The TSA as we know it is dead - here's why - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121130115318-332179-the-tsa-as-we-know-it-is-dead-here-s-why?ref=email

<comment><USER2> I really hope this speculation turns out to be accurate, but sadly I have learned to expect the US government to always do the wrong thing. If the TSA is dismantled, I will be very pleasantly surprised. If the existing bureaucracy finds some way to save itself and continue expanding its power, I will be disappointed, but not the slightest bit surprised.

</comment><comment><USER3> Never going to happen, even though I wish it would.</comment>


Aboardly is IFTTT for automated customer emailing (Pre launch) - <AUTHOR> http://www.aboardly.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know if you want beta access :)</comment>


Reversing Go Binaries Like a Pro - <AUTHOR> https://rednaga.io/2016/09/21/reversing_go_binaries_like_a_pro/ <comment><USER3> I'm getting a Chromium security error because this website is presenting a certificate from *.github.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's my fault. I use HTTPS Everywhere in full HTTP blocking mode, so when a link isn't HTTPS I just try manually, and accept the error for common Akamai and Github Pages certs, which is still much better than HTTP (for random sites).

But then I ended up submitting that broken link. The interesting thing is that it reached the top (#4 right now) of HN anyway.

<comment><USER4> Go? Reversing? Say no more, have an upvote!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just curious, is a Go string a C string inside (rune array + nil) or a proper class array?

In other words, in

a:="b"+"c"

IOW, does it implement the Slemiel's painting algorithm or not?

<comment><USER6> >Just curious, is a Go string a C string inside (rune array + nil) or a proper class array?

I can't imagine how you would even implement a string as anything other than a rune array.

Even a Pascal string is just the string length followed by characters.

<comment><USER7> In Haskell strings are lists of characters ([https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-126.96.36.199/docs/Data-S...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-126.96.36.199/docs/Data- String.html)). I hear not everyone is thrilled with the performance implications. :)

Also not a Haskell programmer, and really not meaning to criticize. Haskell seems awesome and I should learn it some day.

<comment><USER8> Just so people know, there are arrays used for text manipulation in Haskell in the Data.Text library, and bytestrings in the ByteString library. The language as specified does indeed have strings in a linked list of numbers, but if you even remotely care about performance you don't use those, and most libraries don't either nowadays.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! I guess I was kind of hoping for someone with actual knowledge to fill in the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Glad to see the code still looks like crap, beautiful assembly, so using any of that is not going to make sense. Which is good news for distributing a Go binary.

</comment><comment><USER10> _> You can quiet easily differentiate between custom code written for the binary, for example in the Linux malware "Rex" everything because with that name space!_

Really? It looks like only `runtime_` gets the prefix, so third-party libraries and code in go/src (e.g. `fmt`) would get mixed in here too, right?

<comment><USER11> Everything get prefixed by the package namespace, so things pulled from github.com/group_name/package ends up looking like `github_com_group_name_package_class_funcname. This why why "rebuilding" the function names was a good way to quickly filter out the "known" code from the malicious functionality.

<comment><USER12> Is this really how the names are represented internally? if so, how can it tell apart e.g. "github.com/group_name/package" and "github.com/group/name_package"?

<comment><USER11> Good question, I assume there is some way the compiler/runtime would dedupe these for the coder at compile time. However I don't honestly know enough about the Go internals... Honestly, I wrote more Go code during this blog post than I ever had, even though I had been reversing it for a while...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> working link

[http://rednaga.io/2016/09/21/reversing_go_binaries_like_a_pr...](http://rednaga.io/2016/09/21/reversing_go_binaries_like_a_pro/)

<comment><USER11> The https link should be working now, switched over to cloudflare. Thanks for the link though!

<comment><USER14> There's a typo in the write up - <USER2>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> if err != nil ?</comment>


Tesla Model Y efficiency exceeds early-production Model 3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-y-efficiency-better-than-model-3/ <comment><USER2> Really interesting topic. For those interested I highly recommend the Tesla Model Y teardown videos from Sandy Munro of Munro & Associates. He is a really great engineer who used to be one of the Heads of Manufacturing at Ford among lots of other positions. His company does pretty much everything, from tearing down vehicles to, redesigning products for manufacturing, to building whole factories. He worked on the EV1 as well.

In his videos he takes apart a Model Y step by step and they analyses what it would cost to make with very detailed models:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkiDlGyJnprdFftxAZ85a...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkiDlGyJnprdFftxAZ85a5Rp1LlET4Wbr)

In terms of efficiency, one of the highlights of the Model Y is the heatpump. Having a Heatpump itself is not new, other EV had it, but not Teslas. Tesla internally designed and built a new Heatpump that improves efficiency quite a bit, and it is credited with making Model Y get almost Model 3 range even while being bigger. Elon even said he had one of those heatpumps in his bedroom because its one of the best things any of his companies have ever done. Sandy Munro confirms that he has never seen that in all the heatpumps they have seen.

There are lots of good information on pretty much everything including electronics as well, its well worth watching.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _And just like the Model 3s, Model Ys that were produced after June 2020 > exhibited a significant improvement in efficiency_

Won't the MPGe values be higher for these vehicles because they are being driven exclusively during summer months so far, when batteries are less efficient in the winter months?

</comment><comment><USER4> As measured in MPGe. I had to look it up.

Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent)

It's probably a fine metric.

Would a total cost per mile (projected over lifetime) would be more comprehensive?

<comment><USER5> even miles/km per kwh input should work fine enough

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the efficiency gains vary by production year, that implies it's hardware improvements, as opposed to software tweaks (which would be rolled out fleet- wide regardless of year). I wonder what goes into that experience curve effect?

<comment><USER7> Tesla doesn't change hardware by build year. They make hardware changes every day/week/month.

<comment><USER3> > _They make hardware changes every day /week/month._

How are they sourcing parts and integrating them into the manufacturing process "every day"? This seems like an SV understanding of manufacturing; Tesla may be more agile than the average auto OEM, but there is still a complex procurement prcoess that requires lead time, as well as spare parts for fleet repair and maintenance.

Do you have an example of a piece of hardware they are swapping every day, week or month? Maybe this is why they have a hard time servicing their cars.

<comment><USER7> > How are they sourcing parts and integrating them into the manufacturing > process "every day

They know by VIN exactly what parts go in what car.

That said, the coding equivalent is that they make interfaces - and swap out interfaces. You can make a LOT of changes at the implementation level, that do not change an interface.

> Do you have an example of a piece of hardware they are swapping every day, > week or month?

Sure, they are swapping the entire body caste machine from ~20 parts down to 1..

[https://www.foundrymag.com/molds-cores/media- gallery/2193204...](https://www.foundrymag.com/molds-cores/media- gallery/21932049/tesla-is-turning-to-diecasting-in-a-big-way)

went live this week I believe, while they are actively cranking out thousands of model Ys per day.

Another example - the octovalve - a very special decide that lets heat and cold get shared 8 ways as needed between motors / battery / and cabin is a huge part of the model Y. According to a teardown

[https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/news/munro-tesla-model-y- oct...](https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/news/munro-tesla-model-y-octovalve- design-updates)

the valve has had 13 changes in the 6 months the car has been in production. 13! In a single part that is the size of a small backpack.

> Maybe this is why they have a hard time servicing their cars.

This has not been my experience at all. I think QC is a little low on brand new cars during rush season, but service has been top notch. Make sure you aren't relying on stories from 2016.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Comparative data across the Tesla fleet, by model and production years, is so interesting!

I love the Tesla approach to continuous improvement, and the Nikola app seems really cool!

<comment><USER9> This is David. I made Nikola. Glad you like the app! Happy to answer any questions you or anyone else has on the data / research here.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to estimate full stack skills? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a way to do have a big picture of my skills and compare it to trade skills in the topic of backend, web & native frontend development, database and devops mainly.
I'd like to have a list for every topic to check with the things I know and in fine learn about what I don't know.
I'm interested in "skill boards" about ML & NLP too.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Sijin Joeseph's _Programmer Competency Matrix_ is perhaps more general than you are looking for, but relevant.

[http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency- matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's some precedent for this in the contractor-marketplaces like Odesk. They'll have a list of dozens of skills/topics that a contractor can prove their knowledge of. They give them a score based on their performance relative to the larger group who has taken the test. You can see the tests here: [https://www.odesk.com/tests](https://www.odesk.com/tests) (but you'll need to create an odesk account first).

There are also a number of coding-challenge sites where you can show off your skills and get ranked, like codeeval.com

Both these types of scoring systems are just rough heuristics though. Since full-stack development uses a lot of "soft" skills like organization and creativity, you'll never really get the full-picture from these kinds of objective battery tests.

</comment><comment><USER4> This may not be exactly what you want, but may be good start [http://www.sitepoint.com/full-stack- developer/](http://www.sitepoint.com/full-stack-developer/)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is actually a good post, and it would be very useful to have some sort of repeatable way to compare your own skills to the skills requested by a certain industry/market.</comment>


Beipanjiang Bridge, suspended 565m above China's south-west mountains [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170531-chinas-impossible-engineering-feat <comment><USER2> What an incredible achievement. Every time I see China's engineering marvels, or any visible statistics of its progress, I feel a slight tinge sadness as an Indian citizen. In India, such feats are few and far between and if you account the time taken to complete them, the scenario is even more depressing.

Chenab bridge, touted as soon-to-be world's tallest railway bridge, for instance, was scheduled to completed by 2009. Work halted due to safety concerns, but began again an year later. The date was, then, shifted to 2015 and now, the newer estimate suggest it will be completed by 2019 [1]. I am not sure if we'll be able to abide by that too.

Democracy might give people something to cheer about, but, for a country fraught with inefficiencies, it does make progress awfully slow.

[1]: [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/worlds- highest-railway-bridge-to-come-up-over-chenab-by-2019/taller-than-eiffel- tower/slideshow/58573206.cms)

<comment><USER3> I'm an American and I understand too. We are living through the decades where America gave away its leadership in the world. We can't get anything accomplished at a reasonable price in reasonable time.

For example, China built 14,000 miles of high-speed rail in about 15 years, with another 10,000 on the way. In America we still haven't built our first line. Every time the discussion comes up, it degenerates into people explaining all the places it won't work.

Not to worry for India, in 50 years it will be better off than today. It might even pass the US.

<comment><USER4> > I'm an American and I understand too. We are living through the decades > where America gave away its leadership in the world. We can't get anything > accomplished at a reasonable price in reasonable time

It's not that we can't get it accomplished reasonably, you'd be amazed at how fast and cheaply major projects can be developed if funding is properly structured. It's rather that we've wasted our treasure on other things. Jack Ma had an interesting comment at Davos[1] - what would the US be like if we had spent the $14 trillion we've wasted on war and wall street bailouts on infrastructure, research, and education in the Midwest?

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/18/chinese-billionaire-jack- ma-s...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/18/chinese-billionaire-jack-ma-says-the- us-wasted-trillions-on-warfare-instead-of-investing-in-infrastructure.html)

<comment><USER5> $14T is an absurd exaggeration of the budgetary costs of post-9/11 wars and post-2008 bailouts. The entire Iraq war/post-war cost $800B, most of the TARP bailout money was paid back. You can claim there were huge knock-on costs to the economy for either if you like, but skipping either or both would not have given the US Government trillions to spend on Midwestern infrastructure.

<comment><USER6> _> The entire Iraq war/post-war cost $800B_

Source? The Congressional Research Service published a report in 2014 stating $1.6 trillion as the cost of war. Every other article I could find suggests this number is far too low and estimates $2-6 trillion.

[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf](https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary- idUSB...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary- idUSBRE92D0PG20130314)

[https://www.brown.edu/web/documents/nosearch/2016CostsofWar....](https://www.brown.edu/web/documents/nosearch/2016CostsofWar.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I've encountered the Brown article before. Averaging the $3.6 trillion spent to-date since 2001, we're spending $240 billion per year on war in the Middle East.

For perspective:

* Hillary Clinton's campaign platform included a decent infrastructure bill - allocating $250 billion over 10 years.

* NIH is estimated to spend $8 billion this year on cancer and cardiovascular research - the leading causes of death in America, killing over 1 million people each year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seriously impressive bridge.

(It's a video a few minutes long and worth watching. I rarely watch videos on news sites, but glad I watched this one.)

<comment><USER9> Ditto; great video. Got to love such great feats of engineering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great video and editing.

What China has achieved is truly incredible. For anybody young and commitment free (or even just commitment free), you should go there. Cool people, so much opportunity, and you get to live in the heart of a rising super-power.

Also, that guy speaks Chinese like an excited teenager.

<comment><USER11> > For anybody young and commitment free (or even just commitment free), you > should go there.

Are there english speaking startups one could work at? Are work-permit requirements doable?

<comment><USER12> Strikingly is a YC-funded company based in Shanghai. We sponsor visa. Typically, a person with 2 years of working experience can get work visa issued in few weeks.

We are hiring people in engineering, sales and marketing departments [https://www.strikingly.com/s/careers](https://www.strikingly.com/s/careers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really impressive bridge to drive over. Our bus driver (regular travel bus) stopped on the bridge so people could take pictures. Nobody could tell us why he stopped on the bridge. We figured only afterwards that it is the worlds highest bridge we drove on.

</comment><comment><USER14> I find it fascinating that (pressure) grouting is shown as something revolutionary and new here.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for posting this - I use the BBC site from the UK and wouldn't have seen it otherwise as it's on the .com site. Also interesting to see the comments about the reporter's Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER16> An engineering marvel, but most likely an economic white elephant. The New York Times recently had a more critical report on China's bridges [0]

China is addicted to infrastructure projects to boost its GDP. The problem is that these projects in aggregate produce a poor economic return, so China's debt as a percentage of GDP is growing unsustainably. At some point it will be forced to have a painful adjustment to lower growth, especially for investment spending.

Personally I find Larry Summers analysis pursuasive when he argues that China will most likely achieve 4% growth over next two decades [1]

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/asia/china- bridges-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/asia/china-bridges- infrastructure.html)

[1] [http://www.nber.org/digest/mar15/w20573.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/mar15/w20573.html)

<comment><USER17> It is unsustainable long-term, but it's a reasonable model to follow. Build today while the cost is cheaper, create a larger general economy and then coast for a while. Japan also spent decades boosting GDP with huge infrastructure projects. They can't sustain them anymore and in some areas are starting to dismantle some of the excess but the Japan of today is much nicer place to have a flat economy than the Japan of the 40s or 50s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Beipangjiang's twin is the Nanpangjiang, which is a fascinating tributary to the Pearl River Delta and one of the longest rivers in China by total flow length. It is followed in part by the French narrow-guage railway from Haiphong to Kunming and also spanned by some amazing bridges and these days many dams. Southwest China is really impressive topographically.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can someone explain the statement about the length of the cables (in the section starting about 2:48) that they'd stretch from Beijing to New York if laid end to end? It seems so obviously false (there's, what, a few dozen of them, maybe a hundred?) that I assume I'm missing something.

<comment><USER20> Suspension bridge cables are made of smaller cables. And those smaller cables are made of yet smaller cables. For example: [http://regex.info/i/JEF_042406.jpg](http://regex.info/i/JEF_042406.jpg)

That's my guess.

<comment><USER19> Ohhh that totally makes sense. That image really illustrates the point well, too! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, just wow. I knew about this bridge but didn't really realise it is so impressive. The view is just spectacular.

I can't wait to arrange a trip there.

</comment><comment><USER22> !Woah¡ without words... It's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER23> I like how the reporter speaks Chinese. Usually it's english only, which i suppose is translated off screen for the local being interviewed.

I don't watch much BBC so i don't know if that changed lately. It's a change for the better imo.

<comment><USER24> It seemed to me that he was interjecting with arbitrary comments, just to show off that he speaks Chinese. I didn't think it added to the video at all.

<comment><USER25> Chinese speaker here. His comments were all over-the-top excited, repeating and exaggerating others' words, almost like mocking the Chinese staff (see around 2:20 mark for example.) Think Borat-speak. Seemed very strange and unfit for this otherwise good piece.

<comment><USER26> > It seemed to me that he was interjecting with arbitrary comments

No, he's having fluent and meaningful exchange of words with those interviewees.

> Chinese speaker here

You're definitely not a native speaker.

> almost like mocking the Chinese staff

I'm not sure why you interpreted it that way but there's absofreakinglutely no mocking people in there, hey.

All of those whom he interviewed were speaking Mandarin with different degrees of accents and apparently the guy has some pretty decent level of command of the language so he can still converse with most of them no problem. The last one he interviewed (starting from 03:30) spoke with a heavily accented version of Mandarin so even I had to pay attention to understand like, 80% of what he was saying; the reporter probably had issues understanding him as well so he just smiled and nodded. Overall I found the reporter's usage of Mandarin as well as his interaction with others to be very natural.

I am a native Mandarin speaker.

<comment><USER25> Hey, I never questioned his fluency, just not being able to speak in a professional/serious tone to match the other people. If you liked it, great. Also, you're assuming too much about a 鄉民 on the Internet. :)

<comment><USER27> Another way of looking at it: respect. In the past, translators were always used on news stories from China. Now, English speakers are going through the effort to learn Chinese _because they know it is in their best interests as China ascends to the spot of the(!) world superpower_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What China has achieved is truly incredible. I knew about this bridge but didn't really realise it is so impressive. The view is just spectacular.

</comment><comment><USER29> [ _Cough_ ]([http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/03/africa/kenya-bridge- collap...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/03/africa/kenya-bridge- collapse/index.html))

That's a beautiful bridge though.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, let's be snarky, one bridge collapse during construction means the whole country cannot build a decent bridge.

Some of the longest and most used suspension bridges are in China, and they've been in use for years in major cities like Shanghai.

Here is a list of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, look at how many of them are in China:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_cable- stayed_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_cable- stayed_bridge_spans)

<comment><USER29> I don't need to be sold on China and their incredible achievements. Have visited, enjoyed my time there.

It was meant as lighthearted snark, since the bridge collapse only just happened a few days ago. I'm sorry it didn't come across right.

<comment><USER30> Yeah no problem, that makes sense, to be fair I've personally seen Chinese companies cutting corners as far as safety goes.

I don't know what's more impressive, their capability to achieve super high quality at low cost or their capability to achieve unsafe quality at even lower cost...

<comment><USER31> The fenghuang bridge collapse a few years ago caught my attention. Definitely corruption that took it down with 40+ workers.

But I've travelled on these bridges and don't think they are unsafe. The expressway ones at least seem to be supervised much more closely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There is very little provided for the reason for building the bridge. Doing a massive construction project so that some potato farmer can carry his goods to neighboring village seems unwarranted. Is there some industry or something that can use the bridge, or maybe it has some strategic value?

<comment><USER13> No particular insight here, but the bridges and the new roads are all part of the Chinese infrastructure initiative. Besides the new towns being built to replace old ones you also have whole road networks and bridges being built to connect the country. The area where this bridge is consists of mountain after mountain and driving through theee giants is pretty impressive. Same goes for train routes: also over bridges over mountains, through mountains etc. If you look left and right there are NO traditional old buildings, even though it is clearly rice and potatoe farmers you are looking at. And they all have new cars. Working the fields by hand but a car they have...

I don't think you can categorize each bridge for its commercial or strategic value. Before it took you X hours to get from location Y to Z now it is less. It's not about connecting two potatoe farmers it is about connecting the county and modernizing its infrastructure.

<comment><USER31> These bridges are almost always tolled on express ways. If the potato farmer below doesn't (or can't) pay the toll, then they aren't going to use the bridge. More to the point, this bridge is better for thru traffic and has very little to do with the potato farmer.

A comment made in an a recent NYT article on these new Chinese bridges: [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/asia/china- bridg...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/asia/china-bridges- infrastructure.html?referer=https://www.google.com/)

> "If you don't build roads, there can't be prosperity," said Huang Sanliang, > a 56-year-old farmer who lives under the bridge. "But this is an expressway, > not a second- or third-grade road. One of those might be better for us > here."

Expressways are sexy and useful if you are driving thru. But...I have the feeling they are overbuilding it in many places while not caring much about the less sexy roads that might improve local lives more. But then, such roads would never be talked about abroad and wouldn't do much for China's prestige (and therefore the official's in charge promotion).

The cars on the expressway have little bearing on the farmers below it. A rice farmer isn't going to be driving a new Audi or even a Toyota, even in rich Zhejiang, but definitely not in guizhou or Hunan.

<comment><USER21> > Expressways are sexy and useful if you are driving thru. But...I have the > feeling they are overbuilding it in many places while not caring much about > the less sexy roads that might improve local lives more.

IMHO you're having this backward. Without the major infrastructure spearheading the development of this region, there won't be interest (money) to overhaul the local roads and bridges.

<comment><USER31> That remains to be seen. Right now china is neglecting less sexy infrastructure for more sexy infrastructure in a very centralized non market manner. That's why an ultra modern HSR can be flooded out whenever there is a bit of rain (billions for HSR, much less for basic draimage). Also the model that the expressways are being built (loans paid off with tolls), doesn't transfer at all to local roads and bridges.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parsing: A Timeline (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.perl.org/users/jeffrey_kegler/2014/09/parsing-a-timeline.html <comment><USER2> Re: Earley being forgotten, I've been working on the "nearley" Earley parsing library for JS for many years now and it now has a very solid user-base (200+ dependents on npm). It's probably not the fastest a JS-based parsing library could be, but it's certainly no longer forgotten! Here's a small sample of some of the amazingly varied projects using Earley parsing (via nearley) today… [https://nearley.js.org/#projects-using- nearley](https://nearley.js.org/#projects-using-nearley)

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8290681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8290681)

</comment><comment><USER4> LALR being so popular is just a result of computers being so slow at the time. At the time Knuth's LR parsers took prohibitive amounts of time and memory to construct. LALR fixed that by discarding the look ahead. It made the problem of automatically building a LALR parser from a grammar tractable, but limited the grammars that could be used so much you had to really work to get a working grammar for a real language.

That's all changed. LR parsers written (eg [http://lrparsing.sourceforge.net/](http://lrparsing.sourceforge.net/) can compile grammars) in a reasonable amount of time, and its written in an interpreted language. The Python parser it creates can process input in about 25us per token, which isn't too shabby. It doesn't insist you write productions directly, but rather has a more succinct language that compiles to productions. This language has the same "power" (it, can parse the exact same class of languages as BNF), but handles most of the things people struggle with when using raw LR productions - like lists, associativity and precedence. And, the old clumsy error messages that required a PhD in computer parsing are gone, replaced by messages most people can understand.

LL parsers aren't are powerful as LR (meaning the can recognise less real world languages). But, and it's a big but, a human can hand code a LL parser for a language whereas noone in their right mind would manually construct a LR parser by hand. The hand written LL parsers are usually called recursive descent parsers. Because they are hand written the humans writing them can cheat. They can look ahead an arbitrary number of symbols, they can collate and refer to information a LL or LR grammar can't use, like types. The result is they can more than make up in the difference in power between LL and LR. But it comes at a cost. The cost is mixing of concerns. Your parsing, type, macro, and generation code gets intertwined.

Still in my view LL and LR parsers win the day. They both take a fixed and and very small time to process each token, and also fixed and very small amount of memory. The language they recognise is always well defined, by with I mean if there default action if they don't know what language is to stop, whinge and refuse to produce a parser. Whereas parsing techniques plough on anyway. God know what language they are recognising if you get it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER5> Tomita isn't mentioned :( . A good GLR approach...</comment>


Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty - <AUTHOR> https://shuhaowu.com/blog/software_is_easy.html <comment><USER2> What's harder? Racing a bicycle up a mountain or racing it on level ground? Of course they're both as hard as you want them to be and are very hard at top levels. This kind of comparison might seem just as ridiculous.

The one thing about programming (whether pure software or related also to hardware) is that programming is something like the _easiest seeming_ hard activity known to humanity. There's something like a natural illusion in the human mind which makes people believe that changing XYZ in a program is easy, just because it is easy to imagine what it would be like to have the change or just because the program itself is just "brain stuff". Even the programmer himself/herself, after a couple days rest will feel the pull, the plausibility of the argument that change Y should be easy even when the torture of making change X is still weighing on him/her.

</comment><comment><USER3> This was the root of my frustration with my time studying mechanical engineering.

Every course I took in the CS, applied math, or EE departments required us to, you know, actually do something. In my POSIX programming class, we wrote lots of programs (malloc, web proxies, and so on). In my graphics class, we wrote renderers (while paper tests covered the algebra of geometry). In my PDE classes, we wrote simulation code in Matlab and saw it run on wave and heat equations.

In mech, though, scarcely any classes had an experimental component. Fluids? Nope. Heat transfer? Negative, barring a baking orb lab and a Reynold's number lab. Machine design? Hah, fat chance--a 25 page report on a fucking bolt was the capstone assignment (alternately, a failure analysis on a gear tooth that chipped in a transmission). Control systems? A few tedious labs more suited to padding out a grad student's paper on teaching engineering than actually, you know, teaching us anything.

The height of this nonsense was a mandatory lab on power generation--one in which we finally got to run a steam powerplant! Except we didn't, and were given the results to run our analysis on instead. Sitting in the campus pub afterwards and grousing into my beer, a facilities guy from the central plant expressed surprise--they'd specifically made sure to have steam run out to make that lab happen. The lab was cancelled because that steam wasn't available, nominally--more likely, the student running it was looking for a way out.

The only good labs we had were an industrial processes lab (machining, welding, and so on), and a strength of materials lab (tension, torsion, and whatnot).

I guarantee that at the end of four years any of our CS or EE kids were substantially better coders--I cannot claim the same for the mechanical engineers I graduated with.

Our final design project was our one true chance to show that we could actually _build_ something, and for many teams that too resulted in failure.

EDIT:

The problem with so much of this is that there are perfectly good ways these things could be taught. Machine design could have you, you know, actually manufacture some cams or build gearboxes. Heat transfer could have you build heat sinks, manage fluid flows, or create exchangers. Control systems could have you build robots or invert pendulums or do any other damn fool cool thing that requires signal transforms.

It's just such a goddamn disappoint.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. While I agree with what you say, I just don't know how this can be changed. It takes substantially more resources to do anything in mech. Sometimes you can't even lift the stuff you're working with without some other expensive machinery.

<comment><USER3> Quite so.

That said, if our tuition is north of a hundred grand (as mine was), one wonders that that expense cannot be borne by the institution.

Even building simple structures and predicting their failure would be a worthwhile endeavor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that I think about it... do we ever predict failures in software? Things just seem to break.. and we go in and fix it after.

At least that is my impression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why even look for a distinction between software and hardware when it comes to "difficulty"?

Regardless of whether a system is software or hardware: simple systems are easy, complex systems are hard.

The more complexity, points of interaction and levels of abstraction you add to either type of system the more difficult it becomes for any single person to keep track of it all.

Writing a JavaScript form validator is easy, writing a full featured bare- metal OS is hard.

Designing a simple LED light circuit is easy, designing a modern CPU is hard.

<comment><USER5> > simple systems are easy, complex systems are hard

This is exactly the oversimplification these posts intended to disprove. The complexity of an airplane or rocket, measured in terms of design components or interacting subsystems or what have you, is miniscule compared to any piece of software that could be written with the same budget. An even more extreme example would be science: after 6 years, the complexity of a PhD's discoveries is microscopic next to the complexity of software that he/she could have written (or did write) in the same time.

The amount of functional complexity achievable per effort invested varies dramatically between fields based on the time and cost of iteration, the time, cost, and power of relevant diagnostic tools, and the availability of domain- specific knowledge.

It's an important fact to keep in mind when judging someone else's work or deciding to switch occupations/markets/fields.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The complexity of an airplane or rocket, measured in terms of design > components or interacting subsystems or what have you, is miniscule compared > to any piece of software that could be written with the same budget

While I suspect that this is _probably_ true. I still would like to pose the question... Are they? Or is it simply because we don't know it, it then seem easy?

<comment><USER6> As someone who is an actual systems engineer, and competent in fields including both programming and physical, the point isn't difficulty but iteration cost. It costs next to nothing to push a modification to software. Worst case, it fails, and as long as you are careful with testing things will probably be fine.

Anything in the real world both incurs significant logistical cost as well as many points of unpredictable failure. I've seen thermocouples rated to 1100C catch fire when they hit 600C. Designing a new part for a new idea for a mechanical subsystem can take weeks to make, cost $1000+ easily, and might not work due to very easy to make errors.

So maybe the way to say it is that the abstraction barriers put around non- software parts of a system make them appear less complex, but what we're really saying is that the complexity inside of the box that we're dealing with is smaller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hardware is easy because it is bounded by physical constraints of reality, whereas software has unlimited complexity bounded only by the number of hours of coding put in.

Hardware is hard because one must work within the constraints of reality, software is easy because almost anything imaginable is possible.

Both are fair viewpoints.

<comment> alok-g Just that I am not sure if either one is correct.

Hardware design (in HDLs for example) is very much like software development. There may be a very large number of lines of code (resulting in a very large number of transistors on the chip). Just like a language like C++ that can have many intricacies, the hardware can have many issues that are sometimes hard to nail down during design and simulation.

When thinking that anything imaginable is possible in software while comparing it to hardware, you must keep in mind that the software is ultimately running on the hardware. Anything imaginable is possible still.

<comment><AUTHOR> The hardware here is more referring to tangible, physical things rather than computer hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hi all, mechanical & aerospace engineer here. Like the author alluded to, I DON'T think software is easy and hardware is 'medium' difficulty. Just my .02, hardware is expensive in terms of design, develop, test & iterate when compared to software development at the university level. From my experience, if you're studying mechanical/aero/civil/mechatronics/or similar fields, get involved in a student project / organization (as some one else has already commented) that culminates in the manufacturing of some doodad (plane, car, bridge, canoe, rocket, etc). Not only does it look good and sound good when interviewing for internships, it's actually really good experience to have if you decide to go and work at a large engineering firm after your studies (where they don't let the new young guy design the new rocket engine, for example); and having that bit of experience from designing your gizmo and then seeing it explode/rupture/sink when put in to practice is a valuable lesson learned to recall when you're designing a part for a large corporation. And as far as the universities I have attended, it is true and unfortunate that a lot of universities MAINLY focus on analytical work (undeniably necessary, but not sufficient).

-currently working in the aerospace industry

</comment><comment><USER9> I used to be an aerospace engineer as well, so I couldn't resist writing up some thoughts: [https://medium.com/geek- empire-1/b6be6db5f3c3](https://medium.com/geek-empire-1/b6be6db5f3c3)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome. Putting some perspective into this conversation with experience! Definitely learned plenty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Has anyone here ever debugged a program you couldn't run? It's liberating. You spend hours using your brain, combing lines of code, tracing execution, taking notes. It's similar to writing an algorithm in a job interview; will this code really work? What kind of problems might occur? Hmm, better fix this part and check again.

Rarely, but sometimes, i'll encounter a problem and troubleshoot it, and each time I find a bug and fix it, it turns out it was completely unrelated to my problem. Looking hard at the code just makes potential bugs pop up that I hadn't seen before.

It's cases like these that made me realize the iterative software development model of write, test, debug, repeat, was a huge waste of time. If I actually review all my code I catch bugs quicker.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of an article I read about a competition, to see who the first person was to build a human-powered plane.

[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663488/wanna-solve- impossible-p...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663488/wanna-solve-impossible- problems-find-ways-to-fail-quicker)

Similar to what the OP is saying, the engineer realized that human powered flight wasn't the problem he was solving, but the process of failing fast and iterating.

</comment><comment><USER12> it fails to understand the root issue mentioned on the article it is responding to.

The original article says: everyone settled down for a crapy simulation software and implementations are terrible.

so, the conclusion of this piece "there is no way to realistic improve" is way off. Maybe he should get at least a couple years under the belt before trying becoming a pundit.

</comment><comment><USER13> read something similar a few weeks ago.

[http://andrewlinfoot.com/why-every-1st-time-entrepreneur- sho...](http://andrewlinfoot.com/why-every-1st-time-entrepreneur-should-start- a-software-company/)

Its a completely different way to think about things when you can push an update versus doing an expensive manufacturing run.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wanted to be an aerospace engineer until the day I discovered programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always wanted to make rockets. Learning of programming does not change that for me :)

The lack of funding however... :\</comment></comment>


System and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents/US6857067

<comment><AUTHOR> Patent US6857067 is the "'067" patent that EA, Notch and a whole lot of other people are being sued over.

See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4276691>

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/minecraft-developer- su...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/minecraft-developer-sued-by- aggressive-litigator-over-drm-patent/)</comment>


Knitting machines power up with computer-generated patterns for 3D shapes - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/31/knitting-machines-power-up-with-computer-generated-patterns-for-3d-shapes/ <comment><USER2> I would love one of these in my house simply as a sock-printer. Nothing feels better than putting on a brand new pair of socks. I would love to have it set like a coffee machine where it will auto print out a new pair of socks when I get up and have a heat lamp shining on it so you pull off a warm, new pair and put them on in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previously (and a link to the actual publications) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16536153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16536153)</comment>


Linux 4.1 released - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/648911/

<comment> iso8859-1 4.1 merge window

part 1 [http://lwn.net/Articles/640297/](http://lwn.net/Articles/640297/)

part 2 [http://lwn.net/Articles/641016/](http://lwn.net/Articles/641016/)

part 3 [http://lwn.net/Articles/642039/](http://lwn.net/Articles/642039/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Why "unstable" on Ubuntu?

[http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel- ppa/mainline/v4.1-unstable/](http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel- ppa/mainline/v4.1-unstable/)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how you ended up looking in that particular folder. Here's another folder in that tree:

[http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel- ppa/mainline/v4.1-rc2-vivid...](http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel- ppa/mainline/v4.1-rc2-vivid/)

The thing at the end is the Ubuntu "distribution" aka "release" (for that v4.1-rc2, "vivid vervet" aka 15.04). So in this case "unstable" really refers to the ubuntu "distribution channel", not the kernel itself.

But really, you should expect it to take at least a few days to migrate to a more "stable" "distribution channel". On Arch Linux, they often don't migrate it before the "x.x.1" release. That's because they make sure various out-of- tree kernel modules are still working, and they sometimes do need to apply a patch to fix a strange issue related to some hardware that's being used slightly differently, and isn't caught until after the "x.x.0" release which gains much wider usage than the release-candidates.

Ubuntu isn't even a rolling-release distro like Arch is, so what you linked to is a special repo you can add for super up-to-date kernels if you really want them for some reason. But if you have no particular reason, you shouldn't bother. There can always be unexpected complications, usually involving closed-source kernel modules (nvidia, amd catalyst, vmware) or buggy hardware (but of course a linux enthusiast would say that ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regardless of whether you are running Ubuntu, Debian or anything else with dpkg, you can install the latest Linux kernels using [http://liquorix.net/](http://liquorix.net/) no matter if you are on Old Stable, Experimental or something in-between.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord No kdbus yet, though it did enter its latest review cycle recently?

<comment><USER5> There hasn't been another review cycle, but my expectation is that it will be proposed for merging again this time around. Should be interesting to watch...

<comment><USER6> Given that kdbus support was merged[1] in mainline systemd, I feel the situation is one of "I see you're not merging my friend's patches... would be a shame if the only remaining implementation of init would support only slow- dbus or kdbus..."

[1] [http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2015-Jun...](http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2015-June/033170.html)

<comment><USER7> systemd has been using slow-dbus, via libdbus, for who knows how long. Now it will use slow-dbus via sd-bus. Hard to imagine how that could possibly amount to a threat.

<comment> vezzy-fnord They've actually been using sd-bus for about two years now. What's new is that kdbus support is now build-time mandatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope btrfs is more stable now... We've had problems with Linux 4.0.x

<comment><USER9> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER8> We saw this on several machines: [https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e693eb68cfedace84025](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e693eb68cfedace84025)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And it seems that Solus is the first distribution to adopt it. [http://linux.softpedia.com/blog/solus-is-the-first-os-to- get...](http://linux.softpedia.com/blog/solus-is-the-first-os-to-get-linux- kernel-4-1-lts-484950.shtml)

<comment><USER11> Any distribution that doesn't ship modifications to the kernel immediately "adopts" the latest kernel on release, whatever that means. For example, Exherbo had it immediately since users are directed to download their kernel sources from kernel.org; ignoring that, the package for the kernel headers (for building e.g. libc) also were updated nearly immediately, from the main git repo:

commit 629e1b2b1d30608e3b3af74de0c7a220009bba54

Author: Timo Gurr <email@example.com>

Date: Mon Jun 22 18:49:20 2015 +0200

        linux-headers: version bump to 4.1

I'm also not sure how you can claim a linux distro is the first without exhaustively checking all others. As you can see, it is highly probable Solus was not the first.</comment></comment>


Bloomberg offers cheap real-estate to start a tech University in NYC - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OISQ5O0.htm

<comment><USER2> I think San Francisco is moving past traditional tech and gearing up to be the center of bio and green tech as well.

The new UCSF campus is a true monster and with Stanford and Berkeley a stones throw away, if bio and green tech are the future, Silicon Valley will reign supreme for decades to come.

I'm not sure offering real estate to an existing school is going to give them what they want. Does anyone believe that say, Stanford East Extension is really going to compete with Stanford itself?

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who has watched the silicon alley scene for just about twenty years I'd love to see NYC get a real tech university that was on the level of an MIT or Stanford.

<comment><USER4> I'm surprised that Boston isn't already the equivalent to Silicon Valley for the eastern seaboard.

<comment><USER5> Why do you think it's like that? (To anyone who knows).

Does it really come down to weather? Boston < Seattle < SF

<comment><USER4> As I always am quick to point out, it seems like some of the up-and-coming Silicon Valleys outside of North America seem to also be in Mediterranean climates (Santiago de Chile and Cape Town).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100818/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_americans_head_home

<comment><USER2> "Combat troops" is a circumlocution that has been coined for political purposes such as the fiction of "withdrawal" from a country one is in fact still occupying with 50,000 soldiers. This is well into the realm of Orwell. I'm thinking not of _1984_ but of _Politics and the English Language_ ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langua...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language)).

<comment><USER3> Garbage.

Combat troops are trained to break things and kill people. They're equipped with plenty of armored vehicles and artillery.

We may or may not be occupying Iraq, but if we've got e.g. mostly Military Police (MP) then it truly means something significant has changed.

Let's put it this way: if we were to decide to depose the current Iraqi government, would the troops we still have there be a good choice, let along our first?

<comment><USER2> Well since this is HN, let's agree on a way to decide the matter objectively. If you can find historical usages of the phrase "combat troops" (as distinct from just "troops") that are devoid of the political implication I mentioned, I'll agree that the phrase is a factual one.

I'm finding it hard to establish similar criteria for "withdrawal", however, because there are so many misleading usages of that word in the media right now. I just saw "US Withdraws From Iraq" as a headline in Google News a few minutes ago. Although the transitive usage of this verb can correctly describe a partial drawdown (as in "he withdrew part of his objection"), the intransitive usage cannot. This is a fact. It's also exactly the sort of thing Orwell was writing about.

Also,

 _Garbage._

I hesitated to make my original comment and double-hesitated to respond to this, but I'm giving it a try because I know you're a good commenter in general. I think a serious discussion of this topic would be interesting. It may be impossible, though, even here. If we can't discuss this civilly, let's bail.

<comment><USER3> One way to confirm what I'm saying is to look at the roles women are allowed in the US Army:

The US Army has traditionally been composed of a number of branches, see this Wikipedia list: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Army#Branch_Establishment>

The major combat branches are Infantry, Artillery and Armor (originally Cavalry). Women cannot serve in these and other related front line combat branches, e.g. see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military>.

Note for example that Sgt Leigh Ann Hester, the first woman to earn a Silver Star for "direct participation in combat", was a member of a MP company escorting a supply convoy. That woman who was captured and then rescued in the hotter part of the war was a member of a successfully ambushed supply convoy.

Also go back to that first Wikipedia page and look for where combat vs. support is used to describe. E.g. in the context of the new standardized combat brigade system (Heavy (mechanized infantry or tank), Stryker (wheeled death traps in the wrong terrain) and Infantry (light infantry or airborne)):

" _In addition, there will be combat support and service support modular brigades. Combat support brigades include Aviation brigades, which will come in heavy and light varieties, Fires (artillery) brigades, and Battlefield Surveillance Brigades. Combat service support brigades include Sustainment brigades and come in several varieties and serve the standard support role in an army._ "

<comment><USER2> Actually, I thought of a much easier way to decide the factual question. Google web search is too clogged up with recent material, but Google book search is another matter:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&#...
Clearly the phrase "combat troops" is not a recent coinage. I think I'll take your technical point on that and decline to repeat myself about the rest.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Iran's exceptional reaction to 9/11 attacks (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://photosiran.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/irans-exceptional-reaction-to-911-attacks-candlelit-vigils-for-the-victims-and-60k-soccer-fans-respected-a-minutes-silence-2/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the saddest legacies. The amount of empathy for America was shocking, absolutely staggering, after 9/11\. There were countries with every reason to hate America, but they too joined in the vigils and were respectful of the loss.

I doubt you'll ever see anything like that again.

That enormous stockpile of goodwill, like the US budget surplus, was uselessly frittered away within years and everyone was back to hating America again.

If there's another attack of this magnitude I think the whole world will be so afraid of what America will do in retaliation that they won't have any strength left for empathy.

<comment><USER3> the people of Iran also have every reason to dislike their own dictatorial government [1]; empathy towards the USA might also be a way to display attitudes towards their own system of government, such a display would otherwise be suppressed.

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

<comment><USER4> Although it was the CIA=led coup of the democratically elected government that led conditions to go so extreme with the Islamic Republic and Anti-Western sentiments

<comment><USER5> "Democratically elected" is one of those wonderful phrases, like "(People's) Democratic Republic" that always means the exact opposite of what the words mean.

Mossadegh never won a popular election. He became Prime Minister by assassinating the previous guy, the Parliament then made him Prime Minister. After he got power, he pardoned the assassin, btw.

<comment><USER6> Well surely supporting the Shah and the absolute brutality conducted by Savak helped our image

<comment><USER7> Did you actually experience the "brutality of [S.A.V.A.K.]" first hand or is this something you've read?

One of my uncles, pretty high up in the Tudeh (Communist) Party, spent two tours in Shah's prisons as a political prisoner. He also spent one tour in the Ayatollahs' prisons for the same issue: being a communist. A few years ago, when he came visiting States side, I asked him about it.

What he told me was that the Shah's prisons were a joke compared to the ones run by IRI. I have fond memories of him from the late 70s as a very self confident and charming man. Per family gossip, after his release from IRI's prisons he barely said a word for 2 years and was broken.

As for "image", it may interest the younger HN reader to know that the very meme of "Shah the brutal dictator" started in the early 70s in the West, with the (finally) now fully established role played by "human rights" organizations that are fronts for Western intelligence services.

Yes, SAVAK is a dark stain, having been trained by FBI and MOSSAD contrary to long standing Iranian mores and standards of conduct.

But I can point you to youtube videos of _public_ trials of political prisoners during the Shah's regime and challenge you to produce ONE for the multitude of ("brutalized") political prisoners now held in Guantanemo and other undisclosed locations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My feeling is that Iran is a far better natural ally of the United States than Saudi Arabia. The average Iranian is probably far more amenable to western liberal values than the average person from Saudi Arabia.

<comment><USER9> Iran was THE ally of the United States until the Revolution. We didn't trust the Israelis, who made it very clear they were in it for themselves, the Saudis in the 60's and 70's were not very amenable to US interests - Iran was a stable, regional power with a westernized populace and enough power to counterbalance Soviet influence and Middle Eastern stubbornness. They were such an important ally that when they elected a moderately socialist president who didn't want to play the Cold War game, the US and UK freaked out and installed a monarch.

<comment><USER7> > The US and UK freaked out and installed a monarch.

This propaganda story of the West needs to die. (They never forgave the Shah for being critical of them in the 70s and to this date their media lists this poor man as one of the "worst tyrants of 20th century". Same century that gave us Stalin, Hitler, Mao, PolPot, .... The man was a saint compared to most world leaders, then and now.)

No one installed a monarch in Iran. The late Shah of Iran, who very much cared for Iran, was indeed permitted to succeed his father, Reza Shah ("the great"), by the occupying Alied powers (who had invaded the neutral Iran). This 'transition' to nominal power 'permitted' by external powers that occupied the entirety of Iran is a fact of Iranian history. (In fact, before accepting CIA/NYTimes account of '53 and the Shah of Iran, you may want to read up on the history of Iran from 1850 to 1950.)

From that date, until the _counter-coup_ of 1953 in which US and UK participated alongside quite a substantial subset of Iranian society, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi stayed well within the limits of Iranian constitution's limits on royal power. One noteworthy aspect of being the Shah of Iran under the constitutional regime was the ability to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister.

Dr. Mossadegh, a member of the Majlis (people's assembly) was indeed put forward by that body as the Prime Minister and the Shah did formally appoint him. After the good Dr. managed to alienate most of his internal allies -- the Mullahs and the Communist Party of Iran -- he assumed dictatorial powers. He even ran an election with "99%" yes vote for his assuming such powers. That is the famous "election" the propaganda organs of the West keep mentioning.

The Shah dismissed the Dr. from his office. The Dr. refused to accept this, contrary to the constitution of Iran. The Shah feared for his life, and fled. And meanwhile back in Iran, elements of Iranian military, landed gentry, Mullahs, etc. who no longer supported the (dismissed) Prime Minister organized a counter coup. So, New York Times notwithstanding, little Kermit Roosevelt did not all by his lonesome and a suitcase full of dollar bills create a coup to "install" the legal, standing, Shah of Iran.

What happend to the Shah after '53, was that he had decided to push for stability in Iran and began to overstep the constitutional limits. It was during this period that Iran went from helpless victim of the insatiable greed of the British and ambitions of the Russians to a healthy state. It was only then that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi accepted coronation.

And the apparently alarming development of Iran actually got to the point that Iran began to loom as a strategic threat to Western hegemony in the Persian Gulf, having taken over the security role of British in the Persian Gulf with America's blessing and material support; establishing OPEC as a power player; and having publicly announced in '73 that "in 1979" when the oil contracts forced on a bankrupt Iran in '53 reached their term, that Iran would no longer accede to the aggregious demands of the Western Oil Cartel (the famous "seven sisters"). Surprisingly enough, it was precisely in 1979 that "revolution" broke out in Iran and BBC Persian service kindly began announcing the Ayatollah's messages and demonstration schedule. (Fact.)

No one installed our King. Good and bad, warts and all, he was OUR King, our Shahanshah, and we Iranians accept full responsibility for the matter.

<comment><USER10> What a load of crap! Seems like this poor king of yours didn't do much wrong. I wonder why wikipedia claims the whole country united to get rid of him:

 _On March 30 and 31 (Farvardin 10, 11) a referendum was held over whether to replace the monarchy with an "Islamic Republic" – a term not defined on the ballot. Khomeini called for a massive turnout[193] and only the National Democratic Front, Fadayan, and several Kurdish parties opposed the vote.[193] It was announced that 98.2% had voted in favor.[193]_

<comment><USER11> History is written by the winners. Perhaps the OP you're responding to, actually lived through these events and have their own opinion on the matter, not derived from a dubious collective source but rather through personal observation.

<comment><USER10> _edit:_ here is the wikipedia article about the coup, see how bad it aligns with eternalban's view of the events [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh)

<comment><USER7> Part 4 [4] of this series directly discusses the propaganda regarding these events. Unlike pawadu, I do not consider wikipedia to be a definitive source, but the talk page [5] should provide some insight regarding the tug of war that this page must have gone through! ;)

[1]: [http://iranian.com/main/2010/jul/all-shahs- men-0.html](http://iranian.com/main/2010/jul/all-shahs-men-0.html)

[2]: [http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs- men-2.html](http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs-men-2.html)

[3]: [http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs- men-3.html](http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs-men-3.html)

[4]: [http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs-men- part-4-1.html](http://iranian.com/main/2010/aug/all-shahs-men-part-4-1.html)

[5]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mohammad_Mosaddegh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mohammad_Mosaddegh)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my travels to Europe post-2001 it became pretty clear to me that the citizens there could separate the American citizen from the American government.

They knew, as they did before 9/11, that the American people were generally peaceful and generous, which was in direct contradiction to the actions of the US Government.

<comment><USER13> And yet, look what kind of candidate is still in the race to become president. The American government is voted into office. At least parts of the American people are also partially responsible. I am not saying, they could have known entirely, but the US is involved in the Middle East making it worse and worse since the early nineties, well before 9/11.

Edit: Actually since after WW2, but the Iraq wars started in the nineties.

<comment><USER14> Candidates are selected in primaries which represent only a tiny bit of total american voters. So thats it.

<comment><USER13> Properly done opinion polls represent the American voters, for example this one [0] which states that 41% of American voters think that it would be a good idea to elect Trump. That is more than a tiny minority.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-holds- lead-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-holds-lead-over- trump-in-new-poll-but-warning-signs- emerge/2016/09/10/800dee0c-76c8-11e6-b786-19d0cb1ed06c_story.html)

<comment><USER15> Trump is a vote for American white nationalism, not the kind of overseas aggressiveness that normally angers other nations about US foreign policy.

<comment><USER16> Huh, what??

Have you listened to Trump? He has stated, in as many words, that we should go into Iraq and "take the oil". He's advocated our involvement in other issues. He's repeatedly suggested the use of nuclear weapons to deal with current conflicts.

How is this not a textbook example of "overseas aggressiveness that ... angers other nations"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Iran is also _far_ better on Human rights than say Saudi Arabia, that the media, important political figures and companies [0] consistently tie 'enemy' and 'ally' labels is such a complete farce.

Edit (example):

[0] [https://www.palantir.com/2010/05/iranian- influences/](https://www.palantir.com/2010/05/iranian-influences/)

<comment><USER18> If Iran would just stop verbally attacking Israel and Jews, and stop putting on holocaust denial shows it would be a lot easier to change the labels.

<comment><USER19> Well, if Israel also stops claiming its surrounding land.

<comment> at-fates-hands You're not very familiar with history are you?

 _The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel 's desire to leave the West Bank too and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution._

 _And how did the Gaza Palestinians react to being granted by the Israelis what no previous ruler, neither Egyptian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever given them – an independent territory? First, they demolished the greenhouses. Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead of building a state with its attendant political and economic institutions, they spent the better part of a decade turning Gaza into a massive military base, brimming with terror weapons, to make ceaseless war on Israel._

 _Where are the roads and rail, the industry and infrastructure of the new Palestinian state? Nowhere. Instead, they built mile upon mile of underground tunnels to hide their weapons and, when the going gets tough, their military commanders. They spent millions importing and producing rockets, launchers, mortars, small arms, even drones. They deliberately placed them in schools, hospitals, mosques and private homes to better expose their own civilians. And from which they fire rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv._

source: [http://www.aish.com/jw/me/The-Truth-about- Gaza.html](http://www.aish.com/jw/me/The-Truth-about-Gaza.html)

To me it's pretty obvious the Jews just want to live in peace and have made concessions for years to do so, but Hamas wants nothing but an endless war. It's kind of hard to make peace, when the only thing your opponent is interested in is your total elimination.

Like the Israeli prime minister said:

"'Here's the difference between us," explains the Israeli prime minister. 'We're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles.""

<comment><USER20> >To me it's pretty obvious the Jews just want to live in peace and have made concessions for years to do so

[http://www.thehypertexts.com/images/israel- palestine_map.jpg](http://www.thehypertexts.com/images/israel- palestine_map.jpg)

>"'Here's the difference between us," explains the Israeli prime minister. 'We're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles.""

the former is perhaps more tenable when one doesn't live in the world's largest and densest open-air prison

<comment><USER21> >the former is perhaps more tenable when one doesn't live in the world's largest and densest open-air prison

The open air prison is more of a reaction to an already bad situation.

Hamas doesn't want a 2 state solution, actually no Palestinian faction wants a 2 state solution.

The PA wants a Palestinian state clear of all Jews, not Israelis but Jews.

And another state where all of the Palestinian refugees which were not allowed to gain refugee status by the Arab League (hence UNRWA and not the UNHCR) would have the right of return.

Effectively the 2 state solution as it's currently envisioned would mean either a true Aparthide state or no more Jewish state.

You can call Gaza an open air prison, but you also need to remember that about 100,000 rockets and mortars have been fired from it at the Israeli civilian population.

When Egypt and Jordan controlled Gaza and the WB the Palestinian liberation agenda was focused on the territory Israel controlled, now it's shifted towards the territory that have been lost to Israel but by all accounts the end goal has never changed.

Blaming Israel for this entire situation is satirical, they are too blame but their core offense is their existence not any specific action or policy.

If there to be peace it needs to start with normalization of relations, the Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon have to be given rights under the UN charter for refugees and assimilated, after 10 years of quiet it would be considerably easier to come to an agreement.

However there will be no quite the 2nd intifada started because there was a good chance for peace, 150,000 Palestinians worked in Israel, Israelies conducted business daily in the PA territories, and the Palestinian economy was one of the fastest growing in the world.

This was good for the Palestinians but pretty bad for their leaders like Yaaser Arafat who wasn't even a Palestinian her was an Egytpian of Libyan decent born before Israel has even existed and never set food in Palestine or Israel before 1947.

So Arafat blew the camp David accords in which he was offered more than he was actually expecting and even demanding including Jerusalem to be put on the table and kicked off the entire mess.

For all his flaws Abbas is the first Palestinian leader who was actually born in Palestine.

But for the most part history will remember him as one with Arafat, especially after he said no to even a better offer than the original Camp David one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> And the US & Coalition fell right into the trap by invading Iraq. Probably quite a few people still think Iraq was behind 911.

<comment><USER23> Apparently 69% of Americans in 2003 believed that Iraq was involved in 9/11: [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-po...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll- iraq_x.htm)

In 2011, this belief persisted, with 38% believing that "the US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda" and 21% believing Iraq gave support to Al Qaeda: [http://themoderatevoice.com/ten-years-later-belief-in- iraq-c...](http://themoderatevoice.com/ten-years-later-belief-in-iraq- connection-with-911-attack-persists/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> the queer compassion of the poor for the relatively well-off is quite an amusing thing. You can see many examples of this in everyday life too.

</comment><comment><USER25> If USA can have Saudi Arabia as an ally white house can even call Devil their ally.

I never understood Iran-USA hatred for each other. Iran is not worse than Saudi Arabia or Pakistan from any angle.

<comment><USER26> The 1953 coup [1] probably has something to do with that, followed by the hostage crisis in 1979 [2], and the downing of an Iranian passenger airplane by the US [3].

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) 2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis) 3\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)

<comment><USER27> Along with Iran supporting the killing of US troops in Iraq via proxy war during the occupation and the Khobar Towers bombing.

<comment><USER25> Japan killed thousands of Americans so did Germany and China. USA has been humiliated pretty often by many other countries but USA has (correctly) not held the kind of grudge it has against Iran.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > [nice vignette] ...

> [another nice story] ...

> "Last week, for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, there were > no chants of 'death to America' at weekly Friday prayers around the > country[…]

Wow. The folks who think "bad things should happen to those people in the US" take a break from saying that when bad things happen? This is less of a "nice story" \-- more like "Y'know, we shouldn't say 'Death to America' this week because as much as we seem to enjoy the results, we don't want to get the blame."

</comment><comment><USER29> These kind of post helps us to remember our common humanity. The world isn't a simplistic us vs them.

</comment><comment><USER30> Surely some part of this is from Shi'a rivalry with Sunni AQ?

</comment><comment><USER31> And then they up and joined the Axis of Evil.

Meta: Too subtle?

<comment><USER32> Meta: No, too cute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this really so surprising? The enemy (US) of my enemy (Saudi Arabia) is my friend.

This has nothing to do with the US, and everything to do with SA.

<comment><USER33> What ? KSA is hardly US government's enemy, on the contrary. KSA is US biggest ally in the middle east after Israel. KSA is not on the list of terrorist states in US and Saudi princes enjoy a wide access to politicians like the Bush family or the Clinton family which they actively finance. But it is interesting one would ever think it isn't the case.

<comment><USER34> I think the GP was saying KSA is Iran's enemy.

Edit: brain failure on my part.

<comment><USER35> He seems to also be saying that the US is an enemy of Saudi Arabia. Otherwise "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER18> Yes, I was saying that. But from the POV of Iran, not US.

As far as Iran is concerned SA attacked the US, Bin Ladin is from there, as were most of the attackers.

At a high level the US and SA governments are not enemies, but at a lower level (the people) it's not so simple.

<comment><USER36> No Saudi citizen I know hates America, heck they've embraced the American culture with awe and are the 4th largest student population in the US. American Fast food, American cars, etc are cherished and many American companies have flourished because of their establishments in Saudi Arabia.

Assumptions are harmful. Iranians on the other hand have a genuine reason to hate the US. Iran funds Hezbollah which have attached American interests in the past. It was Iranian-aligned militia that wrecked the American army in many battles in Iraq.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's sad that it is seen as "exceptional" to mourn (and not celebrate) the deaths of innocent people.

<comment><USER38> I don't think that was what was meant, rather it was "exceptional" given the past relationship of the two nations. Also, is the only other option of not mourning to celebrate?

<comment><USER37> True on both points. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> That's nice and all, but I vividly remember people dancing in the streets of Iran celebrating the attack. I will never have that image removed from my mind.

While I'm sure there are people who were upset at the attacks, there was a sizeable chunk of people who weren't. They were in fact happy. Enough to form crowds dancing in the streets holding signs and chanting. I'm old enough to remember that stuff pretty vividly (I was 22 years old on 9/11) so historical revisionism isn't going to work on me...

<comment><USER40> You have no idea what you saw -- clips like that are often propaganda or just crap. Big news sites like Drudge would post fringe nonsense for cheap hits.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the NY Times was running stories about babies being tossed from incubators directly lifted from WWI accounts of the Hun.

I was working in a network operations center at the time, listening to radio and seeing CNN 18 hours a day for weeks post 9/11\. There were all sorts of bullshit stories, from foiled plots against facilities to whatever else that made it broadcast. People were jumpy and craving information.

<comment><USER39> Listen up kid, (I'm calling you kid because you're acting like one; telling me "I don't know what I saw". Who the hell do you think you are?) I'm not some naive nobody who was being swayed by paranoia, the media or anything else. I'm also not going to fall for any 9/11 conspiracy nuttery.

I looked up what I saw and you can see the videos yourself, right now, with a quick google search.

> I was working in a network operations center at the time

I simply don't believe you. I don't believe you are over the age of 25 in fact. More importantly, _everyone_ was glued to their TV back then. And yes, there was this thing called "the internet" back then too, where people could validate and check information. They could also get their news from sources _outside_ the U.S. Many of us were doing just that.</comment></comment></comment>


The Mysterious Fiber Bomb Problem: A Debugging Story - <AUTHOR> https://sandstorm.io/news/2016-09-30-fiber-bomb-debugging-story <comment><AUTHOR> kentonv seems like one of those mythical "10x" engineers. An engaging read, and fun to see how he tracked this one down.

I'm a little surprised such a bug existed in meteor. Is sandstorm among the largest users of it? Shouldn't this have come up in other production deploys?</comment>


What would you demonstrate to a kid to get him or her excited about programming? - <AUTHOR>

I'm going to be spending a bunch of time with my best friend and his 8 y/o, and since I'm already talked about as the "computer guy" (I'm a software guy really), I think it'd be fun to sit down and show the kid how awesome programming can be. An alternate way of phrasing this could be - what gets you super excited about programming, or that you think is just plain cool, that kids might also find fascinating? <comment><USER2> _" I think it'd be fun to sit down..."_

I can't think of any way to guarantee getting a child excited about programming.

But if I were coming up with a list of places not to start, ideas of what adults think ought to be fun would be on it. So would sitting down.

Anyway, I will give making a list of positive stating points a shot.

() It is a long term project. The kid has been around computers and knows they make pictures. There's no way to make a miracle moment for an 8 year old. They've seen an iPad.

() Focus on the young adult ten years away, not trying to create a HN front page prodigy.

() The interesting part of programming, and the part about which we are passionate is not the typing. It is the ideas.

() What children love is being taken seriously and learning. The best way to do this is by removing the shiny screen from the equation and having a conversation - give them words to add to their vocabulary and ideas by which to see patterns in the world.

() Be present. Throw a ball or kick one and instead of lecturing on technique, talk about what computers can do. Only sit down at a screen if you are asked to demonstrate. It's got to be natural...come to think about it, going for a walk is a good approach.

Plans to get a child excited about _x_ are pretty much analogous to the management methods of the PHB.

Sharing your passion is great. But it's your passion not the child's. Maybe some of it will rub off and a seed will be planted. But it is a seed. It needs to be given time and space to grow and though it may produce a mighty oaken programmer, the odds are the child will grow to a maple or dogwood or redwood or beanstalk.

And the only healthy approach is to go into the relationship being ok with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I teach a programming class with ~50 kids, aged 9-15 and we got started using Scratch [1]. It's not quite coding but teaches a lot of important programming concepts, and is really easy and intuitive for kids to use.

After we played around a bit with the editor we checked out games that others had made, and the kids were super excited when they realized they could actualy build the games they had played themselves.

I'd let him/her play around in Scratch a bit, show some existing projects, and then build a game/project together from their interests (which is roughly what we do in our class).

[1][http://scratch.mit.edu](http://scratch.mit.edu)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think, if the kid has a phone or a tablet, building a quick and simple app for his device might make him think that programming is cool. Get him involved in the process, build a fart app or similar, getting him to make the noise and record it.

<comment><USER5> This, without a doubt, is my favorite idea in this thread. Wow the kid with your "magic" powers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I downloaded Kodu game labs for my 9 year old. [http://fuse.microsoft.com/projects/kodu](http://fuse.microsoft.com/projects/kodu)

He asked me "How do I use it?" I told him that I didn't know, and that he should watch the tutorials. An hour later I came back and he had made a game where all the characters attacked each other automatically. He showed me how he chose the characters responses (if this happens, then do that). I thought it was pretty cool. I still don't know how to use the software, but he has made a bunch of little games.

</comment><comment><USER7> If there is the time show him/her how to write a fun but simple game or star with something already written that you can explain to them how its written and how they can change the code to make it do other things (changing formulas, variables/graphics, etc.)

I got into programming partly learning how to program, but also experimenting by hacking up BASIC games, it was fun to change the rules, and or actions in the game, and energized my desire to learn to write my own.

</comment><comment><USER8> Show him how to make his favorite game, it's probably just Angry Birds or w/e with lots of tutorials available in lots of languages for you to get up to speed and reduce to digestible simplicity, and then discuss the things he would and can now change about it.

If that doesn't get him interested he's probably never going to get interested.

<comment><USER9> Yes! Games are great.

A fun easy framework for game-making is LÖVE. [https://love2d.org/](https://love2d.org/) You can show the kid some games made using LÖVE ([https://www.love2d.org/wiki/Category:Games](https://www.love2d.org/wiki/Category:Games)), do some of these tutorials ([https://www.love2d.org/wiki/Category:Tutorials](https://www.love2d.org/wiki/Category:Tutorials))...

Even if you don't know Lua, it's so easy to pick up ([http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/lua/](http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/lua/)). And figuring out a new language with the 8 yr old could be cool too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Minecraft with the ComputerCraft mod may get their interest. Programming little robots in LUA to help them build and dig.</comment>


How can I get a job at Facebook or Google in 6 months? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-get-a-job-at-Facebook-or-Google-in-6-months-I-need-a-concise-work-plan-to-build-a-good-enough-skill-set-Should-I-join-some-other-start-up-or-build-my-own-projects-start-up-Should-I-just-focus-on-practicing-data-structures-and-algorithms/?share=0 <comment><USER2> This doesn't really answer the persons question in my opinion. Are we supposed to assume this person has a BS in Computer Science? In that case it's more like 4.5 years and not 6 months.

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone can give a definite yes or no response here. There are lots of factors that contribute to one's successful job interview which then translates to a job offer. I've read many blog posts and ex-Googlers say that practicing leetcode problems increases your probability of making it through the technical rounds. An applicant also needs to have well-rounded knowledge of general CS fundamentals. So I think the answer the OP is looking for is maybe: try to practice data structures, algorithms and get the fundamentals right specific to whatever job title they're applying to, and hope your interview goes well.</comment></comment>


Objective C back in GitHub's top 10 languages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/languages?1

<comment><AUTHOR> Just in case this flips again later, I have visual proof: [https://twitter.com/aaronbrethorst/status/218394479210663937...](https://twitter.com/aaronbrethorst/status/218394479210663937/photo/1/large)</comment>


This is why so many Republicans are ready to buck public opinion on health care - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/27/this-is-why-so-many-republicans-are-ready-to-buck-public-opinion-on-health-care/ <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Republican voters want "trustee-style" representatives, Democratic voters want "delegate style" representatives. Republican representatives aren't hurt much electorally when they vote against the wishes of their constituents if doing so is consistent with the representatives' stated principles, whereas Democrats get punished by the voters for going against their wishes.

Note that the submission is not about health care, or really any current political issue. That was just the issue they are using to illustrate this underlying difference in how Republicans and Democrats view their representatives.</comment>


MBTA Sux - capturing the public transportation zeitgeist - <AUTHOR> http://www.mbtasux.com For those who don't know, the MBTA is Boston's public transportation authority, running subways, busses, commuter rail, and the like.
To say the least, many people are unhappy with the way it is operated. So, as a subject near and dear to my heart, I decided to make MBTAsux.
What it is: grabbing twitter messages and posting them in a format that allows easy skimming, in addition to extracting some data from the text.
The things I'm interested in:

    * Rudimentary sentiment analysis, i.e. how are people feeling about the MBTA right now?
    * Location tracking. I want to figure out where people complain the most. Control that for the "size" of the stations (Park and South Station would probably win the popular vote here).
 Things I've yet to implement that I think are essential:

    * Submission form, and a mobile version of it. You know, for people who don't use twitter.
    * Map. Alas, people are not really mentioning their exact stops when they complain. So there is a really small percentage of twitters coming in that would be mappable. This brings me to the next feature:
    * A nano-format for complaining about the MBTA on twitter and other media. Something like: s:kendall someone just played the Marseillaise on the hanging pipes #mbtasux

      How I wrote it:
          o Python
          o Google App Engine
          o Latest version of the code will be released soon under a BSD license.

      Enjoy!
 <comment><AUTHOR> For those who don't know, the MBTA is Boston's public transportation authority, running subways, busses, commuter rail, and the like.

To say the least, many people are unhappy with the way it is operated. So, as a subject near and dear to my heart, I decide to make MBTAsux.

What it is: grabbing twitter messages and posting them in a format that allows easy skimming, in addition to extracting some data from the text.

The things I'm interested in:

        * Rudimentary sentiment analysis, i.e. how are people feeling about the MBTA right now?
        * Location tracking. I want to figure out where people complain the most. Control that for the "size" of the stations (Park and South Station would probably win the popular vote here).

Things I've yet to implement that I think are essential:

        * Submission form, and a mobile version of it. You know, for people who don't use twitter.
        * Map. Alas, people are not really mentioning their exact stops when they complain. So there is a really small percentage of twitters coming in that would be mappable. This brings me to the next feature:
        * A nano-format for complaining about the MBTA on twitter and other media. Something like: s:kendall someone just played the Marseillaise on the hanging pipes #mbtasux

          How I wrote it:
              o Python
              o Google App Engine
              o Latest version of the code will be released soon under a BSD license.

          Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER2> I used to hate MBTA until I moved to London. The system is much more poorly maintained here, and the fact that it's bigger is no excuse. Only in London will you hear an announcement like "All lines except the Northern line are operating with severe delays." On top of that it used to be twice as expensive per ride [1]. However, it is in human nature to complain about everything. :) [2]

For example, if you happen to take the Circle Line or any of the lines it shares tracks with, it is common that the train would stop 1-3 times between stations, because of "traffic" ahead. Something like that would be very rare on the MBTA, even on the Green Line.

[1] Now it is 1.5x more expensive, only because of exchange rate fluctuations. The cost has not changed in terms of average British income.

[2] See fmylife.com

<comment><AUTHOR> The main goal I have is to be able to figure out what it is that triggers the most ire. People will always complain, but something like this will let the MBTA prioritize appropriately, not just based on what a committee decides is most important.

Re:the tube: The older a system is the more complaints. The london underground is the oldest system in the world, and one of the reasons for traffic is the tiny horrible tunnels that they are constantly trying to prevent from caving in. The MBTA is America's oldest system, though it isn't really plagued by antiquated anything anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What do you use to calculate the Rage Meter (and mood in general)?

I've seen mood calculation before on ConceptNet: <http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/conceptnet/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently there is only one mood tag "angry", which is handled with keywords and some simple rules. With more data, more complex and interesting rules can be derived.

Then the rage quotient is calculated, i.e. what percentage of people are angry (actually, it takes the number of angry posts in the sample and divides by half the sample size). The quotient is then mapped unto a list of verbal descriptions. This means that I can add or remove description as needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like twitter only. But I think there might be a niche for this kind of watchdog - branding. Better than surveys.

Don't know about monetization, but certainly solves a pain!

</comment><comment><USER5> where's the silver line? surely that generates plenty of hate.

<comment><AUTHOR> People don't seem to post about it! If they did, I'd be catching it.

Besides the fact that it takes a really long time for it to arrive, I haven't had many problems with it.</comment></comment>


Graph of game of Thrones all seasons score on rotten tomatoes - <AUTHOR> https://kyso.io/helenadomo/game-of-thrones-ranking <comment><AUTHOR> When do you think it started to get worse? during season 4, 5 or 6?</comment>