Ask HN: My father is so obese he'll likely die from a heart attack this year - <AUTHOR> This is not a a technical or technological question but I need advice.
My 60+ year old father is obese, he's over worked (works close to 15 hours a day for many many years), sleeps very little and lately started suffering from pains in his chest. The doctor said he doesn't think he'll last it until the end of the year. He said it 6 months ago.
Today he's been submitted to hospital suffering from mild pains in his chest. The doctors checked him and everything seemed to be alright. He didn't agree to stay for examination over the night and left a few hours after the tests results arrived.
My father is very intelligent, he's hard working and has a very strong will. Non the less he isn't willing to do anything active to lose weight. He's been dieting this last half a year. He hasn't gained weight but hasn't lost anything either.
He won't go to a dietitian, won't do sport.
What can I do (I'm 25) to get him to take this thing seriously. How can I help him to lose weight? Each time I raise the issue he treats it as though it doesn't exist.
Any advice is welcome, thank you. <comment><USER3> Confront him bluntly with discussion about burial details and his will. Ask if he would record a message to his grandchildren he'll never see. Ask about his living will, does he want to be on life support? How about if he is brain dead?

Sorry to be so blunt, I went through something like this with my father. He refused to change his ways until he had a massive MI resulting in a heart bypass which he never fully recovered from, dying at 57 (I was 30 at the time of the MI and CTO of ibm.com).

To fully change he needs the support of the family, but he needs to accept the need to change. Without that you will just frustrate yourself and your family.

<comment><USER4> Yes, exactly. The living will conversation. It may not change his ways, but it'll make him respect how you feel about it, hopefully.

For me, it was 2009, the year everyone died. I lost so many friends and family, and so many of my friends lost friends and family, I couldn't even count them all. My bandmate in particular struggled with a father who had been a lifelong hermit, and was utterly uncooperative in his own care. He had no will, and my bandmate was the sole heir of a house that had been in the family for generations (since the 1850s). It was a legal mess waiting to happen. Meanwhile, I lost another bandmate, just a few years older than me, to cancer, and lost a friend of 15 years to suicide. Terrible, terrible year.

This led me to a conversation with my children, who were 15 at the time. I told them that if I ever get to where I can't take care of myself and their mother can't take care of me for whatever reason, that they should do _whatever it takes_ to take care of me. Take away my car, take over my finances, put me in a nursing home, whatever. I warned them that I'll tell them not to do those things then. They shouldn't listen to me then, because I'll be senile!

But seriously, parents may not do what is best for their children, but they can at least care that that's their choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _What can I do (I 'm 25) to get him to take this thing seriously._

I struggled with this with both my parents (one a smoker, one obese). I talked to both until it became a strain on our relationship (both were younger than yours is now though - they were maybe 48ish when I was 25). In the end, my mom just flat out told me that she knew it would kill her but that her parents died young and that's just okay with her. How do you respond to that? This is an intelligent woman - a professional DBA for 10+ years and an IT manager for another 15) - yet she is superstitious without cause ("My parents died early so that must mean I will too no matter what I do").

In the end I opted to just live and let live - no more preaching, no more "Are you kidding? You can't eat that! You're already 280 pounds!". I don't know what else I could do - I can't make them do the right thing and they know the "right thing" but willfully ignore it. It's frustrating, sure, but I enjoy the time I have with them. I ultimately chalked it up to "personal weakness" \- my dad would sabotage his diets and avoid actual health knowledge in favor of fad diets, and my mom just didn't want to work that hard to quit smoking.

Bottom line: he made the life choices of the past 20+ years with full knowledge of what might/will happen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Spend time with him and savor being around him. We all die eventually, it's what we do with the time we have that counts. My advice would just be to do the things to ensure you won't live with regrets in the future.

</comment><comment><USER7> If he wont listen to you effectively nothing. I know this is not the answer you want to hear but you can only help people who help themselves. He sounds like he is in nowhere near the shape required for any kind of sport but an hour or two walking a day would be excellent workout. If the diet is failing then quality of food is probably an issue,high quality vegetables and meat/fish cooked simply (no sauces ),no vegetable oils,minimal milk and bread products.The more boring and tasteless the better.

You can consider a low carb diet as well(provided its clean),humans are normally perfectly adapted to eat carbohydrates but he might find it easier if he has problems with insulin regulation. And he should stop working already,time for health related retirement.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm 25 too. My father died in January, it was almost the same story. He was not obese, but had heart issues, and the doctors had told him 2012 would be his last year. And he kept that from us.

Even 15 seconds before dying, he told me it was just asthma bothering. (While being in ICU).

The first thing that called my attention was that when I logged into his computer to close his facebook and etc, the computer was clean. He had removed every password, cache, social media app. And he removed them 1 hour before going to the hospital.

What I'm trying to say is, that sometimes people just wants to let go. And maybe, sometimes, we should just be with them, and say how much we love them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> After a sleepless night, I think I've come up with a multi stage plan to help lose the extra weight, until he's out of the danger weight zone (he doesn't have to be slim, just not obese). Would love some advice:

Conduct several changes to effect his lifestyle and make it healthier

1\. Disconnect the TV and get the 3 seat sofa of the the living room. This way he won't fall asleep in front of the TV. This will help him with regular sleep.

2\. Not buy unhealthy food. Sign up for a service providing fresh salads each day. Put a salad in his car. For him to always have a healthy alternative that's easier to obtain than other fatting alternatives.

3\. Blocks his drive way with wood a metal. Should make him look for parking that atleast 15 mins away from home. 15 mins in each direction is a 30 min daily walk. Force him for some exercise.

4\. Fill the house with scales. In every room. Scales that can support his weight. For him not to avoid it.

5\. Define together with him his weight target. Find a dietitian willing to come to our house at 9 pm when he finishes working to help him estimate his progress.

6\. Getting his brother involved. He appreciates his older brother and enjoys talking to him. Ask for his brother to come over once a week and go walking with him (he lives near by).

7\. He also has a very good friend from work (they've been working together for 35 years or more). Not sure how he can effectively help though. Ideas?

8\. I Built up a weekly table, each of the family members (we're a few brothers married with or with girlfriends, and I've got a healthy mother). In each hour or two someone else needs to phone him to ask him how's his day / diet going and what he's had to eat today. When he's coming home and when he's going walking.

Any other ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

<comment><USER9> You should try to understand what he eats and why. Is it just a lot of junk food? He might not be feeling full, because fast food is not very satiating. Try adding more protein and fat in his diet and reducing carbohydrates. I'm not saying a ketogenic diet - just changing the proportions a bit to see if he feels fuller.

You can try to help all you want but he's a grown man and will have to decide by himself. Show that he can eat yummy things that will keep him full - <USER2> long as he has a caloric deficit, he will lose weight. Eating salads all day won't satisfy anybody. Try eating meals with him.

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is your father still working? What's his height and weight?

If he has high intelligence, then don't bother prescribing him what to do. You only need to pitch and convince him that hitting a certain BMI is a necessary business outcome. Some men are hunters, not farmers. They need something to chase, not just hang around and tending gardens.

Exercise has been not shown to contribute much to weight loss. On the other hand, lack of sleep has been associated with weight gain.

Ask your father to consider replacing soda with water. It's magic for most people. The first few days, water will taste terrible. If he can't stand it, make a spritz by adding fresh lemons. Buy a set of scales because he will definitely see the results of this one small change. Also, drink more water. It helps cut down the appetite.

</comment><comment><USER11> Accept and implement what ScottWhigham and epc have posted. Don't try to control something that you can't: he's over 60, has lived a long life and may not see much reason to continue.

Meanwhile, if he wants to try, I recommend "playing to his strengths". Likely some of the largest muscles in his body are in his legs (obese persons often have incredibly strong legs that can burn lots of fat) and if he simply begins walking then it's the best first step to a cure.

Offer incentives if necessary: take him to parks, malls, museums or wherever he might enjoy a change of scenery while walking. Someplace with lots of young women usually perks up the older guys. Of course if he went to a gym that would be great, but I wouldn't buy a gym membership yet.

</comment><comment><USER12> It might be worthwhile finding out if your dad is suffering from panic attacks (I can testify that it can give you pretty freaky symptoms). It might also explain some other things like the 15 hour work day and even contribute towards his weight issues.

There are no advantages to fighting with your father if you are worried about him dying this year. His health problems didn't start yesterday, so any change will take time and effort.

Helping him get regular sleep may be the easiest first thing to begin. Lots of good things to try to help with sleep including limiting exposure to blue light.

Having a friend who he can buddy up with might make light exercise easier. It will probably feel like criticism and nagging if it comes from you and your family, but if it comes from a peer (who also needs some exercise) it might be easier to take. If he is very overweight and there concerns with his heart, jumping into heavy exercise is probably not a great idea (nor realistic).

My dad was a 2-3 pack a day smoker for most of his life. I don't actually regret the fact that I didn't get him to quit sooner(though I tried), I regret that I didn't spend more fun moments with him (which we did have, but not enough). Find the things he likes doing and see if you can do some together. If he is happier and enjoying his life more, it might give him the motivation to change things.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, to be honest. I think it's all about the guilt trip. Guilt-tripping people usually has this way of making them obligated to do stuff, atleast for me. So guilt-trip the hell out of your mom & dad. Let them know that they won't live to see your future children/their grandchildren. That you want to see them learn from their grannies. Or a good kick in the ass might help?.. Basically you need something to kick these people into high gear. Find out what scares the daylights out of them, and do that, something to put them in a different mental state.

I know how you feel btw. My dad was brilliant, but he was very set in his way because he felt he knew everything.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope this helps. Eating and working too much can be addictive and I don't think you'll be able to force him to change. Maybe try connecting and maybe learning some of his personal dreams. Real change has to come from him, but maybe you could gently establish a keystone habit that others can build from. "The Power of Habit" is a good book/audiobook that talks a bit about this in the first chapters.

On the other hand, it's hard to accept, but maybe just try to connect while you can.

</comment><comment><USER15> Suggest he take a walk with you. If he does, keep it up. If he won't even take a walk with you it's probably hopeless, sorry to say. I went through such with my father.

<comment><AUTHOR> he will very rarely agree to take walks with anyone

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Try spending time with him and suggest walking whenever you can, like when you are going to the store. That way it's not just exercise. My gf got her cousin to lose 30 lbs or so over the course of a year.

The hardest part about exercise is getting over the hurdle to actually go do it. Having a partner makes it much easier. Even if I am fit I have a very hard time just going to a gym - I have to go play a sport.

</comment><comment><USER17> When you are younger you have more power over your parents. Like when I was in my early teens, I was able to guilt my mother out of smoking and drinking. If it was today (Now I am 21 and moved out of my house) I believe I would be much less successful. My thoughts, make your father feel like you need him for support.

<comment><AUTHOR> fantastic. Thanks for this

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Careful not to spoil your relationship with him over it. Try to have some serious conversations with him about it. Unless he is bought into your plan, it might be impossible to do anything about. People have a hard enough time losing weight when they are actively trying to.</comment>


Why "require 'rubygems'" Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://tomayko.com/writings/require-rubygems-antipattern <comment><USER2> Context failure: linking to Ryan Tomayko's article without linking to the article that's brought it to people's attention again, namely Josh Peek's 'Gem Packaging: Best Practices'.

[http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/9/1/gem-packaging-best- pr...](http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/9/1/gem-packaging-best-practices)

Giles Bowkett has also written about the related issue of screwing up the load path:

[http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/04/unshiftfiledirnamef...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/04/unshiftfiledirnamefile.html)

It's also worth noting that Ruby 1.9 requires rubygems automatically, as it's included in the standard library.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Both the Rubygems Bundler and Rip (as Josh explains) are great examples of why "require 'rubygems'" might not always be the best idea.

Bundler: <http://github.com/wycats/bundler>

Rip: <http://hellorip.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please don't start your shell scripts with #!/bin/sh. If a script foobar needs to be interpreted with sh, just run it with '/bin/sh foobar', instead of ./foobar.

Please don't put #include <stdlib.h> in your C source files. By doing this you remove my ability to compile your files in an environment where the standard library is not present. Instead, whenever you need to compile a file that uses stdlib.h functionality, simply use a small wrapper file that includes stdlib.h and then includes your source file, and compile that.

<comment><USER5> Analogy failures:

* Configuring /bin/sh to point to my shell of choice is trivial (and common)

* Overriding the shebang is even more trivial, if I don't like sh, I can call `./mysupershell foobar`

Meanwhile, if I don't want gems on my machine and manage my $LOAD_PATH manually or through other means (which seems to be Ryan's case) but you decided that your library was going to require rubygems dammit, I have the choices between

* Installing rubygems (and duplicating my $LOAD_PATH handling efforts) anyway because you decided I was to have rubygems on my machine whether or not I liked it

* Adding an empty rubygems.rb to my $LOAD_PATH (yeah, kludge)

* Hacking Kernel#require to ignore gems request (yeah, horrible hack)

<comment><USER6> If you're going to be in the tiny tiny minority of Ruby devs that insists on not installing rubygems, having a stubbed "rubygems.rb" in your load path is not an unreasonable request --- particularly compared to the request that _everybody else_ uses some contorted command line to execute their script to accomodate you.

<comment><USER7> It's unreasonable if you want to have both rubygems and some other package system available at the same time, as is most often the case. Having to use the contorted command line is the rare case, as you almost always invoke ruby scripts through the rubygems generated wrapper or some other isolated script intended specifically for command line use, which takes care of rubygems itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The system you use to manage your $LOAD_PATH is not my library / app / tests concern. Whether rubygems is used or not is an environment issue. My library or app should have no say in the matter. Explicitly requiring me to not use rubygems is either not necessary or misguided.

When you feel the urge to strike "require 'rubygems'" because some shit isn't working, stop and consider whether one of these solutions is more appropriate:

1) An empty rubygems.rb in your $LOAD_PATH should do the trick.

2) Redefine Kernel#require to intercept calls to load rubygems and silently discard them.

Why You Shouldn't Force Non-Rubygems On People

When I write you a library, appplication, or tests, I may not want to have to care how you execute my program. When you require that I not include 'rubygems' in my code, you remove my ability to make that decision. I cannot anticipate all of your requirements in advance, but you _can_ set up your environment properly such that the defaults I choose are overridden.

<comment><USER5> So instead of separating the library and the environment you suggest that ugly hacks are more appropriate? Really?

<comment><USER6> Having the 99.9% of ruby users who don't have a religious problem with rubygems all specify rubygems on the commandline seems like a more ugly hack than having the 3 developers in the world who care about this problem alter their environment.

<comment><USER7> You underestimate the amount of discontent with rubygems. There is at least one replacement available (hellorip.com) and for good reason. I've already come across a few libs that use it exclusively.

Ruby 1.9 actually ignores "require 'rubygems'" entirely which I suppose will make this whole issue moot, as soon as we all start using it.. um, any day now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The point about not requiring rubygems in a library or a gem (as ironic as that may sound) is that by doing so you're coupling your implementation to your environment. This is as bad as coupling your classes to global constants, and not something you should do. Case in point: Rails allows you to "unpack" gems to make your app more portable, and it shouldn't matter if the "foo" gem uses the unpacked version or the one installed in the gem repository on the server.

</comment><comment><USER10> Let me see...every time I have required rubygems it has done exactly what I intended for it to do (which is to allow me to load some ruby gem), so I think I'll just go ahead and ignore your advise.

</comment><comment><USER11> Stupid article.

So if I write a ruby program that needs rubygems I need to ask people that will run it to please run my program with "ruby -rubygems foo.rb" or set an environment variable, instead of just requiring the gems. Because that would infringe on the domain system administrator of that system. That doesn't make much sense to me.

<comment><USER5> > So if I write a ruby program that needs rubygems

I think Ryan's point is that most of the time your program doesn't require rubygems itself. You just happen to manage your libraries using gems, somebody else could do it an other way (and never need rubygems), but you're forcing that person to install gems regardless.

<comment><USER11> Things tend to break a little less over time if I can require a version of a gem, like:

gem 'png', '= 1.1'

The good part about rubygems is that it's possible to get a certain version of a gem. I'd rather use gem and version than just require "png", and get god knows what version or file.

<comment><USER5> That's a good point, and in this case requiring rubygems does make sense, but I really doubt that's the most common use case.

Stuff like this: [http://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/blob/2f2e45bedf67dedb8d1dc0...](http://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/blob/2f2e45bedf67dedb8d1dc0d02612345ee5c893f2/lib/jekyll.rb) or that: [http://github.com/mwunsch/weary/blob/cd7b35ccee66757c5efb0a0...](http://github.com/mwunsch/weary/blob/cd7b35ccee66757c5efb0a03cd54f9e89f1eaad7/lib/weary.rb) is probably the kind of stuff Ryan rages against in his rant (though you'd have to ask him if that's that, and how he'd see you use case)

<comment><USER11> yep I can agree that

      require 'rubygems'
      require 'png'

is kind of pointless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is called begging the question:

"Why You Shouldn't Force Rubygems On People:

When I use your library, deploy your app, or run your tests I may not want to use rubygems."

</comment><comment><USER13> Whoever this guy is, he really needs to pull his head out of his ass.

If someone's writing a library or app.. it's up to THEM whether they want to require rubygems or not. If you don't like how they do it.. then don't use their application/library, it's simple.

Most people create code for their OWN use and THEN publish it for others to use.

<comment><USER5> > If someone's writing a library or app.. it's up to THEM whether they want to > require rubygems or not.

But… why? Most of the time it's not like _they_ actually _need_ gems. They just happen to use gems as a $LOAD_PATH manager, so they're leaking their environment configuration into the library. How can anyone defend that?

It's like hardcoding the paths of dynamic libraries, or respawning your shell scripts because damn it if any god damn user is going to run it with anything other than /bin/bash.

It's completely insane.

<comment><USER14> _they just happen to use gems as a $LOAD_PATH manager_

Oh come on. That's like saying "you should not make your MacOSX app require Finder just because some people just happen to use it as their file manager". Just happen? It's the default, and overwhelmingly dominant, choice! It's freaking bundled in 1.9 core!

rtomayko is a prominent and well regarded community member but he's pretty much a crank on this issue. He is the extreme odd one out who doesn't like rubygems, so it's on him to deal with it, rather than causing inconvenience for everyone else. He doesn't even give a good, or any, reason why he doesn't use gems. And as if I'm going to write -rubygems every time I run anything, give me a break.

Rubygems is the official package manager and is used without any issue by 99.9% of Rubyists. It's not 100% perfect but in general works beautifully and greatly contributes to making everything in Ruby "just work". There is no reason for people to stop using it as the default choice.

<comment><USER3> I'm also a crank.

So is Rails core member Yehuda Katz.

So is Rails core member Josh Peek.

So is Rails core member Jeremy Kemper.

Calling Ryan "the extreme odd one out" is a) untrue and b) unfair.

<comment><USER14> Right. Now I am really confused. You went out of your way to build gem building support into GH. _You run a fricking gem repository_ , probably the largest after Rubyforge itself. If you honestly agree that using Rubygems is "utterly insane" then .. wtf are you doing?

And Rails uses Rubygems. Of course. Its ease of use is one of the reasons Rails, and indeed Ruby itself, is so popular. Is it "utterly insane" for Rails to use Rubygems, too? And if all the core members are so against it, why does it? Why is Rails even in the gem repositories?

What am I missing here? Seriously, I just don't get it.

I'm currently kinda mentoring a friend of mine who's just getting started programming (my 3rd student!). I can personally attest that Rubygems is an _invaluable_ resource for the beginner and intermediate Rubyist. Have you considered the possibility that your ultra-expert status has blinded you to the needs of the lesser 99% of programmers?

<comment><USER3> No one has suggested, is suggesting, or will suggest that you stop using Rubygems. That is not what this is about in any sense of the phrase. Everyone loves Rubygems, including Ryan Tomayko.

This is about the best way to use Rubygems. Check out Josh Peek's recent article: [http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/9/1/gem-packaging-best- pr...](http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/9/1/gem-packaging-best-practices)

There are ways to use Rubygems without putting "require 'rubygems'" in your code. Those are the correct, most portable, least painful ways of using Rubygems. Learn them and cherish them!

That is what this is about: how you are using Rubygems, not whether or not to use them.

<comment><USER14> I just read that post again. Good post, but it's talking about something different. This HN article is about Ryan's views on the matter.

Of course I agree that _libraries_ should not require it. I often want to use libraries by themselves. But _apps_!? What do you suggest - manually place each gem directory, by its full system file path, into $LOAD_PATH? How on earth are you going to use a gem installed in its default location by the ubiquitous "gem install" method, if not by, at some point, requiring rubygems?

This whole kerfuffle was started by this gist: <http://gist.github.com/54177>. Note the title: Why "require 'rubygems'" In Your Library/App/Tests Is Wrong. I thought that was a ridiculous thing to say then and still do. In my _app_!? That no-one else will ever see, my personal little IRC bot or something? What, pray tell, is the difference between loading rubygems on the command line every single time you run the program, or just writing in the source because you know your app needs it?

I have no quarrel with best practise for responsible use of gems. I agree completely with what Josh Peek writes. People publishing gems to public repos should absolutely learn how to do it without stepping on anyone's shoes. But that is not what Ryan says. Ryan says this:

      You should never do this in a source file included
      with your library, app, or tests:

      require 'rubygems'

and that is extremist and indefensible and, IMO, flat out wrong.

update: I mean, let's have an example. Let's take a top-level app that depends on things. I know, thin.

Here we are: [http://github.com/macournoyer/thin/blob/9f391ed7fcc7c202a32e...](http://github.com/macournoyer/thin/blob/9f391ed7fcc7c202a32e520bda9323be25d666e4/lib/thin.rb)

He needs eventmachine. He requires rubygems and loads it. Tell me what he is doing wrong. Tell me how he should do it differently. Because I can not see what is wrong with that. And if that usage is wrong, then what is the point of even having Rubygems.

update 2: And I would like to clarify that I agree Rails should only be requiring Rubygems when it is being used at the top level, such as being launched from the binary or from the script directory, not when it is being loaded as a lib. It is always the top level app's responsibility to set up paths, etc - rails is a special case because it's both an app and a library.

<comment><USER5> > He needs eventmachine. He requires rubygems and loads it. Tell me what he is > doing wrong.

He requires rubygems even though what he wants is eventmachine. What's the sense?

> Tell me how he should do it differently.

Don't require rubygems. Rubygems isn't used anywhere in the code, why require it?

> And if that usage is wrong, then what is the point of even having Rubygems.

Managing your own $LOAD_PATH on your own machine(s). That's the point of rubygems in the first place.

<comment><USER14> Oh for fuck's sake. So what do you suggest? Bundle eventmachine with thin?

 _"He requires rubygems even though what he wants is eventmachine. What's the sense?"_

Do you know even know what rubygems is? It is used to require other libraries. Like eventmachine. That is a textbook usage.

I was regretting insulting you before, but after hearing that, I don't anymore - you're an idiot.

Hey defunkt, do you endorse masklinn's comment above too?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Towards creating a perfect international flight search experience on the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cleartrip.com/2013/03/18/solving-international-flights-for-iphone/

<comment><USER2> ClearTrip has always kept design and UI/UX at their highest priorities. And it shows in the app..

Recently used and was amazed at the ease of use and clarity... Job Good Guys !!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Glad to hear.</comment></comment>


18 most active deep learning repos on GitHub - <AUTHOR> http://memect.co/sKWGNe2

<comment><AUTHOR> The 18 repos are manually selected from "100 Best GitHub: Deep Learning" [http://meta-guide.com/software-meta-guide/100-best-github-de...](http://meta- guide.com/software-meta-guide/100-best-github-deep-learning/)

Each project is visualized with a project card for easy browsing

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> These projects are implemented in major languages: Python, Matlab/Octave, C/C++, Java, Scala, Javascript

And most of major algorithms are supports: DBN (Deep Belief Nets), RBM (Restricted Boltzmann Machine), dA (Denoising Autoencoders), SdA (Stacked Denoising Autoencoders), CNN(Convolutional Neural Networks ), and more</comment>


Prose - Web-Based Content Editor For Github - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/prose/prose

<comment><AUTHOR> Via: [http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/06/prose-web-based- interf...](http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/06/prose-web-based-interface- for-managing.html) \- Functionn - Open Source Resources For Web Developers & Designers

</comment><comment><USER2> Can't Sign in with github...auth code seems to be broken, the redirection is not happening.</comment>


Moms' smoking in pregnancy tied to girls' (earlier) puberty - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B253C20101203?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r3:c0.068538:b40010370:z0

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if women who smoke during pregnancy are less likely to have a father present a decade later, which is also related to earlier menarche

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH0-4F9737K-3&_user=10&_coverDate=08/31/2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2d4981841ac90349a8b63bcea25c88bf&searchtype=a)

</comment><comment><USER2> not tied. LINKED. tied makes it sound like the smoking causes this. that we do not know.</comment>


The World That Twitter Made - barry-cotter https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-world-that-twitter-made.html?m=1 <comment> barry-cotter > We are at a moment in time where public commitments to freedom if thought > and speech ebb to a low.

> There are many culprits. I blame the transition of the public sphere from > blogs to Twitter.

The difference between Twitter and the old blogosphere was that the latter was primarily communities that shared background assumptions and were mostly arguing in good faith. Twitter isn't like that. If you have lots of followers many of them will be doing so to keep tabs on communities they're not part of. Some of them will be hate follows. So an awful lot of the Twitter experience is of constant exposure to people who hate you and your ideas and wish you harm, who argue in bad faith, are dishonest or stupid, or whose background assumptions are so different from yours that their actions cannot be distinguished from malice.

Twitter is a cancer.</comment>


Google's man behind the curtain - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/2008-1024_3-5208228.html <comment><USER2> Google's wizard behind the curtain is probably Jeffrey Dean

"I'm almost certain it is Jeff Dean. During my 3 month internship at Google, his name came up EVERYWHERE.

1) He is a primary author on all of Google's major infrastructure-related publications (BigTable, MapReduce, etc)

2) I've seen his internal resume. It is CRAZY."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=219667>

Jeff Dean speaking at Google I/O 2008 about the infrastructure:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsan-GQaeyk>

<comment><USER3> Yup. My personal theory is that if Jeff were not there, Google would have been acquired by competitors. That one guy alone was a force multiplier for Google, in the most literal sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Incidentally, Craig Silverstein is one of the few winnings of the ACM programming contest to launch themselves into eminence.

<comment><USER4> *winners. Rather. Does anyone else make wordos? Type the wrong word entirely?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Q: When do you think that kind of artificially intelligent search will happen?

A: ... In terms of timing, I typically say about 200 to 300 years. I think it is probably closer to the 300th year end of it. But if it ends up being closer to the 200th year, I would not be around in any case, and I will not be able to have anyone gainsay me._

</comment><comment><USER6> Why'd you add a 2004 article?</comment>


How Many People Will Patent Monopolies Kill in This Pandemic? - <AUTHOR> https://cepr.net/how-many-people-will-patent-monopolies-kill-in-this-pandemic/ <comment><USER2> How many people will be saved? If a single person's life is saved by remdesivir ot any of the drugs commercialize by the private sector, that's a life that will have been saved because of patent incentives. If a single person's life is saved by modernas vaccine or J&Js vaccine or any of the others, those are lives that will have been saved because patents made the investment into those technologies by the private sector possible. We dont have a model right mow that works better than the public/private hybrid model we have right now where both the public sector through the NIH etc and the private sector through biotech and pharma work together to develop new innovations and save lives. Cut either of those two out and the system collapses. Cut taxes and the public side, basic research and preclinical through the NIH and the very important regulatory role by the FDA, collapses. Cut patent monopolies and the private sector work, pre clinical development and clinical trials and manufacturing and distribution and drug discovery, collapses.

<comment><USER3> I'm not a huge fan of patents. I'm _really_ not a huge fan of copyright. This is exactly the right question to ask though. Ignoring "How many people will be saved [because of copyrights]?" doesn't do anyone any good.</comment></comment>


Is dyndns still relevant? - <AUTHOR>

So we made 5dollardns.com while waiting for other idea for S12(got rejected). The original idea was to be simple, straight forward and as cheap as possible dynamic DNS. So we used GAE and AWS route 53 - done in a day. Decided on name/price - $5/year for 3 A Records and off we went. While got some traffic we didn't get any logins/payments/users. Then we switch to freemium - first A Record free, any extra - $5/year. Got few logins/users but still nothing worth mentioning. Now the question is : in this cloudy world of ours, is the dyndns still useful? <comment><USER2> I don't think demand problem. If you see here, interest in the search term 'dynamic dns service' has increased over 12 months:

[http://www.google.com/insights/search/#date=today+12-m&q...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#date=today+12-m&q=dynamic) dns service

What are you doing in terms of marketing? You didn't mention this because there's a number of things that you could try to improve both SEO and conversion rates. I wouldn't expect to see many results unless you've spent some time marketing the product.

For example, the page title on your how to guide could be improved to include a searched for keyword such as:

'dynamic dns howto - $5 DNS'

Another example would be thinking about how you can expand your website in terms of content so that you can target a broader range of keywords.

These shouldn't be done on there own and you will need a solid plan for continued success. Let me know if you wanna chat more about this: firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> link <http://www.5dollardns.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> Why this instead of all of the existing alternatives to Dyndns?

no-ip.com \- changeip.com \- freedns.afraid.org</comment>


The Case of the Trailing Space - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.imvu.com/2014/12/09/the-case-of-the-trailing-space/

<comment><USER2> Excellent post! Would make an even better Nancy Drew book...</comment>


Ask HN: Which is the fastest functional programming language? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Ocaml or perhaps common lisp.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hear Haskell can accelerate to 60MPH in just 0.2 seconds!

</comment><comment><USER4> My suggestion is kotlin.</comment>


Can e-bikes revolutionise long-distance commuting? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/14/e-bikes-long-distance-commuting-speed-pedelec-electric-cycles <comment><USER2> Daily bike commuter here. It's not a technological breakthrough that I'm waiting for. We really need infrastructure to catch up to bicycles.

It's still very dangerous to bike in Silicon Valley. Cars are generally bike- hostile and sharing the roads with them is dangerous. Not only that, but bike lanes are often just a symbol painted on the road. We need infrastructure that separates bikers from the cars.

Also, people just simply need to stop driving so dangerously.

<comment><USER3> In London they have built some amazing cycle super highways which are great to cycle on, however you can go incredibly fast and some people do - I've seen three ambulances in a week along there (Embankment) recently scraping up people off the road. It's safer than being with cars and lorries but pedestrians seem to not look and walk into the cycle lane because bikes are pretty silent... anyway I do agree with cycle lanes but maybe we need to think through pedestrians and speed as well...

<comment><USER4> Pedestrians need to learn to expect bikes on those lanes. I don't know what they look like but they should stand out as bicycle lanes to anyone on the road. Also, cyclists should be careful just like regular drivers and adjust their speed to their environment. If you were raised in The Netherlands you would know very well to check for both cars and bicycles when crossing anything.

<comment><USER5> > I don't know what they look like

Ideally like [http://s3.amazonaws.com/lcc_production_bucket/files/8920/in_...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/lcc_production_bucket/files/8920/in_content.jpg) but in many places they're more like [http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/48375000/jpg...](http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/48375000/jpg/_48375932_img_1553.jpg)

<comment><USER4> The first is pretty good I'd say.

That second shot shows nicely why that particular solution doesn't work; cyclists take to the sidewalk as the road is too crowded and dangerous.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. I chose both photos carefully; the first one does look okay indeed, but note the location of the bus stop. Unfortunately pedestrians (especially tourists; we're talking about central London here) often don't realise there are fast moving vehicles on that blue strip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting topic. However, the contents of the article have nearly nothing to do with the title unfortunately. The article is about one dude who uses an e-bike on a bike path - which I agree should not be allowed if it exceeds some speed limit. The article should have been about replacing mopeds with e-bikes, or the title should have been "What is the correct speed limit for e-bikes on bike paths?"

Ideally, the law would set that speed limit to ~20mph since that is what a person pedaling can readily achieve.

<comment><USER7> 20mph is slow - Fit cyclists would be able to keep up with him.

My cycle to work this morning had a top speed of 40kmph (24mph). I was feeling particularly slow this morning and am only just getting back into cycling. I expect that soon I'll be quite a bit faster.

<comment><USER4> 40kmph is actually very fast compared to the average cyclist. Fast enough that I would consider it reckless if done in heavy (cycling) traffic.

But you highlight the issue nicely; bikes are not self-powered, it depends on the human. Even with e-bikes this is true, most of them will only support the rider and have been made not to power the bike all by itself. So how to regulate that? Perhaps a good old speed limit is all that is really needed.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Enforcement is a challenge however. Bikes don't have license plates.

<comment><USER4> True, but the police can ride bikes, especially in cities where the speed limit will matter most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just looked up the laws around speed in California bike lanes and it looks like as long as you wear a helmet you can go 28MPH in Class II bike lines (the kind that are marked on the street, not a "bike path," which is class 1). I would have guessed much slower. 28MPH is pretty fast between train stations if you have none of the congestion associated with automobile traffic. It's really not a bad idea.

As a regular old cyclist I could imagine thinking e-bikers were assholes for using my class II bike lines if there were many more of them on the road, though. I guess if ebikes ever catch on, there will be some growing pains.

<comment><USER9> There was heavy lobbying over that.

There's a continuum of two wheeled vehicles from a kid's BMX bike to a Harley. There has to be an arbitrary cutoff on how much vehicle you can use on a bike path.

Here's what the top end in electric bikes looks like.[1] Out-accelerates a motorcycle. Suitable for dirt-biking. $8000. That has far more performance than a 50cc moped from Wal-Mart for $249.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A65dt- zLdSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A65dt-zLdSw)

<comment><USER10> 8,300 Euros for the model you linked to. Anything in the $500 range?

<comment><USER11> The mountain bike you've got sitting in the garage (or a $50 eBay/CraigsList special) and something like this:

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/24V-36V-500W-26-Rear- Wheel-E...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/24V-36V-500W-26-Rear-Wheel-Ebike- Conversion-Kit-with-Sine-Wave-Controller-LCD3/32472239378.html)

Plus an hour or so with some spanners and zipties, gets you one of these:

[https://flic.kr/p/MjzMDN](https://flic.kr/p/MjzMDN)

For well under $500. (I think including the battery and the bike, that one owes me under $300.)

<comment><USER10> Not bad. Id rather build it myself with a kit like the one you linked. How reliable are these kits?

<comment><USER11> That one's 2 years old now (just over), and the power system is now onto it's second cheapo mountain bike (that one had the chain slip off the rear sprockets when the gears were badly adjusted, which damaged the spokes, which later broke. It ended up being less hassle buying a new bike than repairing the wheel). I do a 16km round trip on it 3 times a week or so (less during winter, it's fun to ride, but _way_ less fun in the rain).

I guess I should mention you'll also need a charger capable of charging your chosen battery (I already had two, so I don't factor in the cost of that - you'd be looking at ~$50 or so at the bottom end there...)

<comment><USER9> E-bike fires from bad lithium batteries or bad chargers are a problem. Same problem as hoverboards. Boosted Skateboards went with LiFePO4 batteries, which have lower energy density and cost more, but don't catch fire or blow up, even if punctured with a nail. Some e-bikes use LiFeP04 chemistry, some use LiPo, some use Li-ion. Go with LiFePO4 and look for UL approval on the charger.

Pedego had to recall 5,000 e-bikes after battery fires.[1] There have been some major fires at e-bike shops.

[1] [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/Pedego-Recalls- Electric-...](http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/Pedego-Recalls-Electric- Bicycle-Batteries/)

<comment><USER11> Sure - I've flown these kinds of batteries into the ground from great heights doing dumb stuff with drones/quadcopters/modelaircraft - and abused them pretty badly while charging. I've occasionally had Galaxy Tab 7 style "incidents", and take suitable precautions given my experience with the risks.

The 7 cell 5800mAHr batteries I use on the bike are the biggest and most dangerous ones I use - and I do treat them with respect. I charge them in the middle of the concrete floor of my garage, inside a besser block, at least 1.5m from anything valuable or flammable. I dispose of them if they go puffy (I've sent two off the the e-waste/battery-recycling in two years - one of them I knew I'd let run down way too far when using it elsewhere, down under 19V which the bike's controller wouldn't ever do (it cuts out at 22V) and it never managed a good charge again, the other I'd been quick charging occasionally (although not really fast enough to explain the shortened lifespan - I can only _just_ hit 2C charge rates with my charger, the battery _should_ be good up to 5C really...))

If you don't know (or want to learn) the risks, or if you're less risk averse (or less able to mitigate the risks due to not having suitable space to let a lipo fire burn itself out) LiFePO4 is a slightly heavier but much safer battery chemistry. I _almost_ got hold of a bunch of cells from a crashed Tesla's battery pack a while back - they'd make a nice ebike power supply. If I can get my hands of enough of them at a reasonable price, I'm planning on electrifying one of my motorcycles with 30+KW of electric power...

<comment><USER9> Yes, if you take hazardous-material precautions you can handle hazardous materials. I do machine shop work; I get that. But people are going to bring their e-bikes to the office and charge them indoors. "Occasionally catches on fire" is unacceptable for that usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bike commuter here. Hope I never find one of these in my bike lane. If I'm pedaling hard, I go a little over 30km/h, my body is alert, full of adrenaline, and I'll get tired 20min latter. In an electric bike, you can go at this speed talking in your phone and eating something. Your heavy battery also will increase your inertia. It is really dangerous.

If you want to increase bike use, build more showers at the workplaces.

<comment><USER13> As a bicycle commuter, I would love to see more people doing anything that isn't cars and would glad share bicycle infrastructure with these guys. The more drivers see us, the more they look. Their speed differential is no more than what you or I have with a lot of casual cyclists, and the electric battery doesn't weigh more than a fully loaded backpack.

Is the real issue that they aren't 'real' cyclists and didn't earn it?

<comment><USER12> I'm worried with pedestrians, not with me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lot's of e-bikes in Japan. The only problem, from a powered-commute perspective is that they have a graded assist limit. I think between 12 and 20 kph, the assist gradually decreases. At 12 kph you have 100% assist and you don't have to pedal. It then declines until at 20 kph it's all you. (I don't really remember the actual numbers, but those are pretty close).

The problem is that 20 kph is _really_ slow. Even into the steady headwinds we have on the coast here, I never travel below this speed, so an e-bike just means a heavy bike for me :-) However, they have revolutionised transportation for the elderly in the countryside. In my town, almost everybody has one. It's really great because it gets people outside and going to shops, etc.

There are now a few electric scooters (classed differently in Japan than bikes). These have a 30 kmh legal speed limit, but they are not physically limited (many, many people drive over the speed limit on these). You need a drivers license to drive these (there is also a special scooter license you can apply for which is easier to get than a general purpose drivers license).

The last category is motorcycle and I haven't seen any electric ones on the road yet, but I'm sure it's a matter of time. Honestly I'd love something like this for going places I wouldn't want to go on my bicycle.

As much as I find it annoying, the categorisation makes a lot of sense to me. Limit unlicensed transport to minor assist only. Put a speed limit on full assist and require a license. Require a full motorcycle license on general transportation that is intended to travel at highway speeds. It's a bit strange to legally be allowed to ride my bike at 40+ kph just because I'm able to do so, though... I just hope nobody changes that law ;-)

</comment><comment><USER15> I said it would a couple of months ago and some interesting discussion was had. Sharing for the record: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12153802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12153802)

<comment><USER16> Which have you got?

<comment><USER15> I bought a regular city bike (Townie) and then found a shop that converted it with a generic kit. The price of the Li-Ion battery has dropped quite a bit since I last checked [1], might be time for a backup to extend my ride. I don't seem to bother the non-electric riders in the bike lane since I mostly go with the flow. Sometimes I'll pass them going uphill, but that doesn't happen too often.

[1] [http://www.batteryspace.com/custom-li- ion-18650-battery-29-6...](http://www.batteryspace.com/custom-li- ion-18650-battery-29-6v-5-2-ah-154-wh-rechargeable-battery.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If ebikes aren't of the same mass / kinetic energy as a moped, they shouldn't be classified the same.

Ebikes have the potential to revolutionize transportation in a positive way. Less infrastructure, more dense movement, opens biking to more people with less developed cardiovascular ability.

If I could do 22-25 mph / 35-40kph sustained with a rain suit on, I can beat lots of rush hour car routes, with an output of 10-15mph done by myself, and towing/carrying 20 pounds of stuff, a LOT of car trips become unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER18> The main advantage of an e-bike is that it gives the rider confidence to go further than they typically would. I have been cycling to work a lot more often after buying a pedal-assist e-bike, because I no longer dread struggling up a large hill at the end of the day. Increased acceleration also means you're also less likely to hold up cars when stopping and starting at traffic lights - making you feel like someone who should be on the road, rather than a slow nuisance. You can also choose how much of an assist you want depending on how lazy you're feeling.

E-bikes are a bit too expensive for general adoption, but I wouldn't be surprised if they become much more common over the next few years.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's a pricelist in the U.S. for those interested [1] (I'm not associated with anyone selling bikes) A word of caution: make sure you get back tire spokes the can take your weight, the expected bumpiness of the trails in your area, and the power of the motor on the back wheel hub driving you forward. I blew out all the spokes on my back tire and had to get extra heavy-duty replacements.

[http://www.electric-bikes.com/bikes/index.html](http://www.electric- bikes.com/bikes/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Another article focusing on Dutch cycling as some kind of trend indicator, but not really applicable anywhere else. Holland is flat with mild weather. Bikes are already popular and a good infrastructure and legal system in place to support it before ebikes came along. Even with Ebikes, a cold climate and a hilly landscape will put a lot of people off.

</comment><comment><USER20> I looked at ebikes a few months ago and it's still too expensive. Even the kits for converting a regular bike was almost the price of an ebike. Is it this expensive in the rest of thr world? If not, why is it so expensive here, why isn't someone just importing it and selling it for much cheaper?

<comment><USER4> Where is here for you? In The Netherlands, an e-bike costs you about 1300 EUR. Not cheap for a bike but not overly expensive either, there are more expensive non-e-bikes that are regularly bought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The license is not a problem (in the Netherlands)if you already have your drivers license for a car. You simply already have it for the moped type vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER22> Biggest problem with bike commuting is that bikes don't balance when stopped like cars do. This means you either have to idly stand around at traffic lights (which pedestrians never do, they just go for it), or you have to illegally run the light (which is what everyone except cars do, but you can still get a ticket for it).

Of course, trikes are goofy and don't corner, so there is no real solution here except bike paths designed like interstate highways. One can dream.

<comment><USER23> There's also slowing down to a crawl when approaching the light and learning how to balance on a stopped bike. The later is something I've never mastered.

<comment><USER24> > and learning how to balance on a stopped bike

There are a couple of techniques, but both actually require a small amount of forward movement so if it's a long delay then you do creep closer to the car ahead.

But neither is actually necessary; I generally prefer to declip one foot and stick it on the ground as that is quicker and safer particularly when wearing a backpack or conveying a child-seat, since that puts the CoG quite high. But the fact that I had to come to a halt indicates that I didn't correctly manage the approach and I thereby wasted energy.

And please change-down gears as you approach the light. As a fellow cyclist it's frustrating to be stuck behind other cyclists moving-off slowly as they "pedal through molasses" because they're still in a high gear. It annoys drivers, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What bike model is he using?

</comment><comment><USER26> I would say if I had to choose between an electric scooter and an electric bike for _commuting_ I'd choose the electric scooter. It's more comfortable, can attain higher speeds and can also have a cargo basket (due to scooter weight, the basket doesn't upset the balance as much) and can carry a passenger too.

Another convenience in the form factor, to add, stopping and starting do not involve dismounting and remounting, just leg down, leg back up --this means fewer riders running lights or stop signs.

So, if something two wheeled would take over, I'd say the electric scooter rather than the electric bicycle. Now, if you are looking to get a workout during your commute, ok, a pedal bike is better, you have not choice but to pedal.

<comment><USER27> With a big enough increase in bike paths, this calculation may differ: going slow enough to be allowed on a bike path, while still being able to split lanes when needed, could be a huge advantage. Additionally, if you live somewhere that is space constrained (like a small apartment without parking) an electric bike is significantly easier to find space for.

It basically boils down to: do you have the storage space for a small car, and just want faster highway and street commutes? A scooter makes sense. Do you have to bring it up an elevator or want to use rail trails? E-bike all the way.

<comment><USER28> As a car commuter who's seen a lot of accidents, quite a few are (probably newbie) motorcyclists who don't know how to split lanes (3 of the 6 I've seen in the past 4 years).

Also, sharing the road with cars means breathing their exhaust. Count me in for the e-bike takeover.

<comment><USER29> The bike path I'm using to commute every day is shared with scooters. I'd rather take car exhaust, to be honest (although I'm not suicidal enough to take up with cars going 100 km/h on the road next to it). Every time I'm overtaken by a scooter I'm coughing the next minute or so while having to slow down to about 10 km/h.

On the other hand, people are probably much more likely to switch from a scooter to an e-bike than from a car, simply because the convenience factor is very similar. And winter is coming right now, which luckily takes scooters away too, for some reason :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Silicon Valley experiencing new hiring boom - <AUTHOR> http://m.cnn.com/primary/_y2pPuG-izjF22Ug6K

<comment><USER2> I can't access the page, it's blocked by an ipad app commercial.</comment>


Java Code Generator for Idris - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/idris-hackers/idris-java <comment><USER2> I was super excited about this until I found there didn't seem to be any library support. The best thing about the JVM is the maven ecosystem; if I can't write a library in Idris, build it with maven and publish it to a maven repository then I lose most of the advantages.

(I briefly looked at trying to improve this state of affairs, but all the Idris implementation seems to be in Haskell)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm happy to see this revived! Note that it has a slight snag compared to the tip of the Idris tree, I made a fix: [https://github.com/idris-hackers/idris- java/pull/4](https://github.com/idris-hackers/idris-java/pull/4)

</comment><comment><USER4> What is the possible level of interoperability?</comment>


Cheating for $20: Why collusion and price fixing is difficult to do - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/cheating-for-a-20/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that 87.5% of the players didn't cheat, and the one that did bid 0.3% of the supposed equilibrium price, but this is somehow supporting the theory put forward.

It reminds me of the RAND corporation experiment, an economist and a mathematician play the game and reach Nash Equilibrium in a handful of moves. Same game played by secretaries and they all co-operate all the time completely defying all of the theories they build up like a house of cards. So in an economy where everyone studies math for decades and has no social skills we have a great tool to predict the economy, but for most of the real world isn't much help.

Sure it can work in certain financial markets with no contact between participants outside the market mechanism and most of the players can be assumed reasonably expert, so it has its uses, but a lot of care needs to be used when trying to take it outside that sort of area because the assumptions break down very badly in most situations.

<comment><USER3> It only takes one cheater for the collusive agreement to collapse.

<comment><USER4> True, and we do see this happen. Look at RAMBUS and SDRAM though it was a standards working group not a collusive group of price fixers.

There is something to be said for the consequences of breaking the agreement in the real world. In the classroom, she gets boo'd, but if she had been colluding with say 'the Mob' she might have to worry about something else after breaking the agreement.

This also doesn't take into account:

* Industries where the people at the top are part of an 'old boys club'

* An Industry were the conservative move is to collude and let the marketplace stagnate.

* In the classroom example, she had nothing to lose. She probably didn't even really care about the $20 or not. Whereas in the real world, people like guarantees. If a collusion agreement with players that you feel you can trust gets you a better guarantee than striking out on your own it's an attractive prospect.

* It could put a 'black mark' on you with other key players in your industry to play on their trust like that. Which could be a bad thing.

* This excludes collusion to to exclude a player. (e.g. the rumor that companies were going to break the FCC spectrum auction rules in an attempt to make sure that Google didn't get anything because it seemed that their plans were commoditize the industry.)

<comment><USER3> Yup, repeat games are a different situation that may lead to different outcomes. If you can enforce the agreement, it's a different kind of game.

But then consider situations where information is unreliable:

\- Cheating because you can't trust others not to cheat, i.e. to protect yourself, and everyone ends up cheating, as in Prisoner's Dilemma.

\- In a lot of situations, you may not even know who is cheating and by how much, but you might be sure _someone_ is cheating. This will feed back into your own incentives to cheat. I believe OPEC suffers from this a lot.

<comment><USER4> > _In a lot of situations, you may not even know who is cheating and by how > much, but you might be sure someone is cheating. This will feed back into > your own incentives to cheat. I believe OPEC suffers from this a lot._

In situations like OPEC, it's also really different. You don't have everyone on an equal footing like in the classroom game.

If Venezuela can only produce 1 barrel/day and Saudia Arabia can produce 50 barrels/day, it doesn't matter how cheaply Venezuela prices their barrel. But oil is also a market where the appetite of the consumer severely outstrips availability. As long as you can produce large quantities of oil you can pretty much name your price (so long as that's large quantities _in relation_ to other producers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am reminded of my favorite description of behavioral economics: "A field of academic inquiry into what college students will do when faced with making economic choices outside their personal experience."

<comment><USER6> It always cracks me up when I read a research paper with a new definite answer on human sexuality and find they used college kids as test subjects :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is just a variation of a very interesting game Douglas Hofstadter describes in Metamagical Themas (extremely highly recommended by the way) in the section on psychological number games. In his game 10 people are allowed to choose "yes" or "no" without knowing what other people chose. If everyone picks "yes" everyone gets $100. If anyone picks "no" then anyone picking "no" gets $10 and everyone else get $0.

He describes inviting 10 of his friends he considers very smart, tells his friends they will be playing with other smart people, then expresses dismay when all his friends pick "no".

My sorry description here doesn't do the story justice. Very worth the time to track down a copy of the book.

<comment><USER5> This boils down to asking "I'm going to put you in a room with ten peers. Do you believe at least one of your peers will either be irrational, or believe that a peer (possibly you) would be irrational?"

All ten people reached the correct conclusion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think real life markets are much different than this experiment because:

1) Repeated trials in the game lets past loosers punish past winners (i.e. Ashley will get more than boos in subsequent trials).

2) Players get to observe the world better in real world than what secret bids in this game allows.

I am still unconvinced that collusion and price fixing is difficult as the title suggests.

<comment><AUTHOR> OPEC, probably the most famous example of a cartel, is notorious for having members "cheat".

<comment><USER9> And yet they are completely capable of raising oil prices by merely sending out a press release or two.

<comment><USER10> They lost the ability in the 80s really. Too much non-Opec oil around now. And it hurt Opec in the long term as oil usage got much more efficient after the oil shocks

<http://www.wtrg.com/opecshare.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wish that was true but in real life collusion is much easier to maintain. For example, a collusion deal usually entails higher prices which means that to benefit of cheating one has to lower prices and make money on volume.

But sometimes it is not as easy to make money on volume. Often you need time and capital investments to increase volume. But if the other colluding companies see you making the capital investments to get higher volume they will know you are planning to cheat and they will drop their agreement as well. At that point you get no sales advantage of cheating and yet you have spent a lot of money making to create the goods for an expected sales increase. Oh, and everyone else in industry hates your guts.

So sometimes in the real world it is much easier for an executive to collude and pocket his/her bonus than to compete.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't see how the example applies to all cases of price fixing. If two gas stations next to each other decided to fix their price, and one all of a sudden decided to lower their price, then that would only give a temporary gain. If they stick to fixing the price however, they both will gain until a journalist muckrakes them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Real world oil companies collusion <http://www.cyprus- mail.com/news/main.php?id=48041> (was on holiday here and just read this in the paper version of the paper)

</comment><comment><USER13> I played an identical game a few years ago. Someone went ahead and bid $100 for the $20. Models work fine as long as "rational" behavior is a worthwhile assumption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Recent studies in behavioural economics (and also the winner of the Nobel in Economics a few years ago) suggest that rational isn't a necessary precondition - you just need some players who are rational/have knowledge. Sure it causes short term fluctuations but in the long run, you get to the same answer/price.</comment></comment>


The Braindead Megaphone (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://as1020.pbworks.com/f/saunders-braindead.pdf <comment><USER2> This may be a lovely book, but not only is this a terrible PDF of it that's scanned from a paperback, it's a pretty clear copyright violation -- the book is from 2007 and it's still in print.</comment>


It's Alive - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/its-alive.html <comment><USER2> The hovercard idea is very nicely done. Just a tiny bit of copy-in Javascript, and instantly they hook into any @name on your pages. It's easy for a site to add, looks good and makes the connection between Twitter and the @name look even stronger.

</comment><comment><USER3> That button looks just like Facebook Connect.

<comment><USER2> I don't mean to be too flip, but isn't that just the official (probably O'Reilly trademarked) Web 2.0 look for buttons? They all look like that now to me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Will Google and Apple Respond to the Success of Alexa Echo? - <AUTHOR> Amazon's Alexa Echo is on a tear. When and how do you think Google, Apple and others will respond? <comment><USER2> Could you describe what you mean as "on a tear"? Are you referring to successful marketing campaigns? Successful acquisition of mindshare? Profit? Advance in the underlying tech?

<comment><USER3> Here you go bruv: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=On+a+tear](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=On+a+tear)

<comment><USER4> Please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments here.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if you are just skimming my comments without context or what but that was an answer to the guy's question. Jeez.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is Echo really selling that well? I haven't seen one. Nor have I heard any friends or co-workers talk about buying one.</comment>


AceDeceiver: First iOS Trojan Exploiting Apple DRM Design Flaws to Infect iOS - <AUTHOR> http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2016/03/acedeceiver-first-ios-trojan-exploiting-apple-drm-design-flaws-to-infect-any-ios-device/ <comment><USER2>
      The FairPlay MITM attack technique was also presented at the
      USENIX Security Symposium in 2014; however, attacks using
      this technique are still occurring successfully.

Wow, 2 years later, vulnerability is still there.</comment>


How the Apollo Fire Propelled NASA to the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/apollo-risk <comment><USER2> Space flight is essentially a systems engineering enterprise. You live or die by your systems engineering expertise.

The fire forced NASA to become a systems engineering center, probably the best such team ever assembled. The fact that they were able to land on the moon on schedule, with no schedule margin, given where they were in 1966, is astounding.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that today they can't even build a rocket like the SLS from already tested components in a comparable time.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, the political will today isn't comparable to what it was during the Apollo program.

<comment><USER5> Also, way, way more of the design and production process is farmed out to aerospace/defense contractors than it was during the early space program. The extra layers of bureaucracy between teams is a big problem, and the profit motives of the contractors almost always influences solution design and delivery in a negative way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was also pleasantly surprised by the film, Mission Control, which focused on the mission control staff during the Apollo missions, rather than focusing on astronauts and scientists. Fascinating lessons in "ops management" embedded in the collective experiences of that staff. The film also has amazing production quality for reliving the struggles and successes of those missions, and especially how the suspenseful moments felt "on the ground".

[http://missioncontrol.movie](http://missioncontrol.movie)

<comment><USER7> You would probably enjoy _Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond_ by Gene Kranz.

<comment><USER8> Also worthwhile: [https://www.amazon.com/Flight-My-Life-Mission- Control/dp/045...](https://www.amazon.com/Flight-My-Life-Mission- Control/dp/0452283043)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're interested in the Apollo program, you'll find no better telling of it than _A Man On The Moon_ by Andrew Chaikin.

[http://www.andrewchaikin.com/books/a-man-on-the- moon/](http://www.andrewchaikin.com/books/a-man-on-the-moon/)

The book was adapted into the excellent miniseries _From the Earth to the Moon_ by HBO.

<comment><USER9> 'A Man on the Moon' is a terrific book focused on the astronauts. Consider also reading 'Apollo: Race to the Moon', Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox for more of the engineering perspective. They cover everything from building the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V first stage, to the lunar module, to the vehicles used to transport the assembled rockets to the launch pad, to the organization of mission control and the project overall. My favorite book on the Apollo program.</comment></comment>


How you will not uncover Satoshi - <AUTHOR> https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/how-you-will-not-uncover-satoshi/

<comment><USER2> It is somewhat good news for online anonymity that we don't know who Satoshi is. The amount of resources that have been poured into trying to uncover his identity is the equivalent of a medium-sized open source project. He has survived the army of geeks.

The state of user-user or user-corporation anonymity is good. If you want to stay anonymous from other users or a corporation then you can gain anonymity by spending a few hours reading tutorials/guides online and then installing Tails or Whonix (both which solve the metadata problem in OP and a variety of other attacks) or an alternative homebrew solution (machine isolation/snapshots) and apply a level of discipline to isolate your identity.

Last best OPSEC move Nakamoto made was to disappear - removes so many options in tracking him down. Hanging around and living off the credibility you've built with your anonymous persona is likely only going to breed complacency and the odds of slipping up increase each day (you see this in many cases)

I doubt he'll ever be tracked down. I doubt even a gov investigation starting today (for whatever reason) with all the power it has would achieve it (unless more than one person knows the secret, in which case a US investigation has a broad range of legal methods to compel testimony and reveal it).

I know a lot of people are sick of talking about Nakamoto and prefer to focus on what he produced (you can't even google his name anymore without 50% of the hits being about the Newsweek article), but being able to invent such an important piece of transformative technology and remain anonymous for so long, possible forever - is a brilliant accomplishment worthy of its own attention.

<comment><USER3> >I doubt even a gov investigation starting today (for whatever reason) with all the power it has would achieve it (unless more than one person knows the secret, in which case a US investigation has a broad range of legal methods to compel testimony and reveal it).

As much as members of the Bitcoin community like to think of themselves as agitators, there were very clearly no laws broken here.

<comment><USER4> >As much as members of the Bitcoin community like to think of themselves as agitators, there were very clearly no laws broken here.

Yeah, that's all clear now, but 4 years ago the legal situation was much murkier. This was all very new ground and we had no idea how the U.S. government would react, particularly given some of the other things going on at the time (particularly the prosecution of E-Gold, which was centralized but shared some features with Bitcoin).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note to self:

If I need to publish something and have it remain completely anonymous, convert it to ASCII TEXT. That is one of the few formats I understand well enough to be CERTAIN that it is free of metadata.

Now all I have to worry about is how I can anonymously publish it, text style analysis, and how to include diagrams without resorting to ASCII drawings.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if there is a tool to obfuscate text to prevent analysis. one way I could think of is to use any online translation tool to translate to a foreign language and then back to english. and then fix the grammar slightly. the structure of the text should hopefully be different enough for any tool/human to recognize it's your style. is there an easier way to do this?

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of a concept of "google translate fixed point", i.e. you translate between english and an foreign language back and forth until the translation stops changing.

<comment><USER8> Interesting, however, I would not use google translate to obfuscate my writing, as it might appear in google logs :)

<comment><USER7> :). Speaking of which, can you recommend any non-Google online translation tool?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Although the PDF spec says that the ID field is "optional", a lot of PDF- producing apps put it in anyway, and the way OoO calculates the ID is basically what the spec recommends, although it does say "Note that the calculation of the file IDs need not be reproducible. All that matters is that the file IDs are likely to be unique." This means that a CSPRNG would be a better choice, or even omitting the ID entirely.

The Author/CreationDate/Creator/Producer/etc. fields are also completely optional despite, once again, the insistence of applications to put them in. There are "PDF anonymisers" out there, and I've written one myself too, but not all of them remove all this information.

Interestingly enough there's a PDF from the NSA about removing metadata, which itself has most of the metadata removed, but not the ID nor creation/modification dates:

[http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/pdf_risks.pdf](http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/pdf_risks.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> The author of the blog post makes the claim that Satoshi used Tor. I'm interested in what evidence there is for that. I googled and found a few people mentioning it, but no direct quote from Satoshi himself. I also searched the archives of his posts: [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:nakamotoinstitute.org+tor)

Suppose that claim is not true, or that he was not fastidious in his use of Tor, it seems to me the email service provider would have logs on where his emails were originating from. From his original paper his email is email@example.com

I'm not sure who owns gmx.com, but I think it likely that if a sovereign state went after them, they would probably divulge the information. Not that I want this to happen, of course. I hope he's never uncovered and his legend grows with the success of Bitcoin. I hope he did use Tor. I'm just not certain there is evidence for it.

Edit: I am not Satoshi Nakamoto, although I wish I was

<comment><USER11> gmx is very popular among tor users because you can create an account with no strings attached. No other emails are needed, no other phone numbers are needed, and signup takes only a few webpage loads (important when dealing with latencies of up to 45 seconds).

This of course doesn't mean that Satoshi is a tor user, but a gmx account is consistent with typical tor behavior.

<comment><USER12> Last time I tried to create a gmx account under Tor, it told me I could not do it because my IP address was blacklisted.

<comment><USER13> What's your point? The fact that one exit node was blacklisted does not disprove anything.

<comment><USER14> Tor exit-node filtering is soooo common nowadays it practically makes Tor useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would have thought he'd use a computer solely for his Satoshi identity, in which case his username probably is satoshi. This is the best way to ensure your computer doesn't leak anything you don't want it to: don't give it the information in the first place.

<comment><USER16> Then somebody stumbles over the computer and you are outed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If someone finds Satoshi and publishes Satoshi's identity and Satoshi is a regular person. It would probably led to the destruction of Satoshi's life and not that unlikely Satoshi's death.

With that in mind, i think it is kind of stupid to look for Satoshi.

<comment><USER18> How would it lead to his death? Would his life change? Yes but there is no reason to think he would die.

<comment><USER19> This is funny, a couple of months ago everybody was saying how publishing the identity of a man who holds millions in an anonymous virtual currency would most likely lead to somebody attempting to extort him and put his life great danger.

Now this comment is getting downvoted.

<comment><USER18> People seem to forget there are lots of millionaires, multi millionaires, and billionaires around. For the most part in America, Europe, Japan, etc they are safe.

But I guess at least being downvoted means someone is reading it.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but they generally have their fortunes in various bank accounts, investment accounts, land/property, and other things that are very difficult to steal and monetize without leaving traces. How much security would you need if you had $20 million in gold bars in your living room, and the general public knew about it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why does everyone assume that Satoshi is a singular entity? What if Satoshi is legion? :/ Given that initial assumption, which large/government entities would be most likely to start such a project?

</comment><comment><USER22> Wasn't there some article some time ago that Satoshi has been discovered? Was it shown to have been fake? At least on FB/G+ it went quite viral and I haven't seen anything since.

<comment><USER23> Wrong guy ... from wikipedia ...

The most high-profile speculation to date came in a March 6, 2014, article in the magazine Newsweek,[30] when journalist Leah McGrath Goodman identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American man living in California, whose birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Dorian_Nakamot...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Dorian_Nakamoto)

<comment><USER24> Still seems fishy to me. The real Satoshi could have proved that he couldn't be that guy (using the blockchain or something else), but he didn't.

<comment><USER25> What's in it for the real Satoshi in that? By the way, Satoshi's old accunt was used to deny it.

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto)

<comment><USER24> I know that, but that doesn't prove anything.

\- If Dorian was the real Satoshi, he would of course have used his 'real' account to try to disprove the claim.

\- If not, the only to way to know for sure that he is not the guy is for the other 'real' Satoshi to prove that it couldn't be Dorian.

Simple as that. I agree that in the second case, the real Satoshi would not have a lot of incentive to prove the mistake. I'm not a conspiracy nut, I'm just saying that it has not been proven that Dorian is not the guy.

<comment><USER26> How exactly could Satoshi _prove_ that he isn't Dorian Nakamoto?

<comment><USER27> By proving he is somebody else?

Not saying he would, just saying it would work.

<comment><USER26> Fair enough. :) I should have asked how he could prove it without revealing his actual identity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> According to I believe mike hearn, the whitepaper was not originally published as a pdf by satoshi. Someone else made the pdf.

<comment><USER29> Link? I've never heard that, and the very first draft of the whitepaper (hosted on a now dead filesharing website) was also a PDF.</comment></comment>