Getting a $1000 iPhone X? You'll want a $60 Ikea Nightstand or a $5 Rotary Saw - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/getting-an-iphone-x-youll-want-a-60-ikea-nightstand-or-a-5-rotary-saw <comment><USER2> I hate interstitial ads.

Ikea wireless charging: [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/wir...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/wireless_charging/30611/)

You can probably find a rotary saw yourself.

<comment><USER3> Yes, for example if I read about a saw in an article on the internet and then decided to buy that one. This comment is bizarre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love how wireless charging, OLED etc are suddenly hot words now that Apple has finally come to the table.

Others have had them for many, many years. Yet, as soon as Apple does it: Oooooh shiny!

<comment><USER2> There's no need for cynicism. The iPhone is the best-selling smartphone in America. Only some Android phones have wireless charging, and even then not all the same type. The market has suddenly gone from relatively small, to huge.

So yes, they are now hot words. If you make Qi charging products, today is a good day.

<comment><USER5> Qi is old news. It was in most android phones, and was removed already from new phones.

It's been integrated into many appliances years ago...

All the technical people used and done with Qi cause it's so slow compared to quick charge 2.0/3.0 why bother. Just plug it in.

I am sure the market will definitely uptick again with apple and the apple centric crowd. Definitely agree with you there it's good to be in the QI business.

Time to dust off your old Qi product with the new label packaging that is support Apple products

<comment><USER6> Qi charging has saved my tablet (Nexus 7 2013) from being trash for two years. Before that, I had an HP touchpad that was saved by wireless charging. Given my experience, I'm all for wireless charging. Regarding charging speed, I have yet to have an issue with that--my problem is more that I frequently put the tablet down in the wrong place and then it doesn't charge at all. I'm not sure I'd trade that for the reliability of weird charging though--it's far more convenient to just pick up and set down my tablet than it is to plug in my phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this mean Google might readd Qi to their phones? They took it out a couple years ago saying that usb-c would be more convenient due to it being doublesided and fast charging.

<comment><USER5> With quick charge 3.0, it really is worth it to plug it in vs in comparison trickle charging via Qi.

Also believe the aluminum body was a factor to remove it from pixel

<comment><USER8> If speed is the only consideration. I used to love wireless charging at night, because when I was done reading and sleepy, I just had to set down the phone, rather than plug it in. Now I hope I remember to charge it before going to bed, or first thing in the morning if I have time.

<comment><USER5> True, but then I have a charger in car, in bag, at desk.

I can plug it in for 15 mins anywhere and have a good enough charge for rest of today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My understanding is that Apple has broken the Qi wireless charging standard. It's the same technology but only works with Apple branded Qi charges. Can anyone confirm?

<comment><AUTHOR> They indicated at the event that it is compatible with third-party chargers that meet the Qi standard. Their own charger coming out next year makes some tweaks to the standard, that they intend to bring up with the organization and (so they implied) play nicely with the standard.</comment></comment>


How coffee became a modern necessity - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-coffee-became-a-modern-necessity-11585972861 <comment><USER2> I came to the same conclusion after seeing all my family drinking at least 3 cups daily. Then all my friend, then me being 15 years old started.

About 13 years later I've quit cold turkey after having some anxiety problems and headaches. I did some research and read a book which is from the nineties and a bit outdated but holds up pretty good. It basically cured both problems (but withdrawal symptoms the first days were tough, I admit).

For many people it's ok to drink coffee I guess, but consider that it can affect you and almost no doctor will look into coffee consumption when you pay them a visit to see what could be the reason of some of those ailments. Also I saved a good chunk of money.

So no, you don't need coffee. You need to give your brain a break (sleep properly) if it asks for it, and you don't need to drug yourself with substances to "focus" and go on with your life. If life isn't exciting then you may want to change it.

I recommend reading r/decaf for some interesting testimonies.

<comment><USER3> > So no, you don't need coffee. You need to give your brain a break (sleep > properly) if it asks for it, and you don't need to drug yourself with > substances to "focus" and go on with your life.

I'd suggest that the reason so many people drink so much coffee is that giving their brain a break by getting plenty of sleep and R&R is just not feasible.

Take people with small children, for one. Unless you're very lucky, you won't be getting regular quality sleep for 5+ years after having your first child. If you have more than one, then extend this period as necessary.

People don't drink 3+ cups of coffee a day to be their best self living their best life. They drink that much coffee to function at all when they have no other option.

<comment><USER4> I drink 3+ cups of coffee because I enjoy the taste and the centuries of history behind the ritual.

This constant drive to be some sort of scientific Puritan, to the exclusion of anything else, is really tiresome.

<comment><USER5> Why is it tiresome for people to experiment with substance abstinence? How is that affecting you?

<comment><USER4> Well, to be clear, I was reacting to the specific statement that people only drink three coffees because they have some problem in their life. If you want to cut down on your coffee use, have at it, but do so without casting aspersion onto those who think otherwise.

Otherwise, to me it's tiresome when any sort of substance is critiqued because it doesn't fit the standard sober societal narrative, especially because it's assumed that people are incapable of making decisions for themselves. It is a sort of creeping, subtle Puritanism and is usually totally arbitrary; you'll see the same people gleefully talk about marijuana yet call tobacco users dumb. These things have costs and benefits and a mature society should be able to rationally discuss them, rather than act like a heavy-handed nanny. As an American living in Europe, this seems to be less of a problem in somewhere like France or Italy that has a tradition of wine cultivation. America seems to always skew to the extremes of over-indulgence or prohibition.

I simply don't agree with the idea that everything with a supposedly negative health effect is necessarily a bad thing. Intoxication and substance use has played an important role in art and culture for thousands of years. To casually dismiss it just seems really short-sighted.

I could write more about this but these are my summarized thoughts.

<comment><USER5> >America seems to always skew to the extremes of over-indulgence or prohibition.

I completely disagree. You must live in a different bubble than I do and most of HN. Most of the people here support the idea of experimentation with LSD or other psychedelics.

>I simply don't agree with the idea that everything with a supposedly negative health effect is necessarily a bad thing. Intoxication and substance use has played an important role in art and culture for thousands of years. To casually dismiss it just seems really short-sighted.

To casually support the idea that substance abuse hasn't harmed society seems pretty short sighted as well. Alcohol being a big one, it has such a negative societal impact, yet we are scared to broach the idea in a public forum.

<comment><USER4> Well I meant more America in general, not so much HN. I doubt the average person, even in somewhere like Northern California, is really encouraging of psychedelics.

And sure of course alcohol and other substance abuse has harmed society and continues to. I'm merely suggesting that moderation is a better solution than prohibition.

<comment><USER6> I would go further and even say that on HN you see these extremes. People that previously consumed massive, unhealthy amounts of coffee now authoring testimonials and blog posts about how life is better without coffee. People that previously could not go 5 minutes without checking news headlines and Twitter hot takes now authoring testimonials and blog posts about how life is so much better when lived in total ignorance of current events. Lukewarm takes about moderation aren't inspiring and dynamic enough to generate views, upvotes, and discussion. We're always looking for that neat life hack, and "don't do quite as much of X and maybe do a little more of Y" is not very neat.

<comment><USER4> I can't disagree with that. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope that someday cafe culture makes a comeback. As much as I love sitting in a cafe working on my laptop, the current iteration of cafes is but a pale imitation of what they were in the past.

Revolutions were plotted, art movements invented, and history made in places like Cafe Central in Vienna. I recommend reading literature from the 1880s-1930s to get a sense of how important they were for the time period. _A Moveable Feast_ by Hemingway is a good start.

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

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

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

<comment><USER7> What would it take to get this social aspect of cafes back? Exclusivity? No- smartphone rule? Dedicated discussion times? How do you envision us bringing this back while adapting to modern social norms?

<comment><USER4> Before COVID happened, I was actually in the process of starting a new sort of meet-up site, aimed at solving this problem. My initial thought was to have an online discussion board but have mandatory monthly meet-ups in cities around the world. For example, in order to be a member of the site, you have to physically come to a meet-up once every six months. Often enough to become a part of the community, but not too much to feel like a burden.

The core idea is to take the best of the Internet discussion format and combine it with the strengths of an in-person community.

I'm certainly open to any suggestions or thoughts on the idea.

<comment><USER8> There's a lovely thing that used to happen on Thursdays on r/sanfrancisco[1] - a fellow by the name u/jimmyjah would set up a spot at a bar and post on Reddit offering to buy any newcomers their first drink. It lead to a really lovely little community of stranger-Redditors hanging out weekly.

I think with openness, consistency, and just a tiny little push (a free drink), you can build a marvelous community.

1\. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/search/?q=It%27s%20thu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/search/?q=It%27s%20thursday&restrict_sr=1)

<comment><USER4> Interesting, thanks for the link. Any idea why it ended?

<comment><USER9> > _Any idea why it ended?_

Looks like it's on hold because of COVID-19: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/fj4u35/look_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/fj4u35/look_who_came_into_my_bar_last_night/fklrmke/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Coffee, and its associated caffeine effects, has an interesting history in the battle theater. These comments regarding coffee are from the American Civil War:

 _" Perhaps the North's access to caffeine gave its soldiers a strategic advantage. At least that's what one Union officer, Gen. Benjamin Butler, thought. He ordered his men to carry coffee in their canteens and planned attacks based on when his men would be most wired. His advice to other generals was: 'If your men get their coffee early in the morning, you can hold.'"_ [1]

 _" In 1859 Sharps Rifle Co. began to manufacture a carbine with a hand- cranked grinder built into the butt stock — or handle — of the rifle. Union soldiers would fill the stock with beans, grind them up, dump them out and use the grounds to cook the coffee. As the morning began, one Civil War diarist described a scene of 'little campfires rapidly increasing to hundreds in numbers that would shoot up along the hills and plains.' The encampment would buzz with the sound of thousands of grinders simultaneously crushing beans. Soon, tens of thousands of muckets (coffee pots) gurgled with fresh brew."_ [2]

[1][2] [https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/25/485227943/if...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/25/485227943/if- war-is-hell-then-coffee-has-offered-u-s-soldiers-some-salvation)

<comment><USER11> Same is true of amphetamines. US Fighter pilots were taking them as recently as 2002. I heard an interesting story about Elvis on NPR. He took two things from his time in the military: Karate, which colored his dance moves, and drugs. He got fat after coming back from the military, after he stopped the amphetamines.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substituted_amphetamines#Military_use)

<comment><USER12> First time amphetamines were used was by Nazi troops in WWII. The show I was watching that mentioned it was invented in Germany and used for the push into France by the Nazis also mentioned an interesting side effect of it also reducing empathy.

<comment><USER13> Amphetamine was discovered in Germany in the late 19th century, but no one knew it was a stimulant until the 1930s. And both Allies and Axis used it in WWII as a combat stim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very disappointed that the article doesn't mention that about 1734 Johann Sebastian Bach actually wrote a secular cantata (often called the "Coffee Cantata") telling the story of a father trying to get his daughter to stop drinking coffee.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nich...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nicht,_BWV_211)

[https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-211/](https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-211/)

<comment><USER15> I came here to post about that, and you beat me to it. I was provoked by the article's title, "coffee...a _modern_ necessity." Unless of course you consider Bach modern!

<comment><USER16> Well, historians broadly agree th 1700s were firmly in the Early Modern period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Coffee has a good number of health benefits - plenty of antioxidants and its good for your liver. Naturally, overuse can be bad for you because of its dehydrating effects. I've had conversations with some people who mention they're on their 4th or 5th cup a day, and I've said that I found that 1 or 2 cups a day coupled with plenty of water are much more effective.

Just like anything, a little bit can be good for you, but don't take too much - and stay hydrated! Preferably with plenty of sleep but I understand thats not always realistic for some.

<comment><USER18> Maybe is the placebo effect, I don't know, but coffee helps me keep my asthma under control.

<comment><USER19> It looks like there may be something to this.

> About a hundred sixty years after Dr. Salter's book was published, a review > of studies was performed to see if coffee had any true impact on lung > function and asthma. The authors wrote:

> "Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, cola drinks and cocoa. Caffeine is a drug > that is very similar to theophylline. Theophylline is a bronchodilator drug > that is taken to open up the airways in the lungs and therefore relieve the > symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing, coughing and breathlessness. > Scientists are interested in finding out whether caffeine has the same > effect on the lungs as theophylline."2

> And they concluded:

> "This review found that even small amounts of caffeine can improve lung > function for up to four hours."2

> Caffeine is a methylxanthine. It falls into the same family of medicine as > theophylline, a strong bronchodilator that was a top-line asthma remedy > during the 1970's through the 1990's. I was chronically dependent on > theophylline from the mid 1970's until 2007.

[https://asthma.net/living/the-effects-of-coffee-on- asthma/](https://asthma.net/living/the-effects-of-coffee-on-asthma/)

<comment><USER20> Some people claim to use coffee to reduce seasonal allergy symptoms (i.e congestion) for similar reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am so glad I never got on the coffee bandwagon. I once surreptitiously added up how much my coworkers spent on coffee during a typical work week (not even including what they might have spent at home). Crazy (to me) amounts of money.

<comment><USER4> Buying a grinder, French press and bags of beans is not very expensive. Maybe $0.25 a cup depending on the quality of beans you get, plus an initial investment of ~$50 for equipment.

Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.

<comment><USER22> > Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only > option.

The price per ounce of _coffee_ on those drinks has got to be astronomical!

I didn't drink coffee when I first moved to New Mexico, but after trying to local piñon coffee I'm a convert--luckily, I can get a 5 lb bag of the beans at Costco for about $30!

<comment><USER4> Having worked at a few cafes in my day, you'd be amazed at the profit margins on coffee. It costs pennies for the typical cafe to sell a cup of black coffee at ~$2.50.

<comment><USER23> The cost in a coffee shop is the labor, not the coffee. It takes a long time to make an espresso-based drink.

<comment><USER4> Rent too. Especially in dense urban areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rv-de Attempted to quit twice - failed twice.

For me the quitting symptoms come in four phases:

1) very slight uncomfortableness (nothing severe) [~3 days]

2) more vivdness, alertness, euphoria, calmness [1 to 2 weeks]

3) weird chest / heart issues (nothing too severe but very unpleasant and first time was quite worrying) [2 to 3 weeks]

4) I'm feeling down, unmotivated, dull [starting at about week 4 or 5]

\---

stage 4 is what I never survived so far. it's just taking too much of a toll. then again it's an up and down so I once managed to stop for 4 months. but it brings me to a pre-depressive state where I just don't see much point in working. otoh I very much enjoy just relaxing, chilling - if I can do that I'm happy. if not it's a chore - no productiveness at all. very slow mental processing.

\---

I started drinking coffee during puberty. So, I guess my brain is not just chemically hooked on it but actually neurologically developed around it.

\---

then the first cup - what a bliss.

<comment><USER24> I often wonder whether quitting caffeine is just as difficult as quitting tobacco but a much more socially acceptable vice. Oddly enough I've yet to meet someone who has been hooked and then managed to quit both who can compare the experiences.

<comment><USER25> Hi there, I've been hooked on both and quit both.

Through all my years of university I drank at least one cup of coffee every single day until the last year. And that last year I picked up vaping, ramping up to 50mg nicotine cartridges vaping in the morning and evening every day.

To summarize, I've quit coffee since August 2019 (not a single cup) and vaping since two months ago.

Surprisingly, both were not a huge issue to quit physiologically. Lack of caffeine resulted in a hazy brain feeling for the first week or so. No perceived physiological effects from nicotine withdrawal.

The real challenge is habits you form from these addictions. I still drink some kind of hot liquid in the mornings. For vaping, I first threw out all my high nicotine liquids and continued to vape with something like a 5mg until it ran out. Due to the COVID lock-down, going out to purchase juice luckily takes effort. It's still an on-going mental battle of recognizing when I'm feeling a nicotine craving and dealing with that feeling (ex. re-affirming why I quit, not getting angry with myself for craving but just moving on).

For anyone reading this: I definitely recommend quitting anything you are doing that you feel you are addicted to (that you can live without, or is harming you). For me personally, the entire experience was kind of like starting a homework assignment/project. Just starting it feels dreadful but somehow when you finally take the plunge it's not too bad. Not the case for everyone, but it might motivate you to go for it!

Cheers

PS. AMA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://archive.md/1mPIc](https://archive.md/1mPIc)

</comment><comment><USER27> "On the contrary" I stated. "People who drink coffee are insane. Insane and possessed and, what is worse, willing to be possessed. Most people in asylums drink coffee. If you let them stop drinking it, they would regain enough equanimity to leave. But, no, they don't stop. In fact, they drink more and more, and they get crazier and crazier. They're dehumanized with every single goddamned drop, and although they sense it, they're like lemmings, or buffalo who jump off cliffs. People drink coffee and it makes them insane.

"Must you drink coffee? Why not cocoa, tea, cola tea, mate, yoco infusion, or guarana? Why caffeine? Why not theobromine or theophylline? I have had an occasional square of chocolate. It is the cause of uncontrolled ecstasy, but, afterward, you sink into Promethean despair.

"Note," I demanded, "that caffeine was introduced to Europe in the seventeenth century, post-Renaissance. Why is it, do you think, that the art of the Renaissance and the classical period has never been surpassed? The great heights were reached on angels' wings, not via a filthy corruption brewed from a bean that poisons its own tree."

From Memoir From Antproof Case [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir_From_Antproof_Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir_From_Antproof_Case)

as for serving coffee to children, my son can have some when he is able to go a minute without excitedly trying to kill himself in a new and innovative way - so about when he is 30.

on edit: added a closing quotation mark I forgot before, haven't had my morning cup yet.

<comment><USER28> Dude, chill, it's a mild stimulant.

<comment><USER27> the quotation was from a work of fiction, which I provided a link to, and not meant to represent my own view of reality.

on edit: my son, however, is a menace, and giving him a mild stimulant would make him a nuclear level threat to the surrounding environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Since when is caffeine routinely served to children? I didn't have my first cup of coffee until I was an adult.

<comment><USER30> Coke?

<comment><USER31> Do people serve coke to children? My generation wasn't allowed to drink soda until we were teenagers.

<comment><USER32> My dad grew up in the 60s and went from the milk bottle to the coke bottle. My parents were more strict with me on soda, but most of my friends had free reign on the beverage and were not drinking water at all. We all turned out fine, minus a few teeth.

<comment><USER33> I would think growing up drinking a bottle of sugar water and the habits it causes would have something to do with the overweight, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension statistics all over the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't drink coffee for caffeine. I like the flavor, and enjoy the process behind brewing and experimenting with different parameters to make a cup that tastes better or worse or simply different. I like going to coffeeshops just because. It's a hobby for me. And although I drink two cups of coffee almost every day, I don't feel any kind of withdrawal when I stop drinking it. The caffeine just happens to be a nice benefit.

<comment><USER35> You could pretty much replace the word coffee/caffeine with similar words for beer, alcohol, crack, heroin, ....

Addiction does not feel like an addiction. That's the problem with addiction.

Said that, some addiction is be life-enriching, from the impact on mind, body and social. (I love my coffee, I am so addicted to it that I stop drinking it for 2 months a year.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I feel like the article didn't really answer that question. Also, given that some of the most successful people I know don't drink coffeine at all, I wonder if the assumption is even correct.

</comment><comment><USER37> Good read. Kellogg and Post might have been right about coffee causing 'enervation'. Afternoon coffee breaks can lower sleep quality in some people which leads to long term reduction in energy due to low grade sleep deprivation.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, people go into withdrawal during the night which leads to bad quality sleep which leads to the desire to drink coffee earlier in the day, since you feel very unwell after you wake up. A downward spiral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I just drink coffee at the morning and probably, after a nap. I never drink more than 2 cups a day. How are you habits?

<comment><USER40> I never developed a taste for coffee, and decided early on that there was no reason to try to do so. (I'm in my late 30s now.) I do have the occasional coke, which I'd never noticed any effect from until the past few years. A single can of coke later than early afternoon now will have a noticeable impact on my sleep that night—get sleepy later, and end up sleeping around 0.5-1 hours less than I would otherwise. (With the expected resulting tiredness the next day.) Of course I expect much of that is due to lack of tolerance since I so rarely have caffeine.

<comment><USER32> Coffee has to be forced imo. No one likes coffee from the getgo, and if they tell you they do they really just like sugar and warm milk. It takes a while to overcome the bitterness and notice the taste, kinda like hard liquor. The whole reason why I forced myself to start drinking it was to not fall asleep driving to high school. I worked closing shift so sleep was sparse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Setting aside the workplace- where I drink coffee for enjoyment and could function without it- I have discovered that a dose of caffeine makes a tremendous difference when I go running at 6AM. (Roll out of bed at 5:50) I go from feeling like I can't make it a half mile, to feeling like the world is happy & beautiful, as the caffeine kicks in. It's been quite stark once I realized what was going on.

<comment><USER32> Do what pilots do. Wake up at 5:20, take a caffeine pill, go back to sleep, wake up at 5:50 fully caffeinated and feeling like a living god.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ah, just today I had a caffeine withdrawal induced headache, because I had been drinking tea the last three days. It was so bad I had to pop a Thomapyrin tablet with a Coke. For all non-Germans: it's a fixed combination drug that includes Aspirin (250mg), Paracetamol (200mg) and Caffeine (50mg).

<comment><USER42> This cocktail is called Excedrin in the US ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin/paracetamol/caffeine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin/paracetamol/caffeine)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I love coffee, brings me joy every morning. Feel it's worth it for me.

That said, I drink specialty coffee only, have my own espresso machine, use only high quality freshly roasted beans, etc.

I also don't drink more than 2 cups a day, and rarely drink coffee after noon. Sometimes I do a 3rd one later in the day, but will often go decaf for it.

With the principal cost of the espresso machine and equipment, the maintainance cost, the price of grass fed whole milk and top quality beans, it comes to about 1$ per cup for me. Since I have 1 to 2 cups a day, that averages around 600$ a year I spend on coffee. Which for the pleasure I get from it is well well worth the price in my opinion.

<comment><USER44> Which espresso machine and grinder do you use?

<comment><USER43> Profitec Pro 500 espresso machine.

Eureka Mignon Specialita grinder.

I'd highly recommend both, they each exceeded my expectations.

<comment><USER44> Thanks for the recs!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Referencing from this article here: [https://www.ncausa.org/About- Coffee/History-of-Coffee](https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/History-of- Coffee)

> "No one knows exactly how or when coffee was discovered, though there are > many legends about its origin"

And interestingly: > "After crude oil, coffee is the most sought commodity in the world"

<comment><USER46> Since the oil price went negative, coffee must be the most sought commodity now

<comment><USER47> Prices for a specific group of oil purchase contracts went negative, but that is quite a bit different than saying "the oil price is negative."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Also see _Forces of Habit_ by David E. Courtwright for discussion about why coffee has been so commercially successful.[0]

[https://libgen.is/search.php?req=Forces+of+Habit+Courtwright...](https://libgen.is/search.php?req=Forces+of+Habit+Courtwright&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=def)

</comment><comment><USER32> I was forced to start drinking coffee. I had to drive myself to high school at 7am, didn't get much sleep with extracurriculars and homework and work. Eventually it got too dangerous to drive in the morning being that drowsy so I had to start consuming massive amounts of caffeine. The withdraw symptoms were in some ways worse than nicotine imo.

</comment><comment><USER49> I quit coffee almost a year ago and can never see myself going back. I basically have noticed improvements on all the dimensions that people typically drink coffee to "solve."

Some of the effects I have noticed:

      - Less anxiety throughout the day.
      - Fewer "highs" and "lows" throughout the day. My energy level is pretty constant.
      - Easier to wake up. I rarely snooze my alarm more than once.
      - Easier to focus. My level of focus (over time) is more consistent.
      - Better hydration. This means less headaches, etc.
      - More energy. I generally have the energy I need to do what I want basically up until I go to sleep.
      - I can burn sleep. It's very easy for me now to go 2-3 days with very limited sleep, and then sleep 12 hours to recover.
      - Coffee "works." The one or two times I needed coffee, it actually worked to keep me awake and energized.

The reason for this is pretty obvious. Coffee stresses your adrenals and sends your body an "awake" signal. Caffeine's half life is 6 hours, which means even if you have it "before noon" you'll still have a substantial amount in your system while you sleep. This impacts sleep quality, which means you are accumulating micro amounts of sleep debt every night which you never pay off. Eventually, you struggle to get up in the mornings until you have had some coffee in your system. The "I can't function without coffee" effect. This is a pretty much ubiquitous 21st century experience, as far as I can tell.

Furthermore, coffee impacts your body's natural processes that it uses to wake up. Your body produces cortisol in order to wake up in the morning, which is a "stress" hormone, which is also induced by drinking coffee (which overall impacts the endocrine system). Hacking this system to overproduce hormones everyday isn't great for when your body actually needs this system to wake you up.

For people considering quitting coffee I have the following advice:

      - You will get a headache 24-36 hours after you quit. Take ibuprofen. (By the way, this should give you a hint to how long coffee actually meaningfully stays in your system.)
      - You will feel weird for probably 2 weeks.
      - You will have coffee cravings. (I found these hit when I was tired. I felt like I needed to drink coffee to fix my tiredness. I tried to replace this impulse with drinking water or herbal tea a lot of tiredness is caused by dehydration.)
      - You will be tired sometimes. You'll just have to deal with that, but it's really not that bad of a sensation, and the solution: sleep :)

People often think cutting coffee out is "impossible" but many people also haven't gone a day or two without drinking coffee since they were 18, so, I would say it's worth a try at least.

<comment><USER50> I quit recently, and had all of the withdrawal, and positive experiences that you mention.

I got the 24 hour headache and it was horrific. But more importantly I have been getting a headache, once a week at least, for years. I haven't had _a single headache_ in the two months since I quit coffee. This is remarkable!

The craziest part is waking up and going to sleep are like switches now. On:off. So crisp.

One thing I had to relearn was how to drink enough water to stay hydrated. As I was drinking a lot of my daily water in my tea and coffee cups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> for those that have an issue consuming coffee e.g headaches, stomach issues. my non-medical advice based on personal experiences is: try lighter to medium roasts. course grounds - french press | traditional brews. 100% arabica beans. flush with water i.e after a cup of coffee drink two - 4 cups of water. also mixing decaf n caffeinated coffee

<comment><USER52> My understanding is that lighter roasts can actually have more caffeine than dark roasts because the roasting process gradually removes caffeine from the beans. That's from George Howell who is kind of a coffee legend here in the US north east. Haven't tested this myself.

<comment><USER53> The way in which the beans are ground and the coffee brewed has a vastly larger impact on how caffeinated the drink will be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> No advice about using/stopping using coffee. Just this:

Don't say "I'm giving up caffeine!" Because, you know you will start again and folks will all crow "I thought you gave that up!?!"

Instead say "I'm taking a break from caffeine." Both true and defensible when you start again.

Thanks to my buddy Tom for this advice.

</comment><comment><USER55> Is there a mirror I don't have to subscribe or sign in to read?

</comment><comment><USER56> Coffee makes me sick. I would never tell anyone they shouldn't drink it, but I think it's kind of a gross habit. Let the downvotes begin!

</comment><comment><USER57> You might as well just link to the archive.is or outline.com version of this story and save us all the hassle.

</comment><comment><USER58> Most people don't like coffee, they like caffeine, it's an addiction. To me, coffee smells bad, tastes ok, and leaves my mouth feeling dirty after drinking it. I just don't see the point in coffee, especially with all the disposable containers from Starbucks and the like that go straight to the trash every day.

<comment><USER59> I'll concede it's likely that most people drink coffee for the caffeine, but I would venture a guess that most people don't drink very good or well-brewed coffee. It doesn't really make sense to say that "coffee" in general smells or tastes bad because the range is enormous; it's similar to lumping all citrus fruits together.

I've had a hard time lately restricting my coffee intake to reasonable levels because I've had a lot of time to practice coffee brewing and some of the batches I've managed to brew have felt like drinking liquid chocolate. Even the same coffee beans will taste completely different depending on how you brew it.

I don't regret it at all though. Coffee is a luxury where a small investment goes a long way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> also one surprising thing was the shortage of coffee during this pandemic

</comment><comment><USER60> Excellent piece by Adam Gopnik a few years ago about why coffee and cafés specifically we such a drastic social change:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/what-cafes- did...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/what-cafes-did-for- liberalism)

</comment><comment><USER61> Are there any studies on the impact and benefits of tea vs coffee?

</comment><comment><USER62> "(Coffeehouses are) nurseries of sedition and rebellion." \-- Charles II

</comment><comment><USER63> Colonialism?

</comment><comment><USER64> Does anyone get intense withdrawal symptoms from coffee?

I ran out of coffee, and two days later, I had the most intensive headache.

I couldn't seem to pinpoint what could've given me such a bad headache, except that I stopped drinking coffee.

I suspect a lot of people are going to have it bad, when the supply chains starts to melt down.

<comment><USER44> This is very common (but not everyone experiences it when coming off). It's called caffeine withdrawal.

<comment><USER65> Yes. It is a very neurologically addictive drug. It's possible for the withdrawal symptoms to last for months in some people.

<comment><USER64> I've heard of caffeine withdrawal. I didn't think it was real. Or I thought I could handle it.

But if caffeine withdrawal, was what I got, then it is very real.

After I ran out of coffee, on day 1, I had a slight headache. On day 2, I had a very intensive headache, as if my brain was jello. I took some Tylenol for it, and it felt better, for a while. On day 3, I still felt uneasy, my brain still felt like it was swimming in jello. Not a good feeling.

I gave up.

On day 4, I made my coffee again, and consumed it. I was back to normal again.

It seemed as if coffee is some type of anti-inflammatory, that helps to keep your brain cells nice and tightly bound together.

If social order breaks down, then coffee is going to be short supply. People are going to have some bad days ahead.

Hopefully, Trump can order that coffee farms stay open, and Starbucks can remain open as an essential business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Calling coffee a mind-altering substance is pretty rich. I've heard this sentiment before and it's so flippant in it's lack of perspective (intentionally so) that its not worth discussing further.

This is as far as I got because of the paywall anyway. I really wish HN would just outright reject submissions from domains known to have paywalls. Forget trying to fish it from Google or some archive/cache.

<comment><USER67> > Calling coffee a mind-altering substance is pretty rich.

What? Why? It literally is one.

From wikipedia:

> Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine > class.[10] It is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug.

<comment><USER68> > everything is a drug except my drugs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> One day coffee/caffeine (and alcohol) culture will be heavier scrutinized. Similar to nicotine.

My caffeine addiction has caused gastrointestinal problems and I can't stay off the drug. (This is already acknowledged scientifically)

But as long as authority figures consume caffeine, they will justify it.

<comment><USER70> You need somebody to ban it to make your own choices?

<comment><USER71> I can't see anything about a ban.

<comment><USER70> Plenty of people choose not to consume caffeine, they just don't make an issue of it, which is as it should be. Your personal choices don't have to be a cause.

<comment><USER71> To me the post sounded like there should be scrutiny of caffeine consumption as there was scrutiny of alcohol and nicotine. And I tend to agree with that. It's a psychoactive substance that causes physical addiction so people should know the facts.

<comment><USER70> There aren't interest groups buying ad time for scaremongering or people beating the drum for moral superiority about the evils of caffeine... no. But energy drinks have gotten a bit of a bad wrap, and four loko with the caffeine and alcohol got banned... and if you have a heart condition or anxiety your doctor is going to advise you to lay off the coffee. Isn't that enough?

Or does it have to become a social evil for it to count?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debugging data flows in reactive programs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/06/29/debugging-data-flows-in-reactive-programs/ <comment><USER2> I was surprised to know that Verilog is a type of reactive programming language, which basically responds to multiple events of clock propagation and signal transfer.

Why not VHDL then?

</comment><comment><USER3> When reading through the problem statement I started wondering why a distributed tracing system, like Zipkin, wouldn't work. A microservice architecture seems very similar to most reactive programming systems, and distributed tracing is just the equivalent of some really nice tooling ontop of printf.

Seems like a debugger for reactive systems should be let you attach to a running graph and extract/visualise traces.

<comment><USER4> It would work, and actually that is a great idea for the situations where applications are actually deployed and running in production, if it can be enabled on demand.

The advantages of RxFiddle above Zipkin-likes are: \- the means to extract the right information. The tool integrates with RxJS, and the format is universal accross Rx's of other languages. \- the visualization which is a better fit, compared to trace spans. I didn't use Zipkin in practice though, does it have other visualizations than spans?

Of course RxFiddle is nothing like zipkin in terms of how polished it is and how much it is carried by the community. RxFiddle so far has been my research result and while it is open source, I've not received contributions, so feel free to share more insights or efforts!</comment></comment>


On Facebook, 'Likes' Become Ads - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-likes-become-ads-101815773.html

<comment><USER2> Here's what one looks like, for the curious:

Mobile: <http://i.imgur.com/kQlmh.png>

Desktop: <http://i.imgur.com/ZiOqX.png>

This appeared in my news feed last night, and is still there now. It moves like a normal item (i.e., its not 'sitckied' to the top or anything like that).

On mobile its pretty jarring. Bigger than any other posts.

<comment><USER3> Wow @ the mobile version. How many posts typically fit on a screen these days?

<comment><USER4> I took a quick look at my news feed, and found that non-sponsored "full screen" posts are very common. A few recent examples:

<http://i.imgur.com/zcHoH.png>

<http://i.imgur.com/khR3W.png>

<http://i.imgur.com/zFdyv.png>

<http://i.imgur.com/fF8EM.png>

Obviously, it's very popular to share photos and videos on Facebook, and it's understandable that those forms of media will take up a large percentage of small mobile screens. Not really an issue specific to advertisements.

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had to email a friend the other day and let him know that Match.com ads were being displayed with his "endorsement" as a user.

<comment><USER4> If he's worried about being associated with Match.com, he probably shouldn't voluntarily associate himself with Match.com (which is what this is). Obviously, a user won't be associated with the company unless they explicitly "like" the company.

This is not new. Facebook has always published news feed stories stating that a friend has "liked" a page. This simply attaches a recent post from the page to that story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> To (somewhat) opt-out:

Account Settings -> Facebook Ads -> Edit Social Ad Settings

<comment><USER5> Thank you. Problem solved (until they change it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This means like is a misnomer. It should be the opt-in & endorse button. This should make the like button very valuable, as users discover their likes are used as endorsements to their friends. But its still an ad disguised as mechanically facilitated word of mouth.

</comment><comment><USER8> IIRC this kind of ad is optional and you can turn it off in the privacy settings.

<comment><USER9> Dude, mentioning privacy options is funny. These options get set and unset whenever Facebook feels like it; I've made a throwaway account a couple of times, and after deleting it (Facebook at that time had no delete functionality whatsoever) not only did Facebook beg for reinstatement for months and years, they actually went ahead and revived the account lately and are spamming me with whatever people I once friended say there.

I won't log back in to really delete it, since the last time I deleted it it told me that if I ever log in again - which I totally, totally can, no hard feelings at all! - it will just reinstate it for me.

So the idea of "privacy settings" is pretty silly of you to mention.

<comment><USER10> Meanwhile I've never had any of these problems. I block games that I feel my friends are spamming me with, or are just annoying and that I won't ever play. Mafia Wars is a good one, I blocked that at least 4 years ago, and it's still gone as of today.

So one of two things is true. First is that I am somehow special and Facebook works differently for me than anyone else. Short answer: No.

Secondly is that Facebook's privacy settings is a mess and confusing to the public at large. You could make a very, very good case for that.

Also, just because your friends are trying to get you to re-sign-up doesn't somehow indicate that Facebook is doing something untoward.

<comment><USER11> Sorry Karunamon, you are wrong - you are special (or at least lucky).

I concur with the original post that Facebook sets and unsets options, or in my case ignores them as it sees fit. In one example, I have a friend who no matter how many times I 'unsubscribed from her game feeds', or blocked her game apps, still appeared in my news feed. I had to unfriend her to stop the spam appearing.

<comment><USER12> Add me to the special list.

Have never had problems with Facebook privacy settings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Facebook users should beware. As a publicly traded company, the pressure to monetize their "users" will only increase, which I suspect will lead them to make even more questionable decisions.</comment>


Can Y Combinator find its next $1B company in a hardware startup? - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/y-combinator-hardware-unicorn/ <comment><AUTHOR> Good idea? Worthwhile for entrepreneurs?</comment>


A novel approach to onboarding - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hiri.com/a-novel-approach-to-onboarding-4a6c952a3e62 <comment><USER3> The article is interesting, but what intrigued me the most was the carefully coordinated marketing:

\- Medium article to capture inbound and not make it look like an ad, but a "We want to share this discovery with you"

\- Hacker News submission to get audience

\- (probably) team upvote boost to trigger front page

\- 50% off promotion ending in ~4 hours with the tagline "you'll never see this offer again".

Cost of advertising: $0. Nice job!

<comment><USER4> Not to mention every comment dpower has made is on a post related to Hiri. Maybe HN should just explicitly allow and tag accounts made to promote a company. It makes sense that people who create products want to talk about them, and they can certainly have valuable advice or insights. That might give them a platform to share more without people feeling there's some hidden motive.

<comment><USER5> I'm a lurker, not a poster for the most part. And as you can see from our blog, we don't write that often. We don't really do content marketing. Any revenue we make as a result of this post certainly won't cover the time I've spent writing it. Hiri is a bit specialist.

Would be happy to tag the posts - think it's pretty clear this is a company blog though. Your point is well taken/made all the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great article about mental models! I commend the OP on sharing their experience to really understand what people are thinking, feeling, and expecting. This is exactly how you make tools that people love to use.

> The line in the background depicts how a user is feeling at a particular > gate. Might cover this in a future post.

I understand the sentiment here, but trying to map real human feelings and emotions is tricky - it's rife with personal assumptions that once visualized, always fail to capture what people really feel.

Having taught Service Design at a big design school, this was something my students would try to convince me on when crafting service blueprints and journey maps... that they could create a 'happiness' or 'sadness' curve to depict what humans feel when interacting with a product or service. It never really works very well and can end up creating a false sense of emotional superiority within the designer's mind. Approach with caution!

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree on the feelings map. It isn't something that you could rely on and take meaningful actions from the data.

However, it is useful to consider the fact that people's experience and comfort isn't linearly increasing with time. Understanding that there are peaks and troughs can be useful for user experience design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The short version:

 _Our Aha moments, the features that made us different, were also the reason people weren't sticking around. People expect an email client to work a certain way. Our unique features made us too different. They made the interface unfamiliar — if you didn't engage with our onboarding, chances are, you were lost._

 _We took all of these features out. Every single one of them. And by doing so, we created a bog standard email client. It did everything a regular email client did, and nothing else. It worked exactly as users expected it to — so we didn't need our complicated on-boarding anymore. But that's not exactly a compelling proposition._

 _We took them out of the UI, but we put them somewhere else. We created a 'Skills Center'. You accessed it via a button that we highlight early in the user journey. It is the only thing that stands out from an otherwise familiar UI. Now, when a user played with Hiri for two minutes and realised that there's nothing new or different, inevitably they clicked on the one thing that was. And when they do — we have them._

 _In the Skills Center, you can add the features that make Hiri unique. In your own time, you can explore these features and turn them on._

 _It reduced our time-to-Aha moment from one week to one hour. Our conversion rate shot up from 1 in 50 to 1 in 10._

<comment><USER7> This is something you could A/B test. Some new signups get the old interface, some get the simplified one.

There's a famous failure of this approach. Many years ago, there was a Macintosh graphics application designed by Kai Krause. It started out with a very simple interface. After you'd been using it successfully for a while, a new tool would appear. As the user demonstrated competence to the program, more tools would unlock.

Users hated that. When a rumor started that Krause was going to redo the API for Photoshop, user groups petitioned Adobe to stop him.

<comment> crooked-v The big difference in the described case, of course, is that it's the user in control of the on/off toggles rather than it being uncontrollable.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft Office extensively tried that one too. I have never met anybody that liked their hidden menu items, but it didn't get such an strong reaction as that Apple app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm so happy that the idea of not shoving all your feature to the user is paying off.

I've been trying to make people at my workplace understand that. You don't want a complicate product, you want a modular one.

I really like your take on the "skill" page.

I could see a little toast with a text like "let us help you with your inbox" as a way to nuge the user to check your skill page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @Belphemur. Modular is a good way of putting it. Being modular allows users to add complexity at their own pace and never be overwhelmed by it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see a ton of novelty in this approach, and frankly, I'm not sure how others don't. Separating the leaning curve from the onboarding curve is a UX specialist's nirvana, and this seems like an innovative way to do it. It feels like a risk to trust your users to discover through their own initiative, and perhaps it is one, but it seems to be paying off in this case.

</comment><comment><USER11> So this seems to be getting slated as a submarine, but the underlying insight is good: users don't like change. They want an app "exactly like X, but ..." So you start with a familiar interface and let people choose when they're ready to make it less familiar.

Rather like how game tutorials work with locked-down interfaces and gradual introduction of more mechanics.

<comment><USER12> > People expect an email client to work a certain way. Our unique features > made us too different. They made the interface unfamiliar

Agreed. It applies to many fields, also to programming languages. Elixir and Phoenix were designed ostensibly to look like Ruby and RoR and onboarded many developers from those environments. Still some parts of Elixir are too Erlang -ish. Example: the cryptic handle_* methods of GenServer. They could have had the courage of using a class like notation, make them crystal clear for the vast majority of developers and grow much more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is really great and there are some interesting takeaways.

 _The reality was that most users paid little attention to our onboarding. They weren't reading our precious copy._

We found exactly the same, and we had somewhat of an advantage in this regard of having a completely new interface to most people (Mobile AR). So we expected people would take more time to learn our UX. Nope.

People want to blaze through onboarding _even if they have no clue what to do and have never done it before._ They wanted it to just be so simple that there was zero learning curve. That ended up being enlightening for us and forced us to radically simplify and copy.

 _Your product should work the way I expect it to_

 _How I expect your product to work is largely based on my experience using other products_

This is a great way to look at it. Now ask yourself, what if it's a new interface that people haven't dealt with before? Answer: You're conversion is going to be bad until your UX makes it orders of magnitude easier to accomplish a very important task.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've always felt that complex software should have a "simple" and an "advanced" UI. Hiri's approach is like having a "complexity scalable" UI, but with the added benefit that the user only has to deal with those things they are really interested/ready for. The key is making it very easy for users to discover what features/functionality are available (ex., keyword search and categories, maybe even some pop-up suggestions) that matches their current task need. If you think about it like game power unlocks, it would allow a user to build on current knowledge to do more advanced things. Throw in some metrics, and you could get a good picture of which features are important to a user, suggest/highlight others that might be related, remind a user of features they haven't used in a while (or have never gotten around to looking at), etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for the writeup.

I like this approach as it's a slightly different way of something that's always been a dream for most designers to have UI's that evolve as you evolve over time.

I have myself an app which is very unique and have had to find ways to make people understand what is unique and why they should download it. My primary method is video and that works out fine but maybe I should try this method out.

Thanks.

<comment><USER16> How did the video work? Any words of wisdom?

<comment><USER15> The video just showed how the notes app is different than others. Which it really is.

You can see it here.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfrNrkyGw_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfrNrkyGw_k)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My take from this is:

Know your users.

Know what features they use the most and make those prominent. Every other feature is noise.

Don't hide stuff for UI / design / style sake. Use #2 point to make that decision.

Make it extremely easy for power users to decide what features they want to show.

Last point not mentioned in the article.

Customizability comes with a price - it makes it easy to screw things up.

So include a UI reset button - either globally or for categories.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi all - I'm the author of this article. Happy to answer any questions you might have - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER18> > A novel approach to onboarding

I thought this article was about onboarding _new_ _employees_ , a difficult problem that everybody faces.

</comment><comment> john-foley Not related to the article but the show stopper for me trying to install/test this email reader is that it won't work with just a generic IMAP server. I've got to be using Outlook or Office365 or whatever.

<comment><USER5> IMAP is on the way (I'm using it now) but not quite ready for showtime. If you'd like access to the upcoming beta email dave (at)hiri(dot)com.

<comment><USER11> That's very unusual, normally IMAP is the easy one and Outlook is horrendous. What does it use under the hood?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. It is unusual. We went with Exchange Web Services first instead of IMAP. Our initial target market were larger companies and we wanted to have deep integration with their Exchange servers (Calendars, Contacts, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The lesson they learned is a perfect example of:

 _To sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising._

\- Raymond Loewy

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/what- ma...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/what-makes-things- cool/508772/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Not sure I understand what exactly is novel about your approach.

It sounds like your opening pitch was for solving problems that your visitors didn't have. That's an age old problem. You fixed that. Then, once you got a bit more of their attention, you started to elaborate on the product. This too is not much of a novelty. That's good old gradual on-boarding, "gentle introductions" and what have you.

<comment><USER5> We stripped every feature that made our product different and put them in an 'app store'. This was a huge change (a lot of work and a big risk), and not something I've seen others do as an on-boarding strategy. Thus, novel. I believe this approach could be repeated by others. It's a far cry from the usual walkthroughs, carousels and prompts.

<comment><USER20> So basically putting advanced features into a separate section, making them togglable and calling this section an App Store?

They are still mentioned on the homepage and in a form of a carousel at that.

I appreciate that this must've been a significant rework, with all edge cases considered, but sectioning off parts of a software and making them discoverable in a course of normal use is not exactly novel... I mean that's just too bold of claim to be thrown around lightly. The story is still interesting, but something a bit more exact like "Here's what worked for us remarkably well" would've been more suitable.</comment></comment></comment>


The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities (1973) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall02/cs323/links/blackscholes.pdf <comment><USER2> I would reference this as one would reference a physics book from a hundred years ago — a possibly decent starting point but old knowledge that has been proven incorrect in dangerous ways.

For example, the Black Scholes model that was developed in 1973 assumes a normal distribution, which is not only wrong, but an extremely dangerous misunderstanding of the markets that leads to the underestimation of Black Swan events and rail risk.

<comment><USER3> The Black–Scholes–Merton model does assume a log-normal distribution of price changes, and the tails of that distribution are not fat enough to account for the frequency of large price changes observed in real-world markets.

But your criticism is essentially off base. The main reason the Black–Scholes–Merton model remains the workhorse of derivatives pricing nearly a half century on, and the reason two of its creators were given a Nobel prize in 1997, is that the model has proved to be enormously adaptable. One can relax the assumption of constant volatility in various ways, assuming instead that volatilty depends on the price level, on other factors, or that it is itself random. These embellishments retain the Brownian motion and its normal distribution as the primary source of randomness, but the added volatilty structure allows for almost arbitrarily fat tails and all sorts of complicated dependencies in the resulting distribution of price changes.

The fields of mathematical finance and financial engineering are in large part concerned with coming up with tweaks to the Black–Scholes–Merton model that provide the complications necessary to price idiosyncratic securities while maintaining as much of the simplicity of the basic model as possible so that pricing (usually numerically) remains tractable.

As JumpCrissCross pointed out, there have also been numerous follow-on models developed that make different assumptions about the basic distribution of price changes, going back to Merton's jump-diffusion model of 1980. Most of these models can still be viewed as embellishments of the Black–Scholes–Merton model.

<comment><USER2> Completely agree. My point is that readers should not stop reading at this source, and to keep digging, as this isn't the "answer" to valuation.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What podcasts will make me a better software engineer? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> JupiterBroadcasting ([http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com)) has alot of really good podcasts, it may not necessarily make you a better software engineer, but at the same time it just might.

One's to keep an eye on: Linux Action show, [http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/linuxactionshow/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/linuxactionshow/) Coder Radio, [http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/coderradio/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/coderradio/) TechSnap, [http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/techsnap/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/techsnap/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll take a look at all of those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the Relevance podcast. It focuses less on tech stuff and more on craft/SE/culture, but its always nice to listen to.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think podcasts alone will make you a better software engineer.

Most software engineer spend countless hours perfecting their craft, and forget about soft skills that will make you more "likeable" and will help you advance further your career.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't ask for podcasts that will, by themselves, make me a better software engineer. I'm just looking for ones that are more productive than just listening to music in my car on the way to work.</comment></comment>


Speed up your Linux System with Preload - <AUTHOR> http://www.techthrob.com/tech/preload.php <comment><USER2> It will speed up OpenOffice's launch from 15 to 7 seconds.

"Modern machines will probably beat the raw timing of these numbers in even cold-start times" (my machine takes 10 secs to load OpenOffice)

So the improvement will be even less than the 8 seconds from the old tests. Sure, it's nice, but hardly "drastic", as the article's title claims. Thanks for passing on this tip (and for taking the word 'drastic' out when posting :)

<comment><AUTHOR> > _and for taking the word 'drastic' out when posting_

:-)</comment></comment>


Closure: The world's most misunderstood JavaScript library - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmosx.com/blog/agVnbW9zeHIPCxIHQXJ0aWNsZRjRiQIM/closure:-the-worlds-most-misunderstood-javascript-library

<comment><USER2>
        Among other things, I learned that:

          the powerful type system eliminates a large class of bugs the compiler eliminates the long name spaces (and the corresponding run-time look ups)
          getters/setters actually lead to better compression
          you can split the client side code in multiple, independently loaded modules
          the pseudoclassical pattern used for OOP is actually better than the functional pattern (when combined with the Closure compiler)
          you can easily extend the Compiler with extra features...

These sound very interesting - it'd be good to have an explanation of these points.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really suggest you buy the book mentioned in the article. The author discuses extensively (and, to me at least, convincingly) the design decisions behind Google Closure.

<comment><USER3> Agreed.

I've been using the compiler for months, slowly adding type annotations as I went, but not really "getting" a few key concepts.

Investing in the book was worthwhile, especially since it's the only source for documentation for certain types of compiler optimizations or the module functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm always wary of posts like this. It's tagged as book review but there isn't much detail about the book in question. It is effusive in it's praise of the book but gives very little detail of why the book is good. And it contains two affiliate links to the book that it mentions. On second reading, it looks like a post that just exists to try to generate affiliate clicks for the book in question.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is no review, it's a post about Google Closure, a great library that I think deserves more exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the Closure compiler but not its templating library or its dom library. The dom library is not abstract enough (you have to explicitly create dom elements) and I generate all my js files via my own php based templating library that is a lot more powerful and concise.

A great combination for the front end through is CoffeeScript + the Closure compiler + jQuery (or your favorite dom library).

<comment><USER6> What templating library do you recommend?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I am using my own templating library, normal-template: <http://github.com/gmosx/normal-template>

It's similar to json-templates but with a few extra tricks. You can find some documentation here: <http://www.nitrojs.org/normal-template>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd like to read the article, but I consistently get the "this page has become unresponsive" error. Not really a ringing endorsement for a Javascript library. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure why you have problems to access the page. Works ok for me. Try again! This has nothing to do with Closure though, it's not used in the page ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> cool</comment>


Sweden closer to being the first cashless society with negative interest rates - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-cashless-society-negative-interest-rates-2015-10 <comment><USER2> > Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay > in cash, something is wrong."

I hope people don't start talking like this in the US. Something about that statement is very disturbing.

<comment><USER3> How? You are not forced to pay electronically. You just have an option to cash.

The only time I use cash would be if I buy something from the swedish equivalent of craigslist, or in a farmers market. And even there it would be common to use Swish/Square.

<comment><USER4> I read that statement more as, "If you refuse to pay electronically" than "if you have no electronic means of payment."

I know it's contrary to the literal meaning, but it feels like the unstated assumption is that you would only pay in cash if you _must_ , not out of a general preference for privacy.

<comment><USER3> > I know it's contrary to the literal meaning

Also contrary to reality (source: me, being Swedish), and logic; A retailer will hardly refuse to accept cash (although buses do refuse cash to avoid the risk of robbery), while you might avoid buying if you need to handle cash.

<comment><USER4> That phrase is literally linked to an article called "Sweden: 'We don't accept cash'" ([https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/news-and- expertise/econo...](https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/news-and- expertise/economy/articles/news-and-expertise/2015/03/en/sweden-we-dont- accept-cash.html)). It seems like what you are saying is that they are just making some sort of pun, but you can see why this would seem like it's about people being _suspicious_ of cash.

<comment><USER3> At least 60 % of the "facts" in that article are made up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It will not work. If there is a need for fiat cash in the economy, they will start using euros or dollars instead of Swedish crowns (SEK).

Injecting foreign cash back into the cashless SEK economy amounts to selling these foreign banknotes at any, available exchange point. They cannot reasonably ban these transactions, because foreigners bring these foreign bank notes along with them when they visit Sweden.

If they insist on addressing that issue anyway, they will end up introducing Venezuela-style, self-defeating, absurdistan regulations that will make the situation only worse. They will be up against a growing number of people trading against them, in order to defeat such regulations, and to make money in the process of doing so. As always, it will be full of opportunities to thoroughly bleed them while making a killing.

So, a Swedish economy without SEK bank notes is possible, but not necessarily one without cash. If that is the situation that materializes, they will have made the situation worse for them (foreign cash) instead of better (Swedish cash). You cannot outsmart economic fundamentals, because there will always be lots of money in punishing off such attempts.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is a national security issue to have cash available for use during a time of war, or general internet failure, or natural disaster. Tying your national security to the health of the internet is unwise.

</comment><comment><USER7> This makes more sense economically. Physical products in general degrade in value over time. Cash by itself does not degrade in value over time. Using cash to represent products is a sort of mismatch. If the products' value degrades so should the value of the instrument representing said product.

I don't know why they use negative savings interest rates when the government can provide the same service through QE or lowering loan interest rates.

<comment><USER8> Cash can "degrade", it's called inflation.

<comment><USER7> That's different from value degradation.

Additionally if you read further you'd see that I addressed inflation. Interest for loans and QE are all methods the government uses to inflate cash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, they can (hopefully) still buy foreign currency and Gold coins, such as Krugerrands.

<comment><USER10> Executive Order 6102: "forbidding the Hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Extremely sensationalized headline. The only source for the microwave thing is hearsay from some policeman.

</comment><comment><USER11> So in a cashless society, what happens when you cancel your bank account?

</comment><comment><USER12> Bitcoin.

<comment><USER13> The suggestion that Bitcoin would act as a replacement for _government bonds_ in any foreseeable future would reduce most economists to tears of laughter. The interest rate tweaks being discussed here are negligible compared to the market rate fluctuations of Bitcoin on a typical week.</comment></comment>


Show HW: UseSSL.org - shame list for unencrypted private info - <AUTHOR> http://usessl.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> I was a little taken back when I saw firesheep running on my university's (unencrypted) wireless network. The number of cookies/sessions being sent back and forth, and the ease with which they could be stolen, was staggering.

SSL has been around for awhile, the CPU time required is negligible compared to the other tasks most web-apps are doing now, and for any real business, the cost of a simple cert should be trivial. Plus, with SSL-offloading common on platforms like netscalers or aws EC2, many sites could probably support SSL without their web servers noticing.

I needed a quick (< 5 hour) project to try out rails3 and learn what changed, so this seemed like a good way to cut my teeth. I apologize it's ugly -- design isn't my strength.</comment>


Microsoft has released another Windows 10 build, 10162 - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-has-released-another-windows-10-build-10162

<comment><USER2> Damn, they really accelerated the releases, but i guess that is to be expected when the release date is less than a month away :)

Love the change in speed of the releases.</comment>


USS Nimitz UFO Incident - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident <comment><USER2> I can believe humans have the technology to build a missile that can drop at a speed of 5miles a second and maintain an object above the surface after its fall, possibly a secondary stage active component. The Russian/Indian Brahmos missile is a sea skimmer that goes almost 2miles a second horizontally, and it's in production. It would seem normal for the US military to classify the observation of tests by other military powers of unknown vehicles as UFOs. It also seems normal that this information should be considered classified. The alien angle feels like a flat-earther movement.</comment>


Facebooks crawls every page recorded by its tracking pixel - <AUTHOR> So yesterday we figured out that facebooks Facebot crawler will crawl _every_ url that was recorded by their tracking pixel.
I find this highly concerning since:
1. they are crawling potentially sensitive information granted by links with tokens
2. they are triggering potentially harmful and/or confusing actions in your website by repeating links
3. they are repeating requests in a broken way by not encoding url-parameters correctly, for instance url-encoded %2B ends up just as a "+" thus becoming a whitespace (same goes for slashes etc.)
4. I could not find a warning or note on their tracking-pixel documentation that pages tracked would be crawled later <comment><USER2> > 1\. they are crawling potentially sensitive information granted by links > with tokens

Don't put Facebook tracking on sensitive pages. Actually as a service to your users don't put it anywhere where it doesn't add value.

> 2\. they are triggering potentially harmful and/or confusing actions in your > website by repeating links

They only perform idempotent[0]* requests which should not have any negative effect if performed multiple times

0: [http://restcookbook.com/HTTP%20Methods/idempotency/](http://restcookbook.com/HTTP%20Methods/idempotency/)

* They probably only actually perform GET in reality

<comment><USER3> GET is only idempotent in theory. Way too many people abuse GET when creating websites.

<comment><USER4> Those people should suffer the consequences.

I'm not a fan of facebook in the slightest, but they are crawling websites they were essentially invited to.

<comment><USER5> >websites they were essentially invited to

Using an analytics pixel is _not_ an invitation to crawl a website.

<comment><USER6> No, merely posting it on a public server was the invitation

<comment><USER7> It is not. Leaving your door unlocked is not inviting everybody in to take your stuff. You might make it easier for them to break in, but it still is a break in.

Making something available to the public is not the same as going to the google webmaster tools and telling them to index your page.

<comment><USER8> You can argue it's abuse or illegal or fraud or whatever you want, but here's the thing: how are you going to stop them? Sure, maybe you stop Facebook with a lawsuit... but everyone else is still doing it, even people outside of your legal jurisdiction. They're still going to do it, so it's up to you to stop them with your design. If someone breaks into your website and destroys a user's data or steals their credit card, that user is _not_ going to want to hear "but what they did was against our ToS!"

This isn't your house where there are police patrolling and ready to respond at a moment's notice when they're called. This is the Internet, accessible by almost literally everyone on the planet, and they don't give a shit about your policy. That's why best practices and application security was invented. So use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If security of sensitive information depends on tokens in the URL, _don 't just give those URLs to a third party_, how would that ever be a reasonable thing to do? (especially since the third party apparently hasn't given you any guarantees on how they treat that, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation?)

Do your users, your broken software and yourself a favor and don't put Facebook tracking crap everywhere.

<comment><USER10> That's because our industry is full of hopelessly under qualified people who somehow manage to create software by randomly throwing together bits of code from stackoverflow / books and tweaking it until it "works".

<comment><USER11> That's true. But also trackers (especially big ones) deliberately try to make it as easy as possible to accidentally include them in your page. e.g: the if you use their cdn for fonts/style sheets, if you include a fb like button etc.

A friend of mine covers this more extensively in this blog post which I found a very interesting read: [https://remusao.github.io/posts/static- comments.html](https://remusao.github.io/posts/static-comments.html)

So I think it's still concerning that once they're in, they start crawling. Although not very surprising I have to say... That's their business after all.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, of course they'll try that. They're businesses, they make their money by tracking people. When I inherit a team of project these CDN links are the second thing to get removed / fixed (after their the inevitable unencrypted passwords / homerolled security and homerolled SQL).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't mind Facebook crawling pages as long as it respects robots.txt, but for the last few weeks we've been _hammered_ by requests from Facebook-owned IP addresses (millions of hits daily, 50+ for the same URL at times). They don't even set the User-Agent header.

There's a bug report regarding the missing header here: [https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1654459311255613/](https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1654459311255613/)

Unfortunately it seems impossible to get in touch with Facebook devs directly.

<comment><USER13> Send a cease and desist to the CTO. Wait 30 days, then sue under the CFAA. LinkedIn did it

<comment><USER14> No, LinkedIn _was sued_ by the recipient of the letter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I assume the crawler only does HEAD/GET-requests Your fault if your webpage changes anything based on a GET.

Now, if the crawler doesn't honor robots.txt, then you can complain (loudly).

</comment><comment><USER16> > they are triggering potentially harmful and/or confusing actions in your > website by repeating links

Not their fault. GET requests should not modify anything.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is a great example over outrage by someone who doesn't understand how the web works. Unfortunately this is a problem with lots of web developers but the author shouldn't take it personally but should try to learn from it. I can't understand if they don't though because some of the replies here are a little harsh.

The summary of what most people are saying including some take aways:

\- If you put something on the Internet it is public. Period. It is up to you to keep prying eyes away from that page. You can do that with strong mechanisms (like passwords and firewalls) or weak (like robots.txt) but you need to do something. You can't expect a page on the Internet to be private.

\- Requests should never ever have anything sensitive in the query string. The query string is inherently logged. By your browser history, your web server, any tracking pixels like Facebook you put on the page, etc. If you absolutely must include a token in the URL (like with OAuth) make sure it is a temporary token and is immediately replaced with something more durable like a cookie or local storage, no unnecessary HTML is rendered, and the user is redirected to a new page that doesn't have it in the URL.

\- GET requests should be idempotent. They should avoid changing any data as much as possible and should not have side effects. This is specified directly in the HTTP spec.

\- If your page displayed sensitive data it should send the security tokens in a header field (like cookies or authentication). Users who hit the page without that header field should be responded to with a 404.

\- Your point #3 is an add one. It is a bug on the Facebook side, yes, but it doesn't support your primary argument. In fact, if they fixed that bug it would make the perceived issues in your primary argument worse.

\- Re #4 they don't need to warn you. See the first bullet. If it is on the internet it is public. Skype, Slack, Twitter, Google, all do the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't it obvious? For which reason, if not tracking and information gathering, would such a feature even exist?

Best solution is still to block Facebook's infrastructures, as always.

<comment><USER19> I disagree, it's not at all obvious. Pixels are used for conversion tracking (cookie pixels/cookieless pixels). Crawl isn't necessary for a pixel to function.

<comment><USER20> If you're trying to transmit trusted information in clientside js, then one common pattern is to have a user's browser to fire the data initially, then crawl to obtain a trusted copy. The last company I worked for did this, but skipped the second step, which led to all kinds of XSS attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> <rant> Shocking!

Abuse of power and shady tracking techniques by Facebook? Unheard of! </rant>

Seriously, this cannot be surprising after learning that the Messenger app listens to everything you do, all the time. That's just off the top of my head. They are doing this and much more.

<comment><USER22> Please get your facts straight before posting here.

[https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-listening- smartphone-m...](https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-listening-smartphone- microphone)

<comment><USER23> What facts? This article is full of inaccurate speculation but there are no facts in it. For example:

>To make it happen, Facebook would need to record everything your phone hears while it's on.

This assumption treated as an axiom here is false, and it makes the rest of the article inaccurate as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A while ago while looking at the apache logs I noticed that the AdWords remarketing pixel does the same, it was trying to crawl private URLs that are only accessible to 'admins' that are not linked publicly. I'm not sure if this is still valid as I blocked by using robots.txt.

Also, the same crawler ignores the "User-agent: *" directive in the robots.txt file and you have to add specific rules for it: "User-agent: Adsbot-Google"

</comment><comment><USER25> > So yesterday we figured out that facebooks Facebot crawler will crawl > _every_ url that was recorded by their tracking pixel.

Not surprising at all. Would be interesting to see a write up on this.

</comment><comment><USER26> > we figured out that facebooks Facebot crawler will crawl _every_ url that > was recorded by their tracking pixel.

I would be more surprised to find out that they didn't crawl everything they can, specifically pages that invite them in.

> 1\. they are crawling potentially sensitive information granted by links > with tokens

If the page contains sensitive information you absolutely should not have code that you do not control ( _any_ code loaded from third party hosts, not just facebook's bits).

As a matter of security due diligence if you have third party hosted code linked into any such pages you should remove it with some urgency and carefully review the design decisions that lead to the situation. If you really must have the third party code in that area then you'll need to find a way of removing the need for the tokens being present.

Furthermore, if the information is sensitive to a particular user then your session management should not permit a request from facebook (or any other entity that has not correctly followed your authentication procedure) to see the content anyway.

> 2\. they are triggering potentially harmful and/or confusing actions in your > website by repeating links

Possibly true, but again that suggests a design flaw in the page in question. I assume that they are not sending POST or PUT requests? GET and HEAD requests should at very least be idempotent (so repeated calls are not a problem) and ideally lack any lasting side effect (with the exception of logging).

> 3\. they are repeating requests in a broken way by not encoding url- > parameters correctly

That does sound like a flaw, but one that your code should be immune to being broken by. Inputs should always be verified and action not taken unless they are valid. This is standard practise for good security and stability. The Internet is a public place, the public includes both deliberately nasty people and damagingly stupid ones so your code needs to take proper measures to not allow malformed inputs to cause problems.

You can't use "the page isn't normally linked from other sources so won't normally be found by a crawler" as a valid mitigation because the page could potentially be found by a malicious entity via URL fuzzing.

> 4\. I could not find a warning or note on their tracking-pixel documentation > that pages tracked would be crawled later

A warning would be nice, but again unless they explicitly say they won't do such things I would be surprised to find that they didn't not that they do.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does it crawl URLs blocked by robots.txt? I doubt it. If you don't want well- behaving crawler to crawl your site, there's your answer. But not all are well behaved...

</comment><comment><USER27> It is the fucking internet, if you put something on there you should expect someone to find it, be it a crawler or an attacker.

> 1\. they are crawling potentially sensitive information granted by links > with tokens

If tokens in GET params are your security concept: please leave the entire field.

2\. they are triggering potentially harmful and/or confusing actions in your website by repeating links

So you built something that can be triggered by a simple HTTP request and may have a harmful potential? Wow.

3\. they are repeating requests in a broken way by not encoding url-parameters correctly

You are kidding right? That's a problem to you? Either your Webserver drops these or your routes don't match, end of story.

4\. I could not find a warning or note on their tracking-pixel documentation that pages tracked would be crawled later

Not a problem, you put it on the web and it will be crawled. Did you ever use Chrome? They report every URL you type to the Google Crawler. Read that anywhere lately?

<comment><USER28> Everything you said was technically correct yet the message will probably be lost due to the manner in which you decided to delivered it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Highly likely that they are feeding all the data into a deep network for ad recommendation engine.

</comment><comment><USER30> Sorry, if you are using their tracking pixel then you deserve no sympathy for the consequences.

</comment><comment><USER31> is this the same crawler they use for external links ? if yes you can exclude them, their User-agent id is "facebookexternal"

</comment><comment><USER32> Does it take notice of robots.txt?

</comment><comment><USER33> This is borderline criminal. Practically CSRF attack.

<comment><USER34> This sounds a little extreme at first, but I actually totally agree. It's in murky waters when it comes to GDPR, for starters.

Where do they draw the line? Why not run a keylogger through embedded like buttons and widgets? That sounds worse, but isn't all that much worse.

<comment><USER26> > It's in murky waters when it comes to GDPR, for starters.

I'm not sure about from facebook's side, but from the point of view of how GDPR applies to the side being crawled if they, as custodians of PII and other sensitive data, are handing it out to unauthenticated requests, _they_ might be liable for punishment for lack of due diligence.

<comment><USER17> I agree with this. The website author is potentially liable for providing inadequate protections to the user's PII. I don't see anything that would implicate Facebook here.

Although, there is an interesting side effect that applies to all crawlers in that website owners failing to protect their customer PII like this means that crawlers inadvertently gather and store personal data as a side effect. I can't help but wonder if there is some liability there and if there is if something like AI or pattern matching can help to scrub the info before it is stored.

<comment><USER26> facebook might have an issue with having collected the data too, of course, but the source site definitely should be taking appropriate measures to avoid handing it out in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>