How TripAdvisor Changed Travel - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/17/how-tripadvisor-changed-travel <comment><USER2> I do a lot of traveling. My experience improved dramatically when I stopped using TripAdvisor and similar apps. I just go with the flow. Talk to real people. Like a bunch of American tourists (insert any country here) would know what, say, authentic Thai food is supposed to taste like. It all comes down to a bunch of -at best- uninformed people ranking stuff, at worst fake reviewers, bots and scammers. Why would I want that?

The worst part is that now if I don't want to look at their stupid logo, it's not enough to uninstall the app. They are everywhere. Restaurants and hotels begging for you to rank them positively, lest you enrage the child gods and send their business into ruin. Beautifully serene temples disgraced by a 15 foot high real life Tripadvisor logo to commemorate that they made it into the top 10 that year. A temple going back more than one thousand years, with trees and rock and the shitty green and black TripAdvisor logo ruining everything. It made me very sad.

<comment><USER3> I agree that Tripadvisor is useless for restaurants, but how do you find/book hotels? In general hotels are more expensive when booked directly and not through an aggregator, however, how do you even _find_ them without sites like Tripadvisor?

<comment><USER4> The big US chains are always cheaper directly (Marriott/Hilton/IHG/Wyndham/Choice). Use roomkey.com and you can search them all at once. This is because the brands own room key so they don't pay commission so pass on some of the savings to you.

You can also contact a hotel directly and say you're thinking about reserving on so and so website (aka travel agent), and if you reserve directly, they might give you a discount for not having to pay commission.

<comment><USER5> I find there is a problem here - hotel chains "sell" some of their room-nights (#) to the third party channels. I think it works like options - but it means I phone the hotel to book a room i can see is available on all these third party sites (including trip advisor) but the hotel cannot sell that room-night to me because the channel has first dibs.

which seems like the hotel is cutting off its own nose

(#) notnsure of the industry term but you get the idea

<comment><USER4> None of the big US brands do that. They each have a best price guarantee that gives you a free night or 50% off or something if you are able to reserve for cheaper than on their official website.

The only thing they might engage in is opaque pricing, which is Priceline and hotwire auction. But that is different since it's not a publicly advertised price, the buyer puts in how much they want to pay and they are stuck with whatever hotel Priceline or hotwire give them.

But reputable hotels don't resort to that since that attracts price sensitive guests that aren't desirable anyway, such as prostitutes and drug dealers.

<comment><USER6> > But reputable hotels don't resort to that since that attracts price > sensitive guests that aren't desirable anyway, such as prostitutes and drug > dealers.

Maybe at the 1 or 2 star level, but every other hotel on the planet secretly loves the price discrimination that Priceline and Hotwire offer.

You won't see a $1400/night boutique hotel on there, but a $300/night place will offload for half the price if they're relatively unbooked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm fed up with TripAdvisor, Yelp and similar review sites. Too many of the negative reviews are off topic and they bring down the overall ratings (similar issue for positive reviews as well... people tend to rate things they love or hate, but not things in the middle). For example, Amazon is loaded with one-star reviews from people complaining that they received counterfeit items. This has nothing to do with the product itself and everything to do with a supply chain issue at Amazon (and more so its 3rd party merchants). Similarly, on TripAdvisor and Yelp, I regularly see one star reviews from people who have a specific issue and don't review hotels/restaurants on their own terms. For example, if you are a health nut, you really aught to not post a review of a BBQ joint to complain about lack of healthy options. Family taking a vacation? Don't post reviews of a hotel in the financial district that caters to business travelers because you are upset that they lack good facilities for kids. I highly prefer professional reviewers who have a breadth of experience and also know to review movies on their own terms. That's why I find the aggregated professional movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes more helpful than the crowd-sourced reviews on IMDB.

I think there's a solution that would _help_ the problem a bit though. Have two tiers of reviewers. For example, on TripAdvisor, the first tier would include everyone, similar to what you have right now. Second tier would be an aggregated number by "gold" reviewers. To qualify, a gold reviewer would need to have:

\- More than _N_ number of reviews

\- An individual review would only count if it was more than a minimum number of words

\- Let users mark reviews as helpful or not helpful. A gold user will need to be above a threshold for percentage of helpful vs not helpful reviews, with a minimum number of helpful reviews.

Amazon already marks some reviewers as being, for example, a "top 1000 reviewer". What I'd like to see is for those top tier reviewers' reviews to be broken out as a separate score.

<comment><USER8> is there a term to express our this era technology is just allowing useless noise to pass as signal ?

when myspace et al started to pop, web 2.0, dynamic webpage interactions was the fastest way to heaven, now it seems we read the map upside down.

ps: maybe we're rediscovering how mobs are bad

<comment><USER9> There is a great flattening in what it once took to publish a thought or an idea and have it reach an audience. Unfortunately almost everybody is deluded, insane, stupid, at the very least totally uninsightful - or some sort of weird combination of all these things.

The web is a great place to be uninformed or even deceitful, I strive to be cognizant of this.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand the last part of your comment. But I wonder hard almost weekly about that flattening effect of the computer era.

People (and I at times) complained how institutions were imposing too much on whatever content (articles, music, movies). Without their curating effect, everything goes. Some say it's better because now you're sure you'll never miss a great thing that would have been killed by some radio or studio. But I'm less and less convinced of that.

<comment><USER9> I was thinking about that part of my comment and I believe what I failed to convey was that there seems to be no real cultural or educational priority to question what you see communicated on the internet, at least to my limited understanding.

<comment><USER8> I think culture needs to hit the wall and then people will re-learn that tech is not a magic bullet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really strange to see the negative comments. My favorite thing about TripAdvisor is that I feel empowered when I have a terrible experience at a venue. I can just go leave them a crappy review. It's very cathartic.

Also, I find most of the reviews to be generally accurate. It sounds like other people disagree with that which is strange. I've never used TripAdvisor to find a restaurant or a hotel and then felt like the reviews were faked.

<comment><USER11> i think your story is a great example of why open review aggregation sites are a broken model.

these reviews are not comprehensive. a lot of people only go there to post about a shitty experience or out-of-this-world experience. it's also broken in situations where reviewers are not familiar with the culture or standards of the place they're visiting, i.e. critiquing the service/cleanliness/decor of an authentic hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant.

<comment><USER4> Why would you not want to be aware of bad service or cleanliness in a restaurant?

<comment><USER11> because there's a different standard you should hold a street hawker to vs a high end restaurant.

to be clear, you should be paying attention to the tastiness of the food (usually comfort food) and the atmosphere of something like a street stand in asia, where you might comment on attention to detail and innovation at someplace like coi.

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, clean and not bad service is a standard every restaurant should be able to meet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I look at TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other regional restaurant review sites. Tablelog is the only one with overall ratings that seem to reflect reality, but that's Japan only. Even though the big two are more noise than signal as far as reviews go, at least I can see pictures. Often I use these sites while sitting in the place to decide what to order. I'm starting to use Google Maps more because TripAdvisor and Yelp sites suck so bad and I refuse to install their low quality, spammy apps. What I wish existed:

\- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.

\- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.

\- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only the best quality ones that are recent.

\- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a stream of photos of the food.

\- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into searchable text.

\- Let me privately rate the food.

I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course. Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.

<comment><USER3> > Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, > etc.

I agree that photos of people are ridiculous, but I want photos of the interior. The ambiance of a place is even more important than the quality of the food (to me), and it's one of the attributes hardest to portray in reviews (mostly because people who review are not professional reviewers). Good photos help here.

<comment><USER12> Fair enough. What makes a good interior shot is more subjective. The idea with the food pics is that it's very easy to tell which photo of the same thing is better.

I think the big sites must know this and they could do it, but users who contribute might get discouraged if they throw out so many uploads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tips that have improved my travel experience:

1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much of its income from tourism.

2) Trip length: not too long, not too short.

3) Make a loose itinerary, but rip it up occasionally.

4) Bring a phone, but no laptop. Don't use TripAdvisor/Yelp/etc. Ask around. Walk around. Have strange conversations. Don't be afraid to stay in non- traditional lodging.

5) Invest in a place before you go: learn some of the language, read a great book from the place, etc. This will make it much more interesting and memorable.

6) Don't go on trips just because your friends posted about their "amazing" vacations and you feel like you have to go, too. Travel sucks if the excitement doesn't come from within.

7) If you're on a limited budget, don't go to expensive cities and scrimp. It's no fun. Go to cheaper cities and splurge. Or have a blast and go camping with your friends a short drive away.

8) Get fit and dress nicely. Whether you like it or not, this is how people judge you. It's easier to be a good-looking guy/gal in a new place.

Happy travels! :-)

<comment><USER14> | 1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much of its income from tourism.

This is good advice. Generally the "second cities" of a country gives a better experience. More open borders and intermixing has been wonderful, but it does mean that a lot of capital/primary cities feel very similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've seen a _lot_ of cases here in SE Asia of restaurants and hotels posting fake bad reviews of their competitors' businesses. It's commonplace enough now that I generally disregard TripAdvisor ratings.

</comment><comment><USER16> This :

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

says everything you really need to know about TripAdvisor and their ilk.

</comment><comment><USER17> I travel quite often. My 2 cents are: look at the 1 star reviews. If the one star reviews are less than 1:500 and the pictures are that of a well designed restaurant, it should be good with a 99% chance. Obviously, that's kinda hard to find - but that should be the threshold.

Regarding hotels/apartments:

On Booking it should be 9.1+ And it should have an amazingly curated breakfast (check the pics too).

On Airbnb it should be either a "plus" or a "super host" with 5 star reviews only. Read the reviews tho. They often mention noises or lack of hot water. Those might be considered red flags.

And as a general rule of thumb, when you think you're getting a great deal because it's cheap, you're not. Trust me, you're not. Following the above advice, I never ever had a bad experience - but it definitely costed above average.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're the kind of person who likes unstructured travel instead of a checklist to get all those instagram pics, TripAdvisor really isn't the place you should be going. I recently used Yelp/TA in Jamaica and it put us at Rick's Cafe, one of the most highly rated and visited places in all of Jamaica. They had a gift shop and their $25 "jerk chicken" was literally baked chicken breast covered in barbecue sauce. Absolutely embarrassing and I felt shame for even giving them my money. I could have gone across the street to any jerk center and got something an order of magnitude better for 5 bucks.

<comment><USER19> this is why I agree with panoramix comment; ditch yelp and travel advisor and talk to the locals. It's like using Waze during rush hour, it steers everyone to the same route and in this case tourists trap. Not that the locals are always right either, as tastes differ, but it sets you off in the right direction.

... and yeah Rick's Cafe is overrated. You want to find the places before they become the "it" place to be put on the 'gram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Highlights the larger problem that reviews have become untrustworthy and overwhelming for all but the most gullible and most discerning. The middle is stuck in roughly the same place they'd be without any reviews at all.

</comment><comment><USER20> Simple rule for using TripAdvisor in any even vaguely touristy place: Ignore the top ~20 or so restaurants/hotels when sorted by rating. You can pretty much guarantee that at a minimum, they're soliciting reviews from a pool of satisfied customers, and a good chunk of them are just flat out buying reviews. This rule doesn't work as well for attractions, since the big ones tend to make their way to the top regardless, but the attraction list is pretty useful on its own if you dig down a ways. I've found lots of interesting small places that I'd have never otherwise found down in the sub-50th percentile rated attractions.

I do generally like the trick mentioned below of only looking at bad reviews, but I'm fairly relaxed about certain things. Bad neighborhood, overpriced food, poor valet service? Meh, don't care. Room smells of smoke? Not staying there. Most of my hotel research is based on filtering out unacceptable things, rather than optimizing the positive aspects.

For hotels, I have vaguely more trust in booking.com reviews, since in theory you have to stay at a hotel to leave a review there. (I do mention every time in these threads that the booking.com review scale is wack, and the median score was actually something like 8.1/10 when I scraped a lot of them, so take those 7.0 "Good" ratings with a grain of salt). In theory in the US Opentable ratings would work the same way for restaurants, but that's restricting the pool of restaurants to those that take reservations, and I don't use those ratings myself, so I'm not totally sure how accurate it is. Still probably beats Yelp, and definitely beats TripAdvisor.

</comment><comment><USER21> I found this article to be very well written and brought up new facets of this problem that I hadn't previously considered. It was a great read.

<comment><USER22> The Guardian has fairly decent journalists working for them. I don't always agree with their politics, and the writing isn't as good as it was, say, 10 years ago but pieces like this show it is still of a high quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Based on previous posts I feel comfortable sharing a project with the HN community in this thread. It's a web app with for anyone to post travel related tips/thoughts. I'm open to honest feedback. www.worldpeer.com Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER24> The main problem I have with tripadvisor ratings is that they don't actually give you a quality guide.

A 5 star tripadvisor rating doesn't mean the 2 star hotel under review is actually a 5 star property, merely that most people enjoyed themselves and got what they expected. Which also means that allegedly 4 and 5 star properties that are crap can get great reviews if their customers are ignorant but leave happy...

And that's before you get into the area of honesty, competing motives etc etc

</comment><comment><USER25> I hope that many reviews help having a better idea of the place before going, but I don't trust them too much, for they can be not authentic, or driven by personal feelings. I rely more on qualified reviews like lonely planet guides, 8 out of 10 times they work well for me, and the remaining times are just average, nothing too bad.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any good alternatives to TripAdvisor?

What about: \- Conde Nast [www.condenast.com] \- TripSavvy [www.tripsavvy.com]

<comment><USER27> I use wikitravel and buy books from publishers like lonely planet. If I rent a car, i always try to find some smart-phone app that can do narration based on location. A lot of these apps are done by a local person/company and provide information on what their favorite places are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just... _go_ places.</comment>


Airbus A380 engine explodes, forcing emergency landing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/world/plane-engine-explodes.html <comment><USER2> I was thinking about this the other day. This airplane is functioning fine with a failure like that. On the other hand my bug took down the entire fleet of servers the other day. It's terrifying because bug was in the unit tests!

As an industry we suck as reliability and failure handling!

<comment><USER3> Well, we might not be doing all that badly. Today's computer applications run on machines with billions of components. The machines execute billions of instructions with only a few observable errors. It is something of a miracle that anything works at all.</comment></comment>


Zip Files All The Way Down - <AUTHOR> http://research.swtch.com/2010/03/zip-files-all-way-down.html <comment><USER2> Emailing that zip file would probably break most mail based virus checkers. I doubt the people who wrote them anticipated an infinite zip file. Too large, sure, but infinite? Probably not.

<comment><USER3> I have a terabyte of zeros in a zip file somewhere. Virus checkers don't really have a problem with it, though.

<comment><USER4> what did you use that for?

<comment><USER5> A guess it's always good to have a stash. In case you run out of them.

<comment><USER6> I don't know what good an archive of zeroes is, unless he's also got an archive of ones to draw from as well.

<comment><USER5> Please consult Feynman's Lectures on Computer Science and see the errors of your way.

(Zeros are as good as ones and converting doesn't cost high-quality energy. It's deleting information. Thus going from an unknown state to a defined state cost high-quality energy, i.e. has to increase entropy elsewhere.)

<comment><USER7> That's why I have two zip files, one with zeros, one with ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This brings back memories of trying to crash BBS uploaded file verifiers by sending massively compressed files that would crash the board when unzipped. Ahhh the memories..

<comment><USER6> In college we used to do nasty things to the PBX system. It was smart enough to detect and prevent forwarding a number to itself -- if you did it using the internal 4-digit extension. But if you forwarded to yourself via 9+direct- dial-number, it couldn't detect that.

So we'd forward the phone that way, then call it from another line. You'd hear a sequence of clicks, progressively quieter (why? isn't it all digital?), and then it would just stop, presumably because all external lines were used up.

Farther off topic, the phone system had a weird feature: dialing #*5 would say back to you 3 (apparently) random digits. This was good for chemistry lab, if you needed to fudge some data and wanted to introduce a believable error factor into it.

<comment><USER9> It gets quieter because of the transmission loss plan. Historical reasons, basically.

Since analog connections lose power with distance, there was defined an acceptable maximum loss for each segment in the network. If a line came in too hot, a "pad" was added to dissipate some power at the receiving end. If it was too low, the circuit was out of spec and had to be re-engineered.

At the other end of the telephone switch, an amplifier was added to jack up all the outgoing signals to the proper amplitude for the transmission network.

All this amplification and loss was necessary to make sure that all telephone calls had about the same volume. The network didn't all switch over to digital switching and transmission in one day (in fact there are some analog interoffice circuits still in use to this day in Alaska), so we retained some vestiges of the loss plan.

It's pretty likely that your PBX system connected to the network over analog lines anyway. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quines are easy in Python. A 0-byte python source file outputs itself when run. :)

<comment><USER11> also a palindrome

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My favorite quine is in Factor:

      [ [ dup curry ] dup curry ]

(Credit to Slava Pestov)

When called, it puts [ dup curry ] on the stack, then creates a copy of it on the stack. curry then takes the second block from the stack and prepends it to the first. Rather than being a program that evaluates to its code, it's a code block that evaluates to itself (similar to most Scheme/Lisp quines).

(Off topic note: I originally read the title of the article as "Zip Flies All The Way Down" and was wondering what zipping my fly down had to do with hacker news.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Note the relevance to HN and the y-combinator, since this represents a fixed point for the zip function.

<comment><USER5> But--does it represent the least fixed point?

And isn't it rather the fixed point of the unzip function? (Is `zip' even a function (i.e. is `unzip' injective?))

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I'm writing programs for myself, sometimes I make the perl program write itself out as the config file with a config hash as the __data__. When the program runs, it tests if the config file doesn't exist or is an older version of the program. I don't know if it has any real use, but it's fun to write :D

<comment><USER5> Do you cheat (i.e. reading back the source file), or do you write real quines?

<comment><USER14> I read back the source file so it still contains the comments.

<comment><USER5> Real quines can contain comments, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is really bad on Safari, which attempts to unzip archives automatically. Whatever you do don't download the zip if you have it set to unarchive automatically.</comment>


Learning from Apple: Determining the Right Metrics for Your Business - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kera.io/post/34203346293/learning-from-apple-determining-the-right-metrics-for

<comment><USER2> Taige has been writing some great stuff, this is no exception. I am looking forward to the next one!</comment>


Google Launches Nearby APIs for Android and iOS - <AUTHOR> http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2015/07/connect-with-world-around-you-through.html

<comment><USER2> This looks pretty rad - modulo the normal qualm of sharing all your location data with google, of course. I've been fiddling around with a lot of ideas for geolocated X on mobile (local chat, virtual graffiti, flashmob coordinators, etc) and the infrastructure to decide who is where is a bit heavy. Farming that to google at least for the MVP stage seems like a reasonable decision. Then, if we decide that google's tracking is a significant barrier to user adoption, we can roll our own once we're happy with how it's going.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of Streetpass on the 3DS, one of my favorite featueres of that Nintendo handheld. This opens up all sorts of awesome possibilities for mobile games if it works as Streetpass currently works.</comment>


Singularly Stupid - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/02/04/singularly-stupid/

<comment><USER2> "Philip Greenspun Writes About the Singularity," or, "How to Do It Wrong!"

 _What would you call people who pay $25,000 for a nine-week course of study with a collection of Silicon Valley optimists? "Singularly Stupid"?_

Name calling. This can in no way contribute to any discussion where understanding is the goal. Arguably, it follows that the rest of the essay is not intended to help people's understanding.

 _The idea of the singularity is that technology, especially in the form of artifically intelligent robots, will solve all of our problems and technological advance will speed up exponentially starting roughly around the year 2030._

The point is that the rate of advances in nearly all fields _is_ exponential. Doubly exponential, in fact. That is, the exponent is growing at an exponential rate. And it's not that all of our problems will be solved, it's that the advances will be so dramatic that rules derived from how things are now--this side of the singularity--are useless for understanding what happens after the singularity.

 _So far technology innovation hasn't outstripped Malthusian human population growth. We can grow more food more efficiently, but the number of human mouths to feed has grown just about as fast, so that we struggle to feed everyone. A lot of what we've done over the past few hundred years has come at the cost of using up the Earth, e.g., clearing forest for farmland or digging up coal and oil and lighting it on fire, taking all of the Cod out of the North Atlantic._

One of the most blatant straw men I've seen in a long time. First, technological innovation hasn't outstripped Malthusian population growth because technological innovation _is the cause of it!_ Frankly, there are a lot of sad things about having 6 billion people on earth, but I think that about 6 billion of them would vote against programs that say, reduced the food supply.

Second, this ignores the amount of stuff we are able to get out of a unit of matter taken from the environment, and the amount of pollution produced by a unit measure of production, and the amount of dispersal for a given amount of pollution. In short, it categorically ignores any good that can have come from technology.

 _Far from freeing us from cleaning the house, Artificial Intelligence thus far has failed to live up to promises made by professors seeking research funding in 1960 (that reminds me I need to do laundry!)._

It's probable that this fallacy has a proper name, but I've always called it Ascription of Intent. And I'm talking about the first implicit fallacy, which is an assertion that professors lied about AI for the sole reason of obtaining funding. The other fallacy is an ad hominem attack, namely that because professors were (allegedly) lying to get funding, AI is [useless|stupid|malevolent|a bad thing].

 _Given the track record of tech as a mixed blessing and as a slower agent for change than predicted, do young people need to prepare for 2030? Can they prepare by listening to Ray Kurzweil, or anyone else born in 1948? Should they fork over $25,000 for nine weeks or simply watch old Jetsons episodes?_

It's coming thick and fast, now. Technology is a slower agent of change than predicted? Really? Who's predictions? I remember a prediction about computers someday being smaller than a rhinoceros, and another about how every town will have one telephone. Even 20 years ago, did anyone imagine that a global computer network would be so pervasive that even logically fallacious essays would be conveyed instantaneously the world over?

Furthermore, his point is specifically and directly addressed by Kurzweil et al. Actually, not even 'et al.' In 'The Singularity Is Near,' Kurzweil talks about how even scientists--especially scientists--underestimate the pace of progress because of their proximity to the drudgery of their own various specialties. He talks about how the aggregate adds up more quickly than humans are able to directly sense, and that it takes analysis to get a true picture of the rate of progress. I think we need to insist that Greenspun at least obey the principle of charity and put the best representation of his opponent's argument forward, rather than the worst. (And not just for the sake of charity, but because that is how collective knowledge--rather than, for example, an author's personal agenda--would be advanced.)

And what does anyone's birth date have to do with it? He may as well have comment on the race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or eye color of Singularity advocates.

 _Maybe I will kick off the comments section with a realistic tech innovation that would change the world in a positive way. My pick: A better battery (cheaper, lighter, higher power density). That would enable the use of renewable energy in every kind of portable application, e.g., cars and airplanes, and also make it much more practical to use wind and solar generation._

Has he not heard of Lithium-Ion batteries? He's not heard of the Tesla Roadster? Is he asserting that battery technology is the only factor limiting the adoption of renewable energy? Power generation density isn't an issue? High capital costs aren't an issue? Regulatory hurdles aren't an issue? It's batteries that are going to save us?

The "[s]pecial offer' at the end doesn't even rise to the level where comment is necessary.

Addendum:

There has been a lot of hand-wringing recently over the direction that HN has been taking. That this article has made the front page should be taken as food for thought in this regard. The content of this article didn't even rise to the level of 'commentary' or 'argument.' It's easy to get off track into name- calling, non-sequiters, and simple wrong-headedness; this applies to comments as well as story submissions. I'm not here arguing whether this article should have been front-paged. I am arguing that, if you care about HN, one of the things you can do is make sure that your comments do not resemble this article in vacuity, stupidity, needless over-emotionalism, or fallaciousness.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a nit: Greenspun is wrong about food production technology. Food scarcity is no longer a problem: we have enough to feed everyone in the world, and make some of them fat.

Distribution is an issue in some places, but production is a solved problem.

<comment><USER4> Production is solved for now, but our solution (at least in the US, as I understand it) depends on abundant supplies of fossil fuel and fossil water, which are not going to be around forever.

So, there is plenty of work to do to see that this problem stays solved.

<comment><USER5> Abundant supplies of fossil fuel's are in use because they are cheep. Zero technological advances are required to provide a stable food supply for 20 billion people. It's actualy difficut to find the maximum stable food supply with current technology over the long term.

For example: "there are 1.3 billion cattle in the world today"

Now some of them are a net food source because they feed in areas that humans can't. But, effectively feeding cows costs the world well over 1 billion humans worth of food.

Topsoil does not actually get destroyed. Rivers just deposit it as silt which can be recovered.

etc.

<comment><USER6> _feeding cows costs the world well over 1 billion humans worth of food._

RBST can reduce that impact. <http://www.google.com/search?q=rbst+efficiency>

_rbST reduces carbon footprint of dairies

The present study demonstrates that use of rbST markedly improves the efficiency of milk production and mitigates environmental parameters, ..._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apologies if this is off topic, but I've learned to associate a harvard.edu URL in the HN topic with a Philip Greenspun post. I try to avoid his writing, so if other people at Harvard have interesting things to say, I'm not going to find it through Hacker News.

The same thing happens with subdomain blogs on github - I can't tell which blog the post is really coming from. The posts are rarely from GitHub, the company.

Is the reason the domain is used rather than the entire URL for aesthetic reasons? The short domain looks better. However, I have an internal filter of what I do and don't want to click on and seeing the entire URL helps.

</comment><comment><USER8> "So far technology innovation hasn't outstripped Malthusian human population growth."

Er, yes, it has. There's more food/person on the planet now than when Malthus wrote.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have to disagree with Dr. Greenspun here. Despite the Singularity topic's lack of immediate value some people are still be interested in studying with some of the most famous futurists in the world. Many people (myself included) enjoy learning for the challenge of thinking in new ways and this program at least promises that opportunity.

<comment><USER10> Did you miss the part about the $25,000? Best as I can tell from the TED website, that's the admission to twelve TED conferences. Or two to three years of state university tuition (depending on your home state). Or a very very large book collection. Or one hell of a lot of plane tickets to see the lectures that every "famous futurist" gives for _free_ , or for a relatively modest conference fee, multiple times per year. (If they didn't give public talks all the time these people wouldn't be famous futurists! And I assure you that the more obscure futurists, toiling away in academia, are almost certainly available to chat with you at a personal one-on-one lunch for a lot less than $25,000, or even $2000.)

But, you know, one of the side effects of population growth is that there's now _more_ than one sucker born every minute.

UPDATE: Someone else in the thread says TED costs $6000 for four days. So, only _four_ TED conferences. Or something. If you have to ask you probably can't afford it. ;)

<comment><USER9> Whether or not the program is worth $25,000 is up to the market to decide, not just you. Basing the value of a program by arbitrarily declaring "that's just too much money for me!" does not address whether or not the program ultimately offers enough value to the actual students. That question will be resolved in time.

<comment><USER11> If I walk by a roulette wheel and I see someone put $10,000 on black, I deduce that the person who laid down that money is an idiot. I realize that one can make sophisticated arguments about "risk preference" and the idea that the market sets a price for everything and so on, but at a certain point you just have to say that the emperor has no clothes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm tired of hearing about a better battery. Yes it would be useful and lucrative, but it's a very hard problem that has been worked on by lots of people for a long time.

<comment><USER10> I think that's the point of this example. If technology is improving at an exponentially accelerating rate, how come we have all these technologies sitting around that aren't improving at all, despite lots and lots of effort?

Sterling makes a similar point in his hilarious deconstruction of the Singularity, which IMHO is required listening for students of this topic:

[http://media.longnow.org/seminars/salt-0200406-sterling/salt...](http://media.longnow.org/seminars/salt-0200406-sterling/salt-0200406-sterling.mp3)

He points out that Singularitarians go on and on about the spectacular technology improvements in data networks, but manage to ignore all the other networks -- plumbing, railroads, highways -- that are much more important to our lives but which haven't changed technologically since the 1950s or before.

<comment><USER13> On the radio recently, I heard that Spain is improving its rail infrastructure so that all cities will be within four hours of train travel from Madrid in the next five years - that's 2014.

That made me realize that if Kurzweil's extrapolations towards a singularity are roughly right, the imminent-singularity± world will look a lot like the world looks now. Roads will be much the same, people wont have their houses rebuilt, office buildings will be similar. It will be all the technology inside that's different.

If you've read Vernor Vinge's latest novel, Rainbow's End, that feels like a fairly convincing future. Mostly augmented reality, fewer user serviceable parts, and improved medical technology.

± _imminent-singularity_ implies a sharp switch. That's not how I think of it - it's more a series of concentric circles - singularity event horizons, future-shock waves emanating back into the past - that we are already in, and have always been in, where each one marks a point where enough quantitative change has happened to make a qualitative change that would be difficult to predict from before the change. The imminent-singularity refers to the fact that they are getting closer together, and as more of them happen in less time, the cumulative effects are that much stronger and faster, leading to a techno-sonic-boom.

The key changes to hurry along "the singularity" are changes to hurry along new and better kinds of thought. As Alan Kay(?) said, computers are tools for thinking, so I think it's right to look at computing/IT for the changes with the most impact.

Significant AI work will, I think, be software based, or biological designed with software. Significant nanotechnology design will be done with lots of aid from computers. Significant collaborative work will be done with the help of future telecoms infrastructure. Significant sharing and spreading of ideas will be telecoms related.

Plumbing, railroads, highways ... A new kind of collaborative shower? Trains that run even if there are leaves on the line? What kind of technological change do you think would make major differences? I think something along the lines of personal communications tech would make the most difference, e.g.:

\- An open API for all train and bus timetables and up to date changes. Imagine being in an unfamiliar city, opening Google maps. It finds your location, you click where you want to go, it finds a bus/underground route for you, next few buses, option to buy a ticket.

\- Local area networking such that you walk into an airport, your phone knows which flight you need so arrows appear on it and show you where to go in the airport. Over here, down there, to this checkin, then to that lounge.

The technological changes that I think will make a difference are in people and bureaucracy and communication, not in roads and rail themselves.

<comment><USER6> _\- An open API for all train and bus timetables and up to date changes. Imagine being in an unfamiliar city, opening Google maps. It finds your location, you click where you want to go, it finds a bus/underground route for you, next few buses, option to buy a ticket._

Why not simply take a taxi cab?

<comment><USER13> Because that wouldn't illustrate my point to the previous poster that improvements for road/rail will be to do with people and information, not so much cars or trains directly. :)

Why not use public transport?

\- Because you don't know where it is. Enter technology to point you to a bus/train station. Enter GPS on your phone to guide you to it.

\- Because you don't know which route / bus / train to take. Enter an open transit information system so your phone can tell you, on the fly.

\- Because you don't know if this is the right bus/train to get on. Enter QR codes on the side of the bus so your phone can confirm it for you.

\- Because you don't know which stop to get off at. Enter GPS on your phone to tell you.

\- Because you don't know which ticket to get or if you have the right change. Enter your mobile and your phonebill or other integrated low-hassle small- quantity payment service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure the $25k is for those who Google and/or other sponsors don't give a scholarship to. Its a nice way of saying if we haven't invited you, you can come; but BYOB (bring your own bank)

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel like the first part of that was a straw man argument.

But the conclusion had one good point.

The problem I have with singularity folks is a matter of putting the horse before the cart.

Sure it's nice to dream about the world after the singularity, but isn't your time better spent taking one step after another towards that future?

And doesn't that require taking the first step, which would be something improving _today's_ technology?

<comment><USER16> Most singulatarians I speak with understand that thinking about what life will be like after the singularity is fundamentally pointless. One of the definitions of the singularity is the point beyond which extrapolation of current trends becomes impossible. Most of my discussions with singulatarians focus on the nature of technological innovation and which of several possibilities for augmented or artificial intelligence might come first.

<comment><USER15> Vis-à-vis the nature of technological innovation:

I have this crazy notion that _more is more_.

In other words, the reason the valley is first in .com and other tech innovation is because it has the most resources, in terms of people, funding, etc, working on that.

So the best way to speed up innovation is to do everything you can to get more people working on innovation.

That could include lobbying, or educating yourself, or teaching, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sure, $25,000 is a lot for 9 weeks. But TED, where SU was officially announced, costs $6,000 for 4 days.

Also, maybe they'll use exponential progress to halve their fees every year. It'll cost under $1000 in 5 years, and under $1 in 15!

<comment><USER18> Harvard tuition in 1993: $23,514

Harvard tuition in 2008: $45,620

Harvard tuition in 2023: Potentially, under $1. But I'm not betting on it.

sources:

<http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/budget/factbook/00-01/page23.html>

<http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/cost.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think a day of brilliant optimism would be a real treat. Optimism without brilliance may be a bit much. But brilliance especially with optimism added sounds great.</comment>


New API call: See What's Trending on HN - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/karan/HNify#usage

<comment><USER2> I'd love to check this out, but it's returning this:

        Internal Server Error

        The server encountered an internal error and was unable
        to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded
        or there is an error in the application.

<comment><AUTHOR> FIXED: [http://hnify.herokuapp.com/get/trends](http://hnify.herokuapp.com/get/trends)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's not the perfect code, but it does give good results. Check it out: [http://hnify.herokuapp.com/get/trends](http://hnify.herokuapp.com/get/trends)</comment>


Could Apple Be Your Next Phone Company? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/02/10/could-apple-be-your-next-phone-company/ <comment><USER2> I sure hope so. I trust apple more than google, microsoft, at&t and verizon combined. Every one of those other companies has betrayed my trust at one point or another, and in some cases- microsoft and AT&T, has defrauded me.

Nice thing about libel laws is that the truth is an ultimate defense, so I can say they have defrauded me, and just hope they decide to sue me... love to have my day in court.</comment>


Functional Programming is Dead, Long Live Expression-Oriented Programming - <AUTHOR> http://richardminerich.com/2012/07/functional-programming-is-dead-long-live-expression-oriented-programming/

<comment><USER2> I would also accept "Compositional Programming". Just as the secret to deeply understanding Erlang is to understand that it is primarily about reliability and not about "functional", the secret to understanding where the bulk of the Haskell community is going (except the ones strictly studying theory for theory's sake) is that they are primarily working on composition. Purity and functional and lazy are just some of the buzzwords being turned in that direction. Just as aping Erlang's message passing in $YOUR_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE while missing everything it does for reliability is really missing the point, dropping a map and a fold into your language (and eyeing Monads, then skittering away, though I suspect this is often _not_ because they're too complicated but because the languages are too weak to make them syntactically palatable) is also really missing the point.

(Also, mocking Haskell and/or its community for being too theoretical is really missing the point. It's one of the few places where progress is being made on the topic of practical compositional programming. No, the work's not done yet, but, then, that's sort of my point, work is in fact being done. Almost everybody else is just shuffling the same handful of 25-year-old primitives around.)

<comment><USER3> I think the real reason Monads haven't been widely adopted is that there isn't a compelling need for them. Laziness, purity and referential transparency are nice-to-haves in most languages, whereas in Haskell, they're need-to-haves.

Computers are imperative by nature. They have state. That Haskell has the capability to shield us from that is really, really cool, but that doesn't mean it's necessary to write good software.

<comment><USER4> Monads have already been adapted into C# via LINQ. That's as mainstream as it gets. Your premise is false.

<comment><USER5> I think this is somewhat misleading. If I understand correctly, only the SelectMany method in Linq is monadic. This is only a minor part of Linq, and not at all comparable to how monads are used in Haskell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No offense, but I think you may be pandering to people who don't know what they're talking about.

Guido adds first class functions and functools to the standard library and people suddenly start calling Python "functional." The same is probably going to start happening to Java once λ expressions get added.

I think functional programming has been most clearly defined as those languages whose base model of computation is the λ-calculus (or F_ω, etc.). Python is not functional because, despite having functional features, the idiomatic way of writing Python mirrors Turing machine computation.

If you restricted yourself to only the functional features of Python, well, that would be Python in name, but is that really how people write Python?

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that the vast majority of programmers don't know what they're talking about. Scott Hanselman calls them then silent 99%. They don't blog or comment and they do real work everywhere.

The point is terminology matters, especially in how those who can't be bothered to dig deeply come to understand things.

<comment><USER4> Yet your post simply concedes the point--would you not rather explain why people are wrong rather than walk the line yourself to make a point?

<comment><AUTHOR> As someone who has regularly given tech talks on functional programming to audiences completely foreign with the ideas involved for almost five years I'm completely sick of explaining it. It takes up far too much of my time when I could be teaching other cool stuff.

Calling it Expression Oriented programming is something I've taken to recently and it get people on the right track off the bat. They're focusing on the expressions and not just trying to understand how everything relates to functions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being a functional language is different than supporting functional programming. A functional _program_ is one that fits the mold he describes: high-order functions as the primary abstraction, pure wherever possible, heavy emphasis on transformation of values rather than updating state. A _language_ that supports functional programming is one where such a program is possible (without too much trouble). A _functional language_ is one where programs that don't fit that mold are difficult or discouraged.

To the author's point, supporting functional programming is not hard and most languages do it. Basically all languages, except Java and maybe like Pascal or something. I'm ok with that, though. I'm fine that I can write my own JavaScript functionally, even though other people may not. (Though it's annoying when I interface with less-than-functional third-party libraries.) After all, part of the reason to learn Lisp or Haskell is to make you better at Blub, right? Merely supporting functional programming means that I can still put those lessons to decent use.

<comment><AUTHOR> > After all, part of the reason to learn Lisp or Haskell is to make you better > at Blub, right?

What's forcing you to stay in Blub to begin with? There's great same-platform alternatives to everything except for Javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I will freely admit to thinking I knew something about functional programming after learning about lambdas, map, filter and reduce in Python (and lamenting the language's lack of tail call optimization). Three days with Haskell set me straight.

<comment><USER7> Haskell, Scheme (a LISP), Erlang, Clojure will all set you straight. What's great is, once you grok one; the others are much easier to get a handle on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I highly recommend Backus' "Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?" as a classic critique of the expression-statement dichotomy (which Backus calls "the von Neumann bottleneck" and then immediately blames himself for rather than von Neumann - Backus of course having led the creation of FORTRAN).

www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/819-f09/Backus78.pdf

<comment><USER9> That critique led to the creation of some function-level languages like FP and FL (nobody's ever heard of them):

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function-level_programming>

Most languages nowadays are value-level. The difference between the two is that function-level programs combine "sub-programs" into one giant new program. Value-level takes primitive types and transforms them into more complex types (I believe this is the same sort of complexity that Rich Hickey disparages).

<comment><USER10> There's an implementation of FP here: <http://www.call-with-current- continuation.org/fp/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say, I'm not very fond of hyperbole-laden posts such as this one. People who devote the time and enthusiasm learn the details and hopefully enlighten themselves. People who lack that kind of enthusiasm will likely be confused throughout their lives across many of fronts. What is so surprising, interesting or new about this?

Things are often called what they are called for continuity and for legacy reasons. What does it matter if we call it "Functional" vs. "Expression- Oriented"? Will Haskell, ML, Clojure, etc. or their impression on people change overnight because we have a new cool name? I guess a bunch of new/experimental library now claim to be Functional, but so what if they do?

Maybe it's a bit too late here, but I don't see the point in this kind of sentiment.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think Ruby does a pretty good job with this, as far as an object oriented main stream language goes. For example, the switch case example from the article can be implemented in ruby as case n: when 1: "one" when 2: "two"

etc, and the entire construct can be assigned to a variable because it is an expression.

As an aside, ruby 1.9 also supports generic predicates for case statements through lambdas, which is very concise and powerful. Example: <https://gist.github.com/838163>, source: <http://flazz.me/predicates-in-ruby- case-statements>

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't get the jump between talking about how "functional" doesn't evoke purity, yet "expression-oriented", does. To be fair, most (probably all) functional languages aren't fully pure. Haskell is probably more pure than most of them, but eventually you have to get things done and dive into the sin bin.

The term "functional" really evokes "first class" invokable function symbols that can be passed around in a higher-order kind of way. Everything else is secondary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Expression-Oriented evokes purity in that expressions have external facing properties which can be understood and even kept in the type system. If you use global mutation and you don't keep track of it in the type system you can't say much about those properties anymore. You can however use mutation locally and maintain your referential transparency which is a nice way to get around the limits of some not-so-functional-friendly algorithms.

I'm planning on writing about that next time around because my tracking shows barely anyone gets to the end of an article beyond a certain length.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Making things like if/else/switch statements true expressions is a great feature, but I'm not sure it deserves a new foo-oriented programming buzzword.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason I suggested it is because functional has been so badly perverted. We need a term that evokes the actual spirit/philosophy of the language, not just the heritage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hm.. should I stop learning Clojure right this instant? I can't take the "you GOT to learn Erlang/Haskell/Scala/Node/[...] right NOW!" any longer.

<comment><USER4> No. Clojure is fine. I actually think that everyone's first functional language should be scheme, but Clojure is not too different.

Erlang, Haskell, and Scala all want to sell you on some broader paradigm of functional programming, but they're all still functional at their core and understanding the fundamentals is far more important.

Node.js isn't a language, it's just some libraries added on to Javascript.

<comment><USER7> I highly support the idea of learning Scheme first too - particularly with the Little Schemer books!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really, the volume of discussion ad nauseum around what normally amounts to syntactic sugar is over the top. I'm not disparaging the functional programming paradigm, but conversation seems to eventually gravitate toward measurements of _how functional_ something is, which seems pointless.

</comment><comment><USER17> No.

<comment><AUTHOR> Care to elaborate?</comment></comment>


Blueflood – open source metric processing system - <AUTHOR> http://blueflood.io/

<comment><USER2> I wish there was more documentation about this. What I've figured out:

\- Built on Cassandra

\- Takes metrics POSTed as JSON objects

\- Can do aggregation and roll-up but it's not clear how to configure this

\- Can be queried, but I couldn't see any info on what queries are possible

It would also be nice to know what advantages this has over other monitoring tools - why wouldn't you use OpenTSDB instead, for example?

<comment><USER3> I think you have most of it right. The rollups are not configurable currently. However, we did give some thought into those pre-configured rollup granularities.

The query today is very simple. You can query data points for a metric you know by name. Look at retrieve metrics section of this guide: [https://github.com/rackerlabs/blueflood/wiki/10minuteguide](https://github.com/rackerlabs/blueflood/wiki/10minuteguide)

I'd like to clarify that this is not a monitoring tool. This is a metrics aggregation engine for data collected using monitoring tools. We haven't benchmarked OpenTSDB. We have a lot of operational experience with Cassandra and one of the devs is a Cassandra committer. We are seeing good performance in terms of reads and writes from/to Cassandra. If you have other questions, please join #blueflood on freenode. I am one of the devs and I am in that channel too.</comment></comment>


Conquerin App - <AUTHOR> http://www.conquerin.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> really cool app that gives new challenges each day that you can complete to brag about and compete with friends. Sign up if you want early access.</comment>


Thoughts on the future of Python and graphical interfaces - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tryexceptpass/a-python-ate-my-gui-971f2326ce59#.r71wrkqfq <comment><USER4> This article only talks about one aspect of the larger problem in UI Development - the webification of everything.

It's good that we've finally been able to agree on a common set of tools to make UIs, it's just too bad it had to be this one.

The HTML/JS/CSS/DOM mess is a pretty terrible solution that we seem to be stuck with.

History is peppered with UI authoring tools that were better but stewarded by companies that held to tight licensing that stunted their growth. Hypercard, delphi, adobe flash (and FLEX - which looks a lot like react), even unity has more intuitive wysiwyg UI tools that could have proved versatile with the right stewardship.

The difference is vertical integration. These companies made their tools complete solutions and often went so far as to put virtual machines on everything to interpret them correctly every time.

The article's author touches on the license problem with python's own pretty damn good QT lib.

If only someone could find a way to make a good tool without fucking up licensing.

<comment><USER5> I actually believe that the HTML/JS/CCS/DOM mess is a good thing and that it's a pretty powerful combination that rivals other more powerful languages in 90% of the cases for the kind of applications one might want to build.

HTML is actually one of the most powerful layout engines out there, Javascript is as versatile and powerful a language as you might want to ask for in 90% of the cases, CSS has it's flaws but they are being addressed and is fine for most styling issues and DOM is just a very easy to understand albeit crude way to handle objects.

All in all a combination of tools that makes it extremely easy to get started and se results right away. I believe this is also on of the reasons why PHP is so popular. It's ability to seamlessly integrate with that "mess" either to take over the formatting or to fit into the existing formatting.

It's a conceptual framework thats closest to what we as humans understand.

Pythons problem like most other programming languages including Objective-C and Ruby is that while they are elegant and powerful computationally they are horrible for most people to get started with because just setting it up in itself is a big task.

So I don't think we are stuck. In fact I believe that if Python would take the same laize faire approach to the mess as PHP it would be much more popular than it is today.

<comment><USER6> You know, if MS had written Outlook in VBA and told people to read their email as a plugin to Word, they would have been laughed out of the room. But that's exactly what Google did with GMail and now everyone builds apps that way! Browsers are for documents, and forcing applications to be interactive documents is, when you look at it like that, ludicrous.

<comment><USER7> Luckily turns out it isn't 1995 anymore. Browsers let you do stuff, pretty cool stuff last time I checked, sometimes it's play video, sometimes it's read a document, other times it is to create tangible things.

<comment><USER6> You can embed a video in a Word doc too. I don't know anyone who watches movies like that.

<comment><USER5> Not sure what your point is gaius. Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER8> I'll bite: Wrong tool for the job, just like using a scriptable remote document viewer as an application platform.

<comment><USER5> That make no sense since the web is successfully used for many other things than reading document.s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would suggest everyone check out remi, which feels like a desktop UI library and renders in the browser [https://github.com/dddomodossola/remi](https://github.com/dddomodossola/remi)

<comment><USER10> I like it.

Any idea what effort it would take to integrate MatPlotLib graphs?

<comment><USER9> Check the examples. Integration with js graphing is being worked on (mpl or plotly, I'm undecided)

<comment><USER10> Indeed, I checked it out today. Way cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would like to see more discussion about the speed of Python for user facing applications. Users can perceive delays of upto 100ms ( [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/536300/what-is-the- shorte...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/536300/what-is-the-shortest- perceivable-application-response-delay) ).

# time yum

real 0m2.147s

user 0m1.276s

sys 0m0.772s

# time apt-get

0.00s user

0.00s system 91% cpu

0.004 total

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure you can throw the 100ms figure around without context - <USER2> especially not when making the jump to discussing console applications. The psychology of button clicking is very different to the psychology of command typing.

<comment><USER11> It is true that console applications would have different constraints. But GUI applications written in Python, like 'Ubuntu Software Center', were also perceptibly slow last time I checked. yum vs apt-get was a quick comparison I could show. I find yum very annoying compared to apt-get/pacman.

The author wants more Pythonic GUI apps because s/he thinks it produces more readable code. It has been argued that such code can be slower ( [http://lukauskas.co.uk/articles/2014/02/13/why-your- python-r...](http://lukauskas.co.uk/articles/2014/02/13/why-your-python-runs- slow-part-1-data-structures/) ) and maybe it will lead to trading too much developer pleasure for user pleasure.

<comment><USER12> > maybe it will lead to trading too much developer pleasure for user pleasure.

In many cases - developer time or cost is the constraint. Therefore it might be the difference between something existing and not existing.

It's a similar argument with 'native vs other' on mobile. Currently native apps are obviously better in terms of speed and overall quality. However - much non-native software simply wouldn't exist if there wasn't a rapid, low- barrier to entry development option.

<comment><USER13> > _much non-native software simply wouldn 't exist if there wasn't a rapid, > low-barrier to entry development option_

And the world would be much better if that happened.

Seriously, the primary driver for the "developer-time offset" is the race-to- the-bottom competition between companies on who releases the app first, driven by the assumption that in this market the winner takes all. Maybe it is the case (though my impression is that people tend to gravitate to better software over time), but then there are markets without such a huge competitive pressure. Like package managers for Linux-based systems. Seriously, there is no reason for not doing them right (except of course the Unix philosophy being that not doing things right is the Right Thing).

<comment><USER12> > Seriously, the primary driver for the [...]

So to summarise - no-one would choose Python for building GUI apps if it wasn't for the obsession modern companies have with being first-to-market?

If I've been unfair or misunderstood then can you please explain a bit more clearly how we got from a discussion about using Python for GUI applications to a statement that it's somehow about commercial pressures to release an app. It certainly doesn't match my own reasons for learning and using Python or those of anyone I've met.

<comment><USER13> I was addressing your mobile / web vs. native angle. In those markets, in my opinion many of the products, having to choose between being done right or not being done at all would do better if they chose the second option.

I don't have anything against Python per se. Sure, it isn't the fastest language out there (even considering the high-level features it provides), but rarely the problem with application performance lies squarely with Python. It's more often about not putting time to "make it good" and "make it fast" after "making it work". Especially with - from what I hear, quite good - <USER3> capabilities of Python, in the worst case one could always push the most intensive computations down to C.

<comment><USER12> Ah. I see. I was conflating your reply with the grandfather.

With regard to mobile apps - I was thinking more about non-commercial or hobbyist apps - the interesting, quirky or niche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Take a look at earl grey lang, specifically document building dsl it has: [http://www.earl-grey.io/#documentbuilding](http://www.earl- grey.io/#documentbuilding)

</comment><comment><USER15> Quote: "I want to write Python code that spits out the HTML and JavaScript required for these interfaces and I still want to handle all the logic in Python."

Substitute Python with PHP and it feels like 2004 again. I think we all agreed a long time ago that decoupling presentation layer from business logic was a good thing, no?

<comment><USER6> You can do that with Bokeh.

<comment><USER12> Bokeh has a very interesting approach. It has three levels you can jump between:

1\. Just write Python and get interactive graphs

2\. Write Python and small snippets of embedded js when (1) is too limiting

3\. Write Python to generate the datasets, and proper javascript via bokeh.js if you need to dig in deep.

And as the project matures - the number of reasons to jump from 1 to 2 to 3 will become less. I'd like to see a similar approach applied to general UI development. It's a great example of "make the easy things easy, and the hard things possible".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > in fact I think the very idea of Django and similar frameworks should go > away. I find templates cumbersome, hard to read and non-pythonic.

This is incredibly dismissive and hardly a well functioning argument. I don't like to edit html templates, therefor web frameworks shouldn't exist.

<comment><USER17> I think that the point here is that html templates are oriented towards writing things that are primarily web sites, and not data-heavy and UI-heavy applications that happen to use web browser as thin client.

I'm somehow trying to solve this problem by using jinja2 macros to the point of abuse and by having relatively large amount of python code that handles generating complex HTML (navigation, tables, forms, widgets...).

<comment><USER18> for tables use [https://github.com/bradleyayers/django- tables2](https://github.com/bradleyayers/django-tables2)

for forms use [https://github.com/gregmuellegger/django- floppyforms](https://github.com/gregmuellegger/django-floppyforms)

For navigation just use something like [http://purecss.io/menus/](http://purecss.io/menus/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is something to be said about the UI approach of R's Shiny interface. As a scientist with limited budget for dedicated IT development, I can focus on creating the content and the UI can easily be built to access it functionality.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there another option for building native interfaces that are cross-platform (let's say desktop for now: so just Linux, Win and OSX)?

Instead of the webapp-as-desktop-app does there exist a language/IDE/tool that has a friendlier license for building native desktop apps?

<comment><USER21> Python supports Gtk+3 and anything that run on GObjects. Let me tell you that it's quite a lot of libraries you can use from Python. Deluge ( torrent client is written with Python and Gtk+3 ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What about using Iron Python to make a Windows UI app?

</comment><comment><USER23> What about : [http://nucleic.github.io/enaml/docs/](http://nucleic.github.io/enaml/docs/)

<comment><USER24> Enaml hasn't seen any sustained development since 2014.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> wxWindows with PythonCard wasn't at all hard to use, and to my eye looked a lot better than Tk. But wxWindows looked to be dormant last time I checked.

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems the author didn't look far if they just said "PyQt, licensing too hard" (fair enough) without noticing PySide.

<comment><USER27> To be fair, the transition to Qt5 has been a slog for pyside, but momentum recently picked up now that the Qt team has the resources to support the effort officially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone have definitive information on how all the Slack clients are built?

</comment><comment><USER29> "I want to write Python code that spits out the HTML and JavaScript required for these interfaces and I still want to handle all the logic in Python."

This sounds a lot like PyJS: [http://pyjs.org/](http://pyjs.org/)

<comment><USER30> I used pyjs (pyjamas) for some personal projects and I liked it a lot. Unfortunately it got stuck in time, and in 2012 the current maintainers did a bad political move, and left the project in even worse shape than it was.

Nowadays, I wouldn't consider pyjs to build anything relevant..

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Without a miracle, it seems like a bit of a lost cause.

I see some pretty glaring reasons why Python has not taken off in writing GUIs, especially on mobile.

1\. The Python runtime is not very easy to embed on iOS and Android, and the sheer number of bindings needed to make it worth doing is immense.

2\. Python's runtime is completely and utterly incapable of threading. Threading being almost essential to any decent user interface, this whole idea falls flat.

3\. If the other two problems weren't enough, Python's single-threaded performance is really not great either. On resource-constrained systems (think phones) this hits doubly hard.

<comment><USER32> I wouldn't agree on points 2 and 3. I find multiprocessing routines really easy to implement and they work as they should. However, I have no experience with threading in other languages so I might be missing out ...

With regards to performance, I found that one can produce very fast routines through use of specialized libraries for specific tasks, such as numpy etc. There are also great visualization tools, such as pyqtgraph which are blazing fast, at least, in my view, compared to any web interface. I have been skeptical about the html/js interface so far, because I am concerned with how fast large amounts of data can be surfaced from Python data models to HTML plots.

That said, I share the Python UI pain :/ As of now, I am stuck with QT and cx_freeze for desktop app development and the whole thing feels very medieval. The QT library in itself is great but at the same time it does not feel very "python". cx_freeze requires constant tinkering and makes debugging very hard at times.

What do HN users use for building GUIs for Python? :)

<comment><USER9> I use gtk via pygobject. I find it feels the most pythonic. Cross platform remains difficult however.

<comment><USER24> While it feels more pythonic, it does not look at all native on most platforms.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Outsourcing Startups - <AUTHOR> http://appicurious.com/2011/11/03/outsourcing-startups/ <comment><USER2> From my experiences outsourcing saves money but costs velocity. There is much time spent creating detailed specs, clarifying the specs, reviewing delivered code then immediately demanding key improvements made to that code, replacing subpar developers, pinging developers that have gone AWOL, and all of this happening with the usual timezone delays. Sometimes its faster to write the code yourself than it is to create painfully clear storyboards, wireframes, or demand yet another rewrite.

To avoid these hassles you have to spend a little more money to include a local manager to drive the outsourced team and be responsible for their delivery.

Honestly I get the sense that people who are happy with outsourced code are either unusually lucky to have found a highly skilled and responsive outsource, or more often they just not technical enough to judge the technical quality or the timeliness of what they are paying for. They are happy with the shiny car the outsourced team made and they can't realize the engine compartment is an absolute mess.

<comment><USER3> _There is much time spent creating detailed specs, clarifying the specs, reviewing delivered code then immediately demanding key improvements made to that code, replacing subpar developers_

One could argue that this time would be well-spent even if your development team is in-house. The convenience of having all of your developers sitting in one room with you often leads to laziness and sloppy project management. When the customer service guys can approach an in-house developer immediately with a bug a customer reported, sometimes the bug gets fixed, committed, and deployed right away with no documentation. This makes for a great experience for that customer, and management can pat themselves on the back and call their team "agile" but imagine the alternative scenario.

Say that customer service rep has to create a detailed bug report with screenshots and steps to reproduce the error, and in the middle of the night (because of timezones) your outsourced dev fixes the bug and completes a post- mortem to close the ticket before committing and deploying. This leads to more organized processes, better documentation, etc.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly the point snorkel is making. You can get all that documentation, but that costs velocity.

For an early startup, velocity is way, way, way more important than clear documentation. When you're sitting with a rapidly shrinking runway and no viable business model, writing a spec, post-mortem, or documentation for a bug is a total waste of your precious, limited resources, like doing lunges when you're running out of air.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just to offer a counter-anecdote, I've personally worked on two mobile projects that were outsourced overseas and came back completely botched. They had to be scrapped and started from scratch.

The main issue was communication and being able to have high-bandwidth face- to-face meetings to clarify what was needed. Extensive use of iChat and Skype didn't seem to help.

Some apps have detailed specs and a lot of upfront work has been done in reducing the ambiguities. Those are probably better candidates for outsourcing. But if the design is fluid and things need to be worked out as- you-go, that seems to be where outsourced projects go pear-shaped.

I personally think there's enough work to go around all over the world, but for certain types of apps you need to have someone you can meet and have a dialog with so you can iterate the design efficiently.

Obviously, each app is different and situations vary so YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER6> Lower cost is just one part of the equation.

Perhaps the biggest benefit is not having your talent constantly exposed to being poached in the Silicon Valley.

That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg was talking about when he said he'd rather start a company in Boston.

Hide your hackers!

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting mention of flat tax though...(9-9-9 anyone?) Though not the only reason for outsourcing talent. What about outsourcing from SV to the mid-west?

</comment><comment><USER8> Big fan of using Central and South American developers. You don't have the time zone issues, their English is usually fantastic, and the cultural differences are minimally (when compared to places such as India). Used them all the time when I had my own firm and didn't have time or resources for in- house development. Also a big fan of the Kiwi's if you have something you can hand off with a fully defined spec.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems that lowering the cost of software development as a key driver of startup success is being emphasized.

A few things:

One could argue that if the business case for the startup were strong enough, the cost of development would be almost (within a very wide band) irrelevant or at least you could more easily justify the expense. An example would be having already-signed-up beta users and having a mailing list of interested prospects in hand.

Secondly, does anyone not care about new versions, maintenance and ongoing support? If you are truly operating a business, then having the ability to support the product is key. An outsourcer can leave the business or the team can disband, so you have no control over the institutional knowledge. (The "outsourcing core competencies" issue.)

Last, the title "outsourcing startups" seems a bit misleading, almost as though an entire startup can be outsourced like a commodity. We're still talking about outsourcing the coding.

But maybe the commoditizing of startups is the next natural step in evolution, if it is not happening already.

</comment><comment><USER10> The author claims that you can hire devs with either ten or 3-5 years of experience "in a particular area." I've never been to Bulgaria, but I know it's hard to find folks with ten years of iOS/Android development experience in California, so this is pretty impressive. Must be a magical country.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is you can hire devs with 10 years of experience in varying programing languages. Maybe I wasn't really clear on that. Also programing for iPhone is done in objective-c and android devs work with Java. Both of these have been around long before iOS and Android.

<comment><USER10> To the latter point-- fair enough. There are some significant differences between Mac and iOS development, for example, but it seems that experienced Mac devs generally flourish in the iOS world. Are you saying that such people are readily available in Bulgaria? As in, you are confident that with some legwork, I could hire a guy with 10 years combined of Mac/iOS programming experience for 40k? If so, that's very interesting to me (no sarcasm).

Regarding the former, I would be extremely wary of paying a demonstrably "competent engineer" to do work in a platform they were not already immersed in. Total years programming, even on seemingly similar platforms, doesn't translate into ability to deliver a high quality, robust product on the target platform in a timely manner.

To give a specific example, successful iOS development requires a combination of UX design intuition and finesse, similar to what you'd need in web development, along with the memory management and performance tuning skills more typically seen in the embedded and C++ game development world. The reason competent iOS devs are expensive in America is because it's hard to find people with these combined skills, who don't want to just make their own stuff. There are many examples of lackluster apps in the iTunes Store where the developers clearly came up short in one of those areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Using the word outsourcing I believe biases this conversation in a negative way. Another way to title this article positively would be, "You can find high quality programming talent outside the Valley & even the US, which can save your startup cash". Because if you treated them like any other startup employee (part of the team), just working from a distance, and not as an outsourced developer, I think what you are suggesting has a big potential.

To use a headhunter analogy. There is too much hunting in the valley for the best, so go outside, even outside the US to find great talent affordably.

</comment><comment><USER12> I came from a very similar environment to the US 10 years ago becuase of non existing start up scene, inability to brainstorm/exchange tech/business ideas and do tech socializing in my country of origin (people tend to deal with different kind of issues there). Everybody around me wanted to become a really good code monkey focusing on a specific platform ending up doing some contracting work for big West European businesses as an ultimate goal.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a lot of stories of successful outsourcing dev work being done by US startups. Eastern europe is actually a very good pick. Some more thoughts on this: [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/07/polish-programmers- are-j...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/07/polish-programmers-are-joining- u-s-startups-but-staying-in-poland/)

</comment><comment><USER14> The hidden cost of outsourcing is the need for increased project management. Communication issues and cultural differences often lead to poor execution, and projects that fail to meet expectations. Sure, there's significant savings on the cost of a developer hour, but your going to spend a lot more time/money on project management.

</comment><comment><USER15> I agree with this. We've used a couple of contractors outside of california but in the US. To avoid the majority of issues raised here, we got a potential devs to complete a coding task on metered time. While there was a higher initial cost of hiring we got much better results and are paying well below valley prices.

</comment><comment><USER16> I know a successful startup, they had an office in Republic of Moldova, now all of the devs have moved to US (on H1B) I think this way the firms tried to retain talents.

Another startup also with developers in Republic of Moldova have been bought out by Adobe.

In both cases there was a good dev lead in US and most of the developers in Moldova.

</comment><comment><USER17> Thanks for the post. A lot of time entrepreneurs get stuck in a mindset that assumes dev/design must all be within the U.S. Definitely not always true and most times it depends on the company culture

</comment><comment><USER18> I encourage people to follow this. We need more data on outsourcing effectiveness. If I were the author, however, I would not use HP as a success story.

</comment><comment><USER19> We have outsouced a massive amount of our art assets for our stealth VW, but we have kept our dev's close at hand.

</comment><comment><USER20> We (<http://feefighters.com>) found our lead designer in Bulgaria. We posted a project on Crowdspring where we asked for a redesign of TransFS.com. Tisho (<http://twitter.com/tisho>) did such a good job that we brought him on full- time.

We don't have any communications/timezone/culture issues at all... he knows American pop-culture better than most of us do (thank torrents for that I suppose?), his English is impeccable, and the time zone thing isn't usually an issue because we all have crazy sleep/work schedules anyway.

On a related note, using 99designs, Crowdspring, Elance, etc are great early on and then if you find someone you really like, hire them!

That being said, Tisho says that is a pretty idealized picture of Bulgaria... Folks aren't necessarily as highly experienced & motivated as this would suggest, and taxes aren't as low as this article suggests either.

<comment><USER21> We're also looking into getting a designer for our site, I'd be interested in hearing how you managed the project.

When you started with your designer, how did you convey the type of look and feel that you wanted to give your business? Did you point them to other similar looking sites or was he/she the one that pushed forward the final vision and design (which BTW looks great)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you can bridge the time zone, communication and culture gaps, then more power to you. And I am not saying that sarcastically. Outsourcing might save a startup enough money to stay afloat long or to make better features to interest VCs/customers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Summary: consider Bulgaria for outsourcing your software development.

As typically happens, no mention of language issues, culture issues, timezone differences, or what kind of talent level you're getting for your dollar. All warm bodies are equal myth, etc. In theory, it can work great. Sometimes, it does. Often it doesn't. Caveat emptor.</comment>


Bookmark Manager for Google Chrome Released - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookmark-manager/gmlllbghnfkpflemihljekbapjopfjik

<comment> X-combinator It works great, but if you don't allow this to operate in incognito windows there is no way to bookmark webpages easily, unfortunately! Google needs to fix that bug.</comment>


Canadian Tire Money - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Tire_money <comment><USER2> Earlier this summer a man from Saskatoon bought a $800 canoe with a briefcase full of Canadian Tire money. [https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/saskatoon-man- buys-canoe-with-...](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/saskatoon-man-buys-canoe- with-briefcase-full-of-canadian-tire-money-1.4488125)

These days I think they are trying to get people to switch to a credit card rewards type of system. But if you pay with cash you can still get Canadian Tire money.</comment>


What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain and Body - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5684996/what-alcohol-actually-does-to-your-brain-and-body <comment><USER2> I often wonder if the mild alcoholism of my youth (drinking to blackout roughly once every month, starting at age 16) has given me any lasting impairment. Certainly, I have no terrible damage since I am highly functional at an intellectually demanding job. But I've always wondered if I took an edge off my memory. My "prospective memory" (remembering to complete tasks without reminder) seems to be much worse than average, but it's hard to tell if this is within natural variation and, even if so, if my alcohol use affected it.

I've read in a few places that alcoholism in children and teens leads to demonstrated long-term memory effects, especially for prospective memory. Does anyone know the level of alcohol consumption at which this effect becomes measurable? Is this damage permanent? (My google-fu seems inadequate.)

I suspect that researchers simply don't have the data to make precise confident statements about damage that is marginal (and, hence, is hard to measure).

<comment><USER3> It sounds like the alcohol contributed to your hypochondria

[edit] lighten up, for the love of god. I'm taking the downvotes on principle here.

He "often wonders"? Seriously, he should get over it - there's nothing he can do about it at this point, and he's admittedly a highly functional person at an intellectually demanding job.

[2nd edit] Here's a desnarkified version of my original comment:

Life is hard, and you're going to screw some things up, but you compound those mistakes by focusing on what you could have been rather than what you could still potentially be.

<comment><USER2> I think it's entirely appropriate to consider the negative effects of previous decisions even if one is unable to mitigate them. Choosing to ignore them seems like an unhealthy attitude which could contribute to future mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Your body sees alcohol as a poison, or at least as something it doesn't actually want inside it."

The fact that the body attempts to break down and dispose of alcohol does not mean that the body, of necessity, considers it a poison. There are many substances in regular food that the body breaks down and disposes, and many foods, in sufficient amounts, could arguably be considered a poison.

The article points out that the effects of alcohol, while well studied, are still not well understood from a metabolic standpoint: such as the poor ability of young women to metabolize it. There could well be some metabolic by-product of the breakdown of alcohol that has distinct health benefits in sufficiently moderate amounts.

<comment><USER5> Sounds kind of like fiber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _researchers followed 1824 people over a total of 20 years, as they aged > between 55 and 65. Of those who abstained entirely, 69 percent died. Among > those who drank in "moderate" amounts, 41 percent died—which was 23 percent > less than the "light" drinkers. Even "heavy drinkers" fared better than > abstainers, with just 61 percent passing away during the study period._

I believe that's the case when the correlation is similar to global warming and number of pirates [1]

[1] [http://www.tonguetiedandtwisted.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/...](http://www.tonguetiedandtwisted.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/03/fsm_pirates.png)

[add]: i.e. no correlation.

<comment><USER7> Please find the (apparently obvious) problem with the results. I keep seeing articles about how study after study confirms the alcohol/longevity link, so if you can find the common problem those studies all have, (very minor) fame awaits! :)

<comment><USER8> The one problem that I can see is the fact that these studies can only correlate people's behaviour and their longevity, as opposed to randomly assigning people into groups of drinkers/teetotallers. It is a fair assumption that people who don't drink differ from other people in other aspects, too. (e.g. they might be more religious, or not drink for health reasons, or have a less active social life etc). You obviously cannot do double-blind studies about long-term alcohol consumption, so correlation is the best we have, but one must still be careful when interpreting these kinds of results.

<comment><USER9> There are numerous experimental designs that, while they don't have the predictive value of double-blind experiments, are found to have significant predictive value. The simplest way is to control for the confounding factors such as you describe.

Google "Quasi-experimentation."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Funny that an article inventorying the effects of alcohol fails to discuss how it addicts some people.

[edit: I meant failure to discuss mechanisms of addiction to alcohol, which are at least as interesting the biochemical pathways by which alcohol is metabolized, if not as well understood.]

<comment><USER11> Quote (emphasis mine) from the beginning of the article:

We're taking a few things for granted here: that you understand some of the basics of alcohol consumption, blood alcohol content, legal limits, what it feels like when you've had too much to drink, _and the serious illness of alcoholism_.

[Edit: Responding to your edit: Agreed. As far as I know, alcohol detoxification(?) is far harder (and needs to be done more careful) than getting off of even some of the hard drugs (heroin, lots of meds, etc). It would have been intesting to see this "myth" of mine to be confirmed or busted in an article like that as well.]

<comment><USER12> The article intimates at the answer to why alcohol withdrawal can be more difficult and dangerous than hard drugs. Recall the part where they explain how cocaine and heroin and speed only work on one neurotransmitter principally, whereas alcohol works on a large number (dopamine, seratonin, GABA, norepinephrine, etc)—scalpel vs. hand grenade.

So in withdrawing from cocaine or heroin or nicotine you can prescribe someone a drug that works on the relevant receptors, blocking or even reversing the effect of the drug. For example, I recall that buproprion is prescribed to treat nicotine addiction because it blocks nicotine's effect on norepinephrine receptors. The strategy with heroin or cocaine withdrawal might be similar, targeting the opioid or dopamine receptors respectively.

Contrast this with the wider effects of alcohol, influencing half a dozen or more neurotransmitters. There's no easy strategy to target the chemical dependencies your brain has built up because there're too many.

So while heroin and cocaine are more immediately addictive than alcohol, withdrawal from alcoholism (once it has developed) can be just as dangerous and sometimes more so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you want to review where Alcohol stands compared to the other psychoactive components:

<http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml>

From my personal experience, I don't drink alcohol at all and find always fun to see the regular alcohol consumption and its effect on people. The effect on me, I'm always the driver at the end of the party...

</comment><comment><USER14> Most of the items in that article you should be familiar if you drink regularly, especially because I imagine most of you have read quite a few of these types of articles as they seem to pop up every now and then.

Word to the wise though: the whole drinking on a full stomach thing, is true, but it's deceiving. What used to happen to me when I just started drinking, was I would drink on a full stomach. Then, drink til I got buzzed. Then, as the article points out, all the food I'd eaten moved into the small intestine...along with alll the alcohol I'd drunk. Then of course it's lights out.

</comment><comment><USER15> They're not kidding about the effects on some Asian people. I once dated an Asian girl who had two glasses of wine with dinner, went betroot red and fell off her chair.

She later (embarrassed beyond belief) admitted that she couldn't handle alcohol but thought she could get through it because I ordered a bottle and didn't want to seem unsocial.

<comment><USER16> Being Asian, I also have a similar effect. I don't get drunk, but rather I go from being a little buzzed or tipsy to hung over. I get pounding headaches and I always want to fall asleep. If I'm lucky, I'll find a beer/wine/spirit that I can nurse for most the night and be okay. Once I get over the tipping point (depends on the alcohol oddly enough), then I go straight into headache mode.

I've also tried Pepcid AC and that works wonders for my condition. Not sure how that affects my system, but I get to experience the different stages of alcohol when I take a pill or two before drinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a better summary for the more biochemically nerdy:

<http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/par7.htm>

I gave up alcohol a while ago. Reading stuff like this gave me a good excuse to never go back.

</comment><comment><USER18>
      > Keep that in mind the next time you or someone else claims that they
      > drive, golf, or otherwise perform some task better with alcohol's
      > help.

The only time that I actually believe people about this is when they are artists who claim that they can perform their art better on {drug}. Though when it comes to things like {heroine,cocaine,etc} I tend to be more skeptical.

<comment><USER19> When you practice tasks, you get better at them, when in the same (or relatively same) situation as the practice. For example, if you get really good at playing chess wearing a tshirt and shorts in the snow, then you'll probably not be as good at chess in 40 degree heat.

Same deal with performing under influences of drugs. Up to a degree, if you do something more while drunk then sober, and get quite good at doing it while drunk, then you it won't necessarily translate over completely to when sober. Of course, if you're totally wasted, then it's all bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> it sounds like i need to get my hands on some artificial Alcohol dehydrogenases

</comment><comment><USER21> Consider legal alternatives that are equal in relaxation and aren't damaging. (no fire!)

<comment><USER22> your suggestion for these?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm going to stay ignorant and not read this article.</comment>


How South African music industry shut down an independent online music platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/kasimp3 <comment><USER2> this is why I am building jukebox smh</comment>


How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/how-social-networks-drive-black-unemployment/ <comment><USER2> "The interviewees in my study who were most angry about affirmative action were those who had relatively fewer marketable skills — and were therefore most dependent on getting an inside edge for the best jobs."

Completely wrong. She got so close and then completely missed it.

Poor white people exist. They're the ones who are most scared of affirmative action not because they are losing an inside edge, but because they don't have one. If you're a rich, prep-school attending legacy to Harvard, you can easily support affirmative action policies because you know your own admission is safe. If you're a blue-collar white kid, you know you're the one who is losing your seat for the affirmative action admission.

Affirmative action doesn't scare you if you have an inside edge. Your Uncle/Mother/frat-brother/whoever is still going to fast-track you. But if you don't have any of those connections and privilege, then affirmative action is terrifying. You see yourself as being penalized for an advantage that you don't actually have, it's not leveling the playing field it's putting you at a disadvantage. That's why those with relatively fewer marketable skills are against it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Notwithstanding my feeling of being link baited by the term "social networks", the points in this article are what I've come to assume & expect. Even if you take out the race angle, most would agree that good professional network is all but necessary to climb the ladder of success. Factor race back in, and it's easy to see how under representation or even discrimination play their part.</comment>


Want to Block Common Passwords? Sorry, That is Patented - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/tb/106dkm

<comment><AUTHOR> Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4546615>

<comment><USER2> Respect. Realizing that your submission was submitted already, and linking it to the former one.</comment></comment>