My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-shampoo-bacteria-rich-hygiene-experiment.html <comment><USER3> I'm extremely disappointed by the number of highly upvoted responses in this thread that seem to come from a gut-level "Ewww... gross!" response, instead of a rational examination of the science.

Recent medical and biological studies are showing that we are, in fact, evolved to live with an entire symbiotic ecosystem of fungus and bacteria. And the total war we have waged on all things microbial in the last century may have been to our detriment.

I would expect a rational discussion of exactly what the science has an has not revealed along these lines from HN.

Instead, what I'm reading is a lot of posts along the lines of "Smelly dirty hippies" or "Oh my god, dangerous microbes! Unclean people!"

Come on HN. We're better than this.

<comment><USER4> It seems like the loudest outcries are people afraid of others not washing their hands after using the toilet.

The article doesn't explicitly say anything about it, but I didn't get the impression that any of those people (even the ones that haven't showered in years) weren't washing their hands after going to the bathroom.

<comment><USER5> I stopped using soap in the shower, and shampoo in my hair. My hair is much nicer, and my BO disappeared entirely (women have confirmed this). No one noticed I stopped using either.

I can only speak for myself, but I still use soap after using the washroom and when handling food.

There's pretty clear scientific evidence for the use of hand-washing in specific cases. I think most of the people trying the no-soap, no-shampoo thing are actually rather empirical and respectful of science.

I used to work on repairing old newspapers in an archives. I saw the old ad campaigns for soap. We originally started using soap due to marketing, not due to scientific studies.

At the time, people didn't bathe that much. Ads recommended bathing regularly with soap. This improved odour. People fell for a correlation and thought it was soap that was the cause. This knowledge "wash yourself with soap!" was handed down through successive generations.

This belief was strengthened due to a TEMPORARY increase in BO if you stop using soap, once started. Takes about 1-4 weeks before the body adjusts and you become LESS smelly than you were before. Few people would have tried going without soap that long, so naive empiricism backed up marketing and tradition.

In other words, our current "soap everywhere, every day!" habits were not formed due to empirical inquiry and scientific study.

Here's one of the soap ads. These ran between 1920-1950:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg](https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg)

<comment><USER6> How long is your hair? I have a LOT of shoulder-length hair and I'm just not sure if I can clean that amount of hair with just water and no soap.

Also, you say "no one noticed I stopped using [soap]", but then you talk about a temporary increase in BO which "takes 1-4 weeks before [..] you become less smelly".

Which one is it?

Did you stay indoors for the first month? Or did people just not comment on it maybe?

I tried the no shampoo thing some years ago (my hair was shorter), my then- girlfriend _did_ in fact comment (after I tried it for at least a couple of weeks) that my hair was more greasy (it was definitely not "much nicer"). Got a bit of irritated scalp too. I didn't feel very clean either, as if I was just smearing the hair-grease onto the rest of my body in the shower.

I felt a bit of resistance typing the above things. Are we sure it's not just confirmation bias? Because I can imagine people this experiment, IF they have success, they will report "my hair is so much nicer", but guess what, who is going to report "Yeah so I stopped using soap and shampoo, and surprisingly, my hair got greasier and dirtier, and you know the weirdest thing? I kept this up for a period of time and it didn't get better!", because people will just respond "um yeah, so take a shower already".

I have no problems with the idea, really. And I did try it, because I wanted it to work (no soap? sure! saves me having to find one that smells okay), several times even. But my experience just hasn't been very good. That's _my_ empirical inquiry.

Actually I still want it to work, so maybe you tell me what I did wrong?

<comment><USER5> When I say I had a temporary increase in BO, I mean I noticed mild BO after, say, 6 hours during the transition period, and I showered again.

Before trying this, it would take 12 hours to get that level of BO.

And currently, I basically never notice that level of BO during a 24 hour cycle. It just vanished.

Measurement was....smelling my armpit.

<comment><USER7> >And currently, I basically never notice that level of BO during a 24 hour cycle. It just vanished.

Are you sure you just didn't get used to it? I had a friend that got into this and while he thought he smelled fine... no one else concurred except other people also living the same way.

<comment><USER5> I had to keep repeating this in various posts in this thread, but: I've had plenty of spontaneous comments from lovers, who didn't know I didn't use soap.

So yes, pretty sure. Especially since I DIDN'T get used to it before I stopped using soap. I was familiar with the smell of BO. But now it just doesn't arrive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The unwashed hair seems it would be a problem. I have fairly oily skin and hair and a few days without shampoo, (even if I rinse) and my hair becomes extremely greasy and nasty looking. Maybe there are bacteria that would eat this oil, I don't know. Anything this strong could probably also be used for oil spill clean ups. (As long as it didn't get down into the salt-pit strategic oil reserves I guess).

I do find the basic premiss of the article interesting and agree. We do use too much cleaner and are probably doing ourselves a biological disservice.

<comment><USER9> >a few days without shampoo, (even if I rinse) and my hair becomes extremely greasy and nasty looking

Ideally you need to go a week or two without shampooing to allow your hair to adjust. The thinking on this (and I don't know if it's based in science) is that your scalp is producing excess oil because you keep washing it away. When you stop using shampoo your scalp will, over time, slow down its oil production.

I have very dry skin, so I can't comment definitely on whether those theories about oil production are based in truth. I can detail my own experience, though.

I used to shampoo daily and had terrible issues with dandruff. A couple of years ago I decided to stop using shampoo as an experiment. After about 3 weeks my dandruff cleared up completely. These days, the only time my hair gets shampooed is when I get it cut - around once every 6-8 weeks. For a few days afterwards my hair feels very limp and my scalp is very dry and flaky.

I do make sure to rinse thoroughly with warm water on a daily basis.

<comment><USER10> Yup, that's the trick. I stopped using shampoo last year - my hair was greasy as all hell for around a month, then one day I noticed that it just stopped. Now, I just go into the shower and scrub thoroughly with hot water instead of shampoo. And it takes a couple days without showering for my hair to get oily and smelly now, instead of just one.

Oddly enough, my dandruff has stayed completely unaffected (and possibly gotten worse)...

Still use a plain bar soap on my body though, can't get past the self-stigma of the thought of only rinsing down there...

<comment><USER5> "Down there" actually smells permanently better when you stop using soap. That was my personal experience anyway, and others who have tried this have reported the same.

You're actually not supposed to soap your genitals directly. Even those who use soap don't recommend this. The bacterial balance of the glans penis and the vulva is more delicate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical > engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years.

It's hard for me to imagine that these people don't stink and that after a workout, run or hike they don't smell "strongly". I guess you can still rinse off in the shower to get sweat and grime off, but not use any soap.

For the sake of my lady, I'd have to at least give the undercarriage a good scrubbing.

<comment><USER12> The thesis is that the source of the 'stink' is Ammonia and the bacteria are eating it and turning it into nitrides. The question is of course how quickly they can do that.

Its a pretty interesting theory.

<comment><USER13> It's an odd theory. Humans have very little free ammonia in their bodies. There are enzymes that quickly catabolize it to urea.

Second, nitrides seems like an odd product of ammonia metabolism. I've only ever heard of metal nitrides, nothing organic.

It's pretty well understood that bacteria on the skin metabolize the fatty acids in our sweat to short chain aliphatic acids (propionic acid, butyric acid, etc). If you've ever smelled those chemicals you'd see the resemblance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally? How very ... Darwinian ... of you.

Soap and water have saved more lives than any medication, ever. I now have no spleen (6 months ago I lost spleen, gallbladder and half my stomach as well as sundry peritoneal membranes to cancer) and nearly died as a result of post- operative infections. I take daily antibiotics, possibly forever. As a society, we don't just cleanse ourselves for our own well-being, we wash for others.

<comment><USER15> I am sorry that you got cancer and had to remove those parts of your body. I am also happy that you now seem better (and I am guessing and being hopeful here).

That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health. If you had provided links to research that proved that soap and shampoo use in the larger population made people with a defective immune system safer I would not have a problem with your comments, but I am just not sure that is the case.

If I try to give an example, there are people that are hyper-allergic to peanuts and they will die if they are exposed to peanuts. Why do we, despite this, allow peanuts in our society? It is not a necessity.

Edit; Just to be clear; we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing.

<comment><USER16> _That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health_

There is a case to be made for it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity)

<comment><USER17> No, Herd Immunity is for infection risks which are SHARED across the whole herd. The point is to prevent the infection from reaching "critical mass".

What we're talking about here is different, it's a risk which applies to a small minority of specific individuals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just to be contrarian...

What if our culture of daily washing with soap contributes to our health in positive ways? If we make our bodies _generally_ inhospitable to bacteria, we are probably inhospitable to many kinds of deadly bacteria as well.

It might be that if we all abandon soapy showers, we'll have a new era of diseases on our hands.

<comment><USER19> Washing with soap disrupts the endocrine function of the skin, which doesn't fully recover for a couple days. It's not a matter of bad chemicals in the soap; stripping away the natural oils messes up synthesis of things like Vitamin D. The article didn't even touch on this and instead just talks about bacteria.

Frequent use of soap is going to impair the skin's barrier function and leave you more susceptible to infection. You should really only be soaping up as needed.

Personally, once a week is fine for me. I'll just rinse off as needed the rest of the week, which in winter might be once.

<comment><USER20> You sound stinky

<comment><USER21> The ultra-health obsessed min-maxers I have met have been socially awkward to say the least. People who are fanatical about anything to the point it causes social conflicts strike me as compulsive. Some people just seem so obsessed about a single issue that they are burden to interact with, regardless of what the issue is.

There's nothing wrong with using soap every day, my grandparents have been doing it all their lives and they're healthy at their old age (90's). Plus you don't end up bothering others with your smell.

<comment><USER19> I'm better groomed, dressed, and looking than you. I just don't gratuitously soap up.

<comment><USER21> The problem with all of your arguments, including claims to your superior appearance, is that they're all entirely subjective. When is soap use gratuitous?

When others can detect your smell that's an objective fact and if you still use enough soap so that others can't smell your armpits when they're squeezed in next to you on public transportation then I don't really have a problem with what you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm curious how this works for people with long hair. To a certain extent, shampooing less can be great for your hair, for a lot of the reasons discussed in the article about skin care. Sulphates strip out your natural hair oils and do a bunch of bad things, so sulphate-free shampoos are a lot better. Additionally, once you get your scalp accustomed to less frequent shampooing and it stops producing tons of oil to compensate, life for your hair can be pretty good.

That said, I can never seem to get onto a cycle of more than just a couple days without shampooing before my hair is just too oily. Washing with just water isn't super sufficient either when you have long, thick hair.

<comment><USER4> It's not pleasant, but if you gradually wash your hair less and less frequently the oils in your hair eventually find an equilibrium.

At least this is how it's turned out for me. I generally only wash my hair about once a week or less. At first it was crazy oily and frustrating, but gradually the amount of oil my head produced lessened.

<comment><USER23> Same...I used to shampoo my hair EVERY time I showered (everyday) and was confused why it was always so dry and frizzy. Now I just rinse it daily when I'm in the shower and shampoo it once every 5 days or so and my hair is much less frizzy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If it really does work (sounds like it!), they'll just need to invent something to help aid the transition, before it can be really find mass- adoption.

From the way it sounds now, I'd make the switch only if I could find the time to take a month away from life... Maybe a vacation where all I do is remodel my house and have groceries delivered.

<comment><USER5> I did this. I just showered more frequently for a month. No one noticed.

After that time, my hair and body odour are permanently better. In fact, I never have BO. (women have confirmed this).

I wash my hair with baking soda apple cider vinegar occasionally. If I eat well and sleep, it never gets greasy. If I eat poorly, it will grease up a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I probably use soap on my body 3 or 4 times a year (still wash hands regularly), and shampoo once a week and notice no difference from how I smell from when I am using both.

In terms of hair-greasiness, when I began my hair was much longer and did feel greasier and appear more out of order, but with shorter hair there is not much of an issue and the shampoo once a week can stave it off.

Anyways, it seems like he is greatly exaggerating how badly he smelled. I smell no different, granted I apply deodorant to my underarms once a day but probably would not have to. Nobody I know comments on any bad smells either.

<comment><USER26> > I smell no different

> Nobody I know comments on any bad smells either

I'm not claiming you are wrong, but I don't believe these are strong arguments in your favour. I can recall many instances of "the smelly kid" throughout my life - people who appeared to be totally oblivious to the fact that they stank, and very rarely did people around them ever mention it - to their face.

<comment><USER25> That's the most common response I receive but I don't think it holds true in my case. For example my current girlfriend was extremely surprised when I told her I didn't use soap or anything about 6 months into our relationship. Same sort of surprise amongst my housemates since I am pretty hygienic and well- groomed.

<comment><USER26> That is more convincing :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand why the general consensus seems to think this is gross. I ran a similar experiment where I stopped washing my hair, after I detoxed from shampoo/conditioner, my hair stopped smelling. It only smells for a few days and then the natural oils take over and do their job.

My fiance who is currently becoming a registered nurse said her teacher ran an experiment which concluded that if you wash your hands properly and long enough (at least 30 seconds) using water, it does as good a job as soap/antibacterial handwash. To prove this he swabbed students hands and also ran them under a light to inspect for anything foreign. He of course also made sure to mention that in a hospital using water would not fly, but I thought it was an interesting result.

What did we use before shampoo, soap and conditioner? Nothing. Mankind has lasted this long without buying antibacterial products, hasn't it? I think if anything, antibacterial handwashes, shampoo and conditioner have contributed to our unhealthy society, especially when put into combination with our zero nutritional diets and pollution-led lifestyles. I think we all get so sick because we don't expose ourselves enough to the common bacteria and germs that lurk in our everyday lives. At the end of the day we as humans are nothing more than bacteria. Look up a video of what happens inside of our bodies when we digest food, we are bacteria ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER28> IIUC, this firm would like to replace soap with a micro-biological mono- culture mist. Given that our skin is in direct contact with a lot of external bacteria and virus, this seems to be a biological disaster in the making if it were to take off.

Haven't we learned that mono-culture is a bad idea yet?

</comment><comment><USER29> It's always seemed odd to me that most people douse their skin in antibiotics every day. I'd love to see a study on flora, like this study on gut flora:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018661](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018661)

<comment><USER30> Antibacterial chemicals, not antibiotics. But you're right in general. It's something that we do that we have no evidence is actually _good_ for us. We live in symbiosis with bacteria. Sterilizing your gut would kill you.

<comment><USER31> And if you look hard enough, you can find soap that doesn't have antibacterial chemicals (no triclosan). I carry around a small squirt tube of liquid soap for this reason, and also because most soap in public bathrooms is atrocious in other ways (doesn't lather, dries the skin, etc).

<comment><USER32> Soap, by virtue of being soap, has antibacterial properties because it disrupts fat layers by making them dissolvable in water, iirc.

<comment><USER33> This. Soap isn't an antibiotic as much as something that fatally disrupts the lipid membranes of bacteria, as well as messing with other oils you happen to have on you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am sure natural way is better in long run, than lab produced chemicals. I use natural powder created from dry Acacia concinna[0] and Hibiscus rosa- sinensis[0] and for the smell part in India every used to use coconut oil but now a days youngster dont like though majority of school going children are apply coconut oil to the hair after head-bath

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_concinna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_concinna)

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_rosa- sinensis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_rosa-sinensis)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm sold! How do I get a bottle?

</comment><comment><USER36> This is awesome to me mainly because I am just thinking of all the other undiscovered ways we are destroying natures answer to many of our man made solutions. My hope is that this type of science gets more attention every day.

</comment><comment><USER37> If any one is interested in a sort of guide on why or how, and what to expect when you stop using body soaps and shampoos...

It's also about all these products we buy because are told to, that are completely unnecessary. It's as if no one questions it,which I think is Weird

[http://fritzw.com/2014/02/10/4-things-you-buy-that-are- ruini...](http://fritzw.com/2014/02/10/4-things-you-buy-that-are-ruining-your- skin/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Well, it doesn't work for everybody.

I gave no-poo a go for four months. My hair started to shed, got dandruff breakouts and going to the hairdresser was an embarrassment due to oily hair (machine got stuck frequently).

Tried many tricks, vinegar+baking soda and all that, to no avail.

I finally stopped when hair loss started to be noticeable.

I've ditched commercial shampoos since, and found that using plain baby shampoo everyday with ketoconazol every third day gives me the best results.

<comment><USER39> I have similar story, probably cultivating beneficial flora is the missing part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> My Dad always claimed that daily showering killed off all the bacteria. I think we thought he was crazy.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's funny that people who claim that you don't need soap to wash yourself simply justify their action by "I smell good now" \- so what ? How does smelling good mean anything about how healthy your skin actually is ? For all we know it may be the exact opposite.

</comment><comment><USER42> The author of the story kindly submitted here begins by writing, "I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic, developed by AOBiome, a biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass. The tonic looks, feels and tastes like water, but each spray bottle of AO+ Refreshing Cosmetic Mist contains billions of cultivated Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) that is most commonly found in dirt and untreated water. AOBiome scientists hypothesize that it once lived happily on us too — before we started washing it away with soap and shampoo." So what we are particularly talking about here is an early-phase human trial of a cosmetic product (which is regulated in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration under the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act) which may or may not have the benefits claimed by the manufacturer. The trial is to find out if the new cosmetic does anything at all beneficial, without too much harm. Getting news coverage like this is of course public relations gold for the manufacturer.

I read most of the comments here before reading the article and then posting my later comment. A lot of the comments revolve around the issue of the health effects of "modern" human life. All epidemiological evidence to date suggests that living like a middle-class or wealthier person from a developed country is good for health. An article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here's why."[1] refers to the steady long-term upward trend in healthy lifespan in the United States. Whatever we are doing about washing our bodies or our hair so far doesn't have any harmful effect that isn't swamped by the generally helpful effect of all the other changes of modern life. Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world.[2] The overall trends are so favorable to further improvement to general health that if the observed facts about people who are already born and conservatively projected current trends continue, we can expect that girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing"[3] by James Vaupel, originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day."[4]

On evolutionary grounds, there is every reason to expect that human beings have haphazard adaptations through natural selection to survive to reproductive age despite a world full of microorganisms that were neither created nor evolved to benefit human beings, but rather just to survive and reproduce themselves. There is no evidence whatever that there are any large number of bacterial species or other microorganisms that are actively "beneficial" for human beings, rather than simply being well tolerated by human hosts. To live to healthy old age and greater enjoyment of the natural world and all its wonders, human beings may very well be better off continuing the human way of shaping their environments and culturally transmitting environmental interventions that lead to "unnaturally" good health and longevity.

AFTER EDIT, TO RESPOND TO QUESTION BELOW: Yes, I am saying there is weak or no evidence of "beneficial" bacteria for human beings. This is to be expected from the consilient findings of evolutionary theory. (Human beings have had to live in highly microbe-free environments, for various reasons.) I am specifically asking for evidence, from medical review articles, that there are well accepted "beneficial" skin microbes. Which are they? What is the evidence that shows the benefit?

The author of the article seems somewhat convinced by her personally experienced anecdote. It would of course take much more long-term study (not to mention more double-blind study designs) before we will be sure what is beneficial for human skin in particular and human health in general by way of applying bacteria intentionally to our skins. Suffice it to say that I am not afraid of washing my hands with soap nor afraid of washing my hair with shampoo. The book _The Checklist Manifesto_ reports on an experimental study in a poor country of promoting hand-washing with soap, and how that showed evidence of improving health outcomes. Let's not throw out good hygiene with the bath water until more research has been completed on this interesting topic.

[1] [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html)

[2] [http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

[3] [http://www.demographic- challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...](http://www.demographic- challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf)

[4] [http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....](http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx)

<comment><USER5> I believe you're conflating two issues. Few people argue against hand-washing with soap. The benefits are proven.

But where did you get the notion that washing the whole body with soap is beneficial or even benign? You've cited many studies, but they all deal with aging and not with skin flora.

Skin flora is complex. I know of no scientific study that has looked into whether skin flora or hygiene is improved by full body soap washing.

Full body soap washing began in the early part of the 20th century, following a steady marketing campaign with ads such as this:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg](https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg)

At the time, people bathed little. When they bath more frequently, with soap, odour improved. Soap usage became widespread.

It seemed a reasonable inference that soap was the cause. Particularly since if you stop using soap, you get smellier, even if you bathe.

I believe this inference is wrong. I stopped using soap in 2011. For the first 2-3 weeks, I smelled worse. Then I smelled better. I have had practically no BO since, even in the most sensitive regions. Women have confirmed that I smell good, spontaneously. If you saw me, you would never know I don't use soap.

I'm using an N of 1, but it seemed like the bacterial balance of my skin improved. It also became less oily. I can only speak to my own example, but I have seen many reports from others who went through the same transition as me.

So I'll repeat: where is your evidence that _full-body_ soap washing offers benefits? Are there any scientific studies that support your position?

My hypothesis is that full body soap makes us worse off and that we don't realize this due to the transition period. Our habit was begun by marketing and cemented by tradition. (our parents washed us when we were young)

Edit: I just noticed this sentence:

"There is no evidence whatever that there are any large number of bacterial species or other microorganisms that are actively "beneficial" for human beings"

This seems rather unsupported. Are you saying we do not require intestinal or skin flora?

Second edit: In response to your edit, I found this article:

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2008....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2008.08437.x/abstract;jsessionid=F3E7464CCB88D8682050D6229DB3B69E.f02t01)

It has been cited 182 according to Google Scholar. I can't access the full text, but it claims that many skin flora are mutalistic.

<comment><USER43> _" I stopped using soap in 2011. For the first 2-3 weeks, I smelled worse. Then I smelled better. I have had practically no BO since, even in the most sensitive regions. Women have confirmed that I smell good, spontaneously. If you saw me, you would never know I don't use soap."_

Do you still wash your hair? Do you still shower (i.e. rinse) once a day? How do you wash after when you're especially dirty? (e.g. dirt, grease, etc.)

I'd be curious to hear about your hygiene routine in a little more details.

<comment><USER5> I shower every day. Sometimes twice if I've done something that made me sweat or it's a warm day and I want a cold shower.

I occasionally wash my hair with baking soda then apple cider vinegar. It was what other people doing the same thing use. Hair is very clean and soft after that.

The frequency of the hair wash depends on how my hair is. If I eat, sleep and rest well, it stays clean for a week or more. If I eat poorly it gets greasy faster and I wash it more.

I use soap to wash my hands after using the washroom and during food preparation, or when something major has dirtied my hands.

Otherwise, no soap on my body. Subjectively, odour improved in all the sensitive areas. I used to notice BO in my armpits and a few areas I won't name. Now I don't.

As I said, this improvement has been confirmed by spontaneous compliments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Homeless people smell and overall look grundgy. According to this article they ought to smell fine, have beautiful hair, and skin.

</comment><comment><USER45> don't apply something on your skin which you theoretically can't eat. [http://easyayurveda.com/2012/05/16/are-soaps-and-shampoos- re...](http://easyayurveda.com/2012/05/16/are-soaps-and-shampoos-really- needed-a-readers-words-of-experience/)

</comment><comment><USER46> one can easily see importance of decreasing bacteria load for existence of a species in big colonies/cities on the example of ants vs. other insects - <USER2> ants are the only insects having glands producing antibiotic

</comment><comment><USER47> What about chlorinated water? Would these bacteria survive swimming in a pool?

</comment><comment><USER48> Something like this might be a great product for camping and backpacking.

<comment><USER49> 2 weeks in the Lake district camping. Walked just over 80 miles and slept rough. Picked up food at local shops.

Didn't wash once. Stops bothering you after a couple of days.

Haven't used soap since this trip 11 years ago and all skin problems I had (bad Eczema) went away literally within a week.

<comment><USER50> How do you wash your hair? Do you wash your hair? Do you scrub with a non- soapy cloth on your body? Sorry for the intrusion, just very curious.

<comment><USER49> Just water. And I only do that once a week. I use my hands to wash myself, nothing else.

I went through a phase of bad Eczema where my hands would bleed. This put an end to it.

I use shampoo soap bars from Lush to wash my hands before eating - that is it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I can see how this could be useful on a cross-country trek, on the ISS, or in areas where clean water in short supply.

For the rest of us though, showers and baths are too much fun to give up. I'd still shower every day if it were bad for my hygiene.

</comment><comment><USER52> I did not realize my teenage son could be used as a science experiment.

</comment><comment><USER53> And this thread is why I never shake hands with people.</comment>


Mobile phones may soon be powered by hydrogen - <AUTHOR> http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/18/content_7623246.htm <comment><USER2> Will hydrogen power laptops and mobile telephones be allowed on aeroplanes? Lithium ion batteries are problematic when they combust. The energy density of hydrogen or methanol could make this situation worse. If these gadgets aren't allowed on aeroplanes than jet-setting trend setters won't buy them.</comment>


Twitter took over a user's account and joked about reading their DMs - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/27/twitter-took-over-a-users-account-and-joked-about-reading-their-dms/ <comment><USER2> this is peak pettiness</comment>


Ask HN: Should I reprogram for NV memory - <AUTHOR> Somebody suggested I program my stack for NV using intels dev kit. I found lots of info on pmem.io. Seems all these options make our programs horribly non portable. <comment><USER2> Way back in the day you'd have to reprogram for each type of memory/storage combination you had. Some embedded systems are still that way. It's an EXTREME pain. NV programming is a fad from Intel to lock people into a particular tech, just like memkind and the like. Don't do it!</comment>


Git ransom campaign incident report - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2019/05/14/git-ransom-campaign-incident-report-atlassian-bitbucket-github-gitlab/ <comment><USER2> Since literally everybody who has cloned a repo has a full copy of it, and since git is a decentralized revision control system, what on earth can it mean to hold a repo for ransom? The write up even says so: to recover, just push your code back up to our repo.

I really don't understand what they are talking about. It's as if someone showed me a photo of my child and said, "pay me or I'll burn this photograph".

What am I missing?

<comment><USER3> The threat cited in the article said not just that the code would remain deleted, but that it would be "leaked" \- presumably many of these were private repos.

You could never trust that the attacker actually deleted their copy of the repo, but then, the whole cryptolocking business model falls down if the attacker isn't at least moderately honest, so I can see why people would respond to that threat.

<comment><USER4> _"the whole cryptolocking business model falls down if the attacker isn 't at least moderately honest"_

Nitpick: it only requires _most_ attackers to be somewhat honest. Having a few unscrupulous ones may make life harder for the "honest" ones, but they themselves can be better of, e.g. by, after receiving payment, demanding more money.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like we need a review site for extortionists.

<comment><USER6> Would you charge the extortionists to remove their negative reviews?

<comment><USER7> No, they just have to prove they're the real person with photo ID and admit they are the person being referred to as the criminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it common that companies share intelligence like this? I think it's a wonderful idea, given they all operate on essentially the same service (git) they share similar security concerns.

<comment><USER7> In the Cybersecurity field, yes!

You'd be surprised how often you'll be rolling up to your competition to compare the virus files you pulled from each of your networks and reverse engineering on VMs together... then next week you have to pretend you hate them until something else goes wrong again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems like no one fell for this though. [https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekct...](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA)

<comment><USER10> Probably a unique wallet in each message. It seems to be that way in scam email ransoms.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't seem that way: [https://github.com/search?q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9...](https://github.com/search?q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA&type=Code)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Repo's with remaining ransom file: [https://github.com/search?q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9...](https://github.com/search?q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA&type=Code)

<comment><USER13> Weird, weren't GitHub and friends restoring these repositories for these unlucky users?

<comment><USER14> I assume they're trying to contact the repo owners to see how they want to proceed. Even if the change seems obvious, changing the contents of a repo is definitely a case where the git host should involve the owner of the repo (barring ToS violations).

<comment><USER15> This is the safer bet. The host should offer to restore from their own backups, but some customers may have already taken care of their own stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again." \- Peter Pan movie, Battlestar Galactica, and should be every security incident report ever.

Not saying they shouldn't have issued their analysis, of course they should have, it mostly looks on target. But...it will all happen again.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1\. Stop using 'git add .' This is a bad habit I see people keep suggesting to new git users. Stop recommending it and stop doing it.

2\. Never store your password in .git/config. Why are you doing that? That shouldn't be stored in .git/config.

<comment><USER18> Why are people using passwords instead of keys?

<comment><USER19> "Stupid corporate firewall blocks SSH connections" would be my guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How does one withdraw bitcoin to fiat or even use it without it being traceable? Are there laundering or anonymizing services for bitcoin withdrawals to fiat?

<comment><USER21> AFAIK there have been bitcoin laundering services for years (bitcoin in, bitcoin out).

As for spending, there used to be pre-loaded credit cards that you could from bitcoin.

<comment><USER20> Wouldn't the credit cards be traceable (record of where you spent it). It wouldn't necessarily tie you exactly but it'd create a large paper-trail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 2FA is great for the web UI, but none of these vendors make it particularly easy to enforce 2FA on the command line.

<comment><USER22> An ssh key _is_ 2FA

<comment><USER23> How so? An SSH key is a single factor. You could argue that a password- protected private key provides a second factor, but that still falls in the category of "something you know."

<comment><USER24> How many people can recite their SSH key? Surely an SSH key is "something you have".

<comment><USER25> Having two different static passwords on an account isn't actually two different factors, whether you can recite them or not.

The fact that one time passwords expire and change is what makes them a different factor than a static password.

<comment><USER26> > The fact that one time passwords expire and change is what makes them a > different factor than a static password.

If you're getting your 2FA code by SMS message or the like, this can be true.

If you're using TOTP (e.g. Google Authenticator), that's just as static as your other passwords. The TOTP code never expires nor changes. What changes is the code you're supposed to send over the wire.

<comment><USER27> Eh? TOTP usually expire in 60 seconds, so in most cases even if you accidentally leak it, it will be safe.

(and you are not likely to leak it anyway -- with something that changes that often, you are not going to have an incentive to write it to files)

<comment><USER26> A 60-second TOTP code is a fully deterministic function of a permanent, unchangeable secret. That's why you and the server can agree on what the code should be without needing to communicate beyond setting up the code originally.

This makes it identical to a password from a theoretical perspective. There's really no difference between a TOTP secret that you keep in a TOTP app and haven't memorized, and a password you keep in your password manager and also haven't memorized. Both are "something you know", and nothing else.

You're correct that leaking a temporary code from a single login attempt doesn't compromise the TOTP secret. That is an artifact of the login process, not of whether the mechanism is labeled "2FA" or "password". You can do the same thing while calling the secret a password: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protocol)

<comment><USER27> I disagree, I believe TOTP belongs firmly in the "something you have" category. You cannot memorize TOTP password, nor you can store in your password manager. You also cannot pass that knowledge to another person. So this is more like a public key than a password.

Ultimately, everything is "permanent, unchangeable secret", including private key and biometric data. Where the data is stored and how is it accessed makes all the difference.

I could not find the original definition of "something you have", but modern standards like PCI actually give OTP auth as an example of "something you have" (p. 4 of [1])

(I am not looking at the degenerate case of running TOTP app on the same device / same security domain -- it does not describe most cases, and there are some fairly straightforward technical measures to defeat this)

[1] [https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/Multi-Factor- Authe...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/Multi-Factor- Authentication-Guidance-v1.pdf)

<comment><USER26> > You cannot memorize TOTP password, nor you can store in your password > manager. You also cannot pass that knowledge to another person.

But none of these things are true. For example, my most recent job involved sharing a 2FA-protected online account. We all had the code.

<comment><USER27> Sorry, "none of these things are true" in your environment. They are certainly true for other people, in fact, I bet they are true for majority of them.

I think analogy to physical house keys is very helpful. What did your work do?

Did you show the enrollment QR code, and multiple people scanned it --> this is like duplicating house key.

Did you put the key into password manager -> this is like that combination lockbox that releases house key if you enter the right combination.

People do all sorts of unusual things, this does not change the properties of intended usage.

<comment><USER26> > They are certainly true for other people, in fact, I bet they are true for > majority of them.

Well, no. Everyone who uses TOTP, without exception, has their secret stored in a password manager. That's what the TOTP app or device is.

<comment><USER27> There is a big difference between TOTP app/device and a password manager.

The password manager returns passwords directly. They can be viewed, memorized, passed to another person, copied to another device, or checked into git.

With TOTP, there is a private key inside, but it is not accessible to user. You cannot view it, or memorize it, nor can you pass it to another person or check it into git. It is purely implementation detail which is not exposed in any way.

Disclaimer: this is the case with classical TOTP devices, like RSA SecurID hardware token, or un-rooted Android phone running Google Authenticator. I have those, and everyone I know have them as well.

There are exceptions, like people using LastPass 2FA or people who store TOTP secret on their PC. This is not intended usage, and it does not matter for most users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > _Otherwise, you can still clone the repository and make use of: git reflog > or git fsck to find your last commit and change the HEAD._

I don't understand: when I clone a repo, I get a copy of all the branches/tags and the commits they point to & the trees/blobs from those commits. If the repo is wiped, I get a single master branch with a single commit with a single tree and a single blob, and no reflog because that is local to the repo, and I (as a fresh cloner) haven't updated any refs.

Perhaps they are thinking about a mirror clone? That still won't include the reflog, but you can at least find dangling commits and guess which one was master.

<comment><USER28> Oops, mirror clone only includes reachable commits. No idea what the 'Otherwise' clarification means then, it sounds bogus

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I didn't see it mentioned in the article, but did any of the 3 companies confirm that the repos have been actually cloned as the attackers suggest?

</comment><comment><USER30> I just have to say, props to Gitlab for being included in this. For a lot of enterprises that use Github and Bitbucket, this may be their first into to Gitlab.</comment>


Our start-up - Popcode, an augmented reality platform for mobile phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.popcode.info

<comment><USER2> This is impressive stuff - I like the map demo a lot - I always find digital maps are useless as maps but great as search tools... Mixing the two is awesome.

Any reason you didn't choose QR codes?

<comment><AUTHOR> So QR codes would have a number of advantages - a high data density, existing libraries for decoding etc - but we went for the Popcode design in the end:

\- The Popcode identifiers are very easily decoded by our software - you just have to casually view the Popcode with the app for it to be scanned whereas you generally have to hold the phone very steady to scan QR codes.

\- Popcodes encode a sufficient amount of data to identify content for the forseeable future (famous last words) but the scheme can be easily extended if need be.

\- The "Popcode" as a brand directly identifies augmented reality content, giving users some expectation as to the type of experience that they will have if they scan one.

c</comment></comment>


How Do You Decode a Hapax? Also, What's a Hapax? (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hapax-legomenon-hapaxes <comment><USER2> The article mentions the Old Testament, but there's also a hapax in the New Testament: the "daily" bread in the Lor'd Prayer ('Our Father'):

> _Epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) is a Greek adjective of controversial meaning whose > only recorded appearance is in the Lord 's Prayer. Although it is > traditionally translated as "daily" in the phrase τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν > ἐπιούσιον ("our_ epiousios _bread "), most modern scholars reject that > interpretation._

[…]

> _The modern Catholic Catechism holds that there are several ways of > understanding_ epiousios, _including the traditional 'daily', but most > literally as 'supersubstantial' or 'superessential', based on its > morphological components.[14]_ […]

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

<comment><USER3> Not the only one in the New Testament, but definitely one of the most juicy. Even Wikipedia calling 'daily' the 'traditional' translation is dubious: 'daily' comes from a particular Latin translation, not the earliest, nor the most common ancient one, nor the most famous.

A more denomination/sectarianism musing:

[https://irrco.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/give-us-this-day- our-...](https://irrco.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/give-us-this-day-our-bread/)

<comment><USER2> > _Not the only one in the New Testament_

What are some others?

<comment><USER3> There are more than 1500 NT hapax, and epiousios (and others) aren't exactly hapax (they appear twice ['dis legomena'], or more, though often in bits arguably copied from one source). A minority are names (e.g. Epicurean only in Acts 17:18), most are words that appear in non-NT texts (technically hapax, but often meh, obviously), most others (like 'epiousios') are compound word that are easy to understand (e.g. if you read an English writer saying 'she metathought about the problem' it wouldn't mystify you), but that still leaves plenty of oddities.

But the juicy ones have theological significance. If more significant, even simply compound words can generate debate, even words known outside the NT ('What did they mean in this context?'). Off the top of my head: Theopneustos (a hapax) from 2 Tim 3:16 is the forceful example (forceful for evangelicals at least). Authenteo in 1 Tim 2:12 is important in feminist theology. Arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9 is a crucial question in LGBT theology (a dis legomenon, strictly, [oh hai 1 Tim, again], though I guess this post is allowing those ;)

Tanakh hapax are more difficult because we don't have masses of other/earlier Hebrew and Hebrew is less often based on compound morphemes. So 'OT' hapax are more widely known, imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As always, Chinese takes this to the next level, since there are historical characters for which both meaning _and_ pronunciation have been lost.

A famous one is 篪, used exactly once in the Classic of Poetry (1000 BC), whose meaning was unknown until another text surfaced describing it as a type of flute.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Ja...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Japanese_characters)

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEjQX8HVtG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEjQX8HVtG4)

<comment><USER6> It annoys me slightly how - at least of the questions that make it to air - some are almost totally unanswerable unless you went to a private school and studied classics. I can sometimes go the best part of a series without getting a Physics or Mathematics one wrong, but some questions just do not represent knowledge actually held by all but few of the student populace (considering the name of the show).

<comment><USER7> [http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2...](http://s-f- walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2-cultures.pdf)

Then again, if it comes down to Eloi and Morlock, you're part of the culture higher on the food chain (well, at least in the far, far, future).

<comment><USER6> It's not a cultural divide amongst academics, just that the questions often feel like they were drafted by recruits of the Cambridge five back in 1935. Quite often no imagination at all, i.e. You can usually get a point on most pop music rounds by guessing Bon Dylan.

<comment><USER7> I'd been hoping the Cambridge five were what the _Sex Viri_ changed to after Haldane, but they added a member instead of subtracting one, becoming the _Septem Viri_ in a fit (worthy of classically-trained cunning linguists?) of prudishness.

[https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/about-us/history/establishing- the...](https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/about-us/history/establishing-the- department/haldane-and-the-sex-viri)

As to Dylan, _Bob Roberts_ is worth a shufti. The soundtrack wasn't available at release, but from what I've seen floating around the interwebz, it, like _The Onion_ , has been outstripped by reality.

Anyway: if the Cambridge five were more up-to-date, wouldn't they be setting questions like "which Alexandrov tune has been set to english lyrics by both Paul Robeson and Greg Camp?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Hence, "apoculamus" might be defined as "hauling your posterior away from" > something.

we've found the latin term for "haul ass". brilliant.

<comment><USER7> We can see technical progress, too.

Consider _ploxeni_ , the manure wagon, present among the ancients.

At the end of the nineteenth century, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Oppenheim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Oppenheim) invented the manure spreaderб so his students would have more time to study.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VerrkfIGSBY&t=140](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VerrkfIGSBY&t=140)

At the end of the twentieth century, Sir Tim (as he is now) invented the web (allowing further and faster spread of virtual manure[1]).

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/55/ec/fb55ec281c2ac9c427b9...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/55/ec/fb55ec281c2ac9c427b928dd85b14325.jpg)

[1] by which I clearly mean a powerful substance that promotes growth, innit guv'nor?

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-thompson I knew this phrase only from its appearance in NetHack, as a randomized scroll name ([https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.7/src/obje...](https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.7/src/objects.c#L873)). Since most of the other randomized names are nonsense words, I just figured this one was too. Interesting to see what it actually means.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if many of these were slang terms used regionally that would normally be excluded from most formal writing because people who knew how to read and write also spoke more "properly". Literacy rate has been low historically.

</comment><comment><USER10> The atlas obscura is a literary and jounalistic rabbit hole filled with salt licks and honey pots.

Great site, I never spend less than 20 minutes there.

</comment><comment><USER11> This site isnt GDPR compliant, no opt-out available or hard to find.

[https://outline.com/NbVGmT](https://outline.com/NbVGmT)</comment>


Headphones Tech: Dynamic VS Planar Magnetic Drivers - <AUTHOR> https://www.arkartech.net/blogs/blog/dynamic-vs-planar-magnetic-drivers <comment><USER2> The linked page "Best Planar Magnetic Headphones"[0] gives a list and quick reviews of top models in case you're (as I was) not aware of who makes these.

[0] [https://www.arkartech.net/blogs/article/best-planar- magnetic...](https://www.arkartech.net/blogs/article/best-planar-magnetic- headphones)</comment>


The Internet of Things Can't Afford the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-internet-of-things-cant-afford-the-internet

<comment><AUTHOR> Quote:

      data plans aren't at all cost-effective for apps designed to, "say a trash can is full or not, or let you know that the ground is moist or dry."</comment>


ArkOS for the Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://arkos.io/

<comment><USER2> Please add a torrent for the release. It's very convenient (for me, at least), because I am currently on my phone and opening torrent links automatically tells my home server to download them.

Plus, you know, it saves you a bunch of bandwidth. But mainly do it for me.

<comment><USER3> Sure! I'll look into it and have something ready soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If a major goal of this project is to allow me to host my own reliable, modern, usable, email server with dead-simple auto-configuration for $25, I am _extremely_ excited.

I'm curious, what will your email stack look like?

<comment><USER3> The backend will likely use Postfix as MTA and dovecot (or other more lightweight solution) as MUA. Haven't settled on a final configuration yet. The magic will happen with the frontend and the utilities that oversee its operation, of course, and those will be custom developed.

I'm also working on a system for optional caching (encrypted, of course) which would help if your arkOS node is knocked offline, as to not screw up mail processing locally or for your communication partners. But that is still in rough planning.

<comment><USER5> Sorry if I missed this somewhere but how does arkOS intend to handle delivery issues? Many consumer ISPs make it very difficult for an end user to have good mail delivery rates, and especially so to freemail providers like Google, Hotmail(MSN), Yahoo, etc.

<comment><USER3> Without getting into it too much (i could write a novel :p ), the caching system will have a role to play in this. There are many different ways to solve this problem, and rest assured that creating a competent and stable mail system (and all that entails) is top priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what I hear, you might be violating your internet provider's terms and conditions by hosting websites and email server on your personal connection. And other email providers might also reject emails sent from personal servers. Anyone here has more information on these issues.

That being said. It looks like an amazing product. As a long time Arch Linux user this is very pleasing.

<comment><USER7> My current project involves a RasPi, iRedMail, a handful of inexpensive VPS providers with APIs that allow automated provisioning (DigitalOcean, NineFold, and Hetzner – to spread out the jurisdictions) – with the RasPi opening a reverse SSH tunnel for ports 25 and 465. Add in a DNS provider with a useable API so the 'Pi can spin up and shut down VPSes itself and update MX records to suit, and VPS images configured to not log anything mail-related (I'm learning Chef and/or Ansible to automate this), and I think I've gone as far as I can to secure my end of all my email.

(Possible over-paranoid ideas include refusing port 25 smtp connections that wont negotiate a secured connection in response to a STARTLLS command, and possibly blacklisting mail originating from any of the 8 known PRISIM participants. I like the _idea_ of ensuring none of my mail arrives from known-intercepted sources, but reality dictates otherwise since way too many of the people I really do want to communicate with are exclusively using gmail/yahoo for email - or worse still, have migrated largely to Facebook messaging instead of email)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there plans to include Email as a service in the future?

Also, will it be ported to other, more powerful hardware?

<comment><USER3> Yes and yes! Email is in the works and should be ready within 1-2 months. First goal is to get it working well and out of beta on the RPi, then after that it will be ported to other architectures.

<comment><USER2> Please please please offer a secure (i.e. up to date and also TLS-preferring), pre-set-up email server with ArkOS, complete with instructions on how to create MX, SPF and DKIM records for one's domain. You will do everyone who's interested in privacy a great service and deal a blow to the mass surveillance agencies.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly the plan :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Exciting project. Needs to have some more apps before it can be adopted by the masses. We need a platform that is as simple as an iPhone but designed simply to be 'the personal cloud platform'. It should offer the security the freedom box promises and still offer solutions to less serious problems like torrent downloading and music streaming.

</comment><comment><USER10> ArkOS seems to have a really nifty dashboard for managing all the services, but I do not seem to gather any evidence that it works anywhere else. Are there any alternatives for the dashboard on other linux flavors?

<comment><USER11> The dashboard is the least interesting part of ArkOS. Using extremely inexpensive hardware for a decentralized cloud is the Big Idea.

I don't see much on how these things are supposed to integrate with each other, though. If they aren't trying to solve that problem...

Anyway, Webmin has been around for eons if you need that.

<comment><USER3> Without an intuitive, user-friendly dashboard, targeted for actual users and not just sysadmins, making the "decentralized cloud" a reality isn't really possible :) The first problem to solve is making reliably self-hosting one's own data no longer rocket science. After that, interaction with other devices (meshnets, etc) may be a focus.

<comment><USER11> Reliable self-hosting of data is not a technical problem or a UI problem. It's a political problem. True Cryptography for the masses is Too Dangerous.

But just talking about the UI question, "intuitive, user-friendly dashboard" is absolutely not the issue when it comes to systems administration. I can tell ArkOS/Genesis is already way too far off course because there is a separate GUI interface to /etc/fstab.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say that it's _not_ a technical or UI problem. But I do agree that there are also political problems. Decentralizing "the cloud" isn't just something that can be addressed by technical means. But technology plays a big part in changing the status quo.

The dashboard was forked from a prior project called Ajenti, which the fstab interface and many other parts were included from. It is being converted in stages and that is one that has not been addressed yet. So be patient, the current version is far from what a usable edition is supposed to look like. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hi, just curious, any reason this is using Arch as a base instead of a Debian base? I understand if you want to target specifically the RPi first but I think that using Debian will make it easier to port to other arches in the future (specifically armhf for the BBB and other more modern CPUs.)

I saw this as well [https://bbs.arkos.io/t/why-arch-linux-why-not- raspian/43](https://bbs.arkos.io/t/why-arch-linux-why-not-raspian/43) but still think you should consider moving over... :P

Anyways, very cool project!

<comment><USER3> A few reasons, including ease of maintaining package repos with pacman, rolling-release nature, easy networking tools, and more. I will also concede a bit of personal preference :) But like that post said, there isn't much of a reason in my mind to consider the specifics of individual distros, as arkOS is very "bare bones" and should require ideally no command line use in the first place. I haven't had any difficulty in getting Arch/ALARM to play nice with other architectures in the past but if you have specific experiences I'd love to hear about them. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Genesis looks like old version of Ajenti.

<comment><USER3> It was forked from the old version of Ajenti. The documentation on the site (arkos.io) is out of date, there have been a lot of changes and visual improvements since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How can I use this as a home web server if my ISP blocks port 80?

"Don't want the trouble of buying your own domain? Don't worry. arkOS will allow you to connect your node to the Internet anyway, through a variety of services like dynamic DNS and port relays. Sometimes your Internet connection might prohibit you hosting your own data. In these circumstances, arkOS will provide ways to connect your node to the greater World Wide Web."

How does that work?

<comment><USER3> We are developing a dynamic DNS service as well as port proxying that allows you to serve traffic on non standard ports as if they were normal. [https://github.com/cznweb/deluge](https://github.com/cznweb/deluge) (Disclaimer: We can't encourage you to violate the ToS of your ISP, so if port blocking is against the rules then that is for individuals to handle themselves.)

In the future (read: when the dashboard and the aforementioned tools are stable) there may be ways for individual arkOS nodes to communicate with each other without an intermediary, mesh-style. But that is a long way off.

<comment><USER14> Wow.. cool! I'm excited about this project. Are you looking for help with FOSS things (documentation, bug reports, etc.)?

<comment><USER3> Definitely need help with testing and development. Documentation as well but it takes time to understand the complexities of the working parts. Hit me up on Twitter if you want a full list of things, always looking for help at every skill level :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems to boot fine in qemu if anybody would like to have a quick play with it, though it's fairly useless until I figure out how the network adaptor works.

<comment><USER3> awesome! You can run Genesis (the dashboard, which does most of the work) in any Arch-based VM as well, that's probably your best bet if you want to be able to look around quickly. [https://github.com/cznweb/genesis](https://github.com/cznweb/genesis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the key features of the windows environment I have found myself envious of recently is single sign-on and rule/group/permission based user and device management. While a reasonable equivalent can be constructed with Samba, Kerberos, SSH, Puppet, etc, a unified system would be absolutely fantastic. What is the chance of support for tools like these in the web interface?

<comment><USER17> ClearOS is a good choice if you're looking for something like that - all users are stored in a central LDAP database which everything else authenticates against, and it has a nice webui.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this available for other platforms as well? I see no reason why this couldn't be available as a package for Ubuntu as well, but I can't find any mention of things other than RPi images.

I run a low-power x86 Ubuntu server at home and would love to try this (I was actually planning to move my e-mail from Google to my own server).

<comment><USER3> It's not available quite yet, but Genesis will eventually be ported to other platforms/architectures. I just wanted to start with a focus of 'one' for simplicity's sake. Genesis (the dashboard) itself is Python so you don't need to worry much about architecture. It's just distro compatibility that needs work. So stay tuned :)

<comment><USER18> I completely understand the desire to start with one uniform and ubiquitous platform, and eagerly await a cross-distro release :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have web, mail (so-so, testing only) and a super early concept of a distributed service monitor for rpi users (pi-up) in use a bit now. I'll reach out, would love to see more and so nice to see something like this out there!

</comment><comment><USER20> Has anybody tried flashing this to a BeagleBone Black with any success?

<comment><USER3> Not yet, but I plan on adding support for the BBB in the future.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Whats your opinion on online courses? - <AUTHOR> There are a lot online learning course websites like: Udemy, edX, Coursera or similar. I'd be interested whats your take on them. Do you think you can gain useful hard skills if someone is a beginner/intermediate or even on an expert level? Maybe you already did such courses yourself and have experiences you want to share.
If you have other sources for getting started in cyber security topics like:
cryptography, pen testing, ethical hacking or basically anything else I'm happy for your recommendations.
A note on the background of my Question: I want to gain new skills specifically in the IT-Infrastructure/Cyber Security field. It's not about money, mainly i want to challenge myself and I'm very interested in Cyber-Security since I work as IT-Admin and want to broaden my skillset, because every time I stop learning I feel like getting behind in the IT-Sector and I hardly have time for a university education, even though it is an Option.
Thanks a lot guys. <comment><USER2> The courses will vary with the instruction and how much effort you put into them, just like most university courses do. I don't think you will go wrong if you want to learn more, even a so-so course will bring up topics you may not have thought about and you can challenge yourself. I obviously like the best courses I can find, but I have sometimes learned the most from courses that were not rated as high by others. Given the costs are relatively modest for most of these style courses, I think you'd do well to try any of them that fit your area of interest and have decent reviews.

Also if you are interested in security there are conferences dedicated to it nearly year round, and they generally offer pre/post conference training and specialized information. That is obviously the more expensive option usually, but my guess is given you are already experienced you'll get a lot out of these sessions.

I'd say university is really not worthwhile, unless you just want/need to add a degree to your title.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Their efficacy depends on your learning style. I personally get bored pretty easily with lecture-style learning, even through an online course. I need more experiential learning. So with cybersecurity I'm picking it up through:

\- Study guides and practice exams for certificates (that I may or may not get). This is probably the critical thing I do because it sets a track of what kind of material I should be focusing on for the subseqent learning tools.

\- Anki/spaced-repetition to remember things like acronyms

\- Quick YouTube talks (specifically those not in a webinar format; usually bad production quality and a lot of padding not related to the topic)

\- Games to put theory into practice (CTFs, bug bounties, video games that are very abstracted from real hacking but still require exercising logic)

\- Podcasts that look at the industry from different perspectives. Currently listen to CyberWork, which has a lot of fluff but I offset that with Darknet Diaries which does a great job of storytelling.

\- Trying to explain these concepts in layman's terms to others

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, do you have sources for some interesting study guides? I will take a look at CyberWork too.

</comment></comment><comment> rc-1140 Pluralsight is probably the only online learning website that I've used that actually caters to varying skill levels and has some kind of quality filter (there are still courses I've taken that aren't great, but there appears to actually be one in contrast to the ones you've listed). Have had usually good experiences with Pluralsight, it's gotten me up to speed on a _lot_ in a relatively short time.

I don't know anything more than I picked up via osmosis about IT and nothing about cybersecurity, but it looks like they've got a decent catalog of cybersecurity courses.

<comment><USER4> I find pluralsight pretty infuriating - the speed the presenters talk is really slow and they keep repeating the same thing, it typically goes:

      - hi, i am going to talk about something
      - in the next section we will talk about that thing
      - in this section we are now going to talk about that thing
      - talk about that thing
      - we just talked about that thing
      - in the last section we talked about that thing
      - earlier, we talked about a thing

It might have got better in the year or so I last used it, I gave up because of this.

<comment><USER5> Well with regards to speaking slow I guess that is to suit non-native speakers, however there is always the playback speed button which can be increased to a speed that suits

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As somebody who has taught college physics and also home-schooled a child in math, I think that doing lots of problems is the most important way to learn.

With my son I used Kahn Academy as the curriculum. He did not get a lot out of the lectures, so I had to explain the content, but having the problem sets was highly valuable and was proof that he was making progress.

</comment><comment><USER7> For learning infrastructure, specifically Linux system administration, my recommendations: [http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/training-program-to- make-a-...](http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/training-program-to-make-a- novice-system-administrator/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, much appreciated!

<comment><USER7> Yay, you are welcome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Already diving in. Refreshing to use linux after 4-5 years of windows hell post-school.

<comment><USER7> Great! Enjoy! :)

I'd love to hear your feedback or any suggestions for improving the roadmap.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Video conferencing for small talk in groups? - <AUTHOR> Is there a "professional" tool that would allow 5+ people come into the same room and split into groups "casually".
Normal tools are focussed on one speaker at time.
Zoom supports breakout rooms, but they are a bit clunky.
I'd imagine something where you can "move closer" to certain speakers which would increase their volume, but still listen in to others.
Your "position" would be visible to everyone, so you could move around in the room and leave/join dicussions more natural.
This would be a replacement for we are all having lunch in the same room / company event.
Reminds me of second life ... <comment><USER2> with positional audio:

right now on Show HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772800)

Mozilla has something like this as a "VR" demo: [https://hubs.mozilla.com/](https://hubs.mozilla.com/)

Mumble in combination with a game like Minecraft can do it.

Not aware of anything more finished.

without: Jitsi at least makes creating new rooms frictionless, but would need an extension to show an overview of who is where.

EDIT: since you mentioned it, I guess Second Life still exists

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, great ones!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found this which lists some other options with "breakout rooms", will check them [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754935)</comment>


Show HN: API-first referral marketing SDK for web developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.notion.so/alphaseek/Alphaseek-8b8570be00dc434ba567b8247f0f1027 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, my goal with Alphaseek is to make it easy and simple for developers to launch a referral program in their apps and websites as an alternative to other productized offerings in the market that are built for marketers and charging big monthly fees regardless of the referral success of the users. The SDK consists of REST API that keeps track of a product's users and how they refer other users to sign up, generate unique referral links and "invite" codes for them, and increment scores on both sides of a referral. The back end is reward-agnostic and leaves it to the developer. I'm also working on the TypeScript/JavaScript library that wraps the API and makes it easy to integrate with web and React projects and a CLI tool for admin purposes.

I've spent three months on-and-off working on this project and I'm really excited to share it and get feedback from you. I would love to hear your thoughts and answer any questions you may have.

</comment><comment><USER2> I love the offerings that it has. I also believe referral marketing traffic is still cheap talking 10 cents per month.

I would love to know more about how I could use this to increase sales of my SaaS products.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who has worked in affiliate marketing for 20+ years... 10 cents per clicks is very very very expensive and non sustainable. Many affiliate programs are getting thousands and thousands of clicks per day, there are solutions that can handle that for under $100/mo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. The pay-per-click model will be one of the options once we're ready for paying customers and we should adjust it accordingly from users' feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested in trying this when the JS library is ready. Any ETA on that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it will be released by the end of this month.

<comment><USER5> That's exciting. Looking forward for js lib. All of my stack is on node

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please sign up to try out an email with access credentials will be sent to you.</comment>


Chinese hackers stole secret plans for new US Navy weapon - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2018/06/08/chinese-hackers-stole-secret-plans-for-new-us-navy-weapon/ <comment><USER2> Already posted at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17269281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17269281)

<comment><AUTHOR> This one is more focused on the weapon itself.</comment></comment>


UUIDs support in MySQL 8.0 - <AUTHOR> http://mysqlserverteam.com/mysql-8-0-uuid-support/ <comment><USER2> Reading through this really makes me appreciate how things like this are implemented in Postgres. From the outside you can deal with the text representation of a uuid as 36-chars (dash separated) but internally it automatically stores it as 16-bytes. No special translation functions required.

Having to use a UUID_TO_BIN(...) or BIN_TO_UUID(...) function for every usage, like it's implemented here, has a serious "ugh" factor. I guess the root of it is that it's not a native type. They're putting it in a regular BINARY(16) and only adding built in (but explicit) conversion functions in between that the text representation.</comment>


Show HN: New Cosmic JS GraphQL API Release - <AUTHOR> https://cosmicjs.com/changelog/new-graphql-api-release <comment><USER2> So is cosmicjs is similar to contentful? Anyone using any if these services?</comment>


I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren't the Hard Part - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/magazine/college-inequality.html <comment><AUTHOR> As the article mentions, "interim" periods between semesters pose a problem for poor students staying in the dorm on scholarship with no where to go. At my university the charge for staying in the dorm during an interim was about 40% the price of staying a semester. Moving was also a significant cost&effort - with no "home base" my only choice was to move everything I owned into and out of a storage unit - three times a year. (My parents were happy to have me stay, but it's hours away and a hoarder house so no room for my things. Living conditions were so bad I'd often fall sick after staying there.) One interim period a professor let me stay in a (nice) trailer home he owned. The last two years of college I stayed in a house owned by the family of a former teacher, trading work on the dilapitated house for rent: the financial, physical, and emotional burden of moving out and back between each of three semesters a year negated most of the benefit of having a dorm room paid for on scholarship. (Even if you paid to stay during an interim, you still had to move out for a few days each interim, ostensibly for "maintenance" \- I never saw any maintenance actually performed. I think it was a policy they maintained oblivious to the chaos it caused low income students' lives.)</comment>


Apply HN: Hire local students for simple chores like mowing your lawn - <AUTHOR> Demo: Runnr http://www.runnr.ca (available on iOS and Android)
Problem: About a year ago I broke my leg temporarily, which led to two things - my wife gifting me a macbook and the realization that now for simple chores like mowing my lawn, I needed to hire somebody. I tried the usual way first - looking on online classifieds and trying in vain to schedule time. I did not want to waste money by signing up somebody for the full season. Somehow, I finally found a "professional" who came out, saw my broken leg and the long grass growing, and quoted me an insane price which I declined. Luckily for me, a student knocked on my door asking if I needed my lawn mowed, and he did the same job very happily for $15 (I added some tip as well of course). Here is the tough question now -- how do I regularly find local students to do odd chores for me, on-demand ?
Solution:
I used the MacBook to learn and train myself and heck built and published this app on both iOS and Android. My leg was broken, not my fingers and my brain, and I coded a solution for myself with "Runnr". It is an app through which people can find and book neighborhood students who can simply walk over to their house to mow their lawn, tutor their kids, walk their dog or a whole range of other simple chores. The cost stays low as this is not mortgage money for these kids and they are not travelling across the city for these jobs. Runnr provides them with an app to manage their time and their jobs, along with suitable marketing tools to help them promote this within their own neighborhood. This is their own "lemonade business".
Happiness would be in: Free/sponsored chores done for elderly/physically challenged which count as community credits for these students. Ensuring the students get 100% of the price advertised to the customer.
Turning this into a global on-demand work platform where anybody can turn on the app and make him/herself available for work. <comment><USER2> I have considered making this myself but focusing on day labors instead. In my city we have a huge population of day labors that congregate in a few places around town with the hopes of getting picked up for construction work. I'm pretty sure some of them are getting screwed since most of the work is under the table stuff. With a good reputation system and maybe an escrow service for the workers I think you could link labors with jobs directly cut out the sketchy middle men.

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't constructive in any way, but I've got to tell you that that's one of the most entertaining genesis stories I've ever heard from a founder at this stage. Good luck and I hope your leg is 100% better! :)

</comment><comment><USER4> you should check reddit.com/r/beermoney It could be useful for data and advertising</comment>


Neil Armstrong has died at 82 Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/neil-armstrong-dead-at-age-82-report/story-e6frf7k6-1226458176249 <comment><USER2> Neil Armstrong would have been 17 years old when Orville Wright died in 1948. In the lifespan of those two men, humanity went from horse-and-buggy to standing on the moon. One wonders what the 17 year olds of today might accomplish...

<comment><USER3> Woah, as a 17 year old, that blows my mind. I cannot wait to see what humanity accomplishes in my lifetime. Personally, I'm hoping to see the first man's footsteps on mars.

<comment><USER4> I'd prefer a cleaner healthier planet than foodsteps on Mars. We need to learn to take care of this planet before we start messing around with other planets.

<comment><USER5> When I hear the "shouldn't we solve poverty and climate change here first?" argument about space exploration, I feel it's useful to remember that almost all improvement in the human condition throughout history is directly attributable to advances in human technology grounded in investment in exploration and basic research. Spending on science, technology development and exploration are the real "trickle down economics". I don't think it has to be an either-or proposition. ;)

<comment><USER6> You articulate this better than I ever could. Well said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer - born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow."_

-Neil Armstrong

<http://www.eetimes.com/General/PrintView/4039730>

</comment><comment><USER8> "I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."

\--- Neil Armstrong.

An inspiring man. RIP.

<comment><USER9> "Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10."

My favorite Neil Armstrong quote. Has some relevance to how we think as entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER10> Huh, I've heard that attributed to Bill Gates, but Neil Armstrong said it in 1969. I wonder if he got it from someone else?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Neil was my biggest childhood hero. I did one or two school reports about him, dressed as an astronaut for Halloween for three straight years, and went to Space Camp twice. That my birthday (July 20) fell on the anniversary of his historic moon landing didn't hurt my identification with him one bit.

That interest in space, fostered by the examples of Neil and other early space explorers, translated to a lifelong passion for pushing science and technology forward. I'm sure many people here can say the same.

Neil's accomplishment, which he of course shares with the countless others who (literally) lifted him up and made his mission such a success, is one of the most inspirational achievements in the history of this planet. May it continue to inspire many more!

</comment><comment><USER12> For a more in-depth consideration of Armstrong's life, there's an excellent profile written in 1999 here: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/longterm/space...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/longterm/space/armstrongfull.htm)

 _"Pilots take no special joy in walking," Armstrong once told a group of well-wishers at an air show who wanted to hear what it had been like to walk on the moon. "Pilots like flying."_

</comment><comment><USER11> A thousand years from now, most people won't know much about the politicians, generals, celebrities or billionaires this century or last. But they might well know who first walked on the moon.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's sad is that we didn't yet returned to the moon, and he won't live to see it.

<comment><AUTHOR> He waited until we got to Mars...

<comment><USER14> The earliest attempts at Mars exploration were made by the soviets and NASA in the 60s (largely unsuccessful IIRC). In 1976 NASA successfully landed on the Mars (Viking I) and, even more amazingly, sent back color photos.

Curiosity is a great mission, but I'm still more impressed with the Viking missions.

<comment><USER15> The Soviet Mars-2 and Mars-3 missions were quite successful (orbiting and landing). Here is a gallery of mars images 1971-1974[1]

The soviets were also the first to land on Luna in 1966 [2] and on Venus in 1975[3]

[1]<http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMars.htm>

[2]<http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMoon.htm>

[3]<http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Excellent 4-part interview series with him, quite recent too:

<http://thebottomline.cpaaustralia.com.au/>

<comment><USER17> Thank you. That was an excellent interview.

It is rather sad, that one of the latest and more detailed interviews filled with personal insights, thoughts and comments came from an Australian CPA organization. I know why the connection is there, the disappointment is in the news organizations here locally. NBC even screwed the name as Neil Young when they announced the death.

How his death is handled, as a society, shows how we treasure what he stands for and what the priorities are.

He made a good comment in the last part how probably the best thing NASA did was inspire young people to do the best they can do, to dream of becoming engineers and scientists. What is there today to inspire that? Writing video games? Is flying larger probes with bigger cameras to Mars?

One can argue we need a good global threat so we have a competitor. Maybe that's true. If we don't have one, we surely invented some. Goat herders in Pakistan or cocoa growers in Colombia. Maybe our children will be inspired by building stealthier drones to more efficiently eradicate goat herders in a country half way across the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article currently is just a stub. I imagine this is related to the heart bypass surgery he underwent a couple of weeks ago:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185898/Neil- Armstro...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185898/Neil-Armstrong- First-man-walk-moon-recovering-heart-bypass-surgery.html)

<comment><USER19> It looks like it's true :( More informative article here: [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon- dea...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon- dead/story?id=12325140#.UDknbaMdNhE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> With no plans to go to the moon again, we will soon be out of living moon- walkers.

<comment><USER21> xkcd ran the numbers: <http://xkcd.com/893/>

<comment><USER22> Ah, yes, the mouseover text on that is brilliant, and apt:

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

Personally, I'm optimistic that there'll be boots on the moon sometime around 2020 (although I suspect they won't have NASA logos on them). Looks like there will be 2-6 moonwalkers left to see that, with a 90% confidence interval...

<comment><USER23> I too am optimistic. All day I've seen people claiming America's moon landings for all humankind, and then blithely ignoring planned Indian, Japanese and Chinese lunar programmes. It would be a shame to think that people were only excited at the thought of white people going back to the moon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Black bar?

<comment><USER25> Most certainly. Armstrong embraced danger and the risk of failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Neil Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) RIP.

I hope we will return to the Moon or better go to Mars before the last Apollo astronaut has died.

</comment><comment><USER27> Here's a collection of information I just came across about Neil Armstrong: [http://learni.st/users/farbood/boards/3625-neil- armstrong?tb...](http://learni.st/users/farbood/boards/3625-neil- armstrong?tb=540cf46629671b2b3c7e2eb0c131b55b)

</comment><comment><USER28> He did get to see the next phase of space flight, with the SpaceX launch, the first successful private spaceflights. The future is bright with the expanded private interest in it.

<comment><USER29> And publicly expressed his disapproval of it. The future may be bright, but I suspect Mr. Armstrong missed the future he would've wanted.

<comment><USER30> Elon said in a video interview that he's hoping he can convince Neil in the future because he was a large hero of his. It's slightly sad that it looks like he won't get his chance.

Edit: it was his CBS 60 minutes interview that can be seen here: [http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7410538n&tag=cont...](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7410538n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox) see 12:20 mark. (you have to go through 2 commercials, unfortunately)

Edit2: more direct link <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbIcqTEuxvw> near end (only 1 commercial!, but only less complete excerpt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> NY Times:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/science/space/neil- armstro...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/science/space/neil-armstrong- dies-first-man-on-moon.html?hp)

<comment><USER32> Interestingly enough the NY Times article is nearly identical, word for word, to the linked article.

<comment><USER31> No worries...the Original link was just a stub.

________________

The article currently is just a stub. I imagine this is related to the heart bypass surgery he underwent a couple of weeks ago:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185898/Neil- Armstro...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185898/Neil-Armstro..).

reply

corford 1 hour ago | link

It looks like it's true :( More informative article here: [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon- dea...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon-dea..).

reply

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I remember watching a documentary which quite rarely featured Neil Armstrong (and Buzz and Collins) discussing the actual trip to the moon. They related a story where they instructed the computer to begin reverse thrusters to slow their approach to the moon. The computer came back with a code which Collins duly looked up in the manual

      3E - Are you sure?

Twas ever thus.

It stuck in my mind, as humanising people who otherwise outstrip us who in all ways look up to them.

He will be sadly missed.

<comment><USER34> Can't find a reference to the story you are mentioning, could you share a link that explains it in more details?

<comment><USER33> Sorry no - just a TV doc - it was _perhaps_ called the real right stuff. It had interviews with I think every living Apollo astronaut, and was made for the 2009 anniversary.

It might have been [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Mi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Left_Earth:_The_NASA_Missions#Part_3:_Landing_the_Eagle)

(I certainly remember Charlie Duke talking a lot !)

<comment><USER35> Perhaps "In the Shadow of the Moon"?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Moon>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "I've seen things you people would not believe..." <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzA_xesrL8>

</comment><comment><USER33> It is not his death we should focus on - for Neil Armstrong, and his collegues, we should not let his _life_ be in vain.

Back to the moon for good - or a lot of good people wasted their time.

<comment><USER37> I think it's possible to say with some confidence that his life wasn't in vain. He, along with his colleagues here and on the moon that day, haven't inspired just one generation - but every generation that came after.

What an achievement. May he rest in peace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Respect for the old man! R.I.P Sir.

</comment><comment><USER39> For the moon was no longer a distant shining object but a place where we could gleefully leap

RIP Neil Armstrong

</comment><comment><USER40> That's one small step for a man... one giant step for mankind. \- RIP Mr. Armstrong

</comment><comment><USER41> in coelo quies est

</comment><comment><USER42> nice i like post

</comment><comment><USER43> Did anyone read "Armstrong" and first thought of Lance Armstrong? When his life achievements were stripped away, I thought he would be on suicide watch.

<comment><USER44> Lance Armstrong has not been stripped of his medals/achievements. The USADA is not the UCI.</comment></comment>


Cohort analysis of Rust contributors - <AUTHOR> http://sanxiyn.blogspot.com/2015/04/cohort-analysis-of-rust-contributors.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Fun story of becoming a Rust contributor: My first PR to Rust was actually rejected, due to a procedural error: [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/pull/4305](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/4305) Nowadays, we follow GitHub norms more closely, so this kind of thing doesn't happen.</comment>