CIOs Beware: New Macbook Pro Will Be a Bandwidth Hog - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/06/11/cios-beware-new-macbook-pro-will-be-a-bandwidth-hog/

<comment><AUTHOR> I kept the title honest but I submitted it specifically because the article says, "But it may also wreak havoc on CIOs' networks and connectivity budgets — better quality displays require more network bandwidth, which allows users to increase data consumption."

How can the WSJ report such nonsense? Bigger displays do not increase bandwidth usage as far as I know.

<comment><USER2> They might have accidentally stumbled on a real topic though - I've observed my iPhone bringing my home WLAN to a grinding halt with iCloud backups...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> People with expert knowledge in any field will frequently notice "wow, the media does a terrible job of understanding and explaining my field." Too few take the next logical step: the media does a terrible job of understanding and explaining _almost everything_. You simply notice the problem more in areas where you know more.

<comment><USER4> The media has gone from explaining stories to just sharing them. It's like a journalistic chain letter from hell.

       Hey! Did you see politician X's gaffe?

       Here is an interesting chart I found

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While the WSJ should be embarrassed by a posting an article like this, I am glad that comments are turned on.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few websites like Apple's are 'retina optimized' and the way Apple implements it, it is a bit inefficient--the web browser downloads the standard size image, then some js replaces those images with high-res variants. But sites like that are rare, and still don't account for a large amount of bandwidth used, so I vote: FUD.

</comment><comment><USER7> >CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested that the higher resolution Retina displays of the new iPad and forthcoming Macbook Pro computers would increase consumption of network bandwidth, thus slowing performance of corporate networks. Higher resolution screens do not in and of themselves consume more network bandwidth. Some analysts have suggested that owners of devices with high-resolution screens will likely consume more video and HD video, which would result in higher bandwidth consumption. This article has been modified to reflect this change.

Still a stretch in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER8> The article is poorly worded. The point is that retina 2x graphics do require more bandwidth. As retina displays grow in popularity, bandwidth may become an issue. It's certainly something developers should consider when thinking about site performance.

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/2DDraw...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/2DDrawing/Conceptual/DrawingPrintingiOS/SupportingHiResScreens/SupportingHiResScreens.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> One case where he could be a little bit correct is screen sharing a large desktop would use more bandwidth, but I doubt he was thinking that.

</comment><comment><USER10> "(...) better quality displays require more network bandwidth, which allows users to increase data consumption"

Whaaat?

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems like a Fox News writer got assigned to WSJ at News Corp.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand how the WSJ published this.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wait a minute.. today isn't April 1, is it?

</comment><comment><USER14> Not sure if trolling or stupid

</comment><comment><USER15> As far as I know youtube videos at 1080p use the same bandwidth regardless of whether you're displaying on 720p or a retina display. This is silly, is the reporter confused about HDMI/DisplayPort vs. network bandwidth?

<comment><USER16> You really think YouTube is downsizing them in the front-end, rather than rendering out multiple versions on the server? That doesn't really make sense, plus it would make it odd that changing the size of the video restart the playback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If the monitors are running off the network instead of DVI/HDMI/VGA/Display port, it's the CIO that must be fired.

The only way this can be an issue if everyone's running off remote access and running it at the highest resolution without compression.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if the WSJ would hire me to write about financial issues. I mean, I know nothing about the subject, but apparently that's not relevant.</comment>


Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites - <AUTHOR> https://webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu/dark-patterns/ <comment><USER3> _> Countdown Timer_

This, and its equivalent "stock level countdown", has become an instant red flag for me. If I see one I cancel all interest in ordering that product from that company. I don't think I've seen one that is genuine (opening the page in another browser and seeing the count reset to a value, or seeing a fresh countdown started on a visit not long after the previous one ended) and I don't appreciate being lied to. And these things are lies: not misdirection, exaggeration, or any other softer word, they are outright lies and I refuse to trust companies/individuals that tell them so won't be handing over my payment details.

 _> Sneaking & Hidden Costs_

I'm perfectly happy to make a little effort, even to pay a little extra, to find other sources for what I'm buying when I see this happen. Unfortunately I think I'm in a minority here and such trickery is getting more prevalent (so harder to avoid) for that reason.

 _> Even viewing products requires signing up and creating and account._

That is where my old friend Mr Fake McFakeFake who lives at Faketown, Fakeshire, FA1 1AF, plays his part. Or of course just walking away on the basis that if your offer was _that_ good you would openly display it.

<comment><USER4> I upvote this comment for the alter ego flamboyance.

<comment><USER5> Heh - mine is similar but with a different "F" word. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I Could not find this one mentioned: some lodging sites add _obligatory_ costs

(e.g., "All prices (expressed in Euros) exclude € 27.50 reservation fee, obligatory: € 7.95 p.p. bed linen per person per stay, € 6.95 p.p. cot linen, tourist tax € 1.85 ")

some countries requires that everything obligatory is included in the main price, or at least displayed with the same font, size, and placement.

this pattern should be generally illegal IMHO.

<comment><USER7> Throwback to the ebay days when you could list an item for $5 but charge $150 shipping -- your item would show up at the top of the results (which by default were ordered by sell price only).

<comment><USER8> That's because eBay only used to only charge commission on the item and not the shipping cost.

I'm sure someone else (or even the same seller) has the same item for $175 and free shipping for those wanting to indirectly donate an extra $20 to eBay shareholders.

I was probably on a list for selling games for $0.01 and clearly specifying $7 shipping in the title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see my own company on here. I work in a back office role and I've never used the main customer site, because it's just not my demographic. After some honest looking I can say our company doesn't just do one, but all of these.

I think it's time to move on...

</comment><comment><USER10> "Sneaking & Hidden Costs"

The traveling industry is the worst here.

In 2016 I tried to book a holiday. I wanted it to have an okay price, good food, and a beach. I didn't even have a specific country in mind.

Took me weeks to find something. I quickly noticed why we have so many traveling agencies in Germany.

The longer you click through a buying process on such sites the more your price goes up, sometimes you pay more than double than what was advertised on page one.

<comment><USER11> I have all my browsers set to delete all cookies on exit. Works wonders on things like these.

<comment><USER12> I wonder if fingerprinting will replace this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For every site that annoys the crap out of you with these "dark patterns" there are probably 10x that don't - that people don't visit and don't buy from. To fix the internet we have to fix our behavior and not PUT our money into systems that we find appalling.

<comment><USER14> It's a trade-off. ~20 years ago, when aggregator sites like Priceline, Hotwire, Kayak and the like became mainstream, we stopped seeing the individual sellers, and started picking based on a table of prices.

It seems inevitable that companies started gaming their pricing so they could appear on the top of the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Urgency, social proof and scarcity are dark patterns? Isn't that online marketing 101?

<comment><USER16> Urgency and scarcity is so often manufactured that I can definitely see this in the dark pattern side of things. As well, whether or not there really is only 3 left, they chose to add the messaging as high impact alert messaging and it's definitely intended to be coercive.

All marketing is intended to be coercive of course, but I think you land in dark pattern territory when your coercion is no longer related to the value propositions of your product. Saying "You need this TV because it has great definition!" is just selling your product. But saying "You need this TV because TIM bought one, we only have three left and this deal runs out in 9 minutes!" is just plain old bullying someone into buying, regardless of what the item was.

Often enough too, TIM didn't buy one, there is a backorder of 1000 units being delivered this week, and the deal will just start again after the current ticker finishes.

<comment><USER17> I get where you're coming from, but I think legitimate scarcity or urgency is ok.

If there truly are 3 items left, that is a legit fact that matters. And it's context that I had in retail. Likewise, sales do run out.

That said, online retailers don't seem to need to meet any true in advertising standard, and they are mostly full of shit.

<comment><USER18> There is no more legitimate scarcity or urgency anymore. This also was discussed here yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20269376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20269376)

<comment><USER19> I found the information on airline websites rather accurate (n seats left at this price). I guess this comes directly from how it's stored in the back end booking system (0..8, 9+ seats per booking class)

On legacy carrier official websites, not OTA or LCC like Ryanair.

<comment><USER18> Before or after buying the ticket? If I already have paid and check in online I can pick the seat. But then it is too late already.

If you mean before you bought the ticket, then I don't know. Maybe they are the last ones to be honest here... But I would be surprised if they were

<comment><USER20> Also, you can get a subscription from a website like Expertflyer and see the backend inventory from Sabre or likes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> These patterns get used because they work. It's game theory: if site A makes 10-50% more money because they do all this stuff, sites B-? are going to wind up doing it too.

If you want to get rid of marketing dark patterns, the solution is simple: just make sure all humans remove emotion and feelings from every decision, and give them the time and money to find all possible alternative sources for the desired product or service.

(/s)

<comment><USER14> We could also recognize that businesses have an incentive to exploit human psychological impulses, and attempt to counteract that by providing the public with information about these methods so they can make more informed choices next time.

<comment><USER22> Not to mention as a society we can also legislate against certainly patterns (having to show costs up front is a common example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are very few, if any at all, large companies that are honest with their customers on this stuff. I did a contract a couple of years ago with an online home rental company. I strongly suspect the "only X left in this area" and "viewed Y times" were often completely fictitious. (The latter could be easily gamed by including it in any search results page, anyway...) Since I was the PM for the product, I know for certain that 100% of the properties they featured in their weekly emails touting getaway destinations were already booked and never available. To my knowledge, they _never_ promoted a property that was actually available the entire time I was there. And I strongly suspect there was something fishy about the advertised rates, too, since they were always ridiculously attractive properties that they knew couldn't be booked.

</comment><comment><USER24> Flipping this around, who are your _favorite_ sites that _don 't_ do this crap?

For me I can list Digikey ( [https://www.digikey.com/](https://www.digikey.com/) ), my recent experience ordering from them was flawless.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't help but think these dark pattern catalogues will make them proliferate faster

<comment><USER14> The information could also proliferate among the public, so they they won't succumb to these tricks as often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you really want to see some dark patterns go try booking a flight on United.com.

<comment><USER27> I was going to write something similar about some (many!) European (budget, but who can draw a line these days) airlines: I can get crazy finding those small, grey links labelled "No, I do not want to add checked bag", "No, I will not buy insurance from you", "And I do not need your car rental, airport transfer, hotel reservation, just let me buy that plane ticket!"...

<comment><USER9> Agreed. It's fine if you're sharp and tech-savvy but there's a reason I am the family travel agent...my dad with his poor eyesight and short temper breezes through tricks like that and ends up paying unnecessarily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is it that every hotel seems to have "1 room left!"

I'm a repeat user of your booking site, why would you treat me like a naive fool?

<comment><USER29> Relevant discussion from yesterday too:

"Consumers Are Becoming Wise to Your Nudge" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20284298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20284298)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Among all, showing low stock warning (if plenty) is more than a dark pattern, because that's direct misinformation I think.

<comment><USER31> On our site, we show inventory on hand (when the data's available, we don't always know).

We didn't put it there to create urgency. The feature is there due to customer demand for it. Customers do not want to be surprised and disappointed when something turns out to be back ordered. They've made it very clear that they want this transparency.

Perhaps some sites misrepresent this (or just make it up). But the fact that inventory information is shown isn't in itself a dark pattern.

</comment></comment><comment> VvR-Ox Yes of course!

In a capitalist market where the one main goal is to earn as much profit as you can people use everything legal on a big scale because they won't have a chance to beat competition otherwise.

The really big ones even invent new "dark patterns" and more than enough are also willing to do stuff which is illegal as long as they can cover their tracks or think they can.

It's a flaw in the whole system because incentives lead people to morally questionable decisions. It doesn't advance humanity or something like that - <USER2> free market is free so no one stops the evil geniuses to get the max. out of it.

<comment> VvR-Ox Oh I forgot - many of the ppl responsible for implementing these patterns are here to vote stuff like this down.

<comment><USER32> Guilty!

<comment> VvR-Ox Haha at least you are honest ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Don't a lot of these fall under 'false advertising'? Seems like each country's regulators are not doing as much to combat this online as they are in brick and mortar shops?

</comment><comment><USER34> Meta: I really like how the paper is summarized on the site.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think pop-overs and other interruptions should be considered a dark pattern.

Probably the original dark pattern.

</comment><comment><USER35> Some other examples: Ticket Master, Wigs.com</comment>


Show HN: StandupMail – Email-based productivity logging - <AUTHOR> http://www.standupmail.com

<comment><USER2> How does this differ compared to iDoneThis?

<comment><AUTHOR> Optimized for teams as a whole rather than for individual self-tracking.</comment></comment>


Exceptional acquires Ranger Monitoring - <AUTHOR> http://blog.exceptional.io/news/we-acquire-ranger-io-to-give-monitoring-shot-in-the-arm/

<comment><USER2> The team is pumped to make the announcement of the acquisition. It's been a pleasure working with Shay Frendt.

We'll be follow up with more information about the integration in next week, but for anyone at AWS Re:Invent. We'll be throwing a launch party tonight [http://blog.exceptional.io/event/exceptional-invites-you- to-...](http://blog.exceptional.io/event/exceptional-invites-you-to- awsreinvent-closing-party/) and keeping on the theme of Ranger. We'll be making an official launch event at a shooting range tomorrow. A few spaces are still available. <http://launch.ranger.io>

<comment><USER3> I saw the link to Airbrake on that announcement, and Airbrake is showing the AWS Beanstalk PHP Application page, with appropriate details of the PHP installation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a list of cloud services that do exception reporting, or monitoring somewhere?

I've seen a least a dozen over the last few months. It seems like a very crowded space. Is this a new thing?

Heroku and AWS seem to be the popular targets. How do all these services differ from one another?

<comment><USER5> I'd love to see this list too. I currently use airbrake & newrelic - what else is out there these days?

<comment><USER6> Since you asked... I'm working on a product in this space. Check out <http://ratchet.io> . Collects and aggregates errors from rails, javascript, php, python, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any such services that work well with (i.e. have official support for) Java applications? Other than New Relic, which requires a rather pricey "Pro" subscription for exception reporting...

</comment><comment><USER8> Congratulations gentlemen!

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice!</comment>


Mark Cuban: How Stocks are like Baseball Cards (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/08/talking-stocks-and-money/ <comment><USER2> I remember this Mark Cuban quote from another entry, it really made me think (emphasis mine):

> The stock market is probably the worst investment vehicle out there. If you > won't put your money in the bank, NEVER put your money in something where > you don't have an information advantage. Why invest your money in something > because a broker told you to? _If the broker had a clue, he/she wouldn't be > a broker, they would be on a beach somewhere._

<http://blogmaverick.com/2009/05/13/success-motivation/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Basically - The big Funds drive volume, and therefore stock price.

They're looking for a return on investment, through either Dividends (small) or Equity Growth (potentially massive). When they buy a Share, they want to know it's going to be worth more to them in the future.

Since no company is going to pay dividends at 30% of the share price, but the market can move that much fast (up 50% in Australia since the March 09 bottom), Funds care about Equity Growth.

And they know that growth is driven by volume. When they buy today, they don't care what the fundamentals, profitability etc tells them - they just want to know will there be more Volume in the future?

Did we mention these are the same companies that drive the actual Volume?

Cuban calls it a Ponzi scheme. It can certainly turn into a circle-jerk, where every Fund drives Volume by buying because they expect every other Fund to drive Prices up by driving Volume by buying.

But they forget that the Fundamentals can destroy a company. And a company that doesn't exist, doesn't trade anymore.

<comment><USER4> volume alone does not drive price.

<comment><USER3> No, that was my fairly basic reading of the OP.

Of course, excess Volume in either Supply or Demand will affect prices (down or up respectively).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cuban makes a lot of good points in this series, but fundamentals do exist. Compare his philosophy to Warren Buffet. Sure, Buffett does often get better deals not available to retail investors, such as the recent Goldman deal, but Buffett also buys plenty of common stock as well. (There is plenty of overlap in the philosophies as well...looking over his 2008 letter, seems like he favors dividend paying stocks, but don't hold me to that).

<comment><USER6> Personally, I take the approach advocated by Benjamin Graham. I have separate accounts for investing, and speculation/trading.

I just view them as fundamentally different activities, with different risk profiles, and different sorts of analysis required prior to taking or selling any given position.

<comment><USER7> I read the 'snowball' book about Buffet, and it seemed to me like the advantage Graham had was that they went over information in a way that would only take a few minutes with a computer, but that wasn't done so systematically at the time, by most people. So, 'fundamentals', yes, but fundamentals driven by data. In this day and age, when everyone can comb out the same stocks in a matter of minutes, does that approach work?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So where are we supposed to put our money then? Especially with inflation becoming a big concern in a few years.

<comment><USER9> If you're worried about inflation, then you might want to take a look at TIPS [http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glanc...](http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glance.htm)

<comment><USER8> that's kind of cool. Ok, don't shoot me, but that is probably based on the CPI and folks on reddit say government published inflation data understates inflation. Maybe I should just stop reading reddit ...

<comment><USER10> No, the Redditers are right. Well, more or less right. The CPI is entirely subjective. There is no objective way to measure quantitatively how much quality of a product has improved.

More importantly, from an investment perspective what you care about is _monetary dilution_ , not consumer prices. If the currency dilutes at 10% a year, and productivity grows at 7% a year, then CPI inflation would be a nice and easy 3%. But that dilution rate is really high. If you own a asset that dilutes at 2% (gold, stocks, oil, real estate), you'll earn a return of 8% a year.

I really recommend this article for understanding the problems with CPI: [http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/08/de- gust...](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/08/de-gustibus-non- computandum-or.html)

<comment><USER6> Okay, you win. I'll leave HN as well.

I'm just a guy with a deep and abiding fascination with economics and public policy. One so deep I recently picked up a graduate degree on the subject. One so deep that my current startup is based entirely on my desire to help individuals better understand the financial possibilities that lie before them.

But you've read a blog and some things on reddit, so clearly you understand it better than me.

I'm sick of arguing with people like you... people who base their economic beliefs not on solid econometric analysis, but rather on mostly inaccurate blog posts... and yet you still mistake yourself for an expert.

You win. I'm out of here too. I'm deleting my posts that are available for deletion, because the combined arrogance and ignorance of your response here makes clear that I was foolish for thinking that this could be a venue for informed discussion. I won't waste another second of my life "debating" well established knowledge with an idiot like you.

<comment><USER10> Wow.

You complain about me being "arrogant" and "ignorant" and then you make entirely false statements about my own background (a subject of which you know absolutely nothing). You then complain about the quality of this forum, and then are the first person in two years of commenting on Hacker News that has ever attacked me ad hominem. I suspect that you are reasonable person that is just especially frustrated by the generally low quality of internet commentary about economics ( I too no longer visit reddit, but that doesn't mean the people there are wrong about everything). But if that kind of language is common with you, I do hope that you leave Hacker News.

I have had also had a long and deep fascination with economics and public policy. I've read dozens of books on finance and economics, from the original classics to more modern research. I've read hundreds of articles, I used to browse through social science libraries and download NBER papers for fun. I've had long and productive discussions with academic economists, people who work in finance and people who have worked in central banking. I don't claim to be omniscient about economics. But I have formed judgments, I state them plainly, and I welcome debate and hearing new arguments. I do not disagree with Keynesians or other mainstream folks because I am ignorant of their arguments. I disagree because I have evaluated them very carefully, read everything I could on the subject, and found their theories unconvincing.

I would be happy to debate or back up either of the two claims I made ( "The CPI is not a good measure of inflation" and "The mainstream economists led the economy off a cliff"). If you want to read comments where I elaborate more, you can read a few I made elsewhere: <http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=15334> or <http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=12274> I would actually really like to debate them with a worthy opponent. I too find good economic debate very hard to find on the web.

<comment><USER10> _There is no such thing as a Keynesian._

Some economists suggest that "we re-embrace Keynes" (<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html> ). We call these people "Keynesians" for shorthand.

 _I greatly doubt "dozens of books", but I wouldn't be surprised if you've read a couple books and some articles that generally all agree with your preconceived ideas and your austrian leanings._

That is false. I read books from all sides, and the results of my reading greatly changed my views.

 _After all, you're clearly a person who think that he can point to the sky and understand economics, which is typical for armchair austrians... whereas actual economists and intelligent people generally prefer econometric data._

I have no problem with data. Because I respect data and math, I care a lot about when it is used properly and when it is not. In particular, regressions are almost always abused in econometrics, because there are far too many variables to control for, all the variables are imprecisely defined, and there is no easy to way to check the author's assumptions for a sensitivity analysis.

 _The federal reserve failed to be an effective arbiter of systemic risk. (something which was not even remotely in its mission statement.)_

Dear God, if you call me ignorant you should at least read their mission statement before making a claim like that: <http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/mission.htm> Mission:

\- "supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers"

\- "maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets"

 _That's just nonsense. Most economists have nothing to do with the economy._

A great number of prominent economists work in official positions ( CEA, FED, the various agencies and bureaus). These economists play very major roles in regulating the economy.

 _Non-hedonically adjusted metrics have been studied at length and are generally be be more flawed than the hedonically adjusted metrics._

I never said straight up hedonically adjusted numbers are better. You have to use the right number for the job. For the purposes of monetary policy or investing, I would look mainly at national income statistics, asset prices, credit growth, and broad money supply growth. Maybe the Fed wasn't watching these, or maybe were and just ignored them. But all four measures were showing huge warnings as early as 2004, and had they been paid attention to, a lot of bad things could have been avoided.

 _That said, it's ludicrously arrogant and nonsensical to simply claim it's pure fabrications,_

Calling it a "pure fabrication" is inaccurate, and a word I did not use. The CPI is the result of lots of honest hard working people, who long hours trying to boil down the economy into one number using the most accurate methodology they can. But the economists calculating the CPI do exist in a political world, and there is a selection effect for a methodology that has more generous assumptions.

But when you pile a ton of subjective assumptions together and then apply a bunch of math, the result is subjective. There are multiple semi-plausible ways to do hedonics and there is no right answer. How can you objectively measure how much percent better a 2004 Toyota is than a 1998 Toyota? The CPI does indeed have a consistent, thought out methodology. Unfortunately, it's actually in part measuring the Toyota new model roll out strategy. The Toyota model roll out strategy has nothing to do with monetary economics or investment strategy.

 _To you, economics is a religion, and as such there is no point in arguing with you... you point at the sky, not at the ground._

Well, I have changed my mind on many issues. I am very responsive to good arguments. In fact, I used to have exactly your position on CPI, with exactly the arguments you made. But I studied the issue further and was convinced otherwise.

 _I truly and honestly hope that at some point in time you'll pull your head out of your ass for long enough to realize the difference in the level of effort required to become a true expert in a field, and the level of effort required to simply become dangerous._

So what would you advocate I do if I wanted to become an expert? What defines an expert?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Myth of Usability Testing - <AUTHOR> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/the-myth-of-usability-testing/

<comment><USER2> "Usability Testing: It's not a Myth", a reply from Lukas Mathis: [http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/10/20/usability_testing_n...](http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/10/20/usability_testing_not_a_myth/)

<comment><USER3> If you follow his reasoning, the logical conclusion is to ditch all the sociological hand-waving with asking people whether they feel good using the software and focus on the hard results -- productivity, conversions, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot of good advice there about asking the right questions of the right people, but I don't think it is fair to assert that because different teams came up with different problems the usablity tests were a failure. Consider the possiblity that each did really did uncover unique serious problems. The goal of UX testing shouldn't be to identify all the problems but some of the serious ones. Test, change and iterate. Once you've addressed a few of the top issues the context of the application has changed anyway.

(Also, I wish there was more detail on the individual tests. This sounds like an interesting experiment.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe the user interfaces totally sucked, and the teams only had time to uncover and report on a percentage of them. Having seen the old Hotmail webpage, I think this is likely.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Contrary to claims that usability professionals operate scientifically to identify problems in an interface_

Who claims that? I think usability testing is one of the most subjective practices out there.

Oh right, the author of this article (and the authors of the previous studies too!) is muddying the waters of what is "usability testing" and "usability evaluation".

Usability testing normally implies testing with a user. This sounds like all these studies were heuristic evaluations. If everyone had the same set of heuristics/best practices, then yes, it would be surprising for there to be a difference.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is precisely why Gladwell's books are dangerous. He may say that he wants to inspire people to learn and think more, but he uses sloppy methods.

In this blog post, the writer uses Gladwell's shaky arguments to support their own ideas.</comment>


Offer HN: Pixel-perfect UI & Branding design - <AUTHOR>

Over the past few years I've met some seriously good developers over here and I even got to work with some of them.
I have helped dozens of startups from all over the world to have not only incredibly good and functional products but make them look good and friendly to the users.
Today I'm proud to show you my humble portfolio with some selected work I've done in the past.
Check out >>>>>> http://www.heynico.com <<<<<<
I'm sure I can help you with your startup, app UI, website, landing page, logo or simply with your business card.
Just drop me a line: hey at heynico.com <comment><AUTHOR> Le link: <http://www.heynico.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> Nico designed a logo for me, he did an absolutely fantastic job. Thanks again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just emailed you. Your work looks great.

</comment><comment><USER4> Your portfolio looks great

</comment><comment><USER5> Message sent :)</comment>


The scale of illegal bird killing in the Middle East revealed for the first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.osme.org/content/scale-illegal-bird-killing-middle-east-revealed-first-time <comment><USER2> Strange they call it "illegal bird killing," not "poaching."

<comment><USER3> Poaching is usually hunting on _someone else 's land._ More about land use and hunting rights than illegal killing or taking is it not? Which is probably why poachers often get a far better press from history than burglars and robbers.

A gamekeeper or farmer illegally killing protected raptors is never described as poaching them. I'm not sure you _can_ poach on your own land.</comment></comment>


The Life of a Freelance Dancer - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/arts/dance/18dancer.html

<comment><USER2> One of my friends from high school is a freelance dancer in SF. I'm amazing by what those girls are capable of. It takes so much determination to keep going.

Most girls can't make a living on dancing itself, so they have to have to find side jobs. Since there's almost no monetary incentive, they do it mainly for the love of the craft.

It's physically demanding because they're often in the studio for the entire day, and they have to be careful to avoid injury. It's emotionally demanding because they have to put themselves in the abstract mindset of choreographers and directors, who they may not agree with.

These girls are fearless. I'd compare it with being a software consultant, but without the pay and flexibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome. I like your point about how they are flexible in mind (dealing with directors/choreographers).

Part of me is jealous of their life - and in a way I get so much more satisfaction out of building an IPhone app for a non-profit (for free, pro- bono) than some paid work.

In general, I think my freelancer friends (some artists) are better off in a changing economy because they're not scared of being fired, quitting their job, or being rejected... because they've been through so many gigs they are immune to those very common fears.

I hope that you get opportunities to see your friends perform. Showing up is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Saw that article, found it interesting. A hard living.</comment>


Passwords and interviews - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/03/facebook-password-interview-social-engineering.html

<comment><USER2> _And if you're a job-seeker: I don't really care how badly you need the job, you don't need that kind of employer._

Unfortunately, that isn't true for some people. When unemployed and living paycheck to paycheck with few, if any, marketable skills in a depressed area with a spouse and kids, the employer/employee power balance shifts _dramatically_ to the employer. If I were in that situation and I thought giving up my password was the only thing between me and the job, I would probably consider it.

<comment><USER3> You're right that it isn't universal. Just like any compromise or "selling out" of principles in the name of short term gains, though, I think the empathy should only go so far. Pity those people but don't desire to be them or think it's okay that they compromise on principles.

"Take as your life's objective the goal of getting money for doing your own thing. You were born to do this. Never lose sight of this and settle for second best because this is one compromise that will guarantee unhappiness. Leave that kind of compromise to others - they were born for it. You are not." \-- Mark Tarver

<comment><USER4> You've never been unemployed for a long period of time, have you? Unemployment makes you realize how few principles _really are_ important. At the end of the day, I'll value being able to eat over some abstract sense of morality. But if you _have_ been unemployed for a long period of time and kept to your principles, more power to you.

<comment><USER5> I have been unemployed for some period of time--- six months. After which I decided that the best course of action was to become self-employed.

I can completely understand why someone would hand over their passwords to a prospective employer when asked. There is a huge power differential as you point out. However it is no less stupid.

Here's a basic rule I try to keep in mind, and I think it is extremely important in a hard job market as well, and that is to keep options open and work on ensuring you aren't on the bad end of such a bad exchange. The way you do this is by doing what odd jobs you can to put food on the table, so that even if you need the job you don't need it so badly to take a shit deal.

<comment><USER6> Not everyone is capable of being self-employed. A lot of people are willing to work hard, but need the structure of being told when and where to show up, and what to do.

The fundamental nature of any transaction is that when one party is in a tough position (the formal term is having a poor "best alternative to a negotiated agreement") that person is going to get screwed over. When your BATNA is to have your kids go hungry, most decent parents will gladly give up their own dinners, let alone their Facebook password.

<comment><USER5> Everyone can do at least odd jobs to reduce the impact of being unemployed. The general point is that you want to maximize your strength so you can negotiate from the strongest position you can....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone else notice that there have been exactly zero specific cases of an employer asking for a FB password? It seems that "Employers ask for FB passwords!" is more of an outrage tool than an actual issue.

For those who watch TDS/Colbert, they poke fun from time to time at Fox News et al for making up scary things that kids supposedly do - the latest was soaking tampons with vodka and sticking them up your butt. This feels like the "soaking tampons with vodka" of the professional world. Someone probably has done it, but it is really uncommon and not worth losing sleep over.

<comment><USER8> It definitely happens; here's a case from last year that the ACLU was looking at: [http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/want-job- pas...](http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/want-job-password- please)

The insidious thing about this is not if it happens for people looking for tech jobs (they're generally clued in enough to refuse, or go somewhere else, or make a fake Facebook account filled with stuff like "I love working so much!" and "I saved a man's life with a quick appendectomy at my volunteer gig"). People looking for lower-tier jobs are in less of a position to be able to refuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My husband, Rob, interviewed at a firm where his HR contact could not understand why my he was upset when an automated email that appeared to be from the HR contact sent Rob his password in plain text. Rob replied to the email to complain, thus actually giving his password to Mr. HR. When Rob continued to complain about this problem, Mr. HR accused Rob of not trusting him and insinuated that maybe the hiring process should stop right there. Rob could not even explain to Mr. HR why he was so upset in a way Mr. HR could understand. So HR departments tend to have very different ideas about passwords than, for example, HN readers.

<comment><USER10> The university I attended did something similar.

To graduate you had to apply online. However, they never actually integrated the graduate application process with their auth process. So when you applied to graduate you had to "sign" your application with your password. This app, password and all, would then be emailed out to everyone in the Records and Registration office. I presume they then manually logged into my account, and if that succeed I had verified my identity. If this password wasn't tied to, say, the ability to take out a student loan then maybe it wouldn't be a big deal.

I tried explaining to the person who answered the records office phone that this process was broken and I needed another way to identify myself (I'm an out of state student). They didn't care and didn't understand the issue. No one took me seriously until enough people tweeted about it that a PR person contacted me and had IT fix the problem.

So: Mr(s). Non-technical also tend to have very different ideas about passwords than, for example, HN readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would answer that rhetorical question with no, HR departments have _not_ have heard of social engineering attacks in computer security. Almost any company asking for a password will have a brain-dead HR department in charge of that policy; it's not like your fellow future programmers thought that one up.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you, but isn't this problem?

I mean, I'm not a fan of people not understanding a tool(service) they use, but if your job pertains to asking for passwords, then you should definitely need to understand the repercussions of such a request, at least on a social engineering level.

It's not even programming, it's privacy. If companies are going to continue to hire non-technologist that use technology especially in a specialized way like this, then they're going to continue to make common-sense mistakes like this.

<comment><USER11> Oh, it is absolutely a problem! But, having people not knowing what they're talking about has always been a problem. Nothing short of a strictly-enforced policy mandating that HR departments need to have decent knowledge in a certain area will change that.

Besides privacy, it could turn out that HR involved in other domains are broken relationships. If anybody has any examples, I'd love to hear them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Exactly what I said in the last thread. :) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3746005>

</comment><comment><USER14> I really want to think that this is a extremely rare case.</comment>


Have zoos had their day? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/27/have-zoos-had-their-day-architecture-barbaric-sci-fi <comment><USER2> The purpose of a true zoo is not to entertain. That is a by-product that helps fund the main mission - animal conservation and preservation. A zoo such as the Smithsonian National Zoo exists to save species, as they describe here: [https://nationalzoo.si.edu/conservation](https://nationalzoo.si.edu/conservation)

Ensuring species survival has never been more important due to the increasing impact of climate change on the world. Zoos are a part of that, controlling climate change is the other (bigger) part.</comment>


Let's Talk Concurrency: Panel with Sir Tony Hoare, Joe Armstrong, Carl Hewitt - <AUTHOR> https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/let-s-talkconcurrency-panel-discussion-with-sir-tony-hoare-joe-armstrong-and-carl-hewitt.html <comment><USER2> In a wide-ranging discussion, there were some fundamental disagreements among the panelists as follows:

I disagreed with Tony Hoare about using synchronous communication as the primitive because it is too slow for both IoT and many-core chips. Instead, the primitive for communication should be _asynchronous sending and receiving_ , from which more complex protocols can be constructed.

Also, I disagreed with Tony about sequential actions (using ";") as being foundational. Instead, _concurrent actions_ are foundational for digital systems as follows:

        * Receipt of a communication activated sending other communications
        * An Actor received one communication before it received another communication

Consequently, a computation is a partial order of causality. Tony and I did agree that tooling is needed for navigating the partial order. We just disagreed about whether sequential actions (using ";") are foundational.

Furthermore, class hierarchies are _not_ a suitable foundation for _Scalable Intelligent Systems_. _Interfaces_ instead of subclassing should be used for IoT communication. Also, entities and descriptions in large ontologies do not fit in an object class hierarchy, e.g., Java and C++. Subclassing is _not secure_ because it allows a subclass to _impersonate_ a superclass.

I disagreed with Joe Armstrong about requiring use of external mailboxes because they are _inefficient in both space and time_. Instead of _requiring_ an external mailbox for each Actor, buffering/reordering/scheduling should be performed inside an Actor as required.

Of course, Tony and Joe made other great points with which we agree entirely. See the following for more information:

      http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/190123.html

<comment><USER3> One of the things I can't see the actor model explain is how to scale an actor vertically, which obviously has it's purpose. Amdahl's law and all that.

However these days we see people build actor frameworks using CSP (golang) and "restricted shared memory" in Rust [http://actix.rs](http://actix.rs)

Isn't it ironic? Yet shows that the actor model can be inclusive of many "competing" paradigms, and gain from them, perhaps even need them to scale vertically?

<comment><USER2> This is a very good question.

Citadels are larger scale Actors which can be incorporated into other Citadels, where a Citadel is an Actor for a systems of Actors (perhaps including IoT).

See the following:

       http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/190123.html

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Actor model sounds really great, and while I haven't used Erlang in a serious context, I have used Scala Akka Actors extensively and I find them very difficult to reason about. Actors might be great if you have a huge system over the network that you need to manage, but I don't find them that great for single computer programs.

For example, I tried to implement a Akka bittorrent client and found it very difficult and confusing. You end up with a big graph of actors in which most of the messages sent are related to keeping track of state and actors.

Moreover, actors are untyped so it's not obvious what messages they accept of send. Without a lot of documentation and discipline, the code becomes extremely unreadable very very quickly. Also bugs are very hard to find and very easy to create.

Maybe it's less elegant, but for a lot of problems, just using select or epoll is a lot easier.

<comment><USER5> "You end up with a big graph of actors" \- you are almost certainly doing something wrong, the actor graph shouldn't need to be "big", and the supervisor hierarchy almost never deeper than 2-3 levels. A typical mistake when doing actor-based system design is to think that actors are replacements for modules or classes (or taken to the extreme: function calls), which is not the case.

<comment><USER2> Massive Inconsistency Robust Ontologies will have trillions of Actors on a many-core computer.

Please see the YouTube video here:

      http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/190123.html

<comment><USER6> Didn't watch the video, but as I understand actors is that you can have trillions of instances of your actors, but you're not having a large number of actually different actors. For example let's say you have a server that handles requests. You implement the request handler as an actor and for every request you spawn an instance of that actor to handle that request.

<comment><USER2> There will be zillions of different kinds of Actor in a massive inconsistency robust ontology, each with a different implementation although constructed on a common system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Videos [https://www.youtube.com/user/ErlangSolutions/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/ErlangSolutions/videos)

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to drink a lot of cool-aid from erlang. It is true, that they have got concurrency model right. They embraced actor model, messages between processies are copied over for a good reason, etc. However, I don't think it is enough to call it a day. Comparing to modern languages, erlang lacks _a lot_. Elixir is trying to fill those gaps, but how many layers of abstraction can you add to an ecosystem before it is unusable? With go and rust available, erlang/elixir looks like a very good tool but for a very limited pool of use cases - routing/filtering/messaging.

<comment><USER9> I fundamentally disagree with your premise, despite seeing how you came to that conclusion. Elixir/Erlang are particularly optimized for the operations you're speaking about, but Elixir is very Lisp-ey under the hood. Macros are a game changer. Combine that with a strong standard library, many of which is delegated down to the Erlang calls anyway, and the the pure developer joy that comes from coding in Elixir in both the small and the large, increased debuggability from having highly readable, functional code.

But the real power comes from the BEAM. Turns out modern servers map very strongly to phone switches of the past, and the distributed system primitives given by the BEAM keep on ticking, 30 years later. Modeling a web server as a single process per request, the supervision model, and the power of preemptive scheduling is something I don't see in other languages, at least as explicitly. Preemptive scheduling is really a wonderful thing, and I don't think Go or Rust provide this. Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is to say nothing of the observability, hot code reloads, or any of the more fundamental parts of the BEAM that you wind up needing in practice.

I'll be frank, I think Go is an unnecessarily verbose language. I don't like reading it, and any time I've had to write it, I have not enjoyed it. I find Go's concurrency model worse than Erlang's despite being similar at first glance. GenServers are a much better abstraction to me than GoRoutines and friends. If it weren't from Rob Pike and the marketing of Google, I don't think it would be nearly as popular as it is. The type system from Rust is great, and the borrow checker is a fantastic addition to type systems especially in that class of language, I have no use for Rust in my daily life. It is on my short list of languages to become more familiar with, though.

<comment><USER10> The thing is the BEAM model doesn't have a bright future because it can be replaced by Kubernetes and is language neutral, almost all the feature BEAM provides are better done in k8s ( HA, deployment ect ... ). As for hot code reload, I've never seen why you would need that since you can use blue / green or canary / rolling deployment, the only reason I see is to keep some state in your app, which I think is a terrible idea.

Two others things:

\- deploying Erlang / Elixir app is difficult ( even with distillery... )

\- Erlang is slow, much much slower than Go

<comment><USER11> > As for hot code reload, I've never seen why you would need that since you > can use blue / green or canary / rolling deployment, the only reason I see > is to keep some state in your app, which I think is a terrible idea.

Most applications at least have connection state, at the least a TCP connection. It is at minimum disruptive to disconnect a million clients and have them reconnect. Certainly, your service environment needs to be able to handle this anyway [1] in case of node failure, but if you do a rolling restart of frontends, many active clients will have to reconnect multiple times which adds load to your servers as well as your clients. Actually disconnecting users cleanly takes time too, so a full restart deploy will take a lot longer than a hot code reload, unless you have enough spare capacity to deploy a full new system, and move users in one step, and then kill the old system.

Certainly, hot loading can introduce more failure modes, but most of those are things you already need to think about in a distributed system -- just not usually within a single node; ex: what happens if a call from the old version hits the new version.

[1] There are some techniques to provide TCP handling, but I'd be surprised to hear if anyone is using them at a large scale.

<comment><USER10> It depends of what you mean by state, I was talking about internal state in the application. Your example is about network state like websockets not REST APIs ( what 99,9% of people use ), even with that it's easy to rollout new connections with canary deployment, and with a load-balancer in front of that your replace old instances with new one with no disruption and you can drain your old instances. Even if the connection is cut, in your client logic you should have a proper reconnection mechanism.

Hot code reload is imo a bad practice and should be avoided.

<comment><USER11> Hot code reload is imo an enabling practice, and should be done everywhere possible. Restart to reload may be useful or practically required for some deployments, and it's sort of a test of cold start, but it's so disruptive and time consuming. I've done deploys both ways, and time to remove host from load balancer, wait for server to drain, then add back is time I won't get back. You can do a lot more deploys in a day when the deploy takes seconds; which means you can deploy smaller changes, and confirm as you go.

<comment><USER10> If it's disruptive and time consuming it means you don't use the right process / tools. If you're CI/CD pipeline is properly setup ( and it's actually easy to do ) you don't have to do anything.

[https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes- basics/updat...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes- basics/update/update-intro/)

That's the power of Kubernetes, and since it's very popular the community and tooling are great, good luck replicating that with BEAM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do they all talk at the same time?

<comment><USER13> Concurrency is not parallelism, friend.

<comment><USER14> This guy. Fun at parties. ;)

A good point but most would think of the two the same. I know I had a hard time getting some ideas across on some research I was doing until I separated these two concepts out. Then people started to understand.

<comment><USER15> Aren't concurrency and parallelism orthogonal?

<comment><USER16> > Aren't concurrency and parallelism orthogonal?

As in they're independent of each other?

The answer would be no. Concurrency doesn't require parallelism but parallelism require concurrency.

The second answer to this quora link explains it way better than I can. [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between- concurr...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-concurrency- and-parallelism)

<comment><USER17> > parallelism require concurrency

I don't think it does. For example in a SIMD system there is parallelism, but no concurrency. Operations are being performed in parallel, but there is only a single program (SI..) and no concurrent tasks.

<comment><USER18> I think you have to add "Joint" Parallel as a definition of two separate cores that collaborate on the same data at the same time - that requires concurrent memory/disc access. That Erlang can't provide BTW.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rise Is Seen in Cyberattacks Targeting U.S. Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/us/cyberattacks-are-up-national-security-chief-says.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> "Rise seen": is that because they were not looking before or is there an actual rise?

Also, as this person's job status essentially depends on such a rise, I see this more as a vendor-pitch in government style: "There is a big problem out there, but you are very lucky! Because, behold, I am the right person (/have the right product) to help you deal with exactly this problem. And a 17-fold increase should also mean a 17-fold budget increase, right?"

Not trying to downplay the "cyber" security challenge in general, but always a little cynical about these kinds of articles...</comment>


Ask HN: How to go mobile-phone free? - <AUTHOR> Those who don't own a mobile phone or who don't use it regularly, who did you manage to switch to mobile free lifestyle? How do you manage your day to day life, do you feel alienated? <comment><USER2> Yeah, turning up for an internship and telling the manager I did not have a phone and he'd have to email me and wait like everyone else was fun. No internet at home either so I'd go to the local library to catch up. It was the most carefree period of my life. Sadly circumstances changed and I changed with it. A few years later, I faced down immense pressure from co-workers to get on whatsapp. Caved after sometime but regretted it near immediately and deleted whatsapp when I quit the job.

These days I feel the advantages of a smartphone outweigh the downsides. Still hate phone companies though and hope they get disrupted out of existence.</comment>


31 years later, groundbreaking MMORPG Habitat is coming back online - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/299211/31_years_later_groundbreaking_MMORPG_Habitat_is_coming_back_online.php <comment><USER2> This is exciting. The first MMORPG is back online for everybody to explore! Wonder what people will discover and learn in this environment?</comment>


Sprixi.com - a more useful image search? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cederman.com/2009/10/sprixi-useful-image-search/

<comment><USER2> Thanks Tim for the review! I'm the founder of Sprixi - would love to hear what you guys think.</comment>


Show HN: EmptyInbox, the rapid-fire Inbox Zero assistant for GMail (on iPhone) - <AUTHOR> http://app.net/emptyinbox

<comment><AUTHOR> My wife and I wrote this as a side project in our spare time over the last few months. Would love your feedback both on the landing page copy as well as on the app itself.

<comment><USER2> I like the page - it's unconventional but very clean.

If I had an iPhone (and hadn't already life-hacked my inbox) I'd give you feedback on the app too. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks re: the page.

Weird to see no other feedback from anyone else - maybe I just picked the wrong time to post this seeing as how most of the US are asleep. :-/

<comment><USER2> The east coast of the US (containing almost 1/2 of the US population) will be waking up in the next 1-2 hours. Hopefully you'll get noticed then. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Playing Quake with a real mouse - <AUTHOR> http://brainwindows.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/playing-quake-with-a-real-mouse/

<comment><USER2> Finally an opponent whose Quake skills are on a par with my own. All your cheese belong to us, my little rat-tailed friend!!

</comment><comment><USER3> Hopefully they can hook me up soon. I know my eyes and hands are a serious bottleneck on my sniping abilities. I would pay serious cash for a real way to play FPS games without using my keyboard and mouse. Even just replacing my mouse would be good enough.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you read the article. The mouse's brain was not controlling it's virtual navigation; that was controlled by how it moved on the ball. The brain comes into the discussion because they were able to see what parts were lighting up as a result of the navigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I once borrowed a cool trackball from a friend, and I discovered that playing Doom with it was a cinch. I was whizzing around and blasting anything moving. It was incredible!

<comment><USER6> I don't know why you're getting modded down. That was an awesome story!

EDIT: Do I really have to put sarcasm tags in here?

<comment><USER7> I know why you're both getting modded down. It's because your comments, although not offensive, are just noise compared to the insightful posts we often find here.

<comment><USER5> I like to make 1 trivial comment for every 10 multi-point comments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The ISS Now Has Better Internet Than Most of Us After Its Latest Upgrade - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/the-iss-now-has-better-internet-than-most-of-us-after-its-latest-upgrade <comment><USER2> I wonder what the latency is like. A brief search on my phone only gave me [https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10379/do- astronaut...](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10379/do-astronauts- get-netflix-on-iss)

<comment><USER3> I wondered the same. This quora comment says about 6 seconds: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-signal-delay-to-the- ISS](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-signal-delay-to-the-ISS)</comment></comment>


NYC Entrepreneur Week is hosting a Business Plan Competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.nycentweek.com/competition

<comment><AUTHOR> I think these competitions are a great way to get public exposure for your company and learn a lot in the process. I'm applying for this event myself. Has anyone had previous experience with competitions like this? Is there a downside I'm not seeing?</comment>


Ask HN: Do we still need ICAAN - <AUTHOR> I got an email today from namecheap about some new shenanigans from ICAAN: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Service_DomPriceIncrease_20190425
I'm honestly curious why still need a middleman in this process at all (including registrars in general).
These all seem to be 1970s solutions to modern problems and surely we can get away from digital rent seekers? <comment><USER2> You might like to look at [https://handshake.org/](https://handshake.org/)</comment>


Naming Your Startup - Impossibility? - <AUTHOR> http://cometride.tumblr.com

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it's hard - all nice dictionary words are obviously already taken, and sometimes odd spelling seems out of place. That's why I started thinking of portmanteau. For me that ended up in "welshare", but other nice options emerge as well.</comment>


The 2018 Top Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/the-2018-top-programming-languages <comment><USER2> For an organization that's supposed to be representative of such a scientific industry, it's amazing how bad/irresponsible the IEEE is with these statistics. There is so much error in attempting to measure the popularity of a language that they should know better than to declare some sort of ranking when the numbers are so close to each other. And not only do they rank them, but they spend several paragraphs trying to analyze why tiny percentage changes matter.</comment>


Worst lawsuit of 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/27175

<comment><USER2> The Charleston case is just sad. That lady obviously needs help.

As a lawyer I can see why most of those cases were filed -- though I wouldn't file them myself!

I find the Google case most interesting. Google's lawyers clearly envisioned that happening, judging from the warnings and disclaimers on Google Maps. I certainly thought of the possibility years ago. But I think it's dead in the water.

The worst case IMHO is probably the Lindsay Lohan case. She surely has well- credentialed lawyers doing her work for her. They ought to know better.

Though the Wisconsin child-molester case is pretty wild as well. Even if it does have a perverse logic to it...</comment>


Open Letter to David Kalisch of the Australian Bureau of Statistics - <AUTHOR> https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/open-letter-david-kalisch-australian-bureau-statistics <comment><USER2> The boycott is supported by a former deputy privacy commissioner of an Australian State, Anna Johnston.

[http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-i-wont-be-filling-in- the-c...](http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-i-wont-be-filling-in-the-census- tomorrow-20160808-gqnapp.html)</comment>


High IQ linked to drug use - <AUTHOR> http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/high-iq-linked-to-drug-use/?hpt=hp_t2 <comment> buff-a FTA:It's not clear why people with high childhood IQs are more likely to use illegal drugs. "We suspect they may be more open to new experiences and are more sensation seeking," says White.

The articles shy away from the elephant in the room which is that the UK and US gvts have a massive legal and propaganda effort to prevent drug use. Indeed the idea that only stupid people do drugs is part of this propaganda.

So maybe its because a higher IQ allows one to realize that the War on Drugs is fucking irrational bullshit and magical thinking and act accordingly (i.e. to choose for oneself).

In a world where broccoli is illegal because its "evil", the headline could have been "High IQ linked to broccoli eating".

Here's a question: is a high IQ linked to smoking? How about alcohol?

Update: So alcohol is also correlated with iq too.

<comment><USER3> > _How about alcohol?_

From the article:

> _The lead researcher says he isn't surprised by the findings. "Previous > research found for the most part people with high IQs lead a healthy life, > but that they are more likely to drink to excess as adults," says James > White a psychologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom._

What the article doesn't explore is the fact that drugs are expensive; isn't it possible that drug use is correlated with revenue?

The study apparently didn't make a difference between addicts and occasional users.

IQ is also correlated with revenue (probably because that's what it actually measures: socio-economic class), and so that may be a part of the explanation, at least for "recreational" drugs.

<comment><USER4> "IQ is also correlated with revenue (probably because that's what it actually measures: socio-economic class)"

False. Charles Murray compared brothers of the same household of different intelligence levels, and found significant disparities in income.

<http://www.eugenics.net/papers/murray.html> (article originally appeared in The Telegraph)

It's more accurate to say socioeconomic class measures IQ, rather than the other way around. To oversimplify, high IQ people are more productive, IQ at adulthood is heritable to a great extent (~80% of variation in IQ is due to genetic variation), so 1 + 1 = rich families have higher IQ children. Imagine if people were paid based on how tall they are, and replace IQ with height, and it'd be the same -> Tall parents + high heritability for height -> rich families have taller offspring. People don't recognize this with regards to IQ because they ultimately don't believe IQ is highly heritable, which it is.

Links:

IQ and productivity: [http://www.onetest.com.au/awms/Upload/documents/whitepapers/...](http://www.onetest.com.au/awms/Upload/documents/whitepapers/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%20Summary%20-%20Onetest.pdf)

IQ and heritability: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ> (first paragraph)

<comment><USER5>
         they ultimately don't believe IQ is highly
         heritable, which it is

I don't think anybody sane questions that, but what people are saying and that studies so far have confirmed ...

1) small variations in IQ tests don't matter, like for example the difference between 120 and 140 being negligible and depends a lot on external factors, like rest, vitamins in your blood-stream and mood ... give a person several IQ tests over a period of time and he'll score differently every single time

2) you can increase your IQ score with a certain amount of points just by making your brain work harder. Physical exercises work too (professional athletes are above average)

Ultimately the most common complaint is that intelligence (while hereditary) is not something you can accurately measure and that IQ tests are inherently not reliable.

<comment><USER6> "give a person several IQ tests over a period of time and he'll score differently every single time"

Not sure what you mean by several. I took 4 (5?) over a 30 year period, and the results were all within a couple percentage points of each other.

<comment><USER5> I took the same number of tests (4) over a period of 7 years and the minimum I got was 119, while the maximum was 140. Clearly this has some significance, as over 100 you're definitely at least average, over 130 you're definitely gifted, while below 80 you're definitely challenged.

However, my point was that small variations are not significant. Also, the correlation between IQ scores and intelligence in general is highly debatable - and that's what people are arguing about.

<comment><USER6> Interesting. My variation wasn't that marked. Some of the tests were different, so their scales may have been slightly different (IIRC). On at least one I remember I had when I was umm... 5(?) or 6? then again in mid 20s then again in late 30s - all were within 5 points of each other. I can't remember if it was stanford-binet or something else though. Hrm... no... I think earlier tests were stanford-binet, later were wisc and wj. To that end, the scoring models would have been different on the ones when I was a kid, and I know there's some issues between child scores vs adult scores - <USER2> necessarily directly comparable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra I think it might be because, as Wil Shipley pointed out <http://blog.wilshipley.com/2007/12/on-saying-goodbye.html> (some) smart people tend to be miserable because their wits let them skip the mechanisms put in place in human mind to prevent it from feeling miserable despite actually being so.

Also <http://blog.wilshipley.com/2007/03/crazy-talk.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> As someone who suffers from ADHD-PI, I can't help but wonder a possible co- relation here. Before my occasional marijuana use a few years ago, I wasn't aware of my concentration issues. Like many others, I thought I was just lazy or unmotivated. When smoking marijuana for the first time, my friends lay around unmotivated and relaxed while I couldn't stop thinking about working on one of my many "one day" projects. This eventually lead me to getting tested for ADHD. Now I am on pharma, but the benefits appear the same.

I feel like drugs helped me realize a lot about myself. While I am not so sure IQ is a reliable measurement, I can definitely say I can handle a lot more information and make good use of that information much better than I had ever before.

I've done some research on brain wave activity and dopamine receptors/activity. It seems that people with ADHD tend to have misaligned brain wave activity and stimulants manage to align this activity up to a point. My theory, from my own experiences, is that there is an optimal brain wave frequency and people with ADHD are suffering from dopamine deficiency that skews below optimal frequency, and too much dopamine activity skews above optimal frequency. Further, I've noted that those who experience drugs as a depressant tend to have normal dopamine activity whereas those who experience drugs as a stimulant appear to have low dopamine activity. It's just a wild theory with no medical evidence - I'm just trying to understand the pattern. I would love to hear others chime in here and adjust my theory as necessary.

I've been told that alcohol or marijuana makes one drowsy or lazy. For me, it stimulates - until a point - then I also become drowsy and lazy. This is where I believe I've gone past optimal dopamine activity. For the average person with normal dopamine activity, passing this threshold seems to happen much sooner.

<comment><USER8> What medication gave you the same benefits as weed, if you don't mind me asking?

My experiences very closely match yours, fwiw. I tried Ritalin but wasn't satisfied at all, and am 'back on' weed.

<comment><USER7> Right now I am on Concerta, 54mg. I have tried higher dosages, but the drowsiness and inattentiveness came back. This is what originally lead me to believe that the effects (stimulant or depressant) of substances are relative to the person's dopamine reception. At a higher dose of Concerta, 72mg, I figured I'd end up being superhuman, but, surprisingly I ended up back where I started - inattentive and unmotivated. At Concerta 54mg, I've noticed marijuana will often push me over this threshold as well, causing the marijuana to act as a depressant where it was otherwise a stimulant.

Ritalin, while chemically similar, doesn't seem to provide the same benefits from those who've disclosed their experience (again, anecdotal). Concerta is once-a-day release-controlled dosage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't take a newsflash seriously if they don't even link to the original study.

Are the socioeconomic levels of these higher IQ individuals controlled? How exactly did they select their sample for the study? And they mentioned marijuana, cocaine, heroine in one breath, as though those are the same drug. Surely different population groups use those drugs to different extents.

<comment><USER10> Also, "A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158."

Is that standard? Isn't that about 1/2 to 4 standard deviations on IQ charts? Seems like a wide range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This link seems to have much more specific data from the original study:

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114221018.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114221018.htm)

EDIT: The abstract is available from the publishing journal in the following link. The full text was unfortunately not available without a subscription of some form.

[http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/10/28/jech-2011-20025...](http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/10/28/jech-2011-200252.abstract)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's a shame the article itself is not freely available, but even the published abstract gives some interesting details that the CNN report didn't mention.

[http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/10/28/jech-2011-20025...](http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/10/28/jech-2011-200252.abstract?sid=5d54347e-ce5e-4d55-ace4-b96e00a76727)

In particular the abstract makes it clear that the measured associated is independent of life-course socioeconomic position.

Actually a quick search of Google Scholar throws up a number of papers on this topic, most of which seem to confirm the association reported here.

This one <http://personal.lse.ac.uk/KANAZAWA/pdfs/RGP2010.pdf> looks quite interesting: "The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values than less intelligent individuals. Consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs is evolutionarily novel, so the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to consume these substances."

</comment><comment><USER13> My guess is that this phenomenon has something to do with boredom (as mentioned in the article). I have never studied IQ, but when I reflect on the IQ tests that I take I realize that a big part of my problem solving process involves rapidly imagining potential solutions and mentally "testing" them to see if they make sense.

Does anyone know what this type of thinking is called?

Anyways, that's how I think when I'm trying to solve a puzzle. I notice that the hard part is not in testing my imagined hypotheses, but in hypothesis generation. Where am I going with this? Imagination. I've noticed that my ability to rapidly imagine different scenarios is a key part of my ability to solve difficult problems. There are other components, like working memory, logic, etc, but imagination plays a big role. At least for me.

If what is true for me is true in general it could mean that people who are more inclined to imagine complex alternative worlds in their heads are also more likely to enjoy the "out of the ordinary" mental states provided by drugs and alcohol.

</comment><comment><USER14> Boredom has probably something to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's kind of odd that the article doesn't look at the social aspects. Different social groups have different patterns in and attitudes towards drug consumption. These patterns change over time. Note, research is based on findings from 1970. In 1970, drugs might still be tied to counterculture, and thus to people with on avarage higher education (and on avarage higher iq), while in 2011 drug use seems to appear in much more diverse layers of society…

</comment><comment><USER16> High IQ people are probably more in their head and thus seeking out the sensory connectedness that "normal" people take for granted.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's a reasonable-seeming argument why we should expect smarter people to be more likely to use drugs: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific- fundament...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific- fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-use-more-drugs)

<comment><USER18> Could it be that the smarter/brighter individuals are bored (not stimulated/challenged enough) by the average education system and so they find a release elsewhere with drugs, as something that will make the boredom less painful?

<comment><USER19> I have also heard, a number of times now, that a lot of smart people use drugs because it "makes people more interesting", which is probably code for "I numb my own brain to be able to strike a casual conversation". (My primary example would be having this as a direct quote by Christopher Hitchens. I seem to also recall that there was a House MD episode of a genius putting himself on a controlled substance to be a little more numb because he would otherwise scare away the girlfriend that he loved with his rambling mind.)

So yes, some people might be searching for a thrill because what they are supposed to do does not deliver that. But others just really want to "be normal" and drugs are a quick way to get there, strangely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20>
      high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158.

That means around 70% of the high IQ people in this study had an IQ between 107 and 120. Over 90% had an IQ less than 130. Don't go out and assume that smoking a joint will help you get into Mensa.

</comment><comment><USER21> _A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children._

I stopped here. The title should be "Drug use linked to High IQ". That's completely different.

</comment><comment><USER22> Nothing is said about adult IQ. It only says that kids with higher IQ end up using drugs (I can see that, it's depressing being intelligent). But somehow I doubt that adult drug users have higher IQ as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting, but this part is pretty weasily: "...told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn't use drugs. Turns out, the adults _may_ have been wrong." As an unqualified statement, it is definitely wrong, and was demonstrably wrong at the time: Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Paul Erdos...

</comment><comment><USER24> ...and thus IQ is a poor indicator of success. People should get over the high scores others can get on tests and focus on something more substantial.

</comment><comment><USER25> Correlation isn't causation. What's the next study? People with brown eyes do more drugs? Seriously.

<comment><USER26> I don't think anyone here is arguing that smoking pot (or in general "doing drugs") raises IQ scores... Nor do I see arguing that high IQ scores cause pot use, just that the presence of a high IQ seems to, if the study is to be believed, increase the probability of pot use. Correlations and probabilities are interesting for themselves, and can in fact be used to imply causation. [http://www.amazon.com/Causality-Reasoning-Inference-Judea- Pe...](http://www.amazon.com/Causality-Reasoning-Inference-Judea- Pearl/dp/052189560X/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Higher IQ = go to college/ university = experimentation.

<comment><USER28> That was my first thought when reading the article. There's probably a correlation between high IQ and college attendance, just as there's probably a correlation between college attendance and drug use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you have a high IQ then it is that much easy for you, 1)to find what you want (age<20), like drugs 2)and be richer(age>30) than many folks , so you can drink a lot.

<comment> steve-howard Dunno about finding what you want. I have a reasonably high IQ, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about where to find a dealer. I didn't even drink before I turned 21, not for lack of wanting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article doesn't tell us what we think it does.

In America, the relationship between drug use and high IQ is small or non- existent: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific- fundament...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific- fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-use-more-drugs)

(Someone else linked this earlier)

Despite the UK being very similar to the US, on a global scale, the relationship between IQ and drug use is not the same across the herring pond. There _are_ relationships between IQ and social indicators that are consistent across time and nations, and this isn't one of those. Whatever is causing this relationship in Britain is cultural - I doubt it's a feature of high intelligence, rather than just Brits who have high IQ.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know a fair amount about IQ, having studied it a bit, and I'm surprised. IQ correlates pretty strongly, with law abiding behavior, at the very least, not going to jail. High IQ people are less socially dysfunctional than average and low IQ people, eg see the table here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve>

As for the sex difference between men and women of high IQ, fewer women in general do drugs, so it's easier for high IQ women to rack up a higher multiple of drug use over their average IQ female counterparts.

I looked at the Psychology Today/Kanazawa link, and it says that the relationship is insignificant in America. I.e., the relationship between childhood IQ and drug use is a British phenomenon. Maybe the intelligent are more decadent in Britain? If Kanazawa represents the data accurately, this whole IQ-drugs relationship is BS, in the American setting. Bye bye grand social theorizing.

<comment><USER30> "Not going to jail" != "law abiding behavior". Especially when you get class issues involved.

Getting picked up for smoking pot or petty vandalism in the suburbs often ends in a trip home to mom and dad after a very stern scare. In the city, it's another statistic for this month's arrests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> You guys are full of shi*t. You actually believe that high IQ means more intelligent. And now you find an excuse to your drug use and say, "see, I use drugs because I'm smart". why don't you guys just admit that you guys are too weak minded and the only reason you use drugs is because you are too weak to a avoid peer presure.

<comment><USER32> What does my Karma need to be to get a down vote link? People use drugs for a lot of reasons, Correlation != Causation comes to mind here.</comment></comment>


The G.O.P.'s War on Science Gets Worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/gop-war-on-science-gets-worse

<comment><USER2> This was posted the other day but rubbed some people the wrong way because it's nakedly political (though I think it has a sound empirical basis): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9500233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9500233)

It would be good if we could discuss it without it being flagged again. In the interests of political balance, I'd like to mention that I find Democratic hostility to free trade policy quite as benighted as GOP hostility to certain lines of economic inquiry.

<comment><USER3> Good luck. The vocal majority on HN are still opposed to the findings of climate science.

As to the article: I fear I'm getting a bit burned out on political topics (which it mostly is). It seems impossible for me, personally, to change any of it for the better, and so much of political news is disappointing, especially when it involves science. As you correctly pointed out in the other thread, it's just as bad on left-leaning sites with regard to GMO topics.

The U.S. has held a position of technological and economic prominence through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, but we are far, far behind now on education -- a problem which will be punishing us for the rest of the century at least -- and funding for scientific research, which drives technological advancement, has been under assault from so many directions for decades now. Switzerland won the biggest discovery in physics so far this century, but it could have been done years ago in Texas ([http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/how-texas-lost-worlds- larg...](http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/how-texas-lost-worlds-largest- super-collider)). Our most realistic hopes and dreams for space exploration now rest on a single company. Other countries are starting to take their first steps towards space ([http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/07/uae-plans-to- fly-s...](http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/07/uae-plans-to-fly- spaceship-to-mars-because-they-have-run-out-of-things-to-spend-money- on/374561/)) while NASA still tries to do the best they can with shamefully little funding. (I'm not yet willing to give them even odds of getting there on time though.) Germany's leading the world in development of renewable energy ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany)), France has the best nuclear reactors in the world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France)), Canada has some of the best health care in the world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada)) ... all things the U.S. has the resources to compete in, but doesn't because of politics.

So there are political groups that are strangling our future for the sake of present interests. There doesn't seem to be much that can be done about it because they represent the desires of a large number of people. Maybe the enormous wealth and other remaining advantages in the U.S. will keep things on a more or less even keel for a long time to come; maybe the U.S. will slide behind the rest of the world and there will be another diaspora of science and technology to other countries. Who knows.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, maybe I'll do a poll over the w/e - my impression was that a majority of people on HN take anthropogenic climate change seriously as an issue.

I agree with the rest of your post about an excess focus short-term interests hurting our long term strategic position.

<comment><USER3> A majority may, but the ones that show up in related threads or vote on comments and so on overwhelmingly believe that climate science isn't science.

It's a battle I've had on HN from time to time for years ever since the big email leak that proved "fraud" years ago.

I don't bother much anymore though. HN is not influential at all in terms of climate policy and there's already plenty of information available to anyone that would consider changing their position anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there ever a case to preface a statement with the disclaimer "I'm not a politician..."?</comment>


I was arrested, jailed and assaulted. My Crime? Being a journalist in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/journalist-arrest-seattle-chaz-protest-police-prison-black-lives-matter-a9606846.html <comment><USER2> I am a criminal defense attorney. The picture painted by the article is pretty accurate. I would say the police were probably over-hyped by the night they had, so their behavior might have been elevated more than usual.

Consider that this white British journalist stands nothing to lose by taking his case to trial, if he must. In fact, it will be a badge of honor if convicted, considering his line of work. Most people can't take that risk. I only wish people didn't have an understanding of American "justice" through their TV.</comment>


Ask HN: Are HN Mirrors allowed? - <AUTHOR>

What's the official opinion about articles like Another Unsolicited HN Redesign [1]?
Are mirrors/redesigns of HN allowed in a meaningful way? Can I implement the above mentioned design on my own fetching data from HN and share it?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8574198 <comment><USER2> The linked article isn't a HN mirror, it's a _mockup_.

At the least, it's impossible to make a completely functional mirror due to the lack of authentication in any API.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know it's a mockup, but I mean if anyone was to extend that mockup and make a real website out of it, with server-side retrieving the content form HN. Only for non-authenticated users.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A browser extension that adds Hacker News comments to Goodreads - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spookyuser/hacker-reads <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, I've been working on this extension for more than the one weekend I promised myself, and hope there are some people that find it useful :)

I've personally been using this in my browser while I've been building it and have definitely enjoyed having it around.

One of my favorite things about HN are the book recommendations you can find from other users, especially in those long "Ask HN: What are you reading" threads. I've found some of my favorite books by going through those kinds of threads. At the same time, while I am a Goodreads user, I almost never look at the user reviews at the bottom of Goodreads because I find they do such a bad job at selling me on why I should read a certain book. Often, they're just beat by beat summaries of what occurs in a book and don't say anything about why you might _want_ to read it. Whereas, I think the opposite is true on HN. When people recommend books here it's, in my experience, brief and much more meaningful, and seeing a single person on HN saying: "this is my favorite book ever" \+ child comments that say the same thing, makes me much more interested in reading a book than almost anything else could. So, I wanted to bring that experience to Goodreads and that is why I decided to build this.

It's far from perfect, and will display comments that aren't relevant just as soon as it will not display enough comments. However, after quite a bit of tweaking, I think the extension is at the point where it's pretty useful - even with these issues.

I would love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Can you do "most popular books by HN users" or "most popular books by keyword" with a subset of this code?

Maybe hn.algolia would break on too many queries, though...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's certainly possible. In fact, I think it might already exist, is [https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker- news](https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker-news) kind of what you're talking about?</comment></comment></comment>