Firefox 27 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/27.0/releasenotes/ <comment><USER2> I see no one has mentioned Firefox 27 is the first major browser to have ES6 generators enabled by default - [http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators- and-c...](http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-csp/). Callback hell begone!

<comment><USER3> I realised yesterday that "yield" in Python (and I guess javascript) is kind of a baby continuation ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation)). It can be used to create coroutines and turn async code into sync (looking) code. Really powerful.

Anyone interested should learn what continuations are (in Scheme).

<comment><USER4> I never got the point of generators until I saw Koa.js

I always thought generators were merely a way of making convoluted iterators, but when I realized that you can put your application logic inside a generator, in my head, it immediately turned it into a "how did I ever code without this before" kind of feature.

I just hope other browsers (especially IE) follow suit in implementing this feature

<comment><USER5> We (Bloomberg) sponsored Andy Wingo (Igalia) to do the work implementing the new generators in both V8 & SM in parallel, so the world would essentially get them in Chrome (+ Node, Opera) and Firefox at roughly the same time.

We don't use JSC here, so I couldn't make a good case for extending the work to cover Safari as well. Anyone wanting to help implement them in JSC has two good blueprints to work from.

I reached out to the IE team back when Andy was still early in the implementation and let them know what we were doing and what the release timeframe was in the hopes that it would help prioritize generators on their side, but I have yet to hear a peep about IE support.

Maybe all we need are some benchmarks? :)

edit: typo

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some time ago I was a Firefox user. Then Chrome came out and I first started using it for free-time browsing, while still developing on Firefox. Later, I decided to fully migrate to Chrome.

I've decided to change it again, so I'm going to give Firefox a try during this month. For now, it looks really nice, performance seems to be quite good and the feeling of getting at least a small part of my digital life away from Google feels nice as well.

Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Firefox' developer tools.

I'd be really happy if Firefox convinced me to stay, as I really love what Mozilla is doing for the web community.

<comment><USER7> I think you'll be quite impressed with Firefox's developer tools again. I've been more and more unhappy with Chrome's tools, mostly the subtle changes of not having filters and things so readily available anymore. The Firefox tools are quite slick though. I don't even use Firebug anymore.

<comment><USER8> So glad I am not the only one noticing the filter change. That additional click to display the filtering options that Chrome introduced really made me start using FF more and more for work.

I think this dumbing-down approach Google is doing with all their apps and websites will only alienate more and more professionals out of using their platform.

<comment><USER9> (Chrome DevTools team here). We cleaned up the filtering as it was totally inconsistent across all panels. So now it introduces one more click, but felt like generally that extra click was OK. I think we can still improve the UX, however. Which panels do you most use filters on (and for what?) Console, Network?

<comment><USER10> Hey Paul, I'm trapped on Chromium-30.0.1599.101 (same goes for similar Chrome version) because DevTools freeze for ~3 minutes after GWT's SuperDevMode recompilation on newer Chrome/Chromium. There is huge regression in performance after Chromium 32.x.xxxx.xxx. Chromium-30.0.1599.101 is the latest version without this problem on my distro.

I've tried to report this but you guys don't have proper bug tracker only form in the about menu.

<comment><USER9> [http://crbug.com/](http://crbug.com/) is the place to file tickets for us. File something and we can take a look!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The second bullet is important, having up to date TLS is a big deal in today's security/spy conscience world. Its possible to currently get (if you monkey around in about:config), but default settings are powerful since the average user won't bother. And I mean average-user type average user, not average hackernews reader/poster.

<comment><USER12> How's My SSL? [1] now reports "Your SSL client is Probably Okay." for Firefox 27. Awesome!

[1] [https://www.howsmyssl.com/](https://www.howsmyssl.com/)

<comment><USER13> An error occurred during a connection to www.howsmyssl.com. Peer attempted old style (potentially vulnerable) handshake.

I don't think I would trust their judgement about how my SSL is doing.

I am happy about this Firefox release; it is not just that you had to be an advanced user to get TLS 1.2 previously but that doing so would break over half the web. Now it is possible to use TLS 1.2 where available and not use it when not available.

<comment><USER14> Maybe that was it probing you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 2013 was such a good hear for Mozilla that I now looked at this release and was thinking - "blah! just another FF release". I then realised what had happened. They have developed so much momentum and such a good track record that I have taken their best product's release for granted...

<comment><USER16> Is that sarcasm?

<comment><USER17> I don't think so. It's easy now to look at the headline and think "Oh, just another Firefox release, it happens what? once a month?". That's a _good_ thing. Users are upgrading, the process is smooth; Mozilla's having a relatively easy time iterating. Remember when Firefox 3, 4, and 5 came out? Each time, it was a _big_ deal. Many complained and groaned. The upgrade process was problematic for many users. Some users would still have problems upgrading for many releases after that. It's been a great year if they can push out numerous high-quality releases, and have the process be so smooth that when users hear of a new version, they think "meh".

<comment><USER18> I would much rather a long-term-stable product with fewer security vulnerabilities that didn't need frequent updates.

<comment><USER19> Check out the Firefox ESR builds. They're supported for 1 year. Not super long-term, but better than 6 weeks:

[http://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/organizations/all/](http://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/organizations/all/)

<comment><USER18> That's great, I didn't know this existed. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Chrome has recently started to be more of a burden for us. We use the Application Shortcuts on our sales teams Windows PCs, which has broken over the last couple of updates:

* Scrollbars have now changed, there are no up and down arrows. This has really confused our elder staff.

* Application shortcuts have started hanging and throwing the "Jim" screen, but the same web pages work fine usually.

* Java is awful to get installed and unfortunately we need that.

These have made me want to try Firefox even more, and seeing Generators has made me switch to the nightly build to see what else is up and coming!

Nice work Mozilla!

<comment><USER21> Fwiw I've been finding Firefox (Ubuntu 12.04 default repo version) to be more stable than Chrome when I'm abusing tabs (like 50-100 tabs open, yes I'm pathological). Under such circumstances with Chrome my computer will occasionally freeze and I have no recourse but to REISUB it. Under similar circumstances with FF, things slow down and responsiveness gets worse, but no system freezes have occured yet.

There are some things I use Chrome for, like its JS profiling tools, but every time it freezes and forces a restart I go back to FF. Been staying with the latter more and more lately.

<comment><USER22> I've heard countless times that Chrome becomes flaky once you get to about 50 or 60 tabs.

In contrast, I know several Firefox users who regularly have open several hundred tabs, and one guy who sometimes exceeds a thousand. (Yes, a thousand.)

(And if you're about to respond with "why would anybody need that many tabs?", please don't. It's a tired topic; just accept that there are many different and valid ways to use a web browser, and yours is just one of them.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In related news: HTTPSeverywhere is now available for Firefox on Android. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile- web-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-safer- with-https-everywhere)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Release notes include a link to a list of new contributors and their contributions. Never noticed that before.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new...](https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new- contributors/)

Looked up some past numbers:

      Firefox 24: 43 new contributors, 32 volunteers
      Firefox 25: 51 new contributors, 39 volunteers
      Firefox 26: 43 new contributors, 27 volunteers
      Firefox 27: 41 new contributors, 35 volunteers

I think Mozilla considers its employees and the employees of known major contributing companies to not be volunteers.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am using FF on Android (both phone and tablet) with sync and great addons like adblock/self destructing cookies/lastpass and am mostly a happy camper. Mozilla has resolved most of the performance issues barring one - compared to Chrome or stock browser the time it takes for FF to go from link tapped to page loading started is a bit annoyingly high. Many times after tapping a link it just sits there doing nothing or showing the spinner in the URL bar for quite some time.

Not sure if it's the addons but I recall having similar issue on a fresh install. If anyone from Mozilla reading this has any pointers, please let me know.

Edit: Also the one other thing that frequently bugs me is FF not honoring the Android intent system. YouTube and Play Store links when opened in FF give me no option of opening them in their respective apps - it goes straight to the URL. I guess I'll file a bug for this issue.

<comment><USER25> Firefox is both better and worse than other browsers in dealing with intents.

On the worse side, unlike some other browsers Firefox doesn't raise intents for redirected URLs, missing some opportunities to match appropriate apps. I believe the underlying issue is that too many redirect situations are ambiguous (especially if you might not be the default browser). I mostly deal with this with an external wrapper (Browser Auto Selector, Unshorten or the like), but it's still a weakness.

On the other side, the Firefox intnet feature that I love is that when you long-press/right-click/etc on a URL that matches some non-browser apps, you get the option of opening it in those apps (for YouTube, the Play Store, Twitter, etc.). I haven't seen any other browser with that option (though, to be fair, I spend most of my time in Firefox). It would be extra-wonderful if there were a reliable way to hit the YouTube link from an embedded video, but even without that, it's very handy.

<comment><USER26> You don't even need to long press to find this out -- if the URL of the site you're on 'supports' being opened in an app, a little grey android icon appears in the address bar. You can tap this icon to open the URL in the related app.

<comment><USER25> Oh, that's another cool feature! Thanks for mentioning it.

I can quibble that I wish it were a bit more obvious and that the Android icon appeared before the page started loading (next to the X), but it is still going to make many things more convenient for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anybody know when Firefox 28 will be released? That's the one I'm excited for since it'll finally fix a bug with Firefox and flex-wrap: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901)

Edit: Looks like it'll release in March: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Firefox/Releases/28](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Firefox/Releases/28)

Worth noting for designers since it'll implement background-blend-mode too: [https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a](https://medium.com/web- design-technique/6b51bf53743a)

<comment><USER28> [https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch_dates) says March 18, 2014. It's generally pretty accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The glsl shader editor isn't announced in the release notes. It is supposed to be included in FF 27.

[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl- shaders...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders-with- firefox-developer-tools/)

<comment><USER30> The GLSL editor is really great, with just one thing making it a pain to use. Namely, the split between the vertex and fragment shader is always vertical (apart from when the tools are really thin overall). Does anyone know how I can force it to use a horizontal split?

While I'm whining, is it possible to show the console at the same time as viewing the source for files? The fact that I have to switch between the console and source tabs in FF is pretty much the only reason I use Chrome for debugging.

<comment><USER31> At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console regardless of the panel you're currently using (à la Chromium, basically). I'm not sure in which release this landed, though.

For the vertical split thing, opening a bug is the easiest way to get the feature in [1].

[1]: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&c...](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Developer%20Tools%3A%20WebGL%20Shader%20Editor) (this is a URL with the right bugzilla component. just log in, fill the blanks and submit)

<comment><USER32> > At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console > regardless of the panel you're currently using

This split console feature landed in 28 (so it is moving up to Beta now): [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty- print...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty-print- minified-js-and-more-firefox-developer-tools-episode-28/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looks much better now: [https://www.howsmyssl.com/](https://www.howsmyssl.com/)

</comment><comment><USER34> One interesting this is that all JS_ exports in their libraries have been removed. This kills support for things like GWT DevMode [0] among other plugins. This is good for security, bad for GWT.

[0] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web- Toolkit/Q...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web- Toolkit/QSEjbhhHB4g)

<comment><USER35> Yes, we knew this was long in coming. Chrome is yanking similar support in NPAPI as well. That's why 2 years ago we started working on SuperDevMode. This happened a little quicker than we had planned, but some upcoming changes to the GWT compiler will make it an incremental compiler more like JavaC, and in SuperDevMode, compile/refresh should be much much quicker when that lands.

On the IDE side, IntelliJ 13.0.2 can attach a debugger to Chrome and provide an in-IDE java debugging experience using source maps. Similar work is ongoing from James Nelson for the Eclipse plugin.

Firefox recently added support for column number support in stack traces, so eventually, Java IDE debugging using sourcemaps attached to Firefox JS debugger should be feasible.

In the mean time, GWT developers who use Firefox will need to stick to Firefox ESRs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Major browser updates used to be fun. Nowadays they just merge security updates and bump the numbers. Most won't even notice and just complain about the mandatory restart.

<comment><USER37> Just wait until Australis.

<comment><USER38> ( _Shudders_ )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > Added support for SPDY 3.1 protocol

Just in time to use it with nginx 1.5.10 :P

</comment><comment><USER40> One disturbing thing about Mozilla security is that most of the "Critical" flaws[1] in their list would be marked as "High" on Chrome because of Chrome's superior security model.

[1][https://www.mozilla.org/security/known- vulnerabilities/firef...](https://www.mozilla.org/security/known- vulnerabilities/firefox.html)

<comment><USER41> I think you put too much faith in the fables that surround what the chrome security model does and does not do.

In short, no, they wouldn't.

<comment><USER40> Really? Care to give an example?

<comment><USER41> I don't really want to have to go into process security from scratch, but I have previously commented on this [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368)

"Sandboxing" and "process separation" are not magic smoke.

<comment><USER40> Oh sure, they are not magic smoke indeed. Still, how do you explain that Use after free bugs are marked Critical in Firefox but High on Chrome? Seems like Chrome is doing a little bit better in security department.

[https://www.mozilla.org/security/known- vulnerabilities/firef...](https://www.mozilla.org/security/known- vulnerabilities/firefox.html)

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%20updates)

<comment><USER41> Because they have different classification systems/schemes?

Are you really asking me this?

<comment><USER40> Security flaws browser vendors use do not have different classification schemes. They all use CVSS Severity scores, go ahead and check.

Also definitions:

Firefox Critical: Vulnerability can be used to run attacker code and install software, requiring no user interaction beyond normal browsing. High: Vulnerability can be used to gather sensitive data from sites in other windows or inject data or code into those sites, requiring no more than normal browsing actions

Chrome Critical:Allows an attacker run arbitrary code with the user's privileges in the normal course of browsing. High: Allows an attacker to read or modify confidential data belonging to other web sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The deobfuscation feature in debugger is a bliss! I was waiting for it.

</comment><comment><USER43> What are the market share stats like on FF versions these days? Presumably the auto-update feature means the vast majority are using the latest FF within a few weeks?

<comment><USER44> Yes, legacy Firefox versions drop 95% almost immediately: [http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01](http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01)

(that is taken from a PR5 hospital site, should be pretty indicative of the general market.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm glad prettify source in the dev tools is finally in the build (It's been in beta for a while). It'll be a huge help working with JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER46> According to the release notes Flash is fixed. But after updating, I still can't get Flash to work with Firefox on my Android 4.4.2 Nexus 7. Flash works fine with Dolphin though. Bummer.

</comment><comment><USER47> Nice that canvas dashed lines are now working, but there are still a lot of html5 features that either aren't implemented or are buggy: audio recording with getUserMedia sometimes turns off after a few seconds, drag+drop images from another website isn't implemented (only file upload from your own computer supported), no screen sharing. I've had to put a "try chrome if you have problems" message at the top of our app, as chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all of the html5 features that we use.

<comment><USER48> > chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all html5 features.

Well, no. No browser fully supports all HTML5 features. It's all a work in progress.

I guess your app happens to use features present in chrome, but other browsers lead in other areas. Off the top of my head, firefox had webrtc binary datachannels (important for multiplayer games) earlier. And a comment above mentions ES6 generators as well.

<comment><USER47> Basically Chrome supports all of the HTML5 features that we use (audio/video, drag+drop, screen sharing), whereas firefox doesn't. Perhaps there are features that firefox supports that chrome doesn't, but I haven't come across any.

<comment><USER49> Drag and drop has been supported since Firefox 3.5. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_D...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_Drop)

Screen sharing via get user media was added in this release Fx27, [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832)

Audio/Video support has been in Firefox since Firefox 3.5 [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Usin...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Using_HTML5_audio_and_video)

<comment><USER47> As I said in my original comment, firefox supports drag+drop uploads, but not images from websites. You can drop an image from your hard drive, but you can't drag an image from another website. Chrome lets you do this.

Tab sharing isn't screen sharing. Chrome lets you share your entire screen, not just a tab.

As I said in my original comment it is getUserMedia audio that is buggy on firefox (it cuts out after 5 seconds), not audio in general. Luckily there is a hack to get it working: [https://support.mozilla.org/en- US/questions/984179](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/984179). Looks like it might be a garbage collection bug - it's not seeing the reference to the input device from the script processor node.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Windows support appears to be a bit broken it seems.

<comment><USER51> The known issues have been known for a long time. I've been using Firefox on Windows since ever, and these are super rare edge cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Awesome, my nightly got updated to 30! FF FTW!

<comment><USER53> Semi-related: I've been using the Nightly and have come to really enjoy Australis over the current UX/UI scheme in the other builds. To that end, I'm excited for Aurora to get boosted up to 29 and, hopefully, get Australis along with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Sigh. Apart from Firefox based and Blink Based ( Chrome / Opera ) Browser. Are there any other alternative on Windows?

</comment><comment><USER55> Is it possible to map cmd+1 for next and previous tab and cmd+2 for next tab? Tried everything, with no luck. :/

<comment><USER56> There's keyconfig extension (it's not available on addons.mozilla.org) that could help you.

[http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi](http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi) [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994](http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994)

<comment><USER55> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Im on FF 24 and there seems to be no button to update it. I thought FF nowadays updates itself automatically?

<comment><USER58> It does, but if you want to update immediately go to About, there's a button there to update.

<comment><USER57> No, there is no button. Maybe because its "Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint"? Did they fork Firefox and disabled updates?

<comment><USER59> If you install via a package manager on Linux then generally you can only update the browser through the package manager. On my Gentoo box that's how I have to upgrade chromium and firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Did they fix the memory leak problem on OS X?

</comment><comment><USER61> The only feature marked as new is "something with SocialAPI"... bleh

<comment><USER62> It sounds like an enabler for spam. Can anybody shed any light on this?

<comment><USER49> [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Social_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API)

This link provides some details on how Firefox will deal with bad actors. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Social_API/Criteria](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Social_API/Criteria)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> What?! Last time I used it (which felt about a year ago...) was version 3.5.3.

<comment><USER64> Time flies, doesn't it? 3.5.3 was from September 2009. [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/)

<comment><USER63> Oh my! Now I feel old. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to care about work again? - <AUTHOR> I was fired shortly after WFH orders came into place in Canada, in large part because the lack of options for things to do made my job the overwhelming focus of the day and I lost the will to do the relatively menial developer tasks (building a website for a pdf based product using next.js) that were asked of me in a timely manner. I may have burnt out, I'm not sure. I'm not depressed, but I can't bring myself to really be enthusiastic for any given thing I could apply to. I think this is in part fed by being burnt (and burnt out) in the past, the significant time and energy investment in getting a job, but also the somewhat dispensable nature of most companies and tech products. It all just strikes me as "some tech crap that I'll never see put to use". It's tough to find a connection of any kind with the output of what is usually either quite dull intellectual work or very hard intellectual work.
The thought of assembling react apps for an arbitrary company is saddening and I can't focus on something I'm not intrinsically interested in. Not that building websites is not interesting, but it seems like the output is often very mundane compared to how how arduous some frontend architectures have become.
By contrast, I can focus very well on sufficiently difficult and impactful projects, most likely where I have some control in the decisions made about the project. Likewise, I have no delusions that I'm some slept on PHD candidate that is too good for basic work. But I don't really know where to go from here. Do I continue just sort of enjoying the summer like I have every other time I've left a job, perhaps spending my time on creating something or contributing to OS?
A good example of the previous, is that I was working on something I hadn't before in a domain that I'd never touched. Specifically figuring out how to compress files and embed them as attachments in PDF documents in the PDF product that we were working on. It involved understanding zlib and hex file signatures and compression methods. That said, the rest of the job included customer service responses and random troubleshooting for customers who used the SDK, something that made me dread coming into work and something that they did not make clear during the hiring process.
Do you have any personal experiences like this you'd share? What have you done when you've concluded that most stuff just isn't compelling enough to even get you out of bed for the morning meeting? <comment><USER3> I had a similar experience which turned out to be an internet addiction.

Compared to obsessively checking hn, fb, Twitter, CNN, ANY job is boring.

What helped me: no screen time after 8pm, and device-free Saturday.

I also try avoiding screen time an hour or two after waking up.

And I try keeping away from social networks.

If I could, I would've taken a device-free month off work.

</comment><comment><USER4> regarding burnout: [http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/](http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/)

One quote from this piece that struck a chord with me was "level of caring couldn't be sustained in the absence of results."

The last time I noticed I was showing signs of starting to burn out I found it helpful to take more time off work (e.g. dialling down from full time work to part time work for a month) to help destress & let my mind focus more on non work things. The part time work was a temporary measure while wrangling a change to a different role/different project.

It took a few weeks of exercise & walks & writing out my thoughts on paper for my mind to settle down and stop obsessing over work & stop "radiating stress" from internalised work related nonsense. Be kind to yourself.

Under more normal mental conditions, it helps me to have a clear understanding of exactly what brings me to work every day, even when most of the days are frustrating or boring or senseless: it's the money. Money isn't the most important thing in life, but gotta keep paying the bills, and saving & investing offers a pathway to permanently reduce the amount of frustrating or boring work that needs to be done in the future.

<comment><USER5> How do you do any of these things while having young children at home?

<comment><USER6> From the article:

 _And childless people, though unburdened by the daily strains of parenting, tend to burn out far more than people with kids._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm facing a situation similar to yours: consulting space, working for a big-4 in Canada but WFH from South America, was just let go of a project.

While I think people need some sense of purpose for their jobs, it doesn't need to be a higher thing as long as work/life balance 'hygiene factors' stay in check. I think that was disrupted for a lot of us during the pandemic. For example, I'd offset my anal-retentive boss with socializing in the office or taking long walks, or if at home I'd do some reading, working out, etc.

It didn't help for me that everything seems so over-engineered nowadays, especially in the frontend space, so with all of that plus stuff life throws at you, eventually I just stopped caring about work.

Taking some time off helps, but if those feelings are still there, have a Plan B. I did and now I can stay out of the industry for a while, hopefully coming back fresh-minded as I still like programming.

I really think programmers of the past had a blast when scratching their own itches, either solo or in close-knit teams, then turning ideas into entirely new product categories. This is not what I signed up for.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do something else. Perhaps away from IT. Do that for a month. Volunteer in your local community. Then come back. Your outlook will be different.

Realign with purpose. Update purpose if necessary.

</comment><comment><USER9> Read books. What will help you out of this is out there somewhere but you may only find it through serendipitous channels.

I have read several books that totally unwound my previous education/experience and led me out of the current state of the shared common knowledge rut in a particular domain/field. While that has added to my contempt for the current state of things I am farther ahead and able to make better choices on where to focus my attention.

The challenge for anyone as their knowledge and capabilities improve is that the number of existing opportunities in which they can be fully engaged approaches zero. So ultimately you will feel better if you are open to creating opportunities for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER10> Make your own thing, a product that you create and control yourself. Support requests suddenly become a lot more personal and it's a lot more rewarding than the reward of a regular wage. But in order to actually have users/customers, better focus on their needs rather than your own curiosity (which you can still satisfy -- but it's not going to be what customers are looking for)

The platform/framework doesnt matter, literally not at all, 0%. Go for whatever allows you to iterate superfast with least effort.

[https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/)

<comment><USER11> I can only second that!

The control part is crucial here. From psychological perspective - <USER2> beings loose motivation when faced for a prolonged amount of times with environments they can take control over / achieve satisfaction. An edge case scenario within the same set of problems is called learned helplessness and is a well know phenomena.

Gain control, and you will feel all the good juices flowing thru your body again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really resonate with this.

I have transitioned to new technology stacks 4 times in my 8 year career. I am tired throwing away all the work and expertise I have gained just to start over again.

I made one of those switches a couple month ago. So now I'm the new guy on the team while WFH. It is very tough to stay motivated, especially since the subject matter is very boring and the the leadership seems to be shortsighted.

</comment><comment><USER13> It sounds like burnout

Which seems kind of boring

But nonetheless

I got out of it a couple times by being unemployed for months

Found new jobs and realized after the first couple of days that

Even though the "don't care" still seemed to be there

I was actually fine doing whatever garbage I used to do

I do remember reading lots of advice that did not at all seem to engage with the seriousness of my condition

A lot of it was tweak this, start doing that, etc

I just thought, "yeah, fuck you, too. Assholess."

General advice would be start reading and youtubing like crazy

As soon as the person suggests you just need to 'put yourself in your happy place' or dismisses your condition in some other way, just move on to the next page/video/book/therapist.

I'm guessing burnout is still so common for a few reasons -- one being that as a society we just don't take it seriously yet, even after all this time

Reminds me I just saw mini doc on AJE or something about burnout in Sweden or something

And they are taking it hella serious, in part because of its combination with covid, I think.

</comment><comment><USER14> I noticed that both of the examples you mentioned being sick or tired of is building a next.js app app for a pdf based product and assembling react apps for arbitrary companies.

Have you thought about doing something other than frontend web dev? I know that's the hotness right now and that's the easiest path to get you jobs/money, but there's a variety of roles in software eng like web backend, data engineering, and even to other related disciplines like data science (with some learning curve), dev ops, embedded systems, etc. If you feel burned out from software engineering altogether, try using your expertise in other types of projects. For example if you enjoy making videos and teaching, make some Youtube videos to teach code or app building. Likewise if you enjoy music, you can do that instead.

</comment><comment><USER15> >What have you done when you've concluded that most stuff just isn't compelling enough to even get you out of bed for the morning meeting?

I have outlined what I'm doing here: [https://atlantis5.home.blog/](https://atlantis5.home.blog/) . Summary: Collect level headed people and deal with them. Not saying that the goal is easy. The entire meaninglessness of most stuff that we all do, stems from shortsighted, idiotic human nature.

Oh well, and congratulations on having grown up. The entire I-must-love-my- job-else-something-is-wrong-with-me thing is a fool's errand. Oh Canada :)

<comment><USER6> _The entire I-must-love-my-job-else-something-is-wrong-with-me thing is a fool 's errand._

It is but actually hating your job isn't great either.

<comment><USER15> >It is but actually hating your job isn't great either.

Agreed, when this happens it's generally because your colleagues are a disagreeable lot.

It is also it is true that things like depression, health and disposition will effect how you view your work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A similar thing happened to me a few years back. I seriously considered changing careers, and decided not to renew my contract.

I decided to try work on an idea some one suggested a while before. I ended up eventually launching an iPhone app, and really enjoyed the experience (I work as a backend engineer usually). About a month later, someone called about an interesting project, and I've been fine since then (although working on different projects).

So the two tips I have are 1) build something for yourself or 2) learn something new and get a job in a different language/environment (it's a big field).

<comment><USER17> Hi, Even i do feel stuck like,ok now i am learning this and happy about it but what is the point of all these things i am just waiting for requirements and doing it as per required I have written about my problem here:- [https://www.reddit.com/r/careerguidance/comments/gqhyem/how_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/careerguidance/comments/gqhyem/how_to_proceed_in_life_as_a_programmer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hi, I am going through similar experience,shared my experience posted here and in reddit as well. Link:- [https://www.reddit.com/r/careerguidance/comments/gqhyem/how_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/careerguidance/comments/gqhyem/how_to_proceed_in_life_as_a_programmer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x).

Even i feel i am still stuck and don't know how to proceed

</comment><comment><USER18> > how arduous some frontend architectures have become

This resonates with me. I'm a backend (sometimes fullstack) dev and can't fathom how FE-devs keep doing what they do, especially if UX is designed by someone else as well.

I would suggest getting yourself into a small backend/platform team. The problems/challenges tend to be more diverse/less cookie-cutter.

</comment><comment><USER19> Personally I regained a lot of motivation by going subcontracting. It lights a fire under your butt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Contracting on higher value shorter term projects had crossed my mind. Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER19> What I really like about subcontracting, is that you are not carrying the full risk for the project. However, the client is still the client, and this carries with itself both a freedom (no loyalties beyond the contractual) and an added responsibility (it's your client, and you want them to be happy).

It's a style which suits me, and gives an added motivation. Note that if the work itself is extremely boring, this still doesn't make it all hunky-dory. There must be a balance here.

Personally, I like the smaller-sized projects where the iOS part can be done either by myself or with another team member. This way, I have enough overview to wrap up the project in a decent time and look for another if it's not to my liking.

<comment><USER20> I have been considering freelancing route for a while. And the reasons you gave above are same for me.

In addition, I work in a big corp where I spend a lot of time red tapes formalities but contractors in my team only have to worry about their code and they get paid almost double some employees.

My question is how did you get started? I know you said subcontracting, is it through a consulting firm or do you do it through your own firm?

<comment><USER19> I set up my own firm first. But for my country (Netherlands) that's really just a simple registration that takes all of ten minutes. Then I sent my resume to a number of agencies that broker between corporations and subcontractors. They usually ask your rate, do the negotiations with you and the end custoner, and take 15-25% margin.

I think it's worth it but YMMV.

Furthermore there's a host of smaller stuff that you need to take care of. Liability ensurance, pension, health insurance, bookkeeping, separate bank account, and sending a time sheet and bill every month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Learn a new programming language or framework. Create a hobby project on it. It may bring back the fun of coding rather than coding because its your job.

<comment><USER12> I think part of what he said is he's tired of learning new tech, using it once or twice, and then never using it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You consider building a website a menial task? I can't understand that mindset at all.

<comment><USER23> To an EMT doing chest compression on a dying man is a menial task, but if I did it I would probably bore my family and friends with the tale for the rest of my life.

<comment><USER22> What?</comment></comment></comment>


Preliminary evidence that MMR vaccine might provide protection against Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20053207v1 <comment><USER2> God this would be ironic. Everybody that's protesting would go absolutely bonkers if next month the government ordered adults to get MMR.

<comment><USER3> Why would the government need to order that?

<comment><USER4> Yeah it seems like there is a straightforward free market solution: you don't get a vaccine, businesses may not allow you on their property or in their stores.

<comment><USER5> That's unlikely to happen. Businesses generally have no means of verifying whether you've been vaccinated, and any attempt by the government to implement or enforce such a system would inevitably be contested and tied up in courts.

<comment><USER4> It would be easy to issue certificates to people who have been vaccinated. Businesses already have guidelines for who can enter their premises, like wearing shirts in restaurants in spite of not wearing a shirt being legal.

<comment><USER5> IANAL, but there's no way that isn't going to be contested. That's not to say it can't happen, but I have a hard time believing it could happen within a relevant timeframe.

The shirt and shoes rule is a health concern, much like what you're describing here. Unlike vaccination certificates, though, it's been around a lot longer and isn't going to result in a heated political battle anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just a note that initial peer-review of this paper has been very negative.

<comment><USER7> is this available online anywhere?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So there is a 29 percent homology between their respective fusion proteins. So you would have to hope that an antigen binding site is somewhere in the conserved region?

</comment><comment><USER9> If I read this right this isn't based on any data, just a hypothesis because there is some similarity between the viruses. That's... a very low level of evidence. It's a vague hypothesis, and one that is probably hard to test.

Other than that: Absolutely get an MMR vaccine if you don't have one. I wouldn't cound on it helping against Covid-19, but it helps against the Measles, which is a good enough reason to get it anyway.

<comment><USER10> Maybe the reason there's been such a low rate of death is that the MMR vaccine had some effect on the Coronavirus? I'm not a scientist, I write Javascript.

<comment><USER11> Do less Italians get the mmr? That would be interesting to look at the hard hit places.

<comment><USER12> Yes, children do

<comment><USER13> Importantly, what about children 50+ years ago? In Italy

<comment><USER14> Presumably mostly not. The original rubella vaccine was developed in the late sixties and the current vaccine (that's part of MMR) didn't come out until 1979.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The mechanism of protection may be heterologous immunity. H.I is a consequence of an encounter with a specific antigen, which can alter the subsequent immune response to a different antigen. It can occur with infections or vaccination. It is fascinating how the Covid-19 virus spreads rampantly through adult communities but almost stops in its tracks at schools - it's like there is herd immunity already in the schoolyard. This was demonstrated in a study that came out a week ago in Australia.

<comment><USER16> I had to look up the study[0] you're referring to since I haven't heard anything other than a lot of anecdotal reports about children's ability to transmit the virus.

[0]: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/safe-as-houses- covid-19-stud...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/safe-as-houses- covid-19-study-clears-nsw-schools-for-student-return-20200425-p54n6i.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm generally opposed to such speculative papers receiving widespread publicity; they often present valuable ideas, but the general public hasn't been handling such speculation all that responsibly during this pandemic.

This is an exception. If you aren't already vaccinated, you should seek to correct that. It might not protect you against COVID-19, but it'll definitely protect you against other diseases.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this potentially why children are less impacted? They have more recently had the MMR vaccine.

<comment><USER18> I believe the consensus is the virus binds to ACE-2 proteins, which are produced as a biproduct of tissue damage. Given kids have had less environmental damage to their lungs, less ACE-2 and a smaller surface area to bind to

<comment><USER19> Very interesting. Do you have a link so I can learn more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When interpreting this, please also consider the warning [1] by Tedros Adhanom et al. in a letter in The Lancet:

"[I]t is very important to adhere to WHO's recommendation that the BCG vaccine is used for COVID-19 only in randomised controlled trials. (...) [T]he BCG vaccine is already in short supply, and indiscriminate use could jeopardise the supply needed to protect children against tuberculosis in high-risk areas."

[1] [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)31025-4/fulltext)

<comment><USER21> This reminds me of the recommendation by, wouldn't you know it, _the same people_ , that masks should only be worn by the visibly sick, and medical personnel.

This disease has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and is on track to kill millions, quite aside from the terrible economic havoc which is just beginning.

 _ramp up production of the fucking vaccine_. We can afford to be wrong about this.

<comment><USER5> It should be clear by this point that we aren't really capable of ramping up production fast enough for many of the resources needed during a pandemic. Whether one attributed that to ignorance, incompetence, malice, or conspiracy doesn't really matter; at the end of the day, the improvements we demand aren't happening as fast as we'd like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How many of these preliminary "X might confer protection against Covid-19" stories are likely to pan out? I've seen them now for the MMR vaccine, zinc, vitamin D, ACE inhibitors, and probably a half-dozen other things. To be honest, I think there's so much noise here (most people are asymptomatic or get mild cases) that I wouldn't really trust any signal without a massive sample size.

<comment><USER23> It's perfectly fine to propose topics for further study. Just don't go taking every vitamin and supplement that is in the news unless you are aware of the potential risks.

<comment><USER24> I agree, but would also like to add that MMR, vitamin D, and zinc lozenges are all very safe when taken as directed. Unless you have a specific medical contraindication, the potential harms of these products are very small compared to the benefits.

<comment><USER25> This. This is what we should be looking into. As well as wearing a mask.

I believe that the WHO is (except for their very legitimate concern about panic buying) wrong in not pushing for these measures. Which, from an epidemiological point of view, make _a lot of_ sense.

If taking Vit D can make the mortality, let's say, even 10% lower in the most (would be) critical cases, it is definitely worth it. Wearing a mask reduces R. Even if it's a crappy mask, the value of R will be reduced. Heck I believe a lot of countries would be in a less critical position if people would just _wash their hands_ or use sanitizer.

Sure, not everybody can have the MMR or the BCG vaccine right now, so it might be better to wait a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> wait doesn't this mean that those of us that have gotten the MMR vaccine are potentially immune?

<comment><USER27> Not really potentially immune.

Just protected from the worst of it.

Think of a windbreaker in a rainstorm. Sounds fun? No. Better than no coat in the rainstorm? Yes!</comment></comment>


Low versus high dead space syringes: user preferences and attitudes - <AUTHOR> https://clahrc-west.nihr.ac.uk/research/projects/low-versus-high-dead-space-syringes-user-preferences-and-attitudes/ <comment><USER2> While the risk of infection isn't binary depending on whether there is infected blood or not, they mention transmission is lessened by the diminished amount of blood left in the syringe-needle system but don't cite and don't say by how much. I'd be curious how much that reduction is.

<comment><USER3> Large CI, but a convincingly high odds-ratio that 'high deadspace' syringes increase transmission: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654245/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654245/)

Lab testing shows less transmission with less deadspace (up to a point: thick gauge needles were all detectable): [https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/aid.2016.0023](https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/aid.2016.0023)

This sounds quite substantial (33% vs. 1.4%), but there's room for confounders: [http://www.injectingadvice.com/v4/index.php/articles/equipme...](http://www.injectingadvice.com/v4/index.php/articles/equipment/157-how- syringe-type-effects-hiv-risk)

Overall it seems quite effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't they anyway like the low dead space syringes more because it wastes less of whatever they are injecting?

<comment><USER5> They certainly do! This is mentioned in the article:

> "Less waste is obvious isn't it, no-one wants to waste anything in life, but > drugs, since it is our obsession, it's the most important thing."</comment></comment>


Climate change: A cooling consensus - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/climate-change/

<comment><USER2> > Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century

Clever. "the warmest year of the twentieth century" is completely true. But it seems a little misleading, since there's been a few years even warmer in the 21st century.

Whenever I see the year 1998 mentioned in a discussion about climate, I am immediately suspicious. The temperature recorded in 1998 was a serious outlier.

Let's pretend the datapoint from 1998 did not exist. Then we could accurately say, "The last decade has been hotter than any previous year on record!". But with 1998, you could accurately say, "Most of the last decade has been cooler than it was in 1998!"

It's always nice to look directly at the data. [http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A.gif](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A.gif)

It's true, if you take the past 10 years only, the trend is pretty flat. But if you look at a 10 year running average we're in the middle of an upslope. We can even make it look like we're in a cooling period if we pick 1998 as the first year! Fun with data.

<comment><USER3> > It's always nice to look directly at the data.

It is, but you should keep in mind there isn't just one "the data" and in this case, what data source you pick affects what answer you get. The people you're arguing with might be looking at something other than GISS. For instance, here's the WoodForTrees index:

[http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti)

the WoodForTrees Index is an average of four popular temperature series. This index was created specifically in order to reduce the need for arguing about which series to use. I believe the current formula is:

WTI = mean(GISTEMP-0.35, HADCRUT3VGL-0.26, RSS-0.10, UAH)

Playing around with the data sources, it seems like 1998 was an all-time high within the period of the satellite record - _not_ surpassed by "a few years even warmer in the 21st century" \- according to three out of four of those. Specifically, UAH, HADCRU3, and RSS. It _was_ surpassed according to GISS or HADCRU4.

So not only is it _not_ inaccurate to say "Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century", it also would not be inaccurate to say "Since 1998, the warmest year for which we have satellite records."

<comment><USER2> Wood for Trees is great! I didn't know about that before. (you say it's an average, but then use mean in the equation, that's a significant distinction)

UAH and RSS measure lower troposphere, while GISS and HADCRUT measure surface temperatures. I'm usually more interested in the temperatures in the first 10 feet of atmosphere rather than the first 10 miles of atmosphere (of course, I don't make climate models). HADCRUT4 is a different model of the same source data that HADCRUT3 uses and in theory should be more accurate.

In any case, you've got the hang of it now. By selecting a convenient data source, one can make many creative and not inaccurate statements.

<comment><USER3> By the way, when skeptics say there's been "no warming for the last decade", they often mean this:

[http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:120/plot/wti/last:...](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:120/plot/wti/last:120/trend)

That one works even if you use GISS - the trend for the last ten years is cooling. (The trend over several other recent periods is "warming, but not very much".)

Note: the way I plotted "the last ten years" was to plot the last 120 monthly samples. The WRONG way to do that is to specify a "From" year and plot to the current day, because the resulting chart wouldn't start and end on the same month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The main problem with "climate science" is epistemological. It does not hold up to the foundational standards of the natural science which rely on falsification. With a system as complex as the earth's environment, falsification is essentially impossible. You cannot rewind the clock back 50 years, change a variable and play out what the temperature would be now. In a way, this makes climate science similar to economics. Yet climate "scientists" continue to act as if their work is as repeatable and falsifiable as a highschool lab experiment.

<comment><USER5> If you take a very narrow view of falsification, then evolution is unfalsifiable too, and therefore not science (this is actually a common argument made by anti-evolution people).

<comment><USER6> That is untrue since evolution has indeed been studied in falsifiable experiments.

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

On the other hand studying how exactly the current specieses evolved is more like history.

<comment><USER5> There are certainly specific experiments that have been carried out w.r.t. mechanisms (also true with climate science, fwiw). It's more the overall "big" conclusions that are a bit difficult to replicate in a laboratory, e.g. "the earth is warming as a result of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions" and "humans descended from other animals through a process of evolution driven by natural selection".

<comment><USER6> Any examples of such experiments for climate science? Other than actually predicting climate change and then waiting 30 years I have trouble imagining falsifiable experiments. For evolution you can isolate a couple of populations with short generations in the lab and study them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For a system as complex as Earth's climate, it should come as no surprise that computer models are inaccurate. I think scientists do themselves a disservice when they point to these models as the best evidence for global warming. The really important datapoints are temperature and ice core measurements, as well as the melting of the ice caps, all of which show that the earth is warming at an alarming rate.

<comment><USER8> So far this year, there has been more sea ice worldwide than average. ([http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily....](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg)) Mostly on account of there being more than average in the Antarctic, and a little less than average in the arctic. Antarctic has been setting records(maximums, not minimums) in the last few years in terms of sea ice extent.

<comment><USER2> Ok, i did a bit of googling to try and understand this. It turns out that the extent of sea ice in Antarctica _has_ been expanding! though calling it record setting is misleading.

The fresh water from the massive melt-off of land ice creates an insulation layer when it meets the sea water that prevents the sea ice from melting. One article [1] called it a "small but statistically significant sea-ice expansion". Another data point says there is more sea ice in antarctica today than 30 years ago. Put those two points together, and "small but statistically significant" becomes "RECORD SETTING!"

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/global-warming-expands- antarctic-...](http://www.nature.com/news/global-warming-expands-antarctic- sea-ice-1.12709)

<comment><USER8> Record setting, as in, It's the largest extent on record.

<comment><USER2> misleading, as in, the minor increase in sea ice is insignificant compared to the massive amount of land ice that has melted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Key quote:

 _" This isn't a crisis for climate science. This is just the way science goes. But it is a crisis for climate-policy advocates who based their arguments on the authority of scientific consensus."_

<comment><USER10> That's not the key quote: that's the quote that reassures you. I've never taken global warming as gospel. I often read people making fun of the right for dismissing it but I never did, because even if they were against global warming because of their anti-intellectuality they might still be right in the end. The evidence of global warming, at least in the apocalyptic way that's been portrayed by some, has always seemed shaky to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title is inaccurate. From the first paragraph of the article:

 _There is no serious doubt that our planet continues to heat, but it has heated less than most climate scientists had predicted._ The consensus is that the planet continues to warm, not cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> the title is _very_ accurate; the consensus on how much it was supposed to heat up is eroding (the use of the word 'cooling' is a play on words). FTA "In the end, the so-called scientific consensus on global warming doesn't look like much like consensus when scientists are struggling to explain the intricacies of the earth's climate system, or uttering the word "uncertainty" with striking regularity."

and

"The moralising stridency of so many arguments for cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and global emissions treaties was founded on the idea that there is a consensus about how much warming there would be if carbon emissions continue on trend. The rather heated debates we have had about the likely economic and social damage of carbon emissions have been based on that idea that there is something like a scientific consensus about the range of warming we can expect. If that consensus is now falling apart, as it seems it may be, that is, for good or ill, a very big deal."

<comment><USER11> _the title is very accurate_

No, it's not. As the article notes up front, there is no serious doubt that the climate is warming. So not only is the climate not cooling, neither is the consensus.

Estimates of the long-term rate of warming have always varied, but the consensus remains that the rate is significant and even the lower estimates will result in environmental changes that will impact millions of people.

<comment><USER12> It's a pun... cooler heads prevailing doesn't mean peoples' heads are actually cooling down. The title was a play on words about the upset about global warming dying down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've never seen such a concentration of nutball comments on an Economist article. Hardly one sane comment in the lot. A bit alarming to see such an article from The Economist.

</comment><comment><USER14> But have the icecaps slowed in melting? Their contribution to ocean currents has a wide effect on surface temperature.

</comment><comment><USER15> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796539)

and some previous articles:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science- environment-22567023](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567023)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/science/earth/what-to- make...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/science/earth/what-to-make-of-a- climate-change-plateau.html)</comment>


Can A 250-Year-Old Mathematical Theorem Find A Missing Plane? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/25/294390476/can-a-250-year-old-mathematical-theorem-find-a-missing-plane

<comment><USER2> In applicability lies the possibility. Any theorem / formula on its own cannot solve such complex problem.</comment>


What 'wealth' means to women - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/06/pf/women-wealth-money/index.html <comment><USER2> Got your goal faster by saving$250k and moving to Costa Rica</comment>


How to: Reliable messaging system Mobile to Server - <AUTHOR>

Folks<p>I am building a simple customer service messaging system for businesses where customers can chat with Agents using mobile. In essence, the mobile app sends and receives messages to/from our server.
Any recommendation on what kind of infrastructure should we use (pubnub, pusher, realtime.co) for messaging and the server side recommendation (RoR or node.ja - any issues with RoR?).
It's imperative that we don't loose messages and build a reliable and secure messaging system. <comment><USER2> The key to 100% reliability is data storage. The biggest mistake you can make is relying on bare message passing without ever recording the message anywhere. That approach will break in the mobile world very quickly.

My advice is to build a solid CRUD interface for your chat service and then add a realtime updates mechanism on top of it. This approach is basically bulletproof. I'm a big fan of using long-polling for the push aspect, since it fits cleanly into a REST API and works everywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks J. My worry with CRUD is a constant polling that would be required and it absolutely kills the battery on mobile handsets. Correct me if I am wrong.

<comment><USER2> The CRUD layer wouldn't be used for live updates. You'd use a separate messaging system for that. My point is that you should build the 100% reliable CRUD layer first, then add on a messaging layer for realtime push. This, as opposed to starting with the messaging layer, and then going in circles trying to patch all the ways it can fail.

<comment><AUTHOR> J This is fair. Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I'd definitely make sure that we have a CRUD layer for reliable & secure communication.

Regards Ritesh

<comment><AUTHOR> J

Would you have some cycles to provide guidance on the project - formally? I am looking for some technical experience/depth.

Thanks

<comment><USER2> Sure, feel free to email me: justin at fanout.io

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Additional note: Could I just use XMPP or that may not be sufficient given that the mobile device connectivity could be intermittent? I would love to get the community thoughts on this so I can make the right decision.

Thanks Ritesh

<comment><USER3> Have you looked at [https://www.firebase.com/](https://www.firebase.com/) (paid service)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Walterbell. This is useful and I'd investigate further. Looks like Firebase is a combination of Pubnub and Push.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell recruiters politely "no" with a simple link - <AUTHOR> https://no-thank-you.de/ <comment><USER2> I am torn on this, devs are currently in a very fortunate position (if you live in a tech hotspot) to be able to just ignore these requests or be impolite by sending a link like this. However I believe you should still be grateful to be in a position like this and treat people with respect. Sending a link saying "no, stop contacting me and gtfo" is pretty rude. I have well educated friends that work in different industries or live in less populated areas who would be grateful for any HR inquiry.

<comment><USER3> I am not torn on this at all. You are 100% right. If you send a link like this as a reply, it's super rude and unnecessary. I feel super grateful to be in a position where jobs hunt me instead of the typical bs in every other field of having to send 100 CVS out and to never hear back from anyone or to hear back half a year later.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

Well, in my experience the people asking me if I am interested are rather rude. I politely explain to them that I am not interested and a lot of follow- up questions come flying in. Why is that?

That is why created the page, I answer now:

> Thank you very much for your message.

> I am not interested, before you answer me again please have a look at > [https://no-thank-you.de/](https://no-thank-you.de/).

> Best, <name>

<comment> the-dude Why even answer? I always say : no answer on the internet is a no.

<comment><USER4> And then they continue, "Well do you know someone? We pay a $500 referral fee if you give me their name and we end up placing them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And give up a chance to make a long-term, mutually-beneficial friendship with a trustworthy, honest individual who knows whats best for your career?!

<comment><USER6> LMAO

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish LinkedIn would let recruiters realize that I'm only willing to work within specified geographical areas. Probably 80% of my LinkedIn recruiter spam is for jobs that require moving to SV or NYC. It's a waste of everybody's time.

Even better would be a mechanism that cost recruiters actual $$$ for spamming people whose profiles clearly indicate they're unsuited for the job or unwilling to relocate to the job's location.

<comment><USER8> Not sure if that's still the case but LinkedIn used to have a service called the Inmail Response Guarantee [1]. The simplest way to ensure the recruiter does cost money is to respond to your inmail.

[1]: [https://business.linkedin.com/talent- solutions/blog/2009/09/...](https://business.linkedin.com/talent- solutions/blog/2009/09/response-guarantee)

<comment><USER9> They must have some mechanism like that still in place because when you switch your profile to "I am looking", you start getting nag reminders from LinkedIn to respond to recruiters or else your switch will slide back to off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't find recruiters so annoying if they at least took 15 minutes to figure out who I was and what I'm interested in.

I have only once—once!—received a cold-call (well, email) from a recruiter that was in any way relevant to me as a person and a professional. And I still didn't want it. That's a pretty shitty track record.

<comment><USER11> Think of their track record - they call 100 people, get one that is a match to their opening. Statistically we should expect only 1 in 100 recruiter calls to be useful. It makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Recruiters can be annoying, but they're also just doing their jobs. I think it would be better if you collected some templates for politely copy & paste point out why you're not interested on the website. If people don't back off, you can still send something that's worded more strongly.

<comment><USER13> "Just doing their job" is never an excuse.

The recruiters that annoy me are the ones who blatantly send me copy and pasted messages while clearly just having done a keyword search (and certainly not reading the parts about what I'm not interested in), who go quiet as soon as I ask for specific information (or make it clear that I expect a sufficiently large benefits package over what I have to make it worth my while), who don't pay attention to my location but require me to work on site. Basically the ones who are wasting my time and are rude to me. Those people can go f themselves.

I have had a few, rare, great interactions with recruiters who seemed to genuinely care about placing good candidates in good companies in positions that the candidate is well suited to. Unfortunately for every one of those I've interacted with, I get 50 messages from the _"hey I have a lowish paying role doing something you specifically said you didn't want to do"_ recruiters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Somehow I always want to be pleasant with recruiters. Firstly because some of my friends are recruiters so I wouldn't treat someone in a way I would want my friends to be treated. Secondly because I kinda get "karma is a switch" feeling and don't want to be on the receiving end of that kind ("no, buzz off") of behaviour if I look for a job in a less then favourable state on the job market one day. I just like to personally reply, maybe even ask a few questions about the company, maybe there is an interesting idea or insight on it.

</comment><comment><USER15> On the flipside I feel so blessed that we literally have people offering us jobs left and right. Count your blessings and don't be rude to these people who are just trying to make a living.

</comment><comment> the-dude I have installed Streak in my Gmail specifically for the snippets.

I would type '#no' and would be done.

<comment><USER16> I do this too.

Disclosure: I work for Streak.

<comment> the-dude Disclosure : I don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Much like many posters here, I have some preset responses that I send to recruiters. In particular, it's a "I'm not looking right now, but I'll save your info and let you know if my situation changes!". This worked really well when my startup fell apart, and I was able to "scramble the jets" and get interviews set up within a week at a ton of companies. I think that the author confused "polite" with "passive aggressive" (or maybe it's a cultural difference between my country and Germany).

I always try to leave recruiters with a positive impression, so as to not burn future bridges.

...except Herman Search. Every single recruiter has approached me flashing large salary numbers for boring, stressful sounding financial tech jobs, and being pushy/downright aggressive when I don't show interest. I've asked every recruiter to put me on their do not contact list, but still, every couple of months, I get another generic male white frat bro recruiter, new to the company, reaching out again with the exact same tact. It toes the line between unprofessional and confrontational. With all due respect, which is none, fuck Herman Search.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it is a cultural difference, because here in Germany we are highly protected by employment laws. My contract has 3 month notice time. So I never felt the need to save the contact details of recruiting agents. But then I am just at the start of my career...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The hypocrisy is hating on recruiters until you need a job or need to employ someone, then respect.

</comment><comment><USER19> We are the only industry complaining about getting job offers while the rest of the country is literally falling apart with no opportunities. Please don't take things for granted.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I made this to scratch my own itch. I wan't to be able to tell recruiters that I am not interested, but instead of repeating myself, I now can drop the link.

I'll also add the link to my social media profiles (linked.in and xing).

It is a rather simple page, you are welcome to contribute translations [0].

[0]: [https://gitlab.com/leipert-projects/no-thank- you](https://gitlab.com/leipert-projects/no-thank-you)

<comment><USER20> What's really shocking is that I've never once had an acceptable experience with a recruiter that has reached out to me. I've taken over 40 interviews this year in a variety of fields.

I've had a much better experience and indeed _received offers_ when applying to an ad or application posted on Indeed, Linkedin, Angel.co or the company website.

<comment><USER21> What is the general bad experience that you have? I've engaged with one recruiter that made a good first impression, it took a bit of convincing to have him find me jobs with a suitable market rate (they probably like lower salaries because it increases their chance of success and this payout) but then he actually offered me a couple jobs that I think I would have had a hard time finding myself. I never acted on any of his offers, so maybe I haven't encountered his bad side yet, so I'm curious.

<comment><USER22> _they probably like lower salaries because it increases their chance of success and this payout_

From my experience it's the opposite. Recruiters try to get you the highest salary they can because then they get a bigger cut. More than one of them has told me this.

There have been a couple times when I've told them my desired salary and they've upped it by 40% or more.

Yes, there are scummy recruiters out there, but for the most part I think recruiters are great. It's like having an agent!

People in other fields don't get this experience and they have to work harder to find a job. I'm not talking about technical interviews, but just getting your foot in the door.

<comment><USER21> I'm in The Netherlands so this might be a little different than SF where everyone capitalizes on the value of good developers. He opened with a salary that I'd consider average to slightly above average for a regular senior developer, in The Netherlands. I felt a bit cocky and thought if he's worth anything, he should be getting me jobs that pay more than I could get myself, so I countered him 50% above that. He was really hesitant and tried to talk me down, saying it would be difficult to find a job that pays that, saying my CV wasn't that impressive, I held on saying that a good hiring manager would see the value in my skills. Over ~3 months he came up with three leads, one of which ticked all three of my professional expertise boxes (ruby, devops and product ownership) and sounded really interesting to me, but I was pursuing other things at the time so turned it down.

I do agree that it very much feels like having an agent. I tell him what I can do, and what I want to make, and he goes out and find a job for me. I don't mind him taking a cut, if he finds jobs that I wouldn't find because I just go starry eyed from startup to startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The big red "No Soliciting" seems a tad unnecessary to me. Yes, recruiters can be annoying, but they're just people trying to make a living.

I don't have this problem with recruiters, but I do have it with people seeking investments. I just have a stock reply: "Thank you for the opportunity, but I'm not doing any investing at the moment."

</comment><comment><USER24> I prefer my brother's post "How to handle recruiter calls" which is 5 years old and every bit as relevant as when he wrote it.

[https://david.weekly.org/how-to-handle-recruiter- calls/](https://david.weekly.org/how-to-handle-recruiter-calls/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Since the GDPR came in, the amount of recruitment spam has dropped dramatically for me

<comment><USER26> I respond to any recruitment spam with a GDPR request for all of the data they have on me, and a request to delete it after they've sent it. This has worked very well so far.

<comment><USER13> Do you know where I can find guidelines or a template on writing a GDPR request or do you (almost) literally just say hey please send me all the data you have, GDPR requires you do so if I ask and I'm asking thanks? (I'm in the EU)

<comment><USER26> I just say pretty much what you said, no formal template.

<comment><USER13> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How is this better than having the same information saved as an email draft?

<comment><USER28> In spite of what the author says, this seems a bit rude.

<comment><USER29> To be fair, it probably qualifies as a PAaaS.

(Passive Aggression as a Service.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can we please call this a 'recruiting canary'?

</comment><comment><USER31> that's the best I've seen since the invention of _tabbed-browsing multi- container tabs_.

suggestion for potential area of improvement: please provide detailed installation instructions (or a docker image)</comment>


Hist Triggers in Linux 4.7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2016-06-08/linux-hist-triggers.html <comment><USER2> Glad to see that GNU/Linux is getting a DTrace-equivalent. Sucks that it's all a bunch of string and staples rather than a single ioctl interface like DTrace -- but hey, that's the Linux way.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of developing countries that leapfrog industrialized G8 countries in certain technologies, like skipping landline deployments and going straight for wireless networks.

<comment><USER4> It's a shared medium and can never reach the qualities of wired networking, though it might get better enough that we don't notice it as much as we do now. This reminds me of efforts like xDSL G.fast. People only talk about approaching the speeds of common fiber configurations, but miss the point of very low latency in FTTH and easy upgrade to, say, 10 or 40 Gbs, whereas that would require a technological enhancement in DSL or CABLE. With fibre it would only require switching out the "modem" and network gear in the local uplink station (hut).

<comment><USER5> Eh, you're not gonna get 10 or 40Gbps over most FTTH installs. Most run GPON with beam splitters which maxes out at 2.5Gbps/line. To get 10/40/100 you need OS1/2 singlemode or OM3/4 multimode fiber which I've never seen used in residential/small business FTTP setups.

<comment><USER4> GPON isn't used everywhere, but it's used a lot, yes. Still, getting 2.5Gbps, exclusively, with low latency isn't possible with the other connections (yet?).

<comment><USER5> No doubt fiber is definitely the way to go if it's an option. Other than fiber, the closest you'll get is DOCSIS 3 theoretically runs at ~1gig downstream. Anecdotally, I've had Fios for a couple years and get faster than advertised speeds consistently and never had an outage, so I'm all about fiber.

I think it's due time that having an actual fiber drop becomes as common place as having a phone line or cable line. With how much people use the internet these days, it makes sense to have it's own connection instead of piggybacking on whatever physical connection people already have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry, this is going to be rather long for HN, but it's been bugging me for a while now, and this is a good opportunity to talk about it.

        Can't enhanced BPF do this too?

        Yes, if you program it to. I feel like we've been waiting for
        advanced tracing in Linux for years, and now two busses have
        arrived at the same time. This overlap concern was raised and
        discussed on lkml, and it was eventually deemed that hist triggers
        was different enough to be included.

This is what's wrong with Linux kernel development. We have pluggable subsystems like I/O scheduling or CPU scheduling where BFQ or BFS are not mainlined and have to live as external patchsets. Then we have more than a few competing tracing/probing frameworks all somehow magically in torvalds/linux.git despite their overlap and unfinished (partly experimental) state.

I used to think that Linux kernel development is about who comes up with good, working code, but more and more I'm starting to get the impression it's that you need to have the right connections for a competing implementation to land.

I won't argue that linux needs DTrace or a similarly coherent solution, although I absolutely believe that. However, seeing the impossible to explain difference in what experimental, half-implemented code gets mainlined and which widely used patches have to live outside the kernel, I cannot find another explanation than requiring the right street cred and connections for competing implementations to land. This is especially inexplicable for BFQ because it's a in an already pluggable system.

To be clear, I'm not referring to projects like GRsec whose maintainers are unwilling to split it into smaller chunks, and I'm primarily talking about simple things like BFQ, which has solved my global lockups during large (long) USB mass storage flushing. With BFQ, it's at most the application that called fsync() and the rest of the applications are still responsive.

With all that being said, the evolutionary style of kernel subsystem development doesn't work for everything, especially not for a DTrace replacement, which would do well by having a single well thought out design and broad availability of probes. While I can see that maybe people are afraid of Oracle patents, DTrace isn't complicated enough that a similar effort couldn't be implemented while keeping the same benefits. A simple transpiler for DTrace scripts can be more than sufficient if the syntax is also preferred to be different.

In summary, I don't understand how we have so many tracing system alternatives, experimental and unfinished as well, while a pluggable subsystem has only plugins personally accepted by that subsystem's maintainer.

<comment><USER6> Yes, there's two frameworks in the kernel that now have some overlap: ftrace (incl. hist triggers) and perf_events (which can incl. BPF). But it's not a case where they magically got included. Initially they didn't really have overlap: ftrace was doing tracing, and perf_events was doing PMC stats. But they grew over time (especially perf) to the point where there was some overlap. This was noticed and has been discussed, and argued about. Eg, see the later half of [https://lwn.net/Articles/442113/](https://lwn.net/Articles/442113/). At some point Steven Rostedt, ftrace author, had said:

> Now that perf has entered the tracing field, I would be happy to bring the > two together. But we disagree on how to do that. I will not drop ftrace > totally just to work on perf. There's too many users of ftrace that want > enhancements, and I will still support that. The reason being is that I > honestly do not believe that perf can do what these users want anytime in > the near future (if at all). I will not abandon a successful project just > because you feel that it is a fork.

Hist triggers is an enhancement to ftrace, not its own thing. BPF is a kernel facility originally designed for network I/O, that can also be used by ftrace and perf.

But yes, why not just one unified project? Such a project could bring in the experts from the other external tracing projects too (SystemTap, LTTng, ktap, sysdig, ...). Well, for better or for worse, Linux isn't a company, and Linus isn't its CEO. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun while DTrace was developed, was fond of the saying:

> all the wood behind one arrow

For an April fool's prank, Sun staff put a giant wooden arrow through his office window. [http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/from-dtrace-to- linux/...](http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/from-dtrace-to-linux/34)

If Linux was actually Linux Microsystems, the CEO could pick one tracing project and all teams would either toe the company line or leave. But we don't have that.

What we have, including external tracers, is a mess. There's too many tracers. And this becomes a tax on contributors who want to help fix the problem. Which one should you pick? Better lean the pros and cons of them all, which is no easy task.

Fortunately we're getting enhanced BPF, which does everything, so the tracing mess will finally have an end. Hist triggers was a surprise. It would have been a slam dunk before enhanced BPF existed, but now?? I suppose I understand it as an ftrace enhancement, and not its own thing.

<comment><USER7> That's not the way that Sun worked at all, actually -- and certainly not with respect to DTrace. To the contrary, Sun often deliberately allowed competing projects, believing that the internal competition would generate a better result. (Or, perhaps more likely, Sun simply did not have the command-and- control to prevent such internal competition.) So contrary to your assertion, there was never an executive fiat around DTrace (indeed, there was never much executive fiat at all at Sun), and DTrace had loads of internal competition -- but DTrace succeeded where the others didn't because it was actually useful for solving the problems that others weren't.

<comment><USER6> There's roughly ten different tracers for Linux. Yes, Sun liked competition, but it did not endure this situation like this -- what project had ten competitors, all staffed and paid for by Sun? If Linux were a company, I cannot believe the situation would have gotten this out of hand.

<comment><USER7> There were (at least!) ten different kernel debuggers at peak in the late 1990s -- and many different tracers too. (As the saying goes, you haven't heard of them for a reason.) My point is that Sun didn't get out of the morass of myriad half-assed solutions by executive fiat; it got out of it by a small, focused, self-motivated team that was hell-bent on building something that could work on real problems. The nascent success of DTrace had nothing to do with executive management, corporate heft, or marketing; these things only were brought to bear when DTrace had already succeeded where it mattered most: solving real problems.

<comment><USER6> A nice story, but it's not working out that way for Linux. The Linux kernel engineering talent is there, but split among the different tracers, and, have different priorities to work on. And this has dragged on for years. A rational company could see that it wasn't working (no nascent success), and then combine the right forces to get it done. Linux isn't a company.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


From OS X to Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> https://nicolas.perriault.net/code/2016/from-osx-to-ubuntu/ <comment><USER2> I ran Linux on the desktop for 19 years, running many years with all the big ones, from Slackware to RedHat to SuSE to Gentoo to Ubuntu. Except for gaming, it was my main OS at work and home for about 15 of those years. I even worked 4 years at a place that used Gentoo for all the mission critical stuff, for a person who was a prolific contributor.

I finally switched to a MBPr about 3 years ago, and have never been happier. Except that the hardware prospects seem dim. So I've been contemplating moving back. The problem is that the great battery life, flawless suspend and resume, and reliable external display handling of the MBP have forever spoiled me.

For a couple years, I used Gentoo on a Dell laptop, and it was very touchy about how I shutdown and suspended, lest it get stuck, and need to have the battery removed to reset it. At one point, in dealing with Xconfig, I even fried the video card (which Dell covered under warranty). When I read stories, like this one, about people running Linux on a laptop, I'm very careful to note the points they make about these things, but nothing I've read makes me think that any available Linux install is going to do well handling these things out of the box, and I'm just tired of tweaking kernel settings and config files to make them work.

If someone could say that some particular laptop works perfectly with some particular distro of Linux, I'd probably give it another go. I really hold out hope for Dell's XPS Linux machine, but I read that it has the font display issues, and so on.

I have a strong suspicion that, at 47 years old, I will put up with whatever hardware Apple gives me to not have to mess with such things again.</comment>


Ask HN: Were you saved by a teacher? - <AUTHOR>

In thinking about a recent comment I made ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2059752 ), i was wondering how many of us have been given second chances by teachers.
It seems to me, being entrepreneurial or a hacker requires dealing with a massive amount of daily failure. Yet, the school system is very poor at enabling this (which is probably why we can't teach entrepreneurial/hacking).
So, I'm wondering how many of us were saved by a fair or progressive teacher (as opposed to a crazy pedantic person)? <comment><USER2> When I first moved to the states and started high school I was really bored since everything we were learning was way behind the education I received back in Europe. I chose to be a teachers aide in the language lab, conveniently during a period there were no classes there simply so I could work on the computers (already ancient mac classics and a single IIGS) where I got to play around with Hypercard and attempt to make programs... I think that teacher let me get away with a lot - and it was a huge learning experience since all I had at home was a Compaq 8086.

On the other side of things, I worked for Seton Hall Prep school for a while when I moved to the east coast - managing the network and maintaining various systems including the community machines as well as the classroom machines. While the machines were locked down quite well, and we even used a desktop replacement, one of the students had figured that running Help from MS Word, gave them access to MS Access (not generally something they had access to) and the student was writing a pretty basic VBA application with forms etc on top of Access. I managed to figure out which student it was and made sure he knew not to do anything bad with it and I would be more than happy to help him out and pointed him in the direction of learning more advanced stuff. I do wonder if he is a programmer now :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I was saved by a teacher. It's been pretty amazing actually because we ended up becoming good friends and co-founders!</comment>


"Was This an Ad?": An Investigation of Paid Social Media Endorsements - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/acm-cscw/was-this-an-ad-an-investigation-of-paid-social-media-endorsements-3ab12231d3d8 <comment><AUTHOR> We collected and analyzed a sample of about 500,000 YouTube videos and 2.1 million Pinterest, and in a surprising result, discovered that only about 10% of affiliate marketing content on either platform is actually disclosed to users. The vast majority of disclosures are in a format the FTC specifically discourages, and which users do not understand.</comment>


Ask HN: Hetzner's Terms and Conditions: "full name and address must be present" - <AUTHOR>

Greetings. I hope that given the popularity of Hetzner here in HN somebody will be able to shed some light on its Terms and Conditions. Under the item 6. Published Content I see the following:

  6.1 It is the customer's responsibility to identify the Internet
  content as their own or as third-party content. The customer's full
  name and address must be present. Further obligations may result from
  the provisions of the Telecommunications Act and Teleservices Act. The
  customer is obliged to examine these provisions and to comply with them.
 Does this mean that even a personal blog hosted there (maybe anywhere in Germany) must provide the author's full address? Does anybody know whether this rule is enforced at all?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> I think a little search answers my own question. From [Google's cache of][1] I see that it refers to commercial activities.

      § 6 Identification of providers

      Concerning commercial offers, providers shall indicate:

        1. their name and address as well as,
        2. in case of associations and groups of persons, the
           name and address of their authorized representative.

It makes much more sense now, though of course it raises the typical question as to what is a commercial offer. For instance, would a blog with Google ads qualify? But I digress... Never mind!

[1] <http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/TDG.htm></comment>


Ask HN: Good contact management solution WITHOUT sales management - <AUTHOR> I work at a small (11 people) financial services startup. We'd like to keep track of people we interact with and of the interactions in a centralized tool, and have found nothing that fits the bill so far.
What we'd like is to be able to :
- gather contact information (name, email, phone, etc.) - track interactions  for contacts we know "well" (email, meetings, phone calls) - filter contacts based on qualitative information we've entered (activity, location, etc.)
- export information (full databse sync with gmail and Vcard / csv export for filtered lists).
Anything I've found so far is very sales-oriented (all tools that call themselves CRMs suffer from this) or lacks the interaction tracking (FullContact, Pobuca).
If anyone can point me to a solution I'd be more than grateful ! <comment><USER2> Optimize the way you store & communicate with your business contacts on a daily basis . You can sign up in Pobuca FREE here [https://app.pobu.ca/#/signup](https://app.pobu.ca/#/signup) .

</comment><comment><USER3> Just posted today on Show HN. Though not purely a contact management solution,it allows you to track interactions like calls and chats. You can check out [http://getkookoo.com](http://getkookoo.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion - I just tried signing up but cannot : I don't have a US mobile phone number (we're based in France) so I can't get past the OTP validation...</comment></comment>


Depression linked in mothers, teenage kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-depression-mothers-idUSBRE99814I20131009

<comment><AUTHOR> The title doesn't quite show how interesting this is. The cited study links depression experienced by the mother while she's pregnant with the later development of depression by that child as a teenager, ostensibly while controlling for the role played by any continued depression experienced by the mother while raising the child.

<comment><USER2> Does it control for genetics? Depression is known to have a large genetic component (if you have a family history on either side, you're much more likely to develop it), and so that would be the logical first explanation that I'd reach for. The article mentioned it briefly in one paragraph but then glossed over it and played up the stress hormone angle, which to me seems much less plausible than common genetics.

The way you could tease out this effect is to compare mothers who were depressed at other points of their life - before they had kids, for example - vs. ones that were depressed while pregnant, and see if there is an appreciable difference in incidence of depression in their children.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Keyboard shortcuts in web applications - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for good advice on implementing keyboard shortcuts for web applications.
Unfortunately I'm drawing a blank on finding a standard set of expected behavior (although quite a few people recommend just copying gmail). Technically Firefox will let you emulate a desktop application pretty well, but IE and others won't, so options are pretty limited.
Has anyone found a good set of data about what users do/don't expect from heavy web applications and keyboard short cuts? Is it OK to accept that only power users will be working with shortcuts and bind things like ]-c as copy?
Right now I'm thinking of binding ] to bring up a shortcut options overlay that looks like http://revis.co.uk/shortcuts.png <comment><USER2> You could take a look at Javascript jQuery Hotkeys Plugin <http://code.google.com/p/js-hotkeys/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried it out but none of the demos worked for me, which made me pretty wary.</comment></comment>


John Romero Speculates On The Future of Ouya  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/259962/john_romero_speculates_on_the_future_of_ouya.html <comment><USER2> Ever since the Ouya was announced, it seemed to me like it is a project that Gamestop will/should try to buy.

With digital marketplaces, Gamestop, Best Buy, Amazon, Wal-Mart and other more traditional retail avenues run the risk of becoming irrelevant the same way Tower Records and Blockbuster did.

Look at Steam on the PC, why on earth would you buy from Gamestop? Oh wait, Gamestop doesn't sell PC games anymore really. Wal-Mart and Best Buy sell a few. Gamestop needs to do something to put themselves in a position to be relevant in 5-10 years or the Xbox 3 and Playstation 4 at some point in their lifecycle will likely be close enough to digital only that you'll have 80% of sales be digital instead of 10-20%. That will kill Gamestop and will put a hurt on Wal-Mart and Best Buy as well.

Gamestop has started trading in and selling tablets, but they don't get any of the software revenue and there's no such thing as "used apps", so unless they get their own platform or marketplace to make a cut of sales on, I think they're done in the long term.

Buying or building something like Ouya is probably Gamestop's best hope of not dying in 5-10 years.

<comment><USER3> I think Gamestop realizes that selling physical media is dying: they bought Impulse, a PC game distribution site, from Stardock a few years ago in order to have a digital distribution presence. I'm sure they're looking for more ways to extend their business past physical media.

However, it's not clear to me that Ouya is interesting to Gamestop yet. They aren't a publisher or a developer, so they can't make games appear on it. If the games show up, and people pay for them, they'll probably be interested in extended their digital distribution platform to Ouya.</comment></comment>