A Sea Change in Treating Heart Attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/health/saving-heart-attack-victims-stat.html <comment><USER2> A month ago, a friend who'd worked as a doctor in South Africa for decades was interning with me to learn about the procedures in our German ER. I remember the first time a patient with a heart attack came in while she was there, and the speed of the proceedings just blew. her. mind.

What happens, if things go well, is this:

The EMTs transmit a picture of the electrocardiogram to us[1]. We confirm that it's a STEMI (the kind of heart attack where speed matters the most, as opposed to an NSTEMI, which isn't quite as urgent), and alert the catheter lab and the attending cardiologist. Half the ER personnel drops everything else to prepare for the patient's arrival.

The patient arrives. We transfer them to our gurney. One nurse gets the patient's clothes off (with scissors if necessary) while another nurse attaches electrocardiogram electrodes and a third shaves the puncture site for the catheter.

The ER physician puts in an iv line and draws blood while informing the patient of the treatment plan. The cardiologist takes a very quick history of the patient and confirms the STEMI with the second electrocardiogramm. We wheel the patient up to the catheter lab and get started.

Altogether, if everything goes well, it's something like five to twelve minutes from the moment the patient comes through our doors to the moment we've got the patient on the operating table.

[1]By taking a picture of it on their phone and transmitting it via Whatsapp, which is just about the ugliest, hackiest and probably borderline-legal way of transmitting patient data imaginable, but it gets the job done.

<comment><USER3> > _By taking a picture of it on their phone and transmitting it via Whatsapp, > which is just about the ugliest, hackiest and probably borderline-legal way > of transmitting patient data imaginable, but it gets the job done._

Congrats on the massive process improvement on using readily-available technology. I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty certain that this violates HIPAA, which means it's a new market just screaming for PII-managing image-transfer networks and startups.

<comment><USER4> The technology exists -- see [http://www.physio- control.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=2147484...](http://www.physio- control.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=2147484983) and [http://www.zoll.com/medical-products/data- management/rescuen...](http://www.zoll.com/medical-products/data- management/rescuenet-12-lead/) from PhysioControl and Zoll, two of the biggest EMS EKG monitor manufacturers, but its certainly not easy to use. In my system, we used to have to upload the EKG to the computer and then "e-fax" it from he computer to the Emergency Department -- practically, this took 3-4 minutes to do, and when you're in an urban area and nearly always < 10 minutes from the hospital, its not the most productive use of time. Most of the time, if was easier to do the EKG, and in case of a STEMI, call the "code STEMI" via radio, print the EKG and spend the rest of the time doing important patient care (IV access, aspirin, etc)

That said, we were in a Paramedic system with a relatively short to-hospital drive time, and going to an academic medical center that had 24/7 in-house interventional cardiologists. If you're in a aystem with only EMT-Basics (who are trained to perform the EKG but cannot interpret the printout), or going to a hospital where the interventional cardiologists need to come in from home, or if your primary hospital doesn't even have a cath lab and will need to divert you to another bigger hospital, it makes a lot of sense to be able to send the EKG from the field and get the ball rolling early.

<comment><USER3> > _In my system, we used to have to upload the EKG to the computer and then > "e-fax" it from he computer to the Emergency Department -- practically, this > took 3-4 minutes to do, and when you're in an urban area and nearly always < > 10 minutes from the hospital, its not the most productive use of time._

Those steps could be automated. And since this would usually be life- threatened situations, they should be automated. I wonder how much HIPAA rules complicate the technology; they certainly don't make the space attractive or fun to work in. This sounds like a great disruption for a startup to make, if they can deal with HIPAA effectively.

I interviewed for Physio, but turned down their offer due to mandatory drug testing. They seemed to be really, really locked down due to regulations, and I suppose I do want the regulations on defibrillators to be fairly strict.

<comment><USER5> _Those steps could be automated. And since this would usually be life- threatened situations, they should be automated. I wonder how much HIPPA rules complicate the technology; they certainly don 't make the space attractive or fun to work in. This sounds like a great disruption for a startup to make, if they can deal with HIPPA effectively._

There are several companies (including a couple YC alums like Aptible) working in the helping-developers-deal-with-HIPPA space already. Creating a compliant application for transmitting ECGs wouldn't really be a new thing-- when attending an emergency medicine conference two years ago I met a physician/programmer who had done just this for both stroke and heart attack, designed and marketed as a wraparound subscription-based solution. The trick is doing it well, and if you could integrate the information with the receiving hospital's workflows (e.g. EPIC integration or something) you could sell it easier. Pictures of ECGs are also a fairly inelegant solution compared to sending it to the ECG printers that a receiving hospital has, or sending the actual waveform data, but for rural/underfunded EMS agencies it would be nice.

(FWIW, I work in a Bay Area emergency department that is a STEMI receiving center but does not receive field-transmitted ECGs prior to arrival. There's room to work on this stuff. If anyone wants to do research relating to it or build a system and then let me do research with it, get in touch.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      They included ambulance drivers' transmitting electrocardiogram
      readings to emergency rooms, E.R. doctors' deciding whether a
      person was likely having a heart attack, and hospital operators'
      summoning treatment teams with a single call. These hospitals
      also continually measured performance.

I know it's a really minor thing, but the term 'ambulance driver' is a little irksome... It's like calling a doctor a 'prescription writer'.

In the case of a heart attack patient, a paramedic recognizes the possible indications, takes an interprets an EKG, considers the possible differential diagnosis, makes the appropriate hospital notifications, and provides advanced level care to speed things along at the hospital (obtaining IV access, administering various medications, etc). We do a bit more than just drive the ambulance...

<comment><USER7> To be fair to the author, not every ambulance crew is paramedic level. And the term "ambulance attendant" was, at one time, in widespread use - to the point that the first level of EMS certification was actually called "Ambulance Attendant", if memory serves correctly.

I know it's annoying when non-domain-specialists misuse terminology, even slightly, but I could see giving them a pass on this one.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, hence my being 'irked' not 'really offended'.

I suspect most folks here consider themselves more than just "typists".

<comment><USER8> Though to be fair, I have a pretty high level of respect for 'Ambulance Drivers,' as conveyed by the inarticulate, if descriptive term. It's kinda like saying a 'Aircraft Carrier Steerer', or 'Space Shuttle Driver'. It might not be the actual term of art, but I do know that person is pretty badass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, this jibes with my experience. I was rushed to UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill last Nov. with a STEMI, and I was amazed at how fast things progressed. Granted, time seems to compress in highly stressful situations, and I wasn't exactly timing with a stopwatch, but subjectively, I feel like I was in the ER maybe 15-20 minutes top, before they had me on my way to the cath lab. And the catheterization procedure took somewhere around an hour (maybe more, maybe less, hard to recall exactly). I never asked for the exact time until they had the catheter in my artery, but I'm pretty sure it was well less than 90 minutes.

At any rate, it was enough that I survived and the amount of heart damage I suffered was minimal enough that I was able to resume a completely normal life afterwards. By 3 months after the MI, I was biking 20+ miles at a time, and by 4 months had worked up to 75 miles a week, and then I raced in a 6 hour MTB endurance race about 5 months afterwards.

So yeah, speed is definitely of the essence. Luckily for me, and I am fortunate enough to live near a good hospital, in a community with top notch 911 and EMS providers.

<comment><USER9> I'm grateful to be in the same club. My Myocardial Infarction was in 2005: blockages in coronary arteries of 100%, 98%, 95%, and 80%. From the time I arrived at the E/R to the time the acted on me in the Catheterization lab was < 15 minutes. One hour and three stents later I was in recovery. My cardiologist explained that people with my symptoms, had they come to the E/R 3 years earlier, usually would die. I try to never forget to be grateful to all those who acted so quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Few weeks ago I woke up with massive chest pain, struggling to breathe and pouring with sweat, rang ambulance and went to open door by time I'd limped to unlock it one of the fast response cars not ambulance was at my home total time was <5 mins and they had 12 leads on me.

Turned out to be an awful gallstone attack blnot heart attack but damn was I impressed with speed of response for early hours of Sunday morning - traditionally their busiest time.

Still ended up in hospital as they recommended that since I was projectile vomiting I should get checked out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps too cynical after seeing medicos botch treatment for two family members. The main reason is the bottom line. If the allow people of marginal health to die too early, then their maximum utility diminishes unless the victim/patient can be kept alive for another 5 to 10 years.

This is a similar monetary basis for the cancer model - to extend the treatment period. Prolonging life has little to do with quality and meaning of life. The medical community is fundamentally corrupt.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reading articles like this you suddenly realise that living in a sparsely populated rural area you sacrifice a hell of a lot in health care as as well as the more obvious career, education and entertainment benefits.

Having some risk factors like age and weight and living hundreds of km from a cardiologist is a bit of a worry. Are there cheap, effective ways of screening people with no history of heart problems so perhaps they could be more closely monitored or something?

<comment><USER13> Probably the biggest two that we have are mentioned in the article. Blood pressure and cholesterol. Hopefully you are getting your yearly checkups including blood work done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> But who calls an ambulance? Now that's an opportunity for a wearable device.

<comment><USER7> After I had my heart-attack last year[1], I was asked to participate in a clinical trial of a device called a "Life Vest". I did so briefly, although I ditched it pretty quickly because it was too uncomfortable to sleep in. But this thing was basically a wearable EKG/defibrillator. It monitored your heart rhythm and, if you went into a bad rhythm, would actually give you a shock from the defibrillator. Handy if you were asleep or had already fallen unconscious and couldn't call for help.

Of course it gave you a warning buzz first and had a "cancel" button so you could avoid being shocked if you were actually still OK. And it wouldn't shock you, AFAIK, unless you were in a "shockable rhythm"[2].

Anyway, it's still a bit big, bulky and uncomfortable and I doubt you'll see millions of people wearing something like this anytime soon, but as things get lighter and cheaper and better, it might just become mainstream.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315)

[2]: [https://suite.io/elizabeth-batt/4z1520d](https://suite.io/elizabeth- batt/4z1520d)

<comment><USER6> Other than being slightly less invasive, this seems significantly inferior to an AICD [1]

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter- defib...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter- defibrillator)

<comment><USER15> They are usually used as bridge devices until a patient can be scheduled for an AICD placement. Not all patients that need a permanent defibrillator are immediately fit for surgery and having a device like the Life Vest allows for them to be safely discharged from the hospital until it's time for surgery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's like an F1 pit stop.

<comment><USER17> If only.

[http://img.pandawhale.com/post-41481-ferrari-f1-pit-stop- per...](http://img.pandawhale.com/post-41481-ferrari-f1-pit-stop-perfection- bzNw.gif)

But you know, maybe someday it _will_ be like this. You suspect heart attack, ambulance pulls up, does procedure on the spot, and you're back in business in 60 minutes. If they detect major tissue damage, then a quick stem cell injection plus you have to call in sick for a week.

All of today's medicine would have been impossible to believe even a century ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice, this makes it even more likely I will die a slow death from cancer instead.</comment>


Oxy-Acetylene Explosions at 330k FPS [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9XandILnvk <comment><USER2> This guy has a youtube channel where he uses a couple of hydraulic presses to crush stuff too. It is oddly almost therapeutic to watch, and definitely entertaining.</comment>


Needed: citizen scientists for Higgs hunt - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2014/needed-citizen-scientists-for-higgs-hunt

<comment><USER2> Can somebody more up to speed with the LHC and Higgs announcements clue me in? I remember the announcement[1] a couple of years ago that the Higgs particle was detected, but then I read another article[2] casting some doubt on the announcement.

The article posted in the submission seems to imply that the Higgs particle was conclusively found, and now this hunt is to determine 'how' they form. Is this understanding correct?

[1] [http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2012/07/cern- experim...](http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2012/07/cern-experiments- observe-particle-consistent-long-sought-higgs-boson)

[2] [http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113275750/higgs- boson-...](http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113275750/higgs-boson- findings-from-cern-inconclusive-110914/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm interested in particle physics but still I don't see any motivation to do it. How can I determine I learned something, how can I compare my progress to others. It just feels like I'm doing a captcha for them.

They should licence a form of StackOverflows's system which basically uses a skinner box approach which is very addicting and still rewarding if you get some positive benefit out of it.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I inspire other developers - <AUTHOR> So typically I am a solo developer.  At my current employer I need additional help to keep things running smoothly since we have grown so much.  So we've hired an additional IT/Developer to support some of our work. This doesn't seem to be working out and this person seems to try to avoid anything difficult out of fear.  I think they are capable, just completely lack confidence in tackling new things. I've never really been in this sort of position before, but how do I give them some confidence and inspire them to tackle new things? <comment><USER2> Most developers will refuse, mostly out of fear, to read existing code, never mind modifying it. It is the hardest thing we do, and yet it's the skill that is most needed in bigger projects.

Give them small, extremely well defined tasks in pieces of the codebase they're probably not familiar with and gradually lower the exactness and well definedness of the tasks, increasing the scope. Use code review to help them BUT make sure they submit things. Do not raise their level of frustration to the point they give up. Worst thing to do is to do it for them. It is important for it to be understood that they will not be blamed, no matter what happens. That means you may need to stand between them and the boss and take flak. And frankly it's a great general idea to never blame anyone for anything short of willful sabotage.

This will mean, for you, to not fix obvious bugs and instead getting this person to do it for you. The first time be ready for something to take a week that you could do in 30 minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am currently at this stage. I needed him to fix an old issue in a tool code base that I could fix in an hour. It probably doesn't help that its a rails app and they had no exposure to the ecosystem previously. I did show them how to setup the environment and what I suspected the issue was.</comment></comment>


Slang – language at our most human - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/11/27/slang-language-its-most-human/mPyOlDnjSczKGuwCV1XgJI/story.html <comment><USER2> Can I just say the site for the dictionary is great? I love the look and utility of the browse section. Note that if you hover over the letter bar it will display one of the words on the section you will navigate to if you click on it.

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


Can GoFundMe fund my college degree? - <AUTHOR> https://www.gofundme.com/csdegree<p>I have a job, and have scraped together some financial security, but there is still a deficit between my earnings and tuition. Is GoFundMe a good platform to solve this? <comment><USER2> 1.) Why a second bachelor's? It's just as much work at this point to get a masters instead, regardless of the fact that it is in a different field. All you have to do is talk to the school and see what their requirements are (in terms of leveling classes, etc.) in order to switch fields. (Note: I did this. My bachelor's was in music [piano performance], masters was in CS, and I did it in one year with A LOT of hard work. Further note: I worked as a programmer and paid for it all myself, without loans, scholarships, or familial help. It can be done if you have the programming skills.)

2.) Go to a less expensive school ([http://www.cc.gatech.edu/academics/degree- programs/masters/o...](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/academics/degree- programs/masters/online-ms-cs) for ~$7k, all online) ([http://cs.mwsu.edu/](http://cs.mwsu.edu/) ~$10K/yr. in Texas, did my MS there)

3.) Go for a PhD instead. Just about every good school will pay you a stipend to attend as well as waive your tuition. You often earn a Master's on the way up, and I have known some people to quit after earning the Masters (although the school will not encourage this). The only difficulty in this route is that, in coming from a completely unrelated field, they may not be interested in you until you establish your programming and CS skills. I am currently working on my PhD in CS, but I got my masters first in Texas.

EDIT: corrected the GaTech link

<comment><AUTHOR> I was really interested in a PhD, but it does seem that they want formal computer science background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No.</comment>


Paint your system login sessions in a google calendar - <AUTHOR> http://poisonbit.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/paint-your-system-login-sessions-in-a-google-calendar/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. I had not yet had my quota of string-twiddling Perl for the day.</comment>


Firefox Private Network - <AUTHOR> https://fpn.firefox.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I fully support this. Mozilla is one of very few internet companies that I greatly trust.

Also, this will be an additional source of income for them, so that they can slowly stop depending on Google for funding.</comment>


Confessions of a Reddit Karma Whore - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k359n/confessions-of-a-reddit-karma-whore <comment><USER2> This is the money quote for me:

"I shut myself up in my room. The further I removed myself from the people I knew in the real world, the further I descended into the minds of people I've never interacted with and would never meet again."

It seems the author isn't even aware of how awful this is, since later he admits he's still a karma whore. I am thankful that I recognized what an abysmal facsimile of an actual life this sort of thing is when it was only Usenet. I had a similar addiction for a little less than a year in the mid-90s. It seriously damaged my marriage, and more than I realized at the time, in hindsight.

Real relationships with actual, real people that you can see and touch and talk to are essential for a healthy life. If this statement causes a negative reaction, please ask yourself why. It needs your immediate attention.

<comment><USER3> Your statement caused an immediate negative reaction for me not because it isn't right for some people but because it is generalising your experiences into assumptions about what is 'real' and what works for other people that does not match my experience at all.

It took me years to realise that what made me unhappy was trying to maintain these 'real' relationships out of a similar belief that it was what I needed.

It's not that I can't enjoy relationships with people face to face. I do _sometimes_. But it takes a lot out of me. It drains me of energy. [sometimes that's worth it; sometimes it's not; sometimes it'd be worth it but I just don't have the energy.]

The relationships you don't consider real often makes me happier. They're as meaningful to me as face to face relationships, but a lot less exhausting.

The right balance for me is to be close in 'real' life with a partner and my son, and rely on my colleagues and the occasional other person for some limited other face to face contact (and a day or so a week is enough, thank you), and otherwise stick to myself in 'real' life and keep interactions largely online.

Even then I often I prefer total solitude, and I'm _happier_ this way than I ever was spending time with people for the sake of trying to be someone I'm not.

Chasing 'Real relationships with actual, real people that you can see and touch and talk to' can be as soul sucking and damaging as locking yourself in if you're doing it just because you're made to think that's what you should be doing.

Not everyone is like you.

<comment><USER4> I gave you an updoot because I am exactly like you.

We, are introverts.

Introverts can function in the real world, but only for short bursts at a time. We can make friends, go to parties, even be the life and soul of a party - but only for short bursts at a time, then you'll usually find us chilling out somewhere quiet, recharging our metaphorical batteries.

A lot of people confuse introversy with being shy or timid or other negative connotations, and they'd be incorrect.

There are many good articles on what being an introvert is and means. For example [https://introvertspring.com/what-is-an- introvert/](https://introvertspring.com/what-is-an-introvert/)

<comment><USER5> That may be more than just being an introvert, though. "Introverts" should take a look at the Attachment theory [1] for maybe, a bigger picture.

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

<comment><USER6> Please just no, don't put that kind of psychological illness label on introvert people.

People are quite able to differentiate if they're fearful if they're under people or just exhausted.

<comment><USER5> Is "introvert" a protected status, a badge of honor? Besides, the article doesn't describe any particular "illness".

<comment><USER6> > Is "introvert" a protected status, a badge of honor?

I've no clue what you're talking.

> Besides, the article doesn't describe any particular "illness".

Calling it illness might not have been the right term, but at least it's some kind of personal development which has gone a bit into the wrong direction. And if that's the reason why an introvert person isn't going more out, isn't going to meet more people, then there's something wrong with the introvert person and perhaps this should then be changed with additional personal development, perhaps some kind of therapy.

If that's not what you meant, then fine, otherwise that's the reason why I'm a bit upset, because it puts introvert people into a light of wrongness, that something has to be changed in them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Binary social feedback systems often run into the same issues - people game the system and people use downvotes to disagree. There's no nuance in positive sentiments either - people conflate upvotes with reputation.

It makes me feel like early experiments with multi-variate moderation deserve a second look. I know that simpler systems generally increase engagement, that's probably why everyone (even Netflix) converged to a simple up / down model. But there might be simple ways to split out the types of feedback we're always worried about conflating. You could add little emoji or stickers below each post that are default grayed out, as an option instead of replying.

One of them could be a "this makes me angry because I disagree"-sad- thunderstorm sticker. Another could be spam. That approach would funnel downvotes into separately bins for spam, low effort, and controversial. That sorting could nudge the crowd into providing much more useful feedback. People wouldn't have to ask why they were downvoted.

Gaming would probably happen, but it'd be more diffuse. If there are multiple positive bins, not everyone is going to be gaming in the same way, they won't be comparable.

Allowing this to be customizable on each subreddit could allow for some really crazy experiments. The unpopular opinion reddit could create a user interface that actually encourages the sort of voting they want, as opposed to constantly complaining that people are voting incorrectly.

<comment><USER8> What I would like to see is a system which is still binary, but the people that I personally upvote matters.

Just as an example I just upvoted you and I would like to see your future comments, I care less about how many people are upvoting a content and care more about who upvoted it, and whether that person is selective to upvote constructive content only.

<comment><USER9> I've wondered for the longest time about the feasibility/consequences of having a recursive, private karma system (with decay). I upvote you, so I see your stuff, and more of the stuff you upvoted, and less of the stuff you downvoted. You can repeat the process recursively and add decay as you go further. Every user holds their own version of the karma network.

<comment><USER10> That would be interesting. Might have to add it to the backlog of "cool things to look into implementing". My main concern is if it would increase the echo- chamberyness of social media.

<comment><USER9> It definitely would, but I don't feel concerned about it. I think it's an overrated "problem" that misunderstands what people fundamentally want (better ways of building tight communities online).

The main problem I see with echo-chambers today is the culture war type of thing. I think there could be interesting solutions to that: based on the karma "distance", build clusters and adapt network topology so that you can only discover clusters that are at a finite distance. Minimize risks of conflict while letting people explore "fringe" ideas (for them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That was an excellent piece. I've done a similar thing on a much smaller scale (fighting for karma within niche subreddits), complete with the careful analysis of which content sources do best, which times of day are ideal, what kind of titles and themes cater most to the userbase... I ended up writing plenty of automation as well, to help me filter through the vast quantity of potential submissions and find those which would guarantee a top spot.

Reddit is a nice confluence of several things that humans find addicting - semi-random rewards, detailed metrics, quick feedback, novel stimuli, all magnifying the power of underlying signal (social approval). None of that is _specific_ to reddit, of course–every social website eventually becomes that same game, or dies.

Unlike the OP, though, I didn't find it unhealthy. Compared to, say, video games, or TV, chasing karma was a much better hamster wheel to run on; it motivated the sort of careful analysis, planning, and diligence that I could eventually apply to real problems. My hope is that reddit (and reddit-like attention machines) push more strongly in this direction; the ideal feedback loop isn't one that spurs no addiction at all, but rather one for which addiction has net positive consequences.

<comment><USER12> Doesnt it all come down to finding the biggest echo chamber within a thread and posting something following the narrative ?

Reddit is pretty much the definition of echo chamber on majority of subs. Tho i understand why from psychological point of view.

<comment><USER13> I don't want to sidetrack y'all's discussion but any user base curated social media platform is going to be an echo chamber, HN included. It's not a unique feature of just Reddit.

<comment><USER14> Don't think so. 4chan encourages contrarian opinions because posters care about replies, not upvotes or likes. Pretty much the only reason you post on 4chan is to reply to people and get replies from people, i.e. the discussion itself. While, agreed that voting style sites like HN and Reddit encourages echo chambers by having a points system and making highly voted comments more visible. There might be some middle ground between these.

<comment><USER15> > Pretty much the only reason you post on 4chan is to reply to people and get > replies from people

Just because there's no points, doesn't mean people don't get satisfaction from people replying to them, or having your thread stay at the top with lots of discussion.

Replying to threads bumps them to the top right? So having a thread high on the page is a similar signal as point rankings right?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but the difference here is that exposure can also come from negative and contrarian attention. So the dominant strategy for staying at the top of a board is sometimes to be as controversial as possible. Basically, trolling.

From a meta perspective, I guess trolling-for-the-sake-of-trolling can be part of the 'echo chamber.' However, at a surface level it remains antipodal to the idea of 'following a narrative.'

<comment><USER17> >So the dominant strategy for staying at the top of a board is sometimes to be as controversial as possible. Basically, trolling.

In my experience this varies wildly, both from board-to-board and between imageboard sites in general.

One aspect is moderation.

The MO of 4chan moderation is to enforce US Law and a bare minimum of conduct in such a manner that it is not noticeable to most posters. If you use a browser extension which allows you to monitor deleted posts/threads, such as 4chanX, and have it monitor a thread where a poster is intentionally trying to incite controversy in a manner which is not conducive to the topic or board theme, they will generally get silently deleted. On their end, they may get warned, banned, or no notification at all, but the deletion is primarily effective because it deprives them of their exposure (also, ban evasion is trivial, while keeping one's flamebait up is not).

Another aspect is the culture of each board, which varies wildly on 4chan. For example, posting political and social flamebait on one of the slower, niche boards will just as likely result in people silently reporting the bait and not replying, or only reply to call out the post as flamebait (which is less ideal, but generally ends the conversation chain). If the content is deleted in a consistent and timely manner, the posters can establish norms, and can more effectively handle borderline flamebait without devolving into a flamewar.

Meanwhile, on faster boards, the larger number of trolls and people willing to take the bait, along with the ephemerality from faster pace of thread birth and death, results both in moderation being unable to keep up, and a need for more moderation, usually in the form of "janitors" (board specific moderators with limited powers). The more janitors, the more erratic the enforcement of rules tends to be, especially for Global Rules 3 and 6. So there tends to be greater animosity between moderation and posters on faster boards. The extreme examples would be /b/, /r9k/, and /pol/, the latter two informally serving as an outlet for (a)social and political posts which have proven to be irresistible to discuss while simultaneously being rancorous enough to derail almost any thread.

So to sum it up, trolling is more effective on the fastest and most vitriolic boards, and less effective on the rest. IMHO, the best "proper" ways to increase your exposure is to either post original content (with mixed success on a good day), actively engage others in conversation that is at least tangentially related, and if on a more image-oriented board, provide on-topic content to bump the thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > I began my Reddit career on some of the site's true crime communities

What is fascinating that there are exactly zero advantage of having large karma racked up on reddit (or HN). Most likely this would in fact work against you. However, still, brain is wired up the maximize _any_ social recognition it sees regardless of its usefulness or "realness". This is in same class as a drug addition where brain can't prevent itself from doing things even when it understands its not good for the being.

<comment><USER19> Tencent's QQ have these online-time badges, you won't understand how much people want it, especially teens. It's like an honor that can be used to show off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The post mentions u/poem_for_your_prog, a truly talented writer and poet. Definitely one of my favorite Reddit personalities. Check out their Reddit profile here: [https://www.reddit.com/user/Poem_for_your_sprog](https://www.reddit.com/user/Poem_for_your_sprog)

Also worth taking a look at is u/Shitty_Watercolour: [https://www.reddit.com/user/Shitty_Watercolour](https://www.reddit.com/user/Shitty_Watercolour)

<comment><USER21> u/poem-for-your-sprog replied to a comment of mine with a poem a few years ago and it was like a brush with celebrity for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Man. It hasn't directly impacted other areas of my life, but I get a similar feeling from HN. Sometimes I have to log myself out to get out of the cycle.

<comment><USER23> reddit is uniquely designed to maximize time wasting.

HN gets pretty boring for me after 15 minutes. reddit just keeps it interesting all day long. From my early days on BBSes to Usenet to IRC to Slashdot to digg, etc I've never witnessed anything as addictive as reddit.

I stopped using it completely five years ago.

<comment><USER24> To each his own? Reddit bores me fairly quickly except for a select view subreddits that are focused on videos. But that's really just YouTube then. Is it even the reddit home page that is addictive to you?

It might just be my cynicism but not believing most of the self posted stories that populate the front page, or, while I love dogs in real life, not caring for another dog photo, or, a post trying to pull at your heart strings. I don't get the modern appeal of reddit. It's of course a hugely popular site.

The comments for big stories are usually filled with tepid jokes or repeating some part of the post or some meme. Or there's a good chance a reddit post is just plain wrong or the comments are by and large uninformed.

Most of my friends also by and large aren't into reddit. But I recognize it's a top 5 most popular site and so likely is addicting to a ton of people.

On the other hand, while I waste too much time on H, I've never made any social connection here. This is the only social site where I spend substantial time and have no social connections at the end of it.

<comment><USER25> The default front page material is, frankly, subjectively terrible (damn kids these days get off my law etc.) But a customized front page can be really addictive, though these days I find myself just going directly to the various subreddits I frequent (things like r/AskScience, r/AskHistorians, r/photography, r/rust, r/dwarffortress).

<comment><USER26> This is how I use it too, and I probably have a problem with it. I've set up timers so that I don't use it more than a few hours a day.

Basically I've maxed out the filter on /r/all (yes, it's actually called /r/all and there was a time when it wasn't...) And then I visit just the communities that I'm interested in. I am subscribed to some of them, but I don't use the home page at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A year or two ago I did something similar but much less methodical. I collected about 200 questions (a mix of stolen, modified, and original) and used a cron-job to post several of them every morning (US time) to AskReddit. I ended up with multiple successful posts. I seemed to get at least 2-3 with a score in the thousands every week.

<comment><USER28> gaming reddits default subs to farm 1k+ karma/post was fun for a couple posts then you get it and move on

step 1: follow news source that targeted subs hold in high regard

step 2: post an article with a title that's going to cause lots of comments, grammatical/spelling errors always get the ball eolling

step 3: wait for the karma to roll in

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was a reddit troll. Or at least that's what they called me. It started when I got involved in a sub where I am a fairly well-known expert. I would correct people. Get blasted cause I wasn't nice or they thought my answer needed any number of corrections. Then it got to the point where the number of questions and comments were so out of the realm of reality I couldn't stand to read them.

Then I started questioning people and I came to a stark realization. 80% of the people in several technology threads were kids under 18 years old-- typically 15--and had no work experience in the field!

But this is my point. Karma on reddit means less than nothing to anybody outside of reddit postings and, even then, it doesn't mean anything to 80% of all those people cause they won't look at or notice your karma anyway. So what's the point? What is the value in that?

Despite my troll reputation, and you may know me, I still have nearly 10K in karma value. What does that tell you?

When I'm in my social and family circles, I almost never hear anything about reddit and, when I do, it's always a joke about an insane posting where everyone laughs at how stupid it is.

I'll never forget the comment of a reporter on NPR one day who stated, "Reddit is a Frankenstein's monster even they can't control".

<comment><USER14> That's actually typical reddit. If you go into almost any topic subreddit, especially the more popular topics, it will be filled with amateurs, non- experts, and teenagers. Expert voices get ignored, drowned out, or downvoted to invisibility because they don't even have the ability to recognize that it's an expert opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is some serious truth in this article.

Karma/Likes are like tiny happy pills. Psychologists will be studying this for decades to come.

</comment><comment><USER31> > If another post was competing with mine to trend within the subreddit, I'd > downvote it, and others, in an attempt to trigger the algorithm that would > give mine a boost.

I'd have thought that such behavior would be punished. As I understand it, HN goes further, looking for voting cabals and sock-puppet groups.

<comment><USER21> If it is found out, it is punished

See the whole Unidan saga a few years back for how the mighty can fall once they get busted using sockpuppets

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> One of the niche subreddits I subscribe to had a post hit the front page a couple weeks ago, and ever since it's been constantly spammed with dumb jokey posts from one-day-old accounts. Reading this article makes me suspect I am seeing karma whores at work, hoping to come up with just the right dumb garbage to make this subreddit hit the front page again. It's so annoying.

</comment><comment><USER33> This type of blatant falsity is the reason I hate reddit. Everything is for it's appearances, nothing feels genuine.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is the manner of thing I expect from Reddit. This is the most important paragraph, to me:

''The act of seeking karma is a sensitive issue on the site. Some users post original content, or stuff that they only make themselves. These users, Redditors will tell you, are respectable because their pursuit of karma is funded by their own work and energy. But the site's system is volatile, and not all original content is well-received. Karma whores know this in their core. Karma whores learn to be clinical and bot-like. Karma whores make nothing themselves and often pull their content from users on other sites without crediting. This recklessness, Redditors will tell you, reveals the true emptiness dwelling inside these people.''

You see much of the same behaviour here. I've noticed this manner of website tends to avoid discussing the issues with upvotes and downvotes; they're only good in theory and are constantly abused in practice; discussions of gaming the system are also typically taboo. It's clear to any idiot that if you want Internet points on Hacker News, you simply spend time uploading the work of others and collecting the value ascribed to that which you had nothing to do with.

The only reason I made this account was to promote my work to a wider audience, only to find that no one on ''Hacker'' ''News'' was interested in the least. None of my work has received even a single comment. That's another issue with voting systems; people are led to believe a vote may as well be a comment, so they don't write one. Anyway, the utter disgust and disappointment I've experienced and also seen secondhand for some others I hold in good regard towards this place has led me to implement my own comment system, so as to be free from trying to appeal to this place.

I'd delete this account, being sick of this nonsense already, but it's my understanding the posts would remain indefinitely, so I'll keep this account to make posts such as this, giving my opinion on these things I find wrong here.

<comment><USER35> Ok, let me read one of your posts...

> Ultimately, in the pursuit of simplicity, a flag octet would be avoided, as > all my thinking would leave half of it unused and that I find poor, and so > the final format is as follows: sixteen octets indicate the IPv4 or IPv6 > address, with all zeroes indicating a system action; three octets represent > the time, likely with fifteen bits representing the year as an integer and > nine bits representing the day within that year; an octet has its top two > bits determine if the request successfully completed and if the selector > ended properly, with the latter six being used for a length of the only > variable-length component, the selector itself.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman. You have two problems, the presentation of the topics aren't all that engaging, and your writing style could use some improvement. As a writer myself, I have to wonder how many revisions that went through. I need at least three drafts with days between them before I publish anything substantial.

Examples of real life applications might make it more interesting as well -- a lot of the drama of HN stories are where the design didn't quite work in the implementation.

<comment><USER34> >Holy run-on sentence, Batman.

I'm supposing you'd suggest I use a list format where each item is on its own line, then? I may make that change.

>You have two problems, the presentation of the topics aren't all that engaging, and your writing style could use some improvement. As a writer myself, I have to wonder how many revisions that went through.

Some of my work goes through several revisions since publishing and some hasn't gone under any yet.

>Examples of real life applications might make it more interesting as well -- a lot of the drama of HN stories are where the design didn't quite work in the implementation.

This wasn't my most exciting article, by any means. I have a Common Lisp library I've written that's rather well-documented. I suppose I could submit that next, as something more interesting.

I appreciate the critique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One of my favourite takeaways from this is that Reddit users are constantly poking fun at instagram and twitter for recycling reddit posts whereas in reality I estimate 75% of the content I see on the front page originated from one of those sites, posted by a "Karma Whore".

</comment><comment><USER37> I did something very similar to this on Blind. I lurked on that app for months and the very first post I made blew up. The dopamine hit was such that the next few months were spent in getting as many Blind points as possible. Pretty sure that if there was a leaderboard, I was at the top of it for at least some time.

And then one fine day I realized that all the effort was pretty points. Just like Reddit karma, Blind points had no value. Deleted the app, deleted accounts on all social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc) and life has been pretty much good since then.

</comment><comment><USER38> Replace karma with money, karma whoring as marketing / selling and reddit as IRL and this post would still be 100% spot on!

</comment><comment><USER39> He could have done better, sharing his knowledges and experiences on StackOverflow.

</comment><comment><USER40> I did not see a mention of /u/galloboob

<comment><USER41> It's for the best

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Disclaimer:

I don't think the reddit organization is responsible for this I do think the guy needs help.

I think this is the WWI of our generation to realize how much computer technology can be a bad thing. We've had dark patterns influence behavior and the health of people. We've had strategies that are designed to hook unsuspecting people and we're seeing some serious repercussions out of it.

Not sure what to suggest to do here. But I do find it concerning.

<comment><USER15> > I think this is the WWI of our generation

That's a weird analogy, could you explain that further? I don't really follow how living months in cold wet trenches, watching your friends get killed everyday and killing enemy soldiers relates to social media addiction?

<comment><USER43> I think the parent poster is referring to the technological explosion that preceded WWI, where social conventions about how war ought to be waged had yet to take into account the ruthless efficiency of modern warfare (tanks, cars, radio, telephone, submachine guns, planes, chemical weapons, flamethrowers, indirect-fire artillery). It was a 19th-century war fought with 20th-century technology; similarly, current generations are trying to reconcile 20th- century methods of social organization with 21st-century tech. I don't get the impression that they were literally trying to compare the experience of fighting in WWI to being on Reddit.

<comment><USER42> Right there! It's the acknowledgment that a tool that is thought to be beneficial can have some extremely devastating outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Of course I'll get downvoted for this, but in any case: I expect the pejorative use of "whore" from 13 year olds in youtube comment sections, but less so from a front-page hacker news post.

<comment><USER21> But, that's what those people are commonly called; "karma whores". It's not like the writers of the article are trying to insult them. They're just using the name that everyone uses for them.</comment></comment>


Turnaround on Track, Yahoo Chief Still Battles - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/technology/personaltech/marissa-mayers-plan-for-yahoo-takes-hold-the-question-now-is-time.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I was surprised to read that Yahoo had made so much progress:

<< Yahoo's growth has been flat during her tenure. But recently, almost unknown to investors mostly interested in Yahoo for its $40 billion stake in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, Yahoo is showing progress. Revenue from the businesses Ms. Mayer created or acquired are growing at an annual rate of 80 percent, she announced in Yahoo's last earnings update. She also said she expected overall growth to begin this year, which is pretty much in line with her original, optimistic timeline. >>

With a bit more momentum, she could be on track with her original turnaround plan:

<< The turnaround plan created by Ms. Mayer, a celebrated, though recently sidelined, executive at Google, was simple: Stop the downward spiral and increase Yahoo's revenue within two or three years. After that, Ms. Mayer said she believed she could achieve double-digit annual growth by five years. >></comment>


Solve a puzzle for comment scrip - <AUTHOR>

let's suppose: in order to comment, a user must pay one scrip. to get scrip, a user must solve small puzzles and challenges. a lot of us would find that fun in itself, and then we'd spend comments wisely.<p>i thought about applying this to submissions, too, but i think plonking submissions into hierarchical categories would go a long way towards useful customization. <comment><USER2> I believe you're referring to something exactly like this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=464700>

<comment><AUTHOR> sigh. really sorry. i really need to write a greasemonkey script that integrates searchyc into submission posting. i fill out the info and then five minute later check back for if it found anything. otherwise i lose patience while searching, especially since it's not always clear what search terms to use.

thanks for the link!!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my intelligent gift search startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi Everyone, I'm showing my child for the first time. I've been working on intelligent gift search with my friend for about half a year. Basically you can think of askmegift.com as a 'akinator web genius for finding matched gifts'
We'd love your feedback. I waited to post it here untill everyone get their christmas gifts, so you don't think we are trying to sell.
if you saw anything you like or hate please let us know.
Adam <comment><USER4> As you ask quite a few questions it would be good to know how many gifts you currently think you are going to recommend. I got about half way through and started to think am I going to be wasting my time. Perhaps even an option of view suggestions now.

If you don't select a name for the person you are buying the gift for many of the questions don't scan that well. Also you use he/she as the generic but one of the follow on questions is sex to which I answered and relationship to which I also answered so would have made more sense to personalise the question a little more.

Some of the questions should allow multiple response answers , e.g. does person play an instrument, dance, play in drama, none/I don't know. The person I was thinking of does all 3!

Not sure whether it's important but I would have thought that for some questions there is a big difference between none (or in some cases it should no) and I don't know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Idea with numer of gifts that will be recomended is a nice one. We will add it within a days :)

I also save this cosmetic changes with questions to my to-do list. Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just had a play.

I think it is a great idea. Always struggling to pick a gift. I like the phone charger suggestion. I like how you ask for feedback presumably to make the results better next time.

Will it be a success? I guess it depends on how the word will be spread? Do people want to admit they used something like this to buy a gift for someone?

Another idea for you - can you scan a Facebook account to gather a lot of the information you ask? Would save a lot of typing. It could also send you an email when it is someone's birthday with a recommendation of the present.

A common theme in the how to start a start-up is to do things that don't scale. What if you had a phone line that you answer, people can phone and give the information and you suggest a present. What if you order it for them? You will get a lot of information about the nuances of choosing a present, which can be fed into your algorithm.

In my example the person hates to read books on self development, but likes trashy novels, but on the other hand is very ambitious. It suggest all kinds of self improvement books but I had to keep saying no.

<comment><USER6> I'll second the facebook-integration idea. I'd much prefer to be able to sign- in-with-facebook and point out which person I want to buy a gift for than have to manually enter information about them (which I probably just culled from facebook anyway).

I think the great utility of your app (which I like very much by the way) is getting gift ideas for people you barely know (coworkers, distant relatives, etc). So I don't know the answers to those questions, but my social network could probably figure it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Either change "None/don't know" or add a "don't care/doesn't matter" option. For example I don't want to limit the selection to just "girl toys" or don't particularly care how much I spend. Also you might want to stop asking the favorite alcohol question to people buying gifts for 5 year olds

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm actually working on a gift recommendation app as well, so I'm in this same space with you. I went through all of your questions in the wizard (There are quite a few, you should think about asking only the essentials at first and then allowing me to answer more once I'm in the app).

I filled out the wizard about my girlfriend who likes the Steelers, and you showed me a men's Seattle Seahawks shirt: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfb...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfbwg.png)

There are ways to automate the process of gender classification, you should look into them for situations like this considering I explicitly filled in "female" and "Steelers" into your wizard.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hi there Adam.

Firstly well done on having the guts to show this to people. Doing that scares the hell out of me.

I think you've picked a problem worth solving, at least for some people - <USER2> included. I'm crap at choosing gifts, and always have been. Nowadays I choose my wife's presents by asking her what she'd like ;-). If someone could actually build a system that would consistently recommend appropriate gifts I think I'd pay to use it.

In my unqualified opinion, this is a hard problem, and I think you have a lot of work in front of you. But you have to start somewhere. I won't comment on the ui because that's irrelevant at this point. But you might find it useful if I go through my answers and your suggestions. I was answering about my wife who is in her 40s.

The most relevant answers to your questions were a) Kasabian (favourite band), b) One hundred years of solitude (favourite book) and c) spirits (re the choice of wine/beer/spirits).

The suggestions I got were below, with my comments:

1) This is all yours, an Alt J album - [Good suggestion, she already has it]

2) Velociraptor - a Kasabian album - [Again she already has this, but then they're her favourite band]

3) A summary of Love in the time of cholera [Not sure why the summary as opposed to the book. In any case she's already read it, but if she hadn't it would have been a good choice.]

4) Diary of a wimpy kid - the long haul [an odd suggestion given her age, unless I'm missing something. My son says it's a kids' book]

5) The complete book of spirits [ presumably based on the wine/beer/spirits question. I asked her about this and she wasn't keen]

6) A book about Kasabian - [ good suggestion ]

7) KATGI Heart Shape Pendant Necklace [ interesting - I asked my daughter, who thought her mum would like it. I then asked my wife, who frowned and said no ;-) ]

Anyway, not sure if that's helpful. Feel free to ask me anything.

BTW, an idea for you. Some of my friends are extremely good at choosing gifts. Maybe talking to people with that talent would help you work out what makes them good at it.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great idea! Where's the privacy policy? I don't want the very specific info I enter about my dad showing up in ads he sees.

It'd be helpful to have a back n forth between items, or even better show them as a list (maybe paginate and generate more ideas on each page?). I want to see the options before settling on one.

What I liked best was it gave me a category that works (smartwatch) which spurred an idea for an actual gift- a Fitbit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Too many questions!

I've actually looked for this type of site before. Useful concept if it works.

I'd like to see a list of suggestions right after question #1 that change as you answer more and more questions. That gives me the option of either continuing or not without investing a lot of energy.

You could have the questions be "never ending" with that design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for feedback, we are trying to halve the number of questions, but in order to do it we have to figured out which questions are the best :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are some gender-related issues with the presentation of ideas. e.g I saw this:

         "Even if Sarah is a experienced drinker you can widen his knowledge by giving her this book."

Note the use of both "his" and "her".

</comment><comment><USER13> I just used this and bought something - so that's the best feedback I can give, isn't it? Good luck with it! Also if you have a newsletter for potential investors please put me on it. Details in my profile.

<comment><USER13> Oh wait - it was the Rachel Maddow 2012 mug, not the 2016 mug. Still - <USER3> done. You had me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would really like to see a list of gifts at the end instead of clicking no a bunch of times to see my options and ending up at a blank page.

</comment><comment><USER15> You have a big age gap missing.

I'm dating a twenty-two yo female and I can choose 13-16 or 27-35.

Not sure if it's intentional.

<comment><USER16> They are there, but the list is not sorted...

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed, list is now sorted, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Selected 13-16 year old age group and was asked for favorite type of alcohol.</comment>


Debugging the Stripe API using Runscope - <AUTHOR> http://blog.epanastasi.com/post/53374577584/debugging-the-stripe-api-using-runscope

<comment><USER2> Do you run runscope forever? Or is it disconnected after your debugging is done? I'm just wondering about the security aspects of this. As I see it, someone gaining access to your runscope account can effectively re-use access tokens and read personal information on the log files. So, does runscope delete data on request?

<comment><USER3> You can delete requests and buckets on demand.

Some of our customers are running it in production apps but for the most part you turn it on to solve a problem then turn it off when you're done. Down the road we'll be making production use more useful with the security concerns you mention at the forefront.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If anyone has any API debugging questions, feel free to let me know.</comment>


Show HN: Serve your own cloud API abstractions in Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://crossplane.io/docs/v0.11/getting-started/publish-infrastructure.html <comment><AUTHOR> One of the maintainers of Crossplane here.

New feature of Crossplane allows you to write your own cloud resource abstraction and let the developers use it as one Custom Resource in a Kubernetes cluster and mount the credentials of that cloud resources to your pods.</comment>


Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly Understood Ideas (1967) - <AUTHOR> http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Why%20programming%20is--.html <comment><USER2> My PhD supervisor used to say: "one week of programming easily saves an hour of thinking"

<comment><USER3> That is the core difference between academia and business. Any engineer who sits back and stares out the window thinking is reprimanded or even fired by the managers for not working.

<comment><USER4> Hmm... as an engineer in industry, if I decide I want to take a walk in the middle of the day, I make sure I don't have any meetings, then I get up and leave. There are a lot of differences between academia and industry, but this isn't one of them. I can't imagine working for a company where I was worried about something like looking out a window, or not appearing to be working.

<comment><USER5> You would be surprised of the number of companies who still has a "butt-in- seat" mindset.

<comment><USER6> They probably have legacy software and turnover problems... those are usually required before getting a "butt-in-seat" mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Programming does definetly helps me when i do not understand an idea. For exmaple:

I did not understood why in the Monty Hall problem [1] do i have 2/3 chance of winning if i do change the door instead of 1/2 that my intuition tells me until i wrote it as two functions.

function change() {return random(3) != random(3);} // 2/3 chance

function not_change() {return random(3) == random(3);} // 1/3 chance

Then i also saw that i do get that 1/2 chance of winning if i choose between changing the door and not at random.

function random_change() {if (random(2) == 1) {return change();} else {return not_change();}} // (1/3)/2 + (2/3)/2 = 1/2 chance

This was so much more convincing than math and theory and even explanations with cards and drawings because i could run it in a loop a 1000 times and see the results be close to the prediction.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)

<comment><USER8> Maths is not experimental. This roundabout, handwavy, vague way to deal with things causes more harm than good, in my opinion. Try to understand a proper mathematical proof instead.

<comment><USER9> Here's a glimpse that may change your mind about mathematics as an experimental science:

Mathematics: An Experimental Science - [https://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/website/Mathematics_AnExper...](https://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/website/Mathematics_AnExperimentalScience.pdf) (PDF)

> A computer is used by a pure mathematician in much the same way that a > telescope is used by a theoretical astronomer. It shows us "what's out > there."

> From such explorations there can grow understanding, and conjectures, and > roads to proofs, and phenomena that would not have been imaginable in the > pre-computer era. This role of computation within pure mathematics seems > destined only to expand over the near future and to be imbued into our > students along with Euclid's axioms and other staples of mathematical > education.

Also:

Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics - [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/turtle- geometry](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/turtle-geometry)

<comment><USER8> >Mathematics: An Experimental Science

That was an amazing read. It certainly made me rethink my position. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know this is a favorite idea that is often quoted. But as a plodding person doing research in CS, I don't find that programming enhances big-level understanding. It may refine some of the nuances one does not notice in the first pass, but after a tiring debugging session, I don't usually find any flashes of insight about the overall problem.

An example: rotation and balancing of binary trees - does battling the inevitable core dumps during implementation really enhance any understanding of the principle of the algorithm?

<comment><USER11> If your goal in implementing rotation and balancing of binary trees is to better understand a poorly understood idea then you're probably better off using a language like Haskell that is garbaged collected and doesn't have nulls so you can both avoid having any core dumps and also have a smart compiler to help guide you to the solution and the understanding.

<comment><USER12> This is the right mindset. Language and idioms are important to teaching and learning.

I see people using python to teach/learn something like array iteration and do

      for i in range(len(my_list)):
       print(my_list[i])

What they have done, is conflated the implementation they think is computer sciencey from learning C, and the essence of list iteration.

Python is a great language for learning about iteration:

      for item in my_list:
       print(item)

Here it's much closer to the essence of the lesson.

C is good for teaching about array indexing in the loop and exposing how the loop variable is reused:

      for ( int i = 0; i < myArraySize; i += 1 ) {
       printf("%d\n", myArray[i]);
      }

If you're trying to understand something in programming or through programming, there are right languages for the job, and it's a tricky affair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> According to Curry-Howard correspondence, writing programs is like writing proofs. So a working (or at least type-checked) program is like a proof that was verified by the computer.

In that sense, the poorly understood ideas have to be expressed more precisely, when writing a program. The program itself, however, is not necessarily a good medium to express the most interesting ideas, because they can drown in technical details.

<comment><USER14> The "propositions" that are proved in anything but dependently typed languages are trivial though, so Curry-Howard is not that relevant in this context. E.g. a program of type "Int" merely proves that the set of integers is non-empty, and it doesn't even prove that for languages that are Turing complete (as the "proof" may crash)

<comment><USER13> That's why I used phrase "working program" and "verified" in my comment. ;-)

If you have a working (tested) program, you might not have a mathematical proof that it works, but you have certain sense that what you're doing is not entirely logically implausible. It is a form of verification (although without complete guarantee of correctness).

(Another way to look at it is that the testing you did determines what kind of sentence you proved to be true. So instead of assigning the type to the program in advance, you deduce it the other way around - we observe how the program works and that gives us its type.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why Medium is Good for Poorly Expressing Understood Programming Ideas

<comment><USER16> funny

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is how I'm modelling things that I'm learning. I'm defining types (in Haskell) and functions that map those types to other types. Even if I don't write the implementation of the functions, that still gives me a clearer idea of the domain.

</comment><comment><USER18> I once attended a fascinating presentation where the presenter had realized that since laws were written in a specialized legal language, that this could be used to write proofs and discover inconsistencies and errors in the law.

</comment><comment><USER19> Also see "Programming as theory building" by Peter Naur

[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf)</comment>


Came out with an idea then realise that people are already working on that - <AUTHOR>

Guys, I am wondering about this question. This is not the first time already, an exciting idea to share files across mobile devices pops in my brain. I was excited that I spend one or two hours fine tuning the idea thinking its implementation in my head before I get home.
And guess what, an app called bump is already doing exactly the same for quite some time, even they way the do it technologically, is 95% of my idea.
Have you guys come across with this kind of situation before? Please share your story.
Sent on the go Sheau Jye Twitter @sheaujye <comment><USER2> This is the sort of thing that represents an opportunity to do it better, differently, more intuitively, much simpler or some such. I like moments like this because it means my idea has merit and it means I need to think of a way to do it better. My start-up idea is in the customer loyalty platform space. I don't need to tell you how many players are in that arena.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make a dropbox sharing app.. instead of adding email via admin, share a folder between accounts with a bump... that would be cool :)

</comment><comment><USER4> bump sucks. do it and do it better.

<comment><USER5> Anything in particular that you don't like about it? I haven't used it, so am curious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Chances are that if it is a really good idea, 100 other people are probably working on it at the same time. It does not matter though. What matters is how you execute it, market it, solve a real world problem with it etc etc. Go ahead do it.</comment>


Ask YC:  Does anybody actually use UML? - <AUTHOR>

My own experience is that class diagrams are good for organizing my thoughts about the structure of the code, but I almost never do a complete class diagram and I don't pay too much attention to the syntax.  I just use whatever notation seems reasonable.
I find activity diagrams are far less useful:  when I'm done I find that the act of building forces me to considerably redesign the methods.
And I find use cases nearly pointless.
So, I really have two questions:  1).  Do you use UML in the design process (if so, how)? and 2).  Do you use UML to document--that is, do you find others can understand the code more easily using UML? <comment><USER2> No and no.

I'll address your questions in reverse order.

2) My biggest complaint about UML is that it gets out of sync with the code, unless you honestly take the time to outline every little change in the UML docs alongside the code changes. (Which is great in an idealized world, but when I'm in the zone on something, I don't want to pull away to update the docs right that moment, so I'm bound to forget something when I do it later.)

Most IDEs have an 'outline' view, which will show roughly the same information pulled directly from the code. Short of that, you can just use the languages reflection features or docs to get a current view of what's available to a class, etc.

1) As for actually using it to design things, I think it just generally goes against my style of coding. I do things one tiny feature at a time, and refactor when I find myself doing the same thing twice. If I took the time to plan every method signature and relationship between classes in advance, I'd most likely be wrong, and it would take the fun out of coding. Once you have already gone to the trouble of thinking out every detail, actually coding it is going to seem boring.

</comment><comment><USER3> UML, or any other sort of high-level design planning, is a bit against the hacker spirit so my guess is you wont find many here who use it. Hacking is more bottom up, start with something simple and just keep iterating it into something larger.

The only instances I've seen UML being useful is in very large software projects with many people involved. Having an abstract way to convey program structure can be useful there. But for anything less it will probably slow you down and restrict your freedom, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find I need some sort of plan for all but the simplest of projects. I've even found it valuable to return to the diagrams (class only, the others don't work for me) to try to remember what the heck I did a few months back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> for my own personal work? no, i find it to be a waste of time. however, i do diagram and plan and such. its just not structured, like UML, its more free- form to help me plot my ideas.

for my real job? as a software engineer, yes, some, because artifacts are required by the company (and often written into contracts), and things are often designed by one person and coded by another. documents are required to communicate how it "should" work, and UML is a good standard so that a specific document can be understood by everyone.

having said all that, i can see the need for planning and structure documents if your ideas need to be coded by others. however, if you're creating the documents and cutting code yourself, i think they're a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I sometimes use FMC Block Diagrams and Petri Nets in order to communicate my ideas. FMC is even more high-level than UML, but designed to be easier to grok for non-hackers.

<http://www.fmc-modeling.org/quick-intro>

</comment><comment><USER6> Occasionally I work with someone who uses it (in which case I'll play along for a little while) but otherwise no.

</comment><comment><USER7> From the point of view of designing unit tests, I think class diagrams in UML are very helpful. For example, if I need a test suite in JUnit to cover classes A,B, and C, then looking at the class diagrams for these, I can make sure I have a unit test for each public method in A,B,and C. Obviously one could just look at the code being tested as well, but when one has lots of classes, each with lots of unit tests associated with it, keeping track of these with some kind of diagram structure is helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, so you find them more helpful as a system-overview tool _after_ it's designed than you do in the actual design process? (I am inferring that you build a bit, then test, rather than the XP method of write a test--then build to the test.)

<comment><USER7> right - after the thing is built, then uml helps to write unit tests i find - i haven't worked anywhere where people actually do the write tests first approach - sounds good in theory but in the fast world of iterative development it probably is too slow/inflexible in some cases

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you on the testing bit. I tried, and it seemed foolish to waste time writing simple tests for simple things.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do email services prevent auto-reply loops? - <AUTHOR> Suppose persons A and B are both out-of-office, and have enabled their respective auto-reply feature. Person A then sends an email to person B.
In a naive email service, that initial email will trigger an auto-response from B, which will then trigger another auto-response from A, which will trigger another auto-response from B... and you wind up with an infinite loop.
I hear that most email services already have systems in place to detect and prevent the above loop from happening. How is this implemented?
By checking to see if the sender has already sent an identical email recently?
By checking to see if the message contains various hard-coded strings such as "out of office"?
By checking to see if the reply was sent almost immediately after the original message was sent?
All of the above heuristics seem like they could be broken under various scenarios. Are email services using some other more deterministic way to detect auto-reply emails? <comment><USER2> Email servers will add a message header if an auto-responder shouldn't respond to the message. A google search will provide more details.</comment>


Call me maybe: NuoDB - <AUTHOR> http://aphyr.com/posts/292-call-me-maybe-nuodb

<comment><USER2> I think the better argument against the CAP theorem is that while it is true, is it not really that useful. If you have a database with nodes in three data centers, it is much more likely that one of the data centers becomes disconnected (partitioned) from the rest of the internet, rather than that the internet itself is partitioned. In this case, a CP system can still remain available to the internet, it just can't also remain available to the nodes within the disconnected data center.

[https://foundationdb.com/white-papers/the-cap- theorem](https://foundationdb.com/white-papers/the-cap-theorem)

<comment><USER3> Meanwhile, [http://blog.pagerduty.com/2013/04/outage-post-mortem- april-1...](http://blog.pagerduty.com/2013/04/outage-post-mortem- april-13-2013/)

<comment><USER2> Discussing the CAP theorem is a discussion on what is theoretically possible.

All I am claiming is that it is theoretically possible to make a CP system that, in practice, is highly available. That does not mean one actually exists.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely agreed; I'm just saying that as the Pagerduty postmortem demonstrates, CP availability becomes trickier as you increase the number of sites--and there are unavoidable minimum latency bounds due to the speed of light. Those bounds may be unacceptably high; this is why Google Spanner chooses instead to enforce strong bounds on clock synchronization.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I make a front end to an existing website? - <AUTHOR>

I am a grad student that works a lot in nanofabrication.  My school has a website that controls all the scheduling for the tools that I use (SEM, etchers, evaporators, etc.), but the user interface is horrible, especially for mobile.  I want to create a new mobile website, which takes the information from the existing website after I've logged-in and re-displays it in better format.  I'd rather not require a server and have to parse the html that I'm receiving from the existing website in Python.  Can I do this in simple HTML and Javascript? <comment><USER2> Greasemonkey on the desktop ([https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/)) or for Firefox Mobile, or userscripts on the desktop ([http://userscripts.org/](http://userscripts.org/)) might be a way to accomplish this, the Python requirement aside. They're a simpler way to restyle and format an existing site in your browser, rather than writing code to parse an existing site. Alternatively, as you mentioned, you could write or utilize an existing scraper in Python and pull content into your own site, as long as you are not violating the terms of use for your school's website.</comment>


US border are increasingly denying entry to travelers over others' social media - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/27/border-deny-entry-united-states-social-media/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774)

</comment><comment><USER3> > the Trump administration in June began to demand that foreigners who apply > for U.S. visas disclose their social media handles and profiles. Some 15 > million are expected to fall under the new rule.

Can you imagine reading that sentence in 2001 and _not_ imagining the future as a dystopian place?

<comment><USER4> The sad thing is, no future President is going to reverse this. Trump is, literally, a tool for setting the bar so low as to what the people are willing to put up with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just like the PATRIOT Act started by Bush... it was not repealed by Obama, it was made worst... even if he promised to repeal it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What motivates MOOC subscribers? - <AUTHOR>

For those of you who take online classes from organizations like Coursera, EdX and Udemy, what motivated you to take the class?<p>I'm interested in MOOCs and wanted to get a perspective on what motivates people taking the class, how long they stick with the class, and what their biggest difficulties are. <comment><USER2> My thoughts on some of the benefits of MOOCs:

\- Learning from professionals, industry/research leaders who can offer personal experiences rather than discussing other peoples' research/results

\- University-level educational material for zero or no cost. A university education is a massive commitment of time and money, and in many cases the qualification itself, rather than the knowledge, is the end goal and thus the investment is largely lost if you stop partway through

\- Convenience. Learn what you want, in your own time, at your own rate.

\- Internet/forum culture. The communities tend to be cooperative and interested in teaching and explaining, and the atmosphere is positive. For people used to forums this can be easier to deal with than a classroom environment.

Overall, I find MOOCs tend to cover an excellent middle ground between the rigid style of teaching commonly found in established educational institutions and the individual learner mentality that educates itself by looking for tutorials, reading books, and learning by doing.

As to "what motivates people to take MOOCs?", they are convenient options for educating and furthering oneself. For some people, learning is a lifelong goal or a fundamental interest in acquiring new knowledge/skills. Learning can be useful for people looking to upskill in order to access new opportunities (self-employment, change of careers/employer). I recommend it to people who find themselves stuck in a rut (feel like life isn't going anywhere). Visible progression has positive feedback and can be stimulating.

</comment><comment><USER3> The material and what I'm learning. I finished 4 courses so far and what got me through them is strong interest and the drive to learn the material. I only enroll in a MOOC class that I am very interested in; which gets me to the end of it. I've spent more time on some MOOC classes than on college courses for an entire semester which I did not care about.

</comment><comment><USER4> Simple: self directed education is simply a superior learning method for some. Lectures in digestible formats alongside the ability to take on whatever material you can think of. Frankly, I couldn't stand my university and felt like I got almost nothing out of it. MOOCs have allowed me to really dive in and explore more.</comment>