How do you take breaks? Try singles Bughouse - <AUTHOR> http://42floors.com/blog/posts/how-do-you-take-breaks-try-singles-bughouse-youre-going-to-love-it <comment><USER4> This is a bad game unless you are EXTREMELY good at bughouse.

The people in the article are not good. They are newbies. (You can tell because they play 5 minute bughouse and they play slowly. No good players play 5 minute bughouse because it's a waste of time. 2 minute is standard. If you play with more, you literally end up sitting around waiting for time to get low, for minutes, because that is often to the advantage of the team that is losing and is easy to force by either team most of the time.) Also based on their openings, which are utter crap in both bughouse and chess, they don't even know how to play basic chess either.

The reason it's a terrible game is that bughouse is all about SPEED. You must move AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AT ALMOST ALL TIMES or you just plain lose because time leads allow controlling when pieces come to the other board which is extremely powerful.

It's hard enough to make all your moves in .5 seconds on one board. If you're going back and forth between two boards, you have to literally be one of the best few bughouse players in the world -- with over 10,000 games of experience online -- or the quality of play is going to be terrible.

I'm a strong chess player, a strong bughouse player, and have a great deal of experience, but I'm still not very good at playing two bughouse boards at once. It's very very very very hard.

Doing one of the hardest things around -- trying to play lightning fast on two boards at once -- is not a very good idea for a break. To play halfway decent bughouse on just one board, you need an extremely large amount of practice so that you can defend all types of attacks by habit and intuition, because you need to stay safe in under .5 seconds a move at all times.

Bughouse is all about _pattern recognition as fast as possible_. Chess skill and other stuff is important but secondary. Honestly, newer players can't even move fast enough in person without knocking over pieces.

If you watch the game you'll see them sitting there thinking for several seconds about moves. If you try that against anyone competent, you simply automatically lose. That's how bughouse works.

The solution for them, btw, may be bughouse without clocks: white moves on both boards simultaneously, then black moves on both boards simultaneously, and so on. I think that would be a good game, though a very different one than regular bughouse.

<comment><USER5> I've played a fair amount of bughouse. You are right about the point about bughouse strategy. Stipulated.

These guys are enjoying themselves. They feel rejuvenated for work after playing it for a few minutes.

Why impose your priorities on them and claim "it's a terrible game" and suggest they need a "solution."

It'd be like Lebron James telling you not to play H-O-R-S-E because it won't help you become competitive with him at basketball. If you like playing H-O-R- S-E, it doesn't matter that it won't help you beat him.

<comment><USER4> I'm not imposing anything on anyone. Rulesets have a logic of their own.

<comment><USER6> I find it amusing that because of your self-imposed slavery to The Rules, you could never have come up with the game of bughouse in the first place. Two boards? Chess is played with one! That's the rules! Dropping pieces on the board? That's a terrible idea! Once a piece is captured, it's captured! Four players? What heresy! Chess is the purest form of mind to mind combat!

Besides, this article has very little to do with bughouse per se and everything to do with relaxing the mind in between work sprints. Seymour Cray used to do it by digging tunnels. I doubt that his tunnels conformed to the Rules of Tunnels but he did get quite a bit of work done in his lifetime, which is the point here.

<comment><USER7> His self-imposed slavery is to logic, not to The Rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've noticed something similar. Playing strategy games (like Age of Empires) works great for me during downtime. They require your 100% full attention if you want to win, so they're very effective at wiping away whatever you were working on.

Also, they're normally very goal-oriented, making you motivated to "do" things after playing.

<comment><USER9> I do something similar with Alpha Centrauri. Especially if you play University or the Cybernetics, the idea of advancing tech to restart civilization on a barren planet, the writing and the speculative technologies motivate me to want to go make something.

<comment><USER10> I LOVE alpha centauri, but yeah, I don't see how this would be a good "15-minute-break" game.

<comment><USER9> hah yes, you're both right, although I've played it enough that certain states of the CPU of my old computer started to get worn out. So I can now stop after a small number of 1 more turns. But no, I don't play on 15 minute breaks - <USER2> did not read the article so was not aware it was about short breaks. I only play when I have 2 or 3 hours min to spare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I haven't played bughouse in over a decade, so I've got to ask: what's with the openings in this video? Is bughouse strategy so different that there's a whole new opening book, are there some openings I'm completely ignorant of, or am I just overthinking things?

<comment><USER12> I haven't played in over a decade as well, but when I did play strategies usually consisted of very quick attacks on the f-pawn, usually sacrificing a knight(sometimes a bishop, but you would have to "waste" a move getting a pawn out first) on the square as quick as possible. Very common for the first 3 moves to be a knight sacrifice on f7.

And trash talking anybody who dared castle.

<comment><USER4> FYI castling is standard in lots of bughouse openings and good in general, early f-pawn sacs are bad. This is at higher levels of play though. If you don't know what you're doing then you're better off with a move like Qe2 or Qe7 than castling.

Early sacrifices are bad because they put both you and your partner down material. Against top players, they will not let you have the pieces you need to win, and they will defend all squares, and if you spend any time waiting for pieces you'll get down on time and definitely never get what you want at the right time. Bughouse requires very fast, very solid play at the top levels.

But defending in bughouse is hard, and piece flow control is hard (requires watching partner's board while still moving super fast), so the newer the players the more that just sacrificing stuff can work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Me and and three other PhD students in sharing an office used to play a few quick rounds of Unreal Tournament before starting the nightly coding sessions, from our own UT server we had set up. Those were the days...

</comment><comment><USER14> I haven't played bughouse since college. Spent way too much time during freshman and sophomore years playing chess and bughouse.

Those guys wasted too much time pushing pawns. When you play with/against good players, you learn not to move that f pawn. The way we played, the objective was to attack the king as soon as possible, so if you move that f pawn, I start getting pawns from the other board that I can drop for check that forces the king out to the middle of the board. That eliminates castling, and I can use the pieces on the board and higher-point pieces from the other board to bring about mate quickly.

The thing to worry about most, is getting addicted to bughouse. One more game quickly becomes several more games. You might even start to draw a crowd. Then the day's productivity is shot.

</comment><comment><USER15> At my startup we prefer Fischer Random (aka Chess 960) blitz, where the opening positions are randomized (with a few limiting rules). Read about it here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960>

Bullet chess (where each side has only 1 minute on their clocks) is also a great head clearer and adrenalin booster. Video: <http://socialcam.com/v/kBzSWTQk?autostart=true>

</comment><comment><USER16> You can also just play on one board, swapping your opponents pieces for pieces of your color when you take them (obviously you need two sets of pieces). This is called crazyhouse.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Better than ping-pong"

Careful now, that's a pretty strong statement.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the benefit to mindless breaks is your subconscious works on problems for you in the background.

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is walk away from it.

So I don't think this is good in instances where you need to give your brain time to reorganize.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, haven't played this since the CS lounge 7 years ago. We used to play all sorts of chess variations just to see how they'd work out. One of the most fun for us was reverse chess. First person with 0 pieces wins, and if you can take a piece you must. Some surprisingly complex strategies in that, at first you think that losing at chess is easy, but then you realize that losing at chess is only easy if the other player wants you to lose.

I guess it helped that the only game we could play was chess, as our tabletop was painted with a chessboard and there were 2 sets of free pieces.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's something that easily woke me up after a day of coding:

It's a card game called SET - here are the rules: <http://www.setgame.com/set/rules_set.htm>

It's for 2+ players, and it's all about how quickly you can find the set in 12 cards on the table. Finding set is not so easy, read about it in the rules.

<comment><USER21> It can be fun single player too. There's no concept on "winning" then, but it's still challenging to find sets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So as someone who has played A LOT of bughouse in his day... Bughouse is awesome. Never thought of playing Singles.

</comment><comment><USER23> I tend to play a few games of Go throughout the day for the same reason. A great game of go is like a street fight, it gets you totally amped up for everything else.

Rengo is fun too, it gives you sort of the feeling of being a crazy artistic genius. Extremely inspiring, but it's a pain to get four people to play it.

<comment><USER24> gokgs.com was a great place to hang out in to play some games, if you can make online friends. Rengo is also easier to get set up online. ^_^ But it certainly is crazy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bughouse is the greatest variant ever, closely followed by Kriegspiel - <USER3> other extreme. I would play constantly and had a fairly high bughouse rating (in New York state at least) back in mid 1990's.

</comment><comment><USER26> Did I miss something? on 2:04 the player on the right takes a piece that has been removed and returns it to the end of the board. Is that legit?

</comment><comment><USER27> Our office has been on a big Banagrams kick, I get pretty similar mind recharging benefits.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why not regular chess?

<comment><USER29> Bughouse lets you have experts and novices playing without the novices getting totally stomped. Because you can always move a piece, or place a piece that your team-mate captured, you have a lot more options. This also makes it far more fun for lesser skilled players than regular chess.

<comment><USER28> But the people who are good at Bughouse here have all said you have to move in 0.5 seconds or it's not even worth playing. I can play chess quickly, but not that quickly.

<comment><USER30> Play with a time increment per move. I play casually at work with 2 minutes on the clock and 5 seconds per move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've never heard of BugHouse until just now, but I love it.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't play chess but what does Jason do at the 2:02 mark?

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure which one is Jason but it looks to me like both of them opt to add a captured piece to the board (which is a rule only present in Bughouse and not regular chess).

<comment><USER32> Thanks, that explains it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> sounds like a fun game.

recently i have been using a desktop widget from stretchclock.com to remind me to get up every hour and stretch.

</comment><comment><USER35> What is this "breaks" you speak of?</comment>


Department of Awful Statistics: Small Schools Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/department-of-awful-statistics-small-schools-edition/62406/

<comment><USER2> And that's not even the worst of statistical illusions. After reading about, for example, Simpson's paradox

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

I concluded I'll always be very wary of using statistics for anything. It's a powerful tool, but also very easy to shoot yourself in the foot with. (Or to get deceived by. And they don't even need to know statistics better than you in order to fool you with some reasonable-looking analysis!)

</comment><comment><USER3> At the least the Gates Foundation has enough mathematical sophistication to understand what they got wrong.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why link to the link? This is what you should have pointed to: [http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the- small-schools-myth.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh! I thought the claim was that there was an error in the blue-grey box somewhere, and I was feeling dumb for not seeing it. Then I finally read the sentence at the end about the Gates Foundation, and I understood. :)

Aside: based on the percentages, it looks like there were 85 schools per decile, or 850 schools total (give or take a few); in which case the total percentages indicate that a total of 58 or 59 distinct schools made it onto the Top 25 over a four-year period (23 of them from the smallest-decile schools). So there really is a lot of variability in the winners. I'd be interested to see a similar decile breakdown of schools that managed to get in the top 25 for _at least two_ of the four years studied. That would seriously damp the noise.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hopefully the funding will be diverted into support for smaller class sizes.

</comment><comment><USER7> The WTF here is how anybody drew a conclusion without performing a simple statistical test for significance.</comment>


Retweet: simple Twitter bot in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chaica/retweet/releases/tag/0.2

<comment><USER2> It's cool to hack around with APIs for general benefit (and Twitter's is as good as any, and provides access to lots of neat data), but fair warning: Twitter doesn't approve of using its API for automated retweets[0]. Chalk this up as a different _sort_ of lesson in working with APIs :)

[0]: [https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915#Retweeting](https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915#Retweeting)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi and thanks for your answer. Retweeting should be used cautously of course and not for spamming. You don't want to provide a poor Twitter experience to your users, that's crystal clear.</comment></comment>


A kidnapped crypto executive was reportedly released - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/kidnapped-crypto-exec-released-after-paying-1-million-bitcoin-ransom-2017-12 <comment><USER2> Man the bitcoin fees must have really ticked off the kidnappers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its completely crazy. The world has gone nuts</comment></comment>


Fix your crappy ads and I'll stop blocking them - <AUTHOR> https://mortoray.com/2017/05/02/fix-your-crappy-ads-and-ill-stop-blocking-them/ <comment><USER2> I just had CNBC.com tell me that I couldn't have autoplaying video if I don't turn off my adblocker. Sounds like a win-win from my perspective. Maybe if large commercial news websites weren't so annoying and crappy to use, and the quality of the adverts so deplorably low, then I might be more open to viewing them.

If you allow flashy banners and animations etc. all over your page, then I'm gonna black them. That simple, guys. I am not going to buy anything from someone who gets up in my face in a rude way. Not only am I not going to buy anything right now, I'm going to actively avoid your products/services in the future because you annoyed me already.

<comment><USER3> I think ad blockers should be able to throttle by amount of bandwidth. If the ads are taking up more than 20% of load time or 20% of bandwidth, they start getting cut off.

Also, an ad blocker that learned your preferences would be very cool. If you could "thumbs down" ads, this information could be used to show you ads you like and are interested in. Such information would actually be very valuable to marketers.

<comment><USER4> Google ads allow you to stop showing specific ads. Click the little _i_ symbol in the corner to go to the settings for that.

<comment><USER5> I wish ad networks would let me opt out of classes of ads.

I never want to see alcohol ads, nor gambling ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this article doesn't go far enough with its championing of blocking certain ads. All ads should be blocked and web services which rely on them should find a better way of sustaining themselves profitably.

The malicious nature of ads is not new. Ads have always been infested with malware, tracking, and hideous graphics. Taken to their logical extreme (as Facebook has done), ads can also manipulate users to a degree far more dangerous than a TV or radio ad could. Ads are just the surface of a much deeper problem with the Internet, which is that most massive web services are paid for with user data rather than a mutually agreed upon price.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to willingly view an advertisement to support a useful service. This amounts to a donation which you are not really in control of. Just circumvent the ad and buy from the company or send them money if you value their services.

<comment><USER7> > there is no reason to willingly view an advertisement to support a useful > service

How about when the service _can not exist_ otherwise? Even if you were willing to pay for it, many others might not be. If the value of the service is heavily based on network effects, the result is a network too small to reach the break-even point. I'm not saying you should view ads you don't want to, but demanding that people provide a free service you find useful while denying them any _realistic_ way to pay for that service seems bit too entitled for me.

<comment><USER6> >How about when the service can not exist otherwise?

Then maybe it shouldn't exist in the first place. If your business model relies on feeding users ad technology known to be unsafe, undesirable, and disrespectful to users' freedom, it's not worth patronizing. There are plenty of web services not supported by advertisement. This is not a case where "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is acceptable. The current system of sustaining webservices is broken and outdated.

<comment><USER8> > If your business model relies on feeding users ad technology known to be > unsafe, undesirable, and disrespectful to users' freedom, it's not worth > patronizing.

You are conflating specific negative aspects of the current advertising landscape with advertising in general.

"Advertising" covers a large spectrum of actions, from the sign above the corner store in a neighborhood saying its name to complex analysis of online behavior, personal traits and current disposition to influence your actions. There are both positive and negative aspects of online and offline advertising. Oversimplification of the description and overly broad statements based on that simplification aren't really useful to a beneficial change.

<comment><USER6> I'm not at all, because I'm not talking about advertising in general. I'm aware of what advertising is. I'm talking specifically about the same kind of advertising that the article posted is.

<comment><USER8> You responded to something about advertising in general ("How about when the service can not exist otherwise?") with something about specific negative advertising practices. Regardless of what the article is about, is seems the comment you replied to was talking about advertising in general (and was itself responding to a comment referring to advertising in general).

I don't think we're going to get very far if we aren't talking about the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My ad-blocker is more of a "don't run arbitrary code from a fourth party delivered by a third-party ad-network on websites I visit" blocker.

<comment><USER10> exactly. Why are there no server side ad networks serving only images and links?

<comment><USER11> Because the share of people using the internet who understand the distinction is probably about 1%, and of that 1% the share that care is certainly less than half, and of that group the share that would go go to the trouble of trying to identify the sites that use serverside ads and not block them as opposed to just blocking every ad is in turn miniscule.

<comment><USER12> No need to care about it if the ads simply bypass adblockers by being served the same way as regular content. Faster-loading pages will make everyone happier anyway. This is something I'm particularly interested in building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Advertising companies don't get to shit in the community well for a decade, and then act outraged when we start buying bottled.

<comment><USER2> Excellent metaphor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fix the ads in the ways mentioned here and they'd be damn hard to block in the first place. The only rule needed to block practically all ads is "Stop loading data from third-party websites."

<comment><USER15> The amount of crap websites load from third parties to track and analyse your every move is staggering. This is a list of tracking parties loaded _on a single website_ :

        googletagmanager.com
        adnxs.com
        chartbeat.com
        google-analytics.com
        hotjar.com
        scorecardresearch.com

This is for the website of a well-regarded professional Dutch newspaper with a professional website!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a 3rd option. You dont visit the sites that have ads on them. That way, you aren't imposing your will on them, and you aren't taking their work without passively supporting them, and everyone wins.

The idea that you're entitled to everyone's content without even passively supporting them, the author, as they ask, is just a bit too much for me.

<comment><USER17> How do you implement your policy of not visiting sites with ads?

How do you block a site prior to visiting it? Are you using a custom hosts file to block all sites that are known offenders?

Many of us are blocking ads for security and privacy concerns. How do you confirm that a site is safe prior to visiting it so that you can allow ads if it is a safe site?

Unfortunately, the only tools I have found block the good with the bad.

<comment><USER18> It's actually _not_ that hard to eliminate the worst of it. You just leave the ad-blocker _on_ , full-time until you visit a site. If the site isn't an abhorrent "content farm" with link-baity headlines and vague, poorly worded nonsense, _then_ "So far so good..." you whitelist them and hit the reload button. Thanks to the race to the bottom that advertising has become, >90% of the bad sites won't make it past this first stage.

If after disabling the ad blocker the content becomes buried in interstitials, auto-playing videos, and is so crowded with ads that the actual content turns into snaketext that looks like someone tried to outdo The Odyssey in haiku form, you turn the ad blocker _back on_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Brain-dead statistical matching of page content to ad content would do a > better job of targeting than whatever systems are in place now. I want to > see ads that are relevant to the content, something that doesn't feel like a > distraction.

Wasn't this the business model of Google AdWords?

> Stop loading data from third-party websites. This is a security and privacy > issue. There's no technical reason why all ads can't be served from the site > I'm visiting. It can still communicate with ad servers, just do it on the > backend.

Ad networks insist on this because there's no other way to prevent massive- scale fraud by the customers - how should the ad network know that the end user is a "real" user and not a fake request the customer generated to drive up the impressions on pay-per-impression ads?

<comment><USER20> And I block ads because there is no other way to prevent massive-scale fraud, deception, distraction and malware from advertising afflicting me.

Ad networks can't swing the sword of justice at me while themselves standing on a platform of shaded pragmatism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Na I kind of disagree with the author, ads do work, and they work quite well, otherwise the whole internet wouldn't rely on them.

But also ads are always bad, because the only reason they exist is to get my to buy something I don't want. Because everything I want to buy I can (and do) research and find out where to buy without them.

<comment><USER22> > the only reason they exist is to get my to buy something I don't want.

Doesn't need to be. Ads can also be used to tell you that something you may want exists, and how to get it.

And that's still simplistic. I do agree that ads are dangerous things, but they have many uses, some good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What I find most frustrating about blocking ads and such is that when I find a site I want to see content on I will start allowing more in; i use uBlock Origin. Sometimes I do this so streaming content will load and other times to benefit the site.

However almost immediately the same pattern sets in, this is particularly true with streaming content issues. More sites pop up on the blocked list. It is like one of those little Russian Dolls, you open one up and keep finding more.

This is why I keep all blocks on and it is a very very rare occasion I will remove them. When I now come across content I would like to see I move to unblock but if I run into another Russian Doll setup I just close the tab and never look back.

Simply put. I don't trust you. If your ad services are nested within each other then whom am I actually allowing entry? I said you can come in, not the people you met on the street. so stay out.

</comment><comment><USER24> Make micropayments a thing and I'll pay you directly. (no way I gonna unblock any ad). And with micro I mean something more like spotify: A flat- or capped- rate and automatic payment of anything I read across publishers.

<comment><USER21> [https://flattr.com/](https://flattr.com/) [https://www.patreon.com/](https://www.patreon.com/)

<comment><USER24> Both great!

Patreon however no flat-rate and not much in use for articles and flattr not widely supported and recently aquired by a dubious company...

For flattr I never understood why you can't hit the button multiple times to give double or trippe to a single author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is nothing you can do to stop me blocking ads. I'll use duck tape if I have to.

For everyone else's sake I hope you follow the author's suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Same goes for crappy video players. I'd be glad never to use youtube-dl again if the video player of the (ad-supported) program I'm watching didn't repeatedly freeze, crash, or outright refuse to work.

Youtube, HBO, Amazon, and Netflix are usually stellar. Hulu, NBC, Comedy Central, TBS… I don't think I've _ever_ successfully watched a video all the way through on one of those services.

<comment><USER13> I've never really had a problem with video players not working; I have had about a thousand problems with them automatically playing content, sometimes from a tab I can't identify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is my exact position. I don't have any existential problem with ads. The problem i have is what the websites does. It seems there is competition between websites "who can put more ads". This is ridiculous. I use adblocks only because of this. If they put ads in more rational fashion, i would be more than happy to help websites owners make money out of their websites.

</comment><comment><USER28> We're in a sad state when advertisers get to dictate how intrusive they get to be and content producers are sort of at their mercy if they want to make any money. If ads respected my browsing experience and didn't slow down the content being usable, I wouldn't block them.

</comment><comment><USER29> Fix your crappy website that has no content without javascript and I may stop instantly dismissing it.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Fix your crappy ads and I'll stop blocking them

I'll always block them, just in case they decide to track me.

</comment><comment><USER31> The ad model is broken. I see the future of web monetisation as tiny fractions of a bit coin (or another crypto currency) being automatically deducted from a your wallet, charged per second/minute.

<comment><USER32> Wouldn't that let you perform even crazier levels of tracking, and expose my (barely anonymous) browsing to the entire world? Wallets might be just a bunch of characters, but I bet you can figure out who I am from my url trail alone, given I spend a ton of time on messenger.com/t/mywife and mywebsite.com

Also, doesn't that mean that only people with money can go on the internet? This seems like a much, much worse system than we have today (with adblockers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What about having Ad Blockers work more like Anti Virus tools where in they let through Ads that conform to an Ad industry standard?

</comment><comment><USER34> I agree! If ads will look better and blend in with the website it would be a win-win stiuatuation for advertisers and site owners.

</comment><comment><USER22> And... It's one of those sites that are blank when you block 3rd party Javascript. Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER35> The missing part is an ad-blocker thats allowing ads by default, unless you tell him to block on the current domain.

I think the problem is in the default behaviour of being on for all domains by default. Which even when you do your job right, by not using overlay or otherwise distracting ads, blocks you by default, without giving the user a choice to decide.

<comment><USER36> The user already decided, by installing the ad blocker.

<comment><USER37> Have they? A user may install an ad blocker because of some giant video obscuring content and playing music on a.com, but they may be entirely willing to continue seeing text ads on b.com. For users that want such an experience, there is definitely a lack of options.

<comment><USER38> In my experience, Online advertising is overwhelmingly negative.

Lets compare it to cancer. Maybe the users don't want brain cancer, but they should have the option for skin cancer.

Nobody wants cancer. Users who install adblockers don't want ads.

<comment><USER35> comparing ads with cancer is suggestive.

personally i compare them with housekeeping. I don't like it, i can decide to pay someone to do it, or i've to accept them. Which could kill me by poisonous cleanser (malware).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's great to see this on site that shows white page with js off...

</comment><comment><USER40> I just don't wanna see ads. Crappy or otherwise.

<comment><USER41> +1

I have absolutely zero interest in seeing anything you are trying to sell me. Intrusive, spying, or just a linked JPG.

I will not whitelist ads for any site for whatever reasons.

If that means the site cannot continue to, well so be it.</comment></comment>


IPhone done entirely in CSS3 - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/dylnhdsn/pen/iphone/21

<comment><USER2> This and the seeing the Twitter logo done in CSS is inspiring. I seek to create my own images using CSS3.</comment>


Log(x) vs. ln(x) – The curse of scientific computing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ktamiola/log-x-vs-ln-x-the-curse-of-scientific-computing-170c8e95310c#.pruprqr7z <comment><USER2> Hah. There's also Log vs log. Capital L Log is the set of solutions to C=exp(z), so is defined up to i _2_ pi*n where n is an integer

<comment><AUTHOR> There you go! It is a freaking zoo of formalism!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I thought it was common programming knowledge that ln(x) is log(x), and log(x) is log10(x).

As an EE, I use both frequently. Seems a lot of errors could be avoided by just comparing your code to a simple hand calculation. I suppose few do that these days.

<comment><USER4> >>that ln(x) is log(x), and log(x) is log10(x).

Can you clarify what you mean? Are you missing a log_e_(x)?

<comment><USER3> Just that all languages and CAD environments I have used define log(x) as natural logarithm, and log10(x) and base 10 logarithm. Again, this is common knowledge in engineering programming, but maybe not so in general programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All his examples use log(x) as the natural logarithm of x. I fail to see the confusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Examples? Which examples? Do you mean the snippets of documentation I am attaching at the end? Sure, they do!

The problem is the actual math/physics formalism is not!

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

<comment><USER5> The article you link would is about biology, not only that but Wikipedia has to try to be consistent across various fields, unlike mathematics and physics where the natural logarithm is used almost exclusively, so it makes sense to use a more explicit notation.

Sure physics (and sometimes mathematics) do use the notation 'ln' every so often (if only because it's shorter) but you'd be hard pressed to find a reference in anything related to mathematics or physics that uses log as the base 10 logarithm.

Clearly the easiest way to avoid the ambiguity is to only ever use the natural logarithm, which is the choice made by all the programming languages you listed at the end. And since you don't list any references where log should refer to the base-10 logarithm I'll have to conclude that they made the right choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing is as easy as both of us wish it was :)

[http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jwilson/files/mathsigns.pdf](http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jwilson/files/mathsigns.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this guy is just wrong, except maybe in saying that `log` is ambiguous and we should be using `log10` and `ln`. Incidentally he uses comma as both a thousand separator and a decimal point in the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am afraid I am not. I wish I was, as it would save me ridiculous amount of time and work.

Start reading here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_pKa_calculations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_pKa_calculations)

This is just the tip of the "log(x) vs ln(x)" iceberg.

I have copy pasted the ln(10) straight from Apple Calc. Thanks for pointing out.

<comment><USER6> I mean in your assertion that `log` must mean `log10`. I have huge sympathy for contending with inconsistent use of ambiguous notation. My pet hate is `gamma` vs. `tgamma`.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't dare to suggest that, yet that's the route that physics and all derivatives have adopted!

We are essentially at the crossroad and obviously, programming, which develops nowadays a bit faster than theoretical physics or mathematics, pushes in one direction.

<comment><USER6> Well my anecdatum, as a theoretical physicist, is that people very rarely write `log` or use logarithms is bases other than e.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are unit tests insufficient to catch these kinds of mistakes?

<comment><AUTHOR> They are for sure! Obviously, all depends on the complexity of the problem and the willingness of programmers to install tests :/

In my company, we are ridiculously pedantic about unit testing, but even with proper level of attention to detail we sometimes fail with getting 100% code coverage.

The biggest pain are log(x)/ln(x) issues in numerical optimization.</comment></comment>


SpaceX is Building a Vertical Take of and Landing, Reusable Launch Vehicle - <AUTHOR> http://nasawatch.com/archives/2011/09/spacex-is-build.html Here is a more informative link that I wish I had provided instead: http://moonandback.com/2011/09/24/spacex-thinking-outside-the-box-again-meet-the-grasshopper/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know how this compares to Armadillo Airspace's VTOL technology, and what Armadillo's long term strategy is for its technology?

<comment><USER3> Two totally different things. This is for recovery of their (SpaceX's) first stage rocket.

<comment><USER2> If both are using VTOL, one for a small object, one for a large, how is it all _that_ different?

<comment><USER3> Because the design requirements and capabilities that result are entirely different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Keep on the lookout for a SpaceX launch to the space station in December or January (unfortunately delayed by recent Soyuz failure).

<comment><USER5> The Russians have said nyet to that. Probably politics at play--no doubt they are enjoying the kudos from being the sole supplier--so it may change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actual article, <http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=38546>

</comment><comment><USER7> Does this capability have any purpose here on earth? Seems like a difficult way to get to 10,000 feet...

<comment><USER8> These are test flights to simulate some of the conditions the actual, practical vehicle would experience. The end goal is to create a reusable first stage for the Falcon 9. It would operate similar to the normal Falcon 9 during launch, after it burned through its main propellant store it would separate from the rest of the stack (which would then proceed on ahead as usual) then undertake a short burn with a single engine to decelerate the 1st stage (which, at this stage, carries no upper stages, payload, and is mostly empty of fuel, so it is a much easier task than on the way up) enough to prevent it from breaking apart when it contacts the atmosphere. Then, the 1st stage will reenter (somewhat gently), parachutes will open to slow the atmospheric descent and finally small thrusters will guide the stage to a soft, safe landing (perhaps back at the original launch location, perhaps at some other location downrange).

Later the recovered 1st stage would be refurbished and returned to service as part of another Falcon 9. Done properly this should reduce the cost of launches by about another order of magnitude over the Falcon's already ridiculously low costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> s/Lunch/Launch/ (I hope...)

<comment><USER9> _s/Lunch/Launch/_

Isn't that the intended usage? See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Out_Space_Nuts></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are prisoners allowed to write code in your country? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The answer depends on the state and/or prison in the US. Many prisons don't have computers. If they do have internet access, it is heavily limited and monitored.</comment>


A Look at Altera's OpenCL SDK for FPGAs (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/7334/a-look-at-alteras-opencl-sdk-for-fpgas

<comment><USER2> As someone who regularly writes RTL for FPGAs during their day job, I like the idea, but am skeptical about the follow through.

For years now, various companies have tried to make cross compilers to be able to synthesize C style code into RTL. The name for this basic idea is "High Level Synthesis" (HLS). For applications like digital signal processing, HSL is actually decent. Having a stream of data moving through some transform is easy to express in C (and OpenCL), and easy to translate into a relatively efficient data pipeline in RTL when compared with making one "by hand". But this isn't the only thing that is going on within the FPGA. It is clunky and inefficient to create state machines or controllers, interact with inbuilt memory blocks, or interface with other modules not built in the HLS language.

Since inefficiencies cost resources, you end up trading your decreased development time through using HLS for possibly increased device costs, and some ambiguity in terms of the architecture of the hardware your synthesize. Since these tools haven't been broadly embraced by the FPGA coding community, the support for them doesn't tend to last long either.

<comment><USER3> I would guess that the interesting comparison isn't this vs. alternate FPGA approaches, but this vs. alternate OpenCL targets (GPUs, especially). For people that already have OpenCL written to solve their problem, they're going to want to know if the performance will be better per unit cost as compared to whatever they're running it on now, and it sounds like at least in some cases the FPGAs will do better than GPUs, so it's still a net win even if you could do it even faster by writing Verilog.

Obviously it won't work for every problem, but the problem classes you mention being a poor fit (state machines, etc.), nobody is using OpenCL for anyway... super-branchy code like state machines performs badly on GPUs, which are currently the main OpenCL targets.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those that like to dig deeper, here is a white paper by Altera on "Implementing FPGA Design with the OpenCL Standard" [PDF] [http://www.altera.com/literature/wp/wp-01173-opencl.pdf](http://www.altera.com/literature/wp/wp-01173-opencl.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> (Article is from October 9, 2013)

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Added to title.</comment></comment>


Is Google About to Launch a Facebook Killer? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/06/here_we_go_again.php

<comment><USER2> At this point I think we can safely say Google is in a perpetual state of "about to launch a Facebook killer" and will continue to be so until they actually manage to kill Facebook. So without any details to back it up Kevin Rose's source is just stating the obvious as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER3> I feel like Google is constantly launching Facebook killers and waiting to see what will stick. They have so many different social networks and feed mechanisms that it's hard to discern a coherent strategy from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it's possible to launch a Facebook killer. It is more likely that some company will launch something that eventually kills Facebook, but we won't know it is a Facebook killer until afterwards. It's not a matter of beating them on specs...

<comment><USER5> Agreed, can't kill Facebook by copying it. It'd be easier to kill Google by copying it (less network effects there), and that's pretty much impossible too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think in the last decade "killer" has become something of a cursed moniker. The last person to do a string of "killers" was 90's Bill Gates at Microsoft. When he decided he wanted to take a market, he just took it.

Since then products have almost inevitably become killers sort of by accident, especially in the fast-moving and uncertain age of the web. Making a killer thus is kind of like skating to where the puck has been, not where it is going.

</comment><comment><USER7> The only way to beat facebook is to out-open them. Facebook thrives on being a place where users have very tight control over their identities. Watch for something that strips that control from everyone.

</comment><comment><USER8> Didn't they launch it before Facebook and haven't they since all but abandoned it?

www.orkut.com

Also, it didn't start out as a Brazilian social network, not sure where the article got that.

<comment><USER9> I assume they are calling it a Brazilian social network because Orkut has done particularly well in Brazil. 50% of the site's visits come from Brazil, with the remainder mostly split between the US and India. Orkut is administrated by Google Brazil since mid-2008.

<comment><USER10> Before that there was a Brazilian invasion of Fotolog.

Livejournal had a Russian invasion, Flickr had an early invasion of kids from the U.A.E. and was blocked there for a while, Xanga went asian, Bebo went British.

You can't really predict how localized network effects will transform a globally-accessible online community.

<comment><USER11> I have a hard-to-test-theory involving the nodes with high betweenness- centrality that may explain regional popularity. The "most-connected" (eigenvector or page-rank) nodes may be much less valuable than the "more- diversely-connected" nodes (betweenness centrality being a good measure of this)) in their ability to persuade conversion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ... and it looks like facebook will soon launch what sounds like a social powered question answer site, according to their "beta" recruitment page - <http://www.facebook.com/product_application/>

Will it be called FaceOverflow?

</comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully, it does as well as their Twitter killer and their Wikipedia killer.

<comment><USER14> I rather like Google Buzz actually and probably now use it 1/5-1/4 as much as Twitter. It's very simple to use with the great GMail inbox integration and connects me to a different set of friends vs. Twitter and Facebook.

<comment><USER15> I believe fizx was referring to Jaiku (twitter competitor) and Knoll (Wikipedia competitor), not Buzz. both of which failed to rick off.

I think with buzz they are trying to make a service which brings all the features of the various social networks to one platform, its something between Facebook (you can "like" stuff), tumblr (judging by the length of the posts and it allows comments), and twitter.

I have to say that buzz is really nice, and I would use it if it didn't have the gmail requirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does Google really see Facebook as a threat? Maybe they could also fund Diaspora like they helped Mozilla. And it seems to me their "big splash" launches of late (App Engine, Docs, Wave, Buzz, checkout) end up underwhelming maybe because of the hype. Their successes (Gmail, maps, text ads) in my perception were more like "soft" launches in which they let the blogosphere and geeks in general do their promoting for them.

<comment><USER17> Diaspora is yet to show up anything, they have created hype though but nothing visible till date. Google certainly is not going to say anything to be the facebook killer, they will just introduce something and if that works that's great, and if that doesn't its just ok, it will not make much difference until it succeed, failure for Google in this space doesn't make any difference. It is the advantage of being Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For a while now Google has been pushing a much need redesign for Orkut (I don't have it yet, nor have I ever really used the service). I somehow doubt they're giving up it just yet.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa5xuQZnmtE>

Oh, and wasn't Facebook about to launch a Google killer the other day..?

</comment><comment><USER19> Protip: Nothing will kill Facebook but Facebook itself.

<comment><USER20> You could have said the same thing about Myspace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google is fighting too many wars now. They need focus and polish, and to stop less competed services from degrading.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hmm.. Google already has orkut.com

</comment><comment><USER23> Orkut 2.0: The Reckoning</comment>


No Internet in South Florida if you use Bellsouth/AT&T - <AUTHOR>

I'm using my tmobile dash to suck internet! I feel like I'm back in 1995! <comment><USER2> Hearing the same thing. This is a huge outage. The last one like this I can think of is that train crash near Jacksonville in 98 that cut the fiber.</comment>


Dropbox should have used a Jumpbox - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/17/ep3-companies-who-make-money-jumpbox/

<comment><USER2> During our YC demo, we just used VMWare, dumped our server into it, changed the host file to point draftmix.com to the proper IP, and boom. So while investors were seeing our actual code in action (not some prerecorded, ideal situation version) it wasn't dependent on the internet.

Also amazing for us was the ability to snapshot. We started up a league, snapshotted, then ran from there, so that when the demo started, we could show a league in action.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can appreciate the advantage of having my server environment on a USB drive, particularly if I don't want to lug my laptop to a demo, or my laptop is AWOL, or the situation calls for using someone else's computer. That seems very useful, and I can see the value of Jumpbox for those reasons alone. I know that it's also a breeze to fire up for ad-hoc development environments.

But when the only technical challenge is internet connectivity, such as in this case, what is the advantage of Jumpbox over VMWare or Parallels?

<comment><USER4> " .... what is the advantage of Jumpbox over VMWare or Parallels?"

Jumpbox runs _on_ VMWare and Parallels. (And Xen and some other VM environments.)

<comment><USER3> Oh ok. I see it now. And the advantage then is that you begin with a full stack. Cool.

<comment><USER4> Yes. Plus, as someone else here pointed out, you can have a self-contained virtual "internet" to demo apps without needing an external connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They would then have had to clone s3 as well, is there a Jumpbox for that?

I think the best solution in this case would have been a hardwired connection with a EVDO card as backup.

<comment><USER6> You only need a mock, not a clone.</comment></comment>


iMac Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/imacpro/ <comment><USER2> This is getting to the point that honestly I would rather just pay Apple for a license to OS X and buy the hardware I want. I'm sure I am in the minority, but I would shell out $600+ to legally use OS X on a Hackintosh with worrying about updates breaking the setup. I own a trashcan MacPro and Macbook Pro and just want to be able to do development on a desktop with a decent Nvidia graphics card and a laptop with at least 32G of ram.

<comment><USER3> I'm with you on that. I've never built a hackintosh but the hardware support this brings, combined with the constrained all-in-one form factor I personally disdain, is pushing me towards building an iMac Pro-logical equivalent hackintosh. If I could pay to have a legal licence and support for it, I'd do so in a flash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> On the whole, an all-in-one design for what is purportedly a professional- grade machine isn't exactly enticing (no expandability, impossibility of having multiple identical monitors, & cetera).

But on second thoughts the hardware support this will bring to macOS will enable the construction of some really powerful, up-to-date hackintosh systems at very reasonable price-points.

<comment><USER4> The Thunderbolt 3 ports are each somewhere in the neighborhood of the bandwidth of a PCIe 8x slot, arguably giving this about the approximately the expandability of an HP or Dell single socket workstation.

I'm not saying this should be preferred to a traditional tower, just that it isn't fair to say it has no expandability.

<comment><USER3> I'm of the internal-cards over external-cables school of thought. I've been plugging circuit boards into backplanes since the S-100 bus era, and I'm very much committed to the idea of a discrete computer chassis containing all the major computing components as a distinct entity compared to the screen. I still have desktop machines because of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some interesting things to note from the specs[0]:

1\. An 18-core processor option, 4TB of storage (hopefully NVMe) and 128GB of RAM. That's _crazy_ for an iMac form factor. I'm surprised Apple is even continuing the traditional Mac Pro form factor, considering.

2\. Specific details on AMD Vega's pro models:

 _Radeon Pro Vega 56 graphics processor with 8GB of HBM2 memory | Configurable to Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics processor with 16GB of HBM2 memory_

Having a GPU with 16GB of HBM2 doesn't necessitate an external graphics card in the vast majority of cases. It'll be interesting if you can then hook up additional external graphics cards to augment its GPU power for either high- end 3D work or deep learning applications.

I'm guessing we may see people hooking up external Nvidia GPUs just so they can take advantage of CUDA, which is kind of a shame considering the specs of the onboard Vega hardware.

Metal 2 introduces compute shaders however, so I'm not sure if Apple intends to challenge CUDA primacy. Considering their reliance on AMD GPUs, it would be in their interest to do so—or at least somehow convince Nvidia to discontinue their anti-competitive practice of locking CUDA to Nvidia GPUs.

[0] [https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/](https://www.apple.com/imac- pro/specs/)

EDIT: As other commenters pointed out, I incorrectly speculated the Mac Pro form factor was done for. On the contrary, its continuation is officially confirmed. My comment has been updated accordingly. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest- end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display."

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most- powerfu...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerful-mac- arrives-december/)

<comment><USER6> And you'll only have to wait until after 2017 for it. [1]

1: 'These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays "will not ship this year". (I hope that means "next year", but all Apple said was "not this year".)' from [https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives](https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives)

<comment><USER7> When Apple did this blogger event a couple of weeks ago to update the tech scene about the future of the Mac Pro, it sounded like they were surprised their pro users wanted updated Mac Pros, not just iMacs. It appears Apple only then decided to work on an update (redesign) of the Mac Pro. So don't bet on next year. They just started the research for a complete new design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They claim that to build your own workstation comparable to their $5k base model would cost at least $7k. I would be interested to see a breakdown of this cost; it seems a bit implausible on the surface, but I don't really have experience with these kind of workstations.

<comment><USER9> That's probably true if you're going to be getting Xeon processors, ECC RAM, etc. But if you were to go for consumer grade hardware with similar performance, you'd probably come in at well under $5000. The cost of a 5K display is definitely something that should be considered as well, though.

<comment><USER10> Something I saw on engadget: [https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jqPdTH](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jqPdTH)

<comment><USER11> That looks pretty close. A few small things are missing if you want complete parity:

* wireless keyboard and mouse * bluetooth * 802.11ac * 10GB ethernet * speakers * web cam

I'm sure you could budget those comfortably within the remaining $800 or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sorry, I'll pass until Mac Pro is announced.

I want to put my stuff _inside_ the case, I have enough wires on my desk already. Upgradable RAM would be fine, too.

<comment><USER3> Definitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Due to naming parity, this all but confirms an 'iPhone Pro' this fall.

<comment><USER14> I imagine that Apple doesn't think all of their users are "Pro" or want to be lumped in a "Pro" category, nor want to use their phones for purely "Pro" purposes. I would bet good money that Apple will definitely _not_ name their next iPhone Pro.

<comment><USER13> I'd agree with you, but the 'MacBook Pro' hasn't been marketed at actual 'pros' in generations.

<comment><USER15> They're aimed mainly at creative professionals. Pro is not a synonym for Dev.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, at least this should shut up the complainers about apple hardware. There is now really going to be an option.

It's not great, it's not something to be enthusiastic about but it's better then rumbling about the next iOS version of something.

<comment><USER15> > this should shut up the complainers about apple hardware.

Welcome to HN. I take it you're new here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's going to take five years of ~ yearly hardware refreshes of all product lines for me to believe that Apple still knows how to be a computer company.

I think once they've refreshed all the product lines in the current cycle - which is a response to a screaming customer base, Apple will wipe its brow and say "phew that was hard dealing with all those customer demands", and get back to refreshes every five years.

Apple just no longer has the same DNA as all those Chinese hardware manufacturers who blitz new products in constantly.

</comment><comment><USER18> No matter what apple does it will not satisfy "pro" users. Computers either not fast enough, too expensive, not upgradable enough.

</comment><comment><USER19> That profile view on the apple page looks like it is really fat, the fattest iMac since the translucent plastic CRT monitor days.

Where is the new expandable Mac Pro Tim has been telling us about for several months, the machine that would get us to stop needing to make Hackintoshes? No where to be seen.

> four Thunderbolt 3 ports with support for up to two 5K displays, a 1080p > FaceTime camera, realtime 3D rendering, and much more. Other specs start at > a 5K built-in display, 8-core Xeon processors, Radeon Vega graphics, 32GB > ECC memory, and 10GB Ethernet. The new iMac Pro will start at $4999.

Only 4 ports and none of them USB 3. No USB for keyboard or mouse, so heavy battery laden wireless mouse only. Great, more carpal tunnel fun, plus the joy of recharging batteries when there is no real need.

I don't need two 5k monitors. I need a development machine I can add hard drives and dual reasonable sized monitors to. In the non-expandible limited port iMac range of machine for grandma I need practical ports and a price about 1/5 the stated price.

Fortunately I have found all I need in the Hackintosh world for Mac compatible stuff, and Linux for everything else.

<comment><USER20> Unless that picture is totally misleading it looks like there's also 4 older format USB ports on the back.

</comment></comment><comment> shady-lady > Billowing smoke. Torrential rain. A wheat field in the wind. With up to 18 > cores and Hyper-Threading, iMac Pro lets you build and render particle > systems of all kinds — static or animated, 2D or 3D — with ease.

I always thought every effect listed here was catered for by GPU power, not CPU power?

<comment><USER21> Physics are often rendered on the CPU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm personally concerned about the claimed 500W power - Surely that isn't enough?

</comment><comment><USER23> The full specs are just unbelievable. I know you can create a comparable computer with 30% savings, but packing this much power into an iMac is just insane. I don't think i would be able to buy one ever.

</comment><comment><USER9> Since the Surface Studio gets nearly this expensive, it'll be interesting to see where Microsoft takes it in the future.

<comment><USER24> Surface Studio is a very different beast than an iMac Pro. The Surface Studio isn't trying to be a powerhouse unit... it uses a mobile GPU. It's designed to be a creation workstation with the unique screen, knob, and stylus but not really a powerhouse render-er.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Xeon instead of Threadripper, looks like they're really tied to Intel. Vega hype though!

</comment><comment><USER26> At $4999 for the base model they can keep it.

<comment><USER4> I thought that seemed terrible, but then when I tried configuring a Dell and HP with 8 cores, 32 gigs of ram, 1TB flash, and a good display, I kept hitting similar numbers.

<comment><USER12> If you opt out of Xeon, you can build it for around $3k, complete with nVidia 1080. Mine is $2.5k, but I opted for a 4-core CPU, 32G ram, a 1080, and 1TB flash. Works perfectly.

<comment><USER27> Including the 5K monitor?

<comment><USER12> No, 4K. I am not sure if 5k makes all the difference (at least for me, as a software engineer/researcher). However, I understand it might be important for many people.

<comment><USER27> Okay, but what you've shown is that you can build a cheaper system with cheaper not-so-top-of-the-line components. Well, sure. You can also buy a cheaper iMac.

<comment><USER26> Xeon is a server-class CPU, the i7 is a desktop class CPU...doesn't mean they're not both top of the line components. Couple of major downside of iMacs (I have an original 5k iMac) are that I can't use it as a monitor for my other systems and I can't upgrade anything (RAM is already maxed out.) If you're all-in to Apple's ecosystem, it might make sense, but I just don't see the value myself (having a ton of Apple tech, but slowly moving away, I can't justify the $ when I can build an upcoming i9 or AMD Thread Ripper (terrible name btw) based machine for half the cost with similar/better performance.) Yep I'll lose OSX, but Win10 + Linux Subsystem solves most of my needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Personally, I think this is by far apple's worst announcement page. Maybe because I viewed it on firefox, at a weird screen size, but the last two panels never loaded for me. The "thermal viewer" element is identical to the speaker panel sans the cool airflow demo. The huge "500 nits 43% brighter One billion colors Support for 10-bit spatial and temporal dithering." li's are really ugly to me. The panel header text looks nice and big, why do you have to use these super H1s?

Maybe I am just bitter here, but the only thing I like is the keyboard

</comment><comment><USER29> OMG, what happened to the superb Apple product pages? This is just ugly!

<comment><USER30> It's maybe off-topic to discuss the page design, but I agree.

I hate these landing pages that are effectively PowerPoints -- very little information per screenful of content, with crap transition effects between every "slide".

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Where's the metal loop to connect the chain so I can use it as a Boat Anchor in 8 years after forced obsolescence? It's not a bug, it's a feature!</comment>


In praise of Dewey - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/dewey-knew-how-to-teach-democracy-and-we-must-not-forget-it <comment><USER2> One of my favorite observations from John Dewey is that children constantly ask questions... except in the classroom. It's worth thinking about for a while and what it says about our goals in education.

What are we doing that where we want people to learn we create an environment to make active and curious people passive and non-curious?

I expected I would like teaching when I started. Since learning about Dewey and his legacy and concluding that I would not lecture or give tests, I love teaching. Most of my students say they've never taken a course like mine and want to know how they can take more.

</comment><comment><USER3> Diane Ravitch's book _The Uncertain Crusade_ has an interesting chapter on the rise and decline of "progressive education." Dewey himself was not happy with all that went under that name. Based on the little I have read of Dewey, his model of a school demanded better and better-trained teachers than what it aimed to replace. However, given how vaguely he wrote, he could hardly blame others for misunderstanding.

</comment><comment><USER4> We should politicize education. That will end well.

<comment><USER5> How about we educate politicians?

<comment><USER4> I just found it surprising that the article immediately had to draw political lines. As if nobody could enjoy learning about Dewey unless they first knew who was good and who was evil, and why they're evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In France Dewey influenced Freinet : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9lestin_Freinet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9lestin_Freinet)</comment>


Linux Blackberry OS 10 Cordova plugin development setup - <AUTHOR> http://danieru.com/2013/10/06/linux-blackberry-os-10-cordova-plugin-development-setup/

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this on the off chance someone might be interested in this very specific aspect of blackberry development. The guide itself took me two full days to write but was needed by a team member who is planning on switching to ubuntu.

If anything this might serve as a fine example of a development process made much worse than it need be thanks to DRM. Android does not have any of the signing key pain which this guide documents. The root cause is blackberry wants to restrict control of development keys and keep them in the blackberry chain of trust.</comment>


Everyscape - Web tours of the insides of stores - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/business/25novelties.html?ex=1353646800&en=e0c741bdb44922be&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> PR for an old and failed business model, and completely scooped by Google's recent efforts (mapping cities and the insides of some businesses.)</comment>


When Math Gets Impossibly Hard - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-math-gets-impossibly-hard-20200914/ <comment><USER2> Dup: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24479530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24479530)</comment>