In Praise of ZFS on Linux's ZED 'ZFS Event Daemon' - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/ZFSZEDPraise <comment><USER2> Despite what the article says about illumos not having something analogous, we do actually have something and have had it for more than a decade: [https://illumos.org/man/1M/syseventadm](https://illumos.org/man/1M/syseventadm)

It allows programs to be run in response to sysevents, some of which are generated by ZFS and some of which are generated by other parts of the system (e.g., device hotplug).

<comment><USER3> Where are the events that ZFS emits documented?

<comment><USER4> Typing your question into Google reveals that they aren't properly documented:

[http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man5/zfs- events.5...](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man5/zfs- events.5.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Insightful article. Zfs is the best file system. Ability to know that you do not have silent file corruption. Running without raid controllers. Feature to take snapshots super fast without waiting and that take little extra space. You can use Cache SSD with ZFS for read acceleration of physical disk. Transparent file compression. Good command line interface. Now you can take good actions with ZED for example sending a notification to an alert system like Slack, ticket system when disk fails or start disk scrubbing/rebuild.

If you are on Linux I can highly recommend ZFS and Minio for S3 like storage. ZFS for local storage.

<comment><USER6> I would advice people to think about what they need.

ZFS is fine, but it is overkill for most home applications and it has a pitfall related to extensibility.

[https://louwrentius.com/what-home-nas-builders-should- unders...](https://louwrentius.com/what-home-nas-builders-should-understand- about-silent-data-corruption.html)

[https://louwrentius.com/the-hidden-cost-of-using-zfs-for- you...](https://louwrentius.com/the-hidden-cost-of-using-zfs-for-your-home- nas.html)

So it really depends on your needs. Statements as "ZFS is the best filesystem" are so meaningless.

P.S. SSD caching often has no tangible practical benefit for most applications. More RAM is often the better investment. As is with any filesystem.

<comment><USER7> > ZFS is fine, but it is overkill for most home applications

Yeah, not having silent data corruption is "overkill", sure. /s Why not use ZFS? It takes 15 seconds to install, and its CLI is fairly intuitive. Works fine. Costs $0. Why not, even for "home" applications?

I could see how it could be unsuitable for "entreprise" applications where there are strict performance requirements etc, but for home, I wish I could use ZFS everywhere.

<comment><USER8> or install BTRFS and be able to detect bitrot as well, but also be able to grow your storage by adding more disks. (even different sizes)

<comment><USER9> RAID-Z expansion is being worked on: [https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/pull/8853](https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/pull/8853)

Last I checked BTRFS RAID5/6 was a dumpster fire and unusable in production. Have they actually open sourced the ability to fix bitrot detection with mdraid? If not, it's kind of irrelevant.

So... once again down votes without response - BTRFS raid still isn't recommended and the file healing isn't compatible with MDRAID I assume and you just don't like the fact I pointed it out? The "I'm downvoting because you pointed out a flaw in my logic" @HN is disappointing.

<comment><USER10> If you're using RAID-Z on zfs, your comparison isn't fair. Rather than use RAID56 with btrfs, the equivalent would be to get 1 or 2 disk redundancy with raid1 or raid1c3.

<comment><USER9> RAID-Z is the equivalent of RAID-5. RAID-Z2 is the equivalent of RAID-6. RAID-Z3 would be the equivalent of RAID-7 (or whatever the standard is named for 3-disk parity).

This is strictly speaking to how it deals with data and parity, the implementations are obviously different.

RAID-1 would be a mirror in ZFS parlance.

<comment><USER10> BTRFS raid1 isn't mirroring drives though, it means there are two copies of each extent across the whole set of 2+ drives. and BTRFS and raid1c3 and raid1c4 are 3 and 4 copies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone noticed _really_ slow deletes on ZFS? I have a home NAS with RAIDZ and deleting a 1 GB file takes about 30 seconds. I asked on IRC repeatedly but the disks just aren't very busy during the delete (or at all) and nobody managed to figure out why this is happening.

It's been that way for years throughout various ZFS versions, and it's driving me crazy.

<comment><USER12> Try temporarily setting sync=disabled ? If that speeds it maybe a fast ssd log device would fix it.

<comment><USER11> Hmm, interesting, I'll try that, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Qnap will hopefully have an ZFS based Home NAS out soon.

Are there any simple to use tools that automatically compare same files from different source and tell if they are different. I have multiple copies of Data but not knowing which file is corrupted and working through it is a pain in the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just installed Ubuntu on a zfs with native zfs encryption. Working real nice

</comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h That's _neat_ , certainly, but I'm struggling to think what to actually use this for? The article mentions a couple cases, of which "taking action if devices fail" seems the more concrete; AFAIK that would make it probably straightforward to replace a drive with a spare? Anybody want to share any other concrete uses?

<comment><USER15> Mail sysadmins about the drive failures for example.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h ... thank you, that was the example that made me realize I can/should go use this at work because it will solve a problem we have:) And a good point in general.

<comment><USER16> Are mail alerts not already a thing on your hardware? I know HP(E) stuff does it, not sure about Dell or other vendors.

<comment><USER17> I think you are referring to one of two HPE components: Either the iLO, or the iLO combined with a Smart Array controller.

(Dell has equivalent products: For this discussion, iDRAC is the equivalent of iLO, and PERC is the equivalent to Smart Array.)

With those products, the RAID controller (Smart Array or PERC) will be connected to internal and/or external drives, will handle RAID in hardware (ideally with a battery backup write cache), and (through the iLO or iDRAC) generate alerts when a drive fails (or is close to failure).

In the context of ZFS, you don't have that. Your drive controller is either on-motherboard, or a PCIe card like (for example) the (Broadcom) LSI SAS 9300-8e. Those cards do have a RAID option (MegaRAID), but they are often used without.

The rest of the ZFS storage setup is pretty similar to the setup you are used to: Internal drives will have a SAS expander (if needed) on the motherboard, or will use a SAS expander card (for example, an HPE part #870549-B21 SAS expander card). External drives will be in a JBOD that has one or two expanders, and which is connected back to the server using SAS cables. One ZFS difference is that if you have many JBODs, instead of daisy-chaining arrays, you might choose to use a SAS switch (for example, an A54812-SW-01).

With all that I described with ZFS, I haven't mentioned how RAID is handled: ZFS handles RAID in software. RAID Z-1 is equivalent to RAID 5, Z-2 to 6, and Z-3 to 7. RAID also supports RAID 1 (two-drive mirrors), as well as a RAID 10 equivalent (striping across mirrored pairs of drives).

Since RAID is handled in software, and with the physical equipment I described, it is left to the OS to handle almost all monitoring an alerting. The one exception is that JBODs and rack-mount SAS switches (like the Astek) often have an Ethernet connection for monitoring and (basic) hardware control. But even that can often be handled within the OS, using SCSI Enclosure Services (SES, where the enclosure/switch itself is a device the OS can see and query).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any way to get commercial support for ZoL ?

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd love to switch to ZFS, but the RAM requirements are absurd. I don't have a separate storage server, and I'm not really to sacrifice 10GB of RAM (1GB/TB of storage if I'm to believe what I find through Google) on my home desktop just for it when the vast majority of my data could probably handle a rotted bit or two.

I did briefly try ZFS on my laptop a year or so ago, and it ate up half of my RAM permanently. Since it was already fairly limited, that wasn't a sacrifice I wasn't willing to make either when I have plenty of backups anyway.

<comment><USER20> That RAM is needed only when you run deduplication (you have to store the checksums of blocks that you deduplicate somewhere). If you don't, the RAM requirements are similar to other filesystems.

On your home desktop, you don't have to run dedup. You will get still the bitrot protection.

<comment><USER19> Why wouldn't I want deduplication though? "You can use ZFS just fine, just turn off one of its most useful features." Really? And I'm being downvoted for it. Thanks, guys. You realize my home desktop is doubling as my storage, right? Which goes back to RAM requirements being an issue.

I hate the cargoculting on this fucking site.

<comment><USER20> > Why wouldn't I want deduplication though?

On a desktop?

Chances are, that you don't have many users saving the same or slightly modified version of a file on the same storage. For a single person, it doesn't make much sense.

> "You can use ZFS just fine, just turn off one of its most useful features."

ZFS has many useful features. They come with a price though, because there's no free computation (see also laws of thermodynamics). It is then a matter of deciding, which features you want or need, and are willing to pay the price for.

You obviously are not willing the pay the price for dedup (lvmvdo asks for similar price, so it is not ZFS-specific), so why are you complaining that you cannot use it? ZFS still has many more useful features.

You also have another option: add RAM to your desktop. It is cheap. Then you will be able to use that one feature.

> I hate the cargoculting on this fucking site.

Sigh. I'm actually btrfs fan, all my data are on a btrfs volume (at work, we do use ZFS though, so I do have the experience). But that doesn't mean I won't point out something that the _other club_ does well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer - <AUTHOR> http://www.paradeofrain.com/2015/08/06/five-years-of-being-a-full-time-indie/ <comment><USER2> Admire anyone who can go full time into the game industry, which is one of the most competitive anywhere. And to do so as an independent is a high challenge. To pull that off for five years deserves great merit. Anyone who has published games to Apple's app store knows how hard it is to see any money from it.

<comment><USER3> Most games are generic crap. I've seen crap games make money, but I haven't seen a great game fail. People see Flappy Bird and want to imitate it because it's easy. Those who work hard don't rely on luck can still build a sustainable business. See also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=1BCg31KVJok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=1BCg31KVJok)

<comment><USER4> > but I haven't seen a great game fail.

Think for a bit about your sentence and what it implies :)

(solution: that you've seen 100% of all great games ever submitted to the app store, which seems doubtful)

<comment><USER5> It is falsifiable though. All you'd need is for someone to notice that a game that has been lingering in obscurity for years is actually great and start bringing attention to it.

<comment><USER6> There many games that only achieved success years after release (for example Psychonauts). It's the same thing as with films (my favourite: Blade Runner).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can a great game fail? I guess I'm finding out right now. It's early, it's currently scary, and it could still go either way. Pure drama! Our game was released 2 days ago (Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon - ShroudedMoon.com). It's metacritic'ing at 94, which is stellar. It's got almost exclusively very very positive reviews on Steam and the App Store. It's the sequel to the Game of the Year in 2009, per TouchArcade, the Indie Games Festival, and Apple themselves. Sounds like a guaranteed hit, right? So far it's doing 1/3 the business of any of our prior games, despite an App Store banner (not as good as ones we've had in the past but still - we're super spoiled, very few companies get one). This is definitely our best game, we truly poured our hearts and souls into it, we are a highly respected company (called Tiger Style), and players are responding super well to it.

So what's different? Well most notably, there are probably 20-30x more indie development studios in the market than there were when we started in 2008. I've heard hundreds of games come out on the App Store EVERY DAY. Angry Birds 2, one of the biggest properties ever, is free and it came out last week. This feels like a quiet time on Steam, but so far we have little traction there, and you need to demonstrate sales before Steam gives you main carousel promotion. Gaming press is overwhelmed with things to write about, so although they've been interested, we don't have many reviews from them yet. We've got lots of Lets Play and YouTubers, but how many sales does 500 views convert into?

Honestly, in the past we've been like "It's fine. We make great games that people love. We'll just release it, and the audience will find it." That was true in 2009 when we released Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor with literally no promotion whatsoever. It was less true in 2012 when we released Waking Mars (alongside Outwitters, if you're out there Alex!), but still the App Store sustained us and the Steam market eventually found and loved us and gave us a few dollars. But the worry is that in 2015, no matter how good your game is, the audience has way way way way too many amazing games to choose between.

We're currently far behind, as just one example, a game about programming in Assembly language. It's probably amazing, I can't wait to try it. And that's the problem. So many things to play, competing for your attention.

SO! What does the dramatic near future look like for us? Well, I think we have major piles of new press reviews coming in on Monday and Tuesday. That will definitely help with awareness. And we're pushing on some of our more unique features in hopes of being recognized as newsworthy (eg - it uses your local real world time and weather and mirrors them in the game, it's based on a real historical secret society that you have to research in real life to learn the deepest secrets, many many layers of mystery and gameplay). We're asking our tastemaker and other well respected developer friends to help spread the word. I believe with enough awareness we're back in business - it's happened for us before. But if that doesn't pay off by the end of the week, very few people will write about us after that. So our hope at that point would be to be a "long tail game" that wins awards and winds up on "best games you didn't play last year" lists. It might pay the bills, or not, and it certainly isn't what we hoped for.

Alex - if you're out there - I've been in indie 7 years, before the indie revolution really started. I was in mainstream for 11 years before that. It's been crazy watching the market as we worked on this game. It's hard to target a market this volatile when the game you make takes 2+ years to make. By the time you're done, everything is different. So, yeah, I relate to a lot of what you wrote, and thanks for sharing! -Randy

<comment><USER8> One issue might be your landing page for the game in the App Store.

The static images and their text descriptions do not convey what the game is about. e.g. Platform action, puzzle solving. The description section helps, but I'm not sure how many potential customers go past the images as a first filter.

As someone not familiar with your previous games, it wasn't until I went and looked at the video on your website that I thought that yes, this is something I would find fun to play.

I think the reviews coming out should help to attract customers for you. That is, it will be the review that sells them, and then they'll go and buy your game, rather than making an impulsive choice while browsing the App Store.

<comment><USER7> Holy crap, you're not going to believe this, but we have a version of that video that was supposed to be on the App Store and you are the first person to point out that it's not there.

I'll go see what the heck happened.

Wow the time I spent hanging out on this thread totally just paid off. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Clicking "Check for updates" on Windows 10 accepts a beta update - <AUTHOR> https://www.howtogeek.com/398226/now-windows-10-has-c-b-and-d-updates.-what-is-microsoft-smoking/ <comment><USER2> I'm torn with this. At the same time seems sneaky and reasonable...</comment>


Snake Venom Use as a Substitute for Opioids: A Case Report and Review - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5968650/ <comment><USER2> The first ACE inhibitor added to western pharmacology for hypertension was the molecule captopril. This was isolated as the active ingredient in pit viper venom which causes the snake's victim to calm down, and was used as a traditional medicine by some Brazilian indian tribes. It also functions as an anxiolytic, though is not prescribed for that in western medicine.

The drug doesn't use the paralysis agent or toxin from the snake, which the raw venom still contains and thus has certain notable side effects.

Remaining side effects of captopril were removed by testing alterations to the molecule and the altered result, called lisinopril, is now the primary treatment for hypertension.

It's not clear if the venom from east indian snakes used medically contains the same ACE inhibitor captopril as west indian snakes, but it may be a related molecule.

In any case articles and some discussions of east indian snake treatments seem to often position venom as some sort of illicit narcotic that is being used and abused, and candidates for criminalization/regulation, as opposed to what it likely really is: a natural medicine which not only works to treat anxiety, hypertension, and addiction, but best practice modern pharmacological solutions were inspired by and directly developed from these natural medicines. People don't call captopril a narcotic or heroin substitute, which is interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Initially, with the help of the nomadic snake charmers, he subjected himself > to the snake bite (possibly cobra, but patient was not sure) over his tip of > the tongue. The snake bite was associated with jerky movements of the body, > blurring of vision, and unresponsiveness, i.e. "blackout" as per the patient > for 1 h. However, after waking up he experienced a heightened arousal and > sense of well-being, which lasted for 3–4 weeks, which according to the > patient was more intense that the state of high experienced till that time > with any dose of alcohol or opioids.

I am... surprised that this does not permanently damage your tongue.

<comment><USER4> I read that and wondered if it might really mean 'drop of venom on the tongue' instead of 'bite into the flesh of the tongue that injected venom'.

<comment><USER2> Kind of. The snake handler holds the snake just below the head. The devotee sticks out his tongue. The handler rubs the snake head back and forth across the tongue, causing some light biting by the snake. The snake can't do the striking motion that results in much venom being injected, but small amounts of venom do come out. You would get different results if you some how arrange to have the snake actually strike your tongue. Sometimes the snake is allowed to dangle out of the mouth after having latched on, but again without the striking motion the snake is not injecting as much venom. The handlers will also sometimes have the snake first bite into a bundle of herbs of some kind. It's not clear what that is for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating article.

>puppy husk

This was mentioned at least twice as something the example snake bite recipient used to use. I'm pretty sure they meant 'poppy husk', unless puppy husk is another novel analgesic. This puts the quality of the journal's peer review in doubt.

<comment><USER6> It's clear to all readers they mean opium products, this isn't what peer review would focus on.

Also seems like a commonly used translation in India:

[https://www.htsyndication.com/united-news-of- india/article/4...](https://www.htsyndication.com/united-news-of- india/article/4-drug-peddlers-arrested,-27-intoxicant-injections,-10gm-heroin- and-77.5-kg-puppy-husk-recovered/31618666)

<comment><USER5> That's the thing that really made me wonder. Peer review implies reviewed by multiple people, a review committee. Between the authors and the committee, multiple people read this and said it was ok.

Thanks for the link. If thats the commonly used translation there, then that makes much more sense, and I see why they went with it. Learned something new today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some people get high on big frogs in Arizona. Or so said the urban legend. And then a few weeks ago Youtube suggested me a video (Joe Rogan maybe ?) where the differences between ayahuasca DMT and frog DMT were discussed. In the comments someone said. "It happened to my chihuhua ! I was walking my dog (I'm from Arizona) when that huge frog squirted his venom at her. The poor animal convulsed for 30 minutes."

Amazing.

<comment><USER4> You are referring to Bufotoxin / Bufotenin which is produced by some toads (of the Bufo family).

You can read more on Wikipedia:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> there's an old vice video about a guy doing this for 20 years:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q_m- rDUNw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q_m-rDUNw0)

and related reading:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/poison-p...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/poison- pass-the-man-who-became-immune-to-snake-venom-steve-ludwin)

</comment><comment><USER9> If nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (NAChR) agonists were true substitutes for opioids, wouldn't that imply that nicotine could be useful in kicking opiates? I'm a little fuzzy on the neuroscience, but iirc one of the distinguishing features of opioids are that they induce both happiness and wanting. When simple dopamine agonism is used (for example, electrical stimulation of the basal ganglia), patients report wanting the stimulation, but not enjoying it (a little like "tomacco" from that Simpson's episode.)

I'm sure snake venom contains more psychoactive constituents than an a NAChR agonist, and I'd love to know what else is in that juice.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems similar to Kambo. South American frog poison.

</comment><comment><USER11> This isn't new. I remember seeing infomercials from the government in the early 90's asking people not to do the snake bite on tongue method to get a high. I really doubt it was a king cobra though. That would kill the person for sure. (You could argue they deserve it).

<comment><USER12> Could you explain in more detail why people who want to get high deserve to die?

<comment><USER11> Not people who just want to get high. Heck, I do that myself. Just seems extreme folly to have poisonous snakes bite you on the tongue. Right near the brain.

<comment><USER13> I would argue its a combination of miserable life circumstances and lack of availability of better options. Have you ever heard of the drug Krocodile? It's most prevalent in Russia, a cocktail of horrible chemicals cooked down with a little codeine. It's a death sentence if you use it for a year, and not a nice death either (consider this a massive understatement). Even the people who use it know this, they just lost the will somewhere along the way to care.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sony fails to show PlayStation 4 console at PlayStation 4 event - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/20/4011228/playstation-4-hardware-not-shown <comment><USER2> I don't understand this</comment>


Why I Blog, by Andrew Sullivan - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

<comment><USER2> I don't know whether to be sad or intrigued, but I've just realized that this article is way too long.

It's not that I don't like to read long format articles and books, but when I'm on the internet there is an objective to reading blogs and articles, and that objective is to ascertain useful opinions and information without the fluff. Anything that takes longer than a minute to read is too long for the average internet user.

<comment><USER3> I liked the article. When someone writes well, and makes a reasonable point, long form is just fine. Many are on the internet as their primary information consumption medium, and it's not just about byte sized chunks.

That said, I wonder how someone like Macaulay would have fared in our short attention span era?</comment></comment>


Jonathan Blow's talk on responsibility in game design - <AUTHOR> http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&task=webcast&action=details&event=2349 Jonathan Blow (the author of the Braid game) gave this talk on September 27 2010. It's about addictive elements in games such as FarmVille and how that may not be so swell, all things considered.
The talk is about 1 hour 45 mins long; download only, no streaming.
Direct links:
MP4 download: http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=view&format=mp4&title=CS+Colloquium%3A+Video+Games+and+the+Human+Condition&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwmdp.rice.edu%2FComputerScience%2FCSBlow-27Sep10%2FCSBlow-27Sep10.mp4
MP3 download: http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=view&format=mp3&title=CS+Colloquium%3A+Video+Games+and+the+Human+Condition&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwmdp.rice.edu%2FComputerScience%2FCSBlow-27Sep10%2FCSBlow-27Sep10.mp3
PPT slides: http://number-none.com/blow/slides/games_and_the_human_condition.ppt <comment><AUTHOR> Jonathan Blow (the author of the Braid game) gave this talk on September 27 2010. It's about addictive elements in games such as FarmVille and how that may not be so swell, all things considered.

The talk is about 1 hour 45 mins long; download only, no streaming.

Direct links:

MP4 download: [http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=v...](http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=view&format=mp4&title=CS+Colloquium%3A+Video+Games+and+the+Human+Condition&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwmdp.rice.edu%2FComputerScience%2FCSBlow-27Sep10%2FCSBlow-27Sep10.mp4)

MP3 download: [http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=v...](http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=view&format=mp3&title=CS+Colloquium%3A+Video+Games+and+the+Human+Condition&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwmdp.rice.edu%2FComputerScience%2FCSBlow-27Sep10%2FCSBlow-27Sep10.mp3)

PPT slides: [http://number- none.com/blow/slides/games_and_the_human_condi...](http://number- none.com/blow/slides/games_and_the_human_condition.ppt)

<comment><USER2> I can actually stream it here: [http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=v...](http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=view&format=win&title=CS+Colloquium:+Video+Games+and+the+Human+Condition&uri=mms://wmdp.rice.edu/ComputerScience/CSBlow-27Sep10/CSBlow-27Sep10.wmv) \- using Windows Media Player plugin (ugh!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> To see the talk's abstract: [http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=d...](http://edtech.rice.edu/cms/?option=com_iwebcast&action=details&event=2349)

I was a Rice student at this event, and I wanted to add a little to the description, because it deserves to be made to look more appealing. Yes, it's over 100 minutes, but I thought it was incredible; it was a gift to anyone open-minded enough to accept it, probably because the scope of the talk ultimately went far beyond video games. It's not that Jonathan didn't have insightful and explorational thoughts on game design, but near the end of the talk he showed how he was actually approaching deep questions on the relationship between art and entertainment- irrespective of the medium. I (as more of an ex-gamer than anything- years ago my parents made me sell my Super Nintendo when I starting acting like a junkie) still enjoyed the 90% of the talk that lead into the pretty damn awesome philosophical ending, but I for all I know an experienced gamer will call Jonathan Blow out as a pretentious n00b. Anyway, if any of you have read Infinite Jest, remember the conversations between Marathe and Steeply when you're listening to this talk. Are many gamers slaves who believe they are free? [everything that follows is from Infinite Jest]

Marathe had settled back on his bottom in the chair. 'Your U.S.A. word for fanatic, "fanatic," do they teach you it comes from the Latin for "temple"? It is meaning, literally, "worshipper at the temple."

'Oh Jesus now here we go again,' Steeply said.

'As, if you will give the permission, does this love you speak of, M. Tine's grand love. It means only the attachment. Tine is attached, fanatically. Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith.'

Steeply made motions of weary familiarity. 'Herrrrrre we go.'

Marathe ignored this. 'Are we not all of us fanatics? I say only what you of the U.S.A. only pretend you do not know. Attachments are of great seri ousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sick ness, betray you, die. Your nation outlives you. A cause outlives you.'...

...[Steeply's speaking] 'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?'

Marathe's sniff held disdain. 'Then in such a case your temple is self and sentiment. Then in such an instance you are a fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow self's sentiments; a citizen of nothing. You become a citizen of nothing. You are by yourself and alone, kneeling to yourself.'

A silence ensued this.

Marathe shifted in his chair. 'In a case such as this you become the slave who believes he is free. The most pathetic of bondage. Not tragic. No songs. You believe you would die twice for another but in truth would die only for your alone self, its sentiment.'</comment>


16GB Is a Bad User Experience - <AUTHOR> https://david-smith.org/blog/2015/09/10/16gb-is-a-bad-user-experience/ <comment><USER2> He bought an iphone 6s as a testing device that would spend most of its life in a desk drawer! I hope this was a company expense or something? One of those would be like a weeks wages for me. I can't understand why people pay so much for smart phones anyway. And if your idiotic phone runs out of memory at the top of some mountain, "the moment isn't missed forever", the moment gets missed because you're mucking about with a stupid phone instead of enjoying the moment with your family.

<comment><USER3> "because you're mucking about with a stupid phone instead of enjoying the moment with your family."

This, a thousand times over. Was at the beach last week, there was a seal sunbathing on a rock 50m from shore... Around me I could hear people complaining they couldn't see it properly - because all weren't looking at it, rather at the crappy digital zoom on their phones.

I just looked at the fucking thing, these eye things work pretty well. I'd rather be present and use my meat-based memory than have a "memory" on my phone of an event I viewed through a glass, darkly.

Also, 16gb 5s here, space I have to think about quarterly, if that.

<comment><USER4> _I 'd rather be present and use my meat-based memory than have a "memory" on my phone of an event I viewed through a glass, darkly._

I'm going to blow your mind: you are actually allowed to do both.

<comment><USER5> _... you are actually allowed to do both._

Allowed, yes. Capable, not likely. Multitasking is overrated and actually counterproductive when writing to the meat-store inside your skull.

<comment><USER6> This is why lifelogging is so important. I don't want to have to be distracted from my life making sure that I preserve memories in a higher-fidelity format than meat, but I _do_ want to preserve those memories. Further, the ones that mean the most to me later are almost always spontaneous and unplanned, so a manually operated camera isn't especially useful for them, anyway.

I want full recording of everything I see and hear at qualities high enough that I can go back and look at things I missed the first time. I thought Google Glass was the start of that, but it looks like it's going to be a few more years.

<comment><USER7> There is no way that the experiences you will have while recording everything will be the same as without. Unless you think you are going to live forever and get super bored in 300 years, just live your life and live in the moment.

<comment><USER4> _There is no way that the experiences you will have while recording everything will be the same as without._

If the recording is completely passive, _as randallsquared was saying_ , why not?

<comment><USER7> Because people do not act the same when they are being recorded and when every statement they make can be reviewed in the future. Unless you are secretly recording them, don't count on an experience not filled with awkward self consciousness. You may find that a significant amount of people will not want you around them, including the staff of any buisness you are in.

If you think this is good, like some sort of pressure to make the public more accountable for what they say... I would warn that instead of an ethical wonderland you may find yourself in a panopticon pressure cooker with the status quo in power.

<comment><USER6> In most situations where people are currently recorded constantly, the recording doesn't seem to produce social awkwardness. Nearly every urban public or semi-public space is this way; one may argue that cities _are_ pressure cookers, but it's not clear to me that the reason is ubiquitous recording.

In any case, as the tech to record becomes ever smaller and less obtrusive, there will ultimately be no way to know whether you are being recorded digitally. Therefore society and people's reactions will adjust.

<comment><USER7> Yes but there is a key difference between constant recording being spread across a disconnected sprawl that is only accessible to a police office willing to drop by the local 711... And a recorded stream made by a person around you who is able to quickly review and forever archive the content.

I think in the end it will become quite taboo to operate a recording device with your friends all the time. Maybe it will become okay to turn it on during a jog through the city or a trip to the fair, but having your recording device turned on while enjoying a glass of wine with me on my back porch will be a no-no. Having it own while at the gym? No. Client meeting or anything work related which could contain company "secrets"? No. Maybe I'm wrong and there will be a cultural shift in which we all just submit ourselves to this sort of social survalience, but I find it hard to imagine it happening in any sphere more interesting than a family trip to the Apple Store.

There is no way that a first date and the potential trip back to my place has any room for a recording, it's just not a psychological and social fit.

<comment><USER6> The thing is, you're _already_ recording those things, just in low fidelity and with poor searchability. If the tech were coming from the other direction, as "improved memory" and the ability to download memories to external storage, how would that change your view on tabooing?

<comment><USER7> I think you are making a weak argument that creating concrete audio/video recordings has any similarity to the memory of one's mind. There is such a massive ocean of difference between the filters of perception and distortion in memory recollection and video recordings, I think you are making the brain out to be something it isn't.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting debate. Reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror. Check that out for sure, it basically illustrates what you are saying. I found the segment in which before boarding an airplane passengers were required to allow the security to review their memory quite disturbing. Extrapolate that invasion of privacy in every other direction. Having whatever cloud or personal drive you record to be potentially hackable or open for evidence in the courts... It's just some dystopian death of privacy territory that I can't ever seeing the public embracing. Then again, maybe they will and if they do I'll be moving myself to whatever state our country is willing to stand up for privacy and ban such devices.

The basis of my position is the historical record that the most important ideas and movements towards advancements in human rights have often started out as illegal, unpopular and challenges to the status quo. The idea that we can stop crime by recording everything is an illusion and will only serve to suppress advancements which defy the current rule of law.

<comment><USER6> I think you may be arguing against points I'm not making; my argument has nothing to do with stopping crime, but is about my desire for perfect recall of everything that ever happens to me. I think we'll get closer and closer to that, but just audio and video of every waking moment would be a huge jump toward it.

I've seen Black Mirror, and liked it for the most part. I don't remember that particular scene, though. Maybe it's time for a rewatch. :)

<comment><USER7> Right on, I hear ya. My fears lie with the implications of having these recordings exist. I think that they will quickly become more than just a keepsake as soon as the police decide they can use them to solve crimes. I think withholding your recordings from any investigation which could be aided with them will become a crime in itself and yeah... I just have real worries about the state of affairs regarding surveillance. I'm a bit of a kook about that stuff though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I ran into this recently. The 16 GB is an outright lie.

First, a bunch is reserved for the OS and similar. The phone might only start out with 12 GB for the user.

Second, a bunch just "disappears". Attach a phone to iTunes and it claims perhaps 2 GB free. But view the free space within the phone itself and it might only show 500 MB free. Huge discrepancies are inevitable, and it doesn't seem possible to find out how to resolve them.

Third, a large chunk is often taken by Apple with pending iOS updates pushed to the phone. But then the phone refuses to actually do the update, claiming there's not enough free storage.

It's a clusterfuck. And there's very little discussion or outrage about it. Apple should be embarrassed, but they don't give a shit.

<comment><USER9> Honestly, that at least has improved significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> First there is Photo Stream which stores backups of your photos _on the same phone_ \-- even those you delete. Not even sure how it got turned on. Don't even have another iOS device.

Then being "savvy", I was copying and deleting photos directly through explorer. Well, this leads to ghost space, which is resolved by setting the clock back to reveal deleted but unpurged photos in the recycle bin [0]. Wack.

Then found Dropbox Carousel. Victory of the cloud, no more local storage needs. Except still kept running out of space. Turns out Carousel uses as much as it can as cache (in my case 4GB). WTF!

So yes, I'd wholeheartedly agree that 16GB is a bad user experience. Users are basically in constant competition with Apple and other apps for space, and at 16GB the user is constantly losing.

\--

[0] [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6560594?start=45&tstart...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6560594?start=45&tstart=0)

</comment><comment><USER11> This would all be trivially solved if Apple would just put a goddamn SD card slot in it.

Storage size as sole model differentiation is sooo 2001. At this point it genuinely makes Apple look out of touch in a market where every other flagship quality model doesn't bother with it and includes an SD slot, partly I suspect because it's just saner from a production and inventory standpoint even besides the consumer benefits.

<comment><USER12> No it wouldn't.

1\. Flagship models don't all include an SD slot. Galaxy S6, Moto X, Nexus 6 for example. It's clearly a common decision.

2\. I doubt that even if they iPhone did include such a slot the problem would be solved. Removable storage is complicated.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I hate that. Sdxc cards are up to 512 gb now, and a terabyte card is probably not too far off. People are putting 64gb and 128gb chips in their point-and-shoot cameras. Smartphones are increasingly seeming crippled and artificially limited by comparison.

<comment><USER14> > People are putting 64gb and 128gb chips in their point-and-shoot cameras

That's a really good point! They tote the device as a replacement, but clearly cripple it in a way that a dedicated device would not be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of course 16Gb is an "uncomfortable" user experience. It's supposed to be.

It's about market segmentation.

It's not cost. 32gb memory units in bulk are like $1 maybe. Apple charges an extra $100 because they are using that easy-to-understand difference to segment the market and collect an extra $100 profit from those that can afford that price point.

<comment><USER16> You're basically restating the conclusion of the piece.

The author states that this (presumably) intentional choice undermines the Apple brand that includes quality and uncompromisingly excellent user experience.

<comment><USER17> This has been the state of things since Apple started offering different storage sizes on their iPhones. The bigger model has always been $100 more expensive. This is as much a part of the Apple brand as quality and uncompromisingly excellent user experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have no problems with 16GB iPhone which I've had since the 3G. Currently I have 72 apps installed. Syncing with 8 email addresses.

I use Spotify for music, and have an offline playlist with about 2GB songs. Photos and movies are synced to the cloud, and files older than 1 month are deleted from the device. I have 3.2GB available.

So while your points may be valid for some, I can manage fine with 16GB. And it's not like I'm thinking about it, and change my habits to have the 16GB phone.

<comment><USER19> 37% of 16gb iPhone 6 users are unable to deal with it. So good for you being able to deal with it. A large amount of users can not.

<comment><USER18> No. 37% has less than 1GB available. It doesn't state anything about them not being able to deal with it. If I have all the apps and music I need, why should it be a problem with 800MB available. I can't believe so many infer that the majority have space issues just because they need 64GB for all their music stored offline and hours of video-recordings in 1080p themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yeah, it's no good. I have a 16 GB model. I've bought into the iCloud-powered photos syncing, but yet somehow there is never space on my phone. The whole point was to automatically move photos to the cloud, yet 9/10 times I open my camera, it says "Not enough space to take a photo".

<comment><USER21> Check which apps are being space hogs. Go to Settings->General->Usage->Manage Storage. Some apps like Twitter don't delete their caches. So you have to delete the app and reinstall it to reclaim the space.

<comment><USER22> For me, that's the real point. We need developers to care. Apple's come out with APIs for app thinning, and they've had the right and wrong way to cache files forever (etc). But, that dev work doesn't increase downloads of your app, and if no one is looking for compliance, you're better off delivering other features.

Twitter might not even know they have a problem! iOS Dev team members are constantly installing new builds of the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As someone who has a 16gb nexus 5 and is writing this post from a 16gb chromebook that also has a linux installation. Give me a break. 16gb is storage, has nothing to do with a user experience. Your iphone is not a camcorder. If recording video is of utmost importance to you, then buy a phone with massive storage or one that can accept an SD card.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just write a script that would move all the videos and photos off the device when docked each night or each week. 1G a day for photo's and 3 video's should be enough for everybody, you don't have the time to rewatch them anyway. Less is more. Or just get an Android device with a microsd port; 128G is cheap.

<comment><USER25> I do have an Android device with 16G main memory and a 64G SD card. Despite having plenty of free space on the card, I pretty routinely run out of space on the 16G. That's because most apps can only install there, and many apps can't use the SD card for storing their data. Case in point, last week I discovered I had 2.3G of Audible files. I could find no obvious way of transferring them over to the free space on the SD card...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well, surprise. You're part of what those on the right side of the game call "planned obsolescence". Unfortunately, you're on the wrong side of the game. Now please stop asking questions and continue consuming.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very interesting as it entirely contradicts apples recent statements in interviews that 16gb is fine as a base model (Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and Jonny Ive stated this if I remember correctly). This is clearly not true if it means that 17% of their ENTIRE iPhone 6 users is low on memory, or 37% of their 16gb iPhone 6 users.

It's factual evidence that Apple does indeed play games and tries to maximise profits and obsolescence of its devices, despite always claiming the opposite. All because they're unwilling to add a couple of dollars to their bill of materials.

They should be ashamed.

</comment><comment><USER27> Apple doesn't keep the base model small to save costs. They do it to increase revenue (and margins).

The cost to go from 16GB to 32GB is inconsequential. (They upped the step-up from 32GB to 64GB with no increase in price.) In fact, the cost to them from 16GB to 64GB is probably inconsequential. It's certainly nothing near the $100 in price.

The reason they keep it at 16GB is to make more people upgrade to 64GB. If the base model was 32GB, far fewer people would upgrade to 64GB, precisely _because_ you would no longer have an unacceptably bad user experience.

<comment><USER28> In other words, it's about hating your poorer/cheaper users? Wouldn't it be a better strategy to do the right thing for the customers, which I guess in this case would mean having only one model, with a useful amount of storage?

<comment><USER29> _In other words, it 's about hating your poorer/cheaper users?_

It's not about hate, it's that Apple is a for-profit company whose goal is to maximize their profit. They've decided that many of those poorer users will choose to sacrifice something else in their life and give the difference to Apple.

 _Wouldn 't it be a better strategy to do the right thing for the customers_

Are you suggesting that an approach that better met the needs of their less well-off users would have increased their profitability? No, almost definitely not. I don't like Apple, but their current strategy definitely works for them.

Measured by the metric of profit, Apple is inarguably one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. If so, can you point to any companies who gotten better results from the "put customers first" strategy than Apple has has with theirs?

Most likely what you mean is that the world as a whole would be a better place if Apple pursued some other strategy than profit-maximization. I'd personally agree with this, but it's also difficult to come up with solid examples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been bitten by this too. It's not that I need a lot of space for apps, but taking pictures or video can fill up the space quite quickly as is; I can't imagine what it would be like with 4K.

My iPod had 80GB of space. My nikon has a 128GB card in it. These are roles the iPhone is supposed to play, but it's an imitation at best because the storage is so hindered.

That and battery life are the two biggest pains I have with my iPhone, but apple seems to think everything is great as-is in those departments.

</comment><comment><USER30> An interesting article which raises a good point: the problem with Apple products isn't the price, there is a place for good high priced products, but that some of them are really bad products because of memory limitations. At 16gb you can not use all of its advertised features, unless you rely on streaming/cloud storage only.

And it is not only the iPhone hit by this. I have a 64g iPad, the biggest configuration they offered at that time. For years now, its usage has been limited by the storage filling up. For this reason alone, I will not be buying this release of the iPad pro. A machine which is supposed to partially replace a laptop needs 256g at minimum, possibly 512g. Even if such configurations were more expensive than the currently offered ones, they would still be more interesting as those which just have no way of getting the desired storage sizes.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's fine for my atypical usage ... but then I am on Linux and have never liked itunes so have no music on there, and don't take many pics as am with someone that doesn't like photos taken.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can add to the anecdata that 16GB has not been an issue for me.

Isn't there another obvious spin on the data? It seems obvious that at least 70% of users with 16GB phones are doing fine with that amount of storage. Wouldn't it be a poor decision—certainly from a business point of view—to mandate larger storage for them, when they clearly aren't even using 16GB?

<comment><USER32> 70% of all users might not have a problem but the real question is how it impacts the users that matter, the users that voice their opinion and are listened to. I would expect that quite a few of them do notice or would, if they were using 16GB phones.

<comment><USER12> That makes no sense – those users are free to buy a bigger phone in exchange for the additional fee. Since a large majority of users do not appear to be using the full 16GB available, it seems it would be a poor use of resources to add additional storage for them.

<comment><USER32> What they are free to do or not is irrelevant, as long as users complain about the 16GB phones causing negative publicity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> One can't both consider that one's primary use of the iphone is to record pictures and videos and at the same time go for the model with the smallest possible disk size and then complain about the lack of space.

The premium Apple charges for larger disk space is ridiculously uncorrelated with the cost of the components but the solution to this is better competition.

<comment><USER16> > the solution to this is better competition

There is a _lot_ of competition out there. A lot of great competition. The problem with this argument is that Apple specifically makes it hard for its customers to switch ecosystems. So it's still Apple causing the issue.

<comment><USER33> I haven't seen any user stuck with iphone because they rely on something they wouldn't get on an android.

The only reason I am myself willing to pay the apple premium is because I am extremely uncomfortable with google's invasion of android users privacy and google makes it hard to switch these features off (like "if you don't want google to upload your GPS locations then turn off the GPS!", etc).

<comment><USER16> I've seen many people stick with Apple because they've invested in media from iTunes that will never play on Android devices, even Chromecasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Apple buys their Flash chips, right? With all the advancements in Flash technology lately, I'm surprised their suppliers aren't offering to just swap out higher-capacity chips on their orders for the same price in order to keep a giant customer like Apple on a current, rather than legacy, chip fab.

<comment><USER35> It's intentional on Apple's part. They're trying to hold margins artificially high by putting increasing pressure on users to spend more money on greater storage (and to rely on Apple's Internet services more). Except they've jumped the shark at this point and let the 16gb linger too long. A pretty classic mistake when you're making the poor business decision of trying to walk a dental floss width tight rope between margins and pissing off customers, all over $5 in cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned that folks will take more Live Photos than extended videos with these phones. How much storage do you need before the next auto wifi sync? Let it auto-delete old sync'd stuff. The problem is s/w not h/w.

</comment><comment><USER37> The iPhone is supposed to be a high end device with great user satisfaction, Apple you are ruining it with this policy. User will have a bad taste and never buy an iPhone again, you are playing a dangerous game here.

</comment><comment><USER38> This would be solved if there was a slot for a micro SD card.

</comment><comment><USER39> How do you feel about the Google 16 gig "laptops"?

</comment><comment><USER40> just plug bigged SD card like normal people do

..oh wait

<comment><USER30> There are points to be made why a SD card in a phone would be a bad idea - some of them are low quality and cause data issues (just search camera forums for card issues), storage management gets more complex etc. This _should_ be a mood point considering that it does not cost phone manufacturers much to put a decent amount of memory into their devices. But that they offer neither a card slot nor decent amounts of memory, is the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Can't you just add a SD cart to it?

</comment><comment><USER42> Bad user experience depends on the user. Personally I very much enjoy the somewhat lower price of less-beefy models of smartphones and tablets — as I'm not obsessed with taking pictures, don't play blockbuster video games on mobile, and prefer my books as text, instead of audio files.

The title of the post is similar to saying e.g. "ARM CPU is bad UX", and complain that you can't mine Bitcoin effectively on ARM.

<comment><USER16> The counterargument would be that _your_ usage patterns are the niche ones. I suppose that's an empirical question. Does anyone have any numbers either way?

<comment><USER42> Presently there is no additional cost to choosing a smartphone with the right amount of memory for one's specific usage pattern, so who's being "niche" makes no difference. Linux on desktop is arguably also niche, yet no one is hurt by the fact that PCs actually support it.

If Apple were producing just the 16GB model, _then_ usage numbers would probably be in order. As of now, things are just at their optimal state, where everyone can get what they want.</comment></comment></comment>


India to help build 2nd Silicon Valley in US - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_to_help_build_second_Silicon_Valley_in_US/articleshow/2400030.cms Y Combinator and all other angels/VCs should take note of this !!! <comment><USER2> What a bizarre idea. What's the point? As long as people are going all the way to the US, why not do whatever it is in the real Silicon Valley?

<comment><AUTHOR> i think we already have enough silicon valleys (banglore, hyderabad, bombay) in india, and there are more coming - but in USA there is only one and it needs one in each time zone ...

<comment><USER3> Why would there be one per time zone? If that were the case, I'd like to put in my application for the Hawaii one.

<comment><AUTHOR> when i said each time zone what I meant was to have an industry boom in each zone (north, east, west, south)of the country so that best and the brightest from each zone can get an opportunity to become an entrepreneur and innovation ... i know people from east not ready to move to west and they can't get the right spark to ignite their brilliant ideas ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It reminds of a line from a PG article about building a new Silicon Valley, where he mentions that plopping down industrial parks is silly, since it's not for lack of buildings that most cities aren't hotbeds of tech innovation. Places become Silicon Valley because of a perfect storm of the right communities of people, not because they've got lots of office space.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because clearly our nation's best and brightest all want to move to New Jersey.

<comment><USER6> Yeah... if they want to do this on the East coast, why not just come to Cambridge where they have a head start?</comment></comment>


Google+ Community For Postmortems - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115136140203018391796

<comment><USER2> Quite fascinating.

There obviously isn't a lot of content in there at the moment but it is food for thought - we spend a lot of time glorifying failure but not enough time quantifying it and learning from it. While learning from success is more useful, if we had a fuller picture of what causes businesses to fail as well as succeed, it might help us do some legitimate inference work rather than the anecdotal guesswork that happens these days.</comment>


The Fraught Cold War History of Novichok - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/novichok-has-long-overshadowed-moscow-washington-relations-a-1204481.html <comment><USER2> The page asked me to disable my Adblocker even when I am not using one. Moreover, the notice was in German.

<comment><USER3> Run uBlock origin in 'advanced' mode, block all third-party content, scripts and frames. You'll get the article in a usable state without all the problems caused by the zillion of third-party 'services' it tries to load. Even the comments work, for which I think Der Spiegel should be commended as these usually suffer first when running a strict blocker.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your .bashrc? - <AUTHOR> What are some good aliases to make annoying things less annoying for me? <comment><USER2> One alias I use a lot when programming is this one:

      alias todo='grep -r "FIXME" * ; grep -r "TODO" * ; grep -r "XXX" *'

Also, with git (the first line is in my .bashrc, the second in .gitconfig):

      alias ghist='git hist | head'
      hist = log --pretty=format:'%h %ad | %s%d [%an]' --graph --date=short

<comment><USER3> You could simplify your first alias with something like this:

         alias todo='egrep -r "(FIXME|TODO|XXX)" .'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I call fish from my bashrc (because I want it to be my standard shell, but It can cause problems with certain scripts)

I've aliased push to git push, and done the same with git commit.

Edit: Of course the aliases are in my .fishrc, but it's the same in the end :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Start typing a command and use the arrow keys to find your history of that command:

      bind '"\e[A": history-search-backward'
      bind '"\e[B": history-search-forward'

</comment><comment><USER6> Pretty much anything that requires sudo I would have an alias like:

       alias apt="sudo apt"
       ...

</comment><comment><USER7> A mishmash of stuff I have copied from various public "dotfiles" repos.

Quite a few gems in here: [https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles)

</comment><comment><USER8> echo "sleep 1" >> ~/.bashrc

</comment><comment><USER9> i use a german keyboard and i like these:

alias öö=ll

alias ..='cd ..'

<comment><USER10> as of bash 4, 'shopt -s autocd' will "execute" a directory by cd-ing to it.</comment></comment>


Django-registration 1.0 is out - <AUTHOR> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-registration

<comment><USER2> This has been a long awaited update for django-registration to make it compatible with Django 1.5's user model. To give some context, several people submitted pull requests over the last few months which were continually rejected. Glad to see this canonical Django package getting finally updated.

Note: The documentation[1] still describes 0.9 version.

[1]: [https://django-registration.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](https://django- registration.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)

<comment><USER3> Yep, for some reason they decided it would be ok to delay release and deny pull requests for so much time that many people (myself included) simply wrote their own implementations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I missing something, or is there a reason that the Django 1.5 implementation didn't stretch into other parts of the project, like the built- in RegistrationForm? It still uses the old User model directly.

[https://bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django- registration/src/8f...](https://bitbucket.org/ubernostrum/django- registration/src/8f242e35ef7c004e035e54b4bb093c32bf77c29f/registration/forms.py?at=default)

</comment><comment><USER5> Django registration is awesome but still no default templates ( or official companion project that provides them) I don't get it.

<comment><USER6> The main developer James Bennett has discussed his reasons several times on multiple venues, but the FAQ in the Read the Docs for django-registration gives details in "Does django-registration come with any sample templates I can use right away?"

[https://django- registration.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.ht...](https://django- registration.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#installation-and-setup)

Other people have provided good baselines to work from, the Djen of Django provides explanations with their samples:

[http://agiliq.com/books/djenofdjango/chapter5.html#reusable-...](http://agiliq.com/books/djenofdjango/chapter5.html#reusable- apps)

(note I haven't upgraded to 1.0 so not sure if there are any incompatibilities)

<comment><USER5> Yes.. I have read the faq but

1 "Providing default templates with an application is generally hard to impossible" not true since the introducton of app template loader

2 "A number of things in django-registration depend on the specific registration backend" 99 % uses standard db/user built in backend. If you use social-auth or similar you (almost ) do not need registration

I second 'yourcelf' comment below.. I always use his template as a starting point.

May be a management commas that generate those default templates? ( not a big fan of template generation anyway)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the interested, overview of the user registration apps for Django: [https://speakerdeck.com/tedtieken/signing-up-and-signing- in-...](https://speakerdeck.com/tedtieken/signing-up-and-signing-in-users-in- django-with-django-allauth)

</comment><comment><USER8> Django newbie here, how does Django-registrations compare to django-userena?

<comment><USER9> From my quick stint with django-userena, it felt very constrained. At that time, my application's login requirements were simple, but needed a few minor tweaks. It's been a while, but I recall that doing so didn't seem like an easy task, so I switched to django-registration then eventually using the Django 1.5 custom user model.

Overall, I'd say do a quick run through of both. If one of them has exactly what you need, stick with it. Otherwise, you are probably better off using the default User model or extending the default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it now possible (and straightforward) to drop the requirement for a username and solely use email addresses for user accounts?

<comment><USER11> Why not just enforce the username field to email syntax?

<comment><USER12> because of max_length=30

<comment><USER11> True! I changed it manually in the production DB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to link to the changelog, but James (Ubernostrum), understandably, hasn't updated it yet.</comment>


Why You Should Try a Tiling Window Manager - <AUTHOR> http://adereth.github.io/blog/2013/10/02/why-you-should-try-a-tiling-window-manager/ <comment><USER2> I currently use xmonad, along with the gnome top-bar to get applets, network configuration, etc. I have found this the easiest way to move into tiling window managers.

It still annoys that tiling window managers all seem designed to be hard to use to configure, almost as a matter of principle. I see no reason that a tiling window manager can't still be easy to use (for example, I use the mouse as much with xmonad as I can, and would like to be able to use it more).

<comment><USER3> I think the problem is that tiling window managers have never been mainstream, so they are all targeted at people who would go out of there way to install a tiling window manger. By contrast, even non-mainstream composting window managers have the benefit of seeing how the mainstream ones do things to be usable (and have had more effort put into them in general). Another problem is that tiling window managers are (almost?) never part of a complete desktop environment. They may pay lip service to this (in the form of a basic start- menu type thing), but for the most part they are simply window managers. With composting window managers, no one (except the developer) thinks of the WM by itself.

<comment><USER4> > a complete desktop environment

I agree. I wish more Tiling WMs came with a GUI application launcher, better mouse support for moving and resizing, login screens, etc.

Not everyone uses a Tiling WM because they're a masochist musophobe.

<comment><USER3> I think you are looking at it from the wrong angle. The WM is just a component of a complete desktop environment. Instead of making a Tiling WM that comes with the kitchen sink, we should make a Tiling WM that simply replaces the WM on the pre-existing, and fully featured, desktop environment you already have. Technically speaking, this is not challenging. For example, to make Awesome the defualt window manager in gnome, one need only run:

      "gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager awesome"

Obviously, this is a large barrier for a casual user wanting to try a tiling window manager. However, if WM installer changed that setting instead of just creating its own desktop environment, then we would not be having this problem.

<comment><USER5> I'm a casual user of GNOME. I would like to do what someone mentioned on here: use a TWM with the GNOME menu bar for applets but I want them to have predifined "snaps". [0]

How hard is it to implement this?

[0] [http://imgur.com/SO4LmDq](http://imgur.com/SO4LmDq)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not familiar with notion or ion3, but I've used all of the other tilling managers listed. I really like AwesomeWM as a starting point because it comes sanely configured, and does not rely on haskell like Xmonad. Awesome is configured via Lua scripts, Lua might not be the most popular language but it's easier to pick up than Haskell and has a smaller dependence base.

Besides notion/ion3, which I am not familiar with, all these tilling managers are automatic. You select a layout directive like

\- place all windows horizontally,

\- place all windows in a grid,

\- place one window filling 2/3rd the screen and the rest stacked in the remaining 1/3rd

There are other tilling wm's like i3, wmii, bspwm, and herbstluftwm which are manual tilling managers. i3 and wmii are probably the best ones to start with, but herbstluftwm is my favorite.

With manual tillers you typically split the workspace into multiple frames and windows are automatically arranged in those frames.

Here is an impressive gif of bspwm, a manual tilling window manager [0], and here is the reddit thread where the creater talks about his configurations [1]

[0] [http://paste.unixhub.net/index.php/NlKe/](http://paste.unixhub.net/index.php/NlKe/)

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/1m0ea1/arch_bspwm_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/1m0ea1/arch_bspwm_why_bspwm_watch_this_screencast_and/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The combination of xmonad, dmenu and emacs --daemon has brought me great joy. The way I use computers has changed completely since starting down the tiling window manager road. It's a shame that getting the configuration for them right can be such a pain, but it has been well worth the trouble!

<comment><USER8> No doubt. I've used Arch and awesome for a few months now and it's remarkable. The increase in efficiency and usability is made most apparent when I need to use OS X again.

I only started using dmenu yesterday and I've already written a few scripts I've found very handy: passphrase autotyping[0] and music playing[1] to name two.

[0] [https://github.com/devlinzed/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/dmenu-...](https://github.com/devlinzed/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/dmenu- pass-autotype)

[1] [https://github.com/devlinzed/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/dmenu-...](https://github.com/devlinzed/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/dmenu- mpc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm happy with tiled windows in Acme (editor/IDE) for daily work. The layouting algorithm (a simple one) does the right thing most of the time :^)

My usual mode is Acme maximized on one screen, and browser, email and IM spread on the other.

See it in action in rsc's screencast: [http://research.swtch.com/acme](http://research.swtch.com/acme)

<comment><USER10> I really wanted to like it, but the lack of syntax highlighting drove me nuts.

<comment><USER11> I got used to it (at least for go.) I use acme for go and at the same time a full-screened emacs for html/css (and gnus) at the same time. Works far better than expected, speed wise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're on OS X, I've found Slate to be the best option: [https://github.com/jigish/slate](https://github.com/jigish/slate)

It's open source, has a simple text file based config, and is generally more configurable than most other similar tools.

<comment><USER13> +1 vote for me. Slate has been great.

Additionally if you are using a Matrox device to get multiple screen support on your Mac, Slate comes in real handy. Rather than get 2 virtual screens the Matrox devices create one virtual screen that spans 2 monitors. Tiling managers like Slate are super helpful for snapping programs to monitors in cases like thos.

<comment><USER14> I used to use Divvy for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use SizeUp and have been very happy with it.

<comment><USER16> This! +100 this.

I use SizeUp to make up for the windows 7 feature I loved the most and being able to quickly scale and tile windows with keyboard shortcuts.

Works great and definitely worth the money.

[http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/](http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I kind of use tiling in OSX. Most of my apps are running full-screen on two monitors, and I swipe across desktops to get to other apps. Of course, I am _able_ to stack apps on top of eachother, but for the most part I don't. I have a desktop for sublime, a desktop for sequel pro, a desktop for a browser. In the event I need to look at two things at once, it's easy enough to drag things around.

<comment><USER18> This isn't really the same thing. Virtual desktops have been around for decades now, and people have been using them like this (with or without two physical displays) forever. It works for the kind of full-screenable "apps" like you mention. It works poorly for smaller tools: what if you want to have your editor and a console side-by-side, and still view a chat window below that.

And of course you can do all that stuff with regular window UIs too, so that isn't really the essence of a tiling window manager either. As I see it, the real thing that distinguishes tiled environments isn't the "tiling" at all, it's the keyboard-first navigation UI that the tiling enables. And even though I don't actually use these things (I've tried now and again), that's something I see a lot of value in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've used awesome before, and I was quite impressed. Once you get the hang of shortcuts, you tend to be vastly more productive than if you were using a traditional or compositing wm. I grew up with a compositing WM, but the transition was easy enough. I'm curious if the advent of mobile devices (i.e. smartphone, tablet, etc) would lead one to choose tiling WMs over the traditional kind.

<comment><USER3> It looks like Windows 8 's metro interface is a basic tiling WM. It isn't very featured, but it can show multiple apps at the same time, and will automatically split the screen between them (without overlap).

<comment><USER19> Agreed, totally forgot about Metro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I _LOVE_ Divvy on OSX. [http://mizage.com/divvy/](http://mizage.com/divvy/)

</comment><comment><USER21> The funny thing is that Windows 1.0 in 1985 had a tiled manager, which was replaced in 2.0 with overlapping windows.

Back to the future!

</comment><comment><USER4> _Eventually, you probably will stop relying on these things and do everything with the keyboard_

I read so much about why Tiling is Great because the Mouse is Awful.

I think the mouse has its place. For writing code and text I have my hands on the keyboard—which means I also want to create and move windows with the keyboard.

But when I'm in a web browser, or a game, or any number of other GUI-centric applications, my hand is already on the mouse. Which means I want a visual dropdown for launching applications, and I want to drag and resize windows with the mouse.

I love my Tiling because it doesn't waste space. To me, Windowing is just silly; why would I ever want large swathes of my desktop empty, and applications overlapping each other?

But I don't understand the mouse-versus-keyboard argument. I want both to control my WM with both, because I use applications with both.

<comment><USER22> As someone with no mouse, I agree that the mouse is a great thing. My RSI is aggravated severely by mouse usage, so I stick to the keyboard. For me, a fully-keyboard-controllable WM is essential to my career. The many programs and sites that require a mouse make my life difficult. Much of the modern computing world assumes a mouse is present. Still, even I admit the mouse is awesome. It is especially great for selecting text. It can be done on a keyboard usually, but it is not always as easy. It is nice to have options, whether to accommodate physical restrictions or just personal preference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some questions from someone who likes the idea of a tiling window manager but doesn't quite see how it would work better than compositing. I'm coming at this from KDE. My top applications are: firefox, thunderbird, eclipse, sublime text, and terminator.

When I'm browsing, I like to have firefox in the middle of my screen. If it's stuck off to the side somewhere or buried amongst other tabs, I'm going to hate it. How do I make that work?

Eclipse is going to be full screen. I assume that's not going to be difficult.

Now with all that, I get someone asking me a question via skype. How do I get notified? Currently I get a nice notification via the taskbar. Do I lose the concept of notifications?

What about for widget-like things (cpu/network/etc)? Do people use conky or something like that in a tiled window?

<comment><USER8> Awesome has a builtin window layout that I think you'd like: it has one program take up 80% of the screen in the center, and tiles horizontally the rest behind it. But any WM can do that either by duplicating the layout or, in the case of dynamic window managers, using floating windows.

Your notifications will stay. For widgets, stick it in the menu bars or use conky -- the same options are available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm really surprised that he left out i3wm. It's lightweight and the tiling placement is surprisingly intuitive and simple.

Here's the Google Talk:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnYN2CTb1hM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnYN2CTb1hM)

<comment><USER25> i3wm is the most difficult to get used to, from what I've seen. As always, more configuration (in this case of window layout) makes for steeper learning curves.

<comment><USER26> On the contrary i3 is the only one I've started using and stuck with. The configuration is simple, the commands not horribly difficult to use or understand, and it's pretty damn good at dealing with multimon, even dealing with randr display names natively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> An article about window managers with no screenshots?

<comment><USER28> Perhaps the time element is important in evaluating a workflow so I think what we actually need is a video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've settled on ShiftIt [1], which gives me more partial desktop control at a good price (free). There was a good post, a while ago, on the various options for OSX [2].

I've also noticed that, because I use a widescreen and split my web browsers into two columns less-than 1000px wide, every Twitter Bootstrap site thinks i'm on a mobile device and collapses the grid layout.

[1] [https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt](https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059820](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059820)

</comment><comment><USER25> Reasons why you shouldn't try a tiling window manager:

Well, mostly if you use tools that have a "view portal" or depend heavily on pop-out style toolboxes. The WM is constantly resizing your windows, which makes it a chore to keep everything adjusted, and pop-out style toolboxes are pretty much best at on-top usage by nature, rather than tiled.

I use CAD software on a regular basis, and while I managed to make a tiling WM work for me for maybe 6 months, returning to a floating WM was a relief. If you work directly with text all day, I bet they are great, but for me...

<comment><USER30> Have you considered i3? It supports fully floating windows separate from the tiling, and normal pop-up windows go straight to the floating layer. It's extremely handy (As what you noted annoys me a ton with WM's like XMonad). i3 can act just like a normal floating WM if needed.

<comment><USER25> i3wm was the only one I could even tolerate, and the one I used the longest. I had enough control to make toolboxes floating, and to size important windows correctly.

But at the end of the day it was a chore to use and just didn't add much value. I guess what you could take away is I want/need my windows to be sized & placed specifically the way _I_ direct, and a tiling WM is the opposite of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I use "sort of" Tiling WM. I have 4 screens in portrait mode and always maximize windows across single screen. I never have to scroll or press alt- tab.

BTW: KDE and XFCE WM has some basic tiling support as well.

</comment><comment><USER32> I use Mint 15 XFCE on all my machines, I did try i3wm and a few others (i3wm for a couple of weeks) but it always had a couple of silly niggles on 3 screens (cursor jumping back to the middle of the screen when I tried to move it to another screen drove me crazy).

I've found XFCE with the keyboard shortcuts (built-in) to tile to top,left,bottom,right,fullscreen work really well and fit my model of usage (which is mostly open new source file, split screen).

</comment><comment><USER33> At work I spend all day in Windows 7. The best thing I've found is WinSplit Revolution, which is nice but leaves a lot to be desired. (Unfortunately switching to Linux just isn't going to happen, for a number of reasons. But I get to use dwm at home, which I really like.)

</comment><comment><USER34> StumpWM is really cool. It uses a similar keybinding system to Emacs and is extensible via Common Lisp.

</comment><comment><USER35> On Linux i tend to use dwm (and dmenu), it doesn't have many features but then I don't really want anything more than a quick and easy way to fill a couple of workspaces with terminals, editors and browsers.

On Windows 8, WinKey + Left or Right are handy shortcuts.

</comment><comment><USER36> Anyone know if "Notion" works as well in the latest Ubuntu releases as suggested by the author of the post?

(i.e. XMondad got jacked pretty badly in Ubuntu 13.04 and now requires lots of low level linux voodoo.)

<comment><USER37> Shucks. I haven't upgraded yet to 13.04. Should I skip it on by for 13.10 when it comes out? If not, what voodoo did you do?

<comment><USER36> None- I just reverted to 12.x and stayed there. Reading online though, some folks who knew what they were doing fared better though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Oh Windows 3.1, you were right all along. :(

</comment><comment><USER39> Switching to DWM was the best thing that could have happened to my desktop. I rarely use the mouse ever since.

</comment><comment><USER40> xmonad => terminator => tmux => vim

tiling inception</comment>


New Andreesen Horowitz Hire Keeps Focus On Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/03/01/new-andreesen-horowitz-hire-keeps-focus-on-entrepreneurs/ <comment><USER2> This is fantastic news. I worked at IronPort prior to the Cisco acquisition, and Scott was a very effective CEO. IronPort was a significantly under- reported success story in the Valley, and a tremendous place to work. There was a huge emphasis on building out not just a great technology company, but a great company culture.

This sounds like an excellent addition to AH!</comment>


New Discovery: Photosynthesis uses quantum effects - <AUTHOR> http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3285/photosynthesis-uses-quantum-effects

<comment><USER2> Well, light is a quantum effect, so...

A more accurate way to put it is that long-lived, coherent quantum states appear to play a role in photosynthesis.

This is surprising because in the laboratory this kind of coherence requires super low temperatures.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Does the nature know about and use quantum effects more than we do?_ [sic]

Yes.

Also the last paragraph is interesting. From another scientist:

 _"Based on past experience, I predict this work will be misrepresented by those who desperately want to believe that bizarre quantum effects such as entanglement are crucial to biomolecules being able to function in an optimum manner. I see no evidence for such claims in this experimental data."_

<comment><AUTHOR> It is important to note though that he is not claiming that he sees no evidence for the claims made in the article, he's just predicting that others will make claims that are not supported based on the same data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone with access to Nature, I found the Editor's summary considerably more readable than the actual research article (since I'm not all that well- versed in quantum mechanics and biophysics):

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7281/full/463614a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7281/full/463614a.html)</comment>


Was Chris Froome Doping? A Data-Driven Perspective - <AUTHOR> http://www.insightdatascience.com/blog/vammer_on_tour_de_france.html

<comment><USER2> I listened to Sallet's interview on iTV4. He claimed three possibilities (paraphrased) 1) Unique physiology, 2) drugs, 3) mechanical enhancements. Sallet failed to mention 4) wrong inputs to the model. When the interviewer challenged him on that, his retort was that his model was correct.

I find it ironic that both Sallet and Armstrong benefit from doubt on Froome's performance - as it validates their own agendas.

Though, perhaps Sallet got it right with 1) The two leaders in the tour grew up training at high elevations. Perhaps, the next wave of cheating will involved epigenetics. I expect the 2035 TdF to be highly suspect.

[Edit spell correction]

<comment><USER3> > 4) wrong inputs to the model.

And a wrong model. There're a lot of calculators out there, e.g. [1]. Some more, some less sophisticated. But they all provide rules by thumb at best.

It starts at the mechanical losses, rolling resitance and aerodynamics (it's often neglected on calculations regarding climbs). Does his model take wind into account?

[1] [http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm](http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm)

<comment><USER2> Interesting link. What? No entry for time spent out of the saddle? How much drafting? What brand of rims? Tires? Beard?

Perhaps measuring direct inputs would be better.

I notice that the kreuzotter model was tested with SRM cranks. I wonder if a universally applied power meter for all riders would work? Somewhat akin to the Dimension Data GPS trackers attached to the rider's seats, this year. If everyone has one, then it is an even playing field.

The problem is getting an accurate strain gauge that would work for different bikes, pedals, shoes. Plus, be consistent enough to not yield false data, given weather, crashes, mechanicals, and whatnot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thank you, this is a very sound approach for estimating the power to velocity relationship. Actually, it's the by far most sound approach around. One general remark though: It is important to only include measured power data which is indicated by a little flash on Strava. Strava always shows power data, but otherwise estimates. Most riders use similiar devices (SRM, Quarq, P2Max), so the numbers are comparable within about 5 %.

I really hate, how convicted dopers like Armstrong and Jalabert defame Froome. After all Froome is not convicted. If people like him or not.

With all the speculations, we are not to forget that training methodology has evolved immensly over the last couple of years. And Chris Froome is actually more at 65 kg then at 67 kg.

Lastly, unfortunately mankind cheats. It's in our nature. Businesses are bribing, countries are spying, Fifa, well ... (be sure similiar however probably on a much smaller scale things happen at the IOC), students take beta blocker and ritalin. CEOs tell so many lies and intimidate so many people on their way to the top. Cheating is everywhere, we all did it in smaller or larger ways.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apparently Froome lost some of his doping as Quintana completed yesterday's final ascent 30 second faster than him (sarcasm directed to Sallet). Still some fans were angry with Froome and were visibly happy to see him lose ground. People should be innocent until proved guilty also on a bike and tv pundits should be cautious about what they say.

<comment><USER5> A fan was caught on TV spitting directly at Chris Froome yesterday. The hysteria that armchair power analysis 'experts' and irresponsible pundits have whipped up is disgraceful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _...leading to a 6.13 W /kg. [Sky] also claim that their chain rings hamper the measurement of power by 6%, and give 5.78 W/kg to account for this._

I can't think of any set of facts that would make this adjustment make sense. Can any mechanical engineers help?

I doubt Shimano will be happy if Jean-Louis Talo starts claiming that it was his weird elliptical chain ring that turned a 5.78 W/kg loser into a 6.13 W/kg champion.

<comment><USER7> Presumably the chainring losses are roughly similar for every rider which is why no-one complains about them. Around 6% seems plausible when you remember that for cars crank horsepower is usually 15% higher than wheel horsepower. Transmission losses are an unavoidable cost.

<comment><USER6> TFA with its 6.06 W/kg estimate is talking about power at the wheel, because it's using Strava rather than e.g. PowerTap data. (Although Strava claim to account for "rolling resistance".) By making the adjustment Sky seem to be claiming that Froome's equipment wastes less power than everyone else's does. Again, if they spell that out, Talo will be happier than Shimano, their nominal sponsor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Today a friend on a social network floated an interesting hypothesis when the topic of the recent spate of citizens dying while engaged with law enforcement officers came up.

He suggested that there might be an underground practice of juicing among law enforcement officers (to gain a strength advantage on the job) and that what we're really seeing is occurrences of "roid rage".

<comment><USER9> Anabolic Steroid Use and Abuse by Police Officers: Policy & Prevention [http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseac...](http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1512&issue_id=62008)

Cops' Use of Illegal Steroids a 'Big Problem' [http://www.infowars.com/cops- use-of-illegal-steroids-a-big-p...](http://www.infowars.com/cops-use-of- illegal-steroids-a-big-problem/)

Cops on Steroids [http://www.menshealth.com/health/scandals-cops-and- steroids](http://www.menshealth.com/health/scandals-cops-and-steroids)

Steroid Abuse by Law Enforcement Personnel [http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/pubs/brochures/steroids/la...](http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/pubs/brochures/steroids/lawenforcement/)

Police Juice Up on Steroids to Get 'Edge' on Criminals [http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3745740&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3745740&page=1)

Dopers in Uniform: Cops on Steroids [https://thinksteroids.com/articles/dopers-uniform-cops- stero...](https://thinksteroids.com/articles/dopers-uniform-cops-steroids/)

Steroid abuse major problem among police officers [http://taylorhooton.org/steroid-abuse-major-problem-among- po...](http://taylorhooton.org/steroid-abuse-major-problem-among-police- officers/)

Chief constable admits police officers across UK 'are using criminals to buy steroids and abuse their power for sexual gratification'

Read more: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266621/Chief- consta...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266621/Chief-constable- admits-police-officers-UK-using-criminals-buy-steroids-abuse-power-sexual- gratification.html#ixzz3gs27zlF3)

<comment><USER10> From the Men's Health article linked above:

"Officer Jimmy sees the matter differently. Although he professes to feel conflicted about juicing--it is, after all, a felony to take anabolic steroids without a prescription--he thinks 'roids made him a better cop. "What law enforcement needs is a little testosterone," he says. "Every cop should do a cycle a year."

Yeah, Jimmy. What could possibly go wrong with that idea?</comment></comment></comment>


Brain Training Doesn't Make You Smarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-training-doesn-t-make-you-smarter/

<comment><USER2> if you want to get smarter, read hacker news on a daily basis -- especially the comments, eat healthy, and get a good nights sleep.</comment>