Why I dislike the rem unit (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://vasilis.nl/nerd/dislike-rem-unit/ <comment><USER2> 1\. Rem does not need a fallback [1]

2\. Rem works awesome for making default font sizing. (like a normalize in a way) [2]

3\. Rem allows us to use a sort of centralized sorta relative sizing that percentage and em just do not fulfill.

Rem is awesome, I think this guy just can't get passed the "it's new and so I don't like it" problem.

[1] [https://caniuse.com/#search=rem](https://caniuse.com/#search=rem)

[2] [https://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/font-size-with- rem](https://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/font-size-with-rem)

<comment><USER3> > Rem is awesome, I think this guy just can't get passed the "it's new and so > I don't like it" problem.

Maybe he has... the article is 7 years old, after all.

<comment><USER4> I was about to chastise him for horizontal scrolling, but it's a personal blog written years ago. Guess I can ease up. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think many of these don't apply today (bugs, fallback support, flexibility.) My current project uses (almost) entirely rem and em units, and it is so much cleaner and easier to manage than the alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER6> This blog is written very pleasantly, but is giving advice about sizing units while being two screens wide on my phone and having no right margin. Shrug

</comment><comment><USER7> Come on guys, I thought it was about radiation!

<comment><USER8> I was like, yeah and sieverts aren't much better! We need a more human radiation unit. Like probably one based on multiples of average daily or yearly background radiation doses from cosmic rays, radon, etc.

What's more useful? The tritiated water from Fukushima increases your radiation by 0.6 uSv/yr!

vs. the tritiated water from Fukushima increases your radiation by 1/1000th of your normal natural background dose!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. I dislike this blog. If you have a large resolution you get this thin line down the right hand side of your screen.

<comment><USER10> and if you're on a mobile device you have to scroll horizontally to read the paragraph

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Unfortunately rems are not supported on certain (older) browsers.

Poor argument, especially since IE9 supports them, and IE shouldn't be supported anyway. I suppose people needed to back in 2013.

> With the rem unit we have a problem though. Since all font-sizes are > relative to the root element, the font-size: 90%; rule is completely > ignored. We now have to recalculate and override every font-declaration in > the aside to get the same result. Spaghetti is wonderful as lunch or dinner, > but not as code.

At this point, I question whether it's even necessary to use percentages for font sizes deeper in the DOM than the root element. Unless the font is going to change at any given viewport width, it's easier to just write the font sizes for every screen breakpoint you have. I don't know why developers/designers make things unnecessarily difficult. Most web designs don't necessitate this kind of complexity.

> The rem unit is buggy

This was fixed years ago. Try it yourself in today's Chrome.

> Another reason why some people prefer rem over em is because inheritance is > hard. I always tell these people they're doing it wrong.

No they're not. They're using rem to properly support the user's right to set the font size in their browser preferences and have it actually work on a webpage. They're not using em because they probably don't need it. If they didn't care about the user's font preferences, they'd probably use px because it's easier for everyone to understand.

> The inheritance problem occurs when we nest a p in a li. The p will now be > 1.2 × 1.2 = 14.4 pixels. This is too big. To make sure that a p in a li is > 12 pixels too we now have to write extra, increasingly complex code:

So don't do that. Write your font sizes explicitly for each element, whether it's px or rem.

Even better if you use a preprocessor like SCSS that supports variables and mixins, which makes it even simpler to implement "flexible" font sizes without the insanity of making font sizes in elements relative to other parent elements. Even CSS variables that are now becoming ubiquitous help solve these problems.

Despite those things, I still insist it's possible to avoid these headaches by just not going the em route. They're rarely necessary.

</comment><comment><USER12> The age of the article says a lot; but I think there are overuses of rem, even today, where it's used for dimensions (width, height, padding, margins) which is not a good idea. Especially when mixed with containing elements that use a mix of em & px units. Where for a while sites were using em & rem, using viewport-percentage lengths is more apprpriate for _both_ font-sizes and dimensions.

And for what it's worth Variable Fonts are a game changer that didn't exist 7 years ago (along with a whole bunch of new standards and capabilities that make typography and layout so different today), which makes me wish there was a timeline view of all the W3C standards.

What's interesting is that the blog for that article uses a theme with a lot of that new stuff: css vars, flex box, margins & paddings with vh, calc, css grid, font properties that probably aren't widely supported — so @supports is cool to see, and wait for … it:

max-width: calc(30rem * 2);

rem units

It looks like this is the Author's own theme:

[https://vasilis.nl/nerd/wp-content/themes/nerd- mississippi/s...](https://vasilis.nl/nerd/wp-content/themes/nerd- mississippi/style.css?1558868656)

It seems like it had to have been updated since the article, so indeed maybe he's softened on rem, if not ...

Why use rem if you don't like it & why use it for 2 max-width declarations? There are a lot of % based dimensions so why not stick with that?

I'm not trying to judge, but the if the author created the theme for code consistency and writing consistency that should get cleaned up.

There's also some neat bleeding edg stuff like this:

h1 { font-family: "Mississippi Regular", impact, serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15vw; font-size: calc(2em + 14vw); line-height: .7; margin: 0; position: relative; font-size-adjust: .42; }

Where those two font-size declarations provide a responsive size where calc is supported … But if you're using @supports in some places that's great to use everywhere, for example he uses it here:

@supports (font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures) { body { font-feature- settings: normal; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; } }

At some point font-variant-ligatures might be widely supported & using something like postcss could let you purge or optimize that automatically & if manually maintained rules like that just stick out do the road.

Rem is awesome, CSS can be painstakingly difficult to keep up with.

</comment><comment><USER13> How does sizing by pixel work when pixels are wildly different in size. As a designer why do I want text to be half the size for someone on a high resolution screen?

<comment><USER11> A pixel doesn't represent a hardware pixel.

[https://mindtheshift.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/r-i-p-rem- viva...](https://mindtheshift.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/r-i-p-rem-viva-css- reference-pixel/)

So knowing about the existence of the reference pixel, as someone who isn't a designer, I don't see why text would have to be half size on a high resolution screen. I've seen images targeted to pixel density, but fonts are vector so it doesn't seem necessary. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER13> Wow so a pixel is actually a unit of angle, defined from _inches_ of all units!

<comment><USER14> Only the css reference pixel. In other contexts a pixel is a point sample with no size

<comment><USER13> > a pixel is a point sample with no size

They have pitches. When people talk about their size they mean the pitch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This guy sure does love Em-elia</comment>


Jamie Dimon Slams Bitcoin as a 'Fraud' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-12/jpmorgan-s-ceo-says-he-d-fire-traders-who-bet-on-fraud-bitcoin <comment><USER2> _Dimon compares bitcoin to tulip mania, predicting a collapse

Still, he says, it's a good option for murderers, drug dealers_

An unbiased, balanced outlook.

Meanwhile, fewer and fewer people can afford a whole coin.

I think now would be a nice time to buy. The best time is after a crash, so articles like this are usually a leading indicator that we may be bottoming out of the current slide.

Even if Bitcoin is nothing more than tulip mania, tulip mania caused a vast transfer of wealth. You won't lose if you don't play, but you won't win anything either.

If you think it's going to continue going down, put some money on that! It's pretty easy to put in a short sell and test your hypothesis. But people tend to ignore that.

<comment><USER3> Why is now "a nice time to buy"? What is underlying value that makes the current price attractive? I'm really curious to know

<comment><USER4> Bitcoin's value just tanked a whole bunch because China's halted trading at its cryptocurrency exchanges. I think it's plummeted by a good 20% or something in the last few days. People are guessing that the value of Bitcoin will come back up, so they think it's a good time to buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Fraud"? Like he's one to talk:

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/07/jp- morgan-b...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/07/jp-morgan- bernie-madoff-settlement-fine)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/business/dealbook/jpmorga...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/business/dealbook/jpmorgan- to-pay-307-million-for-steering-clients-to-own-funds.html)

[https://consumerist.com/2016/01/05/jpmorgan-chase- fined-48-m...](https://consumerist.com/2016/01/05/jpmorgan-chase- fined-48-million-for-failing-to-comply-with-robosigning-settlement/)

<comment><USER6> Sounds like he's an expert in fraud from those links

<comment><USER5> Indeed, practically a guru of sorts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This just in, banker calls competitor a fraud. No reason to question this.

Loved his past employer's take. [https://twitter.com/agurevich23/status/907692985424371712](https://twitter.com/agurevich23/status/907692985424371712)

<comment><USER7> s/employer/employee/

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think to be fair, he said two things:

1\. There is no way governments will just let an unregulated currency take over in a meaningful way.

2\. Thus, the current Bitcoin rally is simply speculation and is being driven up by those who will profit the most from it (which is fraudulent in the way the Tulip mania was fraudulent).

I get that he's the CEO of the horse and buggy company dismissing cars, but I don't think he was that tone deaf.

</comment><comment><USER9> No comments made about why Bitcoin is a fraud, just some lazy comparisons to past speculation bubbles.

That said, I'm not really sure why Bitcoin is growing so rapidly at the moment. Part of me wonders whether it's being fueled by a bidding war to become the top trader, to have greater control over pricing of the blockchain, but that's just idle speculation, I really have no idea. If the technical issues that hold back scaling were solved, then I could understand it, but at the moment the trading behaviour just looks bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER10> Meanwhile, JP Morgan is a big investor in Ethereum, has built Quorum, the private chain version of Ethereum and is a big player in the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

But Dimon probably still would say Ethereum is a fraud too, it's strongly implied by his Bitcoin comments. He's talking about the whole cryptocurrency market, not just Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Dimon later noted that his daughter purchased some bitcoin.

<comment><USER12> a fraud or stupid, bad either way. right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know it's been discussed to death, but whatever. I like talking about cryptocurrency. Satoshi acknowledged that Bitcoin's value would need to be bootstrapped by hope and self-fulfilling prophesy. That already succeeded. Now it's a rare, conserved commodity, that is digital, and can be transmitted around the globe. Seems valuable to me on that basis alone. Supply is essentially fixed. Demand is likely to increase. Speculation will continue to add significant volatility for the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER14> Or bitcoin happens to be eating into a market which wants to effect transfers of wealth between currencies and/or nations - something which wealthy clients might normally call up a large bank to handle... an example of automation eating (finance industry) jobs?

</comment><comment><USER15> "I'm skeptical of things I don't understand."

<comment><USER16> Do you really think that Dimon doesn't understand Bitcoin? Plenty of people understand it but are sour on it, why do you assume he is ignorant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Fred Wilson when asked by a reporter about Jamie Dimon's comments said it best:

"You have to have an open mind to be able to see the future"

</comment><comment><USER18> Can we slam Jamie Dimon a fraud / contributor to the financial colapse. Why is he not in jail?

</comment><comment><USER19> of coursssssse he did....</comment>


Ask HN: Concentrate on work when you have personal problems.. - <AUTHOR>

Hi
I was just wondering if anyone has any techniques that they use to concentrate on their work/start up when their personal life is sort of a mess and the mind keep drifting to all sort of problems you have.
Cheers <comment><USER2> Hi.

I have been through this myself. It's not easy concentrating on work when something really messy has happened. I started to exercise a lot. Really pushing my body. That was good for me and kept me on the right track.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Especially running. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15769301>

Also, if you take an hour to just write it all down, often that is enough to cease rumination. Another technique is to identify what is going to change before you can _do_ something about the problem, and then when it comes to mind, remind yourself that you can do something when x happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have found that things can be distracting when you don't really have a strategy for dealing with them and have not taken any action on that strategy. So:

Step 1: Come up with a strategy (a bunch of steps to take to address the problem)...

Step 2: Take action on at least one of the steps. The more steps you take action on, the better you will feel.

Step 3: Vigorous exercise and plenty of sleep.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's probably better to stop working for a while, try to fix the problems, and back to work. But it's way too subjective I guess. For instance for me the only problems that are really problems are health problems, all the rest is for definition trivially fixable by evolving yourself or by pragmatic steps.

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree with most advice here:

a)Do Meditation and relaxation, yoga, self help books, fill your mind holes. b)Exercise regularly, this is important, if one day you don't have time to run, just go out and run for 5 minutes, but don't stop. c)Talk with friends about it.

For the kind of work I do, just putting myself to work won't help, e.g if I broke with my gf I can't help but I will be 85 per cent of my time thinking about her, or if someone of my family dies(my mind just says: F*CK THAT stupid work thing, this is more important!!.

Only when I solve the issues, I'm free, just look at Graham Chapman funeral: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ&feature=player_embedded#t=260)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're a programmer this can be troublesome because a focused mind is what is needed to be productive, whereas you could get away with many other types of work while letting your mind wander. I think the best approach depends on the type of problem(s), but many problems, like emotional ones, may need time to get better. One thing I always try to remember is that nothing lasts forever - good or bad. This can be a comfort in bad times.

A technique I use to be productive as a programmer is to try and finish a section of work in half the time. This mental demand won't let the mind wander. Promise yourself a reward at the end (such as being allowed to slack off at HN for a while ;). This works for both problems and procrastination, and can give you a positive boost for having accomplished a task. Try to break your workload (and problem solutions if possible) into smaller chunks to deal with, otherwise you can easily feel overwhelmed.

</comment><comment><USER8> I will share something which worked for me...

Take life one hour at a time... or one short goal at a time. So before leaving from home for work, I would have one goal - "I need to get to work in 45 mins", that's it, no more thought about anything else.

Once at work, I would have this short goal "I need to check my mail in the next 30 mins", then "I need to work on this bug or feature for the next hour"... and so on.

This kept me on track without letting my mind get caught up in the problems, and become numb.

I also took 1 hour vacations... where I would go on an hour long drive to some nice place away from the city, and listen to music. It helped me refresh my spirits.

HTH.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> First, thank you for all the tips. They are indeed appreciated.

I don't overwork, actually, I have flexible work schedule so these last days I'm actually underworking since it is very hard to concentrate (I'm a programmer) when I don't have much sleep and thoughts keep coming to my mind which distract me from my job (boss knows about it and he's being supportive but his patience can only go so far).

Unfortunately, this rump is mostly due to external factors I can't really change, only try to accept them as best as I can, but still wreaks havoc on my job which I need to pay the bills.

<comment><USER9> Having gone through the roughest patch in my life in the last year, I experienced this. The one thing that killed my productivity more than anything else was a mixture of A) Feeling like work was meaningless and questioning why I worked so hard in the first place and B) Sleeping 3 hours a nigh at most mixed with only eating a few meals a week.

Mostly it just took time for me to get back on a semi-normal routine, meditation, exercise, nutrition and rest are really really key factors though.

I hope things get better for you soon.

<comment><USER7> I totally agree about good nutrition. Rest and exercise also can be beneficial. I think it's important to take care of yourself physically and try to do positive things that make you feel good. One thing I might also try is to wake up very early and go out for a brisk walk. The new day may improve a down mood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> All of our comments may work for us, but there will be something that works for you, and that will have to do with putting whatever is out of balance for you back into a place so you can be healthy, happy and focused.

I find meditation relaxes me enough and gives me a sense of calm that is good enough to address both the personal problems and the work. Mainly this occurs because as my mind settles, I am more able to address the issues one at a time.

Good luck, you will move beyond this! Have hope :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I know what you mean... take some time off and do something new, DO NOT overwork to get your mind off things. It will be good for you and what ever you're working on.

<comment><USER12> Agree, don't bury yourself in work. The problems do not go away, they just fester.

<comment><USER13> To me, it depends if you can do something about it. Burying yourself in work does take your mind off it. Of course, if you need to resolve it, then it's a bad idea, but in the case of say, a loved one in hospital, where all you can do is wait, then I like the solution of burying yourself in work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just ask myself, "Is there anything you can do to fix it right now?" If the answer is no, I feel less stressed and am more able to focus on other tasks.

</comment><comment><USER15> When I was going through something like this, I was just coding like there's no tomorrow. It almost felt like I'd turned into a bot. This lasted for some 2-3 months or so after which things came back to normal. Looking back, it feels like its better to drown yourself in work rather than brood over your circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER16> Talk to someone about it. I mean just really vent. Doesn't matter if what you are saying makes sense. You will feel better for getting it out. And if it does make sens eyou may even learn something.

</comment><comment><USER17> In my case I found it dragging myself in to hacking/working on cool techy stuff more and more is a relief.

But no guarantee that you _fix_ your life problems this way.

</comment><comment><USER18> My dad was a workaholic, he dived into work instead of working stuff out with me and the rest of my family. Maybe he could give you a few pointers.

<comment><USER12> Gee, someone has some pent up teenage angst...</comment></comment>


13 Beautiful Tools to Enhance Online Teaching and Learning Skills - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/however-mathematics/13-beautiful-tools-to-enhance-online-teaching-and-learning-skills-b7d6ab81be01 <comment><USER2> "Options for giving math talks and lectures online" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22541754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22541754) also lists a number of resources for teaching math online.</comment>


Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz <comment><USER2> Is this supposed to demonstrate the length of German compound nouns?

Because you can go as long as you want with those, really. There is no limit.

Though this one perhaps deserves special mention as an actual word in use.

Be mindful of this being a typical case of "Beamtendeutsch", however, which is basically its own language, made up of utterly nonsensical words, in an attempt to make legal language ultra-specific (but losing any comprehensibility in the process).</comment>


Large Hadron Collider forced to halt - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7626256.stm <comment><USER2> Physicists from the future strike again!

"It was speculated that all accelerators producing large amounts of Higgs particles like the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC for short) would call for initial conditions to have been so arranged as to finally not allow these accelerators to come to work."

\-- Test of Influence from Future in Large Hadron Collider; A Proposal / <http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.2991></comment>


Show HN: Own MobX in 65 lines of code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Telichkin/remold <comment><AUTHOR> When I started a new React-project at my work, I asked myself: "Why do I need any external dependencies for state management such as Redux or MobX? What functionality from this dependencies do I need in the first place?".

I realised that I just want to have many views connected to one dataset, and I want to re-render all connected views when dataset was changed. This is a simple pub-sub pattern which everyone can implement himself. So, I implemented it myself in just 65 lines of code. I use this solution in production for 6 months and don't see any drawbacks.

What are the advantages of Redux or MobX over this solution?

<comment><USER2> Speaking for Redux at least: developer tool integration, mindshare and doesn't shoehorn OOP into an FP approach to UI.

What are the advantages of this solution over features already in React (no need of Redux) such as context and the reduce hook?

<comment><AUTHOR> > doesn't shoehorn OOP into an FP approach to UI

Functional UI is still need some sort of imperative shell [1] to manage state. You can use OOP and Remold just for "reactive" behaviour, and implement all state transitions inside object in a functional way. For example:

        // Pure function
        const addProduct = (order, product) => ({
            total: order.total + product.price,
        });

        // Imperative state
        class Order extends Remold {
            state = {
                total: 0
            };

            @act setState(newState) { this.state = newState; }

            addProduct(p) { this.setState(addProduct(this.state, p)); }
        }

> What are the advantages of this solution over features already in React (no > need of Redux) such as context and the reduce hook?

From the React Documentation about Context feature [2]:

> Apply it sparingly because it makes component reuse more difficult.

With Remold you don't have any problems with component's reusability. You just attach pure component to an object and "connect" object's state into component's props:

        // Pure component
        const OrderWidget = ({ total }) =>
{total}
;

        // Pure function
        const addProduct = (order, product) => ({
            total: order.total + product.price,
        });

        // Imperative state
        class Order extends Remold {
            state = {
                total: 0
            };

            @act setState(newState) { this.state = newState; }

            addProduct(p) { this.setState(addProduct(this.state, p)); }

            @mold(OrderWidget) asWidget() { return { total: this.state.total }; }
        }

[1] [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries)

[2] [https://reactjs.org/docs/context.html?no-cache=1#before- you-...](https://reactjs.org/docs/context.html?no-cache=1#before-you-use- context)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have been implementing reactive stores using streams. I followed the Meiosis pattern[1] and have found it to be dead simple. My current project has a React UI and a WebGL canvas that both refer to and modify the store. Flyd is a tiny stream library that Meiosis uses in its examples.

1\. [http://meiosis.js.org/](http://meiosis.js.org/)</comment>


The Trouble with Mindfulness Apps (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.mindful.org/trouble-mindfulness-apps/ <comment><USER2> Meditation and mindfullness are free. You really don't need an app. What you need is a book to get started and learn: Cudalasa's Mind Illuminated is absolutely life changing.

When it comes to mindfullness, there is a lot of bullshit out there. As an objective and critical person, I find it hard to trust anyone. If you're in the same boat, delete all these apps and buy a copy of Cudalasa. Once you've internalized the method of meditation, it's there for life.

<comment><USER3> Where can I get the book for free?

<comment><USER4> If you see somebody reading it at the bus stop, you can grab it out of their hands and run away.

<comment><USER5> Completely accurate, whilst being impractical and a bit dangerous.

You are a genius. I love it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Completely felt the same about these kinds of apps previously and likely still do, I've a had a few people recommend them to me and I've dismissed them immediately because to meditate or clear my head I want less electronics, I want to be away from anything remotely related to pixels on a screen.

Since I haven't had much luck on my own, I recently started to use headspace, basically it's just audio of a guy talking for a few minutes. It's helped me quite a bit, I imagine this would work just as well if it were a teacher or friend but I feel few people have to have access to someone who will do that with them every day.

Each lesson gives some tips on how to help not remove thoughts but accept them which I always tried to manually delete thoughts but it always failed and there was too much resistance. I'm adverse to taking any type of anxiety medications so this is a much cheaper and risk-free alternative.

I don't pay for it as that does distract from the point but it's been beneficial (I think). It's likely not science, but it helped create a routine of letting yourself breathe for a bit which in itself is useful.

<comment><USER7> I feel the same way. Headspace's guided take 10 course was a solid introduction for me, but once I got used to regular practice, headspace's "extras" weren't needed anymore. Now all I really want is a timer and tracking of when I meditated, so I use Insight Timer.

<comment><USER8> That's exactly what I did - the ten-talk intro for headspace, straight to the Insight Timer timer with some background sounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "When your favorite mindfulness app says it's based in science, check twice. Few actually are."

As far as I know, none of them are is based on science.

<comment><USER10> Computer science!

<comment><USER11> Like one of my CompSci professors said. I don't know how we got away with calling this a science.

<comment><USER10> Yes, also when we call programmers engineers, same same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What bothers me most about these is that they often charge money. In Buddhism the teaching of mindfulness has been offered through "dana" (donations). Teachings so close to our hearts shouldn't be commercialized in my opinion. If they are, they lose a lot of their essence. Hard to explain :)

<comment><USER4> I think it depends on if you see a fee as _buying mindfulness_ or _supporting a teacher_. I really don't have a problem with the latter.

I downloaded and have been using Oak for a few weeks now and so far, I think I like it. I haven't seen ads and the app is pretty basic. They have guided and unguided sessions and I find myself returning to the guided version even though I've pretty much memorized the instruction. The voices are nice and I actually find myself doing a better job of staying focused on my breath.

I don't know that it's been beneficial yet, but it is becoming a habit.

It also introduced me to Alan Watts and that can't be a bad thing.

<comment><USER13> What is this "Oak" app you mentioned? There are a lot of Android Apps with Oak in their name. Thanks.

<comment><USER14> Looks like it is for iOS only. [https://www.oakmeditation.com](https://www.oakmeditation.com). Apparently by Kevin Rose of Digg among other things fame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a nice time to remember there are many types of meditation, and to know your goal of meditating, which can range from being more calm or peaceful, to enlightenment or connection with God. In terms of types of meditations, some are more active and dynamic. One of the easiest and most blissful is kirtan, which is chanting in a group, usually with some instruments/music. It can be helpful to perform a more active meditation first in order to settle the mind, after which a still meditation can be more fruitful.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Free iOS/Android app for "belly breathing", looks like it was made for veterans: [http://t2health.dcoe.mil/apps/breathe2relax](http://t2health.dcoe.mil/apps/breathe2relax)

Are there good paid apps which do not collect data, track user behavior, or charge monthly subscription fees?

</comment><comment><USER16> So, the article seems focused on apps that are claim to treat / address depression. There is a difference in practicing mindfulness for "general" stress management v/s trying to use meditation / mindfulness to treat psychological illnesses.

A quick google [1,2] suggests there is some research emerging indicating that such apps can work.

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030645301...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453017304109)

[2] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-014-9589-1](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-014-9589-1) (via the headspace website).

I do not disagree with the central thesis of the article, i.e., the claims that many (most) of these apps make must be validated with clinical trials before they are allowed to make such claims; especially on issues such as depression & anxiety --> in effect, they are targeting the (potentially) desperate people looking for a solution

But I think going from "these claims should be validated" to "none of these apps are useful; its all snakeoil. Take a book and do it on your own" is a bit of a leap.

Meditation & mindfulness are personal experiences. Even the best book or coach that works for others may not work for me. Calibrating my expectations and systematically trying different approaches (books, coaches, apps) is probably the only way I (or anyone) can find a method that fits one's personality / mindset.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Brewer predicts that as more apps for behavioral treatments come to > market—and as others surface that aren't clinical apps but use medical > language in their marketing—organizations like the Substance Abuse and > Mental Health Administration, which provides guidelines for evidence-based > treatments and a national registry of programs, could inherit a role in this > wild west.

Why does it have to be US-based organisations to fact-check these claims?

I mean, I get that one answer that the appstore (and playstore) is pretty much US-dominated, but it's not like US healthcare is a glowing example to the rest of the world (or the EU, in particular). And perhaps more importantly, neither are the US' restrictions on misleading advertising regarding medical claims.

Since the play/appstore are in fact global (or multinational) things, their corporations multinationals, why not take advantage of the knowledge on other continents?

<comment><USER18> Sorry to say this, but other places still regularly place faith in pseudo sciences like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, acupuncture, etc. Sadly this is invading medicine, and I wish the push back was stronger.

While our health insurance system is a disaster, our dedication to the scientific method is still best, I believe (even with our Integrative Medicine-like foul ups).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have a mindfulness app based in science, proven to work.

The off button.

<comment><USER20> Even better, get a good case of Aphantasia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Be prepared to be bored"

That's actually a damn good ad for a mindfulness app.

</comment><comment><USER22> Mindfulness strikes me as total BS pandering to westerners obsession and reverence for Buddhism and some orientalist kind of ideas.

Don't kid yourself and buy into all the marketing.

<comment><USER23> Username checks out.

Science disagrees with you. The commercialization may be pandering, but mindfulness itself is not.

<comment><USER22> To the extent that the science says it is one way (and it's legitimate science and you interpreted it correctly), I take your view. I still find it totally ybsatisfting as far as actually understanding the source of stress and dealing with it in a healthy and long term way.

Thanks for the jab. Makes me hate you a little.

<comment><USER23> I don't actually hate you <3</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I would build Uber - <AUTHOR> https://airdev.co/post/how-i-would-build-uber-1522267669199x775452761445194600 <comment><USER2> Nope, where is all of the data on the trip points? See [https://movement.uber.com/cities?lang=en- US](https://movement.uber.com/cities?lang=en-US) ; they have a lot more data than just start/end point. What about Surge pricing? What about Uber types (Uber X versus XL) etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's "Bubble" as in "build Uber in Bubble"? It's not a convenient term to search.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right! I now link to Bubble.is in the article, which a reader can click. Thanks for the feedback</comment></comment>


Finding the average of two integers in C: not as simple as you might think - <AUTHOR> http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=3648

<comment><USER2> Concepts like integer overflow are definitely lost on some developers, which is why I cringe when I see relatively new programmers toying with a language like C++. They are probably better off using experimental side projects to hone their C++, while doing production code in the relative safety of scripting languages.

Sure, you could argue something like hitting INT_MAX isn't likely with many data sets, but it's also a very difficult bug to find, so it shouldn't be there in the first place.

I love scripting language bindings. They let you put programming wizards and new programmers on the same team, where only some parts require extreme care (e.g. a C++ core). The majority of the code, if bound to something like Python, becomes relatively safe, so things that "sound simple" actually can be simple.</comment>


Error 53: Apple bricks phones to punish customers for independent repairs - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2016/02/05/gerror-53-apple-remotely-bric.html <comment><USER2> I understand why Apple did what they did, the security of the phone is one of the best features ever since touch ID was introduced. However the idea that the majority of phones in linked stories worked until the recent update is a major misstep on Apple's part. The update should have validated the parts prior to install or flagged them acceptable post install as they were there prior to upgrade.</comment>


Why don't humans have a  bone? Scientists may now know - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/dec/14/why-dont-humans-have-a-penis-bone-scientists-may-now-know-baculum <comment><USER2> Sir, I regret to inform you that your "penis" is missing.

<comment><USER3> This happens all the time. It's detachable.

Seriously though, I was a bit confused by the link title until I clicked on it. On topic, it's somewhat interesting as I hadn't realized how many mammals had penis bones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Penis bone</comment>


The Silence of the Never Facebookers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/facebook-silicon-valley-trump-silence/612877/ <comment><USER2> Normal people really like Facebook and so far we can consistently see that in Facebook's usage metrics; the media, however, hates Facebook: [https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual- facebo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook- crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis/)

<comment><USER3> I read your post - it looks like you equal the expression "normal people" with "me".

<comment><USER4> He doesn't say so precisely but like many invocations of this phrase it probably means something closer to "people not part of the intelligentsia / chattering classes." Of which it appears he would not be one of these normal persons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Even among American citizens, some tech workers are in the business simply to make money, gain power, and solve problems—even if they create just as many new ones in the process."

Even among, I don't know, bartenders and schoolteachers, some are in the business simply to make money.

Back in the day, one heard of students who went to law school to right wrongs, and came out to bill hours.

<comment><USER6> Schoolteachers (in the USA, anyway) get paid next to nothing, and frequently have to buy classroom supplies out of pocket because their school system doesn't have the budget to buy them.

Nobody becomes a schoolteacher to get rich.

<comment><USER7> As the amount of administration support staff and special needs paraprofessionals skyrocketed, the resources allocated to regular students and teachers have dwindled. People feel good about having students with special needs included in regular classes but it has caused an enormous reallocation of resources, shifting massive cash and attention to the lowest performing students.

There was a book about this once, Harrison Bergeron.

<comment><USER8> Is it entirely due to re-allocation to special needs education?

Seems like with population growth, we are trying to educate more and more kids, and unlike in the past, we dont just discard that parts that would be expensive or difficult.

In the past, we ignored the problem so it wasnt factored into budgets, head counts. There needs to be more money overall for education. It returns more than $1 for every $1 invested over the long term.

<comment><USER7> It varies by district but my wife is a teacher (now) and she has worked in several schools where the special education budget met or exceeded the non- special, while serving only 3-5% of the school's enrolled children.

<comment><USER8> I understand that. but what is the suggested alternative? These students simply cost more to educate, is that the students fault though?

Leave them behind and underfunded like in the past? Lock them up?

<comment><USER9> My wife also teaches these sorts of children and the vast majority of them seldom improve beyond a 5th or 6th grade level, and many of the "smarter" ones with milder disabilities end up in jail at some point after being graduated (most typically for sexual, theft, violence, and drug offenses) out of the system since they can no longer be failed, yet they basically can't truly be taught how to properly function in society since they can't even properly comprehend laws or how they work, as they only have basic reading capability and comprehension of even simple children's books.

Closing institutions insteading of reforming and modernizing them for these sorts of people was indeed a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find this article insufficiently neutral to be read as objective news. Seeing the articles suggested at the bottom, my opinion is more than redoubled.

Even if I happen to agree with a message, I still think non-emotional and nuanced takes are necessary.

<comment><USER11> You're 16 and have just discovered Ayn Rand, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Some workers don't want to rock the boat for fear they might get > blacklisted, McCarthy said.

Has anyone here ever heard of someone getting blacklisted? I could imagine someone who does something really shitty in an interview at SomeCorp being put on a do-not-hire list at SomeCorp, and the same for being fired there, but blacklist to me implies preventing employment across multiple companies.

<comment><USER13> I don't think an explicit blacklist exists, but I figure employers will google you, so they will know if you did anything that got you on the news or if you wrote an article attacking your employer's politics. If this search isn't done by someone in the company, it's probably done by a background check company they hire.

Also, there is the concept of a back-channel reference, where someone from the hiring company will reach out to contacts at the candidate's current and/or former employer and ask for opinions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The vast majority of people I know at the director-and-up level, when they are leaving a company and looking for a new gig"

And where are they going to go? Outside of FAANG they might find the pay is substantially less.

<comment><USER15> I heard around the 2015-2017 timeframe a lot of those types hopped to AB&B, Ueber and do on... you know, the great gig economy (whatever's).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's also worth noting how many people get most of their local news (for better or worse) from Facebook these days, like social accounts of the decimated small town papers and some superficial TV news stations, and community groups. If you live in a tech-savvy larger market, it's easy to take for granted how smaller communities use the platform.

</comment><comment><USER17> i think its called "Exit vs Voice" instead of "nextplay" or whatever

</comment><comment><USER18> IMO righteous indignation is easiest for those with the largest paychecks.</comment>


Find if anything is shit, with 99.999% of accuracy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/caarlos0/is-shit <comment><USER2> Good</comment>


Twitter Link Summary Cards will make me tweet less - <AUTHOR> http://teaz.me/twitter-link-summary-cards-ruin-twitter/

<comment><AUTHOR> The Twitter link previews are even worse than I thought live. Almost every tweet in the timeline contains photos, redundant content and truncated content. The smaller photos also stand in contrast to the normal sized photos forcing the eyes to adjust left to right while scrolling. The timeline does not even look like Twitter anymore. It's purely an advertising and marketing playground now for me. I'll be chilling elsewhere.</comment>


We tried Slack - <AUTHOR> http://blog.freecodecamp.com/2015/06/so-yeah-we-tried-slack-and-we-deeply-regretted-it.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Posted awhile back; still valid.

As far as why people use it; people need to communicate and sometimes they are close or far away. Hipchat, Slack ... there's other competition and they want your conversation because they likely re-sell the big data off your conversation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Never understood the crazy trend around Slack. We use it at work and I don't really see what it's giving us over other IM platforms. Maybe I'm not enough of a power user to really appreciate it's greatness.</comment>


Show HN: Your business, delivered in a box - <AUTHOR> http://www.trylaunchbox.com/ <comment><USER2> Before you offer to build other people's website, you probably should make your own usable first

[https://imgur.com/6wjmLqa](https://imgur.com/6wjmLqa)

<comment><AUTHOR> Which browser?

<comment><USER2> sorry, current Firefox (42.0) on Win7

<comment><AUTHOR> You're fine, appreciate it detaro!

<comment><USER2> works now!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers, have a Happy Thanksgiving :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Who owns the design and code? Whats the email platform and do i get 50 business cards every month for my $115?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our customers own the design and code. The email platform is Google Business Email and you're correct, that's 50 business cards, email services and website maintenance for $115/month.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Is that a single account or multiple as Google charges per use right?

Have you not found any risk in users using the service as a cheap design and build and then hosting the sites else where after?

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, it's a single account. Google charges $5 per user.

The risk of users using the service and cancelling was our initial worry. However, when a plan is cancelled, that includes the private domain, responsive website and secure hosting.

The user would need to find a way to reproduce the site, wait for the domain to be released and/or transferred, purchase hosting, then upload the site. We feel, if the user can handle doing that themselves, then they aren't our target audience anyway, right? And if they pay a freelancer to do it, odds are they will charge a large amount that will make the user have second thoughts. (We're hoping!)

<comment><USER4> I totally agree with the point of them not being your target customers

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you mohameddev!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unix Recovery Legend (1986) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html <comment><USER2> "rm -rf /" was how I advanced in career.

A long time ago, in a job far, far away, I was a lowly CAD Operator making technical drawings of electrical diagrams and switchgear enclosure plans. This was on Tektronix terminals each attached to their own Tektronix servers (which as I recall ran BSD at first then switched to SVr4)

A fellow lowly cad operator decided to try out the "rm -rf" command (at that time we each had superuser access to our servers - innocent days) on his server. In those days you could hear the hard drive access each sector, and so it was I heard the faint but distinctive click-click-click of the read/write head slowly but surely going down the sectors as the rm command took hold, followed by my cow-orker's face gradually but increasingly turning white, going through to green, as he realised that a major project's 2 months of un- backed up CAD drawings were gurgling down the virtual drain (again innocent times - no backups).

Being a bit of an unofficial Unix Nerd (I whiled away my spare times there learning how these boxes worked), I had the chance to show my knowledge, explain what went wrong, and how we could prevent this in the future, resulting in - after 2 weeks of overtime for all to re-draw and catch up with the 2 months of lost project work - removal of root access to the systems to all but myself and other key personnel, and a tape backup system with a rigidly kept backup schedule, and subsequent no loss of data after that.

I eventually became in charge of the CAD dept, and years later ended up as manager of IT at a different company, and now run my own IT company ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> LOL One day working on a very old machine many years ago in a galaxy far far away at the end of a 12 hour coding binge I accidentally typed:

       rm -f *.c

instead of:

       rm -f *.o

I then typed:

       make

I saw tons of missing files and in literally maybe 200ms I hit the reset button on the machines' console! I happened to be sitting there the only thing I could think is these blocks are still in the free list and maybe even the disk didn't sync yet (did I mention this was Xenix, and 1985?).

I rebooted the machine from a 8" floppy that had a copy of fsdb(ADM) and stated sniffing around. Sadly the file changes had been sync'd but I found my code on the free list in the filesystem! I then wrote a C program to dump the free blocks and proceeded to reassemble it into the original C file I needed to recoup my 12 hours of work. Luckily most of the files where the same from a prior backup just one file had a ton of changes from that session. It took me a couple hours to get perfect but it was better then re-writing everything I'd done in the past 12 hours.

Needless to say I then added a "make clean" target and I got much better at backing up my code every couple of hours instead of being a code zombie and waking up 12 hours later without backups!

With today's modern filesystems I have no clue how you could pull off a hat trick like this but that was then and I used the tools I had at my disposal to recover from my own blurry eyed mistake.

A friend of mine once said to me:

      It's not how bad you mess up it's how well you recover.
      And you're a professional at recovery.

I'm still not sure if that was a compliment or an insult...

<comment><USER4> With Linux, I seem to recall grepping the disk under /dev/ for the contents of the deleted file. It's actually why I still religiously put the name of the file at the top of the file, even though git has kept me from accidentally deleting anything in recent years.

<comment><USER5> I worry that svn and git have done more harm than good, because I've now got into the habit of using rm -rf (it's the only way to delete .git/.svn) where I used to use rm -r.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a great story in Ed catmull's new book creativity inc that tells how the handled the time when rm -rf ~/* was run on the Toy Story II servers, deleting 90% of the finished film weeks before the release. Not a problem till they realized the backup system failed. I won't spoil how it ended but they recovers (not technical solution) but shows how to handle random screw ups. The book is a great read in general as it showcase their techical achievement as well as how to manage a creative culture.

<comment><USER7> For more details, here's my answer in a Quuora thread from 2 years ago... [http://qr.ae/sjteB](http://qr.ae/sjteB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At $work, I walked an admin through changing some settings of a software I had co-developed. After we were done, we deleted some caches

cd /var/lib/$application/cache

find -type f -delete

But that application was actually load-balanced on a second machine; we didn't need to change the configuration there, but still had to delete the caches. So he ssh'd (as root) right into it, and copy&pasted the 'find -type f -delete' right away, and pressed enter while I cried NOOOOOOO. Too late he realized he didn't change the directory first.

He was about to log out, and instead ssh into the backup server to recover the lost files, but I stopped him from logging out - the previous operation had erased the .ssh/authorized_keys file from /root.

In the end, no harm was done, the backups were only 8 hours, and nobody noticed any interruption.

</comment><comment><USER4> > And the final thing is, it's amazing how much of the system you can delete > without it falling apart completely.

We once had a server running a memory-only cache lose its hard-drive. It puttered along for weeks, still serving from memory, before someone got around to replacing it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Watching rm recursively burn through your filesystem is a right of passage.

I had a genius intern. Straight out of high school, his understanding of asynchronous design put plenty of my peers to shame. Course, his unix experience, especially permissions in this case, was a bit light.

I decided to use OSX's iChat to share my screen with him. As you know, iChat used to allow full control of the local machine to the remote viewer. My bright-eyed genius intern realized this:

        Oh cool! I can move your mouse!

...he says, as he starts clicking around...

        Can I type?!

...and he types "rm -rf /" in my open terminal.

In panic, I smashed every key on my keyboard, fortunately scoring a CONTROL+C _relatively quickly_. I hoped the damage was minimal, mostly praying it did not touch my home directory. I watched as every application I tried to open failed to start...

Every application I had installed, up to somewhere near X in the alphabet, had been deleted without prejudice before I managed to kill the command. Fortunately my home directory was safe; thank you "/Users" on OSX.

My intern's response was:

        That command won't do anything, I didn't sudo it!

That's the day I setup Time Machine on that system.

<comment><USER10> Oh man. if their is anything I have learned about the command line, its don't fuck around with rm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apple once did this to a few unsuspecting Mac users way back in the day. They released an iTunes installer that deleted the old copy of iTunes using this command:

        rm -rf $2Applications/iTunes.app 2< /dev/null

$2 held the path to the drive containing the copy of iTunes to be deleted. If the name of that drive began with a space, chaos ensued....

<comment><USER12> I think Mac OS X was still very new at that time. 10.1 had been just recently released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very Novice user, and coming from a MSDOS background, I habitually logged in as root, even though I had heard dire warnings not to do that.

I had lots of dot-directories in /tmp and my disk didn't have a lot of space left. So I typed in

            rm -rf .*

thinking that I was very smart, and would save time by not having to remove each dot-directory separately.

After a while, I wondered why it was taking so long and discovered I had very little of my root filesystem left, so I was forced to do a complete reinstall.

Needless to say, I always do my day-to-day work now as a lowly common user, and NOT as root.

<comment><USER14> These days, whenever I do a recursive remove, I always include the parent directory name, just to force the habit. "rm -rf ../project/ _" (or ._ in your case). Same effect as ./*, but much clearer - to me, anyway.

<comment><USER14> heh, HN syntax ate the stars...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have _almost_ experienced a disaster like this with a script containing something like -

rm -rf "$foo/$bar"

\- when the variables were undefined due to a bug in the script. Fortunately I was not running it as root.

<comment><USER16> This is why i've been writing:

set -u

in every script i've written since i did exactly the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are _some_ bad things that can happen in the UNIX shell.

Ofc. unset (empty) variables "rm -rf ${variable}/" ... I guess paths are given without a slash at the end (also for that reason).

But also other commands: "hostname", if you type "hostname help" then your new hostname is set to "help". For us that means a full rebuild/reinstallation of the machine is necessary.

This surely has been discussed before, but why not (again): Let me know of your horror stories, if you like.

<comment><USER17> The similarity of "rm -rf *" and "rm -rf /" makes me nervous any time I "cd" somewhere and then issue the first.

There is no trash can in my Unix, deleted is gone forever.

A move (mv) or copy (cp) just overwrites files with the same name (as default)

Right clicking (&executing everything (every line) that just got pasted from the current clipboard/copy-buffer)

<comment><USER18> Why would you cd somewhere and then do rm -rf * when you can just rm -rf somewhere?

Having your shell expand * is just asking for trouble; on most systems you'll have no problems creating more entries in a directory than you can specify arguments on the command line, so rm -rf * will not work from 'somewhere' but rm -rf somewhere should still work fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The best protection against this is ... to create a hundred million files in /aaa/ ?

<comment><USER20> Surely " ", as space is the lowest ASCII character you can reliably put in a filename. But only shell globbing is going to sort the output. Saving something from rm -rf of the superdirectory would require ensuring that the name pops out of readdir/getdents first, which is filesystem-specific and not always possible.

</comment></comment><comment> SG- For some reason when I go to this site, my Dell monitor seems to do a humming noise. It gets slightly louder when I scroll to the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER21> svckr 2 hours ago | link [dead]

Reminds me of the "most stupid thing" I ever typed into Terminal.app. I somehow managed to create a subdirectory named "~", and decided it was a good idea to do this:

        rm -rf ~

It took me about 5 seconds to realize the command should have returned immediately, and frantically press Ctrl-c. But that was all that was needed to ruin two week worth of code.

If you want to try a fun little experiment, type this command into your colleague's shell and see what happens (and how long it takes):

        mkdir ./~

<comment><USER16> > If you want to try a fun little experiment, type this command into your > colleague's shell and see what happens (and how long it takes):

> mkdir ./~

      $ time mkdir ./~

      real	0m0.007s
      user	0m0.000s
      sys	0m0.004s

I don't get it. What's fun about this experiment?

<comment><USER22> The user will ls their home directory, see this file, and attempt to rm it. The shell will instruct rm to remove their home directory instead.

<comment><USER16> Ah. I feel a bit stupid for taking that so literally.

So, when i delete a directory, whenever possible, i use the rmdir command. rmdir refuses to delete a directory which isn't empty. It's a really handy safety check. If a colleague dropped a tilde directory on me, the process would go:

 _Well, i 'll just delete that._

      $ rmdir ~
      rmdir: /home/twic: Directory not empty

_Oh bugger, of course. Better quote it. '

      $ rmdir '~'

_Right, now i will proceed to give my colleague a Chinese burn. _

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of the "most stupid thing" I ever typed into Terminal.app. I somehow managed to create a subdirectory named "~", and decided it was a good idea to do this:

        rm -rf ~

It took me about 5 seconds to realize the command should have returned immediately, and frantically press Ctrl-c. But that was all that was needed to ruin two week worth of code.

If you want to try a fun little experiment, type this command into your colleague's shell and see what happens (and how long it takes):

        mkdir ./~

</comment><comment><USER24> It's not always possible, but whenever I'm going to delete things with rm, I first test the pattern with an ls.

I have a coworker who _never_ does this and it drives me crazy. He just blindly trusts his first attempt. And yes, he has accidentally deleted stuff, but thankfully nothing that was irrecoverable... so far.

<comment><USER25> I like to use "trash" (i.e. "put in the Trash") instead of "rm" (i.e. "remove permanently").

For Linux there's a suite called "trash-cli" (on Ubuntu the binary is called "trash-put" so you will probably want to set up an alias). I guess there's something similar for OSX?

<comment><USER26> There is also libTrash.so, that when loaded replaces rm entirely.

Yet, I've lost interest since I got a nice backup routine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very classic indeed and very inventive way of solving it.

The article should have [2006] in the title though.

<comment><USER28> > This classic article from Mario Wolczko first appeared on Usenet in 1986.

An argument could be made that [1986] would be more accurate.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to make GitHub profile appeal to employers, and still have a life? - <AUTHOR> What do you think employers generally want to see in a github profile?
Is it better to have lots of activity, random repos, work in progress, etc? or is a small set of completed, manicured projects (2 to 6 perhaps) more appealing?
this is assuming, to some degree, that i have a life. of what limited free time i have, i can't pour all of it into have a perfect github profile. <comment><USER2> Related: [https://twitter.com/danluu/status/806222862663053312?lang=en](https://twitter.com/danluu/status/806222862663053312?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER3> I swear that half the recruiters who say they found about me through github really found me through LinkedIn.</comment>


How much of an iPhone is made by Samsung? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/apple-and-samsungs-symbiotic-relationship

<comment><USER2> As clever as that iPhone based "diagram" is, it's more or less impossible to read.

What was the problem in making a table saying: These are the components comprising the iPhone and they cost and manufacturer.

<comment><USER3> This diagram would be instantly forgettable as a table. In this form it's far more likely to reach a wider audience and make an impact.

<comment><USER4> The diagram would be forgettable, the information would not. It's like saying if you don't use webdings no one will remember your blog post because it just uses a "legible" font. They, and you, are focusing on the wrong thing. Read you some Tufte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "concentrate on its strengths: designing elegant, easy-to-use combinations of hardware, software and services."

How does Apple manage to get journalists to advertise for it?

<comment><USER6> Is it a disputed fact that Apple creates elegant, easy to use combinations of hardware, software and services?

<comment><USER7> I hate iTunes and Quicktime with a passion and don't consider them to be user friendly, but then again I'm a Windows user, so maybe it's my fault.

<comment><USER8> It's not your fault - back in the late 90s when I came to light side I hated iTunes too. It's clearly stockholm syndrome - I deal with it because I've grown used to the way it does things. It isn't bad, but it does take getting used to.

Quicktime, well, I can't see why you'd hate it (except for maybe that it probably sucks on windows) - it's actually amazing on the mac. Lightweight, fast, everything a user needs and nothing else.

<comment><USER9> Not to be pedantic, but iTunes wasn't released until 2001.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My impression, will someone please assure me (--are there any good antonyms of "assure" in this context?--), is that Apple is slowly switching to TI for the parts that Samsung is now supplying.

<comment><USER11> TI neither makes Flash nor DRAM nor acts as a foundry service. There is no way that TI can take a single slot from Samsung.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does mechanical & electro-mechanicals cover the machined steel band/antenna/frame? Because that's not cheap and it's a difficult material to work with. In one of the iPhone4 original videos, they had a multi-axis CNC going around outside and grinding/polishing it down, which was pretty impressive for a mass produced part.

<comment><USER11> I think that you can count on that. A leading edge semiconductor plant is probably the most expensive factory you can buy. I think I have heard somewhere around $4b for a 28nm line +/- a tech node. Compare that to $0.5b for an automobile line with a bunch of multiple axis heavy duty CNC machines (I know, citation needed).

<comment><USER12> That's a good point. My thinking was chip prices are pretty well known and commotitized while Apple's manufacture of the case is a big unknown to iSupply and everyone else because it's completely custom and no one makes anything similar.

<comment><USER11> Chip prices change a lot depending on who you are (what you can negotiate and how much you want to buy). Apple is in a very special position as they have few products and a tendency to buy a part of their suppliers machines in exchange for guaranteed shipments and lower prices. The isupply table [http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/iPhone-4-Carries...](http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/iPhone-4-Carries- Bill-of-Materials-of-187-51-According-to-iSuppli.aspx) shows pretty different prices even for Apples own A4 which should have a flat factory cost. As for the mechanical components, I guess that the 10.80 figure is a decent guesstimate which could be off by +/- 50%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did anyone else notice that they seem to be saying that foxcon makes 100% profit? It costs them $7 to manufacture everything, and they get a $7 profit. Is that right?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the point of Karma Points? - <AUTHOR>

Everyone is always talking about Karma points or losing karma points through down voting.
As I understand it karma points to don't effect ranking of articles. Correct?
So the point of having karma points is that when you get a certain level of karma points you can down vote or flag inappropriate content.
The question is how many do you need to complete the game?  How many points do you need to be able to do all of the power ups that come with getting the points? <comment><USER2> The point is to measure your contribution to the community. The perks are just a way to ration certain features.</comment>


Distributed Systems with ZeroMQ and Gevent (Presentation) - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Distributed-Systems-with-ZeroMQ-and-gevent

<comment><USER2> Excellent talk. I'm really excited that somebody else besides me is advocating the cooperative switching async approach for other languages besides python with greenlet.

I've been trying to get something going for JavaScript on top of spidermonkey, but it's been slow going. A few hacks are available in my github. Some of them use spidermonkey's generators to cooperate, and this approach will have the same drawbacks this approach has in python, but this hack with python- spidermonkey and greenlet is pretty sweet:

<https://github.com/fzzzy/js-actors>

python-spidermonkey is on a really old version of spidermonkey, unfortunately.

Also, node-fibers looks totally sweet:

<https://github.com/laverdet/node-fibers>

Lua has coroutines built in, so I'm guessing this kind of stuff is common there. I haven't used lua much, though.

Ruby also has cooperative userland threads that could be used to implement a cooperative async lib. I always wondered why nobody did. I would have, if I had ever decided to get heavily into ruby.

<comment><USER3> Yes! I don't understand why this hasn't happened in Ruby yet either. It seems like one of the ideal next places for it to blow up. A coworker is building up to it, but he's yak shaving by implementing good libuv bindings first. :\

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slides here: [https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/master/Lindsa...](https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/master/Lindsay- DistributedGeventZmq.pdf)

Well worth a read and they also lead me to <https://github.com/progrium/ginkgo> which looks like some very abstractions for building services like the ones on the talk.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Mobile - Twitter Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://yhack.net Weekend project. Got tired of the rough layout and styling of others, so I built a Twitter Bootstrap-powered, mobile optimized reader for Hacker News.<p>Uses the ruby-hackernews gem: https://github.com/bolthar/ruby-hackernews <comment><USER2> Waste space much?

<comment><USER3> It's for phones. They scroll well vertically and fingers are fat.</comment></comment>


What as it like to work at NeXT? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-work-at-NeXT?share=1 <comment><USER2> Whoa, small world! Back in the day, while I was just a lowly intern at Apple, I schemed my way into this cookout. There were a ton of Apple old-timers there, including Blaine, who had tons of stories like this. Wish I could hang out with those folks again—it was such a blast.</comment>


The future of CMS themes - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/08/23/what-is-a-dms-and-are-they-web-designs-future/

<comment><USER2> This is just an ad for a new WordPress product...</comment>


Image scanner built using a Lego Mindstorms EV3 set - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/javiercordero/LEGO-EV3-Image-Scanner <comment><USER2> LEGO Mindstorms has had a profound impact on my development in robotics from an early age. My mother was an IT teacher that used them to teach programming which gave me a unique opportunity to make whatever I wanted with the ten or so kits she had.

LEGO have a slogan of sorts, "Learning through play," which couldn't be more true with their Mindstorms kits.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, I remember building a scanner with LEGO Dacta at one point. So cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I saw an article on how to build a scanner with the original LEGO Mindstorms, a year after it had launched. Seeing that all those years ago is what inspired me to make this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if there would be a way to get a better resolution, either by some sort of lens or custom sensor, or by using some clever software interpolation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Using the current gears setup, it is possible to increase resolution a bit by lowering rotation unit values to one of the axis. This makes the maximum resolution result in an anamorphic, yet more detailed, image.

A custom sensor or lens, and using a dual rail instead of a monorail, could also improve image accuracy. If you gather data while the sensor is moving, using a second microcontroller, it would increase resolution greatly. You'd have to be careful for motion blur though.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does HN not allow you to modify your comments after 1 hour? - <AUTHOR>

I don't know of any other sites that do this. Just wondering what the rationale is. <comment><USER2> You need to be able to modify comments for some amount of time to correct typos, but if you can modify them for too long you can rewrite history. The current time limits are arbitrary but seem roughly correct, judging from the fact that users complain roughly equally about missing typos till it's too late, and people they're arguing with rewriting their comments.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems the assumption is that after you make a comment you are actively checking the thread for some time afterwards. Perhaps this works here because of a correct assumption about how people use HN but a time-constrained lifestyle might prevent this in some other groups.

<comment><USER3> All lifestyles are time-constrained, it is just a matter of scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the main reason is to keep the context of a discussion in a thread.

Turning your question around: Why would you want to modify a comment after one hour?

Read your comment before posting and be happy with it at that time of posting. If you come to new insights later then post another comment. There's no shame in that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I might want to modify it after one hour for the same reason I might want to modify it after one minute.

Perhaps I'm not checking HN regularly that day and make an offhand comment. In that case, if I come back a few hours later and recognize a boo-boo, it would be nice to be able to correct my mistake to avoid a permanent record of my foolishness.

<comment><USER4> I think your last sentence "and recognize a boo-boo, it would be nice to be able to correct my mistake to avoid a permanent record of my foolishness"

How can you make a mistake in a comment? If you don't mean what you write don't post it... And don't worry about people calling you foolish (I am sure there is a famous quote for that to put it more eloquently).

Also, note that there is no post preview when you submit so being able to modify after you post fills that functionality gap.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes I come back later to find that people have misinterpreted my comment due to tone or incomplete or misstated argument. Within the hour I can add an "EDIT" to clarify what I meant. I suppose I should take the time to make is sound in the first place, but often the time isnt there.

Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be to have the ability to add a timestamped addendum, without being able to edit the original. I would still want the one-hour free edit though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's to make sure that history does not get 'revised'

As it is there is already plenty of that going on.

I'd be fine with locking a posting or only amending it after it gets 1 comment or upvote (or downvote).</comment>


Ask HN: Were people as skeptical in the early Internet days as of blockchain? - <AUTHOR> Inspired by this reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7rego7/were_people_this_skeptical_in_the_early_days_of/
For those of you that are in their 40's, do you remember people being very skeptical as well? <comment><USER2> I think hype results in skepticism, and things can be hyped on a far larger scale now than ever before.

If I think back to my early internet days, I remember email (Eudora!!) being the most useful and exciting thing. After that I remember Yahoo and ICQ being really important for me. People were certainly excited in the 90s, but I think the hype was less around the internet in general and more around some of the things it would enable (e.g. Gateway PCs and PCTV or whatever it was called).

I remember more hype around the CD-ROM and CD-R's than I do hype about the internet. The capacity of CD-ROMs and the ability to play video reminds me of the current talk about VR/AR. What we got out of CD-ROMs was Windows 95 being easier to install and cutscenes in video games - not what happened to Edward Furlong in the "Brainscan" movie or Lawnmower man.

Compare that to blockchain or any of the current hyped technologies like Deep Learning or Big Data(3 years ago). "Thought leaders", tech and non-tech companies (small and large), journalists - everybody wants to show they are the leaders and have the answers. You then have a strong reaction of skepticism against this.

I feel old writing this post. I remember Brainscan and hoping something like that was right around the corner...ouch.

</comment><comment><USER3> People are always skeptical of new technology. And not entirely without reason. It's not always clear what the advantages are (early versions of new things sometimes are not actually better than the old thing), or what the cost will be: progress doesn't come for free. In the early days of the Internet, part of the problem was that most people just didn't have a way to access it until there were commercial ISPs, and the Web made it relatively easy to find and share stuff. And of course, new things often come with a lot of hype, that may take a long time to really pan out.

And nowadays we sometimes use the phrase 'the killer appp--the function that clicks with the new technology that drives adoption.

So, if you really want people to get people interested in blockchain, find a way to use it to distribute porn.

<comment><USER4> "find a way to use it to distribute porn."

this made my day :)

i think if content can be verified via blockchain that doesn't contains any malware it would be much more preferred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I grew up in Regina, Canada. Regina is a rather conservative big Government town where things change even slower than the climate. Consequently, my experience may not be typical so do with this what you will.

The shortest possible answer is yeah, people were very sceptical of the Internet in the early days. In the early 90s, I remember one very senior government official who my parents knew say "there is nothing of use on the internet." I would have been about fourteen then and had never even imagined such blasphemy, but here was a guy who had done well for himself shitting all over the only place I had ever wanted to work!

I remember how dismissive my Dad was of email when his employer gave him his first email account. "Why the hell did they do this to me?" he'd fume. "Interoffice mail used to take a few days, but at least I could open the damned thing." Yet a decade later, he retired and bought himself a computer so he could keep using email!

Ky biggest takeaway from those years is that only the most technical people had any vision of what the web could become. In that early state, the web kind of sucked. It was hard to even go online and once you were there it was even harder to find anything of value. Thanks to some true visionaries, the web has become indispensable. And I'm convinced that the same kinds of visionaries will do the same with blockchain.

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems that the majority of "legitimate" uses surrounding blockchain concern "trust", or rather try to eliminate mechanisms such that trust is inherent.

Imagine some authority, perhaps a non-profit that was 100% trustworthy. What could blockchain [*] do that said "authority" could not? I'm curious if blockchain could be used within an organization to make an organization itself trustworthy, as opposed to make trustworthy tools.

\- keep in mind even if decentralized, many blockchain tools will likely have some authority managing it, or have mechanisms such that a small collitation could take control

\---

I'm really curious if blockchain is superior to a traditional approach for the following scenario:

1\. You're a nonprofit

2\. You take donations on your website.

3\. You advertise that money donated will 100% be used for a stated purpose (categorical in nature).

4\. You also say that you can see exactly when your money is spent and how it is spent, including the quantity.

I see a way to build this with traditional tools, but it seems complicated and also is prone to fraud. The problem with using Bitcoin is that your endowment would be too volatile for your finance team to really manage. I suppose the nonprofit could do an ICO, but you don't want people to actually own a portion of your non-profit (as they cannot, by definition).

How can you ensure compliance, have transparency and minimize complexity?

</comment><comment><USER7> \- I remember getting on mosaic and thinking what is that ugly thing. Besides there are plenty of free editors out there already.

-couple years later, the internet that could be a pretty cool yellow pages.

\- couple years later, I remember a lot of people saying why would anyone buy XYZ online with out touching it first.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Internet was very clearly useful in many ways, from very early on.

Blockchain has no real use cases so far except libertarian fantasies and get- rich-quick schemes.

<comment><USER7> nasdaq thinks there's a couple:

[http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for- blo...](http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blockchain- cm901636)

30 non financial use-cases: [https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial- use-cases-of-b...](https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial-use-cases-of- blockchain-technology-infographic/)

deloitte 5 use cases: [https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial- services/art...](https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial- services/articles/5-blockchain-use-cases-in-financial-services.html)

<comment><USER9> Blockchain is been around for more than 25 years and nothing practical at scale build yet, except for the token bubble...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't see much skepticism about blockchain technology itself. Skepticism regarding the value of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are warranted, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER11> What average person has a need for blockchain? I seriously don't get the comparison.

<comment><AUTHOR> >What average person has a need for blockchain?

What average person had a need for internet in 1994 ? People don't used and don't use Internet as it, average joe use internet because of the applications running on it.

Pretty much the same things with blockchain tech

>I seriously don't get the comparison.

A blockchain is a public distributed database, internet was a decentralized public network

The trustlessness linked to the use of public blockchain is a major novelty in the tech world.

<comment><USER12> My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity, which is proving to be a bigger and bigger problem as more people are into cryptocurrencies.

Are there actual solutions to this problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> >My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity

Plasma MVP (built upon Ethereum blockchain) was just released. Plasma is supposed to be able to handle more then 1 million transactions per second, which is way more then what Visa handle right now

[https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp](https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp)

[https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma- chain-...](https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma- chain-0x1-614f6ebd1612)

<comment><USER12> Very cool, but as any chain, is not block chain only as strong as its strongest(or slowest in this case) link?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wind-up Double-A Battery - Sound Science packed into an Amazing Design - <AUTHOR> http://quintessentialcool.com/home/wind-up-double-a-battery/

<comment><USER2> The question here isn't whether or not this would 'work': clearly, the physics are sound. However, will it work efficiently enough to be of any use to anyone? I'm a little rusty, but let's try and run some numbers (feel free to jump in and correct me if I go wrong).

Estimating some spring dimensions (0.7mm wire diameter, 13mm outer diameter, 30mm free length) and looking up comparable springs from an online supplier ([http://www.leespring.com/browse_catalog.asp?rbunitOfMeasure=...](http://www.leespring.com/browse_catalog.asp?rbunitOfMeasure=Metric&springType=C&partnum=&UnitOfMeasure=Metric&specsCriteria=%28fl_dimension+between+0.984+and+1.378%29+and+%28size_dimension+between+0.02+and+0.035%29+and+%28od_front_dimension+between+0.461+and+0.563%29+and+%28%28int%28cCUR%28iif%28isnull%28solid_ht_dimesion%29%2C0%2Csolid_ht_dimesion%29%29*+1000%29%2F1000%29%3C%3D0.787%29+and+%28%28int%28cCUR%28iif%28isnull%28to_work_over_rod%29%2C0%2Cto_work_over_rod%29%29*+1000%29%2F1000%29%3E%3D0.433%29+and+%28InStr%281%2C%27MW+++%2C+SS+++%2C+OTCS+%2C+SS316%2C+17-7+PH%2C+ELGILOY%2C+ULTEM%27%2Cmid%28%5Bmaterial_alloy%5D%2C1%2C5%29%2C1%29%3E0%29&subType=&isMIL=&searchHistory=2)) seems to indicate a spring constant (k) of around 0.2 N/mm (200 N/m).

Hooke's law states that the potential energy stored in a spring is equal to (k(x^2))/2, where k is the spring constant and x is the displacement (distance squeezed/stretched). If we take a wild, optimistic guess that each 360 degree rotation of the battery head produces 1cm of compression in the spring, that means each rotation stores a nicely round (200(.01^2))/2 = 0.01J of potential energy in the spring.

Let's continue our optimism and say that the mechanism connected to the spring is able to quickly convert that compression into rotation, spinning a tiny generator which converts the kinetic energy into electric potential energy in the battery at, let's say, 80% efficiency. Each twist therefore stores 0.008J, or 0.002 mWh, in the battery.

A decent NiMH AA battery stores around 2500 mAh. If we assume the cell in the design maintains the same energy density as a normal NiMH battery, at ~30% of the size, we can estimate a fully charged capacity of ~750 mAh. Since AA batteries operate at 1.5V, this gives us a total energy capacity of (1.5 x 750) = 1125 mWh.

This means that, to fully charge the battery, you'd need to twist the top all the way around (1125/.002) = 562,500 times. Based on my home experiments fondling the top of a normal AA battery, I estimate that it's possible to rotate the top approximately twice per second, which means that fully charging the battery would take (((562 500 / 2) / 60) / 60) / 24 = 3.25 days of continuous twisting. (note: this ignores wrist and elbow fatigue, which I started to experience after only a few hundred twists)

So more than 3 straight days of twisting one of these suckers, for a third of the power of a standard AA battery. I'd call that unfeasible, unless you had some serious time on your hands and were absolutely desperate for a few milliwatts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like a "cool but useless" idea to me. The spring is not being used to 'really' store energy...

So, you have a crappy (low capacity) rechargeable battery, that is paired with a crappy mechanical charger.

You would be much better served to have good rechargeable batteries, that you put in a good charger (which could be mechanical, if that's what you want).

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh good, some design students have made a 3D mockup. That sounds like science. The next step in the process is to sit back and rake in the money! Actually producing or testing the thing is just a minor detail.

(Why a battery and not a capacitor?)

</comment><comment><USER5> Terrible. Complicated, expensive, fragile, and with poor performance. Look at the size of the actual battery! Hint: in normal batteries, _the entire battery_ is the battery.

This is almost as bad as "solar powered batteries."

A battery-charging "shake light" would be more practical, ergonomic, durable, and affordable. You could just buy _one_ , and it would work with your existing batteries.

</comment><comment><USER6> sound science? i very much doubt this makes sense. if the energy density of springs were comparable to batteries then we would have wind-up teslas on the road (and spring-driven ups in data centres...).

and if the energy is stored in the spring, what's the rechargeable part for? and what kind of generator is efficient, compact and slow? it's a completely improbable mess.

the closest workable solution i can see would be to drop the spring, extend the battery, and have a simple wind-to-charge battery. but that still requires the generator.

<comment><USER7> Read it again, you missed half of the process.

You twist to compress the spring. This spring then releases, causing a recharge generator to rotate and _that_ recharges the actual battery.

Rather ingenious I say.

<comment><USER6> so what's the spring for? why not just rotate the generator directly (as i suggested)? or, if the spring is to store energy, what is the battery for? it makes no sense.

<comment><USER8> It's to take up the rest of the space in the 3D render.

In seriousness, it is an interesting idea by some designers who presumably either didn't understand or didn't care why their imagined implementation was silly or wouldn't work.

<comment><USER9> They could have at least drawn a torsion spring rather than a compression spring, and a generator with a more realistic aspect ratio, and I think that would have given them more space for the actual battery.

Overall the idea seems like "sound science" (engineering really) in the sense that there's no reason it would be impossible or even difficult to build. It just... has no practical value at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of the kink springs in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel The Wind-Up Girl.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was hoping it would have a tiny little flywheel in it or something and be purely mechanical but I guess maybe it needs to charge a "real" battery to keep the flow of power more consistent.

</comment><comment><USER12> People don't really grok the energy stored in a AA because it seems so innocuous. A rechargeable AA has about 40 joules of PE. That's as much as a handgun bullet. To make that much energy by winding your battery would take all day. Adding a little spring probably makes it worse, not better than just gearing the little generator to be cranked directly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wouldn't it be better to replace the spring mechanism with a set of multiplier gears? You should be able to turn the top once and spin the generator a few thousand times, not turn the top once and have it spring-turn the generator once.

</comment><comment><USER14> This might not be the excellent execution everyone hoped for, but binding both the charger and the battery in a AA format seems innovative to me. Maybe another iteration of the same concept will lead to something interesting

</comment><comment><USER15> Similar idea but from 3 years ago: <http://www.geekalerts.com/wind-up- battery/>

That one appears to harness the mechanical energy directly.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice idea! Want!

<comment><USER17> Bad science. This is unlikely to actually work.

<comment><USER16> Oh really? How many milliamps do you think you need?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> wow loads of nay-sayers. There is nothing hokey about the science, of course it will work. I dont see the issues, it clearly isnt supposed to be a direct replacement for energy hungry batteries, but for low drain, use a lot, maybe even critical applications, like oh, I dont know a transistor radio maybe.</comment>