Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-misled-investors-and-consumers-who-used-its-blood-test <comment><USER2> I have been a voice in the wilderness since about 2007 on this one, so this is shadenfraude on a level that makes me kind of embarrassed about myself.

My background is biomedical engineering, and I just never, ever understood how the sampling rate could ever work. If you're looking for a low-energy signal and your sampling rate is really low, you're just going to miss it and this should've been screamingly obvious to everyone since the beginning.

It's like going to the beach, drawing a 5 gallon pail of seawater, looking into it, and then declaring that the beach is shark-free today and it's safe to swim.

<comment><USER3> Existing analysers already use very small samples.

See Siemens Advia 1800 specs under "Microvolume Technology" [https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/clinical- chemistry/system...](https://www.healthcare.siemens.com/clinical- chemistry/systems/advia-1800-chemistry-system/technical-specifications)

It only uses 30ul of sample to run up to 15 assays.

How is that any different from what Theranos was doing?

Only difference is that you collect a bigger vial when using the Siemens machine. And then don't use most of it. So why not collect a smaller vial?

<comment><USER4> There's no benefit to doing so; and smaller vials are harder to preserve. Measurements on blood draws are not exact, and pre-measured preservatives in the vials and the blood have to be in the right ratios.

This is easier to do consistently in larger vials, reducing the error in this part of the process to acceptable levels. It's the same reason why a recipe will normally be more consistent when making a larger batch.

So you could collect less, but the way the modern lab industry operates (collecting samples, preserving them, and shipping them to an offsite lab for analysis) there is little business benefit to using smaller collection vials.

<comment><USER5> Out of curiousity, how tight are the preservative:blood ratios before Bad Things (i.e. things that would invalidate the test results) start to happen?

<comment><USER3> That's a good question. Looking at this: [http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/65957/1/WHO_DIL_LAB...](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/65957/1/WHO_DIL_LAB_99.1_REV.2.pdf) for EDTA (a very common anticoagulant "preservative") it is 1.2 to 2.0 mg/mL, so a decent range. But, this is one source and it will also depend on what the test is looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't found an article or comment that gives me any insight into what Ms. Holmes might have been thinking. Did she earnestly believe she was on the cusp of some breakthrough, or that one was inevitable with enough brute-force application of investor money? Or was she shrewd and cunning to the core, calculating that she could siphon off enough money to make it worthwhile and spend enough money to spin the facts? I'm totally perplexed trying to put myself in her shoes and understand her motivation.

<comment><USER7> I would expect the truth exists somewhere in between. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that:

* Holmes started with the best of intentions

* Theranos raised capital from starry-eyed investors that didn't carry out proper due diligence

* Realization set in early on that it wasn't going to work out

* Theranos got scared as so much of their time and other people's money had been invested

* The questions mounted

* Stalling became outright deception

* The realization of the consequences after the WSJ article became starkly obvious

* Theranos got spooked and doubled-down on covering up out of fear

.. but this is all speculation, and we'll never really know.

It does seem though that this didn't turn into fraud (which by the end it's quite clear it was) until late on.

It's a bit tragic, really. It seems Holmes could have come clean early on and avoided the worst of the fallout (but for whatever reason that didn't happen).

<comment><USER5> If things working out better are predicated on rising tech stars admitting they're wrong and forgoing the accolades and adulation that accompany the identifier... I can see why things went the way they did.

That said, from a personal perspective, I honestly hope Ms. Holmes is either a sociopath or was actually in the dark about how bad things were (e.g. her direct reports were lying to her).

It seems like it would be a pretty excruciating mental burden to go into work every day for an extended period of time, knowing your company was inevitably failing, and just trying to keep the plates spinning. Ugh.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, committing fraud is pretty nerve-wracking. Won't anyone think of the con men?

<comment><USER5> Let's not assume the VCs weren't somewhat complicit here. At best through lack of due diligence and thereby messaging their ongoing support for the enterprise.

At worst active or passive concealment because they had a large financial incentive that the fraud remain undiscovered.

Given that Theranos didn't IPO, I have a hard time feeling bad for investors (hopefully) taking a loss on this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Part of me dislikes the title "Blood Unicorn" for being sensationalist, but part of me really likes it for being completely accurate and even a little bit poetic. It kind of feels like all titles should strive for this balance, but I also kind of hate it. I'm sure there's a German word for what I'm feeling!

<comment><USER10> It seemed to me as if the author semi-sheepishly is admitting being caught up in the fervor surrounding Theranos:

> I used to refer to it pretty regularly as the Blood Unicorn, Elasmotherium > haimatos, because it was a Silicon Valley unicorn with a peak valuation of > $9 billion that managed to raise $700 million from investors.

I suppose if "unicorn" is meant to describe fundraising activities, it's accurate. They really raised that money.

<comment><USER11> I believe this[1] is the article in which the author, Matt Levine, introduced the phrase "blood unicorn". That article continues with a quote about Theranos's "bait and switch"; the author concludes the section with "'There will be an appropriate time and place to talk about the past,' said Theranos; my guess is that the place might be court."

EDIT: This article[2] (also by Matt Levine) predates [1]. "And here is a unicorn being barbecued in what looks like a medieval manuscript that I will just assume prophesies the coming of Theranos. 'And lo, a Unicorne shall come among ye, and ye shall call it by the name Theranos, or in the Old Tongues, _Elasmotherium Haimatos_. And it shall take your Bloode, but only a lyttle bit of your Bloode, and it shall do strange Magick upon said Bloode, and tell ye many Things. But then it shall come to pass that its Magick was [ _makes 'so- so' hand gesture_], and that those Things were mostly not true. And ye shall barbecue that Unicorne.'"

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-02/mergers-u...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-02/mergers- unicorns-and-vampires)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-26/libor- cha...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-26/libor-chats-and- bitcoin-scams)

<comment><USER12> Matt would appreciate your use of footnotes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sure there are all sorts of dark actors in the shadows on this one. Holmes is being hung drawn and quartered in public, but there were many other people involved in building up this chimera. The board of directors are an interesting bunch and Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani is a colorful character. Holmes may have been a patsy, who knows...

Bloomberg and most other media companies pumped Theranos up for all it was worth, then Murdoch's WSJ deflated the balloon, having previously blown it up to dekacorn dimensions.

It feels like the pump and dump plays so popular in the dot com era by the money.

<comment><USER14> Was she the CEO or not? If the CEO does not bear responsibility for egregious, dangerous fraud who does?

<comment><USER15> I think the point is that others likely should _also_ be held responsible. Not sure I understand your argument here.

<comment><USER14> I'm specifically disagreeing with the usage of the term "patsy", which implies that she's not morally complicit on grounds of naivete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As she long is able to dodge criminal charges, I think she got away with a slap on the wrist. A $500,000 fine and returning most of her Theranos equity is hardly proportionate punishment for a supposed-$700M fraud.

<comment><USER17> By comparison, Shkreli is going to prison over a mere $10M fraud.

<comment><USER18> Shkreli fought it - she took the deal.

<comment><USER19> Oh, wow..

Honest question: I know that plea deals and other rather arcane behind-the- scenes agreements are a thing, but as someone who is not all too familiar with the American justice system, is that really the only relevant difference?

So, what kept Shkreli from taking a deal?

<comment><USER20> From my limited understanding, he broke the law but was able to return all the funds to investors. So there weren't damages per se, but I think statutory penalties instead.

<comment><USER16> SEC cannot bring criminal charges. The Justice Department can. We will see if they do in the case of Elizabeth Holmes.

<comment><USER19> Okay, interesting. Although it seems a bit strange that this would end up in Washington at the federal level, i.e. Justice Department.. I don't think that they have to deal with just any case of fraud, even big ones. But I could be mistaken.

But if the Justice Department handles this I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing gets kind of, well, political..

Also, this somehow begs the question who brought the charges in Shkreli's case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reading this article, I've had a nagging feeling - ok, the founder may have presented a wrong picture, but isn't it the task of tech journalists to call them on that? I am sure some would always be fooled, but how comes pretty much _all_ of them, according to the article, were fooled? And not by some ingenious heist that takes a genius to unravel, but by buying a device from another company, showing it to journalists and telling them "we invented this new awesome thing" and nobody is the wiser? Where's the added value in journalists then, are they reduced now to repackaging press-releases and writing "oh, we've got fooled again" postmortems? OK, let's say they don't have the expertise. A lot of people do. Did they ask those people and report what they are thinking? How comes then I am reading both "any person with med test background should have seen it" and "nobody was seeing it"? If a thing like this happened with some software system, there would be a place for deep redesign of monitoring and evaluation systems, that should have prevented such failure. Yet it happens again and again with reporting and as far as I can see no work is done to fix it.

<comment><USER22> How much ability to do this is possible short of subpoena though?

Theranos history is littered with staged demos (not being described as such), deception (running tests with other manufacturer machines), and outright lies.

For all the upbeat press release regurgitation (of which there was a lot, absolutely), there's limits to investigative journalism of those who _were_ skeptical.

<comment><USER21> Well, interviewing a bunch of specialists saying "this contradicts all I know about medical diagnostics for this and this reason" \- like we see happening here - and then asking the Theranos reps "could you please explain what these experts are missing here, in detail" would be a good start. Of course, Theranos could bullshit their way out of it, but distinguishing bullshit answers from substantial answers is usually much easier and more accessible to non-specialists than figuring out if the whole thing is bullshit from zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Theranos made direct use of its positive press to raise money: It "sent investors a binder of background materials," which included "articles and profiles about Theranos, including the 2013 and 2014 articles from The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Fortune"

I can't decide if the investors were foolish for trusting in news articles, or if the news articles should have been trustworthy.

</comment><comment><USER24> Matt Levine proves, again and again, that there's more nuance to any situation than one might think.

He's the living embodiment of the law's "reasonable observer".

<comment><USER25> I like Matt Levine very much, but exactly what nuance is he adding in this specific case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there any data on how much the executives of Theranos profited while trying to produce these blood tests?

<comment><USER27> The SEC report says about Holmes

> _Holmes was paid a salary of approximately $200,000 to $390,000 per year > between 2013 and 2015_

> _Holmes has never sold any of her Theranos stock._

> _Due to the company's liquidation preference, if Theranos is acquired or is > otherwise liquidated, Holmes would not profit from her ownership until – > assuming redemption of certain warrants – over $750 million is returned to > defrauded investors and other preferred shareholders._

So she probably didn't profit that much financially from the fraud (especially not compared to the sums in play), unless Theranos somehow magically comes back from the grave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> $700M is a pretty big scheme, what's the likelihood Elizabeth Holmes gets jail time?

</comment><comment><USER18> Matt Levine is a national treasure.

</comment><comment><USER29> Seemed that way from the beginning. What kind of people become journalists?</comment>


How Yoast SEO Sitemap Is Causing Issues for Companies with Google - <AUTHOR> https://planetzuda.com/yoast-seo-sitemap-issues/2019/01/08/ <comment><USER2> Ad.

<comment><AUTHOR> We disagree. We inform people of the issue Yoast is causing up to 5 million sites. We didn't think it was fair to release that information without a fix for free in our free software. So, if you see informing, educating, and helping people save their businesses for free as an ad, then we have different ideas of what an ad is.</comment></comment>


Tesla has a lab trying to build its own battery cells - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/tesla-secret-lab-building-battery-cells-to-reduce-panasonic-dependency.html <comment><USER2> Quite a few of my chemical engineering friends at Berkeley have interned at Tesla in their battery cell division. Their laboratory also regularly partners with our Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for various research projects. It's a pretty robust operation actually, though I doubt most people would know about it unless they were in academia or affiliated with the research universities involved.

Happy overall that my friends don't have to choose between their morals or making money working in the oil industry now that battery chemistry is the more lucrative alternative.

<comment><USER3> One thing I learned while reading on HN is that there is never ever any kind of job posting from battery companies. There is much much secrecy about what the battery companies are doing (for obvious reasons). Due to this, they contact Masters/Phd student directly for possible job offers based on research papers and/or word of mouth.

They supposedly do not post any job postings.

<comment><USER2> Makes sense. Most people I know usually work during the school year / summer as research assistants under a professor in their lab before going on to intern somewhere. Unlike with computer science, with more hands on type of sciences like chemistry, I'm sure having some lab experience is pretty important if you want to be a meaningful contributor during your internship.

I don't know much about how job postings online work, but quite a few companies come recruit during the school year, and all of the events are open to everyone as long as you're a student. So I'm not sure it's necessarily as closed off as you're making it out to be with having to be contacted on an individual basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In addition to using Panasonic's IP, Tesla has been using Panasonic as a source of cheap capital for years. Now that Pana has shown reluctance to keep investing in the Gigafactory, Tesla is going to try it themselves: like insurance, shipping, auto body repair, seats, glass, software (where is CarPlay?), inference chips, AI, motors, packs, tequila, sales, service, and manufacturing in general. May this effort fare better than the poor flufferbot.

<comment><USER5> You don't really need Carplay or Android Auto in a Tesla. Those two systems plug in holes in crappy OEM infotainment systems.

<comment><USER6> I drive a Model S and I disagree. I'd prefer to have my own music and podcast apps. Car Play and Android Auto are a lot better UX-wise.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. The Tesla system has a mediocre navigation app, a really pretty awful audio app, and not much else of use. And Tesla's voice commands are not very useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Of course they do.

Their 3 advantages are:

1) motors

2) batteries

3) continuing vertical integration (Elon points this out)

So this is 2+3.

<comment><USER9> Those are certainly the things they've been claiming as their advantages, but the battery tech is mostly bought in and their original in-house motor tech has basically nothing in common with the motors used in the Model 3.

<comment><USER10> _Those are certainly the things they 've been claiming as their advantages, but the battery tech is mostly bought in_

The battery pack, control systems, and cooling systems are something you can get really right, or quite wrong. The cells themselves are important, of course. Given that they're a cost driver, a vertical integration move would be to bring them in house. Even if Tesla ultimately fails at cars, it might still have a future as a battery pack manufacturer.

<comment> m-ee Cells manufacturing is a totally different animal, and I wonder if Tesla is willing to burn money long enough to get as good as Panasonic and the other big players. Being colocated with Panasonic at the gigafactory is a huge leg up, but its still a very long term play that I'm not sure matches up with Elon's patience or Tesla's cash reserves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In this context it is important to note that Tesla just bought Maxwell, which have a very interesting dry electrode process which could make cell manufacturing quicker and cheaper. Also, the cells themselves are improved by the process.

</comment><comment><USER12> Tesla bears think the Maxwell acquisition is key to beginning their own battery production. The idea being, the right time for Tesla to jump into the cell market is during a price/performance discontinuity, and Maxwell's dry electrode production process represents one of those discontinuities.

Essentially: dry electrode will force the whole industry to re-tool, so Tesla is at less of a disadvantage as a newcomer in that moment of the development curve.

<comment><USER13> Also Maxwell's ultracapacitors are spectacular, and could enable a lot of high end features and/or improve regenerative braking across the board. On the high performance models, the motors already tend to move more power than warm summer tires in the dry can even transmit; I'm not sure what the ratio of regen to mechanical/heat braking currently is, but it seems like they could do most non-emergency braking through the motors. Not sure if the batteries are the limiting factor on that right now though.

<comment><USER14> Once the battery is warm most braking is already regenerative unless you are driving quite aggressively and need to reduce speed very rapidly. At least that's how it seems to be in my 2015 S 70D.

So ultra capacitors would have the most impact where people have short commutes in cold climates. Would be handy for me and might make a significant difference in the winter as the nearest thing I do to commuting is a 22 km journey into town and the same coming back after the car has been sitting idle for hours. It takes between 5 and 10 km for the battery to be warm enough for regen to be effective.

But after that I can get 50 kW of regen which is plenty enough to slow the car in normal circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this is because of Panasonic scaling back its investment in the gigafactory, or the cause of it.

<comment><USER16> Panasonic never "scaled back its investment". They already made the investment to produce 35 GWh but haven't been able to reach this production level yet. They'll invest more later, to reach the new 54 GWh target -- only when they start hitting the 35 GWh mark. Investing too early is unnecessary.

>companies had already together invested $4.5 billion in the facility and had been planning to expand the plant's capacity to the equivalent of 54 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year in 2020 from 35 GWh at present.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-gigafactory- panason...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-gigafactory- panasonic/tesla-panasonic-to-seek-productivity-gains-before-new-battery- investments-idUSKCN1RN117)

Note that today's 35 GWh capacity was a __2020 __goal, so they really are ahead of their objectives:[https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...](https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Right as GigaFactory was being planned/announced, there was much speculation/rumors on internet that Tesla was having talks with Samsung about possibly working together to build the gigafactory. I wonder what happened to it...

</comment><comment><USER17> I suspect you'd do something like this if you just had big results from the lab research. Throwing Panasonic out of the process increases the chance that the new battery chemistry doesn't leak.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is going to be like The Boring Company, where they just buy Chinese parts and pass them off as their own?

<comment><USER19> I didn't realise you could buy tunnels from China and import them so cheap!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In addition to using Panasonic's IP, Tesla has been using Panasonic as a source of cheap capital for years. Now that Pana has shown reluctance to keep investing in the Gigafactory, Tesla is going to try it themselves: like insurance, shipping, auto body repair, seats, glass, software (where is CarPlay?), inference chips, AI, motors, packs, and manufacturing in general. May this effort fare better than the poor flufferbot.</comment>


Fortune asks 'Why does America hate Silicon Valley?' - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/fortune-asks-why-does-america-hate-silicon-valley-7000021591/

<comment><USER2> Jesus, speaking of narcissism...

America likes tech, but _really_ doesn't care that much about Silicon Valley. Does anyone leave this place and not immediately see that?

(even the original article is flawed, somehow thinking that distance between the New York financial sector and the press lets them fare better. The meme these days is that the tech sector is after your private data to advertise at you, but Americans by and large put the financial sector at about the same level as they put Congress. The idea that Americans even care enough about Silicon Valley to be able to loathe the place is a joke)

<comment><USER3> Ehh, sort of kind of agree.

America in general doesn't hate tech. Here in NYC tech is not really a controversial topic, and I certainly don't feel a stigma telling people I work in tech.

That said, _the Bay Area_ really hates tech, for much of the same reasons outlined in the article. Despite the fact that techies are _everywhere_ , there is certainly a stigma and a very palpable tension between tech and everyone else in the area.

And I have to agree with the article on that front. We talk a lot of shit about changing the world, we project the image (and the ballot boxes confirm) of bleeding heart, socially-aware liberals but yet it seems that belief applies anywhere except our own back yards. It's a quixotic place where we rant about Big Pharma abusing governments for tax breaks, and then do it ourselves.

It's the sort of place where you'd talk a lot of shit about doing good, alleviating poverty, establishing microloans in distant faraway lands, but do nothing for the open-air crack den you live next to. Nothing about the tens of thousands of homeless people. Nothing about the second-world warzone of a ghetto smack in the heart of the city (the article mentions East Palo Alto, but the Mission and SOMA deserve a mention too). In fact we seem to go out of our way to obstruct any progress in this regard.

We evangelize the dream of this techno-utopia when we can't even realize it in our own back yards. _Worse_ , we're not even trying.

I for one got sick of this shit and moved out. I don't want the future that the Bay Area is building, because it involves a lot of wealthy people deeply absorbed into techno-gadgetry while the world burns down around them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People who hate Silicon Valley do so because they think it's full of narcissistic social climbers who just want to get rich quick but talk like they've joined up with the Peace Corps or are working on a cure for cancer. Wall Streeters, by comparison, are more honest about their rapacity.

It's a stereotype, and one that I'd argue is mostly unfair but at least occasionally accurate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can say that, in Australia, we simply have 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' which Wikipedia defines to be "... a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers."

Wouldn't go so far as to say we 'hate' Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER6> I think that there is something similar in Scandinavia

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

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady It's interesting that most of the comments here are about the point that non- tech people hate silicon valley people. The most interesting part of this article for me was the fact that these companies are changing the world but not helping or contributing to their own local areas. As businesses are more easily able to reach a global market, rather than having to build from a small area and grow, they seem to be caring less about social responsibility. It would be interesting to see how something as simple as shutting down Twitter's free employee meals/snacks etc. and instead subsidising purchases at local businesses would affect the local area.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not living there, what's the Silicon Valley crime like _in reality_?

</comment><comment><USER8> They hate us for our freedoms.

</comment><comment><USER9> On one hand:

It's not Google or Facebook's responsibility to fix a broken government. Stop being so entitled. Twitter cannot fix a ghetto. Twitter cannot hand out jobs to gangsters and murderers. Twitter cannot build a police station. Twitter cannot set up surveillance for the neighborhood. Twitter cannot open up it's campus to random strangers. Twitter is a company, not a charity. It's working in the best interest of its employees.

On the other hand:

You are judged by your attitude. "Change the World"ers remind me of Christians. They worship Jesus yet act nothing like him nor do they follow any of this rules or philosophies. Googlers & Twatters talking about changing the world with WiFi Blimps in Africa and bringing democracy to the middle east while isolating themselves from their own local community is like Christians talking about how much they love Jesus, read the bible, donate millions to televangelists, build million dollar church stadiums yet completely ignore helping the children, poor, & sick.

Then again:

Should "Change the World"ers be more corporate so we don't judge them based on the expectations they set themselves up to? How is that better?

</comment><comment><USER10> Why mediocrities hate cleverness? Because of inevitable cognitive dissonance they must experience in order to fool themselves back to the delusion of their own cleverness.)

Why common people hate hipsters is another question worth asking.) This is because everyone could see, except hipsters themselves, that their playacting of being smart/sophisticated instead of _actually being smart_ is an offence even to that very basic intelligence common folks have.

True smartness doesn't require any special behavior or a dressing style, the same way that wearing a robe is optional for a true seer and flawlessness of a posture is of second importance to the goal of so-called meditation.)</comment>


Optimize your site's images - <AUTHOR> http://www.smushit.com/

<comment><USER2> Is there a description of what it actually does?

<comment><USER3> From the site:

Smushit.com is a service that goes beyond the limitations of Photoshop, Fireworks & Co. It uses image format specific non-lossy image optimization tools to squeeze the last bytes out of your images - without changing their look or visual quality. You'll get a report of how many bytes you can save by optimizing your images and all the changed images as a single zip for download.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but how?</comment></comment></comment>


Senators spar over definition of 'journalist' in seeking to protect them - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/01/198338/senators-spar-over-definition.html#.UfuIWW02FnU

<comment><USER2> "The bill defines a journalist as a person who has a "primary intent to investigate events and procure material" in order to inform the public by regularly gathering information through interviews and observations. The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining any protected information and must plan to publish that news."

It seems that there is some kind of existing agreement that not every blogger can be considered a journalist (eg. if someone discovers something in the course of his non-journalistic, professional duties, and chooses to publish it).

Why must journalists be in a special category at all? If I (a software engineer) choose to do something journalistic, why should that not count?

<comment><USER3> >If I (a software engineer) choose to do something journalistic, why should that not count?

Because that's entirely too scary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole difficulty the senators are having seems to be how to define "journalist" in such a way as to exclude people associated with WikiLeaks, which, whatever you think of it, is clearly a journalistic organization. Sounds like mission impossible.

<comment><AUTHOR> they are defining whom will be allowed to speak out against the government. By using the term journalist they are attempting to circumvent the 1st Amendment, if not modify it, under the guise of "journalist are the press" and if your not a journalist you are not the press.

<comment><USER5> This quote, directly from the article, is indeed quite enlightening: "The world has changed. We're very careful in this bill to distinguish journalists from those who shouldn't be protected, WikiLeaks and all those, and we've ensured that"

So basically, what they're saying: "There should be protection for journalists, unless we don't like what they're publishing." What's the name for a governmental body that passes favours for those who publish approved stories and suppresses stories that could embarrass those in power?

Oh right... Ministery of Propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is some additional context that is important here: the bill is intended to create additional protections that aren't already in place, specifically a federal shield law: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_laws_in_the_United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_laws_in_the_United_States). Right now, journalists don't have the right to refuse to testify about their sources just as nobody has the right to refuse to testify about anything that isn't covered by the 5th amendment or certain common law privileges. The first amendment protects newspapers from censorship, but does not exempt journalists from the obligation to testify in court about their knowledge, an obligation shared by every other person. Shield laws create a special privilege as an additional layer of protection. Most states have a shield law, but the federal government does not. This bill is an attempt to create one.

As for why there is a need to define journalism or journalists, it's because shield laws cut across a very basic assumption in the legal system: a court can force someone to testify about nearly anything that is relevant. The exceptions are very deeply-rooted ones, like the 5th amendment right to refuse to testify against yourself, spousal privilege (the right to refuse to testify against a spouse), and attorney-client privilege.

It's important to define and cabin the bounds of the privilege, because otherwise anybody could invoke it. Imagine if business partners in a shady dealing could refuse to testify against each other by claiming that one was giving the other legal advice and therefore their conversations were protected by attorney client privilege. Real life isn't CSI, where there is always an orgy of physical evidence. The most basic tool of the court system is being able to get people to testify about what happened, in front of a jury of ordinary people who can judge the credibility of that testimony.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ah yes, excellent way to control what gets reported.

Government creates a protected class for journalists. In the future journalists will refrain from reporting bad news about the government that provides them with said protections. Can we not see the idea that the government will pressure journalists to name their sources anyway with the threat of removing these "protections" before they step into court to answer questions?

Reading the quotes from these politicians is almost reading about bigotry or class warfare. This talk of "real reporters" and "special privileges" only intended for certain people based on government rules.

Want the support of the news media? Be the candidate that supports these "protections" for this special class of people. Don't dare be the candidate that wants to remove these "protections" for the good of the people who aren't special enough to be considered part of the protected class.

It's bad enough we have corporations mucking around in the news media, now we have to deal with government officials setting their hooks as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh heavens no! This might wind up covering Wikileaks! They are clearly not journalists, since all they do is publish material people give them after performing some review of that material. As we all know, _real_ journalists do some other thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> The First Amendment makes no definition so people feel the need to exclude people they don't like. Yet clearly the intent for a "free press" was that they could be anyone; otherwise the term free is meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER10> Any country that has a legal definition of "journalist" that gives said journalists rights not granted to ordinary citizens has neither freedom of information nor freedom of speech.

This debate isn't so much about the definition of "journalist", but the question of how to keep the majority of the population silent and uninformed.

<comment><USER6> The U.S. definitely does not have some far-reaching "freedom of information." In the American system, you've always been chargeable with the information revealed by what you choose to say. E.g. if your girlfriend breaks up with you, and you e-mail all of her coworkers and tell them she has herpes, she can sue you for revealing that information. The same is true for all sorts of confidential and private information in different contexts. The core purpose of the freedom of speech is to express opinions, specifically political opinions, not some larger "freedom of information."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How much do you think a journalist license is going to cost and how many licenses will be offered every year?</comment>


In an age of all-knowing algorithms, how do we choose not to know? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/61/coordinates/we-need-to-save-ignorance-from-ai <comment> s-shellfish Socrates also said something along the lines of 'I know that I know nothing'.

You can look at your entire upbringing and education as stuff you know with certainty and stuff you were supposed to know, as well as stuff that is 'correct to know', but that doesn't make it so, nor does it make it completely invincible to change.

You can have the date of your death and it can be wrong. You can 'know' things with near certainty and those things can be wrong too.

Choosing to be aware of the fact that your own knowledge will forever be flawed, no matter what technology exists to tempt you into the belief that you can know everything; this is a tricky balance, but it's the correct balance.

Because, you can't know things before you do. You can 'wiggly know' them, you can be correct in thought a billion times in a row. That doesn't mean you don't require reality to validate that correctness. You do. You can think thoughts, you can analyze computations, but you can't know they are true until they are. This is the only thing I know with certainty, and is my belief that it's a necessary way to think in order to maintain sanity.

This is especially important when we one begins to have the awareness that some types of AI work as effectively as our own minds do (for certain problems). So what does one do in that instance? Fear it? Meh.

Why not just consider it human? Are a million Russian bots really that much scarier than a charismatic politician with a winning smile?

I believe fear corrupts judgement far more than knowledge.

<comment><USER3> I like the points you're making. The proportion of us who aren't convinced by this zeitgeist's most promoted fears is larger than it seems.

I'm not willing to consider a bot swarm to be human though, just a new human tool used to do stuff humans have been doing forever.

Since I've been watching, society has been one step behind the state of the art manipulation techniques. It seems like society gains a big increase in resistance to a technique when we collectively agree on a catchy label for it. Morton Downy Jr. and all the big audience talk shows of the 80s and 90s were perfecting ways control the fears of people (particularly parents). They seemed to become a lot less influential when we started calling it "Trash TV".

24 hour news adopted the lessons learned from Trash TV, and really refined them after 9/11\. The Iraq War, the Patriot Act, the financial crisis were all offered to the public by the same techniques that made your mom ask you if you were huffing canned air.

It hasn't been until a few years after internet techniques have been put into use at scale that society has accepted "fake news" as a label for the last cycle's technique. We've always known "shill" but it doesn't seem like it's the label to start inoculating us. To be fair, we did mitigate a class of techniques with "clickbait". I'm super curious what the final phrase we'll settle on is that'll blunt artificial consensus and fake conversations.

The fear I come back to is that those who manipulate and exploit have perfected not pushing people too far, so things will always get worse and we'll never again have a sinusoidal rebound to an era of greater optimism.

Two things help assuage that fear for me. 1) Reading historical examples of conspiracies to manipulate and exploit. There are a ton of things in American history alone that make the current suspected intrigues pretty milquetoast. The Business Plot was crazy! Bay of Pigs. Mohammad Mosaddegh. MK Ultra. Tuskegee. All that makes me feel less worried that we've got a steepening slope to dystopia.

2) The various revisions to the Playstation 4's "TV and Video" section. I don't have to worry about companies riding fascism's razor edge, they're as unsubtle as ever.

<comment> s-shellfish I say consider it human in the same line of thought the government says "consider a corporation a person". It simplifies the abstraction to make it easier to reason about.

But in another line of thought, what is consciousness, what is awareness? If you live in a vacuum void of stimuli, eventually thoughts cease - <USER2> becomes predictable and you don't have to think or reason about anything if you choose. In that line of thinking, humans are dependent on other humans for the continuance of thought, idea, etc.

So in that line of reason, what is an AI? AIs today are created, maintained, directed, trained, modified, and destroyed by humans. They are not programed to 'make mistakes' or to have a tolerance or appreciation for making mistakes, and that's the biggest difference I see right now between what it means to be human and what it means to be a machine. But functionally, they operate the same as any human - they are dependent on humans for a variety of tasks and they are better than humans at a variety of tasks, just like you might make a comparison between one human to another.

So when it comes to determining how to reason about AIs, it's honestly much easier for me to reason about them like they are a human, because that supersedes all the technology language (similar to how you might choose to interact with a person without considering their neurology or psychology as a factor in anticipating or trusting in their behavior) and allows you to reason about them as though they have intent that can be reasoned about, simplified. Regardless of whether that intent is coupled with the humans that are 'behind the wheel' or not, the point is that you can consider 'human + machine' to be a singular entity, because at the very least, without data, there is no machine.

I think it's important to reason about stuff this way because it separates details - details that while significant to the actual research / engineering of AI, are not necessarily significant to their effect on things like the individual and society, global economy, etc. AI appears to operate on a finer granularity, but I'm not even sure that matters, because what is granularity when it comes to the reasoning systems people use to function modernly? Is it possible to even use that type of terminology when comparing ways of thinking?

And I think that is sort of a middle ground between everyone in a panic and everyone who thinks "same old shit, different decade". It could be different, we don't know.

> The fear I come back to is that those who manipulate and exploit have > perfected not pushing people too far, so things will always get worse and > we'll never again have a sinusoidal rebound to an era of greater optimism.

I don't know about that. Machine learning is in part, used to predict (or control) the future, before the future has happened. That kind of seems like trying to bite your own teeth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In each of these cases, the nature of the conclusion can represent a > surprising departure from the nature of the data used [...]. That makes it > hard to control what we know.

This article conflates _anyone_ knowing from _me_ knowing in order to generate this article. I don't have access to the crime prediction algorithms, so even if I wanted to know the result for me, I can't. On the other hand, I can pull my free yearly credit report right now. I haven't, so I don't know what it is right now. Injecting AI here doesn't change how I would operate as a human to know or not know.

I would argue AI does not shift the balance of forceful-media-inception. That belongs with cybernetics and direct chip-to-brain interactions. AI just uncovers new information for us to consume through old ways. So choosing not to know is by just using the pre-AI way: avoid certain sites, doctors, etc. Once we have cybernetic implants, _that 's_ when we may have to adopt new behaviors to avoid a new avenue from unwantingly pushing information into us.

</comment><comment><USER5> Start by disallowing hn from partaking in shenanigans, which may need to be preceded by discovering how such shenanigans could possibly be occurring in the first place. (Hint: how can data be used against you in your little reality?)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you wish you'd done sooner? - <AUTHOR> Startup life often feels like fumbling around in the dark, and many strategies/ideas that end up being fruitful don't seem the most promising before you try them.<p>What have you done that ended up being much more successful than you'd expected? <comment><AUTHOR> OP here. The reason I posted this ask is because I recently made a small tweak on our website that has generated significantly more signups (without adding any annoyance — I just changed some existing copy), and which is getting us more useful information for identifying and closing institutional customers.

We offer B2C tools, which we sell to individuals and also to institutions (mostly higher ed and K-12, but some corporate as well). We've had a beta tester signup button for a long time, and we'd get a couple signups every day or two. We gathered information like what platforms they were interested in using our tech on, and we would notify folks when we had a new tool to test out.

Recently, I changed the button [1] to be aimed just at university students. When universities purchase our tools, they are made available to all students at the institution. But selling to universities (and elsewhere) is often a chicken-and-egg problem. We have to convince the institution that a sufficient number of students would use our tools, if they purchased them. In the past, we've tried to do an extended free trial for students, but universities just free-rode on this and told students to go get the free trial.

This new web form has attracted more signups (2x-3x) while simultaneously gathering much more useful information. We ask for the institution and degree type, which allows us to then go to these institutions and tell them that we're getting requests from students. That creates a very different dynamic than simply cold-calling and saying "hi, we're a startup and we think your students would use our tools." We also ask the students how our tools would help them (we have a 2-week free trial, so many signups come from students who have used them already), and we can then reference these testimonials (anonymously, of course) in our discussions with universities.

I've been really surprised how impactful this small change has been. Because we're asking for more detailed information, and a non-anonymous email address (their university email), I expected we'd get fewer signups. I wish I'd done this sooner!

1: [https://www.beelinereader.com](https://www.beelinereader.com)</comment>


Applying User Interface Design to Source Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbsinc.biz/articles/applying-ui-principles-to-source-code.html <comment><USER2> This is a great article.

The section concerning self-describing code really hit home. Comments can, at times, be more distracting than helpful. If one chooses to appropriately name code items, it is my belief that comments become unnecessary clutter.

One of the methods I use for clarity when writing object-oriented code is as follows: only getters and setters touch the private data members. The only problem with this approach is if performance (i.e. speed) in your system is an issue; there is a lot of overhead in calling the getters and setters.

What methods do other people use for maintaining source code readability and separation of concerns?

EDIT: For clarification, when I state that one should use only setters and getters to access private data, I mean that other public methods in the same class should be calling the setters and getters instead of accessing the private data directly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some good points there. When it comes to source code, I believe that it all boils down to how detail-oriented the programmer is, and the source code will be a reflection of that. Everything from formatting, white-spacing to method/variable names counts

I have come across places where a programmer chooses to name a variable "temp" rather than giving it a descriptive name, and that annoys the snot out of me. Even if it a temp (and which local variable isn't, in a language like Java) take the time to think about it and name it appropriately!

Some pointers that I use for maintaining source code readability -

1\. Impose a formatting standard on the team (tools like Eclipse have built in formatters, and if that does not work, use a third party tool like Jalopy)

2\. Code reviews should include code presentation style. This involves method/variable naming, ordering of arguments in methods [I swear, I have come across overloaded methods that have different ordering of arguments]. One trick I use a lot came out of Martin Fowler's Refactoring books, and its "Do not be afraid of one-line methods".

Going back to the example the article shows,

if (some_really_longgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg_condition && another_really_longggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg_condition) { handleIt(); }

I would rather do

if(isAppropriateInThisSituation()){ handleIt(); }

and encapsulate the long if inside isAppropriateInThisSituation. Self documenting, yes?

3\. Small methods, please! Another rule of mine, try and keep the method short. I agree sometimes this is possible, but a lot of people write code as they think it out, and never go back to leverage reuse and improve readability. 9 of 10 times, you can and should.

4\. Finally, use the tools that are provided. Eclipse has an optimize imports, format and cleanup source code functionality. Train yourself to run these before checking in files. You can even set up triggers within CI (like CruiceControl) to automatically format the code base on every delivery.

Again, a lot of this rant comes from the Java world. YMMV</comment>


Brains of the Animal Kingdom: Research shows we've underestimated - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323869604578370574285382756.html <comment><USER2> After working a while with animal behavior and neuro-research, I tend to ask myself if there is proof an animal can't do something rather than if they can. They usually learn slower than humans, depending on animal and task, but they can learn complex tasks. What they fail at usually tends to be due to physical limitations such as visual acuity. I don't think we have found the limits of what many animals can do but we are raising the bar slowly. It takes a lot of thought and work to design an experiment with a complex task correctly.

Of Note: Pigeons can classify a Picasso from a Monet at an expert level and peck their answer within 300ms: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334394/>. They were tested on assembly lines to pick out defective parts. They did better than humans but were not used due to decreased moral of other humans on the line. This was done in the early 60's I believe. Here is an article on it in the New Scientist (1962) [http://books.google.com/books?id=HxU-9UeDCI0C&pg=PA498&#...</a>

<comment><USER3> It's probably rude, but I think that the fact about the decreased morale is somewhat hilarious. Just picture the situation where you have a whole bunch of assembly line workers being ousted by pigeons. What would it feel like to know that a bird is better at your job than you? It's just absurd.

<comment><USER4> Somehow it offends one's dignity less to be ousted by a robot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have no question that animals far exceed the cognitive capabilities most humans give them credit for. It saddens me that there's such a massive void in knowledge about this world we live in. I wonder how much more advanced humans would be if more time were spent expanding that knowledge instead of gratifying our other pleasure-systems by focusing instead on increasing bank account balances, political power, or participating in destructive conflicts with other humans. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge seems to be turning into one of those huge unappreciated things that seems to have been degraded in its worth unless it's able to be leveraged to some competitive advantage.

<comment><USER6> Thank you! You are a great human.

<comment><USER7> Whether intended ironically or not, this comment amused me. (Knowledge seeking, moral high ground, and social approval are also pleasure-reward systems; not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Carry on; both of you are fantastic humans. :)

<comment><USER6> No, it wasn't intended ironically! I resonated because the other day I spoke with an academician in business studies, who was researching how corporations can make more money...

I argue that consumerist systems of ideas are essentially against human nature, fundamentally flawed. Because they focus locally, history-wise; "me, now, need that. yes, good. more. thank you."

 _In the mean time_ , humans are a uniquely interdependent species, in that they are interdependent not just in space, but also in _time_ – through the techno-ideological legacies that are being passed on to next generations (and research is at the heart of all that). So, any endeavour that does not _start_ as a concern for the future, _and_ for the next generations, is against our very human nature... You know, somebody put it well: "for the most part, what we are surrounded by is not the dead work of the living, it is the living work of the dead." :)

Also, I believe that with the advent of computers, it has _never_ been a better time in human history to do science (then, again, I also believe the statement could have been made at any point in human history. See above.) The computational power, the software, and Google – the great minds of our past would have surely looked at those and believe they are the holy grail of humanity. And the most amazing part is, that they empower _anybody_ to conduct research.

In sciences, I find meaning and sanity. And people behave like gentlemen. Yes, that is pleasurable and deeply satisfying; but it is also preferable to the materialistic hysterias, which created so many socio-economic problems – proof of their lack of human ecology.

I hope I made a strong argument :)

I saw somebody say this in a Youtube video: "Stay human. Stay curious. And let the entire world know that you are."

<comment><USER8> What is "human nature?" Anyone making the claim that "X" is part of human nature, but "Y" is not part of human nature, needs to be very careful. Because the fact that humans do both X and Y is already evidence that both are a part of human nature. The fact that humans are consumerists that focus locally proves that consumerism is a part of human nature, _by definition_.

Sure, you could point to the influence of the media and how it shapes our behavior. But then again, the media is a social construct, something we humans have created and directed at ourselves. Thus, once again, the construction of mass media is also a part of human nature. All this would prove is that human nature is highly malleable.

How can you even begin to argue that something is "against our very human nature?" The fact that humans do that behavior is evidence it is in our human nature. You see, making such a claim relies on some inherently non-human standard of determining human nature and morality (since it seems your argument has to do with morality).

I think you made an exceedingly weak argument, by relying on such hand-wavy and self-defined notions as "human nature."

<comment><USER9> > _What is "human nature?" Anyone making the claim that "X" is part of human > nature, but "Y" is not part of human nature, needs to be very careful. > Because the fact that humans do both X and Y is already evidence that both > are a part of human nature._

Or that other people had fucked up society so much (for their own benefit, unrelated to X and Y), so that people are forced to do Y.

Like, for example, being a child prostitute.

Nothing in human nature (outliers excluded) makes a child want to prostitute itself. But they do it, all over the world, either because they are threatened with violence, or because they have to eat and it's something they can do to achieve that.

I gave an extreme example -- normal prostitution is equally off. As are tons of other things (working 16 hour shifts at some shitty factory in China for example, or eating fast food crap day in and day out), but those are not as controversial and people accept them more.

<comment><USER10> All you have shown is that it is within human nature for humans to force other humans to do terrible things (i.e. to fuck up society)

<comment><USER9> No, you missed the other part I have shown, which cames naturally from the above: that there are things that are forced upon some humans, and thus not a part of their nature or natural tendencies.

<comment><USER10> Uh... no. All you have shown is that it is within human nature to do something you don't want to do because you are being forced to (because you fear being killed or being beaten, or because you are desperately trying to survive).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Other primates had been tested, but they had been tested on human faces -- based on the assumption that ours are the easiest to tell apart._

::face-palm::

<comment><USER12> Yes, if that's really true one has to wonder about the common sense of the scientists who did that research!

<comment><USER13> Well if it turned out that they _could_ tell apart human faces that would be an interesting result. But it certainly doesn't prove that they can't distinguish members of their own species, if that is what the researchers were claiming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

\- Douglas Adams

</comment><comment><USER15> The things listed are kind of old... this discussion has been going on for a while. Goldfish and tit for tat, fish and tool use, none of it is really new... so the implication that we're just getting to it isn't quite accurate, and the article didn't even mention what little actually is unique to humans. If you want an interesting talk about "uniqueness" Robert Sapolsky has one from a few years back that has been highlighted on ted, but I feel like the way it is approached in the article implies it is new, and it is not.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html)

One thing that is not correct is that humans are unique in sex not being used solely for reproduction, bonobos are very reliant on sex for social purposes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A lot of those seemed like really striking examples of bad experiment design. I wish there were more venues for publishing negative results (as well as experimental setup for failed experimental design) -- I know sometimes it is done for really "interesting" negative results, but there's a strong bias against publishing when you don't see what you want, in the conventional journal system.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is my belief too and a reason I'm vegetarian. In my mind the chance of us eventually beginning to see animals as more and more people like are VERY good. I don't want to look back over the last 20 years and realize that I killed and ate so many people especially since it is unnecessary.

Part of my chain of reasoning is seeing how black people were referred to as animals and their intelligence and general ability was VERY much underestimated since we are in fact all human beings. Then seeing all of the research we've done with dolphins. They have their own language and social structure. Even bees have a language that we're just now beginning to understand.

In fact, the more research we do, the more evidence we seem to find that we've sold "animals" short.

<comment><USER17> Animals eating each other is part of the nature of our existence. I myself don't feel any guilt about it.

<comment><USER18> I am a vegan for moral reasons, and I have no objection to people eating animals. What I do object to is the horrifying daily torture that animals must suffer in the meat, dairy and eggs industry. I am guessing this is where some of your food comes from.

In my experience, people who have no qualms about using animal-based products are ignorant of the realities of how these products are made. I encourage you to watch Earthlings [1] -- free to watch on their site -- and see if you feel the same way once you've seen some evidence.

[1] <http://earthlings.com/>

<comment><USER19> As a fellow vegan, I have to ask -- why be vegan if you have no objection to people eating animals, if they are raised/slaughtered "humanely"? Why not just buy local meat/dairy/eggs? At least where I live, it's pretty easy to meet farmers at a farmer's market and talk to them about how their animals are treated.

<comment><USER18> First, I doubt we would be able to agree on a viable definition of "humane" commercial farming. But even if we did, I would not take the farmer's word for how the animals are treated. What I have heard from a former farmhand, who worked on several small farms, is that abuse of animals is simply the norm.

It sounds reasonable to me that this is the situation, except perhaps in very small farms. History has taught me this: whenever humans have physical control over other humans, they tend to abuse their subjects in terrible ways. Slavery. The Holocaust. Gulags. North Korean concentration camps. It seems to me that the way we are treating animals is simply a manifestation of this tendency toward sadism. It is not difficult to find recorded evidence of pure sadism playing out both in small and large farms. Since I have no way to verify a given farmer's claims, I will not take the risk.

Second, a well-balanced, strictly vegetarian diet is far more healthy than a diet that is based on animal products [1,2]. I know that many people do not believe this, and they base their views on the vast amount of disinformation that is out there. To get to the truth you have to listen to the experts. The book [1] I am citing was written by Dr. Walter Willett, one of the leading researchers on the relation between nutrition and disease. His recommendation is basically to eat as I suggested above. More precisely, he recommends (based on decades of research) to reduce animal-based foods as much as possible, and to reduce processed foods in favor of whole foods. There are of course additional recommendations that I will not go into.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Drink-Be-Healthy- Harvard/dp/074326...](http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Drink-Be-Healthy- Harvard/dp/0743266420)

[2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30gEiweaAVQ>

<comment><USER20> Vegetarian diet more healthy? In what criterion? Lean body mass? Sprint speed? Hint: vegetarians are known to be slow [1]. I think whether vegetarian diet is more healthy depends on personal traits: gut flora, genetics, even climate one lives. Basically there is no such one-fits-all scenario for a diet.

[1] Louise Burke - Clinical Sports Nutrition

<comment><USER19> You're less likely to have numerous health problems by following a vegetarian diet. As a vegetarian you are, for example, less likely to have heart disease, the number one killer in the United States. [1] Interestingly, some of the oldest people in the world eat a primarily plant-based diet (though not exclusively). [2]

The issue is that you need a _well planned_ veg diet. You can't just eat french fries and white bread and expect to maintain your health, obviously. For me, after a couple months of tracking my food and learning the calories/fat/protein of a lot of plant foods, I don't really have to think hard about creating well-balanced meals. It's a learning process.

I'm sure it's possible to have a healthy diet that includes a very small amount of non-red meat. That small amount is probably not going to hurt you _that much_. [3] However, you can get every vital nutrient you would get from meat from a plant source without the tacked-on fat and cholesterol.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/vegetarians- heart-h...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/vegetarians-heart-health- die-hospitalization_n_2583115.html)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island- where-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people- forget-to-die.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

[3] [http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/study-urges-moderation- in...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/study-urges-moderation-in-red-meat- intake-201203134490)

<comment><USER21> You can't get B12 from any plant source, though.

<comment><USER19> Not from plants, but from micro-organisms and bacteria! Yum! Many of my foods are fortified with B12.

50% DV in my soy/almond milk, 40% in a single tbsp of nutritional yeast. I have a cup with cereal in the morning and a cup with dinner at night and I'm set. It's quite easy.

<comment><USER21> Personally, I'd rather get a shot than have to eat nutritional yeast.

<comment><USER19> Are you kidding? Nutritional yeast is delicious! You can put it on popcorn, include it in any recipe that calls for Parmesan (like risotto or cheesy pastas), use it for breading tofu, use it to make vegan mac n cheese. I love nutritional yeast...in case you can't tell. :) It just has an awful name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent article!

A couple of observations...

"Aristotle's idea of the scala naturae, the ladder of nature, put all life- forms in rank order, from low to high, with humans closest to the angels. During the Enlightenment, the French philosopher René Descartes, a founder of modern science, declared that animals were soulless automatons. In the 20th century, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner and his followers took up the same theme, painting animals as little more than stimulus-response machines." <\- rudimentary systems of ideas.

And I kindof gasped towards the end of the article, when I read this: "The one historical constant in my field is that each time a claim of human uniqueness bites the dust, other claims quickly take its place. Meanwhile, science keeps chipping away at the wall that separates us from the other animals."

I mean, as I said, excellent article, but let's not falsify _by omission_. We are the only species who can build on previous generations' achievements; and the only species who can abstract indefinitely (i.e, always make a statement about a previous statement). These are both due to the special linguistic behaviours we are capable of.

<comment><USER22> there's probably a lot of examples of knowledge in animals that is passed from generation to generation, like say the knowledge of how to crack open nuts with rocks

we definitely have something most animals don't, but that something may be more of a degree thing than a kind thing

<comment><USER23> > we definitely have something most animals don't

"Religion and control of fire" seem to be the big things that humans have and no non-human animal has. "Language with recursive grammar" is a possible differentiator, but that's currently up for debate.

<comment><USER24> I would amend that list and add conscience and the ability to question what is moral or not. Animals in some cases may have limited capabilities, but other animals, such as cats and their sadistic behaviors, I would question.

<comment><USER6> Somebody else posted this in the same thread: [http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html). It overviews sharp distinctions between the behaviours of animals and humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Also worth reading: "If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness" [http://web.archive.org/web/20090416230704/http://www.nytimes...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090416230704/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/budiansky- lion.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> If by 'we' the authors of this article mean people who only believe things that have been 'proven' by science, then the intelligence of animals will always be underestimated by definition.

</comment><comment><USER27> You could also say we've vastly overestimated the intelligence of human animals.

<comment><USER28> In that respect, I would say we are separating into different species.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've realised a long time ago that human knowledge on animal intelligence was underrated. They may not be able to predict future observations nor to be able to remember trivial events from the past nor to create or use tools, but when you take a closer look at them, whether they are insects, fish or mammals, they can all sense danger and opportunity in nature. It's no automatic reflexes but true analytics of their environment. After all a worm is said to have an IQ of 1 when the IQ of a computer is 0. Animal kingdom is smarter than previously thought and most of them probably have emotions like fear, pain & empathy. This is no anthropomorphism but a true fact.

</comment><comment><USER30> Here's the author's Wikipedia page <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal>

</comment><comment><USER31> Should we be saying "Research shows research underestimated"

</comment><comment><USER32> I have always believed that we were nowhere near over our chauvinism as a species in this regard.</comment>


10 Most Hated Jobs Based On Employee Surveys - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/113308/10-most-hated-jobs-cnbc

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Director of Information Technology 2\. Director of Sales and Marketing 3\. Product Manager 4\. Senior Web Developer 5\. Technical Specialist 6\. Electronics Technician ...

All of them are in technology/business sector. Why do you suppose that is?</comment>


Ask HN: What do want to see in programming language? - <AUTHOR> I'm developing a new Programming Language. And I want it to be different.<p>If a promising langauge is out there, What do you wanna see in it? <comment><USER2> I would like a C++ without the spider webs. Not different, we have plenty of different languages out there; I have no interest in debugging other peoples fancy ideas. I just want a powerful language that lets me say what I mean without keeping 30 years of accumulated exceptions in mind.

<comment><USER3> You should try D. It's pretty much C with some weirdness fixed and OOP added on. Do mind that it's not a weak language, D has some very simple but extremely powerful features that plain C doesn't have, or that C++ has in a too complex way.

<comment><USER2> I've kept an eye on D over the years, but that's still too much magic for me. What C++ (and Lisp) gets right is providing user code with the same powers as the compiler. I realize that getting there is what turned them into complex beasts, but plenty could be left behind should one decide to make a clean cut. The problem from my perspective is that we're working both ends of the spectrum, backwards compatibility and fancy new ideas; but no energy is spent on cleaning up and refining what's already there.

<comment><USER3> > What C++ (and Lisp) gets right is providing user code with the same powers > as the compiler.

So what part of that isn't fulfilled by compile time function evaluation and mixins and it's extensive introspection features? I feel like maybe you haven't looked at D quite hard enough to see why it's awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I doubt this is what you were looking for, but I want to see a programming language that is not text based.

For the past decades no one has been disrupting programming at a fundamental level.

We are stuck with a "program must be a bunch of ascii files edited with text editors" mindset that no one dares to challenge.

The collective of programmers suffer from an extreme case of the Stockholm syndrome.

If you are not familiar go learn about "Intentional Programming".

I recently wrote some relevant comments about it.

Here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384269)

And here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278605)

Current programming languages mean we share an ASCII language with the compilers. This creates a fundamental tension and conflict of interest between humans and computers.

It creates all sorts of artificial problems that we have spent so much time trying to fix.

If you are interested checkout Charles Simonyi's work and talks on Youtube as well.

<comment><USER5> Language Server Protocol, Smalltalk, Unison, Lambdu, Etc... There are also some similar work.

<comment><USER4> Isomorf is the closest thing I have seen to what I was talking about.

[https://isomorf.io/#!/demos](https://isomorf.io/#!/demos)

If you are interested search for "Intentional Programming".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Python, I'd love to add something like const in a function definition, for the arguments, to say that the arguments will not be modified by the function. For example, I would want the following code to somehow return an error

        def get_last_element(const my_list):
            return mylist.pop()

<comment><USER7> You can do that in Python by converting the list to a tuple before passing it in. The need for a defensive copy is unavoidable as long as you're using mutable data types though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A statically typed, native-compiled clojure. That is, a statically typed, native-compiled lisp with a focus on functional programming, immutable data- structures by default, the sequence abstraction and other clojure-isms (protocls, transducers, core.async)

</comment><comment><USER9> A language that supports both

\- the serialization of running tasks: [http://stackless.readthedocs.io/en/2.7-slp/library/stackless...](http://stackless.readthedocs.io/en/2.7-slp/library/stackless/pickling.html)

\- sandboxing and resource control of computations within the same process

This combination doesn't seem to exist yet.

</comment><comment><USER10> Programming languages are exceptionally difficult to design. Most "new" programming languages end up looking a lot like the "old" programming languages but with a slightly different set of warts.

Programming language design is distinctly different from programming language implementation and distinctly different from program optimization. A programming language designer need to have experience and skills in implementation and in optimization. Optimization is important because it assists in understanding the underlying concepts that need to be supported by a programming language.

Brian Kernighan, Jon Bentley, and others have long advocated for designing and implementing little languages, small domain-specific languages to solve a limited class of problems using "natural" abstractions, operations, and data. The Unix pic language is a classic example. Read the literature about "little languages"; Google is your friend. See, for example, [http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/04/an-interview-with- brian...](http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/04/an-interview-with-brian- kernig.html) to learn about little languages.

What I would like to see is for you to learn about programming languages and their implementation before you rush off to design one. You might design, implement, and use a little language for a class of problems you encounter in a domain in which you work regularly. Use it to improve your productivity. Share the language with others who have the same problems to solve. Get their suggestions and feedback and incorporate them into your language system and repeat. That is likely to give you joy.

Designing a programming language is just the beginning. If your language is to have legs, you need to ensure that there are readily available implementations with libraries and operating system support for your language. You need to write papers and manuals and promote your language actively. And you need to be patient since adoption of a new programming language takes decades. And you need to be aware that language choices are often fickle.

If your goal is to eventually devise a new general purpose programming language, you need to program a lot of different problems in a multiplicity of languages and styles in order to understand what languages need. Asking HN is likely to be a sub-optimal strategy because most folks who read HN tend to conceive their problems and programs in terms of mechanisms and abstractions in existing languages.

You might want to look at the evolution of particular programming languages and the conceptual problem solution frameworks they express. Do this for several different language styles: procedural, functional, distributed actors. For example, I think the evolution of Python (including Lua and Ruby) contrasted with Perl would be quite educational.

Also, I would be cautious about trying to be different for the sole purpose of being different. Our current programming languages encapsulate years of experience and scar tissue which needs to be retained.

</comment><comment><USER11> A specific purpose. What are you aiming with your programming language at? Only to be different?

<comment><AUTHOR> I aim to achieve a language which is easier to read. And I don't aim to lose the speed of a powerful language.

<comment><USER11> Then you set up yourself for a failure. Another Python or Ada, except much younger and with no libraries and probably no way to interact with anything already written, most likely won't gain any traction. Especially that the goal you've stated ("easier to read") is very vague.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like a programming language that kicks the programmer in the nuts if he over engineers things and writes unreadable code.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would like to see an expressive language like Ruby or Perl 6 that runs as fast as C and compiles very fast.

</comment><comment><USER14> A way to mutate the code at runtime depending of the context (the stack frame...).

</comment><comment><USER15> Why not create a DSL for a particular niche you are interested in.

Look at any Java enterprise app and there will be a lot of WET cruft calling out for a DSL.</comment>


A History of Electronic Music - <AUTHOR> http://www.ahoem.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> This history, which Sheeky began publishing in 2007, starts with the Telharmonium, up through the early 80s. Sheeky spent years creating and assembling it. The word 'podcast' does not do it justice. Each episode includes many audio quotations which he introduces.</comment>


Silk Road 2 Hacked, Over 4,000 Bitcoin Allegedly Stolen - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/13/silk-road-2-hacked-88000-bitcoin-allegedly-stolen/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb <comment><USER2> This is already the #1 post on the front page.</comment>


The Happiness Formula - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/a5a67098c01a <comment><USER2> I can vouch for the addition of meditation and/or yoga to this regimen. No data to back it up other than qualitative reduction of back pain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome -- I've heard a lot of smart people mention yoga/meditation, but I don't have the patience for it. Will consider it though

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the nice response people! A few people asked about access to the raw data, I am happy to share with a handful of people, please message privately</comment>


Advanced RFID with Arduino and Python - <AUTHOR> http://appdelegateinc.com/blog/2010/10/06/rfid-auth-using-arduino-and-python/

<comment><USER2> There are some really great open-source Python libraries for UHF RFID tags (battery-free tags that can be read from 6+ meters away): <http://www.ros.org/wiki/hrl_rfid>

These form the basis of my PhD work. Turns out you can do some cool stuff when you couple it to an autonomous, mobile, manipulating robot: [http://www.hsi.gatech.edu/hrl/pdf/pervasive_computing_2010.p...](http://www.hsi.gatech.edu/hrl/pdf/pervasive_computing_2010.pdf) (PDF)

<comment><USER3> A couple of questions... How do you get rid of the signal rebound due metallic presence in the robot?

 _provides an object a unique ID with extremely small uncertainty, whose location is inferred by lowerlevel sensory processing_

How precise is your method to locate the object? Are you using an array of antennas to calculate the position of every RFID?

<comment><USER2> Multipath due to the robot's body is certainly a design issue. Generally, you try to use highly directional antennas facing away from the robot so that the influence is minimized.

The particle filter implementations for localization use the motion of the robot or panning antennas to integrate the otherwise sparse signals into something more meaningful. This is analogous to using an antenna array. Still, with these implementations (under the best conditions), you're talking about an error of ~20-50cm on average with a pretty high variance -- meaning other sensors are generally required, though our near-field antennas allow you to hone in on the position even better using the same tag.

Meanwhile, local methods (eg. servoing from the difference between two antennas) works quite well. Publication(s) forthcoming. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Arduinos are great. I have two of them. One is a DIY clone called "DorkBoard". Check it out. Also have a look at the MSP430 based LaunchPad kit, its very cheap and available from Mouser.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have 4 MSP430's, but they're a little tougher to program

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Advanced features, but easy to use.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I prep for interviews, and stay calm before? - <AUTHOR>

I know there's advice all over the Internet for this, but still just hoping for some feedback. I just finished a Skype interview that I'm feeling horrible about and this isn't the first time - I constantly feel terrible when doing coding interviews, I was even hesitant in my basic Fibonacci implementation (which was just a warmup!)<p>I can't let this keep holding me back, so any words of wisdom on this are appreciated. <comment><USER2> Good advice here so far. I'll add a few nuggets from my experience helping tons engineers prep:

1\. Some people just freeze up in interviews. It's anxiety-inducing, especially coding interviews; you're not alone. Here's a bolder approach that often works: reach out to interviewer, hiring manager, even HR beforehand, and give them the heads up that: you know in advance, you're not a natural interviewer, but have learned that you're still capable and interview nerves don't mean incompetence on the job. They'll appreciate the honesty, you'll have set the expectation beforehand (preventing disappointment), and I wouldn't be shocked if you run into interviewers who can sympathize, may respect you for being vocal, self-aware & upfront.

2\. Same theme as above (going above & beyond as communicator during process), but during the interview. Don't be afraid to ask questions or for clarification, and keep it light by saying something like "sorry, I just get the jitters with interviews." That can break the awkwardness and maybe just set a nice, new tone, in turn reducing your stress and resulting in a win-win.

3\. Common sense, but not followed enough for people who struggle in interviews: practice with someone else. The more you do it, the closer you'll get to "being yourself" in the interview.

Feel free to let me know if you have Q's about this!

</comment><comment><USER3> I was nervous in interviews until I had a job that involved interviewing candidates. Sitting on the other side of the desk really helped me to understand that my nerves were not necessary and were not helping anyone.

Here is an exercise that you might try:

1\. Ask a friend to help

2\. Your friend will play HR. He should find 16-20 resumes online and email them to you one at a time over the next couple of days. Each one should be accompanied with a one-line note, "I like this one", "Wow, cool font", "Will she be a good fit for the team?" etc

3\. Your friend will choose a random time over the next few days to email you one of the CVs with a note "You are interviewing this guy in 20 minutes, don't be late". You have 20 minutes to finish whatever you are doing, read through the CV and formulate some questions.

4\. Your friend now pretends to be the candidate. You are the interviewer. Try to put the candidate at ease, ask pertinent questions, avoid questions about remuneration, etc. This interview has to last about 40 minutes. Shake hands, your friend leaves.

The four steps above are chaotic and a dumb way of hiring anyone, yet this is exactly how many businesses conduct interviews. Having been through the process on the other side of the desk, how could the candidate make life easy for the interviewer and ensure that he leaves a memorable and favourable impression?

<comment> temp-reply Yep. And given how chaotic and dumb it all typically is: You will succeed if you can fix somebody's problem. This process, having to hire somebody, is the company's problem. They want it to be over. You can fix their problem by...

\- having a cover letter that correctly identifies (1) the company, (2) what it does, and (3) why you specifically are a good fit for the specific position you are applying to

\- showing up in person or over the phone and executing on those 3 points once again

\- following up after the interview with a short thank you note that reiterates on those 3 points one last time

Companies (typically) want just these 3 simple things. They WANT them from you. They WANT you to succeed. Show up and BE the solution to their problem. You will blow most of the competition out of the water with the force of your application's coherence alone, and the company will greet you like a long lost child.

Now there are other situations that are designed specifically to intimidate and upset the applicant... undergraduate management consulting and finance recruiting processes can turn into this, notably. I don't have any advice on those situations, other than: Sure you want to work there?

<comment><USER3> Heh, that's exactly how I got my last job.

As you note, there are interviewers that want to gauge how a candidate will react under pressure (as if a job interview wasn't enough pressure already). It's a strong signal that the company has some problems, if "ability to work under pressure" is a job requirement.

Another trick is that management/finance/accounting/legal consultancies will often arrange a "social" evening for candidates, including alcohol. If you find yourself in such a situation, you know how you should behave but you can guarantee that someone will mess up.

One last point, when I conduct a technical interview, I often will attempt to gauge a candidate's depth of knowledge in a particular subject. That means I will ask harder and harder questions until there is one that the candidate cannot answer. Please note that "I don't know but..." is the perfect answer and often leads to a great conversation about related tech or work experience that might just land you the job. Trying to make up some BS answer will not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps we shouldn't strive (and stress about) being the best you can be, during the interview.

On the contrary, if you passed an interview being your worst, and still be hired, it would be much cooler, for everybody:

\- you wouldn't stress about the interview, \- you would exceed expectations on the job, therefore \- your employer would be happy; \- also, since you'd be less stressed, you'd be more creative, and therefore overall more successfull, as a lot of studies seem to show.

Of course, since in the capitalist system, getting hired is often a question of life of death, it can't be less stressful. I'll let you guess where the actual problem lies...

</comment><comment><USER5> Practice and interview. That's all you can do. If you think there's some secret to it, there isn't. The more you interview, the more you'll realize that a lot of it is luck-based, in that the questions you're asked are either reasonable or unreasonable. You have no control over that, so don't bother worrying. If you're trying to join a company that consistently asks unreasonable questions, then you either need to level up and learn the material behind the questions they're asking, or give up.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to get crippling anxiety interviewing remotely. My trick was to pour a double of something (usually whiskey) and drink on that. Of course, you can't do that before an in-person, but it helped me overcome the anxiety of interviewing. The words seemed to flow easier with a drink or two in me. They don't call it 'liquid courage' for nothing. YMMV, of course :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Honestly? Just practice a lot and get people who have some familiarity with Software Engineering/Computer Science to interview you. It's also important that you ask those people to not take it easy on you.

The initial discomfort is necessary if you want to get better at this.

</comment><comment><USER8> you believe you're smart. regardless of any specific question you get hung up on, have faith that your basic intelligence and skills will show through. try to represent yourself honestly, that should be enough for them.</comment>