Sun, surf and low rents: why Lisbon could be the next tech capital - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/29/lisbon-web-summit-sun-surf-cheap-rents-tech-capital <comment><USER2> There's an article like this written about 90% of Europe's capitals. There are no tech hubs in cheap places, because smart people move away from low wage, low cost of life places. Libon stands no chance, I would say the only contenders are London, Stockholm, Berlin and maybe 2-3 others. The only low- ish cost country I could see becoming a serious contester for a tech hub would be Poland.

<comment><USER3> But you have to admit, there's an obvious need/desire for there to be other/more tech hubs. As cool as it might be for some to have a single tech hub, that kills affordability, hence distributing the hubs to numerous spots around the world. Let's face it: if you happen to be a tech employable person, wouldn't it be cool if you _COULD_ spend a few years in tech hub A, then be able to move to tech hub B, etc.? Instead of really only having one (or too few) options? I think so anyway.

<comment><USER2> I think tech hubs are intrinsically centralized, because you need to get the best people in the sample place. If you have N tech hubs, then you have no tech hubs. If Europe is to have a real tech hub, it needs to have the best minds in Europe (at the very least) be there. And for now, there is not really any such place. Language is also a big issue.

<comment><USER4> There is such a place. That's called London and the language is English.

Source: Me and the dozens of tech people I meet every days who have left their countries to come here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lisbon is definitely a nice place to live, but not so much to work. Otherwise why the significant emigration rate of tech workers/skilled workers? Pay is low and the hours are long. VC money in Portugal is very limited and bureaucracy is still more than what you would expect comparing to the UK.

Most entrepreneurship programs are state sponsored and usually there is some big international company involved, from incubation these companies become state dependent.

<comment><USER6> The pay is low if you compare to London, even so I had colleagues in Lisbon earning more (before taxes) than devs in London. If you don't earn enough here to live comfortably, either you dont have the skills (yet?) or have no idea of the market you're in.

Of course, if your plan is to earn money, in Europe London is the place to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And a lot of bureaucracy and a complex tax system.

If I wanted to start a business in Europe I'd chose the UK. They are light (for Europe) on regulation and have very simple rules when it comes to running a business according to law. Hell, you can set up your Ltd. in 10 minutes and pay the fees via PayPal.

Try that anywhere in Continental Europe.

(That's also why I don't get all the hype about Berlin. I'm from Germany and Germany is one of the last places where I would start up).

<comment><USER8> Estonia, while a little obscure, has great facilities for interacting with the government, and a very straightforward tax code. They have one of the most modern governments in Europe, with which you can interact fully digitally by using a digital id (smartcard). Also, check out their latest campaign for attracting business and talent, called e-Estonia. While they have plenty to learn, they are on the right track.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suspect what makes a 'tech capital' is the presence of VC money. For better or worse, SF absolutely dominates here, and till we have comparable amounts of money in another location, there won't be comparable 'tech capitals'. I doubt low rent is a marker of a tech capital anywhere. (I could be wrong).

It might make sense to register a company in the USA, raise money from US VC then work from wherever you have access to your customers and you like living. India has a few companies that do exactly this. US registered companies, a global clientele, tech work happens in India, mostly in Bangalore.

E.g: Helpshift.

<comment><USER10> Sure thing. But I think SF is more of a US thing.

I have the feeling that Europe is searching for its own tech captial right now. London was the best candidate, but (probably) got nuked by the Brexit.

I'd think it could be Berlin, it is rather cheap and still got much creative people. Don't know if they will gentrify it away the next years.

<comment><USER4> Brexit doesn't matter.

The brains are already here. The companies are already here. The language is English.

There is no other place in Europe who can compete with that.

<comment><USER11> London is far from being THE tech capital of Europe. Nowhere here has consolidated itself as a huge tech hub yet, London is good, just as Berlin is pretty good for tech jobs right now.

I'm currently living and working in Stockholm and I can say that the culture around tech here is pretty damn good, although smaller than Berlin or London we get some very good people around here, paired with Swedish efficiency. Hell, even Amsterdam has a good tech scene.

I hope that London doesn't suffer a huge backlash from Brexit but... It's not a consolidated tech hub and I really don't know about startup culture around there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've heard Portugal could be favourable for personal income tax if you are a remote worker, can anyone comment on that? If i'm thinking about "semi" retiring I'd like somewhere with cheap tax, sun and good hospitals.

<comment><USER13> Apparently there is a 10-year 0-tax on non-Portugal income. Road to residency is quite straightforward (for non-EU citizens) (not sure about citizenship though). On the other hand, bureaucracy is quite bad I've heard.

<comment><USER14> Information related the taxation regime for "non-habitual residents": [http://www.livinginportugal.com/en/moving-to-portugal/tax- re...](http://www.livinginportugal.com/en/moving-to-portugal/tax-regime-for- non-habitual-residents/)

Apparently, the 0% tax only applies in case the income is already taxed in the state of origin...

<comment><USER15> For Americans, isn't all our income always still taxed in the US?

<comment><USER16> Always _subject to_ taxation by the US. There's a fairly high initial exemption for money earned abroad while living abroad.

The only exception is Puerto Rico

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yea, and Palatka Florida is in the running. It's close to the ocean, 45 mins from St Augustine. It's dead center between Jacksonville, Gainesville and St Augustine. It's dirt cheap with my 130 year old house at 2000 sqft only being 145k. And I'm here.

You need more than low cost housing, friendly government and eco-amenities to make a new tech hub.

</comment><comment><USER18> In my opinion, tech hubs need:

* Open minded culture

* Top research facilities (i.e. Multiple top universities)

* Low cost of living, high quality of life

* Large customer markets

Just because Libson has a low cost of living doesn't mean it will take off. The cost of living is low in lots of South American Cities. Does that mean they will all be the next San Fran?

<comment><USER2> Care to name a few tech hubs that have a low cost of living?

<comment><USER19> Austin, Texas in the U.S.? While the cost in dollars may be cheap, I would definitely consider there to be steep non-monetary costs to living there.

<comment><USER20> I don't think Austin is considered cheap except compared to new York and SF

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lisbon is an awesome place to live, the weather is awesome (today we have 27C and it's almost November), the food and nightlife is great and somewhat cheap compared with other european cities, but it's far away from becoming a tech capital.

It's really a nice place, especially for people who are working remotely and receiving a kind of salary that are paid in UK, US, Australia, etc

</comment><comment><USER6> Actually I would very much prefer that Lisbon would become the next tech creative scene than the next Sillicon Valley. Besides lots of money for some people, I don't see any particular advantages of being loaded with VC money. I don't buy into the trickle down argument, from what I read over this side of the pond only the IT people are happy in SF.

</comment><comment><USER22> For anyone employing/being employed in Portugal: I've read that that the statutory maximum working day is 8 hours. What does that actually mean in practice?

<comment><USER10> I don't know Portugal, but in Germany it's 8h too. (40h a week)

(8h work) + (0.5h to 1h lunch break) ~= 9h at the office.

<comment><USER23> In my experience (Austria and UK), lunch break is part of the 8h, i.e. I get to work at 10:00 and leave at 18:00.

<comment><USER10> [http://www.bullshift.net/data/images/2013/12/lowbird-f9493a2...](http://www.bullshift.net/data/images/2013/12/lowbird-f9493a2680.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It is all sunny, until you try to register a company.

<comment><USER10> How come?

It's in the EU, so you can register your company where you prefer. Ireland for example.

<comment><USER25> Burocracy in south Europe is not similar to anywhere in the developed world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nope

</comment><comment><USER27> Not going to happen.

<comment><USER28> Why?

<comment><USER29> Not the OP, but I do live here: because you can't have a concentration of startups without a concentration of venture capital, and that has yet to materialize. Nor do I see a particular reason why it should materialize.</comment></comment></comment>


Eclipse 4.3 Kepler released - <AUTHOR> http://eclipse.org/kepler/

<comment><USER2> As a friendly reminder, you can import your plugins via File > Import > Install > From Existing Installation. The new themes are seriously ugly still, so dont forget to get Eclipse 4 Chrome Theme by Jeeeyul via Marketplace.

Performance is pretty much back to normal. Nice to have Eclipse back.</comment>


Static Site Engine Battle Royale - <AUTHOR> http://developer.telerik.com/featured/comparing-static-site-engines/

<comment><USER2> nice! There is also [https://github.com/assemble/assemble.io](https://github.com/assemble/assemble.io) and [https://github.com/gausby/ecoule](https://github.com/gausby/ecoule) \- but indeed jekyll still offers the best out of the box experience. I am wondering if people from divshot are working on a static site generator with superstatic too</comment>


Happiness is contagious, research finds - <AUTHOR> http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/05/science/sci-happy5

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting stuff. Here's the full study: [http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/dec04_2/a2338?maxtos...](http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/dec04_2/a2338?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=happiness&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT)

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting, for sure. But, as an aside, look at the point size and location of those link ads! Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.</comment>


OPEN BETA – Appreciate all feedback, thank you - <AUTHOR> https://www.doolio.co/ <comment><USER2> Why would I sign up for something that says literally nothing about what it is?

<comment><USER3> If I'm guessing correctly, it's a page to create a list of your abilities, something like a profile. (?????) I agree that it's very difficult to convince someone of signing up almost without information.</comment></comment>


This is a motherfucking website. And it's fucking not completely perfect - <AUTHOR> http://twentyoheight.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/this-is-a-motherfucking-website-and-its-fucking-not-completely-perfect/ <comment><USER2> I think the criticisms on this site are fundamentally wrong-headed. The original motherfucking website is reflowable, lightweight text that conveys everything it needs to. Navigation doesn't need to be "fixed to the viewport", and lines don't need to be 66 characters long.

If every website were designed like the "motherfucking website", I could design a "browsing theme" where all lines were 66 characters long. If there were some navigation metadata in there, I could theme the browser to show that as a viewport at the top. I could change the aesthetics _to the user 's preference_.

Not that there's anything that can be done about it from this equilibrium, but I think the problem is that people got it in their head that they should be able to control how users view their sites, and that's wrong. If you consider markup to be metadata about how your data should be displayed, then you shouldn't have to do any QA testing or cross-device testing, because the onus of design would be _on the browser_. You'd choose a browser that displays websites the way you like to see them. Everything would be automatically 100% cross-platform and accessible, because you're not trying to use markup to force a specific way of viewing your site.

Honestly, the _hubris_ of designers can be amazing. As if aesthetics is a universal. Maybe some people _prefer_ 100 lines of text per line. Maybe some people want to zoom a mobile site. It's so incredibly difficult to specifically create a single (or even adaptive) design that works for blind people, people with every different kind of colorblindness, people using every browser on the market on devices with vastly different screen sizes and resolutions, people with every kind of character set and a million different aesthetic preferences you've never even _thought_ of. And yet it's so easy to just put your content up there with markup suggestions about how it should be displayed and let users choose how they want to see it. They'll do your work _for you_.

<comment><USER3> It's not so much the hubris of designers as the economics. Designers bring the print culture with them, where everything published gets visually polished by a human. You don't just dump tagged text from a typewriter.

The web is designed precisely to dump text from a digital typewriter. And the visual design can be universal or customized by a user.

This poses a minor problem because if actually implemented as intended, thousands of designers would be out of work. You'd need very few to make universal text display themes and occasionally improve them. And more complex UIs could be handled with something like bootstrap.

But there are far more people with the print designer mindset, recreating the old world in digital form, then there are visionary designers like Doug Engelbart who wanted to use computers to do new things. And you can't just retrain those people to not spend their lives changing line lengths and text colors to shove ads and make display cases, that's all they know. It's an economics problem.

<comment><USER2> I understand why designers would want to protect the jobs they currently have, but I personally think that it would actually be better if talented coders and designers were freed up from the [unnecessary] work of creating themes for every website in existence. There's plenty to do in this world that we don't need some of our smartest and best people doing unnecessary work.

<comment><USER3> Sure but you can't re-allocate workers in a capitalist economy with a paper idea and a signature. You have to convince thousands of people. You have to convince investors to start new companies where new types of workers are doing something new on the web. You probably can't re-educate millions of the current designers, code monkeys, content farmers and clients to do new types of work that has nothing to do with their old work.

There are plenty of these smartest and best people trying startups and they're not really measuring up to what computer pioneers imagined. Seems the best we can do for Engelbart's complex topic discussion systems are Wikipedia, Quora, Reddit and HN.

HN's designer Paul Graham subscribes to Job's idea of simple, minimalist interfaces because they're easy to learn and get users fast. The old school of thought was programs and interfaces would do a lot, took a while to learn, but were worth it in the end. Today we assume only things that are worth learning on a computer are existing job skills. It's a Catch-22 and a hard sell.

For reference

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSgaJt27PM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSgaJt27PM) [http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q](http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > However, a website featuring larger amounts of content would require a > navigation bar, optimally fixed to the top of the viewport.3 This navigation > bar should adapt to smaller screens without device- or resolution-specific > break points (= device-agnostic design).

At which point you end up with yet another site that takes up over 1/3 of the viewport with a navigation bar on many phones held in landscape.

<comment><USER5> For a true minimalist website. Breadcrumbs + an index page should work for most sites.

Or go Wikipedia style with search and in context links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> His 3 complaints - linelength, navigation, aesthetics.

If only it was 1994 and people could resize their 'viewport' to get the line length they prefer, instead of having snobby designers force it to be what they value.

<comment><USER7> > _If only it was 1994 and people could resize their 'viewport' to get the > line length they prefer, instead of having snobby designers force it to be > what they value._

Only it's 2014, and people have 10+ tabs open. They can be bothered to resize the browser size for each and everyone of them. And some prefer the browser to be full screen, etc.

<comment><USER8> I have far more than a reasonable number of tabs open, and I can tell you I've never encountered that problem. Once I set the width I like, it works for all pages. The only exception I can think of is the odd video site that doesn't fullscreen properly, but watching videos is a bit of a mode switch anyway; it can handle a maximize click.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of the GNU documentation - [http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/index.html](http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/index.html)

I feel like I was taught at one point that the web was supposed to be flat HTML/HTTP and that interactive stuff was supposed to be reserved for applications. Did that used to be a thing?

</comment><comment><USER7> > _An optimally readable line should contain only ~66 characters, which > corresponds to ~30 em.1 To reduce the amount of scrolling, this can be > augmented with a multi-column layout and pagination._

Err, no, multi-column layout sucks (you have to scroll back to the top to read the next column). And pagination sucks too.

Just make the text take 70 or so characters wide.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how a website like this would convert if you were selling a product. I imagine if you're selling a web app, where design matters, conversions would be shit. But if you're selling something where it doesn't matter how your website looks? I bet this could convert fantastically.

<comment><USER11> I guess it depends on your customers, I don't know how many people would be confident putting credit card information into a website like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish people would learn to fucking swear properly. That fucking title is not completely fucking perfect.

/s

</comment><comment><USER13> Why would one prefer pagination over scrolling? Is it just about the clicks?

</comment><comment><USER14> >>Good design is as little design as possible Is there something called 10% design or 100% design?What's little design ?

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminder that JavaScript frameworks are useless bloat that kill page load times and degrade user experience. Plain HTML/ CSS/ JS already does everything just as easily.

In what other language is it a good idea to compile the entire standard library each time the program is run?

<comment><USER7> Julia I think :-)

<comment><USER16> Not exactly true. The standard library is precompiled and the same is worked on for packages.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. tests system to break foreign Web censorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/Iran/idUSTRE57C5OQ20090813?feedType=RSS&feedName=Iran&virtualBrandChannel=10209 <comment><USER2> <http://code.google.com/p/foe-project/>

RSS over POP3/SMTP

No downloads at this point. (Why advertise it then?)</comment>


Does the logarithmic nature of global warming invalidate climate change claims? - <AUTHOR> https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37709/does-the-logarithmic-nature-of-global-warming-invalidate-climate-change-claims <comment><USER2> The increase in utility to billions more people having access to electricity is linear rather than logarithmic. They will benefit as much as we do. So if temperature increases only with log(CO2), that suggests accepting global warming as the price of economic growth, especially growth in the developing world.</comment>


Classics of statistics - <AUTHOR> http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/06/classics_of_sta.html

<comment><USER2> In case you, like I, read through that list and wondered what the hell the Federalist Papers had to do with statistics, I've saved you the trouble of looking it up:

 _Mosteller and David Wallace studied the historical problem of who wrote each of the disputed Federalist papers, Madison or Hamilton. In 1964 this paper appeared on the cover of Time magazine, the first time a paper in the field of statistics received such attention. The Federalist Papers study was conducted in order to demonstrate the power of Bayesian data analysis and required a great deal of computational power for that time._</comment>


CrashFirefox.com – Does what you'd expect - <AUTHOR> http://crashfirefox.com/

<comment><USER2>
      location = 'data:text/html,<script>location = "location.toString + \"A\"";' + 'A'.repeat( 100000000 );

</comment><comment><USER3> It didn't crash my Firefox. It did run my CPU load averages up and started sucking up memory and ran real slow to the point of non responsiveness for 10 minutes. I had to kill it manually, though. Not impressed.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find this useful. Quick way to exit firefox and save the state of all your tabs in one quick shot :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the downtime, last time I ever use a free webhost!</comment>


The Cognitive Style of Unix - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3339907908/the-cognitive-style-of-unix <comment><USER2> In case you find the graphs as confusing as I did:

In the first graph (predicted results), the dotted line is "internalized" (command line), the solid line is "externalized" (GUI), and the Y axis is "higher is better".

In the second graph (actual results), the _solid_ line is "internalized" (command line), the dotted line is "externalized" (GUI), and the Y axis is "lower is better".

Kinda funny in an article about cognition.</comment>


I mostly believe in Worms - <AUTHOR> http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/06/why-i-mostly-believe-in-worms/ <comment><USER2> I like that the GiveWell website has an "Our Mistakes" section right up in their main navigation bar. It does a lot to inspire a feeling of transparency, which is a big issue for non-profits. I think more of them would do well to take the issue of transparency more seriously, and if they are reluctant to be transparent, they should take some time to consider whether it is for truly good reasons.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think GiveWell does a great job at determining where we get the best bang for our buck when it comes to aid, but at a more fundamental level, I don't think I'm in a position to tell someone else what they need. That's condescending and I'll never have the whole picture. That's why I give to GiveDirectly--I think people should be able to determine how they are helped.

Deworming programs might help kids the most, but then that money goes to a (likely American) pharmaceutical company and the benefit is over.

In contrast, give someone money and a lot of that money will stay in their community. Maybe the iron roof they buy provides them a smaller benefit than deworming, but the guy who makes and installs the iron roof can now buy a cow from his neighbor, who can now buy seed for next year's crops. Maybe eventually the money allows someone to get deworming medication for their kids, but now that money had benefited a bunch of people in the community first.

It's hard to collect data on this kind of stuff (although GiveDirectly is collecting a lot of data). But I think we need to recognize that the only reason we collect data is to control outcomes, and we're not really helping people if we don't allow them control over their own lives.

<comment><USER4> If we're doing fair comparisons, the gift to a single family that allowed them to buy the iron roof could have dewormed 200-1000 children and at least some of those funds pass into the hands of local administrators spending in the local economy. I also doubt the profit margin for an East African roof installer buys him a cow, and it may not even be as much as the local thatcher stands to lose from no longer being required to undertake as many biennal rethatching projects. (Estimating all the side effects of a programme is really quite tricky)

I don't buy the argument that deworming doesn't really help people because they weren't offered the choice of buying the equivalent value of cigarettes instead. Just because a person freely chooses to do something doesn't mean it helps them, and vice versa. Donors and aid agencies' systematic biases in favour of things that don't work particularly well (this, not "control" is the real reason for all the data collection attempts) is certainly worth worrying about, but that can't be fairly assessed without realising that recipients also have systematic biases in favour of things that don't work or against things that do too. There's a reason why countries where the average person has a lot of disposable income spend _even more_ as a proportion of income on publicly subsidised healthcare programmes.

Edit: This shouldn't be interpreted as a particular criticism of GiveDirectly, if the idea of making a fairly big difference to a small number of randomly- selected very poor Kenyan people appeals to you.

<comment><USER5> The mention of cigarette spending is an extremely dangerous strawman, largely because for some reason people actually believe it. There's fairly strong evidence that there is no increase in tobacco or alcohol spending[1][2] with direct cash transfers to the extremely poor. These stereotypes are frequently used to argue against charity or welfare to the needy, and I can only consider this line of argument to be harmful.

This is not to take away from the rest of your point, but I would appreciate it if you chose a different comparison next time.

[1] [https://www.givedirectly.org/research-at-give- directly](https://www.givedirectly.org/research-at-give-directly) [2] [https://www.givedirectly.org/research-on-cash- transfers](https://www.givedirectly.org/research-on-cash-transfers)

<comment><USER4> Appreciate the sentiment, but it was actually a quite deliberate comparison because (i) the very poor in developing countries where cigarettes are very cheap often have a cigarette budget which comes _before_ investment and improved nutrition (ii) I'm well aware that despite the startling prevalence of smoking amongst poor men, increased tobacco use isn't a significant factor in studies of how poor people spend donor cash.

(i) pretty much underlines my point about the things people choose to spend their money on not necessarily being what's best for them. And in the short term it's not an inexplicable phenomenon because cheap tobacco probably does provide more pain and stress relief than slightly better nutrition.

(ii) is partly because surveys like those you've posted accurately represent people tending not alter their habits of smoking cheap cigarettes (or frowning on tobacco) after receiving a sudden windfall; there's a limit to how much one can smoke and stockpiling makes no sense when for people who don't even have a waterproof roof. But it's also because poor people are smart enough to realise that people quizzing them on their lifestyle and unexpected windfalls from foreign donors aren't unrelated, and the natural response is to tailor responses to what they think the foreign donors want to hear, resulting in any increases in spending on cigarettes and alcohol (whilst likely low relative to increases in spending on roofs or microbusiness investments anyway) being systematically underreported.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any evidence for systematic underreporting? One could just as easily say that the members of control groups (who do not receive cash) would have a reason to underreport their spending on things that are not approved of in order to receive more potential money in the future.

Also the research presented by GiveDirectly also includes studies of people where the cash is not from the same people as the surveys (for example state funded benefit programs that have clear and universal criteria unrelated to spending or consumption.) In those cases again there is reason to expect the underreporting to be similar across both groups that get cash and those that do not currently.

<comment><USER4> > One could just as easily say that the members of control groups (who do not > receive cash) would have a reason to underreport their spending on things > that are not approved of in order to receive more potential money in the > future

This apparently happening with control groups _in the same villages as cash transfer recipients_ is actually some of the most persuasive evidence response biases exist in the surveys. According to various RCTs, when their neighbours start getting money, women are less likely to report their husbands beating them. On the other hand, they're also less likely to report being satisfied with their life. There are [just about] plausible mechanisms for how spillover effects from donations could cause those behavioural/satisfaction changes amongst non-recipients in a neighbourhood, but _recipients thought they were less likely to receive money if they reported domestic violence or said they were satisfied with their life_ is the most Ockham's-razor satisfying one. (It's also likely part of the reason why _recipients_ seem surprisingly unlikely to report increased satisfaction from life after receiving life- changing sums despite positive changes in almost every measurable area.)

Response biases are difficult enough to eliminate in social science surveys when participants have no reason to suspect a sum greater than their average annual income may hinge on their answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I love about this analysis how it tries to deal with conflicting information. The author is very explicit with the problems of the Worms study, but still trusts it. This is real life decisonmaking.

There are few easy answers, especially in complex systems. The best we can do is put the evidence out there and make our best guess.

</comment><comment><USER8> It reminds me of the time we had too many homo saps and cattus rattuses in the house and we got tired of seeing worms on the carpets and gave all the mammals a round of Pyrantel.

CDC estimates (not alt-health loonies) that 10% of people in the U.S. have some worms.

<comment><USER9> Where are you getting that number from? I can find stats on individual types of parasites on the CDC site, but not worms in general.

I am seeing 13.9% with Toxocara antibodies[0], so past exposure. That's fun.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxocariasis/gen_info/faqs.htm...](https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxocariasis/gen_info/faqs.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: who won the HNSearch API Contest? - <AUTHOR>

The current poll status (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2672793) is probably not frozen at June 21 12:00am EST (you can upvote items yet).
No updates on http://www.hnsearch.com/contest, http://blog.hnsearch.com/ and https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/hnsearch
Just curious :)
BTW a comment says "14 hours later and this is now item #152 on HN". HN Polls seems not to be the right choice for a 24-hour contest poll then. <comment><USER2> Andres just emailed the contestants apparently! Here's the important bit:

 _here are the top three results from the contest voting:

1\. HN Trends by sant0sk1 (88 points)

2\. HN Visual Search (41 points)

3\. HN Trends by qF (35 points) _

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats for the bronze medal!</comment></comment>


NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/mars-nitrogen/index.html?linkId=13093784#.VRGSKfnF-Ag

<comment><USER2> Perhaps someone with a stronger chemistry or biological background can clear this up for me: do we assume extraterrestrial life will rely on the same chemistry as earthen life simply by virtue of limited observation? Is there some evidence that life, given a different starting planet, would like still form from chemicals readily found on earth?

Or, i suppose, does it just make for clickable headlines?

<comment><USER3> I believe it is theorized that life could use silicon instead of carbon, but I think for the most part we just look for what we know works. They are just saying that earth life could have lived on Mars at some point in the past, that the conditions would have been favorable for it. Other kinds of life could exist in other environments, but we don't have any litmus for those observations yet.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that silicon dioxide is a solid unlike carbon dioxide. "Breathing" it out is a lot harder.

<comment><USER5> Why would you assume these organisms would breathe?

<comment><USER6> Because all organisms need to expel entropy to survive, and expelling solid entropy is a fairly non-trivial engineering problem vs. the life that we do know expelling it via liquids and gasses. Heck, it's not even all that clear how to do that just as a machine... nothing is coming to mind that does that today. (Examples welcomed. Also note that for today's discussion execrement is solids suspended in a liquid, not a "solid". Silicon is a _solid_ , you know, rock-solid, literally.)

The idea that we have "no idea" what life could look like out there in the universe is grossly oversold. We actually can put a lot of bounds on them, using rigorous mathematics, and discuss them despite not necessarily knowing all the chemical details.

<comment><USER7> > Heck, it's not even all that clear how to do that just as a machine... > nothing is coming to mind that does that today.

That's basically ash, think of a coal burning plant and how they deal with waste.

Or iron smelting, how they leave the waste slag behind.

<comment><USER6> Bingo. Thanks. I knew there had to be something.

It's difficult to see how this could be made to work for a life form, because this is a very macroscopic process. On a microscopic level, well, we're all just ugly bags of mostly-water so we do it by suspending things in our mostly- water. As I understand it there are few to no good candidates for a silicon- friendly liquid base when you work through it.

(Interestingly, I have seen some suggestions that there could be other liquids that carbon-based life could be based on, such as ammonia. That said, it may not be coincidence that water is still almost certainly the best (accounting for the possibility that it's just the observer effect), and that's what all life forms reading this for the forseeably future are based on.)

<comment><USER7> It might be like how the body builds bones. The alien could do the same with a glass bone, and excrete it every so often.

If they are like humans they would emit a 1 to 2 KG bone every day.

Glass is pretty inert though, I wonder how it would decay/decompose.

<comment><USER8> >> Glass is pretty inert though, I wonder how it would decay/decompose.

into beautiful alien beaches, around tidal oceans of ammonia.

<comment><USER7> That would be like you enjoying a lake made of urine.

To this alien the glass would be gross and icky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please note that nitrogen in the air is also biologically useful, given nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Legumes and other plants live in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixers.

<comment><USER10> not to mention Blight</comment></comment>


CPU DB: Recording Microprocessor History - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2181798

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a database that contains stuff like what C #defines are often used with it, what endian it is (or which OSes typically use which endian for those CPUs that are biendian), and the same for #defines for OSes.

</comment><comment><USER3> The other day I did a braindump of all the computers and handhelds I've owned so far, and their basic specs, before I forgot. I plan to maintain the list because it's fun to look back on :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Note the relative energy/op for the Pentiums in figures 10 and 11.

<comment><USER5> The Pentium architecture pops up from time to time (after the Netburst architecture Intel rolled back closer to the original Pentium architecture, and now Larrabee/MIC uses the same Pentium cores). At that time it was efficient because the memory clock was not very different from the CPU clock (6x-10x ratio) - the memory access did not cost a lot of CPU cycles, so the CPU had a decent performance without a big on-die cache. At higher clocks (more than 1GHz, ratio >10x) the Pentium architecture (Pentium III at that time) showed its age and had to be replaced (with the not-so-good Netburst).

Right now the CPU/memory ratio is higher (20x and more), so the CPUs require big caches to compensate. The CPU cache has a huge transistor count, being SRAM (Static RAM, very low latency). Every SRAM bit is implemented with 6 transistors, so for 1MB of cache you need ~50 million transistors.

<comment><USER6> Another way of looking at it - which I believe was not covered in the article - is observing chip areas.

If you look, top-of-the-line server chips (Xeons, etc.) pretty consistently hit 300 mm2. On the other hand, mid-range desktop chips usually are about 100 mm2. Besides marketing, pricing also has to do with process yield, which is not linear: 3x area is more than 3x more expensive.

What to do with that area? Given the shrinkage that allows multiple CPU cores, the answer that gives best price-performance is cache, after the first 4 or 6 CPU cores ...</comment></comment></comment>


Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/cleaning-products-lungs-damage-cigarettes-smoking-20-day-scientists-warning-a8214051.html <comment><USER3> I clean with a steamer. It doesn't project particles, and it's extremely good at disinfecting. I also use a vacuum cleaner with exceptionally low dust re- emission. And an air purifier.

The only "chemicals" I use are an extremely mild lactic acid based cleaner and a pre/probiotic on toilets and kitchen tops. And I don't use any fragrances anywhere.

My allergy problems have disappeared. I really recommend this approach. Cheap chemicals are a disaster for ones health.

Microfibres are cool, but I've seen inconclusive evidence they might shed asbesto-like particles. So I'm waiting for better testing.

<comment><USER4> Per the hygiene hypothesis, I wonder if your allergies got better because you're exposing yourself to more (generally harmless) microorganisms and hence challenging your immune system more. Since I'm sure lactic acid doesn't sterilize as well as some strong bleach or other chemical.

<comment><USER5> The idea that allergies somehow are caused by our sterile lifestyle is suspicious at best. It's might just be an appeal to nature - "all natural ingredients" fallacy.

I claim that an individual has _never_ before - in the history of mankind - been exposed to so many and different microorganisms as we are now.

Comparing my daughter to my granddad, born 99 years before her, she probably meets as many "new" people per week - if not day, as he did in a whole year when growing up in a reasonably average community not far from a large city.

Me and my wife works in large organisations, and it's representatives are visiting or are visited by hundreds of people from around the world - <USER2> week, as do many - most in fact - of the other parents in her school of about 1000 students.

I have lunch in a canteen where approximately 3000 people eat every day, and we all are slopping around in the food warmers and salad bar sharing the utensils and pawing the bread with our halfheartedly washed hands.

On the way to our offices and schools we commute with thousands and thousands of people, all sniffling and coughing it seems.

The interconnectedness of it all is just - mind boggling. We are never more than 2 steps away from someone that were on the other side of the world, yesterday. Hopefully not in an Ebola zone.

A hypothetical "natural" state, where you sleep in a stack of hay with your pigs, and meet one "outsider" twice a a year doesn't seem to tax the immune system even a fraction of what we have to deal with today. Even it's a lot of microorganisms, it's yours (and the pigs) - unless some pigeons shit in your haystack/bed.

<comment><USER6> The body of scientific evidence supporting the hygiene hypothesis is pretty strong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Our bodies are 4-billion-year-old spaghetti code that gets added to every time it runs. They have been evolving all this time for exposure to a very particular range of chemicals. Every time you introduce a new chemical into the mix that has only been in our environment for less than 100 years, you are testing your body's ability to deal with them for the first time.

<comment><USER8> So avoid all drugs that have been around for less than 100 years?

<comment><USER7> I would say, use them sparingly.

Be aware that the mechanisms behind most modern drugs are mostly theories.

Respect the law of unintended consequences.

Listen to your body carefully, give it rest when it wants, and trust your body to do its own healing.

When your life is in danger, consider medical professionals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a former chemist, call me suspicious of these findings.

Can cleaners be an irritant to the lungs? Of course. Inhaling a lot of things can be an irritant.

Most cleaners that consumers use are surfactants sometimes mixed with alkylbenzonium disinfectants (in very low concentration). Even cleaners that are ammonia based aren't harmful.

Now on the professional side, I could believe there is risk. Some of those chemicals are very harsh.

<comment><USER10> Why do you believe ammonia/chemical based cleaners are not harmful when inhaled from normal day to day use?

I say that as someone who majored in human bio and can only imagine that inhaling these chemicals will have adverse effects on your health.

<comment><USER9> Ammonia is such a strong irritant you'd never be able to inhale enough (willingly) to cause systemic toxicity.

We also have a lot of info around the effects of ammonia. The body is very good at eliminating it. Heck, doctor's use ammonium chloride to acidify a patients urine.

Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something.

<comment><USER11> _Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it 's not going to cancer or something._

I think we're assuming here that it's something like asbestos lung cancer. Asbestos is not a poison, just an irritant. Presumably nobody is getting poisoned here; chronic irritation is triggering problems.

<comment><USER9> Asbestos is more than an irritant. The toxicity and resulting cancer is due to the small particle size and the iron atoms in the asbestos that catalyze the formation of reactive oxygen species that damage the cell and can cause mutations.

I guess my point is that there is no mechanism by which ammonia could cause something like this. It's a simple molecule that pretty much causes irritation due to it's alkaline properties.

<comment><USER12> If you believe cancer is due to the accumulation of mutations, and the ammonia/whatever is killing cells (thus increasing the turnover), then it will increase the chances of cancer simply because there are more divisions in the tissue.

This follows pretty simply from the idea that cancer is caused by accumulating mutations (which you seem to believe), so why do you say "no mechanism"?

<comment><USER9> The reason is because ammonia has been around a long time, lots of studies of that its effect on biological systems have been done and it naturally occurs in human blood albeit at low concentrations.

Your point about higher turnover of cells aligns with the idea of more cell division and thus higher chance of mutation. However, just because a chemical causes irritation doesn't mean it increases cell turnover.

Also, turnover alone doesn't necessarily drive mutations and scientists don't really know why. Retinol A, rapidly increase skin cell turnover and is used to treat acne, but I've never heard of a mutation risk associated with it.

<comment><USER12> > "Retinol A, rapidly increase skin cell turnover but I've never heard of a > mutation risk associated with it."

Interesting, do you have a source you like for this? This would indicate major problems with that model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In a past life as a lab tech for sterile environments, we used Spor-klenz, mostly a diluted combination of glacial acetic acid (pure distilled vinegar) and sodium hypochlorite (concentrated bleach), to kill statistically approaching anything on a surface you need sterilized. Upon application, they form chlorine gas, notorious as a chemical warfare agent in WWI. It must be used in a ventilated area, and with a respirator for any kind of prolonged exposure. Use of this combination of chemicals in an unventilated area without protective gear is sternly cautioned, as it will quickly cause lasting injury to your lungs.

It's not uncommon for commercial cleaning products to contain these ingredients, as well as other potentially hazardous combinations of chemicals, and there isn't enough awareness of the very serious consequences to their misuse.

</comment><comment><USER14> I vividly remember my first summer job, working at a grocery store deli when I was in high school. My job was basically to spray down surfaces with some kind of industrial version of Windex. Within a week I had developed a scratchy cough, and after two weeks I had completely lost my voice! I was in the privileged position of being able to quit the job and go on to college, but if I'd kept working with those chemicals for years I don't doubt there'd have been lasting damage.

Does anyone know specifically what cleaning chemicals the study is talking about though? Always annoyed by the absence of what seems like basic information in reports like this.

<comment><USER15> I agree it's annoying the study doesn't mention any chemicals or ingredients in particular.

Also the claim that all we need is "water and a cloth" is rubbish. You will just spread the bacteria around from one place to another with water and a cloth only.

I recently started using an organic "food safe" spray in the kitchen for general surfaces and chopping boards. Smells nice very natural, all natural ingredients and stops nasty things living on the wooden cutting board. Water and a cloth would do nothing, you need to make it an unfriendly place for bacteria, but safe for cutting up food.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For anyone else looking for mentions of specific products, the original paper doesn't mention any. It just categorized people in to non-cleaners, cleaners at home, and professional cleaners.

Both the professional cleaners and at home cleaners were impacted.

<comment><USER17> They were relying on surveys of memory but they indicated spraying only once a week versus any other method was correlated with issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> On a related note, dentists dying of mysterious lung disease[1] likely from improper respiratory protection while exposed to breathing hazards.

[1][https://www.thetalkingdemocrat.com/2018/03/us-dentists- are-d...](https://www.thetalkingdemocrat.com/2018/03/us-dentists-are-dying-of- mysterious-lung-disease/)

</comment><comment><USER19> How much of this is to do with the fact that these cleaners are being put into the air as vapor through a diffuser (the spray-bottle's nozzle); and how much has to do with the fact that these chemicals are volatiles that will evaporate off of the surfaces they're on and then travel into the lungs as a gas?

That is, if I wore a dust mask while I cleaned—or if I sprayed the cleaner directly into a cloth pressed against the bottle, then rubbed the cloth against the surface—would that help? It'd reduce cleanser vaporization, I'd think, but not do much to help with avoiding evaporated cleanser gas.

<comment><USER15> You might have a point, particularly considering the action of cleaning involves leaning forward and bending down into the area you just sprayed as you begin scrubbing, further exposing yourself to the misty air and fumes. I thought about this last time I cleaned shower with fan on... I figured the fan was drawing the fumes up towards me as I cleaned shower, so now I don't use fan and just try to finish the job quickly! I think there's a lot to be said for using a mask when cleaning, even if just for a slightly reduced exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm willing to bet there are some "dreaded third variables" that have crept into the study. Also being able to find the effect on women but not men leads me to believe there might be some P-hacking going on.

</comment><comment><USER21> The original headline says "cleaning products", which is what the study covers, but the article lede says "cleaning sprays", which is what the headline here has been edited to suggest.

Much discussion on Reddit a couple of weeks ago when this study was originally published: [https://www.reddit.com/search?q=cleaning+products+lung](https://www.reddit.com/search?q=cleaning+products+lung)

<comment><USER12> I don't think these results necessarily relate to cleaning products either. They just asked people how much they cleaned in a survey:

>' _Based on the entrance questions (wording at[http://www.ecrhs.org](http://www.ecrhs.org) ), participants were categorised as "not cleaning", "cleaning at home" and "occupational cleaning". Participants responding "yes" to at least one module entrance question, answered a questionnaire concerning use of cleaning agents (sprays, other cleaning agents); defining the exposure categories "not cleaning", "≥1 cleaning spray ≥1/week", and "≥1 other cleaning product ≥1/week"._'

[http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resour...](http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _" The scientists found that the amount of air breathed out by their > participants decreased more in women who regularly cleaned.

The study did not find any harmful effects comparable to those seen in women in the men they studied._"

Then:

>" _While the results appear dramatic, the researchers speculated chemicals in cleaning products irritate the fragile mucous membranes lining the lungs, which over time leads to lasting damage and "remodelling" of the airways._ "

[http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resour...](http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER22> I assume "comparable" means "similar" in this sense.

But there's nothing about lung cancer, which makes the impact on lung health not remotely similar to a pack a day cigarette habit.

<comment><USER23> Smoking diminishes lung function in many ways other than eventual risk of cancer. Not every smoker gets cancer, by far, but every one has their lung function decreased.

</comment></comment><comment> xerxe-sans-s This supports previous research that indicates there's a connection between asthma and cleaning products, particularly in occupational cleaners.

I don't see any reference to study on particular cleaning solutions, exposure times, or any particularly reliable control. I'll continue working under the assumption that long term exposure to any chemical can be associated with an increased health risk - until a more detailed study is done there's really no actionable conclusion here.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use vinegar for light cleaning and dusting, and rubbing alcohol for almost all other household cleaning now. Isopropyl alcohol is basically magic — it sterilizes and completely evaporates with no lingering residue or fragrances. And a steam mop for the floor.

<comment><USER25> In case someone reads your comment and takes it to heart: isopropyl alcohol is _not_ as magic as you're making it sound. It is a disinfectant but isopropyl alcohol does _not_ sterilize. Some bacteria and spores are not killed by isopropyl alcohol, and depending on the surface you are cleaning, it can be ineffective at even disinfecting.

>Alcohols are not recommended for sterilizing medical and surgical materials principally because they lack sporicidal action and they cannot penetrate protein-rich materials. Fatal postoperative wound infections with Clostridium have occurred when alcohols were used to sterilize surgical instruments contaminated with bacterial spores. [1]

It's probably fine for most household uses, but it does _not_ sterilize like you said it does, and if you're trying to clean something that you know is contaminated by disease-causing bacteria (eg cleaning the bathroom after someone has had the stomach flu) or someone immuno-suppressed lives in your house, you probably should reach for something stronger.

Isopropyl alcohol also, like you mentioned, evaporates quickly. You mention this as a benefit, but fast evaporation also means that you are likely inhaling a lot of alcohol particles as you clean, which is not good for your lung health either.

1: [https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection...](https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection- methods/chemical.html)

<comment><USER26> Alcohol kills most things very well. I'm a scientist that handles lots of nasty things like MRSA and gram negative organisms that have killed their human hosts and we spray our gloves with 70% ethanol and spray down our biosafety hoods with it as do almost all labs in the world.

This is all moot probably because homes don't need disinfection (hygiene hypothesis implies you probably need the opposite) but alcohol will certainly kill most things. It would be extremely rare for you to need to kill exotic things like bacterial spores that need nuclear options like autoclaving to kill.

<comment><USER25> As you're a scientist, I'd defer to your expertise, but I will mention that the situations where alcohol falls short are with spores and when cleaning certain materials. AFAIK, MRSA does not form spores, and so alcohol would work well for disinfecting it. Your gloves and hoods are also probably made of a material that is effectively cleaned by alcohol.

On the other hand, C. difficile (a bacteria responsible for diahrea/stomach flu) does produce spores which are not killed by alcohol cleaners. Similarly, viruses like norovirus (also responsible for "stomach flu") are not effectively disinfected by alcohol, which is why I mentioned that if you're trying to clean up after a bout of stomach flu, you might want to reach for something stronger (like a bleach based cleaner).

<comment><USER11> C. diff is pretty much only killed by bleach, and not something most people deal with frequently, or you know, ever. These seem like rather special cases to be bringing up.

<comment><USER25> What? C. diff is one of the most common disease-causing bacterias [1]. Other examples like norovirus or C. perfringens (another spore-forming bacteria responsible for stomach flu) are also among the most common [2]. They aren't special cases at all.

1: [https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0225-clostridium- di...](https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0225-clostridium- difficile.html)

2: [https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/...](https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Huh, I had always heard C. diff was a pretty common presence but very rarely symptomatic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is why I never clean.

<comment><USER28> The only winning move is to just not let dirt happen to begin with.

<comment><USER29> Or not to be obsessed with perfect cleanliness.

<comment><USER28> There is an element of that to my life in a _pick your battles_ kind of way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Something is odd here. From the study itself, the observed declines in lung function were only observed in females, not males. This was among respondents that identified as occupational cleaners too, so you can't just attribute that difference to "gender roles". Also, for women, the rate of decline was the same for occupational cleaners (it was their job) vs home cleaners (they cleaned their own home).

Nothing good comes from breathing cleaning spray, and this research references other pieces to suppprt that claim, but it seems possible that this research is honing in on some other common factor besides cleaning exposure, else degree of exposure is negligible in the outcomes and male biochemistry renders men immune to this effect.

</comment><comment><USER31> I switched to vinegar-based cleaning solution. High dose inhalation of acetic acid seems to induce an acute reaction in mice without long-term effect, so I'm hoping that chronic low dose inhalation won't have an effect in humans either.

<comment><USER32> considering some people ingest vinegar for blood sugar regulation, seems like a safe way to go

<comment><USER33> I could imagine that inhaling into lungs might have a different impact from swallowing into the digestive tract. People doing blood sugar regulation are drinking, not snorting, vinegar, right?

<comment><USER34> Yes, it's very different when a child swallows an M&M to when a child inhales an M&M.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16404551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16404551)

</comment><comment><USER36> The amount used and technique for spraying probably matter. A careful cleaner may use only a very small amount as needed while some seem to think it is necessary to slather everything with concentrated soaps that leave a strong smell. We are still just coming to terms with aerosols as high powered forced air hand dryers have shown, and those were intended to minimize spread of contaminants.

</comment><comment><USER37> Soapcalc and make your own soap: [http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp](http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp)

This is what I do. I have a nice batch of coconut/castor/olive/cocoa soap curing under the sink. It's literally just water, vegetable oils, and some sodium hydroxide.

</comment><comment><USER38> Just about all bathroom and window cleaners cause shortness of breath for me. Maybe it's because I smoked tobacco for so many years. So I use diluted vinegar on windows, and baking soda plus dish detergent on surfaces. And diluted citric acid for lime, because it's faster than acetic acid.

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't like the idea of paying someone else to clean my filth, but I don't clean often enough myself.

So I get really lazy, and soak a sponge in phosphoric acid[1] then rub it gently on the glass around the shower. Leave for 2 minutes, and the limescale in gone! It's much easier than any "real" cleaning product, and the phosphoric acid is the equivalent of about $1.50 for a litre.

But I don't know if it's bad for me. I wear gloves.

[1] "pH 1.0" and "contains phosphoric acid" is all the label says.

<comment><USER17> Where do you get phosphoric acid? The strongest conventionally available stuff is Limeaway and CLR and those are not strong enough for heavy calcium deposits. The strongest home stuff appears to be toilet bowl cleaners with diluted hydrochloric acid or hydrochloric acid for chlorinating pools.

<comment><USER39> It's from any supermarket in Denmark. This shows the whole shelf [1], which also has an acetic acid solution, ammonia solution, and sodium/potassium hydroxide for cleaning drains. And "cleaning benzene", whatever that's for. Most of the bottles are branded "BORUP", except the phosphoric acid, which is "KALK VÆK".

I found a safety information sheet [2], which says the phosphoric acid solution contains 5-15% phosphoric acid. That's stronger than Limeaway. If I pour it on limescale deposits I can hear it fizz.

The from-a-supermarket strong toilet bowl cleaner here (probably applies to most of the EU) contains "9% w/w -- 94 g/L HCl"

[1] [https://shop.rema1000.dk/husholdning/rengoring-og-kemisk- tek...](https://shop.rema1000.dk/husholdning/rengoring-og-kemisk-teknisk)

[2] [http://rema1000.dk/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/Kalk-V%C3%A6k-...](http://rema1000.dk/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/Kalk-V%C3%A6k-Kaffe-1-L_DK_v2-0-1.0.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Was anyone able to spot which cleaning sprays were problematic?

<comment><USER17> They only speculate about lung irritants like bleach and ammonia that are common in cleaning sprays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I find it very hard to remove soap scum from bathtub if I don't use cleaning sprays. Can someone please suggest a better way.

</comment><comment><USER42> I wonder how long it will take before the tort lawyers can sniff this.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is why I switched from cleaning spray to chewing tobacco.

</comment><comment><USER44> But it doesn't say which cleaners were tested. For example perhaps Simple Green is not at the same level as Formula 409.

<comment><USER45> The study [1] wasn't testing specific cleaners; it was a long-term study following people who use varying amounts of cleaning products in day-to-day use (those who don't clean, those who clean on a regular basis at home, and those who clean as an occupation).

[1] Full text: [http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resour...](http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press- releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Makes sense in the case of bleach, which when combined with the ammonia containing body ingredients shed off in the shower, reacts to produce chloramine, which hydrolyzes to produce hypochlorous acid, which is a strong oxidizing agent, and I assume said hydrolysis takes place in the lungs, meaning ample exposure to free radicals, which I assume can lead to cancer if inhaled often enough.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use a 3m facemask with 2 p100 bio air filters when cleaning specifically to avoid these chemicals.

</comment><comment><USER47> Unfortunate that all sprays are combined. One reason for the rather large sex effect might be the choice of different products by men and women. If I had to guess, bleach sprays are going to be the most damaging, but that's a guess.

</comment><comment><USER48> This headline is just a lie. They're as bad for "lung health" _if cigarettes didn 't cause lung cancer!_

(Lung health is measured by lung capacity by them)

</comment><comment><USER49> Presumably better to twist nozzle to _jet_ spray rather than _mist_ spray?

<comment><USER13> I would think better to pour onto a container, soak a sponge, and apply.

<comment><USER49> Or squirt directly into/onto the damp sponge/cloth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Believing a report in a general news publication that attempts to summarize the conclusion of a study that hasn't been replicated anywhere can lead to an increase in stupidity. Caveat emptor. Also, all headlines are clickbait. Get over it.

<comment><USER51> Agreed. I saw an article on the front page last week about how standing desks causes more issues than sitting. The sample size was one office with 20 people.</comment></comment>