Plastic Free July - <AUTHOR> https://paulrhayes.com/plastic-free-july/ <comment><USER2> One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and water is that it's a burden or chore. In my experience, it's the opposite. I recommend taking on similar challenges. I bet you'll enjoy them and incorporate them into your life as improvements.

I challenged myself to buy no packaged food for a week. I made it 2.5 weeks at zero and the experience improved my life so much I decided to keep going using as little packaging as I comfortably could. As my cooking skills improved I bought more fresh fruits and vegetables and, from bulk bins grains, dried beans, nuts, and dried fruit. I shopped increasingly at farmers markets. I came to see Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other markets as wastelands with more garbage than food in them.

I was throwing my trash out once every other week, then once a month. Now the last time I emptied my garbage was September 2018 and the time before that July 2017. Here's a video showing my garbage the first time I went one year without filling a load: [http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied- garbage](http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied-garbage).

My food tastes better, costs less, is more convenient, and connects me with my community more, as more people come over and I've visited the farm where most of my vegetables come from.

If you also believe that we need institutional changes from corporations, government, etc, the fastest, most effective way is to start with personal behavior, building on it, and leading others.

<comment><USER3> OP, your shift changes. You no longer work 9-6. You now work 4-12. How easy is it?

You now no longer live in a metropolis. You live in a town of maybe 15,000 people. The nearest Trader Joes is an hour drive away. Again, how easy it is?

You now are paid $15 an hour instead of what you are making. Is it sill not a burden?

I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. A lot of people here at HN live like college students; very close to their work/study, no family, no children, and with generally small footprints in a closely clustered urban area that caters to them. Even the focus on metal work is the same.

It really changes if you aren't this type of person an yes it's a burden. You simply don't have the disposable time if you have kids for one, unless your wife is stay at home.

<comment><USER4> > I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations > differ in the USA

Ah yes, let me not write about, or even _do_ anything else, ever, in my life, because some folk in the US of A are too "burdened".

<comment><USER3> Don't make universal statements about how easy or better something is then. It can be a lot harder for others. It's easy for some peole to give up a car; for others its three hour commutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I appreciate the effort I find that plastic is an excellent way of reducing food waste which environmentally should have a larger impact than the packaging itself [1]. Glass bottles vs. plastic ones also seems like a fairly straight-forward issue, the energy required for transport and the fact that they sometimes break doesn't seem to be worth the perceived re-usability. Either way, an experiment like this seems to be a good way to find just how dependent we are on plastic/packaging rather than trying to be kind to the environment on a macro scale.

[1] [https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...](https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf)

<comment><USER6> You do have a good point. Plastic wrapped cucumbers seems to be the poster child that gets rolled out because it increases the shelf life so much, I envisage use always using at least some plastic, it's advantages aren't going to disappear.

But we can do better, I've seen cucumbers with a 2nd outer plastic bag, you don't need that. All the packaging with mixed materials at the moment can't really be recycled, theres a huge amount of plastic packaged, and plastic made things, that don't need to be.

Its worth pointing out that lots of people are coming at this from different angles. Some people have seen Blue Planet and don't want to pollute the ocean, some people want a sustainable solution, and some people want a low/no co2 solution. Neither of these perfectly aligns. You're looking at it from a co2/energy point of view, there are others who see plastic as unsustainable because it can't be infinitely recycled, so the glass in still better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This sounds like a great idea - go without something for a while and you'll appreciate it and notice it more when you go back to using (hopefully less of) it.

It sounds like a significant challenge to do this outside of an urban environment that is well served with "alternative" retailers though.

A friend nearby, leading a similar suburban-supermarket lifestyle to me, tried a slightly different thing for a few months - all single use plastic was disposed of in a very visible location (a clear plastic (doh) sack in the kitchen) as a reminder of how much you've used. Apparently it was very shocking.

Other motivational ideas:

\- any plastic you use goes to landfill. In your back yard.

\- Collect all your plastic waste. Take the 10% that would on average (globally) end up in the ocean. Chop it up and add it to your meals. See if you like it as much as the seabirds and turtles do.

\- Admit that any plastic you send to recycling is just going to get "recycled" into energy anyway. Incinerate it at home instead.

<comment><USER8> Is that a joke?

\- 10% of the plastic I dispose of doesn't end up in the ocean because I live in a civilised country that disposes of it in the places made for it's disposal.

\- Plastic is incinerated in special chambers that make sure everything burns to a simple combination of CO2+H2O, while your home probably doesn't have the necessary equipment to do so.

<comment><USER7> Yeah. I wasn't being serious.

<comment><USER9> Yep, I think it was pretty clear you were being sarcastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> frosted-flakes > This didn't mean we could buy ice cream. And on the hottest July day on > record.

In Ontario, Chapmans ice cream (and other brands too, probably) is available in cardboard boxes which unfold, leaving you with a perfect rectangular block of ice cream sitting on a flat piece of cardboard.

Otherwise, ice cream generally comes in rectangular-oval tubs made of cardboard. The only plastic is in the rim of the lid.

You can also get no name "ice cream" in 4 litre plastic buckets, but that generally has so little cream it's technically "frozen dessert".

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I don't live in the UK, but I don't think I've purchased ice cream with plastic in years.

The hardest part for me would be milk. I buy milk by the gallon (usually a gallon per week), and my kids love to drink it. I make yogurt and occasionally make cheese, so we would probably not suffer too much if we can get milk relatively cheaply. Milk does come in cardboard containers, but I'm pretty sure they're lined with plastic, not wax, and I honestly don't know where to get milk in glass containers.

Meat would also be hard since it always comes shrink wrapped in plastic and I don't know how to get it otherwise. We have a butcher nearby that would probably work with us, so it's solvable.

Instead of trying to eliminate plastic, maybe I'll try this with eliminating all waste. Food scraps will go to the compost and packaging will need to be recyclable. It would be interesting to see what I can cut out that isn't recyclable.

<comment><USER11> After a few decades I've seen the return of a milkman on my block. Glass bottles that are picked up at the time of delivery. Not sure about the overall environmental impact though as the milk is driven to your door. In the 80s I recall them being delivered in electric vans. Actually called a milk float.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting read, but I still think the sentence in the article which most resonates with me is:

> Buying without plastic is a privilege. It's the pricier goods that are > plastic free.

Perhaps people still need to lead the way by first buying the more expensive, plastic free alternatives, before we see a real change, but to me this is still the biggest kicker. The article also says, "frozen food doesn't depend on plastic to keep it fresh or to protect it from spoils". Is that true? What about vegetables (peas, sweetcorn etc.) I'm probably being thick, but what else do they come bagged in?

<comment><USER13> Frozen vegetables here in Austria more often than not are available in little cardboard boxes. But a lot of them, I think mostly the larger sizes, are also sold in plastic bags.

<comment><USER14> There are a couple of shops near us that sell loose frozen fruit and veg which you could put in your own containers. It is much more expensive though, there is nothing like this at Aldi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's really difficult. As you can't even buy canned goods, as the can has a plastic liner sprayed on it to keep the steel or aluminum from corroding from acidic foods like tomatoes.

<comment><USER16> Experiments like this are better at pointing out things that we take for granted. Sometimes the things that we take for granted have negative consequences and no real benefit, such as the author's boxes with plastic windows. Other times there may be negative consequences, but some benefits. Your example of the plastic protective layer fits into that category.

With respect to long term impact, we are better off taking other approaches. Reusable glass may sound great, until one realizes that they end up with mountains of glass in the place of mountains of plastic. While there are places that will take back glass jars for reuse, a lot of glass simply ends up being recycled. The actual issue is packaging.

To see how much of an issue this is, start saving the realistically reusable packaging instead of recycling it: glass jars, plastic tubs, cardboard boxes, etc.. For most people, the amount that they collect is in extreme excess of what they can reuse.

Getting back to the original point: don't fret over that plastic sprayed liner, plastic tub, or plastic bag. In a lot of cases, it serves a legitimate purpose. It is far better to think about what it says about us. The author illustrates that in the article. He discusses the impact of convenience meals in his life. He noticed that he was ordering a lot online rather than supporting local producers and vendors. The lessons that Hayes takes away from his experiment may be different what other people learn, yet they are lessons all the same.

<comment><USER15> Glass is pretty recyclable. The issue is that it takes a lot of energy to remelt it, and fuel to transport it because its so heavy. Not to mention the breakage aspect.

I worked at a supermarket in high school and this was back when the glass 2-liter soda bottle was introduced (during the US's short-lived metric system push). And shortly afterwards, the 3-liter bottle was added. Since they were glass, when one fell off the shelf it was a huge mess (the 3-liters were significantly more delicate). Several times a week, we'd hear a smash, followed by "Wet clean-up on aisle 5"

We had a wire cage at the front of the store where you could return the bottles and get your deposit back. None of the employees liked dealing with it, as customers never rinsed their empties, so it attracted insects. Branding also entered into it, as the Pepsi deliveryman would only take Pepsi empties, and the Coca-Cola company only wanted theirs. So their route was delayed as they fished around for their bottles in the cage.

I think reducing the amount of plastic we use is an excellent goal. And it's possible today that people are as-or-more accepting of the extra work involved than they were in the 1970's. But I doubt that it'll gain widespread acceptance because plastic solves so many problems. So an incentive may be necessary, like deposits on plastic bottles & containers, to encourage people to return them (and they don't end up as litter)

<comment><USER17> I've been to a couple of states in the US that had a bottle/can deposit system -- a machine took the empties and gave 10¢ for each can or bottle. Are the glass bottles just melted?

In Denmark there are two categories of glass bottles with deposits. Particular types of drink must have a deposit on the bottle, and imported or smaller producers don't reuse the bottles. The biggest producers (e.g. Carlsberg, Coca Cola) wash and refill their bottles.

Here, plastic bottles and drinks cans are crushed and melted, but in Germany the largest users of plastic bottles (Coca Cola etc) use sturdier bottles, which are washed and refilled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Plastics are bad news for your own health, the environment, and ecology generally. I've been cutting out my personal exposure to estrogenic items (a good list here, check the guy's book if you're interested in the gritty details: [https://www.ajconsultingcompany.com/estrogenics.html](https://www.ajconsultingcompany.com/estrogenics.html)), and it has, as a result, lead to less plastic use overall.

Depending on where you live, it can be pretty hard to find non-plastic alternatives for some products; for example: unless you have a butcher that will give you meat served in butcher paper, your meat is probably stored in plastic. However, many things are easy to eliminate, such as low quality cooking oils stored in plastic. It's easy to find olive, avocado, coconut, mct, and other cooking oils in glass containers and to use those (and butter) instead of canola, soy, or vegetable oils.

Do what's reasonable personally for your and your family's health, and advocate for bans and restrictions on environmental plastics in your countries, as that's really the only long-term solution.

</comment><comment><USER19> So what's wrong with plastics?

If not recycled they go to landfill and stay there, buried. No greenhouse gas emissions, no ocean pollution.

If one wanted put efforts into ecology one would be more productive reconsidering their commute options - each commute trip in a car is a gallon of gas that goes straight to CO2.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ask your butcher to wrap in butcher paper or waxed paper, which can be recycled, composted, or at worst it will break down much quicker than plastic. You could also bring Tupperware with you and have them tare it out. No reason this should be more expensive than pre-packaged meat.

</comment><comment><USER21> Cool quest. The number one question is: how to handle water without plastic. Suggested glass bottles for milk aren't effective here.

<comment><USER22> Tap water is superior to bottled water in many places and doesn't need carrying either. Have a reusable (metal) bottle to take along. If you live in a place that can't make tap water safe to drink, I'm sorry for you. You'll probably have to stick to plastic. (There's also bottled water in reusable glass bottles around here, but that's really heavy)

<comment><USER23> And in many places, tap water is vastly inferior or straight up unsafe to drink over bottled water. When I was growing up the only way to safely drink tap water was to boil it first, which is a major pain in the ass if you just want to drink something.

<comment><USER24> If you just extend the metaphor slightly and have tap water mean 'comes from a tap' rather than 'comes from a municipal supply' it still works.

The supermarket that currently has thousands of individual plastic bottles could have a big tank with a tap on it.

It sounds more like a trust thing. You need to know that the water is safe. If you know it's safe, you're good.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Challenges of Being a VC - <AUTHOR> http://codingvc.com/the-challenges-of-being-a-vc

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who rolls my eyes at blog posts like these? Oh _boo hoo_.</comment>


CoffeeScript: two sugars, no bitter aftertaste - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.freeagent.com/2012/01/30/coffeescript-two-sugars-no-bitter-aftertaste/

<comment><USER2> What about browser support ? No stack trace, no proper file:lineno for exceptions, the code you put in the console is not the one you work with. Those are essential to my work flow, and I guess, surely not everyone, but many other nevertheless. This is the same problem we have with those fancy css processors.

<comment><USER3> The nice thing with coffeescript is that it complies to very readable Javascript with an almost one to one matching between lines in coffscript and lines in javascript. So as such it is pretty trivial to find the corresponding line in your coffescript file, given a line in your javascript file.

<comment><USER4> I agree that matching up line numbers is usually pretty trivial, although I also see how this complicates the workflow for people. To make matching lines even easier, I've written this tool: <https://github.com/showell/CoffeeScriptLineMatcher>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nitpick:

"What's happened? The required_field_names variable has been scoped by var, and the whole script has been wrapped in a namespace."

It's been wrapped in a closure. Namespace, to me, implies that it's been stashed somewhere easily accessible in the future.

<comment><USER6> It's just a space that contains names. The result is actually pretty similar to C++'s anonymous namespaces, which is why I guess I didn't blink at the name.</comment></comment>


College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive in One Generation - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/college-tuition-increased-1100-percent-since-1978

<comment><USER2> it does it because by exponential population growth

</comment><comment> anti-shill immigration is pushing most of the young american majority into white collar jobs.</comment>


From Vilified to Vindicated: The Story of Jacques Cinq-Mars - <AUTHOR> https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-long/vilified-vindicated-story-jacques-cinq-mars <comment><USER2> While I'm sympathetic to Cinq-Mars and the amount of time it took to become vindicated, I don't find much fault in the original scientists who demanded more evidence than was available.

It seems he only had the one bone with indication of human butchery. It wasn't until decades later that another scientist was able to review hundreds of bones and found 15 other examples.

This must be considered in context. Someone claiming that humans were in North America ten thousand years earlier must automatically bring skepticism. Were there many charlatans at the time, or in history, making similar claims that were proven false?

The only question was why it took so long for enough resources to be invested in fully researching the cave? How much was it the fault of lack of funding?

<comment><USER3> > I don't find much fault in the original scientists who demanded more > evidence than was available.

As the article makes clear, it was not just one site or one researcher.

>Were there many charlatans at the time, or in history, making similar claims that were proven false?

No, that's a conspiracy theory of your own making.

>The only question was why it took so long for enough resources to be invested in fully researching the cave? How much was it the fault of lack of funding?

I guess you did not see the connection between the hostility of the nominal experts and the lack of funding?

<comment><USER2> Asking if a common occurrence in science had also previously happened in this field is "a conspiracy theory of my own making"? No, it's actually an important question to ask when something doesn't get the funding and research it needed.

"Build it and they will come" nonsense doesn't need a conspiracy against it either. Just indifference from people who have heard many unfulfilled big claims from other people.

These scenarios where big discoveries are left in funding purgatory have happened many times in the past. And these things never happen in isolation but in a fast moving field of research.

I'm merely asking for greater context. Not sure why that brought out such hostility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My grandfather, a pioneering (unpaid) archeologist in Alberta during the 1930's was one of the thoroughly silenced voices. He had plenty of evidence of pre-Clovis points, but the priesthood of science had already decided the matter.</comment>


Made a simple iPhone timer app - <AUTHOR> Made a simple iPhone app for small timers like in the Kitchen, Pomodoro, etc.<p>Would love to hear suggestions https://itunes.apple.com/app/id977069992?at=1l3v2Fs <comment><USER2> That's great! I will test it if you test my app :)</comment>


What is Twitter Good For? - <AUTHOR> http://chris.pirillo.com/what-is-twitter-good-for/

<comment><USER2> Most "mainstream" / average everyday people still use the word pointless to describe Twitter when I ask them about it and why they are not on it + their thoughts about the service. Not agreeing or disagreeing with this point, just sharing it.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Facebook had a concept of Followers in addition to Friends (there's no such relationship on Facebook as "I follow you but you don't follow me") and the ability to choose during posting whether the new post is for "Just Friends" or "Friends and Followers", I'd be super happy. Yeah, yeah, and if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle...

<comment><USER4> I think Facebook is trying that with their 'fan pages.' Facebook is certainly trying to catch-up with Twitter, even though they have a huge lead in many (if not all) respects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> its good for attracting over 100mm in investments so far, I personally expect more utility to be realized soon..

</comment><comment><USER6> Incorrect headline , the author never says what Twitter is good for. He does indeed say what it is not good for , but then as someone else so succinctly said , pointless comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER7> Its good for social media consultants, marketers and gurus.

</comment><comment><USER8> Crap article.</comment>


Duty, Democracy and the Threat of Tribalism - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-mattis-duty-democracy-and-the-threat-of-tribalism-11566984601?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This was a good essay: well-written, cogent, and thought-provoking.

I know there are a lot of folks that want to take this essay and bash it into some political points. I think that's probably part of the problem Mattis is describing; our desire to make social media hay out of whatever we're given.

He does have a point about current politics in there. It's hidden quite a bit. His larger point, though, is about how instant communication is changing the nature of how governments work. Presumably that's what he gets paid for: understanding and projecting current trends through a historical lens.

I don't know what the solution is. A big part of the problem is that nobody much wants to talk about the generic situation. There's no clicks in it. Instead it's pitching rhetorical softballs to people who are already on your side. Congrats to Mattis for being able to walk through this mess and still come out looking okay. He's doing better than most.

<comment><USER3> > I don't know what the solution is.

Neither do I but I see tribalism as one of the most destructive forces of the last decade, responsible for almost all big changes (and lack of change) in the world. Politics spill out to other areas. It is not difficult to connect the dots between rapid clicks-and-likes driven social media to the burning of Amazon forests.

I don't know what the solution is but this is the meta problem. Solving it is likely to start fixing other areas of life.

<comment><USER4> > It is not difficult to connect the dots between rapid clicks-and-likes > driven social media to the burning of Amazon forests.

Would you please elaborate on how "rapid clicks-and-likes driven social media" leads to the burning of Amazon forests?

I would also like to add these two related paragraphs:

> According to various reports on the subject (Greenpeace, FAO), livestock > farming, including soya production, is responsible for about 70 to 80% of > deforestation in the Amazon region. The development of intensive livestock > production, combined with the increasing consumption of meat in developed > countries, is thus the main cause of Amazonian deforestation.

> According to the WWF, It's estimated that deforestation caused by livestock > is responsible for the discharge of 3.4% of current global emissions of > carbon to the atmosphere every year. That's why the late 2018 IPCC report > stood out that reducing meat consumption by 90% is the single biggest way to > reduce global warming. Some studies also show that without meat and dairy > consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by over 75%. _In this way, > reducing your meat consumption is also a big step to stop not only > deforestation but also global warming on a larger scale._

Source: [https://e-csr.net/definitions/what-is-definition- deforestati...](https://e-csr.net/definitions/what-is-definition- deforestation-causes-effects/)

<comment><USER5> So we could reduce something that accounts for just 3.4% of global emissions by 75%?

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure that's wrong or the wrong data point. Livestock is the largest source of methane emissions and methane plays a larger role in climate change.

Not to mention that eating less meat is just karmically/ethically way more optimal, regardless of what the data says.

<comment><USER4> Note that there is a difference between methane and carbon. My quote only mentioned carbon.

> The most important greenhouse gases from animal agriculture are methane and > nitrous oxide. Methane, mainly produced by enteric fermentation and manure > storage, is a gas which has an effect on global warming 28 times higher than > carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide, arising from manure storage and the use of > organic/inorganic fertilizers, is a molecule with a global warming potential > 265 times higher than carbon dioxide.

Additionally, he missed the fact that deforestation has other negative impacts besides contributing to climate change.

All things considered, meat consumption is pretty much the main reason for the destruction of Amazonian rainforest, using up incredible amounts of land, food, and water, as well as producing a statistically significant amount of pollution. Then there is desertification, MDR pathogens, and so forth.

If you want the total percentages per sector: [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas- emiss...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions- data)

Some more reading (website is currently down for me but it was available a couple of minutes ago): [https://www.fao.org/gleam/results/en/](https://www.fao.org/gleam/results/en/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the article: "Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist's role is not sufficient for a leader."

This is a true statement, I just hope the damage done can be undone. We are stronger together than we are alone.

<comment><USER5> Is that empirically true? The USA was the largest economy in the world by 1890, despite pursing a policy of isolationism for the entire century before that. By the time we entered the First World War, we accounted for a quarter of the world economy, about as much as all of Western Europe put together.

<comment><USER8> > The USA was the largest economy in the world by 1890, despite pursing a > policy of isolationism for the entire century before that.

The US was never isolationist unless you ignore the existence of Native American Nations; it was brutally expansionist from day one. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine, US imperialism expanded even further, leaving the US "isolationist" in most of the 19th Century mainly only in regard to what happened outside the Western Hemisphere, and not even always there.

<comment><USER5> "Isolationism" when discussing U.S. history, and as relevant here, generally refers to our reluctance to our avoidance of alliances with European countries. (Or, really, anyone. In this context, "isolationism" isn't inconsistent with "expansionist." It's more about unilateral versus multi- lateral.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was thoughtful, measured, wise, well-written, and completely ineffectual.

There's no "threat of tribalism". We're living in tribalism. This piece could only be effective in another climate.

Ham-fisted, on-the-nose, bluntness is the only way to get your message across to a political audience in 2019.

<comment><USER10> > There's no "threat of tribalism". We're living in tribalism.

I understand the point to be "tribalism is great, but we should be one tribe dominating all (or most, with our allies, as long as they are aligned with us) the other tribes". I didn't see any general call against tribalism. "Defending our way of life" is pretty much that: "the tribe's way of life".

<comment><USER11> > I didn't see any general call against tribalism.

"We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions."

The phrase "defending our way of life" isn't in the article.

<comment><USER12> >"We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions."

This describes the entirety of human history. And CERTAINLY the history of America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not directly related to General Mattis, but I would recommend reading Evan Wright's book "Generation Kill". Which recounts his time being embedded with the 1st Recon Battalion, which was under the command of Mattis (Callsign Chaos) during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The book even goes briefly into a famous moment in the invasion of Iraq were General Mattis fires one of his commanders during a siege of a city.

[https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/that-time-mattis- fir...](https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/that-time-mattis-fired-a- commander-in-the-middle-of-combat)

HBO did a miniseries on the book too which is great.

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

<comment><USER14> Amazing fact about that book and show: Sergeant Rodolfo "Rudy" Reyes ('Fruity' Rudy) finished his term with the military and decided to move to Hollywood and become an actor. A few years later, casting began for the miniseries based on the book, based on his tour. He tried out.

Rudy is played by himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As others have said, this is an excerpt promoting a forthcoming book, not a declaration to run against the current president.

Also interesting to note Mattis is call sign "Chaos" who was a major offscreen character and frequently mentioned on the HBO mini series "Generation Kill".

</comment><comment><USER16> American foreign policy has been inconsistent and often deadly to many civilians worldwide. Americans sometimes go in with the best of intentions, but not always, as we know from the Iraq war, CIA overthrow of Iranian government, and many other debacles.

For Mathis to disregard this and put the military and intelligence apparatus above politics is disingenuous, or at least ignorant of reality. He may be non-partisan but his department has a hand in why our current tribalism exists, and always has.

If American military and intelligence organizations had a truly non- interventionist approach and one which works with our allies then there are politicians on both sides to support them - Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, for example.

Finally, Mathis admits our defense spending exceeds all but 20 countries' GDP. In an era where our enemies are often digital, or terrorist organizations, more so than nation states, is our military spending oversized for what we need? Would any secretary of defense admit to this and redirect funds to more pressing causes at home or abroad? Such a leader would be a truly remarkable and laudable.

<comment><USER17> _" In an era where our enemies are often digital, or terrorist organizations, more so than nation states, is our military spending oversized for what we need?"_

Hawks will only hear, "we need to spend more of the military budget on cyber threats".

<comment><USER18> More likely "We need a larger budget so we can spent more on cyber threats"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> General Mattis and others like him from the administrative, technocratic state have to do so much more to try to convince us that they're qualified. His appeals to decency and fitness of leadership ring supremely hollow after 20 years in the Middle East absolutely screwing up at every turn. We're in the current mess, largely defined by lack of trust in government, precisely because of "respectable" heads of state like Mattis.

<comment><USER20> Not to mention spending years on Theranos' board, I guess he gets a free pass for letting Elizabeth Holmes play him like a fiddle.

[https://www.axios.com/mattis- theranos-1521137535-f08d8b9b-78...](https://www.axios.com/mattis- theranos-1521137535-f08d8b9b-78f7-4e31-b2b5-4fade3d52a91.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Drumpf is finished

<comment><USER22> Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? You've done it a lot and we ban accounts that do that.

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

<comment><USER21> HN is turning into reddit

<comment><USER22> Would you please read [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) all the way to the end? and please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vagus nerve stimulation: Shock tactics set to shake up immunology - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/the-shock-tactics-set-to-shake-up-immunology-1.21918 <comment><USER2> I am such a huge cynic of this. This involves stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the antagonist, so to speak, of the sympathetic nervous system.

A few years ago a company called Ardian had a minimally-invasive system called renal redervation for destroying the sympathetic nerves to the kidneys, in the hope that it would cure high blood pressure. Initial unblinded single armed trials were favourable, and so Ardian made $1,000,000,000 selling to Medtronic.

Lo and behold, in the double-blinded randomised trial, renal denervation did absolutely nothing.

Renal denervation was fuelled by optimism and bluff about the role for these nervous systems in disease. Shock horror, however, when manually altering them with a blunt tool such as ablation (in the case of renal denervation) or stimulation (the example here), doesn't actually help.

The whole saga of renal denervation was one of the greatest examples of bad science and optimism getting ahead of us. This is a nice editorial: [http://jamesphoward.com/papers/RDE.pdf](http://jamesphoward.com/papers/RDE.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't you stimulate the vagus nerve with a big meal or belly breathing? All this time I thought people advising belly breathing were just a bunch of dirty hippies who were afraid of the doctor. I wonder if there's something special about HOW this stimulates the vagus nerve or if it's any stimulation at all.

<comment><USER4> Even mindfulness meditation can stimulate the vagus nerve:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes- way/201602...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes- way/201602/mindfulness-meditation-and-the-vagus-nerve-share-many-powers)

Since psychological factors have a large effect on vagus tone, it's important to do double-blind trials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Exposure to acetylcholine, however, prevents macrophages from producing the > inflammatory protein

But aren't there better ways to increase acetylcholine than stimulating the vagus nerve?

<comment><USER6> The promise of the "electroceutical" approach is localized neurotransmitter release: you want to enact increased ACh in the body (and localized within the body, if possible) but not in the CNS, where it would likely result in undesired side effects.

You see the same phenomena in reverse with drugs intended for the brain (e.g. for treating depression). The severe side effects of those drugs are because the same neurotransmitter receptors involved in mood in the brain are involved in digestion in the gut.

<comment><USER7> Isn't A-GPC [0] proven to act just in the brain?

[0]: [https://examine.com/supplements/alpha- gpc/](https://examine.com/supplements/alpha-gpc/)

<comment><USER6> It looks like it is believed to be effective at crossing the blood-brain- barrier. Is that equivalent to acting just in the brain? No idea, but it seems unlikely.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ask someone for their principles, but they don't want to say? - <AUTHOR>

I'm having a conversation with someone I've known very well for the past four years, and somehow the conversation turns to principles.  I ask her what her principles are.  She doesn't want to tell me.
I just left my day job to be an entrepreneur.  I told her that I didn't have room in my life right now for someone who didn't at least have honesty and moral courage as principles.  This is the stand that I took, and though everything was calm and peaceful when we parted, I think I just may have ended the relationship with my best friend.
I can't imagine why someone, least of all my best friend, wouldn't want to tell me what their principles are.  How do I make sense of this? <comment><USER2> I don't think you've provided enough information to know for sure what her response really means.

Most people, particularly intelligent people, are not extremely confident in their principles... they constitute a working hypothesis more than a firm foundation of belief. In a sense it's deeply arrogant to claim that any belief is anything other than a working hypothesis... and so I'd argue that the most important thing when considering a person's principles is the notion of _what about the world has led them to act passionately toward a goal?_ ,... since anything that is actionable has likely passed a fair bit of scrutiny on the part of the belief holder.

On one hand, she may have very deeply held principles but may not have felt like opening up to you about them just then.

On the other hand, she may disagree with your principles and wishes to avoid an inevitable realization of conflict.

Or she may be more the wishy washy type and not really have any principles, but may realize that she probably should.

I think your opening with "who doesn't at least have the honesty and moral courage" may have made her reluctant to open up, since it suggests that you're ready to judge whatever comes out of her mouth.

If you really care about this person, I suggest you apologize for being brash and tell her that you're very curious about the big picture philosophies that guide her life, and that you address them more narrowly in a future conversation... such as:

What do you think is most important about how a person lives his/her day to day life?

What is most important about how businesses conduct themselves?

How do you feel about the Earth and humanity's role as stewards of the environment?

Worst case, you realize she's a bit shallow. Best case, you open the treasure trove of the deepest innermost thoughts of someone you respect.

</comment><comment><USER3> I detect a judgmental tone in your post, even if you didnt mean it. People dont like their core beliefs judged, even by friends. Perhaps you were thinking ethical principals and your friend was thinking spiritual maybe even contradictory beliefs. The best thing is to realize that there are no axioms to being human. We can act morally and ethically (or not) from many different foundations. The best way to find out principles is to infer them from the discussion of issues.

You really blew it when you cast her aside on an issue of metaphysics. Unless she really amoral or psychotic, I would patch things up in any way possible, including a sincere apology. If you dont have time for your friends, it is you who needs to reexamine your principles.

Apologies if I came across too strongly. I did want to help.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are best friends, why should she have to tell you her principals? Shouldn't you be able to figure this out through her actions?

I pretty much know the principals of all of the people in my life that are good friends.

</comment><comment><USER5> Principles about what? Maybe her philosophical views are too complex to be distilled down to a few simple phrases. You sound like one of those people who just discovered a new religion and is going about judging everybody else. I suggest you call your friend up and apologize for your histrionics, which sound rooted in economic insecurity.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommendations for workflow management software - <AUTHOR> I am currently looking for a solution (and considering creating our own) for managing workflow processes in our real estate company.
We start with a list of properties that have automated valuations and then it begins a journey through 6 different departments including "Offers", "Closings", "Remodeling", etc.
Each department has a workflow that is essentially a series of "if this then that" type tasks. Most are very simple like "Check if the property has a lien." The choice of task after this depends on the answer to the question.
Other considerations are integrations to third party applications like Quickbooks and Calendars.
I am new to this industry, so any suggestions would be welcomed. I'm actually quite excited by the prospects of building a system from scratch but for the company's sake, I don't want to reinvent the wheel if there is an existing solution that meets our needs. <comment><USER2> What you are looking for is a real estate CRM solution. Check out Property Base [0] for a hosted solution.

If you like to invest/waste time and money on a tailor made solution, Wordpress offers a solid platform. If it powers your site it might as well power your CRM, right? You could use plugins like Toolset [1], Pods [2] and more [3] to save lots of time.

[0] [https://www.propertybase.com/](https://www.propertybase.com/)

[1] [http://wp-types.com/](http://wp-types.com/)

[2] [https://pods.io/](https://pods.io/)

[3] [http://www.wpexplorer.com/wordpress-editorial- workflow/](http://www.wpexplorer.com/wordpress-editorial-workflow/)

<comment><USER3> We've seen a lot of people use our Kanban board WordPress plugin [0] for lots of different work flows - CRM, sales, and editorial being the biggest after project management. Sorry for the self promotion, but I think it's related.

[https://KanbanWP.com](https://KanbanWP.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I use kanboard [1] for my project management. I like it because you can add automation hooks, e.g. once I close a task on one board, it can auto-move to another. So a dev task can get moved over to an operations board to be deployed. It is a open source, self hosted web app. There are several integrations and plugins out there for different stuff.

[1] [https://kanboard.net/](https://kanboard.net/)</comment>


canvg: JavaScript SVG Parser and Renderer on Canvas - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/canvg/canvg <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all! The first commit is almost 10 years old now but many are still finding a use case for our canvg library, which takes an svg string and renders it on a canvas. We just released v3 which is a complete rewrite in TypeScript and support for OffscreenCanvas as well as unifying the node and browser side. Would love to hear any feedback or questions!</comment>


Google Android: The Accidental Empire - <AUTHOR> http://nikcub.appspot.com/google-android-the-accidental-empire <comment><USER2> It does honestly seem like Google stumbled into a goldmine. Google basically set out to create the Sidekick 2.0 (I don't really get the constant "Android started as a Blackberry ripoff" claims, when there are much more obvious Danger roots). I really don't see Page/Brin/Rubin in a room in 2006, rubbing their hands together thinking they were going to shock the world. It seems more like the Google guys were big Sidekick fans and saw the chance to work with Rubin for relatively cheap. But they kept their options open, made a lot of cautious small bets rather than going all in. They didn't make the iPhone, no, but they placed themselves in a position where they could react to iPhone. By being open to the opportunity and a lot of luck, they essentially became the only choice a monster sized industry had in the face of huge disrupting new competitor.

Google often get slagged for the unfocused, perpetual beta thing. But laser focus is overrated. For example, given the choice of only picking Chrome OS or Android, a laser focused Google would have never gone Android. Overall I think it is much better to admit the future is unknown, and be prepared (especially for a large company with Google-sized resources).

<comment><USER3> What goldmine? They just replaced Nokia.

Android is the new Nokia. Lots of worthless Market share, Zero profit.

EDIT: I realize i'm going to be down voted for this. But if you don't think it's true, you're delusional.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand why I keep hearing this mantra so often - it's completely off-base.

Android is clearly a goldmine. The goldmine is the incremental search revenue Google gets from controlling the Android platform. Why do you think the search volume on mobile is a hockey stick at Google? Literally every single android device has a dedicated search button on it; iOS devices do not. Which device do you think has higher searches per user? The incremental search volume (and search ad revenue) is enough to justify the entire Android investment.

More importantly, without Android, Apple had the ability to lock out Google from mobile search by changing the default search provider to non-Google. The lost revenue if Apple changes its mind and Google is locked out of mobile search? There's your 2nd goldmine.

The argument that Android is not a money maker is like the argument that Gillette selling razors below cost is bad idea. At the end of the day both Gillette and Google make a tons of money off selling something that isn't exactly the main product, but is peripheral to it. In Gillette's case it's razor blades, in Google's it's search.

<comment><USER5> _Why do you think the search volume on mobile is a hockey stick at Google?_

I could take a guess.

"Google Exec Testifies Before Senate That Two-Thirds of Mobile Search Happens on iOS Devices"

[http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile- sea...](http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile-search-comes- from-apples-ios/)

<comment><USER6> Well iOS used to have a much larger user base, but Android has almost caught up, and will even surpass it. But depending so much on iOS so far is _exactly_ the reason why Google needed Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It does require a step back to realise the magnitude of change: Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones.

On the surface, that's both astounding and completely unexpected.

Google put itself into that position by being a neutral 3rd party that manufacturers could trust coupled with a realisation that most phone manufacturers were great at hardware but terrible at software.

The outcome is that the companies who didn't see software as their competency and were willing to drop their OSes (Samsung, Motorola, HTC) have reaped the benefits while companies whose strengths were based around their software being slightly better than their competitors (RIM, Nokia) have fallen behind.

<comment><USER8> > Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones.

Yes and no: they have a similar marketshare, but Microsoft had marketshare _and money_. Google only has the marketshare (and in a limited fashion at that, since implementors "improve the experience" pretty drastically) and get little to no money out of it (likewise for a number of their implementors, too).

And implementors are anything but locked in, as Android holds little software primacy. It does have a lively store, catching onto iOS's, but Android is not "essential", and so far I've not seen any critical software running on android and android only. This means with a little business acumen and some software investment (note that they usually fail at both, but...) most Android implementors can get away from Android pretty fast. And in fact most seem to keep hedging their bets (apart from Moto anyway), either by having WP handsets as well (HTC) or by keeping a ready and used "internal" OS (Samsung's bada)

<comment><USER6> It's really just very very early for the smartphone market, and Android is the fastest growing mobile OS. Its potential is more like 20x bigger user base than it has now. They will be able to make a lot more money than they do now from Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's the beauty of Google's spaghetti-at-the-wall approach, isn't it? To me, it's kind of a refreshing, child-like approach to things, with an investigative curiosity and implicit acknowledgment of an ignorance of what will become important.

While I think Larry Page's new focus on focus is great, and I think most of their products are getting better because of it, I do get a bit scared that it comes at the cost of the explorative nature of the company in its youth.

<comment><USER10> Agree so much. Android is a perfect toy Google has developed to disrupt the established players and stopped a 1984-like future in mobile. Neither Blackberry BES nor Apple's single-device behind a walled garden were for me; and Thanks to Android I have choice.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. A crappy choice. I would not be saying this if Android was such a beacon of software quality.

Android is just Google's tool to serve users ads. Nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think that Android's success is relative to the iPhone- in many ways, it's a greater reflection of the failure of Nokia and, to a lesser extent, Blackberry.

To explain: Apple generally tends to be happy making more expensive, premium products that command a smaller section of the market. They're happy to sacrifice greater market potential to do so- like not allowing carrier customisations, making multiple models, etc. They've compromised this somewhat for the iPhone (they clearly didn't want to have carrier-subsidised handsets originally, for example) but it has worked out for them in a huge way. Still- historically, the ubiquity of the iPhone is in some ways atypical for Apple.

Nokia, on the other hand, has always been more than happy to play ball with the carriers. They should be where Android is now- the ecosystem with a ton of different phone models, carrier-bundled apps, cheap phones and a huge market share. If they had played their cards right Google might still be relegated to teaming up with Apple on mobile. But Nokia left the market wide open- Apple compromised a little to move into the space but Google saw the gap and went for it 100%.

<comment><USER12> Android is crushing Nokia not because of the cheap phones - but because it can scale from cheap to expensive, from featured to luxury. A cheap Android phone, like LG Optimus One gives you partly the look and feel of an expensive smartphone.

In contrast, Nokia's featured phones with Symbian on them are great for their cost, but they do feel cheap. And an expensive smartphone with Symbian on it still feels cheap.

         I don't think that Android's success is
         relative to the iPhone

I disagree. The iPhone is probably the biggest reason for Android's success. It first started when Apple decided that an AT&T monopoly was worth it. And it happened in Europe too - in my country only Orange was originally selling iPhones, until iPhone 4 came out.

Like in a bad movie when an old dude sitting on its porch says " _a storm is coming_ " ... carriers and phone makers began freaking out and saw in Android THE alternative. It is a good alternative. And while Apple may have a huge network of stores, it cannot compete with the distribution network of multiple vendors.

(EDIT: rephrased the last paragraph)

<comment><USER11> * carriers and phone makers began freaking out and saw in Android THE alternative.*

Oh, sure. But my point was that Android being THE alternative was a failing of Nokia and Blackberry over anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think that's the whole story. This could also be a PR spin. Google said later very often they feared an Apple monopoly on the smartphone market and Android is there to prevent it. Also Schmidt hates Microsoft to the bone and is happy about everything that hurts them.

What makes Google appear unfocused is their long time thinking, they don't care if something integrates in another product only 5 years later. I bet the Google Car and Google Maps integration will be perfect and they also create 3D models of their environment what fits in Google Earth.

Coincidence? I don't think so, these 3 incredible smart guys have all day to think about that.

</comment><comment><USER14> Imho Android has been successful because, until recently, it had no competition. Android came around at a time when the increasing complexity of building and maintaining a proprietary software stack was forcing handset builders to essentially become software companies. Android gave them the option to return to doing what they did best. Nokia and RIM tried to maintain their own stuff and suffered heavily for it.

I think that Android's success is due to its business model, not the quality of the software itself. The Android team should take care to not become the next Netscape.

<comment><USER12> I think Microsoft taught us 3 valuable lessons:

1) distribution agreements and good relationships with hardware makers trumps quality - that's how they've beaten Apple and IBM (OS/2 Warp, launched in 1994 was better than Windows 95 and compatible with DOS and Win 16)

2) worse is better, a lesson they themselves took from Unix - timing is more important, you can always improve later

3) operating systems are natural monopolies - if you win the market of low-end PCs and keep growing, you'll eventually take over the whole market

If anything, I fear Google is the next Microsoft. I hope not because I love Android.

<comment><USER15> Google is more open than Microsoft ever was, though. There's no Cyanogenmod of Windows.

<comment><USER16> On the other hand, there was no concept of "rooting" your Windows installation, and the idea that you could only run apps approved by Microsoft would have caused immediate outrage and accusations of anticompetitive behavior. It's amazing how quickly Apple has been able to shift the Overton window, to the point where there's barely any reaction to Microsoft requiring approval for Windows 8 Metro apps.

<comment><USER15> True, but that's Apple, not Android. Sideloading on Android doesn't require rooting, at least for Google devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how different the market would be had Apple not given AT&T exclusivity. Honestly, I think Android still would have done well, but does anyone think the exclusive deal with AT&T hurt Apple in the long run?

<comment><USER18> i'm not sure "hurt apple" is the right way to put it, as i see it pretty much everybody who wants (and can afford) an iphone has one. apple hasn't lost anything yet because of the deal.

the exclusivity deal allowed android to gain a foothold, but i don't see android as a competitor to iphone, just an alternative. people who buy android phones are people who don't want an iPhone and probably wouldn't have bought one anyways.

<comment><USER19> I disagree. I wanted an iPhone but couldn't get it because I was on Verizon.

I also happen to be someone who influences my friends and family on technology. When Android turned out to be a great experience, I told other people. Now my mom, sister, sister's boyfriend, both brothers-in-law and their wives, and my mother-in-law are all Android users.

Every single one of those people would have purchased an iPhone if Android wasn't around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Google mantra of do no evil is at the heart of this success again. I really admire that they've kept it open source and not followed their competitors in creating ridiculous policies such as taking a cut of e-book sales, policing for adult content, banning all apps that interact directly with the hardware or try to do things outside of their limited API, etc.

<comment><USER21> They haven't kept it open source, strictly speaking (ref. Honeycomb). Their naivety has left them dangerously exposed on patents, the recent CarrierIQ debacle is an example of the dangers of Android's openness, and any worthwhile app in the Android Market is hacked and re-submitted as a free app before you can blink an eye. Google's not making money from Android, and neither are developers*. That's not even starting on the security vulnerabilities, or the fact that Google's business model is based on a premise of invasive personal data-slurpage to sell more ads.

Granted, that's a generalization. But it makes the point.

<comment><USER22> Why so negative looking? All releases except for Honeycomb have been opensourced allowing for a number of custom roms used on millions of devices (cyanogen, miui) which is more than can be said for other platforms. The openness of Android apps allow for applications and innovation not possible on the iphone or other devices (custom lock screens, homescreens, NASA's phonesats). The CarrierIQ debacle involved all major phone developers including Apple (prior to iOS5), BB, Nokia as well.

Granted, that's a generalization. But it makes the point.

<comment><USER23> Honeycomb is completely open source now. They released it with ICS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> From an IP perspective, do you think Android is legal? From Java, to multi touch, to design aesthetics. Is Google doing to the OS industry to what they did to the news paper and media industry where IP is considered 'obsolete'. And a silent emperor sits over the valley of chaos?

<comment><USER25> > Is Google doing to the OS industry to what they did to the news paper and > media industry where IP is considered 'obsolete'.

Google didn't do much to the newspaper and media industry.

They mostly screwed themselves, with some help from competitors like Craigslist in their profit centers like classifieds.

<comment><USER24> I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here. But many, if not all, of google's empire is based around curating other people's IP, including Android.

Much of the IP Google does have is kept server side, safe from competitors.

But the legal issues are real, and I imagine many of the downrates of my previous comment was of either google developers or people within that eco- system.

Why did Microsoft take so long to make Windows Phone, and why does it legally appear safe? And how is that related to Android?

But don't get me wrong, I love Google for search and web apps, just not operating systems that, to at least me, seem slightly trojan in nature.

<comment><USER26> If Android is illegal, then so is Apple (Good artists copy, great artists steal) and Microsoft (embrace, extend, extinguish).

If your product contains software, then chances are that it infringes on many patents.

<comment><USER24> It would have been interesting to see if Android turned out the way it did, if Google's CEO was not on the Apple board. I'm not implying anything, other than that I find that really interesting. There are so many little things about Android like that, that this article also leaves out.

<comment><USER2> You can just come out and say what you think, no need to hide behind "finding that interesting" and "devil's advocate". I happen to disagree that Android/Google in general steals IP, but it is better to say what you mean to have a real discussion.

<comment><USER24> Well I find that the Microsoft 'embrace, extend, extinguish' sounds more like Google today. When was the last time Gmail had introduced innovative features, there is still much improvement to be done. Chrome browser is by far the best, but when they get the market share, I imagine we will see improvements and innovations come to a slow as well.

But sure, let's talk about how Eric Schmidt was the Apple board during the development of the iPhone. That is fascinating. How could that not have influenced the only competition to the iPhone. That seems suspicious to me, as no other company besides Google anticipated it.

So let's talk about the design similarities between Android and iPhone.

These topics are fascinating.

So Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle are all claiming that Android violates their products, while Google, before this, had no patents regarding OS. That is also fascinating.

The only reason why Android is 'open source' is to make it more difficult for litigation. And I don't think a company that develop's open source should be able to place ads on it, as to me, that is still 'selling' the software.

<comment><USER27> _> And I don't think a company that develop's open source should be able to place ads on it, as to me, that is still 'selling' the software._

Free speech, not free beer. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre>

<comment><USER24> This gives me some insite on the matter:

From: <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html>

"9. Accepting Warranty or Additional Liability. While redistributing the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer, and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity, or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this License. However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability."

So someone please help explain how this is possible:

From Reuters Nov 9, 2011:

"Google Inc will continue to offer support to firms using its Android system that are involved in legal disputes, its executive chairman Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday, as the Internet giant looks to cement alliances in the face of toughening competition."

The way I am reading the Apache license says that Google should not be giving support to OEMs? Am I reading this part wrong? "However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor" I'm not the best at reading law, so I would love some insight.

Edit to add Reuters link: [http://us.mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE7...](http://us.mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE7A64T920111109)

<comment><USER28> First off, you are reading it wrong. But it doesn't matter.

Google owns the copyright on Android, so the Apache License has no relevance to their activities. Licenses are a way of limiting the restrictions levied by copyright law; they give you more freedom than you would otherwise have. If you otherwise have more freedom than a license grants because you are not bound by copyright law, you ignore the license. It's meaningless.

I haven't contributed any code to the Apache-licensed parts of Android, but I assume that you assign copyright to Google when you push your code. That means that Google continues to own the copyright on the whole codebase, and you have copyright on your contributions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The first intuitive programming language for quantum computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115820.htm <comment><USER2> Here's a page linking the actual language and related resources: [https://www.quantaneo.com/Release-of-Silq-A-High-level- Quant...](https://www.quantaneo.com/Release-of-Silq-A-High-level-Quantum- Language_a546.html)

<comment><USER3> Thx. Much better link than the "newswire" link.

They also have a very nice "docs" site: [https://silq.ethz.ch/overview](https://silq.ethz.ch/overview)</comment></comment>


Writing a minimal x86-64 JIT compiler in C++, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> https://solarianprogrammer.com/2018/01/12/writing-minimal-x86-64-jit-compiler-cpp-part-2/ <comment><USER2> This is what I'd consider a "minimal x86 JIT": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746054) ;-)

It's interesting to note that JIT compilation is, for restricted inputs, not much different than self-modifying code. I've used the latter technique several times over the years to get impressive performance boosts, and it doesn't even have to be all that complex --- turning variables into constants and embedding them into immediates in instructions provides the best speedup, especially in tight loops, since it saves a register and/or memory access. Think of a video or image codec --- things like frame sizes, bit depth options, etc. don't change throughout the stream, so "JIT'ing" them with SMC really helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this series also enlightening, especially if you're curious about the LLVM route: [https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/adventures-in-jit- compila...](https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/adventures-in-jit-compilation- part-1-an-interpreter/) (see parts 2 and 3)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, really useful site and article !

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> DynASM is an interesting tool (it's used in LuaJIT). I used it to test integer overflow overhead [1] (mainly because I could specify different expression lengths and test `INTO` vs. `JO`).

[1] [http://boston.conman.org/2015/09/05.2](http://boston.conman.org/2015/09/05.2) [http://boston.conman.org/2015/09/07.1](http://boston.conman.org/2015/09/07.1)

</comment><comment><USER6> How well does [this]([https://youtu.be/dkZ9zdSRQYM](https://youtu.be/dkZ9zdSRQYM)) or [that]([https://youtu.be/tf09vULK7sw](https://youtu.be/tf09vULK7sw)) still apply?

I'm still perfectly satisfied to remove anything like that from my system. There's even ebuilds out there to install full-featured web browsers without including JIT.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing but simple explanation. Really allowed me to grasp JIT.</comment>


Show HN: Call Me Private Virtual Number Service - <AUTHOR> https://callmeprivate.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, it is an honor to present to you a tool that I've been developing for a few months now. Call Me Private ([https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com)) allows you mask your real phone numbers behind virtual numbers for better privacy. You can make and receive calls with local numbers from around the United States and Canada. You may also purchase toll-free numbers if you are in the U.S. and Canada, a must- have for entrepreneurs, startups, and all businesses.

Just some great features you can do with your virtual number:

* forward incoming calls to a specific number

* record incoming and outgoing calls

* turn your number into a conference room

* turn your number into a message-only system (text or audio mp3/wav)

* turn your number into a voicemail-only system w/email and text option

* block individual callers

* block all callers

There are no contracts, setup fees, or cancellation fees.

Looking for a SMS-0nly virtual number? [https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com)

For Hacker News only! Enter in coupon code HACKERNEWS and get 25% off all virtual numbers purchased for your first month!

<comment><USER2> This is awesome, does it support international text?

Oops, found the answer myself, yes it does. Unfortunately not the country I was interested in though :(

<comment><AUTHOR> snowpanda, while the Call Me Private ([https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com)) may not be available in your country, there is Text Me Private ([https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com)) which offers virtual numbers that allow you to send and receive text messages, which are available in most countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> FLUX-YOU I'm sure there's legit personal uses, but to me this seems like a tool for spam.

I'm guilty of answering local area code numbers in higher frequency than non- local area codes. And I imagine someone else knows about that.

<comment><USER3> Why is the phone-spam problem so hard to fix?

I get far more spam calls than non-spam calls. I wish my phone had a setting to ring only for callers in my address book and then give a busy signal to all other callers.

<comment><USER4> On Android (at least with Samsung Galaxy 6+) you can put your phone into do not disturb mode (settings, sounds & vibrations, do not disturb), then set up Custom Exceptions to allow calls and texts from Contacts Only.

I believe you can also do the above on an iPhone, but not 100% positive. My GF has it setup and I'll have to ask her how she did it.

As an added measure, under phone settings, you can block calls from unknown callers as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's hard to tell from the site, but something useful for our business is the ability to have several distinct numbers for different purposes which can be routed to a single number.

Essentially, we have a "parent" company which has several different products which are all independently branded. When a customer calls a support number for one of our products, we want to have that call routed to one of our cell phones or office phones and then be able to tell what product that call was about so we can greet the customer properly. I know that there are existing solutions out there for this already, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can verify as many numbers as you want, purchase as many toll-free numbers as you want, and redirect them to ANY verified number on your phone list.

You can have 10 toll-free numbers all going to one number, or you can have 10 toll-free numbers going to 10 different numbers. Completely up to you.

The ability to record your calls is there too, so you could know what your employees are saying, and go into your logs to check out who is calling who, and listen to the conversation.

It is a work in progress to tell exactly which virtual number is calling you, which at the moment, is distinguished from the logs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> @mattbgates: when someone calls me, what phone number do I see via caller id? Theirs? Mine? Constant that your code chooses? Or random from your outgoing pool? I ask because I only answer if a known number is calling.

<comment><AUTHOR> They will be calling your virtual number. You will see their caller id number. You won't see your virtual number calling you.

If you ever want to see who called a specific virtual number of yours, you would go to your Dashboard and check the logs.

<comment><USER6> Cool, you got that subtle implementation detail right. Other similar services I've tried got it wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on a feature that will actually text you the caller number + virtual number. In case you have multiple virtual numbers, you'll at least know who is calling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some of the "buttons" (not sure if they are?) on the home page under "Make your phone private today!" do not work for me.

Conferencing, Messaging, and Voicemail do nothing when clicked. Safari & OSX 10.13.1

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey notheguyyouthink, those are just "tabbed" buttons to show you the features. Purely aesthetic and just a button for "sign up".

<comment><USER8> It's a cool product. And props for making it happen.

I would second the parent comment though in thinking you might be able to improve the user experience if everything that seems clickable actually is. It might take a little css tweaking only.

Regardless, this seems technically quite impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you sopooneo, I'll see what I can do to make those look not so clickable! Though actually clicking them.. should take you to the registration page. Some browsers .. it works, some it doesn't.. I've seen that!

<comment><USER9> For me only forwarding and recording option renders an actual anchor that is clickable: [https://pastebin.com/fk4dtjfx](https://pastebin.com/fk4dtjfx)

This would explain why some are clickable and some are not.

<comment><AUTHOR> All fixed, thank you guys!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What kind of service is this built on? How can you/they offer unlimited numbers for 1 price? Or am I understanding some of the print incorrectly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey mosselman, it was built using PHP. And it is basically a pay-for-what-you- use service, based on month-to-month cost basis.

<comment><USER10> Hi, thank you for your answer. I didn't mean the language though, I meant the underlying service provider for the phone numbers, etc. Something like Twilio?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, similar service provider to Twilio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if it's more secure than a cellular company against social engineering.

This seems like a good way to protect having your phone number hijacked for 2FA.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know what sort of data services like Twilio collect - do they log message contents or just who's messaging who?

<comment><USER9> I think unless proven otherwise it would be reasonable to assume everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Safe to assume everything.

However:

When using Text Me Private ([https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com)), there is no way for me (or staff) to see or read your text messages. I did write the ability for you to log your own text messages so YOU can see them in the log, however, this was never written so I (or staff) could view them. They are also encrypted so they can never actually be read from my end.

When using Call Me Private ([https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com)), there is no way for me (or staff) to listen to your conversations, not even when you turn the record feature on, or for us to see who you called or who called you, nor do we have any interest in doing so. The whole platform was created to try and give everyone a chance at privacy with virtual numbers.

If you want to know, the only information recorded for business purposes on our end: virtual number | duration of the call | cost of the call

Whatever data you have between you and your friends or family or anyone else is none of my business nor the business of my company. We act as the service provider to give you a virtual number. We're not Google... we're not Facebook... we really don't care what you do in your own time, who you are talking to, who is talking to you, or what you do with your virtual numbers. No offense.. I mean, it's just really none of my business or the business of my company to know your business, other than the fact that... yay, you purchased a virtual number and you are using it.

There are a few spam measures in place to detect certain actions of numbers, and this is to try and curtail abuse of our service, for which it may flag your account.

<comment><USER12> Can you use and provision text me private via an API like Twilio? I'm building a service where fairly sensitive messages will be exchanged.

<comment><USER13> First of all, all text messages are in-the-clear (at least for the service provider). Second, this seems to be a service that is targeted to end-users and itself uses the API of one of the big "cloud telecom" providers.

If you want API access, I would suggest bandwidth.com, Plivo, or, Twilio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cool, this looks like a nice app-free alternative to Hushed. I like the corporate toll-free number support, definitely will be nice when I finally get my business off the ground.

<comment><AUTHOR> UseStrict, interesting enough: I use Call Me Private ([https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com)) and Text Me Private ([https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com)) with Hushed.

I am no longer using my primary phone number.

I receive calls to my virtual number which forward them to my Hushed number.

I also make calls from my Hushed number to my virtual number in order to make outbound calls.

I am in talks of a partnership with them because they work very well together -- of basically going "off the grid" \-- no longer having to use an actual phone number from a phone service provider.

For those who love and are advocates about their privacy, the idea is that you would buy a mobile hotspot and connect to that with an iPhone or Android so you have the Hushed app. They provide you with a phone number. Upon purchasing a virtual number from my system, you now get to keep your Hushed phone number private and use the Call Me Private virtual number service, which are more easily disposable.

Sounds crazy, but you would be virtually be untraceable to any phone service provider in regards to actually using a phone number "on the grid".</comment></comment>


Employees who are treated rudely get their revenge with the silent treatment - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-09-employees-rudely-revenge-silent-treatment.html <comment><USER2> >Employee silence, an increasingly recognized phenomenon, can be costly for organizations. Examples include staff failing to speak up when workplace plans and procedures are riddled with inaccuracies or faulty thinking.

Or you know

1\. The bosses don't give a shit until its on fire

2\. The bosses still don't give a shit even if its on fire

Why say anything if your boss won't care? It's a losing battle after some point and your best bet is to give them rope to hang themselves. Then either the boss gets fired or you get fed up and leave.

</comment><comment><USER3> How do they know it's revenge? What if the employees simply don't want to be mistreated when they deliver bad news?

<comment><USER4> Good question. There's a body of literature on 'employee silence' in the workplace. Off the top of my head, silence is almost entirely fear based. Those in lesser positions are worried about a number of bad individual outcomes from speaking up.

Frances Milliken out of NYU is whose research I read the most, although I think the Wikipedia page is fine as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_silence)</comment></comment>


Mac app store hacked, how developers can better protect themselves - <AUTHOR> http://www.craftymind.com/2011/01/06/mac-app-store-hacked-how-developers-can-better-protect-themselves/

<comment><USER2> Headline is a bit misleading. The Mac App Store wasn't hacked; that implies some tampering with the servers.

What's happened is that some developers haven't fully implemented scrupulous receipt checks, which weakens the DRM considerably.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hardcoding this stuff into your app doesn't make you invulnerable to the attack. One could simply change it using a hex editor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, but hunting and pecking for strings in hexedit is a bit different then opening the info.plist in a text editor.

<comment><USER2> Especially if the hardcoded value isn't the strings themselves but a hash derived from them.

<comment><USER4> That would still be security by obscurity.

<comment><USER5> The only way to protect code running or content playing on an open system _is_ security by obscurity. As a developer, choose your trade-off on the scale between inconvenient-but-quite-secure and simple-but-easy-to-copy and go with it. Any protection will be broken in time. Adjust based on customer feedback and the amount of cracking going on, but that's pretty much all you can do from a technical perspective.

NB: at a low enough level, _all_ systems _in the hands of the attacker_ are open. Hardware DRM is vulnerable to attack by equipment for scraping layers of atoms from the silicon and inspecting it with an electron microscope.

<comment><USER4> Not all systems, not if you're doing server authentication (itunes account?) / code download every time the app starts (e.g. webapps).

That's why DRM is broken by design.

All it takes is one skilled individual to develop an easy-to-use method for cracking the thing, start a torrent and that's it, millions of people have access to it instantly.

<comment><USER5> Surely, if the system is server side, then it's not in the hands of the attacker? For webapps, etc. it's not the client side code that's protected, but the server code and data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would argue that the target audience of the app store isn't tech-savvy enough to do this anyway. Sure, it's easy to HN readers, but to the general public it probably "sounds too hard."

<comment><USER7> > I would argue that the target audience of the app store isn't tech-savvy > enough to do this anyway.

That's what people said about piracy on the iPhone, but I know plenty of non- tech savvy people who use Cydia or whatever to get free apps.

<comment><USER8> The clunkiness of the iOS store has to play at least a part. Compared to using a music player on your computer, Cydia is a pretty user-friendly and elegant way to install applications.

<comment> meat-eater I'm not sure if I misunderstood your comment. But as far as I know most iOS users install apps using the app store built into the device. It's really not much different, if not more polished than the cydia store.

I think the real reason for the popularity of cydia is that 1) it has a user friendly UI 2) you can get apps on it that will not make it to the app store and 3) some people are just too cheap to pay for some apps and use it to pirate them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, that's... Trivial. Does that really work? It's almost like apple wanted to have this happen.

<comment><USER10> It works on apps that haven't implemented the DRM correctly, yes. Not on most.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A completely e-mail based support helpdesk - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Reading the recent thread about the launch of Freshdesk from a HN comment made me go back and read that entire HN thread. While thinking about what a better helpdesk system would be like, I remembered a line in a recent post from Paras Chopra of Visual Website Optimizer, wondering how to cut time on support.
So here's my theory: Early stage startups typically can't afford to have dedicated support guys, so they usually have one of the founders or the developers doing support also. Also, a founder/developer (in such a startup) typically has much better ways to spend his time, than answering support requests. So what if there is a support helpdesk which acts entirely through email?
Imagine: When a support request is sent to email@example.com, the email is read, automatically categorized depending on predefined categories, tagged, indexed, and then assigned to a particular person depending on predefined criteria. An email is then fired off to that person with it's content being the original text of the support request, a list of 5 similar support requests previously handled (numbered 1 to 5), and the actions performed and responses given to those previous requests.
The developer can then simply reply with a command verb such as 'reply 3' to tell the support desk that the same response as the third request in the suggested list should be sent back to the user. Or, if none of the suggested responses match, they can simply type out a new response to that request. Or, if they are working on some crazy awesome new feature, they could simply reply with 'reassign' and the system would reassign the request to another person and send them the same email. The responses are then indexed and tagged and sent back out to the user who first asked the question.
This way developers/founders answering support don't have to deal with clunky interfaces, and they can save time by quickly responding to a query without having to search through a knowledge base or something similar. I realise that this is probably not the way you would want to handle support as your company grows, so there would be easy ways to export all your data for use with some other service too.
So what do you guys think of such a system? Does it already exist? If not, is there a good reason it doesn't already exist? Most importantly, would you use such a service? Why or why not? Also, how much would you be willing to pay for such a service on a monthly basis?
Regards,
chaosprophet <comment><USER2> The problem is that it's rarely that easy.

For support issues that would be as easy and simple as "reply 3", you usually put up a FAQ on your website covering those issues.

But more typically you have people who tell you "I can't get feature Y" to work, and the root cause of the issue is something like feature Y clearly says it is a function to manage a window on a second monitor, and the user has a single display (ie: they have no clue WTF they are trying to do).

Email support handling in general is a good process to try to implement. I've done this several times, I have a support/ticketing system that I wrote (in perl) ~8 years ago that I've adapted to 3 different companies now.

My personal findings in dealing with support queue management efficiencies are more about tailoring the support system to the business. The process you follow for creating a ticket, assigning a ticket, and gathering relevant data can be very different among two companies that have a similar SaaS approach, for example. So, I have a base framework that can read and respond to emails that I adapt to the particular use case.

My system has implemented some of the things you mention though. The "reply 3" concept is a knowledge base of common issues that a tech can look up a KB item, enter an email address of the customer, and the system will send a message to that address with an intro along the lines of "Alice thought you might find the following knowledge base article helpful with your issue. If this solves the problem, no response is necessary. If this does not prove helpful just reply to this email and we will reassign the ticket."

<comment><AUTHOR> To handle cases like I can't get feature Y to work, we could probably have something like a conversation tracker, which tracks all the relevant bits of information the support person asks from the user. Then, the next time another user is having the same problem we could just sort of replay out the prior conversation.

Example: A cannot get feature Y to work because they have a single monitor setup, so A fires an email off to support. The support guy reads it, realizes he needs more info and replies that he needs some more info about A's monitor setup. This reply gets tagged as 'request for more info'. Once, A has replied with the required information, Support responds with the appropriate solution. Now along comes B who is having the same problem, so he sends a similar mail to support. The software realizes that it is a similar issue so it automatically responds with a request for information about B's monitor setup, and after B replies to it the entire information is presented in a single email to the support person along with the email and response previously given to A, who then decides if B gets the same response as A.

In my experience people rarely tend to read an FAQ/KB. I have pointed people to a particular question on the FAQ and then bolded and put it in red, and yet have people miss it. They would much rather send an email griping about the issue than read the FAQ. So I've had to send out the same email repeatedly. This was aimed at solving a problem such as that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you surprised how impotent technology has been with respect to Covid - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No. As a young bioinformatician in industry who has to nearly beg for a salary greater than a PhD stipend for a skill set which would net +30-50% in other settings with more than a years experience and disproportionate responsibilities relative to colleagues(who all get paid equally or more for skills which are more widely available)... I'm trying to leave this field. As a whole I don't recommend it, and if it's not someone like me doing this work, then who is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Technology has been very potent. WFH would be difficult to impossible without widespread networking. Home-delivered pasta would have been possible with a landline, but is still much easier today.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure where you live but technology has been extremely potent where I live. We managed to lower one of the most rapidly growing pandemics from 4 digits a day new infections to one. And we also managed to safely get back into the new normal with no increase in new cases, drive back to the office, open malls, have gatherings.

A lot of this is via communication, daily press conferences, contact tracking, rapidly drafting new laws and emergency procedures. 10 years ago, we wouldn't have been able to effectively work from home. If we were at the tech levels 50 years ago, this would have been a disaster.

And if you think US/Brazil and so on are doing badly, they've still managed to flatten the curve and ramp up mass manufacturing. A lot of that was done via citizen campaigns, weeks before governments started to take action. Twitter may have saved thousands of lives.

</comment><comment><USER5> The fact there are simultaneous vaccines entering final phases of testing as I'm typing this is breathtaking. These usually take years, decades even.

And Yes, I've really enjoyed getting my food selected, paid, and delivered from my phone.

</comment><comment><USER6> what? no.</comment>


Welfare analysis between Groupon and Goldman Sachs - <AUTHOR> http://asiancorrespondent.com/50932/groupon-is-good-goldman-sachs-is-evil/

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting question regarding whether Groupon increases or decreases societal welfare. IMO Groupon is an 'excess inventory' business. They find places which have tables, food, drinks, spots free and sell them at deeps discounts to attract customers to fill those spots. So I do not think that is a net increase in welfare by any terms; since they are not producing or consuming anything themselves and are rather just selling something that is already there.

Moreover, Groupon thrives because a number of people (mainly small retailers, merchants) are worse off, since they have to suffer the consequences of selling at deep discounts, and it is well documented that these people suffer losses due to a Groupon sale. Small retailers build their customer base mostly on repeat customers. However, with a deeply discounted coupon and non- returning customers, Groupon actually leaves a large number of merchants worse off then they were before. Plus, loss of brand value, and group thinking which leads a lot of people to switch their demand curves and expect the same 'groupon' price for actual items, leads to increased loss of welfare. I guess you can argue that the marginal decrease in the welfare of merchants, is compensated by the marginal increase in the welfare of patrons/customers.

So my point being, at best they might have a net zero effect. In most cases, they probably make someone worse off.</comment>


Ask HN: Why not create DOM Tree / CSSDOM in back end before sending to browser? - <AUTHOR> When browser gets html and css, it goes through trouble of parsing it. Constructing DOM, then parse CSS and create CSSOM.
Sum this across millions of users and all of them are doing the same thing over and over again.
What if you could do this once in backend and deliver constructed CSSOM/DOM in binary format.
Wouldn't that be more efficient?
This can easily be integrated into current system.
Browser make http request tells backend it supports a new type i.e.: html/binary or something
Framework in backend automatically parse and construct whole tree and caches it then send it to frontend.
There could be even partially constructed trees for dynamic content ex: user profile
to me it's like getting pizza delivered vs getting ingredients for pizza delivered. <comment><USER2> Sure, it might work. A binary format still has to be _parsed_ , of course, but it would likely be a little more efficient.

One question is whether that efficiency gain would be worth the hassle of a binary format. Binary formats have generally not been a good fit for the web; DNS and HTTP/2 are the only widespread protocols I can remember off the top of my head that are binary. gRPC is binary, and look at the lack of mature toolchains to work with it -- while there are some tools now, the selection is minuscule compared to those available for HTML and CSS.

Binary formats are also trickier to extend and keep backwards-compatible.

<comment><AUTHOR> think of it like webassembly for html/css

right now it's like this

get html -> read html -> read css -> build tree -> calculate styles -> apply styles to tree -> paint the tree

what I'm thinking is this...

get html/binary -> read it -> paint the tree

<comment><USER3> You still have to deserialise it, parse it, and build a DOM tree.

You can't just overlay a series of bytes into browser memory like you can with executable code, because the in-memory representation of the DOM tree is browser specific, and in some cases proprietary and undocumented.

And I suspect that in many cases the possibility of causing buffer overflows and other unexpected side effects by being able to target browser memory direct is too great for browser manufacturers to take the risk.

Java has had the ability to do something like what you propose with object serialisation, and they are considering removing it because of the risks.</comment></comment></comment>