Declassified documents show why the US and the USSR came  close to war in 1973 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/opinion/stumbling-toward-armageddon.html <comment><USER2> > For many years we thought the aggressive Soviet behavior during the war was > a ploy to undercut American influence, or gain access to oil or warm-water > ports. The new evidence suggests it was simply a case of bad crisis > management.

Never attribute to malice what you attribute to incompetence....

<comment><USER3> Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

<comment><USER4> I love everything about this sentence.

It also feels very relevant to current events.

<comment> barrow-rider > It also feels very relevant to current events.

What events are you referring to? Having a heart-to-heart honest communication isn't going to solve shit if the parties are greedy as fuck, or out-and-out Nazis.

<comment><USER4> > What events are you referring to?

A lot of events, all over, but mostly politically and with offenders on both sides. Neither is interested in even trying to understand the underlying emotions and reasons for the actions of the other. They're both so bad at understanding each other that at this point all they see is malice.

> the parties are greedy as fuck, or out-and-out Nazis.

Case in point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >When Mr. Brezhnev's message arrived, Mr. Nixon was reported to be indisposed; Mr. Kissinger and the White House chief of staff, Alexander Haig, decided not to wake him up. Instead, Mr. Kissinger called together a meeting of principals to consider America's response. They moved the nuclear alert level to Defcon 3, the highest since the Cuban missile crisis.

Maybe time to wake the president if you're chaining the defense condition...

<comment><AUTHOR> Nixon was suffering from mental illness and taking daily mediation without a prescription. He was under heavy stress from the Watergate scandal.

Schlesinger (Secretary of Defence) ordered military not to react to orders from the White House unless he cleared them first. Nixon ordered bombing raids that were silently canceled by Kissinger.

<comment><USER6> This demonstrates a break down of democratic order IMO.

If the president is incapable, as Nixon was in your description (and in [https://www.alternet.org/drugs/huge-role-alcohol-has- played-...](https://www.alternet.org/drugs/huge-role-alcohol-has-played-oval- office) linked down-thread), then there's a procedure wherein the VP takes over, isn't there? Not performing this procedure is deciding to contradict the democratic will of the people.

Now, I can see how you might not want to publicly remove the president in a military crisis situation; but the way it was done seems completely wrong, just assuming power without due process, countermanding the president whilst they remain the president .. (as Nixon was CinC surely that's reason for a Court Marshall?)

Did the people ever react to that, have anyone punished? Or are the USAmerican people happy to have a VP secretly assuming power, a Secretary of Defence that chooses when to obey orders, etc?

<comment><USER7> Remember that cabinet officers and military personnel take an oath to uphold the constitution of the US and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same" Fealty to country supercedes following orders, always.

<comment><USER8> Sure, we on the sidelines remember, but do the current crop of cabinet officers and military personnel?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Late 1973 - when I was fourteen - was a seriously scary time. I have a very clear memory of hearing on the news one Saturday afternoon that Arab forces were moving against Israel, and of hastening outside to tell my father, who was mowing the lawn. I still consider it a defining moment in my life: Like September 2001, or the Kennedy assasination. Always surprised that noone else seems to recall it like this. To me, that was truly the start of the dreary seventies, very much the deat knell of the last remaining sixties optimism. Oil shortage real or imagined, rising unemployment, a crisis spirit that stayed with us for many years and still cast shadows. And the nuclear alert. It was known at the time that the US had gone on heightened alert. It scared me shitless, I remember.

<comment><USER10> I'm reminded of the lyric, "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969." That loss of optimism is exactly what Henley was singing about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good lord I've heard before about how there was a close superpower conflict in 1973. This is very alarming, and it could still happen between the US and Russia or China.

We're really playing with Fire if you look at the number of close calls there have been with nuclear weapons. The only sane way we can carry on guaranteeing a decent existence for mankind is to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

[https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear- alert/64...](https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear- alert/64941032228992/)

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/cuban-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/cuban- missile-crisis-russian-roulette)

<comment><USER12> We actually have slowly begun having less and less nuclear weapons, you just don't hear about it

[https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Stockpile- History...](https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Stockpile-History.jpg)

<comment><USER13> This is true, but once you start looking into it is highly misleading. A huge (and maybe only) reason for this is advances in targeting systems.

In the 70s and 80s targeting systems were much worse, so you might expect to send tens of nukes to destroy a single reinforced bunker, since many would miss by hundreds of meters to kilometers. So often you needed tens of nukes for a single strategic target.

Nowadays targeting systems are so good and launch / reentry vehicles so reliable that a single nuke can hit exactly in the right x-y coordinate and in the exact z coordinate sweetspot to destroy that bunker. So you don't need as many.

So the number of nukes has gone down, but the destructive power is quite similar, although I suppose in the event of an all-out war we'll have less fallout.

<comment><USER14> "So the number of nukes has gone down, but the destructive power is quite similar" is very, very false.

The _military efficiency_ is quite similar, however, the destructive power has dropped significantly - these targeting improvements resulted in much less powerful warheads being necessary to achieve the same goal, so not only there's much, much less warheads (10000 vs 60000 at the height of cold war, and "only" 3000 of those 10000 are available at short notice) but also each warhead is much less destructive, the "default" warheads have gone down from multiple megatons to 100-150 kilotons.

This means that an all-out war will not only have much less fallout than in 70s, but also much less civilian casualties, much less destruction of cities, etc, etc. In the 70s, if a military base near a city would be targeted, then the city would be eliminated along with the base; now it'd likely be targeted with just something like 100kt bomb with much smaller impact; if the target was in the middle of the city, then most of the city would survive.

<comment><USER15> It is still perverse that we allow some few countries to stockpile 100 of thousands of Nagasakis. All of the world is held hostage to the whim of a hand full old men in the US, China and Russia.

<comment><USER14> A big reason why this stockpile is considered necessary is to prevent questions in the form of "why should we allow ..." \- if you have such a stockpile, then the obvious answer to any such questions is that you don't have to ask for permission for anything ever, as nobody can force you to do anything or prevent you from doing what you want, you have the ability to not care about what someone would "allow" you to do. This is the ultimate guarantee of "noone orders me around" sovereignty; if it was technically possible for the world to disallow USA, Russia or China "to stockpile 100 of thousands of Nagasakis", then it might become possible for the world to disallow USA, Russia or China some other actions against other countries or their own people, and that's not acceptable to their leaders.

<comment><USER15> It's good that you make the distinction between leaders and population, because when it comes to nuclear weapons we are all losers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The mixing of sleeping pills and alcohol causing poor decision making reminds me somewhat of Elon Musk's recent outbreaks. I believe I read somewhere he is currently taking lots of Ambien.

<comment><USER17> Maybe we need 3 Presidents for each shift. If you woke me up at 4am, I'd be so grouchy I'd press every button around me.

<comment><USER18> This is actually a brilliant idea

<comment><USER19> Just the fact that someone went through the hassle of a presidential campaign indicates that whoever wins will have way too much of an ego to share his job with others :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented an all-out nuclear war in 83: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)

<comment><USER21> Vasili Arkhipov also helped to prevent nuclear war in 1962: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov)

Boris Yeltsin also had enough presence of mind not to launch a counter-attack to what was presumed to be a US first strike in the Norwegian Rocket Incident: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident)

Unfortunately, there are too many close calls involving large scale nuclear conflict that are publicly known: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents)

Who knows what the actual number is. Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity, and refugee migrations into the mix. Not blowing ourselves up will really be a challenge, something we as a species have to get right every single day...forever. Let's hope it's not our Great Filter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The interesting thing to me in this article is that basically the equivalent of 'the deep state' — the intelligence services — acted to control the worst impulses of the leader, something that I sincerely hope is also happening in both countries right now.

<comment><USER23> Which "worst impulses" are you concerned about controlling "right now"? Because the only impulse providing a check against Chinese and Russian national interests globally, is the current administration's readiness to go to war - if necessary - to preserve a semblance of rule-of-law. US soft power hegemony was spent, utterly depleted during and after Gulf War II. Rebuilding it requires a hard power economic and military commitment no other candidate/administration was willing to undertake.

<comment><USER24> It's remarkable how different people can read the same actions in very different ways.

"Rule of law" is not something I would ascribe as a high priority to the current U.S. administration.

<comment><USER23> Really? Because the South China Sea dispute is an excellent example. Nobody supports China's sovereignty claim over the disputed islands. International law and custom does not support China's claim. Who is standing up for rule of law? The current administration. The same can be said of chemical weapons use in Syria, and Russian assassinations in the UK, trade manipulation by China, etc. Rule of Law isn't what you think it is, and it doesn't work in the manner you assume.

<comment><USER22> Lol, most of the republicans in the administration don't believe that international law even exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's a direct link to the archive: [https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/505/yom-k...](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/505/yom- kippur-war)

</comment><comment><USER26> > If there is a lesson today's leaders should heed, it is that in the end, > luck always runs out.

The good 'ol hot-hand fallacy in action. It surprises me how easily otherwise intelligent people in positions of significant power (in regards to their situation, such as an unchallenged boss at a small company all the way up to national leaders), forget that what they believed to be true yesterday could easily not be tomorrow.

Challenge your assumptions constantly.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you're interested in this sort of thing, check out the book _Essence of Decision_ , by Graham T. Allison.

It analyzes the Cuban missile crisis under three different models for understanding how organizations make decisions, and talks about how one might make sense of the facts in light of those models.

It's a fascinating read. The situation comes out feeling like a particularly operatic Kurosawa movie. Only the whole thing actually happened.

</comment><comment><USER28> If anyone is interested in reading a modern, hopefully fictional take of a similar situation, I recommend the 2020 Commission Report by Jeffery Lewis.

[https://www.amazon.com/Commission-Report-Nuclear-Attacks- Aga...](https://www.amazon.com/Commission-Report-Nuclear-Attacks-Against- ebook/dp/B079VDR6HM)

<comment><USER29> I wouldn't. Seems to me that the author is cashing in on his ability to fear- monger rather than providing something of substantial value.

<comment><USER28> I found value in understanding how disconnected chains of command/advising can impact decision making, as well as lessons in assuming how your adversaries will interpret your actions is not always correct.

It certainly is an approachable layman's novel, not an academic piece.

Definitely worth the few hours it took to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _Declassified documents show why the US and the USSR came close to war in > 1973_

I read that and immediately thought "probably because their leaders were goddamn idiots," then chastised myself for being so reductionist.

Then I read the article and the answer is, literally, "because Nixon and Brezhnev were blasted on booze and pills."

</comment><comment><USER31> This author suggests the lesson is that a leader's time always runs out. What I took out of this history (as a student of it) was that if something crazy comes across the wire, be patient. Sometimes ignoring the cable / letter that doesn't fit is the right call.

</comment><comment><USER32> >> Mr. Brezhnev had developed an addiction to sleeping pills that, combined with alcohol, was undermining his ability to think straight.

And this person was the leader of evil empire for 18 years!!! How lucky we are that he hasn't started the nuclear war.

</comment><comment><USER33> What a fitting article on #worldmentalhealthday.

</comment><comment><USER34> "A nuclear standoff. One leader is drunk. The other is delirious. The underlings scramble to avoid the worst. This is not an end-of-the-world Hollywood thriller, or an episode in President Trump's erratic diplomacy."

No matter you're opinion of Trump, I find it extremely off putting when you are reading an article and the author feels the need to get in a jab like that, on either side of the political spectrum. I have seen that in other lectures before, and I feel it undermines the credibly of the author.

<comment><USER35> Upvoted because you're making an actual argument.

I couldn't disagree with you more, though. The comparison is precisely between major world leaders who are either insane or evil -- it wasn't clear back then, and it isn't now.

<comment><USER34> I would agree more if there was an actual juxtaposition in the article between Nixon and Trump, but after that, Trump was never mentioned. I interpreted it as the author wanted to take a free jab just because they could, and that is the part that is off putting to me.

<comment><USER36> Now you are not just making an argument, but a convincing one. As much as I enjoy jabbing at our fearless leader of the free world, cheap shots are boring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Two things strike me after reading this.

1: How much conflict has been spawned due to the UN Partition plan which created Israel? I haven't dug deep into the factors that led to this decision (I'm sure the aftermath of the Holocaust was understandably huge) but the idea that a new sovereign nation would be created catering to individuals who don't currently live in the land which consists of that new nations borders just seems absurd to me.

2: Maybe this is ageist on my part but after watching hours of Senate committee hearings this year (Zuckerburgs testimony and the Kavanaugh hearings) I would not be against a mandatory mental health check up for our highest officials which includes some sort of mechanism to remove them from office if they are determined mentally unfit to serve. I can't imagine the pressure that government officials deal with everyday but I don't think its safe to assume that the levels of bureaucracy are enough to contain an individual who is mentally unfit from making rash decisions that can affect the nation.

<comment><USER23> >1: How much conflict has been spawned due to the UN Partition plan which created Israel? I haven't dug deep into the factors that led to this decision (I'm sure the aftermath of the Holocaust was understandably huge) but the idea that a new sovereign nation would be created catering to individuals who don't currently live in the land which consists of that new nations borders just seems absurd to me.

Okay, so why not do some reading on it before deciding its absurd? Tens of thousands of Jews were displaced during and after WWII and no country would take most of them, period. Go back, get educated, and then post the less "absurd" alternative.

>2: Maybe this is ageist on my part but after watching hours of Senate committee hearings this year (Zuckerburgs testimony and the Kavanaugh hearings) I would not be against a mandatory mental health check up for our highest officials which includes some sort of mechanism to remove them from office if they are determined mentally unfit to serve.

The 25th Amendment and Congressional Impeachment power provide such mechanisms for removal. As for diagnosis, and similar to your prior comment, you really need to understand how politics works before you propose candidates submit to psychological evaluation prior to assuming elected office. In other words... who then is going to evaluate the (unelected) evaluators?

<comment><USER38> I agree that the argument of Israel created all the conflicts on middle east is a little bit lunatic but I disagree with you with the rest, forcing the choice of where to put the displaced Jews after WWII on Palestine's shoulders was a little bit unfair at least.

And it's not that they chose Palestine as a destination, nobody of the allied forces had a plan to offer asylum to the ~6mi jewish population in Europe and they didn't want to stay in Europe. UN forced his hand on making the immigration official (which was til that moment mostly illegal because it was surpassing quotas established by Britain/Palestine government). Imagine today if the ~1mi Syrians in Germany went to UN and ask for part of Germany territory just because they cannot mix nicely with the local population and the UN agreed, how fucked up it would be.

It's like stealing your neighbor money and donating to a good cause, is it wrong: yes, but are you going to make the world a little bit better: also yes. It also puts your neighbor in a very bad position, if he let it goes he loses his money, if he fight for it he's the guy who doesn't share his money for good causes.

<comment><USER36> A better analogy would be if the UN carved out a new state for 1 million of New England refugees.

A new state carved from the old Anglo-Saxon homelands in present day Germany.

(You have arabs and jews, two semitic peoples, once closely related but in recent times highly antagonistic. In a similar way you'd have the English, largely a germanic people, but with a strong hailing from the same Germanic ur-tribes.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Both have been fighting proxy war since then in Afghanistan and other countries. Pakistan fought proxy war against USSR for US and has since been bearing the loss. And now Trump says Pakistan doesn't do much efforts. US used Pakistan as their scapegoating.

</comment><comment><USER40> I was listening to a podcast about a Scandinavian sounding rocket causing Boris Yeltsin to insert the key/codes in the nuclear briefcase and _nearly_ pushed the button to launch a counter attack if that rocket were a surprise American attack. Apparently, it was proactive readiness and the Russians only disclosed week/s on to not alarm people unnecessarily.</comment>


Email service Pobox "joins the Fastmail family" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pobox.com/2015/11/exciting-news-about-pobox-and-fastmail.html <comment><USER2> Our (FastMail's) blog post is here: [http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/11/03/fastmail-acquires- pobox-...](http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/11/03/fastmail-acquires-pobox-and- listbox/)</comment>


The Atlantic to Install Paywall - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-atlantic-to-install-paywall-joining-wave-of-publishers-diversifying-revenue-1513594800 <comment><USER2> > A spokesperson for the Atlantic said the magazine will launch with annual > pricing equivalent to "one fairly nice cup of coffee per month.

If every online property asks me to do this, I would be buying wayy too much coffee and losing too much cash.

That being said, it is a difficult problem and I'm not sure what the answer is. I pay for my NYT and WaPo subscription, but probably can't (or won't) be paying for Atlantic.

I really really like Vox media though, but they don't seem to have a subscription based option. Also: Politico.

<comment><USER3> I say pretty much the same thing when charities try to get me to sign up for a monthly payment.

If I gave money to every charity that asked for it, I wouldn't have any money left myself.

Maybe what we need is a sort of central payment system for news media. Sort of like Spotify for news, except that the outlets keep their own sites and you have a single sign on for all the sites. Your monthly payment would be distributed according to how many articles you read on each site (or some other, more fair metric to reward high quality articles, maybe time spent?).

<comment><USER4> There's already an app that I know of that does that - or at least close enough. Blendle is an app where you pay per article you read, paid through your in-app account. My uncle uses it to selectively read articles from some large publications.

I think one downside is that those publications don't let you sign in on their systems, so you have to rely on the availability of the articles through a third-party. I agree that it would be great to have publications allow you to sign in through a third party system instead of their own. Maybe we can hope for one in the future?

<comment><USER5> Also, while I'm sure it's there for practical reasons, the per article price makes me very uncomfortable. There's this split second decision that I make as open an article - is it worth my time? To ask "if it's worth my money?" before every read seems less than ideal. For instance if my music service asked me a penny for every song I play, I'd probably end up listening to a lot less songs than I do.

<comment><USER6> Blendle offers instant refunds for this reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would really be happy if there was a journalism company that I could pay for quality articles.

Unfortunately, most articles are low quality. Clickbait journalism is like this - a lot of people produce things that people would be willing to pay to _not_ read.

The quality articles are also extremely rare; most media sites are one hit wonders, creating only one or two quality things. So a subscription would not be helpful either.

I think a better way to monetize would be to write a book or something, collecting the best of the best, or digging deeper into an idea that went viral. Tim Ferriss and Cal Newport comes to mind.

<comment><USER8> You're looking for things like blendle.com. I don't use this particular service because they don't allow "+" in email addresses.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL that's the reason that I gave up trying to subscribe to the WSJ digital edition, even after as much Imliked heir Theranos investigation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see paywalls as win-win deal.

The abundance cliché tells us that more news outlets reaching more readers is always a good thing.

In reality though for the news producers, what's the point of reaching many millions if you become a slave of advertisements and of the competition for people's attention?

And from our perspective as readers, we should drop the abundance mentality and understands our news consumption much like we understand our food consumption. There is the equivalent to consuming too much food and to consuming unhealthy food. Consuming more don't make us more informed. As Steven Pinker says, even when it's honest and good, "News is a misleading way to understand the world". It's all about dramatic events that just happened and slow but powerful and meaningful evolutions naturally take the backseat. But they do make us meaner, angrier, more pessimistic.

I prefer to choose to consume less news, but to really enjoy the ones that I do consume. And "I am ready to pay for it?" is a very good assesment of wether that's the case.

[https://www.vox.com/2016/8/16/12486586/2016-worst-year- ever-...](https://www.vox.com/2016/8/16/12486586/2016-worst-year-ever- violence-trump-terrorism)

<comment><USER10> Agreed, paywalls are a win-win because it has the potential to remove the chains of clickbait and pulp. Except that "a cup of coffee" is a US-centric term which doesn't apply everywhere in the world. Not everyone in the world (or even the US) can afford to spend those few USD a month on a news outlet. And if they, they can only afford to buy so many cups of coffee. So a lot of people who can't afford won't resort to it. Except, perhaps, in their native languages.

(Comment written on the cost-free, advertisement-free website Hacker News.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found I was reading a few Atlantic articles here and there so I thought sure why not support journalism and sign up for subscription. Signed up for print and digital.

The whole experience was awful.

After three months I never received a single print copy. The only digital edition I could access under android was the one that was freely available anyway. I couldn't access the premium content. For that I had to go and download the PDF which is quite suboptimal. The IOS app wasn't great either.

(EDIT: I should say that I was back and forth with their "support" numerous times about my issues before I took the decision to cancel)

In the end I cancelled, but it took a few goes to get in touch with anybody about it... I figured out how to do the cancellation myself on their "site" but even then had to go through some third party fulfilment agency to get the full refund. Promised me a cheque. Cheque never arrived and eventually I kicked up a stink and they just refunded to my credit card.

Good luck to them I suppose. They do some great long reads and those writers have to be paid. Hopefully this paywall signals transition to a more solid commercial framework ... totally put me off them though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe now they'll stop gaming the system on sites like Reddit and HN. They were banned from reddit for shady practices for a while, and went so far as to switch to different domains to get around it.

</comment><comment><USER13> > "More than a million people come to our site 10 times or more every month," > Mr. Cohn said. "What we're doing now is we're saying to that group: 'Help us > continue to expand our journalism.'"

No, what they're saying is: $-)

<comment><USER14> It's hard to expand journalism without hiring journalists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Where is the Spotify for online newspapers already?

<comment><USER11> Well I think that both Apple and Google have tried to do this with their respective newstand apps but I'm not sure how successful this has been.

Also revenue I guess, for such a service is probably a good bit less than getting your readers to pay soley for access to your publication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's funny how initially everyone thought those media barons pushing their sites behind paywalls were seen as crazy. They seem to have achieved their vision though - if everything is behind one then it no longer looks abnormal.

</comment><comment><USER17> What we need is a central payment body that we can 'subscribe' to and then select the websites with paywalls we want access to.

Then its a) easy to manage your budget as it's one payment per month/six/yearly, and b) reduces reader friction, as a SAML/oAuth type logon can be performed when you click through the paywall notice on your selected news sites.

All that needs to happen is for someone to stand up and be the payment body, and for a critical mass of news sites to sign up.

Doesn't seem that hard really.

<comment><USER6> Blendle provides something close to what you describe: [https://pay- docs.blendle.io/](https://pay-docs.blendle.io/) So it's mostly a matter of these publication signing up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thank you. I have already been getting some pretty good practice in ignoring any of the current paywall sites. It's a great way to cut down on distraction. If the best content sites do this, then I can ignore the rest as well.

I feel they should all get paid and I would rather that model rather than ads. My comment sounds negative, but I think it's a good move. I have switched to newsletters which give headlines and summaries.

</comment><comment><USER19> Despite what these publications tell you, the oversupply of people wanting to write things on the internet means you actually do not need to pay for "quality" journalism.

For every grizzled vet that throws in the towel, frustrated with adblocking freeloaders...two young idealists take their place.

Anyone can publish a blog. Mastheads don't have a reason to exist anymore. My advice to a young writer is to build your own brand and forget about print operations trying vainly to stay relevant but have no reason to exist anymore.

On any given day, on any given topic, I can usually look around for a few minutes in any Reddit thread and find something genuine, well written, and useful that is equal to or superior to "quality" journalism that apparently won't survive without my money

<comment><USER20> Investigative journalism takes money.

Freelance bloggers can't be expected to put in the time to do the job while they pay for their hobby writing.

<comment><USER21> When was the last time you saw real investigative journalism? These days it's a race to get what ever click-bait headlines you can get from 'unamed sources' (or my favorite 'sources close to X') up and out the door. Gotta get those sweet sweet ad views. Journalistic integrity is long dead and what's left are those Freelance bloggers; except they no longer write for blogs, but major entertainment outlets.

<comment><USER22> Take this story about the "banned words at the CDC" which double checked a story by the Washington Post:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/health/cdc-trump- banned-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/health/cdc-trump-banned- words.html)

The NYT contacted the agency spokesman and several present and former federal officials. They contacted the agency spokeswoman of the FDA. They quote a former Surgeon General and an outsider expert.

> Sheila Kaplan reported from Washington, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New > York. Pam Belluck contributed reporting from New York.

Three people wrote the article and pooled their contacts or input. It was likely edited to make it short and concise. How many blog posts care to do that instead of rehashing or just spinning opinion?

<comment><USER23> I don't think calling people up and asking them to make a statement is beyond the reach of a blogger. Investigative journalism does take a lot of effort and it needs to be encouraged, however vast majority of journalism produced is not investigative and could be made more efficient and democratic</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


JSON Sucks (for complex format evolution) - <AUTHOR> http://nocarrier.co.uk/2012/04/json-sucks/?repost <comment><USER2> The big win for me is that XML supports validation, so a client can ensure a request is valid before it sends it to the server. However, JSON is by far easier to use which is why so many people choose it.</comment>


Ask YC: is networking class worth it? - <AUTHOR>

Hey, expert web app writers.  Problem: I have a choice between taking networking or mathematical logic in my final semester.  I prefer logic, but in June I'm joining a startup and there's pressure to learn "the practical stuff."  So the question is: would taking a networking class give me a big edge, vis a vis writing web apps?  Or is this stuff pretty easy to pick up? Overview of the networking material is here: http://remus.rutgers.edu/cs352/F07/#Lecture_Notes The course project is writing a bittorrent client in Java. <comment><USER2> I really wouldn't worry about which class to take. Both are important. Too bad you don't have time to take both (assumption). Networks might be more "practical" if you're applying for a job at Cisco. Logic might be more practical if you're applying for a job at Xilinx. Both would be practical if you're applying at Google. I would suggest that you take the one you're more interested in. Personally I would choose the networking class, and it might be more applicable when you start hacking at your startup... but take logic if you like it that much. Don't waste $$$ on a class that you're not as interested in -- especially when you have the luxury of choosing between two CS courses.

Also - don't stress over it. It's your last semester, you'll have the rest of your life to learn whatever you didn't learn at Uni.

<comment><USER3> "Logic might be more practical if you're applying for a job at Xilinx."

Mathematical logical has very little to do with digital logic.

<comment><USER2> Calculus has very little to do with Computer Science. I meant that Mathematical Logic will probably exercise your brain better than Networking for something like Digital Logic/FPGA design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback; that's partly my motivation with wanting to take logic--if math requires me to think more, then I should take that, because developing good thinking habits is so valuable. But a bunch of the comments here suggest that the networking material is very useful, so I'm leaning towards that now. And you're right, I have my whole life to learn new things... but damn it, I don't want to be at a disadvantage! :)

<comment><USER2> I find that I learn things easier and deeper when I'm not forced to. Forced meaning I have to learn some person's way of learning the material, I have to know what someone thinks is the most valuable knowledge of the material, I would be influenced by the person basically...

Then again this theory of learn is completely out the window when it includes someone of expertise. I would be much happier and consistently motivated to take an intro to high-level programming class from Guido (Python) than some recent grad student.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Take the class with the best prof and the students who are most fun to be around.

I would personally take networking, because I tend to find mathematical logic, as it is typically taught, quite dull. There are better ways to make sense of things. For example, people still teach Godel's Incompleteness theorems as he proved them, yet with the halting theorem, which many a drunk freshman can understand, it falls out quite naturally.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking at that syllabus, it covers a lot of useful topics for web apps: sockets, threads, TCP and UDP, the major application protocols (HTTP!), cryptography, authentication...

and _Web 2.0_... WTF!... I'm sorry but that's a _ridiculous_ topic to have in a college networking course. Is "Web 1.0" a prerequisite?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the gimmicky feel counts against it (also the lack of web 2.0 slides compared to the other topics...maybe they just show the youtube bubble video?) But I know a guy who works at Google and has taken it and says he learned a lot, and I guess I'm willing to assign some baseline level of blind trust to a Googler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most web apps don't involve any kind of low level networking. You're dealing with HTTP all day and even the details of that are abstracted away if you're using a modern framework. The networking course might be useful, but it's definitely going to give you a big edge.

<comment><USER3> It's definitely a good thing to understand how the lower levels of an abstracted system works. For example, read Joel Spolsky's explanation of "Shlemiel the painter's algorithm" problem: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000319.html>

Perhaps a more applicable example in web applications is the use of things like Ruby on Rails ActiveRecord. If you had no idea how ActiveRecord worked, you might end up making zillions of database queries without even realizing it. I have a feeling this is part of the reason some people have trouble scaling Rails apps...

In the case of networking and web apps, at the very least it's a good idea to know things like the difference between TCP and UDP. You probably don't need to know routing protocols and that sort of thing though.

That said, I'm not sure which to recommend. I took some of both (2 networking courses, and basic logic was covered in discrete math and 2 AI courses I took... including the one I have a final for in 7 hours...) and I've found the networking ones to be _much_ more applicable, but it's also good to know about logic as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would take the networking class. My first reason is that it is a survey course, and networking is a massive topic. Its helpful to have a wide exposure to different parts of it. Once you know a bit about the various parts you are in a much more flexible position to go back and specialize in what seems useful later on. But its handy to have an inkling of the direction you need to look in.

So, I would take the networking course because it'll give you a broader perspective. You'll never know what problems you'll run into, nor the solutions to those problems, but having a broad and diverse background allows you to direct your efforts into the proper direction for the specific problem.

</comment><comment><USER7> I took both classes - logic last semester, networking this semester.

For CS work, networking definitely a better idea - it's very important to understand how the things you're building on top of work, and it's not all as simple/intuitive as it seems.

Math logic, on the other hand, is enough fun that with a little curiosity, you should have no problem learning everything on your own.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's as simply as I can put it:

I wish I would have taken this course as an undergrad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's the kind of comment I was afraid of :) ...my mind is now pretty much made up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Take the boring one. You'll find it easier to learn the interesting one by yourself (provided you have time while working on your startup).

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd guess that the networking class would include a lot of "lab" or opportunity to try something, fail, get help, try again, and succeed. Mathematical logic, OTOH, is probably a little easier to learn on your own. I'd take advantage of the interaction you'd get in the networking class.</comment>


Ask HN: What problems are highly impactful, solvable, and under-resourced? - <AUTHOR> A la https://80000hours.org/articles/problem-framework/ <comment><USER2> Chronic illness - other than palliatives. What's the root of the incredible expansion of chronic illnesses? What aren't we trying to recreate some of the conditions that applied 300 years ago when MS, atopy, autoimmunity, diabetes, seasonal allergies, and so much more were rare or nonexistent, to find out what's up?

Large numbers of deaths can be attributed to chronic illnesses, but scrape away the money-grab for palliatives and the proportion of research dollars is tiny. (Most "animal models" of diseases can only be used to test for palliatives, not cures or prevention, since the cause of the model disease is obviously not the cause of the human disease. The EAE "model" of MS being a prime example.)

<comment><USER3> _"when MS, atopy, autoimmunity, diabetes, seasonal allergies, and so much more were rare or nonexistent"_

Are you sure? My money would be on them being 'rare' because of underdiagnosis (why complain about an allergy such as hay fever if people regularly die of smallpox, measles (which is relatively new, being mutated from rinderpest after the year 500. See [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#History](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#History)), during childbirth, etc, and many others have deformations due to vitamin deficiencies, badly set broken bones, etc?) or because they killed people.

Examples: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis#Historica...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis#Historical_cases), [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus#History](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus#History), [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lupus_erythematosus...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lupus_erythematosus#Classical_period). [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28038630](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28038630), [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_rhinitis#History](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_rhinitis#History)

<comment><USER2> Yes, I'm sure, and it's not just my opinion, but consensus.

Autoimmunity was doubling every couple decades, but won't again 'cause more than half the population now has eczema. Diabetes had been doubling, too. Diabetes as a rare disease existed anciently (as did asthma, more commonly) but exploded in the nineteenth century, as did seasonal allergies, starting in the cities and only later smaller towns and rural areas, to the astonishment of doctors. It was unknown before, as was MS. (Temporary loss of sight can be caused by many things, including CCI or trauma.) Lupus goes back further. (One famous case "first case of MS" a few centuries earlier was thought to be MS, but is now thought to be lupus.)

I don't know of any ancient identification of seasonal allergies, and the Razi Wikipedia page doesn't give one that. It wasn't common before the nineteenth century, according to nineteenth-century doctors who watched it balloon during their lifetimes.

We also have (a diminishing number) of native populations to study and atopy is very rare, MS was unknown amongst them. Similarly diabetes. Etc.

My sources aren't general but journal articles, those notes aren't easily available to me. I read at least the abstracts of getting on to 500,000 journal articles over about ten years and retain notes on 100,000 articles (not all the original journal articles.)

One recent source re asthma: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439263](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439263)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Child malnutrition can be substantially mitigated with those peanutbutter balls.

</comment><comment><USER5> Vaccines and other infrequent medical interventions. Something you can pop once a day for the rest of your life is much more lucrative then a cure or once every 7 years booster shot vaccine.

Chicken Pox is a type of Herpes virus. There's a vaccine for it, but not for the two strains of herpes most associated with the term herpes.

Development of one seems to have been embroiled in... well lets just say some trouble based on unethical experiments. But really, apparently 90% of people are infected with either type 1 or type 2 herpes simplex.

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

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/health/fda-halford-herpes- vac...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/health/fda-halford-herpes-vaccine- research/index.html)

Likewise, Lyme Disease, has a vaccine for animals but not for humans, because production stopped in 2002. [https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/prev/vaccine.html](https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/prev/vaccine.html)

Oh, and while there is a non profit foundation for it, reversible male contraception like RISUG/Vasalgel seems underfunded. [https://www.parsemus.org/](https://www.parsemus.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Climate Change / Waste Management / Many "Green" issues

<comment><USER7> Adding to climate change- water management. Cape Town, South Africa had over 10 years to find a solution to their water problem but delayed. I read that Bangalore, India might have used up to 80% of their groundwater... Water management can be solvable and lack of clean water affects 2 billion people.

Not only that but climate change will dramatically affect coastal cities and couple hundred more million people especially in Asia.

I've been researching water management lately trying to figure out what potential solutions I could work on but haven't figured anything out yet. There are sensors for identifying leaks or testing water. Better graphene filters for desalination. Problems with microplastics/pharmaceuticals in tap water that might be able to be fixed through reverse osmosis (RO) systems... I've considered importing a bunch of RO systems and starting an RO business to learn more. I recently learned that there might be 6 carcinogenic chemicals in New York City tap water that is unregulated and a byproduct of the bleach they use to sanitize the water...

Water management is directly connected with population growth. When people move due to water scarcity or conflict from water scarcity it will only exacerbate cities more.

Currently reading The Big Thirst and looking forward to reading Living with Water Scarcity.

<comment><USER8> And for dry places with sun abundance the solar powered reverse osmosis is the future. Absolutely interesting topic!</comment></comment></comment>


Earth-Friendly EOMA68 Computing Devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop <comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a very cool project.

The main idea seems to be to standardise the connection between a case (a tablet frame, a laptop frame, or a cellphone frame) and a SoC.

The SoC they're developing is tiny, entirely libre, and low power enough to be used in a cellphone.

The project is entirely libre, and the dev is involved in the allwinner GPL stuff. It should be a lot more open then the rPi or similar.

I'd be pretty sad if this project didn't get funding. It looks like a big step towards standardising SoC's</comment>


Braess's paradox - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox <comment><USER2> Simple explanation: when you win five minutes by switching from road A to road B, other drivers on road B might lose more than five minutes in total from the extra congestion you cause. So the total time spent by all drivers will increase, and so will average time (if number of drivers is constant). So removing some connections from the road network, to prevent some drivers from optimizing their route, can reduce average driving time.

<comment><USER3> Furthermore, when a driver chooses to take the new route, this does not create any opportunity for the drivers disadvantaged by this choice to do better for themselves (they also have the option of switching to the new route themselves, but that opportunity was created by the creation of the new route, not by the responses to it by other drivers.)

This paradox may have some relevance to the effect of navigation apps, especially those that attempt to route around congestion, as they effectively create routes in the sense that the vast majority of drivers would not have considered using them without the app.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if current navigation apps are smart enough to only propose a new route to a portion of the total number of drivers in that location.

Ultimately, the only way to have optimal flow is to delegate all itinerary decisions to a central authority...

<comment><USER5> Have you noticed how good the time estimates have gotten? Clearly they're streering other traffic out of or into the way to keep it even.

<comment><USER6> I started noticing this very abruptly - that Google no longer redirects me from congested roadways to low-traffic parallel roads. Now, as soon as I take the exit to a less congested road, my estimated drive time might drop by 5-10 minutes, so clearly Google knows that it isn't sending me down the optimal route. I don't think this used to be the case.

<comment><USER3> Interesting - I noticed recently, for the first time, that when I modified a 'fastest' proposed route using local knowledge, I found the predicted time dropped, and that has happened several time since.

This may be the result of better predictive modeling, and particularly in recognizing that dumping a lot of traffic into a low-capacity route is pointless. It is probably also a political response to the fact that residential areas don't like having a lot of traffic routed through them, and are pressing for the power to regulate it.

Better predictions could also explain toast0's observations even when global optimization is not being attempted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In transport tycoon (openTTD) when train station started to become congested adding more tracks usually didn't solve the problem, best way was having two uninterrupted tracks almost into station then spread out into 15-wide station (or whatever max was allowed) with short buffers before and after station.

<comment><USER8> TTD is great for modeling systems like that; what I like(d) to do was just create a loop track, two tracks wide (one for each direction), with stop lights every x tiles, making sure to have the same length trains at all times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is fascinating. The book Traffic [1] talks a great deal about how adding road capacity (e.g. more lanes) can result in zero change in congestion because more people choose to take more trips.

But this paradox appears to hold traffic constant, and uses game theory to show how more _connections_ (not lanes) can result in worse congestion too.

It really is amazing how something as simple-seeming as roads and traffic, where it feels like simple common sense ought to apply, winds up being so deeply and fundamentally counter-intuitive.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says- About/dp/0307...](https://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says- About/dp/0307277194)

<comment><USER10> > adding road capacity (e.g. more lanes) can result in zero change in > congestion because more people choose to take more trips

This is not the paradox nor even an argument against adding road capacity though.

Even if congestion or travel times stay the same, now more people are able to travel to places they want to go. Traffic might not have improved, but some measure of quality of life did.

<comment><USER11> Depends on the impact of sitting in traffic on quality of life.

<comment><USER12> You can still forgo the trip though. It's up to each individual participant to decide whether or not they want to make the trip. The ability for more people to take the trip at the same opportunity cost. Adding a lane or a road is little different than increasing the frequency of trains on a subway.

Peak demand will always saturate whatever capacity you have but the amount of stuff you move at peak capacity is greater so you spend less time fully saturated

<comment><USER11> > Peak demand will always saturate whatever capacity you have but the amount > of stuff you move at peak capacity is greater so you spend less time fully > saturated

That doesn't follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I believe this paradox applies to any congested highway with a robust network of side streets around it. If everyone could agree to take side streets for half of their trip, the side streets could easily absorb the extra traffic without slowing down, and the highway would be able to flow freely, shortening everyone's total commute time. But no single person can improve their commute by switching to the side streets alone.

<comment><USER14> What? It's usually the first switcher who benefits the most from using the side streets, because they see zero congestion, and, if anything, it's more of a problem (for the cut-through neighborhoods) of too many people switching.

<comment><USER13> If the side streets are currently faster than the congested highway that's true. I'm talking about situations where it isn't, where the fixed cost of stoplights and speed limits ensures it they will never actually be faster than the congested highway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A discussion from 2009: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=929362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=929362)

<comment><USER16> Another relevant discussion, albeit from a more game theoretic view: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17741641](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17741641).

Beyond two submissions sharing the same subject-title, do you think it'd be possible to find all "relevant" discussions -- say, back-links or forward- links -- as well and post them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure how this is different from the concept of induced demand? BTW, the "See also" section is awesome. A serious time sink.

<comment><USER18> Induced demand is when more people drive, or they drive more often, or longer routes because of added roads.

This is when the same amount of traffic is distributed less optimally because of adding new edges on the graph.

<comment><USER17> Ah, right. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think that some changes in traffic aim to optimize the instantaneous speed, while it should aim to minimize the door-to-door time. Driving 1km@10km/h takes 6 minutes, while driving 5km@30km/h takes 12 minutes, and you might end up driving 5km@1km/h at rush hour because the longer distance keeps you in traffic for more time.

This actually happened in my home city, some areas implemented "improvements" that made it very difficult to reach some destinations, you need to follow long detours intended to "improve flow", they might improve flow for whoever is just passing by, but traffic that originates or terminates in that area, it is hell.

</comment><comment><USER20> This might not be the exact manifestation of the paradox, but I think it's at least a supporting anecdote.

The latest Sim City had its problems, but I definitely experienced this phenomenon in its traffic simulation. Adding more roads created more intersections which -- using a computer analogy -- created more context switches between competing cars (threads). Intersections would become clogged, potentially backing up nearby intersections. The best traffic systems in Sim City minimized intersections just as much as -- if not more than -- throughput and mean travel distance.

</comment><comment><USER21> If anyone is interested in topics like this and wants to delve some more into the mathematics, I'd highly recommend Tim Roughgarden's lecture series on Algortihmic Game Theory:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEGCF- WLh2RJBqmxvZ0_i...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEGCF- WLh2RJBqmxvZ0_ie-mleCFhi2N4)

</comment><comment><USER22> Palo Alto Central Express. Cut off side streets. Traffic will improve, and kids will be safe in the street.

</comment><comment><USER23> At the limit, if you remove all capacity (or leave a nominal capacity for a single commuter that works beside their home to remove infinites), the individual transit time goes to zero! It follows we should remove all roads!!!

It seems to me that the average transit time is the wrong metric to optimize for.

<comment><USER24> No. In Braess' paradox both the situation with and without the extra road have the exact same total flow from A to B. Removing flow capacity is not allowed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> " _In 1983, Steinberg and Zangwill provided, under reasonable assumptions, the necessary and sufficient conditions for Braess ' paradox to occur in a general transportation network when a new route is added._"

Anyone know what those conditions are, offhand?

<comment><USER26> The biggest is that the drivers have adequate information about road capacity and traffic conditions and are acting rationally on that information.

I actually believe that Waze has contributed to a lot of urban traffic problems as of late, because it ensures that more people contribute to braess' paradox instances that might have gone unrealized in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> While I don't have an in-depth technical understanding of exactly why this happens in every instance, I have definitely observed this while playing Cities: Skylines, a SimCity-like game which emulates traffic flow.

<comment><USER17> However, note that the traffic flow simulation in C:S is rather simplistic for performance reasons: specifically the pathfinder doesn't take dynamic traffic conditions into account at all! A traveler never chooses an alternative route even if the primary one is congested. But yeah, adding routes usually means also adding choke points (that is, intersections) which naturally slows down traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whoa, I was just reading about this yesterday! Did I consent to tracking when I created an account here? ;-)</comment>


Paypal does good: Takes one for the team - <AUTHOR>

My online business deals with occasional credit card chargebacks and disputes as part of our freemium subscription model.  And, we use Paypal as our credit card processor.   But today I was floored to see the following after filing a standard response to a buyer complaint:
---
Hello [ourBusiness],
After careful consideration of this case, we've decided in favor of the buyer.
PayPal has determined the buyer should receive a refund.  Due to the unique circumstances of the claim, and your PayPal account history, we will refund the buyer on your behalf.  Your account will not be debited.
---
So what does the above actually mean?  Paypal refunded the buyer and allowed us to keep the funds!  To make it clear, the complaint filed by the purchaser was absolute BS. We also make it clear during the subscription purchase process that no refunds are allowed.
Granted, we run a considerable amount of transactions through Paypal (probably about 500K a year) but this is the first time I've ever dealt with a Paypal dispute where Paypal has done this.  Chargebacks happen, and from what I've found you are almost powerless unless you have an ton of evidence to respond with.
My reason for this post is to point put that PayPal isn't always evil.  My business has been using Paypal as our credit card provider for over 9 years now, and while I've been frustrated at times (trust me, contacting them is a big problem as a vendor), and read the Paypal-horror-stories, in horror, I can honestly say that what happened today has me feeling good about PayPal as a business partner. <comment><USER2> Context needed.

Under what circumstances did this refund occur? What was the user's claim and why was it BS? What is the service you're selling?</comment>


Show HN: LitePaper.com – Duolingo for Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://litepaper.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Our Intention is to create the world's most comprehensive resource for people to learn and understand the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain. We're starting off on helping people who aren't very familiar or technical and will be expanding our content moving forwards.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks awesome. Would love to see a blog area discussing some of the Decrypt stories in a beginner-friendly way and directing you to the appropriate 'modules' to understand them better.</comment>


5M Dollar in Cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQecwh41W1mOz_iBSFkn78v31v5kpj6WsUstHypWggbP5bO42LXkNhQ51H_t8I2DsDaVFMY80x5eHqx/pubhtml <comment><USER2> Looks like if you multiply [Total Coins] by 0.00000005 you get [5 million dollar equivalent], which, multiplied by [Market Price] gives you [5 million dollar equivalent in USD].

Seems to be that one advantage here is that, whereas Market Cap depends on the number of coins in circulation, this innovative analysis provides a manageable number to use in comparing currencies regardless of what percentage of each coin is in circulation.

For expample, if 100% of a given coin is in circulation, then you get the same result as above by multiplying [Market Cap] by 0.00000005. On the other hand, if the percentage of a coin in circulation is less than 100%, the results are different.

I'm not sure why it's called $5M equivalent.

Thanks to the OP for sharing.

<comment><USER3> Not sure I understand how the 5 million dollar factor was n calculated. Author links to the CIA Factbook that shows world money supply in USD.

Either way I think they left out at least 1 decimal place if they're calculating against USD in circulation ($1+ trillion). So should be 0.000000005.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is this?</comment>


GoCrossCampus - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/technology/21ivygame.html?ex=1363752000&en=9099cccee96172b0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> This relates to a recent idea I had - "true social software" or perhaps "locally social software".

Many people comment on the irony of how the modern world makes people feel isolated despite giving them more means of communication than ever before. For example, I don't know anyone that lives in my neighborhood, and I think this is common. Social software doesn't help with this, typing "A/S/L" into an AOL chat room doesn't really enhance my social life, neither does posting a pic on Myspace.

Now think of the appeal of geographically local communication tools. For example, maybe a chat room would be localized so as to only cover a local coffee shop. People in the chat room could leave away messages about what they're reading, and others would comment on it. After a good IM conversation, people might walk a few feet and have a conversation in real life. I might meet someone everytime I go to the coffee shop, whereas now I might meet a new person every few months. "True social" software facilitates socialization in meat space and helps to break down the social barriers that prevent us from knowing our neighbors.

Another example, I would like to have a bulletin board that only covered the community where I live. Then I could post messages about the barbecues we have and I would finally be able to meet people that live around me.

Craigslist is "true social", and so are dating sites today. I would like to see the genre expanded.

</comment><comment><USER3> how does this compare to Kirkland North?

<comment><USER4> This is the ConnectU of Kirkand North. Except apparently they know someone at the Times.

<comment><AUTHOR> How about a few emails from us to Brad Stone about Kirkland? Here's his page with a link to email him directly. [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s...](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/brad_stone/index.html?inline=nyt- per)

<comment><USER4> Good idea. I just did. The NYT has been completely pwned in this case.

Either Stone didn't ask whether there was anyone else doing this (unlike a NYT reporter) or the GCC founders lied to him, because they certainly know about Kirkland North. After all, KN's founders include the original author of the game at Yale.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did too. Stupid autoreply, "Thank you for writing to us. Your message has been received and will be forwarded to the reporter you contacted. Please note that messages are delivered once per day, at 8 a.m. (EST). Because of the high volume of responses we get from readers, not all communications can be responded to personally. But be assured that we want to hear your thoughts. (Please do not reply to this e-mail as this address is not monitored for incoming messages.)"

So much for getting leads to reporters easily in a timely manner.

<comment><USER5> _"... I did too. Stupid autoreply, "Thank you for writing to us. Your message has been received and will be forwarded to the reporter you contacted. ..."_

Wait for the reply. The NYT is pretty good in this respect. I've managed to nail them down to admit an advert for google jobs was dressed up as an article ~ <http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/1685662827/> from this hackernews article ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=70827>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good summary of politics on the Internets:

"Could such a game augur the outcome of the next presidential election? Probably not. The armies of John McCain and Barack Obama have already been routed, and Hillary Clinton's forces are trapped in New England.

Jockeying for control of the rest of the country are the armies of Representative Ron Paul of Texas and the comedian Stephen Colbert."

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh, this is very clever. I've been an officer in a club that runs online (and offline!) games such as Werewolf, Diplomacy, and Assassin. The appeal of many of our games tends to be restricted to people who, well, take their game- playing seriously. These new games seem to have broken out into the greater population and that really opens up new possibilities.

One aspect I love of online games is that they eliminate many of the social barriers of age, profession, race, and financial status. If a game like this can bring together a local community across those boundaries I think the entire society will be enriched.

</comment><comment><USER8> This game is currently in full effect at MIT. I really assumed no one would have time to play it, what with all the psets, but no. Lots of people are into, and they're even trying to pull alums (read: me) in.

Not sure how big a deal this sort of thing will be, but it's certainly taking off.

</comment><comment><USER9> c.f. ze frank's twitter color war 2008:

<http://tailrank.com/5494270/colorwar-2008>

</comment><comment><USER10> There are a lot of social games like these being played in colleges. It's nice to see them being talked about!

<comment><AUTHOR> All we need now are some games for the working stiffs. Anyone know of something out there?

<comment><USER11> You're on it now.</comment></comment></comment>


Using a self-rewriting README powered by GitHub Actions to track TILs - <AUTHOR> https://simonwillison.net/2020/Apr/20/self-rewriting-readme/ <comment><USER3> This was inspired by "I've been writing TILs for 5 years" from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22908044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22908044)

</comment><comment><USER4> What a coincidence. I implemented the exact same thing yesterday. It also happened to be my TIL for that day: how to create a Github Action.

My setup turned up much simpler, as I did not have some of the constraints that you wanted.

[https://github.com/aicioara/til/blob/master/github/github- ac...](https://github.com/aicioara/til/blob/master/github/github-actions.md)

<comment><USER3> Hah, that IS a coincidence! Really nice solution you have there - <USER2> minimal, and achieves exactly the same job with regards to the README.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find the hard dependency on Github a bit disconcerting.

Why not self host?

What happens if [https://github.com/simonw/til](https://github.com/simonw/til) drops away?

Love your work Simon.

<comment><USER3> My [https://til.simonwillison.net/til](https://til.simonwillison.net/til) site acts as a sort of off-site backup - but I should probably run a cron somewhere which pulls my repos. I have a Digital Ocean box I could do that on. Good idea!

<comment><USER6> If you want a recommendation, try out [https://gitea.io/en- us/](https://gitea.io/en-us/) \- it has a mirror feature that can periodically pull down repos for you.

I've been using it to backup some of my repos on github/gitlab, without having to rely on any of my own custom scripts/crons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought this was a pretty good idea so I make a little reusable Github Action anyone could drop into their TIL repo to get an autogenerated README: [https://github.com/marketplace/actions/til-auto-format- readm...](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/til-auto-format-readme)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice! Like the idea of tracking TILs with git. I've also made self-rewriting READMEs. I did something similar but using plain git hooks (post-commit) and sed. I had to run 'git --amend' in the hook though (to avoid generating double-commits) which is probably a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've added an Atom feed now: [https://til.simonwillison.net/til/feed.atom?_feed_title=Simo...](https://til.simonwillison.net/til/feed.atom?_feed_title=Simon+Willison+TIL)

Implementation details here: [https://github.com/simonw/til/compare/95d99f5bb7206948257195...](https://github.com/simonw/til/compare/95d99f5bb720694825719580fa15311fd0889475...a65c04955cc3b2112b9ab21b736b8bf55004034a)

</comment><comment><USER9> Since when is programmatically generating a text file considered noteworthy / novel.

Or is this trending on HN because it has the "GitHub Actions" buzzword in the title?

Edit: This is a serious question.

<comment><USER3> Author here. I was really proud of this piece - it's a very detailed tutorial on how to use GitHub Actions, which for me fulfills exactly the kind of content I want to see on Hacker News.

It's the article I wish I had been able to read when I started working on this project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice! I've been doing this for a while too -- [https://github.com/raivivek/til](https://github.com/raivivek/til)

</comment><comment><USER11> I actually built a little webapp for this recently: [https://todayilearned.co](https://todayilearned.co)

For tracking and sharing of personal TILs

Also as an iOS app

</comment><comment><USER12> I started doing TIL too. I made a quick and dirty bash script to generate a new article with read/vim/sed and automatically fill the README files: [https://github.com/kinoute/til/blob/master/contribute.sh](https://github.com/kinoute/til/blob/master/contribute.sh)

</comment><comment><USER13> Also inspired by the same post, I set up a TIL repo. I went with a shell script where you pass the category and the filename and it creates the file and recreates the README: [https://github.com/acdibble/til/blob/master/create_til.sh](https://github.com/acdibble/til/blob/master/create_til.sh)

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like many of us had this same idea. :)

Here's my TIL implementation using Github Actions: [https://github.com/mlpetersen/til](https://github.com/mlpetersen/til)

Mine is quite simple, you add new TIL's in the develop branch and commit them. Then it's built and added to the master branch.

</comment><comment><USER15> I actually wrote a tool like this that's aimed at storing and accessing information: [https://mmap.it](https://mmap.it)

The main difference is it provides full text search and global keyboard shortcuts so you can access it when you need it, without context switching.

</comment><comment><USER16> To push back to GitHub, you can also use this action: [https://github.com/ad-m/github-push-action](https://github.com/ad-m/github- push-action)

</comment><comment><USER17> Alright, now I'm definitely going to build a little web app for this

<comment><USER11> I recently started, come join me! [https://todayilearned.co](https://todayilearned.co)

@littke on twitter

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for sharing. I also recently started a TIL repo from the same inspiration and found it lame to write my first README entry. Will look at setting up what you described.

<comment><USER17> If there was a public place for posting these with peers, that was built for TILs rather than just a repo, would you use it? Especially if it included an easy way to export all to markdown for backup?

This would allow folks to see each other's TILs, search them, browse by tag, like/favorite each other's TILs, and some other fun stuff eventually

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's automatically updated, not aelf-rewriting.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is cool stuff. But could someone explain how this is a self-rewriting README? It looks to me like a file updated by a commit hook.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what it is. Maybe "self-rewriting" isn't the best summary - it's the repo that does the rewrite, not the README file itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could this be implemented in emacs org-mode? How would one approach that task?

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice. I imagine this could be used to list and track TODOs in code as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's wrong with Pinboard notes?

</comment><comment><USER24> My TIL for today is that I learnt what TIL stands for. How useless.

<comment><USER24> Actually that's wrong, in the morning I convinced myself that given a sequence of code points which forms a valid Unicode character (an extended grapheme cluster), any non-empty prefix of it also forms a valid Unicode character.</comment></comment>


You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1 <comment><USER3> Without any disrespect to the author, why don't we all just start thinking for ourselves when it comes to our health, rather than being told contradictory information every 3 years by mainstream media?

One minute it's best to eat ice cream for breakfast; the next minute we shouldn't eat any carbs at all; then we should start drinking red wine every day; then more water; then less water, etc. It's as if we're just a big experiment or some sort of inside joke to the mainstream media.

<comment><USER4> Are we all experts who are capable of thinking for ourselves ("thinking for ourselves" seems to equal: inspecting the primary literature, or review literature, and coming to a conclusion)? No, we're not.

Thinking for yourself is untenable- we need scientists who are experts in analyzing data to provide specific suggestions, and disseminate those in the media. Unfortunately, there is little consequence to reporting false conclusions, or inaccurate health data, so I don't see any change forthcoming.

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, do you realize that the same thing can be said about religion? You don't know enough about it - definitely not as much as the people who specialize in it - so you should listen to your priest on the subject. Or politics: just pick a party and follow its lead, politics is a complex subject and you can't know as much as the professionals.

<comment><USER6> Protestants, at least, have the idea of the "priesthood of all believers", meaning roughly that each person can have authority in doctrinal matters. So you should listen to your priest, but you don't have to accept that he's correct if God is telling you something different. Thus the billion different protestant denominations.

<comment><USER7> Protestants if you go back to their roots actually _expected_ you to become an expert in scripture in order to recognize when your "priest" is wrong. But they didn't promote anything goes. It's more that you should learn and be able to apply scripture correctly. This didn't prevent the proliferation of denominations because of course different people would interpret a piece of scripture differently and get really worked up about it.

<comment><USER8> This is in contrast with Catholicism, where pretty much everything was conducted in Latin rather than local languages; the emphasis on layperson understanding of theology was a direct response to the trend of most followers having zero understanding or ability to understand the scriptures and sermons they were expected to follow.

Of course, this also resulted in the more decentralized power structure relative to Catholicism's. Quite a bit of Protestant philosophy and tendency stems from immediate responses to a perceived-to-be corrupt and exclusive Catholic Church.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The human body is finely tuned to signal you to drink long before you are > actually dehydrated.

Easily said than done. This is only true if the body is healthy in the first place, once you starts messing it up with unhealthy diet (especially high-in- sugar and salt diet) and so on, your body will confuse thirst with hunger. You have no idea how often people confuse both, the body will be happy to eat any food because most food has water in it.

The reality is that water is about the easiest and healthiest thing people can do and yet, in US, it's more common to see people drinking juices, soda, and any other sugar beverages with zero pure water drinks.

For people who can't think for their health, telling them to drink 8 cups of water and nothing else is the best thing we can do. Once they do, they are likely lose a lot of weight without any exercise. Unfortunately, it is more likely they won't follow through because sugar is an addiction that is not easily given up by the body.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention that such a signal doesn't always come early enough to consume water before dehydration sets in, particularly during long-term physical activity (i.e. running long distances every day); if you slack off on water intake because "well I'm not thirsty right now", by the time you start feeling thirsty again, it's pretty likely that you're already dehydrated.

Really, the whole "8 bottles of water a day" thing depends on physical activity levels. A sedentary person might just need one or two glasses of water, tops. A person who's running for hours a day might easily go through several gallons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I go for a pee and it's yellowish I have more water. Also I do it when I'm thirsty.

</comment><comment><USER11> They mention this in the article, but bears repeating - if you don't want to get a kidney stone (and believe me, you don't) 8 glasses a day is probably not a bad idea.

<comment><USER12> > if you don't want to get a kidney stone (and believe me, you don't)

To put some perspective on that, I recently had one and it was the worst pain in my life. I asked some women who have had both a stone and a natural childbirth which was worse, and they said the pain is about the same.

The difference is that at least you know +/\- about a month when you're going to have a child and can prepare; with the stone, you're just suddenly in excruciating pain.

<comment><USER13> And, at the end of childbirth you get the joy of having a baby... no one has cake every year to celebrate the birth of their kidney stones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, there are number of people I know who are otherwise intelligent who seem to blame almost every minor ailment they have on being "dehydrated". And when I say I'm not dehydrated because I have 2 small glasses of water, 2 cups of tea and coffee almost gasp because "coffee dehydrates you".... No. Actually it doesn't. It's about 99% water...

</comment><comment><USER15> The forkandwait/ ancient Greek ideal diet: A bunch of whole grain bread, fish, olive oil, and all the random seasonal fruits and vegetables you can get your hands on, but don't eat until you are full. Every once in a while gorge on meat and dairy and honey. Get lots of exercise. Don't get killed in battle, get enslaved, or die in an epidemic.

There should be a special name and place in hell for all the diet bullshit that goes through the culture like this.

Not that i follow my own advice or anything...

<comment><USER16> And yet, there is no country in the world that has lower life expectancy now than 200 years ago. [http://www.maxroser.com/everyone-is-better-off-life- expectan...](http://www.maxroser.com/everyone-is-better-off-life-expectancy- increased/)

<comment><USER17> My completely uninformed made up argument: medicine, medical care and sanitation have improved a lot. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are two main problems with science & especially health research "news". First is the urgent need of the Media to "sell more papers" (Or whatever the digital equivalent). Nothing sells more than vaguely alarmist news that is of concern to everybody. So "Drink 8 Glasses of Water every day or suffer the consequences" is an excellent hook to draw-in almost everybody.

Second the ability of companies to influence the research - If the research shows a slight problem with Milk (for example) you can bet that the dairy industry will promote another conflicting study that shows Milk is just GREAT!

Now the consumer is completely alarmed and confused by these two trends - <USER2> it always was and always will be.

<comment><USER19> Even if you only have disinterested, non-partisan scientists performing very rigorous studies, the science on this stuff is _hard_ and layperson takeaways are nearly non-existent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I generally think, if you feel off and can't figure out why, the first thing you should check is your water intake. A lot of people live with mild dehydration and don't know it. I know I did for a very long time. It's amazing the difference in how I feel when I'm drinking "enough" water and when I don't. There is always the possibility it could be something else, but check the water first.

I basically just fill up a 64oz beer growler with water in the morning and make sure I get through it by some point in the day. That's enough to get me feeling great and not like I just want to stay in bed all the time.

</comment><comment><USER21> The EFSA recommends[0] 2.0 litres of water for women and 2.5 litres of water for men, so there's that. The governmental organizations' advice is slow- changing and well-founded. Unless you want to flip-flop along with the freshest preliminary research I would say it's your best bet.

0: [http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/nda100326](http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/nda100326)

<comment><USER22> Did you read his article and looked at what you're referencing?

From the website you're referencing:

> Adequate Intakes (AI) have been defined derived from a combination of > observed intakes in population groups with desirable osmolarity values of > urine and desirable water volumes per energy unit consumed.

The article attacks exactly that line of reasoning:

> I'm a pediatrician, and I can tell you that I have rarely, if ever, used > urine osmolality as the means by which I decide if a child is dehydrated. > When I asked colleagues, none thought 800 mOsm/kg was the value at which > they'd be concerned.

More importantly, intake of water != drinking water.

95% of lettuce is water, on the extreme end, but it's not unique. 90% holds for carrots or beets, too. For potatoes it's about 70 to 80%. And when cooked, it soaks up even more water. That adds up quickly and severely reduces the amount of glasses of water you actually need to drink. After all, 2.5 litres of water would easily amount to (over) 8 cups/glasses of water. The article attacks exactly that notion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> When I was treating water to drink while traveling I would 2 liters a day. That seemed to be right on the edge of being thirsty a lot while being fairly active

I drink more than that now. But it gives me an excuse at the office to get up and walk to bathroom then walk around. So its not just the staying hydrated. Plus its hard to drink too much water and better for you generally then other liquids.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you're thirsty, drink water until you're no longer thirsty. If you're not thirsty, don't drink water.

<comment><USER25> How do you know you're thirsty? For a start, there are _a lot_ of medical and neurological issues that can stop you feeling thirsty (diabetes etc). A large percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response that tells them to drink. Secondly, especially in Western societies, there are social conventions that mean we always have a drink with food. That creates a conditioned response that means many people _literally_ mistake thirst for hunger, so when they feel thirsty they eat something. (That also contributes to obesity.)

'Drink X glasses of water a day' is a simple adage that mitigates all these problems with very little risk.

<comment><USER13> "A large percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response that tells them to drink." Please define large percentage and offer a reference to this fact. The point made in the article was based around "otherwise healthy idividuals"... not people who have a health issue that would not let them know they are thirsty.

<comment><USER25> That was hyperbole on my part really. There are about 10% of people with some form of diabetes, and one or two percent for the other conditions. That's a 'large percentage' if you compare it with other unifying factors across the population (you can't say '12% percent of people have X condition' for many medical problems), but I guess it's not strictly a large percentage on it's own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is this still a 'thing' capable of causing contradictory advice?

Over the past three decades most Western armies have developed water- replenishment rates based on environmental conditions and activity. They based these on actual empirical studies of performance and illness ( and fatality ) rates. Not dietary fads.

Here's the US Army tables. The British Army ones are similar and are even more stringently applied, due to several incidents of soldiers dying because they tried to preserve their water. The squad now stops and drinks its water en masse.

[http://www.evans.amedd.army.mil/PM/WorkRestTable.pdf](http://www.evans.amedd.army.mil/PM/WorkRestTable.pdf)

I only wore blue but even then if I showed-up on exercise with the wrong quantity of water loaded for the conditions it was a charge.

<comment><USER27> That says if you are doing 'easy work' you should drink 1/2 qt. per hour +/\- 1/4 qt/h +/-1/4 qt per hour = 0-1 qts per hour depending on the person and conditions.

In other words it doesn't really say a lot especially for people who aren't soldiers marching in the sun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It all depends..

I was a landscaper in Phoenix AZ for a few years. Over the summer. We usually got to work ~5:00 AM and went home about 1:30-2 but it was still extremely hot (regularly 113F or 45C) . I regularly drank over a gallon and half of liquid a day. And was still somewhat dehydrated. Drinking that much fluid a regular basis really starts washing salts out of your body... along with the sweat. You become very sensitive to amount of dissolved solids in liquid. Water starts being extremely unsatisfying at the days end but drinking salty stuff (Gatorade etc) at the wrong time (early morning before you really have drunk much) will really lay you out as it heats up.

</comment><comment><USER29> No, You Do Not Have to Trust What Mainstream Media Says Every Day.

<comment><USER30> 'Mainstream media'? I mostly hear nutrition tips like this via Facebook posts of dubious pseudoscience lifestyle sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yes, your body will let you know when you are thirsty. But I think it's still important to remind people to _drink_ when they are thirsty (you'd be surprised at how often people try to hydrate by _eating_ instead), and to drink _water_ when they are thirsty (not soda or fruit juice or coffee).

</comment><comment><USER32> No, you don't have to drink 8 glasses of water, nor 2 nor 12, you have to drink what your body needs and asks for

</comment><comment><USER16> Only 8 cups? My throat is uncomfortable if I drink less than that at work, and I drink a lot at home too.

</comment><comment><USER33> Somehow related, very rare but good to know [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication)

</comment><comment><USER34> I would think that not every human, regarding their weight/age/height, would not have to drink the same amount of water.

Water is delicious, though.

</comment><comment><USER35> Aldo respect, this article is a waste of time. We're so obsessed with putting a number on everything - that's why the "8 glasses a day" rule exists. It's not literal. It means "drink a lot of water throughout the day and you'll feel better." Which is true. I drink tons of water and it's made a massive difference in every aspect of my life. I have no idea how much I drink daily, though. It doesn't matter. Because we're all different. Just drink more water, and stop trying to figure out that magic number by reading articles from the media that change every week.

<comment><USER22> If you read the article he's basically saying drinking 'tons' of water is completely unnecessary and not linked to any evidence of benefits to your health, contrary to what you're saying. He's a scientist, you're speaking from personal experience, which is as valid as people saying they feel much better after praying to their pet lizard every night (i.e. it may be valid, it may simply be a placebo, and it may simply be unrelated entirely).</comment></comment>