Lisp as the Maxwell's Equations of Software (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/lisp-as-the-maxwells-equations-of-software/ <comment><USER2> I've said this before, but I've come to think of Lisp and Forth as the left- handed scissors of software: for 10% of the population they're significantly easier to use, to such an extent that it can feel like a revelation. The remaining 90% of the population tries it, finds it harder to use, and doesn't get why others are raving about it.

This would be down to very fundamental differences in thinking and conceptualisation that are difficult or impossible to "just" teach over. It requires those arguing over "ease of use" to recognise that it's not a property of the tool itself, but a function of both the tool and the user and how well the tool fits the particular, individual, user.

<comment><USER3> What are the fundamental differences that are "difficult or impossible to 'just' teach over"? Looking at a language like Racket, you have classes and objects, (first class) functions, recursion, "for" iteration, threads, mutability, etc. Aren't these features found in plenty of languages?

Anecdotally, there seems to be a dislike of Lisp just because of the parens- based syntax. Do you think the different syntax counts as being such a fundamental difference for 90% of developers? Is it really so bad to have to write:

(define x 1)

instead of

let x = 1;

That difference makes it "left-handed scissors"?

<comment><USER4> Racket is not a good example. People learn it as non-interactive. The project now also switches to a conventional syntax without s-expressions.

The big 'problems' are a) interactive use (much of Lisp usage is 'interactivity first'), b) the code as data thing and lack of static feedback (type checks, ...).

The 'code as data' thing is a real hurdle: what is code, what is data, what is transformed code, what are code transformers, ... One needs a mental model to work with code which is making heavy use of meta-linguistic-programming.

<comment><USER3> > Racket is not a good example. People learn it as non-interactive. The > project now also switches to a conventional syntax without s-expressions.

I can understand that people that have achieved "lisp enlightenment" will view Racket this way. With respect to replacing s-expressions, I am hopeful that the original s-expression-based Racket retains prominence even when the Rhombus language is fleshed out. I know I will continue to use s-expressions.

> a) interactive use (much of Lisp usage is 'interactivity first')

To me, having used Clojure (which hopefully counts as an interactive Lisp) and worked in environments like A+ (in the family of APL/J/K), this is an amazing feature and I struggle to see this being such a "fundamental difference ... that is difficult or impossible to 'teach'" (paraphrasing OP).

> b) the code as data thing and lack of static feedback (type checks, ...).

With many people programming in Javascript, Python, and Ruby, the lack of static feedback seems less compelling to me. With "code as data" thing, as a Racket programmer, I rarely if ever think about macros or readers or code transformers. I am sure that can be understood as missing the whole point of lisp, but I have been productive in an environment whose underlying bits can make use of all of that and I can just write code as code and treat data as data in a manner similar to many other languages. Maybe I'm weird, but programming in a manner similar to Java but having code written with s-expressions feels better to me.

<comment><USER4> > which hopefully counts as an interactive Lisp

Not that much in my view. I don't see Clojure as a particular interactive Lisp, I actually see it only as 'derived from Lisp and others'. 'Lisp' is usually much more interactive, with stateful images (running copies of 'object seas'), mix of interpretation and compilation, interactive error handling, all-layers Lisp (where most of the layers can be inspected/manipulated/changed at runtime, incl. its own implementation) and internal development environments (not externally attached).

For an explanation see: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22326853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22326853)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interestingly, the 4 equations shown in the article are due to Oliver Heaviside [1]. Maxwell came up with 20 equations, which captured electromagnetism. But it was... rather unwieldy. Heaviside reformulated that into 4 equations. Basically, Maxwell managed the breakthrough and Heaviside cleaned up after him and made it palatable.

Why is that interesting? Because it raises the question: is the analogy made in the article more akin to Maxwell (breakthrough, brilliant but close to unusable), or is it more akin to Heaviside (taking known concepts and making them usable in practice)?

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

<comment><USER6> A somewhat related idea: the discovery that light is an electromagnetic wave falls right out of Maxwell's equations in a vacuum. Simply rearranging terms yields two wave equations in 3D - one for the electric field, and one for magnetic. The term in both wave equations representing the speed of propagation (i.e. the speed of light) is a constant. It depends only on the physical properties of the vacuum, which never change as far as we know. That means an observer traveling at any constant velocity with respect to light will always measure the speed of light to be the same. Maxwell died in 1879 at the age of 48. It is not only plausible but likely that he would have come up with special relativity had he lived a bit longer, and also likely that it would have been years before Einstein published his 1905 paper on the subject.

So in addition to the Stigler's law [1] situation with Heaviside, the formulation of special relativity may have been more or less inevitable after all of Maxwell's laws were put in the same room together. Not that Einstein wasn't a once-in-a-generation talent, but the reality of how progress is made in science is often glossed over in favor of assigning glory to particular individuals.

Even Maxwell's laws taken individually are named after different people, but together they all belong to Maxwell. I get that this practice is intended to be a convenient way to put a label on an abstract concept rather than a way to write history, but I still think it has an effect on how we think and talk about the history of science.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If curious see also

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9038505](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9038505)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3830867)

</comment><comment><USER8> Yay! A bunch of people that haven't programmed (much?) in Lisp t-ing off with a few that have, dragging out all the old tired arguments (LISP?!)!

</comment><comment><USER9> Most recently discussed about a month ago in the thread

"Maxwell's equations of software" examined (2008)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23321955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23321955)

</comment><comment><USER10> FYI CL might have more libraries than you think: [https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome- cl](https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl) just saying.

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe it's just me but it seems silly to compare equations to Maxwell's equations just because Maxwell (or his peers) originally used the same number of equations. In the modern mathematical framework of differential geometry and tensor calculus, Maxwell's equations can be reduced to only a single equation. See e.g. [1].

Also, Maxwell's equations have the important property that they are linear. How would that work in the Lisp analogy?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations#Alternat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations#Alternative_formulations)

</comment><comment><USER12> LISP has an insidious parenthetical notation, and is well known to be a "write only" language, where nobody but the author can understand large programs written in LISP. It is avoided commercially for this reason.

<comment> vincent-manis That's why GNU Emacs is written in C and Cobol.

More seriously, I have seen a lot of badly written Lisp/Scheme, as much as in any other language. Lisp DOES scale quite well, if the code is well-designed.

<comment><USER13> Every language scales well if the code is well-designed, almost by definition. The more salient question is how well large codebases written by mediocre programmers can be maintained by other mediocre programmers, because that's what any long-lived codebase will have to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This keeps popping up, and it is no more persuasive the tenth time than the first.

Universal Computation was demonstrated a long time before Lisp. Any Turing- complete language is universal, Lisp included. Church's lambda calculus is included, and Lisp is a notation for lambda calculus. So, you can write a Lisp interpreter in Lisp, and it's pretty compact because (surprise!) a Lisp Interpreter has a lot of support for the stuff you need to do to Interpret Lisp. There's nothing deeply meaningful about it beyond what you start out with from Church.

It is much more impressive, and subtly meaningful, that a NAND gate is universal. You can build a machine that runs Lisp from nothing but NAND gates, and people have. There have even been commercially successful discrete- transistor mainframes made of practically nothing but NOR gates (plus core memory), which are identically universal.

Transistors are therefore universal. But because their operation is described in analog terms, they don't quite fit the mathematical formalism. The universe doesn't care about that, so it allows us to build up Universal Computation out of analog transistors. The more transistors you put in, the more computation you can do in a second.

<comment><USER15> You're speaking of functional completeness of boolean operators which I think is quite unrelated to theories of computation. For computation you need some notion of state, and while a circuit made of logic gates may possess some notion of state, a logic gate in itself does not. As for transistors being universal (whatever that means) if this is true then vacuum tubes, relays, pneumatic valves, etcetera are also universal.

<comment><USER14> Do you understand that you can construct flip-flops from NAND gates? You can construct registers from flip-flops.</comment></comment></comment>


Long-lost text shows Archimedes had begun to discover the principles of calculus - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/8974/title/A_Prayer_for_Archimedes

<comment><USER2> This is intriguing, but not necessarily surprising. People have been rediscovering calculus for ages.

It does bring to mind the question of what /else/ has been lost to the ages, and how far ahead we would be right now without it. Like Ramujan, brilliance is not limited to the wealthy; just that the application of it often is (the wealthy can afford the time/energy to become educated, etc).

<comment><USER3> The most interesting thing that has been lost to history, would properly be some of the works of Aristotle, as the western worlds understanding of science was bootstrapped from his works during the reformation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought this had been known for a while?

I recall discussing in a class that Archimedes was known to have approximated integrals and may have even known enough about limits to have derived integral calculus.

<comment><USER5> Article subtitle is "A long-lost text by the ancient Greek mathematician shows that he had begun to discover the principles of calculus." This has been known for several decades, ever since Heiberg transcribed some of the text (I don't know how much), per the article.

I refer you to _The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development,_ a 1949 book by Carl B. Boyer, reprinted by Dover Publications [ISBN 0486605094]. Boyer writes several pages about Archimedes' method of exhaustion, notions of the infinitesimal, and so on. The main footnote reads:

For the works of Archimedes in general, see Heiberg, _Archimedes opera omnia_ and T. L. Heath, _The Works of Archimedes._ For Archimedes' Method, see T. L. Heath, _The Method of Archimedes, Recently Discovered by Heiberg_ ; Heiberg and Zeuthen, "Eine neue Schrift des Archimedes"; and Smith, "A Newly Discovered Treatise of Archimedes."

Boyer is clearly using Heiberg's work on the Archimedes Palimpsest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is some good detail in the Wikipedia article.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest>

<comment><USER7> The bottom line is you can't do calculus without algebra.

<comment><USER6> Have you looked at how Newton presented the results of calculus in the Principia?

<comment><USER7> >Have you looked at how Newton presented the results of calculus in the Principia?

No. But I did now and in the light of the new information I would like to rephrase myself: you shouldn't do calculus without algebra.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do now - Go advertising or find sponsors? - <AUTHOR>

We recently launched Baghchal game [1]. Thanks HN for positive words[2]. In these 148 days we have 500+ users in site completely via word of mouth and general facebook/twitter messages flow.
Little bit info about this app and what we added since last show hn post:
- Game is popular as strategic two player board game and commonly known Bagh chal in Nepal or Tigers and Goats or Moving Tigers or Bagh Bakri in Indian subcontinents.
- My professor in university once said Japanese researchers are working on building a Baghchal based decision making systems.
- We have implemented single player mode with Minimax/AB pruning which you can test in site. [3]
- Our core motif with this app is to make our precious local game alive which was almost about to vanish.
On the business side, we have added ad platform and have plans to show ads in few pages in the website in near future. As a team lead this app holds a lot of value to me and my team. I suppose I can communicate this value to potential sponsors too. But, I am not sure whether to invest in advertising it further or go find sponsors.
When and how do you know that you could ask sponsors for your product ? Is it page-views alone that interests advertisers ? At present avg time / visitors is ~ 20 minutes.
1. http://obaghchal.com
2. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3437535
3. http://obaghchal.com/computer
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Not to rain on your parade, but 550 users on a game site is still quite small. I'm far more familiar with sites in the USA but I assume the general rules will apply. With sites I am familiar with, Google Adwords is usually used until reaching 100,000 users or so. If a site caters to a niche audience then it may be possible to find advertisers/ a sponsorship with far fewer users. Gaming attracts a general audience, however, so I think you would need to grow your user base before reaching out for sponsors.

Feel free to reach out to me with any specific questions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your app seems to be in just beta why don't you go for advertisements first.Allow sponsors to come their way.</comment>


U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article175493626.html <comment><USER2> I have a "bucket file" of stories I hope get declassified before I die, and this is definitely in it now.

(I'm the trailing spouse to a US diplomat and know some of the people in Cuba -- if anything, the media coverage is _underplaying_ how weird this is.)

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Are these people permanently damaged or hurt?

<comment><USER2> (I should clarify: I know some of the State Department staff in Havana; I don't know any of the injured people.)

My understanding is that nobody is entirely clear whether this is permanent or not. Some people have recovered quickly and others are still having lingering effects. Several suffered a concussion, which just doesn't work -- I work for an audio simulation company (think jets and helicopters) and there's just no way audible sound or even infrasound can do this.

OTOH, there is a theory that guided infrasound can do serious tissue damage, which was possibly the cause of Dyatlov Pass[1].

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

<comment><USER4> I think the safer bet is that the cause is not sonic and that the sounds perceived are illusions.

<comment><USER5> In the good old days, we'd have just gotten Mulder and Scully on the case...Those were simpler times...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is one of the most bizarre developments I've witnessed in my life. If it's an attack, it's an entirely new method as far as I understand. Are there any credible, highly possible theories on how this is happening or is it 100% speculation still?

<comment><USER7> If it is an attack, the question is 'why?'. It does not make sense. There is not much to gain.

I wouldnt be surprised if this is some sort of self-inflicted infection or poisoning issue.

<comment><USER8> > If it is an attack, the question is 'why?'.

To sour US-Cuban relations. Russia, Venezuela, China, and some others could plausibly be interested in doing it for that reason.

<comment><USER7> Why would you harm your own people for that? That would not be easy to do. And it is treason. Just for reverting the relationship with the Cubans? There are other, more effective ways to do that, ways that don't require secrecy and harming anyone.

Edit: One explanation can be that the Trump administration itself wants to harm the Cuban relationship regarding embassy business and the health problems are just faked by a few loyal employees, enough people so the government can close the embassy. But that would only harm the business of this one particular embassy. In the political scheme, this does not make any sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm decidedly _not_ a conspiracist (being a firm believer in Occam's razor and all), but this does lend credence to some of the "it was a friendly operation gone wrong" and "we already know who did it but have our reasons not to say anything" lines of thought.

<comment><USER10> What do you think the purpose of Occam's razor is? Sometimes conspiracy _is_ the most simple and consistent explanation.

<comment><USER11> Sometimes, but in most cases it's not.

<comment><USER10> That's a pretty meaningless statement. In most cases of what? Nuclear phenomena? Sure, there is probably no conspiracy to manipulate the laws of physics. But international relations? Are you kidding? Conspiracy is as likely as any other explanation in that case, and shouldn't be discounted as nutjob territory.

<comment><USER11> Conspiracy by whom, for what benefit?

<comment><USER10> Once again, meaningless statement. Depends on the situation. For example, a situation with conflicts of interest or other incentives for doing shady things behind the scenes, which is a pretty common scenario in politics and corporate affairs.

Point is that Occam's razor isn't a blunt instrument that eliminates entire classes of theories from all phenomena. Each one must be evaluated individually as to which theories are contextual and consistent. Some call for evaluating conspiracies, some don't.

<comment><USER11> Some do. But the overwhelming majority of cases don't.

Conspiracy theories are _almost never_ right.

<comment><USER12> Sadly often neither are official explanations. Which is probably why we get "conspiracy theories".

<comment><USER13> This might be especially true when the source of the official explanation has skin in the game.

Politics is a hairy business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like how the article title is "U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats"

Yet the article <title> is "Trump to pull diplomats out of Cuba, but think Havana is behind attacks"

<comment><USER15> > I like how the article title is "U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic > attacks on American diplomats" > Yet the article <title> is "Trump to pull > diplomats out of Cuba, but think Havana is behind attacks"

I'm guessing a "does not" is missing from the <title> because the verb "think" isn't conjugated correctly:

"Trump to pull diplomats out of Cuba, but DOES NOT think Havana is behind attacks"

<comment><USER16> Or it's just missing an "s"

> _… thinks Havana …_

<comment><USER15> That theory doesn't make sense if you read the article.

<comment><USER16> Granted. I'm just looking at minimal difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is basically the conclusion I figured they'd reach. Cuba has too much to gain from a good economic relationship with us to be making "dick moves" like this and we have basically nothing to gain from not having a good economic relationship with them.

</comment><comment><USER18> My guess: your own spies were monitoring your own diplomats, not dissimilar to what happened to the Senate Intelligence Committee [1], just with injuries this time. I wonder if the CIA disagreed or were concerned with what seemed like a Pope Francis/Obama led initiative to mend relations with Cuba, given the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and wanted to see how things were progressing at the diplomatic level.

Would explain why the US has remained quiet and why relations with Cuba haven't soured, at least openly. In a country lacking internet infrastructure, a passive surveillance method makes sense - even if it comes with risks.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits- spy...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying- senate-staffers)

</comment><comment><USER19> Relevant Snopes article: [http://www.snopes.com/do-sonic-weapons-explain-the- health-di...](http://www.snopes.com/do-sonic-weapons-explain-the-health- diplomats-cuba/)

<comment><USER20> >trust by verify

Snopes has been around as long as I have been on the internet. Their DNS whois is protected. Who are they?

The links/sources in this article don't really prove that Sonic weapons are ineffective. They go back to non-weapons research.(the US government has created such weapons have been proven effective[1])

I want to trust but I cannot verify that their claims are true(that these claims are false)

[1] [https://gizmodo.com/what-is-the-lrad-sound- cannon-5860592](https://gizmodo.com/what-is-the-lrad-sound-cannon-5860592)

<comment><USER21> WIRED published an article about Snopes (mainly focusing on conflict between the founders) just a few days ago: [https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and- the-search-for-facts-...](https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and-the-search- for-facts-in-a-post-fact-world/)

<comment><USER20> Thank you! I never knew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some Canadian diplomats have been affected too, which makes it even weirder. Surprised the article didn't mention it.

</comment><comment><USER23> The assumption I've seen is that this was some sort of eaves-dropping attempt gone awry but why would it occur during the target's sleep when eavesdropping is likely useless unless all the targets talk in their sleep about state secrets?

What if the intent was a false-flag attack to disrupt relations between Cuba and the US?

<comment><USER24> >What if the intent was a false-flag attack to disrupt relations between Cuba and the US?

Possible, but why make it so _weird?_ Everyone is talking about the "sonic attacks" and no one is talking about damage to US/Cuban relations.

<comment><USER23> >no one is talking about damage to US/Cuban relations.

You say this but the US authorities have made a specific point of stating they don't believe it to be the fault of Cuba or its government.

For the average American (which is neither you nor I whatever our nationalities) they hear "Americans attacked in Cuba."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Let the mutual face-saving begin!... in other words. I'm still siding with microwaves in any case.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting. Seems to indirectly confirm the government somewhere believes the attacks happened / are happening. They have refrained to comment that, as far as I know.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish they'd stop referring to them as sonic attacks--I think the perception of sonic disturbance is a side effect of something else.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is uBeam beta testing their prototype in Cuba?

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if there are any already deaf diplomats that would be willing to serve there. That said if they're willing to harm people this way it probably wouldn't be much of a step for them to find other ways to harm US diplomats.

<comment><USER30> It may be that hearing impairment is only one, and/or the first noticeable, effect of whatever is happening in Cuba.

In analogy to the way damage due to CTE can manifest long after the injury, I'd be concerned about problems that might take longer to surface. The whole thing is quite weird.

(edit to add: It's not clear that ability to hear is a necessary condition for the observed damage. It might simply be a consequence, not a prerequisite for damage.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_in_Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_in_Space)

</comment><comment><USER32> And the fact that sound was (is?) used to torture prisoners in the Guantanamo complex in Cuba makes this somewhat ironic.

</comment><comment><USER33> What is the nature of these "attacks"? The symptoms? The circumstances? This article gives very little context.

</comment><comment><USER34> Prolly some old relic of a spy device thats effected by new cell tech. Hmmm

</comment><comment><USER35> Russian operatives will be my guess. Just for the record.

</comment><comment><USER36> Clearly not sonic, most likely microwave

</comment><comment><USER37> It's because they are witches!

As long as we find a albino and cut them up and eat them all good.

Or we could all learn the term 'mass hysteria' and move along..... perhaps throw in 'moral panic' to the google search while we are there, it wouldn't hurt.

</comment><comment><USER38> Has anyone considered that this attack could have been done by the large and extreme group of anti-comunist Cubans in order to damage closer relationships between communist Cuba and the US?

Cuban exiles have attacked Cuba before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion)

<comment><USER38> I think that the down-votes with no actual counterarguments kind of go to show that I might be right.

<comment><USER39> No, it shows that you don't provide any proof for your "theory" (there is not much theory to begin with), and therefore its one of the many conspiracy theories floating around. Occam's razor, please.

<comment><USER38> Well, there are plenty of people here guessing at who might have done it. I cannot provide any proof. I didn't say that I think they did it. I was just pointing out that the current list of parties to consider: The Chinese, the Russians, the CIA, is incomplete without including anti-communist Cuban ex- patriots. I don't need to provide proof in order to consider a possibility.

<comment><USER39> Agreed, it is an option to explore.

What I disagree with is the fact you're being downvoted means you are being _right_. If anything, its more likely a sign you're being _wrong_ (or that your comment is otherwise not welcome). I suggest you don't worry too much about up- or downvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just a meta though.

Given this is 'false' via Snopes (as expected).... And lets say you buy into the term fake news... Well you don't get much faker than this.

I get people are easily fooled for a short period. Read a news site, it takes a hour or two to think it over. But this story is > days old. It's past mob mentality level.

And if it's happening on this story what other HN stories would it effect..... Stories on morality I guess. This is in part a 'evil Cubans' meme. SciFi, we all want cool tech that breaks the laws of physics. Appeal to authority? We're trusting in the US government officials to not be incompetent? Mysterious... maybe is actually poison seems the next step in the meme's evolution....

As mentioned in the comments Canadians have caught this meme as well. It travels well in the populous, how does one create spaces were these memes are fire walled off?</comment>


Data.gov - ~400.000 free Geospatial and Raw Datasets - <AUTHOR>

available at:
http://www.data.gov
Also, the software plattform has been open-sourced on github: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/05/datagov-goes-global <comment><USER2> I'll have to check it out again but when this first came out there were far too many Self-Extracting ZIPs and Excel files for me to make much use of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most datasets that I came across in the "Data and Apps" section (<http://www.data.gov/metric>) were structured xml or csv files. However I spotted Excel files in the other sections (OpenData, Health, Energy, ...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> to work with big datasets: <http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/></comment>


The Wander Postcard Project - <AUTHOR> http://blog.onwander.com/

<comment><USER2> What is Wander? "click" Request an Invite or sign in to find out more about Wander.

WTF?

<comment><USER3> Yeah they're 'give us your email to find out what it is' model belongs in the library of ux anti-patterns. Luckily you can put junk data in, they don't verify the email before letting you see what it's about. And even that doesn't tell you might.

<comment><USER4> So, I figured I'd sign up with a throwaway.

Spoiler alert: it's like instagram for places.

(I _think_. It's incredibly hard to tell, and I could be completely wrong. All I know is that I can share some pictures as postcards, or something.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huge props to Keenan (<https://twitter.com/#!/keenancummings>) for putting this together and curating such an excellent collection of art.

He's a great guy, one of the most talented designers I know, and deserves every bit of success that I'm sure Wander and this blog will have.

</comment><comment><USER6> What does the asterisk in the title refer to? That usually means there's a footnote, but I couldn't find one. Even tried clicking on it.

I'm going to say that if a startup's blog leaves you with no idea about what the startup does, then it's poorly designed no matter how pretty it is.

</comment><comment><USER7> My favorite part is that they all come in iPhone or iPad wallpaper forms. No. 34 is my favorite card, and instantly became my iPad lock screen.

</comment><comment><USER8> The artwork is nice, but am I the only one who associates "designed", in the context of an online presentation, as a mix of UI/UX design? This is a Tumblr with illustrations, with an overall presentation that mimics Pinterest's appeal. If I'm not mistaken...well, judging by the sparse text after signup... the service appears to be a Pinterest for places

> _THE PLACES YOU'LL GO… The places you've been and the places you dream of — > all the places you're connected to and the story that tells. That's your > Wanderlog_</comment>


Internet will 'disappear', Google boss tells Davos - <AUTHOR> http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/internet-will-disappear-google-boss-tells-davos-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=77329&NewsCatID=374

<comment><USER2> Schmidt's ideas are certainly entertaining. He just forgot to mention who's going to pay for all that wireless connectivity and data transfer. Before any of the other pipe dreams can come true, the first disruptive innovation we need is affordable wireless connectivity. Today's mobile carriers will never give us that.</comment>


The embarrassment of American broadband - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/140109/2009/04/broadband_embarrassment.html?lsrc=rss_main

<comment><USER2> So the US has 79 million broadband subscribers, and ~300 million people. The article states that this means that ~26% of the US population has broadband. But does one subscriber equal one person?

I read 'subscriber' as 'person in the household that pays the bill'... multiple people may be using that account.

If you click through to the OECD numbers, you'll find the following:

      Rank  Country        Subscribers/100 people
      1     Denmark        36.7
      6     Sweden         32.3
      7     S. Korea       31.2
      10    Canada         27.9
      15    United States  25.0
      17    Japan          23.0
      20    Spain          19.8
      30    Mexico          4.7
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=
            OECD Average   21.3

Not near as alarmist as he makes it seem.

I agree that our slow speeds are embarassing, but statements like:

 _"But it's pathetic that roughly three-quarters of the people in this country don't have broadband Internet service."_

are disingenuous at best, and, as you'll see in the next table, blatantly false.

The fact is that "subscribers per 100 people" is always going to be higher in countries with smaller households (Smaller households mean more households per 100 people, which means more subscribers per 100 people).

More useful statistics would be "households with broadband access", which thankfully is also provided by the OECD data:

      Rank  Country        % households with broadband
      1     S. Korea       94.1 (includes 3G)
      4     Denmark        69.5
      5     Japan          67.6 (includes 3G, but only when tethered)
      7     Sweden         66.6
      8     Canada         64.0
      14    United States  50.8
      20    Spain          39.2
      30    Mexico          6.1
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=
            OECD Average   48.2

Also, before the obligatory "but the US is different, we are spread out" comment comes, the OECD has data on that too. There is a positive correlation between subscribers and population density, but it is 0.22, so not overwhelming. While correlation (or lack thereof) does not imply (or deny) causation, I'd imagine factors like regulation have much more to do with it than geography.

<comment><USER3>
      1) Thank you for being logical and data driven
      2) Damn you for being logical and data driven

I'm a firm believer that necessity is the mother of invention. I also believe that necessity is only proven by crisis. Even if we had the world's greatest broadband infrastructure, I'd rather everyone think we were having an internet drought of biblical proportions. It would certainly step up the pace of innovation and encourage modernized legislation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll just mention that in Romania I pay $15 for unlimited bandwidth at 5 Mbps (it even gets speeds of 10Mbps and up for connections from inside the country) and they give you free install and fast costumer support also.

Romania was smart/lucky because people started their own micro-ISPs (Block/Neighborhood Networks) with 50 to 3000 customers each. Buying from bigger ISPs very powerful connections and selling it to more users that shared that connection. Thanks to competition, it brought the prices down a lot and even the big ISP had to adjust.

Edit: There is a side effect like having this [http://www.roconsulboston.com/Media/Artists/DDBuchJly08/Wire...](http://www.roconsulboston.com/Media/Artists/DDBuchJly08/WiresLg.jpg) on almost all streets in Bucharest, but I find the benefits much higher. Also Wireless Internet is free in pubs/bistros/coffee houses that provide this service here.

<comment><USER5> <http://www.uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I enjoy the ridiculously fat pipe at my American university: 90mb/s down, 52mb/s up (actual, not theoretical) [1]. I can download that 4.6GB Bond movie in a little _under_ nine minutes.

Yes, I realize the story is as much about penetration as it is raw speed. But really, once you have felt ~100mbits, it's just painful to hear people talking about 256k as 'Broadband'.

[1]<http://www.speedtest.net/result/445903195.png>

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how the broadband market and cellular data services will interact in the future. Broadband is more expensive in the US than here in the EU, and the same is true for cellular data. You can basically get a month unlimited (fair- use) cellular data here for €10 (~$14), in any country (though sometimes you're not allowed to tether). I think 3G is much more expensive in the US (but haven't really checked).

As far as I understand it, the broadband is pretty much monopolized in the US, while it's pretty competetive over here. Perhaps the cellular providers can provide some competition? It's happening here already, with for instance 3 providing 3G-only services for use with your laptop.

<comment><USER8> Here in Canada, 3G is double-sold: I'm on with Rogers, and they charge you once for a "data pack" for your phone ($30CDN/mon for a _1GB cap_ \--there was a $35/6GB/mon point for a while, but it was promotional) which absolutely disallows tethering, and then charge you _another_ $30/1GB/mon, on a separate plan, to use their "wireless internet stick" (a USB 3G modem.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really, this should be "The embarrassment of broadband in the English speaking world."

I don't think Canada, Australia or the UK have terribly good broadband options either.

<comment><USER10> So true. While I wait for ADSL2 to be enabled at my local exchange (in Sydney, Australia) so I can upgrade beyond 1.5Mbps, I laugh bitterly at all the "our 10Mbps connections are so slow!' articles I read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The fact that our broadband level is lower than other countries' doesn't mean that it is "bad." Here's an alternate theory that explains the difference: Other countries have governments that like spending excess amount of money on things. One of those things is internet access. (This isn't the only reason -- we could use a more competitive marketplace.)

There does exist a level of broadband at which point it's not worth increasing the level of broadband any more. Does anybody make the argument that we are below that level?

What are we going to do with more broadband? Watch movies at higher resolution? What a life-changing experience that will be!

There are definitely more interesting ways in which higher amounts of broadband could change the way we use the Internet, but right now the limiting factor is imagination and distribution channels, not bandwidth.

</comment><comment><USER12> "we now lag the rest of the world when it comes to broadband Net access." You don't lag the nightmare that is Canada.

<comment><USER13> I'm guessing you're excluding Quebec? I can consistently download at 800k/sec (if the server will push the bits this fast) with Videotron. Is that really considered impossibly slow nowadays?! I don't even know what I'd do with more bandwidth, though now that I have a server the 100k/sec upload limit is a bit more of an irritation.

<comment><USER14> If you look around the world ~100MB/s residential connections are fairly common and a few places are rolling out 1Gbit/second. However, in the US you see everything from ~80MB/s down to 256k/s depending on your location. The fastest connection my mother can get is 256k/s which plenty fast for web surfing but don't try and watch HD video streams on that thing. And that's the problem 30 vs 100 MB/s is not that big deal but when much of the US can't get 1/10th that we have a problem.

Edit: Mine is 20MBbit down, 2MBit up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg The issue isn't raw downloading power. The issue is request latency, overloaded DNS servers and overloaded data centers. In other words it's not just about quantity, it's (as always with life) mostly about quality.

In 2000-01 I briefly had a relatively modest (2mbit/sec) DSL line from a local mini-ISP with crazy fast ping times and DNS on steroids: nearly _everything_ on the Internet would load under half a second.

That mini-ISP got acquired and disappeared, and my internet experience has been deteriorating ever since: my guaranteed 6mbit/sec connection allows me to I download hundreds of front pages of HN per second, yet I wait for up to 10 seconds sometimes to load just one, and google maps always gets stuck at one or two map fragments when I look something up.

</comment><comment><USER15> Back in the day, CompuServe, Delphi etc. used to charge for connections by the mnute (not to mention for emails). Major phone companies like Verizon etc. still segment customers dependent on whether they're calling inside or outside the network (as if I care what carrier someone else sues, or are going to ask them to switch for my benefit!).I hope this model is doomed.

I'm glad the current administration is committed to a broadband plan for the US, although I'm worried that the FCC has set it sights far too low. Personally, I'm OK with some taxes going towards this; Broadband is nowadays as important as a well-functioning road system. It seems to me that the poorer or less economically developed parts of the US would derive big long-term economic benefits.

<http://www.fcc.gov/broadband> is the central FCC page for the electronic superhighway and related policies. Though very dull looking, there's a lot of substance at the links on the left.

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't forget the embarassment of ridiculously high prices for public wireless (at airport, cafes etc).

$5.00 for two hours!? What!?

<comment><USER17> In Sweden we have something called Sidewalk Express where you can sit down at a computer and browse the web for €1 per hour. If you want to use the WLAN in the same location (from some other company), you'll have to pay ~€5 per hour - and then the computer isn't included. Weird.

<comment> bjelkeman-again True. But on your laptop you can at least have VPN set up and be somewhat secure in your use. Sidewalk Express I am not even sure I want to log into my email account with.

<comment><USER17> Indeed, but it's still silly that I can get the connection plus a computer for a fifth of the price!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> History and the implications of network neutrality (covers AT&T and Verizon in depth): [http://jtame05.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/network- neutrality-w...](http://jtame05.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/network-neutrality- word97/)</comment>


Ancient shellfish remains rewrite 10,000-year history of El Niño cycles - <AUTHOR> http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/08/08/ancient-shellfish-remains-rewrite-10000-year-history-of-el-nino-cycles/ <comment><USER2> My favorite quote:

       > "We thought we understood what influences the El Niño
       > mode of climate variation, and we've been able to show
       > that we actually don't understand it very well," said
       > Julian Sachs, a UW professor of oceanography.

One of the interesting thing about the press on climate change it means more dollars to investigate. When the AIDS epidemic started it quintupled the amount of money being invested in cell biology research, which has lead to lots of interesting discoveries about how cells work, how viruses work, etc.

All the investment in the components of climate is going to open up a lot of interesting avenues of both research and action. And hopefully inform when action is either unwarranted or would be ineffective.

</comment><comment><USER3> > The new data is more reliable, Carré said, for three reasons: the Peruvian > coast is strongly affected by El Niño; _the shells record ocean temperature_ > , which is the most important parameter for the El Niño cycles; and the > ability to record seasonal changes, the timescale at which El Niño can be > observed.

Emphasis mine. I'm kind of curious how the shells encode that temperature information. Growth speed? Chemical changes?

<comment><USER4> FTA: "While in graduate school, Carré had developed a technique to analyze shell layers to get ocean temperatures, using carbon dating of charcoal from fires to get the year, and the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the growth layers to get the water temperatures as the shell was forming."

<comment><USER5> So it's his own pet technique. How well supported is it by the rest of the scientific community?</comment></comment></comment>


Turing's Machine, an implementation of the first chess computer program - <AUTHOR> http://dbrg.com/TuringsMachine.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the developer of this, so if anyone has any questions please ask...!</comment>


Ask HN: How to (instantly) search by filename in Linux? - <AUTHOR> I'm hoping someone has some advice or a tool to recommend for this particular problem. I have many tens of thousands of (binary) files in a few directories spread over a few filesystems. I'd like a way to search by filename (either pattern or regular expression).
Right now I am using a quick script to compose a somewhat complex `find` command. This is otherwise effective but quite slow. Each query takes anywhere from 1-20 seconds.
An alternative that I pursued was `mlocate`. A daily cron (or systemd timer as the case may be) script generates a database for each directory (e.g. `updatedb --database-root DIRECTORY_A --output DATABASE_A.db --require-visibility 0`). Then to search `locate --basename --database DATABASE_A.db:DATABASE_B.db:DATABASE_C.db PATTERN`. However unlike `find`, `mlocate` does not offer an ignore or '!'. I suppose I could then strip ignored paths from the output with another tool, but things are starting to get pretty hackish at this point.
Perhaps there is something like Bitbucket's Quick File Search [1]?
Or something along the lines of etsy's hound [2] but for files rather than code of course. I've been using hound for instant search of all my repos and it is quite incredible.
[1]: http://blog.bitbucket.org/2013/02/07/introducing-quick-file-search/
[2]: https://github.com/etsy/hound <comment><USER2> This is probably over the top. But why not mirror those file names in /dev/shm/ (memory) and search against that instead? Ex:

# create dir structure

find /media -type d -exec mkdir -p /dev/shm/{} \;

# create file structure

find /media -type f -exec touch /dev/shm/{} \;

Then search /dev/shm/ for your files.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about:

locate "pattern" | grep -v "antipattern"

locate is installed by default on Ubuntu and I think on most Linux distributions so I'm not sure why you need to worry about the cron jobs and all of those command line arguments, normally that's taken care of automatically (unless of course you have special requirements for when the cron job runs).

<comment><AUTHOR> The system `updatedb` job (that creates the database `locate` uses) only scans one root tree. This one root tree includes lots of random junk (basically your entire filesystem minus a few things) and does not support multiple filesystems/root trees. Hence the necessity to create multiple databases. I agree it's pretty silly.

<comment><USER3> "does not support multiple filesystems/root trees."

I just tried the experiment on Ubuntu 14.04 and that statement does not appear to be true. If I create a file on a mounted non-root filesystem then run updatedb followed by locate with a pattern matching that filename I get the file's path.

There are a couple of things that could be preventing this in /etc/updatedb.conf. Make sure the mounted filesystem isn't excluded by PRUNEPATHS or PRUNEFS. Also I'm not clear on what PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS does but my guess is that if set to yes it would exclude nfs mounted filesystems.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was incorrect. It does support other mounted filesystems, just not multiple root trees. As you suspected, `updatedb.conf` had /media in PRUNEPATH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since you mentioned Bitbucket's file search, fzf[1] immediately springs to my mind. I don't know how well it would scale to your use case but it supports pattern and regexp based searching.

[1]: [https://github.com/junegunn/fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf)

</comment><comment><USER5> Recoll?

[http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/](http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/)

Haven't used it, I'm a Windows guy. I searched for "Everything for linux" (Everything by voidtools does this functionality for windows, and is fantastic).

Alternatively, can you run Everything under Wine?

</comment><comment><USER6> How about caching output from "find" on the few filesystems and then searching the output? You can refresh the cache from cron. It'd be faster than running "find" each time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this was one of the first things I tried. It cut down on the extremely long queries, but on average was about the same time if not longer. The cached output from find was hundreds of mB in total. Despite it's drawbacks, `mlocate` is a speedier alternative. Just interested in finding out what sort of better tools are out there. If only I could get access to Bitbucket source and see how they managed. :)

<comment><USER6> Got it.

Do you search based on pattern in the filename only, or on the pattern in the full path to the file?

I ask because my next suggestion would be to put the output of find into a database so you can have the benefit of modern indexing technologies instead of just having a linear index.

(If that works out, you might want to go the whole hog and put the objects into the database too.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I only search based on pattern in the filename. So I was using find:

      -name '*something*'

locate:

      --basename

Or to search the cached find output:

      grep -P '(?<=/)[^/]*something[^/]*$' find_output.txt

Using modern indexing technologies sounds like a great suggestion. Any idea where to start with this? I don't have much in the way db experience.

<comment><USER6> I would recommend storing the data in Postgres (advanced open source database). See how searching the table compared to using find.

You can optimize further by adding indexes. Postgres supports indexing based on regular expressions so that if there are particular regular expressions that you often search for, you can index on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What can't you do with find? Are you quoting your wildcards properly?

<comment><AUTHOR> find is great, just slow. I'm interested in some sort of solution that can scale.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Easiest way to get tabular data on the web for people to slice and dice? - <AUTHOR>

I have a some public data that I've rescued from PDFs, turning them into regular CSV files. In total, it's about 20,000 data points, about 2 megs in size. I'd like for people to be able to do reporting, generate graphs, etc without my involvement. I'm not averse to renting an AWS instance to host the data and whatever is needed to allow people to display and render it. The data is in a standard form (now, after I worked it over) so it would be trivial to set up a database with 10 tables, but it's the user-driven reporting and graphing I have no idea about. <comment><USER2> I'd go with R and its shiny webserver, checkout some examples [http://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/](http://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, I'll check it out.</comment></comment>


Web Optimization Online Summit Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://www.environmentsforhumans.com/web-optimization-summit/

<comment><USER2> If you are interested in this topic and would like to have a place online to ask questions about optimizing performance, we could use your vote for this proposed StackExchange community focused on web performance: [http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5821/proposal-for- st...](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5821/proposal-for- stackexchange-site-focused-on-web-site-performance)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Discount Code for 10% off: OPTSIMPSONK</comment>


Schemepy: embed a Scheme interpreter in your python app - <AUTHOR> http://schemepy.thousandparsec.net/

<comment><USER2> See also: <http://www.biostat.wisc.edu/~annis/creations/PyLisp/>

Which also points to: <http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dyoo/python/pyscheme/> and: <http://www.xs4all.nl/~yduppen/site/psyche.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of Greenspun's Tenth Rule:

"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."</comment>


The Navy SEAL and His Doctor: An experimental brain treatment blows up two lives - <AUTHOR> http://rewired.inewsource.org/ucsd-kevin-murphy-prtms-navy-seals.html <comment><USER2> I've had a small 3rd party encounter with mental health services here in Virginia.

I got about half way through the article, couldn't finish it. Honestly, what this doctor is doing with TMS sounds just like what I saw the doctors do here. Throw crap at the wall and see what sticks.

Talk with the patient for fifteen minutes, prescribe them a drug cocktail, hold for a few days, say some mumbo jumbo about having a small spirit child inside you. You have to see a judge before we release you. Nevermind, no you don't. Time to go, boot them out the door.

And here's the HN crowd, getting all excited about the potential of micro dosing LSD. I think my baking soda volcano from grade school was more scientific.

I'm not saying there's no point in trying. I'm just saying I think we're over confident in what we think we know. At some point, it starts to feel like we're just making it up as we go along.

<comment><USER3> Yes that's basically right. We still don't know enough to reliably diagnose the root cause of most mental health problems based on direct tests or observations. So physicians have to prescribe treatments on a trial and error basis using a mix of intuition and scientific evidence until they find something that seems to work reasonably well for the patient. The long-term effects of many drugs — both legal and illegal — are largely unknown and sometimes impossible to reliably determine.

<comment><USER2> I'm not aware of any "scientific evidence" that physicians use with patients. There's no way to measure depression objectively. An assertion that someone's "brain chemistry" is off holds about as much water as their chi being misaligned. It sounds sciencey, but if you can't measure it, you're making things up.

<comment><USER3> There are standardized depression screening questionnaires such as PHQ-9. Those are at least somewhat subjective, but they are widely used in large scale double-blind studies of mental health treatments. If a large fraction of subjects report a significant improvement in symptoms relative to the control group then we can have some scientific confidence in the treatment.

[http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_phq9.pdf](http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_phq9.pdf)

Brain chemistry such as neurotransmitter levels is clearly a factor in some mental health conditions. There is no serious dispute of this fact. But it's also clearly not the only factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very good article to read. Not many places these days bother to cover a story like that.

The behavior evinced by the researcher, Murphy, seems typical of the modern technologist. Hubris, plain and simple. A better scientist would be just as concerned with the failures and rejects as with the successes. His ready ties to the military research centers are immediately troubling and suspect to me. The kind of experimentation they have been known to support, (MK series), makes me think this Murphy guy got an all but official blank check for his work.

This TMS business is not quite half baked, not yet. They can talk about brainwaves and frontal lobes all day, but the facts are: the human mind is far too complicated to be fixed by a magnetic hammer, even when applied gently. Surmont's description of the TMS as a "digital narcotic" is probably worth more than any trial the FDA has ever done. Use of drugs and cannabis alongside brute force brainwave manipulation is a recipe for disaster. The problem with these treatments, is they completely fail to treat the real causes of mental instability. Reading through Surmont's life story, he is a textbook subject for mental experimentation. Unknown family history, Lack of a stable home, sexual abuse, military trauma, TBI, on and on. Hes a walking DSM-V. If I wanted someone I could use up and throw away, I couldnt find anyone better.

The real disgusting part about the whole affair is, that it is the same tired failures Ive seen before, in real life with people I know. Here's a secret that they will never admit to:

We have the technology to fix every case of "PTSD" that we get back from overseas. (TMS is not it btw). Being able to make and break the human mind are two sides of the same coin. The ability to thoroughly break and rebuild any human mind has been a trade secret of our intel agencies for about 40 years now. They are very good at it. All it would take, to solve PTSD, is to put the people who run those black projects in a talent exchange with the VA. But they will never give up thier secrets, and so men like Surmont are out there walking around untreated, like aging sticks of dynamite, sweating nitro.

I could go on for hundreds of pages about the sordid history of American military medical experimentation.

Im glad Surmont got a happy ending - somewhere in that San Diego daze, the man upstairs decided to help him out.

<comment><USER5> >Being able to make and break the human mind are two sides of the same coin.

Do you have reason to believe that this is true specifically for the mind? I can't think of any other scenario where you would need to be able to make something in order to break it.

<comment><USER6> I would suspect the claim is using a specific understanding of "break". Obviously you can break a human mind with a bullet or a chisel through the eye socket, but there are certain types of breakage that are not possible without much more nuanced understanding of how the mind functions.

In general, I think the idea is that when we learn to create a type of thing, we also learn a great deal about new ways to destroy it.

<comment><USER7> But OP is claiming that some of the techniques used to break minds can be used to cure PTSD. Some of us are skeptical, and OP gives no reason to think that the 'two sides of the same coin' adage is applicable here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I met Dr. Murphy through a mutual friend in 2018, and attended a presentation that he gave about his prTMS treatment. I thought it was a bit odd that someone who had a radiology / oncology background would be pushing TMS, and was very disappointed by the rigor of his presentation. I wish I had the slides to show, but it appeared to be something out of a pop science article, and lacked much scientific background other than a sort of 'drugs are harsh and non-specified, but I have a personalized treatment that works much better.'

This set off the crank alarm for me, which got even louder when he made claims about it being a sort of cure-all for psychiatric and even non-psychiatric problems (depression, PTSD, anxiety, concussion recovery, and even cognitive performance). Furthermore, he appeared to lack a technical or mathematical understanding of the technology itself, using only vague analogies about aligning the frequencies of different parts of the brain and whatnot. However, I'm not the one with titles and prestigious academic positions, so my complaints about his lack of evidence weren't taken too seriously.

I asked him direct questions, but he didn't answer much other than that his brother, a chiropractor, had helped him write the software for prTMS and designed the protocol (which I thought was very odd). Furthermore, he described prTMS as TMS-like treatment that was based on EEG readings and supposedly personalized, but given at a fraction of the intensity of usual TMS treatment (which made me skeptical that it would work).

I'm surprised that he was able to attract so many big-name patients and supporters - which included the Notre Dame University football team too. And, given that his lofty claims about prTMS are completely unsupported by research, I'm not surprised that it has reached the public eye.

Some of what was discussed in the article was news to me ($10 million in funds he said was for him, claims about Newport's surveillance, etc) However, none of it was surprising. He appears to have a history of disputes with his partners and employees (including at other offices that offered prTMS not mentioned in the article) and Notre Dame (he 'treated' their football team). It's a bit ridiculous to hear him claim that people's lawsuits and complaints are simply a result of jealousy and malicious behavior, considering his history of deceit.

Edit: it appears that he's under investigation for the university funds he took: [http://rewired.inewsource.org/UC-San-Diego- Investigation-10-...](http://rewired.inewsource.org/UC-San-Diego- Investigation-10-million-Kreutzkamp.html)

<comment><USER9> > _his brother, a chiropractor, had helped him write the software for prTMS > and designed the protocol_

Well that is seriously not a good sign.

<comment> blaser-waffle Indeed. Chiropractors are notoriously bad at QA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wildly damning and unprofessional that the doctor tries to discredit the patient's perspective because he has been psychotic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of something supposedly hitting the market soon [0]. Randomly hammering your brain with some electric current, and with no understanding of the mechanisms, or without a model to test, seems complete pseudoscience. Be sad if people use these and experience problems down the track.

[0] [https://thinkhumm.com/](https://thinkhumm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> In the article, the behavior exhibited by Dr. Murphy seems similar to the paranoia and delusions of grandeur that chronic cocaine users present.

<comment><USER6> I was wondering if there might have been some self-experimentation...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a person familiar with both the experimental method as well as veteran mental health issues, with this story I can't help but think of the classic image of Homer Simpson randomly punching buttons on his nuclear control panel.

This doesn't read like any methodical and rigorous research for a credible and effective treatment.

</comment><comment><USER14> Fascinating. I mean we know that repetitive TMS can induce mania in unipolar depression cases so it makes sense that Surmount could have a manic psychosis induced by it. I think the trigger rate is higher for bipolar patients as well. And while it's rare in general, Surmount had a lot of treatments which probably raised the likelihood of a manic episode. I don't think we know the combined effect of TMS and antidepressants for example and the likelihood they trigger mania.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ignoring Surmont for a moment ... Dr. Murphy sure sounds paranoid to me (IANACP). Perhaps a few treatments with PrTMS would help that.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just another example of the army readily experimenting on soldiers with novel 'treatments'. Want to test some new unproven medical technology? The army will hook you up. Thousands of hapless subjects who will do as they're told, no questions asked.

<comment><USER17> They are not forcing or coercing anyone with that specific intent unlike many commercial actors. In fact, when we compare for example DARPA's TCDS research - it has beaten a lot of competetive initiatives in the private sector when it comes to pushing high quality ethical neuro science and it's tech forward. I'm not a military ethics fan and of the opinion it lacks all over the world but the matter at hand surely ain't as gloomy black & white as you present.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought for a moment this article would be about a terrible misunderstanding of the famous Navy Seals Copypasta

</comment><comment><USER19> Can some summarize this story? Seems interesting but don't have time to read it all.

<comment><USER20> "The Navy SEAL and His Doctor: An experimental brain treatment blows up two lives"</comment></comment>


Interning and Expanding Reach As An Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR>

Hello Hacker News,
I'm in a bit of a frustrating situation.
First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Will and i'm 15, living in the SF Bay Area. I've been coding for a few years now, starting at 11 with C++, then moving to iPhone later that year and spent a while working as a freelance iOS Developer. Since 6 months ago, I've worked with PHP, HTML, and CSS, because I've interesting in creating my own Web Apps and really working with starting some websites/companies. I have a distinct passion for entrepreneurship and I really want to explore the realms of the business.
Anyway, now to the point. I've been encouraged by parents and by my own intuition to explore for a summer program at a college or a summer internship at a SF Bay startup. I really want to get into the community and learn from all those more experienced than me. I've done camps for middle school age kids in the past but I have always been too experienced for the camps.
What I'm asking: Is there any startups that you know of that are in the SF Bay Area and are looking for an unpaid intern who doesn't suck?
If not, do you know of any high-level college programs for teenagers with a passion for programming and business where I will be challenged?
I'm looking forward to reading your responses, and hopefully doing some awesome stuff this summer.
Thanks, Will <comment><USER2> You'll learn tons if you work at a even half-way decent startup, more at a good one - and there are plenty of those in the Bay Area. Might want to start here: [http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-San-Francisco-Bay- Are...](http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-San-Francisco-Bay-Area-are- hiring-interns) and even here: [http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are- hiring-in-the-San-Fr...](http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-hiring-in- the-San-Francisco-Bay-Area) \- as any startup that wants full-time folks wouldn't mind getting free labor as well.

Obviously I'm going to suggest isocket (<http://isocket.com>) - where I work now. Lots of opportunities to do great work here.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are you looking to do? What do you want to learn about?

There are tons of work in a startup, it's important to have some ideas of what you want to get out of the experience. Otherwise I'm afraid you might end up just doing the majority of grunt work, where you don't learn much. You certainly don't want that if you're not getting paid!

I've done unpaid internship at a startup before, and I don't think you want to be treated like an intern. Your time is not valued (since they aren't paying you). They listen to your ideas, but won't implement them, etc...

Instead, I suggest you work on your own projects, with experienced mentors guiding you. This way you have actual freedom on what you work, you can still learn, and most importantly you'll actually turn an idea to something concrete yourself, from start to finish.

Of course, finding mentors is the hard part. If you're around in SF, send me an email, perhaps I can help.

<comment><USER4> I agree with @vantran. Getting paid and the time you are going to spend should definitely be valued a bit more, especially by yourself. Unless you have specific goals/objectives on why you want to take on a internship, why then would you want to do one? Instead, get a few friends and make something and try selling it, the experience you gain will be much more beneficial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would also keep my eyes open for startup-weekend/hackathon type events:

<http://startupweekend.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been :) I'll continue to keep my eyes open, but that is something i'm definitely trying to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 15 and that much knowledge and motivation! Congrats!... Cause you just make me feel old at 26 ;-)

I have no clues about SF. But wish you the best of luck!</comment>


Google reminds users to "Call Dad", makes users angry - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/chat/thread?tid=527272d524946cb3&hl=en

<comment><USER2> My father recently died and while things like these may trigger some slight pain, that's just life. You have to get the fuck over it.

It's never worth accommodating the easily offended, especially on the Internet.

<comment><USER3> It's the difference between seeing something that annoys you and moving on and having something that someone else stuck into your reminder list that you can't delete. No one is complaining about Google's fathers day doodle, people are complaining that Google put in reminders they don't want into a space they view as theirs and there's no way to get rid of them.

I'm glad you presumably had a good relationship with your father when he was alive. It might be worth remembering that this type of thing can be really rather painful and/or awkward for people who had fathers that weren't very nice people, were never around and they can't contact or came from a family with two mothers.

No one's saying people shouldn't talk about Father's day, but hijacking your user's reminder lists and sticking in stuff they can't get rid of because you think it's cool is just not a very nice thing to do.

<comment><USER4> The issue you describe is legitimate: having an unsolicited reminder that can't be deleted is a bad choice, period. The parts about being offended because of a lousy or recently late father are unnecessary and unhelpful appeals to emotion.

<comment><USER5> Those are completely valid appeals to emotion, because it is the emotional context of the reminder that makes it significant. If you don't understand why someone might feel bad after seeing that show up in their todo list, then you don't understand the problem.

That said, as someone with pretty unhappy history with his father, I think what Google did here is fine. But really, not every emotional appeal is a fallacy.

<comment><USER4> When there is a perfectly good objective argument to be made (in this case, that undeletable reminders is a bad user experience), I do think an appeal to emotion is ineffective if not fallacious.

In this case, the particular emotional appeal seems either insincere or unreasonable. Are people who have bad or deceased fathers offended by the very notion of Father's Day and the marketing around it? I doubt it, but even if they are, I think it would be entirely unreasonable, and rare enough for Google to risk or ignore.

Remember, anyone can choose at any time to be offended by anything, whether or not other people would consider them reasonable. People can also feign being offended to attempt to bring attention and credibility to an otherwise legitimate argument. Anyone who publishes any text on the Internet is liable to have someone claim the text to be offensive. I don't think any reasonable person would see this reminder and think that Google was mockingly telling them to call their abusive or dead father.

<comment><USER3> That's the difference between posting something in a space people view as public and a space people view as their own personal area. People have much more of a right to be offended about the later. You're offering your users a space to call their own, anything you put in there that offends any of them is an intrusion and leads the user to realize that the control of that space is entirely up to you and not them. When you've offered that space to them and they find out your offer is not what they thought it is, it is understandable they get annoyed.

The reason it's important to talk about the emotions is that the emotional calculations change when the space or message is a personal one as opposed to a public one. It's the difference between someone coming up to you on the bus and asking you if you've called your father and a poster on the side of the bus asking if you've called your father. When you put your message in someone's personal space, you don't get to just say "eh, it's probably only a small fraction" because you're specifically communicating with specific people.

It is important to understand the emotional components of software.

<comment><USER4> I don't buy that Gmail is or is supposed to be a personal area. There are prominent ads, and Google frequently sends out messages to everyone's Gmail about new Labs features and such. Sure, your Gmail is more personal than, say, the cnn.com homepage, but it's still pretty clear that mass messages aren't off the table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was just talking with my mom about this this morning. My father passed away about a year and a half ago. I still very much miss him.

I really hate to be That Guy that complains about the little things that are supposed to brighten our day. Particularly because I work for Google and have at various other times been the guy implementing these little things that then get complained about. I wouldn't want to see Google never do these things, because there will always be some minority of the user base that will be offended, and that's just life. Otherwise we get a boring faceless corporation, and that would be a shame.

But when I saw this, my reaction was very much the same as the posters on the support forum. It hurt. Because I totally would call him, if I could. But I can't. And that really, really sucks.

<comment><USER7> This reminds me of when Facebook reminded you to reconnect with friends, some dead. Glad they removed that feature.

-1 to Google for this idea, but I wouldn't open a ticket or get enraged about it.

<comment><USER8> I've used FB's reconnect and "people you may know", among other features and on other sites, to great success. But it was the one time that FB reminded me to reconnect with a friend close to the anniversary of his passing that is what I think of when I think of those types of features.

Facebook, Google, etc. don't just know if someone has passed away, if a parent or both parents were abusive or at all a part of your life for whatever reason, or even something like if you broke up with someone else the night before. It's hard to get _angry_ about a feature that otherwise works out well because those services don't have that information.

The only thing I _can_ get angry about is the way these services handle requests to close/memorialize accounts. The aforementioned friend FB suggested I reconnect with was one that had an extensive online identity, but his family for whatever reason hasn't done anything (if they even know about all of the accounts). So I've sent notice to FB, LinkedIn and more to try to close or at least freeze the account. Most of them haven't paid attention to non-family requests so far. Doesn't matter that I am connected to him on all the social sites, have all his then-contact/personal information and death notices, and sent from the email address on a domain he linked to on his website (which is in these profiles). There has got to be a better way to handle this problem :(

<comment><USER9> Perhaps a service (imalive.com) where you have to click a button every day/week/month otherwise it closes all your accounts...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When you operate on the scale of Google or Facebook, getting "cute" will inevitably end up with some angry users. But without little touches like this, the company would move closer and closer to the IBM-esque corporate monolith. And neither the users nor Google want to see that image.

That said, maybe this one was pushing it. I saw that this morning and thought, "Oh, here we go..."

<comment><USER11> Actions speak louder than words. If they don't want to look like an IBM-esque monolith then they shouldn't act like one. Would IBM be less of a monolithic beast if they had commercials with puppies in them, yet never changed their polices or actions?

Personalizations are cute so long as you have a personal relationship with who is doing it. If Google was a three man team who interacted with their userbase on a regular basis then these acts of personalization would mean more. But a 26,000 plus employee company having faceless developer #014345 implement feature #21542154, is much harder to pull off as being personal or cute. Especially considering how impersonal Google is towards customer service. It can come off like a socially awkward geek trying to make conversation...

Here let's remind you about your great father(or possibly your dead, abusive or absent father) to show how human & personal we are as a company, but if you actually have a problem with one of our products or services good luck actually getting a personal touch then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Call your dad on fathers day" as politically incorrect? This seems like overkill. There is a 1000 other vastly more important things to get worked up over. Its not like Google took your dad away or made him someone you despise, and then flaunts how great it is having a dad you'd want to honor on fathers days in front of you. It's a little something to give their service a slight personality. Perhaps its like Field of Dreams, give people somewhere to complain, they will complain, which is fine, but complain about the problem, the people that caused it, not the things that remind you of it, which end up getting those things taken away from the majority of people that would enjoy the rather innocent reminder.I could see being pissed off if you were in jail for a crime you didn't commit, and you were being forced to celebrate the 4th of July or something, but this is not even close to that.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are a few sides to this one:

On the practical, implementation detail side of this, users should have been allowed to remove the item. I'm sure the reason that didn't happen is simply because of the way it was implemented, and implementing the item as something that was actually per-user would simply have pushed into the 'not happening' zone.

As regards, morals, sensibilities and where the hell 'right' is on the larger picture the answer is 'who knows?' - Personally, I think the fact that a slight prompting would have resulted in millions of tiny acts of goodness, and a few larger ones of users being upset, but there's no particular metric one can apply there. My intuition says the balance falls largely on the side of it being a net postitive for their users at large, and their families too.

As far as those offended go, I'm sort of reminded of the parallels with doctors and malpractice suits - hundreds of lives saved, helped, made more comfortable, and it' can take one slip-up to undo all of it. No, it's not a 'gtfover it', but it's not so much the message appearing as the inability to control it that led to a small slight being taken as an offense. Anger is almost always fear, and fear almost always a simple desire to not be hurt, and the inability to stop it continuing to prompt them - that likely just resonated with the aspects of whatever hurt in the first place, whether it was mortality, abuse or anything else.

No one meant any offense, and there was a person, and then people who thought they'd do something they thought would be good, and might make a few people happier (and possibly serve their employer's larger aims too).

They didn't do a bad thing. They did a good thing, badly.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure how I feel about this (although I don't use Gmail, so thankfully, it doesn't matter how I feel).

I like the fact that Google adds little touches that try to remind you that their employees are actual human beings.

I can be sympathetic to people who this might make uncomfortable (Father's Day is a pretty bad day for me), but I'm not sure how reasonable it is to try and shield yourself from things like this. I mean, presumably, you don't break down into tears every time a commercial airs advertising a "Father's Day" sale?

It just seems like a futile endeavor. It would be like if the color Yellow reminded you of some terrible memory. You'd kind of just have to deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think it is a good lesson to small companies in that you shouldn't add things to what people consider "mine" or expect the normal family situation applies to everyone. The doodle is ok, but adding reminders crosses the line. Some of the forum postings are just sad and to think some managers decision added one more bit of pain is not something you want.

<comment><USER16> The flip side is the number of people that called their father because of the reminder, and what positive impact this had. Sorry, I can't help feel any sympathy for people pitching a fit over this. It reminds me of that woman who chastised the free lemonade kids.

<comment><USER17> _It reminds me of that woman who chastised the free lemonade kids._

Sorry, I don't know the story behind this one, but would like to. Link?

<comment><USER18> It looks like the original article was taken down, but this is the reddit thread on it: [http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cmizs/sweet_little...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cmizs/sweet_little_girls_give_away_free_lemonade/)

By the way, Google still impresses me sometimes. I found this by searching for "women chastises free lemonade kids" and the first hit was this thread, and the second was the reddit thread.

<comment><USER19> And now it's recursing. Google strikes again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You know, as soon as I saw that, even though my dad is perfectly healthy and I hadn't called him yet today, I was a little creeped out. I couldn't put my finger on why.

The doodles are one thing, but Gmail is supposed to be a tool, and I think people expect different things from that.

<comment><USER21> I think having a generic banner such as a "Fathers Day" doodle wouldnt really upset as many people. I think there's something more personal about the specific 'Call Dad' that would certainly make me feel more emotional if I saw it pop up in my contacts list.

People get bombarded with "fathers day" "mothers day" "valentines day" every year and it's easy to brush it aside...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Many commenters seem not to notice that this upsets not only those whose fathers have recently passed, but even more those whose fathers have left them or abused them.

</comment><comment><USER23> I found it a bit creepy simply because I view the Google services as pure utility completely segregated from my real life. I use them in the same way I use my microwave or toaster. If I woke up this morning and my microwave said "call Dad" I would have the same reaction. It's not a big deal of course but it's just kind of weird. It shows what a huge challenge Google has to ever develop a coherent social strategy when such a harmless message causes a little controversy.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think a big part of the issue is that a person's Gmail is treated as something much more personal than a TV ad or anything else. I think this is the piece that people blasting complaints as "too sensitive" are missing.

To have a unremovable "personal" message there as part of the interface feels weird to start with, but it feels even more like a violation if it's offensive (as with this case).

</comment><comment><USER25> In other news, users love to bitch about everything.

<comment><USER26> and much of the culture around here is built on the innovation of bitching about people bitching about something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Google just doesn't get social media — this is the type of stuff that Facebook was doing wrong over two years ago and quickly fixed. Instead of trying to imitate Facebook they should re-focus on fixing services they already have like Blogger. It's mind blowing to think that Blogger is now in the slow lane behind the likes of Tumblr and WordPress. Google is starting to remind me of Yahoo! in a bad way — a place where good products go to die. My advice for them would be to buy Twitter, but they'd only mess that up over time...

</comment><comment><USER28> People that get angry about things like this should really just chill. Google's probably created much more happiness than sorrow with this feature, by reminding kids to call their dads.

</comment><comment><USER29> If Google say "Call Dad" to users who don't have a dad, it's a bug. Bugs are bad. Google should fix it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Google reminds about Father's Day, yet it failed to remind me about a birthday over both SMS and email.

<comment><USER31> I noticed this recently as well, but only last week did I bother looking into it.

It seems the only way to fix this is to disable all of your notifications, save that, then go enable them again. Afterward, your notifications should work again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> A technical question, if I might:

Anyone in here that knows how these reminders where targeted? I didn't check GMail yesterday, so I've no clue if they would've been shown to me. And frankly, it would've been the wrong date.

Looking at the mess that is [1], was this rolled out to US people only? Using geoip or information from user profiles? Because I cannot imagine that a global reminder would've made much sense, ignoring the current discussion if it was a bad thing in general.

1: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Father%27s_Da...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Father%27s_Day#International_history_and_traditions)

</comment><comment><USER33> Imagine Batman login to his gmail account and then seeing this reminder…

</comment><comment><USER34> Google surely must have anticipated that some people would react this way. Good on them for going ahead with this reminder anyway.

<comment><USER35> I disagree but not because it caused offense. I just see no reason why Google should be adding reminders when only the end user should be doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wait, are we still in America where every surface in the virtual and real world is covered with ads? In general I have a problem with the ad supported universe, it turns the creative expression into a commodity to sell shoes and lipstick.

I wish I can could my dad about this.

</comment><comment><USER37> people get angry over the smallest things these days

<comment><USER38> Hey! My dad was quite tall, thank you very much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I honestly thought it was a cool new feature of gMail where I can get reminders about calling people that is tied into gCal.

</comment><comment><USER40> I lost my faith in people reading his.

</comment><comment><USER41> All these geniuses at Google and nobody realised it was a dumb idea? They haven't all gone to Facebook. Marissa Mayer needs a tighter grip on the still, only just, minimalist homepage. I'd prefer no doodles at all, but I demand no power hogging js doodles!

</comment><comment><USER42> sometimes when watching hulu or youtube i see ads that i find offensive. it's not the same situation, but i do wonder where to draw the lines mentioned in the discussions here.

</comment><comment><USER43> It is true that this may hit feelings of some people. If we are blaming them, lets also blame Apple(app store) and a lot others. Unfortunately we have to learn to adapt and let go of these things... Internet is quite insensitive

</comment><comment><USER44> You know what Google could have done?

They could have shown a message that said "It's Father's Day! Do you want to add a to-do to call your dad or someone you love?" And then you could click "No" or "Yes."

Then it would have been a case of PERMISSION, rather than INVASION.

Emotions matter. With a damaged emotional center in your brain, you cannot make decisions as simple as "which shoes should I put on" -- and thus became utterly paralyzed. To deny that emotions matter is not only inhumane, but extremely illogical in light of all the research that proves otherwise.

And a sense of control is one of the most important feelings in the world. Research has shown that removal of the feeling of control actually causes elderly & sick people to DIE much, much faster and more often. Even in things as significant as being the own caretaker of the plants in their room, or choosing the date & time a student volunteer visits them. And if you give the nursing patients control, and then take it away, they die at a higher rate even than those who never had control to begin with.

Over & over, studies have shown that emotions have great primacy in human life (and power over the so-called logic!).

Google runs roughshod over emotions constantly, and the one of control most egregiously. This is just yet another example. All they had to do was to make it a CHOICE -- and expand "dad" to "someone you love," and they could have avoided hurting people and all this negative PR.

Another aspect of emotions is that people treat everything -- software, computers, animals, other inanimate objects -- as if they have personalities & are alive. That's what we're wired to do: to interact with beings. And so people will hold grudges against faceless companies and even tools.

And yes, it is wrong, if you think that hurting people unnecessarily by being an antisocial oaf is wrong -- when you could, by investing just a little bit of effort, and by respecting SCIENCE, do a vastly superior job.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am sure that the rainbow that show ups when you search "gay marriage" on google is going to upset some people... guess they need a new option to please those people ("Dont show me the gay rainbow").

<comment><USER14> To play Devil's Advocate:

What if you logged into Gmail and saw a reminder that said "Be sure to go vote for the bill supporting Gay Marriage Today" that you couldn't delete?

<comment><USER46> What if I entered a privately owned local mall and saw such a sign?

Neither of these would concern me in the slightest.

<comment><USER14> Presumably then, you're a reasonable person. I can assure you though, that if a shopping mall put up a sign like that they'd be flooded with complaints.

Ultimately, it's a cost/benefit analysis for the company involved.

Gay marriage is a contentious issue presently, Father's Day isn't really. You can find a subset of people who are offended by any implication of supporting any idea or cause.

That's why I'm a little torn on this issue. You can object to the fact that Google is putting a non-deletable reminder into people's tasks. You can also object to the fact that Google is taking a Pro-Father's Day stance. I happen to think the first objection is more reasonable (but I can sympathize with the second one, even if I think it's not a really great example of a company offending people with a stance).

<comment><USER47> > Gay marriage is a contentious issue presently, Father's Day isn't really.

That is not the issue. The problem isn't about being reminded that Father's Day exists. The problem is the undeletable, unsolicited imperative to each and every user that they "call Dad", irrespective of how valid that statement is for any arbitrary user.

<comment><USER46> That's at worse what, a UX flaw that doesn't interfere with normal operation? What is the big deal?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm so tired of sensitive people complaining about everything. We all have our problems, being reminded to "call dad" is not a reason to act like Google showed up to your house and kicked your dog.</comment>


Samsung Considers LG Chem Batteries for Galaxy Note 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinvestor.co.kr/view.php?ud=20161219000658 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like a wise move to assuage consumers fears while moving forward with an otherwise excellent brand/product.

<comment><USER2> I agree. Despite the very limited number of phones affected, the damage to their reputation is going to be hard to repair.

...Though sadly, my next gen phone purchase will be dictated by which one still includes a headphone jack :/ I not into dongles.</comment></comment>


Why doctors strike (a med student's perspective) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/ihbr3j/why_doctors_strike_a_med_students_perspective/ <comment><USER2> Doctors striking to prevent the training of more new doctors is blatant greedy self-interest.</comment>