Fatness and Thinness in the Middle Ages - <AUTHOR> https://www.medievalists.net/2020/06/fatness-thinness-middle-ages/ <comment><USER2> I grew up in Vietnam. There were similar positive attitudes towards overweight bodies. The country was ravaged by wars and famines. Overweight bodies mean prosperity. It's changing now in Vietnam, however. They're converging to views of other countries.

One thing to note is the way people acquiring body fat was somewhat different. They don't consume sugar and highly processed food. They eat a lot of normal foods. They have body fat but often strong and muscular.

<comment><USER3> This has more to do with far less sedentary lifestyles than sugar and processed food. A calorie is a calorie.

You can't get muscle unless you move.

<comment><USER4> >A calorie is a calorie.

Not true. There's a difference between complex carbohydrates provided by fruits, vegetables meat and other unprocessed food. Simple carbohydrates like are shorter and break down faster providing less energy per food unit consumed. Complex carbohydrates are longer and take longer for our bodies to breakdown giving more energy over a longer period of time.

<comment><USER5> For the purposes of satiety you are correct. For the purposes of bodyweight, a calorie is a calorie. How that bodyweight is stored (fat vs muscle) is dependent on exercise + whether the calorie is from a fat, carb, protein or alcohol (the four macronutrients).

<comment><USER6> Satiety vs calories is everything. If you give people "all you can eat" bland boiled potatoes with no butter or salt and nothing else, they will not overeat. They will lose weight.

The same goes for rats. Give them all they can eat of bland nutritional rat pellets and they'll maintain body weight. Give them Doritos and McDonald's, on the other hand, and they'll gain weight like crazy.

It should be a surprise to nobody that capitalism has optimized junk food to be as addictive and non-filling as possible.

<comment><USER7> I'm not a dietitian, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong...

They're very starchy and high in carbs, and very low in protein.

So you can eat tons of them and still not feel full.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure chongli is correct about the plain boiled potatoes. How many can you eat before you're sick of them? It's easy to test for yourself, go peel and boil some potatoes right now.

<comment><USER9> You are not proving him he is wrong. You are talking about a different phenomena: satiety is different from getting sick of something.

If you reach satiety your body and brain won't want to eat more.

If you are sick of something, you will just switch to something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The cultural concept of being slightly overweight as a sign of wealth and prosperity is seen in other regions:

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

[https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a3513/forcefeeding...](https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a3513/forcefeeding- in-mauritania/)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is anecdotal but I recall reading some science somewhere to back it up. During a fast or if I am cutting weight heavier women become more attractive to me.

<comment><USER12> That's a pretty funny anecdote. :) I am in the middle of a moderated dirty cut [0] right now myself and here's what I've noticed:

* I'm the one who feeds our cats. And they also end up losing weight when I'm on a cut, even though I didn't intend for that to happen.

* I randomly find myself surfing Japanese euro-foods photos on IG, creating screenshot collections on my phone, and sending them to family members who love food.

* I have to act more like the traditional/archaic effeminate archetype or I'm screwed--I have to compensate for the harshness somehow. So I'll spend more time making art, listening to music I like, going easier on my body, loving on pets, etc.

Anyway...you got me smiling, thinking about this stuff. Thanks.

0\. [https://www.friendlyskies.net/intj/mdc-moderated-dirty- cut](https://www.friendlyskies.net/intj/mdc-moderated-dirty-cut)

<comment><USER13> I'm prone to aggressively planning dinners with friends and browsing restaurant websites whenever I skip lunch at work. Always takes me a while to recognise the fever that's overtaken me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Malayali (Kerala, India) culture has the common developing world fatness = prosperity mentality to some degree (minus the Indian love toward asceticism), but we have the added factor of having the defining movie star of my parents generation (And pretty big star still) being a rather pudgy guy (Mohanlal!) and that does shape people's views on things.

It's a funny interplay with stars that they shape their appearance to fit societal expectations but at the same time shape them.

<comment><USER15> You can see a similar parallel in the Telugu film industry too! Most of the big stars in my parent's time were pudgy(chiranjeevi, NTR, ANR, for example). Most of today's stars on the other hand are rather lean and fit like you'd expect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A friend of mine whose parents immigrated from Poland before WWII told me that in the old country fat women were valued as wives because their weight was seen as proof they didn't have tuberculosis.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems that in Polynesia, South Pacific and traditional Hawaii, the leaders in society were ideally fat and massive. My guess is that these were the people who were better suited to survival on long voyages across the Pacific.

<comment><USER18> It's not helped by the abandonment of fresh traditional foods and their replacement with highly processed imported foods, such as canned spaghetti and corned beef. Polynesian countries are also large importers of cheap fatty cuts of meat that aren't eaten in more developed nations, such as turkey tails and lamb flaps (both of which are delicious, but incredibly fatty).

The traditional Polynesian diet is quite healthy, fresh fish, root vegetables like yams and taro (as well as their leaves), and coconuts. You have to eat a lot to get fat eating that kind of food. One thing I noticed when travelling Fiji (not geographically Polynesia, but culturally) is that outside of the cities this kind of diet is fairly common, and obesity is a lot less common.

Most Samoans and Tongans I know back in New Zealand have terrible diets. They basically eat white bread, tinned spaghetti, corned beef, instant noodles, and rotisserie chickens. I had a mate who would for dinner would put back a whole chicken and 5 packs of noodles; or a loaf of white bread, 2 tins of spaghetti and a tin of corned beef. He worked in demolition and did boxing as a sport, so he burned the calories, but it was completely lacking in proper nutrition, just carbs and sodium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm guessing the positive associations with weight for women is due to promoting fertility. If a woman is too thin, she can't conceive. You have to have some extra calories to have a baby.

The American obsession with thinness means that some women can "cure" their fertility problems by gaining five pounds.

<comment><USER20> >> The American obsession with thinness means that some women can "cure" their fertility problems by gaining five pounds.

Or it can be because the way our bodies are portrayed in media and fashion world?

<comment><USER19> That's just another way of saying the culture does this thing. If you are inferring that I am personally blaming individual women and implying they are neurotic, your inference is in error.

My sister had serious fertility problems. She read many articles on the topic over the years and we talked about me possibly serving as a surrogate for her should she be simply unable to have a child of her own. She forwarded me some portion of those articles, so I am somewhat well read on the topic of fertility issues for American women.

It takes about 25,000 stored calories to support a pregnancy. Being underweight suppresses ovulation. Anorexic women can outright lose their periods.

I suspect this fact probably helped women pass themselves off as male soldiers and male pirates historically. Such professions are pretty physically demanding and I suspect it may have caused a lot of women to have fewer periods or no periods while passing themselves off as male, thereby helping them to hide their gender.

My oldest son has pointed out that we are probably underestimating the number of women who did that because, by definition, those that fully succeeded were never identified and died as male. A recent-ish story supports that suggestion.</comment></comment></comment>


Getting Back Determinism in the Low Fragmentation Heap (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lse.epita.fr/articles/74-getting-back-determinism-in-the-lfh.html <comment><USER2> > It will basically fill the RtlpLowFragHeapRandomData array with 0x100 random > values.

      add esi, 8
      cmp esi, 100h

Won't it actually only fill it with 0x100/8=32 random values?

      call _RtlpHeapGenerateRandomValue64@0
      and eax, edi
      and edx, edi
      mov _RtlpLowFragHeapRandomData[esi], eax
      mov dword_6A2F83C4[esi], edx ; I assume this is RtlpLowFragHeapRandomData + 1?

Also, as an aside: why the extra and instead of storing the return value from RtlpHeapGenerateRandomValue64 directly? Also, why the mov edi, edi at the beginning? I assume it's a 2-byte patchable NOP, but is marking security- critical heap functions RWX a normal thing to do?</comment>


Lean Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.poppendieck.com/lean.htm <comment> daniel-cussen This might be a phase an industry goes through. You start out experimental, get a breakthrough, and while the industry is young, margins are high, everyone is developing new things, and companies worry about avoiding obsoletion. Then there is a transitional phase where companies figure out how to make a good product, breakthroughs become tweaks, the products are more similar, and competition is about quality and price. Then, everyone knows how to make the product, there's a best practice that really is the best practice, and the product is a commodity.

It looks like some parts of the web business are becoming simpler and more akin to commodities.

<comment><USER2> I'm using lean management to create never-before seen architecture - it isn't about a commodity approach, but a way of doing things better. Most of PG's advice on startups adheres to the key lean principles, the primary one being a focus on customer value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> A great article - Our startup started with the idea of making lean management easy in service industries.</comment>


Oil leak crisis...scarily familiar? - <AUTHOR> http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=127_1274931222

<comment><USER2> What's the [ultimate] solution? Stop underwater drilling? Like that's going to be popular :)

I see what is being said here; the same solutions are being tried, and are failing in the same way. But they might have worked; and in other examples they have worked.

It's fine to criticise the process; but unless you offer alternative suggestions it's not particularly helpful.

<comment><USER3> Here's an ultimate solution: privatize all surrounding property, remove all restrictions, but also all liability caps, don't bail anybody out if liability drives them out of business, and let the oil companies, their insurance companies, and the property owners figure out where they want to drill.

<comment><USER4> Here's a solution to your solution: incorporate each oil well as a separate corporation wholly owned by an oil company, carrying no insurance, and remitting its entire profits each year to its shareholder as a dividend. The corporation can buy the property it wants to drill on, so that there's no property owner to demand insurance.

Then, if there's an accident like this one, all the other property owners can sue the oil well, which will go bankrupt and pay them pennies on the kilodollar.

In short, your "ultimate solution" is ultimately thwarted by the institution of the limited-liability corporation.

(An analogous bug exists even without limited-liability corporations, but it's less severe: "Tortfeasor regrets that he has only one life to give to atone for his torts.")

<comment><USER5> Many years ago I heard that every taxi in NYC is separately incorporated for exactly this reason.

<comment><USER6> I doubt this is true. However, many rental buildings in NYC are now LLCs for the reasons described above.

<comment><USER4> Also, every movie. And many software projects.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: DAC that works with native volume controls? - <AUTHOR> Are there any USB DACs out there that work with the native volume controls in MacOS (and windows I guess)<p>Most of the ones I've used have a knob on the front that controls the volume, and you can't use the keyboard buttons to change it. It's not the worst thing in the world but kind of annoying. <comment><USER2> I think some of the Schiit audio dacs do, but there were bugs in older osx levels a couple years back.

Or look for battery powered dacs with no volume knob, or the Audioquest Dragonfly.

Make sure you've selected the usb dac in sound output, may be a radio button for onboard volume.</comment>


MUSE: Relive and analyze your entire email archive - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/100297-relive-and-analyze-your-entire-email-archive

<comment><USER2> There is no way I will let some third-party online tool access my inbox. Privacy and security are much more important to me than some fancy gimmick visualisation.

I would love to do this kind of analysis on my mails. Any chance for a local offline tool?

<comment><USER3> I wrote software which scans a hard disk for email in any of 6 formats, converts them to Mbox (eg, standard, with emails one after another in plaintext), creates 2 indexes (full-text and SQL) then lets you search all your emails with a Lucene query (full text of email bodies) or an SQL query (MySql or PostGres or SQLite - SQL database of common email headers). It doesn't run on 'the cloud'; it's a Windows application.

An example search is 'All emails from "geocities.com" between March 2009 and April 2009, with attachments.

I haven't found anyone who wants such a program. Anyone here interested?

<comment><USER4> Why mbox instead of, say, Maildir? The irreversible mangling mbox requires makes me reluctant to use it as an archive format.

<comment><USER3> It can output single emails to folders named after months (eg, 2011_10_18), which I think is MailDir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It's sad but inescapably true: Your email inbox is your life.

I'm a bit surprised by the nostalgic tone of the first paragraph. Why is that supposed to be sad? I find it pretty cool, because it is so easy to keep an archive of every mail you send or receive, unlike paper mail.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wrote 'mu' (<http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu>), which let's you index/search maildirs; I'm currently adding glue to use it as an emacs-based e-mail client as well (basically, something between wanderlust and notmuch).

Anyway, to get back on-topic, as an alternative way to analyse your mails, I've added guile (scheme) bindings, and it's pretty easy to get all kinds of interesting statistics from your mails -- see <https://gitorious.org/mu/mu/blobs/master/toys/muile/README>

</comment><comment><USER7> Does not seem to like Gapps.

Great application of the archive concept though.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd love something similar for IRC logs. I know there are all those joke irc log analysers, but they seem to be mainly for channel logs.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you pick individual stocks and which? Ethics? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN
I understand that index funds are recommended for low risk, high gains. However, I do not want to invest in fossil fuels, tabaco, weapons etc. I know, that there are funds with restricted portfolios and varying ethical guidelines. But they all seem to be either very lax or perform badly.
Hence, I'm interested into picking individual companies based on thorough assessment of their ethics, environmental impact and long term stock gain prospects. Any tips on that, especially with regards to the last point, short of becoming a pro trader? Also, what about risk mitigation/spread strategies?
I'm looking into investing up to 50k USD/CHF in the short term and perhaps 10k/y from there on. I can afford loosing the money in the sense, that I live in a country with a reasonable pension system and not expecting to become financially independent before retirement anyway. Although, I rather not loose the money I'm definitely willing to take a higher risk/reward than with an index fund. Let's say 10x roughly. I also think it's morally wrong to keep it in the bank where it is invested into unethical business. Note, that I'm also looking into ethical banks, but these are expensive and are guaranteed to yield negative interest. <comment><AUTHOR> Note, I'm also especially interested in green energy projects and considering backing Tesla from the bears after I made some very decent gains 3y ago. It just seems to be a bit overvalued On most days and I want a bigger portfolio. Anyone knows about interesting power to X and energy storage companies in general?</comment>


Gap using iPod based point of sales systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.9to5mac.com/38474/apple-opens-up-new-business-in-point-of-sale-systems

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually the article is incorrect in suggesting Apple is deploying their own software for the Gap. It is actually implemented by a company called Global Bay. <http://www.globalbay.com>. I know the CEO, he's been traveling frequently to the Gap in SF the past 6 months. There are many other retailers implementing soon as well.</comment>


The Ternary Calculating Machine of Thomas Fowler - <AUTHOR> http://www.mortati.com/glusker/fowler/index.htm

<comment><USER2> See also Setun <[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun>](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun>), a computer from 1958 using the balanced ternary system.

<comment><USER3> Nice. It's strange why don't we have such computers nowadays

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Knuth's _Art of Computer Programming, vol 2_ [1], not surprisingly, gives a thorough discussion of the balanced ternary system.

The solution for a nice brainteaser can be found quickly once one thinks about balanced trinary, here it is: "Using a balance scale, what is the minimum number of wheights needed to weigh any whole number of grams up to 40g?"

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Volume- Seminu...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Volume- Seminumerical/dp/0201896842)

</comment><comment><USER5> I often wonder if there is some notion of a basis of computation in mathematics. You can do stuff in binary, trinary, what about further out systems? What about working with functions/mappings which take more than two inputs. What can be said about the expressive power of these different ways of computing? Any one know where I should be looking for this kind of stuff?

<comment><USER6> Describing computation in mathematical terms is arguably the core of Computer Science as a subject - particularly the "Theory of Computation":

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

If you are interested in "functions/mappings" then you can look at Lambda Calculus and work your way right up to modern functional programming languages:

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

<comment><USER5> I'm reasonably well versed in these topics, I found them unsatisfying, they don't capture the essence for me. I don't really know what I'm looking for I just know I haven't seen it yet.</comment></comment></comment>


I'm 28, I just quit my tech job, and I never want another job again - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/6/30/8852017/quit-my-job

<comment><USER2> >> There are undertones in American culture saying that a 9-to-5 job is an honorable goal unto itself, that we should balance "pays well" with "is tolerable" and stick with it until we're 65.

>> Fuck that. The dream is supposed to be about doing what you love, not being a cog in someone else's machine. Here's hoping we can all find a way to get there.

\</comment><comment>--

That last bit really hit home for me, great article.

</comment><comment><USER3> The culture of American employment is awful. All that matters is making your boss look good politically and financially. To hell with anything else. If you aren't making your boss look good you are expendable, even if you're doing things to truly help the company which are not apparent to management.

The best strategy for dealing with this is to live on as little as possible, save and invest the rest, and become financially independent.

Happiness in life is inversely proportional to how many people you have to answer to.</comment>


Adblock isn't immoral - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Hisako1337/adblock-isn-t-immoral-44ca86ec1c5d <comment><USER2> Great article. However, it left out that users pay for ads because the cost of advertising is added on to the price of products. So you really are not getting it for free.

The underlying problem is the basic monetary model of the web is broken. We need something like micropayments. Maybe Ethereum will make this possible.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Many Website owners force all these negative implications on all of their > visitors.

No they don't. Website owners force this on people who want to view their ad- supported content. If you don't like the ad-supported content, nobody is forcing you to view it.

This article has no new content, just a restatement that some ads are bad, which nobody disputes.

<comment><USER2> You are being forced if all the sites with valuable content agree to support it with banner ads.

<comment><USER4> No, you are still not being forced to look at their content... it's still your choice to do so or not.

Personally I add sites to point to 127.0.0.1 in my host file and call it a day. Does them a favor and I don't need to keep track of which links to avoid clicking because the site tells me to disable my ad block or isn't available without removing ad block. If it hits localhost I go back a page and move on with my life.

If it is important or worth knowing about - it will be reposted somewhere or spoken about somewhere where I will be able to read it without going to their site.

For what it's worth, I also add the sites that ask me politely to disable my ad blocker. If they're going to give me the option to continue to view their content with it enabled, I consider it polite to decline _and_ not continue to waste their bandwidth on serving me their pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If we could just stop talking about AdBlocking all day again, that would be great :) Revenue is dropping and dropping the last months, so is my engagement on keeping the sites great.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ad-Blocking isn't immoral - adblock (the plugin) is because it then allows companies to pay to allow their ads through.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you mean the specific plugin "Adblock Plus", other blockers like uBlock don't do this AFAIK.

<comment><USER6> I thought that was what I had written ;)

I personally use uMatrix (more control than uBlock).</comment></comment></comment>


It's 2050 and This Is How We Stopped Climate Change - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/11/688876374/its-2050-and-this-is-how-we-stopped-climate-change <comment><USER2> > So Sila Kiliccote and I take that leap. Sitting in her kitchen, with solar > panels overhead and an electric car parked outside, we pretend that it has > happened. It's 2050 and we've stopped climate change.

Yeah right, what about the 3+ billion people living in asia/africa below what's known as poverty in US/EU ? Do they also live in high tech houses on top of hills, powered by solar panels and batteries, drinking latte macchiatos from an $3k coffee machine and having an electric car / access to helicopters ? Or is this reserved to the elite and they're still manufacturing 90% of our gadgets in heavily polluted and overcrowded cities ?

> Now, because the animals are growing so much faster

Oh but we already do that, it doesn't look good though: [http://www.veterinaryworld.org/Vol.2/November/Sudden%20Death...](http://www.veterinaryworld.org/Vol.2/November/Sudden%20Death%20Syndrome%20–%20An%20Overview.pdf)

SV is so insanely disconnected from reality, it now sounds more like religious prophecies than reasonable predictions; repeat after me "tech will solve all our issues". The only reason we'd stop polluting is if it gets financially more profitable not to pollute, nothing more than a beneficial side effect.

"Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!"

<comment><USER3> So what point are you ultimately spending your energy trying to convince us of... that the human race will necessarily kill itself?

<comment><USER2> Not really, but maybe instead of running blindly ahead and applying more of the cause of our issues we should stop and make conscious decisions. Right now it seems that we forgot technology should serve us, not the other way around.

Writing best case (science fiction) scenarios isn't going to do anything good, it might even make people feel good about themselves and "wait" for the problem to be fixed. Pollution is a social/economical/political issue, not a technological one. Innovating in the later while stagnating in the former won't do much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's more likely we take the lazy route and forcibly activate vulcanoes for local cooling.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's 2500 and everyone is laughing about the climate panic of the early 21st century

<comment><USER6> It's 2100 and everyone is wondering how people could be so short sighted and think it's ok to polute and destroy...

<comment><USER7> It's 2019 and as an engineer responsible for designing large power plants with the potential to emit large amounts of Carbon over the next 50 years, I'm doing everything in my f*cking power every day to eliminate harmful emissions despite "leadership" (regulators & funders) pushing for higher poluting alternatives that they erroneously believed to be lower cost. We simply can't wait around for these lazy ding-dongs to take action.

<comment><USER8> It's not as simple as laziness.

Within our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.

<comment><USER7> ...and regarding environmental controls instigating a recession, that is very far from the truth (again, in my experience).

Extending the above 'ship design industry' example, when IMO imposed emission caps on ships, did the shipping industry (and supporting industries) faulter or thrive? They're thriving. Why? Because they need to build new things to replace the old things.

-MAN B&W and Wartsilla (Engine Manufacturuers) are now building dual-fuel engines.

-These guys, and their affiliates are offering Exhaust Scrubbing systems (e.g., EGRs, SCRs, Scrubbers, etc.).

-Because of the increase in SCR's, there is now a new, large market for UREA (the active agent, basically Ammonia, in SCR's)

-Propeller manufacturers are offering more hydrodynamic designs, and tow-test tanks are employed to help design those propellers and hydro-improved hull forms.

-New companies have sprouted up (e.g. Energy Focus, etc) just to supply energy efficient LED lighting for ships.

-Contractors are being employed to design new LNG-fuel supply infrastructure to piers world-wide. New training facilities/programs are being built to teach sailors/shore crew how to safely handle LNG.

-Marine hardware suppliers now have a host of new products to sell to meet the demand for energy efficient plants (e.g., high accuracy fuel mass flow meters, shaft torque/thrust sensors, tank gauges, smart controls for HVAC plants, low-power water production units, etc.)

-Companies have sprouted up to supply newly conceived "energy dashboards" that use genetic and machine-learning algorithms to find optimized ship operating configuration (speed, equipment line-up, trim, etc) for a given set of environmental/mission inputs (e.g. weather, voyage plan, etc.).

-I could go on for a long-long time.

Does this sound like a recession to you???

The argument that increasing environmental regulation will stifle the economy is just not true. From what I've seen, the opposite is true. Competition is spurred and new markets emerge, putting more people to work in jobs that actually matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's 2500 and we finally stabilized earths orbit and removed the wobble, thus stabilizing climate changes. Sorry about 2283, the year of the "oops, no gravity" for a disturbing 14 seconds of everything floating.</comment>


Whatsapp Web - <AUTHOR> https://web.whatsapp.com/ <comment><USER2> A lot of negativity, but despite its limitations I already love it. (OK love's too much, but it's a big improvement for me at least.)

I don't use whatsapp with a huge number of people, but some of them I talk to daily on it. When we're both behind a computer (work hours, sometimes outside them) we'll often move to Skype to be able to type quicker. Skype's pretty horrible on phones (for me and most people I know), so usually prefer whatsapp when not using PCs/laptops.

Sure it's not a huge change, but just being able to type quickly when sat at my laptop, and not needing to keep grabbing my phone to see what's been said, is a great change for me. One that I was complaining about just the other day without realising this was around the corner.

In case anyone's interested, here's what it looks like for me in Chrome (nothing unexpected really): [http://i.imgur.com/90C0v9V.png](http://i.imgur.com/90C0v9V.png)

(Added bonus in the required app upgrade for WP8: message delivery status icons now shown in list of conversation, rather than just once you are inside a conversation - I know this feature was on at least one platform months ago, maybe all others, and it's [very slightly] annoyed me since I moved to Windows)

<comment><USER3> While I agree with all your points it's still the shittiest implementation that I have seen. I have been using Telegram Web, and it works delightfully without having to connect my phone to the web. Line has it's own desktop program since at least a year.

I have no idea why they decided to go this route, none whatsoever. It looks more like a hack than an official solution. I've been following Whatsapp since 2010, and to me it always has looked like a bad company. They haven't really taken care of the security of their platform until they have reached 500 million users. The more I read about Whatsapp, the more I think that they just got lucky.

<comment><USER4> This is a very similar implementation with how Blackberry Blend is implemented. Although, the core value was for security. It's definitely hard to understand what was the motivation for WhatsApp to go this route or what their future plans are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does not work for iOS yet? Edit: "At this time, WhatsApp Web is available only for Android, Windows Phone, Nokia S60, BlackBerry and BB10 smartphones." [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003](https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003)

<comment><USER6> Apple's browser is probably lacking necessary features. They have been much slower adopting features than the competition.

<comment><USER7> It's not the browser ... the iOS app doesn't yet have the capability to scan the QR code to link your account to the website

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So what exactly _is_ whatsapp web?

[edit] Found the answer at [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003](https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/web/28080003)

> WhatsApp Web is a computer based extension of the WhatsApp account on your > phone. The messages you send and receive are fully synced between your phone > and your computer, and you can see all messages on both devices. Any action > you take on the phone will apply to WhatsApp Web and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER9> Heck of a roll-out, guys.

      - only works on one browser
      - requires interop with the mobile app
      - supporting mobile app version on Android only
      - supporting mobile app version not universally available on Android, presumably because of Google Play registry population or something.

<comment><USER10> Also works with mobile apps for WP, BB and BB10. Only iOS support is missing, really.

<comment><USER11> And every single other major browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm using Chromium, says it only supports Chrome. Can we shave some characters off the regex here?

<comment><USER13> As a temporary solution, you could spoof the user agent by running chromium from command line: chromium-browser --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/535.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/39.0.1132.47 Safari/536.11"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I changed the UA on Frirefox, then whatsapp web started working. Firefix even showed desktop notifications.

BTW, you cannot have two web sessions going on at the same time. Once you start a new session on one browser, other detects and prompts

"WhatsApp Web is open on another computer or browser. Click "Use Here" to use WhatsApp Web in this window."

also, it needs phone to be connected to whatsapp service. So it sync from phone to your browser.

</comment><comment><USER15> It works quite well. They've done a great job at following Google's "Material Design" prescriptions while -- surprisingly -- not actually using the Polymer framework. First time I've seen that.

The app loads some interesting libraries:

* CryptoJS 3.1.2 (for AES and HMAC-SHA256)

* punycode 2.1.4

* bluebird 2.5.3

* React 0.12.2 (with addons)

It's entirely possible that they really are doing end-to-end crypto...

<comment><USER16> They did this recently:

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/18/whatsapp_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/18/whatsapp_adds_textsecure_end_to_end_encryption_by_partnering_with_open_whisper.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> _> WhatsApp Web only works in Google Chrome._

It's 2015, and we're still using browser compatibility checks.

</comment><comment><USER18> So it seems to do some pairing between your phone and chrome? Not really what I call a web version. A real web version would run on, you know, any reasonably recent web browser.

<comment><USER19> I think the point of the pairing itself is more just to make sure people only have as many WhatsApp accounts as they have phone numbers. Not sure why it's Chrome only, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is a very good criticism here: [http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandthew...](http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandtheweb) and I have to agree to all of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I appreciate most an Open API the same way Telegram[1] does. But at least, this is a -somewhat acceptable- first step.

[1] [https://core.telegram.org/](https://core.telegram.org/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Strange that this isn't on the frontpage, anyhow, for people who can't get it working for Android, try the following APK: [http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp- inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-...](http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp- inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-2-11-498-apk/) (yes, it's not the newest release but they did a rollback after this version removing the web menu item). Reboot your phone after installing.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have been using whatsapp-purple---a WhatsApp protocol implementation of libpurple [1] for some time now and it works really well.

That being said, accessing it from within a browser window has it's advantage. I currently have to install whatsapp-purple on all machines I use & syncronising chatlogs via Dropbox has it's challenges...

[1] [https://github.com/davidgfnet/whatsapp- purple](https://github.com/davidgfnet/whatsapp-purple)

</comment><comment><USER24> To make the 'Whatasapp web' option show on the latest Android version on my phone I had to do this:

1\. Back up your data (Whatsapp Menu > Settings > Chat Settings > Backup conversations)

2\. Go to 'App Info' for Whatsapp had to 'Clear data' (Settings > Applications > Applications Manager > Whatsapp)

3\. Restart phone

4\. Access whatsapp -> enter your phone number -> restore from backup

5\. The 'Whatsapp Web' should appear under menu now

<comment><USER25> yes this works, but will reset all stats :(... i restored my titaium backup... i still missing the Web Entry in menu :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is truly useless, It needs your phone to stay on to access the web version. And why is it a web version if only Google Chrome is supported.

</comment><comment><USER27> I couldn't figure out a way to install this.

<comment><USER28> It seems you need a version of WhatsApp on your phone that isn't out yet.

<comment><USER29> Indeed. Play Store says I have the latest version... anybody have a working apk?

<comment><USER22> Try the following APK: [http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp- inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-...](http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/whatsapp- inc/whatsapp/whatsapp-..). (yes, it's not the newest release but they apparently did a rollback after this version removing the web menu item)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I know everyone is complaining about Chrome only support, but the more important question we should be asking is what technology stack are they using for the web client?

It's well documented that Whatsapp is a Erlang shop.

Did they stay with using Erlang for the web as well ... or did they switch to another technology like Nodejs, etc?

<comment><USER31> They seem to be using React for the View rendering. Websockets for data. Bluebird for promises. Google's CryptoJS for end-to-end encryption. MomentJS for time formatting.

The code seems to be pretty modular There are some nice gems in it like EXIF format decoding etc. This is nice to reverse engineer :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> They should have waited with the announcement until they got more browsers supported. This is really frustrating.

<comment><USER33> Sure, but they gotta start somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's 2015, we use multiple devices, phones, tablets, computer, smart TVs, and they still didn't figure that out?

Come on, ICQ, Telegram, Groupme, Viber and tons of other apps have multiple clients for multiple devices.

Sadly people take too long to change, or else WhatsApp would be dead already.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is sweet.

I like being able to chat with my friends while I am at work so I'm glad to see WhatsApp bringing web access.

Hopefully iOS support is around the corner, but given how often iOS gets preferential treatment over Android, I'm okay with my Droid friends getting first crack at it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Its awesome, I can save my phone battery by switching it off and leaving only whatsapp on! boom!

<comment><USER26> No its not. Your phone needs to stay on the whole time.

<comment><USER37> Really.. I use a dumb feature phone and the only thing I want in is whatsapp..

Thought of signing in once with a smart phone and using it forever and continue using my dumb phone..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can anybody explain how this is supposed to work in combination with the end- to-end encryption that's allegedly implemented in the Android client? I can see all my Android to Android conversations in the Web client.

</comment><comment><USER39> While maybe not directly on topic, I've never seen the point of Whatsapp over plain SMS, or for that matter any of the other chat apps that can do way more (Google Hangouts, Skype, etc)... what's the point?

<comment><USER40> In some countries the price per SMS is not null. Also you have received verification. And group messaging with some features that are not available in MMS. Also end to end encryption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What did they do in an add-on that won't work in Firefox? Chrome add-ons and Firefox add-ons are rather close; I have one that has about 80% common code.

</comment><comment><USER42> Doesn't work, apparently you need to scan the code from your phone's WhatsApp which you can't due to lack of that functionality.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is apparently not available in my country (Brazil) ...

Whatsapp version 2.11.476 updated on 16 jan 2015

I guess it's only limited to US and other regions.

<comment><USER44> Used a US VPN to see whats the latest version and its 2.11.491, which is the same as installed version on mine (India). However, I still don't see the option to scan QR code.

<comment><USER2> I'm on WP8 which I imagine you probably aren't, so this may not be useful to you, but in case it's relevant across platforms, or in case there are any WP8 readers:

a.) I updated when I saw this HN submission, a 17mb update, to version 2.11.634 (it didn't updated automatically, but was available when I checked my app store)

b.) Opening whatsapp after the update showed it had updated (I could see some other features that had changed), but I couldn't find the web option. After killing whatsapp and restarting it, it then appeared on a menu where it hadn't been before

<comment><USER43> It's finally working for me, so i guess it will be available worldwide :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I thought that Whatsapp didn't store (or read) messages, and that was why it was so secure / awesome?

So how can they do this?

<comment><USER46> You're mistaken, they do store. And don't hide it.

Also they don't even encrypt, they send messages over the air in plain text. YAY $16 billion!

<comment><USER47> Hopefully that will change soon.

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why it's called web client if: WhatsApp Web only works in Google Chrome and do not work with iOS?

</comment><comment><USER49> Which version of Android app do you use?

2.11.498 seems don't work for me. There isn't a WhatsappWeb option.

<comment><USER44> How did you even get 2.11.498 (which seems to be newer than mine but still not latest)? I'm trying to download and all I get is 2.11.491.

<comment><USER49> From Play Store. I think version varies with device.

On WhatsApp site there's still your version.

<comment><USER50> I think that version is for Nexus 5. I can't install 491, and 498 doesn't have the menu option :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I have been waiting for this move for a long time, but, badly, doesn't support iOS yet :-S

</comment><comment><USER52> Really?

[http://imagebin.org/328080](http://imagebin.org/328080)

<comment><USER53> FYI Google Chrome warns that imagebin.com "might contain malware".

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Unfortunately it is not a desktop client and you have to open the browser all the time to open it.

Use this to get a desktop client on mac

[http://lifepluslinux.blogspot.in/2015/01/whatsapp-web- deskto...](http://lifepluslinux.blogspot.in/2015/01/whatsapp-web-desktop- client-for-mac.html)

</comment><comment><USER55> I'd love to see them open source this react material design implementation.

</comment><comment><USER56> I had to restart my phone to see the whatsapp web menu option. I am on Android.

</comment><comment><USER57> I like it. This was certainly needed; especially when I am working.

</comment><comment><USER58> I dont see whatsapp web on whatsapp menu of my computer.

</comment><comment><USER59> Why does this completely destroy the back button?

</comment><comment><USER60> Back button is not working in Chrome on Mac

</comment><comment><USER61> how this web hide the scripts tags? and how hide the scripts (js) from the resources tab from the rdeveloper tools?

</comment><comment><USER62> Pleeeease don't hijack my back button

</comment><comment><USER63> installed newest Android version. Does not work here. No option for scanning QR

<comment><USER35> Did you try:

Menu -> Whats App Web?

<comment><USER44> There's no option called 'WhatsApp Web". I'm on 2.11.491

<comment><USER35> My friend said it took a few seconds, then the option appeared. Sorry for the 2nd hand account. I'm on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It was written using reactJS!

</comment><comment><USER61> It was written using reactJS

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not working for me yet.

</comment><comment><USER64> Doesn't work for iOS! Better not release it then! :)

<comment><USER21> iOS users should already be resigned that they'll always receive updates later

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> v2.11.498 working

</comment><comment><USER66> The title should more correctly say "Whatsapp for Google Chrome". You can't really say it's for "web" if Chrome is the only browser you support.

<comment><USER67> Maybe they're doing client-side encryption in JavaScript? Apparently native JS crypto is incomplete in Firefox: [http://caniuse.com/#feat=cryptography](http://caniuse.com/#feat=cryptography)</comment></comment>


Paul Graham is right (using AVC's data) - <AUTHOR> http://zachaysan.tumblr.com/post/1431828646/paul-graham-is-right-using-avcs-data

<comment><USER3> I don't really understand what the debate is about. Even if the market is totally 'bimodal' valuations matter the same way as in a non bimodal market. Expected return is orthogonal to expected Risk.

Let's say the market is so bimodal that a startup fails or becomes google. Then the expected return is:

p * G

where 'p' is the chance of becoming Google, 'G' is Google's value.

Basically investors' bid for valuation is their bid for what p is.

The story is only that if they say that the company's value is X while the startup says it is 2 * X that means that they say p = p1 while the startup thinks p = 2 * p1

Of course valuations matter. It matters linearly. In any market. Even in the most risky markets. I can decrease my risk by diversifying my investments into lots of different high risk assets and my expected return remain the same, but I can only increase my expected return by buying in at low valuation. This is exactly what YCombinator does. This is just very basic math.

TL;DR: The fact that investors care about valuations does not mean they don't recognize that the success distribution is bimodal.

<comment><USER4> If p is bimodal, then p = 2*p1 is not possible. Either p = 0 or p = 1. The values in between do not occur.

Then the only thing to quibble over is G. But if you believe p = 1 for a company, what's the point of quibbling over G?

<comment><USER5> No. The event being bimodal only implies that the probability is centered around two values, not that p =1 or p = 0 for those values. For example, take a biased coin that turns up head once in a million. This is bimodal with p(head) = 10^-6.

PG's argument appears to be that the error in your estimate of p is almost always larger than the value of p and one should invest as long as 2*p is also within the estimation error.

<comment><USER6> > PG's argument appears to be that the error in your estimate of p is almost > always larger than the value of p and one should invest as long as 2*p is > also within the estimation error.

I don't think this is correct under canonical Bayesian reasoning. All uncertainties (whether because of ignorance or "objective uncertainties") can be bundled into your probability assessment. There is no "error" on your probability.

I'm not expert though. I'm only....80% sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting chart, thanks for presenting. A few issues with your methodology:

1\. I'm sure compounded returns would be nice to do, but you don't know the start date for any of those investments. A 2004 vintage fund does not mean the investments are from 2004. Instead, it means the fund made it's first investment in 2004 and will continue deploying money over ~7-8 years.

2\. In the VC industry, a wipeout is a wipeout. Call it Zero, not 0.5x.

3\. LPs care more about cash-on-cash multiples, not compounded returns (aka IRR). There's an expression that will help explain this point: "You can't eat IRR." VC is a 10-year horizon business and GPs call do special moves to improve the IRR (calling down capital as needed, and then returned capital upon exit even if it's going to be called down again and reinvested). But, at the end of the day, the best measure of the success of any fund is the gross cash-on-cash multiple of the entire fund.

</comment><comment><USER8> These types of returns and their distribution are surprisingly seen across every industry, no matter the scale you're looking at. For example, if you had invested in all the top car companies that existed in the early 1900's, you'd have lost money on most and only gained money in Ford, GM, Dodge, and overall you would only make a reasonable about of money. Warren Buffett points out that this type of behavior can be seen across every revolutionary business in the past 100 years - automobiles, airlines, radio, television, computers, and now we're seeing another example of this.

On a larger macro-scale, this type of return distribution can be seen in the S&P 500. Over the past 20 years (1990 - 2009), the S&P 500 returned 8.2%. However, if you had pulled your money out of the market on the 10 best single days of those 20 years, your return would drop to 4.5%. If you took out the best 30 days from the past 20 years, you'd have a _0% return!_ Imagine that, 30 days out of 20 years, and it would cost you all your gains. The same pattern can be seen over any time period for the S&P.

The lesson in all of this is that diversification is the key to consistent returns.

<comment><USER9> > However, if you had pulled your money out of the market on the 10 best > single days of those 20 years, your return would drop to 4.5%. If you took > out the best 30 days from the past 20 years, you'd have a 0% return! Imagine > that, 30 days out of 20 years, and it would cost you all your gains.

I suspect that the 10 and 30 worst days had comparable effect, albeit in the other direction.

You can't win if you don't play, but neither that nor the dominance of "big win days" implies that you should play every day.

<comment><USER8> Exactly right. You remove the 10 worst or 30 worst days, your returns would be way above the 8.2% average. The point is, no one knows ahead of time which days will be one of the 10 best, and which will one of the 10 worst. Same thing with angel investors - you don't know which startups will be home runs and which ones will be strike outs. The data suggests you should play every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you double the valuations, the # of bets halve. This affects your likelyhood of getting ANY wins.

My own angel portfolio: since 2006: 46 deals, three possible winners, four dead, one weak exit.

<comment><USER11> _If you double the valuations, the # of bets halve. This affects your likelyhood of getting ANY wins._

I would expect this is only true if one "must" have a certain percentage of a startup. It makes some amount of sense for traditional VCs who insist on taking a board seat, but I though this was a differentiating characteristic of angels.

<comment><USER10> you are typically limited by the % the company is willing to sell.

higher valuation deals tend to raise more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > you don't let the really good ones get away because they are asking twice as > much as you were expecting

The problem is that to actually apply this strategy you have to overpay for everything, because you don't know which ones are the really good ones until after the fact.

<comment><USER13> Ah, but you don't overpay for the failures, because they don't take more of your money. Instead, you invest the same $500,000 and get a smaller percentage of ownership. But in all of the 0x and 1x return cases, it doesn't matter what percentage of the company you own.

<comment><USER12> For the outright losses this is true. But overpaying can transform the moderate wins into losses. Buy in at 1M sell for 10 you get a 10x return. Buy in at 20, sell for 10, you get a 50% loss. So if you're playing the middle (which is where the _reliable_ returns are to be found) valuation matters. A lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Of course this data is presented in hindsight. If expected value of a return on a company is the probability it's the next G times the percent you own:

E[Return] ~= E[Company] X %Owned

And

E[Company] = P(Company=NextGoogle) X Value(NextGoogle)

If you invest in a portfolio of companies, then you'd try to control the things you can:

1) P(NextGoogle): Impossible to estimate, look for good founders

2) Value(NextGoogle): maximize this (look for big markets)

3) %Owned: maximize this

Note that YC does (1) and (3). I would argue they don't do (2) at all. Noone thought AirBnb would be as big as it is, but they're crushing it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I disagree with the conclusion that the return distribution is bimodal. My own analysis* is that it is instead lognormal. This shape makes sense to me - <USER2> lognormal distribution is the result of the product of random variables (whereas a normal dist is the sum of randomly distributed variables). The success factors in a startup tend to be multiplicative, not additive (e.g. great market, great product, customer adoption, great strategic partners, etc).

* based on observed portfolio performance which is unfortunately not public information, but also on published data from mckinsey

</comment><comment><USER16> Beat me to it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1847466>

</comment><comment><USER17> Your graphs don't back up your headline.

Fred thinks his returns are trimodal, and that he plays mainly in the middle. Looking at your chart, he seems to be 100% correct. He's got one exit at 70% annual returns, but he makes the bulk of his money in the middle of the range.

<comment><USER18> that's right

i can't comment on that post, so i will do it here

if we toss out our two biggest winners, we will still have a terrific fund

of course, i am thrilled to have them

but they are not required to have a good fund

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> But what if the venture capital model creates a situation where outcomes must be bi-modal? Consider the case where a CEO goes to a VC (either on the board or in the fund raising process) with 2 plans

Plan A has a ~90% chance of slow growth Plan B has a ~10% chance of explosive growth

The VC will point you towards plan B, because plan A isn't a win given their investment structure.

If this is true, then you cannot conclude that investments are always bimodal, just that in the past they have been due to structural reasons. And this is relevant because investors could create a model where they foster and profit from non bi-modal companies.

</comment><comment><USER20> Would the amount invested strengthen the chance of a good outcome?

</comment><comment><USER21> a compounded 20x return does not validate the following:

"The expected value of a startup is the percentage chance it's Google"</comment>