How to Unmask the Internet's Vilest Characters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24lede-t.html?ref=magazine <comment><USER2> EDIT: Somehow I missed that they did do some of these things, but still, they shouldn't have mentioned the site.

There are plenty of things that could be done that don't require the removing the CDA. If websites are liable for user-generated content, then liability will ensure that we cannot have user-generated content at all. Google, for example, has a specific process for you to remove this sort of thing:

[http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734)

More generally, you can also get a court order declaring something unlawful, then go here:

[http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=lr...](http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=lr_courtorder&product=websearch)

But as they point out, it doesn't do much unless you get to the root of the problem. Find the person who posted it.

Lastly, way to go NYTimes. I had never heard of that porn site before, but now everyone on the internet can look up that site and that post, making your use of an alias meaningless. Are you really on her side, or were you trying to trigger the Streisand effect?

<comment><USER3> The article said Private Voyeur removed the post. It's not in an easily accessible cache--a quick Google and archive.org search doesn't turn up anything--so naming the site, albeit unnecessary, probably didn't jeopardize anonymity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that's a bad example. What basically happened is that an odd ex- boyfriend passed around pictures, and one of those people put it on the internet and tried to blackmail her. It's not too different to the whole myexbitch thing.

The real internet villains are the ones who need no provocation, and go after people far innocenter than people who let their boyfriend take nude pictures. Like what Anon did with the Sony exec families, that (didn't by far) could have gone horribly wrong if a internet-only psycho got enough of that information.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't call someone who is abusive in a relationship, and manipulates someone into taking naked photos, then hands them out to his friends, "odd." I'd call him a world-class scumbag.

The people who went on to post the photos and her personal info are equally vile. I can think of no excuse for that behavior at all.

You're blaming the victim here, and it's wrong. This woman was manipulated and exploited, and she is absolutely innocent in this sad tale.

<comment><USER4> It's considerably more passive to leak photos compared to finding out where someone's kids go to school.</comment></comment></comment>


How To Create a Successful Web 2.0 Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2005/10/10_steps_to_a_h.html <comment><USER2> Do these kinds of articles irk anyone else?

"So how are you going to run www.bullshitr.com?"

"I dunno, but I was thinking of making a template Web 2.0 Company."

"Really? I heard about those in Bussiness Week!"

"Yeah, I think I'll start by following these over generalized and weakly supported tips I read on a blog."

<comment><USER3> The article's a list of (mostly) necessary rather than sufficient conditions. But even that is rare enough.

<comment><USER2> Most of the tips are actually good advice that has been supported or demonstrated hundreds of times already. My annoyance stems from something else I can't quite put my finger on.

Maybe it's this tendency to say all new web companies need to follow a strict template, maybe it's that anyone who needed this list isn't going to be successful running that kind of company.

Then again, it might be good some of this advice is getting parroted around, so that less hip investors don't give you odd looks when you say you're not charging for your service.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Haven launches today – Privacy based marketplace using cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://gethaven.app <comment><USER2> Hey - Haven/OpenBazaar developer here. We've been working hard on this for a long time. There are a lot of little snags when it comes to running a p2p ecommerce system where you own all your own data, and then making it work on mobile, but we feel we've done a pretty good job at tackling them in a say that isn't a UX disaster. If this kind of thing is up your alley I hope you try it a and find it pleasure to use.</comment>


Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? - <AUTHOR> http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full

<comment><USER2> Yes it can be avoided. The predicted collapse has been avoided during the forty years that Ehrlich has been making predictions like this. (I'm old enough to remember his early career, and how different the predicted future years of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s looked from what he predicted in my youth.)

<http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/apocalypse-not.aspx>

[http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/howlin-wolf-paul- ehrli...](http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/howlin-wolf-paul-ehrlich-on- energy-part-ii-failed-predictions/)

Ehrlich counts on people not remembering anything that happened before they were in high school, and being young enough not to remember what he has said time and time again, and been wrong about every time.

<comment><USER3> Haven't read the article, just wanted to point out that 40 years is nothing. In Jared Diamond's Collapse he tells about civilizations that collapsed after 4000 years.

I don't think we can assume that our current society exists in an equilibrium. We launched into the industrial age like a cannonball and we don't know yet where we will land.

Didn't some agricultural revolution in the last century safe our ass for the time being (I'm too lazy to google, basically one guy saved billions of lives). I don't know if that kind of agriculture is sustainable, though. Perhaps it requires a lot of energy, or it destroy the soil in the long run. (Maybe not - I don't know, just saying).

<comment><USER4> This guy is Norman Borlaug. Yes, the Green Revolution showed some negative side-effects (like all innovations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Food is so important, yet so cheap that farmers can not sustain themselves. When people really start starving, food costs will rise and farmers will be the new rich.

There is no overpopulation. Overpopulation of urban centers, yes, overpopulation of useable land - no.

We'll have trouble sustaining the current growth, and the way money are spent on useless and short term stuff is alarming, but that will most likely lead to another recession instead of collapse.

That's my opinion on just these matters - the article is a great piece of information that needs to be read by everyone.

<comment><USER6> Of all U.S. government policies that stand little chance of being reversed, the cheap food policy stand tall. As Bob Marley said, "A hungry mob is an angry mob." Nothing threatens the status quo more than the unavailability of food. Plus, individual farmers have little power. They have always relied on government to prevent them from being completely impoverished by the distributors, or in more modern times, by the seed technology companies.

<comment><USER7> Let's not all forgot the international food related riots a few years back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First quote was from Prince Charles. Stopped reading right there.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish a global collapse would happen, I think it could do humanity some good in the long run.

<comment><USER10> I won't go as far to say a collapse would be good, but I think being mindful of our rate of expansion would be nice. There are limits to everything, why do we need to push all of them including the population limit?

<comment><USER11> Economically successful countries have lower birth rates. Want to decrease birth rates? Help the 3rd World become economically successful.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Interactive map for architecting big data pipelines - <AUTHOR> http://xyz.insightdataengineering.com/blog/pipeline_map/ <comment><USER2> This is very useful.

I wish it had some information about supported languages. Most of the processing systems are JVM-based and require that you write your program in a JVM language. Some have Python support. But I have yet to encounter one that allows you write your pipelines in Go, Rust or JavaScript, for example. One notable exception is Storm, which supports pluggable runners, including one that talks to an external program over standard I/O. My impression that aside from Python, today's pipelines require a large amount of JVM buy-in, something I'm personally not interested in.

I'd also love some kind of metric for "aliveness". For example, my impression is that Storm was hot for about a week, and then Spark and Flink happened, and now nobody is talking about it, and Twitter itself has apparently replaced it with Heron.

<comment><USER3> Storm is very much alive. Many of its users are simply running it reliably in production now. At my company, we are well past our trillionth production tuple running through Storm.

Also note that unlike Spark, Storm is a pure open source project that does not have a major commercial entity marketing its use cases. Hortonworks has put a little marketing effort behind it, but otherwise, it's just a mature & active Apache infrastructure project. Storm 2.0 is coming out soon and features a slew of performance- and reliability-improving enhancements.

But as for marketing buzz, Google has commercial reasons for you to use Beam and Dataflow, for example. And likewise Databricks for Spark.

It's probably a good idea to pick production large-scale data infrastructure on a metric other than recency of marketing buzz.

-$0.02 from one of the original authors of streamparse, the Python API for Storm

<comment><USER2> Thanks, that's helpful. Is building a pipeline with Java, consisting entirely of shell spouts, a viable option? Are there downsides to not using the Java API?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is awesome. What a simple yet useful idea.

This format lends itself to data processing, but I think it would be really nice to apply it a variety of workflows. For example, you could model the software deployment process across different languages and frameworks. It could be a good complement to StackShare.

A bit of constructive feedback: I'm not a stickler for UX or design, but maybe spruce up the gray boxes a bit. I've never been a designer though, so take that for what you will.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're aiming to be comprehensive, then you may want to add Onyx under streaming processors. It's not as popular as the options you've listed though, so I understand why it might be left off.

[http://www.onyxplatform.org](http://www.onyxplatform.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we've included it in the Unified Batch processing because of its ability to have large window sizes that enable batch processing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome. Great aggregating of so many buzzwords and brand names that I've heard over the years. Nice job!

Keep it simple and hierarchical. I suggest additional filters for each component of the data engineering flow that can discern unique features or commonalities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we tried to keep it simple and streamlined. If you know of any features or common patterns that would be helpful, let us know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that Microsoft's only showing in this map is for Azure Blob Storage.

<comment><USER8> Batch processing: Azure Data Lake([https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/solutions/data-lake/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/data- lake/))

Stream processing: Azure Stream Analytics ([https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/services/stream-analytics/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/services/stream-analytics/))

SQL server is mentioned, but Azure Cosmos DB should also be mentioned ([https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos- db/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos-db/))

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point - the set of technologies is based off the teams we work closest with, which admittedly have a bias towards open source and Linux. So far, our map is far from comprehensive, so appreciate the suggestions (exactly what we're looking for by show HN).

To that point, just added CosmosDB, and plan to add others soon.

<comment><USER7> Email me if you want to talk architectural patterns or Microsoft products or both.

Details are in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> StreamSets Data Collector is another useful open-source ingest tool. I'm biased, but people seem to like it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Strange that Apache Flink and Google Dataflow don't figure in the Stream Processing list

<comment><AUTHOR> We put Dataflow and Flink in the "Unified Processing" since they can handle batch and streaming (as opposed to tools that only handle steaming).

We might add them explicitly to Streaming as well though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Storm also has a Scala api, but is filtered when selecting Stream Processing and Scala.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is there no Flink in Streaming processing framework?

<comment><USER13> Flink is listed under `Unified Processing` as it supports both batch and streaming (Kappa Architecture)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What do you think of Arctic for the Data point ?

</comment><comment><USER15> Kind of cool, but only 2 entries from Azure that aren't on other places.

Kind of useless for us on Azure.

</comment><comment><USER16> Citus DB is missing.</comment>


Inside the Wesleyan Molly Bust - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/inside-the-wesleyan-molly-bust-20151007 <comment><USER2> The issue in this instance is not that MDMA caused harm but that these students ingested something other than what they wanted and it made them sick.

If MDMA was legalized, people curious to experiment could purchase and know exactly what they were getting, drastically reducing the chance of what happened at this college.

People are going to experiment. We can either reduce harm, or foster it.

<comment><USER3> Lonergan made video of himself testing the drug he sold as MDMA. He lied about his product and people got hurt as a result. Its as simple as testing your purchases with legally available test kits. People do need to realize there is a risk every time you put any drug into your body, some less than others obviously. If you can't be certain that the white powder is whatever someone says it is, don't take it.

<comment><USER4> Bordering on victim blaming. We don't say to the people killed by Firestone Tires, they should have independently tested their tires. Unfortunately, victim blaming typically crops up when the circumstances involve illegal or morally contested activities, and by doing so make a difficult coversation even more convoluted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Headline should read: "Legislators' arbitrary implementation of laws targeting drug use creates dangerous environment around a previously legal substance which is even now being safely used in clinical trials"</comment>


Dyslexie: A typeface for dyslexics - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2011/06/30/dyslexie-a-typeface-for-dyslexics/ <comment><USER2> This is very anecdotal naturally. But I am a dyslexic and it was really a struggle for me as a little kid. I don't like reading very much because it is a frustrating endeavor. I like information, I like thinking, and I guess I have favored smaller condensed pieces when reading. _Perhaps why I love this website_

I can attest though that upon seeing the paragraph written at the end of the video that the text was much easier to read. I was really quite blown away with it. I'm all for this, and really hope it can get spread around.

I don't think you can make someone who is not a reader become one. But I think like anyone who can't do something by a limitation when it is removed you have a new found respect for what you didn't have. It may not be a big market, but trust me there is a market here.

I'm going to download all of these on every part of my system that I can tonight.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand why/how some of the changes they've made would help dyslexics _immediately_. Perhaps you could explain.

It seems like most of the changes were arbitrary (e.g. rotation, making the lower parts bolder) and designed to make two otherwise similar characters distinct. Wouldn't that require a learning period, to figure out which characters were changed in which ways? If you don't know (reflexively from memory) whether they rotated the `i` or the `j`, the rotation won't help anything.

<comment><USER4> In the video, they explain it as embracing the conception of the letters as being 3d objects. The added weight in the lower parts would intuitively anchor that letter in that orientation. Perhaps a 'j' should be tilted due to its asymmetry.

As for my $.02, I think the mix-ups often occur in real-time due to proximity. Making the symbols distinct would perhaps lessen the likelihood that the brain will try to identify those conceptual objects as a unity when they are near one another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the video is says that dyslexic readers made fewer errors when reading the text than normal readers, and they think that means that it helps dyslexics read easier.

What kind of experiment is that? If you want to know if it helps dyslexics, you don't change out the dyslexics... You change out the font!

It sounds like they either don't understand experimentation at all, or they borrowed someone else's results and tried to read things into them.

Edit: As noted below, they apparently actually did test whether dyslexics could read that font better or not. They just also happened to test normal people as well, to see if they were affected. The video confuses this.

<comment><USER6> According to the master's thesis there are no significant main effects: [http://www.ilo.gw.utwente.nl/ilo/attachments/032_Masterthesi...](http://www.ilo.gw.utwente.nl/ilo/attachments/032_Masterthesis_Leeuw.pdf)

I could imagine that this works well for specific kinds of dyslexia.

<comment><USER7> The approach is weird because it focuses on shapes:

 _"many of the letters look similar – such as v/w, i/j and m/n – thus people with dyslexia often confuse these letters"_

Dyslexic people usually don't confuse letters M and N, they confuse M and P. Notice how they don't relate in any sort of way. This shows how much of a brainfuck (no offense) it is to live with dyslexia, and how hard it is for non-dyslexic to understand the disability.

To make an object-oriented parallel, dyslexic people know very well the difference between two classes (concepts), but when seeing or creating instances (realisation), they can't seem to make heads or tails of which one belongs to which class. So the instances m of class M and p of class P will get processed as some mashup M/P. The only way out is to work around the mashup by tying M class and P class each to another unrelated concept, but related to the instances.

So as an example, the letter 'm' is linked to the word 'marmalade' (which is an instance of the concept of 'Marmalade') and p to the word peanut (itself an instance of Peanut). 'Marmalade' and 'Peanut' being hopefully[0] unrelated, the person can find a solution by linking concepts (not instances) 'M' to 'Marmalade' and 'P' to 'Peanut', so that when the person tries to process the word 'motor', instead of being faced with a dreadful (M/P).O.T.O.R. they will be able work around the issue by thinking (Marmalade).O.T.O.R.

I took the 'm' shape which is present in both 'marmalade' and 'motor' as a link vector, but really any vector will do, and people use an extremely diverse array of vectors and associations. One can end up linking 'm' to 'Green' just because for some reason seeing a 'm' makes him thing of the color (hence concept) 'Green' whereas 'p' will be tied to 'Red'. Being able to break the M/P mashup is the key, and whatever association will do, so it just happens that M/P+Green == M for someone.

[0] I said 'hopefully', because concepts of any level can result in a mashup. If for some reason the mashup Marmalade/Peanut exists, it will be of no help to map m to Marmalade.

<comment><USER8> Could I have a link to the M/P thing? I googled it but all I could find was stuff about M[agnocellular] and P[arvocellular] processing in dyslexics.

<comment><USER7> My wife is dyslexic. She used to have a hard time with phonemes and syllables containing M/P, T/D, F/V, P/B. Please note that she's a native French speaker, and language type (opaque vs transparent) seems to have an influence on dyslexia. She managed to reach university by herself, but was hitting more and more road blocks especially as she considered a Law cursus. She reached a speech&language therapist (" _orthophoniste_ ", don't know how developed it is over there, but it's quite a well-known field here in France) which trained her at working around her difficulties. She's now on a successful path towards a masters degree in Law, and you probably know how much words are of much importance in that field, so I guess it's a total win.

SLTs actually use those associations to quickly and accurately diagnose dyslexia, so sorry, I have no reference to give to you. It may look like anecdotal evidence, but I get that straight from the horse's mouth.

<comment><USER8> OK, thank you. My high school math teacher was dyslexic but as he told it, it was an issue with letter rotation, flipping, and swapping, which is what I've heard from other sources (including local SLTs). Maybe that's something that depends on native language or the type of dyslexia you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, the much hated font Comic Sans is another good font for dyslexics because the letters look more different from each other than e.g. Times New Roman. Therefore, if you're making invitations to your son's 7-year old birthday, Comic Sans is a great font for the text.

<comment><USER10> The dyslexie font did remind me of Comic Sans right away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A few questions for dyslexics:

1) Is it consistent? Do you have have trouble with the same letters/letter pairings? Or do different words tend to have different effects?

2) Normal readers tend to read the "word" and not the individual letters. Do/Can dyslexics do the same? As an example, if for instance dyslexics commonly were to transpose the "o" and "u" combination "ou" to "uo" I'm wondering if dyslexics read the jumbled "yuo" immediately as "you" or, does dyslexia prevent you from even recognizing the pattern and you have to laboriously read "y" "u" "o", transpose "o" and "u" and recognize "you".

The reason I ask is because I'm curious if such a typeface might actually be hurtful to dyslexic readers. While the typeface is easier to read for dyslexics I wonder if using such a type face for initial reading education would have a side effect. When the reader switches to non dyslexic type faces, %99.99 the rest of all digital type, they will have diminished capacity for reading those texts (more so than having learned to cope with the frequent errors of those type faces)?

In other words, might the best solution to be educating dyslexics by recognizing they may see different or multiple letter patterns for certain words and simply train them to recognize each possible version of those letter patterns?

IE. Here's a vocabulary sheet for Johny, a non dyslexic child:

        "mouse" - a small four legged mammal.
        "house" - a building you live in.

The same vocabulary sheet for Mikey, a dyslexic child.

        "mouse", "muose" - a small four legged mammal.
        "house", "huose" - a building you live in.

Granted I'm very ignorant of this disorder and I may be over simplifying it. But my ultimate question and I don't mean it to sound cold or callous, but might it be better to focus efforts on teaching dyslexics to deal with it?

<comment><USER12> Question 1

I find the font easier to read, but I became and avid reader after getting diagnosed and given private reading lessons in the 2nd grade (circa 1977). I suspect I retrained by brain with constant reading from that point onward.

By contrast, my sister who is 11 years older didn't get diagnosed young, and still struggles to read. Though she can read these days, she has a strong preference for audiobooks. When studying, she listens at 3x to 4x speed. Crazy fast. For personal reading she uses 1x to 2x.

Today here's what I can see (and since this is self reported, take it with a grain of salt):

a. I'm a slow reader compared to other avid readers. I read _much_ faster than people that don't read often; I read about half as fast (or less) as my college friends that are avid readers.

b. For sentences or paragraphs displayed briefly (as happens in movies or TV shows), I get so worried about finishing the sentence, I often can't finish in the time the wording is shown. (So in this case I'm guessing I'm much slower than average.) I'd guess this is "test anxiety" [1]. Taking tests as a kid was torture. Example, I was relaxed taking my SATs and got 1250 (did it in one shot), for my ACTs, I was distracted and buzzing around in my head, and scored below the 50 percentile.

c. Answer "right / left" question is not automatic. I always have to think. I imagine pointing from my shoulder through my arm in the direction I'm thinking. (Perhaps every one does this.) I just know there's a small mental pause.

d. I struggle with unfamiliar but initial concepts or names. For example, when learning object-oriented programming, it took a bit for me to grok class vs object. Usually this forces a deep understanding, which in the end is great, but can be a slow learning process.

Question 2

I certainly read by whole words today. The problem (major difference) with dyslexics is the process of learning to read. When learning to read, dyslexics read in "chunks" and by word shape - basically seeing the word as whole, not the individual letters. I recall the uneven scanning. I also recall thinking "who the heck are these other kids learning this?" because I could see no rhyme or reason. AFAIK, kids normally clearly see the letters making up the words. I needed intense phonics training to "get" this.

Education (phonics training) is absolutely critical. Your "mouse"/"house" examples are exactly the kinds of intense flashcard things I went through. Day after day, card after card.

The Dyslexie font should be complimentary. I seriously doubt it would be a substitute. Many fonts explicitly emphasis readability - Dyslexie attempts to increase legibility for a non-standard brain type.

I think the font rocks, and I've love to get my hands on the font to live with it for a while.

[1] <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Test_anxiety>

<comment><USER13> "When learning to read, dyslexics read in "chunks" and by word shape - basically seeing the word as whole, not the individual letters. I recall the uneven scanning."

I've wondered if dyslexia could be mitigated/cured by modifying a text reader to pulse the letters in sequence, thus giving the brain something to latch on to. Perhaps tie it in with an eye tracker. Gradually, you could reduce the strength of the pulse until they are reading normally, perhaps maybe. This idea was based on a theory that I heard that dyslexia may fundamentally stem from a timing issue in the brain; well, perhaps we could train that directly.

I have nobody to try this on, though, so I haven't done anything with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the kindle support custom fonts? It would be cool if one could experiment with this and other modern fonts focusing on readibility

<comment><USER15> If you jailbreak it and install a Chinese firmware (Duokan) it supports custom fonts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I admit I know little about this area so I'm just throwing this out there for wiser people to comment on. I heard on a reasonably authoritative radio show/podcast (can't remember what, but something like a BBC Radio 4) that the incidence of dyslexia in countries with simpler relationships between letters and phonemes (sounds) had significantly lower reported levels of dyslexia. Italy and Spain, for example. They were trying to make the point that languages with more consistent phonetics are less likely to bring up issues that would identify someone as dyslexic.

<comment><USER17> As a dyslexic and with only a little knowledge of Spanish I would say that it is probably true. When I was learning the little bit of Spanish I know it did seem easier to infer the correct word and spelling. In the end that is what a lot of dyslexics learn to do to cope. They infer the word. Many times they get them wrong but with certain fonts it is easier than trying to read it.

One thing about this issue that never really gets covered is that with repetition dyslexics can improve their condition. One of the main reasons I read and post it to ensure that I am constantly working to improve my ability to do so. Many times kids become discouraged and end up abandoning written language due to difficulties with their condition. It only serves to worsen their condition. I for example was given a computer at an early age to help with my dyslexia, I was allowed to submit all papers typed and I was excused from handwriting assignments due to being deemed to have a learning disability. This was both a blessing and a curse, it was a blessing because I became exposed to computers but a curse in the fact that to this day I am functionally illiterate when it comes to handwriting. My handwriting looks more akin to sandscript than English. I can read it and understand it, but to someone else it is an entirely different language. Fortunately they have better policies for learning disabilities now days and use a combined approach.

On an unrelated note, there are a lot of dyslexics (the ones that don't get discouraged or use their condition as a crutch) that end up in the math and science fields. It has been theorized that these people's ability to see textual items as 3D objects some how aids in their ability to visualize abstract concepts.

I know when I do higher level math I do not see numbers. I see objects that are represented by the numbers. I think for many just starting out in higher maths, variables are a difficult concept, but when you see each items as a object it helps one to look at all items in a equation as a variable some just have known values. I think dyslexics grasp this concept earlier because it is inherently how their mind works. Unfortunately many dyslexics never make it that far due to years of failing in academics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The statement in the video "dyslexics rotate the letters" is largely untrue. For some really cool details on reading research, see Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

[http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-New-Science- Read/dp/B004...](http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-New-Science- Read/dp/B004Q7E1TY/)

by a neuroscientist who has studied these issues for years and who is familiar with the difference that different scripts make in reading difficulties.

</comment><comment><USER19> warning: dont visit the nextweb.com with an ipad, they use some horrible horrible swipe/touch/die suckware, go to the source instead <http://www.studiostudio.nl/en/project-dyslexie/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Related, the Read Regular project: <http://www.readregular.com/english/background.html>

<comment><USER21> > _The Read Regular typeface is not available for purchase._

... and of course, neither to download for free.

What's the point of this font? Is it used beyond the promotional web site?

I didn't try to contact the creator because I don't have any specific need for the font right now, but I think that she's doning a disservice to dyslexic people by not publishing it under a Creative Commons license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really want a fixed-width version of this font.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can anyone find a TTF/OTF on that site? Incidentally, the text on this page looks like utter shit:

<http://www.studiostudio.nl/en/project-dyslexie/> <http://i.imgur.com/xhjKI.png>

At least in comparison to the video.

<comment><USER24> Regarding the font. If you are on Windows XP, enable Font Smoothing.

Desktop properties > Appearances > Effects > [x] Use the following methods to smooth edges of screen fonts: Select [Standard]

[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YITsgCuHhUk/TgnPnR- FzUI/AAAAAAAAAB...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YITsgCuHhUk/TgnPnR- FzUI/AAAAAAAAABo/2617RaDPSd0/s1600/clear_type3.png)

<comment><USER23> I'm on Ubuntu, font smoothing is fine for anything that doesn't use some weird JS to render it as opposed to something rational and sane like @font-face. Thanks for trying to help, though.

<comment><USER24> Thank you for pointing that out. Didn't realize that I had Js enabled. (me too Ubuntu)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A similar idea is DPCustomMono2, a font adapted by "Distributed Proofreaders" project to make proofreading for mistakes easier. It's not the prettiest font, but it is effective.

<http://www.pgdp.net/c/faq/font_sample.php>

</comment><comment><USER26> For those who are not color blind, what about varying the colors? For different letters. Or, working from the presented idea of letter shapes to reinforce orientation,changing color within a letter (e.g., "blue = bottom")?

</comment><comment><USER27> Where do you get the font?

<comment><USER28> It appears to be licensed through [http://www.lexima.nl/school-en- behandelaar/categorie/lettert...](http://www.lexima.nl/school-en- behandelaar/categorie/lettertype-dyslexie)

google translate: [http://translate.google.ca/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl...](http://translate.google.ca/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lexima.nl%2Fschool- en-behandelaar%2Fcategorie%2Flettertype-dyslexie)

<comment><USER29> I appreciate the work they have done and have a great respect for the amount of research and effort behind this, but I really wish it was more affordable.

My girlfriend is dyslexic and is struggling (even with reading lessons, etc.) through college because of it. I had her read the example in the video and some of the text on their site and she was able to do so much more efficiently. I'd love to be able to purchase this font for her so she can use it when reading/writing documents for her classes, but the amount they are asking is simply too much for me.

I wonder if we'd be able to convince her health insurance to reimburse us for the cost? I can dream. :)

<comment><USER23> That's insanely expensive. Why should only the dyslexic kids that go to rich schools be given this opportunity to read easily? Surely reading is one of the basic things that should be made as equal for everyone as possible?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Additional information can be found on the designer's website: <http://www.studiostudio.nl/en/project-dyslexie/>

</comment><comment><USER30> I know it's totally off topic but did anyone else read thar article on an iPad? The theme they're using is a bad attempt at making the site work like an ebook and it sucks.

</comment><comment><USER31> The font is rendered via HTML5's canvas, incidentally.

</comment><comment><USER32> emphasizing the differences between letters reminded about the hand writing recognition on Palm.</comment>


Wikipedia doesn't want you - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@danklass/wikipedia-doesn-t-want-you-b0aa00e8e97 <comment><USER2> All I hear is someone complaining that the articles they wrote about themselves and their friend (for self-promotion purposes) got removed because they didn't even glance at the introductory guide to writing articles.

> Do not create pages about yourself, your company, your band, or your > friends; pages that advertise; personal essays; or other articles you would > not find in an encyclopedia.

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

> Publication in a reliable source is not always good evidence of notability: > Wikipedia is not a promotional medium. Self-promotion, autobiography, > product placement and most paid material are not valid routes to an > encyclopedia article. The barometer of notability is whether people > independent of the topic itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, author, > inventor, or vendor) have actually considered the topic notable enough that > they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus > upon it—without incentive, promotion, or other influence by people connected > to the topic matter.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Self- prom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Self- promotion_and_publicity)

He further makes ridiculous claims going to the extreme opposite of deletionism, not recognizing at all the benefits of only having notable content on Wikipedia.

> When pages on Wikipedia are nominated for removal, Deletionpedia > automatically pulls the page and adds it to their wiki. Brilliant. It stands > to reason, given enough time, Deletionpedia will surpass Wikipedia in > usefulness and Wikipedia will die.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for inclusionism but I don't like it when you write articles about yourself and your friends for self-promotion.

<comment><USER3> > the benefits of only having notable content on Wikipedia.

If the rules were a bit less arbitrary and were applied a bit more consistently you'd probably have less complaining about deletionism. When talking about deletionism / inclusionism it's important to remember that stamina of participants is often as important as notability in whether the article stays / goes.

Also, you're being a little bit unfair about his friend.

> > Lance was already mentioned several times on Wikipedia, so getting the > page rolling really just took some cutting and pasting. "American > podcaster," "LA Podcasters," "Cambridge University," blah, blah, blah. Links > to websites, blogs, press clipping, etc. Click "Save." I've done it.

His friend was notable enough to have already been mentioned on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER4> > His friend was notable enough to have already been mentioned on Wikipedia.

The criteria to have an article about a specific person: there are other articles focusing on that specific person in other publications.

The criertia to be mentioned in other contexts on Wikipedia: there are reliable sources that he had a notable role _in that context_.

Edit: I think thats a better example:

If you climbed a certain mountain as the first person ever: probably you are mentioned on the article about that mountain. If you never did anything else of note, why do you need you own page too?

If you are the first person to ever in succession climb all the summits (and others took note of that), you probably have you own article but are not mentioned on every single summits article, maybe on none of them.

<comment><USER5> His complaint was that Wikipedia's definition of "notability" is arbitrary, dogmatic, and inconsistently applied. Explicating the dogma doesn't convince many people that the dogma is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You're on a losing game trying to argue your case with the Wikipedicians. Lets see some notable characters that do past the notability test:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants_(charact...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants_\(character\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee- wee_Herman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee_Herman)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurch_(The_Addams_Family)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurch_\(The_Addams_Family\))

<comment><USER7> My favorite:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_(Sesame_Street)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_\(Sesame_Street\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_(Sesame_Street)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_\(Sesame_Street\))

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Wikipedia standards" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Many such standards are really just biases, political or other, and the quality of information is usually low. The only valuable section of many articles is "References"

</comment><comment><USER9> No Lance Anderson in Gaijin42 deletion log [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gaijin42/CSD_log](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gaijin42/CSD_log)</comment>


Dear Lumber yard - daniel-cussen Dear Sirs,
I write to solicit; we sell termites.  We provide termite adoption services for lumberyards.
While termite adoption may sound terrible at first blush, we believe it to be adviseable.  The termites can dispose of wracked beams without requiring burning.  The termites can also eliminate small pieces of discarded wood, and partly take care of cleaning the sawing site in your stead.  They can also easily consume stockpiles that are no longer useful.  This may be especially valuable in sight of the housing downturn in your area and subsequent inventory surpluses you may be dealing with.  Any surplus inventory you give to the termites will largely be metabolized by the termites, and therefore decrease in volume.  From a practical  point of view, a termite nest can perform in your lumber yard the task it performs in nature; that of a recycler.  At this point you can exploint the large amount of fertilizer left over and sell it.
You are in a position at which you can begin to sell natural fertilizer easily.  Consumers relate your core business to fixing homes.  You provide beams for home improvement purposes, and while that segment of the housing market is falling, the gardening market is holding up because desperate sellers will try to improve the curb appeal of their house in order to finally sell their house.  This means home sellers are improving their gardens, which involves the use of fertilizer.  As the housing downturn has affected your core business for the worse, why not hedge these losses by entering the fertilizer market?
Not only will termites reduce costs and expand your business, they will also provide excellent public relations.  Ecology is in these days; Whole Foods can charge about twice the usual price for its products solely because they are organic.  This despite any evidence the food the sell is actually better in any way.  Many consumers may want to reduce their carbon footprint.  By buying your fertilizer, they effectively stop about half of the carbon in a plank from reaching the atmosphere.  This will provide cheap and novel marketing for both your core business and your fertilizer business.
We'll be the first to acknowledge that termites pose a serious risk to wood.  They can devastate a home if left unattended for a few years.  A simple "moat" around the termite's designated space will be able to effectively stop the termites from harming the good wood.  In doing so, you will showcase your expertise in handling lumber and the confidence you have in your abilities.  You may be able to sell termite control sprays in the process.
At Intermite, we believe adopting a nest will be an excellent way to help your core lumber business.  For an up-front set-up fee of $449.00, we offer the delivery and installation and setup of a termite nest in your lumberyard.
A nest costs $450.00 plus tax.  This fee includes includes delivery and installation.  We offer related products such as custom fertilizer bags,
Regards, Intermite <comment> daniel-cussen I had fun writing this.</comment>


Scalable Datasets with Bloom Filters and Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://www.igvita.com/2008/12/27/scalable-datasets-bloom-filters-in-ruby/

<comment><USER2> It's a nice algorithmic arrow to have in your quiver. It allows you to determine if a piece of data is missing before you do an expensive lookup.

</comment><comment><USER3> And (just over a year ago) - [http://www.rubyinside.com/bloom-filters-a- powerful-tool-599....](http://www.rubyinside.com/bloom-filters-a-powerful- tool-599.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> The "Ruby" label for this article is rather misleading. It doesn't talk at all about implementation, rather just calling into a library, which is written primarily in C anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice article, but Ruby wouldn't have been my language of choice for illustrating HPC concepts.

<comment><USER6> Why ever not? If you're writing an application in Ruby, you're going to need the fastest algorithms on the block to make up for the interpreter's less than optimal performance. I would think that Ruby (and other dynamic script languages) need this type of technique more than just about any other environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice tutorial! Nice and easy to read.</comment>


MIT's Soft Robotic Fish Explores Reefs in Fiji - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/mit-soft-robotic-fish-explores-reefs-in-fiji <comment><USER2> This is completely flippant to say, since I've never built anything like this and don't understand the complexity behind it, but I'm surprised at how awkwardly it looks swimming. It's clear to my eyes that it's not a real fish.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if other fish will interpret it as injured and attempt to eat it :)

<comment><USER4> It's doubtful - it's swimming _more_ powerfully than other fish, not less. It's why it looks so odd to humans - the tail strokes are far too heavy. Fish have a lot more subtlety in their own.

<comment><USER5> But the fact that it spends more energy, and it is less efficient, should be interpreted as a sign that something is wrong, isn't it? The gestures are powerful but the fish does not advance a lot.

Limping on one leg is a more extenuant exercise _precisely_ because you need (and show) more power (and that is less sustainable). I don't think a lion would see it as a warning signal!

<comment><USER6> I know next to nothing about submarine dynamics, but I am an RC plane pilot, and it looks to me like this fish swims in a constant stall. If it was a plane, I'd be inclined to say that its center of gravity was too far back.

The video states that it can control its own bouyancy, yet it looks like it's constantly fighting to swim level instead of sinking. If it could achieve a neutral bouyancy then I bet it would glide along much more like a real fish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A short list of the other attempts on bio-inspired underwater robots:

* Fish [https://seagrant.mit.edu/publications/MITSG_00-4J.pdf](https://seagrant.mit.edu/publications/MITSG_00-4J.pdf) * Octopus [https://phys.org/news/2015-04-octopus-inspired-robotthe-fast...](https://phys.org/news/2015-04-octopus-inspired-robotthe-fastest-underwater-robot.html) * Snake [https://eelume.com/](https://eelume.com/) * Jellyfish [http://www.emdl.mse.vt.edu/projects/alex.html](http://www.emdl.mse.vt.edu/projects/alex.html) * Manta Ray [https://www.usnews.com/news/news/articles/2017-12-04/singapo...](https://www.usnews.com/news/news/articles/2017-12-04/singapore-researchers-underwater-robot-inspired-by-manta-ray)

</comment><comment><USER8> There's lots of very interesting research in this area inspired by biology. Check out [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~glauder/FishRoboticsLaude...](http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~glauder/FishRoboticsLauderHarvard.htm)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a little amusing how the controller is a super nes controller

</comment><comment><USER10> The paper on this provides a lot of interesting insight: [https://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/wiki/images/a/a5/Hydraulic_...](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/wiki/images/a/a5/Hydraulic_Autonomous_Soft_Fish- RKatzschmann_AMarchese_DRus_Final_Submission.pdf)

<comment><USER11> CSAIL has published some other papers[1] on the fish-bot which look interesting, too.

1: [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/wiki/index.php?title=Soft_Ro...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/wiki/index.php?title=Soft_Robotics#Soft_Robotic_Fish)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The video mentions that the controller uses ultrasonic signals to communicate. I wonder if those signals would disturb the other fish, negating the "neutral observer" aspect of the project.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like that it has a "fish-eye" camera in the front

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope larger fish don't get confused and attempt to eat these robots.

So I wonder what are the biggest predators that live near these reefs.. and how they are able to identify prey.

<comment><USER15> Reefs attract some fairly large predators. Barracuda, various sharks, grouper, moray eels, among others. All can get to well over a meter, or a couple meters in some cases.

<comment><USER16> Sharks prefer colder waters. It's more likely destroyed by trigger fish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They need to put as much stabilisation on that camera as they can.

Pretty cool otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's pretty interesting

</comment><comment><USER19> I want one.</comment>


Things Computers Can Never Do [1987] - <AUTHOR> http://www.efgh.com/math/impossible.htm

<comment><USER2> but what about the singularity?</comment>


Demon Core: The Strange Death of Physicist Louis Slotin - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/demon-core-the-strange-death-of-louis-slotin?mbid=social_twitter <comment><USER2> Sounds like 'normalisation of deviance': when something is dangerous but has previously been done without incident, so it becomes standard procedure. NASA has some guidelines on eliminating it from your practices and systems: [https://sma.nasa.gov/docs/default-source/safety- messages/saf...](https://sma.nasa.gov/docs/default-source/safety- messages/safetymessage-normalizationofdeviance-2014-11-03b.pdf?sfvrsn=4)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I would go that far. Some considered Slotin's methods dangerous: 'Enrico Fermi himself had warned Slotin that he would be "dead within a year" if he continued'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Depiction of the accident in the film "Fat Man and Little Boy": [https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFPio2PeQc&t=6m24s](https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFPio2PeQc&t=6m24s)

Scary.

<comment><USER5> There is a fact-based dramatization of the incident on the Dark Matters TV show. Look for Season 2, Episode 4:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPFhKUt245E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPFhKUt245E) (Edited video source)

<comment><USER6> Link with exact time: [https://youtu.be/HPFhKUt245E?t=1625](https://youtu.be/HPFhKUt245E?t=1625)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speaking of criticality accidents... apparently Feynman had to convince a army colonel that the team doing the 235U enrichment at Oak Ridge _need to be informed about the physics_ of what they were working with. Had he been unsuccessful, a much larger criticality "excursion" would have happened.

In the setup/practice runs of the enrichment facility they were using big carboys to move uranium nitrate solution. Nobody told them that water (as a moderator) would significantly amplify the chain reaction! According to Feynman, "...the plant would never work, it would have blown up - I swear it would've."[1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTRVlUT665U#t=2106](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTRVlUT665U#t=2106)

<comment><USER8> And indeed, many of the criticality accidents listed on the Wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident) happened while handling fissile material in solution.

There is a very interesting book on criticality accidents, which includes photographs and sketches on laboratory layout etc.: McLaughlin, T.P., Monahan, S.P., Pruvost, N.L., Frolov, V.V., Ryazanov, B.G. and Sviridov, V.I., 2000. A review of criticality accidents 2000 revision (No. LA-13638). Los Alamos National Lab., NM (US). [https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf](https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that great reference!

Another worthwhile read is "Nuclear Accidents" by James Mahaffey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always found it interesting that only one person died in each "Demon Core" incident, despite the burst of radiation being so intense that it caused the blue flash. Mind you, many of the survivors suffered health problems that were likely caused by the incidents later in life: [http://www.orau.org/ptp/pdf/accidentsurvivorslanl.pdf](http://www.orau.org/ptp/pdf/accidentsurvivorslanl.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Interestingly the blue flash was caused by electrons, which had been excited by the radiation, transitioning back to a lower energy state and giving off photons!

The reason people survived is because radiation from a source falls off by the inverse square law, so as long as you have a small source and a short burst of radiation, distance is great. It's more surprising to me that they didn't use more remote devices for these kinds of experiments.

<comment><USER12> >> It's more surprising to me that they didn't use more remote devices for these kinds of experiments.

They did, but these also caused accidents. See the Lady Godiva device: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godiva_device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godiva_device)

 _Otto Frisch received a larger than intended dose of radiation when leaning over the original Lady Godiva device for a couple of seconds. He noticed that the red lamps (that normally would flicker intermittently when neutrons were being emitted) were 'glowing continuously'. Frisch's body had reflected some neutrons back to the device, causing it to go critical, and it was only by quickly leaning back and away from the device and removing a couple of the uranium blocks that Frisch escaped harm but, he said, "if I had hesitated for another two seconds before removing the material ... the dose would have been fatal". On 3 February 1954 and 12 February 1957, accidental criticality excursions occurred causing damage to the device, but fortunately only insignificant exposures to personnel. This original Godiva device was irreparable after the second accident and was replaced by the Godiva II._

If I understand this correctly (the closest I got to being a nuclear phycisist is having met an astrophycisist once) this happened during the setup of an experiment. I think normally the experiments with this device were sort of automated (they dropped a rod between two masses, so gravity killed the reaction quickly).

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Recorded_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Recorded_incidents)]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Follow-up analysis: "The blue flash" by Alex Wellerstein

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue- flash/](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue-flash/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd seen from a lot of other sources that the demon core was used in Crossroads Able, which also caused hearings and investigations due to it being dropped a significant distance from its intended point. Anyone have any better proof one way or another to say for certain what the Demon Core's fate was?

<comment><USER15> Alex Wellerstein just made a blog post which elaborates on how he knew it was melted down. Apparently the source is personal communication with Glenn McDuff, a retired scientist at Los Alamos.

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue- flash/](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue-flash/)

<comment><USER14> Thanks. That definitely sheds more light, even though I will admit I have some partiality to the romantic notion that it was jinxed even in its last excursion into criticality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazing that it working on that stuff was an individual experiment, with your hands in the mix!

<comment><USER17> People knew in general far less about the effects of ionizing radiation at the time --- you could even say Slotin's death was one of the datapoints that lead to better understanding.

<comment><USER18> I just finished watching the TV series Manhattan, about the Manhattan project. It was supposedly written with help from historians and physicists who know their stuff. This reminded me of one of their plot points that seemed realistic - a character suffered a potentially dangerous exposure, and the base doctor, feeling out of his depth, tries to reach out to somebody who knows better. After a few hours of chasing bureaucracy and secrecy, he eventually discovers that the official expert is listed as himself! There really isn't anybody who has any idea how exposure affected people, and they're just pushing ahead anyways because it's wartime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It was, even by the standards of the day, incredibly careless.

<comment><USER4> I've been thinking the same, but might it be that being in such a hurry made them choose not to device a safer experimental setup?

<comment><USER19> No, and there had already been an accident with this very core. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian_Jr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian_Jr). Sadly, there was no good reason for this, just a young cocky guy. Not a bad man, and we've all made stupid choices, but his sadly was a bit historically significant.

<comment><USER20> I like the adage, "We all start with a bag of luck, filled, and a bag of experience, empty.

The trick is to fill your bag of experience up before your bag of luck runs out -- ie. when your bag of luck runs out, you die. Most people have a couple events in their life where they almost died -- of course we know we should have never made those choices -- but its easier said now that we have the experience knowing we got "lucky." :-)

<comment><USER19> I've never heard it put that way, but I've had this conversation with friends before, "Hey, remember when we almost died doing 'X'?" You're right, absolutely right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Slotin instructed one of his colleagues to lay radioactivity-detecting film > badges around the area, which required the scientist to go dangerously close > to the still overheated core.

Many managers and coworkers are so unthinking about their coworkers' health. Even without plutonium.

<comment><USER22> That part didn't make sense to me. Why does it stay more radioactive for a period of time after the accident? The pieces are separated - shouldn't it return to it's previous state? .I can understand it heating up (though can't you just cool it down mechanically?) but that's not really the same

<comment><USER23> Because lots if not most of the fission products are themselves very unstable, and will be decaying towards more stable isotopes in due course. I doubt this radioactivity was a fraction as dangerous as the criticality excursion he caused (and I'm sure he wasn't in a normal frame of mind after his screwup, which I'm sure he knew could eventually kill him), so it's a hopefully moderate at worst personal harm vs. unique opportunity to collect data trade off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >> various items that were near the core—a bristle brush, _an empty Coca-Cola bottle_ , a hammer, a measuring tape.

:groan:</comment>


GitHub Co-Founder Responds to Harassment Allegations: "We Have Work to Do." - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/03/17/github-co-founder-responds-to-harassment-allegations-we-have-work-to-do/

<comment><USER2> Blogspam dupe of [https://github.com/blog/1800-update-on-julie-horvath-s- depar...](https://github.com/blog/1800-update-on-julie-horvath-s-departure)

HN comments (with hundreds of votes) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7412612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7412612)</comment>


More Men Enter Fields Dominated by Women - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/business/increasingly-men-seek-success-in-jobs-dominated-by-women.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a different twist to all the discrimination and related discussions on the gender in the workplace topic.

"The way I look at it," Mr. Alquicira explained, without a hint of awareness that he was turning the tables on a time-honored feminist creed, "is that anything, basically, that a woman can do, a guy can do."</comment>


Did President Obama just order the government to study video game violence? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/did-president-obama-just-order-the-government-to-study-video-game-violence/ <comment><USER2> As someone who loves playing violent/FPS games, I'd say he's being reasonable. From the article:

In the more than 3,000 words President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden uttered during their nationally televised address today, only 16 dealt with video games in any way. Here are those words, highlighted in the context of the speech:

And while year after year, those who oppose even modest gun safety measures have threatened to de-fund scientific or medical research into the causes of gun violence, I will direct the Centers for Disease Control to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it. And Congress should fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds. We don't benefit from ignorance. We don't benefit from not knowing the science of this epidemic of violence.

This section of the speech refers to the fourteenth of 23 proposed executive actions Obama introduced today, regarding an "end [to] the freeze on gun violence research."

<comment><USER3> I feel like this joke quote provides some wider context

"Scientists baffled by Canadians' ability to watch movies, play video games and not shoot each other"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's definitely worth studying. I'm not sure I've seen any real data on the subject. Just lots of extreme opinions from people convinced they do cause violence and those who believe they do not. Chances are the truth is somewhere in the middle. My guess is they will conclude there are certain individuals with existing psychological problems who are very influenced by video game violence. If they can be identified it may be possible to educate parents about the risks. Are there any doctors who are even looking for this type of thing now? Does a doctor ever suggest to parents they should limit exposure to violent video games/entertainment because their child happens to be in a high risk group? Maybe they do I honestly don't know.

<comment><USER5> There was a lot of experimental psychology research in the last fifteen years or so in this field. It generally concluded that exposure increased some measured antisocial behaviors and decreased some prosocial behaviors, but whether that translates into actual aggression against others is unclear.

A longitudinal study following about 1500 children for three years was recently published that claims "sustained violent video game play was significantly related to steeper increases in adolescents' trajectory of aggressive behavior over time."[1] Again, whether this translates into real world violence is unclear.

[1]Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. C., & Good, M. (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1044-1057. doi:10.1037/a0026046

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love video games, both violent and non-violent. I'm not afraid of having rigorous scientific study of any links between video game violence and real violence.

Related: if violence in the real world were caused by popular media, wouldn't we have seen a spike in archery attacks last year? Between Brave and the Hunger Games and the Avengers and Skyrim, bows were _everywhere_.

<comment><USER7> > wouldn't we have seen a spike in archery attacks last year?

But there has been an increase in people taking up archery.

You seem to be missing the point though. People who commit mass killings are trying to kill as many people as possible before they are caught. Bows are ill-suited for this purpose.

<comment><USER8> Anecdotally, there _has_ been an increase in people taking up archery. I know several friends who have gotten into it primarily because of The Hunger Games' glorification of it.

Google seems to suggest an increase in interest, as well: <http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=archery>

<comment><USER9> I remember reading (although I can't seem to find the reference) that there was an increase in med schools registrations when the tv show House began. If there is such an influence is there a way to use it for good purposes, like funding games and tv shows that could raise interest in issues, while still being actual games and tv shows that are worth playing and watching?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for Obama for exhuming the world's most boring debate. Again, evidence will appear inconclusive and even if it does or does not have a warping effect on children, there is already a good regulatory body in check for age classifications.

It is very easy to blame these things, but finding out how parents can be better educated and supported in communicating and dealing with problem children (which does include not buying them violent video games they are too young for) seems to be more of an important question. of course this is always going to be a no-no for conservatives since any solutions are almost certainly going to mean an increase in tax.

</comment><comment><USER11> Let's assume the absolute worst: video games have caused mass shootings. Do we ban video games?

<comment><USER7> I personally don't think so. But it could just mean adjusting ratings and making sure that proof of age is required when purchasing classified content.

I think everyone would agree that certain types of content should not be available until you have reached a certain level of maturity.

<comment><USER12> >But it could just mean adjusting ratings and making sure that proof of age is required when purchasing classified content.

For the government to do that would entail amending the constitution, since SCOTUS has already ruled that doing so violates the First Amendment.

<comment><USER13> Various exceptions to freedom of speech have been upheld by the Supreme Court; this constitutional right is not absolute. If significant new research results appeared, it would not be surprising if the court to revisited the issue to consider whether another exception is warranted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The main problem I see is if there is a demonstrable correlation between real- life violence and video game violence, it'd be very difficult to tell which proceeded the other. I would think, for instance, that those predisposed to violence would be more likely to enjoy the violent aspects of video games.

The media's claims that the secluded white guy who shot up a school did it because they played violent games is ridiculous (for instance, I'd say a good 95% of secluded white guys played counter strike when I was at school - perhaps they also enjoy eating food and listening to music), but I don't think that we, as gamers, should be so averse to studies being done as to the potential effects of video game violence.

There is a habit (obviously not unique to gamers) of dismissing any studies they disagree with as being 'inconclusive' or having 'stupid methods', while shouting the results of studies that we agree with from the rooftops.

<comment><USER15> Studies like this can be valuable and useful. However, we need to be careful to use the scientific method in interpreting results and remember that correlation does not imply causation.

My main concern around studies like this is that the media outlets (and many people in society) don't apply scientific method and want to draw conclusions from such studies regardless of cause-effect scenarios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yes and it was a direct response to the NRA. He intends to use this as a means to deflate their arguments on the whole gun control debate. My guess is that the study will come back saying games aren't the cause of violence. The public will breath a sign of relief and then he'll continue with the proposal. The NRA's argument will be invalidated and he'll use their words against them to win the debate. Man, I don't agree with most of his policies, but Obama is one smart cookie.

Ohh, and I hate politicians. Nothing about the above has anything to do with the good of the nation. Where's the study into the state of mental health care in the US? Sigh...

</comment><comment><USER17> If he really wants to get serious, look at movie ratings and what is shown on TV not video games. TV pervades more houses and influences from an earlier age than video games. If being exposed to violent media is the hypothesis, limit the amount of violence on television (and from movies).

R and PG-13 movies with lots of violence run all the time on cable television with little to no settings to limit it. Unfortunately, the people who like the status quo for films and television have large amounts of political sway and would rather deflect towards video games instead of revising their beloved MPAA ratings.

<comment><USER7> Video games are interactive. TVs are not. Now I am not a behavioural psychologist so I don't know to what extent interactivity affects changes in behaviour. I doubt you do either.

That is why studies are important.

<comment><USER18> While TVs are not interactive, when you watch TV your mind goes into passive mode and absorbs what it sees. I agree, studies (careful studies) are needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's all a huge distraction from solving our real problems. It's made to order for a politician. Something emotionally charged that can consume attention, so our real problems which would require real leadership can be kicked down the road or under the carpet for a while longer.

<comment><USER20> Guns don't kill people. People kill people. There is a need to understand what causes certain crazy individuals to kill large numbers of people. Research into these causes, such as studying the effects of violent video games, would seem warranted. Even if we ban military assault weapons & require background checks on every gun purchase, the violent acts might still remain. Take for example the 2011 shooting in Norway, a country where guns are banned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yes, he did. Without solid research, it's far too easy for movies/TV/video games to get blamed for gun violence. It's a brilliant move as he's not saying if the NRA's claims that video games are to blame is true or not. He's just saying let's figure it out and go from there.

For the purposes of moving forward with the debate on gun safety, I think it's great to apply the scientific process and see what it says. Based on the results it may open up a rabbit hole around censorship, but at least we'll have some solid research to read on it. I suspect the initial research could point to follow up studies that would pinpoint specific factors that we as a society should be concerned about, rather than just "violence in video games".

I honestly have no idea what they'll find, but I'd wager that if there is a link that there are specific triggers or contextual combinations that make them a concern. The good news if that happens is that as an industry we can address those specific things rather than doing all out bans.

<comment><USER22> Who's pocket are these researchers in though?

<comment><USER23> Good studies document their methodology so the conclusions can be replicated by independent researchers. The peer review process is not immune from failure, but overall it works very well. It's not the case that researchers in general simply sell their conclusions to the highest bidder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how sincere the US government is at wanting to end violence, when at the same time it nurtures the largest military in the world -- a military which has managed to kill the most people since WW2.

It also has one of the largest police forces and prison industries in the world, for whom violence is a very useful tool.

I'm not sure if the US government wants to end violence so much as monopolize it.

Nurturing violent tendencies in people can be quite useful to the US government, as long as those people can be persuaded to use their violence upon command, and at targets of the government's choice.

<comment><USER25> Really? You don't think that is a bit of a stretch? You think people in the White House cabinet are sitting around thinking about how theu can instill and nurture violence in people so they can have "kill bots" in the military? You've got to be joking -- that's tin foil hat stuff.

Besides, the military has a pretty straightforward program for training civilians to be soldiers, it's not this great big conspiracy as you suggest.

<comment><USER24> I recommend reading Dave Grossman's book _On Killing_.[1]

From the blurb:

 _"The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young._

 _Upon its initial publication, ON KILLING was hailed as a landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence. Now, Grossman has updated this classic work to include information on 21st-century military conflicts, recent trends in crime, suicide bombings, school shootings, and more. The result is a work certain to be relevant and important for decades to come."_

[1] - [http://www.amazon.com/On-Killing-Psychological-Learning- Soci...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Killing-Psychological-Learning- Society/dp/0316040932)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Remember, in the 1950's comic books were blamed for violence.

</comment><comment><USER27> While we should shy from studying anything, someone should first explain how the modern, massive expansion of video games in realism and reach doesn't correlate with overall increases in violent crimes. Both violent crime and homicide rates in the US have been in decline since the early 1990's. If correlation isn't causation, anti-correlation should have a much higher bar for causation.

<comment><USER28> Also, while I don't have any statistics on hand, I suspect the portion of the population playing video games has risen drastically since the early 1990s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is just poppycock, Obama may be playing into the hands of the NRA here. Why don't we study effects of religion. I suspect more minds have been influenced to kill because of religion than Call of Duty, thanks for playing though.

Honestly, these tragedies are no reason to overreact and reduce freedoms. I don't think there is much evidence that these rampage shootings have precursors in movies and video games. They seem to be related to delusions and mental illness. Look at Lanza, Gabbie Giffords shooter, Virginia Tech, and Holmes, all clearly mentally ill. There was a school shooter named Luke Woodham, very ill. Besides rampage shooters, gun violence occurs in concert with other crimes related to drugs, domestic altercations, etc.

I don't think we should take this film and game link seriously. Of all the gamers, there are so few rampage shooters and probably a small percentage of then are even "gamers." It's hard to take seriously.

</comment><comment><USER29> Those rejoicing that we are going to have new gun laws to ban guns, better think again when they also make new laws to ban violent video games, movies, and TV shows.</comment>


Ask HN: Which licence should I use for my code? - <AUTHOR> So, working with university professors, I wish to open source the project, but I am unsure of which license to use. MIT or Apache or GNU?<p>Any advice would seriously help. <comment><USER2> If you're publishing on behalf of the university then you should run it by their legal department.

I work for a Danish municipality and we use all three licenses. We're moving most things from MIT to Apache because we were adviced it was safer, and we only really slap GNU on things where we absolutely don't want it showing up on the market.</comment>


Harmony OS and Compatibility - <AUTHOR> http://commonsware.com/blog/2019/08/10/harmony-compatibility.html <comment><USER2> > Simply making an operating system open source is insufficient on its own to > guarantee success. If it were, Ubuntu Phone and Firefox OS would be > significant players. Unfortunately, neither "crossed the chasm", in part due > to lack of manufacturer and carrier support.

Actually FirefoxOS pretty much has "crossed the chasm". It's just that that happened after Mozilla abandoned it and KaiOS took it over. They've shipped 100M units. [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/kaios-raises-50m-more- hits...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/kaios-raises-50m-more- hits-100m-handsets-powered-by-its-feature-phone-os/) Weird that a mobile- focused developer site would miss this.

It's true that Huawei open-sourcing HarmonyOS is no guarantee of success, but that's a bit obvious.

<comment><USER3> Earlier in the same article, they quote "Huawei will need to solve the biggest hole in the adoption of Harmony OS: the app ecosystem".

I think that's part of what they're talking about when they say these others never crossed the chasm.

And, yes, KaiOS has crossed the chasm, but I don't see:

\- that being open source helped with carrier deals and hence adoption, or

\- that they've solved the app ecosystem issue

<comment><USER4> Having official apps for WhatsApp, FB, GMaps, Youtube, Google Voice Assistant, Twitter helps a lot with the ecosystem part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not a mobile developer nor am I a web developer but can't Huawei base their apps on web apps?

That would mean they could port any web app from IOS or android to Harmony OS as long as there are no native bindings as react native has. Eventually they can incorporate webassembly when that really gets of the ground.

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't be very battery (or other resource) friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Android and iPhone app stores are already saturated. The app store for HarmonyOS isn't. This could be a good opportunity for new mobile app developers.

<comment><USER8> The same thing has been told referring to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace though

<comment><USER9> This OS, if it's anh good, should at least have the Chinese market locked up though. Which is a few hundred million users.

If it's good, and Huawei follows up on making it truly open source, I suspect every Chinese manufacturer would at least have a line of Harmony OS phones, because they could always be the next trade war target.

And once the Chinese manufacturers are supporting it, you can also add a huge chunk of the South and South East Asian markets as your customer base as well, since a lot of users in those areas basically just buy the latest Xiaomi or Huawei phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of all the efforts at an alternative mobile OS so far, Harmony OS seems to have the best chances of success, because it is backed up by the Chinese state and its pervasive surveillance apparatus. With government help and full integration into the total surveillance of all Chinese citizens, they can get their share of the Chinese market and break the application barrier.

<comment><USER11> As if Google and Apple don't have to obey the wishes of FBI, CIA, NSA,... regarding "making the world safer".

<comment><USER10> The US doesn't have a citizen score, political re-education camps, Tiananmen Square massacre, widespread censorship (like disconnecting a phone when you say a certain word), filtering of all foreign content and blocking of sites like Wikipedia or New York Times, BBC News, massive displacements and forced re-settlements, a vast number of political prisoners, massive squelching of protests and demonstrations (right now, there are videos of large troop movements towards Hong Kong), and so on. Not to speak of Tibet...

Anyway, my point was not primarily meant political, it was more that Huawei has good chances of succeeding with this OS, because they are backed up and supported by the Chinese government. That's true even if you are 100% pro Chinese one-party government.

<comment><USER11> You mean like Guantanamo?

Or the ones managed by CIA outside American borders to do it more cleanly?

<comment><USER12> Guantanamo is bad, no question. But there's a chasm between holding 800 foreign nationals (and, from time to time, traitorous Americans) and rounding up millions of ethnic minorities for re-education based on their race, religion, or politics. If you looked up false equivalence in the dictionary, this would be Exhibit A.

<comment><USER11> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haska_Meyna_wedding_party_ai...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haska_Meyna_wedding_party_airstrike)

<comment><USER12> Moving the goalposts isn't helpful; let's skip to the end. I'm no believer in American Exceptionalism. I've read A People's History, I'm pretty familiar with the crisis of mass incarceration and the general failure of our criminal justice system, I'm well-informed about widespread domestic surveillance and espionage programs, and I'm deeply cynical about US foreign policy as a whole.

But even someone like me has to admit that the US is closer to a free state than China. Here's why I think that:

\- Our court system is constantly in the throes of "freedom" vs. "tyranny" (lots of judges disagree with _Citizens United_ , for example.

\- We have a free press that is _constantly_ critical of our president and government.

\- I can be critical of our president and government with absolutely no repercussions from my government.

\- We give billions in foreign aid.

\- We still accept tons of asylum and immigration applications \- In fact many of our cities are "sanctuary cities" for immigrants

\- We celebrate the history of Americans who have fought for fundamental freedoms and civil rights

\- We are the most diverse nation on the planet, and many of us are intensely proud of it.

\- We have free elections.

      - Don't @ me about election problems; they're still nothing like the fraudulent elections in Russia/China/etc.

\- We have healthy opposition parties.

\- We actually believe the US is a work in progress, not "perfect as it is" (see: "a more perfect union").

Sure there's a lot of work to do. And I'm sympathetic to the fact that China and Russia face different challenges than we do. But I absolutely refuse to accept the assertion that the US is anywhere near the same point on the authoritarian spectrum as they are. Such comparisons are facile, ignorant, and reinforce a nihilistic vision of Western, classically liberal values that is at the root of the rise of nationalism and authoritarianism -- which is itself responsible for the destruction of many millions of lives across the world. These things are not the same, any more than Democrats and Republicans are the same. One is clearly better than the other, and it is literally a matter of life and death that we figure that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If only Huawei devices will use it, it's doomed. I've said it before and got downvoted, but here's the truth again: Android's app ecosystem is what makes it popular, followed by the huge number of manufacturers using it.

Microsoft failure with Windows Phone was partly because even after incentivizing developers, they still could not get a critical mass of apps on their platform. Plus any new apps were not getting WP versions along with Android/iOS.

Huawei is huge, but not outside China, for consumers. Couple that with everyone being wary of their spyware and whatnot. Samsung tried this at some point with Tizen, but quickly gave up, as well.

<comment><USER14> > Microsoft failure with Windows Phone was partly because even after > incentivizing developers, they still could not get a critical mass of apps > on their platform. Plus any new apps were not getting WP versions along with > Android/iOS.

My thoughts exactly. For the Chinese market everything might work out just fine, as the article says. But for the west, as soon as one or two killer apps won't get ported, it's game over. I think Google never did for Windows phone, which probably did play an important role (among the many other mistakes made. Microsoft didn't exactly make it easy to jump into app development, probably due to arrogance.)

If harmony doesn't get YouTube, Facebook, Spotify or Snapchat, it doesn't matter how great the OS is under the hood.

<comment><USER9> Other than YouTube, all the other apps have a vested interest in seeing a new competitor to Google controlled Android.

If Harmony OS is a decent and open OS, I suspect they will all jump onto it.

The only concern may be Google apps, but then, it's possible that Google may also create Harmony OS supported apps so they can access the Chinese market.

<comment><USER14> That's a good point, but it's also a hen and egg problem. If the platform isn't that widespread you might be hesitant to support it. (assuming it's not actually super easy to port over Android apps as suggested).

While Windows phone definitely was a very different platform from both IOS and Android, it was still amazing how shoddy some major players' apps ran on it. Stability, performance and features were often lacking. The tools, documentation and lack of sample code was definitely to blame, but even then you still need to learn a new platform.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Top events for Startups in Europe you can't miss in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.itgenerator.com/top-10-events-for-startups-in-europe-you-cant-miss-in-2019/ <comment><USER2> You can't credibly leave out Slush!</comment>