The ethics of brain boosting - <AUTHOR> http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/science_blog/brainboosting.html <comment><USER2> I say throw ethics out the door. In sports the idea is to entertain and compete fairly so steroids reduce the value of sports.

Memory and math? What is this a competition? Why on earth would you not want to increase your capacity for memory and math?

The analogy is that steroids are to a mover as this thing is to an engineer. Do you really care how your mover found his strength?

<comment><USER3> The ethical question comes up because these won't be free. There's already a large and widening gap between those who have and those who don't. Particularly in America, who your parents are have a very large impact on your potential as an individual -- access to schools, materials, etc.

With a widening gap, would such a device further increase the gap between those who go on to be the "have's" vs. the "have nots"? Would this introduce a more substantial barrier to entry for the upper class? What if the device cost $1000? What if it cost $1000/month?

What would happen to society if 50% or more of society was structurally unable to move up in the class system? There is unrest today (occupy protests) and the common perception is that it isn't even a big problem in the US yet. How bad would it get if people actually thought it was as bad as it is? And then what if it got worse?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio- economic_mobility_in_the_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio- economic_mobility_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER4> Devil's advocate: brain boosters wouldn't widen the gap significantly because socioeconomic status is not primarily determined by intelligence. That's the entire point of lack of socioeconomic mobility. Instead, the benefits of brain boosters would primarily be to raise the _overall_ quality of life. Brain boosters have the greatest effect when used by scientists and engineers, and the resulting improvements in infrastructure, medicine, and technology serve everybody.

<comment><USER3> >> socioeconomic status is not primarily determined by intelligence

maybe not status, but it's a big factor in mobility. Not saying you can't do it without, but those at the top of the class definitely move up. Scholarships, Doctors, Lawyers, Scientists, Engineers -- all make it to the top 2/5ths.

>> Brain boosters have the greatest effect when used by scientists and engineers

Exactly -- pushes those already 'on top' even higher.

<comment><USER5> _Exactly -- pushes those already 'on top' even higher._

It's positive-sum. If researchers taking cognitive enhancements are able to accelerate the process of curing Alzheimer's or getting self-driving cars on the road, I'm not going to complain if they earn billions in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found that section on 'cheating' completely bizarre. The reason something like a cheat-sheet counts as cheating is not that it's _easier_ , it's that _you haven't really learned it_. The moral issue comes from the idea that the exam is meant to give an idea of how well you know something, and if you cheat you can get a good result without really knowing the subject matter.

If you are actually learning, and the effect is not temporary, then it's obviously not cheating, no matter how easy it is.

<comment><USER7> All the classes I took at MIT let students bring a "cheat sheet" to exams. Additionally, many exams were completely open-book. I know that this is neither here nor there, but I felt compelled to comment on the notion that if you haven't _memorized_ something, that you haven't learned it. This idea is all too prevalent.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely. If the exam is trying to assess how you would do in an environment where you are free to look things up (like the real world most of the time), then that makes good sense. The point generalises to this:

Exams are an attempt to measure something about you. Cheating is an attempt to make the result of the exam better than the reality of the thing the exam is trying to measure. Morally this puts it in the same class as lying and other deception.

So whether carrying information into the exam is cheating or not, depends on the exam. If it's trying to measure what you can remember, it's cheating. Otherwise, it may not be.

If this technology helps you to actually learn, then you aren't just increasing the result of the exam, you're actually increasing the thing the exam is trying to measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So if I understand well, they stumbled upon a method for brain boosting that seems very promising and yet, could be very affordable and also very easily made at home or from a DIY kit. They emphasize how good it would be for humanity, how very bad side-effects their limited studies have shown, etc. Enough to make anyone wonder why this isn't on the market yet.

Only now, they're questioning the ethics of letting people know about it, and they do that... _by talking about it_?

I believe it would now be more dangerous and irresponsible to keep things secret, the cat's out of the bag. People who read such an article with the details provided, only have enough information to have an approximate understanding of how this thing works, but it won't stop them from experimenting. Already, I see instructions being posted on this very thread.

<comment><USER9> It's a reverse psychology marketing ploy. Those guys need funding and are looking into commercial applications which this article is designed to invoke interest for. I think those claims of performance increases when applied to healthy brains can safely be assumed to be highly questionable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've built one for ~ $30 in parts from Radio Shack using an LM317 current limiter. There is an odd bootstrapping problem involved with tDCS devices: you need to have the device connected to comprehend the instructions! Researchers speak of anodal and cathodal stimulation, and the convention is that + is anodal and - is cathodal. So far so good--at least this comports with vacuum tube conventions, which will be familiar to all readers of Hacker News. Researchers speak of anodal stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The tDCS device has to be connected (with the positive connection over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortext) to even begin to comprehend that left means left from the perspective of the subject, but right from the perspective of a viewer viewing the subject's face. The right negative contact can go over the right eyebrow (but there are other protocols). This is one of the clearest: <http://www.ncrrn.org/papers/symposium_tdcs/hamilton_tdcs.pdf>.

As you can see, there is an inviolable convention among researchers not to unambiguously mark the anode + contact on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the cathode - contact over the subject's right eyebrow. Instead, what we see on the third slide is a cartoon drawing of a subject in which two contacts are labeled "active" and "reference". There is an arrow leading from the active contact to the reference contact labeled "anodal" and another arrow from the reference contact labeled "cathodal". This refers to an ancient convention in electronics, in which current was assumed to flow from the anode to the cathode, even though electrons flow from the cathode to the anode. The literature is replete with such helpful diagrams. One would like a completely unambiguous statement: the anode is the positive connection, and it is secured to the left side of the subject's scalp; the cathode is the negative connection, and it secured over the subject's right eyebrow. Or one of the eight combinations possible by arbitrarily switching anode with cathode, positive with negative, and left with right. But I have been unable to locate a statement in the literature that would condescend to so direct and simple a description.

Here is another article with a diagram showing node placement for tDCS. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017306...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017306001068). Note that the anode is placed over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the cathode is placed on the forehead. That beats the anodal and cathodal arrows of the previous diagram. What we still don't have is the identification of + with anodal and - with cathodal. And so one must continue searching through the literature--which should be done in any case--until one comes to something approximating a consensus on node placement and the meaning of anodal and cathodal versus positive and negative.

Finally, here's a compilation from a less than unimpeachable source: <http://www.drmueller-healthpsychology.com/tDCS.html>. The author misreads 1mA as one microamp. That's one milliamp. But we do get a straightforward statement about node placement from Fregni, F., Boggio, P., Nitsche, M., et al. (2006). Letters to the Editor: Treatment of major depression with transcranial direct current stimulation. Bipolar Disorders, 8:203-205. This is confirmed in <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22031874>, though you have to know that anode means positive and cathode means negative.

I should say that in my initial reckless period of self-experimentation, I managed to induce phosphenes by accident -- blue white flashes in the entire visual field, blanking out everything else. Both contacts were in the supraorbital region. I ceased my experiments for a while and returned to the literature.

<comment><USER11> Would you consider explaining how to build one?

<comment><USER12> a quick search brought me to this: <http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/> (don't do it!)

<comment><USER13> EEG is the opposite of TDCS. EEG listens for brain waves, tdcs runs a current through your skull.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Related, I have recently been thinking about Star Trek economics. I don't know much about Star Trek, except that they don't use money. Yet there seem to be differences in "wealth", at least in that some get to be commanders of huge space vessels, whereas others are confined to low level jobs on said vessels.

Presumably there is the notion of "only ability counts", but what happens once genetic engineering levels everybody's abilities? It seems to me from then on the logical conclusion is that in a Star Trek universe mankind would become a super organism spawning individuals according to need. The individual would necessarily be transcended.

<comment><USER15> Star Trek was a meritocratic socialist economy with a World Government, of which we really only see the military/starfleet aspect of everything. There was a hierarchy of jobs based on performance, and there was never any mention of genetic discrimination as far as I know.

<comment><USER16> <http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering>

_This would lead to the banning of genetic engineering on Earth by the mid-22nd century, even research which could be used to cure critical illnesses. This ban was implemented because of the general fear of creating more tyrants such as Khan. It was also felt that parents would feel compelled to have their children genetically engineered, especially if "enhanced" individuals are allowed to compete in normal society._

 _..._

 _By the 24th century, the United Federation of Planets allowed limited use of genetic engineering to correct existing genetically-related medical conditions. Persons known to be genetically enhanced, however, were not allowed to serve in Starfleet, and were especially banned from practicing medicine._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking at the actual research it seems the improvements were typically on the order of 10%. So this isn't going to turn Homer Simpson into Einstein.

I wonder how this compares over the long term to just working an extra 20 minutes per day, or even just drinking a cup of coffee.

<comment><USER9> At 10% it's also worth comparing to a placebo control group - I have the suspicion that the results of such a study could annihilate the "improvement" claim entirely if an independent study were to be conducted on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The currents of 1–2 mA make it easier for neurons in these brain regions to fire. "

wouldn't this just make you do connections in your reasoning that you usually wouldn't do (maybe for a good reason) (is this why this method is ethically questionable?)

<comment><USER19> The question I think is, is that "good reason" a reason that was relevant as our brains were evolving millions of years ago, but is irrelevant now?

Our brains evolved in a way which maximized reproductive potential, and while having strong cognitive abilities was clearly favored to an extent, there was a constant tradeoff between larger brains and food/energy input. Now that we don't have the same critical food shortages, we can set our own objective functions. Ex, now most people would probably choose a brain with +50 iq points which required an extra 1000 kcals a day, but a few tens of thousands of years ago, those requirements would probably have been fatal...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The idea of a simple, cheap and widely available device that could boost brain function sounds too good to be true."

Like books, for example? Or computers (not that cheap, but widely available).

I am not holding my breath on that device... My usual line of thinking: if it is so easy to enhance brain functions, why hasn't nature done so herself? (Another one where that applies is the super memory mice).

<comment><USER20> _...if it is so easy to enhance brain functions, why hasn't nature done so herself?_

If nature is a woman (rather than a collection of stochastic processes), then she is a strong argument against letting women into the same building as a computer.

Most biological organisms are designed incredibly badly. The body is full of spaghetti code, duplicate functionality, dead code that still causes bugs, and systems that evolved from a completely different purpose and didn't get the full rewrite they needed.

The nature methodology makes waterfall look like a perfect process:

1) Make a random change.

2) If conversions go up, commit. Otherwise revert.

<comment><USER21> _If nature is a woman (rather than a collection of stochastic processes), then she is a strong argument against letting women into the same building as a computer._

This along with the following paragraph come across as somewhat misogynistic. I'm sure you didn't mean it to. Saying "person" instead of "women" would have avoided that.

I liked your description of nature's methodology as a development process.

<comment><USER20> The meat of my post was a factual counterpoint to Tichy's, and it amused me to make a stylistic counterpoint as well (namely mocking his Gaia-worshipping tone, which anthropomorphizes a random process).

So yes, I did mean to make it sound somewhat mysogynistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wish they showed something more statistical. As in, by how much did people's memory skills really improve?

That whole article doesn't really even explain how it works either, just some dabbling around "ethics" (really?). Just seems quite vague and unfocussed.

Really exciting prospect if it works though!

<comment><USER23> I think an article named "The ethics of..." is meant to "dabble around ethics" rather than explaining the technology. There must be other articles/papers about that.

<comment><USER22> Yes, but because it's such a weird/new piece of technology, I think an explanation of how well it actually works would be a good compliment to the article, there's no point in talking about ethics if it doesn't actually work.

<comment><USER23> How well it _currently_ works is irrelevant from ethics point of view. Ethics are only concerned with how it could potentially be used. That's important to think about, so that the researchers know what direction to go and how to conduct their research so that it wont cause problems in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "we need to control the release of the genie"

Has never, and will never be done.

Oh, and I will believe all the people who whine about the virtue of the natural, un-augmented human, and about how unfair augmentation is, when they start advocating that athletes compete naked.

</comment><comment><USER25> Any good link describing the research? Ethics considerations are irrelevant for technology that isn't yet proven

<comment><USER26> Agreed. Discussing ethics when no one even fully understands what the technology is seems rather pointless.

<comment><USER27> The fallacy here is "no one understands what the technology is". The research folks think they understand it enough to ask the question about the downsides.

I continue to scan research in this area because I know that at some point there will be a recreational drug equivalent that runs off batteries. That is going to destroy a lot of wealth in the underground drug business. That will cause some violent changes in society.

As for TDCS I expect it to move along to the point where this may be like a calculator, not "required" but an accelerator for people with ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If I'm understanding correctly, the device makes certain neuron pathways more likely to fire. What happens if, for example, you enable this device every time you enter a potentially frustrating situation? Would you become frustrated more easily?

</comment><comment><USER29> This research sounds very similar to the research done by Dr. Bob Beck on his "Brain Tuner" in 1983. Bob Beck had some other radical beliefs such as blood electrification that he claimed could cure all sorts of maladies. I wonder how much the transcranial direct current stimulation differs from Bob Beck's Brain Tuner. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRx0Luz86Uc&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRx0Luz86Uc&feature=related)

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting juxtapose.. if the #3 story about the 2011 Adderall /ritalin shortage drops off the front page, read that too.

</comment><comment><USER31> This can be built easily by connecting 9v battery, a potentiometer, and a multimeter on current mode in series. The potentiometer basically controls the current and the multimeter displays how much you are putting in yourself.

I'm curious on what the benefits of this is but also scared of the side effects if there are any.

Anyone else tried this?

</comment><comment><USER32> I was kind of hoping this would be about accessing an external hard disk from my brain. I can't count the number of times I wished I could've saved a few seconds by not having to look everything up on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've heard of transcranial magnetic stimulation, but not direct current stimulation. Can anyone give us a rundown of the difference in results?

</comment><comment><USER34> Okay, but where can I buy one of these devices for under $100?

<comment><USER22> You can't, yet.</comment></comment>


Hearthbreaker: An open source Hearthstone simulator for machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/danielyule/hearthbreaker

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is awesome. I've been meaning to experiment with Hearthstone AI but coding the rules engine has been putting me off.

I've seen lots of Hearthstone projects in GitHub lately but most of them about getting data from the client. With all this wealth of code around putting together a bot is getting easier and easier. I wonder how Blizzard will react to this trend.

<comment><USER3> Dropbox actually held a recruiting event at Berkeley the other day where one of their engineers gave a talk on writing Hearthstone bots using Sikuli.</comment></comment>


Ffmpeg developers back in control after coup attempt - <AUTHOR> http://ffmpeg.org/index.html

<comment><USER2> Incorrect. The former BDFL (Michael Niedermayer) has seized control from the rest of the developers by stealing the DNS entry for ffmpeg.org.

The majority of developers (in terms of lines of code written) have been effectively kicked off the project.

Note to other open source projects: this is what happens when you let yourself be led by a poisonous person.

<comment><USER3> ergh. unfortunate.

well, the project is already forked into libav, right? is development of that one going forward?

<comment><USER2> Nothing has changed in terms of actual development trees: it was already previously forked into the videolan.org git tree (Michael's) and the ffmpeg.org git tree. The latter is now libav.

Previously, Michael was doing massive amounts of cherry-picking from the other tree, since the vast majority of commits have been there.

The big annoyance for users will be probably when the main tree (now libav) decides to bump the API to the next version. Michael will either be forced to import all the changes exactly, or end up with an incompatible API, which will cause _NIGHTMARES_ , especially if they both have the same soname version!</comment></comment></comment>


Eric S Raymond's Setup - <AUTHOR> http://eric.s.raymond.usesthis.com/ <comment><USER2> Two things struck me as particularly surprising: He's still running a (high quality) 21" CRT. And he's using Ubuntu (considering switching to Arch). Somehow I expected him to be using some sort of insane manual install maintained since the nineties.

<comment><USER3> Monitors took a huge step backwards in the switch from CRTs to LCDs.

Up until just 2 or 3 years ago I was still using a gigantic Dell CRT that I had bought from a coworker for $10. It had better color, higher DPI, higher resolution and a better response time than the expensive LCD that replaced it.

Oh, and it wasn't widescreen, which was nice.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I've never used good CRTs? They have always given me migraines. I was seriously considering whether I needed to give up on being a developer because I wasn't sure I could continue to work with computers around the time LCDs started taking over.

LCDs still sometimes give me migraines (after 12+ hours), and there's a big difference between high-quality and low-quality monitors; but I would never go back. I also don't recall CRTs being better (in terms of color, DPI and resolution) than the good monitors I use today.

<comment><USER5> Yep, the average bundled CRT was pretty terrible and far below the average bundled LCD.

The higher-end CRTs (Trinitrons etc) were great, but tended to wear out over time. I'm somewhat surprised that Raymond still has one that hasn't gone blurry, as I haven't seen a nicely working one in quite a while.

<comment><USER6> Trinitrons look great when they are new, but wear out way too fast. I stick to shadowmask screens for that reason (and still use a nice CRT at home)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Displays with 16x9 aspect ratio - they're stretched in the wrong direction, > vertically cramping my editor window and ergonomically poor for web > browsing. Sadly, I expect to have to live with 16x9 in the future._

Does he not realize you can rotate the displays?

<comment><USER8> When you rotate the display the image quality drops significantly. The change in hue is very high on the vertical and you'll notice it even if you don't pay attention.

<comment><USER9> What you say is true if you rotate the cheaper TN based monitors. I have a Dell 24' monitor in portrait mode and it looks just fine as it is an IPS monitor.

<comment><USER10> I also have one Dell and one HP IPS monitor in portrait mode and they don't look fine at all. They are barely acceptable. There's no hue degradation, but there's a huge contrast degradation plus font subpixel rendering is broken.

<comment><USER9> I do see a difference between the portrait monitor and the others (it seats between two TN 24' Samsungs) but it is perfectably acceptable for writing code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of the coolest sites I ever saw (I don't mean only Raymond, just go to the whole interviews list).

Thanks for the link.

<comment><USER12> It's great at the start. Then you start to get bored (though not really the fault of the site) when you see that pretty much everyone's setup is "Mac Book Pro with 24' cinema display".

I liked this one the most: <http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/>

<comment><USER11> Please note that Mark does not use Google stuff for his books. He uses Emacs!

Now that is interesting, isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _> The desktop ensemble is rounded out with Logitech speakers and a hefty subwoofer, as I like intricate music playing while I hack (Liquid Tension Experiment playing now)._

I would have liked to have heard what else he listens to. Never heard of this band but they sound like Dethklok meets Antiloop or something. Very interesting and cool.

I always find I can work better to "progressive instrumental" too: no lyrics or vocals.

<comment><USER14> Liquid Tension Experiment is Dream Theater (John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, Mike Portnoy) with a different bass player (Tony Levin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It doesn't really make sense that I have more and better equipment than ESR. You would think in his field he would spend more money on technology.

<comment><USER16> If ESR is able to be productive with the gear he has, I don't see why he would need to spend more money. Tools are necessary, but the marginal utility of upgrades drops off pretty quickly. I'm reminded of this comic strip: <http://whattheduck.com/strip/95>

<comment><USER17> > _If ESR is able to be productive with the gear he has, I don't see why he > would need to spend more money._

Has he done anything productive the last 10 years? His last major project I remember was the Linux kernel configuration program fiasco.

<comment><USER18> Jeez. The spirit and tone of this comment seem incredibly obnoxious.

<comment><USER17> Whereas the "OMG, ESR manages to be productive with so little" worship thing wasn't?

How about just answering the question then?

<comment><USER18> The argument that it's equally obnoxious to assume that someone who's made useful contributions in the past has been productive in the last decade as it is to assume they haven't because you can't recall being told about any, is falling flat with me.

<comment><USER10> Eric S. Raymond talks a lot about about his importance, but in reality he has produced no software of value, in fact almost no software at all. The arrogant statement he made in the beginning of the interview is a blatant lie:

> You rely on my software every time you use a browser, a smartphone, or a > gaming console.

ESR is known for his books, not for his code.

<comment><USER12> I think he's referring to giflib or pnglib there. Those libraries are fairly widely used in many places and is probably the most widely used code he is associated with. That said, he is fairly egoistical. I don't think even he would deny that.

<comment><USER17> Well, I checked pnglib for one. He is one of 20+ contributors, not an original project founder, and was only active on it for like 2 years (2000-2002 IIRC):

<http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/src/libpng-LICENSE.txt>

I wouldn't call that "people depending on MY software everyday".

<comment><USER12> _I wouldn't call that "people depending on MY software everyday"._

You and I wouldn't but the person who calls himself "one of the senior cadre who make the internet work" [paraphrasing there] certainly would.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nobody knows exactly when 'Super Mario Bros.' was released - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/29/2910088/nobody-knows-super-mario-bros-release-date

<comment><USER2> Blog spam.

[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we_cant_prove_when_.php)

<comment><USER3> And a much better read. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Instagram has ruined vacations - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/instagram-is-ruining-vacation-701086a67440#.izasijer5 <comment><USER2> I am in Rome for 3 months, and I take pictures everywhere. Why? So that I can remember the experience (also to prove to my family that I'm still alive). I don't take pictures every day, but I do it when it will be meaningful in the future.</comment>


Oracle's Ellison Sets New Course  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704905604575027602941385866.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_business <comment><USER2> Interesting details from interview:

The very most important one is that _Snoracle will start selling to customers_! (Yes, you laugh, but one of Sun's fatal flaws was an inability for people to buy their stuff when the price was between what you could charge to credit cards and the equivalent of a mainframe purchase; they outsourced this to "VARs" and the like without success or caring about that, losing all sorts of startups and therefore follow on sales).

Sounds like they're going to drop commodity hardware, maybe even all x86 hardware, and focus on the higher end stuff. He likes SPARCs.

He thinks the Sun acquisition can be quickly profitable; with sane sales and marketing after appropriate pruning of what they're selling I can see that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Better link: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870490560457502...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704905604575027602941385866.html)</comment>


We used sock puppets in /r/netsec last year (and are sorry we did) (2015) - wu-ikkyu https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/ <comment><AUTHOR> I had a bad experience but with mods last year. I was banned to posting in the group. The same kind of posts I used to publish for years suddenly converted in off topic subjects. Obviously these where posts where something around security (e.g. Windows hooking) was involved.</comment>


Book Review: The Lomborg Deception - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/233942?

<comment><USER2> And Lomborg's response, debunking Howard Friel's claims in return, is here: [http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20r...](http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Not sure why you're getting downvotes for this. Lomborg's defense directly addresses Friel's rather serious claims (the same cannot be said for Friel). On the other hand, at least as this blog notes: [http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/where_tone_torpedoes_c...](http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/where_tone_torpedoes_credibility.html), we now know quite clearly where Newsweek stands on the issue especially as they outsource their skepticism to foreign news services despite recent challenges to the "gold-standard" IPCC reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Newsweek makes the mistake that they accuse Lomborg of doing. "As Friel shows, Lomborg sourced that to a blog post and to a study that never mentioned polar bears."

Here is the blog post: <http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2888>

It tries to debunk a WWF claim on the polar bears. After I found this out, I was not going to bother to read the rest of the article, I have a low tolerance for plain lying, and would flip out for something like this IRL.

EDIT: Actually, the quote is tricky, is it saying that the blog post doesn't cover polar bears or that the study does not? Anyway, the link they provide to the study doesn't work. So it's hard to check _their_ sources. Also, the study doesn't have to cover polar bears, Lomborg could just have been fact-checking the blog post, making it a more legitimate source (hey, it's Cato, a think tank, not that there's anything wrong with being biased, as long as you stick to the truth.).

 __Conclusion: __The Newsweek article is just sloppy journalism, I didn't even finish past the quote I provided, and they made too many errors before then to be taken seriously. MSM shouldn't get away with sloppy journalism.

<comment><USER5> I think what that line means is:

There are two sources. Source 1 is a blog post (implication is this isn't serious science or worthy of a footnote, and reading it I'd agree), source 2 doesn't mention polar bears.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm confused.

Skeptics don't make claims, they doubt claims. How has the burden of proof for climate-change claims shifted to a skeptic?

Renaming doubt as "claims" and then "debunking" the doubt reminds of straw man, no?

Labeling a climate-change skeptic as "pretending-to-be serious" reminds of ad hominem, no?

<comment><USER7> Lomborg makes plenty of claims.

The burden of proof is not determined by whether one is claiming or doubting. Someone saying "I think there's some room for doubt about geocentrism" would bear the burden of proof, for instance.

"Debunking the claims" is straight from the original article title. It seems to be pretty well justified by the article itself; someone has gone through the references in one of Lomborg's books and found them full of junk. (Of course it might turn out that the new book is itself all lies or something, but the mere possibility of that doesn't justify complaining about the word "debunking".)

A straw man is a position falsely ascribed to one's opponents to make them easier to debunk. What false position do you think is being ascribed to Lomborg to make him easier to debunk?

<comment><USER3> Have you bothered to read Lomborg's rebuttal? It thoroughly addresses each of the claims that Friel makes [at least in the book review]. (as linked by Luyt: [http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20r...](http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf))

Did you even read Begley's screed? As WindsofChange notes: [http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/where_tone_torpedoes_c...](http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/where_tone_torpedoes_credibility.html), Newsweek discredits itself in its opening paragraph. Since when is "fact checking" so distasteful so as to be considered to be one of the worst jobs by Newsweek? I mean isn't that supposed to be sort of their job? And they wonder why circulation continues to freefall (falling from 2.6M to 1.5M [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-washington-post- company...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-washington-post-company- reports-2009-and-fourth-quarter-earnings-2010-02-24?reflink=MW_news_stmp)) in one year alone!

There was no "debunking" here. What exists, appears a desperate editor watching her circulation plunge while she attempts to hype a made up controversy to plug the hole.

There's a journalistic dictum if I recall that goes something like: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" [Thanks sailormoon for the correction]. The evidence from both Begley and Friel do not rise to this level especially as Begley attempts to trash not only Lomborg, casting aspersions on both the reviewers of Lomborg's work and Lomborg himself. What is particularly galling is how profoundly unskeptical Newsweek was of Friel's claims and the remarkably anti-intellectual stance they've taken.

<comment><USER7> I have no way to assess Lomborg's rebuttal without having a copy of Friel's book and Lomborg's earlier books to hand. I have a copy of one of Lomborg's books, but not where I am right now, and don't have Friel's at all. However, I don't think I believe that Lomborg's 27-page rebuttal can possibly address every claim made by Friel in a 272-page book, no matter how wrong those claims might be. (Rebutting claims, even very wrong ones, notoriously takes more space and time than making them.)

The Newsweek review does not claim that fact checking is a distasteful job. It claims that _fact checking Lomborg_ is a distasteful job. The two are not equivalent.

No one is claiming that the Newsweek review does any debunking. It reports on someone else's alleged debunking.

Just for reference: Have you read Friel's book and checked his analysis of Lomborg's references?

<comment><USER3> The Lomborg Deception isn't out yet (March 16 is the ship date according to Amazon). I should have specified that Lomborg addresses each of Friel's claims made in the book review/editorial and then some.

Why would fact checking anyone, that by Newsweek's own admission has had high praise from policy makers and any number of publications, be "distasteful"? Newsweek makes the claim that Friel's book is a debunking and achieves its task by referencing three of his primary claims. Begley however does not even bother to thoroughly examine them or take Lomborg's pointed rebuttals into consideration in her sloppy "analysis".

<comment><USER7> Why would fact checking anyone be distasteful? Well, for instance, if I'm understanding correctly what Friel claims, it's something like this: Lomborg makes lots and lots of citations; their relation to the material they're cited in support of is often unclear; it often turns out that they don't in fact support what he's saying. If that's true, then fact-checking him would be a lot of work because of the many citations, and the vagueness of reference that would require more work per citation, and the (hypothetical) fact that often the citations are no good. (Failed searches usually take longer than successful ones.)

Begley doesn't claim to be offering analysis. It's a book review. Do you seriously think it would have been appropriate for the review to be twice as long in order to go into more detail on each claim it mentions?

Anyway. You say Lomborg addresses "each of Friel's claims made in the book review" (weird way of putting it, btw). OK, let's look at the first one: what's happening to the population of polar bears. Well, er, the word "bear" doesn't appear in Lomborg's rebuttal. There's a bit about populations of penguins; nothing about polar bears. Oh. Next: heat deaths and cold deaths. There is certainly some discussion of this in Lomborg's rebuttal, but he doesn't seem to have anything to say about one of the most striking claims Begley says Friel makes: that Lomborg cites a study from 2006 as showing that global warming will save 1.4 million lives that would otherwise be lost to deaths from cold, when in fact the figure claimed in that study is 850k. Next: stuff about the Larsen B ice shelf. No occurrence of "Larsen" or "shelf" in Lomborg's rebuttal.

Your claim that Lomborg addresses every claim of Friel's that's found in the book review appears to be totally false. Did _you_ read Lomborg's rebuttal, or did you just hope I wouldn't?

Incidentally #1: Why the quotation marks around "distasteful"? That word is yours, not Begley's (still less Friel's). Begley used a different term.

Incidentally #2: Why the quotation marks around "analysis"? My best guess is that it's because I used that word. But I used it about Friel's 272-page book, not Begley's 2ish-page review.

Incidentally #3: Why "book review / editorial"? It says "Book review" at the top. It is dedicated to describing and evaluating a book. Its author is not an editor. It's a book review; it's not an editorial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article contains some disturbing appeals to authority:

> _As the final arbiter, let's go to Ian Stirling, one of the world's foremost > experts on polar bears. Lomborg, Stirling says, used "inaccurate and utterly > inadequate arguments" to "erroneously suggest climate warming will have > little negative effect on" the bears._

As the truly final arbiter, I asked my cat, who said "Meow, Lomborg is wrong."

> _Overall, since the mid-1980s polar-bear numbers have fallen, which experts > attribute to global warming. The source is thus not exactly the solid > endorsement of Lomborg's claim about thriving polar bears that one might > assume._

The author would do better to show Lombard's claim, his citation, and show exactly why the citation is fraudulent or mistaken, rather than rely on assumption of general endorsement of a specific claim.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, this seems like as good a place as any to ask:

Can someone point me to a paper that provides a reproducible experiment that measures both the accuracy and precision of the latest climate models?

I suppose I am one of those illiterate, flat-earth "denier's". However, if such a paper exists, I would have no further doubts. And until such a paper exists (assuming it currently does not), my only claims are that the science is unfinished, and that clean energy is probably a good idea anyways.

<comment><USER10> Well how can you claim science is unfinished without even having checked for the state of the science? I can not understand this attitude.

And no, I can not link to such a paper, but I am also not making any claims.

<comment><USER9> Tichy, I have checked. I'm almost positive it doesn't exist, but I welcome others to prove me wrong.

I don't see how you made the logical conclusion that I was asking questions without doing any research at all?

<comment><USER10> It sounded like that, because you wrote "you assume". I am not sure your request even makes much sense, to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's see if I understand this correctly.

Scientist A finds fault with the majority view on a certain issue. So he publishes a book for popular consumption that takes to task various points of the majority's opinion. In response, some other scientist writes a book that takes to task Scientist A. Scientist A writes a rebuttal to the critique.

Newsweek comes along, cherry-picks a couple of arguments, resolves them by appeal to authority, doesn't look at the rebuttal, and seems to conclude that Scientist A is a shoddy charlatan unworthy of our trust.

As I understand this discussion, there are a bout five hoops we need to jump through from positing a theory (Earth's climate is changing) to advocating action (We must do something). I won't list them all here -- they're all just common sense. Attack along any of these lines is fair game and should be encouraged -- especially with such a serious topic.

Instead of impeaching the scientist and basically trying to impugn any work he does in the future, why not list each claim, critique, and rebuttal? Heck, you could do it in chart format with sources. Then we could be talking ideas instead of generalizations and personalities.

I'd much rather have the scientific discussion than the political one. Lumborg may abuse puppies when he goes home from work, but his ideas deserve our attention because _bad ideas can come from good people and good ideas can come from bad people_ We're all grown-ups: show us the claims, counter-claims and citations and we can have a much higher-quality conversation.

<comment><USER10> "Instead of impeaching the scientist and basically trying to impugn any work he does in the future, why not list each claim, critique, and rebuttal?"

Problem is, we still wouldn't be any wiser - how would we know whether to trust the claim, the critique, or the rebuttal? And wouldn't it be more fair to also allow a rebuttal to the rebuttal? Why should Lumborg have the last word?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> After climategate I have a hard time giving much creedence to studies on either side of the anthropomorphic global warming issue. It seems like the right answer is "we don't know."

That having been said, articles and books like this seem like not much more than a desperate attempt at staying relevant.

<comment><USER13> I suspect that "climategate" did not change your stance from agreeing with climate change to disagreeing with it. However, if honestly changed your mind I must ask you why?

<comment><USER14> I changed my stance on historical climate data as a result of climategate [1]. I previously accepted it as more or less correct, but now I'm very skeptical.

The fact is, a big chunk of it cannot be reproduced. A big chunk of historical climate data was was created by the CRU group. The CRU folks are revealed to have an agenda which they are willing to push by subverting the scientific process.

Perhaps other groups are better, or perhaps they just haven't had their email hacked. But the field of historical climate is small enough that there isn't much redundancy (only 4 or 5 major groups, AFAIK). In an experimental field this would be less of an issue, since experiments provide a reality check. But in a purely analytical field, it's murder. Furthermore, even works produced by completely honest and accurate groups may depend on flawed results coming out of the CRU group. Until we carefully audit the field, it's hard to be sure anything is legitimate.

Furthermore, in the wake of climategate, I've become more educated on their data analysis techniques. Consider the "trick" used to "hide the decline": tree ring data agrees with temperature for the first half of the calibration period, but not the second. Therefore, we discard the second half, and _assume_ the correlations in the first half of the training data always applied.

This isn't fraud, since it's well documented what is being done. This is worse. This means that there are so few good proxy measurements that they are forced to use proxies which only match half the training data! I'm not saying this is necessarily bad science; it might be the best that can be done with the available data. Best possible != good, and in this case it looks like best possible might be very poor.

[1] Full disclosure: I was previously skeptical of the claims made by climate modeling. If you wish to claim this is equivalent to "did not change your stance", feel free.

<comment><USER13> Ahh, ok. Yea, tree rings are a horrible proxy for temperature. "Global cooling"/"Global dimming" (small particulates suspended in the upper atmosphere) and an increase in pollution etc. has messed with them. I have long been more skeptical estimates of past global temperatures than our ability to predict future temperatures. Most of the other proxy's for historic temperature are highly dependent on ocean currents and we don't have a good proxy for figuring those out prior to accurate temperature measurements. Pluss we are trying to look further into the past than the future so the number man made changes to the enviernment (deforistation, urbon areas, the sahara etc) are even more extream

IMO, the major issue dealing with global temperatures is actually how ocean currents effected and affect temperatures. You can model changes in gas concentrations but ocean currents estimates are closer to predicting weather than climate. Also, we have high quality mesurments over a range of CO2 consentrations, but so far global ocean currents have been fairly steady.

PS: Global Cooling is actually a well accepted part of current clement change models; the assumption is the effect of particulates suspended in the atmosphere is not going to increase so while they offset a significant amount of global warming they are not going to increase anytime soon. However, looking at the past we need get an accurate estimate of the effects which is hard.

<comment><USER14> _"Global cooling"/"Global dimming" (small particulates suspended in the upper atmosphere) and an increase in pollution etc. has messed with them [tree rings]._

Actually, we don't know what factor messed up tree rings. If we knew that tree rings were f(warmth, x), we would simply keep tree ring data for the entire calibration period and include x in the calculations. The fact is, factor x might apply in the past. We simply don't know.

I'm curious though; if you are skeptical of our knowledge of past temperatures, how can you not be skeptical of predictions of future temperatures? All the climate models are calibrated to past temperature records, so how can the models give good results if the past records are bad?

A hypothetical: I come to you with a proposed algorithmic trading strategy which I've validated it against historical data. But _oops_ I'm not that great at keeping records, and I actually threw away the market data. I also emailed my employees and told them to delete the data if the SEC ever came asking for it. And I also ignored some historical periods where the numbers didn't work. But I kept some stock charts showing exponential growth!

So, you want to invest in my fund?

<comment><USER13> I don't trust any complex trading strategy period. On the other hand I am perfectly willing to believe that we can make ITER work to design specifications. And we could scale up the same basic design to a working fusion reactor. The difference is extrapolating to never before seen physical reactions is reasonable, while human psychology is not.

As to temperature predictions IMO it's more of the same, I don't trust that we can build a highly accurate forcast of global temperature, but estimating temperature change with a +/- 50% accuracy seems vary reasonable.

PS: It's not like we are missing the past 30 years of highly accurate temperature measurements as we have continued to dump mind bogglingly huge quantities of CO2 into the air. IMO, predicting 50 years into the future vs 200 years in the past involves far more unknowns, but extrapolating 1,000 years into the past even worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pitting a political scientist vs a pro-palestinian writer tells us nothing much at all. Except that they both know what topic to go to to sell copy.

What state have we reached where replacing science with the truth finding abilities of partisan politics seems in some way sensible.

<comment><USER7> Lomborg purports to be approaching the matter scientifically rather than through partisan politics. He's been taken at face value in some quarters. If indeed he's now been shown not to be engaged in honest scholarship, then that seems to me to be "worth much".

Why the fact that someone has co-authored a couple of books about newspaper reporting of the Israel-Palestine conflict should make it appropriate to describe that person in a totally different context as "a Pro-Palestine writer" is beyond me, by the way. If you happened to know Friel's political allegiance, would you have written "Pitting a political scientist vs a Democrat ..." or "Pitting a political scientist vs a Republican ..." or whatever?

<comment><USER15> Lomborg work was criticized as scientifically dishonest by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Committees_on_Scientific...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Committees_on_Scientific_Dishonesty) in 2003 and by others before and after that. Friel is not blazing new ground here.

Friel writes wholly one-sidely. I don't know if it's his personal inclination or not (it's generally a good tactic for a niche writer). Pro-Palestinian seemed a short way of characterizing him; perhaps too short but not undeserved.</comment></comment></comment>


VueStrap Bootstrap components built with Vue.js - <AUTHOR> https://yuche.github.io/vue-strap/ <comment><USER2> Have used this in a few projects, and even contributed some patches.

There are several pain points with this lib. Don't remember them all, but for example it is not very "vueish", in the sense it works poorly with vue (for example several components requires the [https://github.com/yuche/vue- strap/blob/master/src/utils/Eve...](https://github.com/yuche/vue- strap/blob/master/src/utils/EventListener.js)). Also, this is targeting bootstrap 3.

If you want bootstrap 4, and better code, I suggest check out another lib called vuestrap, which targets bootstrap 4: [https://github.com/kzima/vuestrap/](https://github.com/kzima/vuestrap/) (Not to be confused with the link in OP, which is called "vue-strap")

Myself, I moved on to MDL since. If you just want some nice UI components, have a look at vue-mdl: [http://posva.net/vue-mdl/](http://posva.net/vue-mdl/)

<comment><USER3> The vue-mdl getting started instructions suggest linking directly to git master javascript files on github from within script tags.

Sounds pretty dangerous to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some offensive examples, and things like the accordian are not accessible, anyway, I gave up after a few seconds, but otherwise a great starting effort perhaps.

<comment><USER5> "I'm a direction, not jerking off!" \- real classy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I noticed some bugs in the demo. If you go to the date picker example, the "disabled days" dropdown does not close if you click away from it after opening it. Also, if you choose some disabled days and then clear them out, the days remain disabled in the date picker.

</comment><comment><USER7> That accordion component chugs along at sub 5 fps on my phone which isn't ideal.

</comment><comment><USER8> I really like the Aside and the alerts are nice too.

</comment><comment><USER9> i don't get why some of the attributes starts with : and some do not, like <sidebar :show.sync="showRight" placement="right" header="Title" :width="350">. these are the type of things that makes me cringe =/

<comment><USER10> that's vuejs shorthand for binding the attribute to a variable (or a js value).

i.e. show is bound to the value of showRight placement is read as "right" width is set to be the int 350.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> no semantic markup? nothing like going back to seeing style classes in markup.. ><

<comment><USER12> It's not 'going back'. The semantic-markup-with-no-presentation-classes approach is just one way to do it and there are good arguments against.

Recommend reading: [http://mrmrs.io/writing/2016/03/24/scalable- css/](http://mrmrs.io/writing/2016/03/24/scalable-css/)</comment></comment>


U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti For Hanes & Levis - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

<comment><USER2> Well.. that's sad. Add Hanes & Levis to the list of companies I won't buy from.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a list of other companies you may want to consider boycotting: [http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/Boycotts/CurrentBoycottsList....](http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/Boycotts/CurrentBoycottsList.aspx)</comment></comment>


Js_of_ocaml - <AUTHOR> http://ocsigen.org/js_of_ocaml/ <comment><USER2> Though the current release is more than a year old, the development branch is active: [https://github.com/ocsigen/js_of_ocaml](https://github.com/ocsigen/js_of_ocaml)</comment>


OSv, a new open-source operating system for virtual machines - <AUTHOR> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/pipermail/linux-il/2013-September/010649.html

<comment><USER2> It says it's optimized for single executing applications and "cloud workloads". Well, isn't there always going to be at least monitoring software running on my server? So that would be 2 applications already.

<comment><USER3> I guess you would monitor the virtual machine from the outside, not from within.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like this just reinvents the "process". We already have virtualisation of processes; that's what OSes do already.

So this just sounds like a minimal Linux.

What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER5> "Another refreshing feature of OSv is that is written in C++.

It's been 40 years since Unix was (re)written in C, and the time has come for something better."

can't stop laughing

</comment><comment><USER6> Has there been anything like this, aside from Singularity OS, in recent years?

The license, vis-a-vis Singularity, is obviously much more appealing. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

<comment><USER7> There is Drawbridge, [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/drawbridge/](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/drawbridge/), which follows the idea of having the whole OS as a library with a pico hypervisor.

Then you have all the language runtimes that run directly on the hardware, like Erlang on Xen, MirageOS and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Assuming host OS is Linux, I wonder what are the benefit of "KVM + OSv + my_app" vs "LXC + my_app" (e.g. via docker.io).</comment>


What a Year of Groceries Looks Like in France (1952,1999,2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Economie/Photo-evenement-voici-ce-que-consomme-une-famille-en-un-an <comment><USER2> Thats a lot of milk. And wine comsumption appears to have taken quite the hit.

I wonder if Millimials or Z's will ever pick up wine.

<comment><USER3> Like in many countries, the French have succumbed to having cereals and milk for breakfast.

But in my view nothing beats butter tartines or croissants dunked in coffee.

It has also become uncommon to drink wine at every meal, and people also drink less when they do have wine. It used to be that the consumption was close to one bottle per day...

But it should also be noted that the amount of alcohol in wine has increased during the period. It's 12+% now while it was about 10% in 1950 (not sure how much difference that makes, but still).

<comment><USER2> I cant even find coffee in the 2019 pic... I'd almost imagine every French home had an espresso machine.</comment></comment></comment>


Adobe BrowserLab: Cross-Browser Testing - <AUTHOR> http://browserlab.adobe.com

<comment><USER2> The problem with this, and the other services that already exist, is that they only give you a static image of how the page renders. If the only thing interactive on your page are plain text hyperlinks I guess you'll be fine. Otherwise, you've got to verify everything is actually working in a real browser anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another similar solution: BrowserShots <http://browsershots.org/> (it's free).

From the website: Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

 _(I'm not affilated with them, just find it useful & well-done. Also, huge list of browsers to test with.)_

<comment><AUTHOR> That queue takes well over 2 hours to finish simple IE screenshots. I ditched BrowserShot some time ago thanks to its popularity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is free only for a limited time. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10255042-56.html>

<comment><USER5> The first dose is always free

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just checked it out and it works very smooth. You can even overlay different renders or see them side-by-side. Supported browsers: Firefox 2.X and 3.X (Windows XP and Mac OS X) Internet Explorer 6.X and 7.X (Windows XP) Safari 3.X (Mac OS X)

Only downside is you need an adobe account =)

<comment><USER6> it appears to be full right now. dont know if they are going to let more user subscribe to this demo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a way to actually try it out?

I see a long loading screen, followed by splash screen with a "Get Started" link. Clicking the link shows me a login screen, with no option to sign up. There's no way out and the back button is disabled.

I still have no idea what this is, but now I don't have any urge to find out.

This is a terrible user experience. It could be used as an example of what not to do when launching a new product.

</comment><comment><USER8> Without attached debugging tools (at least for DOM/CSS, if not Javascript), kinda elaborately pointless.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's dragging for me, I'm guessing b/c of the load, but worked surprisingly well when it did.

I still remember the days of BrowserCam being state-of-the-art -- and people being willing to cough up $75 for an account b/c no one had Macs.

</comment><comment><USER10> The problem with screen-shot is how do you test part of your page that is password protected? I tried the BrowserLab this morning and i can only test the public page.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is a static site about cross-browser compatibility written in Flash/Flex/whatever voodoo Adobe's pushing now?

<comment><USER12> Once you have the Flash VM installed it's about as cross-browser as they come.

<comment><USER11> Not quite: The site is inaccessible for the vast majority of mobile devices.</comment></comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg plays Farmville, for real - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-is-only-eating-food-he-kills-2011-5

<comment><USER2> Last year's goal was to "learn chinese". I can't imagine him "learning" it in a year.</comment>


Fatherpreneurship: Tips on how to be a successful father and entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2012/10/13/how-to-be-a-fatherpreneur/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=Fatherpreneurship%3A%20Tips%20on%20how%20to%20be%20a%20successful%20father%20and%20entrepreneur&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia <comment><USER2> As an advocate of attachment parenting I will suggest that having your kids with you too much is better than outsourcing their care to daycare too much.

That first year of life in particular has a profound effect on their development that lasts a lifetime. Their sense of connection, security, empowerment, cause and effect, and regulating emotions are practically hard- wired during those first twelve months. Look no further than the myriad issues that arise in adopted orphans who missed as little as only the first year of nurturing for confirmation of this.

If it comes down to choices, your children need your time more than they need that infinity pool with a view.

<comment><USER3> I'm right there with you. Although I think the benefits are probably more for the parents than the kids - and that's ok. You and kids will enjoy time together more than either you will enjoy a pool.

<comment><USER2> Right on! No amount of toys of your own or prestige can compete with the rewards of being a parent who can actually be there with your kids while they grow up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Run your family like a seed accelerator! Have lots and lots of children, with many many (beautiful) women. Spend 3 months (max) with each batch. If anybody succeeds, remind them that you own 75%! Har har har

<comment><USER2> Fortunately the study you describe has already been run for us numerous times by willing celebrities and pro athletes with what seemed to them (and most of us) to be unlimited capital. I believe the net result for the principal was his dilution to a (1/2)^n share of original capital, where n is the number of these seed projects taken on.

<comment><USER5> Therefore to optimize, it's best to start with very little original capital, thereby increasing the rate of return. I believe there are many communities practicing this technique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I thought "Where is YOUR husband?"

The woman's point isn't invalidated because her husband isn't there. Perhaps the husband is making a living. Maybe he's playing golf. Maybe he's dead.

If you stop working and decide to take your kids to the park, put your phone down and enjoy the moment you have with them. You'll never get a chance like that again later in life!

<comment><USER7> I actually thought his point was a good one. The alternative may have been putting the kids in day care and actually being in an office. But instead, he gets to go to the park and, yes, respond to a few emails, but at least he's there in some capacity, and probably will have time once he's done with the emails. With the office/day care, the probability of having any time with them is 0.

<comment><USER8> Yes. I've got two young daughters I can spend time with firming the work day precisely because I can answer emails and take calls from the park or zoo. Does that mean they don't have my undivided attention every minute that I'm with them? Yes, but I'm able to be with them a lot more than I would otherwise. And as the author also mentioned, kids entertaining themselves periodically is a good thing too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > When Loïs was born I had an office in my house. She slept next to my desk in > a crib, a developer who worked next to me used to walk around with her when > I received an important phone call, and when she was awake I would just keep > her on my lap.

That... doesn't sound ideal, but at least it's honest.

<comment><USER9> what's the problem? it sounds like a pretty good solution to me (although i don't have kids).

reading your comment i feel you think there's something so obvious (and wrong) that it's not worth even saying. but i can't work out what it is.

<comment><USER7> How would you like to be the guy that gets handed the boss' kid?

<comment><USER9> i think it would depend very much on the context. if it was the kind of place where i had to look after the boss's kid, but the boss wouldn't look after mine (or look out for me in other ways) then i wouldn't like it. but if it went both ways - why not?

my current boss works in a shed behind the house. i don't work there, but when i visit i would guess i've distracted his kid (older) while he's been on the phone a couple of times. it wasn't a problem.

anyway, thanks for clarifying. i can see what concerns you now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great article! It reminds me of my former boss at the startup I used to work at. He wasn't your stereotypical startup founder. He already had a successful engineering career in the private and public sector. By that time he had three kids and a mortgage. And he made it work. Occasionally on a weekend he'd pop with a kid in tow, hoping to get some work done before a soccer practice, but it never created a problem.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're in Philly, there is a co-working space for parents and children that will be called Juice Box coming soon: <http://coworkingforparents.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> I haven't had kids of my own but I hope to take up all this advice some day. Being an entrepreneur and a father is not easy but one should strive to strike a balance. Good article.

</comment><comment><USER13> love this article</comment>


Ask YC: What was the hardest thing to learn in HTML and CSS? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to put together a HTML & CSS tutorial, I'll use this information to put more emphasis in the most difficult parts. Note: learning how to position elements sing tables does not count ;)<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> How to make it look the same in IE (6, 7 and now 8), FF (2 and 3), Opera and Safari...

<comment><USER3> I'm giving a second to the cross-browser compatibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> * The box model. Specifically how padding doesn't behave like most people expect. Be sure to include or point to a good illustration.

* The difference between inline and block display of elements – and how you can change them with css.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've seen a lot of people fail to grasp the specifics of float.

</comment><comment><USER6> Simulating table based layouts without tables (before there were frameworks for it).

</comment><comment><USER7> Why not start off with how to use Blueprint CSS (<http://code.google.com/p/blueprintcss/>) and then show how to extend it? Blueprint gets the basics very right indeed, and allows your readers to become productive quickly. Then you can move on to how to create your own page elements, how to modify Blueprint, etc.

WRT your question, when I was building my own tiny websites I couldn't understand how CSS would help me be productive. The larger the sites, of course, the more obvious that became.

</comment><comment><USER8> I believe the hardest thing about learning XHTML and CSS besides having to make things work across various browsers is avoiding the HTML soup, dated HTML practices such as the use of tables, and CSS hacks. I think it would be best to learn according to the current W3C standards which would enable one to have a stable foundation when swimming through content.

</comment><comment><USER9> Page layout using DIVs... of course, you could always use TABLEs :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> The differences in the DOM of IE and Mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER11> position: absolute vs relative

I've had to look up the rules several times now for how the parent box is chosen. I still don't know if I'm making more intermediate divs than I have to.</comment>


Year's Biggest VC-Backed Busts - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/51501/the-biggest-pe-backed-busts-of-2009/

<comment><USER2> On #3: "The firm brought in Robert Nardelli in try to could save the already- struggling automaker..."

Not trolling, but that is one damn bad for a sentence make.</comment>


Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass - <AUTHOR> http://eyetap.blogspot.ca/ <comment><USER2> On front page right now:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4252955></comment>


Fido: A powershell script to download Windows retail ISOs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pbatard/Fido <comment><USER2> That's cool. I'll have to write a shell script for UNIX systems that does the same, if it doesn't exist already!

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it exists, the reason is that if your user agent is Linux you can download the ISO using a browser, so there is no big inconvenience.

If you are running Windows though, Microsoft will actively redirect you away so that you cannot download the ISO.

One might argue that downloading the script on other OSes is more hassle than visiting the Microsoft website to download the ISO...

<comment><USER2> Meh, automate everything. Maybe for some reason I need that ISO on my remote server with 10Gbps, and not on my laptop that has 10kbps upload...</comment></comment></comment>


Darwin, a Game of Survival of the Fittest Among Programs (1971) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://corewar.co.uk/darwin/darwin.pdf <comment><USER2> I am working on a modern take of this for mobile. Programs are drag and drop assembly and wiring of ship modules to construct a space ship for multiplayer combat. Destructible dataflow graphs if you will. Check it out [https://corepox.net/](https://corepox.net/)

I was supposed to open if for early alpha for Android this week but it's stuck in app review. Coming very soon though. A trailer! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4p-UTIW8jc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4p-UTIW8jc)

<comment><USER3> Looks super cool! Consider a different name suffix than "-pox", which will be associated with diseases like small pox. Maybe -blox, -tox or -hax?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always wondered if there was enough unsecured/vulnerable endpoints in the internet to provide enough compute "resources" for some sort of replicating script to survive. I guess botnets come closest.

<comment><USER5> Thats not just the closest.. aren't botnets/worms exactly what you're asking for? (Plus some extra functionality)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Watching a variation of this (Tierra) run on a Mac is just magical: [https://github.com/smfr/mactierra](https://github.com/smfr/mactierra)

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like a hardware version of Core Wars using Redcode (1984).

[http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html](http://vyznev.net/corewar/guide.html)</comment>