Ask HN: What are your favorite books of all time, and why? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER4> Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss I am not a fantasy fan in general, but this is my favorite story of all time. The story within a story within a story, characters, world just about perfect.

Daemon - Daniel Suarez So little of the SciFi I read is memorable. This book explores SO many topics in memorable ways that I am blown away.

<comment><USER5> I liked Name of the Wind because it's a perfect counterpoint to Lord of The Rings, in a way.

LOTR reads like a classical history book, sometimes literally. Everything is true, everything is tied together. The narrator disappears for omniscience.

Name of the Wind is an obvious post-modern slant with an unreliable narrator. The story Kvothe himself tells _obviously_ makes him seem like a superhero and Rothfuss manages to (whether intentional or not) tell a story about a story that doesn't all add up. I can't say it's my favorite book. But, reading it against LOTR was fascinating.

<comment><USER6> Kvothe being awesome at everything irritated me, it actually went over my head that he might be an unreliable narrator...

I liked Name of the Wind for the most part but some of the characters were flatter than pancakes. That bad guy student (Ambrose?) has no motivation beyond just being a deliberate antagonist

<comment><USER7> > That bad guy student (Ambrose?) has no motivation beyond just being a > deliberate antagonist

Ambrose is a bully. You've never met a bully?

"The researchers found that children who bullied were often motivated by a desire to increase their popularity and that they chose generally unpopular victims to avoid losing social status... Bullies tend to be aware of the social hierarchy within the class and are seeking the admiration of specific people." [0]

Amrbose (unknowingly) thwarts Kvothes QUEST as part of a petty prank to put him in his place. Kvothe fights back. Once that antagonistic relationship is established, it gets out of hand and there is plenty of motivation to keep it going.

[0] [https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100325/what- motivates...](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100325/what-motivates- kids-who-are-bullies)

<comment><USER6> Every bully has a back story. Or should have.

<comment><USER8> The lead character of the TV series "Doc Martin" is totally unsympathetic as the series unfolds.

Then, a few episodes in, you meet his parents.

<comment><USER6> Never seen it, worth a watch? I do like Martin Clunes

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, but you MUST watch from the beginning, in sequence, as the characters are developed and backstories unfold. Clunes does a brilliant job of being a total jerk.

At first.

It's far more than your typical fish-out-of-water setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meditations - Marcus Aurelius - A Roman emperor's private thoughts to himself. He was a philosopher and practiced stoicism. He had everything a human could want, money, women, power and yet he reminded himself daily how fleeting it all was. How easily a man can be swayed from his purpose. How not to look down on others. It's my all time favorite book for keeping life in perspective.

The Road Less Traveled - M. Scott Peck - When I was struggling with depression and not feeling worth anything and generally a piece of shit someone pointed this book out to me. It talks about how no one can shoulder your psychology burdens for you and fix them. You have to take the work on full force and fix yourself. You may have suffered wounds in your childhood and be playing them out in your adulthood. It's all subconscious behavior.

The Game - Neil Strauss - I was struggling to understand women and relationships. This book fundamentally changed the way I understood myself and relationships with other people. Another great book for understanding that external forces can't bring you the happiness or fill the void you're hoping for.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Art of electronics. Learned more from that than I did doing an EE degree at university. It gets used to this day even though I bought this copy in 1995. I have the latest edition arriving today.

<comment><USER11> Amen. AoE, a desk drawer packed with assorted components and a couple of veroboards basically got me through university.

Heck, I even got called to an EE professor's office after a circuit design exam - was told a couple of my answers clearly showed I had spent more time studying AoE than the curriculum. "So - we're going to have to give you a mediocre grade, but no worries, you'll do brilliantly in industry; I'd be happy to write you a recommendation to that effect."

He actually did; it is framed and proudly displayed on my office wall.

<comment><USER10> Haha similar. I had my own lab of skip dived kit in halls. I got told my lab assignment looked like something out of AoE. Couldn't complain because it worked and had a cheaper BOM than they expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Neuromancer.

Such a beautiful execution of a great story set in a captivating world, packing a pageful of storyline, images and innuendos into every line of text. It feels like Gibson was on a strict word diet, but the result is a one of a kind masterpiece of story telling.

<comment><USER13> There's a recording[0] of Gibson reading Neuromancer that I really enjoyed. His reading is very stylistic and might be off-putting for some people, but I think it captures the spirit of the story better than a dry narration.

[0] [http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/neuromancer/neuromancer_audi...](http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/neuromancer/neuromancer_audio.html)

<comment><USER14> I enjoyed this BBC version:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRxn3pDMCc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRxn3pDMCc4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham - everyone goes blind and a bunch of sentient plants start eating people. one of the first science fiction books I ever read, and the one that introduced me to post apocalyptic fiction. Giant plants might sound silly, but its no more silly than walking corpses. And in fact the walking dead and 28 days later owe a lot to this book.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke - beautifully inventive fantasy novel about two magicians bringing magic back to Britain during the Napoleonic wars. Fab read.

Gateway - Frederick Pohl - pulp sf at its best. Humans discover a hollowed out asteroid worth ftl ships preprogrammed with unknown destinations. Prospectors pack as much food as they can and hit 'launch' in the hopes that they'll discover something valuable and not land on a star or starve to death.

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - more great pulp sci-fi about the first interstellar war. Old man's war by John Scalzi is very similar and almost as good.

Most things by Iain (m) banks. Crow Road, Wasp Factory, The Bridge, Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Player of Games etc. Song of stone was awful though, they're not all winners

</comment><comment><USER15> Shibumi - yes, it is partly a parody, but I have found many good, inspiring lessons from the characterization of Nicholai Hel. For instance, this paragraph made me deeply reflect on the "convenient rationalization" of bad behavior. Basically, there is always a good excuse that is up for grabs. Don't be that guy.

"Politeness is more reliable than the moist virtues of compassion, charity, and sincerity; just as fair play is more important than the abstraction of justice. The major virtues tend to disintegrate under the pressures of convenient rationalization. But good form is good form, and it stands immutable in the storm of circumstance."

All Trevanian's books are great.

\- The Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr. Flawed badass with a quick wit, I love Bernie Gunther.

\- Hypnotherapy by Dave Elman. Dated, but gives you a clear abstract (oxymoron) path on how to "bypass the critical filter of the conscious mind"

\- Coaching the Mental Game by Harvey Dorfman. Erudite, deep, chocked full of lessons that are applicable to your personal, professional, and sports life.

Many, many others.

<comment><USER8>
      Shibumi

"Northrop bombers. American bombers."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I put this book off for years because I hated the covers of them. Amazing read, best sci-fi I ever read.

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Must read for a sci-fi fan.

</comment><comment><USER17> SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs). Structured very well. Each exercise builds on a concept of the previous exercise, getting increasingly difficult.

1984 by George Orwell. I am told that we're increasingly moving towards a mix of 1984 and Brave New World (I haven't read the latter).

</comment><comment><USER18> Benjamin Lee Whorf - Language, Thought, and Reality

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-thought-and- reality-...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-thought-and-reality-0)

This little collection of essays from the 20s by a chemical engineer is astounding. For anyone interested in cognition, engineering, language, there are mind-blowing insights packed throughout.

<comment><USER19> He's the guy for whom the Sapir-Whorf hypotheis - that the languages we use can themselves shape what we say and even how we think, an idea I think is 100% true.

Which brings me to one of my favourite scifi epics - the Culture series, the titular people (and machines) of which consciously designed their language Marain to encode desirable aspects of reasonableness and peaceableness according to that very hypothesis. Nice connection!

<comment><USER18> Agreed, I think it's very hard to deny at this point. Careful what you say :D

Thank you for reminding me to read the Culture series. I've put it on my list for many other reasons, and now I have a new one :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB - Richard Rhodes

This Pulitzer prize winning book proves the adage "Truth is stranger than fiction". Surprisingly, you don't need to know any math or much of physics / chemistry to read this one.

It is the story of one of the most amazing achievements of human kind and its more engaging than all the Dan Brown novels put together. This is no exaggeration - the book will entertain, educate and enlighten you like no other book you have ever read.

About this book, David Eisenberg wrote thus on his blog...

> The Making of the Atomic Bomb is not only the best and most comprehensive > treatment of the [Manhattan] project and its antecedents (and I've read a > number of them), it is also possibly the single best history or non-fiction > book that I have ever read, and that's a lot of books.

> Of course, it is not for everyone. If you don't like history or science > (don't panic, no math necessary), World War II stories, daring commando > raids, hair raising escapes, behind the scene politics, mysterious > conversations, intellectual battles between the world's greatest scientists, > between scientists and soldiers, scientists and politicians, the > interpersonal relationships of the great men of this century, incomparable > drama, massive death, powerful explosions, personal sacrifice and "a ripping > good yarn" as they used to say, then don't read it. If you are interested, I > promise you that there will be no disappointment.

</comment><comment><USER21> _Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation_ by Martin Millar.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Milk-Sulphate-Starvation-Martin- Mil...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Milk-Sulphate-Starvation-Martin- Millar/dp/094779591X)

This book was given to me by my first girlfriend. She died some time later, and I've found her death hard to deal with.

A few things bring back really strong memories of her - drinking tea and eating buttery pikelets and jam, listening to Ivor Cutler or Tallulah Gosh.

This book (and his others) do that.

 _The new Guide to Self Sufficiency_ by John Seymour. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1405345101/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?i...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1405345101/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1509898635&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=self+sufficiency&dpPl=1&dpID=61oyJxzKQEL&ref=plSrch)

We used to live in the country side, and I had to chop wood for our family, our neighbours, and my aunt who lived nearby. It's almost meditative. You start with a big pile of logs, and a sharp ax, and you end with more wood on the stack. It's surprising how quickly you can burn wood, especially if you're using it to cook food and heat your home.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hard to pinpoint. In terms of entertainment books, it'll probably come down to a tie between Douglas Adams' _Last Chance to See_ and Walter Moers' _The City of Dreaming Books_ , or maybe something by Terry Pratchett (although I couldn't single out a book there, either).

The reason for those is just that I can't imagine ever being bored reading them.

Maybe also _Flowers for Algernon_ (Daniel Keyes) for being a really creative concept (the way the story is told) and for being a _wonderful_ example on how interesting _modest_ sci-fi can be without resorting to "LAZERZ!!!".

Edit: Another contestant: Friedrich Dürrenmatt's _The Physicists_. Grim yet humorful. I generally really like Dürrenmatt's dark endings.

Edit 2: And another one: _Measuring the World_ by Daniel Kehlmann, specifically for how well he got me to understand Gauss' weird reactions and motives without going into his work at all. Before I've read it, I would have sworn that a book that tries to present one of the greatest mathematicians would need loads of math in it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy.

Worth reading for the landscape descriptions alone, McCarthy transforms the American west into a hellscape of inhuman violence, savagery, and evil; and yet, it's a beautiful descent into madness.

His character of the Judge is as captivating as he is horrifying. Some choice quotes from him:

> "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my > consent."

> "War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of > existence. War is god."

> "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the > powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A > moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man > falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to > his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and > broader view."

> "The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."

> "All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and > mystery and a residue of nameless rage."

</comment><comment><USER23> Neverwhere => wonderful setting full of fantastic things

The Dark Tower => a massive epic that starts out western and goes multiverse SciFi and links together many of kings works. I felt like i was on a grand quest

Various short story collections from Gaiman & Stephen King => most are like twilight zone episodes (short little mind benders I can digest in one sitting)

Ted Chiang's short stories=> each one of these was amazing...particularly the one that inspired Arrival movie and the one with the guy that gets super intelligence.

The Dresden files => this won't win any awards from literary critics, but is one of my favorite series that just keeps on getting better and more captivating. There are so many complex characters. They don't exist in isolation either, but interact. There are so many main and sub plots. Themes about good & evil, how many things are gray, love, redemption, faith, corruption , perseverance, tactics & strategy...it's all there. It's very unpredictable plot wise. So many books just blow me away.

</comment><comment><USER24> Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. The first time it was slow read, but I went back the book several times later in life and it has much to tell.

The Glass Beads Game by Herman Hess.

Several books by Steinbeck - Travels with Charley, Log from the Sea of Cortez.

The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo. A recent penguin translation is superb. Among the saddest and most memorable love stories.

</comment><comment><USER25> Blindsight, by Peter Watts. It's a sci-fi novel that asks fascinating questions about sentience and intelligence, and made me stare at the ceiling for weeks after I finished it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love just about every one of Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile science fiction novels [1] and still love them as an adult. When I was a teenager, _Time for the Stars_ [2] was probably my favorite, but as an adult, I've come to appreciate _Citizen of the Galaxy_ [3] more.

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

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

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

</comment><comment><USER27> The Cuckoos Egg by Cliff Stoll

It's a wonderfully easy read about the early days of the Internet and hacking.

</comment><comment><USER28> Whenever anyone asks:

Catch-22 East of Eden Remains of the Day Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman

These threads where people suggest multiple books are good to run through. If you see one in a comment that someone else liked, probably try to read the others they listed.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yertle the Turtle, by Dr. Seuss. It taught me early to question authority and resist popular movements that are built on my back.

</comment><comment><USER30>
      * Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. Powerful anti-war story.
      * Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts. Shaped my views on hard work and travel.
      * 1984, by George Orwell. Brilliant and terrifying.
      * The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. Overcoming mental pain through consciousness.
      * Planetwalker, by John Francis. Inspired me to walk and put myself into things more.
      * Pure enjoyment: Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson), Ready Player One (Ernest Cline), Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons), Red Rising trilogy (Pierce Brown).

Honorable mention: The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi).

</comment><comment><USER31> Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis. Wonderfully written, though not as completely fleshed-out as a modern sci-fi reader may be used to. Still stands on its own two feet, worth a try. My first sci-fi.

The Golden Bough, Frazer. Sublime, frustrating and intriguing. Changes your dreams, whether you immediately realise it or not.

How Things Work: The Universal Encyclopedia of Machines. My grandfather gave me this when I was 8, I still regularly leaf through the tea-coloured pages and detailed black-and-red drawings two decades later. It's a charming book, the kind of thing we have websites for nowadays.

<comment><USER8> Yes. I couldn't muddle through the other two of the series, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Siddhartha by Herman Hesse for its portrayal of a spiritual journey / life that was not a 'religious' one.

This was a book I read in my early twenties that really helped me come to terms with a religious upbringing that no longer resonated with me, as well as a spiritual void in my life that needed to be filled. Seriously life changing stuff and so easy to read. Definitely the most accessible Hesse.

I'd be curious if this book has impacted anyone else similarly and if so what they took from it. Love this thread btw

<comment><USER33> It's an excellent book that I am fond of. I don't come from a religious upbringing, but that doesn't mean I don't wrestle with spiritual questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The art of game design: Even if you're not aspiring to be a game dev, this book teaches you a lot about project scope, management, psychology, mechanics, balance and user experience.

Flight of the buffalo: An excellent book about leadership.

Moneyball: I'm not into novels, so this might be the closest thing to it. It's a fantastic book about thinking creatively and working with what you have. It's about baseball, but even if you don't like it, it's quite entertaining and insightful.

</comment><comment><USER33> I got a lot out of some very practical books, like _The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People_ , _Getting to Yes_ , _The Tipping Point_ and _The Peter Principle._ I read a lot of good fiction in my youth, including books mentioned here, like Siddhartha, works by Heinlein and the Amber series.

There are a couple of books that had a big impact on me whose titles I long ago forgot. Periodically searching has not uncovered them.

One was a history of the deep south. Another was a book about about raising money for non profits.

I grew up in the deep south. Reading a history of it helped me understand my life and my country better. The second book had some pithy passages. One of my takeaways was "Don't say no for them." In other words, don't fail to ask because you assume the answer is _no._

There were some other pithy, wise bits in the book that boil down to "If you really care about this project and the people it impacts, you need to get over being a thin skinned crybaby and keep at it in spite of repeatedly dealing with rejection, etc." I think the story was repeatedly told that someone would come to her all upset about something and she would say something like "I will put on my best therapist hat and tell you to get over it."

It was a surprising attitude to run into. The author was very practical. She also talked about the fact that she kept doing what she did because when things went well, there was no better feeling. I have done a lot of volunteer work in my life and there is a whole lot of touchy feely stuff that goes along with such work. This book was a breath of fresh air.

</comment><comment><USER35> SURELY YOU'RE JOKING MR. FEYNMAN BY RICHARD FEYNMAN

-I loved this book for its humor, everyday practicality, how relatable it felt even without having a background in physics or knowledge about the pranks and experiments he conducted. As well as the book being well-written in the sense that it reads as if you're sitting on the couch with him as he's telling you stories about his life, all with a child-like sense of wonder and enthusiasm about the world.

THE $12 MILLION STUFFED SHARK BY DON THOMPSON

-I'm interested in the high-finance and fine-art worlds and this book discussed how they both go together - money and art - in an informative, quick-paced way.

THE BUY SIDE BY TURNEY DUFF

-For its humor, honesty, and how well written it was in terms of it being a page turner while also providing you with an insightful account about the high-finance industry.

MOLLY'S GAME BY MOLLY BLOOM

-It was an entertaining, quick-paced read about the private, high-stakes poker industry with an assortment of participants.

MONEYBALL, LIAR'S POKER & THE BIG SHORT BY MICHAEL LEWIS

-I thought they were all entertaining reads, while also being insightful about their respective subjects.

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON

-It was an illuminating read to me.

\- - -

Separately, these books are on my list to read if anyone has opinions about them:

-Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick

-Principles by Ray Dalio

-A Man For All Markets by Edward Thorp

<comment><USER6> I'm going to have to read "surely you're joking", it comes up so often on these lists

<comment><USER10> Another reference here. Go for it. It's a brilliant book.

<comment><USER15> Surely you are joking Mr Feynman - He was a brilliant man, but I also get a weird vibe from him. I all his books, he comes across as the man who knows is more brilliant than the vast majority of other people, he wants to be considered as a simple man with more persistence and curious attitude than other simpletons, and at the end, I realize that the fake humbleness is pretty insufferable. Come on, Feynman.

<comment><USER10> An interesting perspective. I can't disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> 'Q' by Luther Blissett. A fictional romp through the Reformation written from the perspective of a protagonist who is on the losing side of every struggle. Low farce, high politics, a bit of sex, lots of death, and a fabulous take on how Western Christianity came to be how it is today.

Written by a collective of Italian anarchists, bizarrely, and named after a former AC Milan and England footballer. You couldn't make it up. Fabulous.

</comment><comment><USER37> I read ~ a book every other day last year, here are the ones I liked best [http://adit.io/posts/2016-12-10-The-Best-Books-I-Read- In-201...](http://adit.io/posts/2016-12-10-The-Best-Books-I-Read-In-2016.html)

I'm interested to know the motivation behind this question. Two of my favorite books of all time: "Notes From Underground", "A House For Mr. Biswas". They are very specific to me, an immigrant coming to the US at a young age. I doubt they have universal appeal.

On the other hand, "Evicted" is a book I think everyone should read. It gives great examples of how hard it can be to climb out of poverty. I think we all see "poverty" talked about as generic label, and it can be really hard to find good specific examples to discuss -- "Evicted" has tons of them.

</comment><comment><USER38> "The map and the territory" by Michel Houellbecq. It's hauntingly beautiful depiction of life and loneliness of a man obsessive about his field of work - a visual art in his case, but I feel the book could just as well be about a working-from-home kernel hacker or SaaS bootstrapper.

</comment><comment><USER39> The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - he goes a little bit into how he did the stuff he did.

</comment><comment><USER40> In my youth, my favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo, in college it is The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett. (Actually for both I read their Chinese translations as I was in China). My favorite English book is The Fall of Hyperion.

</comment><comment><USER41> I really enjoy Jorge Luis Borges (hard to pick a favorite, just dive into the short stories and find out for yourself). Imagine an M.C. Escher drawing in story form.

I also have a strong pull towards adventure so books like Wind, Sand and Stars by Exupery or Starlight and Storm by Rebuffat are constant companions.

Growing up I loved books by Emilio Salgari, for a man who traveled so little outside of Italy he had an uncanny ability to imagine worlds and adventures beyond his doorstep. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Salgari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Salgari)

I second Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

<comment><USER42> Salgari?! I thought he was unknown outside of Italy.

Anyone else read it?

<comment><USER15> And Salgari never traveled!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Robinson Crusoe, swedish translation by May Bylock is probably the book i have read the most since the beginning of elementary school. Very short, can be read in a day.

Ghost In The Wires by Kevin Mitnick is a very interesting book that i recommend too.

</comment><comment><USER44> The "Malazan Book of the Fallen" [0] series. Because of its sheer amount [1] of deep characters, the many years and areas it spans and the differences in power levels, from lowly soldiers to essentially gods.

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/series/43493-the-malazan-book- of-t...](https://www.goodreads.com/series/43493-the-malazan-book-of-the- fallen)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malazan_Book_of_the_Fa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen_characters)

</comment><comment><USER45> The _Incerto_ series by Nassim Taleb. They taught me about the importance of tail events, and started my interest in probability theory. More importantly, they taught me how to live a good life.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Soul of a New Machine" \- Tracy Kidder. I read it while in engineering school, and it's the first time it kind of clicked with me of what an engineer actually "does"

<comment><USER47> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Let me recommend an author instead: Jacqueline Carey.

She writes in a beautiful language, writes gripping stories, sometimes includes erotic scenes which don't appear cheap, and the characters are well thought out. There's often some politics going on in the foreground or background, sometimes quite intricate.

Checkout the Kushiel series for classical fantasy, or "Santa Olivia" for young adult urban fantasy.

Other fantasy authors I'e read recently and enjoyed: Patrick Rothfuss, Peter v. Brett, Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks.

</comment><comment><USER49> How to Win Friends and Influence People. It could have just as easily been named "How to be a Good Person". Carnegie's advice is practical, yet powerful. I return to it every few months to make sure I'm staying on track.

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. Franklin led one of the most interesting lives in human history, and this book is a window into his mind. There's a lot of great advice sprinkled in with subtle, timely humor. Another book I return to often.

</comment><comment><USER50> Jared Diamond - "Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed" (non- fiction)

Iván Repila - "The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse": short intense novel about 2 boys who are trapped in a well

Margaret Atwood - "The handmaid's tale"

Khaled Hosseini - "The kite runner"

Agatha Christie - "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" (very surprising plot)

Andy Weir - "The Martian"

Charles Dickens - "David Copperfield"

Clare Mackintosh - "I let you go"

Carlos Ruiz Zafón - "The Shadow of the Wind"

M.R. Carey - "The girl with all the gifts"

</comment><comment><USER51> Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is the only book I've ever read that actually made me laugh out loud. I'm told Catch 22 is like that, but I haven't read it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Hagakure - Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Kind of the ethical codex for samurai warriors. Little stories about what to do and not to do which you can translate to a modern daily life.

</comment><comment><USER53> Fiction - Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. Contrasting the lives of a free spirit and a disciplined mind.

Non Fiction - A Time of Gifts/Between the Woods and the Water/The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Recounting a trip from Holland to Constantinople by foot in the 1930's when he was a teenager. A trilogy of books written when he was in his 60's and 70's. An erudite raconteur.

</comment><comment><USER54> * Harry Potter!

* A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: Taught me much about myself and reinforced a healthy pattern of practicing will power.

* The End of Your World: After discovering spirituality and meditation I had lingering questions. This is a frank book on the trappings of the spiritual journey. The break-down of abiding vs. un-abiding enlightenment helped me navigate through fascinating times.

</comment><comment><USER55> The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save the World's Most Successful Political Idea.

This review claims it's the best book of 2017 and sums it well: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R24LMIB16JWMLC?ref_=glimp_1...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R24LMIB16JWMLC?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl)

</comment><comment><USER56> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Foundation series. Snow Crash. 2001: A space odyssey.

Why?

All are so much fun to read over and over again.

</comment><comment><USER11> For sheer engineering fun, R.V. Jones' "How I Won the War" (No, not really; it is called "Most Secret War") is hard to beat; it is the memoirs of Britain's chief scientist during WWII; hundreds of pages of one-upping their Axis counterparts - the birth of electronic warfare. Excellent read.

</comment><comment><USER57> accelerando - Charles Stross

It blew my mind from beginning to end. Loved every shred of concept and potential.

Glasshouse is close 2nd

Demon Haunted World is a solid 3rd

</comment><comment><USER58> It's been ~8 years since I read it, but I think "The Sciences of the Artificial" by Herb Simon might make my list. It's about design, engineering, intelligence (artificial or human), and building things.

</comment><comment><USER59> The Land of Laughs Debut novel and masterpiece of Jonathan Carroll. I need to read this regularly to readjust my antennae, otherwise I might become a complete jerk. Yes, I know this doesn't make any sense.

</comment><comment><USER60> Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny. Great protagonist, characters and universe. Written in the 70's but still holds up well by today's standards.

Rumor has it that Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead fame has optioned it for TV.

<comment><USER33> The Amber series is excellent.

<comment><USER61> I find later books in the series to be... well... a garbage. And it pains me to say that, because Nine Princes in Amber was jaw-droppingly impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics William Dunham

</comment><comment><USER63> Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society by Peter McWilliams

Humorous, comprehensive, and, sadly, still as needed today as it was 20 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER64> My favorite book is "A Thousand Plateaus" by Deleuze and Guattari. It's quite the challenge, and I find new things every time I pick it back up.

</comment><comment><USER65> East of Eden. It is to me THE American Novel. A great read.

</comment><comment><USER66> I like books that introduce the concepts of good urbanism

{Geography of Nowhere, Streets are for People, Great Good Places}

They really opened my mind to understanding structure and place

</comment><comment><USER67> The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

I don't agree with everything in it, but it is one of those books that really makes you rethink your life when read at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER68> For better or worse, I mostly only do non-fiction books, and my favorite so far is still Zero to One by Peter Thiel + Blake Masters.

</comment><comment><USER69> Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand. I like idea of 'I' itself which can shrug the belief(s) of social norms.

</comment><comment><USER70> _Blood Meridian_. Beautifully written. The violence of technological disruption as the central theme.

</comment><comment><USER71> Trustee From The Tool Room, by Neville Shute. Maker as hero. Adventures in the South Pacific.

</comment><comment><USER72> Um hello... Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

Then have a look at the Tensorflow logo. :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Getting Things Done - David Allen

Helps me live in the present and not stress about the future.

</comment><comment><USER74> 1\. Thinking fast and slow - <USER2>

2\. Godel, Escher and Bach - <USER3>

3\. On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins

<comment><USER23> I started reading GEB, and enjoyed hearing about things like Goedel's incompleteness theorem, but Hofstadter is really hard to get through. What did those who persevered get from it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell.

Deep examination of the human meta-mind.

</comment><comment><USER76> Nine Stories

Franny and Zooey

</comment><comment><USER77> of course Permutation City, I am confused why anyone named that book yet.

</comment><comment><USER78> Gödel, Escher, Bach awakened my intellectual curiosity about formal systems and other autistic modes of beauty as a teenager. After "The Selfish Gene" it was the first book I bought and read on my own volition, so I have to credit it as a major influence.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs for showing that you can think rigorously and compose beautiful programs out of simple pieces.

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty for showing that it's possible to think and feel about politics while maintaining a profoundly ironic and groundless mind.

The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry for its beautiful view of civilization as materialized caring and of the inflicting of pain as metaphysically destructive.

Being-in-the-world by Dreyfus for introducing me to Heidegger and showing how continental philosophy inspired by Heidegger was a major force in the evolution of AI and how AI researchers tended to be influenced by rationalist philosophy in the vein of Descartes which leads to huge misunderstandings of the nature of being.

Dhammapada translated by Gil Fronsdal because it's a beautiful exposition of early Buddhist poetry and clearly shows the worldview of south east Asian Buddhism.

Debt by David Graeber for making me interested in money and credit systems from an anthropological point of view.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace for being hilarious and sad and buzzing with neurotic perceptive overeducated thought in a way that mirrored my own precocious self-consciousness and made me feel less "marooned in my own skull."

The Uses of Disorder by Richard Sennett for giving a defense of the anarchy of urban life that views conflict as necessary for growth.

After Virtue by Alisdair MacIntyre for showing the contemporary situation in thought and ethics as profoundly abnormal and difficult, being the aftermath of the Enlightenment project's failure to ground morality in objective reason, and pointing to virtue within traditions as the only way to live coherently.

The Teachings of Huang-bo for being a merciless and hilarious attack on sanctimonious and ritualistic Buddhism, displaying the role of sarcasm and wit in spirituality, and generally just shouting "wake up, lazy pretentious idiot" on every page.

Fanged Noumena by Nick Land for diving deeply into amphetaminic insanity thus accurately mirroring the schizophrenia of postmodern capitalism.

The letters of Van Gogh.

Phillip Lopate's personal essays.

Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton.

On the Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.

</comment><comment><USER79> Three Scientists and their Gods: This book foreshadows the meaning and purpose of science+tech [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214570.Three_Scientists_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214570.Three_Scientists_and_Their_Gods)

Scifi: The Three Body problem ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three- body-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body- problem)) for its whole encompassing narrative about human future and some of it will be real (fusion instead of chemical fuel, pulse propulsion and other social consequences)

Ardor: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20931250-ardor](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20931250-ardor) if you ever wanted to understand ancient indian philosophy. Heavy read, not recommended for fun but more as quest

FoxTales: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/412167.Foxtales](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/412167.Foxtales) about how software was developed in the midwest free of all the fashion/hipsterism currently in vogue and building a community of users for your software

The elements of networking style: If you ever wanted to know the politics of how networking RFCs are made: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2298785.The_Elements_of_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2298785.The_Elements_of_Networking_Style) and design choices made to build modern day internet

Unwritten Laws of Engineering: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13122143-unwritten- laws-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13122143-unwritten-laws-of- engineering) is an old and timeless way detailing what it means to engineer

High Performance Browser Networking: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17985198-high- performanc...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17985198-high-performance- browser-networking) if you ever wanted to know what happens inside a browser

The Computer and the Brain: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/358880.The_Computer_and_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/358880.The_Computer_and_the_Brain) where the master compares the machine with our brain

The Grammatical Man: If you ever wanted to know the importance of structure and constraint in everything: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722028.Grammatical_Man](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722028.Grammatical_Man)

</comment><comment><USER80> The Name of the Wind - For all the reasons mentioned above, is one of my absolute favorite fiction books. Its not just the characters, its Rothfuss' use of language. I've never kept track of so many quotable phrases in a book.

Enders Shadow Series by Orson Scott Card - I loved the majority of the Ender's Game series was disappointed when it was over. Throughout those books, Bean was always my favorite character and it was a great day when I discovered the Ender's Shadow series which chronicles Bean's life over several books. The thing I loved most about Bean were his powers of analysis and he taught me to think more about scenario outcomes and think about multiple ways of achieving my goals.

Dune - A pattern is emerging here. I love the books where the hero CHOOSES to ascend and works to get there. Paul Atredies starts out a boy against harsh conditions and rises to the challenge.

The Stand by Stephen King - I read this book when I was 14 or 15 on summer break in a week. I fell in from the start and read for entire days until it was done and when it was over I was in awe at the size (1000+ pages) and scope of what King accomplished.

The Alpha Strategy by John Pugsley - Its an interesting book and look at economics and wealth preservation in layman's terms. Its funny because this book was written in the 80s and when I read it, it was immediately applicable. I grew up in a pretty liberal household and this book made me start to pay attention to what liberals and conservatives were saying and form my own opinions.

Atlas Shrugged - I read this right after the book above and the two in combination really caused a mindeset shift for me. It wasn't so much that everyone is out to get me or against me, but more I am responsible for my outcomes and I need to invest in myself.

E-Myth Revisited By Michael Gerber - Piqued my interest in systems and where I started to learn the value of systems and making success repeatable.

Working the System By Sam Carpenter - More of the "how-to" book E-Myth Revisited should have been.

Daemon Series - This one has been mentioned and while it didn't have the impact on my that the other books did, I did enjoy the world the author created.

Thieves Emporium by Max Hernandez - This was a quick read and appealed to my love of technical fiction. Similar to Daemon, its use of technology in the story is interesting and not that far off from the real world at this point. [WARNING: GRAPHIC SCENES]

I was unambitious and coasted through life until after college, and it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I started really reading books like these. Over the past few years, I've become almost a completely different person. I read a tremendous amount and can say its had a huge impact on my "mental models" and how I approach life.

Books I'm interested in reading next include: \- Meditations \- Works on mental models \- Elon Musk biography (the amount he's able to accomplish quickly is staggering)

I don't read as much fiction as I used to, instead choosing to focus on technical books, but fiction has definitely had an impact on my development as well.

</comment><comment><USER81> The Trial. It is a book end on how bleak life could possibly be and has served me incredibly well for the 20 years since I read it.</comment>


Airbnb is putting AMP at the core of its digital strategy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/how-airbnb-is-putting-amp-at-the-core-of-its-digital-strategy-d6b9cf1fc0ad <comment><USER3> Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

The reason to use AMP is SEO. If you want literally any benefit other than SEO, just improve the performance on your own mobile site. Then you won't have to jump through weird hoops and come up with entirely new "magic carpet" user flows, because you'll actually _control your own content on your own site_.

The talk attached to this Medium piece was given at "TechSEO Boost", but the article itself dances around ever using the term. So we're left to wonder why AirBnb is very worried about being able to link users to their native app, while they apparently don't care at all about whether users are using their web site. It's because of SEO.

> the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, which has some powerful backers > including Google

> It would be fair to say that Google has been a very vocal supporter of the > initiative from day one.

These are really weird ways of describing a Google-owned, Google-pushed initiative.

<comment><USER4> In a large enough organization, improving site performance is _hard,_ as you have to win political battles against your marketing / bizdev teams, denying them the analytics packages they want in the name of performance.

"We could do that, but then we'd lose the special AMP placement on Google SERPs" is a much more compelling argument, and preferable to starting a proxy war between the CMO and the CTO.

Google has done a hell of a job flexing their Search muscles to encourage the behavior they want, here. All the while somehow open-washing the project so that SEO-types make the ridiculous statements you quoted, implying that AMP isn't a Google owned-and-run project.

On an engineering level, I respect AMP. From an anti-competitive / social engineering perspective, it's absolutely terrifying.

<comment><USER5> AMP has a whole suite of technical limitations that are unrelated to the problem being solved. For example they limit pages to 50k (pre-gzip) of unlined CSS rather than allowing stylesheets to be linked. This is not how sites are generally built, and at least for me, meant rebuilding large parts of my build process.

Google engineers seem to have a hard time differentiating between a platform and a framework. PWAs and suffer from the exact same problem. They're great if you build a greenfield product to their exact specs, but difficult to use otherwise.

<comment><USER6> > AMP has a whole suite of technical limitations that are unrelated to the > problem being solved. For example they limit pages to 50k (pre-gzip) of > unlined CSS rather than allowing stylesheets to be linked.

How is limiting size and server round-trips of CSS not related to the problem being solved by AMP?

<comment><USER7> Because that's a problem that should be solved with HTTP2 push, not with inlining.

<comment><USER8> Why can AMP pages not use that? This seems like an orthogonal issue.

<comment><USER7> They can, but instead they do it the wrong way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a terrible idea. AMP is a shameful attack on the open WWW.

AMP is slower than hand-optimized HTML.

AMP pages are often hosted on a 3rd party domain, even sending the wrong referrers to other sites.

AMP is also extremely slow on desktop browsers that have certain ad-blockers installed. If 3rd party scripts don't load, the user gets a blank page for 8 seconds. (Try it if you don't believe me.)

<comment><USER10> * But it's faster than HTML that people use in practice.

* Sure, but do you really care that users are using your physical servers or just that the content is out there? It's a trade that I think a lot of businesses would be happy to make. Who wouldn't want essentially free hosting complete with ad revenue?

* Do you think ad funded sites care about people who have a worse user experience with an ad blocker.

I don't disagree that AMP is bad for the open web, but it's not bad for the people publishing with it.

<comment><USER9> If someone is going to implement AMP templates they have the ability to implement better HTML in the templates instead.

It does matter that users are on your physical servers. It affects referrers and copied/pasted links, which affect brand recognition and SEO. Using AMP also puts a giant back button on your site that takes users back to the search engine results rather than deeper into your site. Many people do not want that.

I don't think that airbnb is an ad-funded site. Even if it were, do ad-funded sites really want a 3rd party dictating how they monetize their sites? If so, I doubt that they are thinking through it all the way and considering the long-term effects.

<comment><USER11> "If someone is going to implement AMP templates they have the ability to implement better HTML in the templates instead."

Not someone. A corporation. Think bigger companies, not tiny one person sites. Just because it's possible doesn't mean they can win the sprint cycle.

<comment><USER9> How would writing a whole new UI in AMP be easier than cleaning up the current HTML templates or writing new templates in HTML rather than AMP?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Step 1. AirBnB, VRBO and others list inventory for free. Step 2. Google starts offering rentals straight from search and forgets you have a site. Remember Facebook News anyone?

<comment><USER13> Exactly this! Google Flights is already a thing and the hotel search works great too. Once they have enough people directly searching from Google, they can either charge Airbnb or hotels to send traffic or build its own Airbnb backend and roll it as Google product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm still shocked that anyone treats AMP with anything other than contempt. Is it really that difficult to make your site faster? Blaming your crappy html/js/css on marketing demands doesn't pass the smell test for me. IMO too many engineers pass the buck instead of owning up to bad decisions and correcting them.

<comment><USER15> > _I 'm still shocked that anyone treats AMP with anything other than > contempt._

The more people treat it with contempt, the higher its value becomes for the others due to its only advantage, getting a SEO boost from Google.

Also, marketing people (in some cases for good reason) already feel locked-in by and fully dependent on Google with >50% of their traffic coming from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Meanwhile in December AirBnB's HTML page weighed in at over 1MB. Of _just HTML_ : [https://twitter.com/nikitonsky/status/939097733260038144](https://twitter.com/nikitonsky/status/939097733260038144)

They shouldn't put AMP at the core of their strategy. It's enough to just make proper pages (the page referenced in the link is now much slimmer)

<comment><USER17> But marketing wants this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and ...

<comment><USER18> Give the marketing team a performance budget to work within?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Airbnb doesn't know how to make a front-end that can talk to a back-end w/o breaking.

Seriously, use it on a connection with packet loss and it will corrupt your application state so hard you will have to switch browsers to resolve it.

<comment><USER20> Not to mention their website just plainly sucks, and was clearly an afterthought. Maybe nobody there could believe people wouldn't want to install yet another app?

<comment><USER21> Interesting, I use AirBnB quite a lot and like their UI (I primarily use the desktop version, though). Why do you think their website sucks?

<comment><USER22> Its an all around bad design. Not really a UI problem, its more of a state / workflow problem.

Its levels upon levels. You keep having to drill 2 or 3 levels down, but then lose the context of the higher levels when you do. For instance, when you finally click on a property, this now opens a new tab. But now this property tab doesn't show a map...so if you are looking at 4 properties, you now need to keep the "main map" page open so you can manually cross-reference what properties are where.

Effectively its impossible to get anything done with having 3 or 4 tabs open all dedicated to Airbnb. Love the service and the places I wind up finding, but their website really needs a re-think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's a lot of AMP hate on hacker news and I've never quite understood why. They talk about it destroying the open web, as if the existence of Facebook, Google, Amazon didn't already make a big dent in it. Really? AMP is the cross you're going to die on? I just don't get it.

<comment><USER24> There's enough animosity out there to spread around between AMP and other centralizing forces. Calling one out doesn't implicitly give the others a pass.

Facebook (especially Instant Articles and video rehosting[0]) is awful for very similar reasons.

What's pernicious about AMP & co. is seizure of control and immense abuse potential that comes with preventing visitors from hitting content creators' domains.

\---

[0] [http://splitsider.com/2018/02/how-facebook-is-killing- comedy...](http://splitsider.com/2018/02/how-facebook-is-killing-comedy/)

</comment></comment><comment> pablo-massa I have mixed feelings about AMP.

One thing that always I feel on discussions about AMP is that is something that is going to happen, and is not, is happening right now, regular users are already having better and great experiences on mobile.

That is the good side that I see of the project, Google was capable of do that in about 2 years. Pushing development best practices seems that was not enough, companies stills doing awful job on the performance side of their websites.

AMP was like force companies to do other version of their websites with limitations that prevent doing stupid development and design decisions like js/css/html bloat, repeat components and more.

You like that beautiful readable and organized Medium post?, is a good experience right?, well, it happens that the editor has a lot of limitations like only let you choose 3 text hierarchies, 3 image sizes, one font family, no colors, etc. For me AMP is something like that but in the development side instead on the visual design side.

The terrifying part is that Google has created a parallel version of the web who fill their needs, a stripped down version[1] that feels like an authoritarian power blocks the freedom that the "native" web always has, also happens that this parallel version has some advantages and people are loving it.

I see AMP as a temporary patch of the web.

[1] [https://ampbyexample.com](https://ampbyexample.com)

</comment><comment><USER25> To those who think this could be a good idea: do some research on AMP, then reevaluate your opinion.

To my mind, AMP is a content reassociation tool, not a content distribution speedup tool. It succeeds in both, was designed as the former, and marketed as the latter. If Airbnb goes through with this folly, how exactly will they retain their business?

Google will be essentially filtering every booking that goes to Airbnb, controlling both the customer and the listings. I see most comments on HN are in agreement with this view, and those that aren't don't seem to meet the quality level normal to HN. Makes you wonder who exactly made this decision...

<comment><USER26> I made my personal website AMP compatible. Took me an hour in total (including research) and in the future if I don't want the google amp overhead I can remove a single line of code and my website will run fine.

FUD.

<comment><USER27> Or you could optimize your website and not depend on google at all forever.

<comment><USER26> The only thinking I'm depending on Google for is some post-loading. Otherwise AMP _is_ just optimizations, most of them are just thinks I hadn't thought of before trying to make my site AMP compatible (things like only using hardware accelerated animations and such).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So I have seen a lot of discussion about AMP but I have yet to see it in the wild using my phone.

Is it something I have to turn on or is it restricted to certain countries?

I browse from Norway.

<comment><USER29> Consider yourself lucky. I'm guessing it's because of location. A quick search for "Google Amp" had this result near the top (an Amp version of a tech crunch article). If you open it on a computer it just redirects to techcrunch.com, but on a phone it should stay on the google domain and have a little top bar added (unless it redirects you past due to region?).

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/amp-f...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/amp- for-email-is-a-terrible-idea/amp/)

<comment><USER28> I just opened it on my phone and I was redireced to techcrunch.com without any overlays or whatnot.

Maybe they are afraid that EU will smack them down for anti-competitive behaviour.

<comment><USER30> In Denmark I get the AMP results.

The link posted above will show a prominent "techcrunch.com" at the top - <USER2> the URL is still Google. I am not redirected to their own site.

<comment><USER27> You can click on the link icon beside the "techcrunch.com" text at the top and the actual link shows up. You can click it and go to the actual page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't see any performance measurements before or after. Are these presented in the video? If not, this is a monumental waste of time in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Boys, gather up the eggs, have I got a basket for us!"

<comment><USER32> AMP is just a subset of HTML/javascript so they're not out on a limb if AMP disappers.

<comment><USER33> >AMP is just a subset of HTML/javascript so they're not out on a limb if AMP disappers.

That's not all there is to it, though. There's a whole Polymer-esque AMP JS framework that Google is pushing people to use [0]. While it does some great things, it's still absolutely an attempt at vendor lockin.

[0] [https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components](https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components)

<comment><USER3> In fairness, Polymer is a Web Components-esque JS framework, so it is, in the end, targeting an open standard. I'm still not a fan of it, but...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Two dodgy companies, made for each other. Maybe Uber could get involved somehow .

</comment><comment><USER35> And that great race-to-the-bottom we call the web gently accelerates. Its trajectory, unchanged.</comment>


Universal USB-C charging: How the dream is coming true - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/3170184/laptop-accessories/universal-usb-c-charging-how-the-dream-is-coming-true.html <comment><USER2> I was pretty peeved about losing Magsafe in the newest MBP, but being able to charge via any USB port has been amazing.

Even using an iPad charger is good enough for travel a lot of the time. Sure it'll still discharge while in use, but it effectively doubles the battery life of my MBP when its plugged into it, and I don't have to carry another charger with me.

Also cables are dirt cheap, and I don't have to worry about anything fraying and having to spend $88 for a replacement.

<comment><USER3> An issue I've had with my Macbook is that after charging from a non-Apple USB-C power source, the battery life on the system drops through the floor, especially when the system is in sleep state.

Before charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system can sleep for at least a week without running the battery completely down.

After charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system makes it for 1-2 days sleeping before the battery is totally discharged.

I can restore this to the original state with a PRAM + SMC reset, but that's a pretty big annoyance. And I've tested with a completely clean system without any 3rd party software at all in order to validate this pattern. Something is definitely screwy about charging a Macbook with a non-OEM USB-C power source.

<comment><USER4> What brand is your USB-C power source? I've been using a Dell USB-C docking station for a few months now and I don't have this problem with my new Macbook.

<comment><USER3> I've tried a bunch. Anker (AC and battery packs), Aukey, Lenovo, Google (both for Nexus portables and Pixel devices), and Finsix Dart.

<comment><USER4> This is what works for me [https://amazon.com/Dell-Dock-WD15-Adapter- Type-C/dp/B01C8PHW...](https://amazon.com/Dell-Dock-WD15-Adapter- Type-C/dp/B01C8PHWQY/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even for older Android devices like my Nexus 9, or wireless headphones, I'm now only buying USB-C wall adapters and using them with USB-C to Micro USB cables (like this [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WJSPW8Q](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WJSPW8Q)). If you have an older wall charger that dies consider spending a few extra bucks and moving to USB-C, it'll futureproof your purchase.

<comment><USER6> USB-C has so many compatibility problems (and safety issues) I don't legitimately believe we buy today will be futureproof. Buying anything USB-C today is a minefield. At the very least you'll want to check that Google engineer's spreadsheet but even that only assures safety, not future proofness.

I don't think we'll see the USB-C connector change again soon, but everything else about the standard seems somewhat in flux. There's already competing standards for fast charging over USB-C. Once Apple hits the market with a USB-C iPhone, that's going to tip the bucket over.

<comment><USER7> Did you read the article? They said they had major problems last year, but now things are getting much better.

See chart: [http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2017/02/usbcchar...](http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2017/02/usbccharging_state_2017-100709054-orig.jpg)

<comment><USER8> That article doesn't really mean anything. It's just a test of some laptops and their adapters, which is a small subset of the world of charged/charging devices.

There are at least 10 different official USB power specs, the latest being from last year, called "USB Power Delivery revision 2.0 version 1.2". Each spec may have multiple revisions, and versions of revisions, and each revision version may have up to 6 power profiles. There are more unofficial specs that are hacked by vendors. Fast charging has even more variations and incompatibilities. And then some ports get some other standard tacked onto it, which may have their own incompatible power spec.

We keep getting new specs and new devices with new uses. Laptop vendors can only push out new hardware supporting new specs after a lot of R&D, and at considerable new cost. Because of this, in order to support some new feature without as much time and money spent making it compatible, it is vendor locked so it doesn't catch on fire. We saw the same thing with wifi.

So are things getting better? Yes, we finally have support for enough of the baseline standard so at least most _new_ things will charge now. But will they all continue to work compatibly in the future? Probably not as long as vendors continue to make their own power adapters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Chromebook Pixel and Apple's original 12-inch MacBook had no issues working > with each others' chargers, but HP, Dell, and Razer all gave us fits

This is why people pay the Apple tax (although Google does just as well). Why are the other manufacturers so incompetent?

(This was last year's tests though, this year's look better across all manufacturers).

<comment><USER10> We can debate why people pay the "Apple tax" (ignorance, fashion, the fact that they once made very good hardware), but it _certainly_ isn't because they have the best track record for working with third party peripherals like chargers.

Have you ever tried to charge an Apple phone or tablet with a charger for a non Apple phone?

<comment><USER11> Yes. It works fine.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't say "fine." It works, but it's slow. The original USB standard only provided for half an amp of power, much less than modern phones and tablets need. There's a global standard for high-power USB charging, and another standard used only by Apple, so Apple devices are stuck with the default 0.5 amp when using a standard charger, and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a Macbook and this incredibly tiny Nonda USB-C $10 adapter: [https://www.amazon.com/nonda-Adapter-Smallest-Aluminum- Indic...](https://www.amazon.com/nonda-Adapter-Smallest-Aluminum- Indicator/dp/B015Z7XE0A)

It is much smaller than the Apple dongle and allows you to carry just the Macbook charger and a standard Micro USB cable to charge older cellphones and the kindle.

I did have one die on me after about a year of abuse and immediately repurchased it. Hopefully it will last long enough for me to upgrade my phone/kindle/smart-card-reader. Anker batteries also support USB C and happily charge the Macbook, they also make nice braided cables.

Next up would be next-gen tiny chargers like this (65W): [http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/10/14581300/fi...](http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/10/14581300/finsix- dart-usb-c-laptop-wall-charger)

Unfortunately that specific one has a proprietary connector on one end but probably the next version will be fully standard. One tiny charger, one high quality cable, for all your devices. We're almost there.

</comment><comment><USER14> What's the expected (specs, and real life) lifespan of these connectors? (How many typical connection/disconnection pairs?) I know that was an issue with earlier generation USB connectors, but I'm skeptical that C has achieved desired robustness.

I'm not talking about abuse, just expected use. Though if particular vulnerabilities to abuse or whatnot are showing up, that would be of concern.

<comment><USER15> > I know that was an issue with earlier generation USB connectors

Standard big USB plugs are supposed to have a design life of 1,500 plugging cycles - though I've never had one die, and never heard of any die.

Mini-USB are designed for 5,000 cycles, Micro-USB have a design life of 10,000. Ditto, only ever breaks if you try to bend and snap it off deliberately.

USB-C is also supposed to be able to last 10,000 cycles (which ought to be enough as a minimum spec - plugging in thrice a day for a decade).

<comment><USER16> > Ditto, only ever breaks if you try to bend and snap it off deliberately.

No way. I've had many Micro-USB cables die because the connector gets bent. Trying to plug in devices in the dark or without being able to tell which way the cable is facing, not to mention the tension put on the connector when your device is in a bag or something, means the design is not very reliable in general.

My USB-C cables _feel_ much sturdier, but we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not even close. Tons of peripherals are still being actively manufactured in older usb interfaces. It was pretty ironic to be buying futuristic Bluetooth headphones with old usb ports.

I recently compiled all my usb devices and the result is depressing:

[https://github.com/paradite/my-usb- life/blob/master/README.m...](https://github.com/paradite/my-usb- life/blob/master/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER8> This page explains why the Spectre x2 (and I thought the x360 too? but maybe not) is locked to a proprietary charger, while the Elite x2 isn't [https://www.tapatalk.com/topic/69523-34990](https://www.tapatalk.com/topic/69523-34990)

I have a phone with a USB-C port, but when it came to buying a laptop, ended up skipping the USB-C port. For the same specs, a laptop with USB-C 3.1+Power Delivery is almost twice the price. Acer's budget line include USB-C, but not necessarily USB 3.1 or power delivery (so basically it's just a more cumbersome usb 3.0).

</comment><comment><USER18> My phone is usb c. My laptop is usb c. GoPro is usb c. It's slowly happening, if only Apple would ditch lightning but that's not going to happen. Hell I'll cheer if they adopt QI because it will spread like wild fire.

<comment><USER19> I am hoping that they ditch in the iPhone 8. It really doesn't make sense to use lightning anymore.

<comment><USER20> An upward-pointed male Lightning connector can be used directly as a freestanding charging dock to "hold up" devices, with no other support, because it's just a piece of solid metal. Docks are important! (At least, in Apple's opinion. Probably in large part due to their stores, where people are constantly picking devices up and then plopping them back, roughly, onto their docks.)

<comment><USER21> And USB-C can't?

<comment><USER20> Nah, the USB-C male connector is a hollow sheath of aluminum, and there's no rule stopping anyone from making that sheath as thin and non-load-bearing as possible. And while there are minimum shear force requirements for the female end of the connector (and thus the reinforcement of the housing around said connector), there's no guideline in the USB-C spec about how much _torque_ the device itself needs to be able to sustain when _held up by_ the connector. (So the USB-C slot in your Android phone might do okay at holding onto a USB-C "plug dock", but over the long term, that may gradually pull the housing itself out of your phone, or bend your phone, or poke a hole in the battery inside, etc.)

Meanwhile, the Lightning+MFI specs put required tolerances on all of these factors. It's not just about the connector; it's about what having the connector guarantees about the device. _That 's_ why Apple will never replace Lightning: it's there to indicate that a device or cable or dock compliant with it won't wear out any other device or cable or dock compliant with it.

And the interesting thing is, the design of the connectors _forces the hand_ of at least the knock-off cable manufacturers, into obeying those tolerances. Even if you don't bother to get an MFI license, just making your Lightning cable's male end _fit_ female Lightning connectors means making it structurally-sound—since the male connector is just made out of thick aluminum, and aluminum is already the cheapest metal you can get, and it also needs to serve as a grounding pin as well so you can't just replace it with e.g. plastic. So a bad Lightning cable is never going to break your phone _physically_.

Will a bad Lightning cable be able to break your phone _electrically_? Probably not; AFAIK, the the device-side board around the female connector is required, according to MFI, to detect the negotiated-current signal using an optoisolator before switching on the current path to the rest of the device. So you actually can't make a "Lightning killer" cable the way you can make a "USB killer" cable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been pretty happy with an Anker 60W for charging my 15" MBP; it doesn't charge as fast as the stock charger, but it's good enough and it's $40 shipped: amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Delivery/dp/B01D8C6ULO

<comment><USER23> Does charging a modern LiPo battery slowly result in extended battery life?

I've thought it would be good if there was a charge-mode selector of some description for when your laptop is low but you know you won't need a full charged battery until tomorrow. Or if you could tell the battery to stop charging at a particular capacity, say by intentionally shifting the 0% and 100% battery levels.

<comment><USER24> ThinkPads allow you to set the charging limits, e.g. "Charge up to 90% but don't start charging if above 80%". Works on Linux, too (e.g. using tlp, which also has a "fully charge it this one time" command when you need it)

<comment><USER23> I'm on my third ThinkPad. I wasn't aware of that, I'll look in to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> but who cares when 99% of people at work, in conferences and cafes have Apple Macbook (Pro)?

<comment><USER26> You may live in a bubble

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Dongles, a dream come true.

Maybe in another 5, 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER28> Can't wait for USB 4 support on my eSDV</comment>


Duck duck go! - <AUTHOR> http://www.duckduckgo.com

<comment><USER2> Ok these 10 node branches are becoming a pain.

It sounds like this community has some fundamental issues with privacy at google et al and is willing to sacrifice some obvious perks to relieve that.

If google made it possible to do anonymous searches would google be the ideal solution? or is there something wrong with the paradigm such that alternative solutions give us a glimpse of something different and the ideal solution is really yet to be realized?

I've got to point out that your average old man user clicks on the ads and doesn't care about privacy (or doesn't know anyway.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Privacy is one matter some people are deeply concerned about, especially when search terms can get you locked in prisons by governments - decent search results is another: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209482>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How did the advertising on Reddit go? Was it good value for money? Did it result in a good amount of traffic? Or was the main value in feedback from redditors?

Any insight would be really valuable :)

<comment><USER4> I thought it was very valuable, and I am currently writing it up in a blog post :). I was just waiting for the #s to settle. I'll post all of the exact numbers.

The short version is about 3c a click, low bounce rate, lots of feedback, users definitely sticked, and it probably helped me get on the front page of reddit the other day.

<comment><USER5> That's great - We'll really be looking forward to hearing more and seeing some numbers. Thanks in advance for being so open about it, so the rest of us can learn from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want a multisite search engine, check out <http://startbox.org/> \-- something I hacked together a while back and still use as the start page.

<comment><USER7> That is not what I'd call a multisite search engine. It's a multisite search box submitting a query line to a button-selected SE.

I was expecting something like "blindsearch", [http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=alicious&type=web](http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=alicious&type=web) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use DDG along with googlesharing (<http://www.googlesharing.net>) for when I need to use google.

This submission might end up dead, but at least it'll introduce this great search engine to some new users.

<comment><AUTHOR> well I did notice the privacy policy - duck duck go does not store ip addresses - you can also search via https if you wish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> https search. If google enable https then I would be happy with that, until then, duck duck go.

<comment><USER10> What an evil idea. Track Google searches from your corporate proxy and use some Google-trends-like analytics on these data. This would offer a glipse of your true corporate culture.

<comment><USER11> I currently get a fairly good glance at that from all the racist edits logged by Wikipedia as coming from behind my offices NAT firewall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A bit surprising that this link was not here before... Unfortunately they still don't like my developer-specific queries.

<comment><USER13> It's been discussed quite a bit on HN: <http://searchyc.com/duck+duck+go>

Gabriel is an active user, see his comments and submissions here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epi0Bauqu>

<comment><USER12> > It's been discussed quite a bit on HN

That's exactly why I was surprised the main site hasn't been submitted so far. I've seen a lot of articles about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I gave duck duck go a chance for a while. While it was acceptable for most searches, on some searches, it just couldn't compare to Google. For example, try these queries on both:

usb /dev/sda missing

javascript determine font size

<comment><AUTHOR> Your point is moot, you still havn't seen the beauty of DDG.

Firstly for your two queries DDG's results where acceptable, Google's was slightly better - but using this example isn't enough to shadow ddg killer feature.

Lets try something else:

Search Target = star shaped guitar

limitation.

\- you may only type/search once (click/scroll as many times as you want).

\- you may only use one word; that being "star".

Good luck with google. (im on page 23 in google and still getting star trek stuff)

You might argue; I could just type "star shaped guitar" into google and it does work, but try find the song named "asterisk" when you have forgotten the band named M83 and I hope you see my point.

The icing on the cake comes when you click on the star shaped guitar item in DDG and notice how it filters out non star shaped guitar results.

you need to adjust the way you search, get used to surfing categories to narrow down search, dont rely on this google profile, which thinks for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does the FF toolbar allow HTTPS searches now? And is the "useless page blocker" optional?

<comment><USER4> No, but I'm going to do a whole new FF add-on.

You can get https search in Firefox by going to the https site and clicking 'Add to Firefox' at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> my default search engine

<comment><USER16> Same.

<comment><USER17> I am curious. What's the benefit?

<comment><AUTHOR> just use it for a week and you will see the benefit (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209384>)

<comment><USER17> Two questions:

Are you an employee, investor, or other interested party?

Is there not one good benefit of this search engine that you can put in to words?

<comment><AUTHOR> My only relationship to duck duck go is as a user. nothing else. second question -> I know full well my words could have absolutely no effect in persuading you, as search is such a personal and habitual experience. So instead I resort to simply saying; use it for a week and let the site speak for itself. Pardon my deliberate canny dodge.

anyway after a bit of a rant here is what i consider the most powerful feature of ddg: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209619>

<comment><USER17> That doesn't make any sense. I'm asking to be persuaded. Obviously I'm looking for your words. Asking me to invest a week of my search traffic just because? That's more likely to have absolutely no effect in persuading me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Remember, I simply posted the duck duck go site and said this is my default search engine, why persuade you?

Research yourself, can't be bothered well, so be it. Try it for a week don't like it ... so be it.

Good luck mate

The internet has too many trolls - not that you are a troll

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's no image search.

<comment><USER19> You can read about !image here: <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> But, not Hacker _News_ , so I'm flagging.</comment>


Composition and Diamonds - <AUTHOR> https://www.arrdem.com/2017/02/02/composition/ <comment><USER2> Whilst streams, filter and cons/car/cdr are good examples, their context of functional programming might be seen as already rather detached from the realities of physical machines; however, another good example is Unix programs. The abstractions offered by programs like grep, sed, find, cat, cp, etc. are all quite small, and whilst bug-fixes, optimisations and even new features may still be added to the implementations, they've been essentially "finished" for decades.

The point is that these applications were not created to solve some real-world problem. Instead, it is assumed that real-world problems will be solved by scripts (or one-liners in a terminal), that users will be writing their own scripts, that each problem will require a new script and such scripts will churn as the requirements/practicalities change. Hence the job of Unix tools is to make scripts simple and easy to write. By decoupling the tools from any particular problem, they can provide small, reliable abstractions; if requirements change such that an abstraction doesn't quite fit, the solution is to _change the script to use something else_ , rather than changing the contract of the tools.

This works well when the tools are small, and the user is assumed to have some competence or willingness to learn in order to solve their problems. It doesn't work so well when the tools are large (e.g. a modern Web browser) and the users are assumed to only be capable of e.g. clicking a "Go" button.

<comment><USER3> > It doesn't work so well when the tools are large (e.g. a modern Web browser) > and the users are assumed to only be capable of e.g. clicking a "Go" button.

Well then you just end up with middlemen "scripters", for better of worse, hence.. JavaScript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A trivial diamond of computation would be a custom purpose machine, e.g. [0].

Inter-operation between decoupled "small abstractions" and their composed descendants requires either a pre-existing mutual interchange form, or a set of wrappers that provide the same. This is equivalent to simply building on top of that common normal form, which exists, at varying levels of specificity and accessibility, whether one explicitly considers it or not [1]. This, combined with the ultimate CNF still being natural language, because computational semantics are still ultimately evaluated in the context of the human brain, argues for intentionally clarifying and improving that least common computational denominator, in the same way that if one entirely lapses in their recollection of higher synthetic geometry, "begin by assuming a compass and straightedge" is at the least never incorrect.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13669033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13669033)

[1] E.g. the cons example in the article is a small abstraction that composes well, at the abstract level, with the cond abstraction for destructuring quoted symbol lists when writing interpreters, but as noted by the author leaks too much of the underlying machine primitives, and thus is an impedance mismatch when seeking performance optimizations, as in a compiler.</comment>


Pocket FM - <AUTHOR> http://www.pocket-fm.com/ <comment><USER2> Is this someone's attempt at marketing SDR to the masses? This is nothing new, and I'm surprised to see how little information they put forward about it.

<comment><USER3> It's just a low power FM station with a raspberry pi in it as a controller. It would be highly illegal to use this device in most modern nations without a license.

<comment><USER4> The Nokia N900 could broadcast short-range FM with RDS, I'm not sure what advantages this has.

<comment><USER3> higher power. The n900's transmitter was 15nW (1.5e-8 W), which is why it was legal. For a claimed 6km radius, I would assume this is about 3-7W output.

<comment><USER5> A 6km radius would fit quite well with schemes like Community Radio in the UK:

[http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio/radio/a-guide-to- comm...](http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio/radio/a-guide-to-community- radio/)

...still need a licence, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems like a bad idea. It would make targeting dissent with kinetic means very easy. It's one of the whole reasons that shortwave broadcasts are still around.

<comment><USER6> How so? What off the shelf guidance systems exist to home in on FM radio?

I'm sure there are tons of anti-SAM guidance packages which will steer something towards a SAM transmitter, but that's in an entirely different frequency band from what I remember.

Terminal guidance systems tend to be in the UHF and SHF bands, generally gigahertz and up where as FM is VHF at about 100MHz.

It'd take a fair amount of work to re-engineer a guidance package to find such a lower power FM transmitter and perform terminal guidance on it. Especially when the world is awash in FM all around there too.

[http://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-f-35-vs-the-vhf- threat/](http://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-f-35-vs-the-vhf-threat/)

<comment><USER7> It's this easy.

[http://youtu.be/NSC4Y8yA-jY](http://youtu.be/NSC4Y8yA-jY)

<comment><USER6> It's a very interesting talk but from what I saw that's not a terminal guidance package by any means. The antennas would need to be too big to fit into a missile. Also it doesn't work very well in an urban environment as the end of the talk shows.

There's a huge difference between targeting the radar of an aircraft or a ship or a mobile SAM site and targeting a cell phone.

<comment><USER3> You don't need a complex guidance package when traditional direction finding and triangulation will produce coordinates that can be used to direct artillery, air strikes, IED, etc. Sigint targeting is quite common.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Broadway: Concurrent, multi-stage data pipeline with Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/plataformatec/broadway <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the announcement [http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2019/02/announcing- broadway](http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2019/02/announcing-broadway)</comment>


How the Brain Dumps Its Trash (2016) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nedergaard-how-the-brain-dumps-its-trash-video/ <comment><USER2> Is this also how substances like caffeine get removed from the brain?

<comment><USER3> No. Drug-breakdown processes have long been studied, whereas this is something new. Drugs like caffeine are removed by metabolic enzymes in multiple stages - e.g. here is a flowchart of caffeine's metabolic pathway [https://s3.pgkb.org/pathway/PA165884757.png?versionId=XtszC7...](https://s3.pgkb.org/pathway/PA165884757.png?versionId=XtszC77mTsmQlNujJSxYCeTW_V2XnLNw)

<comment> semi-extrinsic But that's not how caffeine is removed from the brain - that entire flowchart says "liver cell". Is one to understand that as the liver cleans blood of caffeine, and this low-caffeine blood eventually goes up to the brain, caffeine diffuses somehow (across the blood/brain barrier) into the bloodstream and is then carried to the liver?

<comment><USER3> Essentially, to my knowledge.. of relevance:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(pharmacology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_\(pharmacology\))

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

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartment_(pharmacokinetics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartment_\(pharmacokinetics\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_(pharmacology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_\(pharmacology\))

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> She repeatedly says "the brain does not have a lymphatic system", but wasn't that discovered to be incorrect prior to this video recording?

What am I missing?

<comment><USER5> As a reference: [http://neurosciencenews.com/lymphatic-system-brain- neurobiol...](http://neurosciencenews.com/lymphatic-system-brain- neurobiology-2080/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apart from getting enough sleep, any tips for how to support or enhance this maintenance process?

<comment><USER3> My very uninformed and probably incorrect hunch is to increase the amount of water flow in your body before bed - i.e. drink a glass of water or two. Counterbalance in the case of any frequent urges to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have a tl;dr?

<comment><USER8> Recent research shows that a major function for sleep may be to facilitate the brain's janitorial functions. Waste products and the detritus of daily thinking can be removed during nightly sleep. This cleaning function allows our brains to work properly and may account for why we generally feel brighter and happier in the mornings.

Other organs and tissues are "cleaned" using the lymphatic system that almost works as a sewage system for the body. The lymphatic system does not extend into the brain. The so-called "blood-brain barrier" limits fluid channel exchanges between the brain and the rest of the body to protect the brain.

The extracellular fluid in the brain – the wetness between the neurons – is part of a system that essentially flushes the brain and removes waste. This has been named the glymphatic system. It was previously thought that waste products were metabolized and broken down by the neurons themselves and the results of that breakdown carried away in capillaries and ultimately removed by the kidneys.

[http://www.sleepdex.org/reboot.htm](http://www.sleepdex.org/reboot.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> anyone have a transcribed version of this?

</comment><comment><USER10> (March 2016, video)

<comment><USER11> Thanks! Added above.</comment></comment>


How Did Michelin Become the World's Authority on Restaurants? - <AUTHOR> http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/03/18/so-how-did-a-company-selling-rubber-tyres-become-the-worlds-authority-on-restaurants/ <comment><USER2> Disappointingly, the article doesn't really explain the authority part, just how they came to review restaurants.

<comment><USER3> Presumably people largely agreed with the tastes of the reviewers.

<comment><USER4> Can't it be a simple case of being the first so widely distributed ? A quick skimming on Wikipedia shows that of the main guides showed today [1], only one other guide started at the end of the of the 19th century [2]. So probably a good example of the "Land Grab" strategy (from Spolsky, [3]), being the first to grow fast in a new(ish) market. Then they were the reference and that's a easier position to maintain than to grab.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_rating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_rating) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cuisini%C3%A8re_Cordon_Bleu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cuisini%C3%A8re_Cordon_Bleu) [3]: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's funny, I always assumed it was a _different_ Michelin. Perhaps a French company by the same name.

<comment><USER6> I had the same reaction when I realized that Guinness, the authority on World Records is the same company that makes the delicious Irish stout. Brilliant marketing.

I think the story was that many pub arguments were about what was the biggest, fastest, most, etc. So Guinness decided to do some research on these records and publish it.

I actually am one of the several hundred people to hold the record for largest hockey game (unless it's been broken recently) and apparently it's quite the racket. Organizations hoping to set records have to go through a lengthy application process, pay an adjudicator to witness the record, etc. Then, if they want it in the Guinness Book (as opposed to just online) they have to pay extra. Record holders can then pay for an official certificate so they can show their friends and family (which of course I did).

Sorry for the wild tangent by the way. I now realize this has nothing to do with Michelin or restaurants.

<comment><USER5> Ha! I didn't realize _that_ one was the same company either! From now on, I guess I'll switch to assuming that anything with the same name is actually the same company, no matter how seemingly unrelated.

Good story, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My god. I never realized that people used to actually dress up in suits made of inner tubes. Those pictures are surreal.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apparently major chefs don't care for the Michelin stars:

[http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs- michelin...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs-michelin- stars)

<comment><USER9> That seems like a somewhat inaccurate takeaway. A few of them "gave them back" because they didn't like the pressure and/or wanted to change their menu. Bourdain of course doesn't care much for them but he was the only one in the article that really took that attitude (and being a rebel is kind of his thing). Other chefs mentioned were devastated to lose them.

There are certainly some misgivings about the organization and process but it seemed like most of them still consider a 3-star to be the top honor in fine dining.

<comment><USER10> It's really a mixed bag. Michelin favors a certain type of place -- posh, traditional, French -- and doesn't know what to do with other cuisines. This could be OK if you are in France, or if you share that taste, but it doesn't translate well and doesn't serve many diners well.

For a view of how this looks to a very adventurous and accomplished reviewer (look him up if you don't know), see Jonathan Gold's take here: [http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/michelin- tires-2151006](http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/michelin-tires-2151006)

Teaser:

"Michelin is usually one of the guidebooks I take with me when I visit France, although I tend not to use it much. In Paris, Patricia Wells and the Pudlo guide are better at pointing me to the kind of restaurants I like best; in the rest of the country, I prefer Gault Millau. Outside France, Michelin is all but useless — in most of Italy, you could probably find better restaurants by sticking a pin into a map than you could by following the guide, and while Gordon Ramsay's supremely boring London flagship gets three stars, Fergus Henderson's splendid St. John, a restaurant that visiting chefs head off to the second they land at Heathrow, has none."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_Guide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_Guide)

</comment><comment><USER12> The blog article had lots of nice historical images, but I think it missed 2/3 of the story: Michelin also made green guides with tourist information and highly accurate maps. The tourist guides were some of the first and cover pretty much every single place of interest in France (from natural attractions to cultural and historical monuments--chateaux and country churches). The maps are some of the most readable and complete in my experience. Thanks to these 2 publications, travelers in France are not at the mercy of the local chambers of commerce and roadside advertising.

<comment><USER13> I agree, the "Carte Michelin" is a LOT more popular than the guide, for normal french people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm more curious as to why they are still relevant in this day and age of Yelp.

<comment><USER15> Michelin's reviews have nearly always been in line with my own tastes. Yelp, not so much. A good portion of Yelp reviews are written by rubes who don't don't know what good food is, tightwads who prefer a low price over quality, and boors who don't understand why a restaurant won't tolerate their embarrassingly bad behavior - enough to significantly botch their accuracy.

<comment><USER16> On the other hand, I've eaten my share of expensive food at "fine" dining establishments across nyc and have found less then 10% are worth the price (eg. worth going back). The recent one was Maialino in Grammercy. So much wanted to like it but our dinner was disappointing (thankfully the company picked up the tab). Overly salty Fettucini and Sausage and mediocre chicken cutlet.

<comment><USER17> Well, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law)

Most fine dining places I've been to in Sydney are nice enough, but also not usually worth a repeat visit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Telephone Phreaking Worked - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tHyZdtXULw&t=284 <comment><USER2> Phreaking is my favorite topic right now. I've been working with phones for a decade or so and recently set up a phone server of my own to mess around with. Instead of just letting it sit there unused, subscribers to my podcast get a password to the party line. I'm even going to be releasing a choose your own adventure game on the phone system for subscribers in february or so. There's even a rough version of an phone audio museum if you call in. All of which I'm running on a raspberry pi at the moment, and admittedly need to polish off. It's a super fun hobby, though.

You definitely can't do a lot of the things you used to be able to, but I feel like there are features in freepbx and asterisk that make phones extremely fun.

edit: also, this site is incredibly interesting for those interested in more info [http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/](http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/)</comment>


Show HN: Harness.io - Create Automated Tests for Your Web App in 60 Seconds - <AUTHOR> http://harness.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm one of the developers that worked on this, and am happy to answer any questions or discuss feedback.</comment>


Show HN: WhatNow.io – Serving up ways to help and stay sane in Trump's America - <AUTHOR> http://whatnow.io/ <comment><USER2> I am sick of these sites at this point. they all look, feel and work the same way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm sorry to hear that. I was trying to go for mass appeal and attempting not to overwhelm visitors with a dense list. Can you suggest an alternate or additional mode of operation that would be better?

Thanks for commenting!</comment></comment>