Tons of Fake Gold Bars: Gold Market Rocked by China Counterfeiting Scandal - <AUTHOR> https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/83-tons-fake-gold-bars-gold-market-rocked-massive-china-counterfeiting-scandal <comment><USER2> i always thought the biggest risk to gold was an abundance of gold in the sea that hasnt been mined yet. but fake gold works too, i guess.</comment>


List of 74 URL Shortening Sites - <AUTHOR>

I gathered these while working on my own project, perhaps it might useful for someone:<p>b23.ru bit.ly budurl.com canurl.com cli.gs decenturl.com dolop.com dwarfurl.com easyurl.net elfurl.com ff.im fire.to flq.us freak.to idek.net is.gd ix.lt kl.am korta.nu krunchd.com ln-s.net loopt.us memurl.com miklos.dk moourl.com myurl.in nanoref.com notlong.com ping.fm piurl.com poprl.com qicute.com qurlyq.com reallytinyurl.com redirx.com rubyurl.com rurl.org shorl.com short.ie shorterlink.com shortlinks.co.uk shorturl.com shout.to shrinkurl.us shurl.net simurl.com smallr.com snipr.com snipurl.com snurl.com starturl.com surl.co.uk tighturl.com tinylink.com tinypic.com tinyurl.com tr.im traceurl.com twurl.nl u.mavrev.com ur1.ca url-press.com url.ie url9.com urlcut.com urlhawk.com urlpass.com urlx.ie xaddr.com xrl.us yep.it yuarel.com yweb.com zurl.ws<p>(I'll try to keep an updated copy here: http://niryariv.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/list-of-url-shortening-sites/ ) <comment><USER2> I think reallytinyurl.com missed the point.

<comment><USER3> Haha, I'd never seen that, and it's made by Contrast.io - one of my favorite web development firms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> URL shortening is getting way out of hand. It's the worst get-rich-quick scheme ever.

</comment><comment><USER5> You missed <http://tagz.in> . Yes, Tagz is a bookmarking site, but it also gives a short URL. I had suggested the developer to add the Short URL facility to all pages, but is unfortunately available only on the user's own saved page. If enough people ask, the developer might give the facikity for all links.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used weeit.com once and now it's dead.

<http://qurl.co.uk> is one of the originals and is super-fast - except for the domain name length, a good benchmark for speed, simplicity and contraction.

Also: h3o.de and digg.com

</comment><comment><USER6> why is there none with a 3 letter domain <http://a.aa> ?

I wonder how easy it'd be too run a CNAME or something on any or all of these services with a 3 letter domain, then add to it digg.com functionality (<http://a.aa/> add url here to be shortened here) and then tie it automatically or user-select to any of these services, switching to another, (even reproducing for historic links) if one goes down?

Why not just build a new service? - well you can keep you're existing account/s and have theses nice extra features. (only the services with the shortest url lengths used, fastest creation times, and ones that don't monetize)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, it's up to 80 sites now ([http://niryariv.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/list- of-url-shorten...](http://niryariv.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/list-of-url- shortening-sites/))

<comment><USER7> Why don't you make a list on <http://listable.org>? It'll automatically organize the list into more useful data formats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done: <http://www.listable.org/show/url-shortening-sites>

Thanks!

<comment><USER8> Maybe add URL-lengthening sites, too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> andrewl-hn Add tinyarro.ws - they use a bunch of domains for the URLs themselves.

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://puny.sapo.pt/> or <http://澥.sl.pt>

</comment><comment><USER10> Forget shortening URLs. Howabout shrinking images? ;-)

<http://tinysrc.net/>

</comment><comment><USER8> lol - i still don't get how bit.ly is valued so high, esp. in light of this.

thanks for the links!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem.

(BTW I'm not sure bit.ly was a bad investment. Common sense might say so, but that has little to do with which Web companies get bought and for how much. If I was a VC I'd put some chips on a URL shortener, and bit.ly is one of the better (and hyped) ones right now)

<comment><USER11> bit.ly's really interesting in that it comes out Betaworks - since it's so closely tied to Twitter, and so many of Betaworks' investments are built on Twitter (Summize, StockTwits, Tweetdeck), they can help push adoption. It's a nice little keiretsu of related companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I suppose it would make sense for Twitter to provide URL shortening themselves, and they'd probably buy someone like bit.ly for this - so betting $2m on it makes some sense (as much as anything makes sense in this area).

<comment><USER8> yeah, i see the twitter connection - definitely a good tech synergy there, but would it cost them that much to do it in-house?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


British Secret Service (MI6) – Software Engineering Graduates Position - <AUTHOR> https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6738624/software-engineering-graduates/ <comment><AUTHOR> And nothing, I am not from the UK and I cannot apply, but it would be interesting to know what a position like this would be like, and what do they ask on the interview, the requirements and so on.</comment>


Punched Cards: A Brief Tutorial (2002) - <AUTHOR> https://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/annals/extras/cardsvol24n2 <comment><USER2> On my device (Firefox for Android) I only see a large blank emptyness with a column of words on the right side of the page. Only the first two words of the sentences are visible.</comment>


Smart Image Classification Library – SMIC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anuragmishracse/smart_image_classifier <comment><AUTHOR> Train Deep Neural Networks for image classification. This tries to automate the process of hyperparameter tuning and returns a network that suits best for the task at hand.</comment>


Show HN: Thinng - Instapaper for Products - <AUTHOR> http://thinng.com/im-with/hacker-news Hey guys, I was really inspired when I saw the reception to HackerThings yesterday. We built an app over the course of a few weekends that we've been using personally but not had the time to promote, we're growing organically just via word of mouth & referrals currently.
Thinng is a place to create visual lists of all the products you might want to buy, or want people to buy for you. So technically you can use it to create your own list of HackerThings or whatever you are into.
Install our bookmarklet, use it when you're on a page with the product & save the image with a description/title into whichever list you want. You can update it with a custom image if you're like me & prefer higher quality images of products, but it's up to you!
Some of our users are using us as an inspirational source so technically we're not just limited to products.
All lists are currently public, but we are considering allowing private ones & the ability to follow individual lists if we get enough people using the app.
Happy to take any criticism or suggestions from the community. It would be good to get some feedback on what we can do better to drive users to add products (i.e. making the bookmarklet more prominent in the signup process).
Some example lists:
User page: http://thinng.com/thegyppo Gadgets - http://thinng.com/list/6-gadgets Things I wish I had at home - http://thinng.com/list/43-wish-i-had-this-at-home I Love Tea - http://thinng.com/list/41-i-love-tea
We also built a custom landing page, this is for when we pitch to blogs/partners but it'll allow you guys to bypass Facebook only login that active to the public for now. <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I was really inspired when I saw the reception to HackerThings yesterday. We built an app over the course of a few weekends that we've been using personally but not had the time to promote, we're growing organically just via word of mouth & referrals currently.

Thinng is a place to create visual lists of all the products you might want to buy, or want people to buy for you. So technically you can use it to create your own list of HackerThings or whatever you are into.

Install our bookmarklet, use it when you're on a page with the product & save the image with a description/title into whichever list you want. You can update it with a custom image if you're like me & prefer higher quality images of products, but it's up to you!

Some of our users are using us as an inspirational source so technically we're not just limited to products.

All lists are currently public, but we are considering allowing private ones & the ability to follow individual lists if we get enough people using the app.

Happy to take any criticism or suggestions from the community. It would be good to get some feedback on what we can do better to drive users to add products (i.e. making the bookmarklet more prominent in the signup process).

Some example lists:

User page: <http://thinng.com/thegyppo> Gadgets - <http://thinng.com/list/6-gadgets> Things I wish I had at home - <http://thinng.com/list/43-wish-i-had-this-at-home> I Love Tea - <http://thinng.com/list/41-i-love-tea>

We also built a custom landing page, this is for when we pitch to blogs/partners but it'll allow you guys to bypass Facebook only login that active to the public for now.

<comment><USER2> Where's the bookmarklet?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's on this page: <http://thinng.com/about></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Ten Words, a word game for iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ten-words/id543246574?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> In Ten Words, your task is to place randomly given letters on a board, spelling as many words as possible. It's sort of like reverse Boggle—instead of finding words in a pre-made grid, you make the grid as you go. Planning ahead and dealing with what randomness throws at you are the main challenges.

Here are some promo codes if you're interested in checking it out. I'd love your feedback!

      99LW3KJ3R9AE
      47HR7HT9TXWP
      NX769JYP6994
      667R6R3H3T3H
      XL7LFMFXERME

Please let me know if you've used one so I can cross it off the list.</comment>


Fifty years ago, the internet was born in Room 3420 - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90423457/50-years-ago-today-the-internet-was-born-in-room-3420 <comment><USER2> > Taylor had an even more practical reason to crave a network. He was > regularly getting requests from researchers around the country for funds to > buy bigger and better mainframe computers.

> Taylor talked ARPA director Charles Herzfeld into allocating a million > dollars for R&D into a new network to connect the computers at MIT, UCLA, > SRI, and many other sites. Herzfeld got the money by redirecting it from a > ballistic missile research program into the ARPA budget. The cost was > justified within DoD circles by saying that ARPA was tasked with building a > "survivable" network that wouldn't go down if any specific part was > destroyed, perhaps in a nuclear attack.

This story seems very similar to the Unix story[1]. Ritchie and Thompson wanted to play Space Travel and started building Unix. Eventually, management invested for a different reason: they wanted a good system for text processing of patent applications.

I guess in the early days, no one saw the potential of computers and networking. Therefore there had to be a weird convergence of interests of various stakeholders for projects to get off the ground.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to have circuits lab in this room, before an art student had the idea of turning it into a memorial. It used to just have a paper sign on the door marking the event:

[http://lh5.ggpht.com/azn.jalapeno/SQf_wBSxnoI/AAAAAAAAArg/nH...](http://lh5.ggpht.com/azn.jalapeno/SQf_wBSxnoI/AAAAAAAAArg/nHE4V2tqFoU/s800/pic_big.jpg)

[http://lh4.ggpht.com/azn.jalapeno/SQf9KtQGgNI/AAAAAAAAArE/L7...](http://lh4.ggpht.com/azn.jalapeno/SQf9KtQGgNI/AAAAAAAAArE/L7K33Xu_G1g/s800/DSC00023.JPG)

</comment><comment><USER4> > we leased this line from AT&T at the blazing speed of 50,000 bits per second

It's amazing that we still have a small number of people connected with connections that are slower than the first one ever, 50 years ago.

<comment><USER5> Funny how that technological innovation have sped up so much that 50 years is now (actually, today it'd be less) considered to be the time that the average person should have something better than the state-of-the-art at the time.

This is definitely not true for the majority of history. The way the world ran in 1979 would not have been that much notifiably different than 1929, even though people have landed on the moon. Today, the life of the average Joe is completely transformed by internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amusingly, there was a commercial alternative in the same period - Tymnet. Tymshare, a computer time-sharing company ("the cloud", version -1) had machines at various locations and wanted to connect them. So they had their own packet switching network, mostly for terminal to mainframe connections. Control and route setup were centralized (this is now called "software defined networking") but packet forwarding was distributed.

Tymnet was very cost-effective. Its purpose was to share expensive 9600 baud leased lines (hundreds of dollars a month) among multiple Teletype machines running at 110 to 300 baud. Worked fine. Remote echo was rather sluggish, as echoed characters tended to come back in groups of four characters. That's because they used an accumulation timer approach - wait until you have some minimum amount of data or the timer has run out. This is terrible for latency. (The current version of that is the "delayed ACK" timer in TCP, which I consider a mistake.)

There was a real question in the early days over whether networking would be packet-switched like the ARPANET or circuit switched like Tymnet, X.25, and SNA. I thought at the time (1970s) that circuit switching would win out, because packet switching cannot deal well with congestion in the middle of the network. I didn't expect fiber backbone bandwidth to get so cheap that the congestion stayed at the edges.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let's not forget the significance of the wording of "request for comment" in the original networking specs. All of the inventors of TCP/IP were academics working on gov't grants and didn't have the authority to create specifications for network protocol... but if the spec were present as an invitation for discussion rather than "hey, I figured this out and this is how I'm doing it and you should too" then the project managers and bean counters were happy about it.

See RFC 2555: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2555](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2555)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm actually now listening to the book "where wizards stay up late", a book about the origins of ARPAnet and the Internet. I's a bit dry at times but I like it.

<comment><USER9> Just finished it a week or two ago after learning about it from the podcast "50 things that made the modern economy". I agree it's a little dry, but it is easy to listen to while doing other things.

Good stuff, I recommend it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This excerpt is fascinating: "..Taylor talked ARPA director Charles Herzfeld into allocating a million dollars for R&D into a new network to connect the computers at MIT, UCLA, SRI, and many other sites. Herzfeld got the money by redirecting it from a ballistic missile research program into the ARPA budget. The cost was justified within DoD circles by saying that ARPA was tasked with building a "survivable" network that wouldn't go down if any specific part was destroyed, perhaps in a nuclear attack."

Research funding is important! I think similar arguments can be made to increase funding for NASA projects (perhaps this already happens).

</comment><comment><USER11> Semi-related but if you enjoy the history around the internet and computing, I highly recommend watching Halt and Catch Fire (it's on Netflix). I just finished watching it for the first time and what a treat it was.

<comment><USER12> An extremely well-done tv show!

<comment><USER13> An extremely well-done 1st season, that's it. Hence why the show stopped in 2017 with 4th season

<comment><USER14> agreed - season 1 covered all the interesting material quasi-related/inspired by Compaq; then it turned into a dark soap opera that was basically unwatchable

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We're celebrating this at King's College London next Wednesday 6 November. PechaKucha talks by the faculty of Digital Humanities followed by drinks. Come along HN!

[https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/happy-packet-switching- ticket...](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/happy-packet-switching- tickets-77325266955?aff=ebdssbdestsearch)

</comment><comment><USER16> If you have Netflix, the segment in "Lo and Behold" with Leonard Kleinrock is worth watching just to see his energy and excitement. The whole documentary is a little overwhelming though.

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80097363](https://www.netflix.com/title/80097363)

</comment><comment><USER17> In the middle of 1966, Robert Taylor took over the directorship of Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO)[1]. It was Taylor who launched the project that produced ARPANET. This is a great history series on ARPANET, starting with "ARPANET, Part 1: The Inception."[2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Processing_Techniq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Processing_Techniques_Office)

[2] [https://technicshistory.com/2019/05/08/arpanet-part-1-the- in...](https://technicshistory.com/2019/05/08/arpanet-part-1-the-inception/)

</comment><comment><USER18> This day should be an international holiday.

<comment><USER19> A day where you turn off your phones and computers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Quote: "The cost was justified within DoD circles by saying that ARPA was tasked with building a "survivable" network that wouldn't go down if any specific part was destroyed, perhaps in a nuclear attack."

Oh boy, a white lie that became a truth nowadays. Internet as it stands now it's so resilient that after a full nuclear war to extinct us, a future alien specie just needs to patch a few bits at cables ends and will have Earth coverage. Internet is so resilient that look at China's great firewall effort and still dissidents can communicate with free world.

</comment><comment><USER20> To me, today's internet was born with the invention of HTTP by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It's still an interesting article and a great achievement, but a big piece has still been missing. One can definitely credit them for providing the base though.

<comment><USER21> I'd been using the Internet for 10 years before HTTP came along - it was definitely just as useful then as it is now.

Its just prettier now.

<comment><USER22> I remember a lot of time using archie (xarchie) and ftp before the web became ubiquitous.

<comment><USER23> Back in the pre-web days, we used to get software via ftp, usually as source code tar balls, from any of several well-known archive sites. One I remember was labrea.stanford.edu. Yes, it was a tar pit...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's credit card is being investigated for discriminating against women - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/11/20958953/apple-credit-card-gender-discrimination-algorithms-black-box-investigation <comment><USER2> It seems like the algorithm is just biased towards actual income of a given person, and doesn't take marriage into account. If that is the case, is the program just sexist by proxy, and income inequality is the real issue here?

<comment><USER3> It's not an issue at least if one partner earns less because they (voluntarily) work fewer hours for money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a previous post on same subject:

Every credit card company discriminates. It is the nature of giving credit to discriminate. A private lender giving someone money is not an entitlement (at least in most societies). We build models to calculate payback. When those models work the credit lender stays profitable and afloat. When the model fails it should fail (assuming no taxpayer bailout). If the model misses out on profitable creditworthy customers then that creates opportunities for new entrants to the lending market. In fact there is already lots of competition in the credit card space and Apple card is one of so many choices available to be discriminated by. The only way to know if the algorithm works well against losses is if this card is successful in the next economic downturn. Conversely, if new entrants are profitable with similar business models to Apple will we know if the algorithm is too conservative in giving credit.

On a side note, rejecting or limiting credit to delinquent borrowers is actually doing them a favor due to the power of compounded interest.

Albert Einstein famously said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. He said, "Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it."

</comment><comment><USER5> Somebody in the comments brought up a good point: How do we know the card is not just differentiating based on past earnings of a person? Regardless of marriage status, since that could basically change at any time.

<comment><USER6> how would they have access to past earnings?

<comment><USER7> Credit reports of the type TransUnion use contain this data to a limited degree. How accurate this is, is another question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know who dhh is or if that's even relevant here, but I will say I thought his comments on Twitter were needlessly inflammatory and designed to assemble "Twitter warriors" rather than to actually fix the problem or help his wife.

Calling the card "fucking sexist" doesn't help this situation and it's likely both he and his wife got credit limits that were far above what they needed. The whole situation could have been done in a classy way and still lead to a resolution for his wife.

<comment><USER9> DHH is the guy behind Ruby on Rails (a "big name" in the "tech scene"), and he's known for being somewhat of a character..</comment></comment>


Penguin ditches degree requirement for job applicants - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/18/penguin-ditches-the-need-for-job-seekers-to-have-university-degrees <comment><USER2> I don't know how education is typically paid for in the UK. This would be a great move in the US, since most of the types of jobs most likely offered by a Penguin (I'm assuming) aren't going to go far in paying off student loans.</comment>


How to decline sending a W9 to client? - <AUTHOR> So, I've been working with a client for the last 8 months now. And I built their entire web application from the ground up. I also outsourced some of the work because of the scale.
Anyhow, they've just asked me to send over a W9 and they will send over a 1099. However, I'd rather not go that route because I'm going to have to track down my outsourced workers and get them to send me their W9's and it's just a nightmare.
How can I decline their request?
Cheers! <comment><USER2> You seem to be confused. Refusing your client's W-9 request doesn't eliminate your need to issue 1099s for your subcontractors.

There are potential penalties associated with each. Additionally, if you refuse to provide the W-9 and are still doing work for your client, don't be surprised if the client starts backup withholding.

<comment><AUTHOR> All of the work is done at this point. And I am a bit confused, as I'm based up in Canada and they're in the U.S. We don't have 1099's and W9's here from what I understand.

<comment><USER2> That's a critical piece of information you omitted. It sounds like your client is not aware of the fact that you're a Canadian citizen (?) and did not perform work in the United States.

Sometimes companies will require that you certify that you're a foreigner using a Form W-8BEN. If you're not able to resolve this issue with your client by explaining your status and it's creating issues for you, you should consult with an attorney.

It also sounds like it would be worthwhile for you to consult with an accountant who can educate you about your obligations to your clients and your subcontractors generally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. They're well aware that I'm located in Canada as all of that information was outlined on the initial agreement. I'm just a bit taken back as I've worked with other clients who have never asked for this. It's likely that these particular clients would like to declare these expenses/right them off to lower their taxable income, I just wish they would have mentioned this before hand so I could have prepared for this.. The sub- contractors are based in Europe so it's really a massive loss for me if I were to go that route.

Also, I've already been paid in full. So at this point I have nothing to lose really.

<comment><USER3> You still sound very confused about your obligations and your client's obligations. It sounds like you expect to keep all your transactions under the radar and not declare any of them to any tax authority. Don't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just for this project in particular because of the complexity with sub- contractors. All other ones there isn't any issues because they are in-house.

<comment><USER4> You don't get to pick and choose which transactions you report to the government and which you don't based on how hard it is for you to bother with the reporting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just talk to them. Standard Operating Procedure would be for them to file a 1099, which generally requires a W9 that provides your information.

The person asking for a W9 from you is probably not familiar with how this changes when working with workers outside the US. You can explain that you won't be able to complete a W9 because they're only for US citizens and residents and see where the conversation goes from there.

They still need to declare and classify their expense, so may need you to complete some other paperwork, but it doesn't really effect anything about your own tax obligations or filing requirements. Don't worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> You will be financially penalized if your client has to file a 1099 without your tax ID number(s). You are required by law to provide them with your tax ID.

Edit: This is also how consulting and contracting works. If you've never requested or sent someone an W-9/1099 before, get used to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> How so? They don't have my SIN number or anything. Please elaborate. I'm open to all suggestions here.

<comment><USER6> Either you report that income on your taxes via 1099 and then the IRS goes to the company that created the 1099 and asks them why the 1099 doesn't have a TIN or you don't report the income on your taxes and the IRS finds out and fines you for tax evasion.

Edit: I see that you are Canadian. Unfortunately for your aspirations of tax evasion, the US and Canada have a very friendly information sharing relationship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Look, I'm not aspiring to do what you are suggesting. I'm simply inquiring more into the process. Also, if they don't have my information how will they find out who's who? There are at least 100 people in my city with the same name. I'm geniuinely curious as to how this whole thing works..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Matter – Beautiful UI - <AUTHOR> https://www.matterkit.io

<comment><USER2> isn't this just some CSS design or am I missing something ?</comment>


Ask HN: Why Microsoft not contributed to Java language? - <AUTHOR> I'm not Java expert, and only experienced with Java web (Spring) and some old-android app for 2 year.
And I'm aware Microsoft have .NET as their managed language and not using JVM for their product, and the interesting point from .NET are, they have any equivalent part from Java counterpart (and some have similar name i.e syntax, API name).
But I curious and don't understand why Microsoft prefer create new 'JVM' over contributed to JVM, as far I know there are OpenJDK which is open source. <comment><USER2> Because thankfully, _Sun Microsystems_ sued Microsoft and won. When everyone else was cowering in fear of Microsoft and abandoning UNIX® for Windows™ NT™, _Sun Microsystems_ was the only company who had the gumption to openly oppose the onslaught.

When the United States department of justice sued Microsoft for monopolistic and anticompetitive practices, it could initially find no witnesses, as all the cowardly CEO's were scared to testify against Microsoft for fear of Microsoft revoking their OEM licenses to pre-install Windows on their products; everyone was really scared of angering Bill Gates.

Scott McNealy, bless his heart, was the only CEO with the balls to testify as a witness and it was a crucial, condemning testimony: the department of justice and NetScape Communications Corporation won the day, in large part because of Scott McNealy's bravery to go against Bill Gates and Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a good place to start reading:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you sir, just read the article, it's about legality, seem complicated problem I think.

But nice to know previously Microsoft has their own JVM, and it's like .NET are successor for their JVM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You were saying...?

[https://twitter.com/reza_rahman/status/1072980245303779330](https://twitter.com/reza_rahman/status/1072980245303779330)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow,Microsoft have Product Manager for Java!

Nice to know Microsoft have a good attention to Java user.

As I'm maintain old Java app at my work, it's really matter when some big company have support to Java, at least Java have future I guess.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Makes World's Most Ethical Companies List - <AUTHOR> http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/editors-pick/articles/aapl-msft-sbux-ge-pep-tgt/3/16/2012/id/39943

<comment><USER2> for some meanings of "ethical"</comment>


One-third of Americans say they'd have trouble coming up with an emergency $2,00 - <AUTHOR> http:///2017/03/22/one-third-of-americans-say-theyd-have-trouble-coming-up-with-an-emergency-2000/ <comment><USER2> Your link doesn't work:

        http://0.0.7.225/03/22/one-third-of-...

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-third-of-americans- say-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-third-of-americans-say-theyd- have-trouble-coming-up-with-an-emergency-2000-2017-03-20)

</comment><comment><USER4> 2,000?

I asked some friends a while back about this. 1/3 had the cash already, most of the rest had a plan to sell something. Pretty dismal that our financial education is so poor here.</comment>


Washington Post launches a Reddit public profile - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2017/05/17/the-washington-post-is-the-first-national-news-publisher-to-debut-a-reddit-profile-page/ <comment><USER2> Looks like they just came on board as Reddit debuted the new user profile format [0]. I just got a message to turn it on as a user this past week. It seems like it'll be a nice feature for not just users, but brands/organizations as well. I hope it sticks to user engagement/meta-type posts (IAMAs) rather than being an account that acts as an auto-submitter of WaPo headlines to r/news/politics/worldnews.

That said, one of the challenges of having an official Reddit account that constantly engages with users (it's been actively commenting and replying to users), I would imagine, would be having to be in IAMA mode 24/7\. That's fun until something a controversial question/challenge comes up, in which case hours/days of silence will be seen as an admission of guilt/coverup (see r/AMADisasters).

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/6bu4vg/what_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/6bu4vg/what_are_reddit_profiles/)

<comment><USER3> I happen to have a spreadsheet of all Reddit AMA backfires ([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DTCRqeQvjOZAyngC31kn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DTCRqeQvjOZAyngC31knF49iANt48z9sPWZjx0smsMI/edit#gid=0)), and the common thread among AMA disasters is the original poster being _genuinely unaware_ that they might be received negatively (or they are just trolls). I don't think that will be the case with the WaPo, anyways.

(For posterity, here's a spreadsheet of all Reddit thread backfires in general: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bUSN7-nocMJz2Wo1KTIn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bUSN7-nocMJz2Wo1KTIn_hPNJaURB05uHCNqrCoEuy0/edit?usp=sharing))

<comment><USER4> Another commonly seen trend is actors coming on Reddit to promote a movie, rather than to engage with fans.

<comment><USER3> /r/IAmA as a subreddit is mostly self-promotion nowadays, but there's _usually_ a decent amount of give-and-take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, seems like they don't quite understand how Reddit is supposed to work. I mean yeah, they're not breaking the rules yet. Their articles are mostly being posted to their own profile rather than subreddits (though the way it's going now, the 10% rule will be shattered sooner rather than later).

But they're making the usual company mistake on the site. Treating communities as a pure advertising platform rather than a place to engage with the members on their own merits.

They could be commenting on threads that relate to their industry or topics they've wrote about with interesting answers or sharing things that help make them appear as more 'in touch' with the public (like say, Sonic the Hedgehog and Wendy's do on Twitter). Or moderating a Washington Post subreddit where they feature submissions they think help out their publication.

But they're not. They're just advertising the site endlessly on their user page, and making sure every post they make outside said page is an ad for their publication.

Honestly, they're lucky Reddit is going down Facebook/Twitter/whoever's route and trying to be a company friendly advertising platform at the expense of a community or community platform. Otherwise this kind of behaviour would have got them kicked out near immediately, especially on an old school forum or mailing list.

<comment><USER6> I'm going to dissent here. I went to their page and it does not feel like one big "go to the website" WaPo advertisement.

They're responding and engaging with users, even negative ones, they're posting stories, and they're giving an insiders view to the newsroom that they aren't offering anywhere else.

I mean, here they are offering exclusive access to journalists for questions and posting exclusive newsroom info, and your criticism is that they're not posting stupid jokes on twitter like Wendy's?

If it's all the same to you, I'll take the journalists acting like journalists instead of teenage social media managers!

<comment><USER5> Admittedly, I didn't focus so much on the comments as the submissions there. Their comments are certainly more in line with what you'd want from a presence on a site like this, given how they answer other people's questions and all that.

But I feel both submissions and comments are important here, and in both cases a brand should do more than post their own work for readers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd prefer reddit die and something replace it. I go to the website every day, mostly for sports and gaming subreddits, but as a platform, it's hopelessly mismanaged.

They're technically lost. Look at the trouble they've had making a proper phone app (they still don't have a good one). The user interface is lacking at best (as evidenced by RES being needed to use the site for a long time now). People have been asking for better moderation tools for nearly a decade. The recent CSS dustup shows they don't even understand how people use their site. Then there's the lack what would be super helpful features (the ability to do a subreddit poll, vote for moderators, and access more than your last 100 posts easily).

The leadership is completely tone-deaf to the userbase. Just look at the drama when they fired that AMA mod. Many times various CEOs from Ellen Pao to Steve Huffman have acted more like spoiled 6-year-olds than chief executives. That's before you start talking about them pushing their politics on the site.

And spoiled 6-year-old isn't too far off from the truth. Keep in mind Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian were essentially gifted their success. They applied to y-combinator with no idea of what to make. They were given the idea for reddit. They couldn't make it work so they had Aaron Swartz forced on them (in what was by all accounts a strained relationship). Aaron fixed the site and made it what it is today then they all got paid. And those two have just been coasting on that ever since. It's nearly a "born on third and thought they hit a triple" situation.

If I were a VC I'd be throwing money at a reddit replacement. It's not hard to envision a better platform, it just has a high barrier to entry because you're likely not going to be profitable for years while you grow your userbase. The payoff is huge though. Reddit is one of the largest websites in the world and makes next to no profit because of its management.

<comment><USER8> Personally I've been using reddit for about a decade. It seems more or less the same site it always has been just a lot bigger and with some incremental improvements. 99% of the user base has no clue about who most of the people in your post are, they aren't up in arms about anything, they only care that the site continues to work, which it does.

Additionally, I cannot see how a competitor can possibly compete with reddit, reddit offers everything most people want without charging anything, without excessive advertising and without demanding a lot of personal information. How do you build a competitor that matches those criteria and then makes a ton of money?

<comment><USER9> >Additionally, I cannot see how a competitor can possibly compete with reddit, reddit offers everything most people want without charging anything, without excessive advertising and without demanding a lot of personal information. How do you build a competitor that matches those criteria and then makes a ton of money?

The answer is simply "build what Reddit was like 5 years ago". It's plain to see that Reddit is on a downward spiral - their product has been getting worse and will continue to get worse. Same goes for the community. Reddit is showing all of the signs of a dying platform, if you study the historical lifecycles of web properties it matches quite well. Unfortunately, whatever comes up to replace it is probably going to suffer the same fate.

<comment><USER10> What Reddit was like 5 years ago didn't make much money.

<comment><USER11> To my knowledge, it still doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had an 8 yr old Reddit account and was recently shadow-banned site-wide for criticizing AMC's video player on an AMC 'sponsored content' post.

The Washington Post is sadly just another corporate nail in Reddit's free speech coffin.

</comment><comment><USER13> I consider WaPo almost completely a modern mockingbird operation in full force.

<comment><USER14> ever since the Hiatt(s)[0] (Fred Hiatt and his wife, Margaret Shapiro ) took over editorial position on Wapo. The paper has become a neoconservative/neoliberal operation.

Bill Moyer did a nice episode showing the disproportionate number of report Wapo did in pushing fro a war in Iraq [1].

Among notable neoconservatives/neoliberals working at the post and using it as a pulpit are Robert Kagan [2] who worked on the "Project for the New American Century" that became the blueprint of Iraq war agenda.

For me the nail in the coffin against the Post was when they used an unknown research firm to push for a neo-mccarthyism Russian connection to over 200 blogs and publishers [4],[5].

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

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/citations.html](http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/citations.html)

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century)

[4] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian- prop...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda- effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts- say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.3c6a553c5b0c)

[5] [https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post- disgrace...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post- disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very- shady-group/)

<comment><USER15> It was interesting to see how much of the media was cheering the cruise missile strike in Syria. I think socially and economically WaPo is very liberal but for some reason most of the media loves almost anything to do with war.

<comment><USER16> It's because WaPo and NYT are just propagandists for the US intelligence apparatus which in turn is just a tool of the multinationals and oligarchs.

Real journalism seeking truth, no matter whose agenda that truth might endanger, died years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised no one has commented on this. Reddit has 270m monthly actives? Doesn't that make it as large as twitter/instagram/Snapchat?

<comment><USER18> Yes, it's a top 5 website in the US: [http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US](http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US)

After 10 years it's now as important to kids as Facebook.

There posts getting 100k upvotes more often these days. And some are approaching even 200k.

What's even crazier is the growth of the imgur subculture

<comment><USER19> Upvotes aren't an accurate representation of users. The higher a post's score, the more upvotes it needs to increase.

For example, a post with a score of 7 would increase by 1 every time it receives an upvote, but may need 10 or 15 upvotes to increase by another point once it gets over 1000 points (made up numbers).

A few months ago, the admins made a change to the algorithm to allow posts to gain much more points than before. Now, a post gets 1 point per upvote until, say, 10,000 upvotes, after which it only needs 5 upvotes per point.

<comment><USER18> There was a point where after 6 years on Tumblr, when we started cracking thousand likes on a post. Then came when there were 100k likes on posts. Reddit reached that terminal velocity around year 8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting, imho this clearly goes into the Twitter direction of following certain accounts, not "thematic subgroups".

Not sure if a widespread use of this would encourage my reddit usage, I usually visit certain subreddits for certain topic - and that not very often. But then again following tweetstorms and hashtags on Twitter is pretty much useless to me, that's why I follow certain people.

</comment><comment><USER21> I hope they stick to subreddits that don't shadowban you for posting links to your own content.

<comment><USER22> That's not up to subreddits — that's a site wide rule.

You can only post links to your own blogspam on your own profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looking at the comments on some on those stories, it feels like they are being swarmed by the pro-Trump accounts that permeates through a lot of reddit in an organized manner. I wonder what step online communities can do to protect against such brigading meant to alter and direct opinions, without sacrificing the freedom they offer their user to have an opinion and discuss it.

Machine learning for automatic fact correction seems like a nice answer, until you realize it would definitely go wrong, or be used to control opinion in an even stronger way.

<comment><USER24> Interesting. As an outsider (didn't vote for Trump or Clinton), Reddit seems decidedly organized against the Trump supporters on that site. From what I can tell, even the admins have made core changes to Reddit that any reasonable person would see as an effort to reduce the visibility of the Trump subreddit.

I think the Trump subreddit is very childish (seems to be intentional). But I hate the thought of websites like Reddit, FB, and Twitter engaging in practices that clearly and systematically try to reduce the visibility and legitimacy of one political viewpoint. What if the table was turned against the liberal viewpoint? I would be just as worried.

<comment><USER25> This is fairly easily disproved by looking at non-US subreddits. I frequent /r/france, /r/unitedkingdom and /r/sweden and non-liberal viewpoints, although less popular, are certainly not silenced. They're just that: less popular (thus more downvotes).

Things are different for the trump subreddit because it's a subreddit that has actively engaged in hostility against other subreddits and particular reddit users. Calls for brigading, slurs and harrassment of other users and admins, I've seen it all by now. It's reprehensible.

The main Trump subreddit would have long been banned and nuked out of existence if it weren't as popular as it is today. Right now, Reddit would face too much backlash if it outright banned the subreddit for continuing not to comply with the site rules. So it's understandable that the admins are trying to handle the situation somehow -- that's not "an effort to reduce [its] visibility", it's a compromise that doesn't involve removing the sub outright.

There's plenty of pro-trump subreddits which aren't involved in this nonsense because they're not spamming, harrassing, using bots etc. You don't hear about them because they get lost in the noise.

<comment><USER26> > to handle the situation somehow -- that's not "an effort to reduce [its] > visibility", it's a compromise that doesn't involve removing the sub > outright.

I'm certain what will happen is that the admins will keep adjusting the anti- voting ring algorithms until they effectively nerf all of the accounts that frequent the_donald and vote there.

Then they have a cover for any backlash because they didn't do anything specifically targeting the_donald, it just happens to be the case that the_donald "unfortunately got impacted" by the new algorithm due to the community's behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this just another way to link to articles?

I do like the fact that a newspaper equates itself with any Joe with a resdit signon. How many steps in between wapo and "Average Joe and his facts and opinion?" maybe 3??

<comment><USER28> The point is if an average user wants to post something that doesnt fit in a community they know of they have a place to post it. It reallg sucks to try to post something and have the stupid moderators shut it down for violating one of their dozens of rules.

It also can give more power from moderators back to yhe people who are providing the content. Moderators provide a good service to the community but they are way too powerful/influential as is

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> pretty interesting, seems like one of the first examples of news organizations "advertising" on reddit. I wonder how it will go down and if any others will follow.

</comment><comment><USER30> Will the admins also edit posts people make on their own profile?

</comment><comment><USER31> Any current/future investors might be interested in the fact that a Reddit admin has been caught today testing a vote bot: [http://archive.is/odx8z](http://archive.is/odx8z)

<comment><USER32> Isn't it more likely that the admin is using the post to ferret out compromised reddit accounts in an upvote network?

<comment><USER33> As far as I remember that post received more than 4k upvotes in minutes, which is highly unusual for a post in a rather obscure subreddit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Washington Post and Reddit.

Now that's a match made in heaven. Or Hell. Or whatever. Now Washington Post will have another outlet to tell Millennials why we need to invade Iraq again. Or Syria. Or Ukraine. Or wherever they are stirring up the pot for.</comment>


The 10 biggest tech scandals of the decade - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1947

<comment><USER2> Two nitpicks that disturbed me:

\- Hans Reiser is said to have developed a "computer filing system", not a "file system".

\- The rootkit installed by Sony is called "copy-protection software". It was the other way around, the copy-protection software _also_ included a rootkit, which is something different.

I'm sure there are more, this article was quite doubt-inspiring on the quality/editing side of things.</comment>


Lisp is Not an Acceptable Lisp (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/lisp-is-not-acceptable-lisp.html <comment><USER2> Steve Yegge regarding Clojure (2012):

" For a few years I had been really excited to start learning Clojure, and my initial experiences with it were quite positive. However, I eventually learned that the Clojure community is extremely conservative. That is is pretty unusual for a Lisp dialect. Lisp is widely regarded as one of the most liberal language families in existence. And Clojure has the superficial appearance of being a laissez-faire kind of language. It is quite expressive, including a -- ahem -- liberal dose of new syntax. And it eschews static type annotations and strong type modeling in favor of a small set of highly regular, composable data types and operations -- not unlike, say, Scheme or Python. But the resemblance to a liberal language ends there. Clojure's community came pre- populated with highly conservative programmers from the pure-functional world: basically Haskell/ML types (lots of puns today!) who happen to recognize the benefits of Lisp's tree syntax. So under its expressive covers, everything about Clojure is strongly conservative, with a core overriding bias towards protecting programmers from mistakes."

[https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4v...](https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4vQtz)

He defines conservative:

"I hope you'll agree that this definition is minimally controversial. After all, the adjective "conservative" is more or less synonymous with caution and risk aversion. Financial conservatism is frequently (and intuitively) associated with age and with wealth. "

My own feeling is that he misunderstands functional programming. I could say "functional programming offers safety from side-effects" and then he might say "Yes, that is what I mean by conservative" but who wants to have their code undermined by uncontrolled side effects? By his definition, "conservative" applies to every programmer; which makes me think his definition is useless.

<comment><USER3> Side effects are useful. We use them all the time: IO, graphics, sockets, signals, etc. We even use mutable data because in certain cases it's more efficient. So I think I agree with Yegge there wrt, "conservative."

<comment><USER4> Not sure if it was your intention to imply so, but neither Clojure nor Haskell* eschew side effects. However Haskell provides tools to manage side effects. I'm not sure about Clojure since I haven't dove into that pool yet.

* I mention Haskell since there is a lot of FUD going around about Haskellers not using side effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I first read Guy Steele's 2nd edition of _Common LISP, the Language_ in the early 90s I remember thinking "This is a huge language, how could anyone implement this reliably?"

A recent pass through that book, and the language actually seems small. Not trivial, but definitely doable by a smallish group of people in a reasonable amount of time. Implementing a browser DOM plus JavaScript, or a C++ compiler, seems a lot more daunting.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder to what extent this is still true with Clojure picking up steam. It doesn't have the old-Lisp roots sticking out, but replaces them with protruding Java bits[0]. Plus I seem to recall Steve wanted Clojure to "say yes more" (can't find the link now), but don't know if he still feels that strongly.

[0] I have only done a little bit of Clojure programming, but I remember being mildly frustrated by having to deal with unfamiliar Java-isms that were showing, not having done Java at that time. This was around a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER7> For me (and lots of other people, too) Clojure is a fantastically acceptable flavor of LISP.

<comment><USER8> Racket has become a pleasant and acceptable, modern, batteries included Lisp as well.

Now our cup runneth over. Common Lisp is the same as it was while Clojure and Racket offer ways to a lispy future.

<comment><USER9> >Common Lisp is the same

But the great thing about Lisps is that they can't get stuck in the past.

For example, if, say, Python didn't have decorators and you wanted to add them in, you'd have to present the idea in a PEP, get approval from Guido, write some code, et cetera. In Common Lisp, you just write some reader macros and that's it[1]. If Python stopped being maintained, it would lag behind other languages, but the fact that the Common Lisp spec hasn't been updated since 1996 doesn't make it any less modern.

A more relevant example: Lisp doesn't have hash table literals, which every "modern" language these days has, but those can also be added, trivially in less than fifty lines[2] of CL code, and suddenly Common Lisp is modern again.

[1]: [https://github.com/arielnetworks/cl- annot](https://github.com/arielnetworks/cl-annot)

[2]: [http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html](http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html)

<comment><USER10> In programming languages, having 3 proper solutions to a problem is worse than having a single proper default solution - simply due to the overhead of first having to choose, and then the unneeded difficulty when reading other people's code who chose a different lib for the same thing.

For things such as hash table literals, you're not supposed to simply have some way of doing it - you're supposed to have a good and commonly used way of how most everyone else would be doing it and representing them in his/her code. Having a bunch of nonobvious, nonstandartized ways alone hurts readability, maintenance and reusability - and thinking that it is okay is a sign of being stuck in the past.

Being able to add it trivially yourself is an order of magnitude worse - because results in everybody rolling out his own. If you want to make an usable ecosystem (not just 'language core') then you have to make sure that for all/most commonly needed things, the default 'batteries included' or 'batteries taken from first google result' work well, not that it's simply possible to get them somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> Once you've got a canonical AST defined, syntax should, in theory, be like CSS chrome_

This is an awesome idea. Are there any projects working on this concept? I guess multiple languages targeting the same bytecode is as-close-as-practical at the moment.

<comment><USER12> AIUI, this was the original genesis of Lisp - the S-expressions were supposed to be an internal abstract representation, and programmers would write "M-expressions" in a language a bit like Fortran. But everyone involved in Lisp realised you could just write S-expressions directly, and never got round to defining the M-expression syntax.

More recently, the GNU scheme project, Guile, had people working on pluggable syntax translators that would allow you to write Guile programs in TCL or JavaScript syntax, but AFAIK that project never produced anything completely usable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sigh. This blog post again.

At least it's been posted with the "2006" date in the title, but some of the problems:

1\. The title is catchy and provocative, but it should really read "Common Lisp is Not An Acceptable Lisp". "Lisp" by itself is a family of languages, not a single language. Most of the blog post is dedicated to attributes of Common Lisp specifically. The title always struck me as a bit disingenuous and link-baitey, especially since his _very first point_ is about how there are multiple different Lisps.

2\. _Which_ implementation of Common Lisp are you talking about? There are several, and when you talk Haskell "kicking its ass all over the performance map" because of the type system, it's helpful to know whether you're talking about CLISP (an interpreter by default), or SBCL (a Lisp compiler, and one that is highly focused on speed.)

3\. CLOS looks weird to people who are used to "object oriented" languages like Java, sure, but it's much more true to the nature of object-oriented programming as a whole. I'll refrain from pulling out the old Alan Kay quotation in which he (the father of the term "object oriented") identifies Lisp and Smalltalk as the only two OO languages that he's aware of, but CLOS is _much_ more true to the spirit of OO programming than any other system I've worked with (except perhaps Smalltalk)[0].

4\. "There is no acceptable Lisp". In 2013, this is utter nonsense. I'll give Yegge the benefit of the doubt when it comes to 2006, but even still, it's rather frustrating to read 3000 words (yes, I counted) about the shortcomings of Common Lisp, and then suddenly the author jumps to the conclusion that _all_ Lisp dialects are equally bad, with no supporting evidence.

I have my fair share of frustrations with Common Lisp. The spec shows its age in many ways, and I really wish it had a number of features that I like about modern Lisp-like languages like Racket[1] - dialect scoping, hygenic macros, optional typing, etc.

But I cringe when I see links to this post in 2013. For a blog post that's so long, it's surprisingly spare on evidence that supports the argument presented in title or the conclusion, even if it gets a number of things right along the way.

[0] As pointed out below (thanks, cwzwarich), Kay's quotation mentions Lisp (not CLOS by name), so it's a jump for me to assume that it implies his support of CLOS specifically. That said, if you implemented OO-programming (as _Kay_ defined it, not as _Gosling_ defined it) in Lisp in the most straightforward way possible, you'd end up writing something that resembled CLOS.

[1] I say "Lisp-like" to pre-emptively deflect any debate over whether or not Racket is a "true" LISP (it certainly isn't a true Scheme, because it is not fully compliant with any single Scheme standard; it uses a hybrid of R5RS and R6RS)

 _EDIT_ : Okay, here's the Kay quotation: "OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of state-process, and extreme late- binding of all things. It can be done in Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is possible, but I'm not aware of them. " ([http://userpage.fu- berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay...](http://userpage.fu- berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay_oop_en))

<comment><USER14> > "OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding > of state-process, and extreme late-binding of all things. It can be done in > Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is > possible, but I'm not aware of them. "

Excellent quote. He correctly omits _types_ from his description, yet OOP is typically taught (especially in school) as a system of types. We're being dishonest when we say "object oriented" when we really mean "class oriented".

<comment> vezzy-fnord It's not just in schools. It's more a consequence of the fact that the vast majority of mainstream languages use the Nygaard model class-oriented incarnation of OOP, rather than Kay's model of messaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The same Yegge implemented JavaScript in Emacs Lisp...

</comment><comment><USER16>
        Just have to say it: Clojure *is* an Acceptable Lisp

</comment><comment><USER17> It's funny how 'older' articles submitted to HN get a second (third?) wind. Why? Why? Why? Is this a slow day?

<comment><USER18> Yeah bro it is. I'm bored, browsing HN, seeing articles I've already disliked.

The article seems to blame the programming language for the issues cause by the social involvement of the community.. and laziness to research and find a good environment to develop with.. come the fuck on. If you're a programmer, you're a problem solver. Don't bitch about solving one..

Funny how this ^ is still... 7 years later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really don't like this authors way of writing. His only valid success criteria seems to boil down to something similar in meaning of "An acceptable lisp is a lisp that every single programmer uses it".

1\. "Killing adoption"? For what goal? People have different thought process, each dialect will be more natural for a certain subset of people. Offering dialects and diversity in choice is a good thing. I have only limited experience, last semester when i graduated i took a SICP course and now i have read through On Lisp because i thought macros sounded powerful, so i am going to be programming a hobby project in Common lisp. But that doest mean i want Scheme to disappear from the world.

2\. Libraries.

3\. I haven't used CLOS much so i can't really say anything. But making complaints that things are "bolted on" Common Lisp because of the macro system seems to me that he has missed the point of what people like with Common Lisp and its macro system.

4\. Can't one use Scheme if one wants portable hygienic macros? I can agree somewhat with the macro situation and my own research seems to point this to the historical decision to pass on fexprs to gain efficient compilers. The plus side is that macros can expand macros means is generally works. And i don't get this "band-aid" notion. From what i understand macros are argument to use lisp and should be utilized.

NewLisp offers fexprs and is focus on interpreted, which means that at any time you have access to a functions definition to use for self-modifying code and eval is blazingly fast compared to other lisps that support compilation. I want to start experiment with true ai that can modify its behaviour in newLisp soon. This is also an argument on point 1 of the diversity of lisps. ( yet i guess you could in common lisp use a macro that always saved the interpreted function definition in some global has that you could operate on in a macro dsl )

On a closing note i would like to add that it isn't really important to attracts people to lisp. Infact from an ethical standpoint trying to sway people which tools they "need to use" is questionable. And in a similar spirit of the HN article "People don't like creativity" i am not convinced that everyone actually would prefer lisp even if we lived in a world where lisp were as popular as C# and Java together.

Every programmer will hear about lisp at some point and if they are interested in it they will probably explore it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Haha, I remember reading this back in the day. While I came from a primarily C background, I have to say that Clojure truly is not only an acceptable lisp, but a refreshingly "modern" language -- in the same sense that Algol was a modern language for AI researchers. It packages cutting edge features, like STM, without necessarily complicating certain abstractions.</comment>


IP-Box can crack your 4-digit iPhone passcode in less than 17 hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-a-new-device-called-IP-Box-can-crack-your-4-digit-iPhone-passcode-in-less-than-17-hours_id76971 <comment><AUTHOR> Source article is a bit confusing but mostly:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/brooklyn- judge...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/brooklyn-judge-nixes- iphone-evidence-passcode-article-1.2468264)

 _U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent David Bauer had testified in Djibo's case that a "fairly new" device called an IP-Box can be used to "systematically attempt every passcode from 0000 to 9999."_

 _But in the other case before the magistrate, Johnson noted, different federal prosecutors argued that the IP-Box is unreliable and could result in a "non-trivial risk of data destruction."_</comment>


A CRISPR first produces squid as clear as glass - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02242-3 <comment><USER3> For anyone coming to the comments before reading the article: the squid is already clear, they just removed some spots of pigment.

<comment><USER4> And the advantage here is that it's the start of development of a genetic- modification toolkit (similar to that we already have for fruit flies and c elegans and zebrafish) for using them as animal models. Much more complex of a brain than any of the other animal models we usually use.

<comment><USER5> Isn't this a bit of a slippery slope? The better a model of a human brain you experiment on, the closer you approach the ethics of performing the same experiment on human embryos, infants, children, and adults (as they age). I think this is already pretty close to the case for mice, but when you start doing it to cephalopods, primates, and dolphins/orcas, you're really skirting the line.

I wonder if there'll ever be a time where if we aren't comfortable with doing something to human embryos (or other stages) in experiments, we also won't be comfortable doing it to the animals closest to us on the intelligence and awareness totem pole, and eventually perhaps any sentient animals at all (so nearly all of them besides jellyfish, sponges, anemomes, and some other ocean dwellers). This day feels inevitable to me, but I don't know whether it's 20 years or 200 years away.

<comment><USER6> We're still chopping up likely-sentient animals and eating them, so it's probably a ways off..

<comment><USER7> I believe I read this in the book Grandfather by Tom Brown [1] (could have been somewhere else). The author was taught by an Apache elder about survival, etc.

Part of that was learning how to track and hunt.

The first time he killed a deer, he was required to sneak up on the deer and kill it with a knife. That way he would know the gravity of what he was doing.

He wrote that he cried for a good while afterwards.

I think that is a perspective more people should take with eating meat. To know you are taking the life of a living, breathing thing to sustain your own life.

I think it used to be a much more common view, but it's hard to view a chicken nugget or a hamburger as an animal that lost its life to continue yours.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/434013.Grandfather](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/434013.Grandfather)

<comment><USER5> There's also the problem that for most people in developed countries, you don't actually need to take a conscious life to sustain your life. It's a luxury, like wearing fur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The paper _Highly Efficient Knockout of a Squid Pigmentation Gene_ [1]

> two key advances have made it possible to develop techniques for the genetic > manipulation of squid. The first is the CRISPR-Cas9 system for targeted gene > disruption, a largely species-agnostic method. The second is the sequencing > of genomes for several cephalopod species.

The point is not a clear squid lacking chromatophores, a rather discomforting thought, but creating a new animal model with knockout genes.

[1] [https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)...](https://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822\(20\)30985-4)

</comment><comment><USER9> When can we use CRISPR to address the mutation with the L-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase gene (GLO; EC number 22.214.171.124) which controls the synthesize l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in humans?

Is it possible with CRISPR? Can it be introduced in a person and have it reverse the mutation?

Fixing this mutation might have the biggest impact on global human health, in humans the GLO mutation only impact the synthesis of vitamin C, unlike in other animals like primates, bats, guinea pigs and fish the mutation can't be reversed because it impacts other systems.

<comment><USER10> Is there a specific disease you're targeting, or are you trying to give general humans abilities they don't already have? The latter is not being considered at this point.

<comment><USER11> It's both. No human has the ability to synthesize vitamin C in their own bodies, leading to scurvy, unless you supplement vitamin C in your diet. Most people eat enough vitamin C to not lead to scurvy. There is a disease that would be eliminated, but it's preventable by watching out what you eat. Also, usually it takes more than just the synthesis of the enzyme. It also needs to be regulated, which requires the systems that regulate it to be around as well (and work correctly). Neither producing too much of the enzyme, nor too little is a good outcome.

So yeah, I think it's better to focus on other diseases first, that are more serious and where a human carrier of the healthy variant of the gene already walks among us, here on earth.

<comment><USER10> I don't think this makes sense since the risk of attempting to add a phenotype greatly outweighs the low cost of just taking vitamin C.

Even just producing the right amount of enzyme is a first-order approximation to what actually has to be done to add a phenotype without side effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ira Flatow interviews two of the scientists on a Science Friday podcast:

[https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/squid-gene- editing/](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/squid-gene-editing/)

<comment><USER8> This is a great 17 minute high-level overview of the science. The breakthrough is the tool/technique used to access the embryo without physically damaging the egg. The glass-like embryo is a unique characteristic of this species, not the knockout gene. This work is a proof of concept; this species does not (yet) reproduce in captivity. Both scientists demonstrate a deep love for cephalopods and for science. They also discuss the ethics surrounding cephalopod research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a learner, is it possible to self learn more about Gene Editing and these things, and can these things can be learned in a hacker way without going through a formal academic route ?

<comment><USER14> Youtube is fantastic for this. What you'll find out is that once you understand how DNA works (codons map to amino acids), and that amino acids fold into specific 4D shapes that trap molecule A and mush it into molecule B to make molecule C, the rest kind of falls into place.

<comment><USER15> 4D shapes as in changing over time?

<comment><USER14> Yes, exactly. It's really quite fascinating--everything just vibrates, like a lot, all the time. The vibrations of some bits have frequencies that resonate with the frequency of other bits. And when they sync up, they change their frequency and then no longer resonate with each other. The whole universe is basically a giant musical instrument and chemical reactions are just wavelettes resonating with other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are its eyes messed up in the photo or is that normal?

<comment><USER17> They removed the dots in the eyes as well.

<comment><USER18> So it's blind? Reminds me of the Invisible Man plot hole where the guy gets turned invisible and thus his retinas also become transparent and therefore he shouldn't be able to see anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So we're getting closer to RayFish Footwear [https://www.rayfish.com/](https://www.rayfish.com/) \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVk_Vw1C7cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVk_Vw1C7cs)

</comment><comment><USER20> IIRC it's a big deal because this is the first crack at cephalopod DNA - <USER2> don't recall where I read this. Anyone has a source?

<comment><USER4> It's in the first sentence of the article: "...the first use of CRISPR in cephalopods, a class of marine invertebrates."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could this have been done on an adult squid??

<comment><USER22> I assume not. I am pretty confidnet the whole purpose is for the cells to never grow.

It works by editing cell information. If you let original cells divide there will be more unedited cells. So the eariler in the development you apply modification the more prononuced the effect. I think I read somewhere that they could alter amount of pigmentation by timing application of treatment. So that would fit.

It doesnt work by killing existing cells. Maybe it could work if old cells died and new ones would be edited, so they could gradually replace original ones but I guess its pretty hard to deliver gene editor to so many cells.

<comment><USER21> Cells divide really slowly so if you could edit most cells in one day then only a negligible amount of new cells would be unedited.

* I guess its pretty hard to deliver gene editor to so many cells* this is the breakthrough waiting CRISPR and impossible to find a great up to date scientific resource on the technical issues and on the path towards progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Remove the 4 year lifespan then things will get interesting

</comment><comment><USER24> Read Sheena 5 by Stephen Baxter, great short story.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel creeped out/put off about this. These are intelligent beings, apparently limited only by their short lifespan. They communicate by modulating the pigments into patterns. Now that has been taken away. Imagine toasting some genes in a human embryo to the effect of lock in syndrome. Crispy!

edit: I think this is a case for PETA to look into.

<comment><USER4> That's octopodes; squid are much less intelligent.

They're moving on next to much smaller (and hence even _less_ intelligent) hummingbird bobtail squid.

<comment><USER8> My starting assumption is that octopus, cuttlefish, and squid have similar intelligence levels. If chromatophore manipulation is correlated to cephalopod intelligence then bobtail squid are small but smart.

My own anecdotal evidence is that juvenile cephalopods exhibit adult-level intelligence which is a good reminder not to project mammalian behavior assumptions on cephalopods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is a third squid in there, on the top right.

It is actually clear as glass! Wow

</comment><comment><USER27> Please do this to great White Sharks.

<comment><USER28> invisible, glass-like sharks? no thanks.

Though at least if you got a limb bitten off, you could see in which shark it resides.</comment></comment>


Don't shoot the dogs: The growing epidemic of cops shooting family dogs - <AUTHOR> https://www.overtoncountynews.com/lifestyles/don-t-shoot-the-dogs-the-growing-epidemic-of-cops-shooting-family-dogs/article_98757e76-318f-11ea-8d4f-e35f8b517936.html <comment><USER2> > that an officer's subjective fear of a minor wound from a dog bite

i _hate_ shit like this. i have very strong opinions on the militirization of cops in america being in opposition with individual sovereignty, but when you write absolutely, obviously idiotic things like this it just destroys the cause. why are you forcing me into a position of defending my enemy because you cant stop yourself from using blatantly false... lets say hyperbole.

dogs are dangerous. theres no part of your body you can give a dog to bite that doesnt have a high probability of causing permanent damage on everything but the lightest, most timid bites (assuming we're talking about 30+pound animals).

you might as well say "an officers subjective fear of minor stab wounds". dont be obtuse. there are many problems with officers being directed into peoples backyards authorized lethal force with legal permission to murder people and animals, but none of them are the officers fault.

<comment><USER3> I've had a dozen or so minor wounds from minor dog bites that healed up fine. It's not that you're wrong, just using ... lets say hyperbole.

<comment><USER2> oh? how many of those interactions were you intentionally trespassing with the intent to either capture or kill the dogs owners?

dogs dont know anything about uniforms. they read body language and smell hormones, pheromones, etc. it sounds like you work with dogs, so surely you know it is significantly important to approach unfriendly, angry, or anxious dogs WITHOUT a focused, anxious intent expecting violence - like a cop would, breaking into someone's yard.

<comment><USER4> This does not make sense. There are other professions who come into contact with strange dogs on a daily basis (postal workers, Ups, delivery men, landscapers, utilities inspectors). How many get bitten or face aggression? They would face this issue on a much larger scale but it not so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While _legally_ a dog is just a chattel, _morally_ a pet is a valued member of the household.

Killing the pet is for many people the equivalent of shooting their daughter or son.

There isn't this same problem in many other countries. I blame the US gun culture for this.

<comment><USER6> Respectfully I disagree.

You can blame gun culture all you want, but I am certain that many gun owners are also pet owners who would not ever think of shooting a pet.

Police training is more to blame, or maybe it's just police culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's time to end qualified immunity.

<comment><USER8> Ending qualified immunity is a red herring. As long as police unions keep their corrupting power, they'll just demand indemnification from the city as part of their contract.

And it's pretty irrelevant here, as I don't think the victims are successfully suing the various cities for killing their dogs. What really needs to happen is 1. actual criminal charging and prosecution of police officers, by an independent prosecutor that doesn't rely on a working relationship with police department for the bulk of their cases and 2. proper civil putative and emotional damages for pet deaths, rather than the legal system's current tendency to write it off as a petty loss.

<comment><USER9> > actual criminal charging and prosecution of police officers

Yes, this is what Qualified Immunity prevents.

<comment><USER10> QI is purely about civil suits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The chihuahua on the other side of a fence is not a threat except to an ego. Let's be real.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think police should have better procedures in place to try to prevent shooting dogs. It definitely happens more than it should.

That said, bites are incredibly dangerous and not something to downplay. This is pure ignorance. No infectious disease doctor is likely to agree that dog bites are always a "minor wound." People are hospitalized, lose limbs, and die from infections caused by bites. Puncture wounds should _always_ be treated by a doctor.

Even a small dog can inflict a dangerous wound. Kicking a dog is a good way to get a bitten on the foot. Restraining a dog without injury is extremely difficult.

Police should employ pepper spray against dogs, or maybe there's a better technology available that they should start using.

But, when there is a legitimate case where a police officer reasonably fears that a dog is about to bite them, they should be be free to shoot. This is basic self-defense against great bodily injury. Every American has this right, not just police.

It's on owners to do their best to prevent police from interacting with their unrestrained dogs. That doesn't mean it's always the owners fault if a police officer is forced to shoot a dog. Sometimes it's just a bad situation and no one is really at fault.

<comment><USER13> This post is hyperbolic.

I have friends who read gas meters for many years. This is a job that involves coming in contact with dogs of all sizes and demeanor.

If a gas company can handle sending some 18 yo kids into thousands of backyards a week to deal with dogs then I'm sure law enforcement officers can be trained to handle dogs with the same outcomes that the gas company sees (no amputations from dog bites to my knowledge.)

<comment><USER12> There is no equivalence between a meter reader and a police officer's situation. Some subset of police interactions may be similar but many will be very different. A police officer's interaction is much more likely to be heated, urgent, close quarters, and unavoidable. A meter reader can just leave if necessary, which is what they do.

For example, police officers frequently have to enter a home during a domestic dispute with a dog that is riled up due to its owners having a physical altercation.</comment></comment></comment>