How researchers discovered we have "two brains" [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p072zr9l/the-curious-case-of-the-man-with-two-brains- <comment><USER2> The video doesn't portray the left-vs-right correctly. As the person and screens are set up in the video, the left and right eye both experience the left and right images presented on either side of the point-of-fixation. However, the video portrays all information from left eye going to right brain, and all information from right eye going to the left brain ... that's not how it happens ...

... rather, the left-hemi-visual-field from both left- and right-eyes goes to the right brain, and the right-hemi-visual-field from both eyes goes to the left brain, as depicted in [1].

[1] [http://fourier.eng.hmc.edu/e180/lectures/eye/node4.html](http://fourier.eng.hmc.edu/e180/lectures/eye/node4.html)

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER3> So it works the same whether you have one or both eyes open? That's intriguing

<comment><USER4> Yes, and you lose a hemi-field in both eyes if you have a stroke in the visual cortex on one side of the brain.

Central vision is preserved though, because the fovea projects to both hemispheres.

<comment><USER5> > _Yes, and you lose a hemi-field in both eyes if you have a stroke in the > visual cortex on one side of the brain._

In my case the aura of my migraines (that I thankfully only had during puberty) were limited to the left hemi-field. Which I guess suggests that the migraine was "centered" in the right brain hemisphere.

<comment><USER4> Correct!

<comment><USER5> Do we know anything about migraines based on their symptoms? As in, has there been any research where people with different migraine symptoms have been put in a scanner during the migraine to locate which parts of the brain display weird activity?

<comment><USER4> The migraine aura is rather well understood, it is the result of cortical spreading depression, a phenomenon where a "wave" of brain hyperactivity spreads in as a ring on the surface of the cortex, leaving a hypo-active zone in the middle.

It is possible to trigger the phenomenon by hurting the brain (e.g. sprinkle acid on a rat's brain, WP has a neat video: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_spreading_depression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_spreading_depression)) so we suppose that it is a defense mechanism in humans too, but we're not sure what causes them.

I've done research on migraine, 10 years ago, but I haven't kept up with the field. There are hypotheses, but no known cause for the headaches and associated symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Common human behavior is a lot more schizophrenic than any of us are comfortable with understanding. I recommend the book "Hare Brain Tortoise Mind" to everyone who will listen. It explains one form of multi-mindedness that leads to you getting your best insights while in the shower --what it's good at and what it's not.

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" is another classic.

<comment><USER7> schizophrenia in japan is called integration disorder. meaning the many different parts of the mind, or many minds, are not integrating into a single mind.

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of something from a really great piece about schizophrenia that I read:

> In 2007, they announced a startling discovery. Stevens was trying to > identify the proteins that recognized and eliminated neuronal synapses > during visual development. "The strangest finding was that a protein that > usually tags and removes pieces of dead cells, bacterial remnants, or > cellular debris was also being reworked to tag and remove the synapses," she > said. Mice designed to lack tagging proteins—called complement proteins—had > problems both in clearing cellular debris and in tagging and pruning their > synapses.

> The Stevens and Barres study, published in the journal Cell in 2007, > documented one of the most arresting instances of repurposing in biology: a > protein designed to ticket germs and junk for destruction had been co-opted > by the nervous system to ticket synapses for destruction. "It reinforces an > old intuition," my psychiatrist friend Hans, in Boston, told me. "The secret > of learning is the systematic elimination of excess. We grow, mostly, by > dying."

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/28/the- genetics-o...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/28/the-genetics-of- schizophrenia)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems rather intuitive to me.

Our brain is composed of neurons. Different subsets seem to have more or less specialised functions. Any subset can be seen as it own 'thinker'. We think of them as larger units based mostly on the amount of communication / how independently they can function.

Sometimes it is helpful to think of our mind as been made of many smaller 'thinkers'. Though there is no crisp boundary, every neuron is its own individual, at one extreme.

And I think it is sensible to speak of groupthink as a mind, with thinkers contributed by lots of people. So at the other extreme all is one super mind.

I think it can be useful to think of 'god' that way (as in the will of god, the desires of god, the thoughts of god), as much as a corporation, a culture, a nation. Though I admit you have to take care not to get carried away with the implications and end up mired in sloppy reasoning.

It is also not surprising that, because axon connections are many orders of magnitude more efficient than language, the most useful grouping is at the level of an individual.

<comment><USER10> This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole. Your left and right visual fields are bound together. Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem insoluble.

<comment><USER9> > This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness.

True, although consciousness itself is rather poorly defined. There are also other related issues like qualia. But I'm not sure it needs to 'account' for those things. To observe that there are certain mental phenomena that are evident at different scales.

> A mind, at the very least a moment of experience, is a coherent whole.

That rather assumes your conclusion. In the example of a divided brain, a stimuli may be presented to only half the brain. How would one know whether one's experience of 'coherent whole'ness was accurate?

> Thinking of neurons as entirely discrete units makes the binding problem > insoluble.

No more than thinking of base pairs in your DNA as discrete units makes higher order phylogenesis insoluble. To recognise that discrete units are simple does not mean that large aggregates of them cannot display fundamentally different dynamics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Iain McGilchrist discusses at length the two-sided brain in his book _The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World_ [1]

Fun fact: He wrote the book over a period of 20 years.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300245920](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300245920)

<comment><USER12> I read the first half of this book about eight years ago and haven't stopped noticing the same story in different places. It shows up in meditation frameworks (Chuladasa's attention/awareness) to Jungian psychology (anima/animus), in Jill Bolte Taylor's story "My Stroke of Insight", and many more. Here's a list of my favorites: [https://www.notion.so/cameronboehmer/de3eb3e0a9524b6989962c4...](https://www.notion.so/cameronboehmer/de3eb3e0a9524b6989962c46ae18082a?v=02b57b892bda44d48863bb0abcadf878)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suspect we have a variable number of supplemental threads of execution serving the primary one we live on.

Recalling distant memories asynchronously after struggling to remember anything about it sometimes feels very much like another person interrupting and delivering the information once it's found.

<comment><USER14> But there's always an immediate trigger

<comment><USER13> Sure, they're cooperating, for now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Relevant CGP Grey: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8)

</comment><comment><USER16> See, even the brain is split into microservices (ducks).

</comment><comment><USER17> We don't have two brains but if you split the brain it will become two brains.

This feels like people playing with words to grab attention.

</comment><comment><USER18> Idea of "decentralized" brain perfectly explained in Michael's Gazzaniga book "Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain". He's the first guy who makes experiments on split brain and found decisions making center which works like telling and explaining machine. Recommend.

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of Willpower instinct book that has similar but with the hypothesis that the prefrontal cortex is the "executive in charge of" type of brain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone know why the left vs right hand behaves the way it does at the end of the video? Left as an exercise for us?

<comment><USER12> The left hemisphere encodes tool use. Its preference for this is so strong that even left-handed folks encode tool-use in the left hemisphere, which means that the round trip from hand to brain goes left hand -> right hemisphere (b/c each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body) -> left hemisphere (tool circuits) -> right hemisphere -> left hand, which is waaay less efficient than right hand -> left hem -> right hand. ([https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain](https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain))

So, the left hand's failure to pantomime screwdriver use probably reflects the commissurotomy patient's right hemisphere's inability to access her left hemisphere's knowledge of tools. (That this only happens when eyes are closed probably means the right hemisphere just observed and copied the right hand's behavior when eyes were open.)

Had a fun chat with someone interested in this at a bar a few weeks ago who offered a theory that the best pro basketball players are right hand/right eye dominant or left hand/left eye dominant, and that anybody with mixed dominance just can't cut it. Apparently the military just wont take you as a pilot or sniper if you have mixed hand/eye dominance?

Calling it now: laterality is central to who we are, and is currently underappreciated—especially in AI research (though I'd be delighted to hear from AI folks who disagree!).

EDIT: lots

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/2120/](https://xkcd.com/2120/)</comment>


The Evolution of the App Store and the App Business - <AUTHOR> https://denzhadanov.com/the-evolution-of-the-app-store-and-the-app-business-b16b3eddfa57 <comment><USER2> _" Our 135 person team has built more than 40 products. 32 of them failed, but we didn't give up."_

That matches my experience, after my first product I thought I knew enough to avoid the mistakes and it would be easy the next time. It turns out it's hard to know what will succeed and what will fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> We've relatively recently launched a new adblocking app on the App Store (and Mac App Store) with a subscription based business model.

In our first year we've found many of the same learnings as this article and have written about our experiences; [https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/ad- blocker-year-in-review...](https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/ad-blocker-year- in-review-2018/)

We believe that subscriptions - although currently going through an adjustment and acceptance period - are the future for apps that provide ongoing value.

For apps that don't provide ongoing value, then yes, it may be difficult to survive & one-off payments are probably the only feasible revenue model in those cases.

<comment><USER4> It's kind of weird to charge money for an ad blocking service. Instead of me giving $20 to the content owners by putting my eye balls/clicking on ads, I'm paying you $20 to remove the ads and the content owner gets $0. At least when the ad blocking is free, nobody makes money. But charging for adblocking is essentially stealing and I'm not sure how I feel about that...

<comment><USER5> We need some kind of internet-wide micropayment infrastructure that distributes a cent per website visited. Like the Spotify of the internet. I'd happily pay $10/month for such a service, with the proceeds going to Youtubers, Streamers, News outlets etc. Google or Facebook would seem in the perfect place to manage such a system, but they seem more intent on slinging ads.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly what the Brave company is setting up.

New chromium-based but privacy-focused browser, also called Brave. You pledge a certain amount per month (this is opt-in). The time spent by all Brave users determines how much of that pool of cash is distributed to all of the sites that they visit.

See [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/) \-- they have just released their beta and it's pretty amazing. Payments in the new beta are not yet live though.

<comment><USER7> If it requires installing something extra that you otherwise don't need the mass market won't join...

Also in general the masses probably will never see why to pay 10 bucks or whatever for quality content as they are happy being served the other stuff... i mean, ads wouldn't be so successful if there weren't people viewing the crap content they are placed in... even less being clicked on.

But there are thousands of people even responding to spam mails and sending money to some Nigerian Kings...

Wait. How about paying quality content from these. I mean, just telling them your brother has a million in the bank and they just need to pay 1000 to get it out and be rewarded with 10% etc... instead of nothing as usual, they get quality content! Ok after reading too much of that they won't do it anymore. Selfdestructing Business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The evolution was simple: in the FOSS world we invent the concept of repos, this concept after decades of good work was grabbed by the proprietary world that understand the unsustainability of their traditional model and imported with a limited and locked-in version named "app stores".

Now proprietary firms understand that they can't continue evolve commercial software, it's a dead end, so they found a way to lock-in FOSS leaving it inside proprietary environment.</comment>


Should I Go? The Pros and Cons of Using Go Programming Language - <AUTHOR> https://bugfender.com/blog/go-pros-cons-using-go-programming-language/ <comment><USER2> Coming from a Java background (as far as back-end API development goes), I've pretty much fallen in love with Go. I will definitely be using it on all future projects of my own. That being said, my pros are numerous and my cons are limited. So far they might be:

\- A bit too much boilerplate. The infamous "if err != nil" statements will get a bit tedious. BUT! This keeps you on your toes, not in the same way as Java's "NullPointerException" explosion keeps you on your toes.

\- I agree with the 3rd party libraries comment. Any cool library I find spends 2/3rds of the README talking about benchmarks. Like we get it, Go is fast. Good luck finding any actual implementation besides "read the docs". And sure someone could write examples, if the package lived long enough.

\- I wish there was a tad bit speedier development. The compiler is _QUICK_ , but for something like server development I find myself having keep the command line going, use the "go install" command, then run the exe (windows) from the bin folder (I put it on the Path just to save my life a bit), then test, then kill the server, and repeat. Not great for quick prototyping. In comparison my other web techs have live-reloads, where saving re-compiles, kills the current process, and starts. I'm sure I could rig one up, so this is probably just a nuance of my own early travels in Go.

<comment><USER3> For the live-reloads there are a few options. We use gin ([https://github.com/codegangsta/gin](https://github.com/codegangsta/gin)) in some projects and it works nicely but for projects with a lot of files/folders it doesn't work that well. Another option we have tried is CompilerDaemon ([https://github.com/githubnemo/CompileDaemon](https://github.com/githubnemo/CompileDaemon)) and it also works quite nicely but has the same problem when you have a lot of files/folders.

So, I agree with you that this is something that should be improved to make our development easier.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help with BASH Scripting? - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to write a bash script that automates several types of video encodes.
I pass in a path and a file name and the script takes that info and encodes  the video several ways, then renames some files and copies to a final destination path. Not so hard.
What I cannot figure out for the life of me is can I provide a file for my bash script to pull my paths, file names and destinations from and just mass add files all day to the single file and then run the script to encode overnight.
Example have a file that has in it.
orignal path, file name, destination path
orignal path, file name, destination path
orignal path, file name, destination path
orignal path, file name, destination path
and I run a script that parses each line, does the encodes and copies for it, then moves to the second line when the first is done and moves to the third, etc, etc
Lastly, is it possible to automate MySQL Insert statements with BASH. I supposes at the very least I could create the insert statements in batch from the parameters and output them to a file containing the SQL and manually execute it in the morning....
Can anyone provide insight on how use a file with all my paths and parameters? OSX 10.6. <comment><USER2> You want to check the exit code of the mysql insert before continuing, it's $? in bash. (basically a loop with an exit if $? != 0) More info on exit codes: <http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/exit-status.html> And bash scripting: <http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/>

</comment><comment><USER3> You'll probably get more help on stackoverflow... HN isn't really the right venue for specific programming questions :)

That being said, you can just use tail -f as input for your script. Something like this:

tail -f input.txt | encoder.sh &

and have encoder.sh run in a loop reading stdin into a var, encoding the file if var was non-empty and sleeping if it's empty

This is if you are going to be modifying the file while the encoder is running; if the file is static, then sorbus's solution is totally fine.

As for mysql, again, input redirection is your friend.

mysql -u root -D db < dump.sql will run statements in dump.sql against database called db

</comment><comment><USER4> Taking information from a file and acting on it is something like

      for $line in `cat file`
      do
         encode stuff
      done

You would probably want to use awk or something similar to split up the lines into multiple values, though. It's been a while since I've done something like this, but for loops are definitely the way to go.

<comment><USER2> cat doesn't like spaces.</comment></comment>


Google Announces Springboard for Apps and Refreshed Sites - <AUTHOR> https://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2016/06/powering-more-connected-and.html <comment><USER2> Google Springboard: [https://apps.google.com/campaigns/index__googlespringboardea...](https://apps.google.com/campaigns/index__googlespringboardeap.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Career advice needed – How do you plan your long run? - <AUTHOR> Dear HN'ers,
I have a humble request for advice. I have been pondering over this for quite a while and i thought  i would ask the best online community i have known so far - for your advice.
I quit my job and have been pondering over my next move - but when i looked at it in the most elementary way - i felt, having a sense of direction is clearly important in desiging your career. But what if, you didn't have a clear sense of direction of what you wanted to become ?
There are millions of articles online which ask you to set goals, define what you want from your life etc. But there is something elementary about how you "feel" about things and this is different for each of us. What if you "feel" you are unsure of what you wanted ?
Letting go of the philosophical aspect, how do you plan your careers ? I have discussed this topic with a few people, and some seem to be floating in whichever direction the wind blows and some seem to be sailing in the direction they want to.
But just how ? Any leads / comments / book suggestions / advice / sharing of your personal journey is highly welcome.
I wish to have a healthy discussion on this topic as this has been bothering me for quite some time and i hope the discussion would be fruitful for all !
Thanking you all in advance. <comment><USER2> You are unlikely to ever figure out an exact answer, though some people apparently do, but at the very least you can make every job search a little better.

A minimal bar: avoiding _bad_ jobs. Crazy long hours, boring work, harassment... unfortunately jobs can get very bad, so it's worth spending the time to avoid places that will actively make you unhappy. (More here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont- hate/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont-hate/))

Beyond that, you can figure out goals from what's worked for you in the past. Every job I get teaches me something new about my goals, based on how it works or doesn't work for me. And my goals change over time, too.

So one thing to do is to start with looking at the past: what parts of your past jobs were wonderful? What parts were bad? What did you feel you were missing?

My personal aims at this point are work that I find _useful_ (applying a personal idiosyncratic definition of useful, and to have a sane workweek. I'm working on a book about how to get to a sane workweek, there's a out-of-date but somewhat accurate outline here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/09/16/sane- workweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/09/16/sane-workweek/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

I have read your blog and it's awesome to get a reply from u!

I have had a couple of bad jobs in the past - I made poor choices in spite of being an able and talented person. But I am learning my lessons.

My gripe is that majority of the big MNCs don't have a clear why and they don't seem to utilise my talents fully. And on top of it, there is utter nonsensical deadlines, repetition of work and harassment and long work hours. At present i am interested in opportunities that would give me better opportunities to refine my skills!

I was worried about the long term - as you would have read elsewhere on the internet, there is a bias in hiring towards college grads than people having 30-35 years of age.

How is the tech landscape gonna look like ? Would we be able to cope with the stress ? What if automation makes most jobs redundant - how to differentiate ? There are other questions lingering in my mind.. but that's a few of them.

The tech landscape is changing so fast that I could clearly notice it within my roughly 8 years of IT experience itself.

<comment><USER2> It sounds like maybe you _do_ know what your goals are, you just aren't sure how to get there?

I am skeptical automation will make all jobs redundant. Someone needs to figure out _what_ to do, for example; there's no way a computer can do requirements gathering, or UI design, or process improvements.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It sounds like maybe you do know what your goals are, you just aren't sure > how to get there?

I kinda know the direction in which i want to proceed, but as you said i do not know the how! Actually, i am lost on my next steps - caught up between a craving for mastery and moving to the next phase of my career which might involve handling people.

> I am skeptical automation will make all jobs redundant. Someone needs to > figure out what to do, for example; there's no way a computer can do > requirements gathering, or UI design, or process improvements.

Exactly! But at present, in bigger corporations - the "what to do" requirements gathering is done by sales interactions and customer feedback / requests - which makes the techies redundant in the chain. I read elsewhere that some big university is researching on generating code from code by using code snippets from open source - if this successfully gets implemented then tech jobs would become difficult to find - just sharing a thought!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What do you love to do? Do you love coding? Do you love design? Would you love to open your own business?

Whatever you really like to do, learn more about that craft but also learn new skills. We are in a world that is moving so fast and you want to try new things continuously.

It works also if you don't really love to do any particular thing right now. Trying new things will let you explore and find something that you would enjoy doing it for the next 5-10-15 years.

Don't be in a rush to set your goals in stones. Stay patient and optimistic. Life is long.

This is just my opinion. How I would do it if I was in your position. You do you in the best way you can :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love to build stuff from the ground up - but I rarely get such opportunities in the corporate world. And I am unable to take risk by going on my own (financial constraints)

The corporate life just sucks the soul out of me, and by the time am back to home.. I have nothing left to do creative work. It would be great to have a partner with whom I could collaborate, but I seem to be socially awkward too :(</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why no "free to search" commercial real estate sites? - <AUTHOR>

There are so many sites for residential property where one is free to search and look at properties.<p>How come there aren't any national sites such as these for commercial real estate? Commercial real estate sites tend to mask the address, and require the viewer to pay to unmask this info. <comment><USER2> Yes there are:

[http://www.realcommercial.com.au/](http://www.realcommercial.com.au/)

(I've worked for that company as a contractor in the past.)</comment>


Ask HN: Dev bootcamps in the UK - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to move out of my current PR/marketing career into development. I've got basic programming experience, and I'm having a lot of fun with self-directed learning, but I think something more intensive is going to be needed for me to progress to the next level and get a junior dev job.
It looks like App Academy [appacademy.io] is setting the bar for coding bootcamps in the US. The program is free at the point of use, with costs being recouped from your first year's salary.
I'm looking for something similar in the UK, particularly in London.
What's everyone's experience with these types of bootcamps? <comment><USER2> Have you seen [http://tech.fundingcircle.com/codecraft/](http://tech.fundingcircle.com/codecraft/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks amazing, but applications are closed! I've emailed them asking about the next round.</comment></comment>


Bio-Inspired Hashing for Unsupervised Similarity Search (With John Hopfield) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.04907 <comment><USER2> Looking at the paper, comparing methods that use k bits per hash to a method that uses k*log(m) bits per hash seems unfair and misleading.</comment>


The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.ie6countdown.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> BTW I just realized that site is actually owned and operated by Microsoft.

Have there been other products where companies practically beg people to stop using it and fund initiatives to that end?

<comment><USER2> well , Microsoft want people to upgrade their software ( and pay for it ) so it makes sense. MS wants you to buy W8. The problem is businesses have legacy software full of stuffs that would not work in modern browsers , so they have to stick with IE6 or redevelop the legacy software ( at least the front-end ). Or they could allow their employees to use a second browser...

<comment><USER3> Front-ends that work in IE6 but not in modern browsers? Are you sure? That doesn't really make sense to me. I can see how maybe some outdated code or a bunch of hacks could make a site designed for IE6 look just a little funny here and there but I don't see how it would be a lot of work at all to make a site made for IE6 work in a modern browser. As far as I know, the only reason large companies don't upgrade is because they have a bunch of infrastructure that's totally unrelated to websites that stop them from upgrading. Basically, the IT department sets up the entire company's computer systems a certain way and then resist upgrading anything so they don't have to do a lot of testing, more patching, and generally adapt to the new tech after they've tuned their infrastructure just so.

<comment><USER4> Large IT departments are really conservative for good reason. Hypothetically, consider that a company maintained a web app that accountants used to track revenue. Now, consider that the accountants needed to input interest earned from investments. Let's say there was a Regex bug in parsing the interest rate, and all values were interpreted to be NaN or 0 on non-IE6 browsers due to an implementation quirk. This would have disastrous consequences for a large company: they might face shareholder suits, government investigations, etc. And of course, the people maintaining the system would likely lose their jobs.

There are so many downsides, but what's the upside? So that FB loads a little faster? The incentives are stacked against adopting new technology. Any new browser has to be thoroughly tested against every one of the company's apps to make sure that nothing breaks. As anyone who's done QA before will tell you, that's a tall order.

I agree that the probability of such an incident is small. However, given the disastrous consequences that would happen for a large organization should such a bug occur, it's hard to make the case that an upgrade is a good idea for the sake of "better technology."

<comment><USER5> The upside? Javascript will run 100 times faster and your developers can build even more functional software, moving software that once had to run on the desktop to software that now runs in a browser.

<comment><USER6> That doesn't change that IE is still needed for those old applications. So the best case scenario is running whatever new browser like Firefox, Chrome, etc, and running IE6 alongside. Ditch IE6 only after the old apps have been replaced completely.

<comment><USER5> I'm a little confused. Why is there IE6 lockin? Apps weren't built so they could at least be easily upgraded to IE8? Some testing is required and no one wants to do the work?

My memory isn't that hazy. What happened was that people said the software only had to run in IE6 and Netscape wasn't important. Writing "good" web software wasn't important. Simply support Microsoft's IE6 and you're done. If you're still stuck on IE6/IE7 it really is your own fault.

<comment><USER7> michael_miller explained it adequately above:

1) IT departments are massively conservative (and this is not an intrinsically bad thing)

2) A lot of apps were built specifically for IE6. They still work with IE6. Many times they _only_ work with IE6.

3) It hasn't been made worthwhile to upgrade.

> If you're still stuck on IE6/IE7 it really is your own fault.

A lot of us web developers have decided to just say, "Fuck it," and stop supporting IE6. If it works, cool; if it doesn't, we don't care. This is a luxury available to those of us who have clients who _aren't_ supported by the aforementioned IT departments. Some of us are still required to support IE6 because we have clients who we can't drop and refuse to move off, and we don't have the leverage to persuade them otherwise.

<comment><USER8> For some companies it doesn't make sense to drop support for IE6. I work for a company who's product is sold completely online. If we dropped support for IE6 we would loose hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars a year. Sure it's a tiny fraction of our business, but it's a considerable amount of money and pretty much covers the wages of our entire web development team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The discrepancy compared to other countries is because the piracy of XP in China is staggering.

Sources: [http://bradweikel.com/software-piracy-china-why-ie6-will- not...](http://bradweikel.com/software-piracy-china-why-ie6-will-not-die-2010)

[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chinese-Pirates-Choose- Window...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chinese-Pirates-Choose-Windows-XP- Over-Linux-Because-It-s-Free-306542.shtml)

<comment><USER10> It would be interesting turn if they just open sourced XP and let the hackers have at it. Deploying a moderned-up Chinese focused XP isn't going to move the needle in either direction regarding the piracy culture there, but might help carry them forward. Retail software just has to be free in some parts of the world, made apparent by the preference for a hacked obselete, decade-old OS.

<comment><USER9> Some of the architecture is still part of modern Windows so I don't think they would even consider it. Plus that's millions upon millions of lines of code that must be vetted to prevent trade secrets from leaking out. And I imagine there are other vulnerabilities in newer versions of Windows that would be readily found by examining the older cousin's source.

Another reason why they use it is because XP came out before WGA (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage>). This made pirating newer versions a bit more inconvenient (but certainly not enough to stop piracy all the way to Win8, I'm sure). So that leaves the more easily pirated pre-WGA XP

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > This website is dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6 usage drop to less > than 1% worldwide, so more websites can choose to drop support for Internet > Explorer 6, saving hours of work for web developers.

Hours of work? I think if you combine all of the work put into getting sites to work on IE6, it'll be measured in decades, if not centuries.

<comment><USER12> I think they mean save hours of work for every developer.

<comment><USER13> Per day? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was posted over 2 years ago... <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2288550>

Edit: Domain was actually registered over 3.5 years ago

<comment><USER15> I believe the original title for the link was something along the lines of "IE6 usage is under X% worldwide" but one of the HN mods changed it.

<comment><USER16> Well that would have actually given this submission a purpose, rather than just being a repost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IE6 is still the standard browser in my place of employment. _vomit_

<comment><USER18> Ditto, but I don't get it. Isn't it a massive security risk?

<comment><USER19> but it would be more of a hassle to upgrade all the computers to IE7, and make sure all their software is still compatible. And then what? You'll just need to upgrade to IE8 in a few years anyway.

<comment><USER20> Clearly there are some who still weigh "hassle" and cost over the potential risk that falling behind current tech brings to their business.

The "why upgrade when I'll have to just upgrade again later" logic is clearly not a healthy long term strategy for any business (even outside of IT). Skipping a generation to saves costs may work but how many do you skip before your risk and cost to catch up becomes too much?

<comment><USER21> What's the potential risk for a business when you're a monopoly? Or a government - see Korea's stuff with banking and ActiveX, they managed to force it for decades:

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south- korea-still-paying-price-embracing-internet-explorer-decade-ago.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thankfully, IE7 is already more dead than IE6: <http://theie7countdown.com/>

Now we just need to wait for IE8's disappearance (<http://theie8countdown.com/>). And then IE9's (<http://theie9countdown.com/>), because it doesn't support text-shadow, transitions, filters, the File API, FormData, gradients, columns, classList, flex-box or WebGL...

<comment><USER23> <http://theie10countdown.com/>

"Hopefully there will be no Internet Explorer 10…"

<http://www.ie10countdown.com/>

"We won't need a countdown to extinction of IE10 if you don't use the piece of shit to begin with."

<comment><USER22> Hadn't seen those. Not funny :(

<comment><USER24> Well, a little scepticism isn't uncalled for. Nowadays, I don't even think the problem is the quality of IE, but the fear of users not upgrading. Microsoft needs to be at least as agressive as its competitors in automatically upgrading users' browsers, even if its corporate customer base doesn't care for it. If not, corporate clients will continue to write for specific versions, a practice that needs to die. That's why we're stuck supporting XP and IE6 in the first place, 12 years after it was released.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When I visited South Korea 2 years ago, 95% of their computers that were in the hotel rooms were IE 6. I know that was two years ago, and those were only in hotel rooms, but I was surprised to see so much IE 6. Good thing I had firefox portable on my usb drive with me

<comment><USER26> I don't have the article now (maybe it was Techdirt?) but I read that the government mandated a specific form of encryption for all banking and shopping which was only implemented as an IE6 ActiveX plugin.

Ahh, here we go: [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south- korea-still-paying-price-embracing-internet-explorer-decade-ago.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It makes sense to support IE 6 when you sell a product to an enterprise, the UI is task oriented and doesn't have to be pixel perfect to entice users.

The trick is to make supporting IE 6 cost effective. You can still use semantic markup and CSS layout, it would just be a simplified version of what you serve modern browsers. It's called graceful degradation, and with a well defined templating system, it's feasible without laborious adjustments and hacks.

Some enterprises really can't upgrade, and if you are willing to support that one troublesome browser, you can still sell the product behind it, which can be innovative and useful.

</comment><comment><USER28> IE6, IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10. AFAIK IE is the only remaining browser making a big deal out of a new version. The only reason I can think of is that for them it's all about sucking less instead of silently becoming more awesome.

</comment><comment><USER29> [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww- daily-20130407...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww- daily-20130407-20130407-map) Yesterdays' stats from the spreadsheet download:

      China			4.59
      Cuba			2.75
      Iran			1.2
      Solomon Islands	1.18
      Swaziland 		1.05

No other country is rounding above 0.00%

</comment><comment><USER30> So finally it's time for ie7countdown.com.

<comment><USER31> Might aswell make it ie8countdown.com

<comment><USER32> That does exist: <http://theie8countdown.com/>

Not backed by Microsoft though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how exactly they are gathering these statistics? For example the UK shows that 0.6% still use IE6, however from my experience (in both education and corporate, as well as a quick glance over laptops at a coffee shop) I would say this figure is much much higher.

<comment><USER34> When glancing over laptops at the coffee shop is this what you see: [http://images.pcworld.com/news/graphics/160230-libretto_orig...](http://images.pcworld.com/news/graphics/160230-libretto_original.jpg)

<comment><USER35> The libretto was a fine machine! I'd certainly be interested in a modern- hardware version of it with the same sturdy, rugged design. (Here's a size comparison from wikipedia: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/EEEPC901_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/EEEPC901_LIBRETTO100.JPG) and here is one more: <http://rubenerd.com/uploads/photo.libretto.jpg>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Akamai has a nice public stats collection based on their CDN traffic, which is both enormous and significantly more global than some of the other metrics you see. They show IE6 consistently around the ~1% level:

[http://www.akamai.com/html/io/io_dataset.html#stat=browser_v...](http://www.akamai.com/html/io/io_dataset.html#stat=browser_ver&top=15&type=line&start=20130101&end=20130406&net=both)

<comment><USER37> Akamai uses a different way to count the usage compare to Net Applications. Hence the difference. Also, Akamai's presence in China is somewhat of a question.

<comment><USER36> Akamai has quite a few endpoints in China. We've had a few problems with the great firewall but those appear to be transient

That said, I'd love to know what the usage stats look like from the perspective of ChinaCache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I sincerely hope it doesn't stop there and counts down to the complete cleansing of the world from the filth that is IE.

</comment><comment><USER39> Now it is time for Android 2.x :-)

<comment><USER40> yup, android 2.x browser is the new IE6. so incredibly terrible.

the good news though is that people who still have android 2.x phones don't seem too interested in using them as mobile internet devices. Actual browser usage share for android 2.x is pretty minimal on my sites, despite its supposed market share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> [http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/03/04/2124203/even- microso...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/03/04/2124203/even-microsoft- wants-ie6-dead)

Two years later it's on the HN front page. Come on kids...

</comment><comment><USER42> Why is this even news? It's over two years old. Where's the IE8 count down?

</comment><comment><USER43> Even if it is bad in terms of security, wrt system resources it is good. IE6 uses around 15 MB and Firefox uses 100 MB for browsing same sites. Or does IE6 uses virtual memory to show low memory usage?

</comment><comment><USER44> Now they just need a similar website to countdown to the death of .doc/xls/ppt so we can have (mostly) sane, modern file formats to work with in non-MS Office apps.

</comment><comment><USER45> < 1% in the USA? Big deal. Our biggest client is still stuck on IE6. Luckily, for everything else we've convinced the boss that we're only doing IE8 and above.

</comment><comment><USER46> Can we organise 1 day where nobody tests any web application in IE6... just to see if there's actually anybody left using it IRL? :-)

<comment><USER32> IMHO, unless you target China, I think you shouldn't be caring for IE6 anymore _at all_. Personally I don't test with IE6 and I'm fine with it.

<comment><USER47> fully agree, we really shouldn't be testing/supporting IE6 anymore unless targeting a high proportionate of ie6 users (which these days is unlikely)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Not being able to boast ie6 support will be a huge blow to the egos of anal- retentive front-end engineers everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER49> At this point blocking the browser from your website with an explanation would probably do more good than harm.

<comment><USER50> So you victimise people who mostly don't have any choice which browser they use, and lose their business. Good going...

<comment><USER51> If your site doesn't work, i'd rather block them then give them a bad experience. Lots of site do it but its more common with features like having javascript disabled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> <http://www.saveie6.com/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> China strangely at 26% but why is Japan (and India) at 2% still?

<comment><USER5> Depends on who's stats you believe. According to this, IE6 in China has dropped quite a bit in the past year:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-CN- monthly-201203...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-CN- monthly-201203-201303)

It's under 5%.

On another note, IE7 is probably under 1% in most of the world. IE8 is the new minimum browser for developers?

<comment><USER53> It's a simplification but Netapplications count users and Statcounter counts usage.

People using IE6 are unlikely to be heavy web surfers so they are more heavily weighted on the Net application numbers (which ironically Microsoft generally prefers, as it makes IE look more important.)

<comment><USER54> Which is why Net Apps' stats are so useless and misleading, and I don't know why sites keep using it as the standard. I don't want to be counted as a "user" of IE if I happen to use it once a month or every 3 months, while using Chrome 12 hour a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Oh... Norway 0.0% Do they have a law against IE 6 or what ? :)

<comment><USER56> I have no evidence for the claim, but I suspect it has something to do with a campaign that I think was started by the dominating classified ads site finn.no to get rid of IE6 ([http://labs.finn.no/finn-anbefaler-ie6-brukere-a- oppgradere-...](http://labs.finn.no/finn-anbefaler-ie6-brukere-a-oppgradere- sin-nettleser/)).

They made a snippet that displays a red box on the page with a warning if you are using IE6 and this got picked up by a lot of other sites. As you can see from the post above, this was in February of 2009.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Great News!

<comment><USER58> I wonder, does the site work in IE6 ? :)</comment></comment>


MeiliSearch: Open-source and fast search-engine - <AUTHOR> https://www.meilisearch.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I currently use this for my personal notes and screenshot indexing. I run screenshots through OCR and then index them with MeiliSearch and I'm very happy with it.</comment>


Obama administration moves to give work permits to 100k foreign college grads - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3380380/Obama-administration-quietly-moves-work-permits-estimated-100-000-foreign-college-grads.html <comment><USER2> This might be a double edge sword from the green card seekers point of view.

On one hand, people already in the process would be able to negotiate and/or seek new employers.

On the other hand it would be harder to convince employers about new sponsorships because the "you will retain me for 10+ years" argument will not be valid anymore.

Overall it would be a big improvement on the current system and would certainly clean up some of the "cheap labor vs. talent shortage" mess.

<comment><USER3> > On the other hand it would be harder to convince employers about new > sponsorships because the "you will retain me for 10+ years" argument will > not be valid anymore

But the "sponsor me or I'll leave for some place that will" argument now applies.

Also removes the issue of wanting a green card desperately but also wanting to move on from your current job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can spin this anyway you want but when projections indicate that the largest Immigrant Group in Texas will be Indians displacing Mexicans, well that should say something.

They aren't coming here to lay brick or pave roads. They are here to do IT work. I know of several companies that employ thousands of people in the DFW Area and the staff is 40% Indian. 10 - 15 years ago it would have been odd to even see a handful.

The trend is fuck the American worker. Let's hire an Indian. We can work the shit out of him/her and pay them less. Do you think the customer cares.

I'm winding down my career so no matter. But for the rest of you and the kids that want a chance....good luck....

<comment><USER5> As a white thirteenth-generation American, I'm perfectly happy with more people from India in this country, especially if it means they might change what it means to be "Texan."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only Daily Mail (!) article with significant upvotes [1] on HN is this one, and I wonder if it is a coincidence that it is about immigration, a topic that often inspires heated debates and attracts misinformed commenters on HN.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dailymail.co.uk](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dailymail.co.uk)

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't link to the Daily Mail please. They're a rabid right-wing tabloid rag that deals in invasions of privacy and demagoguery, they're awful.

<comment><USER8> There aren't many alternatives in this case, as every place that has covered this news is very right wing media. They have links to the sources though, and while I do not agree with their spin at all (I think this is a wonderful thing) there's at factual information in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> we already hire lots and lots of newly grads just because. even the foreigners never had any problem staying in the usa because of that.

we do let go a big majority because they suck. this will just be another no- child-left-behind for the bad ones.

thank you, Obama.

</comment><comment><USER10> A few of the statements by Miano, are factually wrong, and that's very troubling from someone who gives expert testimony to the Congress.

>100,000 workers from India alone will now be 'unleashed into the job market.'

>And that's just from India, which Miano said accounts for roughly three- quarters of the waiting list.

>Of course, DHS' vague reporting means the green card line could also be shorter than that, he acknowledged.

What???!!!

These people are already in the job market, actively working at this moment. The new rule will make it easier for them to switch jobs, thus making the job market more fair for American workers, since American companies(including staffing agencies) will have to pay more to retain these workers instead of paying them low by holding their visa hostage.

>'And now we have this regulation, and it allows huge classes of aliens to work,' he said.

They're already working!!!!!! @ _& ^#@_^#@^&#

>After 10 years, 'if you're in the queue you would go home,' he said.

Wrong, there is no limitation on the number of years, I know people from China and India who are in the queue for more than 12 years.

I find it hard to digest that someone who is paid to work on these mattters full time can get so many facts wrong.

<comment><USER11> You are missing the fact that these are a potential _additional_ 100,000 positions. Those who leave the H1-B program for this program then free up those existing H1-B quota slots to be "reoccupied" by others. The net number goes up by the full 100,000 (or however many are awarded).

BTW, the Sessions quote is in regard to H-2 visas, not H1-B or L-1 etc. H-2 variants are primarily agricultural.

<comment><USER10> >You are missing the fact that these are a potential additional 100,000 positions. Those who leave the H1-B program for this program then free up those existing H1-B quota slots to be "reoccupied" by others. The net number goes up by the full 100,000 (or however many are awarded).

Sorry but that couldn't be more wrong. There is no total H1-B quota. Only 65,000 new visas are awarded annually, renewable upto 6 years. After 6 years, they're renewable only if there is a pending green card application in valid status and they continue to work. The renewals don't count under the 65,000 quota. There will be exactly zero positions that can be "reoccupied" if these folks get a work permit or even a green card.

>BTW, the Sessions quote is in regard to H-2 visas, not H1-B or L-1 etc. H-2 variants are primarily agricultural.

Which Sessions quote are you referring to? I think all of my quotes were by Miano?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Given the layoffs that are occurring around the country (from a shrinking economy to corporate consolidation and subsequent downsizing), this is troubling.

While it's true that India is a third world country, I'm surprised that so many want to get away from it rather than improve it.

But in the end, I think this will destroy the H1B system. Unshackling workers from employers (which allows them to abuse the employees since they can't move to other companies) will be its undoing.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's the difference between importing 100k skilled people and growing them in the US? Besides being able to choose the most educated inmigrants. If inmigrants undercut American workers, then so do other American workers.</comment>


Communicate Between Ruby and Elixir Using Erlang Ports and Erlectricity - <AUTHOR> https://blog.fazibear.me/elixir-ruby-dont-fight-talk-with-erlectricity-dbf3af67d999#.xkq935iwh <comment><USER2> The published erlectrcity gem does not support maps, as they were only introduced into the language in 2013.

I forked it a while back to add support for maps. I'd recommend you use the fork: [https://github.com/hamiltop/erlectricity](https://github.com/hamiltop/erlectricity)

</comment><comment><USER3> We have a couple legacy Rails <-> Elixir apps being slow-ported forward (low hanging fruit first). The real winner so far for us has been Exq [1], which is a Sidekiq-compatible job library.

What that means is you can selectively receive jobs in Elixir (e.g. high-perf Phoenix websocket/request handler) and process them in legacy Ruby Sidekiq workers when needed, or vice-versa use Elixir to process jobs whose functions you've ported forward.

If your Rails app is already setup use Sidekiq background jobs, I think this method is much-preferable to these direct communication libraries.

[1] [https://github.com/akira/exq](https://github.com/akira/exq)

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow. It's crazy to think erlectricity is still kicking. That was one of my first open source projects, although to be fair mojombo has basically replaced everything I wrote with far better code over the years.

</comment><comment><USER5> I understand why the Ruby community has warmed up to Elixir and the Phoenix web-framework, however, I'm curious what the advantage or use-case of having Ruby talk to Elixir in an application is?

<comment><USER6> The main use case would be if you had a very mature Ruby library without an Erlang/Elixir equivalent. I haven't run into much that I personally need that isn't already available, but there are definitely some gaps that this could help people jump in the short term.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Currently working with a host of legacy ruby projects that we're slowly migrating to elixir. We've used hack-arounds to leverage the existing ruby projects up until now. If this library proves to be production-worthy, it'll be a great bridge for addressing some technical debt.

<comment><USER4> Erlectricity, from what I understand, was used extensively in at least one iteration of github's architecture. It has spent a lot of time in production deployments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Teen jailed for Facebook joke is released - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/12/tech/social-media/facebook-jailed-teen/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

<comment><AUTHOR> "[He] has been released on bail after an _anonymous donor_ posted a $500,000 bond." (emphasis added)

<comment><USER2> Yes, I saw that too. Pretty fucking cool.

<comment><USER3> It's cool that someone did it, but why should $500,000 and 5 months of jail time be involved when he didn't commit a crime?

If we jailed people for jokes made with poor taste, half or more of our comedians would be locked up.

<comment><USER2> I totally agree, of course. I'm just grateful that someone with that kind of money decided to help out.

It's great that we should be alert to people who show signs of being dangerous, but what that should mean is we should be very quick to look into these situations and evaluate whether the person poses a real threat. It does _not_ mean that we should toss them all into jail, press charges for non- crimes, and wait for the court system to get around to sorting them out.

I understand the desire by police departments to avoid potential liability by not taking the chance that someone who makes a joke might actually be serious. But that needs to be balanced against the right to free speech. In this case, I would love to see a civil rights lawsuit against the police. Police departments need to understand that they face liability for overreacting as well as for underreacting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6030806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6030806)

</comment><comment><USER5> Title should have quotes around "joke".</comment>


Seattle Startup Weekend... This Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/01/seattle_startup.html <comment><USER2> Anyone on here going to this? (Or just plain in Seattle?) Let's meet up! email@example.com

Alternatively, I will likely be wearing a bright yellow t-shirt...</comment>


YouTube channels for entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yalabot.com/i-got-sick-of-commoditized-content-for-entrepreneurs-heres-what-i-started-watching-instead-cdf9a5b28652#.50ev0pbn0 <comment><USER2> All of the pep talk type Youtube channels that OP mentions (Gary Vee, Mark Cuban etc), they push (IMO) a wrong idea of startups : they all say you should work 16 hours a day, bare minimum sleep, hustle and grind (god, those words make me cringe). That advice completely ignores health and general well being, which is essential if you're in it for the long haul.

Anyway, this list seems interesting. Thanks OP for compiling this.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's true. Gary Vee has said things like that in the past but more recently said he devotes weekends to family, sleeps more, and vacations more[0]. Tim Ferris literally got famous from a book titled _" The 4 Hour Work-week"_. Mark Cuban is frankly on a different level (the 3 comma club really is different IMO).

Hustle and grind are traits not mutually exclusive from being healthy.

I'll go so far as to posit that most highly successful entrepreneurs (I'm talking big, high-growth companies here) end up sacrificing at least one of the following: sleep, free time, relationships, starting a family, or general health.

The real question is–between the success and the sacrifice–which one causes the other?

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2ShSnO72w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2ShSnO72w)

<comment><USER4> Everything I've seen from GaryVee recently has been along the lines of "you're not doing enough work."

Last week he told someone who took a weekend off that that was more time than he had taken off for his entire twenties.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRj144Gd7EA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRj144Gd7EA)

<comment><USER5> _Everything I 've seen from GaryVee recently has been along the lines of "you're not doing enough work."_

More specifically he says you're probably not working enough _if_ you're running some sort of personal narrative that you're _all that_ business-wise or ever going to be a multi-millionaire/whatever.

He frequently says that sort of life is _not_ for everyone and people who are happy doing a dayjob and devoting their time to personal pursuits should be envied. But if you want to be chasing the beasts of big money and big business and be all about being the big-I-am, you better be working long and hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand why people watch these pep talk style commentators. If you need someone else to motivate you, I'd seriously question whether or not you have the gusto to make it for the long haul.

Going further... I can't help but wonder if watching this releases some sort of endorphin for the want-to-be entrepreneur. These guys prey on hope, mainly, and by giving these pep talks, I think a lot of of people get temporary hope that if they just dig in, they'll be a millionaire too.

You really need to ask yourself if you're attracted to these motivational speakers: why do you need motivating? The real secret to success, I believe, is digging in to an endeavor you love.

<comment><USER7> my business does millions in revenues and i watch him and others. mainly because i find a lot of what they say is true, and i'm looking for information on how to get to the next order of magnitude in revenues.

their audience isn't just wannabes, it's also successful people looking for guidance/validation/vindication/whatever. it's not just "motivation", it's also "information".

talking shit on the internet to successful people isn't new. you're not doing anything new. it's actually really tired. so very, very tired. yawn. zzz.

<comment><USER6> Yea, me too bud. I make 500 million a year, drive a brand new ferrari, and I'm 6'5 280 lbs with 8% body fat.

Making stuff up on the internet isn't new. You're not doing anything new. It's actually very tired, so very tired. Yawn. zzz

<comment><USER8> Maybe he's so very tired from working 16 hours a day and only taking one weekend a decade off? :)

Personally I'd skip the motivational videos and get some sleep as I feel that produces better returns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe the title should be "YouTube channels for wanna-be entrepreneurs".

youtube channels and bullshit, if you wanna do it, just do it.

<comment><USER10> Entrepreneurs are allowed to have downtime and watch videos too.

<comment><USER11> If entrepreneurs consider videos on entrepreneurship downtime then they're wasting their time.

If you're watching something to learn to be a better entrepreneur you better be making notes. This is not (or should not be...) entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a solid list of youtube channels that won't just give you what you already know. A little bit of feedback:

> It's this kind of entrepreneur — the disobedient kind — that we'd like to > converse with over the pages of this blog. The kind that appreciates weird > and feels talked down to by typical "10 habits that changed my life" > articles. The kind that prefers sophistication to ease and discovery to the > comfort zone.

Strikes me in a negative way. It just feels like those ad campaigns that are trying to be rebellious, or people boasting how smart they are.

</comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for compiling this list:

Here are some of my favorites:

1) The School of Life - [https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel](https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel)

2) ComputerHistory - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHDr4RtxwA1KqKGwxgdK4Vg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHDr4RtxwA1KqKGwxgdK4Vg)

3) CreativeMornings - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- ZA3QN2nDmqOSujn8zvNjw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC- ZA3QN2nDmqOSujn8zvNjw)

4) Winners & Losers in a Digital Age (some of it are edgy, but not bad for a lunch time viewing) - [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL67plOPT3Am0JbnL_LjU2...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL67plOPT3Am0JbnL_LjU2X1DfraHvVsWd)

<comment><USER10> Something about The School of Life gives me bad vibes. I feel like there is too much of an undertone to their videos.

<comment><USER14> I'm not a great fan of The School of Life, but I like the mind behind it, Alain de Botton. Care to elaborate on what kind of undertone you see in their videos?

<comment><USER10> I watched a few videos a while back - on the topic of love I think - and it felt like there was a hidden agenda. At the time I felt it was a little too opinionated, pompous, and possibly content marketing for a religious group. None of this is fact, of course, just what I felt when I watched it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm working on my own channel at the moment if anybody is interested. Still trying to build content, but I'd appreciate feedback. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzvhjBHSW6wLNnyAOEj9u2w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzvhjBHSW6wLNnyAOEj9u2w)

<comment><USER15> Hey there, I just subbed your channel. I'm not saying my channel is of any quality, or that I'm in a position of authority to offer advice, but you're asking, so I figure I can answer, from the perspective of someone with ~80k subs currently:

First thing I did was say "cool look!" then I clicked 'about' link to learn more about your channel and ways that I could follow your twitter, etc, and there was not anything beyond a succinct description. I'm not complaining, and I doubt it will cost you much, but people don't want to have to work hard to follow your content stream, and it's like a set-it-and-forget-it way to wring out every last potential subscriber.

Your video production during your two book reviews was good, and your review was entertaining, personal, and seemed like an honest unscripted opinion. You have a great quality that you speak clearly and with intention; I appreciated that.

Your third video 'Designing Success' was in my opinion the best, design-wise :) (get it? design--... wise?) I liked the intro with the hip hop music and the artistic approach to conveying your surroundings and setting for the video.

The audio- I didn't mind the audio in the 3rd video when it got messy during the windy part, and I could see that you somewhat realized you were in choppy waters when the wind started blowing. You spoke clearly, and even as an American, accustomed to primarily listening to American dialect, I could still understand you- but one thing lacking that would have made it better was a proper Closed Caption track so that you could still be understood. That's just me nit-picking though, as someone who is hard of hearing.

An unsolicited tip: One thing I realized early on, making videos, is that you can't ever have too many audio sources recording. Audio recorders are cheap, and the mics you can attach to them are endless, so it's no issue to run several mics: one source could be the camera's audio, which I typically use for reference. Another option could be a portable audio recorder. Currently I use the Zoom H1, which was about 89 USD brand new. It allows me to pop in my headphones and monitor the audio as it is produced, in stereo, and if need be to connect something like a shirt mic, there is a port for that as well. One thing that I've been experimenting with recently, is if I'm recording outside, I'll also mic the ambient noise about 12 feet away and use that audio track to train an Audacity plugin to filter out errant jarring noises in incidences where loud vehicles or sirens drive past.

Great channel, I subbed, and look forward to new content. Take care! Good luck!

Also, if you haven't seen it already, check out the YouTube Creator Academy (formerly, the YouTube Playbook) which is pretty much a guide entitled "this is how to make money properly on our platform"

edit: corrected Zoom H2 to Zoom H1

<comment><USER10> Thanks for writing up such an in-depth response. I really appreciate your feedback!

I'm working on the audio sources - the two book reviews were recorded with a Blue Yeti, which is awesome, but involved syncing up the audio later which was awkward. I've just taken delivery of a Lav mic (or shirt mic) so I'll see how that works. Early results seem middling - better than onboard mic, not as good as Yeti, but it'll be much better for videos like 'Designing Success'.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One additional one I have liked is Harvard Innovation Labs[1]. There is a Startup Secrets series that has some solid insights. Taught by entrepreneurs and VCs in the Boston area.

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/user/Harvardilab](https://www.youtube.com/user/Harvardilab)

</comment><comment><USER17> I've got a question for you guys! What do you think of Gary Vaynerchuck ?

<comment><USER18> I recall one interview (will look for link) where Gary was asked if he would have followed someone like himself when he was getting started. I remember his answer to be a definite "no". He explained that he was and remains too busy with his business to follow other business gurus. Of course, after hearing this I realized my folly. For me he remains inspiring and charismatic even if his content is (self-admitted) unnecessary for business success.

<comment><USER19> ^This - It is totally true. Lately he has talked a lot about people asking him for permission. They are basically looking for someone to come along and kick them in the arse and tell them to get to work. I used to consume almost everything he put out, but any more I've heard most of what I need from him. I'm in "do" mode now, so not much time for it. Most content is just background noise while I work these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I sometimes watch Harvard Innovation Lab's channel. A few lectures that I found pretty good;

1\. Fake It Till You Make It with Dan Sullivan of Crowdly: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_tKYvPKN7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_tKYvPKN7U)

2\. Turning Products into Companies: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=092JQrye9IM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=092JQrye9IM)

3\. You Have a Great Idea and Nobody Cares: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_oYcUrojhg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_oYcUrojhg)

There was a fourth one that I really liked but I can't remember it at the moment. I'll post it if I remember.

Edit: here we go: 4. Funding Strategies to Go the Distance: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuTdS29M1o4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuTdS29M1o4)

</comment><comment><USER21> I would also suggest: [https://www.youtube.com/user/techomic](https://www.youtube.com/user/techomic) \- which is Justin Jackson's YouTube channel.

It's very weighted to actionable things you can do day to day that continuously improve your marketing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Valuetainment is a pretty gond one: [https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickbetdavid](https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickbetdavid)

</comment><comment><USER23> Stop watching, and start doing.

Well, you may continue to watch, but no amount of watching will teach you what you can attain by actually doing stuff.

</comment><comment><USER24> Eh I was with you until the Nerdwriter1 channel thing, yes the production value is great and they are well made but if you watch other better ones like Every Frame A Painting, Lessons From A Screenplay, Channel Criswell, KaptainKristian, etc you'll notice how his commentary is less than meaningful when it comes to his movie/tv related videos.

<comment><USER10> Nerdwriter covers a vast range of topics, which means a larger market, but clearly his knowledge of any specific area will be weaker.

I particularly enjoyed his videos on poetry. Definitely gave me a new perspective on an art-form I have never really indulged in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Entrepreneurship in Everything" is light-hearted and not as hardcore as some of these others. 3 minute videos that teach entrepreneurship by looking at music/books/films.

Chance the Rapper episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REXasTsQi_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REXasTsQi_8)

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://www.youtube.com/user/Startupfood](https://www.youtube.com/user/Startupfood) TheFamilly chanel, Oussama ammar!

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to make a project to sum up every TED talk in 140 charaters. This way one could consume their whole set of ideas worth spreading in under an hour.

<comment><USER28> Maybe they don't cover all talks, I haven't look into that, but I used the book summary feature quite alot.

[https://www.getabstract.com/en/summaries/video-talks- lib/](https://www.getabstract.com/en/summaries/video-talks-lib/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> time spent watching entrepreneur videos is time you could have spent being an entrepreneur. its time you can never get back.

if you have to watch something then just limit yourself to watching this one until you get the idea: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk)

</comment><comment><USER30> [Googles: "how to entrepreneu"]

NO RESULTS

[gives up]

</comment><comment><USER31> 130 points upvoted in 2 hours, is the voting patterns on this weird or am i looking for conspiracies

</comment><comment><USER32> Gary Vee cheerleading is entrepreneur pollution.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not a channel just a video: [https://youtu.be/L_- k_1WQ5As](https://youtu.be/L_-k_1WQ5As)

 _" Now in this world of ups and downs... So nice to know there are jackalopes around."_

<comment><USER34> Haha!! :P Great! My favorite Pixar short! Nice to see this in the list of "dry" videos!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The amount of "business coaches" on YouTube outshines Moore's law by factor 10.

<comment><USER36> I share the same attitude and tend to push people into a mentality of just getting sh*t done. No amount of videos, podcasts and articles will make you successful. They definitely have their place. I am not saying this is all bad, but some people mistake procrastination for "learning". Myself included.

<comment><USER29> definitely agree, although i would say that podcasts are a lesser evil that youtube videos or articles.

\- some channels or website tend to favour quantity over quality since they can get more ad revenue that way

\- podcasts are generally more professional. not like youtube where its common to find 10 minutes of some person rambling to make a point that should have only taken 2

\- you can fit in podcasts/audiobooks while you do other things, driving, doing chores etc.

<comment><USER36> Agreed, I podcast exclusively during daily commute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good to know I'm not the only one who finds Tim Ferriss cringeworthy.

<comment><USER38> He produces some interesting content, but, I agree: there is something about his style of delivery that is irritating. I tried to quantify it while listening to his podcast but I can't quite put my finger on it.

<comment><USER37> The phrase shameless self-promoter comes to mind.

<comment><USER39> Four hour work weeks are a lot more common in East Hampton, where Ferriss is from. Reminds me of that old phrase from the 70s, "He's a T to T man: Ten to two, Tuesday through Thursday."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Introducing our Global Startup Contest - open for all Entrepreneurs, no regional limitations. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOLAw4nR6IQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOLAw4nR6IQ)</comment>


Emoji resistance - <AUTHOR> https://www.schuth.xyz/2018/01/10/emoji-resistance <comment><AUTHOR> The article is worth reading in its entirety but here is the thesis:

"Emoji is a language of borrowed "words" "curated" by technocrats (experts, presumably of technology, at the Unicode Consortium), who release those new "words" to platform vendors like Apple, Google, Facebook, & Twitter, who then decide how their users can express these "words" by altering their visual representation. (See Emojipedia for myriad examples ranging from humorous differences in artistic taste to clear differences in meaning.)"

I shared the article because it articulates the feeling I've long held that there is _something_ Orwellian about emoji.</comment>


While Kurds fight against ISIS, Turkey shells and attacks them - <AUTHOR> http://anfenglish.com/kurdistan/turkish-army-shells-wheat-silos-in-gire-spi <comment><USER2> The enemy of my enemy is apparently my enemy now a days.</comment>


OneWeb successfully launches 34 more satellites into orbit - <AUTHOR> https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/oneweb-successfully-launches-34-more-satellites-into-orbit-in-second-launch-of-2020 <comment><USER2> On Saturday March 21st I was at the tip of Canada's Point Pelee National Park, approximately 41.909055, -82.509154. At 9:12 EDT (1:12 AM UTC on the next day), I saw a an approximate disordered line of satellites passing above Orion. They were all going at the same speed and in a very similar direction, west to east close to parallel with the belt of Orion. But they were all on slightly different almost parallel tracks. The spacing was more regular, though also a bit irregular.

<comment><USER3> There are a couple of websites out there that give you future and past locations of "Starlink trains", which is what you probably saw.

This site [https://findstarlink.com/](https://findstarlink.com/) does arbitrary locations but not times in the past. As does this one [https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink](https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink) ... presumably if you looked around a bit more than I just did you could find one that does historical viewings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just spent a week at a remote Alaska village 120 miles from Nome to help with the Iditarod. The villages there rely on rural broadband, which is essentially a single satellite-fed community receiver which pushes signal out to access points at each house. Very expensive, slow, high latency, and nasty data caps. It will be interesting to see how these efforts change that monopoly and as a result those communities.

<comment><USER3> Good news, there are several satellite constellations on the way to break that monopoly, including some small ones that just address Alaska.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When will this be available to the general public? I've heard of so many different "internet from space/the sky" schemes from Google Loon to SpaceX to this but I've never once been able to connect to a node to give it a whirl. I'm sure it's a difficult technical challenge but it does seem to be taking a long time!

<comment><USER6> Likely never.

OneWeb is about to go bankrupt. Launching is a way for SoftBank to still claim spectrum rights.

<comment><USER7> As an additional data point, I live in the area and they just furloughed a lot of employees last week. Not sure the exact percentage, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> between this and Elon's stuff, how long till it is impossible to do astronomy or safely launch anything into space?

<comment><USER9> Most astronomy is done with computers. It should be easy for a computer to ignore or subtract all known satellites. If you only get 900 exposures of some new comet instead of 1000, that's still plenty. And we'd need many orders of magnitude more satellites to make 10% of astronomical photos unusable.

I hear the astronomy argument all the time, but I just don't believe it. If satellites are ever cheap and plentiful enough to make that kind of difference, the astronomers can launch a thousand Hubble-style space telescopes and timeshare on those.

<comment><USER10> I believe GP was talking about the ever growing space debris.

[https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/Space_debri...](https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers)

<comment><USER11> These satellites should be in low enough orbits that any junk from them burns up in the atmosphere as their orbits decay. Maybe there could be an issue from collisions in low orbit pushing objects into higher orbits but those likely would be erratic orbits with low points that still subject it to decay.

<comment><USER3> OneWeb's constellation is high enough that it'll take a lot more than 25 years for any satellite that fails to deorbit itself to decay. On the way down, these debris will cross the ISS orbit and the most popular sun-synchronous orbits.

Starlink is lower, but still above the ISS and the SSO at 282km.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> OneWeb will be worse than fiberoptics while Starlink will be better than fiberoptics.

This suggests OneWeb is pretty much doomed to fail.

<comment><USER13> There's no way Starlink will be better than fiber. You have to pay a 25 ms penalty just to play, and then you have the cost of each hop, of which there are many.

<comment><USER14> highly recommend you watch these two latency modelings:

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m05abdGSOxY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m05abdGSOxY)

<comment><USER13> I should also note that many of the simulated Starlink paths between NYC and London are actually higher latency than the best fiber path, which is less than 60 ms ([https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/first- nyclondon-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/first-nyclondon- cable-in-a-decade-promises-sub-60ms-latency/)). The author ignores routing and RF delays in the space network, but compares RTT to the _public_ Internet. A joke.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Code May Be Elegant, but mine ***ing works - <AUTHOR> http://omniti.com/seeds/your-code-may-be-elegant <comment><USER2> And this is the difference between a professional and a programmer.

A programmer program for the sake of technology, while a professional creates value (and weighing ROI)</comment>


Cliff Click's new H2O BigDataBase for fast analytics - <AUTHOR> http://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/h2o-open-source-bigdatabase-for-interactive-analytics <comment><AUTHOR> More info: <http://0xdata.com/faq.html></comment>


Common Lisp - Lazy Evaluation in Tic Tac Toe - <AUTHOR> http://fclaude.recoded.cl/archives/177

<comment><USER2> The DO clause of LOOP has an implicit progn[1], no need to do it explicitly.

Don't be clever with FLET/LABELS, 99% of the time you're doing it out of some vague "information hiding" principle. 99% of the time you end up making it a toplevel function, since local functions just make debugging harder.

A lot of (if (= x 1) ..) and (if (= x 0)) .. type forms are usually a sign you need a readable predicate. (when (foo-p <expr>) .. body)

Array this, array that. Wrap the BOARD type already. You can use classes and structs. This is not Scheme.

Excessive use of REDUCE and LAMBDA is a sign of Schemish hacking. Again, Common Lisp is neither C nor Scheme. The code uses MAP & REDUCE half the time, then AREF, LOOP and SETF the other half. FP-purism is the root cause of code schizophrenia like this. Try to write _pronounceable_ code -- well, relatively speaking.

\--

Ohboy, looking at hyperspec I don't see this spelled out, but it works that way, at least when do is the last/only clause.

<comment><USER3> I disagree with absolutely everything that you wrote. I use flet/labels/map/reduce all the time.

I find that in certain places avoiding statefulness can be a readability advantage.

Nothing wrong with using an array as it is simple and easy to understand.

I probably would have used the symbols :x and :o or 'x and 'o (with eql), just for readability, however.

:-)</comment></comment>


A Landmark Climate Trial Turns on Whether Exxon Cooked the Books - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-22/landmark-climate-trial-turns-on-whether-exxon-cooked-the-books <comment><USER2> I was pretty surprised by the smallness of the claimed fraud. $500M - $1.5B is barely half a percent of the Exxon's market value, which is $300B. Does this mean that the internal projections regarding climate change were / are relatively accurate? What benchmark is being used as the "true cost" in the case?

I had seen before the articles about Exxon's own scientific studies and internal documents showing a very clear understanding of climate change back in the 70s, so I was expecting much more meaningful numbers for the claimed fraud, given how much one would expect it to impact their business across the decades.

<comment><USER3> Those articles seem to overstate their case a tad. For example, here's a quote from one of the internal-use-only documents being bandied around as proof Exxon knew about the impacts of climate change:

"However, the quantitative effect is very speculative because the data base supporting it is weak. The CO2 balance between the atwosphere, the biosphere and the oceans is very ill-defined. Also, the overall effect ofi ncreasing atmospheric CO2 concentration on the world environment is not well understood, Finally, the relative effect of other impacts on the earth's climate, such as solar activity, volcanic action, etc. may be as great as that of CO2."

Sound familiar?

In any case, that doesn't seem to be what this lawsuit is about. If I'm understanding it correctly, Exxon used a higher proxy cost of carbon ($60/ton) in their externally-published justification for why their fossil fuel reserves are unlikely to become "stranded" (economically unviable to extract) due to carbon taxes than they used internally when deciding what would be most profitable to invest money in ($40/ton). The prosecutor alleges that by doing this, they mislead investors into thinking they were applying higher projected carbon costs than they were actually using.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like a very good case. The stranding analysis literally says "We do not publish the economic bases upon which we evaluate investments due to competitive considerations." In addition, higher carbon taxes can affect the profitability of future investments in both directions - making efficiency improvements and clean energy investment more profitable but ones that produce more carbon emissions less so - but only increases the risks of reserves being stranded, so it seems highly prudent to use a higher carbon tax figure than they're actually expecting when assessing the risk of stranding, especially given that it could entirely wipe out the value of their reserves.

<comment><USER4> As Matt Levine puts it, Everything Is Securities Fraud

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They cooked the books like they cooked the Earth.

<comment><USER6> And you and everyone else benefited from the cheap energy that oil provided.

<comment><USER7> I don't recall being given an alternative option. My local power utility burns natural gas, the buses run on diesel, and the local supermarket has only recently begun stocking items that do away with unnecessary plastic. Can someone really be a hypocrite if they are forced out of necessity to use fossil fuels due to a system they had no hand in designing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is paywalled to me, so I googled another article about the same trial. It says: "The industry had the science 30 years ago and knew what was going to happen but made no warning so that preemptive steps could have been taken." [1] Seems like they're just looking for convenient scapegoats. We had public, publicly funded, published science already 40 years ago [2,3].

[1] [https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate- change-f...](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change- fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities- attorney-general)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jule_Gregory_Charney#Charney_R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jule_Gregory_Charney#Charney_Report)

[3] [https://phys.org/news/2019-07-charney-years-scientists- accur...](https://phys.org/news/2019-07-charney-years-scientists-accurately- climate.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> The pretext of the lawsuit is that Exxon misled its investors, but the real aim is to attack a fossil fuel giant. Suing Exxon obviously hurts its shareholders. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial on "New York's Climate Show Trial" [https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-climate-show- trial-11...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-climate-show- trial-11571698112) .

<comment><USER10> Note that it is widely said that the WSJ does good news, but that its editorial section is considered by many to be biased. To quote Wikipedia's summary of that view, "The Journal editorial board has promoted pseudoscientific views on the science of climate change, acid rain, and ozone depletion, as well as on the health harms of second-hand smoke, pesticides and asbestos." They go into more detail at [1].

That's not a statement one way or the other about this particular editorial, but the WSJ editorial page does have a history of climate denial and I'd take their views on this trial with a grain of salt.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#Editorial_page_and_political_stance)

<comment><USER11> The WSJ has gotten much, much worse since it was purchased by the Murdoch empire a decade ago. Even their non-opinion stuff reads like a business tycoon's lens on Fox News. It is absolutely a mouthpiece in the alt-right Murdoch propaganda machine.

<comment><USER12> I think you may be reading a different WSJ than I am

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> And what do these people think would have happened if Exxon had made their findings public? Everyone would have dropped everything and suddenly stopped using oil? How many other companies factor in climate change when valuing their assets? (none) I have nothing but contempt for these activists who try to blame corporations instead of recognizing that it is their own desire for modern convenience that creates demand for oil.

<comment><USER14> We could have had a carbon tax years ago and this is a clear example of the deception that corporations have done in order to avoid that outcome.

<comment><USER13> It's 50 years later and we still don't have a carbon tax even though everyone has known about global warming basically the whole time and much more comprehensive research than Exxon ever did is now public domain. There is about a 0% chance this would have been different if Exxon had released its research.

<comment><USER14> The point is that if Exxon went public with these findings (and in general was more honest about climate change sooner) it would be harder for them and others to lobby politicians against a carbon tax.

Even though the science is clear, nearly every republican congressperson on the relevant committees doubts that humans are the main driver of climate change which is pretty necessary belief if you want to put in a carbon tax.

This same type of argument applies to the large subsidies that exist to this day. It would have been politically much harder to secure subsidies of the magnitude that exist today if they too had research out that supported the scientific consensus.

<comment><USER13> The political hurdle to a carbon tax has nothing to do with Exxon's lobbyists. Politicians are scared shitless of raising gas prices. When France tried to do it recently it caused massive riots.

<comment><USER15> French riots were caused by a large number of things, but the pro-global warming lobby managed to focus public anger on the carbon tax, instead of all the other causes for their economic woes.

Mailing each man, woman, and child two equal cheques, with the words 'CARBON PROPSPERITY TAX', one at Christmas, and one at Thanksgiving would very quickly turn public opinion _towards_ a carbon tax.

<comment><USER10> It wouldn't be as easy as that. A carbon tax will result in higher prices of a lot of goods, including food: anything that has to be shipped has some carbon built into the price, and farming uses a lot of oil-fuelled machines. It wouldn't necessarily be a large increase, but it would make a potent talking point against it. Even if you got it passed, they would see prices rise before the "carbon prosperity check" arrived.

It's a good idea even though there are more difficulties than I mentioned. But it's not an easy sell.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Fractal garden – realtime 3D fractal explorer in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://fractal.garden <comment><USER2> Isn't the thing with fractals that they get more details the closer you get? It feels like there is just one fractal with one detail level, copied and pasted where ever you go.

Correct me if I am wrong, I like the site nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> Fractals have same patten across different scales. For example, the capillaries that carry blood to the lungs have branching pattern that appears to be conserved when viewing them at low resolution or high resolution

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is incredible! If you like this you might also like [1] _Marble Marcher_ , amazing how much detail can be rendered using fractals

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U0XVdvQwAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U0XVdvQwAI) (Video)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is would be nice to have some way of controlling the level of detail that is rendered. And maybe some way to prevent the user from flying into the shape. It's quite disorienting when that happens, all I could see was a white screen (a refresh helped though)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why does it turn white after going in or out after a while? Technically fractals are infinite when zooming into them. Could you add an infinite loop to give this illusion?

</comment><comment><USER6> Fractals are amazing and so is this demonstration.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some of the best Python related talks that you have watched - <AUTHOR> Could include python tutorials/ conference talks/ pycon workshops or anything that can help me understand the language better <comment><AUTHOR> These are some of my favorites: Clean Architectures in python: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJtef410XaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJtef410XaM) Pandas from ground up: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JnMutdy6Fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JnMutdy6Fw) How to write actually object-oriented python: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUvEDg30FyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUvEDg30FyY) It's Time to Learn Regular Expressions: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abrcJ9MpF60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abrcJ9MpF60)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm a big fan of David Beazley for getting into advanced features of Python. He's sometimes a little bit, shall we say, oriented towards the experimental as opposed to "use this in production", but regardless he's a great speaker and a very smart dude. In particular I liked this tutorial on Python 3 Metaprogramming: [https://www.dabeaz.com/py3meta/index.html](https://www.dabeaz.com/py3meta/index.html)</comment>


One small startup, standing up against AliBaba - <AUTHOR> http://www.ip-shark.com

<comment><USER2> Looks awesome! I would love real time updates of counterfeit products as they are posted to ebay, etc - especially in all regions/locales. We automated the process of sending the take down notice once a listing was identified, but we're manually searching & identifying right now. Seems like a good fit for us.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! Are you a manufacturer or providing an IP enforcement service? Either way, feel free to reach out to me at email@example.com. Would love to start any dialogue. We're new and just looking to help out anyone in need =)</comment></comment>


Help with a JavaScript Drop-Down Menu - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know if there's a tutorial somewhere on how to build the kind of drop-down menus seen on Facebook and Versionate? <comment><USER2> The new Dreamweaver CS3 comes with a Spry menu widget, which is probably the easiest to use. You could download a demo here: <http://www.download.com/3000-2048_4-10701454.html>

jQuery has some really cool plugins, which include menu related. <http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins>

Or use some not so new codes from dynamicdrive.com: <http://dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> make sure what you use is primary-browser compliant. if it isn't, make sure there is a fail-safe system of code/css that allows the person to still easily navigate the site. one additional thing: make sure that if your site is to be crawled by search engines, that the menus don't appear "blind" to them as that will reduce their crawling capabilities/performance.

</comment><comment><USER4> onclick="Element.toggle('menu_id')"</comment>


Ask HN: Hackernews and Yahoo Pipes? - <AUTHOR>

I have seen previous users use Yahoo Pipes to filter HackerNews they care about. However, upon attempting to use it, I am receiving the following error:
Invalid XML document: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed.
This is strange to me, because the feed seems to work fine for things like google reader.
Has anyone had similar issues? Any help would be appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> As an addendum, upon trying to search for other users yahoo pipes (and see how they did it), they seem to be broken also.

[http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/search?r=source%3Aycombinator.c...](http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/search?r=source%3Aycombinator.com,source:news.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> Well, it seems to lack the XML declaration (the <?xml... part) and its served as "text/html", but besides that it seems fine, and the W3C validator says it's fine.

Have you tried loading other RSS 2.0 feeds into Pipes? They may be simply have some issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like other 2.0 feeds work fine. I used <http://searchenginewatch.com/rss> as an example. The only difference is defining xmlns:atom and xmlns:dc.

Anyone else have any ideas as what could be causing this?</comment></comment>