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Collection of classic computer science algorithms written in JavaScript - fogus
https://github.com/nzakas/computer-science-in-javascript/
======
jashkenas
A while back, I translated a few of these into CoffeeScript as examples for
the repo. They're pretty fun:
[https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/tree/master/examp...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/tree/master/examples/computer_science)
------
mthomas
I question the inclusion of bubble sort especially two versions of it. I worry
that people are more prone to using bubble sort, because it's conceptually
simple.
~~~
xyzzyz
This always strikes me as odd. Personally, had I heard about it, I would never
come up with bubble sort myself, nor any of my friends I asked about it. The
most intuitive sorting algorithm is obviously selection sort. I'd even say
that merge sort is more conceptually clear than bubble sort. Bubble sort is
not much easier to implement than selection sort either. It has no interesting
properties which make it worth considering (unlike, for instance, insertion
sort). The only possibility of one knowing bubble sort is by hearing about it
on algorithms classes, and in that case one already know heapsort and
quicksort, so that there is no need for bubble sort. To sum up, I fear bubble
sort in production much, much less than, say, selection sort.
~~~
kenjackson
Try asking 10 colleagues to right now write bubble sort on the white board. I
bet at least half write some sorting algorithm that is not bubble sort. In
contrast, if you ask these same 10 to do quicksort, you'll end up with 10
quicksort implementations.
~~~
mdwrigh2
You place a lot of confidence in your colleagues to claim that any arbitrary
ten of them will come up with quicksort :)
------
xpaulbettsx
The Google Closure library also has quite a few data structures + algorithm
implementations as well across different domains (2D affine transformations,
tree implementations, etc), I highly recommend checking it out
------
OwlHuntr
Aww, c'mon. I was just coding something like this :(. Always beaten to the
punch.
~~~
joeyrobert
It doesn't mean you can't code it too. It's a great learning exercise,
regardless of who got there first!
------
lbolla
The implementation of the binary_search algorithm
([https://github.com/nzakas/computer-science-in-
javascript/blo...](https://github.com/nzakas/computer-science-in-
javascript/blob/master/algorithms/searching/binary-search/binary-search.js))
is bugged by the infamous ([http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-
extra-read-...](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-
all-about-it-nearly.html)) "integer overflow" bug:
middle = Math.floor((stopIndex + startIndex)/2);
~~~
Tuna-Fish
No, it's not. Because JS has no integers -- stopIndex and startIndex are
doubles.
~~~
kenjackson
So then the less infamous double overflow problem. :-)
~~~
tybris
I dare you to make an array of length 2^52 in Javascript.
------
Ryan_IRL
Not that I don't appreciate these examples, but they shouldn't have to be in
javascript for somebody to learn the algorithm. I've always learned more when
I've read some pseudo code (or another language) and implemented an algorithm
myself.
Also, to anyone planning to use these in code, please note the copyright.
Event though it's MIT, you still have to add the credit to your code. _sigh_
Gotta love copyright law ;D
------
edtechre
The recursive merge sort is not quite correct:
function mergeSort(items){
if (items.length == 1) {
return items;
}
var middle = Math.floor(items.length / 2),
left = items.slice(0, middle),
right = items.slice(middle);
return merge(mergeSort(left), mergeSort(right));
}
You don't need to run merge on the left and right partitions every call. You
only need to do that if the left partition's last element is greater than the
right partition's first element. Otherwise, you can just append the right
partition to the left, since they are already in sorted order.
~~~
jules
Why does that make the algorithm incorrect? At most your method might be
faster, although I doubt it because the probability that the left's last is
greater than the right's first is small and gets exponentially smaller as the
length of the sequences you're merging increases.
~~~
edtechre
It /might/ be faster? What? Do you fully understand the invariant of the
algorithm? The left should always be less than the right partition. There's no
need to re-merge them each call. As it is, you are always comparing all
elements in the left and right partitions with the merge when you don't have
to!
~~~
jules
I believe you're confused between mergesort and quicksort. Can you post the
code how you'd code mergesort?
~~~
edtechre
Nope. What I said is still true. Here is my code in Java:
public List<Integer> mergeSort(List<Integer> list) { // Base case // If list
has one (or less) element, return list as is int size = list.size(); if (size
<= 1) { return list; }
// Partition list in half
int m = size / 2;
List<Integer> left = new ArrayList<Integer>();
List<Integer> right = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for (int i = 0; i < m; i++) {
left.add(list.get(i));
}
for (int i = m; i < size; i++) {
right.add(list.get(i));
}
// Recursively merge sort each partition
left = mergeSort(left);
right = mergeSort(right);
// If the last element of the left partition is greater than the first element of the right partition
// The left and right partitions need to be rearranged
if (left.get(left.size() - 1) > right.get(0)) {
return merge(left, right);
// Otherwise left and right partitions are in the correct order
} else {
left.addAll(right);
return left;
}
}
protected List<Integer> merge(List<Integer> left, List<Integer> right) {
List<Integer> result = new ArrayList<Integer>();
// While both containers are non-empty
// Move lesser elements to the front of the result, and remove them from their containers
while (!left.isEmpty() && !right.isEmpty()) {
if (left.get(0) < right.get(0)) {
result.add(left.remove(0));
} else {
result.add(right.remove(0));
}
}
// The container that still has elements contains elements greater than those in the other container
// It is assumed that the elements in the container are also already sorted
// So the non-empty container's elements should be appended to the end of the list
if (!left.isEmpty()) {
result.addAll(left);
} else {
result.addAll(right);
}
return result;
}
~~~
jules
That's what I'm saying. It's a minor optimization of the mergesort algorithm,
and it's not the usual way that mergesort is presented. And I'm skeptical that
it's really an optimization. Have you benchmarked it?
This condition is going to be true most of the time:
left.get(left.size() - 1) > right.get(0)
As the lists get longer (where this optimization could pay off), the condition
is more and more likely to be true.
For the case of nearly sorted lists, it could be an important optimization.
But to say that the original mergesort is incorrect is not true.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Most flexible open source e-commerce platform? - anujkk
I'm exploring about open source e-commerce platforms for one of my e-commerce ventures. Please suggest me which one is best in terms of -<p>1. Flexibility in customization.<p>2. Simplicity in UI/UX.<p>3. Active community.<p>4. Plugin architecture and available plugins.<p>5. Technology - PHP or Python
======
samzhao
If your experienced with PHP, I'd highly recommend litecommerce which runs on
Drupal. It's relatively flexible to customize; it's extremely simple in the
front-end - in fact I fell in love with litecommerce mainly because of its UI.
Well, the community is not as active as other platforms, but the the drupal
community can definitely make up for it. I believe it does utilize a plugin
architecture. It has some pre-made plugins that you can use. Although a lot of
common features need to be achieved with plugins, but they are quite
accessible. One thing to note is that it only runs on PHP 5.3 or above.
And if you are more experienced with Python, you can find a lot of flexible
platforms that run on Django.
------
valuegram
It's been a few months since I utilized Magento in a project, but I was very
impressed (from a end-user perspective) with its UI/UX and feature set. It's
based on the LAMP stack and has a very active community and a variety of plug-
ins.
The downsides were that it is a little bloated, and the code isn't extremely
well documented or developer friendly.
Of course that was a few releases back, and I'm sure a lot has changed since
then, but I would definitely recommend you at least see if it meets your
needs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How about learning f***ing programming? [9min video] - yogsototh
http://vimeo.com/49324970
======
krigath
I guess she makes some good points.
I'm a 4th year student at the University of St Andrews[1], Scotland. We were
introduced to both refactoring and unit testing quite early, and there has
been a strong emphasis on design decisions throughout.
[1] #2 for CS in the UK for according to the Guardian league table for 2013:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2012/may/22/univer...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2012/may/22/university-
guide-computer-sciences-it)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: How to run a startup for $6 a year - shrutigarg06
Use this stack.<p>1. DynamoDB for database<p>2. AWS Lambda for backend<p>3. Netlify / Now / Surge for frontend<p>4. S3 for file/image hosting<p>5. Cloudinary for image hosting<p>6. IFTTT to webhook for cron<p>7. RedisLabs for queues, cache<p>8. Figma for designing and prototyping<p>9. Porkbun for $6 .com domains<p>10. Cloudflare for DNS<p>This setup is enough to handle ~1M/requests month, more or less, depending on the application.<p>If you are getting more traffic than that, your startup will be making money so you won’t mind upgrading. :)
======
mooreds
Does this count network egress costs (for s3, lambda)? Those are hard to
calculate but can add up. Also, you can uses sqs for queues, that has a pretty
big free tier.
Finally, I think that bending the architecture of your app around what's free
is not the best idea, especially if you are trying to get something out there
to see if there is customer demand. (And doubly of you haven't built a cloud
native app like is outlined here.)
In my mind the best way to build software for a startup is to build it using
what you know as fast as you can. Avoid technical risk, because you have a
boatload of business risk.
For me, that'd be using rails on heroku, which is still under $200/year for a
fully functional dyno and database. For others it might be some varient of a
mvc framework on a hosting provider. For others it might be WordPress (gasp!).
For others it might be a cloud native app, as this post describes.
As long as you aren't spending extravagantly, time is more important than
money when figuring out what your customers need.
This is true both in companies that have raised money and bootstrapped
companies, for different reasons. For the first, you took money and need to
figure out your product market for or scaling strategy ASAP. For the second,
your time is super valuable because it is tied to your motivation. Doing work
directly tied to customer value is a great motivator. (Doing other fun
technical things that don't deliver customer value is a good way to learn
things, but a bad way to run a bootstrapped business.)
~~~
mark_l_watson
I agree, for web apps with modest user requirements, Heroku is great. I am
just running static web sites right now but if I start a new project I would
probably start with Heroku. Their always on hobbyists dyno is $7/month and
adequate.
If you ever grow your customer base it is not that difficult to move to
directly using AWS, GCP, Azure, DO, etc.
------
JanAcai
In most cases it doesn't make a difference if you have costs of $6 or $60
annually, it's still marginal. I'd say speed it's way important - use the
tools you know.
It's better to create a startup in 6 days than for $6/yr.
------
petercooper
The vibe I'm getting in this thread is people are recommending services that
are free for developers.. in which case, I recently discovered [https://free-
for.dev/](https://free-for.dev/) which is a mammoth list of such things.
~~~
ArtWomb
Wow mammoth indeed ;)
Section I was most interested in "STUN, WebRTC, Web Socket Servers and Other
Routers". I like the services like ngrok where you can just create a public ip
for locally running web servers from the ide.
------
andrewvieyra
Some possible alternatives/improvements:
The AWS S3 free tier is 5GB for 12 months, with 20,000 GET requests and 2,000
PUT requests. [1]
Backblaze B2 (AWS S3 alternative) provides 10GB of free storage (no expiry
date), and is part of the 'Bandwidth Alliance' [2] with CloudFlare. So aside
from some pretty generous daily transaction fees (of which 2,500 of each type
are free per day) [3], you could have your own free almost-cdn.
Porkbun currently have a 1st year (new domain registration) discount bringing
the $6 .com domain cost down to $3,90. [4]
[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/free/](https://aws.amazon.com/free/)
[2] [https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-
alliance/](https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/)
[3] [https://www.backblaze.com/b2/b2-transactions-
price.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/b2-transactions-price.html)
[4] [https://porkbun.com/tld/com](https://porkbun.com/tld/com)
------
pkalinowski
You can use Netlify DNS to simplify your stack. Cloudflare is not needed.
Also, Netlify provides Functions, which is Lambda abstraction. Faster to
develop.
------
utf_8x
This is cool for simple ideas but really doesn't scale with complexity, not
mentioning the 100% reliance on 3rd party services that could shut down at any
time and bleeding potentially sensitive data at every step of the way...
------
thiago_fm
I'd just use heroku and pay a bit more(or nothing if no users?), use plugins
for what you've mentioned etc.
The cost of running is marginal and if I'm lucky enough to get a lot of users,
I can easily switch to anything.
There is a lot of dev cost to wire up everything you've mentioned. Serverless
is very devtime-wise consuming, it's state of art tooling is still slow as
fuck if you compare writing an app using Rails/Django/etc.
IMHO dev time is what hurts more running a startup, this is what I would try
to reduce
------
pier25
> 1\. DynamoDB for database 2. AWS Lambda for backend 3. Netlify / Now / Surge
> for frontend
I'm evaluating FaunaDB with Zeit Now and so far it looks like a winning combo.
Zeit Now makes your dev much easier as all your application (front(s) +
backend) can be in a single repo.
I don't have much experience with Dynamo but Fauna includes authentication +
authorization out of the box and I think a more powerful query language. It
also has first class support for GraphQL.
------
quickthrower2
For marketing emails, Mailerlite has a generous and featureful free tier.
Zoho mail is damn good on the free tier.
Google forms / surveys.
GitHub of course!
Netlify is also a free CD / CI perhaps? You can run a script in a container on
every deploy.
For seo, semrush has a good free tier for keyword research. There are other
nice free tools like screamingfrog and keyword shitter.
Azure has some free forever tiers for functions and web apps but they are very
basic.
------
the_resistence
Thanks for this reminder. My new mantra when currently developing an idea is
"cheap MVP".
------
jacke127
You will spend more while supporting such a stack. If you have enough
experience just start with a production-ready stack, otherwise, youse cheap
labor force (PHP, Python) to build initial prototype.
------
federicosan
Do you own any startup that uses this setup? Could you please tell me?
------
bdcravens
Worth noting that the AWS services are typically free for only the first year.
(though assuming you don't exceed those limits, would only be in the low
dozens of dollars per year)
~~~
k__
Lambda is free as long as you stay under the (I think monthly?) quota.
------
Fudgel
> IFTTT to webhook for cron
Could you explain this one a bit for me
------
craftoman
I got the cheapest one, raspberry pi on my 100 mbps vdsl connection. Unlimited
bandwidth/storage for less than 2.88 dollars per year.
------
d--b
Yes and then AWS free plan rolls off and you’re going to be paying quite a lot
more!
------
terrycody
Wait, how you can be free to use Cloudflare if you get 1M requests per month?
------
duxup
Are there time limits on these like free for a given time?
------
reaperducer
That's not a startup. That's a hobby.
It's not a business until you register with various levels of government and
pay all of their fees, which instantly makes the $6 figure false.
------
segmondy
awesome, but startups are not measured by requests per month but number of
users.
------
polyterative
i remember buying a domain on namecheap for 1$
~~~
justaguyhere
As always, the devil is in the details. Was it a .com domain? I'm guessing $1
for the first year, is that correct? What is the cost from second year
onwards?
Many companies use deceptive marketing selling stuff for such a low cost that
it is too good to believe and it often is - you gotta read the fine print. I
got my internet connection for $75 and two years later, I am paying 108$ for
the exact same thing, with no additional benefit.
~~~
kakwa_
you can pick very cheap domains with some tlds.
For example, my .ovh is costing me around 4$ per year and there are probably
even cheaper tlds.
------
yesusalgusti
what about sending and receiving email?
~~~
utf_8x
With Mailgun[0] you can send 5000 emails for 3 months for free.
The Amazon Simple Mail Service (SES)[1] lets you send 2000 emails per day with
the Free Tier...
Sendgrid[2] gives you 40k emails for 30 days and then 100 per day for free
forever...
[0] [https://www.mailgun.com/](https://www.mailgun.com/)
[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/ses/](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/)
[2] [https://sendgrid.com/](https://sendgrid.com/)
~~~
hbcondo714
I still get 25K emails / month for free with SendGrid using Azure:
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sendgrid-dotnet-
how-t...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sendgrid-dotnet-how-to-send-
email#create-a-sendgrid-account)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Newest Androids will join iPhones in offering default encryption - bane
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/18/newest-androids-will-join-iphones-in-offering-default-encryption-blocking-police/?hpid=z1
======
gonvaled
Only the data physically on the smartphone gets encrypted. All information
(emails, documents, photos, ...) in the cloud is up for grabs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mastodon 2.4.0 - valeg
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/releases/tag/v2.4.0
======
willvarfar
Is mastodon getting mainstream?
I first saw mastodon a few months ago on HN where it was suddenly 'hot'. But I
had trouble finding any content to actually consume, and I didn't poke around
very long.
Hopefully that's changed and there's tons of interesting stuff to follow and
its easy to find?
~~~
Shank
In my experience, Mastodon is in use mostly not in America. Pawoo, Mastodon
hosted by Pixiv in Japan, has 375k users with 15m statuses, connected to 4k
other Mastodon instances. But it doesn't have any metrics about still being in
use, and their instance is mostly in Japanese. [0]
The biggest problem I ran into when trying to use Mastodon is the instance
federation wars. Instances were banning other instances left and right from
federating with each other due to content disputes (lolicon, "offensive
speech," etc). This kinda made it problematic if you picked an instance that
didn't want to behave nicely with the rest of the ecosystem, unbeknownst to
you.
[0]: [https://pawoo.net/about/more](https://pawoo.net/about/more)
~~~
Torgo
Part of the problem is that Mastodon doesn't have, and apparently the BDFL
won't implement, a built-in way of a remote server telling you that your
server is blocked (either as a sender or recipient of a message.)
Which is really frustrating when, you make a post; a user on a different
server boosts your post; a third party, which is on a server that normally
blocks your posts but can see posts from that different server, sees the boost
and responds to you. Not knowing that you can't respond directly back top
them. The network is so big now that this happens all the time.
~~~
mercer
Have you looked into how Patchwork approaches this issue? It's not quite
equivalent to Mastodon, I think, but I am fascinated by their approach to
'mapping' social relationships. Would be very curious to hear what you or
others with more experience on the matter think about it.
EDIT: to elaborate a bit. While I'm only just diving into these topics, I
can't help but feel that a fundamental problem in many cases is that many
problems of 'online social' have to do with a very unintuitive/inorganic
implementation that just fundamentally doesn't work well for humans. What I
found interesting about Patchwork is that it tries, to some extent, to
resemble the way humans 'naturally' interact.
Now I'm not at all opposed to experiments in augmenting the way humans
interact with others, but I can't help but feel that many of the things we've
come up with that are popular went too far in not considering human nature (or
intentionally messed with it). And perhaps a more constructive way forward is
to come up with 'online social' tools that start with a more conservative
resemblance to how humans have interacted for much of their history, and
iterate from there.
~~~
Torgo
When I have enough free time to block out, I'll be trying Secure
Scuttlebutt/Patchwork, maybe will write a blog entry about the experience.
Looks interesting.
------
Vosporos
[https://fediverse.network](https://fediverse.network) is a good overview of
the activity of the fediverse. There's even a secret endpoint, `/stats`, with
global statistics for all the known fediverse!
~~~
wut42
thanks :) I made that. It's not perfect yet but does the job :)
~~~
Vosporos
And the job is well-done. Nice graphs ;)
------
parvenu74
Is Mastodon the only high-profile implementation of OpenSocial? Given what
Mastodon does it seems like an Erlang/Elixir implementation would be right in
the sweet-spot of what those platforms do...
~~~
xj9
[https://pleroma.social](https://pleroma.social) is an ActivityPub server
written in Elixir
~~~
vasilakisfil
Wow had been looking for something like that last week on github but maybe I
should be using Google instead! Many thanks, you saved me a couple of months
dev time!
~~~
xj9
there are a lot of interesting projects that choose to self-host their git
server for various reasons. don't limit yourself to github esp if you're
looking for decentralization-adjacent projects!
------
jordigh
This is really silly, but I'm looking forward to being able to label my
Chocobot as a bot. Not that there ever was any doubt, but...
[https://botsin.space/@Chocobot](https://botsin.space/@Chocobot)
He was really easy to write in D:
[http://inversethought.com/hg/chocobot/file/tip/chocobot.d](http://inversethought.com/hg/chocobot/file/tip/chocobot.d)
------
cdubzzz
Some very interesting discussion[0] around the bot badge addition:
> If you run bots on Mastodon, you can now opt-in to display a bot badge on
> your profile. This works with non-Mastodon software, too, if the ActivityPub
> actor is of the Service or Application type. In the future, more features
> might be implemented to filter bot accounts or opt-out of interactions with
> them.
[0]
[https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/7391](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/7391)
~~~
jhoh
Yeah, very interesting...
"some bots are people"
"i want to use the bot badge and i dont want to be called not a person"
"Okay, I'm gonna show my hand a little: as a transhumanist, I object to the
implied conflation of "person" and "human". This is a situation where we can
afford to be forward-thinking and open-minded without a cost to current
functionality and, honestly, without a significant cost in terms of work."
I hosted a Mastodon instance until a couple months ago. It was stuff like this
that made me leave the platform.
~~~
haolez
For those who didn’t understand, these are actual quotes from the comments
section. One user goes as far as saying “I’m a robot and also a human”. Really
confusing.
~~~
kzrdude
Is there any reason to believe we should take those comments seriously?
~~~
jhoh
Check out the issue and read the comments. Then check out the profiles that
make these comments. Some of them have blogs that very actively discuss these
topics.
Again, I've been on the platform for some time. These people are dead serious.
~~~
djsumdog
I feel like Poe's Law has to come into play here. It's analogous to flat
earthers. We don't really know if they're just trolling or genuinely taking
themselves seriously without knowing the intent in their own heads (or some
other verifiable writing/posts to indicate they know they're trolling)
~~~
robotbikes
They we're just programmed to start trouble, don't hate the robot, hate the
code.
------
djsumdog
Has there been any discussion on how the GDPR affects EU citizens who want to
setup Mastodon instances that they allow friends to register on?
~~~
codefined
In a similar vein, if there is no feasible way to remove information from a
service (E.G. placing data in a blockchain), does that break the rules of
GDPR?
~~~
chatmasta
Probably, but who can get sued for it?
~~~
djsumdog
Anyone holding a copy of the entire blockchain ledger? Potentially?
I wonder if we'll see exchanges that will be unable to use EU servers/hosting.
~~~
chatmasta
Given that Citizens United set a precedent for “money as speech,” it would be
interesting to try such a case on the basis of free speech.
~~~
lokedhs
The GDPR is an EU law, and as such it is unlikely that anyone prosecuting
under it will pay any attention at all to what the US definition of free
speech is.
------
zaarn
Some comments on here discuss the Mastodon community and I hope I can chime in
a bit (as someone who runs an instance with fairly large reach although not
many users).
Mastodon should not be seen as a singular community, outside Mastodon there is
pleroma and GNUSocial, all projects do attract different kinds of people
(though GNUsocial and pleroma developers are often called out as nazis because
some alt-right instances use their software, not sure why that matters).
If you're looking for an instance, it's IMO important to discover the
community and general feel of it. Some instances will be very strict with
rules and generally boot federation with others fairly quickly, while other
instances will basically federate with everyone until they break some serious
rules or laws. (My instance is a mix, I have a lot of alt-right and deep-far-
left instances silenced on account of excessive spam or being way to
aggressive, though the instance I run is themed and politics in general are
frowned upon)
I think the second most important thing is to divorce the developers and
software from their community. Mastodon hosts a very diverse community and a
lot of niche, fringe or otherwise rather peculiar characters. A lot of them
are nice, a lot aren't, most probably don't care. The federated network is
what you make of it, follow people you want to follow and your timeline will
likely fill with stuff that isn't too outside of your filterbubble (though
there will be anti-filterbubble stuff)
If you don't like mastodon itself, I severely recommend to try Pleroma
instead, the developers for both projects are generally very enjoyable.
------
Moter8
Why does not a single link on
[https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/) (scroll a bit for the
example sites) work?
I tried 10 of them but none of them work?
~~~
xj9
[https://instances.social/](https://instances.social/) needs to up their game
apparently.
the pleroma instance picker seems like its giving more reliable results:
[http://distsn.org/pleroma-instances.html](http://distsn.org/pleroma-
instances.html)
------
phaedryx
The only thing I really use Twitter for is to get certain
updates/notifications. Is there a way to pull my twitter feed into a Mastodon
feed? I've done a little looking, but didn't find anything.
~~~
Royalaid
The best I have found is apps on android
[https://github.com/TwidereProject/Twidere-
Android](https://github.com/TwidereProject/Twidere-Android) is what I use
currently. For cross posting I use [https://moa.party/](https://moa.party/).
For I unified feed on web I am still looking.
------
rqs
One question: How to move my account from one Mastodon Instance to another?
I mean, if I was on 'Mastodon Instance One', now I want to move to 'Mastodon
Instance Two', do I need to register an new account on the Instance Two and
manually import all my data? Wouldn't that resulting a new Mastodon ID
(@myname@InstanceOne -> @myname@InstanceTwo)?
~~~
boyce
You can export and import your follows. Yes it would be a different account.
There is an option to mark your old account as "account has moved" and specify
where you've gone, which an app could treat as a redirect.
------
ben_utzer
Updated privacy policy is commmit #666..6 :-)
------
jaequery
Is there a SPOF for Mastadon? How does Mastadon handle database (multiple
masters, etc)? Genuinely curious if this is truly decentralized platform or
just a poor man’s open source social networking app with some RSS type of
functionality sprinkled on top of it, sort of like Wordpress in a sense in
terms of hosting it.
~~~
codewiz
Mastodon is part of a federated network called the "fediverse":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse)
The fediverse works by propagating statuses a set of standard protocols:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub)
Typical Mastodon instances have one or more frontends (Ruby on Rails) backed
by a PostgreSQL database (possibly replicated). Several cloud providers offer
managed PostgreSQL instances which mitigate the SPOF of using an RDBMS
backend.
Accounts of users are bound to the instance where they were created, but
recently Mastodon added a data export function that could be used to move an
account to a different instance. I doubt you'd retain your followers in this
case.
Unboundling user identity from instances sounds like a difficult researh
problem, given that users can upload considerable amounts of data.
~~~
billions
So profile can be censored by taking down the instance hosting it?
~~~
SolarNet
It's basically like email. As it evolves, people will deal with those issues
in different ways. The point is that unlike twitter people have options to
choose different instances that are unlikely to censor them.
~~~
sintaxi
Mastodon is hotmail & gmail, not email. Accounts are centralized and therefore
subject to censorship.
~~~
zaarn
You can setup your own Mastodon instance and nobody will delete the accounts
there unless you want it.
And it'll work with other mastodon instances.
Mastodon isn't hotmail or gmail it's an MTA+MDA, anyone can setup those on
their own servers and become reachable by email...
------
guiomie
"Progressive Web App" ... I just learnt a new thing today.
------
fareesh
Is anyone doing anything interesting on this platform that I can check out?
~~~
hnarn
That's a pretty wide order.
~~~
tomcatfish
That, from my preliminary checks when trying to buy in, is going unfulfilled.
It seems like no one wants to join yet another network just to wait for it to
get users. As some other people havenoted jn other discussions, Mastadon seems
to be either non-English or specialized in ways that don't apply to me at all.
~~~
CrystalLangUser
I've run into this myself, so I'm working on creating an instance that's a bit
more geared towards engineering / tech discussion. It's nyquist.space [1] if
you're interested.
It's not hosted on Mastodon but on Pleroma [2] instead so it's more barebones
at the moment. (But saves a LOT on cpu/memory resources)
Disclaimer: I'm the only user currently. :-)
[1]: [https://nyquist.space](https://nyquist.space) [2]:
[https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma](https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RyuJIT: The next-generation JIT compiler for .NET - darrenkopp
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/09/30/ryujit-the-next-generation-jit-compiler.aspx
======
jevinskie
> It’s not supported for production code right now but we definitely want to
> hear about any issues, bugs or behavioral differences that you encounter.
> Send feedback and questions to [email protected]. Even if you’ve figured
> out the issue or a workaround yourself we want to hear from you.
What a nice call to action. They even give you a specific email address to
contact instead of something generic like [email protected]
~~~
taspeotis
> They even give you a specific email address to contact instead of something
> generic like [email protected]
This isn't that uncommon on MSDN Blogs.
------
alberth
I really hope the StackOverlow team writes up a detailed blog post on the
performance benefits of RyuJIT.
The StackExchange network must be one of the largest .NET web applications.
EDIT: typo
~~~
Locke1689
Meh. Web applications are very rarely CPU bound.
Hopefully I'll get around to benchmarking the results on Roslyn, although the
results are a little bit biased as we have some incredible perf people working
on the product.
~~~
alberth
With all due respect, given that you work at Microsoft ... But this article
specifically talks about web applications being a primary use case for the new
JIT (RyujiT)
>>Quote: "But “server code” today includes web apps that have to start fast.
The 64-bit JIT currently in .NET isn’t always fast to compile your code,
meaning you have to rely on other technologies such as NGen or background JIT
to achieve fast program startup.
~~~
bhauer
I am all for fast web applications.
But I think there is confusion—or at least I am confused—about what precisely
RyuJIT provides. I know it provides quicker compilation times, which would
affect the start-up time for web-apps. But does it also provider quicker-
executing code? That is, does it do a better job with its optimization of web-
apps' code once compiled?
Yes, a quick-starting web-app is awesome for when you need to add or replace
nodes to your cluster. But I can usually suffer some warm-up time, even in
that scenario.
My opinion is that web-apps are _disturbingly often_ CPU bound and what I want
most of all is faster web applications. Not in start-up time (that's icing on
the cake, really) but in bottom-line request-processing throughput and
latency.
~~~
twotwotwo
The post's author commented: "Currently, we generate code comparable to JIT64.
Sometimes we're a little better, sometimes we're a little worse. (I'll post
some samples on the codegen blog as I get time) But we're just getting
started, honestly. I expect that we'll be generating better quality code in
almost every situation before we release a full, supported JIT (and I don't
think we're that far away today)." (That said, CPU perf of the JITted code
isn't everything.)
------
NicoJuicy
Offtopic:
I'm actually glad that a project of MSDN (aka. Microsoft) gets on the top
pages on HackerNews.
I've been a fan of Microsoft on some things they do (but not all). .Net is one
of them (Visual Studio). And i've almost never seen something like this rise
up on the popular topics section.
At least not with constructive comments like here in the topic.
So thanks, HackerNews community, you guys have made my day :)
~~~
BillyMaize
So many on HN treat those that write C# code as a sort of lower class of
programmers and I have never understood why. I have been writing HMIs for
machinery for over two years now in C# and the .NET framework with
intellisense is a great tool for getting the job done. I guess there are some
programmers that blunder through their career using only the most mainstream
languages but I make sure to work towards learning new languages all the time
so maybe I'm just a special case.
~~~
lmm
The C# ecosystem doesn't really interoperate with the HN world. There's a
bunch of friction around using it - I don't want to run windows (it's not
configurable enough and I'd miss lots of X features), so I'd have to use the
relatively weak MonoDevelop, and my dev OS/VM would be different from the
production one which would be a recipe for awkward-to-diagnose bugs. There's
probably a way to get the software for free but I'd have to start at least
thinking about licensing (and that means I can't just fire up a local VM in 30
seconds to test something). Maybe my cloud provider supports windows (though
it's unlikely to be as well-tested as their linux infrastructure), maybe not;
certainly windows is a second-class citizen for puppet. And what's the library
ecosystem like? I get the impression that open-source libraries are a lot less
common for .net; is there even an equivalent of cpan/pypi/maven central/etc?
I've got no objection to microsoft/MSDN; I'm a very happy typescript user,
because it slots straight into my existing workflow and there's a decent
eclipse plugin for it. But for a lot of these things you live in one world or
the other, and never the twain shall meet - and rightly or wrongly, my
impression is that more interesting software gets written in the "HN stack"
than in the "MS stack", which seems a lot more enterprise-oriented.
~~~
NicoJuicy
An equivalent of maven central, ... is Nuget. Windows is well tested as an
infrastructure, Azure is great and i think you underestimate it's potential.
I've seen PHP developers using Azure because it's more advanced then anything
else on the market (their words, not mine). Windows Server has an optional
GUI, powershell is Microsoft answer to get an advanced terminal, ...
They support open-source libraries, but it's not as popular as eg. gems. But
some are definatly worth mentioning: glimpse, elmah, stackexchange opensource
projects for detecting queries, ... Some of them are on codeplex, but i see
more and more change to the Github community (ps. git is integrated in Visual
Studio 2012 next to TFS).
Monodevelop is not weak, it's just a version later (if c# 5 is out,
monodevelop is at c#4, not "that" important for developping. Want the latest
gimmicks, well yeah, then it is).
Never used Puppet, so is that important? To test something, you can just
publish your project to your server (or Azure if you like), also other party
hosting is possible. You can also publish it on Amazon if you want.
Your comment on "enterprise-oriented" is correct, but mostly because there are
practicly no bugs on the stack... It's fast (compiled to the CLR) and stable
and it's a proven concept.
SQLLite => Local Database Gems => Nuget ActiveRecord => EF Functional
Programming => F#, lambda's, LINQ
But this is a good comment though. .Net (latest versions) shouldn't be used on
Linux at the moment. It could be different if it had more support of the
community though. I think Microsoft tried it first, they see there is some
kind of barrier and now they are (perhaps) letting it go, piece by piece
(don't know for sure).
~~~
lmm
>Azure is great and i think you underestimate it's potential. I've seen PHP
developers using Azure because it's more advanced then anything else on the
market (their words, not mine). Windows Server has an optional GUI, powershell
is Microsoft answer to get an advanced terminal, ...
I'm not saying these things don't exist, I'm saying they don't interoperate.
To get from where I am now to running on Azure/Windows would involve a lot of
changes that would put me in a worse position if C# didn't work out. It's not
something you can just dip in and out of.
------
topbanana
Excellent. Genuine innovation on a platform many had feared was abandoned.
My only regret is the confusing x86/x64 message. Many will interpret perf
improvements being due to the 64 bitness of new compiler
~~~
freikev
Can you expand on what you mean by "confusing x86/x64 message"? I'd love to
help clear it up. Are you saying that people will believe that the reason the
JIT is so much faster is because it's 64 bits? That's the exact opposite of
reality: 64 bit programs tend to be slower, because they have to manipulate
more data (all pointers take twice as much space, the Win64 ABI requires a
minimum of 48 bytes of stack per non-leaf function, etc...)
~~~
curiousDog
Do all 64-bit programs tend to be slower all the time though? I'd think it
would be faster because you're processing more data per clock cycle. Or is
that the x64 JIT hasn't been optimized to take advantage of the latest gen of
64-bit processors (I heard stuff about not making use of the latest Math.Pow a
while ago)?
~~~
groovy2shoes
> I'd think it would be faster because you're processing more data per clock
> cycle.
This is only true if you happen to be dealing with integers larger than 32
bits (rarely in most of today's code). The real performance benefit of x64 has
more to do with a larger number of general-purpose registers. More registers
allow (but don't guarantee) programs to spend less time accessing main memory,
thus gaining some speed.
~~~
curiousDog
Yes, I knew about the registers. I guess I overestimated the number of
applications that involve large number computations.
~~~
groovy2shoes
Or perhaps I underestimated them...
------
mbq
> _It’s literally off the chart!_ \-- I hope they are better at writing JITs
> than making visualisations.
~~~
apardoe
Mea culpa :) \--Andrew Pardoe [MSFT]
------
millstone
How does this relate to the normal .NET compiler? I thought .NET programs were
compiled at installation time, not JIT?
The reported performance improvements here are significant, but in absolute
terms still seem pretty bad. 200 MB to compile a big regex, or 1 second of JIT
time during launch, is a substantial burden.
~~~
jsmeaton
The compiler you're thinking of compiles to MSIL - bytecode. The run time
still needs to compile the bytecode into machine code, and this is what the
JIT is responsible for.
~~~
millstone
I guess I was thinking of the NGen compiler. My (very vague) memory is that
NGen is run at installation time. Is this run after NGen, or instead of it?
~~~
josteink
_My (very vague) memory is that NGen is run at installation time_
As far as I know, ngen is only used if you decide to use it. There's nothing
automatic about installed code being ngen'ed.
~~~
apardoe
Native image generation differs based on the platform. There is automatic
native image generation in Windows: see [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/hh691758.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/hh691758.aspx) for details. There's also Triton on Windows Phone:
[http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-005](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-005).
In the classic Windows Desktop case, however, you're right: you need to NGen
your code yourself or call NGen as a custom action from your installer.
\--Andrew Pardoe [MSFT]
------
MichaelGG
While that's nice, what about actual innovation in the CLR, like a more
expressive type system? Or access to performance basics, like SSE?
~~~
apetrovic
I don't understand this comment. .NET team isn't one man shop, there's various
teams working on various issues. Should JIT team stop working until CLR gets
"more expressive type system"?
Not to mention that .NET CLR features are mostly driven by CLR languages.
While there's couple of things that CLR can do what C# can't do, you can bet
that CLR will get new features when they're introduced in new C#.
And yes, SSE access would be nice.
~~~
MichaelGG
You're correct, and my comment isn't constructive. It's just that they added
features for CLR2, and then it's stayed there. C#'s been even more stagnant;
they haven't even gotten around to polishing the edges from the LINQ push.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Ok to use HN for our blog comments? - Bradosaur
Comment threads on Wordpress blogs across the internet are often low-quality, whereas people seem to be well behaved and insightful on HN. Is it okay to simply have a "Discuss this post on [Hacker News]" on every blog post?<p>Is there a posting rate above which this would be unacceptable? I don't want to flood the "new" section.
======
minimaxir
"Comment threads on Wordpress blogs across the internet are often low-quality"
I'd recommend switching to Facebook comments for your own blog if that's the
concern. It improves quality dramatically.
~~~
JeremyMorgan
Yep, or even better, Disqus. This gives people the option of using multiple
accounts they already have, and people are concerned with their reputation,
which always helps behavior.
~~~
Bradosaur
If I go with an in-Wordpress solution, it'll probably be Disqus. I initially
liked the idea of having a clean troll-less page for users who don't care
about commenting. Maybe this is just vanity. I also like having the entire
discussion in one place, instead of a thread on HN and another thread on my
blog.
------
1123581321
Your site will probably be banned. Instead of submitting, just check HN or one
of the unofficial APIs programmatically and append the discussion link to a
URL if that article is submitted.
------
27182818284
A link back to HN is generally enough when I'm on a blog post.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic - tomp
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/new-amazing-metal-is-so-hydrophobic-it-makes-water-boun-1680799039?amp
======
biot
This is blogspam. Original source was discussed here yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8921655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8921655)
~~~
dang
Thanks, we missed that one. Had the story not been discussed yesterday we
would swap the url, but in this case we'll bury the post as a duplicate.
------
nhayden
Better, non-gizmodo link:
[http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/superhydrophobic-
metals-...](http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/superhydrophobic-
metals-85592/)
~~~
RachelF
Here is what the actual pattern on the platinum looks like:
[http://scitation.aip.org/docserver/fulltext/aip/journal/jap/...](http://scitation.aip.org/docserver/fulltext/aip/journal/jap/117/3/1.4905616.figures.online.f1.gif)
------
jthurman
How vulnerable would this nanoscale etching be to damage? Would a scratch or
abrasion ruin its hydrophobic properties?
~~~
durkie
Almost certainly. I would also expect contamination (finger oils, for example)
to be a big issue.
(Source: I worked on and designed equipment for commercial scale-up of a
nanoscale superhydrophobic coating process)
~~~
toomuchtodo
Would not water (or any other solvent's) movement cause a scouring action that
would remove contaminates and keep the surface clean?
~~~
zenocon
I was wondering what would happen if you turned on a firehose and just slammed
it for a good length of time...how durable it would be? If they're planning to
use it on the surface of an airplane wing -- curious how durable the surface
is.
~~~
toomuchtodo
I was actually thinking about using this on the surface of titanium on a
catamaran.
------
joegosse
From the paper
[http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/3/10.10...](http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/3/10.1063/1.4905616)
it appears they have modeled the pattern after the lotus leaf
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect)
------
silvio
This will work really well. Some leaves use this same mechanism to 'self-
clean', which means that now we will have the ability to add the 'lotus
effect' to man-made objects.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHcd_4ftsNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHcd_4ftsNY)
------
Jailbird
Since reading Dune, I have been waiting for mankind to get around to making
this. It was just a matter of time.
------
s0rce
Worst title ever, this is not a new metal any more than printed paper is new
paper.
------
tormeh
About the plane wing applications... Wouldn't these micropatterns also have
some kind of impact on aerodynamics? Not saying it's even a negative thing,
but more research seems to be needed.
------
ctdonath
Durability? reaction to other biological substances? I'm thinking of
artificial heart valves and the necessity of preventing anything sticking for
upwards of 50 years of continuous use.
~~~
baddox
Regarding durability, the article says
> Instead of using chemical coatings they used lasers to etch a nanostructure
> on the metal itself. It will not wear off, like current less effective
> methods.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Goodbye Teflon!
------
smallegan
Making a hydrophobic urinal seems like an interesting prank.
~~~
jjoonathan
On the 2nd floor of Wean Hall at CMU somebody has sprayed a small patch of
hydrophobic coating on one of the urinals (I think it's the 2nd floor, but
definitely it's floor 2, 4, or 5). The stream normally turns into a "sheet"
falling down the back of the porcelain, except around the patch -- where it
hops off and turns into a thousand little droplets that bounce merrily down to
the drain. Unless the person who put it there keeps re-applying it, the
coating has had an impressive lifespan (at least 1 year in a semi-public
toilet). Anyway, if you happen to be in the area (and male) you can try it
yourself.
~~~
mhb
_the coating has had an impressive lifespan_
Probably isn't handled too much though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Tech Didn't Stop the New Zealand Attack from Going Viral - Reedx
https://www.wired.com/story/new-zealand-shooting-video-social-media/
======
ordu
Because of you, Wired. I didn't thought that this video is interesting enough,
but I feel pressure to find it now, to download and watch. You know, if I
didn't download it, maybe I couldn't see it ever. I've found manifesto
already, but cannot find a working link to a video.
It is you and other like you, who are heatening interest and who pour gas into
a fire, which techs are trying to put out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Graph search for Twitter - joeteplow
https://www.socialrank.com/
======
beastfromeast
Hey- I'm one of the co-founders of SocialRank.com.
We built graph search for Twitter --> allowing you to search your followers by
location, interests, verification, bio keywords and more. It is really
powerful.
It is great for brands looking for people but also really good for recruiting
(search "engineer" or "developer" in bio keyword) and business travel (filter
by a city when traveling there to see followers ) if you have a decent
existing follower-base.
We will be rolling out more networks and more filters in the near future. But,
I'd love the HN-community feedback!
You can also email me at [email protected].
------
minimaxir
Calling this a "true graph search" is misleading. This product seems to only
be a one-user-to-many-followers match, as opposed to one-user-to-many-
followers-to-very-many-users.
(also, please don't have sockpuppet accounts comment on this submission)
~~~
beastfromeast
Hey Max - if you request Market Intel you can do what you say.
Also- "sockpuppet"accounts are not me. The seq23 account is a friend that
actually likes the product. Just told her I submitted it to HN and she did
that on her own. She is a real person that runs partnerships at
@BlackGirlsCode (her Twitter handle matches her HN handle-
[https://twitter.com/seq23](https://twitter.com/seq23))
------
emhart
Dig it. The "Export to twitter list" functionality in particular. Being able
to not only sift through everything, but curate for the future is exactly what
I want. Good stuff.
~~~
beastfromeast
Woot. Thanks. Yea- we see a lot of people use us to "find people" on Twitter
and then export to CSV or Twitter List or save the search to SocialRank so
they can pull it up anytime.
Thanks!
------
andrewbackerman
It's fairly recently that my Twitter following has grown to the point of being
too unwieldy to manage on my own but so far, SocialRank has helped a lot.
~~~
beastfromeast
Thanks man. Any specific ways you've used it?
------
EGreg
I like it! Something like this didn't exist already?
~~~
beastfromeast
Thanks! Not really. I mean you can sort of do some of this stuff with
expensive tools like Sprinklr or Sysmos - but my co-founder and I couldn't
find a really simple, log in right away and sort + filter your followers.
For us, we see a bigger idea around helping brands and people manage their
followers from all social media networks in one central location. Sort of like
a Hootsuite for Followers (Hootsuite is a central/location dashboard helping
you post to multiple networks, whereas we are the central location to help you
pull in your followers from multiple locations).
There are a ton of tools out there to help you figure out what time of day to
tweet and what content to push out. Then there are apps that help you do one
or two things but we haven't found this out there. Even if Twitter builds it
themselves, it will just make it easier for us to do a lot of this (we had to
build a lot of it from scratch)and add more networks (Instagram is next).
Thanks for commenting!
------
seq23
I think this is one of the most brilliant products I've seen in a long time.
~~~
beastfromeast
thankssss
------
jruffer
Nice
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Investment Advice from Hacker News - andy_ppp
Hello Everyone and Merry Christmas!<p>I have a feeling Hacker News will have some interesting thoughts on investment ideas over the next 5-10 years that are going to give good returns.<p>I would love to know your opinions on medium to long term investments, funds and companies expecting to outperforming the market and why you think this. I look forward to some interesting suggestions. I realise few people here are professional investors but I almost think it's better to get a more forward looking/technologists view of where we'll be. What are you investing in and why?<p>Finally and slightly tangentially it would be awesome if the HN community got to invest directly in YC companies; I'm sure there would a big demand from people here (even if it was only 1% or so) and it would make interesting relationships between the community and companies more possible.<p>Thanks and have a great new year!
======
gus_massa
Not useful advice, but a reminder:
"Never invest more than you can afford to lose."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops - GiraffeNecktie
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/policing-the-police-the-apps-that-let-you-spy-on-the-cops/240916/
======
ajays
The article mentions 2 apps, but I'm sure these are not the only ones. It
would be nice to know about others too.
One note of caution, though: some states are 2-party consent states, which
means, both parties have to consent to an audio recording. If you happen to be
in one of those states, and the cops find out that you've been recording them,
you can be in deep trouble.
On the other hand, sometimes just recording the cops in plain sight can get
you into trouble, as evidenced by Emily Good's arrest in Rochester, NY.
[http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110625/NEWS01/...](http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110625/NEWS01/106250325/Activist-
stunned-by-after-effects-of-event?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|NEWS)
~~~
Xurinos
Does that apply to activity recorded in a public area?
~~~
ajays
I'm not a lawyer, but: the cops can still hassle you even if you know you're
in the right.
Consider this case: [http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-08/news/bs-md-
herma...](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-08/news/bs-md-hermann-
police-wiretap-20100508_1_state-trooper-graber-s-case-camera) Eventually a
judge ruled for him, but imagine the heartburn over the prospect of going to
jail for 15 years. Some cops do not like being video-taped even in public.
Some will even pull a gun on you to intimidate you:
[http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/v-fullstory/2248396/wi...](http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/v-fullstory/2248396/witnesses-
said-they-were-forced.html)
------
baconner
I disagree with the headline. It is not "spying" to record the police in
public any more than it is spying for them to record you with a dashboard
camera. Both recordings should serve the same purpose - to create a record of
events that can be used to ensure the law is upheld. I don't see how any
honest law enforcement professional could disagree with this.
------
Mizza
I wrote these!
Got any questions?
~~~
Joakal
It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite
about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people.
Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).
~~~
Mizza
Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and
the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police.
But, there are lots of cops who use the software too.
We are not an anti-police project, we are a pro-data project! There are good
police and bad police, and we publish recordings of both.
~~~
andrewcooke
ok, so that concerns me, because i am not convinced that "more data" is a good
thing. more surveillance in general is, it seems to me, going to help those
with power rather than those without - they have more resources, for example.
what i thought was good about your app, from this article, was that it was
intended for the underdog - that something about the process to combine data,
say, was intended to provide a counterbalance to the abuse of police power.
but now you're saying you're neutral about it. that you're as happy for it to
be used by the police against others, as for others to use it against the
police. doesn't that mean that you're likely making things worse?
and what about other morally questionable areas? mob-justice, for example.
what are you going to do if a bunch of people start pooling observations of
someone they are calling, say, a paedophile, when there's no conviction
against them? or gays? or people of one race or another, asserting that they
commit more crime...?
just arguing that "more data is good" seems horribly naive. data a tool that
can be abused in many ways. if you're choosing how to shape that force, and
choosing well, great, but if you're going to ignore the moral responsibility
that comes with the data, what makes you think you are helping?
~~~
ldar15
Now imagine a world where anyone could enter a gps coordinate and height and
see the activity there, at anytime in the past. You think we'd have TARP? You
think we'd be at war in afghanistan? You think we'd have priests fucking
children? Lynchings? Drunk driving?
Many think this would be a dystopian future that forces everyone to conform. I
believe that if all those people who only pretend to conform were actually
required to conform, we'd suddenly see a great debate on what "normal" should
actually be.
Asimov wrote a story about this, and seemed to suggest that his view was that
the end of privacy would be a bad thing (but maybe I read it wrong).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past>
~~~
andrewcooke
[edit: i was wrong; it wasn't bradbury, i'm remembering the asimov work you
mention - an excellent story, i agree]
but it ignores the existing power structure. everyone knows that banks screwed
up - but who is in jail? same thing goes here: it won't be an equaliser; only
the little people will be punished. most people won't be using their viewers
to avoid a war, they will be watching infotainment on 3d tv.
if you don't explicitly challenge the existing power structure you implicitly
strengthen it.
------
jellicle
For full function, the ideal citizen filming app should:
\-- record audio and video
\-- upload it on-the-fly (as it is being recorded) automatically
\-- keep recording when the phone is locked or otherwise off/inaccessible to
others, as it may be taken away from you
Openwatch meets 1 of those requirements. Still waiting for something that
meets all 3...
~~~
Joakal
Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity. A phone
serial could be embedded or at least a phone make (mine does phone make.
Flickr enjoys this btw). Combine that with who owns the phone serial or used
phone make in the area (apparently some phones broadcast such information) and
the person can be identified.
~~~
Natsu
> Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity.
I question just how anonymous a recording of your interaction with the police
can be made. Surely the officers in question will recognize recordings of
themselves and have records of just who all they pulled over that day?
~~~
Joakal
It's more about capturing something that someone does not want to be seen and
later traceable back to you because you didn't know about your phone embedding
data into pictures.
Say for example, you caught me killing a puppy with your camera phone. I'm
your neighbour so you post the picture online with a hint to location via an
anonymous account through many proxies. There's newspaper frontpage outrage
and I'm outraged. I investigate and look at the picture file. Lo and behold, I
recognise the camera make as yours and know who it is. So it's not only police
that you want to protect yourself from.
Disclaimer: I like puppies though :(
------
Flemlord
I wonder if apps like this could be used to circumvent the recording consent
laws in certain states. Instead of having the phone/app make the recording, it
could transmit the video/audio stream to a central server in another state
where recording without consent is legal. Plus you wouldn't be at risk of
losing your recording if somebody takes your phone.
~~~
romey
I'd be interested to know if having an open phone line while speaking to the
police could be defended in court. Consider an app that didn't actually
_record_ locally, only streamed to a remote server (in a state where the
recording was legal) that recorded the conversation.
~~~
dmbass
Digitizing an analog stream is probably considered recording.
------
tocomment
Anything that uploads to a server should have plausible deniability built in.
What I mean is that it should still save locally the last 15 seconds of video
so that you have something they can force you to delete.
------
mikeash
What is the advantage of using this app as opposed to using the built-in Voice
Memos app and then turning off the phone's screen? Both approaches record
audio fine, don't show any immediate indication that recording is happening,
and at least with Voice Memos, I don't have an app called "Cop Recorder"
running if the police decide to get curious.
~~~
biturd
>What is the advantage of using this app as opposed to using the built-in
Voice Memos app and then turning off the phone's scree
I don't believe there is one. I emailed (CopWatch) a few weeks ago and have
not heard anything. One of my suggestions was to change the name.
I know of a person in which a novelty iPhone scale app was used as probable
cause to search their vehicle. He is a developer who wanted to see how an
iPhone app could act as a scale. Our estimations were correct, vibration and
position are used to make a very crude estimate.
The mere existence of this app angered the police and allowed them to justify
a full vehicle search, yielding nothing.
A name like CopWatch is a red flag, and I would not want to have an app of
that name on my phone if recording secrecy was my end goal.
The app does not upload in real time, but rather works like any other built in
app, recording locally, uploading at user instruction, plus needing data entry
prior to uploading. Given that we have all seen video of officers destroying
recording devices, or recording devices returned broken, it is important to
protect that function.
This app in curent form offers no protection against corruption in law
enforcement.
My best recommendation is to use UStream. It records locally if there is no
cellular or wifi connection. If a data connection can be found, it records
directly to the remote servers. You can delete the local file, and even the
local representation of the remote server file, but the master will be
retained when you login to the webapp. You must only protect your login and
password to the webapp, and all recordings made while connected through a data
connection should be safe for a sufficient period of time.
I should note, the above suggestions are only tested on iOS devices. I have no
idea if they hold true on other mobile platforms. The UStream deletion of
local files while retaining remote files could also be a bug, albeit one that
has been there for over a year now.
------
pasbesoin
The line of inquiry does not go solely in the direction you might initially
think. (Instead, think data collection and analysis.) Worth the read.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. will look at sudden acceleration complaints involving 500k Tesla vehicles - the-dude
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/u-s-will-look-at-sudden-acceleration-complaints-involving-500000-tesla-vehicles-idUSKBN1ZG1IL
======
mdorazio
I don't think I've ever seen a confirmed case from any auto maker that
unintended acceleration was caused by the vehicle itself rather than
improperly installed floor mats or driver error. Before anyone says it, no,
the Toyota case from a decade ago was never shown to be legitimate either. I
would be pretty surprised if this case was different and it should be
straightforward for Tesla to prove via data dumps from the vehicles in
question.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: See what the internet thinks about any topic, based on Google queries - ionwake
http://thehivemind.online/?startups
======
jszymborski
Completely broken in FF46 (Win 10).
[http://thehivemind.online/?poop](http://thehivemind.online/?poop) for great
laughs
~~~
carlob
Same on Safari OSX. How hard is it to make a form without a ton of needless
crap?
~~~
ionwake
Have you built anything similar in under 24 hours? I would love to take a
look. Thanks for the feedback regarding OSX.
~~~
erez
Is there any requirement that you can work on a "show HN" project for less
than 24 hours? Were you prohibited from touching it afterwards? I don't
understand this argument.
If you create something that is only working on Chrome, at least put "Google
Chrome only" in the title, otherwise this is a broken application that you've
just posted for the world to see.
~~~
ionwake
You failed to answer my question, but I will answer yours.
1) No, but it seems most of the world liked it enough to upvote it. 2) No, but
it was a low priority for me. 3) I did not know it only worked on Chrome, due
to the time constraint I was under.
------
Analemma_
What fun! I like the suggestion here for 'kindness' as a good first search,
but don't forget to try the inflammatory ones too! "liberals" and "gamergate"
seem like fun places to start.
\- Why the arbitrary 12-character limit? There are so many more controversial
phrases yet to try.
\- I seem to frequently get this error in Chrome when trying to submit:
"hivemind.js:62 Uncaught TypeError: arr.map is not a function"
~~~
ionwake
Hi ,yep there are lots of issues, I only started developing this yesterday- I
should be able fix it now, basically that occurs if no results are returned,
maybe due to censorship (if it is a harsh term).
[EDIT] The arr.map issue should be fixed now - thanks for the heads up [EDIT]
Also fixed text overflows in bubbles
~~~
Analemma_
Awww, mean old Google API. Why have something like this at all if you can't
look up flamebait?
I wonder if you could build the same thing with the Twitter API and a quick
clustering algorithm. That might even fit the spirit of the application
better: Google definitely curates its search suggestions, whereas Twitter
posts really are "the hivemind".
Still, this is cool. Thanks for sharing!
~~~
ionwake
Ah thanks, that is a good idea, I am unaware of any suggestion API in twitter
but I will look into it. I am unsure how I would approach parsing such a
volume of tweets. Fun fact, did you know that as you type characters into
twitter, your tweet gets saved to the DB and is accessible via the API BEFORE
you press the submit button? ^_^ , seems a bit OTT regarding bandwidth use.
My code is now open source and the repo for this is at:
[https://github.com/craftfortress/thehivemind.online](https://github.com/craftfortress/thehivemind.online)
I am just refactoring some of the files but it should be up soon.
------
nickpsecurity
I typed in Ada as in Ada programming language. That one will get obscure or
interesting results. Results: "is short for (Ada Lovelace?); is enforced by
(semi-accurate if DOD); _is bullshit_ (popular opinion); is invisible fallout
4 (used there?); is op (huh?); is missing fallout 4 (meant to be used for
gaming?). So, three answers are a definite hit, one way off, and two might
reveal a secret deployment that's a sign of things to come in gaming. Same
kind of results you get using the Ada compiler to assess program correctness.
Interesting...
~~~
teagoat
Ada is the name of a character in Fallout 4:
[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ada](http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ada)
~~~
tlarkworthy
'op' = over powered, in gamer speak. So, is the character Ada over powered in
the game Fallout 4? is the question people are searching.
~~~
nickpsecurity
BOOM! It all makes sense. The Internet crowds apparently converged on a game.
Now, I have to wonder if she enforces anything in the game or it "enforces" a
player decision they don't like. Also, there might be a scenario involving her
that people think is "bullshit."
~~~
kbenson
Considering 12 million copies of Fallout 4 sold in the first 24 hours of
launch, it's quite possible (if sad) that there's users of Google that know of
the game than know of Ada Lovelace (beyond having just heard the name once) or
the Ada language.
~~~
nickpsecurity
Thats... (weeps)... probably true. It might also be true once 99% forget
Fallout 4 exists.
~~~
geekstrada
Searching lovelace will make you weep too.
~~~
nickpsecurity
What the hell... Must be the 2013 movie. Everything on this search is
shallower than Shallow Hal.
------
ionwake
I am just updating the page so when you click on the speech bubble it actually
takes you to the google results, give me 10 mins.
[EDIT] The bubbles now take you through to the offending results.
[EDIT] Just some further information. I started building this yesterday and I
am now happy with the result. It works by sending CORS requests via a yahoo to
the google suggestions algorithm . I have now completed the project and am
happy with it, so any feedback or suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thank
you!
PS I posted this 6 hours ago, but it crashed, it should now be ok for a while.
~~~
alphydan
> Bitcoin
[is dead, is bullshit, is dying, is bad, is not anonymous, is the future]
seems pretty accurate :)
~~~
ionwake
Ah great stuff, they are curious arent they!
Here is another couple I just found:
[http://i.imgur.com/q4F7odF.png](http://i.imgur.com/q4F7odF.png)
[http://i.imgur.com/6lJEyeJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/6lJEyeJ.png)
It is is also useful for superficially judging game popularity - eg:
[http://thehivemind.online/?eveonline](http://thehivemind.online/?eveonline)
[http://thehivemind.online/?WOW](http://thehivemind.online/?WOW)
and companies:
[http://thehivemind.online/?nintendo](http://thehivemind.online/?nintendo)
The microsoft and google queries are ... different
------
hellbanTHIS
Try "Clinton", "Trump", and "Sanders" and be horrified/confused
~~~
nickpsecurity
Trump gives: is a Democrat; is love trump is life; is awesome; is right; is
good; is Mussolini. Based on three of those, I conclude the algorithm is a
fascist and correctly identifying with one of its own. This alliance with a
secret, state apparatus explains aspects of my Ada answer in another comment
where it was concerned with enforcement and had Fallout 4's trade secrets.
------
Kurtz79
Mindless fun:
Agile: "is bad, is dead, is not a methodology"
God: "is dead, is not dead"
Cena : "is dead"
Capitalism: "is good, is bad"
Google: "is Skynet"
Apple: "is better than Samsung, is better than Android, is a fruit"
42 : "is the answer"
~~~
dionidium
Facebook "is dead"
Twittter "is dying"
Quora "is dead"
Foursquare "is dead"
Snapchat "is dead"
Instagram "is dead"
Most of the apps I use are dead or dying.
------
jlis
GARLIC BREAD IS THE FUTURE!
[http://thehivemind.online/?garlicbread](http://thehivemind.online/?garlicbread)
------
nautical
[http://thehivemind.online/?ycombinator](http://thehivemind.online/?ycombinator)
------
unameee
[http://thehivemind.online/?apple](http://thehivemind.online/?apple)
------
Mossisen
[http://thehivemind.online/?cake](http://thehivemind.online/?cake)
------
TazeTSchnitzel
I typed in 'kindness', and my faith in humanity was reassured.
~~~
ionwake
[http://thehivemind.online/?hugs](http://thehivemind.online/?hugs)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Collison brothers and $1.75B online payments startup Stripe - fragmented
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9c8d9f7c-c000-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zLRSJUsg
======
tomasien
“We were the first people to work on Stripe, and chronologically that’s
interesting but so much of the great work that we do now, we’re a piece of it
but we’re not the most important piece of it,”
This is amazing. A huge part of my job right now is too find people who make
me feel this way - but it's remarkably impressive to find it put so perfectly
by the founders of a company like Stripe.
~~~
zt
That simple sentiment might be why working for them was so cool and why, as
just one proof point, PC is now a part-time partner at YC.
~~~
amirmc
For company culture at that. I can see why.
"... he thinks about hiring and company culture better than anyone else I
know." Via [http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-kat-yuri-patrick-and-
eli...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-kat-yuri-patrick-and-elizabeth)
------
omarhegazy
I find it funny that the Stripe founders have inspired and influenced people
by retracting from the cult-of-the-founder image that causes people to be
inspired and influenced by you. It's true that these guys aren't the most
important piece of the Stripe puzzle, but there's a reason FT chose to
interview the founders and no one else. The first guys _are_ the most
inspiring. And these guys tastefully make sure they don't get too self-
indulgent with that fact, making them pretty awesome people. Really a great
article, and these guys seem like humble, awesome people that can do
successful work on a billion dollar problem without tooting any horns about
it.
If you're looking for more inspirational founder articles, FT ran one on on
Sean Parker a while back shortly after the Social Network came out --
[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8383ab06-45e3-11e0-acd8-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8383ab06-45e3-11e0-acd8-00144feab49a.html#axzz2zMSvxfgU).
Sean's a bit more indulgent than these two. Then again he co-founded Napster
and was a major influence in Facebook, and it's bit hard to be humble when you
stuntin' on a Jumbotron (which is why the Stripe founders are so awesome for
being able to do that). In the end, he's still a massive problem-solver and an
entrepreneurial inspiration. I'd recommend it.
~~~
willieljackson
+1 for the 'Ye reference.
------
msie
Interesting to read that they used Smalltalk for Auctomatic, their first
company.
~~~
antidaily
Yeah. Wasnt DabbleDB smalltalk too? Picked up steam there for a little while.
~~~
grandalf
Nearly every week I lament the disappearance of dabbledb from the internet.
------
hyp0
Does everyone else have an FT subscription? I'm hitting a paywall...
~~~
namenotrequired
No paywall for me, but does this link work maybe? This has gotten me around
paywalls before.
[https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F2%2F9c8d9f7c-c000-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html&ei=HopTU-6mIcneOY37gPgK&usg=AFQjCNFGkxisCUnzEuNEal1HIcQ8jFWN9Q&bvm=bv.65058239,d.ZWU)
~~~
hyp0
Thanks for the link! Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me.
Maybe the paywall is because I'm not in the US (Australia).
~~~
namenotrequired
Odd, none for me from the Netherlands. Sorry I can't help.
------
pallavkaushish
>In another corner, white mattresses are propped up against the wall ready for
use by employees who need a place to stay when they are visiting San
Francisco<
Mostly this happens in early stage startups but continuing it at a level when
your company is $1.75B is absolutely phenomenal. The effect of this type of
culture is what attracts talented people and makes sticking around worth it.
I would personally kill to be part of an organization which brews a culture
like this.
------
jroseattle
Just read this after reading a short essay on the damage a narcissistic person
can have on the culture of a small company.
These fellas are a breath of fresh air. Here's to hoping these nice guys do
not finish last.
------
untilHellbanned
An article touting that these two young guys are worth $1.75B and then shows
pictures of their home address, WTF journalist? Seems way unnecessarily
inviting.
~~~
CamperBob2
They're trying to take some of the heat off of Dorian Nakamoto, maybe.
------
Killswitch
I love everything about this company... These guys are huge influences of mine
on both how humble they are, and where they came from to be where they are
now.
------
imc
pc's hair is fierce fluffy these days
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google : Facts about our network neutrality - dreur
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/facts-about-our-network-neutrality.html
======
jokermatt999
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1598737>
------
spooneybarger
Google's veil of not evil while always hyperbole has been pierced. At this
point, it feels like the moment in the wizard of oz when they see the man
behind the curtain.
~~~
supersillyus
Google is the great satan! Let us rise up, overthrow the beast, and bathe in
it's blood!
If you think they are evil, no amount of them saying otherwise will convince
you; that's what an evil company would say. I have my doubts about their
proposal, but from friends who have worked there and my public impression,
they seem more trustworthy than most companies, and their justifications in
the link seem relatively reasonable. I'm not ready to label them "evil" and
grab a pitchfork just yet.
~~~
spooneybarger
EDITED for 'negation overload':
I never believed that google was not evil. It was a myth that people talked
themselves into and at this point, it has been pierced and I don't think those
people will be able to go back. They aren't evil. Just a corporation out for
their own interests whereas before, many people saw them as a knight in
shining armor.
~~~
rodion_89
"I never thought they weren't 'not evil'"
Negation overload! I had to read that 3 or 4 times before I understood what
you meant.
~~~
spooneybarger
Good point there... edit time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacking Scrabble: Using a Python script to improve my game - zephod
http://blog.zephod.com/post/28118665268/hacking-scrabble-part-2
======
zephod
The discussion which followed part 1 of this article is here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3347720>
(I incorporated some of the things we discussed into this follow-up).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Rise and Fall of Quirky, a Startup That Bet on the Genius of Regular Folks - kanamekun
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/they-were-quirky.html
======
jeffgreco
I've only ever heard bad things about their products' build quality -- crazy
to me that a company like GE would want to align themselves with low-quality
manufacturing.
------
rgbrenner
dup from 6 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10215049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10215049)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Learn Emacs and Lisp with simple, bite-sized screencasts - ColinWright
http://www.emacsbites.com/
======
eyko
I like the approach (two birds with one stone) but the first bitecast has left
me the impression that I've learnt some emacs lisp and very little emacs.
Since total newbies are supposed to be the audience of this first bitecast,
I'll give my opinion as a total newbie...
From the video, here are the features of emacs that I've learnt by just
watching:
1\. Emacs will read your environment variables. You can override them as you'd
expect.
2\. You can override your HOME directory by setting the environment variable
to any path. From my point of view, it seems like too much work - will emacs
use your current working directory? Seems like it doesn't.
3\. C-x C-e evaluates.
Here's what I would have liked to learn, that I didn't:
1\. What shortcuts is the author using throughout the video?
2\. Basic emacs functionality: moving around, opening / closing files, saving
files... Granted I know some movement shortcuts because they're commonly used
in other contexts (C-a / C-e for begin/end of line, C-f, C-b to move cursor
forward/back, etc), there are many other tips we could use as newbies.
3\. Does emacs only evaluate lisp? Will it evaluate Python? Javascript?
4\. Although I know I can extend functionality, I'd love to learn about the
ecosystem (plugins or modules, what tools, if any, exist for plugin
management, etc).
~~~
forgotmyoldacct
2\. There's a built-in tutorial like Vimtutor for this, it's under the help
menu.
3\. Looks like you can use Python[1], but you'd better just bite the bullet
and learn a bit of Emacs Lisp, it's how you'll be configuring it anyway, and
it's unlikely that you'll need to program something too complex if you can
just fetch a bunch of Elisp from the net which does sort of what you want.
4\. Yes, from Emacs 24 and on it has a built-in package manager and
repositories.
You know what a good way to learn Emacs is? Reading the docs. No, really!
Anytime you request documentation for your buffer (C-h m by default), it will
be based on your current key bindings and modes, so it's a great starting
point to explore, as it'll tell you of all the shortcuts your active plugins
have defined.
As of late, I've learned more of the capabilities of the modes I use by
dicking around than by searching the web or reading manuals, as I sometimes
just start typing in the extended command shell (M-x), using IDO mode's[2]
fuzzy completion, and seeing what comes up. For instance, by typing "replace",
I just learned of query-replace, which prompts you before each substitution
for a string. Afterwards, I can run "M-x where-is" to see if the command is
bound to any shortcut right now, as I did with query-replace, which turned out
to be bound to M-%.
_______________________________
1\. [http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/index.html](http://pymacs.progiciels-
bpi.ca/index.html)
2\.
[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InteractivelyDoThings](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InteractivelyDoThings)
~~~
gavinpc
The built-in tutorial (C-h t) was extremely useful for me in learning emacs.
First, it's just a document that you can edit. You start at the very beginning
by navigating the document itself. You can save or discard your changes to it.
Second, it's marked up to show you when the key bindings it's talking about
have been re-bound. This wouldn't be an issue for a "vanilla" emacs, but is
useful with preconfigured packages.
By the time you get through the tutorial, the basics are second-nature.
More power to the videos -- just agreeing that the built-in docs are ample.
------
terhechte
I'm still in the process of switching from Vim+Extensions to
Emacs+Evil+Extensions. What I say now mostly applies to the Cocoa version of
both editors, such as MacVim and Emacs/Cocoa: What I like so much about Emacs
so far is the better editor component: Text can be a little bit rich:
\- Inline images are kinda supported \- There can be different font sizes \-
There can be styled (bold / italic) text.
So a good syntax definitions could have different background colors for code,
different foreground colors, different text sizes, different text weight /
italics.
I find this much more pleasant for the eye. In vim, all text has to be the
same size and all text has to be the same font. In emacs, you can even (with
some hacking, as I remember) have different color themes for different
windows/views.
If I'm looking at an editor all day long, I want it to look pleasant. Period.
Have a look at [https://github.com/jasonm23/emacs-soothe-
theme](https://github.com/jasonm23/emacs-soothe-theme) to see how beautiful it
can look.
Apart from that, the other reason why I'm trying to switch is that I wanted to
become better at lisp and I really wanted to have an editor that I can shape
like a tool to suit my needs. And I could never get the hang of vimscript. So
if I already learn a new language Lisp sounds like a better investment than
vimscript.
So far, I'm happy with emacs, though I can't use it for all my coding yet.
Most notably, it lacks a good Objective-C code completion. On vim, there's
YouCompleteMe, which does a formidable job of connecting with clang complete.
I started porting youcomplete me over to emacs a couple of weeks ago but had
to stop due to other priorities. I'm at a point now where I can get the
correct completions in emacs in a popup when I'm over a symbol or at the end
of a property (self.???). However, I still have to solve a couple of issues
and it is not ready for usage yet which is why I've never shared it. If
somebody knows a bit of emacs lisp, python, and objective-c and wants to help
out here, I'd be glad to share this project on Github.
~~~
fein
I rock emacs 24/7 for all code outside of xcode or android studio (php,
phantomjs scripts... anything not java or
objectiveCMethodWithAnIncrediblyDescriptiveButEffingLongName), and I've found
"calm forest" in the color themes package to be a wonderful general theme.
It's a great place to start for building in custom syntax settings for "less
supported" languages.
Godspeed on the project, and perhaps if I can get some time to force myself
into ob-c in emacs at work, I can help.
How does storyboarding work out, or are you just writing the markup directly?
~~~
terhechte
I'm currently only interested in native code auto completion as good as in
XCode where it understands the complete class hierachy and types half the
boilerplate for you. For Storyboards or Xibs you'd still need XCode. I've long
thought about a nice compiler from a simple text format to xib in order to
have better version management capabilities, and it may be reasonable now with
layout constraints to implement something like that, but I think storyboards
would be best done in XCode.
I'll comment on this thread again once I've shared the objective-c emacs code.
------
btipling
One problem for a vim user like me is emac's terrible first use experience.
The delete key doesn't delete, it opens up help [1] and quitting is very
difficult [2]. Also what people don't know at first start is which key is
their meta key. A key that is super important in emacs. That it gets this
first basic experience so terribly terribly wrong turns a lot of people off
within a few critical settings of having run the thing.
[1]
[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/DEL...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/DEL-
Does-Not-Delete.html)
[2] [http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs219/CourseNotes/Unix/emacs-
sta...](http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs219/CourseNotes/Unix/emacs-
startQuit.html)
~~~
fafner
[1]
> In some unusual cases, Emacs gets the wrong information from the system, and
> <Backspace> ends up deleting forwards instead of backwards.
[2]
That's not the case with the GUI version because it works like any other
application (File->Quit or the [x] button). In terminal it's a bit different
but it's not like vim is any easier here.
------
diminish
Does this run on elnode, the web dev based on elisp?
~~~
nic-ferrier
Yes. The github is here:
[http://github.com/nicferrier/emacsbites](http://github.com/nicferrier/emacsbites)
------
unknownian
Does Emacs support or have any extension that "tabs" the right amount of
spaces based on the programming language/filetype? I use Vim and it annoys me
that this isn't built-in, nor can I find any good script for it. I know I can
write it manually, but I want it for all languages.
~~~
6d0debc071
> Does Emacs support or have any extension that "tabs" the right amount of
> spaces based on the programming language/filetype?
Probably - I mean it depends what you want. Emacs is almost infinitely
programmable. If you want to set it up as a Python IDE then there're sites
like this telling you how:
[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/?action=browse;oldid=PythonMo...](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/?action=browse;oldid=PythonMode;id=PythonProgrammingInEmacs)
This is a quick clip of Emacs using Rope for instance:
[http://youtu.be/OMi-uN-6O1Q](http://youtu.be/OMi-uN-6O1Q)
If you want to set it up as a Lisp IDE then you're probably wanting to go and
install SLIME:
[http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/](http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/)
It depends what you want it to do, but emacs is an incredibly powerful program
and learning it pays off massively, in my experience. :)
------
wging
fyi, the 'why' link is broken due to a naming mismatch.
~~~
nic-ferrier
thanks! I've fixed that. Good catch.
~~~
ColinWright
Actually, the "contact" and "terms" links seemed also to come back to the same
page - you might want to check all your links thoroughly.
~~~
nic-ferrier
And again thanks. Fixed. The reason for this breakage is that I had to change
the name after it was launched (in a hurry).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Monetizing your brain (without writing code) - danilocampos
Hi HN,<p>I'd like to raise some cash but I'm not sure I want to do contract work. Writing code for money can be a big commitment. More than that, it's often just not fun. Few clients have interesting problems to solve and I'd rather build things for myself. (Besides all that, the offer letter I signed for my current employer makes me run any such projects past them, which is annoying.)<p>Have you had success in selling your skills, technical or otherwise, in a way that doesn't involve project work? Are these transactions fun and rewarding for you? Is teaching/tutoring the right direction? How did you fill your client pipeline?<p>I've only been in the Bay Area for eight months, so I don't have the strongest network to lean on. Thanks for your insight.
======
kls
I don't know your background but one of the things that I do is expert witness
for intellectual property litigation and tech relates legal proceedings. The
going rate is about $300hr and it is a pretty good gig. I do not do it on a
full time basis because I like to build stuff, but I do pick and chose cases
that I find fascinating it accounts for 10% of my work but there are enough
cases out there than I could probably scale that to 50% if I wanted to. It is
challenging work with high stakes involved but it can be very rewarding. I
don't know if you could fit it into a day job schedule though. Many times you
have to pick up and go for proceedings on fairly short notice. If you employer
would allow you to use personal time or leave without pay for it, it may be an
option.
~~~
danilocampos
That's really interesting. What qualifies you for expert witness work? How'd
you get into it?
~~~
kls
Generally you have to hold a bachelors degree or higher and be considered an
industry expert in a field. That can be relatively subjective in business
fields. For example a field like Medical is simple, you have to have an MD and
have practiced or done research in the specific subject matter of the case.
For technology it is not so cut and dry.
For me personally being a CTO at three companies serves as my main qualifying
credentials, even though the cases I take are deeply technical cases, cases
you standard "I have never wrote code CTO's" would be over there head in. I
have sold three travel related technology companies to some of the big players
in that space which furthers my creditably in high volume online transaction
systems, then there is obviously the specialist focus in travel technology. I
have been a speaker at several conferences including IBM's Impact on the
future of enterprise web and mobile technologies as well as rich internet
applications.
Those are the markets I tend to stick to and it is easy to prove my
credentials in those segments. While my list of credentials may look
impressive it is by no means the bar that you would have to meet to be
considered an expert. Competency, some business sense and networking is all
that one really needs to get into the market.
After a few cases you are established as an expert witness and those become
your credentials. As with anything else start small, take the cases the big
fish are passing up because they only need an expert opinion of facts paper
written or some other "lesser work" done. Those papers while not the same a
expert testimony (many cases don't require expert testimony, just paperwork),
do serve as creditably that you understand the legal process and understand
your role. Obviously case wins are important to your reputation but not as
much as they are to the lawyers.
I kind of fell into it, one of my companies was sued by Hotels.com, as well
there was a lot of pressure being put on various governmental agencies to
investigate our company for anti-trust violations. I served as expert witness
in defense of my company. We settled out of court with Hotels.com which
included the sale of the company to Hotels.com (it's how they negotiate)
before the case drew to a conclusion. Anyway, a while later I received a call
out of the blue from a legal group that was representing a client in a similar
situation and was asked if I would serve as an expert witness, from there it
just snowballed.
It is a pretty easy market to get into. Cold call, buy some lawyers lunch,
give them a packet with your info and the types of expert information you can
provide and ask them to network you in their network. Pay a commission if they
hook you up with another firm.
Finally if you a serious about getting into the field of expert witness they
you should get the book "A-Z Guide to Expert Witnessing" it is an expensive
text but it is well worth the money. It has every piece of information that
you will ever need to become a successful expert witness.
------
jdc
I think that a better title for this post would be "What non-coding skills are
in demand in the Bay area?"
~~~
danilocampos
I could see the merits of phrasing it that way, though the answer could just
be "babysitting" and I know that's not what I'm after. Besides, that cuts
everyone not in the Bay Area out of the discussion, and smart people are
everywhere.
I'm more interested in unique ways technical people have sold themselves
without getting hooked on lengthy coding projects. There may be useful
inspiration from people smarter than I.
------
awa
Stock market could be one such avenue, also sometimes utilizing your brain or
other skills to save money can also help (cooking instead of eating out)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Learn about security from free online training - joebasirico
http://www.securityinnovation.com/products/security-summer.html
======
joebasirico
Hey, submitter of the above link here. I had a hard time coming up with a non-
spammy sounding title for this submission, but my company, Security
Innovation, does a lot of application security work and has created some very
cool eLearning.
If you're interested in learning about security this is a great (free) place
to start. There are six courses that will be given away for free. I encourage
you to check them out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anyvite takes aim at the Evite juggernaut - jmorin007
http://thestandard.com/news/2008/08/06/anyvite-takes-aim-evite-juggernaut
======
fallentimes
Based on usability alone, it's not even a competition. The biggest hurdle is
getting people to change their ways. Last time I checked more people used
yahoo mail or hotmail than gmail. Luckily, anyvite has built in advertising
(of the the Anyvite product) any time someone uses it to hold an event.
------
netcan
I never use Evite (no one evites me either) so I may not 'get it'. But I don't
think anyvite necessarily needs to get people to switch (though maybe
declaring war is probably good for PR).
There is potential in the many people who have never used evite. I think
anyvite has more of a chance for after work drinks or meals (maybe you need to
reserve a table) an other casual & short notice stuff like that. It's probably
good timing for a second wave of this kind of thing as mobile internet is
getting a critical mass.
------
fourlittlebees
Evite is a complete pain to use, and confusing to anyone who's never used it
before. I think the bar here was set pretty low.
~~~
akd
The bar for the _product_ is certainly low. The bar for _adoption_ is a much
tougher challenge... hopefully Anyvite figures out a way to handle it.
------
jawngee
I _heart_ anyvite. I use it weekly to organize a poker game.
(If there are any NYC HN people who play 1-2/2-5 NL, give me a holler).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Rules to live by - yarapavan
http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2010/rules-to-live-by/
======
yarapavan
Rules to live by:
* You must not dilly-dally.
* You must be your word.
* You must have good intentions.
* You must admit to being the maker of meaning.
* You must not feel sorry for yourself.
* You must have a vision that you are striving for.
* You must tie creativity and experimentation with survival.
* You must be the change you want to see.
* You must rally others with your vision.
* You must stake your reputation on your better self.
* You must be comfortable with the consequences of being who you are.
* You must share.
* You must make your own advice and take it.
* You must manage your stress, health, and clarity.
* You must study your mistakes.
* You must retry things you don’t like every once in a while.
*You must make time to enjoy things.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yesterbox - bouncingsoul
http://yesterbox.com/
======
Fuzzwah
Every time I read one of these articles which go into great depth about
tricks, systems or processes for dealing with email I'm left feeling amazingly
glad that I don't have this problem.
My work email inbox receives about ~10 emails a day. Of which maybe 2 will
need a response from me.
I use (and love) gmail's new primary / social / updates / etc setup. I read
everything (~5 a day) that comes into my primary inbox and reply to the few
which need it. The other folders I read the ones which look interesting and
let the others stay unread.
------
millstone
In case the author is reading this: This article was unreadable on my phone
(iOS7) because the "share" buttons obscured the leftmost five or six letters
on each line.
------
ocfx
I wish I worked in an environment where I could respond to emails a day later
lol.
| {
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Making The Call: Vertex's Cystic Fibrosis Trials Will Succeed. Here's Why. - Mz
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12717763/1/making-the-call-vertexs-cystic-fibrosis-trials-will-succeed-heres-why.html
======
Mz
This sort of turns my stomach, in part because it is a crazy expensive drug
(about $250,000/year/patient), but I thought it might be interesting from a
business/biotech perspective here on HN.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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IRS just declared war on Bitcoins - tn13
https://fee.org/articles/the-irs-just-declared-war-on-bitcoin-privacy/
======
scott_c
Did you actually except to be able to exchange an unlimited amount of money
without having to declare it on your tax returns?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Clojure? I’ll tell you why… - ertucetin
https://medium.com/@ertu.ctn/why-clojure-seriously-why-9f5e6f24dc29
======
Annatar
"Clojure is a functional programming language, that runs on JVM"
...which means that the party is over: anything that I cannot permanently
compile into straight machine code and generate a binary executable will have
a double performance penalty: once to process the bytecode, and once to just-
in-time compile it. Why would anyone in their right might settle for that?
Please wait - compiling the planet... that's insane. It's far better to stick
with one of ANSI common Lisps and get incremental, instantaneous compilation
to straight machine code for any expression which evaluates.
~~~
markc
Someone ought to tell the 9 million Java developers that they're using a
failed platform.
~~~
safafvet
They don't listen :(
| {
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Where the f*** can I park? - hk__2
http://blog.manugarri.com/where-the-f-can-i-park/
======
chrisan
Not as cool as finding a street spot in a neighborhood but I recently visited
family in Columbus, OH where they had a parking garage that helped you find a
spot. This was a very popular shopping area when the weather is nice and can
be a madhouse finding a parking spot.
Prior to entering the garage: XX spots available sign
Upon entering the garage: X spots level 1, Y spots level 2, Z spots level 3,
etc
Upon picking the floor of your choice: Signs above each row with # of spots
available.
So essentially I drove to a floor with a decent amount of spots available then
was guided to a row with 3 spots left and parked easily and efficiently, no
more mindlessly driving up and down lanes/floors adding to congestion. I tried
to find the company in charge of the tech but the wife had more pressing
matters to attend :)
I'm sure its been around a while or in other places, but this was the first I
have seen and experienced it
~~~
dormento
This is standard on shopping malls in Brazil. Helps a ton. Another cool thing
(and I don't know if this is standard) are these small red/green lights above
each spot, allowing you to see from far away if that particular spot is taken
or not.
~~~
raihansaputra
The red green spot is really useful until a small car comes or the sensor is
broken. But nonetheless it's really cool. I wonder what they use for the
sensor. Light sensor? Magnetic?
------
sibbl
I'm part of a open data group project over here in Europe, specifically
Germany. We use open data (or scrape it and make it open this way) to offer
open source apps including real time data and do machine learning for
forecasting of public parking spaces:
[http://parkendd.de/en/](http://parkendd.de/en/)
~~~
Sujan
[https://developer.android.com/images/brand/en_app_rgb_wo_60....](https://developer.android.com/images/brand/en_app_rgb_wo_60.png)
on your homepage is 404
~~~
sibbl
Yeah, I also noted this when I visited the page after posting the comment ;)
Interesting that Google didn't use a 301 redirection to the new button
graphics...
~~~
Sujan
Probably by design, in the usage terms it probably says (too lazy to look it
up...) you shouldn't link directly to that but host a copy yourself :p
| {
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} |
Grateful Dead Lyricist Robert Hunter Dies - RBBronson123
So sad about the death of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter https://rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robert-hunter-grateful-dead-dead-889788/ . In so many ways, his were the lyrics of my youth--the very best part of it. "Let there be songs to fill the air."
======
marmot777
Let there be songs to fill the air.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MATLAB code relicensed under BSD license - skorks
http://www.aravind.name/matlab-code-relicensed-under-bsd-license
======
fragmede
Misleading title; The code for Mathworks product, MATLAB is not being
relicensed. A previously GPL'd ".m" file is being forced to relicense as BSD
in order to stay listed on MathWorks' website.
------
apgwoz
> This led me to express my frustration to my brother who makes his living
> writing proprietary software. After a lengthy argument, Yaadi Yaadi Yaaaa,
> he convinced me that BSD license is much more effective form of open-source
> license compare to the GPL for my particular case. Since I have no interest
> in maintaining my code anymore, it would be beneficial to release my code as
> a BSD license because there is a possibility that someone paid to write
> codes will maintain it (unlike me).
But, the GPL doesn't require that the original maintainer be the only one who
can maintain it, so I don't see how this is convincing. The GPL just says that
if you modify it and distribute it, you have to distribute your changes as
well. So, perhaps there's fragmentation, or whatever, but people are at least
obligated to contribute. The BSD license allows a company to take advantage of
all your hard work for it's own gain without requiring it be rereleased...
Fine I suppose, but I want contributions.
~~~
dantheman
If you want to use that code as part of a larger project then the GPL will
prevent you from using it at your job, whereas BSD will allow you to leverage
the code and you can still release your updates to community.
BSD is a truly free license, you give people to freedom to do whatever they
like.
~~~
apgwoz
Right. It is. But, what I'm saying is that BSD doesn't make it any more easy
for others to maintain than the GPL does, like the article suggests.
~~~
dantheman
It does, because as I said I can use it in a commercial product. If I find a
bug, or decide to add a feature or extend it I can release a patch back. If it
was GPL'd I wouldn't have been able to use it and thus the patches and
features would not have been released back.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Inheritance in C using structure composition - arpitbbhayani
https://arpitbhayani.me/blogs/inheritance-c
======
ChrisSD
> Structures in C are not padded and they do not even hold any meta
> information, not even for the member names; hence during allocation, they
> are allocated the space just enough to hold the actual data.
I get that this is a simplification and that the point is there's no hidden
metadata at runtime but this is dangerously badly worded. Structures in C can
be padded, they just happen not to be in this particular case. All the fields
are 4 bytes and they're on a 32bit platform so these particular structures
will be packed.
That's not always going to be true however. For example, if you add something
that isn't a pointer or an int. Or compile on a platform with 64bit integers
and 32bit ints.
See also: [http://www.catb.org/esr/structure-
packing/](http://www.catb.org/esr/structure-packing/)
~~~
astrobe_
You mean 64 bits pointers and 32 bits integers, I guess.
~~~
ChrisSD
You're right, thanks. I'd edit but it's too late now.
------
twoodfin
This is exactly how C++ structures single-inheritance types without virtual
member functions.
Supporting virtual member functions (i.e. runtime polymorphism) only requires
adding a vtable pointer—which IIRC Linux also does for some of its own
structural subtyping, at least in its Virtual File System component.
Multiple inheritance requires some more bookkeeping by the compiler of
appropriate offsets, but structurally it doesn't change very much.
It's not surprising: C++ was famously originally implemented as a preprocess
transformation into C. _Inside the C++ Object Model_ [1] is a fascinating deep
dive on how C++ semantics map to C constructs.
[1] [https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/inside-
the-c/0201834545...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/inside-
the-c/0201834545/)
~~~
identity0
I don’t know if this is actually how C++ compilers do inheritance, but reading
about how GTK does object-oriented in C[1] taught me a lot about what (might
be) happening behind the scenes in C++.
1:
[https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/gui_toolkit_guides/g...](https://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/gui_toolkit_guides/gtk+_gnome_application_development/cha-
objects.html)
------
ChrisMarshallNY
It's a bit wild, seeing this. I was doing it with C in the mid-1990s. In fact,
I designed an entire SDK around it, that is still used, to this day.
I called it my "faux object" pattern, and I used a lot of function pointers
and property pointers (like the OP mentioned). That allowed a "poor man's
polymorphism." I may have actually published it as a pattern, but I'm not sure
anyone ever read it.
The reason that I did it, was that C++ was still clambering out of the
bassinet, back then, and we needed a cross-platform way to translate stuff
that required an object model, across an opaque binary interface. We used C to
transfer the state and data, and built object frameworks on either side of the
coupling, with C++ or Object Pascal.
On the Mac platform, we also used Pascal types, which ensured a predictable
stack frame.
It was pretty klunky, but it worked.
~~~
icedchai
The Amiga OS used this pattern everywhere. I first learned C on an Amiga in
the late 80’s.
~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
I believe that. I know that I learned it somewhere, but the origin is lost in
the mists of antiquity.
I did see it somewhat formalized in the late 1990s, though, with Apple's
QuickDraw GX.
------
m4r35n357
Dumb but genuine question from a non-expert programmer:
Most of the "OO" world seems to have abandoned inheritance as an anti-pattern
in most cases (apart from genuine "is a" relationships).
I'm guessing the two case studies are in the list of exemptions from this
rule.
So, is this considered a generally good thing to do in c?
~~~
astrobe_
I believe this is because of Liskov's substitution principle (LSP), which is
the hidden gotcha that awaits around the corner beyond the "manager is-a
person" [1] example. The "square is-a rectangle... or maybe not" discussions
that pop up from time to time is an illustration of the problem. In practice,
when you produce a lot of classes, derive a lot classes (because of the open-
close principle), it is easy to blunder.
[1] Yes, they have feelings too.
~~~
vidarh
The problem tends to be that "is-a" is conveniently short but it confounds
several different types of inheritance.
Inheritance in most OO languages really means "api is a superset of, and
implementation is a specialization (and possibly superset) of" while in
natural language "is-a" implies a relationship where some facets might be
expanded, while others may be more restricted.
This is really partially a weakness in expressiveness of our languages,
partially a problem of our frequent insistence on mutability. Often the
problem goes away with immutability: If your "square" is immutable and
inheriting from a "rectangle" class that allows setting width and height to
different values isn't a problem, because the result would be a new object and
that result can be a rectangle.
But sometimes we also genuinely would be best served by inheriting
implementation and public API separately without having to create cumbersome
facades etc. - it's just that making an API of a subclass a subset of the API
of the superclass violates a lot expectations people tend to have about OO
systems, and so few systems outside of prototype based ones seem to allow it
without resorting to ugliness like overriding methods to make them throw
exceptions etc.
------
chris_wot
LibreOffice does this to power it’s typelib library, which is part of UNO.
I’m trying to figure out how this stuff works right now by building unit tests
so I can add to my work in progress book.
[https://github.com/chrissherlock/libreoffice-
experimental/bl...](https://github.com/chrissherlock/libreoffice-
experimental/blob/uno/cppuhelper/qa/type/test_typelibstruct.cxx)
The chapter I’m writing deals with types:
[https://chris-sherlock.gitbook.io/inside-
libreoffice/univers...](https://chris-sherlock.gitbook.io/inside-
libreoffice/universal-network-objects)
------
unixguy1337
Check
[https://www.cs.rit.edu/~ats/books/ooc.pdf](https://www.cs.rit.edu/~ats/books/ooc.pdf)
from 1993. It has been mentioned and discussed earlier on HN, like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011540)
------
sd314
C is not designed for OOP. You will write much nicer C code without such
patterns.
~~~
haberman
I agree. While it is occasionally can work alright (as with the examples in
the article), I recommend a very light touch with this stuff. If you get to
the point where you are implementing casts, RTTI, etc, stop and rethink. I say
this as someone who has gone down this path and later regretted it.
~~~
User23
In a professional context I couldn't agree more. However for a hobby project I
couldn't disagree more. Implementing safe down-casting (up is trivial),
dynamic dispatch, encapsulation, and other OO(ish) features is an absolutely
wonderful learning experience. Like most first attempts, it will probably be a
mess as you say, but there can be a joy in making a mess of things so long as
you're not inflicting it on the unsuspecting.
~~~
haberman
Yes I agree that for learning purposes it can be very illuminating. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Biometric payment system trialled in supermarket - tooba
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41346717
======
gruez
>"Today's millennial generation now expects a higher level of ease, security
and efficiency from the way that we pay," he said.
>have to put your finger in some weird scanner, rather than tapping your
card/phone
not efficient/easy
>biometrics, can't be changed
not secure either
>Sthaler says its method is "the safest form of biometrics with no known
breaches".
only because it's not in widespread use yet. pretty sure the same could be
said of fingerprint/face/retina scans when they were first introduced.
------
orf
Most places in London accept contactless payments card payments now. Is this
really much better?
~~~
QAPereo
That depends on whether or not you’re trying to sell biometric tech, or if
you’re everyone else.
------
dmourati
In 2006 or so I interviewed at a San Francisco startup called Pay By Touch
that had this implemented at grocery stores in the US. They have since
shuttered.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_By_Touch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_By_Touch)
~~~
dracyr
I remember a startup trying the same kind of tech at our university in Sweden,
also now shut down.
[https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/quixter/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/quixter/)
------
Santosh83
In India biometric IDs have been issued to all residents. Pretty sure if the
present govt and their private sector backers have their way it will be
gradually linked to credit/debit cards, if not replace them. It is already
linked with your bank accounts, tax returns, subsidised food, cooking gas,
mobile numbers and so on. But merely linking the ID number is a far cry from
actually authenticating the biometrics, which seems to be seldom done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Replace Windows 7 with Linux Mint - jrepinc
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-replace-windows-7-with-linux-mint/
======
imdyingboys
I actually tried this, but the video drivers just wouldn't work with my
graphics card. This meant I couldn't play any games.
Honestly I shouldn't be playing games anyway, but I don't have that much self
control.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties? - mosconaut
I'm in my early thirties and I feel I've not really made any significant effort in learning math/physics beyond the usual curriculum at school. I realize I didn't have the need for it and didn't have the right exposure (environment/friends) that would have inculcated in me these things. And perhaps I was lazy as well all these years to go that extra mile.<p>I have (had) a fairly good grasp of calculus and trigonometry and did a fairly good job working on a number of problems in high school. But over the past 12-13 years, I've really not had any need to flex my math muscles other than a problem here or there at work. Otherwise it's the same old enterprise software development.<p>I follow a bunch of folks on the internet and idolize them for their multifaceted personalities - be it math, programming/problem solving, physics, music etc. And these people had a natural flair for math/physics which was nurtured by their environment which made them participate in IOI/ACPC etc. in high school and undergrad which unfortunately I didn't get a taste of. I can totally see that these are the folks who have high IQs and they can easily learn a new domain in a few months if they were put in one.<p>Instead of ruing missed opportunities, I want to take it under my stride in my thirties to learn math/physics so as to become better at it. I might not have made an effort till now, but I hopefully have another 40 years to flex my muscles. I believe I'm a little wiser than how I was a few years back, so I'm turning to the community for help.<p>How do I get started? I'm looking to (re)learn the following - calculus, linear algebra, constraint solving, optimization problems, graph theory, discrete math and slowly gain knowledge and expertise to appreciate theoretical physics, astrophysics, string theory etc.
======
aj7
There is one sure way, and it’s a test of your fortitude. You find a a college
textbook with the answers to the even-numbered problems in the back. You sit
down in a warm or hot room, and solve them. If the textbook is in its 4th
printing or so, the answers are correct. On a few, you’ll have to work for
hours. Now here is a very, very, important point. All the learning occurs on
the problems you struggle with. In the blind alleys. A lot of learning in
physics comprises paring down your misconceptions until the correct
methodology, often surprisingly simple, appears. Then, you understand how to
apply the basic laws to the problem at hand, which is what physics is. I’ll
emphasize the point by stating it’s converse. A problem you can solve easily
and quickly yields zero knowledge.
I would recommend two outstanding textbooks. Halliday and Resnick, early
editions , printed in the late 60s and 70s. If you can do all the odd problems
in this two volume set, you are an educated person, regardless of your greater
aspirations. Edward Purcell’s Berkeley Physics Series Second Volume on
Electricity and Magnetism. Might be the best undergraduate physics textbook
ever written. Did you know that magnetism arises from electrostatics and
relativistic length contraction? It’s right there. You should also get
yourself a copy of Feynman’s Lectures on Physics. Warning. Read it for
intuition, motivation, the story of Mr. Bader, and entertainment. It’s at much
too advanced a point of view to help you solve nuts and bolts physics
exercises, which is what you must do. One final warning. Every one of us sits
at a desk with a powerful internet-connected computer. Don’t do this. Even get
a calculator to avoid this. Of course, when you are stumped you’ll want to see
how a topic has been treated by others. Do it in another room.
~~~
wodenokoto
> You sit down in a warm or hot room
What is wrong with airconditioning?
~~~
mayankkaizen
I am not sure about OP's reasoning, but I personally find it a bit
'motivating' to study in a slightly not-so-comfortable environment. I mean, it
gives me sense that I am actually determined and am working hard. It also
reminds me of my college days when even finding an air-conditioned room
anywhere was just not possible.
~~~
jjuel
Could also give you the feeling of being uncomfortable. Then when you are
struggling working through a problem you get so frustrated. And think "If only
it weren't so damn hot in here." Then all you can think about is the heat, and
you are so lost it cannot be returned. So then you give up for the day, and
really haven't accomplished anything.
~~~
badosu
Exactly, your mileage may vary, but my mindset has to be completely free from
distractions to be productive.
The library on my uni when I was in Math undergrad did not have AC at the
beggining but was the only place where I could do any work, it was extremely
difficult and I am sure impacted my progress.
------
j2kun
I'm writing a book called "A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics". Would
you like to see a draft? Shoot me an email at
[email protected]
It's an introduction to mathematics from a programmer's standpoint, with a big
focus on taste and that second level of intuition beyond rote manipulation and
memorization.
Includes chapters on sets, graphs, calculus, linear algebra, and more! Each
chapter has an application (a working Python implementation) of the ideas in
the chapter. The applications range from physics to economics to machine
learning and cryptography. One chapter even implements a Tensorflow-like
neural network.
There's also a mailing list: [https://jeremykun.com/2016/04/25/book-mailing-
list/](https://jeremykun.com/2016/04/25/book-mailing-list/)
~~~
ColinWright
I can recommend anything Jeremy does, sight unseen. Take him up on his offer.
------
e0m
Watch the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw)
These videos are frankly better explanation of college-level math concepts
than most college classes.
Also, now you probably care much more about the intuitions of mathematics over
the raw mechanics of it. Once again, this channel perfectly exemplifies this
concept.
~~~
haskellandchill
These videos are posted any time linear algebra is mentioned. I find it almost
comical at this point. What good is this intuition? I struggle to understand
the value that these videos bring, but I'm not saying there is no value. I'm
just lost, and kind of jealous because I need a deep understanding of linear
algebra for work.
~~~
Myrmornis
It's not just linear algebra, 3blue1brown also has an entire series on
undergraduate calculus, and series on Statistics, Linear Algebra II and Group
Theory are in the works. Plus a large number of excellent videos on
miscellaneous math topics.
I think I understand what you're saying -- one needs more than just cool
videos and cool intuition. You need to do exercises. This is a point made
multiple times in those very videos.
But, the intuition provided in those videos is absolutely excellent. As an
example, look at the explanation of change-of-basis in the linear algebra I
series.
~~~
haskellandchill
Ah, the videos come with pointers to exercises? I'm quite excited about
[https://www.edukera.com/](https://www.edukera.com/) and possibilities for
interactive learning through automated theorem proving. Thanks!
~~~
Myrmornis
Actually, there are not many pointers to exercises. I believe they may be
planning to add some written materials, so maybe in the future, but not
currently.
The videos suggest pausing and trying to figure the next bit out yourself and
a couple of the videos do end with a suggestion to prove something yourself.
------
gexla
I'm a web developer. In my 20's I used to love picking things up just for the
____of it. These days I 'm more of a fan of JIT learning. Push the edges of my
map as I go. I'm still constantly learning, but it's more iterative. Building
on conquered territory and shifting the borders as needed (always outward, but
the focus on which parts of the border to push changes.) Previously I was more
like a crazed monkey and never holding any ground. I still feel the importance
of occasionally sneaking outside my borders and going deep into enemy
territory, but those are constrained efforts. Invade, gather booty, sift for
intelligence value and then decide if it's worth a more serious invasion.
Maybe figure out an actual destination and then devise a plan to get there.
Deep diving into math and physics just for the sake of learning etc seems to
be cargo-culting. Lawyers also sound smart until you realize they write like
they do intentionally to keep people from figuring them out.
> I follow a bunch of folks on the internet and idolize them for their
> multifaceted personalities - be it math, programming/problem solving,
> physics, music etc. And these people had a natural flair for math/physics
> which was nurtured by their environment which made them participate in
> IOI/ACPC etc.
Sounds like they are good story-tellers along with whatever else they do. Have
you tried putting anything out for others to consume? If you want to be like
these people, then it would be good to start with writing / shipping things.
If you have been doing that already, then post some links. ;)
------
Hasz
Anyone who tells you can "learn" math and pyhsics by just watching videos is
lying to you. There is no substitute for actually doing lots of problems.
Pick a book, pick a pace to work through it, and spend a few months going
through it. Do the exercises in the back of each chapter, work through the
solutions, and ask around if you still can't figure it out. Persistance and
routine are key here.
As for books, I like Stewart's Calculus, Lay's Linear Algebra, and Hammack's
Book of Proof.
For physics, I don't know what your background is. Giancoli is a popular
undergrad freshman year book, where as griffith's electrodynamics is a bit
more advanced.
~~~
wnkrshm
I second this but starting to watch actual undergrad lecture series is
beneficial because sometimes the book your working through May just be missing
that one piece of the puzzle you need to start getting enough of a grip to
solve a problem.
Also with physics, you need some tricks that are usually done in derivations
or calculations (cause not everything can just be solved) and those do not
necessarily appear in a book - but they do in lectures.
Edit: the book gives you the fundamentals though on which you work. also, they
will teach you the necessary abstraction - the first thing standing in my way
of a degree in physics was my intuition and need to picture stuff. working a
lot with differential geometry now, I've got some of that visualization back
but with linear algebra even and quantum mechanics it can stand in your way.
------
thisisananth
Take a look at brilliant.org. They teach mathematics in small chunks with
practice. [https://brilliant.org/courses/#math-
advanced](https://brilliant.org/courses/#math-advanced)
[https://brilliant.org/courses/calculus-done-
right/](https://brilliant.org/courses/calculus-done-right/)
[https://brilliant.org/courses/linear-
algebra/](https://brilliant.org/courses/linear-algebra/)
------
otaviogood
People say you have to "do" math to learn it. Usually they make it sound like
you need to do the exercises in the books. I think that doing just that can be
boring and demotivating.
I would suggest finding projects that can motivate you and help you exercise
your math. Some suggestions of mathy things I regularly work on for fun:
1\. Make a video game. If it's a 3d game, you'll have to do your matrices, dot
products, trigonometry, etc.
2\. shadertoy.com - This is a community site where people just program cool
looking graphics for fun. All the code is open, so you can learn from it.
Similar to game programming but without the mathless overhead. :)
3\. Machine learning projects - I love writing various machine learning
things, but the project that has been a great ML playground has been my self
driving toy car. It gives me plenty of opportunities to explore many aspects
of machine learning and that helps drive my math knowledge. My car repo is
here:
[https://github.com/otaviogood/carputer](https://github.com/otaviogood/carputer)
but a much easier project is donkeycar.com. ML will touch on linear algebra,
calculus, probabilities/statistics, etc.
The most important thing for learning is to be inspired and have fun with what
you're learning. :)
------
Ian_Paul
I can't speak to all of the things you want to learn, but I've learned some of
them on my own. For calculus and linear algebra I'd go with Khan Academy,
especially since it seems like all you need is a refresher for calculus. Graph
theory and discrete math I did with MIT EdX courses. Their discrete course is
pretty nice and I found it very easy to follow along with.
Constraint solving and optimization problems aren't things I self studied, but
you can find a variety of resources to help with those based on how you learn
best. For me, I did them by taking a class and relying heavily on my
textbooks.
~~~
Jemmeh
+1 to Khan Academy. Explanations are super clear. Their website allows you to
work through practice problems too, which I think is the most important thing.
------
Panoramix
For physics, I believe you fall in Leonard Susskind's target audience. You can
get his book, or even better, watch his large amount of lectures:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJfw6lDlTuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJfw6lDlTuA)
Susskind is an eminence - he was Feynman's buddy back in the day. And he's
entertaining as hell.
Here's also Gerard 't Hooft's (Nobel laureate) list of concepts and books to
master. If you finish that -in several years- you will be a qualified
theoretical physicist. Whereas Susskind will give you more of an overview.
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/)
------
rosencrantz
Get a real pen and paper, get a real physical book, sit and solve problems
with pen and paper for hours every day for a few months. Then you will pass
the exams.
~~~
aj7
This is exactly right. I elaborate on the method in my response.
~~~
Myrmornis
While I agree with you, and love aj7's post, I'm going to push back slightly
on the pen and paper.
I used to do all my work (solutions to problems, notes) using pen and (plain!
not lined) paper. However I realized a couple of years ago that becoming
fluent in LaTeX was a better option for me. The reason is that, with the proof
neatly typeset, and the ability to re-work and edit repeatedly without making
a mess, I found that I think more precisely and systematically. I still do
scratch work on paper, but writing up a clean copy as I go is very beneficial.
In addition to those reasons, the other hugely important one is that my notes
are now in git, I can grep them, and they don't add to the pile of objects
that must be dealt with when moving to a new home.
For best results you need to make a nice LaTeX set up. I use the Skim PDF
reader so that it autorefreshes on file save, and set up a Makefile and make
it so the PDF is recompiled on every file save. But whatever works for you,
I'm sure there are easier setups.
~~~
Jach
There's a lot to be said for using computer tools. If you're writing proofs,
why not do it formally? [0] If you're working with graphical concepts, why not
code them up, or use a drawing program (or hey, a graphing calculator) rather
than pulling out a ruler and such (and maybe learning to draw at all if you
don't know how)? If you have sloppy handwriting (as I'm sure many of us here
do), why not type in something you'll always be able to read later? (Along
with whomever you show it to -- I did a lot of college homework using LaTeX.
With macros I could do things way more efficiently, with comments I could go
back and see what I was thinking at a misstep (if I wrote anything).)
The downside of course is that computers are very capable distraction
vehicles, you need a bit of discipline to sit at one and study / do this sort
of work at the same time for prolonged periods. Pulling out the ethernet cable
can help but may not be sufficient depending on one's level of discipline and
access to offline distractions.
A lot of the old methods of learning actually work and so the advice is sound
to strictly adhere to them when you're having struggles. Certain modern
enhancements are worth a qualified mention though.
[0]
[https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf)
~~~
Myrmornis
> If you're writing proofs, why not do it formally?
Because that requires learning a formal proof-verification language. I'm
certainly interested in that, but it is a distraction from learning
undergraduate mathematics.
> If you're working with graphical concepts, why not code them up, or use a
> drawing program (or hey, a graphing calculator) rather than pulling out a
> ruler and such (and maybe learning to draw at all if you don't know how)?
> If you have sloppy handwriting (as I'm sure many of us here do), why not
> type in something you'll always be able to read later? (Along with whomever
> you show it to -- I did a lot of college homework using LaTeX. With macros I
> could do things way more efficiently, with comments I could go back and see
> what I was thinking at a misstep (if I wrote anything).)
I'm confused; my post was advocating using software, so I'm unclear why you're
suggesting I use software.
> A lot of the old methods of learning actually work and so the advice is
> sound to strictly adhere to them when you're having struggles.
What is that, a flat contradiction of my post?
Very strange, maybe you meant to reply to a different post?
~~~
Jach
My post was mainly adding agreement to yours with more specifics, "you" used
is the "generic you".
> it is a distraction from learning undergraduate mathematics
Arguably so is LaTeX. But it's desirable that students (or just people
learning the same material, later) spend some of their undergraduate time
learning new things, right? And not just because it's new, but hopefully
because it's better. Learning new/different things is just a small step
further beyond learning old things with new/different assistants. And maybe
some things will have to be cut out, like 17th century prose-proofs (edit: and
even just moving to structured proofs without full formal tools is an
improvement...), or square roots by hand
([http://www.theodoregray.com/BrainRot/](http://www.theodoregray.com/BrainRot/))
------
doall
To quickly review a broad range of math up until 1st or 2nd year of
university, I really recommend Khan Academy
[https://www.khanacademy.org/math](https://www.khanacademy.org/math) . I am
currently using it to brush up my math skills for machine learning.
Before going to Khan Academy, I started reading a rigorous math textbook, but
my motivation didn't last long. You really need high motivation to complete a
rigorous textbook, but Khan Academy is different and I am finally able to
continuously improve my math skills.
The best thing I like about Khan Academy is the large amount and instant
feedback of exercises that you don't get from regular textbooks. I really
wished that Khan Academy was there when I was a kid.
To get deep knowledge of math, I think that rigorous textbooks are the way to
go, but before those and to prepare for them, I really recommend Khan Academy.
------
chipuni
Being in your thirties has little to do with learning. How you learn is much
more important than your age.
If you learn best in a classroom, you may have a local college that teaches
math in the evenings. (I got my Master's in Statistics that way.)
If you learn best in small chunks, Khan Academy has differential and integral
calculus and linear algebra, to start you out.
If you learn best from books... there are hundreds of great textbooks.
Best wishes to you. Keep up a lifetime of learning!
~~~
wenc
Very true.
My learning actually accelerated in my 30s because knowledge pays compound
interest -- the more knowledge you have, the faster it is to acquire new
knowledge. Assuming one has continued to pursue learning, someone in their 30s
would have built up a significant enough semantic tree to pin new knowledge
to.
Most people find it hard to learn in their 30s because they lack the energy,
environment (+kids, +spouse, etc.) or internal drive that provides them the
impetus. Others find it hard to learn because of bad habits and a poor
foundation (their semantic tree wasn't that well built up in their youth). But
their actual abilities (even memory) haven't actually degraded all that much.
And of course, there are some who find it hard because they have reached the
limits of their cognitive abilities (un-PC as it sounds, this is a real
thing). You have to know if this is the case. Most of the time it is not.
I would start by building up a good foundation. Learn the basics well but
don't get hung up on understanding every little detail.
Chunk your learning and use your little victories to drive you (brain hack:
humans are a sucker for little victories). Use the Feynman method (learn by
teaching).
Drill yourself with exercises rather than trying to understand everything --
math is one of those things where it is easier to learn hands-on by working on
problems BEFORE understanding the definitions fully... understanding comes
later (the patterns will emerge once your semantic tree is solid). It's a
process of cognitive dissonance where you actively wrestle with problems
rather than passively work through them.
People who try to understand math by reading alone (or by watching videos)
tend to fail in real life -- they tend to be able to recite definitions but
their ability to execute on their knowledge is weak.
This is a standard rookie mistake, and the reason why so many American kids
are weaker at math compared to their Asian counterparts. Drilling--even if
mindless at frst--really does help, especially when you're starting out on a
new subject. It helps you develop muscle memory which in turn gives you
confidence to move to the next level.
------
tucaz
I could say I'm in the same boat. Always wanted to learn such things, but
never found the motivation to do so in an effective way.
I picked up various books and different learning strategies along the years
but couldn't move forward cause I could not see any practical use for what I
was trying to learn.
Fast forward a few years and now I'm learning both physics and mathematics.
What changed is I started working with 3D development for the furniture
industry and a while later I got interested in woodworking.
Started doing some woodworking projects and had to learn some basic geometry
and trigonometry to calculate cuts.
Now I'm interested in mechanical machines and electrical machines. To be able
to build my own machines I have to learn some physics and other branches of
mathematics and that's what I have been doing for the past months.
I probably cannot work with formal physics or mathematics but I was able to
learn a lot of the concepts behind the formulas and calculations and I believe
that is much more important, at least, at first.
The bottom line is you need to find something that motivates you and make you
want to learn. That's how it worked for me.
------
Tomminn
Honestly, despite all the crap universities get, taking an undergraduate
degree with a double major in physics and maths is an awesome way to do this.
You'll meet people who are similarly passionate, be naturally competitive with
them which is a motivating force not to be underestimated, and you'll meet a
diverse set of teachers who each will have some awesome insights into these
fields and you'll get to see first-hand how they think about solving problems.
Physics, and to a lesser extent maths[1], are topics where the top 1% of
ability are _actually concentrated at universities_. My advice would be find a
cheap university nearby and start enrolling in courses. If you're bright,
motivated and take ownership of your own learning, the faculty will love
interacting with you. If you're doing it to learn, don't sweat about the
prestige of the place. There are people everywhere who will be much better
than you at this stuff, and in some ways it's extremely motivating if you feel
like with some hard work you can surpass some of your teachers, and it's
extremely motivating when the best teachers recognize you as having more
potential than the average student. You're never gonna feel either of these
things at MIT.
[1] The problem with maths in academia is that it's massively biased toward
_proofs_ of mathematics and not _use_ of mathematics. I've met very few PhD
mathematicians who are even as close to as good at applying appropriate
mathematics to problems then someone with a PhD in physics who consider
themselves >50% theorist. PhD mathematicians are wonderfully knowledgeable if
you say "tell me about this field of mathematics" and it's a field they know.
But there is a certain extent to which they like to work by building things on
a frictionless ice world, and get uncomfortable if asked to build something on
the rough ground of the real world.
------
illlogic2
Hi,
I'm 30 and trying to relearn the math courses I did in college (Computer
Science degree) and more. I am currently using Standford & MIT's open
couseware. I feel like I am moving slower than I would if I were in a course
but able to grasp the material better at this rate... I made good grades in my
math courses but like you, I didn't have to use them in software engineering
that much. I would like to get into a field that requires a stronger grasp of
mathematics but also has a need for programming and computation (maybe machine
learning or computational biology). I feel like I'm getting tired of being a
software engineer (defense contractor) at a small company and looking for
something higher level
Calculus (with a pdf version of the text book):
[https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-
tex...](https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-
spring-2005/textbook/)
Linear Algebra (text book link:
[https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0980232716/ref=as_at...](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0980232716/ref=as_at/mitopencourse-20/?linkCode=w61&imprToken=VpT1HULHH80fj-1jnge22Q&slotNum=0))
[https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-
algebra...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-
spring-2010/)
Optimization course & book link (Stanford)
[https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/cvxbook/](https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/cvxbook/)
Statistics: [http://greenteapress.com/wp/think-
stats-2e/](http://greenteapress.com/wp/think-stats-2e/)
------
dkural
I'm taking you at your word and assuming you truly want to reach the cutting
edge of knowledge and learn things like QFT, Gauge Theory, String Theory, etc.
alongside the math needed for it.
This is a long-term project, so I'd recommend by starting a bit with "learning
about learning". There is a great, fairly short Coursera course called
"learning how to learn".
Things not covered in the above course: \- Your learning ability is not
actually much lower in your 30s than it was in your 20s. You have a relatively
benign rate of learning decline, until your late 50s / early 60s, when it
drops quite a bit. You can still learn a lot, but it's meaningfully harder.
(learning rate != thinking rate / creation rate!!)
You'll likely be able to write good papers into your late 60s, and perhaps
70s. There are exceptions and people who do significant work even later, but
that's more unlikely.
When I started learning stuff again in my late 20s, I felt frustrated because
I'd take a couple courses over a year, and by the time the year's over, I'd
forget the first one. We all know what this feels like - we've forgotten most
of what we've learned in college that we don't use in our profession.
When I was a teenager, I had great recall for things I've learned only once or
twice. I didn't realize this was unusual and thought I got very bad at
learning. In fact, the vast majority of people, including high IQ people, will
need spaced repetition and study to retain things for a long period.
I'd recommend the following "schedule" to absorb things into y memory
permanently. (By "learn" I mean read, do problems, write summaries.. it's a
wide range):
Days to repeat: 0 (initial learning), 1, 6, 15, 37, 93, 234, 586, 1464, 3662,
9155
This would suggest interleaving classes instead of learning things
sequentially for optimal time management. It's also a bigger time investment
than people usually think of upfront, but pays dividends later on as the
material builds-up like a cathedral of knowledge.
Like other commenters I'll also repeat: Do problems, problems, problems. The
struggle is where the learning happens.
On the other hand, I wouldn't worry too much about super-high IQ etc. I don't
think it's a strict requirement to have an extraordinary IQ to learn grad
school physics and math.
~~~
MockObject
That is a fascinating number series. Is it taught in the Coursera course you
mentioned?
~~~
dkural
Hi, I calculated it basing it on the super-memo algorithm. That algorithm is
more sophisticated and geared towards cards / smaller pieces of knowledge; but
I think it works equally well as "re-study" / "re-learn" reminders for larger
chunks of material. The overall idea is to capture
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve)
fairly well with the repetition frequency.
------
markhkim
Taste, you say? The Princeton Companion is your friend:
[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8350.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8350.html)
[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10592.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10592.html)
------
EliRivers
I took a Masters of Mathematics with the Open University in my thirties.
The (my) short answer is grind. Get a good textbook on subject of interest,
start reading, start scribbling, start answering the questions. That's how I
did it. Three or four days a week, two to six hours a day, grind grind grind
GRIND GRIND GRIND GRIND. It's geology; time and pressure.
Now and then, when really stuck, finding someone who can illuminate a point
for you is worth it, but that helped me a lot, lot less than one might think.
Anticipate not understanding large chunks of it. Anticipate pressing on
anyway. Anticipate not being able to answer many questions. Anticipate having
to read three or four different treatments of the same thing in order to get a
real understanding. Anticipate that some of it you will never understand.
Anticipate that watching youtube is not a substitute. Anticipate that the
sheer information density of well-written text means you might spend an hour
on a single page. Anticipate questions taking you six hours to solve, leaving
your table and floor strewn with the history of your consciousness. If you're
prepared for all that, and it's a price you're willing to pay, there is no
reason to not simply start now. Pick up the first good textbook, start
grinding now. Time and pressure. It's so easy to waste time preparing to start
learning; beyond making sure it's a decent textbook and getting some pencils
and paper in a quiet room, the only preparation is accepting that this is
going to be a long grind, and embracing it.
~~~
hitechnomad
I'm doing my OU Masters in Maths now, in my 40s. It is definitely hard, but
I'm enjoying it. Personally I struggle to learning things _thoroughly_ unless
I'm working in the subject, or I have exams to do. My own learning workflow is
to flip through a chapter to get an overview, then read/re-read it thoroughly,
then go through the exercises on the chapters quickly looking at the answers.
Read the chapter again, then try doing the exercises without help. I've found
YouTube pretty good for getting the intuition behind some ideas.
------
agentultra
Read some books, practice exercises, and find an area of interest.
Start with some liberal-arts introduction to a particular topic of interest
and delve in.
I often find myself recommending _Introduction to Graph Theory_ [0]. It is
primarily aimed at liberal arts people who are math curious but may have been
damaged or put off by the typical pedagogy of western mathematics. It will
start you off by introducing some basic material and have you writing proofs
in a simplistic style early on. I find the idea of _convincing yourself_ it
works is a better approach to teaching than to simply memorize formulas.
Another thing to ask yourself is, _what will I gain from this?_ Mathematics
requires a sustained focus and long-term practice. Part of it is rote
memorization. It helps to maintain your motivation if you have a reason, a
driving reason, to continue this practice. Even if it's simply a love of
mathematics itself.
For me it was graphics at first... and today it's formal proofs and type
theory.
Mathematics is beautiful. I'm glad we have it.
[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Graph-Theory-Dover-
Mathe...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Graph-Theory-Dover-
Mathematics/dp/0486678709/ref=zg_bs_13938_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5B340WJFHW26XTZVXM54)
_Update_ : I also recommend keeping a journal of your progress. It will be
helpful to revisit later when you begin to forget older topics and will help
you to create a system for keeping your knowledge fresh as you progress to
more advanced topics.
------
asafira
Here's how I would do it, my 2 cents:
1) Find a good source of information --- typically, this is either very good
lectures (like on youtube), a good textbook, or good lecture notes.
2) Do problems. There is a fairly large gap between those that just watch the
lectures and those that have sat down and try to go through each and every
step of the logic, and that's what everyone here (on HN) is pointing out when
they similarly mention doing problems.
2b) Have solutions to those problems. I make this a separate point because
it's important to spend quality time on a problem yourself before looking at
the solutions. At the end of the day, if you read the problems and then the
solution right away, that's much closer to reading the textbook itself instead
of the more rigorous learning one goes through when trying things themselves.
If you were to ask me what textbooks or lectures I recommend, I think that's a
more personal question than many here might guess. What topics are you most
interested in? Are you really just solely interested in a solid background?
How patient are you when doing problems?
Regardless, I'll give my two cents for textbooks anyway. In no particular
order:
1) Griffiths E&M: [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-
David-J-...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-
Griffiths/dp/1108420419)
2) Axler, Linear Algebra Done Right: [https://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-
Right-Undergraduate-Ma...](https://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-
Undergraduate-Mathematics/dp/0387982582)
Good luck!
------
hzhou321
First, you can't go back to your twenties and you shouldn't try.
When you are still in a school environment, there's an environment that for
doing problems for problem's sake. For all you have trained so far, be able to
solve problems is how you were measured and feels like a life's purpose.
By thirty you probably get the hint that life is not about solving fake
problems, and most of the knowledge you learn at school is useless and
pointless. If you try the suggestion to sit down and do exercises, I doubt you
would be able to keep at it long enough for any gain.
But at thirty, you have the luxury of not worry about midterms and finals and
you probably can afford multiple books. So first, find your love of physics.
Second, collect old text books. Third, read them. Fourth, criticize them.
Fourth, throw away the book that you've digested or is bad. When you can throw
away all the books (the knowledges are all online anyway), you are learned.
------
jknoepfler
I'm learning Japanese at 35 with the goal of becoming business-fluent in five
years. I decided to be very systematic about it.
Anki is a very good memorization tool, I would use it aggressively.
I study for one hour every day before work. Math probably requires more time
to grind through hard problems.
I would hire a tutor or find a partner.
A few things I'd recommend:
write down why you're doing what you're doing.
write down the gap in your abilities you'd like to fill so you can track your
progress
don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself.
It is very possible to develop engineering math chops late in life (I did it!)
but outside of a fulltime education context it requires organization and
sacrifice.
edit: on the bright side, I'm so pleased with my current language learning
pace that I intend to double down on it and make it a lifelong commitment. It
really feels good to learn something new and interesting. I'm eyeballing self-
learning an EE degree next, so I'm curious how it goes for you
~~~
anitil
Oh Anki, how I love it. 2199 cards and counting
------
Kagerjay
Math is something that needs to be learned by rigorous practice
I find it helpful to first learn the theory via 3blue1brown
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw)
I'm currently working through the bookofproof math problems found here
[https://www.amazon.com/Book-Proof-Richard-
Hammack/dp/0989472...](https://www.amazon.com/Book-Proof-Richard-
Hammack/dp/0989472108)
It goes into how to actually write mathmatical proofs / discrete math which I
believe is extremely important to any math branches and computer-science in
general.
I was lucky to have a great foundational math background in highschool, my
calc 1/2 teacher was considered one of the best in my state. I practiced at
least 30 problems every night in that class for 2 years
------
IvyMike
If you are located in Los Angeles, I would recommend looking into the Michael
Miller math class series taught thru UCLA extension. This is an 11 session
7-10pm math graduate level math course.
I've taken courses on Algebraic Number Theory, Lie Groups and Lie Algebras,
and Measure Theory. It's hard, but definitely doable. It is definitely more on
the abstract math side, which I enjoy a lot. It is very different than the
practical engineering-focused math I learned in school.
One of the students has an introduction into what you can expect.
[http://boffosocko.com/2015/09/22/dr-michael-miller-math-
clas...](http://boffosocko.com/2015/09/22/dr-michael-miller-math-class-hints-
and-tips-ucla-extension/)
------
hprotagonist
The epitome of what you want is to find a mentor, a chalkboard, and 3-4 hour
chunks of time you can dedicate to learning. Repeat about 2x a week for a
year, and do independent study with a book on one side of the table and a
notepad on the other between classes.
------
atxhx
I enjoyed reading the No Bullshit Guide to Math and Physics:
[https://gumroad.com/l/noBSmath](https://gumroad.com/l/noBSmath) It's a brief
overview but covers a lot of topics. The author's writing style and the book's
layout worked well for me.
The same person wrote a book for linear algebra as well but I have not read
it: [https://gumroad.com/l/noBSLA](https://gumroad.com/l/noBSLA)
~~~
ivan_ah
Hi atxhx, thx for the plug!
Here is a link to an extended PDF previews of the books:
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previ...](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_preview.pdf)
and
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_previ...](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide2LA_preview.pdf)
------
ylem
May I ask what your goal is? Do you want to be able to say read papers? Do
research? It's easier to offer suggestions from there. Are you more interested
in math or physics? I think at your stage, having a problem that interests you
and then seeking out knowledge to understand that problem might be a good way
to go...What is your current area of work? For example, if you are a
programmer, then collaborating with a physicist or mathematician on a problem
could be a worthwhile exchange.
------
insidi0us
Regardless of whether you will actually put a maths degree to use on the job
market—which no doubt you could, once you attain it—pursuing one can bring
great rewards. I am in my thirties too (mid-thirties now) and recently took up
maths again. Lucky for me, I come from the German-speaking realm, where there
is a distance learning university that offers a solid BSc programme in
mathematics at roughly one eighth of what someone would pay for tuition in the
UK. I do not know what options you have in that regard, but if being enrolled
in a programme does not seem off-putting to you, it might be worth checking
out. I am mostly on my own, so I guess if I were studying entirely
independently, I would not be doing much different. There are benefits though
that I would not want to miss out on—I get my (bi-weekly) assignments
reviewed, there are platforms where your teachers and fellow students are
communicating, and, last but not least, there are exams that provide for the
'hard facts' as to whether you have been studying your stuff right. Not to
mention the degree you are awarded if you succeed. To me it is beyond question
that distance education is the right way for me to do this. Like you, I am
working in business software development, and I simply cannot attend a brick
and mortar university because I do not have the time, or would have to accept
the severe cut-back in income resulting from a reduction of my work hours.
(Besides, I have been to brick and mortar before, and not being very social, I
do not think I am missing out on the social aspects of it at all.) So if there
is any distance education option that suits your needs, it might greatly
augment your self-directed learning.
------
ISL
For motivation, if there is a nearby university, start attending the relevant
departments' colloquia. They are generally open to all, and will start to get
you up to date on what's new across all of math/physics.
My favorite undergraduate students when I was TA'ing were all students who had
returned to school after spending time in the world. They knew why they were
there, knew that the material was worth learning, and asked lots of questions.
Go get it -- start small, don't stop.
~~~
jeffwass
This will expose you to cutting edge research going on. But I disagree
entirely on this approach to learning fundamentals of math and physics.
The colloquia are usually very subject specific. When I did my PhD in
condensed matter physics, depending on the speaker, sometimes it could be 10
minutes into the lecture when it delves into narrow field-specific material I
don’t understand (eg, a speaker talking about particle physics or
astrophysics). Good speakers and even non-physicists can follow the whole talk
regardless of subject matter. But good speakers are rare. And colloquia are
typically for benefit of the department (students + faculty), so will quickly
gloss over fundamentals into the real meat.
So you might learn about super cool research happening, which is great. But
you aren’t likely to learn key fundamentals.
------
a-dub
I went back to school in my late 20s for this. Ultimately what everyone says
is true, you learn the stuff by doing problems and at the end of the day
lectures are of marginal use and really the learning happens when it's you and
the textbook(s).
I personally went back to school because it was a way of putting pressure on
myself. There's a lot of boring drills before it gets particularly
interesting. The biggest value of school/coursework for me was the fact that
it was a declaration of "I am going to do this now, and there are external
motivators (grades, exams) to ensure that I stay on track."
That said, if I had it to do over again, for the money I spent, I wonder if
hiring a graduate students/postdocs or even professors as tutors would have
been better. I suppose that even then, when the material gets boring or time
consuming it's easy to walk away, whereas if you invest time and money into a
class you basically are in good shape to shame yourself into succeeding. (plus
being in the academic environment helps to get a better sense of the broader
landscape of material)
Maybe you could find a buddy to work with, like people do with the gym or
whatever to shame each other into staying on task.
~~~
a-dub
Also, I should mention, one big lesson learned... Maths build on each other.
Don't be embarrassed to start with a pre-calculus text/course.
You probably don't remember much from high school, and most low-div calculus
problems are some simple calculus rules combined with a bunch of high school
algebra/arithmetic manipulation that if you don't have it all ready at your
fingertips, you _will_struggle. (this means memorizing all those trig
identities again) The hardest part of low-div calculus is this stuff... The
actual rules of calculus are simple, easy to grasp and dare I say it,
intuitive.... if you can do the pre-calc.
------
reader5000
What works for me is purchasing and reading textbooks (look for online college
syllabuses for good ones). Probably the best way to read maths texts is to
work the problems, but what I do is read it through once or twice. Then switch
to a different text on the same subject. Things will slowly start to click,
although of course you don't understand something until you can explain it
(i.e. write a blog post about it) to someone else.
~~~
commandlinefan
> purchasing and reading textbooks
Plus, you can get really, REALLY good deals on used college textbooks (some of
which are still in pristine - as in never even been opened - condition).
------
taylodl
[https://www.3blue1brown.com](https://www.3blue1brown.com) has you covered for
linear algebra. Now as far as the math needed for physics, I highly suggest
Roger Penrose's 'Road to Reality' ([https://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-
Complete-Guide-Universe/...](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-
Guide-Universe/dp/0679776311/)). As the reviews say it's not an easy read but
what it does provide you with is all the mathematics you're going to need to
learn to understand today's physics. The book provides a high-level overview
of the mathematics - which is technically complete but so concise that it's
difficult to learn from. So use that to take a deeper dive into a mathematical
subject. What the book is really providing is a roadmap: you need to
understand these concepts from these mathematical disciplines to understand
this area of physics and then proceeds with the high-level description of
those concepts. Take the deep dive as needed and you'll be amply rewarded.
~~~
MikkoFinell
Covered for linear algebra? Yes those videos have some nice visuals but the
material is just scratching the surface.
------
Raphmedia
A lot of resources on the awesome github: [https://github.com/rossant/awesome-
math](https://github.com/rossant/awesome-math)
(from
[https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome))
------
bsrhng
If you want to be serious about math you should get a feel for what
mathematics means to mathematicians.
A common view is that mathematicians prove theorems. While true, a skill that
is not emphasized enough is learning (by heart) and understanding definitions.
Learning by heart here also means something slightly different than simply
being able to recite definitions and theorems. You have to be able to compare
the objects that you define and get a feel for how a definition is really a
manipulation of a basic intuition.
A great book to start with is Rudin's Principles of mathematical analysis. You
will get a much deeper appreciation of what calculus is. If you want any
chance of understanding the mathematical tools used in theoretical physics
(operators, Hilbert spaces, Fourier decompositions to get solutions to
differential equations etc.) you will have to understand analysis.
------
rmchugh
I'm in a similar situation myself. My plan is to buy a high school textbook
and work my way through it, chapter by chapter. I assume that the selection of
topics in such a curriculum is reasonable and if the presentation is deficient
I'll supplement with YouTube etc until I understand.
~~~
robohoe
Same here. I've been eyeing few books on Amazon myself. Most come with answer
sheet at the back to check your work.
It's all about doing it like we did in high school. Pen, graph paper, and
maybe a calculator. Drilling down the practice will help with theory.
------
Myrmornis
You want personal sessions with a mathematics professor to help plan your
curriculum and direct your learning! Here's where you can make that happen:
Check out [https://edeeu.education/](https://edeeu.education/). The founder,
Alex Coward, is an ex-Berkeley math professor. To apply to have him as your
director of studies, fill out the form at the bottom of
[https://edeeu.education/alexander-coward](https://edeeu.education/alexander-
coward). This is affordable (currently $330/month).
I have the same aims as you, also learning math/physics in my 30s, and it's
been a huge boost to move from purely self-directed online learning to having
sessions with a math professor and a planned curriculum.
------
unknown1111
You might also find
[https://physicstravelguide.com/](https://physicstravelguide.com/) useful.
It's an expository wiki that sorts physics and related math explanations/books
etc. by the required level of sophistication.
This means, especially as a beginner when you are stuck you can easily find an
explanation that you can understand.
I would recommend that you start with physics and only learn math on a "just-
in-time learning" basis. Mathematics is infinitely large and it's too easy to
get lost. Physics, in comparison, is relatively constrained. When you learn
the basics of modern physics you will automatically get a good understanding
of lots of important math topics plus you will always automatically know why
they are important.
------
ghufran_syed
I did the same as you, but in my 40’s. It’s better to start with books that
are “too easy” than those that are “too hard” (for your level, whatever that
is). I started with Ken stroud’s ‘engineering math’, then did calculus 1,2,3
and linear algebra at community college (online, with proctored exams), then
used chartrand’s “mathematical proofs” to learn proofs, which you _must_ know
in order to learn, understand and enjoy upper div math (and Physics). I’m now
doing an MS in math and stats and loving it, but you need to pace yourself in
a way that you can understand and enjoy the math and physics you are doing -
and as many people have commented, that means doing lots of problems . Feel
free to message me if you want to chat
------
sonabinu
Take refresher classes at community college. This is what I did. I did all the
calculus and linear algebra classes on offer. For me this was very valuable.
My goal was to be able to read mathematics in research papers.
------
TangoTrotFox
A phenomenal resource for physics is the text for the Feynman lectures. And
the great part - they're all online, excellently organized, and free:
[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)
The lectures alone will not provide mastery, but they will provide a very
solid foundation for understanding the breadth of most of all of physics. The
one thing those lectures are desperately missing is a similarly well organized
and presented problem set.
------
no_one_ever
Was a physics student. IMO the best book you can drill questions from is Boas'
Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences. It offers fairly succinct yet
comprehensive overviews of various fields of math. I still have my copy
sitting at home. It is considered an essential textbook for any physics
student.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Methods_in_the_Ph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Methods_in_the_Physical_Sciences)
~~~
asafira
I am not sure where you got the impression that it's essential for any physics
student, but I have never used it and don't think it's mattered much in my
upbringing as a physicist.
------
physicsAI
I thought I would also add my two cents, though there have been many excellent
responses already. I am about to defend my PhD in Physics at MIT.
First of all - great idea! It is never too late to learn math and physics! In
fact, with hard work and commitment, anybody can muster them to a high level.
(1) Reading =/= understanding in math and physics. You understand a topic only
if you can solve the problems.
(2) Work through the solved problems you encounter in textbooks carefully.
(3) Most people around me have never read any physics textbook cover to cover.
E.g. reading Halliday, Resnick & Walker completely might take you years! Not
all topics are equally important. Focus on the important parts.
(4) You need guidance on what is important and what is not. Online courses,
college material (especially problem sets!), teaching webpages could be a
helpful guide. Checkout MIT OCW, once you are ready.
(5) Finding someone to talk to is really useful. You will likely have
questions. Cultivating some relationship that allows you to ask questions is
invaluable.
(4) College courses in math and physics have a very definitive order. It is
really difficult to skip any step along the way. E.g. to understand special
relativity, you must first understand classical physics and electrodynamics.
(5) Be prepared that the timescales in physics are long. Often, what turns
people off is that they do not get things quickly (e.g. in 15-30 minutes). If
you find yourself thinking hours about seemingly simple problems, do not
despair! That is normal in physics.
(6) You have to 'soak in' physics. It takes time. Initially, you might feel
like you do not make a lot of progress, but the more you know, the quicker it
will get. Give yourself time and be patient and persistent.
(7) Often, just writing things down helps a lot with making things stick. It
is a way of developing 'muscle memory'. So try and take notes while reading.
Copying out solved problems from textbooks is also a good technique.
(8) Counterintuitive: If you get completely stuck, move on! Learning often
happens in non-linear ways. If you hit an insurmountable roadblock, just keep
going. When you return in a few days/weeks, things will almost certainly be
clearer.
------
realworldview
Buy a book and take a course. It won’t be enjoyable but being examined on what
you learn will provide focus. Find a small group of people doing the same or
similar learning, so you can discuss the different problems each of you will
have. Persevere and plan carefully. Otherwise you’ll waste time and energy.
Don’t get sidetracked by great presentations and new tech from internet-based
resources; remember what the objective is...
------
wufufufu
Why? What purpose do you have for textbook physics? Think of what you're going
to do with that knowledge. Are you going to become a physics teacher? Do you
just want to impress "a bunch of folks on the internet"?
The time in your life for grinding on textbook knowledge is over. That was age
0 to {insert age at end of college/academic career} non-inclusive.
Think very carefully where you want to spend your motivation and discipline.
~~~
davidgardner
Understanding the "Why" important. However, it seems clear that he/she has
already answered that question, and now they are trying to figure out the
"how". Knowledge is power no matter where it comes from - a textbook, the
internet, a master or simply studying the natural world. Seems odd to
discourage someone from expanding their understanding of the world.
------
gunnarde
I fell in love with physics by reading this guy: Paul G. Hewitt
[https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Physics-High-School-
Progra...](https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Physics-High-School-
Program/dp/0201207281/ref=la_B001IGOII0_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526405657&sr=1-19&refinements=p_82%3AB001IGOII0)
------
pvg
This is a bit of an evergreen so just searching HN will net you piles of
threads with lots of advice and references to resources.
------
deltron3030
Pick a related topic that makes use of what you want to learn, and learn what
you want to learn as side effect from practice in the related topic. Another
poster already mentioned linear algebra for simple computer graphics.
From there you could branch out into more dynamic stuff, like realtime 3D
rendering or particle simulations, where you'd need calculus.
------
monster_group
Getting the right material to study is only small part of it. The real
difficult part is finding all the time it takes and also finding company that
has similar interest and is willing to invest time seriously with you. I
struggled with the latter part. It is very frustrating to not be able to ask
someone if what I am doing is right or not.
------
ez4
You might find my site interesting. It attempts to cover basic algebra in a
more formal, proof oriented style. I designed it with adults revisiting
mathematics and wanting to move on to higher mathematics in mind.
[https://algebra.sympathyforthemachine.com](https://algebra.sympathyforthemachine.com)
------
alexandercoward
I've posted a full undergraduate curriculum based on free resources here:
[https://edeeu.education/undergraduate-mathematics-
curriculum](https://edeeu.education/undergraduate-mathematics-curriculum)
I'm also accepting students. See the website for how that works. It's a lot of
fun!
------
BigChiefSmokem
If you don't have the patience for doing random math problems and just want to
understand things abstractly, try this channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4aHmggTfFrpkPcWSaBN9g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4aHmggTfFrpkPcWSaBN9g)
------
christopholous
But how do I learn math/physics _in 2018?_
Jokes aside, try [https://www.coursera.org/](https://www.coursera.org/) or
[https://www.khanacademy.org/](https://www.khanacademy.org/)
------
lohengramm
I learned Calculus myself through a book called "Calculus - an intuitive and
physical approach", by Morris Kline. It is cheap and very didatic.
I never really studied physics, but I found the first books from the "Feynman
lectures on Physics" to be very good.
~~~
lohengramm
I forgot to mention that the Feynman lectures on Physics are available online
for free:
[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)
------
kozikow
Pick a problem that interests you and involves lots of physics and math. This
worked for me.
------
chaddattilio
I've had the same thoughts about (re-)learning some math. I ran across this a
while back, anyone know if these are good?
[https://openstax.org/subjects/math](https://openstax.org/subjects/math)
------
hiepdev
You should go here:
[https://betterexplained.com/](https://betterexplained.com/) I found this site
explains basic math concepts intuitively and very easy to understand.
------
AIX2ESXI
Youtube, EDX , brilliant.org and Khan academy are all good resources. I'm
taking hybrid online Math classes at my local community college; trying to get
through all the Math requirements.
------
jason_slack
I am doing this now. I just took a Discrete Math class and I am taking a calc
refresher in the Fall. I have been reading several text books as well for
practice and reinforcement.
------
tirumaraiselvan
Start with simple books to warm up those grey cells. For maths, I recommend
Mathematical Circles: Full of fun discrete math problems.
------
vowelless
I would suggest getting text books with loads of homework problems with
solutions and actually sit down to work through the problems.
------
graycat
Music:
Get a piano, look up the basics of how to read music, find the keys on the
piano, see my post on music theory and the Bach cello piece, get a recording
of some relatively simple music you do like, get the sheet music, and note by
note learn to play it. After 3-4 such pieces, get an hour of piano instruction
and continue on.
Violin: Much the same except need more help at the start. From my music theory
post, learn how to tune a violin. Get a good shoulder rest -- the most popular
is, IIRC, from Sweden and is excellent. Look at images of violinists and see
what rests they are using. Get Ivan Galamian's book on violin. Start in the
key of A major and then branch out to E major and D major. Get some good
advice on how to hold the violin and the bow; look at pictures of Heifetz,
etc. Learn some scales and some simple pieces, get some lessons, and continue.
Math: High school 1st and 2nd year algebra, plane geometry (with proofs),
trigonometry, and hopefully also solid geometry. Standard analytic geometry
and calculus of one variable.
For calculus of several variables and vector analysis, I strongly recommend
Tom M.\ Apostol, {\it Mathematical Analysis: A Modern Approach to Advanced
Calculus,\/} Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1957.\ \
Get a used copy -- I did. Actually, it's not "modern" and instead is close to
what you will see and need in applications in physics and engineering. There,
relax any desire for really careful proofs; really careful proofs with high
generality are too hard, and the generality is nearly never even relevant in
applications so far. Maybe do the material again if want to do quantum gravity
at the center of black holes or some such; otherwise, just stay with what
Apostol has. For _exterior algebra of differential forms_ , try hard enough to
be successful ignoring that stuff unless you later insist on high end
approaches to differential geometry and relativity theory.
Linear algebra, done at least twice and more likely several times. Start with
a really easy book that starts with just Gauss elimination for systems of
linear equations -- actually a huge fraction of the whole subject builds on
just that, and that is close to dirt simple once you _see it_.
Continue with an intermediate text. I used E. Nearing, student of Artin at
Princeton. Nearing was good but had a bit too much, and his appendix on linear
programming was curious but otherwise awful -- linear programming can be made
dirt simple, mostly just Gauss elimination tweaked a little.
Mostly you want linear algebra over just the real or complex numbers, but
nearly all the subject can also be done over any _algebraic field_ \-- Nearing
does this. Actually, might laugh at linear algebra done over finite fields,
but the laughter is not really justified: E.g., algebraic coding theory, e.g.,
R. Hamming, used finite fields. But if you just stay with the real and complex
numbers, likely you will be fine and can go back to Nearing or some such later
if wish.
So, concentrate on eigen values and eigen vectors, the standard inner product,
orthogonality, the Gram-Schmidt process, orthogonal, unitary, symmetric, and
Hermitian matrices. The mountain peak is the polar decomposition and then
singular value decomposition, etc. Start to make the connections with
convexity and the normal equations in multi-variate statistics, principle
components, factor analysis, data compression, etc.
Then, of course, go for P. Halmos, _Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces_ , grand
stuff, written as an introduction to Hilbert space theory at the knee of von
Neumann. Used in Harvard's Math 55. Commonly given to physics students as
their source on Hilbert space for quantum mechanics. Likely save the chapter
on multi-linear algebra for later!
For more, get into numerical methods and applications. You can do linear
programming, non-linear programming, group representation theory, multi-
variate Newton iteration, differential geometry. Do look at W. Fleming,
_Functions of Several Variables_ and there the inverse and implicit function
theorems and their applications to Lagrange multipliers and the eigenvalues of
symmetric or Hermitian matrices. The inverse and implicit function theorems
are just local, non-linear versions of what you will see with total clarity at
the end of applying Gauss elimination in the linear case.
Physics
Work through a famous text of freshman physics and then one or more of the
relatively elementary books on E&M and Maxwell's equations. Don't get stuck:
Physics people commonly do math in really obscure ways; mostly they are
thinking intuitively; generally you can just set aside after a first reading
what they write, lean back, think a little about what they likely really do
mean, derive a little, and THEN actually understand. E.g., in changing the
coordinates of the gradient of a function, that's not what they are doing!
Instead they are getting the gradient of a surface, NOT the function, as the
change the coordinates of the surface. They are thinking about the surface,
not the function of the surface in rectangular coordinates.
For more than that, you will have to start to specialize. Currently a biggie
is a lot in probability theory. There the crown jewels are the classic limit
theorems, that is, when faced with a lot of randomness, can make the
randomness go away and also say a lot about it.
For modern probability, that is based on the 1900 or so approach to the
integral of calculus, the approach due to H. Lebesgue and called _measure
theory_. In the simple cases, it's just the same, gives the same numerical
values for, the integral of freshman calculus but otherwise is much more
powerful and general. One result of the generality is that it gives, via A.
Kolomogorov in 1933, the currently accepted approach to advanced probability,
stochastic processes, and statistics.
That's a start.
------
tachim
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/)
------
RickJWagner
YouTube is my preferred method of learning. It's easy and can quickly expose
you to a variety of teaching styles.
------
dominotw
get spivaks calculus. Took me months to get though chapter 1 :D, but gave me
through understanding of how to think about maths and how to prove stuff and
that proof are the real fun of math. If you can't prove it, you don't
understand it.
~~~
ColinWright
I have no idea why someone would have down-voted you - Spivak is brilliant.
It's not really about calculus, it's really about Real Analysis, and it's
excellent.
Highly recommended.
------
MrFantastic
I think your goal to "learn math/physics" is too broad. Steven Hawkins was
still trying to learn about physics before his death.
Define what "understanding physics" means to you and then figure out how to
get to your goal.
------
madhadron
There are two approaches that work well. The first is to embark on the
standard, formative curriculum. The second is to start with a handful of
problems that interest you and go pick up stuff piecemeal on the way to
solving those.
Approach 1. Decide if you want to learn physics or applied mathematics.
They're not the same. The math you describe is more on the operations research
side of applied mathematics, and not terribly relevant to physics. You say
your goals are physics. In that case you're in luck. The curriculum is utterly
standard and consists of four passes through the material.
The first pass is one or two years long and is roughly what's in Halliday and
Resnick or Tipler's physics books: Newtonian mechanics, some wave motion, some
thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, and a little
"modern physics" (special relativity and a bit of quantum theory). Meanwhile
you study calculus of a single variable, multivariable and vector calculus,
and a little bit of ordinary differential equations, and do a year of
laboratories.
The second pass is a semester of classical mechanics covering Lagrangian and
Hamiltonian mechanics, a semester of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics,
a year of electromagnetism, and a year of quantum mechanics, paired with a
year of mathematical methods (linear algebra, special functions, curvilinear
coordinates, a little tensor calculus, some linear partial differential
equations, and a lot of Fourier analysis) and a year of more advanced
laboratories. Here ends the undergraduate curriculum. At this point
astrophysicists tend to separate off and start learning the knowledge for that
domain instead of the second semesters of electromagnetism and quantum
mechanics. Their labs are also different.
The third pass is the first couple years of graduate school, and goes through
the same subjects again in more depth. No labs this time. A mathematical
methods course only if a student needs more help. Quantum field theory for
those going that direction. General relativity for those going another.
Advanced statistical mechanics or other special topics for those going into
condensed matter.
The fourth path is the student by themselves, integrating it all in
preparation for doctoral qualifying exams.
If this approach sounds like what you're after, start by getting a 1960's
edition of Halliday and Resnick's physics (which is better than the present
editions and quite cheap used), a Schaum's outline of calculus.
Approach 2. Pick a handful of problems. What actually interests you? Not what
sounds fascinating or what seems prestigious. What's interesting? Cloud
shapes? Bird lifecycles? What are you actually curious enough about to spend
some time poking at?
------
MistahKoala
I'm a bit wary of some of the suggestions here. I'm a similar position to you
(at least, when it comes to maths). The difference for me is that I'm fairly
certain that I'm one of the least accomplished people responding to your post.
Whereas most of the others responding appear to be of the same ilk as the
people you idolise. I know I'm cut from a different piece of cloth as those
people (and I don't mean that resentfully - I just want to be realistic about
myself). So some of the suggestions may be perfect for them. For people like
me (and I'm not suggesting that you are, but your circumstances sound similar
to mine), something with more of a safety net may be more realistic. I know I
don't have the fortitude to sit and persevere with a text book for hours on
end. Sometimes, I need some of the groundwork to be laid down for me - at
least, when it comes to things like maths and scientific ideas.
I can't say I've found a successful way of learning _and retaining_ maths
knowledge over the past few years. That retaining bit is important - I can
pick up something, give it a go and get it right, but if I don't do it again,
I forget what I've learnt. I had some early success with the OU book series
'Countdown to Mathematics' ([https://www.amazon.co.uk/Countdown-
Mathematics-1-v/dp/020113...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Countdown-
Mathematics-1-v/dp/0201137305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526477607&sr=8-1&keywords=countdown+to+mathematics&dpID=51bQ2ZZ3%252BiL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)),
but the problem ultimately is that it covers materials in a block format; once
you've covered a topic and solved problems, you move on to the next topic.
Khan Academy has the same issue and is arguably worse because, so far as I've
found, it requires learners to know what they don't know, rather than
structures a learning programme where each topic follows sequentially (maybe
there is a way to do this but I've found the KA UX to be complicated and
confusing).
I've tried more 'sophisticated' maths learning solutions that claim to account
for learners' knowledge and weaknesses, but there are various shortfalls with
them and none is aimed at learners older than schoolchildren. It's not so much
the provision of learning materials that I'm frustrated with but the process
of testing and retaining what I learn. I would dearly, dearly love to find a
tool that can assess what I know, tell me what to learn next, test me on the
topic BUT continues to do so as I progress, making use of spaced repetition
and interleaving. It seems like the perfect use of both techniques - like Anki
- but so far as I've found, nobody has done this for maths learners. Anyway,
I've digressed...
------
vinayms
I studied Mechanical Engineering but gradually ended up as a full fledged
software engineer from one who wrote ME related programs. So I have sort of
always been in the midst of mid level maths and physics, but, as it happens, I
lost it all except for some fundamental concepts. I had a similar epiphany as
yours in my early thirties and this is what I did and it helped me greatly.
First of all, you have to realize that you are learning these stuff only for
the sake of learning, as an intellectual challenge, rather than making a
career out of it. So, you need not follow a pattern that is made for late teen
students attending university. That includes not needing to religiously solve
problems in textbooks, especially the numerical ones. If you have to, solve
the conceptual ones. Further, you wouldn't even need textbooks.
What you do need, however, is a perspective. Unlike university students whose
primary aim is to pass the exams that matter, graduate and get a job, for
which they learn by rote, what you need is to understand the reason why
learning certain topics is essential. You need to learn about the topics first
in order to appreciate whatever you will encounter later. For this purpose,
well regarded popular science books should be your first choice. Any worthy
textbook will also give a bit of perspective in the preface, early chapters or
the appendix, but it can never compete with popsci books which are designed
for the purpose of elucidating academically complex stuff to an otherwise
educated public. Good popsci books provide enough stimulation to your mind.
They prime you for further, formal exploration of the topic.
Often times what happens is that highly technical topics such as those you
mentioned look attractive from the outside but get painfully dry, boring and
difficult once you pick up a text book and start studying from it. What I
realized is that for many topics what I really crave is a deep understanding
as an educated person as opposed to deep academic knowledge. For such topics
popsci books regarded as 'hard' are better than proper textbooks. These days,
with the availability of opencoursewares, you can simply watch a few lectures
before deciding if its worth your time delving deep into the topics with a
textbook. The textbooks are often listed in the course content, and we all
know where we can find the appropriate pdf versions.
These books worked for me. They are in my home library and I try to flip
through some of them once a year.
For maths, books like Prime Obsession by John Derbyshire, e The story of a
Number by Eli Moar, Number by Tobias Dantzig, The Unknown Quantity by John
Derbyshire provide good orientation for number theory, analysis & calculus and
algebra. The second book might be tough to finish as its really really deep
for a thin book. You might also look at books like God Created the Integers by
Hawking, The Calculus Gallery by William Dunham that curate interesting and
historically important results, where original works are often reproduced.
For physics, my goto book (which I have never finished) would be The Road To
Reality by Roger Penrose. This self contained 1000+ page monster builds up to
advanced physics in a methodical fashion from scratch. The first half deals
with all the necessary maths from elementary to advanced and the second half
covers physics. It has chapters with names such as calculus on manifolds,
hypercomplex numbers, the entangled quantum world, gravity's role in quantum
state reduction etc which sound pretty deep and complex for a recreational
learner. Beyond that, you can also read books such as The Evolution of Physics
by Einstein himself, Thirty Years that Shook Physics by George Gamow to get a
historical perspective on the development of advanced physics. For a midway
academic treatment, you can read Feynman's lecture on Physics volumes.
For discrete maths, books like The Algorithm Design by Skiena and Algorithm
Design by Kleinberg and Tardos should serve you well. They don't push you into
a maze of mathematics like Knuth books do, or a maze of source code like CLRS
or Sedgewick books do, but show you the practical side of things with limited
code and pseudocode. That said, Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming 4A
Combinatorial Algorithms Part 1 will just blow your mind.
------
amorphid
Here's how I go from dumb to less dumb:
\- on Saturday, I wanted to learn how to write a Kubernetes configuration file
from scratch, so I decided I'd deploy a static web page
\- for the static web page, I decided it should return pictures of teapots w/
a 418 status code, and initially tried to return responses using netcat, which
I got working on my local machine, but not in a container
\- instead of using netcat, I decided that nginx is for people that don't like
over-engineering their weekend hack projects, so clearly I needed to write my
own web server and hacked out a janky Elixir server that serves up a poop
emoji teapot image [1][2]
\- then I started working on an overly over-engineered HTTP server, which so
far only has date headers [3]
\- then last night I randomly wondered how HTTP 2 works, looked for the RFC
[4]
\- then I remembered working on the date header, and I wondered how headers
work in HTTP2, and I learned they use Huffman encoding, and so my next side
tangent is to read up on Huffman encoding and add HTTP 2 header support to my
HTTP server! [5]
TL;DR -- I made a poop joke and turned it into a learning opportunity
[1] [https://imgur.com/a/rZcL0Rw](https://imgur.com/a/rZcL0Rw)
[2]
[https://github.com/amorphid/i_am_a_teapot_container](https://github.com/amorphid/i_am_a_teapot_container)
[3] [https://github.com/amorphid/hottpotato-
elixir](https://github.com/amorphid/hottpotato-elixir)
[4] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7540](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7540)
[5] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7541](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7541)
~~~
kstrauser
This is awesomely overengineered and not-invented-here, and I mean that in the
best possible way. Well done!
------
tobmlt
First up, I am no expert, but I have traveled this road for a while so I'll
share a bit. I see Susskind's theoretical minimum is plugged here. Good. That
is a fantastic place to start. Start at the beginning. Skip nothing.
Leverage what you know against what you don't. You remember how to find an
extremum of a function from Cal 1? The first order necessary condition for an
extreme point is that the derivative of the function be zero. Remember that
when you get to (deterministic) optimization and a gradient needs to be zero.
Next with a constrained optimization you will see the reformulation of an
objective function and constraints into one functional by using new variables
(Lagrange "multipliers") so that when the gradient of this new functional is
zero, not only are you somewhere in the intersection of the constraints and
the objective, but you also meet the first order conditions necessary for an
extremum to be found. (Second order sufficiency conditions (SOSC) are needed
to show that you aren't instead at an inflection point but we are moving fast
and breaking things)
Hmm, I didn't say that very well, but there is much intuition to be found in
optimization problems. This will serve you well in physics.
Calculus of variations: Nail down cold how to derive the Euler Lagrange
Equations for a functional. Hint, Apply the FONC (first order necessary
conditions for an extremum) to the functional (now the Action) in question.
See Lanczos "Calculus of Variations" (Dover Books) to sort out your initial
questions and learn the smooth little trick with integration by parts.
Susskind's first book comes in here.
Learn cold the integral of the Gaussian distribution and how to play around
with it to find more complicated integrals. Orthogonality. Dot products and
Fourier transforms have a lot in common! Fourier's trick is crucial. Oh man...
have you got some fun in store here. Do not proceed to Quantum mechanics
without having these tools at your disposal. Otherwise QM is just linear
algebra over complex numbers together with complex amplitudes from
circuits/naval architecture/ spring mass dampers in the frequency domain. (I
mention all of these to raise awareness that complex amplitudes are not unique
to QM) Supplement Susskind's second book with Griffiths intro QM book. Also
see Griffeths E&M book for a great explanation of Fourier's trick and
separation of variables in the chapter on special techniques... At least in
the 1999 Third edition. (beware, it falls apart under little abuse!) Oh, and
pick up the power series methods for solving tricky differential equations -
don't learn it from the physicists. Learn it from "advanced differential
equations materials". It's not bad in isolation - soon you will be computing
recusion relations and bessel functions.
Soon it will be time to start thinking about field theory. A side quest is
available if you want to get into fluid dynamics. Incidentally this is a great
way to learn about uses for Green's functions... And if you dive deep, your
first look at singular integral equations in field theory. But we will proceed
dead ahead... to the book reviews (you will need more than one book):
[https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/from-
griffiths-t...](https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/from-griffiths-to-
peskin-a-lit-review-for-beginners/)
[https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-
to-l...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-
physics)
Somebody else plugged 't Hooft here
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/) But there
it is again. Now is a good time to speak of renormalization: There is an intro
book out there: [https://www.amazon.com/Renormalization-Methods-William-
David...](https://www.amazon.com/Renormalization-Methods-William-David-
McComb/dp/0199236526)
It's okay but I have yet to derive more utility from it than from various
field theory books. Oh and studying complex singular integrals in isolation is
good too. Generally have some experience with contour integration around
singularities.
See Sydney Coleman on symmetry breaking. (Man in the magnet, flip the sign of
a term in your potential to get a mexican hat, see that the ground state is
now different etc.)
There are tons of free resources out there for learning QFT. Use many sources.
Expect to get stuck with any one of them. Bounce between them to un-stick.
Next up, differential geometry, tensors, and GR.... Google is your friend. I
like Schutz's "a first course in general relativity" and really like Zee's
Einstein Gravity book but I am working into this now and so my recommendations
are running out. Check out this video as an intro to GR:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foRPKAKZWx8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foRPKAKZWx8)
To be inspired/get prepared for things to come get John Baez's Gauge-
Knots_Gravity book: [https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-
Everything...](https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-
Everything/dp/9810220340) and maybe Penrose's Road to Reality - which is like
cosmology if the universe consisted of all the math and physics needed to
understand all this math and physics. Baez's book probably has more exercises
and is more focused in general. Stuff like this will help you see where more
advanced mathematics comes in. By now you will be seeing manifolds and fibre
bundles. Think of parameterizing a surface instead of a curve and see how a
tangent bundle describes a whole new vector space - one vector space for every
point in the manifold. Yang Mills... internal symmetry... ok I'd love to talk
about how these are new expressions of ideas we've seen before but at some
point up there we've passed my pay grade, I have to beg off until I can learn
some more!
------
godelski
The best route is a community college. You can get most of this through a CC.
Some offer discrete math, not many offer graph theory, and you probably won't
get much astro (but you can get astronomy) or string theory from them. But it
is good to get academic contacts who can give you direction. Someone who
personally understands your drive and work ethic will have a better ability to
give you suggestions. So this is my number one suggestion.
If you want to self learn, well let's go through some books and then youtube
channels.
_Books_ : _Missing Discrete and Graph Theory_
(You can get previous versions to save money. The content of these is mostly
the same). Mostly in order of level (math then physics)
_Calculus_ : Stewart's Calculus[1] (this is pretty much the standard) This
has calc 1,2, and 3 (multi variable)
_Linear Algebra_ : David Lay [2]. Start sometime after calc 2 (series
problems). This will start you on some optimization and constraint solving.
Stress learning eigen values/vectors and least squares. I don't have a good
level 2 book, but that would mean looking into coordinate transformations, QR
decomposition, and some more stuff.
_Differential Equations_ : Blanchard Differential equations [3]. You will
need diff eq to gain a true appreciation for physics. You will also gain a lot
of the pre-req's for optimization and constraint solving.
_Physics_ : Halliday and Resnik[4] is one of my favorites. But this is the
lower college level (3 courses: Classical, E&M, Rel/quant). If you are
relearning you can skip to below (though you might struggle a little more)
Req: Taken or taking Calc 1 (differentiation and integration required later)
_Classical Dynamics_ : Thornton[5] You will learn A LOT about constraint,
optimization, and simple harmonic motion (necessary!!). You will also learn
about Hamiltonian Systems. (1.5 courses) Req: Diff Eq, Calc 3
_Electrodynamics_ : Griffiths [6]. Another standard. You won't find a better
book than this for E&M. (1.5 courses) Req: Diff Eq, Calc 3
_Quantum Mechanics_ : Griffiths [7] (He's the man, seriously) (1.5 courses)
Req: Diff Eq, Calc 3 (lin algebra is nice, same with a tad of group theory)
_Astrophysics_ : BOB [8] Lovingly called the "Big Orange Book" you will see
this on every astrophysicists' shelves. (2+ courses) Req: Calc 1
_Particle Physics_ : That's right! You guessed it! Griffiths![9] Take after
QM.
_Youtube_ :
_BlackPenRedPen_ [10]: Fantastic teacher. He will help you with calc and help
you understand a lot of tricks that you might not see in the above books. I
can't stress enough that you should watch him.
Go find MIT OCWs, I'm not going to list them.
_Honorable mentions_ : 3Blue1Brown[11], Numberphile[12], Veritasium[13],
StandUpMaths[14], SmarterEveryDay[15]. All these people talk about some neat
concepts that will help you gain more interest and think about things to
pursue. But they are not course channels, they are much more casual (somewhere
between what you'd see on the Discovery Channel and a classroom, more towards
the latter).
Addendum:
> I follow a bunch of folks on the internet and idolize them for their
> multifaceted personalities
Don't stress too much about being like those people you idolize. I guarantee
that you see them as much more intelligent people than they are or think of
(not dissing on them, but we tend to put these people on pedestals and this is
a big contributor to Imposter Syndrome. Which WILL have, probably already
does, an effect on your learning process). Don't compare yourself. You can get
to most of these peoples' levels by just doing an hour or two a day for a few
years.
> I can totally see that these are the folks who have high IQs and they can
> easily learn a new domain in a few months if they were put in one.
This is a skill. A trainable skill. Just remember that. Some people are much
more proficient at it, but I be you'll see that they have much more
experience. In music you sight read. Doing the same thing with math, physics,
engineering, etc will result in the same increase in talent.
[1] [https://smile.amazon.com/Calculus-Early-Transcendentals-
Jame...](https://smile.amazon.com/Calculus-Early-Transcendentals-James-
Stewart/dp/1285741552/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1526407488&sr=8-2&keywords=calculus+stewart)
[2] [https://smile.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Its-
Applications-3rd...](https://smile.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Its-
Applications-3rd/dp/0201709708/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526407589&sr=1-2&keywords=david+lay+linear+algebra)
[3] [https://smile.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Tools-
Printe...](https://smile.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Tools-Printed-
Access/dp/1133109039/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526407786&sr=1-8&keywords=differential+equations)
[4] [https://smile.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Physics-David-
Halliday...](https://smile.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Physics-David-
Halliday/dp/111823071X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526407891&sr=1-1&keywords=physics+halliday+resnick)
[5] [https://smile.amazon.com/Classical-Dynamics-Particles-
System...](https://smile.amazon.com/Classical-Dynamics-Particles-Systems-
Thornton/dp/8131518477/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526407980&sr=1-1&keywords=classical+dynamics+of+particles+and+systems)
[6] [https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-
David-...](https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-
Griffiths/dp/1108420419/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526408169&sr=1-2&keywords=griffiths+electrodynamics)
[7] [https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-
Davi...](https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-David-
Griffiths/dp/1107179866/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526408252&sr=1-1&keywords=griffiths+quantum)
[8] [https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-
Br...](https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-
Carroll/dp/1108422160/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526408310&sr=1-2&keywords=astrophysics)
[9] [https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-
Particles-D...](https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-
David-
Griffiths/dp/3527406018/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526408470&sr=1-1&keywords=griffiths+particle)
[10]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_SvYP0k05UKiJ_2ndB02IA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_SvYP0k05UKiJ_2ndB02IA)
[11]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw)
[12][https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoxcjq-8xIDTYp3uz647V5A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoxcjq-8xIDTYp3uz647V5A)
[13]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA)
[14]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/standupmaths](https://www.youtube.com/user/standupmaths)
[15]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA)
------
fusiongyro
I'm in a similar situation to you. I have been really enjoying the 3blue1brown
videos on Youtube. He has a sequence on calculus and linear algebra and both
of them are worth watching and thinking about before going through a book. I
also recently started watching some of Dr. Norman Wildberger's math lectures.
He's a finitist crank, but most of his class lectures are great despite this.
This inspired me to get some more textbooks and try to go through them. I'm
pleased if I can make it through a chapter at all on any time scale, and I
think having low expectations is probably healthy.
One thing a friend of mine said, which I think has been very good advice, is
to get several books on a single topic. Eventually every author will lose you
and you'll get stuck; having alternate discussions will help you get through
it. This is easy to do and inexpensive if you pick up some Dover math books,
but I've been making heavy use of the local academic library. The math books
you want to read are not in high demand at the library! You can get three or
four and see if any of them are good enough to warrant a purchase later on,
because you probably won't get through them in a month or whatever.
I find that for many topics there is a really good text. Calculus by Spivak is
a great example, it straddles the line between calculus-in-college and
analysis. Every topic seems to have a few really good books like this one, and
there are often books that will take a totally different approach, like H
Jerome Keisler's nonstandard calculus book using infinitesimals.
I used to see it as a real problem that I was learning math outside class, but
more and more I see it as a benefit, because you can pick up the stuff you
want at the resolution you want and benefit from the best books rather than
whatever the publishers are bribing professors to use. Going at your own pace,
you're not going to go through as much stuff as quickly, but you will actually
_really_ learn it. I've spent the last three weeks or so thinking about the
construction of the real numbers... in a classroom setting, you would be
forced to get through this quickly to get on with the rest of the curriculum,
even if you aren't interested in the rest of it.
I think both our roads are eventually going to lead us to differential
geometry, and the only thing I know about that is that there appears to be a
very good book on Amazon (Tapp, Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces),
and that you may want to avoid older books that use the older notation for it.
I have heard great things about the book Gravitation, but I'm totally afraid
of it, not ready to go there yet. Also check out Physics from Symmetry, that
book looks amazing to me but I haven't read it yet, just flipped through the
contents, but it might be exactly what you're after, since it discusses the
math right before applying it to specific areas of physics.
------
hoborama
..s.
Maths.
------
madengr
The Feynman Lectures on Physics. I found 50th anniversary hard-bound edition
at the Los Alamos book store. Very readable. Feynman explains things like no
other. The audio recordings are out there, though video should have been made
of these. A real loss for humanity.
~~~
otakucode
There are recordings of the lectures on YouTube. I'm not sure if they're
complete or not, but there's a good bit there. I just wish Feynman had
presented his Lectures on Computation similarly. The book is great, though
usually hard to find.
------
JUDAS
Resource: [http://dev-books.com/](http://dev-books.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
White House Takes Security Pitch to Silicon Valley - aarestad
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/us/white-house-takes-cybersecurity-pitch-to-silicon-valley.html
======
Canada
> "I think that people and companies need to be convinced that everything we
> do in the cyber domain is lawful and appropriate and necessary," Mr. Carter
> told students and faculty at Stanford.
Right, because what they're doing in the cyber domain isn't lawful. Naturally
they'll fix that retroactively.
> He urged the next generation of software pioneers and entrepreneurs to take
> a break from developing killer apps and consider a tour of service fending
> off Chinese, Russian and North Korean hackers...
Yeah, exploitation of vulnerability isn't partisan or nationalistic. While
narrowly possible, it isn't really practical to fend off Chinese hackers
without also fending off American ones, and vise versa.
> ...even as he acknowledged that the documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden,
> the former intelligence contractor, "showed there was a difference in view
> between what we were doing and what people perceived us as doing."
I can't help but picture these hacks that shill for the administration like
cheaters who've been caught trying to talk their way out of it.
"Baby, I know I said I was visiting my grandma last night, and while I admit
that leaked photograph of me kissing and groping my former lover is authentic,
I swear to you it's not like that! The kiss had to be collected in case it was
needed in the future but it's not cheating because I wasn't feeling into it at
the time. You've got to understand there's a difference in view between what
we were doing and what people perceived us as doing. I lied to keep you safe!
Think of the greater good baby!!"
~~~
spin
> ...even as he acknowledged that the documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden,
> the former intelligence contractor, "showed there was a difference in view
> between what we were doing and what people perceived us as doing."
That one boggles my mind. On 2013, Mar 12, Clapper lied to congress about NSA
spying. The purpose of a lie is so that people perceive something different
from reality. So they achieved their goal, they're just sorry they got caught.
~~~
Canada
Baby it was just the most truthful answer I could tell you. I mean, I'm sorry,
I should have been more careful in my statement. I acknowledge that. But I
must stress, that I did not wittingly make out and fondle. What I did was not,
in any way, targeted at our relationship. My eyes were closed, and I was
merely doing my duty to feel up our enemies. There is just no other technical
way to go about it. And I resent the implication of wrongdoing in the unfair
way you questioned me about the situation.
Now, you know I love you. I would never do anything behind your back. That's
why all of your friends were fully briefed on this encounter. And they all
agreed that it was necessary and appropriate. Well, almost everyone. I vow to
bring the perpetrator who leaked the photo to justice! And so in light of
this, we can have an important debate about who else I deny I have slept with,
who else you have proof I sleep with and what other sexual acts I must do with
them in order to safeguard our relationship.
But let's not forget what's important. We need to work together to build a
framework for a process where I continue to see others I'm attracted to,
particularly the Russian and Chinese ones, in a way that respects privacy, by
preventing you from finding out, but with proper oversight that is
transparent, accountable, and consistent with my unwavering support for
monogamy. After all, the security of our relationship depends on it.
~~~
spydum
I am a bit creeped out at how well you are at spin..
------
tsunamifury
Carter's words sound like the man who see's his judgement, but still uselessly
pleads innocent for the decisions he believes should be kept in the dark.
I remember when my small private university received its first DOJ request in
2005 to install wire-tapping hardware on our servers. We in the IT department
circled up and met, deciding to ignore this letter as a disgrace to the
American public, the constitution, and the human values we believed in. Even
receiving shamed us, and stirred anger and fear for years after.
When we ignored it, no request came again and no consequence -- because the
people who asked us to do wrong would never ask us to do it again by the light
of day.
Remember: stand true to what is right for you and those around you, whether in
private or in public, and you'll never regret that choice from this day to
your last.
~~~
yc1010
Interesting, how do you know it was the actually the DOJ and not lets say
Chinese or Russians using faked official looking letterhead to get a backdoor
in your system.
This is just an example of how government stupidity when it comes to computer
security is leading to MORE vulnerability and insecurity.
You did the right thing if dragged into court you could have rightfully
pointed out that you refused for patriotic reasons since the whole thing
"smelled" wrong and sounded like an attempt by foreign bodies to infiltrate
your network, which would have got you into alot of trouble...
I wonder how the likes of Googles of this world response to similar
requests...
~~~
S4M
Maybe the higher ups thought about that and invited the relevant engineers (or
their boss) from Google and the likes at their offices in the Pentagon or some
other place. At least that is not fakable.
------
staunch
> _“I think that people and companies need to be convinced that everything we
> do in the cyber domain is lawful and appropriate and necessary,” Mr. Carter
> told students and faculty at Stanford._
Good luck with the convincing. Quite a few of us can read, so it will be
rather impossible.
> _The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
> effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
> and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
> affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
> persons or things to be seized._
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
> _Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W.
> Bush secretly told the N.S.A. that it could wiretap Americans’ international
> phone calls and collect bulk data about their phone calls and emails without
> obeying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act._
> [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/us/politics/value-of-
> nsa-w...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/us/politics/value-of-nsa-
> warrantless-spying-is-doubted-in-declassified-reports.html?_r=0)
> _On July 9, 2012, when asked by a member of the press if a large data center
> in Utah was used to store data on American citizens, Alexander stated, "No.
> While I can't go into all the details on the Utah data center, we don't hold
> data on U.S. citizens."_
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_B._Alexander#Statements_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_B._Alexander#Statements_to_the_public_regarding_NSA_operations)
Why are these people not in prison for violating the constitution on a mass
scale? Their only defense can be that they were simply "following orders."
The USA PATRIOT Act will be viewed by historians as something akin to the
Reichstag Fire Decree
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree#Backgroun...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree#Background)
~~~
afarrell
So, it is not actually a criminal offense for law enforcement to violate the
4th amendment in collecting evidence. All that happens is that in pre-trial, a
defense counsel can file a motion to suppress that evidence based on the
exclusionary rule[1]. If the judge decides that the evidence was collected
illegally, it is thrown out and cannot be presented to the jury. Less than 90%
of cases go before a jury, but a knowledgable and zealous attorney can get
evidence thrown out (or "c'mon, you know that will never fly with Judge
Saris"d out) before a plea deal. This is the only way we have that warrants be
sought, that they be validly[2] issued and that they be followed.--the threat
that a criminal will "Get off on a technicality", either because the DA
doesn't think she can prosecute, or because the evidence gets thrown out in
pre-trial, or because an appeals/SCOTUS decision throws out the case.
None of that matters if the evidence collected is never intended for criminal
prosecutions. Either by the FBI or by the NSA.
At least one of Boston's federal judges serves on the FISA court and I have it
on the word of Boston's clerk of court that the FISA court judges care deeply
about doing a good job and being a check on executive overreach. I believe
him. But that doesn't matter at all.
[1] Everyone should read
[http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1585](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1585) and
actually look at this flowchart for the 4th amendment
[http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256).
[2] Most warrant requests are granted, not because it is a rubber stamp, but
because the conditions for warrant approval are predictable and judges don't
like having their time wasted with dumb requests. It's not like the patent
office.
------
tomelders
I'm sure there's a way for Silicon Valley and the US government to work
together, but Silicon Valley can and should bring it's own demands to the
negotiating table. This looks like a very one sided deal right now. The
government gets to keep its secret courts, mass surveillance, secret drone
strikes and foreign policy interference and expects the brightest and best
minds in tech to sign up to facilitate all that.
No deal. There is another way. I'm sure many in tech would take up the
gauntlet of protecting all people if it were to be executed in a way that fits
with the ideals of those people - which coincidentally align pretty well with
what the US Constitution and Bill of Rights put forth 223 years ago.
If the US wants security they can have it. If they want to continue to expand
the military industrial complex, they should go looking elsewhere.
~~~
forgottenpass
_I 'm sure there's a way for Silicon Valley and the US government to work
together, but Silicon Valley can and should bring it's own demands to the
negotiating table._
I don't exactly trust the policy positions of the handful of major
corporations that rate on the White House's radar to be beneficial to the end
user/society in general.
~~~
wahsd
Not only that, but there is simply zero confidence in negotiation with the
government and you are a fool to believe anything else. You don't even have to
rely on echos and messages from ancestors and predecessors, with general
warnings about the abuses of the power of governance in the hands of humans;
you can just look at the last few years of all the deception, all the abuses,
all the killing, all the thieving, all the protection of thieves, and
pilfering of civil society, and all the lies. There is absolutely zero trust
or confidence to be found. Unfortunately for the government and any
government, its track-record is permanent, there are no re-dos without
revolution. Once the image, once the record has been sullied in the most
grotesque and lazy manner in which it has been for the last 15 years+ there is
simply no going back. The damage is permanent, irreplaceable, and immutable.
You had one chance and choice on 9/12/2001, government; and you chose to play
right into the hands and goals of the tactic of terrorism ... turning on your
own people and sacrificing your principles at the cost of vanquishing the
tenuous and feeble trust civil society had placed in you.
Maybe you will be successful in steering the massive ship and changing
perceptions and molding society as you have before in the past, government.
But for now, there is a lot of trust to be made up through apology, action,
and prosecuting perpetrators, i.e., showing that your actions are not just
more empty promises and lies that any other run of the mill addict uses to
avoid accountability for their actions and impacts on those in their lives.
------
BinaryIdiot
It baffles the mind how little the government seems to understand technology.
Yes let's create a universal key but to make sure it's not abused or falls
into the wrong hands we'll just split it up over agencies or setup an escrow.
Never mind the fact that this undermines the security of every single piece of
American data if we're compelled to use it.
If you're up to not good you're just going to download a non-backdoored
encryption toolkit from somewhere else.
~~~
kbart
_" If you're up to not good you're just going to download a non-backdoored
encryption toolkit from somewhere else."_
Good point. Software is made all around the world and there's no way for USA
government to force it's backdoors (call it "golden key" or whatever) into all
of it, especially in the age of open source. The purpose of wiretaping
consumer grade software is clearly monitoring and controlling of casual
citizens, not fighting serious criminals, hackers or enemy cyberarmies.
~~~
pdkl95
It is always a mistake to assume the opponent is ignorant or stupid. Of course
the government knows the futility of trying to enforce the use of only
"approved" encryption.
A law that required the use of "approved" encryption necessarily bans real
encryption tools. Anybody that is actually secure is made a criminal, which is
one more law that can be enforced arbitrary if someone decides you are a
problem.
It should be fairly easy to filter for non-approved encryption with DPI. This
gives them a nice map of all the "subversives" that are trying to evade the
"monitoring and controlling of casual citizens".
------
rurounijones
“I think that people and companies need to be convinced that everything we do
in the cyber domain is _lawful_ and appropriate and necessary,” (Emphasis
mine)
Step 1, make this first point true at least (the second and third points will
probably be debated until the heat-death of the universe).
Quite heartened by the rest of the article though; techies standing by their
principles.
~~~
pen2l
> Quite heartened by the rest of the article though; techies standing by their
> principles.
Funny principles, those.
Ads, privacy violations, more ads, dark patterns, some more ads.
~~~
AndrewKemendo
No, those are just those pesky business people forcing that on the purity of
my Docker lib.
------
phaed
> He urged the next generation of software pioneers and entrepreneurs to take
> a break from developing killer apps and consider a tour of service fending
> off Chinese, Russian and North Korean hackers, even as he acknowledged that
> the documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence
> contractor, “showed there was a difference in view between what we were
> doing and what people perceived us as doing.”
You mean there was a difference in view between what you said you were doing,
and what your leaked internal documents SHOWED beyond a shadow of a doubt what
you were actually doing and planning on doing.
Do these guys not know their audience?
------
white-flame
I, for one, appreciate that this is a mainstream media article that doesn't
seem to paint the government as in the right at all. It leaves the last word
with the tech sector in refuting the government's positions, which is
refreshing to see.
(at least that's how I read it as a tech guy)
------
cryoshon
"Mr. Obama, on a trip to Stanford in February, had expressed sympathy with
those who were striving to protect privacy, even while saying it had to be
balanced against the concerns of the F.B.I. and other agencies that fear
“going dark” because of new encryption technologies."
"Expressing sympathy" means absolutely nothing when concrete actions have been
taken to undermine privacy and security.
I hope that the tech industry can organize around resisting the government to
provide security and privacy for their users.
The more robust anti-spying measures we have, the more secure we'll be from
malicious actors who would use our communications against us for their own
gain.
------
Lancey
So is Washington ever going to acknowledge that they've done something wrong
or are we going to keep playing the fascism game?
~~~
cryoshon
Keep playing the fascism game. So far their strategy has been to double-down
every time there's a debate. Their only real trick is to clamp down more and
insist it's permanent when they're questioned.
It'll break eventually.
------
JulianMorrison
"Going dark" is exactly what should happen. The only secure system is a secure
system.
For all countries X, the government of X is absolutely untrustworthy.
------
kokey
I wonder if this is going to work out as well for them as working with Silicon
Valley in the 90s worked out:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)
------
datashovel
I sure hope Silicon Valley isn't buying what D.C. is selling.
~~~
datashovel
btw, not inferring that there's no room for compromise. But I think one of the
only ways to make "surveillance" policies sustainable is by making their
operations fully transparent. I get the eerie feeling this is not what US
Govt. wants to do.
------
wiggumz
White House Takes Backdoor Insecurity Pitch to Silicon Valley
------
joshkpeterson
The text for this article on the nytimes fronpage reads:
>The computer industry is seeking to block surveillance, including by the
N.S.A., which fears “going dark” on terror threats.
I find something about the use of "the computer industry" to describe Google
et al be really quaint. It's understatement. Also, what industry doesn't
depend on the computer industry these days?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Internet threats hound teen subsistence hunter after he kills bowhead whale - thesmallestcat
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/we-alaskans/2017/08/12/internet-threats-hound-teen-subsistence-hunter-after-he-kills-bowhead-whale/
======
MichaelBurge
I have a hard time believing that people actually cared about that whale. It
seems more likely to me that it's an excuse for lonely people to band together
against a common enemy, which gives a sense of community. This has more
explanatory power than taking the environmentalists at their word: If it was
about animals being intelligent and murder being immoral, people wouldn't wish
the kid dead because the loss from that would surely be >= the loss from the
whale.
It could also be trolls pretending to be environmentalists, though that would
be very easy to confirm or deny by looking at a few profiles in more detail.
It seems counterintuitive that the most environmentally conscious way to live
might be to stack everyone in extraordinarily dense cities, and leave the rest
as wilderness or farmland. Does this Paul Watson guy consider it immoral to
live outside of a modern transportation/supply network?
I wonder if the EPA lets you raise endangered species to be sold for food or
parts, if on average more are created than killed. Imagine being able to eat a
panda at a restaurant, but you see a bunch of "protect the wildlife" stickers
everywhere, and you tell yourself you're doing your part by eating there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebServius - Amazon SimpleDB based, data focused API service - cesther
http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/12/webservius-monetization-system-for-data-vendors.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AmazonWebServicesBlog+(Amazon+Web+Services+Blog)
======
mark_l_watson
That looks very cool and useful. I just looked at the docs and it is not just
for raw data. Any "raw" APIs that you have can be wrapped and Amazon does the
billing, keeping 10%.
I think that Amazon is the most interesting company on the planet. If I wanted
to work for a company I would apply there for a job.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Under-building of new homes, high construction cost perpetuate housing shortage - prostoalex
https://www.redfin.com/blog/2017/10/heres-the-1-reason-its-so-hard-to-find-an-affordable-home.html
======
chiefalchemist
"We would love to build more affordable starter homes, but when high-end homes
cost the same to build and are far more profitable, we lose the incentive to
build smaller units,” said Isaac Stocks of Azure Northwest Homes, a Seattle-
area home builder.
That sums it up.
Plus, more expensive homes means more property tax revenue, so there's little
incentive for state/local gov to encourage lower end housing.
Finally, it would help to know about financing. How willing are banks to issue
loans at the lower end?
The whole system is "tuned" for larger more expensive houses. It works for
those it works for, and doesn't for those with little to none socio-political
clout.
~~~
theseus7
The first part of the solution is to completely eliminate mortgage subsidies
and mortgage interest deductions. These do not increase the supply of housing,
they only subsidize demand for more expensive houses and increase
indebtedness, and increase the flow of capital into non-productive areas of
the economy such as mortgage lending and mortgage backed assets.
The second part of the solution is to convert all property taxes into Land
Value Taxes, so that idle and vacant land is taxed at exactly the same rate as
land containing well maintained houses. Local governments would no longer get
higher payouts for zoning for high end housing, they would only get higher
payouts if they raised the net desirability of all land within the borders of
their city as a whole.
The land value tax would also free up vacant, idle and underutilized land for
actual use and improvement, by making land unattractive as an asset for
investment or speculation. This would greatly increase the competitiveness of
the housing market, because if it is no longer profitable to hold onto a
vacant building, a parking lot, or a strip mall in a high demand area after
the carrying cost applied by the land value tax, the vacant lot might be split
up and sold to smaller owner-operators, the parking lot might be replaced by
several smaller town houses, and the strip mall might be replaced by a mixed
used development with additional housing units builtin above the shops,
increasing average quantity of housing units per city block or per area unit
measure.
> How willing are banks to issue loans at the lower end?
Focusing on banks and subsidizing loans is what is fueling this problem. The
solution is not to make loans easier to get, it is to drastically lower the
price of land and increase the efficiency at which land is used. When the
price for land is cheaper and closer to a market price rather than a monopoly
price, far fewer people will have to bother with loans or mortgages in the
first place. Lower end housing can be made substantially more affordable even
if all mortgage assistance schemes are eliminated.
~~~
freeloop3
You're putting the poor in an awfully tight position there. Between no tax
deduction for a mortgage and paying the same property tax (what you call land
value tax) for their trailer as the mansion next door, they're kind of getting
screwed.
And what about old people that have owned their own house for decades? If the
local economy goes up, increasing the land value tax, they either leave or go
bankrupt. And the kicker is that their investment into their home is now worth
a lot less.
~~~
adventured
People with trailers are not benefiting from the mortgage interest deduction.
The mortgage interest deduction overwhelmingly benefits households earning
over $100,000 per year. Only one in five tax filers take the mortgage interest
deduction, the extreme majority are in that $100k+ income bracket.
The substantially increased standard deduction is far more important than the
MID for the middle class. Cutting the MID tax break for the top 1/3 of
earners, is what will help pay for raising the standard deduction that is a
huge benefit to the bottom 2/3 of earners.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/that-beloved-mortgage-
deduct...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/that-beloved-mortgage-deduction-
skews-to-the-wealthy.html)
"Mortgage Interest Deduction Saves Middle Class Taxpayers All Of $51/Month"
"Most of the MID 2012 tax benefits went to people making six figures or more.
Households earning over $100,000 in 2012 claimed 77.3 percent of the total MID
tax savings, essentially the same as in 2010. And just looking at those making
$200,000 or more, we found the very top earners claimed 34.6 percent of the
total MID benefits and saved $5,021 on average for 2012."
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/18/mortgage-
in...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/18/mortgage-interest-
deduction-saves-middle-class-taxpayers-all-of-51month/)
------
jdavis703
I hear an argument a lot, "housing in the Bay Area is expensive because
because labor cost is so high." According to this report in San Francisco it
costs $269,000 to build a new housing unit. With the median home sale price
over $1,000,000 it seems fair to say that the labor component isn't the
primary driver of the high costs, it's probably related to the inability to
legalize enough housing.
~~~
tehlike
Labor is definitely not the main driver.
Often quoted construction price is about 300$/sqft around where i live. If you
were to build new, you would spend 750k-850k. Now, you cant buy land for less
than 1.8 in mountain view that can hold 2500sqft home. And sale price would be
close to 3m anyways.
~~~
maccard
Maybe one of the issues is the expected sizes of homes in the US - 2500 sq ft
is about 250 sq m - which is pretty darn big. The average home in the uk is
about 85 sq m...
~~~
jdavis703
No, this doesn't have to do with construction costs (which are about linear
with square footage), it's other factors. For example, even if someone wanted
to build a tiny home (i.e. less than 500 square feet), it's illegal in many
places because of minimum square footage requirements. The problem comes from
bad land use planning, not because "dumb" Americans don't understand a larger
house costs more money.
~~~
tehlike
True that. There's the other side of the coin though. South bay (excepting San
Jose) is what you'd call suburbs. People who choose to live low density areas.
Part of it is because of the employers. I, for one, do not like a lot of
people around me, and I grew up in a city of > 15M. I like the low density.
I think it goes both ways. companies in the bay area choose to headquarter in
low density areas (so they can grow).
------
taprun
No, the #1 reason it's so hard to find an affordable home is that potential
buyers can get huge loans at very low rates. Since buyers compete with each
other, prices go up.
I guarantee that if interest rates were allowed to creep up, and the
government stopped guaranteeing loans made by the banks, we'd have cheaper
homes almost immediately.
~~~
sytelus
Not really... these days 20% downpayments are the norm. I know several people
holding off purchases because they simply don't have downpayment. Higher home
prices reduces number of potential customers but right now we have so many of
them that reduction doesn't matter and margines are much higher on higher end.
~~~
scarface74
FHA loans are easy to get and the down payment required is 3.5%. Even with
mortgages that don’t qualify for FHA it’s relatively easy to get 5% down
payment loans.
~~~
prostoalex
They generally require PMI, so still an extra payment out of pocket, are
usually hard-capped at 30% of buyer’s current income, and take looong time to
close compared to strong cash offers with conventional loans, so sellers view
them as last-resort. It’s possible, but not very realistic for an FHA
applicant to outbid everyone else on price.
~~~
scarface74
You can get prequalified for an FHA loan just like any other loan. Everyone
doesn't live in SV where houses go so fast you're constantly having to outbid
people.
~~~
prostoalex
taprun's comment was describing a competitive market "potential buyers can get
huge loans at very low rates. Since buyers compete with each other, prices go
up".
------
pxeboot
_We would love to build more affordable starter homes, but when high-end homes
cost the same to build and are far more profitable, we lose the incentive to
build smaller units_
This is a major reason why prices are so out of control. Land prices aside,
there is no reason somebody couldn't build a nice ~1000sqf house for under
$100k. But without literally doing the work yourself, these places just don't
get built.
~~~
thriftwy
Can't you contract the building part if you have a suitable piece of land?
~~~
pxeboot
Sure, but that's going to cost a lot more, as it is now a "custom home".
Economies of scale apply strongly to houses.
~~~
Empact
Not necessarily the case - my sister just had a home built on land in Dallas
and the cost was not much more than new home cost ($129/living sq ft), before
that my father built the home we grew up in nearby himself. There's a reason
Dallas, Houston, and Austin are at the top of the new home construction
numbers - low regulatory overhead make every scale of home building
manageable, including self-starting new home construction. Meanwhile the
benchmark for new construction starts in SF is 3-5 _years_ just to navigate
the intial regulatory approval for construction. Try navigating that as an
individual just trying to get a home built for yourself. It's basically
impossible.
------
purplezooey
Construction pricing is definitely out of control. Part of the problem is that
the entire industry is funded with low interest purchase and equity loans and
not cash. Another problem seems to be that a lot of construction entities went
offline in during the crisis and never came back. Any construction quote
easily runs into the $100,000s for even a tiny addition to a house. It's way
out of control.
If there would exist a construction company that would have upfront pricing,
not insanely expensive, and can get most jobs done within several weeks, they
would get a huge amount of business. Instead it's always months out, pricing
5x what it should be, and often just impossible to find anybody.
~~~
ikiris
You don't seem to understand what you're talking about. The reason for those
months out is because everyone is overbooked, and the pricing reflects demand
vs supply.
~~~
purplezooey
Exactly. It is a market out of whack.
------
sytelus
This is also because of mass migration to urban centers in recent times. Every
major urban center in US is currently facing massive number of incoming
people. When everybody wants to live in same little place, prices are
obviously going to shoot up. This should also explain why there are no too
many new homes being built - because urban centers have little room to expand.
This is current phenomenon in much of the world. Even if you go to 3rd world
countries and look at prices in core urban centers, you will see exact same
trend as in 1st world countries. This always had been a trend through out
history but in recent times curves have crossed the knee and has taken a
vertical leap.
~~~
wbl
Urban centers can grow vertically. 80% of SF is single story construction.
------
madengr
Here in the Kansas City area, it seems most of the new housing is mixed use;
commercial on the bottom and apartments on top. Not many single family homes.
Maybe it is because millennial not wanting/affording a house, and prefer dense
urban living.
Though that is beginning to change as they have kids, and are now moving to
suburbs. So they now build little cities within the suburbs.
~~~
ashark
In the northland, at least, there are tons of new boring ol’ suburban houses
going up. Construction slowed for a couple years after the crash, but came
back fast and now they’re putting up new houses and plotting new neighborhoods
as fast as they can.
------
mooreds
Tldr: new homes cost too much due to labor. And building affordable housing
doesn't make sense when the costs to build a larger, luxury home are not
radically more, but the profits are.
I wish they'd talked about the problem in a more systemic manner.
They didn't address:
* Commuting
* Land prices
* Price to rent ratios
* Density
* Economic opportunity where housing is cheaper
------
EGreg
Funny to read this after all the articles about China's "ghost cities" and the
follies of central planning.
------
bgitarts
Why isn't there a tech company trying to disrupt home construction?
People speak of Uber being worth so much because of the giant market it's
going after and transportation is big being the second largest consumer
expenditure at 17% of wallet share. However housing is first at nearly 30% of
wallet share and the biggest dent you can make in that figure is lowering the
upfront cost which is several years of income for the average buyer.
~~~
Analemma_
Because the cost is labor, materials, land acquisition and permits, none of
which can really be “disrupted”.
~~~
bgitarts
labor has been disrupted through automation. materials can be disrupted
through better manufacturing and or new materials. permits can be disrupted by
removing or streamlining the process through regulatory changes or personal
changes/increases at the Department Of Building(s).
------
ilaksh
My belief is that radical changes are needed. Much smaller plots, truly mixed
use areas, for starters. The tiny villages concept I have shown at
[http://tinyvillages.org](http://tinyvillages.org) takes it to an extreme, but
even 2 or 3 uses for the old plot size would make a dramatic difference.
I think that this idea will be better in many cases than building condos
everywhere.
------
crdoconnor
There seems to be a lot of articles posted on HN purporting to explain the
housing crisis from companies that profit from it.
Bearing that in mind, it's not so surprising to see "labor shortages" get the
blame while untaxed land, low interest rates and wealth inequality/property
hoarding go unmentioned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IF-less programming - alisnic
http://alisnic.github.com/posts/ifless/
======
raverbashing
This is getting ridiculous
" ifs are a smelly thing in a Object Oriented language."
What's smelly is such a absurd assumption. Yes, let's replace every small
decision in our program with inheritance and another level of abstraction,
that will work out swell
Please go read an Assembly manual because you have obviously forgotten what a
computer is and does
And then we end up with unmaintainable systems with a class hierarchy higher
than the Empire State.
Of course, as mentioned, replacing an if with a "software structure" (like
pattern matching in an functional language) is beneficial, but to call it a
code smell is ridiculous
~~~
revscat
> And then we end up with unmaintainable systems with a class hierarchy higher
> than the Empire State.
Perhaps, but I would rather have testable code than untestable code that is
nothing more than a series of unnecessary, nested if blocks. We have all seen
code that has a structure like
if (depObj1.isSomething()) {
if (depOboj1.getAttr() == CONST1) {
// Do something
} else if (depObj1.getAttr() == CONST2) {
// Do something different
}
} else if ... {
// repeat with minor differences
}
Most of the time the above structure can be abstracted. Abstracting It also
has the benefit of making this code more testable: you don't have to set up
many different objects, just one.
The OP is correct: in OO languages if statements are a code smell. Like all
smells, though, they are not hard and fast rules, but rather indicators that
things could probably be done better. No one, certainly not OP, is
recommending abandoning if statements. What he is recommending, and I agree
with, is that they can and should be avoided, and certainly not turned to as a
primary tool in the toolbelt.
~~~
raverbashing
It's irrelevant if you're using ifs or different objects, the number of
conditions/tests needed for what you are testing is the same.
Now, you could make depObj1 of type Obj1 and Obj2 to replace the if, which
_may_ simplify testing because the method is "simpler" in Obj1/Obj2/ObjBase
_but in the end it isn't_!
Why? Because your test of Obj1/2 has to take care of their dependency to
ObjBase. It's usually a dependency hell, needing lots of workarounds to test
properly.
~~~
aardvark179
I might agree if that type of if statement only appeared at one point in the
code, but there're normally several scattered around which all have to be
updated when obj3 is introduced. Also introducing a class hierarchy often
makes it easier to move responsibilities between objects as the code evolves.
For example I recently did some work on a graphics library which had a lot of
ifs to do with line and fill styles. By changing those into an inheritance
hierarchy I found a couple of places where clauses had been missed and so
fixed some bugs, but more importantly when we needed to add new fill styles
which were more complicated to draw it became very easy to turn the fill style
objects into fillers which had all the responsibility for filling paths, not
simply setting the graphics state.
~~~
raverbashing
Yes, there are situations where changing the structure of the code is better
than having an 'if' like the example you gave.
But this doesn't mean that it's better to completely eliminate ifs
------
barrkel
Functional pattern matching (more rigorous IFs) is open for functions but
closed for extension. You can write as many functions as you like, but you
need to modify all of them if you add a new data type.
OO polymorphism is closed for functions but open for extension. You have a
fixed number of functions (methods), but you don't need to update all the call
sites if you add a new data type - merely implement all the methods.
The requirement for what needs to be open and what can be left closed is what
determines which choice is better.
For example, a GUI framework is best left open for extension, because every
application GUI usually ends up with specific widgets custom-designed for that
app - sticking with standard widgets tends to make apps form-heavy and lacking
in polish. But for the widgets to work in the framework, they need a fixed set
of methods to be consistently manipulable.
A compiler AST is best left open for functions, because the majority of work
on an AST is in algorithms that transform the AST. The language changes at a
much slower pace than additional optimizations and analyses, and frequently
new language additions can be represented in terms of existing AST constructs
(where they are syntax sugar, effectively built-in macros). So having a more
fixed set of AST node types is less of an issue.
Choosing one or the other on the basis of the orthodox religion of OO or
functional programming, meanwhile, is just obtuse.
~~~
Nitramp
That's the classic "Expression Problem" (aptly named wrt its common appearance
in ASTs).
Note that it's relatively straight forward to express the function-
extensibility through the visitor pattern in an OO language; in a functional
language, you could probably implement your own dynamic dispatch technique to
get the type-extensibility.
In both cases, you'll end up with some boilerplate, depending on your
language. E.g. for a complex language with lots of different AST node types,
you'll end up with lots of tiny classes, mostly just implementing stupid
constructors.
~~~
barrkel
Function-extensibility using the visitor pattern in OO sucks compared to
functional pattern matching. It is almost unusable except for the most trivial
tree traversals.
Frequently you want to be able to pass arguments down and return values up the
tree traversal. Using visitors, you need a whole separate class for each
unique function arity, or you have to use tedious little data carrier
instances. Sometimes you want to switch between them half-way through the
traversal, e.g. use your constant-folding visitor during an optimization
visit, and the visual overhead of constructing visitors and keeping track of
them, making sure they're all linked together properly, is really ugly. Don't
even think about matching the visitor method on more than one parameter type,
like you might do with e.g. overload resolution of binary operators. I've been
there working on a commercial compiler, and I don't want to go back there
again.
Haskell can implement the OO style using existential types (forall), a bit
like Go's interfaces, except once you put a value into an existential type
variable, you can't typecast it back out again.
~~~
pacala
> Function-extensibility using the visitor pattern in OO sucks compared to
> functional pattern matching.
Not only that, but using the visitor pattern tilts the extend types / extend
functions into extend functions realm, soundly defeating the supposed
advantage of being open to extend on types. As such, visitor pattern is
precisely the same as a switch statement.
The only difference left is language specific. In Java, adding a new type will
make your compiler whine if you have abstract methods in the visitor. That's
because javac can't tell when a switch over enums is exhaustive.
------
tallanvor
Some of this seems petty. For example, the author gives the following "bad"
example:
def method (object)
if object.property
param = object.property
else
param = default_param
end
end
And suggests that this is better:
def method (object)
param = object.property || default_param
end
To me, this is an example of an if statement by another name. Sure, you cut
out a few lines, but it's still an if-then construct. Both examples are most
likely going to be treated the same way by the compiler as well.
~~~
michaelfeathers
I disagree. Sure, the code is functionally equivalent today, but the next
person touching the 'or' version might be less likely to introduce side-
effecting computation. The 'if-else' version is completely open-ended.
We need to think about the effect our choices have on the next person who
touches the code. Often with a different baseline people make different
changes. It's a micro-form of 'No Broken Windows'.
~~~
delinka
"We need to think about the effect our choices have on the next person who
touches the code."
And that next person might be the newbie on the team that doesn't have the
business domain knowledge built up over years of working for This Company. So
I'll use the if statement to keep intent clear.
Or maybe it'll be someone whose primary programming language doesn't use the
|| operator. Or maybe, for some unknown reason, it'll be a PHB. So I'll use
the if statement to keep intent clear.
~~~
michaelfeathers
Setting the baseline gives you a higher probability of a better change than
you would have otherwise. This assumes that not everyone on the team is a newb
or a code-dabbling PHB. If they are, there's not much point in writing any
code.
------
d--b
No! This practice is absolutely terrible! Object-oriented programming _can_
allow you to make if-free programs, but it will cost you
readability/maintainability. Many people have been fighting against the
overuse of inheritance and oo patterns that emerged in the 90s. Do not fall in
the trap again!
~~~
nikic
I think this is (once again) just a question of finding the right balance.
Using polymorphism to avoid manual conditionals is a practice that can often
improve readability and maintainability. One just shouldn't drive it too far.
I do agree that people are massively overusing inheritance. In particular its
often used as a means for code reuse, not for polymorphism. In most cases
composition should be favored over inheritance.
~~~
michaelfeathers
I don't advocate a completely if-less style, but I do often grep and count ifs
and elses in a code base before digging in, just to get a sense of what sort
of developers have been there.
I think the if-less style is great kata material. You learn a lot when you
apply it on a toy project rather than a real one. Sometimes you need to overdo
things in order to understand what their limitations are.
------
kayoone
You know whats a smelly thing in OOP ? Overblown abstractions, design patterns
and stuff for the sake of flexibility which in the end mostly will never need
that kind of flexibility but in turn readability and clearness suffers
instantly.
I am all for Design Patterns and abstraction, but only when it makes sense.
~~~
meaty
In full agreement.
We have a rule about only using patterns if they become apparent rather than
selecting a pattern up front.
~~~
viscanti
I guess I don't see the harm in spending a little extra time up front to
design things properly rather than just jumping in and writing code, hoping to
stumble upon the correct design pattern. I've found it much easier to find and
solve problems up front rather than waiting for potential landmines, at least,
the time required to fix those problems is less if they're exposed earlier in
the process. It's certainly possible to over-engineer a solution if you select
a design pattern up front, but maybe you'd be better suited by having a rule
against over-engineering.
~~~
lmm
It's hard to define a rule against over-engineering. The only approach I've
seen that has any success is to ban any and all design up front, and only ever
write code to implement user-facing features.
------
laurent123456
In general, this kind of don't-use-this patterns are not very constructive. It
reminds of this obsession of not having global objects at all cost. And we end
up with singletons, static classes, etc. that are all just global objects in
disguise. If I need a global, I use a global and call it that, same if I need
an if/else statement.
It's an interesting article though, especially the conclusion: "Any language
construct must be used when it is the more reasonable thing to do. I like the
fact that the presence of if-s can indicate a bad OO design."
~~~
DigitalJack
I think your quote sums up the intention of this article and most of the
"don't do this" posts.
What they all are getting at I think is that constructs in a language can be
"abused" or used less than effectively either in terms of processing
efficiency or user/programmer interaction.
So when they say "don't do this" it's more to show cases where doing whatever
"this" is can be bad. Not that it's always bad and should never be used.
Also, the "don't do this" mentality can be a useful exercise to teach yourself
alternative ways of getting things done.
~~~
d--b
Fine, but the point is that the guy is only half-way through his reflexion. OO
programming is an effective way to organize the business logic. And that logic
should be coded in a sequential fashion to be readable and maintainable.
Finding the right balance would be a much more interesting subject than to say
'ifs suck'
------
rejschaap
Yeah, I've seen people go down this path. In the next step they realize they
need an if-statement to determine whether to instantiate a PDFPrinter or a
MSWordPrinter. Which they conveniently hide inside an AbstractPrinterFactory
or a ComplexPrinterBuilder. This is probably how the whole Enterprise Java
thing got started.
~~~
arethuza
My own pet theory is that 95% of the enterprise code carefully architected to
be extensible is never extended.
~~~
gutnor
Similarly, when there are no extension points, extension get hacked in (= "if"
everywhere !)
Here is my experience with architected extension points:
1\. Generally the first extension point used set the trend, other developers
will follow the "pattern" blindly. Hacking to make it fit rather than use
another more appropriate extension. That is both bad and common (everyone has
had to work with too little time)
2\. There is often a sharp refocus close before or after release 1.0. A lot of
the extensions disappear at that stage (demo, experimental feature, cross-
platform/framework support, performance targets are set, security
infrastructure is decided, server setup, integration test env. available
instead of simulated, ...). Structural change (like removing extension point)
become very difficult to justify after release 1.0.
3\. Technical debt is very often called "selling feature" at management level.
But yeah, real world code sucks.
------
jre
This is an interesting idea and I think it's interesting to have it somewhere
in mind while programming.
A few thought though :
\- If you really push this to the extreme, you'll end up with all the logic
hidden in the classes inheritance hierarchy. I'm not sure this is more
readable/extensible than if/else statements.
\- Most of the example given by the author to use "language features" are just
syntactic sugar. Using collection.select instead of collection.each or ||
instead of if else is really just a matter of notation. I doesn't reduce the
number of test cases required for your code and it might lead to "magical"
one-liners that you have to read 20 times to understand.
------
davidw
For those who have never used a functional programming language, those often
allow you to do "if-less" or at the very least "if-lite" programming via
pattern matching.
~~~
CJefferson
Is pattern matching really that different from switch statements, which are
really just fancy if statements?
Trying not to sound sarcastic, but if people are for if-free programming,
pattern matching does not seem to be the answer for me. When I add a new type
in haskell, I usually find myself having to look through all my pattern
matchings.
~~~
riffraff
I second the question, pattern matching is cool for destructuring or for
completeness checking (not sure those are fundamental properties of pattern
matching though), but it does not solve the problem of adding new behaviour
without changing existing code any more than an `if` does.
~~~
ufo
This is not a bug - its a feature! Pattern matching/ifs are good for creating
new functions, while OO style makes it hard to add new methods.
------
praptak
Those who use _if_ are obviously too flimsy to decide what their programs
should do. I would not trust such persons to write any code at all.
------
Zak
It's not just an OO thing. If you're using conditionals, you might actually
want something else - a dispatch table, for example. Thinking about
alternatives to conditionals will probably result in better code most of the
time, but actually trying to go if-less seems forced.
------
Strilanc
Replacing a switch statement or large if statement with a virtual call (enum
-> interface refactoring) can definitely be very beneficial. It can turn
[crimes against
humanity]([https://github.com/aidanf/Brilltag/blob/master/Tagger_Code/f...](https://github.com/aidanf/Brilltag/blob/master/Tagger_Code/final-
state-tagger.c#L145)) into perfectly respectable code.
But, obviously, don't take this too far. If you find yourself not using an if
statement (or ternary operator) when writing the absolute value (for non-
optimization reasons)... you've gone too far.
int UnclearAbs(int value) {
return value * (value >> 31);
}
~~~
lmm
Abuse of bitwise operators is an abomination, but I'd instinctively write
"value.abs" (scala), which is clearer than an if.
Obviously many things are ultimately implemented using if, but it's too low-
level a construct to be using for day-to-day work.
------
jwilliams
This is an aside, but don't use the ruby "to_proc" approach that listed in the
article. i.e:
result = collection.select(&:condition?)
The "&:proc" methods are (very, very likely) slower and they also "leak".
When I say "leak", the VM doesn't Garbage Collect the parameters of the proc
until it is used again. Most of the time this is fine, but when it's not,
you're wasting considerable amounts of memory. This is known and is considered
within the spec.
I know they are semantically equivalent, but the MRI is doing something weird
internally. (ps. Learnt this the hard way).
------
killahpriest
This is a terrible example of IF-less programming. The conditional is still
here, it is just implied.
IF:
def method (object)
if object.property
param = object.property
else
param = default_param
end
end
Claimed to be IF-less:
def method (object)
param = object.property || default_param
end
It may be easier to read, but in the end you are still writing an IF
statement.
~~~
dsego
It's not only easier to read, but it clearly shows the intent, that it is only
an assignment. It's faster to comprehend too, you don't even have to look at
the right hand side if you're not interested. The first example obfuscates the
intent a bit. Also, in other languages, you'd have to declare the variable
first and that's even more lines of code.
~~~
dragonwriter
It would be just as clear in expressing that the intent is an assignment (and
more clear what is being assigned, since it avoids the coalescing-OR) though
less concise to leverage the fact that Ruby's "if" is an expression not a
statement:
<code> param = if object.property then object.property else default_param end
</code>
Though, actually if you want to do what the description says (use the default
if the property is unassigned, represented conventionally in Ruby by the
accessor returning nil) rather than what either the good or bad code does, you
probably want:
<code> param = if not object.property.nil? then object.property else
default_param end </code>
(The difference between this and the other versions shows up if the property
is assigned, and its value is false.)
~~~
killahpriest
The code tag does nothing, do this instead:
_Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced
verbatim. (This is intended for code.)_
<http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>
------
mwilliamson
As an example of taking this to an extreme, I was at a coderetreat where we
had to implement Conway's Game of Life without any if statements (or similar,
such as switches) -- we had to use polymorphism instead. The result was that
my partner and I ended up reimplementing a subset of the natural numbers as
distinct classes.
[http://mike.zwobble.org/2012/12/polymorphism-and-
reimplement...](http://mike.zwobble.org/2012/12/polymorphism-and-
reimplementing-integers/)
I'm definitely not advocating this as good programming practice, but the point
is that if you're used to always using if statements, then it's hard to learn
alternatives. By forcing yourself to use the unfamiliar, you might find some
situations where polymorphism is better suited to the problem, whereas you
would have previously defaulted to using ifs.
(barrkel has already left an excellent comment on when the two styles are
useful, so I won't repeat it:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4977487>)
------
lclarkmichalek
The first example is an actual example of how removing ifs can reduce
complexity, but the last few seem misguided. It is no easier to test
`collection.each {|item| result << item if item.condition? }` than
`collections.select(&:condition)`; they are all but equivalent. The exception
handling example doesn't actually show the benefit of not using ifs, it shows
the benefits of using exceptions over return values. Setting up default values
via || is also a nice trick, but it hardly makes a macro difference.
Also, "# I slept during functional classes"? I don't know ruby, but the `each`
method seems to be just a variant of map, which is a pretty fundamental
functional construct.
~~~
ajanuary
each is basically an entirely non-functional variant of map if functional is
defined as no side affects.
------
primitur
One reason why "ifs are smelly" has become a maxim in some circles is because
they represent an under-tested code path. In such areas as safety-
critical/life systems, where a different codepath can be taken on the basis of
a single var, this can be a very, very dangerous practice. Certainly in
safety-critical, a reduction of "if"-based codepaths represents _higher
quality software_ in the end.
I have seen cases of radiation-derived bit-rot which don't manifest in any way
until a certain "if"-path is evaluated by the computer - this seriously does
happen and can still happen in modern computers today.
Having an abundance of such code switch points in a particularly large
codebase can be a degree of complexity that nobody really wants to manage - or
in the case of disaster, be responsible for .. so this maxim has been pretty
solidly presented in industrial computing for a while. Make the decision-
making as minimal as possible to get the job done, and don't over-rely on the
ability of the computer to evaluate the expression in order to build robust
software.
Now, its sort of amusing that this has propagated into the higher-order realms
of general application development by which most Class/Object-oriented
developers are employed .. but it is still an equally valid position to take.
State changes in an application can be implemented in a number of different
ways, "if" being one of the more banal mechanisms - there are of course other
mechanisms as well (duffs devices, etc.) which are equally testable, yet more
robust - simply because they break sooner, and can thus be tested better.
I take the position, however, that a well-designed class hierarchy won't need
much navel-gazing decision-making, which is what the ol' "if (something ==
SOMETYPE)" statement really is: a kind of internal house-keeping mechanism
being done by the computer at runtime, instead of at compile-time.
So there is a balance to this maxim, and the key to it is this: how complex
does it need to be, versus how complex can the codebase be before it becomes
unmanageable. If you're not doing full code-coverage testing with 100% testing
of potential codepaths, then every single if statement represents a potential
bug you didn't catch yet.
------
alter8
A nice blog series on if-less programming (in Portuguese):
<http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/search/label/ifless>
------
riffraff
Not endorsing, but much more expanded by the Anti-IF campaign
<http://www.antiifcampaign.com/> (which focuses on "bad IFs")
------
bane
I'm a little surprised nobody is lamenting the performance hit this kind of
technique will incur vs just using an if statement.
(reaching into my way back machine, ifs essentially compile down to a few
comparison instructions (which are often just subtractions) and a jmp
instruction (depending on the platform), it's literally built into the
processor! For a simple if statement we might be talking a handful of cycles
to eval the if vs an extended call stack pumping and dumping exercise)
~~~
neumann_alfred
For inner loops etc., having less branch prediction misses or none at all can
actually outweigh having to do slightly more complex calculations.
<http://stackoverflow.com/a/11227902>
~~~
bane
I'm actually curious about the internals of how a modern OOP system works
internally once it's boiled down to the CPU level. I'd imagine there's still
lots of branch prediction issues in complex OOP systems.
~~~
neumann_alfred
Well, that you don't use OOP for those inner loops is kinda taken for granted
I think. That is, you certainly don't program for code beauty first and
foremost -- OOP may not hurt in a particular case, but if it does, code beauty
may have to go... example: <http://www.particleincell.com/2012/memory-code-
optimization/> (which is not about OOP per se, and not about branching, but
illustrating that knowing what the CPU actually does (not just what it did
decades ago) is really important when talking about performance)
------
jayvanguard
2001 called, it wants its debate back. For all the new kids on the internet:
OO doesn't enable re-use, inheritance generally sucks, and bloating your code
with new types just to solve something three lines of if/then/else could solve
isn't worth it.
------
polskibus
If you're doing "ifs" on the same condition sets in various functions then you
should consider encapsulating the condition in class hierarchy. If there is
just one if for a condition set, introducing a class hierarchy is just bloat.
------
andrewcooke
how does "try to use less X because Y" become "don't use X"? and why is this
considered good?
to clarify: my question "why is this considered good?" isn't about "if-less
programming", but about taking ideas to dumb extremes.
~~~
alisnic
You did not read the article, by no means I suggest to get rid of the IFs
completely.
------
lucian1900
Replacing static decisions with polymorphism is indeed often a good idea, but
there's nothing wrong with using if when it's appropriate.
------
PaulHoule
The problem isn't if, it's "else if".
If-then-else ladders tend to evolve to be very difficult to understand,
maintain and debug
------
gbog
An often better alternative to inheritance for conditionals is configuration
with functions as values.
------
wildranter
Don't. Just don't. Do you think Da Vinci would've painted just with oil
because people think real painters work just with that? No he didn't, and so
you shouldn't too.
Don't limit yourself just to blindly comply to some silly idea. Use everything
you know to get the job done, and once you get it working, make it beautiful.
If statements are an incredible tool. Just ask any Erlanger and they will
either tell how much they miss it, or just lie to your face. ;)
~~~
revscat
If statements are rife for abuse and can be an indicator of poorly thought out
structure. This article mimics my own experiences, namely that overuse of if
statements is a smell and can usually be avoided to the benefit of the code.
I long ago abandoned else clauses. It was a short time thereafter that I
realized that if statements themselves weren't all that necessary, most of the
time.
~~~
colomon
There is no programming construct that exists that is not rife for abuse.
------
sublimit
Oh great. What will you people come up with next? Variableless programming?
~~~
gordonguthrie
Erlang is mostly IF-less (destructuring pattern matching in function heads)
and doesn't have variables.
A = 1,
A = 2, % fatal error because 1 != 2
So, yeah, variabless programming FTW!
~~~
dragonwriter
Erlang has mutable variables (the process dictionary), it just makes you do
more work to get at them instead of immutable ones and prevents them from
being directly shared and causing synchronization problems.
~~~
gordonguthrie
No, the process dictionary is not a mutable variable - there is no natural
idiom to use values stored in the process dictionary as variables in code, you
have to get them out and put them in via immutable variables.
Any given Erlang process has meta-information about itself, how many
reductions it has, how big its heap is, which flags are set. These are the
global state of the process.
The process dictionary allows you to store and manipulate your own global
state of the process - and the people (hands up, that includes me) get smart
and use it as local state of the programme and then get their bum bitten badly
and swear never to dance with the dark side again... :(
Not bitter :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
San Francisco to Tax Google Buses - joshhart
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/06/san-francisco-to-tax-google-buses
======
muzz
Why was the title changed to remove the quotes around "Google Buses"? As if SF
is taking one company, and not all private bus operators?
Changes like these, in addition to WSJ's own wording, can give a reader a very
different impression than the article itself.
From the piece, a few important things that would seem to belie the title:
"State law limits such fees to the cost of providing a service or policy"
(This indicates it is a usage fee, not a tax)
"Google released a statement on its “shared goal of efficient transportation
in and around San Francisco,” saying, “We believe the pilot program is an
important step."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FPGA Programming for the Masses - nkurz
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2443836
======
AndresNavarro
I think the last paragraph is key:
> We also need to revisit the approach of compiling a high-level language to
> VHDL/Verilog and then using vendor-specific synthesis tools to generate
> bitstreams. If FPGA vendors open up FPGA architecture details, third parties
> could develop new tools that compile a high-level description directly to a
> bitstream without going through the intermediate step of generating
> VHDL/Verilog. This is attractive because current synthesis times are too
> long to be acceptable in the mainstream.
This is both an ideological as well as a practical matter. Until the whole
process INCLUDING bitstream generation is open, I don't see FPGAs as a viable
alternative to general purpose processors.
~~~
DanWaterworth
I can't up vote this enough. I keep gearing up to try using an FPGA, but ever
time I do, I am prevented from continuing by my revulsion of closed source
tools.
~~~
nitrogen
DrDreams: it looks like a comment you made 41 days ago resulted in your
account being disabled (see
<https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=DrDreams>). I'm quoting this sibling
comment here for readability by those who do not enable showdead, as it is
relevant to the FPGA discussion.
_DrDreams 29 minutes ago | link [dead]
Speaking as an embedded developer, I see a number of other embedded devs
hobbying around with FPGAs. However, I very rarely see convincing use cases
for FGPAs. This article seems to lean toward the belief many of my colleagues
have, that FPGAs are right around the corner in terms of general usefulness.
However, I disagree strongly. I find that they are highly-specialized devices.
Before reading the rest of my writing, consider that at this time, brilliant
hardware designers are putting similar amounts of work into both general
purpose CPUs and into FPGAs. However, CPUS are comprised of dense blocks of
special-purpose silicon for common purposes, such as floating-point math.
FPGAs always have to match that dense silicon through configurable silicon,
which is less dense. Furthermore, the routing in CPUs is a known entity at
manufacturing time. On FPGAs, the routing is highly variable and must be re-
negotiated at nearly every compile cycle. That's a huge time sink, both in
terms of build time and in predicting performance. Especially since those
short routes that you get at the beginning of a project, typically end up
being longer by the end of it. Nowadays, we are seeing more FPGAs with
dedicated, pre-made hardware blocks inside of them, such as FPUs and even CPU
cores. These have more of a chance of catching on for general purpose
computing. Notice however, that on these devices, it's the general-purpose CPU
dominating, leaving the FPGA as a configurable peripheral, subordinate to the
dense, pre-designed silicon.
Although one may be able to match GPU performance with an FPGA, it's usually
just not worth it. It will take dozens of hours of FPGA coding and simulation.
Compiling and fitting and the rest of the FPGA dev chain is very time-
consuming and resource-intensive, compared to the speed and elegance of gcc.
Speaking of standard development practices, FPGA code is not nearly as
portable as C. It often has special optimizations done for the sake of the
device implemented. <http://opencores.org> has a number of more generic
modules available, but still, FPGA code does not scale as well as C code.
There are add-on packages that help write FPGA synthesis code - code
synthesizers, but they make matters especially complicated. The syntax of
Verilog and VHDL is not well-designed for scaling. Speaking of these
languages, if you are used to languages written to be parsed easily, such as
lisp, python, or even C and Java to some extent, you will be very appalled at
the structure of Verilog and VHDL. There are many redundant entities, lots of
excess verbiage and all kinds of special cases. It really has evolved very
little since the days of the Programmed Array of Logic (PAL).
Another problem with FPGAs is the additional hardware on board needed to
configure them. It's one more component or interface that is not needed when
using CPUs. It's an additional software image to maintain, revision, store in
source control, etc. FPGAs also often require more power supplies and better
power supply conditioning than a regular CPU and often a separate clock
crystal. They are high-maintenance.
FPGAs do shine though in a few specific instances: 1. When there is a
particular, uncommon high-speed bus protocol you need to communicate with and
can not buy pre-designed silicon for. This does not mean, e.g. USB. It means
something like a non-standard digital camera interface or embedded graphic
display. 2. Software Radio. 3. Obscure, but computationally-intensive
algorithms like Bitcoin.
I hope my words have convinced some people to cool their lust for FPGAs,
because I feel they're a bit of a dead-end or distraction for many who are
attracted to the idea of "executing their algorithm extremely fast" or
"becoming a chip designer." I have seen many students and professionals burn
up hours and hours of their time getting something to run on an FPGA which
could just as easily have been CPU-based. For example, one student implemented
a large number of PWM oscillators on an FPGA where it would have been much
simpler to use the debugged, verified, PWM peripherals on microcontrollers.
Another guy I work with is intent on running CPU cores on FPGAs. This is an
especially perverse use of the FPGA. Unless you've got some subset of the CPU
which adds incredible value to the process, you're exchanging the the density
of the VLSI/ASIC version of the chip for the flexible, less dense version on
FPGA. This may be useful in rare situations, such as adding an out-of-order
address generator to an existing core for speeding up an FFT, but it suffers
an incredible performance and developer time hit to get to this point._
~~~
DanWaterworth
nitrogen: Thank you for reposting.
DrDreams:
_Furthermore, the routing in CPUs is a known entity at manufacturing time._
The 'routing' of a CPU is much more variable than the routing of an FPGA. Data
moves around a CPU based on the program that is executing. The control logic
of a CPU is the equivalent of the routing logic of an FPGA.
_On FPGAs, the routing is highly variable and must be re-negotiated at nearly
every compile cycle._
The 'routing' of a CPU is the same. The compiler has to perform register
allocation afresh on every compilation. There's obviously a tradeoff between
fast compilation vs most efficient use of resources. Both problems are NP-
complete I believe.
_Nowadays, we are seeing more FPGAs with dedicated, pre-made hardware blocks
inside of them, such as FPUs and even CPU cores._
You just contradicted yourself. Previously, you said "FPGAs always have to
match that dense silicon through configurable silicon".
Your next paragraph talks about toolchain issues. This is hardly an
insurmountable problem. Someone just needs to design a high level language
that can be synthesised; something akin to a python of the FPGA world if you
will.
_Another problem with FPGAs is the additional hardware on board needed to
configure them._
I don't quite understand, do you mean the hardware that reads the bitstream,
etc or the hardware that is required in order for the FPGA to be configurable,
like routing, LUTs, etc.
_Another guy I work with is intent on running CPU cores on FPGAs._
I do agree with you here, this is a weird perversion if the purpose is not
eventually to create an ASIC.
I also don't believe that future processors will be FPGAs, but I do believe
they will be a lot closer to FPGAs than CPUs.
~~~
caxap
_Someone just needs to design a high level language that can be synthesised;
something akin to a python of the FPGA world if you will._
The advantage of FPGAs is that they allow nontrivial parallelism. On a CPU
with 4 cores, you can run 4 instructions at a time (ignoring the pipelining).
On the FPGA, you can run any number of operations at the same time, as long as
the FPGA is big enough. The problem is not the low-level nature of hardware
description languages, the problem is that we still don't have a smart
compiler that can release us from the difficulty of writing nontrivial
massively-parallel code.
~~~
VLM
"The advantage of FPGAs is that they allow nontrivial parallelism."
Want a system on a chip with 2 cores leaving plenty of space for an ethernet
accelerator, or 3 cores without space for the ethernet accelerator? Its only
an include and some minor configuration away.
"the problem is that we still don't have a smart compiler that can release us
from the difficulty"
Still don't have smart programmer... its hard to spec. Erlang looking elegant,
doesn't magically make it easy to map non-technical description of
requirements to Erlang.
------
VLM
The article missed a VERY important modern FPGA design technique which is
using raw VHDL/Verilog like a "PC programmer" would use hand optimized
assembly. In other words, most of the time, not very much.
So the "inner loop" which needs optimizing is a crazy deep complicated DSP
pipeline, obviously you implement that in FGPA "hardware" directly in a HDL.
On the other hand, you'd be crazy to implement your UI or a generic protocol
like TCP/IP in hardware (unless you're building a router or switch...).
Something like I2C is right about on the cusp where you're better off writing
it in plain ole C or implement it as a "hardware" peripheral in the FPGA.
Peripheral ... of what you ask? Well, depending on your license requirements
and personal feelings there are a zillion options like microblaze/picoblaze
from the FPGA mfgr, or visit the opencores website and download a Z80 or a
6502 or a PDP-10 or whatever floats your boat for the high level. Yes, a full
PDP-10 will fit easily in one of the bigger hobby size Spartan FPGAs. Its not
1995 anymore, you've got enough space to put dozens (hundreds?) of picoblaze
cores on a single FPGA if you want now a days.
There's no point in hand optimized HDL to output "hello world" just like
there's no point in the antique technique of software driven "bit banged"
serial ports just "include" an off the shelf opencore UART to simplify your UI
code.
I've been in this game a long time and this is the future of microcontrollers
and possibly general purpose computing. The engineering "skill" of searching a
feature matrix to find which PIC microcontroller has 3 I2C hardware and 7
timers and 2 UARTS in your favorite core family is going to be dead, you'll
just "include uart.h" and instantiate it 2 times and you pick your favorite
core, be it a Z80 or a microblaze or an ARM or a SPARC.
In the future I think very few people "programming" FPGAs are going to be
writing anything other than a bunch of includes and then doing everything in
the embedded synthesized Z80. The "old timers" who actually write in HDLs are
going to look down on the noob FPGA progs much like the old assembly coders
used to look down on the visual basic noobs, etc.
~~~
robomartin
If the focus of your work is to replace discrete embedded processor blocks
with FPGA's, sure, copy, paste and include might get you pretty far. That is
not the case for all applications, not by a longshot. For example, I had to
build a DDR memory controller from scratch in order to squeeze the last clock
cycle of performance out of the device. Off the shelf cores are often very
--very-- general purpose, badly written and poorly documented. The same can be
true of real time image processing constructs where something like a hand-
coded polyphase FIR filter can easily run twice as fast as plug-and-play
modules floating about.
Then there's the element of surprise. If, for example, I was developing an
FPGA-based board for a drone or a medical device, I would, more than likely,
require that 100% of the design be done in house (or crazy extensive testing
be done to outside modules).
Anyone in software has had the experience of using some open-source module to
save time only to end-up paying for it dearly when something doesn't work
correctly and help isn't forthcoming. If the software you are working on is
for a life support device it is very likely that taking this approach is
actually prohibited, and for good reason.
While I fully understand your point of view, this is one that reduces software
and hardware development to simply wiring together a bunch of includes. In my
experience this isn't even reality in the most trivial of non-trivial real-
world projects.
FPGA's are not software.
I see these "FPGA's for the masses" articles pop-up every so often. Here's
what's interesting to me. If you are an engineer schooled in digital circuit
design, developing with FPGA's is a piece of cake. There's nothing difficult
about it at all, particularly when compared to the old days of wire-wrapping
prototypes out of discrete chips. Sure, there can be a bit of tedium and
repetition here and there. At the same time, one person can be fully
responsible for a ten million logic element design...which was impossible just
a couple of decades ago.
If you don't understand logic circuits, FPGA's are voodoo. Guess what? A
carburetor is voodoo too if you don't understand it.
Let's invert the roles: Ask a seasoned FPGA engineer without (or with
superficial) web coding experience to code a website --server and client
side-- using JS, JQuery, HTML5, CSS3, PHP, Zend and MySQL. Right.
Then let's write an article about how difficult web programming is and how it
ought to be available to the masses. Then let's further suggest that you can
do nearly everything in web development via freely available includes.
I happen to be equally at home with hardware and software (web, embedded,
system, whatever) and I can't see that scenario (development-by-includes)
playing out in any of these domains.
~~~
caxap
At the moment, I am writing some computer vision code in VHDL. A part of the
circuit will perform connected component labeling (CCL) on incoming images,
because I want to extract some features from some object in the images. And
CCL is actually a union find algorithm. The algorithm can be written in a
normal programming language like Racket or even Java in a couple of hours.
However, the same algorithm will take me weeks to work out and test in VHDL! I
have done some nontrivial work with FPGAs, and every single time it was hard,
because every low-level detail has to be considered. Maybe it is so hard
because on FPGAs you are forced to optimize right from the start, whereas when
using programming languages, you can develop a prototype quickly and then
improve upon it? How is your experience with developing stuff on FPGAs?
~~~
VLM
I would talk to these guys (unless you are one of them) working on extending
their results
[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6412129)
The wikipedia entry also has a link to a parallelizable algo from 20+ years
ago for CCL. FPGAs certainly parallel pretty easily. I wonder if your
simplified optimum solution is to calculate one cell and replicate into 20x20
matrix or whatever you can fit on your FPGA and then have a higher level CPU
sling work units and stitch overlapping parts together.
More practically I'd suggest your quick prototype would be slap a SoC on a
FPGA that does it in your favorite low-ish level code, since it only takes
hours, then very methodically and smoothly create an acceleration peripheral
that begins to do the grunt-iest of the grunt work one little step at a time.
So lets start with just are there any connections at all? That seems a
blindingly simple optimization. Well thats a bitwise comparison, so replace
that in your code with a hardware detection and flag. Next thing you know
you've got a counter that automatically in hardware skips past all blank space
into the first possible pixel... But thats an optimization, maybe not the best
place to start.
Next I suppose if you're doing 4-connected you have some kind of inner loop
that looks a lot like the wikipedia list of 4 possible conditions. Now rather
than having the on FPGA cpu compare if you're in the same region one direction
at a time, do all 4 dirs at once in parallel in VHDL and output the result in
hardware to your code, and your code reads it all in and decides which step
(if any) was the lowest/first success.
The next step is obviously move the "whats the first step to succeed?"
question outta the software and into the VHDL, so the embedded proc thinks, OK
just read one register to see if its connected and if so in which direction.
Then you start feeding in a stream and setting up a (probably painful)
pipeline.
This is a solid bottom up approach. One painful low level detail at a time,
only one at a time, never more than one at a time. Often this is a method to
find a local maximum, its never going to improve the algo (although it'll make
it faster...)
"because on FPGAs you are forced to optimize right from the start" Don't do
that. Emulate something that works from the start, then create an acceleration
peripheral to simplify your SoC code. Eventually remove your onboard FPGA cpu
if you're going to interface externally to something big, once the
"accelerator" is accelerating enough.
Imagine building your own floating point mult instead of using an off the
shelf one ... you don't write the control blocks and control code in VHDL and
do the adders later... your first step should be writing a fast adder only
later replacing control code and simulated pipelining with VHDL code. You
write the full adder first, not the fast carry, or whatever.
~~~
caxap
No, I am not one of them :) Thanks for the reference! I am drawing my
inspiration from Bailey, and more recently Ma et al. They label an image line
by line and merge the labels during the blanking period. If you start merging
labels while the image is processed then data might get lost if the merged
label occurs after the merge.
The paper that you reference divides the image into regions, so that the
merging can start earlier, because labels used in one region are independent
of the other regions. If it starts earlier, it also ends earlier, so that new
data can be processed.
In my case, there is no need for such high performance, just a real time
requirement of 100fps for 640x480 images, where CCL is used for feature
extraction. The work by Bailey and his group is good enough, and the reference
can be done in the future, if there is need for more throughput!
My workflow is a lot different from the one that you describe. I don't use any
soft cores, and write everything in VHDL! I have used soft cores before, but
they were kind of not to my liking. I miss the short feedback loop (my PC is a
Mac and the synthesis tools run in a VM).
After trying out a couple of environments, I ended up using open source tools
---GHDL for VHDL->C++ compilation and simulation, and GTKwave for waveform
inspection.
Usually, I start with a testbench a testbench that instantiates my empty
design under test. The testbench reads some test image that I draw in
photoshop. It prints some debugging values, and the wave inspection helps to
figure out what's going on.
If it works in the simulator, it usually works on the FPGA! But the biggest
advantage is that it takes just some seconds to do all that.
I will give the softcore approach another chance once my deadline is over!
~~~
robomartin
One quick note. Sometimes in image processing you can gain advantages by
frame-buffering (to external SDR or DDR memory, not internal resources) and
then operating on the data at many times the native video clock rate.
If your data is coming in at 13.5MHz and you can run your internal evaluation
core at 500MHz there's a lot you can do that, all of a sudden, appears
"magical".
------
jbangert
While I am not an expert on FPGA design, I believe Figures 1 and 2 are
slightly exaggerated. The C program is very ad-hoc (returning a double from
main is actually illegal and will lead to interesting results) and avoids all
I/O, whereas the Verilog program seems to be quite complicated (in particular
with the use of ready flags and clocks). Please correct me if I am wrong, but
couldn't the authors just have used a continuous assignment (or maybe a simple
clock) for their conversion? Also, don't newer verilogs support specifying
IEEE floating point numbers in their natural form, as opposed to having to
manually convert them to hex? This seems a little like catching attention and
potentially trying to make the alternative products (SystemVerilog, etc.) look
nicer.
------
solusglobus
The code in Figure 1 should be for Figure 2 and vice-versa.
~~~
easytiger
Yea that was a tad confusing. I had to readread to make sure i hadn't missed
something
------
zwieback
It's been a while since I worked with FPGAs but my experience was that using
drop-in CPU cores and peripherals is pure joy, drag and drop what you need,
build your bits and you're good to go. Replacing an I2C with SPI or supporting
a wide range of daughterboards is trivially easy.
On the other hand, it only takes a day of writing low-level Verilog to realize
that the problem of correctly and efficiently parallelizing algorithms is a
hard one. We were using a very early C to Verilog (C2H) compiler from Altera
and it worked but was very inefficient in terms of logic element use. I'm sure
there's a lot of R&D going on in that space because without significant
progress general purpose CPUs or at least cores will remain dominant for some
time.
------
dgrnbrg
I have been working on this problem as well, by writing a system that allows
you to compile Clojure to FPGAs. I'll be giving a talk on it at Clojure West:
<http://clojurewest.org/sessions#greenberg>
</shamelessplug>
~~~
DanWaterworth
I've also been working on a HDL DSL. I've been using Idris; the type of a
circuit ensures that it implements the correct behaviour.
------
gatesphere
Having worked with Lime hands-on, it is certainly going to make splashes. It's
a fabulous idea and deserves much more attention than it's getting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Interactive Vim tutorial - ashitlerferad
http://www.openvim.com
======
sevensor
Alternatively, don't try to hurry enlightenment.
First, learn
:q!
Next
h,j,k,l
Then
i and ESC
Finally
:w
Now you know vim. Don't let people tell you you're using too many keystrokes.
Are you still reaching for the mouse? If not, you're using vim just fine.
Most of the good stuff in vim, you'll learn accidentally, because you're in
normal mode when you think you're in insert mode, or because you have caps
lock on in normal mode and you don't realize it. Pay attention to the bizarre
behavior that results and you'll learn useful tricks. Mode confusion is a
feature, not a bug.
For the rest, there are certain topics that reward study and are unlikely to
present themselves to you accidentally, but there's no hurry unless you're
feeling the pain of not knowing them. I recommend:
1\. Visual selection mode
2\. Prefixing counts to commands
3\. Search and replace with regular expressions
4\. Advanced cursor movements
Lastly, if you're using gvim, do
:set guioptions=
at the beginning of every session. Those GUI elements will tempt you to use
the mouse, when that's almost never an appropriate thing to do.
Edit: learning to use x and d early on is probably also a good idea, if like
me you're the kind of person who makes mistakes.
~~~
edanm
Sorry, but I think that's really bad advice.
For one thing, it doesn't give new users any positive experience or _reason_
to learn vim. If all you learn is to do things that are "pointless" (like
learning hjkl), then you won't get any value out of vim. And if your way of
learning is to do something that screws up your file and try to recreate how
that happened, well, let's just say that every time I do something that screws
up my file I'm in the middle of working, and the _last_ thing I want is to
stop and fix some random problem.
I usually recommend people try to get into vim easily, then learn the GOOD
things. I.e. I think it's perfectly fine that people start with arrow keys,
much as I love hjkl. But to get _value_ out of vim, you should really learn
"f" and "t", and text objects, then how they compose with "c" and "d". That is
the reason I started loving vim myself - that's when I saw that it gives me
something that other editors didn't give me, adn that encouraged me to explore
further.
~~~
sevensor
I think we just don't agree about what the good parts of vim are. I find f and
t to be a minute improvement over forward search. I think hjkl is strictly
better than arrow keys, because you don't have to move your fingers from the
home row to navigate a file, and I think the basic editing commands I outlined
are sufficient for a superior editing experience within a day of learning
them, no deep study required.
~~~
autokad
i'm sure it becomes intuitive with lots of use, bit i find it awkward with
having to move my finger off the home keys to move left. somehow for me, its
even more confusing that way. where as my arrow keys are completely intuitive,
one finger for the left and right keys and the middle finger handles up down.
to me its not a big deal to remove my fingers from the home row if i already
have to move from the home keys.
------
icc97
All these tutorials are like taking beginner French. If you want to learn
French live in France. If you want to learn Vim you have to live in it. Use it
for your development full time. Then over time you start to see it's power.
For me on Windows, GVim was the only sane option. Mostly because the Windows
console can't fully handle syntax highlighting / italics. However it's also a
good transition world. You've got all the power of Vim but quite a few of the
commands you'd expect still work. I've practically never need them but it's
handy to reduce the confusion / frustration
~~~
yasserkaddour
I fully agree with you, however some people are worried by the loss of their
daily productivity especially if they are used to using their mouse a lot, for
those I will recommend to start learning vim in their browser to surf mouse-
free using plugins like SurfingKeys[1], vimium[2](chrome),
Vimperator[3](Firefox). Once used to surf without reaching to the mouse and
know the essential vim key, you'll be ready to use vim daily for your dev
work, without a big loss in initial productivity.
[1]
[https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys](https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys)
[2] [https://vimium.github.io/](https://vimium.github.io/)
[3] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/vimperator/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/vimperator/)
~~~
maddyboo
I cannot recommend SurfingKeys highly enough; it's a phenomenal extension.
------
mushishi
Author here.
The tutorial succeeds if it gets people to have a superficial comprehension
what Vim is about -- especially for those that have been putting off trying it
out in a terminal. That's it. It doesn't really try to make you actually learn
Vim.
As a tutorial it could be made so much better. I don't have the energy slots
for this project. But I feel anxious when I get feedback because I feel like
there's some moral duty to fix the site. The least I can do is to pay for the
hosting so that people get to have a go with it as it seems some people like
it.
Just to make clear: the Vim behaviour is modelled and is not just trivial
precoding of keystream. There is a sandbox where you have contextual helper at
the right side of the screen. You can play around with it to your heart's and
battery's content. But it is merely a simplistic version of Vim.
Development-wise the most fun aspect of the tutorial was the DSL for tests.
For some reason (haven't really updated the code properly in years) many
fails. But click on the individual tests and you see something fun.
[http://openvim.com/tests.html](http://openvim.com/tests.html) See the
corresponding code here:
[https://github.com/egaga/openvim/blob/87b9e1d62c4144c958ddf8...](https://github.com/egaga/openvim/blob/87b9e1d62c4144c958ddf81f9a9b4b10577cea0d/js/testing/tests.js#L25)
The actual code is modelled operating on html elements. This was a fun side
project, so please don't be too critical. It grew bigger than anticipated.
~~~
batisteo
Your side project made me switch from Nano to Vim on my servers through SSH. I
aprehended vim with fear, and now I have the right level of confidence. Thank
you!
~~~
mushishi
That is heartwarming to hear :) You're welcome!
------
andkenneth
I started going through it, and unfortunately it takes control away from you
way too often. I want to be able to toy around with the concepts after I learn
them. I'd still recommend `vimtutor`.
~~~
doktrin
'vim adventures' also seems fun, but it's not quite the same (for me) without
the context of actually navigating a text document.
~~~
travmatt
I picked up vim very well from vim adventures. Once I finished the game those
key movements were in my muscle memory, and that’s all that was really needed
to get me up and running.
------
elliotec
Here’s how I “learned” vim and many of the more proficient vimmers I know did
too: go through vimtutor (type “vimtutor” on your command line), then write
YOUR OWN .vimrc - in vim. Then use it and learn by doing.
~~~
nickysielicki
I disagree with the notion that you have to write your own vimrc from scratch
in order to become a proficient vim user. Don't waste your time pouring over
the documentation and trying to get things just right, vim is a pretty old
program and a lot of useful config options are not on by default, nor are they
easy to understand by a skim of the documentation. There's no point to having
a deep understanding of them, because you want them on 100% of the time.
Start by copying someone else's vimrc (vim-sensible [1] is a great starting
point) and tweak it as needed. My $0.02 is to avoid plugins until you have
used vim for a substantial amount of time.
[1]: [https://github.com/tpope/vim-
sensible/blob/master/plugin/sen...](https://github.com/tpope/vim-
sensible/blob/master/plugin/sensible.vim)
~~~
elliotec
I strongly disagree with your disagreement, but that's ok.
Writing my own vimrc from scratch (but obviously referencing others) was by
far THE best learning tool for me.
------
Ajedi32
Went through the tutorial, but I still don't think I really get why so many
people seem to like Vim so much. The only thing there I noticed which was new
to me from a functionality standpoint was the repeated commands feature.
Anyone have some better examples of things you can do with Vim that make it
worth learning over a GUI-based editor like Atom?
~~~
et1337
I think the strongest arguments for vim are:
1\. The main benefit of vim or any editor is not some fancy feature like
macros or visual block editing. Although vim has those and they are great,
they only become useful in about 20% of situations. When coding, you spend
much more time reading code than writing it. That's why vim has you in Normal
mode most of the time, where you can't type at all, and the whole keyboard
becomes a tool for navigating. Reaching for the mouse incurs an unconscious
mental cost that affects the way you read and write code. Editor ergonomics do
impact your codebase.
2\. Vim's ratio of power to learning difficulty is the best out there, because
once you learn one word of vim's "language", you can combine it with every
other word you know and it will behave how you expect.
3\. I never try to convince people to switch to the actual vim editor because
it requires a ton of customization just to be usable, and overall it's not
that great. It's filled with cruft and weird things like a custom scripting
language. The only important part is the key bindings, and you can get those
in any modern editor. I use about 4 different editors and IDEs on 3 platforms
on a daily basis. I never had to learn all their crappy keyboard shortcuts
because they all have vim key bindings.
~~~
dasil003
I have to disagree with #1, vim normal mode is emphatically not about
navigation, it's about _editing_. It's basically a command grammar where
navigation (motions in vim parlance) can be combined with the various
commands.
The key observation behind its design is that programmers and sysadmins spend
much more time editing than entering new text, and therefore it is asinine
that 40 of the keys on the keyboard are permanently dedicated to typing out
literals when there are very obvious editing operations that give you a lot
more leverage.
------
fstop
Honestly though, is it even worth learning?
I've tried learning VIM a few times and always gave up, and feel like my
editors shortcuts cover most cases anyway. There's also not that many times
where I feel like coding speed is required. Honestly curious how much more
productive you guys feel after learning VIM.
~~~
thomasahle
For me the productivity boost is mostly a matter of having a suite of very
powerful shortcuts/commands that I can use everywhere. I use them in all IDE's
(IntelliJ, Visual Studio, Eclipse all have great vim plugins); I use them in
any terminal I get access to, even when I can't install software; and I use
them in less, Chrome, man and other other tools that copy vim's shortcuts
either natively or through plugins.
In actual day to day use, it is more a matter of saving my fingers from
stressful yoga tricks.
~~~
pweissbrod
+1
Also consider vim in your web browser (vimperator or vimfx or qutebrowser or
vimium)
Vim in your file explorer (vifm)
Vim in your terminal (tmux in vim-mode)
Vim in your mayonnaise for lunch
([https://lisalynnfit.vimtoday.com/images/thumbs/0000878_1200....](https://lisalynnfit.vimtoday.com/images/thumbs/0000878_1200.jpeg))
Vim as a floor wax/desert topping
([http://www.mysavings.com/img/link/large/74808.jpg](http://www.mysavings.com/img/link/large/74808.jpg))
and so forth.
~~~
vetar
You mentioned tmux... What is the best counterpart windows solution by you?
vim+tmux is awesome.
------
mbonzo
Thanks for making this tutorial and helping more people with Vim! I actually
started learning Vim a few months ago. And to help me practice, a friend of
mine recommended Vimgolf challenges. Since then I’ve been making weekly videos
about the solutions to those challenges. I started it because some of the
solutions were really hard to understand and I had almost given up a few
times. I hope that by making videos it’ll help people see and understand some
of the more complicated vim commands. I thought this would be a good place to
share, hope it helps someone!
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9xP5LRmm2qbSKq6nHTB_bw?vie...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9xP5LRmm2qbSKq6nHTB_bw?view_as=subscriber)
------
cleandreams
Here's a plug for bash with vim on the command line. (Ubuntu but also wsl). In
your login dir, in .inputrc, add:
set editing-mode vi set keymap vi-command:w
This gives you vim on the command line, very handy.
Interactively, set -o vi will work.
This is a great way to 'live in vim.'
------
chestervonwinch
I apologize that this question is slightly tangential to the submitted post,
but this seems like an ideal venue to ask: Is there a GUI interface to vim
that has smooth-scrolling?
I've tried Gvim, but this just seems like vim with buttons (no smooth-scroll).
I've tried Sublime text with the ActualVim plugin (powered by NeoVim), but
this had errors which somehow swapped document buffers on write, essentially
deleting an entire document (thankfully I had a backup).
~~~
alfla
Do you mean scrolling with a mouse? It might sound a bit arrogant, but there's
rarely any good reason to scroll with a mouse in vim.
~~~
revscat
I would like to second this, and support you in that I don’t think it is an
arrogant sentiment. Many of the efficiency gains vim gives you are the result
of being able to navigate anywhere in a document or on a line with a few
keystrokes. The mouse is comparatively slower, once the navigation commands
are familiar.
~~~
no_wizard
I disagree, in only that good mouse support can help ease the transition and
in some cases it may simply come down to user preference for some things. I
don’t think personally that any text editor should be overly opinionated in
how a user interacts with it; too much at least. I do agree that it is mostly
more effective to not use a mouse once you know the commands
------
thinkpad20
I've tried learning Vim several times, but the need to switch modes and back
for cursor movement has been a huge turnoff, especially considering the
location of the ESC key. It seems to just conflict with the way that I type,
where I am frequently jumping my cursor around in the middle of text editing,
which is effortless in Emacs. Maybe mastering Vim is not just about memorizing
key combos but about changing your coding workflow?
~~~
thomasahle
> especially considering the location of the ESC key
This can be solved by remapping ESC to Capslock.
~~~
Tenhundfeld
Exactly. Or remap it to any key combination that makes sense for your work, if
you like using Capslock for its original purpose, which I happen to.
For example, I have _jj_ and _jk_ mapped to ESC. So I just tap _j_ twice while
in insert mode, and it switches to normal/command mode. If you find yourself
needing to type jj or jk often in insert mode, just pick other letters that
make sense for you.
To use mine, plop these in your .vimrc:
inoremap jj <Esc>
inoremap jJ <Esc>
inoremap jk <Esc>
~~~
flukus
I do it with zz, which I find is consistent with ZZ (save and quit).
------
udp
The single thing you need to do to learn vim is to download the ViEmu
cheatsheet[0], _print it out_ , and stick it on the wall where you can see it.
Printing it out is mandatory - you need to be able to see it without switching
windows.
Putting things up on the wall is like a free, albeit static, extra monitor.
:-)
[0] [http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif](http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-
cheat-sheet.gif)
------
earlybike
To learn Vim you have to use it everyday. Question is if most have the
opportunity to use it full-time for development from day one. I started with
Vim using it just as a todo list manager on a remote server. Wrote here and
there some macros to add or mark todos and that was my gateway drug. Used it
everyday and at some point it felt more natural than any other editor. So I
fully switched.
Besides, I use Neovim for 1-2 years now.
~~~
nitemice
I 100% agree. I originally learnt Vim because I didn't have any choice. It was
the only supported editor at my workplace, so I was thrown in the deep end,
using it every day.
That kind of situation can foster resentment, but I embraced the challenge. I
got use to Vim, and overall adopted a more "UNIX" approach to my workflow and
development. I'm not all the way there, but I'm trying to embrace it more,
little by little.
------
pmoriarty
To make the basic vim movement keys (hjkl) second nature to you, play games
that use them for movement, like Nethack[1] and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.[2]
[1] - [http://www.nethack.org/](http://www.nethack.org/)
[2] - [https://crawl.develz.org/](https://crawl.develz.org/)
------
gravypod
Coincidentally we've recently shipped a tutorial for Nano except we've decided
to build it strait into our editor! After you 'sudo apt update && sudo apt
upgrade && sudo apt install nano' you can run 'nano' in your terminal. At the
bottom of your terminal window you'll see a set of hand-picked lessons
displayed for you. Anywhere you see "^" you just hold CNTRL on your keyboard.
Unfortunately we didn't have the funds to implement our own content in the
tutorial series. You'll have to provide your own textual media to practice on.
You can do this by typing "nano <your_file_name>" in the terminal which will
launch our tutorial system with your file. The tutorial system is very
unobtrusive and will remain on the bottom of your screen until you add 'set
nohelp' to your nanorc.
------
pkamb
Are there any common "home row arrow key" schemes besides the Vim HJKL? Need
to determine which to learn, and those 4 have never made sense to me.
ESDF and IJKL look temping
Typing in Dvorak, I'd need to remap anyway before being able to use the keys.
May as well pick the best scheme.
------
ah-
It would be amazing to be able to play with the commands in addition to
pressing exactly the keys that the tutorial tells you to press.
Get a demonstration, then try on your own.
Or maybe even include a vim golf game as an exercise? E.g. get to some word in
less than four key presses.
~~~
jlebrech
vim golf needs to be multiplayer
------
sfsylvester
Is there something similar to this for emacs?
~~~
stinkytaco
To expand on the answers, C-h t opens the built in tutorial, which is good. It
only covers the basics of navigation, but that's what you need to know to
start. The tutorial is interactive.
Since emacs changes its behavior depending on the mode, it would be
impractical to do a more in depth tutorial, in my opinion, but I liked the
Mastering Emacs ebook.
~~~
todd8
One of the very best features of Emacs is it's built in help system, faster,
more convenient and more accurate than most program wikis or on-line
documentation.
Emacs is too big to learn every one of the 7000 or so functions, one learns
just what's useful in a particular realm. Anytime it's necessary to wander
into new territory, there is really good built-in help system available. Help
commands start with Ctrl-h. The next keystroke determines the kind of help
that comes next.
A handy prompt after Ctrl-h suggests typing '?' for additional options. The
basics options are:
a PATTERN -- show commands whose name matches PATTERN
d PATTERN -- show commands whose documentation has a match to PATTERN
f -- documentation of a particular function
c -- what command runs for a particular Emacs key sequence
t -- learn by doing tutorial.
There is a full page of other help options including access to the full emacs
manual.
~~~
stinkytaco
The only gripe I have with emacs help, is that it does require some basic
skill to use it. The help opens in a window in the existing frame and you need
to know how to jump back and forth and close. It's a bit like having to drive
yourself to your learning to drive lessons. But once you've done the built in
tutorial a few times, you should have that basic skill.
~~~
prakashk
> The only gripe I have with emacs help, is that it does require some basic
> skill to use it.
The only thing to know is to press 'q' to quit the help window and get back to
where you were.
------
todd8
I was just watching my daughter writing a program in Java using eclipse. It's
frustrating to watch a relative beginner editing using a combination of the
mouse and the keyboard--it's so slow.
------
rudedogg
Kind of off-topic but this is probably a decent place to ask..
I've just started working on a text editor as a side project, and one of the
main things I want to include is a really complete implementation of vim
keybindings. So far I just have a queue of keyboard events. Basic movements
seem pretty easy, but I'm worried about operator motions (d6w - delete 6
words, etc). Will I basically need to build a parser?
Any guidance or keywords I can use to research/learn how to do this would be
greatly appreciated.
------
vram22
I would like to read a long and interesting article like this, but for emacs,
because I've been mainly a vi/vim guy (on both Unix and Windows) (plus use of
various other text editors on Windows (Textpad, Notepad++, Metapad (light use,
like a better Notepad), PFE (older, cool one, it could edit really large
files), Norton Editor (NE, damn fast one), and some others, but interested in
learning about emacs' capabilities.
------
superasn
A little off-topic, but if you like working in Vim, try using cVim[1] for
Chrome. It really makes your browsing experience a lot faster, especially if
you're on a laptop.
[1]
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojhcghmfjfneahoeklbjjh?hl=en)
~~~
curioussavage
Is there anything better about this than vimium?
The most disappointing thing about using an extension for this is when I open
dev tools or a tab fails to load. I love luakit because the browser itself
lets you set up vim like commands. Unfortunately I had to give up trying to
build it for macOS
~~~
foo101
Vimium has been a very frustrating experience for me. The one thing where I
always trip:
\- Press 't' to open a new tab.
\- Now I realize I want to go back to the previous tab. I press 'Escape'.
Nothing happens. The focus is stuck in the address bar. I press 'J' and of
course the 'J' gets typed into the address bar. How do I escape back to normal
mode? I can't figure.
With VimFx for Firefox, it works exactly as one would imagine.
\- Press 't' to open a new tab.
\- Now I realize I want to go back to the previous tab. Press 'Escape' to
return to normal mode. Press 'J' to go back to the previous tab.
If this is something that works fine in cVim, I am going to ditch Vimium in
favor of cVim today!
~~~
superasn
I tried pentadectyl for firefox and couldn't get it to work after 1 hour of
messing around (some version issues). I'll try vimfx because I'm not too happy
with cvim either mainly because it won't run on chrome:// pages which makes it
necessary to use the mouse afterall.
------
localhost
Obligatory link to VimGolf, a great way to learn by doing.
[https://vimgolf.com/](https://vimgolf.com/)
~~~
omtose
This website sucks, it takes forever to load challenge pages because they're
flooded with irrelevant entries which you can't even see if you don't submit
your own. You can't even visualize the solutions directly in the browser.
~~~
aidos
And you never really get to learn anything. I generally come away feeling like
there's this knowledge locked in solutions I'll never get to see so there's no
way to improve. Seems like a good idea but in practice it's just frustrating.
------
bananicorn
Now I wonder if there's a js library which makes a textfield behave like
VIM...
Guess I'll need to look at the source here later on to find out.
~~~
woodrowbarlow
since this site doesn't let you experiment, i'd guess they didn't actually
emulate vim. it's little more than a slide deck triggered by specific
keypresses.
~~~
bananicorn
Makes sense, vim emulation seems a bit overkill for this^^
------
no_wizard
Not to be that that guy but I’m gonna go ahead and plug spacemacs here. Using
it in Vim (EVIL) mode I found it to be basically like vim navigationally
speaking, plus they have a built completer for commands and you can even get
help with commands in real time using ? And just start typing. Not a knock
against Vim just something I found to be very beginner friendly
~~~
waivek
nnoremap h j
Is this possible yet in their elisp config?
~~~
Nullabillity
You should be able to put
(define-key evil-normal-state-map "h" 'evil-next-line)
into your dotspacemacs/user-config.
~~~
waivek
That doesn't work everywhere. This was my dealbreaker with Spacemacs. To remap
hjkl to jkl; (imperfectly at that) I had to do the following:
(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "j") 'evil-backward-char)
(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "k") 'evil-next-visual-line)
(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "l") 'evil-previous-visual-line)
(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd ";") 'evil-forward-char)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd "j") 'evil-backward-char)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd "k") 'evil-next-line)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd "l") 'evil-previous-line)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map (kbd ";") 'evil-forward-char)
(define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd "j") 'evil-backward-char)
(define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd "k") 'evil-next-line)
(define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd "l") 'evil-previous-line)
(define-key evil-motion-state-map (kbd ";") 'evil-forward-char)
(define-key dired-mode-map (kbd "j") 'evil-backward-char)
(define-key dired-mode-map (kbd "k") 'evil-next-line)
(define-key dired-mode-map (kbd "l") 'evil-previous-line)
(define-key dired-mode-map (kbd ";") 'evil-forward-char))
~~~
ludston
(defun multi-evil-define (d symb)
(define-key evil-normal-state-map d symb)
(define-key evil-motion-state-map d symb)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map d symb)
(define-key dired-mode-map d symb))
(multi-evil-define (kbd "j") 'evil-backward-char) ....
------
Ascetik
So... many... commands.
~~~
dutchieinfrance
So... much... power.
~~~
kowdermeister
I wonder what was the issue with arrow keys. Were there keyboards that lacked
them?
~~~
mrzool
Yep, but it then stayed that way because arrow keys are distant and require
you to leave the home row, while hjkl are on the home row.
Vim is all about ergonomic touch-typing.
------
rmetzler
Just last week my team and I understood how to select inside and around of
brackets.
vi" - select inside "
va{ - select around curly brackets
If you have selected what you want, you're able to yank (y), change (c),
delete (d) the selected text.
------
mrzool
How is a web-based tutorial better than "the real thing" (i.e. vimtutor)?
------
qwerty1793
I have to say how confusing I found this demo without a US keyboard. In
section 10 I spent far too long pressing Shift+3 and wondering why it wouldn't
progress even though I was pressing the pound key (£).
------
simondedalus
best way to learn vim:
(optional) first, go thru vimtutor (just type vimtutor in your shell and press
enter).
second, get a vim cheat sheet (google).
finally (most important), code a few things using vim. keep google at the
ready to look up "how do (etc)?" to speed up things you're actually doing.
once comfortable with that, maybe watch a few vim tips videos.
after all that, you will probably find vim much more comfortable than gedit,
textedit, notepad, etc, just for the power. if you favor ides, you'll probably
need to do a lot of tweaking to love raw vim, though or course some ides offer
vim keymapping anyway.
~~~
jhauris
I really liked having a "vim mug" as cheat sheet. If you drink hot liquids at
your desk you'll have a mug anyway. This way it doubles as a vim reference
while you're learning and you're probably less likely to lose it.
------
fokinsean
My biggest vim efficiency booster is remapping <esc> to "jk"
~~~
foo101
What do you do when you actually need to type the string "jk"? Type "j", then
wait for sometime and then type "k"?
~~~
tomsthumb
it waits `timeoutlen` before accepting the next character as literal instead
of as part of the mapped sequence. see `:help timeoutlen`
------
chrismorgan
Wait, Shift+7 for slash? What keyboard layout is this? I had already noticed
various other weird things about the layout depicted on the screen, but that
one takes the cake.
~~~
alvarosevilla95
Probably Spanish. It's a horrible layout for developers, curly braces involve
alt-gr for instance...
~~~
SeriousM
As well as the German layout. But you get used to if you don't know anything
else.
------
jdhawk
Looking at the TOC, its missing cut/copy and paste, which is pretty important
for any text editor
~~~
rstefanic
It's true, but since vim is a bit old, copy/pasting can be a bit awkward due
to having an internal clipboard with the buffer and not using the system's
clipboard.
I wouldn't put that in a beginner tutorial (at least the system clipboard
copying/pasting).
~~~
Xophmeister
Vim has system clipboard support with the `+` and `*` registers.
~~~
edanm
Or even better, setting "set clipboard=unnamed" in your vimrc, which just
makes it to so vim's clipboad _is_ the system clipboard.
~~~
Analog24
I never knew about this trick, which is pretty significant if you use tmux
regularly. This just made my day!
------
css
The day I commit myself to learning vim properly, this comes up. Thanks for
posting!
------
shmerl
It's using hardcore classic vim key bindings. Insert mode doesn't even start
when pressing actual Ins. I understand some can have nostalgia for the times
of archaic terminals, but I find it counter productive. Sorry, but I'm going
to use Ins and regular arrow keys, not i and h,j,k,l.
~~~
Lio
Then you’re missing the point of touch typing the commands from the home row.
~~~
shmerl
I simply find those keys for navigation awkward and out of place. Habits play
a role here.
~~~
Analog24
It's hugely inefficient to have to pick up your hand every time you want to
move the cursor (assuming you're a developer and spend a significant amount of
time in a text editor). If you don't want to learn a new tool to improve
efficiency that's one thing but saying that it's out of place to use the
'hjkl' keys for navigation is pretty misguided.
~~~
shmerl
Efficient enough for me. And yes, for me those keys are out of place for
navigation.
------
movedx
(Incoming controversial anti-Vim comment. Down voting because you disagree is
a poor show and a poor argument. Convince me otherwise with words, good sirs
and madams.)
Vim, beyond the very basics for server side administrative tasks, isn't worth
your time.
Vim isn't worth the investment in time for me, as an average programmer, and I
doubt it's worth the time of most other (average) developers as well. It's a
big investment in retraining muscle memory and rethinking about how your
editor works for, frankly, little gain.
"It speeds you up" \- no it doesn't. It gives you access to keyboard shortcuts
for moving around your buffer that other editors give you. It has a cool way
of looking at text and once understood, you can do cool shit. I never could
find a need for any of that stuff, even after spending a week or so learning
it and adjusting muscle memory. After moving to VSCode, I've never missed that
stuff neither. That says a lot about my personal use case I'll admit, but my
use case in very common as an everyday programmer.
Funny enough, most editors have plugins to enable Vim modes and keyboard
weirdness anyway.
So I've tried moving to Vim from Sublime, and I'm thankful for the time I
invested, but I quickly realised that Vim (and Sublime, actually) fall short
compared to VSCode or a serious IDEs. And yes, I'm aware you can make Vim
behave like an IDE - I did it. I get it. It's not worth the time.
With modern, graphical editors and IDEs like VSCode, Atom, Eclipse, the
IntelliJ family like IDEs, and so on, you get up and running straight away.
You can extend them very quickly using a built in plugin system - you don't
even have to leave the software.
I use VSCode, and I've found that I haven't had to leave the editor or install
anything outside of VSCode plugins to make it operate as a Java IDE, Go IDE
(OK, I had to install Delve), or Python IDE. It has saved me a lot of time
tinkering and allowed me to just get going. It even PROMPTED me when I opened
a Python, Go, or JavaScript file for the first and offered to install plugins
for making the file easier to work with... YES PLEASE! And yes I know Vim can
do these things (using external, third party plugins.) I did it. I get it.
It's not worth the time.
I'm also aware that Vim uses kilobytes, perhaps megabytes, of RAM to operate
and VSCode uses hundreds. And that's a problem how? I have 16GB of RAM on a
system running a single VM for Docker and a browser. I'm the first person
you'll find who will complain about how bloated and heavy applications are in
this day and age, believing that us programmers are getting lazy due to an
ever increase in resources, but a few hundred MBs of RAM for massive time
savings and a great UI is worth it.
It's simply not worth the time invested. The basics allow you to do quick
server side stuff and you'll be thankful for the knowledge, but beyond that
use something designed for the job, even if it does eat RAM for breakfast.
~~~
foo101
> It gives you access to keyboard shortcuts for moving around ...
Your whole comment can be dismissed easily because of this one gross
misunderstanding. Vim is not a bunch of weird keyboard shortcuts. If one
approaches Vim as an editor that uses keyboard shortcuts that are inconsistent
with every other editor out there, then one is simply setting themselves up
for pain and unproductivity.
Vim is not a bunch of keyboard shortcuts. It is an interactive editing
language! For more, see this excellent comment on StackOverflow:
[https://stackoverflow.com/a/1220118/1175080](https://stackoverflow.com/a/1220118/1175080)
(a very well written answer!).
~~~
movedx
It's an interactive editing language... that I'll never use and still be as
productive as you.
~~~
foo101
Good luck living in your comfortable bubble!
~~~
movedx
Thanks. I do, and will continue to :)
------
equalunique
I learned vim on Ubuntu 8.04 by using vimtutor.
------
tolgahanuzun
unbelievable, it's so much fun.
------
downrightmike
That was fun.
------
foo101
The first thing I do on a new system is map my Caps Lock key to
Escape[1][2][3] so that I can use Vim conveniently without having to reach the
physical Escape key placed awkwardly at the corner of the keyboard.
The choice of Escape key to return to normal mode and H, J, K, L for
navigation makes total sense if we look at the original Lear Siegler ADM-3A
terminal[4] that Bill Joy used while creating vi, but in the modern day
keyboard, the choice of Escape key to return to normal mode really disturbs
the otherwise fine ergonomics of using Vim.
[1]:
[https://github.com/susam/uncap#uncap](https://github.com/susam/uncap#uncap)
[2]:
[http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_Windows...](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_Windows#Utilities)
[3]:
[http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_XWindow...](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_XWindows#Comment_from_tip_327_.28now_removed.29)
[4]: [https://vintagecomputer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/LSI-
AD...](https://vintagecomputer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/LSI-ADM3A-full-
keyboard.jpg)
~~~
weaksauce
Mapping jk and kj to escape and mapping caps lock to some other hyper key is
way better than caps lock to esc IMO. You can just mash both j and k together
and you are out of it.
inoremap jk <esc>
And
inoremap kj <esc>
In your vimrc file should do it.
~~~
foo101
I have considered such alternatives in the past and they did not work for me.
For example, how can I conveniently type the string "jk" or "kj" with such a
configuration?
The artificial delay I have to introduce between typing "j" and "k" to
actually type "jk" is unacceptable. Although it is rare, I sometimes do have
to type "jk" in special circumstances such as while typing LaTeX code.
Mapping Caps Lock to Escape is just a much cleaner solution that does not come
with any surprises.
~~~
humblebee
I use the 'jk' and 'kj' mapping for escape as well, though I've never actually
needed to type those characters out myself or at least it's so rare I don't
remember. However, everyone is different.
What I'd suggest if you want to give it a try is to also set the `timeoutlen`
to a lower value. By default it's usually 1000ms, but that can be dropped
quite a bit I believe without much interference.
autocmd InsertEnter * set timeoutlen=100
autocmd InsertLeave * set timeoutlen=1000
~~~
foo101
This 'jk' and 'kj' mapping works only to get out of the Insert mode. But it
does not match the full capability of the original 'Escape'.
\- How do you escape from visual mode to normal mode?
\- How do you ensure that your abbreviation gets expanded when you escape from
insert mode to normal mode?
\- How do you escape from operator-pending mode to normal mode? With this
mapping, if you press 'd' to delete something and then change your mind and
decide to return to normal mode, you are forced to use the original 'Escape'
anyway. If you happen to press 'jk' due to habit at this time, it is going to
end up deleting lines.
For these reasons, I thought to have a clean mapping of another convenient key
(such as Caps Lock) to Escape at an operating system level, rather than trying
to make Vim treat some other key as Escape in certain modes.
------
denisehilton
That's a highly interactive Vim tutorial. Kudos to the developer
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IdeaSquares - every Square has the potential for success - IdeaSquares
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ideasquares-an-idea-platform-with-endless-possibilities/x/4742129
======
doubt_me
Whats stopping these ideas from being stolen?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ontology is Overrated (2005) - Tomte
http://shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
======
PaulHoule
In the Semantic Web that is called "anybody can say anything about any
subject".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Say Nothing in 500 Words - mcantor
http://www.apostate.com/how-say-nothing-500-words
======
chime
Giving concrete examples is something Feynman talked about a lot too. It is
easy to talk abstractly about anything but in the end, something real and
relatable must exist. When I deal with enterprise software, I prod the sales
guys to tell me what the feature really means and does. Sure, it will
streamline the sales order approval process but what does that entail? Outlook
add ons? Browser popups? Notifications over SMS? Excel reports? Or 12
different screens that users have to click refresh on all day? My users will
interact with something in the end. Show me the screenshots of all that
already.
When I write business software, I dig in for details with my users in the same
way. I understand you want me to fix the document printing process.
Unfortunately that is too vague to write code for. Let's find out exactly what
it is that needs fixing. Usually after some digging in, I change a button or
two and it is now fixed!
It is hard work to be exact, precise, and specific. Being general is too easy.
------
cduan
I used to write papers in a fractal form. A short one would go like:
_In my opinion, A is true. A is true for at least three reasons: B, C, and D.
B is true for at least three reasons. First, E. Second, F. Third, G.
Therefore, B is true.
C is true for at least three reasons...
D is true for at least three reasons...
In conclusion, A is true._
If I wanted a longer paper, there would be subparagraphs under B, C, and D, in
the same form. For my thesis, each of those subparagraphs got sub-
subparagraphs. You can guess what I would do if I ever wrote a book.
~~~
olegkikin
Your post is only 113 words long. I give you a "D".
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
~~~
mcantor
It seems to me that, in my opinion, as to all practical intents and purposes,
it's arguable that what you meant to say was something along the lines of,
"Your post seems to be no more than 113 words in length; I have no choice but
to assign you a grade of 'D'."
~~~
Mithrandir
Well, you know what they say: at the end of the day, it is what it is.
~~~
whimsy
This tautology appears to be a tautological tautology.
------
damoncali
Reminds me of the most wondrous, but little known, feature in word perfect for
windows 3.1 - the "make my paper one page longer" button. That button saved me
hours in college. I've often wondered how it came to be - talk about listening
to your customers!
~~~
David
Out of curiosity and unfamiliarity with word perfect, what was that feature,
exactly?
~~~
damoncali
There was literally a button that said, "add one page" or something like that.
I assume it changed line height or margins in some subtle way, but it was
magic at midnight the day before your eight page paper was due, and you only
had seven pages.
------
David
The headings speak for themselves:
"Avoid the obvious content"
"Take the less usual side"
"Slip out of abstraction"
"Get rid of obvious padding"
"Call a fool a fool"
"Beware of pat expressions"
"Colorful words"
"Colored words"
"Colorless words"
Though [edit] the titles are a good summary of the article [/edit] (as per
"slip out of abstraction") the examples given are humorous, thorough, and help
in really getting the point being made.
It's interesting to consider how the author's (sometimes verbose) sentences
could be shortened. If writing for pure conciseness, what would you cut out?
Which parts are completely necessary? Are the rephrasings necessary to convey
the different aspects of the current point? Is the example given important
enough to stay?
"Pat expressions are hard, often impossible, to avoid, because they come too
easily to be noticed and seem too necessary to be dispensed with."
=> "Pat expressions cannot always be avoided."
"A writer's work is a constant struggle to get the right word in the right
place, to find that particular word that will convey his meaning exactly, that
will persuade the reader or soothe him or startle or amuse him."
=> "Each situation calls for a certain word with a certain connotation; the
writer toils to find it."
Again, there's no problem -- it's excellent writing, it just struck me that
word golf could be as interesting as code golf. What is the shortest possible
phrasing to express this exact idea? (I suppose we're doing it all the time,
except in English classes where word count is the goal.)
------
spudlyo
_Slang adjectives like cool ("That's real cool") tend to explode all over the
language. They are applied to everything, lose their original force, and
quickly die._
I've often marveled at cool's longevity -- unlike the adjective _sick_
(popular briefly in my social circle in 2005) which seems to have died out
almost entirely.
~~~
X-Istence
2005? That was WAY past its prime. That started in around 2001 for me in North
Jersey and existed until around 2003.
------
rfrey
Perhaps only semi-related, but can anybody tell me how scientific journal
writing fell into almost universal use of the passive voice? It drives me nuts
every time I read that some more assumptions will be validated or that
something else will be proven.
Which is to say, every single time I read an academic article.
~~~
flapjack
It's to make what was done (which is important to the paper) seem important
and make who did it (which is less important to the paper) seem unimportant.
~~~
pmiller2
The interesting thing to me is that in mathematics journals, the universal
pronoun is "we." The reason (I've been told) is that "we" represents the
collaboration of the author and the reader to understand the results and
proofs in the paper. This makes sense to me, because reading and writing
mathematics is a skill entirely apart from most other types of discourse. (Of
course, when I say "mathematics," I mean to include fields like theoretical
computer science and others in which discourse is of the "theorem, proof,
discussion" form.)
~~~
dreyfiz
That _is_ interesting. I instinctively use "we" when commenting code or
talking myself through performing a novel task, in both cases for the same
reason.
------
Mithrandir
I can't believe how many books I've read written by so-called "accomplished
writers" that use the exact same language as exampled in the article.
------
mcantor
I bet this could be a great answer to the poster in the "Shadow Scholar"
thread asking how he could possibly write 10 pages per hour.
------
kevinburke
At least he assigned a word deadline and not a page deadline. I wish schools
would let you get feedback on an essay from the teacher and then hand it in
again. Revision is not emphasized.
~~~
sumeeta
Revision was always emphasized to me, but I never understood why. I always
thought I was above it. After I became a programmer and had to look at old
code I’d written, I finally understood why revision is so important.
Couldn’t my teachers have told me that revision is so important because we’re
not qualified to evaluate our creations until they’re no longer fresh in our
heads? It’s not an obvious concept, and I wish others didn’t have to learn it
the hard way.
------
rbanffy
I suppose Percival Lowell's "nobody knows" telegram to William Randolph Hearst
doesn't count. And he did it with twice as many words.
------
iwr
"All subjects, except sex, are dull until somebody makes them interesting."
Certainly, sex can be dull. Unfortunately, going into the specific anecdotes
concerning the topic would make HN less work-safe and also damage the modesty
thereof.
------
rick_2047
The same way seo writers do it. I can write 500 words on any keyword.
~~~
eru
Try reading the article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The man who changed Internet security - nickb
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-9989292-57.html?hhTest=1
======
cperciva
I don't think this issue is quite as serious as Dan Kaminsky is making it
sound; but I'll say this for him: He's great at wrangling the media.
Is this bigger than past coordinated advisories? Maybe -- but not by much. A
major flaw in OpenSSL, OpenSSH, Sendmail, or IPv6 (e.g., the recent 'source
routing' issue) would all be just as "big" as this. Dan did exactly what any
responsible researcher would do -- nothing more.
~~~
nickb
It is. Both Thomas Ptacek and Dino Dai Zovi say they were wrong in thinking it
was not a big thing. Read this:
[http://blog.trailofbits.com/2008/07/09/dan-kaminsky-
disquali...](http://blog.trailofbits.com/2008/07/09/dan-kaminsky-disqualified-
from-most-overhyped-bug-pwnie/) [http://www.matasano.com/log/1093/patch-your-
non-djbdns-serve...](http://www.matasano.com/log/1093/patch-your-non-djbdns-
server-now-dan-was-right-i-was-wrong/)
~~~
cperciva
_Both Thomas Ptacek and Dino Dai Zovi say they were wrong in thinking it was
not a big thing._
Yes, I know. I was part of the pre-notified group.
To clarify: Ptacek and Dai Zovi were wrong in thinking that this attack is not
a big thing, and changed their mind when they heard more details. Having those
details, I agree that this is big -- just not as big as Kaminsky is making it
sound.
~~~
nickb
But were you told the details and you still think it's no big deal?
~~~
cperciva
Yes, I was told the details. I don't think it's "no big deal" -- I think it's
not _as big_ of a deal as Kaminsky makes it sound.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android (G1) Market Model: Low-volume, Low-cost? - brkumar
http://geekyouup.blogspot.com/2009/03/android-g1-market-model-low-volume-low.html
======
metachris
interesting posts. i guess the low-volume, low-value kind of game is the most
easiest to make some money at the current time.
as said in the article, a game which is made in a couple of days may probably
earn a couple of bucks. but i think the point is what you make. a duck hunting
game is just not a genuine, exciting enough game concept and thus by far not
reaching a paid apps potential (even if developed in a short timeframe).
i haven't seen any good 3d android games yet for example, neither well
implemented multiplayer fun. i also think games using the accelerators and
compass are just beginning to explore the possibilities and there may be many
clever game concepts developed around.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is your company's code open to all employees - imagiko
What considerations go in when a company decides to restrict codebase access to respective teams? I cannot see any code another team is working on. How common is this practice? What can one gauge about the company culture if this is the case?
======
jetti
Where I am at now we can see all the repos for all projects in the company
regardless of team. The only pre-req is to be added to the company's github
organization. We have a lot of cross team work, though, and I have worked on a
few services that aren't related to my team and it would be a pain to have to
request access.
At my last job, however, everything was locked down and you had to request
access to just about every repo. It was a pain in the ass and there was no
real valid reason to do so.
~~~
mytailorisrich
Source code is important intellectual property and trade secret.
In general it is simply good practice to only make this sort of information
available to employees who need it to carry out their jobs. It is not a
problem because there is usually no reason to study the code of another
product/module/team/whatever, and if there is a reason then access can be
granted, and is granted.
If your side needs to interact with another team's code and you cannot see
their source code it at least forces everyone to have properly documented
APIs.
~~~
imagiko
Assuming your developers have malicious intent is a bit strange for me
personally. But I get that some companies may have this structure in place.
~~~
mytailorisrich
This does not assume anything. That's the point.
------
shaniamama
My experience: Went to work at a startup transitioning to the next stage. When
hired I was told everything is available to all employees, 'there are no
secrets here'. I quickly found that most was locked away...and then noticed
the same in many places. That and what comes with it led to my leaving. When I
left I went back for a pseudo-exit interview with the CEO and he actually told
me he had been screwing my team for the past year. In essence what I found was
mostly lies. The lies began in interview (everything open to everyone) and
continued until I left (continuing to hire based on things that don't exist at
the company...like HR). My take: if you are told one thing and find it
different, look around at more things.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Bullish – Stock market performance stats in your inbox - blakbelt78
https://bullish.email
======
Etheryte
Interesting concept, a few questions right off the bat, though. Where does the
data come from? Premarket data can mean very different things with modern
buzzwords. What's your ToC and privacy policy? I'm not going to give up my
email just because.
~~~
blakbelt78
Hi there, data is coming from Yahoo Finance. I'll add a note regarding
privacy, but rest assured your email will only ever be used on Bullish. Thanks
for the feedback.
~~~
Etheryte
Thanks for the clarification. Tried signing up, looks like you have an issue
with CORS:
> Access to XMLHttpRequest at '[https://api.sg-
> form.com/signup'](https://api.sg-form.com/signup') from origin
> '[https://cdn.forms-content.sg-form.com'](https://cdn.forms-content.sg-
> form.com') has been blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request
> doesn't pass access control check: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header
> is present on the requested resource.
~~~
blakbelt78
That's weird. That form is coming from Sendgrid. You can try this direct link
instead [https://cdn.forms-content.sg-
form.com/ee9b6677-62ea-11ea-9ec...](https://cdn.forms-content.sg-
form.com/ee9b6677-62ea-11ea-9ece-ee034bb60b6a)
~~~
Etheryte
Found the issue, NextDNS seems to be blocking some part of the interaction
with the default settings, probably interacting with some intermediary that
also does tracking. Got it to work when I turned that off.
------
baxtr
Nice idea. At the same time, I wonder how this could help me make money. Your
claim is buy low, sell high. But how can publicly available futures help me
doing that?
~~~
blakbelt78
Actually, if you pay close attention it is "Buy high sell low" just making
fun. The idea is to get a feel for where the market is trending on any given
day before it opens.
~~~
baxtr
Ah. Sorry for not getting the joke then :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Yoda of Silicon Valley (2018) - wglb
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/science/donald-knuth-computers-algorithms-programming.html
======
__sy__
One the aspect I like the most about this man is how approachable and down to
earth he still is after all these years. I'll give one example. Late on night,
my friends were in the basement of the Gates building at Stanford working on
their CS107 Heap Allocator project. Lo and behold, Donald Knuth walks by and
sees them drawing all sorts of things on the white board in the hallway.
"What's that?" he asks, to which my friend responds about the heap allocator
project. "Oh, I know a thing or two about heap allocators; let me guide you"
:)
edit: lo and behold!
~~~
nkingsy
I think you meant “lo and behold”, but lord sounds good too in this context
~~~
__sy__
ah! I wish I was this clever--sadly, I am just bad at writing...
~~~
cpeterso
It's a great story!
btw, "Lo and Behold (Reveries of the Connected World)" is the name of a
documentary by Werner Herzog about the history of the Internet. "LO" was the
first text sent on UCLA's Internet test. They probably intended to enter
"LOGIN" but the network crashed. :)
[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lo_and_behold_reveries_of_t...](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lo_and_behold_reveries_of_the_connected_world)
~~~
hellofunk
Of course the phrase itself existed long before the documentary.
~~~
hellofunk
For example, the phrase goes back at least as far as Shakespeare.
------
pmoriarty
The following anecdote about Steve Jobs is from [1]:
_I was sitting in Steve 's office when Lynn Takahashi,. Steve's assistant,
announced Knuth's arrival. Steve bounced out of his chair, bounded over to the
door and extended a welcoming hand._
_" It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all
of your books."_
_" You're full of shit," Knuth responded._
[1] -
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt)
~~~
wglb
I think this is suspect on the face of it--was Steve Jobs known for
fabrications? Giant dreams, yes, but known to say outrageous falsehoods?
Further, Donald Knuth, as is pointed out in another link on this thread, is
quite humble and polite and unlikely to have called anyone full of shit.
This is uninteresting and very likely wrong. Let's not post junk like this.
~~~
nogabebop23
>> was Steve Jobs known for fabrications? ... known to say outrageous
falsehoods?
Just off the top of my head... He lied to Woz about being paid to develop
break out and stole money from him to go to India; He presented essentially a
block of wood as the finished, functioning iPhone in 2008-ish; oh, and he
denied paternity of his daughter Lisa as in "I am not the father" even after a
paternity test. The last one seems pretty outrageous.
I'm not convinced he viewed himself as outright lying; He probably had seen
Knuth's books and in his brain that meant he had read and understood them in
their entirety.
So maybe don't be so quick to dismiss this as junk. It's a pretty innocuous
example but completely inline with his behavior.
~~~
wglb
These make sense, but somehow they are more of the manipulative variety,
whereas the incident with Knuth was outright bragging, which seems less like
him.
~~~
erikpukinskis
Seems more like pandering than bragging. Or maybe just lying out of self
consciousness.
------
ChuckMcM
I first met Prof. Knuth at a conference in 1995 where James Gosling and I gave
a talk about Java, and at the same conference I told folks that I was leaving
Sun and joining a startup.
Three years later, while talking to Don at a picnic, he said, _" When I first
met you I couldn't tell if you were really smart or really stupid."_ :-) He
thought that being part of the original Java team would be the most exiting
place to be. Then a couple of years later (2001, post dot com crash) he told
me he had decided I had made a pretty smart choice, all things considered.
That was a good day.
~~~
pests
I want to mention you are one of the handful of people I recognize on this
site so it's interesting to learn more about your background.
~~~
ChuckMcM
There is always this [http://mcmanis.com/chuck/](http://mcmanis.com/chuck/)
:-)
------
pjmorris
There are many more important things about Knuth and his work, but one of my
favorite stories about him is that he showed up at Randall Munroe's Google
tech talk [0], and, during Q&A, asked Munroe "Have you thought about animated
cartoons?" and "What is your n log n algorithm for searching?"
I have a special respect for people who are both brilliant and humble, and
Knuth is my poster person for that.
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24)
~~~
vsundar
21 mts in:
[https://youtu.be/zJOS0sV2a24?t=1288](https://youtu.be/zJOS0sV2a24?t=1288)
~~~
7fYZ7mJh3RNKNaG
Headphone users beware
------
throwaway6497
Is he really? The title is so mis-leading. Coach of SV - Bill Campbell. Yoda
of SV - Knuth? Not really.
Knuth is more like the Yoda of CS. What is SV really? He is so far away from
all the SV excesses - greed is good, VC shenanigans, founder hubris, drinking
cool-aid, becoming new defacto destination for MBAs instead of Finance, FANG
mania and worshipping, Leetcode grinding to get into FANGs and their brethren
to chase insane comps, starry eyed and naive entrepreneurs who want to change
the world
Where does any of this overlap with Knuth. Lot of pirates in SV. Yoda like
figure - I can't even think of one. If tweets are any indication, I would
nominate Naval and PG as Yoda's of angel-funded/pre-series-A start-up
landscape.
~~~
vanusa
_What is SV really? He is so far away from all the SV excesses_
That's precisely the point: He's the icon of the ideals that SV _claims to_
espouse - but has obviously long since deserted.
That's why he deserves to be called Yoda.
------
ponker
I thought this was going to be about some dumbfuck VC but OK, for Knuth this
silly headline is acceptable.
~~~
__sy__
"who bears a slight resemblance to Yoda" \-- though I found this comment
somewhat disrespectful, HE would be the kind of person finding this amusing.
------
ur-whale
[http://archive.is/cIJxe](http://archive.is/cIJxe)
------
kuharich
Prior comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18698651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18698651)
------
simonebrunozzi
Obligatory mention: the Knuth Reward Check. [0]
I've learned about Donald Knuth and TAOCP about 22-23 years ago. Since then, I
have dreamed of collecting one check and framing it on a wall in perpetuity.
"Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56
check you got."
[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check)
------
wglb
I have two (weak) connections to folks connected to Knuth. The first is in the
bibliography for a paper he wrote in High School--check out Fibonacci Nim. I
got to work with the author of the paper for a number of years. Exceedingly
bright.
The other was a key part of the MWC story. Bob called up Knuth asking if he
knew of any bright programmers and Steve had been a masters student of
Knuth's.
------
sn41
I have read parts of TAOCP vol 2 and the TeXBook. His attention to detail
inspires me. I have found that whenever I pay close attention and immerse
myself in details of a paper, shutting off my computer, it is very relaxing.
------
codeisawesome
I don’t fully understand the warnings at the end and the refusal to cover ML.
------
xwdv
I had no idea Donald Knuth towers over most at a height of 6’4. Wow
~~~
eointierney
He just towers over most, elegantly.
I remember working in an Internet cafe and in the evenings out of boredom
would read Knuth. I used to visit uni libraries and hunker down with TAOCP for
a few hours until cramp, physical and mental, became too painful. Oh my golly
what a privilege.
These are the tablets of our age. You'll note these tomes are granted the only
definite article in English.
But mainly the thoroughness. Every path is an avenue of thought in this vast
mapping of computation. It's always graceful, terse, and full of pleasure. The
guy can carve candyfloss with a jackhammer and weave a mountain out spider's
web.
Gates famously said anyone who'd read the books would get an interview. Yeah!
"So what about ..., pretty lovely eh?"
And he's still going strong. A true hero.
I wonder what he thinks about HOTT... any clues? A quick ddg didn't show
anything :(
(edit:spelling)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Airbnb Hosting Horror Stories - mbarsh
I had a guest ruin a rug with coffee this week. When I asked him to partially pay for the rug he responded with "You are sending me this now. It's Friday we left on Tuesday. Really." Airbnb is impossible to get in touch with. As a host, I feel we are stuck with these issues to deal with on our own. For a 25 billion dollar company, they pay pennies to help their "independent contractors" who ultimately are providing the homes for their guests. Any other horror stories from Airbnb? Hosting or Staying.
======
dontJudge
If you count a coffee spill as a "horror story" then you're doing pretty well
so far on guests.
I'm just a guest, not a host. No horror stories on my side. All the hosts have
been awesome.
------
paulcole
If you're an independent contractor, pay for your own supplies and build their
replacement costs into your rate.
When I do contract work and my computer breaks, I don't expect a new one from
whoever I'm working for at the time.
------
rhkk
I just started and have had all good experiences, would be very interested in
real horror stories too.
------
bbcbasic
Lesson learned: don't have a rug.
~~~
rayj
Lesson learned: don't use Airbnb.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Billboard visible only to women - jacklei
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/21/face-recognizing-billboard-only-displays-ad-to-women/
======
cafard
Is it just that I'm old, jaded, and maybe better, or could it be that many men
would regard this a perfectly good chance not to be lectured? None of the
issues covered here--that I can see--are particularly secret.
Sorry if I'm letting the victimization movement down here...
------
anigbrowl
The TC story says 'visible only to women.' did they edit the title, or did
you? If the latter, why?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent Repair - chicagoscott
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9k7mby/45-out-of-50-electronics-companies-illegally-void-warranties-after-independent-repair-sting-operation-finds
======
chicagoscott
The full headline is:
45 Out of 50 Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent
Repair, Sting Operation Finds
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building a Recurring Revenue Consulting Business [audio] - tomhoward
http://www.freelancetransformation.com/blog/building-a-recurring-revenue-consulting-business-with-einar-vollset
======
patio11
This is really fantastic (just got done with listening to it). Highlights
include:
1) Why/how to price productized services at $500+ per month, and what this
implies for your target customer and delivery methods.
2) Delivery specifics: AppAftercare has N clients for M principal consultants
where N >> M. Each consultant is principal with regard to a client portfolio,
rather than e.g: striping incoming requests across all available consultants.
This means incoming requests generally handled by someone intimately familiar
with codebase at issue.
3) Einar's brief sketch on how he does prospecting, which is the single most
impressive part of a very impressive business. Briefly, he algorithmically
identifies signals which suggest that a client is uniquely in the market for
the product, scalably identifies decisionmaker contact details, and then cold
pitches them with an 80/20 email where 80% is templated and 20% is client-
specific value. After closing the new client all services are actually
provided through the team.
Capsule summary: a great way to spend your hour if you consult. Even assuming
one does no productized consulting the prospecting discussion alone
(approximately last 3rd of interview) is more than worth your time.
~~~
krmmalik
Bookmarked the podcast to have a listen later today. I've managed to
productize my consulting which has worked well for me in terms of sales
conversions and engagements etc. Ive been unable to identify a recurring
revenue stream however. My consulting work is all strategy based. Im paid to
think rather than do, whereas most others I have spoken to do some form of
execution as well. Do you think there's a way for me to come up with some sort
of recurring revenue model?
~~~
hristiank
Hey Khuram, just took a look at your website and I think there might be an
angle where you can charge a monthly retainer for KPI analysis and
recommendations.
Strategizing about growth is just the first step, you also need to put in
place the appropriate analytics to be able to measure it.
You can help your clients sift through what's really important, what needs to
be improved, etc. A lot of the tools today allow for the collection of
unlimited amount of data but it's pretty meaningless if you can't decipher and
act on it. Just my 2c.
~~~
krmmalik
Hi Hristian,
Thanks so much for the suggestion. I think you might totally be onto something
here. I've had a number of recent clients ask me to take a look at their
analytics for them. I could definitely turn that into a recurring revenue
model.
Would love to chat further with you about some ideas I have, would you be up
for a quick chat via skype or email? I may be able to pass you business as
well anyhow.
Thanks again.
~~~
hristiank
Hi Khuram,
I've just emailed you about setting up a time to talk.
Looking forward to it.
------
casca
Direct link to audio:
[http://traffic.libsyn.com/freelancetransformation/FT_009_-_B...](http://traffic.libsyn.com/freelancetransformation/FT_009_-_Building_a_Recurring_Revenue_Consulting_Business_with_Einar_Vollset.mp3)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
iFixit has been acquired by Apple - milesf
http://www.ifixit.com/apple_press_release
======
rdl
Could we kill all of the stupid April Fools' articles?
~~~
dang
What a coincidence:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793)
Could you all take care of this one as test case, please?
(Edit: That was harsher than I should have been. Sorry.)
~~~
zbowling
Seems a bit unnecessary.
~~~
dang
You mean piling on a specific case? You're right. That was a mistake.
It's going to take me a while to get my balance with the public moderation
thing, and I overdid it in this case. Sorry to all and especially the OP.
------
Doctor_Fegg
Marvellous. From
[http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability):
"Last generation design makes the iPhone 4S ugly and worthless, increasing
upgrade appeal."
------
ernusame
Love that they've taken inspiration from
[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)
------
gutnor
[http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability)
I like clear guideline instead of stupid self repair nobody care about, thanks
Apple for fixing iFixit.
"iPhone 5: Your battery should be dead by now. Time to replace your phone."
I knew it, I needed to go to the Apple store.
------
timpattinson
"Apple is working hard to make devices last long enough to be upgraded or
irrelevant, making repairability an antiquated notion"
------
eik3_de
brilliant and so spot-on. Don't forget the all-new Smartphone Replaceability
Index:
[http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability)
Why bother with repairing a device when you can just replace it with a new
one?
------
andyjohnson0
Looks like an April fool joke:
[https://twitter.com/kwiens/status/450894251992162304](https://twitter.com/kwiens/status/450894251992162304)
------
jmnicolas
Totally forgot about April's fools ... glad that it's (probably) not true as I
don't see Apple keeping a company like iFixit.
------
dmak
I have a feeling they're just going to kill them off since it seems more like
bad PR when they score Apple products.
------
sz4kerto
BTW, I bet someone could claim market manipulation and win a lawsuit (if he
could somehow prove that the April 1st joke was too credible and it affected
share prices, for example).
I hope everyone has some sense of humor, though.
------
msie
Um, I've been meaning to buy some tools to fix my iMac. I hope they stick
around until I can afford them. What bad luck I've been getting lately. :-(
~~~
elemeno
Given the date today I'd be tempted to not take the accouncement too seriously
- it is April Fools Day after all.
~~~
msie
D'oh! I am relieved and kicking myself at the same time!
------
roeme
Calling April Fools. Well done, but basic premise is just too obvious.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Suspicious pizza order led police to Paris attack mastermind's hideout - rayascott
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/suspicious-pizza-order-led-police-to-paris-attack-masterminds-hideout-at-brussels-flat-34556144.html
======
RubyPinch
No it didn't.
> But their suspicions were only confirmed when a woman made an unusually
> large pizza order, Politico reported, leading armed officers to discover her
> sitting down for tea with two friends, several children and Abdeslam.
so a) they knew the place before the pizza became relevant, b) they discovered
the guy sitting there, resulting in them knowing the guy was there
the topic of pizza seems pretty tangential compared
~~~
outsidetheparty
Yeah, that part of the story is really odd. Was the pizza order necessary as a
pretext for the house search, maybe? Or did it just serve as a catchy
journalistic hook for the story...
~~~
junto
You'd imagine that a judge would need a lot more evidence than "a large pizza
order" before granting such an authorisation. He's about to send a bunch of
armed police into a family house with children inside. It could have been a
children's birthday party. More likely it is done kind of parallel
construction or protecting an informant.
~~~
coaxial
Not sure about Belgium but in France, they have declared a state of emergency
since last November. As such, the police can raid anytime, anywhere without a
warrant. Something similar might have happened there?
------
banku_brougham
Perhaps the most ridiculous attempt at parallel construction ever put before
the courts.
------
chimericray
How many pizza's does it take to catch a terrorist? This is some pretty shoddy
reporting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cops often let off hook for civil rights complaints - cryoshon
http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/9939487-74/police-rights-civil
======
mtgx
I wouldn't say 96% of the time is "often". I would say "cops get off the hook
_virtually always_ ".
Of those 4% who do get investigated, about 3 out of 4 don't get indicted,
because the prosecutor delivers the case in such a way that the Grand Jury
forgives them, even though in 99% of the non-cop related cases, the
prosecutors manage to score an indictment.
So basically only 1% of cops ever get punished for their crimes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords - yanw
http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/
======
mrcharles
You don't need special characters if you can use a passphrase. I use a
passphrase for all my encryption passwords (usually 5-6 words long), which
results in a password which is 20-30 characters long. This is implicitly
better than a 10 character phrase of mixed letters/numbers/symbols.
The problem of course is that so many password entry forms (I'm looking at
you, most-of-the-internet) have limits on the lengths of passwords. This needs
to change. Hell, some even limit your ability to use special characters (no
spaces? wtf.)
The most egregious offense I've seen is an international banking site I use
for my stock -- it limits your password to 8 characters, numeric only. I
nearly shit myself. Of course, I immediately went in for their high security
passcard that has a random 2d array of numbers in it, which is in addition to
the password. Trying to perform any actions with the account requires you
enter sequences from the array.
------
Xurinos
I can't remember if it was here or on reddit, but someone posted an
interesting article that said that the big flaw with these mixed character
passwords is that people have a hard time remembering them. When you start
demanding that they use a different oddball password for every site, most
people just write them down or ignore the advice.
The article showed an alternative to all the crazy rules: Create pass phrases
instead. "I break 4 hacker news!" is much easier to remember than
"f6jjaASDJc%$1~", and it fits all the insane rules we have invented for good
passwords (mixed case, numbers, symbols, length).
~~~
zokier
Whats wrong in writing passwords down? I, myself, keep most important
passwords saved in my phone.
~~~
wootee
Nothing wrong with writing them down, but put them on paper and keep them in
your wallet or a safe. We put our SSN cards, driver licenses and passports and
credit cards in our wallets. Why not our passwords?
~~~
yalurker
Isn't "Never carry your social security card in your wallet" standard advice?
I was taught that since I was a child, before identity theft was even really a
mainstream thing.
As to credit cards, if your wallet is lost or stolen, you can quickly cancel
the cards. It is probably more difficult to quickly change all your passwords.
Keeping them in a safe, however, is probably a fine idea. Potentially a good
one if you want people to have access to certain accounts if something happens
to you.
------
phillaf
This tip I found on lifehacker got me to greatly improve my passwords
strength, while helping me to remember each of them.
[http://lifehacker.com/184773/geek-to-live--choose-and-
rememb...](http://lifehacker.com/184773/geek-to-live--choose-and-remember-
great-passwords)
------
Super_Jambo
At uni doing computer science a dictionary attack on the departments password
file threw up TWO people with: NCC-1701-D.
------
Luyt
This is probably how my World of Warcraft account got 'hacked' ('cracked'
would be a better term).
I was using almost the same user/password combination for both WoW itself and
WoW-related forums and guild websites. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. One sunday I
logged in only to find all my level-80 WoW characters naked and skint.
Luckily Blizzard was able to restore my stuff, and since then I use an
Authenticator.
~~~
Qz
Mine got 'hacked' a couple months back. Too bad I had stopped playing 2 years
earlier and their attempt to charge character transfers were on an expired
card. But now I get no end of junk emails about how I need to secure my non-
existent WoW account.
------
brazzy
Keeping separate passwords for everything is simply not practical - nobody can
remember that much. So they write them down. And because they need to look up
passwords constantly, they keep the list easily accessible, i.e. easily
compromised.
IMO a viable alternative is to have a few separate passwords based on how
sensitive they are. Personally, I use three: \- One for regular websites where
I wouldn't mind losing the account (game forums, throwaway registrations,
etc.) \- One for stuff that would be seriously annoying to lose or where money
is spent (my personal site, various shops, etc.) \- One for everything where
money is kept or which could be used to compromise other sites (banking,
paypal, ebay, google mail)
------
jedbrown
head -c 8 /dev/random | base64
After a couple tries, you'll have something that breaks into pronounceable
syllables, insert some punctuation (there's a lot of punctuation on your
keyboard besides those under the number keys) to break the syllables and
you're good to go. There are many tools that generate pronounceable nonsense
passwords, but I prefer this way. Another approach is to generate 5 to 8 word
phrases ad-lib style (these take longer to type in, but some people find them
easier to remember).
~~~
zokier
pwgen tries to make remembrable passwords
------
wootee
If you are really serious about passwords, then generate random passwords
_offline_ on non-networked computers. There's an app called launch codes I use
to do that. It uses random data from MS CryptoAPI to seed a Mersenne twister
RNG. Letting people create their own password is like letting a child run with
a knife in his hand.
------
josefresco
What no social engineering? No Mitnick approach? Please, many times the
easiest way to get someone's password is to simply call them and ask for it.
Also, there should be a section about targeting geeks. If the person you're
trying to hack is of the geek variety, 1337speak is where I'd start once the
obvious ones were done.
------
Semiapies
I do wonder, every time I see someone recommend 133+ing the vowels
("m0d3ltf0rd"), how many dictionary-attack programs and script try those as a
matter-of-course. People who do that don't seem to do it "randomly" - just as
in the example used, they tend to change every vowel to a number in a single
word (or less often, phrase).
------
pmichaud
tl;dr: use better passwords. Long the better, lower, upper, special
characters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Patents Keyboard That Knows What You’ll Type Before You Do - rondevera
http://techland.time.com/2011/05/12/apple’s-patents-keyboard-that-knows-what-you’ll-type-before-you-do/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fnerd_world+(TIME%3A+Techland)
======
matthewn
With technology from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation! (Share and enjoy!)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Solarwinds acquires Pingdom - themichael
http://solarwinds-marketing.s3.amazonaws.com/solarwinds/PDFs/SWI-HIEMDALLR-External-FAQ.pdf
======
stephen
To celebrate, they just sent this marketing email to all of our "serviceX-
alert@" addresses:
Subject: We are joining the SolarWinds family
Body: Pingdom is moving forward quickly. We can’t wait to show you all the ideas we have for taking monitoring to the next level.
But, wait, our "serviceX-alert@" emails are all hooked up to PagerDuty so that
any -alert email == SMS/call the engineer on duty.
So, right, basically all of our PagerDuty alerts are going off right now, due
to a damn marketing email.
They've done this crap of sending marketing emails to _alert_ addresses
instead of just _user_ addresses before (I know they are separate in the
system; our serviceX-alert emails are not on the "Users" page), but we figured
it was a one-time fluke and surely they would realize their mistake.
Guess not.
This just builds on my already huge frustration with their UI--other than just
being generally confusing, if you have failed pings, you don't get the HTTP
logs ("Root Cause analysis") for all of them, you only get the HTTP logs for
the magical 1st one from when the incident triggered.
Oh, and if you make a duplicate alarm, for the sole purpose of seeing the
latest HTTP logs from your server, surprise, the 1st failed log won't have
them--you first have to make your new alert pass, and then fail, and then now
you'll be granted access to the magical Root Cause analysis logs.
Suggestions for competitors?
~~~
drsim
Well, your comment about the 'root cause analysis' suggests you need something
more substantial than this, but I've been very pleasantly surprised with
www.uptimerobot.com.
I have both Pingdom and Uptime Robot doing basic monitoring of a single web
endpoint and Uptime Robot consistently alerts me to downtime by email faster
than Pingdom.
Because Uptime Robot is free and doesn't have (lacks?) a business model I
didn't take them that seriously. Their performance suggests otherwise.
~~~
stephen
Well, my comment is dead, but thanks for the Uptime Robot mention.
We'd seen them too last week when Googling for competitors but were, right,
scared off by their "seems fly-by-night" free-ness.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Hate Entering a Date - jontomato
http://medium.com/design-ux/5c63c4e195c3
======
krapp
I don't like having to enter a date using a specific format like 'mm/dd/yyyy'
(as a string, the slashes or dots of course being mandatory as well.) There
are libraries whose entire purpose for being is turning datelike strings into
timestamps, and anything that doesn't parse with strtotime (or what have you)
can just return an error.
There's really no reason i can think of why you can't just enter any number of
natural language strings other than laziness on the part of the programmers.
------
drivers99
Somewhat related: I hate entering a date by using two (credit card expiration)
or three (date of birth, etc) different drop-downs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Indian government says citizens don't have absolute right over their bodies - 0xmohit
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/citizens-dont-have-absolute-right-over-their-bodies-government/articleshow/58486260.cms
======
whack
The arguments raised in favor of this motion, sound reasonable and applicable
here in the West as well.
> _" Rohatgi contended that the right over one's body was not absolute as the
> law prohibited people from committing suicide and women were barred from
> terminating their pregnancy at an advanced stage. Had there been absolute
> right then people would have been free to do whatever they wanted to do with
> their body, but the law did not recognise the absolute right of people over
> their bodies, he contended."_
~~~
manquer
Equating suicide to a flimsy ID program, meant to track everything you do is
disingenuous.
There is zero transparency on the security of the system. Even if there was
transparency, I would not trust the people running the system to store my
private biometric data safely. Unlike a password which gets leaked i cannot
change fingerprint or retina at will can I ? Using it authentication is just
stupid . There is no real need for collecting forcibly collecting bio-metric
data,
This is a question of fundamental right to privacy , despite whatever the
court and government may have you believe . Just like the government does not
have the right to capture nude pictures of you , it does not any inherent
right to your biometric information .
~~~
whack
I'm not sure who your comment is addressed towards, because I didn't say
anything about ID programs. If you want to make an argument in favor of
privacy, then make an argument in favor of privacy. But that argument has
nothing to do with "absolute rights over your body".
~~~
manquer
My apologies, it was not in reply to your comment directly, I was talking
about how the media and entire story about this is being framed as something
it is not about at all. Your comment was on top and I did not articulate it
well that the issue should be discussing something else entirely.
As another poster below summed it better than me, the framing is conflating
forced bio-metric collection without any real use , security or benefit with
some very real and needed restrictions on your rights over your body
------
hd4
Demonetizing the most widely-circulated banknotes and now 'no consent
required' by the government to get fingerprints. So much for the world's
largest democracy.
~~~
the_common_man
Why bring Demonetization into this? That was an excellent move by the govt.
Sure, the implementation could have been better but there is no change in this
world that has not caused pain to the citizen. Maybe you can enlighten me of
some radical changes which were super smooth and caused no trouble to anyone?
~~~
chdir
> That was an excellent move by the govt
The jury is still out on this one. Any hard proof or statistics that say
otherwise ? Wish there was more transparency.
~~~
manquer
I don't know what macro economic impact it had. Pretty much all the currency
came back through the various loop holes in the rules. The liquidity crunch
continues to create lot of problems to majority of the country who do not have
access to banking and financial services. Nobody really knows the cost of all
this and all for what? I still see unaccounted money floating every day and
nothing seems to have actually changed
------
schoen
The context of this is a biometric national ID program
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar)
This program was originally described as voluntary, but over time it has been
required for many more purposes.
~~~
0xmohit
This _voluntary_ program is now being mandatory to file income tax returns
among other things. The ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court (the argument in
the linked article was made during the hearing) is regarding the voluntary ID
being made mandatory for filing tax returns.
------
throwawayind1
Warning - rant ahead.
Aadhar is expensive, intrusive and ultimately futile for the stated
objectives. More than $1.5B have been spent on it with more being allocated
every budget. For context Mangalyan's budget was $74M. I haven't been able to
find how much it has helped save. There is no cost/benefit analysis.
It was started as a way to ensure proper delivery of subsidised services to
the poor, it has since enhanced its scope to encompass _all_ government
services. One needs it for 1) getting a sim card, 2) filing tax returns 3)
train journey(for seniors but won't be surprised if it soon becomes mandatory
for everyone) 4) school admissions - really kids cannot be enrolled in school
without Aadhar
with proposals to use the biometrics for 5) domestic air travel 6) biometric
enabled POS 7) replace debit/credit cards
Somehow this will magically solve all our problems and make us a developed
nation by virtue of using a biometric enabled digital tracking service.
For a nation of bilion people, even a faboulous error rate of 0.01% will
affect 10M people. People responsible for it claim it is _secure_ and
_hackproof_. I am having a hard time trying to decipher if this is ignorance,
incompetence or malice or all three mixed in.
The current goverment is drunk on power. Obvious comparisons with previous
dictatorial regimes gets laughed at. But the signs are there to see - rampant
sycophancy to the PM, increased social intolerance, conflict escalation
in/with Kashmir/Pakistan, arbitrary decisions like demonetization, moving the
financial year to Jan-Dec.
For a supposedly non-corrupt government, the sly introduction of clause to
remove cap on corporate donations to political parties in the Finance bill is
blatant hypocrisy to say the least.
For anyone who thinks demonetization was good, just review the government
narrative on why it was needed. First it was black money, then terrorist
funding/fake notes, then digitization. The very people who lost their
businesses/livelihood due to demonetization support the PM and think it was
good. When asked why, no idea. Ignorance is strength.
Almost all modern governments are guilty to some extent, but this government
has totally embraced the INGSOC principles and has mastered the art of
doublethink. And the scary thing is, they have succeeded at it. People just
dismiss the privacy and surveillance implications of Aadhar as hypothetical
scenarios.
Anybody who criticizes the government is unpatriotic and a traitor.
------
captn3m0
The basic summary of the situation so far (somewhat simplified) :
\- Aaadhar is brought in as a national identification system, originally for
benefit distribution
\- The Supreme Court in a judgement on October 2015 notes that there is no
legal framework for aadhar and restricts it to only 3 schemes. It notes that
aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for any scheme
\- The current government rushes the aadhaar act as a money bill (the
constitutional validity of which is also being challenged) on 11 mar 2016
\- Several government departments start issuing gazette notifications making
aadhaar mandatory for various schemes (including benefits for AIDS patients,
bhopal gas victims, college entrance examinations, birth certificates among
others).
\- The Finance Bill of 2016 passes several amendments to make linking your
aadhaar mandatory with your PAN card. Historically, a PAN card was the entity
on which you filed your taxes, and with this in place, you cannot file taxes
as your PAN card becomes invalid if you don't link it.
The case being argued today is one that challenges the amendments making
aadhaar mandatory. If you are interested in the court proceedings and the
arguments laid by both sides, here is a long summary (today was day 5 of the
proceedings): [https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/the-
constitut...](https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/the-
constitutional-challenge-to-s-139aa-of-the-it-act-aadhaarpan-petitioners-
arguments/)
~~~
nileshtrivedi
Original purpose was to flush out illegal immigrants. Benefit distribution
came later.
------
devnonymous
The worrying bit about this statement is not what was said but the fact that
the media is getting fixated on this intentionally ambiguous statement to
conflate the real issue of forced biometric data collection into a black box
central database with no clear and well defined purpose or use, security or
benefit.
------
johnnydoe9
The increasingly anti-privacy moves via the Aadhaar card which now links your
driving license, bank account(s), mobile number and everything you can think
of, banks charging you for withdrawing cash more than 4-5 times a month to
incentivize digital payment, this is making me really scared right now
------
ziikutv
This is nothing new. I think digitizing records of citizen can get hairy but
it also has some pros.
The title of this report taken at face value sounds shocking, but the
arguments raised are perfect here. You do not have the right to suicide or
commit infanticide after a certain stage, nor can you take drugs. The point
raised was, if we had 100% right over our bodies, we would have been allowed
those things. Since we aren't, it is used as a means to explain why Finger
prints and eye scans are irrefutable when getting the Adhaar card.
------
chdir
This account live tweets the proceedings from Supreme Court :
[https://twitter.com/gautambhatia88](https://twitter.com/gautambhatia88)
------
tomjen3
We don't have it in the west either - if we did, there would be no war on
drugs.
~~~
eru
Or ban on euthanasia.
~~~
smt88
Or death sentences, prisons, quarantines, private property... there are lots
of situations where government decides what you can or can't do with your
body.
~~~
eru
I was going with the examples that only concern your body, and not other
things as well.
But of course, by a strict interpretation of "absolute right", any infraction
could count.
------
maverick_iceman
This is a dangerous argument. Peoples' rights over their bodies must be
absolute. Suicide, abortion at any stage, voluntary organ trade, drug use,
prostitution - all these should be legal as they follow from one's right to
her body.
~~~
mighty_atomic_c
Banning suicide is as effective as declaring pi as 3 via legislative fiat. At
least in my mind.
For one, it is hard to enforce; those who choose to end their own lives may
not show any signs until the attempt. If they succeed, they cannot be
punished. If they fail, what is a "just" punishment? How do you effectively
punish someone who wants to die so that after their punishment, they want to
live?
I guess, philosophically, we do have absolute control of our bodies in
practice. Making laws that defy the reality of what humans are is a path to
tyranny. If people dont have absolute rights, does the state? There is talk of
balancing individual rights against the state, which shallowly encouraging,
but to me any system where the individual is not free to not make choices
about their body will always be able to justify actions that trade more rights
for "security".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drones Outpacing Rules as Popularity Soars in New York - mcenedella
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/nyregion/drones-outpacing-rules-as-popularity-soars-in-new-york.html
======
MindTwister
This is why we need regulation and rules:
“They started jumping for it,” he said.
“I started taunting them, bringing it down and then taking it up.
They wouldn’t leave until their mom dragged them away.”
If he was flying a Phantom with carbon propellers somebody could have gotten
seriously hurt:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji3Hii_LZOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji3Hii_LZOc)
The current rules in Denmark (which I believe to be slightly too strict).
* No flying within 150m of city areas
* No flying within 150m of larger roads
* Maximum flying height 100m
* No flying above crowded areas (including vacation houses etc)
* No flying within 5 km of airports
* No flying within 8 km of military airports
* No flying over specially protected areas (think wildlife preserves)
* Special care must be taken not to endanger lives and property
~~~
psaintla
And that is why multicopter enthusiasts, including myself, absolutely hate DJI
phantoms. They are marketed as toys but they are powerful enough to do major
damage and people who buy them don't even realize it. I've personally
witnessed a DJI owner try to stop running propellers with his hands and
another who thought it was a good idea to fly dangerously close to the heads
of some girls who were sunbathing. It's gotten to the point where I seriously
believe you should have to take a safety course and get a license in order to
fly these things.
------
ck2
When I was little we used to go watch the RC planes enthusiasts flew in a
remote field, it was fun to watch and they were on private property,
disturbing nobody.
With drones you better realize quickly you do not have the right to be in
someone else's private airspace. This should be prosecuted like trespassing.
The problem is, just like people who set off fireworks weeks before and after
holidays "just because they can and screw everyone else" or point lasers at
airplanes, that laws aren't going to matter to them, they are going to do
whatever they want to do.
~~~
Varcht
In the US there is no such thing as personal airspace to trespass in. What one
has is a right of way to build structures into the airspace as a property
owner and a reasonable expectation of privacy neither preventing overflight.
~~~
mercnet
It looks like land owners do have some rights to their properties airspace:
At the same time, the law, and the Supreme Court, recognized that a landowner
had property rights in the lower reaches of the airspace above their property.
The law, in balancing the public interest in using the airspace for air
navigation against the landowner's rights, declared that a landowner owns only
so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in
connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights)
[Edit] Completely missed your last sentence when commenting! I couldn't find
any cases where someone went to court over someone violating their airspace
besides people arguing over airport flight paths.
~~~
Zaephyr
United States v. Causby 328 U.S. 256 (1946)
------
lsllc
Alright, not to add to the problem, but I've been thinking of getting a video
enabled drone for fun. Any advice on which model etc?
I'd like one that can possibly send back real time video, also maybe
"hackable"? No need for Hellfires though ... I promise to be good and fly it
in unpopulated areas.
~~~
robotresearcher
Parrot ARDrone 2 is cheap and cheerful, and hackable - it has a ROS driver is
is well used in research labs. It's so lightweight that it's very safe and
survives crashes. Streams live video to your mobile device.
3 or 4 times the price is the DJI Phantom 2 range, which are great, easy to
use. Carries a GoPro or its own camera. A little more dangerous but still not
too scary. Not so hackable, as far as I know.
It's very easy to build your own, very powerful machine from parts using e.g
the Pixhawk controller. Also you can buy ready to fly machines from e.g. 3D
Robotics. Great fun. As dangerous as you want to make it. Take care!
~~~
lsllc
Hey, thanks for the info. I'll take a look!
------
cylinder
They can go away. I don't need to worry about an aircraft with eight propeller
blades being operated by an amateur idiot landing on my face when I'm trying
to relax in a park.
------
wehadfun
This is when taxes can be used for good. Obviously these things are too cheap.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My girlfriend needed a Secret Santa web app, so I built her one - dinosaurs
http://www.memofromsanta.com
======
dinosaurs
I built this. Girlfriend needed this to organise her christmas party and we
couldn't really find a nice one on the internet.. So I built it myself. Mostly
for her and as an exercise for myself (I learnt the basics of Angular and
NodeJS along the way), but then my designer friend came up with the design and
we put it live. Hope you enjoy it.
~~~
taigeair
What resources did you use to learn NodeJS?
~~~
dinosaurs
It's been a long journey of playing around and never finishing small projects
until I started this and then it suddenly clicked. I had a bit of PHP and
Rails experience prior to this, but Node was pretty much new to me, except for
the JS part. The whole async mindset got me in to trouble a couple of times on
this project.
The courses on Codeschool helped me tremendously, and this was fun to play
around with:
[https://github.com/rvagg/learnyounode](https://github.com/rvagg/learnyounode).
I read a lot of blogs and some books (will get links later if you want), but
mostly it was just trying until it clicked.
~~~
taigeair
Cool thanks!
------
tehwebguy
Awesome, now get an affiliate account at Amazon and make gift suggestions
~~~
darkxanthos
This is a brilliant idea.
------
capnrefsmmat
I tried this earlier with three people. Two of them were told to give presents
to the same person, and one person was left present-free.
Not sure if you've fixed that already, but it seems like an important feature
to get right...
~~~
clarle
With three people, wouldn't a valid Secret Santa solution have everyone
knowing who's giving which present to who?
~~~
colechristensen
Yes.
------
nej
This is cool but using Ghostery plugin on Chrome
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdfkolichcflejclcbmpeaniij))
reveals 16 different javascript trackers and advertising libraries used on
this website. I know in the footer it states "Memo from Santa does not store
e-mail addresses. We will not send you e-mails apart from the event e-mail,
nor will we use your e-mail address for any other purpose." but as this being
a free service it's kind of worrying. Should I be worried about giving the
emails of all my relatives and friends?
~~~
dinosaurs
I suspect this is because of the addthis social services. Will dig into this
later!
Edit: my Ghostery reveals just that: Addthis and Google Analytics. I could
perhaps replace Addthis with just a Twitter/Facebook social button, but I
liked the layout of the Addthis buttons.
------
dinosaurs
If someone tests this and their email goes to spam, would they be so kind to
pastebin me the message headers/mime so I can try to solve that together with
the Mailgun folks? Thanks a bunch.
~~~
mandeepj
How about creating a test email a\c by yourself to see if the email goes to
spam or not? Your existing email a\c may also work.
~~~
dinosaurs
It doesn't go to spam in my Gmail, which it did yesterday. However, some
people are reporting the mail going to spam. This is why I'm asking, I can't
test it myself on any account.
~~~
bcantoni
Another good test is [http://isnotspam.com/](http://isnotspam.com/). By
sending an email from your app to [email protected], you can get some good
feedback on spam triggers.
~~~
Erwin
I like [http://www.mail-tester.com/](http://www.mail-tester.com/) \-- that
creates a unique address just for you, while isnotspam lets you search for
anyone else's message.
------
jrnkntl
Note; you should fix your SPF records, all mails end up in spam.
~~~
dinosaurs
Does it? I checked this with Mailgun yesterday and they told me to send
through the API instead of using SMTP. So I did, tested with Gmail today
(where it was ending up in spam) and it arrived in the inbox.. I'll check with
them again.
~~~
jrnkntl
Still, if you send through their API you still need to list mailgun.org in
your domain's SPF records (because you define [email protected] as the
sender).
~~~
dinosaurs
Their 'Check Records' tool tells me my records are fine. I'm on the chat with
them at the moment, trying to figure it out. Thanks.
------
jameszhang
Great job, this seems pretty fun. Plus, I'm sure your girlfriend really
appreciates it, which is always awesome :)
Just one slight thing I noticed is that the "winsdom_scriptregular" font is
quite hard to read.
~~~
dinosaurs
Thanks a lot!
The font indeed is a bit hard to read. We were in doubt about using it for a
while because of this, but in the end we liked the handwritten lettering.. so
we went with it anyway. :)
~~~
rpicard
What do you think about Lobster?
[http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Lobster](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Lobster)
Great idea for a web app by the way!
~~~
Systemic33
That font seems to still have the holly in it, and more readable.
------
erex78
HN people might not care about this sort of thing (ending a sentence with a
preposition), but it screams out at me:
"We'll make sure everyone knows for whom to buy a present!" vs. "We'll make
sure everyone knows whom to buy a present for!"
Good job on the who vs. whom though..
~~~
gejjaxxita
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
~~~
erex78
Winston?
[http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html](http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html)
~~~
gejjaxxita
yep!
------
kanamekun
Looks great!!
Was just about to set up a Secret Santa on Elfster... was wondering how your
site stacks up in terms of facilitating a gift exchange between
friends/coworkers?
~~~
dinosaurs
I don't know Elfster, but after a quick look it seems like they offer
wishlists, gift exchange, etc?
We send out an e-mail to everyone on the list saying that Santa is busy and
asking them to buy a present for person x. The rest is up to them. Not as
advanced I guess :)
~~~
hablahaha
Surprised you didn't know about Elfster - I thought about making my own app
too, until I saw Elfster.
It's not quite perfect and seems to barely hold itself together (am I signed
in, do I have account or do I not?!, etc..), but my friends and I have gotten
by. I was able to invite people, remind them to join before the deadline and
set exclusions on matchups (I didn't want significant others to get each other
as well as people who aren't good friends). People have wishlists, like you
mentioned. It's served us well enough for a one time thing, I'm not really
sure what else I would need or want.
I guess one could extend the concept and become a broker for the gigantic
anonymous gift exchanges? Like the Reddit Secret Santa, except people order
from you or send you the packages? I know of people who never got their
present even though they had sent a present.
------
Evgeniuz
I recently did Secret Santa app too, but it is frontend only (no server side,
to be ran with all people present). I did it mostly to play with AngularJS,
but it has some nice geeky features like using truly uniform shuffling and
Fortuna PRNG for more unpredictability. It's in russian, but interface is
pretty obvious, so feel free to try it :)
[http://evgeniuz.github.io/santa/](http://evgeniuz.github.io/santa/)
------
jrnkntl
Ha, looks nice! You could monetize this by letting everyone fill out a wish-
list and offer affiliate-linked suggestions based on what is filled in? (Same
as [http://namentrekken.be](http://namentrekken.be) does this; that wasn't an
option for your gf? :)
~~~
agilebyte
Or [http://www.drawnames.com/](http://www.drawnames.com/) from the same
company if you want it in English
------
derpson5
Very cool, an inspiration. How long would you say it took you? (hours of work)
I ask as a young developer looking to gauge where he stands. Anyone have
resources they could suggest for gauging fast/slow development for oneself?
~~~
dinosaurs
I didn't track time on this, but it took me 5-6 days to get it all done. I
wasted a lot of time though: I didn't know much about NodeJS backends when I
started this, and next to nothing about AngularJS. I did a couple of things
three times until I got them right; I used to work as a front-end developer
until I got fired last month, so now I'm trying some new things. I'm glad it's
an inspiration for you.
~~~
joeperks
Well best of luck! Of course I don't really know, but you're obviously
motivated and have skills, so I would bet you're now on the upswing.
I am finishing something now that I hope to post to Show HN as well. Get some
feedback, etc.
Edit: AKA derpson5, decided to change my username. Sorry HN DBs, wasted a
record.
------
huangc10
great idea! :) I've been using elfster for the last couple of years.
------
ftay
Currently, when I fill out the form, I have no idea what's going out to the
recipients - perhaps a mad libs-esque design would explain why each field,
e.g. party title, is necessary :)
~~~
dinosaurs
May I ask what you mean with mad libs-esque? I did think about what you're
saying while developing it but we kinda rushed things and didn't get to focus
on the design much. Maybe for next year? :)
~~~
atwebb
Hi ______(target user) ,
My name is ______(yourself) and this ____(verb) _______(noun)!
Hi Dinosaurs,
My names is atwebb and this is madlibs!
And you'd put the parens on the line, but I'm not sure of the markup for
underlining here and feeling lazy.
~~~
dinosaurs
I see. Great suggestion, might even use that for something else I'm working on
:) Thanks for explaining!
------
afs35mm
What platform did you use for deployment? When I dove into Node awhile back it
seemed the most difficult part was finding a stable hosting solution...
~~~
dinosaurs
I'm hosting this on a Digitalocean box, proxying Node through Nginx. Not sure
if I did all that correctly, because that certainly was completely new to me,
but it seems to work fine for now!
------
ninetax
It's very pretty, what did you use to design the site visually? Just plain old
html/css? A template? It's simple but good looking!
~~~
dinosaurs
My friend designed this, I did the front- and backend. It's just plain old
HTML/CSS, using Jade for the views and Sass for the CSS, with some Bootstrap
components. The grid especially was a great help.
------
Systemic33
Minor annoyance: The "Amount of cash to spend" slide bar, needs to have its
color inverted.
Otherwise, i think it looks great :)
------
era86
Diggin it. Already using Elfster though!
------
tspike
Nice work! I built a similar site a few years ago and it's turned out to be
pretty popular.
------
dmak
Elfster works pretty well!
~~~
mikeg8
That may be true, I've never used Elfster, but the design of this landing page
is far superior and more festive in my opinion. I probably wouldn't use
Elfster after seeing this based on appearance alone.
------
elwell
load page.
press "+"
visible error message
------
mosselman
So?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RIP Open Source MySQL - mariuz
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/08/18/0152237/is-mysql-slowly-turning-closed-source
======
beedogs
As soon as Oracle bought them, the writing was on the wall for an open-source
MySQL. Look how quickly they murdered OpenSolaris. Oracle is anathema to open
software.
~~~
jacques_chester
The writing has been on the wall ever since MySQL AB required copyright
assignment.
Monty doesn't come to this with clean hands.
~~~
mrkurt
Copyright assignment is basically required if you're going to sell an open
source project under a different license. It's not usually nefarious, all that
contributed code is still available under GPL.
~~~
jacques_chester
The point is that if one entity owns the original copyright, they can wreak
sufficient havoc that the project can splinter into individually anaemic
forks.
MySQL has splintered into at least 3 competing forks outside of the "real"
MySQL: MariaDB, Percona and Drizzle.
~~~
fallenpegasus
I wouldn't say they "compete", at least, not harmfully. Maria and Percona swap
patches with each other, and are drop-in replacements for MySQL. Drizzle is an
exploration of the idea of paying off as much as possible of MySQL's technical
debt and throwing away crufty backwards compatibility. The technical ecology
of users and developers around MySQL is healthier than it has ever been.
------
jedberg
This is an excellent opportunity for the Postgres community to step up an
promote Postgres.
~~~
rbanffy
I think this would be a mistake.
This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that anyone can fork the MySQL
codebase and create other plug-in replacement databases with it, such as
MariaDB and Drizzle.
All that is lost is the MySQL name and brand.
PostgreSQL users and developers must seize the opportunity to show businesses
that free software cannot be killed, not even by mighty Oracle. They and, most
notably, Microsoft, have been trying to kill it for more than a decade now.
Because the anti-free-software FUD machine (fed in part by Oracle itself) is
already having a wonderful time with this.
~~~
Udo
I wish I could mod this up a hundred times. PostgreSQL people themselves have
been playing into the hands of corporate FUDders with their incessant and
inappropriate peddling. MySQL is not your enemy, MS SQL Server is. Oracle's
software empire as a whole certainly is your enemy. Show some solidarity with
a fellow open source project!
MySQL and PostgreSQL represent two very different implementation philosophies,
and being able to choose between them according to taste and merits is _a good
thing_.
Most of us have suspected that the MySQL project itself was going to die as it
was acquired by Oracle, in the same way Open Office died when it was acquired
by Oracle. This is a company where good software goes to expire, either due to
a deliberate intention or gross incompetence I can't say but I suspect it's a
mixture of both. However sad that may be for the MySQL (or OpenOffice) brand
name, the code itself lives on and continues to evolve within a rich open
source ecosystem.
Hence, sensational and petulant "RIP $PRODUCTNAME" articles are unnecessary.
There is no threat to existing projects based on MySQL or any other successful
open source project for that matter. Not only will this stuff be free forever,
it will also continue to grow and be developed on its own.
The corporate assassination of open source projects will only work if we let
it, it's a purely psychological game.
~~~
jeffdavis
Background: I am a postgresql user and developer. I started with MySQL around
'99, used both for a while, and then gave up on mysql and haven't really used
it since 2007.
I do agree that injecting postgresql into every discussion without adding
anything new is getting excessive. And declaring mysql dead is clearly
premature. But let me respond to this particular point:
"Show some solidarity with a fellow open source project!"
I guess I never really saw MySQL as an open project.
* when I first started using mysql it was not under the GPL, it was under some free-for-non-commercial use license * They pretty much reject the standards completely (introducing nonstandard things like backticks that make migration away from mysql harder for no apparent benefit) * mysql never fostered an outside developer community (by which I mean people developing mysql itself) * the code is messy and poorly structured * the development ecosystem, like revision control and documentation (and now tests) don't seem to be open * the licensing of the client library is restrictive * they require copyright assignment (although not all of the forks do)
I hope one of the forks does manage to foster a more open community, but
communities aren't built overnight nor are they transplanted easily.
~~~
Udo
You might not have seen MySQL as an open project, but I guess we can agree
based on the outcome that it turned out to be one? If it hadn't been, open
forks would not have been able to form.
Of course when you're talking about community, every project seems to have a
different atmosphere. Linus Torvalds is famous for not accepting patches or
contributions to the Linux kernel, so is _that_ project really open? From the
perspective of a developer using MySQL, the community has always been massive,
diverse, and helpful. Maybe it was a different experience on the dev mailing
list, I wouldn't know. But I _do_ know that in the end, MySQL was open where
it really mattered.
I can understand though that it was probably easier and more rewarding for an
outside developer to get into the inner circles of Postgres than it was to
essentially join MySQL AB back in the time when they still existed.
> I hope one of the forks does manage to foster a more open community, but
> communities aren't built overnight nor are they transplanted easily.
I assume you're talking about the actual engine development community, and I'm
not certain that's really how a lot of open source projects actually work. It
seems in most cases you simply have a core group of developers doing their
thing, with occasional discussions and input from the outside. I might be
wrong, but that's certainly my perception. The Postgres dev community might be
different, again I wouldn't know.
As an app developer, I have different expectations about that. I'm not going
to take part in any discussions about implementation details, nor am I likely
to submit any patches. What I care about is software quality and proper
documentation, those are not necessarily a function of community.
~~~
jeffdavis
"I guess we can agree based on the outcome that it turned out to be one?"
Agreed. My perception is more that it is _turning_ out to be one and that is a
good thing.
"But I do know that in the end, MySQL was open where it really mattered."
The GPL means that there's no real fear that licenses will be scarce. And the
large user community means that there will always be people to offer basic
support (free or paid) and consulting. To that extent, I agree.
As far as getting bugs fixed, adapting to new use cases and changes in the
market, or just moving the product further, the jury is still out. _Will_
Oracle do it? _Can_ any of the forks do it?
Or the larger question: are you OK with calling MySQL, as a product (i.e. the
engine), "done"? I'm not saying that in a negative way. We rarely talk about
software that's done, or what it would take to finish a given product, or how
much sense being "done" even makes.
"It seems in most cases you simply have a core group of developers doing their
thing, with occasional discussions and input from the outside."
That's not how I would describe postgresql. There are lots of people that only
occasionally submit patches and lots of people that take part in design
discussions even if they never submit much code. It's pretty easy to start out
as an application developer and then be sucked into a design discussion, and
before you know it you are criticizing a design because it doesn't fit your
needs.
Even if nobody has ever seen you before, if you jump into a design discussion
and have a legitimate concern or use case that hasn't been considered then it
will be taken as seriously as any developer.
"What I care about is software quality and proper documentation, those are not
necessarily a function of community."
Absolutely correct. Although those things are also not a function of being
open source or free of charge.
------
xd
"MySQL is dead, long live MariaDB" .. would have been a better headline.
Mainly because very few MySQL users seem to be aware of MariaDB.
~~~
spudlyo
Exactly. This controversy was both discovered and promoted by Monty, who has
much to gain by the rejection of Oracle's brand of MySQL and the promotion of
MariaDB. Having said that, I agree that this is a dick move by Oracle. It
reminds me of when RedHat started shipping their kernel as one big source
tarball, without patches, which undoubtedly pissed off both Oracle and the
CentOS folks. Maybe they're taking a page from the RedHat playbook.
------
falcolas
FWIW, in addition to MariaDB, there is Percona Server as well, and they are
also maintaining a launchpad for the base MySQL code on Launchpad while Oracle
neglects that codebase.
[http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2012/08/16/where-to-
get-...](http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2012/08/16/where-to-get-a-bzr-
tree-of-the-latest-mysql-releases/)
~~~
caseyf
I highly recommend Percona Server. _especially_ if you are using SSDs or a mix
of SSDs and regular disks.
~~~
__Joker
Can you elaborate ?
~~~
heretohelp
Percona has done a lot of work to enable MySQL to take advantage of SSDs, work
that hasn't percolated into mainline or MariaDB.
~~~
latimer
I've benchmarked all three and it seemed like the vast majority of the
performance improvement on SSDs was due to the XtraDB engine which is included
with MariaDB.
~~~
heretohelp
_coughs_
<http://www.percona.com/software/percona-xtradb/>
~~~
latimer
Yes you have to install it separately for MySQL but it's enabled by default in
MariaDB so their work has in fact made it into MariaDB.
------
scottlinux
Check out this GPLv2 fork / alternative mentioned: <http://mariadb.org>
~~~
mikescar
Also, Percona rocks. XtraDB is just a drop-in replacement for InnoDB.
<http://www.percona.com/software/percona-server>
------
nicthu
Why are (some of?) the open source SQL-compatible RDBMS so different that you
can't wake up any Monday and decide to use another one, so then proceed to
unload all your data from your old one, load it into your new one, and proceed
on your merry way? In other words, why should I have to care which flavor the
engine is, as long as it supports all my App's SQL requests correctly?
~~~
garenp
In principle, the usual response to your type of question is that it's a
problem that _could_ be solved if all the parties of interest could agree on a
standard to follow. For SQL DBs, there is an ISO/IEC SQL standard
(1992,1999,2003,2008,2011), so it's not that there is a lack of a standard. If
you look at the various issues brought up in this thread and other postings,
you will find long standing bugs (and waves of duplicates & complaints) that
have been filed for all of them on bugs.mysql.com, so it's not that there
isn't interest in fixing MySQL; likely it's just not been a high priority for
the project, and the value added for existing apps that already "work" with
MySQL isn't there. Also, what motivation is there for MySQL--which is arguably
the most popular open-source DB--to change to be more compliant?
To answer your question concretely, which I read as: "Why can't we easily
change out a SQL RDBMS as if it were a common component?" I would say:
(1) Lack of standards compliance; in this case the SQL standard being the
relevant one that MySQL doesn't follow.
(2) DB specific extensions that many apps have become to rely on, often also
caused by the previous point: apps having to rely on non-standard extensions
due to the non-existence of a standard feature that could have otherwise been
used. An earlier poster pointed out a few of these above (INSERT IGNORE, ON
DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE, INSERT REPLACE, ...).
(3) Due to a combination of both points above, supporting software in your
favorite language or ORM either doesn't exist, is incomplete for a particular
DB, or lacking in cross-platform support (e.g. the mylang-pgsql driver for
Linux works but doesn't on Windows, OS X or some other major commercial UNIX
OS like Solaris or AIX).
(4) Finally, for open-source DBs there is practically no code re-use that
matters; I see this as very unfortunate, because it could be a unique strength
that only open-source projects can take advantage of. One reason for this is
legal: different open-source DBs have different or conflicting licenses. But
regardless of that (putting on flame suit now) much of the reason for a lack
of code re-use is due to the fact that C and C++ make it pretty difficult to
do well--which is a point I find true across all codebases in general (i.e.
different C, C++ codebases share very very little code).
------
roberto66
And that why its so important that you can not sell and change the ownership,
control of a community driven software project. So the community is sure that
not one person can sell the projects efforts from all community members. MySQL
could be sold bcs it was controlled by one person same as with Linux,
Drupal,... and in contrary to ie examples like Joomla that set up a legal
entity to secure Joomla for a l l community members..
<http://opensourcematters.org/index.php> See and learn from Joomla how they
structure their real open source project where all members are guaranteed part
of ownership, development and engagement of the project. Start with the legal
part to secure your open source project for ever!
------
amouat
HN just repeated slashdot? I don't remember that happening before...
~~~
Bill_Dimm
Proof that time is now flowing backwards!
~~~
HorizonXP
Indeed! You should see time flowing backwards in this YouTube video at this
timecode: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=LLjUp4g-9BFlW78BBJ-
lVqRg&#...</a><p>Seriously, watch it. Very cool.
------
hnruss
Dear Oracle:
Who are you trying to impress by removing test cases and revision history?
That just seems like a dumb idea all around. I cannot imagine what you are
gaining from that.
What are you losing? Me, as a developer/user of MySQL and your software in
general (in the cases where I have a choice, anyways). Also, I'll be avoiding
you as a potential employer, now.
See ya
------
Groxx
Is anyone _actually_ surprised by this? Personally, I declared MySQL doomed
(if not immediately dead) as soon as Oracle took over. I know this isn't
_proof_ of its death, but really. This was a long time coming.
------
greenback
This sounds a bit premature. I have MySQL running on several server instances.
They will continue to run.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cable companies have started showing fewer ads because of Netflix - rajathagasthya
http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-companies-cut-ads-because-of-netflix-2015-11?IR=T
======
clentaminator
Aside from ads, freedom of choice with respect to just what you watch seem to
be the other key motivator.
With the capability of streaming and on-demand services, why would any
consumer put up with having to choose any channel with a fixed programming
schedule? I almost certainly don't want to watch what you're trying to sell.
No other industry seems to operate in this manner. When it comes to books,
games, music, etc, consumers choose specific products. With cable TV you don't
get that granularity of choice. Netflix just brings the traditional TV model
into alignment with seemingly everything else.
Anecdotally, cable prices seem to rise but the new channels that are sold to
me as a benefit are the exact opposite of what I watch. More sports channels?
Despite me having never tuned into a single one? If you're going to profile
me, at least make an effort to do it well.
~~~
benten10
2 points. I won't speak for myself, but from what I've gathered from friends:
1\. A lot of people seem to like video ads. Movie ads specially tell you
'whats hot', and general ads put you 'in the loop' so to speak. I've tried to
install ABV for a couple of people who won't let me because they actually like
ads (as in youtube, not the shiny bright popups). This may be true for more
people than HN crowd would assume.
2\. One of the biggest problems I have with non-cable is that I need to think.
When I'm with friends, we spend a very considerable amount of time trying to
agree on what we want to watch, and often end up watching some stupid cute cat
video because we couldn't decide. TV solves that. Perhaps if cable were
referred to as 'a curated platform of best video content, being streaming
24/7', the conception would change?
~~~
sosuke
Number 2 is true and very frustrating. I'd like to have a Netflix channel
option. Sci-fi channel, horror channel etc. Did you ever call up someone else
and tell them to turn to a channel then share in the same experience?
~~~
jonlucc
One issue with this will be that so much media seems to be moving to very
compelling stories, and you don't want to miss any. You used to be able to
tune into the middle of a show without really missing anything.
------
jackgavigan
It astounds me how much US TV airtime is devoted to adverts - roughly 18
minutes out of every hour, AFAIK (plus any split-screen advertising
shenanigans).
In the UK, (outside the BBC, which doesn't have adverts) TV broadcasters are
limited to an overall average of 7 minutes per hour, with limits of 12 minutes
for any individual clock hour (which drops to 8 minutes during primetime).
The BBC's Natural History unit deliberately inserts ten minutes of
"disposable" content that can be cut from the program when it is broadcast on
commercial channels (e.g. the 'Yellowstone People' segments that were included
at the end of episodes of 'Yellowstone' when it was broadcast on the BBC, but
are dropped when it's broadcast on commercial channels).
~~~
darkr
I also find it astounding that people pay $50-60/month for a cable service
that is 30% adverts.
At that ratio, the cable service should be paying them.
~~~
Yhippa
Same thing for the mobile web. Since I pay for data usage I am more concerned
about things like video pop-up ads or even little things like web devs failing
to download an ad image appropriate for the size of my screen instead of the
original resolution image.
~~~
JustSomeNobody
Completely agree.
------
hwstar
This is why I dumped cable in 2008.
"Hour long" American TV shows are some of the shortest in the world, and are
filled with redundancy as viewers "forget" where they are in the show after a
stack of ads every 6-8 minutes. This degrades the quality of the programming
to the point it is not worth watching.
PBS programs are 50+ minutes long, and BBC are 58-59 minutes long. The local
PBS station has been showing short ads in the last 10 minute segment of the
hour. That's acceptable and much better than interrupting the programming.
In the future Broadcasters will not need transmitters, and Cable TV won't
exist. All programming will be delivered over the Internet. Instead of tuning
to channel 10 on your TV, your TV connects to the channel 10 website and you
can choose what you want to watch. If you pay extra, you can see shows without
ads.
------
sageabilly
Even among my less technologically advanced friends and family there's maybe
only a handful of people who still watch shows regularly on cable television.
My in-laws watch TV shows but they record them and skip over the ads. Pretty
much the only thing that I know of that anyone watches on cable and still sits
through ads is live sports.
Watching cable networks flail around and completely fail to understand that
their business model is not relevant anymore is always hilarious. Now that
Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have really good original programming there's even
less of an incentive to have cable.
~~~
chrisseaton
But don't the cable companies own Hulu? So they have realised the change is
coming, and have already adapted.
~~~
thefreeman
Except Hulu (at least used to, it may have changed recently) still shows ads
to their premium subscribers, which is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
~~~
dragontamer
It changed. There's an ad-free option on Hulu now.
~~~
ma2rten
Hulu just started offering an ad-free option recently.
~~~
vitd
Note the asterisk, though. Apparently a few shows are contractually obligated
to include ads on Hulu, even with the "commercial-free" option.
------
nlawalker
A question for those who have done more thinking on this than I have:
I see cable TV going the way of the dedicated phone line - a bundled benefit
you get for a very small fee on top of the primary benefit, which will be the
internet connection. The overall cost of a subscription will remain roughly
the same, but the cost will be allocated to the internet connection: much like
mobile carriers are now basically free voice+text across the board and the
cost of the plan is based solely on the data tier you want, what I see
happening in the future is that both cable TV and home phone are going to be
small add-ons to your $90-$120/month internet bill. In many markets there is
virtually no competition present to prevent this, and in those where there is,
collusion seems to be a foregone conclusion.
This seems inevitable to me given the rise in cord-cutters and, as a recent
headline pointed out, the "cord-nevers". Is this what's going to happen?
~~~
macNchz
I have Time Warner internet-only service in NYC and they are constantly trying
to sell me cable as a $10/month addon to my $35 50mbit internet package. I
imagine it's a pretty limited set of channels, but they're very much already
using that sales tactic.
~~~
gtk40
Same thing with Charter for me. They constantly try to sell me a $7/month
addon that will give access to over-the-air channels through cable. I got that
with a >$10 HD antenna, so I'm not sure what the value would be. (and I've
barely used that...)
~~~
rrego
I've been trying to (unsuccessfully) research why OTA broadcasts of channels
exist in the first place. Why do/would these networks provide their service
for free? I thought transmissions were to be encrypted.
Am I missing something?
~~~
stonogo
Ads.
~~~
greyfox
from what i understand OTA channels are free because the public airwaves are a
public utility and they are funded by the ads they sell. cable just took this
model and decided to reverse the costs from the ad generators to the
consumers.
------
lentil_soup
“Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads.”
With that kind of rhetoric no wonder they're still in denial.
~~~
lsaferite
Yeah, that comment also jumped out at me as well. I really cannot fathom their
thought processes.
------
edc117
Wait until some of you start getting the 300gb data caps Comcast is trying to
force down people's throats. They are gracefully allowing me to have my old
un-metered service back for 30$ more a month.
300gb hasn't been a reasonable number for years now, and with more people
leaving cable, this is clearly an attempt to monetize cord cutters further.
Disgusting company.
------
jimmar
I can count on one hand the number of times my children have sat down and
watched network TV. They are 4 and 7 years old. With ~15 minutes of
commercials per hour, I've probably saved them from watching thousands of
commercials, which I think is a good thing.
~~~
eitally
Mine only ever see it in hotel rooms on vacation. The first time they
experienced it, my son got very upset because we could pause it when he had to
use the bathroom. The commercials irritated my wife & I so much we just turned
it off entirely.
~~~
JustSomeNobody
My wife and I watch Netflix when we do watch anything (we have twin two year
olds, so this is a rare luxury). For some reason or other we turned on
'regular' tv the other day and there was an NFL game on. We could not believe
how many commercials there were! Also, just how insultingly unintelligent they
were. I mean, who actually would want to watch these commercials!?
~~~
ahlatimer
As a football fan, the quantity of commercials is something else. CBS is
particularly bad. You'll often see a touchdown, PAT, commercial break, cut
back to the kickoff with the ball in mid-air which results in a touchback (so
like 5 seconds worth of "content" which is really just a ball flying through
the air and a guy catching it and kneeling down) followed by another round of
commercials. It's insane.
When I get particularly frustrated with it, I pause the game and go do
something else for a good 15-20 minutes, then come back so I can at least fast
forward through some of them.
------
LeonM
My roommate called me recently that the TV was not working at home, because
his girlfriend wanted to watch TV.
As it turned out, we never plugged the cable into the TV, we have lived in the
same house for 3 years and neither of us ever watched cable TV during that
time. (we do have a cable subscription because where we live you can't get
cable internet without the TV and radio part attached...)
I never understood why someone would pay a ridiculous amount of money
(compared to say netflix) for a cable subscription and still think it's OK to
be watching to ads for 25% of the time...
It's time for cable companies to accept the truth: their technology and
business model is old fashioned (a free harddisk record to "pause" TV is a
solution to a problem that should not exist!).
~~~
coldpie
My girlfriend and I lived in our house for two years without even hooking up
the roof antenna. Eventually I bothered to do it (not trivial, long story)
because my girlfriend wanted to watch football. The idea of _paying_ for
network TV with ads is hilarious.
------
jakozaur
15:38 per hour of showtime + 2 minute of re-runs in some programs. Netflix got
zero, just enjoy your movie.
Looks like cable companies are still in denial phase. How about ad-free
versions of their channels?
~~~
raverbashing
> How about ad-free versions of their channels?
Apparently that was what cable was all about at the beginning
It's hard to lure back people to an inferior product.
~~~
draugadrotten
The ad-free historiy of cable also tells you the future of Netflix and other
streaming services. Bait...and switch!
~~~
ssharp
When I had Hulu Plus, it was actually worse than cable because it forced you
to sit through commercials. If I recorded the show on cable, I could fast
forward through them at least.
~~~
Itaxpica
Hulu Plus recently added an option where you can pay a bit extra (like two
bucks a month) to make it ad free. It makes it a way more pleasant experience.
~~~
surge
Only on certain shows, Hulu is still owned by networks that don't "get it".
~~~
jerf
Yes, but it's a short list. At the moment. Considering that the first
derivative is at least for the moment away from ads, I am cautiously
optimistic. I'm hoping that once Hulu has the data on the people paying those
$2/month that it will reveal that there's a statistically-significant
relationship between those shows still having ads, and the $2/month customers
watching less of them per capita.
(My wife recently wanted us back on Hulu for Seinfeld, and it was a big factor
in our decision to go back that we could turn off the ads, except in a set of
shows we don't much care about.)
My understanding of the economics is that $2/month is _significantly_ more
than they can hope to make in ads off me, so I'm hoping the money is enough to
overcome any residual desire to advertise. (Once the ad addiction is broken,
there's good reason to believe it'll stay broken. Nowadays it's easier to get
people to just _give_ you a buck rather than shave away pennies at a time
through ads. Thirty years ago that wasn't true.)
------
larrik
Even beyond airtime, the stupid ads and logos blotting out the screen during a
show is becoming inexcusable. Sometimes those things can take up a third of
the screen!
~~~
sizzzzlerz
And I noticed the other day that the Discovery channel logo is now animated.
Its bad enough that it squats in the corner like a dog taking a shit, now your
eyes are drawn to it because its moving. Fucking bastards!
------
NiftyFifty
I've been off cable (television as a service) for close to two years now. The
space where TV exists for value, is our local programming and news. The
national relevance is almost moot from a television source, considering I read
online news more here and Leister Holtz on NBC. The net savings basically was
1/2 the Time Warner bill -> $105 -> $56. That's almost $2500 in the last two
years. That's a refactor of savings into something like a boiler upgrade, or
solar panels to portions of the house to extend the savings even further.
Either way ... small bill, big savings.
------
jupiter90000
As much as I dislike cable due to all the advertising, I eventually signed up
because I wanted to catch some NFL games (was just doing streaming Amazon,
Netflix, etc for quite a while prior, with no NFL). I initially got an HD
antenna, but reception was spotty where I live and some local channels
wouldn't even come in. The amount of advertising on cable is really annoying,
but it is a shame that it seems somehow very difficult or impossible to
actually stream a live NFL game without having a cable or satellite package of
some kind. Following online 'gamecasts' that don't actually show the video of
the players on the field just isn't the same.
This is frustrating because it seems the NFL and television network providers
have effectively made games impossible to watch live unless you go through the
'funnel' they want you to go through to watch it. Due to this, I've felt much
less freedom of choice to select from what source I choose to obtain live NFL
games, in comparison to movies, TV shows, etc, which I can generally end up
finding on a streaming service of some kind to buy from.
A plus that I had forgotten about, is the on-demand stuff with a cable
package, which is similar to the other streaming services I'm used to (usually
no ads, or maybe one at the start of streaming), except it's nice to not have
to pay for a season of a show (like I might on Amazon) if the station the show
is on was paid for as part of the cable package.
------
unoti
Netflix has sponsored all this cutting edge research on recommendation
engines, and it can predict very well how much I'm going to enjoy something.
Why in the world won't it just show me a list of 4 and 5 star things? Are they
afraid I'll just watch those things over the course of a month then stop
subscribing?
The clunkiness of their UI isn't incompetence, it's by choice, right? Or am I
missing some important part of their UI that's hiding in plain sight
somewhere?
~~~
MiddleEndian
As someone who prefers movies to series, their recommendations were fantastic
for their DVD plan. Their streaming selection is much more limited (I found
that maybe 10% of the movies I wanted to see were available) so they have to
mask it.
(I have no idea if their delivery service recommendations are still good
because they decided my address was fake when I moved and cancelled my
account)
------
ucaetano
The article makes a confusion between cable companies (Comcast, TWC, Charter,
etc.) and TV/content networks (Time Warner, FOX, Viacom, etc.).
------
cletus
Here's another explanation: every year the TV audience gets older [1].
Advertisers notoriously chase the coveted 18-49 demographic. Younger viewers
are increasingly not watching traditional TV.
So, you can view Time Warner's move to cut ads in prime time as simply a way
of raising prices by reducing supply (inventory).
As for cable companies shoving TV packages down customers throats, well that's
easy to explain. The bargaining power a cable company has with media companies
is directly proportional to how many TV subscribers they have. So every
Internet-only customer a cable company has marginally raises the per-customer
cost of TV.
This is also why Comcast wanted to merge with Time Warner. It's simply about
reducing TV costs.
This business model really has to die.
[1]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/tv-
is-increasingly-for-old-people/)
~~~
gorner
Time Warner Inc. (the company discussed in OP's article that owns HBO, CNN
etc.) has been a separate company from Time Warner Cable since 2009.
TWC is the one that Comcast tried to buy (and is now trying to merge with
Charter).
------
_RPM
It's absurd that one can pay for premium cable TV, and still must be forced to
listen and watch advertisements. I refuse to watch cable TV advertisements.
HBO is the only network I can stand to watch now. I have the most basic cable
package because my Internet came with it, and it also came with HBO. I get so
annoyed by advertisements on TV.
------
cJ0th
I wonder whether netflix et al will introduce ads once cable is dead and the
VoD market is saturated. After all, they too want to increase their profit at
any point in time.
~~~
JustSomeNobody
As long as Netflix can appease investors by attracting new membership, they
won't need ads. Once membership peaks they will have to start thinking of ways
to keep their QER in the black (because investors can only see one single
quarter into the future). That's when we have to worry.
------
NiftyFifty
Second thought is the add revenue in YouTube and how Google is slowly making
it impossible to view something without an intro ad to a video spot I want to
watch. Sanity on product reviews, or modifications might actually drive me
away from YouTube and stick to reading. I use the MVPS.org hosts file to ad-
block most of the website content I review, as I pipe it into /etc/hosts and
c:\%windows%\system32\drives\etc\hosts files to keep myself from the flash ->
ad-virus injection methods for security reasons. However, YT is driving me
crazy with 30s ad spots for like a 3 minute video and you can't walk around
them no matter how you try unless you browser jack or regional change some
things (right?). Anyway .... venting on Google's ad pushes myself.
------
S_A_P
Now if the DVD vendors(hopefully a dying market) could only get the picture
that when I rent a movie for my kid to play in the car, I dont want to have to
skip 30 minutes of ads to start what I rented...
------
guelo
> cable channels have actually sped up re-runs to get two minutes more of
> advertising per show.
Wow. It's like a reverse TiVo, fast forward through the content to show more
ads.
~~~
sholnay
Yep!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0)
------
Taylor_OD
I'll be honest that a major reason I stopped watching cable. I use to freak
out because of the frequency of ads. Intro to the show? Followed by an ad. I
understand the length of ads but constantly interrupting the show is what
upset me much more. I'd rather watch 7 minutes of ads at once then 7 1 minute
ad segments.
Now I never worry about it because of Netflix. If only I could get rid of Ads
for podcasts.
------
dba7dba
The REASON cable TV caught on initially decades ago was the promise of cutting
out ads. There were NO ads on Cable TV initially.
~~~
silveira
And the lesson is that eventually there will be ads on Netflix too.
~~~
dba7dba
I actually think they will eventually.
It may be in the form of forcing you to watch preview like you are forced to
with DVDs
Or they may decide to raise monthly fee by $2 a month but you won't have to
pay if you elect to allow ads.
It will happen. Share holders will eventually demand it when their growth
slows down.
------
izzydata
Why anyone younger than 50 still pays for cable is a mystery to me. Once the
fiber internet infrastructure across the US becomes the norm it makes more
sense for all shows and services to be provided over the net even if they keep
a similar nonstop 24/7 airing format. You just wouldn't be downloading while
it is turned off.
------
qjighap
So if they are showing less commercials how are they planning to lengthen
programming to fill the 30/60 minute time slots? I understand new content can
be altered, but re-editing old content would be most difficult.
------
silveira
Too little, too late.
------
zeckalpha
Supply and demand -> They can charge more for less.
------
surge
Too late, I'm already done with cable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Calendar now has spam - justinkelly
http://blog.justin.kelly.org.au/google-calendar-spam/
======
justinkelly
Didn’t know that this was even possible - but there is now spam in Google
Calendars
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ethiopia's Authorities Have Shut Down the Internet Without Giving Any Reasons - jw2013
https://www.iafrikan.com/2017/06/01/ethiopias-authorities-have-shut-down-the-internet-without-giving-any-reasons/
======
mgr86
I have an Ethiopian colleague. Well he got his American citizenship a few
years ago. But the only way to communicate with his family without ridiculous
long distance fees was the internet. It used to be FaceBook but that's been
shut down for awhile. This isn't good
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Performance Monitor for Windows - cosmosdarwin
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Admin-Center-Blog/Introducing-the-new-Performance-Monitor-for-Windows/ba-p/957991
======
papln
Ah, Windows monitoring tools.
Another great one is Driver Verifier. If your computer crashes due to hardware
fault, you can use Driver Verifier to inspect the problem.
Driver Veriier will then likely render your machine un-bootable until you can
sneak back in via a recovery boot disk, and disable Driver Verifier.
[https://www.howtogeek.com/363500/why-you-shouldnt-use-the-
dr...](https://www.howtogeek.com/363500/why-you-shouldnt-use-the-driver-
verifier-in-windows-10/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Rise of Edible Insect Farming - Osiris30
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-insects-as-food/
======
ravenstine
As someone who was eating insects long before cricket protein bars became in
vogue, I don't see entomophagy becoming anything more than a fad in the west,
especially America.
The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry. Granted,
this has a lot to do with cultural expectations, but that's exactly why I
don't think that people are going to gradually shift to consuming a very
different flavor.
Also, as someone who used to be heavily into protein, I don't buy the notion
that people need more protein than what they are currently getting. A human
body really doesn't need that much protein, and even body builders don't need
as much protein as they often consume. If someone is telling you that you need
to consume protein, it's probably because they're trying to sell you
something. Even more so if they are calling it a "super-food".
Maybe things will actually change. I dunno. The insects that I thought were
the most tasty(moth caterpillars) are the ones that people are least likely to
want to eat. People might be fine with dried crickets and meal worms, but I
challenge them to eat something more substantial.
Every "bug person" I used to follow on social media warns us of a looming food
crisis and that insects will save the world. I thought it no coincidence that
most of them either give paid lectures, sell books, or are associated with a
"bug startup".
~~~
jcfrei
> The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry.
Poultry, especially the meat of chicken and turkeys is close to tasteless. I
would argue the opposite, the average consumer doesn't really care for the
taste of the meat itself as long as the marinade is delicious.
~~~
notheguyouthink
Which makes me wonder, what would industrialized farming and eating of insects
do to the taste?
~~~
beauzero
They would taste like chicken.
------
always_good
The imminent insects-as-food transition has been "just around the corner" at
least since I was reading Popular Science magazine in middle school.
Always with the same scare-pretext of "whelp, we'll have no choice! get ready
to knock back some crickets whether you like it or not ;)". Then it plots out
how much meat Americans eat and shows how it's unsustainable.
It just doesn't follow logically to me.
What seems more likely is that we will ween off of the idea that we need meat
in every single meal. And once you also factor in the possibility of pricing
in externalities, meat will become – at least – a dinner treat.
Meat is already subsidized by animal neglect, sketchy tactics, and mass
pollution. I wouldn't mind if we were paying the honest price of meat at the
market today. We'd get this cultural change on the roll, and we'd probably
have something better already. And it won't be bugs.
~~~
foolfoolz
i think even more likely: we will find a way to make our consumption of meat
more sustainable
~~~
izzydata
Like all that "just around the corner" lab grown meat?
~~~
codefined
We seem to have seen a massive, measurable improvement in lab grown meat in
the past 2-3 years. Going down from hundreds of thousands of dollars to single
digit prices[0].
I don't know how the market is going to respond, but if we get a similar
decrease in price it should get a large market share, having no noticeable
negative attributes.
[0] [https://bigthink.com/ideafeed/answering-how-a-sausage-
gets-m...](https://bigthink.com/ideafeed/answering-how-a-sausage-gets-made-
will-be-more-complicated-in-2020) [1]
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/clean-meat-lab-
gr...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/clean-meat-lab-grown-
available-restaurants-2018-global-warming-greenhouse-emissions-a8236676.html)
~~~
azernik
I'm looking for the source for that number; it seems to come from Mark Post
(head of a company in the space), and the closest I can find to an original
quote is him saying last year that "it's possible" to grow at $80/kilo (i.e.
single-digits per hamburger patty).
I would be very skeptical of that specific number while there are no market
transactions going on.
------
zackmorris
Many Native American tribes practiced land fishing, where long nets were
strung out and left for a day to catch grasshoppers and whatever else got
stuck in them. I'm having trouble finding links though:
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-eating-
bugs...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-eating-bugs-america)
[http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/amerindians.htm](http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/amerindians.htm)
[http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/insectsasfood/files/2012/09/Boo...](http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/insectsasfood/files/2012/09/Book_Chapter_2.pdf)
<\- warning PDF
"En'neh, or grasshoppers, are eaten by the Konkau. They catch them with nets,
or by driving them into pits, then roast them and reduce them to powder for
preservation."
You can live very well off the land (even in deserts) if you are willing to
eat insects, because their combined mass can be higher than the visible
wildlife. Ethically if I had to choose between hunting and butchering animals
or having more food than I could handle from passively-caught grasshoppers, I
might choose the latter!
------
smurphy
This idea is terrible. Chitin, the sugar in bug exoskeletons, activates the
innate human immune system. Switching out our proteins with bugs would surely
cause a rise in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin#Humans_and_other_mammal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin#Humans_and_other_mammals)
~~~
logfromblammo
Non-human chitinases would simply be added as a processing step. This might be
as simple as canning the grubs in tomato sauce, or serving them with avocado.
People do eat mushrooms and shellfish, after all.
Larger insects can have their exoskeletons removed or partially removed, and
those can be turned into chitosan, just like the shells from peeled shrimp.
~~~
smurphy
The Wikipedia article mentions that chitin's degradation products are still
recognized. Do you think these chitinases would break the bonds enough to
bypass immune recognition?
~~~
logfromblammo
It was not clear to me whether the degradation products of human chitinase and
non-human chitinases are the same, which is why I explicitly specified non-
human chitinases.
It seems likely to me that people with latex-fruit allergies would also be
allergic to the breakdown products from non-human chitinases, whereas those
with shellfish and dust mite allergies would also be allergic to the breakdown
products from human chitinase. Either way, it is likely to be a food allergen.
------
leoreeves
To be honest, I'm holding out for clean meat, eating insects just seems
unnecessary to me, especially because of welfare considerations—insects
potentially have the capacity to feel pain and you have to kill a significant
amount of insects just to make a small amount of food.
"Considerable empirical evidence supports the assertion that insects feel pain
and are conscious of their sensations. In so far as their pain matters to
them, they have an interest in not being pained and their lives are worsened
by pain. Furthermore, as conscious beings, insects have future (even if
immediate) plans with regard to their own lives, and the death of insects
frustrates these plans. In that sentience appears to be an ethically sound,
scientifically viable basis for granting moral status and in consideration of
previous arguments which establish a reasonable expectation of consciousness
and pain in insects, I propose the following, minimum ethic: We ought to
refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause
nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only
trivial, costs to our own welfare." — Jeffery A. Lockwood
[http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...](http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1712&context=bts)
------
bcatanzaro
I'm much more enthusiastic about plant-based foods than insects. The
impossible burger is pretty fantastic - there's no cultural barrier to
overcome, and I expect it's even better for the planet than crickets.
~~~
phil248
"there's no cultural barrier to overcome"
There is indeed a cultural barrier in the United States when it comes to
vegetarian diets. Many Americans avoid "fake meat" due to their cultural
beliefs.
~~~
RandallBrown
Yeah, but you won't find any Americans that avoid eating things made of
plants. You will definitely find Americans that avoid eating things made of
bugs.
~~~
phil248
Many Americans avoid eating things made out of plants. For example, tofu or
veggie burgers. Like I said, this is a cultural phenomenon, similar to but
less severe than the cultural proclivity to avoid eating insects.
Though many Americans don't seem to mind eating snails.
~~~
adrianN
I eat tofu quite often, but I don't eat fake meat. If I want meat, I buy meat.
I don't like the idea of plant protein being tortured until it resembles a
completely different product.
~~~
phil248
Funny use of words, avoiding figuratively "tortured" plant proteins and
instead opting for literally tortured animals.
------
1996
As a kid I hated eating insects. I still do - I don't understand how people
can.
However, my definition of insects includes crawfish, lobster, urchins etc.
They are fancy insects, but I do not see much difference between most seafood
and bugs, except the size maybe.
It is socially acceptable to eat seafood. It wasn't always like that. New
England had rules against feeding your employees lobster more than once a
week!
Give it time, a generation or two, and people will eat bugs. After all, it's
just food! What we used to say round my place: it it moves, kill it. If it's
dead, cook it, and eat it.
~~~
nkrisc
Most people don't think about it that way, but you're right. Insects and
crustaceans are all arthropods and similar in many ways.
Personally, I always imagined whoever the first person to eat a lobster was
must have been very hungry indeed.
~~~
1996
Biology rules :-)
------
patorjk
> Some people say it will be like sushi in 20 years. I am really optimistic
> that it may be a lot faster
This outlook does not seem realistic. 20 years ago I remember watching a news
segment on Australian TV about how eating bugs was the future. The people they
interviewed were mostly grossed out. I don't think much has changed. I think
it's more likely that you'll see people take up a more vegetarian diet if meat
starts to become scarce.
~~~
kpil
I think it might be more than just "culture". Bugs, maggots and worms are
associated with disease, decay, and death.
I doubt I've learned to jump when I see a spider, or gross out when I find
maggots in the garbage can,there's probably a large portion of instinct there.
I just about tolerate eating shrimp mainly because it tastes so darn good. If
it would taste so so, I'd pass.
The whole thing seem more related to lobbying so that large corporations can
sell even cheaper junk to us as food. I have no doubts that they would scoop
up and sell us processed waste directly from the sewer if they got away with
it.
~~~
lookACamel
The association is mostly due to urbanization and the effect that has had on
the human psyche.
------
contingencies
The author of the famous natural farming manifesto _The One-Straw Revolution_
[0], Masanobu Fukuoka[1], was a microbiologist assigned by the Japanese army
to evaluate the edibility of various insects encountered by the army as they
spread across Southeast Asia. He concluded that almost all of them were
edible.
I tried a cricket burger recently at the F&A Next[2] event at Wageningen,
Europe's pre-eminent agricultural university[1], which may have even been
sourced from the farm in this article. While the taste was OK, I literally
woke up early in the morning with stomach pain.
[0]
[http://www.appropedia.org/images/d/d3/Onestraw.pdf](http://www.appropedia.org/images/d/d3/Onestraw.pdf)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wageningen_University_and_Rese...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wageningen_University_and_Research)
~~~
baybal2
>woke up early in the morning with stomach pain.
Why?
~~~
contingencies
I believe it was the burger, since it was the only thing I ate all day that
could have caused such a reaction. Despite the experience I remain a big
supporter of vegetarian food and meat alternatives. It's still early days for
an industry that has to overturn deep cultural bias.
------
chriselles
A couple of folks I helped mentor at a Startup Weekend founded a company
called Anteater.
I’m not much of a believer in a western culture change that will see us eating
whole insects like we’re living in dystopian Soylent Green.
But I can see protein powder derived from insects being palatable for western
audiences.
But can it be produced profitably at scale?
I’ve eaten a bug on a stick streetfood in Cambodia, I’m not a fan.
~~~
toomanybeersies
I think Anteater is an interesting company. Unfortunately I never got round to
actually talking to them, despite working in the same building a few times.
It seems that their business model is to target high end restaurants and work
down from there. Their product is more of a garnish than an actual food.
They really need to work on their website too.
~~~
chriselles
Some good folks on the team. Two founders still in it.
They won slots on the last Edmund Hillary Fellowship cohort.
Profitable industrial scaling of insect protein and any other
nutrients/byproducts will be interesting to watch.
Particularly any insect bioengineered for food/chemical manufacturing.
But I suspect NZ will NOT be the place for genetic engineering of insects.
------
tomjen3
Somebody brought a bunch of salty crisp mealworms to work. It was a little
wierd first, but they basically taste like thin paper chips; not at all a bad
taste.
For those of you on diets, if I recall correctly they had pretty high fat,
pretty high protein (like 50ish %) and very low amounts of carbs). Might be
worth considering for health issue.
------
louprado
"the muddy pens where as many as 1,200 pigs once wallowed into a climate-
controlled cricket farm. It’s on pace to yield 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds)
of the edible protein this year"
Pigs reach slaughter weight at around 6 months of age at which point it yields
around 180lbs of hanging weight meat.
The article further claims a 18/63 ratio of land required per gram of protein
in favor of crickets.
Assuming they previously slaughtered 1000 pigs a year -> 180,000 lbs * 63/18 =
630,000lbs is their expected cricket protein capacity which is ~200X more than
their current output. Any ideas on why the numbers are so different ?
Edit: I just realized that a pig steak is mostly water and the cricket protein
is likely dehydrated. So it more like 50X not 200X.
------
buovjaga
In a study conducted by University of Turku, 70% of the Finnish respondents
were interested in edible insects and 50% said they would buy food made of
insects, if it were available [0].
Supermarkets in my area here in Helsinki have sold insect foods (breads, bars)
for several months already. I can't comment on the taste as I am a vegetarian
:)
[0]:
[http://www.utu.fi/fi/yksikot/fff/palvelut/kehitysprojektit/h...](http://www.utu.fi/fi/yksikot/fff/palvelut/kehitysprojektit/hyonteiset/Documents/Hy%C3%B6nteiset%20ruokaketjussa%20loppuraportti%20\(julkinen\).pdf)
------
lookACamel
If I had to bet between insects and plant-based meat substitutes like the
Impossible Burger, I'd bet on the latter. Insects are cool, but they just
doesn't make sense as a major food staple.
They don't really taste like much. Texture wise, adult insects have too much
chitin. They're not as easy to farm as you think (high death rates).
But the real problem is that they're basically snacks. Finger-food. Toppings.
A person who accepts entomology is not going to automatically stop eating
beef, pork, chicken and fish.
------
warrenski
I met a bunch of people here in Stellenbosch, South Africa at a startup called
Gourmet Grubb. Their first product is an ice-cream made from insect milk,
trademarked EntoMilk - no kidding! Fascinating stuff, check them out here:
[https://gourmetgrubb.com/](https://gourmetgrubb.com/)
------
FooBarWidget
Ignoring whether people want to eat it, is insect protein really worth it?
According to [https://entomologytoday.org/2015/04/15/crickets-are-not-a-
fr...](https://entomologytoday.org/2015/04/15/crickets-are-not-a-free-lunch-
protein-conversion-rates-may-be-overestimated/), it's about as efficient as
chicken. And for insects to produce high-quality protein they need high-
quality feed.
I had an insect burger lately, consisting of crickets and mealworms. It was a
large amount of critters but with a pathetic amount of protein for a
relatively large surface area. It didn't feel as fulfilling as a burger.
That's when it made me wonder whether it's really that efficient.
~~~
lookACamel
That's when it made me wonder whether it's really that efficient.
It's probably not. The reason why cultures around the world have historically
eaten insects is not because insects are easy to farm but because they are
easy to gather from a wild environment. Large scale insect farming as a
replacement for other sorts of large scale farming kind of misses the whole
point.
------
perpetualcrayon
Not knowledgeable in this area, but very curious. I know it would be extremely
expensive to be concerned with extracting "waste" systems of every insect we
consume as we do with other species. What does insect "waste" system consist
of that could help me be more inclined to test this food trend, the risks of
removing the waste systems obviously don't exist as they do with other
species?
------
bayesian_horse
My research into the area has shown me that even though insects are supposed
to use fewer resources, and are grown as animal feed, they are rather more
expensive than most meat sources.
Mainly because of labor costs. Also, counter to intuition, many insects take a
longer time to raise to "market size" than many conventional livestock.
------
carapace
I've been hearing recently about roach farming in China.
[https://qz.com/1257583/a-chinese-farm-is-
breeding-6-billion-...](https://qz.com/1257583/a-chinese-farm-is-
breeding-6-billion-cockroaches-a-year-to-make-medicine/)
------
KnightOfWords
I had some cricket-coated chicken at a bug farm in Pembrokeshire the other
day, it was tasty. As the crickets were ground into a powder it was very
inoffensive. I don't generally like food that can stare back, such as whole
fish, so cricket flour is good for me.
------
komali2
The book "Sourdough" by Robin Sloan touches on eating bugs a bit, as well as
some other fun futuristic food concepts. Also, it namedrops pretty much
everything that exists in the Bay Area, so that's kinda fun.
------
chrisbrandow
We all need some protein and even if we only displace some of that with
insects, it would reduce GW emissions. So I applaud the effort, though
honestly, it grossed me out.
------
bluena
In Cambodia there's a high standing restaurant with insects instead of
proteins. When cooked by a good chef, insects can be delicious and visually
pleasing!
~~~
freeflight
I could buy the delicious part, but I don't think there's anything that could
be done to insects to make them "visually pleasing" to me, at least as long as
they are still recognizable as insects.
------
calebgilbert
Mumbles something about Snowpiercer, shuffles away
------
twfarland
Yeah nah this isn't gonna catch on. Synthetic or simulated meats will mature
commercially first.
------
XalvinX
If they are just ground up anyways, I'm not sure I see why they would be
better than vegetable protein sources...in fact, wouldn't they almost
certainly be less efficient?
~~~
blacksqr
Yes, crickets require high-protein feed to grow at a viable rate. I don't
understand the logic of using the crickets instead of just using the feed.
Black soldier flies, on the other hand, feed on sewage and rotting waste,
things it would be really beneficial to get rid of. Using them as a protein
source makes sense to me, on an intellectual level at least.
~~~
lookACamel
Would you really want to eat something in the food chain only one step removed
from sewage and rotting waste?
~~~
blacksqr
Do you eat mushrooms?
~~~
XalvinX
I love mushrooms. And let's not forget some of the most expensive foods out
there: crabs and lobsters. Early pilgrims in New England refused to eat them
because the found them feasting on dead bodies (particularly human) a bit too
often... Not kidding. Catfish, carp, crayfish, and many other things live on
about the same level, despite being as delicious as Shiitake Mushrooms, which
I just ate tonight! :)
------
bluedino
Grind insects into a fine powder. Start adding them to things. We've magically
added protein to every food, it's more filling and 'better' for us. It's not
like anybody really knows what's in veggie burgers and things of that nature.
Here's my questions:
Is there some biological downside to mass-farming insects for food? Do they
release methane or some other gas that's harmful to our planet?
Cows turn grass or corn into meat which has things like iron, vitamin B, and
monosaturated fat in it. Do insects have these kind of advantages?
~~~
thinkcontext
Both of your questions are answered in the article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Chirpss – Hear when someone visits your website - pixelfeeder
http://chirpss.com/?rst
======
anonfunction
This would be cool if it could filter for certain events like people
subscribing, etc... there used to be something like this that played a "cha-
ching" sound but I forgot what it was called.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No Parkinson's with the flip of a switch - courtstar
http://kottke.org/13/06/no-parkinsons-with-the-flip-of-a-switch
======
weitzj
I was really amazed and watched a live surgery. The surgery was done by one
Professor, a Neurologist, and two medicine-physicists. I was really amazed how
the operation was done. Most of the work was actually done on a computer to
get the brain coordinates right (so no vessles would break when they dig a
hole in your head). They actually just drill a small hole in the scull, and
will not open the scull fully.
The scariest moment was, when the Neurologist hooked up his Windows 2000
Laptop to the fully awake patient trying to figure out which voltage/current
would be the best stimulant.
The patient had to count the weekdays beginning at Monday. Everything worked
out until Wednesday. Thursday sounded more like "mmmblblblbmmlbm". After that
the Neurologist hit a few buttons on the Laptop, adjusted the currents, and
after that the patient was able to speak out "Thursday" easily.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: People are afraid to give you honest feedback so we built this - jeffchuber
We (@emrenx and I) wanted a simple little tool that would help us get better feedback so we could move faster. We knew that anonymizing the data would help. For more research on this approach, check out 360-degree feedback http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-degree_feedback.<p>http://pitchback.me/
======
zengr
Submit a blank form and get this:
Warning: parse_url(<http://>) [function.parse-url]: Unable to parse URL in
/home/content/89/7601089/html/pitchback/functions.php on line 58 The company
"" is already in the pitchback.me system. If you believe this is an error,
please contact [email protected]
~~~
davyjones
Also, logging in without any username/password works...as in, you are actually
logged in and are looking at the dashboard.
~~~
jeffchuber
thanks guys!
------
albumedia
Seems like a decent idea. Please include a pitchback url so we can "submit
real, anonymous feedback about your startup."
~~~
jeffchuber
Side project - not a startup. But if you want to try it out.
<http://pitchback.me/pitchback518>
------
knes
Clickable: <http://pitchback.me/>
------
thekevinjones
Just post whatever you make on HN and you'll get honest feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The American coal industry is collapsing - nashashmi
http://fusion.net/story/142473/the-american-coal-industry-is-collapsing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=/feed/
======
ZeroGravitas
Recent article that goes into this issue in depth:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618072)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Help Haiti, Get Valuable Rewards - jgrahamc
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2010/01/stay-classy-softwarefx-stay-classy.html
======
eraad
Helping to get rewards is not supposed to be the right thing, but I guess it
may be the only way to get some people, which would never help, to help.
------
_pius
This is an example of how important good copy is. Write bad copy and people
will bash your company, even for doing something fundamentally good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Have Real World Impact, in Five Easy Pieces - mwhicks1
https://blog.sigplan.org/2019/10/29/how-to-have-real-world-impact-five-easy-pieces/
======
jressey
Why the hell do people modify scrolling on their websites?
~~~
behnamoh
Some think just because they can, they should do it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Whatever happened to the 3-strike ISP piracy scheme? - mchahn
I remember the start date for the 3-strike anti-piracy program that ISPs were supposedly going to implement. (maybe it was 4, 5, or more strikes?) That date went by and I haven't heard anything about it since. Did the ISPs come to realize it did nothing to help them and that is would only upset their customers?
======
wmf
It's six strikes and I guess you don't read mainstream tech news.
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/six-strikes-
enfor...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/six-strikes-enforcement-
policy-debuts/) [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-what-an-
act...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-what-an-actual-six-
strikes-copyright-alert-looks-like/) [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2014/05/isps-sent-1-3m-co...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2014/05/isps-sent-1-3m-copyright-infringement-notices-to-us-customers-
last-year/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma exploring bankruptcy - smaili
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy-exclusive/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-pharma-exploring-bankruptcy-sources-idUSKCN1QL1KL
======
milsorgen
They must of been closer to bona fide repercussions then I realized. Seems
like pain pills of this class are nearing the end of their mass usefulness,
perhaps something more novel like the kratom plant is in order for mild to
moderate pain management?
~~~
_Schizotypy
Opiate agonists are a bad choice for analgesia. This includes the kratom
alkaloids
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Products Banned In Germany By Motorola - techiediy
http://www.techieinsider.com/news/13190
======
ggeorgovassilis
Not quite correct so. A court granted an injunction which would allow Motorola
to ban 3G Apple products in Germany [¹]. However Motorola must deposit 100m €
if they want to make good on that right as a guarantee in case a subsequent
court ruling lifts that injunction.
[¹] [http://www.heise.de/mac-and-i/meldung/Schwere-Schlappe-
fuer-...](http://www.heise.de/mac-and-i/meldung/Schwere-Schlappe-fuer-Apple-
im-Patentstreit-mit-Motorola-1393064.html)
------
TheCapn
Long ago (and probably more recently as well) there was a funny little info-
graphic regarding which mobile companies were suing which. Has anyone stumbled
upon a similar summary of knowledge regarding who is banned from selling
where?
I honestly don't know who started this whole thing and I don't want to point
fingers but it feels as though someone thought it was a good idea to try and
block the sales of some product and opened a whole can of shitstorm.
------
atirip
One man, one company, one device in Germany?
Remember those Vic Gundotra shot's at Google I/O ? "Draconian future, a future
where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.”
“Not The Future We Want.”
Now, when Motorola (Google) succesfully banned iOS in Germany, someone should
ask Vic, what is he gonna do about it. This IS the future they DID NOT wanted.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Big Companies Are Dead But Don’t Know It - aaronbrethorst
http://steveblank.com/2010/06/07/when-big-companies-are-dead-but-don’t-know-it/
======
aaronbrethorst
I'm guessing that Steve is referring to Macrovision. Interesting inside look.
~~~
hga
That was my guess as well. Analog Macrovision obviously died a hard death when
DVDs replaced VHS tapes ... and that translation was remarkably fast for
consumer electronics. If they hadn't been on the ball it would have been ugly,
probably terminally so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Effects of High Glucose and High Fructose Diets on Body Weight in Rats - ssp
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/16/3/229.pdf
======
nas
Weight gain is the same (not surprising since calories are the same), liver is
22% bigger in fructose fed rates. This is an old study, BTW.
Here's a 2009 study comparing fructose and glucose for humans:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673878/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Story of 2 $1 Million Projects in 24 Hours - zachh
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/24-hours
======
hop
Hi HN, Casey from the Elevation Dock project.
People use the term disruption pretty loosely, I think crowd-funding is really
doing it. Goodbye middlemen, sayonara to the massive traditional barriers to
entry. Hello bootstrapped projects like this that would otherwise never see
the light of day.
~~~
VikingCoder
Hi Casey,
First off - Congratulations!
I have a burning question. Have you figured out how you're going to do
shipping and handling? Are you using a 3rd party to do all of the
distribution, or do you have the workforce yourself to do it? Kickstarter and
Amazon don't do it for you, do they?
~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I did calculations for my (failed) kickstarter campaign between Amazon
Fulfillment and me personally packing and mailing everything.
Amazon Fulfillment would have cut my profit in half. Yes it saves you time but
depending on where you live and where the fulfillment warehouse is, the size
of the products you're making, and the cost of shipping them. For my specific
case it wasn't worth it. Hiring a few neighbors and working out of the garage
for a few days would be far more feasible.
~~~
rikf
There are cheaper alternatives then Amazon for fulfilment.
~~~
prawn
Can you list them?
------
reidmain
This is really starting to show the potential of Kickstarter.
So many of the successful Kickstarter projects have been unknowns. Just really
smart and driven people with a dream.
If established companies can bypass publishers and investors by promising to
sell a product directly to the consumer then we have a whole new ballgame
here.
Double Fine has successfully funded a game where the only promise is that they
will release it. That's it. No percentage of revenue to the publisher. The
publisher can't demand they add DRM, etc. Their only obligation is to do what
they do best because they are only answering to someone who wants a great
game, not a return on their investment.
This is big.
~~~
aw3c2
They already decided to use DRM. They use Steam. I'd be among the backers if I
would get a simple standalone installer or even zip archive without any
honest-customer-punishment.
~~~
reidmain
True. They've decided to go with the least invasive form of DRM that is
typically excepted.
I agree with you that a stand alone installer would be best but because of how
easy Steam is I am gladly willing to give them $30 for said game.
------
ChuckMcM
One has to wonder though, if you priced out your Kickstarter project because
you wanted to make one for yourself and well if you could get 100 other people
to kick in you would be able to get the better price on parts, and then 10,000
people kick in and now you're looking at something which was 'spend the
weekend building up a hundred or so foo-widgets' becomes 'spend the next six
months building 10 thousand foo-widgets' that has to suck.
~~~
marquis
I think that's a problem we'd all like to have.
~~~
ChuckMcM
Actually its not. Let me phrase it differently and you tell me if you'd
volunteer :-)
"Hi! I need you to work for slave labor wages for the next six months, if you
don't you are going to be pilloried and your reputation destroyed, no one will
ever work with you ever again, you may not be able to find future employment.
How about it?"
The situation arises when you haven't covered all of the possibilities.
Generally the one over looked by Kickstarter participants is the 'wildly
successful' one. The dilemma is as follows, to make one of something by hand
might take an hour of your time. If you are going to make 10 you might create
a couple of frames or something to hold parts to make it go more smoothly so
it takes three or four hours, to make 100 might involve some slightly more
elaborate frames and all weekend. Now if you've priced your kickstarter such
that you 'make' a couple of dollars on each unit, then you've spent your
weekend making a hundred widgets and you've got $200 to show for it. If you
need to make 10,000 things get more complicated. You can invest in more
sophisticated jigs and holders (that eats into your profit), or more
sophisticated machinery (that eats into your profit), or more help (that
hugely eats into your profit) So you still 'make money' after making 10,000
but its like $2,000 over 6 months, rather than $200 over a weekend. I suspect
you could find better work for $350/month. However if you had priced your
widget such that you could make money building 10,000 of them, well then
you're golden because you've included the cost of paying for tooling at a
small factory nearby and having _them_ make the widgets. Now the second 10,000
are like 'free' since you've already got the overhead of setting up
manufacturing paid for. The downside is that at the higher cost your
Kickstarter might not fund that many.
Its just a cautionary tale for would-be kick starters to think though the
various scenarios and internalize what each scenario would mean to them and
then price out accordingly.
~~~
buu700
Really interesting point, but since kickstarters aren't technically obligated
to offer their product as an incentive, it would be pretty simple to get
around that without messing with pricing by just saying 'first N backers get a
widget' (though, this in itself does also require the foresight to consider
your scenario).
------
vannevar
So if Blizzard does a Kickstarter and raises $10M in pre-sales for a new game,
is that within the mission of the site? I was under the impression that it was
a site for projects by people who otherwise wouldn't be able to fund them.
This seems to be pushing that boundary.
~~~
kmfrk
I'd rather rephrase the question to ask generally what it would take to break
the spirit of the site. A lot of projects already use it as a shop-like site.
And as far as big companies are concerned, Kickstarter and Amazon take a
combined 7.9% cut, which is quite significant.
I'm also not entirely sure whether companies with DRM-encumbered games will
manage to attract donours in a similar fashion to Double Fine who seem to be
using the Steam platform, which is widely used and loved.
Blizzard could probably pull it off with their games (MMOs not included)
because of Battle.net, but it would turn into a major shitstorm, if they
funded something like Call of Duty, which is a magnet to controversy and
uproar. Then there would be the ensuing hell of charge-backs and refunds.
With Kickstarter, you generally invest in an idea more so than a product. What
but a product do you invest in by giving Blizzard money? With Double Fine, you
revive the adventure genre, have a chance of disrupting the videogame industry
and bring back some of the biggest videogame developer legends and give them
free reins over their product without having to go hat in hand and pander to
producers. With Blizzard, it would just be business as usual.
I don't know whether Kickstarter will ever lose its indie feel, but if it
does, or some project starters do, they will be subjected to a level of
scrutiny orders of magnitude higher than what we are used to.
I think Kickstarter projects depend more on goodwill than most of us imagine.
~~~
asb
Steam games are DRM encumbered. If Valve decide they don't like you any more,
you can no longer play the games on your Steam account.
~~~
kmfrk
I didn't mean that as mutually exclusive but yes, Steam - obviously comes with
DRM. Valve have so much goodwill that it isn't a problem with its users.
------
Jun8
Congrats to Kickstarter!! This is the type of win-win startup I want to
create/work at. Gives a simple example of pg's essay about wealth not being a
fixed cake to share but that it can be created
(<http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>).
Two things that piqued my interest:
1) They kept saying that they were refreshing the project page to say when
it'll hit 1M. Surely a company like Kickstarter has created visualization
tools that create nice, real-time graphs of selected projects. No?
2) "After not having a single million dollar project in Kickstarter's first
two-plus years, there are suddenly two within four hours of each other." Call
it black swan, non-normality, heavy tail, whatever, this shows how common (and
lumped) rare events are.
~~~
Aqua_Geek
> 1) They kept saying that they were refreshing the project page to say when
> it'll hit 1M. Surely a company like Kickstarter has created visualization
> tools that create nice, real-time graphs of selected projects. No?
I found that odd as well. Where's the websocket goodness?
~~~
acgourley
This just in: Web-socket powered dashboards not necessary for success.
~~~
Aqua_Geek
You're right - they're not. I'm not trying to argue that they are, though. I
just assumed that a company that's dependent on projects succeeding to make
their living would have something more than "keep hitting refresh" in place to
track big projects like these.
------
bvi
Is the money raised through Kickstarter seen as income, and therefore, taxable
(meaning that 20-30% of the final amount raised is lopped off)?
~~~
patio11
Trade of money in return for promise of a future good/service is
unquestionably income in the US, but that does not necessarily imply that sort
of marginal rate. For example, if the money hits a corporate entity who hires
programmers with it, the corp will use their salaries as an expense to offset
that income.
Similarly, if you raise $25k to make a foobar and spend $20k on materials,
you'd only owe taxes on the profit.
I am not an accountant, etc.
~~~
tesseract
> For example, if the money hits a corporate entity who hires programmers with
> it, the corp will use their salaries as an expense to offset that income.
Or, to my understanding, even if it goes to a person. Being a sole proprietor
does not preclude you from deducting your business expenses.
------
newobj
I think Kickstarter is the most interesting thing happening on the net today.
Simply because it aggregates the most interesting things happening in the real
world, by its very nature. Browsing Kickstarter has actually become a fun
activity for me.
It's such a simple and genius way of directly connecting producers and
consumers, reducing risk for both parties, verifying ideas, creating
relationships. So elegant. The number of opportunities this is going to enable
is staggering. And Kickstarter themselves, do they have any overhead? These
guys are going to be printing money.
And being a patron is fun!
One thing I'm curious about is Kickstarter's exposure to someone who fails to
produce the promised rewards for funding. As a funder/patron, do I have any
recourse for a producer failing to uphold their end of the bargain?
~~~
jomohke
There's no guarantee that a project will be successful – your funds are
treated as a donation. Here's a story from a few weeks ago of a failed
kickstarter: [http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for-
kickstart...](http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for-kickstarter-
creators-from-the-worst-project-i-ever-funded-on-kickstarter.html)
------
sawyer
I love how enthusiastic the Kickstarter team looks in those photos - it's
awesome for them to be able to share in the success of the projects on their
platform.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows and what other projects crop up now
that people have seen this incredible milestone passed.
------
j45
This is really inspiring to see.
I give my respect, admiration, to the empowerment Kickstarter is enabling in
the world. People say they do crap like empowerment all the time.. Kickstarter
seems to say very little themselves, all I hear is the success stories.
It's a delightfully simple concept: Put a great idea out there and let it be
loved and supported.
Ideas that wouldn't have seen the light of day are, fuelled by early adopters
and pioneers.
Being on the web for almost 2 decades makes everything look the same, or at
least kind of blur together over time.
For me, with information and innovation; since Gutenberg, the web really was
the second big thing.
Maybe enablers like Kickstarter are part of the third leap for our world where
they are creating change in the real world from innovation.
I've rarely seen something successful on Kickstarter I didn't want to buy.
Normally I can't decide as quickly on items in the retail market that compete
with it.
The continued popping up of Kickstarter stories and dreams becoming a reality
have made me think about all those things I wondered about.
Could they become a reality? Where could I start learning about how to
kickstart something successfully? (I Might be a search or two away but the
feeling of possibility is great.)
------
kilian
This must be the epitome of feel-good startup stories. Congrats to everyone
involved!
------
lwhi
Congratulations to all concerned. I think the Kickstarter model is really
powerful, and it's exciting to see that these projects have got off the
ground, but - without wanting to be party pooper - what happens if a
fundraiser can't deliver?
It seems that Kickstarter have an incentive to raise as much money as
possible. After all, they take their 5% - so as a company they've taken over
$100,000 in the last 24 hours from two projects alone. Spending a vast amount
of money without the necessary battle-scars and bruises gained from
experience, is likely to involve a steep learning curve.
Bringing a product to market isn't easy. The fundraisers in question are in a
unique position, because they have their buyers' attention and money from the
start. This has to be a great thing, and to large extent levels the playing
field and creates a great environment for innovation .. BUT, the hard work has
just begun.
I can't help feeling that this model of funding is about to gain even more
popularity - but could eventually open up a can of worms.
~~~
Mvandenbergh
What I see as a problem is a failure by some projects to manage expectations.
I think that a lot of people who are backing projects like this don't realise
that they are not pre-ordering anything, they're making a contribution to the
project startup costs and _hopefully_ they'll receive one or more of that
product when manufacturing begins. I've seen comments on some Kickstarter
projects that have slipped on shipping deadlines that don't seem to indicate
that the commenter understands the uncertainty of funding a project like this.
I don't think there's much risk backing an experienced person with a ready to
be manufactured product, and I've backed several such projects on Kickstarter,
but I think that backers need to remember that part of the Kickstarter
proposition is that you get discounts on products like this as a reward for
putting in fixed upside risk capital.
~~~
lwhi
So is the contribution a donation?
~~~
Mvandenbergh
I think that might be an open legal question, if you use the word pre-order
all over your Kickstarter page you might be creating a situation where you're
on the hook, legally speaking for fulfilling those orders.
------
powertower
KickStarter is one of the very few businesses that's truly innovating /
disrupting anything right now.
Then Stripe.
Then CloudFlare (I really like their story and pivot).
~~~
troygoode
Don't forget Khan Academy.
------
akazackfriedman
For Kickstarter, business model... Validated! Great job guys congrats! What a
great story of someone not playing the startup lottery and winning.
------
Blocks8
Kickstarter continues to prove that good ideas spread quickly. Where websites
show viral growth in user visits, kickstart shows it with real dollars for
real products. Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing this post- it lets the
community get an insider view of the excitement.
------
prawn
This is going to put Kickstarter well and truly in the public eye and, as a
result, bring many more potential wallets browsing the site. Great time to be
an entrepreneurial industrial designer in the US.
Just wish it was open to those outside the US as well.
------
nreece
Every startup should be like a Kickstarter project. Show your concept, find
customers who pre-purchase, build product, deliver and scale.
Grow organically.
------
wildster
Why din't Raspberry Pi use Kickstarter?
~~~
Mvandenbergh
Kickstarter is US only, isn't it?
------
1sttimefounder
Why is Ron Gilbert nowhere to find in the celebration photo? Is he really that
grumpy & shy?
~~~
aidenn0
Maybe he was smiling and didn't want to be caught on camera (It would reduce
the value of the $35k reward)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meltdown Update Kernel doesnt boot - sz4kerto
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1742323
======
hansendc
This arch/x86/events/intel/ds.c fix is unlikely to have rendered too many
things unbootable. I missed ds.c entirely when doing the original
implementation. I can't fault the nice folks at Canonical for mis-merging a
tiny hunk like this. It really only affects pretty specific hardware anyway.
~~~
MBCook
What hardware does it effect?
~~~
JackNichelson
Pretty specific one.
~~~
ASalazarMX
Take my hand, I'll guide you back to Reddit.
------
gkya
Would this entire Meltdown/Spectre thing count as the biggest mess-up of
computing history? When yesterday the PoC repo was posted here, the spy.mp4
demo video gave me some chills. And now I can't update my OS before making an
installation USB because Canonical can't just follow Linus' releases. Thanks.
~~~
bArray
>Would this entire Meltdown/Spectre thing count as the biggest mess-up of
computing history? When yesterday the PoC repo was posted here, the spy.mp4
demo video gave me some chills.
It must be up there amongst the greats, probably with the "halt and catch
fire" op code. Normally they just patch this stuff with microcode and never
really tell anybody, this time that won't work.
I'm not entirely convinced it was a mistake at all (dons tin foil hat), Intel
have been making suspicious design decisions to their chips for a well now
(think this, Intel Me, hidden instructions, etc). It seems clear to me that
this security by obscurity approach is quite frankly crap.
>And now I can't update my OS before making an installation USB because
Canonical can't just follow Linus' releases. Thanks.
Linus' releases need some sort of buffering before they can be considered
stable, often distributions will apply their own patches on top. Also consider
the scenario where Linus releases a bad kernel and no testing has been
performed before rolling out to all Linux users.
~~~
throwawayfinal
I think it's absolutely unreasonable to imply that this was intentional.
Besides the massive amount of complexity these systems have, there are plenty
of "legitimate" places to hide backdoors, instead of in a performance
architecture decision.
Keep in mind that whatever "evil agencies" would have asked for this would
most likely find themselves vulnerable, and nobody would sign off on.
I do agree, however, the "security by obscurity approach is quite frankly
crap". The fact that even large corporations (not the big 5) can't even get
away from ME speaks volumes about why this is a bad idea. Facebook isn't the
only company with important data.
~~~
Animats
The Intel Management Engine is a backdoor. Speed variations in speculative
execution are an inherent property of the technology. Until recently, few
people thought this was exploitable, and it took a lot of work to figure out
how to exploit this.
~~~
andrewflnr
You do realize those are ideal properties for a backdoor, don't you? If you
were writing the spec for a dream backdoor, you would write that down. The
only way you could improve it would be "everyone thinks it's impossible, and
they never figure it out."
~~~
jijji
the ideal properties of a backdoor were visualized to me the day i hacked into
an author of a largely distributed piece of smtp mail server, only to find
sitting in his home directory an unpublished integer overflow exploit written
by him years earlier for a version of the software that is currently in wide
distribution...
~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
That's close to perfect, indeed. The drawbacks in this scenario are that (1)
not everybody runs an SMTP server, (2) if it's open source (and if it's very
popular, then it is), some other smart people will look for the bug and
publish it for fame. That's quite different from a backdoor built into a
processor (although I really doubt Intel was really involved in any shady
practices, it looks like they were not smart enough).
~~~
paulie_a
Judging from the numerous decades old bugs recently found, the concept of many
eyes needs to die.
And in the case of SMTP, it's basically a pinata of bugs for the last 30 years
regardless of platform
------
trendia
(Copying my instructions from another post).
If kernel 4.4 doesn't work, I recommend compiling the 4.15 kernel. (Note,
however, that you may need to apply a patch to NVIDIA drivers).
I've done this on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 17.10, and Debian 8 so far this week. To
compile, set CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_ISOLATION=y. That is:
sudo apt-get build-dep linux
sudo apt-get install gcc-6-plugin-dev libelf-dev libncurses5-dev
cd /usr/src
wget https://git.kernel.org/torvalds/t/linux-4.15-rc7.tar.gz
tar -xvf linux-4.15-rc7.tar.gz
cd linux-4.15-rc7
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config
make CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_ISOLATION=y deb-pkg
~~~
lathiat
I wouldn't really recommend doing this, but if you really want to do this, it
would probably be easier just to use the pre-spun mainline kernels:
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds)
~~~
gphreak
Exactly, and use 4.14. According to a recent comment from a kernel dev both
kernels use the same patch approach. 4.4 and 4.9 are using a different
approach that’s less ideal, less complete and apparently less tested.
------
nykolasz
Waiting a few days to patch my own servers... Not sure what is more dangerous
right now: applying these rushed patches or the vuln itself.
~~~
snuxoll
What distro are you running? I trust Red Hat to get kernel updates right the
first time, I just patched externally facing servers and systems that handle
PHI tonight with no issues (outside of one of my PostgreSQL servers showing a
non-neglible increase in CPU usage, damnit Intel).
Of course, I also go into any updates with a rollback plan. ITIL sucks, but
one thing it taught me was the value of well documented plans any time you
make changes to production systems.
~~~
gphreak
Same. RHEL/CentOS went without a hitch. The age of the kernel start’s to
concern me, though.
According to the top comment in one of the posts in HN even 4.9 and 4.4 use a
less ideal patch:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16085672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16085672)
I can’t really judge how much RH engineers are capable of fixing that kind of
stuff in a kernel that’s officially out of support upstream.
Based on the general quality of RHEL/RHV I trust them to do the right thing,
but I have no insight whatsoever in how kernel development actually works.
~~~
snuxoll
Red Hat pays the salary of a couple kernel developers, backporting security
fixes is a pretty big part of their job. Keep in mind, RHEL/CentOS 7 doesn't
even use something newer like 4.4 - it's still on 3.10 because Red Hat
guarantees a stable kABI throughout the lifetime of a release
------
lunorian
See this is why you wait a day or two before patching :)
~~~
Whitestrake
If everyone waited a day or two before patching, this bug would simply be
opened a day or two later than it was.
~~~
snuxoll
How hard is it to just boot an older kernel and rollback the default? Before I
even thought about patching sensitive systems tonight the first thing our IT
director asked was if I had a rollback plan. The answer? "Yes, boot old
kernel, yum history undo [transaction id], reboot".
Always have a backout plan when doing upgrades, I'm just glad EL and derived
distributions have an easy way to do it with yum's transaction history.
------
noncoml
What was the problem?
All the notes say is that 109 fixes it.
~~~
jonathonf
[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/4.4.0-109.132](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/4.4.0-109.132)
:
linux (4.4.0-109.132) xenial; urgency=low
* linux: 4.4.0-109.132 -proposed tracker (LP: #1742252)
* Kernel trace with xenial 4.4 (4.4.0-108.131, Candidate kernels for PTI fix)
(LP: #1741934)
- SAUCE: kaiser: fix perf crashes - fix to original commit
diff'ing the two changes it was this:
> diff -u linux-4.4.0/arch/x86/events/intel/ds.c linux-4.4.0/arch/x86/events/intel/ds.c
> --- linux-4.4.0/arch/x86/events/intel/ds.c
> +++ linux-4.4.0/arch/x86/events/intel/ds.c
> @@ -415,7 +415,6 @@
> return;
>
> per_cpu(cpu_hw_events, cpu).ds = NULL;
> - kfree(ds);
> }
>
> void release_ds_buffers(void)
plus it's here:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1741934...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1741934/comments/17)
~~~
AdmiralAsshat
They consider a bug that renders the OS unable to boot a "low" urgency!?!
~~~
lunorian
Sorry fam - security issues are more important ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
~~~
arcticbull
I think it's fair to say build 108 has no security issues :P in fact, it's the
most secure one yet.
~~~
dingo_bat
Yup. It's so secure that they don't even load userspace into RAM!
------
agumonkey
any report of windows update messing with the bios rendering motherboard non
bootable (powers on , but no post, not even an error beep)
~~~
otakucode
For AMD chips, yes. Yesterday Microsoft announced they were suspending rolling
out updates to certain AMD chips because it was resulting in non-bootable
systems. I didn't read the technical details so I can not say whether it was
specifically BIOS-related. Both a total non-booting state and BSODs were
mentioned in the article I saw (from general press, so might have been
garbage, sorry).
~~~
rincebrain
Microsoft's claim was "Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not
conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the
Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset
vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown"[1], and their docs simply
suggest asking AMD for more details[2].
So it sounds like it was probably specific chipsets and not CPUs, but who
knows.
[1] - [https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/09/microsoft-halts-
meltdown...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/09/microsoft-halts-meltdown-
spectre-amd-patches/)
[2] - [https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4056892/windows-10-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4056892/windows-10-update-kb4056892)
~~~
cpncrunch
It happened to one of my HP boxes that has an AMD chipset. After installing
the update, windows 10 just hangs at the blue windows logo. Only solution is
to turn the machine off and on twice, which then results in it undoing the
update.
The Microsoft link you provide says "Microsoft is working with AMD to resolve
this issue", so they're not just brushing it off and telling customers to
contact AMD.
------
krutzger
I was under the impression that Ubuntu would automatically revert to last good
kernel of the new one fails to boot. Was I mistaken?
~~~
bproven
AFAIK worse case you should be able to select the previous kernel in grub2
upon reboot. It just hangs after grub on this (bad) kernel I think...
~~~
ams6110
Yeah but if you have a couple of hundred machines that aren't booting....
That's pretty worst case.
~~~
jlgaddis
That is pretty worst case. OTOH, it teaches the lesson about testing updates
on a small number of hosts before rolling 'em out globally.
One has to learn that lesson at some point.
------
nkkollaw
This is a little bit sensationalist (is that a word?).
It's not like Windows that bricks your laptop. It's a handful of hardware
config, and you can easily boot with an older kernel.
------
nabilt
I just updated my Dell, but haven't restarted. Do we know how widespread the
problem is and should I roll back the update?
~~~
bArray
I would suspend your machine until we find out more, I have the same problem.
~~~
Nacraile
You all do realize that (at least by default) ubuntu will keep old kernel
versions around, and you can choose to boot them in GRUB, don't you?
This is certainly a pain, but it's hardly the first time a broken kernel has
shipped. Reasonable recovery mechanisms are in place.
------
mycpuorg
Please look under "Meltdown - x86" section in GKH's (The Stable Kernel
Maintainer) blog: [http://www.kroah.com/log/](http://www.kroah.com/log/)
------
del_operator
Sounds like one way to stop the bug. :P
------
lurr
So do we make snide remarks about fixes not being tested like we did when
microsoft also had issues fixing CPU level bugs?
------
user5994461
Did ubuntu botched an update again? Or is it the upstream kernel?
~~~
eecc
Has Ubutu botched or did Ubutu botch... please ;)
~~~
ksenzee
Muphry's Law strikes again!
~~~
jwilk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law)
_If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a
fault of some kind in what you have written._
------
ask098
it's the fault of Intel, why don't they recall all the CPU? just like vehicle
company
~~~
JonRB
Doesn't this affect all of their CPUs going a long way back? And how do you
recall embedded or laptop CPUs, which are often soldered in-place?
A recall would be great, but there's no way they'd be able to do it. Vehicle
recalls are a bit different because they impact physical safety. Digital
safety doesn't get the same priority.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
even if it affects all speculative CPUs, if this happened in the car world,
all the cars would be recalled. Not saying that is practical in computer
world...just continuing with the analogy.
Spectre/Meltdown is a wakeup call for many things, one of them probably being
for computer manufacturers to not solder the CPU to the Motherboard and for
the x86 world to stick with a standard socket, to facilitate replacing parts.
~~~
morganvachon
> _" Spectre/Meltdown is a wakeup call for many things, one of them probably
> being for computer manufacturers to not solder the CPU to the Motherboard"_
Good luck with that. A large portion of affected CPUs/SoCs are in mobile
devices and ultrabooks. Socketed chips simply won't fly in those kinds of
devices.
~~~
flukus
Then the whole device should be replaced, that's the price they pay for their
design decisions. Being "too hard" doesn't absolve you of your responsibility
to consumers.
------
jnordwick
I will not be updating. I have yet to see this mythic JavaScript exploit, and
I see too many other ways I, as an end user, can be affected.
I haven't even seen a proof of concept exploit that has the same conditions as
in the wild. All the POC exploits seems to have been given some assistance in
various ways (such as being given root perms or a preknown memory address).
Does anybody have an example of this JavaScript exploit or any exploit that
would work in the wild?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steal This Idea - Interview with Matt Mason - dangoldin
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/804055/print
======
dangoldin
I just finished reading his book "The Pirate's Dillema" and highly recommend
it.
He talks about innovation through piracy and how more and more industries are
being opened up through piracy - music, software, etc and how at one point the
piracy becomes main stream enough that the corporations need to compete at the
pirate level.
Definitely a recommended read: [http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Dilemma-Culture-
Reinventing-Ca...](http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Dilemma-Culture-Reinventing-
Capitalism/dp/1416532188)
------
edw519
What's next? Murder your competitor to get ahead? Kidnap his children so he
takes his eye off the ball? Put date rape drug in the water cooler on
interview day so you'll be the only one awake?
No matter how widespread or "acceptable" unethical behavior becomes, it's
still unethical. And wrong. And maybe even illegal.
Allowing any of your business processes to be based upon that which is wrong
relegates all of your trustability to the garbage. Or:
everything you do * ethics (0 or 1) = your trustability
I've seen this over and over. As soon as someone shows that they are willing
to compromise their ethics, everything changes. You will never know where they
will "draw the line" the next time.
Exactly when was it that ethics became so less important in business?
~~~
dangoldin
I agree with you but I think you're taking it a bit extreme. He's not
condoning stealing but just points out the various cases why it has happened,
where it has happened, and how the industries have adapted.
There would be no pirated music if no one were downloading pirated songs and
there wouldn't be people selling fake Rolexes for $10 if there was no demand
so the demand drives the supply in a way. It's always up to the end user to
see whether they want to buy something or not.
He claims that it's counterproductive for the various industries that are
being pirated to go against the general trend of humanity by enforcing laws
but they should rather adapt the model.
Also, if there was a correct way to enforce copyrights every country would be
doing it but since every country does it differently, how do we know what's
correct?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The downside of using LED traffic lights - awa
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_re_us/us_snow_covered_stoplights
======
awa
A side-effect of the conventional traffic lights (heat production) is now a
requirement for the new energy efficient lights. This seems parallel to a bug
becoming a important feature in a product.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I'm creating this fb group so it's easier to rent a place as a remote developer - MarvelousWololo
https://www.facebook.com/groups/657254981406899/photos/
======
MarvelousWololo
as a remote dev i usually do my bookings on airbnb or booking but sometimes i
wish the place i rented were specifically target for tech people. like with
good, fast and reliable internet connections. good and easy access to public
transportation. and inspiring views. i wonder if there are other remote devs
around here who would be interested by that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Superfast Nike shoes are creating a problem - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/sports/marathon-running-nike-vaporfly-shoes.html
======
__initbrian__
"A 2018 New York Times data analysis based on public race results uploaded to
Strava, the athlete-tracking and networking company, found that runners in
Vaporflys ran 3 to 4 percent faster than similar runners wearing other shoes."
This doesn't seem causal... Runners that were on average going to be 4 percent
faster than the population mean anyway may also be runners that like buying
the latest and greatest vaporflys. With that being said, I would have trouble
designing an experiment though
~~~
Doxin
Get a bunch of runners, hand them random shoes. Have em run and time it.
Repeat over the course of a couple days, having a randomised distribution of
shoes each day. For bonus points use covers on the shoes so people don't know
which shoes they are wearing.
------
chr1
I wish more sports would embrace technology the way F1 does. Waiting for
people with random mutations, or ready to put huge amount of time for
training, or crazy enough to take illegal and harmful drugs, in pursuit of
hundredth of a second is not very interesting and not very useful. But if
sports were a competition between companies creating better shoes, better
exoskeletons, better and safer performance enhancing drugs the society would
at least get something useful out of sports.
~~~
masklinn
> I wish more sports would embrace technology the way F1 does.
Very tightly constrain and regulate them? F1 hasn't been a technological free
for all since the early 80s when FISA/FIA started constraining manufacturers
(ban on ground-effect aerodynamics, fuel tank limitations, boost limitations
and ultimately turbo ban[0], ban on multiple automated driver assistance, …).
As of 2019, engines are regulated down to materials, we're down to a single
allowed tyre supplier (which has 5 dry-weather compounds but only provides 3
choices per race), as well as a specific car and (driver, seat) weight (660kg
and at least 80kg respectively).
F1 very purposely constrains technological innovation — again since the 80s —
specifically to avoid technology being a bigger victory factor than driver
skills.
[0] until their reintroduction (and mandate) in 2014
~~~
saulrh
F1 very purposely constrains technological
innovation — again since the 80s — specifically to
avoid technology being a bigger victory factor than
driver skills.
I'm not sure that that's a reasonable analysis. The restrictions aren't there
to keep humans important. They're there to keep humans _alive_.
I read an article once in which an F1 team's lead engineer claimed that a car
with no limitations would average 300 hundred miles per hour around a track
that's identical to a current track but turned so all the curves were banked
90 degrees _to the outside_. I believe it. Gas turbine, vacuum system, active
cooling on the brakes, everything fully shrouded and active aerodynamic
surfaces everywhere, electronic stability and traction controls...
The thing is, humans aren't getting that much faster or stronger, and we know
that these unlimited cars would be unmanageable. Restrictions seem to be
tightened in direct response to severe accidents that increase in frequency as
engineering advances. It turns out that letting cars get any faster than they
are right now doesn't make human skill irrelevant, it just _gets people
killed_. Modern cars, as they constrained as they are, are already at the
limits of human performance.
And this isn't surprising! The most maneuverable jet fighters in the world are
built to turn at about 10g. The most maneuverable fighters built in WWII were
_also_ built to turn at about 10g [1, 2]. Humans stop functioning around...
10g. If you had an aircraft racing league, letting teams build higher-
performance planes wouldn't result in victory going to the highest-performance
plane. Higher-performance planes would result in victory going to the pilot
most willing to die. Which is _precisely what we see_ in air racing: The Red
Bull Air Race rules instantly disqualify racers that pull 10g for more than
half a second or 12g ever [4].
1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Sp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Specifications_\(F-22A\))
2: [https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/insight-into-the-
magni...](https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/insight-into-the-magnitude-of-
forces-involved-in-dogfights-during-ww2.11822/) 3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-LOC#Thresholds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-LOC#Thresholds)
4:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Air_Race_World_Champi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Air_Race_World_Championship#Did_Not_Finish)
5:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control)
~~~
masklinn
> I'm not sure that that's a reasonable analysis. The restrictions aren't
> there to keep humans important. They're there to keep humans alive.
Nah, that's an excuse FIA uses because it realised that's how it could put
restrictions in place.
If it were solely about safety, FIA would restrict the capabilities of the
machines, not their design details.
> I read an article once in which an F1 team's lead engineer claimed that a
> car with no limitations would average 300 hundred miles per hour around a
> track that's identical to a current track but turned so all the curves were
> banked 90 degrees to the outside.
So F1s could average 300mph on an identical track if it were nothing like the
existing track. Gotcha.
> Restrictions seem to be tightened in direct response to severe accidents
> that increase in frequency as engineering advances.
That's really not true. FIA does regularly impose safety features or
restrictions (e.g. halo, or wheel tethers) but most of the restrictions have
nothing to do with safety.
> It turns out that letting cars get any faster than they are right now
> doesn't make human skill irrelevant, it just gets people killed.
So… don't do that? If your goal is the safety of the pilot you put limits on
the _performance characteristics_ of the car (top speed, acceleration, …). You
don't mandate the materials the turbo can be built out of.
> Higher-performance planes would result in victory going to the pilot most
> willing to die. Which is precisely what we see in air racing: The Red Bull
> Air Race rules instantly disqualify racers that pull 10g for more than half
> a second or 12g ever [4].
Right, so for safety reasons RBAR restricts the _performance characteristics_
of competing planes.
FIA does not do that, it restricts the _design details_ of the cars.
I'm not saying it's bad, mind, just that F1 / the FIA has a very limited and
restrictive embrace of tech.
~~~
jjeaff
>So F1s could average 300mph on an identical track if it were nothing like the
existing track. Gotcha.
That's not how I read it. He said 90 degrees to the -outside-. Which would be
significantly more difficult than the current track and seemingly impossible
until you consider that the air downforce would need to overpower the
centrifugal force lifting them away from the track.
But perhaps 90 degrees to the outside doesn't mean what I think it means.
~~~
lakisy
A Formula 1 car can drive upside down .
[https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/can-an-f1-car-drive-on-
the-...](https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/can-an-f1-car-drive-on-the-
ceiling-215241628.html)
------
andy_ppp
I mean they lost me when they said the sole of the shoe operated like leg
muscles that never tired, I’m mean seriously these probably account for half
of 1% increased performance and I don’t believe other manufacturers won’t
level the playing field too. I really don’t see better footwear as cheating or
the authors belief that running shoes haven’t changed since the 70s. Poor
journalism IMO.
~~~
airza
Too bad they lost you there, since a few paragraphs down they link to their
2018 study showing that the number is apparently closer to 4%.
~~~
andy_ppp
So that’s just not true because times haven’t dropped 4% have they?
~~~
notacoward
Top times have not, but the charts in the article _clearly_ show a 3-4%
difference across the entire data set. Why are you so determined to ignore
data?
~~~
andy_ppp
Okay fair enough, do we know why the top times haven’t changed so much, it
would be interesting to know why.
~~~
gamblor956
Most top marathoners are not sponsored by Nike and don't wear its shoes.
Those that do, like Galen Rupp, have not completed many marathons since the
shoes were introduced but did see improvements in the probs of the races they
ran before dropping out.
------
Excel_Wizard
The shoes do not add any energy to the system. All energy is provided by the
runner. I think they shouldn't be regulated.
~~~
sushid
Just to be a devils advocate, but neither do springs. But springs are
specifically banned in professional running shoes.
------
nabdab
This just seems like an add for Nike. The reason all the fastest runners are
using Nike shoes isn’t necessarily due to superior performance as much as the
effects of superior sponsorships.
It would be interesting to compare times with other shoes under controlled
conditions, but likely there are hundreds of factors more important that small
differences in the shoes. And why would Nike allow scientific comparison when
they all-ready payed all the athletes millions to side with them on the
conclusion?
The are other important factors, but no-one is pouring millions into marketing
“Nike brand pacer support with efficient patented wind-breaking formations”.
~~~
gameswithgo
>It would be interesting to compare times with other shoes under controlled
conditions, but likely there are hundreds of factors more important that small
differences in the shoes
The shoes reduce oxygen consumption by 4%, which translates to 2 minutes in a
marathon. They are the primary contributor to the sub 2 marathon stunt. The
effort in a regular race without those shoes would have produced about a 2:03.
Shoes -2 minutes, drafting effects from the lead vehicle and contrived pacers,
another minute.
~~~
gamblor956
Kipchoge already has a legit world record in the 2:01:xx range, run in an
actual race.
The pacers and shoes combined only took off roughly a minute in the first 2
hour attempt.
~~~
nabdab
Exactly. And I honestly don’t believe anyone even Nike would claim the shoes
to be an bigger factor than the pacers.
------
pgt
Non-paywalled link, anyone?
~~~
lancebeet
Pressing stop before the paywall appears seems to bypass it.
~~~
houzi
Today's MVP award goes to you! Thank you!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What was the final straw that made you stop programming with python? - slybridges
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-final-straw-that-made-you-stop-programming-with-python?share=1
======
nikonyrh
I still use Python at work, but the lack of "real" threads in the language
feels very silly when you are running your code on AWS with instances with
tens or hundreds of (virtual) cores. I'm aware that you can write
multithreaded extensions in C, write async code or use the multiprocessing
package but these solutions feel quite clumsy.
My personal interests have been towards CUDA and Clojure for years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN Googlers: would you invite a fellow geek to visit the Googleplex? - phaser
i am a self taught programmer from chile who founded a few startups and needs nothing but a friendly googler who can vouch for me so i can visit the googleplex. since i was growing up in santiago i used to read about silicon valley in magazines and one of my dreams has always been to visit and see the real atmosphere.<p>i hope a friendly googler read this message and i promise to show up at time, be cool and not cause trouble.
======
andyking
Isn't it just an office block?
I'm in radio and people frequently want to visit radio stations - they have
this image of a fun, glamorous, star-studded workplace where anything goes.
They're usually pretty disappointed when they see the sales office, the
programming office, a tatty kitchen and a tiny, basic studio in a broom
cupboard.
Surely Google is the same - it's acquired a legendary status, but it's just...
well, an office, like you go to work in every day. I'm sure there are more
interesting places to visit in California.
~~~
jamesaguilar
As a Googler, yeah, basically this. I mean it's a better office complex than
where ninety percent or more of people work, and I am thankful for that and
suitably appreciative. But, it's not a theme park. The only genuinely fun
thing for me there is the free arcade, and I suppose some people would say the
sports fields.
~~~
daave
Interesting. I've never been to MTV, but as a Googler who frequently
volunteers to give tours for school/university groups in the NYC office, I'm
thrilled by how wowed the visitors are at our office space.
Perhaps we Googlers start to take for granted some of the things that really
are quite extraordinary - like the 150ft to food policy, the pieces of
historical computing machinery that are kept around, the guest chefs that
visit, the artworks that have been commissioned, the fact that we hold regular
'espresso office hours' and occasional mixology classes, and even the
corporate essentials that Google really pulls off, like the Tech Stops, phone
rooms, visitor badging system and video conferencing setup. Even though it's
'just an office space', it isn't like any other, and getting to see it as a
potential future employee can be pretty motivational.
~~~
jamesaguilar
True. Also, I'm more wowed by offices that aren't MTV. The density of cool is
a lot higher at e.g. Santa Monica or SF (and NYC, I presume, though I've never
been).
------
beambot
Can't help with that (not a Googler), but you should at least put your contact
info in your profile...
------
stevenbrianhall
I'm a Googler and would be glad to show you around one afternoon. Shoot me an
e-mail (address is in my profile) and tell me a little more about yourself and
we can work out the details.
(Edit: También hablo Español si te hace sentir más cómodo.)
------
erre
Well, you can always apply for a job there, study for your phone interviews,
and get invited, plane ticket and all. Heck, you might even get a job out of
it ;)
------
jefflinwood
You could always just show up and walk around the outside of the campus, take
a picture of the colorful Google bikes and the Android mascots for the various
releases.
There are usually lots of Google employees getting some sunlight in the
surrounding park.
I'm not sure what you'd see inside the buildings. I worked as a consultant for
the previous owner, Silicon Graphics/SGI, during the first dot-com boom, and
they were neat architecture, but still just office buildings.
I think if you plan a whole trip out to Silicon Valley for the atmosphere, you
might be kind of disappointed.
------
g123g
I had the same expectation that you had. But when I went there, it was an
anti-climax. Maybe something cool is happening behind the closed doors there.
But just walking around is nothing special.
------
ilija139
What happen with the capital letters?
~~~
Cthulhu_
Well, I for one never knew I was spelled with a capital I until someone
pointed it out, ;).
As for style, it depends. When I'm chatting on irc, I tend to forgo
capitalisation out of laziness. On more formal communications, like commenting
here and emails, things are better.
As for why the OP doesn't use it, I don't know. Broken shift-key perhaps?
------
charleslmunger
When?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did RIM lose its BlackBerry software boss just ahead of QNX transition? - zacharye
http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/26/did-rim-lose-its-blackberry-software-boss-just-ahead-of-qnx-transition/
======
digamber_kamat
Looking at BGR's reporting with respect to RIM now I am starting to wonder if
BGR is paid to do so. Seems like. Now when you lay off 2000 employees obvious
some of the top brass is going to grow and the company will generally lay off
those who dont matter much for future.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How can I contribute to cure aging/death research being a developer? - Gooblebrai
======
cimmanom
Most type of research require all sorts of supporting activities, some of
which can be facilitated by software or websites.
For instance, modern scientific research requires a lot of data processing,
and as discussed here a few weeks ago that’s currently mostly done very
incompetently by non-programmers.
For another, they need to recruit and manage study participants. There’s room
for software and websites in that process.
Undoubtedly there are several more that are just not coming to mind right now.
~~~
Gooblebrai
Can you point me to that discussion you mention? Would be nice to read.
~~~
cimmanom
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17407634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17407634)
------
zunzun
If people live longer than at present, either more food is needed to feed the
larger population that arises from a reduced global death rate, or more young
people are made reproductively sterile to reduce the global birth rate to
maintain global population levels. You can also help by contributing to those
as well.
------
mohameddev
Interesting question
| {
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Is “Gamification” the new assessment game changer? - talview
http://blog.talview.com/is-gamification-the-new-assessment-game-changer
======
staticelf
I for one hate gamification in 99% of the cases and I am pretty young.
Why not focus on the core product and actually making the product faster, more
resource efficient and more available instead? And if you have a lot of money
just lying around, hire some people and create a really good customer support
instead.
A prime example of this can be found at one of Swedens largest retailer
stores: [https://www.webhallen.com/](https://www.webhallen.com/).
They have gamification which is actually quite good but they don't even have a
mobile friendly website so there is no way to place an order from your mobile
phone.
Therefore I nowadays place all my orders from one of their competitors that
have that and focus more on good customer experience in form of service and
availability ([https://www.inet.se/](https://www.inet.se/)).
I love boring software that just solves problems and do nothing more. I think
most people actually do and values that a lot more than gamification. If I
want to play a game, I will purchase a game.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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60% of YouTube’s video ads are skippable - FluidDjango
http://gigaom.com/video/more-than-half-of-all-youtube-video-ads-are-skippable/
======
unicornporn
100% of YouTube’s video ads are adblockable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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How to Be a Stoic - Tomte
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/how-to-be-a-stoic
======
osti
You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of
words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant,
boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or
justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves
INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such
indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this
Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited,
endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living
according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to
life"\--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of
what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite
otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your
law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-
players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and
ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you
insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like
everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification
and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced
yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see
Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see
it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you
the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--
Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized
over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and
everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens
today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always
creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this
tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to
"creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.
-Nietzsche
~~~
1_player
Thanks for this, osti.
As a stoicism fanboy I partly agree, and if it wasn't pouring outside I'd run
to my local bookshop to get something from this Nietzsche fella. Any
suggestion?
~~~
CuriouslyC
Beyond Good and Evil is probably his most important work, but Thus Spoke
Zarathustra is more readable.
~~~
wry_discontent
Don't start with Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It's all parables told in an old
testament style that's hard to comprehend without already knowing what
Nietzsche is about. I read The Gay Science first, and I thought it was a good
starting point. It covers his big ideas and has the famous "God is dead"
aphorism in it.
~~~
CuriouslyC
I agree that his philosophy isn't super clear from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but
the parable-esque story style is what makes it easy to read. I suppose for
clarity we should separate reading and understanding.
------
mmmBacon
I have embraced certain aspects of stoic philosophy in my life. In particular
I've found _The Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius to be helpful and practical. I
struggle with my temper and in the last few years my temper has affected my
career growth. These stoic works have helped my get a better grip on things
when dealing with especially difficult people. I'm not a person who reads self
help books nor am I into cheesy or trendy philosophies. I usually roll my eyes
at this stuff. But I have found a framework in stoicism that has helped me
overcome some of my limitations and helped me achieve some of my goals.
~~~
specialist
I too had an anger management problem. I didn't like who I was or how I
behaved. I tried every thing, every book, every bit of advice. Most of it
terrible. Failure.
Part 1:
I eventually found quality help, who then recommended I read this:
When Anger Hurts
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278196.When_Anger_Hurts](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278196.When_Anger_Hurts)
TL;DR: Anger is a cascade: Expectations, disappointment, resentment, blame and
then BOOM anger. The fix to anger is to eliminate your expectations.
Part 2:
Awareness of the psychology only got me so far. I struggled to change my
habits. Recalling that you can only replace a habit, vs unlearn, I decided to
pretend to be happy. I would tell people "I'm fantastic! How are you?!" It
started out sarcastic, wry.
About three years later, I woke up one day, thought "I feel phenomenal" and
actually meant it. I was shocked. I didn't even notice the change.
TL;DR: How you talk changes how you think.
Good luck. Please believe me when I say the effort is worthwhile.
~~~
desipenguin
> The fix to anger is to eliminate your expectations.
As Buddha said "Expectations lead to disappointment"
------
FabHK
Here some great contemporary introductions to Stoicism:
1\. William B. Irvine, "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic
Joy", [https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-
Stoic/dp/0195...](https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-
Stoic/dp/0195374614)
This is an introduction to Stoic thought as it applies today by a professor in
philosophy, very clearly written. Great for first exposure. It (sensibly)
skips some of the more arcane stuff, such as Stoic metaphysics (historically
relevant, but really obsolete).
2\. Donald Robertson, "Stoicism and the Art of Happiness",
[https://www.amazon.com/Stoicism-Art-Happiness-Teach-
Yourself...](https://www.amazon.com/Stoicism-Art-Happiness-Teach-
Yourself/dp/1444187104/)
This is a touch more academic and historic on one hand, and very practical and
text-book-like on the other hand, in that it has self-assessments, key points,
exercises for every section. Excellent second book. The author also has a
course, blog and FAQ at
[http://donaldrobertson.name](http://donaldrobertson.name)
3\. Epictetus' Enchiridion is available on Project Gutenberg, btw. It's very
short, and many things are not really relevant today anymore, yet surprisingly
many sections still "speak to us".
4\. Note also that Tom Wolfe's huge novel "A Man in Full" is suffused with
Stoic themes.
I find Stoicism quite wise, and still substantial enough when you subtract all
the obsolete superstition (which cannot be said of, for example, Abrahamic
religions). Certainly good for tranquility and empathy. Sometimes hard to
translate into positive action, though, I find.
~~~
skrebbel
> _(which cannot be said of, for example, Abrahamic religions)_
Interesting thought! I'd say that "love thy neighbour" is a pretty substantial
idea, albeit a "bit" less deep than the average stoic philosophy.
Did anyone try this? Take a religion like Christianity (or one interpretation
of it) and remove all the deities and miracles? As an avid Christian who
dislikes dogma even more than militant atheists, I'd love to dive into an
attempt at this.
~~~
jungturk
Something akin to the Jefferson bible?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible)
~~~
FabHK
That's awesome, didn't know about it.
Full text available online, about 20 printed pages.
Edited to add:
Here you can read it, facsimile of the original cut-and-paste (literally...)
version by Jefferson. 84 pages, because it's in Greek, Latin, French and
English. Love it.
[http://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/](http://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/)
Here's an ePub, if you want to put it on your ebook reader (note: possibly
unsavoury site):
[http://bookfi.net/book/1865049](http://bookfi.net/book/1865049)
------
hartator
I can't recommend enough "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic
Joy" by Irvine, William B.
I am 2/3 into it, maybe one of the best philosophy book I've ever read.
~~~
ishanr
Also read Happy by Derren Brown. It's brilliant in a very different way.
~~~
hartator
Funny & weird, I am also a big fan of Derren Brown shows, didn't know about
his books. Going to buy it on Amazon right now.
~~~
jazzdev
Looks like the Derren Brown who wrote the 1964 book is not the same Derren
Brown who is the 21st century magician.
~~~
hartator
I am actually not sure what to think. If you look at Amazon, it does say 1964,
but list Derren Brown - the magician - as the author and even give his
biography. The confusion grows even deeper as one of the reviewer is referring
as Derren Brown - the magician - as the author as well.
[edit] Amazon US got the date wrong. Amazon UK is giving the publication date,
2016, right. Derren Brown - the magician and mentalist - is still also a
stoic. :D
------
Mendenhall
Saw a few remarks about the "bleakness" or "uncaring" of the "universe".
That view of the universe is in error, people are part of the universe and
they certainly care. To view the universe without humanity is to not view the
universe.
There is bleakness in the universe for sure, but there is also compassion and
caring.
~~~
derrickdirge
This is worth giving a second thought.
It's practically (literally?) instinctual to feel like the universe is
happening _to_ you rather than _with_ you.
~~~
warent
It's true. Alan Watts isn't necessarily the best, but I always like his
(paraphrased) quote "Like the water waves and flowers bloom, the Universe
peoples."
------
jwdunne
What is perhaps most interesting about stoicism is how it influenced cognitive
therapy and CBT in a big way. These forms of therapy, along with derivatives
that integrate practical ideas from Buddhism such as DBT and radical
acceptance therapy, have been seen to perform as well as medication and in
some cases providing longer term improvements.
I think both the stoics and Buddhism were definitely on to something.
~~~
FabHK
Agreed, and in both cases, when you strip away the obsolete superstitions that
accompany it (just by virtue of the world view at the time they emerged), then
there is still a lot of original wisdom and substance left.
~~~
jwdunne
I think the same is true for Christianity too. The golden rule is an excellent
way to be an awesome human being. I think that's a better motive than a good
afterlife.
I haven't studied other religions to much but I am dead sure there are
timeless pieces of advice.
My opinion, and I stress opinion, is that much of the world's religions
offered a way of life that attempted to reduce violence, illness and
suffering.
Even kosher and halal, thinking about it, could have been a recognition that
these foods can lead to death, especially in a time when germ theory and
proper cooking and hygiene methods were not developed. Since disease was
associated with evil, it makes sense that "God declares these unclean".
Plus, what would you speculate if you didn't have the knowledge of how the
universe, the planets and life, including us, developed? In that case, a
creator provides the fewest assumptions.
~~~
FabHK
Thanks for the thoughtful and respectful comments, I hope my answer manages to
stay in that spirit, too.
> I think the same is true for Christianity too
Disagree, concerning the Abrahamic religions, as what is good is rarely
original, and what is original is rarely good:
1\. What is good (golden rule, some of the 10 commandments) is not very
original. The golden rule has appeared in ancient Greece (Thales), China
(Confucius), etc. half a millennium before Christianity, and other places
independently. By contrast, Stoa and Buddhism were, I'd venture, among the
first to arrive at and codify certain substantial insights that constitute
large parts of their teachings.
2\. What is original is mostly fairly absurd, if looked at dispassionately. If
you strip Christianity of the superstitions, its essence is basically gone.
Just as a small example: it is still current position of the Catholic Church
that the eucharist is actual transformation in substance of wine and bread
into actual blood and flesh of Christ. (There was a (possibly apocryphal) case
in Germany of a vegetarian asking whether he could participate in the
communion, and he was told that he could not as a vegetarian, because it IS
flesh.) If you erroneously believe that it's purely symbolic, you'd be subject
to the punishment of anathema (which is worse than excommunication), if the
Church were consistent with its teachings.
> religions offered a way of life that attempted to reduce violence, illness
> and suffering.
Yes, at the time. But not today.
> what would you speculate if you didn't have the knowledge of how the
> universe, the planets and life, including us, developed? In that case, a
> creator provides the fewest assumptions.
Yes, at the time. But not today.
In that sense, Stoa and Buddhism have aged better than the Abrahamic
religions, maybe because they were more empiric.
~~~
jwdunne
With regards to one, just because it was not original does not discount its
value. That only supports my point that it was an attempt to present a way to
live - a failed attempt given hindsight. I never said it was original nor
entirely good. That's why we can both recognise the good parts as generally
good advice.
2\. I'm not preaching. I was brought up Catholic and learned enough to reject
it. Catholicism and the actions of that church and other splinters are
fundamentally at odds with what Jesus actually preached - love your neighbour.
Somehow, it was ok to burn your neighbour alive if they did not believe Jesus
was God, which the rule did not mention. I am not a Catholic today - there is
too much hypocrisy. My assertion was that these, regardless of what we know
now, were misguided hypotheses that had mixtures of valuable advice along with
ideas that we now know are wrong. The structure built on top of that is
perhaps a hypothesis taken too seriously. My thinking is that what originally
was the equivalent of Aristotle to some Newton was misunderstood and taken to
the extreme. I share your sentiments exactly.
> Yes, at the time. But not today
This was exactly my point. Your English is very good, by the way. If I didn't
know better, I'd mistake your German directness as rude and blunt.
I would agree. Perhaps not empiric but more practical which lends itself
better to empirical study.
~~~
FabHK
> I never said it was original nor entirely good.
True, you didn't, I had said it ("... there is still a lot of original wisdom
and substance left"), to which you replied, that's why I focused in on it.
> I'm not preaching.
Fair enough, I try not to... :-)
> If I didn't know better, I'd mistake your German directness as rude and
> blunt.
Nailed it, thanks for the benefit of the doubt. Edited to add: This (mostly)
works on HN, but lamentably not many other sites...
~~~
jwdunne
Wow, you're right. Sorry about that. Yeah, clearly not original. I do agree.
I'm British - I will apologise if you bump into me.
------
s_kilk
[Shameless plug] You can read Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" at
[http://directingmind.com](http://directingmind.com)
~~~
dominotw
Can you say couple of lines why someone should read this ?
~~~
trgn
I'll take a stab.
It is a very accessible work, still today. The writing is clear and simple.
It's always been a popular work across the centuries, but the form seems to
work well for contemporary audiences. You can engage with at different levels,
it doesn't require a deep commitment. You can read a few passages before bed
time, leave it for years and pick it up again, leaf through it and skip
back&forth. As you grow older, the depth of the work reveals itself.
Specifically, given the easy to digest form, Meditations is somewhat of a
board room coffee table book, like Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. There is a lot in
there about what it takes to be a good leader.
It is a primary work. As a reader, you will take a trip back in time, when
people were, for lack of better word, different. The deep religiosity on
display can come across as somewhat alien, especially since it is one that
focuses on the importance of the observance of rites rather than on
establishing a personal spiritual connection. It is very un-american, un-
christian, and that journey is valuable in itself.
The breadth is wide. Stoicism is easily dismissed as being somewhat of a dour,
pessimistic philosophy. There is undoubtedly a melancholy undercurrent in
Meditations, but it is also full with love, joy, kindness, happiness. The
opening sets the tone. A thoughtful thank you note to all the people who
Marcus feels affectionate to. Near the end, after being reminded a great deal
about your mortality, those bright colors will have lost their luster
somewhat, but Meditationes leaves you with more confidence in humanity and
love towards your fellow man than with less.
Marcus Aurelius was by all accounts an admirable man and an important
historical figure. There is somewhat of a voyeuristic kick you get by reading
something he never intended to publish. Especially when writing about his
wife, his insecurities, his unpleasant views on sex, all are more personal
passages than philosophical. It's been 2000 years, I'm sure we're forgiven.
------
Arun2009
> Albert Ellis came up with an early form of cognitive-behavioral therapy,
> based largely on Epictetus’ claim that “it is not events that disturb
> people, it is their judgments concerning them.”
This actually is presented in Buddhism too, which was where I first
encountered it before re-discovering similar principles in stoicism and
Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. See this sutta:
[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.tha...](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html)
Quote:
"When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person
sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels
two pains, physical & mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an
arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he
would feel the pains of two arrows; in the same way, when touched with a
feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, &
laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical
& mental."
But what is nice about Buddhism is that there is a practical skill-training
that comes along with the theory. When disagreeable events happen to you,
mindfulness training teaches you not to grasp on to the events automatically
and start your own narrative about it, but instead, observe them mindfully.
This gives you the opportunity to skillfully deal with the situation. REBT in
addition implores you to consider the situation rationally.
These are troubling times (especially where I live in India), and I think a
little bit of stoic + Buddhist teachings can go a long way in maintaining our
composure even as we engage with the world. I still struggle with this from
time to time, but I would have been completely lost without these teachings.
~~~
anantzoid
Which particular troubling event related to India are you referring to?
~~~
Arun2009
Not events, but several trends and crises. Two that personally concern me are
the looming water crisis and pollution: I would love to have more water
security and be able to breathe cleaner air. I can put up with the haphazard
electric supply and the abysmal transport infrastructure. I don't have to
bother about such fancy things like the substandard educational system or the
endemic criminalization of politics.
But perhaps above all, (a) the dysfunctional governance system that is
incapable of doing anything about any of this, and (b) the gradual descent of
the society into a more regressive state.
------
factsaresacred
‘For such a small price, I buy tranquillity.’ Beautifully put.
The Penguin edition of fellow stoic Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is free on
Amazon kindle: [https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Marcus-Aurelius-
Wisehouse...](https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Marcus-Aurelius-Wisehouse-
Classics-ebook/dp/B0192TVZ3A)
~~~
karyon
Actually, that quote was the one sentence I didn't understand. Who's spilling
the wine? And why does that buy tranquility? If you could help me that would
be great :)
~~~
gattilorenz
I read it as "instead of getting angry for losing a 20$ note, consider it the
price you pay for tranquility".
Which maybe works for yourself, but most of my significant others of the past
would just start complaining that I lost a 20$ bill.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I prefer to consider the joy of finding money; when you lose it you've almost
certainly given someone else that joy.
~~~
jschwartzi
Just like when things get stolen from my car, they're inevitably things that
the thief might have needed more than me.
------
manmal
One interesting thing I've noticed is that ancient Stoics have not rebuked the
concept of god (or "the universe"), a higher power that determines all the
things that are not in our control (as a Stoic you very much need to
distinguish between things in and outside of your control). I have found it
difficult to really, deeply, accept things as out of my control without
resorting to some concept of god or "the universe as a well-meaning entity".
Is there someone among you HNers who has retained a positive outlook by
believing that the universe is a bleak, chaotic place with no intrinsic
meaning to the things happening in it?
~~~
olavk
Bone cancer in children - if there exist an almighty sentient God, then he is
erratic and malicious. The polytheistic concept of gods is actually more
realistic (better explains reality) in that there are multiple gods with
different agendas and morals acting.
In polytheism the universe is not chaotic and meaningless - things to not
happen at random, but because the gods willed it. But the gods does not always
act for the benefit of humans, so the universe is not "fair".
If something bad happens to you, is it really a consolation that it is because
an allknowing and just God _wants_ you to suffer?
~~~
pbhjpbhj
Your first statement is a pretty classic and naive position. For me at 8 years
or so I rendered the objection of "pain" in terms of volcanoes.
The standard, and again naive, rejoinder in mainstream Christian theology is
that God had a pattern for the World that didn't include such types of pain
and destruction but that man chose not to follow God's plan (as allegorised in
"The Fall" in Genesis). Thus we chose to go it alone, and you can read the
various theories on how that has a Universal effect too.
To raise the basic Argument from Suffering you really should look past the
first-tier argument and present it anticipating The Fall.
In my limited understanding suffering appears out of the axioms of free will.
To make us human, with the ability to choose to love, choose to care, choose
to follow God or not, we require free-will. Otherwise it's just "echo 'i love
you'" rather than a genuine emotion.
Your question should be "is it better not to create our Universe, with the
possibility for love, if there is also a possibility of suffering". You may
come to the same conclusion, that a benevolent being shouldn't turn Creator
when faced with those possibilities ... but then if they hadn't you wouldn't
be here to make the objection.
tl;dr "The Fall" and "free will" are the standard, Biblical, Christian
counter-arguments that stand against Suffering and allow for a loving,
benevolent God to be creator of a Universe such as ours.
~~~
olavk
So God inflicted leprocy on humanity because otherwise we wouldn't be able to
feel genuine love? And not buying this makes you "naive"?
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I perhaps haven't expressed the position well however, "naive" isn't a slur,
read "simplistic" if it helps, it's philosophy on the level of someone who has
not demonstrated cognisance of the basic sources and hasn't addressed the
obvious counter-arguments.
The mainstream Christian theology is that leprosy, and such diseases came in
to the world after, and as a consequence of, The Fall. That if we'd chosen
God's way we wouldn't have such things.
>So God inflicted leprocy on humanity //
God created a Universe with free will for man rather than creating a fancy
automaton. Mankind chose not to follow God's precepts, the consequences being
that disease, pain and suffering entered the world.
It's like if I serve you a hot drink. You can choose to cause pain and
suffering with it - throw it at someone, say - or you can follow my
instructions to sip it slowly, let it cool and enjoy it, share it. I can't
serve you a hot drink without the possibility that you will abuse it, unless I
make you into a "hot drink robot" with no free will.
You could couch that as God inflicting the possibility of suffering in order
to allow the possibility of beauty, love, passion, humanity.
~~~
olavk
Then I sure you are also well aware of the counterarguments against this form
of theodicy.
------
vram22
I had read a book by Epictetus some years ago. Liked it. Forget the book name
now. It was about living simply, not getting overly affected (mentally or
emotionally) by circumstances or things that happen to you, and a lot more
stuff along those lines, and other things too.
Basically Stoicism, I suppose, though I've not looked up the term in detail.
I also like this quote by him which I read long ago:
"Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things, and thence proceed to
greater."
[http://philosiblog.com/2013/06/06/practice-yourself-for-
heav...](http://philosiblog.com/2013/06/06/practice-yourself-for-heavens-sake-
in-little-things-and-then-proceed-to-greater/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus)
[https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/](https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/)
The Stockdale Paradox is also interesting. Stockdale was influenced by
Epictetus.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale)
~~~
golem14
Not about stoicism, but you might also enjoy
"The Tao is Silent" by Raymond Smullyan
~~~
vram22
Thanks, will check that out.
------
gfiorav
Well, it turns out I've been a stoic all this time, I'm finding out.
It blows me away how that part about taking every problem as a chance to learn
and become a better "wrestler" fits right in with my natural conclusions. The
rest of it describes me adequately also.
I'm reading Epictetus now, thanks for sharing.
~~~
Havoc
>turns out I've been a stoic all this time, I'm finding out.
It seems to come naturally to some, especially those that tend to adopt a
somewhat cold analytical view of the world
~~~
firepoet
You might have dropped the word "cold" and been a bit more inclusive.
~~~
Havoc
Fair enough. It was meant to convey reasoning devoid of emotion...wasn't aimed
at a negative judgement.
I consider myself one of those people so def didn't intend to offend.
------
Pamar
Allow me to share my collection of links to Stoicism resources (which I will
soon update with this)
[http://www.pa-mar.net/Main/Lifestyle/Stoicism.html](http://www.pa-
mar.net/Main/Lifestyle/Stoicism.html)
------
RivieraKid
What's up with all those submissions about stoicism on HN, is that some new SV
fad?
~~~
clydethefrog
Stoicism gives you the mental ability to deal with evil, futility and failure,
since it makes you believe you are a non-entity in an inflexible, vast and
nasty social structure.
It's a philosophy of inaction and accommodation to injustice and oppression.
There is a reason it became popular for Roman soldiers under the Empire. Well,
at least stoicism does not claim that you are changing the world for the
better by creating all these data slurping algorithms. But I wish SV would
embrace the Hellenistic philosophy of Cynicism instead.
~~~
ceras
> It's a philosophy of inaction and accommodation to injustice and oppression.
This is not what I got out of reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and
articles on Stoicism. In common English use, "stoic" sometimes implies what
you said, but that's not the same as Stoicism-the-philosophy.
"The Stoics held that virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary
and, contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way depends on
luck."[0]
It's also true that Stoicism encourages acceptance of all outcomes, whatever
they are, which people misconstrue to imply it's not worth doing your best.
Here's a quote by Cicero on doing your best but not letting the outcome
influence your emotions:
"Take the case of one whose task it is to shoot a spear or arrow straight at
some target. One’s ultimate aim is to do all in one’s power to shoot straight,
and the same applies with our ultimate goal. In this kind of example, it is to
shoot straight that one must do all one can; none the less, it is to do all
one can to accomplish the task that is really the ultimate aim. It is just the
same with what we call the supreme good in life. To actually hit the target
is, as we say, to be selected but not sought."
[0] [http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/](http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/)
------
hartator
Kudos for writing about Stoicism. However, I think it's pretty weak article.
No mentions of negative visualization or Seneca while both are roots of the
Stoic philosophy.
~~~
FabHK
Agree, but to be fair, it's just 3 paragraphs or so, and it's not even aiming
to cover the fundamentals. More of a "look here what I found, and how it's
helped me."
------
camdenlock
Hmm. To be honest, this philosophy seems like a flowery and overstuffed
version of secular mindfulness, like an earlier step along the evolutionary
path to what would eventually be a really simple, straightforward strategy for
learning about and being with one's own mind in a skillful way.
If it helps you suffer less: great. But before you dive in, know that you
might be able to save a lot of time and avoid a lot of jargon by learning
about mindfulness from a secular source.
~~~
buzzybee
Stoicism is about achieving freedom, mindfulness is incidental to that.
------
heisenbit
Currently also on HN and much deeper article on stoicsm: On Anger, Disgust,
and Love: Interview with Martha Nussbaum
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13710672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13710672)
[http://emotionresearcher.com/on-anger-disgust-
love/](http://emotionresearcher.com/on-anger-disgust-love/)
In a section further down the article she discusses the books "Upheavals of
Thoughts" and "Therapy of Desire". There she elaborate how stoicism and
emotions relate in a fairly comprehensive way.
------
ziikutv
I love learning about Archaeology and corollary some of the philosophies of
civilizations.
Stoicism has been one of the most appealing one to me. However, one issue I
have with Stoicism is similar to that of religions.
Most people who follow Stoicism or any other religion, tend to pick and choose
to what is the best fit of them.
Stoicism is not about giving up anything (common misunderstanding) but it IS
to moderate everything including things like our carnal desires. I do not
think anyone does this nowadays.
Does this mean we need a Stoicism 2.0 like we do in many religions? _______
2.0? Not entirely sure...
~~~
tim333
I think some philosophy 2.0s could be produced to take account of the advances
in scientific knowledge since Senca's time.
------
nnd
I haven't dug deep into stoicism, but it appears to have a lot of overlap with
buddhist philosophy. Is that a fair comparison?
~~~
ceras
Here's a good compare-and-contrast:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/wiki/faq#wiki_what_are_sim...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/wiki/faq#wiki_what_are_similarities_between_stoicism_and_buddhism.2C_in_terms_of_mindfulness.3F)
------
hvass
Other than this, the author has some great writing and you can read a recent
interview with her over at The Daily Stoic: [https://dailystoic.com/elif-
batuman-interview/](https://dailystoic.com/elif-batuman-interview/)
------
ArkyBeagle
Can anyone shed light on why so many Stoic societies/clubs seem to be
essentially religious? The Stoics I have read do not seem to be particularly
religious nor of any particular creed - some were polytheist, some were
monotheist, some seem to nearly be agnostic or atheist.
------
janvdberg
Tim Ferris (from the fourhourworkweek.com) also talks (podcast) and writes a
lot about this subject: [http://tim.blog/stoic/](http://tim.blog/stoic/)
------
mikehain
Another classic book to look at is "Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca the
Younger, published by Penguin Classics. Seneca is perhaps my favorite of the
Stoics.
------
howfun
This reminds me of Richard Feynman's quote "I am not responsible for the world
I live in" from his first autobiographical book.
------
cylinder
What if I want to suffer _more_? I want to be _less okay_ with all my
procrastination, my job situation, my lack of willpower in the face of
adversity, and more. I want to take my failures _more personally_ \- I want
losing to be painful like it is for Michael Jordan, I'm presently too content
with it.
~~~
theonemind
That doesn't seem very difficult. You can try judging yourself harshly and
make a habit of ruminating over it. Quite a number of people have those sorts
of habits and want to break them. You might find it hard to stop if you
develop those habits.
------
lngnmn
Not sure if a hipster's magazine could be an authoritative source.
The first paragraph told me that I should stop reading and what kind of
Stoicism I would find below.
------
Kenji
Note that stoicism is NOT rejecting and ignoring your feelings. If you feel
bad about something, that too is a fact that you have to accept and deal with
in the best way possible. Stoicism is about keeping your head up in the face
of adversity, and not about becoming a hardened robot capable of taking any
punishment. I think a lot of people on HN might get this wrong.
~~~
Nokinside
This is the modern Buddhist and psychology influenced interpretation of
stoicism and apatheia.
Personally I don't see much evidence that this really was the case in the
golden era of Stoicsm. Freedom from all passions was not the same as removal
of emotion, but it was very close to it.
> not about becoming a hardened robot capable of taking any punishment.
This was exactly what Stoics of the old saw as ideal and this view was
propagated in stories. Epicetus was a cripple and according to Origen his leg
was broken by his master.
>Epictetus' master one day was twisting his slave's leg to help the time pass.
Epictetus said calmly, "If you go on doing that, you will break my leg." The
twisting went on and the leg broke. Epictetus observed mildly, "Didn't I tell
you that you would break my leg?"
The story of Gaius Mucius Scaevola was also propagated by stoics. Mucius kept
his hand over the fire without indicating any pain while it burned.
~~~
Kenji
>This is the modern Buddhist and psychology influenced interpretation of
stoicism and apatheia.
No, it is not. Read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The man certainly argued
for a certain inner brilliance that does not come from emotionlessness. He'd
argue for you to be the even-tempered guy but full of fortitude and pouring
your entire being into what you are standing for and doing, but without
getting consumed by it. Stoicism is not the rejection of emotion, it is the
rejection of uncontrolled desire. That's a huge difference.
------
Pica_soO
The doormat really tied the throne-room together
------
jvanderbot
Oh look, it's the new mindfulness.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy - buffyoda
http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-conclusion
======
lukev
Of course, LambdaConf has every right to define its community in the way it
sees fit.
While their explanation does have a lot of logical appeal (see:
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-
dive...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/satnam-singh/dr-spock-vs-
diversity/10154092724913630)), it's important to remember that prospective
attendees and speakers _also_ have the right of free association.
The fact is, I _do_ wish to exclude myself from any community that
deliberately includes Yarvin and his ilk. I would encourage others to make the
same decision. I will happily discuss or debate ideas with them on any topic,
in any forum where it makes sense to do so. They are human beings and deserve
all the rights and privileges thereof.
But I'm not obligated to drink beer and break bread with them, pretending
nothing is wrong.
This isn't a free speech issue, this is a "who do you want in your community"
issue. In the light of a community, you can't, and you shouldn't, pull one
aspect of a person's character and isolate it from the rest of their identity.
I hope people give me the same treatment. I am more than the content of my
technical talks, and so is Yarvin.
~~~
mikeash
I've followed this saga with much confusion and I wonder if you could explain
why you'd avoid a conference with a speaker like this.
For me, if I'm evaluating a conference speaker, all I care about is:
1\. Is the topic useful or interesting?
2\. Is the speaker well informed and the content correct?
3\. Does the speaker present the material well?
I couldn't care less about them otherwise, and especially not their political
views. For most conference speakers, I couldn't tell you anything about their
political views, because it's just not relevant.
What's your reasoning for including that aspect of a speaker when evaluating
the conference?
I also wonder, if we take it as a given that political views are important, do
you vet all conference speakers' views before you attend a conference? Or do
you have faith that the community will root out views you find unacceptable?
~~~
calibraxis
Moldbug's political views aren't the issue, it's his political _action_. He
has a record of going to conferences and advocating racism: working to
exclude. And one of Lambdaconf's sponsors is a racist political blog, which
sounds unprecedented. (Evidence in my comment history.)
(The context is a country which kills and incarcerates blacks, post-slavery.
Racism is political action which directly impacts the lives of confgoers and
users. Toxic for education and networking.)
Any conf organizer has heard people say, "It's not the talks, it's the hallway
conversations!" Racist political groups are now desperate enough to nakedly
show their influence out in the open. Harder for them to dominate quietly.
~~~
thescribe
Can you provide an example of any action he has taken that is not merely
expressing a view?
~~~
calibraxis
Do you want evidence of him... shivving someone?
(But then again, how is stabbing someone with a knife relevant to a talk's
quality?)
(But then again, how is a talk's quality relevant to free expression of
views?)
Professional conferences "censor" speakers who don't provide what their
audiences want. And have codes of conduct censoring harassing speech. You too:
does everyone get to deliver speeches in your home? Visit your workplace and
undermine you?
~~~
tomp
> But then again, how is stabbing someone with a knife relevant to a talk's
> quality?
It's not. I find no reason to exclude an ex-convict that has been charged and
served his jail-time. Including them back into the society is the only way we
can at least _hope_ to combat recidivism.
~~~
calibraxis
It'd be great if you have evidence that Moldbug is an ex-con who underwent
rehab for his racism!
If not, would you _really_ invite someone with a record of stabbing people at
conferences? Who writes literature advocating murder, etc?
(In the real world, Moldbug leverages society's obvious violence against
African-Americans. He's therefore complicit in that systematic violence.
That's why Lambdaconf's racist supporters are so desperate to support him, no
matter how clumsily. That's why all these people were targeted on sjwlist.com
for speaking out against violence: [http://statement-on-
lambdaconf.github.io/](http://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io/) )
~~~
tomp
> It'd be great if you have evidence that Moldbug is an ex-con who underwent
> rehab for his racism!
Unlike violent crime, racist speech isn't immediately dangerous. But in any
case, if you believe he's a criminal, rally to have him arrested; him being a
free man means that he has nothing to go in rehab for.
> society's obvious violence against African-Americans
You mean, African-American's obvious violence against African-Americans?
[http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-
race...](http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race-and-
violent-crime/)
~~~
zardgiv
When arguing in favor of a racist speaker on the grounds of free speech, it's
probably not the best idea to go off on a tangent quoting a "race realist"
publication whose founder said:
"Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own
devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears"
[https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-
files/grou...](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-
files/group/american-renaissance)
~~~
tomp
Didn't realise that... In any case, I was only quoting it gor the statistics
presented in the table, which seems to have been copied from a DOJ report, and
hopefully not tampered with (although now I'm not so sure any more...).
~~~
zardgiv
What should be suspect now, and something worth reflecting on, is the
narrative being pushed by them since that's usually how "lying with
statistics" works.
~~~
zardgiv
Amazing. I read some more, and Moldbug's posted approvingly about American
Renaissance! It's too perfect.
------
brokentone
This is really a wonderful post. Too many open source projects, conferences,
and the like have turned into witch hunts by, as John mentions, the morality
police. Maintainers are bullied into adopting CoCs even if there have been no
issues at all in their community, and distancing themselves from valued
members of their community for something dumb they may have said or done in
entirely different contexts or years ago.
The whole set of posts John has provided on the matter have been extremely
fair and thoughtful.
------
seibelj
I read an FAQ on neo-reactionism and it's totally insane. But I would be fine
with the guy lecturing about computers if he knew his stuff. Honestly I find
intelligent, rational people who come to radically different conclusions about
society to be fascinating.
On the other hand, if Hitler himself was alive and gave a speech on art, I
wouldn't want to hear it because of his politics and actions. So clearly there
is a spectrum for me, and at some point the politics become so bad I can't
stand the person.
Also, by giving this person a speaking role, he becomes more authoritative in
all subjects, so it probably is better not to help him. In summary, lots to
think about!
~~~
tomp
I would _love_ to hear a speech by Hitler. Regardless of his actions, he was a
_master_ persuader and accomplished (affected the world) in a decade more than
most people couldn't in 1000 years! We could all learn _a lot_ from him -
which of course doesn't mean that we would have to use the skills for the same
means he did.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
>he was a master persuader and accomplished (affected the world) in a decade
more than most people couldn't in 1000 years
No. He accomplished what most people _wouldn 't_ and _oughtn 't_ in a thousand
years.
~~~
mikeash
That's not in conflict with what was said in your quote. Hitler changed the
world enormously. It was terrible, but the influence is undeniable. I'm
reminded of all the people I've seen making fun of Time for naming Hitler
their Man of the Year, without realizing that Man/Person of the Year is purely
about the size of impact, not how good it is.
------
ng12
How crazy -- I'm vaguely familiar with Curtis' work, and would have never
known (or cared) about his political views until the people looking to "no
platform" him gave him a platform.
Streisand effect, people.
~~~
Aqueous
When will people learn that you don't fight a view by attempting to suppress
it?
~~~
danharaj
That wasn't the point of protesting his presence at LambdaConf. The point was
so that people who want to go to LambdaConf and feel threatened and humiliated
by someone's enthusiastic support of racism and slavery don't have to
associate with such a person.
It is so exasperating that so many people who _aren 't_ denigrated and
targeted by his hateful politics think this is a matter of _abstract
principle_. Somehow, letting my and others' humanity be a matter of political
_opinion_ is the mature, apolitical position. Utterly frustrating attitude.
It's perfectly fine to be tolerant of Yarvin's views, it is completely
unreasonable to ask others to associate with a person who envisions a world
where their humanity is forfeit.
~~~
Aqueous
In public life we have to - and should - encounter and tolerate people whose
opinions we find abhorrent. I would much prefer a world where I feel emotional
discomfort being in the presence of someone I loathe than a world where such a
person is prohibited from ever being near me, because of social ostracism. It
provides for a much richer marketplace of ideas.
If you don't like him, protest him. Disturb him with your words as much as he
disturbs you with his.
~~~
danharaj
Free speech is such a pretty principal when you can always foist its costs on
other people. You can keep your marketplace.
I'm going to be emphatic, because i am emphatic about this position:
Free speech is a powerful principle because speech has power. Because speech
can hurt people, because speech can change the world. If speech did not
matter, free speech would not matter.
If speech matters, and speech has power, then its effects must be considered.
To do anything less is _irrational_. The idea that rejecting Yarvin's ideas so
emphatically that we would deny him platform would lead to unjust suppression
of speech is a _fallacy_. It is a _slippery slope_. So many people who strive
to be rational individuals and avoid cognitive biases, and yet balk at
treating speech for what it is instead of a sacred object that should be
worshipped.
By saying Yarvin should be allowed to speak, you are merely saying that
protecting his speech is more important than the emotional and professional
cost it exacts on the people he targets. And yes, he targets people. Through
all his extremely verbose, meandering writings, a clear thread of contempt for
certain others' runs.
"The relationship of master and slave is a natural human relationship: that of
patron and client." \- Curtis Yarvin
_You_ can react to speech the way you want. But you're not taking any moral
high ground with your approach when you explicitly deny the impact of speech
on others and how _they_ react to it. Association is a form of speech.
Petitioning others to stand with you is a form of speech. Protecting Yarvin's
speech on the grounds of principle, which is rejecting others' speech out of
hand in contradiction of the same principles is inconsistent. All speech has
consequences, and there is no neutral advocacy of "free speech" because truly
free speech is a realm of conflict and inconsistency.
~~~
barsonme
It should be noted 'free speech' is the reason you can have this conversation
in the first place.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. That is, if you wish to not have
_your_ opinions censored you cannot ask for the censorship of other opinions
you feel offensive.
I wish bigots and other prejudiced people would spare us, but I value my
freedom to speak my mind more than I dislike hearing hateful speech.
~~~
sclv
There's no free speech on hackernews. People get moderated all the time! If
hackernews can moderate its comments, then can't a conference moderate its
speakers?
~~~
barsonme
Big distinction -- people are moderated for their content _on Hacker News_ ,
not off.
If this speaker makes a racial slur he'll likely be removed from the
conference. Inside the conference (much like HN) they're free to limit his
speech. However, as was mentioned in the article, the conference does not and
will not judge speech _outside_ the conference, much like HN does not (to my
knowledge) ban users for offensive speech _outside_ HN.
------
mintplant
Quoting from a Lobste.rs post [1] on the other side of this issue:
> Here’s a different approach, which explains this quite reasonably:
> LambdaConf made a lot of effort to contact organisations involving PoC,
> introducing diversity scholarships etc. to gain some fame. Then, suddenly,
> out of the blue, they decide to run a person which is clearly incompatible.
> These organisations cut their ties and oppose the project they supported.
> It’s all very unsurprising. You can’t shout “everyone is equal, please
> spread!” and then invite someone on the speakers list who wrote hundreds of
> thousands of words how he thinks people are fundamentally unequal by
> disposition and some should be slaves.
> I’d be far less aggravated if LambdaConf had just been a run-of-the-mill
> conference, but it tried to be _the diverse conference in FP_. Now it shows
> that they actually meant “libertarian”. Appropriating terms like “inclusive”
> or “diverse” for that is just a recipe for disaster...
> LambdaConf chose to be a temporary, short space where anything goes unless
> it’s not physically violent. What they _communicated_ was something
> different though. And that difference is biting them now, making sponsors
> jump off and people protest.
In sum: people are upset because they feel used - that LambdaConf made one set
of promises and advertised in a specific way to gain fame, then flipped on
those values afterward.
[1]
[https://lobste.rs/s/dibl7y/why_we_re_sponsoring_lambdaconf_2...](https://lobste.rs/s/dibl7y/why_we_re_sponsoring_lambdaconf_2016/comments/x7kpvy#c_x7kpvy)
~~~
tomp
Using the words "inclusive" and "diverse" to describe a position which
encourages banning people who think differently than most is highly
problematic and disingenuous.
------
tomp
What an amazing article; cool-headed, rational and very well-argued.
Especially the "Appendix" containing definitions and short
doscussions/arguments is worth reading.
~~~
marshray
Yeah, it's going to drive people nuts.
Edit: (people on both sides)
------
1123581321
I think the policy to ignore social media is a valuable innovation. For a
couple of years, I have hoped to see companies adopt this policy to protect
their employees from being capriciously let go.
------
swampthinker
Sorry, I guess I've been living under a rock. What's the context for this?
~~~
sridca
[http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Lambdaconf_incident](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Lambdaconf_incident)
> _In March 2016, the organizers of [LambdaConf] announced that they would
> include neo-reactionary Curtis Yarvin on the program despite widespread
> protest._
\---
[http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/sjws-urge-
programmi...](http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/sjws-urge-programming-
conference-to-ban-speaker-over-political-views/)
> _LambdaConf, an annual gathering of programmers in Boulder, Colorado, has
> faced calls from social justice warriors to cancel a talk by Curtis Yarvin,
> the developer of the Urbit programming environment, due to his political
> views._
~~~
striking
I appreciate the fact that you posted links to both perspectives on the issue.
------
OoTheNigerian
Exceptionally lucid and captures every this I think of and aligns well with my
position.
It is ironically said that fundamental Christians of today would give Jesus
the hardest time if this was his Era.
Likewise, I have observed that the most "militantly liberal expousers" seem to
be the most intolerant of other views.(I speak as an observer from outside the
western world where this is prevalent)
I hope this is the end of this issue.
This response will serve as template for future moral police people
------
zimbu668
I read Yarvin's response to this whole incident:
[https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-
lam...](https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-
anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.6xux1ooek)
Could someone provide a link to his pro-slavery arguments?
~~~
antifasci
Exactly.
------
rtpg
I'm not a part of LambdaConf, nor would I plan to (not because of the
controversy, but just because I don't have the time/money to attend any US-
based conference)...
But these discussions remind me a lot of the "censorship" discussions that
have been had both on places like reddit or twitter.
For the longest time, code of conducts were a thing that were accepted. Don't
be a jerk, don't spout racist stuff at people. Loads of forums had it, and the
places that didn't basically became 4chan (which is interesting in its own
right but filled with pretty rude people).
Sometime between 1995 and 2015, we started thinking that rules that basically
say "don't be a jerk" stopped being the norm.... I really wonder why. Now it
gets classified as "censorship".
That being said, my understanding is that this guy's talk wasn't "How FP
advances the causes of Stormfont", which makes it pretty hard to say outright
"gotta kick him out".
But I wouldn't want Marine Le Pen or Trump at my FP conference, no matter how
subtle and developed their views on FP are. My opinion does not entire
conference submission guidelines make, but I can understand fighting against
that. Social interactions don't work in a vacuum...
Glad I don't have to participate at this
------
eruditely
I have so much respect for the lambdaconf organizers and will remember John A
De Goes as a highly ethical individual. Love what they're doing.
------
gwright
From the article:
> Someone with progressive political views might feel emotionally threatened
> in the presence of rabid and well-known Trump supporters who are openly
> contemptuous of progressives in their personal lives […]
Ugh. I’m not sure how I would have selected examples of potentional emotional
distress but a laundry list of caricatures of political, sexual, and religious
attitudes wouldn’t have been my first choice.
~~~
mcphage
> a laundry list of caricatures of political, sexual, and religious attitudes
I assume that the bit you quoted was a reference to the recent events at Emory
University.
------
xirdstl
This is a divisive issue, and originally I found myself agreeing with this
post, because, in general, I expect a conference to about mature professionals
focusing on the craft.
That said, LambdaConf advertises itself as a "magical place" with a
"passionate and friendly community of like-minded souls."
Given that, I understand why people are upset. They are trying to have it both
ways.
------
jordigh
> Free speech advocates have gathered on one side, advocates for social
> justice on the other
wtf
Those two are supposed to be the same side. There's some really perverse
twisting of words here to put social justice in opposition to free speech. How
has the debate come to this?
~~~
Kalium
A speaker-blind selection process selected a talk by someone who is considered
by some to be offensive for reasons not directly relevant to the content of
the talk.
~~~
st3v3r
Yet definitely relevant to the people who would choose to attend the
conference. It's definitely going to make some people feel uncomfortable
attending, knowing that they invited someone who believes that you are not
deserving of human rights and dignity to speak.
------
hoodoof
Seems conferences are quite a controversial thing these days.
~~~
marklyon
Agreed. In addition to "codes of conduct" that seem to assume all attendees
are lecherous, racist rapists some conferences step outside their focus and
end up turning away potential attendees. For example, this military member who
really seems to be the target market for DjangoCon but who can't attend due to
past pro-marijuana speakers.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/django/comments/4dihy4/django_train...](https://www.reddit.com/r/django/comments/4dihy4/django_trainings/d1yngty)
~~~
chipotle_coyote
While I suppose there may be some codes of conduct out there that truly make
those assumptions, most of the ones I've seen are simply predicated on the
assumption that it's better to proactively make rules outlining acceptable
behavior -- and, ideally, outlining both the ways complaints will be handled,
including enforcement.
We'd all like to believe that "trust everyone to not to be jerks to one
another" is code enough for any convention, and I get that "X, Y and Z will
not be tolerated" can come across like taking sides in a debate. But
establishing a CoC first is the social engineering equivalent of test-driven
development. Handling complaints on an entirely ad hoc, subjective basis works
as long as complaints remain relatively minor, but the failure mode can be
pretty spectacular, and not in a good way.
------
anaphor
About the chart on "moral reasoning", consequentialism, the idea that only the
outcome is what matters, _is_ an ethical system that one can base their morals
off of. I'm not sure where they got the idea that they're two separate things.
Also the whole "xyism" thing seems to be their own made-up terminology for the
idea of an illusory correlation in social psychology. Why not just say
stereotyping groups is a bad idea instead of the weird references to logic and
set theory?
------
bad_user
I do not understand the prevailing opinions in this thread and I must confess
that, even though I disagree respectfully with LambdaConf's choices
(respectfully as in, hey, it's their conference and I can even understand
their reasoning), seeing the uncertainty and the doubt and the bullying and
the lack of empathy for the less fortunate, this is the first time I'm ashamed
of being a software developer.
For those with doubts, here's one of his posts that is racist by definition:
[http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.ro/2009/07/why-
carl...](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.ro/2009/07/why-carlyle-
matters.html?m=1)
And given his now infamous Medium post, given that it can be hard to parse
English, here's a review of the book that he's recommending in support of his
racist views: [https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-
report/...](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-
report/2014/troublesome-sources)
I personally don't understand how anybody can claim that his views aren't
racist in the most profound hate-inducing ways, and for every such assertion
it feels like a spit in the face at least of those that have had grandfathers
surviving WWII, let alone the minorities amongst us that fear not for their
job, but for their personal safety.
But keep thinking that hate speech is just political opinion that needs to be
protected. And keep demeaning and silencing those that ring alarms, as if
"SJWs" are amongst your biggest problems. Yeah, that worked out well in the
past.
~~~
dmix
Left authoritarianism and right wing authoritarianism are two sides of the
same coin [1]. I couldn't accept one without the other as they operate on the
same principles. Which is why I am willing to go to a tech conference as long
as the subject matter is entirely about technology. If it included political
discourse by said people it would be a different story and I wouldn't attend.
Attendance is voluntary. And as far as I'm concerned people are free to attend
whatever political conference they please. The only time I would support
forcing a speaker not to be able to attend is if he planned to give a speech
specifically involving inciting violence, coercion, or other blatant
_criminal_ acts at that specific venue - and specifically a venue residing
within my local community/country. The internet is a different story.
[1] [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-29/emergence-
orwellian...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-29/emergence-orwellian-
newspeak-and-death-free-speech)
------
mrcsparker
Wonderful graphs at the bottom.
I hope that this passes. It was too bad that an article like this had to be
written.
------
pklausler
I don't recall this kind of brouhaha affecting more "academic" conferences,
e.g. ISCA or Supercomputing, but I can't come up with a decent reason why that
might be the case. Did the LambdaConf organizers just get unlucky?
------
davidgerard
An attempt to derive a concept of “inclusivity” from first principles,
complete with made-up jargon words and _diagrams_.
DeGoes wants to be thought of as “inclusive” but doesn’t understand that the
purpose of inclusivity is to hear from marginalised voices you might be
systemically excluding. He thinks “ah, we’ll achieve ‘inclusivity’ by
including everyone, even the odious!” Thus achieving literally the opposite.
But that’s okay, he can show his working.
His new reactionary fandom (~ 0 of whom give two hoots about functional
programming) are fully onside. Everyone else has left them to it; it’s unclear
if DeGoes understands in any way that this is what has happened.
------
lbarrow
There's no such thing as "not becoming political". Hosting an event is a
political act; so is selling tickets to the event or paying people to help you
run it. These acts might be _normal_ but they're still _political_.
When someone says, "I don't want this to get political", what they're really
saying is "I'm comfortable with the politics of the status quo and I want
things to stay the way they are". Sometimes that's totally fine. In this case
it means giving a voice to a racist advocate of slavery.
De Goes can have his conference, but arguing that this isn't a political
decision is simply incorrect.
~~~
DrJokepu
I'm not really familiar with the details of this whole LambdaConf drama, but
your argument keeps showing up on my Twitter feed regularly and I never found
it very convincing to be honest. I don't see why hosting an event is
necessarily a political act and I don't see why when people say "I don't want
this to get political" it means that they're happy with the status quo. People
keep repeating these arguments online as if they were self-evident truths and
never really explain well (or at all) why these statements are true.
In particular, an argument could be made that someone could find being forced
to be surrounded by politics boring and tedious even if they agree with these
ideas. If you don't believe me, just read the comments in any political HN
post (such as this one); I guarantee you that you will find many of the
comments obnoxious, even some of the ones you agree with in principle.
~~~
lbarrow
That's a totally reasonable question. I typed my initial response on my phone
and was going for brevity.
People live in society together. Broadly speaking, political decisions are
decisions about what the rules for how we should go about living and working
together are. We tend to think of things as _obviously_ political when the
community has a debate about whether or not something is acceptable (like
abortion). But because politics sets the boundaries of social life, it also
defines its interior.
For example, you and I (probably) both agree that it's totally reasonable to
go to Starbucks and buy a cup of coffee. We don't think of this as an action
anywhere near the boundaries of acceptable conduct, and so we both think of it
as not having a whole lot of political meaning. A Marxist, however, would
argue that we're participating in an exploitative system because we're using
private property, shopping at a capitalist-owned business, etc.
We both don't buy their argument, but simply because they've made it, we're
forced to concede that buying coffee is political act. By buying coffee, we're
saying we're comfortable with the structures that created Starbucks, or that
we judge any harmful consequences of buying coffee to be less important than
our day to day convenience. The fact that the action is normal doesn't change
the fact that at some point _we decided it was acceptable_, and that decision
was _definitely_ political.
To give another example, the Free Software Foundation, is explicitly founded
on the idea that everyday acts have political meaning, no matter how normal
they are. Take this passage from their site
([https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
impor...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
important.html)):
>>>With proprietary software, the program controls the users, and some other
entity (the developer or “owner”) controls the program. So the proprietary
program gives its developer power over its users. That is unjust in itself,
and tempts the developer to mistreat the users in other ways.
>>>Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to
carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having control
over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs you use, and
all the more so when you use them for something important in your life.
The FSF is arguing that the way you distribute software is a political
decision, not just a matter of technical convenience, and they're totally
right to point this out.
Anyway. To bring it back to LambdaConf, De Goes is clearly wrong to claim that
things have "become" politicized. It's more accurate to say that giving a
speaking slot to racists was political acceptable and has become politically
disputed. De Goes doesn't like that things have gone from acceptable to
disputed, so he claims he doesn't want things to be "political". But things
were always political, it's just that previously they weren't controversial.
This is why people who argue against "politicizing" issues are implicitly
arguing for the politics of the status quo. They're arguing against change.
------
jessaustin
Is it meaningful that there is no _link_ to LambdaConf in TFA? Don't make me
Google...
------
douche
This is probably the most reasonable response to these sorts of pressures I've
ever seen. One can hope that other groups will follow their lead and strive to
act like fully-grown, professional, adults.
I'm sure they'll get eviscerated for it, though.
~~~
McGlockenshire
The attempt to be a neutral platform is laudable, and the wording used to
express the idea seems to be well thought through.
The fact remains that even though that insist that they are not endorsing any
of the speakers' views, the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience
(even if the presentation is entirely topical and non-controversial) acts as
an implicit endorsement. Denying this doesn't change the effective
endorsement.
~~~
mcphage
> the mere act of giving a divisive speaker an audience acts as an implicit
> endorsement
Giving a speaker a talk acts an implicit endorsement of all of their views?
That doesn't even sound remotely true, yet you state it as if it was
tautological.
~~~
McGlockenshire
The endorsement is implicit, not explicit.
Conf: "We're giving person A a presentation slot because they have a
compelling presentation on topic W."
Possible Attendee: "Are you aware that person A has said things X, Y, and Z,
which taken together can make people reluctant to associate with them?"
Conf: "We are aware of that but do not wish to make our conference about
anything X, Y, or Z. The presentation is topical."
PA: "If you feature this speaker, you will cause some people to be reluctant
to associate with your conference as well."
Conf: "We understand that, but speaker A is discussing topic W, not topics X,
Y, or Z. We choose to feature the speaker because of their presentation on W."
By taking this position, the conference associates itself with the speaker.
Possible attendees will see this association and draw the conclusion that the
conference endorses the speaker, even if that endorsement is only about non-
controversial things that are within the topic of the conference.
Dryly stating that there is no endorsement of any off-topic position does not
remove that association and the implicit endorsement.
Implicit endorsement by association is a real effect. Go talk to any major
politician about how they can't be seen talking to anyone remotely
controversial, because of how associating with that person might be seen as
endorsement.
~~~
Turing_Machine
_The endorsement is implicit, not explicit._
This is totally wrong.
To take a trivial example, criminal defendants (even obviously guilty ones)
are allowed to speak in court.
You're saying that this is an "implicit endorsement" of their crimes by the
court? Are you _really_ claiming that?
~~~
McGlockenshire
False equivalence. A trial isn't a conference.
That said, you should know as well as I do that judges will often restrict
media coverage of hearings and trials in various ways because they know that
the people involved (lawyers & otherwise) can and will attempt to grandstand
and make a show of it, using the media as a platform for their message.
------
wcummings
This is the blog in question: [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/)
Honestly, I can't make heads or tails of it. There's some racist lingo, but
more than anything _this guy seems unhinged, like the kind of person I wouldn
't want to be in a room with, let alone have a conversation with._
------
FireBeyond
Apropos of anything else, the 'lawyer' example is a bad one, and contrived for
the purpose of example.
If an attorney "knows" that their client is guilty, they are duty-bound as
officers of the court to make that knowledge known.
Obviously that doesn't happen as much as it should...
~~~
russellallen
The general rule in Common Law (English speaking) legal systems is that if the
lawyer knows (as opposed to suspects) that their client is guilty, they cannot
let their client plead not guilty. They can still defend the client by
pleading for a lesser sentence etc, or they can cease acting for the client.
They don't have any obligation to tell the court, just an obligation not to
lie to the court. Of course each jurisdiction will have its own rules about
this.
~~~
powera
Except you don't enter a plea for an action, you enter a plea for a criminal
charge. A murderer can confess a crime to his lawyer (under privilege), and
still honestly plead not-guilty to first-degree murder (for example, it could
be considered manslaughter).
------
danharaj
This is an open letter of people protesting LambdaConf's decision:
[https://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io/](https://statement-on-
lambdaconf.github.io/)
I invite anyone to peruse that list and tell me these aren't some of the
brightest professionals and integral community members in functional
programming (subtracting me of course). I welcome anyone to make the claim
that these individuals haven't come to their positions through reason and deep
consideration for the ramifications of how this issue is resolved.
~~~
antifasci
The fact that you cite only a single source should stand as simple enough
reason to discredit it.
In response, I offer you a single citation [0].
0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)
~~~
mmmnop
The fact that you created a new anonymous account to do nothing more than name
call stands as a simple enough way you discredited...you.
McCarthyism was intolerance, not an intolerance of intolerance. It's ironic to
have to explain simple type theory here.
Or maybe not.
~~~
antifasci
And yet, the 'intolerance' that you're so intolerant of goes without citation,
without explanation, without discussion. Strikes me as blatant McCarthyism.
Perhaps my account is anonymous because the comment should stand on its own?
The discussion surrounding this issue shouldn't require personal reputation.
The facts should be sufficient.
~~~
philwelch
I thought the McCarthyists were the ones blacklisting people over their
political beliefs?
------
dham
This may not be a very popular belief but I honestly don't care what other
people believe/think/worship/do as long as it doesn't harm any one else or me.
I have extreme liberals on my Twitter feed as do I have extreme conservatives.
People post stuff every now and again that kind of turns me off, but I still
follow them because they have good stuff to say tech wise. I'm always open
minded to what they post though.
In our profession we can't always work with the most open minded
people(politically) but as long as the work gets done and they are open minded
technically that's all that matters to me. I work with and hang out with
people I don't agree with on certain things, drink beer, go over for dinner.
No issue for me. I'm Libertarian, so politically I have something I can agree
with on both sides usually.
As long as this guy doesn't give any hate speech or harm someone then I
honestly don't see the problem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scarcity of smartphone app developers stifles a growing industry in Michigan - bryckbost
http://www.freep.com/article/20110830/COL41/108300342/Mark-W-Smith-Scarcity-app-developers-stifles-growing-industry
======
bryckbost
Another article to toss in the gloom and doom pile of Michigan software
industry.
Since when have rates, which are competitive in the industry, become a bad
thing? Shouldn't we be praising the fact that our industry is competing with
firms across the globe?
And which industry is this "stifling"? The developers, or the idea-man?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
John McAfee unveils plans for 'the world's first truly private smartphone' - ChefDenominator
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4452720/John-McAfee-unveils-plans-hack-proof-smartphone.html
======
beamatronic
Step 1. Don't have a baseband processor
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tail recursion in Python - zweedeend
http://chrispenner.ca/posts/python-tail-recursion
======
shakna
Someone recently pointed out to me you can bypass the recursion limit with an
inbuilt decorator, because it's basically a memoiser.
lru_cache, from the functools library.
The example given in the docs [0] is:
import functools
@functools.lru_cache(maxsize=None)
def fib(n):
if n < 2:
return n
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
[0]
[https://docs.python.org/3/library/functools.html#functools.l...](https://docs.python.org/3/library/functools.html#functools.lru_cache)
~~~
kqr
This only works in specific cases (namely those where dynamic programming
algorithms suffice), and does not avoid the recursion limit in general.
~~~
abhirag
Don't dismiss one of my favorite higher order functions so soon :)
"Recursion + memoization provides most of the benefits of dynamic programming,
including usually the same running time." \-- Steven Skiena
lru_cache decorator is great for people who are happy to let the language
handle the caching of results for them, and often leads to code which is much
more concise than the dynamic programming approach. The limitation you are
referring to is that the decorator uses a dictionary to cache results and that
dictionary uses the arguments as keys so the arguments need to be hashable.
That limitation can be avoided by using immutable data structures (Clojure
also has a higher order function called memoize which does the same thing and
has no limitations because the core data structures in Clojure are immutable)
and although Python not having structural sharing can mean that this approach
can hurt memory and GC efficiency a bit, but that trade-off is at least worth
considering :)
Still have to keep the stack depth less than sys.getrecursionlimit() so no
substitute for tail recursion but surely a substitute for dynamic programming
in a lot of cases.
~~~
daveFNbuck
You can only avoid the recursion limit in cases where dynamic programming
would also work, as you have to explicitly call the function in reverse stack
order to avoid having the stack build up. If you want fib(10000) you need to
call fib(1) through fib(9999) first, as if you were implementing a dynamic
programming solution.
This isn't dismissive. lru_cache is one of my favorites too, but it has
limitations.
~~~
abhirag
But that isn't a limitation of lru_cache, for example the same higher order
function when used in Clojure i.e. memoize with recur for tail recursion will
not cause stack overflow. The stack build up is because python doesn't support
tail call optimization, not a limitation of lru_cache, just wanted to make it
clear because you can use similar higher order functions in other languages
which support tail call optimization without any limitations. Deep recursion
in Python without sys.setrecursionlimit() is probably not a good idea,
memoization can't help you in that. My point was geared towards presenting
this pattern of memoization using a higher order function + recursion as an
alternative to dynamic programming and in languages with tco and immutable
data structures it works beautifully :)
~~~
daveFNbuck
I agree that this isn't a limitation of the Platonic ideal of an lru_cache
function. I thought we were talking about actual Python code.
------
bjoli
The hackyness/speed issues aside:
When compiling/transpiling/whatever between languages, I have found that
relying on regular procedure calls and TCO is generally a lot simpler than
having to force the looping facility of one language into the semantics of
another language.
The only one I can actually imagine porting other loops to is the common lisp
loop macro, but that is probably the most flexible looping facility known to
man.
Edit: and oh, cool thing: racket and guile has expanding stacks and doesn't
have a recursion limit other than the whole memory of the computer. This is
pretty handy when implementing something like map, since you can write a non-
tail-recursive procedure so that you don't have to reverse the list at the
end.
~~~
pflanze
With regards to stacks that can use all of the memory: Gambit and AFAIK
Chicken behave that way, too. This is one of the reasons I chose Scheme over
OCaml (and Haskell) over a decade ago when looking for a new language to move
to.
~~~
zielmicha
Even Python doesn't need to have stack limit - just make sure C stack is large
enough (e.g. using ulimit or pthread_attr_setstacksize) and use
`sys.setrecursionlimit(1000000000)`.
~~~
pflanze
Making the C stack large enough is not solving it on 32 bit architectures with
enough physical RAM that you can't/don't want to waste address space. And on
64 bit architectures address space isn't a problem, but the memory from a
temporary large stack can't be re-used without swapping the old stack contents
out which is slow.
------
leowoo91
This can also be done using trampolines without using try/catch method:
[https://github.com/0x65/trampoline](https://github.com/0x65/trampoline)
------
jwilk
Code snippets you won't see if you have JS disabled:
[https://gist.github.com/ChrisPenner/c0b3f4feb054daa2f6370d2e...](https://gist.github.com/ChrisPenner/c0b3f4feb054daa2f6370d2e9961d6d3)
[https://gist.github.com/ChrisPenner/c958afbf6e7a763c188d8b83...](https://gist.github.com/ChrisPenner/c958afbf6e7a763c188d8b83275751bb)
~~~
roryhughes
JS fully disabled in this day and age?
~~~
_jal
I've noticed a shift over the last while how privacy-protective people are
becoming "out-group" and a little weird.
I mean, I personally don't care; I've always been a little weird. But it is
funny to see technical preferences as a signaling mechanism.
Funny, that is, until it hits a certain point...
[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-
cre...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-
privacy-invasion)
~~~
nol13
battle is over, privacy lost
~~~
JeremyBanks
Where can I buy your browsing history?
------
bru
> def tail_factorial(n, accumulator=1):
> if n == 0: return 1
> else: return tail_factorial(n-1, accumulator * n)
The second line should be "if n == 0: return accumulator"
~~~
rahimnathwani
0! == 1
EDIT: Oops. As pointed out below, the code is indeed incorrect, and my comment
is irrelevant.
~~~
kelnage
True, but irrelevant. For all values of n > 1, that function will return 1,
which is clearly not what the author intended.
------
stunt
Your code is still allocating a new stack frame anyway. So no optimization is
happening. You are simply avoiding a stack overflow which is not the purpose
of tail-call optimization.
I'm not sure if there is any advantage when language/compiler does not provide
a proper tail recursive optimization.
~~~
quietbritishjim
It's a gross exaggeration to say there's no advantage. Who decided that stack
frame re-use is "the purpose" of tail-call optimization, while not blowing the
stack is not? It seems to me that being able to run the function at all is
more important than whether it runs quickly.
------
a-nikolaev
> It turns out that most recursive functions can be reworked into the tail-
> call form.
This statement in the beginning is not entirely correct. A more accurate
statement would be that all recursive programs that are _iterative_ (if they
are loops in disguise), can be rewritten in a tail-call form. That is, there
must be a single chain of function calls.
The inherently recursive procedures cannot be converted into a tail-call form.
------
__s
A patch that implements TCO in Python with explicit syntax like 'return from
f(x)' could likely get accepted, ending these hacks
~~~
shakna
Would it? My impression is that Guido is fairly against any such thing
occurring [0].
> So let me defend my position (which is that I don't want TRE in the
> language). If you want a short answer, it's simply unpythonic.
[0] [http://neopythonic.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/tail-recursion-
el...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/tail-recursion-
elimination.html)
~~~
__s
His primary concern is with implicit tail recursion
I tried making such a patch in the past, got stuck in the much of trying to
update the grammar file in a way that wouldn't complain about ambiguity
Main thing to get from tail calls vs loops is the case of mutually recursive
functions
~~~
shakna
His primary concern seems more to be stack traces.
At the time, an explicit style, with patch, was proposed to python-ideas. [0]
It was based around continuation-passing-style, and the conclusion reached
then by the community was the same. TCO, explicit or not, isn't wanted in
Python.
> And that's exactly the point -- the algorithms to which TCO _can_ be applied
> are precisely the ones that are not typically expressed using recursion in
> Python. - Greg Ewing [1]
> <sarcasm>Perhaps we should implement "come from" and "go to" while we're at
> it. Oh, let's not leave out "alter" (for those of you old enough to have
> used COBOL) as well! </sarcasm> \- Gerald Britton [2]
Feel free to try again, maybe things have changed.
To be clear, I wish Python did have a mechanism to express these sorts of
problems, but I don't think the Python team themselves want them. This issue
has come up more than a few times, and the dev team have never been satisfied
that Python really needs it.
[0] [https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/0044...](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/004430.html)
[1] [https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/0045...](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/004522.html)
[2] [https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/0045...](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-
ideas/2009-May/004536.html)
------
orf
I experimented with something similar to this way back[1], but took a slightly
different approach - you can replace the reference to the function itself
inside the function with a new function[2], one that returns a 'Recurse'
object. That way it looks like it's calling the original method but really
it's doing your own thing.
1\. [https://tomforb.es/adding-tail-call-optimization-to-
python/](https://tomforb.es/adding-tail-call-optimization-to-python/)
2\. [https://gist.github.com/orf/41746c53b8eda5b988c5#file-
tail_c...](https://gist.github.com/orf/41746c53b8eda5b988c5#file-tail_call-
py-L16)
------
Vosporos
I'm not a pythonista, but this code seems to get rid of the recursion
limitation of the interpreter. Does it actually "optimize" things and make the
function take a constant space as it is calling itself?
~~~
ericfrederich
It takes a constant space since it is not even recursive. The decorator makes
it a non-recursive function with a loop.
It'll effectively side-steps the recursion limit in Python. For runs under the
limit anyway, it'd be interesting to see whether it's any faster. It trades
function call overhead for exception handling overhead.
By the way, the first example where it has `return 1` is wrong. It shoudl
`return accumulator`. Clicking the GitHub link someone suggested this in
December.
------
Bogdanp
You can also do this by rewriting functions with a decorator.
[https://github.com/Bogdanp/tcopy](https://github.com/Bogdanp/tcopy)
------
Bromskloss
def tail_factorial(n, accumulator=1):
if n == 0: return 1
else: return tail_factorial(n-1, accumulator * n)
This just returns 1 every time.
~~~
msuvakov
It should be:
def tail_factorial(n, accumulator=1):
if n == 0: return accumulator
else: return tail_factorial(n-1, accumulator * n)
------
quietbritishjim
This article and the other comments here are interesting, but some are trying
to be a bit too clever. The original article isn't too bad, but one of the
other comments suggests re-writing the contents of the function at run time,
which I really don't think is a practical suggestion (think about debugging
such a thing).
If I wanted to do this in practice, I'd just write the trampoline out
explicitly, unless I wanted to do it a huge number of times. Doing it this way
only takes a couple of extra lines of code but I think that's worth it for the
improvement in explicitness, which is a big help for future maintainers
(possibly me!).
from functools import partial
def _tail_factorial(n, accumulator):
if n == 0:
return accumulator
else:
return partial(_tail_factorial, n - 1, accumulator * n)
def factorial(n):
result = partial(_tail_factorial, n, 1)
while isinstance(result, partial):
result = result()
return result
------
Animats
Tail recursion is a programming idea left over from the LISP era. It's from
when iteration constructs were "while" and "for", and there were no "do this
to all that stuff" primitives. Python doesn't really need it.
~~~
yorwba
Tail calls aren't always just used for some simple iteration. For example, you
could have several mutually recursive functions calling each other in tail
position. If you wanted to turn that into a loop, you'd have to roll all those
functions into a single loop body, which would be made even less elegant due
to the lack of goto statement. (TCO essentially turns a call into a goto
whenever possible.)
~~~
viraptor
Lots of languages can express it better though - even without gotos. For
example in python you can do:
while some_condition:
x = one_generator(y)
y = other_generator(x)
where the generators yield values. No need for goto, no TCO, no magic.
Even in languages like C, a nicer way to express it may be via two explicit
state machines rather than going full Duff's device at this problem.
~~~
lispm
Python's generators are more magic. It's similar to some kind of COME FROM
mechanism.
~~~
viraptor
Weird comparison. Come from has no indication on the other side that it will
happen. Generators are pretty explicit with yield. On the calling side they
can be explicit with a next() call.
~~~
lispm
A generator may have multiple yields, if you call next(), then it comes from
that call to the last yield call - based on the current execution context. The
yield waits that the execution comes back to it.
The idea of function calls is much simpler - no yield magic necessary.
------
tu7001
I used it to play with some functional programming in Python
[https://github.com/lion137/Functional---
Python](https://github.com/lion137/Functional---Python)
------
e12e
> def tail_factorial(n, accumulator=1):
> if n == 0: return 1
> else: return tail_factorial(n-1, accumulator * n)
Does this ever return the accumulator?
[ed: ah, no. I see the first comment on the article is about this bug; it
should return accumulator, not 1]
------
chapill
Tail recursion is a bad idea in multicore land. You end up with a one sided
tree structure that can't be parallel processed.
------
rahimnathwani
Interesting use of exceptions.
~~~
harryf
Indeed although generally it's usually a bad idea to misappropriate the
exception throwing / handling mechanism for other purposes, as it's probably
be less well optimised, performance-wise, than other parts of a VM.
~~~
throwaway110116
not in python. exceptions for flow control are not looked down upon unless
it’s gratuitous usage. many frameworks do exactly this.
~~~
icebraining
Even the language itself does this: if a generator that is being processed by
a for loop returns (rather than yield), the language will raise a
StopIteration exception, which the for loop with catch and use as a signal
that it should exit.
------
cup-of-tea
This is the same as recur in Clojure. It's not general TCO, though, which is
much more powerful.
I do think it's a shame that Python doesn't have general TCO. It's said to be
unpythonic because it means there will be two ways to do things. But some
things are so easily expressed as a recursion but require considerable thought
to be turned into a loop.
~~~
e12e
> But some things are so easily expressed as a recursion but require
> considerable thought to be turned into a loop.
Do you have some examples of problem+solutions where tco works fine (in a
language with tco) - but the manual translation is hard(ish)?
I wonder in part after reading the Julia thread on tco - and difficulties with
providing guarantees in the general case with tco:
[https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/4964](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/4964)
~~~
lysium
Usually, I implement state machines with mutually tail recursive functions.
Each function represents one state.
~~~
e12e
Right. The general rewrite would be a loop with a switch and state functions
that returned a state? (i was going to say state functions that called back to
a step function, but I guess that'd still build a call stack).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin Has Crashed – What Now? - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2019/09/25/bitcoin-has-crashed-what-now/
======
rvz
Perhaps this is the best news that has happened for those who missed this
year's dip. The author has just answered his own question in this article.
> I’ll be buying the dip but not in a hurry.
Good. Do that and diversify your cryptocurrency portfolio.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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