Brain pollution: Evidence builds that dirty air causes Alzheimer's, dementia - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia <comment><USER2> If this were true we'd expect to see a simple and repeatable observation of decreased Alzheimer's along rural and urban lines. People in the centre of London would be far more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's than those living on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. This is not the case.

<comment><USER3> How many people live in the center of London city? Not many. ~12,000 very wealthy rich people last time I looked.

<comment><USER4> I don't think they were talking about the City. They're talking about Greater London.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands My professor in college was the first of a group of researchers who discovered a genetic marker for Alzheimer's:

Pioneer Families Key In Alzheimer's Find Research Traced Several Generations Of Volga German Families, Including Two From Eastern Washington:

[http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer- familie...](http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer-families-key- in-alzheimers-find-research/)

 _In reports published today in the journal Science, researchers say they have isolated a defective Alzheimer's gene culled from an 8-year-long investigation of several Volga German families, including two from Eastern Washington. Discovery of the gene, and a protein it produces, could speed development of drugs to combat the brain-destroying disorder._

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe, but my grandmother had Alzheimer's and lived in the country all her life and the air was extremely clean. However, her well water was disgustingly polluted with metals. I remember that she would wrap a giant wad of paper towels around her faucet and secure it with a rubber band as a poor man's filter. In a very short time the once white towels would be a dark rust color. I've been thinking for years that this might be the root cause of her condition. Surprisingly, her body was strong right up until her death. It actually seemed like a bit of a curse that her body forced her to continue living with a brain with a short-term memory of a minute or two. In any case, I seriously doubt the root cause for her was the air she was breathing.

<comment><USER6> The article doesn't claim that air pollution is the only cause of Alzheimer's or dementia. They specifically state something that indicates the opposite:

> If the finding holds up in the general population, air pollution could > account for roughly 21% of dementia cases worldwide

<comment><USER5> So the title should be "...causes some cases of..."

<comment><USER7> You shouldn't read "causes" as "is the exclusive cause of" pretty much ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I assume "air pollution" would include smoking? My mother was a lifelong smoker and developed Alzheimer's. As smokers die of old age etc. and non- smokers age up, hopefully we can see a reduction of these cases, or at least a reduction of the rate of increase.

<comment><USER9> The article specifically mentions being concerned by and studying air near roadways compared to that which isn't, as well as controlling for factors such as smoking in study participants. It doesn't sound like this has much to do with smoking as air pollution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This makes me very happy I moved out of a city with an air quality rating of F to a city with an A.

Hopefully the 10 years I spent in Chicago don't come back to haunt me later in life.

<comment><USER11> Since air (at least in the USA) is overall much cleaner than it was a generation or two ago, I wonder how this squares with the seemingly increasing trend of dementia cases. Maybe just people living longer overall, and dementia being (usually) a disease of old age, we see more of it?

<comment><USER7> It's probably more that people getting dementia now received damage 20-30 years ago which took time to manifest. That and varying diagnostic criteria and other variables like fitness.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any mobile games that are good rather than purely addictive? - <AUTHOR> The talk about how previous generations of games were so much better has gotten me wondering. I have never gotten into mobile games because they all seem to be a variation of clicking bubbles or jewels with no way to truly win. Are there any mobile games that actually have strategy, accomplishment, etc that you remember from games you played 10-20 years ago? <comment><USER2> Fast than Light (FTL) would fall into that category for me. It has a lot of rouge-like elements, the store is the same but all the details change with each new game so tons of replayability.

iPad only, though with the screensize of the new xs and xs max they might want to reconsider that.

Also, just recently released for iOS is Stardew Valley. I haven't played it (usually the only time I'll play anything is on a long flight) but it was extremely popular on other platforms and is getting rave reviews so that might be worth trying.

<comment><USER3> Stardew Valley can be super addictive. It was like crack for me. People talk about putting in 60+ hours within their first week for this game all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> These are some games I played 10 years ago: Snake, Pacman, Space Invaders, Oregon Trail. These games weren't addictive because they were so repetitive and the difficulty level increased to the point where it was frustrating and impossible.

Oregon Trail and games like that had an end.

So non-addictive games are designed to end whether through increasing difficulty levels or story?

Three of my favorite games are Telltale Games The Walking Dead (PC release, mobile port), Last of Us, and The World Ends with You (Nintendo DS release, mobile port). I loved the story. They weren't addictive and they had an end. TWD had such a simple game mechanic (point and click choose your adventure) too, it was pure storytelling. If you watch Ready Player One the movie, it's a little bit of video game history. You can also research video game history and play those old games too.

The most recent game I played that's kind of like old game mechanics is Overcooked. I unlocked the NG+ for Overcooked 2 and I had to quit because it was too hard which is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Kittens Game is a pay once, no ads or IAP game that has me hooked right now.

Active subreddit (/r/kittensgame).

Deep strategic resource planning that can take months to play out.

Fun concept.

Cool game mechanics that continue to unfold just when you think you've reached "the end."

It _is_ an incremental idle game (not a clicker really). However the way it abstracts away certain concepts once you've progressed enough, and turns them into resources or components needed to make it to the next stage is really engaging. I reached a point on my first play through where I was like "oh, ok, not really sure what else there is to do, I guess I beat the game?" Then went Googling and realized I was still in what is referred to as "the early game." I'm now approaching the "late game" stage, but still have a ways to go and several resets before i'm there.

The resets are a core mechanic btw, and while a bit of a headache for me personally, each time you do it you speed things up significantly such that something that took me months to achieve before is unlocked in a matter of minutes.

</comment><comment><USER5> Super Mario Run? I mean, that's basically half the reason it didn't make as much money as Nintendo had hoped; because they ported the 'buy the whole thing for a fixed price up front' model from their console games and the people on mobile who preferred free with in app purchases/ads freaked out at the price.

I guess that'd probably fit the bill. Just simple old fashioned 2D platforming with a fixed set of levels, collectables to find in said levels for extra challenges, and a few mini games and competitive side modes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Chess, if you're online play against real people (on chess.com/lichess) and if you're offline do tactics problems!

<comment><USER7> Playing blitz/bullet can become a bit addictive. Probably a small dopamine hit every time you win.

<comment><USER6> True... crap just realized that is happening to me :(.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've heard very good things about Monument Valley [0] (not affiliated). From its Wikipedia page:

 _Critics praised its art and sound design, but noted its lack of difficulty and short length._

A short length may be the sign of the antithesis of "purely addicting with no way to truly win"!

[https://www.monumentvalleygame.com/mv1](https://www.monumentvalleygame.com/mv1)

<comment><USER9> Monument Valley 1 and 2 are awesome. I got it for my kids and they love it (5&6 years old), but I also enjoy playing some of the trickier levels with them.

It's true that the difficulty levels off at some point, but if you are a casual gamer that's a good thing... I just get frustrated when games get too difficult and then I stop playing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://geocaching.com/](http://geocaching.com/) is really fun! I play it a lot.

</comment><comment><USER11> King of Dragon Pass is amazing, you run a Bronze Age clan and try to found a kingdom.

Kairosoft games are pretty good too, if you liked Sim City.

</comment><comment><USER12> Osmos -- introduced me to ambient music! Great gameplay and aesthetics and music.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really like Polytopia, its a little turn based strategy game with loads of replay value - every game's different. IAPs are just the different tribes you can play as, nothing scammy.

<comment><USER14> Buying a tribe also unlocks multiplayer (online), which is where the game really grabbed me. Playing with the spouse and siblings is a blast. The fact that you can play the game without having to pay anything is a bonus, but paying for something was worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hearthstone is a very fun card game with plenty of strategy involved. By Blizzard, creator of Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> I like The Room games. Lots of puzzles that are very appropriate for touchscreens, and they have endings.

</comment><comment><USER17> Clash of clans — going on 6 years, still one of the highest grossing apps on App Store</comment>


Ask HN: my understanding of the dating sites industry - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if people here can confirm my understanding of the dating sites industry.
The way I understand it, is that the gorilla in the space is match.com. When a new service, especially a free service, has some success, they buy them and then send users who are leaving their (paying) service to those free sites, park them there until they can "re-activate" them. At the same time, there are a few successfull free dating sites that make money of advertising.
Correct/wrong? <comment><USER2> I've been an affiliate for most dating sites for a long time. We had a really long run for a while with eHarmony and did a crapton of PPC for several years.

In the end I found a broken industry with players who were far less interested in providing good service then generally doing everything they could to play the numbers. Their entire business is built around maximizing conversion and retention rates, nothing more. While I understand ROI (I live and die it for my business) most players also have not made any effort to adapt or change by delivering better value; they simply live by squeezing out another 0.1%

Then again, I've been out of the space since April last year and there are many new entrants, so I could be out of date :P

</comment><comment><USER3> In correct. You are overly simplifying a fairly complex industry. There are many other dating sites and similar alternatives, like eHarmony, which has carved a powerful niche for itself as the PREMIER dating site. There are also tools in alternative outlits, like skoutmob that have hundreds of thousands of users, or Grindr, the largest dating social network/dating site for homosexuals. I would generally caution you away from making large sweeping generalizations. Match.com is a big player and they are very well funded.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wrong, although that would be a perfect/ideal world to work and live in</comment>


Unsupervised learning: the missing link of AGI - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600819/the-missing-link-of-artificial-intelligence/https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600819/the-missing-link-of-artificial-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> >> if you look at how humans learn, it's almost entirely unsupervised."

I don't know about that. I think it's safe to say that the way humans learn is nothing like the way computers learn, to the point that such comparisons are completely meaningless. We don't get given covariance matrices to crunch through, in order to learn how to walk or talk, say. There's a process, sure, but it seems to be very complicated and certainly nothing like the very simple training we use in machine learning.

You can see examples of this all over the place. Frex, recognising cats: by the time a human child is able to tell a cat from a dog, it's also able to recognise a bazillion other things, including language- even _multiple_ languages. Whereas a machine learning algorithm that learns to recognise cats can only ever recognise cats- if you want it to recognise dogs, you have to train it from scratch, on an entirely different dataset. And even if you don't have labels, you still have to curate the dataset, by hand. Someone has to tell the bloody thing what a cat looks like, even if nobody tells it that it's called a "cat".

And there's the rub- humans learn a lot from very little data, with very little help. Machine learning has to slog through untold bytes of data, painstakingly manipulated by a human, just to learn a measly, puny little thing that's only ever useful in a very limited context.

So basically there's no comparison. Supervised or not is not the point, the point is that our current algorithms are extremely limited in what they can learn and we're not going to get AGI out of them, one way or another.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fixed link:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600819/the-missing- link-o...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600819/the-missing-link-of- artificial-intelligence/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Link was double-pasted, begets 404 :)</comment>


Diet Soda: The Brain Knows Better - <AUTHOR> http://trueslant.com/ryansager/2009/03/08/diet-soda-the-brain-knows-better/ <comment><USER2> Real world Anecdote: I'm a cube Monkey. Six months ago I switched from Coke to Coke-Zero (I can't stand the aspartame taste in Diet Coke, they managed to mask it somewhat in Coke-Zero). No other lifestyle changes whatsoever. I dropped from 195 pounds to 175 without really noticing and then stabilized.

So, for whatever reason, I'm a data point that tends to be contrary to the thesis put forward in the article. Sounds like a fairly easy thing to do a controlled study on though.

<comment><USER3> I think the point of the article means that you would drop another 20 pounds by switching from diet coke to water :-)

<comment><USER4> I thought coke zero has 0 calories, other than the kidney stones you will get, it should not affect your weight due to calories no matter how much you drink, contrary to regular coke.

<comment><USER5> The point of the article is that drinking diet soda frequently messes with your internal connection between sweetness and being satisfied (full) in generally.

So in other words, people who drink diet soda will in general eat more and drink more of other sweet things in general and thus gain wait because their internal connections no long correspond to the real world.

That is why they would gain weight, not from the sodas directly.

Assuming of course that the hypothesis holds.

<comment><USER6> It's not a bad theory. Interestingly, there is evidence of inputs into the brain reward system that operate independently of sweetness and that perhaps directly encode metabolic value: Rodents that lack the ability to taste sweetness prefer caloric sweeteners such as sucrose to noncaloric sweeteners, such as sucralose[1]. Therefore the brain can detect calories more directly.

So in the context of this new study, it could be that the brain notices that a certain rate of eating/drinking is correlated with a decreased rate of satiety and concludes that the correct thing to do is to eat more.

1\. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.01.032>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This may explain my observation that people who drink diet sodas drink a LOT of diet sodas, while people that just drink soda do so occasionally.

<comment><USER8> People who drink lots of diet soda probably drink more because they are used to the taste and it _has no direct influence_ on weight gain.

Given the choice between a diet soda and water? I'll take the soda, thanks, unless I'm really thirsty. Better taste, without excess calories.

Maintaining a healthy diet isn't rocket science; drinking diet soda rather than water won't influence your weight unless you alter your diet in other ways.

That's what self-control is for. Rats don't have much of that.

<comment><USER9> _That's what self-control is for. Rats don't have much of that._

Neither do humans. That's why rats are such good test subjects.

The point of the study is that your brain gets the pleasure, but no caloric intake to go along with it, so you feel more motivated to get more calories than you would have otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are 3500 calories in a pound. Each can of soda has 170 calories. Switching to diet soda makes a difference. Even if you have only one can of soda a day (it's usually more), you'll lose 1.45 pounds a month. Now, if you all of a sudden substitute those 170 calories with some other junk, you just ruined it all. Eliminate the stupid calories and be smart. It's a science. It works. I lost 35 pounds in 60 days doing this. Other than that, this article is completely silly and complicates what is otherwise a simple formula. Reduce calories, increase exercise,and stay dedicated. Anything else is a distraction.

<comment><USER2> Actually, the entire point of the article is that you _won't_ eliminate the stupid calories by drinking Diet-beverages, but instead will consume more of them _because_ you are drinking Diet-Beverage. They have some data to back it up:

"We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity"

I find their thesis entirely believable, and it would be a fairly easy thing to do a controlled study on.

Why people believe that they can somehow control what they eat through "willpower" or "dedication" is something I continue to find interesting - doesn't this type of control come from the brain? This article shows that with an fMRI, your brain will actually be able to determine caloric intake of an artificially sweetened beverage - the implication being that you will then be directed to increase your caloric intake, and, as a result of consuming artificially sweetened beverages, you will consume _more_ calories than you would have if you hadn't consumed that artificially sweetened beverage.

Presumably for each persons metabolism their is something that tricks the brain into believing _more_ calories have been consumed, and causes you to consume fewer calories as a result.

I think the foundation of diets like Atkins/Zone, is that by consuming high(er) Fat/Protein diets, you are hacking your brain into thinking it has eaten more than if you hadn't eaten those foods.

<comment><USER11> I'm guessing it depends on the kind of diet. If you want to loose weight short term and you watch what you eat or you follow a program, then the calorie gain from drinking diet sodas is great. Even more, you can have the occasional sweet thing without ruining the diet.

If you want a long term, mostly maintaining diet, then yes, the side-effects can become important.

And to answer your willpower question: yes, it comes from the brain. But we have many "brains". And the one you use in a strict, short-term weight loss diet has very little in common with the every day "I feel like having a snack and it's ok" brain.

<comment><USER12> I think this nails it. If you're part of a conscious diet and watching calories, diet soda can be a good choice, because you're _explicitly_ controlling for the effect the study is about - the false sweet causing cravings and ultimately more calorie consumption. It might follow, though, that the diet soda makes the rest of the diet more difficult.

If you're just subbing in diet soda for regular and not paying particular attention to overall diet, though, this study argues that you'll overall lose, as the diet soda increases your cravings for sweet and, left unchecked, you'll gain weight. Seems plausible.

(I don't worry too much personally, since I'm part of the population to which artificial sweeteners are not palatable. I'd rather drink water, and I do quite often.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This doesn't make intuitive sense to me: like almost everyone I know who drinks Diet Coke / Coke Zero, regular Coke --- the kind I'm supposed to have extra cravings for because the Coke Zero has jumbled up my pleasure wiring --- tastes completely disgusting to me now.

Am I supposed to be getting these sweet-calories from some other source? Because it's not as if diet soda has suddenly got me eating huge bags of M&Ms, either.

<comment><USER14> I noticed that once I got used to drinking diet sodas, the regular stuff started feeling too syrupy and tasted way too sweet.

And although this may just be me, but I haven't noticed any correlation between the frequency and strength of my sugar cravings based on whether or not I've been drinking diet soda.

<comment><USER15> Funny - the diet stuff always seemed too sickly sweet to me.

Of course, I've switched to seltzer with lime and black coffee :)

Haven't had a craving for "sweets" in quite some time.. no candy, no soda. And I feel much better for it. I don't know how it happened, or when.. but I just don't want sweet stuff anymore. The cravings left before I cut them out of my life.

I think it might have to do with the fact that the last five years of my life have been much more sedentary than the previous five (bad ankle injury). Not exercising as much = not needing as much calories, and since I hadn't tricked my brain with diet soda, I just don't crave sugar anymore. Of course, now that I've started exercising again maybe they'll come back.. we'll see!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing I find interesting is that the rats lived in an environment where either sweetness always meant additional calories, or sweetness never did (assuming I'm reading the paper right). Which does lead me to wonder:

1\. What would happen if sometimes the yogurt was sweetened with sugar, and other times with artificial sweetener? Perhaps at some point the calorie reduction from using artificial sweeteners would balance out the additional calories caused by eating more.

2\. And what if the rats started out with regular yogurt, then switched to diet? I imagine there would be an immediate decrease in weight gain - if so, would it stick?

</comment><comment><USER17> I think the quantities we consume of soda are frightening. It's so unlike anything we are evolved to consume that it was the first thing I eliminated from my diet when I started trying to eat healthier.

</comment><comment><USER18> Like with most things in the world, if you have no self-control or ability to control your impulses, then life is going to be very difficult for you.

</comment><comment><USER19> Many diets seem to be based on temporarily fooling the mind.

e.g. a meal that fills the stomach to capacity but with little calorific content

Initially the dieter loses some weight. After a while, he notices that he isn't deriving pleasure from the diet.

But because it seemed initially to work, word of the new diet spreads.

</comment><comment><USER20> I had switched to water only from diet soda because I thought it would help clear up my acne. It didn't do anything for the acne but I did notice that I was eating a lot less or rather less hungry. So I was kind of wondering if there wasn't some kind of connection. Interesting to know.</comment>


Unofficial alternative UI of hackernews - <AUTHOR> http://hckrnews.com/

<comment><USER2> You know, you could probably harvest quite a number of passwords by adding a small 'login' link to the top right corner of the page

<comment><USER3> Sure, I could. Which is why I didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks a bit odd for me in Firefox. I'm assuming the comments/points totals were supposed to line up...

<http://imgur.com/RLkXX?full>

<comment><USER5> I'm getting the same thing in Chrome. This way anyway it seems harder to read than the original.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, looks fine using the newest Chrome beta.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's fine to me in Chrome - Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hoped this would be for the comments page -- would love one that didn't reorder the comments as they are rated.

I find it desperately hard to find what's new when revisiting a comment thread, unless I've posted in it and can go in via "threads".

<comment><USER3> If you go to the about page[1], you'll find extensions for both chrome and safari. These extensions will highlight new comments, as well as make comment threads collapsible (a la reddit).

<http://hckrnews.com/about.html>

<comment><USER7> These are great, but won't work on iPad, where I do most of my HNing. Server- side solutions are much preferred.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Overall, I dislike it. On the plus side there are more stories to scroll through and the hover effect is nice. But I don't think that makes up for the font. Plus, when you scroll down there's no way to tell which column is comments and which is points.

<comment><USER3> What OS/browser are you using? What is your issue with the font? _edit_ : Others seemed to be saying the same thing. I switched to a sans family stack. Let me know if that is better.

As for the column thing -- this is something I use every day, so I designed it mostly for repeat usage. I didn't want to pin a header or add extraneous text to make that clear. Use it for a while, and it should become second nature that points is closest to the story description.

<comment><USER8> Sorry for the late reply - the font was more a matter of personal taste. I like the sans much better.

Of course if I used it often enough I'm sure I'd remember which was points and which was comments, but when you make a choice like that you should remember you are forcing the users to learn and remember that. There are going to be users that simply don't like being forced to do that extra mental effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorting by date is a great idea, easier to keep up with than a list that randomly reorders every few minutes because of changing point values.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I'm glad someone appreciates it. Seems everyone else is very worried about my spare time and how I wasted it... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome! You fixed the HN frontpage for me. This has exactly what I was missing.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like your site. I want to completely switch to your site. But..

1\. Some stories are Missing: For example, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1787019> ("When Intel's Hyper Threading goes bad") was posted on Oct 13, 2010. But it is missing your list.

2\. How often do you update #Points & #Comments? I mean if I just post a comment or upvote any OLD story on news.combinator.com & then if I browse back to that day on your site. Its not showing the updated values. I guess you are storing the stories but not updating them. What is your criterion for updating the #Points & #Comments?

3\. What is your criterion for "top" in top 10, 20, 50%? Its definitely not points.

PS: How are you getting the stories from news.ycombinator.com? Scraping or do they offer some JSON API?

</comment><comment><USER12> I do not like this design at all. It is simply not personal taste, yet I must applaud you for taking the time and energy to do that.

HN with new look is something I think of at least once a day during one of at least 15 visits to the site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Author here. Part of the reason I built this is so that I could skip a day or two, and still come back and see what was posted. Unfortunately, that means finding this thread 11 hours after it was posted. I'll respond to the comments.

</comment><comment><USER13> This isn't exactly news. There is a page that include several HN related services here : <http://resourcey.com/site_details/2/news.ycombinator.com/>

<comment><USER14> I didn't know <http://resourcey.com> ! Nice project. Is this new ? Related to YC ?

<comment><USER15> Yep, it was created by me and my partner in all things startup (he lurks on HN, doesn't comment much). It was inspired by Hacker News, although we cover any sites people wish to add.

Please, visit and upvote the resources you like, and add any resources you can think of. There are already a few gems there, for HN and other sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is where I actually think Digg is better than HN and Reddit. Their content and community may not be nearly as good, but at least they ATTEMPT to improve their UI and general functionality. Soon I have been on HN for a year, and I do not think I have noticed a single change to the site.

I know that interface is not everything and that once you get used to this simple one, you really get to like it, but I would just expect that a tech site, where 1/4 of the articles are about design, would try to push itself a bit more.

<comment><USER16> I'd suggest you educate yourself on the origins and goals of HN before you start complaining that it's not trying to compete with Digg.

<comment><USER6> I would _never_ want Digg and HN to compete. They are two entirely different sites. I was merely comparing their design philosophies, not their general purposes.

And I apologize if my post is seen as a complaint. I was trying to be constructive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks nice overall. But Caslon is a bit blurry and hard to read at less than 18px on Windows with Cleartype enabled. I'd either switch to Georgia or bump up the size.

<comment><USER3> It seems this is a common theme. I switched to a sans stack, that should be easier to read, if not so pretty.

An aside, but one thing I love that both Safari and Chrome now do (at least, maybe others do as well) is remember the font size instructions for a site. So, if you bump up the font size -- next time you visit it keeps it at the larger font size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apparently there's another one on <http://hckrn.ws/> . What's with the HN redesigns?

<comment><USER19> I figured that pg has kept HN feature and design limited so that the users can hack and chop it how they want it (eg. I have simple email thread alerts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I knew that the shapes in the orange boxes on the left were probably letters and numbers, but I honestly could not tell which ones they were (especially just looking at the top one, which for me right now is "6am"). I ended up copying and pasting the text into my address bar to read it. I'd suggest a different font. (I'm on Win7/Chrome Beta).

</comment><comment><USER21> I like big fonts like in <http://www.hackerblogs.com>

</comment><comment><USER22> The very first thing I tried to do was click on the words "comments" and "points" to sort the entries by that column.

Placing those columns on the left-hand side gives them the highest importance. Is that the intention of this UI?

<comment><USER3> I can understand why you thought they would be sortable. However, it's designed around being a chronological list. When I want to scan the higher rated stories, I use the filter links -- top 10, top 20, top 50%. Sorting by points or comments does make some sense, however, it is also a function of how long a story has been posted -- so I don't really think a javascript sort in place would be too useful.

As for the UI design -- I wanted a simple list of stories that I could scan, plus I wanted to be able to see the points and number of comments associated with that story. While I understand your point about highest importance, if I had placed the numbers on the right the ragged right nature of the text would make it hard to scan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well done on taking your time out to do this. Congrats on launching.

I find this one far less scannable. I see what you tried to do but it needs a bit more refinement.

<comment><USER3> Can you comment on why you find it less scannable? In fact, I find the opposite -- just the information I need, with no noise, on a clean white background. But, of course I'm biased.

I did add alternating backgrounds -- I'm not sure I'll leave it like that, but do you find that better for scanning?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great idea but the UI needs some work... Everything blends together. What I'd love is notifications when a comment receives a reply. Sign me up for that!

</comment><comment><USER25> I like it, but can we get a font with slightly less fiddly tiny details? They don't work so well on a low-resolution computer display.

<comment><USER26> Agreed. Decent flow, find a cleaner font, it wont take long ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A better exercise would be to redesign HN in HTML5. Instead of font tags and tables it needs an urgent injection of CSS.

<comment><USER21> After further examining the source I dare to say the size of the html sent could be cut in half.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't think this is a good idea. As a somewhat loose comparison I wouldn't make a newyrktimes.com with an alternative layout either. There must be endless other ways of spending one's spare time, e.g. by making something you can charge for. I know this sounds harsh and I don't mean to rip on the author personally, but in general I think there are too many derivative-of-derivative services out there.

<comment><USER28> I think it is a great exercise to reimagine your favorite websites. Build junk. Because it is fun. Because it teaches you. Because no one expects it to be awesome so you can be free to play.

You have to sharpen the saw somehow and by taking an existing site you can focus entirely on the interface and not on requirements capturing or brand establishment since those have been provided for you.

<comment><USER23> Agreed.

It makes us designers stronger. One of the first things I tell people trying to better their design is just that… redo your favourite website. Learn the techniques they used, find out what they did what they did and then mess it up and make it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like this. I wonder if there is a way to have a left nav like this and then a right column for comments.

</comment><comment><USER30> Please add alternate row colors! I find it difficult to read a list of links on plain white background.

<comment><USER3> I gave this a try. I tend to find alternate row colors pretty jarring, so I made it subtle. I might pull it though, so let me know what you think.

<comment><USER31> i agree. plain white is much cleaner and simpler to read. alternate colors just add noise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> One other trick with this site that's not listed on the about page: click on the title to refresh.

</comment><comment><USER33> In safari 5 the layout blows up (slightly) if you resize the text (it was too small for me).

<comment><USER3> This was related to the Firefox rendering bug, and should be fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Excellent! Instantly bookmarked!

<comment><USER35> It doesn't look great on firefox but very clean with Chrome

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> i must be in the complete minority here, but that is one of the nicest designs and layouts i've ever seen

looks great on chromium full screen

has the designer done any other work? any other samples?

</comment><comment><USER36> Could you implement sorting by points or by comments with jquery?

</comment><comment><USER37> I tought about this yesterday! Thank you!!

</comment><comment><USER38> Well I like the original better I guess (nice to see a different design take though... I ain't hatin'). Guessing your alt. design would look cool in an ipad though.</comment>


Ask HN: Mobile apps vs web apps over next 3-5 years - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I wanted to get your opinion on how you see mobile apps vs. web apps performing over the next few years.
As a hacker, I normally find myself in a position where I can create an app using web technologies but it doesn't have the same "polish" (read: smoothness in animations) as its native counterpart. I'm aware of the benefits of web apps but I find that consumers often get peeved at this lack of polish. Do you see this changing anytime soon? Will people eventually migrate to web apps even on their smart phones?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> In my opinion, both native apps and Web apps will continue to coexist. However, with HTML5 and other possible future standards the gap will narrow down.

Further reading: <http://globalmoxie.com/blog/mobile-web-vs-native.shtml> and [http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/07/how-html5-will-kill-the- na...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/07/how-html5-will-kill-the-native-app/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links. Good read, especially the first one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> native apps will dominate for the foreseen future. it is easier to buy an app on itunes and then click that desktop icon when you need it, than to fire up a browser, browse the mobile internet and type / remember URLs.

apps are just easier for mass market users.</comment>


Autoblow the World's First Artificial Intelligence Powered Sex Toy - <AUTHOR> https://techgrabyte.com/1155-2/ <comment><USER2> Welp, I think we've figured out what the "Great Filter" is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using porn movies (it's not obvious from the text what kind of video they were using) is a pretty bad choice as they are not realistic at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> HN hug. Got a mirror?</comment>


Trackonomy Systems Is Hiring a Sr Full Stack Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1988667844/ <comment><AUTHOR> Want to be part of an exciting pre-IPO enterprise B2B company working on the cutting edge of internet-of-things, artificial intelligence & agents, blockchain, and manufacturing technology? This well-funded venture-backed company has an international footprint with our headquarters in San Jose, California in the heart of Silicon Valley. We have paying customers and are rapidly scaling.

We're looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer who is passionate about automation and process improvement to support a wide range of technologies and will be involved in the build and DevOps advocacy of strategic parts of our breakthrough IOT platform targeting exciting verticals such as automotive, aerospace, defense, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and logistics. This is a great opportunity to get to know some very smart people in the Valley, learn about the coolest new technologies, and solve a broad range of exciting problems such as scaling up hardware products to mass production, developing artificial intelligence, security, and positioning solutions. You will be a core engineer of our early stage team. We work on everything from machine learning, to security, to high performance computing, to IoT devices, to dynamic web apps, etc. Don't be surprised if you get to touch every system while you work here, often teaming up with other team members on critical work. Some examples of projects you may work on:

What you will do: In this role, you will be responsible for developing infrastructure for data collection, storage and web based user interfaces. Responsibilities will include developing and optimizing databases, creating web APIs and web pages for user interaction including user management, multi- dimensional data display.

Experience: Knowledge of Azure/AWS cloud environment Experience with various databases Know front-end and back-end web technologies including React, HTML 5, CSS, Javascript and Node.js Minimum BS in computer science

<comment><USER2> Job ads like this aren't allowed on HN (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)), but you can post in the monthly Who Is Hiring threads.

They appear on the first weekday of each month and can be found at [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring) afterward. You post your job as a comment in that thread. Please read the instructions at the top and take a look at some of the other posts to get an idea of the conventions. These threads become closed to new comments after two weeks.

One important point is that you have to personally be part of the hiring company in order to post. Third-party recruiters and job boards aren't allowed.</comment></comment>


50,000 deaths so far in the UK's coronavirus epidemic - open-source-ux https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52623141 <comment><USER2> A note for anyone comparing to any other country: the UK is rather fast to get excess deaths up to date. So they show this metric earlier than others do.

50,000 deaths is awful. But be wary of comparisons to countries that haven't updated yet. I'm in Quebec, and I don't believe we even have March numbers yet. Govt here is pretty bad at data transparency overall.

Edit: yup, quebec is still stuck at February: [https://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/statistiques/population- demograp...](https://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/statistiques/population- demographie/naissance-fecondite/i210.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> It will be interesting to see how this finally plays out. Initially the BBC were downplaying the body count and there was little acknowledgement of the fatalities in care homes. Only the Sunday Times (?) was reporting a total, based on their own research, that was significantly higher than other media outlets. Now all the newspapers seem onboard with the idea that the final total will be much, much higher than officially reported. The BBC was somewhat late in arriving at this position.

<comment><USER4> Since Sweden is acting as a control group we know that the lock downs have very little meaningful effect; if they do, they are certainly not worth the cost. So we need to protect the most vulnerable by isolating them (the old and sick) and the rest of us need to get back to work. The total death toll will be whatever the total death toll will be at this point. Focusing on it doesn't help anything right now.

<comment><USER5> I can't stress this enough: Sweden is not acting as a control group. Every nation on Earth is restricting freedoms in some way, on a continuum, including Sweden.

Even if Sweden is used in a future study, we wouldn't know the cost benefit outcome of a lockdown for years anyway.

A true control group would enact no policy changes and be a size and composition that matches the country you're interested in.

<comment><USER4> So...what you are saying is that we don't know if the lock down is working...so then, if science is our guide, why are we doing it? Also - <AUTHOR> matter, who will die from this will die. Our hospitals are not overwhelmed so those needing help will get it. We should take our wallops up front instead of this way - it will be cheaper in the long run in every way (this includes preventing the depression related suicides that will inevitable come from a full on economic depression).

<comment><USER5> Why are we doing it? The same reason we don't try to eat a year's worth of meals in one day: we simply couldn't handle it. The modelling and current experience indicate that hospitals would be overwhelmed relatively quickly. The only real argument against that is if natural herd immunity has already been achieved; seems unlikely at this stage, but we'll know either way once credible seroprevalence studies are completed.

A "lockdown" is a Fabian (or "rope-a-dope") strategy: we avoid getting our assess kicked until the balance of power shifts in our favor, at which point we stage a massively devastating counterattack. In the context of COVID-19, that means safe and effective treatments, and/or universal vaccination.

"Getting our wallops" upfront would likely involve a severe economic contraction, as millions of people are removed from economic activity by illness, death, and ultimately fear of the two. Even Sweden is projected to suffer a severe economic contraction, partly due to the global trading conditions and the openness of their economy, but also partly because fear of COVID-19 is sapping domestic demand.

<comment><USER4> You act as if risk is the same for all groups and we know for a fact that it is not. Covid-19 by in large kills the already sick and the old. They are the ones at risk and their death, though unfortunate, would not as a whole impact the economy in a negative way since most of them are currently not producing anything anyway. And waiting for a vaccine is ridiculous - there has not been a single Covid-19 vaccine ever developed; it is has been too hard to do. Maybe with all the current efforts there might be some breakthrough but relying on that nebulous hope in making our policy decisions seems foolish.

<comment><USER5> I'm afraid I have to disagree with all your points in the strongest possible terms :)

The idea that "the sick and the old" would not as a whole impact the economy if they went missing because "most of them are not currently producing anything" is nonsense. The sick and the old are not some economically inert material that we can just dispense with; they are workers, business owners, investors, and consumers.

Many people in good health are also laid low by the virus (either through a bad bout at home, a hospital stay, or death) for reasons we don't yet understand. It's not like the "young and healthy" portion of the economy would get through the pandemic free of impact.

Waiting for a vaccine is not ridiculous, but nor does the entire strategy hinge upon it. Of course there's no vaccine for COVID-19 yet because the disease only emerged at the end of 2019; that's nothing to do with difficulty. The economic incentives for a safe and effective vaccine are now astronomical, and many candidates are now in development. We are also doing clinical trials for potential treatments that are already approved for medical use, so that could change the dynamics in our favour relatively quickly.

The policy moves to keep r0 below 1 are a bridge to a better world; they are an entirely rational strategy if you care about people and the economy they create together.

As for the claim that recessions cause an upturn in deaths, this is not supported by research of previous recessions. It sounds plausible, but it's not true: [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00210-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00210-0) There are many reasons for us to want to avoid recessions, but mortality is not one of them.

<comment><USER4> Let me clarify some things. I meant to say there are NO COVID class vaccines. The common cold is caused by the Covid virus - no vaccines for it...no vaccines for any of the Covid viruses because their nature makes it difficult to create an effective one. If we manage to produce one it is a long shot and at this point should not even be really considered as a short or medium term solution.

The current stats surely indicate that the sick and old are the ones impacted. see here: [https://tinyurl.com/ybtbqxsn](https://tinyurl.com/ybtbqxsn) Basically the ones in nursing homes or the ones that are so unhealthy that they are not producing much. This is also a fact that can not be contested. Sure you see on the news, adnauseam, the middle aged man that got sick and died and left a family - but they are the minority. Now just because I say that does not mean that the old and sick have NO economic benefit for somebody; sure nursing homes are a business and people make money from it - what I mean to clarify is that in terms of wealth generation, they produce very little in terms of net because usually people of this class are not working because they are old and sick.

I do certainly care about people - I am just saying our hospitals are not overwhelmed right now at all. The ones that will get sick we have capacity for, and the ones that are going to die from this will die. So we should move forward and suffer their loss now instead of cripple the economy and suffer their loss over time. Because what does a crippled economy leave us? More vulnerable in every way to every other threat - natural and man made.

Also, by your reasoning, we should quarantine everybody with AIDS, Tuberculosis and a host of other diseases...so why don't we? Why are the Covid-19 deaths the only ones that matter here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Taiwan has had 7 deaths in comparison (0.3 per million) vs UK (482 per million). Of course they did things as soon as it appeared. UK and US waited weeks and months.

</comment><comment><USER7> Note that politics in the UK are VERY polarised at the moment, therefore the quality of the discussion here will inevitably be one-sided and of low-value.

<comment><USER8> That's the nature of "I told you so" discussions. There's really not much more that can be said here besides, "they/we should have listened to the experts who said this would happen unless a lockdown was imposed."

<comment><USER7> The situation is far more nuanced than that. The UK government were not ignoring experts, they took advice from their own scientists. For instance Sweden too remained fully open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The phrase "sick man of Europe" never seemed so apt. Our government has totally failed - hilariously late in imposing lockdown, never closed the borders, failed to reach their own testing targets, and mass deaths in care homes (which weren't even included in the official statistics until last week). Really is shameful.

<comment><USER10> Is there a realistic objective to lock-downs other than avoiding overrun hospitals?

<comment><USER11> This is a disease of governments and health systems.

As an individual the odds aren't too worrying in isolation.

Everything functioning well, few people get sick and those are treatable and death rates are low.

But it's exponential growth.

So cases can swamp any realistic health system left unchecked. At this stage the low fatalities (0.5%) goes out of the window and start looking at just under 10%.

So a good strategy seems to be to slow the spread to managable rates at which level actual disease impacts are quite low.

Imagine, in the limit, theoretically, you could keep everyone seperate and expose a batch size you could treat, lead them through and then take the next batch. You could have death rates under 0.5%.

The only other realistic objectives I see are tactical: ramping up treatment ability and postponing cases until a cure/preventative measure is available and when disease progression and treatment are better understood.

<comment><USER12> If I understand your reasoning, the difference between hospice care and staying at home with bedrest & fluids is a 9.5% death rate. Is that actually the model you work with? My understanding is that most COVID patients sick enough to get a ventilator die anyway.

<comment><USER13> I don't know this is not more widespread, but you have 3 type of care. Non- intrusive ventilators or oxygen masks (or the nasal oxygen stuff), instrusive ventilator and the last one is artificial blood oxygenation, i will count this as intrusive ventilation as it is often used with intrusive ventilation.

Around 10% of known cases needs hospitalisation. Among them, 70% to 80% of cases only needs oxygen and not respiratory help. So you can't give them oxygen, they'll either die or have permanent right heart or brain damage. Those will likely be fine after a dozen day at the hospital.

If your oxygen levels are really, really low, you will need an intrusive ventilator. And yes, the death rate in those cases is absurdly high (between 60 and 90%).

Note: 10% of known cases is NOT 10% of cases.

Note 2: IMO this 10% number should be way higher as hypoxemia is far more widespread than previously thought, even for people with mild symptoms, even for kids (i only have anecdotal data on this so don't use it as an argument until papers are written and consensus is made). Still, if you have covid with only mild symptoms, please go to the hospital to take your oxygen saturation level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 50,000 may even be an underestimate as the reduced commuting from lots of work from home and reduced employment leads to fewer traffic fatalities and this hasn't been accounted for. These things are really hard to measure well.

<comment><USER15> The UK has a about 150 road deaths a month which is a rounding error compared to the 25,000 excess deaths/month. (Also I assure you that traffic deaths have not fallen to zero as enough idiots take empty streets as an invitation to do 90 in a 30 zone.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's inaccurate to count "all deaths above what would be expected" as Coronavirus deaths.

Plus it's very early to be making international comparisons of different data.

<comment><USER17> It's not that inaccurate and in the face of inadequate actual testing is all we've got.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bit of a misleading headline, as the 50,000 excess deaths are almost certainly not all caused by SARS-CoV-2. Nowhere in the headline or the article is that claim made.

<comment><USER18> The article makes it pretty clear that the majority are due to covid.

> About three-quarters of this excess can be accounted for by deaths that > mention Covid-19 on the death certificate - that total was just over 36,000.

The remaining 14,000 are up for debate, and even if they didn't have covid it isn't simple. If someone dies because they can't get treated due to healthcare systems breaking due to covid, is covid the cause of death?

<comment><USER5> That's not quite accurate - the ONS data does not attempt to attribute COVID-19 causality in that way; death certificates that mention COVID-19 are not quite the same thing as deaths we know were caused by COVID-19. To balance that somewhat there are probably missed cases hiding in the other 14,000 excess deaths as well, as you say.

The NHS is open to treat all emergency patients, so in theory there should be no excess deaths due to the healthcare system breaking; however, it may be the case that people have avoided treatment due to not wanting to burden the system, or out of the fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.</comment>


I made a patch for Mozilla, and you can do it too - <AUTHOR> http://marti.us/w/2014-07-19-Mozilla-BSP.html <comment><USER2> I've been working with new contributors for some years now. Here are some advices:

\- find a mentor. It will helps a lot (use [http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/);](http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/\);) \- for the first bugs, writing code is not usually the hard part. Understanding bugzilla and writing tests are; \- ask for a commit access level 1 early to have access to the try servers (to run the tests); \- finish what you start. Bug is fixed when it lands, not when a patch is attached; \- mozilla hackers are nice people, ask questions on IRC. There's no stupid questions (we all started from zero too);

Everything will get much easier after the first bug fix. And motivation grows a lot once you have finally landed some code :)

<comment><USER3> It would be helpful if the Mozilla Bugzilla had some way of opting in to identifying that you have a mentor, so that it would be easy for reviewers to see, "hey, this person's working pretty hard on this bug, but he hasn't declared a mentor. We should suggest that he find a mentor."

I say this as a person who wasted two years working on a Firefox patch, which, in hindsight, would have landed in a month or two if I'd had a mentor. (Not that I'm bitter.) [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347174](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347174)

<comment><USER4> As of a few weeks ago, bugzilla has a "mentor" field which is being used to identify bugs that are good for new contributors to work on and the correct person to mentor them. It would certainly make sense for someone looking to work on a bug with no suggested mentor to ask for one. If you have any suggestions for how to make this work well in the UI, it would be good to hear; expecting people to notice "this bug doesn't have a mentor field so I should ask for one" seems rather unlikely to work.

The bug that you worked on was a bit of an outlier in the sense that:

* It modified relatively complex parts of the code. * There was initially no (HTML) spec for the feature. * There was initially insufficient information to know what the spec for the feature ought to say.

So I think a mentor might well have told you "this is not a good first bug". Of course that make it all the more impressive that you pushed through the difficulties and got the patch landed and the spec fixed along the way. Thank you for that! The main delays seem to have been waiting for review, which a mentor may or may not have been able to help with depending on whether there were other less-busy qualified reviewers, and waiting for the patch to land, which these days we have a better process for and so which wouldn't happen again.

<comment><USER3> I asked around on IRC after the fact; it was generally agreed that I should have requested other reviewers rather than waiting months for feedback. If only I'd known!

But that's kind of my point. "Mentored bugs" is an interesting approach, but normally people have mentors, not bugs, and I think that having a "mentor/mentee" field on user profiles may be the right approach for Mozilla; the field would show up on comments/patches I post.

That way, the reviewer could have seen on my profile that I'm new to fixing Mozilla bugs and unmentored, and in his first review, he could have suggested, "I think you should fix these things, and BTW, I think you should find a mentor to shepherd you through this process."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did it! [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=548763](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=548763)

Unfortunately it took quite a long time, the Mozilla process is quite confusing to a newcomer, even one with a lot of open source project experience. I definitely second the recommendation of finding a mentor.

<comment><USER6> I don't think I would have been able to get my two patches into Mozilla if it wasn't for the mentored bugs program. It's incredibly useful and I wish more projects would implement it. _ahem_ openstack _cough_.

<comment><USER7> openstack is a "commercial" open source. Several (if not most) developers who contribute are paid by "companies" \- so typically new "contributors" find mentors within their "company"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In your post you mentionned that a goo way to start working with open-source project it to look for smaller scale projects to contribute on github. If been working hard to make it easier for people to find interesting/smaller projects on github by creating the /r/coolgithubprojects and the [http://coolgithubprojects.com/](http://coolgithubprojects.com/) website lately. It's not perfect but anyone who's looking to contribute and find interesting will (I hope) find these tool useful. They're not perfect yet but we'are working hard to making open source project sharing as easy as possible!. My 2 cents.

<comment><USER9> I have also created a site designed to help people find smaller scale Github projects. You can find it here : [http://gilles- leblanc.github.io/dispatcher/](http://gilles-leblanc.github.io/dispatcher/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've done this a few times for bugs that have personally annoyed me. Gotta say, it's easy to get started and the reviewers are amazing.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how much of his positive experience is due the fact that he decided to contribute to Servo instead of one of the "main" Mozilla projects (Gecko, SpiderMonkey, Firefox etc). Less hairy codebase, smaller community, github- based, and probably lot more suitable low-hanging fruits.

<comment><USER12> I got a couple patches through to Firefox proper. One was a fairly easy bugfix[1], but the other[2] took me lots and lots of iterations to get correct. The mentor was _extremely_ patient, taking what I think was more time to explain to me how to do it right than it would have taken him/her to just do it themselves.

The worst part for me wasn't understanding the code (though following through some of the XPCOM stuff is tough), but working with Mercurial. I was tempted several times to abandon it and use a git mirror. Anyone that says patch queues are equivalent to git rebase is crazy.

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1006656](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1006656) [2] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=907310](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=907310)

<comment><USER13> If you dont need to actually push the code to the reposity (which you wont for the first bunch of patches) it is totally fine to use git, the github mirror is at

[https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev](https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev)

and you can just upload patches for review

<comment><USER14> Mozilla also hosts its own git server: [http://git.mozilla.org/](http://git.mozilla.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's kind of skills for programming with Mozilla?

<comment><USER16> Basically, anything. Have a look at [http://www.whatcanidoformozilla.org](http://www.whatcanidoformozilla.org) to have a glimpse on what you can do for the project.

<comment><USER17> Thank you for sharing that. I had NO IDEA that the Mozilla team had such diverse needs, and had always assumed that it was all over my head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the real take away is that this same experience can be applied to any large open source project that seems daunting to new comers, not just for Mozilla.

I had a similar experience with emscripten (yeah I know, Mozilla too) initially. So I start working on a project with the following steps:

\- Download code \- Setup environment \- Run test suite (if exists) \- Play with simple bits of code by hard coding changes and building it to see it's effect. \- ... sleep? \- Attempt baby bug first

</comment><comment><USER19> I made one single patch for Mozilla [1], and I love how it was easy for me to receive informations about how to submit a patch correctly and how to improve my fix, even if I have a big language disadvantage (my english is poor).

I hope I'll have the chance to contribute again to this great open source browser.

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=935741](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=935741)

</comment><comment><USER20> Too bad we can't patch IE.

<comment><USER21> ...and JavaScript. And HTML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> ...but can I patch the look and feel of the user interface, or are we not permitted to patch superficial things that affect "branding" and user experience?

I liked Firefox 28, not Firefox 29 and up.

<comment><USER23> Given that people have written add-ons to do just that, there's no need to even make patches for it.

<comment><USER14> The "Classic Theme Restorer" add-on works pretty well and has a lot of preference to tweak the UI to your liking:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Tips on coping with my quarter-life crisis - <AUTHOR> I believe I am going through a quarter-life crisis and although this is not directly related to technology I feel that a lot of people on hacker news will be able to relate.
First let me present my situation (which might be a bit gloomy). I just graduated with a masters in electrical engineering and have been depressed for the last 5 years (almost as long as it took me to get my masters). Although I dislike offices and love being outside the offers I have right now are for 9 to 5 jobs in offices abroad. Despite these jobs are highly paid I am afraid that my depression will get worse since I will feel that I am not leading a meaningful life. Although what I feel I need right now is a job which will allow me to communicate with others I am heading towards a coding job which will likely involve many hours of being alone. I keep having thoughts telling me that I don't want to be a programmer and ask me why I keep on doing this. The only sincere answer I can think of is that I am afraid of breaking out of this role play I am putting up for the last years of my life. I believe I would enjoy being a ski instructor since it combines both communication and being outside. I am thinking of accepting a coding job and when I earn enough money to become a ski instructor, change careers. Does this sound logical to you or am I just wasting time?
Did you have similar thoughts when you were 25? Did you make a decision in a similar situation that you regret? What would your advice be? <comment><USER2> Try to adapt your lifestyle so that you can tolerate the 9 to 5 office job without getting depressed.

That could mean consciously making the best use of your time outside of 9 to 5 (take vacations, exercise, healthy diet, good sleep, relax after work, enjoy the weekends, etc).

Then slowly and over the longer term improve the situation to your liking strategically (for example by strategically changing jobs).

Taking extreme steps is very unlikely to lead to a good outcome.

You will probably not enjoy being a Ski instructor as much as you may be tempted to think.

For example instead you can aim for getting a remote job then go skiing for 1 month somewhere and ski and work.

In summary try to find a way to peacefully co-exist with a 9 to 5 office job while you progress in your career and strategically and steadily shape it to be more to your liking.

This way you can set things up on the right track so that in 5-10 years you have a well paying and comfortable job that you can quite happily live with.

If you take a more extreme step today like becoming a Ski instructor you may enjoy it in the short term but in the longer term you trade one set of problems for a whole another set and in a few years you may be painfully forced to go back to "step 1".

It is probably better to start somewhere uncomfortable and work towards comfort and balance over time than jumping straight to something dreamy.

Consider that there are probably 35 year old ski instructors who would kill to be electrical engineers with 10 years of experience sitting behind desks in offices, earning good money and taking yearly skiing vacations.

And yes it's all a lot easier said than done.

<comment><USER3> Along the lines of "step 1", don't try to gamble/invest/go-all-in on stacks of chips, stocks, or start-ups. That will amplify and prolong your misery, as you fall behind more on your mental ledger.

I've done it before and lost 10 years of time (well, assuming I'd have used the time better). And, only in the last year did I get a second chance by basically making everything back.

And now, I'm left with the same question: what do I do now?

In retrospect the cause was definitely the rest of life being unbalanced and unfulfilled. The job is only part of it in that it takes up time and doesn't fit your desired persona.*

Unfortunately I don't have the answer except, as above, try to improve your life step by step. If it means changing careers, great. Just know that it's not a cure all and you should take the long view rather than expecting instant relief.

* Maybe crude but at the base level I think we're unhappy in our 20's when we don't feel successful enough to bang women on the regular. Then everything else gets lumped in.

For me now past my 20's, and as a parent, it's still bothersome but maybe not with the same urgency. I'm now thinking what I can do that's meaningful or interesting and has a better quality of life.

<comment><USER4> So don't create your own startup? Doesn't creating your own startup give you a more invaluable skill set? People say you learn faster when you start a startup. What do you think of that statement? How is doing a corporate job a smarter move than going all-in on startups?

<comment><USER3> The point is that emotional need should not be a factor in deciding whether to take a bet. If everything else makes sense, go for it. Otherwise likely your judgment is clouded.

This is another reason why scratching your own itch is important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm just coming out of my twenties, and have also suffered from some bad depression throughout, so I guess I might be able to offer some perspective.

First, mid-twenties are hard for lots of people. I kinda hated the last five years or so of my life. It's chaos, and most of the choices of post-Uni adulthood are shit.

However, there are some upsides. First, you have some time. Nobody is going to grudge you teaching people how to ski. You wouldn't be throwing anything away by doing that. It's actually a better idea than going into a job you're gonna hate, and not going to engage in.

That said, the 9-to-5 is also pretty nice. My feeling is a lot of what makes the mid-twenties horrible is a combination of stress, signifigant choices, and chaotic living situations. Sometimes when you have a 9-to-5, it's just the kind of steady, boring bread that you can build a fulfilling life around. You know, get kids and a wife, take up making model planes as a hobby. Go skiing. Read some good books.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'll add two things that help me. I have this same issue. I feel depressed about the authoritarian nature of the 9-5 society we've set up.

1\. Read about FIRE. Live frugally and save 50% or more of what you make. At that rate, you can retire in your thirties. This is especially possible for us tech folks who make abnormally high salaries. A great first resource is Mr. Money Mustache. Read the entire blog from post 1 through to today. Take from him what makes sense for you and leave the rest. It will change your life and your goals. Or at least it did for me.

2\. In the interim, be selective about your employers. Maybe you want to do software engineering for a non-profit that you care about? You probably won't make as much, but your day to day life will have more purpose if you know you are doing good in the world. Alternatively, if your goal is to stack up money as quickly as possible so you can retire as soon as possible, go for a more typical corporate job. But still be choosey. If you think advertising is a net negative in the world, don't go work for an advertising company. Find a team of people you enjoy working with so that at the very least, you have people around you who you like.

Overall, I don't think what you're going through is abnormal. We probably all go through something like this along our journey, so don't think it's something wrong with you. Surround yourself with good people. Think about what is most important to you and do that.

</comment><comment><USER7> A good step in addressing depression is to talk with a licensed clinical mental health professional. Clinical depression is not caused by vocational choice. It is a medical condition. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> No it was not caused by vocational choice but I believe it contributes in its perpetuation. Since you mentioned it I have done psychotherapy for 2,5 years and have been on antidepressants after two episodes in the past. My question is rather of philosophical nature..

<comment><USER7> That seems like a healthy perspective on the situation, then. My comment was based on the 'minimum viable advice'. I have no idea about the costs and qualifications required to become a ski instructor, your economic prospects as a programmer, your skill at skiing, and the workforce demands of the ski instructor industry. Those would all play into any _logical_ analysis of the decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I quit my corporate software job in 2014 to travel (I was 26).

I don't regret the choice, but the thing I didn't expect was how hard it would be to make friends without a school or work environment.

<comment><USER9> Isn't that how it is in real life in general? If your work colleagues are duds, you're kind of on your own. At least traveling you can fall back on hostel friends, Couchsurfing or Meetup, or going out for a beer and meeting people who might be interested in a foreigner.

<comment><USER8> the main difference is length of interaction. With work/school the people in your social circle will be there for years, for better or worse. Friends made while travelling tend to be more ephemeral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can kind of relate to this. Actually I have a tendency of being depressed since I can think straight but I managed pretty well. But as well I know since I'm aware of the concept of 9-5 - I guess with the age of 12 or so - I am pretty sure I cannot stand this monotony.

Fast forward 8 years: I'm happy to be out of school. Studying is very tough but Physics in University is actually more interesting than anything in school. 5 years later I'm finished with my studies, there was some tragedy in the family and I'm heavily depressed and little confused.

Actually I wished I had taken a year off, taking some random job that barely pays me and enjoy myself the rest of the time.

Stupid as I was I still continued to work part-time and the other half of my time I co-found a startup. Afterwards I take on a 9-5 job in another city where I know nobody, all my colleagues being significantly older than me and slowly but surely life got more and more dull.

Another 8 years later and I find myself in a fundamental tone of being depressed, although I have truly enjoyable times at least once a week. Luckily I also work part time since a year, that definitely helped.

Let me repeat myself: if you feel 9-5 isn't for you and you feel overwhelmed, take some time off and enjoy yourself. You'll never gonna be that young again. (Also it is indeed possible to work part-time as an Enginner but expect job search being at least 10 times tougher and longer.)

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a similar experience through grad school, and have felt perpetual burnout for the last 10 years. There's no right answer, but I recommend looking at the writing of Mr. Money Mustache and other FIRE (Financially Independent/Retire Early) literature (e.g., JL Collins, etc...) and pushing to save and invest as much as you can. I take great pleasure knowing that now, after about 10 years of work, I won't have to work another day in an office again.

Also, be sure to exercise :).

<comment><USER12> So what are you doing these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm 30 now. In my 20s I was all over the place. I studied maths, did my masters, was on the path to acadamia, jacked it all in and went snowboarding for a year. Almost stayed on working as a DJ in the Alps. Then I felt I should go to get a real job, but real job offers scared me because the work seemed to lack any substance (I basically thought the work sounded pointless). I tried a few things and then eventually landed working in mobile tech in Africa and Asia and loved it. Then I moved to Kenya and started a tech startup. I have no idea what will happen next. The key lesson I've learned from all of this is that I could have never predicted what would have happened over this last decade. There have been some ups and downs, but one thing I'm clear on is that I have no regrets about doing what I felt was truly important at the time. If you think it's truly important to go and be a skiing instructor right now then why not just do it. It's hard to be too logical about the these things... try not to leave yourself destitute of course, but it doesn't sound like that's a big risk!

</comment><comment><USER14> You're excited about working as a ski instructor. You should absolutely do it.

Now is the time. You have your health and personal freedom. You may have less of these things in the future.

You don't need to sacrifice your 20s to an unpleasant corporate job be happy. You don't need to retire in your 30s to be happy.

Many people take several years for themselves before settling down into a corporate job.

It'll be scary to take the first few steps. That's normal. You'll be amazed at the opportunities that will present themselves to you if you self-actualize, plan for the future ($), and invest in friendships.

I left my job at 25 to through hike the Continental Divide Trail and couldn't be happier with the decision. Many of my friends are ski instructors, outdoor educators, climbing guides, etc and they couldn't be happier with their decisions. Many of us have found enjoyable, meaningful, and well-paying jobs in the outdoor rec industry as we've established ourselves.

PS Seriously, invest in your friendships.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm 24 and quit my tech job in November to become a ski instructor. It was the season of a lifetime for sure, not just hedonistically, but holistically. Stepping out of the "working world" gives you perspective on what really matters to you and how you want to organize your life. When you are skiing everyday, you realize that you really don't need a whole lot to live on the day to day. You make friends because you share an intense common interest with everyone in town. You see the lifestyles of people outside the tech bubble and that inevitably causes self-reflection.

It won't hurt your career and I've had no problem in a few interviews explain why I went and what I learned.

Feel free to AMA but if you have the money to last 6 months in a cheap apartment drinking cheap beer and eating half-off specials, send it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Be a ski instructor.

You can take a coding job later when you need to support your family that you started during your ski job. Your degree is not going to expire.

You can't take your SWE money to the grave. You have real passion for something -- many people would be jealous of that. Don't waste it.

<comment><USER17> What he/she said, plus it doesnt hurt to tinker with a toy software idea to have fun and keep you in your toes. I had a similare quarter life crisis and ended up leaving the service for a very different world and can say lot of the advice in this thread is so very true.

First step is knowing yourself, and you know you love skiing, ao as they say, 'party on wayne'

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm only 23 but I think about leaving the tech field every day. I have also been depressed (not sure if I would say clinically depressed, but depressed) for a while now.

The only advice I have to give is that most bad things aren't as bad as we think they will be and most good things aren't as good as we think they will be.

You'll find plenty of reasons to become a ski instructor and plenty of reasons to take a 9-5 job, along with even more reasons not to do both. If you can find a way to relieve the pressure of making the "right" choice, it will be easier to make a good choice. Which, realistically, is probably either!

I'm not sure if that will help but I really hope that you enjoy your life, regardless of what you decide.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's no right answer. Having a nice steady pay check isn't horrible. If you have job offers probably a good idea to take the job get some experience. If you like to ski try to stay close to a place to ski(even if it's for less money). There are collaborative parts to being a developer. Look into becoming a project manager or business analyst. get a certification as a scrum master.

maybe look at getting a trade job as an electrician. More hands on. Or apply to power companies. maybe if you like traveling find a company that will force, make you, I mean, let you travel...your still young. Nothings set in stone. Maybe take some time to decompress. you can do what ever you want.

</comment><comment><USER20> I strongly recommend reading "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport. It's full of good ideas but one of the key insights is about spending time building up career capital and then leveraging that to get what you really want.

I don't think anyone else has said this but it's worth noting that most coding jobs don't involve many hours of being alone. I've been in the industry full time since I graduated (a little over ten years ago) and it's been non-stop meetings and people asking for help and spending time with customers and mentoring and demo days and offsites and brainstorming...

</comment><comment><USER21> Go be a ski instructor/bum for a few years and see how you like it. You can try to pick up a few small coding gigs on the side. Or maybe the ski resort will have some programming projects or whatever you want. You can always use your Masters later. No need to get on the treadmill now if you don't want to. A friend of mine worked on yachts for rich people and is now running investments for them. The point is, the sky is the limit man. Or in your case, chase the endless winter!

</comment><comment><USER22> I use to glorify traveling around the world. I would dream about it from my corporate job. Then an opportunity arose to travel while working for two months. I did that and had a great time. But then I realized I don't really care about traveling the world, two months was enough. And so I was lucky I didn't quit my job and do that. Most likely you need to fix how you currently live, not in a drastic move to another country way, but get a new job, new apartment and new friends.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm in my 30s and finding it harder to leave my tech job. My sanity comes from golf, playing outside with my dog, and working outdoors on my property. If you were to ask me what I would do if I could retire tomorrow comfortably, I could immediately write an essay of my goals and what I would start doing tomorrow. If you are in a similar mindset regarding that question of retirement, maybe ski instruction is the right move. If not, perhaps take the safe route for now.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm 48, but I remember my quarter-life crisis pretty well. Long story short, I sort of realized I was getting tired of the 8 - 10 hr a day coding job and felt the need to do other things, specifically go to film school. But I did not have a definitive sense of that - it was a bit of a tug of war feeling.

After dithering a bit, I decided to stick around at my job as a new project had started - I ended up being architect for a satellite link control system for the DoD. It was a hellacious project, a bit stressful, but it actually got into the field (unlike a lot of DoD projects) and was of some use to the troops [the bureaucrats did not want it because it put them out of a job, aka less paperwork]. So in terms of life achievements, I actually did something...

After that, I went to grad school (again, asked myself: film school?), got my MSc, then after really getting tired of the BS in IT after another couple of years (right before the 1st Internet bubble popped), I finally ran off to film school. It only ended up being a bit of a vacation, however; if I'd gone when I was 26, I'd probably be in the film industry. Or maybe not...

Anyways, the therapist I was seeing when I was 30 (before I went to film school, trying to figure out the depression, dissatisfaction with life etc) told me something quite useful - part of the unconscious reasons for choosing a particular career path are tied to your emotional needs at that particular point in your life. I wish I'd stuck it out with the trying to do film related stuff after going to school, but for a lot of reasons, life got in the way (got too used to the easy money...) The BS in the film industry is much like and worse than the BS in IT...

What you say in your writeup struck me - the need to communicate with others. So I suspect you are in the same general place as me when I was 26. That I took as a sign something emotional and unconscious is going on. You are young enough to try something different, if only for a few years, and it won't affect your life path as much compared to being over 30 and still having the same fundamental difficulties (which you do not want, believe me)

If the reality of being a ski instructor turns out to not be exactly what you need, you will still have gotten useful information about what you actually might need, even if it turns out you just needed a break from IT for a bit. So my advice is to go for it, assuming you don't have any other pressing responsibilities that insist you ought to stay in IT.

</comment><comment><USER25> Step 1. Balance. (Like a lot of other people have said here)

And I mean Balance on all dimensions of how you are as a person. Mental and Physical being the primary ones. There are other dimensions but that's outside the scope of this context.

Once this is set (and its a lot of work, mind you) then it doesn't matter if you do software engineering or skiing or X.

</comment><comment><USER26> On the bright side, you know what you want to do (be a ski instructor), so you should use whatever means necessary to make that happen—even accept a short term coding job to save money.

Many people have no idea what they want to be and put no thought into it, so kudos to you. That's huge!

</comment><comment><USER27> What is the worst case scenario when becoming a ski instructor? Is it that you have fewer regrets, enjoy yourself, make less money, and delay taking an office job for a few years?

<comment><USER18> I mean, more young people probably die skiing than sitting in an office.

<comment><USER28> Death is the worst case scenario in both situations; it has no bearing on making a decision here. It's also exceedingly unlikely.

The worst case scenario that is likely is, as said, making less money, possibly being unable to re-enter the tech field (though I consider that too unlikely to consider as well).

There's no obvious major downside to trying the ski instructor gig. I'd go for it if I thought I wanted it.

<comment><USER18> I don't see why death should have no bearing on the decision if the risk of death in each situation is different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So I don't have any specific advice, per se, but I want to offer my experience as perspective. I am 26 and have had similar thoughts and bouts with depression.

I have a pretty diverse work background. I come from a degree in fine arts, have worked multiple minimum wage jobs, outdoor jobs, and desk jockey jobs since graduation in 2014. My current position is in an office in a tech hub city, and I am in the process of finalizing an offer to transition into a coding career.

Throughout all the jobs I've held, the different work environments, and the grind - my depression hasn't actually eased up or gone away. It just shifts its focus to other areas of my life that I get anxious/worried/feelings of depression about.

It's easy to romanticize an outdoor lifestyle and active job, but just like anything, there are pros and cons.

I would suggest focusing first and foremost on getting your depression under control. It's easy to cast blame on your current work/housing/love/social situation as the cause, but it's just your depressed brain projecting and deflecting. Changing careers drastically now may feel liberating at first, but I guarantee that the feelings of crisis will creep back in over time.

Once you have some tools to better manage your depression and outlook, things will become clear.

As for your career - you are in a good position right now. You have a masters degree and offers on the table. My guy reaction is to tell you to accept one, go and work for a year or two, and re-evaluate. Maybe the feelings of disliking offices and not leading a meaningful life will dissipate if you are busy working on interesting problems, or have fun/smart co workers to be around. Worst case you get a year or two experience and know for sure that you don't want to be in an office.

I don't know what your work history is like, but I can tell you from my own experience that making very little money contributed much more to my feelings of depression and angst than working a boring/un-filling job that paid well. As a fellow lover of skiing (started when I was 2 years old) who taught weekends throughout highschool and college - the money is crap and the weather gets to you quickly. If you already know all this, then best of luck. I still day dream of quitting to do the same thing.

Tbh - there is a very good chance that you could do both things (assuming you actually like coding and aren't just fed up with it right now). Why not work an office job for a few years and try to pivot that into a remote/part time/consulting gig that allows you to work a few hours a day and ski/instruct the rest?

My point is - there are a lot of paths to take. Don't get tricked into thinking that it is an all or nothing choice right now. We are conditioned to plan our lives from A to B and follow the playbook, but you can throw that playbook right out the window.

To reiterate, your first step is getting your brain balanced out. However you accomplish that is very personal and not something I am qualified to guide you on. If you really think that switching career paths will do that, then go for it! But if I were in your position I would pursue coding for now and re- evaluate in a year or two. The mountains aren't going anywhere.

Good luck.

<comment><USER9> This is great advice. I'm also 26 and have come to the same basic realization (although only have worked one mundane IT job these past 3 years). The key is to develop a stoic mindset that can adapt to any phase of life you're in. Enjoying the present, doing your best, etc. Remind yourself when you forget. One thing I like to do is to imagine my current surroundings are in a foreign country, and for some reason it makes things more interesting and less mundane.

But I do think that some of this depression can come from not "letting it rip" and going after some goals. The fear of time passing you by and you never took a shot. So for me, I want to go do a slower type of travel where I can get fluent in a language or two. And sometimes, the thought that I'm not doing that and sitting in a desk job that is boring during my best years, makes me depressed.

The biggest task is: how do you link up the things you'd have the courage to "take the shot" for with things that can sustain you and your eventual future family? Still trying to figure that one out.

<comment><USER30> >One thing I like to do is to imagine my current surroundings are in a foreign country, and for some reason it makes things more interesting and less mundane.

This is brilliant! Just tried it on my pizza run and it definitely works for me too. Been in the same place for 8 years and it's starting to get grating despite all the rich culture (one of the oldest living cities in Europe)

Gotta love the internet for the tiny little things said by random anons that can improve your life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Maybe it's a disease like bipolar disorder. I say that because of "5 years".</comment>


Lasers Engaged: Anybots Are Now Shipping - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/01/lasers-engaged-anybots-are-now-shipping/

<comment><USER2> i find it demeaning and Big-Brother like. Imagine your boss' robot going up and down the corridor checking to see whether you're working. I think there have been plenty of discussions here about how looking busy doesn't mean that you're necessarily productive. If my boss really cares about taking to me, s/he can either speak to me face to face, or on the phone. I'd appreciate it a lot more if I got a phone call to my desk asking me how I was doing or if there are any problem on the project he can help with (besides, is the boss expected to remote control the thing the whole day? Doesn't s/he have other stuff to do than play with the joystick all day?) At most, I think it's a nice gadget to have for pranks at companies that can afford the $15K price tag (Google?)

(edit: sp)

<comment><AUTHOR> The 'Undercover Boss' approach would work a lot better in my opinion (but, the exec still has to show up). Maybe some type of secret EXEC program, kinda like secret shoppers. I know, no cool gadgets, just people. Which is a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was considering putting up a kickstarter project to get one, let it roll around outside and allocate usage time among the participants. But at $15000 it would be quite costly for the contributors, around $6 to get a weekly control minute allocated to you.

<comment><USER4> Yes, at $15000 I am afraid the market for it will be quite small. I had to read that a few times to make sure there wasn't an extra zero.

<comment><USER5> They're marketing it to businesses as a replacement for traveling somewhere -- $15,000 isn't a lot to pay for that. If it lets one executive skip one trip, it's paid for itself.

<comment><USER6> $15k to avoid travelling places isn't a bad price... unless there's another option in which you use computers, webcams, headsets and phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What does this thing do that makes it worth as much as a mid-range Ford Fiesta?

<comment><USER8> Did you buy a computer back in the 1960's?</comment></comment>