Ask HN: What are the most innovative web frameworks? - <AUTHOR>

There doesn't seem to be nearly as much discussion of new web frameworks as there is of programming languages and databases.<p>I've heard of or used Webmachine, Hop, Opa, etc. What are some others and which are your favorites and why? <comment><USER2> Meteor is kind of nuts: <https://github.com/meteor/meteor>, real time, database abstraction built right into the browser/js, no lag for saving as it uses background sync.

Screencast is here: <http://player.vimeo.com/video/40104996>

<comment><USER3> I wish I had a reason to use Meteor because it looks like a lot of fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://zotonic.com/> is pretty innovative (the event-driven model e.g.) and so is <http://www.helma.org/> (elegant, server-side JS, heavily used by large websites like orf.at for many years, but not widely known).

</comment><comment><USER5> The Geddy framework for Node.js is doing some pretty cool things these days. It provides a good architecture for real time MVC apps.

Yammer is using it for it's file uploads service.

It's got a great website and it's docs aren't bad either.

<http://geddyjs.org></comment>


Show HN: I like knowing what's being built nearby, so I made a crowd-sourced map - <AUTHOR> https://builtsoon.com <comment><USER2> Looks great! Though, why not pull buildings under construction from OpenStreetMap like this? (just hit run) [https://overpass- turbo.eu/s/N1l](https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/N1l)

You can just query on this key: [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:building%3Dconstruct...](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:building%3Dconstruction)

</comment><comment><USER3> Good idea.

But I found that anyone can upload any type of file, I just tried [https://builtsoon.com/storage/25/alert.html](https://builtsoon.com/storage/25/alert.html)</comment>


Show HN: Web API to TypeScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/greymind/WebApiToTypeScript <comment><AUTHOR> Hello!

As the title suggests, this is a tool to auto-generate WebAPI controller actions primarily. It also generates the enumerations and interfaces used by the actions.

Lastly, it optionally generates typed calling based on Angular's $http.

Keeping this intro short, since I've hopefully detailed it in the project page.

Looking for feedback and comments! It's been working out well for our project thus far.

Thanks!</comment>


"Autism is a spectrum" doesn't mean what many people think it does - <AUTHOR> https://theaspergian.com/2019/05/04/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/ <comment><USER2> _Don't assume anything about an autistic person._

This is probably valid advise for anyone about anyone else.

Otherwise the author seems to be scolding the world for their misconceptions about the autism spectrum. My impression about people staking a claim about being somewhat autistic is that normal people often see shared traits as a point of friendly commonality which is important for their social sense.

Is there harm in that? Maybe it would be better if people knew more. But is it more harmful for the non-autistic population to feel they have nothing in common with autistic people?</comment>


Electric vehicles to cost the same as conventional cars by 2018 - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/19/electric-vehicles-cost-conventional-cars-2018/ <comment><USER2> If this is true: _"We raise our 2025 forecast for EV sales by ~50pc to 14.2m - 14pc of global car sales."_

Then where does the electricity come from to be able to recharge so many cars? To fully charge a Tesla Model S needs 70 to 100 kWh (at 100% efficiency). Sure, a typical daily charge might only be 20% of max, but still that's a lot of kWh needed.

And if it's 14% of global car sales, then is it 30% or 50% of car sales in trendy places like California? Then we truly have a massive problem. California commutes are much longer than in other states, so the strain on the grid would be even worse.

California does have plenty of sunshine. Maybe that's the savior? A Tesla Powerwall in every garage? But that doesn't solve the problem for apartment dwellers. Plus the initial Powerwall only has a capacity of 13.5 kWh; it seems dicey to count on that to be able to recharge a Model S.</comment>


Show HN: btproof - trusted timestamping on the Bitcoin blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://www.btproof.com/ <comment><USER2> Nice work; I'm glad this exists. (There have been a few others... see for example the [bitnotar] project.)

Some miners don't like such 'dust' (abandoned micro amounts) living eternally in their shared datastructure. Their displeasure means it's possible some future pruning-rules would discard these from the well-replicated eternally 'live' set of recorded values. Still, there might be enough 'orthodox' non- discarding operators, or historic archives, that such blockchain deletionism wouldn't harm the usefulness of these timestamps.

For greater efficiency you could batch together multiple timestamp requests into a hash tree, and just insert the root into the blockchain – giving each individual document submitted a 'ticket' of the other hashes that can be combined with theirs to anchor their hash in the blockchain. (They'd then have to retain that for full proof-of-existence in the future.)

If you're willing to rely on full historic archives of the blockchain, rather than 'live' balances, for future verification, you can avoid destroying balances (and creating 'dust'), at the expense of a bit more state, delay and transaction fees. You mix the (root/document) hash with some salt, to create a real private key. Send any amount to the corresponding public key. Then, empty that balance to another address. Finally, reveal the salt and (root/document) hash to the world/your-users. They can then use the historic record (but not live balances) to show that their hash existed at the time of the fill/empty transactions... but no BTC is permanently abandoned.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Theirdispleasure means it's possible some future pruning-rules would discard > these from the well-replicated eternally 'live' set of recorded values.

The block header contains the merkle hash tree of all the transactions, meaning that the transactions, in their exact original form, are required by any client that wants to verify the proof of work and validity of blocks.

> or greater efficiency you could batch together multiple timestamp requests > into a hash tree, and just insert the root into the blockchain

Yeah, I thought about that. If I'll be getting a lot of orders, I'll probably start doing that.

> you can avoid destroying balances (and creating 'dust'), at the expense of a > bit more state, delay and transaction fees. You mix the (root/document) hash > with some salt, to create a real private key...

I originally mentioned that option in the website, but commented it out [1]. Although my reasoning there about future pruning rules isn't quite right (as I wrote above), I still think the amount is too tiny for it to make a difference. As I wrote in the website, destroying coins like that to create 1 billion timestamps is equal to 10 BTC being lost due to someone losing his private keys.

[1] [https://github.com/shesek/btproof/blob/master/views/index.ja...](https://github.com/shesek/btproof/blob/master/views/index.jade#L78)

<comment><USER3> I think you are better off working with Peter Todd, a bitcoin developer working on opentimestamps (github.com/opentimestamps), rather than inventing your own thing. He's already got Merkle tree hashing, and injects data into the Bitcoin blockchain using the standard merged-mining protocol, meaning it doesn't increase the chain size at all (beyond the hit that's already being taken to allowed merged mining of things like Namecoin.)

<comment><USER4> Clickable link for visibility, convenience, GoogleBot, and posterity: <http://github.com/opentimestamps> (Bitcoin-based timestamps)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you really letting people pay with PayPal to send BitCoins to an arbitrary address?

If it's just 1 satoshi for $3 you might be fine (if PayPal doesn't notice), but don't even think of doing that with a more reasonable ratio, since you'll get raped by people cashing out stolen paypal or credit cards using it.

In general, I don't see why you are putting the hash in the address, rather than putting it in a comment in the transaction script, and sending BitCoin back to yourself (or perhaps doing a 0-ouput fee-only transaction, but not sure if that's accepted by clients).

<comment><USER6> My understanding is that, for $3 the author creates a transaction from some wallet of N bitcoins under the author's control, that has a distribution of:

       0.000000001 to <hash of document>
       N - 0.0000000001 - <fee> to owner's wallet #2
       <fee> to miner

So the $3 doesn't buy you any bitcoins, since the address that is the hash of the document isn't a valid bitcoin address since it wasn't generated from a public/private key that is known.

<comment><AUTHOR> You understand it exactly correctly. Also, I'm sending those transactions with 0.01 BTC (~$1.3) in fees, which is roughly half the $3 payment (after credit card processing fees).

The user can input whatever address they want, so technically they could use it to buy Bitcoins, but still - the amount is really tiny and insignificant, and it'll be highly non profitable ($3 for bitcoins worth ~$0.0000013).

<comment><USER7> It's a nice touch that such a large percentage of the Paypal price goes to the miners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the most exciting things about bitcoin is the innovation it has sparked in trustless p2p applications. Currencies are just the beginning.

A timestamping/notary is one use. Namecoin (mutable key/value store), Bitmessage (transient messaging) are others.

I expect we'll see a lot more. It's interesting to think about how you could combine various properties of different p2p systems like Bitcoin, BitTorrent, etc.

<comment><USER9> The one disadvantage of such P2P networks is if law enforcement ever cracks down on it.

Not saying they necessarily will, but if the US outlaws Bitcoin at any point, then it will be extremely easy for them (or anyone; hypothetical anti-Bitcoin couch-vigilantes perhaps) to see the IP addresses of American users of the network, and then serve warrants and take action against them.

Same if Tor ever gets outlawed; Tor relays in the US can be identified and taken down with ease.

<comment><USER8> I don't see these systems themselves being outlawed in the US and it will be a dark day if they are. I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine their use falls under the 1st Amendment. Even if they're used for illegal purposes they're not inherently illegal.

Also it would be rather ironic for the US gov to outlaw Tor, given that they help fund it's development.

As long as Tor or similar systems are available other p2p networks can be used over it (you could even imagine networks that operate as hidden services)

Interesting talk on how governments have tried to shut down Tor: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX46Qv_b7F4>

<comment><USER9> I agree, it's highly unlikely it could or would be outlawed. Was just thinking hypothetically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm the author. I'd love to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER10> How would this compare to posting the hash in a public and frequently backed up way such that the date would be generally established by archives? For example, you could take out a classified ad with the hash in a newspaper, or post to Usenet so Google Groups archives it, or even submit it as a story to HN. (Or do all of the above and more at once.) Obviously, those aren't as technically sweet, but they seem workable. I'd be interested in knowing if there are more subtle tradeoffs involved.

<comment><USER11> The Bitcoin blockchain will presumably be around for the foreseeable future, and can't under any circumstance be modified by anyone. That's the main reason you'd want proof there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've thought a lot about cryptographically verifiable timestamps as an alternative to and defense against patents, as I'm sure others have as well. I'm glad that you and others are looking at P2P solutions to this problem. The big challenge would be getting expert witnesses to testify in court that the timestamps are valid, or otherwise convincing the court to accept them.

The switch to first to file might render this moot, though, since it seems that inventions that are never made public can be "stolen" by someone else filing a patent at a later date (corrections welcome).

</comment><comment><USER12> What are the advantages of using this for timestamps rather than the SSL CA timestamp servers? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping>

I am looking for a way to prove that web content existed -- building a cryptographically verifiable "Internet Archive" knock-off; timestamping is a key part of this.

</comment><comment><USER13> How does yours compare to this one <http://vog.github.io/bitcoinproof/></comment>


Catenary: concatenative programming for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sgentle/catenary

<comment><USER2> If you are unfamiliar with concatenative, stack-based languages, I wrote an introductory blog post that might be a little easier to read[0]. I say that only because the chaining style here can feel a little dense.

[0] [http://blog.eatonphil.com/2015/04/06/introduction-to- stack-b...](http://blog.eatonphil.com/2015/04/06/introduction-to-stack-based- languages-with-and-elementary-debugging-in-forth/)

<comment><USER3> My first thought was...wait that looks like Forth. And sure enough your post uses Forth. I hadn't heard the term "concatenative programming" before so I guess I learned something new :)

Forth is certainly one of the languages that has wooed me (or more precisely it has wooed me what cool ideas were built with it). Pretty much every CCC used to have some nifty hardware+Forth project on display (I remember crazy pendulums)

<comment><USER2> You might enjoy this thread from the discussion on r/programming[0]. I was lucky enough to ensnare a PL professor.

[0] [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/31qitu/introduc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/31qitu/introduction_to_stackbased_languages_with_forth/cq4otmv)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you really want to do some serious concatenative programming, this is probably a useful site: [http://www.factorcode.org](http://www.factorcode.org)

<comment><USER5> With the mandatory (and wonderful) talk: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting, I feel it has a lot of potential.

It will be useful with a standard library or a way to link easily to 'outside' functions without having to create (insert?) them in each cat that uses them.

<comment><USER7> Define modifies the prototype, so `cat define 'x' x` should apply to every cat (the docs have an example for making it a local property instead.) I think the larger barrier is that most libraries have functions with optional arguments so you would need to consider how to wrap each one.

But I really don't get the "for JavaScript" mentions. Without at least a pre- transpiled script to download and use as you would any JS, it is "for JavaScript" much like it is "for x86-64 assembly."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> LiveScript: take-this |> do-this |> then-do-that</comment>


The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones (1977) - <AUTHOR> http://reprints.longform.org/skull-and-bones-yale <comment><USER2> I find it interesting that people have been talking about secret societies and occult for many many decades, yet its still a taboo area for people to speak about in the main stream...

I knew a guy who went to Yale and was tapped by the 322...

But there is so much more to all of the secret societies, occult and other aspects of conspiracy which I find fascinating.

This is a talk given in 1958 regarding the Illuminati: \- Pawns in the Game - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1uem- RXmJU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1uem-RXmJU)

<comment><USER3> > ...yet it's still a taboo area for people to speak about in the main > stream...

This would be a result of how many people immediately jump to absurd conclusions that something evil _absolutely must_ somehow be at play. It's bizarre how many otherwise rational and logical humans turn into full blown conspiracy theorists the moment they read "secret society" it's like their own personal rationality offswitch.

Until we can calm down the mass hysteria surrounding this topic, it will almost certainly remain taboo, and honestly, considering how weird the topics always turn, I'd rather it stay taboo than watch a panicky hysterical mass attack innocent people who just want a bit of privacy. History is full of paranoid mass hysteria instances where the masses go absolutely bonkers and innocent people suffer—for somewhat recent examples, look at the satanic panics or Wenatchee WA where, in their hysteria, they issued 29,726 charges of child abuse... yes, that number is correct, 29,726 charges. A number of people's lives were ruined as they were publicly dragged through the ordeal, yet not a single charge stuck. Not one.

Mass hysteria is a very real phenomena and these topics of secret societies and the occult are probably better left as taboo, just reference any forum about the subject to see clear examples as to how much of our population are incredibly ill-equipped to discuss them rationally.

<comment> V-2 Generally speaking, if a society isn't "evil" \- and the situation doesn't really fit into any of the 'whistleblower' or 'opposition against an oppressive regime' scenarios - then why does it have to operate in secret?

It's typical of mafia-like, criminal organizations. Case in point: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due)

<comment><USER4> I'm a member of several initiatory groups that practice secrecy. The secrecy bonds initiates together and makes the lessons imparted more powerful. Such practices have antecedents dating to antiquity. If it's not for you, that's fine.

<comment><USER5> I've known several people associated with masonry. One got kicked out after doing a 'mason in distress' sign at a judge to get his drug trial stopped. Another, who has held several senior positions within lodges, has a second secret life that he has to keep hidden from them. Is just all borrowed power games and as far as I can tell the deal isn't worth it, the last secret has got to be an empty box, the power being in the idea of the secret itself. Then you get to stand around and look all enlightened and stuff. Then you go home and the car still has a squeaky noise that nobody can identify and the bath drain is mysteriously full of hair.

<comment><USER4> If you want to play power games in Freemasonry, you certainly can do so. That seems to me to be missing the point. I'm also not sure what kind of second secret life your friend has to hide from the craft.

I think most folks misunderstand the use of secrecy in initiatic orders. If someone joins an order to learn their secrets, they will be sorely disappointed. Signs, passwords, and grips can have symbolic meaning, but they convey nothing the initiate is unlikely to already know. Some of the secret legends can be entertaining, but they, by themselves, won't improve your life. Rather, all these things are tools that, when used in concert, can bring about a change in a person. Not everyone needs or wants that, and that's fine.

<comment><USER5> >I'm also not sure what kind of second secret life your friend has to hide from the craft.

Some people try to be experts in theoretical conspiracy. I think he is just more into the experimental side of the field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An interesting factoid illustrating power begetting power is that in 2004, the two major candidates for US President were both members of Skull and Bones, which admits 15 college juniors per year.

<comment><USER7> I bet that made for some interesting discussions at S&B gatherings. Which to support?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it sure did.

Whoops, sorry, forget I said that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fun fact: secret societies — and the resultant woes of society — is a central theme in the Book of Mormon.

> ...And it came to pass that they formed a secret combination, even as they > of old; which combination is most abominable and wicked above all, in the > sight of God...

> ...And it came to pass that there arose a rebellion among the people, > because of that secret combination which was built up to get power and > gain...

> ...And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the > secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the > prophets...

<comment><USER10> Wasn't it written in the 1800s? That seems like the heyday of secret societies in the USA.

<comment><USER11> Opposition to secret societies was common in rural American religion at that time. It's survived among Primitive Baptists, some conservative Methodists, and others. There's a general feeling that Christian brotherhood is inhibited by that sort of secret-keeping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death."

As much as being fans of the Illuminati (and who isn't?) they might also be fans of Diogenes of Sinope.

>"I am searching for the bones of your father, but could not distinguish them from those of a slave."

Diogenes of Sinope trolling Alexander the Great (again) ~300BC

One thing about these secret societies is that they give the political hegemony some resistance to the Rasputin problem. People who are addicted to power have a peculiar weakness to woo merchants promising further power over supernatural realms, which if the power addict even slightly entertains as a possibility of existing, they will feel compelled to follow, even on the off chance of more power. If they already feel they have the inside track on the occult, they are far more likely to rely on the resident court woo merchants, rather than following the latest wild eyed cosmic debris that just wandered in.

As an aside, a friend of mine has the theory that Trump is conclusive proof of the non-existence, or at least lack of real power, of the Illuminati or equivalent. On the basis that there is no sane over-arching conspiracy of total control where you would choose to end up with Donald Trump. He only makes sense from a world of many groups that have varying power and competency, where one of them is currently trying to fuck the other up.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yet to speak of anything even remotely similar gets you labeled a crackpot conspiracy theorist, even on HN.

<comment><USER13> Going down the rabbit hole of looking at the alleged evidence puts one in the same bucket. I'm from the UK and know for a fact the msm have covered for the establishment crimes for decades/centuries. Then you look at who owns the msm and it is clear why.

There literally is no point trying to defend this position to people who have not spent a great deal of time investigating it, because it takes a lot of time to investigate.... and the MSM is not the source of the truth. Yet, it is entrenched in UK political life, either by being involved, or turning a blind eye.

A search for Cyril Smith, for example, will begin to open the eyes of the most logical and rational of thinkers.

An example from the US of lies (that dragged UK and others into the war) is the testimony of a 15 year old girl to make up a fake eyewitness account to justify the first Iraq war: [https://old.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/a4mx0m/american_gov_g...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/a4mx0m/american_gov_got_15_year_old_girl_to_make_up_fake/)

<comment><USER14> Fyi the girl is the daughter of then Kuwaiti ambassador to the US.

>Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by an American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the HN crowd would be baffled by the shit we had to do for pledging. Not at S&B mind you, another ivy equivalent.

<comment><USER16> Well, do tell. And why do these society rituals seem so infused with homoeroticism and other sexual elements?

<comment><USER15> supposed to be a bonding experience where you get to show your true commitment. the whole paraphernalia is usually lost on everyone

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Panics about secret societies and fraternal organizations are a useful leading indicator of an authoritarian political tide. When you look at who worries about them, and governments that make pronouncements about them, looking back on who the good guys were, it usually wasn't the ones threatened by what happens when good men find a way to connect with one another.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yale needs to take a clear stand against this "secret society" nonsense. It patently has no place at a global research university. To be sure, a significant amount of all the talk about it is likely grossly exaggerated and unfounded. But the core fact of a respected institute of education having any relationship with organizations rooted in sociopolitical elitism (with an attendant history of discrimination) that serve no benefit to the institution or the public remains.

In practice, the system may or may not be harmless. But to keep it alive serves zero useful purposes and degrades the reputation of the institution.

<comment><USER19> Yale University isn't responsible for these societies and has no control over them. They occupy private property and by their very nature lack any formal institutional affiliation with the school. They're simply private clubs where current and former students can hang out and plot the next global financial collapse, have orgies, or whatever exactly it is they do. In any case, not Yale's problem - except an image problem, maybe.

As an alumnus, I find the hand-wringing over these societies weird, because they're completely irrelevant to most students and have been for a long time. (No, I wasn't invited to join one. I don't even think I knew anybody in one of the name-brand societies, at least not well.) The fact that Bush and Kerry were both Bonesmen was amusing, but hardly surprising - the societies are exactly where you'd expect ambitious, privileged social climbers to end up by senior year. They're not even very secret, since the membership lists inevitably leaked. The only time the rest of campus noticed is when they walk past one of the "tombs" \- windowless clubhouses - or when a really terrible movie about S&B ("The Skulls") came out while I was an undergrad.

Are they creepy and elitist? Of course. Are they a sinister conspiracy? No more than Goldman Sachs or McKinsey.

<comment><USER5> In the UK, we have had a government filled with people from the Bullingdon Club, an Oxford society that initiated members by having them burn money in front of the homeless. Homelessness has then rocketed under these people's reign, something they unfortunately cannot take seriously by the initiative act of their club. This society's association with government had the amusing high point where our sitting prime minister was accused of having oral sex with a cooked pig by another secret society member from within his own party.

This stuff might not affect the colleges that much, the fallout happens later when these people go off and get jobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Drinking Water Before Meals Aids Weight Loss - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/health/16really.html?_r=1&ref=health <comment><USER2> I was having a debate with my brother about when salad should be eaten, before or after a meal. I said it would make a difference. He said it made no difference. (Americans seem to be in the minority for eating salad before meals) Some light research on the Internet was not completely conclusive, but it appeared there is not much difference. However, since salad digests slower it's generally considered better to eat it after a meal. On the other hand, eating salad before a meal can make a person feel fuller, so that they eat less.

It may be a good combination to both eat a salad and drink water before meals. However, one caveat would be that water dilutes stomach acid, so it's probably not a good idea to drink a lot of water before meals.

<comment><USER3> _I said it would make a difference. He said it made no difference._

Difference in what though? Satiety? Hunger? Weight loss? The underlying method for all weight loss is to eat fewer calories. How someone accomplishes that is up them and may come down to personal preference.

<comment><USER4> A salad before a meal, particularity 20-30 minutes beforehand, will start the enzyme processes that eventually render satiety.

However, most American salads are loaded with decidedly non-healthy items, so a 200-300 drop in meal calories would be offset by the salad itself.

Better just eat them to increase vegetables, then. (No iceberg!)

<comment><USER5> Oh Man! how I hate iceberg lettuce. Why does anyone like it at all ? Cucumber tastes way better.

<comment><USER6> If you're relying on iceberg lettuce in your salad you're really doing it wrong.

Have a look for some mediterranean salad recipes, try putting some cherry tomatoes in for sweetness, a light drizzle of olive oil and swap the lettuce out for rocket and see how it goes.

<comment><USER7> Lettuce, like most leafy greens used in salads, is mostly roughage. Iceberg lettuce isn't as tasty but otherwise is fine. And iceberg lettuce is cheaper.

Lettuce, tomato, avocado slices, chopped green onions, and an anchovy or smoked oysters with vinaigrette is fantastic, regardless of what kind of green is used as the base.

<comment><USER4> No, sorry. Iceberg is very poor nutritionally.

[http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/lettuce_...](http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/lettuce_info.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To lose weight, first we burn some fat: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_oxidation> "...Hydration: The next step is the hydration of the bond between C-2 and C-3." enoyl CoA hydratase <\--H2O--> L-β-hydroxyacyl CoA

</comment><comment><USER9> This sounds like the Shangri-La Diet:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet>

<comment><USER10> That's quite a different hypothesis, involving tasteless calories taken well spaced in time from anything with a flavor or taste resetting your appetite. This is just about adding calorie-free bulk directly before meals to trigger "fullness".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seth Roberts reported on this a long time ago, though he added a bit of fructose to his water

<http://www.sethroberts.net/about/whatmakesfoodfattening.pdf>

A farmers know, taking water _with_ your meals increases calorie uptake too.

<comment><USER12> Why would taking water with your meals increase calorie uptake?

I would think it would reduce it, since it takes up space in the stomach. Also the effect it has on quenching your thirst so you don't reach for a soda instead.

<comment><USER11> The theory is that liquidising your food means more chemical reaction can take place.

I don't have soda in reach. One 330ml can of soda a day is 5kg of weight gain per year to work off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Everyone talks about weight loss. What about weight gain? I a skinny boy and would like to have tips on weight gain rather than loss. But considering obesity is an epidemic and weight loss (even if you are underweight) a rage, such tips are hard to find.

<comment><USER14> <http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/Fitness#WeightGain>

In addition: -Figure out your current calorie intake using <http://www.fitday.com/> You may be undereating and be unaware of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Water prior to dining does not affect your metabolism in any way what so ever - dire tabloid-style allusion error here. The article points out the obvious: if you feel less hungry (read: a bit fuller) before eating, as you would by filling your stomach with water, you might eat less of the food. Duh.

<comment><USER16> There is no mention of metabolism anywhere in this article. Not sure where you got that.

3rd sentence:

 _"Dieters have been encouraged to employ this trick for ages, with the reasoning quite simple: the water fills the stomach, thus reducing hunger."_

<comment><USER15> Exactly - that was the grave allusion error thrown about in the article. I'm sure you're familiar with the term. And as pointed out, it is just a trick; not a sure-shot.

Something interesting to reflect on: Why is this topic always such an incredibly sensitive sore spot to HN commons, taking on the form of stigma everytime it's brought up? It's like commenting on it instantly means stepping on a nerve - or possibly the protruding underbelly of someone lacking self- esteem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You dilute the enzymes in your stomach, making them less effective. This is a good way to get fetid gas in your lower intestine and colon.</comment>


PHP The Right Way - <AUTHOR> http://www.phptherightway.com <comment><USER2> The only correct way of using PHP is using something else.</comment>


"Exported Projects from Google Code" on GitHub started importing projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/exported?tab=repositories

<comment><AUTHOR> It started just now, the list is slowly increasing.</comment>


Starting a Tiny Indoor Garden - <AUTHOR> https://apicaster.wordpress.com/2020/07/21/starting-a-tiny-indoor-garden/ <comment><USER2> This is a great article! It's cool to see people get into the habit of growing their own food. I've been tinkering with hydroponics for a while now and a micro indoor garden is by far the best use and easiest to maintain for the average person.

Anything above the leafy green category is going to need some serious lighting and maintenance. Algae growth is a serious problem with setups like these (especially if you aren't going with a purchased kit) and it is very easy to lose your plants to over/under watering and ph/nutrient imbalances.

This is my favourite youtuber who does hydroponics, he gives a pretty realistic view of the hobby (also the videos are hilarious): [https://www.youtube.com/c/JebGardener/featured](https://www.youtube.com/c/JebGardener/featured)

<comment><AUTHOR> Much appreciated! I'm only scratching the surface of what is possible but it was so surprisingly easy for someone with minimal starting knowledge to get something going.

I can definitely start to see that the nutrient, ph, light details are going to be important for more consistency and better yields but having had this simple setup work ok has certainly been motivating to expand my knowledge.

Will checkout that channel. Looks like a fun rabbit hole :)</comment></comment>


Potential Carbon Capture Game Changer Nears Completion - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608755/potential-carbon-capture-game-changer-nears-completion/amp/ <comment><USER2> Interesting...anyone have a good technical understanding of this? It sounds like theyre separating off the carbon dioxide and selling it. Plus using the carbon dioxide to improve combustion efficiencies.</comment>


A Hands-On Tutorial to Motion Estimation Using Optical Flow - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nanonets.com/optical-flow/ <comment><AUTHOR> Most real-time video processing systems/techniques only address relationships of objects within the same frame, disregarding time information. Optical flow accounts for this temporal relationship between frames.

Advances in Optical Flow have changed the game in Object Tracking and Human Activity Recognition in videos.

This article explains the fundamentals and gives you the code to try it out for yourself.</comment>


Why do tech companies prefer youth over experience? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alphr.com/life-culture/1005568/why-do-tech-companies-favour-youth-over-experience <comment><USER2> The data they present doesn't support their thesis (or the headline).

All the data says is that 50-60 year old non-managerial employees at tech companies are paid less, on average, than 40-50 year old non-managerial employees.

The simplest explanation is that the higher paid employees are retiring early because they can afford to (or even voluntarily moving to lower paid positions with less responsibility/more interesting work/fewer hours).

Everything else in the article is wild conjecture with no supporting evidence.

</comment><comment><USER3> The young can be pushed and bullied, older experienced workers push back.</comment>


Are computers coming up with answers we cannot understand? - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/04/are-computer-coming-up-with-answers-we-cannot-understand.html

<comment><AUTHOR> During my undergrad days, I recall this potential problem as a critique of numerical analysis. It was stated as, "There is limited benefit of proving something if we don't also know WHY it is so."</comment>


Free 10TB Free Cloud Storage from China - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/11/19/international-users-can-soon-get-their-hands-on-10tb-of-free-cloud-storage-from-china-tencent/

<comment><USER2> This could be useful as long as you treat the storage as essentially public, and don't rely on it being there in the long term. I do photography for friends and often need to share multi GB photosets. I use mega.co.nz (the megaupload spinoff) instead of dropbox because they give 50GB free. Once I've shared the files I don't really care if the service stays around, and I'm not worried about anyone stealing this content.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure I would trust storing my files using a service from China. Maybe that sounds rude, but I feel like there is a demonstrated timeline of trouble here....

</comment><comment><USER4> That amount sounds outrageous. I wonder if they can keep backups of all that stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah.. no.</comment>


Is it possible to cut glass with scissors underwater? - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/tEAxhMECluM <comment><USER2> I still think it's rather interesting as an approach. In fact with that, the potential of creating a DIY ND filter out of welding-glass [1, 2] becomes a little more unnecessarily involved :D.

[1] [https://petapixel.com/2016/06/23/use-welders-glass-1-nd- filt...](https://petapixel.com/2016/06/23/use-welders-glass-1-nd-filter-long- exposure-photos/) [2] [https://www.diyphotography.net/use-welding-glass- as-10-stops...](https://www.diyphotography.net/use-welding-glass-as-10-stops- nd-filter/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ha! This was listed in this 101 Science Experiments book(Pustak Mahal Publications) I had as a kid and distinctly remember being disappointed with it not working out as I expected.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is not "cutting", it is "nibbling".

</comment><comment><USER5> So this doesn't seem legit to me. Cutting under water he's just shaving pieces of glass of with what looks like a very different pair of scissors than what you have sitting on a desk at work. When he tries to do the same thing out of water he doesn't angle the scissors like he did under water he heads almost directly towards the center. Not even close to the same actions .</comment>


Elon Musk's Boring Company Begins First Tunnel - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/12/15629754/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnels-watch-first-route-la <comment><USER2> I definitely think this is cool tech, and it's going to be amazing to see this whole setup work once completed.

I do have to wonder, this seems like it a largely over-engineered solution to the problem of moving people -- wouldn't it be more practical to put a train down there? This still requires individuals own cars, so it does nothing to reduce costs, promote equality and seems to just move the traffic problem from the downtown core to the outlets of the tunnel. Am I missing something?

It feels like LA really needs public transit.

<comment><USER3> If you'd ask the people in 1900s, they'd say the "right solution" is faster horses.

Public transit SUCKS. And I don't understand why people are pretending that it doesn't. Space efficiency and throughput are not the only important variables here. How about freedom? Once I take that train and reach my work, what if I have to go somewhere nearby work?

There's a reason cars exist. In your imaginary world, trains might be better than cars, but in the real world, cars are way better, even in those higher culture societies with planned cities like Scandinavia. Cars exist there too. Why? Because they do solve _some_ problem, which I'd imagine could be comfort, freedom, privacy, hygiene, and many others I'm sure.

<comment><USER4> _Once I take that train and reach my work, what if I have to go somewhere nearby work?_

Then you walk or take a train there?

You may say "But my area doesn't have good transit", but if you're going to spend billions of dollars building relatively low capacity car tunnels, you could spend those same billions to build higher capacity transit.

The car only offers a certain type of freedom. When you take a train (or cab) from work to go across town to meet friends for dinner/drinks (since you don't want to drive during commute traffic or try to find parking in a busy downtown), why should you have to make that same trip all the way back to your office just to get your car so you can drive home? Just hop on a train from the restaurant and go directly home.

At least that was my biggest discovery when I first moved to an area with good transit -- without the car I had a lot more freedom to go where I wanted and didn't have to structure my activities around where I parked my car. Also I didn't have to pay for (and protect) a $20,000+ car and the transit pass was less than the monthly car insurance alone.

<comment><USER5> >> "... you could spend those same billions to build higher capacity transit."

Former tunnel boring engineer here.

This is true, but the real elegant solution is to _build everything closer together_ by an order of magnitude, thereby raising the number of destinations in an N minute walking radius and _eliminating the need for tunnels._ If your urban design depends on cars-in-tunnels, it's a "code smell" that you've made a grievous system-scale architectural error.

We should keep building cities the way people did for thousands of years, with mostly little 10-foot wide (building-face-to-building-face) streets and a very few larger boulevards. This is how Venice works. This is how Tokyo works. This is how lower Manhattan works, and it's awesome. LA's streets are probably ~100 ft between building facades, on average, so we could infill a bunch of little narrow streets of buildings in each one, raising destinations-per-acre by ~an order of magnitude or maybe more.

This destroys demand for transit by inspiring a modal shift to pedestrianism, and now you have a much smaller problem to solve. You can take all the tax revenue from the new buildings in your newly-densified city, and the money you saved on paving/traffic lights/street upkeep, and use it to build a real 12-trains-per-hour, quad-tracked, express-and-local service, 24 hour subway. Elon's Boring company can dig the tunnels for these if you want.

If you have money leftover you can build through-core commuter rail, that comes from the northern suburbs and goes through downtown out the other side to the southern suburbs, with a one-seat ride. If you still have money leftover you can give it to the homeless or something; under no circumstances should anyone ever spend money on putting cars in tunnels, which is one of the all time dumbest ideas and a prodigiously ugly solution to a prodigiously ugly problem.

<comment><USER6> > We should keep building cities the way people did for thousands of years, > with mostly little 10-foot wide

To do that, first you need to forget about all best practices and problems that have been fixed and issues regarding quality of life and even safety.

No one bothers building little 10-foot wide streets because that's an appalingly bad idea. Slums aren't known for their quality of life, and no emergency service can pass through 10-foot wide streets.

You're a former boring engineer talking about issues that you know nothing about.

<comment><USER5> People bother to build little narrow streets all the time in non-slum areas, and their emergency services work fine. It just doesn't happen in North America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"Planning to jack this up to a factor of ten or more," Musk writes in the caption. Not quite sure what that means, but it sounds pretty badass. Jack away, Mr. Musk._

Since this writer didn't bother doing any research before compiling Musk's Instagram posts, he's talking about the speed. He plans to run the boring machines much faster than has been done traditionally, and do so continuously. That's why he made the joke about the snail.

Source: Musk's recent TED talk, which was pretty fun to watch.

<comment><USER8> Very sloppy article

> _This video shows the first in what Musk proposes to be a citywide network > of underground tunnels_

That video is clearly in the Hyperloop competition track.

<comment><USER9> The tunneling project is unrelated to Hyperloop (or at least not directly related). The new proposed project is in the IG video description:

> This is a test run of our electric sled that would transport cars at 125 mph > (200 km/h) through the tunnels, automatically switching from one tunnel to > the next. Would mean Westwood to LAX in 5 mins.

Musk released a video of a new concept of underground tunnels moving vehicles in cities this past month.

<comment><USER8> Regardless, that sled is in the mile-long track they built for the competition they held. They may not have depressurized it, however.

The actual tunnel is just a starter currently, as Musk said. They're only now putting in the TBM.

<comment><USER10> Right, both the sled and the track/tunnel are left over from the student Hyperloop competition.

Hyperloop was kind of a brainstorm of Musk to get around traffic. But now that he has a track and a sled, he figured what the hey, don't even really need the vacuum part just for travel within a city. Just need to scale up a bit (maybe a factor of 3 in each dimension from the existing sled) and get good at tunneling and you can get fast travel within a spread-out city without bothering with the harder engineering problems that a Hyperloop would require.

Hyperloop still a good idea for faster travel, but as far as an initial step, this tunnel system seems pretty straightforward (except for fast tunneling and permits for tunneling, etc) and gets Musk to his goal of getting around the traffic problems of LA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hate to admit that this is the 20th time I read "Boring Company" and thought "Why did he name it that, it doesn't seem boring at all."

Regardless, pretty cool if he can get it to help with LA traffic.

<comment><USER12> It's genius. The media loves a good pun. You can probably triple your pr and headlines if you make it easy for journalists to feel clever and have a fun headline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article alludes to speculation about permits, but Dennis Romero writing for the LA Weekly in February [1] noted that at the time, permits for a small pedestrian tunnel were not granted -- albeit required by state law. That's in addition to a filing required by the City of Hawthorne to allow for a 30-day public hearing period; it was the City that informed SpaceX to contact the state regulators.

I'd like to see more reporting on whether these permits were obtained after all.

[1] archived at [http://archive.is/zgAMq](http://archive.is/zgAMq)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ok, so the center of LA to Culver City is 16 km via Google Maps. A snail goes at 1 cm/s. So 18 days of boring assuming everything works out. That's actually super fast.

<comment><USER15> at my company, we only run our snails 8 hours per day and they get an hour for lunch.

(And the tunnel is LAX to Culver City-Westwood-Sherman Oaks, not downtown. There's already a train that runs downtown to LAX. LAX to Westwood is 18.2 km on the roads per google maps)

<comment><USER16> > There's already a train that runs downtown to LAX

I'm assuming you're talking about the Green Line connecting with the Blue Line?

The Green Line doesn't stop at LAX. It stops outside of the airport, leaving passengers to take a cab for the last mile. Not to mention you have to hop a connection to the Blue Line, which doesn't stop at Union Station.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every time I see this thing I can only think about earthquakes. I am absolutely certain they've planned and thought about this and engineered the heck out of it, that being said... I can not imagine that being in one of these things during a _big_ earthquake is going to be very nice.

<comment><USER18> "Earthquakes tend to have the biggest effect on the surface, like waves on water. That's why LA can have a (lame, but getting better) subway."

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/824300186834898945](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/824300186834898945)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd really like to see him get this right, but I think the volume of people, not cars, that needs to be moved would indicate a better use of this 'solution' would be almost be a horizontal elevator system where people request a route and board a passing carriage that stops to pick them up/or is sitting empty on the street waiting to be used.

Enabling the delivery of cars into the heart of cities when many cities are trying to remove them seems a bit backwards, but the idea of a transit system which dynamically delivers people where they need to be. That I get.

If the boring is cheap enough, I can see this being a good transport solution for suburbia to get people quickly and efficiently into a city.

</comment><comment><USER20> A tunnel between Austin - Houston - Dallas would decrease traffic in Austin quite a bit I think... and would be good boring practice!

</comment><comment><USER21> What happens when an earthquake causes his tunnel to no longer being aligned all unexpected like?

There are challenges with working in a seismically active zone. I'm sure he has thought about it. I'd be curious what answers he came up with.

<comment><USER22> Faults don't suddenly show up for no reason out of the blue. So, the traditional solution is to treat fault lines as a special case and design for some shifting over the useful life of a tunnel.

<comment><USER21> The route the article suggests is likely to encoutner a lot of existing fault lines. For example there is one running through LAX itself, and a series that run through Santa Monica.

See [http://www.cccarto.com/faults/la_faults/](http://www.cccarto.com/faults/la_faults/) for a map of the bigger ones. (A lot of little fracture zones are not shown there.)

Boring a tunnel through an active fault line still seems risky to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Elon Musk's new video of his underground tunnel project will make you > nauseated

> 'Warning, this may cause motion sickness or seizures'

People are getting sick just watching a video of the thing, and Musk's plan is to strap them all onto it. Brilliant.

<comment><USER24> The actual tunnel will not have these continuously flashing lights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hopefully it has better luck than big bertha in Seattle. God what a mess that project turned into, but the last I've heard she is almost done with the tunnel.

<comment><USER26> She's finished digging, and they're disassembling her to take her out of the tunnel now.

[https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/5/10/15612548/bertha- tunnel-...](https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/5/10/15612548/bertha-tunnel- boring-machine-disassembly)

<comment><USER25> Is there an actual eta on the opening of the tunnel?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm in the US, not in NYC. I use public transit (and my bike) exclusively. The most annoying thing about public transit is cargo handling. With a car you can buy groceries for a month. Or make a trip with several stops buying errands. Etc. With bike/bus I'm limited to what I can carry. That's a lot less than what can fit in a shopping cart / trunk˙.

</comment><comment> ju-st Are they still using Herrenknecht TBMs?

</comment><comment><USER28> I didn't see many comments saying that it's nothing else that just a high- speed underground railroad. As any other railroad it can transport not just cars, but passengers, goods and whatnot. It's basically a general-purpose subway.

</comment><comment><USER29> How do you handle vibrations at 10x the speed? Isn't that a big issue for houses above?

<comment><USER30> F=ma

Build your vehicle with 'bicycle technology' instead of 19th century technology, the weight goes down and the vibrations are solved too.

With 'bicycle technology' there are no crumple zones, there is very little steel and that is 'high tensile' steel rather than the hefty steel that you get on railways. Deluxe materials such as carbon fibre and the more interesting alloys of aluminium are used on bikes that, at the same price point, were made of more common materials a generation ago. Even though bicycles are old fashioned, they are up there and beyond F1 and other 'performance engineering'.

I would bet that the liner for a Tesla 'frunk' weighs more than most bicycles, plus on regular vehicles there is a lot of cruft that you just wouldn't have if you had to push it yourself.

I am not suggesting for one moment that Elon makes all of these tunnels for bicycles, however, you do not need to make a vehicle massively heavy (e.g. 50 tonnes) to get it to adhere to the train tracks.

Seems Japanese trains weigh a fraction of what American trains do:

[https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/tabl...](https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/table- of-train-weights/)

I am sure that if Elon and co. thought about doing what the Japanese do on the train weights but '10x' the weight would be fine. There is no easier way to get speed - F = ma - plus there is important safety considerations, people get killed by heavy vehicles, deaths by being hit by a bicycle (e.g. as a pedestrian) are out there with freak events, improbable but possible.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for the detailed reply! That was kind of par of my question and interesting to read, but I actually referred to the booring head. It said he wants to increase booring by 10x.

I now read elsewhere he does not want to stop booring while putting in the supporting wall, so he'll advance continiously, but I doubt that's what takes so long.

<comment><USER30> My perspective is London where you do get basements rumble with the trains below, we did have Crossrail put in with a lot of disruption to existing infrastructure being more of a problem than the ground shaking to pieces. They did have a very large TBM and they also had to weave through and around a lot of other tunnels beneath the ground. A lot of lasers above ground made sure things did not subside, which was a bigger problem than the rumbling, which is a one time thing. With the aforementioned basement situation there is a rumble every few minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Where does elon find money for all his ideas? He seems to innovate at breathtaking pace.

<comment><USER32> Well he's worth an estimated 15 billion, a lot of which if I understand is from his involvement with PayPal

<comment><USER10> Almost none of it is from Paypal any longer (except as seed money for other ventures). He got about half a (EDIT: significantly less than a quarter) billion from Paypal and invested it split into Tesla and SpaceX. I think he owns most of (or close to most of) SpaceX, which is worth at least $10B, plus a bunch of shares of Tesla (but definitely not near half), which is worth over $50B.

So I'd say his networth now comes from (very) roughly 50:50 Tesla and SpaceX. Paypal money is long gone.

He borrows money against his shares to fund projects like this without diluting control.

<comment><USER33> He got about a quarter of a billion.

He almost went bankrupt in ~2008.

Edit: my correction of a correction needs to be corrected

> In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of > which Musk received US$165 million.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is interesting if not over engineering. I hope it comes to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't seem to get past the notion that this is an elaborate hoax.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was actually just musing at how easily tree roots "tunnel" through the ground. I'm wondering if there's a way to replicate that in a new kind of boring machine.

<comment><USER29> well they compress the soil between the roots and are a bunch of thin things. You'd need to liquify the humans before you shoot them through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Whose electric sled was this? Hyperloop?</comment>


Ask HN: Critique my site please - <AUTHOR>

http://www.TestWhetherTheyKnow.com<p>Audience: HR managers Problem trying to solve: The pain of getting distributed employees trained properly, reading the employee handbook, or legally acknowledging a new policy. <comment><USER2> 1) The pink and green combo doesn't strike my fancy.

2) Your screenshots above the fold are well placed but the scaling on the left most image makes it difficult to read.

3) I don't know what your product is within the first 2 seconds of hitting the page. Clearly explaining in 1 or 2 sentences above the fold what your product is and why it will benefit _me_ will significantly decrease your bounce rates.

4) I like the simple layout of your video demos. They're well conceived with an easy to follow demo. The voiceover is monotone and doesn't engage me. Paying for a voiceover might not be a bad idea. These demos are very powerful and will significantly increase signups.

5) What is the benefit of your product? Without mentioning the competition, what will compel me to spend $10 - $25 with you rather than your competition?

6) I like your "wizard" / step-by-step process of creating a test. Nice stuff. Easy to understand.

7) There is no privacy policy or note about why you're collecting my e-mail address. Also, have you considered integrating open authentication systems from Twitter, Facebook, OpenID, etc? I'd think that integrating the Facebook auth system and asking people if they'd like to post links to their tests there would go a long way.

8) Many managers and HR folks may not immediately see the benefit from your list of 4 "uses". I would work on this language and try very hard to integrate some tangible facts. Being able to say, "We surveyed 100 HR departments who have used our tests. Employees of these companies now retain 98% of the guidelines that they were tested on."

</comment><comment><USER3> A couple of thoughts:

* I suspect there is a good market for this type of product, particularly if you focus on the liability and reporting benefits.

* The watermelon colors need to be changed. Ideally you pick something fairly neutral so that your customers can add their own branding. Not that you should copy their design, but I would use articulate.com as a source of inspiration.

* Bump up the pricing (assuming that is a total price, not per person) and add a higher range, maybe +100

* Make sure your app can easily produce reports

* The first page of the practice test should be a lot more scannable. Right now it's a big block of text that I don't want to read because it's not relevant to me.

* Add your logo and main navigation to the top of each page.

</comment><comment><USER4> A few design suggestions:

(1) The pink doesn't look good for this kind of a website. (2) The shadows in the screenshot are too bold. Bring them down to 15-30% opacity. (3) The three big buttons in the middle of the page are wasting too much space without much apparent gain. Move them to the right and put some text explaining your product clearly (In 2-3 sentences) to the left. This will help visitors understand your product without much scanning. (4) The screenshots do not look very appealing. Again, the pink is hurting my eyes here.

Pricing:

(1) Is this per month price or per survey price? Should be clearly specified. (2) Either way, the price is too low.</comment>


Microsoft Internal Emails about Vista Problems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/132891.asp

<comment><USER2> Vista is plain aweful. I bought a cheap $400 laptop for my parents, and unfortunately it came with vista. I should have just wiped it out, and installed XP, but I didn't have time.

The user interface is confusing, menus are incoherent, and the web 2.0 gradients everywhere create huge readibility problems in cheap lcd screens. I also had problems with remote help and connection, and had to use a third party solution to help my parents on some problems they had.

If you are looking for a cheap laptops for your parents, just don't go with vista. Just install XP, or even Ubuntu would be better.

Unfortunately for 400-500 dollars you can't buy anything with Mac Os in it. Mac Os seems to be easier to operate, especially for older folks.

<comment><USER3> It gets worse. I bought a laptop for my mom that came with Vista as well. I wiped Vista to put XP on it, but I couldn't find drivers for XP for things like the wireless card. Turns out some of the newer hardware doesn't even come with XP drivers.

I would have but Ubuntu on there but unfortunately my parents need some Windows only software for various reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has anyone here not had any problems with Vista?

I run Vista Business 64-bit on my desktop and have Home Premium on my XPS Laptop and have had only one problem with slow network file transfer speed between the two.

Other than that, Vista has proved to be better than XP for me. I did install it with no expectations for a good product, maybe that's why?

<comment><USER5> No problems here.

<comment><USER6> Me neither. But I do not run it. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reasons I will never use Vista ever again:

1\. Could not share a printer. Seriously. A plain generic HP printer. On a Windows network. XP shared it just fine, Vista would not share it, for security reasons, I suppose.

2\. Vista refused, totally refused, to allow me use _Microsoft's_ javascript debugger. That's _Microsoft's_ Vista would not allow me to use _Microsoft's_ javascript debugger. For security reasons. Seriously.

3\. Vista takes interface design in a whole new direction. Adventure Gaming: Your goal is to share a folder on your network but first you must find the Lost Network Settings! And watch out for the security alert trolls! No! You clicked a dead network connection! Now you must wait 10 minutes for Windows to search a network that isn't connected! Doom!

Vista == giant steaming poo poo

</comment><comment><USER8> iPaper version of the emails: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/2191055/Microsoft- execs-on-Vista-p...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/2191055/Microsoft-execs-on- Vista-problems)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> No one wants their dirty laundry aired out in public, especially when it smells so bad.

</comment><comment><USER9> yawn, who cares !</comment>


Tuning The JVM For Unusual Uses - <AUTHOR> http://nerds-central.blogspot.com/2009/09/tuning-jvm-for-unusual-uses-have-some.html <comment><USER2> I enjoyed the article; I would also normally enjoy the images alongside it, but in this case I found them really jarring and the fact that the article does not even make any mention of why they are there which left me wondering if I'd missed some subtle point. In the end I think they just spoiled the article.

<comment><USER3> As interested as I am in the material, I can't read this article. I can't give the author my mindshare if he's going to include pointless illustrations of that nature in his article.

<comment> nerds-central The scary thought is this - if I had not put in the pictures - would you have ever come across my post? I suspect not - which illustrates some disturbing truths about humanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was amused by the fact that the author drew a lot of his conclusions based on his experience with a COBOL -> JVM compiler. I wonder if -DontCompileHugeMethods is useful with other JVM-based languages?

<comment> nerds-central That will depend on the language. I think I pretty much covered that point.</comment></comment>


The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/the-secret-agenda-of-a-facebook-quiz.html? <comment><USER2> I'd suspected for years about such quizzes. Initially, I assumed the posts to calculate your (porn/movie/etc) name was a low grade phishing exercise as it asked you to mix personal data that are often used in security questions (eg first pet name plus mothers maiden name). This is a whole new level, but entirely unsurprising. Facebook is a data mining platform. Remembering that is nothing but a good thing.

<comment><USER3> Especially quizzes like "where was your first job?" or "what's your favorite movie?" all sounded like phishing for security question answers.

<comment> angry-hacker Just got an evil idea.. You can target on fb and Google by email lists. You create some stupid web app with questions and promise something in return, a prize, or make it worthwhile to play and target them with all the security questions email accounts or whatever might ask. Could be that this is being done for phising already if the victims are being targeted specifically and don't have 2fa.

<comment><USER4> You are late to the party. I remember receiving this kind of questions in 2006 when hotmail and msn messenger were still popular. I think it was part of a game to measure how worldly you were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not impressed. Did anyone notice that Cambridge Analytics did not work for Ted Cruz? I mean he did win Texas and the great plains states, but those were his most-winnable locations from the beginning due to his consistent conservatism and other nominees dropping out. He even lost the south, which should have been his other target, presumably due to being off-wavelength with southern voters, something the analytics data should have helped him with. Cambridge Analytics and their Facebook questionnaires don't seem to be very effective.

<comment><USER6> I imagine we'd be equally unimpressed with other early tech.

imho, our concern should be of an extrapolative nature. we can guess where this will be in 5 or 10 years, nevermind Ted Cruz' future electoral successes. and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge". (sorry for assuming our agreement there)

<comment><USER7> > and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge"

How easy? I thought "Nudge theory" was beginning to unravel under the burden of empirical evidence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been warning friends and family about this for years. It's incredible how much information people will give about themselves to get totally inane information. This "psy-ops" stuff is shady and scary, and I guarantee you that most voters have no idea it's happening.

<comment><USER9> > I've been warning friends and family about this for years.

How did it work out? I tried the same too, but it was falling into deaf years. Most common response. "Sean beta (means son in hindi). You are being excessively paranoid. Facebook is a closed community, and I only share info with friends and family, so don't worry."

<comment><USER10> Nit: "falling on deaf ears"

I will concede to typo/autocorrect, but wanted to make the comment in case someone reads your comment and assumes the phrase correct.

<comment><USER9> haha. Yes it was a typo/autocorrect. lol. thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And yet for all their magic, they were just as wrong about the outcome of the election:

 _You might think from a casual reading of the Cambridge Analytica press release that they predicted the outcome of the election. They did not. A company spokesman called reporters before election day to say that Trump had only a 20 per cent chance of winning._

Source: [http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data- cruncher...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-crunchers- who-say-they-helped-donald-trump-to-win/)

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?

<comment><USER10> That's not a prediction of the outcome. That's a statistic. A prediction of the outcome would be "you won't roll a 6."

<comment><USER13> If you asked me to predict whether you will roll a six or not, then I will predict that you won't. Is that a bad prediction?

<comment><USER10> It's certainly an incorrect prediction if I roll a six. You didn't simply state the odds and leave it at that, you actually made a prediction. Is it a "bad" prediction? Depends on how you're defining "good" vs. "bad" predictions. If the quality of the prediction is not based on the outcome (i.e. whether the prediction is correct), but is instead based on the odds themselves, then that's a conversation that leads to "bad but correct" predictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seriously. Why do we allow this kind of data collection. This is ridiculous.

Edit: the commenter who responded has pointed out that this is phrased fairly accusatory. Should the fact that there is probably a data cloud out there about me being used to manipulate me through subliminal type messaging not be upsetting? I don't think I have _ever_ signed up for a service with the expectation that whatever information is collected will be collated in some over-arching cloud used for more things than just the service provided to me by the site. Maybe somewhere in a 30 page terms of service document, it said that, and I clicked "agree" upon skimming it. But should that really be enough?

Edit 2: Here's an idea: charge me $3/month to use your service without ads, and with full expectation that my data will not be sold or used inappropriately (you can give it to the govt. if they need it for security reasons, I don't care). I currently pay for e-mail without ads from both outlook and mail.com and would gladly do the same for a pure facebook / gmail / google search / etc service.

<comment><USER15> Can I re-phrase your question?

"Why do we allow people to voluntarily hand over their own information at their own will?"

Sounds much different when its phrase properly and not accusatory.

<comment><USER16> If it said up-front "this data will be collated and eventually used to emotionally manipulate you", I'd agree with you that people give the information up of their own will.

<comment><USER17> Can you explain how an OCEAN score helps do that?

Because I have yet to be convinced that knowing how open, agreeable, etc. someone translates into manipulation and the article did not even attempt to explain that, it just said this has some vague relation to Trump & Brexit and left us to assume it was a magic X factor.

<comment><USER18> It was pretty clear to me:

"Mr. Trump's digital team used [individually targeted] posts to serve different ads to different potential voters, aiming to push the exact right buttons. [...] A pro-gun voter whose Ocean score ranks him high on neuroticism could see storm clouds and a threat: The Democrat wants to take his guns away. A separate pro-gun voter deemed agreeable and introverted might see an ad emphasizing tradition and community values, a father and son hunting together."

<comment><USER17> So the danger here is that they might find something they agree with Trump on?

<comment><USER18> I don't know if there is danger, but I find the idea very scary that there is an organization that collects very intimate data on me without my knowledge and uses that to manipulate me. They are not really trying to find points that people agree on with Trump. They are trying to create a strong emotional image that works with the person in question and connect it to Trump.

<comment><USER17> That's advertising in a nutshell, though. You can (and should) limit the information you put out. You can (and should) learn to recognize emotional manipulation of all kinds from all sources.

<comment><USER18> I know, but ...

a) This degree of personalization is completely unheard of.

b) No one except the most paranoid expects that when they fill in a quiz that information will be recorded and stored.

c) Normally with personalized advertising (or advertising in general) the worst that can happen is that the person advertised to will buy something they don't need. In this case it can have implications for many other people.

<comment><USER17> A) Not really, Google knows way more about us. B) That sounds like a problem with education. C) This is by no means the only targeted political advertising. They have systems to track what you respond to and have done so for quite some time now. Calls, letters, even people visiting at the door don't happen by accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has anyone been able to validate or correlate the claims in this article? It's an opinion piece without a lot of verifiable references or data. Seems like it is, to some degree, describing itself.

</comment><comment><USER20> Meh, big deal. Like the Obama campaigns were't good at "weaponizing" all web tools they could find.

Note how the examples proposed are all GOTV efforts targeted to the R base rather than anything appealing larger slices of the electorate. Despite all this black magic, R turnout wasn't that impressive and Trump lost the popular vote. Where it might have helped a little bit is in exploiting weaknesses that Dems shouldn't have had in the first place, i.e. Clinton's baggage, to reduce D turnout in key states, but again, that's more the Democrats' fault for fielding such a candidate knowing very well that she had such baggage.

</comment><comment> 08-15 > In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African- > American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads...

Really? Sending ads is suppressing the vote of certain people? Like the soviet union suppressed dissenters by sending them to the gulag?

I don't think so. But I think the New York Times has a secret agenda of its own, I just don't know what it is. Portraying the election as somehow "unfair" could result in civil unrest, who could possibly want that?

</comment><comment><USER21> > In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African- > American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads reminding > certain selected black voters of Hillary Clinton's infamous "super predator" > line. It targeted Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood with messages about the > Clinton Foundation's troubles in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

How is this suppressing the vote? It's giving potential voters accurate information about your opponent. Frankly, how is it any different from Mr. Biden shouting, 'they're gonna put y'all back in chains!' — other than the former being true and probably in good taste?

N.b.: I did _not_ vote for President Trump.

<comment><USER22> An answer to how this is different is provided in literally the next sentence of the article.

>Federal Election Commission rules are unclear when it comes to Facebook posts, but even if they do apply and the facts are skewed and the dog whistles loud, the already weakening power of social opprobrium is gone when no one else sees the ad you see — and no one else sees "I'm Donald Trump, and I approved this message."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Mr. Zuckerberg is young, still skeptical that his radiant transparency machine could be anything but a force for good" This is naive bordering on delusional. I think Zuckerberg knows the real deal. Considering quotes like these: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks"

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this another rogue Cambridge Analytica ad that will get debunked later when the impact was done?

<comment><USER25> No, it was written by an Open Society Fellow, e.g funded by George Soros, a major Hillary Clinton backer.

So basically, it's counter propaganda.

<comment><USER26> _e.g funded by George Soros_

Careful -- you've mentioned his name twice in this thread. Do it a third time and he'll appear in your bathroom mirror.

Also, nothing in the article was particularly surprising, nor is any of it outside the realm of what we already know is technically possible at Facebook. Give it four years and see if Zuckerberg makes _his_ rumored run for President, after beta-testing the tools in 2016...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump's surprise election

How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.

<comment><USER28> Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?

<comment><USER27> Interestingly enough, the same pollsters are now saying that Trump has a 37% or something approval rating. And Obama went out with a 60%+ approval rating.

Until they find a way to poll a significant slice of the population truly representative of the electorate, I'm surprised people can take them seriously. Since we're on HN, there is a startup idea here somewhere.

(Edited to remove an electoral hypothesis, so that we can discuss polls and not politics.)

<comment><USER29> Hillary ran a sub-par campaign as one of the least popular candidates in recent history, and that hurt down-ticket races. The democrats made a strategic mistake by allowing Clintonistas to take over the DNC and party establishment to the point that she was essentially "the anointed", and faced no real competition. Had e.g. Biden or even Franken run, the results might be quite different. Heck, if Obama had run against Trump (for a third term, were such a thing possible) it would likely be a different story. This is not the whole situation, of course; e.g. districts are more gerrymandered than ever, reducing competitiveness and allowing party establishments to push their favored candidates (out of touch establishment = unpopular candidate); e.g. the last congress was the most dysfunctional in decades, meaning that the bills that made it were compromises, and not a full test of democrat ideas; media echo chambers have polarized voters; etc.

As easy as it is to critique Obama's policies on privacy & foreign policy, he was assured and rational, which people like in a leader. It's entirely reasonable that there's such a wide gap in approval polls. There's really no reason to significantly doubt them.

Regardless of whether you agree on the above, we're about to see the GOP have its way and push a slew of policies that they favor. Many will actually be favorable for entrepreneurs and startups, but my guess is that overall they will turn out to be quite unpopular. I predict the house to flip back in 2018 and for Trump to be crushed in 2020 (if he makes it that far without being impeached.) We'll see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it just me starting to really have enough of "secret agendas" of Facebook and other internet giants? What the hell are the legislators doing? Even if you say that the advertising-based business model is OK where do you draw the line? Do they really need to know what kind of a psychologic personality I am and what kind of porn I watch ?! (exaggerating... but who knows nowadays)

</comment><comment><USER31> Friendly reminder: don't use Facebook and block _any_ advertisement and trackers online using ublock.

It helps to keep some mental ecology.

<comment><USER32> I did that too. Look where it got us.

Anyway, I eventually set up a placholder Facebook account. Once I typed my name into the setup form, they provided a frighteningly detailed list of friends and acquaintances. Since then, due to "do you know" emails, I get the impression they slurp other people's call and sms logs (or maybe just contacts, if FB types are more OCD about address books than me) into their social network graph.

Anyway, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that facebook gets more metadata to sell every time you make a phone call, regardless of whether you have an account.

(Of course, I don't have their software installed on any of my devices. However, I did give them my phone number for 2FA purposes. How naive I was. Assuming the phone app grabs people's address books and/or call logs, they probably had it before I gave it to them)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > If Mr. Zuckerberg takes seriously his oft-stated commitments to diversity > and openness, he must grapple honestly with the fact that Facebook is no > longer just a social network. It's an advertising medium that's now > dangerously easy to weaponize.

The story is chilling. It more or less proves that Trump campaign and the Billionaire Republican donor who owns the Data Analytics site used Facebook to profile people and send targeted "fear" stories to them and swing the vote away from Clinton.

Fear is a great motivator.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this.

It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics.

Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipulation, etc)? I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts".

<comment><USER34> Democrats will use it in completely analogous ways.

<comment><USER9> > analogous ways.

I really don't understand what this mean? Can anyone explain?? Thank you :)

<comment><USER35> similar/comparable ([https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous](https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The Open Agenda of a New York Times article.</comment>


The Hammer: A Muscle-Controlled, Light-Up Dildo - <AUTHOR> http://www.toymakerproject.com/hammer/

<comment><AUTHOR> From the site: What can you do with The Hammer?

* Receive visual feedback for Kegel exercises or physical therapy * Have a lightsaber duel * Get a blowjob or handjob in the dark * Watch the Hammer change color as you orgasm * …or anything else you can program!

Right now The Hammer has two modes: the test-your-strength game, where the more you squeeze, the more it lights up; and a demo mode which cycles through all of the colors of the LEDs. Soon I hope to connect the Arduino to my Android phone, and then I'll be able to do even more cool things!</comment>