Linus rejects 'beyond stupid' AWS-made Linux patch - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-rejects-stupid-aws-made-linux-patch-for-intel-cpu-snoop-attack/ <comment><USER2> Here's the actual message from Linus (and the responses from the developer as well): [https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgXf_wQ9zrJKv2Hy4EpEbLuqt...](https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgXf_wQ9zrJKv2Hy4EpEbLuqty- email@example.com/)

<comment><USER3> That thread shows a decent back-and-forth discussion about the merits of the patch compared to the clickbait title of the article here.

The dude is prickly but so many software people of the same era were(are?) like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a DBA, I feel that AWS has a conflict-of-interest in making PRs that decrease performance, then telling me, "Just pay for a bigger instance."

Luckily, database instances are a small percentage of a fleet, but even so, they're also usually the most expensive ones.

(Meltdown and Spectre had a huge impact on databases near the limits of their existing instance size, unexpectedly tipping them over into the next tier and doubling the cost.)

<comment><USER5> The cloud industry as a whole might have that conflict of interest. But AWS itself is a single player in a really quite competetive industry. Configuring their kernels to be deliberately slow would be a clear disadvantage vs. Google and Microsoft et. al.

<comment><USER6> Obviously I can't say for certain Amazon has an agenda here but I could see how this would benefit them.

[ _puts on additional tin foil hat_ ]

I don't think Amazon would be targeting the big players like Google and MS. All of them can easily afford to take the loss. But this could affect the smaller VM providers (DO, Linode, Upserve, etc.) with less capital. Losing even just a few percentage points of CPU performance would cut into already thin margins. If there is a conspiracy here, I think they would be targeting the smaller players in the industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If an attacker can indeed just observe cache changes from a sibling core, what is the purpose of the patch indeed?

<comment><USER8> AWS has non-virtualized "metal" instances as well. Customer may be be running container workloads on those instances with SMT disabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I don't disagree with the conclusion, I really wish he would not fly off the handle like this all the time. I seem to recall that he promised to stop this sort of behavior.

<comment><USER10> He is nowhere near flying off the handle here. You should take a step back and reexamine how you view communication from others and where you set expectations of thought process and culture matching your own.

<comment><USER9> Any code review that included the argument:

 _" Oh, I'm _soo_ special and pretty and such a delicate flower, that I want to flush the L1D on every task switch"_

Is completely inappropriate. If you feel like that is somehow appropriate in a review then it is you who need to "step back and reexamine how you view communication from others and where you set expectations of thought process and culture matching your own".

<comment><USER11> I'd rather work with someone who makes good (or even bad) jokes about my code in reviews than a humorless bore who spends all their time policing everyone's appropriateness according to his own stodgy cultural standards.

<comment><USER12> Why not neither? Why not a person within the normal range of emotional intelligence, rather than either a humorless policer or an antagonistic smart person? Why are you defending his tone with such hostility?

<comment><USER11> The belief that one can or should judge another person (ie, on the normalness of their emotional intelligence) is quite boring, and is particularly annoying in coworkers. It is by definition fun to work with people who joke around, if one starts with thick skin, an open mind, and the confidence to occasionally be the butt of the joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Related story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23290443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23290443)

</comment><comment><USER14> Article ends with "Herrenschmidt said the patches aren't trying to solve problems happening inside of a customer VM running SMT and nor are they about protecting VMs against other VMs on the same system."

Well then what the fuck IS it for?

<comment><USER8> AWS has non-virtualized "metal" instances as well. Customer may be be running container workloads on those instances with SMT disabled.

<comment><USER14> If it's not a VM you dont need to worry about the cache.</comment></comment></comment>


Blockshell – A minimal blockchain learning CLI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/daxeel/blockshell <comment><USER2> If you want to learn how to build blockchain in Go, this set of posts explains it really well [https://jeiwan.cc/posts/building-blockchain-in-go- part-1/](https://jeiwan.cc/posts/building-blockchain-in-go-part-1/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any JavaScript blockchain implementations?

This might sound like a super stupid question but it's the only language I know my way around very well and I'd love to figure out how they work in practice.

<comment><USER4> Solidity, the etherum language is based on JavaScript

<comment><USER5> Isn't only the syntax of Solidity based on JS, not the implementation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even though this is a toy blockchain, it is essential to provide a Blockchain.verify() method to check the integrity of the blocks.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great learning tool. For getting started with blockchains I collect starter scripts in JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc over at the Awesome Blockchain page [1]. Happy blockchaining! [1] [https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome- blockchains](https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-blockchains)

<comment><USER8> Common Lisp:

[https://gist.github.com/BusFactor1Inc/761b1be031a6e998476dc3...](https://gist.github.com/BusFactor1Inc/761b1be031a6e998476dc321ca2bb214)</comment></comment>


Who Won The 6,000+ Nortel Patents? Apple, RIM, Microsoft — Everyone But Google - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/apple-microsoft-rim-google-nortel-patents/

<comment><USER2> It kind of feels like when you're winning in Risk early on and all the other players band together just to destroy you. Sure, it's not against the rules, and it's good strategy, but you still think they're all dicks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm going to assume that Google did its due diligence, came up with a value to bid on the patents (that includes future costs of law suits, royalties owed/earned, as well as new technologies derived from the patents) and made that bid.

In that case, what their opponents pay (or perhaps, overpay) is no longer Google's concern. That's the mindset you have to take in an auction.

<comment><USER4> Did Google know who they were bidding against?

<comment><USER3> That's part of the risk assessment. They would have to account for the fact that competitors would also bid on the patents.

<comment><USER4> So you think they didn't know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the status of the patents in the package?

Looking up random patents from a (2006) list of Nortel patents ([http://www.nortel.com/corporate/technology/patents/collatera...](http://www.nortel.com/corporate/technology/patents/collateral/list_of_nortel_patents_0506.pdf)) yields things like "Patent Expired Due to NonPayment of Maintenance Fees Under 37 CFR 1.362" ([http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/c5/04_SB8K8xLL...](http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/c5/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3h3cz9XEzcPIwMLvyALA08jF39LE2cjQwMLU6B8JG55dxNKdBuYEtAdDnItftvxyYPMB8kb4ACOBvp- Hvm5qfqR-lHmCFPcff3dgKa4ebh5BxgZG7gb6UfmpKYnJlfqF- SGRhhkBmQEOioqAgBVda8T/dl3/d3/L0lJSklna21DU1EhIS9JRGpBQU15QUJFUkNKRXFnLzRGR2dzbzBWdnphOUlBOW9JQSEhLzdfRzdORTRGSDIwR01PRjBJMkZIRktQMjMwRzIvWnM3MV81NjE2MDAxNi9zYS5nZXRCaWI!/))

It's possible that those 6000+ patents contain only a handful which are (a) strategically useful (b) not defunct and (c) won't expire in the next few years. After all, when's the last time Microsoft got a good deal on something?

<comment><USER6> 4G LTE technology. That's hugely valuable to everyone in the mobile space.

<comment><USER7> Seems like Microsoft, Apple, and RIM would like to have a couple of bargaining chips with the folks who own the rest of the cell patents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems an awful lot like collusion (IANAL), and if it isn't illegal, it sure feels like it should be.

Google should have gotten in on the deal with the rest to pay a bit more and open-source them all.

<comment><USER9> How so? Why should companies be forbidden to purchase property as a group? How is the objective (licensing some patents) illegal?

Also, how exactly does one 'open source' a patent? Patents are not modifiable after the application is submitted, and as soon as they are granted the document is viewable by all. As far as I know Google does not license their patents for free, so why would they buy a bunch of patents just to license them for free?

Regarding Google and open source, you'd be hard pressed to find a line of open source code from Google for anything that makes them money.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but if they are purchasing this property together to use as a weapon against another company... it seems awfully anti-competitive. Similarly, you could make a similar assertion that "companies should be allowed to sell their products at prices they decide", but it's quite another thing if several get together to do this to put another organisation out of business (or drive-up prices). It's anti-competitive and (eventually) bad for everyone.

Regarding 'open source', I'm assuming you can buy a patent and put it in the public domain or some similar construction. This may be attractive for a group of companies who are all being blackmailed into licensing. It may even be worth paying a premium for, as it could reduce exposure to risks (licensor changing his mind, competitor buying license and suing, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow. If there was any proof needed that patents seldom help the "underdog", here it is.

<comment><USER7> Calling Google the underdog is not quite accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is such a pointless and counter-productive war.

</comment><comment><USER12> One of their mistakes was to publicly announce they were placing a major bid to protect themselves against patent litigation. Their opponents sensed weakness and trashed the party. This will be yet another business case for corporate secrecy.

<comment><USER13> Or maybe they had no real interest at all and were instead making a big PR game out of it to get the others to spend more than they would have?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why didn't Google gather around all the Android manufacturers from the beginning and make a pool with them? Why did they risk losing the patents by going at it alone?

It only took Apple to try to bid for them, and they could've beaten Google if they _really_ wanted, simply because they can afford to lose more cash than Google. Google should've considered this from the beginning. And in reality it was even worse, it more allied against them to get the patents, so Apple didn't even have to bother too much for them.

I think it was a newbie mistake to not get all Android manufacturers or the whole OHA to pay for them.

<comment><USER7> I get the feeling that the shake-up at the top had something to do with how uncoordinated they seem in this. It really looks like everyone else decided they didn't really want to spend huge money on something the DoJ was watching. Apple and Microsoft already have patent deals together and had, by accounts, a not so fun experience in video patents. RIM stills has the scars from their last patent war. Heck, Kodak has caused each of these companies problems. I am sure it was one of those "let's form a patent pool" things.

Google's behavior with WebM / h.264 probably made them an unsuitable partner, never mind the market share thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does the word _cartel_ mean anything to the DOJ? I guess we'll find out.

Now, why was EMC in the cartel? My first reaction was that this is the higher margin companies ganging up to defeat the low cost free software strategy. But why would EMC/Cisco want to join in?

<comment><USER15> Presumably Nortel's patent portfolio contains a significant number of patents which could be applied to networking because Nortel had it's roots as a phone company.

<comment><USER16> Exactly - Nortel had a big portfolio of phone switches (the DMS-10 and DMS-100 are the two that leap to mind) and I would assume a rich collection of switch patents as well.

Too bad they blew up - can anyone recommend a good write-up about their implosion? I interned there and had a job offer that was rescinded around the time the dot com bust occurred. My recollection is that they heavily leveraged themselves to make a run at beating Cisco in the IP switch market. When everything melted down, they had nowhere to run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> MG is happy. It worked for Apple and Google was left out. That's all there is to the post. I naively expected some more details.</comment>


Becoming Screen Literate - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23wwln-future-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all <comment> syntax-case Whoa! A NY Times article about mastering GNU Screen! I can't believe it!</comment>


Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance - <AUTHOR> https://elemental.medium.com/why-slow-mornings-may-be-the-secret-to-tech-life-balance-b44c2139963b <comment><USER2> I get up at 5am to start getting the kids up and ready for school (high schoolers first, then elementary schoolers, then middle schoolers). Everyone is finally at school by 9:15am and I can head in for work. I get home around 6pm and get the little kids in bed by 8pm. 8-8:30pm is me time. Then I get ready for bed and am asleep by 9pm.

I can't imagine what a slow morning (or evening!) would even be like. I'd appreciate it if someone could add about 6 more hours to every day.

<comment><USER3> _How_ do you do this? I would literally die. I can't live life so breathlessly with what sounds like no room for breaks. Are weekends even enough for you to recover?

Forget burning out of a job, I'd burn out on life.

Mad props to you. You've got a hell of a lot more discipline than I do. Your kids owe you.

<comment><USER4> I thought the same until I had kids. This sort of thing is part and parcel of having children, you really do learn not only to handle it, but to derive enjoyment from the situation overall.

If it helps any, my experience is that it's hardest on the day your child is born, but it gets progressively easier as the years go by and the children become increasingly self-sufficient.

<comment><USER5> > _hardest on the day your child is born, but it gets progressively easier_

A 3-year-old definitely takes a lot more continuous attention than a newborn (assuming the newborn is healthy, eats and sleeps okay, ...).

I was able to get some amount of work done while taking care of my first kid up to about age 1. In the two years since then, not so much (I just pray for conveniently timed naps). The second one is 6 months old, and is way easier to take care of right now.

If you just accept that you will be doing no independent creative work, then a 2+ year old isn't too bad. They can start to "help" with routine chores, can walk around for themselves, can feed themselves, eventually stop needing diapers, etc. The work is not really _hard_ per se. More like relentless.

<comment><USER6> Amen to this... 3.5 yr old and twin infants here... I haven't been able to concentrate in years. When I have attempted to produce anything of value (in job or hobby), it's been at the expense of my family...

<comment><USER7> Gotta love the "this project needs to get done, so who's going to be mad at me and how far can I push it?" feeling.

Sometimes friends or family members ask me why XYZ projects are half completed, and it's hard to properly find the wording for "I want my wife to still like me at the end of most days".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alternative: slow afternoons? I mean, my routine usually has me start with tech/work at 6am, but I wrap up around 2:30 and put some hours outdoors or in my other hobbies.

I think the important part is just not spending ALL DAY doing any one thing.

My grandma has a saying - "Everything in moderation, including moderation"

<comment><USER9> I'm doing this as well. 7am-12pm for Deep focused work.

1pm-3pm for gym

3-5pm for reflection, thinking and writing.

<comment><USER10> You still my schedule :) It works well for intermittent fasting. 5pm is the first and only meal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone whose default ringer setting is off unless I'm expecting a call, and have been like that for almost a decade, giving fewer people a guaranteed option on my time is a great start to being able to build and choose with calm, higher quality decisions. We get what we reward. When you don't set boundaries, you can't expect other people to anticipate them, let alone respect the ones you have in effect imagined. Writing and answering emails at 2am just makes you the 2am email guy and who wants that person in their life?

In the morning, I read from a physical book first thing to set a boundary between my real day and the internet. It's not a trick and I usually forget most of what I've read, but it's a boundary I set and a choice about how I relate to the world. Forget about hacks to steal back moments so you can find a way to bear the suffering you've accepted as normal. Just learn to value calm, and place its priority above everything you feasibly can.

The quality of the decisions you make as a result of valuing calmness as a principle will alter the trajectory of your life. It can't always be the supreme priority, but being deliberate about making exceptions to it is most of the way there. When we worry about missing opportunities (FOMO), we tend to overlook that it presupposes those opportunities come from someone else. It is a figment of how we have chosen to relate to those perceived people. It also goes away as a result of recognizing that perception as an inessential obstacle to the calm that you value.

Sure, if you haven't set boundaries before, choosing to set them will be disruptive, initially. The relationships that dropped off were the ones that involved emergencies, panics, and ultimatums. They were also similar to the ones that dropped off anyway once I became more successful because their basis in shared, co-misery wasn't there anymore. It creates a self-selecting filter where your only remaining connections are to people who respect those boundaries, and in effect, you.

Anecdotally, it's a pretty good way to live.

This "tech-life balance" approach is a start and is a sign of the need we have for it. I'd argue a more effective approach would be to just choose calm. Make an active decision about how you relate to the machines and the perceived relationships they represent, using calmness not as a goal or temporary state, but as a principle.

Then, turn off your ringer.

<comment><USER4> > When we worry about missing opportunities

Becoming an entrepreneur cured me of this worry, because I realized that there is no shortage of opportunities -- they're all around us all the time, the trick is in noticing the ones that can be of value to you.

Since they're common, there's no problem with missing one. Another one is right around the corner.

This also helped me avoid some really bad business decisions.

<comment><USER12> There's no shortage of _demands on your time_. There's absolutely a shortage of true opportunities. This is because if someone manages to convince you that spending your time on their thing, then they benefit.

So everyone packages their demands as opportunities.

<comment><USER4> I've yet to see a shortage of opportunities.

However, I agree with you that if someone is coming to you with something that they're presenting as an opportunity, it most likely isn't. Actual opportunities rarely come that way.

<comment><USER12> Ok, now I get to trot out my framework for determining whether something is an opportunity or not. There are three basic ways to get ahead, a) to climb a ladder up a mountain, b) to build a ladder up a mountain that already exists, c) or to build a mountain. Only the first qualifies as an opportunity.

Most 'opportunities' are really just directions to places on mountains to build ladders, or places where no mountain exists.

Access to real ladders to ascend real mountains is heavily guarded and rare. Finding places to build ladders is probably what you're thinking of as an opportunity, but I would not consider that opportunity.

If I had few million bucks in the bank to enter a market with, then I can consider building ladders a real opportunity.

<comment><USER4> In my view, an opportunity (in a business sense) is when you find a need people have that isn't being adequately fulfilled. You capitalize on the opportunity by fulfilling it. 99% of the time, you don't need a few millions to do this.

I'm not talking about "getting ahead" in the sense that you seem to be. That's a different, and much more complicated, topic.

<comment><USER12> To enter a market you need to build a firm and develop a product. This requires non-trivial time and resources and is risky. Without the resources you can only try it a few times in a lifetime. With the resources, you can keep trying until you find success.

It's building a ladder up a mountain that already exists.

<comment><USER4> > This requires non-trivial time and resources and is risky.

Absolutely true. You need to take a risk to take advantage of an opportunity.

> Without the resources you can only try it a few times in a lifetime.

If you have time and determination, you really do have all the resources that are necessary (unless you're wanting a get-rich-quick type of thing, of course). There's nothing that limits you to a few times in a lifetime.

<comment><USER12> Sure, with time and determination, you can build a ladder up a mountain. But one path is as good as another if that's the case. All the 'opportunities' you're ignoring aren't opportunities, they're noise

A real opportunity compels you to take advantage of it, you really are losing something if you don't follow it up.

What's limiting you to a few tries to a lifetime is time. It takes 5-10 years to properly validate a business model, you can only do that so many times. And you might not be in the same place after an attempt that you were before, meaning it might take even more time.

<comment><USER4> I think that we may be defining "opportunity" differently. It sounds like you're defining it more like a "windfall". To me, an opportunity is when you see a path to enhancing your success. It is not automatically success, and does not imply that no effort is required on your part.

An opportunity is when you find a way of advancing your goals that has a reasonably good chance of success.

> It takes 5-10 years to properly validate a business model,

Except that it doesn't. And you should never go into business with a business model that is so fixed that the only thing you can do is to validate it or not. Your business model is something that you are continually adjusting (sometimes radically) as you learn more about what you're doing or as your situation changes.

<comment><USER12> > To me, an opportunity is when you see a path to enhancing your success. It > is not automatically success, and does not imply that no effort is required > on your part.

It's not lack of effort that defines opportunity but the reduction of risk. If someone offers me an opportunity, that means I can work hard and have more of a guarantee of success than if I went and did something else.

Opportunity means it's not just your intuition, effort, and resourcefulness that mitigates risk. Some other factor is helping. Some other company or person is offering you crucial advice and resources. Like Dr. Dre mentoring Eminem. That's an opportunity. You have to get lucky to find one, and then you have to be ready to jump on it.

Getting to the top of a mountain always takes effort, it's just a question of how much it takes to get to the top and whether the direction you pick is the right one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting.

A couple of decades ago, I developed a habit of waking up early enough that I don't have to do anything at all for at least the first hour of my waking day.

This was accidental at first, but it improved my life so much that I never stopped doing it. It never occurred to me that this was anything other than a personal quirk.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm struck by a couple of things,

Getting up at 4.30am seems excessive and presumably requires going to bed at 8-9pm

I can't imagine doing this with a child

<comment><USER14> What time do you think little children go to bed?

<comment><USER15> Children tend to be solar powered. Getting them to bed before 10pm in mid summer nights can be a real challenge in northern latitudes.

Black out curtains _really_ help. But starting the bedtime routine when the sun is out is a real chore. I honestly have no idea how Alaskans get their kids to sleep at all in the summer.

<comment><USER16> I really can't agree its "a challenge", I went to bed at 8pm every single evening as a young child. I remember it being still light out in the summer when I was went to bed, but there wasn't a choice, I was to be in bed, so I went to bed with a groan. Same with my siblings, we were all in bed at 8pm sharp every single day, no exceptions.

It's about setting firm rules and sticking to them.

<comment><USER17> And my parents made me go to bed at 8pm but I stayed awake until 2am. I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you can consistently wake up at 430AM in a standard workday and just carve out 5 hours of freetime in addition to the time others have you're either a savant, an inhuman monster who doesn't need sleep, or your job probably doesn't require you to do that much. Either way I'm not going to take your advice too seriously when it comes to universality.

<comment><USER19> Also could we maybe get an example of a person with a real job doing this? "Employee engagement" isn't exactly the kind of thing that requires, you know, faculties.

<comment><USER20> I get up at 5 am for morning me-time, even on the weekends. It was never a goal; I just tend to wake up after 6 hours. I'm sure it's not healthy.

<comment><USER21> You might just be lucky [https://www.chronobiology.com/short- sleepers-1-percent-popul...](https://www.chronobiology.com/short- sleepers-1-percent-population-need-6-hours-sleep/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been adopting this approach in order to have higher-quality free time. I find that if I wake up early (around 7:30) then I can take an hour or so to myself in the mornings to read, play a game, or work on a personal project, and I have my full brainpower to apply to it. However by the time I get home from work around 6, I don't have nearly as much energy to put in to the same activities, and can't focus as easily or make as much progress.

<comment><USER23> Am I the only person who can never have "full brainpower" anytime within 3 hours of waking up?

<comment><USER24> For me it's more like 4-5 hours..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For me, it's slow afternoons. I'm more productive on tech things in the morning, so I don't want to slow myself then. Around 3pm, though, I like to take off until around 6 or so. It really feels better to have a gotten a bunch of stuff done before I slow down.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yup. Sometimes, I'll do like 15m of yoga in the morning. i think the key is not to rush it. don't rush your breakfast (if you eat it), don't rush your brushing teeth, your shower, etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> So it seems the "secret" to tech-life balance is choosing more life than tech? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about tech-life balance and work-life balance (which this article and the problem in general heavily overlaps with), but the secret is conciously organizing your life to have more life than tech. Part of this is finding a job that allows you to choose life outside of office hours. Having more free mornings to do things not related to tech is probably a symptom of achieving a better tech-life balance.

<comment><USER28> Do these types of jobs even exist anymore in tech? At least in SV, every job I've come across these days seem to require on-call and an implicit requirement to work into the night hours in order to finish your work. Not to mention super competitive teammates that don't mind working 24/7 and putting pressure on me to work even longer. I would gladly take a minimum 25% pay reduction if it meant I only needed to work 9-5pm with no obligation to answer emails or Slack messages after-hours. I would love to hear examples of companies with this type of WLB if they do exist.

<comment><USER29> I'm the only dev at a small consulting firm (3-5 people, including owners). I'm payed for 40hrs/week but rarely put in more than 35. This is completely accepted. Even though we're all very enthused about the work that we do and want to deliver the best that we can, it's always understood that work is not everyones highest priority at all times.

I leave my work phone at the office when I leave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> One of the big reasons I love being an east coaster working remote for a west coast company is that my day is more like 11am/noon to 8pm+ ... As a night owl that works great for me because I still get plenty of sleep even if I stay up until 4am.

</comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone else here find that the idea of a slow morning could have anything to do with the decline of quality, youth playtime, or time parents spend with kids. I found a fantastic article about this here a few months back that reminds me of what Hanock does here. Definitely worthy of a try. ([https://houseoflawandorder.com/the-alarming-decline-of- quali...](https://houseoflawandorder.com/the-alarming-decline-of-quality- youth-playtime/))

</comment><comment><USER32> I think it depends a lot on _what_ you do with your phone/laptop in the morning. If the first thing you do is hop on email or social media, then yes, I can see how that could be psychologically draining.

But if you start with news(ish) type things, that's just another way of "reading the morning paper". I personally start by checking HN and Reddit, and then curated news like the Associated Press app.

<comment><USER33> I think it's useful to point out that your Reddit and HN are curated too.

I found Reddit's /r/all and logged out experience draining. The defaults on Reddit seem similar to other social media now.

I found the frequency and filter quality of stories on HN to be better during weekdays and working hours. I think HN has better curation with more active users. It feels less like a News source during downtime.

<comment><USER32> That's fair to point out. They are curated, just curated differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >"Technology has done nothing but enhance my life. But how you decide to carve out time for yourself is important," says Nicole Loher, a 26-year-old marketing consultant for Microsoft. "There was a time when I did transition into being that obsessive with the phone and it didn't feel that great." Loher is also a slow-morning devotee and she started her routine a decade ago, frequently waking at 4:30 and spending the hours up to 9 a.m. as "strictly me time."

So she started this routine when she was 16?

<comment><USER35> > > Loher is also a slow-morning devotee and she started her routine a decade > ago, frequently waking at 4:30 and spending the hours up to 9 a.m. as > "strictly me time."

> So she started this routine when she was 16?

i want to know what high school she was at that wasn't already running classes by 9AM.

<comment><USER36> I feel like most US high schools have classes by 7:50-8am; not sure how it is elsewhere but this was true in the Great Lakes about a decade ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> ah yes, my slow morning where i wake up at 4:30 am and run a marathon before going to work

</comment><comment><USER38> Medium server went down to help up improve our tech-life balance.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've been doing this lately. It's pleasant for sure.

</comment><comment><USER23> It blows my mind some of the comments here of people who do this. I can literally not recall a time that mornings were not miserable.. and that includes when I am jet lagged (either going to a country, or coming back) and naturally fall asleep by 9pm and awake by 5am. Mornings are boring and I can never really get into enjoying them. The most fun I've had was one time in China I woke up at 4am and went to photograph things at 430am.. But that's not something I'd do every day, and even at the time I felt kinda cranky about it.

I have 2 kids, so have to have some structure to my sleep schedule. Left to my own devices, my natural bed time is 3-4am and I'm awake at 11am-12pm. With kids during school (in summer they sleep in too) it's a bit more reasonable though probably less healthy. Asleep by 1 or 2am and wake up at 8am. They're 9yo and 6yo and the oldest is responsible for getting the younger up if she doesn't wake up with the alarm. They're both 90% ready by the time I wake up (they prefer to wake up at 7am or even 6:30am to have some play and tv time before school). This includes getting themselves dressed, hair and teeth, and the picky youngest packing her own lunch. Their school starts at 8:45am and I'm typically out the door at 8:30am and back by 9am.

I don't really start working until 10am most days, but I'll do some passive stuff like read emails and industry news type stuff while having coffee. At 10am I'm getting started, at 11am on a good day I'm hitting a stride. Typically not doing my best coding work until at least 2pm though after lunch. Depending on how in the zone I am and what I'm doing, I work until 5:30pm to 7pm. I have the benefit of being remote and setting my own hours though, so it's definitely a blessing I know many people aren't fortunate to have. Have dinner with the family after I stop working, and then just relax with dumb activities (TV, social media) and of course bonding stuff with family, until the kids go to bed at 9pm. When they go to sleep I sometimes work for a couple more hours (coordinating with 12 hour different timezone is fun), but more usually relax with peace and quiet playing games, messing around with interesting research (both hobbies and work), or just dumbly watching TV, or do some hobbies (analog photography/darkroom printing)

I sacrifice sleep more than I should, and typically will have a 10 minute power nap after I'm done working.. But honestly, as long as I'm getting 6-7 hours of sleep, I feel just as well as when I'm getting 8 or 9. When I get less than 6 though I definitely regret it the next day. And I don't mean just sleeping in on weekends. I had about 2 weeks this summer where I had no kids, no wife, and basically nothing guiding my sleep schedule. I'd tried naturally sleeping for a week with no alarm and realized I felt more tired and it was consuming a lot of time. I was waking up at 11 or 12. So I started setting my alarm to a more reasonable 10am and was in bed by 3 or 4am, and always felt well rested after I got out of bed.

Some people can not "relax" and enjoy mornings. My goal with mornings is to get that phase of day over with so I can work and then get to a free evening. When I'm jetlagged it's pretty interesting becoming a forced morning person, but it's always proven to me that having 3 hours of free time in the evening is so much more valuable to me than 3 hours of free time in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER40> Could we just stop using medium altogether? I just get a pop up asking me to pay $5/mo. Not going to happen.

<comment><USER41> One day, my grand parents told me a secret to access Medium without hassle.

I can't tell you in details since it's a secret but it really works, believe me. It's incredible. It has something to do with herbs, mindfulness and blocking JavaScript. Medium is so great when you do that.

On Android, IceCat Mobile blocks non free JavaScript and on Medium, it's a feature beyond the expectations.

I would call this graceful enhancement, or progressive degradation.

You start with a sane and nice baseline, and then add crap to that for supported browsers and configurations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> There is no work-life balance in tech. You can deceive yourself but the balance died out something like 7-8 years ago.

When the wave after wave of tech changes happening and new tools coming into existence, the only lifestyle you can have to stay gainfully employed is: work, work, work until some other commitment (sleep, wife, kids) eat up remainder of your time.

Personally, I think in next 5-10 years, IT workforce will (1) Be well known for burnout and people leaving IT due to burn out. (2) Be further concentrated in parts of world where work is main objective of life (China/India, etc.).

<comment><USER43> I've been in the tech industry working for tech companies for a decade and have never regularly worked more than 40 hours per week. I do not check work email outside of business hours and I do not have email or chat alerts on my phone. I set the expectation with all of my coworkers that they can call me on the phone if there's an emergency outside of normal hours and I'll try to help, but that type of thing should always be handled by our on-call engineer first. If you're speaking from personal experience, you should re-evaluate your employer and how you approach your work life.

<comment><USER44> I can't say I've ever had that sweet of a deal (perhaps a byproduct of working at smaller startups), but what you describe is much more in line with my experiences than the nightmare described in comment you responded to.</comment></comment></comment>


Screensharing for Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.same.io/i/821981

<comment><USER2> Request invite didn't go thru- Chrome 31. Not sure if its because of my firewall settings.</comment>


Ask HN: What kata do you use when learning a new language? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
What are some programming katas you use when learning a new programming language?
I'd like to find a good small size kata that exercises a good number of the language features that one normally uses (IO, common data structures)? So something more extensive than simpler katas like the Bowling kata or Project Euler. <comment><USER2> I usually cheat and review a selection of whatever I'm interested in from [http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Programming_Tasks](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Programming_Tasks)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've found [http://exercism.io/](http://exercism.io/) to be very good for learning a new language.</comment>


Bumblephone - Computer Phone for Kids (Twilio) - <AUTHOR> http://bumblephone.com/

<comment><USER3> I have mixed feelings on this. I want to like it because it seems like a good idea, but then the more I think about it, there doesn't seem to be that much practical use for the service. The way I see this, kids who need phone dialing that simplistic would be too young to use it.

I think this would work better as an IM/voice chat program aimed at the 7-11yr old crowd-a way for them to easily chat with other kids, when they happen to be online (and maybe a "voice mail" type system), from an approved list of friends their parents have added.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't like the idea of kids and phones - <USER2> that talking to Grandma across the country is bad or anything. It's just that I don't think a young child has any business using a phone (voice chat, etc.) without first obtaining permission to do so, even if it's safe. So I would either a: make the call for her or 2: supervise while she dials. I mostly feel this way because kids tend to obsess over things and so a child with free reign over a big yellow "call" button would get annoying to others. By the time my kid is old enough to pick up the phone and call someone whenever she wants to (i.e. has a basic understanding of telephone etiquette and respect for others' time), basic phone usage just isn't a challenge at that age.

Add to this the fact that your average land-line or cell phone service includes local calling, as well as nationwide long distance at a fixed rate and it makes it hard to justify the cost of buying Bumble credits just for the ease of connectivity.</comment>


Who is Winning the U.S. Smartphone Battle? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/who-is-winning-the-u-s-smartphone-battle/

<comment><USER2> A better title for this infographic is "Who has been winning the U.S smartphone battle over the last two years?". And it confirms what you probably already know.

However, if it was supposed to show who was winning _now_ e.g. sales from the last month or quarter, then it would show Android covering somewhere between 60 and 70% and possibly as many as 3 vendors selling more than RIM and Apple. Which seems like it would surprise some people.</comment>


Multiple cameras and motion detection on the Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> http://www.pyimagesearch.com/2016/01/18/multiple-cameras-with-the-raspberry-pi-and-opencv/ <comment><USER2> Having actually set up multiple webcams on a rpi (2 each on 2 pis, costs the same as one drop cam), the most surprising thing is the power consumption. Either use a powered hub or settle for slow rates/low res. It's hard to find, as the cameras just stop working. Unless you know where to look there are no cues as to what went wrong on raspbian. That and many of the command line tools to upload to gdrive are broken by lack of maintenance, iirc the go tool gdrive was the only one that worked for me.

<comment><USER3> Also, if your using wifi, that just exacerbates the problem. My camera would work without my wifi, and my wifi would work without the camera. Replaced the power-cable, and all was well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This guy is a beast and made it incredibly easy to implement. After having taken 15 years off from writing code, I started programming again using RaspPI and Arduino a couple of months ago. Using Adrian's examples, in a day I put a motion detection system in place for a treat dispenser I built for my dog (playwithpickles.com for background if anyone cares) that records video only when the dog is in view.

It is, however, expensive both computationally and storage (OPenCV is ~3 GB on it's own) so if you dont' need perfection there are other techniques that just compare entire frames rather than segmenting the frames.

<comment><AUTHOR> Adrian here, author of the post.

Thanks so much for the kind words, and I'm happy the posts have helped! And as a fellow dog lover, it's awesome to see how you put together a real application for treat dispensing.

<comment><USER5> Was gonna say something similar. Used the tutorials to do openCV stuff for my whiteboard robot. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was expecting something with "apt-get install motion" with a few config changes, but the author writes his own image capture scripts in Python including motion detection. Nicely done.

<comment><USER7> I do but I use old android phones connected to WiFi for the cameras.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been playing around with MotionEye OS ([https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/wiki](https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/wiki)) with a lot of success. I've only tried two cameras, but there is support for more.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't vouch for it myself but I was looking for multiple camera support and found this recently:

[http://www.ivmech.com/magaza/en/development- modules-c-4/ivpo...](http://www.ivmech.com/magaza/en/development- modules-c-4/ivport-raspberry-pi-camera-module-multiplexer-p-90)

Claims to be able to do it "properly" \- via the camera interface.

<comment><USER10> It seems like it can switch between multiple cameras, but it doesn't handle multiple cameras at the same time. Still, cycling between cameras every 10 seconds might be acceptable for some people. Or there's the option of configuring the system so that it'll follow motion through the area by overlapping the cameras' fields of view.

<comment><USER11> demo clip seems to suggest you can switch between streams with ~3ms delay (two cameras filming same laptop screen with a clock running), but its not spelled out anywhere clearly so might be a marketing trick of showing you what you want while selling something else

<comment><USER10> Looks like 30-50ms, after pausing on a bunch of the frames (the last number is in hundredths of a second). That makes it look like it may just be 1 frame behind (video at 720p, recording at 30fps, 33ms per frame).

Later in the demo video, some of the frames are purple as it switches; it looks like invalid data for the end of the frame, and the Pi sync'ing to the output of the next camera when it starts transmitting its next frame.

I wonder if the commands for the module are covered in the MIPI docs, or if they just pass through anything the Pi sends. It seems like a cool device, and probably more practical for most people than the dual-CSI interfaces on the Pi Computer Module.

<comment><USER11> ah you are right, I ate one zero

CSI is uni directional, camera is controller over separate interface (I2C)

dual csi on compute module is cool because you get four mipi lanes, and one of (former) broadcom engineers, 6by9, was kind and awesome enough to write _generic fully open source_ CSI driver, meaning you can use FPGA(for example MachXO2, lattice offers free MIPI cores) to pump up to 400 MB/s into Pee Linux userland

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=109137](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=109137)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those that are thinking of setting up USB webcams for security, beware that low-light capture with most USB cams is pretty dang terrible. My experience is that it worked great during the day but was nearly unusable at night.

<comment><AUTHOR> In that case, you might want to go with an infrared camera. If you're using a Raspberry Pi, the Pi NoIR camera is really great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I subscribe to Adrian's email and I bought his bundle. I have never had so much fun with image processing. He definitely makes it easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Adrian here, author of the post and book. Thanks for picking up a copy of Practical Python and OpenCV -- and it's really awesome to hear you liked it so much.

If you have any questions about computer vision, feel free to reach out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> (Slightly OT)

What is the best way to read images from a DSLR attached to a Pi via USB?

I'd like to build a simple timelapse system where

\- the image taking is done via the remote cable attached to GPIO pins of the PI

\- each image, when taken, is sent to the Pi via USB (RAW+Jpeg) for processing, upload, etc.

The first part seems fairly easy, but the second part not so much. Any pointer appreciated.

<comment><USER14> with many cameras you don't even need the GPIO pin:

[http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/](http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I haven't tried it, but arducam has a rig that claims 4 cameras on a single MIPI CSI (Pi) interface. [http://www.arducam.com/multi-camera-adapter-module- raspberry...](http://www.arducam.com/multi-camera-adapter-module-raspberry- pi/)

<comment><USER16> It seems to be a simple multiplexer. They can only be used alternately, the example script on the page lists code to first select one of the (up to 16) cameras using GPIOs, then capturing with the normal Arduino utility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could speed of an object be determined with two front facing cameras?

If you knew the distance between each camera and triangulated plus a little math could speed be figured out?

<comment><USER18> A simple way to solve this. Have two cameras (C) facing straight ahead with a known distance (D) between them. When the spot they normally see (X) is blocked, mark the time. (t1-t0) / D

        C0</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----X
        |
        D
        |
        C1</comment><comment></comment><comment>-----X

<comment><USER19> Could you use two vertical strips, calculate the length of strip covered [segment image and use number of pixels as first approximation], assume the articles are discs [or some other assumption depending what you're expecting to measure] and use that to naively alter for objects not moving parallel to the plane of the cameras? Would be interesting to see how accurate you could get given the massive assumptions in play. Known objects would be easier to handle.</comment></comment>


Digital library of old and rare books set up by Attorney General for India - happy-go-lucky http://kkvlibrary.com/ <comment> happy-go-lucky "Please note that these books are not protected by copyright in India, either because their copyright has expired or because the books are not covered under the Indian copyright laws. Anyone located in India may read and download them."

"Readers not located in India must check the laws of their territory before downloading any of the content on this website."</comment>


Glossier Tops Billion-Dollar Valuation with Latest Funding - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/glossier-tops-billion-dollar-valuation-with-latest-funding-11552993200 <comment><AUTHOR> Outline link to bypass WSJ paywall: [https://outline.com/mVJ4Sm](https://outline.com/mVJ4Sm)</comment>


Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $4 billion valuation - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/04/facebook-to-let-employees-sell-some-stock-options-at-internal-4-billion-valuation/ <comment><USER2> $4b is an awful lot. Especially since any potential business model is still to be really proven. The sort of targeted advertising they are aiming for is not necessarily easy to pull off. And I think it will take a couple of years to prove it either way.

I wonder what this does to their runway?

<comment><USER3> $4b seems much too high to me as well. facebook has two main values that are only valuable due to high number of users.

1- source of contact - substitutes include: old aol, aim, email, ichat, ect

2- representation of self to world - substitutes include myspace, most social networks, ect

asian markets have different preferences for representation of self than those facebook emphasizes.

facebook is having troubling scaling globally AND they plan to monetize on only advertising.

those employees made out nicely.

<comment><USER2> True, and neither of those are money-makers. The whole 'we'll make money off it with advertising later' has failed many times. Search is the exception not the rule.

Until I actually saw some innovative advertising method making advertisers money and getting an excited response in that community, I'd be sceptical that they can do more with a pageview then NYT.com or About.com or any other 'site.'

At banner ad monetisation rates, that would probably put them at around the $50m - $500m p/y mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently linkedin is doing it as well! [http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/04/linkedin-like-facebook- is-...](http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/04/linkedin-like-facebook-is-letting- employees-sell-some-stock-early/)

This seems in between an IPO and an acquisition, it would be nice to see more startups taking this route.

<comment><USER5> It seems like a dangerous route to take, to make some of your key employees rich before there's a proper liquidity event. I can only imagine what it will do to their motivation and to the internal politics of the company.

Of course, very few startups find themselves in this position anyway, being worth billions but with no interest in selling at the moment.

<comment><USER4> That's one way to look at it, and I am sure some employees might leave after this. The other way to look at it is that it re-energizes the workforce and the early employees, makes them stick around longer, and gives some hope to the other employees that have joined later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I'm not really literate in the technicalities but something doesn't add up.

The preferred stock deal with MSFT values the company at $15b 'internal valuation' that the shares were issued at is $4b. Aren't these supposed to be approximations of the same thing, roughly?

Does that means that they can't go public with a valuation lower then $15b?

That MSFT deal seems insane. Facebook would have to be an advertising powerhouse.

<comment><USER6> As I understand it the valuation at the time of the Microsoft deal was meaningless, at least as far as other shareholders go. Their move was based on an effort to "get into social networking," not a strategic long-term investment.

I could be wrong. But I think that's a believable story, especially in light of this news around FB's own (much lower) internal valuation.

<comment><USER2> Makes sense. I guess they pay an evil premium.

But wouldn't they have something written into the deal that they can't sell the company at a valuation lower then the preferred stock price? Isn't that what preferred stock means.

I suppose that there would be no restrictions on buying at a lower valuation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Facebook has said it's not planning to IPO anytime soon

Exactly how do they plan to let employees sell stock without accidentally becoming a public company?

Is this stock being sold back to the company itself?

<comment><USER8> Most likely, it involves private internal trading between employees. Those that would rather just take the cash and run can sell their stock to others who would like to invest more into the company.

<comment><USER5> _Most likely, it involves private internal trading between employees_

Where would the money come from? Very few facebook employees are rich in cash.</comment></comment></comment>


Neuron: Intelligent suit to discover customers from social networks - <AUTHOR>

Neuron will examine your entire social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Pinterest), pick up those users on platform who are interested in your type of products and help you convert them into your customers.<p>Share your views on this product of mine. Also i can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> I think, then, that you mean "Intelligent suite ..."

I for one, baulk at the term "intelligent" in this context. It's over-used, over-hyped, and invariably under-delivers.

However, assuming you actually have something useful and interesting, might I suggest that you either get a copy-editor or proof reader to help hone your text. Your copy is your display window - if people see "mistakes" then the message can get lost or ignored.

A good article with specific examples will go a long way. Generalities don't sell - a story that resonates with your intended market is what sells.

Finally, I can't respond to the call to

        "Share your views on this product of mine."

because I haven't used it, am unlikely to want it, and can see no reason why I should invest my time to investigate it. You need to convince me that it's a trivial investment of time to be able to assess it enough. That's your challenge.</comment>


Logicly: a logic gate simulator - <AUTHOR> http://joshblog.net/projects/logic-gate-simulator/Logicly.html

<comment><USER2> I wonder how many of us will immediately try to feed a gate back on itself... (Firefox Hung when Flash came face-to-face with infinity, I had to kill -9 it, so be careful)

Very cool little App. Has a nice feel for a simple little Logic Gate simulator to play with. Would be nice to see it integrated into: <http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/>

<comment><USER3> I can't reproduce the problem... it won't let you hook an inverter to itself, but a ring of three inverters works fine (but generates inconsistent output).

<comment><USER4> Looping should work better now. I pushed a new build.

<comment><USER3> Odd-length loops of inverters still end up making one of the inverters enter an inconsistent state.

(Edit: never mind, a shift-reload does wonders. Bravo!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be really cool if one could define "new gates" in terms of gates, e.g. a half-adder, a full-adder.

<comment><USER6> agreed. a couple slots for your own black boxing of a component would enable fairly complex ideas to be quickly demonstrated. Could be a great teaching tool.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. In the CS architecture class here they use Logic Works, which is only a little higher-level, but with a much worse interface.

It is no replacement for more powerful things (e.g. FPGAdvantage), but for didactic purposes, this is quite useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I'm surprised how rusty I've gotten. It took quite a long time to figure out the optimal full adder.

</comment><comment><USER9> Pretty cool. I think I semi-broke it (or at least found a bug):

[http://marcusvorwaller.com/look/Mozilla_Firefox-20090503-095...](http://marcusvorwaller.com/look/Mozilla_Firefox-20090503-095123.jpg)

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure if it's a bug in this case, but I've used logic simulation software with the same issue and it was considered a "feature". Basically, unconnected nodes of an or-gate are considered HIGH. I suppose it makes more sense when the AND-gate has more inputs.

Confused the hell out of me at the time, especially since I had left the assignment to the last possible minute.

Edit: remembered the name of the software: <http://ozark.hendrix.edu/~burch/logisim/>

<comment><USER11> No, that still doesn't make sense to me. The behavior of a logic circuit with unconnected inputs depends on the implementation; in typical CMOS, those floating inputs can do things as wacky as picking up the electrical fields of nearby people. The proper thing to do with floating inputs is to declare them unknown, and for any logic operation which depends on their values to also be unknown. Most logic simulation software I've used or written has worked this way.

<comment><USER4> Makes sense. I'll keep that in mind if I make further updates to the simulator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Suggestions:

1\. Instead of a clickable text field that says "Simulation is STOPPED" , use something obviously clickable (obvious even when mouse is not hovering over it), like a button, and make it say "Start Simulation" . Likewise, instead of "Simulation is ACTIVE" , make the button say "Stop Simulation" . [more specific version of thehickmans' suggestion]

2\. Make active the default state, i.e. the button says "Stop Simulation" by default. [seconding psyklic's suggestion]

</comment><comment><USER13> Good job. This is what 'visual programming' is supposed to be like.

</comment><comment><USER14> That is fun to play with! It reminds me of Circuit Simulator? from the MacPlus days.

I think you should make the simulator stopped/active control more obvious.

</comment><comment><USER11> This would be even better if it supported gate delays. If it did, then we could make a ring oscillator by chaining an odd number of NOT gates in a circle, and that would just be so much fun. That sort of simulation is actually easier than it sounds; you just maintain an event queue and add a new event to the queue whenever an input to a gate changes.

<comment><USER4> A new build has been uploaded. Gates now have a propagation delay.

<comment><USER11> Have I mentioned that you are awesome, and so is Logicly? Because it's true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> it's a clean, visually intuitive simulator - i am using it for a high school class learning logic. thanks for making it available

2 things i wish it had:

1) a way to save the state. sometimes students don't finish a problem in one session and there is no way to save the partially constructed network. and of course there's no easy way for them to give me their finished work.

2) a "T" cable to tie inputs together (for example to make an inverter from a NAND gate. it _IS_ possible to connect both inputs to the same switch but while the result works, it doesn't look the way we usually draw gates with bridged inputs.

thanks again for a very fun toy

</comment><comment><USER16> If the creator of the tool is reading:

1\. Please add support for sequential logic with flops.

2\. Minor bug: the "input" and "output" labels are reversed on the left pane.

<comment><USER4> Arguable on the label reversal. As someone on Reddit explained, "a lightbulb accepts input, and switches and clocks produce output".

<comment><USER17> You can argue that, but to digital circuit designers, switches and clocks are inputs to the system you are designing, and light bulbs and LEDs are outputs of the system. This is going against convention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very cool! I recommend just having the simulation _always_ be active (i.e. when I hook up a square wave generator, immediately have it generate a signal).

</comment><comment><USER15> a minor bug.

if a switch is connected to one input of an XOR gate but the other input is left free, the output is low regardless of the switch state. (same if switch is replaced by clock). Other gates (OR for example) work correctly even if one input is left free.

thanks again for a cool app

</comment><comment><USER19> I wish it had a tri-state buffer.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone else ever play "Rocky's Boots" back on the Apple ][?</comment>


Ask HN: Saturday dilemma - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, Recently we are going through a dilemma which I am sure you all can help us with.
I run a small IT service company in India along with 3 of my friends. We are 7 years old now and have team of around 50 developers.
We have 1st and 3rd Saturdays off and we work on rest of them in a month.
Inspired from following article about 40 hour work week culture in Microsoft.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmeier/archive/2010/10/21/40-hour-work-week-at-microsoft.aspx
We were thinking of having 40 hour work week schedule at our company too.
If we implement 40 hour work week, what should we do about the 2 Saturdays we are working on, assuming everyone will finish their 40 hours from Monday to Friday.
Should we keep those Saturdays completely off?
OR
Should we have some interesting activities, fun games, coding war games, lunch, movies etc on those 2 Saturdays?
What will make developers more happy?
1) A Saturday completely off
OR
2) A Saturday completely for their own selves for doing anything they want, for e.g. a pet project, a blog post, improving writing skills etc.
We want happy developers and great teams in our company so we are seeing this dilemma as an opportunity to do that.
Since HN community comprises mainly of programmers and think tanks of our world, I think I will get the right answer here.
Thank you in advance. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure this is a question someone outside the Indian culture can really answer.

In the UK, we're used to Saturdays off; you'd get the most bonus here from doing just that and giving people the day free every week.

But, cultural expectations are weird to outsiders. Maybe the staff would be seen as lazy or less useful by their peers / families if they were at work less; in which case I'd suggest keeping the work hours but providing a different day pattern for them, such as more social time or personal projects.

What makes people happy in working conditions is individual and very different in different contexts. You know your staff and your better than we do; you are better equipped to make this call.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask your people? Most likely, everyone will want the day off. Also, 37signals does 4 day weeks and still produces enormous revenues...

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a huge difference between 37Signals and us form business point of view.

37Signals is a product company having successful products in the market already.

We are an IT service company whose revenue literally and linearly dependent on the number of hours we work.

So need optimized solution for company and for developers.

<comment><USER4> In the short term your revenue is linearly dependent on the number of hours worked, but in the long term it's a function of productivity. The focus should be on creating value not putting in hours because you can always increase your hourly rate, but you can not work 25 hours in a day. And revenue is meaningless, the only important number for a company is profit.

PS: You can add employees but foxconn's 920,000 employees generate around ~100 million in profit per year. Google's 26,316 employees generate around 80 times that much profit meaning they are generating ~ 2,800 times the profit per person.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes so for that only, we were thinking of investing 2 Saturdays in growth of individuals. This will require dedicated time and efforts from our side. We are willing to do that.

Everyone has chance of improvement and we believe by investing our own time may help individuals to improve themselves.

For e.g. Not every programmer has good writing skills or spoken english skills which is required for communicating with overseas client. We can spend time in improving that.

I am just arguing here to have fruitful discussion. I am just taking the opposite side right now so that we can uncover more points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I peraonally would be happy with a day off. The other option is hard to make fun for everyone imho.

</comment><comment><USER6> Give them the day off on Saturday, but keep the office open so that if they _want_ to come in and work on personal projects in a familiar setting, they _can_.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it common in India to work on Saturdays?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is common. Things are changing recently but still you will find only 2 out of 4 Saturdays off in most companies.

<comment><USER8> Give your employees the day off. This will be a competitive advantage when recruiting and retaining employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who've worked saturday mornings for nearly 3 years (in Vietnam) I will say this: saturday is OFF.

A 1 day or a 1½ day week-end is not a week-end and I was a nervous mess after 3 years of that. To top that the saturday mornings were 95% useless because seriously what can you possibly accomplish in such a short time in a noisy open-space when your mind is thinking about how you'll try to relax during the short time allowed?

As for organizing something, I think programmers are grown-up enough to take care of themselves and decide what they want to do with their day off. You don't have to babysit them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great. Though there is slight difference in your situation and ours. We at least have couple of full weekends in a month.

I like your answer but.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ask your people what they want. Honestly, I think having to work weekends, whether or not it's on pet projects or workshops or whatever, is too much. People need time away from work to decompress if they're going to be effective developers over a long period of time. Even here in the United States it feels like two days off is too little.

You say you have 50 developers. What's your turn-over rate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well let's say we have attrition rate of 20% to 40%

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "[...] whose revenue literally and linearly dependent on the number of hours we work."

I know nothing about your company of course; but you can take a 'step back' and see if there is a way to get paid without having to be available so often?

Are you spending too much money, not charging enough, or need to think up some more revenue streams / ways of making money?

</comment><comment><USER12> Try the "fun" saturday first, if you don't see any interest then offer to give the day off. If you give the day off first and then ask people to come in, you might not get a positive response.

Also, why does it have to Saturdays? Employees with children might like a day off during the week, to do things which are harder to accomplish in the weekend.

I went to primary school in Mumbai where we had Thursdays and Saturdays off. I liked the break in the middle of the week, but I'm not sure if my sentiments were universally shared.

</comment><comment><USER13> 1\. Ask them. 2\. Organize an optional "do your own stuff"-saturday (or perhaps "lets do a cool project together in one day"-saturday) and see who participates.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just keep the day off. 5 days/40 hrs. a week is the norm.

</comment><comment><USER15> Days off on all Saturdays would be ideal. Fun and games I think should be random and during the 40 hours of the work week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well its not just about fun and games. We can also have technical exercises, communication skills improvement during this time.</comment></comment>


Leetcode Is Like Gymming - <AUTHOR> https://www.siddharthasahai.com/leetcode-is-like-gymming/ <comment><USER2> What is "gymming" in this context?</comment>


The Software That Detects When a Cat Is Messing with Your Keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/the-software-that-detects-when-a-cat-is-messing/ <comment><USER2> Beautifully written.</comment>


The health-care bill has no master plan for curbing costs. Is this a bad thing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande?printable=true <comment><USER2> This article is worth a read before making bland comments about the tagline.

Edit: To provide a little value, the article digs into some history of how the US managed amazing increases in productivity in agriculture in the early 20th century. That portion of it alone is fascinating. Whatever version of the healthcare bill the article's using includes similar techniques to how the government approached agriculture.

<comment><USER3> Uh,

The article's headline is sort-of plausible.

The article's body is a pathetic absurdity. An massive integrated, interdependent industry can't be plausibly compared to the motley collection of itinerant farmers roaming America in 1900. I'd laugh if this article wasn't such a pathetic failure to address the oncoming gigantic failure that is the looming health care bill. As it is, I want to cry...

Edit: The history of agriculture improvement are interesting. But cryingly inapplicable - health care processes are absolutely not the product of the decisions of individual health care providers but the massively complex interactions of multiple sub-industries, regulations, etc. Sheesh.

<comment><USER2> I don't know that I'd disagree. In its current state, I'm afraid there are too many pressures on each individual actor for them to try new things.

The advantages in agriculture were that they were suspicious of trying new things, but once they did they demonstrated profit advantages. I have more trouble seeing how the pilot programs the article mentions would profit individual practitioners, or how insurance companies would provide the same kind of demand signals that direct consumers would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the long run the only ways to control health care costs are to let old people die, or cure aging. I'd prefer the second.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, the second would ensure rising health care costs as there would then be more patients. Also, overpopulation would then be a much larger issue than health care and as such we'd have to find creative ways to cull the masses. Darwin Awards or not, the numbers would rise indefinitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes. This is the major problem with leaving out a public option. There is no way to control costs without one. Preventative medicine has been shown to improve patient outcomes but has also been shown to increase, not lower, costs.

<comment><USER3> A lot more than a public option is needed.</comment></comment>


The speakers' circuit is where original thinkers go to die - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/0380eb28-1c17-11e8-aaca-4574d7dabfb6?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754ec6 <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/A23jTv](https://outline.com/A23jTv)</comment>


Ask HN: I broke my wrist as a web dev, any advice to keep the pace at work? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Expect to be slower. You should be typing one handed and letting your wrist rest and heal. Time off can be very fairly argued. I have a friend who lost several fingers on one hand. They can still type at like 50wpm single handed. Took several weeks of practice before it got there.

Side note: is typing speed really that important? It is nice to quickly get ideas on screen, but I don't think it is much more than that, is it?

</comment><comment><USER3> There _are_ exotic keyboards designed to be used with one hand... who knows if they're worth it.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=one+hand+keyboard&iax=images&ia=im...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=one+hand+keyboard&iax=images&ia=images)

</comment><comment><USER4> Take some rest man. Accidents happen for a reason. Fatigue is one of the most common ones.

</comment><comment><USER5> You shouldn't even be at work. How come your doctor didn't give you time of work? In Europe that'd mean 80% wages from the company and the rest paid by work insurance.

<comment><USER6> which is not true for every country

<comment><USER5> Which is exactly why I mentioned Europe...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Strange Loop : Voice Driven Development

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKuRkGkf5HU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKuRkGkf5HU)</comment>


Interview with Piers Anthony. Writing Fantasy in Linux. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepowerbase.com/2011/11/piers-anthony-an-ogre-and-a-penguin/ <comment><USER2> Good and interesting interview but your site's layout is horrible. 7 pages for that? It should have been 1 page. No print / single page view either.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know... When that was published, by sidebar was half the height that it is now. I'll edit it tonight to reflect the new layout. Thanks for the criticism.

<comment><USER3> It's not that accessibility is something you should add, it's that you're actively mucking it up with about a hundred text links, glossy buttons, social junk on all sides, and the page splits. I'm guessing you're driving away enough visitors to hurt your apparent dedication to making money off page views.

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly. Criticism is accepted. We are new to this and have no clue what we are doing to be perfectly honest. We just want to bring quality content, and if presentation is holding it back then it needs to be addressed. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Warning: You will really have to want to read the article to click through. It's a small article split amongst 7 pages, and if you get distracted and leave it up for a bit, it switches away to an ad. Evil.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Piers: Yes, I can't print in Linux on my current system._

Well, we've only had 20 years.

Ah the hours and ink I wasted trying in vain to get acceptable color results out of ink jet printers on linux. It's networked Postscript laser printers for me from now on and I'll just print photos other ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried to help him with it, but he doesn't keep his machine online so it is difficult. He still has dialup and refuses to upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't read a Xanth in years, so this was interesting to catch up; I hadn't even realized he was still alive. (Wikipedia says he's 77!)

<comment><AUTHOR> He still runs 2 miles a day. He will be around until he's 150 I'm sure. I read in his most recent newsletter that his updated bibliography is 150 books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did anybody else read Piers Anthony growing up? I must have gone through 20 of his Xanth books when I was younger. That was one of the reasons I wanted to be rouge adventurer with magical partners.

I got a degree in CS instead =/

<comment><USER8> Yes and he was 1 of 2 authors that wrote back to me when I sent a bunch of fan letters to fantasy authors around 1984 or so. I just looked and I still have it - a perforated postcard printed using a dot matrix printer.

David Eddings was the other author - he sent the full syllabus to his college writing course plus some photocopied short stories in response to the statement I was thinking of becoming an author.

<comment><USER7> Curious, did Eddings's reply to you actually help steer you towards authorhood or did your life take a different journey?</comment></comment></comment>


The culture where play is shameful (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201207/all-work-and-no-play-make-the-baining-the-dullest-culture-earth <comment><USER3> Papua New Guinea is endlessly studied. Jared Diamond speculates various reasons for why the people there didn't develop into a post-hunter-gatherer civilization (or much beyond that). While much of his work has been disputed, I think it's still an interesting question.

I can't help sometimes when reading anthropological studies or videos of a pre-modern civilization that a terrible amount of time is spent on rituals and dances and other things and perhaps the key is that other, faster developing groups of people simply found a different balance between work and these non- productive activities.

However, the Baining seem to represent the opposite end, doing nothing _but_ productive work, and yet they aren't exactly the unusually advanced Atlanteans of PNG either.

So I was struck by this "and exhibited little curiosity or enthusiasm" and it kind of hits me how important imagination and enthusiasm are in the process of _advancing_ things. Toil gets stuff done, but you're just running in place. Imagination is a kind of play, and it's necessary to move you forward as well.

<comment><USER4> > Jared Diamond speculates various reasons for why the people there didn't > develop into a post-hunter-gatherer civilization (or much beyond that). > While much of his work has been disputed

So it would be a waste of time to read Guns Germs and Steel, since it is mostly disputed? What would be a good alternative then?

<comment><USER5> He makes some interesting observations, but stretches some of the conclusions quite a bit. Basically suffers from a lot of confirmation bias. Tends to ignore or overlook contradictory evidence.

<comment><USER6> Definitely agree with that. Especially about the domestication large fauna in North America. How can you completely ignore the buffalo?

<comment><USER7> He answers some questions here, also about bison domestication: [http://jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel...](http://jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel.html)

(according to this link I just googled, American buffalos are actually bisons [http://www.diffen.com/difference/Bison_vs_Buffalo](http://www.diffen.com/difference/Bison_vs_Buffalo) )

<comment><USER6> I read it, and it seems like crap. "When I ask American readers and animal handlers familiar with bison the possible reasons for bison non-domestication, they mention two factors: unpredictable dangerous disposition, such that bison ranchers remain wary of them; and ability to jump fences, such they could not be penned until modern strong high fences became available."

First off, Bulls can definitely have nasty dispositions, and secondly they can definitely jump fences. I've personally seen a bull clear a 8 foot fence.

 _thanks for providing that though!_

<comment><USER7> I don't know anything about bisons. Are they domesticated these days?

So you would say they would have been eligible for domestication and native Americans failed to do so for some unknown reason?

<comment><USER5> I think you're making much the same mistake Diamond does, assuming that domestication is inevitable, and that if it doesn't happen, somebody "failed".

<comment><USER7> Well they failed by becoming subjugated by the European settlers, dying from diseases by the millions. That's what the book is about. I don't see a way to paint that in lovely colors? What about that isn't "failure"?

The argument here was that Diamond's theory is wrong because the native Americans could have domesticated the bisons after all. The claim that they are too difficult to tame is dismissed as "crap". Then it seems to me why they were not being domesticated needs another explanation (if the one from Diamond is not good enough). Just random chance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh, that culture sounds like hell on earth. I am amazed by the unique capability of humans to take our most ingrained needs and desires and turn them into shame. Whether it be sex, or food, or "wasting time", or even just displays of emotion, we have somehow managed to turn these most central of human feelings into something bad. I'm not arguing that we should completely give ourselves over to our base urges, but acknowledging they exist, that everyone has them, and that they can be a wonderful thing would be a great start.

<comment><USER9> > I'm not arguing that we should completely give ourselves over to our base > urges, but acknowledging they exist, that everyone has them, and that they > can be a wonderful thing would be a great start.

As soon as you say something like this, you concede the argument.

You are equating human happiness with "giving in to base urges," which couldn't be further from the truth.

<comment><USER8> By "base urges", I mean that quite literally, and not with a negative connotation. I mean the most fundamental of human needs: food, sex, emotional expression. I mean that we should take delight in a great meal, but not to the point that we overdose on food to the point where it's harmful and no longer pleasurable. Same thing goes for sex and emotional expression.

<comment> david-given Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is useful to point at in this sort of conversation: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the comment thread is excellent, and a lot more insightful than the article (which was interesting, but seemed a bit simplified and superficial to me). note especially the comments from actual baining people.

<comment><USER11> The thread was very interesting, but I didn't see any posts by Baining people, which would be very interesting to me. Can you provide a link or the usernames they were using so I can search?

<comment><USER12> I looked through and saw only one, "Ngorana".

<comment><USER11> Thanks. I'm reposing here because I found it hard to find:

 _You think you understand??

Submitted by Ngorana of Sinivit, South Coast Baining, Papua New Guinea on August 7, 2012 - 7:49pm

I agree that some cultures and child rearing and discipline can be restrictive, but brought up in a similar manner does not mean that we do not value our upbringing - and i do not see it as 'dull' or 'boring' or 'wrong'! From what I think, in the western society, perception of play and the correct form of discipline to be practiced on children is very different from the most cultures in the east.

I must say, that in the previous works stated in the essay, of the Baining people saying little or nothing in interviews is due to the fact, that if you are not a member (specifically foreigner) of the concerned society amongst the Bainings, than you do not necessarily need to acquire knowledge of their cultural or philosophical way of life - except if you are 'married' into the society, adopted or asked to be part of the society. Baining people are very careful with what they say, and to who, especially about cultural practices - it is a taboo to inform foreigners about this. We are people of little talk. We believe more in actions, and that people must read and interpret them correctly. Something of which our children are taught.

For Baining's of Sinivit of the south coast for example, play is accepted and taken as time-out. However, adults instill in children that working such as chopping fire wood, diving for fish, gardening, building houses, hunting and gathering is crucial in sustaining your self and your land - especially for males at a later age. Children are taught to be independent and self sufficient and less dependent on their parents or elders at a very young age. This whole concept of not allowing play in our daily lives to me is WRONG. The notion of them becoming young women or men one day is embedded into our thoughts by our elders, and that how we are brought up by them will determine what type of adults we will become. In return, the very existence and state of our land (our heritage) and its affairs depend greatly on our actions. We are taught to become hard workers and very private about our cultural affairs.

You see, before the colonial era, we the Baining's inhabited the whole of the land of East New Britain. Invasion by a neighboring cultural group - <USER2> 'Tolai' people, forced us into the jungles and coastal area due south of the province. Our forefathers lost most of our valuable land, and people to cannibalism, practiced amongst these invaders. Then during the colonial area, the Germans enslaved them, forcing them into mining our alluvial gold and carrying them hundreds of kilometers inland and storing them away, in what was considered as sacred land - biding us against our cultural beliefs. Stories of these past events have further created a sense of secrecy in protecting our cultural ways (specifically the fire dance), and our land especially.

Baining people do not depend on other related societies to survive out in the natural environment, and land and sea is seen as a commodity of which is treasured and priceless. 'You reap what you sow', is highly emphasized in our cultural society - something of which may be deemed archaic in biblical times....

And so, in my opinion the essay composed by Dr Grey based on some the works of Fajan's is quite biased if you ask me. People do not have the right to be 'frustrated' when studying foreign cultures - you simply have to endure it, or stop wasting your time. Culture is not just something you record, observe and interpret over time, its how well you integrate yourself into the traditions, beliefs and practices of the people of that particular heritage and understand it and its people. Most importantly, you must respect these aspects, as not one culture no matter how much you see it as perfect, is seen as perfect or the correct practice for different cultural societies._

<comment><USER13> Incredible comment. Maybe link to the source?

<comment><USER11> too late to edit my comment, but here it is

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/comment/246571#comment-24657...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/comment/246571#comment-246571)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's like an alien culture out of a Star Trek episode.

Play is not an anomaly, but the essence of personal and technological development. The fuel of progress is play and _Learning by example_ is no substitute for _trial and error_. On top of that, a play-less culture is not resilient at all, and therefore prone to extinction.

<comment><USER15> I believe one of the most difficult aspects of anthropology is to extract ones own cultural biases from observations.

>> Play is not an anomaly, but the essence of personal and technological development

It's not that _I_ disagree with you per se. Rather that you just stated baldly as fact, what are clearly just your own (and my own) biases.

>> a play-less culture is not resilient at all, and therefore prone to extinction.

Perhaps, but against that, it seems the Baining people have been this way for at least a hundred years. Perhaps considerably longer.

<comment><USER16> well they aren't exactly thriving using a modern understanding of the word. in a sense, they avoided extinction narrowly by not being found by a white dude with an evangelical streak at the wrong point in history

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There must be some confusion, at least with too abstract concepts. Every evolutionary psychologist will tell you that "play" is how humans and animals learn - by imitating and "practising". It is related to social and especially matting "skills", or, a more correct world - "habits". Play is evolutionary way to develop useful habits. So-called "mirror neurons" meme explains social aspect of "play". If this society isn't extinguished yet, it means that observed phenomena is rather a product if imagination and wishful thinking.

But nowadays everything written without obscene words and spelling errors could be considered " scientific".

</comment><comment><USER18> "She found, however, that she could study them by following them around and observing their daily activities and interactions." Are you f$%"£ kidding me? This sounds like such a revelation but is so bleeding obvious. Of course you have to observe people in their natural habitat, WATCHING them, not just sending them a SurveyMonkey survey or asking a buncha questions. C'mon people. Get real!

<comment><USER19> The author was contrasting Fajans approach with that adopted by two previous anthropologists, who had abandoned the tribe as "boring" or "unstudiable".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> While reading this article, I mentally replaced "Baining" with "British". And sadly, it rang true.

<comment><USER21> If that were really true nobody would be trying to figure out why the UK is so unproductive, either that or we are working very hard doing very little (Said he on HN at work).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how this culture would transform if it were subjected to facebook.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like Asian parents, especially 'Tiger Moms'.

</comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of my in-laws who get this puzzled look on their face when I (rarely) mention my music.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't see how the early anthropologists would be so bored with this tribe. They sound so different than anything else and fascinating.

This shows how important play is to develop imaginary things like gods, rituals, etc. however, I do wish American adults played a little less. Whenever I'm in the u.s. or when American friends visit me they're constantly futzing around on their phone playing games. I mean constantly and nearly everyone.

Imagine how much you could accomplish if you used that time to for example learn a new language. And before you say that people need to take a break every now and then the people playing these games don't seem to be taking it easy - they're working really hard it!

So there probably is some value in shaming play, at least in adults.

<comment><USER26> Those "casual" (not really) games are addictive without really being "fun" per se. People aren't _playing_ at them, any more than they're _playing_ a slot machine. They're just hooked on them, with social reinforcement by the same mechanisms as prime-time television (the water-cooler "did you get to see/do X last night" sort of conversation.) They're like viruses spreading through the population.

There are probably a few reasons why America has the problem especially badly—maybe an higher-than-average prevalence of ADHD makes this sort of addiction easier to fall into; maybe being the origin of these games and their first launch-market means we get saturated in them (and especially in their coordinated "viral PR" launch campaigns) in a way few other countries do. Really, I think it's just that the social pressure factor is stronger—we _really_ like having shared private experiences to talk about at water- coolers. See also: soap operas.

<comment><USER27> I've never played phone-games much, but enough that I wondered if I could find a better use for the time. I found one:

Chess

Chess works pretty well as a phone-game. You can blitz against the computer and work through endlessly non-repeating permutations of mid and late game play that you'd rarely see against human opponents. Playing against your cell phone does not adequately prepare you for human opponents on its own, but it does help you improve your game.

While being good at chess if of questionable utility, at least it's somewhat respected and can be used in social settings. It's viewed as a skill, unlike being good at flappy bird.

<comment><USER28> It's interesting to consider _why_ it is that some games are respected and viewed as a skill.

I think what sets games like chess, and to a greater extent go, apart from trivial addictive games, is that they teach concentration, executive function, pattern recognition, and in some cases jumping up and down abstraction hierarchies, in a way that probably extends beyond the game's domain into life.

I don't know what to do about the morass of addictive games that are taking over human mindshare. There have always been some; even crossword puzzles are arguably the pre-computer version. They strengthen recall and concept association but how useful is that, since most of what's required is trivia? Scrabble at least is social (with the benefits that entails) in addition to strengthening recall of uncommon words.

<comment><USER29> Some time ago there was an article here about Croatia(I think?) making chess playing mandatory for all school children. The comments section was full of people saying that it's stupid because there is no correlation between playing chess and any skill useful in life. There are no studies that prove that playing chess improves anything, apart from....being good at chess. I don't know if that is true personally, but that was the vibe HN was giving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Url changed from [http://io9.com/5929918/so-called-dullest-culture-on-earth- fr...](http://io9.com/5929918/so-called-dullest-culture-on-earth-frowns-upon- sex-and-bans-play), which points to this.</comment>


Join the open source uBiome GitHub repository for microbiome data and tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubiomeblog.com/invitation-to-join-the-ubiome-github-repository/

<comment><USER2> Been watching this story rise since the beginning. No comments left, nobody pays attention, even the title is out of place (what is joinong a repo anyway??). I think there's some magic behind the points this is getting on HN. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone here derived actionable insight from their microbiome data? I sampled my gut and sure I can see its pretty far off from the average (e.g 51% Bacteroidetes compared to 22.5% average) but err so what? Google brought up a few studies related to microbiomes but there doesn't seem to be any real answer on what a "good" microbiome is, or how deviations from normal are linked to other diseases, how much is dependent on diet (a lot i would think).

<comment><USER4> To begin with, the reproducibility of your sample is in question - [https://mrheisenbug.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/dear- american-g...](https://mrheisenbug.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/dear-american-gut- ubiome-you-have-some-explaining-to-do/)

The resolution from uBiome data is also 16s, and (likely) too low to yield good information.

There is no definition of a good microbiome. The research is still in its infancy. Attempting to 'improve' your microbiome would likely be a mistake. The upside is that you may have contributed by paying uBiome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think github (or even git) is ideal for raw data storage.

[https://help.github.com/articles/conditions-for-large- files/](https://help.github.com/articles/conditions-for-large-files/)

<comment><USER6> Actually, the repo isn't intended to store data whatsoever. It's for publishing tools (scripts mostly) anybody can use to peek into their own data (provided by uBiome).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really don't see the relevance of this blog post. What's so important about this story to be shared here?

</comment><comment><USER8> if they wanted to make microbiome data available they could just share some</comment>