In Defense of Air-Conditioning - <AUTHOR> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/air-conditioning-climate-change-energy-pollution <comment><USER2> I might be stupid here :

increased heat because of global warming ? so put more Air Conditioning. so more global warming because much more energy consumed trying to reduce inside heat because much more heat outside than before.

i think i'm stupid...</comment>


Show HN: Random Useful App Button - <AUTHOR> http://www.randomusefulapp.com <comment><USER2> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=freemoviesapp....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=freemoviesapp.com) \- Not really "useful" tbh

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.coursera.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.coursera.android) \- I mean, kinda. But still not really.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wp.wattpad](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wp.wattpad) \- Again, I don't really feel it is so useful.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.zedge.andr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.zedge.android) \- Come on..

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lemon-optimize-your- money/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lemon-optimize-your- money/id984740998) \- Ok, I guess this one would be useful.

<comment><USER2> Edit: I tapped some more, like 10, and those were more useful. But it still feels like it is just omitting games and then going to some random apps. Maybe with lots of reviews (which I guess makes them useful to at least those people).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for taking time to look at it closely! I'm aware some aren't that much useful, I'll try to redid a list when I have some time. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear.</comment></comment></comment>


Google removed 813 creepware apps from the Android Play Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-removed-813-creepware-apps-from-the-android-play-store/ <comment><USER2> Why were they permitted to begin with?

<comment><USER3> Play store is a fail-open system. When nothing naughty is detected it assumes all is well. Apple appears to lean closer to fail-closed, with QA having to prove it's safe. And they likely have more human review.

<comment><USER2> >When nothing naughty is detected it assumes all is well.

This is the root of my question: I would presume that Google would have better systems than it appears to have to detect apps that violate their policies. Otherwise, why have them?

I understand that Android is more open as a platform, including the ability to side load your own apps. But I think they deserve criticism for not protecting their users from this "Creepware". It's one thing to download some APK from a website; it's entirely another to have it provided to you by a company you should be able to trust.

<comment><USER3> Play store allows apps to download code. Since their checks can themselves be detected by malicious submitters clean code can be sent to Google and bad code to victims.

Edit: removed confusing 'they'</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lottery winner has to share $15M of the jackpot with his ex-wife - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/21/us/lottery-divorce-split-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> Not appropriate for HN

<comment><USER3> It's poorly titled, but it's actually a story about the intricacies of a legal decision. It's not necessarily inappropriate for HN, but the title desperately needs some help to make that clear.</comment></comment>


What is the history of Django? - <AUTHOR> http://simonwillison.net/2010/Aug/24/quora/ <comment><USER2> Direct link to my answer on Quora (the above links to a note on my blog about Quora): [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-history-of-the-Django- web-f...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-history-of-the-Django-web- framework)

<comment><USER3> Been a _huge_ fan of Django since tinkering with it in '06 while at the student paper at the University of Missouri (where the folks who came before me were obsessed with it since Adrian had been Online Editor there years and years ago).

Really awesome to hear a more complete story of how it all came to be.

Thanks, Simon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "We never really intended to build a web framework" <\-- I find that it's usually a sign of a great product. Instead of designing a framework to design a framework, something is created to fix a real problem.. and only then, a framework is built around it.</comment>


Conan O'Brien preforming at Google - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/conan-obrien-is-at-google-now-41350

<comment><USER2> I am middle-aged. I do not find him to be very funny. Who does? Who doesn't? Reference your age please.</comment>


Ask HN: Can anyone list some standardised languages which are 'interesting' too? - <AUTHOR>

To me Haskell is interesting. And it is standardised too. And it is my primary workground.<p>What about some others? <comment><USER2> Golang and Scala</comment>


Ask HN: How to manage professional connections? - <AUTHOR> How do people manage their professional connections? LinkedIn works to find and make new one but not to stay in touch.
I am looking for the ability to
1. Tag existing connections 2. See my connections by location (eg. If I am visiting New York,I can reach out to some of my connections there) 3. Track when I last connected with someone (through my calendar appointments) <comment><USER2> Salesforce. You can get the Developer Edition for free which has all features enabled. Or you can just pay $300 for a 1 year license.

Within a day of using Salesforce, even though I hadn't fully set it up yet, I had a wave of relief wash over me. Just seeing names, data, events, etc put in the system took out a lot of unconscious anxiety I had in my mind about managing my relationships.

Yes it's not perfect, yes it's a little bit of enterprise overkill, but it works and I know it's going to be around.

<comment><USER3> Can you expand on this a little bit? I'm not sure if I have the right impression but I thought Salesforce was intended as a sales and accounting tool for businesses. Is this an intended use case, or is this a creative repurposing of the tool?

<comment><USER2> It's meant to track Contacts as one of it's primary features. I then use "Accounts" as buckets / groups to put people in. Pretty straight forward use of the product.

MonicaHQ has better features I think (don't think it has a mobile app though since it's written in PHP), but how you manage your contacts is a huge life spanning project. I hate to play the typical "enterprise software" card here, but you really want to make sure it's going to be around a long time, not to mention secure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a bit more oriented towards social relationships, but it might also work for your use case: [https://www.monicahq.com/](https://www.monicahq.com/)

<comment><USER5> Second Monicahq. I use it for all of my personal and business relationships; it works very well and the development roadmap is featurefull.

Disclaimer: No association other than happy paying user

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've found the iOS app ntwrk to be good for this.

<comment><USER7> Seems to be a great idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> asd

</comment><comment><USER8> bjb

</comment><comment><USER8> sfff</comment>


In-N-Out Files Lawsuit Against DoorDash - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/11/in-n-out-files-lawsuit-against-food-delivery-startup-doordash/#.qjsmca:HQUA <comment><USER2> I ordered In-N-Out from DoorDash and it was quick (~6 minutes) from the time it says the restaurant prepared it, around 20 minutes total from the time I ordered it. The problem is that they got none of my customizations correct. The well done fries were regular, the shake was the wrong flavor, and my animal style no pickles burger had pickles on it. It's tough to say whether the restaurant got it wrong or the driver ordered it wrong.

<comment><USER3> Under the laws of quantum mechanics, all of those anomalies _could_ have happened spontaneously.

<comment><USER2> True, but I don't know who to blame...do I blame DoorDash for ordering it incorrectly, or In-N-Out for fulfilling the order incorrectly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Eater.com story posted earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10549684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10549684)</comment>


Monsanto Weed Killer Roundup Faces New Doubts on Safety in Unsealed Documents - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> I've been researching this.

1\. Glyphosate (roundup) use is two orders of magnitude higher than originally approved.

2\. Due to the emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds, the dosage has been increased substantially.

3\. It is now also usually combined with other compounds to increase effectiveness, which affects how it breaks down and affects both the food and environment.

4\. It is now also used for 'green burndown'. To help dessicate the crop. AKA they use it to kills crops to speed harvest, resulting in significantly elevated levels in your food.

Start with the wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate)

Go on to a letter of concern published in the journal of Environmental Health signed by 14 experts in the field. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26883814](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26883814)

Realize that little to gain from raising these concerns, while there are many wealthy parties with vested interests in not finding these results. There's little funding behind this. Governing bodies (e.g. in Germany) are still relying on findings from labs with clear conflicts of interest.

<comment><USER3> There are many conflicts of interest in the world - organic farming is an industry too. e.g. at least one of those 14 experts is an active member of the organic industry and has long had a beef with the GMO industry: [https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/charles- ben...](https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/charles-benbrook- former-washington-state-adjunct-consultant-organic-industry/)

As to the science: the original highly-questionable IARC determination has since been contested by both the European Chemical Agency and the European Food Safety Authority.

It doesn't do us any good calling everything in the world a carcinogen. We have to rank-order risks in order to make reasonable choices in life, and glyphosate sits very low on that list compared to other industrial chemicals when you look at the evidence for mutagenicity or secondary carcinogenic mechanisms.

<comment><USER4> Ockham's razor reasoning is that a gigantic profit driven structure with a huge lobbying activity, and high financial stakes should probably not be trusted with making the right choice between their business and our health.

History tells it didn't work very well for us when the big guys said tobacco, asbestos, the Chernobyl cloud and PCBs were all safe and good.

Given Monsanto's pretty poor moral track record (improper accounting for incentive rebates, Agent Orange, terminator seeds, patent trolling...), it's only fair to be suspicious by default with them.

<comment><USER3> I'm not asking you to believe anything from Monsanto. There is a vast field of researchers that care deeply about what causes cancer and what can be done to prevent and treat it. Most of us aren't for sale.

There are sensitive, objective and simple tests for determining whether or not a compound causes genetic mutations in cells (Ames test). There are tests for whether or not a compound induces chromosome abnormalities in mammalian cells. There are lifetime feeding tests for determining whether or not any cancers can be induced with wildly unrealistic dosing regimes. Lastly, there are epidemiological studies that monitor whether workers using glyphosate demonstrate increased occurrences of particular cancers.

For glyphosate, there is no evidence of mutagenicity or genotoxicity, there is no evidence of teratogenic potential in mammals. There are no statistically significant epidemiological correlations with exposure. Glyphosate is poorly absorbed by human guts, poorly absorbed by human skin, and does not accumulate in tissues.

This is the scientific consensus: there is no good evidence that N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine is a carcinogen, there is a mountain of evidence that it is not.

But at the end of the day, whether I'm arguing with GMO-skeptics or climate- change-skeptics, I can't prove that this scientific consensus is worthy of your respect. You can always retreat into a more hardline epistemological skepticism, you can always cast aspersions at the entire enterprise.

<comment><USER5> You fail to account for the possibility of unknown unknowns, and again you're displaying biased cognitive dissonance.

You can't determine generational toxicity from LD50 profiles. You are simplifying everything way too much.

Glyphosate is an analog to glycine. You know, the building blocks for proteins. DuPont did a study in 2007 that shows glyphosate is integrating in protein structures. Does that not worry you?

Glyphosate is also a chelating agent. Glyphosate impacts the shikimate pathway, and is said to be non-toxic because humans do not possess the shikimate pathway. Yet the shikimate pathway is present in bacteria, archaea, and eukarya, and all of them are harmed by Glyphosate. Do we have bacteria in our guts utilizing the shikimate pathway? Yes we do.

You are running with the base assumption that Monsanto is benevolent and honest. This is where your cognitive dissonance stems from.

<comment><USER6> If only people remembered to check for unknown unknowns.

<comment><USER7> And that doesn't apply to the "Organic" Industry because...?

<comment><USER4> Nobody said it doesn't. But the whole purpose of organic is to do it in a way that has been tested by darwin natural selection for a long time in a very complex system.

Of course that doesn't mean the organic industry is doing things properly nor does it mean that this type of culture doesn't some other negative side effects.

But globally, I'll bet on the farmer cooperative that want to avoid pesticide to be less evil than a mega corporation that produce the Agent Orange. Does that sound silly ?

I really don't get how much you are willing to reverse this attack from Monsanto to organic sellers.

Sure nobody is perfect. And yes, the whole debate is tainted by pseudo science and bad faith. But come on, it's not even on the same scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's difficult to judge long term toxicity in humans. You don't immediately keel over and die when you smoke a cigarette, and the correlation between lung cancer and cigarettes needs a fully understandable cause. That's how the industry slipped by for years.

Likewise, most European countries do not fluoridate their water and the correlation doesn't seem to show any significant difference in dental health. The anti-fluoride people state these numbers, and then go and use the same bad logical to attribute fluoride to a host of ailments that are loosely correlated without any causation links.

Can fluoride in water lead to osteoporosis in older adults? Well we don't know, and these types of studies are very difficult to conduct because there are tons of variables. Many people drink from a combination of fluoridated and non-fluoridated water supplies and beverages throughout their lives. People move in and out of municipalities with different water treatment techniques. People have different intakes for calcium, iron, fibre, carbs throughout their entire lives. People have different genetics. When it comes to long term toxicity, it's really difficult to narrow down factors because you can't control for everything (ethically) and humans can live a long time.

It would make sense for at least some percentage of the population to have adverse reaction to Glyphosate. We all have slight genetic differences and reactions. Can it lead to specific cancers in humans consistently? Do we understand the mechanism by which it does this chemically? Can we replicate this in other animals where we control for other factors.

Just like the tobacco industry, I wouldn't put it past Monsanto to both bury and make up studies to suit their interests.

<comment><USER9> > Likewise, most European countries do not fluoridate their water and the > correlation doesn't seem to show any significant difference in dental health

I've never researched this so it may be confirmation bias, but my experience living in Europe and the US is that Americans have better looking teeth.

<comment><USER10> better looking does not mean healthier, especially thanks to bleach, whitening and surgery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One important reasons for robotics is to reduce/eliminate the use of pesticides. After all we use weed killed because it's cheaper than weeding by hand.

Regardless of whether Glyphosate is toxic to humans or not, it kills the rhizome (fungi and other ecology around the roots), drying the soil and making it less productive. Robots will not only avoid this problem but support the planting of complementary crops.

<comment><USER12> While I'm not against robots per se, I do wonder why "working the fields" cannot be made a good job for humans?

Without this job I foresee several potential problems: large unemployment, people leaving the countryside, many low paying jobs that feel meaningless to the workers.

<comment><USER13> > _I do wonder why "working the fields" cannot be made a good job for humans_

It would make food expensive again. As of 2010, 1.6% of American and 14% of the world's workers worked in agriculture [1]. As recently as 1870, that figure for the United States was almost 50% [2]. Most of us prefer today's standard of living.

[1] [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1981/11/art2full.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1981/11/art2full.pdf) _page 12_

<comment><USER12> > It would make food expensive again.

Yes. Expensive compared to other things.

> Most of us prefer today's standard of living.

Yet we've never been more depressed as a population...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not legal for sale in New York, mostly because of false advertising the company previously did touting it's biodegradability, even going so far as to say that it's "practically non-toxic".

In fact, they continue to be the subject of a class action lawsuit in NY: [https://www.law360.com/articles/849367/monsanto-trims-but- ca...](https://www.law360.com/articles/849367/monsanto-trims-but-can-t-escape- ny-roundup-cancer-suit)

Unfortunately all that may come of that lawsuit is a small label change...

It pains me to see so many people here supporting the company, especially from a group usually so ready to expose the faults of big corporations. You know, being a "hacker" and caring about the environment and the health of our planet and it's inhabitants are not mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER4> It's a recent trend in many niche (but maybe somehow influential ?) social networks like HN or some subreddits. Controversial big players are having more and more supportive comments, despite previously being famous for dubious proven activities.

It wasn't like that at the beginning. I tend to put my tinfoil hat on when I think about what could have caused it.

<comment><USER15> No tinfoil required, there are now companies you can pay that will "manage" social network comment sections in your favor.

<comment><USER6> There are also private detectives for hire. Even so, you individually are probably not being stalked.

I'd hold on to the tinfoil just in case.

<comment><USER4> Well, tinfoil new spring collection aside, you can't really compare:

\- the value of one average joe data;

\- against the value of a well orchestrated PR campaign on a site that experts, investors and intellectuals use as an information hub.

If you are skilled enough to maintain a good reputation of a client on HN, this is quite a good thing to manage IMO.

And here I am, posting comments for upvotes while maybe I could pay for it. I should step up my game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _"We would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak," Mr. Heydens wrote, citing a previous instance in which he said the company had done this._

Science for sale.

Shouldn't that Mr. Rowland guy be in jail?

<comment><USER17> When approached by a company to provide time and expertise dealing with a business problem, do you provide it for free?

<comment><USER16> This is like a judge (or a jury member) accepting a bribe from a prosecutor or a defense attorney. That's illegal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a youngster I used to work PT while I was at Uni back in the 80's, taking care of a semi-rural parkland spread over 200 square miles. Every Spring, our workload would increase, slashing, clearing of weeds and blackberries. So Round-up was used. I told the boss no and refused to use it. The pesticide would be measured then added to the spray packs and the blokes would hand spray what ever needed to be knocked down. When they would slightly bend over, the air-relief valve would spit the spray out over their bare necks. After work was done they'd complain of dizziness.

Whenever I read about Monsanto now, I also think about Michael White and his fight to sell seed, [0] after a neighbour accidentally contaminating it with ^round-up ready^ seed. [1],[2]

So, F. Monsanto.

Reference

[0] _" Why does Monsanto sue farmers who save seeds?"_ [http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto- su...](http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers- who-save-seeds.aspx)

[1] Seeding Fear: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=YZGueeao0tE](https://youtube.com/watch?v=YZGueeao0tE)

[2] [http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/see-neil-youngs- monsa...](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/see-neil-youngs-monsanto- themed-mini-documentary-seeding-fear-20150723)

<comment><USER12> I honestly do not understand that a company with such a track record is widely considered to be an legit business. They're a public enemy!

<comment> joatmon-snoo Maybe because most of their track record is just really bad PR and most people just fall for the big evil corporation line without ever fact checking claims?

<comment><USER19> You mean we should fact check the unsealed emails?

Let me quote one of the more explicit parts of the article:

> _Court records show that Monsanto was tipped off to the determination by a > deputy division director at the E.P.A., Jess Rowland, months beforehand. > That led the company to prepare a public relations assault on the finding > well in advance of its publication. Monsanto executives, in their internal > email traffic, also said Mr. Rowland had promised to beat back an effort by > the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own review._

> _Dan Jenkins, a Monsanto executive, said in an email in 2015 that Mr. > Rowland, referring to the other agency's potential review, had told him, "If > I can kill this, I should get a medal." The review never took place. In > another email, Mr. Jenkins noted to a colleague that Mr. Rowland was > planning to retire and said he "could be useful as we move forward with > ongoing glyphosate defense."_

For me, this qualifies as 'big evil corporation' behavior. [edited: formatting]

<comment><USER20> That doesn't make them automatically guilty of every evil thing people tend to pin on them.

By all means, let's hold them accountable for the evil they've provably done, but the oft-repeated "they sued a guy who had seeds wind up on his field" is throughly debunked.

<comment><USER21> > That doesn't make them automatically guilty of every evil thing people tend > to pin on them.

No, but it does give people the justification for intense suspicion and cynicism when it comes to the company in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does- glyphosate...](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does-glyphosate- cause-cancer/)

<comment><USER23> Great website! Thanks.

<comment><USER24> You might also be interested in Science-Based Medicine [1], another blog where Steven Novella posts.

[1] [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/)

(in case you're wondering about the name: in a nutshell, "science-based medicine" is the position that "evidence-based medicine" is an insufficient rejection of quackery because it leads to a lot of effort being misspent on finding "evidence" to support scientifically implausible and already-debunked treatments and theories)

<comment><USER25> > (in case you're wondering about the name: in a nutshell, "science-based > medicine" is the position that "evidence-based medicine" is an insufficient > rejection of quackery because it leads to a lot of effort being misspent on > finding "evidence" to support scientifically implausible and already- > debunked treatments and theories)

Sorry if this is a common objection, but my first reaction to this is, there's lots of people that reject the word "science" (today's anti-intellectualism), but they're okay with the word "evidence". So even if "science-based" is better, on the surface a lot of people will instantly have a negative reaction to the name.

<comment><USER26> Related topic: In the eternal and tiresome dispute between religious Creationists and modern science, a favorite talking point is that "it's only a theory!" As a result, some science-minded people are proposing that scientists adopt a different word to substitute for the "tainted" word "theory," whose colloquial meaning differs from that in a professional scientific context.

Me, I think this is a terrible idea. I fiercely resist having my (or anyone's) use of vocabulary directed to accommodate ignorant people. I can see only losing battles in that direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think the proper comparison is Roundup verses other herbicides. It that comparative analysis, it definitely wins.

<comment><USER28> Especially vs other broad spectrum herbicides.

We used this one year as a no till knock down:

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

The skull and cross bones on the label was bad enough but seeing what even the smallest of drops did to plants was an eye opener. A droplet small enough to blow 30 feet in the air was enough to make a yellow spot on any plant it landed on.

It is also linked to Parkinson's disease.

<comment><USER29> > The skull and cross bones on the label was bad enough but seeing what even > the smallest of drops did to plants was an eye opener.

VX (and VG) nerve agents were originally intended for use as pesticides so this isn't surprising.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#Discovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_\(nerve_agent\)#Discovery) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_(nerve_agent)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_\(nerve_agent\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Pesticide is killing gut bacteria in Bees which has led to Bee death. [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070182#authcontrib)

Pesticide also increases the risk of getting Diabetics. Here is a meta study "After reviewing 21 previous studies, researchers found exposure to any type of pesticide was associated with a 61 percent increased risk for any type of diabetes. The increased risk for type 2 diabetes -- the most common type -- was 64 percent, the investigators found." [http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20150916/pesticide- exposu...](http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20150916/pesticide-exposure- tied-to-diabetes-risk)

<comment><USER31> The article you linked isn't very descriptive. Can you find the actual publication?

The article also seems a little contradictory. It opens with the line, "After reviewing 21 previous studies, researchers found exposure to any type of pesticide was associated with a 61 percent increased risk for any type of diabetes", then later states, "The following chemicals were linked to an increased risk of diabetes, according to the researchers: chlordane, oxychlordane, trans-nonachlor, DDT, DDE, dieldrin, heptachlor and HCB." There are lots of pesticides not in that list, including glyphosate. In addition, HCB and DDT are already banned in most places, and the others are considered toxic. The original research might shed some light on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Monsanto Advocate Says Roundup Is Safe Enough To Drink, Then Refuses To Drink It"

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/monsanto-roundup- pa...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/monsanto-roundup-patrick- moore_n_6956034.html)

<comment><USER22> But this guy did: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8sgEhpHM4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8sgEhpHM4k)

<comment><USER33> And this guy drinks cyanide: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWNpO5vvhpk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWNpO5vvhpk)

My point is that being able to drink one glass of the stuff doesn't really tell me much.

<comment><USER34> That's an acutely toxic simple anion (CN-), in random things like e.g. apple or peach seeds (#evolution) and commonly byproduct of breaking down more complex atoms.

Versus C3H8NO5P (with additives to multiply the effectiveness), which sounds less inherently safe...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "Weeds Your Way" – Organic Farmers Share Secrets of Herbicide-Free Farming

[http://www.ofrf.org/news/weeds-your-way-%E2%80%93-organic- fa...](http://www.ofrf.org/news/weeds-your-way-%E2%80%93-organic-farmers- share-secrets-herbicide-free-farming)

<comment><USER36> A great book as well is One Straw Revolution

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The funny thing is we have less herbicides because of Roundup. The option is we starve the world, because we will not be able to product enough wheat etc. or we use stronger herbicides.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/organic- farming-y...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/organic-farming- yields-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change/)

<comment><USER38> There _is_ actually another option -- especially with respect to herbicides: manual labour. Herbicides don't increase yield. They decrease cost.

Wheat is currently $4.35 a bushel. A bushel of wheat is about 60 lbs. So, we're paying just over 7 cents a pound for wheat.

Fix the distribution side, not the production side. There's a _lot_ more fat there. And in the mean time, research ways of reducing labour on physical methods of weed control.

<comment><USER37> Have you ever been on a wheat farm? I actually have been and even got to help around the farm for fun.

My friend had 4.5 squares. That is a square equals 1 square mile. How would we increase labor for weed control?

I also lived in Imperial Valley, California. The back breaking work that the migrant workers did was amazing difficult. It would take double or triple the workers to pick through and weed a farm then pick fruits and vegetables. I don't think Kansas nor Manitoba have the population to do that seasonal work.

<comment><USER39> There are mechanical ways to fight weeds. You'd have to use the tractor and appropriate tools on the field a lot more, and you may end up to have to stop growing just one crop all years but instead cycle between different crops.

<comment><USER40> That's how it used to be done way back in the day, but what about the growing pressure to get away from disturbing the soil entirely? I even recall a Minute Earth[1] video, of all places, pressuring us to move towards no-till practices, which relies on herbicides. It seems we're getting some mixed messages.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOefA- bSduM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOefA-bSduM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> My dad died because of roundup. He was a physics prof, smart guy, fought hard for wetland issues. Was on the board of Wisconsin Wetlands.

He didn't drink, didn't smoke, he was very active, very fit, and yet he got cancer. I can feel the down votes coming, but he was a guy that just should not have gotten cancer.

Roundup gave him cancer. I could tell you stories about him dieing that would be not so fun.

Fuck cancer and fuck roundup hard.

Edit: he and my mom fought invasive species and they used roundup. So maybe that's on them. That's why he got cancer.

<comment><USER3> I'm very sorry for your loss. But as a cancer researcher, I can fairly confidently say that glyphosate had nothing to do with your father's death. There just isn't any evidence showing that it has direct mutagenic activity or even other indirect biological influences on the probability of developing cancer. I've also lost several fit, active nonsmoking friends and family to cancer. Our cells copy themselves imperfectly, and sometimes our inborn regulatory mechanisms go awry. There's not always a "cause", beyond the fact that our bodies aren't built to a perfect spec. There's a massive amount of work going on these days to develop entirely new classes of treatments, so I hope the clinical situation in a few decades will be brighter by far. Again, sorry for your loss.

<comment><USER42> It was my understanding that while the IARC classification of glyphosate as a carcinogen has been disputed, exposure has been shown to increase the risk of melanoma, especially in occupational contexts:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27058477/?i=15&from=gl...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27058477/?i=15&from=glyphosate%20cancer)

<comment><USER3> That's a terrible paper. This is a small epidemiological study where they're looking both at 1. exposure to sun and 2. occupational exposure to -any- herbicides/pesticides/fungacides/insecticides (not just glyphosate) and trying to pull out odds ratios of melanoma risk. Outdoor work definitely increases melanoma risk, but I wouldn't try to pull out much more than that from this paper!

<comment><USER42> Thanks for clarifying!

<comment><USER43> He didn't really clarify anything though, just gave his opinion on evidence that he said didn't exist just a comment before.

You could have given any of the other studies that warn against roundup and people will always find something wrong with the study. When people make up their minds about this stuff they stop looking at it objectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> In the US, the alternative to this would be to consume organic produce. However, most people don't realize that organic produce still uses plenty of, if not more pesticides than traditional production methods; they just use organic pesticides.

I wonder which is worse: highly mechanized, high efficiency, and low volume synthetic pesticides in traditional production methods - or low efficiency, high volume natural pesticides in organic production methods.

<comment><USER45> Organic makes a totally unscientific distinction between synthetic and naturally-occurring substances. It's also a huge, and hugely profitable industry that lobbies effectively to prevent research funding into the safety of the substances it allows, and essentially exploits food privilege and scientific illiteracy.

Organic-permitted pesticides tend to be massively over-applied, and can be unbelievably toxic to a degree that would never be allowed for modern synthetic pesticides. Rotenone for example is horrenously toxic to aquatic life, but permitted in organic agriculture with litte regard for the ecological outcomes. Simple copper and sulphur compounds that are broadly toxic are permitted as fungicides in organic agriculture, but can also persist for a long time in the environment and cause serious ecological damage.

I'd take roundup over anything organic any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Notably, it doesn't seem like anyone in this thread has bothered looking up the court documents or the emails in question. Here they are, along with lots of background reading: [http://skeptiforum.org/t/monsanto-and-the-case-of- unsealed-d...](http://skeptiforum.org/t/monsanto-and-the-case-of-unsealed- documents-on-glyphosate/51)

The 'ghostwriting' refers to a position paper that Monsanto had a choice to either outsource to a number of outside experts at significant cost, or to write themselves, acknowledging the contributions of academics who wrote source material and/or would edit and review the document. And they only intended to do this for sections of the paper that were considered uncontroversial in the scientific community, with direct authorship in sections dealing with matters of contention.

It generally seems to be the case that most all stories of this nature are overreaching considerably by taking juicy sounding quotes out of context. It's remarkably analogous to the Climategate 'scandal' on close examination.

</comment><comment><USER46> Having held my mothers hand as she received chemo for her Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma I can tell you this... if there is a even a tiny chance using Roundup increases the risk of the disease it isn't worth it.

<comment><USER47> This is a difficult position to maintain when we promote many activities that kill many people every day (e.g., driving). Sometimes the profound benefits of certain activities are worth the the "tiny chance" of downside risk. Whether this is one of those is up for debate, but it doesn't seem you're attributing any value to using glyphosate, which there doubtless is some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I just doused my yard with Roundup to get rid of the vast amounts of weeds and vegetation. I have to say, it did a fantastic job. What does this mean about the soil though, is it totally fucked now?

<comment><USER49> Glyphosate breaks down pretty quickly. One of the debates about it is how quickly this actually happens, namely in the context of over-application, but in any case it's pretty quick. The low environmental persistence is one of the major selling points.

After a couple months, chances are even a very sensitive assay wouldn't be able to detect it in your lawn. As a one-off use, I don't think there's even a marginally compelling argument that it's dangerous.

<comment><USER48> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> More advancements in computational biology and genetics will allow us to more precisely determine the effects of glyphosate on public health. Until we have better tools, there isn't enough evidence to make a judgment against Monsanto. However, the moment we are able to make the connection between poor agricultural practices and damages to health, a multi-billion dollar industry will be created for lawyers, and they will hold these companies acccountable.

</comment><comment><USER51> Roundup usage has been so ubiquitous for decades now so this is very worrying. I am much more concerned with Monsanto's GM food patents/diminishing biodiversity/pollution threat than this. I have no issue with GM science btw. NONE. (re:'GMO safety /mutant food nonsense') I wonder if this is a sly segway from Monsanto. Given a choice between Monsanto Roundup everywhere and Monsanto GM everywhere I'll take the former.

</comment><comment><USER52> If you really are concerned about this : buy organic.

If organic food gets more interest, more and more people will start growing it, and more and more people will have access to good healthy food.

These poisons wouldn't be abused if they wouldn't be profitable...

<comment><USER53> Also, try growing a vegetable or two for yourself and don't use synthetic fertilizer or weed killers when doing so. Nothing can beat something you grew yourself! Growing herbs on a window sill is an easy way to start.

<comment><USER52> Yes:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I see little chance or Glyphosate being banned while Trump and Pruit are gangbanging the EPA.

We are such a short sighted species.

</comment><comment><USER55> "New doubts", "people who claim"? That's FUD. Also, glyphosate patents are expired, and can be manufactured without Monsanto permission, e.g. [1].

[1] [http://www.made-in-china.com/products-search/hot-china- produ...](http://www.made-in-china.com/products-search/hot-china- products/Glyphosate.html)

</comment><comment><USER56> Roundup has to be treated as if it were radioactive. I carefully sprayed only one dandelion in my lawn with roundup. Over a few weeks, the roundup spread and destroyed about a 5 foot radius of lawn.

</comment><comment><USER57> The bees, they are killing the bees.

</comment><comment><USER58> I wonder if non-GMO foods have a higher likelihood to cause cancer because of Roundup.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is why people eat organic food.

<comment><USER60> Wilful misunderstanding of the research in the field? Or is it a gut reaction that spurs them into alternatives, based on a pretty meaningless label, which have no real proven health benefit? Perhaps it's the easy narrative of painting an entirely normal company as evil because they're messing with forces best left alone.

<comment><USER43> All the arguments you used can be applied on both sides of the argument actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is why people eat organic food.

Now if you want some other curious links to pesticides and weedkillers, look at Stephanie Seneffs research.

<comment><USER61> It's a common misconception that organic food doesn't use pesticides -

the USDA's list of allowed pesticides has quite a few pesticides that are dangerous to humans, such as various coppers, elemental sulfur, boric acid, the list is here: [https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text- idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1...](https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text- idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:18.104.22.168.32.7&idno=7#se7.3.205_1601)

<comment><USER59> Did you even read your own link?

<comment><USER62> Did you?

Things like copper sulfate, etc are not exactly on the "great for humans" list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This is beginning to look like Michael Clayton.</comment>


Tale of OpenBSD secure memory allocator internals – malloc(3) - <AUTHOR> https://bsdb0y.github.io/blog/deep-dive-into-the-OpenBSD-malloc-and-friends-internals-part-1.html <comment><USER2> Always good to see that some systems still do some engineering. Linux has lost this. It got so complex that only small patches get in, so the hacks continue to stack up.

OpenBSD does interesting stuff like this or pledge(2) and unveil(2).

Dragonfly does interesting stuff like their concurrent lockfree/lockless servers approach instead of using kernel locks, and HAMMER2[0].

Genode[1][2] implements multiserver systems supporting many kernels including seL4, making good use of capabilities.

[0]: [https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/HEAD:/sys...](https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/HEAD:/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN)

[1]: [https://www.genode.org](https://www.genode.org)

[2]: [https://www.genodians.org](https://www.genodians.org)

<comment><USER3> Linux has plenty of engineering. Of course that doesn't mean identical features.

Linux has a VFS with lockless path lookups. The push to get Linux running on machines like the SGI Altix, with at least 10240 cores running one shared instance of the kernel, has really helped with locking issues. Another factor has been the push for real-time performance, with and without choosing the option to make the kernel preemptable.

<comment><USER2> And all of this is based on hacks and ugly workarounds, due to the kernel being a monolithic design.

When the kernel isn't monolithic, kernel preemption isn't necessary, or worth it[0]. Imagine if instead of the, I argue insane, complexity added by the fine-grained SMP locks and the unholy mess that is kernel preemption, the kernel had been split into separate processes, which maps to SMP cleanly.

Actually, I don't have to imagine it, because that's what Dragonfly has been progressively doing since they forked FreeBSD, and what microkernel multiserver systems like Genode/seL4 or HelenOS are from the get-go.

It turns out, despite having very little manpower (which is why they chose to focus on x86-64), Dragonfly has performance and scalability competitive to Linux today. Imagine if they had more people. I will not be too surprised when Dragonfly finally leaves Linux in the dust and people wonder how the hell, which is something I predict will happen. Linux hit a ceiling despite all the money thrown into it. Dragonfly hasn't yet.

[0]: [http://ts.csiro.au/publications/nicta_full_text/5859.pdf](http://ts.csiro.au/publications/nicta_full_text/5859.pdf)

<comment><USER4> > And all of this is based on hacks and ugly workarounds, due to the kernel > being a monolithic design.

But most BSD ( including OpenBSD which you just praised ) is monolith as well.

> I will not be too surprised when Dragonfly finally leaves Linux in the dust > and people wonder how the hell, which is something I predict will happen.

Dragonfly would have to first leave FreeBSD in the dust before taking on all the linux distros.

Microkernels are great for learning about kernels. Monoliths have been great for general and corporate use. Perhaps the future is hybrid, only time will tell.

<comment><USER2> >Dragonfly would have to first leave FreeBSD in the dust before taking on all the linux distros.

You're late to the party, as Dragonfly is already outdoing Linux in some areas, such as the network stack[0].

>But most BSD ( including OpenBSD which you just praised ) is monolith as well.

I praised them for the engineering they've been doing. They still retain flexibility, despite the monolithic design. Linux went all-in with their smp locking and kernel preemption, and the costs of getting any work done on the source code have skyrocketed since.

>Perhaps the future is hybrid, only time will tell.

Hybrid is a marketing term. It's a blurry line between a monolith and a so- called hybrid. What they're marketing is structure. Structure is good. Netbsd is an example of a well structured system. Linux is the counterpart: A poorly structured one.

>Monoliths have been great for general and corporate use.

UNIX is an old design. Corporate hates taking risks. However, there's massive scale deployments of microkernel systems, they're just not on your face; the visibility is actually quite low for these. But they do tasks that greatly benefit from or outright require such a design.

Monolithic design limits are more evident than ever, as we're hitting them left and right. So this is changing. For instance, besides systems such as Genode and HelenOS, Google is working on Fuchsia and Huawei on HarmonyOS. Brace for impact, as waves will be made when this all finally hits.

[0]: [https://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~sephe/perf_cmp.pdf](https://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~sephe/perf_cmp.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Maybe rump kernels might be future :

[https://research.csiro.au/tsblog/using-rump-kernels-to- run-u...](https://research.csiro.au/tsblog/using-rump-kernels-to-run- unmodified-netbsd-drivers-on-sel4/)

<comment><USER2> It's amusing you mention this. I just used the rump implementation of fat filesystem (rump_msdos) to mount a fat floppy on netbsd on an Amiga with a kernel where I didn't build msdos support in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A bit of constructive criticism: it's nice when people do deep dives of components, but I think this one is _too_ deep: it basically pastes all the code that is executed and then explains _exactly_ what the code is doing, which isn't really that useful; I don't need to be told how to read C, as I can do so myself. And in fact, I think it's a bit counterproductive: I very quickly got lost in the minute details presented. What I _really_ want is an overview of what the code _does_ (and ideally, why) not how it does it.

<comment><USER7> First of all, Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I am beginner into this.

And, yes, it is deep because OpenBSD malloc(3) has lots of features and I have tried to cover each and every line of code. So, I have shared all my learning and the process of how I learned.

In future, if people want to learn anything that requires malloc(3) understanding they can refer to this.

And, yes I have to paste the code otherwise it would be difficult to track the explanation and respective code.

I have explained the following things: \- What is the code doing \- Reason on why is it doing that \- tried to explain the developers' idea behind that code algorithm \- tried to explain the mathematical calculations on the basis of sample code through the debugger

And, the blog is for everyone, irrespective of ability to read C, or understanding of malloc(3) internals.

If you got lost then please keep patience because for me it took exactly 30 days to understand, still, I am learning it. At least read the whole blog again and then if you want, you can make the remark as per your understanding.

If you go through the whole blog, you will find out mailing lists and twitter links where the author discussed his queries and the reasons/ideas with the developer.

Hope I cleared your queries, if you still have some doubts then please read the whole blog again, or you can also directly jump into the source code and learn it from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's have a HN style discussion of the article on the website and not a flame war.

</comment><comment><USER9> OpenBSD in C: A panic room made out of knives.

<comment><USER10> I feel like either OpenBSD or NetBSD would probably make good candidates for experimenting with rewriting the operating system in Rust. They're small enough to make some significant inroads in rapid pace, but also general purpose enough to not be useless.

<comment><USER11> If memory serves, NetBSD's strength is its portability.. So given the current state of Rust's portability, I doubt that they are very interested.

As for OpenBSD, I wouldn't hold my breath: remember that Rust isn't the first 'safe' low level language but the others (Ada for example) didn't find success inside OpenBSD.

That said development follow fashions, so who knows?

<comment><USER10> My own feelings didn't reflect that the upstream projects should, nor necessarily would, switch. I was thinking more in terms of a fork to research the avenue.

<comment><USER12> Better look at Genode OS and what they are doing with C++, Ada and SPARK integration, than hoping any UNIX clone will ever use anything else other than C.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debunking Michael Lewis' The Big Short - <AUTHOR> http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/03/debunking-michael-lewis-subprime-short-hagiography.html

<comment><USER3> (disclosure: I've read the book, enjoyed it, learned a bunch, but also thought it had some weaknesses... Also, the author of this review has a competing book, which should just be noted.)

Although I agree that there are weaknesses that flow from Lewis using the forms of fiction story telling (plot arc, conflict, protagonists, etc.) to tell a non-fiction story, I think a weakness of this review is that it ducks the main scandal: the lack of regulation.

[Note, this may be covered in the author's book, EConned, I don't know, I haven't read it, though I did just order it.]

Obviously, the people participating in the market who made money were "part of the problem" -- but the bigger problem was the lack of regulation for an area of the economy that is so significant the rest of us _have_ to bail it out (privatized profit, socialized risk). This allowed, among other things:

1\. rating agencies to lie -- they had an economic incentive to do so (fees from investment banks) and no one to stop them (so much of the market is legally bound to use/rely on them). It's incredible in the wake of this that S&P, Moody's, etc. still exist. They participated in the largest fraud in capitalism's history.

2\. an opaque market in instruments that grew so large the rest of us were on the hook for it. This is the largest transfer of wealth in history and it's still not clear what the hell happened.

The BP oil spill looks transparent compared to what went on here.

<comment><USER4> > but the bigger problem was the lack of regulation

Except that the problem was actually the regulation. Let's look at your examples.

> 1\. rating agencies to lie -- they had an economic incentive to do so

The rating agencies had a govt mandated monopoly - that's a creation of regulation. That pretty much guarantees that their failures will cause system failures. Note that the regulation in this case pushed that failure into the core of the banking system. The ratings determined whether something counted as an asset, so when they got it wrong, banks tanked.

Note that regulation also said that "insurance" on mortgage-backed securities made them safe. The regulators did this because they wanted banks to hold more MBS, which makes them cheaper, which causes more of them to be created, and so on.

> 2\. an opaque market in instruments that grew so large the rest of us were > on the hook for it. This is the largest transfer of wealth in history and > it's still not clear what the hell happened.

Sure it is. Politically connected institutions were made whole. (Example - <USER2> gave money to AIG to pay its debts to Goldman Sachs.) We're still pissing money into Fannie and Freddie.

Regulation is systemic risk.

Note that regulators don't have any skin in the game and politicians have even less. (I'm looking at you Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Liar's Poker was great, and I'm enjoying reading 'The Big Short' at the moment.

Although I'm not sure that the guys making money from Credit Default Swap agreements on CDOs are on morally safe ground, I disagree with Yves that Steve Eisman, Mike Burry et al were "the moving force behind otherwise inexplicable, superheated demand for the very worst sort of mortgages." Ultimately, irresponsible mortgage lending was the root cause of the crisis: it was a superheated supply scenario.

It was only when the rate of defaults on home loans dramatically increased that the CDOs dropped in value, and the Credit Default Swaps could be redeemed.

For example, in addition to the high number of defaults that occurred after an initial two year, fixed-interest period, (when the interest rate jumped in some cases from 6% to 12%) some of the loans even defaulted on their very first payment. Lewis makes the point in the book that the question is not "who defaults on their first loan repayment?", but rather "who lends to someone who can't even make a single repayment?"

As for Magnetar being undocumented, Chicago Public Radio did a great podcast about it a couple weeks ago, which was where I got the recommendation for 'The Big Short'. It's well worth a listen: [http://www.propublica.org/ion/podcast/item/bernstein-and- eis...](http://www.propublica.org/ion/podcast/item/bernstein-and-eisinger-on- the-magnetar-trade)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hagiography, maybe. But the notion that shorts kept the market going is just crazy. Short sellers get a bad rap, but if you think about it, shorts are the pins we need to pop the bubbles before they get too big.

The only problem with shorts, but this is equally true of the longs, is that investment activity is secret and information fails to be spread around; big risks creep into the markets without enough discussion taking place. If markets run on information, our markets are running on fumes. No wonder they sputter a lot.

<comment><USER7> How is it crazy? A trader takes a short position on CDOs. They find a way to go further with that short position by driving up the amount of toxic debt in the market and betting on that. There's nothing to limit the amount to which they can short the market because they've figured out how to hedge their risk and make a small profit as long as the bubble stays up. That's essentially what many of these hedge funds managed to do.

And of course, that's what they're paid to do - they're just good at their jobs. Which is why there's a larger issue at stake here about what constitutes ethical trading behavior in modern markets, and I think this is part of that discussion. It's completely inaccurate to say that short bets are wrong, because as you say, they are so crucial to keeping liquidity in the marketplace. At the same time, to take a position that you know for a fact will drive the bubble up to be larger, to fall harder, well - are you completely irresponsible for the consequences of those trades?

When you get right down to it, this is why regulation is necessary. This is why we have referees in sports - nasty behavior is encouraged and necessary in competition, so there needs to be some sort of line to say what is in and outside of the realm of acceptable behavior. And the boundaries of what is and is not acceptable are always changing. Rules aren't static in baseball and football - they change as people figure out how to play within and around them and change strategies.

<comment><USER8> _At the same time, to take a position that you know for a fact will drive the bubble up to be larger, to fall harder..._

A long position drives prices up and inflates the bubble. A short position lowers prices and lets a little bit of air out of the bubble.

<comment><USER7> That's not necessarily true in the land of derivatives. A derivative is a bet on the change in value of something. Essentially hedge funds would build a market for a crap asset and then use derivatives to bet that the value would go down. So while the position was short, assembling it drove the bubble up higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I started reading this too, and did some tangential reading along the way.

I'd hate to be in the same room as 2010 Lewis and 2007 Lewis:

"But the most striking thing about the growing derivatives markets is the stability that has come with them. More than eight years ago, after Long-Term Capital Management blew up and lost a few billion dollars, the Federal Reserve had to be wheeled in to save capitalism as we know it." <http://bit.ly/cg9H6w>

Also this fun one from Janet Tavakoli:

"I was in the Salomon Brothers' 1985 training class that Michael Lewis lampooned in his amusing book, Liar's Poker. Imagine my surprise to see him billed as a trader on 60 Minutes, since he was actually a junior salesman. Well-heeled male peacocks strutted the trading floor, and junior salesmen were girlie-men, mere eunuchs serving their pashas." <http://huff.to/9pclUR>

<comment><USER10> I've seen both Lewis and Tavakoli on C-SPAN's Q&A recently. Lewis seemed to be trying to be funny, but I found Tavakoli more interesting. And I think Brian Lamb did try to wind up Lewis by mentioning that remark from JT, but I can't recall now how he responded.

JT: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA20Am0pwtA> ML: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x387_k963yY>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really liked that font for the main article, if anybody else does and doesn't feel like digging into the HTML/CSS, it's Optima.</comment>


Show HN: Code generation tool for quick struct content comparison - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CovenantSQL/HashStablePack <comment><USER2> TL;DR: uses code generation to allow output of messagepack-like serialized data of exported struct fields, allowing for very quick serialized data comparison.

<comment><USER3> So, another take on flatbuffers?

<comment><AUTHOR> HSP is a simple solution: 1\. No schema needed 2\. No much pain to have a try</comment></comment></comment>


Light Table, The New Emacs - <AUTHOR> http://greduan.github.io/posts/light-table-the-new-emacs.html

<comment><USER2> Was this written by someone who is unfamiliar with emacs?

It seems as if your praising Light Table for being more extensibile, but you never really touch on WHY it is more extensible. You just compare it equallly with what everyone already knows emacs is capable of.

 _The main point is, it's got (almost) no limit on what can be added and no limit on what can be removed, something Emacs is missing._

How exactly is one's extensibility limited by emacs?

 _Oh and one more thing. Emacs is millions of lines of Elisp plus the C code it uses. Light Table is only around twelve thousand lines of ClojureScript, at the time of writing._

LoC means absolutely nothing.

Light Table kickstarter occured in 2012, emacs first release was in 1976. That's probably a more important feature than LoC</comment>


Introducing Five App to HN community - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
Mat here. As time passes, together with the Five App team we're more and more excited about the next YC batch. To introduce myself I'm the CEO and co-founder of Five App. It might sounds funny but my dream was to create an app for hip-hop fans but then it turned out that we have huge potential for Deaf  people: we're making a messenger app that uses the full power of sign language, with the idea to help the up to 80% of Deaf people by some measures who have problems texting or find it inconvenient.  We'd be glad to get feedback on our plans, and I'd love to hear more about your project if you also applied. <comment><USER2> Mat, text submissions are at a disadvantage in sorting compared to url submissions, so you're much better off submitting the businessinsider url. Also, titles should be descriptive, and a title of just "YO" is an attempt to make it stand out, which is against the site guidelines. If you still can, you're better off deleting this submission and creating a new one by submitting the BI url.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

>" _Please don 't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important._"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,

thank you for your suggestion. Of course it was my fault. I've changed the title. Unfortunately I've no chance to delete the previous submission so I'm going to create new one with a direct link. Hope that similar mistake won't occur in the future. Sorry.</comment></comment>


Nvidia Addresses Nearly Non-Existent RTX 3080 Availability - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-newegg-rtx-3080-apologize <comment><AUTHOR> "from@Newegg Those wanting RTX 3080 GPUs, here's some info: This morning we experienced more traffic than the morning of Black Friday Limited inventory sold out in 5 mins We'll release more as we get more Bot protection was in place, orders were human"</comment>


Showroom - New-car research - <AUTHOR> http://showroom.is

<comment><USER2> I hate to say it, but it does suck, quite a bit. The interface is nice and clean, but the functionality isn't there.

I tried redoing my recent search for a good SUV-like vehicle. I started off in SUV, hoping I could pick models to compare between. I headed straight for the Subaru section, since I ended up buying an Outback. But the Outback was not there. The CrossTrek, Forester, and Tribeca were there. The Outback ended up being under Cars, even though it is, arguably, more of an SUV than the Tribeca.

Okay, so I found one of the cars I was wanting to compare. How do I choose others? Oh, no way to do that. Okay. Well, let's at least look at the Outback.

I have tabs, that shows me different model years, not much else there. Down the left side are some, but not all of the engine and trim options. Clicking them does...nothing. The main content is a bunch of pretty marketing photos. Finally, at the very bottom is the first actual information about the car. The price and the MPG. I would also say that it has the "Category", but seeing as it says the Outback is a "Car", when it is either an "SUV", "Crossover", or "Wagon", I can't really count it.

Oh, but look, they have an affiliate link that takes me to Edmunds! Finally, a site where researching new cars doesn't suck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Right now, one searches for a car type and a car model. But that's not really the way I've searched for my last few cars.

Most importantly, I want to be able to:

1\. Require a minimum fuel efficiency (e.g. at least 20 mi/gal)

2\. Specify a drivetrain (e.g. AWD, FWD, ...)

3\. Specify features (e.g. Bluetooth, A/C, ...)

4\. Specify a price range (e.g. $20,000 to $45,000)

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a ton of stuff we can / want to do. The first step is getting the data / photos in the UI, and then we'll innovate in the research space.

<comment><USER3> Understood. I'm just saying that as an MVP I'm not sure it demonstrates as much value as I'd like. (That's just to me, personally, of course -- I'm sure different people search differently.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely agree, but we wanted to get this in front of people to garner feedback and reinforce the things we should work on next.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You need more filtering on the main lists. Let me filter by price range, high/low brand, size of vehicle, number of seats, engine size, petrol/diesel, air con, sat nav, cruise control... So rather than filtering the cars also filter the model of each car. Help me find the exact model I want.

Then let me create a collection of cars to compare, show a table of data about each car side by side.

Take a look a [https://www.google.com/fonts](https://www.google.com/fonts) and take some insparation from that for the "comparison" system.

EDIT:

What you want to be aiming for is becoming the Hipmunk of car shopping. show me prices from all the dealers, where can I get a model of car that matches what I want the cheapest

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I actually originally had this in the first version of this app, when it was Auto Swatch: [http://i.imgur.com/vvUHt85.png](http://i.imgur.com/vvUHt85.png)

Those filtering options will be coming soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> And comparison will be the root of the app once we get rolling. Boiling down your options to a handful of vehicles and then helping you make an informed (and engaging) decision is the point of the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a good exercise, but it's not something I would use as my starting point for car research.

\- The landing page feels unfinished because most of the page is filled with greyed out icons.

\- Once you pick the type of vehicle (cars), you have to navigate through 9 pages of car models. I know that there's a search bar, but it's not what users will see first. Why am I being given an alphabetic listing of cars? You may want to allow users to drill down further by car types, make the search more prominent, and if you have to provide a list of cars, order them by what you think the user will be likely to look at, instead of an alphabetic listing. At the very least, group them by manufacturer.

\- Once you pick a car, the information is very sparse. Some pictures, some info about mileage, cost, and then an affiliate link to Edmunds.

The amount of information you get about a car after all that trouble is not even close to what car buyers are looking for. In the end, the only way to do research is to follow the link to Edmunds, so this entire website feels like a way to get affiliate revenue. If you are serious about the website, you may want to provide enough value of your own (Edmunds already makes it fairly easy to browse to the car you want, so that's not a differentiator)

</comment><comment><USER6> This seems like a good opportunity as the process of researching and buying a car can be so onerous.

I recently helped a non-car savvy friend with his purchase of a Mazda3 and he was overwhelmed by the choices and the process of shopping for a car. Feature research was a primary interest with pricing next.

Feature research will be huge, same with pricing info. If only features weren't grouped into packages and if car pricing wasn't so murky.

</comment><comment><USER7> Of course, there is a lot of room for improvement as you mentioned. Some suggestions:

\- Please focus on the data part, I would want the relevant i nformation presented well, not a bunch of images.

\- The default alphabetical sorting is not very useful, sort it by popular/cost/mpg etc.

\- Many people don't know what car they want, are you planning to cater to them?

\- The icons for van and minivan are identical.

</comment><comment><USER8> I need something like this, but I don't think this is it.

I don't care at all about photos of cars. I would at some point, but I'm not sure when.

What I need is:

* Each model broken out by every trim (this is 80% of what I need right there) so I don't have to dig through flash-heavy car company websites to figure out what my engine options are

* Comparisons across cars/trims on BHP, torque, and displacement, city/hwy MPG, cabin & trunk space, &c. These are all stats that are readily available but annoying to track down

* Aggregation and summary of existing reviews

* Some notion of the "maturity" of the current model year (what's the last model year that had a major refresh)

* A metric of what the used market for each car looks like for the past couple years

* Some notion of availability and price variability across regions

If this already exists, please someone tell me, because I'm driving a car whose engine is at any moment going to fall out of its compartment and onto the street below, almost entirely because of what a galactic pain it is to narrow down my options.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Thomas,

Thanks for the comment. Some great insights here.

Honestly what we have on Showroom right now is not useful. We put this on HN to generate exactly what has happened here: opinionated discussions about what people really want / need from a shopping experience. It's clear (to us) that there can be innovation in this space, and there are a ton of ways to do it.

The thoughts you have are similar to what we've been planning for a while. We want a visual representation of trims for a model - how do they relate to each other, and how do they relate to similar vehicles?

On top of digesting the data that we have (which is a lot), we're going to aggregate stuff from around the web - YouTube reviews, blog post reviews, etc.

Anyways, thanks again for your comment (and not just saying stuff like "this is shit", like other commenters). This is exactly what we posted here for.

Stay tuned :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the idea, but I'd rather have a less glossy and more data-focused approach. How about searching for 0-60 times, limit by 4 seats, limit by price, sort by aggregated reviews, etc.?

I'm pretty familiar with Porsche's lineup (I own one) and the 911 listing is pretty useless ([http://showroom.is/porsche/911/](http://showroom.is/porsche/911/)). When I click on a 911 Turbo S, I see photos for a Carrera 4 that costs half as much, etc.

A frontend to a MySQL instance where I can fire off queries would be far more useful, frankly. Just remember to sanitize input. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Instead of sorting by name, you need to find a better way to order the cars in each category (and allow several sorts, price, mpg, popularity, etc)

There is very little value in showing me 300k Bentleys next to 30k BMWs. It makes navigating the site a real chore, unless I know exactly the model I'm looking for, but then why would I use showroom.is in the first place, right?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is just our "MVP". We have a lot more planned:

\- Better trim organization.

\- Actual data on trims (MSRP, major trim features, etc).

\- Proper galleries.

\- Aggregation of YouTube video reviews, blog reviews from around the web, Edmunds reviews, etc.

\- Aggregation of user-submitted photos of models / trims from Flickr, etc.

<comment><USER11> I would hardly call this an MVP. The site isn't really useable in it's current state. It's a list of cars, with a price and no sorting, filtering, really anything...

Even after i click on a car all it does is show me pictures of it... Not even correlated pictures but it looks like you took the first 5 images off Google. Most of them don't even have pictures of the interior.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you knew how much work went into getting it to this point, you'd probably have a different opinion.

<comment><USER12> I hate to break it to you, but the amount of work that goes into a product is completely irrelevant. It's all about the usefulness to the end-user.

If the amount of work mattered, we would be digging holes with spoons instead of backhoes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the clean, simple UI.

One improvement suggestion: There's a lot of whitespace because the pics and the text (which is only two small lines) are given equal space for each entry. I'd consider letting the pics take up the full square, putting the title above them, and putting the two bullet points side by side under them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Other than the pretty interface, what is the added value of using this over just going directly to edmunds.com? Its seems they have much better filters, sorting, etc. edmunds.com may not be the absolution best interface, but its functional, and doesn't seem to difficult.

</comment><comment><USER15> Right now, your website allows me to browse for pictures of new cars in alphabetical order, or search for pictures of new cars. That's it. Why would I bookmark this site? Why would I recommend this site to others? It doesn't yet serve a purpose.

You have data that you can use to boost your site's functionality. If you gave people sliders for base cost, city MPG and highway MPG, your website would be more useful.

People could look for pictures of new cars on google image search. Maybe you want people to look for pictures of new cars on your site by MPG or price. These are things that your website can leverage right now, all by changing the front end.

Until then, your website is a splash page for Edmunds.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Lesson learned on the tagline. We've killed the "doesn't suck" part. Thanks, HN!

<comment><AUTHOR> And a note on us calling this an MVP: we've probably used that too loosely. This is more of a proof of concept to see if there's demand in this space. We believe there is, and wanted to show what we are starting with.

<comment><USER16> There's definite and obvious demand for making the car shopping (and purchasing, especially) experience less painful. It's a sad state of affairs when getting a loan was the easiest part of the experience.

I don't think you've fully decided on the problem you're trying to solve though. Is it comparing my new car options across manufacturers? What are the key deciding factors for someone getting a new car? Who are your customers? Who _aren't_ your customers?

At this point, what you've built is providing no insight into any of those questions for you, except that what you've got so far is not the product for the HN market. :)

I'd focus on those before going further down this road, but that's just one man's unsolicited opinion. I am fairly involved in the automotive industry, however, so I've got some insight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the insight. We definitely are in a super-alpha state where we don't really know what we're targeting yet. And by "we" I mean me and two others, doing this on the side :-p

Hopefully after a few iterations, we can get a better grasp on what we're trying to do and who we're doing it for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Model/Price/Mileage is practically useless.

Give me a comparison site that allows me compare pricing with similar common options. I don't care if the car is priced "from $20k" if adding an automatic and A/C means $25k.

</comment><comment><USER18> A good start with lots of promise. I hope this eventually ends up with a full faceted filter system so I can dive down on any category in any order and combination I want and have it offer me a couple options.

<comment><AUTHOR> It will, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wanted to research the following:

(manual transmission OR automatic w/ paddle shift) AND (rear-wheel drive OR all-wheel drive) AND (sedan OR coupe)

Sort by options: power to weight ratio OR 1/4th mile time OR price

For a very specific shopper like myself, this sucks. Can't even compare two cars.

<comment><USER16> If the OP started integrating more data sources for some of that information, things could get interesting: [http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.ht...](http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.html)

The downside is whether or not the enthusiast market would really want something like this - I know that review after review told me the new CTS was whooping on the german sport sedans, but after actually test driving all of them, there was an obvious winner on feel alone. I used a ton of online comparison tools, read through dozens of reviews, and still wound up buying against all their advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some of your data is bad. For instance, your pics of the VW Golf (Also NB - synonyms...searching VW results in 0 matches) shows a leather interior...which you can't get in the US.

</comment><comment><USER21> The pictures and UI are pretty cool, but right now, there's almost no functionality besides seeing some nice pictures of a particular model that you're interested in.

</comment><comment><USER22> astonished that the first page of "cars" has only one or two that push 30mpg. Anything short of 50mpg just isn't _trying_ surely?!

(of the 20 cars listed here[1] that are except from the London congestion charge, none are lower than 134mpg.)

[1] [http://www.nextgreencar.com/congestion-charge- exempt/](http://www.nextgreencar.com/congestion-charge-exempt/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Message to the site owner: Congratulations on fail

I tried to think of something positive to say, but really... if you're marketing yourself as something that doesn't suck and within 2 seconds I think "this site sucks due to lack of understanding about car research", you've failed.

Now you have the challenge of recouping credibility. You launched too soon, you didn't say beta, or even better, alpha which could have saved you.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love the idea, but I want it for used cars. I don't by new cars as I think they're a waste of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll have data for older-model vehicles in the future.

<comment><USER24> That's great news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> it looks nice but completely lacking in functionality. at a bare minimum you should be providing some level of filtering to narrow down the results beyond the vehicle category

</comment><comment><USER26> One thing you may want to add, if you're willing, is a link to a virtual test drive such as the ones done by winding road magazine on youtube. I'm sure they wouldn't mind the traffic, and it gives you a good first impression of how it drives.

But it's a good start. I would love to see something besides car.com, edmunds, or kbb to do a little research. All the info is all over the place and I've ended up having multiple tabs open with the manufacturer websites.</comment>


Estimating the cost of generic quantum pre-image attacks on SHA-2 and SHA-3 - <AUTHOR> http://eprint.iacr.org/2016/992 <comment><USER2> Already discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734332)

Edit: and maybe, based on what formula1 noted, the OP uses HN to get the "homework answers" for him?

<comment><USER3> Same poster there as well.</comment></comment>


Mapbox GL for the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-gl-js/ <comment><USER2> This looks great, although on first glance seems that the new GL implementation is a new library, not an extension of Leaflet.

I think that's a mistake — Leaflet is solid and is the foundation on which a lot of extensions are built, to the point where my impression is that it's pretty much the de facto JS-based map widget these days.

While the new library looks decent, I don't see the point of creating a brand new library rather than extending Leaflet, other than to force clients to couple tightly to Mapbox's API, tile server etc.

<comment><USER3> Leaflet creator here, worked on both libraries.

It makes a lot of sense because this library is vastly different from usual slippy maps — fluid continuous zoom & rotation, extremely powerful visualization and interactivity potential, no DOM constraints — fitting it into the Leaflet API which was designed for simple image tile-based maps would be very limiting.

On the other hand, Mapbox GL JS is a very complicated technology under the hood, it is much heavier, with more code, lots of algorithms, serious backend technology to support it etc. So there's a place for both libraries — Leaflet remaining the go-to super-simple, friendly and lightweight library for most maps, while GL JS being an experimental ground for maps of the future with unlimited potential.

Also, Mapbox GL JS + Leaflet integration plugin is coming soon. Stay tuned :)

<comment><USER4> You've got me so excited for that plugin, any ETA?

<comment><USER3> It's currently a bit hacky but works — I think I'll put out a basic demo in a few days and then build from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome work, but you're missing OpenStreetMap attribution since you're using OSM data

<comment><USER3> Valid point, will add an attribution control shortly.

<comment><USER6> Considering Mapbox's history of slight misunderstandings with the Openstreetman community, I would have thought that the touchy subject of attribution would have been dealt with more carefully...

<comment><USER7> Out of total curiosity, can you expand on these "slight misunderstandings"?

<comment><USER6> Mapbox is now a major actor in the Openstreetmap community - its contributions are considerable in quality and quantity. As a result, there is a lingering fear of Openstreetmap sliding toward dependency from Mapbox. In this context, there have been a some flaming about the flexible way Mapbox interpreted the attribution requirement on its maps - Mapbox fixed that but it left some contributors edgy about it. Then there have been requests by Mapbox, notably at the last SOTM-US, for a license change to drop the share-alike requirement - that too has ruffled feathers. So while I believe the relationship with the rest of the Openstreetmap community will work out fine, Mapbox needs to work on not being perceived as arrogant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OpenLayers 3 has GL ability if you're looking for something you can use locally [http://ol3js.org/](http://ol3js.org/)

<comment><USER3> The whole Mapbox GL stack is open source and can be used locally as well. It is complicated, but possible nevertheless.

Also, it's very different — with OL3, you just have GL rendering usual server- rendered image tiles with some simple vector data overlays, while Mapbox GL JS renders OSM vector data on the client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really impressive. It's clear someone really spent a lot of time making the controls feel nice and fluid. I'd love to know more about how vector tiles are streamed to the client, and how I could do similar streaming of my own data.

<comment><USER3> The data is loaded from server as 512x512 protobuf tiles (an efficient binary format) in a Web Worker and parsed/processed there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> wow, VERY impressive. What you can do with that!!

I guess some of the old dusty GIS Enterprise Solutions, now _slowly_ have to start worrying about competition in such form (I know you can't compare it to a full Featured GIS, as a map is only a component of many many things that are required to be usefull). Current solutions are way behind and the moment when it comes to the presentation and manipulation of data (imho). They will have to up their game significantly to stay relevant.

<comment><USER11> What is interesting with MapBox, is that they essentially offer functionality similar to Geoserver + Openlayers, but with a far more focused, nice, modern user experience.

Certainly in terms of government systems, I think companies sell to people who will never use the system. Procurement people who worry about getting locked in by Mapbox just like they were with ESRI. Government IT people who want to host everything locally. Sadly in that kind of a sale, user experience doesn't matter so much as it should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > [...] it uses JavaScript and WebGL to dynamically draw data with the speed > and smoothness of a video game.

Am I the only one who gets poor performance?

When I drag around the first map quickly, I get about 5 FPS, and the "chrome" process on my system jumps to 100% CPU usage (running Chrome 35.0.1916.153). The same with Firefox Nightly (33.0a1), although the FPS is higher here (10-15 FPS). My CPU is an eight-core AMD FX-8320.

<comment><USER13> This is the first time we're hearing performance in that magnitude, and it's definitely not the intended frame rate. It sounds like your system is switching to software OpenGL rendering, rather than running directly on your GPU. Could you please share more details about your system on Github? [https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl- js/issues/new](https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/issues/new)

<comment><USER12> I just updated my GPU drivers using the xorg-edgers PPA on Ubuntu 14.04 ([https://launchpad.net/~xorg- edgers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa](https://launchpad.net/~xorg- edgers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa)) and now it's a lot better. Dragging the map, there's a small delay before the map moves, but when it does it's smooth. I remembered that I was having problems with Google Maps, as well as other Web GL stuff, so I figure there was a bug in my drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is crazy impressive. I'm still reading the source but so far what i see is really great already. Very concise and clean. I would love to see an embeddable C + portable ES2/CoreGL version of this.

Edit: Just found the native version. A bit heavy on dependencies but basically what I was asking for. :)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd love to hear a bit more about how you handle thick lines and anti-aliasing in WebGL.

Currently my approach is to make the line a little thicker and then apply the anti-aliasing in the frag shader. Similar to GPU Gems "Fast Prefiltered Lines." But it gets tricky with end caps, round joins, etc.

<comment><USER16> We did a blog post on it: [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/drawing-antialiased- lines/](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/drawing-antialiased-lines/)

<comment><USER17> Have you tried Subpixel Morphological AntiAliasing? Is it useful for 2D stuff?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats – amazing to see all the hard work come to fruition!

</comment><comment><USER19> Is the server library for producing the protobuf data from PostgreSQL/PostGis/Osm open source ? This is this lib ? [https://github.com/mapbox/vector-tile-spec](https://github.com/mapbox/vector- tile-spec) Using this spec ? [https://github.com/mapbox/vector-tile- spec](https://github.com/mapbox/vector-tile-spec)

<comment><USER3> The whole backend stack is open source — check out [https://github.com/mapbox/?query=vector](https://github.com/mapbox/?query=vector) (all things vector data) and [https://github.com/mapbox/?query=fontnik](https://github.com/mapbox/?query=fontnik) (powers font processing for GL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Vladimir amazing work!

Just this mean, we can style a raw vector map from mapbox without applying styles? I'm not able currently style maps with a huge number of point on vector mapbox due to the tile processing limit. I am able to host the vector file though. Being able to directly style raw vector files on the client really opens the doors to a realm of possibilities.

<comment><USER3> Yes, upcoming Mapbox Studio release will allow you to author vector tiles for GL (with custom data), which you can fully style on the client in turn.

Note that Mapbox GL is a collaborative effort of a big talented team — a lot of people worked on this, I'm only a minor part.

<comment><USER20> Yes, sorry of course! I've been running mapbox studio and have vector tiles running. Being able to style here and not in mapbox-studio is great.

What about support for mouseovers? Is that possible? Something we can expect soon?

<comment><USER3> It's already possible, we just need to put out an example of how to do it. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm just a little bit disturbed by the absence in some cases of the street names. Is this intentional ?

<comment><USER22> Doesn't look intentional. I've gotten drastically different street name coverage for the same area at the same zoom level depending on whether I got there by panning or zooming. And neither one includes names for the whole screen. Still a few kinks to work out?

[http://i.imgur.com/DNBt4AM.png](http://i.imgur.com/DNBt4AM.png)

It feels like the text pops in and out as large zones, and the zones are unloading themselves before the whole zone is offscreen, sometimes leaving large areas blank.

For reference, the upper image was produced by panning. The area on the right had been showing text, but it vanished as it got near the edge of the screen.

<comment><USER23> This looks like a bug. I filed a ticket and we'll take a look. Thanks for the details!

[https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl- js/issues/652](https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/issues/652)

<comment><USER22> I'm running Firefox 32 Beta on Windows 8.1 with DPI scaling, in case that helps narrow it down. Tried to test it, but I don't think I can get FF to stop scaling without logging out and back in; quitting and rerunning it with the disable scaling box checked doesn't work. That's normally the first thing I look at for graphical glitches on here, though I have no idea how it affects WebGL.

Great job with this! Coming from Google Maps and similar, the smooth motion is mesmerizing, especially labels staying level as you rotate. And tile loading/pop-in is _much_ quicker than what I get from Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hands down the best team I've had the pleasure of meeting so far; these guys have a track record of building awesome stuff. Looking forward to use this on our next project.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ugh - that is extremely fast...</comment>


Show HN : I created a PHP Hacker News Clone in 2 hours - <AUTHOR>

http://hackernews.zopte.com<p>0 lines of code written and the entire operation took 2 hours.
Its not perfect. It doesn't have the threaded comment view and the ranking is naive. But, I thought its worth showing off. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable : <http://hackernews.zopte.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> Posting doesn't work. It doesn't work on the zopte demo blog either...

<comment><AUTHOR> my bad, it doesn't handle special characters well. Can you try posting something without quotes or any other special characters..

You could report it at bugs.zopte.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat, but what's with the "password" protected page for Zopte?

<comment><USER2> 'friend' ... know your LotR :P

<comment><USER3> Oh, I got it, I just didn't get the point of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> fun. js links stop me from opening links in a new tab.</comment>


I hate ruby or why I'm switching blogging platforms - <AUTHOR> http://cestlaz.github.io/2016/04/14/i-hate-ruby.html#.Vw_9Lx7Jz_Y.hackernews <comment><USER2> The article confesses the author doesn't know Ruby. Also, the "blog platform" shouldn't require command line knowledge. Kinda defeats the purpose of blog software, honestly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ruby Fatigue

</comment><comment><USER4> This kid</comment>


More about Google's commodity servers - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212400166

<comment><USER2> Does someone know what they are referring to about "commodity x86 servers"? Does this mean Core2 or Opterons? as opposed to Dunnington, Tigertons, or Itaniums?

<comment><USER3> The term "commodity x86" is somewhat redundant, since almost all x86 machines are commodity (in the sense that a server from Dell and an equivalent server from, say, HP are effectively interchangeable).

It is rumored that Google chooses processors based on performance/TCO, which would exclude the crazy expensive ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone know how do these compare to normal blades?</comment>


What is missing from the kids' internet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/05/what-is-missing-from-the-kids-internet

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think government, country level Internet filtering is a particularly good idea, but for parents, being able to avail themselves of tools such as filtering at the household level can be useful.

I think reducing the argument to simply, "I will hang out with my kid while she uses the internet," is Pollyanna. Yes, that is the ideal, but the real world intrudes.

I did hang out with my kids while they used the internet. We did have the discussions about safe and unsafe behaviour. They know I know the passwords to their email and social media accounts and may review them occasionally[1]. They know if anything they come across on the internet makes them uncomfortable they can come to me and not get in trouble. They have done this often as they were starting out. We kept the kids computer out in the family room, in the public family space and not in their bedroom where it is unsupervised. I've put in that hard work.

But you know what? I can't be with then every minute they are on the internet. They have phones and laptops for school now. The internet is used ubiquitously in our house. They're teenagers now, and I am not a helicopter that can hover over them. I have to work and cook meals and do my own things as well.

So technological tools[2] that can help me parent are very useful to me. They reduce the cognitive load. They help me parent better.

When one of my kids has watched too much youtube, they get redirected to a page telling them if they want to watch more, they have to go jump on the trampoline for half an hour and get some exercise. I don't have to rely on my imperfect supervision and my mercurial mood to yell at them to get off the computer.

When the proxy logs show one of my kids was starting to search for porn, I was able to have the discussion with them on about how pornography is entertainment, not educational, and when you are sexually inexperienced it can really give you wrong ideas of what sex and intimacy is like, and screw up your expectations. It helped me to give my kid timely education, not catch them and be able to go "Ah HA!" The choice on these things should be at the household level. Sure, educate parents on ways they can use technology to help them manage technology. Don't force it down a country's throat. Few people want to live in a nanny state.

[1] I'm in the extremely fortunate situation where my kids take comfort in this, not see it as an invasion of privacy. I do not take that for granted. (And perhaps I am deceived. ;-)

[2] To emphasis, tools to help you parent, not tools to replace you as a parent.</comment>