Cockroach farms multiplying in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-china-cockroach-20131015-dto,2669,4433405.htmlstory <comment><USER2> Capitalism is stronger than customs.

If growing them feeds people efficiently, we'll see it here soon enough.

Potatoes didn't exist outside the Americas until after 1492. Then many cultures viewed them as lowly and not worth eating. But you can feed more people per area than any other food and they grow in more types of land than many other edible plants. Cultures would reject them until a famine struck. Then the ruler would eat them out of necessity. Then everyone would eat them. Now potatoes are in more cuisines of the world than any other food.

If cockroaches are efficient, I would expect a few shocks in some commodity markets to put them on a few cultures' dinner plates, then to spread. Like roaches, if you'll pardon the pun.

<comment><USER3> _Cultures would reject them until a famine struck. Then the ruler would eat them out of necessity._

It is incredibly rare for the "rulers" to have their personal food supply impacted by a famine.

Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for (I'm vastly over- simplifying) research that indicates only dictatorships have famines because the rulers are insulated from the effects and so have little motivation to fix the systemic problems that cause famines. The "let them eat cake" syndrome (although that quote itself is historically misleading).

The premise is that in a democracy the rulers still eat well, but there are other mechanisms for them to share in the suffering of famine so it never gets to that point.

[http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/sen.htm](http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/sen.htm)

<comment><USER4> Actually, it may be true for other areas as well, I thought about this few days ago in the context of free market and choice.

Maybe free market is harmful for society in the sense that market segmentation creates a choice between high and low quality based on price, and this choice doesn't force people who can afford the more expensive solution to make a fix for everybody.

There is lot of anecdotal evidence about this. For example, there was article about school system in Finland, which is pretty much egalitarian. Still, the quality is great as a side effect probably because if someone improves the system, they improve it for everybody.

Similar things could be said about healthcare system. In fact, probably every successful government-run system is based on belief of participants that it _should_ be egalitarian (and yes, they do exist).

We have negative examples of this as well. Most consumer product have awfully low quality, lower than what we could actually manufacture. The standard response to this is "you have a choice" and indeed, the knowledgeable people can buy quality for much higher price. But in doing so, they won't improve quality for those clueless, leaving them to buy lemons.

Interestingly, even the knowledgeable group is then affected. They have to pay higher price, because they get less market power, because they chose not to extend this power by leaving others to bad choice.

<comment><USER5> There are choices between high and low quality based on price, but you're ignoring the effect of changes over time. As Hayek and others have explained, typically something new and experimental will only be available to the rich because it will initially be expensively produced in low quantities, but as it catches on innovation brings the price down to the masses. There are dozens of "low-quality" goods (relative to today's "high-quality" versions) enjoyed by the poor today that would have been considered "high-quality" relative to the versions of those same products enjoyed only by the rich a few decades ago (ex. cell phones, refrigerators, etc). Although these trends may be more easily seen in products than in services/public goods like education.

<comment><USER4> That misses the point. Of course a refrigerator from today has more functionality built to it than refrigerator from 50 years ago. Of course we can build it much cheaper. The question, do we want to?

There is also Akerlof, who also won the "Nobel Prize". When people cannot recognize quality, they cannot buy it. Sure, every fool can compare "features". So when the producer is faced with a choice, build it 10% cheaper for half the quality, what do you think he is going to do? Most people won't know until it breaks.

It's also win for the producer. He can make two lines - one "consumer" line with half the quality, and the other "professional" line with the right quality, but two times as expensive. That's how modern market segmentation works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm more excited by cricket farming for protein flour (here in the US).

There's a Brooklyn company called Exo (Exo.co) which is doing just that after a kickstarter campaign + media blitz. Cricket flour is super high in protein, and also very sustainable. Could see it becoming the next acai, chia seed, quinoa, etc.

<comment><USER7> I don't know how common my sentiment is, but I'd be far more inclined to eat crickets than cockroaches. I psychologically associate roaches with disease. Crickets are just another insect.

I realize this is irrational, and that fauna which feed on garbage like rats and roaches can be farm-raised in sanitary conditions. I'm still not going to eat a roach.

<comment><USER8> I don't know how common my sentiment is, but I would stay the hell away from anything related to insects for purely psychological reasons.

<comment><USER3> Until maybe a decade ago, the most common source of red food dye was ground up cochineal bugs which look like ticks. Even today, if the food claims to be made from all natural ingredients, any red coloring is bugs rather than something from a lab.

[http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp](http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp)

<comment><USER9> > To prepare carmine, the powdered scale insect bodies are boiled in ammonia > or a sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble matter is removed by > filtering, and alum is added to the clear salt solution of carminic acid to > precipitate the red aluminium salt, called "carmine lake" or "crimson lake."

Seems a stretch of the word 'natural' to me :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "With cockroaches, you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan," or $3.25 > for a return of $11.

?????????

As I see it, 150元 is seven and a half times as much as 20元. I didn't use any exchange rate of any sort to compute that.

Seven and a half times $3.25 is $24.375 . Using the most charitable interpretation I can think of, that's a return of $21.12 on an investment of $3.25, but put in the same terms as the original quote, I'd call it investing $3.25 and getting back $24.38. What happened there?

<comment><USER11> Yes, you seem to be correct. Good catch. According to a google for "150 CNY in USD", "150 Chinese Yuan equals 24.59 US Dollar"

<comment><USER10> Well sure, but even if 150 chinese yuan were equal to 11 USD, turning 20 yuan into 150 yuan wouldn't be like turning $3.25 into $11, it would be like turning $3.25 into $24.375. It might be metaphysically _more_ like turning $1.47 into $11, but absolute quantities aren't really at issue when you're talking about return rates (I'm assuming the cockroach farm, which by implication earns in the tens of thousands of USD per year, can scale up beyond a return of 150 yuan). It would have been easier and less of a gaffe for the reporter to say "you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan, or $20 for a return of $150". Why did they bother to print a conversion at all?

<comment><USER12> There is some logic in the conversion as it helps show scale - if you run a lemonade stand it may be true to say you can invest $10 and profit $20, but not true that you could invest $1m and profit $2m, whereas in a car manufacturing business you might be able to invest $Xm and profit $2Xm, but investing $10 is unlikely to give you any return. These two scenarios can't both be explained as "you can invest 1 and get 2 back".

That said, a single quote, even with conversion, doesn't help much here - if a reader wanted to start a farm now it doesn't give them any idea of whether 20 yuan is the minimum or the maximum investment (I presume it's below the minimum anyway).

<comment><USER10> The article already indicates (in USD figures) that a cockroach farm generates in the low tens of thousands of USD per year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I set up a mini cockroach farm to feed my lizard (a bearded dragon). They're easy to look after, very low maintenance, never bite and don't make much noise. I can't say I've ever wanted to eat one, but I can see why they'd be an excellent creature to farm if people are willing.

<comment><USER14> They _will_ bite! Try catching one that doesn't want to be caught.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it interesting how blatantly those quoted in the article talk about the pursuit of wealth. One of the local Chinese governments even has an award for "expert in getting wealthy"! I guess it isn't as reprehensible coming from a country with so many rural poor, but I still find it depressing.

<comment><USER16> Not all countries/people feel bad about getting rich. :) In China on every new Year you wish each other "prosperity" and this partly linked to making it big, too.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, I new a girl who came over on a post-Tienanmen visa (they let practically anyone from China in to the US for a while after that incident). She was from a rural town, yet she told me they had a saying about Shanghainese (apparently there is a lot of regional jingoism there). The saying translated roughly as "You can't get that rich without doing something bad."

<comment><USER16> Maybe. I'm not saying that the attitude I described is universal, but I feel like in China you get a certain respect for being successful.

I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time. Getting rich was seen as a reward since you provided a good solution to consumers and therefore you could gain from the overall value you provided to society.

On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that "profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk who is getting very rich through the process of what he does - and it does not seem to bother many people in these kind of situations.

<comment><USER17> "I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time."

It's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict the US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to successful) and respected for it.

"On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that "profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk"

I don't see any contradiction. Most people feel one should be rewarded based on their contribution to society, and have respect and admiration for skilled and ambitious persons.

What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess everyone's contribution.

<comment><USER16> _It 's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict the US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to successful) and respected for it._

What's interesting about it? And I have no idea why you start putting politics inside here - that was not the point. You are right about one thing, in Europe people are despised if they have money, no matter if they deserved it or not.

 _What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess everyone 's contribution._

Vote with your wallet/dollars. What else is there to measure ? Honestly I don't see who would be in position to decide "what should be the reward" or these kind of things. That's why we have market systems, to avoid stupid solutions to this kind of issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I read Hacker News on a daily now and never in my life thought a topic from my previous daily reads (Gecko and Reptile forums) would ever make it here! I once bred roaches for reptile food and the lizards did prefer them over anything else, so I would guess they are tasty!

<comment><USER19> "I read Hacker News on a daily now and never in my life thought a topic from my previous daily reads (Gecko and Reptile forums) would ever make it here!"

But such a topic did make it here before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5750173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5750173)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I see loads of those outside at night in warm weather here. Maybe there's some kind of reverse-aliexpress I can use to sell them? :)

<comment><USER21> Just catch them and market yourself as "keeping the manufacturing on the U.S. soil"[0] ;).

[0] - assuming you currently live in US, not in Malaysia :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> _He expressed disapproval that visiting journalists refused to sample the roaches.

On saying goodbye at the end of the day, he added a final rejoinder.

"You will regret your whole life not trying them."_

Whenever I travel, I do my best to eat like a local. In my sheltered life, I never ate sushi until I first visited Japan. There I had sushi so fresh it was still moving. I ate Balut [1] when someone handed me an egg in Manila. But I think my cultural adventure would have stopped at the same spot as the aforementioned journalists.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_\(egg\))

</comment><comment><USER23> A word of advice if you're trying out cockroaches/crickets/cicadas for yourself: do something about the shell if it isn't very soft. During the most recent cicada emergence in my area, I caught a bunch and cooked them up as spaghetti ( [http://www.gwern.net/Notes#cicadas](http://www.gwern.net/Notes#cicadas) ); unfortunately, I didn't do anything about their shells, which were pretty tough toward the end of the emergence, and my dinner was less pleasant than I hoped.

</comment><comment><USER24> My wife and I read a book a few years ago: "Man Eating Bugs", a travelogue of insect cuisine in many different lands.

It was quite fascinating. Children in Mexico would pick up a stink bug and eat it raw, a sour-crunchy snack. In Southeast Asia there's a large beetle about the size of a Snickers bar that in fact tastes like a Snickers bar. In Africa some folks like to eat large termites, a high protein food source. In Australia, there's a type of grub that lives in the roots of certain bushes that aborigines will cut open and eat. In Japan there are some "interesting" dishes.

I've tried grasshoppers, sold in tiny packets, salted and spiced to the point where you only taste the spice and salt. Bear Ghrylls demonstrated eating ants as a survival technique (remove the head first).

Insects are superior to meat in many ways--low fat, high quality protein and other nutrients, low on the food chain so they contain fewer toxins which tend to accumulate in herbivores and even more in carnivores.

You can harvest grasshoppers in the wild using nets. Just be careful that they haven't been chewing on poison ivy or other toxic plants which may do you harm.

I've long had it in mind to start an insect food business and this article was rather inspiring. This guy just started a cockroach farm and is making money.

It may sound disgusting to us squeamish Westerners, yet think about the notion of eating a pig or a cow, higher mammals which are fairly intelligent, creatures who exhibit emotions, who dream, who are evolutionarily our second cousins when compared to insects.

Just don't eat dragonflies (a popular skewered dish in a part of Indonesia). They keep down the mosquito population.

<comment><USER25> When people react with disgust to the idea of insect-based cuisine, I ask if they eat shrimp. They're not entirely different, both being arthropods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wasn't lobster used to be called the "cockroach of the sea"?

If they change their names and brand them as something else, they could probably sell very well as expensive food, too.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are they good? What's the standard, throw a bunch of dried ones into a wok with sesame oil and they're ready to go?

</comment><comment><USER28> woah it works for regrowing hair?

<comment><USER29> And of course it cures cancer, diabetes, bad-breath and increases your virility and success with the ladies. They haven't tried it yet, but it should also increase your mileage if you put them in your gas tank.

<comment><USER28> You say that but man eastern medicine is powerful stuff!!

<comment><USER30> I'd be more scared of the undocumented side effects than of losing my hair.

<comment><USER16> Well I'm not sure what you should be scared of really. The FDA-approved medicines where some so-called reputable companies have lied to the authorities about the fruits of their research (and hidden the potential side effects), of the chinese medicine stuff.

There's not so much you can trust anymore out there when it comes to drugs.

<comment><USER31> It is sad to see that people have such a bad attitude towards the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Many of my friends work in that sector, and I assure you that their motivation and interest in the their work comes in part from helping people.

Give me one industial sector where greed - nature of man - is not a problem.

<comment><USER16> I happen to know that sector very well (among others) and it has always struck me how dirty it has always been. Paying doctors to go to the tropical islands for so called "scientific conferences", giving kickbacks vs the number of subscriptions for your drug, manipulating the studies results to make them look better than they actually are, cherry picking the results to get an approval... just list any of the worst practices ever and you can be sure the pharma industry has it. And you get random news here and there on how X big company did this or that (recently Pfizer caught red handed in Japan) but still business continues as usual.

The motivation of your friends may be noble, but that's probably because they don't work in the functions which directly relate to these activities. Just open your eyes (and the news).

<comment><USER31> > [..] tropical islands [..] manipulating the studies results [..]

I did not want to argue with you that there is no dirty business in pharmaceuticals or chemistry. All I am saying is that dirty tricks and evil strategies are found throughout the industry, and not only in the medical sector. It is just in the medical sector that one sees the most dramatic consequences.

Go to car development, pre-emptive war, OS software, taxi drivers, banks, and I am sure you will find some good examples of low humans can fall.

<comment><USER16> The issue with the Pharma industry is that in most countries, the consumer/patient is NOT the one who pays directly for the drug. You have insurance systems, social security groups and so on who are in charge of paying most of the expenses, and on the other side, doctors who are the only ones in charge of providing the drug. So, the pharma industry is very much prone to corrupt practices because they do not have to sell directly to patients and can control who delivers the drug to who in the end. Therefore they will not see any hurt in sales no matter what they are found doing (except for cases where they have hidden deleterious health effects, which is really the worst practice of all).

In the car industry, if you make a crappy car, people will notice it and will stop trusting your brand. In pharmaceuticals, you will never see that. I even wonder how companies like that are allowed to keep operating when they are found blatantly lying about serious health consequences. They should be put out of business.

<comment><USER31> > .. patient is NOT the one who pays directly for the drug ..

Ok, I can accept this argument. Basically, there is an incentive to trick the system. Unfortunatly, I am not a doctor, and as such I do not have the experience to judge the effectiveness of various medical treatments and give an example how well or bad the pharmaceutical industry is really treating us.

What is the the real gain of our health risk insurance systems? I know enough people who are dependent on daily medication of strong systemic substances, and they can live a life without too much suffering while not worrying that this flow of medicine might stop because their bank account is empty. In some way, society has to step in when individuals - even in large amount - fail to live within the system.

Having said that, how would it be possible to improve this status quo?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Grunka Lunka Dunkity Dingredient, you should not ask about the secret ingredient.</comment>


Android collecting 10 times more data than iOS, claims study - <AUTHOR> http://zeenews.india.com/technology/android-collecting-10-times-more-data-than-ios-claims-study-2135432.html <comment><USER2> The article implies that Google apps and services are to blame for user data collection, but 3rd party apps should also be taken into account: most apps require access to practically every resource no matter if it's really needed or not, and the wort part of it is the users who got accustomed to open everything just to play even the lamest game. That makes any phone out there the worst possible platform to do anything remotely related to security/privacy/banking/money etc. I dream of a phone-sized 100% open platform with Debian, nothing more.

<comment><USER3> Even though I agree with you, I think Google should set the example and show good practices if it wants to entice developers to do the same. "Why bother if Google is already doing it?" is something I heard too many times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link to the study that is referenced: [https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/DC...](https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/DCN-Google-Data-Collection-Paper.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not surprising due to gsuite and 3rd party applications loaded on to Android devices.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since the article doesn't link to the study I will discard this as statistical meaninglessness.

How do you measure "10 times more"? If my OS steals my pictures but one converts them to *.webm before they get sent, and waste more MB data with that, did they collect more? Is an OS better because it sends more detailed location data but fewer times a day or the other way around? What if Users chat more on average on one OS? What about bloated apps that produce more noise? What about data that get's send but isn't sensitive, like I don't know, the average reaction time of the power button? You can send that 2000 times a day and I still care less than when you keylog me...</comment>


500px Got Hacked - <AUTHOR> https://support.500px.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017752493-Security-Issue-February-2019-FAQ <comment><AUTHOR> Just received an email from them, although I had deleted my account a couple of years back. Apparently they didn't get the 'memo' and they decided to keep all my data, because why not...

"If you were a 500px user on or prior to July 5, 2018, you have been affected."

So they don't delete anything.. what could ever go wrong with that approach..</comment>


Show HN: Only AI-powered data tool - <AUTHOR> http://tractific.com <comment><AUTHOR> Tractific makes your data easy to understand by handling all parts of the analytics process. Get AI-powered recommendations to convert more, no setup required.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you write vertical sliced user stories? - <AUTHOR> My team is trying to use agile and for the past few months, we've had more than one story just sit on the sprint board for multiple sprints.
After doing some research, I guess the cure for this is to write vertical sliced stories that are very small in scope.
The problem that I see with this is that you can have multiple user stories that are quite similar but limited in scope.
How do you ensure that each dev who works on the story can complete the story without developing  tech debt around multiple implementations of the same logic? How do you prevent integration headaches?
For example, if an app is a react/redux app on the front-end with a rails API and relational database.
If the vertical story is "As a user, I want to be able to add counters to my shopping cart." and "As a user I want to be able to remove counters from my shopping cart."  And there's no previous logic to handle this on the front or the backend.  How do you ensure if you split these tickets that the two devs who work on the ticket don't just waste time doing the same thing but in different ways? <comment><USER2> >How do you ensure ... that the two devs ...?

Planning. You said that you work in sprints, do you do sprint planning? Not just a meeting where you decide how many stories will fit into the sprint, but actually planning how the stories will be completed.

For something this trivial, the team should be able to use sprint planning and daily standups to coordinate between themselves to work this out. There are plenty of solutions I can think of, here are just a few. * One dev does front- end for both and the other back-end for both, potentially by pairing together on an initial PR which adds a skeleton of the API so they agree on it. * The second dev waits for the first dev before starting, and re-uses as much as possible. * The two devs pair for both stories and do all of it together. * The team decides one dev will do both stories and the other dev will work on something else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Typically we've left the implementation details to the developer working on the tickets.

* One dev does front-end for both and the other back-end for both, potentially by pairing together on an initial PR which adds a skeleton of the API so they agree on it. *

Isn't this essentially just a horizontal slice? So you would subtask this horizontally but the story itself would be vertical?

<comment><USER2> Think about _why_ you are doing thin vertical slices. You started with large stories which are too big for a single sprint and typically stretch across multiple sprints. The reason this is a problem is that it's hard to plan, and no value is delivered until several sprints later when the story is eventually completed.

Horizontal slices solves the first issue but not the second (nobody is receiving value from just the back-end of a large feature). Vertical slices solve both issues. If your vertical slices are so thin that you can now complete several per sprint and have introduced coordination problems between team members, perhaps they are too thin. You don't need to go overboard, you just need to solve your original problem (stories are too big). Bunching vertical stories together is fine as long as you are still completing the bunch inside the sprint, and delivering value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps agile doesn't actually work (despite the hype) and your team having this quandry is actually your team starting to be awakened to the truth of why agile tends to cripple any project it touches.

Dump agile, write the backend first, in a thick juicy horizontal slice, create a decent json schema document for it that you show to important people at the mandatory demo, and then hand the schema document to the front-end person with the understand you may have iterate on your API a bit as you incorporate their feedback.</comment>


Who is Leaking More: Edward Snowden or the Government Officials Condemning Him? - <AUTHOR> https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/06/who-leaking-more-edward-snowden-or-government-officials-condemning-him

<comment><USER2> ".....Obama administration's disturbing "Insider Threat" program, which supposedly views all leaks akin to aiding the enemy. This program, and its dangerous culture, has bled into agencies that don't even deal with classified information, including the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture and Peace Corp.

".....Numerous government officials have said on background that Edward Snowden's passport has been revoked, but no one will confirm it on the record." Why couldn't they say anything officially? ....Because it was prohibited by the the Privacy Act.

Without having to introduce a misinterpretation of "Godel Incompleteness" are not there simpler things related in computer science that tells us there are examples of such rationalizations painted into a corner, surfacing tautology quandries becoming 'undecideable', and so, by extending throughout the "...Department of Education, Department of Agriculture and Peace Corp,..." hierarchies, the whole machine can no longer fly?

Was Yossarian, and Joseph Heller's story more than fiction? Do we need to add Heller to these new Orwell-Huxley reading lists?</comment>


The Prototype of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/computermuseum/status/1102257601289510912 <comment><USER2> Link to original source: [http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/51620/Sinclair-ZX- Spe...](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/51620/Sinclair-ZX-Spectrum- Prototype)

HN Guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

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


Show HN: A Codecademy for data analysis (with R) - <AUTHOR> http://www.datamind.org

<comment><USER2> I think you need to fix the achievement/completion placeholder images. because had I wanted to share my progress it would have looked silly. and would have cost valuable PR. just saying. looks good though.

I was a little disappointed by the "repl" on the home page, i had to basically type exactly what was asked else it had not idea what to do, not very good for learning.

good job

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I agree with your comment about the homepage console. Achievements/completion is something we'll definitely spend a lot more time on in the near future :-).</comment></comment>


Teach entreneurship in Ghana - <AUTHOR> https://www.jobscore.com/jobs/marcusronaldi/seniorprogrammanagerseniorfaculty/c-8nrcnfWr3PoPeJe4axtb

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't sure if it's inappropriate to post a job listing on here, but it sounds like a good opportunity for someone who is looking for something a bit different from the usual startup/desk job.</comment>


Delayed aging is better investment than cancer, heart disease - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131007162357.htm <comment><USER2> Reminds me of [http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> In other news, unicorns considered a better investment than puppies, ponies.

Seriously though, I wouldn't want to live much longer if two major sources of pain and fatigue are still haunting us in our later years.

<comment><USER4> you would be 'young' longer and wouldn't have to worry as much about age related diseases at an age we currently consider old. So you might get aging related cancer when you're 120 instead of 60, sure, but those 60 years might also be enough time to fix those diseases then you'd never have to worry about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ironic that Google wants to essentially extend the useful life of workers, given that the average Google employee is 29-30 years old (depending on source). Among the youngest of any industry.

<comment><USER6> Maybe they'll find a way to delay the onset of decreased neuroplasticity, and make it so old engineers can learn new things as quickly as young ones. At least that's my hope :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As usual, I prefer reporting by professional journalists to the press-release recycling service ScienceDaily, the source of the link kindly submitted here. On a drive today, I heard a report on this newly published study on National Public Radio,

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/08/230175345/delayin...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/08/230175345/delaying- aging-may-have-a-bigger-payoff-than-fighting-diseases)

and the strength of that report, brief as it is, is that other researchers were interviewed besides those with the new publication in _Health Affairs._ The _Health Affairs_ study, at bottom, is an argument for a change in public policy to have more funding of basic research on slowing aging. And maybe that is a good idea. (My bias would be to support that kind of research, as I am a good bit older than most participants on Hacker News.) Whether doing a lot of that kind of research will actually result in safe and effective means to slow aging and thus prolong healthy lifespans is the $7.1 trillion question.

</comment><comment><USER8> Delayed aging looks much harder to achieve than rejuvenation. A couple of billion dollars and ten years or so have gone into trying to just replicate the effects of calorie restriction, in which you have state A (short-lived) and state B (long-lived) of metabolism clearly laid out for you. So far a lot has been learned, but it's clear that that is just a starting point.

People in the field expect it to take decades more to get to a point of safely adjusting human metabolism to slightly slow down aging.

Funnily it should be far easier to rejuvenate the old (very useful) than to slow their rate of aging (pretty useless). Aging is damage, and rejuvenation is just damage repair. See the SENS Research Foundation outline, for example. The research community already knows exactly how it could be done, since the root forms of damage that cause aging are well-enumerated, and it would only take a decade and a billion dollars to demonstrate that in mice. Full understanding isn't needed, only the understanding of what to target and how to repair it: a fraction of the knowledge needed to slow aging.

Unfortunately this is a radical departure from running a drug development pipeline. The therapies look like infusions of bacterial enzymes, mitochondrial gene therapy, and more exotic things. So it remains a minority position in the research community simply because of inertia, I think - it's so much easier to raise funds when you can point to every existing Big Pharma project and say "it'll be like that." This is how incremental, expensive projects that add little value continually suck up the majority of funding in any field.

<comment><USER9> Can you point me to some research that indicates caloric restriction leading to a higher life expectancy in _humans_ (compared to normal nutrition, not obesity of course)?

<comment><USER8> Here's a starting point to summarize thoughts on that question from some of the better known researchers involved in human studies.

[http://impactaging.com/papers/v5/n7/full/100581.html](http://impactaging.com/papers/v5/n7/full/100581.html)

"Whether or not CR will extend lifespan in humans is not yet known, but accumulating data indicate that moderate CR with adequate nutrition has a powerful protective effect against obesity, type 2 diabetes, inflammation, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and reduces metabolic risk factors associated with cancer."

My summary of calorie restriction research is that it (a) produces similar-ish short term changes in metabolism and measures of health in mammals tried so far, and (b) is expected to have much smaller effects on life span in humans than in mice.

The present consensus is that 5 years in humans would be on the high end, as I recall.

The most interesting thing to resolve with certainty in this subfield is how the short-term measures can be so similar, how the expected reduction of age- related disease in humans can be so large, and yet the life expectancy outcome be so small. Should be interesting, in a post-facto sort of a way, as the time taken to figure that out will place us well into rejuvenation therapy territory, achieved through means that have nothing to do with CR or CR mimetics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Except delayed aging will increase the occurrences of cancer.

Everyone gets cancer if they live long enough.

<comment><USER11> >Everyone gets cancer if they live long enough.

Not true. There are tons of people above 100 years old who die of causes unrelated to cancer. Obviously there are well known mechanisms that link cancer to aging but it does not mean there's a probability of 1 to get cancer as you get older.

<comment><USER10> Cancer isn't linked to "aging", but rather to the nature of DNA replication. That process results in gradual accumulation of inaccuracies. Enough mutations -> cancer.

<comment><USER11> Nope, it's not about the number of mutations you get. It's also about the repair mecanisms of your DNA not working as well anymore. That's why cancer occurs more frequently with aging.

I forgot the actual source link, but I remember seeing a publication showing how autopsies on young people who died of accidental circumstances showed tiny cancer tumors in their bodies even in their 20s-30s, and that simply these would not grow further because of the repair mechanisms being highly effective in younger organisms.

So basically you get mutations in your body the whole time. Not just when you age.

<comment><USER10> reading about tumor suppressor genes... fascinating stuff. Those do seem to get worse with aging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This seems to be one of those things that are easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER13> Immortals? Not quite yet there, but with combining the digital revolution we may live forever.

</comment><comment><USER14> But isnt one of the biggest problems the overpopulatin of the planet ? So living longer doesnt really make that better.

<comment><USER15> Because we'll have the imagination, will, science, and technology to cure aging ... and then we'll just turn that imagination and drive off and live in cages?

<comment><USER14> It might be unethical to prolong our lives in a way nature didnt intend us to...then again we are already doing that for decades. Im just saying we also should look onto the consequences of something like this.</comment></comment></comment>


Cloudflare's DoH Disabled by Default in Firefox on OpenBSD - <AUTHOR> https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190911113856 <comment><USER2> > Applications should respect OS configured settings.

Why does everybody misses that part?</comment>


Meta: Stop using the black bar - <AUTHOR> There needs to be a discussion about the black bar. Several people including myself commented about it in the Bob Taylor thread [1] but were flagged. Even some very measured comments were flagged and hidden, so I believe there is a need for a venue to have an open discussion about this.<p>I believe the black bar was, at a time, a nice touch. However in recent times it seems on the nose to have someone behind the curtains deciding who does and doesn't get a black bar. I personally think it is exclusionary and inappropriate and should completely stop. It's obviously a contentious subject so I would like to put the idea out there for discussion.<p>[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14118290 <comment><USER2> Wrote up a simple Userscript to so this!

        // ==UserScript==
        // @name         Remove HN Tribute Bar
        // @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
        // @version      0.1
        // @description  I don't like someone else deciding whom I should pay tribute to
        // @author       m@dMAx108
        // @match        http://tampermonkey.net/index.php?version=4.2.7&ext=dhdg&updated=true
        // @includes     https://news.ycombinator.com/*
        // @grant        none
        // ==/UserScript==

        (function() {
            'use strict';

            var possibleBlackBar = document.getElementById("hnmain").getElementsByTagName("tbody")[0].getElementsByTagName("td")[0];
            if(possibleBlackBar.bgColor === "#000000") {possibleBlackBar.parentElement.remove();}
        })();

Let's get back to work! :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had no idea that's what the black bar was for. It's a nice tribute, but barring any sort of explanation, it's kind of... odd? Somebody died, so we're going to have a thin black line at the top of the page? As a UI feature it doesn't bother me, but it's just so disjointed in its meaning.

(Also, I just took a look at the hacker news HTML... Table layouts? Spacer gifs? Center tag? Holy crap, this page is from the 90s. It's composed like an HTML email for Outlook Express '98)

<comment><USER4> > but barring any sort of explanation, it's kind of... odd?

Indeed. A simple 'alt' tag, with a click to the relevant thread, would be a lot more useful than just showing a black bar.

> It's composed like an HTML email for Outlook Express

And yet it's perfectly functional for users (many even prefer its interface to that of many major news sites). Interesting conundrum, eh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This campaigning, at this time, is in such poor taste.

Really, it is nothing more than a "nice touch" in honour of someone who was a uniquely important figure in the history of computing, and who, in Dang's judgement, deserves recognition by this community. How about doing some reading to understand just why this person is considered (by people in the know like Dang) to be such a standout contributor? I did, and I learned some really interesting things.

I participated in a discussion about this topic 1-2 years ago, after which the person who instigated that squabble admitted misjudgement and apologised:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10971758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10971758)

As I said at the time: seriously, civil behaviour around a bereavement is just not that hard.

I have nothing further to add on the matter other than this: for God's sake, please let it go.

Please don't spoil what should be special moments of reflection with petty campaigning.

Please.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think the black bar is in poor taste and should be removed. I think that it's a nice touch - you might even say important - to pay respect to the memory of academics that are sadly now no longer with us.

Again, to be clear, I disagree with removing it.

HN is tended and maintained much more closely than I think many people realize, certainly more than I thought myself when I wandered over here a couple years ago. Reading through [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086) recently (along with reading the link, for context) was extremely insightful and enlightening, and I highly, highly recommend everyone read everything dang said in that thread (those are the most relevant comments) if you use HN and haven't been here for years - it clarified a _lot_ for me about how moderation works and the site's attitude, which I must say I find extremely reasonable.

I think reading the above may help to allay fears, suspicions and paranoia about the seemingly distant choices being made with the black bar, and bring into focus the humanity of the moderation here.

Death is a human occurrence, and the moderation on this site is also done by humans too. It's just a matter of paying respect. I like it.

With this being said, I do have a couple of ideas about the current implementation (which don't invalidate the views presented above).

\- I think it would be useful to mark the actual story itself in some way. A black underline under the title would be simple and effective. This would both provide a visual connection between the black bar at the top (which I think is good to keep) and also provide a memorial attached to the item itself. This would of course require a bit of a site-structure change (to add in an atom to store in the underline status) but I think it would be worth it.

\- It may, for what it's worth, be worth considering for the black bar to be noted in the FAQ along with a concisely-worded delineation about when it is used.

\- As was noted at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119596), it would be a _very_ good idea to make the black bar clickable!

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the bikeshed should be blue, but I will agree to disagree.

Those who want to continue to discuss the bikeshed should feel free to continue to do so.

Those who disagree with allowing discussion, should also feel free to discuss that, too.

It's amazing, being free.

</comment><comment><USER8> Really who cares. It's HNs site so they should do it but it's hard to see why this warrants any thought.

</comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps it would be appropriate to add a link to the bar so that when it was clicked on, one would be taken to the relevant obituary article.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. I was already trying to click on it. Eventually found this topic via the search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing is, which may suck for you and be okay with for others, is that it isn't really your or my decision. HN is a community built and sustained by YC, and those who moderate and control can do as they please.

It is a completely arbitrary decision made by the mods. None of us pay a dime to be here, therefore we really don't have any say.

<comment><USER12> Sure but should our lack of control preclude discussion?

<comment><USER13> In a word, for this case, yes.

Save the heroical thought exercise for something a little more meaningful than how/when a tech site honours those who pass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why can't you take a hint from the overwhelming down-voting and flagging? Nobody cares you don't like the black bar. I like the black bar. This isn't your site. Go make your own site with the amazing innovation of not having a black bar for dead people. It would be well worth your time. Heck, you could even spend an hour making a script or browser extension, so that you and the other obsessive killjoys can have the HN sans black bar that you've always dreamed of!

</comment><comment><USER15> It's some css on a website (not yours). Hide it with a userscript if it bothers you that much.</comment>


Ask HN: What are you doing this weekend? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> After google places API has become paid I am looking for an alternative to let my clients enter lattitude and longitude of their birthpalce ... I have a vedic astrology app with about 1000 users mainly in Nepal. Any suggestion for database of lat long of major cities or a free api?[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.globdig.as...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.globdig.astroapp)

<comment><USER3> [https://geonames.org](https://geonames.org) then the link 'Free Gazetteer Data'

[https://opencagedata.com](https://opencagedata.com) non-expiring free trial plan which should be enough for the amount of users. (my company)</comment></comment>


Why 2014 is the 'year of smart glasses' - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9244927/Why_2014_is_the_year_of_smart_glasses_ <comment><USER2> I consider that I live day to day in a very average technical social scene. I don't know a single person that wants to have to wear smart glasses, myself included.

There isn't a scenario under which a company can convince me to frequently wear glasses. You couldn't pay me to do it, I hate the physical annoyance.

I have an alternative prediction: while the tech people predicting smart glasses or smart watches are the future, the smart phone will simply roll on dominating the 'smart' category, overwhelmingly. Five years from now, smart phones will still dominate, to such a degree it'll be viewed as a joke in hindsight that anybody thought smart watches or smart glasses would replace or even meaningfully compete with smart phones. This will befuddle all the experts, because they don't actually understand the larger consumer market.

I'm not a big Apple fan, but I believe the reason why the best consumer electronics company hasn't been in a rush to dive into smart watches or smart glasses, is because both are borderline irrelevant side markets and will remain so. It would have been like Apple feeling the need to dominate the LCD picture viewing device segment that was temporarily the 'thing' seven or eight years ago.

Another prediction: smart glasses will be useful enough beyond what smart phones offer, in about another decade, to justify some independent category success. In the meantime the failure of the category to catch sustainable consumer traction, is, again, going to astound the 'experts.'

<comment><USER3> Do you need iPhone, if iWatch has the same, or bigger display? (curved sapphire glass). Smartphone solves problem of having a computing device all the time with you, but in order to get that you have to pay with screen size. Smartglasses solves the same problem as smartphone, but without tradeoffs. They can display touch, augmented, or desktop, or tv interfaces. You don't need a tablet, phone, laptop, desktop, tv. You need boxes with small(pocket), medium(backpack), and large(desk) computing power, and glasses that can receive video over the air. (and some input method). If glasses are only for display, they don't need large battery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ugh, I really hope not. I can't see any reason people _wouldn 't_ use this, though, since it's a lot less likely for someone to care about other people's privacy or convenience than their own.

I can certainly see myself asking people to take them off if they want to talk to me (unless they're the same people that currently browse/text/play on their cell phones during conversations, as that's a conversation you might as well not have anyway).

More cameras, microphones, and sensors all over people, and mostly connected to the internet. What could go wrong? This is obviously a good direction.

<comment><USER5> I really don't like this mindset because, ultimately, it's a losing one. Technology marches on. It's already possible for people to wear undetectably- small cameras and computers on their bodies, and we're heading toward a world in which these types of devices will not only be feasible, but both affordable and useful. In other words: mainstream.

Given the reality of the situation, it's short-sighted to poke fun at "Glassholes" and complain about smartphone users, as if these technologies are merely obnoxious fashion trends that will disappear in time. Hundreds of years ago there I'm sure there were swordsmen who complained that gunpowder-based warfare was dishonorable. Is that who we want to be?

Yes, things can go wrong.

Yes, technology can empower evil just as well as it can facilitate good.

Yes, 2050 will be different than 2000.

So what? This has been true since the dawn of time. When did it become fashionable for techies to despair at the inevitable advance of technology? When did it become popular to whine incessantly about change? To look at every new development with an attitude of pessimism? To pretend that the world of yesterday was so perfect and pristine? What happened to putting our heads down and working on creative solutions to the problems that face us?

<comment><USER6> But your assertion seems to be that new technologies should be above criticism by virtue of the inevitable march of technology itself, part of which is driven by consumerism and hype, and not any process which necessarily judges technology on its own merit. It hasn't yet been proven that smart glasses are going to be as transformative as gunpowder, or as revolutionary as the internet, or what have you. Maybe they will be, maybe not. Yes, an attempt by Google and other companies to push the new paradigm onto consumers will inevitably be made, but that's not necessarily the same as those technologies being an evolutionary leap forward.

Some of the criticism is probably knee-jerk discomfort and something new and nostalgia for the simplicity of the past, sure, but pessimism when properly applied is just part of the process of trying to look past the cloud of marketing spin and fannish enthusiasm surrounding an emerging technology and discern its actual relevance.

<comment><USER5> Yes, Glass may fail, but it seems obvious to me that the perpetual shrinking of technology is an unstoppable trend that was set in motion decades ago. It turns out that computers, and phones, and recording devices, and the internet are all _really useful_ technologies, and people like having access to them wherever they go with as little hassle as possible. As time approaches infinity, the likelihood of our brains becoming hosts to powerful artificial computers approaches 100%.

It's _going_ to happen. It already _is_ happening. And it's _been_ happening. Trying to stop it is impossible, and merely complaining about it gets us nowhere. I have no problem with a bit of pessimism, but if it's going to be so pervasive, I'd at least like it to be constructive or useful in some way. Less "omg this is happening" and more "this is happening, how can we adapt?"

<comment><USER7> _Trying to stop it is impossible, and merely complaining about it gets us nowhere._

On the contrary. I fully expect that in many places, overtly creepy technology like Google Glass will shift a long-overdue privacy debate that seems to be gathering momentum. If technology like Google Glass becomes socially unacceptable and illegal, it will not become pervasive in the manner you described.

<comment><USER5> If it became illegal, sure. The chances of that are almost nil though. Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays, and public cameras have been commonplace for decades.

It if becomes socially unacceptable, then it's just a matter of time. People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting. What happens when technology improves to the point where it looks like a normal pair of glasses? What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot?

<comment><USER6> >Almost everyone carries a camera with them nowadays,

Yes but they don't point that camera directly at everyone they talk to, all the time.

>People don't like Glass because it looks clunky, nerdy, and distracting.

I think it looks kind of nice for what it is. It's still creepy though.

>What happens when we can put a chip in a contact lens? A phone in your brain? Your brain in a robot?

OK... those last two are just bad ideas all around. In any case though I personally am less concerned with the form factor or the technology as I am the premise that concerns about privacy are irrelevant because the surveillance gear is ever advancing in complexity.

<comment><USER5> When you go out in public you quite often have cameras pointed at you. You just don't care because out-of-sight, out-of-mind. If those same public cameras were extracted from ceilings and placed on extremely conspicuous tripods sitting on the ground, I bet people would feel less comfortable, despite little having changed.

Reminds me of the guy who got kicked out of the Seattle restaurant a few weeks ago for refusing to remove Glass. The restaurant said it didn't want to open its customers up to the possibility of being recorded without their consent. Of course, on the restaurant's very own Facebook page were numerous shots of customers dining, many of which were obtained without any knowledge or consent. The hypocrisy was lost on them, unfortunately.

People underemphasize form and overemphasize function.

When it comes down to it, most of us are being photographed all the time. Exponentially more-so today than anyone was 100 years ago. And with the rise of smartphones, substantially more-so today than anyone was even 10 years ago. Smart glasses are merely another rung on the ladder. Every argument you make could have been made for smartphones as well.

<comment><USER7> Everything you say might be factually true, but it doesn't follow that no-one has been bothered by it until now. Some of us have been raising concerns about things like pervasive surveillance by governments and/or big businesses for some time. But the issues aren't sufficiently well understood yet by the general population, nor directly harming a large enough subset of that population, for most people to feel strongly about them.

Particularly with the relative hardship many have faced over the past few years, they are quite understandably more concerned about things like keeping a roof over their head and putting food on their children's plates. But every now and then you see people up in arms over things like how much it costs for a new driver to get the (legally required) insurance in the UK today, and you get a glimpse of where we're heading if we continue on our current course.

A disproportionate number of the people I know personally who already share similar cautious views to my own are involved with technology. I suspect this is because of the awareness we share of how technology and in particular all this data _could_ be used, even if the data is merely being collected today and not yet exploited. Most people don't realise the full implications of what is already happening yet, so they aren't concerned enough to act today, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would still be OK with something if they were fully informed or knew that it would eventually affect them or their loved ones and not just other people.

<comment><USER5> To be honest, I worry about how all this data _could_ be used as well. I just hope we can focus the conversation around the more more productive topic of stopping malicious activities, rather than around the frivolous topic of stopping technological advancement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Year of smart glasses?

It's a half assed product, introduced years before it's any good for use, and it's main real utility is that of a smaller Go Pro-style live action camera.

Plus, it didn't even make any dent in the market.

It's not like Google search in 1996 or the iPhone in 2007, products that immediately changed whole markets.

So, no, 2014 would not be the year of "smart glasses".

With the display technology used and the battery life they have, those things are useless, except for showing off.

Except for the "eye level live action camera" part, you can do the same things with your smartphone, better and faster.

<comment><USER9> Just for the sake of argument -- We tell software startups to get their MVP out as fast as possible in order gain feedback and improve the product... yet we smack down hardware vendors who have done exactly that?

<comment><USER10> Hardware != software - releasing half assed hardware early is completely different that releasing a half assed web app that can be updated almost constantly. But I think Google is mostly not getting smacked down for releasing Google Glass too soon - the opinion that Glass is ready for prime time is getting smacked down. IMO Glass is obviously not ready for prime time and won't be for a few years at least, but this is all just moot anyway, the article is obvious clickbait. People love a good "Next year is the year of the whatever".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really think this will be the year of smart watches. Smart glasses look so absurd, I think this year there will be a number of options for glasses in market, but they won't gain popularity 2015-2016.

Smart watches, however, don't look particularly different than normal watches, they aren't obtrusive to other people, etc. like glasses are.

EDIT: Using words better.

<comment><USER12> I doubt there ever will be a Year of Smart Watches. They are too small (and too far to eyes) to provide a smart screen.

<comment><USER11> My thinking on it is that they'll become popular fast because as we become more connected to our phones, smart watches are a much less obtrusive and disrupting way to look at notifications. Basically, you can add a screening device onto your wrist that you can use when you're in meetings, driving, walking down the street, to quickly decide if it's worth pulling out your phone without making it obvious you're pulling out your phone.

<comment><USER13> It doesn't just have the effect of making it less obvious. I grabbed a Pebble recently, and it's had the effect of making me actually use my phone a lot less. Before, anytime I would hear my phone go off, I would check it and see if it's an important email or text, and frequently end up checking a few other things out of habit. Now, I only do that if I've seen it's actually important, which happens much less often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Year of the Glasshole" would be a better title.

</comment><comment><USER15> I doubt it. Battery life is still too poor. If it needs to be charged even once during the daytime people will just stop using it after the novelty fades.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is old news, but: smart glasses solve the problem of making something smaller and more convenient, without the problem of a too-small screen.

While google glass does look stupid, it's not hard to make cool-looking sunglasses.

Privacy concerns will delay adoption, but unfortunately we've already lost privacy. It will just take a while for us to accept it - though I doubt we will by 2014.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand the desire to isolate each wearable in such ways. We have in our pocket a computer which should always have order of magnitudes of processing power and storage, to which other wearables should be able to take advantage of! Think the old days of logging in to your powerful mainframe, but on the body(glasses watches, clothes bluetooth into your pocket computer.) So a lot less needs to be embedded into each, to make it more style worthy(smaller footprint), and feature rich.

<comment><USER18> That's how Google Glass works. It needs to talk to your cellphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm myopic with astigmatism, so I am very interested when the ophthalmic version is coming out. When I visit HN using my 15.6 inch screen laptop I have the zoom set to 150% or higher (the text is tiny), with my specs on.

An ophthalmic frame has to endure a fair amount of physical stress during the glazing procedure, especially curved frames. Also my dominant eye is oculus sinister, am I supposed to wear these damn things upside down?

</comment><comment><USER20> 2014 will be the year of the ____________ .

There's got to be some better alternatives. Ideas?

<comment><USER21> Personally, I think 2014 will be the year of location services because of iBeacons and BT LE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I see smart glasses as the next tablet. Initially, no one wanted one, they did poorly, and early manufacturers scrapped their product lines. Now suddenly, they are indispensable.

<comment><USER6> Tablets had a more rational form factor than I think glasses do, though, in terms of practical ergonomics. I'm not convinced that smart glasses improve on tablets or netbooks or phones as a user experience enough to justify a prediction that they could surpass them in the marketplace. Augmented reality and voice command are nice but are people really looking for that? Is it more useful to have to tell your device everything you want it to do?

The article makes a point of mentioning concerns about privacy then sort of dismissing them. Later it mentions an app (take a picture every time you wink) that I think would send people up the wall. Coupling a device's use with the implicit social issues regarding eye contact and personal space is going to create a bigger problem for adoption than the article implies.

Disclaimer: But no, I haven't ever actually used Google Glass. It costs more than my car did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there a better predictor that year X _won 't_ be the year of Y, besides tech sites in December of X-1 saying "X will be the year of Y"?

<comment><USER24> Nice. lingual algebra is the new snowclone

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't think glasses as a wearable tech will catch on. I think it would be socially awkward for everyone to be sitting at a table with Google glass on.

</comment><comment><USER26> You mean like 2013 was the year of the smart watch?

<comment><USER27> Can't wait for 2015! Year of the smart clothes!

<comment><USER28> 2016: Year of smart people.....well at least I can dream :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 2014 will be the "internet of things" (Bluetooth LE) and wearables will be a subset of it.

</comment><comment><USER30> "Prediction is hard, especially about the future."

</comment><comment><USER31> "year of smart glasses' not in my country :(.

<comment><USER8> Yes, because that's just what your country needs, right?

(Whatever it is)

<comment><USER31> Delinquents would steal it from the first time i go out with them though :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> the title alone reeks of future foot in mouth</comment>


Newtown 7th Grader Starts Movement To Rid America Of Violent Video Games - <AUTHOR> http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/12/20/newtown-7th-grader-starts-movement-to-rid-america-of-violent-video-games/

<comment><USER2> This should go over well... I know the kid is only in 7th grade, but I think my history class had already studied Prohibition at that point. Prohibition just doesn't work.

Also maybe they could re-sell the games to raise money for charity or donate them or do something else with them besides destroy them? Seems like a waste.</comment>


Show HN: CoronaVirus Report Number Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://gistnoesis.github.io/nCoV/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, here is a tool I did for myself in a few hours, to help understand how to read the various numbers coming from the recent epidemic.

I'm not an epidemiologist, and this is just a fun data science/ curve fitting experiment.

It's done using Vue.js and plotly.js so that it is reactive and you can update and fit the parameters, but otherwise a spreadsheet or a python would have been fine.

The TLDR is we don't have enough info from these curves to infer reliably any parameters.

The code is available on github.

I released it as a fun toy to play with curves, please don't use some of my parameters fit to push an agenda either way.

Also if the real numbers don't fit quite well the model, don't trust the model over the real numbers as the model is as simplistic as it gets (because we already don't have a lot of data so adding parameters would only make the curves easier to over-fit).</comment>


A-Frame: open-source WebVR framework from Mozilla - <AUTHOR> https://aframe.io/blog/2015/12/16/0.0.10-release/ <comment><USER2> It's similar to X3DOM in the sense you have the 3D scenegraph in HTML (except it's their own components, not a standard like X3D).

Also it's based on three.js which is a solid 3D engine.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I don't understand the point of Mozilla making their own flavor of this, rather than contributing to X3D. Or hell, any of the several other open source projects of a similar nature.

<comment><USER4> Well, a few major differences I'm seeing at a glance:

\- X3DOM supports Flash as well as an X3D plugin. A-Frame is specifically targeting WebGL and has a much smaller surface area

\- A-Frame is based on ThreeJS rather than a custom engine

\- A-Frame seems to be embracing modularity a lot more than X3DOM, and it seems likely that users will be able to build highly specialized components published as npm modules (much like we see with React components)

\- A-Frame is specifically focused on VR out of the box

\- The markup language and intended target audience is significantly different

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, as others mentioned X3D similarity is obvious.

I wonder how would A-Frame compose with D3.js though .

<comment><USER6> Since A-Frame mentions this => "A-Frame is ultimately just the DOM, so developers can also manipulate it with standard JavaScript methods,"... it means D3.js should work beautifully with it (as should other frameworks that do data <==> DOM binding/manipulation)

<comment><USER7> Yup, we've tried and A-Frame works wonderfully with D3 and React.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The demos burn cpu all the time.</comment>


Ubuntu 7.10 will launch this Thursday - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2197760,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594 Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth says the latest desktop version of the popular Ubuntu Linux is ready to roll.
<comment><AUTHOR> Do you install it on Thursday an risk not immediately getting the YC email saying if you've gotten an interview, or hold off just to be safe...tough choice!</comment>


WW.com subdomains are all active - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/WW.com+subdomains+are+all+active <comment><USER2> I'm curious about the various intentions of those who took you up on it? Are people looking for an SEO boost? Do the outbound links hurt ww.com's rank?

<comment><AUTHOR> As someone else already pointed out in the first thread google separates subdomains from the main one so no mixup there.

The biggest advantage I've heard to date was 'shortcut for over the phone', and I can see how that would work to your advantage.

xxx.ww ctrl-enter and a redirector to your homepage would be all it takes.

The funniest thing about all this is that after my 'down with url shorteners' post of a few days ago I now find myself with a url shortener of sorts :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised you allowed blog.ww.com, since that one seems too official

<comment><AUTHOR> I had to think about it for a bit. I didn't rule it out up front so I figured it was within the rules I set so I allowed it, but there is condition regarding representation in the rules I set so I take it that person is fully aware of the responsibility.

Api was another one like that but we really will roll and api and will use that ourselves so I overruled that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks again. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Many thanks for this!

</comment><comment><USER6> what is the appeal of a ww.com subdomain?

<comment><AUTHOR> see this comment in the original thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1796885>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks again!</comment>


Show HN: Segment Functions - <AUTHOR> https://segment.com/functions/ <comment><AUTHOR> Poster here, and engineer on the Segment Functions platform. We're super excited to launch this new way to process your analytics data.

Functions open up Segment to integrate with virtually any service. You can write a function to convert any source webhook into a format for your data pipeline, and write another function to send your data to any destination API.

Happy to answer any questions...

<comment><USER2> I would love to know what platform you use to power Segment Functions, and the rationale from an architecture perspective to use this particular platform.

Would it be possible for you to get into this?

The reason is that I'm working on data pipelines myself (but not in customer analytics) and currently look into ways how serverless tech like Openwhisk, Fn and similar tools could integrate into our platform to provide customization and extensibility options to our customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> We built the initial version on AWS Lambda.

Out of the box it gives us a lot of isolation, scaling and visibility into each piece of customer code.

Most importantly using Lambda let us focus almost entirely on the user / developer experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Let's Stop Pretending That French Is an Important Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116443/new-york-citys-french-dual-language-programs-are-mostly-pointless

<comment><USER2> From a Canadian perspective, this is really interesting. The article makes great points about how much more advantageous learning second languages other than French could be (it mentions Arabic, Japanese, etc.), which I find pretty convincing. In Canada, though, having French language skills can be a huge advantage for anyone who wants a government job, or to teach, or to enter politics. French might not be useful or important in America, but it can be an asset in Canada.</comment>


Nobody Cares (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2011/10/08/nobody-cares/ <comment><USER2> I think Ben's advice is really targeting founders and CEOs in order to get them to think in a certain way. Whether or not anybody cares isn't the point. The point is that the person best placed to save a company in trouble should focus on getting the company out of trouble, rather than replaying the reasons why the company is struggling in order to justify its current nadir. They should be thinking about solutions rather than justifications.

So really, Ben is saying: find a path to the future that you want, and stop making such a big deal about the past. That's what your investors and employees care about to: where you're going. Seize your own agency.

</comment><comment><USER3> This falls under what I call "just" philosophies. They are quick summations ("A is just B") that can radically misrepresent the facts on the ground, and easily leave their adherents desperate for tools to solve a problem that they previously defined away with a hand wave.

In reality, it is the case that people often care deeply. Many of those hired by or paying for a business are in fact excited to be able to help write its story. Many aren't though, sure. Maybe they're just in it for superficial competitions or comparisons. But you'll never know who's who if you don't start an active dialogue and analysis process.

What's super helpful as an outcome of work in this area is to understand who cares about what, which incidentally helps you create a model for getting them to care more about what you care about.

If nobody really cares, we're all screwed. But that particular thought model only works on that darwinian level, the one that sadly operates as the kind of unspoken shadow of many who work in tech today. We get together and bash ideas together and somehow when our feelings come to a head we reach for a "just" philosophy.

People do care though, and that means we each need to find a way to work in that caring world and explore it just as well as the uncaring one.

Consider each one of these as important truths: 1) Nobody cares, 2) Some people care, and 3) All people care.

<comment><USER4> I'm not in agreement with you.

The original poster is saying that as founder, no one cares to the level you do, no one else has as much at stake, others care but to a point.

The original posts point is that as founder it's really up to you and no one else.

If this fails, as founder you lose all the things you risked, possibly everything you have. No one else is likely to have as much at risk as you. This means you care in a way and to a depth no one else does.

Of course others care, of course your grandma cares, of course your momma cares, of course head of marketing cares and of course the investor cares, but none of these people have everything on the line.

Everyone else except you can walk away. No one else is going to relentlessly hit this problem till it's solves except you.

That's the point.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, you're fundamentally mis-interpreting the original post. The author is NOT saying that you as a founder care more about your success than, say, your stakeholders. If you fail, they care, and a lot, because you made them lose money.

What the post is saying is that they don't care about you having a story about WHY you failed. Nobody else cares about that.

To stay in the metaphor, if you lose a game and your story is "well we have a lot of injuries", the only thing other people will hear is "yep, here's someone who's trying to find an excuse for why he failed".

They don't care you have a nice little theory about why you lost. They want you to win. So focus on finding a way to win, not to explain your loss.

Whether that's wise advice I don't know. I feel that knowing why you failed is important per se, even if other people don't care.

<comment><USER6> I agree it's important to know individually why you failed, this goes along with self awareness which is critical in all facets of life.

That said, after working with a lot of people in problem solving careers you'll tend to see that the excuse vs adjustment response is not purely situational; different personalities will tend to one or the other. There's sometimes a thin line between honest analysis of failure and reflexive ego protection. Whether founder or not you don't want to be on the wrong side of that line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of a famous prayer... I think it's basically the same idea.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

</comment><comment><USER8> I am not religious whatsoever, but I do like this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament:

      I have seen something else under the sun:
      The race is not to the swift
        or the battle to the strong,
      nor does food come to the wise
        or wealth to the brilliant
        or favor to the learned;
      but time and chance happen to them all.

<comment><USER9> Yes but no at the same time. It is much more likely to become wealthy if you are brilliant than not (assuming the starting point is the same) and that is precisely why acquiring skills increases your odds of success, and while on an individual level luck plays a big role on aggregate we can see that trends emerge very clearly.

<comment><USER10> I heard somewhere, don't remember where, but the easiest route to wealth, I heard, was simply to be born with it.

<comment><USER11> What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation?

Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger at the unjustness of it all?

If only somebody would pay me a living wage for my great wallowing ability...

<comment><USER12> > What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation? > Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger > at the unjustness of it all?

There's plenty that can be done to equalize advantages based on inherited wealth. A wealth tax would be simple, an estate tax is another. I don't think anyone would agree that "wallowing" would help.

<comment><USER11> Notice that it is basically impossible to extract a significant amount of additional wealth from the 0.1%. It is both well-defended (politically and legally) and tied up in complicated structures that are difficult to liquidate by force. Notice also that the middle class have no such protections.

I'm assuming by wealth tax you mean some sort of magical system where Zuckerberg is forced to pay off your student loans. However what will actually happen is the wholesale liquidation of the middle class to fill the twin bottomless pits of medicare and social security, while the billionares skip the country and/or hide behind arcane tax rules, and the Valley they leave behind gets turned into a jobs program for the homeless.

The other fundamental problem with giving a big additional slice of the national wealth to the poor is that they will spend it on consumer services (not goods, which are cheap), for which they have great pent-up demand. And then it'll be gone. At which point you no longer have a middle class to extract from.

<comment><USER12> > it is basically impossible to extract a significant amount of additional > wealth from the 0.1%.

I'm not sure I buy this. If the IRS can measure income, they can also measure wealth. Sure rich folks will try to hide wealth, but they've also tried to hide income and the IRS when well funded is decently competent at finding it.

> The other fundamental problem with giving a big additional slice of the > national wealth to the poor is that they will spend it on consumer services

That's no what anyone is advocating. They are advocating basic healthcare and education, not exactly consumer services.

> At which point you no longer have a middle class to extract from.

Even super leftist democrats are not advocating taxing the middle class. They are focusing on the super rich. The somewhat nice thing about this type of taxation is that even though it'll effect the absolute money you have, it won't affect your wealth rank. Sure, maybe Bezos' or Gates' net worth will go down, but they will still be the richest in the US. Your low-millionaire friends may be slightly less rich, but they will still be just as rich rank- wise as they were before.

Folks generally get less upset about taxes if it keeps their existing rank and standing in society

<comment><USER11> Everybody is focused on the superrich, it's a convenient target. But how many Zuckerbergean fortunes does it take to balance the books on medicare? What's to stop him from migrating to the EU if it saves a few billion dollars?

The real extractable money is in the middle class, whose wealth passes through government-controlled bank accounts. Of course, when the time comes the lefties will be all "well _actually_ anyone making above 80k is superrich - have you seen the homeless lately? CYP!"

>They are advocating basic healthcare and education, not exactly consumer services.

You could either give them the money directly, in which case it'll go to consumer services. Or you can subsidize their healthcare, in which case they will use the money they save on consumer services. The difference is that the government has a long track record of inefficiency and waste when it comes to subsidies.

<comment><USER12> > Everybody is focused on the superrich, it's a convenient target.

It's a convenient target because the super-rich have never had as much wealth and power in the entire history of the U.S. as they do now. Inequality is worse now than it has ever been.

Consider an extreme hypothetical, where one person in a country has all the wealth, and everyone else has zero. That obviously cannot sustain a functional democracy. Now consider the other extreme, where everyone is mandated to have exactly the same amount as everyone else. Both are distpoian, but we are far closer to the former than the latter.

<comment><USER11> Have you done the math, though? Consider the not so extreme nonhypothetical of how many Zuks it would take to make Medicare/Social Security solvent.

The only way to make an amount of extra taxmonies actually worth getting up for is to tax the middle class. Alas, economics is not a zero-sum game, some people have invest their wealth to actually produce stuff to make it all work, and this mostly comes from the wealth of the middle class.

<comment><USER12> > Have you done the math, though?

I haven't but others have (e.g. Warren). A 2% wealth tax on assets over $50M will generate $3.75T over 10 years. Even if the actual number is half of that, it's still plenty to pay for many progressive programs.

Source: [https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire- tax](https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax)

<comment><USER11> The total number of billionaires in the US will drop to zero a week before this is passed into law (or maybe one or two, the remaining being people who have decided that ultra-virtue-signalling-slash-conspicuous-consumption is worth 6%/yr and who have nevertheless squirreled away most of their wealth into various nonprofits and the like), and the number of people with assets over $100m will dropped to maybe 5%. Unless they plan to retroactively tax people fleeing before the law passes, I doubt it will generate one-twentieth that amount. A person with asset of $100m will be paying $1m/year under that system. Uprooting yourself from the US is painful, but $1m/year soothes a whole lot of pain. Even more so for billionaires.

If it does become law, though, I fully expect that $50m ceiling to come down year by year as the economic situation worsens until sub-$1m. Or maybe they keep it the same and hyperinflation will meet it on the way up for the same net result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This story is also covered in _Hard Thing About Hard Things_ , chapter 4.

</comment><comment><USER14> A thread from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382)

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if it's always the case where founding a company seems like a mess. How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that'll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this?

<comment><USER12> > How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find > that one impossible solution that'll get them out of the mess. Is it always > like this?

I did found a company, and I feel like the daily job description was "get me out of this impossible mess". Every day it's something different, and very likely something that you've never experienced before. Often, the reasonable answer is that overcoming the issue is impossible, and shutting down is the right course of action. Many startups fail this way, and it's not because they aren't clever enough, just that there really is an impossible obstacle.

However, the ones that succeed generally find ways of getting around one obstacle after the next. Maybe they're super clever, maybe it's dumb luck, most of the time, it's impossible to know. However, having the mentality of taking a setback as a challenge can definitely help.

Small personal anecdote about this: when I first started my company, I relied heavily on getting Google traffic. Using best practices SEO, it kept building. But one day, Google traffic tanked around 10X. In literally 24 hours, I thought that would spell the end of my company.

But then I thought, it's ridiculous that I'm relying on Google (a third-party company that I have no control over) to send me potential customers. I should be more proactive and find them myself any way I can. I built email marketing campaigns, spent days on the phone, went to conferences, advertised... literally anything I could think of.

The google traffic tank hurt badly, but I eventually got over it. And as a result, I now have a far more robust company. Google traffic is now a nice plus for leads, but by no means necessary to keep the company growing.

The trick is to mentally transform "wholly crap, this is the end" to "okay, how do we get over this".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Right, excuses carry no weight. Got it. Agreed! But fuck football coaches and sports analogies for business. Sports is a zero-sum game. Business sometimes is,sometimes isn't. Depends on agility, creativity, and the market you're in. If your boss quotes football coaches just quit on the spot (unless of course you are in sales).

<comment><USER17> Sports aren't zero-sum. When two teams play each other, they're both enriched whether they win or lose. They both get practice, they both make money.

If it's zero-sum, how can a team with a losing record continue to operate indefinitely?

<comment><USER18> I think this depends if you view a game or league purely as a compition (per definition if one team wins, another one has to lose), or as a "brand": very exciting games can increase the popularity of a league/sport, increasing revenue/attention even for the losing team.

I think most sports fans only look at the first part.

<comment><USER17> How can you have fans in a zero-sum game?

Teams A and B play each other, and everything gained by A is lost by B and vice versa. A zero-sum game. But somehow we have a fan X. But why are they interested? It seems like some extra value is created by the interaction of A and B (entertainment). This means it's not a zero-sum game.

It's not some games that increase the popularity of a sport. It's all games. A lot more people show up to a stadium on game day than an off day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Applies to life too, but easier said than done.

<comment><USER20> _> Applies to life too_

That seems somehow wrong.

Part of deeply loving someone is really _knowing_ them, and you can't _really_ know someone if they don't share their deepest fears, frustrations, and angers with you.

And part of a life is, hopefully, deeply loving someone.

(Of course, the advice in the article still holds -- your investors and customers don't and shouldn't deeply love you.)

<comment><USER19> People who love you care, to a point. In the limit case if you abuse alcohol and can't get your act together, your line of credit with your loved ones will run out (with parents being the one exception)

<comment><USER17> People have definitely run out their line of credit with their parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same is true of your own personal life.

It's up to you to try to make it better through adversity.

</comment><comment><USER21> this isn't really about care but effective responsibility

</comment><comment><USER22> "And one time, at Loudcloud"

Edit: enjoy - [https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo](https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo)</comment>


U.S. Secretly Negotiated with Russians to Buy Stolen NSA Documents - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/02/09/donald-trump-russia-election-nsa/ <comment><USER2> So we're basically paying the Russians to obtain copies of materials they stole with us that's also salted with whatever propagandic materials and disinformation they believe will be useful for them?</comment>


The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2015/04/the-world-record-for-the-shortest-math-article-2-words.html

<comment><USER2> The paper doesn't make any sense without the title:

"Can n^2 + 1 unit equilateral triangles cover an equilateral triangle of side >n, say n+\epsilon?"

<comment><USER3> Ah, this is like cheating on a compression test by encoding information in the filename.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php](http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php)

<comment><USER5> This is a fascinating story about a smug smarty pants being outsmarted!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain Figure 2 from this paper? (If you didn't catch the link, it's inlined at [http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf](http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf) .)

Figure 1 makes sense to me: it's (n-1)² unit equilateral triangles, plus a row at the bottom with (2n-1) + 2 equilateral triangles that causes coverage of a slightly larger triangle. (I assume the question posed is "for at least some tiny but nonzero ε".)

I don't know how to start interpreting figure 2. Where are the n²+2 triangles (or are they supposed to be there?)? What's the big empty space? Why 1 - ε, not 1 + ε?

<comment><USER7> I think the idea is that the lower n-1 rows each have height (n-1)ε (by spreading them out horizontally), and at the top there's a big triangle with side length 1+(n-1)ε

<comment><USER8> I still don't understand, what do you mean about lower rows having height (n-1)ε (by spreading them out horizontally)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Definitely not surprised that the author is John Conway (and his coauthor). I took his course on Linear Algebra back in the day -- the man is a veritable real life troll (in a good way)

<comment><USER10> That's typical for mathematicians - even more so with extroverted ones. They approach rules as a game one can use at will as long as the rules remain true. Thus, playing pranks with rules can become enjoyable. Coincidentally, surprise is the quintessence of humour, some say.

The original meaning of the word "hacker" is related to this thinking. However, the focus is different. The hackers tend to achieve their goal in whatever "hacky" way possible while mathematicians see the rules itself as the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Even shorter: proofs without words [http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without- words](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-words)

<comment><USER12> Somewhat related: [http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper- maxi...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-maximizes- the-ratio-importance-length)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe it should be 2002 words, if a picture is worth 1000 words.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of the record for the shortest movie review. The movie in question is called "Isn't it Romantic?" which Leonard Maltin succinctly answered with "No".

Unfortunately no better online source than Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isn%27t_It_Romantic%3F_%28film%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isn%27t_It_Romantic%3F_%28film%29)

</comment><comment><USER15> Now I can casually drop in conversation the fact that I have read 2 math articles this month.

<comment><USER16> Darn. I came here just to say that. Oh well, you beat me _this time_

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't think this article should be considered a record-holder. It's effectively 1002 words long.

<comment><USER18> I was going to say the same thing. :)

Drawings and explanations go hand in hand.

</comment></comment><comment> ar-jan I suppose the title of this submission is correct, but I would like to note that it's not "a new world record in the number of words in a paper". I believe that honour goes to:

Fiengo, Robert, and Howard Lasnik. 1972. "On Nonrecoverable Deletion in Syntax." Linguistic Inquiry 3 (4): 528.

You can read the entire paper here: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmLQjz0CMAA-l28.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmLQjz0CMAA-l28.jpg:large)

<comment><USER19> A similar result, which appears to have been reached independently and roughly contemporaneously:

Dennis Upper. 1974. The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of "writer's block". Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 7 (3): 497.

(Unfortunately it's paywalled: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/abstract))

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> tl;dr?

</comment><comment><USER21> Here's my entry: "It's hard."

<comment><USER22> I don't know about math journals, but you could try getting that published as the world's shortest article in Playboy.

<comment><USER23> Needs motivation.</comment></comment></comment>