The story of TextMate, VIM and SublimeText - <AUTHOR> http://progfu.com/post/16407410728/the-story-of-textmate-vim-and-sublimetext <comment><USER2> Title is incorrect, should be: "A story about me".

This seems kind of grouchy I know, but I am getting a bit tired of these wildly overblown titles attached to very thin blog posts. I knew what I'd see when I clicked the link and was just as disappointed as I'd expected to be. I guess I have a masochistic streak.

The actual stories of those three editors, their authors and how those stories intertwine would probably be pretty interesting. I guess I'll have to wait for This American Life to tackle it.

<comment><USER3> maybe <http://thisdeveloperslife.com/> can do a show about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Vim has the keyboard entry conquered. Emacs may come close enough, but if we are talking photo finishes to races, then I think Vim always edges out emacs by a hair or more (but still misses a lot which Emacs provides.) We will have to get a totally different interface for entering text before Vim is knocked off its perch.

Emacs has a much better Vim mode for me than SublimeText 2, but neither can really give you Vim. The deeper you are in the Vim rabbit hole, the less likely you will be to return to try anything else.

Emacs wins out against everyone for scripting.

There is one other reason that I knew would always keep me in the Vim and Emacs world. At first I couldn't figure out what it was that bothered me about SublimeText 2. Vim and Emacs is open source! I don't see this point mentioned in arguments for or against but this is important to me.

<comment><USER5> The thing about Emacs is really its extensibility. There is simply no other text editor out there that can open a single C/C++ source file and automatically infer all tags (even of included headers) without any kind of project set up. That is simply awesome and to my knowledge only available with semantic-mode in Emacs.

Vim can use ctags or cscope or clang, but that is not the same thing. These are great tools, but they need to be set up with the correct include paths and they need to be run regularly to be useful.

To my mind, that is what makes Emacs so unique and powerful and that is something that really, no other program can hope to accomplish in a short time frame (sorry, Sublime Text).

That said, Vim hands down beats Emacs when it comes to pure text editing speed. It's keybindings are just a lot more powerful and flexible than Emacs's. And of course, that is what evil-mode is for. It emulates a subset of Vim in Emacs. It is by far the best simulation of Vim I have ever seen (judging from ViEmu, Viper, Vintage, Vico and Vimpulse), but it is not the real thing. Plus, there are lots of great Vim plugins that do not work in evil-mode.

I, for one, use Emacs and Evil and I am happy with it.

And I _hope_ that Sublime Text will provide a potent entry-level drug for the next generation. But really, without open sourcing it at some point, I can't see it catching up to The Big Two.

<comment><USER6> > There is simply no other text editor out there that can open a single C/C++ > source file and automatically infer all tags (even of included headers) > without any kind of project set up.

The SublimeClang plugin for Sublime will do this, pretty much. You may have to add a few paths to its global or per-project config file, but that's pretty obvious considering that it needs them to parse referenced files. It works extremely well, giving you autocompletion of any C/C++ symbol as well as automatic compilation error indicators.

<comment><USER5> That is precisely what I am saying: Other editors interface with some tools, you configure them, they call some external process, they have to be run regularly...

Well, Emacs has that stuff built-in, and better. That is precisely the way in which Emacs is more powerful than Sublime or Vim.

<comment><USER6> I would rather have just the plugin.

The modularity means that the core application itself is small and simple, with fewer moving parts than something huge like Emacs. It also means that I have the freedom _not_ to install something that would otherwise come bundled with/tangled with the app. Everybody wins.

SublimeClang requires a minimal amount of config, is dead easy to install, and it relies on external toolset _by design_ , because building everything in would be insane. I very much prefer that Sublime does _not_ come with this functionality.

(I don't know what you mean by "have to be run regularly", btw. SublimeClang can run continuously and transparently.)

<comment><USER7> You misunderstood the parent post.

Emacs doesn't come with everything built-in. But when you extend Emacs, you usually do it entirely in Emacs with Elisp. Emacs libraries rarely call external tools - they usually implement the tools inside Emacs.

<comment><USER6> I don't think I misunderstood the parent. The parent heavily implies that Emacs' semantic mode simply works _out of the box_.

I have no idea if that's the case, but if it's not, there is no functional difference between that and any other editor, where you need to _install a separate plugin_.

Sublime itself can be extended with Python. To me, that's a better solution than a proprietary (albeit Lisp-based) language.

Whether those plugins "call external tools" or not is of little importance, although relying, in a modular fashion, on pre-existing software is more Unixy.

I'm sure Emacs' tag system is powerful, but personally, I would rather have something like SublimeClang, which is built on a high-quality, highly maintained C/C++ _compiler toolchain_ that retain type information and so on, than some kind of tag system based on a superficial parser designed purely for code inference.

<comment><USER5> You did indeed misunderstand my post. I was not arguing about the relative merits of clang vs some-other-tool.

I was simply saying that Emacs can open a C++ file and have all tags and completions right there, no setup required. No external application required either. That is the power of Emacs and that is a power not available to Sublime Text (unless you write your own C++ parser in Python).

You see, clang is an awesome tool and I'm sure its integration in Sublime Text is very good. But by its design it can not look for headers in appropriate locations without someone explicitly telling it to do so. Also it can not parse partially erroneous code. Both these actions are just not sensible actions for a compiler.

And that is why no external tool can ever provide the integration and practicability of a tool purposely built just for parsing code for Emacs in the same way cscope can not match the integration of Visual Studio's C# parser in Visual Studio.

<comment><USER6> I am not arguing the merits of Clang versus some other tool, either.

I am arguing against the claim that a monolithic app like Emacs that bundles a specific tool is somehow qualitatively superior to any other tool which does not bundle a specific tool.

> But by its design it can not look for headers in appropriate locations

I think that's a perfectly valid design. I would rather want to spend 10 seconds adding a path to my project's config file than spend an eternity with just ctags. :-)

> Also it can not parse partially erroneous code.

Of course it can. Clang recovers from partially invalid code just fine.

For example, if I do something like "typedef enum { a, b, 3 } foo bar;" (constituting two syntax errors), it will still correctly autocomplete "foo" as well as its values, even though the type is strictly incomplete.

<comment><USER5> Emacs is anything but monolothic. I think that is what our argument boils down to.

Emacs is a Lisp virtual machine and someone happens to have implemented da rather splendid text editor in it. Claiming that Emacs is monolithic is about as meaningful as calling the assorted programs that make up a Unix environment monolithic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a former user of both TextMate and Sublime Text.

The TextMate story everybody knows, it was good at first but got stale with no updates. I feel Sublime Text is fantastic, but after reading some article on Janus (<https://github.com/carlhuda/janus>) I switched over to MacVim.

After fiddling around with Vim for a while I can honestly say I'll need some serious convincing to switch to another editor. I've always stayed away from Vim except through occasional need for text editing through SSH or something, because out of the box it doesn't feel quite right. But after Janus sets up some sane defaults it feels great, and after putting a few hours in to learn all the shortcuts and study plugins I have never felt as productive.

I feel like Janus is sort of training wheels though cause it has a lot of plugins I don't use etc, but it's great to start and as I use Vim more I reckon I will start to manage my own .vimrc.

P.S., bcvi is so awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> The good thing about janus is that it also provides a simple framework for customizing your plugins, even if you change all of the original settings.

I've made my own fork (<https://github.com/darthdeus/janus>) and basically removed 90% of the default plugins and settings and repalced them with my own, but I still use it for the Rake task and nice directory structure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This could be my story, even though in the end (after Textmate, then Vim), Emacs tempted me more than Sublime Text and I eventually switched back to it from Sublime Text 2.

There is too much accredited awesomeness in Emacs (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Vim), to be overthrown by a newcomer. That said, Sublime Text is very worthy competition and given a few years, it might actually live up to those two dinosaurs.

</comment><comment><USER9> Fast fuzzy search across your entire project is called grep. Why do we keep rediscovering tools that have existed for such a long time?

Edit: I suppose people keep rediscovering these tools because even if they use vim, they often times insist on running it as a stand-alone GUI application, rather than in a terminal emulatir where the built-in task switching/multitasking makes it very easy to run complex shell commands, move files around, use your VCS and switch back to your editor. Another benefit is that now you can have the exact same work environment over ssh as locally.

<comment><USER10> First, grep requires specify intermediate characters. For instance, to match SublimeText, you need the regular expression 'S.*B', while in Sublime you could just type 'SB'. (Neither is better, they just serve different purposes.)

Second, grep is not comparable, it's a different tool. For instance, if you would want to open the openCorpus function in the file MainWindow.cpp, in Sublime you'd just type "MWcp@opC", and you are there. While typing the pane and window dynamically update, allowing you to narrow down the 'search space' quickly.

Grep is for searching for text strings in files in the shell or shell scripts. Sublime's Goto Anything is for searching files and symbols in a text editor.

Edit: I like and use both vim and ST2, but neither grep, ctags, nor Peepopen provide the smooth experience of 'Goto Anything'. Of course, conversely vim also has many things to like over ST2 (such as modeful editing that is definitely better than ST2's Vintage).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> SublimeText is great, but after using it for a few weeks I went back to Komodo Edit. The reason is because I do a lot of PHP work, and Komodo Edit by far has the best PHP autocomplete I've found.

There's a plugin for SublimeText that supposedly imports the same autocomplete engine that Komodo uses. In my experience, however, it was slow, rarely worked right, and was actively broken for CSS autocompletes (which I also need frequently).

So it's back to Komodo Edit for me, at least until SublimeText gets its autocomplete act together. Which is a shame because I really liked ST as an editor.

</comment><comment><USER7> If the author could switch that easily to SublimeText, he wasn't properly using Vim.

<comment><USER12> Care to elaborate on that? I'm fairly entry-level when it comes to vim and I'd be interested to hear some good examples of what it can do over something like sublime.

<comment><USER7> I'm fairly proficient with both Vim and Emacs and I can _feel_ it when I'm not using either editor. For example, I'm using a browser on Windows and I want to jump to a line's end. In Emacs (or on OS X which uses Emacs shortcuts), that's Ctrl-E and in Vim that's $. On Windows, I fumble with the arrow keys or start reaching for the mouse.

When you really know a fundamental text editor, that sensation of helplessness gets worse and worse when you can't use the shortcuts that are burned into your fingers.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest reading the StackOverflow answer "Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi."

<http://stackoverflow.com/a/1220118>

<comment><USER13> That just means that you don't know the hotkeys, does it? It does not suggest that Emacs or Vim is objectively better.

<comment><USER14> The conventional end-of-line hotkey for Windows applications is the End key, which on a fairly traditional keyboard like the one I am typing this on requires that my right hand move several inches to the right and find that key on the island; I can't touch type this effectively and it compares poorly to C-e or even $ (itself not especially a convenient operation). Gnome and the Mac don't have this problem because both of them largely retain the simpler Emacs style keystrokes; Firefox does have this problem (at least here) and it pisses me off every time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't recommend Sublime Text 2 enough to do it justice. Such a fantastic editor.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would like to try any of these if I am not so addicted to org-mode. I can't live without emacs despite that I hate its slowness very much.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to be really addicted to hardcore code completition and refactorings for Java in IntelliJ, it just felt like there is no other way. I had the same feeling when I was considering Sublime while using VIM, I thought there's no other way to edit text than the way VIM does it. And both time it paid off that I gave another editor a try :)

<comment><USER5> Learning a new tool is learning a new way to think. It always pays off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He talks about the Destroy All Software Screencasts. Are they worth it?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're into TDD and Ruby, then they're probably the best ones you can find. But if you don't like testing, then I would suggest saying away :) There's a free one that you can check out here <https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts> on the bottom of the page ... and see if you like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has anyone else experienced the slowness the author described with Vim? I think it's possible he may be experiencing slow terminal update time (the OS X terminal is really slow in the scenario he described) instead of Vim being the culprit. MacVim, for example, doesn't have this problem, in my experience.

<comment><USER18> Did he edit the article? I don't see anything about vim being slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Also worth noting that ST2 has a vim emulation mode, called "vintage" mode. IIRC it's just a native ST2 plugin in python.

<comment><USER20> As a long-time vim user, I found it to be obviously incompatible within moments.

<comment><USER21> As another long-time vim user, it's more of a vi-compatible mode, and isn't anywhere near perfect, but it's good enough that I get modal editing with the majority of movements and commands that I use in day-to-day editing. Most of the "missing" vi/vim features just don't have appropriate command-mode bindings, so it's simply a matter of getting used to the default ST2 bindings for those, or doing some leg work to make those vintage bindings that you really care about.

I've only been using ST2 for a few weeks on a Python project, but I feel that the end result is better for me than trying to patch together a chain of vim plugins. I gladly give up a few of the more esoteric vim features for the integrated project editing features of ST2.

<comment><USER20> > I gladly give up a few of the more esoteric vim features for the integrated > project editing features of ST2.

Right, I just wanted to point out that it's not a very vim-compatible vim mode so people aren't surprised if they try it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I must say I am really impressed by the speed and performance of SublimeText 2. If they can get the vintage mode (vim mode) right, I might really consider switching. At the moment it's nowhere near perfect.

</comment><comment><USER23> All this is fine, but I definitely need a debugger with a gui

</comment><comment><USER24> PeepOpen supports Vim as well.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is actually my first post ever on HN. It is in fact not very often that I post anywhere on the interwebs. But I have to speak up.

Can. We. Stop. Posting. About. F __ __ng. Text. Editors.

Please.

Imagine a room where you teleport in computer greats (in no order of importance, and I am probably forgetting tons of worthy people in my pang of internet angst) such as Gates, Torvalds, Ritchie, Thompson, von Neumann, Knuth, Turing, Carmack, ..., Joy, Berners-Lee, Babbage, Stroustrup, Dijkstra, Norvig, Moore, Noyce. I don't think these guys would start talking about text editing, so why should we?

<comment><USER26> "When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine." \- Pablo Picasso

<comment><USER27> "I don't trust un-cited quotes on the internet anymore" - Gandhi</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook hiring for mechanical engineers; following google into custom HW? - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/careers/positions.php?id=562

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, this job for HW engineer makes it much more obvious:

<http://www.facebook.com/careers/positions.php?id=672>

Funny, I can't find them linked from the careers site, just as ads in the right hand gutter.</comment>


Elsevier Says Content-Mining Research Papers 'Could Be Considered' Stealing - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151117/09383132839/elsevier-says-downloading-content-mining-licensed-copies-research-papers-could-be-considered-stealing.shtml <comment><USER2> Now they want to define "meta-research" as stealing, too. I can't imagine how would someone buy that.

Knowledge is something you cannot capture, that's why they have to try to "protect" the symbols. And they can go this far with that deed.

Why activists can read and handle degrading words from rich publishers (theft, stealing..), but ignorants cannot read the argument of activists? This is far too confusing to me.

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to- avoid.en.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html)

(I think publishers are feeling threatened as the free culture grows)

edit: the speaker explains copyright maths (a special kind of maths used by media lobby experts), very enjoyable :D

[http://blog.ted.com/the-numbers-behind-the-copyright- math/](http://blog.ted.com/the-numbers-behind-the-copyright-math/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this why they bought Mendeley, a document-management start-up who did a _lot_ of data mining on academic papers, including terabytes of Elsevier's?

Hint: probably. I used to work there.

<comment><USER4> Shit. I'm using Mendeley and did not know this. I'll stop using it at once. Any suggestions for alternatives?

<comment><USER5> I use Zotero (+ownCloud for storage) as well, a bit quirky at times but has all the functionality I need. Don't know how good the standalone program is, I only use the browser plugin+libreoffice plugin and occasionally the dreaded ms-office plugin as well (if not working with latex).

<comment><USER6> Standalone works very well too. Can recommend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think I probably consider tax payer funded research being locked up behind a corporate paywall "stealing", so yeah they can go jump in a loch...

<comment><USER8> That's the thing, Elsevier know stealing when they see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't theft a crime? Isn't publicly accusing someone of a crime he did not commit a slander? Should all content-mining researches sue Elsevier for slander? I don't see why not.

<comment><USER10> Not sure why this is being downvoted. In my personal opinion Elsevier are slandering (actually libelling) researchers here. This could have significant financial implications for the researchers when e.g. grant applications are made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The American Physical Society recently blocked my IP and contacted my university after I downloaded about 30 papers within one hour (manually, while researching an unfamiliar topic). My department's IT team called me and asked me to shut down my mass download bot :D. APS staff were very friendly and lifted all restricitons after I contacted them though.

</comment><comment><USER12> They are on the way out. Yes, they'll take a shit on the carpet before leaving, but they are on the way out.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't quite see the issue here. Elsevier's terms of service for subscriptions very likely explicitly ban bulk downloading. As such, they have every right to expect subscribers not to bulk download and further every right to ban specific subscribers (i.e. university libraries) if they violate those ToS. Nothing new, nothing exciting.

If you want to be able to freely access and bulk download the papers published by your peers, maybe you should make sure that those peers publish in journals that allow such downloads. Maybe you yourself should also only publish in journals that allow these downloads. Possibly, you could even run your own preprint server where everyone can submit their texts and which then can be made available in bulk to interested parties.

Breaking contracts you (or a person acting on your behalf) agreed to doesn't help at all in the long run – boycotting those who only offer contracts you don't like until they either change or go away is a much more viable, ethically acceptable and generally more enjoyable alternative.

And hey, if your method to detect fraud is successful, market pressure alone might be enough: after all, who wants to submit to a shady journal which doesn't have its articles automatically checked for large-scale fraud regularly? Surely, only fraudsters…

<comment><USER14> Why comply with unjust illegitimate laws created to serve a monopoly?

Why comply with a framework designed not for your benefit or societies benefit but for the purpose of maintaining a monopoly on others peoples labor, socializing cost and individualizing profit. Laws are not created for the people and by the people, they are made by corrupted individuals for those with the most wealth and power, complying with them is no better than complying with any other sort of violent oppression.

<comment><USER13> > unjust illegitimate laws created to serve a monopoly

It's not unjust illegitimate laws, it's a largely valid contract you entered into and by which you are very naturally bound. There's nothing morally wrong about "don't use this access we give you to download everything".

If your laws are, for whatever reason, unjust and illegitimate, then fix that instead of fighting against those laws by downloading papers from Elseviere o.O

> Why comply with a framework designed not for your benefit or societies > benefit but for the purpose of maintaining a monopoly on others peoples > labor, socializing cost and individualizing profit.

I don't get what you're trying to say. Are you saying the profit from scientific work lies solely or even largely in bulk access to the papers produced by that work?!

> Laws are not created for the people and by the people, they are made by > corrupted individuals for those with the most wealth and power

If that is the case, then this is squarely the fault of "the people" to allow that to happen.

> complying with them is no better than complying with any other sort of > violent oppression

This is not about complying with laws but complying with a not morally outrageously wrong contract between two private entities.

You are trolling, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In related news - "Elsevier considers citing research papers to be stealing".

Clowns...

</comment><comment><USER16> Charging people big $$$ to read research papers that their tax dollars paid for could also be considered stealing.

</comment><comment><USER17> Fortunately, we all trust Elsevier implicitly as moral arbiters.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think Elsevier is resorting to things like this because it is incapable of capitalizing on their current assets and infrastructure in a constructive manner.

Consider the fact that Elsevier locks up millions of dollars in public funded research behind their paywall, and then you'll see the irony of what they claim.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not pertinent to this exact story but there's a cross-publisher API for Text and Data Mining via Crossref for those of you who are interested. It defines http links to full text and license info. Elsevier participates in this and their API intersects with the Crossref TDM API.

Info here: [http://tdmsupport.crossref.org/](http://tdmsupport.crossref.org/)

</comment><comment><USER20> The title is link-bait. That really isn't what Elsevier is saying here. They are complaining that this researcher broke the terms for the university's subscription. On their website they state: [0]

"""Further, we're looking at how we ensure that researchers know what they can and cannot do with content, or where to go for further information, without giving the impression that we are claiming ownership over non-copyrightable facts and data."""

Regarding this case, (IANAL) it seems to be that _if_ their APIs worked properly, then Elsevier is completely in the right (especially in the UK) in demanding that papers only be accessed through the API. If they don't work, as the researcher alleges, then would I agree that's he's in the right.

A couple weeks ago I was reading all about Elsevier's APIs for downloading papers [1]. If you're at an institution that has access to ScienceDirect or Scopus then it seems you can easily get a key that gives you full access to everything, including papers in XML instead of PDF if you want (eg. a mathml- like for equations, paragraphs, figures, tables all marked up). However Elsevier make it very difficult to find the actual terms and conditions for text mining on their website, despite numerous pages which run you in circles. They are here [4].

To summarise them (again, IANAL): non-commercial research use only. You can't share the raw text mining output except with other people belonging to your institution/subscriber, although you could allow indirect access through e.g. a website. You can also distribute short snippets from the text with a copyright notice. You can keep the downloaded data until your API key expires, which happens if you stop using it or your institution stops subscribing.

I also found it strange that Elsevier forbid redistributing the abstracts of papers [3], considering that they are publicly accessible.

It would be fantastic if publishers couldn't restrict the use of the information in the articles they published, even for commercial use. Anything that any human learns from a copyrighted work can normally be used without restriction, why wouldn't the same apply to machine learning? However I assume that when you sign an agreement providing access to data (e.g. subscribe to Scopus) that you can sign away that sort of right (e.g. NDAs). The Hague Declaration [2] is a great initiative in this direction but unfortunately it's only petitioning for the rights of researchers.

[0] [https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-does-elseviers-text- min...](https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-does-elseviers-text-mining- policy-work-with-new-uk-tdm-law)

[1] [http://dev.elsevier.com/](http://dev.elsevier.com/)

[2] [https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/45456](https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/45456)

[3] [http://dev.elsevier.com/policy.html](http://dev.elsevier.com/policy.html)

[4] [https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/102234/...](https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/102234/TDM- sign-up-short-form.pdf)

<comment><USER21> > I also found it strange that Elsevier forbid redistributing the abstracts of > papers [3], considering that they are publicly accessible.

Publicly accessible and the rights to redistribution are different things. Abstracts are protected by copyright, which may be held by the journal or the author, and so having a blanket "you can use the abstracts" policy is very difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Elsevier says a lot of things.

</comment><comment><USER23> They're looking for data scientists and engineers to monetise their archives but also losing market to cheaper and more open publishing networks. Good riddance, would say.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have simple recommendation. Stop publishing with them. Stop citing articles that have been published with them. Treat them like they do not exist.

</comment><comment><USER25> Some of the shit Elsevier's pulled "could be considered" academic fraud.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is rather similar to the web scraping problem i.e. API vs scraping. Nothing new.</comment>


The Big Blockchain Lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/blockchain-big-lie-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-10 <comment><USER2> Pure FUD from someone who has no idea what he's talking about. Getting hung up on the market price over just the past year, by an economist no less, is just willful ignorance.

<comment><USER3> Not least since he predicted 48 recessions out if the last 4...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excerpt:

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

In practice, blockchain is nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet. But it has also become the byword for a libertarian ideology that treats all governments, central banks, traditional financial institutions, and real-world currencies as evil concentrations of power that must be destroyed. Blockchain fundamentalists' ideal world is one in which all economic activity and human interactions are subject to anarchist or libertarian decentralization. They would like the entirety of social and political life to end up on public ledgers that are supposedly "permissionless" (accessible to everyone) and "trustless" (not reliant on a credible intermediary such as a bank).</comment>


Botnet uses Twitter for Drive-by-Download Attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~seclab/projects/torpig/index.html#updates

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, this is some research that some guys in my lab have been doing.

Pretty cool stuff, they "took over" the Torpig botnet. Lots of interesting stuff, the paper on the link gives a good overview of some of the things they discovered.

Love to hear your thoughts!</comment>


Show HN: Global tech job search engine, the easy way - <AUTHOR> https://www.goopensource.dev/ <comment><USER2> Didnt find anything for 'scala' languahe. Also seems bugy, I tried on phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> We deployed a new version. Your problem you should be fixed.

[https://www.goopensource.dev/companies/scala](https://www.goopensource.dev/companies/scala)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do remote co-founders ever work out? - <AUTHOR>

Have any of you ever had success working with a remote co-founder or know of anyone who has? What kind of distance were they? Did you meet in person and, if so, how often? How did it work legally and how did you obtain funding? <comment><USER2> I read an article on here just recently about the history of 3D Studio apparently they where entirely remote back in the days of CompuServe which must have been fun to say the least, I did some remote projects back then and it was difficult. So I would say it does not preclude success but you have to have the right people. Open Source projects succeed every day in a completely remote development environment.

On of the things I noticed in the 3D Studio article though was that AutoDesk was in the picture early on and apparently acting as a publisher. While not highlighted in the article this may have been key to their success. The fact that they had a centralized agency acting as a sales force and marketing department, helped i am sure.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about many but here is one such case.From thinkery.me about page (<http://thinkery.me/about.php>) :

"thinkery was lovingly crafted by compuccino in Berlin, Germany and Alexander Kirk in Vienna, Austria. (Remote-working works :)"

</comment><comment><USER4> My technical co-founder is also remote. I'm not sure if I got really lucky or if it is our maturity but we have had a brilliant year of working together. (Cincinnati - Philly) I think it helps that I defer all of the technical to him and he the rest of the business to me so we each have our areas of expertise. However, there is a time in my future when one of us travels three days a week so that we can work at least in office proximity. We've utilized every piece of technology available to us and have had some monster long telephone calls into the night when there were flaws that we had to work through.

I suspect it is not the best way to work but with really good communication skills and trust in one another's expertise, it will work fine.

</comment><comment><USER5> I worked from home for a startup (as a contractor, wasn't invested in the business at all) that had no office. In this case, the owner and other programmer were in the same metro area but, after a few initial meetings, I met with them in person less than once a month, on average. I can't say its ideal, it did annoy me having to always be on the phone with him, etc but he had a somewhat abrasive way of dealing with people to get his way so I'm not sure that this sort of setup would necessarily preclude success.

</comment><comment><USER6> Having been on both sides, hands down working side by side is way better. Working long distance (in different states in my case) works _okay_ up to a certain point. Not the best scenario and certainly doesn't last forever. Obviously take this with a grain of salt as this is my experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm positive that it's better to work side by side with someone, however I live in a technological wasteland (North West UK) and am unable to move (partner is at university here), so was considering how doable working remotely with someone would be. Thanks for your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My cofounder and I were remote. He in SF with me in Maine. We would try to meetup every few months and would alternate who had to travel. It definitely requires more discipline and effort. I would say we did it successfully, though there was still room for improvement.

</comment><comment><USER8> i believe i read that 37 Signals began this way--one person (designer/architect) in Chicago, the other (programmer) in Denmark.</comment>


Performance analysis of Twitter Bootstrap over the last 2 years - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nparashuram.com/2013/08/bootstrap-evolution-over-two-years.html

<comment><USER2> Strange that Bootstrap 3 Final seems slower than the RCs...

<comment><AUTHOR> It is slower for some cases, faster for others.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: SEO gems? - <AUTHOR>

i'm collecting a list of the most ingenious sites that are fueled entirely by search.  my personal favorites are http://www.retailmenot.com and http://www.whocallsme.com .  retailmenot definitely makes more money but whocallsme is hilarious and very useful. <comment><USER2> Yahoo Answers?

Surely nobody actually goes there intentionally, creating a website dedicated to giving the incorrect answer (but with an awesome page rank and truly unique rants) to your every Google Search, and twice-weekly providing the Fail Blog with material.

<comment><AUTHOR> ha ha yes yahoo answers kills it. on the other hand i f-ing hate experts exchange

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> StackOverflow.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> crackberry.com is another great one

</comment><comment><USER4> SEO?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah sorry of that's ambiguous - i clarified the initial post above. by SEO gems i mean sites which have growth/user acquisition fueled entirely by users searching for stuff.

</comment></comment><comment> onreact-com To be honest it's not advisable to rely only on search traffic. I say that as a SEO. Returning visitors and often even type in or direct visitors are much better.

Many spammy sites rely solely on Google/search traffic.

<http://hubpages.com/> for instance.</comment>


Ask YC: Could web properties become ad-free and sustain using micropayments? - <AUTHOR>

Most web startups and blogs depend on Advertising to make money. A web property with 1M visitors per month could probably fetch about 25k a month in advertising (not sure at all just assuming). That is 2.5 cents per visitor.
Could that cost be simply offset to the end user. I think most readers would not mind paying 2.5 cents to 25 cents to use a web service or to read their blog.
If I was to pay 25 cents/month for each of the  50 sites I visit regularly, that would not hurt much and they would probably have more money than by running ads.
Could web properties become ad-free and sustain using micropayments? <comment><USER2> This all depends on a unified payment system or network for micro- transactions. I can envision a majority accepted standard, such as paypal is for regular transactions, then a user can deposit, say, $5.00 and apply it to his favorite sites via a subscription to their content.

This payment gateway could be an interesting start-up. Like the paypal button, a site could have a subscribe button on their site which automatically adds the content to the users subscription list/ completes the sale.

Then you could have a browser plug-in or stand alone app that aggregates and categorizes the content for the subscriber. This may result in a traffic decrease, but when ad-support doesn't matter, neither does hits. It would then be quantified by total subscribers.

Stop me if its been done already...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the browser plugin would be a beautiful implementation. There is a YC startup that is currently doing a nice job at handling micropayments, and I think their model could be replicated for this startup.

<comment><USER2> Tipjoy? Or is there another one?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a big challenge when the micropayments are denominated in USD. The problem has gone so long without being cracked that I will be really surprised if someone manages to successfully implement it. Maybe in 30 years we get a reputational economy.

</comment><comment><USER4> the cognitive jump between "free" and "not free" is surprisingly large.

could it happen? sure. it would be a challenge, though.</comment>


Why did Japan surrender? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=full <comment><USER2> Recommended reading: "Japan's Longest Day", the nonfiction book, not the movie or novel (Review: [http://www.warbirdforum.com/end.htm](http://www.warbirdforum.com/end.htm)). This was written in the 1980s by a group of Japanese historians who interviewed almost everyone still living who had been directly involved in the decision to end the war.

The key thing to understand is that nobody was firmly in charge. The 6-member Supreme War Council, with representatives of the Army, Navy, and the civilian government was running the war. They had been operating by consensus, despite severe disagreements. The civilian government was much weaker than the military. (This stemmed from the February 26, 1936 attempted coup. Long story there.) The Japanese army and navy never got along. A strong faction in the Army wanted to continue the war to the bitter end. (They tried a coup against the Emperor on August 14, 1945, just before the surrender, captured the Imperial Palace, and almost succeeded.) War Minister Anami (the Army head on the Supreme War Council) said, after the Hiroshima bomb, "I am convinced that the Americans had only one bomb, after all." After the second bomb was dropped, Anami still wanted to fight on, but the Emperor decided otherwise. Anami committed ritual suicide.

It was a close thing. If Anami had supported the coup, or the coup had succeeded in capturing the NHK radio station or the Emperor himself, the war probably would have continued.

<comment><USER3> Well said. I'm remembering other accounts saying that one of the Navy commanders at the end was eager to see everything go up in a giant conflagration if necessary. Some strange, distorted sense of heroism.

In such settings, I think it makes sense to regard the combination of Soviets and A-bombs as decisive. Most really big events in history have multiple causes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> August 6: bombing of Hiroshima

August 7:

1\. Japanese nuclear scientists determine that the bomb was indeed nuclear device.

2\. Imperial Navy estimates that US has only one or two more bombs and Japan could endure the attacks.

August 9:

1\. bombing of Nagasaki

2\. USSR declares war to Japan & Manchurian Strategic Offensive started.

3\. Hirohito worried because USSR declared war and held an Imperial conference that authorized minister Tōgō to surrender with only one condition: status of the Emperor must be preserved.

August 15: Japan Surrenders

Even after Hirohito made the personal decision to surrender, the intention was to continue the war if the kokutai (Imperial institution and national polity) would not be preserved.

<comment><USER5> > Even after Hirohito made the personal decision to surrender, the intention > was to continue the war if the kokutai (Imperial institution and national > polity) would not be preserved.

And here's where I don't understand the reasoning: Did they seriously think the kokutai would have been preserved if they _had_ fought on? Did they seriously think the Allies would have allowed Japan to continue as it had? It seems the most obvious thing in the world to blockade and bombard the Home Islands for six to eight months, destroying farmland especially, and then engage in the beachhead assault that had already been planned.

The American Armed Forces are still using Purple Hearts made specifically for the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. They're all new-old stock, to use the common phrase; that's how serious the plan was.

<comment><USER6> They're still using Purple Hearts from the first batch MacArthur ordered, which was 1/4 of what he expected to need. And he didn't believe the solid intelligence that revealed Operation Olympic, the initial invasion of the home island Kyuushuu, was not going to work (too many divisions moved to that island, 6,000 or so kamikazes (an underestimate) would be ready and would not have to navigate all the way down to Okinawa ... many people don't know that the Battle of Okinawa was the single most expensive in lives for the US Navy...).

Those planning Operation Downfall, the overall one to capture the home islands (well, the regime would fell after the 2nd invasion of the main island), who didn't know about the Manhattan Project were planning to make liberal use of chemical weapons. Those who did ... well, if the 2nd bomb failed, there's a very good chance future production would be reserved for Olympic, with up to 8 of them being used....

As for their strategy, they started the war with an assumption that we weren't tough enough to see it through. It's said that the truth didn't sink into the IJNavy until we lost 2 Rear Admirals (2 stars) in a single night action off of Guadalcanal, in a body of water that earned the name Ironbottom Sound, so many USN and IJN ships were sunk there.

So when it came to the home islands, they hoped they could make it expensive enough we'd give up before the regime fell. Even after we'd firebombed all their major urban centers minus Kyoto (politically critical for the Emperor) and the 4 a-bomb targets and alternates....

It's a _very_ good thing for the world everything came together in that August and they surrendered. And if I had a time machine, I'd never ever try to change anything in history going up to that point, the horror of those a-bombs, even if each caused less loss of life than the first Tokyo firebombing (in only it and one other attack did everything come together including the weather and winds).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe Hasegawa's interpretation has new implications regarding nuclear deterrence theory, but not how the author suggests. The idea that the nuclear bombings were not decisive factors in Japan's surrender does not mean that nuclear weapons do not serve as a deterrence. Nuclear weaponry advanced so much in the aftermath of WW2 that now nuclear countries can literally reduce entire nations to pixie dust. And the potential of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) all but guarantees that nuclear countries will never attack each other for fear of nuclear escalation.

<comment><USER8> _" the potential of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) all but guarantees that nuclear countries will never attack each other for fear of nuclear escalation."_

I would feel a lot more secure in the efficacy of MAD if war was rational in the first place. History shows it is anything but.

It hasn't even been 100 years since the last nuclear weapon was used offensively, but already the world has come dangerously close to starting a nuclear war.

Numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons have happened. Critical and very dangerous errors were made in detecting that nuclear war had already begun when it hadn't. Countries with nuclear weapons have come close to going to war with each other (India and Pakistan, Cuban Missile Crisis). Weapon-grade nuclear material and nuclear weapons have gone missing. The American nuclear weapon launch codes were all 0's for something like 20 years.

It is an open question how a nuclear power will react to having a nuclear weapon exploded on their soil (potentially by terrorists under a false-flag operation) but it likely won't be a calm and measured response against the perceived perpetrator. If this happens in a poweder-keg like the Middle East, the ensuing chaos could easily draw in other nuclear powers.

Crumbling nuclear-weapons and launch-detection infrastructure in the former Soviet republics is still a major concern because of continued and increasing potential for accidental launches of weapons still aimed at their former Cold War foes, not to mention the renewed possibility of a second Cold War that has been in the news recently, and Putin's overt threats of the use of nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER7> I don't think its right to judge the rationality of decisions based on their outcome. The question is whether war was a rational decision at the time. From a realist perspective anything decision is rational if it can lead to an improvement in the chances for survival. If war leads to a relative increase in my power even if I may lose soldiers and resources, then its worth it.

If country A has 100 soldiers while country B has 20 soldiers, even if the cost of war is a 2 to 1 loss in soldiers, war would result in the absolute power of country A.

In a conflict between two countries with nuclear weaponry, the core logic is the same, but the paradigm is different. Nuclear warfare can erase both countries off the face of the earth. This follows from the fact that to combat nuclear attacks, countries started adopting hair-string triggers to destroy the adversary before they can send more warheads their way... except now every country is doing the same thing. In this case, forget the relative nonsense, anyway you cut it, nuclear warfare is not rational for countries because it will end their survival.

My belief is that MAD is sound. And my underlying assumption is that countries tend to think rationally when dealing with international relations. Regardless of leadership, countries do whats best for them an overwhelming majority of the time. Case in point, how often has the U.S. (the bastion of freedom) voluntarily helped countries/people when the U.S.' interests were not directly involved? Also, observe how a seemingly crazy country like North Korea plays the game shrewdly by varying is strategy depending on its adversary.

I agree that there is a threat that nuclear weapons will get in the wrong hands and, in that case, I think its more than probable that disaster would ensue. But the safety and standards for handling infrastructure degradation has improved significantly since the early days of nuclear weapons (when many were lost to the ocean and never recovered) . As for Putin's threats, its nothing a good back and forth of denouncing and condemning can't fix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons?"

The writer stupidly jumps from the idea that if nukes have less than a major impact then they have no impact. Does anyone think the UK or USSR would not have surrendered if the Germans had nukes?

If the US had today's nukes on 8 Dec 1941 the war would not have lasted nearly as long. Every island stronghold, port, airfield, city and fleet would have been taken out early. the remnants would have been mopped up by the Marines.

<comment><USER10> I don't think the USSR would have even _considered_ surrendering had the Germans had two 15 kiloton nukes and used those against them.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. The USSR was already down ~5 million people, why would it have made a difference for the Germans to kill a few tens of thousands more? That would just make the Russians even more angry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Hasegawa's ability to read three languages, Bernstein says, gives him a > unique advantage over other scholars. Hasegawa spent years working through > primary documents, with a deep understanding of linguistic and cultural > nuance. His knowledge was especially valuable because historians of the > period face such fragmentary and contradictory evidence, in part because the > Japanese destroyed many documents.

> But therein lies the weakness of the Hasegawa interpretation as well, > Bernstein says. After a long war and in the space of a few days, the > Japanese leadership was hit with two extraordinary events - Hiroshima and > the Soviet invasion - and sorting out cause and effect, based on incomplete > documentation, may prove impossible.

There's something else barely examined in the article as well (beyond 2 sentences). I would imagine that totalitarian governments will behave differently from democratic republics when their own people are dying.

<comment><USER7> The article also poses the idea that its unlikely that the U.S. would surrender a war after a city was destroyed.

Article also gives the example of UK not giving up after German bombing in WW2.

<comment><USER13> Don't forget that France surrendered.

<comment><USER14> France likely surrendered because their home country defense force was defeated and their capital overrun, the countries administration had little chance of extracting itself from the rest of France before being completely overrun.

This does not always mean surrender; think Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The difference for Russia in my opinion is that they had a large homogeneous land mass upon which to move and maintain their administration.

<comment><USER13> I think it was the large number of casualties the soviets were wiling to tolerate, I doubt the French would have encouraged the loss of a million as was incurred during Stalingrad. Consider also that the large land mass was a liability as it had to be defended, for example from Japan.

<comment><USER15> The USSR had time, resources (human and material) and the land buffer to keep fighting. The farther Germany pressed into the USSR, the more Germany's resources and supply lines were stretched and the Soviets eventually realized that.

Similar reasons cost Napoleon dearly ~130 years before.

Also, Stalin's massive ego wouldn't allow a city named after himself to be taken by the Germans. That's the primary reason that particular city suffered the high casualties that it did. Stalin once told Churchill at the Tehran Conference that "when one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics."[1]

[1] [http://books.google.com/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA510&dq#v=...](http://books.google.com/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA510&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The imminent Soviet invasion of Manchuria surely played a role in the U.S. decision to use the atomic bomb, end the war quickly to end the prospect of post war Soviet occupation of Japanese held territory.

<comment><USER17> At the Potsdam Conference (24 July) Truman told Stalin that the US would use nukes against Japan as a goad to get Stalin to enter the war against Japan.

It appears to have worked.

<comment><USER16> Churchill is quoted as saying the U.S. wanted the Soviets out of the war. At the Tehran Conference in Nov 1943 and at the Yalta Conference in Feb 1945, Joseph Stalin had agreed to declare war on Japan three months after Germany would be defeated. Stalin was told something at Potsdam because the Soviets were still allies, but not that the weapon was atomic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A bigger obfuscation is the cause of WWII. We are given the history of WWI, geopolitical alliances, assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, harsh Treaty at Versailles, collapse of German currency, WWII continuation of WWI, failure of Chamberlain appeasement, German Soviet non-aggression pact. No mention of German genocide of African Herero and colony in South-West Africa ( Namibia ), Italian occupation and war against Ethiopia, and Russo-Japanese War. The Axis powers shared that they were late to the game of Western imperialism and they came into conflict with the long standing imperialists.

<comment><USER18> Getting back Elsaß wasn't really all that unreasonable. Annexation of the Sudetenland wasn't, either: it was overwhelmingly German, it used to be in the Holy Roman Empire, it was now a minority in a country created to cater to Slavs. A merger between Austria and Germany wasn't unreasonable, either. Getting back the land Poland stole/was granted after WWI was, again, not entirely unreasonable. Protecting the German cities of Danzig and Stettin was, again, not unreasonable.

Furthermore, much of the rhetoric about the Jews sounded awfully much like the current rhetoric about the rich, the banksters, the international finance, the 1%, etc.

Other things we usually don't hear about is how scary Socialism was in Germany from, say, 1917 to 1933. Have you heard about the Bavarian Soviet Republic, for example?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Why/how did WW1 end" is an interesting question, too.

Aside from cursory school classes and then some reading, I've never really looked into it in great detail.

The elementary school version is "tanks broke the stalemate, and the US/UK rolled through to victory", but it was a lot more nuanced than that, with internal revolutions in multiple countries. WW1 clearly could have kept going for some extended period longer than it did.

<comment><USER3> It's fascinating. I just finished "To End All Wars," by Adam Hochschild. He points out that Germany's military was doing quite well in July 1918 ... but that blockades had ruined Germany's ability to feed its people. Folks were getting by on 1000 calories/day; starvation was common, and with the Bolsheviks having stirred up Russia, socialist/pacifists were totally tired of fighting. After modest military setbacks, Germany's will to fight collapsed.

Large German units started surrendering to small Allied forces. Yes, tanks and the U.S. arrival helped clinch everything. But the meltdown inside Germany was quite amazing. Think of the U.S.'s final decision in 1973-75 to get out of Vietnam no matter what. And then multiply that breakdown of the warrior mentality by 100.

The Kaiser lost control of his country in the war's final weeks, and the German authorities naively hoped that they would get an OK armistice/settlement if they called it quits. When they didn't, that created such deep German resentment over the next 20 years that a resumption of the war became inevitable.

<comment><USER20> As if WW 1 and 2 are in fact a single event with a strange picnic pause in the middle.

<comment><USER21> It's a stretch, but some have linked those two with the Franco-Prussian War as well.

Bismarck predicted:

"Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this"

"One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Forced_to_res...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Forced_to_resign)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a thread on reddit a while ago that explains this quite well. [http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2j3xar/til_tha...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2j3xar/til_that_japans_surrender_following_the_bombing/cl89wv1?context=3)

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting. Perhaps I need to actually read Hasegawa's work, but this piece skips over a pretty important possibility (to me): that while the atomic bombs did not, on their own, convince the Japanese to surrender, they may have been major factors in the Soviets deciding to enter the war on the side of the Allies.

<comment><USER24> You mean enter the war against Japan? USSR were already on the Allies side fighting the Nazis in Europe.

<comment><USER6> But after a very sharp action which the IJArmy lost very badly, commanded in part on the other side by an obscure Soviet general named Zhukov ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov) who unlike his two counterparts managed to avoid the 1941 purge), they signed a neutrality pact, reaffirmed after Operation Barbarossa, that they scrupulously observed. Being faced with another even more bloodily minded opponent certainly didn't hurt the surrender decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> '...Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization...'

— Hirohito, August 14,1945

</comment><comment><USER26> The article below from Foreign Policy magazine is much better

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vdqHpr...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vdqHprkireYJ:foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the- bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

</comment><comment><USER27> Hundreds of Japanese cities were leveled by firebombing. Having a town nuked every few weeks was not such a big consideration against that background. If only they had trucked on for a few more months we wouldn't have to read these articles.

<comment><USER28> There's a difference between "leveled" and "nuked", especially before guided weapons existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> help me to interpret this: amongst 60 comments of this article, nobody mentioned China despite the fact China had fought against jp for 8 years (since 1937, or 14 years since 1931) and (arguably), pinned down jp Army, given the original jp's plan was "conquer China in 3 months".

</comment><comment><USER30> The comparisons made in this article and comments below seem to all but forget one major fact that completely changes everything. That is, Atomic bombs are NOT the same as carpet bombing say Tokyo. Why? RADIATION. If the major cities and sites of Japan suffered a disaster due conventional bombing The thinking would be – afterward we rebuild. You don't think that when your left with a radiation zone. So the theory that atomic bombs would have carried the same level of concern due to simply looking at leveled cities and that carpet bombing does the same as nukes is short sighted to say the least.

<comment><USER8> I was under the impression that the long-term effects of radiation and nuclear weapons weren't well known at the time of the Japanese surrender. If that's so, it is unlikely such concerns as you describe played much of a role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Lol. This topic is just about the most sensitive things I can imagine. The concept that America "won" both the pacific and European wars is an integral part of American identity. Shortly after the war, with the rise of the cold war, US students were brought up on the one narrative. Any suggestion that the Soviets were a driving force in ending the war forces them to confront deeply held beliefs regarding the use of force and violence generally.

Another aspect not covered in the OP is the efficiency of US nukes. Much/most of the damage done was not from the bombs. If you measure damage through the heat energy released, most came from the burning of the cities rather from the fission in the bomb itself. The firebombing of a city releases as much energy as a nuclear explosion, doing a comparable amount of damage. At the time, a firebombing raid required fewer resources than a nuke. So, from an energy standpoint, the nukes were not an economical means of destroying Japanese cities.

Why then were they used? Why were they used in the pacific and not in europe? (Insert massive screaming rants here.)

<comment><USER32> The trinity test was in july 1945, two months after the surrender of Germany.

We don't know whether atomic bombs would have been used on, say, Berlin or the Ruhr area (maybe even tactically, to speed up the allied advance in the west), but I think the USA would have used one, if only to send a message to the soviets.

<comment><USER33> That's what they where designed for and if d day had stalled they would have been used in the rhur.

There is also strong evidence that Stalin wanted to get to berlin first to grab some of the German nuclear materiel in Berlin</comment></comment></comment>


A Common Lisp Bookshelf - momo-reina http://mozartreina.com/lisp-bookshelf.html <comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I'm a little surprised. I took the _exact_ same path all the way up to PAIP. It's eerie to read your thoughts on a blog that isn't yours.

Anyway, the CLQR [1] is by far the most useful CL book I've found. It's small enough to print and bind yourself, and the pages on LOOP & the type hierarchy are just pure typography.

I recently finished Let Over Lambda (finished the first read-through, anyway), and I almost wish I had started with it. CL is the C of the lambda calculi, but it didn't 'click' until the final chapters of LoL. With a sufficiently smart compiler (and by compiler I mean sets of macros), CL can do damn near anything.

ANSI Common Lisp is a great book, too, but I found the chapters oddly arranged (chapters 12,13 need to come first, maybe).

[1] [http://clqr.boundp.org/](http://clqr.boundp.org/)

<comment> momo-reina Thanks for the heads-up, I wasn't aware of CLQR. Will definitely check it out.

LoL is definitely one of the major highlights in my reading plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Don't forget 'Successful Lisp' by David Lamkins ([http://psg.com/~dlamkins/sl/](http://psg.com/~dlamkins/sl/)) - in printed- book or HTML versions.

Chapter 3 is an excellent 'nutshell' introduction to Common Lisp. The rest of the book, aside from covering various details of CL, provides a wide-ranging overview of the modern Lisp ecosystem, from editors to UIs.

I found it a valuable complement to the other books noted here, but somehow it doesn't get much mention!

</comment><comment><USER3> Practical CL (written with Java mindset) is a waste of time, compared to PG's ANSI CL which has more idiomatic, subtle examples. Then On Lisp, of course.

HtDP should go before SICP. HtDP2 is a much better reading than old HtDP. In both books exercises must be done.

PAIP is a decent reading, but mr. Norvig, it seems, dislikes macros and recursion and prefers strictures and loops.)

btw, all the books are "available" on piratebay, if you are not too strict or american.)

<comment> momo-reina I had a few discussions with some guys at #lisp, they looked over some code I'd written that was recursion-heavy, and they were of the mind that since Tail-Call Optimization is not in the ANSI standard and therefore implementation dependent one should be careful when using them.

Now that totally changes if you're writing Scheme...

<comment><USER3> All non-toy CL implementations do TCO nowadays. [http://0branch.com/notes/tco- cl.html](http://0branch.com/notes/tco-cl.html)

Anyway, it is worthwhile to practice writing recursive solutions (beginning with Scheme) to understand possible pitfalls in case of non-tail recursion, and then, proudly, switch to fixed-space looping techniques.)

<comment><USER4> There are a few problems with TCO in Common Lisp:

* some platforms don't provide useful support (in the History it were some stack-oriented Lisp Machines, nowadays it is the JVM - see ABCL)

* there is no consensus how it should be invoked, how its effect should be reported by a compiler, how the user should be noted about limitations (example: LispWorks limits the number of variables), ...

* it is not a good fit with Common Lisp, since the language supports all kinds of dynamic constructs: dynamic binding, unwind-protect, ... It is not clear how this should interoperate with TCO in CL.

* it makes debugging more diffcult (backtraces, trace, ...)

<comment> momo-reina These were the exact points raised at #lisp. They also tried to explain the CL idiom to a recursive problem which I don't really recall except the fact that I didn't understand it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually found the Little/Reasoned/Seasoned Schemer series to be rather enlightening even as an experienced programmer (Little Schemer can seem a little basic at first but the principles it teaches are sound and applicable outside of Lisp programming as well).

<comment> momo-reina Jao, author of Geiser, talks about the impact they had on his development in his post A Scheme Bookshelf[1]. Are there any CL equivalents?

[1][http://programming-musings.org/2007/01/31/a-scheme- bookshelf...](http://programming-musings.org/2007/01/31/a-scheme-bookshelf/)

<comment><USER6> The Little Schemer and Reasoned Schemer are tremendously fun reads. Little Schemer's writing and presentation style is the standard by which I compare all technical books now.

The books happen to use scheme as their teaching platform but the books are entirely about communicating the concepts that happen to be a part of scheme.

The way the Little Schemer teaches recursion is absolutely brilliant.

If I found myself teaching an intro programming class that would be a part of the curriculum as it is short and communicates the concept in a way that is inescapable while not being dry whatsoever and can be entirely read in a few short settings at most.

By the way, I know from personal experience that at least the majority of the books listed in Jao's scheme bookshelf can be readily worked through in a Common Lisp that supports full TCO, which according to an article from 2011 ([http://0branch.com/notes/tco-cl.html](http://0branch.com/notes/tco-cl.html)) is at least

CMUCL SBCL CCL Allegro LispWorks

I happen to have used SBCL, but I imagine the others would work just as well for these purposes.

Having not worked through them, I cannot confirm whether _Programmer avec Scheme_ or Lisp in Small Pieces can be worked through in CL with slight modifications to the source but I do not see why not.

Google suggests that there does not exist a translation of _Programmer avec Scheme_ anywhere, and no reviews are available on either amazon.fr or amazon.com; that is unfortunate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Keene's "Guide to CLOS" is good for understanding how CLOS was intended to be used. (Actually, since I read it, I use CLOS less, since I have a better sense of what it's good for.)

<comment><USER8> I came here to say this. Full text of title: Object-Oriented Programming in COMMON LISP: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Though will mostly repeat what others have said, here it is:

ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham is also a good CL textbook. I bought it as a complement to Practical Common Lisp and it also has a nice quick reference at the end.

Having read both On Lisp and Let Over Lambda, of those, I would recommend On Lisp more because it has more practical applications of macros, LOL is much more esoteric/playful/abstract, and not everybody is into that sort of thing.

</comment><comment> fsck--off A good book for experienced Lispers (because it's out of date, it's not for beginners) is Allen's _Anatomy of Lisp_. Good luck finding a copy, though.

[http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Lisp-McGraw-Hill-computer- scie...](http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Lisp-McGraw-Hill-computer- science/dp/007001115x)

And then there are the original Lambda papers:

[http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html](http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Personally, I don't think Let over Lambda and On Lisp are super advanced or hardcore. I found On Lisp very readable not too long after I got rolling with Common Lisp (after quite a few years programming experience, though). Of course, both books have great concepts that still make me muse for a moment over the nature of code.

Unlike the author, I found Practical Common Lisp to be the lamp for my path into Lisp, and have no qualms about recommending it to other people.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great post, I am wanting to head down this path. I am really wanting to get Lisp in Small Pieces but is it super costly.

Maybe I will look at Let Over Lambda.

</comment><comment><USER12> About "On Lisp" and "Lisp in small pieces", the author has the order backwards, "On Lisp" is a much easier book to apprehend, and deals with less advanced concepts. In "On Lisp" you'll learn how to leverage macros. In LISP you'll learn how to implement them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Link to Second Edition [draft] of How to Design Programs:

[http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/)

<comment><USER14> Your link is to the current release of the book NOT the draft version as explained on the site...

"Note: this document is the current release of HtDP/2e. It is updated in conjunction with PLT software releases, roughly in sync with semester spans. It is thus well-suited for courses. In contrast, the current draft changes on a frequent basis; it should be consulted when people discover problems and/or errors in this document. If such flaws exist in both documents, please report them to the first author."

<comment><USER13> Check the links for Chapters (< 8 n 13).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really loved LoL! Might be a tad esoteric but gopes very deep into some very powerful and underused areas of CL.

</comment><comment><USER16> SICP isn't Common Lisp, @momo-reina.

<comment> momo-reina I included it because I felt it was too good to leave out despite the fact that it uses Scheme. Lisp in Small Pieces is also mostly Scheme, though some CL features are covered in detail (I was look for _some_ excuse for it to make the cut).

I'll edit the post though and note those two things to avoid potential confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amazon links with no sneaky affiliate crap? Awesome!

<comment><USER18> What do you find sneaky about affiliate links?

<comment><USER17> There is nothing sneaky _per se_ about affiliate links. I certainly expect them on most sites. I have wondered, however, about HN links to what were essentially affiliate-link farms. It seems to muddle the purpose of interaction on HN: is the link here because it is interesting, or because it might make somebody a few dollars? I think if gaming HN becomes common, HN won't be as valuable to all of us. So it's something of a moral duty to punish attempts at gaming. (Commercial attempts, anyway. If it's for the lulz then it's probably OK.)

<comment><USER19> If it's interesting enough that significant numbers of people click through then I'm not sure it matters.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Social-media influencers: Incomes soar amid growing popularity - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50418807 <comment><USER2> Life is one long Black Mirror episode.</comment>


ClippyJS - Add Clippy or his friends to any website for instant nostalgia - <AUTHOR> http://www.smore.com/clippy-js

<comment><USER2> Somehow, I find the MS word UI even more impressive. You can edit the page, move blocks around, and so on! Pretty well done for something that has no application at all.

<comment><USER3> Most of the heavy lifting comes with contenteditable, but it is impressive nevertheless.

<comment><USER4> Wow! I am a frequent visitor of HN and did not know such an awesome feature existed. Wonder why is it not used so often?

<http://html5demos.com/contenteditable>

<comment><USER2> Don't get too excited. Its cross-browser support is a mess that makes getting HTML 3.2 layers work to on IE4 _and_ Netscape feel like a party.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is actually really neat, but isn't this a pretty blatant copyright violation? Reimplementing agents in JS would be fine, but using their actual content seems to cross the legal line.

</comment><comment><USER6> Oddly enough, I'm very compelled to believe Clippy may be a very useful on- boarding tool for new users to websites.

<comment><USER7> don't do it, man

<comment><USER6> Just until you've clicked close on him enough times... then never again... you'll miss him, you'll see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like you're writing a comment. Would you like help?

</comment><comment><USER9> It has been discussed before on <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038194>

</comment><comment><USER10> Aww, it's missing the robot I always used to use! Pretty funny though, it would be useful for a decent April Fools Day joke. Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER11> Didn't everyone hate clippy?

Someone do a test and tell us the effect on bounce rate/time on site. For science.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but everyone loved to hate on clippy. Results would swing the opposite way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Incredibly coincidental that you did this. I was talking to a friend today and brought up forgotten Clippy. Glad to see it reborn and given the JS plugin treatment!

</comment><comment><USER14> ClippyJs is pretty nice... I used it in <http://uglyhack.appspot.com/boingy/> for pure nostalgia.

</comment><comment><USER15> Prepare to see this everywhere next April Fool's day

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd love to see this as an easter egg in Windows 8.

</comment><comment><USER17> GestureLeft and right seem to be wrong.</comment>


The Student-Blaming Has Begun - <AUTHOR> https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-student-blaming-has-begun <comment><USER3> When did we adopt the mentality that students first and foremost deserve "the college experience" and therefore can't be expected to follow safe guidelines?

We can empathize with students and the realistic boredom and disappointment that comes with social distancing while in college. But at the same time, these are adults, often enormously privileged. The thing about hard times is that they often require sacrifice and re-examining our expectation of what we deserve.

Obviously Covid-19 represents systemic failure, and there's an argument to be made that colleges shouldn't be bringing students back in the first place. But the infantilization of young adults is absurd.

<comment><USER4> University education is basically an economic transaction. The student pays $X to get Y, where Y is certain learning and social experiences, plus a valuable credential, with a certain level of safety and protection.

Due to COVID-19, the university is no longer able to provide the same learning and social experiences with the same level of safety. This isn't the _fault_ of anybody involved in the transaction, neither students nor university could have prevented COVID-19.

Here are the options:

\- (a) Cancel or postpone the transaction. Students get their money back, the school is freed from providing their now-impossible obligation. Perhaps they are allowed to re-enroll when COVID-19 is under control again, without penalty to admission status or scholarship dollars.

\- (b) Lessen the obligation. Students continue to pay and attend, but get less effective social and educational experiences, and more restrictive safety rules, due to COVID-19.

\- (c) Ignore safety. Continue to operate as always, recognizing that a large number of students, faculty and administrators will sicken, and a smaller number will die.

People have mostly decided on option (b). Option (c) is a non-starter for parents and administrators, but a large subset of students is probably quite willing to take personal risks.

Nobody seems to want to discuss option (a), perhaps because it will destroy higher education's finances and force some institutions out of business entirely without massive external support.

<comment><USER5> I see a D option. Reduce the costs to the students to reflect the market price of the services rendered. While the pandemic isn't the fault of the colleges, the nature of operating a business is you can only charge for services you are able to deliver. Find a comparable online school, that's what you can charge.

<comment><USER6> What costs should be reduced to match the reduced revenue in this scenario? That's where things get tricky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not just students.

A few weeks ago, I showed up a family member's house for a gathering. I thought it was going to be about 15 people, outside, with masks and plenty of distance.

Instead, it was a _party,_ with all ages. Tables from a catering company were close together. My elderly aunts and uncles from both sides of my family were there.

I left immediately. Fortunately, no one's come down with Covid-19. Given that many people at the party were elderly, if Covid-19 was there, it wouldn't have ended well.

</comment><comment><USER8> It really bothers me that the college administrators are so misaligned with their students. Their core focus should be on safely providing value to the students.

IMO rather than reacting with condemnation and threats, Syracuse should have reacted by facilitating the development of safe social norms, placing tables in X patterns outside and telling students that they are free to gather but have to remain on opposite sides of the tables. People often do this naturally anyway and it would be sufficient to enforce safe distancing.

<comment><USER9> Good strategy. It's easy to sit in a high chair and look down on college students while working from home. In reality the students that stringently follow their University's health and safety strategy this year will be in a mentally distressing situation. Curfew - dorm room isolation - <USER2> professors (attendance and participation). The whole country watching you with shameful eyes. Imagine being a young adult who has no real place in the world yet - learning from everyone in your life that you should work hard so you can go to college and have a shot at carving one out for yourself - and the moment you arrive our culture flips the script and calls you a murderer for going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Part of the hard reality of this is that colleges often depend on room and board revenue to stay solvent, particularly smaller schools[0][1].

This would seem to heavily incentivize bringing students back so as to collect this money. When things (predictably) go to shit, it's easier for the administrations to blame the students than it is to blame the perilous finances that made it all but required to try to bring the students back so they could collect that money.

[0] [https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/900782472/as-pandemic-hits- co...](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/900782472/as-pandemic-hits-colleges- finances-small-town-may-be-affected-too)

[1] [https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/05/13/coronavirus- small...](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/05/13/coronavirus-small- college-closures)

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://outline.com/Sx7fWP](https://outline.com/Sx7fWP)

<comment><USER12> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how many of these problems are severely exacerbated by the high price tags for college education. Especially amidst the pandemic. It seems obvious that when people pay more, they become less flexible on the results they find acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER14> College students regularly break safety guidelines. They climb on roofs where they're not allowed, try random sketchy drugs, drink to extreme excess, and have crowded unsanctioned parties. A few schools correctly anticipated this, and have simply banned students from leaving their dorms for the first 2 weeks of the term.

So it's very difficult for me not to infer bad faith from administrators who said "pinky swear not to party?" and now act shocked there were parties.

<comment><USER15> The administrators want to have their cake and eat it, several ways over.

They want college students to return, at least for a bit, to justify charging for room and board. They also want the root cause of any "okay, everyone go home" orders to be the students themselves, to better justify keeping all that room and board money. But they also desperately want to avoid any awkward questions about why they didn't see this coming. It's really hard for the casual observer to not wonder if the administrators are just plain stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The blame for this lies solely with those with the political and institutional power to have mitigated the impacts of this global pandemic. If not for their reckless inaction we would not be in this position in the first place. Any talk of blaming teens and twenty-somethings for this is nothing more than a deflection.

<comment><USER15> What's particularly galling is that some of the people attempting to blame the students are most familiar with how students behave.

<comment><USER17> You don't get a pass for bad behaviour because you have a long history of bad behaviour.

<comment><USER15> College age kids have exhibited poor behavior since ... forever? You can rage against this, or you can design systems designed to function despite the poor risk/reward calculations of some people.

Only one actually gets results, the other just lets you shift blame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate this concept that blaming these young adults for being irresponsible is wrong because we should have know the students would be irresponsible.

Sure, it's predictable, but that does zero to absolve the students. It just means that the admins are to blame _also_. They're clearly hoping that holding rule breakers accountable will lead to other students rising to the challenge. It's obvious that, before you punish/suspend/expel a bunch of them, they'll act as normal. It remains to be seen what they'll do afterwards.

<comment><USER19> I can't speak for the general case, but in the case of the small university I work at, a _huge_ reason the student body is so irresponsible is that the administration is well-known to turn a blind eye to whole rafts of terrible behaviours (some of which are blatantly illegal, others merely really bad ideas).

If you've been demonstrating for the past 80 years that students who put on unsanctioned parties, put racist graffiti on their neighbours' whiteboards, and have suitcases full of heroin in their dorm rooms won't be punished in any way, why should they believe that _now_ you're going to punish them for...putting on unsanctioned parties?

<comment><USER17> Asking universities to police student behaviour in any form beyond academic/on sanctioned trips is absurd.

If gatherings need to be banned, police should enforce the ban on gatherings.

Universities exist to instruct and learn, not be substitute parents.

<comment><USER19> At the university I work at, the frat houses are owned by the university. The vast majority of all students live in university-owned housing, and while there _are_ unsanctioned parties in off-campus housing where the university has no jurisdiction,

a) Most parties are not. They occur on university property. Therefore, the university has a responsibility _and liability_ for what goes on there. b) The university is known to lean on the local police force (which is already very small) to not do anything about student parties either on or off campus. c) The university has, except for this past year due to the pandemic, funded and run every year a huge weekend-long party every spring. Until a very few years ago, this was poorly-enough policed that students from the local high school regularly got in and got themselves smashed. One underage girl (the last year before they instituted stricter access controls) got so drunk she passed out and nearly died.

This isn't about being "substitute parents". The university has a responsibility both to its students and to the community in which it exists, and it is blatantly shirking that responsibility just so it can give the students a "fun experience" so they will remember it fondly and give it lots of money as alumni. (This isn't even speculation; it is well-known that this is the reason for the lack of policies with teeth.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Administrators need to design good policy, of course.

But the fundamental implicit assumption here seems to be _" Students are not adults"_

<comment><USER14> It's not about whether or not they're adults; it's about whether they're willing to follow public health guidance about large gatherings. Many older adults throughout the country are similarly unwilling.

<comment><USER20> Similarly unwilling, yet we don't give _them_ a free pass for it.

<comment><USER14> I'd argue we do. In most areas of the country formal citations for violating social distancing measures are extremely rare; we occasionally crack down on the most blatant excesses, but generally just accept that some people are gonna have large parties or large protests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good. People need to be held accountable.

</comment><comment><USER12> Annoyingly, I cannot read the article, with the demands to sign up, undismissable modals, "ad blocker detected" pop up (I don't have an ad blocker on mobile).

<comment><USER22> " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER12> It's more than an annoyance. I literally cannot read the article

<comment><USER22> It's ok to ask for workarounds. People usually post them.

If there's truly no way to read an article, then the article would be off topic here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminder: the vast, vast majority of the students are not in danger of dying. Median age of those dying is ~80, and CFR drops off exponentially for younger people to almost nothing. They're also going to do stupid shit anyway. So maybe it's better if they stayed in dormitories rather than visited their grandma from time to time.

<comment><USER24> Students are only one group of people who use a campus...people are less concerned about kids doing dumb shit that hurts them, and more worried about kids doing dumb shit that jeopardizes the safety of faculty, administrators, facilities staff, poor students who get a decent meal when they're on campus bc of financial aid...part of the entire problem here is the narrow perspective that 'students' are the only ones worth considering when making public health decisions around universities.

<comment><USER23> Most of the "administrators" can work from home, or in fact be laid off outright. The quality of education will only improve, and cost would decrease. Older professors could social distance and wear PPE if they are so inclined. I think charging $40-50K/yr for a glorified MOOC is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's very annoying that this site drops a big banner forcing you to create an account to read it. Who do they think they are that their written content is supposed to be so can't-miss that I'm going to slap together yet another data breach liability-waiting-to-happen user account, let alone letting them track my personal data, just to read this.

The arrogance and user hostility is severe.

Of course they are allowed to try this, they don't owe me anything at all, and they (rightly) are wanting to monetize the publication of content they spent time and money to produce.

All that is irrelevant. They (and many other sites doing this) need a serious wake up call to be more self-aware that random long tail content on the internet is worth approximately zilch, and the cost of registering and giving you my data is _way_ too high for something like this.</comment>