Sqlite: Code Of Conduct - <AUTHOR> https://sqlite.org/codeofconduct.html <comment><USER2> If the code of conduct angers you, stop and think -- how did you feel one minute before you read the CoC? Is the problem really the CoC, or is it your collection of beliefs that is causing the problem? Furthermore, are you even affected? Do you contribute bug reports or patches? Follow the SQLite mailing list? Is anything here designed to prevent you from continuing to do so?

SQLite's author is a spiritual guy. There's nothing wrong with him borrowing from spiritual sources to describe his ideal for how he wants the SQLite community to conduct itself.

<comment><USER3> #1 on the list is: First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.

I'm an atheist - I am unable and unwilling to comply with this CoC. So yes, I would say that I am affected.

Other well known religious folk in the foss world, such as Larry Wall, do not insist on this kind of exclusion.

<comment><USER4> Good news, the CoC is inclusive for you, with the following:

"those who wish to participate" ... "are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that _honors the overarching spirit of the rule, even if they disagree with specific details. Polite and professional discussion is always welcomed, from anyone_."

In other words, calm down.

<comment><USER5> It's weird, though, right? I mean, flip the logic.

What if someone had a code of conduct that was clearly about people treating each other well...but started it with "First, you must acknowledge that there is no God." Or "First you must acknowledge that Mohammad is God's messenger." Or "First you must accept the mitzvot as binding." Or "Brahman is Truth and Reality."

None of these is promoting inclusion.

That said: I'm an observer here. I haven't chosen to participate or not participate in the SQLite community because of this. I simply think it's a strange place to promote one's religion, and it doesn't surprise me that non- Christians might find it unwelcoming.

<comment><USER6> I reject this premise that every CoC must "promote inclusion" i.e. be approved in full by some social marxist Politburo notionally intended to protect everyone's "feelings" by expunging and banning everything that might be considered "offensive". If you want that for your own project, fine, but you have no right to force it onto others.

In any case, western civ has deep roots in the christian tradition and I don't know any atheists that are so extremely fragile or sensitive that they are "offended" by simply seeing people repeating 1500+ year old fragments of it. Especially when they use the disclaimers that were used here.

<comment><USER5> I'm not trying to force anyone to do anything, and I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that I am. If someone wants their OSS project to be appealing to the 1/6th of the people in the world who consider themselves to be Christians, that's fine.

If they _want_ to try to be appealing to, say, 7/7ths of the developers out there, they might want to do something different.

<comment> Const-me > appealing to the 1/6th of the people in the world who consider themselves to > be Christians

I don't consider myself Christians but I like CoC a lot. It even made me think why I only used sqlite when I had to.

To me the CoC doesn't say I'm excluded. It says a couple of other things however, that author's not ashamed of who he is, he's sincere, and he knows about 1st amendment. I think all of these things are good.

<comment><USER7> Well i love Sqlite and also don't consider myself Christian and i am quite baffled by this. I mean this is some strange place to promote Christianity. It is suprising considering how tech tries to always paint itself as apolitical.

Seriously i can't imagine the uproar and hate if he was a Muslim. Imagine how many tech leads would immediately start figuring out how to completely change their stack and replace sqlite with leveldb.

<comment><USER8> If he were a muslim and added some Sufi-inspired rules I don't think there would have been more complaints than the Rule of St. Benedict gave rise to. If he cited those parts of islamic scripture which call for conquest by the sword there would - hopefully - have been uproar as those espouse an exclusive and oppressive ideology, just like there would have been more of an uproar if the sqlite project cited the more vile parts of, say, Deuteronomium.

I see this 'code of conduct' as a literary form of pro-biotics [1], there to protect against invasion by harmful non-transcendental religions like intersectionality which have the capacity to sow discord and tear communities apart into warring factions. Even though I do not believe in transcendental gods I have no problems accepting the Rule as I see it for what it is, an abstraction of monastic life written to the benefit of medieval monks. I am under no vow of obedience or poverty and I am rarely in a situation where I have to bury the dead so I know I can skip those parts which are not applicable. In truth, I realise I can skip just about everything except the bit which tells me to treat others as I'd like to be treated myself.

[1] a mixture of safe bacteria which is supposed to colonise the gut to keep the bad ones out

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Discussion on the sqlite-users mailing list:

[http://sqlite.1065341.n5.nabble.com/Regarding-CoC- td104277.h...](http://sqlite.1065341.n5.nabble.com/Regarding-CoC- td104277.html)

From Richard:

"Yes. Clients were encouraging me to have a code of conduct. (Having a CoC seems to be a trendy thing nowadays.) So I looked around and came up with what you found, submitted the idea to the whole staff, and everybody approved."

<comment><USER10> Leaving aside the religious aspect of the CoC which are probably going to be controversial the other rules are actually fairly common sense. A few that caught my eye:

> Do not give way to anger.

> Do not nurse a grudge.

> Do not entertain deceit in your heart.

> Do not give a false peace.

> Do not swear, for fear of perjuring yourself.

> Utter only truth from heart and mouth.

> Do not return evil for evil.

> Be not a grumbler.

> Be not a detractor.

> Hate no one.

> Be not jealous, nor harbor envy.

> Do not love quarreling.

> Shun arrogance.

> Respect your seniors.

> Love your juniors.

> Make peace with your adversary before the sun sets.

Good rules to live by IMO.

<comment><USER11> > Respect your seniors

How about just "respect people".

I've literally seen how "respect your seniors" plays out in reality: any idea from new/junior team members is effectively ignored, because they're not 'senior' enough.

<comment><USER12> Seriously? The next point is "love your juniors" so what you are saying shouldn't happen. But then again... I think loving your juniors usually ends up with HR.

<comment><USER13> Ah, but the original Latin has _iuniores diligere_ , that's means "esteem highly", "regard with affection" & so on. Instead you have these age and gender silos in American society, and the silly sex jokes and the Pence Rule, it's worrisome for anyone who has to navigate through it.

<comment><USER14> What on earth are you talking about? Can you rephrase in a way that a reasonable person can follow?

<comment><USER8> Iuniores diligere can mean 'love the juniors' but I suspect St. Benedict used the verb 'diligo' in one of its other meanings:

diligo: love, distinguish by choosing, regard above others, esteem highly, value, prize. Romantic love is 'amo' in latin (and Italian), St. Benedict is not telling you to get into problems with HR when loving anyone.

Iuniores means just what it says, 'the younger' so 'iuniores diligere' does mean 'love the younger' and as such fits perfectly in whatever 'age silo' doctrine you want Americans to accuse of professing. There is no mention of gender at all, nor do Pence or sex jokes come into play here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Best CoC I have ever seen! I do not think that it is joke. From sqlite's source code:

 __The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of __a legal notice, here is a blessing: ____May you do good and not evil. __May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. __May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

<comment><USER16> Was it sqlite that had a special clause allowing redhat users to use it for evil purposes?

<comment><USER17> Douglas Crockford gave a license to IBM to use JSLint for evil [https://www.cnet.com/news/dont-be-evil-google-spurns-no- evil...](https://www.cnet.com/news/dont-be-evil-google-spurns-no-evil- software/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am surprised at how dismissive and intolerant the comments here are of this code of conduct. And I say this as an atheist that still harbors a lot of resentment against my family's religion.

Do you have so little empathy that you can't possibly image someone adopting The Rule of St. Benedict in good faith (no pun intended)?

<comment><USER19> I don't think that the problem is adopting in bad or good faith; personally I am saddened because the CoCs are meant to be there to protect people that are usually in a weaker position and in our development communities that usually identifies with a few categories: women, LGBT+, disabled people etc.

Now if you look at it from this point of view I think that you can at least see the irony of using a religious text in this context; to be more clear, quoting their webpage:

> This code of conduct has proven its mettle in thousands of diverse > communities for over 1,500 years

Those "thousands of diverse communities" include the ones who were using their religion as a pretext to burn heretics/witches, torture homosexuals and in general oppress the weak and the diverse as well as the ones that today are still trying to infuse young people with their toxic shame when they are non- conforming.

This is what really grinds my gears: some people would do anything to NOT take responsibility and hide themselves behind nice words with little to no real content.

<comment><USER20> > Those "thousands of diverse communities" include the ones who were using > their religion as a pretext to burn heretics/witches, torture homosexuals > and in general oppress the weak and the diverse as well as the ones that > today are still trying to infuse young people with their toxic shame when > they are non-conforming.

Wow, those Benedictine monks have really been up to some heavy shit.

<comment><USER21> They owned actual slave plantations, too: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/981267](https://www.jstor.org/stable/981267)

We don't often talk about the thousands of years of human rights abuses by monastic orders, but they are pretty horrific. Even in America in living memory, it includes the torture and murder of children and the coverup of those crimes: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christinekenneally/orph...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christinekenneally/orphanage- death-catholic-abuse-nuns-st-josephs)

<comment><USER22> That last read was truly grim.

However, to reject the Rule of St Benedict because some Benedictines lived in egregious violation of it is like rejecting the United States Bill of Rights because the United States has often acted in direct violation of it.

The Rule is, on the whole, a wonderful document, and there are today and have been through history a great many good people who live it day in and day out fairly faithfully. I'm privileged to call some such people my friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes, it's meant as a joking stab at those who seemingly cannot live without having a CoC everywhere. Especially in projects they do not actually participate in. Now watch as this gets blown out of proportion, because this will make some people really, really angry. Id be very surprised if this stays up actually.

<comment><USER14> As an atheist, how could this possibly make someone mad?

<comment><USER24> Because if you take it as a satirization of the adoption of CoC's, it's saying "we don't think CoC's address real problems and we'll do it with a general set of ideals that do nothing to solve problems".

Which ignores the very real problem of harassment in tech.

<comment><USER25> According to others, the creator is actually a highly religious person. Why are you assuming that it's satire?

<comment><USER26> Given the context, I don't think they are mutually exclusive. It could be both a religious text and satirising other CoCs which are essentially religious in their own right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People seem to be upset about the religious parts of the code of conduct, just read the overview, it's in no way intended to force religion onto people.

If the religious bits was to be deleted, it would be hard for anyone to disagree.

I see it as no less good or bad than any other code of conduct I've seen. Most of them could be used to throw anyone out of any project, if you chose to do so. The code of conducts for a lot of projects are so selectively enforced that is ridiculous.

<comment><USER23> I don't think any of this is meant to be serious anyway. This is literally a set of rules meant for a order of ascetic monks. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict)

Although, religious aspects aside, there are many valuable tenets to be found in there, which will be directly opposed by those who want to get angry about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Right in the first section, people:

"However, those who wish to participate in the SQLite community, either by commenting on the public mailing lists or by contributing patches or suggestions or in any other way, are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that honors the overarching spirit of the rule, _even if they disagree with specific details_. Polite and professional discussion is _always welcomed, from anyone_."

Edit: I am not religious at all.

<comment><USER28> If the religious details won't be enforced, there's no reason for them to be in the CoC. This CoC exists in its current form solely because Richard Hipp is very religious.

<comment><USER29> Did you read the SQLite CoC? All of it?

Hint: there is a clause pointing out that complete adherence is impossible and that the aim is to conduct oneself as much as possible by The Rule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Leaving aside everything else, using the rule of St. Benedict and pointing out its influence on medieval thought seems like poor choice. Benedictine monasteries were often notoriously corrupt. There were frequent attempts at Benedictine reform, but it was almost always that case that in a few decades, the reformers would become more corrupt than those they were initially criticizing.

And, of course, is medieval government actually something to aspire to? Medieval European governments were extremely unstable, collapsed frequently (often due to assassination), rarely went a decade without civil war/armed rebellion, their legal systems were patchy and inconsistent, and almost all of them had laws which separated punishments for commoners and noble-born. The fact that medieval law was influenced by the Benedictine rule seems like a reason to reject it.

<comment><USER14> Code of conduct still requires enforcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I do get a little joy on my monday morning that there are still people out there doing good work who can just tell people in a pig's eye when they are pressured to do stupid things.

</comment><comment><USER32> Having a code of conduct isn't about creating rules, it's about making a public commitment to enforce them.

Now that they've shown us that they clearly don't care about a code of conduct, I wouldn't trust them to ever handle any actual conduct issues in a reasonable way. Maybe they'd just send me a joke instead.

</comment><comment><USER33> An interesting mirroring of the popular CoCs these days. While they enshrine what one could call "San Francisco Democrat" values, this CoC enshrines christian conservative values.

If you think value-based CoCs are fine, you shouldn't have a problem with this.

<comment><USER34> They're certainly Christian values, but they're not "conservative", at least not by the American definition. I'll point you to these tenets:

* Relieve the poor. * Clothe the naked. * Visit the sick.

... those seem like "liberal values" to me, at least on the American spectrum.

<comment><USER35> Christ never advocates for the state to do anything. These are _individual_ commands.

<comment><USER29> Christ does exhort his followers to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and Democrats believe the state acts on behalf of the populace to perform tasks that we individually could not do. So a community can clothe and house the poor better than an individual can.

Clothing and housing are artefacts of this world, not the kingdom of Christ. Ergo rendering unto Caesar what is caesar's involves providing clothing and housing to those who do not have it, with the state as proxy and effort multiplier.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, the "render unto Caesar" episode was so much deeper than just "pay your taxes."

Also, whatever the state does, it accomplishes through the threat of violence to collect taxes. For a Christian, the ends are as important as the means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand the purpose of this. I hope it's an elaborate joke, but it is surprisingly unprofessional.

A few years ago I spent some time in their dev mailing list and proposed a patch. I doubt I'd still do this in this context. This code of conduct that requires members to honor th Christ, even as a joke, would make me reluctant to interact with SQLite.

<comment><USER37> Yes, but when did professionalism become a requirement for open source software?

<comment><USER21> When people started having both standards and options. I can choose between a college frathouse and a productive guild hall: why would I live in a frathouse?

<comment><USER37> Indeed. Choose away. Of course in the end you choose the one with functioning plumbing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > Speak no useless words or words that move to laughter.

Aww here goes my entire social coping strategy.

That being said: this is a stab at Linux CoC? I can see the humour in it but... Seems unprofessonal for a project as SQLite?

<comment><USER13> Didn't we all encounter bosses who would call endless meetings and who would laugh at points that they could not understand? This one is important, even if the fellow from the _Name of the Rose_ had a strange take on it.

<comment><USER39> Upvoted for the reference. If only we had a copy of the Second Book of Poetics...

<comment><USER39> Why was this comment downvoted?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> > 39\. Be not a grumbler.

Oh dear. That's basically all of us.

<comment><USER41> There goes my day job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Great! I can't wait for another project adopting an Islamic CoC (not to be enforced!), and read the comments.

<comment><USER16> What would be wrong with that?

<comment><USER42> Nothing (not worse than this CoC at least).

But the comments would be _waaay_ different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Awesome. It's the first CoC for a FOSS project which sets the plank for good behaviour high enough!

</comment><comment><USER44> First, I never knew SQLLite was quite so religious,

Second 69\. Love your juniors. Really? Won't HR get involved?

<comment><USER45> Well you also shall not commit adultery so marry them first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Fascinating! Some folks really need a reminder of what "inclusiveness" means.

</comment><comment><USER47> Are there any studies proving the effectiveness of CoCs ? Like, more active contributors, or a bigger market share, on projects after they adopted their CoC?

</comment><comment><USER48> I had to read this as an elaborate joke around such codes. It'd be certainly amusing to see people trying to be in compliance.

<comment><USER29> What makes you think people being respectful to each other would be amusing?

<comment><USER48> The religious ones, in special, are hard to follow for an Atheist like me. I suppose members of non-Christian religions will find it difficult too. This shortcoming is so salient it's hard to imagine it never came up in discussions.

<comment><USER29> This reminds me of that joke about which life choice a vegan Crossfitter will bring up first :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> @dang Why was this flagged?

<comment><USER49> Isn't the flagging process automated, which would mean enough commenters flagged it? If there was a manual review of the flags, it would be nice to have at least a short comment from mods as to why they took action.

<comment><USER14> Ahh, entirely possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jf- Ha. Needs some tweaks here and there but it's a good start!

<comment><USER44> I think it needs to be more specific, which God? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deities_by_classificat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deities_by_classification)

<comment><USER50> the best and strongest one ofc

<comment><USER51> Let'em duke it out. [http://pbfcomics.com/comics/spelling/](http://pbfcomics.com/comics/spelling/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> For me, rule 11 conflicts with rules 59 and 63. There is a merge conflict.

</comment><comment><USER53> Rule of St.Benedict is good, although much of it is not applicable to computer software development, some of it is only meaningful to Christians (I don't mean that it is bad or unwelcoming to non-Christians, but rather that it is meaningless), and some of it is less suitable outside of monastic orders. However, the preface corrects these problems (as many others have mentioned too), to make it suitable.

I have no problem with the people if they are Christian or Jewish or Wiccan or atheist or whatever (although this is independent from if you are good at this computer programming; Knuth is Christian and he is one of the best of the computer programmers in my opinion). Also, I have no problem to use SQLite regardless of the CoC; I still think it is a good software.

</comment><comment><USER54> The ultimate CoC to put an end to this silly practice.

<comment><USER55> I don't think it will put an end to this as many people are simply too afraid to refuse (heck, even Linus gave in!), but if other projects react in a similar way, it will be a breath of fresh air and make it more difficult to enforce SoC for all open source projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Amen

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't wait to see people get reported for merely being slightly afraid of hell rather than in actual dread of hell.

Of course, since there's no enforcement mechanism this seems to be just an attempt to get credit with customers without actually caring about the question they were really asking.

</comment><comment><USER57> We've adopted the Saint Benedict rule too: [http://dailyprog.org/rule/](http://dailyprog.org/rule/)

We will adopt similar codes from different traditions of the world.

</comment><comment><USER58> "This code of conduct has proven its mettle in thousands of diverse communities for over 1,500 years" LOL

</comment><comment><USER59> Joke or not, dick move either way.

<comment><USER60> Why do you think that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> "Having a CoC seems to be a trendy thing nowadays."

Here, then, is an example of how society falls. Never has any good come out of such things, and for as long as one seeks to dominate, oppress and limit another in any such way, no matter how sweet the words, their meaning will forever remain imprisonment of another.

</comment><comment><USER62> Besides enforcing religious beliefs with history of multiple genocides, this is bad CoC.

It is toothless. What are procedures when someone in community breaks rules? There is no board to decide, no email to report, no process to take place. Do I pray to the Lord?

This is pure trolling without merit.

<comment><USER63> I don't think it's trolling, but I agree that it's missing an email adress to report and what the process would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Am I the only person who was angered because I assumed they were doing a piss- take on a serious subject?

Fuck's sake, people - learn how to explain yourselves in the context of your known readership.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is now the dumbest CoC I've seen today, and the RMS one set quite the low bar. Any actual enforceable CoC that may get adopted loses any credibility with this move.

<comment><USER66> I think everyone should try to do the best to get along with others. That said, I wouldn't even cry if that would be that case.

No COC will improve anything. It just might divide contributors without any benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Well this is surely extraordinary among codes of conduct, with its direct mention of God. It's bound to ruffle a lot of feathers, and act as a beacon for culture war.

</comment><comment><USER68> Hyperbolic bullshit solves everything, right?

</comment><comment><USER69> How immature. If you disagree with having a code of conduct, then not having one seems preferable to making it an insult to those asking for one.

<comment><USER70> Be not a grumbler

Edit: in all seriousness (in accordance with The Rule), I think open mockery from a serious project is extrodinarily important

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Be not addicted to wine. Be not a great eater. Be not drowsy. Be not lazy. Be not a grumbler.

Guess I can't use SQLite anymore…

<comment><USER63> The CoC explicitly says that it only applies to Sqlite devs, not users.

>

This rule applies to SQLite developers, not to users of the SQLite code. Everyone is free to use the SQLite source code, object code, and/or documentation regardless of their opinion of and adherence to this rule. SQLite has been and continues to be completely free to everyone, without precondition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Is this an elaborate joke or something?!

<comment><USER73> Seems more like them telling people to stop bothering them with divisive CoC bullshit. In a similar vein to NCoC

[https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC](https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC)

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> This is 100% absurd.

</comment><comment><USER75> Ugh, wall of text. Can I get a tl;dr?

<comment><USER76> tl;dr is "Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself.".

<comment><USER77> "Don't be a dick", in modern parlance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Hail Satan!

<comment><USER79> Please don't do this here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> USA != Rest of the World. Most problems are not issues, only for US devs as tech tend to be very US centric.

I'm all for being civil online, but against everyone behaving defined by a template.

</comment><comment><USER81> Interesting to see so many people defending this, either on the basis of "it's satire" or "it says you don't have to follow every single rule."

Would you be saying the same thing if it said "Allah" instead of "God"? What if it said you had to love Osama bin Laden? What if rule 1 was "love white people"?

Religious discrimination is poor fodder for satire and is not something we should just selectively ignore.

Edit: wonder what the downvotes are about. Don't like seeing Yahweh compared to ObL, maybe? Well, my point exactly.

<comment><USER82> As an atheist, I love this CoC. Because these comments like yours are illuminating the non-inclusive, intolerant, authoritarian ideology taking over the CoC-wielding open source community these days. So yes, I'd be fine with "Allah."

<comment><USER81> And this is why I don't like this CoC. It reinforces the idea that religious people get to do what they want and the rest of us should just be quiet about it.

How exactly is it "intolerant" to object to a CoC that can only be followed by adherents of a particular religion?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> People being far too literal here about the "Love the Lord God". Your God is whatever you worship, and yes even the Atheist worships something. The commandment is two parts: (a) Jehovah (The Lord) should be your God and (b) your God should be the priority in your life. If you're Atheist or another faith then replace A by identifying "your God" and make it your priority. Live with purpose!

<comment><USER84> > yes even the Atheist worships something

Actually, no. It's the absence of it. It's like saying not smoking is a habit. It makes no sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Regardless if this is a joke or not, this is not acceptable, you can't put religious things in the code of conduct. Even if it is a joke, it is still awful and I wish that it gets removed quickly.

<comment><USER86> > you can't put religious things in the code of conduct.

Why not? Isn't the whole point of a code-of-conduct to describe the ethical values of a community? And isn't all ethics a kind of religion, even if it does not always make explicit mention of deity? From that point of view, every code-of-conduct is a credo, by definition.

Suppose I were to go in and edit St. Benedict's rules to omit all reference to "God" and "Christ", leaving behind such things as "do not steal", "do not nurse a grudge", "do not return evil for evil", and so forth. Would the document be acceptable to you then? If not, then what exactly are the ground rules for codes of conduct? And who makes those rules? Is there a code-of- conduct for codes of conduct?

If you answer "Yes" to the previous, then are you suggesting that you and/or I are somehow wiser than Benedict of Nursia, such that we are able to edit and improve upon his work?

<comment><USER85> well yes you could if you put it like that, my main point is that in that case you would have to make sure the community as a whole (all the main devs) share that point of view.</comment></comment></comment>


Peppermint OS One-08042010 Screenshots - <AUTHOR> http://easylinuxcds.com/blog/?p=3992

<comment><USER2> I tried LXDE last week and was very impressed. It was very lightweight and fast, but felt complete and robust. I'm seriously considering switching to Fedora's "spin" of it.</comment>


Why Apple doesn't just sue Google and get it over with - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57493056-37/why-apple-doesnt-just-sue-google-and-get-it-over-with

<comment><USER2> TL;DR - Google would teach them the meaning of pain.</comment>


10,000 year clock gets lowered into Texan mountain - <AUTHOR> https://www.theengineer.co.uk/10000-year-clock-texan-mountain/ <comment><USER2> This is great news! Thank you for posting this, Tony!

The Long Now site says, "Located under a remote limestone mountain near Van Horn, Texas, it will require a day's hike to reach its interior gears. Just reaching the entrance tunnel situated 1500 feet above the high scrub desert will leave some visitors out of breath, nicked by thorns, and wondering what they got themselves into." Presumably that means Jeff wants to make it a little bit challenging for people to find the Clock, at least for a few years.

[http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/)

The Clock is designed to require the Hero's Journey to reach, because it's primarily designed to inspire, to bring people to spiritual experiences, not to tell time.

Also, keep in mind that the greatest risk to the Clock is human vandalism and looting — the one thing you can't protect against by design, although they've certainly tried. If the Clock survives a century without anyone visiting it, it will have made it 1% of the way to its design lifespan.

They've published enough photos and videos that it should be possible to find, though.

<comment><USER3> If 4chan can find a flag on a webcam, people can find this clock.

<comment><USER4> The clock is fully intended to accept visitors, if you check out the site longnow.org/clock/ you'll see there are certain "features" for people visiting the clock.

The 4chan CTF was truly epic and hilarious though.

<comment><USER5> > _The 4chan CTF was truly epic and hilarious though._

I looked up the story expecting "epic and hilarious", and got "/pol/ Neo-Nazis harass a bunch of people for not liking Trump and steal an anti-Trump flag. But look how clever they were about stealing it!"

Is there some other, similar story that I'm missing?

<comment><USER6> A bunch of people saw an A-list celebrity do a publicity stunt and wanted to have fun with it.

As far as the "Nazis!" claim goes you need to be able to read between the lines if you want to read an imageboard as trollish as 4chan. And if you want to see who really is behind the posts you can look up the first "He will not divide us" event at a New York museum. Spoiler alert: It's not nazis. ;)

<comment><USER7> 4chan doesn't have natural defenses against "normie" invaders that other sites have (moderation, identity), so it developed a potent meta-defense. Anyone who takes the site literally will find themselves extremely confused and upset like your parent post. In the old days it used to be gore posting to make newbies flee. It's defenses are constantly evolving as paid online agitators try to control the message there (as they have successfully done on other more straightforward platforms that limit free speech yet supposedly have far more resources to prevent shilling). Turns out free speech is very powerful indeed.

<comment><USER8> That's a romantic way to look at it I suppose. As somebody on 4chan for a little more than a decade now I'd say that it slowly moved from an anarcho- libertarian community who loved gratuitous provocation to an alt-right echo chamber, at least as far as the big boards are concerned.

"Hitler did nothing wrong" went from a provocative joke to a political stamement. 4chan is the embodiment of "any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company".

That puts modern 4chan in the somewhat ironic position of being actually on the side of the American government for the most part something I couldn't really imagine 2007 ever endorsing, regardless of the who's in charge.

<comment><USER9> > "Hitler did nothing wrong" went from a provocative joke to a political > statement.

I'm sort of fascinated by the phenomenon, which I think of as "LOLgical argument". You start off with a joke where the humor is based in an extreme and socially transgressive statement. It could be "Hitler did nothing wrong," or "The Earth is flat," or any number of similarly absurd ideas. The original users are trolls who privately do not actually believe what they are saying, but enjoy "rustling jimmies" and the increased status their daring obtains.

But as more members of the community join in, the original statement loses its edge, and even more transgressive poses are needed to continue the joke. Often this means doubling-down, and telling others that you do indeed believe the thing that they had, at some level, still been treating as a punchline.

This meta-joke involves finding "proof" that the shocking thing you said before was actually true, and demonstrating your commitment, by creating memes and other "evidence"-based arguments for it. In doing so, you begin to create a community that becomes indistinguishable from a community that actually believes the original statement.

As these arguments pile up, even trolls who started off disbelieving their original statement find themselves surrounded by "evidence" they were right all along. There is a swell of camaraderie as those who were bold enough to question the official version of reality begin to support each other. The community pressure, the ego boost of having discovered some secret suppressed knowledge, and the psychological difficulty of abandoning their previous position all contribute to the complete conversion of a troll into an earnest believer.

I find this fascinating because it works in such opposition to the ways we normally talk about convincing people of new ideas. It's not the logic of the argument here that leads people to a new conclusion but rather the logic of the joke, the idea that the funniest punchline to an absurd joke is to actually believe it. When enough individuals in a community feel that way, they can actually end up convincing each other.

So it's not so much that the community becomes "flooded by actual idiots" as it is the original trolls who become believers themselves.

Vonnegut once wrote, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." He was probably more right here than he knew.

<comment><USER8> I think your analysis is accurate. These past years reddit's "The Donald" community is a prime example of that, except it went through all phases in about a year, maybe even less.

But I also think you need to take into account that many of the original users who genuinely did not seriously believe the "Hitler did nothing wrong"/"Hearth is flat"/"Donald Trump would make a great president"/... meta-joke end up leaving when things get serious. It's actually a feature for the extremists who push these ideas, if you're not with them you're against them, it's all about creating an echo chamber at this point. Reddit is terrible for that because of the moderation and voting system but even on 4chan good luck trying to argue against the hivemind, you'll just get insulted over and over until the thread 404's. Eventually you give up and stop bothering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Or does it?

> "Penn Jillette suggested that the real way to do this is make a video > documentary of the making of the clock and then hiding it, but not actually > doing it," Rose says. "(The clock) never gets found, but people would become > intrigued. The mystery of the clock becomes the real thing." [1]

[1] [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/THE-MARCH-OF- TI...](https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/THE-MARCH-OF- TIME-2492139.php)

<comment><USER11> Write a book that allegedly contains hidden messages that reveal the location of the clock. The book itself is teaching valuable lessons for the humanity. Only those who follow the teachings with pure heart will find the clock.

<comment><USER12> The final message is that the 10'000 year clock was always in your heart.

Neal Stephenson wrote that book, it's called Anathem.

<comment><USER13> The foundation claims that Anathem was inspired by this project:

[http://blog.longnow.org/02008/07/21/anathem-and-long- now/](http://blog.longnow.org/02008/07/21/anathem-and-long-now/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> """

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"""

<comment><USER15> > The biggest problem for the beating Clock will be the effects of its human > visitors. Over the span of centuries, valuable stuff of any type tends to be > stolen, kids climb everywhere, and hackers naturally try to see how things > work or break. But it is humans that keep the Clock's bells wound up, and > humans who ask it the time. The Clock needs us. It will be an out of the > way, long journey to get inside the Clock ringing inside a mountain. But as > long as the Clock ticks, it keeps asking us, in whispers of buried bells, > "Are we being good ancestors?"

[http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've known about this project for a long time, but I was just reminded of the song "Particle Man":

       He's got a watch with a minute hand
       Millennium hand and an eon hand
       And when they meet it's a happy land

</comment><comment><USER17> What happened to their Nevada site up in the White Pine Mountains? What made them choose the Van Horn area instead?

Long Now, by the way, has a great center and bar at Fort Mason in San Francisco. It's my favorite place to get a drink in the city--great bartenders, very low-key, and lots of interesting stuff to look at.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps similar to The Foundation and the Second Foundation---one to be public, the other, private.

<comment><USER19> What would you be inclined to do if you were making something truly unique, something that required amazing attention to detail and custom effort?

Make two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Now if they could get to repairing the solar system model at The Interval ;)

I've been stopping by at midnight for the past year or two in hopes that I'll be able to see the system in action, but alas it appears the system is so complex that repairs are costly. For those of you intrigued with The Long Now and are based in SF - definitely visit The Interval, it's one of the more interesting "themed" bars out there with books and a collection of mini exhibits dedicated to science, art, and music.

</comment><comment><USER21> In case you want to visit, both the Amtrak Texas Eagle (LA to Chicago) and the Amtrak Sunset Limited (LA to New Orleans) pass right through Van Horn.

The Amtrak Station is technically in Sierra Blanca, TX FYI.

[https://m.amtrak.com/h5/r/www.amtrak.com/routes/texas- eagle-...](https://m.amtrak.com/h5/r/www.amtrak.com/routes/texas-eagle- train.html)

<comment><USER22> Have you ever been to Texas? Why would you take a train for a dozen hours when you could fly and rent a car for far less money?

When you finally get to Sierra Blanca, then what? There aren't any car rental places there and certainly not any taxis.. and I am sure you aren't going to just walk everywhere — look at the distances. The West Texas Light Rail Project hasn't quite made it as far as Sierra Blanca or Van Horn.

Your advice to take Amtrak is just ridiculous and could get some idealistic, yet ignorant hipster eaten by vultures or, at the very least, severely sunburned and dehydrated.

<comment><USER23> Idealistic hipster here.

I've hitched a ride from Kent to Van Horn which is about as far in the opposite direction. West Texas is beautiful. Bring a bicycle, and don't go in the summer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great work Kevin, and everyone else involved in Long Now!

For those who aren't familiar, Long Now is a non-profit dedicated to long term thinking (on 10,000+ year timescales).

<comment><USER25> Fun related fact: Neal Stephenson's involvement in Long Now also led to ideas in Anathem. Excellent book, which has a fun long term clock idea in it.

[http://longnow.org/events/02008/sep/09/anathem-book- launch/](http://longnow.org/events/02008/sep/09/anathem-book-launch/)

<comment><USER26> In particular, a clock with a 10,000 year cycle.

It's one of my favourite books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > inspiring a more long-term view of the world and our place in it

I fail to see how that is pertinent. We know the world will still exist in 10,000 years, but we have no idea what it will look like. The mere existence of a clock that could potentially still be running then doesn't change anything about that, does it?

If anything, celestial objects do exist and provide some kind of a natural long term clock. I really don't get what a mechanical one hidden in a mountain adds to it.

<comment><USER28> > but we have no idea what it will look like

That's the point. The point of the clock is to put a frame on a span of nearly unimaginable time and live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years - it is a challenge to do big, great, meaningful things with long term impact.

The clock itself as a mechanical object is an expensive monument and nothing more, it likely won't last the full 10,000 years of course...

<comment><USER27> > live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years

That does not make much sense to me. You can't both admit we have no idea what the world will be like in ten thousands years, and at the same time claim you can do something that will be significant in such time frame. You don't know what will be significant then.

<comment><USER29> The way I understand it, long term thinking is neither about the future nor about predicting it or planning something significant for it; it is rather a thought model which tries to extend beyond the timeframes humans might feel at home with cognitively. An off-the-cuff, superficial yet interesting example is the lack of a common word in English language to express units of time longer than 1000.

This style of thinking sometimes has its benefits, like gathering together a community to build a mechanical clock, create a manual for restarting a civilization[1], or write a non-fiction book about "earth without people"[2].

It's just an interesting intellectual, cultural endeavor.

[1]: [http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for- civilization/](http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for-civilization/)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm happy to see progress on this. I hadn't heard update for so long I had stopped checking their website. I don't live terribly far from the location—maybe a five or six hour drive, so when it's ready to be visited, I'll definitely make the trek.

<comment><USER27> > I hadn't heard update for so long I had stopped checking their website.

I hope I'm not the only one who appreciates the irony of this sentence.

<comment><USER31> Poignantly appropriate, perhaps piquant - but not ironic (contrary or inappropriate in a poignant way.) "As you might logically expect" is not what we usually want to point to with the word "ironic" which derives from the taste of blood in the mouth (iron), I believe. Irony is always poignant, but what is poignant is not always ironic - it can be poignant and suitable(appropriate/consistent). Poignant and surprising and nonetheless consistent with what one might expect; not contrary to expectations.

Of course, 100 years from now I'll probably be wrong, the word irony is so thoroughly misused, that by then the dictionary will have dropped the word poignant entirely, substituted "irony" and we'll need a whole new phrase to say what one word, "irony", means now.

<comment><USER27> Expressing impatience regarding a project that is supposed to inspire long- term thinking is pretty much ironic in my book.

<comment><USER31> You think it would be unusual to find a ten-thousand year project a bit slow and even frustratingly so? No, you don't. Follow the logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There are a lot of comments here expressing concern for the longevity of the clock due to vandalism and human activity. The inspiring thing about this project to me is the optimism that something like this can be exposed to the public and that we will respect it for 10,000 years.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, but "yeah right" is what I thought when I read your optimism that people will respect something for 10,000 years.

Look at everything ISIS and the Taliban blew up. Look at all of the random vandalism everywhere. There was once a cool balanced rock near Fredericksburg, Texas — until in 1986 vandals blew it up with dynamite for no reason other than "fun." I visited that place when I was a little kid and I was 9 when it was destroyed.

Be inspired — but be disappointed. Humanity is a dark and imperfect species. That's why I treat utopians, Communists, and socialists with such contempt — because they base entire economic philosophies on a naïve hope of the perfection of man rather than acknowledging man's inherent desire for his own self-interest.

<comment><USER32> So what? Just give up? What's your point?

I don't know what will happen to the clock. What I know is someone put in the time to make it and express their idea now. In this moment in time that inspires me.

What does a defeatist attitude of dwelling only on the negative do to improve the human condition?

<comment><USER33> The human condition is as good as it can be at this point in time - To try to change it, damages it. E.g. A child feels loved when they're accepted as they are, rather than pushing onto it things the parents wished they had done or ideals the parents wished they lived by.

Sometimes, to yield to the current gives strength.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Creating things that last a long time is hard. If for no other reason than forecasting the future is hard.

I have this weird thought that this project could be undone by fracking within 100 years.

Current well map shows how much is in the area: [http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/oil-gas/major-oil-and-gas- formati...](http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/oil-gas/major-oil-and-gas- formations/permian-basin-information/#)

(FYI, the Texas Railroad Commission is the regulTor of oil & gas operations in the state. )

</comment><comment><USER35> Now will they also build a math around it?

</comment><comment><USER36> You can actually appreciate country music driving through West Texas. It works out there.

<comment><USER32> Out in the West Texas town of El Paso...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It should last. The oldest working clocks are big tower clocks over 600 years old. They've needed maintenance over the centuries, but they're iron and brass, not stainless steel and ceramics.

</comment><comment><USER38> I am late to the party, but others may have similar interest:

Are there any physical 1000+ year clocks for sale?

Asking for a friend.

<comment><USER39> There are clock that run on small temperature variations, there seem to be commercial ones with a hefty price tag:

[http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/us/en/watches/atmos/atmos- cl...](http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/us/en/watches/atmos/atmos- classique/5101202.html)

(previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16419434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16419434))

The problem is those don't have an automatic synchronization mechanism. That's the really tricky/cool part about the 10ky clock.

If you wanted to create, say, a time capsule that'll last for 1000 years with a working watch, I think your best bet would be some ultra-low power microcontroller and an LCD that you could turn on occasionally. Both power and syncronization could be done from temperature variations. Just leave it buried somewhere outdoors exposed to daily (night and day) and seasonal variations, it should be enough to keep time with +/\- a few hours at decent probability.

Just make sure to avoid anything that exhibits remotely any degradation, like electrolytic capactitors, and account for erosion of the moving parts.

Some relevant discussion: [https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/317684/could...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/317684/could- modern-electronic-chips-e-g-arm-and-intel-processors-operate-for-millen)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's sad that they couldn't get Danny Hillis's name spelled correctly in the article!

<comment><USER41> I seem to recall reading an article in Wired back in the 90s about Danny Hillis, The Clock and how he liked to give everyone piggy back rides. Actually, reading that article about Danny way back then definitely inspired me to realize that its OK to have big huge enormous ideas and do things that other people think might be a little weird or silly. Kind of like 10,000 year clocks and running up and down hallways with strangers on your back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> save 10,000 lives [1] or make a 10,000 year clock?

Opportunity cost exists

[1]: [https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost- effec...](https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost- effectiveness), [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-charity- can-s...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-charity-can-save-a- life-for-333706-and-thats-a-steal-2015-7)

<comment><USER43> Or maybe save a lot more lives than 10,000 over time by doing things that keeps the species aspirational, helping avoid protracted regression and short- term thinking.

For another example, building out space infrastructure.

The notion that the other things we do, with creating and building, often don't pay off in a radically superior way than directly saving a life, is ridiculous.

How many lives could we have directly saved instead of doing the space race? How about: instead of a space race, the US and USSR focus more on regressive behavior, war, and nuke the shit out of eachother, killing hundreds of millions of people.

How many lives will the transistor have saved, improved, or made possible over a century: should that investment have gone into saving 10,000 or 100,000 lives back then instead?

Your setup is a false choice.

<comment><USER42> I do actually find the project fairly neat, and I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. Just wanted to start a discussion about a different aspect of this and see people's arguments because opportunity cost definitely exists, and the allocation of our limited resources is a difficult and interesting problem.

Also, I would contest that some of those charities are arguably long-term thinking as well.

<comment><USER44> How many lives could you personally have made better, by not reading Hacker News, and instead helping the homeless in your city?

> the allocation of our limited resources is a difficult and interesting > problem

The one without sin cast the first stone. There is always a better, more impactful choice available today than spending time online or watching Netflix. Yet, it is unreasonable to expect others to live the life of Mother Teresa when oneself is writing it on such forums. Even the most good people alive today probably played a game, read a book or watched TV at times. People should not be judged on what they did in their off time, but what absolute good they have accomplished. Let Mother Teresa build all the silly clocks she wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This project has $42M pumped into it. Still having a hard time seeing the value add for this type of project with this level of investment (or spending).

<comment><USER46> But it makes sense to spend $100m on a painting?

Not all money is going to be spent productively, and not everything needs a clear purpose.

<comment><USER45> No, spending $100m does not make sense either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> 10,000 years is a LONG time (for our modern civilization, that is).

To me the question is: how will we measure time once we become a multi-planet species?

</comment><comment><USER48> >The clock will tick just once a year

It looks like it has a large pendulum, maybe 50m which would lead to it ticking every 7 seconds or so?

<comment><USER49> No, the article is wrong.

The large weight simply powers the clock by gravity. The blowtorch part of the video shows the triple-sided chain attached to the weight.

Visitors to the block will wind up the weight in order to hear the chimes. The clock chimes once per day, and a mechanical computer varies the chime such that it is different each day for the full 10,000 years. If it's not wound, the chimes are silent.

The time-keeping function of the clock is much smaller and can run for a _long_ time without anyone winding the clock. The idea is that even if there is a serious calamity, the clock will continue to keep time until it's found again and wound by visitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So where is it? "near Van Horn Texas" is all I could find.

<comment><USER51> There's also this site[1] which seems to be more specifically about the clock in Texas, and has a mailing list sign up to be notified about visiting possibilities.

1: [http://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html](http://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html)

<comment><USER50> [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-104.902702,1698a,35...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-104.902702,1698a,35y,2.05h/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4?hl=en)

Looks like some construction work on top of a mountain near Bezos' land north of Van Horn. If you zoom out, you can see it shows 'West Texas Suborbital Launch Site' a bit to the east.

Looks like it's in the Sierra Diablo range.

Bing's satellite map of the same place:

[https://binged.it/2ou7xtf](https://binged.it/2ou7xtf)

Background image from the site you linked looks consistent with those sheer ridges in the Bing imagery: [http://www.10000yearclock.net/img/bg.jpg](http://www.10000yearclock.net/img/bg.jpg)

<comment><USER52> Nice find! These guys have a picture that looks like the tower:

[http://www.swaggartbrothers.com/project/10000-year- clock/](http://www.swaggartbrothers.com/project/10000-year-clock/)

<comment><USER50> Oh, yeah, you can see the strip mine type thing in this photo:

[http://www.swaggartbrothers.com/swaggart/wp- content/uploads/...](http://www.swaggartbrothers.com/swaggart/wp- content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_0472.jpg)

That's visible in the bottom of this satellite image:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-104.8992241,5680a,3...](https://email@example.com,-104.8992241,5680a,35y,2.05h/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4?hl=en)

<comment><USER52> Looking at a USGS topographical map, the tower is located right on a peak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This will be another place to visit, once this clock start.

</comment><comment><USER54> The 10,000 year is very convenient for Discordians.

</comment><comment><USER55> Really interesting, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER56> Corrosion, dirt etc. How is that going to last 10,000 years?

<comment><USER57> They built it out of specifically engineered materials that are highly resistant to corrotion. It's in an underground hole carved into rock to be dry and fairly dirt free. This was planned for quite a long time, I assure you.

<comment><USER56> > I assure you.

Wonderful. I was simply asking how did they do that. Like in technical details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> It will be interesting to see how this mechanism fares, for sure.

If they can master this, they're at least 10% of the way toward figuring out how to contain high-level radioactive waste! That brilliant (!) engineering marvel needs to be contained at least ten times longer than this clock is supposed to run.

Easy peasy!

"Clean! Safe! Too cheap to meter!"

<comment><USER59> Just a minor technical quibble (because that's what HN is for, after all)--"too cheap to meter" refers to the expected cost-effectiveness of fusion power, not fission, and "too cheap to meter" doesn't necessarily mean that power is free, just that the costs of power delivery are dominated by the delivery infrastructure rather than the generation of the power in the first place. In other words, you'd pay a flat rate per month for unlimited power to keep the power grid up and running.

Fusion power would _also_ be cost-effective enough to literally turn CO2 and water back into hydrocarbons, desalinate ocean water for large-scale irrigation, sustainably produce nitrogen-based fertilizer from the air, and otherwise solve virtually every sustainability problem we face or will conceivably face for centuries. (The rest can be solved by harvesting mineral resources from asteroids instead of the Earth's surface, but that problem can be solved through better orbital infrastructure, which turns into an energy problem.)

<comment><USER60> Even in principle, this is similar to saying a bridge is "too cheap to meter". There's no fuel cost, but it can certainly take a long time to pay for pricey infrastructure via tolls.

I don't see why anyone would charge a flat rate for unlimited electricity when you can pay off the enormous debt faster by charging market rate.

<comment><USER59> This might be a case where public infrastructure makes more sense than private infrastructure; if a large industrial country like China standardizes on a design and builds dozens to hundreds of identical plants, they would enjoy vast economies of scale and probably regain their investment in GDP growth purely from the economic activities made possible through fusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm in awe, but at the same time concerned of its longevity due to vandalism and human acts.

I assume this remote site will be unguarded? Expect rubbish, empty cans, used condoms etc there. That's assuming nobody does damage to the clock itself, either on purpose (stealing) or not ("what if I put a wood stick inside..."). Some people would start climbing it just because.. and some of them would get hurt or die. Police would come and seal the place.

"It's one day hiking!" \-- yes for now. Human settlements expand, and within few years maybe the distance from nearest settlement would be half. Also if the place becomes famous, people would pave ways to it (you know, as tourist attraction).

I guess I'm an old fart.

<comment><USER52> It's 3 kilometers from the nearest public road, an unpaved access road for a wildlife management area. There is an access road they have used for the construction but that can be blocked a considerable further distance away.

And go look at how sparse that part of Texas is. It'll be just a little while before any development encroaches on the mountain. The access road above is 50 Km from a village with ~2,000 people.

<comment><USER62> Don't underestimate what a tiny percentage of people with malice in their hearts can do with 10000 years of opportunity.

<comment><USER52> Right, a determined vandal could go damage it. My argument is that the level of determination required isn't going to change very quickly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's Time for the United States to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/will-the-united-states-help-if-saudi-arabia-starts-to-fall-apart/?utm_content=buffer24554&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> As someone with limited foreign policy knowledge, don't we _want_ a Saudi collapse? Wahhabism was state-sponsored by the Saudis, the underlying extremist religious movement behind Al-Qaeda and ISIS. So it seems to me that the Saudi regime is something we would all really want to go away.

I also found it kind of ridiculous that the author mentioned the Obama administration's decision to leave the area as a cause for destabilization. What the hell does the world want us to do? If we police everything, we get the reputation we've earned of being Big Brother/Big Bully. If we take a more laissez faire approach, now the world thinks we aren't doing enough to help? We're damned if we do, damned if we don't.

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, Saudis are a key ally in the region which is why we turn blind eyes to Riydah.

So, no, the US wants the current regime to stay and keep the status quo.

Losing the current regime could be bad news. Who's to say who and what fills the vacuum? Better to keep the current regime propped up than roll the dice and possibly lose.

There are no bones about the Saudis being every bit as undesirable a regime as some others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally hope that the Saudi dictatorship gets thrown out sooner than later. Saudi-Arabia is the funding source both financially and ideologically for lots of terrorist groups, including Al-Quaeda and the so-called Islamic State.

I don't have any fears about the oil prices - while it's true that Saudi oil is by far the cheapest worldwide, Iran has a lot of growth potential, and the Russians would also like to sell more oil, given their disastruous financial situation.

The real risk after a Saudi collapse, though, is: who is going to take over after a coup, and which regime is set to fall next? And I'm not sure I like the options available...

<comment><USER5> Your risk is right on. The problem with throwing out dictators (laudable) is what they get replaced with (not necessarily an improvement). If Saudi Arabia were to fall and be replaced by an ISIS style state, we'd be very limited in our ability to respond militarily without enraging significant parts of the Muslim world by conducting military operations on sacred ground.

That then begs the question of "do we even care if there's an ISIS style state in Saudi Arabia?" The answer is probably yes, since an ISIS inspired state would clearly have ambitions beyond the Arabian peninsula.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I am confused.

At some point as the World chooses cheaper oil supplies and eventually runs to a new enegry source that is not oil. That trend is not something anyone nation can prevent, it will happen within the full next 100 years.

The worry is not that Saudi Arabia and Iran will collapse..that is going to happen in the next 100 years. The concern is right now Saudi Arabia and Iran officially are still at undeclared war with Israel.. does any regime give us a worse set-up in the undeclared war with Israel?

But having both as failed stats woudl be something worse

<comment><USER4> > But having both as failed stats woudl be something worse

Iran, in contrast to Saudi-Arabia, has industry: tourism, textiles, cement and steel. Also, due to the long international sanctions, they're used to not depend on their oil exports.

Saudi-Arabia has nothing to offer except Mecca - which would likely be battle ground after a regime overthrow, because of the importance of Mecca. Yes, the SA regime has truckloads of money, but I'd guess it's all locked in foreign countries under control of members of the currently ruling family - so if the regime were to fall, vast loads of Saudi-Arabian money would not be available in the country any more.

<comment><USER7> SA has $117 bn in treasuries.

[https://www.ft.com/content/c1569904-1c14-11e6-b286-cddde55ca...](https://www.ft.com/content/c1569904-1c14-11e6-b286-cddde55ca122)

<comment><USER4> The question is: who helds authority over which part of the assets of the Saudi state assets?

If it's members of the ruling family, good luck collecting the assets. Even if it's a central bank, assets might not neccessarily be safe from theft during a coup. We've seen this all too often already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems the main threat from a Saudi collapse is a takeover from Iran- Russian-Syria coalition. That's a tough one because both Saudi and Russia are hostile to US. But it's doubtful Russia can launch a full-scaled invasion into a soverign country.</comment>


Google Releases the Full Version of Their Search Quality Rating Guidelines - <AUTHOR> https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/11/updating-our-search-quality-rating.html <comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to 160-page PDF - [http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf)</comment>


A wiki of informational slideshows with content from Wikipedia. - <AUTHOR> http://qwiki.com

<comment><USER2> Great idea, and good execution, but to me more of a good indication of where things are going than a complete idea.

It also highlights the need for more semantic knowledge within resources like Wikipedia. Grabbing the first paragraph (as the site seems to do) is a reasonable guess at a key summary of a topic, but that may not always be the case..

Speed wise, it still seems easier to just read the start of the article on the wiki (or use your own reading software if visually impaired), although this is a nicer experience :)</comment>


Show HN: Buy Real Estate with One Click - <AUTHOR> Founder of AlphaCap.ai here, we built a simple tool that allows anyone to buy real estate and immediately start receiving monthly rental income.
We encountered a problem in the form of an endless wall of paperwork when trying to buy real estate for investment purposes. Real estate industry is still pretty outdated, there are still real estate agents who charge 3% to represent the seller and another 3% to represent the buyer, there are technology platforms like Redfin that are trying to tackle that particular challenge by charging 1% and hiring a salaried employee to represent the buyer/seller. However, buying a percentage ownership in a property still remains a difficult problem. We strive to build a platform to connect interested buyers/investors with each other to raise enough capital to purchase a property together. This way if a property is a great investment, but you don't have enough money to cover the full purchase price you can use our platform to buy a percentage of that property and allow others to invest in the remaining equity. You will then receive your share of the rental income + appreciation on your equity ownership over time.
I want to thank everyone in advance for providing feedback and looking forward to hearing your thoughts and any concerns.
[1] https://alphacap.ai <comment><USER2> You reposted this half an hour later. Please wait more, something like a day or more. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20740789](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20740789) (already with 4 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> Did you self-authorize yourself for hyperlinking your site?

I cannot see an exception for founders in the "Hyperlinking to our Content" of "Terms":

[https://alphacap.ai/terms](https://alphacap.ai/terms)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm that was boilerplate terms and conditions and that section is just silly, removing... Thanks for pointing it out.

<comment><USER3> Well, with all due respect of course, "Privacy Policy" and "Terms & Conditions" are seemingly the "only" actual contents of your site (at least before logging in).

What I see is someone who put on the internet a "standard" one page site with some images and a common layout, with 2 (two) meaningful sentences:

1) Buy equity in any property across the US and start receiving monthly rental income with cap rates as high as 20%

2) AlphaCap allows anyone to buy equity in any real estate property that is on sale, once 100% of the purchase price is funded we purchase the property on your behalf and manage the property and start sending you monthly rental income.

which are both fine, but I miss - at the very least - an "About Us" page explaining who (the company) you are and a "How it works in detail" page actually explaining what anyone with both money to invest and a brain would want to know, including actual examples, how the matter is dealt with IRS (for US investors) or how it is configured regarding international Laws (for non-US investors), etc.

The "cap rates as high as 20%" means nothing, both 1% and 19% fit well in the range but they are very different numbers, particularly when we are talking money.

And this long before signing up and providing you a name [1] and an e-mail address.

[1] as a side-side note I would personally make clear whether the Name means the actual name or a login/nick/handle is allowed

[2] why the .ai domain name? If the thingy really uses Artificial Intelligence you are too modest when you say "we built a simple tool" on the other hand if it doesn't use it and you are just riding the hype on the term you will probaby lose anyone that knows what AI actually is (or should be).</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby 2.0.0-p195 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2013/05/14/ruby-2-0-0-p195-is-released/

<comment><USER2> for rvm users, upgrade is pretty simple:

        $ rvm get stable
        $ rvm install ruby

done!</comment>


Is Elon Musk Serious? - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/is-elon-musk-serious-1827456578 <comment><USER2> Musk's tweet deriding the "rescue chief" made Musk look like a fool: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016684366083190785](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016684366083190785)

> _The former Thai provincial governor (described inaccurately as "rescue > chief") is not the subject matter expert. That would be Dick Stanton, who > co-led the dive rescue team. This is our direct correspondence_

As a CEO himself, I would think Musk would know the difference between an executive and someone who is a technical lead. The "rescue chief", aka Gov. Narongsak Osottanakorn, was the official who made the call to perform the rescue operation, which he did after consultation with diving experts and the families. He is absolutely the person who matters when it comes to opinions of whether something is "not practical". Just as Musk, as Tesla CEO, is the person whose has the deciding opinion about whether a car/factory feature is practical, even if he isn't the chief engineer who does the actual implementation.

</comment><comment><USER3> He posted the exact conversation with the technical person in charge. They were considering using the submarine for the youngest as a backup plan. Just because they weren't forced to use it means nothing. During the Chilean mine rescue, there were 2 extra drills going at the same time using different technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree it doesn't hurt but at the same time, I'm a strong believer in "too many cooks in the kitchen". Especially when you add to the fact that Elon Musk and his team of engineers are not experts in search and rescue.

Also, where was he during the first few days of the rescue? All of a sudden this story has international attention and he steps in.

He's that kid that tried to build a crazy contraption to save the cat from the tree when all you really needed was a sturdy ladder.

<comment><USER4> They lucked out with the rain. It isn't clear that the method they used would have worked as well with more water in the cave.

Not weighing in on the sub with that, just the ladder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect he's extremely serious about publicity. Was he going to build a submarine for kids before they ran out of oxygen? Not likely. But now the world knows about the Boring Company.

<comment><USER2> Do they? The Boring angle was pitched as a possibility for drilling holes (which apparently was practical). The mini-submarine seems more strongly associated with SpaceX, being built from rocket ship parts and all.

<comment><USER5> Well I never heard of them before, but they were mentioned in numerous news stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of his offers to help included drop shipping fully-charged power packs.

I had to wonder: could you deliver more energy if you instead delivered the fuel you would save by leaving the power packs behind?</comment>


Ask HN: What are some things new developers should read (that isn't code?) - <AUTHOR> I'm teaching a bootcamp course and am finding that my students are so focused on the actual code they're writing, that they're not really developing the right mindset, patterns, and habits. I want to make sure I'm teaching them to be more well rounded, and not just code monkeys. Is there any reading you would suggest they (or I, for that matter) read to better approach the profession? <comment><USER2> 1\. Kathy Sierra's book "Badass": how to make users of your software or product succeed.

2\. Tooting my own horn: I've been trying to think about this, and write up what I've learned over the years. Like, what it takes to be a productive programmer ([https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/))

3\. Havoc Pennington's blog has some amazing stuff, e.g. [https://blog.ometer.com/2016/01/26/the-dangerous-ui- team/](https://blog.ometer.com/2016/01/26/the-dangerous-ui-team/)

4\. A book on writing (I found one I really like, but it's out-of-print - [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/06/15/writing- book/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/06/15/writing-book/))

5\. Maybe some of Gerald's Weinberg's books?

6\. "The Clean Coder" has some useful bits too.</comment>


Show HN: A Forth-inspired game to teach kids programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.matchthestack.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for all the comments. I've got to run off to work, but I thought I would give some quick responses to your thoughts: 0) The general idea here is that there aren't instructions, tool tips, or other helpful hints. You learn as you go by clicking around. 1) In my own testing of the game, I've found that kids like it this way and I've been surprised by how they can pick things up. Even my mother was able to make it through the game and she hasn't written a line of code in her life. 2) That being said, I've also tested the game on professionals and found that they don't perform much better and sometimes are worse than the kids. They seem less willing to play around and make mistakes.

Just my two cents...

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't think any kid--or adult for that matter--without experience in Forth would be able to figure this out. Even if they did, it wouldn't teach them programming.

All I saw were stack manipulation puzzles. Granted, I quit at the (oddly depicted) swap puzzle, so maybe it gets better, but I didn't see any sign of that.

At a minimum, provide help, hints, points for passing a level, and some kind of roadmap of what I will accomplish if I finish the game.

Edit: If you want to find out more about Forth, here is a tutorial from the One Laptop Per Child site: [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lesson_0](http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lesson_0)

<comment><USER3> I have no experiance with forth, and I had a really fun time puzzling out the rules for the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've sometimes wondered about using Forth-style stack manipulation as the basis for a game, and it's nice to see someone do it.

These are the things that weren't clear to me, and that I had to spend a couple of minutes randomly clicking around to figure out (bearing in mind I'm somebody who already knows what a stack machine is supposed to be doing):

\- "proceed to the next level" means: click the up-arrow at the bottom right of the window.

\- Levels are completed by filling in the grey tiles in the centre of the window, and running the program.

\- Filling in those tiles is done by draging smaller grey tiles from the top- left corner.

\- The program can be run by clicking the right-arrow at the bottom of the window.

\- The first proper level (called "0_0", as far as I can tell) is already complete, the reason you can't do anything is because there's nothing to be done.

<comment><USER5> Thanks... was lost without these instructions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who doesn't know Forth and is relatively new to programming, I have no idea what is going on here.

<comment><USER7> I vaguely remember a little Forth, and I had no idea what was going on either.

<comment><USER8> This does not seem to have anything to do with forth. This seems to be a game about manipulating a stack.

<comment><USER9> A stack machine running a series of operations like drop, dup, pick...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So clicked randomly on the icons on the first page and having clicked all of them discovered that that the up arrow 'started' the game.

I randomly clicked on the stacks, tried to drag the stacks, clicked on all the icons, found that the right arrow seemed to move the left stack towards the right. After several clicks I apparently won.

I will not be showing this to my kids.

</comment><comment><USER11> Enjoyable! I like it more as a work of graphic design than a "teaching game" \-- it's remarkable how much can be done with shapes and without words. I think "teaching programming" is something that should be done with words, but getting kids interested in sequential, programming-style puzzles is also worth something.

What would be a good place for a kid to go after finishing the game, that would carry forward what they saw on MtS?

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah, this is weird, my son loves games, and he would be frustrated quick with no instructions or hovers on action buttons. No idea what the point of this game is, what the rules are, how to score points, why somthing is right or wrong. You need to improve the experience here.

</comment><comment><USER13> "please proceed to the next level"

And no instructions on how to even do that. Plus it's an image, instead of text. This is not for kids.

</comment><comment><USER14> It took me a lot of random clicking to even get to stage one. Then after some more random clicking and some blocks moving around I got to stage 2.

You really need to consult a graphic designer for the UI.

Also, explain more. As an adult I was ready to give up by stage 2, how are kids going to figure this out.

I hope you find this feedback helpful.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool! I really had a blast with it. I think it is just missing a few points on the ui side, but like I said, I am just in love with this game right now. I kinda wish I could play this on the train. Is source available? I would kinda like to poke around a bit.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is pretty awesome. Confusing at first, like any good puzzle should be. My wife is already to 1_14 and I plan to install gforth, fire it up and show her how transferable everything she just learned is.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice, but the whole operation on the bottom of the stack as opposed to the top really made it hard. Great work and thanks for trying to bring something simple to kids.

I'm thinking of doing a stamp, move, spin type programming for an pre-intro course in programming.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like the principle, but sorry to be neg, but the execution is awful.

Stacks don't slide sideways.

They pop and push and operate. That's what you should animate, the _actions_.

Having the operator in the top left is very odd.

What's that number for? The speed of the animation. Why bother, it is meaningless.

<comment><USER18> I didn't think it was _that_ bad - just needs a tutorial or at least some kind of explanation. And some tooltips... I kind of enjoyed it in a weird way.

Disclaimer: have done a few years of PostScript programming.

<comment><USER17> Still nope. The things it animates and has big buttons for are not the things it is trying to teach - the operations of a stack.

I think the idea of a stack based "game" is a good one. Though as a Forth programmer I already play that game :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> just been playing this with my 6 six year old who has no experience in forth and she figured out 'the anchor' (drop) and the 'printer' (duplicate). I suspect this happened quicker for her than it might have for some adults because she was quite happy to click on everything until stuff happened and a pattern emerged. though eventually (level 1_6) the sequence of operations got too long for her</comment>


Ask HN: How do I start my career after 7 years break with honesty? - <AUTHOR>

I have been living here in USA for the past 7 years unemployed as I was on a visa that did not allow me to be employed. Now finally I got my work permit and I am ready to work but I don't have anything to show as experience. I am a self taught developer who loves Golang now, but I am fairly happy to work with Java or any other language. I don't want to put lies on my resume and instead start with all honesty. I have loans to clear and bills to pay so I can't risk being an entrepreneur. Please give me any suggestions how do I start after all these years. I love startups and I am willing to relocate anywhere within US. <comment><USER2> Do you have anything to show for the 7 years? Open source contributions or the like? If so, I would just put that up on the resume.

If you have nothing to show and simply want to restart your career, I would do it this way: a) narrow down a bunch of technologies you want to work on. b) now narrow down on a bunch of companies as well. c) look for opensource things around the above two. d) make contributions on the above. this can either be in the for of code, answering things actively on irc, being active on mailing lists etc. show people you are knowledgeable.

Once you spent a couple of months on the above cycle, you should be able to generate enough stuff to put on your resume.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I think I have some contributions around open source which I can show, though fragmented. Appreciate your thoughtful comment. BEST.</comment></comment>


Thieves may mutilate owners of fingerprint-reading handsets - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/iphone-5s-thieves-may-mutilate-owners-in-bid-to-gain-access-to-fingerprintreading-handsets-expert-warns-8808577.html

<comment><USER2> I can predict these kinds of problems with biometric security. In the race to be the first to implement, Apple may have made a terrible mistake for a lot of people. I would now avoid these phones.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's to stop them from mutilating you until you reveal your pin?

<comment><USER2> It's easier to quickly slice off the fingertip, no questions asked. Phone theft is so widespread and sophisticated you can expect new tech developed for quickly extracting fingertips coming soon.</comment></comment>


Bill Clementson's Blog: JavaScript and Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/030920.html <comment><USER2> Using JavaScript 1.8 expression closures:

      function Y(X)
          (function(procedure)
              X(function(arg) procedure(procedure)(arg)))
                  (function(procedure)
                      X(function(arg) procedure(procedure)(arg)))

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice but, anonymous recursion is possible with arguments.callee.

<comment><USER4> More on arguments.callee:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Referen...](https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference/Functions_and_function_scope/arguments/callee)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tried Doug Crockford's little Javascripter: (define loop (lambda (x) (loop x))) (loop 1)

Result in Firefox: "Too much recursion"

I'm still surprised I didn't flunk B521 when Dan Friedman put something like this in my Java implementation of a Scheme interpreter and it blew up after some finite number of iterations.

It might have worked if method calls were properly tail-recursive!

</comment><comment><USER6> Helped me find a cool video from this Waldemar Horwat guy. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq4FpMe6cRs>

</comment><comment><USER7> > _will recognize that functions in JScript are fundamentally the Lambda > Calculus_

i would have thought you could say that about functions in any language...

<comment><USER8> Except languages where you can't pass functions as arguments or return them as results.

<comment><USER9> Horror! I didn't know such atrocities existed _shudder_ ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> JavaScript is implementation of Scheme (dialect of Lisp) with Java-like syntax.

<comment><USER9> Or as I like to say "JavaScript is Scheme in C drag".</comment></comment>