Ask HN: What engineering decipline does weapon design come under? - <AUTHOR>

Can someone tell me what engineering degree will help me to design Guns, handguns and related research areas? <comment><USER2> I wouldn't imagine there's much of a market for small-arms design. It's an old-school, natural-monopoly sort of subject, one of those for which the slow, careful, bureaucratic model that Paul Graham (correctly!) condemns for software was originally devised.

So I'd expect three things to drive down the value of small-arms designers: the point that variable costs are much higher than fixed ones in small-arms manufacturing; the presence of bureaucratic inertia in the militaries and police agencies who represent the main customers; and the fact that the problem domain is very well-understood and has been for quite some time. The AK-47 is showing its age, but is still viable; the H&K G3, the FN FAL, and the M-14 are all around 60 years old (the M-16 is a newcomer at 50 years, and the "space-age" bullpups, the Steyr AUG and SA80, are around 30); and the Colt M1911 was designed before the First World War and, from what I understand, is still one of the best pistols on the market.

There are a few "cutting-edge" weapons that are just coming into use -- the Tavor and the H&K G36, most obviously -- but I think these reflect a change in the perceived threat environment more than an advance in technology.

So, in other words: I'm not sure that there's very much to _do_ in the field of small-arms design. There are some small, innovative companies in the field -- Calico Light Weapons Systems is an obvious one -- but the problem with being a small, innovative manufacturer of firearms is that you don't have much of a market. Even when Bill Clinton _isn't_ in office, private citizens will never spend the kind of money on small arms that governments do.

I want to emphasize that I'm coming at this from the perspective of an interested amateur, and my interest is more in infantry tactics than in the weapons they use to implement them -- so there may be factors here that I don't know about. I'd second the recommendations by hga and gexla: contact people who know more about this, but, I'd say, prepare to be a little disappointed. (Aerospace engineering strikes me as being a field which is still evolving, and thus ought to be more promising for someone with an interest in designing weapons systems.)

<comment><USER3> Actually, the US civilian market is _very_ big (heck, consumption of ammo is above 5 _billion_ rounds a year). Enough that FN has been pleasantly surprised by demand for the PS90, civilians are snapping up SCARs as fast as FN can make civilian models above the demands of the military (they made lemonade out of a batch of aluminum receiver parts that had been anodized to the wrong shade and sold them as a special edition).

The nationwide sweep of shall issue concealed carry licensing has sharply increased demand for carry handguns. While people like me are happy with modernized M1911s for full sized guns, others aren't and new popular models are still coming out. Probably the biggest explosion is in "mouseguns", small .380 or 9mm handguns that are easier to conceal, especially in the summer. Many new models have come out recently.

I'd say the area of "black guns" (widely construed, not just AR-15 derived) is pretty healthy. Lots of stuff happening with AR-15 pattern guns (including driving them with pistons), lots of people looking for alternatives and various companies are delivering in one way or another.

Compared to aerospace, there's got to be hundreds more companies that someone could go to work for. Aerospace went bust in the early '70s and never recovered. The US civilian firearms market may be iffy as the economy continues to sour and the Democrats continue to treat gun control like a new third rail, but I'd sure pick firearms over aerospace, if for no other reason than there being such a range of OEMs (in sizes, from garage sized outfits to giants like FN, S&W and Ruger).

<comment><USER2> Very, very interesting -- and if I habitually wore a hat, I think I'd have to eat it at this point. :)

<comment><USER3> Heh ... in all fairness, I'm pretty sure I only developed this level of understanding of the US firearms industry in the last few years, and part of it is my focus on FN (my family has been buying their stuff for a _long_ time, going back to a FN marked 16 gauge Browning Auto-5 that my grandfather or father bought in the '30s or '40s).

One of the things that caught my eye about FN was the reason for their fidelity to the US civilian market: unlike government sales, it's reliable and fair (you don't have to bribe us to buy FN :-). Hmmm, now that I think about it, I'll bet the US civilian market earned back the development costs for the P90, it's intended market disappeared (designed to penetrate Warsaw Pact body armor with ammo we can't buy) and other sales have been limited.

But Americans just love the little puppies (hey, it's _really_ innovative and looks like a weapon of the future, I'm sure it's use on StarGate didn't hurt, and it's well featured in anime) ... if I could afford a "fun" gun I'd buy one in a second.

Plus I don't like direct impingement (the AR-10/15 design) so I've paid close attention to all the alternatives, of which there are many. And e.g. bought a SIG-556, which is the love child of a SIG-551 and an M4 (stamped steel upper, forged aluminum lower (which shaves off a pound which my RSI limited arms really appreciate)) and was impressed by the aftermarket parts activity for this fairly obscure gun (they'd only sold 10s of thousands).

Plus buying a mousegun is next on my list, after .380 ammo becomes available again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Guys you had a very informative discussion here nevertheless I am not interested in knowing if it is a good career whether is has good opportunities etc. Of course nothing wrong in your assuming it so given the way I had framed the question.

Motive was to do a self study in that area. I am very sure that security concerns at all levels will only increase over the next 10-20 years and there is a scope for lot of innovative stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would go for Mechanical Engineering if I were you.

Do you live in or plan to study in the US? Even if you don't, try contacting the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Shooting_Sports_Founda...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Shooting_Sports_Foundation)) and Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporting_Arms_and_Ammunition_Ma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporting_Arms_and_Ammunition_Manufacturers%27_Institute)). In Europe, the equivalent of SAAMI is The Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives (C.I.P., [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Internationale_Perma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Internationale_Permanente_pour_l%27Epreuve_des_Armes_%C3%A0_Feu_Portatives))

I can dig up a German small arms research organization out of my email archives if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check the career pages of weapons manufacturers.

<http://www.heckler-koch.de/Apprenticeship></comment>


Super easy Sails.js full auth template with Facebook&Twitter support - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bmustata/sails-auth-super-template

<comment><USER2> Well done! I see requests for this sort of seed project constantly in IRC and GitHub issues.</comment>


Prisoner's dilemma shows exploitation is a basic property of human society - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613585/prisoners-dilemma-shows-how-exploitation-is-a-basic-property-of-human-society/ <comment><USER2> As common with articles that speak about "human nature" or other such things, they make an assertion that the study does not. The study seeks to provide a possible explanation for the _origin_ of exploitation in society. It does not, in fact, support that "exploitation is a basic property of human society".

Disappointed in the essentialism.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they say why, tell 'em that it's human nature.

</comment><comment><USER4> TL,DR: Once you are understood aka solved aka hacked, you are always hacked. A player in virtual machine, looking for ways out, constantly in the defense.

Thus psychology is a classified information, because it allows for humans to hack other humans.</comment>


Smash Bros. Ultimate review: The best fighting game on any Nintendo system - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/smash-bros-ultimate-review-the-best-fighting-game-on-any-nintendo-system/ <comment><USER2> This is an epic review. Expect a lot of cases of the "Smash Flu" tomorrow ;)</comment>


How To Lose 1% Of Your Customers With Just 1 Email - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/44779/How-To-Lose-1-Of-Your-Customers-With-Just-1-Email.aspx

<comment><USER2> This is a classic case of paying attention to the wrong metrics. The unsubscription rate went up. But so did the sales. And yet, the author is paying attention to the unsubscription rate. Not the sales.

(Yes, it would make sense to pay attention to the unsubscription rate if the author shares the historical data of those unsubscribers. Did they make a lot of purchases in the past and the long salesletter is just bugging them off - which is reducing the "life time value" per subscriber?

But I don't think that data has been collected. (Or the author would have shared it with us in my opinion...) So - this to me feels like a decision made keeping the wrong metric in mind.

<comment><USER3> Point well made.

I do agree with you, especially when considering the life cycle of the user. Maybe NK never looked or calculated the average member value of his users. Some of these users might have reached the peak of their member cycle and decided to unsubscribe. It could have also been (as you mentioned) that the long text had "turned them off".

Nevertheless, the important factors in which he should focus on are the following: \- CRM - keeping a good relationship with his user base \- Sales - number of joins/sales made by the campaign --> which would transfer towards average revenue per email \- Maintaining a good quality list of users who are truly interested in his product --> it's all about quality over quantity, and not the other way around.

Lastly, the most important factor which NK did pick up, was that there was a surge in unsubscribes. Why was there a higher than average number of unsubscribes? He looked into it, and attempted to "win back" some of those users by sending them a personal email. \--> I personally would have added a question asking them as to why they had unsubscribed (to find out the truth behind the sudden spike in unsubscribes).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He never really explains why the first 2 long-form emails didn't result in such a backlash, but the third one did.

Was it, indeed, because the deal price was a lot lower than the first two, as implied by his later "solution" of using long-form emails for larger priced deals?

All in all, it seems that this piece was written for an audience that already knows what's going on, rather than for us. That certainly isn't a knock or a problem, though.

</comment><comment><USER5> I unsub'd after that specific email with a comment that it was too spammy. He got back right away saying:

"Totally agree.

Working on toning that down big-time.

Hope you'll give us another chance some day."

Me: "I'll give you another chance right now, keep it Hacker News grade, and I'll stay. :)"

Him: "Agreed. Short and sweet."

So I resigned up. Lesson learned: You can repair damage. Some customers know you are human and will give you another go.

<comment><USER6> If I were the one sending out these mails I'd have been surprised that some people equate message length with spam. I'm not saying it is wrong to do so, I've just simply never personally associated email length with whether or not something is spam -- for me the problem of spam arises when single sources begin to email me too often resulting in an inbox with dozens/hundreds of messages to sort through a day. The actual length of each of those emails is basically irrelevant to me, I either care about them or I don't and I know that after reading the first paragraph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Imagine... If we sent 100 emails then we'd be out of business."

Not quite. Then you'd still have 36.6% of your initial customers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does he really needed to finish the article with "Sign up to AppSumo.com to see what our new emails look like."?

It feels so cheap. He should have added the e-mail he was talking about, I use AppSumo and I remembered the e-mail in question, but I bet many people didn't (and they will not register because of that cheap plug!).

edit: punctuation and grammar.

<comment><USER9> I think that a lot of entrepreneurs leave money on the table because they're scared to do something that they think feels cheap. In a case like this, it's probably a tiny minority that would be turned off by this. I'd be absolutely shocked if having a blurb like that at the end of the post would have a negative effect.

<comment><USER8> It feels cheap not because the blurb but the way how it's written. What _I_ would have done is providing a copy of the e-mails he's discussing and at the end of the article add the plug. "Join AppSumo.com if you want to receive our infamous e-mails stuffed with great deals". (Obviously I'm not a copy-writer)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be good to see the email that caused the ruckus... or did I just miss it in the post?

<comment><USER11> I dug around my email box and I think this is the one: <http://www.errant.me.uk/code/snip/10>

It was long. And very odd.

I'm kinda used to that from Appsumo by now so it didn't really register for me. Truth be told, I just clicked through to see the offer straight away and ignored the rest as TL;DR. Reading it now.. the nicest description I can come up with is "rambling"

EDIT: Patio11 has a point about the formatting :) so: <http://errant.me.uk/appsumo.html>

<comment><USER12> Yikes. I suspect I'd be one of the people to consider unsubscribing after receiving an email like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you change your format, you can expect some temporary attrition, but you can't extrapolate that to a constant decline until, well, it becomes one.

I'm pretty potty mouthed on Twitter and have lost quite a few followers over the years but I look at it as guaranteeing that the people who _do_ stay following are exactly the sort of people who I want following me. In the same way, it seems like the sort of people who buy things from AppSumo's offers are the ones staying on the list.. so getting rid of the whiners and non-buyers is a _good_ thing.

</comment><comment><USER14> I didn't learn anything after reading all of this, somewhat disappointing.

<comment><USER15> This is what the email looked like: <http://www.errant.me.uk/code/snip/10>

He also gave tips to get subscribers back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A few observations:

 _I dread each time my inbox lights up but recognized that 60%+ of our business is driven through our email list. Our AppSumo.com emails for the most part were always short and sweet, just the way I liked them._

Then why the change?

 _I wanted to hire a real copywriter so I can focus on other things in the business. My friend Neville is a funny writer and had been extensively studying / practicing copywriting best practices._

Doesn't being a writer imply having studied and practiced writing? And what are "copywriting best practices"? Something tells me Neville is a factitious fall guy.

 _Usually we see < 0.5% unsubscribe rate_

A 2x increase isn't that big of a deal and doesn't warrant the urgency eluded to in the title.

* _The funniest thing about it?

This email was our highest conversion to buy ever._ Ah, so this post isn't about losing customers, it's about justifying and excusing the new long form sales emails.

<comment><USER17> "And what are 'copywriting best practices'? Something tells me Neville is a factitious fall guy."

They laughed when Neville sat down at the keyboard, but when he started to write...

In all seriousness though, read On The Art of Writing Copy by Herschell Gordon Lewis, and also Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. By reputation they are the two best books on copy writing and advertising ever written.

<comment><USER18> Best practices these days tend to involve putting things in CAPITAL LETTERS, and occasionally bold or italic, and BEING A COOL DUDE, and getting real, and adding ten foot high 'Click Here To Purchase' links.

I'll check those books out to see what advice they give, though; personally, I learnt copywriting by.. well, writing copy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I stopped caring about appsumo because the deals started to suck and be products using appsumo to make sales, whereas before it was products I _wanted_ and the discount made me think I HAVE TO GET THIS. I don't read their emails any more :(

</comment><comment><USER20> I unsubscribed when I received the email in question. Some problems with this particular email:

1\. Stalking people does not resonate with me. Bad lead.

2\. What are you selling? Tell me what before why. Seriously.

3\. The attempts at humor were really bad.

But the reason I was ready to unsubscribe is that I'd been noticing for a while that the AppSumo deals were more like extended free trials than actual cheap stuff. The spammy email pushed me over the edge.

I still follow the RSS, and sometimes click through to see the email-signup- wall.

By the way, I did buy one of the AppSumo deals early on.

</comment><comment><USER21> So the new email has much better conversion but alienates a minute percentage of the user base ? And you choose to go back ?

Always thought its better to have less great customers than more bad ones. Guess I am more sales oriented that email-list-size oriented.

<comment><USER22> They're a deal site right? So essentially their conversions are for the third parties, not for them.

It's possible that their sales to the third party companies depends more on their list size than on their conversion rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One thing I definitely have to say, is that NK really had some courage in trying to re-email the users who had unsubscribed. It is common best practice in email marketing to not contact unsubscribed users again, but kudos to him for testing out the concept of re-engaging unsubscribed users and specifying in his email that he made a mistake and would like to get a 2nd chance. Risky business, but I call it a success when he managed to win back some of the customers who had initially unsubscribed!

<comment><USER23> How long before we see the dark pattern of an automated script emailing unsubscribers with a "this is a personal message from Founder Name to apologise if you found our emails unhelpful. We had a few people unsubscribe recently and so we're working on improving our tone - feedback is welcome! If you do ever feel like coming back..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So essentially what we have is a 1% unsubscribe rate for an e-mail, which is above his .5% average but it's still within the range of error and many things could effect the unsubs except the email content.

Maybe his e-mail list is growing and after getting a few e-mails people realize that this isn't what they expected. Or the expectations they had for the content weren't set properly. Saying that funny/longform e-mail is that what caused the sudden unsub spike is jumping to conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how many of the unsubscribers from message number three had just had enough of it... Having forgiven the first two... a cumulative effect.

I know that I have been very happy on several mailing lists of entites wanting to sell me stuff, but when the messages get too frequent, too long, too spammy or too far from my stated interests... Unsubscribe. I forgive a few indiscressions, but when I see this abuse is a pattern, I unsubscribe.

We use paper and toner, etc. We can buy extra on a good deal, so I was on Staples list. Started out a message every few weeks, then weekly, then daily... Unsubscribe.

I was on NewEgg's list. We use cases of disks and RAM and other commodities, so we can take advantage of exceptional pricing if the chance presents itself. We also sometimes must go to alternate sources if our primary suppliers are out of stock. I am on their list, and even told them what I wanted to see. However, they still tell me about microwave ovens and watches... Much less frequently now that I have told them my preferences, but they are still in danger of losing my subscription. They are on the line... But I'd have canceled already if they sent me offers on microwave ovens more than once in a very great while.

</comment><comment><USER18> I found this interesting timing, as I just unsubscribed from AppSumo today. Today's email was a huge dive into web-copywriting-drive-conversions-awfulness with all the stuff I really loathe about that corner of the Internet. Even when the product in question is 'free'...

I understand the value in trying new stuff, but it's the old early-adopter problem: if you have a certain loyal userbase, do you risk doing stuff that they are too savvy to pick up on (and might backlash over), or do you pander to the huge new userbase you got from a recent promotion? Eventually you have to leave the fluffy world of appealing to HN readers, but there are ways and ways.

</comment><comment><USER26> > On the morning of March 2nd we sent out an email to 40,000 people and > subsequently lost 1% of those people over the next 24 hours. > Imagine... If > we sent 100 emails then we'd be out of business.

Without knowing the context of the e-mail, or why that 1% quit, this is basically the equivalent of news hosts saying, COULD YOUR CHILDREN DROP DEAD TOMORROW? Tune in at 11 to find out.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've learned (well, maybe) the hard way that if you say stupid things, it damages relationships. Now the reason one might keep doing so is that usually it's a lot more fun to say questionable things...

Alas. But yes, you have to be very careful with what you say. It's many times harder to overcome a negative impression than to create a positive one.

</comment><comment><USER28> I certainly noticed the changes in the emails and honestly thought that they are A/B testing with different formats. I actually remember giving a thought of if this format (really long and nonsensical) really works, and whether they cut back a bit in the next email. That 2nd March email was quite exciting read nevertheless.

</comment><comment><USER29> What about short explanation of the deal at the top, and a long funny story after that?

I too found the long emails easy to dismiss. I don't even know where to look to find out if I need this real quick - and I'm not going to invest the time to read it to only find out its not of any interest to me.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why not have two mailing lists, one tweetable in content and the other funny? Start people off on the tweetable one, and give them a link if they'd like more info. And give them a link back, if they choose to do so.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder what % of customers will be gained from this article?</comment>


Ask HN: Pitch Here Your Most Recent Ideas - <AUTHOR>

The title speaks for itself, but here are some guidelines:<p>-Don't worry! HN is here to help. Even if we point out some questionable parts, there is a good chance for an enjoyable brainstorming or conversation.<p>-If you already have those questions? Ask them! We like questions!<p>-This is not just for startup ideas, but still most of the time you can define the audience, the problem/need and the product/service.<p>-Keep it short.<p>And here's a community guideline on commenting on the ideas: Ask first, assume later. <comment><USER2> A better version control system. I really like git a lot of the time, but a good deal of the time I get really frustrated with the complexity, and it was even more frustrating when I was learning it.

I want a version control system that I can pick up and use, one that is intuitive to use and doesn't get in the way of writing. It would be similar to word's track changes, but with branches.

I've been giving this some thought, but I don't even know if it is technically possible, let alone feasible.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried or thought about subversion? It's great for personal projects, simple to set up, and if you ever decide you need to you can turn it into a git repo pretty easily.

I realize it's not new hotness, but it works for all of my personal projects until they get to github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A site to propose informal gatherings. The problem with MeetUp and EventBrite is that it requires someone to do the research on what everyone likes and send out proposals. If a proposal fails they're back to step one.

I'd like a site where a circle of friends can add events, meetings and such they are planning to attend. The site shows everyone in the circle when everyone's available and what they're doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Web 2.0:

HTML, as we know it, was mostly developed as a display specification. Google and the powers that be came in with HTML5 and tried to searchify HTML, but the reality is that the bread and butter of the web is going to be the HTML/CSS + JavaScript sandwich for at least the next few years.

RSS has fallen by the wayside, however XML is still a great format for displaying structured data. What we need is a social markup language, which goal is not presentation but data transmission. This will solve the following problems inherently:

\- The social boom/bust treadmill that has been going on since 2000. Adopt the Automattic business model and watch the Internet thrive.

\- The 'social search' problem.

\- The conflict of interest caused by trying to monetize the network effect.

In addition, it will allow people to digest social content in the way they want to, using nearly any format, and decoupling the social experience of the web from HTML. It will create clear channels for data interchange, allowing for actual privacy but also the controlled, transparent, and _empowered_ sharing that users deserve.

<comment><USER5> Why can't you store the social content as JSON?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hubot for Business. Aimed at users who rely on a variety of services such as analytics, business intelligence, CRM, e-commerce, and more. It's a virtual assistant/gopher that stands ready to do your bidding.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use/do for keeping your eyes healthy - <AUTHOR> Especially those who are against the screen all day. I need some advice. <comment><USER2> Move monitor further away, set brightness to match ambient light, adjust contrast, [http://www.clickonf5.org/hardware/adjust-brightness- contrast...](http://www.clickonf5.org/hardware/adjust-brightness-contrast- monitor/3846)

If you wear glasses, ask optometrist for computer prescription.

Force yourself to blink when using the computer, [https://iristech.co/blink- detection/](https://iristech.co/blink-detection/)

Take regular breaks: set 20 min timer, look for 20 seconds at an object at least 20 feet away, [https://lifehacker.com/5976390/use-the-20-20-20-rule-to- figh...](https://lifehacker.com/5976390/use-the-20-20-20-rule-to-fight-the- effects-of-sitting-all-day-long)

Avoid flourescent lighting.

Avoid extended sitting: [https://glarminy.com/2016/11/29/sedentary-lifestyle- cause-in...](https://glarminy.com/2016/11/29/sedentary-lifestyle-cause- insomnia-tired-eyes-photophobia/)

Install flux or redshift on computer to reduce blue light after sunset.

<comment><USER3> Awesome tips. Just adding to it:-

Hydrate yourself. Have your sipper around you all the time.

<comment><USER4> Do a cheap OCT scan of your eyes every year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Over 25 years in front of screen so here is my recipie:

* flicker-free matte IPS screen

* keeping optimal room light and screen dim

* flux or redshift on linux

* doing frequent breaks and finishing work earlier when I feel eyes may suffer, also intentionally blinking more often to rehydrate them naturally.

* try to not rub eyes with hands, if you need then wash them first.

* habit of changing position and looking at the distance while in thought process

* keeping healthy humidity in the room, especially while room heating or air-con is on.

On TODO list:

* some intelligent audio notification once some long running terminal command finishes or screen updates, possibly paired with webcam to detect my absence.

* switching between dark IDE/terminal theme and usually bright browser pages hurts my eyes, therefore I usually stick to bright themes. Maybe color inversion limited to browser would solve that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Easing Eye Strain with the Right Lenses (2012) | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15373992](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15373992)

Exercising for Healthier Eyes | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7480946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7480946)

Save your eyes, start using f.lux | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036590)

#eyehealth

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll put basic stuff in here, which should be obvious but from talking with ophthalmologists, often doesn't happen:

\- visit an eye doctor on whatever schedule they recommend (usually every other year) and immediately if your vision changes.

"Immediately" is not "I'll call/go if it's still a happening in 2-3 days" like it might be for, say, going to the doctor with fever. Don't wait.

\- When I'm wearing contacts, I usually take them out and re-wet them (not just eye drops) in the middle of the day.

\- Obvious but statstically, someone reading this probably does it: don't ever reuse contact solution.

<comment><USER8> Don't reuse contact solution? Uh-oh, I do this. It stays in the case for 2-3 days typically. Apparently I should stop...

<comment><USER9> If some nasty microbes get under your contact you're going to have a bad time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use flux and my phone's night mode. I also try to look away from the PC and focus on a more distant object once in a while during the day (luckily I have a window right behind me, lots of interesting focus points). I'm not as consistent with this as I'd like to be though. I also had LASIK in 2009 which had the biggest positive impact on my eyes of anything else I've done so far.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're asking this because you've noticed something weird with your eyes, things are blurry, or they hurt, go to the opticians. They're best placed to tell you what to do.

Otherwise, I use a couple of lamps to up the ambient light if the light in the room is otherwise too dim. Eye drops can also be helpful if you're using a screen for exceptionally long periods per day.

<comment><USER12> >opticians

You'd be much better off going to an ophthalmologist, an actual MD who specializes in vision and the eye.

Opticians just do prescriptions and eyeglass stuff (at least in the US).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know if anyone heard of Steve Maxwell, he is a well known fitness educator. He is doing what he calls eye yoga, which is some simple eye exercises.

Below you can find his morning routine which includes some eye yoga; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea0ReKfszEM&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea0ReKfszEM&t=2s)

Simply

</comment><comment><USER14> I wished I rested my eyes more and rehydrated my body more frequently. When I lost my eyes ability to focus it was like an on off switch, it can focus only on my screen after a few minutes of staring at it. After a few months I cant control it anymore and had to wear glasses. Doctor says at age 40 above eyes get dried and lose ability to gocus because the lens is alteady hard

</comment><comment><USER15> Take a break every 1 hour for 2-5 minutes. Use rehydration drops if you have dry eyes. Avoid low lighting areas and I try to reduce brightness in my laptop if it hurts my eyes. Supplements for Vitamin A,C, B3 etc. are also helpful (use it after a medical advice though).

<comment><USER16> On the subject of drops, it's worth speaking to a pharmacist about getting eye cream/gel if you find that you suffer from dry eyes.

I used to get occasional headaches, and maybe once or twice a year I'd get a minor corneal abrasion, which I assumed was from stuff getting into my eyes. After a while, I was recommended by a doctor to try an eye cream for night use, and the difference was vast. Alongside my eyes feeling much better, I was sleeping better as well, which the doctor put down to how the eyes move in the head while asleep, and my eyes scratching against my lids.

I use drops during the day when I feel the need to, and on occasion when I feel tired I'll use the eye cream. Since then, no problems with my eyes and no headaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have perfect vision but I use +1.00 reading glasses. That way my eye muscles aren't working hard all the time to focus up close.

</comment><comment><USER18> drink lots of carrot juice, it's high in vitamin A</comment>


T: A Dialect of Lisp (1982) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://people.csail.mit.edu/riastradh/t/adams82t.pdf <comment><USER2> Some history as recounted by Olin Shivers

[http://www.paulgraham.com/thist.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/thist.html)</comment>


Augmenting learning using symmetry in a biologically-inspired domain - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00528 <comment><USER2> TIL Antisymmetric gait is a thing -- though usage of the term (in this specific context) seems quite uncommon, even within the field of robotics. A mere ~10k results on Google.</comment>


Apple delaying HomePod smart speaker launch until next year - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2017/11/17/homepad-delay/?pushup=1 <comment><USER2> I remember the good old days when Apple made an announcement and you could head to the local Apple store that day and buy one. AirPods were worth the wait, I hope this thing is.

<comment><USER3> I prefer the Apple that is willing to forgo a holiday shopping season to make sure the product meets their standard of quality.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but I think Apple should have waited on announcing this product until it was ready to ship

<comment><USER3> If they have no existing product on the market to Osborne then pre-announcing the product is fine and probably good if it depresses sales to competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mac vs Windows

iOS vs Android

Google vs Alexa

History teaches us that there's no room for third place. Furthermore, Google and Amazon have a $50 entry price.

<comment><USER6> There is a lot of demand in the higher end market for a great speaker. Also, don't forget the apple ecosystem which people are already into. If and when Siri becomes as good as Google Assistant, people will buy into the homepod for sure.

<comment><USER7> There are already plenty of good sounding smart speakers out there (Sonos, for one). Most good assistants can connect to external speakers, as well. Banking on "it's not good at much, but it sounds good" is a very risky approach.

Plus, the Google Home Max will be out soon, which will presumably far outshine the homepod by being a good sounding speaker _and_ a useful assistant.

<comment><USER8> Plus the Google Home Max has two 4.5" woofers and the Home pod one 4". Depends how well done but the Max should have excellent sound and a much smarter assistant with better voice recognition than Siri.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two things that I've found curious about the HomePod:

1\. Apple does not seem to be positioning it against Google Home or Alexa, within the "Voice Assistant" market, but instead against Sonos in the "Wireless Speaker system" market. It remains to be seen if customers will evaluate the HomePod in the same way.

2\. I think the success of the HomePod will partially depend on the future of the "Voice Assistant" marketplace. If the current assistants are relatively mature, then HomePod is late to market and will probably need to rely on iPhone-integration cachet to become even a moderate success.

The cause of this delay, however, makes me curious. My guesses are either 1) software delays, or 2) manufacturing delays.

</comment><comment><USER10> Amazon kneecapped this product before it even came out. Nobody who has used both Siri and Alexa thinks Siri can compete as a virtual assistant, so all this thing had going for it was sound quality, and then Amazon announced the Sonos One. Barring a huge improvement in Siri, I don't think even Apple die- hards are going to buy this in large numbers.

<comment><USER8> Had the Echo since it first came out in 2014 and now several Google Homes. The Google Home is far ahead of the Echo in ability to understand natural language and much smarter in answering questions.

<comment><USER11> I pre-ordered the Echo so have been using it for a long time too. Interestingly for me I've found it's gotten dramatically worse over the last two or so months for simple commands that I use basically every day (turning off lights, setting alarm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not surprising. This is going to be a tough product for Apple going up against Google. The Google Home is just perfectly in Google's wheel house. In many ways it is an extension to search. Then Google also has YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER12> Meanwhile, Amazon is going to blow through a huge amount of Alexa devices (at big discounts) next Friday...

<comment><USER13> Disaster looms for Apple! Could this be it? Check back next week!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Both and Google have similar products already on the market

Both WHAT and Google? Amazon?</comment>


If (((_ok)? true: (Math.random()  0.1))) {return res;} - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-java-driver/blob/1d2e6faa80aeb5287a26d0348f18f4b51d566759/src/main/com/mongodb/ConnectionStatus.java#L213 <comment><USER2> The code in question is:

                } catch (Exception e) {
                    if (!((_ok) ? true : (Math.random() > 0.1))) {
                        return res;
                    }
                    (error logging)
                    _ok = false;
                }

A 10% percent chance to skip logging under certain circumstances. Very strange code, and a strange way to write it. Also wouldn't this be equivalent to

        if (!_ok || (Math.random() > 0.1))

<comment><USER3> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16833100/why-does-the- mon...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16833100/why-does-the-mongodb-java- driver-use-a-random-number-generator-in-a-conditional)

<comment><USER2> Well that should be the article link. That's a good answer too.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Announces Plans To Bake Android-Like Web Intents Into Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/04/google-announces-plans-to-bake-android-like-web-intents-into-chrome/ <comment><USER2> This is an incredibly cool idea that essentially brings back the concept of a decentralized web. Right now, we have somehow embraced a monolithic web culture were interop goes only in one direction - towards Facebook mainly, closely followed by Google's conglomerate.

Web Intents will level the playing field again, and they make those horrible embedded Facebook/Google+/whatever social networking buttons obsolete by replacing them with something way more powerful.

<comment><USER3> For a concrete example of the power of Web Intents, consider this: On Android, a browser (whether the stock or an alternative like Dolphin or Firefox) could (and probably will given the architecture / history) offer some local Android Intent handlers as handlers for some Web Intents.

To take the example from the blog post, at the photo storage website you could choose to edit an image and get menu of choices that doesn't just include web app image editors, but also includes native image editors installed on your device. That sounds pretty amazing to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Official announcement: [http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps- with-we...](http://blog.chromium.org/2011/08/connecting-web-apps-with-web- intents.html)

<comment><USER5> Project web page: <http://webintents.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think custom URL schemes like: mailto:, tel:, sms:, twitter: are kinda like lightweight intents.

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPh...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Articles/PhoneLinks.html)

<comment><USER3> On the raising side, you're absolutely right. A custom URL scheme generally captures what you want to do (i.e. the intent) not how.

On the handling side, however, on iOS there are limitations that I think make them qualitatively different:

\- only one application can handle any given URL scheme

\- no mechanism (other than Apple apps win) for choosing between apps that want to handle a URL scheme

\- no notion of optionally handling a URL scheme based on its contents (which enables very useful filter-like behavior)

\- no notion of "returning" to whatever raised the request (there are schemes to hack around this, but they are limited and brittle)

\- built-in support for carrying general payloads (rather than having to encode them in a URL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aren't we all supposed to scream "non standard!!" like we did when IE added behaviors?

<comment><USER8> If you were smart when IE started adding features, you would analyze the feature in question before throwing your hands up and shouting about MS. For instance, XMLHttpRequest was a fricking cool innovation.

MS's problem traditionally has been that it doesn't open the spec for these sorts of things until much later, if at all. This is a tendency Google does not really share when it adds features to Chrome. For instance, before Google officially started working on Web Intents, an employee of theirs and one from Mozilla came up with different ideas for how intents should be handled. They agreed on a preliminary spec and now that spec is open for anyone to implement.

<comment><USER9> That's exactly it. If we complained about every new feature we'd still be using static pages with blink tags. Google and Firefox are teaming up to implement this features. Look at how Google went about WebGL. They had a competing plugin called O3D but when they saw O3D was working out they dropped it completely and even ported the O3D api to WebGL (which I use now since then). Microsoft of old would just have kept going (hence DirectX instead of continuing to support OpenGL).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How well have intents actually worked out in practice on Android? It's been awhile since I spent much time with an Android device but a year or so ago it was very rare that I really wanted a generic utility.

<comment><USER11> They're all over the place for core functions - whenever you click a "Share" button it will ask which applications can handle the content you want to share and add them to the menu. I've also been prompted to choose whether I want to make phone calls using the built in dialer or Skype, which I presume is using intents as well.

Where I've not see so much use is providing completely new intents, presumably because its so hard to get any sort of agreement on how they should be implemented.

<comment><USER12> Whilst that might be cool technology, I wonder at the user experience and confusion when my mum clicks on the phone icon and all of a sudden this menu appears asking me whether I want to use the phone or skype (obviously I get that the call can be done with either, but mum probably doesn't).

<comment><USER13> If your mother doesn't have skype installed she wouldn't get this message. If she does, I would presume she knows what skype is for.

Additionally for the big system-level intents there is an "always use this action" which is useful so you don't have to repeatedly tell it to use the phone app to place phone calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want Google Chrome in Android, not the other way around.

<comment><USER15> If Chrome was a proper part of Android; it'd lose one of it's primary strengths, namely seamless automatic updating. Android's constrained by the certification process of carriers, and thus can't move nearly as fast as Chrome can on it's own. Seems like a small thing, but attaching the Chrome name to a browser that can't quite match the real thing would drag down desktop Chrome's reputation.

A more cynical attitude could be that Chrome intends to be it's own platform (see Chrome OS), and the Android team doesn't want to wake up one day and end up as nothing more than the gory bits between Chrome and the hardware (as Windows already is is for some people).

<comment><USER13> Autoupdating is not possible on any mobile OS I'm aware of, for security reasons. What should happen is Google (and Apple and Microsoft, etc.) need to implement autoupdating at the OS level. With user permission, of course.

And I mean true, silent autoupdating. When a developer publishes a new version of the app it should download the package, then apply the update the next time that application is closed.

As for your cynical observation, I doubt there is any conspiratorial reason for this. I think it has more to do with Android operating more or less like an independent startup inside Google. I think the Android browser would be much better if the Chrome team was behind it.

<comment><USER16> Android apps have an "allow automatic update" checkbox. If the box is checked, and the new version of the application has the same permissions as the old one, the application auto-updates.

<comment><USER13> Explain further. I have an Android phone and I don't believe this to be the case (I see updates in the app all the time).

Silent auto-update = No user interaction necessary at all. No notification.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is notification (and AFAICT, no way to turn it off in the Froyo version on the original Moto Droid), but otherwise, jellicle is correct. Just check the box on the Android Market App page to allow autoupdating.

Would be interested to learn what the "security reasons" are that you referenced above; did you mean the underlying OS? I've always felt that by Appifying more of the core Android OS functions, Google could deliver more timely updates because they would be able to avoid many of the carrier restrictions and awful modifications made by manufacturers (e.g. just include the keyboard as an app that gets shipped with the core OS).

[UPDATE:] Can't reply to georgemcbay, but he stated:

> " _this can be disabled_ "

I've had this set in the market app as you described for a while, but still get notifications when an app has autoupdated. Did I miss something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the idea, but is anyone else worried about the user interface? I don't like the thought of any site I happen to drive by registering their ability to handle intents. When it does become time for me to edit a photo, I don't want 50 choices popping up, nearly none of which I remember. And, it seems rife with phishing opportunities.

I'm not sure what the answer is here. I also don't want to be asked every time a site wants to register an intent. If you just make it opt-in, it seems like most users will simply miss the opportunity to do so.

</comment><comment><USER18> In my opinion, feature creep is starting to bloat Chrome.</comment>


I am giving away automated virtual offices this week - <AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News! My team and I have been working on a NodeJS/Express/React/PSQL project for the past ten months. We are ready to see what people will do with this project and as a part of our rollout, I would like to offer anyone who is a consultant or freelancer, an online automated tool to sell and manage your services at no cost (Only this week)! I would like to receive some feedback and improve our current beta product.
The Github link is: https://github.com/service-bot/servicebot<p>You can comment if you are interested, or email us at email@example.com <comment><USER2> Filing out the form and clicking "Launch my business" just refreshes the page with no confirmation or other response.

The intro on Github says the trial was only for August; is that why?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Github Link: [https://github.com/service- bot/servicebot](https://github.com/service-bot/servicebot)</comment>


To Fix the Social Sciences, Look to the "Dark Ages" of Medicine - <AUTHOR> https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/social-sciences-dark-ages/ <comment><AUTHOR> Lee has spent his entire career grappling with the issue of science denial — he's the author of books on post-truth and defending science from fraud, the latter of which he drew on for this essay. Here, he holds the state of the social sciences up to the prescientific "dark ages" of medicine, an unlikely source for guidance, and lays out a path forward.

"Like medicine, social science is subjective. And it is also normative. We have a stake not just in knowing how things are but also in using this knowledge to make things the way we think they should be. We study voting behavior in the interest of preserving democratic values. We study the relationship between inflation and unemployment in order to mitigate the next recession. Yet unlike medicine, so far social scientists have not proven to be very effective in finding a way to wall off positive inquiry from normative expectations, which leads to the problem that instead of acquiring objective knowledge we may only be indulging in confirmation bias and wishful thinking."

</comment><comment><USER2> The article did not acknowledge the two biggest problems with the social sciences: inability to do many experiments because of ethical reasons, and the fact that these disciplines often study human social systems which have mutable "laws".

There's not much we can do about the first problem except slowly accrete knowledge through retrospective study of actual events, and maybe fill in some gaps with simulation.

The second problem is more solvable. I do believe that there are actually laws in the social sciences, but that they are far fewer in number than the phenomena people want to study. Many social phenomena are simply artifacts of existing systems, and may shed light on behavior in a particular case but are not generalizable beyond that system.

The law of supply and demand is a good example of a law that is universal, in many ways because it lies at the junction of physical systems and social systems. The physical aspects of supply and demand, for example the amount of arable land nearby as well as the caloric requirements of a population, can be measured well because of our physical knowledge and provide a decent jumping off place to expand the theory.

I disagree that some things are not quantifiable. Everything can be counted, from the number of neural connections in our brains to the number of widgets that a factory can produce. As usual, the limiting factor in science is not a lack of theory but a lack of instrumentation and thus data. I am basically an optimist about the social sciences as our measurement abilities continue to grow. However, we are in the dark ages regarding the tools we have to collect data.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm always amazed that someone who by all rights _should_ be intimately familiar with the history of social science research like McIntyre can seemingly be so unaware of it. There was an empirical, modernist period in social sciences in the 40-80s of exactly the kind suggested by Lee and it was an absolute disaster. The results couldn't be related to the real world, and no one was really able to get over the inherent [1] influence of the author in the data. After a lot of arguing and furious paper writing in the late 80s-90s, everyone began working on how to _deal_ with that bias, moving it front and center where it can be handled instead of subtly hiding it in a bunch of numbers and pretending it didn't exist. Does it make people who aren't familiar with what's going on think everyone is a bunch of raving lunatics? Yes. It creates a heck of an image problem, not helped by the fact that some smaller percentage of academics _are_ ideological lunatics. But it's far more manageable for their peers to deal with than trying to solve an impossible problem.

[1] If you don't understand why that's an inherent problem, ask yourself whether a white male like myself would get the same results doing research on menstruation in Kabul as an Afghani woman would, or an Arab doing sentiment polls immediately after 9/11.

<comment><USER4> This is an intellectually lazy comment. It is by no means obvious that the gender and ethnicity of of the researcher would impact that hypothetical experiment, or what the impact would be, or that it couldn't be avoided with careful experimental design. If the social sciences had a better general track record of producing reproducible results with practical value for society then I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the reality is that most researchers have squandered their credibility by chasing mirages. If it were up to me I would cut funding for the entire field.

<comment><USER5> _> If the social sciences had a better general track record of producing reproducible results with practical value for society then I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the reality is that most researchers have squandered their credibility by chasing mirages. If it were up to me I would cut funding for the entire field._

Is that not the definition of intellectual laziness? You've just given up intellectually on an entire field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The social sciences have gained an incredible amount of control over academia. Why would they allow the current system, which works very well for them, to be "fixed"?

<comment><USER7> Hmmm I do not know about that, the test real, meaningful control would be who gets the funding, no?

Social sciences is nowhere near the top of this list.

[https://nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/report/sections/aca...](https://nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/report/sections/academic- research-and-development/expenditures-and-funding-for-academic-r-d)

Overall my understanding is that it is harder to be an academic in almost any field these days, but especially the humanities - social sciences are an in- between zone, but I doubt the universities cutting language and history programs consider the social sciences more 'science' than 'humanities.

Seems to me that there is a stigma around social sciences - both for legitimate reasons, and because, like anything which shines a light on the uncomfortable (systemic bias, racism, capitalism, etc) people get defensive and afraid and reactive and concoct conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER8> > Hmmm I do not know about that, the test real, meaningful control would be > who gets the funding, no?

Well no. That's arguably showing what politicians perceive the value of each department to be. But it doesn't say anything about power on campus.

The test of control should probably be what the undergrad degrees of the administrators and deans are.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure how that's a good control. Certain academic paths lead to much more lucrative private employment than others, so the degree holders have a huge incentive to go there instead of academic administration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've always found it uneasy that much of the data in social science studies comprise 5-point scale answers by volunteers to questionnaires, or observations of microcosmic situations that do not really represent reality (e.g. attempting to prove a hypothesis about generosity by giving participants $20 each and observing how they spend/gift it under a specially designed situation).

I wonder whether questionnaires should be replaced by more objective metrics, such as heart rate, pupil dilation, blood hormone levels, EEGs of the participants.

The other problem I see is the lack of predictive models in the social sciences, especially psychology. The type of models we have today are akin to 'celestial spheres' in ancient physics and the boiler theory of fever in medieval medicine (which led to blood-letting).

<comment><USER11> Some questions to ponder: how is a record of behavior (the focus of behavioral science) any less objective than heart rate, pupil dilation, etc? Also, is heart rate a measure of psychological state _really_? Hormone levels are a mess as a measure of psychobehavioral state. EEGs are useful but are opaque in terms of underlying mechanisms.

People do use all the things you mention, and they're certainly useful, but also have limitations.

If you want to know how someone feels about liberal politics, for example (I'll let you pick the US or Britain), it's far easier and more direct to ask them than to try to infer it from heart rate responses etc.

I'm not saying those other things are useless, only that there's a reason Likert scales continue to be used so much.

Some food for thought from the other side of the coin:

[https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the- negl...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of- lived-experience)

In any event, my complaint about the piece is that it picks on the social sciences when biomedicine is ripe with corruption and irreproducibility itself. There's a kind of bullying that occurs with this; biomedicine is rife with problems so it takes them out on a scapegoat. (The social sciences do have many problems, but many of them apply equally well to other fields.)

<comment><USER12> Questionnaires are not records of behavior. They are records of questionnaire answers. Aggregates of subjective responses don't become objective.

A record of behavior would be something like Internet activity. Tech companies may be the first to capture enough behavioral data to be able to actually study psychology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The social scientists do everything for grant money. Foundations don't give grant money to figure out the truth. They get grant money to get someone to make some scientific sounding propaganda that supports whatever narrative they're pushing.

Who comes up with the narrative to push though, and why?

<comment><USER14> >The social scientists do everything for Grant money.

That's a very absolute statement. _The_ social scientists do _everything_ for Grant money. Do you have some sort of data to back that up? I mean in a way it is true that research can only be conducted if there is Grant money but that should be true for all of the sciences.

>Foundations don't give grant money to figure out the truth. They get grant money to get someone to make some scientific sounding propaganda that supports whatever narrative they're pushing.

This might be true sometimes but do you think it is true for the majority of research? Not all foundations even have a "narrative" as far as I can tell.

>Who comes up with the narrative to push though, and why?

Isn't that a weirdly open question to ask at the end of a very assertive statement?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article conflates all research in the "social sciences", when in fact methodological practices vary widely within disciplines and sub-disciplines. Within each field, there is a "qualitative" literature, much less successful and popular than it once was, and probably not very useful, although I like some ethnographic and anthropoligical studies. Mainstream economics and political science is _incredibly_ mathematically sophisticated, in fact people are coming around to the idea that there may have been too much emphasis on quantitative gymnastics above things like formulating simpler hypotheses or more descriptive work. Sociology has a bit of both. Psychology was the main culprit in the replication crisis, but even the behavioural psychology work cited approvingly in the article (Kahneman) is, I think, somewhat speculative in relating its hypotheses to experiment.

Without doubt, in economics and political science at least the problem is that the research questions are infinitely more complex than in 19C medicine; not that the methods are not quantitatively rigorous. The questions are obviously also of a more normative and moral nature than in medicine.

</comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me a lot of the "Science wars" from the 90's. It's unfortunate to see things haven't improved much since then.

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

</comment><comment><USER17> For those interested in this, take a look at the work regarding "grievance studies" by Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose. They made intentionally unscientific studies with the intent of publication, and actually got themselves published on a few of their works. The objective was to demonstrate that not only does academia in the social sciences operate according to a completely different standard than the hard sciences, but is so ideologically driven that they behave in much the same way as a religion might.

<comment><USER18> People (perhaps you too) seem to have the idea that only social sciences are vulnerable to publishing stings like the one Boghossian and his friends pulled off, but that's not true[0][3]. Next, all the places the "hoax" papers were [mostly] submitted to were of low prestige (i.e poor ranked)[1]. The paper they wrote as a summary of their conclusions does not even rigorously define what field(s) in the social sciences they have issues with, instead they collect it under the nebulous term "grievance studies" \- which is a term they made up themselves to deride academics (so much for the scientific spirit of camaraderie[4]).

The "hoax" they pulled off doesn't seem to be showing what they say it does, at least not to the degree they suggest; from here[2]:

>Let's analyze the hoax a bit more carefully. The team wrote up 21 bogus papers altogether. (The essay starts by saying there were only 20; according to Lindsay, that's because two of the papers were largely similar to one another.) Of those 21, two-thirds never were accepted for publication. The Areo essay dwells on several papers that had been rejected outright, including one suggesting that white students should be enchained for the sake of pedagogy, and another proposing that self-pleasure could be a form of violence against women. They take it as a sign of intellectual decay that such papers managed to elicit respectful feedback from reviewers, even short of publication.

Academics warn against doing what Boghossian and friends did for their own good[5].

>The hoax was cruel; it sought to discredit targeted journals by setting a trap that exploited the scholarly predispositions of their editors and reviewers. Moreover, because of the anonymous review system, once the tricksters revealed their intent, only the editors whose names appear on the journal's masthead suffered the sting of adverse public scrutiny. More finessed responses by the disgruntled threesome would have employed tactics such as persuasion, insight, engagement with the actual scholarship, and good sportsmanship (Bergstrom, 2018).[6]

Most importantly, the researchers _didn 't include a control group for their study_. How can they claim to be outing "bad science" when their own methodology is so poor and fails to prove anything other than anecdota and suspicion?

One of the reviewers subject to the hoax wrote:

>"Anyways, I guess I could be more critical in the future, but I assumed a grad student had written a confusing paper and I tried to be constructive. I'm embarrassed that I took it as seriously as I did, I'm annoyed I wasted time writing a review, and I'm glad I rejected it."[8]

P.Z. Meyers put the situation best[7]:

>If you can find a bad article accepted for publication in a feminist journal, please do jump on it and tear it apart. That contributes to the strength of the discipline. Don't write a bunch of bad articles of your own, which are clearly intended only to weaken the whole discipline and provide a set of easy, straw-man arguments that you can use to pretend you're a smart guy.

And for the icing on the cake: Sokal himself isn't all that impressed with Boghossian's efforts[9]. A good thread discussing the hoax is on the social sciences subreddit[10].

[0] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17288-crap-paper- acce...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17288-crap-paper-accepted-by- journal/)

[1] [https://i.redd.it/qsi6i5rbv3q11.png](https://i.redd.it/qsi6i5rbv3q11.png)

[2] [https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/grievance-studies- hoax-...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/grievance-studies-hoax-not- academic-scandal.html)

[3] [https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/an- embarrassi...](https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/an-embarrassing- moment-for-the-skeptical-movement/comment-page-2/)

[4] [https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/10/bad- argume...](https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/10/bad-arguments-on- bad-arguments-the-sokal-squared-hoax-as-an-unfortunate-cliche.html)

[5] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378378218307242)

[6] [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14733250198338...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1473325019833834)

[7] [https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/10/03/give- it-a...](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/10/03/give-it-a-rest- boghossian-and-pals/)

[8] [https://twitter.com/dwschieber/status/1047497301021798400](https://twitter.com/dwschieber/status/1047497301021798400)

[9] [https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-the- Conceptual/240344](https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-the- Conceptual/240344)

[10] [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/9noxmp/is...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/9noxmp/is_this_study_accurately_portraying_evidence_of/)

<comment><USER19> It did prove that the only people capable of pointing out there were problems with the hoax papers are people generally critical of the social sciences. That alone demonstrates a problem.

That's why the experiment ended early.

PZ Meyers is a doxing buffoon.

<comment><USER18> How is that true when a good proportion of their papers were rejected, and they kept trying in other journals until they were accepted? What about the fact that several reviewers wrote critical responses and suggestions for improvement? Why can't what you said also be said about hoaxes in the "hard sciences" like this[0]? HN user voidhorse has a good comment about their tactics[1] (quote):

> Sure, the criticism this hoax is trying to demonstrate may be legitimate, > but the methodology is one designed to highlight the cleverness of its > executors and diminish the credibility of a discipline, rather than point > out constructive areas for improvement. Basically, it is a methodology that > does not treat its targets as intellectual equals and is quite > indecorous—you get the sense that a major point of this operation is to > discredit the field and make its practitioners feel some kind of public > humiliation or shame. A childish tactic.

[0] [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18899529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18899529)

<comment><USER19> All papers get critical responses and suggestions for improvement. That proves nothing other than the submitted papers were considered to have some merit, and still possible inclusion in the various issues.

The problem is people (a journalist and RealPeerReview on twitter initially) identified quite a few of the hoax papers. And that does suggest there is a bubble within the field that has departed from usefulness and reality.

There is a problem within social sciences. Whatever is happening in hard science journals doesn't change that fact.

<comment><USER18> My claim was never that social science is immune to the replication crisis or that it could be more accepting of outside criticism; my claim was that singling out "grievance studies" (what the authors take to be sub-branches of critical theory) using poor research methods to make a name for oneself, childish tactics, not getting IRB approval isn't the right way to go about solving such a problem, and that using this as an example doesn't stand up to the large number of hoaxes/stings in hard sciences (see the first couple of links in my original comment). What suggests that the way to go about addressing this bubble (which can and does exist to at least some degree) is to publish _more_ junk papers?

For a critical review of the papers' content, there's reason to believe that the hoax articles' premises may not be totally without merit[0].

"When Boghossian et al. describe their papers to us, the public, they do not explain what their bad arguments are, they only describe the "absurd" conclusions of the papers. So if the hoax is all about peer reviewers accepting bad arguments, then Boghossian et al. are failing to present the proper evidence, and propagating confusion about their own hoax."

[0] [https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/on-sokal- squa...](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/on-sokal-squared/)

<comment><USER19> I think you are arguing from bad faith. Social Sciences has problems and it seems unwilling to do better.

You had to be shamed publicly and widely. People have a right to know social sciences are this broken.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps, then, the authors should have published a critical review of existing social science literature and discussed flaws in methodology. That would be academically and ethically honest, and probably prompt a discussion and response from inside the field itself. Instead, they ran with their article to online news sites. Why would they do that _first_ rather than trying to engage the academia themselves? _Why_ did the researchers need to be shamed? See the quote I provided in my original comment by one of the reviewers who was fooled. She was personally embarrassed and thought the paper had come from a new entrant in the field, so she was charitable. Why is it acceptable that making people feel that way is the first course of action? It is not at all in the scientific spirit.

People have a right to know, of course - but so do researchers. Researchers in these fields have a right to know exactly what Boghossian and friends thought was wrong with their methodologies and research topics. Boghossian decided that was beneath him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sounds like, unsurprisingly, the author hasn't spent that much time considering any of these questions themselves...they just have all the answers for those that do (thanks buddy!).

Some questions just deal with issues that are just not quantifiable (even the question he poses about immigration is just not completely quantifiable). And even questions that are quantifiable are often affected by beliefs (i.e. what happened to inflation in the 70s was a consequence, in part, of what people believed about the Philips Curve in the 1960s).

Perhaps more relevant: social science went through this phase nearly 100 years ago (in history, more than 100 years ago). And this issue was resolved often more than 50 years ago^. For example in history, EH Carr: people are not objective, arguments are often contingent but there are facts, present your argument, let your reader judge for themselves).

The most harmful thing is to claim that there can be objective truth about these issues. Economics has thrown itself against the rocks far too often. The trend towards this in history at mid/end of the 19th century produced some extremely unimportant work.

This can also tend towards quackery. I remember a biologist in my local politics dept (relatively prestigious) got a ton of funding because he believed he had found a way to spot the physical attributes of terrorists (srs, not joking, last I checked he had over $1m in funding from govt). Some people, like the author, are just unaware of the wider context. Less preaching about ways to "solve" social science, more listening (btw, in my experience all of the above applies to scientific research too...all research is contingent).

^ We first had the move towards (broadly) logical positivism/empiricism, then to post-modernism when that seemed ridiculous, and now to (imo) a reasonably healthy medium.

<comment><USER21> Very well put. Regarding history and its own past battles with this illusory search for "correctness" and mathematical-like precision, I'm really surprised that the author seems to have completely ignored Popper's pretty well known "The Poverty of Historicism" [1].

I'd also strongly recommend the author to also check Raymond Aron's "Introduction to the philosophy of history : an essay on the limits of historical objectivity." [2], a book first published in French in 1938 and translated into English in 1948.

I find it sad that some people still open up this discussion about trying to make history more "exact", more physics-like, I thought we had already proved that that is an impossible task.

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

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-philosophy-history- histo...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-philosophy-history-historical- objectivity/dp/B000I16CNA)

<comment><USER18> If you're interested in the topic, Marcue's[0] (and others'[1]) response to Popper's complaints about "historicism" (a term Marcuse takes Popper to task for)

[0] "Karl Popper and the Problem of Historical Laws" (1958)

[1] [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095269519701000...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095269519701000101)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does the author suggest that we should repeat history-related events like the Holocaust or horrible regimes like Stalin's or Mao's?

</comment><comment><USER22> This is the key flaw in this article:

"The truth is that such questions are open to empirical study and it is possible for social science to study them scientifically."

Here is someone proclaiming to be a scientist, and then throwing out proclamations of 'truth' not backed by evidence. Goedel proved logically that any axiomatic system of information exchange can have truths that are not provable.

It's possible human culture and society is too diverse to make claims of 'absolute truth' about. A statistical mechanics approach to why this might be true is telling. The more entropic states available, the more potential outcomes. That is why physics studying single atom or molecules is more 'understandable' than sociologists studying 10^35 if them (humans being a cloud of atoms).

<comment><USER23> "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

All men are not equal, never have been and probably never will be. So why is that line so famous? Why has it influenced the course of history? Not just in the US. What that sentence, and its effects on history show us, is when people are faced with the Unprovable, they have a choice to sit back, do nothing and accept it OR decide what they want the truth to be. Unsurprisingly its always the latter group that makes change happen. The rest just fall asleep reading Goedel.

<comment><USER24> No way - it's derived from a conception of rights derived from Reason, God, or both.

What you say sounds like a Postmodern interpretation, even revisionism, of the original intent. What else do you think self-evident meant?

But even worse, you left out the very next part: "endowed by their Creator with Certain unalienable Rights".

No, it is NOT about making change happen, or whatever hijacking of Truth is being attempted here, it's about solidifying a state (as in authority) different than other states created with other underlying principles.</comment></comment></comment>


Myths about autism - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151006-its-time-we-dispelled-these-myths-about-autism <comment><USER3> The issue with articles that try to discuss "autism" as a whole tend to ignore that the wide spectrum of people diagnosed makes it impossible to generalize. The child in class who is considered quirky and exhibits a few rather harmless traits shares the same diagnosis as my child who is entirely non-verbal and exhibits self-injurious behavior.

The difference between someone considered "high-functioning" and "low- functioning" is often dramatic.

Until we separate the spectrum into a more distinct subset of disabilities (as well as abilities), the autism community will continue to be fractured into those who consider their autism a gift that want to "keep" their autism pitting themselves against the families of the most severely impacted who are advocating for those who often can't speak for themselves.

<comment><USER4> I know it's the huffingtonpost but this article speaks to that pretty well. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-zampino/is-autism- the-r...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-zampino/is-autism-the-real- public_b_8191918.html)

<comment><USER3> That article and a recent social media debate prompted the comment. The debate was with a well-educated adult woman saying she'd "rather have autism than $CURABLEDISEASE", and she referenced the adorable children of her friends that had an autism diagnosis that were delightful to be around. She recounted a recent conversation via communication device where a little girl expressed how she felt (and liked) her own autism and being different.

I explained that autism didn't look like that in all cases, and if she wanted autism she'd have to take the autism of my child who at 11 isn't capable of these types of interactions and generally has a rough go of it.

I think most people now realize how different the ends of the spectrum can be, but the high-functioning end of the spectrum sometimes engage with those advocating for the low-functioning end. If you like your autism, keep it - <USER2> those of us impacted by the "other" autism will keep advocating for our children. Separate diagnoses would help this tremendously.

<comment><USER4> "she referenced the adorable children of her friends that had an autism diagnosis that were delightful to be around"

We've gotten better at understanding where people are coming from with statements like this... the first statement ("rather have autism") is just bizarre.

It's pretty common that when someone learns our daughter has autism they say "She's so beautiful, she won't have any trouble". I'm still not sure what that means.

<comment><USER3> >It's pretty common that when someone learns our daughter has autism they say "She's so beautiful, she won't have any trouble". I'm still not sure what that means.

We get the "she's beautiful" thing often as well. If I had to guess, I think it's a reference to the fact that her disability may be harder to recognize than some others (Downs Syndrome or a prominent physical disability come to mind) and she'll be able to blend in when she's not exhibiting more noticeable and negative autistic behaviors (stimming, vocal stimming, self-injurious behavior, aggression). She has a friend with Downs and I like to watch how other children and adults react to the them when we're in public together.

The other thought I get when I hear "beautiful" is, in basic terms,"her looks are a good quality that helps balance the less attractive aspects of her behavior". We're very conscious of keeping up her appearance (hygiene, clothes) primarily for the purposes of the school and others who take care of her. Since she doesn't speak, keeping her looking cared for at least lets caretakers know that she is loved and we expect her to be treated as a human being. I imagine parents of typical children might have that same philosophy, but I can only speak to my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have first hand experience of raising a child with Autism and with ABA therapy.

The myth element dealing with ABA is a bit strange. The first statement seems focused on the prohibitive nature due to the commitment. Then it points out the implementation as being a form of abuse and lastly hints of discrediting the practice on the whole. Not sure what part is myth here...

I am not an expert but I know how it's worked for my kid and several other families. It's my understanding that Lovaas and early practitioners of ABA were much more strict in their approach. Children were made to sit for long periods through repetition and there was an element of "correcting" that could include a slap or stern language. From my understanding and experience this is just not the case anymore. ABA has adopted a lot of the methodology of other treatments such as floortime where the session is a play environment. There are discrete trials and it's still very data driven but it's structured into activities that the child (or adult) are motivated by. If ever my child was not enjoying their time or was being "abused" in any fashion we would be the first to stop the therapy.

We've encountered a number of older adults who work with children who are horrified that we chose to go with ABA as treatment. Their views are largely based on decades old information of the implementation. We've had those same people sit in on sessions and by the end they are taking notes and asking questions about ABA.

We do 20+ hours a week. It's intense but the intensity level is governed by my child's enthusiasm and willingness. If you have an ABA provider who is punishing, pushing or not creating a fun and loving atmosphere for your child then please speak with someone else (though I know this is not the case for vast majority of people).

<comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing your experience! Genuinely curious (since I know a bit about them) why you went/stayed with ABA if the main positives and advances were adopted from DIR Floortime, etc. Why not go with Floortime?

<comment><USER4> We actually did both.

We felt that a lot of what floortime included were things we were doing (based on reading a number of books)... and I mean that as a positive. While I appreciate the child directed nature I felt like the structure and data driven model provided a better framework for our daughter. She's very young and a lot of what we work on are super fundamental skills. ABA (at least our provider) has been very thoughtful about creating a plan that identifies her struggles and implements strategies that are tailored to her to build skills.

We tried a lot of things and could see positives in all of them... so we ultimately decided to cherry pick what we like and help structure her program. ABA provided us the framework to measure what works and what we need to change.

I encourage parents to try a few things and see what works for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My take as a psychologist.

Myth #1: It is partly a diagnosis issue but that will not be solved by waving a spectrum wild-card. Strictly _all_ mental-health disorders are present in a normal state in the general population. That goes for mania, depression, oscillations between the two, lack of empathy, anxiety, and even psychosis (e.g. it would be very unhealthy to not be somewhat paranoid these days, dreams are necessary hallucinations). The inability to fluidly shift among these many ways of dealing with reality, following the circumstances is, in my own personal book, the problem. Past a certain degree of rigidity, that itself fosters behaviors, we have a problem and often the person is aware of that. That ties in with Myth #2.

In my experience, it's not lack of empathy but a deficit in the ability to intuitively project into an other. A very large proportion of our interactions and behaviors rests on intuition and subconscious processing. I often compare autism to flying instruments. Try it and you'll very quickly get a clue of what it feels like to lack this intuitive processing.

The sad and hard thing is that autistic people do suffer from that and are often driven crazy not by the autistic thing but by the, secondary, suffering.

For adolescents. it's even worse: they fly instruments in a storm.

Myth #3: So it really isn't about normalizing but about increasing flexibility. And reducing suffering is pretty much a pre-requisite towards that. Even in Aspies, this suffering is sometimes so great that it reminds me of homosexuals before the invention of the "coming out".

</comment><comment><USER7> There are indeed a lot of myths about autism in the press, and they should be dispelled. Unfortunately Silberman doesn't really know what he's talking about, despite what are surely his best intentions. (He's a journalist, not a scientist.) Many people with autism diagnoses _do_ lack empathy for others; it's part of the condition. Labeling that a "myth" is simply incorrect.

We need more coverage of scientific journal articles, such as the many papers that point to cerebellar involvement in autism, which Silberman does not discuss at all. The lack of hard science in the debate makes it too easy for myths and vague superstition--even among doctors--to fill the gap.

See [https://medium.com/p/we-don-t-do- autism-d6de9d4f8913](https://medium.com/p/we-don-t-do-autism-d6de9d4f8913).

</comment><comment><USER8> I only had time to skim, but is the first myth really false?

When I was a kid in the 70s - 80s, I had never met another child with autistic like behavior. Yet, of my son's friends, two of them are clearly autistic (and diagnosed), and several of them seem on the spectrum (including my son). I also have several friends with autistic children. How could it be that it was just under diagnosed previously?

On the other hand, my parents recall me having 'autistic like' behavior until I was 5 or so. In fact, I didn't speak until I was 3. I asked my mom about this, and she said she wasn't worried because she figured that I'd speak eventually. Such a strange attitude to me as a modern parent.

<comment><USER9> _but is the first myth really true?_

Does anybody take into account more modern business practices of putting tens of thousands of smart people in a small geographic area? That leads to smart people breeding with smart people which seems to be a known catalyst for spectrum disorders.

Before the mid 1900s, we didn't have mass service/technical employment (read: companies requiring "smart" employees instead of interchangeable factory labor) or ease of global relocation on a whim. You'd grow up on a farm, meet someone from your town, then settle down in your own town, and the cycle would repeat for generations.

<comment><USER10> There does exist a mythology that we were all hunter gatherers until the first internet bubble, however, Harvard was founded in 1636, I have an ancestor who was an English prof there in the early 1800s, ancestors who were "in the area" for the last 400 years. We should have plenty of data from other ivies vs nearby similar sized towns without higher ed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was surprised to see that the most prevalent "myth" about Autism -- that is is caused by early childhood vaccinations -- wasn't mentioned. Especially since that myth is making the rounds again after Donald Trump stated it as fact during the last Republican Presidential Debate.

EDIT: I was mistaken, it was mentioned. Bad reading on my part :-)

<comment><USER12> Especially because it actually was mentioned in the article :)

EDIT: Hehe, no problem. I lost count of how many times I overlooked things in articles that I skimmed.

<comment><USER11> Ah! You're right. Totally missed it in the paragraph under that photo. My mistake :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Myth #4: We're just over-diagnosing quirky kids with a trendy disorder._

I'm sorry but this is true. I know plenty of (diagnosed) autistic people and they seem to cope okayish with their daily lives. The real deal - and I've read heartbreaking articles about it - is when the (even grown up) autist cannot take a shower on his own, and when he is asked a question he is merely capable of repeating fragments of things he heard before, over and over again. No normal communication is possible. A severe disability. Mental disorders are _massively_ overdiagnosed these days, it's a business with little backing of solid science, and I ask anyone who claims the opposite to show me solid evidence and research papers.

<comment><USER13> > Mental disorders are massively overdiagnosed these days, it's a business > with little backing of solid science, and I ask anyone who claims the > opposite to show me solid evidence and research papers.

When stating your opinion as fact, the onus is on you to give evidence. I ask you for solid evidence and research papers.

<comment><USER12> So wait, the burden of proof is not upon the one making the diagnosis, it's on me? That kind of science is new to me. Thank you for your input. I did plenty of research, I only hear of the keywords 'chemical imbalance in the brain' (or for autists 'atypical brain structure' or whatever) but whenever I dig deeper, I return empty-handed because nobody can explain to me coherently what is missing, what is wrong, and how it's supposed to be fixed. I actually have a great interest in psychology so my request for information was genuine.

<comment><USER14> Where you're coming from is a valid avenue, to me, considering that you're starting from a skepticism position and asking for some quality materials to review. I'm going to share some personal perspectives that might be relevant to your interest. As it's not peer-reviewed or an empirical study, but rather one based on 30+ years of experience, I do feel it's kind of in line with a personal psychology study. I don't get too specific out of personal reluctance.

For reference, I've got a physical handicap that is part of a spectrum. There are folks like me who can't go a couple weeks without medication, and others who have such a minor expression they would never know they had the condition unless in certain medical circumstances. In reality, some of those who would fit the diagnosis on a medical basis have lifestyles which would indicate they do not have the condition. On the flip side, my lifestyle has been forced to conform to the condition, so to speak, in order to appear "normal" on a day- to-day basis.

Because I received some special accommodations over the years, I got first- hand interactions with kids/youth with other conditions as well. When looking back at those years, I'm reminded of the (very real) condition labeled Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Again, it's a disorder along a spectrum, not necessarily testable by blood, but there are methods for a diagnosis.

As the condition itself got more commonly known, the phrase "I'm a little OCD" started to seep into the US lexicon. In my experience, these were (most often) people who genuinely didn't have the condition who felt that by saying they had some symptoms, but, more than likely, would never fit the diagnosis. This was brought to my attention by a drummer friend in college, who genuinely had OCD tics (silverware arrangement before eating) and shared with me his frustration at the, well, minimizing of his condition.

The whole gist of this musing is that based on my upbringing, I've never wanted my condition / disability / handicap, nor would I want to be public about it and seek special treatment as a habit. As society in the US has changed to be more understanding and accepting of individual issues (to an extent), be it a handicap, socially progressive sexual preference and expression that used to be highly taboo, or a food-type allergy, I see there is a genuine trend towards special accommodations as a right to be fought for. It's a benefit to those who need it, but it's also an avenue for exploitation by those who feel compelled to do that...and when criticized, there's an immense push-back.

So, without being too glib, first it was OCD, then it was ADHD, and now it's Autism. Each one is genuine, and each has measurable symptoms with respect to functioning in daily life. However, unlike my condition, which nobody in their right mind would want or advertise unless for straight up bullshit sympathy, there are some benefits to over-stating one's personal affliction.

I've no doubt some people would take issue with this perspective, but if I'm framing it properly, that would potentially be the avenue for more research via psychology: Studying human behavior relating to adopting a negative for access to a positive. In the most extreme case, I'd reference when a person fakes cancer for sympathy and/or financial gain (of which there are documented cases), and compare that to parents who simply want to understand their child and will look all over for answers, or convince themselves that somehow what they've come across is the answer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Papers on Face Recognition - <AUTHOR> https://lionbridge.ai/articles/5-machine-learning-papers-on-face-recognition/ <comment><USER2> the one on probabilistic face embeddings was interesting!</comment>


Supernatural Sound: Science and Shamanism in the Arctic (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/7/supernatural-sound-science-and-shamanism-in-the-arctic <comment><USER2> For an interesting insight into Samuel Hearne, I can recommend the book "Ancient Mariner: The Arctic Adventures of Samuel Hearne, the Sailor Who Inspired Coleridge's Masterpiece".

I bought it on a whim and found it brilliant.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Mariner-Adventures- Coleridges-...](http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Mariner-Adventures-Coleridges- Masterpiece/dp/0786713046)</comment>