Good investment for a tech guy? - <AUTHOR> I'm a web developer, and managed to make about $200k after tax on a project. I want to invest this in a healthy way, currently it is a mix of stocks and a 2% interest bank account. I'm looking to diversify more, and shift more away from the bank deposit.
I've been thinking about buying an apartment to rent out, since it would be less risk than stocks, but better than a bank account (seems you could conceivably make around 4% per year on one). But it seems a bit silly, I would have to deal with renters and issues with the apartment, which is not my core skill. I am a developer, isn't there some sort of investment more suitable for me?
I could imagine for example buying existing web sites that have proven ad revenue, assuming there are some owners that are risk-averse enough to sell. Or, what other options are there? <comment><USER2> If you don't want to lose the money, don't simply 'bet on one horse' and put it in a house / websites / whatever. It makes more sense to get a properly diversified portfolio of index-funds / ETFs.

I think the best investment you could make is to put that money away in a lifecycle fund. (E.g. Vanguard's 'Target Retirement 2040' fund [https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0696&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0696&FundIntExt=INT) ) I.m.h.o. the best thing about a lifecycle fund is that it's a set-and-forget investment. It's deviation will get less in time.

Of course, if you're a bit more of a control freak (like me) you could create your own (properly diversified) investment portfolio. In that case I would suggest you have a look at 'The smartest investment book you'll ever read'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Property managers usually get roughly 10% of the rental income and handle paperwork, screening renters, phone calls, minor repairs, etc. You still have to pay for major repairs (new fridge, AC, burst pipe), but depending on your situation, you may consider hiring a PM.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you buy an apartement and rent it out, or acquire the websites, that is not only an investment, but also a (part-time) job you are buying. Whereas putting your money into an index-fund or a bank account are just investments.

Both can be nice --- but keep the additional work in mind, when you make comparisons.

(Disclosure: I just bought the index-fund with the lowest fees I could find.)

By the way, have you thought of buying stuff that will reduce your expenditures --- like a fuel efficient car, or buying an apartment for you to live in; or if you already have a house, putting proper insulation on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I took that into account. I figured I would spend about 10 hours per year having to deal with apartment stuff (maybe more at first when I'm still clueless), and that it would be empty one month per year while I look for renters.

Apartment is also not that suitable for me, because I will very likely not live in one country that long, and couldn't really check on the apartment always. Of course there are companies that can handle this for you, but then you take a hit in the profit.

And on your second point, yes I am always looking for things to reduce expenses. But because I don't know where I will live after a year, I can't buy an apartment for myself to live in. Currently I am renting, and don't have a car. My biggest expenses right now are food ($450 / month), rent ($450) and my vice energy drinks ($270).

<comment><USER4> > Of course there are companies that can handle this for you, but then you > take a hit in the profit.

I guess on average that should not be worse than stocks --- the public companies have managers, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it might be a good idea to get such a company to handle the details for me, I haven't really looked into how much it costs. I wonder how this is different from just buying the stock of some property holding company directly though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is no point buying-to-rent if you already rent unless you either live in a city where it's arguably cheaper to rent than buy (SF is an example) or u don't want to settle.

Buying to live in is always the best return because you have no renters to deal with and what used to go on rent now partly goes on capital.

If u don't want to buy a place, a portfolio of managed funds, perhaps some individual stocks and also bonds/commodities would be a good mix.

But $200k is a lot of money and its what financial advisers are for. You would gain a lot from going to see an _independent_ financial advisor and paying him $500-$1000 to create a long term plan for you -- which might include tax efficient schemes like putting some of this into a 401(k) etc.

On the issue of investing in website: as tech people it's something we all know and it's therefore attractive. However it's unlikely u'd get attractive terms investing in a proven business and going down the venture/angel route is very risky and usually pursued by people with a much bigger personal wealth. Its also easy to get sucked into spending more time than u intended on these investments because its your profession - which then reduces your return because you are essentially "working".

</comment><comment><USER6> Relatively new to mid-level web developer wondering (if you don't mind) what type of project you undertook that paid you that much money?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was something that generated ad revenue and was later acquired.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since you later say that you travel/live out of the country, stay FAR away from rental real estate. No way on earth that an individual piece of rental real estate is less risky than a basket of stocks in my mind.

If I were you, I'd stay away from any store of value that is dollar denominated (other than perhaps TIPS), as I believe that the US will have to devalue the dollar to pay its debt. That means oil/metals/commodities, or perhaps easier/safer, profitable companies whose profits are not predominantly made in US dollars. (It's fine or even good if they are repatriated into weakening US dollars.) Ideal would be a company with revenues in foreign currencies and expenses in US dollars.

If you were staying put, I'd agree with the buy real estate to live in as a anti-dollar hedge and if you wanted to live in the 2-4 unit type of housing, that would be even better. But leaving the country for long periods of time: forget about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is my take on investing.

Fact 1: Most professional investors do not beat the market.

Fact 2: The market has returned on average 12% for large cap stocks, 18% for small cap stocks year-to-year (#s are not adjusted for last recession, but discount 4-5% if you want)

Fact 3: You are not a professional investor.

With those facts in mind, I have found that the best expected value for an investment return is simply to dump all the money into a mix-bag of ETFs that leverage the market (they pretend to borrow money so you gain double or lose double the market rate)

DDM, QLD, MVV, etc.

To balance that out (hedge) with the weakening US dollar and shift in world powers, I would probably also throw some money into an emerging markets ETF and/or China/India funds.

But, as a caveat, I am personally invested in nothing b/c the startup life is the riskiest investment anyone can take (generalized), and my hedge against that is to keep the rest of my money safe in CDs and online savings accounts.

</comment><comment><USER9> Keep in mind there is _always_ overhead. There's no such thing as a cash machine that requires no maintenance.

I'd look at high _dividend yield_ stock that pays out monthly (6% yield or more). This will give you monthly income with minor hassles, since the companies are large. Unless you are a fantastic investor, don't look for capital gains (making money off stock price increases) because there's lots of speculation: [http://simoniqe.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/how-to-not-lose- mon...](http://simoniqe.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/how-to-not-lose-money-in- stocks/)

Domestic oil pipeline companies are a good bet because they pay high dividends and are stable in price since they get paid no matter what. Investing in oil is an ethical dilemma but there are domestic oil companies that are better. PIF.UN is an example of a domestic Canadian one that pays about 10% monthly dividends with no hassles, but if in the US you must never trade in other currencies. Preferred stock also provides a stable price and in this economy you can easily get 10% or more monthly div's. Investigate DDR.PR.G or other Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) if you like the real estate angel. Be careful if the yield is above 12% because it could be that the stock's price is falling, which inflates the yield %. I AM NOT A CERTIFIED INVESTOR. I AM A STUPID PROGRAMMER WHO FOUND THESE STOCKS IN IDLE TIME. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE BUYING!

A great resource is Stock Chase: <http://www.stockchase.com/> It's like a Twitter but only from professional investors.

Both real estate and web acquisitions have little _daily_ work but are very interruptive. You have leaks, storms, tenants causing problems and for the web, downtime events or security updates that often the need attention of an owner at 3 AM at night.

"I could imagine for example buying existing web sites that have proven ad revenue" I've gotten burned bad on small website acquisitions. There is full time work involved for many months in terms of at least ensuring the acquisition is worthwhile, and often without dedicating workers full time to deal with it, things go south. Owners claim they do little work to maintain it and this is generally false.

</comment><comment><USER10> Real estate and business investments are illiquid, often hard to value, and require constant work. Consider the stock market instead. I like ETFs:

spy dia qqqq uso dba ung tlt jnk slv gld ewa adre fxi

$200k of JNK provides >$2000/mo interest income.

Of course, you should diversify. Follow macro trends, use multi-week or multi- month investments, don't daytrade or try to pick individual companies. Aim for long term capital gains.

Use tight risk control (trailing stops etc). I highly recommend automated trading as it reduces human emotional errors. Run a model real-time (rather than backtesting) before using it on real money. etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> _"I am a developer, isn't there some sort of investment more suitable for me"_

You've answered you're own question, you're a developer. Invest in what you love doing. Invest in the area of your skills and knowledge.

If you dont' know a lot about real estate, and don't have much desire to learn, then investments in real estate are likely to go south for you.

I second the recommendation to invest in yourself, that's the one investment anyone can make that will always give a good return.

</comment><comment><USER12> Renting out a house is a lot of work and a lot of risk. I have rented out a house to some free loaders and they destroyed my house causing more in damage than they ever paid in rent and causing me a lot of work and hassle. I do not believe renting a house is less risk. It's also a lot of work because you have to find renters, repair the house or find a management agency, etc. Consider that option very carefully.

</comment><comment><USER13> Being a landlord is a serious responsibility. Don't take it lightly: you're responsible for people's housing.

If I had 200k lying around, I'd start looking at franchise opportunities. Most McDonald's restaurants make more than most software startups (ducks!).

</comment><comment><USER14> 1\. Max out investment in yourself first of all - better food, accomodation, time saving stuff...

2\. Keep away from anything stock-market related - there are 2 types of people there - those who earn for living there and who feed them.. you are not the former 100%...

3\. Get mortgage ( don't pay in cash everything ) apartment and rent it out - pay the reminder with cash and in 20 years you will have it for half price for your children.

4\. Put the rest of your money in 2 different banks - hassle free, some %, liquidity when you will need it when you done with #5...

5\. Start to learn about investing ( google passive income ) - you are really abnormal person if you got it to 200K and don't know what to do next.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you haven't done this already, you could buy an apt. and live in it. Might be the simplest real estate investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would definitely do, except I won't be in this country for long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Collectible plates from the Franklin Mint. They're not guaranteed to go up in value, but all the other ones have.

</comment><comment><USER17> Invest in Electric Battery Maker and distributor (Battery for Car)...over the next 5 to 10 year....10 fold

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) pay off your debt 2) buy a 2 - 4 unit apt. live in 1 unit. rent out the rest. 3) invest in your self (certification/training/mba/etc)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for yours and all the other advice given here.

I guess I should have clarified that I am not currently living in the US. I don't have debt and education is free in my country, but unfortunately I'm more into creating web stuff than studying, although I am (very very) slowly getting my masters. Buying a place for my own use doesn't really apply, because it is very likely I will move to another country soon.

I noticed there are some nice companies out there holding properties and paying dividends every quarter, for example ADC, GTY and PEI. Can't think of any reason why I would buy an apartment to rent out instead of just buying stock in these companies, considering they seem to be getting better bang for buck for their real estate than I could. Would be nice to find something like this not tied to USD though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Found non-US real-estate companies. In Nordic stocks, I found Wihlborgs, Klövern and Citycon that each have yield of over 6%. I now feel I will invest in a mix of these instead of buying a single property myself.

<comment><USER2> It's still a lot safer to diversify and not just buy stocks in real estate in your country. Better to diversify it at least a bit by splitting the money e.g. 50% Nordic Real estate 25% European Real estate index 25% US Real estate index (E.g. Vanguards' REIT Index VGSIX)

Ps. I am not living in the US either.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stay Focused: How  To Increase Your Attention Span - <AUTHOR> http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/09/stay-focused/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Those who can sit in a chair, undistracted for hours, mastering subjects and creating things will rule the world — while the rest of us frantically and futilely try to keep up with texts, tweets and other incessant interruptions."

The text about was tweeted by Arianna Huffington, which is how I heard about this article: [https://twitter.com/ariannahuff/status/381921299276103680](https://twitter.com/ariannahuff/status/381921299276103680)</comment>


Why we shut down our Monograph service - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@moeamaya/why-we-shut-down-the-monograph-service-f12ff0149d2d#.jn51aujes <comment><USER2> If you are wondering what the "Monograph service" was: [http://archive.monograph.io/about](http://archive.monograph.io/about)

The entire site is still available at [http://archive.monograph.io/](http://archive.monograph.io/)

However, they aren't adding new projects.

Their first year lessons learned from about a month ago : [https://medium.com/@moeamaya/agency-year-1-make-all-the- mist...](https://medium.com/@moeamaya/agency-year-1-make-all-the-mistakes- dde0abbe27b7#.8h7cfvdsm)

They are pivoting to an architecture rather than maker/engineering focus: [http://beta.monograph.io](http://beta.monograph.io)

EDIT: _Questions for Moe_ \-- You said that Monograph is a side project and was difficult for two to support at $2500 / yr.

1) That seems like a fairly low yearly cost. What was your backend, and are you pursuing lower costs with the new beta or is it just a better / more appropriate market focusing on architecture that should be sustainable?

2) How much of that was advertising?

3) What is the main-project of which this was a side project?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for adding the links daveguy!

1) The stack is Rails and Postgres on Heroku, static assets (video/images) on S3/Cloudfront, and transloadit for video processing. $2500 isn't a crazy sum but the project doesn't make any money and the value for us is mostly the fact we created the website. Like any public project, the other non-intuitive costs are maintenance and customer support. We love that it's become a resource so we're moving everything to a static site and keeping the work archived.

The new beta is focused on B2B (with a need) and a lot of the manual processes of uploading and formatting projects has been automated, which is how we can offer the "human" element.

2) We had zero spend on advertising since the content is so damn compelling. A couple of projects hit the top of reddit/fb/HN.

3) The "main" project is our digital consultancy in SF which a small part came as a result of Monograph exposure. The business is growing, but we really enjoy building products so the beta is a primary focus for us this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for this write-up.

I was a somewhat inspired by Monograph when I started on Car Projects (a space for people to share their garage projects). I had seen Monograph somewhere a while back, and then when I wanted to find it again I'd forgotten the name and it was REALLY hard to find. Googling things like 'website for sharing physical projects' took forever.

I'll email you when I get closer to launch with Car Projects because I'd love to get your thoughts Moe.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great to see you learnt so much, and new the new product website is beautiful.</comment>


Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking - Lucid Dreaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/fashion/16lucid.html?ex=1347595200&en=b22d6639167a4baf&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> I love lucid dreaming, too bad that most of my dreams are only semi-lucid. There was just once that I woke up in the middle of the night and then convinced myself to enter a specific dream and it worked, the process took about 5 seconds (or so it seemed).

However I have to say I love the common non-lucid dreams more. You shouldn't always have what you want, and from personal experience I have learned much from unfortunate situations.

Random comment: Everytime I leave a comment here there is pressure to impress YC. This pressure either raises the quality of my messages or make them less honest.

<comment><USER3> I had a similar situation just recently - only worse; when I suddenly became aware that I was dreaming, I thought "ah, a lucid dream! So I can do what I want here? Cool... what do I want to do...? Er... er... er... oh bugger I'm waking up now." Once I was awake, and had the chance to think about it, I realised that the aspect of my dreams I love most is their complete unpredictability despite also being completely convincing, and I was rather scared that I'd never get that back.

Happily the next night I was back to good old-fashioned vivid dreams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My mom taught me how to lucid dream when I was a kid to get rid of my recurring nightmares. The experience of battling against the evil monsters of my childhood dreams was one I will never forget.

<comment><USER5> I found lucid dreaming by accident; it just happened to me a few times before I discovered some people called it "lucid dreaming".

There are some interesting mental experiments you can do when lucid dreaming, like the ones where you look at yourself in the mirror. What do you see? What do you see in the mirror when you move? What happens if you move into the mirror? The answers to these questions tend to be very interesting, but also very diverse between people.

<comment><USER6> What were your answers?

<comment><USER5> It's rather creepy. The vision of yourself in the mirror tends to be distorted, and if not (in my case was not), it gets distorted with movement. As if the brain couldn't process it well, or something like that. And usually, in dreams, going into surfaces makes all your surroundings change (at least that was what happened to me, it was like teleporting).

Google for Lucid Dreaming and Mirrors, it'll get you to very interesting results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In _Surely You're Joking..._ , there's a great story about Richard Feynman's experiences with lucid dreaming (though I'm not sure he uses that phrase). It's what inspired me to try. Got it to work twice. Both experiences were during afternoon catnaps, for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have dreams like this sometimes, but I cannot do anything that's not possible in the real world. I can try, but my brain always corrects the universe in the next second. For example, I cannot balance a pencil on its point; it will always fall over.

</comment><comment><USER9> I taught myself how to snowboard through lucid dreaming. I'd recommend it. IIRC omega-3 is good for inducing lucid dreams, and since that's the one supplement the FDA actually recommends people take it kind of works out.

<comment><USER3> Which, given that there's lots of omega 3 in cat food, works out nicely during the pre-funding phase. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think we all lucid dream a little too much :) Its an entrepreneurial trait.</comment>


Emotiv EPOC EEG Headset Hacked: An Interview with Cody Brocious - <AUTHOR> http://hplusmagazine.com/2010/09/13/emotiv-epoc-eeg-headset-hacked/

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting as I didn't know who <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=daeken> is & relates to this thread ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2410776#score_2410776></comment>


A Beginner's Guide to Deep Reinforcement Learning - <AUTHOR> https://skymind.ai/wiki/deep-reinforcement-learning <comment><USER2> i've read this one before (before i read sutton's book). this is a much better intro

[https://spinningup.openai.com/en/latest/](https://spinningup.openai.com/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That seemed like a lot of content, kudos.</comment>


Ask HN: I want my pupils (~12yo) to create their own website. Suggestions? - <AUTHOR> Former back-end Web developer here.
Since last September I am a full-time maths teacher in France, with ~100 pupils (11-13 yo).
I told them one day that I had done webdev before, and since then several kids asked me for some advice to create their own website.
Of course I encouraged them, since I thought it would be great for them to share content outside of the GAFA bubble, and own their medium. However I never created a full course.
But now that the whole country is under lockdown, I have some time to properly help them. I'd love to see them create their own website from scratch: no WordPress, no Wix, just <div>s and <span>s and a few CSS rules...
I don't really know what to choose though. I want to:
- (ideally) have the same provider for domain names and hosting,
- get the kids to update their website themselves (otherwise I'll be flooded with requests every hour :) ), and
- be able to manage a lot of domain names for cheap (except the registration itself).
I will probably have 10-20 kids interested.
Do you have any suggestions for domain registrar, hoster, and an easy way to upload their work? (git, FTP...)
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Easy. [https://repl.it](https://repl.it) was made for exactly your purpose, and even allows multiplayer editing like a google sheet.

It's free, it's hosted for free, and you don't even need a domain, unless you are unhappy with the random generated one you get on the site:)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I had heard of it but never really checked... You're right, it's gonna be very useful until they want their own domain name :)

<comment><USER2> Btw you can do custom domains easily! You just have to buy the domain through some other company like namecheap or google domains

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It might be worth talking to the folks at [https://reclaimhosting.com/](https://reclaimhosting.com/) or [https://neocities.org/](https://neocities.org/) (they might do a package deal for a bunch of student sites if the free thing with a subdomain isn't enough. But as much as I always advocate for having your own domain, for young students getting started a subdomain is probably fine)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, very interesting :) thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They could make JoeDocs sites (joedocs.com) and have them either publicly editable or only viewable. They feel like GoogleDocs to edit, but have video chat, public visibility, custom domain names, etc.

Disclaimer, I am on the founding team of JoeDocs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reference. However I want them to learn bare HTML/CSS first, does joedocs allow to create a website from scratch?</comment></comment>


The Mathematical Nomad, Paul Erdős (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://pe.cantorparadise.com <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20483681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20483681)

</comment><comment><USER3> see The Man Who Loved Only Numbers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Loved_Only_Numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Loved_Only_Numbers)

which was a fun book about Erdős</comment>


Show HN: Procrastitracker, a Windows time tracking app - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aardappel/procrastitracker <comment><USER2> Thanks for submitting? I wrote the thing, if anyone has questions.</comment>


Show HN: CNoEvil - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/shakna-israel/cnoevil/ <comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by "Having fun abusing the C language" [0], I present to you what appears to be an entirely different language written in the C Pre-Processor!

This was amazing fun to work up.

Also, if you ever use this, you are utterly insane.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787134)

<comment><USER2> This is quite impressive- I like that it has a Swift like syntax.

I also wrote something similar (but extremely impractical and useless, not to mention highly inefficient) to create an English like syntax for C: [http://imgur.com/Bv81Wpw](http://imgur.com/Bv81Wpw) (It's extremely cringeworthy)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a lovely bit of abuse. Almost like BASIC.</comment></comment></comment>


The Blame Game - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/12/14/blame-game

<comment><USER2> > (This I've heard from numerous sources, from both sides of the > negotiations.)

Nope, doesn't work that way. You can't be both an opinion blog and a journalist. While DF probably does have insider sources most do not, he doesn't have journalistic integrity and can't ask his readers to take his word on something being true that confirms his own bias.

<comment><USER3> > he doesn't have journalistic integrity

Can you provide any examples of Gruber blatantly lying or misrepresenting his sources? (Serious question)

<comment><USER4> Regarding integrity, check his iPhone 5 review. Is there any mention of the Apple Maps app being a farce?

Regarding inside sources, are there any examples of him breaking an exclusive story of substance? For example, what is happening to the (new) Mac Pro?

<comment><USER5> Why would Apple Maps have anything to do with a review of new hardware? Just over a week later, though, he did write at length about the maps situation [1]. How does this show a lack of integrity?

[1] [http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switc...](http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switch)

<comment><USER4> iOS 6.0 shipped with the iPhone 5 and Apple Maps was a major new feature touted by Apple and presented in-person to journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [TFA is basically content-free, but ...]

This is the don't-make-your-company-dependent-upon-one-service thing we see happening around Twitter, but writ much larger. That's not too interesting or too hard to see.

What I hadn't considered before is that the situation is somewhat a natural outcome of Apple's have strategy of limited-set-of-apps-for-core- functionality. If Apple has fostered/encouraged multiple great mapping applications rather than promoting just one this situation might not have occurred. Of course, then they'd have multiple mapping apps and users might be confused.

I understand that maps are valuable to mobile devices, but I don't think they're _core_ to mobile devices. Apple treated them as core and didn't seem to have planned well for serious changes to maps.

<comment><USER7> Maps absolutely are core to mobile devices. Besides communication, mapping is the other primary use case of my mobile device and I know I'm not alone on this one.

Communication, mapping and calendaring are also the three primary "intents" built into the device since day one. For example, every "maps.google.com" link from any application is captured by the OS and routed to the native maps app instead of Safari.

<comment><USER6> By core, I mean that it's critical to have control of them for success/viability of the device (ie. strategic components). I certainly do think that maps are important, but I don't think it would matter which mapping application is used on a device or think that it's critical for Apple to control that application. The UI, settings, notifications, phone app, SMS app [maybe], location services seem like just about the only core bits. Treating a giant, very complicated application built by another company as core means that you're probably signing up to build that functionality in the future. As Apple is doing...

In hindsight, I suspect Apple would have been happier had they launched with Google Maps, then had gotten Garmin, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc to build great mapping applications. I don't know how building a mapping infrastructure is a good idea for Apple [but perhaps I just haven't thought about it enough yet].

<comment><USER8> If these other players could "build great mapping applications", I suspect some of them would have by now. Google really is in a class by itself here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does Apple really protect its users' privacy more than Google?

<comment><USER10> I think it's accurate to say that their business interests are different, and thus the applications to privacy are different. For example, Safari defaults to "Block cookies from third parties and advertisers". Chrome defaults to allow all cookies by default.

<comment><USER11> Not to mention that Google ad servers actively worked to undermine Safari's 3rd party cookie blocking default.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/16/how-google-tracked- sa...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/16/how-google-tracked-safari- users/)

I'm not personally terribly concerned about browser tracking and take no steps to block it (I work for an advertising supported business and on the whole would rather have targeted ads than not), but it is completely fair to say that Apple does more to protect privacy (as it's commonly understood online) than Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I mentioned in a previous comment that I think Apple should just bite the bullet and license Google Maps in perpetuity, in order to preserve the best experience for its users. Let Apple get access to the data that Google acquires via Maps, let Google take all the ad revenues, and fully integrate with Google, and pay them some amount one-time money... maybe $10B? $10B represents 3 months of their free cash flow in a year.

It would be the equivalent of Apple making a deal with Microsoft back in 97/98 that allowed them to stop their distracting fight against Microsoft and concentrate on making themselves better.

This whole Maps fiasco is a complete distraction to the iPhone, and it's not something that Apple is good at. They are amazing at hardware innovation. This is where their core competency is. Case in point, despite all the negative talk about how the iPhone 5 wasn't innovative, their latest iMacs are amazingly beautiful and futuristic-looking still.

Their software is okay at best, but not innovative. Their web services offerings are below average, at best.

There is no point in getting into a protracted ground war vs Google when it comes to Maps because it's a distraction and they won't be able to overtake Google. Companies like Yahoo that had way more resources than Apple when it comes to search have tried and essentially gave up. If Yahoo can't do it, how can Apple do it, where hardware wags the tail on their software? Better to keep focusing on maintaining/retaking the hardware innovation mindshare and lead.

<comment><USER13> Why should Apple do that?

You know what would be the much cheaper solution? Allow iOS users to set default apps (for maps and even other stuff). Problem solved. Google and Apple don't even have to meet for that, agree on anything or pay anything.

<comment><USER14> Well there is an engineering cost to defining and implementing the interfaces that would make setting "default apps" work. Still probably cheaper and definitely better for users in the long run.

<comment><USER15> That cost is really low. Not even worth mentioning. It's a bit of UI in settings, and you're done. It already exists on the Mac and has for ages. We can be stupendously pessimistic about the time and say it would require ten man-years to implement (not likely) and it's still vastly cheaper than licensing just about anything at their scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The need to _always_ assign blame to an entity for some suboptimal experience is immature. It also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of business and economics.

Some things just are.

</comment><comment><USER15> > I'd say neither company was being a "jerk" here. Apple and Google were both > acting in their own interests.

If this wasn't blindingly obvious to you from the very moment this whole business showed up in public, then you should take some time to reconsider how you analyze the world.

<comment><USER17> True, true. But the additional claims from Gruber in this is that "both acting in their own interests, Google's being 'milk you dry for information and revenue', while apparently Apple is this beatific entity, whose interest is 'sincerely caring for ... their customers'." Eye roll

<comment><USER18> It's more that for Apple, users are customers (they buy the gadget), while for Google, users are the product being sold (ads).

<comment><USER19> Apple is just as interested as locking you into their world (itunes, app store, icloud, etc.) as google is. And apple gets I believe 30% of the ads you're shown within their ecosystem so you are the customer AND the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > For one thing, Apple sincerely values the privacy of its users more than > Google does.

Ah, Gruber... so cute.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's annoying when people with some degree of influence casually spew misinformed nonsense:

 _Google wanting iOS users to be able to sign in — if not be downright encouraged to sign in — to their Google account, that's easy to understand. That's how Google makes money, by selling ads that target us based on the information they collect as we use their services._

You agree to send anonymous data to Google for the location targeting and improved accuracy bit, you sign-in to sync bookmarks and search history. Also one wouldn't have needed to sign into every Google app separately if iOS allowed Google the same OS-wide account integration that Facebook and Twitter have.

<comment><USER22> I legitimately think I've misunderstood your comment, because I'm not following. As I understand it, the anonymous data collection allows Google to improve the maps, gather aggregate user data, etc., but is "anonymous." If you sign into a Google account, then they can track individual usage and better target ads. There's nothing particularly nefarious about this; Google does this with all their services, that's their business. Right?

<comment><USER21> Location data is anonymous regardless if you login afterward or not: [http://support.google.com/gmm/bin/answer.py?hl=en- GB&top...](http://support.google.com/gmm/bin/answer.py?hl=en- GB&topic=1617283&hlrm=nl&ctx=topic&answer=81874)

<comment><USER23> Searches, starred locations, etc. are not, though. Arguably, those are more important than location data.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but they are also not as sensitive as location data and are very useful features.

<comment><USER24> Who says that they aren't as sensitive? Where I am going to can be just a sensitive as where I am and where I might be thinking about going could be even more sensitive.

The feature may be useful and I'm not saying that it shouldn't be offered but I believe that your assertion that they aren't as sensitive is NOT universally true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So Google and Apple are fighting, and iPhone users got caught in the middle without their maps data.</comment>


China's Divorce Spike Is a Warning to Rest of Locked-Down World - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/divorces-spike-in-china-after-coronavirus-quarantines <comment><USER2> While it may be that the uptick is caused by the lockdown straining relationships, it may also be a case that the lockdown artificially depressed demand and then easing of the lockdown enabled people, who would have otherwise filed earlier, to all file at the same time

<comment><USER3> this is easily checked in 3-6 months when you can look at year on year changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's easy to slide along in an awful relationship as the water slowly gets hotter and hotter, hoping that your spouse will somehow come to their senses rather than boiling you alive. A sudden shock that makes you realize you're long overdue to get out can be a very good thing. (Highly recommended.)</comment>


Online Bootcamp for experienced developer? - <AUTHOR> What are your thoughts on online Bootcamps for developers with a couple years experience?  I am of course interested in programs that are not for beginners, but would enable me to more quickly higher paying jobs.  I believe I am weak primarily in coding structure (such as OOP) and other higher level concepts.  I do not want a program that is simply going to teach syntax and coding basics.<p>Is a Bootcamp a good idea or should I be looking elsewhere?  Open to other thoughts on how to improve. <comment><USER2> I subscribe to a few screen casts series ($5-30)/mo and find them very engaging for an intermediate or advanced developer. In particular, I like destroy all software ([https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts)) because it makes me think of programming more creatively along with how to think about different big picture concepts. Screen casts and books fill the niche I think you're looking for at an affordable cost but don't share the same teaching style. They're no where as near hands on, collaborative, guided or have same level of structure. But they're much cheaper and flexible in terms of time commitment.

</comment><comment><USER3> I launched a remote and collaborative course for more seasoned developers that I think might satisfy your needs.

Unfortunately we are not accepting more students now since we are focused on some other courses, but I'd be curious to know if this format is something that would help you.

[https://www.eventbrite.com/e/learn-nodejs-doing-remote- pair-...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/learn-nodejs-doing-remote-pair- programming-registration-31663159362)</comment>


Where WhatsApp Went Wrong: EFF's Four Biggest Security Concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/where-whatsapp-went-wrong-effs-four-biggest-security-concerns <comment><USER2> I've had to re-install WhatsApp because of a botched updated. I do not get an option now to opt-out of Faecebook data sharing now. I wonder if my decision prior to the update to opt-out persists with them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very disappointing with many other (and arguably more important) security/privacy issues that are left out of this report.

<comment><USER4> A bit disappointing that you left them out of your comment as well.

<comment><USER3> Here is a brief comment I made 20 days ago on the same issue:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559127)

Thanks for your interest and looking forward to have a discussion here with other HNers

<comment><USER4> > _What I can not comprehend is how respectable people and experts like > Snowden and others from EFF can get behind a messenger that its > authentication is based on cell phone numbers!_

Authentication isn't based on cell phone numbers, that's just the identifier. See "verify security code" here: [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030015](https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030015) The problem, which EFF does mention is that "if your contact changes keys, this fact is hidden away by default."

> _When an application sends all your contacts to its servers (whether they > are hashed or not) and more importantly when your whole access depends on a > none encrypted code sent via SMS_

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems as if you think that someone who hijacks your number will get access to some account where all your contacts are. That's not the case. The problem here is the same as above.

> _and worst of all, your identifier can be tied to your real identity > extremely easy, how can they call it secure at all?_ > _It is not all about > E2E or how the crypto is designed or implemented, its also about your > anonymity, your social graph and other pieces of information which are > arguably more important not to give away!_

That doesn't make it insecure, it's just not anonymous. No one claims that it is and it's not a goal [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20971813](https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20971813)

<comment><USER3> On the first point: Account authentication (when you setup your account or when you add a new device) is done via a non encrypted text message delivered to you by the tel-co service. This method is extremely insecure as it has been used by state and non-state sponsored hackers to hijack the account. IMHO the only reason a messaging service uses and relies on phone number to identify (and of course authenticate accounts) is to steal (that's how I see it) their contacts and force them to use the service in order to grow their user base. Such unethical and disturbing practice can not be endorsed by an organization like EFF.

Regarding the second point, as mentioned above, my problem is with the support EFF shows for such applications/corporations. If you are looking to avoid mass surveillance, of course the ability to be anonymous is critical.

<comment><USER4> > _On the first point: Account authentication (when you setup your account or > when you add a new device) is done via a non encrypted text message > delivered to you by the tel-co service. This method is extremely insecure as > it has been used by state and non-state sponsored hackers to hijack the > account._

Again, the problem here is that "if your contact changes keys, this fact is hidden away by default." If WhatsApp did that by default, like Signal, then you would know that the key had changed.

> _IMHO the only reason a messaging service uses and relies on phone number to > identify (and of course authenticate accounts) is to steal (that 's how I > see it) their contacts and force them to use the service in order to grow > their user base. Such unethical and disturbing practice can not be endorsed > by an organization like EFF._

The phone number is used for contact discovery. You're not forced to do anything. For most people when they download a messenger they want to use it to talk to other people and they don't find it disturbing or unethical when that's possible.

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact- discovery/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact-discovery/)

> _If you are looking to avoid mass surveillance, of course the ability to be > anonymous is critical._

Luckily it's possible to use more than one app. I'm ok with my friends knowing who I am. This app makes it easy to find your friends. If you want to talk to people you don't know without them knowing who you are, there are other apps. That's not the purpose of this one. It doesn't make it bad, it doesn't make it insecure, it just means it's not for you.

<comment><USER3> 1) Again I'm not talking about verification of whoever is on the other side of the conversation, its about hijacking the account (whether by breaking into the Tel-Co system or having access to it using a court order). There are other means to verify the person you are talking to (signing a message in the beginning of conversation using another app or software) but if all that it takes for someone to have access to my account is to get a copy of that text (containing authentication code) I'm not sure if anyone can call this secure. IMO this security flaw is far more important than having E2E. I hope I was able to differentiate between authentication and verification.

2) If you are using this app, you are forced to give up a copy of all you contacts and also the app is scanning for new contacts several times every hour! If this was an opt in option, I wouldn't have any issues with it. Some people might favor convenience over security as is their right but forcing a social graph of all your friends (almost in all cases without even a simple warning) out of you because you simply want to use the service is frankly disturbing.

3) Unluckily, there are no apps that have such strong E2E standard while implementing the points I raised.

What I'm more concerned about is EFF's bar to endorse a platform with such bug flaws.

<comment><USER4> > _1) Again I 'm not talking about verification of whoever is on the other > side of the conversation, its about hijacking the account (whether by > breaking into the Tel-Co system or having access to it using a court order). > _

What do you imagine happens when someone hijacks "the account"? They don't get access to your past conversations, they don't get access to your contacts. All that happens is that they can impersonate you, which your friends will notice when they are notified that the key changed.

> _If you are using this app, you are forced to give up a copy of all you > contacts and also the app is scanning for new contacts several times every > hour!_

I'm pretty sure it asks you and you have to give it permission. And again, most people WANT to find their contacts. What's the point of having a messenger and no one to send your messages to?

> _If this was an opt in option_

It is opt-in, no one is forcing you to use WhatsApp. It's not like people don't know that they will be able to contact their friends through WhatsApp and are shocked and dismayed when they find out that's the case. You do realize not __every __app in existence has to follow your requirements right? You 're free to use something that __does __, but the reason the majority use WhatsApp is that it __doesn 't __. That 's not a bug, it's a design choice that you happen to disagree with.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best remote worker video chat solution? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to have a constant connection with my remote co-workers. The problem is that many of them are in somewhat noisy envoirments (including me), so keeping a constantly open audio/video connection is not possible.
I would simply like som kind of group video chat with a push-to-talk possibility. My testing so far has concluded that neither Skype nor Google Hangouts support this.
What do the rest of you use? <comment><USER2> [https://www.uberconference.com/](https://www.uberconference.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice! I tried out but it didn't support video, or really push-to-talk. You could mute yourself or another caller, but it wasn't really fast enough to use for my use case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about just using something like this [http://www.pushtotalk.nu/2013/05/ptt-for-windows-7-skype- msn...](http://www.pushtotalk.nu/2013/05/ptt-for-windows-7-skype-msn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I have looked around for solutions like that, but I haven't really found anything good for Mac.</comment></comment>


The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/12/the-ayahuasca-boom-in-the-u-s <comment><USER2> While I don't doubt the psychological benefits of ayahuasca (or any hallucinogenic), the language of many of those advocating in the article set off red flags. "Format your harddrive", reminds of Arch Oboler's "Society of the Cosmos", something dreamed up by Evangelical hucksters who didn't see a future in peddling Jesus so they turned to techno speak to wring out the marks.

"We manifest abundance wherever we go," sounds even worse. That's the kind of reason Dominionist give when trying to dodge their car taxes.

What did Hunter Thompson say about the seekers who tried to buy enlightenment by the dose?

Instead the real benefit is trying to rationally understand their experience. "Wait, was there a giant hand with my dad's watch on it's wrist crushing the room? Damn, I didn't realize I was letting that take over my life."

Without that personal insight you are just dealing with pseudo-spiritual abstractions.

<comment><USER3> I feel like the sheer amount of bullshit surrounding these drugs leaves me with a duty to take heavy doses of psychedelics and proudly learn nothing but "boy that was fun"

<comment><USER4> Agreed on the bullshit. I think this might have something to do with me growing up in a certain hippy town on the California coast, but I couldn't get through this article without a lot of eye-rolling. OK, let's just put the whole drug thing aside and call it a hobby. You can have a hobby without having a pseudospiritual and vaguely appropriative justification for it.

Bodybuilders have a term that they use to describe the mythos that has evolved in their subculture regarding steroids and supplements: Broscience. This is the yuppie drug-dabbler equivalent.

<comment><USER5> Offtopic, but unfortunately broscience has extended beyond pharmaceuticals to training practice. This kind of thinking dominates the crossfit world with terms like "muscle confusion" and "failure". It's sad because I got into crossfit ten years ago because it was fun, something different every day kept me coming back. I didn't want to be a Navy SEAL, just to keep active, but the almost religious adherence to the training philosophy -- and the injuries sustained by several people I knew -- drove me away. Now I find myself sedentary and looking for something similar, but less pseudo-scientific.

<comment><USER4> I am similarly put off by yoga, which as practiced currently is not an "ancient tradition" but a bizarre relic of 19th century Indian nationalism[0]

Some people find the woo motivating, but I find it to be a distraction. I want my exercise regimen woo-free, thank you very much.

[0][http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2989a78a-ee94-...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2989a78a-ee94-385e-808f-c9c7c38d1cb7)

<comment><USER5> I would actually argue that yoga is now sufficiently commercialized as to bear little resemblance to anything "ancient" or "mystical". I can buy a book, get some videos or take a class and hear nothing spiritual at all. (Side note: Mark Lauren, in his fairly good _You Are Your Own Gym_ covers yoga a bit). This isn't to say there's not lots of people selling the "spiritual enlightenment" line.

I think all exercise programs tend to have a something to sell, because otherwise how do you make money? It's an interesting balancing act, however. Your doctor can tell you "get more exercise", but that's a pretty abstract concept that requires planning, commitment and is by definition kind of uncomfortable. So a whole industry has grown up around branding exercise. It works, too. Some of it is better than others, but people, myself included, buy it. We might buy it because we're gullible, we might buy it because it's easier than coming up with our own plan or more interesting when executing it.

But the number of books that grace the shelves with words like "warrior", "ultimate", "prescription", "philosophy", "enlightenment", "Spartan", "SEAL", etc, etc, etc. is pretty staggering. But frankly, whatever works. Insurance companies often incentivize gym memberships, but rarely do they pay for you to regularly see a trainer, so whatever is safe that gets people exercising. I complain, but it's not even in the same league of problematic as unregulated administration of pharmaceuticals by spiritual leaders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.theonion.com/article/ayahuasca-shaman-dreading- an...](http://www.theonion.com/article/ayahuasca-shaman-dreading-another-week- guiding-tec-52941)

<comment><USER7> Yup. A friend sent that a while ago. I sent it around to the folks who regularly takes Ayahuasca. We were all cracking up. It was either written by someone who took it at least once, or maybe just connected really well with it.

I didn't know at the time it was such a thing in SV though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The classical comparison that comes to mind is this:

LSD is like walking through the doors of perception.

DMT (as in ayahuasca) is like being shot out of a cannon.

I wonder if it has dawned on any of these "shamans" that a fistful of risperidone might be useful for the freakouts? Antipsychotics exist for a reason. Also, anyone on MAOIs is likely to have a very bad time, and people on SSRIs may not notice a thing (other than barfing).

The whole enterprise seems very poorly thought out.

<comment><USER9> According to my friends and everything I've read on the subject, the cannon effect is achieved when you smoke DMT.

Ayahuasca is DMT + MAOI inhibitors and is more like the usual experiences of orally ingesting LSD, psilocybin or mescaline.

<comment><USER10> Plus fantastically uncomfortable physical side effects, and on the positive side an experienced spotter to help you along.

<comment><USER11> Depends. If the MAOIs are extracted from the caapi, leaving out the other alkaloids, even the uncomfortable physical side effects can be avoided.

<comment><USER12> Ah but that's working around the 'plant spirit' and all that other stuff, you won't have an 'authentic' or 'real' experience and the hipsterswill laugh at you....

<comment><USER13> What's the point of the tone of your comment? Some people would find the processed drug to lack the "authentic" experience of what is found in nature. Doubt anyone really cares. Sounds more like a caricature to me.

<comment><USER12> I'm sneering at people who make themselves sick unnecessarily by drinking random plant-juice with a side-order of woo rather than a proper preparation that would give the same effects without the discomfort or other risks, all in the name of 'authenticity'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I run an ayahuasca clinic in Upstate NY. I make all my own preparations and tend to the ritual aspects as well as guide people on trips. I've been doing this as my profession for several years now, feel free to ask any questions

<comment><USER15> Wow! That must be an insane profession. I have a few questions for you: Firstly, how do you deal with the legal aspect of things? (If you can answer that, if not, I understand)

Secondly, why take the potion instead of pure DMT? If that is the active ingredient (along with an MAOI), I'd imagine just taking the pure compound to be more efficacious. (And the trips last only 20 minutes or something- under an hour)

Thirdly, say you have a chronic illness that requires constant management, like type 1 diabetes or something. I've heard the potion takes 12 hours, or in some extreme cases days, to work itself out of your system. Would that person still be a candidate for the ritual, or would they need to go through it with a medical professional on-site or something?

<comment><USER14> It's not as crazy as you might imagine - at least, compared to the lifestyles my clients lead. I (unfortunately) do not live in a geodesic yurt in some Catskill mountain grove, but in a modest rear house apartment in a town with generally nothing going on. The ceremonies are all hosted at friends or acquaintances houses who rent it to me.

The legality of it is something I am not worried about. The reagents to make DMT are not illegal to possess, only DMT itself. I keep them all separated at all times and I do not possess any baggies, scales, or any drug paraphernalia. The drugs are created on-site by me a day before the trip - this is part of the package I offer. Basically you come stay at a gorgeous (sometimes less so but generally nice) home and relax, put your cell phone in an anti-static bag in a safe and unwind before the next day. Sometimes I throw little parties with my friends' bands, but thats at the discretion of the client (after all a party is a good way to attract cops). If I do get caught, I would try my best to use the case as a legal vehicle to change the scheduling of DMT and other psychedelics.

With regards to potions + crystals (the 'pure' form of DMT), well, like other business I offer various products and packages. The trips are different, totally separate categories of mind-altering. Both options are available plus other packages. There's a DMT + LSD two-night stay that I personally think is the most fun (depends on my ability to procure that though, since I'm not _that_ good at synthesis and LSD is legit the hardest drug to make) since they get both the intense "next-level" DMT and then they can ride it out on some low-dosage LSD where we paint, read, write, occasionally program (lots of 'hacker' clients), discuss, and whatever else the client wants to do. I get a lot of couples who just want me to be there to administer the potion and then be "on-call" in case they freak out but that's only happened once. I just write on those days. Working on a fantasy novel.

I have friends who have chronic illnesses who swear by "recreational" drugs such as LSD, DMT (both forms), and, of course, THC. They have good judgement of their limits and I would say are more in touch with their body than able bodied people, it's fascinating to hear them talk of their conception of their physicality as compared to (this is a real quote) the finance bro who sees it more "like a bunch of car parts that evolution glued together". People with illnesses are attuned to their systems in a way that offers a unique perspective to me. However, I have personally never administered a trip to someone who wasn't able-bodied or otherwise 'healthy' \- not bc of my preference, it's just been the clientele so far. We generally do not trip with medical people on staff unless requests but that's never come up.

<comment><USER16> I have heard second hand that this site works great [http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion](http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion) (please use Tor browser to access)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> All of this "self exploration, cosmos consciousness, soul enlightenment" justification for using these drugs sounds to me like the promises of profit in Tim Ferris' 4 hour work week: 1) take drugs 2) ??? 3) Enlightenment. You know that Mt Fuji analogy whereby a hiker hikes to the top of Mt Fuji for enlightenment, choosing his path on the way? Well it seems to me like this people are looking for a quick helicopter ride to the top. And having used these drugs myself in the past, I was so stupid and naive to think that it would impart the wisdom that decades of life should give you. Idk to me this all seems like a bunch of bullshit.

<comment><USER18> Drug experiences are still experiences and like any experience, you can learn something from them or waste them.

At the absolute least, a psychedelic experience should teach you a lesson about the reliability of the senses and about how subjective our experience of reality can be, which is a valuable lesson to learn, IMO, and no matter how much you understand it intellectually, directly experiencing it is another matter entirely.

<comment><USER17> You make a good point - the psychedelic experience can lead to a greater sense of empathy in that you perceive the world not through the eyes of your ego but as "all one" (over simplification). An increase in empathy is a good thing but equating these drugs to a magic pill for self actualization is wrong.

<comment><USER19> > world not through the eyes of your ego

in most cases, you don't see much of the world past you own eyes anymore, but some "fantasy", which is why it is aptly called an hallucinogen. It messes with your head and you have a hard time making sense of the world so you revert to some basic notions of knowledge, that appear like an epiphany because they are that basic. I don't think these are new found insights and good luck if these facilities of your brain are damaged in the process. It is called _acid_ for a reason.

Edit: A neat analogy would be fuzzing a production system. Not only that, it is randomly deleting files and flipping bits of memory to see how robust the system is. If your system is error free, the fuzzing is not a problem, but every system has bugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Be careful. These quotes from the article are kind of worrying:

 _"Do you have doctors or anyone on hand who understands what's happening on a pharmacological level if something goes wrong?" There was a tense silence, and then Little Owl replied, "We are healing on a vibrational level."_

And:

 _I asked how she could tell it wasn't something requiring immediate medical intervention, and the [mediator] replied, "Intuition."_

<comment><USER21> Indeed. This is not a toy drug. This is heavy-duty.

I wonder if there is maybe something simple, medically, that can be done by a 'non pro' \- like - if there are specific and identifiable symptoms - 'take this pill' which has a neutralizing or softening effect or something. Hopefully something safe and natural. Maybe even something like 'drink caffeine and eat something fatty' \- or whatever might work that's easy and accessible.

<comment><USER15> As far as I know, you can get "chill pills", I think maybe benzodiazepines will calm you down, but even in an ER they just make sure you're safe and let your ride it out. Once that roller coaster starts it needs to run it's course.

Source: Burnout friend.

<comment><USER21> I think for opioid overdose there is a medical intervention, but for these psychedelic things ... I guess there isn't much to do.

But psychological risk is real. My friend did something similar in Brazil and had 'fear' episodes for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The experience you will have is tremendously dependent on a few things: your existing state of mind, the physical environment / location of the experience, preparations (if any) made for the experience, and arguably most importantly (IMHO), your intention or reason for seeking the experience.

If you go at it with the attitude that this is simply a reason to get high, or to observe visual disturbances for the sheer sake of hallucinating, there's a very good chance that will comprise your experience. Conversely, if you set an intention of learning about yourself, life, death, existence, the universe, etc., and approach it with regard, then there is a very good chance you will have _that_ experience.

From what I have gathered observing myself and my friends, the latter can be quite transformative to the self. It can encourage profound positive changes in attitude and improve quality of life, increase spiritual awareness and feelings of interconnectedness, greatly diminish or eliminate one's fear of death, among other things. These feelings can last, sometimes for life, and it can take months to fully integrate the lessons learned and information gained after returning from the "journey". See the John's Hopkins study on psilocybin for more information.

Preparation and intent simply cannot be understated when it comes to the use of these substances. What the psychedelic enthusiasts refer to as 'set and setting'.

<comment><USER23> If the effect only manifests when you think about it correctly, is it a placebo?

<comment><USER22> And this is precisely where trying to measure a unique experience with microscopes and well-established materialist scientific theorems begins to fail us. An experience, by the way, that many call the 'most important' of their life. They describe it as 'noetic' in that it seems _more real_ than ordinary consensus reality, and 'ineffible' in that it cannot be successfully described, it must be experienced firsthand.

These aren't just the waxings of a hippie distracted at work, I can point you to studies that demonstrate the repeatability of it all (i.e., 'most important experience of life' claims, noetic properties, ineffable, etc.) _Many_ people use these descriptors when regarding their respective psychedelic journeys.

In my opinion, the reason some people have awe-inspiring life-changing experiences and some just see neat visuals or have the ominous 'bad trip' goes back to my first comment. Set, setting, and intention are absolutely everything with these substances. The stuff just seems to be of a higher order, and it seems it gives you just what you deserve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why does the plant produce DMT? Is it a poison? Are there other plants that produce it?

I wonder about the evolutionary reasons for its emergence. Does the plant influence the Human so that the Human protects and nurtures the plant? When did Humans begin altering South America? 15,000 years ago? More than enough time for the plant to adapt.

It's a strange feeling to ingest a hallucination producing organism. I remember being 19 years old, in the 90s, being given mushrooms. I spent the next several hours sitting at a tree stump feeling myself sink into it, feeling merged with plants around me. I remember thinking a lot about the juxtaposition of the natural with the concrete and brick and asphalt just a few hundred meters away - and wanting to tear it all down. Now, decades later, reading the woman's experience, I wonder if the fungi had somehow manipulated me.

<comment><USER25> Might want to spend some time thinking about that phrase "evolutionary reasons". There's an assumption in there I'm not sure you've noticed.

<comment><USER24> That's pretty cryptic... Ok, what do you mean? I'm dense.

<comment><USER26> I am not the OC, but I think he was going on about how you apparently attributed a certain level of "reason" to evolution. His contention is that evolution exists free of reason. I think you two are disagreeing on the term reason.

You mean "reason" in the sense of "why" and he means reason in the sense of "logical conditions". The why is an interesting question, what environmental or other factors provided an advantage in a plant containing this chemical, or was it a non-important side effect of some other change. It is interesting, maybe not easily knowable.

Hope this clears it up. I may be wrong, but I get annoyed when I read comments that are negative without an explanation, so I thought I would attempt to shine some light.

<comment><USER25> 'Negative'? That seems a touch harsh, although possibly just because I find myself on the pointy end.

<comment><USER26> Maybe less "negative" and more "non-constructive". It is a personal annoyance of mine when a reply points out a flaw or misunderstanding, but does so behind a veil of ambiguity. It completely passes up on a chance to educate the OP, and instead leaves them feeling uncertain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So much pretension, so much bollocks...

Just drop some acid like a normal person, or take a harmaline cap and some dmt later. No need for all this 'purging' and ceremony.

<comment><USER25> I don't know that it is bad for novices to have some framework in which to interpret and assimilate what is often a very intense experience. A reasonable degree of nuance might suggest that, while there's perhaps quite a lot of reason to blame people experienced enough to know better for making more (less?) of it than it merits, there's no reason to blame people who lack that experience for wanting, especially their first time, something a little more special than just "oh, drop some acid like a normal person".

<comment><USER12> Special? Fine, set and setting can be very important. But the nonsense about picking the vines at a certain time of day, and the idea that we don't need medical expertise on hand because we're special and....

It really winds me up. You're doing oral DMT, not magic...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder what the effects of chemically-induced pseudowisdom are. Real wisdom, after all, is both physiological and mental, a product of experience as well as of neurochemistry. What might be the ill-effects of feeling that one has gained wisdom when in fact one has only altered one's brain chemistry?

<comment><USER28> Well, if real wisdom requires experience then the harm you are talking about is probably slightly less harmful than the pseudo-wisdom one feels when reading another persons experience in a book. After all reading a book doesn't give us an experience, its all "just" chemistry too..

<comment><USER27> > After all reading a book doesn't give us an experience, its all "just" > chemistry too..

I'd disagree there. It's less experience than actually doing something, but more than just getting a chemical flow across the brain. Reading is a weak sort of experience, no?

<comment><USER28> I was being toungue and cheek. Of course reading a book is an experience, as is taking drugs. And its not just chemical , you might go to the park and have an adventure between two blades of grass or something. Its not like people just drop a tab, close their eyes and lie in bed. I would say in order of strength of experience I would say something like: [Big Adventure without drugs] > [Small adventure with drugs] > [Reading] > [Dreaming]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I tripped once years ago on an extract of morning glory seeds that a genius friend of my sister concocted. (Essentially lysergic acid amide, plus maybe some other alkaloids, look it up if you're that interested.)

There was no preparation as far as set and setting. Basically I was a chronic drug-using teenager who was trying something new. Took the stuff before a concert and began tripping during the opening act. Had a great time. Saw some weird shit. Blacked out for a while as usual because I was also smoking a lot of pot and drinking beer for hydration.

Somehow reconnected with the people I went with and got a ride home, with some intervening adventures on the way. Lay down in bed to sleep and that's when it got weird. Hard to describe and kind of boring if you weren't there ( _but you might have been! ;-)_ )

Woke up the next morning still tripping balls. Couldn't stop it, got kind of scared. Called people and said shit I don't remember and that they still won't repeat.

Finally stopped tripping later that day, and was exhausted for another day. Found out later from the genius that the dose was roughly equivalent to 350-500 mcg of LSD (i.e., a lot).

Read The Yage Letters shortly after that. Haven't tripped since. Occasionally consider it since I've done a lot more reading and work in the 37 years since that experience, but now it's a hipster thing so it's embarrassing to admit. I mean, the New Yorker is writing articles about it. You don't even have to dig through a few different grungy bookstores to find a copy of the Beat take on it from the '50s.

So, probably never yage / ayahuasca, but maybe someday a tab of acid. Or maybe not. I'm a lot more self-aware and enlightened than I was at 17, but I think that's mostly because I've lived another 37 years and survived all the trouble along the path, not because I tripped once.

P.S. People had these exact same kinds of conversations on this topic 35 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm a SV entrepreneur who is pretty well-connected with the community here (only mentioning this for the sake of credibility).

Maybe it's because I missed Burning Man this year, but I haven't heard of anybody doing this outside of articles on Tech Crunch that say people are (let alone normal hallucinogens).

Marijuana or Adderall, sure (Meadow and Eaze are doing well here); maybe even the /r/nootropics stack, but not hallucinogenic substances.

I know people who have experimented with shrooms, but they don't consider them a "drug of choice," let alone a productivity enhancer by any means. In fact, one of my acquaintances ended up going off the deep end when he started taking LSD. It was a really sad story.

</comment><comment><USER31> A friend of mine participated in an ayahuasca ceremony, and he said that it completely changed him, from a person who wanted to try ayahuasca to a person who would never do it again.

</comment><comment><USER32> Has anyone here actually tried ayahuasca and can share their experience?

<comment><USER33> I have, not in Peru but at home. I've tried DMT roughly 300 times, pharmahuasca (N,N-DMT in an enteric capsule, inside a larger capsule of synthetic monoamine oxidase inhibitor) and ayahuasca, and the usual others (I've tried everything I could find from Pihkal and Tihkal). I eventually became too afraid of DMT (I had mistakenly bought 5-MeO-DMT and was using the same dosage and that wasn't pleasant, and now I'm too anxious to "blast-off" because of the pace) and wanted something slower, so I turned to Ayahuasca.

It's a difficult feeling to describe (three Ayahuasca sessions at home so far.) – it's similar to N,N-DMT but whilst DMT feels like chapter-skipping, Ayahuasca feels like things are being played at 1x – If you have specific questions I will try to answer them.

<comment><USER34> You still think of it as "trying" after 300 doses?

<comment><USER33> I was lucky enough to breakthrough on my first dose, and the only times I haven't broken through have been down to choice (to feel what lower doses felt like) – I invested in better equipment ([http://imgur.com/vjvKzQB](http://imgur.com/vjvKzQB) – from one of my posts in the /r/DMT channel in reddit) after the first few breakthroughs, it was the most interesting, terrifying, and beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and I wanted to keep doing it to try and work out just what it was, there have been moments where I have lay in awe completely convinced I am witnessing everything happening everywhere in the universe, there have been times where I've been convinced I am solely responsible for the destruction of the universe, that my consciousness was the last thing left, there have been so many other strange experiences, I could never control them, I had to just sit back and feel everything, so it was always trying, I doubt that it's possible to master the effects, and most I know from various communities on the subject tend to ease off at around the same number of times that I did, as a chemical, it's absolutely non-addictive, all psychedelics I tend to find as self- regulating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why is this community so uncomfortable around 'woo'?

Some of my ideas:

Woo multiplies entities beyond necessity.

Woo uses imagery (goddesses, grandmotherss, spirits, 'energy') that we find aesthetically displeasing?

Woo has an anything goes feel to it (whatever is true for you...)

But perhaps we should look at our own woo before criticizing others too much for theirs, after all the world of business is full of it's own sort of woo (synergize our two platforms to leverage our cloud based infrastructure going forward...)

To me when someone speaks woo, it's a sign that the person may be on to something that can't yet be expressed.

This can happen to techies, for example during that interval when you feel that you have solved a problem you have been working on, but can't quite express it clearly yet.

But woo is so open ended, that this is only true for the best cases. Often it's just nonsense, but so are scientific abstracts and press releases sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER36> Short circuiting your brain is not the path to spirituality, therapy or enlightenment.

<comment><USER37> is that what you think it is? have you ever taken a psychedelic drug?

<comment><USER38> Or perhaps more importantly, surveyed the unfortunately scant literature to understand how they work as well as any potential for harm.

<comment><USER30> Regardless, you MIGHT get some non-mainstream academic agreement that there is the potential for therapeutic benefits; but not "Enlightenment" or anything spiritual.

Although, it seems to me that the burden of providing such literature is on you, not OP (no, erowid.com doesn't count).

<comment><USER37> erowid is a fine source for experiential reports and technical information on the botany and/or pharmacology of the substances involved.

let me ask you a question: is nothing true unless a credentialed academic writes a peer reviewed journal published paper about it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> In years of observation, I have no doubt that if the compound has some interesting properties, it will be exploited, outcry / moralizing will ensue, and legislation will be passed to criminialise any use. All it really takes is one precious snowflake to do something hurtful to themselves or others to kick-off a motivated response. Well, at least computer duster inhalants are still widely available (/sarcasm).

<comment><USER40> >legislation will be passed to criminialise any use

DMT was banned ages ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> In my eyes the VERY FACT that psychedelics like N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) even exist in the FIRST place (and take you on the experiences that they take you) can NOT be some sort of coincidence. I am not suggesting that they are some special all-knowing tool, but the sheer potency of DMT and the other- worldly-dimension-changing-states-of-mind that it yields when consumed can not be shrugged off as just another recreational drug or "you're just high bro", at least not to me.

We have consciousness. We see. We feel... but existence remains a mystery. No one on Earth can properly put into words what THIS is. It's unexplainable, at least to me. You can perhaps say "we are in the Milky Way" or "we are located in the Universe" or "we are existing" but these are just vague primitive monkey explanations.

Substances like DMT can shed light on these questions from a different vantage point.

<comment><USER42> I'm confused. It cannot be a coincidence that substances exist on this earth that alter our consciousness? Why not? There are all kinds of substances found naturally that can change the way you feel, change the way your body acts, kill you, make you hallucinate, whatever.

Is it proof that there has to be a purpose behind them?

I forgot what the term is, but is this not like the fallacy of believing there must be a creator, because there is this wonderful planet for us to experience? But if we were not here to experience it, we would not know it was missing.

<comment><USER43> Possibly the argument from personal incredulity?[0] Or maybe the Anthropic Principle? [1] Little column A, little column B?

[0] [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity#Perso...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity#Personal_incredulity)

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

<comment><USER42> Anthropic principle, yes, thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Qanon Deploys 'Information Warfare' to Influence the 2020 Election - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/qanon-deploys-information-warfare-influence-2020-election/ <comment><USER2> So... the problem is they're not being paid to co-ordinate an internet meme campaign? Mr Bloomberg's efforts are how its supposed to be done?

> "The danger of Qanon is not that they try to blow up a building," he says. > "It's that they and others are blowing up our shared reality."

Meaning, people who don't share your reality are intruding on it? "Diverse viewpoints" is a thing only as long as they don't actually see anything differently?

<comment><USER3> I'd agree more with your points if Qanon (the belief system) was given any kind of critical thought. The belief system is a tower of lies by any standard, except that of cult belief. If Qanon (the people) are trying to do this, they're trying to propagate falsehoods, some of them easily testable, but because it's a cult, nobody applies any standards of logic or fact-checks the assertions.</comment></comment>


Okasaki: Purely Functional Data Structures (1996) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/theses/okasaki.pdf

<comment><USER2> The book by the same title and author (which is heavily based off of this paper) was actually one of the first books on functional programming I read. I don't think I would suggest it as an introductory text to anyone, but even so I really enjoyed reading it even though I didn't know what functional programming was at the time.

The book is about persistent data structures and what techniques can be used to measure their time complexity. I don't think there's much utility here for the software engineer (although I suppose there's probably some edge cases where it would come up), but as someone who's interested in programming language development I plan to keep this book around for a long time.</comment>