UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/1.17.4 <comment><USER2> One third-party filter list for uBO that I absolutely love is Web Annoyances Ultralist: [https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances](https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances), for unsticking fixed headers, floating boxes, and elements like that.

I also use uBO for injecting my own styles on pages, like adding an absolute timestamp to github: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15743008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15743008)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if we see it on mobile platforms someday. Not having a norootneeded adblocker on android or ios is very sad

<comment><USER4> > I wonder if we see it on mobile platforms someday. Not having a norootneeded > adblocker on android or ios is very sad

Not sure if this is what you mean exactly, but uBlock Origin (as well as a lot of other Firefox extensions) can be installed[1] on Firefox for Android.[2]

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock- origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-origin/)

[2] [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/mobile/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/)

<comment><USER3> Thx! Didn't notice that Mozilla introduced Add-On support on their mobile Browser. I guess extensions support for Chrome Mobile is not coming in the near future, but who knows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first plugin I install on a freshly installed system with Firefox is uBO. After that I harden the browser by changing stuff in about:config.

Chrome has never been an option for us with privacy in focus.

The guys behind uBO should get some price or something.

<comment><USER6> One thing that block my migration to firefox is the zoom thing. In chrome I can zoom pages and it stick (I need bigger fonts everywhere). Can't replicate the same with safari or firefox.

<comment><USER7> In Firefox the zoom levels are saved per website. It has had that feature for a long time. Or do you want to zoom once and have it zoomed on all websites you visit?

<comment><USER6> Yes, I wanna a option for all

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> UBlock Origin is more than an ad-blocker. Some usecases other than being ad- blocker

1\. Hide Quora notification icon

2\. Hide YouTube notification icon

3\. Hide stackoverflow questions you might be interested section(right bottom section)

How do you use other than ad-blocker?

<comment><USER9> 4\. Hide humongous Wikipedia donation element after having donated.

<comment><USER10> It is really annoying to get that even after donating. I have never signed up for a wikipedia account (which, now that I think about it, is kind of amazing?) but if I had one, would the donation dialog disappear after donating? Maybe I will sign up to find out.

<comment><USER11> At the very least for me it didn't last time I donated: the donation seems to be completely untied to your account.

<comment><USER12> Reminder: Wikipedia has Cancer.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op- ed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thank you so much gorhill. So much, for making the web a better place.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish gorhill would make a Safari content-blocker version of ublock. None of the existing blockers (who mostly just package existing block lists and charge money for it..) work as well as uBlock IME.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, all Safari releases going forward (12 onwards) are removing APIs that allow uBlock Origin to do what it does.

Apple are basically neutering _all_ blockers, unfortunately. I don't know if they're planning on filling the void though.

<comment><USER16> The reason these APIs are being removed are to improve the privacy of users.

Apple recommends all adblock extensions now use the content blocking API which is superior from a user privacy perspective. When using the content blocker apis, the extension cannot view or read which web pages are visited. Prior extension APIs had full access to browsing history (which obviously can be easily abused).

The content blocker API is different but does allow full featured and sophisticated adblockers. I know because I create one which is very efficient, effective and free - Magic Lasso Adblock ([https://www.magiclasso.co/](https://www.magiclasso.co/))

<comment><USER17> Except that API kills one of the main use cases - live blocking annoying stuff that's already on the page. Apple's gimped API, as far as I can tell, offers no way with the user to interact with the plugin.

Meaning that if the blocker misses something (and it will), I have no way to deal with it.

This "privacy" canard is just Apple being Apple and punishing users in the name of full control. The #1 and #2 most used adblockers by everyone have no legitimate privacy concerns.

<comment><USER18> That's Apple's model - users cannot make their own decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _The original prototype was to develop an idea I had about using jump > indices in a TypedArray for quickly matching hostnames (or more generally > strings)[1]. Once I had a working, un-optimized prototype, I realized I had > ended up with something formally named a "trie": > <[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie>), > hence the name. I have no idea whether the implementation here or one > resembling it has been done elsewhere._

So I heavily experimented with squeezing performance out of a JS-based trie- implementation for LZString[0]. Back then some early experimentation suggested that using TypedArrays was likely to be slower than using objects with numerical keys, and for non-degenerate input using a trie based on plain arrays and indexOf calls was the fastest[1]. However, it's been a while since I looked at those numbers (and I suspect that with uBlock's use case look-up performance matters more than insertion performance, which makes it very different from LZString's).

But it should be obvious that HNTrie's implementation[2] is something I'm _very_ interested in ;).

[0] [https://github.com/pieroxy/lz- string/pull/98](https://github.com/pieroxy/lz-string/pull/98)

[1] [https://github.com/pieroxy/lz- string/blob/ba8988028d78962eba...](https://github.com/pieroxy/lz- string/blob/ba8988028d78962ebadee42cc6d4b17581605e2d/lz-string-unsafe.js)

[2] [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/2a91a685ce3d2dae5d3c2...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/2a91a685ce3d2dae5d3c285cff1bc74a1982be74/src/js/hntrie.js)

<comment><USER20> > So I heavily experimented with squeezing performance out of a JS-based trie- > implementation for LZString.

Incidentally, I did write a JS/WASM version of LZ4 block encoding[1] (also used in uBO). I do wonder if it could be of interest for the LZString project.

My understanding is that the output of LZ4 compression would need to be further processed to make it JS string-friendly (for localStorage purpose).

Maybe worth exploring if even with that extra step[2], the performance gain if any is worth it?

[1] [https://github.com/gorhill/lz4-wasm](https://github.com/gorhill/lz4-wasm)

[2] Encode 7 bytes into 8 valid ASCII characters?

<comment><USER19> Dman. So how many awesome things do you casually do on the side just in the name of improving uBlock?

<comment><USER19> *Damn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a sucker for random benchmarks, and seeing there was a benchmark against the hostname-lookup stuff, I took a quick shot (2015 MacBook Pro, running High Sierra)

Anyone know why regex performance on Safari is so diabolically bad?

        Safari 12.0.1 on OS X 10.13.6.

        Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
          -                 Set-based x 3,149 ops/sec ±0.75% (59 runs sampled)
          -               Regex-based x 281 ops/sec ±0.78% (61 runs sampled)
          -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 14,118 ops/sec ±1.66% (66 runs sampled)
          -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 12,349 ops/sec ±0.58% (61 runs sampled)

        Chrome 70.0.3538.110 on OS X 10.13.6 64-bit.

        Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
          -                 Set-based x 3,376 ops/sec ±1.95% (61 runs sampled)
          -               Regex-based x 4,492 ops/sec ±1.66% (27 runs sampled)
          -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 9,431 ops/sec ±0.69% (51 runs sampled)
          -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 8,627 ops/sec ±0.63% (47 runs sampled)
          - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x 12,169 ops/sec ±0.58% (64 runs sampled)
        Done.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since the last major Firefox update, I haven't needed to run an adblocker. I set Firefox to block trackers always (not just in private mode) and I hardly ever see ads, or I don't notice them at least.

<comment><USER23> Despite built in options for ad-block, uBlock Origin is still essential for me.

There is too much junk on sites, poorly designed elements that take up half my screen, social media elements, video elements - I tend to block those elements freely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Good to see wat being used over bringing in emscripten baggage: [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/tree/master/src/js/wasm](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/tree/master/src/js/wasm)

<comment><USER19> I wonder if this wouldn't be a good use-case for Walt. It's close enough to the metal to avoid bringing in unwanted baggage, but still a lot more convenient to write in than the .wat format.

[0] [https://github.com/ballercat/walt](https://github.com/ballercat/walt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been using uBO in advanced (dynamic filtering) mode for a few weeks now. I strongly recommend everyone wary of privacy to start doing that now. It's surprisingly not so difficult at all!

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been having a lot of cosmetic filtering issues with UBlock lately, not sure if it's an issue with the lists or with UBO itself.

Sites that load but stay "blank" until you disable filtering

<comment><USER27> some websites out there will detect that no ad code was allowed to run and then refuse to show you a page.

<comment><USER28> This is widely known. It's also why uBlock replaces ad scripts with "neutered" scripts to make the page render anyway. It's good stuff!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What is a good ad blocker like this for Safari?

<comment><USER30> uBlock exists also for Safari, however you need to download it through the App Store these days. [https://www.ublock.org/safari/](https://www.ublock.org/safari/)

<comment><USER31> That's not uBlock Origin, that's the icky one. I use the AdGuard extension for desktop Safari, and the app for mobile Safari, which use the content blocking feature of Safari itself.

<comment><USER30> My bad, thanks for the clarification. As @heartbreak pointed out, this seems to be the real deal [https://safari- extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBl...](https://safari- extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBlock-3NU33NW2M3)

<comment><USER31> That's.. also not exactly the real deal. It's a community fork of uBlock Origin with some patches and then became unmaintained. That's why I use AdGuard for Safari.

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/adguard-for- safari/id1440147259](https://itunes.apple.com/app/adguard-for- safari/id1440147259)

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple- store/id1047223162](https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1047223162)

These two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Keep on fighting the good fight, gorhill.

</comment><comment><USER33> 1.17.4 not functioning with Firefox 52.9.0 (32-bit) Reverting to 1.17.2 it works again.

</comment><comment><USER34> the most important browser extension

</comment><comment><USER35> Are there benchmarks where the wasm engine of a browser beats the Js engine of the same browser in compute heavy code?

<comment><USER36> they attached a benchmark, [https://raw.githack.com/gorhill/uBlock/master/docs/tests/hns...](https://raw.githack.com/gorhill/uBlock/master/docs/tests/hnset- benchmark.html)

<comment><USER37> Results on mine:

        Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better.
        Firefox 63.0 on Windows 10 64-bit.

        Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
          -                 Set-based x 1,443 ops/sec ±3.46% (54 runs sampled)
          -               Regex-based x 4,093 ops/sec ±1.18% (25 runs sampled)
          -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 8,993 ops/sec ±1.92% (59 runs sampled)
          -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 7,923 ops/sec ±2.81% (44 runs sampled)
          - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x 10,100 ops/sec ±1.75% (54 runs sampled)
        Done.

<comment><USER38> Interestingly, my numbers are completely different relative to each other when compared with yours... I wonder how the number of runs is determined and if this affects the results.

      Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better.
      Firefox 63.0 on Fedora 64-bit.

      Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
        -                 Set-based x 1,707 ops/sec ±1.93% (60 runs sampled)
        -               Regex-based x 4,078 ops/sec ±0.88% (25 runs sampled)
        -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 10,038 ops/sec ±1.41% (64 runs sampled)
        -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 7,258 ops/sec ±1.03% (40 runs sampled)
        - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x 8,033 ops/sec ±1.08% (44 runs sampled)
      Done.

<comment><USER39> That's what I got too:

        Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better.
        Firefox 63.0 on Linux 64-bit.

        Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
          -                 Set-based x 1,992 ops/sec ±0.71% (15 runs sampled)
          -               Regex-based x 5,148 ops/sec ±0.18% (30 runs sampled)
          -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 11,797 ops/sec ±0.49% (63 runs sampled)
          -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 8,471 ops/sec ±0.50% (47 runs sampled)
          - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x 9,543 ops/sec ±0.48% (52 runs sampled)
        Done.

I don't see why trie matching performance would depend on the host OS... Unless WASM runs out of process and requires some form of IPC, I guess?

<comment><USER40> Interesting that an iPhone XS is the fastest of all the benchmarks above.

Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better. Safari 12.0 on Apple iPhone (iOS 12.1).

Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames \- Set-based x 3,763 ops/sec ±0.19% (68 runs sampled) \- Regex-based x 392 ops/sec ±0.16% (66 runs sampled) \- Trie-based (1st-gen) x 20,669 ops/sec ±0.15% (69 runs sampled) \- Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 16,926 ops/sec ±0.71% (69 runs sampled) Done.

<comment> X-Istence Safari is also a lot faster than Firefox/Chrome on the Trie-based versions (non-wasm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wonder how long will take until they ban/remove this as well using DCMA</comment>


Why Startups Are Ready to Leave London - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/05/11/why-start-ups-are-ready-to-leave-london/

<comment><USER2> I am honestly not surprised by this. It basically means that every developer needs and expects higher salaries to cover the cost of living, and I imagine that's one of the main costs for tech related start-ups.</comment>


May Bayes Theorem Be with You - <AUTHOR> http://technology.stitchfix.com/blog/2015/02/12/may-bayes-theorem-be-with-you/

<comment><USER2> This is an ok overview, but it's missing a key point. Classical statistics can be viewed as the statistic of interest being fixed but unknown. However, it's better thought of as the parameter is fixed but set in a way that will be most troublesome for your estimation algorithm. Statistical analysis (when done carefully) represents a conservative view on how likely you are to be mistaken.

Bayesian statistics abandons this worst-case approach, instead opting for an average case analysis. Here, we average over the all the possibilities, weighting their relative merit by the prior. The analysis is always a little bit conservative (thus the connection to regularization), but it is never "worst case" in the same way that classical statistics operates under.

Lots of the other talk in this article is not really about classic vs Bayesian statistics at all. Both methodologies are perfectly happy working with more complicated, hierarchal models. Both approaches have plenty of work dealing with regularization, and both methods will suffer if you mis-specify your model. The fact that Bayesian analysis is less likely to "crash" in a case of model mis-specification can be thought of as just as much of a drawback as it is a benefit.

<comment><USER3> Could you explain in what sense classical statistics is actually a _worst- case_ view? i.e., can you link to a page or maybe explain yourself explicitly (i.e., using a min() operation) how classical statistics is a worst-case analysis? What scenarios is it actually worst-case with respect to?

It's always seemed to me that the differences I see, such as in ML vs. MAP, are not due to a question of worst-case versus average-case analyses, but rather no-prior-knowledge versus yes-prior-knowledge analyses. I've never seen a proof that classical statistics gives a worst-case bound.

<comment><USER2> Maximum likelihood is literally the simplest thing classic statistics will tell you. No serious statistician will regard this as meaningful without at least some indication of sample size, confidence interval or whatnot.

The worst-case nature of classical/frequentist statistics is very well exposed in PAC (probably approximately correct) analysis:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probably_approximately_correct_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probably_approximately_correct_learning)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I particularly like the way the key difference between frequentist and Bayesian statistics is described: in the frequentist model, the parameter is fixed and the data is random, while in the Bayesian model, the data is fixed and the parameter is random. Since, as the author points out, the data is what is fixed in real life, the Bayesian model intuitively makes more sense.

<comment><USER5> _Since, as the author points out, the data is what is fixed in real life, the Bayesian model intuitively makes more sense._

In real life, both the parameter value and the data are fixed. If you knew the heights all of the humans on earth, you could compute the _exact_ mean human height (at the time). This mean is the _true_ mean, it's the parameter value we're looking for, and it's absolutely fixed.

<comment><USER6> But you will never know the truth. So it seems more practical to assume that the parameter follows some distribution and that the hand is fixed. Just a more logical approach to gauging uncertainty in my opinion. But, this is not a "Frequentist versus Bayesian" post. I think the key is to use what is most fitting for the analysis at hand.

<comment><USER5> You'll never know all of the data either. You don't need confidence/credible intervals if you can sample the entire population.

Maybe one is more intuitive than the other, but I'm unswayed by the "one is fixed in real life" argument.

<comment><USER4> _> You'll never know all of the data either._

"The data is fixed" refers only to the data we know. (Otherwise, as you point out, there would be no issue since we would simply calculate the population statistics directly.) In the frequentist model, we have to pretend that this fixed data is actually a random distribution in order to calculate the probability we're interested in. In the Bayesian model, we just combine the known data with the prior to get the posterior probability; we don't have to pretend anything.

<comment><USER5> > _" The data is fixed" refers only to the data we know._

Okay, yeah. The _sample_ is fixed. The entire _population_ is random. I'll use this terminology.

> _In the frequentist model, we have to pretend that this fixed data is > actually a random distribution_

With confidence intervals, we're modelling the entire _population_ as a random distribution, using the fixed sample's mean and variance to compute estimates of the population's mean and variance. I think this is different than "pretending the sample is random".

If you constructed a normal model of the sample, you would just use the sample's mean and standard deviation. But to model the population, you typically use the sample's standard _error_ as an estimate of the population's standard _deviation_. This is critical. You have to account for the fact that the population is much larger than your sample.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I will ask a possibly naive question but...can anyone recommend a good "doing empirical science the Bayesian way" or "Bayesian quantitative methods" type of book? I'm mostly looking for something that can "replace those p-values for undergrads". Use of R, Python (or PSPP/SPSS if need be) would be appreciated.

My knowledge is pretty limited, I have heard of BEST but happily t-test away on a daily basis. Essentially what I'm looking for is a "I know t-tests and ANOVA and use them regularly...how would I switch all that to a Bayesian approach".

Does the book I look for even exist or would my best bet be reading the BEST paper (and the author's website/youtube video)? Edit: It lookes like the second edition of "Doing Bayesian Data Analysis" by Kruschke looks good. It does have a dedicated chapter on NHT (vs. MCMC)

<comment><USER8> Data Analysis A Bayesian Tutorial Devinderjit Sivia and John Skilling I prefer the (shorter) 1st edition

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "However, all practitioners in data science and statistics would benefit from integrating Bayesian techniques into their arsenal" \- that this wasn't already the case is news to me. Perhaps bioinf is less mainstream than I thought.

</comment><comment><USER10> If one wanted to learn more about the math behind this, especially when they get into the "Bayesian Regression is a Shrinkage Estimator" section, what's a good place to start?

<comment><USER6> The book by Peter Rossi et al that is referenced in this post is a good start if you want the Bayesian approach to shrinkage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The clean and crisp look of the site is stunning. The fact that there's no busy sidebar cramping up the content makes a huge difference.

Does anyone know if it's an available theme, or if it was custom built?

</comment><comment><USER12> Are Bayesian classifiers useful with any size data set, or is there a "threshold" amount of data that you need in order for Bayesian classifiers to be useful/work/be effective?

<comment><USER6> It is also worth mentioning that Bayesian classifiers, like Naive Bayes, are different from the type of Bayesian regression models described in this post.

Naive Bayes, for example, is more of a "machine learning" technique where the goal is to classify people into groups based on features. Naive Bayes is called Naive because it assumes that all regressors (x_j) are independent given the target variable (let's call it y and assume it is binary). In other words, the conditional log odds of y=1 given the x_j variables is equal to the sum of the log density ratios, where the log density ratio for variable x_j is ln(f(x_j|y=1)/f(x_j|y=0)).

On the other hand, in the price elasticity example described in post we want to infuse outside knowledge into the model because we don't believe what it says on its own. This is a situation where interpretation and believability is an important part of the objective function because we will be running future pricing scenarios from the model.

If you are building, say, a churn model to predict who is going to cancel their accounts, you probably wouldn't infuse your model with outside knowledge since cross validation accuracy is your main goal. You might regularize your model, however, which can be done in a number of ways (Bayesian or non- Bayesian). But in a pricing model or media mix model, and many other cases, the use case above is very real.

I suggest reading the "Elements of Statistical Learning" by Hastie, Tibshirani, et al.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is so good and useful! Thanks for sharing!

I'm just picking up Machine Learning these days and this is a good Bayesian intro.

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh god, all that studying for the actuarial exams is coming back to me like a nightmare.

<comment><USER15> I never went down the actuarial path, but studying for exam P helped me ace data analyst interviews I had.</comment></comment>


Good thing in PHP nobody talks about - <AUTHOR> http://pixeljets.com/blog/good-thing-in-php-nobody-talks-about/ <comment><USER2> The phrase "shared nothing" springs to mind.

Years ago (1999?) one of the early PHP bloggers had written that PHP was good precisely because of 'shared nothing' architecture. There was no shared memory, no threads, etc to trip you up.

Years ago, and colleague bitched about PHP, and one of the issues was 'no thread support'. I went to pick him up for lunch one day, but he couldn't make it - 'debugging some threading issues' (in either java or c++ - can't remember which one). I... didn't quite bite my tongue, and, while I know 'different tools for different jobs' makes a lot of sense, I also know many people have made more work for themselves by explicitly avoiding even greenfield projects in PHP because... well.. because it's PHP.

Also, from what I gather, PHP will be getting real async support in a couple years, which may throw some of the 'ease of thinking' arguments out the window a bit.

<comment><USER3> There has been threading in PHP via the pcntl_ functions for a long while - since PHP4.

You have to have some pretty exotic needs to want to use them, but threading does exist, and I've built a multithreaded php app using it.

<comment><USER4> The needs aren't very exotic. You can use them any time you need to do multiprocessing, a common example is building a daemon to process a queue in parallel with multiple workers.

Also, the pcntl functions don't provide multithreading primitives, only multiprocessing (fork)

Edit, looks like there is also a pthreads extension

<comment><USER5> > The needs aren't very exotic [...] a common example is building a daemon

While "writing a daemon" is pretty common, I've never seen a daemon written in PHP (I'm sure they exist, I've just never seen one), so I would call that an exotic use-case :P

<comment><USER6> I had to maintain one, would not recommend it as a general pattern. Most of the problems might as easy have to do with the original author and his experience in writing such an application (and hence choice of PHP for this task). But this post also springs to mind: [https://software- gunslinger.tumblr.com/post/47131406821/php-...](https://software- gunslinger.tumblr.com/post/47131406821/php-is-meant-to-die)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It was definitely intentional. The prefect sandbox has been a central design decision since day one.

<comment><USER8> Citation needed.

The reality is almost certainly far simpler. PHP started as a suite of tools for writing CGI pages [1], which have the same property mentioned. As with many things, that early design choice has followed through and led to continuing to execute PHP in similar ways as CGI did way back then.

[1] [http://php.net/manual/en/history.php.php](http://php.net/manual/en/history.php.php)

<comment><USER2> > Citation needed.

I think the 'rll' user is Rasmus, who started PHP. I think he would be the best person to cite re: intentionality.

<comment><USER9> This is why I read HN every single day. This comment is epic :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been working on .Net c# this past 2 years, coming from PHP. The hardest thing for me was to remember to close my database connections. Of course when you don't close one connection, your app doesn't break, it simply consumes more memory. After a few hundred requests, your database fail and you have no clue what went wrong. (close your connections!)

In PHP, when your page is done processing, the process is killed and all the connections, file handles, or resources it had open will be closed.

The more I work with .Net, the more I get to appreciate the things in PHP I had taken for granted.

I wrote about this a year ago: [https://idiallo.com/blog/php-fast-debug- time](https://idiallo.com/blog/php-fast-debug-time)

</comment><comment><USER11> Presumably, this guy's never seen $_SESSION hell: enormous amounts of state stashed in a single super-global associative array that persists between sessions [1].

In addition to $_SESSION hell, lots of custom PHP applications end up with extremely complex and convoluted MySQL tables dedicated to storing what would typically be global application state.

Both of these can lead to difficult-to-debug performance issues, race conditions, and especially security vulnerabilities.

Global state is going to happen, so languages/libraries should provide mechanisms that make it easy to state and enforce strict invariants on reads and writes to global state.

[1] [http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.session.php](http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.session.php)

<comment><USER12> Thats pretty much a bad practice well documented accross various php tutorials and books. But many php developers have no understanding of programming so they stash everything in that _SESSION superglobal or do other scary things.

<comment><USER11> Global state _in general_ is bad practice well documented across tutorials and books about programming. Article's argument is that PHP avoids global state, but _SESSION hell and "MySQL table as global state" patterns demonstrate that programmers will always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot with global state :)

Also, IME even good PHP programmers suffer from the "MySQL-table-as-global- runtime-state" syndrome. And it's at least as bug-prone as storing global state in an ADT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anything, in any language can be written to not share state, to reload everything on every request and to throw out after the response.

We're setting the bar pretty low for what's a good thing in a language here.

<comment><USER14> But practically speaking you can't though. You're not starting a new java process on every request because the overhead is too big, and you can't fully reset the jvm state for every request.

PHP with fastcgi reliably and quickly resets the php process to freshly launched state after every request, and very few languages can manage that trick in a production context.

<comment><USER13> Practically speaking it's done a lot. Even outside of web development.

For example Gradle (a java build system) runs a daemon that hosts a bunch of tasks that run and die.

Docker does it with images.

The browser does it with tabs.

Php achieves it with the help of server components. That is fine, but I wouldn't advertise it as a feature.

<comment><USER15> Starting a new docker instance for each http request is an interesting approach

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yes PHP, that's how it all started with CGI. This provenance also dictates that PHP must be fast to load. I'm often surprised at how fast a PHP process will complete in comparison to Python.

Still, I remember having to cache initialization state in PHP because it took too long to build it on every request. That's when the model breaks down and you prefer a server with state.

<comment><USER11> _> Still, I remember having to cache initialization state in PHP because it took too long to build it on every request. That's when the model breaks down and you prefer a server with state._

I also had this problem, but fortunately, I could always buy my way out of the problem better hardware and maybe one afternoon of optimization.

I finally shut down the last of my PHP side projects because of pervasive security issues and a dwindling/dead community. I recently reinstalled one of those sites on a DO droplet. Getting the right versions of everything took an entire weekend, but I eventually succeeded. The droplet had way more RAM and a faster CPU than I had access to back in the day.

But _holy hell_ those pages still loaded _so_ slowly. I probably didn't notice at the time because internet connections were so much slower and waiting for an HTTP page with a few images to load was normal. But those load times would be absolutely unacceptable today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Guilty admission time: I run thousands of distributed worker processes in PHP. Some of the processes run for months at a time and I've not encountered any issues nor memory leaks. I assume the others would too but they get replaced anytime we deploy, so the uptime is usually measured in days.

<comment><USER2> how long have you done this?

Years ago (2005? 2006?) I had a lot of trouble running PHP processes for any serious length of time, but don't now (7.1 mostly)

<comment><USER17> We've been doing it since 2011, though we saw _significant_ improvements when we switched to 7.x. Memory and CPU usage dropped by ~50% at that time. We did have occasionally memory leaks back on 5.6 (usually around shared libraries like libxml) but haven't had any issues whatsoever since 7.

I didn't try too much daemonization around ~2005, though Schlossnagle's "Advanced PHP Programming" (2004) did have a whole chapter on daemonizing and the pcntl functions that made it possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this the case for any programming language if you run it through CGI?

<comment><USER19> How does it work for websockets? Do you have to spawn one process per connection?

<comment><USER20> Yep, which is why Laravel [0], CakePHP [1], etc prefer to use a node app or separate server to handle WebSocket connections that then use an internal router to call PHP code.

0: [https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/broadcasting#driver- prerequisit...](https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/broadcasting#driver- prerequisites)

1: [https://github.com/scherersoftware/cake- websocket](https://github.com/scherersoftware/cake-websocket)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Developers just blame programming languages. As always.

As much as a programming language gets more popular, and more programmers write code with it, you see more "quick-and-dirty" solutions around.

As Java started to become even more popular cos of Android, I see more crappy code written in Java.

As much as Scala codes were clean when only early adapters would pick it, now I see more "quick-and-dirty" code because simply there are more codes out there.

The main problem is the majority of developers are not disciplined/experienced/responsible enough to keep their code organized and learn how to do it.

And that is just how it works with everything we do. Majority of people also don't keep their house/room/desk clean and organized.

As soon as any programming language hit the top 5 popular programming language, you have enough example to complain about it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Funny thing how we go full circle with FaaS now, lol.

</comment><comment><USER23> There are a lot of nice things in PHP. The bad parts are pretty well known.

As Bjarne Stroustrup said, there are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses. Having invented C++, he should know.

</comment><comment><USER24> > ... at the same time the single and the only huge factor which make poor PHP > code written by junior developers manageable is this ...

One thing many people misunderstood is that "PHP are for newbies".

No, you need to have some serious knowledge on PHP to be able to navigate yourself away from all those pitfalls that language provided. For example, use ===, be careful with "0e123" etc.

All those pitfalls combine, is annoying enough to out weight most the good things that PHP also provide.

</comment><comment><USER25> PHP being stateless is a good thing, as well as real classes, real interfaces and type hinting.

Sadly, PHP developers still use bad coding practices. For example, one of the popular PHP OOP frameworks, Symfony, makes things like HTTP Request or logged user a global variable by storing it in DI container. What about incapsulation and concern separation? The code breaks if you run it from CLI. PHP should not copy bad ideas like this from Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER26> The good thing in PHP that I don't think enough people talk about is Laravel.

If you are starting a new PHP web app and you expect to grow beyond a toy project, I highly recommend starting by using the Laravel framework. Laravel provides so many useful things and it encourages good separation of concerns and code organization. But it is flexible enough to get out of your way if you need it to.

<comment><USER25> I don't think Laravel is a good example. It uses a lot of global state and static method calls. It copied all bad things that were there in Ruby on Rails.

If you look at any code example here [1] you will see that global variables are used everywhere.

[1] [https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/urls](https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/urls)

<comment><USER26> Using global variables in a careless fashion is a bad practice indeed.

But globals are not universally evil. Laravel uses globals very thoughtfully. Having used the Laravel framework for many years, I agree with many of the choices it has made.

Additionally, Laravel does not force you to use Globals. See [https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/requests](https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/requests) to dig a little deeper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I find PHP better than I thought I would because it supports a style of programming that's very similar to Java, but the big problem is that PHP developers often tend to have more of a "quick-and-dirty" mindset and don't really appreciate that kind of code.

<comment><USER28> As a PHP programmer, among other things, I think Perl programmers have the ultimate "quick and dirty" mindset, but they're typically trying to solve different problems from a different perspective.

I also think a lot of the bitching about PHP is mostly because newer programmers are just repeating what they heard with the fervor of someone who doesn't work in PHP regularly.

Does it have problems? OH HELL YES. So does every language. Are the problems ever going to be fixed? OH HELL MAYBE. Is it the perfect hammer for every nail? OH HELL NO.

I work with what I know and I live with the problems because that's what I know. If I need new features, I'll work in another language, maybe.

No language is without issues. Except Python. Python is perfect.

<comment><USER29> Python is surely nice looking, but as it allows redefinition of everything at runtime, it is impossible to optimize at compile time. I think PHP, with the recent type strictness functionality, is better positioned for making way to new developments like meaningfull code analysis, (compile time) optimizations and performant JIT compilers. Python is too dynamic for that, unfortunately. The same holds for JavaScript.

<comment><USER27> PhpStorm with the Symfony plugin is already excellent for code analysis if you're working in Symfony</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Startup docu teaser #02: Steve Huffman (Reddit / Hipmunk) - <AUTHOR> http://startup-dna.tumblr.com/post/37056286367/startup-dna-docu-teaser-02-steve-huffman-reddit

<comment><AUTHOR> This is material from a 2h interview with Steve Huffman, <http://www.hipmunk.com/> It consists of scenes that I probably won't use in the docu but wanted to share with folks anyway.

Blog about the docu: <http://startup-dna.tumblr.com/> Twitter: twitter.com/@startup_dna

The docu is about startups, venture capital, programming and education. I'm bootstrapping this out of my own pocket and it's my first documentary. My ambition is to make this film as authentic and 3-dimensional as possible. I'm showing accomplished entrepreneurs and underdogs who just started their businesses side by side and capture their insights about startups on screen. If you have ideas for people I should interview and can provide intros as well, please post their names below so readers can upvote candidates they would like to see. Feedback is much appreciated. Thank you!</comment>


Shopify Progressive Web App - <AUTHOR> https://litefy.com/blog/the-worlds-first-shopify-pwa/ <comment><AUTHOR> A plugin which instantly upgrade any Shopify store into a PWA.</comment>


Stack-based buffer overflow found in Git - <AUTHOR> http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2008-3546

<comment><USER2> Almost bound to happen eventually in a collection of over 100 C programs. (Though, if someone knows of a shop that has a demonstrated reliable method to eliminate buffer overflow errors in their product, that would be dandy to know about.)</comment>


Ask HN: How do companies like Telegram exist anonymously? - <AUTHOR> It is known that Pavel Durov is the creator of Telegram. But Telegram itself doesn't seem to have a real address (except some shady proxy address). It all looks like some elaborate shell company construct.<p>How is it possible that they submit their apps to the stores and also operate Autonomous Systems for their servers? Isn't this very cumbersome? <comment><USER2> They do not exist anonymously. [https://www.bloomberg.com/profiles/companies/1399104D:RU- tel...](https://www.bloomberg.com/profiles/companies/1399104D:RU-telegram- messenger-llp)

They are registered with the UK Government and comply with UK regulations related to that. That's more than enough for Apple to accept their apps.

Furthermore, you don't even be a registered company to publish apps in Apple's app store. All you need is Apple dev account.</comment>


In which things are mapped, but also reduced [alternate Wide Finder in Closure] - <AUTHOR> http://technomancy.us/130

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately the original article[1] tells us:

 _Does This Actually Work? · Not quite, at the moment. I mean, it works fine for the first 50 million lines or so of the big dataset's quarter-billion, keeping my eight-core 32-thread SPARC T2000 maxed, and I mean smokin', you can see the 50M blocks that Paralines is reading go by pop-pop-pop. But then it hits its heap limit and descends into garbage-collection hell and thrashes its way to a miserable single-threaded standstill._

I'm hoping he will eventually arrive at a clean solution that can handle the full 43GB or so of input.

1- [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/11/11/Clojure- Re...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/11/11/Clojure-References)</comment>


Software Quality Is Degrading. Here Is How to Save It - <AUTHOR> http://www.anwarbosbool.com/2016/02/software-quality-is-degrading-here-is-how-to-save-it/ <comment><USER2> Degrading to whom? ;) "Deteriorating".</comment>


Trump tariffs have forced CaseLabs into bankruptcy and liquidation - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pc-case-maker-caselabs-latest-news-bankrupt-liquidated-us-tariffs-a8487416.html <comment><USER2> This is terrible. I actually like some of Trump's work in terms of negotiating better trade deals for the US. However, the unpredictability is a little nuts and threatens stalling an otherwise great US economy of late. Basically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

<comment><USER3> I've been hearing that we have a great economy lately from a lot of people. Could you please explain why US has a great economy currently?

<comment><USER4> Well, in my shed manufacturing business, my sales have doubled since mid- March, to the point that my production can't keep up.

I figure that all those extra dollars in people's paychecks are allowing them to get that shed they've been wanting.

<comment><USER3> >I figure that all those extra dollars in people's paychecks are allowing them to get that shed they've been wanting.

Wages haven't seen an increase since the 70's for 60% of the country. There must be some other contributing factor.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/record-median-household- inco...](https://www.businessinsider.com/record-median-household-income-is- hiding-a-chilling-fact-2017-9)

<comment><USER4> That data is from before the Trump tax cut. I don't think you can dismiss it as a factor.

<comment><USER3> The tax cuts were to benefit the already wealthy. The majority of the country has actually seen wages fall since the tax cuts.

[https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17602746/tax-cuts-work- bloombe...](https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17602746/tax-cuts-work-bloomberg- wages)

<comment><USER4> Quote from that article:

"Statistics data from the second quarter isn't available yet. Two quarters might be too early to gauge the tax bill's effects on wages."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Great Crisis Swindle: How Entrepreneurs Can Survive it - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/entrepreneurs_credit_crisis.php

<comment><USER2> I'm excited for the great music, I'm still listening to classic rock from the 70s and 80s.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Nobody knows what will happen next; None of the historical parallels work.

This is a bit silly. History and economic theory most certainly can give you a useful idea of where things are going. No, it's not all random and totally unpredictable.</comment>


Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime? - <AUTHOR>

I won't be able to do anything full time until 2011. <comment><USER2> This was just addressed today by Josh Coates of Mozy.com who talked to a small class of CS students. He said, "if your idea is good then there are six other guys out there working on it full time. If it's not good then don't work on it."

On the other side I just finished the Chapter in Founders at Work on 37 Signals. David Heinemeier Hansson created BaseCamp and he only spent 10 hours a week on it. He was the only programmer working on it too. Designers did help out but they only gave a third of their time too. But he said this lack of time was the greatest gift to the development of Basecamp. It helped focus his view on what they needed, and it forced them to make tough decisions about making less software all the time. When you have a lot of time you just get tempted to try to do it all, or at least do too much. So maybe if you don't try to do everything and just the essential then it might be a gift too.

37 Signals embraced the constraints that were forced upon them.

So the short answer to your question is . . . it depends. But it's still a question that needs to be asked.

<comment><USER3> Also, if the market for your idea is very very good, and the company is offering a service, then this might work. You are already selling the service by now, within your limited time, and the competition doesn't care much as there is such a huge market for your idea. But these are not the conditions in all the cases...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It really does not matter much if you are doing it part-time or full-time except for the time it takes to get the first release out. I have been working on <http://www.onista.com> for almost a year now and I am doing it mostly in evenings and weekends. Bear in mind that I have one and half year old kid who takes lot of time away from me (Off course I enjoy it a lot). Recently two more friends joined me and we are pretty confident on launching in November.

Based on my experience I can say that, persistence is what matters. If you work full-time and are not persistent or loose focus then you are not going anywhere. If you work part-time and are persistent and focussed then you will win. May be it will take more time than usual but you will get there with better results.

So I would say, yes go ahead and work part-time on your idea, but be very persistent to spend whatever extra time you find on the idea. It would be good idea to find group of friends who can work part-time with you. (I did that it does help a lot)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that would probably work as long as I don't have tough competition that can work full time. So when I release, I have to release pretty complete and bug free, and it'd help if the product was very hard to reproduce without knowing the internals. I can probably do those, since I currently have a year and a half of comp sci research ahead of me (getting a masters).

Any recommendations on especially pertinent fields? I'm planning to look at SOA type stuff - intelligent agents, evolutionary algorithms, systems architecture, etc. I'd like to throw some Godel in there too, but can't really see the applicability yet.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".)

If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through.

OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last time you said, "You know, someone really ought to make <some thing>." THAT'S what you should be pursuing.

<comment><AUTHOR> A deep solution is better in my situation than scratching some random itch, since anyone can do the latter. So, to rephrase my question more exactly: what are the deep underlying problems of the web that need the type of strong theory I can learn at university?

In answer to your last set of questions, something that really needs to be made is an aggregation service for all the web 2.0 stuff out there. People want an integrated, secure, and trust based work/socializing platform, and my current research interests are geared towards solving this kind of problem. Facebook is trying to do this, but I don't think they have a good mechanism yet for integrating apps.

<comment><USER5> "Random itches" sometimes grow to be "deep solutions".

Hotmail was started because 2 guys didn't want to leave an email trail on their employers' systems.

Ebay was a hobby to help a guy sell his girlfriends stuff.

OTOH, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were intended to be "deep solutions".

Sounds like you have the passion. No substitute for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"... I won't be able to do anything full time until 2011. ..."_

try the delicious model, build product, refine to user requirement. Then create company around product ~ <http://joshua.schachter.org/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Sometimes, but it's hard. There's really no reason not to try, as long as you don't mortgage your house. All you have to lose is time.

</comment><comment><USER8> It depends how much effort your startup requires. It also depend on the intellectual effort required by the other part job. If it's a manual job, you will be able to plan what you do the next time you work on your startup. You'll make better decision and you might even become more efficient than some working full time for its startup.

If the other part job his intellectual, then it will be much harder, especially if you can't well split activities.

Finally what is really important is how much perseverance, motivation and will you have. The other factor will just influence the amount of difficulty you have to overcome.

</comment><comment><USER9> If your product is mainstream, no. Your competitors are too strong.

However, in vertical markets it only depends on how hard is to develop your version 1.0.

</comment><comment><USER10> I believe it is possible to do the startup part time. In fact, if you spend a good deal of your time planning the right actions to make while you're actually working on your startup, you may see better progress than if you're working on it full time. This would simply be because you would be acting in a more intelligent way.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your odds are small, indeed. You will never be as fast as the other guys and if you have an amazing idea and something worthwhile, you'll be overtaken by your competitors very quickly. You have to jump in fully and mind the business from the start.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some get things done irrespective of constraints. Some look for excuses no matter what. Your choice.

And who are we to tell you if it is possible? Go forth and kick ass!

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes.

It's also possible to learn the guitar parttime and play golf parttime.

If you want to be great though, you probably have got to work harder than parttime.

</comment><comment><USER5> "won't be able to do"

You should have nothing to do with any start-up until you premanently remove those words from your vocabulary.

Seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. I can have all the time I want at Fort Knox.

Anyways, this is part of thinking around the problem.</comment></comment>


[1901.11390] MONet: Unsupervised Scene Decomposition and Representation - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.11390 <comment><USER2> Is the second equation in the paper correct, shouldn't the mask be just the output of the attention network?</comment>


Ask YC: How can I license a web app library extension (dll) - <AUTHOR>

I have been writing a web app library extension library (dll). What will be the best way to license it? Should I license by the domain (URL), server processor, IP ? <comment><USER2> Too vague for me. You need to tell me more including what you think you should do, how customers will use it, what's the reason someone would use in multiple websites, etc.</comment>


CS224n: Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs224n/reports.html <comment><USER2> Poking around from that link, I also found lecture videos from last year's course: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FW7Lu3i5Jsnh1rnUwq_...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FW7Lu3i5Jsnh1rnUwq_TcylNr7EkRe6)

<comment><USER3> I am waiting for this year's video to get posted. This year syllabus has been slightly updated to match the current trend

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still need to work through CS230 and CS231n.</comment>


Spoiler: Speculative Load Hazards Boost Rowhammer and Cache Attacks - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.00446 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309701)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316955)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really wish they hadn't called this Spoiler, only because of the confusion which it causes when you read a post about it and there are no stories / twists spoiled in the text.

<comment><USER4> The Reddit app I use interprets it as a spoiler tag and obscured the titles of all posts about this

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion of this issue: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309701)</comment>


How to clear a path through 60 feet of snow, Japanese style (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/snow-canyon-japan <comment><USER2> > As temperatures rise, snowfall across the west side of Japan should > decrease, Kawase reported, in a November 2013 study published in the Journal > of Geophysical Research. But the decrease will be much more pronounced at > lower elevations, such as Toyama, where much of the city's snow falls with > temperatures near the freezing mark. A few degrees warmer here will make a > big difference. Higher elevations will likely continue to have exceptionally > snowy winters, at least in the short term. Still, the culture of Japan's > Snow Country may already be changing.

> "I remember when I was in high school there was a lot more snow," says > Tanikawa, who is now 50. "In the morning snow fell and it would fall all day > while we were at school. When I came back home there would be 40 to 50 > centimeters of snow to clear. My children," Tanikawa adds, "have not had > that experience."

I live on the west coast of Japan at the foot of the mountains, and it's striking how much snowfall is decreasing in recent years. The last two years have been record setting due to lack of snowfall. The local municipal ski resort didn't open at all this past winter, and for the annual snow festival in February they had to truck in some snow from somewhere else.

Since temperatures here tend to hover just around freezing in the winter, a small temperature difference can mean the difference between rain or 50 cm of snow. Year-to-year differences are becoming more variable, too. Three years ago we were buried in so much snow that the city had to send in a team with heavy duty snow machines to dig us out (typically neighborhoods here are self- sufficient in terms of snow removal). We had about 2 meters piled up in our yard. But these past two years it was mostly just rain.

On the one hand, it's very convenient to not have to deal with so much snow in the winter. And the mountains nearby still receive plenty of snow for skiing and other recreation. But it does feel like a part of what makes this area special is vanishing. And I'm sad that my kids won't be able to experience it to the same degree.

<comment><USER3> Japan has massive variability in snow amounts depending on area in same year. This is because vast majority of snow is from lake effect of Siberian highs passing over Sea of Japan and hitting mountains. Depends on exact angle different places get different amount, micro climate is king.

Last year in Nozawa was late, January was bad. But actual total amounts were far from bad. Year before was an amazing year in Hakuba and Nozawa. I was skiing powder in April, knee deep. My Ski app shows I skied 15 powder days that season.

Charmant Hiuchi had also late year but huge dumps in March.

Truth is that many of the Japanese resorts Under report their snowfall, most customers are Japanese and intermediate/beginners they do not want to wake up to a knee deep on piste snow. So you get them reporting 10cm where it is more like 30.

During ski bubble a ton of resorts were built that should not have been. Really really bad spots. They are mostly dead by now, but there are still some chugging along, they always had crap snow, but because normal wait time for lift at good resorts was measured in hours back then people built them and made some money.

One more fun fact the warmer the sea is the better the lake effect. Places like Hakuba might get more snow at higher elevation then before as sea warms up. All their snow is from blow over from 3k peaks that have temperatures more in -20 range so small warmup will do nothing to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Driving through these roads just after they open around March/April is a blast. If you look enough, you can find places where you can actually climb on the snow walls and ski/hike on the snow slopes yourself. You may see a few trees whose apex is slightly protruding from the snow. It really feels like walking on the forest's canopy.

Apart from the road mentioned in this article, which I believe is the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, you have the Shibu-touge (渋峠) road, which crosses the mountains between the Nagano and Gunma prefectures [1].

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route does not allow private traffic on it year- round: it is a bus/taxi-only road. So if you are driving on your own, Shibu- touge is a great alternative. Route 299 going through the Yatsugatake (八ヶ岳) mountains is another alternative [2], although less fun in my opinion.

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/YbsoEgvih4oG3xvX9](https://goo.gl/maps/YbsoEgvih4oG3xvX9)

[2] [https://goo.gl/maps/nJB26wo6YzPVcawH9](https://goo.gl/maps/nJB26wo6YzPVcawH9)

</comment><comment><USER5> This article refers to "Mt. Tateyama" This is a slight misnaming. The suffix -yama in Japanese means "Mount." Hence, Mt. Fuji is called Fujiyama. And Tateyama is correctly called Mt. Tate in English, as seen by the article about it in Wikipedia[1] or Tateyama, but not Mt. Tateyama.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tate)

<comment><USER6> Interestingly, the redundancy isn't always incorrect. Maybe it is for mountains? But many rivers in Japan have official English names that include "kawa."

I just looked on Wikipedia and see there are two Arakawas (at least); one is the Arakawa River and one is the Ara River.

<comment><USER7> And 川 can be gawa or kawa [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_River)

<comment><USER6> > The words Akigawa River sound a bit odd, as kawa and gawa, 川, are Japanese > words for river,[7][8] so Aki River makes more sense, or simply Akigawa, > perhaps Akikawa.

Wow, this is the most unprofessional copy I've seen on Wikipedia! Maybe someone meant to write this on the talk page and accidentally posted in the article? I guess it's so small potatoes, there's no editor watching closely.

Anyway, from a Japanese perspective "gawa" isn't really different. It's just a voiced consonant shift to better flow with the preceding sound. There's a word for it, but can't remember it off the top of my head.

<comment><USER8> > There's a word for it, but can't remember it off the top of my head.

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

<comment><USER6> That's it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We do the same in Italy, this is a picture of Gran Sasso before the "Giro d'Italia", the most important bike race in Italy (the Italian Tour de France)

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/BvqlYZ8WP7Z_bC4J6q3D...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/BvqlYZ8WP7Z_bC4J6q3DlbBuemDBEKJm4PJeLkI2UqFqQ88mkuvS9YVgeZqj27czRf4kODt_glBeCEZUV-A9hT9_kJm71YObvAQjRFHvwBPFW4zqvH1-l1d3s-YfUOn7QbAbelg3lkP4DBuL6CfFzpmS3geTRMDU)

<comment><USER10> I cannot open your link, I get a 403 Forbidden

<comment><USER9> Sorry

Try this one

[http://www.neveappennino.it/wp- content/uploads/2018/04/Simon...](http://www.neveappennino.it/wp- content/uploads/2018/04/Simone.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this inspired Frappe Snowland in Mario Kart 64: [https://youtu.be/QIG46_eRiNo?t=82](https://youtu.be/QIG46_eRiNo?t=82)

<comment><USER12> I'm there with ya - one of the images in the article had me immediately think of that part of the level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 60 feet of snow is about 18 meters and one banana.

</comment><comment><USER14> The road to the Mount Baker ski resort looks pretty similar often in winter. If I remember correctly they get around 20 meters of snow every (the list a world record of 29 meters of snow during 98-99)

<comment><USER15> Washington and Japan seem to get pretty similar amounts of snow. The North Cascades highway usually doesn't open until sometime in late April or May because of how much snow that area of the state gets. Pictures of it look just like this highway in Japan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13891344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13891344)

</comment><comment><USER17> Article took quite a while to get to the point - TL;DR is a series of bulldozers, backhoes, and large rotary snowplows.

<comment><USER18> From the title, I expected something more non-standard, like some massive purpose-built contraption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I once drove from Sacramento to Sugar Bowl ski resort on the I80. Actually I ended in Sugar Bowl, because it was before GPS and all signs along I80 were buried in snow.

</comment><comment><USER20> _"Originally, removing the snow was just to be able to bring people and supplies to the Tateyama Kokusai Hotel," says Tanikawa, "but then we realized that we have something fairly exceptional, and why not bring people to see the walls."_

Got to love the idea of taking a huge, but cool, expense and turning it into an attraction.

</comment><comment><USER21> I once caught a bus up a mountain in Northern Japan in Spring to go on a hike... And faced a wall of snow like that at the trailhead. Thankfully there was a volcanic onsen open nearby so I did that instead.

</comment><comment><USER22> TL;DR one storm at a time using commercially available truck mounted blowers and dirt moving equipment.

</comment><comment><USER23> Quite amazing</comment>


Artificial meat: UK scientists growing 'bacon' in labs - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47611026 <comment><USER3> I think lab grown meat will radically change how we as humans consume food and its going to taste way better than any animal grown meats we eat today. Animal breeding and husbandry right now is so crude, and there are so many inputs and outputs to optimize, and while meat taste is part of the equation, others factors are meat yield, byproducts, animal health itself (all factors that are important, but are often times in conflict with making the "tastiest" meats). Stage 1 is going to be recreating crude meats like ground beef or sausage, stage 2 will be recreating true single flesh meats like a chicken breast, or a steak, and stage 3 is going to be "designer" meats like a kobe beef recreation, and stage 4 will be "meat insanity", creating "meat like" foods that nature would never be able to produce but that taste incredible (steak balloons, cotton candy like fried chicken, foie gras & tuna marble). Imagine going to a sushi like restaurant where the food is all nigiri style small meat cuts but the meat is all this wild bespoke artificial meats that no animal could ever product, but are wildly tasty.

<comment><USER4> when there are 1000s of companies out there that produces fake meet, I don't think it will be tasty or safe as regular meat and if later killing animals for meat gets banned, people won't have anything to compare it to.

<comment><USER5> What about hunting for meat as a method to responsibly manage deer populations for example? Austin, Texas is having a huge wild boar population explosion because the county instituted a no-kill policy. Also, hunting is a big part of some cultures. Why does one person outside that culture get to decide that's wrong?

<comment><USER6> People don't hunt to eat today. They hunt for sport!

Some people had a culture of eating other people. Do you think that's wrong?

<comment><USER7> We pull two deer a year if we're lucky on my farm, we don't grip and grin but we relish in the ability to eat something that shares the land around us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meat production is such a big contributor to climate change that I'm all for this kind of research. But, I also think more people will simply go some form of mostly vegetarian / vegan in the coming years (optimistically).

I stopped eating meat about four years ago. Like cutting out anything, it was hard for a few weeks but no longer. I have no desire for meat anymore and fully enjoy my diet. I'm technically pescatarian, but only very occasionally because overfishing is a huge problem as well. I also have gained muscle, and leaned out at the same time. Lots of factors at play, like exercising more, stressing less, etc — but I mention it because a lot of people think that being vegetarian or vegan means giving up on fitness goals like getting more muscular.

If there's some aspect of you that wants to try cutting down on meat, give it a shot. Give it a few weeks, and go easy on yourself.

Addressing climate change will likely involve making personal choices about how best to decrease your footprint. If you can switch to a vegetarian diet, you'll be making a pretty substantial move towards that goal — and there's the bonus of not contributing to the morally questionable system of industrial slaughterhouses.

<comment><USER9> I still think meat vs not meat is the wrong approach when addressing the climate: is eating a chicken you raised on your land worse for the environment than consuming the equivalent number of calories from fruits and vegetables imported from another continent? My hunch is no. You can be an environmentally conscious omnivore or an not-so environmentally conscious herbavore. The meatiness of what you eat has absolutely nothing to do, necessarily, with your actual environmental impact.

The ethical issues of consuming animals are another can of worms.

Exit: spelling.

<comment><USER10> > is eating a chicken you raised on your land worse for the environment than > consuming the equivalent number of calories from fruits and vegetables > imported from another continent?

Out of the universe of possible alternatives one could present, this pair seems rather carefully chosen.

<comment><USER11> Not really.

I live in a temperate zone. During the colder months there are not a lot of options for local plant based foods. They are for the most part shipped long distance from somewhere else. Local animals are available year round though.

<comment><USER12> I attended year round "local food" potlucks in Indiana. People had local food available year around. During the winter it kept in cool storage (like onions), or had been frozen, dehydrated, canned, or grown in a greenhouse.

If year-round local plant-food was more of a priority for people, more could be produced.

Besides, where are the local animals getting their food during the winter? The options are basically the same: either they have local food that's been preserved or their food is getting shipped in too, making a rather inefficient way to deliver calories to humans.

<comment><USER13> I was with you until your position that animals eat the same food humans do (because if people can't find local food, how can animals?). This is very, very wrong - even in pretty bad climates where nothing edible will grow for humans it isn't impossible to raise some sort of cattle that grazes. That's more or less the point of cattle: to take a thing you cannot eat and turn it into something you can.

<comment><USER10> This isn't entirely unrelated to how many marginal ecosystems are currently being destroyed by domesticated grazing animals, which are typically invasive species that will overpopulate the area either because of lack of predators or because humans are protecting them from predators.

This maybe wasn't such a big deal centuries ago when natural forces also placed stronger limits on the size of the human populations in those areas. Nowadays, though, I think we very much have to think about the possibility that, regardless of any romantic notions about traditional ways of life, using livestock to live in places we otherwise couldn't is not something we do to respect nature, it's something we do that's destroying it.

<comment><USER13> This is the sort of black and white rhetoric that I think does not do a service to the reality involved. Of course you are correct that overgrazing is a problem, but to go from that to "using livestock to live in places we otherwise couldn't is something we do to destroy the environment" is plain wrong. I would instantly concede your point if you could moderate it to "we need to stop overdoing things", which I think is compatible with what we both see and still has merit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As fake meat gets better, I have to do more double-takes as a vegetarian at restaurants. Are they pulling one over on me? Once it's lab-grown I'm not sure what I'll do, unless it's a vegetarian restaurant.

<comment><USER15> > Once it's lab-grown I'm not sure what I'll do, unless it's a vegetarian > restaurant.

As a religious person I've been curious to read up on what religious scholars of various faith traditions with dietary restrictions have to say about lab- grown meats. Sadly, very few seem to have very settled opinions about it. And it's really only the Catholic Church that has the infrastructure to actually consult credentialed scientists to consult on these issues.

Most of the Hindu sources I've seen maintain that meat is bad on two levels. One is the ethical dimension of committing violence to things that feel pain. The other is an internal spiritual dimension where they believe meat is intrinsically not Sattvic. So it's less bad than real meat, but still not good.

The little I've seen from Jewish and Muslim sources suggests that they don't really see lab-grown as being any different from regular meat with regarding kashrut or halal food.

<comment><USER16> At some point you have to accept that relgious scholars can't answer everything. There is simply no premise for this in texts written thousands of years ago.

<comment><USER15> There are religious groups that take a literalist stance on scriptures and interpret the rules therein as checklists of arbitrary codes to adhere to because reasons, but that's not really how most serious theology or religious thought works.

Generally religious scholars are scholars because they're trained in an intellectual tradition that involves understanding the underlying logic behind the rules so that they can be applied to the changing times and evolving contexts. That's the whole point of having a clergy in the first place. If it was just rote memorization of a rule book you wouldn't need them.

Talmundic law has managed to continue updating itself based on extrapolations of the underlying logic behind restrictions in the source text. Here is an example: [http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/](http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/)

And in Hinduism, the dietary restrictions are based on practical considerations around how the food is produced and its perceived metabolic impact on the body and mind. There is an established framework for evaluating any food by these standards.

<comment><USER17> > Talmundic law has managed to continue updating itself based on > extrapolations of the underlying logic behind restrictions in the source > text. Here is an example: > [http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/](http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/)

Isn't the ban on pig products thought to have been based on it being a disease vector? Considering that this is no longer relevant with modern sanitation and medicine it would seem they're using it as a checklist rather than applying any sort of logic.

<comment><USER15> The disease vector is more modern speculation/post-hoc rationalization for the rules. It's not really anywhere in the text itself aside from references to the animals being 'unclean.' It's likely that a variety of factors went into the rules, not least of which were probably just wanting to maintain some social and cultural separation from the communities around them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> While I'm excited at the all the possibility that lab grown meats can provide - ethically produced meat, less environmental impact, "cleaner" food - <USER2> judgement will have to be reserved until after leave scale production begins. What the definition of "clean meat" is today may not be what I agree with tomorrow.

<comment><USER19> What are your concerns? Are you aying that your values are subect to change, or am misunderstanding you?

<comment><USER20> Subject to change as most details arise

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "In conclusion, substantial scientific progress is still required to determine whether clean meat from single myogenic cells will be environmentally friendly and commercially viable. In the meantime, progress on the development of more mature skeletal muscle tissue in vitro may find other medical applications29, including the repair of volumetric muscle loss."

[https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0043-0](https://sci- hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0043-0)

</comment><comment><USER22> As a vegan, this is neat. There are tons of "vegan bacon" substitutes on the market, and most of them are pretty bad.

It being as unhealthy as "real" bacon is concerning a bit - but, I'll be fine.

<comment><USER23> And how is real bacon unhealthy?

<comment><USER24> High levels of salt, fat, nitrates. Is this a serious question?

<comment><USER23> Completely serious. I am not sure I am in the mood for another long post sourcing my claims, so feel free to question any of what I say:

\- The idea of limiting salt and fats in the diet comes from very misguided health recommendation based on bad science from the 70s motivated by commercial reasons.

\- Bacon actually has quite a healthy lipidic profile even with those recommendations (50% monounsaturated rich in Oleic acid, like olive oil; not that saturated fat is actually unhealthy...)

\- Same for nitrates; bacon doesn't even have that much, nitrates are not proven to be harmful and most of nitrites/nitrates are endogenous (70-90%) anyway...

<comment><USER25> I admire you courage @amval... the "vegan police" have been notified and will be here shortly.

Here is a website that supports your position: that meat is actually VERY good for us... just look at all the case studies:

[http://meatheals.com](http://meatheals.com)

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't go that far. IGF-1 which is released due to the consumption of protein (particularly leucine) has been shown to be responsible for increases in mTOR signaling which is a nutrient sensor responsible for initiating cell growth in some forms of cancer, see this study for example [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392529/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392529/).

In effect, leucine and IGF-1 increases mTOR signalling which is responsible for growth, the opposite effect of calorie restriction (which turns off mTOR and has been shown to reduce the growth of cancer).

<comment><USER25> That NCBI study (which I am 100% was not scientific) was funded by the Winkler Family Foundation. Yep, the guy who produced the movie "Rocky" funded this. And the Winklers have direct ties to the evil Monsanto Corporation: [https://usrtk.org/tag/winkler-family- foundation/](https://usrtk.org/tag/winkler-family-foundation/) Monsanto (now Bayer) wants to eliminate meat eating. So, no thanks... I will pass your "tip."

<comment><USER26> This isn't the only study, it's just an example. Perhaps you should read into mTOR, then you wouldn't have to take my word for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been seeing these types of articles at the very least since the start of this decade.

Here's one from 8 years ago, and there is at least some overlap in the comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2951733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2951733)

Not that there isn't progress. There certainly is. You can now buy actual products (albeit quite overpriced, considering the average American can't really afford to spend 200% of their food budget on a whim). However, it's important to keep in mind how much meat people eat, especially in the States. I think the average consumption is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lb/year. Here's a graph from 2012

[https://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2012/06/gr- meatcomsuptionp...](https://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2012/06/gr- meatcomsuptionpercapita-462.gif)

Let's set a reasonable goal of 10% of that being converted to lab grown meat. We'd need 5 billion pounds (10% of 2012 level) of lab produced meat every year. How close are we to that amount of commercial production? How much more efficient is it in terms of fossil fuel use? 50%? 75%?

It's a great initiative, but simply reducing the amount of meat we eat (imagine having 1 meat-free day/week) is likely to be more effective than this, at least in the near future.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is this some kind of Brexit backup plan?

Jokes apart, more on pork import/exports [https://britishmeatindustry.org/industry/imports- exports/pig...](https://britishmeatindustry.org/industry/imports- exports/pigmeat/)

</comment><comment> Sol- Is there a reason such research often works bottom-up, from cells to meat? Would it not also be possible to go about it top-down, starting from an existing animal species (pig, chicken, etc.) and modify it via breeding or genetic engineering such that what remains is mostly a walking muscle that can be used for meat production in a more ethical manner?

In the end, true lab meat might be "cleaner" or the better solution. But in the meantime, reducing the cognitive abilities of such farm animals by breeding or gene-tech also seems like it could be an ethical alternative to reduce their suffering.

<comment><USER29> The primary aim here generally isn't ethics; it's efficiency, with food safety a distant second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is the nutrition profile anywhere close to real meat, though? And by nutrition I don't just mean "does it have enough protein".

<comment><USER31> So then what DO you mean? Which nutrients are you concerned about?

<comment><USER32> I assume D, B12, iron, etc

<comment> Harvey-Specter Presumably it's easier to include extra vitamins and minerals in artificial meat than it is for 'real' meat.

<comment><USER33> I would not be surprised if we find that in 200 years each vitamin has a unique profile based on it's source and putting supplements in something fake does not make it the same as real.

It probably won't matter, however. Biology adapts.

<comment><USER34> We already know there are synergistic effects with certain nutrients. But what we're just as likely to find is that there are more beneficial combinations of nutrients than are found in nature. There's a strong possibility that (eventually) we'll be able to create better foods instead of worse ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Lab-grown meat, along with vertical farming, may also make space colonization easier, or at least make the experience more enjoyable.

<comment><USER36> I think the main problem with space colonization is the whole nutrient cycle - using and/or recycling every part of food that is grown and consumed, including human excrements and other organic waste (skin, hair, blood, etc.). I don't think that terrestrial farming practice focus on that, no matter how technologically advanced or futursistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Looks like serum free cell culture medium exist: [https://www.labome.com/method/Cell-Culture-Media-A- Review.ht...](https://www.labome.com/method/Cell-Culture-Media-A-Review.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't want see meat mass produced in this manner. But if WOOL would be produced this way - that would be a lower risk way develop an industry and gain experience of what kind of diseases might result from such unusual factory conditions.

<comment><USER19> It's not wool, but the non-edible animal product that's being currently researched is leather: [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern-m...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern- meadow-lab-grown-leather/540285/)

<comment><USER39> Sign me up for all three. I would give a kidney for an excellent, guilt-free wool business suit.

<comment><USER40> I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, but have always considered wool to be fair game. The sheep is shorn, and frolics off unharmed. What's the guilt aspect? Would like to reassess my position given whatever info you can share.

<comment><USER38> I think the life experience of farmed sheep tends overall to be a little milder than wild mountain goats, although they are herded up several times a year which they don't much like - they are bred to be quite cool. Most seriously their lambs are separated and sent to slaughter, and eventually the adults are too if they don't fall ill outside. The slaughter operation is the most problematic and the stress could be reduced alot if it could be arranged on site. In the wild predation on herds and flocks is routinely very traumatic as well.

My major concern with sheep farming is that it is done at an intensity which keeps their ranges quite barren of flora. Tree and bush saplings and many native plants cant withstand grazing levels so ranges which could reforest and be more fertile wild or semi-wild habitats, end up tundra-like despite having much more potential for diversity, conservation or sustainable productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is nobody else seriously worried about the safety of lab grown food in general?

It took us decades to realise that cigarettes are in fact harmful. Medicine takes years to get approved. Who really understands the long term impact of fake meat on human body? Why aren't regulators requiring long term trials of these products before allowing them to market?

As a complete outsider looking in, this trend is very worrying. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER42> I mean, it's not fake meat. It's meat. Same fundamental ingredients humans have been eating since they became a species (and long before).

<comment><USER43> Except it is fake meat.

<comment><USER44> It's lab grown. Are plants grown in a lab fake plants? Bacteria cultured in a Petri dish fake bacteria?

<comment><USER43> If you only create a fruit without a full grown plant to have produced it, yes.

If you want to prove that eating fake meat has no additional adverse side effects to real meat, there would need to be studies. Have there been studies? No, there haven't. You can't assert that the two are the same because of a lack of evidence if there has been no attempt to find evidence. Until you have controlled experiments where people are exclusively fed both (preferably for at least a year, IMHO) you can't just conclude that 'well they seem the same so they must be'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm surprised how many people in the comments automatically assume that fake meat will be safe to consume. Sure it appears identical but so does a clone of a sheep, and yet they live a fraction of the lifespan of the original animals. I think a little agnosticism, especially given the lack of research and testing on animals/humans would be welcome here.

</comment><comment><USER45> How much energy and water does it take to grow the cells? Are there any environmental benefits here or are the benefits primarily ethical? The article mentions the potential for decreased emissions but I've yet to see hard numbers about how much waste these products produce.

<comment><USER46> It has to be more efficient eventually, animals waste energy moving around, breathing, excreting, etc. This completely wipes that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I prefer my food made by a plant not in a plant...

</comment><comment><USER48> "First lab-grown burger, created by a team in the Netherlands at a cost of €250,000 - largely due to the time and labour needed to turn millions of tiny cells into meat". I understand there is a cost to research, but still, I'm speechless at the costs of this burger.

<comment><USER49> > I'm speechless at the costs of this burger.

What left me speechless is the fact that they cooked it "well done" (they damn near burnt it).

Pound-for-pound way more expensive than Kobe, and they burn it.

WTH were they thinking?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >or using a population of "immortalised" cells, that will keep on dividing. "Which means that you don't kill any animals; you have this immortal cell that can be used forever."

Another term for "immortalised" is cancerous or pre-cancerous. I wonder if in 15-20 years, we will find out that exposure to these artificial meats can lead to cancer?

<comment><USER51> Can eating a tumor cause cancer? I would have thought the stomach would render it down into amino acids.

<comment><USER52> No, of course not. Intact cells have a really hard time getting into the bloodstream. If they do (say, from handling it with an open wound) the immune system might complain about being bored by such an easy challenge.

Cancers can theoretically be transmitted via transplants, but those derive from humans and are therefore much closer to the body's own cells. And even there, immunosuppressives are required to prevent rejection.

There are some cancers that originate from viruses. HPV is the most prominent, and whatever is killing the Tasmanian Tiger. There's some speculation others may as well (the red meat -> colon cancer link comes to mind). But that's not really relevant for the topic at hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I would not eat any meat that has been grown by a human. Logic tells me fake meat is not the same as real meat. It must lack something real meat has. Otherwise, it would be real.

<comment><USER54> I have hard time understanding your logic, could you elaborate?

<comment><USER53> I am not sure why my opinion is being shot down.

If I was cheering for fake meat, I wonder whether this would be the case. Is this a "touchy" subject? If my opinion offends, please be less sensitive.

To say fake meat is identical to real meat is to say that humans understand everything about the process. We don't, but like to pretend we do.

I admit, I also have this view because of an association with meat and live animals - hence, meat comes from life. It is special.

If it is grown in a lab, it looses this. Although some will say fake meat still comes from life, I disagree.

I think my opinion is historically aligned with mainstream.

<comment><USER55> The way I understand it, you refuse to eat lab-grown meat simply because you dismiss it as "fake," thus lacking in something compared to livestock meat. Why, though? There is no intrinsic, special value in livestock meat -or any food, for that matter- besides taste and nutritional properties. The day these two attributes, together with cost and environment footprint, become on par or preferable to livestock meat's, all other considerations should fly out of the window.

<comment><USER56> > There is no intrinsic, special value in livestock meat -or any food, for > that matter- besides taste and nutritional properties

How do you know?

<comment><USER55> Biochemistry has come a long way in the last decades by explaining how food powers our body and interacts with it at every level. There is no magic involved! Surely many questions remain unanswered, but nothing prevents us from applying what we already know to food engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If this reaches mass scale, is this ethical? What about all the pig, chickens and cows that will never be born because they won't be reared anymore? We'd have no use for them, we'd take over farmland with meat factories and wipe out 99% of the species.

Is that more ethical than rearing & killing the animal instead?

<comment><USER57> What sort of mental gymnastics do you have to go through to even arrive at this question?</comment></comment>


App Store Experiments Gone Wild - <AUTHOR> http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/app-store-experiments-gone-wild/

<comment><USER2> This is hardly wild in concept.</comment>


What happens when National Geographic steals your art? - <AUTHOR> http://www.blyon.com/what-happens-when-national-geographic-steals-your-art/

<comment><USER2> They apologize and offer to pay a fair and reasonable licensing fee?

It sounds like someone sold NG a license for art that wasn't theirs. NG was also a victim here, it's not a lottery ticket for the artist.

I'm sorry the art was stolen, I'm glad they are trying to make it right by offering to pay ~10x his going rate.

<comment><USER3> So, someone steals the front page artwork for your site, doesn't give you the proper credit and then offers you a mere pittance of what they'll make in sales and you're OK with that?

Capitalism shouldn't suck only for the little guys.

<comment><USER4> The license isn't based on the amount of sales. He licenses it for $300. I get that NG has more money than he does but I don't think it's relevant in this situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I see an article like this where only one side of an email chain is posted, it makes me question the content. The start of the NG email reads "I must respectfully disagree with the implication set forth in your reply email that statutory damages for willful infringement in the range of $150,000 per work are applicable to this situation.". That makes it sound as though his email may have just reach out and said "You guys are so screwed, you do realize stealing my shit is going to cost you $150k right?". How would that prompt anything other than a carefully crafted response from a legal team?

</comment><comment><USER5> If there are other artists who have faced similar treatment, is it not possible for all of them to file against natgeo together?

</comment><comment><USER6> <sarc> I'm so sorry to hear that they took what is yours and that you no longer have access to your creation.

</sarc>

Since when did copyright infringement be made equal to theft?</comment>


The history of curly braces - <AUTHOR> http://www.bobbemer.com/BRACES.HTM

<comment><USER2> The article mentions that at one point the ASCII standard moved the alphabetic characters one space to the left, because the author happened to have examined a phone directory while visiting Copenhagen and noted that Denmark sorts its three accented characters at the end of their alphabet.

An interesting trivium: the IRC protocol lets users choose their own nicknames, and demands that nicknames be compared in a case-insensitive manner. For the purposes of IRC, you must treat {|} as the 'lower-case' versions of [\\], because IRC was invented in Scandinavia and it did indeed use those character-codes for accented characters.

<comment><USER3> And here I suspected you were trolling... (in that case, if you've successfully trolled the RFC - more power to you :)

<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812#section-2.2>

" 2.2 Character codes

       No specific character set is specified. The protocol is based on a
       set of codes which are composed of eight (8) bits, making up an
       octet.  Each message may be composed of any number of these octets;
       however, some octet values are used for control codes, which act as
       message delimiters.

       Regardless of being an 8-bit protocol, the delimiters and keywords
       are such that protocol is mostly usable from US-ASCII terminal and a
       telnet connection.

       Because of IRC's Scandinavian origin, the characters {}|^ are
       considered to be the lower case equivalents of the characters []\~,
       respectively. This is a critical issue when determining the
       equivalence of two nicknames or channel names."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as they are hated by some, there's empirical data indirectly suggesting that using curly braces for scoping might lead to less mistakes when reading code:

> _Similarly, the twospaces version of counting demonstrated that vertical > space is more important then indentation to programmers when judging whether > or not statements belong to the same loop body. Programmers often group > blocks of related statements together using vertical white space, but our > results indicate that this seemingly superficial space can cause even > experienced programmers to internalize the wrong program._

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.5257>

Of course, whether or not curly braces significantly help in this situation would require another experiment. Anecdotally though, I do feel like it requires less mental effort to structure code that I'm reading.

</comment><comment><USER5> He mentions thqt the backslash was added to the character set to allow the representation of boolean operators when paired with its forward cousin:

        A /\ B \/ C

I wonder why that notation was abandoned in programming languages.

<comment><USER6> & and ^ are just one character? Actually I think you could use both to disambiguate between logical and bitwise. I'm not sure if it is a good idea yet, but it would force the developer to see them as different operations; something that easily confuses beginners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My opinion about ASCII:

Why is there a back tick ` but no mirrored version of it (the ' is not)?

Why is there no degree symbol in it?

Why did they make most the first 32 symbols useless codes instead of also symbols?

Why did they have to start the whole "newline vs carriage return" thing, why not just a single newline character from the beginning?

Why is there no pilcrow, paragraph symbol, dagger and double dagger in it?

Why no symbols for not equals, subset, intersection, union, (no) element of, AND, OR in it?

Why is it 7-bit and not 8-bit? Who uses 7 bits, honestly.

Programming languages would have had some nicer symbols available if some of the above were done...

<comment><USER8> > Why did they make most the first 32 symbols useless codes instead of also > symbols?

Why the first 32. Symmetry. Look at the table here: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ASCII_Code_Chart- Qui...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ASCII_Code_Chart- Quick_ref_card.jpg)

Four groups of 32, each group differing in only one bit position.

Why were the first 32 devoted to "control" codes? Because ASCII appeared in the days of mechanical paper teletype interfaces to computers and so there was a need for codes to control the teletype. Additionally the intent was to use other of the control codes for "control" (i.e., use of XON (control-q) and XOFF (control-s) for flow control).

> Why did they have to start the whole "newline vs carriage return" thing,

Because when you have a mechanical paper teletype printer as your interface to the computer, the teletype printer needs to be told to do two things:

1) return the print carriage to the left margin

2) roll the paper up one line

Having the ability to do both independently (for a paper printer) allows for simulating some otherwise impossible effects (i.e., bold face).

> Why is it 7-bit and not 8-bit?

To allow bit 8 to be used for a parity bit for data transmission purposes.

> Why is there no pilcrow, paragraph symbol, dagger and double dagger in it?

> Why no symbols for not equals, subset, intersection, union, (no) element of, > AND, OR in it?

Likely because, after choosing to make a 7-bit code (to allow bit 8 to be parity), there is only so much room left in only 128 slots.

<comment><USER9> > Four groups of 32, each group differing in only one bit position.

That's impossible. If you have four groups, they have to differ in at least TWO bit positions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google's cache here (as it seems down for some people):

<http://goo.gl/PWIme></comment>