gruseom

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=400017

https://web.archive.org/web/20120709151526/http://failuremag...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ByyMd_qDA

Related series from a decade ago:

https://billwadge.com/2011/04/27/lucid-the-dataflow-language...

https://billwadge.com/2011/12/06/lucid-into-the-abyss/

https://billwadge.com/2012/03/31/lucid-eduction/

https://billwadge.com/2012/04/15/lucid-retirement-plan/

Also, re "yes, that David May, then a grad student": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_May_(computer_scientist)

p.s. Bill, if you see this, your wordpress links in the current post all redirect to a login page.

his theories of psychosis are considered nonsense these days

They were considered nonsense when he first put them out, too. That's what happens when you challenge a field at its foundations.

R.D. Laing is a major figure in the history of psychiatry and psychotherapy. His radical critique of how society treats the mentally ill, and advocacy for a more humane approach, are legendary. Laing was also a charismatic guy who became a celebrity of the 60s and 70s counterculture.

The most famous of Laing's experiments was Kingsley Hall, where patients and therapists (though presumably they didn't use those terms) would live together, and where the focus was on helping through simple presence and relationship rather than techniques or treatments. Here is a striking, even astonishing story from one of the houses Laing started after Kingsley Hall: https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/living-one-r-d-laings-p.... I posted it here years ago, where it didn't get one upvote (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259), but I still think it's one of the most interesting submissions I've made to HN.

The author of that piece, who at the time of the story was a young therapist enamored of Laing's approach, is now the founder of the new(ish) Gnosis Retreat Center in San Francisco, along with a bunch of other people who worked with Laing. Here he is talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-lJWwwRc8#t=8m53s.

I think it's interesting that they are making a fresh start at reviving what Laing did, and that it's in San Francisco. That's why I posted this, though I certainly didn't mean to bork their server!

Can you say what similarities you've noticed between the two programs?

Here’s one passage I remember after many years: Byron explaining how convenient it was for schoolboys that the editors of the classics had thoughtfully collected all the obscene bits in one place. They were too prudish to leave them in the text, but too scholarly to delete them altogether.

  Juan was taught from out the best edition,
    Expurgated by learnéd men, who place
  Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,
    The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface
  Too much their modest bard by this omission,
    And pitying sore his mutilated case,
  They only add them all in an appendix,
  Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;

  For there we have them all "at one fell swoop,"
    Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages;
  They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop,
    To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
  Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
    To call them back into their separate cages,
  Instead of standing staring all together,
  Like garden gods—and not so decent either.

you could also just avoid your migraine trigger

Jerry Weinberg, who died yesterday, used to say that every time you hear the j-word ("just") you should replace it with "have trouble", i.e. "you could also have trouble avoiding your migraine trigger". He was talking about software projects, but the rule is general. The j-word usually indicates that difficulty is being glossed over.

You're welcome. It's delightful that you did all that with it.

Yippee!

That's touching, but I probably won't. All things go.

Hi, though!

A classic, one of the most insightful things ever written about programming, and way ahead of its time (1985).

The actual paper is at http://alistair.cockburn.us/ASD+book+extract%3A+%22Naur,+Ehn... (Edit: that link is broken now, but http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf still works.)

What Naur means by "theory" is some combination of what we'd now call "model" and "design".

Naur put the N in BNF and played a role in creating Algol.

What was challenging about it? I'd like to hear.

If you're right, then I misread the article, which is quite possible.

I love motorcyles and motorcycle-commuted for years, and yes—it sure beats driving a car. But it's not a counterexample here! There is no comparison to walking or biking, especially to work. As I said above, the effect is astonishing.

If I'm walking or biking somewhere, especially anywhere work-related, it feels so damn good. If I know that in the past I'd have been doing it in a car, it feels twice as good. If I see lots of other people in cars trying to do the same thing, I have the moral problem of trying to control my schadenfreude.

The one exception I'd make for automated vehicles, but it's only a partial exception, is trains. As someone once quoted on HN: "Everybody hates buses and everybody loves trains." Trains don't have the quality of walking or bicycling, but they have some other lesser quality that still feels pretty good. Well, maybe motorcycles and trains are tied for second. :)

Holy cow is this ever true:

But one group of commuters report enjoying themselves. These are people who travel under their own steam [...] They walk. They run. They ride bicycles.

Completely matches my experience, and it's astonishing how strong the effect is.

You're right. "Common" means something so different than it used to pre-internet. I'm reminded of that every time I google something I think is special.

Edit (missed your other question): He pronounces it "Miller".

The benefit is getting a car, or a place to stay, far more easily.

My point isn't that these services are net good (though I do think so). It's that any "net bad" argument that doesn't consider these benefits isn't serious and so discredits its own side.

Regardless of one's opinion, how can you have a serious discussion without mentioning the benefit users get from these products? That's what drives the whole thing.

A friend of mine has the last name Miiller—i.e. "Miller" with a ludicrous extra "i". This is because when his ancestors named Müller came over, someone didn't recognize "ü" and wrote down "ii".

He's very proud of it, several generations later.

I see it a lot

If so, you should be able to find three examples. Can I please see them? Specifically, three comments that aren't in any way rude, downvoted for expressing an unpopular view?

The reason I'm curious is that I try to watch out for that, yet have only seen one comment recently which seemed to me downvoted purely for expressing an unpopular opinion, and even it was somewhat borderline.

You're training people not to say something others disagree with.

That's not true if most such comments get more upvotes than downvotes.

It looks like you've been astroturfing this thread. That will make this community about as friendly as a wild boar on fire.

Those two comments are far from the only data points, though. But now I really am too lazy to look any more up.

My memory is simply that PG always said downvoting for disagreement was fine and many users have always thought he made the wrong call. Still, it's his site, so his call to make.

The interesting thing to me is how confident these users are that they're quoting the site rules, when really they're contradicting them, de facto if not de jure. Just like a lot of us Canadians think that famous U.S. laws (e.g. Miranda rights) apply here, because we've seen them many times on TV, so a lot of HNers assume that this Reddit rule exists on HN.

presumably you downvoted me as you disagreed

Couldn't! Also wouldn'tve.

San Francisco used to be weird, beautiful, edgy

the fault of the NIMBYs, who [...] deserve far more hatred

When I lived in SF, the "weird, beautiful, and edgy" older culture was very much also the anti-development and NIMBY culture. I'd be surprised if that were no longer true.

Does that make it true?

It makes it true that it's the site policy, yes.

Do the first two links I listed here count? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451438

I wouldn't say it's ever been agreed on; I'm pretty sure people disagreed about this from day one. And downvoted each other about it :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691

http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

I'm talking about what the HN policy has always been. This is a factual question, and it's not as you describe it.

What's interesting is how the opposite gets repeated far more often, usually in an authoritative tone, as if the speaker had just consulted a rulebook.

Sorkin is deeply conventional. He will almost certainly replicate the pre-existing myth, in an edgy way and with glib zingers.