Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/09/24/650501045/mosquitoes-genetically-modified-to-crash-species-that-spreads-malaria <comment><USER2> To all the naysayers: Did you know that there were massive DDT campaigns to wipe out mosquitoes in Europe and the USA, which means you no longer suffer from malaria in Mississippi or Italy? Italy was only declared malaria-free in 1970.

The proposed measures have much lower environmental risks than the DDT ever did. Saying this shouldn't be used is effectively pulling up the ladder behind you. Go to Mozambique or DRC, get malaria, and then use the same health care the locals have access to. Hope to hell you don't have Cerebral Malaria (20% mortality rate _with_ treatment). Then come back and complain about the environmental risks of wiping out 1 of over 15 mosquito species, which primarily feeds on humans anyways.

</comment><comment><USER3> > a technology that no one could say is safe definitively

Problem with this type of technology is that there is no way to even test if it would be safe. You either have to just take the risk or not do it. And unfortunately someone else will likely take the risk even if we don't. So it makes more sense to me to try it and watch carefully.

BUT there is something that people aren't talking about much. This targeting isn't "kill all mosquitoes" it is "kill the mosquitoes that carry malaria" (Anopheles. Which are different from Aedes aegypti, which carry yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika fever and chikungunya). So doing this to Anopheles shouldn't affect the Aedes aegypti mosquito. So it is a tad safer than killing _ALL_ the mosquitoes. But still potentially unsafe as other creatures may rely on them as a food source more than currently believed.

It also begs the question, can we try this out on a specific species that is far less widespread? Doesn't even have to be mosquitoes.

 _Disclaimer_ : Not a geneticist. If I stated something wrong please correct me! And please provide source material so I can read it. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Maybe some things are worth the risk.

We shouldnt sit around bioethicizing while people are dying of maleria.

<comment><USER5> Even if your premise is that we should prioritize human life above all else, there's still a very good reason to consider the effect of eliminating any species on the rest of the ecosystem before we just pull the trigger. It's really easy to imagine a scenario where eliminating this mosquito ends up being more harmful to human life than leaving it in place.

<comment><USER6> You say it's easy to imagine bad scenarios. Then state them, with sources.

I've read the exact opposite: That it's hard to find any _real_ risks for eliminating human-biting mosquitoes. I define real as killing near 3k children a day.

[https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html](https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html)

<comment><USER7> Yes, here it is again, the nearly ten year old magazine article written by an intern. Nothing could be more definitive.

<comment><USER8> At least it's something. You're welcome to add some sources of your own to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "It could lead to other species coming in to fill a niche that are even more > a problem," Steinbrecher says. "It's beyond our ability to predict what the > consequences are, except that it could be really devastating."

Malaria has killed more people than all wars in human history combined. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are going to die while we come up with reasons not to do anything about it.

<comment><USER10> A. gambiae in particular is so strongly anthropophilic that it would likely become endangered or extinct if cut off from all human hosts, so a widespread bed-netting program would have likely the same effect, just slower and with millions more cases of malaria in the meantime.

Any naysayers out there interested in volunteering for blood-feeding? Our current approach of "make the poor people do it" isn't exactly fair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This may lead to ecosystem crashes, but almost certainly not extinction. The gene drive, here, relies on two major features: high reproductive rate of mosquitoes, and the maintenance of the elements responsible for the drive.

First of all, geographically or reproductively isolated populations will not be affected and will repopulate.

Second, the components of the drive may recombine, creating offspring that will not be affected by the drive, and will out-compete the affected individuals within two generations.

Needless to say, the number of mosquitoes (of this species) will plummet. Perhaps, other insects, including mosquito species, will take advantage of their absence. But given their ubiquity and population sizes, some will survive. Maybe the genetic bottleneck that occurs will make them more susceptible to disease, but that's minor.

</comment><comment><USER12> If we're going to be making species extinct anyway, I don't see any reason not to make wiping out the harmful ones a priority. Can we do Toxodendron next?

</comment><comment><USER13> Mosquitoes seem like they belong on the bottom of the moral weight spectrum, above viruses and below bacteria.

<comment><USER14> None of the concerns I've seen voiced are moral; they're mostly worries about unintended effects on the ecosystem.

<comment><USER7> But really, when has that ever happened before?

<comment><USER14> Unintended consequences of ecological interventions? All the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This needs to happen as soon as possible.

According to the WHO [http://www.who.int/malaria/en/](http://www.who.int/malaria/en/)

There were 216 million malaria cases worldwide in 2016 with 445 000 deaths.

Developing nations, especially in Africa are most severely affected by this.

Whoever, manages to eradicate the mosquitoes surely deserves the Nobel prize in Medicine as well as the Nobel Peace Prize.

<comment><USER16> What could go wrong?

<comment><USER17> Well, it's worth asking. On the other hand, one rebuttal would go something like:

P1. We should calibrate our tolerance for risk against the level of harm we're addressing.

P2. Mosquitoes are at the high water mark for ongoing harm to humanity.

C. We should be more tolerant of risks here than against any or at least most other problems in the world.

Another rebuttal would be that a survey of leading biologists and entomologists leads to near unanimity that suddenly erasing mosquitoes from the planet wouldn't really have any downsides on the larger ecosystem:

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/kill-em- all/](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/kill-em-all/) [https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html](https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html)

To be fair, note that some rare arctic orchids might be affected: [http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche- pollinate.ht...](http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche- pollinate.html)

If you want an updated review of biocontrol more generally, Outside/In has a great episode about it, with interviews with proponents and critics of biocontrol. One takeaway might be that there are a bunch of overlooked success stories, and the widely popularized failures provide a really distorted sample: [http://outsideinradio.org/shows/s02e01](http://outsideinradio.org/shows/s02e01)

On the other hand, it includes interviews with critics of biocontrol as well, so I feel like you could learn more details about both sides of the discussion.

Other contrarian stories about invasives: [https://www.wired.com/2011/02/good- invasives/](https://www.wired.com/2011/02/good-invasives/) [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140724-inva...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140724-invasive- species-conservation-biology-extinction-climate-science/) [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/invasive- species....](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/invasive-species.html)

If you want beautiful and complicated historical poetry about a human intervention that lead to a population collapse, The Memory Palace will take you back to the late 1800s: [https://player.fm/series/the-memory- palace-110374/episode-13...](https://player.fm/series/the-memory- palace-110374/episode-131-lost-locusts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What about releasing a genetically altered strain of the malaria organism itself?

<comment><USER19> Maleria reproduces asexually, so I guess it wouldn't work.

<comment><USER20> Malaria reproduces both sexually and asexually depending on its lifecycle stage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is such an invasive method even needed? Malaria deaths are down by almost 50% in the period of 2000-2015 according to WHO data.

<comment><USER3> This solution isn't about reduction, it is about eradication.

It is cost effective and also implies that you can do other things along the same lines. For example, you could do the same thing to Aedes aegypti (another mosquito species that carries thinks like Zika and Yellow Fever). You might be able to do it to bot flies. Lone Star Ticks. Or many others.

<comment><USER22> While I would love to see tick-borne disease wiped out, I just don't think that wiping out ticks is the right way. Instead, how about wiping out the parasites that are borne by these ticks?

It's a never ending cascade of special eradication. Today, ticks and mosquitoes carrying life threatening agents. Tomorrow, perhaps rats, cats, mice, sparrows, bed bugs, termites, and any other organism that we find inconvenient? How about certain kinds of humans, perhaps we can terminate people that are cognitively impaired? Wielding the rod of genocide seems like a poor choice.

<comment><USER11> The difference is that while animals like mosquitoes have many offspring and are sexually reproducing, many of the microscopic parasites are not…

The gene drive requires sexual reproduction to spread and produce sterile mosquitoes.

Huh, maybe this will open an opportunity for sex-non-obligate mosquitoes infected by Wolbachia, if those are even produced by their interaction

<comment><USER22> Your answer sounds like "because we can".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a more interesting question than "should we do this or not" is "how would you build a tool that could model an entire ecosystem?". Does anyone reading this know what scientists use to do this currently?

<comment><USER23> I did a little bit of this for my masters project. Modeled ecosystems and measurements of the ecosystem as partially observed markov processes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Poor parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania are the ones who suffer and getting perpetually killed by this disease, not just malaria, even dengue, yellow fever, etc which have may have cause by mosquito. Why it keeps happening is that because they don't have really help from the Government about proper health care and education on how and what to do to avoid this. People, specially on poor status, mostly rely on their homemade or even herbal treatment that we knew will not help them at all. Malaria is a curable disease.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just to play devils advocate.. what's the worst possible way this technology could be used? What if you give the mutation to people? Maybe people you don't like for some reason?

</comment><comment> a0-prw This will clearly have a negative, long-term effect on the environment by causing up to 400000 more human beings to reach sexual maturity in a part of the world where expanding human population is _the_ major environmental threat. _And_ , in the long run, a collapsing natural environment is also going to cause tremendous human suffering and death. But never mind it's just a drop in the ocean anyway, so go ahead.

</comment><comment><USER26> Could they develop another version of the gene-drive modification that undoes the first effect? It seems like they should be able to do this and conduct an experiment in the laboratory that proves that there is at least theoretical ability to reverse the effect if it prove desirable to do so for some reason.

Seems like an achievable improvement on the safety model for this technique? Maybe a necessary step before deploying a tool like this for the first time?

<comment><USER27> This is theoretically possible. Researchers have also considered creating gene drives that automatically end after a certain number of generations.

It is a bit scary, but it is probably prudent to support such research, not only for interventions like this but as a possible countermeasure against biowarfare and bioterrorism using gene drives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This article talks about controlling Anopheles gambiae but something similar already being done to control Aedes aegypti.

[https://debug.com/](https://debug.com/)

<comment><USER10> A notable difference is that Debug is using the sterile insect technique (SIT)[1], as opposed to gene drives, which are much harder to control once released. With SIT, 1) we have a lot more experience using it for decades, and 2) it's pretty easy to simply stop releasing sterile insects if unintended consequences were found.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think this should be released without any form of government or popular consent (i.e. don't even ask them); JFDI. We do so many worse things on a regular basis with more concrete known negatives for far lower benefits.

<comment><USER30> Well aren't we just a paragon of bad ethics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> First they came for the mosquitos...</comment>


AWS App2Container - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/app2container/ <comment><USER3> > App2Container (A2C) currently supports the following application types:

> 1) ASP.NET (.NET 3.5+) web applications running in IIS 7.5+ on Windows. A2C > packages these applications with Windows containers.

Do people actually run Windows containers successfully?

Right now I'm working with get ASP.NET apps into containers, by first getting them ported to ASP.NET Core and then into Linux containers. The decision to skip Windows all-together was made before I joined, but I'm a nix guy so I don't complain.

One of the hiccups I've encountered on Linux is the lack of support for Windows Authentication. It gives you AD backed SSO basically for free (as a developer) - you just need one line of config to turn it on and the magic of IIS solves it for you.

We moved to ADFS instead, which worked well. But I'm guessing there are many of these deeply integrated services that make Windows containers attractive.

<comment><USER4> Unless I'm mistaken, you should be able to get working Windows Authentcation if you have Kerberos libs installed, a valid krb5.conf and a keytab or service account credentials.

It was suprisingly easy to get working.

What Windows containers offers are Group Managed Service Accounts which reduces the administrative overhead managing service accounts for Linux containers and makes them completely transparent to the container.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, we investigated that route, but on stateless containers it seemed really cumbersome?

I don't remember exactly why now, but isn't there some problem with the ephemeral nature of the container? Like that each instance of the container needs their own service account or something?

> What Windows containers offers are Group Managed Service Accounts which > reduces the administrative overhead managing service accounts for Linux > containers and makes them completely transparent to the container.

Aah, yeah, that seems nice.

<comment><USER4> > Yeah, we investigated that route, but on stateless containers it seemed > really cumbersome?

I agree, it could be cumbersome without something to manage the secrets. I use OpenShift / k8s at work so injecting these secrets is trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to containerize a java app check out jib. Really easy to use and integrates well with gradle

<comment><USER6> Can I ask, what is it really to "containerize" and why does it need a special tool?

From what I can tell "containerization" is mostly just starting up a Docker image, running apt-get or equivalent to install tools (in this case, a JVM), and specifying a launch script or entry point. You might give it some arguments for what ports and volumes to mount.

Is there more to it? Because that kind of thing doesn't seem to require more than a simple script or two, and I have a hard time understanding why you need dedicated tools for this.

<comment><USER7> The main reason for specialisation is efficiency. The selection of the contents and ordering of layers has an effect on how quickly the can be rebuilt/updated, how big they need to be, how much deduplication you can get between images etc.

A few years ago I wrote up a scheme (which wasn't pursued) for automatic image construction[0]. The first half of the writeup enumerated a bunch of problems with relying purely on Dockerfiles.

[0] [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2PJ_h6GzviUNHMPt7x-5POU...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2PJ_h6GzviUNHMPt7x-5POUaadcvK3ZNT9QEGDZhPk/edit)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the write-up!

<comment><USER7> Happy to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not a .net or java user these days but I love the "guess what's in a repo and try your best" strategy. I've been working on "deploy-node-app" for JavaScript applications that does similar: try to scan for dependencies, services, etc and "guess" as much of the Kubernetes configuration as a possible. It's a fun project! Glad I don't have to make it support .NET now ;)

<comment><USER7> You might be interested in Cloud Native Buildpacks, particularly the Paketo buildpacks: [https://paketo.io/](https://paketo.io/)

They do the "read the repo" thing in a uniform, composable way. So you don't need Java-but-also-some-special-case-for-front-end code. It's just buildpacks. Mix and match however makes sense.

Disclosure: I worked on CNBs for a while, as well as the ancestors of Paketo buildpacks.

<comment><USER8> Cool! I plan on supporting BuildPacks eventually in my project - <USER2> the goal is teaching developers DevOps best practices and Kubernetes concepts - so build packs is a bit too down the rabbit hole compared to generating a Dockerfile. Eventually tho, buildpacks are exciting!

<comment><USER7> I'm biased, but I disagree about the balance of rabbit hole depths.

Generating _good_ Dockerfiles is harder than it looks and, in my experience, folks more or less wind up reimplementing Buildpack-like logic anyhow.

All you need to do is type `pack build` and someone else solves it. I've always liked that experience, going back to `cf push` and Heroku.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but buildpacks and Heroku have a similarity: incredibly simple to do the simple thing, incredibly opaque to do the complex thing. With a dockerfile, people can just install what they need. Sure - it could potentially be more efficient, but I like to focus on human efficiency rather than machine efficiency. Happy developers > fast CI systems :)

<comment><USER7> But Cloud Native Buildpacks are intended for the happiness of humans as well as machines. They can update an image faster than docker build can, because of careful selection of layers and by performing operations directly against a registry (rebasing). A developer can achieve some the same things with artfully-designed Dockerfiles, but then they're back to "what buildpacks can already do for me".

CNBs are a ground-up redesign of buildpacks, taking advantage of new foundations, with specific efforts to remedy the things that used to suck. They're composible instead of being giant monoliths, they update super fast and then you still get all the other niceties you used to have. Plus someone else maintains them and you'll never need to run a zillion rebuilds for every CVE that affects your OS, it's a simple rebase operation.

In my wildly biased opinion, I think they are worth another look, once you find time.

<comment><USER8> Oh I agree with you - build packs are excellent! It's more about introducing one technology at a time. People who know about cloud native build packs typically don't need help writing dockerfiles or getting going on Kubernetes. On step at a time is all :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Funny this doesn't come out of Microsoft.

Vaguely relatedly, MS seems to be making another little push into Windows Containers after seemingly forgetting about them. 29 days ago a new Github issue tracker! [https://github.com/microsoft/Windows- Containers](https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-Containers)

</comment><comment><USER10> Does this work with .NET Core? As someone writing an ASP.NET Core app for a backend this looks promising.

<comment><USER3> As far as I can read it does not work with .NET Core.

But a "simple" ASP.NET Core app (i.e not dependent on Windows specific features) is really is to get running on Linux, and it's not tricky to write a Dockerfile for that. Probably not hard to get running on a Windows container either, but I have not tried that.

If you are running Visual Studio I can recommend their Dockerfile-generator as a starting point, it have worked surpassingly well for me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know naming products is tough, but aws, are you try to confuse? "App2Container" is so ambiguous that it's guaranteed to be misunderstood. Was that a strategy to get more clicks or just reflective of the difficulty in succinct branding strategies?

<comment><USER12> From a native English speaking standpoint. App2Container seems pretty standard to be 'App To Container', which is exactly what it says it does

<comment><USER13> While I agree it's very clear what "2" means in this context, it's off the pattern AWS has set with EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and S3 (Simple Storage Service) where the numbers are part of an arithmetic expression (S* 3 and E + C * 2).</comment></comment></comment>


iOS 9.3 update breaks links in Safari, Messages and Mail apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-9-3-update-breaks-links-in-safari-messages-and-mail-apps/ <comment><USER3> I was at the Apple Store in NYC At 1am yesterday. None of the people there knew how to solve it. I looked online and there are, by now, thousands of users in several threads in Apple forums complaining that links don't work. Here is some more info:

This isn't just affecting 9.3, it's true also on 9.2.1

Don't bother wiping and restoring your phone, the problem comes back. My guess is that it was triggered by something in the Apple WebView APIs that happened recently, because it started happening on my phone for no reason this Friday (with 9.2.1) and most of these forum messages are from the past few days.

Apple hasn't responded yet and 9.3 doesn't fix this problem.

For now, use Google Chrome. Long-tap on links in Safari and other Apple apps crashes the app. However, thankfully in Chrome for iOS, it works (even though it also uses Apple's WebView). You can follow links via long-tap and copy- pasting the link into the Address bar.

Finally, if you're wondering why some mobile links still seem to work - <USER2> are the ones enabled by javascript handling of tap events, that don't use the regular mechanism of loading a url.

<comment><USER4> Wiping and restoring doesn't work, but if you wipe and setup your phone as a new phone, then it mysteriously starts working again even on 9.3 . Super weird bug.</comment></comment>


Could the flow of information be the fuel that powers life? - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/what-is-life-and-how-does-it-begin/11567000 <comment><AUTHOR> Could the flow of information be the fuel that powers life? Astrophysicist Paul Davies says we need a new science which connects quantum physics and biology to answer this fundamental question. He draws on an earlier thought experiment of a mysterious force , dubbed the demon in the machine, which directs the transfer of information.</comment>


Should Error Messages Allow User Feedback? - <AUTHOR> http://rosiesherry.com/2012/07/facebook-iphone-app-error-bug-and-should-feedback-be-allowed-on-error-messages/ So here's an idea...I came across an iPhone Facebook app bug.  I got an error message which gave me the option to enter a message.  Entering a message appeared to do nothing, but it got me thinking, would it be useful in some scenarios to allow users to give feedback when presented with an error?  Could this not be potentially useful in figuring out how and why errors occur? <comment><USER2> Microsoft have been doing it for years. Though usualy were on a fullypatched system they suggest you run windows update and you respond NO not helpful and type your rant of the day.

Feedback has two uses.

1) lets the user vent 2) gives some feedback and mostly in a form that is humourous to read.

Not all feedback is read and taken note of but even if some is then it's better than not having it. Mostly it allows the user to vent. When that feedback is voice based is when we realy will start to have fun and the whole "Fn peace of shit computer" will actualy start to make sence. Now if they could add a tactile sensor on the side of the computer you could press with your fist as well to rate your frustration - then the whole feedback model will actualy fit with users expectations, until that day arrives I'll take my venting were I can ;).

</comment><comment><USER3> The sub-article, linked to by this post is better I think: [http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/profiles/blogs/should- err...](http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/profiles/blogs/should-error-panels- allow-for-user-input)

And I tend to like the idea - a good percentage of the time when my small underfunded/staffed projects have encountered an error the logs tell me nothing about how it was provoked, and the code is not _obviously_ * broken. A proper bug report rocks in these cases - and I often find myself wishing for one. The option for a user to leave an even improper one would be pretty awesome here. I might just do this.

*It's obviously broken it's just not obvious how it's broken :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Instead of a feedback form I would prefer

      The error has been automatically recorded and our team is looking into it
      ...or... If you have any questions about this error [link]please contact support[/link]
      ... or both

But I guess a feedback form is a nice feature too. I just don't know if I'd use it.

<comment><USER5> Maybe only in one of twenty cases. And maybe only one of ten user comments are useful, but that one could save you hours of error tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We have been doing at work with our web product for quite long time and it works well. Instead of simply showing a 500 page when an error happens and logging it, we also provide a link to let the user add information and comments about what he was actually trying to do. This helps us a lot to figure out how to reproduce the problem (it can sometimes be hard to do if it's a problem that only 1 user on over 100000 is having).

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any examples? Screenshots? I'd be interested to see how this is being implemented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes. They should also be informative. For example, I frequently get a visual warning in Chrome of an extension error. When I click on the wrench menu to visit the extension page, there is no information about which of the ~25 extensions it is. So I live with it, because I have better things to do than try 25! possible combinations.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unless you have a very focused audience, I don't see how allowing users to give feedback would return much that was usable.

Perhaps more/better logging during the development period? Stop letting a mass of non-technical users into betas?</comment>


Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipedia remains - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/02/26/pokemon-wikipedia-impact/ <comment><USER2> It's worth nothing that the Pokemon Wikipedia, Bulbapedia, is _extremely extensive_ , especially when it comes to obscure game mechanics: [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page](http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page)

The coolest page IMO is how Pokemon Capture works: [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate](http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate)

<comment><USER3> Which is partly why I kind of mourn the fall of Wikipedia. By having an arbitrarily defined criterion of "meaningful" knowledge is spread across hundreds of wikis rather than being in the singular copyleft originator.

Why couldn't the Pokemon Wikipedia articles be as extensive as the Bulbapedia ones? There is demonstrable demand and interest in maintaining such extensive information _as evidenced_ by the commitment of the contributors to Bulbapedia to keep it so up to date and pristine.

If an article rots where nobody wants to maintain it or cannot write it with sufficient information to justify it's existence that is a very different situation to this. But that is not an arbitrary line of relevance someone pushes upon everyone else. You could just have a minimum length and minimum sources and be done with it.

<comment><USER4> "Mourn the fall of Wikipedia"? Who is Wikipedia losing to? What was it before that it isn't anymore?

I last spent significant time on WP in 2007, and "deletionism" was very much the mainstream principle of the site back then.

Wikipedia has _extensive_ coverage of Pokemon; it covers Pokemon better than it covers abstract algebra! What it doesn't do is cover every single aspect of Pokemon in its own article.

The reason it does that is because there's a tradeoff in managing an encyclopedia between reliability and expansiveness, and Wikipedia has tacked towards reliability. If you're going to have a reliable encyclopedia, where there's a pretty good chance that any sentence in the site is true, then there's a negative externality to forests of related articles: each one of them is an _independent_ entry point to the site from Google, and each will attract its own edits, and all of those edits need to be policed to make sure they aren't lies.

<comment><USER5> > If you're going to have a reliable encyclopedia, where there's a pretty good > chance that any sentence in the site is true, then there's a negative > externality to forests of related articles: each one of them is an > independent entry point to the site from Google, and each will attract its > own edits, and all of those edits need to be policed to make sure they > aren't lies.

If this were a risk that we were correctly balancing against, you'd expect there would be some notable base rate of unreliable articles causing readers problems. But I never have this sort of problem. I'm never frustrated because I found something unreliable on Wikipedia, because I can always be skeptical of uncited information.

Elsewhere you asked for examples of damage done by the deletionists. So let me flip it around on you. What are example articles right now that you think are putting a large burden on the community that should be cut?

(As an aside, note the asymmetry: When too many hard-to-police articles are kept, there's ample examples to discuss. But when too many niche articles are deleted, I can't point to anything. I just say "huh, I guess my local taco stand doesn't have an article". And I can never know if it's because no one was interested to write one or because it wasn't notable enough to make the cut...or because the person who was interested enough to write it new it wouldn't make the cut.)

<comment><USER4> I don't have a recent example to give you (though I could readily generate one by dumping a list of the last week's AfD debates), but I can give you a point- in-time example very easily: here's my old Wikipedia user page:

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

Skip down to "Articles I have tried to delete".

Several of the red-highlighted articles, which are now gone, were articles for which I lost the AfD debate. Incidentally, just getting this small set of articles deleted was a _galactic_ pain in the ass. People really want to have Wikipedia articles about themselves and their companies.

I think you're wrong about the asymmetry, by the way. Just go to the AfD debate logs: you'll get more now-deleted non-notable subjects than you can possibly read in night, or several nights.

I leave you with this thought: it is possible that Wikipedia has more words of coverage for "StankDawg" than it does for the chinese remainder theorem.

<comment><USER5> So I'm looking at the StankWag article, which was one of the articles you tried to delete, and I'm 100% sure the internet is a better place for it existing. What is the problem? It's well research and meticulously linked (no doubt to defend it against deletionists like yourself). Who is being misled or confused by bad info?

> People really want to have Wikipedia articles about themselves and their > companies.

What is so bad about people wanting to have a wikipedia page filled with true facts about themselves?

>I think you're wrong about the asymmetry, by the way. Just go to the AfD debate logs: you'll get more now-deleted non-notable subjects than you can possibly read in night, or several nights.

First, I have no doubt the info is recorded _somewhere_ , but it's not easily accessible. But more importantly, as I hinted, the bigger problem is the articles that were never written because folk know they would be deleted.

> I leave you with this thought: it is possible that Wikipedia has more words > of coverage for "StankDawg" than it does for the chinese remainder theorem.

I don't get the connection. People who are prevented from editing StankDawg won't decide to edit the chinese remainder theorem. Likewise, the fact that reality TV is more popular than Shakespeare may be a sad indicator for the world, but the solution isn't to ban reality TV.

Sorry for the psychoanalysis, but I'm listening to your tone and reading your wiki page...and I think it just _irks_ you that these people get recognition. But we don't need wikipedia to tell us who and what is important in the world. It's just a source of information.

If I told you that there was magical AI software that now automatically patrolled articles and got rid of wrong info reliably, would you suddenly change your stance on deletionism?

<comment><USER4> _Because they 're not true facts_! They're bullshit advertisements, exploiting Wikipedia's cachet and, more importantly, their super high position on Google SERPs. These are people abusing one of the most important resources on the entire Internet for fucking _spam_.

<comment><USER5> What in the StankWag article is false?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have always wondered how the systems evolved.

Why Karen and her far cousin can't have their own Wikipedia pages?

It's not like it's going to be printed and more Pokemon is less about the chemical elements, so what if half Wikipedia it's about Pokemon? or Star Wars? if the pages are up to the standard there is no reason for not being included.

This reflects how the people related to this topics are just more knowledgeable (about the topic) and willing to cooperate to the Wikipedia than other groups.

<comment><USER7> Yes, deletionnists are driving people to other venues. Wikia often claims to run the world's biggest wiki once you aggregate all their communities. It's sad that the Wikimedia foundation let the deletionnists destroy so much value in Wikipedia without providing an alternative (like dedicated community wikis).

<comment><USER8> I'm curious, what article was deleted that you can cite as an example of destruction of knowledge?

 _edit:_ it's a serious question! Instead of down voting, just tell me. Or even downvote, but at least tell me.

<comment><USER9> Deletionpedia is no longer kept up but I used to enjoy browsing it to see what was deleted .

[http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php](http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php)

<comment><USER10> Some observations from looking through these:

* Huge amounts of various fictional universe lore, similar to the article

* quite a few bands

* some percentage of articles exists again, with better content

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The headline makes it sound like Pokemon is newer than Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is only 15 vs Pokemon's 20...

</comment><comment><USER12> As a proud deletionist (philosophically, not actively), I feel I need to respond to a bunch of the comments here.

This claim that any fact, no matter how obscure and how specific, should be on Wikipedia is maddening. Have you heard of the Library of Babel? If you index everything, eventually you will have no knowledge at all, just madness.

And as for the claims that subsections or whatever will solve this problem, in practice the way they do this _is through other wikis_. I don't see any reason why the list of Ivysaur's attacks should be on Wikipedia. Just because it's knowledge doesn't make it _useful_.

And in response to the question "what's the harm?", there's always a cost to having data. If Wikipedia editors have to manage the Pokemon community, have to prevent links to obscure Pokemon concepts from polluting the Abraham Lincoln article, that's time they can't do something else.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hadoop could have been a good Pokémon name

<comment><USER14> [https://pixelastic.github.io/pokemonorbigdata/](https://pixelastic.github.io/pokemonorbigdata/)

<comment><USER15> Wasn't as bad as I thought it was, since I got all the questions right. Then again, I know a decent amount about Pokemon and enough about big data that I could say 'well, this doesn't sound like a Pokemon I've heard of, it must be big data'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've struggled for a long time with the deletionism/completionism divide. I was initially strongly completionist for the reasons many others have said: this could be the repository of all human knowledge, no matter how trivial, and why would we give up that dream? To save on hard disk space?

But my viewpoint these days is that Wikipedia's size has the same kind of problems that code size does. More code isn't bad in itself. After all, if that code doesn't interact with your code, you can just ignore it. Something like a zillion-line OO project with tightly defined interfaces gives you that property.

However, there is an inevitable maintenance burden that comes with the size of your project. If you want to change code conventions, or update some library that is used throughout the codebase, or even just try to keep the project to a certain standard, those actions are all difficult in proportion to the number of lines of code.

In Wikipedia's case, they don't even have access to the same kinds of push- around-huge-mountains-of-code tools that developers can use to manage this problem. They have tools, sure, but a fundamental part of Wikipedia's model is that it is unstructured (or at best semi-structured) data, just one big text field, and so any automated transforms are necessarily limited.

So Wikipedia makes up for its fuzzy data model by just throwing people at the problem. For it to be the sum of all human knowledge means it needs proportionally many editors to maintain that knowledge. If there ever could be enough editors to do that, and if there could be a structure that would allow them to organise themselves, I'm not sure Wikipedia is it.

The problem is that Wikipedia can't regulate the number of volunteer editors in the project. If the encyclopedia gets too big for the editors to manage, large chunks of it will just atrophy and there'll be nothing they can do about it. Worse still, editors will leave because they are unable to handle the burden which only makes the problem worse.

So I'm not sure that completionism is actually feasible, at least not with the structure as it is now. I still dream of that repository of all knowledge, no matter how trivial, but I just don't know how we get there.

</comment><comment><USER17> Poké API is coming up to 54 million API calls - pokeapi.co

People still love Pokemon it seems

</comment><comment><USER18> Psyduck... Psyduck... [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyduck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyduck)

</comment><comment><USER19> What is the (argued) benefit is to excluding information? "Often what is not said is more important than what is said." is vague and unsatisfying.

</comment><comment><USER20> And yet Nimlang had to fight for over a year to get a page that could survive the deletionistas.</comment>


BlackBerry 10: A better Android than Android? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blackberry-10-a-better-android-than-android-7000012967/ <comment><USER2> From the article: "On Tuesday, it was confirmed that approximately 20 percent of the applications in the BlackBerry 10 App world were in fact, re-packaged Android apps."

Why aren't 99% of BB apps Android apps? The key is "re-packaged." Blackberry is SO close. But you can't take an .apk file and install it on a Blackberry. That's putting a huge bottleneck around getting Android apps.</comment>


What I like about the NoSQL crowd - <AUTHOR> http://blog.postmaster.gr/2009/11/05/what-i-like-about-the-nosql-crowd/

<comment><USER2> Let me say this, from my experience with Redis, here the real starts are the early adopters. I think that the most important ingredient for any artistic, scientific, technological progress is courage, and early adopters of new technological solutions have a lot of it.

They are not afraid of using something less than one year old, while all the rest is trying to do the safest choice for storing their data. Are they crazy? No, just they are people able to meter a solution without requiring somebody else, or the mass, putting a that's-safe badge.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably the best thing about NoSQL is that once there are high performance and scalable data storage engines out there, it will prompt the SQL vendors to improve the performance and scalability of _their_ products.

There are few, if any inherent reasons SQL can't scale and where there are, like ACID over the network, those features could be disabled to enable scale.

I believe it will be easier for traditional SQL databases to achieve the scale of NoSQL than it will be for NoSQL to figure out how to do all the things SQL already does.

In a way, NoSQL could be considered a form of premature optimization. Due to this, NoSQL will solve very large, but esoteric problems in the super high scale space, but fall short when complexity is needed. One thing SQL is good at is reducing the complexity around data management at the developer/programming level and NoSQL flips that, putting all the work in the hands of the developer for things like aggregates, acid, integrity, consistency, etc.

I suspect a lot of early NoSQL adopters who choose it because it lacks the complexity of relational databases will find themselves flummoxed when they are faced with solving some of the problems caused by features missing in NoSQL databases.

<comment><USER4> In my experience, the average coder dealing with SQL is flummoxed by non- trivial problems (even those that have fairly well-understood solutions) and wind up hacking in messes anyway. Heck, it's 50-50 whether they normalize their data or use transactions in the first place.

But I don't think you can fairly judge specialized tools based on the likely experience of coders using it outside their experience.

<comment><USER5> The more I use SQL, the more I like it. Modeling certain kinds of data in RDBMS can be tricky, or near impossible, but one you get the schema down, the queries fetch and insert the data are usually straightforward.

SQL's only real problem in my opinion is that it doesn't provide many good facilities for handling fluctuating schemas.

<comment><USER4> I was just pointing out that it's unfair to judge a tool based on how it might be used by people who don't really understand what it is and what it does.

SQL is a great tool and there are many, very good reasons that it rose to prominence. It just isn't the only tool and it isn't right for every problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How long does it take to form a habit? - <AUTHOR> http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php

<comment><USER2> For those trying to start a writing habit: here are some tips that have helped me over the last month, to the point that it's starting to feel automatic:

1\. Set realistic goals. Mine is "500 words per day, no excuses." It takes 1-2 hrs.

2\. Start when it's easy. I started my 500 word per day rule over a week-long vacation. This builds the confidence that you can achieve your goal in a reasonable amount of time.

3\. Have a routine for getting started. I have a special writing playlist and play the same song every time I start writing. Over time your brain forms associations and will automatically go into the right mode.

4\. If you're having trouble getting started, try imagining how good you will feel once you've hit your daily goal. While you're doing that, count from 10 to 1 as if you're about to launch the space shuttle. Then start.

5\. Focus on daily progress. Your feedback loop should be "I won at writing 500 words today," not, "I'm now 10.5% done instead of 10.3% done."

The writing itself is never going to become truly automatic or habitual. What will become a habit is _expecting_ that you'll make progress every day, and _knowing_ that you're capable of succeeding today.

</comment><comment><USER3> Made me think why brushing my teeth is so "easy" for me. I don't like it, but I won't miss it. I suspect one reason could be the immediate feedback (bad breath) if I miss it one night.

So interpolating from that, presumably the delay of feedback might make a huge difference for successfully or unsuccessfully taking on a new habit?

I guess pretty much the only other habit I have is drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. So being addictive helps, too.

</comment><comment><USER4> If it's a bad habit? 1 or 2 repetitions.

If it's a good habit? Apparently never.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find that some things change faster than others. Acclimatising myself to new things can take quite a short period of time, for instance. I switched from drinking flavoured drinks to drinking plain water and it took about 5 days before flavoured drinks started tasting too sweet and water started tasting 'right'.

</comment><comment><USER6> I guess it takes a lot of self-experiments to find out. I usually go with this "one habit/month-approach" from T.Ferris: [http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/07/the-power- of...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/07/the-power-of-less-leo- babauta-zen-habits/)

</comment><comment><USER7> In short: The article is so so, its more thought provoking than instantly insightful.

note ( I voted this up by mistake )

Below is "Thought provoked" response.

This kind of study/statement should be semi straight forward to turn into a web application. Assuming there was a way to have complete faith in the trust mechanism. But im off topic.

Back to the forming of habits. I don't believe even for an olympic athlete going to the gym or doing a rep, set or lap of something is ever without thinking. So its safe to say everyone's view of a habit will be different.

Things which you get feedback from I would say are easy to continue doing. The feedback can be loose jeans, feeling fresher, looking better, not going back to the api.

Would learning to write unix commands be like learning a habit?

What would happen if you mixed up learning a habit and the spaced learning ( SRS ) concept for learning something new? Or could you argue that they are one of the same.

</comment><comment> alan-crowe The complicating factor is that mental rehearsal is both dramatically weaker at producing a habit than actual activity and also mindbogglingly easier to do. If you want to get into the habit of drinking a glass of water each morning you can think about this many times during the day, and rehearse it as you drift off to sleep at night, ready to wake fully committed.

What happens when you multiply the two efficiency factors together forming the product of the near-zero effectiveness with the huge frequency of repetition? More than one? Less than one? I think it is sometimes more than one, which means that research that look at habit as activity only, and discards thought, is confusingly incomplete.</comment>


Google Now is awesome; merge them with the iGoogle team and make it amazing. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.michaelmassie.com/post/28809963761/google-now-is-awesome-merge-them-with-the-igoogle

<comment><USER2> My theory is that by the time iGoogle goes away for good (November 1 of next year), there will be a way to customize the right side of your Google+ page with widgets.

It won't be as flexible as iGoogle or support the same old widgets, but the "social widgets" will be something they can push iGoogle users over to, as well as a platform to help advance Google+.

In my experience, Google Now is a surprisingly clever way at providing relevant widgets with zero customization, so it seems like a great onramp to that experience.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of which, I hope for the next Android version they release some stock Google Now widgets that you can just put on your homescreens, and they get automatically updated, just like they would inside Google Now.

<comment><USER4> They're already notifications, whose priority you can adjust in the settings dialog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given how long it had been since an iGoogle refresh, it's probably fair to say that other than someone keeping the lights on, there is no iGoogle team.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, iGoogle is on its way out, another "more wood/fewer arrows" casualty: [http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2012/07/igoogle-will-be- dis...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2012/07/igoogle-will-be- discontinued.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought about this as soon as I saw the keynote for Google Now. The visual elements of Google Now would really work well in a multicolumn layout in the browser. That would be one of the best home page experiences imaginable.

The only thing I'm wondering about is how aware could it be as far as location/traffic goes. I wonder if it would have to pull from the data collected on an Android phone or tablet to be truly predictive.

<comment><USER8> The tablet layout of google now is multi column.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since iGoogle is slated to be sunset (in late 2013), maybe Google Now is it's logical successor?

</comment><comment><USER10> Correct grammar: Google Now will be awesome if it happens

</comment><comment><USER11> i thought they were going to be getting rid of iGoogle soon...</comment>


Jekyll Asset Pipeline: A Powerful CSS/JS Asset Packager for Jekyll - <AUTHOR> http://www.matthodan.com/2012/11/22/jekyll-asset-pipeline.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I had some free time over Thanksgiving break, so I decided to build an asset pipeline for Jekyll. There are a bunch of improvements that I have in mind, but I wanted to get this out there for others to see. In its current form, this plugin covers my basic needs. The real question is: _Will anyone else find this useful?_ I know that I will use it, but I'm not sure if it is worth my time to smooth out the rough edges. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

<comment><USER2> I've just (in the last hour or so) started using it in a site I'm building for a client and already will be adding it to my jekyll skeleton. I was previously using jekyll-assets, which was doing the job but I'm finding that yours is much easier to extend so far!

<comment><AUTHOR> That is fantastic to hear! Let me know if you come across any gotchas or other issues.</comment></comment></comment>


The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ <comment><USER2> I love this article. Every little failure in school (failing to win first place in a competition, getting a B on a test) made me doubt my talent, and I started losing all belief in my ability when I started taking graduate-level classes in my field. I knew it was irrational and wrong, but for the previous decade of my life, working hard in school had been a reliable sign of a lack of talent. The kids who had a future in a subject breezed by and the kids at the bottom struggled. Now I was working hard, even struggling sometimes. Did I instantly abandon and unlearn a decade of programming? No. It was like the end of _The Crying Game_ in slow motion, three years of discovering that where I _thought_ there was some talent there was, instead, a disgusting, useless lump of flesh.

By the time I got to graduate school I was overwhelmed with a feeling of inevitable failure. I just couldn't stop thinking about failure. Every time I picked up my books I would think about how humiliating it was not to be good enough. I was actually doing acceptably well in my coursework, at one of the top PhD programs in the country, but it became impossible for me to even sit down and study for any length of time because I was so ashamed. I tried to talk myself into a more sensible attitude, but I just couldn't do it.

I have very few memories of the six months I spent living there. I didn't make any friends and can only recall the names of two people I met there: my advisor and one classmate who was friendly toward me. I remember my apartment and the office I shared. (I remember forcing myself to go to the office to study, and I remember sitting there wondering whether the other students could tell how stupid I was just by watching me.) I can remember a few of the places I went -- the zoo, a restaurant where I ate almost every day, a few movie theaters, a used bookstore -- but I don't really remember being there. I didn't use any drugs while I was there and rarely drank (since I had a policy of not drinking alone.) Yet I don't have any memories of specific times or events. I just remember being in my apartment, being at my desk at the office, feeling stupid, miserable, and worthless.

And so I dropped out and got a job in software. That was very lucky for me: I chose it because I thought it didn't require any real intelligence (which I was obviously lacking) but it turned out to be a good way to put my talent to work.

P.S. I normally post under a different name, but this is kind of a whiny sob story, and I'd rather just get it off my chest anonymously.

P.P.S. Now that I think about it, the only reason I remember my advisor's name is that I later saw him interviewed in a PBS documentary about a famous scientist he worked with.

<comment><USER3> that there's some paranoia you got

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Being intelligent as a part of one's identity is not a good idea. I know this from my own experience--I skipped second grade, and was never comfortable in school.

This praise business to me is a subset of what I have come to believe is "raising the kid by remote control". For example, yelling from the other room "I can tell you aren't doing your homework". Far better to sit with the children during homework time, tv off, be available to them, answer any question they want to ask. This is all about them learning to be the pilot in their own life.

This is as important for the father to do as the mother. And yes, this takes time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I remember reading this when it first came out in 2007, and it's stuck with me ever since. When my boys (now 5yo and 3yo) do accomplish something super cool (riding a bike, catching a ball, learning to swim), I remind them that it was lots of practice that got them there. Praising effort instead of intelligence feels right, but I really, really hope this doesn't turn out to be some quack parental theory that leaves them in rehab for the rest of their lives.

<comment><USER6> _some quack parental theory that leaves them in rehab for the rest of their lives_

You're doing fine. Try to keep in mind that the notion that minor differences in parental style can send your kids into rehab for life is, itself, the quackiest of quack parental theories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As Richard Rusczyk (math competitor and now operator of the Art of Problem Solving website) says, "If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom."

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calcul...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php)

He has other good ideas for smart students in his other articles.

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_Articles...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_Articles.php)

</comment><comment><USER8> This research is one of the most fascinating things I've come across in a while: The idea that, regardless of whether there is such a thing as an innate trait of "intelligence", your _belief_ that you are either good at something or not will hurt your performance.

<comment><USER9> There are many many examples of this. For example, if you give girls math tests and tell them your purpose in giving them the test is to check for gender differences in math performance, the girls do significantly worse than if you tell them nothing.

And it's not just intelligence - this is why sports psychologists can make a living coaching athletes.

Of course when you carry out research like this at school level, you can assume that the material is not impossible to master even for a child of average intelligence. I don't know whether these results hold at the world- class researcher level. Still, the school years provide an important foundation for later life, so it is proper that people look into what affects performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh, I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have worked really hard on that!"

<comment><USER5> So let them finish their homework in 10 minutes, and _then_ find something that _will_ take the child more than 10 minutes to do. And praise them for working on _that_. If praising the 10-minute homework effort is ridiculous, then don't do it. Raise the bar. There's got to be _something_ in the whole field of mathematics that would take the kid more than 10 minutes. (General disclaimers apply, I'm sure there are limits to how high you can raise the bar before the kid goes homicidal on you.)

<comment><USER11> This is absolutely correct. There always has to be more and harder stuff for kids to accomplish. If there's a ceiling, then smart kids will quickly hit the ceiling and then start measuring themselves by how much effort is required to stay there. That's the way it was at my school: all the honors/AP kids learned the same material, and in every class there were at least a couple of kids who got high As on most things. The only way to distinguish yourself was to do it without working hard, because you couldn't distinguish yourself by accomplishing more and harder things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps if the original title were used, it would have been more obvious that this was submitted over two years ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=640></comment>


Show HN: My sans-JavaScript server dashboard - <AUTHOR> https://notryan.com/status/ <comment><USER2> The whole reason people don't like JavaScript weighing down their pages is because they take longer to load. Loading three large images for every update can't be better.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to point out that this solution is inaccessible to users with impaired vision. That's probably okay for you (because only you are interested in the data), but this makes the solution insufficient for any public usage.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can assure you the difference in load times between this and using a battle- tested library like D3.js will be imperceptible to the user. You could even throw a thin React app around it, and it would still be blazing fast to the eye.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am not sure I follow. It's 3 images, so you manually refresh every 5 minutes (maybe that can be automated with meta-refresh so avoiding JS, although I don't see that much advantage over setTimeout?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I should have explained better. Page load isn't really my main concern. I used to embed dynamic graphs (Metabase or D3.js) and my laptop would lag like crazy plotting all of those points and allowing for hover tooltips (which were nifty but didn't provide me much utility). I use R in the backend and it plots 10,000 points in a fraction of a second. Web browsers only have to fetch and display an image.

tl;dr I have fast bandwidth -- but I have an old CPU.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for explaining. I quite like it. Given a rarely updating but detailed graph this would perform better. But you do lose the interactivity benefits of JS.

A candlestick approach might allow you to reduce the amount of data to send to the client in d3 if you use R to aggregate the data first.

Have fun!</comment></comment></comment>


Becoming my own OpenID provider with 99.999% downtime - <AUTHOR> http://bogomips.org/local-openid

<comment><USER2> This seems very cumbersome. I have a hard time believing _anyone_ is more efficient at this 7 step process than using a "normal" OpenID provider. Enter a password, click a couple buttons, you're done.

Why not just run any one of dozens of existing OpenID provider packages? If you really want the 99.999% downtime "feature", just start and stop the server when you want to log, in the same way.

</comment><comment><USER3> 99.999% downtime? Sign me up!

<comment><USER4> s/down/up/

<comment><USER5> No, it really is downtime. When you go to an openID site, you shell into your server, run this program, authenticate at the site, then stop the service. 99.999% _downtime_.

<comment><USER3> Are you joking? I can't even tell!

If not: I thought OpenID was supposed to make things easier! How does ssh'ing into my server and starting and stopping services make anything easier!?

And why stop the service, anyway? If it's not being used, shouldn't consume much resources. Unless it's hopelessly insecure or something, in which case it should be abandoned anyway.

If you _are_ joking: har har.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's easier for some folks like myself, probably not everyone.

I am not sure if it's secure, either. Regardless, shutting it down helps me sleep better at night.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Programming with bad setups is damaging our bodies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@robisenberg/programming-for-life-8b212a30cda2#.v8fucllw1 <comment><USER2> In the early days of mass commercial computing -- minis and mainframes -- there was a lot of research into workstation ergonomics. Sensible countries even wrote recommendations into law, to protect the health of their workers.

Needless to say, long-time programming on a laptop breaks all the rules, and is highly likely to result in long-term physical pain. Sometimes it's disabling.

Why do people do it?

</comment><comment><USER3> >3\. Frequent, regular exercise (I've started having swimming lessons — more on this in an upcoming post.) >4\. Preventative monthly chiropractic sessions

I dont even think no 4 should be an option. Good exercise should be preventative and if this area is unknown, go visit someone that can help you.</comment>


The Way to Will Power - Henry Hazlitt - <AUTHOR> http://mises.org/resources/3453/The-Way-to-Will-Power <comment><AUTHOR> Hazlitt is an exceptionally good writer. His "Economics in One Lesson" is a classic.</comment>


Swedish School Makes Minecraft a Must - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.se/45514/20130109/#.UPGlcaHHciV

<comment><USER2> They should add RedPower mod to the curriculum. It has logic gates, movable frames to computers.

<http://www.eloraam.com/></comment>


Ask Aubrey de Grey About Longevity Research on Slashdot - <AUTHOR> http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/07/09/1845200

<comment><USER2> If a person could live forever, I wonder if they would do anything useful with their lives - after all, they could always put it off to tomorrow.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."

...

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement speech

<comment><USER3> Lots of people will still die, no matter what we discover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aubrey de Grey reminds me of the cold fusion people.

Chairman and chief science officer of The Methuselah Foundation - cute but BS.

Biogerontologist - BS.

He is a very smart guy, why doesn't he go ahead and get himself an MD?

There's no way to prolong aging without curing all age related diseases. If you live long enough the cancer incidence is 100%

So the world is working on curing aging, it always has. There's just still a VERY long way to go, don't hold your breath. Unless you are < 10 and reading this.

What exactly de Grey wants, that's not already being done in the regular effort to cure people, is beyond me?

<comment><USER3> "There's no way to prolong aging without curing all age related diseases."

This statement betrays that you don't understand Aubrey de Grey's position. He doesn't want to cure all age related diseases. (Except 1) Because there's so few kinds of metabolic damage (just 7) it now seems possible for us to find a way to ameliorate all of them, thus preventing age related diseases from appearing in the first place. And yes, he's done lots of thinking about cancer and the 100% likeliness of getting it if you live long enough.

I suggest that you actually read what he was to say before labeling him. (You are not alone. From what I've read on the Slashdot entry, most of the people there only have the foggiest idea of what his position is.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll have some snake oil with that, Doctor...</comment>


Porting Go Web Applications to AWS Lambda - <AUTHOR> http://artem.krylysov.com/blog/2018/01/18/porting-go-web-applications-to-aws-lambda/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly, I am working right now on doing the exact opposite of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd prefer [https://github.com/apex/gateway](https://github.com/apex/gateway) \- same dev as Apex and Up so, I'd expect better support.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is he pushing his assets (images) from Lambda? Why doesn't he just put them into S3 and direct API Gateway paths /images /css/ /js to S3?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but the package supports sending binary responses - e.g. it can be used for dynamic image generation without storing the images on S3.

<comment><USER4> Ahh ok, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did the same: [https://github.com/imdario/gluo](https://github.com/imdario/gluo)</comment>


Tesco's 'Secure' password storage - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/UKTesco/status/229542141012107265

<comment><USER2> Note for non-Brits: Tesco are the UK's largest supermarket chain, have various trademark spin-offs including banking and insurance and MVNO cellphone arms, and are pretty much the British equivalent of WalMart.

<comment><USER3> Although, confusingly, ASDA is actually the Walmart of the UK and Fresh & Easy is the Tesco of the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco>

</comment><comment><USER5> Illustrates the danger of passing all PR functions to, well, PR people. They have obviously taken on trust the rational provided to them by their IT contact. We all know this tweet is ridiculous - who are they to know different?</comment>


AOL Turns the iPhone Into an Expensive Radio - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/aol-turns-the-iphone-into-an-expensive-radio/ <comment><USER2> Monthly bandwidth plans are the future! Were used to that now paying for our cellphones each month - will suck, but it's in AT&T and their ilks best interest to make their 3g & 4g networks open access like the net now. From here capitalize on our bandwidth usage.</comment>


Diversity and Feedback at GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1843-diversity-and-feedback-at-github <comment><USER2> There is an interesting race/gender intersectional aspect of the "not enough women in the pipeline" problem that gets thrown around on HN so often. They're discounting thousands of Indian and Asian women who are entering the industry every year, especially at the graduate level. Where do they end up working? Mostly in big cos. Why? You guessed it - startup "culture". As an anecdote, a few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. If that wasn't enough, her teammates pressured her to drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy (which is apparently, customary). Never mind she's never tasted alcohol in her life. She quit in her 3rd week. This is not a single anecdote. As an Indian person currently working at a startup, I can tell you first hand that the big cos I've worked at are far more culturally sensitive and accomodating to POC.

<comment><USER3> I find your attitude confusing.

Yes, America has its own culture. Yes, it's often different in many ways from what's typically found in India. But none of this is a secret.

Anyone who travels, whether for a short term or for much longer, to a country with distinctly different culture and customs should be prepared to adapt somewhat. Or at the very least, they should not be offended when the culture conflicts with what they're accustomed to.

I don't think it's unreasonable to request that one staff member not cook food that others in the office may find to smell bad. Such a request isn't about race or gender or anything like that, obviously. I don't doubt that the same request would be made to an American who chose to cook the same food.

The same goes for celebratory alcohol consumption after big events. It's just part of American culture in general. It happens when celebrating accomplishments of all sorts.

It's one thing to avoid overt, unjustified discrimination. But I don't think that American companies should have to bend over backward to accommodate people who don't want to accept, or at least tolerate, the basic aspects of American culture, either.

I say this as somebody who isn't even an American, by the way. This should hold true regardless of the company, where it's located, and where the foreign employees are from.

If you want to work in a foreign country, you should be willing to adapt to their established cultural norms. If you don't like American culture and customs, for whatever reason, maybe you shouldn't live there.

<comment><USER4> "bend over backward to accommodate people who don't want to accept, or at least tolerate, the basic aspects of American culture"

Drinking shots at work is not a 'basic aspect' of American culture.

<comment><USER3> No, it's not something that happens every day. But celebratory drinking after a significant event is a very common American custom.

Based on what the earlier commenter wrote ("her teammates pressured her to drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy"), it apparently happened after a major software deployment. For small startups with close-knit teams who've just put in a lot of effort, this can be a big event, and cause for such celebration.

This may not have even happened at the work place, mind you. The original comment isn't totally clear, but it's not at all unusual for an American software development team to go out for a few drinks at a nearby bar, especially after completing some important work.

To most of the Americans there, it was probably a very insignificant thing. I don't see how they should be at fault for encouraging somebody else to engage in a pretty typical, and generally harmless, American social activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sympathetic to Github's aims of addressing women's issues and increasing diversity. But as a general rule, in direct proportion to the extent that HR are permitted to step in and formalize something at a place, I am less likely to want to work at that place. I understand the need for processes for handling certain situations or deeply-ingrained challenges. But the more structured things are allowed to become, the more constraining a company feels.

<comment><USER6> I agree. In particular, the following line really turned me off GitHub's upcoming culture:

>We're in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external experts. Topics will include diversity training, effective communication, giving and receiving peer feedback, and conflict resolution.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if you're objecting to the topics they're planning to train for, or the perceived formality of the training, but I don't think either needs to hurt the culture if done well.

Communication is incredibly important at any company, but startups often fail to treat it as such, saying "we don't need meetings to get shit done" or "we hire great people so things will just work out".

Some people, through work or life experience, will have no problem giving constructive feedback at appropriate times, and working through differences of opinion. Others will suck at these things. The latter may otherwise be strong contributors - especially if you were hiring for ninja rockstar coding ability and not explicitly for communication skills - so it's worth helping them acquire those skills, both for their own career and for the company.

In particular, some people with conflict-avoiding personalities may have _never_ experienced productive conflict resolution, unless you consider always backing down and feeling increasingly disempowered to be productive.

Now sure, if GitHub HR (or employees) treat this training as a box-ticking exercise, or use it to encourage bland, conflict-free discussion, the culture will nosedive. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER8> Well said. Let's not forget _why_ GitHub is putting such things in place. Had they existed before, they might have avoided all the unpleasantness they (and their former employee) went through (which also led to the CEO's resignation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some interesting things here.

It is interesting to see how many of the failings they admit now are not really gender based but more job role based (although gender undoubtedly plays a part too)

</comment><comment><USER10> > We're in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication > training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and > external experts.

Anyone have any experience with attending these kinds of things?

</comment><comment><USER11> fuck github

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it acknowledges that the company truly believes there's something to fix. On the other hand, it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie and doesn't acknowledge (still) that it went down badly/was their fault.

<comment><USER13> _it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie_

I would just point out that while there were obvious issues at Github, it's not clear to the public (and never will be) exactly what happened there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> After the whole Horvath incident, I take what they say with a grain of salt. It's hard changing company culture, especially one that's Bro Code heavy. You can probably make big changes within a small company, but there are currently 239 employees.

<comment><USER15> [https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github- investiga...](https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github- investigation)

"The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment.

...

As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse."

<comment><USER16> To fill in your ellipsis: "However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. In light of these findings, Tom has submitted his resignation, which the company has accepted."

Although they found no evidence of legal wrongdoing, they found enough general dirt to force a founding CEO to resign. Obviously the public will never know exactly what happened, but an explosive, highly publicized employee departure followed by a CEO's resignation makes you wonder how the company allowed things to go so wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


Fun Flash Cards – React Native App I built with my daughter - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kensodev/fun-flash-cards-react-native-app-i-built-with-my-daughter-eb813340179e#.ti1e2ftda <comment><AUTHOR> My daughter and I built an app together, it's one of my proudest moments as a dad and as an engineer so I wrote some thoughts about it.

I've been teaching my older kids (6,4) to code and this is our first real- world app together.

It's not in the app store, we created it for fun</comment>


Typography in 16 bits: System fonts (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://damieng.com/blog/2011/03/27/typography-in-16-bits-system-fonts

<comment><USER2> The PC VGA font is one of my favourite, with second choice being the X default fixed fonts. For some reason newer GPUs tend to have a different textmode font that often looks worse; I remember encountering a laptop with one that looked like a mix of Courier New and Comic Sans.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice find. These would be useful to make things look retro. The PC VGA is a classic, and I've always wondered what Chicago would look like on Windows.</comment>


The Lean Habit - <AUTHOR> https://russellpollari.com/2019/04/04/the-lean-habit/ <comment><USER2> seeking to add to the discussion of how to cross-apply lean thinking to habit development, inspired by "What you want to do and what you actually do are not always the same."

I've heard innovators say users can't tell you what they want and use that a justification for abandoning the study of users. But I've found that users can tell you what they do, if they are interviewed thoughtfully and with concern for how they feel about telling you something as vulnerable as what they actually do. They yearn to do it, actually. Especially when they feel supported and heard.

On habits, seems like the same thing applies, but in this case you are interviewing yourself. Keeping a daily log of what you do feels tedious and intimidating. A practice I've found helpful is creating not just journals, but actual maps of the current reality of the thing you're seeking to improve. Detailed. With artifacts. Like on a wall. And then a separate activity is to find the places in the reality that least map to the outcomes you are trying to achieve. And then, with these problems identified, you can ask the question: what is the simplest thing I can do now to adjust my behaviors in these problem areas in a way that accelerates my progress towards the outcome I want?" I think I'm going to try this out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, do you have an example? This sounds more intimidating than a daily log (the mvp can be a single line on if you accomplished a habit or not).

<comment><USER2> Let me explain what I mean by intimidating, because I'm not talking about work-load. The work involved in mapping a current reality is much more intimidating—-in terms of load—-than daily journaling. But journaling—-which I've done: I have a box filled with written personal journals—-turned, for me, less into a faithful map of what I'd actually done and more into an effort to reconcile what had already happened to my goals. So if I had a hard day, I would try to recontextualize it, in my journal, in some positive light that showed how it ultimately contributed to my goals. And that became burdensome and painful ... hence intimidating to me as a concept now.

A current reality map, on the other hand, starts with the objective of forensic impartiality. I'm not doing it with any goal to validate my current approach. I'm just trying to actually see what is happening, with a bigger goal to see how what is happening is NOT aligned to what I want to have happen, so that I can innovate in a way that addresses that inconsistency.

And by framing it this way, it becomes more a process of innovation, which is less intimidating to me than the self-advocacy or self-defense or self- delusion I typically experience in journaling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. I think automating habit tracking as much as possible can help avoid the desire to recontextualize.

Keeping measurement as objective as possible as well. e.g. How many sentences did I write today?

I think you are describing something like this. In which there is less reliance on self-reporting.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


2 month hackathon on a remote tropical island - <AUTHOR> http://comehackwithus.com/

<comment><USER2> Besides being at the top of HN, what sort of validation does this have as an actual viable event. I mean, can I get a tropical picture with some water, make a simple one page website, and just start harvesting your guys emails to?

I'm not trying to be overly negative, it just seems like there is sooo little information being given to be making the top of HN

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I wasn't expecting this. It's an idea that is in my head that I want to make a reality, but only if there is enough interest. I can promise you I won't do anything with those emails except keep you up to date on what happens next.

Now that it seems like there is enough interest, we can go to the next phase: figuring out wether it would be a paid thing or a sponsored thing. Opinions welcome...

<comment><USER4> You need to go to cahuita costa rica. They have villas with wifi for crazy cheap (less than 25 a night), and a beach that is probably where that picture comes from. Plus if you want to recruit any ticos, intel and hp are some of the countries biggest employers. Consider it, message me if you want help, I've done business down there. [http://www.google.com/search?q=cahuita&hl=en&client=...](http://www.google.com/search?q=cahuita&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=KBwSUK60Ma3MigL3v4D4BA&ved=0CDoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=672)

<comment><USER3> I've been to cahuita. The chances are bigger that this will take place in Southeast Asia actually.

<comment><USER5> I am in SE Asia at the moment (Chris Travers-- signed up on the site). If you need ideas regarding places let me know. I have contacts around, and there are great places like Lombok. The question becomes though how remote is remote.

There are nice islands near Padang, Sumatra too (and Padang is famous for its food). In terms of SE Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia both have lots of tropical islands, but there is always the Maldives and the Philippines too.

<comment><USER3> Remote is not in a village, but with decent internet (microwave FTW!) and an escape route for the weekends or off-days when you need them..

<comment><USER5> Again, feel free to email me. I will look around. Last time I was in Lombok the internet connections weren't so good, but that was 8 years ago, and I would expect that there are major improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've done some tropical island hacking (solo) and it worked really well for me. The longest I did was 3 weeks on Koh Phi Phi in Thailand. I had a nice discrete problem: write Forth drivers for all the interesting hardware in a little ARM SoC. Blog at the time: <http://goo.gl/V9qGx> I can say that: Finding a place to sleep, entertainment (snorkel, scuba, etc), and food were all easy problems. Finding a place to work can be harder: power, internet, quiet, table/desk all in one place. (Maybe you need to borrow a house?) Three weeks was enough for me: then I wanted a dose of civilization and city life, hard though this was to imagine on day #1. Maybe it's different with more people.

Can you start simple, with just a few people and lasting until they get bored, and scale it up gradually perhaps?

<comment><USER3> We'll see. I did a three month thing like this, and was sad when it ended. That was all about the people we were with though, that made the world of difference. And we had time during the weekends to get away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have you consider Penang island, it is not really isolated or exotic, but we have beautiful beaches here, and when you need a dose of civilization, it is just within 30 minutes driving distance, there are quite a few big companies here like Dell, Intel, Motolora. Standard of living is cheap. The island been ranked by Yahoo! Travel as one of the "10 Islands to Explore Before You Die". <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang>

Hope I didn't sound too much like a salesman already.

<comment><USER8> Penang is definitely a good option. Though I haven't been there heard a ton of good things and it's just a stone's throw from the mainland. +1. Accommodation and food is relatively inexpensive in Malaysia.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the +1. And I haven't mentioned the great food in Penang, Penang Laksa ranked 7th in the 50 most delicious foods in the world...[http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/worlds-50-most- delicio...](http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/worlds-50-most-delicious- foods-067535?page=0,1).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've did this (alone) for a while. The things I discovered:

* Mosquitoes really, really suck the fun and productivity out of sitting on a tropical beach coding. * To a lesser extent, so does sunburn. * Finding somewhere comfortable to sit in shade is crucial, and harder than you'd think, and lying is out (appealing though it may be). * The ideal place to work was a beachside bar, without standing pools of water close by (attracting mosquitoes), that was quiet, serving coffee and wifi. Often hard to find, though. * Lack of wifi was sometimes a plus, provided it was never too far away. It's easier to focus on coding without Internet access.

In the end, my favorite tropical location to write code in was Singapore. The beach is overrated :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. You guys made the news here in the UK.

<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19018930>

</comment><comment><USER11> 12 weeks on a remote tropical island, luxurious villa, 12 geniuses... a cook and housekeeper.. airfare.. time away from current projects... that sounds like a pretty hefty price tag per genius if it's a paid event. I think you may have trouble finding hackers to sign up when the reality sets in. I'd recommend you get to work finding serious sponsors because right now it sounds like a nice dream. Good luck good sir.

<comment><USER12> I was thinking it'd be just like a startup incubator but instead of getting paid $20k for 5 to 10% you get to go here and get paid $10k

<comment><USER3> I want to try to stay away from the incubator model. Find a way to get there, hack, go home with good memories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sad. OpenBSD popularized the term hackathon, but OS developers aren't invited...

<comment><USER3> _everyone_ is invited, as long as you can make it clear that you won't be slacking off, and you are a nice person :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the catch? Equity? Price? There isn't such a thing as a free lunch.

<comment><USER3> We're looking into either getting the whole thing sponsored or charging a fee that will cover cost. Our target is not to make a profit, it is to have a great time working with inspiring people.

<comment><USER15> What's your selection algorithm?

<comment><USER3> It will be partly personal interviews, partly skills. In my previous experiences with communal living i have learned that even the most skilled people can be a total pain in the butt to live with. I wanna avoid that at all cost :)

<comment><USER16> I'm looking forward to it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is this only for singles and those who are willing to be apart from spouses for 2 months? I'd love to go to some remote location to work for few months, but I need to take my better half with me.

<comment><USER3> If he/she can make themselves useful, you're welcome to sign up both of you. But rest assured that competition for this will be tough, so it might not be easy. Just that it's not excluded from being an option, that's all :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey, I'm also trying to hire coders to work on a remote tropical island [1], although for a little longer term than you. Where is this located? I can recommend some places in the Seychelles if you haven't yet decided on a spot :)

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/jobbit/comments/x2x1w/hiring_mobile_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/jobbit/comments/x2x1w/hiring_mobile_app_developer_in_the_tropical/)

<comment><USER3> Most likely it will be in the Phillipines, but right now that is just a first idea..

<comment><USER19> My company is based in the Philippines. I won't be applying but I'd love to take you and the crew out if you're laid over in Manila for any stretch of time.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the invite. We might come to PH to explore our options soon...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You spelled "hackathon" wrong in the title.

EDIT: unless it's meant to convey that you "hack a ton" but I'm really not so sure...

<comment><USER3> ouch! Correcting asap :)

EDIT: if only I could get a hold of the guy who has the logo source..

<comment><USER21> That's a really obvious thing. Did you guys proofread? It's the little slips that make people doubt an organization i.e. "if they missed this tiny detail, then how will they perform on the big things?"

I don't mean to be a jerk. Best of luck with your event and everything, but if you're going to plan a 12 week hack vacation for people, then details matter.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, and it's pretty dumb. Then again, we weren't aiming for big exposure like this. Also, both of the people involved in this are not native English speakers, can I put that up for a valid excuse? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Due to the level of publicity around this, a crowd-funded approach could be pretty successful. Backers could also help vote on project ideas etc.

What is the goal, to have everyone hack on a single project? or just provide a space for people to work on their own stuff?

All in all a very cool idea, hope you can make it happen!

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm actually very intrigued, I just booked a flight to Indonesia to spent a month or so hacking / designing for myself in Bali, but doing this with others sounds like a much better plan. Any details on the schedule yet?

</comment><comment><USER24> Great to see the interest. If anyone is interested in hacking and joining a start up incubator on MAUI, please sign up here. <http://www.startupmaui.com>

</comment><comment><USER25> Similar concept here but for a business model instead of a hackathon: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306223>

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like a great idea. What is your timeline?

<comment><USER3> Most likely we'll aim for late 2012, early 2013. Depends on how things develop from here..

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Besides being excessive, why?

<comment><USER3> Well, I decided to organise this because I have loads of experience in location independent living and communal living. I have experienced how great it is when you are in a place that makes you feel good, surrounded by people that are smart and motivating. In a luxurious villa on a tropical island, there is no distraction. By having a cook and housekeepers as well, you really don't have to worry about anything but getting shit done :)

<comment><USER28> Given your experience, what locations do you have in mind?

<comment><USER3> Looking at Phillipines for now, but any SEA country is in the running. Might end up in Bali or Thailand, who knows..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How is the Internet there?

<comment><USER3> Since 'there' isn't defined yet, I don't know yet. But rest assured that it will be one of the primary things we base our choice for a house on..

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Who is going to take care of my day job..another idea #fail!

<comment><USER3> or you should grow a pair, quit and follow your dreams ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> By the way guys, there's nothing set in stone yet. We're trying to put together an awesome event for all of us to benefit. Please send in your ideas/suggestions :-)</comment>


EU agrees clampdown on Bitcoin platforms to tackle money laundering - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-moneylaundering/eu-agrees-clampdown-on-bitcoin-platforms-to-tackle-money-laundering-idUSKBN1E927J <comment><USER2> "It took EU legislators more than a year of negotiations to agree on the legislative proposals, put forward by the European Commission in the wake of shooting and bombing attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016 which killed more than 160 people."

Is there any evidence that the shooting and bombing attacks were assisted by cryptocurrency anonymity such that the proposed new measures will mitigate?

<comment><USER3> Probably not; they are probably worried more about the taxes but terrorism usually gets things done faster.

Most exchanges and cc/bank based fiat<>crypto were doing this kind of KYC already anyway and can you force foreign exchanges to comply?</comment></comment>


Building Browser Extensions at Scale - <AUTHOR> https://tech.grammarly.com/blog/building-browser-extensions-at-scale <comment><AUTHOR> Comprehensive coverage on various guidelines on building browser extensions.</comment>