anon1685

As much as I detest censorship it seems to me that there's a good argument to be made for censoring pornography, or even outlawing it altogether.

I believe pornography is a destructive force in modern society. If modern leaders have (more or less) come to the conclusion that environmental pollution is harmful to earth and to human kind, and have put in place measures (however controversial) to reduce said pollution, maybe it's time for them to recognize that pornography is just as harmful, and that it too should be stopped, or at least reduced. If we need to take measures to protect our bodies, should we not also protect our souls?

Typical Zed, but reading Max's email I have to agree it's quite offensive.

"... the Israeli method of doing airport screening is to be admired"

Well that depends on who you ask. Palestinians or even people with distant Arab roots who are subject to racial profiling, or even people suspected of being, god forbid, peace activists might tell you otherwise. Some examples:

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-more-...

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/big-hold.html

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/6148-palestinian-at...

Putting aside the condescending tone of the article, the actual argument represents the typical Israeli knee-jerk reaction to terrorism, and the absolutely myopic, black-and-white, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anyone-else's-pain-because-we've-been-through-the-holocaust world view so proudly exhibited by the Israeli mainstream.

I'm also Israeli (although not currently living in Israel), and I can assure you that there are many Israelis, me included, who are very disturbed by the recent NSA revelations.

The idea is interesting, but I would imagine you need to take into account various forms in which people might want to express their intent. For example, "train from A to B" instead of "I need a train from A to B", or "flight tickets to C" (the current location omitted and can be detected using IP geolocation).

Another thought I had was that many people might actually prefer to interact with checkboxes and select from a list, especially if they're using a mobile device.

Original article here:

http://blog.docker.io/2013/06/create-light-weight-docker-con...

If I'm not mistaken this was already posted not so long ago on HN. Why use slideshare.net for something that's obviously not a slide deck?

Funny how things change. This kind of bullshit was developed into an art form in communist regimes. Does this say something about the future of capitalism?

I believe it's the same in every field of work. Even working in the garden or doing some fixing around the house. I'm now approaching 40 and find myself much more physically able than I was 10 years ago, mainly because I'm more patient and know better how to use my body.

Israel Corp. was privatized over the years and is now a publicly traded company.

Secular thinking can also become a folly, just like any religious thinking. For example, believing that anything and everything can be measured in numbers, or refusing to acknowledge any phenomenon which cannot be explained scientifically.

A rational mentality does lead to a more civilized society, but sometimes it can be just as cruel.

My own humble contribution (lots of Bach and other baroque composers):

https://github.com/ciconia/music

I couldn't agree more. There's a saying in Hebrew: "There are no bad kids, there are only kids who feel bad."

It cannot be denied, and to my understanding most ADHD research seems to support this, that the social environment and family circumstances have a great influence on the child's behavior. As a parent to two pretty active pre-schoolers, I can attest that their behavior will frequently mirror that of their parents and other significant adults. In other words - if their father behaves in a calm and patient manner, they will tend to do the same, subsequently if not immediately.

Also, the education system in the western world has become increasingly standardized and formalized in the last few decades, especially in primary education, to the point that all kids from kindergarten on are expected to conform to a standard of behavior and development. Unfortunately, not all kids are the same. Some find it harder to sit down for prolonged periods, some have a healthy amount of energy and need an outlet, like those puppies who can go out in the yard and chase their own tail for half an hour.

This raises a lot of questions, not only about ADHD, but also about retarded mental development or other disabilities. I believe for those kids, the worst thing one can do is to label them as ADHD and medicate them. They just need a different approach, or a different rhythm.

To me it seems that the real difference between countries like France and countries like the US really has to do with the way so-called abnormal kids (or adults for that matter) are received in society. Based on my experience, it seems that the French are more tolerant.

Another pontification from Saint John: "They want everything; their ambition is boundless."

I fail to see how is this different from other big players: Facebook, Micrsoft, Amazon, or even Holy Apple: each wants a piece of the action, and each is prepared to fight for it to the best of their abilities.

Apple used to sell PC's. It now also sells smartphones, tablets, music, movies, e-books, and cloud services. Apple too has entered existing markets and has crushed (or tried to crush) smaller competitors when it served its interests.

There's nothing wrong with this, just please spare us the condescending tone. Google does some great things, Google does some shitty things, just like everybody else (and Apple).

If this became a real problem, wouldn't the pragmatic solution be to distribute the load across multiple machines? I fail to see how handling 10M connections on a single machine has any merit, taking into account reliability for example, apart from being able to brag about it.

Many modern digital tuners offer the ability to tune by various historical temperaments, making the use of historical tuning both easy and fast. However, it is important IMO to understand how the different tuning methods came about, the math behind them and the harmonic implications they entail.

Trying to explain historical tuning using the circle of fifth is actually incorrect, even when it pertains to keyboard instruments. The concept of a cycle of fifths is relatively recent, is not compatible with harmonic theory before the 18th century, and is useless for explaining meantone for example.

It's also important to take into account that the different tuning methods go hand in hand with specific kinds/styles/periods of music. Therefore it's important to present them in a historical context. The website touches on this briefly, but a more comprehensive discussion can be found elsewhere, for example on wikipedia.

In western music one can discern the following periods which correspond with basically universal (disclaimer: the following is grossly generalized):

1. Ancient Greece - the discovery of the mathematical rules of harmony (both musical and celestial) is attributed to Pythagoras, based on the superparticular ratios based on the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4: 2:1 - diapason (octave) 3:2 - diapente (fifth) 4:3 - diatessaron (fourth)

This mathematical framework was superimposed on the Greek system of tetrachords (4-note scales), in their various genera, which always covered a diatessaron (fourth), the most common genus being the diatonic (composed of 2 whole tones and 1 semitone). The so called Pythagorean system divided the diapason into two tetrachords, divided by a whole tone. It is interesting to note that the modern major scale is still basically the same construct as that of the ancient greeks: two diatonic tetrachords with a whole tone in the middle.

2. Middle Ages (up until early 15th century) - the musical and mathematical thought of the middle ages came of course from the classical era, and in the music of the middle ages the prevalent tuning method for all intents and purposes was based on Pythagorean ideas. We now call this method the Pythagorean tuning.

The basic idea is that all ratios are derived from the fifth (3:2). In the key of C, D would be tuned at a ratio of 9:8 (fifth minus fourth), E would be tuned at (9:8)^2 (the product of two whole tones), etc. The advantage of this system, compared to the Greek system, is the ability to wander into other keys. With the advent of Guido d'Arezzo hexachord system with its moveable hexachords, knowing how to tune Bb or F#, or go even further to Ab or G# became a matter of tuning a sequence of fifth.

It is important to note that this does not imply a closed cycle of fifth. In fact, tuning a sequence of 12 fifths (and then canceling the 7 octaves we climbed), starting from C and ending on B#, would give us a note significantly higher than the one we started with. This difference is called the pythagorean comma (about 1/8 tone).

The implications of this system are manifold: - no enharmonic identity - C is not B#, Eb is not D# - # is (relatively) high, b is low - Pythagorean thirds are dissonant: 9:8 * 9:8 = 81:64. Just thirds (based on the natural harmonic series) are 5:4, or 80:64. The resulting difference, 81:80, is called the syntonic comma (about 1/9 tone). In medieval music, cadences include only the stable, consonant intervals of fifths and octaves (with resulting fourths). Thirds and sixths are considered mid-way between consonant and dissonant, and are considered unstable.

3. Renaissance and early baroque - the age of meantone (15th century to late 17th century) - while various experiments have been made during the renaissance with just intonation and with equal tuning, they never took hold. Just intonation means that we lose the ability to move between keys. Equal temperament means that we have lousy thirds (almost as lousy as pythagorean thirds). The musical taste of the renaissance demanded on the one hand consonant, sonorous thirds, and on the other hand the ability to move between keys.

To that end the meantone tuning was developed, with a very simple idea: if four 3:2 fifths give us a dissonant third that is too high, why don't we temper each of the four fifths so we'll get a pure third? The amount of tempering is actually very small, only a quarter of a syntonic comma, or about 5 cents in present-day terms. Contrary to just intonation, where the interval C-D is 9:8 and the interval C-E (where E is a pure third) is 10:9, in meantone tuning the D is right in the middle between C and E, therefore the name of this system.

The tempering of the fifths is continued in the sequence of fifths in both directions: C-G-D-etc, and C-F-Bb-etc. The implications are: - no enharmonic identity - like in Pythagorean tuning. - # is low, b is high (the opposite of Pythagorean tuning). - fifths are slightly beating, but the pure thirds more than make up for it - 1/4 comma meantone has an indescribable sweetness to it. - Since all fifths are equal, all keys sound the same, and you can easily move between keys. This also means that instruments with different pitches (as was the situation during the late 17th century and even later), could play together without problems on intonation, at least theoretically. In that regard meantone is a kind of equal temperament. - When tuning keyboard instruments in meantone, the tuner has to select whether to tune each black key as sharp or flat. Also, one fifth would be unusable (it would be way too wide). Meantone temperament on a keyboard with 12 notes per octave is actually quite limiting.

It is important however to note that meantone is not a cyclical temperament, you can theoretically continue the sequence of fifth in both directions (sharp and flat) and you'll never close the circle.

A different way of thinking about meantone temperament is the division of the octave into X equal intervals. It turns out that 1/4 comma meantone fits almost exactly a division of the octave into 31 equal parts, where a whole tone is 5 parts, the diatonic semitone (e.g. C-Db) is 3 parts, the chromatic semitone (e.g. C-C#) is 2 parts.

This idea of dividing the octave into more than 12 equal parts led in the 16th century to much experimentation, mostly in Italy, in building keyboard instruments with split sharps, allowing the player to play both sharps and flats and removing the 12-notes per octave limit.

Renaissance theoreticians experimented with tempering fifths by varying amounts such as 1/5 comma, 1/6 comma, 2/7 comma, and leading to a division of the octave to 19 parts, 43 parts and 55 equal parts.

The 1/6 comma meantone (and corresponding division of the octave into 55 equal parts), became popular towards the end of the 17th century, and gained new adherents towards the end of the 18th century, with both Mozarts (father and son) being some of its proponents.

4. Baroque - towards the end of the 17th century meantone temperament became increasingly seen as limiting and unsuitable to contemporary musical taste. As players and composers became more attached to the different affects of the different keys, and wanted to be released from the limits of meantone on keyboards, musicologists started looking for a way to temper the fifths such that all fifths would be usable.

This led to the invention of the closed temperament, with Werckmeister being the first to offer a recipe for the tuning of keyboards, where 4 of the fifths are each tempered by a 1/4 of a pythagorean comma. The rest of the fifths are pure. This creates a system where all keys are usable, but some would be more dissonant than others.

Werckmeister was soon followed by others such as Neidhardt, Valotti, Kirnberger, etc, each with his own recipe for tempering some of the fifths by varying amounts. The principle is always the same: the total amount of tempering is equal to a Pythagorean comma.

Some instructions, such as the various instructions for the French "tempérament ordinaire" are much more vague, and just start with a pure third in one of the main keys (C, F or G), tempering its constituent fifths, and becoming more and more dissonant as one goes farther away in the cycle of fifths.

It is important to understand that all these temperaments were intended for keyboard instruments, and that players of other instruments, as well as singers, were expected to follow certain conventions based on meantone ideas, but that's another topic of discussion.

5. Equal temperament - equal temperament, although a very old idea (it goes back at least to the 16th century), only gained popularity with the rise of the piano, being the first mass-produced musical instrument. Of course it also has to do with the fact that composers of the romantic era became increasingly adventurous in their harmonies and fond of employing enharmonic modulations, thus erasing any notion of difference between sharps and flats, from Chopin and Liszt to Wagner, Mahler and beyond.

Although the historical tuning methods came back into use together with the revival of early music and historical instruments, it is a sad fact that today equal temperament is so universal, so omnipresent that we have become completely desensitized to the fact that basically all the intervals we hear today, except for the octave, are dissonant to some degree.

If anybody has more questions I'd be happy to help. I've quite a bit of experience in this field.

This is from Novemeber 2012, and they still haven't fixed it?

Even if the girl practiced poor judgement, it's obvious she was not malicious. it's remarkable how the US has become completely intolerant to people making mistakes.

So according to the article we have a girl with good grades and behavior doing something stupid which did not cause any damage or hurt anyone. Her punishment for this is expulsion and trial as adult?

Am I the only one who thinks Gruber is greatly overrated? OK, we get it, Apple's on top and anyone who thinks different (no pun intended) is an asshole/douchbag. And again with how Eric Schmidt "wasn't exactly being honest" etc.

My own TLDR: Google screwed Apple with Android, and for that they should burn in hell for all eternity.

Maybe sickness is socialist, but medicine is not...

I had a lasik surgery about 12 years ago. First I had to undergo an eye examination, then a few weeks later I came in for the surgery, which took I guess no more than 15 minutes.

The procedure itself was quite simple: after applying anesthetic to the eyes, the doctor performs an incision in your retina, then a fancy laser machine cuts the retina based on the data collected in the examination.

The sensation during the operation was a bit surreal - as the effect of the procedure is apparent immediately once it's done: I could see everything clearly after years of having to wear eyeglasses. After the surgery they gave me a pair of translucent goggles, which I had to wear for a couple of days, and some eyedrops against infection.

I came back for an examination a few days later and it turned out I had better than 20/20 vision. I hadn't had any examination since, but I still have very sharp vision, better than most people I know. The only downside I can tell is that my eyes seem to be more sensitive to bright sunlight than most people.

As mentioned above, two factor authentication.

- SSL termination.

- Support for persistent (keep-alive) connections. A small detail which bit me when I deployed using Haproxy: it sets the X-Forwarded-For header only for the first request. Subsequent requests on the same connection will not include that header.

Maybe you should take a business course in order to develop your abilities.

I believe it's better to try to realize your dreams and face difficulties (or even failure) than to take the safe road and 10 years later be sorry you didn't follow your heart.

I know plenty of people who took a well paying job instead of doing something for themselves. Years later they are too old to look for another job, and depend on it completely for supporting their families. It's really a shame.

All in all a very pleasant upgrade. After reading about all the new features and iOS-like feel, I was surprised at how the changes seem really gradual.

pros: still the most elegant OS, the performance seems a bit snappier (just my feeling). cons: The grayness of all the UI elements (e.g. Finder windows) together with the more square appearance of the buttons creates a more somber, less playful atmosphere.

I would just do it instead of talking about it.