What happened when Walmart left - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-when-walmart-left <comment><USER2> Since nobody's touching this (comment-wise) w/ a ten-foot-pole, I'll put in my 2c just to say that this article illustrates well how large corporations squeeze the wealth out of small, already poor communities, leaving them worse for wear.

It was a big deal in my town when the city allowed the local Walmart to start selling grocery items. The concern was that the long-running local grocers wouldn't be able to compete.

I'm under the impression that the majority of commenters on HN are pro- Capitalist, and while these Capitalism-critical articles occasionally make it to the second or third pages of HN, nobody really wants to talk about the deletrious effects that Capitalism wreaks on the working poor. It's not just Walmart, the article also mentions McDonald's, as a provider of "cheap", "bad food", which is making people sick.

I know that a lot of people in tech are really, _actually_ trying to make the world a better place; but... if we can't start discussing and unpacking some of our base assumptions about how the world _actually_ works, we're just adding more fuel to the fire, feeding the beast, enriching the rich while impoverishing the poor.

I'm not starting a war... nor do I think that the other "ism", Socialism, however it might have been, or be, implemented, is the "one true economic theory" that will save the world from poverty. The world is not Black and White, no matter how many "Cops" episodes might portray otherwise.

I do think that we should question the status quo, and meaningfully consider, and attempt, alternatives to it.

My personal experience with pro-Capitalist folk is that they tend to view the world as a zero-sum-game, whereas I see it as a non-zero-sum-game. If there are any pro-Capitalists here who also see the world as a non-zero-sum-game, I would love to hear about your perspective. Hell, I'd love to hear your zero- sum-game perspectives as well, although I don't think they'll change my mind. But who knows?

People already in power have no incentive to change the rules of the game (as far as I can see). But people just now gaining power (e.g., people in tech), do have an opportunity to change some of those rules, and could very well "undo" some of the damage that has been done by the incumbents.

Again, just my 2c.

<comment><USER3> How did you come to the conclusion that HN is majority pro-capitalist? Did you look at the comment threads on political articles?

Recently there's been tons of favorable discussion about:

\- the "right to repair" (I.e. regulators forcing a ban on non-repairable products)

\- basic income (I.e wealth redistribution, to people who don't even need it)

\- EU fines on FB buying Whatsapp (I.e. regulators enforcing vague laws, that, if interpreted consistently, would lead to a ban on all B2C acquisitions (obviously they're not intended to be enforced consistently))

\- EU fining Google for entering the online shopping market(I.e. regulators forcing a company to modify what they display on their website)

\- net neutrality (I.e regulators controlling the pricing model of ISPs)

Confusing matters is the fact that people have a fuzzy definition of capitalism (especially in the case of net neutrality, which is painted as a way to protect competition, but that's a more philosophical debate).

Basically, HN skews overwhelmingly liberal - like most liberals, they are not anti-business, but believe in a regulated free market with high taxes to pay for public services. (I.e. a mixed economy).

Likewise, who are these pro-capitalist folk who see the world as a zero-sum game? Care to share some actual quotes from these people? Every pro-capitalist thinker from Adam Smith to von Mises to Ayn Rand makes the case that capitalism is all about non-zero-sum transactions. (If a trade is entirely voluntary, both parties need to benefit or they went enter the trade). The supposed negatives of capitalism (like that in the article) are when one party either refuses to trade with another or exits an existing trade relationship (as Walmart exited the small town). That sucks for the people in the town, but Walmart aren't their slaves. Walmart is free to close their stores as they please and the townspeople are free to set up new retail stores to capture the new market.

More fundamentally, every society in the pre-capitalist era was essentially stagnant, with minimal growth, and required slavery to function. In the modern era, a simple glance at East and West Germany, or North and South Korea, makes clear which of capitalism or socialism is zero-sum. The only legitimate debate is between pure capitalism (as in 19th century America) and the mixed economy (as in modern Europe, and modern America, which only differs on the details). But almost no-one argues for pure capitalism. You talk like you're an open- minded rebel yet you seem to have missed the glaring fact that your views are entirely mainstream, on HN and elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A great deal of the American economy over the last forty or fifty years has consisted in mining the wealth built up over the previous thirty or forty. Think of casinos, for example. On that basis, why should Walmart stick around when the mine is tapped out? AMAX wouldn't keep a mine operating when the returns no longer make sense.

<comment><USER5> Well by your reasoning they never should have been allowed inside in the first place, and I agree. However, it's too late for that. We could just nonchalantly observe that the town asked for it, but that would be cruel towards the townspeople who are now struggling in the aftermath. The point of this piece is to highlight the effect it had on the locals, how it just left without any responsibility towards the drain it caused. The point isn't to somehow change Walmart's character as a corporation, but rather show others that maybe they shouldn't welcome a devil in disguise despite what it offers, that maybe they should support local businesses and focus on self- sustainability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the bigger issue not given enough attention to is that the town is dying in general. If young people are leaving in droves and business are closing left and right, that's not the sign of a healthy town at all. From the article I got the impression that the town boomed as a coal town, but we all know that the industry is declining now. The town needs to revitalize itself somehow or accept that once its natural resources are no longer enough, maybe it can't be sustained. (there are plenty of ghost towns in the US that were once sites of gold or oil riches)

Regarding Walmart though, this article demonstrates painfully well the cold soul of a corporation. Lots of megacorps love touting that they are people- first or refer to themselves as a "family", but the truth of the matter is that they have no loyalty: once the profits aren't large enough, they start axing jobs. (note I'm not saying they should run an unprofitable business, but in general it seems they prefer to fire employees and cut salaries rather than paying the CEO less exorbitantly or trying to run leaner and at a cost for a while for the economy to get better; you won't improve it by giving the local populace less money) Walmart especially comes in displacing local businesses, hiring hundreds and creating a strong dependency on themselves. Like a parasite, it enters an area and drains its resources, and once it runs dry it moves elsewhere. The sad truth of it all is that at the end of the day, everyone cares about getting cheap goods rather than studying the local economic effects of allowing such a business to encroach on their town. The suits will just tell you that, at the end of the day, it's just capitalism. And maybe that says more about the soul of America than it does just about Walmart.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find open source project to contribute - <AUTHOR> Hello hackers,
I'd like to be involved in open source project as developer, but I don't know which one. I use C/C++ on my daily basis, try to write Go/Python scripts.
How did you choose your open-source project? There are some many of them... <comment><USER2> By far the _most_ important criteria: work on a project you actually use and care about. Don't arbitrarily pick a project because it looks interesting.

What software do you rely on regularly? What bugs you about it? What could it do better?

</comment><comment> j-hernandez Have a look at Code Triage if you haven't already. [http://www.codetriage.com/](http://www.codetriage.com/) \- I believe I found them here in a thread a while back. You'll get an open issue for projects you'd be interested in contributing to sent to your inbox daily. May be of some interest to you</comment>


Search 100 million UPC, EAN, ISBN, ASIN and MPN identifiers - <AUTHOR> http://www.productids.org/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't work on "house brands" that use internal number schemes. For example 150480300036 is the UPC-A bar code from a Banana Republic T-shirt with a product id of 637905 but it doesn't exist in their database. Anyone know of somebody trying to deal with these kind of bar code issues?

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't seem to contain recent information: I checked the ISBNs from the latest books of a few publishing houses and none of them seems to be recognized :(.

</comment><comment><USER2> I tried a box of Kleenx that's sitting on my desk and that worked, so there is something in there.

</comment><comment><USER4> I tried 6 products I had at hand, no match for any of them...</comment>


Hacking my Vagina - <AUTHOR> http://scanlime.org/2012/11/hacking-my-vagina/ <comment><USER3> Really cool!

Is reverse engineering the wireless protocol easy? I imagine hacking hardware involves a lot more work than software.

I also love how she 3d printed out some plastic cases for her toy. I see cheap 3d printers eventually being so ubiquitous that a quick prototype may be just as easy to hack up as a working software program.

<comment><USER4> I can't wait for easily and cheaply 3d-printed electronics. Just the thought of buying the parts and plastic stuff, putting them in a machine, and letting it work, building a complete device.

I can dream.

<comment><USER5> Well, the more I looked into this possibility, the more I think it's not going to look like traditional electronics that we know. Chances are, somebody's working on this right now, and we just don't know about it.

There's been some promising blips here and there with the reprappers:

[http://blog.reprap.org/2011/06/new-approach-to-printing- meta...](http://blog.reprap.org/2011/06/new-approach-to-printing-metals.html)

[http://blog.reprap.org/2012/04/some-more-printed- circuitry.h...](http://blog.reprap.org/2012/04/some-more-printed- circuitry.html)

<comment><USER5> Some recent discussion on it and more up-to-date info.

<http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?2,154755,154835,quote=1>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone interested in more stuff like this, I run a site about sex and technology and track open source sex projects:

<http://www.slashdong.org>

<comment><USER6> And while we're at it, fun fact:

There's a toy called the vstroker, that's basically an endcap to the fleshlight for doing accelerometer readings. (<http://www.vstroker.com>, NSFW). It also uses a CC25XX radio chip, and comes with a USB dongle that's basically the reference implementation. So, since these two talk on the same controls, you should be able to take the dongle from the vstroker and the lelo toy, and have full USB computer control.

Boom. Teledildonics capabilities, using a combination of toys that are (vaguely) gender incompatible.

<comment><USER7> Submit the idea! [http://www.halfbakery.com/category/Computer_3a_20Teledildoni...](http://www.halfbakery.com/category/Computer_3a_20Teledildonics)

<comment><USER6> I've got a vibe on order now, so I should have results tuesday. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the breadth of skill that went into this project. It shows good knowledge of software, hardware, reverse engineering, and its even tied together in a really neat package.

<comment><USER9> Seriously. I'm thinking of finally going and getting a 3D printer based on her blog. Lots of cool hacks and prints in there.

<comment><USER10> You don't need to buy one, there are lots of mail order printing services, and local services in big cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey, this is beth from scanlime.org. I was doing my best to keep the site up, but it looks like Dreamhost just pulled the plug. I'm pretty annoyed with this.

<comment><USER12> _oh_ HN managed a DDoS again

608 points should be around 60.000 visitors. Thats something any site should be able to handle, but ...

<http://dreamhost.com/servers/vps/> <\- All VPS plans come with UNLIMITED Bandwidth and Storage.

UNLIMITED ... till they pull the plug _lol_

But it might also just be that the site is overloaded. I sometimes get an "Error establishing a database connection" and sometimes "Problem loading page". So there is still a server who desperately tries to answer requests.

What kind of server do you have at dreamhost? A VPS? Is that VPS some Viruozzo/OpenVZ crap, or a Xen instance?

<comment><USER13> The post is also on the front page of the technology subreddit so that is probably pulling in a few thousand more people too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> She is inventing an industry for something every human on the planet does pretty much every day. Big market, disruptive technology. Yet somehow I don't see it on techcrunch.

I am reminded of pg's discussion on finding the taboo's in society.

We still have plenty.

<comment><USER15> Inventing an industry?

Hardly. There are plenty of hackers who have been working in this space for quite some time. The field is called "teledildonics".

<comment><USER16> I actually thought you made up teledildonics ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if an article called "Hacking my Penis" would ever last long the HN front page.

<comment><USER18> Why does any article focusing on women's experience have to have someone come along and say 'it's hard for us men'?

<comment><USER19> I sympathize with that point, but there's more to it than "what about teh menz?"

The question is this: is this doing well on HN because HN is full of progressive-minded feminists upvoting a neat DIY project on its merits, or is it doing well on HN because it serves as fodder for the nerd-girl fantasies of a primarily male readership?

I really think this is an important point that often gets missed on male dominated social news sites. Readers are quick to pat themselves on the back for the community's mature lack of slut-shaming, while neglecting to realize that an entirely different form of sexism and woman-objectification is taking place.

<comment><USER20> No need for stereotypes. The article deserves to be up voted because it is remarkably thorough and well written.

<comment><USER19> I agree that it deserves to be upvoted for those reasons. I just don't think that's necessarily the primary reason it _has_ been upvoted. Examining the "would this be ranked this high if it were about penis hacking instead?" question is productive because it addresses that.

<comment><USER21> >I just don't think that's necessarily the primary reason it has been upvoted.

So do you always assume bad faith on the part of others or..?

<comment><USER22> Being biologically biased is not "bad faith", is just a well known human trait.

<comment><USER23> This seems to imply it can't be fixed (if it can, why do you assume the worst now?). If it is something that can't be fixed, what's the point of your bringing it up?

<comment><USER22> Biologically biased doesn't mean it can be changed; for example we are biologically biased to be polygamous just like most mammals; but we are socially configured to be monogamous so most of us are.

<comment><USER23> So how do you know that the majority of people who voted this article up aren't already there? I have to be honest, your post strikes me as karma fishing.

<comment><USER22> How do I know the most upvoted article of the year holds that position because the sexual nature of its content? What a tought question.

<comment><USER23> You don't know. Period. It could be. Isn't it also remotely possible that this was a hardware hack and a pretty inventive and effective one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm so pleased there's no use of the word "dildonics" on that article.

And I'm sad there's no awesome open source version of Rez to go with her device. Probably NSFW for language and underwear photo ([http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games- rezvibra...](http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games- rezvibrator.html))

<comment><USER6> _cough_ <http://www.github.com/qdot/libtrancevibe>

There's been open source trancevibe drivers since 2003. :)

There's 3 toys based on the protocol.

\- The original Trancevibe (ebayable, surprisingly powerful)

\- the Drmn trancevibe (<http://tim.cexx.org/projects/vibe/>), no longer sold

\- This weird one: [http://www.harnett- tech.com/search.php?act=search&SKU=US...](http://www.harnett- tech.com/search.php?act=search&SKU=USBMC-01)

I wrote the original Second Life trancevibe control layer in 2005 (i.e. click on virtual genetalia, real vibrator vibrates), which was later integrated into in-world genetalia by one of the larger virtual sex object manufacturers. After the Drmn trancevibe went off sale, they created that last one to sell to customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is not meant to be a troll post, but just sincere curiosity.

From the site "My full name is Micah Elizabeth Scott, but I used to be Micah Dowty prior to Fall 2010. My friends call me Beth."

How can a woman who used to be a man can have a vagina? is there some kind of surgery? do you keep your sensitivity to be able to use vibrators?

<comment><USER26> Micah, though traditionally a male name, is sometimes given to females. There is no reason to assume there was a sex change, maybe she got married or just changed her name.

<comment><USER27> Frankly I find it rude to speculate. It's none of my business what someone has in their pants, or what they used to have in their pants.

<comment><USER28> When the article's all about a device that goes into their pants?

If we were talking about someone with a surgically reconstructed vagina I think that would be relevant in this particular story, just because physically it won't be identical and the effect of the vibrator could be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Cool hack! And maybe I don't read enough, but I thought it was especially interesting since it was one of the first builds where I saw someone create a custom circuit AND a custom enclosure using a 3D printer.

Though it involves a sex toy, I think the build was straightforward, technical, and decidedly un-sexy. I don't know where the feather ruffling is coming from besides the discussion of the link's title.

</comment><comment><USER30> In all seriousness, somebody needs to disrupt internet porn again.

If you trying and look for it on google all you get is shitty "tube" websites full of autoplaying livejasmin ads and links that go round in circles.

The content is terrible too, either staged "reality" BS , stuff designed to shock more than titilate, unwatchable crap made with a smartphone or weird softcore stuff that tries to be "arty" or "feminist".

<comment><USER31> I believe <https://makelovenotporn.tv/> tries to fill that space a bit. It's definitely good quality and isn't limited to the very softcore movies even if the name suggests otherwise.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for that testimonial - much appreciated :) Anyone interested can read more about what we're building on our blog: <http://talkabout.makelovenotporn.tv/> \+ email firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll fast-track you into beta (we hope to be able to take the site out of beta next month).

<comment><USER33> <https://makelovenotporn.tv/> is disrupting the sex industry industry! #realworldsex

Techno-porn: how the sex industry drives mainstream technology

Star: "I don't think most people have a clue how much life today is in debt to the porn industry. Online banking and shopping are secure because porn distributors needed to make their transactions with consumers secure."

[http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/859762-- techno-p...](http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/859762--techno-porn- how-the-sex-industry-drives-mainstream-technology)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anyone want to fund my kickstarter for a vibrating fleshlight that runs nodejs?

<comment><USER9> Pandering a bit too hard to @shit_hn_says ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The title is misleading. But the idea of haptic sex toys, and the approach of the hack - especially identifying that the remote _was_ the problem- is great.

We will see if haptic sex toys become mainstream. I didn't even know they existed in the first place!

It seems like a real innovation!

</comment><comment><USER35> I cannot express how much I admire this post. This is how I think women should address gender equality: not by antagonizing men, but through sound and assertive work like this.

<comment><USER36> Men getting antagonistic when their sexist behavior is called out is not the fault of the women calling that behavior out.

<comment><USER37> > Men getting antagonistic when their sexist behavior is called out

That isn't all that happens, as you can see from the comments like "Oh, yes, men have it _so hard_ " whenever a situation that favors females over males is brought up.

<comment><USER38> I was praying that one was sarcasm...

<comment><USER37> > I was praying that one was sarcasm...

It's part of a culture, one men perpetrate just as much as women if not more, that says "women are the only victims of sexism." If that statement doesn't seem immediately idiotic to you, the best I can offer right now is this:

[http://www.alternet.org/story/156194/what_about_the_men_why_...](http://www.alternet.org/story/156194/what_about_the_men_why_our_gender_system_sucks_for_men%2C_too)

<comment><USER38> No one says that. No one here is saying that. To portray the reaction that has taken place here, scoffing because it is female and sexual, is in and of itself sexist.

Reverse discrimination sucks for whites, maybe I should question every submission that is authored by someone who isn't white?

You'll note that I address male taboos about sex in other posts, but ironically it's probably not what you want or what you're really getting at without being explicit about.

Do you understand that "any female-positive topic" -> "what about the menz" is exactly the problem with this attitude?

<comment><USER37> > Do you understand that "any female-positive topic" -> "what about the menz" > is exactly the problem with this attitude?

It would be nice if "gender equality topics" weren't _exclusively_ "female- positive topics", and that the topics about how men get the bad end of sexism weren't immediately met with sarcasm and derision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is awesome. It's cool to see more people are hacking sex toys. Hopefully with all these cool hacks, it will remove the stigma. People have a stigma against vibrator is because they always imagine vibrator as a huge penis vibrator that they seen in porn movies. The fact is many studies shown that size doesn't matter. [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about- sex/200903/the...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about- sex/200903/the-most-important-sexual-statistic) The first electrical vibrator was invented as a medical device and to stimulate the clitoris, not the inside.

I believe the world will be a better place when women can have orgasm as much as men do.

My startup, www.vibease.com, is helping couples to stay intimate even from a distance. We have a mobile App with long distance vibrator. We use Bluetooth and internet connection. Currenlty we are taking pre-order. We try to bring it to mainstream market and it's not easy: <http://tech.co/vibease-vibrator- app-2012-11>

</comment><comment><USER39> This is a really cool hack, but my problem is that I don't understand the sex part. What's better about waving your hands around to control the motor speed, vs. using a dial?

This is not out of prurient interest. I just can't understand the engineering without understanding the use case. Maybe you have to be female to get this?

<comment><USER40> I would almost say that it would make more sense to have something you touch to create the changes in speed or intensity or whatever vs. air waving? And I would think it would be possible to actually use a smartphone (with vibration feedback) that you rub,touch whatever which would be better than air.

The feedback is important also. I fly rc helis and once you get used to using the sticks and the channels on a traditional radio using the iphone (say on an ardrone) and tilting to do the same (for me at least) is not as satisfying. It doesn't feel real or challenging.

<comment><USER6> Well, vibease is now alive and kickin' here, so there's a couple of other apps I'll mention:

\- BodyHeat, by OhMiBod/PerfectPlum: <http://www.ohmibod.com/app/>

\- Closer ToGetHer - <http://www.getclosertogether.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Fun article and an excellent hack!

Any takers to found a startup in order to dive in and disrupt the sex toy industry with some cutting edge innovation? Imagine the millions you'd rake in if you re-invent sex.

I'm looking forward to at least one ero-toy applicant in the next round of YC apps.

<comment><USER33> Going to top incubators with sex related product is tough.

I'm Vibease co-founder. We tried and we keep trying. So far no luck.

This is our pitch: Vibease helps couples to stay intimate, even from a distance. It's a mobile app for couples with personal massager integration.

Note, we didn't even put the word "vibrator". The rest of the story you can find it from here: <http://tech.co/vibease-vibrator-app-2012-11>

<comment><USER41> Hey, love your idea!

Some unsolicited advice from someone who's just heard about your product for the first time :)

* Avoiding the word "vibrator" is a good thought (sadly it has too many negative connotations), but I'd recommend never shying away from discussing the underlying problem you are trying to solve because it's both serious and real. ie: "People are busier than ever and are spending increasing amounts of time apart. We're taking steps forward to helping couples maintain a level of intimacy and connection in our dynamic world."

* Alternative language to just talking about "intimacy" can be a focus on the positive side-effects of intimacy, such as: happier lives, higher level of trust, and greater relationship satisfaction.

* The settings screen in your screenshot has a lot of sliders. I hope there will be some good presets for those who would otherwise get overwhelmed by the number of choices.

* Similarly, fingers crossed for a PC/Mac client (or otherwise the ability to video-chat over Skype) since holding two small devices (a phone and the massager) can get tricky.

As for the pitch, maybe a tongue-in-cheek: "Vibease lets you reach out to your partner and maintain intimacy from across the room... or across the world."

Sounds like you'll have a ton of (challenging, unique) fun with this product. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is weird. Or not. I have hard time even making a difference between weird and not weird these days. Either way, carry on.

<comment><USER9> This is just neat. Now, "Hacking my Fleshlight" would be weird.

<comment><USER38> >Now, "Hacking my Fleshlight" would be weird.

Why?

<comment><USER9> Females are generally supply side, males demand side in traditional sex economics. Rejection of same through toys is therefore empowering to women and degrading to men. Thus labelled "weird."

<comment><USER38> Not to be too pointed, but that attitude is socialized, largely by people who make statements like "It would be weird if it were for men." Also, I think that there is less of an imbalance than you would believe. As we know, people are quite good at saying one thing in public and doing another in private. _Especially_ when it comes to sex.

<comment><USER9> Oh, I know. But good luck with this particular sea change.

And yes, certain demographics turn the equation on its head. As expected of economics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wow, this is easily the strangest top post I have ever seen on hacker news. I actually can't stop laughing. I guess it's because most people just don't think about technology and sex in the same thought unless you are thinking about internet porn. An interesting read no less.

</comment><comment><USER44> This hacker-girl has an amazing portfolio (note she's 26 years old).

See her resume at <http://scanlime.org/resume/>

<comment><USER45> Pretty cool that she's the author of CIA.vc

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> After everyone was feeling stuffed and mellow in the house, I brought out the old PS2 and hooked it up to the projector and the stereo, then put in Rez. (Has been called "Tron on Ecstasy.")

[http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games- rezvibra...](http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games- rezvibrator.html)

I think there's a lot of hacking potential. I think it would be cool to have a back room in a club where you have Rez on a game console on a big HD screen with a nice sound system. One could also implement a wireless protocol for the trance vibe info and publish the protocol, so spectators would casually walk in and wirelessly experience the "synaesthesia."

</comment><comment><USER47> Text only cached version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://scanlime.org/2012/11/hacking- my-vagina/&hl=en&tbo=d&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER48> Warning: this is not a politically correct viewpoint, but nevertheless it's my perspective.

The actual best thing about this post being in first place on Hacker News is not that it's a woman posting but that she has a Y chromosome and most people don't realize it.

It's like her recently-acquired vagina is a new laptop to be hacked. It's still objectification of women if you try to turn into one and then objectify yourself.

The real goal of this post is to get a bunch of men to fantasize about "her" and glorify how cool "she" is for being a geeky hacker.

Not all trans(vestite|gender|sexual) people are like this.

<comment><USER49> My girlfriend wrote this post for the same reason she wrote the the other posts on her blog: to share her work and talk about neat hacks. Your statement that she's doing it for attention is incredibly sexist.

Also she's queer, so the idea that she's doing it for male attention is pretty funny really.

<comment><USER50> I loved the stuff about reverse engineering the protocol. Very neat stuff.

This is a great post with so many neat hacks along the way--when she started talking about modeling and 3D printing the enclosure I was thinking "Wow, this is a true renaissance hacker."

The world needs more blog posts like this.

<comment><USER49> Yeah, she's impressive. You might enjoy some of the other posts on her blog too, my favorite is the duct tape RFID post, but mostly because she made that one for me.

(But also it's a neat hack, she powers the microcontroller via the I/O pins and just attaches the vcc and ground pins to a capacitor.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Sex in the future. It's going to be weird.

</comment><comment><USER32> _cough_ Have already urged @scanlime to do this, but anyone else, as and when you hack your vagina - or penis, we're totally equal-opportunity :) - <USER2> do submit your (or your friends') #realworldsex video demo to <https://makelovenotporn.tv/> (with our revenue-sharing business model, you could make a nice chunk of change :))

<comment><USER52> ...but only you live in the USA

<comment><USER32> No, we're global, and welcome #realworldsex video submissions from anywhere in the world :)

<comment><USER52> Quote from your site:

> _If you're outside the US, we're sorting out a system for international > payouts, and have to ask you to be patient while we get that put in place._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I clicked on this only because of the extreme curiosity the headline generated. The article did not disappoint.

Easily one of the smartest things I've read in quite a while, and much of the hardware stuff is over my head but wow, color me extremely impressed.

</comment><comment><USER54> Your vagina has a 500 error.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm amused this is the top story.

<comment><USER56> And, being one hour old, having a much higher score as the second highest which is five hours old. And having the highest score of the entire front page by quite a wide margin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> "Power Exchange" section title. Must be a resident of SF.

</comment><comment><USER58> There is a project out there to share 3D printer files for sex toys. MakerLove.com provides files you can download and print for free.

</comment><comment><USER59> The product seems really innovative sex toy for female. I've seen a interview of tenga's founder before. He thought there were much room for innovation of sex toy industry. I was quite impressed that he spent a year to build his first product. I've been impressed again.

<http://www.tenga-global.com/>

</comment><comment><USER60> Intressting.

Going a step further would be to give the vibrator some AI. There is of course some need to monitor pleasure, I dont know if that is easily possible but one could implment some kind of AI that would to that.

The next step would be to sell it to millions of woman and analysie all the data. Would be intressting what could be figured out that way.

</comment><comment><USER61> Really cool project, and looks like it was executed really well in many ways.

However, I couldn't help being reminded of this comic: <http://xkcd.com/196/> I feel like there's a lot of social factors that would make using an invention like this a little awkward. Maybe that's just me?

<comment><USER62> Why, did you read the entire post? It doesn't require any tinkering to work, and the interface is totally natural.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> secure communication of Vstorker(see qdot76367 comments) + this hack with video == Sex over IP.

Target customers: long distance couples, virtual sex business. Taking it further: build a Airtime like social network around it.

Revenue stream: from selling the hardware, membership.

</comment><comment><USER64> Here's a functioning cache link, since the site is hammered for rather obvious reasons. <http://scanlime.org.nyud.net/2012/11/hacking-my-vagina/>

</comment><comment><USER65> Link is down. Here's a Coral Cache version: <http://scanlime.org.NYUD.NET/2012/11/hacking-my-vagina/>

</comment><comment><USER66> Vagina rocks! This topic would never get so much attention if this would be 'Hacking my ... nose, knee, hand etc..'. Some star topics are easy to predict.

Nerds have their own weaknesses

</comment><comment><USER67> Super clever title and article for getting HN attention, but also pretty interesting.

</comment><comment><USER68> Science that gives me an erection. Very very good read.

</comment><comment><USER69> Wonderful website full of gem.

</comment><comment><USER70> What's a vagina?

Sincerely, Never Touched A Boob

</comment><comment><USER71> epic!

</comment><comment><USER72> ...and how does it feel to your soul to be slave of your body? (instead of master...)

<comment><USER73> Congratulations! That's the dumbest thing I've read all day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> 500 Internal Server Error

Best linkbait title ever?

</comment><comment><USER75> If you have smart enough AI, do you get pregnant by it? That's how babes born, right?

</comment><comment><USER76> Why this? aren't there thousands of virgin nerds ... ?</comment>


Perl 5.30.0 documentation site - <AUTHOR> https://perldoc.perl.org/ <comment><USER2> in firefox on windows, it looks like the top banner is covering up the scrollbar buttons.

[https://imgur.com/a/OZQ0eWP](https://imgur.com/a/OZQ0eWP)

seems like they set the content div to 100vh/100vw with fixed positioning and floated the header on top. hard to imagine why they would do this, it can cause a lot of things (like scrolling) to break subtly.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also [https://perldoc.pl](https://perldoc.pl), which has a search function, working links on indiviudual functions pages and includes _all_ manual pages (for example, it doesn't omit perlandroid).

<comment><USER4> The fork icon on mobile is kind of annoying. Like I'd fork anything on mobile, right.

<comment><USER5> I think you meant to respond to the parent?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks great and very readable too. Lots of examples in the tutorials with nice formatting makes it more pleasurable (e.g. see the tutorial on regex[0]).

[0]: [https://perldoc.perl.org/5.30.0/perlretut.html](https://perldoc.perl.org/5.30.0/perlretut.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it just me, or is the site "faster" than most?

<comment><USER8> Bet it's static or server-side rendered, and not running much JS in either case. Every time I've been surprised at the speed of a site in the last few years it's been static or some old-school server-side stuff—even PHP. All our "modern" web stacks are embarrassingly bloated and require heroic effort to be as fast as "bad" old tech.

<comment><USER5> It is static rendered HTML. But [https://perldoc.pl](https://perldoc.pl) is dynamically rendered (it is a Mojolicious app) and the difference is not noticeable to me except on huge pages. perldoc.perl.org before the refresh was already static HTML but very slow. I think there is a lot more to it than deployment strategy.

<comment><USER7> I noticed snappiness on perldoc.pl as well. Fantastic!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot cleaner & more modern than what was previously there, that's for sure.

Does seem a bit of a bug though which one of my colleagues noticed. If you disable JavaScript the content seems to get overlapped by the navigation bar. There's some JS to fix some of the styling.

Would probably be better if the header/nav was just static or got more compact as you scrolled down the page.

I'm a JS dev but for a static site it shouldn't need JS to be readable.

</comment><comment><USER10> Side note: The perldoc is my favourite programming language documentation. It's well written, with pleasant examples, and really not so much API focussed but on concepts. I read it in 2007 when I learned perl (Perl5). An amazing language at that time.

<comment><USER11> It truly is still an amazing language, to me. It's fallen out of favor as a valid language for most tasks, and trends seem to dictate a lot of what is used these days, especially in the web development world.

Perl 5 is likely what you learned in 2007, it's what I learned in 2001, and it's the same Perl now.

To all: Perl 5 is still a wonderful language with a lot of unique and distinct features, and I highly recommend giving it an honest try if you haven't. You probably won't want to replace your favorite language, though maybe you'll see things just a bit differently, which in my experience is always a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a n00b but honest question: what is the current "best practice" method of managing Perl versions on macOS? Does Perl have anything comparable to pyenv or rbenv, or do people generally use perlbrew?

<comment><USER13> I always use plenv for this.

Not specifically related to your question, but carton is also a must: [https://metacpan.org/pod/Carton](https://metacpan.org/pod/Carton)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, after installing it earlier today and using it for the first time plenv makes sense to me because I'm also using shims over in pyenv- and rbenv-land, so I set it up like this:

      $ echo 'eval "$(plenv init - zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

There's a consistency to them all doing essentially the same thing on my rig (i.e. instead of exporting shell functions to switch PATH).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> congratulations -- now (s/github/git/) and its great !</comment>


The Strengths and Weaknesses of Top and Left Navigations - <AUTHOR> http://uxmovement.com/design-articles/the-strengths-and-weaknesses-of-top-and-left-navigations

<comment><USER2> No love for right side navigation then?

I use right side navigation on my blog as I find it focuses attention better on the content and I'm assuming most people arrive via a web search (stats say this anyhow) and so they're there to look at the content and not immediately to navigate off elsewhere.</comment>


Dr. Dre confirms $3.2bn purchase by Apple, becoming hip-hop's first billionaire - <AUTHOR> http://www.freshnessmag.com/2014/05/09/dr-dre-confirms-3-2-billion-deal-apple-becoming-hip-hops-first-billionaire/

<comment><USER2> I guess we can't Forget(sic) About Dre? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFcv5Ma8u8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFcv5Ma8u8k) [Explict Version]</comment>


Audio Event Detection Using Deep Learning – We Can Hear You - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC422RswjuQ <comment><USER2> let there be sound!</comment>


IOS 8 needs to better integrate it's services with geolocation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/6f1e4dddb5f9

<comment><USER2> It's "its" not "it's". (sorry, just had to do this)

<comment><AUTHOR> hahaha no worries. Duly noted</comment></comment>


How To Find The Email Address Of Any Position Within Any Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.interactually.com/how-to-find-email-address-of-any-position-within-any-company/

<comment><USER2> Nice article. Good tips for if you really need to get in touch with a specific person.</comment>


Show HN: Demanjo news preparing to take on Google news - <AUTHOR> http://demanjo.com

<comment><USER2> The search field works strange. I'd like to be able to type a text (e.g. "linux"), type enter, and see results. I actually need to type text, then click on one of the recommended texts to be able to see some results.

How is your thing better/different than google news?

Also, you may want to add information about how your aggregator works / what it's about in your "about" page.

Currently the about page explains the car search engine part which is something completely different and un-related --> puzzling.

<comment><AUTHOR> We just put the news section together in the past week and we are still working on it. Thanks for the feedback. We are working on the search box to make it better like you have pointed out. The About page will be updated soon.

We will be better than google news as you'll be able to discover more and relevant news and we will be introducing some really nice features in the next coming weeks.</comment></comment>


Monsanto's New Weed Killer, Dicamba, Divides Farmers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/business/monsanto-dicamba-weed-killer.html <comment><USER2> I'm wondering whether we ought to have special controls on Monsanto since they don't seem able to control themselves.</comment>


NFL acknowledges, for first time, link between football, brain disease - <AUTHOR> http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/14972296/top-nfl-official-acknowledges-link-football-related-head-trauma-cte-first <comment><USER2> Perhaps a closer look should be paid to boxing, MMA, soccer... (actually light weight cycling-type helmets in soccer might make some pretty cool goals.)</comment>


You can program your BB-8 using JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/orbotix/sphero.js <comment><USER2> BB-8 was a great character and I wouldn't mind purchasing the bot with its movie-merchandising premium, but it seems like its customizability has been rendered to something more limited than owners of other Sphero products are used to...can anyone comment on this? [https://sphero.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/205957950-Q-Wil...](https://sphero.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/205957950-Q-Will-any-other-Sphero-apps-work-with-BB-8-)</comment>


Barack Obama posts a question on LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/answers/startups-small-businesses/small-business/STR_SMB/95900-11932467?browseIdx=0&sik=1189594542354&goback=%2Eahp?trk=techent1 His question: How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive? <comment><USER2> What can the government ever do?

1) Generally, do nothing and so cause no harm.

2) Specifically, subsidize a particular business, and so do harm that is beneficial to said business.

3) Regulate natural monopolies. (viz, there is only one shortest distance between two points, and so that is typically where the highway has to go.)

4) Regulate natural commons. (viz, prevent toxic waste dumping, radio wave jamming, etc.)

Only #2 is a serious vote getter.

</comment><comment><USER3> Too bad LinkedIn doesn't seem to allow users to mod up the better responses, there is too much noise there.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this is an interesting use of the answers service as a marketing tool - but also for market research. Who knows if Obama is actually going to read the answers, but you can't say he didn't ask.

Nice to see some (positive) focus on tech entrepreneurship from a Presidential candidate. I hope this thread doesn't devolve into a discussion of the merits of the candidates though. (comment copied from my now-dead dupe submission of this same topic)

<comment><USER5> What's also interesting about the post, along with other news of B. Obama on social news sites is that he seems to get the new media. It's often repeated that the presidents that win are the ones that understand the power of the new media (i.e. Nixon lost in that debate when TV first came on board), and know how to utilize it.

He's got some advisor or campaign manager that knows what's going on here.

<comment><USER6> Just like Howard Dean.

<comment><USER7> But four years makes a big difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My answer: "This one is simple: if anything, make sure that net neutrality remains intact. If net neutrality has bitten the dust by the time the next president takes office, I hope he or brings it back."

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, beyond Facebook and YouTube, this has to be the first major use of the social-networking website towards a targeted group of constituents. Could more creative social-networking campaigning be coming? What would it be?</comment>


C++ and Beyond 2011: Herb Sutter - Why C++? (video) - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/C-and-Beyond-2011-Herb-Sutter-Why-C <comment><USER2> So long as I'm not forced to switch from C to C++ at work, I'm fine with C++ getting popular.

<comment><USER3> Are you me, but posting from 1996?

<comment><USER2> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to say, I have heard surprisingly little about C++11 since it was finalized. Is it well supported yet? Are people starting to use it in anger? Or did everyone move on to C# years ago I wonder...

<comment><USER5> C or C++ are still (depending on background) the systems languages of first- resort for things like writing a database or an operating system. The exception to the former is usually Java depending on ecosystem and the programmers involved. (Cassandra, et al)

No-compromise performance still happens with C and C++. Secondarily Fortran and Ada for their respective industries. I doubt that'll change anytime soon as I'm not seeing any languages that are choosing the same priorities. Go isn't a systems language by any measure or estimation in design or implementation, and Rust is a type-safety-centric compromise that will likely end up somewhere around Java in performance. I'm not seeing much indication from the mailing list that safety-off all-go performance is a priority for the Rust devs because they seemed to favor avoiding the quagmire of a large C++ codebase.

I think realistically a "clean start" of C++ with the best of C++11 and earlier standards but removing a lot of the less worthwhile features would go a long way. Won't happen though. A lot of people avoid those problems by just writing C. Missing out on the cool reference counted pointers and compile-time stuff though.

Any language that wants to _fully_ replace C/C++ has to embrace "pay only for what you use". Mandatory _anything_ at runtime at the language design level is untenable.

<comment><USER6> > Any language that wants to fully replace C/C++ has to embrace "pay only for > what you use".

"Pay only for what you use" _sounds_ like a really great principle. But ...

Every user of C++ pays the cost (in convenience and reduced bugs) of not having automatic memory management, even if they don't need its benefits in memory consumption and avoiding GC pauses.

Many users of C++ pay a _performance_ cost for the language's lack of automatic memory management, because getting the best performance from an automatic memory management system requires tight language integration and you can't have that with C++. (So they fall back on refcounting or Boehm-Weiser- like conservative GC, and pay the cost.)

Every user of C++ pays the cost (in ugly syntax and long compile times because of the included-header model) of backward compatibility with C, even if they don't really need that.

Many users of C++ pay a _performance_ cost for this, because the C++ compilation model means that template-heavy code tends to end up with a lot of more or less duplicate object code, which means more cache misses and more time spent paging code in from disc.

Every user of C++ pays the cost (in overflow bugs and the like) of using integral types tied closely to the underlying processor architecture, even if they don't need the performance advantages it brings.

Some C++ users pay a _performance_ cost for this, because if an application actually needs bignums then it'll typically be implemented using some general- purpose bignum system like GMP, which will typically perform very well for really large numbers but may be totally unsuited for smaller ones -- and sometimes most of the numbers you're computing with are in fact the small ones.

C++ uses "pay only for what you use" as a slogan, but it applies that slogan only in a very narrow domain. C++ users are paying, all the time, for lots of things they don't use. Quite a lot of C++ users are paying in performance for things they don't use. The slogan is misleading because it directs your attention to the obvious, explicit costs of features like automatic memory management and integer types that overflow gracefully, but there are plenty of costs that aren't so obvious.

(Lest I be misunderstood: For many applications C++ is a great choice. For some it's the only realistic choice. I am not, for instance, arguing that actually everyone should be programming in Common Lisp or something. I just think "you don't pay for what you don't use" is a really misleading slogan.)

<comment><USER7> > Many users of C++ pay a performance cost for the language's lack of > automatic memory management.

Now that's just empty rhetoric. What about 'users of Java pay a performance cost for not having a stack, and creating every single object in the heap'?

I don't pay for unneeded garbage collection, and you can't use your rhetoric around it.

<comment><USER8> Yup... I've seen a lot of java code aiming at high-performance that does awkward/ugly things (e.g., class-static objects which are _actually_ constantly-reused temporary objects, manually-managed temporary object pools, etc) to avoid heap-allocation, in cases where C++ code would simply use its very natural stack-allocation.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Harnessing Big Data for Social Good, YC-Backed Nonprofit Bayes Impact Launches - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/harnessing-big-data-for-social-good-yc-backed-nonprofit-bayes-impact-launches/

<comment><USER2> The article mentions "Keyspring" as the YC alumnus donor. I'm guessing they mean the great guys at Teespring instead.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7629630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7629630)

<comment><AUTHOR> We've contacted the writer multiple times on this. Big thanks to Walker and Teespring on their awesome generosity!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it's unfortunate that "good" and "nonprofit" are so closely linked in the popular imagination. Profitable enterprises deserve the benefit of the doubt: they do good unless proven otherwise. (It is often otherwise; it's likely, for example, that firms such as Coke and McDonald's—not to mention banks and many other financial firms—do net harm.) On the other hand, nonprofits—by definition lacking profit—have no such _a priori_ evidence of doing good. They thus deserve extra scrutiny.

In order to be able to evaluate nonprofits more accurately, it would be helpful if they answered the following questions:

(1) What are your goals?

(2) What would constitute meeting your goals?

(3) What is an acceptable cost (in time, money, and attention) to achieve your goals?

(4) What are your plans if you fail to meet your goals at an acceptable cost?

(5) If you end up doing more harm than good, how will you know, and what do you plan to do about it?

<comment><USER4> I'd thought that pmarca's comment here was hyperbole, but apparently it's fairly true these days:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024239)

Anyway, to respond to your comment, non-profits have to file articles of incorporation and bylaws with the state when they incorporate:

[http://www.idealist.org/info/Nonprofits/Gov3](http://www.idealist.org/info/Nonprofits/Gov3)

Among the information necessary is the purpose of the organization, which answers #1-2 of your questions. In practice, #3-5 are decided by fundraising activities of the organization; it is part of a donor's due diligence to ensure that the non-profits she donates to are the most effective places she can find to employ her capital. Non-profits that can't convince donors of this end up going out of business.

<comment><USER3> Your aim is off the mark. The comment by pmarca says

 _How did Hacker News evolve from the discussion board for YC, to the discussion board where the first comment on any post involving a YC company is reliably someone crapping on it? What an amazing shift._

My comment was even-toned and didn't criticize any organization in particular. If writing that "[nonprofits] thus deserve extra scrutiny" constitutes "crapping on" anything, we are operating under very different definitions of what it means to crap on something.

(Bayes Impact has explicitly aligned themselves with the social justice movement; if I'd crapped on them, you'd have known it. Instead, I tried to write as even-handed a comment as I could while still making my point. Indeed, it took several edits to remove all traces of snark. I've been rewarded for my efforts with downvotes and a reprimand. This is not the way to foster reasoned discussion.)</comment></comment></comment>


Prior Knowledge: A Predictive Database For Developers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/prior-knowledge-a-predictive-database-for-developers/ <comment><USER2> So, this seems fairly intuitive to me - mostly because I have been trying to build one of these for predicting strategic actions by states ie: when is x country going to launch a missile. I am curious what they are using as their heuristics for developing solutions and how they are determining confidence intervals (my guess: number of samples).

It is actually pretty easy to build a process that "fills in the blanks" the hard part, obviously is getting those blanks correctly. In my experience that takes a fairly deep set of expert opinions and coherent "causal" node programmatics which have assigned confidence intervals. Not to mention the fact that people are going to be scrutinizing this data and if it is wrong, they are going to lose faith in the system, and quickly.

When you talk about implementing this on databases however, either the blanks which are being filled need to not be critical processes which require precision or they need to iterate corrections very quickly. In the end I think this is useful for non-critical products which users can correct if necessary. If however they have a novel solution with a significant history of "right" answers, they may be onto something in machine learning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Intriguing. The linked article mentions linear regression but this article:

[http://blog.priorknowledge.com/blog/scaling-not-your- problem...](http://blog.priorknowledge.com/blog/scaling-not-your-problem/)

suggests something that handels scale, heterogeneous and missing data gracefully. Maybe Random Forests?

</comment><comment><USER4> Their PreQL demo during the Disrupt was pretty amazing. Im looking forward to using their API for several ML experiments.

</comment><comment><USER5> Prior Knowledge's Veritable database sounds intriguing. I do a bit of work on the analytics side with medical claims data. I wonder how effective Veritable would be against a large medical claims data set where you have multiple hospital claims, lab claims, pharmacy claims for each member.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I learn to develop for android? - <AUTHOR>

I have some knowledge in iOS development and now I want to learn something else with it. I think I need more web languages like PHP, JavaScript... But on the other side it's cool to create an app with iOS and android versions. I also heard a lot of people saying that android doesn't worth time, it takes a lot of time creating the app and piracy is higher than iOS. So my question is, should I learn Java and then Android development or focus on something else(what?)? <comment><USER2> Yes, absolutely learn it. In the US Android developers make 130-170K per year [1]. You could get an awesome paying job, probably buy a house.

[1] [http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/112042?google_editors_pi...](http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/112042?google_editors_picks=true#slide1)

<comment><USER3> I call BS on this. I want to see there sources for this! I've been developing for iOS since the beginning and I just recently started developing for Android as well to broaden my skill set and I have never made anything near that. 100K seems to be the top most companies want to pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what I was thinking. And build an android app for all screens take time for those who doesn't work for a company, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the best thing to do is find a project that would require all of the above. Something that you would find interesting that has a backend, web interface and phone component.</comment>


Technologies That Will Rock 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/02/seven-technologies-that-will-rock-2011/ <comment><USER2> The most interesting technologies will be the ones no analyst or blogger can predict. Some examples from 2010:

Coffeescript

Rapportive

Wordlens

Hipmunk

Blekko

<comment><USER3> I like the way you think, revorad ;) I appreciate the hipmunk love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > On Quora, you can follow not only people, but topics and questions. It > defines the world by your interests, not just the people you may know or > admire. This is a powerful concept and is not limited to Quora (both Twitter > and Facebook also want to own the interest graph), but Quora is designed > from the ground up to expose and help you explore your interests.

So, like sub-reddits? A lot of people compare Quora to StackOverflow and derivatives, but I see more of a resemblance to reddit, if you keep only self- posts.

<comment><USER5> Nah, topics are tags; a question can have several topics, whereas a reddit thread can only belong to one category. (reddit terminology is not my forté.)

On the negative side, I feel like some evil search engine optimizer when I plaster my questions with topics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know this is all mostly software, seeing as it is techcrunch, but what about hardware?

Isn't Lightpeak coming out this year? I feel like that will be a big deal.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. I'm thinking Kinect might be a big deal, once the open source hacking community really takes off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The single most important technology that TechCrunch left out: JavaScript and HTML5 (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's more of a spec than a separate technology).

More desktop like apps will enter the stage in time for cross mobile compatibility. Yehuda Katz's joining SproutCore is a very good sign of things to come. Node.js will hopefully make it on to production at a lot more startups.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm most excited for the 'streaming cloud'. can't wait until i can pay $10/mo to access to all music on all my devices. yea theres rdio and a few others, but its not there yet. i hope it gets there soon. and i hope netflix lets me pay more to have access to better content.

<comment><USER10> He mentions mobile phones in this context.

I don't foresee the telecoms giving up bandwidth caps (or worse, metered bandwidth). There's no way I'm streaming media over the carrier networks to my phone if it's using up my bandwidth allotment or running against a meter.

<comment><USER11> A lot of people will pay for the convenience if the price is reasonable, say 10 cents per gigabyte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> No mention of AMD fusion? Kind of a biased title for only web-based technologies.

</comment><comment><USER13> I know this probably won't happen in 2011, but I would kill for a phone/laptop that had wireless charging/sync that was practical (i.e. had a range of a few feet at least, and was decently fast.)</comment>


It'll be hard, but we can feed the world with plant protein - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/itll-be-hard-but-we-can-feed-the-world-with-plant-protein-121816 <comment><AUTHOR> The one thing I was surprised by in this article is they didn't mention the environmental benefit to growing beans.

Beans (particularly soybeans) help restore nitrogen into the soil and are a net-positive on feeding the soil without harmful chemicals.</comment>


WebXR Snake game - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aduryagin/webxr-snake-game <comment><USER2> "Web"XR demo which links to Google's implementation which requires a mobile phone OS and a second app be installed. I thought we were done with plugins on the web.</comment>


Ask HN: Which online communities do you hang out most on? - <AUTHOR> Couple of my favorites:<p>* https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians - All things history. Quality of discussions are way better than on most other subreddits. Highly moderated<p>* https://discuss.bootstrapped.fm - bootstrapped businesses<p>* https://lobste.rs - kinda like HN but for tech only<p>* https://slatestarcodex.com - it is more blog than a community, but great nevertheless<p>I used to frequent other communties but these are the ones that stood the test of time <comment><USER2> HN mods do a fantastic job with moderating. I don't pretend to know how any of it works, but I consistently enjoy content on the front page of HN, which I can't say about subreddits, even my favorites.

Besides HN, a handful of subreddits (r/MachineLearning in particular), and I used to spend a decent amount of time on Product Hunt.

I do miss the hell out of forums though. I feel like i "knew" everyone on a better level and could burn through hours talking.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hacker News and a few Subreddits of whichever hobby I'm interested in at the moment. I do miss the old days of forums, though. HN and Reddit both don't seem to give me the same feeling for some reason I haven't figured out yet.

<comment><USER4> Old forums used to feel a bit like a community. They were small and close nit, and visibility wasn't dictated by voting, so proper in-depth discussions could happen. They felt more like a collaborative room than a megaphone.

At least, that's my thoughts.

<comment><USER5> They also didn't "age out" every discussion to invisibility after a day or two, as usually sorting was usually by time of last update. Discussion topics could go for weeks, or occasionally months.

Losing that is my personal bugbear with everything moving to a feed, as it prioritises consumption over depth.

<comment><USER6> _(Disclaimer: my site)_

I definitely agree with this, and on Tildes ([https://tildes.net](https://tildes.net)) the default sorting method causes topics to bump back up to the top when there's a new comment on them, the same way forums work. We regularly have topics stay active for days or weeks because of it, and old topics will suddenly spring back to life when new discussions start.

Tildes's mechanics have a lot of similarities to reddit/HN-style sites overall, and you can still choose to sort by votes, strictly chronologically, etc. if you prefer, but I've always liked that forum-style method. The heavily time-dependent approaches that are popular now force everyone to need to reply quickly. On HN and reddit, if you don't get involved in a thread in the first 12 hours or so, you might as well not bother because it'll disappear soon. Replying to anything over a day old means that almost nobody will ever see your comment.

Tildes is still young so it's not extremely active yet, but there are usually a few hundred comments and ~50 topics every day. If you (or anyone else reading this) is interested in an invite, feel free to email me. The address and a lot more info about the site is in the announcement post: [https://blog.tildes.net/announcing- tildes](https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes)

<comment><USER5> It's the cult of recency that even infects Google search. Last week's news can still be worth talking about, last year's fact might still be a fact. HN and reddit also has the tendency that a lively discussion will simply start to fade out once the story has dropped out of sight.

Nice one, Tilde looks a really interesting mix. Votes are useful as a pre- filter in discovery, age the best way to organise discussion. I wish you the very best of luck with it! Bonus points for the dark theme option.

From first impression it looks fit for beta - is there functionality still missing? I'll take a closer look over the weekend.

<comment><USER6> It probably doesn't even really need to be called alpha/beta any more. It's very stable and has comparable or better features than most of the similar sites. There's a lot I still want to add, but there always will be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Many of my friends use Twitter and we regularly comment on and retweet each other's tweets. I've recently been added to a Mastodon group which feels much more tight-knit. I've been playing dota 2 for the past few years and I regularly play with the same group of people. I also have a few discords I've been added to. I tend to lurk on bigger websites like Twitter, Reddit, HN. Last.fm and Sonemic community are interesting in that they're entirely music based. The discussion revolves entirely around rating and categorizing music which is lovely if you think about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apart from HN, reddit my new favorite is [https://dev.to](https://dev.to)

<comment><USER9> I like the bold design, though I find it a tad too large and low-density. Also, a shame you can only log in with a Twitter or Github account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> HN mostly. The quality of discussion is much higher than reddit. Also, there seems to be less group think here.

I have yet to find an online gaming community that I enjoy. I tried different discord servers but it is nothing like good old clan forums back in the day, where you got to know people.

<comment><USER4> Honestly, I find the limited user base helps a lot too. You can read all the view points without scrolling through thousands of jokes.

<comment><USER11> The jokes and memes make most reddit subs almost completely useless for real discussion. Even on tragic news events and serious topics jokes tend to float to the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> HN mostly. There are a handful of subreddits I check periodically. /r/artificial, /r/AGI/, /r/machinelearning being some of the top ones. Some StackExchange sites, like ai.stackexchange.com, electronics.stackexchange.com, ham.stackexchange.com, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reddit for gaming. HN for tech stuff. I lurk a lot on both platforms and don't like to comment too much.

</comment><comment><USER14> my own @ [https://thumped.com/bbs](https://thumped.com/bbs)

20 years and counting...

<comment><USER15> Very interesting! Congratulations on building that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 4chan /g, /fit and /biz boards

</comment><comment><USER17> Productized Startups - a fb group I started just to talk about about productized services.

</comment><comment><USER18> what are some active programming boards? (not reddit)

<comment><USER19> I don't like /r/programming either but some of the smaller programming subs are ok.

For example /r/cpp has moderators from the actual C++ standards committee.

In general I wish there's a better way to stalk where these experts hang out. For example at one point /r/machinelearning was pretty good but then the famous researchers left and it's hard to track the diaspora (I think those discussions ended up moving to twitter)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Path of Exile in-game global chat.

</comment><comment><USER21> HN mostly in the past 4~5 years.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

[https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians)

[https://discuss.bootstrapped.fm](https://discuss.bootstrapped.fm)

[https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs)

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

</comment><comment><USER22> Biggerpockets Citydataforum</comment>


You Are Not Alone Across Time: Using Sophocles to Treat PTSD (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://harpers.org/archive/2014/10/you-are-not-alone-across-time/?single=1 <comment><USER2> Is there an easy way to read this?</comment>


Automating a conference submission workflow: deploying to production - <AUTHOR> https://blog.frankel.ch/automating-conference-submission-workflow/3/ <comment><USER2> Interesting approach, but it obviously required time to learn all the stack and integrate the parts.

It looks like it's easy but the way to achieve it was not short.</comment>


2017 safest year on record for commercial passenger air travel - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aviation-safety/2017-safest-year-on-record-for-commercial-passenger-air-travel-groups-idUSKBN1EQ17L <comment><USER2> This is a really good news. Let's hope we see the same in 2018.</comment>


Majority in Dutch Parliament Supports Building More Nuclear Plants (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://nltimes.nl/2018/11/07/majority-dutch-parliament-supports-building-nuclear-plants <comment><USER2> All they have to do now is figure out how to actually build one.

<comment><USER3> You place an order from AREVA in France and then wait 24 months.

<comment><USER2> It seems more like you have to wait 15 years...

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

When they've demonstrated that they can say they'll build it in 24 months and it really takes 36 months, that will be a breakthrough. Until then...</comment></comment></comment>


750M genetically engineered mosquitoes approved for release in Florida Keys - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/health/gmo-mosquitoes-approved-florida-scn-wellness/index.html <comment><USER2> From the article: "a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%."

I do share some of the concern about major environmental modification, but a bigger part of me is just excited at the prospect of fewer mosquitoes. I hope this trial goes well!

<comment><USER3> You don't get fewer mosquitoes unfortunately. You just get fewer Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, and the diseases they carry. Other species that want to prey on you will increase in number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ya know, as much as the general idea of genetic engineering repulses me, mosquitos are one of the only organisms I am perfectly fine with putting aside my reservations for. I dream of a day when humans wipe them from the face of the earth.

I think it's also important to note that certain mosquito species (the ones which most commonly carry diseases) can be targeted, leaving other mosquito populations as they were.

<comment><USER5> What repulses you about it? In practice, it's not any different than domestication. Just quicker and less resource intensive.

<comment><USER4> I am not talking about GMO corn or any plants. I'm fine with eating "fancy corn". I'm speaking about GE in the animal kingdom. Genetic engineering has a massive and terrifying potential. Like nuclear weapons, genetic engineering is Pandora's Box, plain and simple. Let us hope humans are smart enough not to open it, this time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is known as the sterile insect technique(SIT) and has proven effective in quite a few cases[0]. Looking at the list of times this has been attempted it doesn't look like there have ever been any adverse effects[1].

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique#Succe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique#Successful_programs)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sterile_insect_techniq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sterile_insect_technique_trials)

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks like the official press release:

[https://www.oxitec.com/en/news/oxitec-announces-landmark- app...](https://www.oxitec.com/en/news/oxitec-announces-landmark-approval-of- florida-keys-pilot-project-to-combat-mosquito-that-transmits-dengue-zika)

An earlier press release ([https://www.oxitec.com/en/news/oxitec- transitioning-friendly...](https://www.oxitec.com/en/news/oxitec- transitioning-friendly-self-limiting-mosquitoes-to-2nd-generation-technology- platform-paving-way-to-new-scalability-performance-and-cost-breakthroughs)) describes their self-limiting technology:

> _Oxitec's 2nd generation insect technology uses two small genetic > modifications to create self-limiting, non-biting insects that are male- > selecting (only male progeny survive from mating with a wild-type female > insect). Upon the mating between an engineered Oxitec male insect and a > wild-type female target insect, the female progeny die, generating near-term > suppression effects. The male progeny survive, half of which carry the self- > limiting gene while the other half carry natural insecticide-susceptibility > genes. In subsequent generations, the self-limiting gene is diluted via a > Mendelian pattern – enabling population suppression for up to 10 subsequent > generations before the introduced genes are eliminated from the > environment._

So it sounds like they are engineered to leave behind no artificial genes over the long term. (However, there will still be wild mosquitoes descended from genetically engineered ones, but apparently with genes that came from natural sources.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I love how people are allowed to modify the public world like this with "best guess" attempts at "this shouldnt have any bad side effects" but I can't get a G Drive approved at my company.

<comment><USER9> Yea it's funny... it will probably backfire and we will have another disaster by humans... doesn't really surprise me

<comment><USER10> To a certain extent this is what Jurassic Park was warning about.

<comment><USER11> I disagree, in JP they had the intent of not having any effect at all on the environment (outside the island).

<comment><USER10> My point was that they engineered the dinosaurs to depend on lysine or whatever as well as making them all one gender. The idea was to prevent unplanned reproduction and ensure that they maintained control. As the saying goes, life finds a way. Now fiction and reality are different but the warning is there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A solution to the learning dilemma for recurrent networks of spiking neurons - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/738385v3 <comment><USER2> I just saw Mass present this paper at HBP summit and came to post it here. It sounds fairly interesting since it can perform gradients without reverse mode differentiation.</comment>


Botched Sega Forever launch blighted by poor emulation UK - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2017/06/sega-forever-emulation-performance-problems/ <comment><USER2> Looks like another GPL v3 product being treated as infected goods. They chose Unity a proprietary product over RetroArch which was GPL v3. Now their games are subpar.

Too bad. Would have tried the classics but since they are bad will not.

<comment><USER3> But, don't forget: uuuurgh, fragmentation!1!!!!111</comment></comment>