ASCII Cam - <AUTHOR> http://escobar5.github.io/asciicam/ <comment><USER2> This is very similar to idevelop's ascii cam[1]. The code is significantly different though[2]. I first assumed one used code from the other but it looks like separate implementations of the same idea.

[1] [http://idevelop.ro/ascii-camera/](http://idevelop.ro/ascii-camera/)

[2] [https://github.com/idevelop/ascii- camera/](https://github.com/idevelop/ascii-camera/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know what thread you got this link from, OP... dirty, dirty, dirty :)

<comment><USER4> Please do share!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is where this project was mentioned by a redditor: [http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/2nul0l/people_have_too...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/2nul0l/people_have_too_much_time/)

It was on the front-page couple of hours ago. Umm, probably NSFW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool!

I made something similar that runs in your terminal: [https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam](https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam)

<comment><USER6> Oh! You got me exited for a minute, I thought it'd be any terminal, but it's "OS X" only.

Having said that, still neat, and short too.

<comment><USER7> You should be able to use mplayer with AAlib or libcaca to play any video (or stream from your webcam) as ASCII. It works just fine in a terminal window.

[http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/h/4441](http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/h/4441)

[https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam#MPlayer](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam#MPlayer)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With cool stuff like this, it makes me wonder about the future of installed apps.

If only Android would support 'installation' of HTML5 apps so there is no browser, shortcut made automatically, ability to 'uninstall'. Easy to do but would compete with their store and they lose control.

<comment><USER9> I haven't tried it myself yet, but modern Android and Chrome do seem to be trending this direction: [http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/home-screen-web-apps- android-...](http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/home-screen-web-apps-android- chrome-31)

Also, the fact that the underlying Chrome engine for WebViews can now update independently of the Android OS bodes well for the viability of HTML5 apps: [http://developer.telerik.com/featured/android-5-0s-auto- upda...](http://developer.telerik.com/featured/android-5-0s-auto-updating- webview-means-mobile-apps/)

<comment><USER8> Excellent. RIP Cordova.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder, why don't they use dithering - [http://www.ivank.net/blogspot/dithering/dithering.html](http://www.ivank.net/blogspot/dithering/dithering.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> A manual brightness / contrast control would do wonders. My face was only 2 or 3 different characters/densities. Meanwhile the wall behind me is another several.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of HasciiCam from 2000: [http://ascii.dyne.org/](http://ascii.dyne.org/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Great!

Pro tip ;-) Click "Stop cam" while making a stupid face and you can copy/paste it.

<comment><USER14> You can actually get high enough resolution to distinguish a stupid face?!

<comment><USER15> Put a flashlight under your chin

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > An error ocurred getting user media. Code:undefined

It happens with Firefox, Midori and Chrome.

<comment><USER17> I only got this error when my macbook was closed (i.e. camera not available.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome! Works fine here.</comment>


Show HN: 30 minute Saturday mini project with arduino. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/orangethirty/duino_cloud

<comment><AUTHOR> After a tough week of coding for no less than 10 hours pero day, I had to relax by _writing more code_. :)

This is duino_cloud. A simple and quick project for you to play with. It has an arduino talk to you PC over serial and a Flask server listens and renders the response.

Nothing fancy. Not even ground-breaking. Just fun!

Sit down with your kids (if you don't have one refer to a stork), and have some cool fun.

I will be working on getting it to make request to other servers by using the Requests library. Stay tuned.</comment>


Why senior engineers get nothing done - <AUTHOR> https://swizec.com/blog/why-senior-engineers-get-nothing-done/ <comment><USER2> As a senior engineer, this hits home for me so hard.

I use the documentation hack all the time. Junior engineers are frequently amazed by how much I know. My secret is that I know where the documentation is and when I learn something, I add it to the docs. Half the time I answer a question I have to look it up again in the docs.

My frustration is that most engineers seem allergic to updating docs. I think this is some combination of (1) don't know docs exist (2) feel confident they can write authoritatively (3) falsely believe that docs that aren't 100% correct are useless (4) don't like to write or don't feel rewarded for writing. For different engineers, it's a different combo, but the net result is still that the docs don't get updated as much as they could if everyone pitched in.

<comment><USER3> I can't agree more, a to the point, updated document is the key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "create a Wiki page" suggestion is one I used for quite a while. You just keep reminding people that some of the answers are written down out there, and they only have to look. But try as I might, many people just won't participate. Not sure why that is.

My suspicion is that it's part of an, "If I don't have to be involved then I'm not special" fear, but I can't read people's minds.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the "force multiplier" aspect is what's in doubt here. Its that most productivity metrics for senior developers over-emphasize shipping software they wrote (i.e kloc written) not so much how Susan, Alice and Joe were unblocked and shipped their commitments.

You're both acting as a people-manager unblocking and growing your team's skills but only getting comped for aspects of an IC which you start to get less and less time for.

I routinely see HR departments pathetically fail in recognizing this and end up losing seasoned engineers cause let's face it, if you're worth your salt you can switch companies easily and just do the IC work and get properly comped for it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hate the title only because it sells itself way to short. The article talks about a lot of things the senior engineer is getting done...

I hope to god he has a competent lead or manager who understands and encourages they stay on point.

</comment><comment><USER7> In my life my perceived productivity drops when I'm assigned many projects, each one takes more calendar days because I have to make progress on multiple fronts, switching time, multiple more meetings with PMs and stakeholders per week BUT due to my experience the end result is closer to what the stakeholders have in mind and my projects run in production with fewer issues. I've discussed this with my leadership and they understand and are fine with longer timelines that result in higher quality work.

<comment><USER3> wait until you're in an agile team, you will get a new assignment based on "priorities" almost daily after your stand-up meeting, after a while everyone will be burnt out, not by the raw workload but by the changing tech directions constantly, a context-switch that is so frequently nobody got anything done, and it is purely painful</comment></comment>


U.S. military invites vetted experts to 'Hack the Pentagon' - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-pentagon-idUSKCN0W40H8 <comment><USER2> What could possibly go wrong? :D

I do think this is an interesting effort, and I've met Chris Lynch in his DDS capacity. It's terribly interesting to see a Senior Executive government employee with Silicon Valley cred, who wears hoodies/jeans/sneakers to meet Admirals and Generals, who are (in terms of rank equivalency) his peers. Literally the first time I've seen someone knuckle-bump an Admiral rather than shake his hand after a meeting.

I think there is some value in this culture-clash/disruption, but I also know of some government-employed very skillful hackers who resent the assumption that non-government hackers are by-default more skillful than them.

<comment><USER3> _fist bump_

<comment><USER2> LoLs! I stand corrected! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm going for firmware and processor errata if they let me in on this. Their failure will be so expensive that I'll finally have the numbers to justify either semi-custom work from Intel/AMD for legacy or a multi-core, secure RISC-V. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there any info on where to sign up?

Edit: From the press release:

The pilot program will launch in April and the department will provide more details on requirements for participation and other ground rules in the coming weeks.

[http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release- View/...](http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release- View/Article/684106/statement-by-pentagon-press-secretary-peter-cook-on-dods- hack-the-pentagon-cybe)

</comment><comment><USER6> From the "what, they weren't doing that already?" department.

<comment><USER7> They had their own internal groups, but this is now open to external pentesters.

<comment><USER8> Pentesters, I like the term. Clever combination

<comment><USER9> Works better than Testagons.

<comment><USER10> "Testagons" is even better, a jewel. Testa (= Head) + Gone

This is a word that wants to be discovered. Practical example: "Hi, we call from the medicus mundi hospital, some of your damned testagons are bombing us again". Pure gold for journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about "Hack the OPM"? Let's start with the easy stuff first.

</comment><comment> dj-wonk > Details and rules were still being worked out but the competition could > involve monetary awards, the Pentagon said.

What do you all think are some decent choices for details and rules?

<comment><USER12> If you find Tic Tac Toe and Chess, it's OK to play those; if you find Global Thermonuclear War, it's not OK to play that.

<comment><USER13> "The only winning move is not to play."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Soon nearly every pentagon employee will be social-engineered and compromised. People will begin to believe that every single system they access is a MITM or phishing attempt.

<comment><USER15> Probably better than the alternative, since they'd at least be thinking about security as something more than an abstract "thing." If that. Then they just need to take that fear and find a way to funnel it into proper security education without that fear becoming crippling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm glad this is being implemented and not just considered.

</comment><comment><USER17> So basically they're crowdsourcing penetration testing.

<comment><USER18> That's called "being on the internet"

<comment><USER19> It's also called bug bounties (see Hacker1, BugCrowd, synack)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should my Q2 individual OKRs be? - <AUTHOR> I'm a senior frontend engineer. I'm highly productive. I'm considered an expert within the company with the technologies we use. I actively mentor other members of the team and lead major initiatives to completion. I help other teams with architecture and reviewing code.
Not sure where I have left to grow. I'm supposed to have OKRs ready for the new quarter that starts this week, but I don't know a single thing I could put in there.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Isn't this something you should be asking your manager or leadership? How are we supposed to know what metrics are important for your company for you to hit?

Or by individual do you mean personal growth?</comment>


Things the TSA doesn't want you to see - <AUTHOR> http://www.elliott.org/blog/5-things-the-tsa-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

<comment><USER2> The thing I love about the TSA is that their record of failure is so numerically concrete.

FTA: "The experience to date is 50,000 false positives and 16 known terrorists not flagged," says Thomson. "No known terrorists have ever been flagged."

That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?

Government's inability to allow its ideas to fail, or at very least its inability to pivot toward success is so disheartening. This has really been on my mind a lot today. I watched "Waiting for Superman" last night and I can't get the images of the poor kids just looking for a decent public education out of my mind. The crimes against humanity perpetrated upon us with our own tax dollars should really be prosecuted with all vigor.

<comment><USER3> >That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?

My guess is the TSA's long-term purpose is not to prevent terrorism, but to provide the federal government with a means of visibly asserting authority over the travel of citizens (and the opportunity to intervene in the travel of dissidents). Otherwise it makes little sense.

<comment><USER2> I'm a bit cynical, but I don't think that it's anything quite that sinister. The TSA is just another agency that gives budget dollars and a corresponding amount of power to the bureaucrats and government representatives who run it and a lot of contract dollars to the crony companies that supply it.

Because Americans are so terrified of "terrorism", they don't even have to prove efficacy of their methods in order to continue existing.

It's a whole lot of easy money for a bunch of pigs with their snouts in the trough.

<comment><USER4> I was visiting friends near the Mexican border in Arizona and we passed by a compound with literally hundreds of parked border patrol vehicles. I was amazed and said "In order to staff these, they must have thousands of field agents", to which the reply was "they have nothing of the sort - that compound is simply there for the TV cameras, to show 'how serious' they are about border patrol. Very few of those vehicles ever get driven"

<comment><USER5> Note: I've never seen anything of the sort near the US-Canada border, but Canadians illegally sneaking into the country isn't as big of an issue (or as large of a political hot-button) as Mexican illegal immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Things the TSA doesn't want you to see: this site.

(Sorry, couldn't resist... or access.)

<comment><USER7> Try this (you can't see the videos in this version though) <https://www.readability.com/articles/bleqmeer>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> cache [http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.elliott.org/blog/5-thin...](http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.elliott.org/blog/5-things- the-tsa-doesnt-want-you-to-see/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Off topic: can you edit the title to "Things the TSA doesn't want you to see"? This is the preferred format for titles beginning with a number: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><USER10> Thank you for informing us that this is just an "X Things..." post without having to visit the link. ;)</comment></comment>


Vagus Nerve Stimulation Improves Treatment-Resistant Depression Outcomes - <AUTHOR> https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16010034 <comment><USER2> Vagus nerve stimulation, eh? As in the infamous cure for intractable hiccups[0]?

I mean...of course that improves depression outcomes. How could it not?

[0] - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2299306](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2299306)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is invasive (iVNS), which means installing a box in the patient's chest and wrapping electrodes around the left VNS in the neck. :/

There have been studies on transcutaneous VNS (tcVNS) of the left ear as well.

[https://bmccomplementalternmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...](https://bmccomplementalternmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6882-12-255)

</comment><comment><USER4> I sincerely wish there was more research into how to _measure_ depression in the first place. If you don't define the problem, you can't begin to search for a solution. My understanding is that we have nothing better to guide clinical studies than giving surveys asking how people feel. We need equivalents of finger-stick blood sugar tests and A1C tests for mental illness.

<comment><USER5> That's a really simplistic view of a complicated problem. For an example of why that can't work, read about the studies on the relatives of actress Glenn Close. One is bipolar and one scizophrenic. Both were found to have a genetic variant that might be summarised as causing a glycine deficiency (possibly just in the brain IDK). Treating them with high doses of glycine eliminates symptoms in both of them. It seems unlikely that even checking blood levels would indicate a problem. Perhaps a genetic test? But this is apparently not a common genetic marker in those two conditions.

Another solution in some cases is to change a person's environment, relationships, job, etc... Some depression can be relieved by changing ones worldview or other purely psychological interventions.

In short, the notion of objective physical measures indicating specific conditions is not possible in most cases.

SSRIs are used to increase serotonin levels, but they dont even use a serotonin test to diagnose. I have my suspicion that there's not a strong correlation.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps functional MRI could help make a diagnosis of depression? Even with different underlying causes, a classification could perhaps be made based on imaging.

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

<comment><USER4> You can talk about MRIs, or genes, or serotonin all day, but that doesn't mean you know what depression (or other mental state) is - using the current tools you _assume_ you know what it is and that is the problem.

One way to measure objectively is to look at whether someone is employable and maintains employment. But that is far too low resolution and non specific. People change their mood during a day and from one day to a next, and there must be physical correlates in principle.

There is a huge human cost to the fact that nobody knows what they are doing, because they cannot relate treatment to anything objective. Sometimes a drug seems to be not working well after several years, and the dosage is raised, and all the while the side effect of the drug is what's causing the problem, so it gets worse the higher the dosage goes. In the mean time, that person becomes unable to work, and is caught in a series of catch-22s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's open label, so we have no idea how much is due to the placebo effect (which is always large in studies with novel treatments like this, especially for depression).

<comment><USER8> Less significant for treatment-resistant depression, I imagine. They've been through this before and might have pretty dampened expectations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've anecdotally observed a trend of clinicians more centrally considering the role of nerves in psychological disorders. Like back in Bertie Wooster's day, when shrinks were called "nerve specialists" and many preparations marketed as mood enhancers referred to as "nervine tonics"

<comment><USER4> The book "Memoirs of My _Nervous_ Illness"[1] comes to mind.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/287490.Memoirs_of_My_Ner...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/287490.Memoirs_of_My_Nervous_Illness)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How exactly are they stimulating it?

<comment><USER3> Think pacemaker.</comment></comment>


Spotify reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-report-joe-rogan-transphobia-fight-employees2020-9 <comment><USER3> I'm curious what his contract with them stipulates on these matters. As for the employees, they could contact Rogan and either ask to come on the show to discuss what they find so offensive. Joe will talk to anyone, let them have their say and explain their point of view. Arguing to censor his episode history only sends the message that Spotify isn't a platform for intellectual curiosity and free speech.

<comment><USER4> I like Rogan's podcast but he definitely won't talk to anyone - When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss? They may quibble over certain things but at the end of the day he wants to have a fun conversation and arguing with trans rights people for 2 or 3 hours isn't going to happen. Also they've already censored his history and as far as I can tell he agreed to it

<comment><USER5> _> When was the last time there was someone on that didn't agree with him on the major issue or issues they were brought on the podcast to discuss?_

Rogan's schtick is that he lets his guests explain their ideology without directly attacking it. Instead he has an assistant fact-check any claims they make, and Rogan is also very forthright about calling them out on logical inconsistencies - "you said x just before, now you're saying !x, can you explain how that makes sense?"

The spirit of open curiosity and honest discourse is important. It also gives some ideologues enough rope with which to hang themselves, eg the Milo Yiannopoulos incident.

<comment><USER6> Why does he then use his own voice to breathlessly repeat debunked rumors about left-wing activists in Portland? You think he'll correct the record in the next episode?

[https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-rogan-podcast-forest- fir...](https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-rogan-podcast-forest-fire- portland-left-antifa-activists-debunked-2020-9)

<comment><USER7> (Washington, left-wing activist, forest fire): [https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/police-arrest-puyallup- man-...](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/police-arrest-puyallup-man-starting- large-wildfire/2IN46K5QV5GILLJZEJGMIS3L5Q/)

(Oregon, arsonist, forest fire) [https://thepostmillennial.com/arsonist- arrested-after-using-...](https://thepostmillennial.com/arsonist-arrested- after-using-molotov-cocktail)

I haven't found the trifecta of ('Oregon', 'Left-wing activists', 'forest fires'). But I wouldn't have written an article making a claim that it definitely didn't happen. "falsely claimed" and "debunked" are unjustified claims themselves.

We are living in a strange time where many people think they know more than they do.

<comment><USER8> Excuse me? Where is there "left wing activist" in the Puyallup brush fire? (Not forest fire, but whatever.)

The article just says it was a streamer

<comment><USER7> Fair question (I've upvoted you). Here's more detail on the person that started it: [https://heavy.com/news/2020/09/jeffrey-jeff- acord/](https://heavy.com/news/2020/09/jeffrey-jeff-acord/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is rather funny, because all the incentives are backwards. Joe Rogan used to be available on rss, and anyone could listen in any podcast player.

Now Spotify bought him out, limiting his reach and making him only available on spotify. If the employees succeed, Rogan will revert to rss and become....more widely available.

I am deeply opposed to Spotify's efforts to close off the podcast ecosystem, so I hope the employees succeed.

This does highlight a change in what Spotify is trying to do. They're attempting to become a podcast publisher, rather than an app with podcasts available. With music they're merely a conduit for the most part.

(Not sure if Rogan has left rss yet, but this wouldn't change the argument. He's due to if he hasn't)

<comment><USER10> But RSS distribution is hard to monetize. That's why a big part of the JRE podcast business model was uploading the videos to YouTube and also create all the highlights and such.

But in YouTube they got several videos demonetized, so there's really no escape.

This is the distribution problem. If you don't have distribution and rely on others for that you have to play by their rules even if they are ridiculous or broken.

I think that the canonical solution for Spotify would be to not run ads on the "controversial" episodes. Either way it doesn't affect JR since his contract seems to be lump sums of money for keep creating the content.

<comment><USER11> Being on Spotify and being exclusively on Spotify is not the same.

Given his reach he can make good money doing commericals within the podcast itself and do perhaps commerical free deal with Spotify.

Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard . Monetization is hard.

Distribution is fairly easy today , it is not like 80s or 90s where distribution meant cassette and cd in every retailer. In 2000s the tech was possible but not cheap enough for a independent producer. Today the tech is accessible too.

<comment><USER10> > Distribution is not that hard, discovery is hard

I think you and I have different definitions of distribution. I'm not talking about being able to "distribute" your content per se. I'm talking about getting enough reach which is a way harder problem.

Just because you can upload videos to YouTube doesn't mean that you will automatically get traffic. Distribution in this context is not only the podcast being able to have content in x or y platform, but rather having prime time treatment so it reaches more audiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cancel culture at it's best. What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to choose.

If Spotify were smart they wouldn't censor any of the podcasts. Instead they would put a Twitter like message warning the user... As a way to satisfy the cancel culture crowd.

I don't care about Joe or his views. But I do care about people having choice and freedom

<comment><USER13> Spotify has the right to choose what is on their platform.

Spotify employees have the right to voice their concerns if the company they work for is alienating them.

But I guess that's not the kind of freedom you are interested in.

<comment><USER14> > _But I guess that 's not the kind of freedom you are interested in._

I do not see a suggestion by anonu that the people they disagree with should be deprived of their freedom.

To criticize people for saying something is not the same as saying they shouldn't have the right to say it. That would only be the case if somebody had an absolutely authoritarian mindset. It unnerves me how quick some are to conflate these positions, as though they view the world through an authoritarian lens and assume others must as well.

 _" People shouldn't say mean things"_ and _" People shouldn't have the right to say mean things"_ are not equivalent statements unless you are an authoritarian.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure threeseed is pointing out that anonu's comment is selective about the freedoms worthy of defense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> FWIW, highest recommendation for Philosophy Tube and ContraPoints.

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

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

If you want to learn about something, go to the source.

I'm now +50/yo (SWM) and have had out LGBTQ friends, family, schoolmates, coworkers most of my life. One of my cousins did gender reassignment 30 years ago.

On one hand I can't believe we're still talking about this stuff. On the other, I felt like I needed to understand what people are arguing about today. (Recommendations please.)

For instance, to better accommodate some of my besties, I've been actively practicing using singular they pronouns in my every day speech. Old dog, new tricks. Fortunately, they're patient with me.

I keep thinking about something Marilyn Manson said in the aftermath of Columbine. The reactionaries were blaming angry music and video games. (Of course.) Michael Moore asked Manson what he'd say to the kids. Manson replied that he wouldn't say anything, that he'd just listen. I agree.

So whenever one of these social, cultural food fights flares up, I really don't give two shits what commentators think. I already know what the peanut gallery thinks. I can't not know.

Rather, I just want to hear from the people affected.

<comment><USER17> The recent Rogan episode was a virtual call, and the guest at one point said "it is not good that this is what we are spending time talking about". Then they proceeded to talk about it for a few more minutes before I turned it off and did something else.

They say many words with interesting variations and perspectives - they make time for it on a weekly broadcast program for a few hundred thousand people who also talk about it.

"Stop talking about it." -Morgan Freeman (when asked on 60 Minutes about something else thought not to be discussed in polite company)

But if it should be discussed then we should make time for it. Sex (similar to opioid brain response because evolution causes us to associate reproduction with pleasure) is in the background of everyone's adult interactions by default. You introduce your friends to each other and association allows you to have a "vote" in the person that would be born in potentially 9 months from that evening of acquaintance (1-2 years realistically, since there is the expectation of courting around shared village getting to know each others social circle). Therefore "sex" was discussed just by saying "Hello Sally, meet my friend Harry."

Without saying anything about sex. Or variations on it. Or money paid for it. Or ways. Crude jokes are rude. An expletive every 10 words is rude. Podcast discussed that collapsing empires (post Nero Roman centuries) experienced similar fetish advertisement and public displays, suggestions or anything remotely topical in debates and decisions among elected officials and lawmakers.

As a group of friends, in the past, you may have discussed the amount of doe in the clearing next to your house, and by your friends knowledge of a herd with mature bucks routinely grazing near their own prairie - food could then be set out (Breadcrumb Trail) to introduce herds and increase the herd mass over a few seasons.

There is a sweet spot, and some states have different kill limits set by using tax revenue to curate&monitor local herds (that migrate across county lines), but you are essentially "pruning" a population (overfishing takes much longer to return from than if we allow the mass to hover at an ideal size to continue to farm from. See Joel Salatin diaper/teenage/nursing home grass metaphor to describe sigmoid curve growth rate of "solar collector" for optimal grazing routine[1]). Ideal to lure the dense, seasoned buck that has fathered many children using a female call away from where you know a herd could be so that the productive mass never sees the kill and can feel safe enough around the acreage to continue and remain "fenced" by comfort. They will nibble on commercial farmland perimeter and thus there are higher kill limits in states with lots of agriculture and intentional "buffer" land for herds to graze (some farm plots are set aside and meant as feed for wild venison source).

Here on HN about a year ago there was a journal suggesting a link to several decades of birth control in the sewage of cities running into natural water drainage and increasingly feminized fish populations (therefore reduced numbers).

Regardless of the sewage runoff, birth control has been available to several generations of mothers. This means decades of manually overriding natural hormone regimen to drastically reduce fertility "temporarily" (on purpose for sex without "consequence") until the Pill's effect "wears off". Some mothers had their children before trying "the Pill" \- maybe there are entire generations of "pure" mothers who never used birth control. Could blood tests verify this?

If Chinese one child per family era preferred male fetus, then there are fewer fertile Chinese females now. If there are fewer potent American males (self castration to change gender), then that means there is a surplus of American females without fertile male mate.

[1] [https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg](https://youtu.be/O7KEHzUl0tg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I guess they're focusing on the JRE podcast because it's so popular, but they already host podcasts that you'd think their "LGBTQAI+/ally" employees would be up in arms about. Just a quick look through the recommended podcasts in the web player, and I see Ben Shapiro's podcast on there, who has much more extreme views on LGBT rights than Joe Rogan does.

<comment><USER19> Rogan's views aren't extreme no sexual reassignment for minors and no XY in female sports isn't an extreme view.

<comment><USER20> I haven't seen any trans* advocates pushing for sexual reassignment for minors either, so I think that's a straw man to make them look bad.

Edit: I should clarify that I'm looking for an example, if you have one.

<comment><USER21> [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-change-treatment-for- kids-o...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-change-treatment-for-kids-on-the- rise/)

And this is from 2012. I'm frankly not sure how I feel about this issue. On the one hand, you could argue it's better to transition before puberty solidifies the undesired sexual characteristics. On the other, certainly some of these kids would end up feeling OK fine with where nature brings them after puberty passes. It's a tough issue and I respect both viewpoints.

More broadly, your reasoning here is rather silly. Just because you haven't noticed something yet doesn't mean it isn't a real thing.

<comment><USER20> I think the terms used in the article are confusing. The clarification is about halfway through:

 _The drugs used by the clinics are approved for delaying puberty in kids who start maturing too soon. The drugs ' effects are reversible, and Spack said they've caused no complications in his patients. The idea is to give these children time to mature emotionally and make sure they want to proceed with a permanent sex change._

The sex reassignment doesn't happen until they are at least 16 (which is still earlier than I expected).

<comment><USER19> That's the thing puberty blockers aren't exactly reversible when used for any substantial duration and quite often cause developmental issues in general, these aren't cases of premature puberty you can't just pause it for a few years and expect things to go back.

<comment><USER22> >Puberty blockers aren't exactly reversible

That's not what the medical consensus[1] says. I hope you have some damn good evidence to the contrary if you want to deny tens of thousands of people access to life-saving medical treatment.

[1] [https://www.seattlechildrens.org/pdf/PE2572.pdf](https://www.seattlechildrens.org/pdf/PE2572.pdf)

<comment><USER19> It's really not which is why medical associations are putting more strongly worded guidance these days: [https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nhs-has- quietly-chan...](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nhs-has-quietly- changed-its-trans-guidance-to-reflect-reality)

<comment><USER23> Quoting the spectator destroys any kind of argument you're trying to make. The Spectator isn't a credible source for any medical information, especially for anything about GIDS and GICS.

They're an explicitly anti-trans publication, and have posted many articles railing against trans acceptance.

James Kirkup spends his days posting anti-trans material on twitter.

Because he's driven by his ideology of hate he makes a load of mistakes throughout this article. For example:

> Although the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) advises this is a > physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the > psychological effects may be.

This isn't talking about the effects of hormone suppressants, it's talking about the psychological harm of discontinued transition for people with gender dysphoria. If you start a course of treatment thinking you're finally on a pathway to full transition, and then you have to stop for some reason, that stoppage causes harm.

Another example is the way he claims to be talking about puberty suppressants, but then links the list off effects for cross-sex hormones. Those are never given to people under 16 in England, so they're not relevant to a discussion of puberty suppressants.

> why has the NHS so significantly changed its main publication on hormone > treatment for children without any announcement or fanfare?

Because that's how the NHS website works. This is, frankly, a silly point.

> Given that the NHS now says that hormone therapy for gender-variant children > has unknown long-term effects on the physical and mental health of those > children, why is the NHS still using such treatments on children?

We don't know if these are harmful or not (but all the evidence we have so far suggests not). But we do know that denying children access to these meds causes harm. There's not much difference here between puberty suppressants and many other meds used for children. We don't know the long term effects of a bunch of meds, but you don't hear the Spectator ever talking about those meds.

<comment><USER19> I'm not quoting the spectator I'm showcasing the changes the NHS has implemented to their guidance following the investigation into the Tavistock clinic and the studies the NHS commissioned.

We don't know anything yet mostly because we don't actually have studies in which puberty blockers were reversed all the studies such as those in the Tavistock clinic the the Dutch Study that showed that puberty blockers are safe didn't actually had cases where these were stopped but in all cases went into cross hormone therapy and then surgical transition, those that didn't end in suicide or severe self harm at least.

<comment><USER23> > I'm not quoting the spectator I'm showcasing the changes

Everyone can see the link that you posted. You could have posted links to the Wayback machine, but you chose to post a link to a transphobic article in a transphobic magazine written by a transphobic writer.

Your second paragraph is incoherent. I can't understand what you're trying to say.

> We don't know anything yet

This is wrong.

> but in all cases went into cross hormone therapy and then surgical > transition

...because they're very careful about who gets those meds, and they're only given to children with severe gender dysphoria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lol but they've got no problem with Spotify hosting Eminem songs since it's inception? This is ridiculous.

<comment><USER25> Eminem never said that trans-women shouldn't be allowed to compete in womens- MMA fighting.

<comment><USER3> And Joe is an expert in the field of MMA. He didn't just say that trans women should not be allowed to fight in women's MMA but cited medical science to back his opinion. Outside of women's MMA Joe is all for trans rights but in the case of women's MMA it's his opinion that a trans woman will end up literally killing someone born with XX chromosomes who still identifies as female (I don't know of a less clumsy way to say that which is weird).

<comment><USER23> > (I don't know of a less clumsy way to say that which is weird).

Cis-woman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hosting content should not be treated the same supporting it. Plain and simple. A host should have the right to curate the (legal) content they host according to whatever rules they want, but simply hosting it alone should not be treated as tacit endorcement. Otherwise, discenting voices will be left without a platform.

<comment><USER27> Spotify should be permitted to host what it wants to. But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes the platform run. This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private company, it's about workers raising an issue with the company leadership and expecting an appropriate response (which does not necessarily mean removing content)

The article is pretty sensationalized - it does not explicitly cite what the employees were looking for or what the leadership was willing to do. We've got the content of two employees' questions, a comment from the CEO that doesn't seem to be a response to either of them, a canned response from a comms person after the fact, and a rehash of Rogan's latest controversies.

<comment><USER28> > But they should also listen to their employees who do the work that makes > the platform run

Should they listen to all employees, about every single issue? What if only 1% if employees ask for it? Or 10%? Where's the line?

> This article isn't about an angry Twitter mob making demands of a private > company

I don't work at Spotify but worked enough at big companies to disagree with that. Behavior of employees inside trendy tech companies is very much like angry Twitter mob.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In most places and industries other than IT employees do their work and get paid. IT is the only industry where they seem like they are activists first and then employees later. I doubt they would be able to do this sort of a thing in for example an insurance company or a petroleum company.

I probably think its a mix of scarcity of talent and the political leaning of silicon valley. Either ways, looks like people hired to do something else are calling the shots and people that are supposed to make decisions are getting walked all over. Any other industry would put these activists in place and be told to focus on doing work or quit and get into politics.

</comment><comment><USER30> Identity politics will destroy our country. Whatever happened to freedom of thought? Shameful

<comment><USER31> Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.

Rogan is mostly an opinion guy but he has spread covid disinformation and hosted guests like Alex Jones who say things like Sandy Hook was staged. That's not harmless self-expression. Spotify is under no obligation to host anyone's content and certainly not required to pay $100M for content that is detrimental to society.

<comment><USER30> He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all sides and debate them on their merits.

Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or promotion of drug use is "harmful to society" but I don't see those individuals having a voice and trying to cancel and deplatform those ideas.

<comment><USER32> > He has guests from all spectrums, I believe it's healthy to listen to all > sides and debate them on their merits.

One could easily argue that Joe does in fact _not_ debate many of his guest and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire.

> Regarding your point about "harmful to society" I would argue that there are > plenty of individuals (not myself) who would claim vulgar lyrics or > promotion of drug use is "harmful to society" but I don't see those > individuals having a voice and trying to cancel and deplatform those ideas.

Those individuals are still alive and loud depending on where you live.

<comment><USER33> > One could easily argue that Joe does in fact not debate many of his guest > and instead allow them to use his show as a platform if they so desire.

I haven't watched a lot of JRE but in general I see nothing wrong with people having the time to layout their thoughts and opinions more or less uninterrupted for an extended period of time and then listen to rebuttals and debate in comments or separate blog posts, videos etc.

The other end is political debates or interviews with opinionated journalists where they barely have time to say a sentence at a time. This doesn't have to be bad but a lot of time its just bickering and platitudes. It doesn't provide much depth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This seems antithetical to everything Joe Rogan presents himself as in his show.

I think it's entirely reasonable for Spotify employees to want a catalog without what they think of as transphobic material.

But it seems completely incompatible with hosting Joe Rogan's show.

I would presume that the contract gives Spotify no editorial control over the content.

This is going to be interesting.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I don't know how it's going to work. He's said previously on his show that he only signed the deal with Spotify because they were going to be hands off and not control who he could talk to, including Alex Jones. As soon as his past episodes were uploaded to Spotify, it was clear that someone was mislead/lied to. Some episodes weren't uploaded to Spotify, like Alex Jones and one of his friends who's a flat earther, but also some comedians that got cancelled by twitter mobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> As a Spotify premium subscriber, I don't particularly like that a chunk of my subscription is going to their 'exclusive podcasts', while musicians I listen to are getting minimal payouts. I'd be much more comfortable with _my_ subscription being split amongst the things _I_ choose to listen to.

</comment><comment><USER34> Also noticeable - business insider's reporting on his recent episode with Tim Kennedy is a total misrepresentation.

Edit: The vice piece also misrepresents him.

Edit: I'd go further than 'misrepresent' - they lied about what he said.

<comment><USER36> Want to explain, for those of us not keeping track?

<comment><USER34> Sure - here is one of the claims made by business insider:

"Joe Rogan made the inflammatory and false claim in a podcast episode on Friday that Caitlyn Jenner could be transgender as a result of living with the Kardashian women."

This is a false statement, which I would call a lie.

Joe Rogan spent 20 minutes talking to Tim Kennedy about how about the difficulty of doing comedy in the environment of political correctness. He illustrated this by talking about a joke he told during a stand up routine. In that joke, he spent the first half talking about how his own masculinity was being taken away piece by piece because he lives with 3 women by a process of continuous attrition. Then he made the joke of suggesting that this might be what happened to Bruce Jenner.

This simply isn't the same as what the reports say. If you believe he was making this as a 'claim', you would also have to believe that he was making the same claim about himself. Both statements were made in the explicit context of explaining the challenges of making jokes about socially sensitive issues.

It's more than just a misrepresentation - it's a lie to say that he claimed Bruce Jenner was turned trans by the Kardashian women.

He didn't make that claim. He used it as an example of a joke which is hard to tell because it's politically incorrect.

It would be fair to say he made a joke that many people see as transphobic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Joe is a centrist in leftist clothing. I honestly think this is a good thing. I dont 100% agree with his point of view but we need to figure out how to compromise or just expect a red vs blue civil war. I don't want this at all. I don't want to shut down anyone that has a different point of view from me either. Why are we so intent on being right and not compromising??

<comment><USER37> What specifically is middle of the road Joe Rogan saying that is "anti transgender"? Serious question.

<comment><USER20> "They have this agenda," he said, "and this agenda is very ideologically driven that anyone who even thinks they might be trans should be trans, are trans, and the more trans people the better. The more kids that transition the better."

[https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe- rogan...](https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan- abigail-shrier-interview-transphobia/) but you can probably find other sources, it's a direct quote.

<comment><USER38> That might be right or wrong, but I don't see how it's transphobic. If I said Catholic people have an ideological agenda to make more people Catholic, they want to make their kids Catholic, they want to make your kids Catholic, they want to make YOU Catholic - that might be right or wrong, depending on the Catholics, but I don't see how saying it would demonstrate a prejudice against Catholics.

<comment><USER39> Catholicism is an explicitly evangelical religion. The idea that trans people want to turn everyone trans is a scare story. We used to hear the same scare stories about gay rights activists trying to turn kids gay. Generally, scare stories like this don't come from a good place. If you're saying that someone could be innocently misinformed, then sure, that's possible in principle, but good intentions only go so far. They'd still be spreading damaging misinformation about a highly contentious issue.

<comment><USER39> (Late correction: I meant to say 'proselytising', not 'evangelical'.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> If you are a Muslim or Christian working at Spotify and Rogan hosts Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins or (Hypothetically) Christopher Hitchens, who come on the show and proceed to lambast the beliefs held by people of these religions, is Spotify expected to seriously entertain this protest and take down the episodes?

Frankly I see zero difference between this and what is happening here. It is a protest against blasphemy.

If this is truly not a religious topic but a scientific one, then what is the harm in a qualified person coming on the show and presenting some facts and drawing conclusions?

Why not offer to go on the show, bring these people back on and challenge their position? Rebut all of the points and present the flaws and reasons why that conclusion is incorrect. That is part of the scientific method.

Or has western society reached a stage where the goal is to deplatform the positions that don't align with one's own, instead of debating them and prevailing through argument? Why is it that so often the first course of action is to censor and deplatform?

There seems to be far too much dogma in the discourse. Furthermore small fringe groups are claiming to speak on behalf of their entire identity group. This too is extremely bigoted. Not everyone in the same identity group believes the same things.

</comment><comment><USER41> Spotify also have up a ton of gangsta rap about premeditated murder and physical abuse of women. We don't need more censorship.

If you try to cancel publishing platforms like facebook or spotify for the content they host, the end result of success there means that you won't be able to listen to a single song with a swear word or sex/drug references it in, as everything is now cloud based.

I hope that doesn't happen. I don't like Dr Dre or Biggie as human beings who make bad moral choices, but I enjoy their music that describes violent and abhorrent acts.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sort of relevant. An Australian Press Council adjudication against "The Australian" newspaper:

[https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document- search/adj-1783/](https://www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1783/)

> _The publication said the word "epidemic" is appropriate when reporting the > exponential increases in those attending gender clinics and the term "social > contagion" is an accepted term in social science and was taken from areas > such as anorexia and suicide attempts, and where its relevance to > adolescents, attitudes and behaviors is widely documented_

Adjudication:

> _However, the Council considers there is public interest in vigorous public > debate particularly when it concerns submissions made to a parliamentary > inquiry. The Council considers that to the extent there was offence and > distress it was justified in the public interest._

</comment><comment><USER43> So what happens in the future when they have exclusivity and he throws another similar joke in there? Skip the joke or not host the whole episode? Not allow it to begin with?

<comment><USER44> Have you referred to the contract? What does the contract say about these situations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> As a long time listener I will go to bat for Joe's show, he is a loving, rational, open person, and he simply does not platform hateful people or not challenge unjust statements.

Some media, political actors, and certain people who don't listen to his show want to spin him as a hate speech alt-righter, especially now on this election year since he platforms Bernie and Tulsi but is against Biden.

Find the amount of baseless slander against him disturbing.

<comment><USER46> Yah, people on both sides condemn him because he will have Alex Jones on his show one week and then Bernie the next, two people about as far from each other as possible.

He reminds me a bit of Charlie Rose's ability to just talk to people on both sides of the political spectrum. And do it without creating a lot of drama. And like Charlie Rose, he will call people's BS (and let them call his), but then move on before it gets heated.

So everyone can find something to hate about him if they try for 1/2 a second, but in reality I think those people are the problem, which is actually one of ongoing central themes he carries, when he talks about how he doesn't read the comments on his episodes/etc anymore. Personally, I believe there is a place for the social shunning (and alex jones might be one of them), but I'm also of the opinion its being wielded for petty/trivial things by people who are only interested in censoring people they don't agree with. This article being one of them. The guy literally has something like 3k+ hours of conversations online, and they find a couple sentences they find challenges their world and they are trying to deplatform him. I'm actually a fairly large supporter of "you can do anything you want in your bedroom" which extends to marrying anyone you please. But I don't really need gay pride flags, and lunch and learns about it at work. The people trying to shout him down are doing more to harm their cause IMHO than JRE ever could.

<comment><USER47> On the other hand, tons of people love his podcast for this (including me). To me it really feels like he meets an interesting person at a bar and they have a long interesting conversation.

I think we all are tired of journalists that are fishing and pushing their guests.

There will always be haters when you are so popular. But don't forget that he remains really popular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Some argue this issue is about free speech, others say it's just business. I believe in free speech so if Joe gets pulled down then I'm canceling my subscription.

</comment><comment><USER7> Joe Rogan makes an apology and a retraction: [https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu](https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSYnUFA8Fb/?igshid=z7u5pv3sjemu)

Given the vast amount of conversations he records and releases, it doesn't seem suprising in the least that he would make a mistake here and there.

</comment><comment><USER49> "Vice reported", "Vice said"... link the original article: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe- rogan-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8jq4/spotify-joe-rogan- transphobic)

</comment><comment><USER50> Perhaps I am naive, but for me something simple like:

"Warning, the following content may offend some listeners and contain factual inaccuracies. The content presented does not represent the views of blah blah"

Would help

Certainly, I appreciate Facebook's "Sensitive Content" screen, and wish it was used more widely on content.

<comment><USER51> This warning is implied for all information, all the time.

<comment><USER52> Originally this comment irritated me a little, but to be quite honest I think it is reasonable and desirable to retrain everyone to think this way. If some content is a big problem for you, then you can and should definitely stop consuming it - warning stickers aren't going to help you do that and will never cover the nuance of sensibility you have as a real human being anyway.

<comment><USER51> The problem people have with my comment is that it undermines the implicit assumption that 'authorities' are inherently trustworthy. Sense of trust, sense of authority, those are very powerful emotional motivators. Challenging those ideas is cause to challenge one's self, and that's uncomfortable for many people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There's a quote in the Vice article that this seems to be based on discussing a recent guest Shrier who wrote a book against transgender youth.

"She also described wanting to transition as a "contagion" with the potential to infect other children, an entirely scientifically baseless idea, Men's Health noted."

The idea that transgender identification is, in part, a social contagion, is the subject of academic research. [1]

It seems odd and inappropriate to me that Vice, and consequently Business Insider, cite "Men's Health" magazine as the definitive source on what is or isn't scientific and ignore actual academic research on the topic. It's also dishonest that they phrased it to elide the "social" part of the phrase, to make it seem as if the guest were claiming trans identification is communicated as a disease is.

Articles like this are something of a depressing reminder that journalists are basically bloggers who quickly bang out a story about current events for their audience. I think, ideally, journalists would try a bit harder to be fair and impartial.

1 - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/)

<comment><USER53> This reminds me of people back in the day saying that homosexuality is a "disease" which is being spread by homosexuality.

I'm not a scientist, but isn't it just the fact of being educated that such exist? If I don't know about transgenderism, or I know about it but people view it as a negative thing, I would never get the idea of being it myself, right? I just live my whole life with a strange feeling of not really knowing who I am. If, on the other hand, I know about it and the culture is accepting of it, I can finally know who I am because I feel like I found myself.

I really doubt that people start hormone-therapy just because they heard about transgenderism and were somehow brainwashed into thinking that they are trans as well...It actually sounds like a disgusting theory to me, could come from a certain german group in the 1930's.

If I was born 100 years prior, I probably never would've known that I have ADHD or am Bi-Sexual. Now with the internet all the information is available to me and I suddenly get to know myself. I doubt that the internet or the culture made me bi or ADHD. I just found out thanks to those things :)

People back in the day were labeled as dumb people because they couldn't read, now we know that there's a thing called dyslexia.

Anyways, sorry for going on a tangent, just what I thought when reading this discussion.

<comment><USER54> > This reminds me of people back in the day saying that homosexuality is a > "disease" which is being spread by homosexuality.

You're just assuming that the hypothesis of contagion necessarily carries some negative connotation.

I generally tend to believe there's a strong contagion element to all kinds of behaviors. But that doesn't inherently make them wrong.

A lot of the born-this-way arguments for all kinds of phenomena arose simply in response to negativity. The point being "if I can't change it, you cannot judge me for it". Almost implying that it is indeed a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> >"Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership's response in JRE conversations. What is your message to those employees?" another read.

Identity politics. Something tells me if JRE wants to go on Spotify he will have to massively self-censor, which will ultimately make it easy for another grassroots JRE-alike to take his place and do what he originally did - <USER2> candid, open and honest discussions about whatever topics come up.

Shitty, but I guess he's laughing to the bank if he goes through with it.

<comment><USER3> I don't think Rogan _needs_ Spotify's money. If he continues as before with zero changes then it's on Spotify to send the message to all potential partners wether they will be free to be themselves or if they will be censored. I'm sure Spotify's shareholders will have a lot to say if editorial/censorship decisions reflect negatively on the bottom line.

Side note: it's amazing to me we're even having the discussion of censorship about a self-described liberal. Imagine what Spotify's staff would do if they tried to land one of the biggest conservative podcasters?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I wonder if any of these concerned employees have ever listened to the rap songs Spotify so proudly hosts and promotes.

</comment><comment><USER57> Do I misunderstand their motives or should we remove Huckleberry Finn and Mein Kampf from libraries and school curricula too?

</comment><comment><USER58> What constitutes transphobic exactly? Is it in the eye of the beholder, like porn: you'll know it when you see it?

<comment><USER20> He had Abigail Shrier as a guest to promote her book called _Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters_ , so that's kind of a bright line?

<comment><USER58> I do not agree. How is that transphobic? Is the action of inviting an author motivated by irrational fear of trans people? Are the views[1] of the author irrational and based in fear of trans people?

My understanding is the author is skeptical of the rise in reported cases of gender dysphoria over time. She contends that the rise in cases is partly a result of tangential social influences that are ultimately detrimental do development of kids. Rational skepticism is not phobia.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684510317](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684510317)

<comment><USER59> > How is that transphobic?

This is a frustrating line of argument. What would make you the authority on what transphobia is?

> Are the views[1] of the author irrational and based in fear of trans people?

To "arrive" does not mean "to cross a river". To be "awesome" does not mean "to be terrifying". Meanings are not constructed by etymology. Transphobia is not "the irrational fear of transgender people".

The author is not a "rational skeptic", as clearly evidenced by her wildly biased choice of analysis presented as solid science. Her work has been widely criticized by the scientific community and is not far off from forming opinions about racial differences in IQ by asking aparthied leaders about their opinions and experiences and taking it as gospel evidence.

<comment><USER58> I do not presume to be an authority. In fact, that is what my original comment was asking: What is transphobia? You have rejected one definition but failed to provide an alternative. That leads me to the second part of my original comment: is it something subjective that you'll know when you see it?

I'll have to read her work in more depth to form an opinion on the rigor of her work. Suffice to say, I view your evaluation of her work with skepticism as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I am posting this because there seems to be a large misunderstanding about the Alex Jones episodes being "removed" by Spotify. I am also going to give you a warning. I am going to post a link to Infowars, yes, that Infowars. It is one of the few sources that actually attempts to clarify the story behind the "removed" episodes. If you are a reasonable person, you would take this opportunity to reevaluate the sources you listen to that have been pandering to their readers about how controversial Joe Rogan is and question why these sources weren't interested in actually getting to the bottom of the removed episodes instead of causing sensationalism.

Here it is, according to Alex Jones [1], the reason why certain Joe Rogan episodes were removed from Spotify is because Joe Rogan gets to keep hosting his favorite 100 episodes on Youtube. A shrewd business decision as Spotify gets time to decide how to handle the Alex Jones episodes and Joe gets to have his most profit making episodes still on Youtube. Now, ask yourself, why is it that this news is coming from such a controversial figure? You may call him a racist, bigot, transphobe, xenophobe, or whatever. But you can't deny that the media failing to actually report on the story and the real story coming from Alex Jones just adds credibility to all his other views. Be it Sandy Hook, George Soros, or psychic vampirism.

[1] - [https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not- censoring...](https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-spotify-is-not-censoring- joe-rogan/)

<comment><USER52> > If you are a reasonable person

Alex Jones plays an insane persona to make money off of his viewers. This is an established fact that he himself has admitted to. Thus, taking the words of what is essentially a cartoon character as any kind of truth is in itself the evidence of someone who has lost touch with reality. If that is you, you need (and deserve) help.

<comment><USER60> If you re-read my comment, the only thing that I am saying is why the mainstream media is sensationalizing this event "OMG - Alex Jones removed from Joe Rogan's Spotify :o!!" vs. actually asking for Spotify and Joe Rogan to comment. If there is no comment, there is no story.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Morning Reader's Year in Review 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://morningreader.com/year-in-review-2015 <comment><AUTHOR> Let us know if you liked it!

Also, we added the raw data of all the published articles, let us know if you do any cool things with that</comment>


Google Metronome - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=metronome <comment><USER2> There's another interactive widget when you search for "bubble level" (only on mobile). Handy!

If you're not on mobile, this article has some screenshots of the widget: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/12/23/searching-bubble- lev...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/12/23/searching-bubble-level-in- google-on-your-phone-gives-you-an-interactive-bubble-indicator/)

<comment><USER3> That's amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bing as well [http://www.bing.com/?q=metronome](http://www.bing.com/?q=metronome)

<comment><USER5> Other tool I use frequently is the speed test. [https://www.bing.com/search?q=speed+test](https://www.bing.com/search?q=speed+test)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It only goes up to 208.

Is there some significance to that tempo?

The metronome apps on my phone go up to 240 or 250.

EDIT: Nevermind. Wiki has the answer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome#Usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome#Usage)

<comment><USER7> Not much of an answer. It just says that 208 is a typical max; it doesn't explain _why._

<comment><USER8> You'd never* encounter a piece of classical music set to a faster tempo than that, which also contained tempos slower than (say) 40, where you'd want to denote both extremes using quarter notes. Ultimately, it has to do with useful ranges of human ability and perception. By the same token, you can reasonably expect an article on clothing sizes to say something to the effect of "XXXS to XXXL", without needing to explain why the range doesn't go further.

* Excepting, of course, the handful of joke scores or works of postmodern classical that would surely be summoned to this thread if I neglected to include this caveat.

<comment><USER9> But 208 is such an exact number. That still hasn't been explained.

<comment><USER10> Most numbers are. Exact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice widget. If Google Search can have an obscure widget like this, they should also do a calendar widget.

It pains me every time I search for calendar to do a quick look up and having to click through a link.

<comment><USER12> Google "date"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This effectively replaces all top search results for the keyword "metronome". Wonder how the sites' owners feel about this. For customers it's just one less click, I guess.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure they'll get over it just like the online calculator site owners got over it. /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.google.com/search?q=timer](https://www.google.com/search?q=timer) too

</comment><comment><USER16> For everyone who's not seeing it, it's possible it's being AB tested or something.

</comment><comment><USER17> For those who don't see it, it's a small widget above the search results that lets you set a simple metronome.

</comment><comment><USER18> I find this very unsettling to listen to...

<comment><USER19> I'm not a serious musician but it seems like it has a really wide impulse. Not like a click track or striking a wood block, but more like something a lot more squishy or rubbing something abrasive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What should have happened? Didn't see anything. Is it just an American thing? Or my ad blocker blocked it?

</comment><comment><USER21> Passes the tab unfocus test. Many HTML metronome goes out of sync if you change tab. I still you [http://www.metronomeonline.com/legacy](http://www.metronomeonline.com/legacy) (flash based) because of reasons.

</comment><comment><USER22> Any idea why it changes in jumps of 4bpm?

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess this only works on desktop?

<comment><USER24> doesn't seem to work on safari on OSX

<comment><USER6> Works here in Safari.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I cannot imagine a scenario of how this will be used. Any specific needs that Google tries to cover?

I like their converter widget.

<comment><USER26> You want to practice violin and have your laptop but no metronome?

I love the whole "Google as a search interface to a bunch of microapps" thing. Now if only people other than Google could add things into these...

<comment><USER27> >if only people other than Google could add things into these I think that's DuckDuckGo's approach.</comment></comment></comment>


Wrestling with the sunk cost fallacy: Lessons from Poker 4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=438

<comment><USER2> I must be missing something here. Using e.g. Mercurial, I would start my refactoring and commit often. If a test fails at the end and I can't see why then just update to the version before the refactoring (assuming I hadn't ever ran tests in the mean time), run the test, if it passes update to the next revision and so on. I would expect this to take seconds or minutes to isolate. What kind of revisions system is he using that this even comes up?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right that frequent commits greatly simplifies the particular problem of undetected errors in big refactorings. However, people being people, the sunk cost fallacy is still an issue in development.</comment></comment>


Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy - <AUTHOR> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2012363890_paul_allen_signs_billionaire_p.html <comment><USER2> Even at the expense of sounding like a troll, it always amazes me, really it does, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen the two founders of the so called "evil" MS have given so much money to charity while we haven't seen any such moves from Jobs and Woz the founders of "think-different" Apple.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it.

<comment><USER3> Woz has spent decades teaching 5th graders. He donated most of his money to the school district he worked with. My bias might be showing, but this seems a lot better approach to education than throwing money at it like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

 _Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on achievement._ [1]

At the expense of sounding like a troll, it amazes me that throwing tons of money at problems is commonly accepted as a noble thing. What we're lacking isn't money, it's imagination - we need new ideas for measuring achievement and improving education, and while economic power can act as a catalyst to implementing such changes, it's in no way sufficient for making a lasting positive impact on its own.

1\. [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b41880582...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b4188058281758.htm)

<comment><USER4> Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the results with effectiveness studies.

<comment><USER3> And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I have serious doubts.

I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.

<comment><USER5> Where do you think the mantra of 'smaller class sizes = better education' came from in the first place? Though I don't doubt the advice was was honestly intended, teachers do have an economic interest in reducing class sizes (as it increases demand for their educational skills and accordingly, wages). It's got to be easier to teach 10 kids than 20, and we generally feel we're more productive when we're not overly stressed, the economic implications of the 'small is beautiful' policy were incidental or even unconscious [1].

So, the Gates foundation spent a lot of money discovering that this has little real effect on educational outcomes. I don't regard that as a waste - it may have been an expensive lesson, but I presume the money was spent on _subsidizing smaller class sizes in schools_. The understanding we've gained will save many _billions_ of taxpayer dollars from being spent on a widespread but mistaken belief about teacher:student ratios, which is a significant public good.

[1] I say 'were', because now that we have evidence of the policy's ineffectiveness, many teachers' union members have designated the Gates Foundation and Obama's education secretary as evil corporatists out to wreck public education.

<comment><USER3> _I don't regard that as a waste - it may have been an expensive lesson, but I presume the money was spent on subsidizing smaller class sizes in schools._

I can assure you that when a smart teacher who spends every day with kids says one thing about what's better for their education, and the Gates' Foundation's research says another, I have trouble seeing the validity of the latter.

What I'm saying is that yes, smaller class sizes are a requisite for a better education. Have you ever been in a classroom?

<comment><USER6> > Have you ever been in a classroom?

Are you suggesting Anigbrowl does not have any education ?

<comment><USER3> No, I'm suggesting he's a little too quick in believing the "scientific method" over people with direct experience in a classroom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him." -Voltaire

<comment><USER8> Apparently he's unmarried and has no children, so there's not really many good options for his estate _apart_ from charity. I suppose he could disperse it among nieces and nephews, or build himself a pyramid for a tomb, but charity seems like the obvious route.

<comment><USER9> No, I say build the pyramid!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now _that_ is a worthy goal to set for a budding entrepreneur: becoming a future philanthropist.

<comment><USER11> That was Andrew Carnegie's goal. Way before becoming rich he had a goal to give away mass sums of money. He wrote about his philanthropic philosophy in _The Gospel of Wealth_ , summarized here: <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1889carnegie.html>

<comment><USER12> Erm... Did Carnegie state his goal was to give away money before he acquired massive amounts of it or was it after being labeled a robber-baron?

It's easy to say that being a nice guy was your goal all along after you get caught.

Not that Paul Allen is not a nice guy. There seems to be no evidence on the contrary.

<comment><USER13> Carnegie considered retiring at 35, when he was rich enough not to need to work more. But he kept working for the next few decades, and ended up making about 200X as much.

He wrote himself a memorandum, in which he totaled up his net worth and income, and decided it was enough. Apparently it wasn't, but that's a couple thousand libraries, organs, etc. that he otherwise wouldn't have purchased.

Oddly enough, Warren Buffett wrote something similar at about the same age, when he also semi-retired. Like Carnegie, he went back to work, multiplied his fortune a few more times, and had a lot more to give away at the end.

<comment><USER12> I agree that Carnegie, in the end, made a lot of good things possible. Still, it bothers me that we are so eager to consider that ends justify the means if the ends favor us.

Carnegie ruined lots of people. Along with his good deeds, you must consider the good all these other people never were able to do thanks to him. What makes his good deeds more worthy than the good deeds he prevented?

<comment><USER14> How did he ruin people? His company was incredibly progressive for its time.

<comment><USER12> Ruthless competition, mostly. The example that illustrates his character is not related to this kind of behaviour, but to how he treated his workforce.

The Homestead strike was caused by a broken promise to tie salaries to profits which, made in a downturn, reduced payments. When profits returned, he broke the promise, refused to keep salaries tied to profits, locked out the union workers who protested and used violence to end them. In the end, he hired immigrant workers in place of the previous employees, working for less in harsher conditions.

Not exactly role model.

<http://bit.ly/8XRSwN>

This quote is, IIRC (lost track of the book and had to resort to Google) from Theodore Roosevelt.

<comment><USER15> FYI: There is no reason to use url shorteners on hn and many people will not click on them.

<comment><USER12> Sorry. The URL was so huge I felt bad. When more than 50% of the message is a insanely long URL, something is clearly wrong.

<comment><USER16> HN truncates the display of long URLs. Yours is [http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA7...](http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA750&dq=if+andrew+carnegie+had+employed+his+fortune&hl=en&ei=cIZATMJ1hIqXB67cyZsO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=if%20andrew%20carnegie%20had%20employed%20his%20fortune&f=false)

<comment><USER12> Cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> An amazing gift from an amazing individual and one of the original hackers.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. He was the best of the early Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> He earned it so he can spend it anyway he wants, but it would probably help a lot more people if he used the money to become an angel investor in a lot of small businesses that would employ a lot of people. Funding startups in bio and space that would advance the technology, but probably wouldn't get funding from other sources.

<comment><USER19> No, he probably wouldn't. Look, I understand that this site has a lot of startups, but don't let the echo chamber go to your head. Funding startups is expensive-- we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars minimum, I expect, for a startup that most likely will fail. That same hundreds of thousands of dollars can save the lives of thousands of people that are starving to death or dying of disease.

<comment><USER18> True, but a billion does a lot of startups and research money leads to treatments.

Also, doing a small business equivalent to the charity that pays single bill for a person (since many people are one bill away from broke) would help amazingly well. Buying a expensive coffee machine for the local family bakery, or paying a months rent for the some other local business might put them on solid ground and allow them to hire people. I just think someone with his business talent could really build neighborhoods better than most generic charities.

Once again, it is his money and how he chooses to spend it is his business and is amazingly generous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a good step, but the state should also be taxing them at close to 90% as well. That way all the other billionaires who don't care about philanthropy are forced to contribute back into the system that allowed them to gain the wealth in the first place.

<comment><USER20> I don't know why this is being voted down - it is a valid point of view and historically significant!

There are pros and cons to different tax models. A lot of US history has contained very high tax rates for the highly wealthy.

This was the first google result (I don't want to promote that org)

<http://s3.moveon.org/images/tax_rate-chart.gif>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Which is better?

Just giving away money or targeted investment on critical research/development and social needs to inflict a lasting change (without taking any profit)?

Would you drop few billion dollars on Africa or would you make investments to create long-term industry that will give people jobs and help them help themselves?

I think what Paul/Gates/Buffet and others are doing is great, but I think we have to start looking at ways to make maximum impact instead of feel-good philanthropy to non-profit organization.

IMO ofcourse.

<comment><USER22> Calling the Gates Foundation some feel-good philanthropy is doing a disservice to everyone who has contributed towards global health and development:

> Our work in infectious diseases focuses on developing ways to fight and > prevent enteric and diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, > tuberculosis, and neglected and other infectious diseases.

> [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global- > health/Pages/overview....](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global- > health/Pages/overview.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a list of achievements of the foundation ?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why was he able to make billions anyway?

That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

<comment><USER10> Could you define a level of bureaucracy that would be acceptable to you? 10%? 20%? 30%? While many charities _are_ woefully inefficient, so are many businesses. And charities don't live in some kind of vacuum: inefficient charities fail just like inefficient businesses.

<comment><USER23> Its the greater point which you have missed. He is not being some great guy, he is not being awesome, in this drunken state I am free to say that which I wanted to all along, he is a thief pure and simple, it is not HE giving away money, HE is not being ethical, some kind of god we should all adore for being so nice to us paroles.

He stole this money. He charged much more for his products than he clearly, plainly knew he should have. He is not some guy who might have guessed how much he should charge, thus through trial and error trying to find out. He knew full well that he was making obscene amounts of money because he was charging highly for his products.

So my point was not about charities. They are a matter for a different discussion. My point was, why on earth was he able to make BILLIONS, you know an amount that millions of us together need to work our Ass off to gain in perhaps our life time.

Its legitimised theft and nothing else.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't advise arguing against capitalism while drunk.

What does the amount they charged for their product have to do with anything? Pricing is influenced by the market - the market was willing to pay what they were being charged. I don't know that pure capitalism is the ideal system (being Canadian I rely on public services like health care) but it is very difficult to claim he is a thief.

They were wildly successful because they added a lot of value to the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> To escape from death tax?

<http://to./4jj5>

</comment><comment><USER9> Man, he may even give away enough that he's no longer one of the 250 richest people on the planet.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great gesture but let's put it in perspective. He is and will remain obscenely rich and this will make absolutely no difference to him in terms of how he lives his life.

In terms of disposable income and day to day impact on what he can and can't do, it's probably less significant than someone on this board giving away $10,000.

<comment><USER25> > He is and will remain obscenely rich and this will make absolutely no > difference to him in terms of how he lives his life.

It will make a difference in lives of millions of others - absolute good is better than relative good.

> ... day to day impact on what he can and can't do, it's probably less > significant than someone on this board giving away $10,000.

It's much better for the world for billions to go into productive endeavors than $10,000. You shouldn't award extra points for suffering. In fact, I award extra points for a person being able to do massive good _without_ hurting themselves.

<comment><USER9> I'm not talking about suffering, I'm talking about not even slightly restraining the most astronomical privilege.

The man is worth $13bn. He could give away 99% of his wealth and still live out his days in a level of luxury which will never be experienced by 99% of Western world's population, let alone the world's.

<comment><USER10> And what is wrong with that?

<comment><USER20> Given our economical system - it is a certainty that certain individuals will be so wealthy they can afford anything.

The inevitable is hardly wrong!

<comment><USER9> It's only inevitable if you assume that our economic system is right and immutable. Personally when it creates gaps as big as it does between rich and poor I dispute that's the case.

Don't get me wrong, we need to encourage risk takers and wealth creators but how many sports teams or super yachts does one man really need as just reward for his efforts? Particularly in the case of Paul Allen when many will dispute that the actions of the company who made his wealth were in the best interests of the industry.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Skills and Careers Are Most Transferrable Globally - <AUTHOR> Along the same lines, what skills and careers are most compatible without needing to constantly be active in the field to stay relevant (such as supporting the ability to take several years off and still be marketable upon return to the market)?<p>I'm a technology professional with over twenty years of experience, and it has never been more clear that the treadmill of tech doesn't support even brief breaks in employment. I'm seeking community input as to what skills and careers have life long value regardless of continuity of employment or marketplace participation, while also enabling you to find work independent of geography. <comment><USER2> I am surprised no one mentioned manager roles. People don't change that much I guess. We know more about our behaviors, that's right, but experience with working with people is something that will be always relevant in my opinion. I'd say the same about sales(?) and any kind of job that is related to interacting with people.

Just my opinion, not sure how true it is.

<comment><USER3> Managerial roles does not transfer well from country to country. Culture issues arise frequently, not just when dealing with the people you manage, but also with upper management.

Only exception is VP, President, C-level positions. They usually transfer well since they speak the same language.

<comment><USER4> I can see managing up being an issue, but managing down all depends on managing style. In my opinion if you're a good manager it shouldn't really be affected by culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's the chief argument for going into medicine. Some of my friends would have been great developers, but they didn't want to work 60+ weeks the rest of their life, battle ageism, and have to re-tool. Doctors, Nurses, and Lawyers can get work permits in almost any country.

I would think in tech that the answer to your question would be things that are not usually considered exciting like becoming a Java or .Net developer. You could take a 5 year break and be very likely that people would still be hiring Java developers. Even 10 years off, you would have good odds.

<comment><USER6> I would say that doctors (depending on the specialty), nurses and lawyers have much worse work-life balances than developers. And law degrees generally don't transfer well to countries with different laws and judicial systems from the one where you studied.

<comment><USER7> Disagree on nurses.

Both medical doctor and attorney I agree 100%. Most attorneys hate life.

<comment><USER4> Maybe it's people that hate life that choose to be attorneys? Hmmmm

<comment><USER6> Probably not - these are just high pressure careers that require a lot of work, way over the usual 40 hrs per week. There is a small number of people with highly conscientious personalities who are willing to give up a lot of their personal life to be successful - those people are just wired to work a lot and they thrive in these highly competitive fields. Everyone else who gets in the field has to somehow keep up but their personality and goals don't match the career they've chosen. And so they end up hating life to a certain extent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm an American product manager- I had offers in the US and 3 EU countries after my last job search (ended up moving to the EU). Good product practices are transferable across borders.

</comment><comment><USER9> Writing comes to mind first, satisfying "without needing to constantly be active". However I don't know how globally transferable it is.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nursing and trades.

The beauty of both is that you just work, and usually get paid for what you do. Work an all-nighter? Welcome to overtime.</comment>


Mozilla Context Graph: It's time to bring context back to the web - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@osunick/context-graph-its-time-to-bring-context-back-to-the-web-a7542fe45cf3#.cs443lrn0 <comment><USER2> This is an interesting thought experiment. It seems Mozilla is trying to lower the barrier to entry for the average, small website compared to the giants in the space right now by providing a tool built into the browser itself.

In my experience, this is an ambitious goal. As humans, we don't like change and, as a whole, won't do it without strong reason. Opening your browser means going to the bigger sites (e.g., Facebook) because they're convenient. The convenience isn't due to only thinking Facebook when thinking of social media, it's about what features Facebook offers me as its user.

If, on the other hand, the goal is more for the audience than the small websites, and it's to expose the average viewer to more variety, why not partner with Stumbleupon, Reddit, or one of many other community link- aggregation platforms?

</comment><comment><USER3> StumbleUpon meets Facebook News Feed in your browser!

What's Mozilla's goal here? Making a play for ads? The appearance of feature parity with whatever Google (and now Microsoft) puts out?

<comment><USER4> This isn't an ad play at all. It's an attempt to build features into the browser that help people find new contextually relevant web sites. Say you're on YouTube watching a video. Where are the outbound links? How do you get to other sites that are embedding or linking to the video to see what they have to say? Today you can't because YouTube wants to keep you in YouTube. But what if your browser could tell you about related sites so you could escape YouTube and find great contextually relevant content out on the Open Web? Wouldn't that be nice? Nothing to do with advertising at all.

<comment><USER3> Right, so it's a competitor to Facebook Graph [1], which uses a combination of data mining (from Facebook) and special xmlish tags that website operators can put on their page [2].

It sounds like if you opt in to this venture, it will use your browsing habits to mine those relationships; I wonder if it will ingest Facebook's "OpenGraph" tags [2].

[1] [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/opengraph/using...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/opengraph/using- objects)

[2] [http://ogp.me/](http://ogp.me/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know what type of technology will be powering this? Is Mozilla building some sort of graph database to make this work?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are just getting started and most of this is still in the design phase. Technology choices will have to be made.

The two most concrete things right now related to Context Graph are probably Activity Stream and the Fathom project. Fathom is an experimental framework to extract meaning from web pages ad can be used for a wide range of applications.

Production builds of Activity Stream can installed via TestPilot.

[https://github.com/mozilla/activity- stream](https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream) [https://github.com/mozilla/fathom](https://github.com/mozilla/fathom) [https://testpilot.firefox.com](https://testpilot.firefox.com)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Given a Sentence, Extract topic(s) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mudulo/subject-extractor <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN; This is a simple lightweight (2.3 KB) node module that i use to quickly extract the main topic, or an array of topics from a string or sentence.

I think someone else could find this useful for a project. Thanks for checking it out.

EDITS: grammar

<comment><USER2> Looks interesting, what are some use cases for this kind of thing though? Are you using it for anything in particular?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah sure, I use it in a news app ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jaziir.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jaziir.android)) to analyze a set of headlines and determine what topics are mentioned most (trending). It works well enough, so I figured out someone might find it useful too.

<comment><USER2> Ah nice! This kind of reminds of an app Yahoo had about 4 or 5 years ago that summarized the entire article into a few paragraphs, just on a more micro scale (by design).

<comment><AUTHOR> True, you must be talking about Summly, I prevoiusly read about it too, a great app.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>