jfmercer

This is brilliant work! I hope that Apple doesn't hit you with a takedown order.

This is the best thing I've seen on HN in a long, long time.

Isn't "securing lasting freedoms for all" a hyperbolic title for this issue?

Happy New Year's

This looks like a very promising resource.

I paid 100EUR for VIP.

According to sokra, this ought to be the final rc. From the release notes: "This is probably the last RC. We released it as final test. If no critial bugs are discovered, we release 2.2.0 in < 10 days."

"The English and Their History" by Robert Tombs. This isn't simply another "here's what happened" history book. Rather, it focuses not simply on what happened and why it happened, but more so on the stories the English tell themselves about their own history and how that formed and continues to form their complex ethnic, national, and historical identity. For example, the Henry V that impressed itself on the English imagination was not so much the real, historical Henry V, but rather the hero of Shakespeare's "Henriad": Henry IV, Parts I and II, and Henry V. (Cf. the St. Crispin's Day speech: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," etc.) Dr. Tombs is the Professor of French at Cambridge. Ironically, after devoting a lifetime to studying the civilization on the opposite side of the Channel, he has written a masterpiece on the history of his own people.

If you're looking for a book on the British Empire, this isn't it. Of course, the Empire is an essential topic in the book; however, Tombs focus remains centered on Britain, and, more specifically, England itself. For example, when discussing the Seven Years War, Tombs emphasizes how events abroad affected domestic politics without going into great detail about the international events themselves.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in English history.

Dear Facebook,

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

IME, breathless superlatives such as "all x should be y" are almost never true. That said, the author did go to great lengths to support his argument.

This brilliant. And great fun.

Regarding this discovery, I would argue that debates about the quality of the KJV translation are beside the point. This is a tremendous historical discovery, especially for historians of the early English Reformation. The KJV formed the mind of British Christianity for centuries, which in turn formed the mind of the British Empire. In other words, the KJV translation is important not merely for early Reformation studies, but for world history more generally. Anything that could give historians greater insight into the process of the KJV translation, as well as the theology (theologies?) of its translators, is a great discovery.

(A side-note regarding the Empire and Christianization: in the early centuries of the Empire, the British were primarily interested in trade and conquest, but not so much in evangelization and conversion of native peoples. The East India Company (EIC) was a good example of this: as long as profits and goods flowed in from India, the leaders of the EIC were content not only to leave native religions alone, but even to intermarry with native Muslims and Hindus and allow each wife to raise her children in her own particular faith tradition. Hence the creation of a new ethnicity: the Anglo-Indian. However, in the 19th century, an evangelical revival effected a sea-change in British Christianity, and thus the Empire became a vast instrument of evangelization and conversion. At this point, I think, the KJV became important for world history, rather than British history in particular.)

I know a woman in her mid-60s who has been programming since the late 1960s. She's much more than an "experienced dev": she is a sage, a teacher, and a grand-master of the art of computer programming: a true engineer in the very core of her being. Yet she can't find steady employment. She believes that is because of age discrimination, and I cannot help but to agree with her.

This is a remarkable innovation. I wish Ogo Tech the best of success.

Your mention of "little fiefdoms" reminded me of a piece that Bruce Schneier wrote called "Feudal Security": https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht....

Unless I am mistaken, that is exactly the case.

Of particular interest to me was how pedigree collapse transforms our family trees from exponentially growing binary trees into directed acyclic graphs.

We are accustomed to thinking that, because we have four unique grandparents, we must have eight unique great-grandparents. But this is not always so. For example, if our grandparents are two brothers who married two sisters, then we have four great-grandparents, not eight.

That fact alone--that, out of all of the characters, Tom alone has power of the Ring--is enough to captivate the reader's attention. Add to that the whole business of being "Oldest" and "Fatherless", yet being neither a Vala, nor a Maia, nor even Eru Iluvatar, is enough to make him worthy of deep scrutiny, research, conversation, and speculation.

Tom Bombadil is undoubtably one of Tolkien's most popular--and fascinating--characters. The author, km-515, seems not to understand this.

The author of the article, km-515, is the first person I've ever heard of who does not like Tom Bombadil.

"What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He lies."

The author fundamentally misunderstands Tom Bombadil, both in terms of where he fits (or doesn't) into Tolkien's mythology, and in terms of Tom's literary purpose.

Tolkien deliberately made Tom an enigma: "And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)" (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 144, dated 1954).

The following are three suggested articles that are far more intelligent, subtle, well-researched, and balanced in comparison to km-515's rant.

Mark Fischer, The Riddle of Tom Bombadil: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html

Steuard Jensen, What is Tom Bombadil?: http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Bombadil.html

Gene Hargrove, Who is Tom Bombadil?: http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html

I've been hoping for exactly the same thing.

This is magnificent.

Correction: It was Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed [1], not Chief Justice Earl Warren [2], who "expressed concern that if the Court's power became too widespread, America would have, instead of democracy, kritarchy". He did so in late July 1953, specifically regarding the not-yet-decided Brown v. Board of Eduction decision of May 1953, in a discussion with one of his law clerks, John David Fassett. He confronted Fassett with the question, "Are you one of those people who believes in krytocracy?" Apparently, he discussed this question at length with his law clerks in the months leading up to the Brown decision. I could find no evidence that he spoke with his Supreme Court colleagues about it, but, then again, I've done no real research.

Also according to Fassett, in a February 1953 memo--three months before the Brown ruling--fellow Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson [3] used the term "a ruthless use of judicial power." Although Jackson did not use the term "krytocracy," Fassett commented, "That was sort of Justice Reed's feeling too--his krytocracy thought was the same thing."

I found all of the above in this article [4].

Finally, it is worth noting that, regardless of certain Justices' concerns about the Constitutional limits of judicial authority, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson by a unanimous vote, 9-0.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Forman_Reed

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson

[4] http://www.roberthjackson.org/files/theman/speeches-articles...

It is worth noting that the first two issues were settled via Constitutional Amendments, whereas the second two were decided by the Supreme Court. If I were a betting man, I would bet that the SSM issue will also be settled by the Supreme Court, not by Constitutional Amendment.

It seems that, as a nation, we Americans can no longer settle divisive national (and therefore Federal) issues via the democratic process envisioned by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution: amendment of the Constitution itself. Instead, we leave ultimate decision making power in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Former Chief Justice Earl Warren expressed concern that if the Court's power became too widespread, America would have, instead of democracy, kritarchy: rule by judges.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the mythology surrounding the Founding Fathers really boils down to taxation.

Atcore Systems: http://www.atcoresystems.com/

Atlanta, GA

We're hiring all levels of PHP developers. Knowledge of JS, esp. Backbone and Underscore, is a big plus.

I'm a software dev, not a recruiter, so I can't give you a fancy description.

Basically, we build custom CRM solutions using PHP and JavaScript. At 15 employees or so, we're a small company. We're not a rapidly expanding, venture capitally funded start-up. Just a small, growing business. We work humane hours.

I've had more fun at this gig than at any other job I've ever had. The people make the place great.

If you're interested, contact us via our website or Twitter, @AtcoreSystems.

<sarcasm>Great. Programmers talking as if we were economists. Here we go.</sarcasm>

"Gateway: Unable to connect to host."

The writer seems to have no understanding whatsoever of either Bitcoin or economics. Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme only in an imaginary world.