Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978 - <AUTHOR> https://thecompost.io/articles/exxonknew <comment><USER4> Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' \-- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.

<comment><USER5> This is one way to look at it.

My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power.

Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly.

We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but

1\. Other countries import carbon emitting products

2\. The developed countries of today have emmited greenhouse gases for decades, which allowed them to become developed countries.

The geopolitics of climate change are extremely difficult. I don't think the UN is up for it.

Although a better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country basis, but it's a political minefield. Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.

<comment><USER6> > Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their > consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power.

Here is the catch - efforts to reduce overconsumption mean slowing economy and lower tax base. No goverment can afford that.

> Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods > that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.

I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the attitudes.

<comment><USER7> > I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will > make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the > attitudes.

It's happening. And I'm really happy about it.

<comment><USER8> So did everyone in the 60s and at other periods. The world changes, but it's no revolution. I'll believe it when I see it, I remain cautiously optimistic but have my doubts as to whether the 'millennials' will be able to pry themselves away from their self interest for long enough

<comment><USER9> Leaded gasoline, rivers that you can light on fire with a match, and chlorofluorocarbons are all things that were around America in 1960.

<comment><USER8> And the world will be a different place in another 50 years, but did the golden age that all our parents thought was coming in the 60s materialise to their expectations? let's temper ours lest we grow disappointed and jaded.

Change is slow when viewed in a small timescale, and massive when viewed on a large one. I hope we sort our shit out, and I will contribute to the best of my ability to bring this about if at all possible. But, you know, history.

<comment><USER9> Aside from the 1950s equivalents of Ray Kurzweil, how many people back then really thought a golden age was on its way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's terrible to think that maybe if Exxon and others didn't invest in lobbying and disinformation campaigns against climate change maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier.

It's 2019 and humanity is barely starting to think about acting. Global CO2 emissions keep growing as if we were in "business as usual". Humanity needs to realize the magnitude of the problem. Climate change is, by far, the biggest threat it has ever encountered and probably will ever encounter.

The solution will require us to make radical changes to our lifestyle and our culture. For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.

<comment><USER11> > maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier.

I wouldn't bet on it. We know we can cut emissions today by investing in nuclear ... and nothing. We could have invested in nuclear power 30 years ago and prevented trillions of tons of CO2 from being emitted.

Instead we decided wind/solar/natural gas (and those are always package deal) is our best bet at fighting climate change.

>For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.

Facts like nuclear power is by far the best and only way to effectively fight climate change?

<comment><USER12> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-oversaw-the-us- nucl...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-oversaw-the-us-nuclear- power-industry-now-i-think-it-should-be- banned/2019/05/16/a3b8be52-71db-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html)

> I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned.

> By Gregory Jaczko

> Gregory Jaczko served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to > 2009, and as its chairman from 2009 to 2012.

The author is arguably talking his book, since he invested in a wind power company. But it's still noteworthy that nuclear physicists and former regulators don't necessarily agree with you.

<comment><USER11> Here's the first line:

>The danger from climate change no longer outweighs the risks of nuclear accidents.

If that's the assumption, then yes, let's get rid of nukes.

Do you think the risk of nuclear accidents is more important than cutting CO2 emissions?

<comment><USER12> If memory serves me well, the author argues in a nutshell that, until recently, the risk of nuclear accidents was viewed as low enough that it was an acceptable one to take to reduce CO2 emissions, whereas nowadays producing green energy (wind, solar, geothermal) has become cheap enough -- and cheaper than nuclear, particularly if you factor in storing the waste -- that the nuclear risk is no longer acceptable.

<comment><USER11> >whereas nowadays producing green energy (wind, solar, geothermal) has become cheap enough

I keep hearing this meme, that either wind/solar is cheaper than X (where X is coal or nuclear) or is soon to be cheaper. The reality is that they are cheap and getting cheaper but the point is moot because wind/solar cannot power a modern economy.

By the way, Geothermal and hydro are great, but we're pretty much done with them. We've dammed every river that can be dammed and developed every geyser that can be developed.

>that the nuclear risk is no longer acceptable.

Our only real alternative to nuclear is wind/solar/natural gas (or coal). I put them as a package deal because they are a package deal. Wind/Solar only work when coupled with natural gas - this is why Germany is signing multi- billion natural gas as they are ramping up their wind and solar deployments. This is why every natural gas company now lobbies for wind and solar deployments. The problem is that natural gas is destructive to develop (for example may need fracking to extract) and is a fossil fuel. So if you really think that CO2 emissions are an existential crisis and cutting them to 0 is important - nuclear is still the only game in town. Otherwise, you're investing in natural gas as you are ramping up your solar panels and windmills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Former Exxon CEO and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously stated in 2013 during a meeting with Exxonmobil shareholders: "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers"[1]. He explained, "As a species that's why we're all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this. It's an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions."

The idea that the humans will somehow adapt to this is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Koch bros are pushing the same idea, on the evolutionary level, that humans will learn to live.

To me humanity is already dead, we are eternally doomed. We just don't know it yet. It's better to realize and accept it[2], as if we're told we have cancer and our days are numbered. This is a very pessimistic approach, but it is an honest one and may help mitigate problems for future generations.

[1] [https://thinkprogress.org/exxon-ceo-what-good-is-it-to- save-...](https://thinkprogress.org/exxon-ceo-what-good-is-it-to-save-the- planet-if-humanity-suffers-2befcd55f0b1/)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were- doo...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer- hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention)

<comment><USER14> Fortunately for the rest of us, that optimism has worked pretty well for thousands of years now. Besides, if you really believe we're doomed, what difference does it make to you what anyone thinks about anything?

<comment><USER15> Even if it were true, thousands of years is barely anything on any time scale that matters. Disregarding that, we've certainly not lived through thousands of years of global anthropogenic climate change, which is what this is all about.

It's worth to remember that adaption doesn't necessarily equate survival in the way we tend to think about it, as dinosaurs adapted too.

Humanity, at least on this planet, is already doomed. The sun will eventually consume us as a natural part of its life cycle. It's a very long time until that happens, but life here will eventually end. So as we're already doomed, should we then do nothing to prevent suffering and pain until then?

It should be a rhetorical question, but apparently it isn't always.

The argument can be made quite simple: As long as we continue to have children, or accept people having children, we have chosen - as a species - <USER2> not give up on them, and their descendants.

Preserving a livable environment, and preferably much more than livable, is simply a duty springing from that fact.

There is no need for any deep philosophy, to care for the environment is - essentially - a consequence of choices already made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Slightly tangential, but I've come to the conclusion that this is the political way forward for big countries:

1\. Have a single CO2 budget for the whole country, with an aggressive, Hard to change roadmap of yearly reduction of said budget down to zero in the not too long future.

2\. Estimate the CO2 footprint of every single product, incl. imports by one or several neutral organizations. This doesn't have to be perfect as long as it attempts to be fair.

3\. Tax every product according to this budget using supply/demand markets (certificates trading).

4\. Redistribute the tax, especially to mitigate the hardship on low income households and domestic companies.

In my mind, this would create a gigantic incentive for CO2 reduction for your citizens as well as domestic AND foreign companies. Crucially, it would not require any global agreement and consensus. Apart from perhaps renegotiation or canceling of trade agreements on the side of the country that implements the policy.

Note, that you can replace CO2 by greenhouse gases or environmental impact in general. I just use it as a shorthandle.

Very curious about your opinions.

<comment><USER17> There are tons of real world proposals that do this.

Here's one that's in Congress now that you can support: the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act ([http://energyinnovationact.org](http://energyinnovationact.org)) . All revenue from a carbon tax goes to citizens as a yearly check. It has some 30+ cosponsors, including a Republican. A tax at point of source is more efficent than a per-item budget. Any rising cost of CO2 will be accounted for in the price of the product. Fossil-fuel-expensive products will cost more.

The group behind this is the Citizens Climate Lobby, which has been advocating a fee and dividend model for over a decade. It was cofounded by James Hansen, the NASA scientist who first testified to Congress about the perils of climate change over 30 years ago.

In addition, if you live in the states of Oregon and New York, both are on the cusp of passing similar legislation. And there are many more out there in various stages of development...

<comment><USER16> Thank you. I live in Switzerland not the US, so I'm not well informed on US legislation. What about my points 1 and 2? Is the roadmap reliable and aggressive, and are all products incl. imported ones included.

<comment><USER17> This sounds very similar to cap and trade, no? Place a cap on total emissions, and decrease that cap over time. Correspondingly, have pollution permits that are allocated according to this cap. Companies that are especially CO2 efficient can sell their extra pollution allowances. Companies that are not can purchase these pollution allowances. As the cap is set lower and lower every year, the pollution allowances become more valuable, raising the price to pollute, or emit CO2. Over time, using fossil fuels becomes more and more prohibitively expensive, until we eventually transition to a near zero carbon society.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. Cap and trade including all industries and imports and with aggressive allowances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _> The accuracy of their predictions are chilling — they anticipated (in their "21st Century Study-High Growth Scenario") that in 2020 atmospheric CO2 levels would fall between 400 and 420 ppm. They also foresaw the accompanying sea level rise, melting of polar ice sheets, change of rainfall patterns, and agricultural failures._

Wow. How does this compare to other predictions at the time?

<comment><USER19> Maybe they were somewhat later, but Shell oil knew too. They did similar research and came to the same conclusions. Here is a video they made in 1991 warning about climate change: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlYYlRN0LY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlYYlRN0LY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> We all knew. I learned about CO2 greenhouse warming in high school in 1974. At a lecture at the University of Trondheim, Norway, around 1980, (in)famous physicist Edward Teller joked that we of all people shouldn't be worried about global warming.

<comment><USER21> Teller warned the oil industry in _1959_. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate- consensus-97...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate- consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward- teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming)

<comment><USER22> I know Teller wanted to come across as calm and respectable so that people would take him seriously, but if he could look back now he would probably have acted like a deranged lunatic preaching in the streets about the dangers of carbon pollution.

I also think the same of Carl Sagan. For all his wonderful and critical achievements, I bet if he could see how things turned out, he would have unquestioningly devoted his life to spreading awareness about climate change here on Earth instead of focusing on astronomy and nuclear war.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> No surprises there. I don't understand why it took so long to uncover the truth. Even today, they are just playing the long game using the same tactics that the tobacco industry used and deny, deny and deny some more.

Hopefully this company one day will be prosecuted.

<comment><USER24> It's not hard to imagine that in the future there will be some kind of Nuremberg trials against people involved in deliberate climate disinformation campaigns.

<comment><USER25> The strategy is that you die before the pitchforks arrive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> World's richest 10% produce half of global carbon emissions [0] If my math is right, if the top decile reduced their emissions at least to the level of the second decide, the global emissions would fall by 30%.

Dear HN crowd, I bet a fair share of us belongs to the top 10%, please reduce your emissions.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds- richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam)

<comment><USER26> This report only deals with "lifestyle related emissions", not total emissions.

A large percentage of emissions is transportation, manufacturing, heating and electricity.

While the rich will consume more, the effect on total emissions is much lower.

<comment><USER24> True. And to be honest I am not sure how lifestyle emissions are calculated. Does it include the cost of manufacturing and bringing goods to the market? Can't we argue that most emissions are ultimately lifestyle related?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maybe no help from Exxon, but US per capita CO2 has been decreasing since 1978. But China and India have increased per capita, which is scary given their huge populations.

<comment><USER28> Both US population and absolute US greenhouse gas emissions have been growing over time. Population has simply grown proportionally faster than emissions. So yes, US emissions per capita have decreased over time, but total US emissions have been rising, and that's what affects climate.

<comment><USER29> US emissions have declined about 15% in absolute terms since the early 2000s. That's a billion tons less per year. Unfortunately China added about 10 billion tons a year in the same period so it didn't help very much.

<comment><USER28> I'm embarrassed that I didn't know total annual US CO2e emissions have _dropped_ since circa 2005. My only source when I wrote my comment was the in- browser graph in the Wolfram Alpha search result for "us greenhouse gas emissions history" ([https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+greenhouse+gas+emis...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+greenhouse+gas+emissions+history)), which presents a data period of only 1990-2005. A more complete source is [https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s- emissions/](https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/).

Thank you for reminding me not to hastily extrapolate data when it happens to fit my expectation of what's going on, and when actual data are readily available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I made a choice-based game a few months ago about dealing with the political realities of climate change, inspired by Sara Teasdale and Ray Bradbury's _There Will Come Soft Rains_.

You can play it online here: [https://tinyurl.com/43softrains-v1-1](https://tinyurl.com/43softrains-v1-1)

I have been considering pursuing funding for making similar choice-based games like this one and integrating them with classroom curriculums.

<comment><USER26> This is very cool!

Is the code open source? I would love to have a translated version of this and encourage the younger members of my family to play it.

<comment><USER22> Glad you liked it. Here you go: [https://github.com/bad-software/there-will- come-soft-rains](https://github.com/bad-software/there-will-come-soft-rains)

What languages are you interested in seeing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No surprises here, also Shell knew that. Documents show they knew that in '80s, later they renew research in '90s:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=shell+knew+about+global+warming&t=...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=shell+knew+about+global+warming&t=ffab&ia=web)

</comment><comment><USER31> Remember this the next time someone tries to tell you that oil companies are just giving customers what they demand and that the companies themselves aren't at fault.

<comment><USER32> Relevant to your comment: [https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/15263800131...](https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/152638001316881395)

The individualization of environmental problems is a serious obstacle. "We need to stop buying and using plastic water bottles" needs to become "Pepsico and Coke need to stop producing trash."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth. There is less agreement on how to mitigate it's effects.

One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies. While hardly discussed in the US, it's a solution that is currently being discussed in the UK and has been done by many different countries, though usually because of the legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Overtime I have come to the realization free market solutions and incentives are incapable of spurring the changes needed to transition to a cleaner form of energy, especially with the short time scale we have before results are disastrous.

<comment> radford-neal "Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth."

No. There are no even remotely plausible scenarios in which most life (say, all mammals, to pick something specific) go extinct due to climate change caused by human CO2 emissions. If you think that, you have been lied to - <USER3> have not been smart enough to recognize the lies.

<comment><USER33> Did you read the recent IPBES Global Assessment? An article on it from the NYT: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity- exti...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-extinction- united-nations.html)

"Unless nations step up their efforts to protect what natural habitats are left, they could witness the disappearance of 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine mammals and one-third of reef-forming corals. More than 500,000 land species, the report said, do not have enough natural habitat left to ensure their long-term survival."

A summary can be found here: [https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_uned...](https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_unedited_advance_for_posting_htn.pdf)

<comment> radford-neal Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. Except, that is, that if you're concerned about protecting habitats, you should be concerned about some of the boondoggles destroying them that are justified by "global warming" alarmism - such as replacing natural forests with monocultures of trees that are converted to pellets and shipped long distances to be burned in place of coal. See [https://www.draxbiomass.com](https://www.draxbiomass.com)

Also, "one-third" is not "most".

<comment><USER34> Almost every one of your posts here is to refute climate change.

Someone could be forgiven for thinking you have an interest in fossil fuels.

Edit: I see from your CV that you have a history of working with the fossil fuel industry - specifically, Exxon in Calgary in the early 80's. I think it's safe to disregard anything you have to say on the topic.

<comment><USER35> > _Please don 't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion > and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the > data._

Besides this, it's rude to address other community members this way. Just email us at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have such concerns, we take them seriously and we have better options for addressing them.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Aren't the people who fought nuclear power in the 80's just as culpable? Would there still be any coal plants running if we'd started to move to carbon free sources back then?

</comment><comment><USER37> Also 1978: "International Team of Specialists Finds No End in Sight to 30‐Year Cooling Trend in Northern Hemisphere"

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/05/archives/international- te...](https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/05/archives/international-team-of- specialists-finds-no-end-in-sight-to-30year.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> It is a well-known fact, just wondering since when it is news?

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

</comment><comment><USER39> This "entertains" me in a perverse way. _I_ knew fossil fuels were harming the environment in 1978, and I was only a kid at the time.

Exhaust stank, looked dirty. Doesn't take much to figure it out.

<comment><USER40> Vaccines hurt, vegetables taste bad and taking drugs feels good. Your ideology is flawed.

<comment><USER41> Well, if you don't trust your senses at all, perhaps yours is too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a potential strategy to tackle it: [https://genesis.re/wiki#Plan_B](https://genesis.re/wiki#Plan_B)

(decentralized innovation as politics is too slow)

</comment><comment><USER42> [http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/](http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon- arctic/)

</comment><comment><USER43> AsapScience video on the subject: [https://youtu.be/TbW_1MtC2So](https://youtu.be/TbW_1MtC2So)

</comment><comment><USER44> There are articles that are over 100 years old that point out fossil fuels cause climate change. Surely they knew far earlier than 1978?

<comment><USER45> Those earlier articles made educated guesses that the greenhouse effect would eventually come in to play. Exxon attempted to model the effect to work out the possible impact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> this is an example of what one could sarcastically describe as a "market failure"

<comment><USER47> When externalities aren't priced. It isn't a "free market"

<comment><USER46> does anyone who is opposed to planned markets ever talk about the information complexity of accounting for all externalities? genuine question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> OP do you have a connection to the blog? I noticed your submission history favors it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I'm the author + developer -- hope there isn't a problem with posting your own content. I think there's value in it!

<comment><USER49> I (not a mod, just your a regular HN user) think it's perfectly fine to post your own content. As long as you don't spam it, and you don't post over- flattering headlines for it. And definitely way better than posting your content under a guise of an "unafilliated" friend. It will reach the front page and stay here only if it's good, so who cares if it came straight from the wolf's mouth.

Also pretty creepy that people go down post comments history to check who it is and where you 're coming from. Eh.

<comment><USER50> Not sure how to vote this:

Totally agree with the first part.

The second part describes a thing I regularily do as "pretty creepy". To clarify: before deciding to flag, downvote or vouch for someone I might have a look at their comment history to see if I am misunderstanding something.

Also if someone posts something nice I look through their history to find more good comments.

I don't think I'm the only one who does this and in fact I'd recommend it instead of blindly thinking "troll" and hit downvote and flag whenever one sees something one doesn't agree with.

<comment><USER49> I did not mean to offend you. And I am sorry I used that terminology. To me it felt odd that if you reach the front page suddenly eyes are looking at your history and everything you have done.

If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of course makes sense why it happens.

But in general, I fully agree with you. There are many reasons to do it, and perhaps it's even helpful when something is not clear and you want to understand better where someone is coming from, as you said.

Apologies again.

<comment><USER50> > If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That > seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of > course makes sense why it happens.

I'm painfully aware. Which is why I often use this account :-)

> Apologies again.

No need for that after you cleared it up. I might even have been too harsh myself. I actually prefer if there is some room for thought here and I might have read more into your original post than you intended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This was known around 1900

</comment><comment><USER52> How is this not illegal?

<comment><USER53> They're rich and important?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> What do we expect? If your purpose in life was found to be a total lie. Do you bury the truth and deny it to yourself and the world? Or do you commit suicide?

Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.

<comment><USER50> > Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's > what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.

Speak for yourself.

1\. A good number of people actually have a spine. I'd not say the majority "is good && have a spine" but enough that you are lying.

2\. It doesn't help at all to spread the lie that everyone else lying.

Speaking as someone who has been embarassingly honest, and who also admires his friend who came back and admitted he'd been laughing at me behind my back.

<comment><USER54> Speak for myself? I speak for humanity. And did you just call me a liar? Maybe a better way to disagree with me is to say you think I'm mistaken than to call me a liar.

What do you think religion is except for one big lie? Muslims and Christian's can't both be right, either one of them is right or neither of them. That puts a major portion of the world population gauraunteed to be delusional. Delusional behavior as a corporation like Exxon follows. This is logic you can't deny it.

You apparently are better than most humans since you brag about your ability to be embarrassingly honest.

<comment><USER50> History is full of people who faced severe consequences or even death instead of lying. What you said was literally (emphasis mine):

> that's what you _and all other humans would do_ if they got into the same > situation.

Which is literally false if history books and court records are to be belived.

As for religion, people can both be honest and mistaken.

Honesty is about intent, not about being verifyable true.

So while two must be technically wrong, honest Muslims and honest Christians might very well co-exist with honest Atheists.

<comment><USER54> Social sciences and questions about how a mass population would behave are always fuzzy. Some people would and some people wouldn't. My argument is that most people would lie to others and themselves, so much so that it encompasses the greater majority. Although I said all people, I would argue that common sense implies the phrase "almost all" because such absolute answers don't exist in the social sciences or sciences in general.

Also I didn't emphasize hard choices involving death. I was referring to life's work. Something you believed to be true your entire life and suddenly you have to give it all up because it's not true. (Think religion and evolution). There are examples of people slowly accepting the truth rather than instantly but even those are few and far in between. To maintain the illusion people build scaffolds like intelligent design to make sure their old frameworks fit the new ones.

I'm not talking about coexistence either. There is no need to bring that topic up. The only fact to support my thesis here is that part of the population is verfiably delusional for sure.

I also disagree with you about honesty. It's more complex than that. People can lie to themselves. Their biases can mold their behavior to the point where they deny logic. One religion must be wrong and those people will fight to the death for their beliefs just like how a fossil fuel company must be wrong and they will fight to the deaths for their beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Having now been in China for several weeks this beating the drum trying to make americans feel guilty (and give power over to other people) is absolutely absurd. You want to control pollution the first places to start are china and india. The US in comparison produces negligible impact.

<comment><USER56> That is simply not true. The US may not produce as much visible pollution anymore, but we still emit a ton of carbon. Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are all about as much or more than us but China is significantly less per capita.

[https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and- impacts/sc...](https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and- impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html)</comment></comment>


Operations Research Tools developed at Google Open Sourced - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/or-tools/

<comment><USER2> A _little_ more information on it would be helpful. Like, a description. Or _anything_ except acknowledgement of its existence, for which merely noting that <https://code.google.com/p/or-tools/> does not return a 404 is wholly sufficient.

There seems to be an epidemic on most code hosting sites that prevents people from fleshing out information on their project. Is it just less fun than coding? Do they really not know what a good description / use case would be? Or is it just that most things are one-off attempts which will never be visited again, adding to the pollution of non-maintained code projects out there?

<comment><USER3> Here you go:

[https://sites.google.com/site/ortoolssite/home/getting- start...](https://sites.google.com/site/ortoolssite/home/getting-started)

I went through the sources and found them to be fairly standard. Only thing that caught my eye was the heavy emphasis on bit-packing for the sake of performance.

Anyone trying to understand the algorithms is better off with an algorithmic OR text, as the C++ metaprogramming is a little dense on this one.

You can't build it quite yet since some dependencies (like the "gflags" directory) are entirely missing. Follow the project, they promised to release more later. It's only been out for a few days.

<comment><USER4> Gflags probably refers to this: <http://code.google.com/p/google-gflags/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research>

<comment><USER3> aka the best funded mathematical discipline. It can be used for good, or utter bureaucratic evil.

<comment><USER6> Have you found it to be well funded? I loved my college OR classes, but when I recruited for jobs I found that mathematical finance and mathematical CS were significantly more marketable (they have overlaps with OR but are not the same). <http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos044.htm>

<comment><USER3> Those two have better job markets, but OR has better funding possibilities. For OR, you can send your grant application to any mid-large corporation, promising to optimize one of their many messed up business processes and you get yourself a $50k on the spot.

Go to any decent campus and look around. OR people are usually older, with MBAs, and better healed financially. I worked for a few as a software developer (yeah, grad students who can afford to hire a software developer at market rates!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe I'm missing something, but does anyone see what the tool actually does. I saw the constraint solver, but there are already many existing packages that do the same (Octave is open-source, I believe). What is all the excitement about?

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know anything about OR but I see constraint solving on there. Has anyone looked at Alice ML or Oz for solving these kinds of problems? Do they apply? Am I confused?

</comment><comment><USER9> Indeed Operations Research is a bit more than just Constraint Programming, but this is interesting (I'm an OR guy). A much larger framework with open-source software for OR is Coin-OR:

<http://www.coin-or.org/>

<comment><USER3> Shoot me an email please, I wanna bounce some ideas off of you if possible :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Operations Research was one of my favorite classes in college. Only after modeling the world, can you conquer it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, thanks for the link. I wonder if this means ILOG is in trouble...

<comment><USER12> I doubt it considering that it is now owned by IBM and that it is still ridiculously faster than the competition.</comment></comment>


What Facebook's IPO means for women - <AUTHOR> http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/02/07/what-facebooks-ipo-means-for-women/

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... this week Jeff Atwood wrote in Tech Crunch that he's leaving his startup because it's impossible to see his kids if he stays. And I don't see anyone complaining about his declaration. So probably Sheryl Sandberg is not doing much for women, but I'd have to say that Jeff Atwood is ..."_

different perspective of _"Farewell Stack Exchange"_ ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559631></comment>


Ask HN: Programmer abroad, how can I help fight climate change? - <AUTHOR> Do you know of any projects/communities that I can contribute to?<p>Thanks in advance for any angle or opinion on the matter :) <comment><USER2> Most computing power is wasted by clueless programmers writing inefficient code.

Write better code, use less computing power, lower energy usage!

<comment><USER3> Kill bitcoin!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've made a list of things (that are not programmer specific) here: [http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do- for-t...](http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do-for-the- environme)

There's this article from Bret Victor: "What can a Technologist Do About Climate Change?" [http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)

I'm always looking for more things. [https://Climate.Careers](https://Climate.Careers) is interesting!

</comment><comment><USER5> <[https://climate.careers>](https://climate.careers>) is a good place to start. I recently read another HN post on this topic, and someone said to find climate-related jobs, you'll need to do a lot of googling for common strings like "green tech" or "clean tech", and as you start to find companies and job boards (like climate.careers), you'll pick up other search phrases you can use.

</comment><comment><USER6> 'climate change' is quite a nebulous entity. I actually think software is unlikely to help anyway - the greatest changes are to be had in getting people to change their lifestyle. For example, reducing debt-fuelled consumption, reducing energy needs, using the car less or, unimaginable to many, getting rid of the car altogether. To be honest, the biggest impact you can have is always to change your own behaviour first...

<comment><USER7> People partake in those behaviors that are harmful to the planet because they're convenient. Software and automation can provide solutions that shift the convenience to options that will reduce our carbon footprint.

<comment><USER8> Check out Project Wren ([https://projectwren.com/](https://projectwren.com/)), you can offset your carbon footprint for about $20 a month in a few minutes!

They also do a great job of educating users about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know the people behind [https://www.electricitymap.org](https://www.electricitymap.org) really care about climate change as many do :)

Also this video: "What can a javascript developer do to combat climate change? - Olivier Corradi" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD- ojWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD-ojWY)

</comment><comment><USER10> I used to work as a programmer to a kind of a Brazilian NGO (Non-governmental organization) named "CRIA" whose aim is to the dissemination of electronic information, mostly concerning biodiversity data. When I was working there, they were really struggling to get any kind of financing. I am sure they could use some help. Their website is this one: www.cria.org.br/about/

</comment><comment> d--b If you haven't already read it: [http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange](http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange) (2015)

</comment><comment><USER11> Follow the money. Obama just purchased a 8 figure beachfront property in a zone predicted to be hit hard during climate change.

</comment><comment><USER12> Contribute to ad blockers, that's about the quickest and largest contribution you can make as a programmer.

</comment><comment><USER13> Stop flying

</comment><comment><USER14> Join a political party.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious, why do you want to fight it? Some people will suffer from climate change, while others will gain a lot. For example, perhaps folks in Siberia might see their land become more usable. Some poor people in inland areas will suddenly have waterfront property, while some rich folks in mcmansions on the coast will lose their's. So in a sense fighting climate change is helping certain populations (in many cases, the rich), while hurting others.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure in which category you put the hundreds of million of Africans/south asians who will be forced to migrate north.

Sure the whooping 4 dudes living in Siberia will be able to cultivate more things, but for the rest of the world (aka were people actually live) it's a net negative in every aspects.

Besides that, even if climate change doesn't exist or if it is positive for some people, fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs or your health in general.

<comment><USER15> So you are saying that there are more people living in places that will have negative impacts from climate change than positive impacts. I could see that being a reasonable argument. Should we then compensate those who would otherwise benefit if we reversed climate change?

> even if climate change doesn't exist

From what I've read climate change very much exists and it's due to the increase in co2.

But I haven't seen people put out forecasts they are confident in on _what the impacts will be_. I'm not kidding, a few times per year here in Hawaii the forecast for rain is 0% _while it is raining_. And this is a place with very advanced military and atmospheric stations. I think scientists have made an overwhelming convincing case climate change is real and it's from an increase in co2, but I have seen no models that I can play with specifically predicting how it will affect certain regions. Instead people say "it will be bad". If you think because scientists say something is good or bad without showing you all the underlying data and allowing you to reproduce things yourself at home, I've got some government approved pain pills to sell you.

> fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs > or your health in general.

I agree with this.

I guess my point is the first step is better forecasting and modeling tools. Otherwise we really don't know what we are fighting, other than higher temperatures.

<comment><USER16> > If you think because scientists say something is good or bad without showing > you all the underlying data and allowing you to reproduce things yourself at > home, I've got some government approved pain pills to sell you.

You can't reproduce everything at home, especially things happening on very long timescales. If you deny things you can't reproduce at home you can basically forget any scientific progress of the last 30 years.

The underlying data is available and pretty clear.

<comment><USER15> > You can't reproduce everything at home

Yes, you can, if it's reproducible science. If you can't figure out an experiment at home that could prove the validity of a recommendation made by a "government" or "institution" it is not science they are selling you. It's marketing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Engineer builds 'working' Thor's hammer that only he can lift - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/engineer-builds-working-thors-hammer-only-he-can-lift/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty clever. The major improvements I'd want to make are some sort of RFID chip that deactivates the magnet when I'm close enough, instead of a fingerprint scanner. It seems like anyone who gets close enough can see the scanner, so I'd prefer to have something more invisible.

And the second thing would be just to improve the lag time between grasping the handle and the deactivation of the magnet, so I can just lean down and casually grab it, instead of having to hold it for a second before bringing it up. The more magic, the better.

Still, this is pretty awesome!

<comment><USER3> There are some ways that he could have improved the deactivation routine, but I thought the most clever thing was that he used a capacitance sensor to activate the magnet the moment the handle was touched. That had to greatly increase the battery life.

<comment><USER4> But also make it prone to discovery as the guy at the end of the video that spin the hammer out without touching the handle.

<comment><USER5> You could probably spin it out even with the magnet activated. The friction coefficient is probably too low for any realistic electromagnet to be strong enough to make it impossible to "slide" out.

Just try with a magnet on your fridge door. It's much easier to slide it around than it is to pull it away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea, terrible acting. I feel like the "wow" factor in his audience was really killed by the awkward way he made it look like he was pushing a button and waiting for something to happen, instead of struggling to "lift" the hammer while he waited for the thumbprint to register.

<comment><USER7> I knew a guy that made a lightsaber that only he could use. Part of the act was that only a "real Jedi" can activate a lightsaber. He used a neodymium ring and a hall sensor. The trick was seamless.

<comment><USER8> With all the people getting magnets implanted subcutaneously, that would be an even better trick!

<comment><USER9> This would end badly - around this Thors hammer, it would rip them right out through the skin.

<comment><USER10> And this is why I will never get a magnet implant, despite the wicked cool ability to sense active AC power lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It needs an accelerometer to engage the magnet if the device is disturbed without the handle being touched.

<comment><USER12> Ahh yeah to prevent the guy from spinning it off and picking it up

<comment><USER13> Most of the magnetic field lines are along the z-axis (up and down) so anyone could still simply slide the hammer towards the end of the metallic floor it's sitting on(like the sewer cover) and be able to pick it up then. That's how we unstick really strong magnetic targets in our sputtering system, we simply slide them off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Woulda been cool to add a remote shutoff so that the kids trying to lift it could have a bit of a thrill.

<comment><USER15> Downside: They might throw it or smash it on the ground like they might with a regular hammer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was hoping that instead of magnets, it would just be extremely heavy, and be able to activate an internal gyroscopic system to do something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeyDf4ooPdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeyDf4ooPdo)

It'd be pretty hard to fit all that in a small package though, and probably dangerous.

<comment><USER17> That's not how physics works. If the hammer is too heavy to lift, putting a flywheel in it isn't going to change that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Instead of a thumbprint, he should have used a bracelet with an rfid chip, much faster response time and his hand could have been anywhere on the handle.

Or just inject the rfid chip under your finger.

<comment><USER19> A fake wedding ring would be better. Won't look out of place, doesn't require surgery.

<comment><USER18> Ring would have to be non-ferrous

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> An NFC ring might have been a better solution than the laggy fingerprint scanner. Still, cool idea!

</comment><comment><USER21> In 'The Illusionist', the magician Eisenheim did a similar trick to Crown Prince Leopold, except it was King Arthur's sword in the stone.

</comment><comment><USER22> Magician Robert-Houdin performed this trick in 1846 (without the fingerprint reader) [1]

He used the "Light and Heavy Chest" to demonstrate his ability to remove the strength of men for political ends.

[1] [http://www.themagicdetective.com/2012/05/politics-magic- and-...](http://www.themagicdetective.com/2012/05/politics-magic-and-wooden- chest.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think NFC or Bluetooth might have been better but neat execution nonetheless.

<comment><USER24> NFC matched to a subdermal NFC chip would be great.

<comment><USER25> Is there enough metal in those that a strong electromagnetic (say, like the one in this device) could rip it out of your skin...?

<comment><USER26> MRI machines don't: [https://dangerousthings.com/implant- faq/#mri](https://dangerousthings.com/implant-faq/#mri)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd have picked a different legend: the sword in the stone is more similar to how this works, the sword can be wielded by anyone after the king pulls it out of the stone, and this hammer can be wielded by anyone after the engineer pulls if off of the magnet. Thor's hammer can only be wielded by him, ever.

But it's still awesome.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is it possible to figure out the force required to lift this with magnets engaged?

</comment><comment><USER29> Neat project.

I can't help but wonder if you could beat the magnet by kicking the handle sideways, the strong impact multiplied by the lever force might be enough to beat it.

<comment><USER30> Good observation! If you watch the video to the end, this actually happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is really neat. I wonder if there is the possibility of using a similar magnet set-up as a lock? I worry about my motorcycle being stolen since it is so easy to pick up and most locks can be broken, if I had an electro-magnet like this one it might be much harder to steal.

</comment><comment><USER32> Could you do something similar with cornflour mix?

<comment><USER33> In testing, I found that the cornflower mix did not conceal the magnets effectively enough for the illusion to be maintained.

YMMV:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Since it's magnet, did it break the electronic devices the "lifters" were carrying?

<comment><USER35> Why would it?

<comment><USER34> I was thinking something like this - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yEu2R1gYSs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yEu2R1gYSs)

Also some credit cards have warnings to not put near magnets, but maybe the magnet's not strong enough to do damage

<comment><USER35> Magnetic force decreases with the cube of distance from the source. Which is to say that it would take a ludicrously strong magnet at arm's length to do any damage to credit cards in their back pocket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What happens if the magnet comes back on while the hammer's not touching the metal? Is there a way to make this safe?

<comment><USER37> The hammer seems to have multiple magnets on the bottom, so you could probably check for a closed circuit between them before turning on the magnets.</comment></comment>


Twice as happy customers means half the marketing spend - <AUTHOR> https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/twice-as-happy-half-the-price <comment><USER2> I love this post - it gets across a fundamental concept that pretty much anyone can understand, which is non-obvious.

What I love, that other's here seem to grumble about, is that he's not using any specific terminolgy. He doesn't mention 'churn', he doesn't mention 'geometric' series, he only has one '=' in the whole text.

You can print out this article (ignoring the python bit) take this down to your local baker/cafe/<insert non-tech business owner> that's full of stupid marketing billboards but sucks at customer service and show it to them. There's a good chance they'll understand.

Frankly I liked it because I could easily follow his logic without slowing my reading. There was parity between my understanding speed vs my reading speed.

Plus no-one here seems to be grumbling that he's _wrong_ , just that they can say it in a different way.

<comment><USER3> What exactly is it that the local baker will understand? That he should avoid losing clients?

<comment><USER4> That maybe he should work on improving his cupcake recipe instead of expensive billboards, hiring a sales team, and wasting money on facebook ads.

<comment><USER3> Don't most people know this without math, that acquiring new customers is more expensive?

<comment><USER5> Local business owners are hounded by marketing companies everyday promising the moon. Marketing seems like the great Panacea, but no one is reminding them that going over the top with current customers could potentially create a higher return.

$250/mo on Yelp ads gets a few dozen eyeballs on the business.

$250 in free product every month to regular customers creates Fanatics who tell ever, and could possibly get just as many of their peers eyeballs with a FB/IG post about their experience.

A lot of people forget the basics because it's not being sold.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but still, I don't see why you would need to look at asymptotes and convergence. It's enough to look at individual customers and ask the baker if he thinks it's easier to attract a new client than to stop an existing one from leaving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The falls out of the fundamental equation for SaaS and other subscription business models:

LTV = prospects * (conversion rate to paying) * (average price point) / churn

This makes a 5% increase in prospects, conversion rate, or price cause a 5% increase to LTV (and, eventually, to the enterprise value of the company). A 5% decrease in churn (measured against one's current churn rate, e.g., 5% -> 4.75%) has a slightly more than 5% impact to LTV / enterprise value.

So many decisions about running a SaaS company fall directly out of this equation. Competent SaaS operators memorize it or, for less mathematically oriented operators, can at least summarize the relationships implied.

<comment><USER7> If you're measuring the LTV of your pipeline, then yes.

The challenge is measuring duration (retention length) -- especially early on when campaigns are typically run single threaded and have an outsized impact on LTV of individual cohorts. I.e. My company is 18 months old - what's my LTV?

One approach is factoring in the period-churn-rate (if measuring MRR then considering monthly churn). But again, modeling isn't always super defensible.

<comment><USER8> Survival modeling is exactly what's needed for these situations. It allows you to (a) consider censored data (i.e., active customers who you know stay for _at least_ X months) and, (b) use flexible survival distributions beyond the standard exponential distribution assumed in the typical monthly churn rate calculations.

Source: Run a data science company and we work on a lot of customer lifecycle modeling projects with companies much younger than yours.

<comment><USER7> I've done a bit of survival modeling, but my purpose was to understand retention across cohorts with certain attributes (typically, sign-up date, though occasionally campaign).

I'm interesting in how you've used this to model churn. Is there a blog post or resource you recommend to learn more about this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, that's the Churn Equation. The thing us SaaS folks spend most of our time worrying about (whether we know it or not).

Given a constant influx of potential customers at a known conversion rate, along with a known churn rate of existing customers, you can find an exact dollar figure that you will eventually plateau at.

It sucks. Especially when you're starting out because the "In" side of the equation is small and there's not much you can do about it.

Fortunately, as the article points out, there are a few knobs you can tweak. Churn is a nice one, since all it takes is a good product. Conversion is harder, because it involves dark magic like sales and psychology and web design skills.

Once you get it figured out, though, there's another formula you can use to determine how much you're allowed to spend to pour one new user into the top of your Trial funnel. If you can get that up to a level that justifies advertising, you can open the valve as far as your budget allows and start moving that plateau point upwards.

EDIT: I've been writing about this stuff lately, if anybody else likes geeking out on it:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/things-worth- knowing-a...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/things-worth-knowing- about-your-trial-users.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> I was a customer of Candy Japan for a while (3 months) and I really liked it. The candy selection was very interesting and fun. A while back I tried a competitor and their selection was very boring and the candy they sent didn't feel very special.

The reason I cancelled with Candy Japan was that I found it a lot of money for candy. Not so much a lot of money for the service. Also, candy is just unhealthy, so I am probably better of spending that amount on fruit and vegetables.

Overall the candy selection is what would make me choose Candy Japan over a competitor if I would ever choose a candy service again or recommend one to friends.

<comment><USER11> Healthiness is a factor. I wonder if they would be more successful if they delivered less often, say once every 3 months.

<comment><USER12> Or maybe an email prior to shipping.

"Want to send this months shipment as a gift to someone else? Click here to change this months delivery address."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this is highly relevant for the early stages of a product: Do you focus on retention or marketing? I'm developing a cross-platform file manager [1]. My current problem is that even tough 20 people download it every day, only 2 use it more than once in the first week. Existing users ask me for 1000s of features. But the real problem I need to overcome for growth is that I lose so many first-time users. That's a problem with onboarding, not with features. I blogged about this [2].

[1]: [https://fman.io](https://fman.io)

[2]: [https://fman.io/blog/desktop-app-funnel- optimization/](https://fman.io/blog/desktop-app-funnel-optimization/)

<comment><USER14> Retention! Always focus on retention. If people keep using your product then you have product market fit. If they keep leaving - you have an uphill marketing battle.

<comment><USER15> Another consideration is getting customers to come back is vastly easier sell when they liked your product. So, you retention over years can end up significantly longer than the average subscription length.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This really overcomplicates the mathematics.

Steady state implies Leavers = Joiners.

If 100 people join each month then you'll have steady state when there are 100 leavers, i.e. when 50% of N is 100. N * 50% = 100 solves to N = 200.

In general with X% attrition and Y people joining you'll have a steady number of subscribers N using the formula

N * (1 - X) + Y = N

Which can be rearranged to N * X = Y.

<comment><USER17> I'm constantly amazed at the lengths some coders will go to in order to avoid doing a couple of lines of algebra. Have seen people code up complicated Monte Carlo simulations, with all the attendant estimation noise, when basic stats and algebra gives the exact answer, sometimes even as a one-liner.

Serious question: Is it simply a strong math phobia, or have people neglected the skill for so long that they've actually forgotten middle school level maths?

<comment><USER3> I think it's just lack of basic algebra skills. If you have never been taught to think about math in an abstract way, you will naturally approach problems this way instead.

In Ancient Egypt for example when they needed to explain things like the Pythagorean theorem they would give examples, because there was no concept of abstract variables yet. I think this is similar.

In the same way, many people are comfortable working with vectors, transforming them with matrices etc but they have never been taught to think of transforms in an abstract way. So if they want to check if a certain matrix actually performs the transformation they want, they apply it to a bunch of random vectors to see if it's reasonable instead of just checking what it does to the base vectors, because they have no real concept of linear transforms, and only vague ideas about dimensionality and degrees of freedom.

To some extent it IS phobia, because if you just want to rotate a vector 90 degrees you don't really need concepts of orthonormal transformations so you might be reluctant to look at it that way, but if on the other hand abstract algebra is very natural then the abstraction is trivial to do, it just makes things easier.

<comment><USER18> Any linear algebra book you would recommend for self study?

<comment><USER19> I'd like to shift this question a bit - there are plenty of resources for " _linear_ algebra for coders" (since they're in high-demand in gamedev circles). But what about recommended books for the _abstract_ , general algebra? You know, all those rings and stuffs.

<comment><USER20> Abstract algebra is a massive field, the vast majority of which has little applicability to writing code, so it's hard to know what to recommend without knowing why you want to learn it.

If you're ready to get very serious with mathematics, I like Algebra by Mac Lane and Birkhoff. (Note that this is a different book from A Survey of Modern Algebra by the same authors, which I'm sure is okay, but... a different book.)

If you're not ready to get very serious with mathematics... well, then why do you want to learn algebra?

<comment><USER3> It may have little direct application to writing code but abstract algebra will definitely make you a better person... And like so many other things, it helps you indirectly to tackle problems in different ways and see them in a new light. Just being the most efficient coder possible is a pretty sad goal.

PS I agree about Mac Lane, he's great

<comment><USER20> > Just being the most efficient coder possible is a pretty sad goal.

Well, I agree, but life is short. Why learn algebra rather than complex analysis or probability theory or functional analysis or differential geometry or mathematical logic or general relativity or quantum mechanics or any one of dozens of other topics from physics or mathematics that will almost surely seem more interesting and fun to a non-mathematician? (Not to mention non- mathematical topics...)

<comment><USER3> I think group theory is both very useful and interesting. There's no need to get into Galois theory but the basics are definitely applicable in everyday life.

I agree there are tons of other things that people should study, like basic linguistics, relativity, quantum physics, optics etc. Geometry should be on top of the list, for as Plato said "let no one ignorant of geometry enter".

But I don't think time is an issue really, if you just spend an hour or so each evening reading you csn quickly get a basic understanding of lots of topics in not thst many years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A practical application of a geometric series [1].

Before my study of statistical distributions I once re-invented the Poisson distribution. It took one look of my physicist colleague to give everyone a good laugh. That was the moment I decided an economists needs more than linear models, the normal distribution and some non-parametric tests.

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

<comment><USER22> Yes, there's no need to do the actual sum, there's a closed formula for that

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > _For simplicity suppose 50% of people cancel every month. That means that if > I do some clever marketing and manage to get 100 new people to join, then > after a month 50 of those would be left. After another month, 25 of those > would be left and so on._

> _Because of this fall-off, even if you run a subscription business forever, > you will not have infinite customers. Instead you reach a steady-state > number._

You should also factor in returning business as well as new business. eg I'm a very happy customer but since this is a luxury it is often the first thing I cancel whenever money gets tighter. For example when moving house or, most recently, when my wife gives birth to our new baby girl. However when finances stabilize again Candy Japan is often one of the first luxuries I re-subscribe to again.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say thank you for providing such a great service. The extra effort you put in with regards to the emailed descriptions of the candy as well as the mixture of normal and alternative snacks make it an absolute delight receiving the box.

</comment><comment><USER24> Good post, but it does not consider conversion of former customers.

I develop a subscription service which launched in January and now has ~9,000 MAUs. This above metric accounts for ~10% of "new" subscribers each month, despite not yet making an effort (such as by sending reminder or "sorry" emails) to re-capture them.

The post does make a good point about retaining existing users, though.

I would like to add that we saw MAUs spike when redesigning the cancellation process to be more thankful and apologetic than spiteful. (Being a service for Japanese users, we included a little "thank you bow" animated character at the end of the process.)

One more point – our cancellations for the first days of the month often come close to outnumbering new users. We have concluded that the reason for this is that users 1. perform their financial housekeeping around this time, and 2. find a low-numbered charge date easier to remember.

<comment><USER25> Not just easier to remember but related to payday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What are your thoughts about Amazon moving into the subscription box business?

[https://www.amazon.com/b?node=14809330011](https://www.amazon.com/b?node=14809330011)

</comment><comment><USER27>
        Even if you run the business for a million years,
        you will still only have 200 members.

If the churn rate is steady. It usually goes down over time though. Because long time customers have a lower likelihood of canceling.

In other words: The past does not equal the future. If you look back on your business and see a churn rate of X%, you can expect a lower churn rate in the future. Because the "survivors" will have a lower churn rate then new customers.

In e-commerce, this effect often is pretty significant. I know multiple online-shops that make the majority of their business with long time customers. Even though over 50% of new customers drop out after the first month.

</comment><comment><USER28> There's an old saying: It's a lot more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one from leaving.

</comment><comment><USER29> Main takeaway: The function f(x) = 0.5*x + 100 has a fixed point at x = 200.

</comment><comment><USER30> Most annoying thing ever: instead of "Disable this feature", you get "No not now".

Stop forcing things down peoples throats. If you are making a great feature or product, it wil sell itself without a heavy hand. I've determined this is a way to tell who is struggling with innovation and who is leading the way.

</comment><comment><USER31> Implicit here is an assumption that the lifetime of subscribers is exponentially distributed. Which may or may not be the case.

<comment><USER6> "Churn rates are constant given age" is a model which is generally false-but- useful at SaaS companies, particularly for ages over 2~3 billing periods (months), while folks are basically on extended trialing before really deciding on adoption or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> My companies current scenario is about 64% renewal rate from all years before but a 50% of that is from the year before current and 25% percent of that is from 2 years before current and so on and so on..

So how does all this differ if you're looking at renewal from year before and renewals from all time ?

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't suppose CandyJapan has something for the lactose intolerant? :)

<comment><USER34> Why not just use lactase enzymes instead, way easier than always finding lactose-free products.

<comment><USER35> Because you have to have a supply of lactase pills always readily available on you.

I often forget my pills and thus rely on lactose free products, e.g. Lactose free cappuccino... which by the way is much easier to get in Germany than in the states (for whatever reason)

<comment><USER34> I had the same issue, but I got a metal pill keychain holder from Ebay for $2 that helped a lot.

I also think this is quite different since it's an order process, where the candy naturally stays at home except when you bring it somewhere, and then it's not too hard to remember to also bring some enzymes, versus randomly discovering an appealing lactose product when you're out.

<comment><USER35> The keychain holder is a good idea, never thought of it. Will check it out :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The reason developers don't use math is because it never fits the real world models.

</comment><comment><USER37> 100+50+25= 175

<comment><USER38> Keep going!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Python and first checked the previous result</comment>


Announcing Trackiem - <AUTHOR> https://blog.avinoth.com/indiehacking/2020/06/16/announcing-trackiem.html <comment><USER2> Why not link directly to the app ([https://www.trackiem.com/](https://www.trackiem.com/))? I clicked through and the landing page is pretty good. Only thing I wasn't clear about was what do the visualizations look like? Having a few actual examples of various types of graphs and what they look like would be helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I submitted the direct app for Show HN few days ago and didn't make it well. I thought a write-up would help clarify the intent, and wrote this one up.

I'm planning to have a "demo" version up an running by this week end so as users can try before signing up.

<comment><USER2> No problem. Good luck.</comment></comment></comment>


If you compress the entire universe in a pixel, which color would it be? - <AUTHOR>

White? <comment><USER2> This one: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte)

<comment><AUTHOR> #FFF8E7 ... this is amazing, but also unnatural. What I mean is, how can this be an unbalanced thing? Why not perfect white or perfect black?

<comment><USER2> Because some stars emit more blue and some more red. Also you can't have 100% light in universe (without creating a black hole that is), so when you mix lights, you have to mix different colors as unbounded values and then divide by max to get some normalized representable rgb value with 100% luminosity. #FFxxxx means there is more red than other colors, but only a little more. If every frequency in visible light would have the same strength in resulting spectrum, you would have #FFFFFF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If the entire universe is in one pixel, there is no single photon outside, so it is of course black! But moreover from a quantum mechanics point of view, if there is nobody is outside the entire universe, there is no one observing something from the universe, so maybe the universe doesn't exist...(see this as an inspirement: [http://www.iafe.uba.ar/e2e/phys230/history/moon.pdf](http://www.iafe.uba.ar/e2e/phys230/history/moon.pdf))

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau) ?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think either black when matter is put in or transparent when matter and anti-matter is put in.

</comment><comment><USER6> it depends on which filter you are applying. But probably blue. Because of the big oceans we have.

<comment><USER7> haha, very fuuny

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The entire universe is a pixel. You are inside it, what do you see when you look out to nothing?</comment>


Task.js: Beautiful Concurrency for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://taskjs.org/ <comment><USER2> In python we've been having a yield statement for a long time. By far and large, it has not solved the issue of cooperative multitasking. Using it only leads to near incomprehensive code where everything becomes an iterable, and every call becomes an iteration.

Co-routines solve cooperative multitasking. Which is why they're now being discussed for python in a fashion that doesn't rely on C-stack hacks.

<comment><USER3> I would say it has almost entirely solved the problem. Twisted with inlineCallbacks makes writing multitasking programs very clear and obvious. Python 3.3 makes it even better by allowing `return` and requiring less wrapping with `yield from`.

Implicit stack coroutines (like greenlets) can always be built on top if necessary, but they tend to require horrible things like monkey patching to work together with existing synchronous, blocking code.

<comment><USER4> > Implicit stack coroutines (like greenlets) can always be built on top if > necessary, but they tend to require horrible things like monkey patching to > work together with existing synchronous, blocking code.

that's not true. monkey patching is an optional feature that you can use with greenlet-based libraries, but you don't have to.

compare that to inlineCallbacks, where you don't have that option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huh; I wonder if a slight tweak to this could be used to make yield act like Erlang's receive operator? Presuming the library assigns every task a handle (a PID), that tasks could .send() messages to other tasks, etc., .receive() could be implemented by the library just expecting you to yield a set of patterns, then blocking your task until the library has a message to route to it that matches one of those patterns.

<comment><USER6> Yep. I wrote some code a few years ago that does this. I wrote it before I knew about task.js and should rewrite it using task.js, removing my handrolled clone of it.

<https://github.com/fzzzy/pavel.js>

There is also another slightly different scheduler that I started that includes a multithreaded scheduler with webworkers and works in a browser. This version, because it is designed to work in stock browsers, has a callback api and does not use generators, but task.js could easily be layered on top.

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

Please excuse the use of an explicitly provided "pattern" string in both of these. I did it for simplicity. It would be possible to port my concept of shapes from my python-actors project to js, but the runtime overhead of using explicit strings is extremely low and it makes the code very simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish Chrome would start implementing some of the ES6 stuff (especially arrow function syntax...mmmm): does anyone know where we can see that kinda status?

<comment><USER8> Check the Chromium blog and their bug tracker.

If this were implemented, it would be hidden behind the experimental JS flag anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a year old. Now what?</comment>


The Art of Thinking Long-Term Even When Money Is Running Out - <AUTHOR> https://medium.dave-bailey.com/why-visionary-founders-need-to-think-long-term-7ec4a5aae21a <comment><USER2> "Developing new features versus refactoring existing code"

I like to do minor refactoring as part of any given new feature (even if unrelated). It helps take bites out of the larger pieces over time.

"Tolerating a bad employee versus firing and rehiring"

Inversely this also gets into something I often see where companies sit and wait for the best possible candidate (everyone claims to hire the best...) and so rather than hire and try people out they take a long time and hire someone and hiring being a non exact science.... doesn't work out. Maybe people need to try folks out, even maybe the person who doesn't have every bit of alphabet soup on their resume?

<comment><USER3> >> I like to do minor refactoring as part of any given new feature (even if unrelated). It helps take bites out of the larger pieces over time.

This hits the mark.

I don't think developers should even necessarily explain that this is what they are doing, because then they have to ask permission to do it.

I'm constantly thanking "myself from the past" when I go to implement some new feature and find that the surrounding code is clean and well organised and ready for that new feature to be easily implemented.

<comment><USER4> > I don't think developers should even necessarily explain that this is what > they are doing, because then they have to ask permission to do it.

In my experience, it pays to be open with product managers and QA about what you are working on, how you are implementing it, what the risks and benefits are, etc. For example, it helps QA to focus their testing efforts on the areas that are most likely to be broken by a refactor. And having some understanding of how an app is built and where the problem points in the code lie helps product managers to develop a sense of how much effort a certain change might take, and reduces the chance that they will be surprised by some behavior in the app as the result of a change.

And if someone on the team wants to question me about the cost/benefits of a certain refactor and discuss alternatives, I think that is totally fair game. Same way that if I want to ask a question about the cost/benefits of a new feature and discuss alternatives, I feel empowered to do so. It's not about asking permission so much as it is about developing a shared understanding of the costs and benefits of the decisions that we make, and working together to optimize them.

<comment><USER3> You make good points and I tend to agree with you.

On the other hand I remember on some projects there being real (HUGE) pushback from the client about doing anything that wasn't implementing features exactly as they define and "are paying for".

As soon as you declare that you are doing something "optional", it gets political, people start talking about it, it escalates to project manager, their bosses boss etc and the shitfight starts. Ugh.

<comment><USER4> Yup I guess what I was describing was more of an ideal software development environment, but fully recognize that there are many cases where being too transparent can cause issues. Hopefully those projects paid well, at least, to make up for all the frustration. :)

<comment><USER5> The best general strategy may be simply "tit for tat". Try going the high road first; if you see positive reaction, keep at it; if you see dysfunctional reaction (like parent here had), revert to doing it without asking for permission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We overestimate what we can do in a month and under estimate what we can do in a year. Love that.

<comment><USER7> It's basically Amara's law in action: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _I was under a lot of pressure to increase sales. To boost the next month's sales, I pushed the button on a big marketing campaign in which we reached out to a hundred potential clients with a time-limited promotion. The results were disappointing. [..] I realised that sales are about relationships_

 _3) Tolerating a bad employee versus firing and rehiring. There is always a short-term reason not to fire someone who's underperforming_

Soooo you encouraged the board to fire you and hire someone who understands sales already, yes? And/or you understand that underperforming can lead to learning which can improve performing which you tolerate in yourself, so you tolerate in your employees, yes?

<comment><USER9> Underperforming is not about making mistakes. It is consistently being unable to learn and adapt. It is being unable to mesh with the rest of the team. It is feeling like "I wish I had not hired this person".

<comment><USER4> Also I think that different organizations have different thresholds for how much they can tolerate with an underperforming employee. In larger organizations, I have seen situations where an employee was not a great fit for the role they were originally hired for, but over time were able to move into a different role where they were effective. E.g. someone who can't write code to save their life, but is actually quite effective as a middle manager.

But in a startup situation where every new hire is going to make a huge impact on the team, and "money is running out" (as the article is titled), you might necessarily need to be less forgiving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> FWIW the "marshmallow experiment" failed when it was reproduced with more participants from wider backgrounds. Probably not something you want to hook your ideas onto.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall...](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow- test/561779/)

<comment><USER11> No, the way you state is is simply wrong.

The study you link to _confirms_ the correlation between the ability to delay gratification in the marshallow test and later success in life. However, it also says that when taking other factors in to account, in particular the wealth of the parents, the marshallow test does not add a significant amount of information any more.

So all we know now is that we have a number of variables that correlate:

\- succeeding at the marshmallow test

\- having wealthy parents

\- be successful in life

Which one of these causes what is open for interpretation. For example, growing up in a stable and reliable environment (which more affluent parents can easier provide) might help to develop long-term thinking, which helps both at the marshmallow test and generally in life.

In any case, the study confirmed that if you don't know anything else about a person, the marshmallow test provides significant information about the probable success later in the life of that person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How can we access this post without paying a Medium subscription?

<comment><USER13> [https://outline.com/8SZ7hG](https://outline.com/8SZ7hG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Paywall in front of such article looks especially funny.

</comment><comment><USER15> down for me</comment>


Don't launch on HN - <AUTHOR> http://eggerapps.at/blog/2013/dont-launch-on-hacker-news.html

<comment><USER2> plus, you've saved yourself all the sad grumpy comments from the regular grumpy boringly sad commenters.</comment>


(Newspaper) Copyright Trolling for Dollars: Media's Latest Answer to Money Woes - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

<comment><AUTHOR> A blog I check everyday is shutting down because of a lawsuit from this firm. No attempt at solving any possible problems with exceeding Fair Use, just an out of state Federal lawsuit for $75,000 (the minimum you can sue for this kind of thing). Like the RIAA it would appear that in their legal strategy they're entirely focused on getting small settlements that aren't so small for the bloggers and other small organizations they are suing (in one case, they're suing one of the newspaper's own primary sources for a story! [http://chanceofrain.com/2010/05/review-journal-sues-its- own-...](http://chanceofrain.com/2010/05/review-journal-sues-its-own-source/) Which puts the newspaper in an impossible position to continue reporting on the story.)

In the case I'm familiar with this isn't clear cut and economically damaging copyright infringement like with the RIAA's lawsuits, just excerpts of 6 stories. If taken all the way to trial and judgment the damages would be de minimus, but who can afford to fight a Federal lawsuit for these sorts of stakes in another state?

Perhaps worse, look at the end example in the article where the defendant claims the proper venue is the DMCA since the possibly infringing material was submitted by a user. The lawsuit ought to be easily cleared up, but again that takes retaining a lawyer and going to the courtroom....</comment>


Slack is down - <AUTHOR> https://status.slack.com/ <comment><USER2> Sadly, it's working just fine for me. There are reports coming in however [1]

Appears to be mostly people using their Electron App.

[1] - [http://downdetector.com/status/slack](http://downdetector.com/status/slack)

<comment><USER3> Their web application is giving me rate-limiting errors from Chrome 68 and the Android app is having some kind of issue.</comment></comment>


eBook: Eloquent JavaScript (w/ integrated interface for editing and running example programs) - <AUTHOR> http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html

<comment><USER2> Excellent, and integrates a console for exploring programs.</comment>


Imagined design for a faster-than-light spaceship - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/06/11/this-is-the-amazing-design-for-nasas-star-trek-style-space-ship-the-ixs-enterprise/ <comment><USER2> Isn't the warp of the universe determined by mass? I wish there was some indication of how he plans to warp space while not having the mass of a star in his ship.

<comment><USER3> It briefly touches on it, but the idea is to use something called an "Alcubierre drive". Obviously in an article aimed at the layman they won't go into a deep explanation about how such a drive would work, but they do say the first thing they need is an existence proof. This is still very theoretical and it's likely that it's not physically possible to do.</comment></comment>