Ask HN: Please review our web app - TellMyPolitician.com - <AUTHOR> http://tellmypolitician.com

<comment><USER2> (Mostly reviewing the site design here, because that concerned me the most.)

* What resolution are you designing for? I'm at a measly 1024X768 and still there's a _lot_ of screen real estate wasted.

* The logo at the top is quite dull - and the 'Be Heard' is near invisible. I think reading that tag line makes your site much more appealing, so make sure viewers see it.

* Much of the text there reads like full of weasel words. "Makes your content more powerful" sounds like utter marketing bullshit, which most people are tired of.

* The backdrop 'curtain' is beautiful. Good work there.

* Make it more obvious that the app is aimed at web publishers; the 'your readers' in the first paragraph hints at that, but it can be made more obvious.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like the site layout and colors. One thing: your css relies on Verdana; you should have a backup set of fonts, the last in the series being sans serif (something like font-family:Verdana,Arial,Luxi Sans,sans-serif;).

Cambria is pretty and popular now (vista font), but it is broke on my fedora 10 box. It doesn't get skipped, it displays badly.

I think the site is a cool idea. Do you intend to sell ads?

</comment><comment><USER4> I work with mileszs on TellMyPolitician. We are trying to get feedback on how to better present this to publishers to entice them to place our button on their site. We eventually want to have our tool added to the likes of addthis and sharethis as well.

We would also love to here your opinion on the tool and how to make it better for users who are trying to contact their politician. Please let us know what you think. We are grateful for any feedback you have.

We originally submitted this to the apps for america contest with sunlight labs. We didn't do as well as we hoped, partly we feel, because we didn't do a very good job showing where our real value lies, which is as a button on news sites. We hoped our new design will better emphasis that goal.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can see how this will result in politicians being flooded with a lot of emotionally-driven comments and rants and therefore be less productive than some coordinated effort which has a backbone of reasoning.

So you may want to consider a way to create something like _I just watched this video, I would like to hear more about the issues than this one video presented to me_ and then contact their rep.

<comment><USER4> I hear where you are coming from. That is partly why we included multiple ways to contact their politician, as well as only allow people to search for their politician by location instead of by name. We want to help out actual constituents, because that is who politicians are most likely to listen to.

There are several tools out there that people use that let people create a form letter on a site and then send that to their politician. The problem with these systems, is that they aren't real people contacting their politicians, they are mass emails, that flood politicians in boxes. Hopefully, our tool will help real constituents contact their representatives with real concerns.

We know right now we won't totally eliminate that problem, but are open to suggestions about how to eliminate them.

Thank you for your input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of a UK site called WriteToThem.com (<http://www.writetothem.com>), formerly FaxYourMP.com, which provides an interface to contact your local MP automatically, either via e-mail or fax.

The people behind it later went on to form mySociety (<http://www.mysociety.org/projects/>) and sites such as TheyWorkForYou (<http://www.mysociety.org/projects/theyworkforyou/>), the official Government Petitions website (<http://www.mysociety.org/projects/no10-petitions- website/>), among others.

</comment><comment><USER7> TellMyPoliticianViaHandWrittenLetter.com would be more effective in my experience. Politicians might not feel guilty ignoring an email/e-communication, but a hand written letter, personally stamped is harder to ignore. A state of Maryland politician in a town hall meeting I went to made this point clear during our towns last NIMBY fight.

</comment><comment><USER8> If I think about the pain points from the perspective of the person supporting whatever issue they are writing about a few ideas spring to mind.

If you could take your app one step further and actually connect the reader to their representative that would be great! Getting people to follow through is the toughest part when asking for this type of action. (I seem to recall a click to call service being reviewed here on HN a while back that could broker a two way connection like this.)

It would also be great to know how effective an article/person/web site/etc. was at getting people to contact their representatives. This information can be really important to smaller - grass roots - efforts.

An example: www.letcongressknowaboutlyme.com The site creator is trying to collect information via email.

</comment><comment><USER9> I installed the plugin for wordpress, but it seems like the links it generates are redirecting incorrectly. Try [http://www.tellmypolitician.com/search/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.g...](http://www.tellmypolitician.com/search/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com) \- for me it redirects to [http://tellmypolitician.comsearch/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google...](http://tellmypolitician.comsearch/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for pointing that out. If you send a request through the site, we can let you know when we have it fixed. Or email me at info at tellmypolitician dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Number of times I have contacted my politician since becoming of voting age: 4

Number of times I felt it did anything: 0

Number of times that I received a response which gave me the impression that at most, i gave them additional marketing information - how many people disagree with what's going on: 4

The last letter I sent, which was about Net Neutrality, went into a lot of detail on how their ideas for how to curb child pornography online would do nothing to actually deter it, how easily it is to get around their idea, how people involved in those markets make it around and aren't averse to using a little more tech, and how their ideas do threaten what does work on the net - it's openness. I made an item by item list of the perceived benefits of their change and why they won't work.

I received a generic response that my representative is working hard to get rid of child pornography on the net, and how this measure will help to do so, listing a number of the reasons that I had argued against while providing nothing more.

Conclusion: writing to politicians is as useful as writing to the mob with policy ideas.

<comment><USER11> I'd like to recommend that you consider doing something I did last year. I ran for office. Something that I think less than 1 in 1000 Americans do at any time during their entire life.

It was a small office, and at the state level. I collected (all by myself) the signatures needed to get on the ballot. The entire campaign came out of my pocket (I spent less than $200 and took no contributions from anyone).

My campaign slogan turned into _no, you can't have a pony_ because of all the demands that everyone made.

That generic response is because very few politicians have the time to even read the addresses on every letter they get. And the way our country has reponded is (and the response is in my opinion the absolutely wrong one) to create the lobbying industry. By throwing money at the politicians, they're getting the access that you should have gotten as a constituent.

I learned one heck of a lot of stuff. About me. About the press. About politics. About all the ways one can screw stuff up. About how little that the majority of people care about things. It wasn't at all like _Mr Smith Goes To Washington_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The search functionality needs to be on the homepage, so I can immediately see the benefits of your product.

Also, I think you should be marketing the search functionality and not the button. Make it easy to find a politician's information and then make it easy to contact them and you will find more people will use your button.

<comment><USER4> There are many sites out there that will get you a politicians contact information. We want to be an alternative that a site like Huffington post, Townhall, CNNPolitics, and others can use to on their site so that their readers don't have to search on another site. It helps publishers out by keeping readers on their page longer, hopefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You should look into what happened with GovWorks.com and try to avoid their mistakes. Research should be easy: there was even a movie made about them.

</comment><comment><USER14> getting people to traverse pages and fill out forms is tough. however there are so many politically relevant comments generated on the web yet they arent directed to politicians. tapping into this existing content production would be a great goal and integration would be the mantra to get you there. a button is not deep enough and doesnt meet the expectations of a modern web user.

<comment><USER4> As a modern web user, what are your expectations? How do you see a tool like this working. Thank you for your input.

<comment><USER15> I think simplicity for the user is important, but whats even more important is simplicity for the representative. Ultimately all change rests in their hands, and if your solution makes their lives and jobs more complicated, they're liable to ignore it.

Imagine getting 1000 passionate emails on a topic that have nothing to do with your job, or demanding we do something about clean air when you've already supported every clean air bill that's gone through your office. By increasing the noise they have to deal with, you make it even harder for real issues to get through to them. Focus on designing this solution around how it would be beneficial to the reps, and how they could better understand whats important to their constituents so they can get reelected.

Heres some quick ideas on how to possibly accomplish this:

1) Let people click a button if a story or issue is important to them and allowing them to add comments. As a rep, seeing 1000 emails is overwhelming, but having a control panel that can easily show you how many people care about different issues is helpful. It could sort the different stories / issues by activity, and you could read comments if it looked like a lot of people cared about it so you could get a better idea of what the sentiment was.

2) Somehow show what the stance of your rep is on that issue. Theres no reason to blast them with comments if they're already supporting the issue.

In summation: If you make something that the reps want to use, then people will gravitate towards it so they can get their voice heard, but if you make something that they don't like, then it doesn't matter how great your users think it is. If it doesn't lead to change, they'll eventually stop using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A recommendation: consider state legislators as well. Perhaps in your next revision?

I only saw the 2 senators and 1 representative in DC. I didn't see any of my congresscritters in Denver (I live in Colorado).

</comment><comment><USER16> What do you think of www.govit.com/email_congress

A little bit nicer flow.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is really cool. I just used it on my site.</comment>


Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601242/qa-bill-gates/ <comment><USER2> Going for C=0 is an impressively ambitious goal.

There is one thing I really like about this proposal. Gates believes our future depends upon scientific advances and resulting technological innovation, supported by modest and easy-to-justify infrastructure improvements. This breaks away from demand-side policy-centered approaches, yes. But more importantly -- to me, at least -- it breaks away from an over- reliance on old science.

To me, this emphasis on science _AND_ technology -- rather than exclusively technology -- is perhaps an even more significant idea than primarily-supply- side thinking.

I think Gates' C=0 goal is probably the locus of this shift in thinking from "force mass deployment of existing technologies using the levers of policy" to "science the shit out of this, then innovate like madmen, and only then enlist public policy when it's truly the only missing piece (see: power grid example from article)".

<comment><USER3> So "demand side" means industrial efficiencies? I always thought of it as, you know, less end-usage.

Yes it's a small share of the total, and no I don't believe it's a matter of policy. It's cultural. Whose job do we think it is to "spend within our means" energy-wise? Everyone's? Or is it industry's job to just "make it work" so that we can keep black-boxing power, as we do water.

Example: I was at an airport café this morning and I noticed that the menu was displayed on three big display monitors. They were probably 42-inch screens, all showing the same static image. There were like 6 menu items, all minor variants on a cup of coffee. They were all clearly visible from every possible angle. The same job could have been done undistinguishably well by any single one of them—not to speak of a printed board.

I know, it's an airport for crying out loud. The energy used by those screens is too small to measure. What concerns me is that we (Americans at least) live in a society where someone—I would say thinks this is okay, but really just doesn't think about it at all.

So I completely agree about where our priorities should be, but I think that those levers would be easier to pull if we as a culture had a little more "mechanical sympathy."[0]

[0] [http://www.se-radio.net/2014/02/episode-201-martin- thompson-...](http://www.se-radio.net/2014/02/episode-201-martin-thompson-on- mechanical-sympathy/) (Where I first heard of it, anyway.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Gates doesn't blame the paucity of miracle technologies on the absence of a > price on carbon

So governments introducing no regulations or taxes around carbon pollution isn't a problem? Would he have said that about ozone depletion or SOx/NOx emissions standards?

This reads like a typical free-marketer's apology for Exxon lobbyists and paid denialists screwing up international cooperation on global warming.

Also nothing in here about using less energy.

<comment><USER5>
        > Also nothing in here about using less energy.

I think we will require a lot more energy than ever before. To produce clean water - possibly from ocean water (desalination) - and to add more and more A/C, possibly using different technologies than today (but they'll still require energy input). Water and heat are becoming more and more of a problem for vast regions. The Middle East already is next to unlivable, setting new temperature records (which will probably be broken again and again in the foreseeable future). We can move hundreds of millions or even billions of people to more livable climate regions, we can let them die, or we can use technology - and energy, plenty of it, on a huge scale.

<comment><USER6> fracking - 70 to 140 billion gallons anually

animal agriculture - 34 to 76 trillion gallons anually

at least we know what wastes a lot of water, the solution is simple, but is not as tasty.

as for heating, yes, it's quite a problem.

withouthotair.com is a great resource for the approximate numbers.

<comment><USER5> Neither fracking nor animal agriculture are being done in the Gulf region, or AFAIK (at least not in large scale, and not in regions without sufficient water) in the Middle East. Regions that _have_ enough water can do whatever they want, why would I save water e.g. in Germany or Washington State (coastal region) when there's a shortage in the middle of India, how would that help? Also, I don't see the US as having a water problem - well it does, but they have the resources to do something about it _whenever they wish to do so_. I'm talking about regions that have a "real" problem, not just one of politics.

<comment><USER6> I've put fracking numbers to point out the comparison.

Animal agriculture is being done everywhere.

I'm doubting people are eating meat from Brazil, Australia and Denmark in US, Asia or Africa so much that these are the main dots of world animal agriculture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what Gates thinks about the Gigafactory, whether it will result it the "magic breakthrough" for energy storage. Without it, Gates asserts we need large DC grids and a 20% gas based peaker capacity.

</comment><comment><USER8> The story is about the new Breakthrough Energy Coalition. But there's no information on how to contact the coalition with technologies they should consider. [http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html](http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html) In fact, their website says this: "BEC does not accept or consider unsolicited ideas, suggestions, information, or materials of any nature whatsoever"

<comment><USER9> Odds of some random individual coming up with a hitherto unknown energy system or source are low. There are other and better ways to discover same.

We've for forces and four root entropic flows to tap: solar, geothermal, nuclear, and tidal.

(Wind, hydro, biomass, and fossil fuels are all solar in origin.)

I'd bet big money there's nothing else will emerge in the next 20 years.

I'd bet on the next 1,000 if I thought I'd live that long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's he saying about a carbon tax? I found it hard to parse.

My best guess at a translation is "the USA is too politically dysfunctional to do the obvious thing that a believer in free market capitalism would do, and so instead we need to rely on pork barrel spending going to energy projects".

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought Gates was seriously looking into Thorium but I don't see any mention of it.

[http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bill-gates-is-beginning- to-...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bill-gates-is-beginning-to-dream-the- thorium-dream)

</comment><comment><USER12> I like the idea of building stuff out of wood. Then we can have nice buildings and store carbon

<comment><USER13> Problem is, good wood grows extremely slowly. Not sure if that can be genetically engineered, or if it is intrinsic to the process of growing cellulose in the right arrangements...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> His piece on China about being the energy hub was interesting. I always get amazed how much China has progressed being the world's manufacturer. China and India have similar number of humans and land but China is really moving its GDP.

</comment><comment><USER15> For carbon, why can't we just find a big hole and start dumping corn in?

<comment><USER16> Because the rotting process would create methane which would seep out easily, its wasteful and ethically questionable (people are still starving, so not even using corn as fuel is pretty horrible). Storing Carbon cheaply and safely is to me an unsolved problem. Especially if you want to do it without wasting tons of minerals (before someone talks about vacuumed dried algae or stuff like that).

<comment><USER17> I like the idea of building stuff out of wood. Then we can have nice buildings and store carbon.

<comment><USER9> There's actually a really good idea in there.

After transport, building materials are a large energy consumer. Coming up with alternatives to concrete, steel, aluminium, and similar materials, possibly though biologics, whether low-tech like wood, or self-forming biocrete and biobrick.

Paving, especially.

<comment><USER17> People are working on it eg. [http://woodforgood.com/sustainability/build- with-carbon](http://woodforgood.com/sustainability/build-with-carbon)

and a TED talk [https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_wooden_skyscrapers?language=en)

<comment><USER9> I'm aware of that (and pointed to a few examples myself).

What I'm pointing out is that energy is a means to some service goal, and in the case of construction, alternate means to ends may well obviate much the need for new energy supplies.

Or taking an alternate formulation: rather than tap energy and convert and store and transform it multiple times to accomplish some goal, employ biological means to achieve the same end with far fewer (loss-entailing) energy transforms.

Trees, plants, algae, and/or microbes, operating over a large area, accomplish a very large net throughput. The questions are whether we can manage that, what outputs are possible, at what rates, and what subsequent changes in capabilities result. I suspect _no_ biologic will have, say, the capabilities of steel. If we're limited to masonry or ceramic-based structures, the age of the 100-storey supertower is gone, but there are a many 10-20 storey towers which might be possible, resulting in high urban densities, if that's what we want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see some interesting points raised here, though I also have some fundamental disagreements.

Putting those first: what we need isn't more time, or an energy miracle. It's to embrace limits, the fundamental limits of Earth's carrying capacity, and how many people, of a given material affluence, can be supported. This is a question I've been looking at for the past several years, or more accurately, I've spent much of that time trying to figure out what the fundamental question was, starting from "what are the big problems?" My answer:

 _How do we embrace limits to growth?_

Gates raises a few really excellent points.

He dismisses the problem of not having a price on carbon. I'd return that not only is that a problem, but we've a much larger issue of not fully accounting for the creation or replacement price of the fossil fuels we've been consuming at a breakneck rate -- some 5 million years of petroleum accumulation are consumed every year. That itself is an accident and error of early economic theory (one which was very nearly corrected in the late 19th century), and of early theories, and derived law, of mineral rights law (look up the "rule of capture" for a few hours of entertainment).

His mini-biographies on Parsons and Deisel, collectively the two people who now power much of the world, was a telling rebuttal to the claim that capitalism rewards innovation. Neither man made much from their inventions, Deisel, as Gates says, committed suicide in the face of bankruptcy.

On the storage front, there is one possiblity that's open to us: liquid hydrocarbons. They're not a net energy gain, but if we're looking for a storage solution that's high-density, highly flexible, and has very long-term proven storage life (100 million years and counting), electrically-generated synfuels offer a plausible pathway. Specifically seawater-based Fischer- Tropsch fuel synthesis, studied for over 50 years by Brookhaven National Labs, M.I.T., and the US Naval Research Lab. There are undoubtedly complications, but it's an underconsidered option.

Also on the storage front, the Dr. Sadoway mentioned is one of the recent superstars in battery storage technology. His molten salt battery isn't something you'd want to put in a car, but with extremely abundant (cheap!) substrates, could form the basis of city-scale electrical storage. Not for hundreds of millions of years, but days to weeks, evening out supply inconsistancies for a grid dependent on intermittent renewables. The fact that this technology is facing obstacles is disheartening. It's also why I advocate both considering sustainable, carbon-neutral paths to liquid hydrocarbon fuels, and embracing limits.

<comment><USER13> I think you missed his point. The earth's carrying capacity for atmospheric co2 has already been exceeded to the point where we have to achieve zero net carbon emissions. Under that assumption, a carbon tax that is not effectively an outright ban is pointless. Also, he does advocate in the article for carbon neutral liquid hydrocarbon fuel production as one possibility although his point is more general.

<comment><USER9> No, I agree regarding CO2. I think it's _also_ only one of multiple global binding constraints we're encountering, though possibly the greatest.

My point is that _in achieving the goal of zero or negative net carbon emissions_ , changing the economic price structure which allows carbon emissions may prove to be an effective tool. It's not that the market solves all problems (something with which I strongly disagree), or that an _unregulated_ market is the only option (a view I reject absolutely as absolutely false, blatantly ahistorical, and a complete misrepresentation of market theory). But markets are _powerful_.

 _At a sufficiently high level_ , and in the case of a carbon tax, that's likely to be _exceedingly_ painful, the option to emit simply doesn't exist.

Bake that price structure, through both depletion amortisation (a much stronger update to Hotelling's Rule, which was based on multiple false premises), and an at-the-source sequestered carbon introduction tax, at all levels of international banking, finance, and trade, and you make it a money- losing proposition to mine coal, pump petroleum, or drill natural gas, _anywhere_.

When I say that the taxes would be painful, I mean increasing costs not by a few percent, but by orders of magnitude. That's going to be heavily traumatic -- it's a large part of what's exploded social unrest across the Middle East in the past five years, and is in the process of tearing Venezuela to shreds. Saudi Arabia and Russia are likely next on the block even if only present trends continue.

So yes: the carbon tax _would_ be an outright ban, though it might take some time (~10-20 years) to fully reach that stage. I'd prefer faster. Hell, I'd prefer we'd taken this approach in 1960 when the consequences were first becoming apparent.

Infrastructure and capital take time to replace. We're looking at rebuilding an airplane in flight. I'm not at all sanguine that we'll succeed.

And: if we _do_ address the CO2 problem, there remain numerous others, most reducing to total population and absolute average wealth (which is to say, resource consumption). Which are likely to destroy what we call modern civilisation even if we do manage the carbon crisis.

<comment><USER13> Got it. What do you see as our next existential threat? AI and asteroids don't really fit this discussion...

<comment><USER9> Us.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Holder Report on Uber - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/13/technology/document-The-Holder-Report-on-Uber.html <comment><USER3> This is not the Holder (well, Covington would be more accurate) Report. The Introduction to this document makes reference to report Covington prepared for and presented to the Special Committee of Uber's board, and to the fact that the full board adopted all of the recommendations in that report.

Beyond the Introduction, this seems to just be the recommendations from the Covington report; the full report (per the Introduction ) was to cover "(1) Uber's workplace environment as it related to the allegations of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in Ms. Fowler's post; (2) whether the company's policies and practices were sufficient to prevent and properly address discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace; and (3) what steps Uber could take to ensure that its commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace was reflected not only in the company's policies but made real in the experiences of each of Uber's employees."

This document only includes the part addressing (3), which implicitly indicates that the bottom line conclusion on (2) was "no", but doesn't really provide any clear information on (1).

<comment><USER4> So is the report available anywhere? (I guess not, or you'd link it.) However, if it's internal, then what happened - just the recommendations were leaked to the Times?

Also, for the moderators: you may want to update the title to "Holder Recommendations on Uber".

<comment><USER5> The recommendations weren't leaked. It was made publicly available by Uber. It is even on their website:

[https://newsroom.uber.com/covington- recommendations/](https://newsroom.uber.com/covington-recommendations/)

<comment><USER4> OK. I should have used the word "shared". So it sounds like they are not going to share the full report, just the recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every new grad: read this. Then file it away and review it as soon as you have people reporting to you. This should be required reading for every start-up founder and every manager at every mid-size and large org, and every person who criticizes the decisions of those people or hopes to be in those positions. Which means every creative, every knowledge worker, engineer, designer, lawyer, physician, all of them. And therefore, almost without exception, everyone reading this comment.

Edit: This is the executive symmary. It contains a lot of _what to do_. Going forward, you don't need to know so much how Uber got into the mess they're in. You need to know how to stay out of similar messes. This is a good plan for how to stay out of such messes.

<comment><USER7> It's also interesting for those looking for startup ideas. The procedures and practices recommended here are ways to reduce institutional maladies based mostly on human activity, but it's probable that many of them could be be achieved, or augmented, through technological solutions.

Think about it: If you can build an innovative piece of tech that genuinely helps implement these policies, or achieve the same outcome in a different way, then you've got a huge market of large, rich organisations who'll be interested. Worth considering.

<comment><USER8> Kapor Capital, investors in Uber, apparently also invest in "People Ops" startups. They're actively trying to feed a problem child into their own opportunities. Smart.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/kapor- uber/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/kapor-uber/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The meat of the document is missing. It states the situation that triggered the investigation, describes the process followed, and gives the recommendations.

But it doesn't tell us what they learned through the process.

<comment><USER10> I agree. The thing everyone wants to know is (stuff like), how did it get to the point that HR employees believed:

1) They should lie about "oh it was this guys first offense".

2) A bad performance review for reporting someone's sexual advances "isn't retaliation because we said you could transfer".

3) It's better to just buy jackets for the men than to buy no jackets or to pay more for the women's.

I mean, you can kind of loosely guess at it from the recommendations, but nothing direct.

<comment><USER11> > They should lie about "oh it was this guys first offense".

There's some implied reasons in the language, though we can't tell whether that was a direct consequence.

> Human Resources Record Keeping > Uber should ensure it has appropriate > tools, including complaint tracking software, to keep better track of > complaints, personnel records, and employee data. > For example, if a > complaint is substantiated but results in discipline other than termination > of employment, relevant stakeholders should be able to easily identify > whether prior complaints have been lodged to ensure that appropriate action > is taken with respect to repeat offenders. Likewise, senior managers should > be able to track whether certain organizations or managers give rise to > multiple complaints such that intervention with the manager is needed. Uber > should also emphasize the importance of recordkeeping to all Human Resources > staff, and impose consequences for failure to adhere to recordkeeping > requirements.

Seems unlikely, given that Uber released it themselves, that the report would provide any sort of self-incriminating evidence. So all we can really do is read between the lines and #deleteuber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While there are some concrete next steps in here (hire a COO, management training, HR training, the "Rooney Rule"), what is the goal and how do these steps connect to it? As far as the harassment stuff, I think the solution is clear: have a zero tolerance policy and enforce it. But it otherwise says the words "inclusion" and "diversity" a lot, but never really connects those words to achievable outcomes and seems superficial. Maybe the end result is to restore Uber's image - in which case doing those things makes sense - <USER2> without any goal posts or authority, many of these recommendations seem to fall short.

<comment><USER13> What measurements do you propose?

<comment><USER12> That's the issue, right? Everyone wants "diversity", but no one wants quotas or hard lines that could discriminate against other groups. I think you need to do your best to root out any biases in your hiring process or people. At Uber's size there is also an evangelism role that can be played to reach out and encourage a more diverse applicant pool to apply for roles. But this report falls flat on how you could possibly measure whether your team is "diverse" or "inclusive" enough and also fails to call out any existing practices, processes or people that would've gotten them there in the first place, opting instead to use those principles as PR tools.

<comment><USER14> I don't know things like "we only bought jackets for the men, because it would be more expensive to buy jackets to the women... so they just don't get jackets" seems pretty divisive to me. You're trying to split hairs, but things like that are so blatant that they are screaming right in your face. If such things were _really_ happening at Uber, then I don't think that your quibbling about "how diverse is diverse" makes any sense. They obviously have issues that need to be addressed, no?

<comment><USER13> So you're in the "I know it when I see it" camp?

There's the aphorism that what's measured gets improved (and what isn't measured gets worse). If you're trying to improve diversity/inclusion, how do you know you've done a good job unless you can measure it?

<comment><USER14> It also depends on _how_ and _what_ you're measuring. If you are (e.g.) measuring diversity, but measuring it in the "wrong way" you could be setting up perverse incentives to game the metrics while not truly achieving the goal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My eyes are bleeding from all the bureaucratic jargon. "Special Committee", "Oversight Committee", "Independent Committee" for the promotions process, checklists for alcohol consumption, human resources training, etc. I dearly hope it doesn't take this many layers of control within a company to ensure a livable atmosphere for its employees.

<comment><USER7> You're just demonstrating the same facile mindset that plagues experts of every discipline, so convinced that the problems of every other field -- of which they are largely ignorant -- are obviously trivial, and could be solved with a bit of common sense.

This XKCD cartoon, basically: [https://xkcd.com/1831/](https://xkcd.com/1831/)

Consider the difficulty most people on this site will have encountered just getting a handful of software components to cooperate successfully. Now imagine trying to do the same with an organisation of thousands of human beings.

Left to their own devices, large groups of human beings easily fall into horrendous anti-patterns. Avoiding or fixing these anti-patterns is not just hard, it is probably the hardest problem human beings have ever faced, given that we have been working on it for the duration of our existence, and we're still mostly terrible at it. This is not trivial, it is mindbendingly difficult.

The "bureaucratic jargon" you mention is just the specialist language that the field of management of human resources has created to talk about the problems they're trying to solve, and the structures they've designed to solve them. And really, it's hardly impenetrable in comparison with even a mildly technical blog post.

When you dismiss problems like this as easily solvable, or the recommendations of experts as bureaucratic jargon, then you're the pointy-haired boss waving away technical arguments why something is infeasible. You're the politician saying ISPs need to put more filters on the tubes to censor the internet. You're the cable host smugly dismissing climatology as fake news.

<comment><USER16> The very idea of startup culture and arguably hacker culture was that that beaurocracy was unneeded cargo cult, and parasites making up justifications for their power.

Should your ideas prevail, then certainly we will see big, big changes in Silicon Valley over the coming years.

 _Going out on more of a limb_ and making more specific, but less certain prediction: There will be a balooning managererial and adminisitrative class sucking up most of the surplus that tech is generating. The workers, i.e. software engineers and artists and sales, will see lowered wages, less perks, less autonomy. They will be commodified.

But in a free market, wont small lean companies outcompete companies with inefficient management sprawl? No, because the manager class will use their political connections to crush anyone that wants to try such a feat.

Those predictions are uncertain, but probable enough that I'd more cautious about going into the field if I still had my career choice ahead of me.

<comment><USER17> _Should your ideas prevail, then certainly we will see big, big changes in Silicon Valley over the coming years. ... Going out on more of a limb and making more specific, but less certain prediction: There will be a balooning managererial and adminisitrative class sucking up most of the surplus that tech is generating._

This has already happened. All those tiny fierce startups, they're not planning to stay tiny startups forever. They are trying to get a foothold and grow into big successful companies that can pursue big opportunities. And big companies inevitably have hierarchies of managers and directors and analysts and whatnot. Even great companies do this. Google has one VP for every 200 people. They're not needed in small firms, because coordinating the work of ten people who serve a couple of hundred customers isn't that hard. But coordinating the work of 10,000 people who serve millions, definitely is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I especially like:

"Uber should consider moving the catered dinner it offers to a time when this benefit can be utilized by a broader group of employees, including employees who have spouses or families waiting for them at home, and that signals an earlier end to the work day."

Note to Linux users: this PDF looks terrible without msttcorefonts installed. I guess MS Word neglects to embed fonts? Also, as someone who is not used to seeing documents generated by MS Word, I'm surprised at how bad the typography is in general (although maybe this due to user error...for example it looks like hyphenation might be disabled.)

<comment><USER19> Isn't the whole point of catered dinner to give people an incentive to work longer hours and have them be taken care of if they're staying at work pretty late? It's not a free meal, it's an incentive to work into the night. It's optional, you can go home if you want. What's the issue? Some people make the tradeoff to spend their life at work, others make the tradeoff to have a family and go spend time with their kids. This gets pretty philosophical, but should we be reducing the freedom of choice and mandating what the correct lifestyle should be for people?

When I visited for dinner one time there were barely any people there taking advantage of it, and the food was actually quite good, so it anecdotally didn't even feel like a systemic issue of people "feeling the pressure to stay at work until 9pm".

<comment><USER20> It sets an expectation. I've never been in an environment where "optional" late-night things like dinner were truly optional. There's an expectation set that you're working at least as late as the dinner, and probably after, regardless of results or the value you're providing to the company.

<comment><USER21> People scoff at these types of things, but these kind of expectations put a lot of pressure on people, and they can have real negative effects. My uncle worked at a place where everyone stayed until 9pm. Technically you could leave whenever, but it was frowned upon, and you wouldn't get a good review. Ultimately his wife left him, he got depressed, and then the company laid him off.

<comment><USER22> Forcing everyone to leave work early in the day puts a lot of pressure on people to come into work early. That's just as bad. The problem is the pressure, not the mealtime.

<comment><USER20> Or, you know, base your decisions on results and business value rather than which particular hours you want to ensure asses are in seats for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Feels like Uber just paid a load of money to get patronized by a well- respected official. Nothing(as far as this public version suggests) in this document should be surprising to a growing company. "You mean if we create a patriarchal company culture that preys on personal weaknesses and demeans women and minorities we're going to have a bad public image? Gee, who would've thought!"

<comment><USER24> Unfortunate as it may be, sometimes in large corporations, it takes paying an outsider to identify and document something, before anything will be done about it.

<comment><USER25> Not sure who said it first, but "a consultant is someone you pay to take your watch and tell you what time it is"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Link to the report itself: [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3863782/The- Holde...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3863782/The-Holder- Report-on-Uber.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER27> According to [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/06/13...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/06/13/a-top-uber-board-member-just-cracked-a-joke-about-women- at-the-worst-possible-time/?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no- name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.5480b857d3c7) One of the Uber board members made a misogynist joke _during the company-wide meeting explaining how Uber was going to fix its culture_. This is... special.

<comment><USER27> Oh God, it gets worse: he _interrupted the only female board member_ to make this ?joke?.

His apology has already been emailed to the entire company. This isn't quite a defenestratable offense, but does illustrate the scale of the challenge ahead of Uber.

<comment><USER28> Did you just use question marks as quotation marks?

<comment><USER29> What's wrong with doing that"

<comment><USER28> I've never seen it before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think this whole Uber situation is a good reminder to the valley that the "No Assholes" rule is still a good policy.

<comment><USER31> I dunno. Uber's "mostly assholes" approach seems to have gotten them pretty far. Perhaps the message is rather that you can be as awful and unscrupulous as you like because by the time it bites you you you'll either be long gone or far enough along to bring on Eric Holder and Arianna Huffington to rehabilitate your image.

<comment><USER30> We'll see, Kalanick has said that without self-driving in Uber's future they are dead.

<comment><USER32> that's the sort of statement that bay area CEOs say when they want something to happen. It doesn't mean it's necessarily true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> According to Yahoo reporting[1], a board member made a sexist joke _at their all-hands meeting to address this report_ today.

Huffington: There's a lot of data that shows when there's one woman on the board, it's much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board

Bonderman: Actually what it shows is it's much likely to be more talking

What a garbage fire.

[1][https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting- tr...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting- travis-194232221.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> While some of the points in the report are legit, I feel most of the content is so general that you could literally change the title of the company to any other tech firms and it will probably still work.

I genuinely believe that people work hard because they believe what they do has a meaning, not because the company serves free dinner/beer/water at 7pm or 8:15pm. I don't understand why you should run a fast-paced startup like a non- profit. As someone who used to work in law firms, not only we don't have catered anything, we regularly stay till after 10pm and on-call during weekends/holidays so we make barely the same, if no less, than a first-year engineer. And you let a law firm make "better workplace culture" recommendations. I am so lost.

<comment><USER35> I'm willing to believe that at a certain point in a startup's life cycle, it is reasonable to expect the early employees to work non-stop. It's also reasonable to sell your product early on at a loss, to garner interest. But at a certain point, if your customers are not willing to pay enough for your product to cover the costs, you've got a problem. Likewise, if your business only works if your employees are working 80+ hours a week, you have to ask yourself if you really have a viable business.

I think this point comes a lot earlier than most people are willing to admit. If your startup needs 10 people to get off the ground and you can only afford 5 who work 'round the clock, that's one thing; if your startup needs 20,000 people and you have 10,000 working 24/7/365, that's another.

I will also concede there are jobs worth devoting every waking moment to, because they are worth doing, because they satisfy you intellectually or emotionally, because they save lives, because you will benefit greatly, personally from the work, materially or in reputation. But a lot of tech and other professional jobs are a lot more predatory than that. You take a lot of young people straight from one environment which lionizes the all-nighter and accomplishing arbitrary assigned goals (college), drag them to a new place where they don't have friends, family, or anything else which either makes demands on their time or gives them meaning and validation, and then encourage them to work non-stop on projects with no clear moral pay-off and a financial payoff that accrues to other people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This smells a lot like a pentesting report: pay people a lot of money to make a report, persevere with current bad practices, then when litigation comes up say "Hey, we took this seriously. Look at all the money we spent on this report!"

<comment><USER37> Idk, a lot of heads rolled, including the supposed right hand man of the CEO that was supposedly behind some egregious things. What more can we say should have been done without seeing the information behind the report?

<comment><USER36> This may just be my cynicism creeping in here, but I suspect the head rolling had more to do with quarterly results, and this was just an opportunity to cover those up with "virtue" signaling.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s- lo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s-loss- exceeds-800-million-in-third-quarter-on-1-7-billion-in-net-revenue)

<comment><USER36> Cynicism vindicated:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/06/13...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/06/13/a-top-uber-board-member-just-cracked-a-joke-about-women- at-the-worst-possible-time)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> While some of the points in the report are legit, I feel most of the content is so general that you could literally change the title of the company to any other tech firms and it will probably still work.

I don't understand why you should run a fast-paced startup as a non-profit. As someone who used to work in law firms, not only we don't have catered dinner, we regularly stay till after 10pm and on-call during the weekends/holidays so we make barely the same, if no less, than a first-year engineer. And you let a law firm make "better workplace culture" recommendations. I am so lost.

<comment><USER38> Well, for one, Google does offer the catered dinners. If Uber didn't, then the engineers either wouldn't stay late (ideally; workaholism is bad), or they'd go somewhere that does offer that kind of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very interesting recommendations, but no mention of the CTO, Thuan, who was called out by Fowler herself in her blog post.

</comment><comment><USER40> > Uber should establish key metrics to which its leaders will be held > accountable in the performance review process. This would include, for > example, metrics that are tied to improving diversity, responsiveness to > employee complaints, employee satisfaction, and compliance.

Every metric has the power for evil. This will be gamed, simply by measuring these things behaviour will be affected in unpredictable ways. I understand the challenge they're up against but I absolutely cringe at turning some of these subjective items into metrics.

</comment><comment><USER41> Blind Résumé Review stands out.

</comment><comment><USER42> Don't think for a second that these are isolated incidents. These things happen all the time, it just so happened that people like Susan Fowler fought back. I've seen these things happen constantly.

</comment><comment><USER43> Random thought: Marissa Mayer (who hacker news informs me, just quit her previous job) could potentially be their COO

<comment><USER44> "quit"

<comment><USER45> I don't understand the scare quotes. The division she was hired to actually lead was sold. There's no reason for her to stay. They can easily find a bean counter type -- and pay them a hell of a lot less -- to manage the remaining investments.

<comment><USER46> Apparently, they're paying the bean counter _twice_ as much. [http://fortune.com/2017/03/13/yahoo-new-ceo-marissa-mayer- ne...](http://fortune.com/2017/03/13/yahoo-new-ceo-marissa-mayer-net-worth- salary/)

<comment><USER45> Well that certainly looks like a pretty sweet deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm mostly unimpressed. Most of the suggestions are just process changes, which often just obfuscate organizational issues and cripple performance. The only value is the signal it sends to employees that affect the culture negatively.

The most substantive recommendation, IMO, is that they suggest a COO that controls most of the day-to-day. It's a clear move to reduce the CEO's power, and most likely a path to remove the CEO in the future unless the CEO regains power, which is unlikely.

<comment><USER48> I disagree. There are lots of things here that are very widescale, and as the board accepted _all_ of these suggestions, assuming they all happen, I think real change can be realised within Uber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Bottom line is this...

At some point EARLY on, you're going to want to put some thought into casting a wider net for talent and wrapping your heads around the fact that people from different (age, gender, racial, ability, socioeconomic) backgrounds can be a strategic asset to developing a world class orgs.

Throw away the notion of cultural fit where you assume people have to like what you like and think how you think to "fit in". That's bullshit and extremely limiting.

Build an environment where everyone feels whole and contributes.

You WILL sacrifice some of the benefits of that frat boys club environment a lot of early stage startups have.

You will gain the type of insight that will allow you to navigate an increasingly divese workforce and (US and global) consumer base.

Be willing to make mistakes. It's a clumsy process.

Uber is going to have a hell of a hard time retrofitting a less toxic culture and the numerous leaks we're seeing points to an employee base that's begging for change.

Successful high growth orgs of tomorrow are gonna be the ones stumbling towards getting this shit right today.

</comment><comment><USER50> So is this the full report, or an abridged version for public consumption (as was indicated might be released a few days ago)?

<comment><USER3> It's just the recommendations from the report with an added introduction about the process that motivated the report and what the Board did (accept all the recommendations) with the report. It is not, misleading headline aside, the report itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> So Mr. Holder, were you able to confirm the veracity of Susan Fowler's descriptions of her experiences at Uber?

Mr. Holder?

Is this thing on?

<comment><USER52> On what planet would any company publicly release a document that creates a slam dunk civil case against them, unless required to do so by law? The goal was for Uber to get the value insight of outside counsel, not for all of us to do so.

Susan Fowler can file a civil case and get a copy of the full report to read to a jury, but Uber's lawyers and outside counsel would have to be incompetent to let them release the full report publicly.

<comment><USER51> A planet on which a $70 billion company was facing an existential threat which required it to convince the public it was serious about change, which it could do with an acknowledgement, an apology and a settlement of a few million.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Anyone have plain text or HTML of this content? _Update:[https://pastebin.com/L0Qf7Ddp](https://pastebin.com/L0Qf7Ddp) _

</comment><comment><USER54> I suspect Uber has a _Hudsucker Proxy_ situation going on.

</comment><comment><USER55> TLDR version. Anyone?

<comment><USER56> Give more independence to oversight groups and more authority to the board, and institute basic, common HR practices like keeping track of complaints of employees, doing performance reviews of executives, and clarifying how promotions/pay work.

[edit] Oh, and number one: decrease Travis Kalanick's power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> If someone can write 13 pages in bullet forms about things you need to change, you're not doing your job very well...

<comment><USER58> If you can't write 13 pages of bullet pointed recommendations to any client, you aren't going to be successful consultant.

Move the catered dinners to earlier times? Now that's padding.

<comment><USER59> That's actually a crucial part of the culture to me - my company does dinner at 6PM, which everyone in the company knows is motivation for keeping people at work until then. I'm very thankful it's not 8:15PM. I don't want to be expected to work late daily and then have it disguised as a perk.

<comment><USER60> 6 pm is way too early for dinner. We don't work on farms without electricity.

<comment><USER59> For the US, 6 PM is a normal dinner time, electricity or not. If you're in Europe, I understand where you're coming from. Mind you, that's the start - you can come and get food as late as 8PM if you please. The point is that for the most part, everyone can get their dinner at the time they want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> So long Travis.

<comment><USER58> Is he firing himself?

Because he still has absolute voting control and at least another $6B in the bank.

<comment><USER61> You are correct. But this is the start to the end. CEO's rarely bounce back from forced leave of absences and loss of responsibilities... Coupled with the Waymo lawsuit there is a lot of momentum in a less than good direction for him.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do I  find a robotics consultant? - <AUTHOR> I need a robotics consultant to write a technical feasibility study for a  gig <comment><USER2> I have a friend that does this. I'll reach out to him. We're in Buffalo, NY. In the meantime contact me at jon kiddy at gmail and I'll see if I can introduce the two of you.

<comment><AUTHOR> email sent, thanks!</comment></comment>


Medical doctor for #slack teams - <AUTHOR> https://www.icliniq.com/apps/slack <comment><USER2> Hi Everyone,

The idea to make an app on slack to access icliniq's medical second opinion services is based on the belief that "messaging app as a platform" is the future. Slack is more than an app and essentially a community.

We are really excited to say that we are the FIRST in the world to do this on slack.

We are looking to launch on product hunt soon. We are looking forward for your comments and feedbacks to improve our product before launch. :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Well. It looks like OUR slack bot was posted way too early even before the early crowd gets on board. :) Anyways we have got the feedback we need to get. Will work to improve the product soon. Especially to role out the enterprise version.

</comment><comment><USER3> You guys are making doctors pervasive, which is super cool. However, I'm concerned about my privacy when getting in touch with slack rather than may be get in touch with you secretly!!

<comment><USER2> Good question, vkris. Actually the replies come on your personal "slackbot". So its completely secure and private as no one in your company or team can see it. To answer your question in simple words, this is indeed a SECRET way to get in touch with doctors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty straightforward approach technically..!!

<comment><USER2> Yes. But the concept is unique we suppose. :)

<comment><USER4> Oh yes.. I presume first of it's kind in medical consulting implementing slack... Correct me if I'm wrong..</comment></comment></comment>


Researchers develop cross-browser fingerprinting technique - <AUTHOR> It's been known since around ~2010 that browsing the web with javascript enabled allows third parties to track you across the internet irrespective of whether you have DNT/cookies enabled or use incognito mode. It seems that now similar approaches can be used to track you even if you use different browsers [1] and the source is available if not fully complete [2].
Quite a good talk on this last year at MS Research[3].
This raises a question - will we see users start to disable javascript in the same way as they have started to enable DNT and (to a degree disable cookies)?
[1]:https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/14/researchers-develop-cross-browser-fingerprinting-technique
[2]:https://github.com/Song-Li/cross_browser
[3]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y1Y96jC5AA <comment><USER2> 1\. To directly submit a link, leave the |text| field empty on the submit page.

2\. Often there is little need to explain why a link was submitted because it is assumed that the person submitting it thought it was helpful or interesting.

3\. But it is ok to add a regular comment after the story appears on the |new| page.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> okay, I will bare this in mind for future submissions</comment></comment>


Researchers map a building in 3D using WiFi-enabled drones - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/19/researchers-map-a-building-in-3d-using-wifi-enabled-drones/ <comment><USER2> This Engadget post doesn't have much more than a summary. The linked researcher's page [1] has more information. These radio imaging project always seem to have interesting results, but I have not seen a lot of commercial development of the ideas. Does any one have good examples of in-use commercial applications?

[1] [http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~ymostofi/3DThroughWallImaging.html](http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~ymostofi/3DThroughWallImaging.html)</comment>


Show HN: Breathe – Peripheral Breath Trainer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/filipeisho/breathe/ <comment> amar-laksh KISS Solution for Linux: imv breathe.gif

-> imv: [https://github.com/eXeC64/imv](https://github.com/eXeC64/imv) (or any other really lightweight gif viewer)

-> breathe.gif: [https://quietkit.com/img/box-breathing-4x-v03.gif](https://quietkit.com/img/box-breathing-4x-v03.gif)

-> Set it to a custom shortcut and press q to close window.

<comment><USER2> I put this gif into a floating window, with a chrome extension using the Picture-in-Picture API: [https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/picture-in- picture/](https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/picture-in-picture/)

Chrome extension: [https://github.com/b3ting/breathe](https://github.com/b3ting/breathe)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love it! I thought it wasn't going to stay on top when I switched to another app but it did, it works great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love this. I have ADHD and anxiety/stress issues where having occasional reminders to concentrate on myself and get back in touch with things like this actually really helps.

One quick comment. Aside from speed control, which wouldn't be terrible, being able to resize it or park it in my menu bar (prefer that) would go a long way towards usability.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am glad you like it! This was a quick demo to see if it was useful for someone. I was hoping to implement the same idea on the menu bar and on the touch bar (for people who find a window annoying). A quick question: Why would you like to resize the window? To make it bigger or smaller?

<comment><USER3> Smaller. I just need to see a hint in my peripheral vision to know I should use it, and only need it to be very obvious while I am using it.

If you parked it in the menu bar, I could drop it down like a hanger when I needed it.

I probably would _not_ suggest pulsing the menu bar icon itself or at least making that optional. Having something constantly pulsing in the corner of my eye wouldn't be great for flow. Having an occasional reminder to drop down the hanger might be nice though.

<comment><USER4> I had the exact same experience. I put together a bare-bones menu bar app for macOS. See my comment above for the link!

Edit: It does pulse within the menu bar which works for me, please let me know if you find it distracting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It should change color (even just shade) as a function of its radius so you can learn where it is in the cycle from deep peripheral vision.

<comment><USER6> How would this work? My understanding is that there's no colour in peripheral vision. I guess a change in shade/intensity would be enough?

<comment><USER7> There is minimal color, yes, but I suppose one's brain will learn to "fake it" once it figures out size-color correlation during those times you're paying it direct attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/awesome-breathing-pacer- timer/...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/awesome-breathing-pacer- timer/id1453087953) I've been using Awesome Breathing. Presumptuous name but simple and does the job.

</comment><comment><USER9> For those interested, James Nestor's book, "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" [0] is absolutely fantastic on this subject.

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890486](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890486)

</comment><comment><USER10> It would be cool to control Phillips Hue bulbs on this cadence as more of a background cue to breathe

</comment><comment><USER11> That's awesome. Is there a way to custom speed or it's actually what you should aim at? It feels super slow for me.

<comment><USER12> That's actually how it should be. I think you should aim for 4 to 5 breaths per minute, I don't remember the exact number.

The technique is described by Kelly McGonigal in "The Willpower Instict" as being the only scientifically proven "quick hack" to make your brain relax and focus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! I hardcoded the app to make 4 seconds breathing in, 4 seconds holding your breath, 4 seconds breathing out and 4 seconds holding your breath again.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps instead of allowing full control you could have different modes? I like using the 4-7-8 Method[1] but there are lots of different breath exercises.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-C_VNM1Vd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-C_VNM1Vd0)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am quite new to breathing exercises but I also like the 4-7-8 exercise a lot! I was thinking about implementing the most known exercises and then have the option to create your own exercises. A lot of people have been pointing out that the app was way too slow and that it was difficult for them to keep up... I think that maybe if they can increase progressively the duration with custom exercises they can adapt better (it's just a theory)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this so much. Thank you!

Especially for the "peripheral" part: For me it works better to "check-in" to the ongoing process once in a while than having to remember to start an app etc.

What didn't work for me was the window-based approach because I could never find a good place to keep it. For whatever reason, I happen to use all four corners of my screen all the time (!).

But I still wanted to have something peripheral! So with your inspiration, I created a basic MacOs Menu Bar application that animates the 4:4:4 ratio breathing. This works better for me personally now.

-> [https://github.com/akaalias/menu-bar-breathing](https://github.com/akaalias/menu-bar-breathing)

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool! Breathing ex are so powerful. I founded moonbird which is a personalised breathing trainer!

Http://www.moonbird.life

</comment><comment><USER15> I just saw an EDC video[0] that featured a Komuso Shift[1], which is basically just a small metal tube that acts as a regulator to slow your breathing.

I don't know what component of HackerNews enjoys "luxury" EDC items, but the idea of a hysical breath regulator is somewhat interesting to me.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVMGOfKdHQg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVMGOfKdHQg)

[1]: [https://www.komusodesign.com/](https://www.komusodesign.com/)

<comment><USER16> Yo, is that an $85 dollar straw?

<comment><USER17> > which is basically just a small metal tube that acts as a regulator to slow > your breathing.

I'm curious if COVID facemasks have a similar beneficial effect on breathing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very cool. It would be nice if it was cross-platform, but I understand that that would have been a bit beyond your 5 minute scope. (I use Mac, Windows, and Linux roughly the same amount daily)

<comment><USER19> Agreed! How about possibly converting this to an in-browser web app to get around the platform hurdles?

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone on the comments implemented a chrome extension that opens up a gif with the same ratios as breathe (4-4-4). It works great to be honest. Here is the link: [https://github.com/b3ting/breathe](https://github.com/b3ting/breathe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is great! I think this would be quite cool as a chrome plugin (solves cross platform issue). You could also make the circle bigger every 20 mins or so to remind you to breathe and avoid distractions. Kindof like a pomodoro timer but where the break is breathing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am glad you like it! Someone on the comments implemented a chrome extension that opens up a gif with the same ratios as breathe (4-4-4). It works great to be honest. Here is the link: [https://github.com/b3ting/breathe](https://github.com/b3ting/breathe)

I think that the idea of breathe reminding you to do breathing exercises during regular intervals is great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice! I've been using for the last 10 minutes and find I sometimes miss the visual cues on my big monitor. It might be nice to have an option for subtle audible cues as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried some iOS apps and some of them had audible cues as very low chords (they were very relaxing) but since I am someone that listens to music a lot I thought they would bother other people... Quick question: imagine I have a magic way to make you not miss any visual cues from the app, do you think it would still be nicer to have audible cues?

<comment><USER21> Not knowing what you're thinking about makes it hard to answer that question but I'd be happy to give it a try!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a similar visual shared on mental health discords when people are suffering anxiety or panic attacks, though granted likely with a less accurate breath cycle

[https://media1.tenor.com/images/80b6db690c2f50bd9a876ca0f70e...](https://media1.tenor.com/images/80b6db690c2f50bd9a876ca0f70e82d6/tenor.gif?itemid=8455215)

</comment><comment><USER23> It's so cool! I've been trying it for a few hours and it really work! Good job!

</comment><comment><USER24> Can't breathe this slow even if I try. I normally breathe 30 times a minute.

<comment><USER25> If you're breathing both in and out 30 times per minute, you should probably speak to a doctor. There are a number of medical concerns that could be behind that, and rapid (and therefore shallow) breaths can fail to rid the body of carbon dioxide, making your blood overly acidic.

<comment><USER24> > making your blood overly acidic.

What are the symptoms of that? I'm almost 40 and never had any health issues so far. The breaths are shallow but I'm surprised to hear my breathing is abnormal so I should probably speak to a doctor.

<comment><USER25> > Slowly developing, stable respiratory acidosis (as in COPD [chronic > obstructive pulmonary disease]) may be well tolerated, but patients may have > memory loss, sleep disturbances, excessive daytime sleepiness, and > personality changes. Signs include gait disturbance, tremor, blunted deep > tendon reflexes, myoclonic jerks, asterixis, and papilledema. [0]

So, quite possibly nothing, or nothing you'd realize. Bodies are adept at compensating. But there are potential concerns, and also, a chronic (and compensated for) issue can acutely deteriorate.

I am not a doctor, though.

[0] [https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/endocrine-and- meta...](https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/endocrine-and-metabolic- disorders/acid-base-regulation-and-disorders/respiratory-acidosis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So simple and such a good idea.

Have you noticed a difference in your anxiety or productivity?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been using it all day and I felt way calmer. For me (I think I am a fast breather) it feels like I am meditating when I am able to follow the breathing exercise. Since it has been a day since I started using it I can't tell anything about productivity but what I can tell you I have been working happier :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> How about having a real-time feedback regarding your breathing rate?

<comment><USER22> And how would it know your breathing rate?

<comment><USER28> Apple Watch but tied around your throat?

<comment><USER20> lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love this

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Kasparov Proves No Match for Computer (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/tech/analysis/kasparov/kasparov.htm

<comment><USER2> My favorite story from this whole episode is how a _bug_ in the program "was likely what allowed the computer to beat Kasparov. In the popular recounting of Kasparov's match against Deep Blue, it was the second game in which his problems originated—when he had made the almost unprecedented error of forfeiting a position that he could probably have drawn. But what had inspired Kasparov to commit this mistake? His anxiety over Deep Blue's forty-fourth move in the first game—the move in which the computer had moved its rook for no apparent purpose. Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He had never considered that it was simply a bug."

From _The Signal and The Noise_ : [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/26/n...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/26/nate- silvers-the-signal-and-the-noise/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably the first of only two occurrences where Kasparov's ego-based self- belief collapsed. That mysterious rook move in a drawn endgame spooked him, and seeded the doubt.

Doubt is a costly thing in tournament conditions, doubt about the opponent leads to doubt in your own ability to predict your opponent's moves. So you start looking at more candidate moves at each branch of analysis, and also you start rechecking lines again -- all against the candidate move approach. All this costs time and effort, and tires you down quicker. So weaker patches of play become more regular, unless you buckle down and keep it under control, another source of energy leak.

And over a series of games, in trying to hold that back, Kasparov probably eased off a little in the last game, and committed perhaps the worst blunder of his career, in a line he knew very very well from the other side of the board.

The second time Kasparov's self-belief collapsed was the Braingames World Championship match with Kramnik. But this was less to do with being spooked, and more with the evidence his opponent was far more prepared - perhaps for the first time in Kasparov's career.

Kasparov wears his emotions on his sleeve. A lot of his incredible conceptions are a display of his aggressive creativity and stamina. An emotional battle is one core part of Kasparov's armoury, along with well-prepared innovations and surprises, and his capacity to find aggressive moves that keep his opponent off balance.

I am so impressed for how long Kasparov has kept his game together. Right up to his last tournament in 2006, 25 years playing chess of such quality and magnificence. When others junior to him faded and burned out around him - Shirov, and perhaps recently Morozevic.

And Kasparov, like all chess players, needed to find reasons, external reasons, to explain the failure. In the Deeper Blue match, the paranoia of not seeing analysis printouts from the machine prompted the suggestion that the IBM team were hiding something, like a human grandmaster making that move. It's necessary in the make-up of a chess player to find an external reason, because otherwise it is a clear demonstration of fallibility in tense situations.

(The book "The Inner Game" about Nigel Short's path to challenge Garry Kasparov in 1993, talks a bit about how chess players need to put disasters out of their mind, to be able to play the next game in the match. That ability allowed Short to come out in the next game and sometime produce amazing moves and pushed Kasparov, despite the heavy losses.)

The interesting part of the Deeper Blue match isn't that the computer won the last game, but the human factors of that mysterious rook move right at the start of the match. It set off an emotional reaction in Kasparov, which lead to the spectacular collapse in the last game.

Interesting too is how Kasparov somehow overcame this collapse. Somehow the effects of this disaster didn't seem to affect the rest of his playing strength. He somehow regained complete confidence in himself.

I don't think his match loss to Kramnik was affected by this, Kasparov was just outthought, outplayed, and out prepared by a better player. Kramnik rose to a fantastic level to win that match. Kramnik's fitness for one, was impressive considering his past lifestyle.</comment>


My favorite one-line jquery alternative - <AUTHOR> const $ = (q) => document.querySelectorAll(q);<p>To be a blazing fast electron app, I've build www.monsterwriter.app with W3C standards only. <comment><USER2> But I've been assured by Hacker News that it's impossible to work with javascript without first compiling it from a language that compiles from another language into a frontend framework that virtualizes an entire Linux architecture.

What is this demon sorcery?!

</comment><comment><USER3> This post is making me think I need to change my Chrome extension that injects jQuery as a content script.

I assumed injecting a new/different jquery wouldn't break most sites, but if people are doing this then it definitely would.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hacker News (this page) actually does something very similar, but getElementById is more widely supported...

        function $(id) {
          return document.getElementById(id);
        }

</comment><comment><USER5> The MonsterWriter app looks awesome, I'll check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank You! The most important think I need at the moment is feedback :) I've you have any remarks on that, let me know!</comment></comment>


"Don't Move to Vancouver": Why I Changed My Mind After 6 Months - <AUTHOR> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cWVAfdoXLvgJ:www.anabellebf.com/dont-move-to-vancouver-why-i-changed-my-mind-after-6-months/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

<comment><AUTHOR> I lived here for 19 years and she hits every point perfectly. What the fuck am I still doing here?</comment>


The telephone number will be dead in 10 years - <AUTHOR> https://ronaldlangeveld.com/dead-phone-numbers <comment><USER2> > "how often do you give a phone number to another person to contact you? With > apps like Telegram, KakaoTalk, Twitter and Facebook, those platforms are > fast becoming the norm for contacting your friends and family"

The last time was two weeks ago, to schedule a telephone call with a prospective client. The time before that was about four weeks ago, when we bought some furniture and wanted it delivered.

The world isn't only "friends and family."

> "Nobody roams - it's overpriced and stupid."

Note, "The EU has ended roaming surcharges for all people who travel periodically within the EU. ... Since 15 June 2017, people pay only domestic charges." [https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/roaming- tariff...](https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/roaming-tariffs)

There's no reason that can't also happen in the US.

> "I don't even remember the last time I made a voice call."

Last Monday we called our health care provider concerning our sick child. I don't see how that can be replaced with Telegram, etc.

On Wednesday our kid's preschool called.

Yesterday I got a call from the furniture store to arrange a delivery time.</comment>


Real World Test: .Com vs. New GTLD Domain Names - <AUTHOR> http://globerunner.com/com-vs-new-gtld/

<comment><USER2> It's going to take a long time for the general public to learn to trust "random" or non-recognised domain names. I'd expect .com/.co.uk/.net/.org to perform better conversion wise.</comment>


Dear HN: Please make this a simple Flash game - <AUTHOR> http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs19/f/2007/284/0/b/Extra_Value_Combo_Alpha_by_Lysol_Jones.jpg <comment><USER2> We already have a "taste" of that game with Mugen: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP23QugkbHI></comment>


Ask HN: What's a good coffee pot for implementing the 418 protocol? - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
My office coffee pot is almost 200 feet away from me and I'd like to be able to check the coffee status without walking over there. What's a good coffee maker to use?
I'm thinking one that has a weight sensor in the hot plate that can report the fullness of the pot, or a timer that tells how long it's been since the last brew, and an ethernet or wifi connection. Nothing too complicated, if possible. I don't actually know anything about http or networking other than a couple of vocabulary words. <comment><USER2> Sounds like history repeating itself. Try a webcam.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> reduce the problem as much as possible... use a single serve espresso machine. Volume remaining and freshness aren't really a problem in that context.

The best kind of code is the kind that doesn't get written.</comment>


And now we give you, the Powered triple gear (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXjevOY_uk <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to the paper that talks about the theory and construction:

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.6859></comment>


Ask HN: Favorite fiction books of 2018? - <AUTHOR> Similar to this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18743465 but I'm looking for fiction, poetry books to read next year. <comment><USER3> Three Body Problem (this one's probably going to get mentioned a lot, and it absolutely deserves it). The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi. Red Rising (series) by Pierce Brown.

I almost gave up on Three Body Problem because it starts off a little slowly and it's difficult to see where the book is going. Absolutely worth it in the end, though. The second two are the kinds of books you can rip through quickly if you've got a little extra reading time over the holidays.

<comment><USER4> Glad to hear the trilogy was worth continuing! I tore through the first one in about 3 days – admittedly the start is very slow. Will have to pick the other two up now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Permutation City by Greg Egan - Hard sci-fi about what might happen if we could scan human minds in sufficient detail to simulate them in computers. Best treatment of this topic I've ever seen.

Diaspora by Greg Egan - Takes the idea much, much further. What might happen to humanity if virtualized "human" minds embodied in robots or not embodied at all became the two most common ways for people to be. Also, fascinating and surprisingly rigorous diversions into math and physics.

<comment><USER6> Greg Egan is a true treasure. I would love to know more about why he seems to have pulled out of traditional publishing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stormlight series by Brandon Sanderson. This is my first foray into high fantasy, and i absolutely loved these books. I also enjoyed sci-fi novel, The Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

<comment><USER8> I liked the mistborn series even better. Check it out. I still can't figure out how they're related though.

<comment><USER7> that is where i'm going next :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison was a favorite. Intelligent, conflicted characters and such a superb interplay of geological science fiction.

<comment><USER10> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Foundryside from Robert J. Benett - it's a fantasy novel where magic system is based upon reverse engineering power words and jealusly keeping them secret from other trade organizations. Magic in that world is literally intellectual property and is compiled into huge dictionaries which aren't far from being programs. The whole "feel" of the world is very victorian - something akin to Dishonored if anyone played this.

The prose is very readable, the characters pretty awesome and it's just such a very fresh take on fantasy.

Goodreads: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37173847-foundryside?fro...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37173847-foundryside?from_search=true)

And The Verge ("Foundryside is a cyberpunk adventure wrapped in an epic fantasy novel"): [https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/23/18148907/foundryside- rob...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/23/18148907/foundryside-robert- jackson-bennett-fantasy-cyberpunk-book-review)

</comment><comment><USER12> Almost a day late, but I'll throw this in here if people come by later looking for more suggestions.

From this year, I read all but two of the Haruki Murakami books and all short stories. I love his writing style (great translations), and the fact that the stories are about not all the time realness. Kafka on the Shore is a great starting book. Also Norwegian Wood is another example, though this strayed away from the magical aspect I like of his.

Another from this year was The Dubliners, collection of short stories from James Joyce. I was stuck in Dublin during a snow storm this past spring, so I'm sure this lead me to like the stories more, but I swear they're amazing and I haven't found anything else like them. They're all tiny points in people's lives, and the things that happen make differences for the people or are also easy to remember and not forget. Get one with reference notes in the back too.

Besides those, Love in the Time of Cholera was another one way up on my list. Similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I think I prefer slightly more, but reading both is interesting to read since Cholera was written 20 years after Solitude and we can see how the author changed over time.

Overall though, my absolute top tier books are East of Eden, Catch-22, and My Struggle (Knausgaard). 1000% read those. I like including these so if somebody reads this and likes these books as well, they can somewhat trust my other suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER13> Currently reading the three body problem. It's been reccomended here a few times but I still quite like it.

<comment><USER14> The trilogy is fantastic

<comment><USER15> +1. Read the series earlier this year and really enjoyed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I read Infinite Jest for the first time this year, and it's incredible. I recognise at the same time it's not for everyone, but the story, writing style, humor and sheer specific knowledge on so many subjects employed in this book are incredible.

<comment><USER17> It's one of my long-time goals to read this book. I read the first few chapters and it was amazing, but sadly life intervened and I couldn't continue.

I'm curious - did you read it on its own, or did you read some kind of resource along with it? I've seen recommendations to read it alongside websites/books that help understand it.

<comment><USER16> I read it on its own, on an ebook reader where the annotations don't work (bad android app). Generally I only have to look up the occasional word or two to get some of the word jokes (my favourite being "[making his exam by] a single dento-dermal layer", meaning "the skin of his teeth")

I am reminded of the foreword, the author of which I forget, who said that it clearly isn't a breeze to read, you have to put in actual effort to understand the damn sentences. This is totally true, if I let my mind wander as with any other book, I have to go back and re-read it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff Brilliant. It's considered "literary fiction" but I found this book to be an absolute page-turner, much more so than what is usually described as a "page-turner". The summaries / back-cover marketing copy can't do it justice.

Florida - Lauren Groff Sublime, poetic, haunting collection of short stories.

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang Exhalation - Ted Chiang Being released in May 2019 (I got an advance copy), but many of the stories are previously published and/or available online. "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" is just wonderful. Ted Chiang's work is the definition of economy in storytelling. Absolutely quality over quantity.

The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death's End - Liu Cixin I'm not sure how fulfilling it would be to just read the first one. They really feel like a single (big) novel. Worth it.

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O - Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland Kind of Stephenson-light(?). Smart, entertaining and seems destined to be a TV series.

The Secret History - Donna Tartt A bit slow to get going. Lots of Greek, snow, and booze at a private liberal-arts college in Vermont.

The Grownup - Gillian Flynn (short story)

</comment><comment><USER19> Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of- tim...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time)

</comment><comment><USER20> East of Eden (John Steinbeck) is one of my new favorites of all time. Once you get past the opening descriptions of valleys and farms, the story is relatable, gripping, and unexpected.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt.

I read a lot of fiction (30+ novels a year) and this book really blew me away.

Oh and by the way, it's not about Samurai or Japan or anything like that. If you're interested in thinking about the nature of intelligence / learning while reading some beautiful prose, get this book.

</comment><comment><USER22> The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie (the Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and the Last Argument of Kings). They're quite dark but surprisingly funny and maybe the most readable novels I've ever read. Absolute page- turners.

<comment><USER23> I tried to read it previous year and found the books incredibly boring - <USER2> of the characters are exaggerated and flat, the story is really nowhere to be found after 300 pages and the use of English language was simplicistic.

I only got through ~300 pages before giving up though, maybe a plot arises and takes the lead but I never reached it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I stuck to the classics. Kafka's Castle is absolutely brilliant. I read it greedily, just couldn't stop. It doesn't look magical at first sight but I could feel the atmosphere, the temperature, even smell.

Other than that Nabokov's Lolita is just celestial. And it's not only about the wording which is beyond beauty. Sometimes I caught myself thinking that this book reads me not the other way around. It's very precise, very unabashed, very intimate. Sometimes it looks surprisingly like your own reflection. Can't recommend enough.

</comment><comment><USER25> I enjoy easy page-turner sci/fi or fantasy because it helps me unwind after a stressful day at work. Some of my favorites this year:

\- Vengeful and Vicious by VE Schwab \- Collapsing Empire by Scalazi (late 2017, but close enough to 2018)

Not released in 2018, but still fun and new to me this year. \- The Red Rising series by Pierce Brown

<comment><USER3> I really enjoy Scalzi, so I was surprised when I didn't know about the Interdependency series. The nice thing was by the time I finished Collapsing Empire the second book in the series was released (The Consuming Fire). I haven't started it yet, but it's next in the queue!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _Past Tense_ \- Lee Child

 _The Forbidden Door_ \- Dean Koontz

 _The Crooked Staircase_ \- Dean Koontz

 _The Outsider_ \- Stephen King

 _Sleeping Beauties_ \- Stephen King & Owen King

 _The Fallen_ \- David Baldacci

 _Zeroes_ \- Chuck Wendig

 _The Supernatural Enhancements_ \- Edgar Cantero

 _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ \- Walter M. Miller Jr.

 _A Wrinkle in Time_ \- Madeleine L'Engle

</comment><comment><USER27> The Lies of Locke Lamora. Not a new book, but I read it this year and as a fan of the thief/conman type in fiction, I found it fun. Will probably pick up the next one next year.

<comment><USER28> Yes! The audio version narrated by Michael Page is incredible too. I'm on book three and don't want it to end.

Incredible voice acting, gripping storyline, and hilarious dialogue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have thoroughly enjoyed The Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells also very good, except the price for book 2+ are ripoffs at $12 for only 150-170 pages.

</comment><comment><USER30> Enjoyed:

\- Chocky - John Wyndham

\- Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

\- The Eight Mountains - Paolo Cognetti

\- The Executioner Weeps - Frederic Dard

\- The Invisibility Cloak - Ge Fei

\- The Midnight Fox - Betsy Byars

\- Ms Ice Sandwich - Mieko Kawakami

\- Such Small Hands - Andres Barba

\- The Thief - Fuminori Nakamura

\- Ties - Domenico Starnone

\- Trick - Domenico Starnone

</comment><comment><USER31> Certainly not published in 2018, but I read and really enjoyed Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought series, which begins with _Fire Upon the Deep_.

<comment><USER32> _A Deepness In The Sky_ is an all-time favorite of mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> _The Power_ by Naomi Alderman.

Can't remember whether it was this year or last year, but Walter Jon William's _Metropolitan_ series is great, too.

</comment><comment><USER33> 'The man I think I know' by Mark Gayle. No kingdoms at war or cyborgs. Just a good read about male friendship with an interesting starting point.

</comment><comment><USER34> Really loved the Auora Rhapsody (Rising + Renegades + Disonant) by G.S Jennsen. It's an epic 9 book space opera that has both Hyperion and Commonwealth Saga beat. It's a must read.

[https://www.gsjennsen.com/books](https://www.gsjennsen.com/books)

</comment><comment><USER35> Best:

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah

Disappointments:

The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin - gimmicky nonsense. I realize I'm in the minority.

Autonomous - Annalee Newitz - This guy falls in love with a robot that is basically being described as in the shape of a refrigerator, among other things. I couldn't get over how stupid it all was.

<comment><USER17> > The Stone Sky - NK Jemisin - gimmicky nonsense, I can't understand why > people keep recommending it.

Did you read this after the first two? It is the third in a series, and IMO not as good as the first one (the second was also less good).

That said, the first was _great_ , one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long time.

<comment><USER35> Sorry.. my mistake I meant to write The Fifth Season. I probably won't read the rest of the trilogy. I've edited my original post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> * Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft. It was fantastic, a steampunk world with a little bit of everything, and a protagonist that starts off as a git, but by the end transforms into a likeable hero, without losing track of who he was. I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Drowned Worlds, Jonathan Strathan (Ed) - Stories of climate change. One of the stories will make it real to the reader.

Circe, Madeline Miller - Entertaining and memorable tale with many characters from Greek mythology.

</comment><comment><USER38> An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green - Just solid, approachable sci- fi.

</comment><comment><USER39> Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami was my favorite of the year. I'd highly recommend it.

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry ran a close second, and I'm in the middle of Wolf Hall and quite liking it, too.

</comment><comment><USER40> Anything Brandon Sanderson, with Stormlight Archives as the crown jewel.

</comment><comment><USER41> Trinity by Leon Uris.

It was a historical fiction about Irish independence and has become my favorite book.

</comment><comment><USER42> Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

<comment><USER43> Stoked to see this book mentioned here; it's among my favorites. Stegner's "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" is good too; IMO it has higher highs but is a weaker effort overall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Expeditionary Force, an ongoing series. Has become my favourite light sci-fi.

<comment><USER45> I love this too. Laughing out loud more often than any book(s) before. Recommended. It's an easy read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> American War by Omar El Akkad. Incredible post-apocalyptic civil war story.

</comment><comment><USER47> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18746712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18746712)

</comment><comment><USER48> Published in 2018? I liked The Outsider by Stephen King

</comment><comment><USER49> "Off to Be the Wizard" from the Magic 2.0 series</comment>


5 Steps to Build a Faster Web Crawler - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@flemmerwill/5-tips-to-build-a-faster-web-crawler-f2bbc90cf233 <comment><USER2> This article has a lot of useful information. I've developed some web scrapers myself and have noticed a couple of things:

A lot of developers will write scrapers that download a page, parses whatever information it needs, discards the page, then moves on. A better practice is to save the contents of the page in case a piece of data was missed or parsed incorrectly. It saves a lot of time and bandwidth over re-scraping the pages, though that would have to be accounted for during development.

The second thing is that the article mentions using concurrent requests. This will definitely speed things up, but it can be dangerous. Some domains use protection like Cloudflare to block aggressive requests, so a high number of requests to one domain from one source may result in the bot's requests being blocked or the bot's IP being blacklisted entirely.</comment>


What is the correct configuration for lisp in business web app? - <AUTHOR>

what is the correct configuration, elements of stack, for a business web app written in common lisp? a trustworthy http server for load traffic, security? what is the way to integrate this with lisp, or communicate? is there a ready to go stack for production quality web development common lisp? <comment><AUTHOR> php has apache, os is python and ruby, very easily and ready to go, well tested and maintained. how dos it go with common lisp? is http servers like portable serve and hunchentoot reliable? is it better to use apache? is it possible to use common lisp seamlessly with apache as one use it with portable serve and hunchentoot, here i mean the in memory nature of the code not file based scripts model?

<comment><AUTHOR> Aren't there anybody with insights or knowledge or suggestions?</comment></comment>


Getting out of a bad place - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/bad

<comment><USER2> I was surprised by how similar Sivers' advice is to the Budha's teachings.</comment>


Hackers Open Up Offline Play + Fixes for Sim City - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/hackers-open-up-offline-play-modding-tools-for-simcity/

<comment><AUTHOR> So much for "significant engineering work is needed to allow offline play in Sim City".

So EA threatened people to block their origin account on asking for refunds, told that the engine is designed in a way that does not allow offline play and what not and we are finding this now!

Good time playing Sim City guys, I'm not buying any EA game in future.</comment>