Lying to TCP makes it a best-effort streaming protocol - <AUTHOR> https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/02/01/lying-to-tcp <comment><USER2> It's been shown that leaving holes in the sequence space isn't good for middleboxes [0]. Wanting TCP to behave more like UDP is a reasonable goal (e.g., for reachability), but you throw the benefits away if 20% of connections are disrupted by middleboxes. Other approaches, like Minion [1] or TCP Hollywood [2], see deployability because they adhere to the assumptions made about TCP by middleboxes.

[0]: "Is it Still Possible to Extend TCP?" - [http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/ucacmha/papers/extend- tcp.pdf](http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/ucacmha/papers/extend-tcp.pdf)

[1]: Minion - [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iyengar-minion- protocol-01](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iyengar-minion-protocol-01)

[2]: TCP Hollywood - [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7497221/](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7497221/)

<comment><USER3> What are middleboxes? This is something that I've never heard of before.

<comment><USER4> Middlebox is a technically imprecise term that is not in common usage among technical people anywhere. Why people in this thread are trotting it out is anyone's guess.

<comment><USER5> Middlebox has quite precise technical meaning: anything that works at higher layer than on which it is visible to neighboring network.

Usualy this refers to various "security" "solutions" which attempt to do deep packet inspection and generally break various things, but it also can mean NAT or L2 bridges that do filtering on L3/L4 headers (for example DOCSIS CMs and CMTSes are such middleboxes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So this is an interesting idea, however, I suspect it may be quite problematic on the receive side if implemented.

Once upon a time, I used to write network protocol sniffers. I basically simulated a partial TCP stack, in order to allow higher layer protocols decode traffic that was out of order. If a packet was lost in the capture, it's basically the same thing as the "lying ack" in the article, where the real endpoint would ack a frame the capture engine never saw.

This becomes really difficult to process, because TCP simulates a stream, and if you lose a packet, and skip some bytes in the stream, where you pick up and continue may not be the beginning of a new message. So you also need to create heuristics, on how do you discard received data, until you get to a point where you can understand the stream again, and continue processing.

As others have commented, UDP is likely a better choice here, as ordering semantics can be added, but on packet loss, the next received packet can always be parsed. Or look at SCTP, which allows turning on/off in order deliver, and I believe through an extension allows turning on/off reliability (but I'm not sure if this ever got implemented).

<comment><USER7> > This becomes really difficult to process, because TCP simulates a stream ...

The irony of TCP is that in almost every use case you end up creating "frames" within the stream. Turtles all the way up I guess.

<comment><USER8> The frames inside your TCP stream are sized to your data, not to your physical layer, this makes a huge difference in usability. The framing can also be as simple or complex as you like.

<comment><USER5> Exposing TCP framing to the application at the receiver side does not make much sense. On the other hand I'm somewhat puzzled by the fact that TLS specifications explicitly discourage exposing TLS record boundaries to applications which is exactly the case of turtles framed in turtles all the way down.

Edit: we can all collectively make fun of telco protocols that are HDLC-in- HDLC all the way down, but such things usually do framing only on the outermost layer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem here is that it fails to take into account why any packets might be missing.

If it's due to congestion, you've just subverted the mechanism TCP uses to relieve it - and the more people that are using the deviant implementation, the bigger the problem becomes, which impacts everyone.

<comment><USER10> I'm not convinced it matters in this case, lying only prevents the other end from being extra-smart.

We'll stick with the VoIP example. Packets are going to be dropped independently of any information in the TCP headers. If there's too much load, some of them will disappear. If your client says "yeah I got that data" when it didn't actually get the data, it doesn't increase load any more -- if you're sending a real-time 256kbps audio stream, then you need to be able to send 256,000 bits every second regardless of whether or not the network is capable of that. By not retransmitting packets you don't care about, you're decreasing load.

Of course, if you push the information all the way up the stack to the application, you can do interesting things. You can notice that packets are being dropped and switch to a codec that sounds worse but sends fewer bits per second, and maybe you'll get a better quality call going on with fewer dropouts.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised this isn't how we deal with degrading things over slow connections in general. I would much prefer to only get the "mobile friendly" version of a page if I'm actually on a mobile connection. Right now, the hueristic seems to be "if screen < desktop; send mobile page". That of course is silly because my home WiFi can happily pipe huge images into my phone faster than the web server can send them to me, while my 8 core laptop with a 4k screen tethered to my phone can't magically make 4G faster. Interesting interesting.

<comment><USER11> It matters.

Suppose there is congestion, and that if the sender(s) don't slow down, it will just get worse. Well, they don't find out about the congestion if the receivers lie (and congestion is asymmetric, so that the ACKs get through just fine).

That's not good.

Now, one way to deal with this is to lie but only for a bit. After a while of not receiving anything, the receiver should stop sending ACKs and the sender should notice the congestion. That might help. But the underlying problem is real: lying ACks -> failure to detect congestion -> worse congestion.

<comment><USER12> Maybe the client should lie probabilistically, so that there is still a relationship between what the sender sees and the actual congestion.

<comment><USER11> If you really want this just use SACK and let the sender never retransmit, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suppose that's the answer to Random Early Drop.

I used to argue that you want to use fair queuing and drop the _newest_ packet in a stream, so all the old packets get delivered. But Random Early Drop, which is trivial to implement, caught on in routers. That means you lose random packets from the stream, and they have to be retransmitted.

There's nothing awful about acknowledging a TCP sequence number for a valid packet received even if some previous packets are missing. You know the missing packets were sent, or you wouldn't have the later packet. If you don't need them, why ask for retransmission? The receiving TCP doing this should notice that packets are being lost and cut down the congestion window a bit, so the sender will slow down.

This is purely a receive-side thing. It shouldn't bother upstream middleboxes. But, as someone pointed out, about 25% of middleboxes don't like it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Could be quite useful for TCP/TCP VPN type applications. It is widely accepted that TCP/TCP degrades performance, hence TCP/UDP is preferred. But UDP isn't always available.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have read about this long ago. This was in the context not of ignoring don't-care data, but using premature ACKs as a way of garnering more bandwidth.

The idea is to send ACKs ahead of time to provoke the sender into transmitting faster, defeating some of the congestion control mechanisms in TCP.

The network has to be reliable to make it work (the pipe has to buffer all the excess spew), and the sending stack has to ignore situations when it gets a premature ACK, ahead of the sequence number it has actually sent.

</comment><comment><USER16> So basically redoing a less useful version of SCTP with the same issues in regards to middle boxes. I wish Microsoft would finally get their thumbs out and put SCTP into Windows.

</comment><comment><USER17> This, like many other current network flow innovations (see: QUIC), is greedy- algorithm short-sightedness that only works as a result of the improvements to regional/inter-datacenter networking over the last decade. They fall down miserably in the face of actual unreliability/variable latency/packet duplication, which still exist on many less developed networks worldwide.

<comment><USER18> From that point of view, UDP streaming is also short-sighted. Practically, this is nothing more than a type of "QoS" flag, where of course things would also break down if everything started giving themselves priority 1.

So it depends more upon whether the use case is appropriate than it does about technical implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In TCP if you ACK something that wasn't sent the ACK is dropped.

<comment><USER20> That's not what's being talked about here. The idea is that you ACK packets that you believe _have_ been sent, but have been dropped or delayed, because you've received a later packet.

<comment><USER21> Good point. Though that puts this somewhere in a middle ground between a best effort stream and a reliable stream. The ability to throw away data you don't care about is not absolute but is instead conditional upon successfully receiving more data.

In a true best effort streaming system, the sender wouldn't retransmit. With this scheme, the sender might retransmit, sometimes, depending on whether certain packets get through and allow certain acks to get sent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, UDP.

<comment><USER23> No. UDP is connectionless, which makes it harder to use with NAT.

<comment><USER24> Not sure why you say that, UDP conntracking has been around for a long time.

<comment><USER25> I _suspect_ that what andreasvc meant is that the default "NAT" configuration of most consumer-grade gear is such that it will block UDP (unless some other mechanism such as UPnP is used)...

<comment><USER26> That's true for TCP as well. Almost all consumer-grade routers block all incoming connection attempts, not just UDP.

From a stateful firewall's point of view both UDP and TCP have state.

<comment><USER25> Right. I was assuming that the context here was connections being initiated by the client (as most are).

<comment><USER20> ... in which case blocking is not an issue. Consumer-grade NAT hardware will no more block client-initiated UDP than it'll block client-initiated TCP, at least not without extra configuration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Proposed socket-level API: allow _llseek_ on the descriptor, in the forward direction only.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why would anyone implement VoIP over TCP to then lie to TCP in order ot make it practically UDP?</comment>


Ask HN: What and where do CTOs read? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious which blogs, online publications, digital magazines, etc do CTOs read daily/weekly to stay up-to-date and learn new things. (apart from HN) <comment><USER2> I typically read industry vertical publications to keep up with the industry trends, currently I am in healthcare so I keep up on relevant industry publications there and FDA/FTC announcements. I also own a small business in the Marine industry (boating/yachts etc) so I read professional boat builder and other industry publications there.

HN - mainly for what is the startup world talking about, trends and just cause it is fun.

Techcrunch - again, mainly to keep up with startups and fundings

CNN/Fox/NBC/CBS -- I do read articles from them all when the articles are business or world related. I personally dislike Fox and CNN but just because I dislike them doesn't mean I shouldn't read what they are putting out there and form my own opinions. Keeps me well read to also stay up in current event type conversations.

Forbes, Fast Company, Fortune -- Mainly again to keep up and learn what is being said.

Github code -- I read a ton of code each week not only ours but other open source projects so I can both learn how problems are being solved and see new languages being utilized to solve real problems not just "hello world".

Overall I'm a voracious reader of most all things to do with business, technology and financial matters. Books, magazines and blogs are always on the list, but I am cautious on the source of the content to know if I am reading a press release disguised as news etc.

Also, I keep tabs on twitter on specific people and companies to see what is happening and read links they post etc. Always follow my competitors and anyone I find that might have interesting content.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been working a lot more on engagement and content rather than just passively consuming new stuff.

      - Rands Leadership slack channel (rands-leadership.slack.com)
      - HN (duh)
      - I've started answering questions in Quora
      - Twitter recently (I had to get over my social media cynicism)
      - Investing time in reaching out to people on LinkedIn and following people there as well.
      - Gary Vaynerchuck's content
      - Anything from the Basecamp guys (Jason Fried and DHH)
      - Rob Walling of Microconf fame
      - I participate in some subreddits (reddit.com)

I find that by pushing more on engagement the learning becomes much more subtle and relevant to what I need _NOW_ rather than just ending up as a factoid or bookmark I will never go back to.</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Is Despoiling a Tiny Coastal Village. The State Invited Him - <AUTHOR> https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/08/19/mark-zuckerberg-is-despoiling-a-tiny-coastal-village-and-oregons-natural-treasures-the-state-invited-him/ <comment><USER2> It's an undersea cable landing point. When it's all done, there will be, at most, a modest building with some terminal equipment. Like this one in Hawaii.[1]

[1] [https://bchdesign.com/portfolio/hawaiki-submarine- cable/](https://bchdesign.com/portfolio/hawaiki-submarine-cable/)

<comment><USER3> What do they even do in that building? It's a cable - does it need to be manned? guarded?

<comment><USER4> Routers, the actual optical terminals, high voltage power supplies for the inline optical amplifiers, (Undersea fiber cables need to repeat the signal every few hundred km, and those repeaters need power) a surprisingly large number of batteries needed for the gap between power loss and the backup generator getting up to speed, a fair amount of empty floor in case they want to add more equipment later, etc. That 2,700ft^2 runs out fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was discussed 6 days ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24147284&goto=news](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24147284&goto=news)

This article is written just to flame Facebook and provides little value.

<comment><USER6> Willamette Week is one of the two standard rags in the Portland area (the other is the Portland Mercury) and this story was also in the Oregonian (aka OregonLive) from your own link. It matters to Oregonians quite a bit; perhaps it's not interesting to folks who don't live in the area.

Edit: Also, it's worth keeping in mind that this is not a fresh story. The Oregonian covered it a year ago [0].

[0] [https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/facebooks- new...](https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/facebooks-new-oregon- coast-venture-angers-neighbors-left-in-the-dark-steve-duin.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If there's some empty lot on your street and you really strongly value the emptiness of it, what you should do is buy it.

</comment><comment><USER8> My primary concern was the 6500 gallons of drilling fluid abandoned in the hole as with normal coastal erosion it ain't gonna stay there, but it appears largely non-toxic? From research online it contains bentonite clay which is fine, but also unnamed "chemicals". I can't immediately find if that's a problem, like if they contain heavy metals or anything sketchy.

Honestly that is a detail the author should have researched and included in the article if it was supposed to be actual journalism...

</comment><comment><USER9> Im conflicted, I dislike overbearing NIMBY home owners groups full of bored retirees even more than I do Facebook.

I've also learned from first hand experience that blatant hit pieces should be treated with high levels of suspicion.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it's more than just an undersea cable and a modest building with terminal equipment. It's Facebook doing what they do best: Whatever the heck they want to, without regard to anyone else. The permit seems to be in order [0] but I am deeply suspicious of Facebook's behavior.

[0]. [http://www.oregoncoastalliance.org/documents_19/edge- cable/0...](http://www.oregoncoastalliance.org/documents_19/edge- cable/02_EdgeCableACOE-DSL-Removal-Fill-App-Nov18.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of Osho's group [1] invading a small town in Oregon, except this time it's a different sort of cult.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk)

</comment><comment><USER12> Wait... Oregon real estate (and real estate in general) appreciated significantly between 2008 and 2017. So why did Joey Harrington sell this beachfront property at a nearly 20% loss?

<comment><USER6> Because Harrington ended up not being as valuable in the NFL as everybody expected. His career's basically complete as an athlete and there will not be more windfalls of cash. Rumor is that he was willing to part with the property for affordability reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These same people would have had the same ire for a rich guy of the wrong politics building a mansion in the wrong style there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Man I hope when I retire I find better things to do than whine about stuff like this.

<comment><USER15> I also hope when you retire no one decides to turn the neighboring residential lot into an industrial drill site

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They should start a Facebook group to protest...

</comment><comment><USER17> NIMBY!

That is seriously all this is.</comment>


Tesla knew its Model S battery had a design flaw that could lead to fires - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-faulty-battery-cooling-systems-design-model-s-2012-2019-6 <comment><USER2> Great news! Nothing happened.</comment>


After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commissioner becomes Comcast lobbyist - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/after-approving-comcastnbc-deal-fcc-commish-becomes-comcast-lobbyist.ars

<comment><USER2> Who is surprised?

The committee that granted a trillion dollar bail-out of a few companies including Goldman Sachs was staffed with plenty of current/former executives from Goldman Sachs.

The FDA and agencies involved for approving bovine growth hormone (later found to do freakishly hideous things to the poor cows and increase by incredible amounts the contamination of the milk we drink from infected utters), the Round-Up-ready patented corn seeds, and aspartame just happen to be largely staffed by current/former Monsanto executives.

The FDA and agencies involved in inspecting the food production in the states and making sure that it remains uncontaminated and safe and regularly inspected have reduced the number of inspections by something like 85% and the contamination rates increase, while under the watch of agencies staffed largely by current/former executives of the few main companies being overseen.

The US government is beyond corrupt and beyond any possible reform and nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn that almost every office and committee appointment in the country is a matter of the wolves guarding the sheep. It has been this way for decades and they are now so brazen about it that you can look at every single person in every single job and do a simple search to trace the truth of their position and appointment back and nobody gives a damn.

I mean, seriously, we let them give themselves a trillion dollars. We let them poison our food supply with largely untested and unproven chemicals. We let them cover up and manipulate right in front of our faces and we do nothing. After thirty years of looking the other way on all of these things, what on earth could possibly ever even remotely raise our eyebrows and make us do something other than participate in the attention-occupying busy-body bullshit of "durr durr republicans are stupid and evil" and "durr durr democrats are stupid and evil" my team versus yours bullshit?

Maybe if the government and corporations decided that it was just easier to require that all births be sponsored to make sure they can be cared for until adulthood and then those sponsored children become indentured servants for their sponsor company until the age of 40 . . . maybe . . . _MAYBE_ we might _possibly_ take our eyes off Dancing With the Stars and the football game long enough to do something other than pull the red or blue lever according to the team we've associated ourselves with and demand that we have choices that aren't part of the game and won't be part of the game and will radically change things.

It won't happen in my lifetime. I know that much.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, but here's my attempt at devil's advocate:

These industries require domain expertise gained over years in order to understand the fundamentals of these industries at macro and micro levels, So, who better to help regulate them then people directly from the industry with that expertise. Career politicians and bureaucrats simply have no real world experience, so we must get industry insiders to provide insight.

<comment><USER4> Regulation and control is by its nature an adversarial relationship. You cannot be an effective adversary if that will compromise your ability to be an advocate or employee of whomever you're regulating.

Just as an auditor doesn't need to be a domain expert to audit a companies books, a regulator doesn't need to be one, at least from an industry POV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Corruption may exist in all forms of government but in the USA we have it perfected (and legalized).

Did you know that lobbyists now meet across from the whitehouse to keep their visits unrecorded?

This is almost as bad as the supreme court justices taking special interest money through their spouse.

<comment><USER6> The greater the concentration of power, the more likely it is that it will be used for personal gain. And the less likely it is more meaningful competition and choice to exist.

This can only happen when people don't have a choice. If a government is bad, people should have a way to remove their property from its domain.

Cities and towns should be able to become part of a neighboring state or start their own. The Swiss have this ability and can change cantons and create new ones. Its rarely used, but its always there if needed.

And if the people had to approve many actions of the national legislature (again, as they do in Switzerland), ridiculous actions are less likely.

Of course, results are what matter and Switzerland has the highest incomes in the world and the least involvement in stupid wars. It must have something to do with the difficulty in spending other people's blood and money without their approval.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a recipe for white flight. Switzerland was also among the last industrialized nations to allow women the vote (1970!). Provincialism is not a panacea and government isn't the only place where power can be concentrated.

On the other hand, my idealistic version of political reform is so far from reality, I won't even bother you with it here.

<comment><USER6> Government isn't the only place power can be concentrated to be sure. But it is the only place where power is concentrated using coercion.

Everywhere else, some value must be delivered in exchange and there are competing choices. For example, the media has a lot of power but also a lot of competition. And the more technology and choice we have in general creates even more competition.

Your version of reform may not be reality, but nothing is until discussed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best part about this, under Obama's ethics rules, she's not allowed to lobby the FCC on any matters, nor can she lobby any executive branch member about the Comcast/NBC merger until President Obama leaves office[1]. So she's being hired as a lobbyist _even though she won't be able to lobby anyone_.

[1] [http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c- commi...](http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-commissioner- to-join-comcast/?hp)

<comment><USER3> In this case, the "lobbying" was done from the inside as a regulator, and now comes the cushy job in which she can barely operate except to dump her rolodex and manage people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While part of me isn't surprised, if both Comcast and she gets away with this without repercussions, I'm going to be seriously disgusted...

edit: Actually a question comes to mind. What can we as the voting/etc public do to make our will felt in this scenario? With the parties involved I don't know of a way and that really, really irks me.

<comment><USER6> In a free society, you make your own choices and live with the consequences.

But when government has its fingers in every pie, we all have to "make our will known" about every freakin' pie.

And then watch as it is ignored because there are way too many pies for people to notice everything everyone is saying about every pie.

But each pie is of special concern to some well-monied interest and they will make their views known to those stuffing their pie holes.

<comment><USER10> Libertarian clap-trap. Governments and pies only become a bad combination when there is no meaningful oversight or regulation. Your point of view makes sense in America where this is the case.

<comment><USER6> So the problem is that government is making non-meaningful regulations? And is regulating in a non-meaningful way?

What would give their activities meaning?

And how do you define clap-trap?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's amazing that there aren't conflict of interest laws or regulations to prevent this sort of thing.

<comment><USER12> How would such laws be created with such a personnel system in place? If they existed, who would enforce them?

I'd love to be proved ignorant on this and see some unrelated-to (and therefore incorruptible-by) enforcement agency slap the fuck out of Ms. Corrupt Lobbyist, but I'm doubtful.

<comment><USER13> You have a law that states:

\---

(that) any official in a position within a government body, whether elected or appointed, which regulates a particular industry, area of industry, or the laws and compliance of said industry, may not take a position within any company that benefited directly from any regulatory or oversight decision of the oversight body within the last 5 years on any case where the stated company or organizations competitive status with respect to monopolies, anti- trust, or anti-competitive business environment was considered.

\---

This would mean that anyone who was in a position of oversight for a given industry and who had to consider, directly, regulations which may or may not benefit a particular company may not accept a position with that company for at least 5 years after their departure from that official position.

<comment><USER14> The immediate reaction to this proposal will be the argument from every corner that you have just barred anyone with industry knowledge or expertise from being willing to take any government regulation position. Thereby guaranteeing incompetent regulation. (Insert long list of examples where unknowledgeable regulators have proven incompetent to regulate.)

You can be sure that this argument will be accompanied by large donations to lobbyists, and by outrage among all government regulators who were expecting to wind up in the industry that they regulate (and that they frequently came from).

<comment><USER15> This is addressed by the above suggestion. It lets them take a job with ABC or Time Warner, just not Comcast/NBC.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, no. The FCC has been pushing a relaxation of media ownership rules that benefits the whole industry and has the active support of both ABC and Time Warner. (Active up to and including the level of buying newspaper ads to sway people towards their position that the FCC should be allowed to do this.) That fact would bar people in the FCC from working in the entire industry if the proposed anti-corruption rule were in place.

If you look farther, I am sure that more specific rulings in favor of ABC and Time Warner can be found. Let's see. For instance see [http://seekingalpha.com/article/119975-time-warner-cable- fcc...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/119975-time-warner-cable-fcc-approves- split-from-parent-company) in favor of Time Warner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's really become a sad state of affairs in the telecom industry. All of these "leaders" claim to foster innovation with their decisions when they're actually just lining their pockets. It's comforting to know that the old regime is slowly dying off. Let's hope the future wave of leaders call out the bullshit and actually do something with their time. Really disappointing to see this taking place.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is a ton of inbreeding on capitol hill and top corporate companies. This is ridiculous but not more ridiculous than banking ex-CEOs giving bailouts to their former companies.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looking forward to Al Franken's reaction to this one.

</comment><comment><USER19> The idea that the government is out to protect your interests is an incredibly naive viewpoint. The government is not some mystical ideal immune to corruption - it is a collection of people as weak and human as you.

This is why the only humane, practical government is one with significant checks and balances, limitation of power. Libertarianism is the only way to solve real world problems, instead of idealistic naive thoughts.

<comment><USER20> Your comment is eating its own tail.

Let's get really practical: public-only financing of elections, plus conflict of interest rules with teeth (no job in the industry you regulated for X years after you left) will make it significantly harder for special interests to exert undue influence on our elected officials. At least, if they sell out to corporations, it will be out of deeply felt corporatist convictions rather than for intellectually bankrupt cash considerations.

<comment><USER19> Non-sequiter?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> People change jobs all the time. The folks in government commissions are probably from that industry and when they do want to change jobs, will probably find work in that industry. It is a bit unfair to cast aspersions on people. It is also interesting that to stop this would require something akin to a non-compete policy which is typically frowned upon in HN :)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it's wrong to cast aspersions on people who go to work for the government and act as extended arms of the industry and corporations they just left. Like the many Goldman Sachs people on the committee that authorized a trillion dollar bailout for companies that primarily included Goldman Sachs. Or the Monsanto guys who ran the FDA and other government agencies and made sure chemicals like rBGH, aspartame and others (from the DDT/agent orange corporation) were given a green light. There's nothing going on there at all! Why golly, it's just government in action! And the guys from Raytheon and GE certainly have no vested interest in agitating national fears and military spending at all.

<comment><USER4> That's the problem with big government... it size as a consumer builds in a need for companies to schmooze with and influence the government. The US government EVERY DAY than ExxonMobil makes in a year.

That doesn't excuse crony capitalism or outright corruption. But it does help to know where it comes from.</comment></comment></comment>


Life Below 600 Pixels - <AUTHOR> http://www.iampaddy.com/lifebelow600/

<comment><USER3> Generally good advice, but the idea that the majority of a page's visitors don't look below the fold isn't entirely fallacious, as Jakob Neilsen reported in 2010: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html>

I suspect the percentage of people scrolling down the page is continuing to increase, but even if it's not, I don't think it's that important. The majority of people visiting a typical Web page don't "convert" anyway (that is, they don't do something that the page is designed to encourage). The key is to give a good experience to those who do want to engage and providing content below the fold is a legitimate way of doing that (and, as Neilsen notes, is better than 'paging.')

All that said, saying "You're still reading. Pretty crazy, huh?" doesn't prove a point though. Clearly the percentage of people who scrolled and are reading.. _are_ reading. But I might just be in that 20%. Without hooking up some JavaScript to your page, we can't get a figure on what percentage that is ;-)

<comment><USER4> On any other article the massive header would be obnoxious, too. As a human who uses the web I think (naïvely) that it'd be nice if I could start reading the content of a page from the top, and I certainly shouldn't have to scroll down a page to start.

I understand that the author is trying to prove a point, but before I knew that I thought, "God, what a ridiculous page layout," and I _was_ closer to closing the page because of it. I guess the moral of the story is that you can shove your relevant content "below the fold" if you like, but only if you're making a joke.

As for the 37Signals example, I think the article is exactly wrong on that one. The first section of that site has obviously been designed with specific intent - they're giving you descriptions of their products, and making the case for using them. It's all sales. They're not "telling a story", or waiting for you to reach the end of the page so they can tell you where to go next, those links at the bottom of the page are just there for people who forgot to click the links at the top of the page.

I'll agree that most of the "content" is below the fold, but that information is down there quite deliberately. Users aren't _expected_ to scroll down, they're just catered to if they're not satisfied with the content at the top. Again, the content above the fold has been chosen with specific intentions - everything else is secondary to it. If anything, this example works against the point of TFA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ironically - I closed the window on this one before scrolling. It was the comments here that cued me to go back and scroll :-)

In my experience (from doing a bunch of user testing on this sort of stuff) people scroll if 1) they have a visual cue that scrolling is needed/possible; 2) people are motivated enough by their need to carry on exploring.

In my case I saw this <http://cl.ly/2S1B2P3X1Z1F0x3m0t0N> \- with no obvious cue for scrolling... spent a couple of seconds clicking random things. Left going "meh, wonder if the comments will explain this".

The problem of people just not understanding that scrolling was something that you did (yes - they really did exist ;-) has pretty much gone - <USER2> goodness. And "the fold" isn't a thing any more because the proliferation of devices, display sizes and reading contexts means that there are _dozens_ of different folds.

That doesn't mean you don't need to pay attention to them any more though - which is something I'm afraid a casual reader will get from this post. As others have already pointed out the 37signals page is very definitely _not_ giving the fold the finger. It has _many_ calls to action - both above and below the folds.... and they've paid attention to those folds (look how the biggest paying apps basecamp & highrise are above the lowest rez fold, look how the design breaks in the middle of paragraphs/images on the most common fold lengths to make it obvious to the user that there is more context if they scroll, etc.)

Yes - the idea of jamming everything up above the fold is dumb. It's the designers job to explain that this is an over simplistic reading of a design heuristic.

The advice to "Think about the rules before obeying them!" is good though :-)

<comment><USER6> there's only "no obvious cue for scrolling" because apple recently decided to hide your scrollbar, which I happen to think is a terrible decision.

<comment><USER5> The scrollbars aren't the most obvious cue you can have ;-)

The scrollbars are only one of many cues. I've observed _lots_ of usability tests where there are scrollbars and people don't scroll because there is a natural break in the content. When the reader is unaware of the nature of the content they finish when they believe the content ends.

If you look at the 37signals page in contrast <http://cl.ly/2W0w2M0w0m3z0d1D1G3r> the entire bottom part of the screen is obvious "broken" by the bottom screen edge. Both the page ending in the middle of the text and the grey boxes that surround each option that are not completed are cues that there is more content. To even a very casual reader it's obvious that there stuff below that you can scroll to see - with or without scrollbars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It's not about scrolling down. It's not about whether content below 600px is read at all. The purpose of the fold is to capture visitors' attention immediately, and to create a desire at the instant that they land on your page.

The 37signals' landing page is used to prove his point and the author is even claiming that they're "giving the fold the finger". Although it seems to me that 37signals is actually making great use of the fold to capture attention using big headings, high contrast, lots of colors and graphics. They've even thrown in a box that says "more _praise_ from the press" so the visitors could feel challenged to find out for themselves. Then below 600 pixels, it's just a boring sales page. (The footer is really just a link section.)

So yes, people have learned how to scroll on web pages. But no, don't give up on making the fold awesome and informative.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't get it. Why would someone have a website that was just some penguins on an iceberg?

<comment><USER9> Because Penguins are awesome.

<comment><USER10> As are iceburgs.

<comment><USER11> Those aboard the Titanic would disagree.

<comment><USER10> Because the Titanic was sunk by a not-awesome iceberg?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The problem of the client dictating to the designer dozens of things that need to be above the fold is a strawman. That is a client who is not giving the designer latitude to do their job.

The truth is that the fold is real, and it is important. What are you putting front and center in your design? It's a real question. Of course users scroll, but the top of the page does convey a first impression, and is thus more valuable real estate then the rest. Does that mean make every page a full- screen slide? Of course not, be sensible.

<comment><USER13> >>The problem of the client dictating to the designer dozens of things that need to be above the fold is a strawman.

As a Developer, Online Marketing Manager and Digital Strategist at a web development agency for the last 5 years, I'd just like to say, AHHAHAHAHAHA... Oh jeez. Oh hell, that was a GOOD one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Discussion from 5 months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3242670>

And 2 years ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1095003>

</comment><comment><USER15> I bet at least 90% of 37signals click are "above the fold".

I've been experimenting with giving user a bit of control before moving on by making "slides", they get a slide which is nothing but 970x600px, then they have to click something to move on to the next slide. Its all loaded in the dom so no refreshing. The site is more like a presentation than a big flyer.

Also, rethinking the refresh - instead of refreshing I slide to the next page and show something in between. It can be flashy design (<http://jsfiddle.net/Rd92C/>), or some info (<http://jsfiddle.net/andys627/xRTfL/1/>). Its a great place to show have undivided attention!

<comment><USER16> aka splash pages?

<comment><USER15> I'm talking about getting away from putting stuff in its own document that is reloaded, and then using the transition time for content. More like splash transitions that were otherwise used for reloading stuff (blank screens, the same screen, half the new screen)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unless you are using Lion, where the scrollbar is hidden, and you can't actually see whether there is any more content below the fold...

</comment><comment><USER18> Rather than really proving any point, this and his other articles are great examples of how to use semi-incendiary link bait to snatch some buzz and, perhaps, a client or 2.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is pointless countering to an idea that is established for a reason, people reading above the fold only is largely true. But like the page says, don't take other people's word for it. But just because you shouldn't believe them that doesn't mean you should believe the opposite. If you really care about then TEST IT YOURSELF.

Caps lock applied for the importance of the point. Like many other comments are saying there is a wealth of evidence that points towards nearly 90% of users tending to only pay attention to what is above the fold, the other 10%, may read more. That 10% is important, hell they're your most engaged audience. But your design needs to only cater for the 10% and focus on the 90%.

So test your site, use a tool like <http://www.crazyegg.com/> and look at scrolling heatmaps of your site. See if a page that draws users down is really working or not. Don't take somebody else's word for anything, just use studies, design cliches and common sense as a foundation for your own result based investigation into what layout serves your entire visitor-base best.

</comment><comment><USER20> Have they actually done usability studies on this or are they just making stuff up?

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems to me the 37 signals website puts the most important bits above the fold.

</comment><comment><USER22> The thing about the fold is not whether you can have content below the fold but about what content you have above the fold and what should be below.

It's really that simple.

</comment><comment><USER23> With the success of the iPad, and its growth trajectory, I'm curious if designers will adjust to a design that favors the broadsheet format. As a person who does a lot of reading on the web, I find broadsheet to be vastly superior. Landscape is only really good for watching movies. For work I'd prefer something in the middle, and generally I wish all future computers were able to switch between portrait and landscape on the fly.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very clever presentation that shows by doing (how many people could resist the temptation to scroll down on that page). Thanks for posting this!

</comment><comment><USER25> For those looking for some data for the debate, Waypoint is a jQuery plugin that can help track where on a page a user scrolls to...

<http://imakewebthings.com/jquery-waypoints/scroll-analytics/>

</comment><comment><USER26> I just graduated! My graphic design professors would have loved to see this. Lovely little piece.

</comment><comment><USER27> The title of this post was a hint that primed me to look below the fold.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hey! Can somebody translate this all to mobile for me?

<comment><USER29> sure can try => use clear big navigation ...</comment></comment>


Autism and Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://hossgifford.com/2009/autism-and-programmers/

<comment><USER2> _But what happens if you create a concentration of left brain thinkers? Imagine if an industry sprang up that relied on such people, resulting in a dense population of super-geeks. So dense that they started breeding little geeks. If autism is genetic, as it we are starting to believe it is, would this not cause an increase in the cases of people being born with traits from the autistic spectrum?_

This theory was proposed in a paper by Simon Baron-Cohen (ref: [http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Systemizers- Have-A...](http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Systemizers-Have-A- Higher-Risk-Of-Children-Suffering-From-Autism-7432-1/)). His study showed that children of "high-systemizers" were more likely to be autistic. If this is true, it would explain quite a bit. The rise in autism rates seems to match the growth of the tech industry and the value of "knowledge workers."

<comment><USER3> Autism is more complex than that. See for example [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin- d-a...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and- autism). One of the big mysteries is that Somali immigrants to the US and Sweden have a much higher rate of autism than their native counterparts. Other factors implicated include increasing parents age at time of birth(mother's and father's), more frequent ultrasounds, more chemical environment, etc. Once you start to think through each factor, the N^2 effect of geeks marrying other geeks is unlikely to explain the 5-10X increase in autism over the last 20 years.

<comment><USER4> > One of the big mysteries is that Somali immigrants to the US and Sweden have > a much higher rate of autism than their native counterparts.

Given that Somalia lacks a government, I would imagine health care there is rudimentary, and it's likely that autism (and other conditions) is under- diagnosed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This whole autism-geek connection is a useless myth. I have a son with autism, and we know a lot of parents with autism. Parents come from every income range, social class, profession and "geek orientation".

And contrary to another myth, most autistic kids (the vast majority) have no savant skills. It is a disease. The ones who recover do tell how they felt trapped inside.

For those of you who have young children or planning to have children, here is a suggestion: investigate just how many vaccines we are giving kids these days, and compare that to how many were given 25-30 years ago. Educate yourself - I wish I had. I trusted the "system" implicitly, without realizing that the average doctor and certainly the average pediatrician is an unthinking protocol pusher. The average pediatricians typical workload could be automated. Enough said.

<comment><USER6> Seriously, while I feel for you, get the facts. There is no evidence linking autism to vaccines. While dosing frequency has increased, dosing volume has decreased. Not only that, even if you are right, a lot more kids would die from the vaccinated diseases if we lose herd immunity as a whole.

Don't you find it the least bit suspicious that the only people who "figured out" this mystery are quacks with books and supplements to sell? Isn't it much more likely to be caused by our terrible food, chemical-laced water or other modern issues like proximity to high-strength EM?

<comment><USER5> For your information, the government recently legally conceded a case of autism-vaccine connection where the parents (both medical professionals) had a perfect record of their daughter's medical history.

Keep down-voting me; but if you have a kid, please, please investigate this before you accept conventional wisdom.

<comment><USER6> I know both sides. I have a friend who is one of the greatest proponents of alternative medicine treatments of autism. Both my children have been vaccinated.

[http://www.babble.com.au/2009/02/24/bad-science-how-the- auti...](http://www.babble.com.au/2009/02/24/bad-science-how-the-autism- vaccine-scare-snowballed/)

I shouldn't have to explain how a legal ruling doesn't equal evidence. Scientific proof is demonstrated using repeatable studies, which have been done. Go look them up.

There is no validated mechanism by which vaccines cause autism. At the moment, my money would be on things like genes (highly likely) or environmental contaminants. But, it's just speculation. We just don't know at the moment. This may be hard to accept as a parent, but it's the reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Lou has to have the right music in his head to spot his patterns and I, like many developers, have experience of getting into the zone with the help of familiar ambient music. It's as if the regularity of the music, it's lack of surprising contrast, drowns out the rhythmless noise of our environment. The alternative is to completely remove all noise..._

Any suggestions on this kind of ambient music? Thanks!

EDIT: I'm looking for specific suggestions of which artists/collections/radio channels worked best for you. Thanks to all who replied!

<comment><USER8> On iTunes you can go to Radio -> Ambient and there are a bunch of stations that play the style of music. I'm a fan of StillStream and Drone Zone.

<comment><USER9> Pandora also has a good selection of electronica and ambient music, and can store and learn what you like in a custom "station".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just out of curiousity, does anyone here listen to old Bollywood songs while coding; the likes of Kishore Kumar and such? They are very melodious.</comment>


GitHub links new color? - <AUTHOR> Am I the only one whose eyes are bleeding (almost for real this time) from this new color of all the link on github? <comment><USER2> I've started tweaking monitor setting, thinking there must be something wrong with it...

</comment><comment><USER3> They are definitely a bit punchier as of today.</comment>


Illinois Man Charged with Desecrating US Flag After Posting Photos on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandoalfonso/2016/07/04/illinois-man-charged-with-desecrating-american-flag-after-posting-photos-on-facebook/ <comment><USER2> > _Champaign County State 's Attorney Julia Rietz said today that the man > arrested on July 4 after a flag-burning Facebook post will not be charged._

> _" The State's Attorney's Office is declining to file charges against > (Bryton) Mellott as the act of burning a flag is protected free speech > according to the US Supreme Court decision, Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397 > (1989)," Rietz said in a statement._

[http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-07-05/update- urb...](http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-07-05/update-urbana-flag- burner-wont-be-charged.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> don't link to Forbes or support their paywall</comment>


I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time-i-tried-to-buy-some-crude-oil <comment><USER2> Another notable excerpt from the linked state safety agency document ([http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.do...](http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.doc)):

\--

Two employees of a fertilizer company in Riga, Michigan, were assigned to install a new float valve in an old 35-foot deep cistern for a new 300-foot well. This cistern was covered with a concrete slab with entry through a covered manhole. The first worker entered the cistern and as he reached a plank platform six feet below the opening, he was instantly overcome and fell unconscious into the water below. The man on the surface immediately ran to the nearby plant for help. Several workmen responded and two of them entered the cistern to render aid. They met the fate of the first worker. A passerby who had been drawn to the scene by the crowd which had gathered was told by an excited bystander that several men in the cistern were drowning. Upon hearing this, he shouted, "I can swim, I can swim" and pulled away from a company employee who was trying to restrain him. Now there were four bodies in the well.

Shortly afterward the fire department arrived at the scene with proper rescue equipment. The fire chief entered the cistern wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus. After reaching the plank platform, he removed his face mask to shout instructions to those on the surface and he, too, was instantly overcome. All five persons died in the cistern.

Tests of the cistern atmosphere revealed that H2S in a concentration of about 1000 parts per million was present when the five deaths occurred. The water pumped up from the deep well contained dissolved hydrogen sulfide which was released in the unventilated cistern.

<comment><USER3> Shit kills. I guess this happens everywhere in the world, but over here (Finland), there are the occasional deaths at farms where H2S released from remains of cow manure, stored in a tank, kills people.

[https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf](https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf)

"Description of event

A farm-owner suffocated inside a manure tank which was lacking oxygen and contained toxic gases. Also his brother, who went in to help, died.

A tank of liquid-form manure was almost empty. A pipe at the bottom of the tank was blocked. The farm owner decided to enter the tank and finalize emptying the tank. However, he lost consciousness and fell to the bottom.

His brother, who was close by, saw what happened and went in to save the unconscious man, but he was also overcome in a moment. Four hours later a family member discovered the victims. Fire service was called to help, and with pressure air breathing equipment, they retrieved both men. They were both found to be dead. Cause of death was a poisoning by methane and hydrogen sulfide."

(Taken from farm advisory leaflet on manure [https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf](https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf) )

<comment><USER4> Another case involving pig shit.

"The lagoons themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit."

Tough way to go.

From this excellent, long-form piece on Rolling Stone: [http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/boss-hog-the- dark-s...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/boss-hog-the-dark-side-of- americas-top-pork-producer-20061214)

<comment><USER5> Ok this is going to sound silly, and I apologize if this isn't a nice contribution.

But I believe to have read quite a while back that H2S is why poop stinks so bad for us. It can lead to anoxic events: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event#Hydrogen_sulfide_emissions)

So evolutionary speaking we might have adjusted our olfactory sense to stay clear of any H2S sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On a related note, the (slightly stylized) retelling of a time a commodities trader accidentally bought actual coal:

[http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special- Delivery](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery)

<comment><USER7> > slightly stylized

Or "completely made up"

<comment><USER8> The giveaway would be the WTFSE, only that actually seems to be a real exchange.

<comment><USER9> The stories on that site almost always use placeholders. For example, the most recent post features an email from wtfinc.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Planet Money had a recent podcast titled "The Onion King", where someone took physical control of onion futures, and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episode-657-the- tale-of-the-onion-king)

<comment><USER11> _" and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress"_

I was intrigued enough to follow this up, although I didn't listen to the podcast. From wikipedia:

During the hearings, the Commodity Exchange Authority stated that it was the perishable nature of onion which made them vulnerable to price swings. Then- congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan sponsored a bill, known as the Onion Futures Act, which banned futures trading on onions. The bill was unpopular among traders, some of whom argued that onion shortages were not a crucial issue since they were used as a condiment rather than a staple food. The president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, E.B. Harris, lobbied hard against the bill. Harris described it as "Burning down the barn to find a suspected rat". The measure was passed, however, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill in August 1958. [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kosuga#Regulatory_acti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kosuga#Regulatory_action)

<comment><USER12> > since they were used as a condiment rather than a staple food

such an unstaple food that The Times of India has a page dedicated to track the price of onions

[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Onion- prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Onion-prices)

<comment><USER6> My first snarky response was: "Do they also track beef prices?"

But yes, they do (sort of): [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Beef- prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Beef-prices)

But then I wondered if those pages were auto-generated, so I tried other things: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Taco- prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Taco-prices)

Ok, how about non-food: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Obama- prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Obama-prices)

Yeah, it's kind of free form: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Why- Am-I-A-Pickle](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Why-Am-I-A-Pickle)

The first time you specify something unique, it takes a little bit to load, but then it's caching it.

<comment><USER12> I found it by searching Google. I think the articles it lists illustrate my wider point that onion prices are a concern to multi-billions of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked at a small quant fund and we once had a bug that caused our roll forward trade to fail on a rather large position of front month WTI contracts. We technically were going to have to take delivery since we were long the contracts at expiry, but our brokerage was nice enough to fix the situation for us.

<comment><USER14> This is a recurring nightmare of mine: forgetting to close out a commodity futures contract, then suddenly having 20,000 bushels wheat (or whatever it was) show up on my doorstep one morning. Brrrr.

<comment><USER15> Ok, in the commodities trading business there have GOT to be stories of this sort of thing happening.

<comment><USER16> [http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special- Delivery](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery)

Edit: Oops, somebody already posted, later in the thread.

<comment><USER15> Ok, neat story, certainly.

But is there any indication that it isn't completely fictional?

Edit: similar info here [http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/futures-...](http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/futures- contracts-expiration-soybeans-eggs-oil/9/21/2009/id/24547)

It seems these stories tend to be apocryphal. Oh well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The best example I've seen of this form of journalism was NPR's purchase of a "toxic asset" during the financial crisis.

[http://www.npr.org/series/124587240/planet-money-s-toxic- ass...](http://www.npr.org/series/124587240/planet-money-s-toxic- asset/archive)

</comment><comment><USER18> I did this recently as well (though for a different purpose, chemical testing). it's even more difficult than the journalist describes. No refinery wants to stop processing or halt flow in their pipelines, and so getting WTI or Bakken oil is immensely difficult when you're not at the source. There are small mom & pop ~2-3bbl/day producers who are willing to sell their oil at a premium, however.

Ventilation is a huge problem - H2S emits a very foul smell. Quickly open and close a small bottle of crude in a room, and the scent lingers for a few minutes or more.

<comment><USER19> You don't need to stop anything to fill a sample bottle.

>Ventilation is a huge problem - H2S emits a very foul smell.

H2S also deadens the olfactory nerves, or something to that effect so that one does not notice if the concentration increases gradually.

<comment><USER18> >You don't need to stop anything to fill a sample bottle.

Gotcha. I had trouble reaching people who were willing to do sampling, which led me to that conclusion.

>H2S also deadens the olfactory nerves

Going back to check my ventilation right now, haha. From what I know, the scent disappears only above concentrations in air of ~150-200ppm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> At work we have recently been working with an oil company. Even on a project fully funded by this oil company it took us _months_ to convince them to send us a few bottles containing about 100mL each. Getting rock samples from their oilfield, which is what they really want us to do tests on, was _much_ harder.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just buy it on Alibaba [[http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_...](http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=100110&SearchText=crude+oil)].

<comment><USER18> Those minimum orders are astronomical it's almost funny. Does anybody actually purchase manufacturing-level quantities of goods on alibaba? Genuinely asking.

<comment><USER8> Yes. Alibaba is indirectly responsible for _many_ containerloads of goods traveling from the east to the west.

<comment><USER22> How do people handle QC issues with Alibaba orders? I dipped my toe in when ordering a crate of allegedly "CE marked" chargers that turned out to be obviously unsafe, and haven't been back.

<comment><USER23> You receive samples first and check them. Another option is having an agent in find on your behalf perform QC before you pay the balance on your initial deposit. That's what I do..

<comment><USER24> How do you find an agent to perform QC?

<comment><USER19> You send someone like me to China, after you do what GP said to do.

<comment><USER24> Completely offtopic: Many moons ago, you emailed me advice for Burning Man. Before I forget again, I just wanted to say thank you so much.

<comment><USER19> I had forgotten that was you. I'm glad it worked out well. Thanks for remembering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Relatedly(?) When I had a diesel car, I bought and stored a small barrel of biodiesel in the basement of our apartment (saving like $0.05 a gallon!). I was told that diesel doesn't burn except under extreme pressure, and that you could throw a match into an open cup of diesel and it would just go out.

Never actually tested that out.

<comment> david-given You can throw a match into an open cup of _cold_ diesel and it'll go out.

But if the cup gets hot, diesel vapour will start coming off the top, which will ignite. If you're unlucky it'll produce enough heat to vapourise more diesel, etc.

Also, if you let the cold diesel touch cloth, it'll get wicked up, and the diesel-soaked cloth will ignite really easily. That will in turn generate enough heat to etc.

The same applies to paraffin (although to a rather lesser extent). It's a great fuel for camping and sailing, because it's nearly inert... but only nearly so. A puddle of paraffin in the bottom of your boat isn't a problem. A puddle of paraffin spilt on your cabin upholstery is a serious fire risk.

<comment><USER26> Ah, fond memories of playing with candles. Make enough "wick" of thin metal wire, and at some point the flame will boil off gases from the candle/pool of melting paraffin wax. At this point, cheap glassware will likely crack from the heat -- spilling hot wax over the table, likely igniting it - best advice is to quench the flame before it gets to that. Or so I've heard.

<comment> david-given Fun fact: standard cheapo tea lights make great fire lighters, because they burn reliably and provide a static heat source for a long period of time. Put one under a piece of wood and it'll most likely catch fire eventually.

A short time later the wax in the tea light melts. Than it boils. Then you get (briefly) a pillar of flame...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27>
      Enterprising Child Saves $54 To Buy Barrel Of Oil

[http://www.theonion.com/graphic/enterprising-child- saves-54-...](http://www.theonion.com/graphic/enterprising-child-saves-54-to- buy-barrel-of-oil-9552)

</comment><comment><USER28> Would be great for parties though:

"Hey, what's that thing in pantry?"

"Oh, that's just my barrel of crude oil."

<comment><USER29> Everybody dies lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I bought a tiny bottle of crude oil from Drake's Well near Titusville, Pennsylvania as a grade school kid. We used it as furniture polish and for various things around the house. (Drake's Well was the original oil well.)

</comment><comment><USER31> I was pleasantly surprised at the subtle humour in this article, although some of it does require a bit of insider knowledge to fully appreciate!

</comment><comment><USER32> Not in petrochemicals, but neither is this is this reporter. I get it, it's supposed to be a joke, but it's such a poorly executed one fraught with so many major components glossed over that it detracts from any humor the article could have had. When the Onion writes something, it's humor is wonderful because not only the wit is there but there are few if any inconsistencies even for pedants who dissect things such as I.

1000ppm of hydrogen sulfide surely can kill you. The work-around this is to take delivery of a barrel of "sweet" rather than "sour" crude. Even in the "sour form", you get "up to" 1000ppm. However, barrels 1) are sealed properly by institutions with safety regulatory agencies just like any other industry, and 2) to get H2S exposure at that rate, you'd have to effectively stick your head into a barrel and inhale directly. To calculate actual PPM you'd likely be exposed to, you'd have to evaluate the aromatic distribution of H2S. (see: Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms, Chapter 2). The journalist is right about the insurance policies.

She later even mentions she has sweet crude. :facepalm:

>> My boss insists that I must factor in the cost of lost productivity for the many minutes spent on the phone with FedEx in an attempt to trace the package as it zigzagged across Manhattan. On that basis, I'm probably already in the red.

Bloomberg - I love your reporting for what it is. Tom crushes it in the morning. Alyx Steel makes poignant remarks. BBC doesn't try to be The Daily Show. Stick at what you're good at & don't try to be VICE. Especially for someone who reports on finance, she's overlooking so many things. Insurance she mentioned earlier but didn't bother to mention factor that capex. Storage is an opex (she mentions consignment venues (tech analogy: co-locating your servers) but those are fees she didn't factor in). In real life, if she's arbitraging US oil, the journo needs to be a CME member. For a March maturity date, a ~3 mo membership lease is $1k as an opex.

* Further reading:

"Petroleum and Gas Field Processing", et al. Chapter 7: Crude Oil Stabilization and Sweetening

"Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms" V.N. Kondratie, et al. Chapter 2 (or there abouts).

Merck on pulmonary irritants: [http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary- disorders...](http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary- disorders/environmental-pulmonary-diseases/irritant-gas-inhalation-injury)

CME fees: [http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership- pricin...](http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-pricing-cme- lease-prices.html)

Edit: To anyone who's downvoting me, by all means please respond (with some cordiality if you would), as to why! I tried to cite my sources properly, but if any professionals who deal with futures (especially crude oil, and even more so those who have taken delivery or performed the arbitrage she "simulated") see anything factually incorrect, I'm really happy to be corrected.

Edit 2: I responded as to why I found this article so aggravating below. Please read it before you down-vote me. It's comparable to how frustrated my tech friends and I get when television shows cross the threshold of comical technical inaccuracy and progress into a zone of visceral opposition. HN traditionally had a "Don't downvote people solely because you disagree with them" policy. My remarks are relevant to the article and (to my knowledge) factually correct.

<comment><USER33> To reply with the response such posts usually get: You must be _really_ fun at parties!

This post was entertaining to most of us because we are not in the industry, knew little about the presence of hydrogen sulfide, and did not realize that the industry was so reluctant to sell to random interested buyers. Yes they could have written "This reporter tried to buy a barrel of oil, but sellers were reluctant, and it was calculated that individuals buying crude oil is not a profitable venture. She was also cautioned that Hydrogen sulfide is toxic, and is released by crude oil". They chose not to do that because, well -- that's not fun to read.

You are being downvoted because you are essentially telling us: 'you idiots, this is not funny, this is not news, this is stupid, there are smarter people there doing serious work, why waste your time on this' in extended form.

One might be well suggested to, as they say, 'cheer up'.

<comment><USER32> Bloomberg is a really targeted news institution on which people rely for not comedy but financial information. It's reflected in the fees you pay to get access to their terminals, it's reflected in their promos, and even the corporations who select to advertise with them know they're trying to hit a target reader. Usually, that reader is not someone looking for a comic laugh.

Imagine pulling up a Linux news site and seeing something that's funny to someone who is in marketing because of some wacky antics. You went there to see what sort of critical patches need to be administered, but instead you saw "What happened when I tried to install Linux on my leather shoes!".

I'm upset because context is important. Especially for news outlets which are called the fourth estate for a reason. When I turn on PBS Newshour I don't want 50 minutes of Paris Hilton. If they re-oriented an entire episode to cover Paris Hilton just to get more viewers (equivalent of click-bait), I'd be equally upset. I'm not calling anyone here stupid, but this clearly is not news.

"This post was entertaining" \-- that's my whole problem. Bloomberg is a news outlet. Jon Stewart went on the O'Reilly factor and eloquently articulated the problem with select subsets of media (oversimplified to "to fill 24 hours of content, some outlets have resorted to silly antics to increase/retain viewership rather, rather than do what they're supposed to -- report the news). This article was under "News" not "Op/ed".

RE: parties, again, context. I don't engage in pedantry there, because one can generally categorize that form of interaction as "social" rather than "news/informative". At which point, I politely engage in small talk until I find something they like which I find interesting (whether its model aircrafts or modern farming, I can find something interesting to talk about with anyone generally).

<comment><USER34> Just a FYI but Bloomberg has significantly changed their editorial direction recently. Think some senior editor left or something. I really don't mind because it does not seem that their standard news coverage has suffered as a result and I can easily avoid things but yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just for comparisons sake, 1000 PPM is a good deal higher than the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, which is ~345 PPM.

</comment><comment><USER36> Now correct me if I'm wrong, but about the profit angle. This is her job, right? Doing research on stuff and writing an article about it. Given the other arguments in the article, I think it would be fair to say the pay for the article should also factor into the profit/less equation :)

</comment><comment><USER3> BTW, thanks for putting me on track to notice one interesting aspect about H2S:

"In 2015, hydrogen sulfide under extremely high pressure (around 150 gigapascals) was found to undergo superconducting transition near 203K (-70 °C), the highest temperature superconductor known to date."

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

</comment><comment><USER37> How is it possible for the workers in There Will Be Blood to hack through a foot of oil to get to the vein, if a few seconds of exposure kills you?

<comment><USER38> Its not a contact poison but a breathed in poison, so given even the lightest breeze you're probably OK. In a sealed tank, of course, you're dead.

Also there is no such thing as the crude molecule or atom. Its like dirt, and I assure you not all dirt is equal. And some crude has so much sulfur you'd think it should be yellow like paint. Some has about none.

If you've ever heard economic discussion about "sour crude" now you know what they're talking about. If you build a refinery to process oil you don't waste money on a hydrotreater to eat the sulfur if you don't have to, then if the market floods with cheap worthless sour crude you can't process it without buying/building a hydrotreater cycle process. And they aren't cheap or built in a day, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > All was not lost, however. If a barrel of crude oil would kill me, a small > amount would certainly make me stronger, I suggested (inanely) to the > broker. It was at this point, I believe, that the broker gave up.

This is gold. (Well, no. It's oil.)

</comment><comment><USER40> Noob question: say I have $1000 that I want to invest in oil (not in an oil company, but in the commodity itself). How do I go about it? Judging by the article, buying actual oil isn't the way to go.

<comment><USER41> If you had more money, you could trade futures, which are mentioned in the article. If you sell the future before the date of delivery, then you never have to deal with the physical aspect of the commodity. There are lots of online brokerages you can use for this, for example, E*Trade and TradeStation. But they have higher minimums than $1000.

With $1000, you could trade ETFs, for example USO [0]. The account minimums for ETFs are lower. If you look at what's inside USO [1], it's basically a wrapper for a future (NYMEX WTI Crude Oil CL).

[0]: [https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:USO](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:USO)

[1]: [http://www.unitedstatescommodityfunds.com/holdings.php?fund=...](http://www.unitedstatescommodityfunds.com/holdings.php?fund=uso)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> God damn it! Where's the printer friendly button on this thing?

Jane! Stop this crazy thing! Get me off this infinite scroll page!

</comment><comment><USER43> > ... playing host to a herd of feral cats.

A group of cats is called a clowder... or a glaring :)

<comment><USER44> Or a herd. English is flexible.

Most of the collective nouns were made up in the 15th century anyway, and very few have caught on. (Evidence: the article.)

<comment><USER43> There's been a lot of up/down vote action on this Big Bang theory reference. I've found it quite entertaining. Thanks HN. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It was awesome he was eventually paid for it on the blockchain.

Interesting that traders are using it for personal transactions these days.

<comment><USER46> Doubtful. More likely just part of the running joke the oil's source could not be verified -- they did not want to be tied a potential purchase of ISIS- controlled oil.

<comment><USER47> Kaminska's splenetically anti-Bitcoin [http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoinmania/](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoinmania/) [http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoin/](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoin/) , so probably yes.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Business Schools Struggle to Teach Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanfurr/2011/07/08/why-business-schools-struggle-to-teach-entrepreneurship/ <comment><USER2> Ok, having gone to business school I'm somewhat qualified to speak on this. First, I think most biz schools aren't staffed with highly successful businesspeople. If you are a crazy successful person in business you probably don't become a professor afterward.

Business schools are setup more like trade schools to teach marketing, finance, management, and accounting. Those have little to nothing to do with how to create a product, how to get your first customers and so on and so forth. Most business schools presuppose and existing, successful business of some sort. Take away the existing business and most of what they teach is not terribly useful.

Also, the best teacher of entrepreneurship is not school at all. It is experience. Starting a company, incorporating, getting customers, building a product, hiring workers all seems impossibly hard and confusing at first until you get some practice. Starting a business isn't hard, but it's a much different experience than being an office manager or accountant at a fortune 500.

I learned more starting my first company about how a business should be run than I ever did sitting in classes. There is no class that can teach you how to start a business unless it actually forces you to start a business.

Running a business should be taught like an art school or a culinary school - by doing. Try learning how to cook by just reading recipes or watching cooking shows, but never actually cooking a dish by yourself. Sounds absurd right? Ok, try learning how to start and operate a successful business without ever actually starting or running a business.

That is what business schools do and that is why they fail.

<comment><USER3> From what I've seen, Stanford (and maybe Harvard) are kind of in a different league here -- people actually do go teach there after a successful business career (and not even at retirement; some do it in their late 30s/40s/50s).

They also do a bit more than act as trade schools to teach skills. There's the huge networking value (only worthwhile at GSB, HSB, (+maybe MIT Sloan or UPenn Wharton for very specific disciplines too)), and they do teach some useful information beyond technical skills.

They are still probably not the best opportunity cost weighted use of time for most people (unless you want to work in the highest levels of large companies or government), but they might have some net positive value; lesser MBA programs have negative value. Getting an employer-funded MBA while living through a 2y lockup period after M&A does seem like a great choice though :)

<comment><USER4> Agreed, top business schools should and do have successful business professionals as professors. Of course there are entrepreneurship classes, but are taught by real entrepreneurs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I too am an MBA grad, and my experience tells me that entrepreneurship is not a skill that can be taught, but rather can be aided with some practical understanding of law, accounting, and marketing tactics, which, along with a nice network of smart people, can absolutely be gained at a top MBA program.

An MBA is neither a necessity nor a setback en route to a successful career as an entrepreneur. That's why you can quickly come up with stories of the Mark Zuckerberg's, Andrew Carnegie's, and Steve Jobs' who never graduated college, but just as quickly come up with stories of the Mark Pincus', Phil Knight's, and Jeff Skoll's who got MBA's and became immensely successful entrepreneurs. In fact, MBA's as a whole have a pretty good winning percentage. This could be due to a number of factors, very few I would guess actually having much to do with the education obtained in the MBA program courses themselves.

</comment><comment><USER6> Entrepreneur's struggle with entrepreneurship. There's data that basically shows that successful entrepreneurs in one space are no more succssfull than anyone else when the start a new venture in a new space. And I suspect the main reason why you're likely to be more successful if you stay in the same space has much to do with reputation and network than anything that could actually be taught.

The big takeaway I have is that everything you learned running your first startup is generally not applicable to your second startup, except those things you learn in a b-school (tax law, forming corporations, equity, etc...). And surprisingly this is also true of management in a F500 company too, but just at GE it's a lot harder to rock the boat -- for better or worse.

</comment><comment><USER7> Did anyone else have trouble reading this article? It felt like it was written for a group of third graders - extremely simple and repetitive writing...but then I started thinking, "oh yea, it's been edited for the search engines..." and this made me sad for the state of written media.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you were teaching an MBA course on entrepreneurship, what would you put in it? I ask because I'm teaching one right now and I need to do some serious lecture prep for Thursday. Over the semester I've assigned some the the essays like "how to start a startup" and most of Fred Wilson's MBA Mondays with some random other things of interest smattered in (e.g. business models that rocked 2010) but the whole thing is feeling a bit haphazard at the moment. Thursday is going over the different types of financing available, a bit on how they work, and some how a student would go about pitching their startup.

If Hacker News could crowdsource me a textbook for next time around that would be amazing ;)

<comment><USER9> How about the art of "getting out of the building"? Sending students into the real world on three or four customer development projects for hypothetical products would be very valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who sees the whole idea of an entrepreneurship program at schools as being silly? It just seems to me that a classroom education is a wholly inadequate way to teach people to strike out on their own and do something new.

<comment><USER11> There are technical, business, marketing and idea entrepreneurs (probably others). I don't believe each know what the other does: Programming, Stock Options, Networking, etc.

Maybe a program would be too structured for your tastes, but implemented well; it can reinforce potential entrepreneurs' knowledge. They could, of course, offer them in instalments as some entrepreneurs know some stuff and don't know other stuff but that's a different topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the goals of any school is (or should be) to teach the student 'how to think' rather than 'what to think'.

A startup is not some mythical entity that works in mysterious ways. There is a lot of overlap with how larger businesses are run - namely, hiring practices, advertising, market analysis, negotiations etc. These are common themes that are covered in business schools, and startups can benefit from them as well as larger corporations.

Sure, startups need to be a lot more inventive in how they deal with early growth, but I don't think an MBA precludes any of the required skills.

</comment><comment><USER13> They struggle to teach entrepreneurship for the same reason they struggle to teach leadership, teamwork, business management (no an MBA doesn't mean you'll be a good manager in a large business), etc.

Taught courses can help in all the above areas but only to a limited extent, entrepreneurship is no different.

</comment><comment><USER14> The same way how music schools struggle to (or don't intend to) teach students how to become great musicians.

Music schools only (or can only) teach students the compositions of other great musicians.

<comment><USER15> False. I had a good friend who was doing her DMA and she was a shockingly good violinist. I also went to an orchestra concert that was all (doctoral) student compositions. They were quite excellent; I never would have guessed that they were anything short of top-notch professional.

<comment><USER14> I know where you're coming from, but in the entrepreneurship context I don't see any role of music education in your examples since the only objective measure of the _greatness_ of a music is its commercial success or cultural impact or both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> <http://www.aim.edu/> mandates MBA graduates to do a startup as part of their curriculum.

</comment><comment><USER17> To put it crudely, because professors don't know shit.</comment>


The reason we reason - To win arguments, not for the pursuit of truth. - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/the-sad-reason-we-reason/

<comment><USER2>
      We are social animals all the way down.

Presumably now (and for quite some years, though how far back this extends I wouldn't personally be able to say) winning arguments is something that we're meant to do. It helps get your way in life, whether it's when negotiating the price of a car or part of your job. And 2000 years ago I'm sure there were plenty of other reasons for being able to win an argument, even if they weren't buying cars.

Maybe it's too recent in history to be classified as evolution, but certainly socially we can evolve that quickly, and presumably something like this does fall under the classification of things that can be influenced by how you are raised and the society around you?

 _(I'm absolutely no expert on evolution, or how social changes have influenced our developements, or on pretty much anything I just wrote about. But from a non-scientific point of view it seems to make sense to me, and I can say with absolutely confidence than confirmation bias probably didn't influence my thoughts.)_

</comment><comment><USER3> So if you are stranded on an island with no one else, reason is pointless? I don't think so.... I think the so called confirmation "bias" comes from the fact that the primary mode of reasoning is induction not deduction. The implicit goal of the confirmation bias is to identify the causal connections that will convert a probable conclusion to a certain conclusion. For the Humean skeptics in the audience, yes, the sun will rise tomorrow and we know it. The authors of this study should learn a little epistemology before spouting epistemological theories.</comment>


The rise and fall of online porn payment processor Chris Mallick - <AUTHOR> http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201103/chris-mallick-middle-men

<comment><USER2> Print version: [http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical- eye/201103/ch...](http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical- eye/201103/chris-mallick-middle-men?printable=true)</comment>


Android apps management architecture flaw? - <AUTHOR>

I have just begun developing for Android and coming from iOS background. I'm really surprised to find out that a large number of Android phones including the Nexus One has so limited internal memory and it only takes about 5 apps to fill up that space despite having huge SD card memory.
From and end-user experience point of view, I couldn't understand why do I need to know how to move app to SD card and the worst part is that most of the apps that I need to use  (map update, Facebook, Twitter, ...) can't be moved.
I couldn't shake the thought of a broken philosophy for user experience on Android.
I respect consumer choices but still... Can anyone enlightment me? <comment><USER2> I think it was a bad decision to ship devices with limited internal memory. But I'm trying to figure out how this is an 'architecture flaw'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be not 'architecture' but I think that it's a flaw so fundamental which should not even be there in the first place.

A device having small internal memory is fine since it's expensive. But having a huge external memory and not able to use it for common tasks is just so wrong.

<comment><USER3> there are many things that google could have done if time allowed, but the manufacturers needed something quickly to compete with Appl€. there's no other company or entity who could have made it better.

it's not fair to compare iOS and Android, it's not one device or even strictly controlled specs.</comment></comment></comment>