Are "reversible" computers more energy efficient, faster? (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://www.eetimes.com/are-reversible-computers-more-energy-efficient-faster/ <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in example of a reversible operation, the simplest one is logical negation of a single bit. The second-simplest is CNOT, or controlled-not, where one bit is the "control" bit and another bit is the "target" bit. If the control bit is 1, the target bit is flipped. If the control bit is 0, the target bit is unchanged. The control bit is always left unchanged.

A very important reversible gate is the CCNOT gate (also called a Toffoli gate) which has two control bits that only flip the target bit if both are 1. This is a universal gate: any reversible logical operation can be constructed from a series of Toffoli gates.

The article refers to reversible computers as "quantum computing's practical cousin" because all operations on a quantum computer are reversible (except for measurement). You may recall the recent pop science headline "scientists reverse time using a quantum computer"[1], which was a hideous mangling of this concept.

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2019-03-physicists-reverse- quantum.htm...](https://phys.org/news/2019-03-physicists-reverse-quantum.html)

<comment><USER3> > The second-simplest is CNOT, or controlled-not, where one bit is the > "control" bit and another bit is the "target" bit. If the control bit is 1, > the target bit is flipped. If the control bit is 0, the target bit is > unchanged. The control bit is always left unchanged.

Isn't this just XOR?

<comment><USER4> No because it takes two inputs and gives two outputs. One input is passed through unchanged, and the other output is indeed xor.

<comment><USER5> And hence it is reversible, since you can get the inputs back from that output!

<comment><USER6> In normal human arithmetic, it's equivalent to saying something like "7+5= 12" and remembering the "+5" so you can undo it later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The principle the article is implicitly talking about is Landauer's principle [1]. It states that if information is lost in a system, it must be as heat dissipation.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle)

<comment><USER8> This is interesting!

The idea that in Physics, Heat = Information, that is, an identity or potential identity.

Now, i'm currently 50/50 on that idea, that is, that Heat = Information (and vice versa).

I'd love to see something which conclusively proves this, with say, the rigor of a mathematical or logical proof.

Also, if Heat = Information, then we need some way of accounting for what happens when a system cools, that is, how does the information (again, without being lost) propagate into the environment, such that when an object cools, no information is lost?

As I said, I'm 50/50 on this idea... I'd like to see a really good proof. The best proof would be short, logical, and highly consistent... Prove to me that no information is lost, or are we just accepting that because heat physically difuses and no heat is lost, that no information is as well?

That would be both a simple and logical explanation, but then we'd have to search the entire universe for no physical anomaly (to be sure that we're absolutely correct), that is, there's no exceptional case where heat in a system was lost or gained without exchange with an external system... which is quite the search, let me tell you!

See, if we think that heat is never lost in the universe, we got that idea from somewhere... it may have been given to us as one of the first axioms given to us in an elementary Physics class... but where does it come from that brought it there, and why do we never question it?

Help me to understand...

<comment><USER8> Addendum:

OK, here's my problem... Soil temperature. That is, when you dig more than a few feet into the soil, more than a few feet into the ground -- what you'll find is consistent ground temperature, no matter what part of the world you're in, no matter how hot or how cold the above climate is.

See, if there is conservation of heat, and the center of our planet is as hot as the sun -- then why doesn't/hasn't this heat diffused out across the entire interior of the planet?

If you heat soil that's more than a few feet down up, it's going to cool, and if you cool it, it's going to heat back up.

Sure, you could argue that this heat is moved and diffused into the adjacent ground/soil, but are we really sure that there isn't some other kind of phenomena going on there?

Objects get very cool in outer space... near zero, yet they get hot, extremely hot, when the suns rays, unshielded by the earth's atmosphere, touch them.

How do objects cool down in space, if by definition, space is a vacuum, and vacuum = thermal insulation?

In other words, I have a Thermos(tm), with a vaccuum chamber inside of it on one hand, and the vaccuum of outer space on the other.

The Thermos keeps my cold beverages cold, and my hot beverages hot. It does this by preventing thermal dissipation. It does this by putting a vacuum between the interior and exterior containers.

In outer space, on the other hand, if sunlight is blocked for whatever reason, temperatures of objects get very, very cold. Where does the heat (aka, information) go, if space is a vacuum?

You see, the paradoxes with respect to vacuums, and thus heat transfer in vacuums, and thus Heat = Information abound...

Perhaps they would be solved if heat could travel through the vacuum (radiant energy?) in an effect much like Quantum Tunneling -- just the outer space / heat -- version of that?

I'm not an expert in any of these areas... Can anyone help me out?

<comment><USER9> Heat is radiated as infrared light in a vacuum, and it's an extremely slow process compared to convection and conduction. Read about black body radiation[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black- body_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation)

<comment><USER8> Black body radiation is interesting and does make sense, but then it brings up another question, which is:

"If there is black body radiation everywhere in space -- then why doesn't space itself heat up until it's eventually the temperature of the Sun?"

Maybe objects in space, such as planets, act as "heat drains" for the rest of space... that is, all of the heat (information) in space eventually winds up at a physical planet, or other object in space...

If this is true, then this leads to an interesting identity, which is basically that every element, that is, everything on the periodic table from hydrogen on downward, is not just an element, not just matter, but also has an identity in terms of heat/information...

In other words, every single element (and by extension substance) is what it is, but could also be thought about simultaneously as heat, and simultaneously as information.

Which brings up endothermic/exothermic chemical reactions.

That is, chemical reactions between two or more elements (for example, hydrogen and oxygen combining to produce water) where heat is produced (combining them via fire), or where heat is consumed (note that the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, as far as I know, is neither endothermic or exothermic -- so where did the information go? Into the electricity? It's possible, we can't rule out that possibility...)

And then the next question... Do chemical elements combined as a compound (such as water) then store the information as heat from the reaction somehow, or does it somehow dissipate, does that information somehow come back when they are separated?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions; I'm just thinking aloud, but my intutive mind says that _there may be something to discover there_...

<comment><USER10> Yeah information <=> energy. Change of state is equivalent mathematically to movement in a "dimension." Action in physics is energy times time. Really just a way to measure the total number of absolute changes that have occurred. All energy causes change, it is all linked to entropy and information, it is likely zero in total... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero- energy_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe)

<comment><USER8> I like everything that you've said, but of particular interest is this:

 _Change of state is equivalent mathematically to movement in a "dimension."_

I'd love to discover more information about that idea!

URLs and/or book recommendations about that topic would be most appreciated!

<comment><USER10> All the quantum numbers that define a particle can be looked at as values within a dimension. It's possible that some are redundant in the standard model, or not the greatest basis.

The simplest states that exist in the largest dimensions we know of are the position/spacetime states. String theory posits that these little tiny looped strings of matter, exist in dimensions that are on the verge of a planck length. They just loop around. If you went from where you are, to where I am, you'll have looped around those tiny string dimensions a crap ton of times.

<comment><USER8> Utterly fascinating!

Write a blog, please!

I'd read it...

<comment><USER10> [https://churchofthought.org](https://churchofthought.org) :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This isn't the "reversible computing" I covered at school. To me, a reversible computer was one that could absorb energy to perform a calculation that could be recorded. Then the machine would reverse, releasing the energy as it returned to a ground state. This would effectively mean calculations would happen without energy consumption. The whole thing bordered on perpetual motion, calculations happening without energy loss.

Electronic computers would not be good at this. They churn up too much heat. The only practical path would be something mechanical, powered by gravity... or a quantum object bouncing through a tiny rat's maze to solve a problem before returning to the ground state.

<comment><USER12> My understanding is that it doesn't have to absorb energy to perform calculations. The reversibility dependent on keeping track of all of the correlations in the system.

Michael Frank has a decent lecture on the subject: [https://youtu.be/JFRx6cvzd3U](https://youtu.be/JFRx6cvzd3U)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interestingly, programs for quantum computers must be reversible.

[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/392414/again- why...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/392414/again-why-do- quantum-computations-need-to-be-reversible)

<comment><USER14> Sort of. Measurement is not reversible, and often the most efficient method for uncomputing an intermediate value in a quantum computation is to measure it in the frequency domain and then perform a cheap fixup depending on what you measured [1]:

> _Measurement based uncomputation intrinsically generates entropy (due to the > X basis measurements), but it uses significantly fewer operations. So, > ironically, we will optimize the energy usage of quantum computations not by > staying pure to our reversible Landauer-less roots but instead by using an > irreversible form of uncomputation that generates entropy._

1: [https://algassert.com/post/1905](https://algassert.com/post/1905)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've always wondered about this since I read about Richard Feynman investigating reversible computing.

I think it was too early for people to value or adopt the idea, since moore's law was on trajectory and nothing was slowing it down.

It's interesting (and good) to see that maybe it will be what helps take us further up the curve.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think Michael P Frank is one of the more knowledgable people working on the subject, his Stanford talk is extremely informative ... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZ_bQbxSXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZ_bQbxSXk)

</comment><comment><USER16> So what I never got about how this works is that while it makes sense to me that there would be less energy usage (due to reduced heat dissipation) from avoiding any information loss through a calculation, at the end of the calculation the "answer" you get back is going to be much larger, particularly for increasingly large and compounded workloads (as it has to include all of the information required to reverse all of the states)... clearly you don't want all of that information, so _someone_ has to destroy all of that information and incur the heat cost of eating all that electricity used to store it, right? If this isn't quite right, and at the end I'm allowed to just pool all those circuits together to get some energy to run the next computation (which seems to be implied by some of these descriptions), why isn't that the case for other destructive computations? Like, every time I have an AND gate, I take the waste electricity from 3 of the 4 cases and store it to power subsequent NOT gates (which, half the time, need electricity). <\- FWIW, I'd be willing to believe this is equivalent to "reversible computing", as that waste electricity is very similar to the information I need to do the reversal--it would require another wire as input as a pure source of power and a separate answer wire to be directly analogous, but the principle is the same: I'm just combining some of the steps, both figuratively and literally-- it is just that this is never how it is described in any of the articles I ever find on the subject, which seem to want to maintain the reversibility for large sequences of gates and even entire computations as opposed to merely as a hyper-optimization of individual gates in what is otherwise pretty much a classic architecture. It just seems like if I'm going to do some kind of energy storage (I've seen analogies in these articles talking about springs and flywheels) I can just do that to all my waste electricity and then tap it for all/any of my later electricity needs, and then all I have to do is bound the maximum amount of power I need for a particular circuit (such as a single instruction on a von Neumann CPU) that is accidentally entirely deficit (due to the input being "just right" to cause like, maximal numbers of on circuits being passed through NOT gates and internal buffers) so I know how much I need to to pre-charge the capacitor before I go through each cycle; and then I only have to truly dissipate electricity if the input for the calculation is itself expressed as a large amount of energy and my battery is already full, and I can do all of this without needing to actually care about how to do "logical operations" using "reversible operators" (but again, to be clear: this is a question from me about what I'm not understanding and what isn't being expressed in these articles I keep reading, not me asserting that this is how it should work and that everyone is dumb: this is my mental model, and I'd love it if anywhere were willing to take the time to explain to me why _I 'm_ dumb ;P).

<comment><USER17> >clearly you don't want all of that information, so someone has to destroy all of that information and incur the heat cost of eating all that electricity used to store it, right?

My understanding is that you _don 't_ destroy the information, you _copy_ the relevant parts and then reverse the original computation. More specifically you only copy the parts of the computation that are relevant to you, you don't copy the entire (much larger) intermediate state.

So you are only ever doing truly destructive operations on a small buffer at the beginning and end of each each "clock cycle" instead of for every logic operation.

Alternatively a fully-reversible circuit could look more like a mechanical clock, you can return it to any state just by moving the key backwards/forwards far enough. It gets more complicated when you start including any kind of IO, but in theory you'd still only be copying/overwriting bits every so often, with a normal circuit being cyclical.

<comment><USER18> I just got a mental image of a network of springs or something snapping back into place after delivering something.

<comment><USER19> Pretty much: [http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/mechano.html](http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/mechano.html) (Yes, the same Merkle as in Merkle trees.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A "reversible" virtual machine (software) can be created without too much difficulty -- at the expense of using a lot of memory, and only being reversible for as many steps as are state changes that are stored in that memory.

Simple example, an assembly language instruction changes a memory address to a new value, mov [eax], $FFFFFFFF where eax contains the address where the $FFFFFFFF should go.

But now your virtual machine intercepts that instruction before it executes.

Before it stores the value to the address, it saves a copy of what the address was BEFORE the mov/store -- in OTHER MEMORY (as a stack data structure, since this could occur multiple times for individual memory locations...).

If/when eax changed, that would also have to be stored in OTHER MEMORY...

To reverse it then, we restore eax if it changed, then look at the memory location referenced, and restore the previous value (from the stack in other memory that we buffered it in).

With this approach a virtual machine can be created that can go back (rewind) as many instructions as you have memory for.

A machine like this also must buffer the state of things that a program interacts with, such as files and sockets, and be able to restore previous states of those in steps.

It's a bit complex... but it can be done in software, and software alone... but again, you couldn't reverse a program that had run infinitely long, you could only reverse for as many steps as fit into the other memory area that you buffered previous states in...

Also, drawback: It would be much slower than a regular virtual machine...

But it could be done...

<comment><USER20> But all of those steps seem like they would take additional computing power, and therefore generate more heat. I fail to see how what you describe uses less power. It seems somewhat akin to emulating a low power processor on a very high powered system, the emulation itself ends up using more processor cycles and power than the original hardware would have.</comment></comment>


The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/ <comment><USER2> > No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That > could be a problem.

No one also really understand how we, humans, do what we do. Boy how big a problem that could be...

</comment><comment><USER3> 11th time posted this week.</comment>


News Corp. finalizing $30M sale of Myspace - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/28/myspace-sale/

<comment><AUTHOR> " _News Corp. purchased the California-based social network in July 2005 for $580 million._ "</comment>


Show HN: Data Structures and Algorithms Implementation in Ruby and JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/theasteve/algorithms-data-structures <comment><AUTHOR> I'm currently studying Robert Sedgewick's Algorithms, 4th Edition book. The book is written in Java so in order for me to have a deeper understanding I'm implementing the solutions on Ruby and JavaScript. Other implementations have been on my own like Linked List.

I'm also going over Rob Edwards professor at San Diego State University Data Structure and Algorithms implementations on YouTube. Subscribe to his channel.

Big shout out to Robert Sedgewick and Rob Edwards for being amazing at their craft. THANK YOU.</comment>


Telcos threaten to sue reporters for uncovering privacy breach with Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/22/4357892/google-leads-scripps-reporters-to-massive-lifeline-privacy-breach

<comment><USER2> This is Weev 1.1, and is ridiculous. The companies responsible for these heinous breaches of the public trust and basic computer security should be drummed out of existence.</comment>


7 Reasons to Create Wireframe - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mockupbuilder.com/7-reasons-to-create-wireframe/

<comment><USER2> Silverlight required to run app?

Thanks, but no thanks.</comment>


John Carmack discusses the art and science of software engineering (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.uw.edu/ajko/2012/08/22/john-carmack-discusses-the-art-and-science-of-software-engineering/ <comment><USER2> "I would like to be able to enable even more restrictive subsets of languages and restrict programmers even more because we make mistakes constantly."

I like this very much. For all the talk of power in languages, we make lots of mistakes. One underlooked decision factor in choosing languages should be, "How hard is to make accidental mistakes?" and "How easy is it to find and fix mistakes?"

<comment><USER3> "In terms of software, the languages Ada and C have very different attitudes to freedom. Ada introduces restrictions and checks, with the goal of providing freedom from errors. On the other hand C gives the programmer more freedom, making it easier to make errors.

One of the historical guidelines in C was "trust the programmer". This would be fine were it not for the fact that programmers, like all humans, are frail and fallible beings. Experience shows that whatever techniques are used it is hard to write "correct" software. It is good advice therefore to use tools that can help by finding bugs and preventing bugs. Ada was specifically designed to help in this respect."

[https://www.adacore.com/adaanswers/gems/gem-30/](https://www.adacore.com/adaanswers/gems/gem-30/)

(And if even Ada is not restrictive enough, one uses Ada's subset Spark, e.g., [http://www.spark-2014.org/](http://www.spark-2014.org/) )

Not to say that one should use Ada (though it would often help I guess), but this different approach to software design and maintenance ("Ada culture"[1]) is worth knowing.

[1] [http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/ada- vs-c.html](http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/ada-vs-c.html)

My personal rule of thumb:

C and Scheme for explorative hacking, Ada and Haskell for reliable implementation, Perl for teh recreational lulz.

<comment><USER4> > "Ada introduces restrictions and checks, with the goal of providing freedom > from errors (...) Ada was specifically designed to help in this respect. > [write correct software]"

And it is a huge failure. No amount of runtime checks can make your already compiled and deployed program less wrong.

> (Taken from the Ada vs C++ comparison article) "Stroustrup (...) presents a > use-defined vector class (...) Unfortunately, the proper implementation of > the class requires exceptions (...)"

A proper implementation of the class requires dependent types. Runtime index checks are effectively testing, which can show the presence of bugs, but never their absence.

<comment><USER5> Testing does show the absence of bugs that you test for though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4423031](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4423031)

Here is the link to the transcribed portion of the talk (starting at 00h:30m:02s):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt- iVFxgFWk&t=1802](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk&t=1802)

</comment><comment><USER7> Carmack's aside about his 7 year old son learning to program brings up an interesting idea: What would happen if you taught a 7 year old to program with Haskell. I don't have any children, but I started programming at 7 so at the very least I can conduct a thought experiment about what it would mean if Haskell was the tool I had at my disposal instead of opaque C manuals and a hex editor I used to hack the Mech Warrior 2 binary when I couldn't beat a scenario.

My thoughts:

I probably would have intuitively grasped algebraic datatypes. It often frustrated me that I could not define new things like True and False to suit the game worlds I wanted to create.

I would have had little to know interest in math or recursion for its own sake. I'm pretty sure I would not have done well with those.

I would have probably written almost all of my code in the IO monad, with game rules defined outside.

Graphics programming in Haskell would have been no better than with any of the other languages.

Overall, I don't think Haskell would have stuck. I think I would have been easily frustrated, despite being able to structure programs better than I was able to in Basic. For proof of this, I look to my early abandonment of C/C++ for game development (even if the manuals were pretty much terrible). On the other hand, if I was presented a game written in Haskell (with source), maybe the outcome would have been different. I certainly managed to use a hex editor at that age, so if I had some goal I wanted to accomplish (like modifying the AI of a game), I think maybe anything would have been possible.

<comment><USER8> There exists at least one UK university which uses Haskell as a teaching language in its CS department. Not quite 7 year olds, but certainly a good percentage of fresh programmers.

Does it result in better programmers? Perhaps. It certainly forces you to understand recursion.

<comment><USER9> I remember learning Haskell at Imperial College London - a very nice language. I had never tried a functional language before and just loved how "natural" if felt after getting familiar with it. I would love to re-learn it but I am thinking that from a career point of view I am better off learning Scala/Clojure than Haskell.

<comment><USER10> Haskell might actually be pretty useful in the long run. (Disclaimer: My whole career so far has been spent doing OCaml and Haskell.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Carmack is this living legend of programming, hacking, making magic happen with the computer. And yet his writing and the concepts that interest him are often simple and approachable.

How does he manage to look at this pile of hacks with beginner's eyes? Somehow he does, and he sees it for what it is without judging it too harshly or prematurely. I love reading his blog.

<comment><USER12> He's someone who knows his stuff so completely that he's able to explain it clearly to non-programmers. I think theres a famous quote by Einstein: "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > With the NASA style development process, they can deliver very very low > bug rates, but it's at a very very low productivity rate

There's some more, somewhat old and non-technical, information about NASA's software development efforts here [1].

[1] [http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right- stuff](http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)

<comment><USER14> Great article! As an aside, my, Fast Company has really gone down the tubes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Go to youtube, search 'quakecon 2013 keynote part 1'. It's a great talk/keynote by John. One of his best.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder when Carmack and Rob Pike sit down and save the sw engineering world...

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the way forward in software engineering isn't "better" languages like Haskell or Clojure, but with better tooling.

I think Carmack's talk shed light on the fact that as humans we have very limited cognitive capacities when it comes to programming and "smarter" languages help us a bit, but we need automated, "smart" tools - like static analysis tools.

I think of Visual Studio and Resharper and how much ReSharper finds that I can learn from and how it frees me to concentrate on business logic.

Years ago I remember reading an article or an interview with a Sun research scientist where she described programming of the future where languages and tools will be much more lenient of your mistakes and programming will be much more of a two-way conversation with your tooling.

That and tools like language work benches are the only ways I see to go forward. Everybody using Haskell is just a modest (if that) step forward.

<comment><USER18> _programming will be much more of a two-way conversation with your tooling._

Do you have any experience programming in Haskell? I ask because this statement exactly describes my experience with it. The language goes extremely far down the path of "static analysis" with its type system. Couple this with simple tools such as ghci, flymake and haskell-mode for emacs and you have a very interactive system with an enormous amount of feedback.</comment></comment>


Deep Neural Network Optimization with SigOpt and Nervana Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sigopt.com/post/146208659358/much-deeper-much-faster-deep-neural-network <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm one of the co-founders of SigOpt (YC W15) and am happy to answer any questions about this post or anything about the methods used.

More info on the Bayesian optimization behind SigOpt can be found on our research page [1].

The code used in this post can be found on github [2].

[1]: [https://sigopt.com/research](https://sigopt.com/research)

[2]: [https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt-examples/tree/master/dnn- tu...](https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt-examples/tree/master/dnn-tuning- nervana)</comment>


Edward Snowden: DOJ lawsuit over tell-all book is "good for Bitcoin" - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/9365/doj-lawsuit-over-tell-all-book-good-for-bitcoin-edward-snowden <comment><USER2> "This is good for bitcoin"...maybe he's just avin a laugh/meme?</comment>


When the A-List Gets It Wrong: Scoble/Rubel - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/scoble-rubel-a-list-incorrect-analysis <comment><USER2> The "A-List" is the biggest, least interesting, most incestuous wankfest around. Has Scoble ever actually _done_ anything? Why do we care what he says?</comment>


Why Did why the lucky stiff Quit? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://kevinw.github.io/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit/

<comment><USER2> > My programs would never live as long as The Trial. A computer will never > live as long as The Trial.

I realized this, independently, years ago and it shook me down to my boots. I was working on something, I don't even remember now what it was, some client project probably, and I happened to glance over at the stack of books on my desk, one of which was a 2nd edition camel book, and suddenly, there it was: that book had outlived probably every single line of code I had written when it was published.

A book about a programming language that -- unfortunately -- was rapidly being pushed into the museum of computing history would outlive most of the code written by anybody that ever read it.

I couldn't write any code for a few days. It seemed pointless.

Eventually I came to a new understanding with software development. It's like spending your life making Buddhist sand mandalas. You spend your days, hunched over a table, moving one little bit at a time, and if you're lucky, you create something beautiful, and a short time later someone else will come along and sweep it away and start making something else in its place.

It helps to be concerned less about the code itself than about what it does for people. Sand mandalas give people an experience, and so does code: code today helps people communicate, relax, learn, or spend their lives making other things. There is a little bit of legacy in that at least, though nothing that anybody will ever remember you for.

Programming is still an important part of me. I still try to write artful code. I still feel a little bit of revulsion when staring at bad code (or, worse, intentionally bad code). But I don't view it as my life's work anymore. Software will never be my magnum opus, if I am lucky enough to ever make one.

Anyway, _why was one of the most beautiful things ever made by a programmer.

<comment><USER3> It feels like your last sentence defines what _why was, a beautiful creation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like the guy just wants his privacy. He was even outed at some point.

Can't we just leave him alone? Does it really matter?

<comment><USER5> I do not think this essay adds to the pile, or violates _why's privacy. It's musings on _why's work, particularly his most recent work, trying to understand _why as an artist, and the author of this piece is then trying to apply that understanding to his own life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because the internet is crazy. I don't blame him one bit.

</comment><comment><USER7> <3 Why

</comment><comment><USER8> Ooooo, this again. I love this. Why is such an enigmatic person.</comment>


Multi-functional survival uses for a condom - <AUTHOR> http://willowhavenoutdoor.com/featured-wilderness-survival-blog-entries/1-ways-a-condom-can-save-your-life-multi-functional-survival-uses-for-a-condom/

<comment><USER2> Not really survival related, but back in graduate school my friends in the low-temperature physics lab used condoms as a critical part of a vacuum regulator. I walked in there once to hear them arguing over whose turn it was to enjoy the privilege of going out to the drugstore to buy more.

</comment><comment><USER3> Churchill is reputed in WWII of contacting a condom manufacturer to make muzzle covers for soldiers - keeps the water out of your rifle in the rain.

</comment><comment><USER4> "PS – Buy non-lubricated & no spermicide condoms."

Heh, yeah that Condom slingshot could be very dangerous if it is so slippery!</comment>


How Your Returns Are Used Against You at Best Buy, Other Retailers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-your-returns-are-used-against-you-at-best-buy-other-retailers-1520933400 <comment><USER3> I frequently shop at Home Depot. Last year I was remodeling my bathroom and I had some extra parts (unused) and I went to return them. I was mistakenly flagged by Retail Equation and several of the things I was returning were denied. It was extremely frustrating as I had bought thousands of dollars of merchandise and was literally trying to return less than $40 of stuff.

I asked to talk to the store manager, she said there was nothing she could do. To me, the real problem with these systems is that relying on them too much removes the ability for people to provide good customer service.

Fortunately for me, I don't give up so easily. I guessed the email address of the CEO of Home Depot and wrote him. The next day the VP of Loss Prevention called me and then called the store. They let me return my merchandise the next time I tried. ;)

<comment><USER4> Home depot has a real problem (I assume all retail does - my sister works Home Depot returns so I hear stories) with people who go into the store grab something, leave, then come back (perhaps to a different store) and return it "I don't need it". It is often obvious to the clerk this is what just happened, but how do you prove it?

<comment><USER5> Simple: in Australian we require proof of purchase. Typically the receipt from the store you bought it from, and the item must be returned to _that store_.

Australia's largest home / hardware store also checks the items your taking against your receipt and stamps your receipt upon exiting the store, thereby reducing the incidence of thieves walking in empty handed and taking the item again while claiming they've already paid for it.

Why doesn't Home Depot do something similar?

<comment><USER6> That doesn't provide 100% of the picture though.

Assuming the "largest home / hardware store" means Bunnings, this w/e I returned items to a different store but with a receipt - so that was simple, but different to what you've stated.

Not long ago I return $175 worth of goods without receipts (after return $300 with receipts, because apparently I lost some...) to a different store to the one I bought from. They checked my ID and I assume I'm now on their loss prevention records; but from what I know that's not likely to be an issue until there's an obvious pattern of abuse.

Bunnings definitely have people returning items that they've stolen from one store and returned to another without a receipt, but they have a loss prevention team to try and reduce that.

It's the trade off of reduced friction (and increased purchases) vs theft - <USER2> I wouldn't have bought everything I did if I was concerned that the returns process wouldn't be seamless.

<comment><USER7> Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but I've had only excellent experiences with Bunnings staff on both returns and warranty claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this behavior stated explicitly in the store's return policy? If not, that sounds a little like fraud. Its a kind of bait and switch: "Shop with confidence because of our awesome return policy!... _except for you, we don 't serve 'your kind' here_"

<comment><USER9> Of the examples given in the story, all of them mentioned a "warn" before being unable to return. So it's not as if they weren't given advance notice.

<comment><USER10> The story wasn't clear of whether just future purchases would not be allowed to be returned, or if they were banned from returning anything (including previous purchases) after the warning.

<comment><USER11> The text of the warning seemed to indicate that, for the next 365 days, no returns would be allowed. I suspect that is intended to be interpreted as any returns, even if it were for something already purchased.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is actually one of the major advantages retail still has over online purchases: returns to online providers require paying for shipping, and the initial shipping costs aren't refunded either. Even with 'free shipping', the cost of shipping + everyone else's returns is just built in.

That said, this seems like just bad policy that leads to the problem. Why should stores allow returns without a receipt or other proof (lookup using credit card)? That seems to be the major issue. If they require proof of purchase, it means they at least aren't refunding theft or products purchased from other stores.

Accepting returns of opened but non-damaged product that can't be resold (eg: missing parts/packaging, obviously used, etc) also seems to be opening themselves up to abuse. Of course, how they handle this has to take into consideration the fact that easy returns are a competitive advantage. This is maybe where the analytics firm can step in, to help identify people that frequently do this.

<comment><USER13> I did a return on Amazon last week where not only was there no shipping charge, but I didn't have any additional expense...box, label, time, gas, etc. They scheduled UPS for the pickup, and the UPS driver brought the label with them.

<comment><USER14> Not all returns are free with Amazon. Generally speaking, there needs to be a defect or error on the part of the seller (ex: listing has incorrect info) in order for it to be free. If you classify your return as "No longer need this item.", then the shipping amount will be deducted from your return, in my experience.

If you return a lot of items and it's repeatedly defective/incorrect info/<whatever makes return shipping free>, then you'll probably be flagged just like Home Depot is doing.

<comment><USER15> In the UK we have the Distance Selling Act;

[https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for- businesse...](https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses)

"You must tell the customer they can cancel their order up to 14 days after their order is delivered. They don't need to give a reason for cancelling. If you don't tell the customer about their right to cancel, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months."

So it would be illegal for Amazon to remove the right to return items bought online.

The Tories (currently in government) seem to have added a lot of exemptions to this; like the dumb £42 limit (they really don't like poor people) but it still carries some protection, And if the government hadn't also knackered the legal aid system it could be enforced at the small claims court level too... oh well.

<comment><USER16> That's not removing the right to return items, you're misunderstanding.

They're saying you can return items, and if the reason is defect or problem, then they can (as they should) wear the cost of that.

They're also saying that you can return an item, "because I don't like it/want it", and that's no fault of theirs, so you're free to return the item, but the cost of doing so is (and should be) yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "You could do things that are inside the posted rules, but if you are violating the intent of the rules, like every item you're purchasing you're using and then returning, then at a certain point in time you become not a profitable customer for that retailer,"

Uh...I'm not a lawyer but I really don't think that interpretation of contract law would hold up in court. They offered a contract to purchase an item, the consumer accepted it. Making that contract then reliant on their intent rather than whats written seems a pretty obvious violation of Contra proferentem...am I nuts?

<comment><USER18> Most likely the contract doesn't require them to accept returns at all.

<comment><USER17> I think that is a really anti-consumer way to read this:

[https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange- pol...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange-policy)

<comment><USER19> From the actual link [0]

Like many retailers, we use a third party to help prevent losses by detecting improper returns [...] Reimbursements on returns lacking proof of purchase may be denied or limited and state sales tax and fees will not be reimbursed. [...] If we caution you or deny your return, you may request a copy of your Return Activity Report by calling 1-888-224-1920

So, they don't promise to unconditionally return items. I wonder what a 'Return Activity Report' looks like?

0\. [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange- pol...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange- policy/pcmcat260800050014.c?id=pcmcat260800050014)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess as long as it's implemented well it will never matter to anyone who isn't a cheat.

But as one of countless time-strapped homeowners who can't remember if he needs a 5/8" widget or a 1/2" widget, I frequently buy both and return the extra at a later date. I can only hope I don't get flagged. Frankly it's a big part of the value of shopping at a local retailer.

<comment><USER21> Non-cheat here who got hit by best buy. I returned a Surface Pro and some other stuff -- they took it back but flagged me for no returns. So I stopped buying stuff there.

<comment><USER22> I had a similar experience. I bought an open-box sound bar for my tv, got home and unboxed it to find that the sound bar was DOA and the serial number didn't match the box.

I had bought it from a Best Buy about an hour from my home, and tried to return it, with receipt, to the Best Buy 15 minutes from home since I had bought it on a Sunday afternoon and wanted to return it same day if possible. I was told I had to bring it back to the original store since the serials didn't match; okay great Best Buy didn't do it's job checking serials when whoever had this item before me return-swapped it, but sure I'll go out of my way.

I bring it back to the original store and they then tell me I'm on the no- return list from that time for 120 days. I've since stopped shopping at Best Buy.

<comment><USER20> That one's sort of understandable. Bad circumstance for everyone. Best Buy didn't do their due diligence, but you very clearly _could_ have been the fraudster pulling the swap rather than the hapless victim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The amusing thing is that retailers are going to have the data that shows this works. Return fraud will certainly go down.

What they're not going to have is data on the people who choose not to shop at these stores because of this policy, both those who have been incorrectly identified as fraudsters and those who just don't want to bother with the hassle.

<comment><USER24> > What they're not going to have is data on the people who choose not to shop > at these stores because of this policy,

Why won't they have that data? They will certainly know if sales have gone down, and they can try it out in different areas to remove other factors.

<comment><USER25> Because sales has thousands of variables at play and this is just one. It won't be possible to attribute the degree of the loss of sales to a single variable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [http://archive.is/Swq7X](http://archive.is/Swq7X)

<comment><USER27> the key to the pay wall is in the above link. thanks

<comment><USER28> I'm getting a paywall and there doesn't seem to be a key in the link.

<comment><USER29> It seems to be based on referrer. You can save the article to Pocket, open Pocket, click "go to original", and bypass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, in order to prevent fraud, companies like Best Buy contract out to companies like Retail Equation to evaluate (and deny) returns. While I can appreciate why they feel it's necessary, this seems like the kind of thing that credit card chargebacks were made to combat.

<comment><USER30> Exactly, I would expect this to be a 100% legit chargeback case, which is going to hurt them in the long run.

<comment><USER31> From their policy: [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange- pol...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/return-exchange- policy/pcmcat260800050014.c?id=pcmcat260800050014)

"Like many retailers, we use a third party to help prevent losses by detecting improper returns, and, except where prohibited, require a valid ID for all store returns that lack proof of purchase. Reimbursements on returns lacking proof of purchase may be denied or limited and state sales tax and fees will not be reimbursed."

And the Visa guidelines for chargebacks, page 28 lists the reason codes: [https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/chargeback-...](https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/chargeback- management-guidelines-for-visa-merchants.pdf)

My read puts Best Buy on solid footing here. If you're just returning it because you're unsatisfied, Visa doesn't seem to consider that valid for a chargeback. If it's defective and you have proof of purchase, you had enough evidence that BB would accept the return.

<comment><USER32> They would be on shaky ground with credit cards, which is why these terms state they only apply when "proof of purchase" is lacking - a CC purchase has intrinsic proof of purchase.

Where this surveillance system has become a major pain in my ass is returns over 90 days at Home Depot. The last period I had intensive HD purchases, I could count on returning stuff [0] late that I'd rather not stock, eating the sales tax, and then spending the store credit. Now it's be sure to return within 90 days or plan on keeping it to not end up flagged.

Also, I have personally stuck black tape [1] over the serial number and the barcodes on my drivers' license. When asked to show ID, this lets me exercise judgment about whether the rarer bits are revealed. This is especially handy at unknown liquor stores where the cashier will not have the courtesy to even ask before swiping your license in an electronic reader, backhauling it into the surveillance matrix.

[0] Unopened, new condition, completely resalable.

[1] Sharpie-colored masking tape. Electrical tape tends to be transparent to IR!

<comment><USER33> Not to detract from your overall point, but electrical tape isn't transparent to IR. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It doesn't matter though, because the scanners don't use IR. They use a red laser which is in the visible spectrum. Any tape that visibly blocks the barcode will work.

<comment><USER32> Well then, I must have been unlucky with the brand I attempted to use as a flag for an opto interrupter - it definitely passed enough IR for the thing to not trip.

And yeah, red lasers are quite common. But that doesn't rule out the possibility of a reader using IR - my experience with the opto left me paranoid on the matter.

<comment><USER33> I mean, a flag that moves in front of an ir sensor might not work if the light can leak between the flag and the sensor housing. Also, not all sensor housings are sealed from behind. Some of them are just a tiny folded-metal can that have gaps at the edges. It really depends on the configuration of your setup.

Unless the tape has holes, though, you can consider it opaque. Actually, because it absorbs and blocks ir, it's often used as a target for infrared temperature measurement of difficult-to-measure objects.

<comment><USER32> This was many years ago, so I don't remember the exact details besides it being one of those basic black plastic housing straight-through ones. I had been surprised because the quite-black electrical tape turned out to be seemingly transmissive. I probably solved the problem with something equally hacky, like sandwiching a piece of plain paper between the folded over tape, or perhaps a bit of metal.

If it blocked say 90% of IR, it would congruent with both of our points. I'll have to investigate further - it would make a much simpler ID mask.

(hm. Just did an experiment with two IR remotes and it did appear to block for the most part. One of the remotes worked really close up, but I can't easily rule out leakage or some other type of coupling.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Great idea, brick and mortar retail. That looks ought to help speed up your Amazon-sponsored demise. Amazon's return policy is so flexible it sets a very high bar for customer service

<comment><USER35> Amazon is, or was until very recently, running at a loss. Most companies can't afford to do that for long.

<comment><USER36> Depends how you define loss, a lot of people would disagree with you. They have had significant positive free cash flow for a long time, over a decade at least.[1] But since they reinvest the profits this becomes low net income.

[1] [https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/free_cash_flow](https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/free_cash_flow)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Amazon does this as well. I don't know why they would this and treat customers this way, especially customers who purchase a lot of things from them, but I do know it's not fraud. It's not even clear how this is legal since the return clause is part of a contract. But they will close your account, prematurely end your Prime membership, and there's nothing you can do about it. Nor can you know when this will happen. That's how much companies like Amazon and Best Buy value their customers. To say they treat them like shit is an understatement.

<comment><USER38> Imagine a "customer" hates Amazon, he can get Amazon to lose a lot of money by buying a lot of things, open them, then return everything.

Amazon won't be a sustainable business if it can't reject "customers".

<comment><USER37> Rejecting customers is not the same as breaking an agreement and literally stealing money from customers by terminating a subscription they've already paid for without a refund. If someone came up to you on the street and took money from you by force, I doubt you'd be as understanding but the two situations are equivalent: theft of real money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This could also be "how retailers are going to lose my business"

<comment><USER40> If you're taking advantage of returns in a way that hurts retailers, they want to lose your business. Chances are that's not you, but it's probably still worth it if they can eliminate the free riders.

<comment><USER41> Seriously. If you're like any normal person and occasionally return stuff, you're fine. If you're just "renting" products 30 days at a time (yes, this really does happen), retailers don't want anything to do with you. If you fall into this second category, instead of getting all indignant, perhaps stop taking advantage of return policies and retailers won't shun you.

<comment><USER29> Did you read the article?

The guy who was flagged had spent thousands at the store, and bought 3 phone cases for 80$, then returned them as his only return ever, and got flagged.

<comment><USER42> That's one side of the story, according to the person who was denied future refunds.

<comment><USER43> Yup. Guilty people tend to not admit to their crimes.

Go to the forums of any major online game such as League of Legends or World of Warcraft and you'll semi-frequently find posts from players complaining about being banned for no reason at all until a moderator or CS rep finally has to step in and say "Actually, here's exactly what you did to get banned" and it's always a legitimate reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> IMO no-questions asked returns should not be a thing. When you buy something, you should make sure it is the right thing for your need. If it doesn't work as advertised, sure return it. But if you bought something knowing full well that it isn't right for you, you shouldn't be able to return it later.

For example, you buy a pair of shoes. Unless the sole is coming off or it has some other defect, you don't get to return it a week later. When buying online, the return conditions should also include size issues. Sometimes the indicated size does not fit as well as you'd like to and there's no way for you to find that out without wearing it.

<comment><USER45> Your last sentence shows why no questions policies exist. It's easy to say people show pick the right thing first but in real life most products have details which are hard to learn in advance and it's often hard to find all of the details in advance (e.g. maybe you bought an appliance which does what you want, fits the space, but the geometry for the power/water/vent/etc. is wrong for your house. Whose fault is that?).

If you try to require justifications, all you're doing is paying people to interrogate customers - increasing the odds that they become former customers - and the people you'd most want to stop are also the most likely to have come up with a good excuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm more surprised to see that clothing retailers weren't listed. It's incredibly common for "customers" to buy clothes and return them the next day.

<comment><USER46> Wow that's really entitled behavior. When you buy something, the intention is for you to own that item. It isn't a trial period meant to facilitate an in- home shopping experience. It's tacky to make it a habit of regularly returning things where the reason for the return could have been prevented.

It costs a lot of money to process returns for a retailer, and that cost is often written down. It's meant to be an exception during the sales process (not a normal condition) and offered as a curtosey, not a defacto right.

<comment><USER47> > When you buy something, the intention is for you to own that item. It isn't > a trial period meant to facilitate an in-home shopping experience. It's > tacky to make it a habit of regularly returning things where the reason for > the return could have been prevented.

I think your knowledge may be dated here. Most higher-end stores I've been to in the past 5 years _absolutely_ encourage that behavior strongly with sales reps suggesting you do so. They love it when my girlfriend is out shopping and brings back a dozen shirt options for me to try on, and then immediately returns 9 of them (heck, some stores even offer free shipping on the items you decide against). The store just made a sale on 3 items they otherwise would not have.

They of course don't want folks actually wearing those things out for a "trial" period, but they know they must compete with on-line options that operate in this exact manner.

<comment><USER48> Trader Joe's does this with food. In my experience, they will take anything back, any time, with no receipt. (Alcohol being the one exception, although they did take a return of an unopened box wine that was leaking.)

A few times I've been in the store and overheard a conversation a customer had with a crew member who encouraged them to bring something back if they didn't like it.

I imagine this works out well for them: when you go back, you will probably find something else to buy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> We cannot accept your return, Mr. Costanza; this book has been _flagged_.

This only stops gormless shoppers from making reasonable returns. Everyone else will do a chargeback for credit purchases, or file a complaint in small claims for cash purchases. The moxious will call their credit card company right at the returns desk and ask if they need a photograph of the posted return policy.

<comment><USER50> Well if you do and you constantly do chargebacks then you will get hit with fraud from your credit card company.

<comment><USER51> What does it mean for a CC company to 'hit' someone 'with fraud'?

<comment><USER50> They hit you with 'Chargeback fraud'. They can cancel your card, put it on your credit history redcord and can choose to press charges.

<comment><USER49> Has this actually happened to you or any of your acquaintances?

The retail-dispute resolution clauses of most credit agreements are very biased towards the consumer. If you can document that you made at least one good-faith effort at resolving the issue yourself before requesting that the credit issuer handle it for you, then the retailer has to overcome the presumption that the customer is always right in the arbitration.

As it's all about the money and private agreements, it is always possible that someone who has more of it than you could use it to buy a more favorable outcome. But it is also very unlikely that anyone would ever see a criminal indictment over credit fraud before the damages exceed thousands of dollars. No credit company wants to lose customers because they got a reputation for grassing on their customers, but they would want to discourage their petty frauds--they know they have some, with statistical certainty--from growing worse by occasionally prosecuting the worst of the grand frauds.

If HSBC can knowingly launder drug money, and Wells Fargo can knowingly open fake accounts, a credit bank can knowingly screw the retailer when one of their credit customers does a bogus chargeback just because the cashier was rude at the checkout.

I won't say bogus chargebacks are not a problem, but there is a threshold below which it does not negatively affect the revenue of the bank, so no one there will be paid to care about it. A computer program might evaluate it. It might get randomly selected for human auditing. And most people are mostly honest, so the fraud rate would still be low, even if no one policed it more than a token amount. The credit banks's mission isn't to catch the frauds; it's to make money. So they catch just the right amount of frauds in order to make the most money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Aren't there consumer protection laws against this sort of thing?

Update: I guess it varies state by state [http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer- transactions/customer-r...](http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer- transactions/customer-returns-and-refund-laws-by-state.html)

Minnesota, where I (and Best Buy Headquarters) are located requires:

"A seller must clearly and conspicuously display written notice of its policy in boldface type of a minimum size of 14 points. If a seller fails this requirement, cash refunds are required of goods that are acceptable for return."

Also, couldn't fraudsters circumvent this entirely by paying in cash?

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing it's legal because they warn you before denying it (ie. they allow you to return it this time, but warn you that you won't be able to return next time)

<comment><USER53> On the bottom of every Home Depot receipt is "THE HOME DEPOT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO LIMIT / DENY RETURNS. PLEASE SEE THE RETURN POLICY SIGN IN STORES FOR DETAILS."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> From the infographic: _" returning an item just when a store closes"_

Can anyone explain why that specific behavior is a red flag?

<comment><USER55> Minimizes the time employees are willing to spend evaluating the return.

<comment><USER56> Also maximizes the time to discovery if there are real issues

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Is anyone else finding a lot of the stuff they buy has minor wear and tear ie probably was a return at some point?

The brand "new" pressure washer I bought was covered with scuff marks.

<comment><USER58> I stopped buying things like motherboards, RAM and so forth from Frys quite some time ago. Just too much stuff was returns, and not marked so.

(I once bought a desktop computer from them. It was, unsurprisingly, busted -- it wouldn't boot, and the OS installs I tried all failed. I had to threaten to reverse charges on my credit card when they refused to take it back; their argument was it was broken and they were unable to put it back on the shelf and sell it to another customer!)

<comment><USER59> In old days at Frys (around 2001), Fry's used to check the returned products (mother boards, memory, hard drives, etc) and check the serial number of mother board/memory/hard drive against the serial number on the package. They also used to do quick retest of returned motherboards, put them back in the package, shrink wrap it, then place them back on shelves. People started complaining about this, as customers have no way of knowing whether a package is new or not.

Around 2007, Fry's started putting lables on returned packages. This way, one can know whether something is returned or not. Some customers used to replace things by keeping the same new package.

<comment><USER60>
      shrink wrap it, then place them back on shelves

I've never heard of this at Fry's; in CA, it would be illegal. And I've been shopping there since the original site on Oakmead. (The current Sunnyvale store is the _3rd_ she for the flagship.)

If you lack a receipt but bought with a card, knowing the card used and the store bought at is enough for them to look it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> There seem to be two scenarios:

1) the third party company blocks sketchy transactions

2) the third party cuts off customers that are deemed 'not profitable' because they return too many items

The first scenario seems perfectly reasonable. The second is evidence of a far more scary direction things could be going in. Fender bender in that rental car? No more Avis rentals. Had to negotiate that medical bill? No more medical care at this facility.

</comment><comment><USER62> It sounds like there might be a few false positives in this algorithm, which negatively impacts the retailers from a publicity standpoint.

Also, can someone verify this but I thought that systems like this can be easily manipulated,i.e buying with cash or buying online with PayPal, different credit card etc, as that is PII and companies can't use it to identify you or reject your claims, unless tied to a specific loyalty account.

<comment><USER63> That's why they are always asking for your email address or phone number when you check out. I always decline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I dunno if it would help, but I buy everything with credit cards (not directly linked to my bank account) so if I'm having issues returning something the next step would be a dispute via the CC company.

It's amazing how many issues have been cleared up within a few days once the money is on the line.

</comment><comment><USER65> Sounds like the best way to combat this is to call your credit card and do a charge-back. In that case, the retailer wouldn't even get the merchandise back.

Make that very clear when you are initiating the return and you are being refused.

</comment><comment><USER66> How Your Returns Are Used Against You at Best Buy, Other Retailers

Best Buy, other chains pay to track customers' shopping behavior and limit items they can bring back

(Picture of a best buy store with a car parked out front, and a man pushing a cart with a TV towards the entrance)

At Best Buy, returning too many items within a short time can hurt a person's score, as can returning high-theft items such as digital cameras. Photo: Craig Matthews/The Press of Atlantic City/Associated Press

By Khadeeja Safdar March 13, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

Every time shoppers return purchases to Best Buy Co., they are tracked by a company that has the power to override the store's touted policy and refuse to refund their money.

That is because the electronics giant is one of several chains that have hired a service called Retail Equation to score customers' shopping behavior and impose limits on the amount of merchandise they can return.

Jake Zakhar recently returned three cellphone cases at a Best Buy store in Mission Viejo, Calif., and a salesperson told him he would be banned from making returns and exchanges for a year. The 41-year-old real-estate agent had bought cases in extra colors as gifts for his sons and assumed he could bring back the unused ones within the 15 days stated in the return policy as long as he had a receipt.

The salesperson told him to contact Retail Equation, based in Irvine, Calif., to request his "return activity report," a history of his return transactions. The report showed only three items—the cellphone cases—totaling $87.43. He asked the firm to lift the ban, but it declined. When he appealed to Best Buy and tweeted his report, the company referred him back to Retail Equation.

"I'm being made to feel like I committed a crime," said Mr. Zakhar. "When you say habitual returner, I'm thinking 27 videogames and 14 TVs."

Stores have long used generous return guidelines to lure more customers, but such policies also invite abuse. Retailers estimate 11% of their sales are returned, and of those, 11% are likely fraudulent returns, according to a 2017 survey of 63 retailers by the National Retail Federation. Return fraud or abuse occurs when customers exploit the return process, such as requesting a refund for items they have used, stolen or bought somewhere else.

Amazon.com Inc. and other online players that have made it easy to return items have changed consumer expectations, adding pressure on brick-and-mortar chains. L.L. Bean Inc., which once allowed customers to make returns even years after they purchased items, recently clamped down, citing abuse.

Some retailers monitor return fraud in-house, but Best Buy and others pay Retail Equation to track and score each customer's return behavior for both in-store and online purchases. The service also works with Home Depot Inc., J.C. Penney Co. , Sephora and Victoria's Secret. Some retailers use the system only to assess returns made without a receipt.

Best Buy uses Retail Equation to assess all returns, even those made with a receipt. Dozens of shoppers have complained on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and other online forums that they were prevented from making returns despite following the store's policy.

Retail Equation said its services are used in 34,000 stores, but declined to provide a full list of its clients. The Wall Street Journal learned of the relationship between some retailers and the firm by reviewing return activity reports from customers.

"We are hired by the retailers to review the returns, look for suspicious situations and issue approvals, warnings or denials," said Tom Rittman, a marketing vice president at Appriss Inc., a Louisville, Ky., data analytics firm that acquired Retail Equation in 2015.

The company said its system is designed to identify 1% of shoppers whose behaviors mimic return fraud or abuse. Its statisticians and programmers have built a customized algorithm for each retailer that scores customers based on their shopping behavior and then flags people who exceed a certain score. The company said it doesn't share a person's data from one retailer with another.

"You could do things that are inside the posted rules, but if you are violating the intent of the rules, like every item you're purchasing you're using and then returning, then at a certain point in time you become not a profitable customer for that retailer," said Mr. Rittman.

At Best Buy, returning too many items within a short time can hurt a person's score, as can returning high-theft items such as digital cameras. After the Journal contacted Best Buy, the company said it created a dedicated hotline (1-866-764-6979) to help customers who think they were wrongfully banned from making returns.

"On very rare occasions—less than one tenth of one percent of returns—we stop what we believe is a fraudulent return," said Jeff Haydock, a spokesman for Best Buy. "Fraud is a real problem in retail, but if our systems aren't as good as they can be, we apologize to anyone inappropriately affected."

Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said the company is "looking very seriously at the process and partner around this."

When a consumer makes a return, details about his or her identity and shopping visit are transmitted to Retail Equation, which then generates a "risk score." If the score exceeds the threshold specific to the retailer, a salesperson informs the consumer that future returns will be denied and then directs them to Retail Equation to request a return activity report or file a dispute.

It isn't easy for shoppers to learn their standing before receiving a warning. Retailers typically don't publicize their relationship with Retail Equation. And even if a customer tracks down his or her return report, it doesn't include purchase history or other information used to generate a score. The report also doesn't disclose the actual score or the thresholds for getting barred.

Dave Payne, a 38-year-old public relations professional, said he learned of the system for the first time when he received a warning at a Best Buy in Orlando, Fla. He was returning a digital scale and a router extender, with a receipt for both items.

He said neither Best Buy nor Retail Equation provided a clear explanation for what he did wrong: "Best Buy advertises a 15-day return policy, but they are not advertising that at some point when you've crossed an arbitrary line, that policy no longer applies."

The ban on his account was lifted after he complained to the company's public- relations department, but he remains upset that his information is being shared with a third party. "It creeps me out."

Write to Khadeeja Safdar at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER67> Can someone summarize? I don't have a WSJ account.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/article...](https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how- your-returns-are-used-against-you-at-best-buy-other-retailers-1520933400)

<comment><USER68> Well that's a neat trick to get around the paywall... Thanks!

<comment><USER69> It's easier to just click 'web' link here on HN. It will show you google search results, and clicking on those bypasses the paywall too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> > He asked the firm to lift the ban, but it declined.

That's bad business. I think giving customers a second chance before shutting them out is a better idea.

</comment><comment><USER71> Retail Equation sounds like they came straight out of Little Britain's "Computer Says No" sketch. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJQ3TM-p2QI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJQ3TM-p2QI)

</comment><comment><USER55> Customer LTV applied to Retail. Amazon can already do it, so this is just catch up.

<comment><USER72> How does Amazon apply customer LTV?

<comment><USER73> In my case, I returned three relatively expensive items in a year and I got a warning email from them. Googled the text of the mail and it turns out it's the first step to getting your Prime account banned, and based on the contract they probably wouldn't have to pro-rate the subscription fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I thought one had the 'right' to return items in the returns policy... is there fine print allowing them to deny you?

</comment><comment><USER74> Why does returning an item right before a store closes hurt your score? (per the infographic in the article)

<comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577824)

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Then we should have access to our records like credit scores and explanations of what they mean.

</comment><comment><USER76> non-paywall [https://outline.com/HKktYH](https://outline.com/HKktYH)

<comment><USER66> Blank page for me?

<comment><USER43> Are you using NoScript or something similar?

<comment><USER66> Yes, I have JS disabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Anyone have the text of the article lots of us can't actually read?

</comment><comment><USER78> I log in with the Wall Street Journal account that I finally broke down and paid for and I get: Service temporarily unavailable.</comment>


Suicide Note - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/7A5ESV8K <comment><USER2> I don't know if this is a repost from someone else, but if it is you, please know someone out here cares. All I ask is that you stop and let someone listen. If you can, please call 1(800)273-8255</comment>


Rapydscript: Python-like  pre-compiler for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.rapydscript.com/

<comment><USER2> Fun project, I've always wanted to write web stuff in python.

However I think it is a mistake to go 95% of the way towards imitation. Either you go 100% as to provide compatibility, or you distinguish yourself enough to not cause confusion.

I'd much rather have compatibility with real python code, than constructs such as 'do..while' and '[4 til 9]'.

I must admit inline 'def():'s are nice though.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am not a fan of any pre-compiler. But, this looks better. I don't like "do while loop" though. I am not sure what prevents the author to make it something like:

        do while(a):
             print('This loop will run at least once')

And how about using ES6 generators for Python's generator?

<comment><USER4> That reads just as a regular while loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pythonic JS... this made my day. As someone coming from Python/Django to JS/Node I'd love to see this gaining momentum. (sorry ruby guys, I never liked your girl and her caffeinated cousin)

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting. I've not used any pre-compilers for JavaScript before, but I may give this a go. Presumably this could be used in the context of node.js, but then really, you might just as well fire up Flask or Django ;)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't really understand how the example could be considered to have a "cleaner, more readable syntax" than the equivalent CoffeeScript. It's perhaps fair to say that it presents a syntax that is more familiar to Python developers.

`self` is also a poor choice of name for a reference to "the object itself": [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/self](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/self)

<comment><USER8> Well, I think the line: "To those familiar with CoffeeScript, RapydScript is like CoffeeScript, but inspired by Python's readability rather than Ruby's cleverness." sums up the idea nicely. CoffeeScript took a strange turn a good while back (I think at the "literate" rewrite) -- where it sort of re- introduced behaviour similar in feel to missing-semicolon-maybe-a-bug-maybe- intended-behaviour... and departed from being "nicer javascript" to become more of "a language that compiles to javascript".

The mapping between the input and output javascript seems quite straightforward for these examples -- and the syntax seems simple(r) at first glance.

[ed: huh, speaking of semicolons and such, I just took a look at [https://github.com/atsepkov/RapydScript](https://github.com/atsepkov/RapydScript) \-- and it mentions: "Note the comma on a new line following a function declaration, it needs to be there to let the compiler know there are more attributes in this object literal, yet it can't go on the same line as the function since it would get parsed as part of the function block. Like Python, however, RapydScript supports new-line shorthand using a ;, which you could use to place the comma on the same line:"

Yeah, well. Semicolon-sometimes is _worse_ than semi-colon always. The fact that it's shorthand for '\n' makes it perhaps even worse. Other than that, I still like what I've seen.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice job here.

But to be honest I'm not a pre-compiler advocate.

Javascript is a beautiful language once you stop blaming it for what it wasn't designed for. I feel that pre-compilers just divide the community up and unfortunately I've seen people going for CoffeeScript for example without even trying to grasp the subtleties of Vanilla JS.

<comment><USER10> ECMAScript 2015+ pre-compilers (ie. transpilers) are a must.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > pre-compiler for JavaScript

Could it be that the official term is "altjs compiler" (?) [1]

[1] [http://smurfpandey.github.io/altjs/](http://smurfpandey.github.io/altjs/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks interesting. I am learning python at the moment by making a flask application. It is pretty neat to see how they transpile things like list comprehensions into javascript. I'm currently stuck in angular land right now though, and as much as I would want to try this out refactoring all of my current code sounds like a pain in the arse.

</comment><comment><USER13> The code examples are incredibly difficult to read. Dark grey on black doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really like that I can stay in python for everything! That's why I've recently chosen RapydScript to power SilverFlask, a Flask CMS I'm working on as a side project. Really simplifies development and speeds it up.

</comment><comment><USER15> As much as a love Python, JS really isn't that bad. Seems to me like you could become competent with JS (at least for simple frontend tasks) in the time it would take to familiarize yourself with Rapydscript.

</comment><comment><USER16> I presume this is meant to be pronounced 'rapidscript' but the 'y' there makes the first bit sound like 'rape-y', which is probably not what you want in a project name :(

</comment><comment><USER17> This is something I was waiting for so long, thanks OP !

</comment><comment><USER18> [2, 1] in [[1,2], [2, 1], [3, 5]]

Does it handle this? CoffeeScript was a bit too close to JS to get this correct.

<comment><USER3> I just checked it. RapydScript generates very logical code than CoffeeScript.

CoffeeScript:

        var ref;
        (ref = [2, 1]) === [1, 2] || ref === [2, 1] || ref === [3, 5] || ref === [3, 5];

RapydScript:

        function _$rapyd$_in(val, arr) {
            if (arr instanceof Array || typeof arr === "string") return arr.indexOf(val) != -1;
            else {
                if (arr.hasOwnProperty(val)) return true;
                return false;
            }
        }
        _$rapyd$_in([2,1], [[1,2], [2,1], [3,5], [3,5]]);

One thing I worried about RapydScript is generated variables. Pre-compiler needs to be scope aware. I am not sure how difficult or feasible it would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Step 1) Port it to babel.js

Step 2) Profit

<comment><USER14> How would you use babel? Would you compile to ES6 JS and then let babel transform it to ES5 or ES4 js that you can ship?

<comment><USER19> Pretty much. Instead of reimplementing classes and imports, just use es6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Please stahp with the js transpiler spam if youwant to wriTe js just do it , its not that hards. Certainly easier than wrting lang a and thEn having to troubleshoot the js anyways</comment>


The 4 1/2 Day Workweek - <AUTHOR> http://particletree.com/notebook/the-4-12-day-workweek/

<comment><USER2> It sounds nice in theory, but I know that in practice I'd resent it. I hate being told when it's "break time", doubly so if I know that people are going to freak out two days later because some project isn't done yet.

At the last company I worked for, they had a nice system: about every two weeks they'd find some excuse for the company to pick up the bar tab after work. A big percentage of people would go, but you didn't have to. Some people would be there right at the start, others would show up later and you could leave whenever you wanted to.

Coffee areas with couches also payed big dividends -- again, the idea was that you'd yack with your coworkers, but only when it fit in with your work schedule.

<comment><USER3> I didn't get the impression from the article that Friday was "break time". I got the feeling that it was "meeting time" and "argument time", which is a different thing altogether...it's formalizing the constant interruptions that most work environments have throughout the day into one half day at the end of each week. So, you save up your discussions for Friday. It just happens that having meetings and discussions with people you like OK is a pretty low stress way to spend an afternoon, so it makes the last day of the week an easy-going sort of thing.

But, I agree that a lot of corporate environments could not pull this off. There is a point in every companies life where the culture becomes too divided. Not everyone likes fantasy football, Mario Kart, Rock Band, Medieval themed restaurants, or volleyball, and any formal attempt to get everyone involved in any one of those things is destined to failure and poor morale.

A pretty large percentage of people, below a certain age, can agree on free beer, so the "picking up the tab" policy is a somewhat safer choice, but probably a less productive one. Do you really want people discussing business strategery after four or five cocktails over the sounds of the football game on one side and the jukebox kicking out Justin Timberlake on the other?

<comment><USER4> You've summed it up pretty well, Joe, and I agree this would need an overhaul to be scaled. The only correction I have is that enjoying Medieval themed restaurants is a prerequisite to working with us.

As far as "break time" goes, we really don't care exactly how or when you accomplish 4 days of work, but we do want 4 days of solid work to be accomplished. Some of us are night owl's and others rise at first light. Nobody's going to freak out at you unless you're really slacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the take-away from this article isn't that you should absolutely use the 4-1/2 day workweek model at your firm; instead, I read it to say that they had experimented with several different schedules, put some serious thought into what worked and what didn't, and then implemented a solution which was tailored to _their_ team, deployment schedule, and customer base.

If you want something which works as well in your business, don't just mindlessly clone this, or the 37signals 4-day week, or the first-stage startup 80-hour deathmarch, or _any_ existing schedule -- work it out for your own environment.

Personally, I've been doing a lot of tweaking of my own schedule at work over the last year, and found that having at least one full day a week where work from home is a big booster to my productivity. It's an entire day where I can avoid random interruptions, and I _never_ have that meeting in the middle of the morning that basically wastes the day through lunchtime.

</comment><comment><USER3> I definitely think having a single designated "meetings day" would help just about any company. Monday morning meetings have to be the most life-sucking idea ever. While I can see value in meeting briefly with your direct team--the one or two people who are working on the same part of the codebase--at the first of the work week, a bunch of people working on a random panoply of things in a room at 8:30 Monday morning is comparable to beating productivity with a Louisville Slugger and leaving its bloody barely breathing body in a ditch down by the highway. Starting the week off that way is just asking for trouble.

Though the Wufoos are more fun than most people I've met, so they can probably make Fridays into a vacation without having to actually be free from work. I suspect not many employers have a comedy goldmine like Kevin, Ryan, and Chris around to tap into. (And, if they do, they probably think of them as a problem to be managed into submission rather than given a raise and put in charge of something.)

</comment><comment><USER6> We actually took the opposite approach a couple of years ago and designated a specific "no meetings" day every Tuesday for the development team (and so many people work remotely on Fridays that it's effectively a meeting-free day as well). Our team is too big and too diverse to effectively wall off much more time than that without running into major scheduling issues, but even having one day a week completely walled off from any sort of meetings has turned out to be really helpful.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be interesting to know how they measured productivity in order to come to the conclusion that 4 days just didn't cut it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're actually writing about this in a future article about some of our productivity experiments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is somewhat like what we have at my present workplace. Friday afternoons, it is mandated that we socialize and break out beers. At corp headquarters, they play foosball. In Houston, we break out Guitar Hero.

<comment><USER9> I worked somewhere where the last 2 hours of Friday afternoon - were the weekly table tennis tournnament. Good for winding down for the week, bad if you were in the middle of solving an interesting problem..</comment></comment>


Apple goes to war with the BBC - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/11303052/Apple-working-conditions-Tim-Cook.html <comment><USER2> >Williams countered that Apple has tracked the weekly hours of over one million workers within its supply chain, and that its suppliers have achieved an average of 93 per cent compliance with the 60-hour workweek limit this year.

60 hour workweeks... plus "93% compliance" is not exactly reassuring.

<comment><USER3> It would be nice to compare those numbers to that of other companies or organizations.

But even if you stay strictly with US companies, is it possible to find the compliance rate for Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Red Hat, etc., much less the various game studios known for overworking their employees?

<comment><USER4> A 60 hour work week for wage laborers should not be baseline in any country in 2014. Apple is doing what they can to exploit these workers in a PC fashion.

<comment><USER5> * as any other company that outsources manufacturing.

<comment><USER4> So should we not also look down on those companies? Why do we give companies a pass to exploit workers because other companies do as well?

<comment><USER6> I don't know if a 60 hour work week counts as exploitation. If you options are 400$/month and 40 hour weeks or 600$ a month and 60 hour weeks a lot of people are going to chose the second option. IMO, when it comes to exploitation pay, working conditions, and irregular work schedules can be far more exploitive than simple hours worked.

Also, dorm style housing next to a factory dramatically cut down on commute times which changes the work life balance equation. It's much like a 50 hour work week with a 1 hour commute which is fairly common in the US.

PS: IMO the US trucking industry is probably more expletive than most Chinese factory's. The hours are often comparable but the risk of death is much higher. And the industry often increases peoples risk of death for just a little more profit.

<comment><USER7> Bear in mind that the salary these workers get is probably less than half that. Last year, according to the Daily Mail (yeah...), they were being paid £180 ($300) per month [0]. The salary these workers get is a small percentage of the retail price of these devices, it's not like Apple can't afford to pay them a decent salary and provide ethical working conditions.

[0] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed- Ins...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside- Apples-Chinese-sweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html)

<comment><USER8> > it's not like Apple can't afford to pay them a decent salary

Well, Apple doesn't pay them any salary at all—they're not Apple employees.

<comment><USER9> Yes but they are deeply offended , if they're not their employees is not their problem, why feel offended? .

<comment><USER8> I get offended by plenty of things outside my direct sphere of influence, that aren't my problem. Most of them, I can't do anything about. But it's still upsetting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem with Apple criticism is a lot of it seems full of cheap shots and unfair framing, like this Panorama report.

That makes it more difficult to tell when a criticism of Apple is genuine, because every idiot journalist looking for a controversial story can write a story about something Apple is doing not well enough and get away with it, since everyone seems to love to hate on Apple.

So if Apple really is up to no good in some area of their business, we won't have a clue, because it's drowned out in tripe like this.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me a little of how people somehow don't believe McDonalds when they reveal their food sources. Because people love to hate on them, McDs and Apple have higher standards than their competitors.

<comment><USER12> See also: Facebook and security/privacy

<comment><USER13> Or Google and privacy/surveillance. A lot of criticism is just fashion or signalling.

<comment><USER14> Confused about these two comments. Are you both literally arguing that Google has higher standards for privacy/surveillance than its competitors and that facebook is better than its competitors for security/privacy?

<comment><USER13> Per TazeTSchnitzel's remark on Apple & McDonald's, also Facebook and Google seem to be held by public to a higher standard than other companies.

<comment><USER14> Ah, I understood that comment as saying that MacDonalds actually _do_ have higher food sourcing standards because of the public scrutiny.

There also seems to be an implied complaint here that the public are being hypocritical, however it makes perfect sense that the larger the example, the more people would be interested in holding them to a high standard. This doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sleeping publicly in asian cultures is perfectly normal.

I remember seeing these asian students just passed out on university benches once I started studies abroad.

The journalist says 'it seems that they have no choice'. So he just displayed his cultural unconsciousness and publicly alleged Apple of wrongdoing.

One could easily speculate that people working in western societies are pumped up with caffeine, sugar or other drugs, freely available by their profit- hungry bosses.

<comment><USER16> If I recall, in Japan if you're not seen sleeping at your desk then you've not been working hard enough.

<comment><USER17> And it's perfectly acceptable to beat your domestic help in the UAE.

Let's not confuse 'accepted' with 'acceptable'.

<comment><USER16> Well, that's about as ridiculous a leap as I can imagine.

Some Asian nations have culturally integrated the fact that naps boost productivity[1][2][3] but we should impose our own cultural standards on them because they might actually be a bunch of uncivilized mongrels and it's our responsibility to teach them the error of their ways.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/07/24/why- you-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/07/24/why-you-should- take-a-10-minute-nap-every-day/)

[2] [http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/america-its- ti...](http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/america-its-time-for- your-nap)

[3] [http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Let...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Letter/2009/November/napping- may-not-be-such-a-no-no)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I recommend everyone to subscribe to China Labour Watch [[http://chinalaborwatch.org](http://chinalaborwatch.org)].

Reports of workplace abuse are so recurring that you end up dying a little inside from reading about one huge company after the other pulling this shit - but at least it'll stop you from reverting to an automatic defensive response to bad news about companies like Apple.

++

fwiw, I still agree that it's generally counterproductive to do reporting focused on Apple, because although they're the most obvious company to scrutinize, it makes it seems as if the issue is specific to Apple and not the systemic rule across corporations.

++

PS: Consider donating to CLW while you're at it; it's Christmas, after all.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaTl2kW6YU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaTl2kW6YU)

The full documentary by BBC.

<comment><USER20> For those of us in the UK (or with access to a UK-based proxy)...

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04vs348/panorama- apple...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04vs348/panorama-apples- broken-promises)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wouldn't quite call that war, more a disgruntled sigh.

<comment><USER22> That wouldn't generate as many clicks...

<comment><USER23> Agreed. One of the more egregious examples of hyperbole in an articles title, for the purpose of being clickbait, that I have seen. A better title would be; "Apple refutes BBC documentary"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Genuine question: Which large companies do supply chain auditing to the same or greater extent than Apple do? Do they make the audit publicly available as Apple do? I'd like to compare.

<comment><USER16> Walmart does a fair amount of supply chain auditing.

[http://corporate.walmart.com/global- responsibility/ethical-s...](http://corporate.walmart.com/global- responsibility/ethical-sourcing/audit-process)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a good place to mention Fairphone, a dutch foundation who make phones and document their supply chain in public, improving various things about it

</comment><comment><USER26> I would love to see if they could find a multinational company WITHOUT issues like this in their supply chain - I imagine none exist.

(I still support "exposé" programs like this since people need to be reminded what the actual cost of their toys are - but they should cast a broader net)

<comment><USER27> I don't know why "everyone is doing it" somehow mitigates the problem.

<comment> k-mcgrady Because they blame one company. From what I've read Apple has done more than anyone else to improve the situation and yet they're the ones that constantly receive blame. Do a report on the supply chain as a whole and how the entire tech industry has workers that are being exploited. They select one company (a popular one) because it'll generate more clicks regardless of the fact that it makes the reporting slightly biased.

<comment><USER27> They don't blame one company. They did an expose of one company. And one of the companies with arguably the most popular product.

<comment> k-mcgrady The company who's also arguably doing the most to improve the situation. If the journalist actually cared about what was going on they would expose all offenders and highlight the worst, not expose the one who's already been exposed by several other journalists and is working to improve the situation.

<comment><USER27> My heart bleeds for the plight of Apple.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>