Rare new kind of twins: boy and girl are semi-identical - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/semi-identical-twins-1.5036783 <comment><USER2> > Because of the odd combination of DNA picked up from the two sperm, doctors > have been concerned that the twins might be vulnerable to cancer of the > reproductive organs.

Why does 'different DNA' automatically assume cancer?

<comment><USER3> That's just the article's handwaving. The case report actually says:

> During follow-up at 3 years of age, routine ovarian surveillance showed Twin > 2 to have gonadal dysgenesis, and prophylactic oophorectomy was performed.

<comment><USER4> Yea, this is highly clarifying. The OP article makes it sound like they decided to render Twin 2 sterile because of a risk of cancer inferred from some theorizing about the genetics of a these new sorts of twins. In fact, it sounds like Twin 2 was already sterile.

> Streak gonads are the defective development of the gonads in an embryo, with > reproductive tissue replaced with functionless, fibrous tissue, termed > streak gonads. [It is] a form of aplasia, resulting in hormonal failure that > manifests as sexual infantism and infertility, with no initiation of puberty > and secondary sex characteristics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess it might also be possible, then, for semi-identical twins to have different fathers?

<comment><USER6> this happens all the time in other animals. i'd adopted two cats (boy and girl) who were littermates but had different fathers. their coat patterning and eye color were different even though their coloring and (small) size were similar.

<comment><USER7> Animals that commonly produce liters of multiple offspring typically do so by releasing multiple eggs simultaneously in each period of fertility. This also happens in humans in the case of fraternal twins (two eggs each fertilized by a different sperm).

That's very different from one egg being fertilized by a single sperm and then splitting (which produces identical twins) or being fertilized by two sperm (which is what happened in this case).

<comment><USER6> right, that was a bad example (multiple eggs with multiple sperm from different fathers, not single egg with multiple sperm). i can't remember where, but i do remember reading about this happening in other animals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My question here is: why is this so rare? Given how many spermatozoids are involved in every sexual contact, why doesn't it happen much more often for two of them to fertilize one egg?

<comment><USER9> Race conditions are the toughest to debug. They only show up sporadically.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyspermy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyspermy) has some short but interesting discussion of the theoretical background.

A polyploid zygote is completely nonviable, a pure waste of the egg, sperm, and other mating effort that went into it. It's in the interest of the mother and the father for the egg to be fertilized by exactly one sperm.

But it's in the interest of an individual sperm to be the one that fertilizes the egg instead of dying uselessly. So they get faster, more efficient, and more penetrant over time. When they're too effective, multiple sperm may get into an egg before the defenses are up. (Which, again, just kills the sperm that "won" the race, so you don't expect to see incredibly rapid progress in this area.)

Oceangoing eggs respond by having a fertilized egg's defenses go up _really quickly_ , because the egg is floating around in the ocean and it's hard for the mother to influence that environment.

Female mammals have responded with slower defenses, but internal characteristics that tend to retard or hurt sperm as they make their way towards the egg, meaning that it's rare for multiple sperm to all get there at once. This is good for avoiding polyploidy, but bad for fertility -- it is not necessarily the case that even one sperm will make it.

It's interesting to see competition among sperm hurting the reproductive chances of the male and female producing and accepting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just goes to show how amazingly diverse and complicated sex differentiation is

<comment><USER12> I'll probably be downvoted to the ground for being so politically incorrect, but... no.

This isn't a "celebration of diversity" kind-of-thing. It's an oh-fuck-look- how-this-broke kind of tragedy (particularly if you read the references posted in the commentary that indicate an amputation).

Celebrating diversity has a place. This is not it. Genetic machinery glitched majorly and these two children will have a difficult time ahead of them. Yes, we'll get interesting one-off scientific observations, but that's hardly a total reward.

<comment><USER13> You're reading into that comment a lot more than is warranted I think.

This _does_ show how diverse and complicated sex differentiation is. The comment does not claim this is a virtue, or that the outcome in the article here is to be celebrated.

"Diverse" in this context I took to mean "varied", not in the sense of social diversity.

<comment><USER12> They're not 'varied': one's genotype and phenotype is female, and the other's genotype and phenotype is male.

EDIT: Apologies, the poster below showed I am incorrect.

<comment><USER14> "The girl and boy each have male and female sex chromosomes — in other words, each twin has some cells that carry an XX pair (female) and some that carry an XY pair (male)."

They are both genetically ambiguous and present differently due to hormone generation rates.

<comment><USER15> Interesting. This would imply that they're both genetic chimeras, as they don't carry a uniform genotype throughout their cells.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait a minute:

> The twin boy and girl were found to have 100 per cent of their mother's DNA > in common, but were only 78 per cent identical in the paternal DNA they > carry.

78% identical seems like a lot more than the expected 50%. How likely is it for two sperm to be 78% identical?

Also:

> Because of the odd combination of DNA picked up from the two sperm, doctors > have been concerned that the twins might be vulnerable to cancer of the > reproductive organs.

> "It turned out that the girl just had some changes in her ovary that people > weren't comfortable with, so unfortunately she had to have her ovaries out," > Gabbett said. "The boy is continuing to have his testes monitored" with > ultrasound.

> "Otherwise," Gabbett said, "the two twins are beautiful kids, well and > healthy."

So gee, other than the fact that they're (probably) both sterile, they're well and healthy. How reassuring.

<comment><USER16> They mentioned a 3rd embryo not being viable as it only contained sperm DNA. How the DNA was divided up was probably fairly arbitrary.

<comment><USER10> Ahh, I see. They're 78% identical in paternal DNA because the same set of paternal DNA got into both embryos, not because two sperm were exceptionally similar.

This is underplayed by the terminology "semi-identical twins, with the same maternal DNA but different paternal DNA". They are significantly more identical than that. I bet twins actually matching that description wouldn't have the developmental problems these have apparently already manifested.

I wonder if the boy might have any symptoms of Klinefelter syndrome? (On the assumption that the two sperm were an X and a Y.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While technically accurate that headline sure doesn't anchor feelings in the right spot. It feels inappropriate to highlight people's tragedy as a novel scientific observation, even if true.

<comment><USER18> Why is this a tragedy? They have 2 beautiful, healthy children.

<comment><USER19> The girl has had her arm amputated and her ovaries removed, and she's 4. "Healthy" is not the word I would use.

<comment><USER20> She was unhealthy before her arm and ovaries were removed. Now she is healthy, if partially disabled. We are fortunate to live in a time where arms and ovaries can be largely compensated for. By the time she is of child-bearing age, if she chooses, she might well have the option to undergo a semi-cloning procedure as part of in-vitro fertilization to create an embryo that contains a blend of her and her mate's chromosomes akin(ha!) to if she had functioning ovaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "In addition, the girl and boy each have male and female sex chromosomes — in other words, each twin has some cells that carry an XX pair (female) and some that carry an XY pair (male). Having both male and female pairs of sex chromosomes throughout various cells in the body is linked to certain developmental problems in the reproductive organs as well as cancer, Gabbett said. When the doctors examined the girl twin's ovaries, they found some changes linked to cancer, and so "the difficult decision was made to remove them so she didn't develop cancer," he said.

The girl also developed a blood clot shortly after she was born — blood clots are a common complication for identical twins in general — and the clot cut off the blood supply to her arm. As a result, doctors also had to amputate her arm."

"When, in a separate unlikely event, the blastocyst divided into two – creating twins – more of the cells with genetic material from one sperm (which had an X chromosome) ended up in one embryo, while the other had a greater proportion of cells formed by the other, Y chromosome bearing sperm. This is why one fetus developed female characteristics and the other male, although both twins have cells from both sperm in their bodies, making them chimaeras"

<comment><USER22> Oh, interesting. That was totally missing from the original article. I had assume that the twinning was _because_ the egg had been fertilized by two sperm cells.

Rather, it seems that it's quite possible for any single-birth pregnancy to involve two sperm cells, and would result in a chimera. The fact that this one split into twins was a separate event.

<comment><USER10> The really simple model for an egg being fertilized by two sperm is that you'd get one fertilized zygote with three sets of chromosomes, fully triploid. Such a zygote would miscarry pretty quickly.

To get a less nonviable chimera, you need the egg to divide exactly once, such that one half gets one of the sperm and the other half gets the other one. If there is a mechanism that tends to ensure this happens, then it feels like that mechanism might also be related to the twinning (tripling, apparently) of the zygote under discussion here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Happens all the time with cats!

<comment><USER24> Not the same thing. 2 eggs, 2 sperms. Here it's one egg, two sperms.

<comment><USER23> Ahh. Yes, you are right.</comment></comment></comment>


Inside Facebook Seattle [Pictures] - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/04/facebook-seattle/

<comment><USER2> This is making Seattle a better second to the valley for startups. Coz Google and Facebook are reasonable backups for when the startup fails and you need a day job to build savings before the next attempt.

<comment><USER3> ...and Amazon and Microsoft.</comment></comment>


8 things I wish everyone knew about email - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/8-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-email.html <comment><USER2> > Change your settings so that when you reply to a note, the note you're > replying to is included below what you write (this is called quoting).

Obviously, he has never been forced to use ms outlook.

Unfortunately, he doesn't advocate text-only mails -- see the dicussion about font size.</comment>


TED: Ray Kurzweil delivers inspirational talk on the power of accelerating technology; AI by 2029 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38

<comment><USER3> I was not inspired enough to make it to the ten-minute mark. I heard his broham Kevin Kelly give what seems like the same boring-ass speech at the '95 Computer Game Developer Conference, where everyone was talking amongst themselves waiting for it to end. I think we were supposed to have AI by 2015 then. I'd be happy if I could play Starcraft by then without the frickin' computer cheating.

Anyway, the good stuff always seems twenty years away. I think that's also when we all get flying cars, which is what I'm personally excited about. However, if Terminator 2 is correct, 2029 is also when the machines make the T-1000 and we all get shivved by liquid metal robots, so kinda good news, bad news there.

But it is charming to hear someone who still uses "virtual reality" un- ironically, even more precious to hear him refer to the telephone as the first virtual reality technology. What the hell is that supposed to mean?!

<comment><USER4> Ray Kurzweil is nothing compared to Jaron Lanier. <http://www.jaronlanier.com/>

His webpage doesn't look very um, futuristic.

Also he calls Wikipedia "the Wikipedia", which coming from him sounds a lot like President Bush calling Google "the Google". <http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> A little background:

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

"Kurzweil was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first electronic musical instrument capable of recreating the sound of a grand piano and other orchestral instruments (which he developed at the urging of Stevie Wonder, who was amazed by his OCR reading machine), and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition system. He has founded nine businesses in the fields of OCR, music synthesis, speech recognition, reading technology, virtual reality, financial investment, medical simulation, and cybernetic art.

The inventor attributes his success in marketing technology products to being able to predict the arrival date of competitively priced components and match it to rollout of his designs, for example, the hand-held book reader built into a digital camera.[1]

Kurzweil was inducted in 2002 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the United States' largest award in invention and innovation, and the 1999 National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology.

He has also received scores of other awards, including the 1994 Dickson Prize (Carnegie Mellon University's top science prize), Engineer of the Year from Design News, Inventor of the Year from MIT in 1998, the Association of American Publishers' award for the Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990, and the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery and he received the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in 2000. He has received thirteen honorary doctorates, a 14th scheduled in 2007, and honors from three U.S. presidents. He has been described as "the restless genius" by the Wall Street Journal, and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the "rightful heir to Thomas Edison," and PBS included Ray as one of sixteen "revolutionaries who made America", along with other inventors of the past two centuries.[3]"

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I read that too -- I was looking up when he was born. I was figuring 2029 was also going to be "before I die" to him. He certainly looks like he'll make it to 81, but you can't expect a whole lot more, even with ten cups of green tea a day, so it seems like a personal goal to him. You can do it, Ray!

By the way, the first paragraph of that bio should be credited as being identical to the one on Ray Kurzweil's own site, which is considerably less plain than Jaron Lanier's (not that it means anything, in my opinion...):

<http://www.kurzweiltech.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was an exceptional talk. It is absolutely packed with data, and presents an exciting biological perspective on the exponential nature of the growth of human technology. If you like good research then you will probably like this. The message is basically that any technology can and most likely will get eaten by something better that comes along, and with exponentially increasing probability with time. Got it. The talk then turns into a forecast of technology through 2030 or so. Fairyland, yes. But fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> "By 2010 computers will have disappeared. They will be so small they will be embedded into our clothing. We will interact with virtual personalities via signals wired into our retinas." (not an exact quote, but close)

I wish it was true, but that's not going to happen in 2 years. Maybe by 2020, but definitely not by 2010.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a big fan of Kurzeil's ideas but my goodness how boring are his speaches! I've seen about 5 speaches like this all with the same graphs etc.. And whats with the constant yawning. It almost seems that he is bored repeating the same content.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like a smart guy, but this kind of stuff makes me think twice: <http://www.rayandterry.com/>

Also, does he have any technical books on the subjects he talks about?

</comment><comment><USER9> IMHO this is not one of his better talks. Much better just to read the book. It's 500 pages but it's a very fast read. Lots of pretty graphs also.

<comment><USER10> Some criticism of Kurzweil's book, _The Singularity Is Near_ : [<http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tmodis/Kurzweil.htm>]

<comment><USER11> Thanks for that. I'm really interested in where the fundamental limits are. Already on the machine I'm writing this on (65nm core 2 duo), the transistors are on the order of 100 atoms long, so clearly the limits of 2D transistor density are already closing in rapidly. From there, there's frequency, efficient design (i.e. actual computing power per transistor - <USER2> design, stream processors etc) and 3D, so there's a lot more to improve.</comment></comment></comment>


Does HP track what we print and scan? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/mom-with-hp-printer-shows-the-digital-ease-of-bogus-cash.html From the Article:<p>Manufacturers of printers and scanners, working with central banks and law enforcement officials worldwide, have also taken steps to fight counterfeiters, creating software that can detect and block the scanning of bills.<p>"HP works with law enforcement, industry, central banks and government agencies around the world to reduce the risk of counterfeiting activities," said Michael Thacker, director of media relations for HP, the computer hardware company based in Palo Alto, California. He declined to be more specific: "Due to potential security risks, HP is obligated to keep the details of its activities confidential." <comment><USER2> For me the link led to an article titled "Woman With Printer Shows the Digital Ease of Bogus Cash". It mentions anti-counterfeiting features in printers but does not address the topic of the submitted title "Does HP track what we print and scan?". The latter would be interesting but this apparently has little to do with it.

Ease of counterfeiting, well that's an interesting topic too.</comment>


Ask HN: Diary of a programmer? - <AUTHOR>

I recently started maintaining a diary using emacs org-mode. So far for about a month i have been maintaining a diary, i just write whatever comes to my mind.
Now i want to structure it, so that i can extract information about me in future. In my diary i write both my personal and professional happenings.
1. I would like to know whether the fellow hackers maintain a diary?
2. What was their experience (useful/useless)?
3. How they structured it (A sample template will be useful) <comment><USER2> I do keep a running log of ideas in org-mode, but it's by no means comprehensive (I can only really use it at home). I keep most things in a notebook, but typing is so much faster I can't help it. I have a few files for various topics; I usually just create a new org heading for each timestamp and write a few paragraphs. Presumably I could tag each timestamp if there was something important, but I rely on search more than tagging. Each heading looks like (* Mon Sep 17 17:51:24 EDT 2012), newest up top. I open up the .org file, M-S-Enter, C-u M-! date, C-n and start writing. Not going to win any organization awards, but that's not what it's about.

It seems useful, just as useful as writing (except the not-always-with-me part). Getting an idea out on a screen or on paper is usually helpful, if only so I can forget it and clear my mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> I keep both an electronic diary and an engineering notebook in a physical lab notebook. I find both helpful to getting organized and developing my thoughts. I would never publish any of these. They are for my use only.

I format my diary very simply. The key for me is to not get distracted while I'm writing. I use two formats: a dated journal: a date and entries that follow. This works in any kind of editor. The other format I use is more subject based, with org-mode, and headings to split up topics.

org-mode has a tag feature, where you can add lists of tags to a header. I might try that for categorizing my entries for future sorting.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do not say that is a bad idea because I really can't say, but i would have never the time to do that, I have very little time to do anything, writing a diary of which I will read again 1% would be not a good use of my time I think. Instead I would maintain a blog, or at least make it public. This way it might be helpful to other people and you maintain the aspect of reviewing what you did or keeping it for the future.

<comment><USER5> I maintain my personal site as a remote git repo, and all of my journal files get backed up there. So I add to the journal, git push web, and what's done is done. It's up to you what you want to keep private but I've fallen in love with the workflow. Anyway, if you're worried about the time it takes to maintain a journal, perhaps you should try spending a few weekends exercising your typing skills. My entries are only 30-45 lines each (wrapped, tw=80) but take only a few moments to clack in and done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually started doing the same thing a month ago as well, but in vim. Nothing special, just an entry :x {} which is easy enough to jump to and lists and whatnot done intuitively– something like the lovechild of org-mode and markdown.

Useful: script to open the file into the buffer at the end of every day.

Wishlist: soft links so that I can cursor over a project title, action it to open something in a new buffer or just run a script.

<comment><USER6> For the wishlist, you can add this to .vimrc: map gf :tabnew

Then you can gf over the project name, and then you'll either create a new file with that name or open that file. I use the technique for a personal minimalist wiki: <http://idoh.com/#2365733587></comment></comment>


Case study of SSR with React in a large e-commerce app - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jakoblind.no/case-study-of-ssr-with-react-in-a-large-e-commerce-app/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to hear about the browser side of this. Are all components bundled and delivered to the client? Does the whole page get handled to React, how do you initialise stand-alone Components in a mostly static page, etc. These challenges at scale seem to get little coverage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good input for a part 2 post! :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best noise canceling headphones for the money? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering what everybody uses on the plane to get "SERENITY NOW!" <comment><USER2> I use in-hear sound isolation headphones, which "seal" the ear to passively block out ambient noise. Bonuses are: doesn't require power, and can be used during all phases of an airline flight without getting nasty looks from the attendants (though you may find it more comfortable to remove them during ascent/descent to allow pressure equalization).

Here are some suggestions that you might find helpful... [http://www.headphone.com/selection-guide/in-ear- headphones.p...](http://www.headphone.com/selection-guide/in-ear- headphones.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. the in-ear ones hurt my ears too much unfortunately

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> These have worked well on planes and in offices for me for 2-3 years. I bought them for $125 at Amazon after comparing a lot of reviews.

[http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH- ANC7-ATHANC7-Noise-...](http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH- ANC7-ATHANC7-Noise-cancelling-Headphones/dp/B000OMKR8E/)

It seems like this model is superseded by a newer one now.</comment>


NSA Collects MS Windows Error Information - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/08/nsa_collects_ms.html <comment><USER2> This is why I dislike telemetry with a passion. MS can swear all they want I will never believe that the NSA and other agencies don't have access to their data.</comment>


Mozilla Firefox, Nvidia and YouTube Bring 3D HTML5 Video to the Web - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/05/26/mozilla-firefox-nvidia-and-youtube-bring-3d-html5-video-to-the-web/

<comment><USER2> Before somebody complains: "Why is this not for Chrome too, its from Youtube..." Chrome has a different philosophy, it has a focus on speed and isn't adding JS features before Apple did it.

<comment><USER3> Um... like WebGL, Speech input API, IndexedDB, desktop notifications, FileReader?

<comment><USER2> Safari supports WebGL and the rest isn't a JS feature.

<comment><USER4> Umm, 3D video isn't any more of a "JS feature" than the many scriptable APIs that dchest listed.

Safari has _not_ shipped WebGL support; it's available only in pre-release builds. (Meanwhile it's been on Chrome's stable channel for three months.)

It's absolutely not true that Chrome avoids introducing new features and APIs before Safari or other browsers. All of the major browsers have pioneered specific new web platform features. For example, Safari with CSS 3D transforms and touch events, Chrome with Web Notifications and the Filesystem API, Mozilla with ES5 Strict Mode and Geolocation, Opera with the hashchange event and datalist and HTML5 form validation, IE with XMLHttpRequest and CSS3 calc()...

Eventually, the features that work well should become standards and be supported by as many browsers as possible. That's exactly what is happening or will hopefully happen with all of these examples, including 3D video.

(Disclosure: I work for Mozilla.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Jarvis, a Messenger bot that reminds you to get things done - <AUTHOR> http://lawrencewu.me/jarvis <comment><USER2> Just a thought: it would be nice if Jarvis could remind someone from my contacts to do something for me...

Jarvis: "X is reminding you to go to buy eggs."

</comment><comment><USER3> I does not pick up my time zone correctly. I'm in Germany, does your bot factor in daylight savings time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, sorry about that, it should! What city did you put in? I'll try to get that fixed ASAP.

<comment><USER4> I want to work for Jarvis

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> if you're on iOS why wont you just use Siri for reminders?

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally, I never use Siri because I don't like talking to my phone. I'm also almost always on Messenger, so I'm sure to get these reminders.</comment></comment>


Twitter API: Call for OAuth private beta - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/twitterapi/status/1143111789 <comment><USER2> See also comment(s) here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=447153>

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, didn't see it. Upvoted yours! Feel free to rm this one: duplicate!</comment></comment>


Wikileaks releases copies of FinFisher surveillance software - <AUTHOR> https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles4/index.html <comment><USER2> See yesterday's discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8317358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8317358)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, how long until finds RCE bugs in the Proxy, Relay and Master? There is possibly quite a bit of these to be found via Shodan...

</comment><comment><USER4> That ggi file is a self-extracting bash script.

        #!/bin/bash
        echo ""
        echo " FInstaller 1.0"
        echo "</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----"

        export TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /tmp/selfextract.XXXXXX`

        ARCHIVE=`awk '/^__ARCHIVE_BELOW__/ {print NR + 1; exit 0; }' $0`

        echo ""
        echo "Extracting Installation Files..."
        echo ""

        tail -n+$ARCHIVE $0 | tar xzv -C $TMPDIR

        echo ""
        echo "Launching Installer..."
        echo ""

        CDIR=`pwd`
        echo CDIR
        echo $CDIR
        echo TMPDIR
        echo $TMPDIR
        cd $TMPDIR
        ./installer

        cd $CDIR
        rm -rf $TMPDIR

        exit 0

        __ARCHIVE_BELOW

And then the data.

<comment><USER4> The installer is an even messier piece of code.

        #!/bin/bash

        TOP_INSTALL_DIR=/

        echo "Stopping FFRelay"

        monit stop ffrelay
        sleep 3
        killall -9 -q ffrelay
        echo "Extracting Software Files..."
        tar --directory $TOP_INSTALL_DIR  -xvf ./*relay*.tar

        echo ""
        echo "Running Post-Installation Steps..."

        SECONDS=1
        MAX_SECONDS=10

        while [ "$SECONDS" -lt "$MAX_SECONDS" ]
          do
               if [ -e "/var/run/ffrelay.pid" ]; then
                   sleep 1
               else
                   SECONDS=$MAX_SECONDS
               fi
          done

        echo "Starting FFRelay"

        monit start ffrelay

        echo ""
        echo "FFRelay Installer done."
        echo ""

They should have just used a .deb

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder why they use MD5 hashes and not something more collision attack resistant.

<comment><USER6> Because it would be very hard to find a collision of a file that behaves exactly like a ZipFile.

To make a collision work, you would need to inject the payload into the program, and find a specific blob to put into the zip file, that once compressed and hashed would cause a collision. This isn't computationally efficient.

<comment><USER7> I am not familiar with zip file format, but if zip files allow comments or other meta-data (in uncompressed form) then it is an easier path. I suspect even file-names could be an opportunity.

<comment><USER8> Zip even allows individual file members to be not-compressed. So it's extremely trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too shame that they're using so much of money, which is basically tax money of Mongolian people, on surveillance tool when Mongolians living their like hell. shame on them.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, anyone planning to install it?

<comment><USER11> Now that it's publicly released, it seems like a good idea to install it just to make sure your own systems aren't vulnerable to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interestingly, Sophos on OS X immediately identifies the .zip as Malware/Generic-Spyware and blocks access to it:

finspy_master.zip: Permission denied</comment>


Ask HN: A company-wide team challenge step count? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
I'm trying to create a healthier working environment by encouraging our team to do "step challenges": divided in teams, each team tries to get as many steps together per week.
Combines all the good things: team spirit, health & fitness.
However, I'm struggling to find a good app/saas to help with this. So far I found just a single one (1) but I'm curious to hear how other companies have tackled this?
I've heard from numerous sources that many organizations do this, but none can name the tool/software they used to track their step counts.
PS; hardware purchases (like Letscom/Fitbit/...) aren't a problem.
(1) https://www.countit.com <comment><USER2> As someone who's experienced this sort of a challenge firsthand — it's simply not fun, and not for the reasons you'd expect.

I'm highly active and do numerous types of sports but the last thing I want to do is log all of this in yet another third party tool.

If you want people to be mote active, provide financial support for the said activities, don't do a cheesy "let's all walk more" campaign.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like you want Fitbit corporate challenges: [https://healthsolutions.fitbit.com/employers/](https://healthsolutions.fitbit.com/employers/)

I'm surprised nobody named that tool/software.

I work at Fitbit but don't speak for Fitbit.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you currently paying for any Slackbots? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> We used [https://statsbot.co/](https://statsbot.co/) at 3 USD/user/month from when they started until last month. I think I remember the pricing increased after a year and is no longer public. I was valuable, just the overlap with another bot we used too high.</comment>


Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth - <AUTHOR> http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm?list179029

<comment><USER2> They form every eight minutes, and the sun is about eight light-minutes away. I know where I'd start if I was trying to explain why it happens every eight minutes.

Of course, I'm sure the people doing this are looking into that.

<comment><USER3> Interesting.

They might not be.

The magnetic interaction between Jupiter and the Sun is stronger than between earth and the sun, so one might go looking for flux transfer events between Jupiter and the sun with a period of 43.2 minutes (the time it takes for light from the sun to reach Jupiter).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If every 8 minutes a wide (?) beam of high energy particles shoots through the entire planet, rolling from the equator through to the poles, then wouldn't you expect to notice some effects on the ground in populated areas? Compasses getting wacky, I dunno, but not nothing?

</comment><comment><USER5> So we have portals, but where's the cake?

<comment><USER6> There is no cake, the cake is a lie!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> These are the things dreams are made of.

<comment><USER3> It's very interesting physics, but not exactly magical. One can think of it as magnetic field lines connecting or disconnecting between the earth and the sun. Charged particles, like in the solar wind, follow this field lines, and so there's a lot of particles transferred. Additionally, the particles themselves are rotating, and 'lock in' magnetic flux, so they transport magnetic flux between the sun and the earth, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A nice reminder that there is much to learn about this world. There is far too little humility in science (and I speak as one who aspires to make a career in academic fields).

<comment><USER9> Completely agree. Maybe scientific research needs the equivalent of angel investors, or maybe just rich patrons, because investors tend to be impatient, etc. We need to go back to the days of great experimentalists like Rayleigh, Faraday, etc. The publish or perish way of working does not advance science most of the time.Scientists resort to all sorts of tricks to stay afloat. I remember reading somewhere that 80% of papers published in even reputed jounals like Physical Review Letters do not advance our understanding by a millimeter. It's wonderful to read stuff like this.</comment></comment>


School board removes famous books from curriculum for 'controversial' content - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alaska-school-board-deems-great-gatsby-other-famous-books-controversial-n1194436 <comment><USER2> "If I were to read these in a corporate environment, in an office environment, I would be dragged into EO," an equal opportunity complaint proceeding, Hart said.

I'd like to know what company is patrolling what books people read...

<comment><USER3> I agree this was such a bizarre and incredible thing to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also see previous post about locals taking imaginative steps to crush this and to incentivise students to read the relevant works:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23032487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23032487)

</comment><comment><USER5> Tell me, how are kids ever going to learn how to live in the world if they can't handle a "controversial" book?

But then, I don't believe this policy is driven by actual concern for their students' wellbeing, but mere fear of litigation.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of the best books I ever read in school was "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's filled with racism, n-words, cursing, violence, etc. However, the overall message is extremely positive. It teaches you that just because others are hateful and violent, that doesn't mean you should be too.</comment>


EA removes lawnmowers from Plants vs Zombies 2, makes you pay for each everytime - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1xjv8e/fuck_plants_vs_zombies_2_and_fuck_ea/

<comment><USER2> Ummmm.... Welcome to gamification of games. This is how they hook people. It's a shame because "All-in 1 price" games used to really kick ass. Now as soon as a game starts narrowing the world looking for obsessive-compulsive whales, they start to suck when they realize you're not one.</comment>


CAs now get to decide who's on the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://games.greggman.com/game/cas-now-get-to-decide-whos-on-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> What browsers don't allow people to visit a site, or use certain features, without HTTPS? I've never run into such an issue but I only use Firefox forks these days.

I agree with the problems of LetsEncrypt and other CA though. That's why I run all my sites on self signed certs. I don't need to prove my site's identity securely. I just need to put in a speed bump against easy sniffing.

<comment><AUTHOR> And your visitors? Chrome for example makes a user jump through hoops to visit a site with a self signed cert. Safari requires the cert to be installed on the user's machine before it allows secure websockets

<comment><USER2> If they can't see through the browser scaremongering my websites are probably not going to be useful to them. If it's too much of a hassle hopefully they'll reconsider their browser choice. I am the change I want to see.

It just saves me the hassle of intentionally blocking bad browsers.

<comment><AUTHOR> iOS users don't have a choice in browsers.

Did you read the original article? This isn't about public websites. It's about private websites for home users (mom, dad, sis, bro) but that now need certs because they have to serve HTTPS to get browser features</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stabilizer: Statistically sound performance evaluation [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/stabilizer-asplos13.pdf <comment><USER2> Great, we can control for layout of code, heap, stack and other effects which mess with a performance measurement. However, why do those things have a (statistically significant?) impact in the first place? I guess that hints that with some engineering you could in principle get a speed boost by specifying the layout. "Worst case", you sample randomly and then pick the fastest arrangement, where it is statistically significant.

It could be that the problem arises when trying to measure very small speed increases (small relative differences => noise matters more). But in that case the fact that such a small speed increase is wiped out by random layout effects surely means that time would be better invested in finding a more performant layout?

<comment><USER3> > why do those things have a (statistically significant?) impact in the first > place?

In a word, caches. Not just the instruction / data cache, but also page faults and micro-architectural features like micro-op caches, instruction TLB entries, loop stream buffers, cache-line alignment, and aliasing in the branch predictor tables (which can also be thought of as caches).

<comment><USER2> I suppose I was musing more along the lines of "why isn't this a solved problem". Clearly, it isn't an easy one or compilers would already take this into account and then the statistical variance would be reduced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _We find that, while -O2 has a significant impact relative to -O1, the > performance impact of -O3 over -O2 optimizations is indistinguishable from > random noise._

<comment><USER5> That's definitely not true generally for GCC on floating point computation. O3 gets you vectorization, especially with -ffast-math (and extra loop optimizations recently). That's not to say it's always faster, of course; measure, as ever.</comment></comment>


India is forcing people to use its Covid app, unlike any other democracy - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1001360/india-aarogya-setu-covid-app-mandatory/ <comment><USER2> The choices India has are

Either don't take the steps follow what happened in US, Italy, UK, china and other countries. India does not have the medical infrastructure these developed countries have and has a billion plus population. The death rate will dwarf anything in the world and would overwhelmed the medical facility of the country.

Take steps and it "might" infringe on the privacy of citizen.

I know BBC, NYT and other western news organisation were disheartened to see so less Covid-19 related deaths in India compared to their own countries but I would rather have less death. My present employer (not the ones mentioned in the article)and I am glad as WFH will stop .

But I do agree the 1984-ish situation is built on fear and i truly hope government open-sources the code and takes steps to protect privacy. We are in unprecedented times.

</comment><comment><USER3> As has become the norm when it comes to news about India; the article while making some good points, impugns and insinuates motives where there are none.

The situation is absolutely unprecedented and Indians are VERY THANKFUL that the government did the early lock-down for a month-and-half to contain the spread. This has dramatically cut-down the infection and death rates. In fact we have been watching aghast at the response shown by the so called "developed countries". All sorts of arguments have been trotted out to justify themselves but the truth is that they are directly responsible for many of the unnecessary deaths of their own people.

India with its unique characteristics i.e. huge population and density, poor infrastructure, insufficient medical resources, poverty/cleanliness limitations, a large unskilled/uneducated labour pool etc. needs a STRONG AND DRASTIC response if it is to avoid the fate of the most stricken countries of the world. We simply have no other options.

Thus in order to move out of a full lock-down, the govt. has designated red(full containment)/orange(partial containment)/green(relatively free) zones to restart economic activity. But people being people, how do you enforce it? By using technology to do comprehensive tracing of everybody using the "Aarogya Setu" app. There is no other way. Fortunately given that almost everybody(rich and poor alike) has a cellphone, this can be done by govt. mandate. All perceived problems w.r.t. "Big Brother/Surveillance State" etc. can be put on the back-burner for now until we are out of the current World War-Virus(WW-V) situation. While most Indians are onboard with this approach, there is a small vocal minority (mainly political/media folks) who are making noise simply due to their vested interests. This is unnecessary at this point and can be taken up after we are out of WW-V. We do know how to fight for our rights but this is not the time for it.

</comment><comment><USER4> A Journalist is charged with Sedition for reporting poor Coronavirus Response [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- india-46631911](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46631911)

And a pregnant women is imprisoned for criticizing Modi regime [https://archive.vn/dfD7d](https://archive.vn/dfD7d)

</comment><comment><USER4> India is Feudalism masquerading as Democracy;</comment>


Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About DNS TTLs - <AUTHOR> https://dyn.com/blog/dyn-tech-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-ttls/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live)

Explains TTL for IP, DNS, HTTP</comment>


How to Make Trillions of Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/how-to-make-trillions-of-dollars/ <comment><USER3> This was long-winded and flawed in many ways.

To point just one flaw out: part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming.

That's confusing, yet again, correlation with causation. It's just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want. That the current system of distraction, consumption, and unhealthiness is evolutionary and not some master plan of a cadre of evil overlords. Sure, it makes for a better straw man to bounce your essay off of, but it's flawed. If nothing else, it assumes a personality for a thing that quite obviously involves tens of thousands of people acting independently. Usually (almost always, really) such systems are emergent in nature.

I understand all the emotional buttons that are being pushed with this, and by all means enjoy your time reading it. I enjoy a good rant and pipe dream about "rational social planning" as much as the next guy. All I ask is to take a little time and ask "Am I being manipulated by people I should hate? Or am I being told a story and a narrative about people to hate so that I can be manipulated?"

EDIT: Of course the truth is somewhere in-between, and I didn't mean to make a false dichotomy. Most times these types of reasoning errors are simply artifacts of the way people solve problems. So, for instance, if you feel that systems are controlled from the top-down, you are more likely to see a dysfunctional system and assume that it was made that way from the top-down. Those of us who have studied dysfunctional systems can only wish that things were that simple. They aren't.

<comment><USER4> > _part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to > keep you unhealthy and consuming._

Welcome to the field of Applied Psychology and Cognitive Science. Once you have reverse engineered the mind, the only practical application is manipulating it.

> _just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want_

For a TRILLION dollars we are not talking about "marketers" in the Mad Men, I-made-a-website-and-wrote-a-book, or "social media expert" sense. We are at minimum talking about behavioral psychologist PhDs and global corporate parasites like Coca Cola, Philip Moris Tobacco, etc.

In reality, those are still on the billion dollar level and not on the top of the food chain. The only trillion dollar companies I'm aware of though are financial institutions, so that would be my criticism of the article. If you really want to make a trillion dollars, you'll need to be much closer to the monetary spigot. In other words, a bank.

<comment><USER5> > the only practical application is manipulating it

Or improve it?

<comment><USER6> Manipulation is simpler and pays better.

<comment><USER5> The proper answer is a bit longer. When you have more then one entity with this knowledge, sooner or later you're going to have an arms race. Which has, as a byproduct, all sides getting better and better.

So it's not really a question of one or the other. Having manipulation will, long term, lead to corresponding vaccination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey guys, it has been too long since our last self-righteous anti-consumerist circle-jerk. This one is good! You can smell the smarminess right through the screen.

We live in a time where the individual has more freedom to do what he wants with his life than ever before. When people live longer, survive perviously unsurvivable diseases, and can get by with the least work. When the glorious knowledge produced by human advancement is the most open and attainable it has ever been. When world illiteracy, infant mortality, and malnutrition are at their lowest point. When the most people ever get a college degree and work in fields that challenge their minds.

This really depresses some people for some reason. Can't figure out why. Mostly they just seem to get a kick out of criticizing how other people have chosen to live their lives. I guess it makes them feel better about themselves to imagine the great majority of the population are rubes and they are some wise sage.

<comment><USER8> _Mostly they just seem to get a kick out of criticizing how other people have chosen to live their lives._

Doesn't it make you sad that a huge number of people are unhealthy, unhappy, die prematurely from perfectly preventable reasons or just plainly do not have any slightest idea about what to do with their lives?

That's especially sad because it happens at the times when there are the most possible opportunities available to almost anyone.

Of course, I understand the common response - "but shouldn't they just live the lives they choose and who are you to tell them what to do with their lives".

This is reasonable and true, but I'm still sad for some reason.

<comment><USER7> I recognize the diversity of the human experience and I understand that not everybody would be happy living my ideal life. This respect for the choices of my fellow humans often puts me out of step with passionate idealists who feel contempt for folks who live in a manner outside their dogmatic parameters.

Living in Silicon Valley while growing up in the South East, being an Atheist and coming from a religious family, being a programmer and rubbing shoulders with MMA fighters and fans, and associating with Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Israelis, South Americans, and Africans in school has reduced my instinct to judge people who live according to systems of values different from mine. I guess I am broken in that way.

<comment><USER8> Don't get me wrong, I'm trying not to judge people too. I just find it incredibly hard to comprehend some things - how can people choose to not care about their health, their future etc.

On a conscious level I know that I should respect their choices, on a subconscious it just still doesn't make sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation.

Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.

At this stage of history either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves.

But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must -- namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena.

The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.

~Noam Chomsky, from "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" 1992

<comment><USER7> >"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time.

Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1].

Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind at all. But I doubt it, considering how invested the man is in being a spokesman for a flawed worldview. It seems to me that anti- capitalism is a symptom of simple ignorance of basic facts about world economic development.

[1]<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/01/best-decade-ever.html>

<comment><USER10> There was a society based on the principles of the free market - <USER2> England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages, child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery.

Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety, pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and prosperity.

<comment><USER7> You couldn't pass a minimum wage law in Victorian Britain that would raise the Victorians' living standards to that of today. Labor simply wasn't productive enough to sustain living standards like ours. People were poor because society as a whole was poor.

All a minimum wage law does is allow a society to shift its chosen point on an unemployment/wage tradeoff curve. However, increases in labor productivity shift that curve outward (this is usually because of technological progress and capital investment). It is because capitalism has shifted the curve _outwards_ over time that we are so much more wealthy, not because minimum wage laws have slightly shifted our position _along_ the curve.

If labor productivity weren't near as high as it is, then you could pass all the laws and regulations in the world and it wouldn't make us as rich as we are now. Anti-capitalists fundamentally misunderstand the process of wealth creation.

I suggest you also look up my comments on the ill-argued anti-libertarian "Victorian England" blogpost that I am assuming you are referencing from when it was submitted here.

<comment><USER10> Nobody said anything about raising living standards to that of today. I'm not sure exactly how you got there, and I'm also not sure how you or the overcoming bias article you linked got to free markets causing the reduction in poverty. The free market's been around for a bit longer than six years, so I'd say it's more likely to be a rise in technology (particularly mobile phones and solar power) rather than global capitalism.

And never mind a minimum wage law - Victorian England would've been a much more pleasant place with some sort of health and safety law, restrictions on child labour or a functioning welfare system other than slave labour in the poor house. Did you read the People of the Abyss link that I posted earlier? There's some scary stuff in there:

 _I worked at Sullivan's place in Widnes, better known as the British Alkali Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had to cross the yard. It was ten o'clock at night, and there was no light about. While crossing the yard I felt something take hold of my leg and screw it off. I became unconscious; I didn't know what became of me for a day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what was to do with my legs, and she told me both legs were off._

 _There was a stationary crank in the yard, let into the ground; the hole was 18 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 15 inches wide. The crank revolved in the hole three revolutions a minute. There was no fence or covering over the hole. Since my accident they have stopped it altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet iron . . . . They gave me £25. They didn't reckon that as compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of that I paid £9 for a machine by which to wheel myself about._

(from [http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter17...](http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter17.html))

25 pounds is about 6 months wages for the loss of both legs, and he has to buy his own wheelchair! How much productivity was lost to society because that factory and others like it didn't take enough care of its workforce? And yet you and the rest of the HN libertarian echo chamber are trying to convince us that the only thing necessary for happiness is a free market?

Give me a break.

<comment><USER11> From what I understand, there were child labour laws, and when they passed the result was that children were no longer able to work in the respectable factories, so instead they ended up in dangerous, illegal establishments. Of course, child labour in general was nothing new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> reminds me of a Carl Sagan monologue from Cosmos:

"Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilisation and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet."

so intelligent, inspirational and full of hope, but listening to it 30 years later I can't help feeling bummed out, as it seems as though our civilization has chosen its path.

also, Idiocracy.

<comment><USER7> That's an inspiring quote. But it is flawed. It is designed to instill passion and motivation in the listener's heart. But it is missing a virtue which is a strictly necessary ingredient for making an actual positive impact on the world: subtlety.

If you are motivated by addressing humanity's long-term challenges, please do not attempt to bludgeon others into being more thoughtful or compassionate. Instead, learn first how human society works. Learn how to motivate social change in the least destructive way (all change is costly to someone). Learn why people oppose you, and what their interests are, and try to come to a common ground. Don't go off half-cocked. Learn subtlety.

Nobody talks about subtlety. It is an under-appreciated virtue, and one of the most important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This struck a chord with me. Recently (and more or less intuitively), I got rid of pretty much everything I own to charities, friends and relatives. A couple of graphics workstations, home entertainment system, mountain of business and philosophy books, clothes, TV's, etc. Everything bar a bed, clothes, writing material and some basic kitchenware.

The outcome is the anti of the "typical person" inventory on that page. I feel healthier, more motivated, my work life balance has shifted, I'm socializing more and getting involved in more community / business opportunities. The sudden understanding that I don't need technology, media or a mountain of knowledge / reference to succeed at my goals is completely liberating, and I feel much less resistant to change.

The additional time, clarity of thought and free cash is quite mind blowing, it's basically re-oriented my life completely. No magic bullet, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER14> "The things you own end up owning you" - Fight Club

The book/movie takes anti-consumerism to a grand finish, but I think there is a definitely a continuum and that most people are too far towards the consumerism side. The real problem is that people equate having stuff with happiness. My issue is I look at people who have a lot of stuff and they seem to spend all their time and money on maintaining said stuff. Owning a boat is probably the prototypical example.

Years ago I owned nearly nothing. My apartment living room consisted of a couple of deck chairs and a small TV. My bedroom had a bed and the office had a small desk with my computer on it. There is great freedom in knowing that I could leave and the only thing I would need to grab would have been my computer. My life hasn't changed very much today, except I would add my camera to the list of things I would also grab.

Another thing to note is that it's not just owning things, but also the attitude you take towards what you own. Owning some nice things is fine, but you can't let them control your life. You have to remember that they are just things.

<comment><USER13> The maintenance aspect is the biggest hidden cost I think.

Your last point is interesting - one of the guys that used to mentor me in meditation often said that the attachment to not having things is just as painful as the attachment to having things. It's a true point.

<comment><USER14> That's an interesting point to the attachment of not having things. I might have been on that path until a previous girlfriend brought me back towards balance in the other direction. She convinced me to buy a couch and replace my plastic deck chairs. :)

I was thinking more along the lines of how people act differently with stuff. A personal example would be my dslr camera. I purposely bought the least expensive that I could get away with, but still have the basic features I wanted (used nikon d60 if you're curious). I take it everywhere and use it all the time because I don't worry about it getting broken or banged up. Obviously I'm not going to toss my camera out the window, but I'm also not going to go nuts if bangs on a rock while I'm hiking. Things are just things.

Contrast this with a friend of mine who bought a d3 (~$10k!) and a bunch of lenses that go for over $2k. He rarely ever uses the camera. It's like he's afraid to mess it up. In my mind his camera is owning him rather than him owning a camera.

<comment><USER15> Well, personally my strategy is to try and get things to pay for themselves. I bought the most expensive camera I could in the hope that some day I could sell a few photos. Passive income is, after all, the holy grail. So if I'm taking photos for a hobby anyway, maybe this hobby can start paying for itself. I wouldn't want to engage in an expensive hobby that didn't even have that potential.

<comment><USER14> Unless there is a certain feature you needed a more expensive camera for (higher fps for sports photography for example) photos are much more the photographer than the camera. Glass is a much better place to spend money than on a camera body.

The professional photographers I know or even the guys who just sell pictures on the side use relatively inexpensive equipment compared to what is available for sale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In all honesty Tyler Durden summed it up much more succinctly, "Working jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need."

Reminds me of the Vampire Weekend song Kids Don't Stand a Chance. Particularly the verse:

      I didn't like the business
      But that was at first glance
      Your pillow feels so soft now
      But still you must advance

In particular I think he hits it perfectly on the head with the idea that 'the man' just doesn't know any better and is part and parcel to the culture. 'the man' are just the individuals who are particularly adapted to this way of life and thus succeed in it.

<comment><USER17> Illustrated even nicer by this comic: <http://buttersafe.com/2011/01/27/traps/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Start with quadrillions of dollars and invest in airlines.

</comment><comment> DanI-S Human civilization (and not just our current iteration) is like a gigantic, uncontrollable beast. It tramples thousands underfoot, growing fat on their fears and impossible dreams. Some people may be riding up on top, out of trample range, but they're still riding on top of a gigantic, uncontrollable beast with no real aim other than its own continued survival.

Not much to be gained from blame or envy. Just try to set a good example. It might help, over time.

<comment><USER19> Well, look. I decided that I will get rid of the useless things in my life. Books and papers, trash, and so on.

I also decided to save and not consume much. Therefore, I resort to making homemade sandwiches and finding water bottle.

A few days ago, I made a pencil holder out of a discarded soda can. Why the hell not?

There are cool things that I want to buy. But, they're mostly for making cooler projects.

I am a prosumer. I find it fun to make stuff and sell stuff just so I can make much more interesting stuff to sell.

The Man's strategy? Did he even really exists? What's there to blame and be envious?

The intellectual life is worth more than the cars, the fancy houses, and 2 1/2 kids. Things are in itself an interesting intellectual exercise. Selling them is merely a way to keep points about which is the most interesting things to the most people.

<comment><USER20> From your comment it seems that your are advocating an "intellectual life". Isn't this the same old consumerism, just a changing real goods for virtual ones (aka information)?

<comment><USER19> Hardly, because for your life to be intellectually interesting, you must discriminate between information. You're choosing not what people will think of you, but what is interesting to you.

<comment> DanI-S I'm sure most people at least in some way try to develop interests in certain areas so that other people find THEM interesting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "A single, lifelong customer who lives his life spending the way you want him to is worth six or seven figures. A single one."

Let's say that "lifelong customer" spans 47 years (aged 18-65). In order for him to spend seven figures s/he would have to spend $1750/month. And, depending on what they're paying for, a lot of that won't be profit...

So not sure why it's worded as if everyone should realise that a single life- long customer is worth a huge amount, chances are, for most companies/people, they won't be.

<comment><USER22> I don't fully agree with your math. Mine is potentially no better, but:

A single customer, spending $500/year on whatever it is you do, wherein you make 5% compounding profit off of their $500/year, nets $100,000 in 45 years. I feel that's a bit more realistic of an approach.

<comment><USER21> I wasn't taking interest into account in my example.

5% profit of $500/year is $25/year. I'm too lazy to work out compound interest over 45 years considering that a new $25 is being added each year, however:

45 * $25 = $1125

If you invested $1125 for 45 years at an interest rate of 4%, you'd end up with $6571. (And investing $1125 over 45 years gets you more back than only adding $25 a year to the investment.)

Obviously it's possible to do better than 4%, but I would suggest that, then, however you are investing the money is "how you are making money", not "having a lifelong customer".

So, have I completely misunderstood your example, or was your maths way way off?

<comment><USER23> His math is not off, I get about the same using [http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calcu...](http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm)

When he said 5% profit he meant 5% interest. Result depends on the figures you put in, but if you can get people to spend hundreds of dollars on your business every year of their life, you are probably in possession of a mechanism providing interest well over 12% or 15% annually. Which makes the value per customer much higher.

IKEA is one of the companies that successfully transformed the culture of one or several nations to their own benefit and routinely creates lifetime customers from infant to the grave.

<comment><USER21> Ah, assuming a _profit_ of $500 does make the maths make sense.

But $500 profit a year from a single customer is way above the average for the majority of businesses.

<comment><USER23> So it follows that the majority of businesses does not make trillions of dollars either. :)

Still, there are several businesses that are making on average over $100-500/year profits on me. More or less my bank, car maker, gas station, energy company, furniture store, favorite soda brand, supermarket, fast food chain... what else? Scary thought.

<comment><USER24> Your bank might not be. They are often just acting as a middle man and lending money to you that they borrowed from the bond market, taking the spread as their admin expenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> reminds me of a story i just read by charles stross: <http://www.bestsf.net/presents/RogueFarm.html>

about a future in which bioengineering allows individuals to become self sufficient (adding photosynthesis to their genome, for example). this causes the economy to collapse as many consumers no longer depend on society.

<comment><USER26> And indeed, once people are self-sufficient, why would they care if the economy collapsed?

The only problem with the scenario is if/when wars between the self-sufficient farms erupt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The best articles can take a hackneyed concept (the ills of materialism) and still manage to say something worth listening to. This is one of those articles.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't decide if this article is pure paranoia, depressing as hell, or inspiring.

<comment><USER29> Excessively anthropomorphizing the Man is a quick way to sketch civilization, but leads to a failure to understand it deeply. If I were going to put a word on it, it would be _glib_. Sort of Malcolm Gladwell-ish. It's not necessarily that it's wrong, it's just so incomplete a view that it might as well be wrong.

<comment><USER30> The term "The man" may be glib in many cases, but if we understand that "the man is us" then we reach some place more fundamental.

Heidegger has a fascinating analysis of this phenomena, which he calls "Das Man" or "The They". Most of the time, all of us are "the they" instead of being authentically ourselves.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#.27The...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#.27The_One.27_.2F_.27the_They.27)

Note: if you decide to read Heidegger, it may take as much time as a television habit.

<comment><USER29> "may be glib in many cases"

I agree with you in general, but I think this is one of the "glib" cases in the original post. Buying into "vs. the Man" is, ironically, one of the Man's main tools in the contemporary US; there are entire ethnic cultures in the US being held back in no small part by the belief they are being held back by the Man, which in turn requires them to be externally rescued by the don't-look- too-closely-just-believe-we're-not-the-Man-Man.

There's truth in the "Man" analysis, but the escape is to transcend the narrative, not engage with it. (The synthesis of the man/vs. the man thesis and antithesis, I suppose.) Which I doubt you disagree with, I'm just being explicit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would say, don't get too hung up on the "the Man" aspect of the article. For me, the most profound part was the one about keeping people wanting useless gadgets more and more and thus keeping them in jobs they hate. People can easily live with much less and do work that will allow them to be much happier.

From what I've seen, higher earning potential doesn't correlate well with happiness.

<comment><USER32> In the study I heard about from a family member it correlates strongly up to a threshold, say $90,000 for a family of 3-4 living in the midwest (ex-Chicago, etc.), but thereafter increasing income doesn't increase happiness (and possibly erodes it).

<comment><USER31> Yes, obviously having a very low income would come with worries, but above that, as you said, there's not much correlation...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The entire article rests on the assumption that the things which are produced in order to be consumed have no value-- or at the very least, that, as more of them are produced, the total value in "the system" doesn't increase. While this is undoubtably true for many things, is it true for _all_ of them?

I mean, sure, I can't accept that enormous piles of consumerist junk manufactured every year don't really represent the creation of much value. But that isn't everything, and, I'd argue, it is dwarfed by the enormous amount of _valuable_ materials, goods, and services that are produced.

In order for this kind of invective to carry in weight, one has to implicitly agree with the hidden assumption that the trillions of dollars of goods and services produced every year represent essentially no value to human beings.

And that seems to me to be a pretty ridiculous statement.

</comment><comment><USER34> _"...create a nation of people who typically: [....] have learned, through the media's culture of blame-mongering, that the key to solving public and private issues is to find the right people to hate"_

It's funny that someone could write that as part of a scathing critique of consumerist culture and yet not see the irony of it.

There are things that are a lot worse than materialistic, shallow, consumerist culture. Specifically a moralistic, prudish, puritanical culture which is at every point so very concerned with what is the best for everyone else. At least consumerist culture is easy enough to escape and ignore.

</comment><comment><USER11> Personally I have no problem with consuming stuff for entertainment.

I just don't kid myself that consuming a poem through oral tradition in a field without electricity would be somehow more noble/satisfactory.

</comment><comment><USER17> You can call Chuck Palaniuk an overrated writer all you want, but this is what Fight Club is about and did a good job of illustrating.

</comment><comment><USER35> "First, start with hundreds of trillions of dollars..."

<comment><USER36> I'm not a fan of Chomsky, but I completely agree that all too often we "go along" with ways of life that are sold as "normal," but which are in fact unhealthy and unsustainable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> absolutely brilliant piece. and i agree with his perspective. i've thought almost exactly the same thing for over 2 decades now. it is extremely rare to see someone say it, and say it so well.</comment>


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How Slack impacts workplace productivity - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/1/18511575/productivity-slack-google-microsoft-facebook <comment><USER2> _> How Slack impacts workplace productivity_

like all tools, it impacts positively when used in the "right" way (TM)</comment>