Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/19/mexico-kids-junk-food-ban/ <comment><USER4> This is a good idea, and the people in the comments are rightly pointing out sugar's problems. But just as problematic as sugar are vegetable oils which are in almost every packaged product you can buy at the grocery store. They cause all sorts of health problems because the vegetable oils are extremely reactive (due to being unsaturated fats and so having double bonds that can react with other molecules inside your body). These are not called out as a health risk because the American agriculture industry makes an enormous amount of money exporting them and selling them to companies that make packaged/processed foods.

Edit: just to clarify it is the poly-unsaturated fatty acids that are the problem, not fats in general. Fats like butter (saturated) or olive oil (mono- unsaturated) do not have these problems, while canola oil, soybean oil, etc. are poly-unsaturated and highly-reactive.

Edit 2: research for these claims:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223779598_Lipid_oxi...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223779598_Lipid_oxidation_in_aging_and_age- dependent_disease)

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12013175_Peroxidati...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12013175_Peroxidation_of_linoleic_acid_and_its_relation_to_aging_and_age_dependent_diseases)

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5931176_The_Importa...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5931176_The_Important_Role_of_Lipid_Peroxidation_Processes_in_Aging_and_Age_Dependent_Diseases)

These are from a lipid scientist rather than from nutrition scientists, so they are focusing on internal biological processes rather than health outcomes. I have not seen good nutrition studies on poly-unsaturated fats. However, studies of fat consumption that break out fats into saturated, mono- unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated fat categories generally show worse health outcomes for people consuming high intakes of poly-unsaturated fats. I will try to find a good study.

These ingredients are not well studied, which is surprising when you consider how rapidly they've been added to the food supply (basically not at all present 100 years ago, to in every processed food today).

<comment><USER5> That goes against everything I've been told about the types of fats. How much evidence is there for this?

<comment><USER6> Take it for what it is: [http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated- oils.shtml](http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml)

<comment><USER5> > When unsaturated oils are exposed to free radicals they can create chain > reactions of free radicals

This seems like the most important claim and also has no citations.

<comment><USER7> I mean from an organic chemistry perspective it's obviously true. If you throw an electron at a C=C double bond, you get a ·C-C¯: which will then go ahead and bond with an H⁺ that's floating around, leaving you with a radical still bound to your initial molecule, so the theory is

        CH₃-CH=CH-CH₃ + · + ROH ⇒ CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + :O¯R
        CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + HOR' ⇒ CH₃-CH₂-CH₂-CH₃ + ·OR'

and then the · on your ·OR' restarts the cycle, and the cycle doesn't stop until you get

        RO· + ·OR' ⇒ ROOR'

which is gonna be some random peroxide that wouldn't normally form, or

       CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ ⇒  CH₃-CH-CH₂-CH₃
                                              |
                                          CH₃-CH-CH₂-CH₃

which is gonna be some _really_ random molecule with who knows what effects.

Now how important this is in a biological context I have no idea. There is a plausible mechanism for it to affect cellular chemistry, but the problem is that "a plausible mechanism" and "an actual effect" are very far from the same thing, and biochemistry is _complicated_.

The citation I'd want to see is that the chain reactions of free radicals _do something biologically interesting_ , or, even better, that diets high and low in polyunsaturated fats lead to significant health differences in animal models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title is a little misleading, this is happening in the state of Oaxaca only. I guess that if it works the government is going to try and implement it across the whole country.

<comment><USER9> OK, we've replaced the title with the more narrowly scoped language from the first paragraph.

Another issue here is the phrase "moving to". That's not the same thing as actually doing it, and frequently the processes that articles like this are describing end up outputting to /dev/null.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Improving diet would be one of the simplest ways of improving population health. Unfortunately any real changes will cause large, politically powerful corporations (Cargill, ADM, Coca-Cola, etc.) to lose a large amount of money[1], so I'm bearish on the ability to actually create meaningful changes. But just looking at photos on people on beaches from 2019 vs 1970 makes it clear how unhealthy the population is.

[1]: In the US many of these companies are large exporters too, so it is very hard to do anything that hurts them since our exports are generally not very competitive.

<comment><USER10> My concern is that if we can't trust the government to create a healthy recommended diet, how can we trust them to ban the correct foods? Their incentives seem to be more in line with propping up producers of large scale cheap pseudo foods with big lobbies than finding an actual healthy diet.

<comment><USER11> I get your point, but it's not hard to tax the correct foods. Just start with the worst, such as sugary drinks.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't even need to be tax, even mandating that packaged foods' ingredients labeled in easily human-relatable units (table spoons, etc. instead of grams and joules) may help people make better decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> more info on Chile, mentioned in article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/chile-soda- warning...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/chile-soda-warning- label.html)

it's probably safe to say that this is a global public health imperative, given the suffering/costs/economic loss around the world that these beverages and food-like products cause. would also like to see some money from things like corn driven to healthy food subsidies e.g. spinach (or pick your favorite) to offset any increase in costs from taxation

also: bearish for coca-cola long term?

<comment><USER14> Diet Coke is like liquid Gold. I'm all in.

<comment> munk-a I have some severe concerns about the artificial sweeteners in Diet Coke - <USER2> kicked the soda habit a while back but I always stayed well away from diet sodas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Covid shows that governments who fail to encourage nutritious diets will end up with higher healthcare costs.

<comment><USER16> It's not just encourage. What we're finding is that the government has to be authoritarian. China welded people into their homes to keep them from spreading COVID. They literally caged them like animals and threw them into trucks. Now Mexico is denying children potato chips.

Think about universal healthcare and alcohol. How much money is spent on alcohol related issues? The best answer is to ban its sale. Same for tobacco. Enough people have shown then are unable or unwilling to do the right thing. As a result junk food, booze and smokes need to go the way of freedom of speech. We need to ban them.

<comment> munk-a That doesn't really go any way towards explaining why Canada, Europe or the Oceania[1] democracies have done so well in the crisis - nor does it explain how Brazil has done so poorly.

I think there is more counter evidence then supporting evidence for authoritarian governments being necessary for dealing with pandemics.

1\. Please note - comparatively well, Canada, Europe & Oceania aren't doing _perfect_ they're just doing significantly better than the states.

<comment><USER17> > Europe [has] done so well in the crisis

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Belgium all have had more COVID-19 deaths per capita than the US. And France has a rate nearly equal to the US.

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, and Netherlands all have worse case fatality rates than the US. And so does Canada. (But, this may be because the US has done more testing.)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/8993658...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/899365887/charts- how-the-u-s-ranks-on-covid-19-deaths-per-capita-and-by-case-count)

<comment><USER18> Why on earth would 'per capita' be a relevant metric? Is a death less impactful or important when it's in a more populated country?

Also keep in mind Europe was struck _before_ the US - the worst of the first wave is behind them while the US is still riding it down

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting how quick people are to blame US corporations when it's the US government that subsidizes cheap carbs through the farm subsidy program (and on the flip-size in the US, subsidize the purchase of junk food via food stamps).

Also, banning sales to children doesn't solve the real culprit - <USER3> buying the junk food for their own children. At least in America, watch any parent fill up their carts and pay attention to what they buy.

<comment><USER20> How much of that government policy was created in reaction to lobbying by corporations though?

<comment><USER21> Is it too much to ask for politicians to do the right thing regardless of lobbying?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Initiatives like this has always appeared to me as a cheap way for societies to improve the health of their population.

Perhaps better done in the form of a tax - in the sense that junk food causes an externality in the form of health problems, that does seem warranted. The underlying problem is that the incentives are not aligned.

<comment><USER23> We tax alcohol and cigarettes because they are bad for you, but are totally fine with binge eating as much junk food as you like. Obesity is a massive epidemic. Heart attack and stroke are the number one killers, with obesity the highest cause. I'm all for putting warning labels on food showing the potential problems of overconsumption.

<comment><USER24> I bet if you ask any random person in the US if McDonald's is bad for you, they will say yes.

I don't think the obesity epidemic is from lack of information.

<comment><USER25> This is incorrect.

Honestly - I can't blame anybody who could be found lurking, let alone posting on hackers news to think there's no way that this isn't common sense. However, it's not. It's really, unfortunately, very far from it in the U.S.

I now cannot easily find it (at least in a brief search on Google) because of recent bullshit regarding the keywords, but a few years back, there was a medical case that briefly made news. Woman in her thirties, not mentally deficient (by any diagnosis anyways), job holding, etc - was hospitalized at near death from a variety of issues that had gradually become quite severe.

Cause of the issues? She'd, by her, family, and friends accounts, not drank plain water in years, pushing near a decade. The majority of her fluid intake, that entire time, had been Coors Light (sparingly sodas, other sugary/alcoholic drinks that weren't plain water). Her justification as to why she had no idea this could cause any bodily harm is because it was "light"

It's bad. Truthfully, I'm happy for you that you get to live a life where you don't know/haven't been exposed to how bad. But, it's _bad_ and I don't see it getting better any time soon.

<comment><USER24> I don't appreciate the condescending tone.

"2013 nationally representative phone survey of about 2000 subjects showed that one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health, whereas two-thirds considered FF not good. Even over two-thirds of weekly FF consumers (47% of the total population) thought FF not good."

Note: FF = fast food

[https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/9/5/590/5062131](https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/9/5/590/5062131)

There's also this scene from Fat Head: [https://youtu.be/evcNPfZlrZs?t=1258](https://youtu.be/evcNPfZlrZs?t=1258)

<comment><USER26> > _one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health_

I wonder what portion of Americans have a troll mentality and will say stupid shit to pollers just for fun. Probably not far off one in five...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In addition to that, the federal government set new labeling rules for food. Processes food has to display a big-ugly sign as part of their label if the product contains more calories, sugar, salt or fat than the recommended dose:

(pictures)

[https://www.milenio.com/ciencia-y-salud/nuevo-etiquetado- est...](https://www.milenio.com/ciencia-y-salud/nuevo-etiquetado-estos-son- los-primeros-productos-nom-051)

</comment><comment><USER28> This law is way way way overdue. American Corporations are killing Mexico's youth with junk food. I know kids who exclusively drink soda. Healthy, beautiful kids who deserve to go out and play and live their best lives.

<comment><USER26> I know it's in vogue to blame everything on America, but Mexico has a thriving domestic junk food industry too. And frankly, many of their snacks are much better than anything America makes (Takis in particular, I think I'm addicted to them...)

Anyway I support this law. Banning junk food/drinks for kids is long overdue. It's little different from banning the sale of cigarettes to kids.

<comment><USER29> I don't think most people blame USA, it's just "progress". Yesterday at the supermarket I noticed the disproportionate ratio between healthy food (and I count there red meat) and junk food (snacks, sweets,...)

<comment><USER30> Low- or zero-prep junk food is also incredibly cheap. When I see comparisons done it's usually ingredient costs of healthy food to full-price junk food costs, but that's _not_ how poor people shop for junk food. They go to Taco Bell when the tacos are like 60¢ each or less, through promotions or coupons. They buy Totino's frozen pizzas eight at a time, on sale at half-off. They buy giant bags of store brand sugary cereal and pairs of 3L bottles of store-brand soda, again, on sale. Costco pizzas (they are _so cheap_ on a calories-per- dollar basis, for zero-prep hot food) and bakery items for the enterprising slightly-less-poor who can scrape together the annual fee. Whichever chips or snack crackers are on sale. Off-brand pop tarts—holy crap those are _calorie bombs_ and very cheap and you wouldn't believe how many kids have a couple of those for breakfast most every day. And so on.

Even relatively-healthy-but-not-really-healthy frozen meals can't compete with the outright _crap_. It's so very cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 17 years ago there was a candy or confection sold in Mexico containing lead. I know this because I briefly contracted to a California state agency charged with reducing lead poisoning among children. Apparently lead, like many metals, imparts a kind of sweet taste, which is why there was, and probably still is, a problem with children eating old flaking paint containing lead.

I have not followed this situation since. Does anyone know if this confection is still legal and available in Mexico? This was a lot more dangerous than any junk food.

<comment><USER26> The ancient Romans used lead acetate as an artificial sweetener. It's shocking to consider this practice in the modern era though.

<comment><USER32> That's interesting. Of all the years of making fun of the apartment lease addendum pages about lead paint, I had always just written it off to "dumb things people do". I had no idea there was any kind of rewarding behavior at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Adults will just buy them for the kids. I bet tons of stores will just ignore the law too.

<comment><USER34> Isn't this what already happens?

<comment><USER35> Yes, to some degree, but it's also not uncommon for kids to use their allowances to buy junk food at the store.

I remember growing up (I'm from Mexico) chips often had promos where you could find collectibles with cartoon characters in the bags [1]. The cool kids had huge stacks of these, so I begged my mom to get me chips mostly for the toy. I didn't have an allowance and my mom knew better so I never got any though.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sugar is an addictive poison. These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home.

[https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and- metabolic...](https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and-metabolic- syndrome-driven-fructose-sugar-diet)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

<comment><USER37> >These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home.

Sugar is sugar. What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

<comment><USER38> A homemade pastry has fewer preservatives and additives, you have greater control over the contents, requires a time and effort investment, and is not heavily marketed with prominent placement in grocery stores and appealing, colorful packaging. There are both nutritional and psychological differences between the two that make the homemade version effectively much less unhealthy for you.

<comment><USER37> >A homemade pastry has fewer preservatives and additives

Sugar is sugar.

<comment><USER4> Those things aren't sugar though.

<comment><USER39> I'm not sure if you're missing the point intentionally or unintentionally but while those chemicals sometimes can cause health problems later in life but the sugar is what's causing the calories that are causing the obesity that is causing the health problems we want to mitigate.

The sugar is the problem and both the pastries have the same sugar. The homemade one may be marginally better but it's a distinction without a meaningful difference. The problems caused by oddball chemicals used in industrial food manufacturing are less than a rounding error compared to the problems caused by obesity.

<comment><USER4> No, it is actually both things. The sugar causes people to eat the stuff and does contribute to obesity, but sugar is only a contributer. The additives and ingredients like vegetable oils (which cause health problems of their own due to their chemical structure) also contain a lot of calories (fat contains more calories per gram than sugar).

In Australia obesity increased while sugar consumption decreased. The additives really matter and have a huge impact on human health--they are not a rounding error, but it was a great marketing tactic on behalf of various food industry groups to vilify sugar while deflecting from the other ingredients that are similarly problematic.

<comment><USER39> >ingredients like vegetable oils (which cause health problems of their own due to their chemical structure) also contain a lot of calories (fat contains more calories per gram than sugar).

Which are present in home cooked baked goods too.

I know it's not as simple as just "sugar=fat" but the difference between home cooked junk food and industrially cooked junk food is vanishingly small.

<comment><USER26> > _but the difference between home cooked junk food and industrially cooked > junk food is vanishingly small._

In terms of chemistry/nutrition I agree. However there is a huge difference in convienence. Pastries are a huge pain in the ass to make, and consequently I only make two or three pies a year. Store bought pastries are trivial to acquire and gorge on seven days a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> [http://archive.is/iJVHc](http://archive.is/iJVHc)

</comment><comment><USER41> Dumb, just tax fructose in proportion to how much is added. Ths US should do the same thing.

<comment><USER42> If we just didn't subsidize its production, that would be a start.

<comment> kube-system It's a tough situation. Much of the idea behind agriculture subsides is to protect against black-swan events.

<comment><USER42> Doesn't crop insurance exist? Why the need to constantly subsidize?

<comment> kube-system You can't eat insurance money.

We are lucky to live in a age of a dramatic global decline in famine, but a large scale war or natural disaster could potentially unravel this progress in a devastating way.

Subsidies can do preventative tasks that insurance cannot -- like securing additional capacity of food stores and farm land that farmers wouldn't normally do unless they were being paid to do so.

<comment><USER42> True, but the US gov't stockpiles grain, oil and other things for those kind of events. I don't see how subsidies help in those scenarios either.

<comment> kube-system Yes, but much like the PPE stockpile, those are only a stopgap measure and aren't really enough to be a comprehensive solution on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> No Coca Cola? No Jarritos? No Chaparritas? No Joya (De Naranja, Pi~a, Durazno, Uva, Mandarina, Fresa, Toronja, Ponche, Raiz, Manzana o Limon)? I drank all that crap In the 80s and I am not fat. I do have root canals and implants galore.

<comment><USER44> Same. Yeah I think people love to blame this on entirely on junk food, but seems it is largely an increase in sedentary lifestyle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Work a MCO and I scream this during medical rounds and the importance of a the endocrine System and I get ghost looks

</comment><comment><USER46> [https://archive.is/iJVHc](https://archive.is/iJVHc)

</comment><comment><USER47> Can we ban sugary breakfasts too? Captain Crunch, Froot Loops & their ilk should be illegal.

<comment><USER48> Are they really that bad? I mean Froot Loops are weird but you don't really eat them often?

<comment><USER49> I had cereal (usually sugary) for breakfast basically every day for about the first 20 years of my life. I don't think this is terribly uncommon. If it weren't for my mild lactose-intolerance I might never have switched to greek yogurt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Coming soon... "Real Juice!"

</comment><comment><USER51> Junk food prohibition. Soon, secret clubs selling candy requiring passwords to get in. I predict state-run candy stings in the future.

</comment><comment><USER52> so under the law, anyone selling a candy to a child could be prosecuted as a criminal activity, with Mexico broken law system this seems to be a really bad idea

<comment><USER53> Would this make the cartels even stronger?

<comment><USER54> always

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Are they going to ban tacos too?

<comment><USER56> I spent quite a bit of time in Nogales, Mexico and ate as many tacos as I could get my hands on. Across the board they were far healthier than anything I can get from a fast food restaurant in the states. The tacos in (Sonora) Mexico generally consist of: Corn tortilla, meat, cabbage, onions, cilantro. Optional hot salsa.

<comment><USER34> Hot salsa _is not_ optional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> you mean like taco's and enchiladas? as well as the myriad extremely tasty but insanely unhealthy Mexican foods?

<comment><USER58> How are tacos unhealthy? It is mainly just meat in a corn tortilla.

<comment><USER55> There's typically relatively little meat and they are mostly carbs.

<comment><USER25> Have you been to Mexico? Or even SoCal?

I don't think I recall having eaten any of near thousand tacos, even those for $0.50, that had "relatively little meat" and "are mostly carbs" and most often heard the sentiment of not understanding how you were getting such a great deal from non-natives, and natives typically informing inquirers that that's just... how things are and have been.

Maybe deeper in South America? I don't know, haven't been and haven't done much research. But North America? I very much disagree with you and believe that most others would too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Mexico is known for disregarding laws on alcohol sales to minors..what exactly do they expect the outcome of this to be?

Just another way for the police to steal money from the poor. Great job.

<comment><USER35> > Mexico is known for disregarding laws on alcohol sales to minors..what > exactly do they expect the outcome of this to be?

I grew up in Mexico. You can definitely get booze before you're 18 if you're crafty and find the right store, but I don't see any general "outright disregard" of laws on alcohol sales to minors. I went to college in the USA— it's essentially the same.

<comment><USER59> I guess I'm thinking more about restaurants, I never purchased alcohol from a store while underage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Nutrition writers struggle to name the industry without using the word food. "Junk food," "fast food," "ultra-processed food," "frankenfood," and so on all help the industry obfuscate that they've refined out and sell the addictive parts, which resemble their sources as much as heroin resembles poppy or cocaine coca leaves.

We don't call heroin "fast poppy" or cocaine "junk coca." Doing so with the addictive refinements from other plants only confuses people that temporarily filling their bellies resembles nourishing themselves. Heroin would make us feel less hungry temporarily too, but we recognize it harms.

Michael Pollan's "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" implies non-food isn't food, but he doesn't come up with the needed name for what's not food that he recommends avoiding eating.

The word "doof" \-- food backward -- is catching on among some nutritionists and food writers. The change in your world view that comes from differentiating food from doof is tremendous. You see 90% of the supermarket as a wasteland of addiction, plastic, and pollution. When people say poor people choose fast food over vegetables because they can buy more with their limited funds, you hear that they're buying doof instead of food. Companies selling doof displace farmers markets and people selling food.

Doof is generally packaged, engineered to promote a short-term rush and long- term craving, and its pleasure comes from salt, sugar, fat, and convenience.

I propose using the term doof for doof and avoiding referring to doof with any phrase including the word food.</comment>


Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device. - <AUTHOR> http://www.tactustechnology.com/ <comment><USER2> This will be huge for automotive touchscreen applications: I have no doubt it will save lives.

With current touchscreen interfaces, you rely almost solely on visual cues and feedback to make correct inputs. Not a good situation while driving, when you need as much visual attention as possible focused on the road.

The best interfaces for operating complex or dangerous machines have fixed, haptically identifiable reference points; this allows you to reach out (in the dark or without shifting visual focus) and make some sort of adjustment without fumbling or disturbing your flow. If the touchscreen can be elegantly brought into that realm, so much the better.

Tesla Model S 2.0 perhaps?

BTW, anyone have an idea of how this technology works?

Update: From the article linked below in a comment by kpozin, it's based on hydraulics. Ingenious.

<comment><USER3> Similar to kiba's comment below, but perhaps a step in between, it would make sense for car designers to look at other similarly complex machines that require the operator's constant attention to the outside world before innovating blindly.

HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) as a concept has been adopted almost exclusively in fighter aircraft - and extended into Formula 1 and Indy cars as well - for this exact purpose.

The modern car dashboard design is beyond stupid, almost criminally so when you start to see 12 inch _video screens_ placed _underneath the windscreen_ in such a way that the driver has to take his attention off the road to use pretty much anything in the car.

Tactile feedback isn't going to help much if you are fumbling with controls floating an arms length away between you and the passenger.

There is plenty of room on the steering wheel for _all_ of the car's functional controls, especially if you make use of a HUD/windscreen visual menu and multifunction controls. I almost exclusively use my 5 button steering wheel control to manage my entire audio experience while driving right now.

I'm not sure how many people will need to be killed before something like that becomes the norm. Of course, seatbelts and airbags both required their fair share of human sacrifice before the car gods decided lowly operators warranted them, so maybe kiba is onto something. :-)

<comment><USER4> Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world. That's why autopilots and drones are technologies that have been available in the aerospace industry for years, but are just now getting good enough to consider in cars.

Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it is most important to do it right.

That said, modern cars do have a lot of controls on the steering wheel: all the typical blinkers, brights, horn, etc. and now often radio controls, cruise control, telephone Bluetooth controls, even gear shifting paddles.

HUD has been tried in cars before, but never caught on. Drivers tended to find it more distracting than helpful. Most of the information for driving does not need to be so..."contextual", the way that, say, a missile targeting system does. Anything that intercedes itself directly between the driver's eyes and the outside world could be dangerous.

I do agree with you that the touchscreens in the dash are frickin awful UI design. I think they are like the "store" setting on LCD TVs--their main job is to look cool in the showroom.

<comment><USER3> Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings is essential in all of these situations.

 _Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it is most important to do it right._

This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars.

 _HUD has been tried in cars before, but never caught on. Drivers tended to find it more distracting than helpful._

That's because that "HUD" consisted of a an annoying little speedometer that was pretty much out of the line of sight. Today, we have much more information delivered to the driver in general - the most distracting being GPS/Map data and cell phone operation. These are perfect for HUD use.

I'm talking about something like this: [http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-7-series- part-1-19-11-08.a...](http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-7-series- part-1-19-11-08.asp)

<comment><USER4> That graphic is hilarious. WTF do all those cryptic numbers and arrows mean?? Even if I knew, I would have to stare at them for a second or two to collect and parse the data.

You might start by asking yourself why, in 2012, almost every car still comes with an analog (dial-style) speedometer. The answer is that they are unambiguous and easily scanned. You do not need to actually read the numbers, and can collect the speed data in a quick eye flick (well under 1 second). Again: everyone already tried digital speed readouts in the 1980s. They sucked.

Engineering and innovation create continuous pressure on good user interfaces. The Google homepage is a well-known example from the web of a UI that successfully resisted this pressure to very good effect. (Although even the Google homepage is slowly succumbing.)

Consider something like GPS. The greatest visual interface for GPS directions is none at all. The driver in need of directions should be able to ask for them verbally and receive instructions verbally--that way they can maintain their visual scan. In the age of paper maps, everyone knew it was silly to try to drive and unfold and read a map at the same time...somehow this common wisdom has been forgotten just because we can use pixels now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a brief article about Tactus: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3064674/tactus- technology-p...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3064674/tactus-technology- prototype-touchscreen-appearing-disappearing-keys)

Looks like the button locations are fixed for now, but they're hoping to make them adjustable in the future.

<comment><USER6> If you could make the grid small enough, it wouldn't mater that they were fixed if you could activate regions to form whole buttons.

<comment><USER7> Many narrow independent regions could cause visibility to suffer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The video can be found here: <http://vimeo.com/43431035>

I really dislike the voice-over they have, but that might be personal preference. It just sounds like a regular person imitating a professional voice actor to me.

<comment><USER9> Yep, shame they went for the Faux-Matrix-Morpheus voice over.

<comment><USER10> That's funny, I thought it was reminiscent of Agent Smith.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am sure the first generation is going to be fraught with problems, but this looks so good that I would badly like to own part of this company. Massive game changer, with the sort of technology I thought to be 5-10 years out. Unqualified thumbs up from me.

<comment><USER12> Same here; it seems like the range of applications is incredibly broad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This would be a killer feature for me if the buttons had some kind of depression, so I could feel the button before actually pressing it. Without that feature it's just a bumpy touch screen which isn't all that much better than a flat one in my opinion.

<comment><USER14> Would the bubble create a non touch sensitive surface, since it is at a distance from the screen? Assuming it can be pressed flat against the glass before the touch screen beneath detects a touch, you have pretty much what you want.

There would still be touch sensitive areas between the bubbles, which might be a problem, depending on the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Judging by the video, it looks like the layout of the buttons is fixed, only their presence is toggleable.

If so, that's a bit of a bummer.

<comment><USER16> A bummer. Now, _that_ is classic.

I remember using public payphones just a little over a decade ago. One time some kids had put Vaseline on the earpiece. That was a fun time.

Now we have a phone in our pocket that we can talk to and have it do nearly anything. By next year, it will have buttons when we want and no buttons when we don't.

Vaseline on your ear is a bummer. This button-no-button stuff is _not_ a bummer.

<comment><USER17> It's a bit of a bummer because it's trivial and boring. It almost looks like it's just a touchscreen with pockets on the front that you blow compressed air into. The fact that this is getting so much attention - and the fact that it's wasting some of our time in the process - is kind of annoying.

<comment><USER18> I feel like people like you complained when the first computers were invented because they were slow. This is haptic technology progressing and just the fact that it's getting major media attention is amazing since on-demand haptic feedback is the biggest presence missing from digital technology. Touch is just such a fundamental part of the human experience that anything that advances the technology that gets us to that implementation should be celebrated and here you are declaring it annoying?

It boggles the mind...

<comment><USER19> Electrostatic haptic feedback looks much, much, much more promising. Toshiba demo'd it two years ago: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jXITjLurof0)

<comment><USER20> That looks amazing, I wonder why it hasn't been commercialized yet. Too expensive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> the way I see it, physical buttons have two uses one is tactile navigation: the ability to find out what part of the screen you're touching and navigate it without vision.

the second use though is activation feedback, a button has to be able to be navigated separately from its activation. unless these protrusions can tell whether they are pressed or not, it still seems useless to have a lumpy touchscreen...

so I really hope they found some method of separating simply sliding a finger around searching for a button and realizing when the finger is pressing down... this is the exact same issue as the various touch-mice devices

(left click with finger on left side, right click with finger on right side, unless that is you like to REST your fingers while clicking)

<comment><USER22> From the site:

"While touchscreens provide a versatile user experience, they provide no tactile experience for consumers. Vibration haptics and similar solutions try to simulate a sensation of touch, but all are "feedback" technologies, vibrating only after touching the screen (even if they are touched in the wrong place or by mistake). In contrast, Tactus' technology creates real, physical buttons, where users can rest their fingers on the buttons, as on a mechanical keyboard, and input data by pressing down on the keys. Tactus is the only solution to both "orientation" and "confirmation" problems that are inherent in touch screens."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Braille. Can you imagine the world of potential here for our low-vision friends? Dynamic text for signs (seen through something like Google's glass), down to topographical layout of the ground in front of you for navigation... This could really shake things up.

</comment><comment><USER24> Site hosted on Yahoo and instantly overloaded. This is like reading Slashdot in 1998.

</comment><comment><USER25> Prediction: Apple buys the company and the proceeds to get every patent they can on this tech.

<comment><USER26> Unfortunately for them that won't be a lot of patents that would stand up under examination since there's been heavy research in haptic interfaces, and especially haptic touchscreen interfaces for quite a while now.

In fact I would be surprised if Apple wasn't doing research into this themselves.

<comment><USER27> Apple filed a patent in March 2012 for a haptic touchsceen. [http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/22/apples_haptic_...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/22/apples_haptic_touch_feedback_concept_uses_actuators_senses_force_on_iphone_ipad.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't see any info on how it works? the website is just justifications for tactile interaction

</comment><comment><USER29> Here is very similar technology: [http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/PneumaticDis...](http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/PneumaticDisplays)

Nokia has also done research into this but with little bit different technology: [http://c2499022.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp- content...](http://c2499022.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/07/nokia-haptics.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER30> Could you take little sections of this stuff, stack them together, and use them as a sort of programmable matter type thing?

Maybe if you fold them over or something they could just basically expand and contract. So you expand a bunch in one section to make a feature. Then wrap the whole thing in a very flexible skin. Press a button on a computer, and it morphs between (for example) an alligator shape and a person shape.

<comment><USER31> Or it would be cool if you could make a ball shape with a solar power source inside, and it could push itself around and collect energy. It could turn on and off rows of "buttons" to give itself momentum.

Throw in a camera for object tracking; or a bright light - you could make little glowing orbs that roll around, float in water etc.

Throw a bunch over a wall - they move around and map rooms as a swarm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Very interesting and a bit scary. Think about it, a screen that can reach out and change its shape. That almost guarantees some (software) application misuse if they are given access to screen control. But on the other hand, gaming would be more interesting with something more to interact with than just what is displayed on screen.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of this.

<comment><USER33> I expect a rogue app, that, upon detecting that phone is laying with its display down, starts to move the phone by imitating snake's muscles. and phone runs for the exit and beyond!

<comment><USER34> I'm afraid it may take a little longer before my phone can safely climb off a table, much less those 5 flights of stairs before it reaches the street...

Still, the idea of a million smartphones collectively climbing out of their nightstands at full moon and then crawling towards some supervillain's cave, as fast as their little bubblescreens will carry, is definitely hollywood material!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is cool, but is there really a demand for this? Didn't we almost universally switch from textured, real buttons to glass interfaces over the last 5 years?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not exactly pining for my old blackberry's keyboard. My display/interface iPhone isn't perfect, but this just isn't a real enough problem for me. Is it for you?

<comment><USER35> Glass is preferable because it can be reconfigured by software to fit the application, allowing dead-simple, focused interfaces rather than bloated, inflexible catch-all input devices.

The tradeoff was the loss of tactile feedback, meaning good luck dialing a number, choosing a song, etc. while driving. Tactile glass would be the best of both worlds.

<comment><USER12> And not just driving. Take the iPad, for instance - it's fun and kind of magical, but a lot of us dismiss it because you can't really do "serious" input on it. Even though I really like it, I have to confess that I can't really type that fast, nor is typing comfortable enough to do for very long. But if typing on my iPad were as easy as it is on a chiclet-type keyboard - just a step or two down from my laptop keyboard - then suddenly things would equalize a bit. And what is for many people _the_ major barrier to using a touch device exclusively would disappear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What is really exciting about this is that it could potentially be used as an ad hoc surface generator. A basic idea would be to have physical keys on the variety of piano apps available for iOS. An extreme example would be having terrain pop up of the screen in games like "the bard's tale", providing tactile knowledge of the game levels.

There isn't much information on the actual implementation on the website, but if you could make the surface depress-able or not depending on the context requirement, then the variety of applications is endless: Think of the blind, being able to use tablets to read with Braille(non depress-able), or the piano idea from above( depress-able).

</comment><comment><USER37> Reminded me of this recent item:

[http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/05/apple- re...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/05/apple-reveals- wildly-intelligent-multi-tiered-haptics-system.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> It is funny to see this because a few years ago in college I mused with the idea of using bubbles for buttons on screens and drew up some plans I had. I didn't have the tech or the time to bring it about, but I am glad someone else has. The issues I came up with was how to build a small pneumatic motor that would fit in a device, not make much noise, work quick, and not drain all the power fast. I hope they can do it becasue tactile feedback would be nice. =)

</comment><comment><USER39> Am I the only one thinking Heart of Gold(Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxiy)?? P.S: I couldn't really reach the page. just the description evokes that memory

</comment><comment><USER40> This would be handy to adjust the volume or pause the currently playing track on your smartphone. It always kinda annoyed me that I had to take it out of my pocket to do that.

It's a cool technology, but i think it won't be more useful or productive than a regular touch screen. How are you gonna swipe on a bumpy touch screen?

</comment><comment><USER41> I have been thinking about this for a while - great to see someone company is actually taking initiative to really build this! I think this will definitely help to bridge the gap between buttoned and touch phones - will tremendously improve your keyboard accuracy on a phone if nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER42> A lot of the sub pages don't seem to have <title> elements. That seems like an odd oversight.

</comment><comment><USER43> Microsoft - a company that is making such a big push with touch in Windows 8 should be the most interested in this company.

Tactile touch has the ability to transform tablets from casual and convenience devices to the next generation of computers and MS is already betting on touch.

</comment><comment><USER44> Man, I knew this was coming. I just thought it would be like 5 years from now.

</comment><comment><USER45> The website appears to be down. Who uses Yahoo for hosting?

</comment><comment><USER46> It kills me how they synced the beats of the intro music to the "morphing" of the buttons...

</comment><comment><USER47> why is everybody ranting on this nice technology and ignores the fact that the sites image and css ressources aren't loading?!</comment>


World's first digital laser unveiled in South Africa [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24331926

<comment><USER2> This is interesting, but from what I understand, the actual laser itself isn't changing shape, but is being passed through an LCD which changes the shape. To me, this doesn't sound much different from altering one of the reflectors, but I don't know a ton about lasers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More detail: [http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/new-laser-system- de...](http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/new-laser-system-developed-in- south-africa-2013-09-17/)</comment>


FaRM: Fast Remote Memory - <AUTHOR> http://blog.carlosgaldino.com/farm-fast-remote-memory.html <comment><USER2> A quick skim of the abstract reminded me of GMS from the 90s ([http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/gms/index.html](http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/gms/index.html)).

<comment><USER3> I used to have quite a few of these bookmarked in the 90's. Can't recall most names but found this one:

[http://gasnet.lbl.gov/](http://gasnet.lbl.gov/)

New banner seems to be this catch-phrase:

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

Used to just call it software NUMA or single-system image because what we really wanted was a SGI machine built out of commodity parts. :)</comment></comment>


AMC Theatres launches streaming service in latest blow to Netflix - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amc-theatres-launches-streaming-service-in-latest-blow-to-netflix-2019-10-15 <comment><USER2> I'm all for competition in the marketplace, just as I'm not likely to give up Netflix I'm also not likely to start paying for any other streaming service out there. I use Netflix and Amazon Prime not because I'm in love with the companies but because I like the price point and selection.

I would consider a proper Netflix competitor that can offer a wide variety, including films and series from other and "indie" creators, and no commercials. Until then I will keep Netflix.</comment>


Urwid For Python, A Ncurses Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.nicosphere.net/urwid-for-python-a-ncurses-library-2541/

<comment><USER2> If you're not committed to using precisely the curses library for the text UI, there is also Newt[1], a front-end to Slang. It was used in the text-based installer of Red Hat Linux. I once used it for a one-off Python script and it was OK.

1\. <http://gnewt.sourceforge.net/tutorial.html></comment>


WHO just declared another polio virus strain eradicated. There's one more to go - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2019/10/24/20930553/polio-outbreak-2019-eradication-who <comment><USER2> Shouldn't WHO be capitalized? Delete this comment after the edit is complete.

<comment><USER3> The automatics title filter in HN probably changed it to "fix" the all-caps. If you send an email to the mods, they can fix it firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> right, I copied the title and it was WHO. I will send the email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who also claims red meat gives you cancer</comment>


When Apps Meet Cloud Storage: Tectonic Shift Ahead - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/insights/2012/12/when-apps-meet-cloud-storage-tectonic-shift-ahead/

<comment><USER2> Not shocked by the self-promotion Dass has here, considering where his interests are, but his point is ultimately a good one.

I think Filepicker is neat software, but can't wait for a more open solution like Web Intents to mature.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know many SLR photo shooters who store their RAW files in the cloud. They're too big, and you can't upload them to flickr anyways. Video is even bigger. For people creating content using images or video, cloud storage will have to wait for Google Fiber for all.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is the most blatant piece of self promotion, I can't believe Wired posted this.

Reading this is like someone arguing, the world is going mobile. Yea brilliant observation.

<comment><USER5> It's posted under the section "Contributor Content" which is a fancy way of saying "PAID ADVERTISING".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Death of Local Storage is near? Really?

I would rather consolidate my data using personal cloud solutions like Tonido rather than spreading my personal data across multiple cloud storage services.

<comment><USER7> "I would rather consolidate my data using personal cloud solutions like Tonido rather than spreading my personal data across multiple cloud storage services."

You see what you just said? You said a perfectly legitimate alternative that most tech-savvy people (i.e. most of this site's userbase) will understand. That ditzy girl you hit on last week at the bar, some weird fruity drink in one hand, iPhone in the other? She wouldn't understand. She does, however, understand using her Dropbox to store all her photos from Instagram at the push of a button on Instagram's website...or some other possibility, I don't know.

I'll never have the cloud as my be-all end-all backup for media and the like but your average moron who dabbles in ten different applications' "social networks" will eat it up.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Using my technical skills to explain tech terms to sellers/marketers - <AUTHOR> http://www.savogroup.com/sales-reps-guide-tech-talk-sso/

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here - explaining how technology works to the average person can be very difficult. Through lots of practice we can get better at it, but it's always an ongoing challenge as technology evolves. I think my series of posts is worth sharing since most of the folks here on HN have a business background and interact with sellers/marketers etc. Enjoy - I'd love to hear feedback!</comment>


TSMC to Keep Supplying Chips to Huawei - <AUTHOR> https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1334745 <comment><AUTHOR> The difference with ARM:

\- US can bar US companies from working with ARM, and nothing changes for them short term (companies simply keeping using their masks)

\- US can bar US companies from working with TSMC, and it gets the greatest shutdown on shipments of all things electronic, while the rest of the world happily gains

</comment><comment><USER2> Just a note: the author claims Huawei is the number 2 smartphone company ahead of Apple, but the cited story was regarding a 2 mo streak in 2017 before Apple released the iPhone 8. According to IDC [0], the rankings currently go Samsung, Apple, then Huawei in smartphone market share.

[0] [https://www.gizmochina.com/2019/01/31/idc-xiaomi-is- fourth-l...](https://www.gizmochina.com/2019/01/31/idc-xiaomi-is-fourth- largest-smartphone-manufacturer-in-the-world/%3famp)

<comment><USER3> Huawei was number 2 ahead of Apple in Q1 2019[1].

[1][https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/3Fn1mqLMMpADLzTeJ0q6yoHShyY=...](https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/3Fn1mqLMMpADLzTeJ0q6yoHShyY=/0x0:826x681/1320x0/filters:focal\(0x0:826x681\):format\(webp\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16203894/prUS45042319_F_1.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TSMC just manufactures the designs. The designs are still required to be made by the customer of TSMC.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess TSMC isn't based in the US in any meaningful way. Good for them.

<comment><USER6> The US is in no position to mess with TSMC. None.

<comment><USER7> The US is Taiwan's biggest supporter. The US could theoretically really flex some muscle here, since Taiwan essentially depends on the US for defense.

<comment><USER8> And go to who? Samsung is the only real competitor

<comment><USER9> In theory, Intel

<comment><USER8> Intel can barely keep up with manufacturing their own chips, and have nearly lost to AMD

<comment><USER9> Hence, "in theory"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not sure how this is possible. ARM withdrew its license, and so did SD Association (whose IP would presumably need to be on the chip as well): [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635326/huawei-arm- chip-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635326/huawei-arm-chip-designs- business-suspension). Or maybe they're just saying "we'll make whatever designs you send to us, even if they are in violation of your own licensing deals with IP holders" hoping that Huawei won't be so reckless as to put in any orders. Seems like a legally precarious position to be in.

<comment><AUTHOR> The trick is that ARM China is Chinese company with Chinese controlling stake, and completely separate licensing policies from ARM UK.

And it is known that Huawei made a castling move few months ago by switching licensing from ARM UK to ARM China

<comment><USER10> How can it be a Chinese company if ARM is a Japanese company now?

<comment><USER11> In June 2018, SoftBank sold 51% of ARM's Chinese operation to ARM China for $775M.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/06/softbank_offloads_5...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/06/softbank_offloads_51_per_cent_of_arm_china_for_a_bargain_7752m/)

<comment><USER10> Ah, I didn't know. Thanks for pointing this out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Examples of good/bad design - <AUTHOR> What are some examples of good & bad design in web/app products? Instagram, snapchat, buzzfeed,etc..... <comment><USER2> Bad: [http://www.arngren.net](http://www.arngren.net)</comment>


How We Created a Brand Story for Our MVP – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.airsend.io/blog/index.php/2020/01/09/start-up-201-successful-product-launch-branding-continued/ <comment><AUTHOR> Part 1 is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22539983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22539983)

<comment><USER2> That is the link for part 1.

<comment><AUTHOR> apologize. put the wrong link accidentally. edited it now.</comment></comment></comment>


NSA 'collected details of online sexual activity' of Islamist radicals - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-details-online-sexual-activity-islamist-radicals

<comment><AUTHOR> I can just imagine the conversations inside the NSA - about how this is a bloodless way to destabilise their enemies and bring down those who might hurt America. It's certainly kinder than blowing people up with drones, and probably produces less blowback. After all, you're using people's own hypocrisy against them.

But this isn't necessarily a weapon restricted to foreign soil or only bad people. The fact is that a lot of famous people have different public personas to their private selves. Who's to say elections can't be rigged this way, or election winners blackmailed?

I think this is increasingly an issue about how we regulate the watchers. In a media-centred age, being the gatekeeper of privacy is a position of immense power.

There's also another, parallel question, of course: should society continue blaming people for having hypocritical private lives? Maybe after a lot of NSA-led outings, Facebook photo exposures, sackings for what people write on bulletin boards, etc, we'll one day allow people to be complex and multifaceted.

<comment><USER2> I think it will certainly be used against citizens for non-security purposes. They're already restricted by the Constitution from doing what they're doing, they're already violating their charter to only spy on foreigners and mass collecting domestic everything. Of _course_ they're going to turn this against non-threatening citizens; they're probably doing it now.

> should society continue blaming people for having hypocritical private > lives?

No, we all have something to hide, from someone's point of view. I'm an atheist, which probably wouldn't have played well in John Ashcroft's Justice Department. He did, after all, order a curtain to cover the statue of Lady Justice and its somewhat traditional single bared breast: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Department_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Department_of_Justice_Building#Spirit_of_Justice)</comment></comment>


SexyMandarin.com fuses soft porn with Chinese language classes - <AUTHOR> http://sgentrepreneurs.com/2013/02/05/nsfw-sexymandarin-com-fuses-soft-porn-with-chinese-language-classes/

<comment><USER2> I don't really get it.

> Footages of lingerie models speaking in Mandarin will be interspersed by > sequences where an animated, pervy looking teacher will explain the phrases > used.

Are these girls teaching or just randomly talking? It seems something animated will do the teaching... but then further down...

> Disappointingly, the models teaching one-on-one lessons aren't dressed in > lingerie

Which suggests the models can teach.. strange.

I think the whole idea is a bit sad. As a straight 20-something guy if I am paying for language lessons I would always pay for quality over fluff like this. Its not like abundant amounts of softcore porn cannot be found for free.

I also find it disappointing that there aren't some hunky men for the ladies... I mean... if your going to make something this awful you might as well make it swing both ways.

<comment><USER3> > Which suggests the models can teach.. strange.

They have several tiers of subscription; the higher ones get you one-on-one sessions with the ladies.

> As a straight 20-something guy if I am paying for language lessons I would > always pay for quality over fluff like this.

I don't know if it's fluff; judging from their first lesson there's not much. The dialogue is about what you would get in any first lesson class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I don't have anything against sexy language learning in theory, I feel like the execution here isn't great. The best language lessons I've had were highly participatory; you remember the sounds much better by making them rather than hearing them. Unfortunately the voyeuristic nature of the lessons really exacerbates the non-participatory structure, and you end up just watching someone else speaking the language instead of speaking it yourself.

I only saw the example lesson in the article, so maybe later ones work differently, but from what I can see you're sacrificing quality of teaching in exchange for the sexy angle. I don't think it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sexual Gamification? Interesting idea.

I'd be interested in having an easier time learning, but my Chinese girlfriend forbids me to use a site like this :(

</comment><comment><USER6> Come on...this is just a gimmick right?</comment>


Weekend proj: Job aggregator/filter for Big 4 - <AUTHOR> http://big4work.com I've been looking for job opportunities w/ the big 4 and was having trouble sifting through all the big 4 job listing sites (whats with enterprise job listing platforms, they're so clunky??)
Anyhow - the other weekend I whipped up an aggregator/filter that lets you easily and quickly search over all the big 4's job listings (the job list is updated 3x a day). I find it pretty handy keeping a tab on new job ops and wanted to share with all yall.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better, leave a comment. <comment><AUTHOR> I've been looking for job opportunities w/ the big 4 and was having trouble sifting through all the big 4 job listing sites (whats with enterprise job listing platforms, they're so clunky??)

Anyhow - the other weekend I whipped up an aggregator/filter that lets you easily and quickly search over all the big 4's job listings (the job list is updated 3x a day). I find it pretty handy keeping a tab on new job ops and wanted to share with all yall.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better, leave a comment.

<comment><USER2> >I've been looking for job opportunities w/ the big 4

Just curious. What draws you to working for the big 4?

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually work for one right now, however I'm not happy with the role I was moved to - so im looking for other opportunities within the various other service lines at my firm (as well as others).

I like the big 4 because it a stable work environment, the pay is good, and benefits are amazing (24+ vaca days and im not that senior!). The trick is finding a spot you're happy in can be a problem if you're not into accounting/auditing. Depending the position/management/etc you can be overworked, so thats something to be cognizant of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Very cool idea. I've long wanted something that gets me to the employer directly, rather than routing me through a recruiter. One failing of most sites is the sheer number of recruiter ads I've seen. Want to disrupt? Get rid of the middleman.

I've noticed that companies often list their postings though a third-party site like taleo.net or apply2jobs.com (two I found by clicking on your site). Those sites also make it hard (probably intentionally) to get to the actual job listings from what I've seen, probably to prevent scraping.

How do you manage to get those listings you your site? Are you pulling a feed, polling the sites, or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> agreed - the big 4 job market is RIDDLED with generally useless recruiters. KPMG and EY i believe use 3rd parties (taleo and apply2jobs) to power their internal job list and they are by and large horribley user-unfriendly (which is why i made the site in the first place).

I got listing by polling the sites and each site needed a custom solution to pull the data down. Creating the mechanisms for grabbing jobs from each site took 80% of the total dev time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe a big ask, but any chance of international support (Europe)? or if not, a look at the source?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can try - any way you could toss up links to the international listings?</comment></comment>


The Village Voice, the iconic New York tabloid, is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2018/08/31/the-village-voice-is-no-more/ <comment></comment>


Ask HN: I found opposition when improving the accessibility of the website - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to improve the accessibility of the company's website. I created a merge request where I change the wrongly used attribute `role` into `data-role` to avoid the browser to misrepresent it. I also updated the Unit Test and End to End tests.
A colleague is strongly opposing, and will not let me merge it until I find a customer that contacted the company because it's affected by this issue.
What can I do? <comment><USER2> Port the entire app in to React so you don't need to use attributes to store state. ;)

More seriously, working with people who don't care about what they're building enough to want it to be a better product is hard. I don't really want to recommend that you resign and find a new job, but two decades of experience writing web software tells me that's probably the only real solution. If you're on a team with people who don't _actively_ want the code to be as good as possible, and who are willing to put the effort in to making it that way, will be bad for your mental health and possibly bad for your career if you pick up that habit.

<comment><AUTHOR> the funny bit is the entire app is in React, and the attribute was leaking to the DOM, so to keep the unit tests and e2e tests work, I made the attribute go to the DOM as `data-role`. The attribute of the React component is still `role` so we can avoid a major refactoring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are probably dozens of reasons both good and bad for preventing fly by night change requests. Some of them would depend on the size of your company. Is this the work the company wants you to do or are you off the on your own?

Tossing aside the accessibility angle, fly by night changes often have ramifications that the authors did not anticipate. I have and would again veto change requests that not part of our planning process and offered as: "Surprise, here is this cool thing I did."

<comment><AUTHOR> however, his reason is none of them, his reason is "no one complained about it"

other developers reviewed the change and have been tested to be sure we don't have regressions. The company is small, we are only 6 frontend devs.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps he is demonstrating that this type of behavior is not wanted. Was there a bug report or jira issue? If not, why are you using company resources on pet projects? I believe this is what he is telling you.

You see that other devs have already reviewed the changes as a good thing. In my opinion this is the kiss of death for your case. Not only are _you_ working on un-prioritized work but now others are as well.

Work on stuff that has been prioritized. Don't get side tracked on work that has not been prioritized. If you believe it is important work, submit a bug report or feature request and get it prioritized. Then you can legit fix it and get it folded in.

I know it seems petty, and I have been guilty of 'drive by refactoring" when I was a junior dev so I understand the temptation to "fix things".

<comment><AUTHOR> This "bug" is a violation of the Equality Act, and so can have legal consequence if a customer reports it.

This is the type of issues you want to fix before are reported, not after.

It's like waiting for someone to die before adding a zebra crossing.

<comment><USER3> So, you did not submit a bug or an enhancement request I take it. You unilaterally decided that your code change was more important than the work assigned to you by your company.

If it was/is _that_ important then you can create a ticket right?

<comment><AUTHOR> the ticket exists and has been reviewed by a Product Owner, however, the other dev doesn't accept it because it's not submitted by a customer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i dont get what the issue is? this is a personal problem with your colleague

<comment><AUTHOR> the issue is that to solve the accessibility issue I need that a customer reports the problem.</comment></comment>


Rework is now in stores - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2196-rework-is-now-in-stores <comment><USER2> The management today review of this is actually quite interesting <http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/rss/article/985294>

37signals brush it off as criticism that should just be ignored because their website includes the word "management", but a lot of what they say is pretty near the mark IMHO.

For example:

      The authors' advice is so sweeping and deliberately
      confrontational that it misses all the subtleties that
      actually make businesses succeed. We are told: 'Meetings
      are toxic.' In reality, good meetings are good and bad
      meetings are not good, but don't try and make a name for
      your software company by issuing such over-heated
      generalisations.

The other thing they may not have realized is management today is a UK publication, and we're pretty averse to 'motivational' things over here. It's just not really our culture.

<comment><USER3> I thought the meetings example was a weak one for the author to criticize. When I read "meetings are toxic," I interpret that as, "most meetings are a bad idea," which is basically what 37signals argues: <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php>

On the other hand, "Good meetings are good and bad meetings are not good" doesn't tell me anything.

<comment><USER2> It's interesting in light of the recent discussions about advertising.

Since this is pretty similar.

"Meetings are toxic" is a sweeping generalization, which is obviously false. But it gets a high clickthrough/buy book/etc so it's what they use.

>> On the other hand, "Good meetings are good and bad meetings are not good" doesn't tell me anything.

What is there to tell though? Make sure meetings are productive, and if they're not, have less of them or make them more productive :/ hardly rocket science is it?

<comment><USER4> > "Meetings are toxic" is a sweeping generalization, which is obviously false.

Alcohol is also toxic. Does that mean you should avoid alcohol altogether? Nope. But it does mean that you shouldn't spend your days drinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Read it over a long lunch- it feels like an overedited SvN greatest hits.

That's both a good thing and a bad thing- it's like reading their best posts in a few hours. Awesome! But, as a book, it's pretty terrible- there aren't really any anecdotes, any stories, any discussions of turning points or moments of realization.

What would have been more interesting is each of these essays (Outside Money is Plan Z!) written around an actual story from their company history. A time they considered outside money, a month where they fucked up cashflow, the moment they had a Series A in corporate savings, a story of how they managed their finances versus competitors who took investment, their first full-time hire and the company's numbers at that time, anything to really dig into why they have come to these conclusions.

I agree with most of those conclusions, in fact, as a book the format sucks. Felix Dennis' How to Get Rich is a great example of succint, important points intertwined with stories that build up the background of each of those point. That makes them more memorable, and makes for a MUCH more enjoyable read. That's a book. This is a greatest hits of a blog. It's good for what it is, but it could have been a whole lot better.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have read nearly half of it on my kindle. It's quite short, to the point, and what you probably would expect from them.

They talk about how they run a business, and how you can start one by giving practical principles. For example in one chapter they say don't take external funding if possible, and that you have to treat it like a business, not a startup.

So far I think it's a great book. Many principles are not new (they talked about most of them in the past), but I still think it's worth it, regardless you having a company or not.

Now I'll go ahead and read some more pages.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had one waiting for me bright and early this morning thanks for Amazon. It's going to be hard deciding between Final Fantasy 13 (long time fan... I can't help myself!) and reading this cover-to-cover tonight.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope that this book doesn't turn out to be a "repackaging" of the same old 37Signals content I can get anywhere else. Thanks to Amazon, I got my copy at 9am this morning, but I haven't had a chance to pick through it yet. We'll see.

<comment><USER9> If you're familiar with everything we've ever said, and all our posts and talks, then this book may not be for you. There are definitely some new ideas in here, but if you already know it all then there's probably not much more for you to learn in REWORK.

But you are amongst the 0.000...% of the world who's ever heard of us.

<comment><USER10> I think anyone who is on _this_ particular site who hasn't heard of you and read significant amounts of your material got really lost on the internets.

<comment><USER11> That assumption might be wrong.

At a Y Combinator meetup in Seattle, someone asked me, "So where does Y Combinator get money to invest in startups?" My response was "Well, Paul and the other partners made money from previous startups..."

His response: "Paul Allen?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The back cover could've been part of a guerilla marketing campaign for Fight Club.

I had absolutely no interest in reading _Rework_ until now, and now I don't think I can refuse it. 37Signals' marketing is quite impressive.

<comment><USER2> Really? The back page is a real turn off for me.

"Fire workaholics", "Meetings are toxic" etc etc

It's all BS.

It's like some stupid advert for a new diet where you can eat more food _and_ lose weight at the same time!

<comment><USER12> It absolutely is BS, but—for whatever reason—it works on me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the spirit of "doing less", Squeezed Books aims to take the actual useful material from books like this, and summarize it on our web site.

I'll buy you the business book of your choosing if you're the first person to post a good summary of this book to Squeezed Books. (I reserve the right to choose what's 'good', and also the right to veto any absurdly expensive business books you find).

<http://www.squeezedbooks.com>

<comment><USER10> Have the people from reddit who are opposed to promoting your own stuff arrived here?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do we solve problems? - <AUTHOR>

I am a strong believer that if we have a skill in one area of our life, that skill spills over into other areas of our life…. and developers solve problems all day long. I'm working on a series of articles that explores how developers solve problems, outside of code.
I'm interested in your thoughts... I know a lot of you have a development background or work closely with people who do, would you be willing to take a short survey that might lead to a deeper discussion?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vvRtBaQCGtQVz-7wrJTVeuXxJ5zAR02AbCc8MUPaD5A/viewform <comment><USER2> The late Earl Nightingale had an excellent article on the subject of problem solving; which a refer to a couple of times a year.

The Great Problem-Solving Tool> [http://www.nightingale.com/articles/the- great-problem-solvin...](http://www.nightingale.com/articles/the-great- problem-solving-tool/)

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Understand the result you want. 2\. List possible ways to achieve this result(whether this be ways to debug a program or similar) 3\. Weight each option to each other doing simple cost-benifit 4\. Follow cheapest method that gets the results done.

</comment><comment><USER4> I suggest reading "How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method" by G. Polya und John H. Conway. Note: it's not about mathematics but about general problem solving.</comment>


A Mathematician, A Physicist and an Engineer... - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~riesbeck/mathphyseng.html

<comment><USER2> 'The mathematician sighs. "I'd like to talk to her, but first I have to cover half the distance between where we are and where she is, then half of the distance that remains, then half of that distance, and so on. The series is infinite. There'll always be some finite distance between us."'

I doubt a real mathematician would reason this badly.</comment>


Coding on Smartphone with Vim [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/339574087 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I've spent some time working on this PoC that allows one to (kind of) code on smartphone using Vim. I am sharing a video demo here to see what others think of it.

It is based on my other similar project swell.sh [0], that you run a HTTP server process (written in Python) on a server and connect to it from your smartphone's browser (Chrome/Safari). Then you will see Vim in the Web-based terminal in the above and can interact with Vim using the virtual keyboard specifically built for the App below (it is part of the page's UI, not your OS's keyboard app).

The python process in the backend is able to provide the completion information gathered from Vim (I used the TabNine completion engine [1] in the video but it also works with other autocomplete engine like Coc.vim) to the front-end, where you could choose from the keyboard's autocomplete suggestion row, thus greatly reduce the required number of 'taps' on the keyboard for inputting code.

Obviously it's not going to replace your desktop/laptop for serious programming work, but what do you think about the idea? Any feedback/thought is welcome.

[0] [https://github.com/wcchoi/swell.sh](https://github.com/wcchoi/swell.sh)

[1] [https://tabnine.com/](https://tabnine.com/)

<comment><USER2> I have Termux installed on my Android smartphone. And Vim.

It works actually quite well with chromecast to larger monitor and Apple bluetooth keyboard. But mostly I use only Vim for quick edits (without bothering with monitor and external keyboard) not for writing code.</comment></comment>


Bringing Smiles to the Faces of MacOS developers - Miguel de Icaza - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Oct-12.html <comment><USER2> Who exactly stands behind Mono after Novell is sold (if and when)? Isn't there a significant risk, beyond the present one of MS making some move against them, that it will be left to stagnate by a new owner? And even the MS risk hasn't been cleared up for me. Please don't give me the stuff about MS promises against suing, it's totally unrealistic. Sure, you can argue it's not probable, but you can't argue that it's impossible or an insignificant risk - it's real. Who exactly has mono installed anyway? All that market share on.... which device or platform? The web? Mobile? Some small percentage of one operating system and basically nothing on the others? The Linux community doesn't just not have it installed they are actively hostile to mono.

What I am peddling here is FUD, but it's warranted FUD, there are too many unknowns for what amounts to a buggy C#. Isn't the C# selling point that it's a better Java? How does that value proposition hold up for a B-grade C# with patchy coverage of the forms et cetera, with a patchy install base and an extremely uncertain future. Mono has totally failed to gain a critical mass, so there will be no openoffice.org=>libreoffice. When the takeover of Novell comes it will die a horrible and withering death getting further and further behind the parity with the MS implementation which it has never yet matched. I am sorry to say it, I wish the legal situation and Novell situation were otherwise and people could just choose on the basis of technical merits: but that's not the case, and anyone basing a startup or business on anything to do with mono is certifiably insane.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell#Takeover_Bids>

<comment><USER3> > Please don't give me the stuff about MS promises against suing, it's totally > unrealistic.

You're wrong. It would be pretty much impossible for Microsoft to sue over Mono at this point, even if they wanted to. You gloss over the fact that Microsoft has issued a thorough, unrevokable, legally binding Community Promise to not assert patent claims over .NET implementations:

<http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx>

The purpose and implications of the Community Promise are clear. Microsoft has sanctioned Mono, and no court in the world would let them take the CP back and say "nah, we were just kidding."

> What I am peddling here is FUD, but it's warranted FUD, there are too many > unknowns for what amounts to a buggy C#.

Oh please. Ignoring the fact that you appear to be confusing C# and the CLR here, do you actually have any concrete complaints about mcs, or is this just more unwarranted FUD?

<comment><USER2> >"do you actually have any concrete complaints"

Yes, the central point of my comment that you didn't address.[1] That is, Novell looks like it's going to be acquired and there seems to be no reason for the purchaser to continue with Mono. It's a totally uncertain future for Mono. As I said elsewhere I am not slandering Mono, I wish it were otherwise but, given that there are just so many other cool technologies out there, what's the compelling case to _bet your business on it_ with such a rain cloud over it? So it's not about using it for some little side project, its about founding your startup idea with Mono at the core of the technology stack, are you going to take the risk? Would you, personally, use it over the other options for your business when it doesn't have an independent community, only a soon-to-be-acquired Novell?

Listen to the squawking and preening going on in this blog to display value to Oracle. <http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=3070>

Do you trust Oracle with your business future, given the multiple fiascos that have come out of the SUN takeover?

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

<comment><USER4> > _That is, Novell looks like it's going to be acquired and there seems to be > no reason for the purchaser to continue with Mono_

Contrary to other "open-source" projects, Mono has a very active (albeit small) community behind it. Right now there are very active contributors that aren't working for Novell.

Also, making a parallel with another active project, JRuby, its leader quit Sun/Oracle but it is still working on JRuby ... and I've been watching Miguel's commitment and enthusiasm about Mono ever since the start, and it has only grown since then.

         It's a totally uncertain future for Mono.

Yeah, because whatever platform you're using is so much safer.

The patents grant by Microsoft also includes supersets (contrary to Java SE implementations), and the ECMA standard you have to implement is rather small, also making it suitable for mobile phones (MonoTouch falls under that community promise, even though it ships with a fraction of what is known as .NET)

It's also an open-source project that doesn't fall under the GPL trap ... yeah, I said it. The class libraries are MIT X11, the runtime is LGPL, it is appropriate for embedding in commercial deployments right now.

If commercial support is dropped, it can live on.

Get over it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last time I tried MonoDevelop (let alone on a Mac) it was a total disaster. I hope it's better now. I am pretty comfortable with Xcode, but "native" Mac apps in C# is a pretty good reason to consider switching to something else.

<comment><USER6> First impressions:

I open the new file dialog. Type in a name, try to copy the name... and it closes the new file dialog! Apparently Cmd-C is bound to cancel. Okay, so it's a little quirky. Let's try again.

I create a new file. Type some text. Select Edit->Copy this time and... it's crashed.

Maybe I'm unlucky.

I install MonoMac, restart, create a project, write some code to display an NSAlert, press build and

        Build failed. ~/.config/MonoDevelop/addins/MonoDevelop.MonoMac.184.108.40.206/mono-version-check does not exist.

_Jesus_

EDIT: As a bonus, a process called _mono_ has been running at 100% CPU for the last half an hour.

EDIT 2: After using it for a bit longer, the editor itself is actually not bad. It has all the features you'd expect and autocomplete seems well implemented. But this software is just far too buggy for any kind of serious day-to-day use.

<comment><USER7> The missing mono-version-check in the bundle was fixed in an update about 30mins ago

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the heads-up. I'll give it a try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We have achieved a beautiful blend between C# and MacOS that will turn Mac > developer's tears of pain into tears of joy.

Really? Tears of pain?

</comment><comment><USER9> Read "The Mono Trap" by RMS

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html>

<comment><USER4> Kilimanjaro, what do you do for a living?

Just curios, because if it is anything remotely similar to selling commercial products or closed web-services (as most developers here do), you can't talk about trapping users or about the virtues of free-software with a straight face: that's called a double standard.

And most people that do that (according to surveys I've seen) are either still in highschool/college or just hypocrites ... with the occasional "real deal" that manages to live off consulting for open-source development (core project devs mostly) and writing books / training.

So which is it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can the apps built in MonoMac easily be ported to native Windows widgets? That would be a killer feature.

<comment><USER11> With all of the platforms available now to C# developers (iPhone, Android, Window Phone 7, Windows, Linux, Mac) it makes sense to build applications in a way that will allow you to create native experiences, but also share your code across multiple platforms.

Our recommendation to developers is that they split their applications across the User Experience/Business Logic fault line. Developers then can replace the user experience with native user interfaces for each platform.

This is a bit abstract, so we tend to tell people to build a lot of UI-less reusable libraries and for libraries that have UIs, to split their Model-View- Controller libraries in a way that the Model and its support infrastructure are reusable and the View and the Controller are UI-specific.

This extends a little bit further. You also might end up with an "OS" layer that performs certain tasks in a different way depending on the operating system that you will be running.

For instance, while running on an iPhone, you have access to the gyroscope, something that you wont find on say a Linux desktop. Or on Linux, you will have access to /proc, which you wont have access to on Windows Mobile 7.

A nice example was Paint.NET. When that application was built, the operating- system specific features were all placed on a library called SystemLayer.dll. The UI was all Windows.Forms, but porting the program turned out to be limited to replacing the SystemLayer.dll with one that spoke Posix as opposed to speaking Win32.

<comment><USER12> Thank you for giving some sane advice, instead of peddling the magical "single source/multiplatform" promise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking at all these alternate language attempts on iOS and OS X, It seems like it wouldn't be a bad thing to port a Basic that matches the object model of Objective-C, supports blocks, and calling C code / stucts. It might not be a bad bet to be the VB to Objective-C's C++/C#.

<comment><USER14> There's a product called RealBasic that's been around for years. It started on Mac but now runs on OS X, Windows, and Linux.

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

<comment><USER13> I actually had a subscription to that. It really, really isn't Cocoa. It is more a direct VB replacement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> C# is just like Objective C in that the vendor lock-in is in the API and resource formats rather than the code syntax. Info.plist is fine, but X/NIB is terrifying when mixed with four versions of OS X, four different CPU architectures and several Frameworks in a pear tree.

</comment><comment><USER16> Finally! I've been waiting for a long time to install KeePass 2 (MONO) cleanly on my Mac.

</comment><comment><USER17> No thank you, if I would want to develop for OS X I would stick to C++ and Qt. I'm to young to get sued.</comment>


On the Fundamental Nature of the  Universe - <AUTHOR> http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2010/02/18/on-the-fundamental-nature-of-the-universe/

<comment><USER2> No. As poetry, this is fine. From a rationalist point of view, this is muddled. As science, this is not much less naive than, say, What the Bleep Do We Know. You seem to be motivated, ahead of time, to arrive at a conception of the universe that is inspiring, and makes you think life worth living. This is a sure path to rationalization. You shouldn't expect, ahead of time, that whatever the truth of reality is will turn out to be steeped in redemptive qualities. This will cheat you out of the chance to be ok with whatever is true, because it is true, and not because you find it conforms to your wishes after all.

<comment><USER3> Recognizing that everything has a wavelength is science. Interpreting the interactions of those various wavelengths as "music" (rather than merely "noise") is poetry.

That interpretation is neither muddled nor naive. It's just not science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But axioms are by definition unsupported :)

Also, the universe does not follow mathematical rules. Mathematics, like Plato's Forms, only exist in our minds, and are simply attempts at categorizing our perceptions.

</comment><comment><USER5> We have to create meaning for our lives because there is no inherent meaning or purpose in it. We have a biological imperative to make up these kinds of stories to keep ourselves sane, whether it be that our goal in life is to make a difference, get rich, or gain knowledge. The problem is that people try to impose their story onto the world when in reality there is no story. That is what this guy is doing, keeping himself happy by deluding himself, he's just more advanced than most people.

<comment><USER6> > in reality there is no story

Please provide an experiment that lets us verify the truth of this statement.

Seriously, while the scientific method is extremely useful there are still large areas of human existence that it does not cover. The author seems to have made a personal realization that using poetry to face these facets of existence is more satisfying. He also observes that while his view is not provable it also does not contradict with the current accepted body of scientific knowledge.

Your argument tries to use logic to rain on his parade. However, I see no arguments that are any more provable than what the original author postulated.

<comment><USER5> You're never going to scientifically prove a philosophical stance, it would be circular. Philosophy is the foundation of science, not the other way around. My view is unprovable just like his, people have to pick the one that seems right to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This excellent piece by Sagan, Feynman, et al. also addresses these questions: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk></comment>


Apple products are banned in Bill Gates' house - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/apple-products-are-banned-in-bill-gates-house-20101024/ <comment><USER2> Wasn't this news like a year ago?

Edit, yes: [http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/02/no-ipods-allowed-in- bil...](http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/02/no-ipods-allowed-in-bill-gates- house/)</comment>


Ask HN: What tax info should I complete for a newly formed llc? - <AUTHOR> I recently created an LLC.  There are no profits yet, but I was wondering what paperwork I have to fill out for this upcoming tax-season. <comment><USER2> OP, your question is the tax equivalent of "I have a computer, what software should I use?"

Find someone -- lawyer or accountant -- who is local to you. Don't use the internet. (Reason: local knowledge matters). Example: an LLC in Dubai is not the same as an LLC in Delaware. An LLC in Delaware has different filing requirements than an LLC in California.

That person will want to know about ownership, assets, and activities -- Who owns this LLC, what it owns, and what it has done. If you are in the USA there is also the option of making an LLC behave in different ways for tax purposes. (See IRS Form 8832).

Then and only then can you get a competent answer to your question.

Note also that your answer is not self-contained. Tax effects bleed from the LLC to the owners. The income earned by the LLC will be taxable (probably to them) and must show up on their tax returns somehow.

And paperwork problems are not self-contained within the income tax world. E.g., you may be required to get a business license. Or (like California) you might be exposed to the sales and use tax paperwork in a surprising and nonobvious way.

Again. Go find someone local. Give that person money. For the price of a few small green rectangles you can buy decades of accumulated wisdom. Think of the time and stress you save yourself!

Good luck. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously, contact a lawyer.

HN and every other forum will give you all possible answers and will only add to the confusion.</comment>


Aliens have been visiting Earth for decades | I Didn't Know That - <AUTHOR> http://hoowstuffworks.blogspot.com/2010/05/aliens-have-been-visiting-earth-for.html <comment><USER2> It's pretty scary that a defense minister actually believes that. You have only two choices here:

      - he's bonkers

      - the cover up is real

Let us hope for the first.

<comment><USER3> or 3: The whole thing is made up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ANything new here? A rehash of the older Hawkins interview, and a line or 2 about the Canadian Def Min saying they've been here and contributed to science -- no proof at all of that.</comment>


Chrome decluttering by removing some features - <AUTHOR> https://bgr.com/2019/08/27/google-chrome-update-features-removed-new-tab/ <comment><AUTHOR> Unclear how I feel about some of these features being removed. Is it just in the menu or are the shortcuts themselves going away too?</comment>


Apple's long history of pissing people off by killing stuff - <AUTHOR> https://timeline.com/apple-headphone-jack-why-8ce1c8c8a4dd#.imjmaxv3t <comment><USER2> I can't tell if this is supposed to be a parody piece or is genuine. Some of the article makes no sense, or is pretty inaccurate. For example, FireWire usage was very low by the time it was killed. There would definitely have been a set of users angry at that, but they would've been a tiny fraction of the overall user base.

<comment><USER3> Also, Apple replaced the Magic Mouse with a new model with a built-in rechargeable battery.</comment></comment>


Nextdoor raises $75M round at $1.5B valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/nextdoor-raised-75-million-in-new-round <comment><USER2> >The firm operates a website that enables members who live in close proximity to communicate with each other, offer goods for sale and organize virtual neighborhood watches.

Hmmm I wonder if forcing people to be social is a good thing.

Why can't Facebook coordinate something like this?

Theoretically, couldn't they look at each person's ip address and determine that they are in the same neighborhood and force those people to interact?

<comment><USER3> My understanding when I last played with Nextdoor a couple years ago was that they do address verification either through mailing you a postcard or some sort of phone numbers/credit card check. And then you can only interact with people in your neighborhood, or the adjacent ones.

While Nextdoor is technically a subset of Facebook the same way snapchat's disappearing pictures and twitters character limit also is, having a restriction/focus makes the product more compelling to certain people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Didn't Nextdoor have a huge problem with racism in small communities?

I guess the userbase of the app is too big to fail now!

<comment><USER5> They took proactive steps to address it. Specifically, if say you're describing a break-in suspect and you describe them as "black" without any other physical characteristics, once you hit submit you're sent to an interstitial page asking for more details like "tall" or "heavyset" so you're not making every black person in the area a suspect.

Not perfect, of course, but at least they're not ignoring the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only thing I use Nextdoor for is to sell or buy something where i need to trust the other side. Or to discover a good plumber/electrician/etc.

Not sure if its worth $1.5B considering Craiglist/Amazon/ClickCall/Angieslist/Yelp are good enough alternates</comment>


Ask HN: What are some startups you think more people should know about? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Shareable Tweets- [https://2fb.me](https://2fb.me)

A chrome extension that puts a Facebook reaction bar on Twitter. It let's you create publicly clickable Facebook share links on Twitter, rather then simply linking an account to Facebook.

Use it in API mode:

[https://2fb.me/https://news.ycombinator.com](https://2fb.me/https://news.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like this question is begging for self promotion...

But, I'll resist the urge - I met a ton of interesting startups in Startup School.

One that I found particularly interesting was Voco: [https://sayvoco.com/](https://sayvoco.com/)

They were installing Alexa devices in nursing homes for seniors, while I dislike the privacy implications I can see a massive quality of life improvement.</comment>