Bruce Schneier: Privacy in the Age of Persistence - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/02/privacy_in_the.html

<comment><USER2> "Data is the pollution of the information age. It's a natural byproduct of every computer-mediated interaction. It stays around forever, unless it's disposed of. It is valuable when reused, but it must be done carefully. Otherwise, its after effects are toxic."

I agree with this idea; that's why I prefer the regulation of data collection and storage, rather than use. Allowing companies and governments to collect massive amounts of data about people that they aren't allowed to use in certain ways today is a ticking time bomb. This data is attractive to criminals who aren't bound by laws anyway, and corporate mergers or changing laws can retroactively harm privacy based on data that was previously collected.

<comment><USER3> I've been toying with a Creative Commons like service, one where as an organization, you can choose the criteria which meet your privacy policy. This would have a "visual vocabulary" akin to the CC badges or nutrition facts on food for different privacy models. It seems like a missing component is clarity and transparency when it comes to understanding the implications of several facets: collection, storage, and use being the big three.

This paper by Irene Pollach [<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1284627>] delves into some of the details and weaknesses in privacy policies and how legalese can weasel out of a real policy.

Schneier's article makes me even more concerned about storage -- which I think most people dismiss if the use argument is addressed.

I think a privacy vocabulary would be wonderful.

<comment><USER2> That sounds suspiciously like P3P. <http://www.w3.org/P3P/Overview.html>

Why did P3P fail and how can those problems be avoided in the future?

<comment><USER3> I think P3P never gained traction in part because it was too early. I don't remember in 2000-2002 people getting in huffs over privacy policies. They weren't common then. Terms of use were -- deep linking policies. Heh.

One of the major P3P criticisms is the lack of enforceability. While say a Creative Commons license is applied to a work, if a P3P "contract" was applied to a site, how does one enforce it?

I think with the oversight a community provides (Facebook ToS is a recent example), a community or communities could keep companies' policy _more_ honest. I'm currently formulating my thoughts on this; I'm not completely versed in privacy nor previous attempts to clarify, add trust, understanding and accountability, like P3P.

<comment><USER4> I'm think it is wholly because it is unenforceable and unverifiable when it comes down to it. P3P allows websites owners to assert their privacy policies, and some aspects of the TOS, in "machine readable" formats. This was supposed to allow standardization to allow better filtering automatically when you visit a site. You tell your browser you are only interested in sites that "collect cookies for the purposes of aggregate data collection" and "don't sell personal information to third parties", and the browser was supposed to warn you, or change its functionality, based on your targets with the site's claimed assertions. It doesn't work like that though, for the same reason the Firefox bad certificate screen ended up being more annoying than useful: no one actually cared about security more than using the site. It's easier to override the settings and use the site. And you could never be sure, until after the fact when it's too late because the information is already out there, that the policy was ever followed or not.

And because of that and the way IE's default "internet zone" cookie policy worked, you pretty much had to, as a website, assert policies that were amenable to the IE defaults.

This would only work when there is significant competition between interchangeable and interoperable sites anyway. Facebook asserts policies A, B, and C, while Myspace asserts policies X, Y, and Z. Well, those policy differences don't mean anything if I actually want to use Facebook because that's that's where my friends are. Privacy policies are only a differentiation point if the policies are different and the services are exactly the same, which is actually impossible (and not really in the indivdual sites' best interest anyway).

P3P has some use as a way to monitor the privacy policy and TOS on a site, and have your browser notify you of changes. I don't think this is necessarily better than what happened with Facebook TOS where someone was following it closely, actually read it, and raised hell about it. There's an emotional aspect tied to that, one that doesn't exist when your browser pops up a box with a warning you just want to dismiss and get out of your way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a serious issue to consider, but one way we're _not_ going to solve it is by trying to restrict data collection, or simply trying to hide our own digital footprints. The latest facebook ToS episode tells us as much. To continue Schneier's automobile analogy, we're not solving pollution by un- inventing cars, but by coming up with even better clean technology. Similarly, reducing data collection doesn't seem to be a viable option; instead, we're going to have to come up with better technologies for access control & data anonymization.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly why easy-to-use programs that can ecrypt or anonymize your data are good. People are willing to use something like Skype because it's easy to set up and run. Want to call someone? Type in a phone number and hit 'call'. The average user doesn't know or care that their conversation is being encrypted, but they benefit nonetheless.

I'm really glad to see programs like Adium, used by the majority of my OSX friends, can encrypt conversations by default, and interfaces perfectly with options like OTR ( <http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/> ). I've managed to convince exactly one friend to use OTR - it's not an effective way to fix things because most people don't care. Getting programs to have useful defaults that protect you while still being easy to use is the key.

Now all we need is an open-source version of Skype ( <http://www.qutecom.org/> ? ) that joe-anybody can use on their phone :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Arguments for the importance of privacy seem to invoke either corruption (eg. 1984, or the Cardinal Richelieu quote) or the risk of error (eg. misidentifying a suspect because they share attributes). These remind me of the arguments used against artificial intelligence research. I see them as problems that can be worked around, not as a basis for more privacy measures.

Instinctively I feel that privacy is important, but I can't find any solid justification for the instinct. It bothers me slightly to know that I can be tracked by cell phone signals or a public-transit swipe-card, but I couldn't win an argument for the importance of privacy.

<comment><USER8> While corruption and error are certainly major factors in privacy, there are some things that are just private. I don't want people, even people I know and trust completely, to know about the details of my sex life. Not because my sex life is crazy and deviant, because it is private. I don't want to have clear bathroom stalls, not because I'm doing something wrong or worry about someone harming me, but because it is private. Voyeurism is an invasion of privacy, it doesn't hurt people in any other way, but it is illegal, and should be.

In short, privacy is import because of the instinct you mention. The desire for privacy is the reason for privacy. Privacy is like freedom, it is a basic human desire and requires justifications to violate or remove, not to support.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, this gives me some things to think about. I do have to wonder though, is privacy really something inherently human, or are we conditioned by society to require privacy for comfort? I do think it's the former, but I still have to wonder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Every time I read something by Schneier, I'm impressed with just how well he's able to put things. He's somehow able to impart the gravity of things without coming across like he's fear-mongering. I wonder how he's able to write so eloquently and accessibly on security, which is usually hard to do - I'd like to be able to write that well.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. He knows the material intimately, so can speak to it with ease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Imagine if they would have had the internet with Google, Internet Archive, etc., during the McCarthyism era in the US. That's the type of thing I am most concerned about.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reading this, I had one of those -- hey! "I invented that first!" entrepreneur moments, since I had blogged on the same topic a week or two ago. [http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/who-was-i- aga...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/who-was-i-again.php)

Of course, like all big ideas, this stuff is "in the air" at a certain point in time and lots of people are channeling it. I think of it as a process sort of like waking up: usually you'll have outliers who warn of problems years or decades ahead of time without any traction, then suddenly everybody's thinking and talking about it. E-commerce was like that, and so it social networking. Who knows? Maybe Twitter is the next big change.

This is a society-changing trend, no doubt, and worthy of all the attention we can give it. While my post was overly lyrical, historical, and elliptical -- Bruce drives a truck right through the reader with direct analysis. I hope to see more writers take this on.

If I had to put the problem into one semi-poetic line, it would be.

Every detail. Easily recorded. Rarely noticed. Never forgotten.

Our species has never existed in a world where nothing was forgotten. Not only is the ability to forget a key part of remaining sane, it may be a key part of a functioning society.

We don't know -- we're in uncharted territory. But I do know that the matter is credibly huge and will not go away simply by us ignoring it.

And no, this is not a privacy issue. To think of it as just privacy is to miss the point. Even if we were the only ones able to access the data about us, _is it healthy to have a life in which all the details are remembered forever?_ I don't think so. This isn't about ownership of the data, it's much more encompassing than that: it's about whether or not people are machines or evolving organisms. Machines don't care for the past. Evolving organisms are always forgetting and remaking the past in order to emotionally move forward. We may be reaching a "wet-ware limit" where our information systems are simply operating at too high an efficiency level for the interface to work properly with us sloppy, emotional, forgetful, slow, and illogical hominids.</comment>


Amazon announces AWS Management Console S3 support - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2010/06/10/aws-management-console-adds-support-for-amazon-s3/

<comment><USER2> Finally!! (It works for me, btw.) I can now cross off one of the last two reasons I use Firefox instead of Chrome. The other is Gerrit, which doesn't work in Chrome. A bit of irony there, since Google is the author of Gerrit.

The specifics of the problem: Gerrit allows you to make comments on specific lines of code which are under review. In Chrome, you can double-click to get the text widget up, but can't do anything with it after that (Save, Discard). Google, if you're listening, please fix this!!

[http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=45235&...](http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=45235&q=gerrit&colspec=ID%20Stars%20Pri%20Area%20Feature%20Type%20Status%20Summary%20Modified%20Owner%20Mstone%20OS)

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't seem to be working for me. I've got the S3 tab, an empty list of buckets, and everything else is blank. It also seems to be in some sort of redirect loop with a three or four second delay.

Is anyone else getting this?

Edit: eventually I got "Your request to Amazon S3 is taking longer than expected. Customers with slow internet connections may experience initial connectivity issues using the AWS Management Console to manage their Amazon S3 resources. You can refresh your browser and try again. We���re actively working to address this issue." I suppose I'll try again later.

<comment><USER4> Same here with only eight buckets and a couple hundred total objects. Maybe they're just overwhelmed right now...

<comment><USER5> But isn't that the point of S3? That it can't be overwhelmed?

I tried it out and it worked great, I only have 3 buckets though. As with the first version of anything, there are always kinks that need to be worked out. Great to finally see an official web based tool for managing S3 though!</comment></comment></comment>


Betrayal, Rage, Ambition, and Startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jproco/betrayal-rage-ambition-and-startup-103a04013132?source=friends_link&sk=4f35fed41c939016d3521dcfd610deb9 <comment><USER2> Started off strong, but I think he's got more to work through. I'm glad he wrote it, though---counterintuitively, showing this sort of anger is a pretty vulnerable thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> HELL YEAH I'VE GOT MORE TO WORK THROUGH :)

In all seriousness, thanks for the feedback and I especially appreciate the part about vulnerability. I started writing this just to get it out of my head, then I figured it's probably what I should be writing anyway instead of like "5 ways to hire the right offshore developer"

<comment><USER2> I spent some more time thinking about this (the article).

I hope all is well.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Launching a Product on Show HN? - <AUTHOR> I'm considering using Show HN as a way to launch a SaaS product I have, but I'm unsure if that's the best strategy. The first reason is I don't have a free tier, so I will need to make another way specially for HNers to have a play with it. The second reason is my market is not really developers, so I might be better off on Product Hunt. Also I don't want to misinterpret disinterest / derision from HN as doom for my product. <comment><USER2> You're over thinking it. Put it on product hunt, put it on HN, explain it in a comment if you want or need to. Read the feedback, take in the useful parts and don't let anything else get to you. Good luck with it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Without a free tier, it's difficult to classify it as a Show HN. I usually avoid even a page with registration. What about a 1 week free trial without credit card info? You can ask the mods for an official answer: firstname.lastname@example.com

Anyway, I think that ShowHN are overrated. Just post a normal link to your site, and add a comment saying that you are the author and are available to answer questions. It's 99% like a ShowHN and if the project is interesting and you are lucky, it will get traction anyway.

Another good strategy is to post about some interesting problem you have to solve for your service, or an interesting unexpected use case of your service.

If you meet an old technical friend after a few years and want to tell an interesting technical anecdote about your site, which one would you select?

</comment><comment><USER4> These sites are if you're lucky going to occupy you for hours or maybe even half a day, I'd think more about what else you will do in your first year cause nothing's likely to hinge on the morning you submitted a link.

</comment><comment><USER5> You should have a demo, video, or screenshots at least. People will want to see how it works before paying. If you have one of those, launch it everywhere your customers are.

</comment><comment><USER6> If it's not for developers, then you'd miss the valuable learnings from your target market. I'd advise you to find a more suitable place where your target market is.</comment>


Cyanogen Platform SDK: The Proof Is in the Pudding - <AUTHOR> http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/cyanogen-platform-sdk-the-proof-is-in-the-pudding?hn

<comment><USER2> > At its core, CyanogenMod is a best in class example of Open Source > development.

Really? Why is it that they can't even bring themselves to fix trivial bugs like [1] let alone bigger deal-breaker bugs like [2]? I find the OnePlus One borderline unusable with all the Cyanogenmod bugs it has...

[1] [https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-2855](https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-2855)

[2] [https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-736](https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-736)

<comment><USER3> Might be worth adding another note to one of those bugs in a few days when it's a year old.

<comment><USER4> That bug in particular is an enormous pain. I thankfully don't have to reboot - I can either physically shake it a few times (this feature is disabled and should do nothing) or press the power button a few dozen times to get the screen to turn on.

<comment><USER2> Yeah it's a pain alright. I I have a suspicion it's caused by an update, because I didn't use to get it until a few months ago. Do you have the same experience? Also, I never managed to get the power button to make it work. If it doesn't work I just have to reboot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >At its core, CyanogenMod is a best in class example of Open Source development.

Oh really?

"Rumors of plans to commercialize CyanogenMod as well as the subsequent announcement of Cyanogen Inc. has led to a certain level of discord within the CyanogenMod community. Several CyanogenMod developers have raised concerns that developers who had provided their work in the past were not being appropriately acknowledged or compensated for their gratis work on what was now a commercial project, further that the original ethos of the community project was being undermined and that these concerns were not being adequately addressed by Cyanogen Inc. Examples include "The "Focal" camera app developer Guillaume Lesniak ("'xplodwild') whose app was withdrawn from CyanogenMod allegedly following demands by the new company to adopt closed-source modifications and licensing."

<comment><USER6> hahah I thought of this exact thing, when I skimmed it. Cyanogen has turned into such a pompous circle jerk...

<comment><USER7> If you are a top tier handset integration provider for Android, there are soooo many things you can commercialize without fucking up the community- facing open source model. Hardware support. Advanced RCS and all-IP network support. FMI. Etc. It feels as if Cyanogen is taking a app developer's approach to value add when they should acquire some telecom knowledge because that's where their customers' pain points are likely to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks like a clean solution to the age old problem: how to support cm- features in a clean way, without working directly against the implementation.

Glad to see stuff like this coming.

</comment><comment><USER9> I liked CyanogenMod more when they were focused on supporting almost all devices and not on adding their own (usually buggy) code on top of AOSP...

<comment><USER10> CM have never focused on supporting almost all devices, its always been up to individual device maintainers to provide support for non-Nexus and CM core- dev-owned devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does it still phone home and give information to Google?

<comment><USER12> Not if you don't install Google Apps. You can even use an alternate wifi location service.

<comment><USER6> Even with the gapps installed, you could turn those features off if you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No proof in pudding. Proof is in the eating.

<comment><USER13> The original saying was "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." But like most adages it has been shortened over time to the now less-correct formulation.</comment></comment>


iPhone Todo App - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/focus-to-do-task-habit-list/id982508721

<comment><USER2> Is this your creation?</comment>


Nginx author was arrested in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://m.habr.com/ru/company/itsumma/blog/479942/ <comment><USER2> google translate: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fm.habr.com%2Fru%2Fcompany%2Fitsumma%2Fblog%2F479942%2F)

...

> _UPD No. 2: According to unconfirmed reports, Sysoev and Konovalov were > detained._

The "unconfirmed reports" seems to be one isolated tweet. It's in Russian. Any native speaker who could verify? [https://twitter.com/igorippolitov/status/1205106534038089731](https://twitter.com/igorippolitov/status/1205106534038089731)

so I correct that this is currently still speculation?</comment>


Historically pro-copyright Heritage Foundation opposes SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57346829-281/pro-copyright-group-takes-sopa-to-task/

<comment><USER2> There is some interesting information here, but I am concerned about the terminology. For example: "Unlike some Washington advocacy groups that are predictably anti-copyright, ...." -- who would that be? After all, even, say, Richard Stallman could reasonably be described as "pro-copyright". I'm not sure how much trust I want to place in an article when the author gives evidence of not quite understanding its primary topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would think that the statements regarding its support of the RIAA suing filesharers and Heritage fellow Edwin Meese comparing using Kazaa to "shoplifting DVDs" would indicate that Heritage members have traditionally taken views that side with the RIAA and MPAA.

<comment><USER2> Well, yes, but the RIAA and MPAA aren't "pro-copyright". Nor are those who oppose them "anti-copyright".</comment></comment></comment>


(-2147483648 0) returns true in C++? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14695118/2147483648-0-returns-true-in-c

<comment><USER2> It's a lot less interesting if you don't remove the > from the title.</comment>


China's Looming Crisis: A Shrinking Population - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html <comment><USER2> With increasing prosperity of the average citizen in China, more people would create further ecological pressure in a heavily populated geography. Gradual contraction of population in that circumstance is better than overcrowding and competition for scarce resources.

It won't be easy to navigate, but it's a necessary step as people become richer and consume more per capita.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any other countries besides China where we doubt nearly any "fact" they produce? What causes this? Its incredibly odd to read an article where the government makes a claim and then follow it up with a claim from someone else that is entirely different.

> China's fertility rate has officially fallen to 1.6 children per woman

> Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ... [claims] > the fertility rate averaged 1.18 between 2010 and 2018

<comment><USER4> I think another way of looking at it is the same way people try to avoid taxes.

In China, with the One-Child policy, you would be fined heavily for having more than one child (now the limit is two). However there will be scenarios where rural and poorer folks have more children so they will under-report or even neglect to report the size of their children because they don't want to be hit with heavy fines. The disadvantage is however that extra children won't be officially registered and have a hukou and won't enjoy official protections of a Chinese citizen. On the other side of the spectrum, very rich to rich Chinese can pay for the fines and thus might choose to have 2 or more children because the fines are not that expensive to them. I have observed both scenarios when I was in China.

Note that there are exceptions to the original one-child policy, ethnic minorities don't need to abide by the one-child policy and rural parents whose first child is a daughter can have an extra child. As well, people from the previous generation who don't have siblings can have two children to make up for the lack of people in their family.

Thus the official numbers will have to be taken with a grain of salt in the same manner people and companies report their taxes as there will be individuals with more than one child who under-report to not incur fines.</comment></comment>


The classic Unix horror story - <AUTHOR> http://lug.wsu.edu/node/414

<comment><USER2> I've never actually been bitten by rm (or done anything remotely this badass) but in college I did have a bad Unix moment:

Late at night, I was tarring up a finished project right before emailing it to my professor. I ran:

        tar -cvf *.cpp *.h something.tar

instead of:

        tar -cvf something.tar *.cpp *.h

It happily wrote most of my project into a tar file on top of the first source file, then complained that something.tar didn't exist. I overwrote "array.cpp" or something like that, and had to rewrite it (this was before I used source control for anything, and a large part of why I learned to use source control).

Writing this comment, I had to look up the order of the parameters to tar; I still can't remember. Stupid tar.

<comment><USER3> _Writing this comment, I had to look up the order of the parameters to tar; I still can't remember. Stupid tar._

The -f (--file) flag takes an argument. So you could do:

        tar -cf *.cpp -f something.tar

It is easier to remember order if you know what the flags mean.

<comment><USER2> It's true, and I'll probably remember it now. But, since I have every single time used the -f flag, it would make a lot more sense for it to say "you asked me to compress a file that doesn't exist and ends in .tar; I bet that's what you meant the -f parameter to use" and fix it for me.

<comment><USER4> I'd rather not have my tools perform magical heuristics to try to figure out what I meant to do.

The "-f <filename>" flag is perfectly clear, and useful in all modes (c, x, etc). If you remember "tar czf" as a magical incantation, then you're missing something vital. When you understand what each argument means there is no ambiguity. I don't mean to sound condescending, but in my entire life I've never encountered the problem you described.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a "social news sites classics" directory yet? I would love to see reposts of oldies no longer justified due to a good directory of these things, prominently linked.

Pretty please do not create such a directory in this comments thread.

<comment><USER6> <http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/> The Hacker Jargon page would probably be the best index of the so called "classics", although it hasn't been updated in years.

<comment><USER5> Too narrow. I was referring to stories that crop up on social news sites over and over, not UNIX arcana.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Man, how many times is this story going to be submitted?

<comment><USER8> As often as it's still badass.

<comment><USER9> I get goosebumps every time I read it, and I read it every time it is submitted.

You'll know that "head-in-hands" feeling if you've done it before, and it is quite the experience.

That's why this story will draw you back every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might have misunderstood the story, but if this happened to me today on my gear I would simply turn it all off, connect that half-erased hard disk to another machine, mount it, and pull all the data off. And only after a lot of googling to see if some of the lost files could be "undeleted".

Salvaging the disk by recreating a minimalist system on it is heroic and hacky, but was that the only way?

<comment><USER11> When the story mentions "Alternatively, we could get the _boot tape_ out and rebuild the root filesystem" and "VAX", then "a lot of Googling" was out of the question.

I'm too young for the VAX era, but was there "a" hard disk which could be easily swapped and if they had another (which the Ethernet comment suggests they did) then would it have spare connectors? and free disk space? How fast did files copy back then?

If so they'd still be faced with shutting both down (knowing they couldn't start this one up again, and what was the procedure for shutting down / starting the other?) then be without both while they concocted a bodge recovery, then be faced with telling everyone to use the other and how to find their work - assuming if could take that many extra users and they had enough terminals for that.

That's sounding like a day's downtime of two systems and several days of people disruption followed by more disruption when they had to move users back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Back in the dinosaur days I worked with DG minis running AOS/VS, a Multics descendant. From time to time an operator would run the equivalent of cd /; rm -rf, halting everything. The neat thing about the delete command was that would zap the PMGR, peripherals manager, quite early on; unable to communicate with the disks, the delete would fail. Generally one could then locate an older version of :PMGR to rename, then recover. Failing that, one could boot off a "systape" and recover.

Not as hard-core as the recovery through emacs, but greatly welcome under stress.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't agree with the following comment:

"Great programmers spend very little of their time writing code – at least code that ends up in the final product. Programmers who spend much of their time writing code are too lazy, too ignorant, or too arrogant to find existing solutions to old problems. "

I mean so... who's writing the code then? Who's writing the original code? I would call a clever programmer a great programmer. Just clever. and sometimes clever can get you into trouble. But just sometimes :)

<comment><USER14> They write code for things they can't find an existing solution. Its not that they don't write _any_ code, they just don't write very much, and what they _do_ write is good enough to be found and used by others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My terrible UNIX, or really SunOS/Solaris moments have been:

      o typing 'halt' into the wrong xterm, shutting down well planners
      o and likely on the same network, jacking up the NIS+ on Solaris

It's been a constant itch that I never did manage to understand what I was doing wrong, such that NIS+ wouldn't restart correctly.

<comment><USER16> My marquee move is to shut down the ethernet interface of a box I'm SSHed into.

<comment><USER17> I used iptables to block all incoming traffic. While SSHed into the server. Thankfully, Linode's out of band console works (slow and painful, but it worked).

<comment><USER18> I did this as a result of following a (poorly-conceived) iptables tutorial.

'Step one: configure iptables to deny traffic by default: iptables -P INPUT DROP'

There's also the time that I learned why you should think twice before setting a default policy of DROP or REJECT - iptables -F will clear all rules that allow you in, but not the default policy that keeps you out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still remember my "rm -fr /" episode after almost 20 years. It was slightly different, something related to chmod'ing some files under /etc on an AIX server:

       $ cd /etc
       $ chmod 600 some_file * # instead of some_file.*

oops... Thank God for boot diskettes.

<comment><USER20> I was playing with FUSE, and had managed to mount a loopback filesystem. And then, for some ill-considered reason, I tried to delete the directory that I had mounted it inside.

I managed to Ctrl-C it before it ate any files in /home, but I still had some nasty cleanup work to get the computer back in working order again. Thank god for LiveCDs.

<comment><USER21> In the same spirit, I once removed a chroot tree, forgetting I bind mounted /etc into it.

It took me half a day to recover from that.

Another one, even more stupid, is to recover a "backup" of /var, done without the proper rights to it. I noticed the problem after a lot of weirds errors cropping in. This one I did not recover - after a few hours, I ended up deciding that reinstalling linux on my machine would be faster and more reliable.

<comment><USER22> I've found it's useful to look through the man pages of commonly-used tools for an option to prevent traversing filesystems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh, how many of us (including myself) experienced such things, and yet we're unwilling to admit that there is something fundamentally wrong with tools that _just_ do what we tell them to.

<comment><USER24> They have their uses. When the Unix user group at my college sent out invitations to a social event, they concluded with "... and if you don't want to come, log on to Unix and type rm -r *".

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd say this is a classic Unix success story, told in the context of an almost horror. It shows how a serious understanding of Unix-foo can save the day when someone makes a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER26> The Unix Haters' Handbook is worth looking up. I think it is out of print but the PDF is available for download.

My favourite from USENET is cleaning out _.o files after compiling C code but fat-fingering the SHIFT key and instead of typing

% rm -f \_.o

,typing

% rm -f *>o

which gives you an empty directory and a zero length file called "o"

ah yes....

</comment><comment> X-Istence While part of a team of students at a hacking competition I was VNC'ed into an owned 2003 server, I was trying to get to the network settings properties menu, when my VNC session lagged and I clicked at the same time that my mouse reached the Disable interface.

Yeah ... I didn't live that one down, lost my team some points.

<comment><USER11> I've seen that done on live remote Windows servers at work - lag causing someone to hit disable on the network, causing someone to hit 'bridge' on the network card, causing someone to hit 'shutdown' instead of 'restart'.

One reason I really prefer text commands, as the sequence is preferred, so they can be typed and "queued" to execute in order when they arrive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This reminds me of the faithful day when I finally stopped working as root all the time.

That happened right after typing

        cp backup.tar.gz /dev/sda

That was fun. Also, back then I had no idea how easy it would have been to at least get the contents of that backup file back using dd

</comment><comment><USER28> This makes Unix's orthogonality really clear. I'm fascinated the system was still able to run after taking that kind of a hit. Imagine what would happen to WIndows (immediately) if half the system (including key system binaries) were destroyed.

<comment><USER11> I'm going to guess, if they're in use you wont be allowed to delete them, and then you'd be in a similar situation - things like notepad would be missing, various programs wont start due to missing dependencies.

In fact, we can see from Youtube:

Ubuntu: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4fzInlyYQo>

Windows XP: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aSo8-VDS8E>

XP appears to hold up slightly _better_ \- it doesn't ruin the fonts, and it pops up a System File Protection dialog indicating it has noticed the broken system files and asking for an install CD to recover them from.

<comment><USER28> My overall point is that Windows (in my experience) breaks at the slightest registry change or missing DLL or config file. Linux/Unix try to be as loosely coupled as possible, which means you can still run your in-memory gnuemacs (as in the article) even when your /bin directory (presumably with supporting binaries for emacs) gets wiped out.

That kind of design takes a lot of thought and, as far as I know, doesn't hold true in DOS/Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One time I did something like

$ chown -R terra_t.terra_t /

on a production system. Fortunately I was able to recover the permissions of most of the system files from the rpm database, and do the rest by hand...

</comment><comment><USER30> My personal favourite is "rm -rf * .swp" instead of "rm -rf *.swp" or such.

</comment><comment><USER31> An old story but still shocking.

One should be careful making such damage threats though, may end up with male appendage replacing rabbit foot on someones' keychain

</comment><comment><USER32> Thank god Windows has the stupid and annoying file locking!

<comment><USER33> Windows has its own share of del /s or format c:. Once I did del /s * instead of del /s *~ to clean up temp files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> frequent automated offsite backups are your friend

<comment><USER35> Yes, but too bad that frequent offsite automated backups were still at least a decade off in 1986. At the very least, the network bandwidth just simply wasn't there. Heck, at this stage of the game, 1Mbps was considered to be blazing fast on a LAN. Even Internet backbones were 56k.

<comment><USER34> i know for a fact that backups were possible in 86 and that's all that would be needed to turn an accidental deletion into a non-disaster

but you're right, networking speed/bandwidth has gotten better since then, but that's irrelevant and I never claimed it hadn't. my point was that there is a simple, well-known solution/palliative for this, so no need for this kind of drama going forward.

<comment><USER9> the article clearly describes how they used backups to turn an accidental deletion into a non-disaster, in 1986.

<comment><USER34> yes, and it's funny how your statement is consistent with my assertion that backups existed in 86, and that backups are a good thing. i love "arguments on the Internet" sometimes! :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


USA's women's soccer team is no accident. It's a product of public policy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/06/usa-womens-world-cup-netherlands-title-xi <comment><USER2> Title IX - No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.</comment>


Things Real People Don't Say About Your App - <AUTHOR> http://trpdsaya.tumblr.com/ <comment><USER2> Brutal truth indeed.</comment>


Building a Decision Tree in Python from Postgres data - <AUTHOR> http://www.garysieling.com/blog/building-decision-tree-python-postgres-data

<comment><USER2> What do think of using HDF5? You can also store pandas tables in them.</comment>


An opinionated anthropology of the embedded programmer, its habits and habitat - <AUTHOR> https://labs.spotify.com/2019/04/09/an-opinionated-anthropology-of-the-embedded-programmer-its-habits-and-habitat/ <comment><USER2> > In short, the bar is set rather high and C is already awesome.

Haha. no, just no.

I can't speak for other embedded developers, but I _hate_ C, it's just usually the only option for small devices.

The 'maker' movement and it's relentless movement towards bigger and bigger ARM based systems has opened that up a little, thankfully; you can now find plenty of SBCs that offer 1GB+, and that means _any_ language is an option (at least if it has a pausable gc).</comment>


iPhone 3GS. Jailbreak. Mac.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/05/iphone-3gs-jailbreak-mac/ <comment><USER2> You know, I'm thinking about buying the neo freerunner simply because I don't like the whole idea of "jailbreaking". Who knows what code is being executed on your phone? Who knows how it will be left? Will you be able to return it back to normal?

Of course, this is entirely my own opinion, but I'll be voting with my wallet, thanks.

<comment><USER3> The user experience of the two phones are not remotely comparable. But, as you say, to each his own.

<comment><USER4> Didn't they just recently announce there will not be another model, which was supposed to happen, as well?

<comment><USER5> Yes, there were cutbacks, but they are continuing to support the neo.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Britain's First Mission to China Went Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://chinachannel.org/2018/05/18/macartney/ <comment><USER2> When I got here I saw the girzel thread below, shuddered and then read the article. It is actually well worth reading. It gives a real flavour of going into the great unknown from the perspective of one side, with some pretty decent insights from the other side. I think.

"Grand Choulaa" - this looks to me like the locals taking the piss.

 _Initially Macartney did not realize that he was supposed to prostrate himself before the emperor. Nor, when it was explained to him, was he willing to do so. Despite his great admiration for the prosperity and civilization of the Qing Empire, he viewed Qianlong as an equal to the king of England_

Macartney would never have really considered Quianlong as equal to the King of Britain (England and Scotland became Britain a little earlier). I am also sure that Quianlong's people would have had exactly the same notion in reverse for exactly the same reason.

<comment><USER3> > _Macartney would never have really considered Quianlong as equal to the King > of Britain (England and Scotland became Britain a little earlier). I am also > sure that Quianlong 's people would have had exactly the same notion in > reverse for exactly the same reason._

Only one side would be justified, being an ancient civilization (as opposed to a recent-ish tribe that entered written history only after the Roman conquest), and the biggest economy of the world for many millennia...

<comment><USER4> Neither side would be justified making someone prostrate themselves in front of anyone.

Heads of states should be treat of equals, no matter if one country has been around for a couple of thousands of years, or only a bit over one thousand. Also whether it is a stagnant declining empire being left in the dust by other countries, or one of those countries leaving everyone else in the dust, sound also not matter.

<comment><USER3> > _Heads of states should be treat of equals, no matter if one country has > been around for a couple of thousands of years, or only a bit over one > thousand._

Well, tell that to the British first...

<comment><USER5> Our colonial history to paraphrase Orwell was "all countries are created equal, it's just some are more equal than others".

During the age of empires British foreign policy was swaggering arrogance backed up by gun boat diplomacy.

It's weird been British in 2018, we are now a small damp mostly irrelevant island in the North Atlantic.

<comment><USER2> "It's weird been British in 2018, we are now a small damp mostly irrelevant island in the North Atlantic."

It's always been a bit weird being British - get used to it! As to irrelevance, you might like to reflect on the fact that around two billion people across the world watched a recent marriage in this parish.

Yes it is a bit damp here but on the bright side the weather rarely tries to kill you, nor does the land and nor does the flora and fauna. The nearest thing to a volcano is Castle Rock in Edinburgh OK - Dartmoor int al was formed from a pluton but that was some time ago as well. Our earthquakes are on the sad end of the log base seismic scale. The last tsunami (controversial but there was a major flood) might have been near Bristol and S Wales 100s of years ago. We have precisely one poisonous snake - the adder and they are very rare and keep well away and probably wont even kill you anyway (but it will smart a lot). We have a few poisonous plants but again you would have to be pretty stupid. Funnily enough I had to warn a Floridian about our stinging nettles - they laughed. They stopped laughing after brushing past a patch on a run.

Weird: yep. Irrelevent: no more than anyone else. Damp: I prefer "moist".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While this article puts a lot of weight in the formal displays of submission, the denial of the English ambassador in following them and the irritation that caused, I cannot help thinking there could have been other reasons for the Chinese to be reserved.

Considering the track record of the East India Company in conquering Bengali piece-by-piece during the decades just before this mission, which the Chinese must have been aware of, I think it's totally understandable they were wary. Which must have been the subtext in them telling that no thanks, we do not want your products and really don't want to give you a permanent foothold on the Chinese soil.

The fact that the Brits kept on proceeding nevertheless, turning a large number of Chinese citizens into opium addicts while at it, kind of justifies this stance. Maybe the only mistake the Chinese made was not to start improving their military might at the earliest signs of warning, while they still had time.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Furthermore, the embassies that came from tributary states like Vietnam and Korea did not come to impress the throne; they came to seek the emperor's approval, which gave them political power back home._

Jesuit missions to China some two centuries earlier wowed Ming officials with technological wonders, high-quality illustrated works, and mathematical and mnemonic tricks. The British may have attempted to follow a similar model to impress the Qing court, not realizing (as noted in TFA) that representatives from other states were expected to behave in a different manner.

A great read on the early Jesuit missions to China (as well as insights into the late stages of the Ming Dynasty) is Ross Terrill's _The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci_

<comment><USER8> I think you meant to credit Jonathan Spence for _The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci_. It is indeed very good.

<comment><USER7> Yes, you are right. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Furthermore, the embassies that came from tributary states like Vietnam and Korea did not come to impress the throne; they came to seek the emperor's approval, which gave them political power back home. To demonstrate their government's legitimacy in the eyes of the powerful Qing emperor was (at least in China's eyes) to argue for their own sovereign's right to rule in his own country. And to gain this approval, they paid tribute. They readily performed the so-called kowtow before the emperor in the manner of his own ministers—a prescribed ritual of nine kneeling bows to the ground (three sets of three) to humble themselves in his presence. And it made perfect sense to do so, because in their recognizing the supremacy of the emperor of China, the eminent power in Asia, he would recognize their supremacy within their own, smaller countries._

...

 _"When foreigners who come seeking audience with me are sincere and submissive, then I always treat them with kindness," Qianlong wrote. "But if they come in arrogance, they get nothing."_

The more I get to know China and the Chinese, the more I realize that these are still the lenses they see the world through.

<comment><USER3> > _The more I get to know China and the Chinese, the more I realize that these > are still the lenses they see the world through._

So, just like major Western powers see other western countries?

(Because for non-western countries, major western powers just see them just as areas to colonize, plunder, and steal from).

<comment><USER9> This was the laziest attempt at whataboutism I have seen all year. It didn't even make any sense. Step your game up.

<comment><USER3> I find accusations of "whataboutism" even lazier. They're just thought- stoppers.

"Whatabout" is about putting things in perspective.

Accusations of whataboutism is about putting on blinders -- and examining only one thing at a time (the other side instead of yours usually), outside of any context.

In other works, avoiding "whataboutism" is the worst way to go about understanding anything.

Which makes sense, of course, as "accusations of whataboutism" were invented as a Cold War tactic, to dismiss any attempt of the "commies" to criticize back.

<comment><USER9> Yes I would imagine certain people would have used the exact same tactic in the cold war when millions of people lived under communism and all the hardships it caused. Now those same people are likely China-defenders.

Whataboutism is just lazy. For example I could criticise a republican politician without it being an endorsement of a democratic one. Stick to the topic at hand - don't bring up a distraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Extra Credit History did a really great animated history lesson on this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQahGsYokU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQahGsYokU)

<comment><USER11> Wondering Summary and Animated. And it is not only for history as well. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If they only had a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence Others."

<comment><USER13> I may have missed the prostration section. Who knows, maybe I coulda saved my first marriage if I'd read that section more closely?

<comment><USER12> That's just a specific case of "kissing up", which WFAIO more or less promotes. It encourages one to gain a "genuine interest" in the person you want influence over, but that's tricky to force. WFAIO lacks a "meta" side that helps one motivate oneself to do the difficult/tedious steps. It's kind of like a diet book that tells you to exercise more and eat more vegetables and whole grains. Good advice, but the motivation for that is the hard part, which it may not cover.

<comment><USER13> Good analysis. (Meditation was my way to get more interested in others, and maybe more than that.) There is a difference between the WFAIO today and the original (which was more kissy-up) as I remember.

In a way it's sorta a book about how narcissists can please other narcissists (without ever getting to maybe benefiting others rather than just pleasing them) - but I must admit that narcissistic-on-narcissistic is the case that is most likely to go wrong.

<comment><USER12> I think most of us are narcissists, but just don't realize it. Evolution made us selfish and egotistical, and hid that fact from ourselves. Objectivity regarding self is probably not the optimum survival strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the Chinese were the real losers:

"In the early 1820s, the British East India Company began large-scale production of tea in Assam, India, of a tea variety traditionally brewed by the Singpho people.[5]"

</comment><comment><USER14> What a delightful read. Thank you for sharing it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Two of history's most arrogant and sanctimonious cultures, meeting together for the first time. What could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER16> Can Chinese isolationism really be compared to repugnant UK imperialism?

<comment><USER15> In terms of arrogance and sanctimoniousness, yes.

Ask the Vietnamese, Tibetans, Koreans, Uighurs and Burmese about Chinese "isolationism".

Britain: I now control you. [My boats can reach you.]

China: You are now me. [You were on my border, now you're inside my border.]

The trappings of colonialism are remarkably similar.

<comment><USER17> If more people had basic knowledge of unbiased history, I think there'd be much less vitriol and silly uninformed opinion based (mistaken as fact-based) disagreements on forums.

<comment><USER17> Judging by downvotes, in the spirit of lifelong learning would it then be prudent to conclude that more people having a basic knowledge of history would be a _bad_ thing? Or that it _wouldn 't_ decrease opinionated arguing on forums?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I injected myself with an untested gene therapy - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41990981 <comment><USER2> > "Tristan Roberts is completely within his rights according to the FDA and > the rule of law in this nation… to self-experiment on himself in any way > that he deems medically appropriate. It is his body and it is his right."

Any doctor or scientist making it possible for him to do so, however, is very much NOT within their rights and shall be keelhauled for a year. And that's if it goes well. If it goes wrong ...

(unless there is explicit permission from the ethical board of a hospital)

> Another thing that concerned scientists about Ascendance was the lack of > detailed information on the company's website - there's no phone number, nor > a list of employees or advisors. Traywick said this is in part due to > proprietary reasons and in part because the company is still so young. But > he also said he needs to obscure the identities of the working scientists > who are biohacking for Ascendance on the side, to avoid opening them up to > legal or reputational risk.

Heh ... you mean reputational risk because they're experimenting on humans ? Yeah, there's government institutions that take a really dim view of such practices.

The thing is, even if those humans "know" what they're doing (we're talking about a 28 year old programmer. I don't feel like I'm going out on a limb when saying his knowledge of HIV is less than complete). Besides, it's not like even perfect knowledge of all HIV research would enable one to predict the outcome of this experiment with sufficient certainty.

So there is no informed consent here. This is experimenting on humans. That he's "paid" for it (in maybe getting cured, not quite in money) doesn't change that fact.

<comment><USER3> I think yours is a good analysis. I think that there are ethical frameworks that can be used to support what the subject of this article has done to himself. The main ethical problem is that of the people who are providing the untested therapy to this person, outside of the established norms, putting the subject at risk while attempting to use the subject's autonomy as their shield.

<comment><USER4> Right; quacks were the norm until the medical profession organized.

Its fair to argue that the AMA etc have overstepped, are protectionist etc. But we surely don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. We want to hold medical practitioners to some standard. Which probably excludes preying on vulnerable people for naieve experimentation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Mark Connors, the lead NIH scientist who discovered the N6 antibody, was > among the viewers.

> Connors was unimpressed with the scientific reasoning behind the treatment. > "These seem like very smart young men and they have command of some of the > facts, but not all the facts," he said.

> "For the most part, the rules aren't what take so long [in drug > development]," he added. "It's not the FDA sitting on drugs. The reality is > this is a deliberative process."

<comment><USER5> It's curious, the hard 'scientific' challenge is finding the N6 antibody sequence. That code/blueprint produces the atomically-precise nanomachine that is capable of neutralizing HIV. That work is done. Here it is:

>RAHLVQSGTAMKKPGASVRVSCQTSGYTFTAHILFWFRQAPGRGLEWVGWIKPQYGAVNFGGGFRDRVTLTRDVYREIAYMDIRGLKPDDTAVYYCARDRSYGDSSWALDAWGQGTTVVVSA [1] [2]

Yet the current, engineering-style challenge is getting that protein sequence expressed in the right place, at the right time, without disturbing its environment, etc.

It's hard to compare the difficulty or danger of trying a therapy with 'scientific' risks versus 'engineering' risks. At first glance it might appear that now that the scientific problem has been solved (to a particular extent), that the engineering challenge is easy. However, the details really do matter. And not having all the facts, can in fact be lethal. On the other hand, to some extent, the scientific challenge really is the limiting capability, whereas the engineering challenge could be considered one of degree and risk. One this guy, for better or worse, was willing to take.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/1079417984](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/1079417984)

[2] [http://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(16)30438-1](http://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613\(16\)30438-1)

<comment><USER6> I was a bit confused until I noticed that this is only a partial sequence. A full antibody is considerably larger, and you also need to get the disulfide bonds formed correctly for it to work.

And I don't think it is entirely clear if expressing that antibody alone is enough to defeat HIV, especially as it targets the immune system itself. If antibodies are the solution, then developing a vaccine that triggers the production of suitable antibodies is probably the better way forward.

<comment><USER5> Yep. It's just the heavy chain. If it's expressed in vivo (in the right place) it should form properly. And N6 isn't a full cure, but it has shown therapeutic benefit. Details do matter, but the general idea still stands.

The vaccines that trigger antibody production actually are being made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tldr: guy tries to cure his hiv with home made gene therapy. It didn't work.

<comment><USER8> Not only that, but the amount of viral payload went up after treatment. Additionally his white blood cell count went up, and he got a rash and nausea a couple of days after trying this, which could point to his immune system attacking his homebrew injection. This was painful to read, and I won't be surprised if his future attempts with a larger dose result in serious life- threatening effects.

<comment><USER9> He mentioned viewing his own blood as poison after the HIV diagnosis. I can't even imagine what that's like. Definitely empathize with his need to be rid of it, but hopefully he _fully_ understands that he's experimenting with his own life, and that treatment for HIV in modern medicine means you can live a long and happy life.

<comment><USER10> Isn't HIV with the current medication "cured", since with viral load below the limit of virus tests, a person cannot transmit the virus anymore?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There will be many more people doing this sort of thing in the years ahead.

The main reason not to do it now for those genetic alterations known to exist in humans and have beneficial efforts, or to address genetic disease, would be that presently available approaches do not have reliable, high degrees of transfection. The cell coverage is low.

That is being solved. The work on gene therapy for muscular dystrophy is one line of research to watch as a marker of progress on this front.

As soon as reliable, high-enough levels of transfection are a reality, there will be a lot of unofficial gene therapy going on. The FDA and other regulators impose enormous cost and delay, as well as removing the agency of patients and those who desire enhancement rather than therapy. They will be bypassed, just as they were bypassed for stem cell therapies.

</comment><comment><USER12> Everything else aside, there was absolutely no way that this was going to work. Injecting plasmids under your skin and expecting it to change your genes is like pouring nitrous oxide on your steering wheel and expecting your car to go faster.

Even if by some miracle all of the exposed cells had decided to incorporate these random, bacteria-looking rings of DNA from the interstitial fluid into their nuclei, IT WAS INJECTED INTO THE ADIPOSE TISSUE OF HIS SKIN. ADIPOSE TISSUE DOES NOT MAKE ANTIBODIES.

I'm baffled how anyone with an ounce of expertise thought this would do anything.

<comment><USER13> Adipose tissue is not a single cell type. It has antigen presenting cells too (dendritic cells), though not as present as in nearer skin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Relatedly, here's a transcript of a recent talk about DIY gene therapy: [http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/diy-human-gene-therapy- wit...](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/diy-human-gene-therapy-with-crispr/)

</comment><comment><USER15> So basically they're engineering a strain of N6-resistant HIV. Thanks guys.

<comment><USER13> Good thing HIV is not too contagious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Despite claiming the opposite, this guys is incredibly stupid. I get the desire to hack things and make them better, I realize that we understand more about biology then ever before, but man these guys are playing with fire. You've only got one body and most people don't realize how easy it is to destroy your liver, immune system, kidneys, etc.... byond repair.

<comment><USER17> Do you have a chronic illness that will affect your quality of life and probably shorten it significantly?

I do and if there was a legit 1% chance I could cure it with a miracle treatment I'd try it no matter the side effects/risks. Worst case scenario I'd just kill myself.

This isn't about "hacking things" to make them better it's about having a bit of hope your life isn't going to be horrible forever.

<comment><USER18> > This isn't about "hacking things" to make them better it's about having a > bit of hope your life isn't going to be horrible forever.

This is also the rabbit hole of how quackery thrives, parasiting off the hope or desperation of ill people.</comment></comment></comment>


A programmer reviews Star Trek - <AUTHOR> http://www.webalon.com/blog/

<comment><USER2> I enjoyed your take on Star Trek, even though I loved it I am much more able to understand why my good friend Paul detested the film. I suppose I expected little, and some of the characters were likable (Chekov, Scottie, Kirk wasn't that bad). Give them some time, the original series only got cooking after we appreciated the characters. Films are far too short for proper character dev (especially of a large cast). I consider this film more of a new character introduction (the villain was flat, the story limited), but it served it's role as just that-> an intro.</comment>


Ask HN: Software engineering specializations - <AUTHOR>

I often hear(from some relative) about a software engineer who travels the world working as a consultant for big companies. When I hear that I ask them which tasks or job the engineer performs but they never remember.<p>I'd like to know if the fellow HN folks have some stories or personal experiences about something similar. It'd be nice to know which technologies/specializations could enable an engineer to have this kind of lifestyle. <comment><USER2> The short answer: Anything enterprise-y.

SAP, Oracle, CRM solutions, Warehouse systems, Manufacturing systems, etc can all easily lend themselves to travelling the world working for fortune 500 companies

Manufacturing and finance related gigs in particular lend well to travel. Finance because reporting is being done on a more and more granular level and oftentimes you need boots on the ground to ensure local branches adhere to correct processes and/or have compatible data. Manufacturing because you'll need to visit plants to better understand their processes since all plants are a little different and the system needs to support those differences.

</comment><comment><USER3> I interviewed with a couple of these companies and, in addition to requiring an intense travel schedule, I think I would have found the work very boring. It was mostly ETL and custom systems integration.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have to specialize in something that is both boring enough to discourage excessive competition and important to companies with a large enough budget to support that kind of engineer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Enterprise Java and the whole convoluted stack around it</comment>


Could We Build a Dyson Sphere? - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/deep/could-we-build-a-dyson-sphere-17110415 <comment><USER3> No. In even a modest(hah!)structure like Larry Niven's Ringworld the tensile strength required to hold it together exceeds that of any known material. Sorry I'm too lazy to dig up the specific reference, but I'll give you a pretty picture instead.

[http://www.dennisantinori.com/Resources/Ringworld/](http://www.dennisantinori.com/Resources/Ringworld/)

Edit: a reference

>>> Peter Weston passed the word from a British college professor: the tensile strength of the Ringworld floor needs to be on the order of the force that holds an atomic nucleus together. From such stuff you could make a garbage bag that would hold a thermonuclear explosion. [http://www.larryniven.net/stories/macrostructures.shtml](http://www.larryniven.net/stories/macrostructures.shtml)

<comment><USER4> The Ringworld only requires such enormous tensile strength because it's spun to produce gravity on the interior surface. If you don't plan to inhabit the interior surface, there's no need to spin it, and the problem goes away.

A sufficiently thin continuous sphere can be held up entirely by radiation pressure, but still presents engineering challenges with damping oscillations; a continuous structure is likely to tear itself apart just because it's practically impossible to keep everything absolutely perfectly balanced on such a large scale. Which is why, per the article, the Dyson Swarm, a sphere made of lots of independently flying satellites, is much more plausible.

Incidentally, there are ways to eliminate the tensile load on a ringworld; you "just" have to stack enough suborbital mass outside of it (coupled by maglev rails or some such set up) so that the compression balances it out.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how feasible it would be to rotate a ringworld at a speed not to replicate gravity, but to negate the sun's gravity. So at 1AU it would orbit in roughly the same length of time as Earth itself.

<comment><USER6> You'd actually want to rotate it at _slightly_ faster than orbital velocity, I think.

Tension is much stronger than compression, especially at larger scales.

But then you don't have the "nice" way of keeping the atmosphere in.

<comment><USER5> My thought was something like a Stanford Torus, because then you could simply add additional rings on different orbital inclinations to build an almost sphere out of rings (reminiscent of M.C. Eschers drawing) and given good design you could create rings with day night cycles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The engineering issues are cool to think about. Setting out to build the whole sphere at once is too much of an all-or-nothing thing IMHO. Instead, build a relatively small solar satellite in orbit around the sun at the chosen distance, maybe between Mars and the asteroid belt. Then build another one, and connect them together. Keep doing that, working towards a ring around the sun. That part should be relatively simple, since each of the pieces would be in a stable orbit by itself.

If you still need more power after that, then you consider the ring to be the equator of a sphere, and start building out the rest of the sphere, one ring of latitude at a time. Maybe build it as a basic grid or something initially, and add the solar collectors as needed. The stress would probably start to get higher and higher as you built up and down, since the pieces wouldn't be in orbit anymore, and so would rely on the structure to keep them in position and connected.

The problems in getting started are probably more along the lines of needing the kind of robot technology to gather the materials and build something like the initial satellite without much supervision, being able to gather the energy, and being able to do something useful with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> From the article:

"400 septillion watts per second"

... And the context is talking about solar output, not a rate of change.

Sigh.

<comment><USER9> Considering the source, I almost wish it was intentional - <USER2> science/engineering equivalent of a click bait headline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing the article didn't talk about in relation to the dyson swarm is that if each unit is self-contained and collecting energy, how does it then transmit that energy to ... somewhere else (presumably one of the habitation units)? Are there obvious answers I'm not thinking about for energy transmission when you don't have a physical grid of wires to move it through?

<comment><USER11> A Dyson sphere is a very large embodiment of a simple idea -- inside the sphere you have a low-entropy high-temperature energy source. Outside the sphere you have the ultimate heat sink -- space. All you need to do is harvest the energy from the heat source, and allow the waste heat to radiate into space.

Imagine a Dyson sphere surface, every square meter of which would have more than enough potential energy available for virtually any purpose. Imagine something crude like a steam-driven power plant. A facility at the sphere surface would heat water to steam below the surface, then drive a piston or turbine, then recondense the steam to water above the surface by radiating the waste energy into space.

Or one could use a thermocouple, not very efficient, but very reliable. There's a thermocouple power supply on the moon right now, it's been there for about 45 years and it's still going strong. The Curiosity Mars rover has a thermocouple power supply also. These devices exploit a temperature difference to generate electricity. Again, not very efficient, but reliable -- no moving parts.

> Are there obvious answers I'm not thinking about for energy transmission > when you don't have a physical grid of wires to move it through?

Well, there's no reason not to have wires if that's desired. Just generate electricity in one of many ways as above, then transmit it to where it's more useful. An alternative would be to live on a moon orbiting the sphere, and radiate the power up to the moon in the form of microwaves or laser beams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> QTWTAIN

</comment><comment><USER13> Ignoring the physics entirely, politics and finance would get in the way so, no.</comment>


Jerry Pournelle has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/passings/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15204772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15204772), which points to Wikipedia.

Normally this site would be the better one to post, but it's down; also the other submission was earlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a pretty big loss. Byte was my first written material on computing and Chaos Manor (Jerry's column in Byte) my first introduction to actual users of computer systems rather than programmers.

There is an avalanche of messages like these waiting just around the corner, every 'name' from the 80's in computing is now old enough to be worried about and quite a few have already departed.</comment>


Best books for learning HTML5/JavaScript Mobile Apps? - <AUTHOR>

I've been looking for a solid book or two related to HTML5/JS Mobile App Development and was wondering if anyone had some solid recommendations? <comment><USER2> I find that these types of frameworks move so fast that any book about them goes out of date almost immediately. I've been following along with IonicFramework.com's progress and their github repo.

Try just reading through their code and examples and deconstruct what they're working towards.

<comment><USER3> Anybody who worked with Sencha/ExtJS could attest to it. A few years back they were the goto mobile framework and it seems to have lost steam. The best way would be to monitor current trends and learn the design principles and frameworks that they're based off of (right now, MV* frameworks like Angular, what Ionic is using.)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to all for the input!

</comment><comment><USER4> what are some html5/javascript frameworks for building desktop GUI apps?</comment>


Volkswagen's New 300 MPG Car Is Not Allowed In America - <AUTHOR> http://themindunleashed.org/2014/04/volkswagens-new-300-mpg-car-allowed-america-efficient.html?hn=true

<comment><USER2> This article reads like a conspiracy theory: We have this awesome thing, but our overlords won't let us have it because they say [offical reason] but that's just a cover story; the real reason is [supposed evil motivation].

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly. Sounds like there's probably some kernel of truth, but there are no citations of any kind. I upvoted the post though in hopes that it gets enough attention that someone can point to credible information one way or the other.

<comment><USER4> As someone in the article's comments stated, "The reason they can't sell it in America is it violates pretty much every safety law in name of aerodynamics. No rear view mirrors, no rear window, no bumpers, no power steering (or power anything), no crumple zones, etc, etc." It's also less than half the weight of most cars on the road, so you'll probably get blown all over the road.

I'm willing to only get 50mpg if I'll actually live through a crash in my car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/xl1.asp](http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/xl1.asp)</comment>


SEOmoz Memenounces $18 Million in Series B Funding - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/dp/big-news-memeified <comment><USER2> As someone who sees dozens of press releases each week - this is one of the most refreshing I've seen. I'm sick of all of these memes, but seeing them in the context of a news release is clever.</comment>


ReactiveMongo for Scala: Unleashing MongoDB Streaming power for Realtime Web - <AUTHOR> http://stephane.godbillon.com/2012/08/30/reactivemongo-for-scala-unleashing-mongodb-streaming-capabilities-for-realtime-web

<comment><USER2> There is also a very cool sample using GridFS for storing and streaming files <https://github.com/sgodbillon/reactivemongo-demo-app>

</comment><comment><USER3> This new driver mixed with Play2 fully non-blocking/asynchronous stack opens very interesting fields of exploration and was really something missing till now in JVM world...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> or stream a live tailable collection through websocket [https://github.com/sgodbillon/reactivemongo- tailablecursor-d...](https://github.com/sgodbillon/reactivemongo- tailablecursor-demo) :)</comment>


MacPaint Evolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacPaint_Evolution.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date&topic=MacPaint <comment><AUTHOR> Go to www.macpaint.org for more info and a nice selection of classical artworks. I guess Ivan Sutherland's 1963 _Sketchpad_ was a major influence on Bill Atkinson: a pioneering program that allowed users to draw and adjust lines on a monitor with a light pen! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=495nCzxM9PI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=495nCzxM9PI)

You can try MacPaint 2.0 (updated by David Ramsey in 1988) here [https://archive.org/details/mac_Paint_2](https://archive.org/details/mac_Paint_2)</comment>


Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2012/01/judge-orders-laptop-decryption/ <comment><USER2> The Prosecutors got the password from an ex-husband, decrypted the laptop, and she took a plea shortly thereafter</comment>


This Fall, A Billion PC Users Will Wake Up To A New Desktop: Windows 8 - simba-hiiipower http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670705/microsoft-new-design-strategy#1

<comment><AUTHOR> Not me. I tried the trial just a week ago and it is an abysmal user experience, especially for developers.

Windows 8 will be the next Windows Vista 32-bit for Microsoft.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I think someone who calls themselves PythonDeveloper is likely a little biased. I personally like the design of Windows 8 and think a lot of the Windows apps are looking a lot better more recently. I think Win8 will be a success, but there is no question it will be better than Vista. I don't know how you could even try and compare Win8 to that piece of junk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Clearly, you are unaware that Python runs on every operating system.

I've been developing on Windows since 1.0. Windows 8 is a huge steaming pile of camel dung, in my humble opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I knocked my housemate's iPad on the floor. Should I tell her? - <AUTHOR>

The iPad was resting on a coffee table, which is around 50cm (1.6 foot) high. It was connected to a speaker cable via headphone jack and when I moved the speaker, the iPad was knocked onto the floor.
No screen damage and the iPad works.
Should I tell her?
I am concerned that I would automatically be blamed if anything were to happen to the iPad in the future. <comment><USER2> The 'right' thing to do is to tell her. This is trust building and makes you vulnerable. By doing this, you also acknowledge that you trust her to do the right thing should she encounter a problem with the iPad down the track or accidentally bumps something of yours.

</comment><comment> yep-sure Mate, tell her. It will help build a stronger, trustful relationship with the person you are living with.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, you should tell her.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes

</comment><comment><USER5> if no visible damage, i would go with no.

</comment><comment><USER6> Suppose you had to purchase her a new iPad. What would that cost?

Now suppose you didnt tell her. Even were it undamaged what would that cost you?

If we lose our self respect we have nothing.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Google down? - <AUTHOR>

As of now 6/3, 1:30am pst, I can't access www.google.com, and all my App Engine apps.  Can anyone else confirm? <comment><USER2> Not down for me. You can also check here: <http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/google.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.google.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> No issues detected <http://code.google.com/status/appengine>

</comment><comment><USER5> .co.uk is up at 09:31 GMT and .com pings fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can you tell us where in the world you are?

</comment><comment><USER7> .com.sg is up

</comment><comment><USER8> .co.za is up</comment>


Economics Can't Answer Why Inequality Sometimes Declines - <AUTHOR> http://peterturchin.com/blog/2015/11/01/economics-cant-answer-why-inequality-sometimes-declines/ <comment><USER3> This article is a little odd - it mentions Branko Milanovic yet completely dismisses without argument Milanovic's primary and extremely well supported result: globalization drastically reduces inequality.

Before globalization, some people (e.g. American auto workers) held extremely privileged positions by virtue of threats of violence against economic competitors - particularly those overseas. Globalization has reduced (though not eliminated) these violent threats and has drastically reduced inequality.

This is one of Milanovic's key graphs: [http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/imce/fig2_0.png](http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/imce/fig2_0.png)

This is his other key graph: [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0we_c3Ob8Ds/UrDEMjcK3MI/AAAAAAAAEb...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0we_c3Ob8Ds/UrDEMjcK3MI/AAAAAAAAEb8/Izydk1Hsi8I/s1600/milanovic+1.jpg)

One of his more detailed arguments: [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVRES/Resources/47722...](http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVRES/Resources/477227-1142020443961/Module5_chap9_10.pdf)

Economics has already answered why inequality has dropped drastically in the past 20-30 years. Some folks just don't like the fact that the answer is capitalism.

<comment><USER4> > globalization drastically reduces inequality

Maybe it reduces inequality between countries, but does it reduce inequality between people (different social classes within countries)?

> some people (e.g. American auto workers) held extremely privileged positions > by virtue of threats of violence against economic competitors - <USER2> > those overseas

Really? I thought they produced cars mainly for the internal market.. I don't see much evidence of any "threats of violence" coming from auto workers to the rest of the world.

To make myself more clear, I am willing to accept the globalization (or capitalism) reducing inequality globally as a positive thing, if it wouldn't increase inequality inside the developed countries. But that's not what really happened (profits of Western corporations are all-time high) and that's why it's a cause for concern.

<comment><USER3> It reduces inequality between people, such as an American auto worker and a Chinese auto worker.

 _I don 't see much evidence of any "threats of violence" coming from auto workers to the rest of the world._

Think about what happens when a Mexican attempts to walk to Detroit and apply for a job at GM. Violence will be used against him, and against GM, if they voluntarily transact.

Or think of what happens today when a Brazilian sugar manufacturer attempts to sell sugar to willing purchasers in the US.

If you care so much about inequality within political boundaries, why not just move the boundaries to reduce inequality?

<comment><USER5> _Think about what happens when a Mexican attempts to walk to Detroit and apply for a job at GM. Violence will be used against him, and against GM, if they voluntarily transact._

GM and Mexicans can't also voluntarily transact in my kitchen or in the foyer of my building regardless of what impact it would have on inequality. Violence would be used against them if they tried.

Other citizens have certain rights, that are a lot like property rights in condominiums or HoAs for example, to decide what happens in their country. If GM and Mexicans want to voluntarily transact, they can do it in Mexico, should Mexicans allow it, or some third country where they're both welcome.

Your argument is basically an argument for communism (as in common ownership, not any particular political system): if some people have what others need, why not just redistribute it?

<comment><USER3> No one can transact in your home without your permission, but the issue here is that I can't transact with a Mexican in my home either.

I'm arguing for capitalism, and against economic protectionism. Where do you get the idea that I favor redistributing wealth?

<comment><USER5> Right. The issue is analogous to the shared foyer of a building (where you also often cannot transact with random non-residents).

You argue that people who currently have a right to their country (citizens) should abolish its borders and allow anyone to move in. Which would be like residents of a building allowing anyone into the shared space. The value of access to that shared space is what would be redistributed from residents to non-residents (leaving its depreciation in the process aside). The step from this intangible to more concrete wealth is minor, especially since, as you've pointed out, it has significant dollar value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lately I have the feeling that, because Marx have so bad press, people is reinventing Marxism with other name.

The author say: "In Piketty's view, the only reason we don't see such extremes is because some kind of random event always intervenes before we get to it"

And then: "I think Walter is on to something, and his theory can be made endogenous. That is, when inequality becomes too high, the chance of a state collapse or transformative revolution increases."

What are those but crisis of capitalism?

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree that technology probably works to increase inequality overall.

The whole point of technology is to increase the power of the individual wielding it. As such, military and surveillance technology enables smaller groups of elites to maintain their position in the face of larger and larger groups of revolutionaries.

<comment><USER8> what do you think the result of the printing press on social stratification was?

<comment><USER9> Not the OP, but I'll take a stab at it: In increased the separation between those who could read, and those who could not, _because there was more to read_. Note well: that separation was along a skill line, not along a class line (though the skill was largely but not completely correlated with class at that time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> interesting comment from Peter Richerson:

 _It seems to me that political struggle can reduce inequality without necessarily [much] violence. Labor agitation in the US from the late 19th century through the 1950s played a large coercive role in reducing inequality. The US elite faced a choice, give labor a fairer share of the economic pie or eventually face revolution. Led by FDR and like minded actors, the political elite pushed the business elite to reduce inequality to avoid revolution. Whether this would have happened without two mass mobilization wars is an open question, but union organizing and the agitation of radical political parties struck fear into the elite, hence the Palmer Raids and Edgar Hoover's excesses. But those creeps were middle class boys on the make, scaremongering the elites in the pursuit of elite position for themselves. They may have help the egalitarians be exaggerating the power of the "Reds." A credible threat of revolution can coerce elites pretty effectively.

Even Gandhian non-violence can be very effective. If you can organize a large mass of non-elites fanatically committed to non-violence, the elite has to worry what might happen if the non-violent fanatics suddenly got violently angry. The CP of China seems to really fear apparently harmless mass organizations like Falun Gong. Apolitical mass organizations are a threat to elites if inegalitarian or otherwise unfair treatment of commoners is common. Any such organization can morph into violent resistance at the drop of an atrocity._

link to richerson's work: [http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htm](http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htm)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "as the population gets larger wealth gets more concentrated. Even so, the very richest person holds a smaller fraction of the total wealth." [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/01/future-wealth- inequity...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/01/future-wealth- inequity.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is so true and I wish economists and other social scientists would research that more.

In general, we know many factors that decrease general level of trust (sometimes called "social capital") in the society. This is sometimes tied to inequality. But we don't know many reliable factors of how to actually increase trust, yet we intuitively understand that it is very closely related to well-being.

Heck, we don't even know how to reliably increase trust between individuals, for example in failing relationship. I think this is one of the biggest open problems in psychology and sociology.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a Very interesting talk about inequality and risk by Paul Graham.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpD_Sz_ZWPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpD_Sz_ZWPk)

</comment><comment><USER11> Question is whether we measure in/equality correctly. Is wealth really a good metrics of how equal we are? I would argue that it doesn't.

Look at a simple example - health care. In developed contries, does an idividual "worth" 10x receive 10x better health care? Not realy. Is it 2x better? I doubt. Sould you get a cancer, wealth buys you comfort, but not chances for survival.

<comment><USER12> > In developed contries, does an idividual "worth" 10x receive 10x better > health care? Not realy. Is it 2x better? I doubt.

They do use life expectancy (which is a result of health standards) as a measure of inequality. Using my wife's country of origin as an example, their life expectancy is nearly 20 years less than Canada, France, or Japan.</comment></comment>


What are you doing to feel uncomfortable? - <AUTHOR> http://joel.is/post/6211105959/what-are-you-doing-to-feel-uncomfortable <comment><USER2> A non-sequitur. I assumed this was another "Joel on Software" blogpost, because of the name... I read the article, all seemed inline with something Joel would write, then got the end and though "Goddamn... the last 2 weeks at the gym have been kind to Joel."

Then I realized it was two separate Joel's.

As for the article, any commitments on the diet front? Do you find if you commit to too many new routines (gym, eating, sleeping, working, being productive) you run out of will-power-gas before the day is out, making it harder to pickup the commitments the following day?

This relates to the "How to get important things done" article from a few weeks ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2582913>

and the ensuing willpower discussion I think. Would like to hear your thoughts on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I could only hope to achieve even half of what Joel Spolsky has :)

I've previously written about how I created my sleep ritual (<http://joel.is/post/5303723252/creating-a-sleep-ritual>) and what you mention about committing to too many routines has been key for me. I'd say that is the reason I've not managed it until now and also the reason I've managed to put a decent routine in place now and I'm able to keep adjusting it and improving it.

I think the key is to adjust one thing at a time until it becomes a "ritual" we are pulled towards rather than a "routine" which we force ourselves to do. At first, I got up at 6am and went to the gym at 6:30. Over time, I've gradually got up earlier and earlier so that now I am starting to get up at 4:30am and have 1.5hrs of productive work time before I go to the gym. I've also adjusted my exercise routine at the gym whereas before just getting there was hard enough.

I don't do a whole lot in terms of diet right now, however I want to soon when the current routine becomes more comfortable.

The article you mention is written by Tony Schwartz who I've mentioned in my post, and I can't recommend his book "The Power of Full Engagement" enough. The two main things I took away from it were the importance of renewal (I now break up my day with various activities, such as the gym, meals, or reading a book for 20 minutes) and relating tasks to my core values (this is related to Simon Sinek's "Start with Why").

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> interviewing at startups despite past rejections, bidding on and winning freelance projects despite flakey clients in the past, competing in coding competitions despite the fact I'm not highly ranked, quitting a lucrative full-time job to pursue my own interests and grow as a person. Sometimes the above lead to uncomfortable feelings. However the mental and spiritual growth upsides always out-weigh the downsides.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mixergy has an interview this week with James Altucher who coincidentally provided some of the same advice. When his company crashed after the bubble he started an exercise routine and forced himself to start getting up at 6:30 am every day as he started a new business.

He also spoke of making himself uncomfortable as he reached out daily to people he didn't know in search of customers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Devil's Advocate:

What if I keep trying new things that make me uncomfortable but all I do is fail with no sign of improvement?

<comment><USER6> Love the question. :) A few ideas:

        - You're not putting in enough effort.
        - You give up and move onto the next thing too quickly.
        - You're stretching yourself too far beyond your current abilities.
        - You're not analyzing, criticizing, and actively improving yourself well enough.
        - You're lacking in useful resources, such as good books or a good mentor to
          help you overcome hurdles.
        - You're picking things merely because they're uncomfortable and cannot be
          improved upon (e.g. sitting on a knife).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fiona Apple's song _Extraordinary Machine_ , off the homonymous album, tells the same story:

 _"he's no good at being uncomfortable, so he can't stop staying exactly the same"_

I don't think I've listened to a more instructive lyrical album than that one. But your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER8> s/homonymous/eponymous

Good observation, though--I thought the same when I heard that song for the first time.

<comment><USER7> Doesn't eponymous mean that it's named after the band? Homonymous in this case means the album has the same name as the song -- Extraordinary Machine.

Also, you're missing a trailing slash. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can really identify with the sentiments lined in this post as one of the things I've added to my life is trying to learn the piano, an instrument which seemed all but impossible since I'm not a very coordinated person, especially when playing with both hands.

So far, I'm two weeks into it and progress has been surprising. Sure, I have difficulty getting both hands to work together, but it's coming together rather nicely and my brain is getting a workout as it's trying to coordinate the two hands. Add to that the confidence it gives me in not only approaching a task where I can potentially fail, but transforming those failures into the grit and determination to succeed. I can definitely see this learning process paying back through the confidence it gives me.

</comment><comment><USER10> I did my first (short) triathlon today! I was pretty nervous getting there this morning, but everyone involved was awesome, and some friends showed up to cheer me on. It turned out great, and now I'm looking for the next big challenge.

</comment><comment><USER11> Absolutely agree with this. If you aren't scared, you're being too comfortable and not reaching for heights that are incredibly difficult but radically rewarding.

</comment><comment><USER12> In agreement with the article. Without bringing about an internal conflict, there can be no mental or spiritual growth.

</comment><comment><USER13> I completely agree with this statement. True intelligence is self-discipline, and it takes discipline to understand that you won't grow unless you try out new things. And oftentimes, these new things will make you feel uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice ideas, but I feel that the examples are a little too basic: speaking and exercising are what I consider to be indispensable for everyone, almost something like brushing your teeth in the morning.

<comment><USER15> I'm having a problem where I've challenged myself so much in little ways and built myself up so far, that in order to improve past this point, I see extremely huge frightening tasks in my future. Past the point of discomfort, I am looking at staggering terror ahead. (I wish I could elaborate, but unfortunately I have to keep my current situation to myself.) I guess in terms of public speaking, it would be the equivalent of addressing an audience of a million, as opposed to a hundred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Scrappy broke startups are uncomfortable, not so much by choice, but necessity.

</comment><comment><USER17> don't feel uncomfortable because you just want to feel uncomfortable... feel uncomfortable because you want to win the big prize... train like Rocky!

</comment><comment><USER18> I didn't shower today or yesterday, or the day before. I really need to shower, but I'm hacking now.</comment>


Who patronizes small retailers? - <AUTHOR> http://cityobservatory.org/who-patronizes-small-retailers/ <comment><AUTHOR> The dataset provided by the JPMorganChase Institute is freely available:

[https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/institute/document/l...](https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/institute/document/lcc_fulldata.zip)</comment>


Humans can develop echolocation like dolphins and bats - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Humans-can-develop-echolocation-like-dolphins-and-bats/articleshow/4723677.cms

<comment><USER2> See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=687962>

And when going to the page I had three ad popups try to take over my machine - I had to resort to a kill command to close the windows. Last time I go to an "India Times" article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. And agreed. India Times is very poor w.r.t that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a joke, right? All these supposed researchers are saying is that "it's possible for humans to echolocate, provide we figure out how to do it".</comment>


How DNA Testing Is Changing Fatherhood  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22Paternity-t.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> When it becomes the state's responsibility to enforce fatherhood responsibility it lessens the need for women to select for decent fathers in the first place.

The times are a changing. [http://www.overcomingbias.com/c/10/forager-v- farmer-future.h...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/c/10/forager-v-farmer- future.html)

<comment><USER3> that link isn't working for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (2009)</comment>


Ask HN:  What FaceBook 'ScreenNames' were you able to capture? - <AUTHOR>

I saw some good ones disapear quickly:
Facebook.com/
   -innovation
   -nanotech
   -solar
   -etc...
What did you walk away with? <comment><USER2> An honest question: Is there real value in these usernames other than convenience and ease of typing? It seems unlikely to me that Facebook would allow any kind of selling of the names in the future. On top of that, your username is permanently linked to your account so unless you're using a fake account registered before their cutoff time, you're stuck with it for your real account. Is it to get more traffic to your profile from popular keywords? Somehow monetized with links? Either you lose your real profile or you were able to make a fake account.

I mean, I see value only if the username is relevant to the person choosing it but otherwise what's the point of -nanotech, -solar, etc. other than comic value?

BTW, I stuck with mdolon for my username. =P

<comment><USER3> Facebook are pretty adamant there'll never be a secondary market for usernames. They're not transferrable and if you quit Facebook, your username won't be reusable.

I see this as a move on their part to encourage real names in profiles and made-up names in usernames. The value in the Facebook ecosystem is that people are who they say they are, that's potentially much more valuable than eBay's ratings system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> errant was protected apparently :(

But I got errantx without any sweat at 10am GMT.

</comment><comment><USER5> The best: daniel.tenner</comment>