IANAD

I saw this in AI: https://youtu.be/-isE7cFJTzU?t=1m36s

It was the original title.

> Are they really "so complicated", or is it just a large amount of options, many of which might actually be ignorable for the task you're doing, that contribute to such an impression of complexity?

Apache's library called it HSSF, Horrible Spreadsheet Format. You make the call.

:)

Please stop with the razors. Someone will get cut.

Great! Might try contacting FSF. They could help you get it sorted:

http://www.fsf.org/

What about the following text in README:

'If you are building from source then you get no support and must work within the restrictions specified of the fair source licence (see LICENSE.txt for details). To purchase support see https://searchcode.com/product/#downloadlinks'

And what about:

'Use of this software is governed by the Fair Source License included in the LICENSE.TXT file'

No period there at the end, but that seems to indicate to use the LICENSE.TXT.

And then, even worse:

'In order to deal with the case of my death or this software becoming abandoned it has a time-bomb where the licence will change exactly 3 years after the publish date of a version release. This means that if version 1.0.0 was released on 1 July 2010 then it can be taken using the listed alternate licence on 2 July 2013. This licence, version and time is all specified below.'

There is no definition of what 'software becoming abandoned' (Which 'software'? What does 'abandoned' mean?). There is no definition of what 'it can be taken' means. The example date is one day more than three years and the dates given as examples could confuse the date intended for expiry. There is no definition of what should be used as the 'publish date of a version release'.

While these things may seem common sense to a developer, they should have a clear legal interpretation.

I'm not sure if this will work as it is currently, and here's why:

https://github.com/boyter/searchcode-server/blob/master/LICE...

Clearly shows that it is released under the Fair Source License, version 0.9 with no mention of license termination and restricted rights. It is NOT free.

https://github.com/boyter/searchcode-server/blob/master/READ...

then states:

'After the following date 27-August-2019 you may choose to use this software, version "1.2.3" or "1.2.4" under the GNU General Public License Version 3 with terms specified at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt'

This is so wrong. Not that it is GPL, but this both contradicts the license and states that you "may choose to use this software..." under the GNU GPLv3. Also, the missing comma after "1.2.4" is a mistake in grammar.

I'd say, as-is, you should consider this licensing unreliable. Yes, he posted in his blog stating his intention, but as it is now, it would appear that if a ruling had to be made on the actual license, it could very well be that the only valid license is the one in LICENSE.txt.

Since that is unclear, though, if I were a user and cared about the license, I'd get a good lawyer to figure this out before making any assumptions.

And, I would suggest that he get a lawyer to help craft the required changes to his license.

> The entrenched parties would have had a list of approved questions to avoid such a mistake

Not knowing Syria is a huge problem for an incoming president.

Having a warrant out is not something that I would take lightly in someone who aims to be commander-in-chief.

> This feels like the most important US presidential election I've ever witnessed, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure we're all involved.

Same for me. It's also the nuttiest US presidential election I've ever witnessed.

According to HuffPost Pollster, Trump has an unfavorable rating of 58%, Clinton has an unfavorable rating of 56%.

With numbers like that, neither should be in the race, imo.

But, the only other two candidates either risk Clinton being elected and don't know what/where Aleppo is (Gary Johnson) or are wanted on trespassing and mischief charges and risk Trump getting elected (Jill Stein).

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/gary-johnson-aleppo-22...

http://abc7chicago.com/news/jill-stein-appears-in-chicago-wh...

Did anyone notice that it is 0.4 percent of Japan's population?

As of 2010, about 2 percent of the U.S. adult population have a severe form of social phobia and have trouble leaving their house, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health: http://www.livescience.com/16216-outgoing-shy-personality-na...

It's not coming to the west. It's more here than there.

I don't know about it being the fault of the education system, though.

I'm an introvert and tend toward reclusion, but still think that reclusion can be bad. We should interact with others to help them and to be helped IRL.

First, I learned a lot from this. But, here's some light criticism:

1. Joel saying "I didn't understand that question" and then moving on might have been succinct and practical, but it was just not a good reflection of him.

2. He acts like R1C1 mode is the only way handle relative references for the first 13 minutes. One of the first things I learned in Excel was $ to pin a reference to row or column in what he calls "baby mode". I think it's not babyish to use $ which is more succinct; you can edit the formula and see the calculated value right away. It seemed like he waited a long time to talk about that.

3. "Almost none of which you can do in Google spreadsheets" at 18:15. Sounds so pro-Microsoft, right? Yet, if you look, he's obviously using OS X, which is surprising to me, because MS Office has historically sucked on OS X compared to its Windows counterpart, and it's been incomplete: https://9to5mac.com/2016/01/21/windows-mac-ipad-microsoft-of... even though, yes, it's a lot better than it used to be. Also, Google docs is free.

> there will never be another Rock genre in terms of popularity

That is purely based on your recent experience, and I believe it to be short-sighted.

As an example, Classical Period music was popular roughly between 1730 and 1820. That's 90 years- in comparison, Rock is only about 61 years old.

Rock will no doubt continue to influence future musicians even when it is no longer the predominant form of popular music. But, assuming history repeats itself, which it tends to do, Rock probably won't be the last popular form of music spanning several decades.

And I believe what will replace Rock will be some form of electronic pop.

I wonder how many rationalists on HN this post will piss off before it falls off the main page.

"Reality", "science", "fact", and "logic": these are all arbitrary concepts and disciplines that are stuck in a limited worldview. There is no true objectivity we can experience as humans.

Just because we don't experience something or it doesn't fit with what we consider rational thought, it doesn't mean that that thing cannot exist.

However, we learn this truth from science itself- in seeing how other living things experience life and react and how it is so different than how we experience it- how we aren't made to be objective.

The means of showing us truth we've relied on is flawed. At this point, the rationalist understands why Plato divides into thing and form- because form is the only ideal that is an anchor when you realize that our experience is unreliable: https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/I...

But, then when you accept form as the ideal and reject things, you have rejected everything we have to understand form. So, you fail to have anything dependably rational left.

> It's an order of magnitude more difficult to make a meaningful contribution to the Linux kernel

Any contribution that is kept is meaningful.

He could start by taking the Eudyptula Challenge: https://www.linux.com/blog/learn-how-contribute-linux-kernel...

Or he could read one of the many other resources out there about how to get started: https://www.linux.com/news/three-ways-beginners-contribute-l... https://kernelnewbies.org/ https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-contribu... https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/development-process... https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SubmittingPatches http://helenfornazier.blogspot.com/2015/06/linux-kernel-how-... http://ozlabs.org/~rusty/Stupidity.html http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4576332/i-want-to-contrib... ...

What would be more impressive to me and practical would be spending time contributing to the Linux kernel. That is something that companies would more likely be interested in.

Another problem is that Google is still caching the "hates design" from his Twitter feed: https://www.google.com/#q=mathieu+passenaud

> “Zen-like patience” isn’t a typical trait associated with entrepreneurs.

Or investors.

> Go back to fixed function hardware?

Battlestar Galactica phones?

No, but I think we will eventually go to peer-based mesh networks with smarter clients. The reasons are:

1. Mobile devices keep getting faster and have more memory- they aren't and shouldn't be dumbed-down clients peddled by telecom companies to get them to buy their services.

2. People don't want to pay for things they shouldn't have to, like interconnectivity, if there are enough devices for everyone to pull off the network without help.

From the text: "...it is community itself that has ultimate controls over the catalogue of what is available."

I take that to mean that this isn't really controllable by DMCA. So, they are just giving DMCA lip service.

"Additionally, bids can also be retracted at any time, even if you’re the current winning bidder. To prevent a name from rapidly switching between multiple resolutions, the parties that have existing control of a name have a reasonable period of time to respond to counter bids before a name’s resolution switches."

"Since LBRY names are the equivalent to content storefronts, we believe that LBRY names will hold the most value to rightsholders who produce content associated with a given name."

"As names in demand on LBRY will be more expensive, the names themselves will also serve as a signal of reputation, legitimacy, and quality. If a user searches LBRY for Spider Man and sees one at lbry://spiderman and one at lbry://spiderman_russhaxor, there will be little doubt that the latter is less legitimate."

Yes, this sounds somewhat like DNS. First come, first serve, try to snatch up domains first and then sit on them and try to sell them.

But, that places way too much assumed value in the name. All is takes is a search service to resolve "lbry://asdfaljsfd" to a good copy of Spider Man, and now it no longer matters what LBRY URL looks legit.

But those are the problems and I'm looking for solutions. What could change on the HN site or in the rules for its community to fix these problems?

I'm not sure anything can be done, which is why I ask.

>> Microsoft loves Linux! Right?

> Right.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

> But if we take it as convivance and proper productive discussion of different, potentially opposite ideas, HN is not all that good.

I agree. But how could it be made better?

The ultimate definition of a douche is someone that writes malware for Linux.

Out of the box thinking but would never fly. Think of all of the releases of LibreOffice that overlap OpenOffice. Support nightmare and users would be confused about the changes.

> which can be restored in a matter of minutes or hours.

In theory. More realistically, most don't take DR very seriously and it would be more in the days to weeks range.

For example- that backup you have- is it in any way hardware or base OS image dependent? Are you absolutely sure of that? Do you have unused backup hardware offsite with the OS on it and ready to go in case there is a fire in the rack at the server farm?

The Roku is built into this TV such that I must use the Roku OS and remote when the TV comes on. It is much slicker than the other crap smart TV interfaces I've used, but when it goes out of style, that means I'll have to use one Roku remote to turn the TV on, browse to the port of the other one, click ok, and now I'm in the second Roku OS. That won't be as nice. Still- for now, it's fine, which is why I bought it.

If I could have gotten the same TV without any smart features and an external Roku, that would have been better long-term, but almost all newer TVs now are smart.

I have one of the "newer generation" smart TVs driven by Roku's interface- completely. In other words, you turn the TV on with a Roku remote and when the TV comes on, you see the Roku interface which you must use to choose which HDMI or game port to use, etc.

I like the interface a lot, but I bought it knowing that at some point, it will not be as cool as it is now. It will probably get in the way, as I'll have to use the Roku remote to browse via the old Roku OS to the port with the box that is the new browseable streaming OS. Maybe the Roku one will get borked by a system update because my hardware is unsupported- I don't know; I hope that doesn't happen, and have had a good experience with my old Roku external box, but it is a possibility several years from now.

Years ago when I bought a TV, never did it cross my mind that "one day the user interface is going to be obsolete".

> "Day 2 (if they haven't used the product): Have you had a chance to use {ProductName}? - Body of the email went over a few benefits left out of the second email..."

When I get this email, I unsubscribe/ignore/tell them I'm not interested. If it's too high-pressure, I'm out.