Data Point of the Week: Stock Options - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2015/07/30/what-are-stock-options/

<comment><USER2> Promotional voting is not allowed on Hacker News.

We want people to vote for a story because they personally found it intellectually interesting, not because they or their friends or employer have something to promote.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am now on my third startup and have never seen a dollar from my option grants, but I am forever optimistic. I would hate to be in a job where I didn't have at least some component of equity comp. I wonder if that's rational of me? Would love to have the data to show whether or not it's an economically rational decision in aggregate to prefer equity-based comp for startup employees vs. just asking for cash.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the same boat as you. But to play devil's advocate for a moment: it's clear that equity based comp is a better deal for the founders/principals than it is for the employees, especially later (post C and beyond) employees whose equity compensation is but a rounding error in the options pool.

Accessible educational content could help level the uneven negotiation plane that is later stage startup/employee compensation decisions. I don't know if this is the video that could reach the masses, but it's a good start... or, attempt, at least. Maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because money is not the final purpose.. maybe in a utopia, money is only a tool to reach something else. Like John Lennon, I am a dreamer but I'm not the only one.</comment>


Congressman introduces bill to end warrantless Stingray surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/house-bill-end-warrantless-stingray-surveillance-jason-chaffetz <comment><USER2> Why aren't there anti-stingray ROMs or apps yet?

In my, admittedly naive, understanding is that cel towers have signatures. For instance, using Tasker for Android, I can know when I'm near home by the tower it detects. When the Stingray overpowers that tower, can't I just have a tasker task or an app or something that would detect that and shut down my celphone?

*Note: I don't really need this, but if the law wants a tech fight, they should get one.

<comment><USER3> The existing Android solution only works for Qualcomm chipsets [1], so it must require some radio-level access to verify the presence of an IMEI device. You won't be seeing it in the iOS App Store. Maybe someone can find the relevant private APIs to make it happen.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/12/31/snoopsnit...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/12/31/snoopsnitch_is_an_app_by_the_german_srlabs_that_detects_imsi_catchers_stingrays.html)

<comment><USER4> Preventing an iPhone from downgrading to 2G (as a user-configurable option) would solve the problem. 3G/4G/LTE prevents spoofed tower issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea of a 10 year prison sentence for surveillance of cell phones without first obtaining an actual warrant.

<comment><USER5> 10 years seems to be a long time. How ever i do feel that there needs to be a way to keep people that work in the public sector under checks that can affect their personal liberties. it emphasizes the check.

<comment><USER6> The specific number of years is a tunable value. Any prison sentence at all sends an important message about the importance of respecting personal liberties.

As for the length, a good argument can be made that violations done _under the color of authority_ [1] should always be punished more severely than "regular" violations of the law. The people who have the power to enforce the law have much greater power than the average citizen. Abuse of that greater power should require a similarly larger punishment.

That said, I have no idea if 10 years is appropriate. If it isn't I'm sure a better length of time can be negotiated.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_%28law%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_%28law%29)

<comment><USER7> So why not make an abuse of power registry and require people that have been convicted of abusing power to disclose this fact?

It would also be necessary to have hiring institutions publicize that they are hiring a power abuser (i.e., if a police chief didn't care about the previous abuse of power he would still be required to inform the community of the situation).

Someone running for office would be required to do it to, it'd be great, tack "I was convicted of blah blah blah" on somewhere near the "I approve this message".

The above is still a much more substantial punishment than I would want to see for an average citizen that was eavesdropping on cell phone calls.

<comment><USER6> > eavesdropping on cell phone calls

That's not the part that warrants a strong punishment. Jail time is justified for the abuse of power while acting under the color of law. The particulars about that abuse (eavesdropping on a cell phone) is less important.

> registry

While this is an interesting idea, I caution strongly against creating any kind of "registry". The current examples we have seen (e.g. "sex offenders") has shown how registries dilute important concepts like "innocent until proven guilty" when presence on the registry doesn't map 1-to-1 with "found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

Even more worrying is the idea that someone should be tainted for life (or "a long time") for a mistake. Branding people with a modern "scarlet letter" for their mistakes doesn't create an incentive for that person to change their behavior[1]. Once someone has "paid their debt to society", they deserve a 2nd chance that is free of past accusations.

There may be a way to make some aspects of a registry work without these problems, but I'm haven't seen it.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmJay_qdNc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmJay_qdNc) ("The Truth About Dishonesty")

<comment><USER8> Another unfortunate thing about the sex offender registry is that it lumps, e.g., 18-year-olds who had a 17-year-old quasi-consensual partner (whom the law decrees can't actually consent), together with much worse criminals -- at least under some jurisdictions' laws. I suppose an abuser-of-power registry would have similar issues with minor infractors getting too much punishment because people pay more attention to "he's listed" than to what he actually did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly Congressman Chaffetz is a Republican, good to see him stand up for the Bill of Rights rather than give lip service to it.

<comment><USER10> Obviously. If he were a Democrat, since this is something "good", the headline would have said "Democratic Congressman".

Same as if something bad happens the headline will say "Republican Congressman" but leave out party affiliation the other way.

Bias in journalism mostly isn't a matter of just making things up (Dan Rather aside) or injecting blatant opinions into news (though that happens sometimes too), but a matter of which stories get pushed and how they get framed.

<comment><USER11> Dan Rather was likely set up. The gist of his story was true: GWB went AWOL during his "service". Then the media focused on Rather instead of the Bush's behavior. Karl Rove was a genius manipulator.

<comment><USER11> [https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/george-w-bush-was- awol-b...](https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/george-w-bush-was-awol-but- whats-truth-got-to-do-with-it/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do you even need a bill for this? It's against the Constitution!

<comment><USER13> >In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. _The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home._ Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

-James Madison, Speech, Constitutional Convention (1787-06-29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't get why scenarios involving FISA are exempt. Stingray surveillance is a _physically local_ thing - FISA is about spying on foreigners living abroad - is it not? I mean don't privacy laws apply to foreigners visiting the U.S., too?

It seems to have a few too many loopholes for my taste, but I guess it could eliminate 80% of the abusive uses of Stingrays out there.

<comment><USER15> Foreigners living abroad communicate with people in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wouldn't the FISA exemptions for this bill be subject to the same Section 702 loophole that permits PRISM to exist?

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if police will also harass congresspeople, guess we are about to find out.

<comment><USER18> Yes they will, and they already have with this same congressman: [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/secret-service-broke- pri...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/secret-service-broke-privacy-law- embarrass-critic-inspector-general-n436541)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wasn't this illegal already? Or no?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's covered under those more obscure and ambiguous parts of the constitution that law enforcement has always struggled to understand - you know, like the 1st and 4th amendments.</comment></comment>


Top Startups That TechCrunch Missed - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupplays.com/blog/top-35-startups-in-tech-that-techcrunch-missed-out-on-january-2013/

<comment><USER2> I'm certainly not one to think TC is awesome but I only recognized one name on the list (PushBullet) and that's strictly b/c they posted something here on HN yesterday (that I didn't even read). I'm hardly representative of "the world" but I'd guess that I'm probably fairly indicative of your average 35-45yo male in the US. So did TC miss these or is the author just trying to make a sensational headline? I'm going with the latter.

Calling some of these "startups" is just silly also. Name Mesh - it's a combo of a domain name generator/finder and a coupon finding site. Is anyone surprised that NameMesh wasn't picked by TC for a spotlight/piece?

<comment><USER3> There are a lot of hardworking guys and gals out there bootstrapping their startups working full-time jobs that aren't able to spend all their time applying to accelerators or pitching to VC's to attract the likes of TC. I've always enjoyed 37 Signals: Bootstrapped and Proud. So personally, I find it neat to read about these startups. I use a few services that got their start on this list. Pareto could be attributed for the difference in tastes.</comment></comment>


Steve Jobs' grinning turd - <AUTHOR> http://john-smith.appspot.com/steve-jobs--grinning-turd

<comment><USER2> These are just the glyphs for emoji: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji></comment>


Major flaw in Java-based Spring Framework allows remote-code execution - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/011713-java-spring-framework-265923.html <comment><USER2> Not sure about the veracity of this, but:

<https://twitter.com/AlBaker_Dev/status/292415396684918784>

"That was fixed in 2011, Spring 3.0.6 and 2.5.6SEC03, enjoy!"

<comment><USER3> It's valid. Here's more info: <http://support.springsource.com/security/cve-2011-2730>

And here's an overview for all Spring modules: <http://support.springsource.com/security/springsource-all>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is needless scaremongering ! If you write a web application that blindly executes/evals the contents of a request parameter or submitted form data, you need to have to have your head examined and not blame the underlying framework for security vulnerability. These security experts wrote a JSP page with a intentionally flawed code that passes an incoming request parameter to an expression evaluation engine: <spring:message text="" code="${param['message']}"> </spring:message>. what did you expect will happen?

No framework is invulnerable against idiot programmers.

<comment><USER5> you have misunderstood. the problem (afaict - see link below) is that spring may be evaluating where the programmer intended only to display. see my comment at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5083163>

the programmer is _not_ evaluating unvalidated text. the programmer is only _displaying_ it. the bug in spring is causing the _unexpected, additional evaluation_.

see, for example, section 3 of [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dc1xxO8UMFaGLOwgkykYdghG...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dc1xxO8UMFaGLOwgkykYdghGWm_2Gn0iCrxFsympqcE/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1)

<comment><USER4> No I am not mistaken. I have been using this taglib and EL when renedering JSPs. This is how most people use this EL [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10981559/how-to-change- va...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10981559/how-to-change-value-of- code-in-springmessage-code)

[http://www.coderanch.com/t/489232/Spring/spring-message- tag-...](http://www.coderanch.com/t/489232/Spring/spring-message-tag-labels- java) See that ? Nobody is using request parameters because that would be fucking stupid. This is a an Expression Evaluation Engine --- it evaluates expressions. Every programmer who uses this knows this.

Please stop spreading the FUD!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The technical details can be found here: [https://www.aspectsecurity.com/uploads/downloads/2012/12/Rem...](https://www.aspectsecurity.com/uploads/downloads/2012/12/Remote- Code-with-Expression-Language-Injection.pdf)

<comment> brown9-2 So these guys have issued a new report for an issue first announced/reported in 2011?

I'm missing what new discovery they've made, beyond the misleading count of how many people have downloaded the jars from a maven repository.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I guess they are just re-interating that a lot of people are still on 3.0.5 and they might want to look at upgrading.

Here's the original article:

[http://www.mindedsecurity.com/fileshare/ExpressionLanguageIn...](http://www.mindedsecurity.com/fileshare/ExpressionLanguageInjection.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> a rough idea of what is happening here - this is something like sql injection, but for jsp pages. if you use un-sanitized data in a jsp page, evaluated via spring's expression language, then you may execute code, provided by users, on the server.

(expression language can be used elsewhere, but it's not so common and much less likely to received user-supplied parameters)

also, this article [http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/The-ghost-of-a- Spring...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/The-ghost-of-a-Spring- Framework-bug-haunts-old-code-1786850.html) is much clearer about affected versions (3.0.5 and below are bad; 3.0.6 can be fixed via config; 3.1 is ok)

<comment><USER5> i'm worried the above may have confused and incorrectly reassured people, given the other comments here.

this does not require _explicit_ evaluation. it can occur when you were only trying to _display_ the data.

it is a serious bug, not a stupid programming mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I administer some servers running a third-party java application under tomcat. How can i tell whether it uses Spring or a vulnerable template?

<comment><USER5> something like

        find apache-tomcat-7.0.23/ -name "spring*.jar"

should show things like:

        apache-tomcat-7.0.23/webapps/bss/WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
        apache-tomcat-7.0.23/webapps/bss/WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
        apache-tomcat-7.0.23/webapps/bss/WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar

and you need to worry if those version numbers are 3.0.6 or lower. you only really need to worry about the expression language, which is the last one, but i cannot promise it is named the same in other versions.

also, this assumes that the project was built with maven or otherwise uses standard jar names. if the jar was hand-rolled and named then it could look like anything... (in which case applicationContext.xml, as suggested elsewhere, at least warns you it's spring).

<comment><USER4> Are you deliberately spamming this board with FUD ?

spring-beans and spring-core are the fundamental building blocks of most Java EE applications and using them in no way causes the aforementioned vulnerability.

The only case that causes this vulnerability is when a JSP page contains this code : <spring:message text="" code="${param['message']}"></spring:message> Any admin can run fgrep or equivalent on all jsps to see if they contain this text <spring:message text="" code="${param

<comment><USER9> param is not really part of the bug - if I understand correctly, any argument passed to the these tags will be evaluated twice. So you have to check for message/theme/bind/nestedpath/transform tags and ensure no user-influenced data is fed to it.

And if you use a templating engine that uses these tags you'd have to trace whether they are invoked anywhere... So it's not as simple as a grep at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ...how is this different for complaining that "SQL is unsafe because of injection possibilities"?

...do real world Spring web apps _really_ use unsanitized user input with "expression language" queries? (or am I totally missing the point? - not a Spring guy, I admit, but it all reads weird to me)

<comment><USER5> the point is that spring's el was evaluating things _TWICE_.

if i give my name as "$account.increment" then the worst you would expect to happen is that when my name is displayed it appears as "$account.increment". right?

in steps:

      the jsp page contains <cout value="$user">

      el looks at $user and finds the text "$account.increment" and *displays* that.

this is completely ok and does not require input sanitization. the code does not appear unsafe.

but no - there is the possibility that instead of simply displaying the value, spring will (may - i don't understand exactly when this is triggered) _evaluate_ it. in steps:

      the jsp page contains <cout value="$user">

      el looks at $user and finds the text "$account.increment".

      el *evaluates* $account.increment and increments the account.  PLOP!

      el displays the result of evaluating the account.

again: this occurs when the programmer was only intending to _display_ the value. because spring (by mistake) has a _second_ round of evaluation (first is $user to contents; second is contents to incrementing account), text that should simply be _displayed_ can be _evaluated_.

see, for example [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dc1xxO8UMFaGLOwgkykYdghG...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dc1xxO8UMFaGLOwgkykYdghGWm_2Gn0iCrxFsympqcE/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1)

<comment><USER5> an update (edit window is past). it's more complex than i explained above. only a restricted number of tags (spring ones) are affected and you have to be doing fairly stupid things (using user parameters in strange ways). the normal use case of displaying a value is _not_ a risk. sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://github.com/based2/checker-maven- plugin/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/based2/checker-maven- plugin/blob/master/src/main/resources/java_cve.json)

</comment><comment><USER12> I get quite upset when I see companies scaremonger for PR rather than try to help those who are actually doing things.

It seems to follow a particular pattern. Find a bug or bug class in $product. Then start screaming from the rooftops about how the sky is falling without telling people how to stop it or what the problem is. Finally release limited fix info via a mailing list or conference. In the end, everyone loses.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there an up-to-date document of Java security issues somewhere, preferably with explanations?

I don't use Java much these days but I am teaching my kids OOP using Java. I'd like to also take the opportunity to show him where the warts are.

<comment><USER14> > I am teaching my kids OOP using Java.

I'd suggest doing it with Smalltalk, Ruby or Python. If I had to learn to program with Java, I'd open a restaurant.

<comment><USER7> Tons of people have learned to program with Java. Might not be as elegant as other languages but the fundamentals are the same.

<comment> iso-8859-1 Why not use something nice if you have the chance? Using your arguments about fundamentals, it's not even necessary to treat him computer science, he could just learn maths and he has all the foundations he needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > While the vulnerability that Aspect Security uncovered is not "trivial to > exploit," acknowledged Williams, he has no doubt that determined attackers > will do so.

The quotes should cover 'not' as well i.e. "not trivial to exploit".

</comment><comment><USER7> As long as you're not injecting unvalidated request parameters in your JSPs, you will be fine.

<comment><USER16> And if you do this you are a wally anyway...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Meh no worries.

If there is a flaw you probably need to write like 5M of XML to exploit it.</comment>


Hands-on: Firefox for Android may become your favorite mobile browser - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/hands-on-firefox-for-android-may-become-your-favorite-android-browser/ <comment><USER2> I run FireFox Aurora on all my mobile devices now and _finally_ mobile browsing is what I have always wanted it to be. It's very fast, renders very nicely including CSS3 niceties, has Flash support (yes, still handy), and the new UI is well thought out IMO. Some nit-picky issues still (zooming is still quirky and fixed position items move horizontally when the page is panned) but extremely rarely do I use anything else. I honestly can't rave enough about the version coming down the pipe.

<comment><USER3> What's wrong with Maxthon? It does all these, and probably yet a lot more, but being 2.18mb in size.

<comment><USER4> Maxathon is 2.18 MB because it doesn't ship its own rendering engine; it uses the system webkit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using this in beta for a while now. One thing it still doesn't do is use Android intents properly so e.g. if you follow a link to Youtube or the Android Market it won't automatically open the relevant Android app for that content. You can install an app called Choose Browser ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.benhirashi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.benhirashima.choosebrowser&hl=fr)) which lets you "share" a page to it, it will then immediately ask you which what other app you want, which will be your list of installed browsers and any App that responds to that particular URL (e.g. the Youtube or Market App).

<comment><USER6> The patch to fix that is awaiting review and should land in nightly builds soon: <http://bugzil.la/653833>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did a quick test-run on my Xperia Ray, and I have a few questions/comments if anyone can answer them:

\- Is it possible to zoom to a readable level without pinch-to-zoom (double tap is more of a mini-zoom)?

\- The text size settings seem to not have any effect, I even hard-restared the app, yet the font size seems the same?

\- When zooming with pinch, the text doesn't adapt to the new zoom level, so it's either unreadable text due to the size or unreadable text due to having to scroll for every word.

I have a feeling I'm really terrible at using this app, but so far I haven't discovered anything in the menus that would help me.

Chrome is downright unusable on the Ray compared to the stock (don't know if it's the low memory of the Ray or just the "beta" status of Chrome), so I'm still left wandering around for better choices, was hoping this would be it as FF is my browser of choice on the desktop. So far, not looking good :).

<comment><USER6> Firefox reformats text by enlarging it based on the width (like mobile Safari) rather than by re-wrapping it as you zoom (like Android or Opera Mobile).

This means that when you double-tap on some text, it should zoom to the width of the text and that text should already be at a readable size. The "text size" preference determines how much the text is enlarged. It may not work on some pages because we use lots of heuristics to determine whether reformatting text will break the layout, and we are still working on tuning those heuristics.

<comment><USER7> Did some further testing on the 4 websites I actually visit on my mobile, 2 of them have specific mobile versions which look good, 2 of them don't have mobile versions (Hacker News is one of those), and the default zoom is much too small to read anything when double tapping.

All 4 sites load what seems like 10 times faster than the stock, so the thing definitely flies in terms of loading. Based on that I'd switch in a heartbeat, but the zooming kills it. Do you think there will be any options for word wrap and the like in the future? Though I realise I might be in an extreme minority, as the Ray has an hdpi resolution screen despite it being only 3.3 inches, which amplifies the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just a heads up that adblock is available for ff-android (dev version i think). All i'm waiting for is modify-headers and it'll be almost as good as desktop!

loving the recent firefoxes, although aurora seems to crsh a bit for me-- by far the best mobile browser now IMO. The tab selection could be better in landscape though; 80% of the width is unused. Idea: press tab button and move finger l/r to 'scroll' through tab selections (select on release)? Also i wish there was a refresh button in the same spot as 'stop'.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to see a one-finger method for switching tabs in the next version. What I mean by this is the following: On larger phones (pretty much all the new phones), its hard (for most people) to reach the top of the screen to toggle the tab changing button.

Besides that, changing a tab is at least a 2-tap process. The Chrome browser allows tab switching by swiping the edge of the screen; Dolphin HD allows tab switching by pressing the volume buttons; even the default browser allows faster tab switching than firefox as the navigation bar can be accessed by pivoting on the edge of the screen (not on by default).

I use firefox on the desktop, and I'd love to use it as my default browser on android as well. For now, I'm using Chrome. Works well enough for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> For everyone with an incompatible ARMv6 device: I installed the last Nightly Build from [http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/tinderbox- buil...](http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/tinderbox- builds/mozilla-central-android-armv6/) on my ZTE Blade with Custom ICS and haven't run into any troubles yet. It feels quite sleek, well done Mozilla!

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm typing this using on my ASUS Transform Prime using the keyboard dock, with the Nightly Build APK of the latest Firefox browser

My initial reaction is that its its incredibly smooth and responsive - something I have found lacking from other browsers

The stock browser is reliable, but it tends to render pages weirdly and sometimes UI elements can become counter intuitive - probably because most web developers aren't targeting it

And the latest update for the Beta Version of Chrome is completely unusable on the prime, it was crashing not more than 5 minutes into every browser session

This is pretty nice so far, and I'll continue to use it until I find a good reason not to.

<comment><USER12> Mozilla Sync is another great reason to use Firefox. I can easily open tabs from my desktop to the tablet when I'm home...

<comment><USER13> For fairness Chrome does this too.

<comment><USER14> Yes it does. However in my case it is unusable as it constantly duplicates my bookmarks (Ubuntu x64). Are there any fixes for this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone else find that Hacker News is unreadable in it? The comment threads have wildly variable font sizes that mean you have to zoom in and out all the time.

<comment><USER16> Many Firefox developers (present company included :) read Hacker News, so fixing these "font inflation" bugs are on our radar: <http://bugzil.la/707195>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was excited to try this out then I encountered a strange issue: in every website I visit when I type an & symbol into an input element it is replaced with a 7 (e.g. I type "password&" the input shows "password7"). It's happening across all sites for both text and more importantly password inputs so I can't login to many of sites I regularly visit and really try the app. Anyone have any ideas?

<comment><USER16> I'm a developer on the Firefox Mobile team and deal with most keyboard bugs.

What Android device are you using? Is only the & symbol affected?

Are you using Android's default virtual keyboard or a third-party virtual keyboards? Every third-party keyboard has its own unique "quirks", so working around them is like playing Whack-A-Mole. :)

<comment><USER17> Thanks for they reply! I'm using a Droid Bionic, android version 2.3.4 and this is on the default virtual keyboard. Ampersand is the only character affected as far as i can tell.

<comment><USER16> I opened a new bug on Bugzilla to track this issue: <http://bugzil.la/768727>

That is a strange problem. I'm not sure why SHIFT+7 would be treated any differently than SHIFT+6 or SHIFT+8. Part of the challenge of Android development is getting a hold of all the devices that need to be tested. :)

<comment><USER16> btw, this bug is probably a regression from my "fix" for <http://bugzil.la/755517> where some keyboards produced key code ALT+7 instead of SHIFT+7.

Sorry! <:)

<comment><USER16> I landed a fix for this bug in Firefox's Nightly 16 and Aurora 15 channels. The next update to Firefox 14 and Firefox Beta in the Google Play store should include this fix, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the important question for me is: does it insert stuff into the stack of views I'll see when I hit the back button or not? It really annoyed me when the default web-browser started doing this in ICS.

<comment><USER16> It does. Like you said, Chrome Beta and the ICS stock browser also using the hardware Back button as a browser Back button, so this seems to be the UI design consensus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure of it is just my phone or a general problem, but the beta version is like browsing through jello. Most of the time, I have to guess if it has registered a tap or not. Looks incredible though.

Note that Opera has little sluggishness on the same phone, even with a bunch of tabs open.

<comment><USER8> just you i think. my sgs works perfectly w/ firefox (although i use cm9 and aurora).

<comment><USER19> Oh? I'm just using the official v2.2 from Samsung. I'll have to install cm9 and see if that fixes some things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh wow, so it's the best mobile browser I've used until now.

Unfortunately being pre-Beta means it's buggy and I encountered some issues in the first minutes of usage, but I can't wait for it to get to the final release.

</comment><comment><USER21> Mozilla must've wanted to show this now before Google I/O. They must know Google is making Chrome the default browser in Android 4.1 and beyond.

<comment><USER22> And Android 4.1 will get _what_ Market penetration? Chrome already doesn't support the vast majority of phones out there, whereas this Firefox release does.

Chrome can't compete on phones it doesn't run on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just tried it out. It is actually very good. Wonder whether there's any gesture support for browsing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I prefer Opera. Neither Firefox nor Chrome work submitting items to HN. Don't know why

</comment><comment><USER25> Apparently still no MP3 support for html5 audio. :(

</comment><comment><USER26> It is already.. :)</comment>


Serverless Microservice Patterns for AWS - <AUTHOR> https://www.jeremydaly.com/serverless-microservice-patterns-for-aws/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately I still host this blog on Wordpress! Just scaled capacity! Should be available now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Needs more server-less to cope with the load :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Same. I have tried multiple times.</comment>


Quora: What are the best Hacker News posts ever? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-Hacker-News-posts-ever

<comment><USER2> I'm really enjoying Quora, I don't what they did to promote this, but the participants are many times the subject of the questions or insiders in companies, etc.

How did this not become another Yahoo! Answers?

<comment><USER3> To me it's easy to see why: I have to create an account (or connect w/ FB) to even see what the heck it is. No thanks. Today is the first time that I've seen anything on Quora beyond the home page. Apparently linking directly to a question allows visitors to see the question but the home page that I see says to me, "Login or Connect w/ Facebook to use this site"

<comment><AUTHOR> Quora is high quality. You're missing out.</comment></comment></comment>


Snails production and trade in France - <AUTHOR> http://www.frenchkpi.com/snails-production-and-trade-in-france/ <comment><USER2> I'm Greek, I love snails, but I had no idea Greece is the major exporter to France. Actually, I had no idea they were actually bred, certainly not at an industrial scale. Back when I lived back home, people just picked them up from the countryside after a good rain.

I'll have to share that link with some Greek friends, they'll find it very funny- thanks for posting.</comment>


The techie/non-techie divide #1: content versus metacontent - <AUTHOR> https://lopsa.org/node/1566

<comment><USER2> The content/meta-content concept is pretty forced. The reason we technies know that something like Spotlight search must be creating "meta-content" (ie. an index) is because we know through experience that grepping 100GB HD is not going to be performant, so we know something must be going on under the hood.

I think the divide is simply that techies automatically think algorithmically about how everything works. Everyone expects technology to work the way the way they need for their use case, it's just that techies are quicker to think about what is logically feasible or why it might not be working. We are natural debuggers as well, so we rarely get stumped with technology for long.

There is also one other class of people... the technophobes, like my mother, who is scared to do _anything_ with technology lest she accidentally sever her email connection and erase all her data by double-clicking something she was supposed to click or vice-versa.

<comment><USER3> I agree that thinking algorithmically about things is a part of what divides techies from non-techies, but I think a part of that is what information an algorithm has access too.

This is what I think the author is saying. With the TiVo example, techies know that the only information available is 1) when the show was recorded and 2) if there is some flag about saving on the show. Take that information, and we quickly come up with the most natural algorithm (FIFO + check "save till" date).

I don't think the TiVo example is a good example though. Here, the problem is the data to use exists, but isn't being populated. The example with the picture is better. Think about explaining how google images comes up with pictures. Lots of people think its searching the contents of each image so when you search for "Saddam Hussein" it comes back with pictures of him. In reality, its searching what the author calls "meta data" and just doing it extremely well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This quote is a great example of how to help friends and family with tech issues w/o pissing them off in the process: _I've banished from my vocabulary in dealing with users the question: "what did you expect to happen?" (intoned inquisitively with stress on the word happen, not sarcastically with stress on the last syllable of expect). Because what the user hears when you ask that question is, "you disagree with the computer. The computer's right, you're wrong. So 'fess up on your idiocy, and I'll have a nice laugh with my techie friends later at your expense." Instead, I said to my friend, "oh, no! Still... I bet there are some people out there who really love their Project Runway reruns, and don't care for The Shield that much. How do you wish the TiVo had worked differently?"_

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I think that is the best part of the article, much more important than the divide he discusses. When trying to explain why something works the way it does, say three things: 1) Some people might want it the way it works now. 2) How should the technology know you want it this way. 3) Show how the user can tell the technology what it wants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not convinced of the premise either. A major tenet of computer theory is that programs _are_ data. The distinction between "data" and "metadata" is merely for human convenience, as is the distinction between "code" and "resource".

If techies are the ones who accept this false dichotomy and non-techies are the ones who don't, I'd say it's us who need to adjust our position, not the other way around.

<comment><USER3> The distinction being made here is not technical but conceptual. Data is what we care about, meta data is how we reference what we care about.

Really, the difference is between "data we can parse" and "data we can't parse (quickly) or isn't even there." At least, thats what I think he means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is _a_ distinction, but _the_ distinction? I'm not convinced of the broad applicability of the divide.

</comment><comment><USER7> The real fundamental divide is between those who can deal with multi-layered abstractions and those who cannot.

"The Camel Has Two Humps":

<http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/>

<comment><USER8> I found that paper really interesting, but didn't see multi-layered abstractions mentioned at all. It just said people must be able to deal with the "meaninglessness" of the syntax of computer programs.

Anyway, I'd love to read more about this if you have any more links to share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The TiVo story feels to me like a particularly egregious case of non-techie misunderstanding. I'd be very surprised if any of my friends or family, even the least technical among them, expected their TiVo to choose what to delete according to their valuation of its content.

I can imagine someone not realizing TiVo will delete shows at all, and perhaps expecting a 'Your TiVo is full!' warning, but it's hard to believe someone complaining 'It deleted x when I would have preferred for it to delete y.'</comment>


Why Japan's Rail Workers Point at Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains <comment><USER2> I noticed the problem on myself on several occasions and kind of invented the same solution.

For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill".

Another: sometimes I'd lend some amount money to a colleague, and a few weeks later I'd have a hard time figuring whether they gave it back, and they too. Solution: I tell them to hit me (or do some other stupid thing) when they give the money back, so we both remember.

Going even further, sometimes I have to set a reminder to myself like "take an umbrella when leaving tomorrow morning because it's gonna be raining". Putting umbrella close to the exit, or doing a phone reminder do not always work, particularly when I'm in a hurry. One thing that works is doing some notable physical disruption in the environment, like putting a can of tomato sauce, _upside-down_ , close to the exit.

<comment><USER3> Ah, yes. The old upside-down-tomato-sauce-can-next-to-the-door-to-remember-my- umbrella trick.

That's always been a classic.

The first couple of times I tried it, it didn't work very well. I was trying to leave in the morning, and I tripped over the can, and I was all, "Who the fuck put a can of tomatoes in front of the door?" And I kicked it out of the way and left without my umbrella.

Then I realized I wasn't going deep enough. You have to open the can of tomatoes and put the open top on the floor. You have to do it fast or it spills.

The next morning, I tripped over the can and knocked it over. And now there was slippery tomatoes all over my floor in front of my door. So of course I slipped in it and fell down, hurting my elbow and head more than I wanted to at that time of the morning.

So at this point, I decided that I could just work from home. After I cleaned up the upside down tomatoes.

The moral of the story is that, no, I didn't remember the umbrella at all. But! I no longer needed it.

<comment><USER3> Wow. This is by far my most highly rated post on hacker news.

I want to clarify that this is utter bullshit, and that I don't actually do this. Well, most of this. I have easier ways of working from home. Like, I put an event on my boss's calendar that says I'm working from home.

And I hate umbrellas. I fucking hate them. If you live in New York City and you use an umbrella, I want you to go home and die right now.

You have no idea of the space that you are taking up with those things. You have no respect for your fellow humans. I hate you. And I don't want to live in this world with you.

Get a little wet. Don't stab me in the eyeball with your stupid, incompetent umbrella that you aren't paying attention to.

I have a little note next to my door that says: don't take the umbrella--It's a jackass thing to do.

Guess what happens. I never take the umbrella. The tomatoes thing was a joke, for those of you who missed it.

<comment><USER4> Wow. An umbrella fundamentalist. Is there a law of the internet that for every trivial thing you can find someone with absurdly strong opinions leaving comments about it?

<comment><USER5> > _Is there a law of the internet that for every trivial thing you can find > someone with absurdly strong opinions leaving comments about it?_

There has to be, it's one of the few constants of the internet.

That said: you merely have to experience umbrellas in a high-density environment a couple times before those opinions are the only rational response. Umbrellas are hostile to everyone within reach. (corollary: whenever that number remains at zero, they're perfectly fine)

<comment><USER6> But it does work in Tokyo, maybe it's the people

<comment><USER3> I'm specifically talking about NYC.

It's definitely the people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you don't point to the knot on your harness when calling out that you are tied in, and we don't audibly call out "On belay... belay on" to each other, we aren't climbing together.

These exact same rituals have been developed for climbing because everyone, experienced, and inexperienced, can make mistakes.

The greatest climber of her generation (of any gender!), Lynn Hill, opens her autobiography with the story of how she was distracted while tying in, and nobody thought to check her, because, well, she's LYNN HILL.

She climbed 75' up an easy (for her) warmup climb, called for tension on the rope, sat back, and fell the entire distance to the ground. She was very lucky to survive.

<comment><USER8> Does that say 75 _feet?_ How on earth do you survive that?

<comment><USER9> By landing correctly; mostly not on your head, and not at a bad angle for the spine.

Soft ground beneath also helps.

<comment><USER10> What is a bad angle for the spine? I don't usually fall large distances, but something like this seems useful to know, just in case.

<comment><USER11> I've done some bouldering and although I don't know what the actual best is, you don't want to land directly on your back or front (flat) and you never want to land on your head of course. I learned to try falling with legs slightly bent in a mostly upright position. Someone with more experience can give you better info though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Slightly off topic but this practice of talking-out-loud to get yourself doing stuff is also beneficial to people with executive dysfunction. If your executive function is impaired you generally don't have the "internal monologue" or the voice in your head. This makes seemingly simpler things like taking a shower, driving, or eating, very difficult! I'd often "forget" to eat, simply because I could not get myself to start.

I found that it helps to announce (not necessarily loud) what I am to do, and the steps to do so. ("Okay we're going to get up and walk to the kitchen.", "We're walking now")

Though for some reason I use plural pronouns for myself -- we, us etc. Does somebody else do that too? :)

<comment><USER13> This technique is also useful for software development, and is referred to as rubber duck debugging ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging)). Verbalizing your problem lends you another point of view to your thinking and often allows you to discover the problem yourself.

<comment><USER14> Writing detailed commit notes can be useful in the same way. I have backed out of a commit during the write up more times than I would like to admit because I realized that I hadn't covered some edge case or I completely forgot about something (like the effect of the change on a report or other sub-system). Writing things out in a way that someone else can understand forces you to re- think through the task in different ways.

<comment><USER15> I've read that adding the "BUGS" section to man pages in the early days of UNIX had a similar impact. The developers got so embarrassed by the content that they decided to fix the bugs instead.

<comment><USER16> It is similar with the product we are developing. When I need to explain to the user how some feature is used, I often end up redesigning said feature so that explaining should not be needed. Makes for a much better UX. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a strict rule that I must touch my keys before closing the front door, because I discovered the keys in my memory don't open the door as well as the keys in my pocket.

<comment><USER18> Same. I have a "keys-wallet-phone-pad" routine in which I make sure my pockets contain all of: my keys, my wallet, my cell phone, and the 7-inch tablet that I carry everywhere. I've gotten into the habit of doing it every time I get up if I'm not at home or at my desk at work.

<comment><USER19> I used to have a doormat that said "mobile phone, keys, wallet" (in Swedish) [https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/58/df/7f58...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/58/df/7f58df33259cf51ca28c60e2b566e286.jpg)

These days I just tap my pockets. I freak out if I do that check when I happen to be holding onto my phone or keys

<comment><USER20> I use this technique too. Very, very effective. Unfortunately I often cary a pocket radio, which I unconsciously note as either wallet or phone. Have started to use its clip to attach it to my shirt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This also applies to aviation. While pilots execute the same checklist several times each day, year after year, it is still required to verbally call the items on the list. It feels a bit strange doing it when you're sitting in a cockpit alone, but it does really improve accuracy and ensures you're following the same procedure every time whether there is a co-pilot, instructor or nobody sitting in the other seat.

I've never learned actually pointing at the instruments, but I can imagine it helps to focus for example very clearly on doing a check of a specific instrument instead of just saying "checked" out of habit. The problem of course is that you need your hands for other things at the same time, so pointing would be unsafe to do at the controls of a plane.

<comment><USER22> My wife got yelled at by an instructor today for verbalizing "airspeed alive". Something she does as she rotates to determine if she wants to abort before she's committed.

After she relayed the story I mentioned this thread and we both decided the guy was nuts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> When debugging in production environments (which is always a bad idea) I use a technique where I always work together with a coworker and before I'm about to do something destructive I say out loud what I'm going to do and ask for agreement that I should continue. I started this after reading what happened at Gitlab a month ago.

<comment><USER24> I do that on Slack—sometimes with a coworker keenly following along, and sometimes when I'm the only one awake.

<comment><USER23> That is a good idea: to do it in Slack even if no one is there. Forces you to slow down and be conscious of what you are doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think that the root of this goes back all the way to Zen-type of thinking. In Zen, it's often taught that mind is elusive/delusive and action matters. "Mindlessness (mu-shin)" is often thought of the best way of carrying tasks, and I see a similar principle in many traditional martial arts/craftsmanship; a new learner should just do certain tasks without thinking/questioning, and eventually their muscle memory will learn it. It's conceivable that people applied the same principle for safety.

I also think that this illustrates the difference between the Western religions and Japanese (or Asian) religions. Western religions are mostly declarative; you need to believe such and such statements. Whereas Japanese religions are procedural, i.e. doing rituals is more important than believing.

<comment><USER26> It does sound very similar to plane checklists where the pilot has to call every item verbally.

<comment><USER27> Yes, you're right! My father was an Air Force pilot and then flew a private plane into his 60's. for 40 years he religiously followed the checklists, calling out and pointing to the relevant part of the plane for each item on the list: "windows and doors, check; wing flaps set for takeoff; seats latched; seat belts locked; etc."

[http://www.mooneyland.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/Mooney_...](http://www.mooneyland.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/Mooney_M20C_Checklist.pdf)

I work on medical software now. It's kind of a well known story now how doctors are resistant to using checklists, like pilots do, even though it has been proven in studies to reduce medical errors.

It's an interesting idea that maybe we could employ a form of point-and-call checklist system in software development or operations.

<comment><USER28> > It's an interesting idea that maybe we could employ a form of point-and-call > checklist system in software development or operations.

Maybe copy/pasting. Highlight part of the code, copy. Go to gedit (or whatev) and paste. Doing this while "calling it".

<comment><USER29> Collaborative general purpose editors nowadays show one user's text selection to other users, so this is straightforward to implement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The US Navy uses much of this as well. For example, here's an aircraft carrier launch from inside the "bubble" (the control area that actually triggers the steam catapult). The officer repeats the mantra aloud for each aircraft and points at the people he's checking. If you watch a similar video taken above deck you can see each responsible person point at the system they are monitoring before giving the thumb's up.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMwrMDd2gUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMwrMDd2gUE)

The comments have an explanation of each phrase in the mantra (e.g., "104 set match" refers to a steam power of 104 (units unclear) and that it matches the board for cross-checking).

<comment><USER31> More on the Navy usage can be found in David Marquet's book: "Turn the Ship Around" about his time improving training / operations on a submarine he commanded. Every one had to announce their intention to do an action before actually doing it, this gave others the chance to identify when someone was going to take an incorrect action before it happened.

It's a really great, short read that I'd highly recommend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow this is fascinating. Clockwork, like everything else in Japan. I first noticed this when in Kyoto. The driver would point at the schedule, speedometer, sensors and all else. I found it slightly odd but made a mental note to google it later, which I eventually forgot.

<comment><USER33> I think the "clockwork" reference is somewhat overrated. Local trains are often late due to wind or snow ..

<comment><USER34> Do you live in Hokkaido? Or maybe on a really local branch? I live in Tokyo, take around four trains a day on many different lines and that is just not the case here.

<comment><USER19> My experience with Tokyo (I only visit about once a year, live in Kyushu) is the trains there are always off-schedule due to "accidents" :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I do this (subvocally) when hopping between dev and prod. "I'm looking at production. I'm checking this query is the one I think it is. I'm running it now. I'm closing production."

<comment><USER36> I make the same mistakes when looking at code from two different but similar projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> There is a similar situation in NYC [0].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M)

<comment><USER38> It's more than just paying attention: if the conductor can line their finger up with the zebra board for their train, they've guaranteed that the train is completely within the station. Opening the doors where there is no platform is one of the few fireable offenses (others include using a phone on the job). The zebra boards have the train model written on them -- in this case, R160 [1]. While it would be easier for the driver to just stop the train at the very end of the platform, this would be pretty inconvenient for passengers on the end of the platform when a shorter train rolls in.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_(New_York_City_Subway_car...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_\(New_York_City_Subway_car\))

<comment><USER39> Having the driver stop at the end of the platform wouldn't really be a substitute. What counts is that the conductor in the middle of the train physically observes that the train's registration is correct before they open the doors. (Drivers never open the doors.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is the same as they do for climbing. "on belay" and so forth. I think it's also like trigger discipline for firearms, in the broader sense of developing habits that make accidents less likely.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's related to the checklist system used by pilots, which is incredibly effective at reducing mistakes.

The Samurai sword making system is also very ritualized, which enables the complex procedure to be memorized and carried out without mistakes.

Other systems of reducing mistakes are making things rhyme, which adds a bit of redundancy not unlike error-correcting digital codes. Double-entry bookkeeping is another scheme.

</comment><comment><USER42> My dad's side of the family are a bunch of sailors, and there's a lot of verbal clues you give to other people on the boat when you're sailing. "Ready about" means we're about to tack.

My uncle was sailing a multi-day solo race, and he felt like he was just getting scattered. He started saying everything he would have said outloud-- saying "ready about" to no one, ordering himself to raise the spinnaker. He said everything ran much more smoothly once he started doing that. :D

</comment><comment><USER43> Six Flags Magic Mountain does this before launching a roller coaster. An operator announces "Visual Scan", points their hand at one end of the cars, and sweeps it along to the other.

<comment><USER44> You can see pool lifeguards do the same visual scan with pointing. Their gaze sweeps over the pool in a pattern, following their pointing finger. It seems effective in making them look at individual swimmers instead of just looking at an area of the pool in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I actually just paid real attention to this pointing technique on my way home today for the first time. This isn't just a puff piece for a technique that only a few workers do.

</comment><comment><USER46> I've taken the bus often and the driver always announces when he breaks, accelerates, and takes curves, is this for the same reason?

People have explained to me that the driver announces everything so that standing passengers don't fall over, but I'm skeptical.

<comment><USER47> > People have explained to me that the driver announces everything so that > standing passengers don't fall over, but I'm skeptical.

That makes sense actually, especially if many passengers are elderly. Around here the bus drivers don't announce what they do, but they take off and brake significantly less abruptly when they have unseated elderly passengers (either looking/reaching for a seat or standing to get out).

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> We had the same sort of routine as this as factory workers in Japan so that we wouldn't forget to check/do soemthing. These explicit motions help you hit all the necessary components each time when working with hundreds of repetitions a day.

<comment><USER49> It was also doctrine for emergency procedures and anything at a heightened level of care as an engineer at a company (in hkmurakami's neck of the woods, at a company in a region where a certain large automobile manufacturer sets a lot of the engineering culture).

<comment><USER48> "Xyz Yoshi!" Right? ;)

(Yoshi = good/clear)

<comment><USER49> I remember a lot more 作動開始/作動確認! than よし but it has been a while.

<comment><USER48> Ohh Kakunin! Brings me back!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There are quite a few comments here on the use of checklists. Dr. Atul Gawande wrote at length about their usefulness in "The Checklist Manifesto".

We've released an iPhone app, Koantify Checklists:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koantify- checklists/id115800...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koantify- checklists/id1158001939?ls=1&mt=8)).

It's a voice responsive app (i.e., Siri-like) for creating, maintaining, using, and sharing checklists.

(Based on the post we're commenting on, I guess our next step would be to recognize gestures like pointing...)

The app steps you through tasks by voice or text, and responds to your voice commands (it tries to provide optional "hands-free" operation as much as possible).

When you complete your checklist, the app optionally emails you (or a list of people) a detailed record of completion of the checklist, showing steps you completed, skipped, or possibly had to repeat.

For organizations, it's easy to export/import checklists. You can distribute by email, via iCloud, or you can download checklists from web links. For training, use of a checklist provides important reminders of how things should be done.

Feedback, comments, suggestions are most welcome.

</comment><comment><USER51> Been living in Japan for a while now and I've noticed this too. I always admired it. It suggested a high level of conscientiousness. Made me feel safer on public transit. Interesting to learn of the real world benefit of these type of mnemonic tricks. I do some things like this when doing operational work as a devops engineer. Helps me avoid fat finger mistakes. I also do the classic, "wallet, phone, keys" check whenever I leave the house.

<comment><USER52> My father used to (and probably still does) call out "spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch" before leaving the house.

<comment><USER44> Testicles == zip your fly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've lived in Japan off and on for a number of years. "Pointing and shouting," and other similar gestures, are used all over the place. I typically heard it referred to as "yubisashi kakunin," which basically means "confirm by pointing with your finger." I've seen elevator attendants do it when operating the buttons, and cashiers will verbalize the counting of change, and hand it back in a very animated way, which I believe is the same sort of thing.

Where I live, I think a company would have to really work to get their employees to do it, but in Japan, it seems to have become a part of the culture. My wife, who is from Japan, does it while she's cooking to make sure she hasn't left anything out.

</comment><comment><USER54> Very interesting! The word 'embarrassing' comes up a lot, but I wonder why this would be perceived as embarrassing compared to, say, the ritual bowing to empty carriages that takes place on Japanese trains. Or simply compared to the gesturing that takes place in other professions like the construction industry.

Without knowing the psychology behind it, a good guess would be that it derives from the sense that observers may not understand one's intent in pointing, and could prob be alleviated by using some kind of beacon like those used by aircraft marshallers.

<comment><USER55> Good point. If it's seen as professionals doing their job, then it ceases to be embarrassing. In turn, you can then dismiss people that giggle about it as ignorant fools and, well, ignore them.

When I watch a referee in a sport I don't know, the shouting/pointing/gesticulating seems funny, but nobody would consider the referee's job to be embarrassing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> In Sanskrit, there's a poem about hand gestures:

"Yato hasta stato drishti"..."Where the hand is, the eyes follow"

"Yato drishti stato manaha"..."Where the eyes go, the mind follows"

"Yato manaha stato bhava"..."Where the mind is, there is the feeling"

"Yato bhava stato rasa"..."Where the feeling is, there is mood"

</comment><comment><USER57> In aviation there are similar methods of doing checklists:

Say - Do: pilot not flying says the task, pilot flying verifies verbally after doing it.

Challenge - Response: challenge the check list, verbally respond (do the action)

Flow-Confirm: Do all required actions then verbally confirm.

In any case, the verbal and physical confirmation is needed to move on in the checklist.

When flying solo I do "Say-Do"

</comment><comment><USER58> This is similar to a yoga in the Hindu religion. I read about this a while back. When performing this yoga, you call out every action silently or quietly. So, for example, when picking up your cup of coffee..."I am going to pick up this coffee", then.."I picked up the coffee".

I have to go look this up again.

<comment><USER59> Yoga in itself is religion. Can be done irrespective of one being Hindu or not

<comment><USER34> Yoga is just a practice in itself. One need not subscribe to other practitioners' beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I consider the article's title to be clickbaity. The fact of the story is why the workers point at things and there's an interesting explanation behind it. Saying they can't stop, however, isn't a true statement and would have been much better if they stated the real affirmative.

<comment><USER2> I think it's playing on a meme of "Kim Jong Il looking at things" and similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> God that's cool. I have a habit that seems like a variant of this. Every change I write has a description of how it's tested. Sometimes that can be as brief as "unittests," but for riskier changes I sometimes write several paragraphs.

</comment><comment><USER62> I was in Japan eight years ago and saw this but never understood what was going on. I have a video of a conductor pointing over and over and over again I made a gif out of. I am enthused to know what was going on.

</comment><comment><USER63> Reminds me of "talk to your rubber duck"...

</comment><comment><USER64> I realize that I've been doing it naturally (although not all the time) when reading check lists in the cockpit (I'm A-340-330 pilot). I'll do it more consciously from now on.

</comment><comment><USER65> That's very interesting. I do it myself, but not because I had any idea it really worked, it's just habit. When I am hitching up our trailer and getting ready to set out on a road trip, I walk around it pointing at things and calling them out loud to myself -- hitch pins, safety pins, sway bars, various things that have to be stowed, etc. Now I can tell my wife it's not because I'm senile, but because it works :)

</comment><comment><USER66> So, in Japan there's a superhero franchise on television called _Super Sentai_ (you might know it as where _Power Rangers_ gets their source footage from). Each year, they do a different _Super Sentai_ series with its own distinct theme. Well, in 2014, they did a train-themed series called _ToQger_ ( _ToQ_ being a cutesy spelling of _Tokkyū_ , meaning "express train"). The show is absolutely _full_ of references to everything to do with trains; the theme is present everywhere.

Pre-battle poses are tradition in _Super Sentai_ , and _ToQger_ was no exception. Specifically, the pose ends with the team's leader dramatically pointing while calling _shuppatsu shinkō_ , which basically means "all aboard!".

I always wondered what the pointing was for, and now I know.

You can see the pose here: [http://i.imgur.com/0DugYRe.png](http://i.imgur.com/0DugYRe.png)

Edit: And when they combine their mecha together, they point and call as each of their vehicles link up: [http://i.imgur.com/Lct4XQl.png](http://i.imgur.com/Lct4XQl.png)

</comment><comment><USER67> I listened to a podcast about police doing something similar. When two officers we're approaching a situation way office would call or multiple times before taking an action. For example, "TASER! TASER! TASER!". this helps the other officer from mistaking the sound of the taser firing for a firearm.

</comment><comment><USER68> MTA train conductors need to do something similar in the New York metro, as there is a striped black-white sign they need to point to at each stop (it gets recorded on camera):

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4178532](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4178532)

<comment><USER69> It's in the article :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> It makes a lot of sense, you are performing a physical act, a visual act and a verbal act together, all reinforcing each other. Once it becomes an ingrained habit, anything that doesn't match the common result sticks out. I presume overcoming your fear of looking stupid is the hardest part.

</comment><comment><USER71>
          If your memory is going bye bye......and you want it to come back! 1st. Go on YouTube and watch these videos there about 30 or more. Each video covers a specific topic. In one episode the demonstrated how eating berries improves your short term memory. Look for.....BBC The Truth About Food....

2nd. Eat healthy and exercise. 3\. Step away from the TV/Computer/ Cell Phone about 2 - 3 hours before bed. The light from these electronic devices will keep you awake! 4\. Try to get 7-8 hours sleep daily. 7-8 hours?.....Imagine your brain to be like your workshop. When you wake up in the morning(after a great nights sleep) its nice and clean. Everything is accessible and easy to find. By the end of the day the place is a mess. Now if you leave the place a mess....your brain stays cluttered up. Then when you go to sleep.....and wake up the next day.....you have a hard time getting right to work because you have to search for everything! When you get a great nights sleep.....7-8 hours.....your brain gets flushed by chemicals that clear out all the clutter. Think defragging a hard drive. When a hard drive is not defragged it slows the computer down. When you get poor sleep your brain starts getting overloaded with clutter...and in time that clutter compresses and starts affecting your memory. 5\. There is a great book called The 150 Healthiest foods on earth. You should go look it up and see what it says about blueberries. Blueberries are the only food known (as far as I know-from this book) to grow new neurons in our brains. 6.I've worked crazy hours for almost 10 years traveling. Each day was different. I had no set hours and slept when I wasn't working. I put on quite a bit of weight and ate to sleep and ate to stay awake. I averaged 4-5 hours of inferior sleep that affected my memory. I also ate crappy food because I was traveling all of the time. Now that I am home and eat healthy I find that eating oatmeal and honey 2-3 hours before sleep helps me fall asleep easily and I average about 7 hours of quality sleep per night. I also eat a lot less, exercise and eat blackberries and blueberries every morning.

</comment><comment><USER72> Next time your on the NYC subway watch for the conductor as the train comes to a stop. They always point out the window at a marker that helps them know where to stop the train. Seems to be a very minimal version of what this article is taking about. But I always get a kick out of it.

<comment><USER73> _A notable exception is New York City's MTA subway system, whose conductors have used a modified point-only system since 1996 after then Chief Transportation Officer Nathaniel Ford was fascinated by the point-and-call system during a business trip to Japan. In the MTA's case, conductors point to a fixed black-and-white "zebra board" to confirm a stopped train is correctly located along the platform._

 _According to MTA spokeswoman Amanda Kwan, conductors were quick to adapt to the new system, and within two years of implementation, incidents of incorrectly berthed subways fell 57 percent._

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Suppose you've gotten used to doing this and have the pointing and speaking sequence and associated actions such as reading gauges thoroughly memorized.

If at that point you replaced actually pointing and speaking with just visualizing and audiolizing [1] that you are pointing and speaking, respectively, would you retain the performance improvements?

[1] There does not seem to be a widely accepted word for the audio equivalent of visualizing. Some discussion: [http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1635/visualized-e...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1635/visualized- equivalent-adjective-for-audio)

<comment><USER75> Vocalise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I've been playing this "brain training" game called Peak and one of the tasks is to memorize the names of some places that I don't even think actually exist. I struggled to remember it until I started mentally writing out each name. My finger, even though it wasn't moving, felt each word as it was written. I went from recalling approximately 80% to almost 100% of (so far) 9 places to remember.

It totally increases your consciousness and once you actually realize what's happening, you want to be that present everywhere. Unfortunately, I am a machine :(

</comment><comment><USER77> In Saitama I saw an old guy on a pedal bike (not a train) who did this the other day!

In fact, I made a note specifically to ask a Nihon friend just what the hell he was doing (so I'll just ask HN instead)...

I understand stopping at an intersection and looking both ways. But making a specific pointing gesture and verbally calling out while doing it I thought was just a bit odd. Particularly cause he was the only person at this quiet little 4 way (no lights) stop. Sounded like he said "hayougush... hayougush".

Retired train conductor?

<comment><USER78> On the other hand, if you're looking directly at a vehicle and _pointing_ at the vehicle, you're more likely to actually _interact_ with the driver of the vehicle if they're alert. If they point back, you know they see you. If they don't, did they truly see you or do you just assume they did? Now you're more alert than you were before.

<comment><USER38> If I'm entering an intersection and there's a driver that I suspect hasn't noticed me and may take a turn, I'll make eye contact and point, then signal a full hand for 'stop'. Seems to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I do this sometimes when I'm really in the zone. Back in the 90s, I was in manufacturing, both making things and planning, programming.

When I had not used a given machine or process for a while, point and step check just came as part of entering and maintaining flow.

Exploiting this seems obvious in retrospect, like most good, basic helpers are.

Nice. Love the ethic. Take care of the people, run it on time. It's good to know somewhere the little stuff does matter.

</comment><comment><USER80> As a hockey player, I never understood why referees would point to each goal, calling out each goalie's existence before the game. This helps explain it.

</comment><comment> nommm-nommm This helps a lot when coding too! Specifically when debugging. I am lucky enough to have my own office so I can do it without disturbing others.

</comment><comment><USER81> > Japan's rail system has a well-deserved reputation for being among the very > best in the world.

While "pointing" might contribute to its reputation, they should give credit to being accountable to market forces! In addition to the extensive "private railway" network, JNR was privatized in 1987.

</comment><comment><USER71> Ive been working on a new design.....and would like to know if there is anything that I may have missed in my re design besides the chancing of poking someone or poking there eye out.

And if you don't use an umbrella! Do you wear a raincoat? Or do you prefer getting soaked!

</comment><comment><USER82> It's a little late in the game to get this seen, but they do this in the NYC subways too. It made for a great video!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M)

<comment><USER83> Thanks for the link.

Btw. one of the subway drivers explains in the YT comments that NYC had this gesture first, Japan copied it in the mid 1990s.

      Conductors point at the board because it is required by TA
      rule. This idea was adapted by the Japanese subway in the
      mid 90's. We point because if the window of your cab is
      somewhere within limits of that board, it means the Train
      operator, the one who actually moves the train, has stopped
      at his/her mark for the correct number of cars the train
      has. We also have to point because supervision does move
      around in the field and yes they actually WATCH us to make
      sure we comply with this rule. If we don't, well then its
      not going to be a good day at work...

<comment><USER84> I doubt that is true. Per the article, it goes back to the Meiji dynasty in Japan, which ended in 1912.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Interesting, you see a similar action (I believe for the same reason) in cockpits [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEX0ZYDziiU&t=13s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEX0ZYDziiU&t=13s)].

<comment><USER55> I was also struck with the similarity to procedures in aviation. During the checklist you frequently call out the item (aloud), and then check it while either pointing at it or touching it.

This also reduces the temptation to rush and just say "check" and assume it's ok - most of the time it is ok, of course, but the point is to actually look and check and make sure. If you do all the "work" of actually finding the control and touching it, you might as well look and check that it is set as expected.

As a further side effect, this also re-inforces "muscle memory": you don't need the alternate air valve or the fuel shutoff valve very often - but if you actually touch it (and even open/close it) before every flight, then you will find it quickly and without much thinking in case you do need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Attentiveness in self driving cars is/will be an issue.

I wonder if there's anything like this that could be applied there. No ideas come to mind, though I often think about how trains on tracks have mechanisms for maintaining driver awareness.

<comment><USER38> This is why many are worried about Level 3 autonomy vehicles -- that is, driver assist where the car can drive ~95% of the time, but the driver may need to intervene at any moment. So far all the studies I've seen indicate that the driver loses attentiveness whether they mean to or not, and the disengagement times are in multiple seconds.

Personally, I think a system needs to work well enough to drive itself the whole trip, or be dumb enough to act as cruise control with some crash prevention built in, but otherwise force the driver to be on task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I do that sometimes when I'm coding. I want to debug something, or just check some particularly important or tricky part and I say the lines outloud while doing some hand movement pointing to the lines kind of rithmically.

</comment><comment><USER88> > pointing-and-calling is known to reduce workplace errors by up to 85 > percent, according to one 1996 study.

If it is supported only by one study; it seems like cargo-culting: performing a ritual without a solid proof that it actually works.

<comment><USER55> Another quote from the article:

> According to MTA spokeswoman Amanda Kwan, conductors were quick to adapt to > the new system, and within two years of implementation, incidents of > incorrectly berthed subways fell 57 percent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> When looking for something I use my phone's torch and point on the floor. Last time I found back a little magnet lost by my kid in the 50 metres of alley to our place. So yes I guess it works to force the mental focus.

</comment><comment><USER90> I wonder if there's some way to apply this to coding. Besides annoying my co- workers, would verbally talking about what I'm coding improve the quality of my code, or productivity? What about physical gestures?

<comment><USER91> It feels like our equivalent would be Rubber Duck Debugging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> If you want to improve your memory. go to youtube and search for these videos. BBC the truth about food. In one of the episodes they point out how eating berries everyday improves your short term memory

</comment><comment><USER92> people talk to themselves all the time on the trading floor (the kanko part of the shinsakanko). rather look like a weirdo than lose a couple thousand bucks (or worse) on a 100% avoidable error.

<comment><USER92> edit: to clarify, when submitting orders to an electronic exchange, traders will call out (to themselves) the price size direction and instrument before sending the ticket. I personally also mouseover all the important parts so i'm not just going through motions.

this method seems particularly effective for work that is routine but never in the same scenario. Ever since I picked up this habit I have applied this to everything else I do - booking flight tickets, hotels, buying things on amazon, etc. avoiding errors is so much of a good thing - for those of you with really bad experiences firefighting at work will know the importance of not being in the position where you need to firefight at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> When Im debugging and I turn nothing up the first look through I often speak out loud what Im thinking. I find it helps in most cases, it also helps Im at home while doing it.

</comment><comment><USER94> I'm a little embarrassed to say that I lived in Japan for several years (in high school) and never really noticed this or thought of it as being out of the ordinary.

</comment><comment><USER95> The United States nuclear navy follows a similar procedure called "point and shoot" according to Covey's _Turn the Ship Around_.

</comment><comment><USER71> For the umbrella haters please tell me everything that you hate about them besides getting or possibly getting poked in the eye.

Is that the only problem?

</comment><comment><USER96> I keep much better track of laps when jogging in the park after I started saying each lap number out loud when completing it.

</comment><comment><USER97> I feel like adopting a version of this system could help avoid those occasional forgotten-child-in-car tragedies.

</comment><comment> m-j-fox Do they still have smoking sections on Japanese trains? That's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER98> As an April Fools next year I'm going to experiment with writing code this way to see how my coworkers react.

Pointing at screen and shouting: "It should throw an error if the input is NaN". _types furiously_

</comment><comment><USER60> It's a form of reinforcement. We've all seen flight attendants going through pointing drills during a safety briefing before takeoff. Pilots do this too when walking the ground for preflight checks.

</comment><comment><USER99> AKA [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_acting_in_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_acting_in_Japan)

</comment><comment><USER71> its so nice when you post to this website and half of your post disappears

</comment><comment><USER100> This is news? They do this on the subways in New York and Toronto too.

</comment><comment><USER101> Don't they do this pointing on the NYC subway system too?

<comment><USER101> Seriously, they point when they get to the station. [http://www.mta.info/news/2013/11/12/subway-conductors- point-...](http://www.mta.info/news/2013/11/12/subway-conductors-point-way- safety)

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> The Swiss train system is similarly renowned. How do they do it?

<comment><USER103> Well, they definitely don't do any pointing-and-calling.

This might be a good subject for a study - compare both rail systems, does this really lead to higher performance and lower accidents?

<comment><USER104> Maybe in the end it all just boils down to how much money is allocated to run the systems...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> Theory: Any task benfitting from this can be fully automated without a very intelligent program.

In the meantime, let's swallow our pride and do this, seems like a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER106> I think I'd go insane if that was my job. It seems so utterly dehumanizing to have a human do that job every day. I don't mean just the pointing but the standing and doing things that surely computers and cameras could easily do.

<comment><USER107> Wow, my reaction is exactly the opposite. Good on the Japanese railways for employing intelligent and responsible adults to care for everyone's safety instead of cheaping out with cameras and computers. These are solid, respectable jobs, and it means there will always be competent people around to help when things go awry.

<comment><USER106> Should a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.

<comment><USER108> That sounds crazy. Someone should help them transition to a more modern and healthy lifestyle of spending forty years improving the conversion rate of small digital advertisements.

<comment><USER79> BAM! Well done. :D</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Ballpoint Pen Changed Our Handwriting - Artful-Dodger https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/ <comment><AUTHOR> Previously discussed two days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469556)

and eight months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16565616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16565616)

and three years ago, when the article was published: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141874)

</comment><comment> Artful-Dodger As the article suggests perhaps we are in need of an updated alphabet, different writing style, or a different type of pen. If we were to return to using fountain pens we would reduce waste of plastic pens. People would have a greater incentive to keep track of their pens as they are more expensive and can be used for many years. And our hands would benefit from less fatigue. My friend from France uses fountain pens for everything and i'm beginning to think she's got it right.

</comment><comment><USER2> I generally use a pencil, rather than a pen. However, I also think that cursive is just more difficult to read (although what is difficult to read also depend who write it, since some people write messy; but, still in general I find cursive is more difficult to read).</comment>


Show HN: Avoy – the app to cure your wanderlust when we are all stuck indoors - <AUTHOR> https://avoy.io/hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! My name is Cody and I am the founder of Avoy ([https://www.avoy.io/hn](https://www.avoy.io/hn)). Avoy is an invite-only travel inspiration app to discover the world's best hidden holiday destinations.

Today, we have temporarily turned off the required invite code to open registration up to the HN Community. If you seeing this at a later date, but still want to give us a try, send me a note at email@example.com and I would be more than happy to help get you a code to get set up.

Why build this?

Simply put to change the way we answer the question of "where should I go next?". There is a myriad of travel content, bloggers and apps, however, the fundamental structures provided to us by search and social media create homogeneity, travel group-think and dangerous overtourism. We want to build an exciting product that allows travelers to discover the hundreds of hidden gems that each country offers:

[https://medium.com/avoy/how-avoy-plans-to-change-travel- in-a...](https://medium.com/avoy/how-avoy-plans-to-change-travel-in-a-post- covid-19-world-174f0f6e9254)

Our mission

We believe the most memorable travel experiences come when we allow ourselves to wander off the beaten path.

Our goal is to share the finest unspoiled destinations from around the world and help you discover somewhere unique.

[https://www.avoy.io/mission](https://www.avoy.io/mission)

[https://medium.com/avoy/in-defense-of-going-off-the- beaten-p...](https://medium.com/avoy/in-defense-of-going-off-the-beaten- path-8dd4f055e68)

A little about us

I have the incredible luck to be working with a great team of individuals & contributors from around the globe, all bonded around the mission that travel should be an exploratory, exciting way to learn about the vast world that surrounds us.

We are super passionate about building a product that people love and enjoy and can transform perspectives on this wonderful world we inhabit and are even more passionate about it now that we are in a time of global uncertainty. If anyone has feedback, comments or suggestions we would absolutely love to hear them.

Cody</comment>


A Comparative History of Statements in Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> http://hhh.gavilan.edu/dvantassel/history/history.html

<comment><USER2> Totally not its intent, but this is fascinating as reference of all the decisions you will have to make if you create a new language.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would have suspected a study of Programming Languages would include Automata Theory. As an alternative, I can imagine a course focusing on Automata Theory using historic examples of programming languages as a measure of expressiveness would be a lot more useful.

But I don't work in academia.</comment>


How a Windows bug might be costing us over 600 years of wasted time per day - <AUTHOR> http://blog.garrytan.com/how-a-bug-in-windows-might-be-costing-humanity-over-600-years-of-wasted-time-per-day

<comment><USER2> best bit:

"They had a specific date to ship, and a fixed number of engineering resources. They knew their bug count had to glide down to zero by X date, and some bugs had to sadly be resolved "Won't fix." If a PM doesn't hit their schedule and ship, they get fired. This bug had to be punted."

diffuse responsibility, give some folks one-sided power, and you've got a Parreto-efficient race to the bottom.</comment>


New research may beat back bedbug epidemic (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-03-bedbug-epidemic.html <comment><USER2> Bedbugs are best eliminated with heat not pesticides as this article mentions. The beauty of heat is that it's 100% effective and you don't have to know where the bed bugs are in order for it to kill them.

Take the "divide and conquer" approach in your living space. Isolate one room with masking tape (and perhaps plastic sheeting). Go over all the fabric and upholstery with a steam gun. Then crank up the heat to over 50C for 24 hours. Then move on to the next room. Bed bugs travel at night up to 200 feet so be careful of re-contamination.

There are companies that will bag your entire house and then heat it up to kill everything at once.

With your clothes just use the dryer on high. Washing will not affect the bugs at all.

Full disclosure, yes I had them and I killed them using these techniques. Your mileage may vary depending on the details of the structure you in.

<comment><USER3> So your argument is that masking each area in plastic like a Dexter kill room then heating each room of the house to 130F for a full day is easier than spraying a pesticide only toxic to arthropods around your bed a single time then going about your life. Did I summarize it accurately?

Basically, you need to read the article. They're saying this pesticide actually _works_.

<comment><USER2> Heat is available now. My post is primarily for people who have bedbugs now. If they want to wait a few years for this research to become a commercial product then that is their choice.

<comment><USER3> Per the article, it's a commercial product now and already available in a couple states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A new pesticide is like a new antibiotic: it's useful for now, but evolution will catch up with it soon enough.

There are non-chemical means of eliminating bedbugs that should be preferred for this reason. Though I guess bedbugs could evolve to withstand heat/cold/starvation....

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Imagine sharing lab space with the Bedbug group... or first-date interactions of such researchers</comment>


New - Custom Metrics for Amazon CloudWatch - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/05/amazon-cloudwatch-user-defined-metrics.html

<comment><USER2> We've got a nice post which outlines how to push Loggly data into Amazon if anyone is interested:

[http://www.loggly.com/2011/05/send-custom-metrics-to- cloudwa...](http://www.loggly.com/2011/05/send-custom-metrics-to-cloudwatchs- api/).

There's also some simple code over on Github which provides a simple way to send metrics to your account:

[https://github.com/loggly/loggly- watch/blob/master/cloudwatc...](https://github.com/loggly/loggly- watch/blob/master/cloudwatch.py)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks to be a useful service and another nice extension to AWS. However after re-reading Jeff's post, I found:

      All metrics are retained for a period of two weeks.

This is a severe limitation. For short-term server health and autoscaling it makes perfect sense. For higher-level system metrics and application metrics I'd love to see CloudWatch store my stats for at least a year.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if one could turn this into a dumb site optimizer by running A/B tests with business metrics reported and autoscale the group that is performing the best...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually a pretty cool idea and one that I think would work just fine.</comment></comment>


The Sun's "Carrington Event" of 160 yrs ago would be devastating today - <AUTHOR> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/10/this-kind-of-solar-storm-could-be-devastating-in-todays-worldthe-carrington-event-of-1859/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just 160 years ago this month, after a period of unusually quiet sunspot activity (much as we are going through now), the largest solar flare of the industrial age lashed out at the Earth. It interfered with the still fairly small number of electrical systems and communications worldwide. A modern replay would be much more damaging...

<comment><USER2> I've read that some telegraph operators found they were able to operate the transceiver even when the power is disconnected, due to the induced current during the storm. Just imagine what would happen if the transceiver is made of solid-state semiconductor...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This site, wattsupwiththat.com, is a major source of climate denialism misinformation and manipulation. I don't recommend anyone use anything found on it for any purpose other than documenting denialism of global warm.ing

<comment><USER4> That seems a bit ad homenim. A Carrington-scale event would likely cripple any modern society. Your disliking part of their messaging doesn't mean they have no credibility.

<comment><USER3> In today's media environment it is a known attack to build credibility using small or occasional truths (or at least, not easily disproven statements) to then support a larger, more widely and thinly spread disinformation campaign.

Thus the warning.

It is a category error to think that we are operating in a Platonic environment of ideas, evaluating and discussing them independently. We are in a disinformation war environment with combatants who are skilled and motivated, and informed by at least 100 years of practice, and should operate accordingly.</comment></comment></comment>