Aggregation Gone Too Far: Calling Out BoingBoing and Those Like Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.tenpoundhammer.com/2012/01/aggregation-gone-too-far-calling-out.html

<comment><USER2> Wow. Talk about thick irony.

The "original post" is an excerpt from a book. Which is itelf a collection - an aggregation, if you'll allow - of letters, essays, hymns, sermons, and prayers.

And the content is reproduced more or less wholesale at each level of distribution. So, why is BoingBoing's reproduction more wrong than any other?

Not that I particularly like BoingBoing; I don't actually read it very often. But this issue does point to an interesting notion: that not all of the value is in the content. Some of the value is in the context.

In other words, any single piece of content is not particularly valuable. A site like Letters of Note or BoingBoing has to provide a continuous stream of content, or a credible promise of interesting content in the future to offer a real value proposition. And the monetization strategy is in line with this, because even an anomalously large number of hits on a single piece of content isn't a significant revenue stream; you have to create an engaging brand (which is a promise) to create a stream of revenue.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you brought up several interesting points,but to answer the first question, So, why is BoingBoing's reproduction more wrong than any other?

BoingBoing's re-posting does not provide additional value and in fact reduces value. The additional value that Letters of Note provides is in finding the content in the real world, digitizing, and including necessary references so that all possible context is included.

BoingBoing did the opposite, they added no new value and reduced value by removing context and citations.

I agree with the continuous stream being a part of the total value, but on a per article basis they provided no additional value to this piece. I don't argue that aggregation is bad, I agree the manner in which it took place.

<comment><USER2> Hey, thanks for the reasonable reply. I think this is an important discussion to have.

If you follow the links all the way through, they end at a gutenberg project book. It's already digitized. They did provide a source of evidence for the veracity of the letter, which is great. (I'll note here that BB, in an update, also points to evidence in a Snopes message board thread.)

I don't think I explained what I meant by 'context' very well, though. I meant that Letters of Note provides value not by any individual letter, but by providing a stream of letters. That's its value prop. It means it's easier for anyone interested in the particular kind of content it's aggregating to get that content, by following Letters of Note.

BoingBoing's context/stream is different, a lot less specific about its topicality, but provides a similar kind of value: it aggregates things that its readers will find interesting. Its context is 'interesting things.' And not only does it point to the specific piece of content, but, by linking, it also points to Letters of Note, another context/stream that its readers might find interesting.

I more or less agree with you that it'd be more polite of BB to link more prominently and include less of the content in its post, but I think they do enough that anyone who is interested enough in that piece of content will follow the link to see more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a reasonable person.

I disagree with your final statement, I think that BB posts far too many of the details for anyone to want to click through. I also think they present in a way that says there is not more content to be seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately what Boing Boing are doing is pretty much the standard for pro blogging now. Even more unfortunately many of them enjoy significant traction on sites like Reddit/HN/Digg/etc.</comment>


I learned to stop worrying and love the Electoral College - <AUTHOR> https://satisologie.substack.com/p/applied-satisologie-the-coverage <comment><USER2> no</comment>


Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/opinion/sunday/steve-jobs-never-wanted-us-to-use-our-iphones-like-this.html <comment><USER2> > The [2007 iPhone launch] presentation confirms that Mr. Jobs envisioned a > simpler and more constrained iPhone experience than the one we actually have > over a decade later. For example, he doesn't focus much on apps.

Well, this is because there were no apps. It's was a brand new platform!

> Mr. Jobs seemed to understand the iPhone as something that would help us > with a small number of activities — listening to music, placing calls, > generating directions. He didn't seek to radically change the rhythm of > users' daily lives.

Jobs didn't die after presenting the iPhone in 2007 though. He passed away in 2011, well into the "there's an app for that" ad campaign that boasted how the iPhone _could_ in fact radically change the rhythm of users' daily lives.

<comment><USER3> There were no apps because they assumed everyone would use websites. Which is still mostly what I use my phone for (although I have an Android).

<comment><USER4> I do not believe this to be true at all. The App Store opened in July 2008, just over a year after the initial iPhone was released. That means that likely had to at least be on the Apple product roadmap well before the iPhone was even released.

<comment><USER5> He explicitly said in the iPhone launch that the intended way to create apps for the iPhone was to make a website:

> The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing > Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the > iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They > can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on > Google Maps.

> And guess what? There's no SDK that you need! You've got everything you need > if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write > amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we've got a very > sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today.

I remember a lot of jokes in the Mac developer community at the time about what a "sweet story" this was. It seemed like the public SDK was a response to jailbreak apps being more popular than the intended "iPhone Web apps."

<comment><USER4> I'm not debating that he said that, I'm just suggesting that it was a marketing ploy, either to buy the teams some time to iron out the details with the app store, or some clever product strategy to release the app store later (which was hugely popular when it did come out)

...but then I don't know, I wasn't there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure there's a strong connection with Jobs' desire to limit native code execution and social good will. It's probably worth pointing out that reportedly, Jobs himself kept iOS devices away from his own children because he considered them "too addictive."

Apple's original position on third party apps was that they deserved on the web, in what would eventually become known as "progressive web app" form. That position was abandoned not just because it was a mediocre user experience, but also, it actually prevented device lock-in, which is something Jobs obviously craved.

You can argue that some apps are time-sucks, or bad for your overall well- being, and I'll be right there with you. But that has relatively little to do with whether they're shitty web apps or native code apps.

And also, the fact that smartphones do way more than originally imagined is a great thing. In most parts of the world, I can pull out my phone, tap a few characters, and a car will magically pull up where I am and take me wherever I need to go. Or bring me food. I can translate anything to anything. I know the second a flight is delayed, which lets me be more present in life. My life is assuredly better because my smartphone is turing-complete and runs third party software.

<comment><USER7> "Apple's original position on third party apps..."

To add some necessary context, Apple's position on almost everything is "what we are currently doing is best" (and from that "what our competitors are doing is wrong" or "what you wish it did is wrong"). Building a whole native development platform, curation system, etc, is a massive undertaking, so with the first device Jobs unsurprisingly pitched their current state as ideal. And as they adopted new choices, those became the new ideal. Any who read too much into Jobs various sentiments that could best be expressed as sales pitches might be going astray.

<comment><USER6> That's a good point.

"We haven't figured out third party app curation yet" might have been accurate, but not in Apple's style to admit.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. Or even more likely, "we have a pretty good idea of what we want the native apps experience to be, but it's not ready/good enough yet".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the author is wrong on nearly all counts. I think Steve Jobs loved to see what people were interested in and find a way to make it easier to have and use. The iPod was a way of taking something people loved to do (listen to music) and make it easier with "1000 songs in your pocket."

At the risk of romanticizing: from what I've read, he wasn't about creating brand-new concepts, he was all about taking existing concepts and turning them into what people really wanted them to be.

Lastly, I think the author gives Apple and Steve Jobs far too much credit. Apps didn't become successful on these platforms because of app vendors, they became successful because people started asking "what else can I do with this phone?" People _want_ to constantly feel "in the loop" and "productive."

<comment><USER10> Right. this article is someone who has no credibility for their own argument trying to borrow credibility from a dead person by outlandishly claiming that the famous dead person agrees with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure Steve Jobs's opinion here is relevant.

I'm also not convinced that just because Steve Jobs pitched something one way in a presentation so that the audience would understand what the device meant, meant that he didn't see a large vision of an always-on, internet-enabled device.

<comment><USER12> "Internet communicator"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I get lambasted for this opinion all the time, but I am still holding it...

The Blackberry was the peak of efficient, minimal phone usage:

* It optimized for doing things like short letter and message writing well through the keyboard.

* Blackberry messenger still leads in terms of features that can reduce noise: appear offline and availability settings, friends lists.

* It focused on productivity applications, screen size kept browsing to "as needed".

As a Canadian, I remember when the iPhone started to take over. My friends were sitting around playing Paper Toss, meanwhile my berry sat quietly in my pocket.

<comment><USER14> Yet that same Blackberry was also nicknamed 'Crackberry' due to the seemingly addictive nature of the device which had some users glued to its screen just as much as current devices do. The conclusion to draw from this is probably that some people will get addicted to anything and everything which gives them the semblance of 'connectivity'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > In the remarks, after discussing the phone's interface and hardware, he > spends an extended amount of time demonstrating how the integrated iPod > leverages the touch screen before detailing the many ways Apple engineers > improved the age-old process of making phone calls. "It's the best iPod > we've ever made," Mr. Jobs exclaims at one point. "The killer app is making > calls," he later adds. Both lines spark thunderous applause. He doesn't > dedicate any significant time to discussing the phone's internet > connectivity features until more than 30 minutes into the address.

> The presentation confirms that Mr. Jobs envisioned a simpler and more > constrained iPhone experience than the one we actually have over a decade > later.

Having actually seen the video years ago, this article strikes me as a big mischaracterization of what Jobs said -- let alone envisioned, which only Jobs would know.

I don't remember the exact quote, but in the first couple minutes of the video, Jobs introduces the talk saying iPhone is going to revolutionize three industries by combining an iPod, a phone, and internet communication device.

Jobs was fully aware it was going to be huge for those three reasons combined. Had he not envisioned it was about having the internet in your pocket, he'd have stopped at it being an iPod that can place phone calls.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think "Wanted" should be changed to "Imagined" to better reflect the content.

With that being said, it's a refreshing article. Most articles on Steve Jobs focus on how visionary he was, how he was predicting everything etc. This one is stating that, he was a human after all, just like us, and that the future is notoriously hard to imagine and predict. Nassim Taleb would agree :)

</comment><comment><USER17> He didn't want us to use Macs the way we do either. The Mac's spiritual predecessor, the Lisa, originally came with an office suite and that was it. No third-party application software could be installed. Eventually, alternative OSes (including Unix) and an emulation layer allowing Apple to badge-engineer unsold Lisas as the "Macintosh XL" would change that, but the original concept was fixed functionality that would prevent users from being overwhelmed by too many choices.

Steve had a fondness for completely circumscribed ecosystems and "computers as appliances" which I don't think he ever totally let go of, despite innovation and market demands showing obvious benefits to users being able to expand the capabilities of their own devices.

<comment><USER8> > _He didn 't want us to use Macs the way we do either. The Mac's spiritual > predecessor, the Lisa…_

Steve was forced out of the Lisa group more than 2 years before the Lisa shipped, so it's a stretch to infer a "no third-party applications" intent on Steve's part based on that.

Also, Lisa Workshop allowed for third-party application development and shipped alongside Lisa Office System (IIRC). Are you saying that it was possible to develop applications for the Lisa but not run them? (I honestly don't know, but that seems unlikely.)

> _Steve had a fondness for completely circumscribed ecosystems and "computers > as appliances"…_

You may be thinking of Jef Raskin, who originally envisioned Macintosh as a "computer appliance". Steve's vision for Macintosh was much different than Jef's, and Apple actively courted third-party developers during its development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting to ponder how much of the smartphone ecosystem was an accidental byproduct of implementation details: namely, the decision to use a stripped-down desktop OS, rather than a beefed-up iPod OS. Allegedly, the latter was also in the works as a phone, but it was Scott Forstall's OS X team who won the battle internally. Even though the feature set was shipped as "iPod that makes calls", the fact that everyone knew there was a full OS under the hood made the proliferation of apps inevitable.

I suspect we would have gotten to the present-day norm eventually either way; but, if not for "OS X in your pocket", the iPhone might have wound up in the same historic dustbin as the Newton, the Palm, and the Sidekick, a mere precursor rather than the thin end of a revolutionary wedge.

</comment><comment><USER19> > _He doesn't dedicate any significant time to discussing the phone's internet > connectivity features until more than 30 minutes into the address._

That's because, IIRC, he was doing a dramatic reveal where each set of features was discussed separately (iPod, cell phone, internet navigator). The fact that this section came last doesn't mean Jobs thought it was less important. In fact, it was arguably the most impressive part (iPods already existed, as did cell phones, but there were no good touch-screen internet- enabled devices). That's probably why it was last.

</comment><comment><USER20> This essay absurdly treats humans and their beliefs as immutable objects. There is no justifiable reason to think this, even as much as Jobs may have likened himself to a deity.

</comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps Jobs didn't appreciate the full extent to which their product would transform humanity, but that is not necessarily the same thing as him not wanting, or opposing, us using our iPhones as much as we do.

I understand the desire for a backlash on smartphones, but their ubiquity is simply a demonstration of just how much utility we derive from them.

<comment><USER22> I don't think ubiquity necessarily implies utility. Was the ubiquity of cigarettes a demonstration of how much utility we derived from them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> While the title of this article may be a bit misleading as numerous people here have reliably pointed out, I think comments so far are missing the broader point. Cal Newport's focus for awhile now has been on "minimalist" use of our phones, and how social media, etc. are interrupting/damaging our lives in numerous ways.

Despite the "cheap" headline and arguments you could make of his narrow interpretation of Jobs' introduction of the iPhone, Newport's broader points IMHO should still be recognized and are important to be heard.

</comment><comment><USER24> Evidently he didn't let iPads into the home as far as the kids involved:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-steve-jobs- never-l...](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-steve-jobs-never-let- his-kids-use-ipad-apple-social-media-2017-3)

For some, these gadgets are crack cocaine.

</comment><comment><USER25> Seeing that by the time the iPhone was introduced, there were already millions of people tuning out the world with iPods, I doubt that SJ didn't see this coming. By the time he passed, the App Store and social media on mobile were already a big thing.

</comment><comment><USER26> The reason Jobs didn't want to demo the Internet part of the phone was because it was terribly buggy at the time of the demo and they rehearsed a way to carefully navigate a few pages in a specific order that wouldn't crash the browser.

</comment><comment><USER27> Jobs didn't focus on, at the time, non-existent features, like the mobile web, because they didn't exist. The authors interpretation is not well supported

<comment><USER28> WAP was introduced in 1999, and m.example.com (or .mobi ones; introduced in 2005) style sites existed before the iPhone as well for use on Blackberries and the like.

Things exploded quite a bit post-iPhone, but it's a mistake to say they didn't exist at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I call bs. It was a very clever entry to the market with lots of opportunity for product improvement. 3G chip? Reason to upgrade. App Store? Another.

</comment><comment><USER30> He thought he could heal his cancer with crystals, let's not hold him up as some perfect deity.

</comment><comment><USER31> "He didn't seek to radically change the rhythm of users' daily lives."

He didn´t do it. We did.

</comment><comment><USER32> The author knows he didn't die until years after the first iPhone launch?

</comment><comment><USER33> He underestimated smartphones, so what?

We all did..

</comment><comment><USER34> Please stop telling us what Steve wanted or not wanted? He is dead for Christ's sake. Let him rest

<comment><USER35> For your information, Jesus Christ never wanted us to argue about mobile phones on the internet.

<comment><USER34> Depends on the universe I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> So easy to put words in the mouth of someone dead.

</comment><comment><USER37> LOL at the NYT taking Steve Jobs' marketing tactics as his actual normative views. News flash: Steve Jobs was the best in the history of capitalism at "it's not a bug, it's a feature." The iPhone was perfect without 3rd party apps because it didn't have 3rd party apps! Once there were 3rd party apps, it was perfect with 3rd party apps. It was perfect with a 3 inch screen because it had a 3 inch screen. When he increased it then it was perfect then. When it had a bad radio it wasn't the phone that was imperfect, it was you and your stupid fucking hand!

Notice how many times Apple has used the motto "the best iStuff since iStuff." It worked better several years ago, but they always claim their current thing is the Platonic ideal of its category.</comment>


Darwin (1960s programming game) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(programming_game)

<comment><USER2> It's interesting that the game is called Darwin and the 'unbeatable' program was one that took on evolutionary properties.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More at: <http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/darwin.pdf>

(Probably should have submitted that as the primary link.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a more advanced (online) version? Something similar to RoboWar but w/o having to install Visual Basic?

<comment><USER4> Do you know Core Wars? It's doesn't count as the same game, but shoots into a similar vein.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> see also corewars</comment>


Penrose Tiling in Obfuscated Python - <AUTHOR> http://preshing.com/20110822/penrose-tiling-in-obfuscated-python/

<comment><USER2> Kind of reminds me of Yusuke Endoh's IOCCC entry that won "Most Solid."

[http://www.ioccc.org/2013/endoh4/](http://www.ioccc.org/2013/endoh4/)</comment>


Good Luck at Demo Day - <AUTHOR> I believe today is Demo Day for the Spring 08 YC Companies, so good luck to all and get some more funding! <comment><USER2> I was trying to think of something appropriately motivational, and the speech from Animal House was all I could come up with:

<http://www.jibjab.com/view/123484>

I'm sure you're going to wow them

<comment><USER3> I also tried to come up with something inspirational, but failed miserably, as you can see:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G4uDiI_FqQ>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah guys! Good luck!!!</comment>


Parse Goes Realtime with Live Queries - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/announcements/parse-server-goes-realtime-with-live-queries/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Parse Server repo has crossed 7,500 stars and now has 53 contributors. This is a huge addition to the ecosystem, a completely open-source client and server application platform, combining the best features from all of the competition... and you can run it all on your laptop.</comment>


C64 Power C Tutorial - <AUTHOR> http://64k.blot.im/power-c-tutorial-part-i-introduction <comment><USER2> There's something magical about writing code in C for these old 8-bit and 16-bit CPUs. You really feel like you're in control. You can inspect the assembly output and actually understand it. You can do inline assembler to optimize critical sections. 32-bit CPUs lose some of that magic, because the instructions sets are usually much more complex. However, RISC ISAs like RISC-V are still plenty of fun...

<comment><USER3> As someone that started coding back when those systems were modern, if you want to be in control learn Assembly.

<comment><USER4> IIR, C wasn't even available for most of these systems as they probably didn't have the local resources to compile their own code.

<comment><USER3> On what concerns the Spectrum range, there were some pseudo C compilers that you could type in, but there were basically toys given the 48KB space.

With the 128KB +3A model you could use CP/M, which had a better compiler available, still a pseudo C toy compiler versus the real thing on UNIX.

We only used such compilers for homework assignments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What OP is attempting to do is actually not really something that was done 'in the day'. By the time games developers were shifting from writing in ASM the idea of development 'on the hardware' was largely disappearing, and most dev studios had low-end minicomputers or (16-bit, mostly) workstations running cross-compilers or cross-assemblers. Most indie devs, of that era, were sticking with ASM - it didn't help that the native compilers were often outrageously expensive for an individual to purchase.

That said, I understand the allure of trying to work 'native', and it's a mistake/trap I often fall into myself.

</comment><comment><USER6> The 6502 only has 66 extremely simple instructions, and it's slow enough C is a disadvantage and you would need to learn 6502 assembly to know how to write good C code anyway, so I don't see the point in avoiding it. I started writing a Famicom game for the fun of it, and the ISA is very easy to pick up because of it's so tiny and uncomplicated.

<comment><USER7> Yes. But OP will learn (hopefully) and that's the fun of it.

Anyway, for the C64 many of your "APIs" \-- especially for games -- are accessed by peeking and poking memory-mapped locations, careful usage of the zero-page, etc. C doesn't help you with that stuff but assembly loves it.

If you aren't in there counting cycles you are leaving so much on the table, and there just isn't that much table!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, when you mentioned Power C I thought you meant this: [http://www.mixsoftware.com/product/powerc.htm](http://www.mixsoftware.com/product/powerc.htm)

The book for it was very nice as well. Best bang for the buck at the time. Could only compile code up to x286, not 386 CPUs

</comment><comment><USER9> Another thing to look at and try for the C64 is KickC. It's modern and being worked on. It's not true C and that's not it's intent. The intent is to produce efficient code for the 6502 and C64.

[https://gitlab.com/camelot/kickc](https://gitlab.com/camelot/kickc)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this related to Mix Software's "Power C" for DOS? That was the first C compiler I ever used.

<comment><USER5> Nope, this is ProLine's Power C, as seen here:

[https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Power_C](https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Power_C)

(the ALL CAPS code example with some really horrific variable and function names is a nice touch of the 80s)</comment></comment>


The bottom line: iPhone 4 vs. Android's best - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2010/06/07/the-bottom-line-iphone-4-vs-androids-best-does-nokia-microsoft-rim-have-a-chance-in-getting-into-the-game/ <comment><USER2> Nobody can really comment accurately on a phone that isn't even in their hands yet. Please.</comment>


SQLite 3.7: WAL (Write Ahead Logging) for better Concurrency and Performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.sqlite.org/draft/wal.html

<comment><USER2> I look forward to benchmarking the SQLite WAL against the newly integrated Berkeley DB and SQLite. Berkeley DB's btree is also a WAL design with many many years of tuning. It's good for SQLite users to have choice. (Disclaimer: I'm the product manager for Oracle Berkeley DB)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.mail-archive.com/sqlite- email@example.com/msg52153...](http://www.mail-archive.com/sqlite- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg52153.html)

This is a beta feature. It sounds great though! :)</comment>


What is a coder's worst nightmare? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-is-a-coders-worst-nightmare/answer/Mick-Stute?srid=us9t&share=1

<comment><USER2> It will sound cheesy and overused, but here it goes:

"Some men just want to watch the world burn"

Sounds about right.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is one vindictive grad student.</comment>


Pissed by Twitter & Nokia, 3rd party app developer quits - <AUTHOR> http://getsatisfaction.com/socially/topics/the_road_ahead_for_sociallyapp

<comment><USER2> I think your editorial headline doesn't really do them service. They made an entirely rational business decision based on prevailing conditions. They sound more disappointed than pissed to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I stand corrected :)</comment></comment>


Icann bids to stop Iran web domain seizure - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28582478

<comment><USER2> So, all holders of subdomains of those ccTLDs should pay collectively for the deeds of their country?

That's a pretty warped view of justice. ccTLDs are not 'assets' that you should be able to seize but registries. Imagine trying to seize the land registry of Iran or their registry of vehicles because Iran refuses to pay some foreign entity.

This is an excellent illustration of why ICANN should be replaced by a system that is distributed enough that nobody would ever think of even attempting to do something like this ever again.

What a tremendously misguided lawsuit, even if we're not getting into the 'x supported y and y did harm' part of the argument, which makes this even more tenuous.

If everybody that suffered from the meddling of some country through indirect sponsorship had a legitimate grievance and was given the power to shut down some large chunk of the internet as a remedy in order to extract some amount of money then that would open up a huge can of worms, .COM would be the first to go.

<comment><USER3> >This is an excellent illustration of why ICANN should be replaced by a system that is distributed enough that nobody would ever think of even attempting to do something like this ever again.

Such as?

DNS is useful because it is authoritative. What would happen if two parts of this 'distributed' ICANN disagreed on something? Different parts of the internet would see a completely different state (e.g. who owns gov.uk?), Thus rendering DNS effectively useless.

The only alternative I could see to ICANN being a US organisation is for it to be given authority by treaty. And that would open up a whole other can of worms. ICANN run like the ITU?

<comment><USER4> >DNS is useful because it is authoritative. What would happen if two parts of this 'distributed' ICANN disagreed on something? Different parts of the internet would see a completely different state (e.g. who owns gov.uk?), Thus rendering DNS effectively useless.

This problem can be solved in distributed system using bitcoin-like proof of work scheme. If two parts of the network disagree, the bigger part is considered right. Namecoin project is trying to implement distributed DNS using this technique - [http://namecoin.info/](http://namecoin.info/) .

<comment><USER5> Namecoin is one way. But why do you really need an authoritative registry? Think about Google's Real Names policy. Who does it benefit? If I don't want you to see my real name, why would I want you to find me by my real name? You should be able to find me only through existing connections you already have established in internet space.

If you want some authoritative distributed hash map, you can use namecoin like you said. But think about why you actually need an authoritative registry.

Hyperlinks? The document embedding the hyperlink can also embed the IP number. In fact, that's how the underlying IP routing system works. BGP isan interesting target for spoofing as of late.

At the very least, a website wishing for others to find it by its domain name should tell more than one registry, so there isn't a single point of failure. In the trade-off between consistency and having no single point of failure, you can think of the latter as failover or backup plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is not just ccTLD, the writ of attachment applies to IP prefixes allocated for Islamic Republic of Iran as well.

>But there are other possibilities, Darshan-Leitner said. "ICANN may decide that it just isn't worth their while to do business with Iran anymore, because all the money coming in will go to the terror victims." In that case, Darshan- Leitner said, ICANN could "pull the plug" on Iran's Internet, suspending use of the .ir domain and disconnecting Iranian IP addresses from the web. Even if ICANN decided not to do that, Shurat Hadin could demand an auction of the Iranian Internet assets, arguing that it could realize more compensation money that way – meaning that Iran would no longer be in control of its own websites. [http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-us-terror-victims- now-o...](http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-us-terror-victims-now-own- irans-internet/)

>Plaintiffs hold several money judgments against the governments of Iran, Syria and North Korea (collectively, the "defendants"). Plaintiffs endeavor, with the Writs of Attachment, to attach the .IR, .SY and .KP country code top- level domains ("ccTLDs"), related non-ASCII ccTLDs, and supporting IP addresses (collectively, the ".IR, .SY and .KP ccTLDs"), all of whichrepresent a space on the Internet for use by the citizens of Iran, Syria and North Korea. - [https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ben-haim- motion-...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ben-haim-motion-to- quash-writs-1-29jul14-en.pdf)

<comment><USER7> well, they can't really take away their IP space.

<comment><USER6> The could seize IP space using a security system, which began deployment three years ago, called the RPKI[1].

If you use the RPKI to protect the internet against BGP attacks, you provide a technical mechanism which governments, or other actors, could use to seize addresses. I just presented a paper on this[2].

IP takedowns are a risk, the Iranian case is not the only example, for instance RIPE was ordered to seize IP Space by a dutch court[3].

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Public_Key_Infrastruct...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Public_Key_Infrastructure)

[2]: See paper "From the Consent of the Routed" [http://www.cs.bu.edu/~goldbe/papers/RPKImanip.html](http://www.cs.bu.edu/~goldbe/papers/RPKImanip.html)

[3]: [http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/08/09/court-says- ripe...](http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/08/09/court-says-ripe-ncc-has- no-standing-in-ghostclick-case/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What an absolutely idiotic lawsuit. Why are they also asking for Syria and North Korea? Have they been reading tired old G. W. Bush speeches about the "Axis of Evil"?

</comment><comment><USER9> This sort of things is why countries traditionally have sovereign immunity. Can't say I support the plaintiffs in this case.

<comment><USER10> "countries have sovereign immunity.", somebody should explain this concept to the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In case anyone is wondering here is a good list of domains/servers based in North Korea:

[http://www.northkoreatech.org/the-north-korean-website- list/](http://www.northkoreatech.org/the-north-korean-website-list/)

</comment><comment><USER12> It would be quite interesting to go after the .us in the name of the 100.000 victims in Iraq.

<comment><USER13> Nope, you have to go after Iran again, which is funding the terrorist groups who did the bulk of the killing in Iraq (and still are).

<comment><USER12> The ones that Saddam was keeping at bay?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This doesn't make any sense. Seizing top-level domains of a country because of terrorism happening in it? Or is it because of state-sponsored terrorism?

<comment><USER12> It's part of a concerted push to go legally after everything with a link to Palestine. There are lawyers going after every Arab owned house in Israel too, looking for every mean to expel them legally: a typo in the property act, a construction code problem, any detail is good. They are also going after the arabic banks that provide assistance to victims of Israeli retaliations. If someone in the family does anything against Israel, they destroy the family houses without any legal process, and some arabic States are providing welfare to those newly homeless families.

<comment><USER15> Wrong country.

<comment><USER12> which one did I get wrong? they were injured in Jerusalem, and they are trying to reach Iran through a connection with Hamas.

<comment><USER16> They're trying to seize US based assets of Iran. That doesn't have much to do with evictions in Jerusalem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What are they really trying to achieve? The creation of a "Western Block Internet" by forcing all the others to create independent parallel structures?

That's what will happen, if they succeed in seizing these TLDs.

In effect, this would create a new Iron Curtain, but this time it'll be initiated by our governments.

<comment><USER18> Unless I'm remembering history completely wrong, wasn't the other Iron Curtain also initiated by governments?

<comment><USER17> It wasn't initiated by our western governments, but by the Soviets.

This time it might be initiated by western governments, because the Chinese, Russians and others wont accept TLD seizures at will by the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here is ICANN's actual filing: [https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ben-haim- motion-...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ben-haim-motion-to- quash-writs-1-29jul14-en.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if Argentina and the hedge funds suing them are watching this case. If ICANN loses here, the consequences of that loss for their legal battle might be very interesting.

<comment><USER2> If ICANN loses this then Argentina is the least of our problems, the whole DNS system will be overhauled and severely broken until a solution is put in place.

Essentially this would break the internet as we know it.

<comment><USER20> You're suggesting that there is some sort of technical workaround that can be deployed to solve this possible legal (and, ultimately, political) problem.

I'm not that optimistic. As far as I can tell, the argument being made in this case is: According to US law, country X owes me money and hasn't paid. You, ICANN, a US entity, provide thing-of-value to country X. You should give thing-of-value to me instead (as compensation and/or increased leverage towards getting my debt paid).

While the precise contours of the problem would depend on exactly how ICANN hypothetically loses, I see no reason why that template wouldn't also apply to OpenDNS, Google, Comcast, AT&T or Level 3. If too many pieces of the Internet's infrastructure are "within legal reach", it doesn't matter what technical wizardry someone comes up with - it couldn't be deployed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If ICANN loses this, they must immediately lose control of the root domain space and need to be suspended until they can be replaced - as the meeting is already convened to discuss - with either some kind of international organisation by treaty (iana.int?) or something related to the IETF.</comment>


8 lessons learned working with big brands - <AUTHOR> http://www.techinasia.com/tips-on-working-with-big-brands/

<comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone else here had good experience working with big brands? Any other tips?</comment>


Portrait of a Noob - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/02/portrait-of-n00b.html <comment><USER2> I read this a while back and i still remember the takeaway point from it :

"It's denser: there's less whitespace and far less commenting. Most of the commenting is in the form of doc-comments for automated API-doc extraction"

This is right on the button. I prefer writing/reading an overall README.txt which says concisely what that module/package etc. is supposed to do and doc- comments where appropriate when something is not obvious. Anything else and i automatically start seeing that as noise filtering it as i go along. The worst are the obvious and/or the outdated ones.

<comment><USER3> There's a big difference between "what"/"how" and "why" comments. "This increments a variable" is a stupid comment _because the code already says it_ , but a note such as "I'm using this particular data structure/algorithm/etc. because ..., even though ... seems like a better choice" can speak volumes. It's hard to make code itself clearly convey intent (careful naming is the main way), and it's the first thing to get buried by verbose code.

If you have documentation about the design of the system and write reasonably clear code, you can document sparsely. (Having fewer comments also gives those present added emphasis.) As with most engineering, it's more about trade-offs than hard-and-fast rules, though.

<comment><USER2> Yup , that was my point on the "doc-comments where appropriate". Overall design of the system can/should be expressed with a good,well-written README.txt. I know UML is "supposed" to solve that problem but not for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He's spot-on about Java being a safe-haven for "data modeling" geeks who are afraid of doing real work. Writing a whole bunch of getters and setters in a freshly minted Java class certainly feels like work. However, I think he gets it wrong when he puts OCaml on the extreme "for you to model everything" end of the spectrum:

 _And Haskell, OCaml and their ilk are part of a 45-year-old static-typing movement within academia to try to force people to model everything. Programmers hate that. These languages will never, ever enjoy any substantial commercial success_

Hold on a minute...last time I checked OCaml was a dialect of ML. ML does not ask you to "statically" type everything, in fact it does the opposite. It infers all the types. Sure, it allows you to hint types to the compiler, but this is not necessary. You get all the benefits of "static" type checking through ML's concept of type inference. It's designed specifically to make it less work for the programmer to enjoy the benefits of a sound, correct type system.

If you want to learn more about type inference in ML, check out this short introduction: <http://bit.ly/8WEhD8>

<comment><USER5> Haskell also uses type inference. It does have a lot of type system stuff, but because of how the language works the types are not just metadata. The types are often just as important as the rest of your code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Comments are invisible until the moment you need them.

When you understand your code, you don't bother to read the comments. As soon as you forget how the code works, you look to the comments for direction.

But if you didn't revise your comments along with your code, the comments will trick and deceive you until you realize that they're out of date. So you must re-grok the code anyway.

Use comments to describe your code's _purpose_. Let your code self-document the implementation.If you are particularly clever in your implementation, add a quick comment to explain your cleverness. When you realize you shouldn't have been so clever, be sure to remove the implementation comment as well.

<comment><USER7> This is why api-level documentation is great: functions are used for a purpose, and they're supposed to be a black box. If you keep your functions small and focused, you can just describe what they do, and it all works out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've shared Yegge's disdain for static typing for quite some time. One of the best examples of how awful it can be is type hinting (optional type constraints on parameters) in PHP. Many times I've explained to people why type hints are awful thing deserving banishment to hell — along with Facebook suggestions and Microsoft product recommendations — but so many PHP programmers seem to love them! Now that I read this I can see why that sort of thinking is bound to exist for a language like PHP (read: noobs).

Recently, however, I've been getting into Haskell and in doing so I found my opinion on static typing left a little beaten in the legs and suffering some obvious facial wounds. Static typing works in Haskell, I'm pretty sure of that. The question I'm left with is, why?

I think it might have something to do with the fact that type checks in class- based OO languages don't even begin to insure the program correctness that novices are often foolish enough to think they do. Everyone else recognizes the need for all manner of testing, and that's how correctness is proved (albeit, approximately) in imperative languages. In Haskell, I've found that type checks go quite some way to proving correctness, no really! (They don't actually prove correctness but proofs of correctness would be impossible without them). Without even bothering to do any proofs or testing you get a much more rigorous check for correctness in Haskell than you do when a Java program successfully compiles.

I can't emphasize this difference enough. To me static typing in Java is an annoyance and a lie. And so when I program in a language that teeters between static and dynamic typing, such as PHP, I go out of my way to write libraries that make things more dynamic (I've got one GitHub) and I call men who advocate aforementioned type hinting, girls names. In Haskell, it's totally different; it actually works; it's actually useful. Not to mention the clever stuff that you can do with types which I couldn't begin to do justice here given my inexperience.

<comment><USER9> The difference is, as you say, that the type system in Haskell is a tool that helps you write concise and correct code, whereas the type system in a language like Java (it is hardly the only offender) feels arbitrary and capricious.

I too once thought static typing was nothing more than useless bloat, but then I started using Haskell. Haskell's type classes are actually a useful means of handling abstraction (know something that acts like a monoid? then save yourself some effort and use foldMap). The one thing I did like about Java's class system was interfaces, and Haskell's typeclasses handle that exceptionally well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm suprised no one mentions this, good code does not need comments, because it clearly speaks with variable names and function names.

The Lisp function Yegge gives, is horrible in that aspect. for example this piece of code:

      (if (or (= tt js2-LB) (= tt js2-LC))

should really be more like

      (if (matches-js2-line-ending current_token))

No matter "how good you are" code reading is faster if what you read matches with what you're doing in English.

<comment><USER11> A nice reminder that skill and raw brainpower are two different things, and the latter can retard development of the former. I worked with many pieces of code written by one particular coworker of mine who was way too smart for his own good. His code was littered with little formulae like that, repeated again and again throughout a file, and to him it was obvious at a glance what they meant. It was also easy for him to scan through his code and find errors in these expressions, as easy as it is for you or me to see that "(matthes- js2-line-ending ..." contains a typo. I have no idea how he coped with finding and changing every instance of a formula that needed to be changed. For me it was a slog every time I had to read, change, or debug his code.

P.S. The most frequent and flagrant was calculating array indices into multi- dimensional arrays in C++. It's so easy to write a simple class that lets you do this:

      arr(n1 + i, n2 + j, n3 + k) = calc_foo(i, j, k);

instead of this:

      arr[n3 + k + (n2 + j) * (nz + (n1 + i) * ny)] = calc_foo(i, j, k);

<comment><USER12> 1) That's not a multi-dimensional array, that's a one-dimensional array simulating a multi-dimensional array.

2) Why not

        arr[n1 + i][n2 + j][n3 + j] = calc_foo(i,j,k)

? It's a bit more work to write the proxy classes, but a Sufficiently Smart Compiler(TM) can make that all go away for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yet again, the title of reposts needs to be dated. I was bittersweet hopeful this was one of the final 3 posts he has promised us since May.

<comment><USER14> Just pointing this out, but if you're that eager for a new post, and you didn't know this is an older post, then the end result you desire has been realized, no?

<comment><USER15> _you didn't know this is an older post_ .... until I started reading it. I don't always recognize these posts by their title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not a big fan of lots of comments in the code itself, but I very much so advocate design documentation.

I once had the pleasure of rewriting an Ada avionics subsystem in C. The code was very tersely commented, and the only documentation I could find on the subsystem was a requirement to the effect of "such-and-such subsystem shall exist". So I was left to figuring out what the subsystem worked from the code itself.

That's possible to do, but things would have gone a lot faster if I would have had a few pages describing what the goals and overall architecture of the software was.

<comment><USER17> Things only go faster if the design documentation matches the code. This is, in my experience, never.

In the best case, the design documentation is updated as the code is written and problems are found. However, even then, decisions made while coding will avoid problems, and ambiguities in the design documentation don't get updated when that happens.

I've had to do similar rewrites in the past, and I usually just skim the design documentation to get some idea of what the plan was. However, programming languages are in general the most concise and unambiguous way to represent what a program does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Old HN thread about this essay: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113244>

</comment><comment><USER19> From the article:

 _If you're a n00b, you'll look at experienced code and say it's impenetrable, undisciplined crap written by someone who never learned the essentials of modern software engineering. If you're a veteran, you'll look at n00b code and say it's over-commented, ornamental fluff that an intern could have written in a single night of heavy drinking._

I have never seen this so succinctly expressed before.

<comment><USER20> A guy who works for us just read that and laughed and said:

"To be honest I'd sit there and say both were equally shoddy and unlearned in their own way. There is a sweet spot middle ground that the really really good programmers learn"

I suspect he is right.

<comment><USER21> I've found that the best compromise is to use verbose "n00b-style" commenting in header files (or wherever your interfaces are defined), and sparse commenting in the implementation. Interfaces are like contracts, so you want to make sure everything (including how corner-cases are handled) are explicitly described. With well-designed and fully-documented interfaces, the implementation code can usually be quickly understood even if it lacks comments and is written in a more "advanced" style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This completely does not match my experience. When I first started programming, and even after a year or two in the industry, I used to write zero comments. Or maybe a line or two of comments every few thousands lines of code. Then, I started adding comments in places I thought required explanation and above function declarations. After I joined Google I was taught by smart people to add a comment every ten lines of code or so explaining what the next ten lines of code do.

I still don't write much comments when doing hobby programming at home (after all, the whole point of hobby is to indulge yourself), but there is no slightest doubt in my mind that abundance of comments is a good thing. I've never really seen code I considered overcommented. I see code which is severely undercommented all the time.

</comment><comment><USER23> The first part seems to be motivating something like a macro system for comments. What if one abbreviated compound situations using a single word or a phrase along with a separate file with expansions of the abbreviations into more detail. So, one can comment at a more abstract level and still be understandable (using say, a tool which displays the expansion when hovering over the abbreviation, or a separate window with expansions of all the abbrevs used nearby). Ideally, of course, the abstraction would be captured in the code itself, and the expansion would be the comment before the function or the macro defining the abstraction. So this system will be useful only when there are abstractions in comments which are not reflected in the code.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is one of the most inspired pieces of writing on programming I've read in quite some time. Acknowledging the difference in preference for code density among noobs vs. seasoned programmers will be really useful during any annoying meetings on programming style I have to attend in the future.

Edit: It got less inspired as I continued to read but the initial idea was good.

</comment><comment><USER24> If it was poorly written code, I'd rather see those huge comments just so I knew what was going through the authors head. I think if it's poorly written code with "no" comments, then you have even bigger problems.

I want to say I read that entire article, but I only read the first few paragraphs, so, my comment may be off topic somehow. That was a hefty post!

</comment><comment> brown9-2 For a second I thought maybe Steve had made a new blog entry :(

</comment><comment><USER25> That's a very large function for an experienced programmer. In my opinion, each function should do one thing and that thing should be the name of the function.

<comment><USER3> Only because of comments, an indentation style that pairs function argument on lines, etc. It's not a big function in the sense you're thinking, and breaking it up further may be counterproductive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is one of Yegge's most stupid rants. I strongly recommend SQLite Dr. Hipp's video presentations on how to write well commented code.

</comment><comment><USER27> Loved it and found myself nodding along.

Anyone else catch the irony that this essay was really long?

<comment><USER14> His essays are always long; he has a lot to say and he types very quickly :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I refute Yegge thusly: Which code would you rather maintain?

<comment><USER29> Surely Yegge would tell you that he would rather maintain the concise code with sparse comments. That's the whole point of the post.

<comment><USER30> But he would be lying. Yegge would rather maintain the concise code with sparse comments if and only if it were Yegge's concise code with sparse comments. If it were someone else's, he'd rather it were in fact rather heavily commented.

<comment><USER31> You would be wrong. I have encountered all sorts of code written by others that I have to maintain.

My favorite code has consistently been sparsely commented (though effectively heavily commented with good variable names and appropriate functions) while the absolute worst I've maintained was code that was so heavily commented that it was virtually impossible to see the flow of the program.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple wins: Louis Rossmann on the state of right to repair - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFA3szW9nWk <comment><USER2> The cases he mentions with Apple blaming independent repair shops, when it was _their_ DRM that bricked the phone - wouldn't that make them liable for defamation or something? They are after all lying for commercial gain.</comment>


How's your YC Winter 2008 application coming along? - <AUTHOR>

We finished the first draft of the application questionnaire, and we implemented about half of the features we'd like to show in our demo.
We are a team of two awesome cofounders, and our idea is not technically heavy.
How's your application coming along? <comment><USER2> Sounds like you're moving along quite nicely. I realized that I will not finish my PhD in time for the deadline, so it's been postponed 1/2 a year.

At one point, I toyed with the idea of submitting, just to receive feedback, but thought it would be somewhat unethical. Good luck all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Okay... hey, what did you get for #6?

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean this #6, "What is your company going to make?" lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone applying again who was previously turned down? I am also curious of what YC's opinion is of groups who would like to re-apply?

<comment><USER5> I am. Rejected SFP05 and SFP07, hopefully 3rd time will be the charm...

<comment><AUTHOR> What happened after rejections? Have you ever launched your products after being rejected?

<comment><USER5> After SFP05, I took a realistic look at the product and my ability to complete it before competitors did and decided not to pursue it. I took a job with another startup instead, first finishing up a long-time volunteer coding project I'd been working on. It turns out the product (web-based collaborative editing) would've had a market, but I probably would have been crushed by Google. They folded similar features into Google Docs not long afterwards.

After SFP07, we continued working on it. We launched a side project (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233>) and put about a month of effort into that before deciding it wasn't worthwhile. We also launched an intermediate milestone that we'd mentioned in our application, which is linked in my profile. It's had the same lack of success that we predicted, though I was of course hoping that there may be an off-chance of it taking off. (We did it that way because we need the functionality anyway for the main idea, so might as well package it up and get feedback while we work on that.)

Well, some subset of "we". We had applied with 5 founders, and PG immediately shot back an e-mail with "too many uncommitted founders!" It became apparent that he was right, so the 3 that were not really into it left a couple months later.

Curiously, our schedule in the SFP07 app would've been nearly dead-on had we not done the 5-week side project. We were initially planning to launch Diffle in late April; it actually launched on June 1. Then we were going to prototype the main idea between then and the start of the SFP; we actually got our first prototypes done during the first week of July. Progress since then has been slower than we anticipated, mostly because I kept the day job through the summer (I'm in the process of quitting now, and really would recommend that anyone in a similar situation quit as soon as they have an idea - it's not worth the hassle of ensuring you own your own IP).

<comment><AUTHOR> wow thanks a lot for sharing your stories. I think the 3rd time will be the charm for you. It sounds like you've learned a lot from the two previous submissions.

Good luck!!!

<comment><USER6> (Indeed, it makes me want to apply just for the process! I have an open-source idea, didn't PG say he could monetize anything? It would grow in use as word spread (pretty sure) but ultimately wouldn't get that big and would be hard to make anything off of.. sigh).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The application process has taken us longer than I thought it would because it has made us question whether there really is a market for the idea. Yes, it does help to solve a problem, but we don't have a working product to get user feedback.

So for the past couple of weeks I've set the application aside and have focused on administering a market survey, so most of my time has been on the right wording for the test.

Hopefully with the help of social networks, email, WOM, etc... We'll be able to get a large enough sample to help us understand if we're heading in the right direction. If so, we'll submit our application with the survey results.

I am sure, though, that upon reading the questions, the person taking the survey will know quite easily what our start-up will be doing... which can be good and bad. Our positive spin on this is the survey will be our public declaration that we are up to something.

<comment><USER8> IMHO your application would look _much_ better with a prototype than a market survey attached.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm experimenting with a couple of ideas to see if one has potential. If so, I might consider applying in October. I've received lunch invites from a couple of investors to chat further, but I don't need the money yet. I believe that I should take investment only after I feel confident that the idea has a good chance of success. I can experiment with ideas on my own; it's much faster and I can change direction quickly if something doesn't look like it's working. If I do apply to YC, it'll be for the community and the support, not the money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you should defintely apply. YC application process in itself is another way to experiment and get feedback.

and how did you get lunch invites from investors? That sounds very promising.

<comment><USER9> I simply attended a lot of hacker/tech networking events to meet other entrepreneurs hoping to find a co-founder. And in the process, I met a lot of other people, some of whom turned out to be investors or working for investors. I also met many good entrepreneurs with good ideas, but none (yet) with an idea that has good enough potential (in my opinion) to commit myself to for the next few years. I'm still searching, but until then, I will continue to experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I already submitted my application before I finished my prototype, which I now have to get done before the deadline. I'm trying to use this as really strong motivation to just finish the prototype instead of waiting until feature creep, polish, etc. is completed before submitting. I'll resubmit once the prototype is minimally functional. My biggest problem is being a single founder; pg said he usually doesn't accept them so I'm probably dead.

</comment><comment><USER11> I sent an email asking to withdraw my application (I doubt it would be accepted anyway; but it turns out that I'm going to be busy on the "fly to Cambridge" weekend, and I don't want to waste their time) last week. I haven't seen any response, but I assume that someone reads the info@ address and has removed my application from their stack of reading materials.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't it have been easier to resubmit the application with all fields blanked out, except for one with the explanation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not submitting an application, but my partner and I have copied it to Google Docs and filled it out for our own use. It turns out all our discussion meant when we wrote it down we were already 95% on the same page. It's still very useful as a way to refresh my memory, like pitching the idea to myself.

</comment><comment><USER13> It isn't. I'm a wage slave for now.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm drafting my application now, but will probably not submit unless I have a solid prototype by the deadline.

</comment><comment><USER15> its going great, hope to have it submitted by the weekend. last term was going to be too hectic.

This round the timing feels right!

</comment><comment><USER16> :) Enslaved

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Will learn to program first.

</comment><comment><USER17> We're working on it now. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> If only I had a co-founder.

<comment><USER19> You have to be more proactive in your search. Have you ever posted to any of the numerous "I need a cofounder" threads? Have you blogged about it? Have you discussed anything that interests you with any of the people who comment on here? Has anyone's comment or story they posted interested you? Why not email them? Most people have emails in their profiles.

<comment><USER20> I'm always skeptical about approaching the cofounder process that way. I wouldn't recommend doing this with someone you don't know very well. It will strain the bonds of friendship, without that, it's a crapshoot.</comment></comment></comment>


The C+@ Programming Language (formerly Calico) (1993) - <AUTHOR> https://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/the-c-programming-language/184409085 <comment><USER2> I remember this - by the mid-late 90s, Jim Fleming, the author of this article, had gone completely off the deep end on Usenet, ranting about C++ success vs how C+@ was being sidelined.

[https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/C%2b%40](https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/C%2b%40)

"It has a simple syntax with emphasis on graphics. It was originally used for prototyping of telecommunication services."

Wow, somebody used it for something. I was under the impression C+@ was never more than half finished. Fleming would claim to run master classes in C+@ from his yacht in the Caribbean, but nobody seemed to have ever taken the classes or seen the compiler, or anything.</comment>


Ask HN: Did Twitter just revert back to "old Twitter" design? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Yes - [http://status.twitter.com/post/4375122023/temporarily- disabl...](http://status.twitter.com/post/4375122023/temporarily-disabling- newtwitter)

</comment><comment><USER3> too bad it won't stay like this. the old look is oddly refreshing.</comment>


Performance Benchmark Analysis of Istio and Linkerd - <AUTHOR> https://kinvolk.io/blog/2019/05/performance-benchmark-analysis-of-istio-and-linkerd/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for doing some comparative analysis! However, the latency graphs label the y-axis as milliseconds while the description says microseconds. One of them is wrong :).

</comment><comment><USER3> What are the benefits of Istio that could make me choose it instead of Linkerd2?</comment>


Very fast CRISPR on demand - <AUTHOR> https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/1265 <comment><USER2> Will be interesting to see how ML and CRISPR converge. Two systems we don't fully understand creating explicit capability we desire and latent capability we don't expect.

I'm curious if there will eventually be some kind of biological incarnation of cellular automata that is useful for chemical synthesis or material fabrication. Clearly we have that with individual organisms now (e.g. insulin manufacture) but imagine seeding a matrix with bacteria that extrude carbon nanotubes under UV light or similar oddities.

<comment><USER3> > Will be interesting to see how ML and CRISPR converge

I've been seeing similar comments a lot lately, and I don't understand why. As someone with a background in ML that is now studying biochemistry I'd be the first person to jump at something like that, but I'm just not seeing any big ML potential that directly has to do with CRISPR.

Is it just two hyped technologies being thrown in a pot? Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER4> I know you what you're missing. You gotta put AI in the Blockchain before adding CRISPER and applying for funding.

EDIT: And don't forget Kubernetes.

<comment><USER5> Serverless Gene editing!

<comment><USER4> CRISPRAAS

<comment><USER2> You laugh but...

[https://www.genscript.com/crispr- services.html](https://www.genscript.com/crispr-services.html)

[https://canopybiosciences.com/custom-cell-line- engineering-2...](https://canopybiosciences.com/custom-cell-line- engineering-2/)

[https://www.reprocell.com/gene-editing- services-i174](https://www.reprocell.com/gene-editing-services-i174)

etc. etc.

This guy lifestreams some really interesting work - [https://www.youtube.com/user/TheChemlife/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheChemlife/videos)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Funny to see sales/marketing lingo in the title of a scientific article, but with an unexpected meaning.

<comment><USER7> I think they mean "on demand" is that the Cas9 proteins is activated upon activation of the light source. As the CRISPR/Cas9 complex is already in place due to the chemically boxed guide RNA, the way I understand it from briefly skimming this abstract is literally that you turn on the light when you want DNA cleavage, so I don't see anything weird about it, but maybe someone with more insight can correct me if I am wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Site is hugged to death already.

Archive snapshot can be found here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200616103722/https://science.s...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200616103722/https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/1265)

</comment><comment><USER9> Can someone explain?

<comment><USER10> Here's the Perspective piece on the paper: [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/1180](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/1180)

<comment><USER11> still don't get it :D for dummies explanation?

<comment><USER12> I'm at the limit of my understanding myself, but here's what I think is being said:

CRISPR refers to the kind of DNA site that can be targeted for cleavage, while CAS9 is a protein that, paired with an RNA matching that site, can cleave wherever it encounters a matching sequence.

I think these guys are pairing a variation of the CRISPR approach with a laser. They pre-bond with the DNA, but the actual cleavage occurs when they shine a laser at the right frequency at the site. That lets them decide when and where on the DNA strand cleavage happens.

If anyone understands this better than me, I'd appreciate any corrections to my explanation ;P

<comment><USER13> Close - from my quick skim here's my take

The RNA guide (sgRNA) is chemically caged here, so it has some molecular decorations that are removed with light. The sgRNA can't fully match the underlying DNA it's recognizing until those decorations have been removed with the laser, at which point Cas9 then cleaves the DNA strand.

Think of the sgRNA like a regex pattern. Cas9 is like the regex engine here (but instead of capturing a group, it cuts the sequence), and DNA is the search space. In this system, we essentially have a full match, and Cas9 is in position (having found the match) but it can't cleave yet, because the decorations are blocking the way. As soon as the decorations are removed by light, the sgRNA can move down into a full match, and Cas9 then cleaves.

<comment><USER12> Ah, thank you. So is the benefit of this system that the Cas9 sticks around for a while, and at any point one can cleave all the sites at once instead of cleaving each as the Cas9 bumps into it?

<comment><USER13> Even in standard CRISPR/Cas9 systems, Cas9 sticks around for quite a while - which is one of the issues in using it for actual medical treatments. You don't really want a programmable DNA cleavage engine roaming around in your nucleus...

The primary benefit here is that you can temporally synchronize Cas9. In standard systems, you introduce Cas9 into the cell, and you have no control over when it performs cleavage, since it's essentially a greedy cleavage mechanism - as soon as it finds a match, it cleaves.

This system basically introduces a semaphore, so that you introduce Cas9, allow it find a match and pause. You can then signal for cleavage to begin. As stated in the abstract, this is useful for e.g. studying the kinetics of DNA repair, since you can control when DNA damage (Cas9 cleavage) is happening.

<comment><USER12> Fascinating. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain further!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Goodbye academia, I get a life (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.devicerandom.org/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/

<comment><USER2> Original link is down, probably got hit by the HN DDoS. Here's the contents of that link, retrieved from Google Cache.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=

Goodbye academia, I get a life.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=

One of my first memories is myself, 5 years old, going to my mother and declare to her, as serious as only children can be: "I will be a scientist."

Yesterday night I was in my office in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge packing my stuff, resolved to not go back to research again -at least not in the shortcoming future.

What has gone wrong?

\---

[ Diagram - a rather idealistic plan for life vs the reality: [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd082803s.gif](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd082803s.gif) , original at [http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/phd0...](http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/phd082803s.gif) ]

[ Diagram quote: Not exactly my pathway (I finished Ph.D. quite well), but well, you get the meaning. ]

\---

I could write in detail what was horribly wrong with my project, and for sure having a lousy project played a big part in deciding to stop and change my path. You for sure want to change your path if you find yourself in a mosquito-ridden swamp.

But if this was the only problem, I would have simply switched to another lab. That's what I thought until not too long ago (even if the idea of quitting was really in my mind since a lot of time). But the problem is the practice of science itself.

Don't get me wrong. Every scientist goes on to do science for a single reason: the love of science. Science doesn't make you rich, it doesn't make you famous (can you tell me the last 5 Nobel Prizes for chemistry without looking on Wikipedia? I can't either) and doesn't make you comfortable. The only sane reason for starting to do science is the dispassionate love of science itself. And I loved science. Like nothing else. Since I was 5 years old. And I still love it.

But one thing is to love science; a completely different one is doing it. Like the proverbial sausage, you don't want to know how it's done.

Actually, doing science per se is great. Doing experiments, analyzing data, making calculations, programming code: I loved it all immensely. However, with the partial exception of mathematics and theoretical physics, you can't be a lone wolf in science. You need funding, you need instruments, you need resources. You need other people. And here's where the problems lie. You basically face two choices.

\---

[ Diagram explaining the "Profzi" scheme, a cynical depiction of the academic bureaucracy: [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd030909s.gif](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd030909s.gif) , original at [http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/phd0...](http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/phd030909s.gif) ]

[ Diagram quote: No, it's not a satire or an exaggeration. ]

\---

The first is going for the sky: doing great science in a first-class place, make a great curriculum and look for a tenured position in the end. The problem is that a lot of clever people want to go for the sky, and there is much more people who want the sky compared to the available positions. In general, science career is a race, where three people go to the podium and all the others sooner or later will go back home (See also this article from the Economist on the problem). The competition for funding and positions means that not only the hopes of getting a job are really lousy, but that people become nasty. Like, really nasty.

I know of people that have given a purportedly crippled software to a collegue to sabotage his project. I've been violently attacked verbally for having dared talking with my supervisor of a project I was collaborating with, because she feared that I wanted to "steal" her credit. I've seen more than once people "helped" during a project, only to find all credit for their work taken by the nice and smiling people who scammed them by "helping" them. There are endless horror stories like that. Everywhere. Now, do you want to work in a place full of insanely clever people who are also insanely cynical and determined to do everything to get on top of you? If so, you can do top level science.

It's not all, of course. Top level science requires also an absolutely mind- boggling determination and, overall, confidence in yourself. To properly do science you must be absolutely sure that, whatever you have in mind, you will do it, no matter what, and that you're doing it right, to the point of almost self-delusion. This is so important that who wins in science is regularly not the most brilliant but the most determined (I've seen Nobel prizes speaking and half of the times they didn't look much more brilliant than your average professor. Most of them were just lucky, and overall were incredibly, monolithically determined). Combined with the above, this means working 24/7, basically leaving behind everything in your life, without any doubt on your skills and abilities and most importantly on your project, while fencing off a competition of equally tough, confident and skilled guys.

\---

[ Diagram of an evil-looking clown: [http://www.gamesprays.com/images/icons/i-like-you-so-ill- kil...](http://www.gamesprays.com/images/icons/i-like-you-so-ill-kill-you- last-3401_preview.jpg) , original at [http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/lget...](http://blog.devicerandom.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/lget0003+i-like-you-ill-kill-you-last-killer-clown- poster-card.jpg) ]

[ Diagram quote: A friendly post-doctoral scientist in your group asking for a scientific collaboration. ]

\---

The ones I've seen thriving in Cambridge, apart from geniuses (there are a few), are the guys who cling to a simple ecological tenet: Find your niche, where you are indispensable, and keep it in your claws at all costs. This means basically that these people do always the same thing, over and over again, simply because it's the lowest-risk option. I could have done the same (I was pretty skilled during my Ph.D. in a quite obscure but interesting biophysics experimental technique) but I thought that doing science properly was also about learning and broadening your expertise. How wrong I was.

You can imagine yourself what does it mean also for research in general: Nobody takes risks anymore. Nobody young jumps and tries totally new things, because it's almost surely a noble way to suicide your career.

There is a second option, which is bare survival. You go from postdoc to postdoc, perhaps end up as a long-term researcher somewhere in some tiny university or irrelevant research center and basically spend your time with a low pay, working on boring projects, crippled by lack of funding and without any hope of a reasonable career (because the career path is taken over by the hawks above described), nor any hope of stability in your life.

Notice that, again, both paths do not offer you any guarantee of sort. You can arrive to tenure track (itself an achievement) and being kicked out after a few years, thus ending up as a jobless 40-year something, with a family probably, too old to compete in the market of real jobs. And bare survival is not easy as well.

\---

So basically, if you are not cut for this kind of life, your chances are zero. I tried, believe me. I tried hard. What happened during my research career is that I spent 6 months on antidepressants, I got a permanent gastritis, I wasted at least two important sentimental relationships, and I found all my interests and social life going down the drain.

All of this for having a couple papers about modeling obscure aspects of protein behaviour, papers that will be probably lost within the literally thousands of papers that come out every day? Until not so long, I thought that it was worth it. It was something that I had never questioned so far. I wanted to be a scientist since when I was five. I had done everything to become a scientist. I was a scientist in one of the top universities of the world, in one of the top five research groups on the subject. I had won a personal fellowship to fund myself. Most of my self-esteem, of my very concept of self- realization, relied on myself being a scientist. The very idea of quitting academia was a synonim of personal failure.

\---

It has been long and painful to discover that it was just an illusion. When I found that academia was not working for me, I got immediately depressed -my whole worldview was crumbling. Then I remembered that I had a life. I liked my life. I had a billion things that I loved to do. I want to do them again. Quitting and reclaiming back your life is not failing. It is waking up and winning.

A week ago I was with friends, talking about my job, and I found myself comparing science to a drug addiction. Being a scientist, from the brain chemicals point of view, is one week of adrenaline rush when you're finally on to something and pieces go together -followed by six months (if you are lucky) of pain and suffering, only to get again that adrenaline shot.

Well, noble addiction as it is, it is toxic the same. The next month I'll be 30. It's really time to get my life back.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> A few things worth noting:

\- There is a virtually limitless supply of intelligent and hard-working PhD students at top-ranking Universities. Thus there is little incentive to maximise the value of this resource, by treating students well, etc. Basically it's the inverse of the SF job market for developers.

\- On the other hand, one of the nicest guys I ever met during my PhD also happens to be one of the best in his field, with incredibly productive students. I don't think this is a coincidence. [It's Zoubin Ghahramani -- I can't imagine he'd object to being called on this!]

<comment><USER4> and the university systems are so bureaucratic that when people uniquely placed to solve useful research problems who don't fit well into the hierarchy, the system is unable to deal with them, and spits them out.

<comment><USER5> I lived in San Francisco as an illegal immigrant, with a bachelors in psychology and a newly found interest in computer science, not able to enroll to a graduate program—nor undergraduate for that matter, I thought I could volunteer as a research assistant in some lab in the Bay Area.

How wrong was I. In the off chance that some professor was interested (some professors are cool people who don't follow customs for the sake of customs), the schools bureaucratic system rendered it impossible for the professor to accept my free (as in beer) service.

Now that I'm back in my home country, with it's free (also as in beer) education system, I'm unable to tackle the project _I 'm_ interested in, for professors tend not to facilitate projects that don't fit in _their_ narrow field of interest (reads, the main topic of their 10 most resent publishes).

The university system truly suppresses spontaneity and unorthodoxy.

<comment><USER6> There's a great article on this here:

[http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the- head-g...](http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-head-girl- syndrome-opposite-of.html)

Basically, academia loves those who conform to its thinking. This promotes robots, and alienates creativity and intelligence.

This is from someone with impeccable academic credentials and experience in multiple disciplines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Personal anecdote:

Something I find interesting: We're taught not to put all our financial eggs in one basket, so we diversify our financial investments - cash and a variety of stock, maybe your own house.

And yet, people typically invest all their energies in one career path, and then lock themselves into that career with commitments that disallow job flexibility.

People often get made redundant, or their employee goes under, or the industry they work in collapses. And if that doesn't happen, they're stuck in a job they hate because... commitments.

Or maybe I'm just lucky. I'm 32 and I have, as Deepak Malhotra put it[1] "quit often and quit early".

I'm 32 and have, in sort-of-chronological order:

* a trade certificate in metal fabrication and welding (I'm a "Boiler-maker / Welder" as it's called in the trade) and have worked nearly 10 years in that industry

* I am a qualified Naturopath - I have studied Clinical Nutrition and Western Herbal Medicine (214 herbs)

* I have worked in IT Infrastructure and Physical Security, and have assisted in project managing a AU$1.4 million dollar data centre upgrade

* And I am currently, and for the second time, working with Physically Disabled men (just two guys) providing in-home independent living carer

I've never been without employment, nor felt stressed thinking I might have trouble finding a job.

Only _now_ am I prepared to go to Uni. I've got employment covered. Now I can go do with Bachelor of Arts I want to do, and have no delusions about getting a job at the end of it.

Is there a point to all this? Surely. I'll make one up.

Why do people invest all their academic energy in one career path? Then get angry at that industry when they realise, like every form of employment, it sucks when you don't want to be doing it any more.

1\. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D73mm29XXAw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D73mm29XXAw)

</comment><comment><USER8> Getting a tenure track job offer in academia is a very tough prospect. I wish we academics would be more honest with incoming graduate students (or even at an earlier stage) about how much of a filter there is between 1st year grad school and the tenure-track job offer. It's not like there aren't other examples of dense filters in the working world. We just aren't very honest about it with our trainees.

The other thing we fail at as academics is helping trainees understand and take advantage of non-academic tracks after grad school, without attaching a stigma of failure to them. There are many, many ways to succeed, have a rewarding and exciting career, and contribute to society as a non-academic with a graduate degree... not to mention the higher salaries! Too many academics treat their trainees as failures if they even initiate this conversation. It needs to stop.

Imagine if students entering med school, who wanted to be pediatric neurosurgeons, for example (sub-sub-speciality requiring many post-med school years of study) found out at the end of all their training, at age 35 or 40, that oops, perhaps only 25% of them will ever get the job they want?

<comment><USER9> When I started my PhD last year, my department head gave us a speech where he told us that college football players have better career prospects in the NFL than we will in academia. While that was probably a bit of hyperbole, it certainly made us realize how unrealistic most of our goals were.

<comment><USER8> This is fine ... but what he ought to do as well is to tell you that going through the program is still beneficial to you even if you don't thread the needle and land that academic job ... and that the Dept or University has resources that will help you find a non-academic job where you can make the most of your skills

<comment><USER9> That's rather presumptuous to assume that he didn't. In fact, he did and as part of our grad student resources, we have access to a whole host of school specific recruiters. While students from our programme regularly go into the postdoc mill, many go to work at startups, at industrial labs, in finance, at consulting firms, etc. Even more important, though, none of these options are denigrated.

<comment><USER8> wow that's awesome then! I wish more academic departments were like that

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google Cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.devicerandom.org/2011/02/18/getting- a-life/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes people forget that being a scientist is a job like many others. And everything that is rewarding is more or less an addiction. So, yeah, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz)

</comment><comment><USER12> "How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" \-- H. Schopper

This policy, which leaves the staff member in the unknown for almost five years concerning the possibility of obtaining an IC, ensures too great a flexibility to the Organization and imposes too much precariousness and insecurity on the staff. [...] Unfortunately, and to our great regret, this situation will create even more anxiety and insecurity. This will be difficult for LD staff to cope with. Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career at CERN.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by LD and IC?

<comment><USER12> Limited Duration: read temp job

Indefinite Contract: read permanent job (with PIPs, alas)

IC slots are only available to LD holders (ie. multi-year probation).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The vast majority of everyone gets washed out of academia eventually. It's like being tortured or persuaded or bled to death: it _will_ happen, the question is how long you can stay standing before it happens. The only way to avoid it ever happening is to bail out completely well before your breaking point.

So the question is: how much can you accomplish for yourself by staying in the Pain Game of Academia for how long, versus bailing out _earlier_ to go do something else?</comment>


Companies Who Make Money: Datapresser - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/27/ep4-companies-who-make-money-datapresser/

<comment><USER2> This is really really awful for the future of the Internet. Generating random content is specifically the kind of garbage that we don't want on the web. It's the definition of 'free-ridership' -- lets create a bunch of valueless nonsense programmatically, and massively destroy true value (real useful information) and then PROFIT.

Weak.

<comment><USER3> As general content degrades, all the more that _eventually_ we're going to see some form of information and content delivery certification emerge, not unlike what Underwriters Laboratories do for for product and material goods safety and quality, or what the USDA and FDA try to do for food and drug quality. Perhaps something akin to the movie and game content ratings, but adding fact checking.

A voluntary certification system could help people trust content. Search engines could apply web content providers' quality group affiliation (or lack thereof) to search heuristics.

Maybe it will be NGO based, maybe government run, depending on where you are in the world. I'd opt for the NGO approach myself, with a healthy number of competing organizations, especially considering China's effective use of content control as an extreme case.

A danger here, though, is if we move to "seals of approval" web content and the majority of individuals and groups avoid content that does not have a "seal of approval" then there are going to be barriers to entry, such as the various costs that members of associations pay for services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure whether or not it's a joke

I'm not sure whether or not I hope it's a joke.

</comment><comment><USER5> If its true, and the datapresser site seems legit (<http://datapresser.com/generate_unique_content>), it would explain so much.

<comment><USER6> I've read quite a number of blog posts recently that have been written in English that's seemed strangely clunky and unnatural, in a style very similar to the intro text on the Datapresser home page.

I initially put it down to posts being authored by people for whom English is a second language, but they're US-based blogs. This initially dodgy-sounding idea starts to seem plausible.

<comment><USER7> I haven't read that blog before, but now scrolling down through some recent entries, it's all very clunky English. On the other hand, the person writing it is named Ernst-Jan Pfauth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a Philip K. Dick story that involves a machine like this that is used to generate political speeches. Can't quite remember the title. Anyone know?

<comment><AUTHOR> In his prescient 1972 speech "The Android and the Human"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually, datapresser sounds like a very interesting side-project to work on, involving natural language processing and machine learning. I'm pretty impressed, sounds like it could have been a side project turned into a viable startup business.

</comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of SCIgen: <http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/> These guys entered their auto-generated research paper to a conference and actually got invited to present it at a seminar.

</comment><comment><USER11> I kept looking at the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st, but this appears to be real.

</comment><comment><USER12> Their volume of articles really does not seem implausible given their number of writers and the abundace of information. Sure, they put out quite a few articles a day, but if that is their mission, it is not surprising. What they do is far from inhuman.

That said, this product seems like it could be of use for them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anyway, this pales in comparison to the awesome power of the Twat-O-Tron, an automatic comment generator for the BBC's news website: [http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/the- twat-o...](http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/the-twat-o-tron/)

Also works on YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER13> -1 shallow TC bashing

-1 feeds unhealthy TC obsession

-1 weak attempt at humor

-1 single joke stretched out too long

-1 ungrammatical headline

-1 awkward writing in article

In the News.YC of my dreams, everyone who upvoted this article would be disenfranchised.

<comment><AUTHOR> You get -100 "awkward writing in article" was because the machine wrote it. Did you not read the post?

<comment><USER14> I'm calling BS on that claim. If the software could do anything more advanced than replacing random words from a thesaurus, there would be a lot of applications for it more lucrative than populating spamblogs.

<comment><USER15> What about Markov text generators?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sounds bogus.

</comment><comment><USER17> It might sound surprising but CNet also uses similar techniques to generate huge parts of their product reviews.

The technique is the biggest threat to the current crop of 'content' driven search engines (read Google and everyone else) and has the potential to wreak havoc with current ranking systems. Given the lucrative nature of the automatic content generation business, this is also inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like fun little subversive marketing campaign from datapresser.

</comment><comment><USER19> Using such a tool sounds like a vast lie from the companies benefiting from it. Isn't impersonation a crime? It would be fun to sue for massive amounts one of the fake users and then the company that generated would be liable:))) If ever proven so through.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well isn't that something.

</comment><comment><USER21> No.</comment>


Font Awesome 4.1.0 Released – 71 New Icons - <AUTHOR> http://fontawesome.io/whats-new/?r=hn&v=4.1.0

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the hard work. It's a great contribution to the community.

One thing, could be my eyes, but is the box on the top of the cab a little off centre? Am I going mad?

[http://fontawesome.io/icon/taxi/](http://fontawesome.io/icon/taxi/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent catch! Want to open an issue?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Still no infinity symbol? Much sadness :'(

[https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font- Awesome/issues/1647](https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/1647)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's 3 Pied Piper icons to chose from!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, really just 2. One's an alias.

<comment><USER4> ah yeah, the (alias) appears on the next line on Chrome. Great work on the new release!

<comment><AUTHOR> On it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stanford tree!

</comment><comment><USER6> bouy -> buoy

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice catch. Fixing.</comment></comment>