the soft skills and networking afforded by an MBA. (This is to speak nothing of the assumption that great developers suddenly have those 'lightbulb moments' -- I know amazing programmers who have no desire to think outside the box.)

The second issue I had with the article demonstrated the kind of mindset that comes from undervaluing 'soft skills' and the MBA education (as engineers tend to do) -- "If you build an excellent product with product/market fit then people will buy it." Obviously there are exceptions, but in the general realm of business, this is laughably naive -- there's a reason that marketing expenses (especially for startups who compete more for mindshare than monthly fees) are so high. Amazing products fail all the time.

I certainly don't mean to undervalue the ability to code: I'm a CS/Business double major, and without a doubt the CS degree is opening way more doors than the BBA. But, just as you're not going to hire an MBA to 'build stuff for the web', you're not going to -- or shouldn't -- hire a software developer to spearhead business development or marketing.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right - horses for courses. At the end of the day its about having a balanced team that can execute across product and business. As an individual you can't be all things to all people. As a founder my strength is in product management and driving a vision, although I have a computer science degree, I choose not to code because I prefer to drive product and business and hire people who are way better than me to code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do both but don't expect that you're going to 'learn to code' and then one day be done in the same sense that one day you will be done with getting your MBA.

Coding is very much like learning a real language. You most likely are not going to be incredibly useful or valuable with it within the first few years and you can improve yourself in it endlessly. Similar to how an aspiring author is not going to be able to do good work when they are just starting to learn English. In other words, people who take some courses on codeacademy and think they have learned to code have essentially learned how to put sentences together - not write an engaging book. (Not knocking code academy - its a good thing)

So in that regard if your aspirations are to boost your income or move up in your career then an MBA is going to most likely be a much better shot. If you naturally gravitate towards software development then do that because you'll get enjoyment out of it but if your looking for a golden ticket it is certainly not that.

<comment><USER4> I agree. It's not like you finish an Apress book and all of a sudden you're a coder. MBA gives you have a degree that will most likely grant you access to management-type jobs. It can take years of programming before you become useful to anybody...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to burst a bunch of bubbles, but don't bother learning to code if you haven't already taken computer science courses, and you want to create your own startup right now or really soon. If you are considering an MBA, then go for that instead.

Someone saying they want to learn how to code to form a startup is like someone saying they want to open a restaurant by memorizing recipes. Memorizing recipes is only 1% of what it takes to be a viable chef.

Besides knowing the ingredients:

You have to know how to mix the ingredients properly.

You have to know how to select the better quality ingredients.

You have to know how to actually cook the food properly without burning it, etc.

As the recipes get more complex, you have to know how to time each aspect of the recipe so that different aspects of the dishes don't cook before others, and they're left cooling.

As you cook for more and more people, you have to know how scale your techniques for larger batches of food.

You have to know how to scale your suppliers, etc.

The exact same thing applies to programming. Learning how to "code" is almost meaningless. To be useful, and to actually build things that won't fail, you need to get experience so much more experience. If the person in question is actually _interested_ in coding, and loves technology and loves the thrill of building stuff, then go ahead. If the point is to create a startup and be more "useful", then don't bother, because it's too hard, especially if you're starting from ground zero. It takes YEARS of coding experience, working 40 hrs a week, to be able to build something viable.

If you want to create a startup in the very near future, then hire the people you need, and concentrate on the vision, there's no shame in that. Be warned that _managing_ programmers and programming projects is also a skill that takes years to develop as well.

If your time horizon is in the next few years, then roll up your sleeves and start now.

<comment><USER4> You can also equate it to "I want to perform at Carnegie Hall...so I'll learn piano today."

<comment><USER6> That's sometimes how people now performing at Carnegie Hall started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My first start-up required some coding, which I did with my limited coding skills. But I didn't know accounting, finance, strategy, and things like that.

So, knowing I would start new companies again, I went for an MBA. I got one at Columbia. Before starting I wondered if I should learn to code instead.

I have zero regrets. On the contrary, it was one of my best growth and learning experiences in life (and most fun).

In all fairness, I would have had zero regrets learning to code because I always find ways to love what I do. I learned the hard skills of business, but I learned a lot more, in particular through classes like leadership, general management, negotiation, sales, and other so-called soft-skills.

I learned emotional intelligence, self-awarenss, the value of relationships.

I am a much better businessman for business school than I would have been otherwise.

For the author to say an MBA "is an expensive break from reality that will yield you a strong network and theoretical insight into the business world, but until you actually get out there and experience the business world for yourself, it is still just theory" implies he doesn't understand the value of things outside his immediate experience.

As his experience broadens I would bet he writes something different.

<comment><USER8> I can't agree more. I understand such thinking in the tech community (having been a software developer myself for 3 years). The value offered in a good MBA program is under-rated. This might be partly (or wholly) because of each of us would having encountered a 'not so good' manager in our life. There might have been instances where we feel that 'the guys with MBA who decided on this thing is dumb and so this proves that MBA has no value'. I have been there as well. However, when I did my MBA, I did see the value in the program. Of course there were 'some' dumb classmates who would eventually end up managing smarter employees but that doesn't mean that the MBA program has absolutely no value. Not fair to stereotype I feel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you have this dilemma, you probably aren't meant to code... Get an MBA.

<comment><USER10> I am an MBA and I agree 100% with the comment above. I enjoy dabbling in code just for fun and I enjoy the company of hacker types, and I enjoy technology in general: all reasons why I enjoy hanging out on HN.

But I am not a coder and have no interest in ever doing it professionally.

If you want to do code based startups, then just learn to code.

If you enjoy playing around with business models and having access to a lot of resources earlier on in your career AND you can at least tolerate corporate politics, then get an MBA.

Furthermore, don't bother with an MBA outside of the top 10 or 20 programs, They're mostly useless.

Another thing: don't expect to learn anything in an MBA program. The value of an MBA is as a credibility enhancer, a networking assist, and way to learn what areas of business you might like.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree - if you are going to get an MBA, get a brand name MBA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The kinds of doors that an MBA opens tend to be boring to folks who love to code, and vice versa. I say this as someone with an MBA degree -- acquired rather hastily, and for which I have occasional bouts of buyer's remorse -- who taught himself to code, but wishes that he'd just gone the pure-code path from the beginning.

If you want to be an investment banker or a consultant, and you aspire to nothing outside of those two streams, get the MBA and have at it. For almost any other endeavor imaginable -- be it professional or personal -- you're better off learning to code.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apples and oranges. I felt I needed to do both if only because they are now essential and necessary business skills.

Disagree with the comments about "if you have this dilemma, you probably aren't meant to code" and "don't bother with an MBA outside of the top 10 or 20 programs, they're mostly useless", but that's just my opinion/experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> I did my undergrad in finance/economics and instead of the MBA I quit my banking job and took 2 semesters of CS courses. I also taught myself python/django and have now launched a beta for my first web app. It's hard work, but totally doable in 12-18 months time.

<comment><AUTHOR> awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> when you compare the cost to benefit ratio of an MBA program to learning to code, the choice is obvious: learn to code. The only exception is if you're going to an M7 MBA program.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In fact... I would rather invest the $100-$160k+ from an MBA in bootstrapping a good internet idea.

Get that to finding and you'll get a $2-3mm+ valuation, you've created more value than a job will ever create, you are in control etc... But that's just me.

<comment><USER3> Sorry but those are a lot of assumptions your making there in the chain of events.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, but don't all entrepreneurs make insanely illogical assumptions when they start something?

<comment><USER15> Of course. And 90% of entrepreneurs fail.

Quite a bit of underestimating what it takes to run a business flying around here. Few people who actually run a business will describe the process as easy, mostly because the challenges are endless, beyond "learning to code". But don't confuse "getting an MBA" with running a business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, I've done it before from bedroom to acquisition. I never said it was easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm doing both.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is ideal if you have the time and money.</comment></comment>


The Slack Bubble and the Professional Instant Messaging Market - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/the-slack-bubble-and-the-reality-of-the-professional-instant-messaging-market-c5c91ef6e7cd <comment><USER2> What I find strange about chat is that standards (that people use) have not arisen and that technical progress seems to be glacial.

I first saw chat on VAX/VMS machines in high school in the 1980s. Circa 1990 there were many incompatible email systems, but by 2000 everything was going over SMTP.

In the meantime we've had ICQ, AIM, Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Paltalk, Slack, IRC and I am sure. The one thing they have in common is that they seem to have almost the same feature set and haven't really improved over time.

There is a standard in the form XMPP which seems to have market penetration into military and law enforcement markets, but almost everybody in the enterprise is using Slack while privately bitching about how it doesn't really integrate well with their systems. (e.g. it looks like it integrates well, getting 80% of the way is easy, 15% is hard, but the last 5% is impossible because of Slack's business model.)

People say that Slack is searchable, but the Startup de jour in 2019 is always complaining that it can't find documents and every week they add some new place to store documents on the hope that they'll be able to find them.

One of these days they will see the irony in this, but at that point you will see platforms move to make federated search and/or indexing infeasible.</comment>


The Buzzer - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76 <comment><USER2> The article speculates that its use as a way of communicating regular instructions to the military is _"unlikely considering the station transmitted the simple buzz tone for at least 15 years before any words or numbers were broadcast."_ Yet: _"The station transmits a buzzing sound that lasts 0.8 seconds, pausing for 1–1.3 seconds, and repeating 21–34 times per minute."_

Given that the transmission even of the "buzz tone" isn't entirely regular, couldn't messages merely be modulated into these varying patterns? The rare portions of speech could just be a red herring.

<comment><USER3> There are a dozen ways to encode a message in that buzz if you don't mind the bandwidth being poor. That is, it will take a long time to send a message of any length. The buzz might also be a cover for the message.

There are other considerations. First, it's essential to have a variety of media for transmitting messages. They need to be set up well in advance, so as to be readily available when an operation is set up. By staking out a multitude of such options, an agency is planning well for the future.

Next, by spreading their operations out over more channels of comm, they also minimize the risk when one is compromised. One never knows when a channel will be compromised, and at some point some of them will be.

By using a variety of channels, including radio, packages (diplomatic and not), tourists, etc., and each channel having sub channels, such as different radio frequencies, different encoding methods, breaking one such method doesn't afford much understanding of the others.

<comment><USER3> The end result is a plethora of channels with little real traffic on them, mostly "reserved for future use". But to avoid traffic analysis ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis> ) dummy traffic fills them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :)

Great submission.

On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

<comment><USER5> If you haven't heard it, The Conet Project [<http://www.archive.org/details/ird059>] is a collection of the numbers stations recordings. Pretty neat and eerie.

<comment><USER6> The Buzzer can be heard on disc 4, track 32 of the Conet Project. The entire collection is a free download.

Wilco's Poor Places uses a sample from track 4 of disc 1, which also gave the title to the album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like either someone decided to play a prank or by some odd coincidence The Buzzer went offline just now: [http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/06/032235/Mysterious- Ra...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/06/032235/Mysterious-Radio- Station-UVB-76-Goes-Offline)

<comment><USER8> "Chances are, it's a power failure. The area reportedly had a significant storm yesterday. It's possible that the power failed and that they didn't have enough fuel or battery capacity or whatever to keep it running during an extended outage. That would also neatly explain why it reportedly came back and has reportedly died again."

[http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1676500&cid=324...](http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1676500&cid=32473652)

Sounds like it might not be a dead-man's switch if it just takes a large storm to knock it out.

<comment><USER9> When I heard about this long ago, I assumed it was just a mechanism they used to remotely monitor some equipment was still running without having to have staff on premises there. Probably remotely detecting power outage or damage was precisely what this is sort of thing was for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "On June 5, 2010 Chuck Norris breached the compound's walls and shut down the transmitter"

don't be a vandal

</comment><comment><USER11> This is for ionosphere research, leverages doppler shifting of the broadcast signal.

<http://elpub.wdcb.ru/journals/rjes/v10/2007ES000227/2.shtml>

Scroll down to "Doppler Radio Sounding of the Ionosphere", note the broadcast frequency.

</comment><comment><USER12> You are assuming it is a "Buzz" because that's what your ears "Hear" after it comes out of a speaker and after being processed by radio receiving equipment of a certain design.

Perhaps the "Buzz" is not meant to be a sound anyone hears. Maybe it is something more like a dialup modem tone that is acted upon by something other than a shortwave receiver. Maybe there is more to this noise than just buzzing. Maybe the buzzing is a spurious side effect of some other process going on.

Old dialup in audio and visual waveform: <http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=16475>

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

<comment><USER13> Aphex Twin style? <http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php>

<comment><USER12> Very interesting. The old transmitters used to work on AM only, then they came up with SSB. Maybe there is an even deeper layer available that can be encoded. Like putting the entire Cat-In-The-Hat book on one of the cats whiskers in "Songs about my Cats". Isolate just one whisker and then run another process on it. Maybe use shades of color vs soundwaves. This is intriguing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR What happens if you try to knock on their door? Did anyone try this?

<comment><USER14> Yeah I thought the same thing. It's not terribly far from major cities and it's been there for 30 years, somebody must have tried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Clearly they ditched the radio transmission and switched to transmitting secret messages over the Buzz API.

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://www.archive.org/details/ird059> is a great archive of numbers station recordings

<comment><USER16> <http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm> is the official page - note the challenge a bit down the page

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> this sounds like viral marketing for JJ Abrams' new movie.

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines> is so bad ass. The US and Russian Navy were using the Earth an antenna to communicate with their submarines.

<comment><USER19> You can also transmit usable amounts of electrical power using the ground as part of the circuit: [http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3696.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3696.en.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> for more info see <http://www.brogers.dsl.pipex.com/page5.html>

</comment><comment><USER21> It will be interesting to see whether use of these stations declines over the next few decades. Surely global adoption of the internet has made it the easiest place to hide clandestine communication?

<comment><USER22> It's a question of where connectivity is available and how easy it is to track. For example, how do you replace a submarine surfacing somewhere to receive a pre-scheduled radio transmission?

<comment><USER23> They use VLF/ELF to send "message pending" and/or some other very short predefined signals. Russian military transmitter (ZEVS) is still operating on 82Hz frequency and uses Earth as an antenna.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> i remember coming across conet before via wilco, fwiw. curious subject.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Hotel_Foxtrot>

</comment><comment><USER25> This is the sort of stuff that makes hacker news awesome. Thanks for posting.

<comment><USER25> Why does this keep getting downvoted ? I was fascinated by this article, I've never heard of this before and was expressing genuine excitement.

<comment><USER26> If you like the article, vote it up. If you have something interesting to say about the article, write a comment.

Comments praising the article without adding anything interesting to the discussion are frequently downvoted.

Telling _why_ you liked the article will likely to get a better response than merely affirming your fascination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another fascinating, possibly related link based on the hypothesis that this is a dead-man's switch:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)>

<comment><USER28> So, which of you wise guys did this? <http://imgur.com/HIJCj.png>

<comment><USER29> In the comments everyone is civil here on HN, but as soon as they're on Wikipedia...

<comment><USER30> Or anywhere else for that matter. I've talked to a bunch of people who have posted apps for review here and had to spend the better part of the next 2 days filtering out obscene submissions on their sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnRPZOUVhJ4>

</comment><comment><USER32> did you see this in the description:

On June 5, 2010 Chuck Norris breached the compound's walls and shut down the transmitter.

<comment><USER33> Yes. It's someone trying (and failing) to be funny. It has been reverted a couple of times already.

<comment><USER34> No, it's clearly some conspiracy involving spies and movie stars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> L O S T

</comment><comment><USER36> Have there been sightings of a polar bear wandering around?

Maybe a crazy French woman?</comment>


Geeks and Tweaks: Computer Programming Contests Teach Us About Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/geeks-and-tweaks-what-computer-programming-contests-can-teach-us-about-innovation/

<comment><USER2> To what extend does the "copyright" applies to "derivative work" in software?

I am very interested in the answer because I am writing a derivative of the initial Ward Wiki and I'd rather know to what extend I should ask the permission to Ward Cunningham.

Well... maybe it is actually better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission... ... so, I added "a tribute to Ward Cunningham" to the homepage of simpliwiki.com . Cause he is the pioner, But I'm a Tweak, I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here</comment>


Getting you addicted: game mechanics - <AUTHOR> http://jmtame.posterous.com/getting-you-addicted-game-mechanics

<comment><USER2> * badges/points * check-ins * leader boards * mayorships * simplicity * nostalgia

Hacker News has at least 3 of these.</comment>


Debunking Dvorak vs QWERTY myths - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors/1 <comment><USER2> Previous discussions can be found at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438124>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1062284>

The QWERTY vs Dvorak argument is silly; both were designed at a time before any research had been performed into typing ergonomics, and the only reason to pick one or the other is largely based on hearsay and rumor.

If you'd like an ergonomic keyboard layout, try one designed to be efficient for common use cases, such as:

Colemak < <http://colemak.com/> >: More efficient than QWERT and Dvorak, while preserving common QWERTY-based keyboard shortcuts.

QGMLWB < <http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization> >: Highly efficient, at the cost of sacrificing keyboard shortcut muscle memory.

Or, design your own with carpalx: <http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/>

<comment><USER3> > The QWERTY vs Dvorak argument is silly; both were designed at a time before > any research had been performed into typing ergonomics, and the only reason > to pick one or the other is largely based on hearsay and rumor.

I grew up using my own odd way of typing with several of my fingers, but didn't type by touch. When I started studying comp sci I decided to finally learn to type properly. After a year or so of typing qwerty I had pain in my wrists and fingers.

Obviously I couldn't afford any injuries before my career even started, so I read up on dvorak and the decided the reasoning behind it was sound. I switched and it was one or two weeks before I could type very well at all, and a month before I was what I call proficient. Since then no more pain.

So whether my fingers actually travel less or not, I don't really care. Something about it is better ergonomically, for me. It's been 5-6 years since then without any pain or discomfort (apart from 20+ hour sessions, and I deserved exactly what I got, that's just dumb).

AFAIK Dvorak wrote studies on this for some US gov't body, around WW1 or WW2 iirc. I haven't looked for them but to call his research hearsay and rumour is not very fair. You need to back that up.

<comment><USER4> > You need to back that up.

Besides presenting us with an unfalsifiable anecdote, you obviously haven't read the article. It's _about_ backing that claim up:

 _"Fast forward now to 1936, when August Dvorak ... patented the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard...

The standard telling of [the Navy Study] story turns out to be false in almost every important respect....

[Dvorak et al] compared students of different ages and abilities (for example, students learning Dvorak in grades 7 and 8 at the University of Chicago Lab School were compared with students learning QWERTY in conventional high schools)...

Even in their studies, however, the evidence is mixed as to whether students learning Dvorak retain an advantage, since the differences seemed to diminish as training progressed."_

<comment><USER5> No, the article is addressing a different claim about Dvorak from the one sjs made. (Article: Can one type faster on a Dvorak than a QWERTY keyboard? sjs: Is typing on a Dvorak keyboard easier on the wrists and fingers than typing on a QWERTY keyboard?)

For what it's worth, I've heard a lot of anecdotal claims that Dvorak is better in terms of pain, and scarcely anyone claiming it's better for speed. This might, of course, be because the main thing that makes someone switch from QWERTY to Dvorak is that they've started having pain and are searching for something that might stop it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have converted to the Dvorak in Aug 09, to see if the Dvorak suits me. I averaged about 70 words per minute on QWERTY and got back to this speed in Dvorak after about 4 months. I don't buy the claim that a person can switch to the Dvorak in 25 days. Took me almost that long just to be able to type with the Dvorak without looking at the keyboard. The DVAssist program for Windows was very helpful in the transition stage.

Wikipedia claims the fastest typist in the world uses a Dvorak. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard> so you draw your own conclusions about speed from this

I am sticking to the Dvorak because I don't feel as much strain on my wrist as compared to using a QWERTY. I have had a pain in my right wrist which hasn't occurred since I started the Dvorak. (Note: It could also be due to the slowdown in speed during the transition process).If I get an increase in speed it is a bonus.

A small bonus on using the Dvorak is that I don't need to bother about people looking at my keyboard when I am typing my password.

Cons: 1) Pair programming is a pain if the other guy doesn't use Dvorak. Having to switch keyboard layouts often isn't fun, unless of course your workplace allows you to install DVAssist 2) When using outside terminals, such as Internet cafe, it is highly unlikely you are going to be able to switch keyboard layout. 3) On a Mac, the shortcuts still follow the QWERTY keyboard, so the Apple-C key is really an Apple J key.

Signed A QWERTY keyboard typist for 25 years

<comment><USER7> I've been using a Dvorak layout for about 7 years now. I converted for efficiency; at that time I had no wrist or hand problems. Within the last couple years, intense typing sessions have give me lasting pain in my hands (mostly emanating from my pinky fingers). The Dvorak layout actually seems to be worse in this regard (pinky strain) than Qwerty, so I've switched to using a Kinesis keyboard, which has helped somewhat. Though nothing seems to help like backing off of typing for a while, and avoiding long laptop typing sessions.

<comment><USER8> Looks like the carpalx software (mentioned above) can be tuned to find you a layout that doesn't work the pinkies so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article is mostly about speed, not efficiency. If you care about speed only, then many will argue it's a toss-up. If you care about efficiency over your typing lifetime, then I'd strongly suggest Dvorak has a big advantage.

Small slightly loaded example. Try it yourself on any body of text: I just typed your title on Dvorak and QWERTY layouts. The top line are the keys that are on the home row of each, so fingers don't have to move to type them. The second are those you have to move for. Ignores shift.

"debunking dvorak vs qwerty myths at reason.com"

Dvorak: (home row first)

deunindoasetthsateasono

bkgvrkvqwrymyr.cm

So in this contrived example, the home row has slightly more letters on it than other rows.

QWERTY: (home row first)

dkdakshsaas

ebuninvorvmyttreon.com

Here, the home row has far fewer of the letters required, so _most_ of the time you have to move your fingers. Oh, _and_ I removed QWERTY because it was just unfair. Even if you remove the 'reason.com', Dvorak is more efficient. So try it yourself for a few sentences. I suggest you'll find Dvorak has far less finger movement in most cases. Maybe someone will code up a test, scanning HN for home row keys :)

Is it for everyone? No. Like Sarah Palin, everyone has a different opinion. If you're happy with QWERTY, use it - there are generally far better things to learn about. Out of 4 friends who tried Dvorak, two of us kept it. I use Programmer Dvorak because it makes coding nicer, but that's even more hassle.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had bad RSI, then took a couple weeks, and switched to Dvorak (it took a bit longer to get proficient in Vim again though). Anyhow, RSI problems were gone, and never returned.

So, regardless of any debunking myths, it prevented my pain from ever coming back again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or maybe the pain went away for some reason unrelated to Dvorak, and would have gone away on its own even if you hadn't switched.

<comment><USER11> It seems unlikely given how many people report that same benefit. On this thread alone, there are 4 people that report it's much easier on the wrists (to which I'll add myself - I'm a Dvorak user and found it physically much easier to type on than Qwerty) and 1 person that reports it's worse.

<comment><USER12> Ouch, I don't know the english word for it, but you're making a severe error by assuming that pro's and cons are as likely to report here. If you really want to know whether it's coincidental or not you'd have to phone people chosen at random from the total population (just humans, just americans or just american programmers for example)

<comment><USER11> "Selection bias" is the term you're looking for. ;-)

And yes, I know I'm making it, and choosing to make it anyway. Mostly because it squares with my own experience (there's a term for that too: "anecdotal evidence"), and because we don't have any evidence the _other_ way.

<comment><USER4> _it squares with my own experience_

The placebo effect can make _cancer_ go away for a while. Vanishing RSI is trivial.

You're especially at risk because you've already sunk time and effort into retraining yourself, and have made a conscious decision to separate yourself from everybody else. That's Big Magic, psychosomatically speaking.

None of this means you have to go back to QWERTY (or for that matter, that QWERTY is any less broken). But if Dvorak's research really was shoddy and self-serving, and you want to take care of the hands you presumably use to earn a living, wouldn't it be a good idea at this point to look into other keyboard layouts with better-documented benefits?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html>

<comment><USER9> I'd really like to find some research on people that were proficient with Dvorak first and then were asked to learn QWERTY. I suspect the take-up (even for those desperately wanting to be different) would be lower! There's quite a cost to re-learning how to type, so let's not discount that some people _still_ think it's worth it.

Personally, I did it because a couple of my mates were still happy with it after a year and it started making sense on day 1, before any Big Magic kicked in :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would like Liebowitz and Margolis work more if they'd actually done any research. If you bother to go find the original _Journal of Law and Economics_ paper, you will see that the paper consists only of hand-waving criticism, and has no original research. I suppose a paper of this form has a place, but you'd think that in the intervening 20 years, someone, someonwhere would try to confirm or deny.

But that hasn't happened, as far as I know.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a funny webzine I found about Dvorak: <http://DVzine.org/zine/01-toc.html></comment>


Making Death Useful - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.namar0x0309.com/2013/02/making-death-useful/

<comment><AUTHOR> I have reworded the title and some parts of text to refocus on subject matter and remove the concept of death as that would require a separate piece.

Excuse this submission's misleading title, as i'll be resubmitting with new edits/title.

Thanks!</comment>