WebGL Water Simulation - <AUTHOR> http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/ <comment><USER2> I have to say, the most impressive part about this is the fact that my macbook doesn't even rev up like a jet engine like it would if I was..say...watching a flash video.

Awesome.

<comment><USER3> Oh, the joys of running a task that is suitable for a GPU ... on a GPU!

<comment><USER4> Also, the demo uses requestAnimationFrame and thus rendering is paused if the tab is in the background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And here I am trying to get a bunch of 2d lines rendering quickly in a 2d canvas for some charts. So strange to me that something 'simple' like drawing 20,000 lines chugs along at ~20fps and a water simulation with caustics is there running at 30fps just fine. Goes to show how much you gain from a GPU if you're using it for something it's designed to do.

<comment><USER6> WebGL would draw your 20,000 lines much faster. It's not just for 3D; charting would be a perfectly reasonable use for WebGL.

<comment><USER7> At this rate, you'd get an awful lot of people who can't see your chart if you did it in WebGL!

<comment><USER8> I agree for mobile web apps. For PC, tell them to switch away from IE. If you're making high-end graphics, your users need a high-end browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This didn't work for me in Chrome 14 or FireFox 5. What the hell browser does this work in?

<comment><USER10> Same here. Anybody have a YouTube demo we can all watch?

<comment><USER7> Seconding a call for a YouTube video. On Chrome 13, Windows 7, with a nVidia GeForce Go 7600 with the latest driver and OpenGL 2.1.2, and I get the error:

Vertex shader sampler count exceeds MAX_VERTEX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS (0).

You might laugh at my hardware, but from my own OpenGL work I know the majority of users out there have crappy old chips or god-awful Intel graphics chips which the vendors can't be bothered to support any more with decent drivers that support the latest OpenGL features. Most people don't surf with a gaming grade GPU. If WebGL is this fussy about hardware, it could severely limit its uptake.

<comment><USER11> Hardware compatibility is the least of WebGL's problems. Right now there's essentially zero chance of WebGL powering any modern graphics engine. It unfortunately seems doomed to a life of "hey-look-at-my-cool-effect". (Which is neat, don't get me wrong. But it will never reach Doom 3 quality, and that's a tragedy IMO.)

Example: WebGL doesn't even support compressed textures. The spec _actually mandates_ "We will not support compressed textures, and this is by design". Facepalm...

<comment><USER12> Well my stuff isn't Doom3 level so I guess it's useless but I'm building visualization tools for the brain imaging community with WebGL and for that it works great. I have no fear that WebGL will do fine, it's an evolution of the Web the same as was seen on the phones. Looks at 2006, did anyone seriously think phones would be able to do much? Then a few years later Carmack shows some cool demo engine for iOS Rage which looks about as good as the PS3.

As for compressed textures. It hasn't been ruled out for ever. This is stil version 1.0 of the spec.

<comment><USER11> I was of course talking specifically about WebGL for games...

But it seems like you'd run into many of the same hindrances. For example, how will you get around the 5MB local storage limit? It would be unwieldly to re- download the whole visualization dataset each time, no?

P.S. I have nothing but respect for the medical visualization community. A lot of game graphics techniques were derived directly from work done in medical research (for example, BSP rendering and voxel rendering).

<comment><USER12> I offer multiple options, 1. they can open local files, option two is obviously to get them from the server every time. For most things they don't usually look at the same stuff multiple times. An average MRI is pretty low resolution and can fit in under 50mb (average 10mb, 50-60 for fMRI scans) of storage thus it's not to expensive to redownload it. For surface data it's even less, my average brain surface is also under 10mb. Most of my users are on University networks which helps a lot.

Also applications in the chrome web store can get around the local storage limitation. I'd browsers to offer a quota system where the user can assign a max amount to their applications. That would solve those issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't forget to press "G".

<comment><USER14> Wow. _That_ needs to be enabled by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I bought my computer I didn't think graphics were important. Now I wish I had spent some money on a good graphics card. I might have to buy one so I can develop stuff like this.

For those who are interested, if you have a laptop with an intel based graphics card, you are probably using something called Mesa. After researching for a long time, Mesa is some sort of a graphics driver that works on Linux. Apparently, if you have Mesa 7.10+ and Firefox 6 webgl works, though I haven't figured out how to upgrade Mesa. The default on Ubuntu 10.04 is 7.4 or something like that. Apparently, Mesa is pretty buggy and can crash a lot.

If anyone has more info about this subject, I would appreciate it.

<comment><USER16> Mesa is a software 3D driver. It uses the CPU instead of your GPU. I've never had an intel igp on Linux, but it should probably be using intel drivers for 3d, not Mesa.

<comment><USER17> Mesa was originally a pure-software implementation of OpenGL (with the trademarks filed off), but since it was the only complete, open-source GL stack, a lot of open-source hardware drivers re-use parts of it, including the official Intel graphics drivers.

To the grandparent poster: Like any system component, the best way to upgrade Mesa is to upgrade your OS. Sadly, the latest version of Ubuntu is 11.04, which comes with Mesa 7.10.2, and Firefox blacklists every version of Mesa before 7.10.3, so you'll probably have to wait for 11.10 (or just force-enable webgl).

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the extra info. I wasn't aware that hardware drivers used it, I just remember back in the day Mesa meant no Soldier of Fortune demo and Beryl :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Don't forget to check out all his other impressive works! <http://madebyevan.com/>

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess this is going to be the next race for browser compatibility. So far I've tried Firefox, Safari and Chrome all on OS X Lion, I'm hoping a newer version of Chrome will work, if not I guess this is all still mostly academics.

<comment><USER19> Yep, newest version of chrome does work. Which is also the only browser that does. It uses about 40% of a i5 dual core cpu in the Macbook Pro 15" mid 2010.

<comment><USER20> Got the latest stable for ubuntu 32 bit and it doesn't work.

<comment><USER21> Not all combinations of hardware and drivers work yet. See:

<http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Doesn't work for me on Chrome 13 (Stable) or 15 (Canary) on Windows 7. Both throw up an "implicit truncation of vector type" error.

<comment><USER23> I'm running Chrome "13.0.782.112 m" on Windows 7 and it's working just fine.

<comment><USER22> Ah, in that case it might be my GPU: ATI Radeon X1550

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm getting the "This demo requires OES_texture_float extension" error. Strangely, in the conformance test ([https://cvs.khronos.org/svn/repos/registry/trunk/public/webg...](https://cvs.khronos.org/svn/repos/registry/trunk/public/webgl/sdk/tests/webgl- conformance-tests.html)) OES_texture_float passes without error.

using latest chromium dev build on latest ubuntu 32bit. same error in firefox 5.

<comment><USER25> Which graphics card?

<comment><USER24> integrated Intel GMA X4500 it's not a super expensive card, but also not really old.

lspci gives me

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Something really interesting happens if you move the ball to the surface, let the water become calm, then move the ball horizontally along the surface.

</comment><comment><USER27> Eventually we'll want more from our standard, flat websites. WebGL is part of that. Not every site of course, but with the inevitable increases in processing power that come in the future so will our desire to be inventive with it.

Keep in mind we're entering a post-PC era. Our mobile and tablets already include (a bit) of GPU acceleration for certain CSS transitions. This is where WebGL will shine, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER28> Doesn't work on Intel graphics (at least under linux with F15-era drivers). "This demo requires OES_texture_float extension." Float textures are pretty bleeding edge even for fancy GPUs.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hrm, the site says that latest versions of both Firefox (Stable & Aurora) and Opera, and Chromium 6 don't support WebGL. Is there any browser this is supposed to work in?

<comment><USER30> It works in Aurora [1] but the FPS is really much lower than what I get in Chrome where it's completely smooth. [1] <http://www.mozilla.com/en- US/firefox/channel/>

Edit: I have version 13 of Chrome and version 7.0a2 (2011-08-10) of Aurora.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Waves don't reflect off the sphere - they just pass right through it. Mind- bogglingly beautifully, of course.

</comment><comment><USER32> Surface tension seems to be modeled too.

Try violently lifting the ball out of placid water.

The water 'sticks' to the ball for a while.

<comment><USER33> that's just the initial surface disturbance. it starts at the center of where the sphere breaches the water and has an amplitude. the disturbance radiates outward from that center, but there's no "sticking" to other meshes happening

<comment><USER32> I knew there was something not entirely right with my statement.

Thanks for pointing out what.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Warning: this demo crashed my integrated graphics driver about 15 seconds in. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER35> Very nice. I would like to see somebody do a cannonball now.

<comment><USER36> You can get close by turning on gravity by pressing 'G', then dragging the ball into the air and dropping it.

Unfortunately can't get it to splash since it's just a height-field simulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> this is the algorithm that governs the surface waves. it's remarkably simple and well suited to the parallel computing that shaders can offer: <http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/graphics/x_water.htm>

</comment><comment><USER37> wow. this logged me off my X session on ubuntu 10.10 stable and chrome 13.0.782.112

<comment><USER38> And they call it stable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Another HN item that can only been seen by those using Google Chrome. When will it stop? Are we really so dumb and foolish to go right back to the "Works only in IE6" days? WHY is it that because it's Chrome and not IE6, that makes it alright?

<comment><USER40> Chrome isn't the only browser that works: \- Safari 5.1 (released with Lion) works if you enable WebGL in the developer menu. \- Firefox 6.0 works with this demo. 5.0 tells me a feature is missing. \- Opera's WebGL preview build fails in the exact same way as Firefox 5.0, which indicates to me that a newer build might work.

WebGL is an emerging __standard __supported by FOUR major browser vendors (Google, Apple, Opera, Mozilla). Microsoft is the only one not currently adopting. It's a continuation of them doing their own thing without a care about inter-operability. Silverlight 5 implements GPU-accelerated 3D so Microsoft likely considers WebGL to be a competing product.

<comment><USER41> Microsoft considers the security implications of open-ended access (relatively) to be insecure, and the crashes other users are reporting on this article right here prove them right, for now. GPU drivers have never before been considered attack surfaces requiring hardening against malicious attackers. Stand by for the first major attack using this vector.</comment></comment></comment>


1 in 10 Dead Bosses Are Murdered. - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5835821/1-in-10-dead-bosses-are-murdered

<comment><USER2> The original article headline is: "1 in 10 Dead Bosses Are Murdered."

This is a rather crucial difference, to put it rather mildly. You should use the original headline.

<comment><AUTHOR> corrected. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My personal experience is that about 20% of bosses (I'm including my boss's bosses) were so often out of line that there were employees hoping to meet these guys in a dark alley. 70% of my bosses were varying degrees of competence/incompetence. And, only about 10% were respected and liked.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why didn't they give the non-management murder statistic? Or the percentage of fatalities that were in management?

<comment><AUTHOR> Original report summary with links to more details: <http://bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm>

The non-management homicide figures seems to be slightly higher at 11%.</comment></comment>


Buying a Bay Area home now a struggle even for Apple, Google engineers - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/14/buying-a-bay-area-home-now-a-struggle-even-for-apple-google-engineers/ <comment><USER2> If only people who mostly type text that gets pushed over the internet for a living didn't have to live in the same physical place in order to work.

<comment><USER3> You make a good point, but how would all the meddling middle managers keep tabs on their employees and the work they're doing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If techies can't afford homes there then who is buying all these houses and driving up prices?

<comment><USER3> Managers/VPs/Executives of techies...</comment></comment>


Vault 1.3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/vault-1-3/ <comment><USER2> For those that moved to or from Vault, care to share your experiences?

I'm using a fairly niche/small product to manage secrets at the moment but we're hitting scaling and response time problems for a globally distributed team.

We're already using AWS so we're tossing up using Secrets Manager instead and changing our tooling accordingly, but after starting down the path of using some of HashiCorps other products I'm wondering how Vault will go too.

<comment><USER3> I'll give my biased response, but I hope you can see I'm trying to be fair and honest too. Note I'm one of the founders of HashiCorp and original creators of Vault.

If your challenge is just storing static secrets (think key/value), Vault is probably overkill for you today. Secrets Manager will work fine, or even a smaller KMS-based solution or something. We're working on making Vault a LOT easier to get started with so this probably won't be true for long, but its probably true today. But it is important to understand the tradeoffs of making these decisions.

The value of Vault is in the fact that it does so much more: dynamic secrets, automatic rotation, certificate management, encryption-as-a-service, etc. And that it integrates with so many systems: log in with AWS IAM, or K8S service principles, or OIDC (Google, GitHub, etc.). And it has a single policy and auditing system to back all this.

Usually Vault becomes VERY beneficial when you're juggling multiple "secret- like" solutions: diff password solution from key management from PKI etc etc OR you want to adopt more modern practices like dynamic credentials OR you want a way to centrally govern secret-like things.

Vault literally scales from solving the needs of a small team (static KV) to being used by some of the Fortune 10 to back their entire corporate secret, PKI, encryption, signing requirements in a centralized way. I think that's kind of neat.

<comment><USER4> Vault is phenomenal. Do you know by chance whether Vault has a pkcs11 Plug-in? So one can offload certain crypto operations into an HSM? (apart from the masterkey)

i.e. I would like to use the PKI from vault but the key of the CA has to live in an HSM.

<comment><USER5> We use Vault Enterprise at my company, and I do a lot of the deployment/adminsitration of vault. The enterprise version supports PKCS11 and external HSM: [https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/configuration/seal/pkcs11.h...](https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/configuration/seal/pkcs11.html) and [https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/configuration/entropy- augme...](https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/configuration/entropy- augmentation/index.html) for reference.

[https://learn.hashicorp.com/vault/operations/ops-seal- wrap](https://learn.hashicorp.com/vault/operations/ops-seal-wrap) is a guide linked at the bottom

<comment><USER4> Thanks. So to fully understand this - if I use seal wrapping with an HSM all secrets in Vault will be wrapped by the HSM and not only the masterkey/autounseal?

And even though the rest is then in software (Vault) I still have the same FIPS level as the HSM?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yay! I really like Vault a lot after using it all over the place. It solves a huge amount of problems in a really elegant way.

For anyone heavily using long-lived ACL tokens you will absolutely want to upgrade; there's a really, really nasty bug that was fixed in this release.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wish there was support for Docker Swarm!

<comment><USER8> After yesterday's news, I think it's probably time to accept swarm has no future.

<comment><USER7> Why do you say that? :(

<comment><USER8> Well, who's going to develop it? Most of the revenue from it now goes to Mirantis, but until yesterday they were a Kubernetes-only shop.

No judgement on its technical merits, frankly I don't know it that well, but there doesn't seem to be anyone incentivised to develop it any more.

(Here's El Reg's take: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/13/docker_enterprise_m...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/13/docker_enterprise_miranits/))</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wemux - Set up tmux for party pair programming - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/20986196780/wemux-multi-user-terminal-multiplexing-for-party-pair-pr

<comment><USER2> This is quite amazing and has been badly needed for sometime. The tmux technical setup prior may have inhibited some developers out there.

The importance of remote pair programming seems to be slowly making its way to the forefront. I've been toying with the idea of a high level protocol specifically for pair programming that would support the notification of high level programming tasks (switching tab, syncing file changes, showing highlights, cursor movement). This protocol would be light enough that latency should be a mine issue. It would have to be supported in all major editors (via a plugin?). This supported would give each remote dev the freedom to work in their favorite editor with their own key bindings.

Here are some of my additional thoughts on the topic.. <https://gist.github.com/1999816>

</comment><comment><USER3> OT, but: I'm jealous of some people's abilities to come up with such clever names.

Full-derail: anyone seen any pointers to thinking up such names? Perhaps an Emacs command or mode? Or am I looking for a shortcut to a hard problem? Whatever it is, I'd appreciate it in pill-form (capsule please; none of that nasty tablet stuff).

<comment><USER4> I always pick my names from obscure fictional characters: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/hus94/the_ruby_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/hus94/the_ruby_world_is_nuts/c1ykx4h)

Just read lots of fiction and keep a scratch pad next to you while you do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very cool.

Off topic. What would be really cool is to have an Emacs buffer that can be edited by multiple people. Then pair programming can be done within the editor. Is there such thing?

<comment><USER6> > What would be really cool is to have an Emacs buffer that can be edited by > multiple people. Then pair programming can be done within the editor. Is > there such thing?

As always with Emacs, been there, coded that:

<http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel>

<comment><USER4> Rudel is nice for working on a single document, but tmux is much nicer for pair programming since it synchronizes the whole screen rather than buffer by buffer. That way you don't have to talk through "OK, I'm switching over to this other file now". Plus it works with things like shells and repls. So I'd use Rudel more in a collaborative note-taking context than a programming one.

<comment><USER6> > but tmux is much nicer

I agree, but I was giving them what they asked for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> benji-york I'm really glad remote pairing is getting such inventive attention lately. I have, however, been a little disappointed that the mode of collaborating that I prefer doesn't seem to be well supported.

Many people can't or don't want to grant login access to their local development machine in order to share a screen/tmux session and using a mutually accessible machine means leaving behind or laboriously duplicating the local development experience.

I've used hacks to get what I want (<https://dev.launchpad.net/yellow/RemoteTerminalBroadcasting>) but I haven't found anything truly satisfying yet.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I see tools like this, I'm jealous of the people who actually get to put them to good use. I program for a living, but at my current job I would be shocked if anyone even knew what tmux was ... heck, even SSH. At home I do use some very "cutting edge" tools, but still can't picture myself being in a scenario, anytime soon, where Wemux solves a problem of mine. I wish I could see myself in that scenario, though. So, who uses these tools and are you hiring? :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Very neat script. Zolrath (Matt Furden) is a member of HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772678>

</comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately mosh didn't place nice with wemux, but I used it today for several hours. Rogue mode was nice.

Thanks zolrath.

<comment><USER10> Mosh doesn't play nice with wemux specifically or tmux as a whole? Glad you liked it, in any case! I'd love to hear any comments/questions/suggestions anyone has, I'd like wemux to be as good as it can be!

<comment><USER11> This looks great! I tried it with the default settings and could share a sessions very easily. On the other hand I'm trying to use `wemux rogue` but I get the following:

      wemux rogue
      unknown command: rogue
      To see a list of wemux commands enter 'wemux help'...

And wemux help does not list `wemux rogue` as one of the options. I installed it by following the `brew install` process in the README.

<comment><USER12> I had the same issue while testing rogue mode. You need to do the "wemux rogue" with a user not included in your host_list in your wemux.conf. The available commands are different for hosts and other users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone else have a horrible time getting to thechangelog.com I keep getting errors that says their server is down :(

</comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't GNU Screen support this out of the box?

<comment><USER15> I believe GNU Screen supports mirror mode (read-only) and pair mode (one shared cursor), but rogue mode (two independent cursors, shared terminal) is the real differentiation from GNU Screen.

Great for remote teams who are heavily command-line based (developers and deployment folks).

<comment><USER16> Can tmux give two client the same window, but different panes? This means they can see each others cursor on another part of the window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What theme/plugins are you using in that screenshot?

Edit: Thanks!

<comment><USER10> I wrote up a description of how to duplicate that status line at: <https://github.com/zolrath/wemux/wiki/Status-Line>

Color Theme is <https://github.com/nanotech/jellybeans.vim></comment></comment>


Show HN: My app for envy free rent division - <AUTHOR> http://www.fairandsquare.ie/?p=711

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very alpha at the moment and I would appreciate any comments on how to improve the app.</comment>


Will This Old Financial Tool Transform Tech Investing? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/SPAC-tech-investing.html <comment><USER2> Suggested title change: "Special Purpose Acquisition Companies: an alternative to IPOs"</comment>


The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032716304906 <comment><USER2> So the cause could be that there are a lot of depressed men that smoke cannabis to try to escape their depression instead of taking medication?

Maybe it shows a tendency for women to seek professional help where men do not? Especially in cases regarding depression or other "non-physical" illnesses?

<comment><AUTHOR> We adjusted all analyses for depression and other mental disorders.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am one of the authors, AMA

<comment><USER3> Thanks for doing this research, and for posting this...it's a very important field right now, considering that many countries/states are legalising Cannabis. I live in Canada and cannabis is in the process of being legalised.

I haven't read the full-text, but how well have you figured out the causation? The study seems to show that in women suicidal ideation causes cannabis use. In men it _seems_ to be the other way around (cannabis use causes suicide ideation). However I'm wondering if even in men the desire to use cannabis is influenced by some kind of mental instability, which would have caused suicidal ideation even in the absence of cannabis. Perhaps you address this in the full-text.

Also, I'd suggest paying the $3k open-access fee to make this article available to everyone. It's a small price to pay for increased exposure, more citations, etc.

<comment><USER4> It's fucking nuts that you need to pay $3k for anyone to be able to read your work.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps you should start up a peer-reviewed journal that doesn't charge anything. I wonder how you'd afford to pay your employees.

<comment><USER5> They don't pay their employees though -- if you count the people who _generate the actual content_ as employees. Nor do they pay the academics _who do the actual peer review_.

They pay editorial staff and tech dudes. I guess a metric shit-ton.

<comment><USER6> Retail stores don't pay their employees either, if you count the people who manufacture the actual goods. Nor do they pay the truckers who actually get the goods to the store.

They pay janitorial staff and retail assistants. I guess a metric shit-ton.

Yes, it's an imperfect metaphor, but it's showing that you can still provide value without being the origin of the object.

<comment><USER7> You missed his point, which was NOT that the journal didn't originate the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1TQFMbXYiRe8A](http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1TQFMbXYiRe8A) This link should allow access to the full text for the next few weeks.

<comment><USER8> Why only for a few weeks?

<comment><AUTHOR> The publisher gives a link for sharing on social networks which works for 50 days, after that, it's paywalled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, since the authors are here, I have a couple questions.

How is this correlated with legalization? From an intuitive standpoint, it seems like someone who thinks they have "less to lose" would try illegal drugs which carry risk of incarceration, and that same kind of person might consider suicide.

To me, the fact that the effects happen in reverse order (whether suicidal ideation precedes cannabis use or vice versa) indicates that there could be some kind of common cause for the two effects, and that it just manifests differently for men and women. Unfortunately the full paper is paywalled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding legalization- we had no relevant data, so I can't say. The bidirectional association may indeed indicate a third cause, as discussed in the paper. I have added a link that should allow access to the full-text, let me know if it doesn't work for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Suicidal ideation is a serious problem for the person and also for anyone close to them who learns of it. Finding evidence that it is associated with cannabis use may be helpful in directing attention.

It is interesting that unlike ideation suicide attempts were not associated with cannabis use. How is this to be understood? Suicidal ideation is often a precursor to suicide attempts. Is the number of suicide attempts in cannabis users equivalent to the general population or to a population with the same level of suicidal ideation?

</comment><comment><USER11> Here is the article: [http://sci-hub.cc/10.1016/j.jad.2016.07.010](http://sci- hub.cc/10.1016/j.jad.2016.07.010)

</comment><comment><USER12> Becuase it's illegal it causes people to be isolated and hide their behaviour for fear of persecution. This I imagine increases depression and anxiety.

I only smoke it to stop me from wanting to kill everybody else :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Illegality is indeed one of the possible mediators of the association. A recent study has demonstrated decreased suicidality in states where cannabis was legalized

<comment><USER12> Ye I wasn't being facetious, more drawing from personal experience. Amazing to hear that it is actually correlated though. It does cause users stress from it being illegal and hard to get hold of. It means lying to friends, colleaugues and also maintaining unsavoury aquantances to be able to score etc. Many also genuinely smoke it to block out the bullsh!t of the world and reality which can make them feel helpless, angry or depressed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The very interesting thing is the degree of denial - of ANY negative side effect -- of using pot among any user. The vast majority of smokers would laugh it off if they were told "there's a notable correlation between suicide and pot use."

I smoked it for about 3 years as a teen, between 1976 and 1978. In those days about zero 'horticultural engineering' was done to the stuff -- the potency was low.

But the effects were dramatic. And negative.

Now? The stuff out there now simply MUST be highly 'engineered' after 40 years of time from when I used it recreationally. The odor is so overwhelming, so strong. The 'skunk' odor.

Back in my day the stuff consisted of stems, leaves, and a bud here and there. The buds had seeds. The seeds would sometimes explode like popcorn. All the pictures of the stuff I see nowadays -- it looks like all buds, and seedless.

In the 1970s, what made me stop it was this. Recall that if you're riding a bike on the right side of the road, cars pass by. Okay, imagine a huge truck passing you and suddenly it swerves to the right -- the huge truck _almost_ hits you but you escape being hit/run over by steering your bike into a ditch.

You are quite shaken, lots of anxiety.

It's NORMAL to feel anxiety at a time like that.

The "I'm in trouble" indicator is -- feeling anxiety for no such reason. No imminent threat, no "I'm late for my final exam", etc. Just smoking the stuff and then feeling anxiety.

You know you're in trouble with that stuff when _you cannot seem to shake off the anxiety._

Contrary to what 99.99% of pot users say, the drug -- like most drugs -- HAS SIDE EFFECTS.

I stopped because I felt anxiety and could not shake it.

Stopping the recreational use solved that problem.

Suicidal tendencies from pot use? I had friends back then going to psyche wards and rehab to try getting off that stuff. In the 1970s. When it was FAR LESS potent than today. I don't know if any of my friends/acquaintances back then ever got low enough to off themselves.

I never argue with anyone these days when they discuss how 'wonderful' pot is. My only wish would be -- remember, it's a drug and drugs have side effects.

You'll know you're in trouble when you have anxiety for no reason -- other than the pot use -- and you cannot shake it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally am in favor of decriminalizing cannabis use, as well as other drugs. Unfortunately, the debate regarding legalization is very polarized, and tends to not be based on scientific findings. One side tends to demonize cannabis while the other dismisses any information regarding negative effects. I believe there are many reasons for legalization, but mainly as a method for harm reduction, not because cannabis is some sort of a wonder-drug. Here are some studies regarding long-term negative effects: [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1402309](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1402309)

[http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=24880...](http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2488041)

Our findings in no way imply cannabis use causes suicidality. There are many other factors we couldn't analyze which could be the cause of this association. The reality is that these two behaviors (cannabis use and suicidality) are very complex, and this study is just one small step in the understanding of how these complex behaviors interact.

I believe proponents of cannabis legalization should look at all the data regarding long-term effects of cannabis with as little bias as possible - there are enough good reasons for legalization, it is dangerous to ignore scientific data regarding risks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> People are always looking for something to blame other than themselves. I'm sure there's at least one person in history that committed suicide solely due to weed consumption, but I would wager a guess that there haven't been more than 10.

<comment><USER15> > People are always looking for something to blame other than themselves

More often, people are looking to blame the moral failures of others rather than acknowledging and addressing the complexity in life that results in unfortunate situations.</comment></comment>


Are chat bots still exciting? - <AUTHOR> It was a hype a while ago and I curious as to if this is something that people are putting their effort into.
The far off future looks like people would not necessarily want to learn interfaces to consume several services, but verbal communication might replace the visual interfaces that are out there.
Using visual interfaces is probably much faster to use than chatting with a bot to get things done, but from what I have seen most people don't use the command line but like using visual interfaces although the former lets you accomplish things faster than a visual interface. <comment><USER2> In a different thread some time ago [1], I wrote:

"The bot hype right now isn't about average UIs being replaced with text prompts of "What would you like to do today?", it's about large walled-garden ecosystems (Google, FB, Amazon, Apple, MS, Kik, etc.) funneling web searches and services through their own systems."

I believe the hype isn't driven by the desire of people interested in Natural Language Processing, but rather by providers of chat apps who want to track your 'click-throughs' and engagement; and by service providers like Uber and Papa John's who want to expand their services' reach into the hands of users who may be running FB Messenger or Whatsapp or Kik, but perhaps not running the Uber or Papa John's app.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12002773](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12002773)</comment>


When it comes to failing remember one thing... - <AUTHOR> http://tob.in/post/35820550652/when-it-comes-to-failing-remember-one-thing

<comment><USER2> I don't put failing and rejection in the same category. Failing means you couldn't accomplish what you set out to do. Rejection means that someone else doesn't believe enough in what you're doing to bet on you. It could be a failure to communicate on your part, but it could also just be something else completely random, especially when you're talking about a highly selective accelerator like YC.

To me, rejection is almost a non-event. If you're doing something worthwhile, you're going to see a lot of rejection. Not everyone can get on board with what you're doing. That's okay. Other people will get what you're doing and believe in you (unless you haven't shown anything... gotta give folks a reason to believe in you, after all).

That said, I understand your point (learn. move forward.) That much I agree with.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're spot on that it's more rejection and not really failure. Like you said "learn. move forward." and that's exactly what I'm doing.

(: I'll be back!</comment></comment>


Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx smashes Intel Core i5 in new PCMark10 benchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://www.windowscentral.com/snapdragon-8cx-benchmarks <comment><USER2> I used to be excited about the ARM development but the situation with Huawei left a sour taste. I hope companies start abandoning proprietary solution like ARM in favour of open source technologies like RISCV. That would be one good outcome of the US bullying.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some interesting programming language "features" - <AUTHOR>

Title says it all, what are some interesting concepts, features, etc. in programming? From anything to popular languages like Haskell and C, to less popular or experimental/research languages, what are some interesting features? Examples of use, etc would be great too! :) <comment><USER2> While there are certainly many interesting "features" in the broad sea of programming languages, a risk of enumerating them is that of missing the forest for the trees. More concretely, the things which make certain PLs really, truly great tend to be _gestalt_ "features" that arise from well- designed (or just lucky) combinations of traditional features. For example, both Ruby and Python could be checklisted into appearing _very_ similar on a feature basis. But I'll argue that DSLs are more easily designed and implemented in Ruby, stemming from the details and combinations of its features. Related, Haskell is reknowned for being "DSL friendly", but due to completely different interactions of its features as compared to Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER3> Erlang/Elixir - lightweight processes, pattern matching, flexible macro system</comment>


Twelve Tips to Master Programming Faster - <AUTHOR> http://breckyunits.com/twelve_tips_to_master_programming_faster

<comment><USER2> The author got the 10,000 hours-rule slightly wrong. :)

It's not as simple as merely doing something for 10,000 hours and then you magically become an expert.

The 10,000 hours-rules refers to the act of performing 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" (or sometimes called "deep practice") in order to become an expert.

And that's something very different to simply code 10,000 hours in your day job. When googling for that term, you'll find plenty of studies and other resources. :)

If you are interested in this topic, I can recommend the book "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle - yes, the title is cheesy but it's a good book, I've read it in pretty much one sitting. A gentle and entertaining introduction into the whole field of how to become an expert.

"Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware" by Andy Hunt also spends an whole chapter on deliberate practice. It's a very good book, too.

EDIT: This blog post by Derek Sivers could be considered as an example of deliberate practice: <http://sivers.org/kimo> Just stumbled about it as a submission to HN, nice coincidence... :D

<comment><USER3> I'm tired of seeing the 10,000 hours everywhere, there are so many counter- examples I have no idea why anyone buys it.

It doesn't take 10,000 hours to become a master striker in football, they are all young and the older you get, the worse you get. Does it take 10,000 hours to write master songs? No. Look at virtually any modern band. Not many people go through the same gruelling tours as the Beatles did before success.

Also, to pretend the complexity of the task has no bearing on the hours it will take to master it is nonsense.

You don't need 10,000 hours in virtually anything to be an expert. 10,000 hours to be a master of tic-tac-toe? No. Does it take 10,000 hours to become an expert coin-flipper? No. An expert dish washer? An expert waiter?

I also have take umbrage with the word expert. I think if anything it should be something like virtuoso, an exceptional ability, not just an expert. All of the examples I've seen used are people with exceptional abilities, not mere experts.

Ach, I don't know why I get so annoyed at it, it just seems to me that it's trotted out for totally inane lists like this one all the time.

<comment><USER4> Wow, a single post where football, the Beatles, coin-flipping, dish-washing, waitering and the implied programming ... appear together.

> _Look at virtually any modern band_

If modern bands don't have to practice so much to be famous, that says so much more about their quality and the record labels that promote them.

And I don't see any "modern band" being as popular and as eternal as the Beatles. Michael Jackson was close, but he wasn't exactly known for his quick and painless path to success.

<comment><USER3> Hehe, yeah, pretty impressive :)

I think the point I'm trying to make is that they can write high quality songs at the beginning of their career as well as at the end. They didn't need 10,000 hours to come up with a great song, an expert quality song. I bet many had only written 20-30 songs before getting famous, certainly nowhere near 10,000 hours of song writing. You even get bands which then fall into mediocrity after a fantastic debut.

I have no doubt they put in hours beforehand, but they've been at school, certainly not playing for 3 hours a day for 10 years.

Not only that they have some mastery of the instruments, song writing, stage charisma, all distinct skills. Many great guitarists write crap songs.

So where did they get the 30 years to get all 3 skills?

I think the Beatles example is bad because they had an extra skill, the ability to morph their music with the times that many other bands don't (Bowie is another example of someone who was able to do this). They are eternal because they constantly changed, put out great albums, which has nothing to do with the 10,000 hours of practice they put in in Germany.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd agree with you. You can be talented and create a hit early on. I think one of the points of the 10,000 hours thing, is that you have to be _really_ dedicated to a pursuit to become an expert/top percentile in your field.

Innate talent is another requirement and will slow you down or speed you up, but I would doubt that you find any experts who are not greatly committed to their field (even if they hadn't dedicated 10,000 hours to it yet, they fully expect to).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As to #6—software engineering, at a sort of medium level, is mostly object- oriented. At a high level, when talking about how to parallelize and scale, it's more relational, and at a low level, when designing algorithms, it's first very functional and mathematical, then when optimizing them, very imperative. OOP is only really done to figure out _what_ you're building; once you know that, figuring out _how_ you'll build it isn't necessarily OOP at all.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, at the end of the day, Programming is just structures and functions that operate on those structures. Languages like Java tell you that's a "class" and do some extra nice book-keeping to make it much more clear to say dog.bark() (as opposed to, for example, dog->bark(dog) as you might do in C), but there's really nothing super fundamental about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great starter tips.

I've been programming for almost 20 years now (some of that in school), and just recently began exploring web programming (started looking at php over the summer).

I found the information helpful, even though I can code pretty massive simulations with complex algorithms in C++ for a desktop environment, I couldn't build simple ruby/rails apps. Slowly learning about the fundamentals of persistent web databases (migrations), http restful I/o, and many languages for data access and views on that data (HTML,php,JavaScript,java,scala/lift,ruby/rails,python/django, along with many APIs). This is probably going to take me more than 10k more hours to learn well.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that. Three years ago, my entire programming career had been spent in Swing apps and utility scripting. I only started on Rails to be able to sell my Swing app better, and only started to get into SQL, Javascript, and all the rest of the rabbit hole as my business (and day job) required me to. Thats, hmm, about 7 kilo-hours as an upper bound if you assume that all of my day job and business time goes into web programming, which is very, very far from the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This scares me. I can relate to the OP in that I denied my interest technology until my twenties until finally embracing it. Evidently, we're both looking to up our game and become better programmers. However, a few of his points are really... concerning.

"Great code is easy to read"

Not at all. JWZ's code challenges me; heck, some of the Rails code baffles me until I sit down and think carefully. A lot of code can be unintuitive to the uninitiated and still be great.

"Use github."

Seems awfully narrowly scoped. Using SCM is undeniably beneficial, but using it to become a "master programmer" seems a bit misguided, like becoming a master hammer swinger will make me a master finishing carpenter.

"Code is surprisingly more like English than like math."

Ruby? Very little code I've read would be understandable if read out loud.

"Learn Linux."

Well, maybe. OP must be a web dev who grew up on Windows (like me). I don't understand how memorizing a series of command line switches will help anyone master programming. While understanding pipes, regexes, ACL, etc... is undeniably useful, there must be better approaches than "learning Linux."

All that said, I must give kudos to the OP. I'd like to master programming, too. I have no formal CS education, I get lost when spelunking through big code bases, I need to "learn Linux." But it seems to me that a better approach is needed.

The most intriguing part of the post was this comment: "You will read and learn more from a good $30 paperback book than dozens of free blogs."

I'm really curious about this. Does this hold true for anyone else? Are books about design patterns really more beneficial than reading the jQuery ( _par example_ ) source? Dozens of times more useful?

<comment><AUTHOR> > "Great code is easy to read"

Maybe it should have been "make it as simple to read as possible, but no simpler."?

>"Use github." >Seems awfully narrowly scoped

It is narrowly scoped. The thing I've witnessed with newbies and SCM, is that they are so intimated by it they never get in the habit of using it(until they go to a good shop that uses it). But it takes 1 minutes to sign up for github. And 1 hour of typing "git commit, git add, git init, git push" etc to master the basics. Then building upon that knowledge is easy. But just getting started with SCM is the hardest part, imo.

> "Code is surprisingly more like English than like math."

Kind of the same point as earlier ("clear as possible, but no clearer").

My linux advice was pretty weak, I got some good emails suggesting it should have been more specific, and I agree with that. I should have said "Learn key linux programs". pipes, regexes, vim, etc.

Great feedback, thanks!

<comment><USER9> I do agree that in terms of getting people excited about SCM, github is the way to go. And helping a dev enjoy SCM and getting them involved with the community through forks and patches certainly _will_ making them a better programmer. So, fair point on that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mostly good advice, but the 10,000-hours-until-you're-an-expert meme bothers me. First, not everything is equally difficult. Playing the violin is harder than knitting.

Also, being an expert programmer suggests that you've levelled out, that you've reached a permanent high plateau. There is no plateau. It's a slope all the way to infinity.

If you find you've reached a plateau, shift gears and change to a more abstract programming language.

I'm at 30,000 hours, and I'm not an expert programmer. I'm still learning every day, and I like it!

</comment><comment><USER6> All you have to do to be great is love it.

When you love it, you pass on the other stuff to do it. You buy the books and read them purely out of your own interest. You take on projects you don't have time for because they're too damn cool to pass up. Most importantly, you talk to your friends about it all the time, because it's what's on your mind and it's what you want their opinions on.

And guess what, that's not just a "Programming" thing.

<comment><USER11> Oh, good Lord, no. If I had a nickel for every hard-slogging, monomaniacal, talentless writer, poet, painter, actor, singer, musician -- and yes, programmer* -- I'd met in this life, I'd probably have more than enough money for a down payment on a house I couldn't possibly afford to live in. Love isn't enough. Love and study together aren't enough. Love, study and application aren't enough. Love, study, aplication and diligent practice aren't enough either -- one may be able to elevate himself above equally apt colleagues, but actual aptitude counts for a lot. As does the ability and willingness to realise that most people (and therefore, probably, himself) are merely adequate to the task.

*Okay, there's a difference between self-deluded artistes and self-deluded programmers. Artistes can always claim to be before their time, misunderstood, and operating on a whole different spiritual plane. Programmers need, at a minimum, to create something that works in order to claim any success or ability at all. A real genioid can produce code good enough to receive "Works on My Machine" certification, and that can be proven to scale to five or more "simultaneous" users (depending on how many automated virtual machines he can get to hit the server from his laptop, his workstation, and that old Pentium II in the basement).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> He missed: Learn how to read code, and read lots of it.

Also: Find someone who knows how to debug, and sit next to them for an hour or two while they tear apart a problem, fix it, and make sure it's solved. I've had a couple of tough sessions with world-class debuggers, and learned an amazing amount in a very short while.

</comment><comment><USER13> some more: unit testing - annoyingly rather handy, had a good argument about why it's better not to use it, well I use it, I lost that argument but gained a lot. design patterns open source projects - a great benefit to your skills, there's something that needs kicking for any level. learn why it's handy to use version control rather then just use it (tip - it's because if something borks can roll it back a lot easier) linux - not just learn it, know it. bash scripting, piping commands and expect all have saved me multiple hours rss - handy

</comment><comment><USER14> Thank you. This comes at the right time for me. I have been trying to learn programming for a long time but i never get past simple console programs. I also suck horribly at math which is a major cause of embarrassment from middle school to college. Lately i am trying to make up for lost time by starting to learn again. Programming as well as mathematics. I can't afford to buy too many books. So i am relying on torrents/wikibooks/carlh on reddit for now. Progress has been excruciatingly slow and painful. But this gives me hope. Thanks a lot.

<comment><USER15> Same here. I want to reach a level where computer technology is a tool in my hand that I can wield skillfully to accomplish any computer related application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Point #1 is in the same vein as Peter Norvig's Teach Yourself Programming in 10 years. <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>

<comment><USER17> I'm currently reading "How to write a lot" from Paul J. Silvia, where he is saying that you shouldn't try to find time for writing, but you should allocate time for writing and start doing it.

This is very similar to this Tip #1, take your calendar, find a sport where you have time each week and allocate this time to coding (or to learn coding, you are also allowed to read books about coding in this time, or do your research regarding coding, etc. - but whatever you do, it should be relevant for coding).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can somebody enlighted me why my comment shows up only when I am logged into my account? It doesn't show when I am logged out or when I am logged in from another account. Is this a bug, or, what? Details: [http://walkie-the- talkie.blogspot.com/2009/12/hacker-news-us...](http://walkie-the- talkie.blogspot.com/2009/12/hacker-news-user-profiling.html) I am posting here because I don't know where else to post.

<comment><USER19> You happened to use an IP address that had been banned for spamming.

<comment><USER18> I boot-time scanned my entire computer which ruled out virus infestation. Since I have only recently started using this IP address (4 months), I am guessing that the person using this IP address before me may have either been a spammer or may have had an infected system. I don't think it is because I goofed up in some way. So will this IP be blocked from HN for eternity? Shouldn't HN take into consideration that my account from which the comment was posted is older than a year with frequent activity throughout? (Mainly upvotes on submissions and comments) -and without any history of spamming or any wrongdoing? I would very much like to participate in the HN community. I request you to allow this IP address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can somebody enlighted me why my comment shows up only when I am logged into my account? It doesn't show when I am logged out or when I am logged in from another account. Is this a bug, or, what? Details: [http://walkie-the- talkie.blogspot.com/2009/12/hacker-news-us...](http://walkie-the- talkie.blogspot.com/2009/12/hacker-news-user-profiling.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's worth remembering that how fast you master programming has something to do with your innate ability as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is weird. Even my complaints are not showing when I am not logged in. Is there any body there listening to me? The link to my comment does not work when I am logged out. It gives the message: parent [dead] . But the same link works when I am logged in. What is going on?

</comment><comment><USER21> "Something that you'll spend 5 hours panicking to learn will take them 2 minutes to explain to you."

I disagree with the mentor one. The Internet has always provided faster better and more complete answers than the "ask a co-worker" method, for me anyways.

<comment><USER22> From someone that is 100% self-taught I can say from experience that its more an issue of "you don't know what you don't know. This is the major crux of self-learning. How can google possibly help you if you don't know how to frame the problem or even what terms are involved in whatever it is you want to learn? One example I remember was learning about database optimization; how do I know to search for "normalization" if I don't know what normalization is? So of course getting answers from google is super-fast, but that entails that you know what to search for.

My first experience with "coding" was trying to make a website for my tshirt printing business. I spent literally 12 hours a day for 10 days learning css and html and I loved it. So I coded about 10 pages for my website. Naturally I just copied and pasted the layout and menus and common stuff over and over throughout all pages. Finally on the 11th day, through a random search for something I don't remember, I stumbled upon this concept of "include_once" where you could create your website in this "templated" style. You just put "include_once(header)" and then includ_once(footer) and you didn't need to constantly duplicate everything. But it was in some language called php so that entailed that i start googling "php" ...

So you see, a 5 minute talk with a guy that knew about coding websites could have quickly briefed me about the differences between client-side and server- side languages, and why and how to use them. Could have told me to _start_ with a framework like kohana rather than write spahgetti-rific code for the first 3 years of my coding hobby. Could have told me about using things like jquery for quick js development (and why and how js is appropriate). Yes yes, expert "crash courses" are definitely valuable.

Note: I tend to disagree with the term "self-taught". Plenty of people have taught me, it just has not been in a classroom environment. I have learned endlessly from the great teachers that write books, code open-source and take the time out to answer forum posts- so I'm not self-taught, its more like self-motivated.

<comment><USER21> I can see in your case where you are really just beginning so nearly anyone you talk to is going to have a approximately correct answer to your question but once you reach a certain point where you know the basics I'd argue that it will be much harder to answer your questions by simply asking those around you. You are also perhaps not asking Google the right questions. because I just did a search for "optimize MySQL Database" and the first heading of the first result that popped up was titled "normalize" so I stand by my claim that I prefer searching over asking by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. _I do and I understand._ " -- Confucius

</comment><comment><USER24> The entire time I was reading this I was thinking, "wow this seems so familiar". Then I realized it's your blog and we just had this conversation two days ago. Thanks a bunch for your help the first time and again for this post!

</comment><comment><USER25> And what about those using VBA and PL/SQL?

Just one disagreement: 5 hours fighting against code can be sometimes better than getting it solved in 2 minutes ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> I think this kind of advice is lacking in a _major_ way: being a good software engineer is not just about being able to write code. Writing code, even 10K hours worth of code, does not make you a good software engineer, unless you also practice how to _design_ your software. You should be able to determine when you are violating DRY, what parts of your program should be separated by a clean internal API and how to separate responsibilities.

Programming, as outlined by guidelines as in the linked article, is nothing more than being able to write the code that solves a problem. Engineering requires you to be able to organize the code and the machines, networks and other infrastructure required to allow your client to reach your code.

<comment><USER22> I think this is more of a _starter_ tip list. I see this more of as a motivation push that some people need in order to get over the self-imposed obstacles of just starting. Just start!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're both right. I definitely should have added "design patterns" to the list though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks. I needed this advice. Especially that 'Read books' one.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Get mentors" is the best idea, if you can.

</comment><comment><USER28> mmh!!

</comment><comment><USER29> More like 12 tips on how to be a poser.</comment>


Not So Fast On That HTML5 Canvas vs. Flash Demo - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/09/20/not-so-fast

<comment><USER2> The original sources were pretty much apples-to-apples comparisons. They weren't fast, by any means, but the Flash and HTML really both did the same thing: clear the screen, draw the circle, move the circle. No dirty regions, just pure pixel pushing. Very inefficient, but generally equally inefficient.

Now to make HTML look better (er, rather make Flash look worse), Gruber keeps linking to the optimized versions of the HTML app.

I'm no HTML-hater. I love the tech, and have even done HTML canvas-related work-for-hire. (And plenty of Flash stuff for-hire, as well.) But I also love being informed, and Gruber is only giving half the story here.

Will someone optimize that Flash piece already so I don't have to? I don't have a phone to run it on, anyway.

Edit: and I didn't even care for the original article whose headline boldly proclaimed that Flash was faster than HTML on mobile, not qualifying which mobile devices, nor the nature of the test.

<comment><USER3> From the many articles you see online, you'd think HTML5 was doing circles around Flash. It appears those statements are becoming less and less true, and even if this test isn't a 100% apples to apples comparison it is nice to see Flash performing well on a mobile.

Both of these technologies are in early stages of development (yes, Flash is mature on the desktop). I think in 1-2 years there will be less of a debate for which one is superior and just accept them for the content they provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look faster, but still buggy. I've tested it on latest chrome dev and the ball doesn't render well.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the point is that both technologies perform equally well/crappy except that one is open and the other isn't. All things being equal, HTML5 wins.</comment>


Moment of Silence - <AUTHOR>

This is titled "a National Moment of silence".<p>I am very sad for the families and for humanity that such a thing happened, but I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording. <comment><USER2> I really dislike how people take a moment of silence and/or a time for prayer, and turn it into something else with the linked article on gun control[1]. Talking about actions is fine, but why can't people understand that those are two different things and shouldn't happen at the exact same time.

[1]: [http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy- hook/ac...](http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy- hook/actions/1716727)

<comment><USER3> It dishonors the memory of the murdered to politicize their deaths.

<comment><USER4> If fixing the problem that caused their deaths is "political" I don't think the murdered would mind.

<comment><USER5> If everyone agreed on what the fix is, you might be right. But since they don't, and it will likely result in political fighting, it's probably not appropriate to tie it to a moment of silence.

<comment><USER4> If it takes a discussion with people taking opposing viewpoints, let's get started. Now.

<comment><USER6> But please _not on Hacker News_. Thanks.

<comment><USER7> I'd agree generally except that posting an inherently political call to action on the site essentially makes it the natural forum to discuss it.

And, the tech community (specifically, Ron Conway) are probably the strongest promoters of this particular program right now, which is interesting given that the tech community has rarely been politically influential. At most it has been able to address things like crypto, CDA, and SOPA/PIPA; minimally effective so far at patents and immigration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The shooting at Sandy Hook was a horrible tragedy, as were previous incidents at Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. And really any murders anywhere (although I can understand why recent and mass incidents are freshest in the mind.)

This should be a political debate for or against gun control; it's better to mourn their loss and then to look objectively at policy changes later. Legislation by emotion has turned out horribly in the past. It certainly shouldn't be a time to push a specific legislative agenda.

<comment><AUTHOR> > a specific legislative agenda

I don't know. Seen from outside, the gun control issue do not seem to belong to the "political agenda" layer, along who's next for presidential or the latest political sex scandal.

From the outside view, gun control belong to the common sense layer, near "he who stole someone else's money will go to jail" and "tanks are not allowed on highways".

It should even not be called "gun control", but "lethal weapon for sale at the next block".

I hope US citizen are aware they are very different from most other countries in this regard. They may ask themselves if this specificity is an improvement over other laws, and then should be evangelized abroad. Or maybe it is an aberation? Or maybe it is some "cultural exception" (a la Chinese) and then, justified by what specifical traits?

<comment><USER7> The reason why this is something I don't support is that they are promoting a very specific gun control agenda, which seems to have been essentially randomly generated (or cynically politically generated), vs. either aimed at the specific problem in Sandy Hook or the statistically prevalent causes/factors of gun violence.

Saying "we need to do something about gun violence" is a much less overtly political message than "we must adopt these specific 3 policy items."

If they wanted to deal with Sandy Hook in specific, enhancing the mental health bars on getting weapons, enhancing safe storage, etc. would be most effective with the least cost. After that, banning semiautomatic rifles and handguns, but this would require constitutional changes. Armed security at schools would be another approach (being endorsed by Senator Boxer).

For Aurora, mental health bars, possibly waiting periods, and possibly preempting local gun free zones would be the specific policy remedy with the least cost; banning semiautomatic pistols and handguns would be the intrusive but effective solution (via constitutional amendment).

For spree killings in general, the low hanging fruit is consensual agreement by the media to not dramatize the killers -- don't ever mention their names, similar to how suicide bombers are handled in Israel. It's not the media/video games/etc. in general, it is specifically how the media treat these incidents.

If they want to deal with statistically prevalent gun violence, they should focus on handguns (80-90%) and the drug war. Rifles and shotguns are essentially irrelevant to that. Domestic violence is another issue, and there have been really strong changes in the past 10 years to address that (confiscating guns over even misdemeanor DV convictions, unless you're the Sheriff of San Francisco.)

Suicide is the other big issue around gun deaths, which I'm not sure you can really address through regulation, but better mental health access would probably be the best solution.

There should be a discussion of what the aims of legislation are (reducing gun crime overall, reducing specific types of crime), and then pick and promote measures which will actually accomplish those.

As far as I can tell, this was just a bunch of things a few mayors (Bloomberg, specifically) already wanted (interstate transport, 100% background check for all sales), and then the magazine ban randomly thrown in.

There is some really low hanging fruit which virtually everyone would support (100% checks on all transfers, mental health bars for getting guns, enhanced penalties for crimes at the federal level involving guns, and per-state changes to gun crime laws).

<comment><AUTHOR> All this seem very Byzantine to me (French). Why not adopt laws used in Europe: no guns, except for hunting rifles with permit, cops and a few specifics.

Or you think all Europe, and most other countries are out of their mind to not allow anyone and his dog to carry a weapon when going to the drugstore?

<comment><USER8> Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but the problem with this in the U.S. is that we are indoctrinated at an early age with the notion that it was the right to own guns that primarily won us the revolution.

i.e., any attempt to limit the ownership of firearms in the U.S. is seen as a direct assault upon the brave minuteman militia that rose up to defeat those red coats in glorious battle in 1776. (That last bit was satire, not serious.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Then this creation myth should be slowly amended, because it is harmful. There is a similar debate in France about the "impure blood" mentioned in the Marseillaise, should we remove it? If proven harmful, I'd say yes.

Our countries are solid enough to allow some adjustment in their necessary creation myths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And if it had been titled "International Moment of Silence" some other person would have commented that it wasn't an international event.

<comment><USER10> ...and _presumptuous_ too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, what about "A Moment of silence"?

<comment><USER11> Because then there isn't a sense of community with other people/sites doing the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a comment on the implementation, I think if the overlay blocks the web site, it shouldn't provide a link to causes at the same time. That makes it look insincere to me.

</comment><comment><USER13> Can you accept the fact, however, that this is not about you?

</comment><comment><USER14> Erm. I can guess this moment of silence has something to do with the recent shooting, but why is this submitted without any context?

<comment><USER15> The context is that a "Moment of Silence" overlay was placed across many websites at 9:30 am today, organized by Causes. People who were checking hackernews at 9:30 am might want to discuss the experience.

I thought it was a solid gesture, and it brought appropriate attention to the victims and their families. At the same time, it felt like I was being compelled to take part in something with no warning (though the overlay was easy to dismiss). There is no shortage of Sandy Hook coverage on TV and elsewhere on the internet. I'm on hackernews because I chose to read hackernews.

<comment><USER16> I, somewhat ashamedly, will confess: I was actually irritated by the overlay. I've shared in the grieving...that had to happen sooner than now for me. I have a young child in elementary school, so this has been a big part of my life recently.

But I want to do it on my terms. I don't want some asshole telling me I must pray, or support and argue about gun control, or 'Like' a picture of an out- of-work marine who is hanging out in the school parking lot today.

I can appreciate the gestures, I just don't like the coercion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _"I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording."_

If you want to prevent your screen from going black, you can add '<http://www.causes.com/moment_of_silence.js> to your adblocker rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to block this banner. I find it interesting to have these "event's overlay".

But I would very much like to point a thing that requires an outside view: the US netizens seem to forget often that many people from other countries use their websites.

<comment><USER11> boo fucking hoo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate moments of silence. If we were to say nothing every time there is a tragedy in the world we'd never speak up about how to fix atrocities and organize ourselves to avoid them in the future.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Would be interesting if someone started a "Moment of Screaming" campaign. Imagine if for one minute everybody was just repeatedly yelling stuff like "STOP THE VIOLENCE!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Direct link to the link from the Hacker News homepage overlay (provided by a third-party service):

[http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy- hook/ac...](http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy- hook/actions/1716727)

Submission of that (almost simultaneously with this submission here) for HN discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4952794>

</comment><comment><USER20> What is this about? I'm assuming something with the recent shooting, but where does the submission cite from?

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is "nation" in scare quotes? How would you prefer it to be worded? What is the matter with you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I consider HN to not be a US only website. When I see the word "national" it applies by default to my own country. When I saw the pop-up, I felt I was not invited.

<comment><USER11> You are cordially invited to get over it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was surprised by the banner, in what in another context I would say a positive way, even though I am not from the US. Thanks for the idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> I thought this was supposed to be a moment of silence. Hacker News posting is not silence, despite requiring no audible speech.</comment>


Shutdowns prevented 60M coronavirus infections in the U.S., study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/ <comment><USER2> "Received: 22 March 2020" \- direct from the study cover page at [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8_reference....](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8_reference.pdf)

States imposed lockdowns between March 21 and early April. Someone want to explain to me how a study submitted before the lockdowns were issued (nevermind had time to actually have an impact) "found" those results?

<comment><USER3> It must be a typo. March 22nd was a Sunday, where May 22nd was a Friday. It seems unlikely that it would take over 2 months to accept it, considering so many other articles are being rushed to publication in fractions of that time.

ETA: also, charts in that publication also show data collected from April, so unlikely they had data from the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Study _suggests_ , not _finds_. Simulation models can't "find" facts. Observation finds facts.

<comment><USER5> Didn't the study of the simulation model find facts about the simulation model?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So far.

<comment><USER4> "So far" meaning "might save more later" or "only postponed, not prevented"?

<comment><USER7> The latter. That's always what "flattening the curve" has meant. The total area under the curve (i.e. total unique infected individuals) stays about the same.

<comment><USER8> "Flattening the curve" is not the only possible outcome.

A cure, an inoculation, or segmenting geographic regions until localized herd immunity (like New Zealand just did) are all examples of cutting the curve short.

<comment><USER7> Vaccines are far away from approval for widespread use, and New Zealand's situation as an island nation is not applicable to something like 98% of the World's population and quite frankly, irrelevant to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Simulacrum.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are good tech articles in "new" being flagged? - <AUTHOR> Its becoming common to see some good developer/tech content getting flagged for no good apparent reason.<p>Is this the SEO related? In that case HN needs to fix the moderation algos. Can we attach a reason for flagging? so for example, dups can remain flagged. <comment><USER2> Can you give an example (URLs) of the submissions you're talking about?

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you mean [dead] or [flagged]? I paginate and can't see a single [flagged] in the last 300 submissions.</comment>


Excuses - <AUTHOR> http://madebyloren.com/excuses

<comment><USER2> This post is the moment HN has jumped the shark for me.

I don't understand the deep amount of insight I'll gain from a rant by a man doing his best to berate his "friend" over failing at certain things in life and talking about how he deserved to get kicked out in a manner that seems to be oddly reminiscent of mean girls?

This isn't just limited to this post, but it is scattered through every thread I read these days. They tend to talk about stuff like harems and 4 out of 10 replies are just mean... There's no other word for it. It's almost as if most of the commenters these days don't have any insightful things to say, so they've turned commenting into a game of pulling other people down and proving them wrong instead of trying to add to a conversation and reaching an understanding. (that always used to happen to some extent, but now it's there in almost every thread I read and it's disturbing)

I miss the real HN. :-(

<comment><USER3> The same guy posted another link to his blog about an hour or so earlier bashing someone for failing to secure YC funding and then blogging about their experience.

I don't see what makes this Loren kid qualified to preach like this. Just ignore him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was in a similar — albeit not so extreme — place to where Abe was. I tell everyone that I'm working towards a music career and experimenting with startups. But I recently (prompted by a birthday) started looking at how I spent the past few months. And when I looked at it honestly, I hadn't done some of the core things that are required to be successful. I hadn't networked in the music scene much, I hadn't played out enough, and I hadn't devoted serious time to writing code, preferring to learn new frameworks, languages, or techniques.

What I noticed was that in all cases, there was a fear of trying and failing underlying my inaction. I was worried that if I played out and didn't live up to professional standards I would develop a bad reputation quickly. I was worried that I would produce a service that some people would start relying on but that wouldn't produce enough revenue to justify maintaining it. It was a lot easier to tell myself that I would be successful when I put the effort in than to actually test that hypothesis.

So I made a conscious decision to err on the side of action in all things. I chose to wake up at 8:00 every day even though I love being able to sleep in; it puts me into a working state of mind. I chose to install LeechBlock in Firefox, which will make it so I can't even post in this thread by the time you're reading this. Between 9 and 5 every day, I'm doing only things that advance me towards my goals. (And eating.) And I refuse to allow myself excuses. If I imagined a friend asking me why I haven't done something that is an essential step in my process and I would feel embarrassed by the answer, I do it ASAP.

I've been at this a week now. I've already accomplished several things I ought to have done months ago. Hopefully I'm building habits that I can maintain indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps this person suffered/suffers from depression?

<comment><USER6> Sounds like the textbook symptoms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've tried to learn to code, but it's hard to find resources for beginners online. I tried Codeacademy.com but their weekly lessons don't explain things like where to put [] or {} in code so I got lost and frustrated halfway into the first lesson. I work 11 hours a day, so I don't have all this free time. Abe was lucky to get a break like that. I would love a break like that. Too bad he screwed himself and his opportunity up.

</comment><comment><USER8> _If you aren't doing exactly what you want to be doing, there's only one reason: you don't want it badly enough._

Great line - talk is cheap, but it takes years to become an "overnight success". You have to want it badly enough.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like someone is too young to have kids in school.

Incidentally, there are good excuses and bad excuses. Bad excuses are essentially lies. A good excuse, or really, an excuse, _excuses_. If one has an excuse, one is excused and rightfully escapes criticism or blame.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do you have an RSS feed for your main site?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do: <http://madebyloren.com/posts.rss>

<comment><USER10> did I miss it or is it actually not linked to on your page?

<comment><AUTHOR> you're right, it's not on the site. went through a quick redesign a little while back and i guess i forgot to include it. also, i'm only showing the last 10 posts with no pagination or archives... there are some nuggets in there!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can speak on the job/travel conflict. Making apps or running a website can enable you to travel the world full time. We've been doing it for four years.

For the record, two of us travelled on a budget of less than $4,000 a month. Actual net costs were about $2,700[1] a month, and this is over 4 years, so not a short term number. This included the USA and Europe which are not exactly cheap.

If you've got some websites or apps making $2k a month, you can travel the world. And you can just go to nicer countries as your income goes up. Be aware, though that it is distracting to travel full time.

IF you're young, there's no reason not to- you can start an internet startup while on the road, and if you fail, you'll at least have one hell of an adventure. I can tell you this-- being able to tell a interviewer about a multi-month trip traveling is like catnip on job interviews. Everyone wants to do it, and you doing it makes you stand out compared to other candidates.

And if you're at all successful, you won't ever need that job interview. You don't have to come home. (or you may find "home" is somewhere else.)

Damn, do I need to start a blog.

[1] This is spread over time, so, 6 months living in the UK is a lot cheaper each month than the one month where we flew across the Atlantic. We budget an expensive flight every 6 months or so, and take local or cheap transportation in-between.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Damn, do I need to start a blog._

I was really hoping for a link to a blog about your travels!

Sounds like an amazing time though, would love to do some traveling and exploring in the future.</comment></comment>