Ask HN: Are you ok? - <AUTHOR> https://www.ruok.org.au/<p>I asked this question about seven months ago and saw some great discussions from the HN community. A lot has changed in seven months. I thought I'd ask again because certainly my whole life has been dramatically altered with COVID-19, working from home and uncertainty and fear on everyone's mind. As developers I feel we are all at risk of not taking good care of our mental health, especially with enforced isolation. Please, take the time to ask yourself and any coworkers if you feel OK within yourself. <comment><USER2> I am really not. It's been bad for a long time in various ways, but to cap it off I had a suicide attempt in the past weeks as things just fell out from under me. Now I have to try and recover from that, with all the same problems, plus new ones, amidst the virus's effects. Great timing. I am not a developer, but could do proofreading etc but there just aren't many opportunities for someone like me and in my situation. I am trying to believe in a future but it's difficult. I had a great, accomodative opportunity a while back that health and my failure to just tough things out let pass, seems for good, and I fear nothing like that will ever come again. I regret every moment not just going and working in that pain but I was terrified I would fail. Now I have actually "failed at life" completely, local "help" is horrible, and I have no idea what I will do. People don't want to bother with broken folks on the best of days...I fear I have permanently ruined any possible future with this desperate act...ironically putting things right back in the quicksand again.</comment>


A New Twist on Hydropower  - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21749/?a=f <comment><USER2> Dang! Vortex shedding was exactly what I did my undergrad research project on!

Sadly, it got me my lowest grade in college. But that's a longer story.

<comment><USER3> Maybe they are looking to hire!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A less critical commentary has been posted at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=381145>

I particularly like this line, "If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people."

</comment><comment><USER5> How does this jibe with conservation of energy? Does the current get slowed down?</comment>


Willem Pinckaers on Akamai's flawed OpenSSL allocator patch - <AUTHOR> http://lekkertech.net/akamai.txt <comment><USER3> _If this code was running on the Akamai networks for years, why did they have a copy laying around that didn 't call mprotect?_

 _Given the above problems I wonder how Akamai manages to run this in production._

How could you misread a two paragraph email so badly. Here, let me shorten it up for you:

      This patch is a _variant_ of what we've been using to help
      protect customer keys for a decade.

      This should really be considered more of a proof of
      concept than something that you want to put directly into
      production. Let me restate that: do not just take this
      patch and put it into production without careful review.

So to answer your question: this version was never running in production.. and it the initial patch didn't call mprotect because they stripped it out from their version when creating the POC.

<comment><AUTHOR> This would be a more compelling rebuttal to Willem's post if Akamai hadn't confirmed his central thesis:

[https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed- update-v3.html](https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed-update-v3.html)

<comment><USER4> > As a result, we have begin the process of rotating all customer SSL > keys/certificates.

AGHHHHHHH! Even if their code was likely to have worked perfectly, this is a _huge_ mistake. And I mean huge. They should've operated under the assumption that their defense didn't work and _immediately_ rotated all keys. Period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _A review by a security engineer would have prevented a false sense of security_

Everyone involved in this, from the people who wrote the heartbeat code, the people who committed the code, the people at Akami who wrote this patch, this poster ... all would describe themselves as security engineers. Is everyone but Willem Pinckars incompetent?

I think the one lesson to learn is to treat crypto just like you do cloud providers. Make sure you have an exit strategy from day one; the ability to push a button to roll keys, switch algorithms, switch cert providers, etc.

<comment><USER6> Apparently, he is not competent enough to understand what "this is not our actual code but merely a POC" means.

<comment><AUTHOR> This would have been a cutting bit of wit indeed, had Akamai not stepped on your moment by confirming Willem's central thesis. Ouch.

<comment><USER7> We're still evaluating some of his arguments. I still believe some of them are true in the general case, but do not apply to our specific embedding of this code. I say that aware that I was mistaken 12 hours ago, and so very well could be mistaken now.

But I am reasonably convinced that the CRT values are loaded into the normal heap, where they're available to a normal Heartbleed attack. Pinckaers doesn't have to be right about all his points to be right---just once---and I'm pretty sure he's right _at least_ that once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The funny thing is the fact that everybody is ignoring that the patch wasn't a patch. It was a POC (read demonstration) with the notes:

'...This patch is a variant of what we've been using to help protect customer keys for a decade.

This should really be considered more of a proof of concept than something that you want to put directly into production. It slides into the ASN1 code rather than adding a new API (OPENSSL_secure_allocate et al), the overall code isn't portable, and so on. If there is community interest, we would be happy to help work on addressing those issues. Let me restate that: _do not just take this patch and put it into production without careful review._ '

<comment><USER6> Oh but if you do that how are you going to make a pretentious critic to shoot it down ? The akamai guy straight up said "that's not actually our code, and that should not and cannot be used as-is, this is a POC", rendering this entire "answer" irrelevant especially given its mocking tone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Willem, Thanks for the well-reasoned set of claims for us to evaluate. We are still looking at them, but a critical one is accurate: our own implementation of the secure memory area did not include the CRT values.

More here: [https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed- update-v3.html](https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed-update-v3.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> It comes down to intent. There are two distinct ways to evaluate Akamai's patch:

1\. Did Akamai release the PoC patch to start a discussion about how to protect private keys and share their work as a starting point for changing the code? If so, their efforts here should be considered in that vein and any criticism should be used simply to guide the development of a usable and functional patch.

2\. On the other hand, if they are supplying this code as assurance that customer keys were properly protected against exposure by the Heartbleed bug and that certificate replacement is not needed, the patch and the subsequent criticism should give Akamai customers pause.

edit: Akamai acknowledges the bug, and has started rotating all customer SSL keys/certificates, per [https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed- update-v3.html](https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/04/heartbleed-update-v3.html)

<comment><USER11> Even if their intent was just to start a discussion, they are not being helpful by "submitting" such bogus code. It would be easier for an expert to rewrite this patch from scratch than try to figure out all of their flaws and unfinished sections.

In one of the email responses, someone pointed out a problem with their code and they responded, "Oops we posted the wrong version" ( [http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.openssl.user/...](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.openssl.user/51246) ). They aren't exactly being respectful of other people's time with stuff like that.

In secure coding the phrase "the devil is in the details" applies very strongly. So if you don't have the details figured out, you don't have much of anything.

<comment><USER12> > Even if their intent was just to start a discussion, they are not being > helpful by "submitting" such bogus code.

All code is bogus code until reviewed. That is absolutely central to understand. Linus's Law only works _if_ people are looking at the code. Implicitly thumbs-upping it doesn't solve problems.

Akamai submitted the code, people reviewed it and found flaws. They're taking action to fix their own code, and the community is coming up with various fixes of their own. That's how Open Source Software Development should work.

While I agree with you that it'd probably be better to rewrite the code with a similar approach, it's also important to note that nobody in the OpenSSL community even considered this approach publicly until Akamai published their code.

Any claims they're being disrespectful of people's time is specious - <USER2> said from the beginning that this code needed review and shouldn't be merged. This is just one of those issues that comes out in the wash of code review.

TL;DR: Akamai should be lauded on their intentions but like noted by everyone, the code wasn't good enough. Now, with proper review and rewrites, they will be able to protect their customers into the future, and maybe OpenSSL will become a slightly better product for it too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm guessing the patch was broken because they didn't have an actual patch laying around, they had to do a diff against the upstream and try to pick out the relevant parts. That doesn't excuse some of the other errors though, like integer overflows and not checking return codes. That also doesn't excuse the fact that they didn't actually try the patch before sending it out.

There could be other pieces that we're missing, and this patch alone doesn't prove that you can obtain private keys from Akamai's servers with the Heartbleed bug. It just proves that there could be key parts outside of their protected storage area and they suck at creating patches of their modifications. That being said, I'd love to see someone apply Akamai's OpenSSL patch and still pull the key with Heartbleed.

<comment><USER14> Yes. It's not really fair of the OP to say "this is broken in totally obvious ways and would clearly not actually run" and yet critique it as if it was production code. It's fairly obviously (at this point) a hand-constructed pseudo-diff.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (I worked with Willem at Matasano for a couple years, and he knows what he's talking about.)

<comment><USER15> The tone of his post is rather unfortunate. Still, he raises good points, even if they are put in an unnecessarily aggressive manner.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. The post is written bluntly, but it argues with factual assertions, not with emotional appeals. I don't think criticism of its tone is warranted or really all that appropriate.

<comment><USER16> This:

> Perhaps Akamai is not actually running this version in production, but > another 'super secure' allocator. In either case they should not be sending > out non-functional, bug ridden patches to the OpenSSL community, while > claiming they protected Akamai against the Heartbleed attack. Andy Ellis, > CSO of Akamai, said on Twitter that the 'secure' allocator was written 13 > years ago. I'm happy to provide the results of my 15 minute security review, > since it is so overdue. (To be fair, I found the issue in minutes, but > confirmation took longer.)

Comes across quite passive aggressive indeed. The tone is otherwise fine, except that paragraph which is just one giant jab at Akamai.

I guess it is true what they say: No good deed goes unpunished. I'm sure Akamai has learned their lesson and will keep all future patches private to avoid public criticism and ridicule. But on the positive side at least we all know how smart Willem is, which I'm sure was the real point anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> This post isn't simply "ridiculing" the proposed allocator design.

Did you work on this allocator? If not, can I suggest that you be a little careful? It's one thing to stick up for Akamai's developers; it's another to be thin-skinned on their behalf. It's possible that Akamai's devs, being adults, professionals, and engaged with software security, actually _want_ to hear Willem Pinckaers' take on their allocator.

<comment><USER17> Speaking as a security researcher at Akamai, I can say that tptacek is 100% correct here. We're absolutely better off for having received Willem's report, and I'm pretty sure we're all mature enough to tolerate the jabs that accompanied it.

I didn't have any part in writing this allocator, but I was asked to do a code review prior to publication. I told Rich Salz that it would take me at least two days to do a thorough one, and we both made the decision that it was better that we just get this code out there for public review and discussion than that we wait until we thought it was perfect.

So, with the caveat that we're still evaluating most of Willem's technical claims (and I'm probably going to be in the office all night doing so), the only sentence in Willem's report that I really take exception to is this one:

      In either case they should not be sending out non-functional,
      bug ridden patches to the OpenSSL community, while claiming
      they protected Akamai against the Heartbleed attack.

This statement is self-refuting. If we hadn't published this patch, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and some of the bugs that Willem and others are finding would have gone unnoticed. I almost certainly would have caught the issue with the CRT intermediates if Willem hadn't done so first, but I doubt I'd have caught everything that has or will be identified through public scrutiny.

<comment><USER18> There's probably a middle ground here. If you'd taken the time to make sure the patch actually compiled, ran and attempted the things it was advertised to do before releasing it, I suspect problems with it would've been obvious sooner.

<comment><USER9> That's quite possible. It's also quite possible that we still wouldn't have released it yet, as we'd be doing that work to make it generally usable this week. Therefore, the critical failure - that we weren't protecting the CRT values - might not have been known yet.

Sadly, the multiverse doesn't yet let me monitor its A/B tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to see Akamai create a CloudFlare style challenge using their patch and a compromised version of OpenSSL and see if anyone can get the private keys from it.

<comment><USER20> It would be better if someone independent set it up.

<comment><USER7> We're talking about it. The patch is dependent on details of our unreleasable (GPL+OpenSSL+all sorts of other things) server.

<comment><USER19> uh if it's GPL, don't you have to release it?

<comment><USER21> Nope. As long as they don't distribute it but only run it in a server, they don't have to. This is what the AGPL is changing.

<comment><USER7> Not here: you can't do much with AGPL+OpenSSL. AGPL requires release under AGPL. OpenSSL requires advertising clause. There is no legal way to distribute software including parts you have only under APGL and parts you have only under OpenSSL license.

<comment><USER19> > There is no legal way to distribute software including parts you have only > under APGL and parts you have only under OpenSSL license.

If you modified AGPL code you have to release it. If you've mixed up GPL or AGPL code such that you can't release it you've violated the license for the hard work of others. You sound confused, to phrase it charitably.

<comment><USER22> My interpretation of what he wrote is that it does not change things for them in the sense that due to conflicting licenses, they can't use AGPL'd software, and so the AGPL changes nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> OpenSSL has pretty good support for HSMs in the form of their ENGINE API. It seems like it would be possible to use this layer to move all key handling and crypto operations out of the process that was dealing with TLS. Process isolation seems like a much better way of getting this kind of security than weird allocator tricks.

<comment><USER24> gosh, i see this "weird allocator trick" to be exceptionally insightful as to the possible attacks that and likely vulnerabilities that may be introduced into code.

One of the biggest issues for a development team isn't how to do something, but how to do something so that someone (who has taken over the project) won't screw it up in 10 years when you and all your cohorts have left and are island hoping and coconut drink doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Kind of amused at how Akamai smugly keep their openssl security improvements private for years, only for them to be shown to be broken days after open sourcing.

With enough eyeballs, all bugs are indeed shallow!

</comment><comment><USER26> Even if the PoC patch was perfect and is approved by many of the top security folks out there, would Akamai ever share their perfect custom memory allocator with the upstream community.

 _edit_ :

okay, whats' wrong with my statement? If they do have a perfect allocator, wouldn't it be nice to know exactly what they did?

</comment><comment><USER27> I like how he pounds on one company who made a mistake on one network, while having no word for the developer who made a mistake for almost the entire internet.</comment>


Corporate Venture Capital (argument against Google VC) - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/07/corporate-ventu.html <comment><USER2> I watched "corporate VC" totally fuck over a bizdev strategy at one of my last jobs. In my case, it wasn't even a real investment --- just a "strategic" chit from a syndicated A round. Unfortunately, that chit went to an 800lb gorilla in our space. As a result:

* It was hard to get the investor's competitors to take us seriously in OEM and acquisition discussions, because the 800lb gorilla was seen as having "first refusal".

* It was hard to get the 800lb gorilla to take acquisition seriously; in fact, they expected favors in return for having "invested".

The company did OK in the long run, so all I have here is an anecdote.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree with what Fred says, but I'm surprised he hasn't shown up urging us to post on his blog via Discus instead of HN.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another pretty big factor is the Corporate Arm's potential unwillingness to invest in startups that compete directly with Google.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm kinda sold... Does anyone have any disagreements?

<comment><USER6> There are a lot of smart people at Google who are surely aware of these issues, and they are keeping them in mind as they go forward with this?

Maybe Google will give 50% of profits on investment to the those who manage the funds, or maybe 100%, and seek to benefit from the "externalities" of running a corporate VC - dibs on buyouts, control of promising startups.

The motivation behind this, I think, is not getting screwed by external VC's like they have been when they want to buy a company.</comment></comment>


Extracting Tables from PDFs in Javascript with PDF.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.garysieling.com/blog/extracting-tables-from-pdfs-in-javascript-with-pdf-js <comment><USER2> Very nice. I've been doing some table extraction from PDFs recently. Also check out PDF2JSON for nodejs-based parsing - it grabs all the texts and positions so you don't have to 'intercept' draw calls and dumps them out in JSON.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I looked into that recently, it does make this a lot easier, so now I have a node version of this as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was discussed on HN before, but I only found this link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6083051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6083051)

kudos to Gary for packaging this up: [https://github.com/garysieling/pdf-js- csv](https://github.com/garysieling/pdf-js-csv)

Of course it has issues extracting data from many tables. There is a body of research literature on how to automatically extract tabular data from PDF (and other sources) and it is not considered an easy task.

You can always fallback to a manual tool like Tabula. They also have automatic table detection now, but last I check it only worked on certain kinds of tables.

I write the PDF table extraction code for docmunch.com. We think we have figured out how to achieve a very high degree of accuracy in PDF table extraction and how to make a nice UI for manual intervention. We would love to hear about your table extraction use cases.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've done similar (but more single-use) things to extract text from PDFs, and data from PDF and PostScript plots. PDFs are actually surprisingly easy to dig into when they're decompressed (e.g. with pdftk), since they're mostly text based.

</comment><comment><USER5> you can also use pdf2html with the option -x (to get xml). You would also have the position of each text tokens.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pretty cool, thank you for sharing</comment>


Why animals eat psychoactive plants - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2015/01/20/why-animals-eat-psychoactive-p.html <comment><USER3> I've always found it fascinating that people don't perceive socially sanctioned drugs as drugs at all. Saying "drugs and alcohol" to me is like saying "sandwiches and hamburgers".

A person can drink a cup of coffee in the morning, smoke a cigarette on their lunch break, and drink a couple glasses of wine in the evening, and the only thing that keeps them from being called a "drug addict" is that these particular drugs are socially acceptable.

There are Yemeni families in California who get in trouble for possessing khat, a stimulant which in Yemen is not even questioned—imagine being a Brit and being told you couldn't drink tea!

<comment><USER4> You can drink two glasses of red wine every day of your life and if you are healthy adult male of average weight, this will likely extend your life and improve your health. For a woman it is down to one glass. You can drink a glass of coffee or a cup of tea every day of your life and this will also probably improve your life and your health.

Trying doing that with cocaine or heroin. Actually do not try it because you will be addicted and have serious health consequences.

There are very few discrete things in nature. Like most things psychoactive substances have varying effects. But some substances have effects so different from others, they should be in a different category.

Someone might argue that sulfuric acid is just a more powerful version of lemon juice. But it's acidic effect is so much more powerful than that of lemon juice society quite correctly treats them as being completely different.

<comment><USER5> A once-daily dose of cocaine or heroin is not likely to lead to serious dependence or health effects. So long as the dose and frequency remain constant, one should be able to ride that horse forever.

Americans have forgotten just how ubiquitous drugs that are now illegal used to be, and how often they were used. Amphetamines used to be commonly prescribed by doctors, for just about anything. Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine shots during his last days in the bunker.

I read an article recently about a guy who became addicted to smoking opium. He said it took a long time and steady increasing doses before he finally reached the point where he was addicted.

Even alcohol was much more widely consumed during the Middle Ages, as it was safer to drink than water. Provisioning notes from the time period reveal shockingly massive quantities.

<comment><USER6> > Hitler used to take crystal meth daily, he was reported to have taken nine > shots during his last days in the bunker

Not exactly a glowing endorsement of taking the drug.

<comment><USER7> JFK then? He made frequent use of the stuff.

<comment><USER8> According to rumors JFK used dexamphetamine. Probably Hitler also had access to the better amphetamines. Contrary to common belief meth is significantly different and nastier (neurotoxic).

There's a section of meth vs amphetamine on WP. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology) \- scroll to "Comparison to amphetamine pharmacodynamics"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I hear or read stories like this, I can't help but immediately think about Terence McKenna's "Stoned Ape" theory of human evolution. Due to some of his other theories, I tended to not take much heed, but perhaps he was on to something?

Even the article says, "Siegel had been confidently told by his supervisor that humans were the only species that seek out drugs to use for their own pleasure" but later "Snacks of "magic mushrooms" cause monkeys to sit with their heads in their hands in a posture reminiscent of Rodin's Thinker."

Very interesting nonetheless.

For the curious: [http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/](http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for pointing this out; I've never heard that idea before.

But I don't think it holds water. The ability to talk and invent happens across our whole species regardless of recreational drug use. That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not psychochemistry.

<comment><USER11> > That means the explanations are to be found in genetics and evolution, not > psychochemistry.

Right, the point here is that perhaps the psychoactive substances aided our ancestors in making decisions or enlightening them(or straight up enhancing their senses) to withstand the test of evolution.

I'm not saying it gave them superpowers, but perhaps it enabled them to look at a particular challenge in a different perspective.

<comment><USER12> In fact, one of the data points that McKenna uses to base his theory on is that magic mushrooms increase visual acuity, making edges and outlines "stick out" more. This is a positive effect that could give some survival advantage to a primarily tree-dwelling creature that, due to desertification, must spend an increased amount of time on the savannah potentially being stalked by big cats, and could explain one reason why the apes would have sought them out.

It's a very interesting idea in which he invested a lot of time exploring. In the talk that I listened to, he opens by giving a disclaimer of sorts: he recognized that it's a far-out idea, but it is not an unsound one even though it lies pretty far away from the established narrative. He had a bunch of these "psychedelic ideas" and thought that it was important for people to keep coming up with them because they expand our understanding of what is possible. Sort of like psychedelics themselves, which is probably why he used the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I note that this is written by Johann Hari [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari)

<comment><USER14> So? Does it change the value of this recently published article because of previous bad behaviour? Keep your logical fallacies to yourself.

<comment><USER15> Really? I mean really? Of course it changes the value of the article- articles written by unreliable sources are less valuable than those written by reliable ones. Or does it not matter as long as you like the message? If the CIA/NSA comes out and says "Oh it's ok y'all should totally get stoned" does that mean you trust them all of a sudden?

It's no wonder every decent novel about a dystopean society has some type or psychoactive available-everybody trusts their dealer I guess.

<comment><USER14> Yes, really. Your argument is why people who have been to jail are unable to gain employment. People make mistakes.

<comment><USER16> To expand on your analogy, it seems to me he's saying that someone who embezzles money and goes to jail for it shouldn't be able to get a job handling money when he's released from jail. And I'd agree with that sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Another example of self-medication in the animal world is reindeer, which may travel many kilometers to eat fly agaric mushrooms: those red and white ones. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU)

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't think the first sentence of this article still holds. In 2011, the UN convened a global commission on drug policy which stated: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world."

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

<comment><USER19> The Global Commission on Drug Policy was completely independent, it had nothing to do with the UN (unfortunately).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When did 'animals do it' become a justification for anything? Animals are violent, self-centered, racist, misogynistic assholes.

<comment><USER20> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy)

<comment><USER21> The naturalistic fallacy should not be confused with a fallacious appeal to nature, a mistaken claim that something is good or right because it is natural (or bad or wrong because it is unnatural).

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm firmly on the "legalize drugs" side if only to get rid of the crime since that's more relevant to me.

That said, one of the "keep drugs illegal" guys from this debate ([http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/versus- drugs/](http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/versus-drugs/)) basically claimed legal drugs kill people. Tobacco is used by 1/3 of humanity and kills 5 million people a year. Alcohol is used by 1/4 of humanity and kills 2.5 million people. 1/20th of humanity uses illegal drugs, that includes people who claim to only use it once a year, and the drugs kill 0.5 million people a year. In other words legal drugs kill 10x the people of illegal drugs. So he extrapolates that if we legalize drugs real deaths by them will go up by as much as 10x.

He also believes after you legalize it the full force of big pharma and VCs and banks and big tobacco will be unleashed on promoting and marketing it. He claims you can google these plans and you can google the lobbyists talking to politicians about all the tax revenue that will come in by making it as big as alcohol etc.

I'm not saying I agree. I have no idea. The idea of it being promoted can be argued away by saying only the government will sell it. Maybe? Here in California there are plenty of shady stores offering instant consultation with a doctor to get your medical approval so you can then buy from them. The point being businesses are popping up. I have no idea what it would take for a giant company to decide to run this stuff.

Others claimed the crime deaths offset the drug deaths although if you check the stats they arguably won't be close. Even a doubling of drug deaths will be far more than drug related crime deaths.

You can also just claim you're more interested in a reduction in crime and even if more people die from drug related accidents. Of course if it's a reduction in theft related crime that's great but of course more intoxicated people could mean more unintentional deaths like drunk drivers?

Anyway, like I said I'm still firmly on the "legalize" side. This was just one of the first arguments against that made me pause.

<comment><USER23> There are lots of flaws in his argument.

For starters, from your account, he appears to be assuming that 90% of the potential market for illegal drugs stays away from them because they are illegal. We have good reasons to assume that is flat out wrong, by looking at Portugal (where use appears to have _dropped_ after decriminalisation) for example.

Secondly, there's reason to assume that a substantial proportion of deaths related to illegal drugs (and lets just take the numbers you cite at face value) are a direct _result_ of criminalisation. Heroin, for example, is a very safe drug when it is _pure_ , in _predictable doses_ and _safely administered_. It becomes massively more dangerous when it is impure - <USER2> with who knows what (brick dust being one common example..), comes in unpredictable doses with according risk of overdoses, and is administered with potentially unclean syringes, in unsanitary conditions (clean syringes, or low enough prices for people to afford sufficient doses for oral use would both make a huge difference).

There is every reason to assume that number of deaths per 100,000 users for illegal drugs as a whole would plunge if well regulated legal sources were available, combined with less judgemental health care options for actual addicts. We have clear evidence of this from heroin treatment, where programs to provide clean syringes and safe places to shoot up on its own provides drastic harm reduction, even when addicts are still dealing with the dangers of massively impure drugs.

Moreover, many of these drugs are only used as more easily obtainable (cheaper, often) alternatives to safer, more harshly regulated illegal drugs. E.g. shooting up heroin is often the "low cost" alternative to obtaining prescription opiates that are safe enough for routine prescriptions on the black market.

As such, legalising the safest drugs - including "hard" ones like heroin that are quite safe in pure forms - and treating addiction to prescription drugs like oxycodone as a health problem rather than cutting people off and pushing them to illegal alternatives, may be assumed to reduce the number of deaths from some of the genuinely highly dangerous illegal drugs or mixes by shifting use away from the worse alternatives.

Another reason it doesn't make sense to extrapolate like that is that even _if_ the number of deaths from now-illegal drugs would go up 10x, what matters would be the increased total harm, and for that to go up 10x there would need to be no replacement effect. That is, if 50% of those extra deaths are people who would otherwise be abusing, and dying from, alcohol, then the actual increase in mortality would be equivalent to 5x as many deaths as currently.

But it's even more complicated than that: Some of the illegal drugs are demonstrably substantially safer than drugs like alcohol. Depending on the size of replacement effects, and the effect of legalization on relative popularity of different drugs etc., actual effect on overall harm could be vastly different.

This before you even start looking at things like crime reduction.

Consider that when looking at crime reduction, it is not just theft to finance purchase, but also outright war-like conditions in many of the places the drugs are produced. As in, army units being used to try to contain manufacture, and failing, with associated huge number of deaths.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _As a young scientific researcher, Siegel had been confidently toldby his > supervisor that humans were the only species that seek out drugs to use for > their own pleasure_

This upsets me to no end. How do they know? People constantly proclaim that "only humans do this or that" which means "animals don't do that", which means... well, nothing, since "animals" is not really a relevant category. Animals is short for "living things that are not modern humans", and in order for any phrase starting with "animals" to be true you need to examine ALL ANIMALS.

A very popular French author from the 16th century (Rabelais) once said "rire est le propre de l'homme" (only humans laugh); this sentence is taught in school here in France and repeted constantly; it's considered both insightful and obvious (which is a contradiction in itself; what's obvious and undisputable shouldn't be very interesting).

I was told this as a teenager and always considered it a gratuituous affirmation with nothing to back it up.

Why wouldn't some animals like to get high?

<comment><USER23> I'm reminded of an incident when I was a kid, when a freeway in Sweden was closed because of falling geese.

They'd gotten drunk by eating fermented berries, so much so that apparently quite a number were unable to continue flying, or make a safe landing. Some cars were hit before the local freeway was closed (I don't think there were any human casualties; not so sure about the geese).

Of course that could have been an aberration, but as it turns out, in places where fermented berries or fruit is regularly available, animals do often explicitly seek it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> >> Only 10 percent of drug users have a problem with their substance

My politics generally agree with the author's main point, but this statistic seems disingenuous. Surely the percentage varies significantly depending on the drug. I know plenty of people who smoke marijuana and don't have a problem with it. Yet the only people I've known who had problems with methamphetamine or heroine have all ended up hitting rock-bottom or dying. Granted, people are more open about marijuana use than those other drugs, so my observations are biased. But I'm skeptical of the author's statements in that regard... I haven't read the full article yet, but she doesn't seem to address this.

<comment><USER26> > Surely the percentage varies significantly depending on the drug.

It actually doesn't, which is one of the key findings of addiction research. The reason is that people don't abuse drugs because of the physical discomfort of withdrawal, but rather because they have a psychological dependence on drug use. And that psychological dependence is caused by things like previous life trauma; any given drug is just an interchangeable object that's being fit into a slot.

The one drug-related variable that is important though is route of administration. Because addiction involves linking an action with a reward, the faster a drug takes effect the more likely a user will form a problem with that substance. So basically in terms of addictiveness:

smoking > mainlining > snorting > eating > topical

This is why different drugs _seem_ like they have different addictiveness potentials.

<comment><USER27> By this reasoning smoked marijuana is equally as addictive as nicotine and more addictive than snorted cocaine or orally ingested opiates (i.e. prescription painkillers). That seems pretty suspect to me.

<comment><USER28> That rule applies JUST within the same substance. And only generally, some exceptions exist for poor bioavailability due to absorption differences and particular metabolic pathways.

The idea is that the shorter it takes to get into the bloodstream/brain, the peak effects are stronger, and the downregulation of neuron receptors is more acute and lasts longer (therefore requiring redoses to activate them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Don't forget wasps!

Here in Denmark, some time in the fall -- when all the apples have fallen off the apple trees, and have been lying on the ground for a while, fermenting -- wasps (that will die soon, because the winter is coming) gorge themselves on these half-rotten, alcohol-rich apple leftovers.

So they fly around, intoxicated by alcohol, bothering everyone, acting very aggressive, which is a real pain to humans since it kind of hurts getting stung by them. It _is_ kind of funny though. Drunk wasps.

</comment><comment><USER30> The really interesting thing about this story, to me, is that many of the animals don't actually want to do the drugs unless they're put in situations that stress them out.

However, many humans seem to want to do drugs all the time.

Isn't this indicative that there's something fundamentally "wrong" about our society? We've set up a system where we constantly feel existential angst and want to numb ourselves to it.

</comment><comment><USER31> > Some drug use causes horrible harm, as I know very well, but the > overwhelming majority of people who use prohibited drugs do it because they > get something good out of it — a fun night out dancing, the ability to meet > a deadline, the chance of a good night's sleep, or insights into parts of > their brain they couldn't get to on their own.

Just because 90% of drug users aren't being harmed, doesn't mean it's necessarily helping. If the mongoose is taking drugs to avoid facing reality, it is simply helping him avoid the problem at hand: his mate is dead. Ideally the mongoose should face the problem, and solve the problem (get a new mate and move on). As for other uses, most stimulant drugs provide false signaling. And this false signaling doesn't really have any positive effects apart from the false signaling (dopamine release) itself. And so what is left is for the false signaling to really cause harm to the 10% of vulnerable people who become addicted, creating an downward spiral of false signaling.

I also don't accept the argument that we should accept our own defects. Humans are genetically susceptible to cancer, depression, but that doesn't mean we should accept them and not fight it. Those are ailments that are easily seen as harmful though, unlike the false signaling of substance use.

That being said, most of what I said apply only to stimulant drugs like cocaine, ecstacy, meth, and not to marijuana or LSD.

<comment><USER32> Even you argue that 90% of drug use isn't "helping," the bigger problem that we have today is that criminalizing drug use makes it that much worse. The American Medical Association declared drug addiction "a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry" in 1987. Why then are we sending drug users to prison and ruining their chances for future employment? This only exacerbates the problem and is essentially a lifetime punishment.

We need to be treating it as a disease and a social problem, not a criminal one, with an appropriate and measured response.

<comment><USER33> It's hard to treat drug use as a social or medical problem because vilifying it is so tempting for evert aspiring moralist. It's as if there was a category of people who were addicted to demonizing addiction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park)

</comment><comment><USER35> For the account - earthworms have endorphins too. But whether they dig for cannabis roots is still unknown. This needs additional research.

(UPD: see Nature. 1979 Jun 28;279(5716):805-6.)

</comment><comment><USER36> So why do animals eat psychoactive plants? As far as I can tell, the article doesn't answer this question.

<comment><USER37> For relief of stress

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Very interesting</comment>


Why blogging makes you a better developer – learnings after one year - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/IWF9oNBCf1c <comment><AUTHOR> It was one year ago when I started sketching the ideas for my first blog article. The reason? I had failed my biggest freelance project yet. Knowing that there were things I could've done differently, there was a need to share that knowledge and learnings. That's how my first blog article came to be.</comment>


Tesla Short Shorts - <AUTHOR> https://shop.tesla.com/product/tesla-short-shorts <comment><USER2> Love this - did anyone get a pair?

</comment><comment><USER3> lol

</comment><comment><USER4> I believe this is the sell signal, to short $TSLA stock tomorrow.

<comment><USER5> S3XY is kind of funny. tesla should buy ford when they declare bankruptcy so they can get the "E" back (Ford owns the trademark on E for cars, apparently).

Telsa is vastly overvalued, and I'm a long term tesla stock holder (bought it when it was $50, sold and bought it a few times). They might get to this valuation when they increase their sales by 10x. I most recently sold at $950. Tesla is doing great and kicking butt, but the other companies will eventually build great cars. Just like IBM was overtaken eventually.

<comment><USER2> At $25bn market cap, would it be worth Tesla/Elon's time to just buy Ford - get the E - and then sell Ford to Renault or another European manufacturer looking to get scale through mergers?</comment></comment></comment>


11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/13689-nasa-amazing-mars-rover-curiosity-science.html

<comment><USER2> Yes, this really is an amazing rover! But I wonder why they chose such a complicated landing sequence. So many places where things can go wrong.

I hope this rover actually does land successfully - with its RTG power source it could last for decades!

<comment><USER3> Because Mars is a pain in the ass to land heavy gear on.

There's too much gravity, too little atmosphere, and we haven't perfected AI. You can't rely entirely on parachutes, the air bags they used on the last few landings won't hold up to something so heavy, and landing with direct use of retrorockets would pretty much require a human pilot to be sure of -- and even if we had a human pilot, the enormous amount of dust it would kick up is problematic.

<comment><USER4> They could have practiced on the moon...

<comment><USER3> Even if they had the budget for a 1-ton lunar probe, landing on the Moon bears almost no resemblance to landing on Mars. The Moon's gravity is 0.16g to 0.38g on Mars, and the Moon has no atmosphere at all. This makes direct rocket landings far easier and completely changes the landing profile.

<comment><USER4> Obviously the Moon is a very different environment, but it's also much closer to home (which makes it a lot easier to find out what went wrong). It's a little cheaper in terms of fuel, and the trip is much shorter. We can't say we have any recent experience with easy rocket moon landings either.

There are so many new ideas being employed for the first time I don't feel sure it will work. I assume they did several crane drop tests indoors, but I don't know if they did outdoor tests with a chopper attached to the crane module to see how stable the crane platform needs to be and with the crane module using its own rockets (tethered to a tower, maybe) to control its position while a reduced mass rover simulator touches down. Like I said, tons of new ideas, hardware and software that have never been used (and that won't be used together until they get to Mars) that will all have to work perfectly the first time.

Again, I'm all in to sending this rover to Mars, but shouldn't we be sending rovers to the Moon for some time now? These people are much smarter than either you or me, but it doesn't change the fact engineering progresses incrementally and it seems we are jumping up the stairs and skipping steps. I only hope we don't break a leg here.

I am an engineer. We don't like complicated things.

<comment><USER5> The earth is an even closer place to land on.

<comment><USER4> Of course. I wouldn't suggest landing on the Moon something that never landed on Earth. I wouldn't land on the Moon (or Mars) anything that didn't land reliably over Earth a hundred times, until we understand thoroughly what can go wrong.

I would be perfectly confident with a device you could trow it out of a plane, that would parachute until a reasonable altitude, engage rockets to hover and lower a rover to the surface a dozen times without incident.

It'll be at least 30 years until we can inspect the crash site to learn what went wrong.

<comment><USER6> And how do you translate what you learned from a parachute landing on Earth to the moon?

It's like assuming that you can easily swim five miles because you can easily jog five miles.

<comment><USER4> For the Moon, we would use rockets, or a crane attached to a vehicle with rockets. For Mars (and Earth, or Titan) we add parachutes to the mix because there is an atmosphere. From hovering-stage until rover deployment, everything is the same except for wind, which would be absent on the Moon.

The idea is that you have to lower a car-sized rover from a hovering rocket- powered platform that has to remain relatively still regarding the ground. On Mars, the platform would use parachutes to slow it down. On the Moon it may not be needed at all, but you would use rockets, if you still needed the hovering platform approach (say, landing a very heavy habitation module).

Throwing the probe out of a plane, letting it descend on parachutes for some time and then making it hover using rockets until it gently deposits a rover on the surface seems a good way to make sure we know how to do all the required steps for a successful deployment on Mars. Lots of important variables are very different - Mars' atmosphere is very thin, so the crane would have to use far more power to slow itself down (or a much larger parachute), but the gravity is lower, so the rover would descend more slowly and it would require less power to hover. There could be some wind, but the forces applied to the vehicle would be different than what would be on Earth (Martian atmosphere is thin, but the winds are faster). The whole operation appears to me somewhat similar.

<comment><USER2> No one is arguing about the need for testing. They are saying that testing on the moon adds nothing.

<comment><USER4> It would at least prevent us forgetting how it's done ;-)

I think it'd be worth, and relatively easy, to operate a rover on the Moon. Remember we don't always know what we should have learned until after we try. This Mars rover is a huge step. Huge steps is someting engineers should learn to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anybody else notice that the page title is "10 Amazing Things NASA's .... etc"

<comment><USER5> Does anyone notice that the image with the rover and its chem cam is straight out of H. G. Wells?

Compare and contrast:

[http://i.space.com/images/i/13468/i02/nasa-curiosity- rover-m...](http://i.space.com/images/i/13468/i02/nasa-curiosity-rover-mars- chemcam.jpg?1321666474)

with

<http://i.imgur.com/kYofe.jpg>

This leads me to believe that our Martian rover needs some sort of acoustic imaging devices.

<comment><USER7> Maybe they are expecting 'trouble'. Certainly they seem to be downplaying the fact that they are deploying an autonomous robot with a laser that can vapourise stone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> #12: MMRTG Nuclear Power Source. Deviating from its predecessors, Cursorily will be powered by 10 pounds of plutonium dioxide. Earlier, solar power rovers, had to hibernate during long periods of darkness, and at times these hibernations proved mission ending ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover#Stationary_researc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover#Stationary_research_platform)).

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it me or on all the pages of space.com you cannot find a single link to the NASA website? As soon as you try to get more about the project, you are sent to previous stuff on space.com but no links to the original source, that is, the NASA website. Very annoying...</comment>


Do Us All Favor And Forget That Startup Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/do-us-all-favor-and-forget-that-startup-idea <comment><USER2> I'll save you the trouble of reading it. He argues that politicians etc are wrong to hope that economic growth will come from startups. He then redefines "startup" to make this true:

"The typical start-up is a company capitalized with about $25,000 of the founder's savings that operates in retail or personal services."

I feel pretty sure the guys at AI are experienced enough to understand the difference between startups and random small businesses, and that they deliberately ran this story as provocative linkbait to generate traffic on a slow news day.

<comment><USER3> +1 vote for banning AlleyInsider.

<comment><USER4> They certainly pull some of the same tricks as Valleywag, but they have decent, reasonable stuff some of the time.</comment></comment></comment>


The Shocking Doomsday Maps of the World and the Billionaire Escape Plans - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2017/06/10/the-shocking-doomsday-maps-of-the-world-and-the-billionaire-escape-plans/#3fa028744047 <comment><USER2> This Scallion character is described as a "spiritual visionary." Which is fine but I'm not sure I want my metaphysics guru drawing maps of coastline shifts in a Forbes article.

Also, billionaire land purchases probably have more to do with the human desire to dominate than with a doomsday scenario. E.g. If financial markets and land rights go down the tubes, I'm not sure what 200,000 acres in Montana is going to do.

<comment><USER3> Dominate what, though? Presumably if society collapsed they hope to be able to defend and exploit such land by the traditional feudal methods.

<comment><USER2> 1\. This conversation is exceedingly conjectural. Fun, too.

2A. Mob bosses & gang leaders would be better positioned to take control from a supply chain perspective. They could offer safety and resources in exchange for power, loyalty and rents.

2B. As another commenter pointed out, a billionaire in the middle of a frozen financial system isn't much better off than an average joe. In a rapid destabilization scenario, wouldn't go to Montana...they would go to Hong Kong.

3\. Ok, I need to get back to reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wild and absurd as these doomsday predictions sound, land ownership and the acquisition patterns thereof is a matter of record and may thus be judged as actions rather than words.

What good explanations are there for billionaires acquiring such vast acreages as personal property rather than for commercial exploitation purposes? Insofar as such strategies _do_ represent an attempt to commandeer the lifeboats, to what extent are others bound to respect their rights therein?

<comment><USER4> It is also likely a tax thing. It's very common for the rich to buy wilderness land in exchange for lowering taxes. The rule is basically, you own the land but you can't do any development on it.

[https://www.landtrustalliance.org/news/syndication- conservat...](https://www.landtrustalliance.org/news/syndication-conservation- easement-tax-deductions)

<comment><USER3> Best answer, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > All post polar shift predictions are based on theories from Gordon-Michael > Scallion, Edgar Cayce and others, and should not be construed as fact.

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

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

<comment><USER6> Is "collapsing of the tectonic plate" underneath Europe a thing at all?

Even if all permanent ice melted in the Arctic and on all mountain tops, seas would "only" raise by about 200 feet, if I remember correctly. That's certainly not enough to submerge Europe like that.

<comment><USER7> It kinda will [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_elevation)

Some countries in Europe like Denmark and the Netherlands will not exist after a 200ft rise in sea level.

<comment><USER6> The highest point in the Netherlands and Denmark is respectively 1060 and 560 feet, but yeah 200 feet would be terrible.

<comment><USER7> So they'll have 3-4 hills left standing.

I think about every European capital is (way) below 200m of elevation, so are most of the major cities. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_elevation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_elevation)

Looks like outside of Warsaw and Athens European capitals would become the shooting site for the bob sponge squarepants life action franchise if the sea levels rise by anywhere close to 200ft.

Water would seek the lowest point, even if you have natural barriers, with a groundwater table of that height would find a way in, in Miami you already have sea water coming out of the pavement because the water table has risen to above street level of many places.

This is effectively what already is happening in the Netherlands (nothing to do with global warming specifically since it's been the case since the ice age, but rising sea levels aren't making it any better) where the water table is higher than the elevation of many regions and you have to pump out the water back into the ocean constantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> About the author: "I am highly experienced in exotic travel and extreme luxury adventures."

The real story here is, why are those billionaires buying all that land in isolated areas? Even YC's Sam Altman says he has an escape plan to some place in Big Sur.

Malone, the retired cable guy biggest landowner, is into ranching, so he's at least using the land in Colorado.

</comment><comment><USER9> nah.

a large unknown force will blow the moon into seven chunks, and Neil de Grasse Tyson will lead us into space, Elon Musk will harness a comet and die of radiation exposure.

better bone up on my morse code.

<comment><USER10> The billionaire space guy in Seveneves was actually supposed to be Jeff Bezos. (Neal has worked for Blue Origin in the past)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Those maps are so bat-shit crazy that they are awesome.

<comment><USER12> They're definitely optimized for drama. The new water areas are pretty much selected based on population and not much else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow my opinion of Forbes just dropped a few notches. On the side of one map there is even "Atlantis". Seriously?

</comment><comment><USER14> > Africa will ultimately be divided into three parts. The Nile will widen > significantly. A brand new waterway will split the entire country, from the > Mediterranean Sea towards Gabon.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a typo, but referring to Africa as a country is sad.

</comment><comment><USER15> These maps literally show Atlantis resurfacing out of the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

<comment><USER16> joke's on them, they'll be surfacing into the north atlantic garbage patch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't boat building and floating agriculture be a trend in these scenarios?</comment>


Alphabet Should Pay No More Than $1.1B for Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/06/29/alphabet-should-pay-no-more-than-1-1-billion-for-twitter/ <comment><USER2> Twitter has a business plan that doesn't work. That has to be addressed if anyone has to buy out Twitter. This was but one reason why I went back to a university to earn a Business Management degree. Learn how to make business plans that work, and combine it with my technical skills.

Alphabet already has Google Plus as their social network, if Alphabet bought Twitter would they run two different social networks or combine them together?

<comment><USER3> The only value I see in Twitter is identity. I don't use Google Plus because it's not my identity. If they buy Twitter, import all my tweets as Google Plus posts, keep my identity and not the useless Google Plus username, make my tweet URLs redirect to Google Plus, then I will gladly start using Google Plus at last! Right now, I'm not using either, because Twitter is useless in 2016, and Google Plus is not my identity. If they merge, then I'll gladly start using Google Plus with my @identity as +identity has lost.</comment></comment>


Why Email Isn't Dead - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupdigest.com/2010/08/06/email-is-not-dead-renaissance/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but this is a pretty lame article. It's more like a thinly veiled advertisement disguised as a thought- provoking content piece:

"People say email is dead. No, it's not! In fact, we've got this awesome email newsletter that's just for startup founders, and it's doing super awesome. Long live email!"

Gee that's...convenient.

Obviously email is not dead. But what about email newsletters? People actually still read these?

Apparently they do, since StartupDigest seems to have a successful model built around this, as do a few others. Why/how is it successful? Is the format truly superior to a blog? Is there a reason why email newsletter ONLY is superior to blog + email newsletter (+ RSS + Twitter + Facebook + etc.)?

These are questions which I'd have been interested in hearing the author's perspective on, but this article is nothing more than a bit of hype in response to another bit of hype.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if the post made you feel that way. I wrote it up after the quick discussion I had with Tyler.

Will definitley expand further upon this in the future and address the questions you have on email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've always thought these "email is dead or shortly will be" articles to be wildly presumptuous. The argument is generally that the tween/teen demographic hardly ever uses e-mail, and instead use facetwitsquarespace, hence as they grow up email will die out.

This argument is missing one huge point: what happens when these people go to work? How many businesses will want internal communications delivered over social networks?

Email, although far from perfect, is a wonderful work tool. It's private, it's asynchronous, it's distributed, it's cheap. I don't see this being replaced by social messaging.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, almost all B2B communication is still via email.

Also there is the argument of how do you get your facebook/twitter DM notifications? Mostly through email. Even all of these social services ask for an email when you sign up and send emails to drive you back to the site.

Facebook is now one of the largest senders of email in the world..

<comment><USER3> Yes good point. I only ever log in to fb if I get an email alert. However, I imagine that a lot of (younger?) fb users are, like I am with email, permanently logged in, so they see stuff coming in.

Yeah - the B2B point also valid. "Uh, yeah, I'm just gonna message you this contract on facebook". I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure who the "many" people the author refers to who think Twitter will replace email, but they are certainly being hyperbolic.

I imagine what they really mean to say is that some sort of social identity will replace email as our manifestation of self online. That is to say, we used to default to email as the way we ran our Communications (big "C") as individuals.

"How can I find you online?" Oh, here's my email address.

But are people still identifying themselves that way?

8.3% of online time is spent with email (-28% shrink from last year). 22.7% of online time is spent social networking (+43% growth from last year). [Source: The Nielson Company, June 2010 data]

As we grow to use social accounts - Facebook, Google, Twitter - to sign up for stuff and spend most of our time there, the question is: will there be a psychological shift so that I am not uniquely identified by my email address, but rather by a richer and more controllable social profile?

"How can I find you online?" Oh, look me up on Facebook.

Already, I default to connecting with Not-Quite-Friends by telling them to find me online at my social profiles.

Once I give out my email address, I can never take it back, and everyone gets the same priority ("unread") whether you are my mother or a salesman.

I don't think anyone rationally disputes that email will always - or at least for a very long time - be something we use as a central way to communicate with people we have close relationships with; family, co-workers, anyone we have high frequency contact with.

But the author is - I assume because it's written on StartupDigest - trying to grasp the implications on how startups use these communication channels to reach & engage with customers.

In that respect: watch out, email may very well be dying.

<comment><USER3> "Once I give out my email address, I can never take it back, and everyone gets the same priority ("unread") whether you are my mother or a salesman."

This is true. But you don't have to give out your social network profile for anyone - requested or otherwise - to look you up, message you and potentially find out a whole bunch of stuff about you.

(E.g today I found out - accidently, I was browsing around - that an ex-gf stills live at the address she used to, who her boyfriend is and the fact that they are, I think, about to move house. I am not "friends" with either of them and their public profiles are private.)

Edit: this reminds me of an idea I had a while back: temporary email/contact addresses. Completely anonymous way of allowing people to contact you.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but this is on the user. Things like my birthday and address aren't available to everyone, just enough information to identity me from other people with the same name.

As privacy controls normalize across less sophisticated users, I imagine more people will behave like us geeks. Or not - plenty of average Joe's still sort through 500 spam email every day by hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes, email isn't dead, neither is ice cream, shoes, reading, haircuts, breathing, christmas, weather, cups, the alphabet, kleenex, video games, sunglasses, intercourse, barrels, pigeons, onramps, krazy glue, pennies, and so forth....

how about a more important question, maybe one with a less obvious answer, like: is hacker news dead?

<comment><USER6> Yes, it's dead. You can officially stop checking in now.

<comment><USER5> in all seriousness, the articles posted on hn are typically interesting or at least well thought-out. but this one is just stupid. it doesn't make one think "well gee, IS email dead?" instead, one asks "what the fuck is wrong with hn?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is tangential, but I drive two of my favourite web apps almost entirely through email (Tripit and Highrise) and a third (Instapaper) quite a bit. I basically live in Instapaper and Highrise, so that's saying something.

I have email literally everywhere and email reminders are still easily the most effective notification system for a bunch of things I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm still waiting for the foretold deaths of print, vinyl LPs, and CDs. Somehow, I believe print will manage to outlive all of these.

<comment><USER3> its' tempting to think "wow, email is ancient, it's been around for 40-odd years surely web 2.0 etc will supercede it".

And then I remember the telephone, which 120 years later is still going strong.

<comment><USER9> depends how you define the invention in question or even "dead".

with voip and mobile phones are we taking about the same invention? because talking-to-other-people will likely never die. are you calling that the "telephone".

vinyl LP's are not "dead" as in non-existent, 0% adoption, etc, but they are a lot less prevalent than they used to be. cd's too.

what if electronic ink supersedes regular ink in newspapers? is it still "print".

inventions evolve they don't die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else notice all the fields on the comment form are prepopulated on that page with a guy called "Brian Armstrong"? I didn't put them there and this isn't a shared browser.. WordPress vulnerability?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out, it's showing up on my phone too. Will look into it

<comment><USER10> I should have noted that I was using an iPad. On Safari on the desktop I'm not seeing the issue. Very odd!</comment></comment></comment>