Tracking where your time went with Lego workstream visualisation - <AUTHOR> https://code.joejag.com/2018/lego-workstream-visualisation.html <comment><USER2> I really like this. For certain industries & situations, you really do need a visual way to represent where your time is going. I've found this to be an area lots of developers seem openly hostile too. I used to do something similar with post-it notes segmented into quarters. This was at an agency where we were working on fixed price/deadline projects.

Another commenter here asked if a digital version would be as good. From my own experience, when we digitized the post-it notes it just became another reporting/time tracking setup. The physical aspect of it made it very obvious to the project/product managers as they were stuck up in on a whiteboard in the middle of the office. When things started spilling off the edge and all the way over the wall [1] then it was pretty obvious something was up :) We also used the placing of them to kick off standup in the morning.

It was important to remind ourselves/higher-ups that the tracking wasn't meant to be very detailed/accurate but instead indicative and a springboard to guide the weeks planning conversations. To that end, I think it was very effective.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/1PdBiX7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/1PdBiX7.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Developers seem hostile to it because these kinds of metrics are universally used against them. As long as the goals are being met, this amounts to pointless micromanagement. If it's a developer doing this for themselves, that's something else entirely.

<comment><USER4> Usually those problems stay in the background while not working on the clock and your subconscious comes up with solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It begs the question: would a digital equivalent work just as well? What does the physical version bring - 3d? If this helps to visualise the data, are there decent tools for collaborative 3d graph editing that include the ability to move the camera, etc.?

The article says:

"Next up we tried an Excel document, but no one looks forward to tracking their time in an Excel document. We wanted something visual and tactile. Something that would cause conversations to happen and be fun to use."

which I totally take on board, but the lego equivalent, however fun it might be, just might not always be practical. Essentially, I'm thinking is there an equivalent that's less like Excel and more like Minecraft ;-)

<comment><USER6> What if, instead of normal Lego bricks, someone designs a "smart" brick and a "smart" Lego Board, so that while you add bricks of different colors, and put on different columns, it creates a digital twin on a server, that is nicely displayed on a dashboard of your choice?

Same fun, right?

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a good project for [https://dynamicland.org/](https://dynamicland.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of the Printable CEO stuff by Dave Seah:

[https://davidseah.com/2005/11/the-printable-ceo- series/](https://davidseah.com/2005/11/the-printable-ceo-series/)

Can't recommend this stuff enough, and it's buffet style - take what you like.

</comment><comment><USER9> Out of curisoity, let's say that someone come up with a new request, that is listed as ad-hoc. how long does it take before it becomse a "planned" work? what's the distinguish between the two?

As far as I understood you are a dev, so everyhting that is not related with the development of your software is considered as ad-hoc?

<comment><USER10> I consider it ad-hoc when the request escapes the planning phase and goes directly in to my pile of work as top/near top priority.

A little bit of this is understandable. You can't wait for _every_ task to get put in to the backlog and planned out in sprints or whatever. But if you've ever had a week where 90% of your time goes to everything but planned work well... it's really frustrating.

There's often a high cost to context switching for developers. There's been some loose "studies" done that confirm this, and I definitely feel it at a personal level. A "quick request" isn't just the half hour it takes me to do the thing. It's the language switch, the environment switch, forgetting what I was in the middle of, etc, that really causes the bulk of my productivity loss.

It gets to the point sometimes where I give two time estimates: one where I'm allowed to shut my door and work, and one where I factor in the likely torrent of interruptions that will more than double my actual completion time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> BTW Lego sells individual bricks which I'm finding is much better than all those kits.

[https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-a-Brick](https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-a- Brick)

You can search for pieces eg BRICK 2x4, which are 21c each.

Also ebay has loads of used lego pieces which are super cheap.

<comment><USER12> You can try bricklink too: www.bricklink.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great idea, just still looking for a brick color for 'stacking lego bricks as a distraction'?

<comment><USER14> Possibly transparent 4×2×1 bricks for time spent doing bugger all (or just taking a longer break after some taxing task or stressful situation).

I think Lego Friends may have some suitable bricks for the usual Friday afternoon (down)time spent with colleagues watching someone launch an electric car into orbit or some other definitely not work-related activity. :)

<comment><USER15> You mean like programming a pi to run a robotic arm to stak the bricks :-)

<comment><USER14> Exactly! That, and actually ordering the bricks on Bricklink and implementing Lego workstream visualization for your dev-team. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In a similar vein, but with a bit of complexity in the background... [http://specialprojects.studio/project/bit- planner/](http://specialprojects.studio/project/bit-planner/)

"Bit Planner is a physical and digital time planner made out of lego bricks that magically synchronises with any cloud based calendar to help you better organise your projects and get more out of every day."

</comment><comment><USER17> I like the physical simplicity of one hour equals a colored block. I've got minor quibbles so will modify it, but good idea.

</comment><comment><USER18> dork

</comment><comment><USER19> If you could set up this system with a series of internet connected scales for each category, you can take the weight of the bricks from different work areas around the company and know in real time what people are doing while simultaneously recording the information in physical lego form.

<comment><USER20> You forgot the <sarcasm/> tags, I think (I hope).

<comment><USER19> Not really. You could skip legos all together and have 3D printers that print out layers of work over time as well, no need to measure weight then as you track it through an API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You're not really doing Agile until you're meticulously tracking each hour spent. If this sort of thing helps, so be it. But those hours have to get into JIRA _somehow_.

<comment><USER22> Are you being sarcastic? I ask because Agile methodology, when done correctly as a bi-directional contract between team and stakeholders, does not have to be like that at all.

<comment><USER21> At any organization whose business model has evolved beyond "burn through investors' money, ask investors for more money", management NEEDS to have meaningful answers to these questions:

* What remains to be done?

* How much will it cost?

* How long will it take?

* Is the team on track or falling behind?

Forget contracts. Answers to these questions are non-negotiable for the team. Because the PM or engineering manager will be held accountable for those answers by the executives.

The best way to provide those answers is to adopt a _data-driven_ approach. You have stories in the backlog. At the start of each sprint, the developer(s) to whom the stories are assigned break the story down into tasks and assign an estimate IN HOURS to each task. As the tasks are completed throughout the sprint, each developer logs how many hours they spent on that task, preferably daily.

This amplifies the benefits of Agile because the manager doesn't have to guess, they can look at the burndown chart and _see_ \-- are the developers meeting their estimates? If not, by how much are they missing? Are they taking on an appropriate amount of work each sprint? Should they do less? More? Who is doing well and who is struggling? Then, decisions can be made with respect to who should do how much work on what, with _rapid_ turnaround time.

"If it can't be measured, it can't be managed." This is _fundamental_ to management, and has been a maxim in software management even during the Waterfall days. What Agile gets you is shortened feedback cycles and more rapid turnaround.

<comment><USER23> Your system makes two assumptions that have been thoroughly, repeatedly proven wrong:

\- It's possible to know what tasks are required to complete a project at the outset of a project.

\- It's possible to estimate how long those tasks will take to complete.

Any team I've ever seen who claims to do well with both of the above points either had massive sandbagging problems, sometimes openly acknowledged by everyone, and often failed to deliver the best solution they could due to the rigidity of their project plan and the political consequences of straying from it.

Furthermore, "if it can't be measured, it can't be managed" is true to a degree, but over-reliance on metrics can result in tunnel vision towards those metrics, resulting in accumulation of technical debt, quality issues, less team cohesion and a host of other problems as your teams myopically focus on hitting their numbers above all else.

<comment><USER21> > Your system makes two assumptions that have been thoroughly, repeatedly > proven wrong:

> \- It's possible to know what tasks are required to complete a project at > the outset of a project.

Contrariwise, if you can't know what tasks are required to complete a sprint, your team is in deep shit. You can get a decent picture over a time horizon of 1-3 months, with certainty going down as the time horizon gets farther out. This is why Agile works.

> \- It's possible to estimate how long those tasks will take to complete.

This is part of why you need to capture estimates and actuals. Even if those estimates are wrong, in practice, by comparing estimates to actuals by each developer, a picture will emerge of how far that developer will overshoot or undershoot their own estimates. Those estimates the become actionable data, even if they're wrong 100% of the time.

<comment><USER23> > Contrariwise, if you can't know what tasks are required to complete a > sprint, your team is in deep shit. You can get a decent picture over a time > horizon of 1-3 months, with certainty going down as the time horizon gets > farther out. This is why Agile works.

Fair enough on the level of a sprint. In my experience, management and stakeholders rarely care about a sprint, they care about the project as a whole. And again, in my experience, the accuracy of estimates falls off precipitously once you get beyond 1 or 2 sprints, unless you're willing to pad estimates or lock down your plans to a degree that will hurt the success of your project (by not taking into account learnings as you build).

> This is part of why you need to capture estimates and actuals. Even if those > estimates are wrong, in practice, by comparing estimates to actuals by each > developer, a picture will emerge of how far that developer will overshoot or > undershoot their own estimates. Those estimates the become actionable data, > even if they're wrong 100% of the time.

This would be true if estimates had high precision, but low accuracy (i.e. developer A consistently overestimates, and developer B consistently underestimates). In my experience, the opposite is more true than not - developers have relatively well tuned accuracy, but horrible precision. If everything goes according to plan, developers can estimate that fairly well. It's the amount of times things don't go according to plan that's the problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox for Teams: $795 per year for 350 GB + 5 users - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/teams

<comment><USER2> This is already on front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item></comment>


A email client that is both personal and has personality - <AUTHOR> http://www.personamail.info/

<comment><USER2> I watched the demo video and went looking for a download link.

Really well done video, nice ideas, but no download and no mention of how/when we could try it? Does it exist?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd also like to know when it will be available, pricing, etc.</comment>


We Need More Best Practices in GraphQL - <AUTHOR> http://graphqlme.com/2017/10/22/best-practices-graphql/ <comment><USER2> awesome post</comment>


Swiss immunologist: Covid fears misplaced - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@vernunftundrichtigkeit/coronavirus-why-everyone-was-wrong-fce6db5ba809 <comment><USER2> I guess the surge in cases in the US' hottest states is a testament to this immunologist's argument that it would disappear in summer...

I know that viruses find the high temperature, UV light, and low moisture content conditions of Arizona generally favorable.

<comment><USER3> Its a no-brainer. In Arizona, and other hot states, where the temperature outside is scorching, everyone is inside where its air-conditioned to very cool temperatures, with higher humidity.

<comment><USER2> Influenza does not spread like this in Arizona, so maybe, just maybe this isn't comparable.

And it is a no-brainer... AZ is 48th in the nation in education, and 4th in per-capita unvaccinated children in schools.

<comment><USER3> If you get coronavirus, and are outside getting fresh air and vitamin-D sunlight, you don't get a sniffle.

If you are inside, and develop congestion from the cool air, and go to the hospital or doctor, you're going to get tested and counted.

Wasn't talking about the flu. Was talking about COVID.

Besides, when a state as populous as California has zero COVID deaths of people under 18, why are we worried about kid vaccinations for COVID?

<comment><USER2> Coronavirus us spreading in AZ despite the outside weather that does effect the flu.

If your hypothesis about "everyone being inside" was correct the flu would also spread more in summer. It doesn't. Ergo, coronavirus does not spread like the flu, it spreads more easily.

The god damned idiot who wrote this article is wrong. I work in microbial research... lots of stupid PhDs who can't do data analysis exist. Most aren't this stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What are those novel crucial points that this guy making?

I have trouble parsing it out of demonstrably false claims and rhethoric.

</comment><comment><USER5> _The coronavirus is slowly retreating._

With the virus currently on a rampage in multiple countries this definitely is not a good start, even given the caveat about the emphasis being "local" and the situation "not being exactly the same globally".

 _So: Sars-Cov-2 isn't all that new, but merely a seasonal cold virus that mutated and disappears in summer, as all cold viruses do — which is what we're observing globally right now._

I wanted to give the author the benefit of the doubt, given their credentials. But this is just weird, manipulative spin control. All indications are that Sars-Cov-2 is definitely not "merely a seasonal cold virus", in neither its origins (confirmed to be very different from that of regular cold viruses) or its symptoms (far more complex and estimated at roughly 10x more fatal that influenza).

</comment><comment><USER6> This is very ranty and not very scientific sounding. I'll trust Fauci over this guy.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, it looks like not all doctorate grads are created equal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that the Weltwoche, where the original article appeared is a right wing rag, which very heavily supported the quick reopening of the country. Including the editor in chief (who is also a vocal right wing member of parliament) arguing to lock the old people away and just get done with it.

Beda Stadler, the immunologist in question, is a highly controversial figure.

I, for one, would not trust my health on those guys.

<comment><USER9> Reductio ad hitlerum.

> Beda Stadler, the immunologist in question, is a highly controversial > figure.

As far as I can tell, he is "controversial" in the sense that Penn Jilette would be considered "controversial":

\- in favor of GMO

\- critical of anti-vaxxers

\- critical of alternative medicine

\- thinks drugs should be legalized

\- thinks women aren't funny (probably borrowed that one from Christopher Hitchens)

As for the science, he's about as credentialed as it gets.

From a rationalist perspective, it would be unwise to stick to a position that one happens to have committed to _politically_ when the facts don't support it anymore.

If Donald Trump, by chance, had positioned himself as a lockdown advocate, people left off center would be calling him a dictator and protest it at every opportunity.

<comment><USER2> Ehh, I supported the China travel ban until I learned it was political posturing and didn't actually ban China travel. Trump got some heat for it, but all travelers from inernational flights should've been screened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yep</comment>


The Noise Around You Could Strengthen Your Passwords - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/08/noise-around-strengthen-passwords/ <comment><USER2> So you let a third party record whatever you're doing for a few seconds for _security_ purposes?!

Oh, my.

Edit: before you shout "but it's just a signature!" Think of a large entity with huge resources that goes ahead and creates signatures of an entire catalog of recorded English conversations. Now you upload your signature, and that entity can reconstruct your conversation via a catalog search.

<comment><USER3> I reacted like this too. But read the article carefully:

 _To protect your privacy, the app doesn't upload the audio itself, just the digital signature._

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I get it, but think of the things you can do with that digital signature.

Joe and Bob - were they together on Sunday at 2pm? Well let's check the digital audio signatures to see if they match.

Or, John just uploaded a signature that matches our samples of "Kill the president."

And a few thousand other examples.

<comment><USER4> Not feasible. Digital signatures are a one way operation, like hashes:

Let's say the audio signature of "Kill the president" is 9a0c0a6868a2a784059d9a634e4a58c0.

"kill the president" in a different tone would be entirely different: ed3e3cd6be6eeb2de9b480e2c9590cc9

<comment><USER5> The server has to compare the signature of the sound recorded by your computer to the signature of the sound recorded by your phone. The sounds will not be identical, so the signature comparison has to be able to detect whether two sound recordings are sufficiently similar. It can't use, for example, SHA1 hashes for this purpose.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't they ignore noise below a certain threshold and create the signature just based off of the "peaks" and "troughs" so they could expect an exact match, and/or hash several samples from the recording in case some portions don't produce an exact match? Seems like there should be a way to this without revealing information about the recorded sound

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I applaud the attempt, but this sounds much more annoying than regular 2FA. If it doesn't work, you'll have _no idea why._

With regular 2FA it didn't work because you typoed the code, and it's easy to fix that.

Personally I don't find 2FA annoying at all. Most sites just have long-lived cookies so you only have to do 2FA on a new computer, or once every few months.

AWS is the exception which requires you to 2FA _every_ time you login, which is definitely annoying. They should fix that.

<comment><USER8> It gets a lot better once you have a smart watch. Not for everyone, I know, but if you're entering two factor codes all day like I am, it's not too much of a compromise

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I realize that certain intelligence agencies already have the ability to remotely turn on various sensors on my phone, but to enable a more generic version of this...Hell no. I'd rather take the "hassle" of entering the code by hand.

</comment><comment><USER10> This seems like a more error-prone 2FA. Yeah, you don't need to type in a few numbers; instead, you take your phone out and hope that the ambient noise is "close-enough."

Of course, if you're in a particularly erratic environment -- such as songs switching, or sitting in a crowded area -- I'm sure the security mechanism would fail.

Seems frustrating and gimmicky, but maybe that's just me.

</comment><comment><USER11> An app on my smartphone can be activated remotely without my noticing and record the sounds of the surroundings?

Sounds like a new attack vector for me (e.g. when somebody can manipulate the app or replace it by a fake version -- even "smart" apps can have errors) and even when it is not, the possible security win, it might bring, sounds rather small to me.

The main problem, I see, is that this "two factor" authentication gives a wrong feeling of security -- and the users might think, that a secure password is not so important --> think, the old 4digit PIN-code is "OK".

As an attacker, I would simply try a silent room and a time where most people are asleep. When somebody has forgotten to deactivate his phone, I got him.

In general, I distrust any security measure that relies on the possession of my phone. To bundle many security related things on one single thing, is a bad idea. Even with central keys of houses, there are so many problems, but what currently happens is, that the smartphone becomes the key to my home, my bank, my car ... (not kidding, a lock with smartphone access is already sold).

When I loose my phone, I am lost ...

There was a (rather old) film "Filofax" about somebody that found the filofax of another person an practically took over his live. Maybe it is time for a film called "smartphone". We are living in "smarter" times.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is another idea based on audio, which doesn't require any aspect of audio to be sent to the network.

1\. The phone is equipped with a public/private key.

2\. Authentication begins when the client side of the application running on the PC or other device ("authenticating device" or AD) receives a message from the network informing it of the phone's public key, and a challenge token. The AD's goal is to obtain a signed version of that same token from the phone.

3\. The phone also receives a message containing the token. A handler on the phone recognizes the message and kicks into action. It retrieves the private key, signs the token, and emits audio representing the signature.

4\. The authentication module on AD is listening for this audio, and decodes it. Then it uses the public key to verify the signature against the token. If the signature matches, it declares to the application that the phone is present in the room.

Simpler version, without cumbersome crypto:

1\. The phone and AD receive a numeric code.

2\. The phone converts the numeric code to a short sequence of musical tones. These are played out the speaker.

3\. The AD hears the tones and recognizes the correct numeric code, declaring the phone to be present.

The downside is that the phone makes noise, which may not be acceptable in some circumstances. This can be mitigated by using a simple audio cable with 1/8" plugs from the phone's headset to the mic input on the PC.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why not just make some sound with one and have the other pick it up?

<comment><USER14> That might be easier to intercept. If you are simply recording sound, an attacker doesn't know the exact moment that the recording is starting or ending. If the system is generating sound, the trigger is easier to pick up.

<comment><USER13> But if you hear your phone making noise and you didn't just sign in, you can stop it (just have an "it wasn't me" button in the app).

<comment><USER14> The problem is when you are in a coffee shop, someone notices you are logging in to Facebook, and now your phone broadcasts the login sound to the browser on both of your laptops. Suddenly two factor authentication is one factor again. It reduces the requirement from having physical access to your phone to having proximity to your phone.

<comment><USER13> But that's the same if you listen as well. Either way, they need your password and proximity.

<comment><USER14> Not really because the timing is a secret. If the sound is broadcast you know "I should start attacking now". It is a trigger to tell you something important is happening. If you are simply recording, it is passive. You can't tell that someone is trying to log in at that exact moment with a sound signature starting at 2:51:05 PM and running to 2:51:08 PM.

<comment><USER13> First of all, if two people log in at once, the system knows something's wrong. Second, how is your attack more likely to succeed from the passive attack? In yours, I know you're connecting to Facebook, I log in and use your sound. Without a broadcast sound, you're not connecting to Facebook at all, I'm just next to you. It seems to me that you'd need strictly more things to go right in the broadcast sound attack.

Whatever you have then, you can use to succeed in the regular attack. Where is the narrowing of the threat model?

The only thing I can think of is that the actual information of a log in is leaked, without it being exploitable because they don't have your password. This doesn't seem very useful by itself especially considering that they won't know which site you're logging into.

<comment><USER14> Think of it like a traditional two factor authentication except instead of the key being sent discreetly to your phone it is broadcast to everyone around you. They now all have the chance to use that broadcast code in an attempt to login before you.

I don't think it's a problem for the average user in the average login scenario. However, it still doesn't mean it isn't a security concern.

<comment><USER13> >They now all have the chance to use that broadcast code in an attempt to login before you.

As I said above, by that time, it's too late, because the server should detect multiple logins and disable the code (and hopefully alert you that someone has your password).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel I don't think this is a good idea since many of the noises that surround the average person is fairly non-random. Be it the hum of a car engine or even static of a white noise generator. There's too much structure in the machines and living things around people. Plus, atmospheric changes can change or offset noises in such a way that most people don't notice but it would throw off any sufficiently sensitive hardware which would be harder still to verify against.

</comment><comment><USER12> Although this is good, all it saves is typing a few digits and checking a box "[ ] let's not do this again on this particular computer".

Other hardware solutions could be found. For instance, an app on the phone could receive a security token string, and use bluetooth to send it to the PC. Or, a QR code (or bar code) could be sent to the phone which pops up on the screen. This is held up to the PC's web cam which scans it. [Insert your idea below.]

<comment><USER15> > Or, a QR code (or bar code) could be sent to the phone which pops up on the > screen. This is held up to the PC's web cam which scans it.

The opposite of this (bar code on computer is scanned by the phone) is roughly the user experience of SQRL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just require users to recite "my voice is my password" after receiving an audible notification to indicate that the computer and mobile devices are listening.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is an interesting idea, even with flaws. It's almost like taking a fingerprint of the audio in the space around you. It also reminds me of the "voice-passwords" from old James Bond movies.

</comment><comment><USER18> "You don't need to unlock your phone or even take it out of your pocket or purse, as the recording is triggered automatically by the server"

Would Apple ever let an app do this? No, probably not.

</comment><comment><USER19> Or how about, get this, we use a simple program that generates a password that would take 500 years to be cracked? The only hassle is couple more clicks to insert that password...

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm guessing this is not an iPhone app? Because iPhone doesn't let apps do that.</comment>


Ask HN: Has HN karma ever helped you? - <AUTHOR> Wondering from people's experience because some of my friends actually got jobs for having a high StackOverflow reputation score. But HN is not as technical so wondering if people have stories of the karma coming in handy.<p>Or I am just looking to deep into it. <comment><USER2> It makes me feel better about myself.</comment>


Reddit shell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jasonbio/reddit-shell <comment><USER2> Why go through the trouble of emulating the shell environment instead of just writing this in a shell environment? An actual shell environment for this would actually be somewhat useful, whereas a terminal emulator in the web doing this isn't really that useful.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. It could even add ascii images for a touch of 1337.

 _looks forward to seeing a shell version_

<comment><USER4> I mentioned this in another comment, but check out RedditFS: [https://github.com/ianpreston/redditfs](https://github.com/ianpreston/redditfs)

<comment><USER5> >lynx $(cat /r/programming/An_evaluation_of_simple_Python_performance_tweaks/url) Every time I see unescaped shell arguments I pain inside

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice concept, a true command line version would be quite nice. Perhaps with vim bindings for navigation (or emacs!).

It would be nice if I could setup my own aliases, commands such as 'view comments N' is pretty long to write, viewcom and viewcon would be nice off the top of my head as defaults.

It would also be nice to have a _screen_ mode for loading the comments and content side-by-side :)

<comment><USER7> The world needs a Fuse adapter for reddit.

The security implications are mind-boggling, though.

<comment><USER8> I remember someone built it, they abused self posts for storage. My google-fu is failing and I can't find it.

<comment><USER9> I think RedditStorage was what you were looking for: [https://github.com/Rossem/RedditStorage](https://github.com/Rossem/RedditStorage)

(I also found redditfs, which is for browsing reddit: [https://github.com/ianpreston/redditfs](https://github.com/ianpreston/redditfs))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > shell

> web based

So it's just another website. If it doesn't run from the shell, it's not a shell.

I was excited when I saw the title, happy to browse reddit from my terminal, but the first line in the README debunked that quite efficiently.

(Also, small note: reddit is with a lowercase 'r'. The repository got it right but the submission didn't.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Re lowercase reddit, I actually submitted with lowercase, but it auto- corrected to Reddit :)

<comment><USER11> Yeah… that gets covered in quite a bit of detail here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10194274](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10194274)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know this is written in JS, but I'd be somewhat interested in actually using this in a terminal.

<comment><USER13> I bet with some tweaking you could build a node.js REPL based solution for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This runs in your browser. Not what the title made me think.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice Jurassic Park reference in the output of:

      guest@reddit:~$ rm -rf /

Along with: [https://github.com/jasonbio/reddit- shell/blob/master/css/new...](https://github.com/jasonbio/reddit- shell/blob/master/css/newman.gif)

</comment><comment><USER16> Someone just want to make a reddit fuse fs and get it over with? /s

Cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER17> `lynx reddit.com`

<comment><USER18> Actually m.reddit.com tends to have cleaner results than the desktop site when using lynx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19>
      settings images on
      ls nsfw top

seems legit

</comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty cool. There are some features that it would be great to see. Like auto complete on subreddit names, the "shell" knowing which subreddit you are currently on, so list will actually list the current subreddit's posts. Also the ability to view text threads in the shell

</comment><comment><USER21> You screw up the UX by not letting me scroll. I can't even see the start of the output for the command "help". Why did you think that was a good idea?

<comment><USER22> Scroll wheel works for me. Do you mean there should be an actual scroll bar?

<comment><USER21> I'm on a laptop, so I don't have a scroll wheel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pretty fun to play with. I noticed a "ls -l" makes the shell block for about 10 seconds then produce an error: "error fetching data from reddit"

</comment><comment><USER24> Now I can Reddit at work and everyone will just think that I'm on git! But in my browser?

</comment><comment><USER25> I heard the 12k baud modem sound the moment I saw the GUI.

Do I have old programmer's PTSD?

:-)

</comment><comment><USER26> I tried "list" twice, always gave an error back.

</comment><comment><USER27> Found an easter egg: sudo make me a sandwich

</comment><comment><USER28> Reminds me a bit of pigshell

[http://pigshell.com/](http://pigshell.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> list | less should exist.

</comment><comment><USER30> doesnt work on firefox ;)

</comment><comment><USER31> Great. How about HN Shell?

</comment><comment><USER32> nice job,

</comment><comment><USER33> really cool.</comment>


Schools vs Startups - <AUTHOR> http://cdesouza.posterous.com/to-pivot-or-not-to-pivot

<comment><USER2> one major difference is that statistically your startup is going to fail no matter how much effort you put into it. whereas if you stay in school without flunking out then you are guaranteed to get a degree.</comment>


A Farewell to ORMs - <AUTHOR> http://corte.si/posts/code/farewell-to-orms.html

<comment><USER2> Is SQL Expression Language not just essentially a different implementation of an ORM? I'm not saying it's bad, just wondering.

I assume it must be loosely typed? I use LLBLGen for ORM and I couldn't imagine living without it...you seem to have found a suitable alternative, but you are still using a tool of some sort to handle the "impedance mismatch", correct? Personally, I love strong typing, as normally my work is first modelled in the DB, so changes break code in the compiler, heresy for some, but I quite like it until I find something better.

And I've never found any majorly inconvenient performance problems using ORM. For 95% of things it works just fine and sclaes appropriately, for that other 5%, just drop down to stored procs or whatever works. Everyone like to think they're working on the next google or space shuttle, but most programmers (maybe not the people here) are doing pretty boring work...for me, managing the politics within my company is far more complicated than writing the software...YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the most clever title for a technical blog post since... well, ever. Well done, sir.</comment>


Novel Laser-Based Method Effectively De-Ices Aircraft - <AUTHOR> https://optics.org/news/11/1/97 <comment><USER2> Sadly it appears this is not a giant laser that shoots the plane when it's covered with ice. It's a way to change the surface of the wings so that ice/snow doesn't stick in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was expecting to read about how to get a gigantic laser out onto the runways. Still cool, though.

<comment><USER4> Right - this is anti-icing; not deicing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What happens when they paint the parts to prevent corrosion? I imagine all the properties of the laser etching are negated.

<comment><USER6> As far as I understand it, corrosion isn't that much of a worry with aluminum airframes— as long as the plane doesn't spend too much time near salt water.

There are many past and present airline liveries where the fuselage is left largely bare, for instance:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Boeing_7...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Boeing_767-323-ER%2C_Oneworld_%28American_Airlines%29_AN2217029.jpg)

<comment><USER7> Just because it looks bare doesn't mean it's unfinished.

If I specified sheet aluminum for Type II Class 3 chemical conversion per MIL- DTL-5541, any materials QC professional would be hard pressed to visually determine that anything was actually done to the material.

To be sure, no, MIL-DTL-5541 isn't an uncommon spec constrained to military applications.

<comment><USER8> I know I've noticed on airplanes before that while some of the wing is aluminum colored, some areas in particular are painted a vaguely aluminum- colored shade of grey.

And I think the... it seems they're called Krueger flaps? Those are often painted aren't they? And those I'd think you'd definitely want to de-ice.

<comment><USER9> On an aircraft that has a mixture of polished and painted surfaces, the painted surfaces often aren't bare aluminum. Often that's the wing root fairings, winglets, nacelles, radar cones, vertical stabilizer, and so on.

<comment><USER8> I don't think I was meant to get a giggle out of this. Can you explain using other words? Of course a painted surface isn't bare. It's got paint on it.

Did you mean it's not aluminum? Or a different grade?

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I laughed at it myself, in hindsight. I should have stipulated "underneath" and likely appended an "if you follow...".

Yes, well, they may either be materials that have other surface textures/coatings/treatments/finishes that aren't conducive to polishing, or they may be other metals, or non-metallic composites (can't put aluminum over a radar, for example), and so on.

TL;DR: The painted surfaces are generally instances in which polished aluminum won't really work, for a variety of reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting approach and hugely useful if practical, though it bears mentioning that the leading edges on aircraft experience a fair amount of abrasion from dust, debris, and insects. I wonder how long this treatment would be effective for in a real world environment

<comment><USER11> Super important question, first thing that came to mind. How would you even test it for efficacy? Just look for ice building up and say 'welp, time for refinish?'

<comment><USER12> There are wind tunnels for testing icing behaviors, not too hard to do an accelerated aging test and come up with standard procedures.

<comment><USER10> Could be easier said than done. There are lots of edge cases that could become a problem in real use. Stuff like surface contamination from various fluids or environmental factors.

<comment><USER13> Do 90% of your testing in the wind tunnel, and sanity check your results by flying it for real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If it can be manufactured for reasonable cost, effectiveness and sensible power consumption, seems like a fit for small aircraft, fighter jets and any aircraft that don't have deicing boots or anti-ice systems.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone with a better background, are micro surface features required for this kind of thing or could teflon/rain-x type chemical coatings create a more durable/corrosion resistant/easily repairable effect?

</comment><comment><USER15> Did Fraunhofer just repurpose MP3 codecs to aluminium surface patterns?

</comment><comment><USER16> Very clever.

Also seems like something pulled from ancient aliens.

<comment><USER17> I was thinking Tony Stark. "How did you solve the icing problem?"

<comment><USER18> Nice. I'd drummed up Dr Evil, "Mr. Powers, you'll notice that all the sharks (planes) have laser beams attached to their heads. I figure every creature deserves a warm meal."</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Toxnic – Remove Toxic Content on the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://faizanahmad.tech/toxnic/ <comment><USER2> _filter bubble intensifies_

This is very bad, concerning, in pretty serious ways.

One man's toxic is another's manure.

The point of having the tools of any basic grown up, as I was taught from a pre teen age, is to know how to discard things that are problematic.

Letting an algorithm do it is the end of days. For reasons too obvious

This is so on point as a concept that I initially thought it satire

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree with your points but as we are being taught to cope with the negativity, we some times need a toxicity free experience on the web as we learn to cope. Moreover, toxic stuff like "fuck you", "you piece of shit" should always be toxic no matter who you are. The main goal of the plugin is to remove such content.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Developer of the browser extension here. Please ask any questions you may have.

I have been working on this extension for over a month. There is hardly a day when I don't come across toxic content on social media. Some days when I am down, I don't want to see such type of content, hence the development of this extension. I hope the community here will like the idea. If that's the case, I will work on improving the machine learning models and developing it for chrome and mobiles.

I am also going to make the code for the extension open source shortly.</comment>


Juul is reportedly laying off 800 to 950 employees - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/29/juul-is-reportedly-laying-off-800-to-950-employees/ <comment><USER2> It makes sense to me that their business specifically would be impacted here by corona. With Juul use being impacted with the lack of social outings/nightlife eliminating many social use cases. Anecdotally, most consumption I've seen has been within contexts which have since been restricted.

As well, given people's concerns about keeping their lungs healthy, I imagine 'discretionary' consumption of vapes would be down as well.

<comment><USER3> Anecdotally, the few vapers I have spoken to have, actually, substantially increased their consumption. At home all day, nothing to do, vaping is something you can pair with anything else. This has been corroborated with casual conversations with a local vape shop owner; they've never done better business, at least until the actual "shut your in-person shops down" a couple weeks ago here. People want to stock up, and they're consuming more.

People quitting with the goal of keeping their lungs healthy may have an impact, but you could similarly move up the "addiction" chain and reasonably say that there's got to be a decent number of smokers who are looking at this coronavirus as the sign from god they needed to begin quitting. Juul, and vapes in general, are that next step.

My suspicion is that this has little to do with the coronavirus, and more to do with lingering effects from the government pressure months ago. Juul stopped production of every decent flavor they had. Even long time Juul users I know have moved on from Juul and on to other products. They're, in essence, the lightning rod of the industry. Kids don't vape Juul anymore; they haven't for months. They're on cali bars, or even devices like the suorin air. Are those going to get the same pressure Juul did? Probably not. The zeitgeist has moved on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> All part of the plan following their acquisition by Altria (Phillip Morris). Altria already had the IQOS in development and the vape companies were eating into their customer base. By purchasing Juul Altria could publicly act as a vaping proponent while working behind the scenes to maintain Big Tobacco's control over nicotine. Small, bathtub style operations locally cranking out custom vape juice flavors had to be shuttered. Enter the rash of negative press surrounding vaping and government intervention in the market (vitamin E acetate as the carrier for illicit THC and CBD vape juice was the ultimate culprit, not "e-cigarettes"). The small operations are not able to afford the expensive licensing required for each flavor, and states really aren't interested in giving up the future money from Big Tobacco, against which they've issued bonds. This is a long play made by Altria, and watching it come to fruition has been amazing.

<comment><USER5> You can actually make your own e juice pretty easily. Lots of guides and a huge community online.

<comment><USER6> You can easily make your own beer at home, yet I doubt AB InBev is worried about that. I don't think DIY hobbyists are relevant to companies operating at this scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wild, typically during economic downturns companies that sell things like alcohol and nicotine see an uptick.

But as a millennial myself I do see fewer and fewer of my friends purchasing Juul / pods.

<comment><USER8> From what I've seen lately, the JUUL crowd has moved to disposables, one brand called PUFF.

<comment><USER7> I think the horror of "popcorn lung" and other maladies have also scared many away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Juul was sold to a big tobacco firm, cannot recall the name now. But they bought it to rid of it so they sell their new ecig machine.

<comment><USER6> The tobacco company formerly known as Philip Morris. (Altria)

<comment><USER5> They are mutually exclusive. Altria is the parent company. Like Alphabet and Google.

<comment><USER6> > Altria Group, Inc. (previously known as Philip Morris Companies, Inc.)

The distinction you're making is meaningless because it's all the same group of assholes. They decided to play cute tricks with their branding because the general public came to recognize them as assholes. It's no different than the mercenary company 'Blackwater' rebranding itself to 'Academi' after it became notorious.

<comment><USER10> > It's no different than the mercenary company 'Blackwater' rebranding itself > to 'Academi' after it became notorious.

Wow, I'd totally missed that. Going full 180 from the comically evil-sounding _Blackwater_ to the modern and vaguely nerdy Academi, complete with hipster- friendly spelling variant, sounds like something straight out of a comedy sketch.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does this affect employees who have options but have yet to fully vest? Under standard terms, can they sell their options immediately assuming the have cash on hand and there is a market?

<comment><USER12> > Under standard terms, can they sell their options

Under standard terms, options can't be sold, ever. Shares that were purchased from options that were early-exercised and have not vested can be forcibly repurchased at the company's choice (not employee's choice) upon termination. Shares that were purchased from options that had already vested can only be sold if there's a secondary market at that moment, but presumably Juul is not laying off a thousand employees at the same time as it's raising external money, so no.

<comment><USER11> My apologies, somewhat new to the details of this.

> ... can be forcibly repurchased at the company's choice ...

For the sake of argument, what is the repurchase price here, and if the company "repurchase" it, does the money go to the employees?

<comment><USER13> I think a bunch of the replies are missing out on the "why". Somewhat simplified:

Employer: Welcome aboard. You get 1000 shares vesting over 4 years. They're currently worth $1 per share, which will be your price no matter when you buy them from us. You can buy the ones that have vested at any time until you leave, but you can't sell them until we've gone public.

You: Great!

Employer: You know, there's a tax trap you could fall into when you leave, whether that be before the 4 years are up, or after. If we haven't IPO'd yet, but we've done a series C at $10/share, you will surely want to buy them as you leave. But you can't sell them yet, and the kicker is that the IRS says that the act of buying them for $1,000 when they're worth $10,000 means you have a $9,000 profit in the transaction, and they'll want to collect taxes on that (say, $3,000). And you may not have the cash to manage that. Even if you do, and then the stock craters later, and you've already paid the taxes, you don't get a refund of the $3,000 in tax the next filing season; rather, you get to subtract $3,000 from any other stock gains you have (in any subsequent year), should you be so lucky. Oh, and even if we have gone public by the time you leave, if you want to hold onto your shares, you've still got exactly the same problem: pay tax now, be out the cash, and lose big if the stock tanks.

You: Fooey.

Employer: But! Have we got a deal for you! It turns out that the IRS says it's fine if you kind-of buy your shares from us now, for $1,000. (Frequently at startups: We'll even give you a bonus to cover it!) Then, when you leave after 5 years, it's a no-op as far as the IRS is concerned, and you can hold the shares until you want to sell, and at that point you have a gain that you pay taxes on, which you can certainly pay out of your cash profits!

You: Super!

Employer: The only thing is, if you leave, say, after 3 years, really you would have only vested on 3/4 your shares, so what we'll do is only hand you 750 shares (that you vested on), and a $250 refund of the rest of the $1,000 you gave us.

You: Yes, that's more than fair!

<comment><USER13> Fooey: Make that "... you get to subtract $9,000 from any other stock gains you have..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to see adults smoking these in order to quit regular cigarettes. That stopped a while ago, and now I only see teenagers using them.

<comment><USER15> A hundred times better than teenagers smoking.

<comment><USER16> I used to think that, too. Then I read this post[1]. JUUL has _more_ nicotine than a cigarette and there's less friction to using it: a 10 second hit instead of a 10 minute cigarette and there's no need to find a lighter or go outside. It also doesn't really smell so it's easy to use discretely.

All of that adds up to people who think JUUL is safer or can help them quit but it actually gets them hooked even more.

It's like trying to cure a coffee addiction by switching to a shot of espresso. It might look like cutting back but it's really doubling up.

[1][https://gen.medium.com/confessions-of-a-juul- junkie-6b5ce4a8...](https://gen.medium.com/confessions-of-a-juul- junkie-6b5ce4a8b92e)

<comment><USER17> What you're missing is that nicotine is harmless on its own; in fact, it's commonly used as a "nootropic" (cognitive enhancer) [0].

The true danger of smoking cigarettes is not the nicotine - that's simply the vessel by one gets addicted. The true danger is the tar and other carcinogenic by-products of inhaling a combusted tobacco plant.

Anecdotally, I started smoking cigarettes as a university undergraduate. I used Juuls (and other e-cigarettes, both disposable and refillable) to help me quit, and I'm now nicotine and tobacco free.

When I smoked cigarettes, I would wake up every morning hacking my lungs out. I smelled awful. I couldn't engage in cardiovascular exercise for longer than a minute.

With e-cigarettes, my coughing went away and my lung capacity returned to approximately normal. In fact, I competed in two Spartan Beast races while addicted to e-cigs.

Juul is an awful company for marketing towards children, but it's no exaggeration to say that e-cigarettes saved my life.

[0]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1579636](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1579636)

<comment><USER16> > What you're missing is that nicotine is harmless on its own

So if middle schoolers everywhere suddenly started chewing nicorette gum you would think it's totally harmless? I suspect not.

<comment><USER17> I must say that I'm a little bothered that that's all you appear to have gotten out of my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> what do <puff> all these <puff> employees do?<exhale large cloud of gross sweet smoke>

Sorry I can't stop puffing on this thing while I type.

</comment><comment><USER19> good.

</comment><comment><USER20> They targeted children with their flavors, colors, branding and advertisements. They are responsible for countless teenagers getting addicted to nicotine.

I couldn't care less about anyone who helped make that happen. Scum of the earth.

<comment><USER21> They're also responsible for countless smokers quitting cigarettes for something far less carcinogenic.

It is very reductive of you to just group people into being comic book villains.

<comment><USER22> This argument is akin to saying "sure, he murders people by night, but he's a fire fighter by day so it's ok".

The kids being addicted to nicotine weren't even collateral damage. They were being explicitly targeted. Doing good doesn't excuse doing evil.

<comment><USER5> Where is the evidence that kids were explicitely targeted? Kids can't buy these unless some adult consumer or a shop clerk is breaking the law. Flavored vodkas aren't treated with similar scorn, but you know 14 year old kids are getting faced off of blueberry smirnoff and not rye whiskey.

<comment><USER23> >>The Food and Drug Administration on Monday came out swinging at e-cigarette giant Juul over a variety of its unproven safety claims and startling marketing practices—most notably saying without evidence that its products are safer than smoking traditional cigarettes and giving presentations directly to kids in schools—in at least one alleged case, without teachers present or parental consent.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave- presentati...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave- presentations-in-schools-to-kids-and-the-fda-is-fuming/)

The were speaking directly to students inside schools. Kids. They were telling them that their products were safe. You don't see toy companies doing that.

<comment><USER24> That's cartoonishly exploitative. Juul should be fined for this predatory marketing.

<comment><USER25> They should face jail time.

<comment><USER24> Even better. Prosecute 'em.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good god, does anyone at techcrunch ever turn their phone to the side? Even with ad blocking their site is straight up unusable.

<comment><USER27> Let them eat ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The most surprising thing here is that they had that many employees to begin with.</comment>


Uber's Arbitration Addiction Could Be Death by 60k Cuts - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-08/uber-s-arbitration-addiction-could-be-death-by-60-000-cuts <comment><USER2> Uber tried to get me to agree to arbitration and sign an NDA for a mere $100 of compensation to replace my fianceé's clothes soiled by an Uber car.[1]

We were out late one night and we called an Uber to get back home. After a very long wait and an odd delay where the driver stayed in the same position on the map for 10 minutes, they started driving again and then arrived. (We suspect that during this time one of the passengers shit themselves)

My fianceé sat down and immediately felt excrement all over her clothing. It was very dark so she did not see this until after she entered the car and sat down. We also noticed that the other supposed passenger mentioned in the Uber app already bailed.

We were never compensated as we would not agree to the NDA. I don't think we could agree to the NDA even if we wanted to because I already tweeted about the incident before being offered compensation.[2]

Uber mentioned that the NDA isn't required in cases of sexual assault, but it's still required even if you are potentially exposed to sexually transmitted diseases through human excrement. What the fuck?

1\. [https://go.eligrey.com/t/uber-nda.pdf](https://go.eligrey.com/t/uber- nda.pdf)

2\. [https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1068251146676891649](https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1068251146676891649)

<comment><USER3> Why not take them to small claims?

<comment><USER2> I suspect that a successful small claims suit would also result in a ban from Uber.

Unfortunately I still use Uber occasionally, so I'd rather not risk getting banned.

<comment><USER4> This customer service just baffles me.

Why not just pay their cleaning bill and be done with it, instead of trying to deal with court and lose/ban the customer and all their future business?

<comment><USER5> Sounds like Uber won here: they didn't pay out, the customer didn't sue, and the customer was happy enough about shitty clothes with no redress that they are continuing to use the service. Job well done, Uber!

<comment><USER6> > Sounds like Uber won here: they didn't pay out, the customer didn't sue, and > the customer was happy enough about shitty clothes with no redress that they > are continuing to use the service. Job well done, Uber!

Also, free advertising and reputational damage!

I've literally _never_ used Uber because of stuff like this, and I discourage others from using them also. I mostly drive myself, but I'm content to use regular taxis and occasionally Lyft.

<comment><USER7> I reinstall Uber for company-related travel because it's integrated with our billing app. As soon as the trip is over, the app is removed. It's really not that much trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's pretty amusing that their use of arbitration to prevent class actions is now being used against them. The nice thing about a class action from the company's perspective is that they only have to deal with one court case against a class being represented by a plaintiff as opposed to cases from every single member of the class. Sending all the members of the class through arbitration one-by-one ends up costing far more than the class action would have.

I think we'll see forced arbitration go away if more classes band together and go through arbitration one-by-one.

<comment><USER9> Only for major claims though. If Uber stole $25 from me, it isn't worth taking a day off work to go to the arbitration session.

<comment><USER10> If it's not worth going to arbitration for $25, then it's not worth going to court, either, so what's the difference?

<comment><USER11> Is it worth sending big lawyers who will get millions? You'll probably only get a coupon for a free ride. You're still not going to get your $25 back, but at least you'll get to sic big lawyers on the company.

It isn't an accident that arbitration clauses come with class action waivers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I view this is as a good thing. Corporations love to strip out the ability to get disputes against them settled by a court of law. The arbitration process is secretive and designed for companies to win, eventually.

Let their swords against just and favourable conditions of work be used against them.

</comment><comment><USER13> In this case (as well as many potentially similar ones), I'm pretty glad this is happening. That said, are there no SLAAP protections in arbitration cases? As I alluded to earlier, I imagine Uber has enough reasonable cases for arbitration that SLAAP-like laws wouldn't protect them, but I can imagine other situations where a company could be bombarded with frivolous arbitration claims.

I think I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you insert a binding arbitration clause, you've chosen to forgo protections like SLAAP. However, say you didn't insert a binding arbitration clause, but didn't expressly forbid it and offer it as an option. Couldn't a coordinated campaign cost a company huge sums of money, as the company bears most of the arbitration costs?

Again, I don't think this is happening in this situation, and I can't say I've heard of it happening, but it's something that came to mind.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how successful a company that specializes in fighting and negotiating in arbitration proceedings would need to be such that the customer's cost in participating would be affordable: a sort of tech-enabled law firm. Arbitration-as-a-Service.

<comment><USER15> As the article states, the company already pays the cost of arbitration. You can go into arbitration without paying anything.

<comment><USER14> How do you guarantee that the arbiter that you aren't paying for will treat you fairly?

<comment><USER15> They are a neutral third party, but they are choose and paid for by the employer. The employee doesn't have any choice, because it's part of the employment contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are there penalties for filing frivolous arbitration suits? Or suits that are just reasonable enough but aren't likely to win?

<comment> crooked-v How do you define "frivolous"?

<comment><USER16> I'm interested in the answer to this question for a variety of definitions.

One time uber's UI glitched out causing an unwanted purchase and their customer service refunded me a day later. Could I have just sued them instead of trying to reach customer service?

Could I sue them for something I thought they did with no reasonable proof?

I'm wondering if there are limitations to abuse not for the purpose of extracting wealth from a company but for attacking the arbitration system.

<comment><USER17> The amount you'd be suing/arbitrating for would be something small, right? The cost of one ride? They'd probably just choose to give you your money back rather than go through any more involved process.

And keep in mind, it's a lot of hassle to file suit or arbitration. And you need to be able to show in good faith that you tried using reasonable channels to resolve the dispute first, i.e. if you never even contacted customer support with your complaints then that's not good for you.

As an example, I recently had a Lyft to the airport that was priced up front at $80 but was billed at $120 post-arrival. Part of the problem was the airport drop-off zone was under a roof and the GPS signal probably didn't work and the ride kept running for at least 10 minutes after I'd been dropped off. It took all of two minutes to contact customer support and get refunded the extra $40. I'm not going to go to arbitration in this case which costs me two orders of magnitude more effort and has a _lower_ chance of getting my money back, because I would've never even have notified them of the issue prior to escalating too high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why does Uber agree to pay most of the arbitration fee? Why don't they write a contract that requires drivers to pay it?

<comment><USER19> NAL but speculating: I assume it was because arbitration clauses (contrary to the popular perception) have to make some attempt at fairness in order to hold up in court, so Uber's lawyers figured that, by making Uber responsible for the fee, it would look more like a reasonable arrangement that a driver with actual bargaining power might agree to.

<comment><USER20> Especially given that Uber chooses the arbiter.

Arbitration clauses don't work as intended if the company can't choose a biased arbiter to rule in their favor, so this is always part of the contract.

<comment><USER19> Uber having sole choice over the arbiter would go against my explanation being the right one. Biased selection of the arbiter is also a reason why (AIUI) such a contract wouldn't hold up in court.

<comment><USER20> I meant that the contract would seem especially unfair if Uber could choose an arbiter they didn't have to pay for.

Even if they didn't outright choose an expensive one to squash claims, it would be unfair to make an individual pay for a service they can and want to get cheaper elsewhere (on less favorable terms for Uber).

Unless there's blatant cronyism and abuse of power, I don't think biased arbitration by itself would fail to hold up. Judges are humans with personal ideologies too, so you can pick some that do everything by the book and still skew the result in your favor (especially averaged over 60,000 cases)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Heretical Things Statistics Tell Us About Fiction - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-surprising-things-statistics-tell-us-about-fiction <comment><USER2> The movie industry, unfortunately, has this figured out. The classic guide was "Screenplay" (1979) by Syd Field, which lays out a fairly rigid structure for movies. Then, in 2005, Blake Snyder published "Save the Cat", which is a rigid guide to what has to happen in each set of pages in a screenplay. Here's the summary on one page.[1]

This pattern is so effective that almost every big-budget movie from Hollywood now follows it. Very closely.[2] So closely that audiences expect it. Hollywood got a design pattern that works, and they're sticking with it.

[1] [https://goodinaroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Blake- Sny...](https://goodinaroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Blake-Snyders-Beat- Sheet.pdf) [2] [http://www.savethecat.com/beat-sheets- alpha](http://www.savethecat.com/beat-sheets-alpha)

<comment><USER3> As someone with some relevant industry experience, I can tell you that nearly 0 professional screenwriters or development executives are consciously sticking to a rigid structure as prescribed by some book. Instead, what you're seeing is the difference between after the fact analysis and the process of creation. Things like the three act structure and certain beats appearing in many movies exist because those are just natural ways to tell a story. The three act structure is, at the most basic level, just the series of beginning, middle, and end. Of course any movie has these sections by necessity and there are better and worse ways to navigate through each.

Just to be clear though, _no one_ is sitting around talking about Snyder's beats or terminology. In the industry, the only terms you'll here from these books are discussions of the three act structure because that is so vital to this sort of material. All that said, I do think the books are a good starting point for someone who wants to think critically about story, but don't think that these are blueprints for Hollywood success. If they were, every screenwriter would be paid scale.

<comment><USER4> To someone outside the industry, the idea that much Hollywood screenwriting follows a rigid formula seems plausible. There may be creative auteurs creating bizarre plots with delightfully unpredictable pacing, but those scripts aren't being filmed and distributed to the public.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, it's getting to the point now where all TV/movies seem to be using the same tricks around pacing, creating audience involvement with characters, generating tension etc., to the point where I recognise it easily and then cannot continue watching. In contrast, and obviously I'm generalising massively but still, I find that older media doesn't seem quite so desperate to build me up into a frenzy of emotion, and seems happier to let a story develop at its own pace without resorting to shallow tricks to liven things up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Applying statistics to works of fiction is mildly interesting, much as applying geometry to paintings. But after you tell me all about your statistical analysis of Faulkner's prose or how the Golden Mean is distorted in Van Gogh's paintings, you still haven't touched the thing that makes the works of Faulkner and Van Gogh much more interesting than those of their less- known contemporaries. That's why it is called "art" and not "science."

<comment><USER7> I've always wanted to conduct an experiment where we put some higshcoolers who wanted to major in art history in isolation (except for sterilized food and some math textbooks slipped under the door) and had them reconstruct the periods and choose important artists from scratch.

How much of the canon would turn out the same?

<comment><USER8> Similar to the plot of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote)

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't agree. Menard is about authorship of a rewritten identical work - the GP was talking about people selecting works to potentially produce a different canon, and there's no question of an author.

<comment><USER8> Right... but it's similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On authors favorite words: "The words must be used in half an author's books, at least once per hundred thousand words; they can't be proper nouns... Isaac Asimov prefers 'terminus,'"

"terminus" is the proper name of a location in Asimov's Foundation series. Did Ben Blatt's analysis fail to account for common words used as proper nouns, or does Asimov use terminus outside the Foundation series?

<comment><USER11> Apparently the word has to appear in half their books. I don't know if he took the whole of Asimov's 900+ books

<comment><USER12> Wikipedia puts him at 40 novels, enough short stories for _maybe_ 40 short to mid-sized collections (382 stories), 280 non-fic books, and 146 as editor or annotator, which surely don't count. 504 books included edited/annotated. If one were only using fiction and excluding duplicates (I'm sure there were collections of short stories of his which were mostly or entirely repeats from earlier collections) then that's maybe 80 volumes of unique material (I'm sure there were tons of dupes in various story collections), tops. They'd easily fit in 40-50 fairly ordinary vols. I bet if you were willing to put multiple "books" in one (a lot of his juvenilia are really short) and probably 10-15 LOA-style volumes.

Not that that's a small amount of fiction to have written, but even including the non-fic it's nowhere near 900.

<comment><USER11> Yes, seems my off-the-cuff memory's is counting an individual short story as a book & even then doubled the value

[http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html](http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious to see how someone like Neal Stephenson would be identified. His writing style seems to change to fit the times and persons he writes about.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if this was taken into account, but in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, "terminus" was very much a proper noun, being the name of the very planet where most of the plot takes place.

I wonder if he named it that because he liked the word so much, or if the word became his "favourite" after using it that way? It would be cool to see how author's usages of these words changed over time.</comment>


Hackers take control of a Tesla Model S and turn it off at low speed - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0d1932a-3b05-11e5-8613-07d16aad2152.html#axzz3i24evLkE

<comment><USER2> Is there a paywall on this?

<comment><USER3> Yes. Google bypass: [https://www.google.com/search?q=Hackers+take+control+of+a+Te...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Hackers+take+control+of+a+Tesla+Model+S+and+turn+it+off+at+low+speed)</comment></comment>