Revisited: Alan Watts, "This Is It" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/08/24/alan-watts-this-is-it/ <comment><USER2> Watts was a forward thinker of the first degree. Many of his talks are available on YouTube, and I'd highly recommend them to anyone. He was very scientifically minded and grounded in reality, unlike a lot of other "spiritual leaders".

Specifically, this one on the future of technology: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnk73u9YAHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnk73u9YAHw)

Keep in mind he was giving these talks in the late 60's. He was light years ahead of his time.

<comment><USER3> i think Watts considered himself more of a "spiritual entertainer", he would have laughed at the idea of being a "spiritual leader", being a rather cheeky rascal in the best meaning of the term. his audiobook lectures are great, id recommend buying them as a way to support his legacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > my borders fell away to where there was no longer anything—my skin, other > surfaces, the distance between them—separating me from everything else.

In the world of meditation, this sounds like a jhana state and is the kind of thing anyone determined can experience with enough practice.

Decent jhana discussion at /r/meditation

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/4e0dqt/why_are_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/4e0dqt/why_are_the_experiences_of_jhana_so_unknown_to/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/31z2by/did_i_ex...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/31z2by/did_i_experience_the_first_jhana/)

</comment><comment><USER5> "who is it who knows there is no ego?"

The one thing I disagree with, is when people, particularly from his era until the 90s, say that you should get rid of the ego. It's impossible, for the reason quoted, even though he makes a different point with that quote than I do here.

Instead of trying to getting rid of the ego, I feel whe should get to know and come to terms with the ego, and put it in its proper place: it's a part of a body/mind/spirit complex, not the alpha and omega of it. When one regards the ego as a fallible and searching-for-self-manifestation element, like a mirror of itself that wants and wants the best thing achievable, and is understood as imperfect and something that must be integrated, it can be tempered and accepted. When the ego is regarded as something that should be 'let go', self- rejection, self-trivialization and even self-loathing are what follows.

I know what I'd choose.

</comment><comment><USER6> I always laugh at myself a bit when I make purchases toward the goal of improving my consciousness and embracing my spirit. I see in myself the American consumer idea that if I buy the book, I will gain the knowledge.

Enlightenment! Now 50% off at Amazon.com!

Usually I don't regret the purchase, though...

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious to know more about the experience you had when you couldn't move your body and the thoughts leading up to the epiphany.

Was it the usual denial, anger, bargaining stuff or something different?

</comment><comment><USER8> Spike Jonze's "Her" is basically a Watts movie, and this uninformed hippie philosophy gets annoying at the end.

Check [http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4848864](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4848864)

</comment><comment><USER9> This author's experience is extremely similar to the subject of the latter half of the first episode of NPR's _Invisibilia_ podcast.

Anyone interested is highly recommended to give it a listen.</comment>


Twilio Announces MMS Support - <AUTHOR> http://www.twilio.com/mms

<comment><USER3> Where's Rob Spectre at when you need him!!

So many questions.

1) Does Twilio own an MMSC? How did access happen? This is no easy feat.

2) How does signaling work? MMS is an incredibly rich format and can do a ton of stuff SMS can't.

3) I'd love to hear the backstory on how this went down. I imagine this is multiple years of work coming together.

Yeah, I'm a telecom nerd and I know how politically difficult this is to achieve. Incredibly impressed if this is real MMS. That's one of the carrier grails, so getting that exposed is awesome.

Would love to hear more if possible!!

<comment><USER4> Hanging out on the floor at Twiliocon, Josh - you should come!

Great questions - as you can imagine there's not a whole lot I can share about the relationships with our carrier partners. Working with them was essential to bringing this product to market, and we sincerely appreciate all the hours they put with us on getting Picture Messaging out the door.

A few details to the questions I can share:

1) The signaling, the SMIL generation and whole lot of other headaches from the MM* protocols are completely behind the API. We tried to keep this new feature as close to the SMS API you already know and love as possible - <USER2> inbound there are just four new params (NumMedia, MediaUrln, MediaContentType and the new unique identifier MessageSid) and for outbound just one new param MediaUrl.

You send / receive your photos - we make it work for whomever is sending or receiving. If you're at Twiliocon this week, two of our messaging leads Thomas Wilsher and Kelvin Law are dropping a _killer_ talk on some of the technical details around this abstraction. It's probably my favorite of our talks at Twiliocon right now.

2) This was the combined effort of a whole lot of talent inside and outside Twilio for a very long time. Very proud of what they've been able to accomplish working together and so stoked to see first hand how excited developers are to use it.

3) This is real MMS sending and receiving pictures. We rolled out Picture Messaging first as we wanted to get it in developers hands as quickly as possible.

Got to head back out and join the Doers at the Design Concourse in San Francisco - Twiliocon only comes once a year, so I don't want to miss more time with all the hackers that came out to hang.

Always great to hear from you Josh. You should swing by if you're in town.

<comment><USER3> I wanted to go so bad!!! We're over at TC3 today, but I think Shells from our sales team is out there. If you can, you should corner her! She's awesome.

Congratulations on this feature. You and I both know how ridiculously hard this is and I commend you for going after this.

One quick question: is mms a short code only thing or is it available on long- codes as well? Some of the language in your marketing materials left me unclear.

Thanks, and again, Shoutout to you, Jeff and all the other amazing folks at Twilio. MMS access in telecom is my definition of "killing it".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Being subscribed to cat facts is about to get 100x more awesome.

<comment><USER4> Oh biscuits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats! Like @josh2600 said, no small accomplishment!

Any plans for US phone number (as opposed to just shortcode) support for sending/receiving MMS?

<comment><USER4> We are working very hard to bring this service to US phone numbers - we want it as badly as you.

For now, we have it on US short codes and Canadian phone numbers.

<comment><USER4> btw - Thanks! We worked really hard on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was really excited until I realized (like others here) that MMS only works with _US short codes_ and Canadian phone numbers.

If anyone needs this functionality today then mogreet has an api but it works over a shared shortcode so you have to send a keyword with it.

I am really looking forward to the day that Twilio or someone else supports MMS without the need of a short code.

<comment><USER8> After so many years, Google Voice still doesn't support MMS. I am afraid Twilio will have the same issue dealing with the carrier partner in the US. I hope they support it soon but I am afraid it will be long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> MMS died years ago. Terrible technically and never actually worked the four times in someone tried to send one.

<comment><USER10> As a Google Voice user who gets to experience life without MMS support, I can tell you that MMS is very alive. I've missed several social engagements that people coordinated via group texts, and a couple of _sensitive images_ that had to be resent over email after the sender was perplexed by my silence...

<comment><USER11> I have my primary number through google voice and I just get a sms saying "MMS Received" and then I get an email with a picture attachment. Not sure about group texts though.

<comment><USER12> This has only ever been true for MMS received from Sprint users. Google Voice & Sprint's current FAQ indicates that MMS no longer works, even on Sprint [1].

[1] [https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1205636?hl=en](https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1205636?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Honest question, why you need MMS since everyone can just send multimedia via email/FB/Whatsapp/hundreds social messaging app? My experience with MMS has not be pleasant: slow, limited (low quality), unreliable (sometimes does not arrive or corrupted) and expensive (compared to "free" in email etc).

</comment><comment><USER14> ugh. Only on shortcodes for US.. That means extremely expensive to try out :(.. A short code is $3,000 every 3 months

<comment><USER4> We wanted very badly to get this to you as well - it'll be released as soon as we can.

<comment><USER15> Are we talking < 6 months or > 6 months?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sadly, it doesn't look like they support group messaging. That would be a killer feature.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for that feedback - we wanted to get Picture Messaging out of the door as soon as we had it before attacking the wealth of other features MMS has to offer.

Really hope you enjoy it and check in often as we support more stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Canadians and US Short Code owners get all of the cool toys (for now, at least). I have been waiting for Twilio MMS for at least a year, but it looks like I have to wait a bit longer (or get into the beta).

<comment><USER4> I definitely hear you. We want it as badly as you do - can't wait to get them in your hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does this mean group messaging is available? I've missed out on a few events due to not receiving a group text to my google voice number.

Is there a service that can replace google voice?

<comment><USER19> I can relate, not being able to receive group texts is now my #1 issue with GVoice, since they've fixed most of the bugginess in the Android client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is great, I believe the only other feature I've been praying for is Premium SMS/MMS.

</comment><comment><USER21> Did anyone find the pricing for MMS on their site?

<comment><USER22> Reliable Pricing: Send pictures for 2¢/message and receive pictures for just 1¢/message.

Storage: Store 5GB of pictures you send and receive for free, then just 20¢ per additional GB.

<comment><USER23> 20 cents a GB? ick.

<comment><USER22> That is a pretty steep rate, but I figure you'd treat their storage like an "INBOX" and grab images through the API and put it into your own persistent storage. So, the 5GB free component should probably cover a good number of use-cases.

<comment><USER23> I guess. Still feels like you're getting gouged when you know they're getting discounted S3 storage rates based on their utilization.

<comment><USER4> Fully heard and appreciated. Obviously, the storage of this media does have real cost, but feedback on the pricepoint is helpful.

Thank you.

<comment><USER23> Thanks Rob. I understand you have costs, but with both compute and storage prices plummeting, it stands out when you have an outlier like that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fitbit announces Flex wristband - <AUTHOR> http://www.fitbit.com/flex

<comment><USER2> This looks great. My current Fitbit is sitting on a shelf at home, because I forgot to put it in my pocket this morning. I expect that a wristband is harder to forget.</comment>


Y Combinator Company List - <AUTHOR> http://yclist.com/ <comment><USER2> Found a mistake near the bottom: Justin.tv is either dead or acquired, however you want to interpret the change into Twitch.

</comment><comment><USER3> A lot of old companies are Dead or Exited. Someone should do statistics on this data.

<comment><USER4> Data is not fully accurate, especially in the many cases where a YC company had pivoted and changed their name.

Also, there's a third startup possible startup state that's relevant but impossible to measure: Zombie, where the startup is alive but will basically never exit.

<comment><USER5> What about " _successful private company_ "?

<comment><USER6> Doesn't help the investors though, unless they pay a dividend.

<comment><USER7> What stops YC companies from doing this? You get your 150k from YC, you're making a few million a year in profit, and instead of killing yourself trying to make billions, you say "good enough" and hand the reigns over and let the company keep doing its thing conservatively. Pretty sure that's what I would do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Techstars published an official list of their companies status: [http://www.techstars.com/companies/all/](http://www.techstars.com/companies/all/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if it makes sense to recycle some of the dead company concepts. Seems to me that some of them were simply "too early" ...

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice list. Wakemate (S09) is definitely dead.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is not an official list made by YC. Many companies are missing, and I've seen a couple that were not YC.

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool but probably needs to be updated. I do know that cloudant was acquired by IBM.

</comment><comment><USER12> great work! Would be nice to see funding along side.

</comment><comment><USER13> Missing Genius.com</comment>


Intel wants to kill the traditional server rack with 100Gbps links - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/intel-wants-to-kill-the-traditional-server-rack-with-100gbps-links/ <comment><USER2> They have the parts to do this:

\- High speed copper physical layers are cheap - Thunderbolt today has 40Gbps PHYs, and Infiniband/10GBE both extremely inexpensive compared to a few years ago.

\- Their chips are getting smaller and more power efficient, and the Atom finally has an ECC part.

\- As clockspeed is not longer hockeysticking up, people are transitioning in droves to multi-system parallel task model, which favors lots of medium speed, efficient cores.

In short, in the near future general purpose computing is going to look more like HPC clusters, because the software side of things has, in most cases, caught up.

<comment><USER3> Latency is a significant issue with this approach. A SSD doing 100,000 IOPS per second that's 3 feet from the CPU is noticeably faster than one that's 100 feet from the CPU.

<comment><USER4> Since the speed-of-light delay for 100 feet is 100 ns, and SSD latencies are on the order of 10-100 us, this shouldn't be a fundamental issue. Maybe it's caused by the latency to the disk cache (DRAM)? In which case perhaps you could separate that from the disk, and move it closer to the CPU.

<comment><USER5> At 2Ghz the speed of light in a vacuum delay is a clock cycle every 15cm. Current fiber and copper transmission is about 70% of c, so that's a clock cycle every 10.5 cm.

A few clock cycle might not matter for bulk storage, but Intel is also talking about separating main memory from individual processors. There individual clock cycles do matter. Witness the rise of low latency premium RAM.

<comment><USER6> We are already doing that, in many steps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know nothing about hardware, but i'm curious. Isn't a whole lot of the speed we're getting out of systems these days a ramification of putting everything on the same piece of silicon? If each component is physically separated, isn't that going to impact latency?

<comment><USER8> Think of the cache pyramid.[0] Latency may be higher, but if there is enough work / data then it's still efficient to do work remotely / put data farther away.

From what I understand, the article is about two things:

1\. Hot swappable components.

Oversimplified, but imagine being able to add / remove CPU and RAM to your server like you can with disk space and USB thumb drives.

2\. Shareable resources / load balancing.

If one server is using all its CPU and another is using all its RAM, they can now use each other's resources.

You know how AWS is on-demand, scalable computing? This is the same thing but at a hardware level with CPU, RAM, disk, and network resources.

[0]: <http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/computer-memory-pyramid.gif>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even without crazy fabric setups, how have we been stagnating at 1GbE for like 10+ years now? Shouldn't 10, with a normal ports-and-switches type of setup become normal someday soon?

<comment><USER10> I think mainly there's not the demand for it - you'd need a fast SSD to saturate 1GbE, and nothing remotely consumer-level can saturate 10GbE yet.

<comment><USER11> Who says it has to come from hard drives? Look at things like redis or memcached that are serving out of RAM.

<comment><USER12> But (ordinary) people don't run redis on their home network. 10Gb Ethernet is very common on servers in datacenters today, but it hasn't yet caught on to the consumer market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sure looks familiar. Intel wants to build mainframes, basically.

<comment><USER14> I came in to say this and didn't want to get all the heat. Thanks for stepping up. :)

<comment><USER13> Turns out it was a popular sentiment! :)

To be clear, I like mainframes. They make certain problems much easier. I worked in the company that maintains the world's largest DB2 installation and it was amazing and terrifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't this sort of like turning an entire rack into just a big blade server enclosure?

<comment><USER16> Yes, actually.

Instead of a dumb rack -- four posts and screw holes in the right places -- you get a blade chassis 72U high. Centralized but redundant power supplies with integrated monitoring and per-feed software control. A built-in KVM. Large slow(er) fans that push more air more efficiently and more quietly, or perhaps a liquid cooling system that provides a clean, standardized disconnect for each component. Assignable resources -- instead of running virtual machines, you run re-configurable real machines, where you start by selecting a number of processors with associated RAM and add in storage.

On the one hand, this will have less in common with consumer hardware, so economies of scale will not be shared. On the other hand, server hardware is already substantially different from high-end consumer hardware, so it's probably not that big a deal.

<comment><USER17> Heh - I was working with a MIPS processor designer on this exact model of device in 1999 - we basically just sketched out the idea and talked about what it would take to have a fabric rack with a standard set of interconnects so that various vendors could build cards to go into it.

We discussed the challenges of various signaling that would prevent companies from being willing to participate. But this idea is really old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like Intel is validating AMD's acquisition of Seamicro and their "Fabric Compute Systems"

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

<comment><USER19> Yep, tempted to call it a Seamicro clone (if they build it some day).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer#Characterist...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer#Characteristics)

</comment><comment><USER21> This does not sit so well on a front page with a "fusion drive to Mars" link. This story has almost as much if and when about it - developing new silicon photonics, a reference architecture in 2014. Sounds a lot like a intel territorial fight than an actual product.

Probably a nice idea though

</comment><comment><USER22> Whenever a high-profile company gets an article in a prominent publication touting a "new" feature/hardware/system that really is already in use in the industry for years, then you know that feature/hardware/system has arrived. What they announced is just a different spin on pre-existing technology.

Just like the way Cisco, et. al. are co-opting SDN...[http://www.lightreading.com/blog/software-defined- networking...](http://www.lightreading.com/blog/software-defined- networking/cisco-sees-daylight-for-sdn/240152079?queryText=opendaylight)

</comment><comment><USER23> Is it just me or does this seem very much like mainframe architecture from 30 years ago? Not that 30yr design is bad. More that all trends/technology are cycles.

</comment><comment><USER24> Seems like there are two architectures that are commonly adopted. One is to make the server ever larger and more modular. E.G. separating processors/memory and storage as separate entities that are individually configurable (like this article). The other is to make the server smaller and more parallel. E.G. 1000s of single socket/single hdd servers running in aggregate.

</comment><comment><USER25> I see this flying about as well as blades do. There's reasons to use blades, but a 42U stack of pizza boxes with a commodity interconnect (even 10gbps) is almost always cheaper than a single blade center.

</comment><comment><USER26> One of Intel's advantages is being a process node ahead of other foundries: 22nm vs 32nm.

</comment><comment><USER27> This already exists. This already existed in the 90s, and was in fact very normal. Sun, DEC/compaq, HP, IBM, etc all sold systems like this. Why does intel always pretend doing something 20 years late is innovation?

<comment><USER28> That's true, but really only in a specious way. If you want to argue that sort of logic, then people were building machines "like this" back in the 60's when the "rack" was a big card cage into which you could plug (sometimes) arbitrary amounts of application-specific CPU/memory/storage/IO resources.

But what's actually happening is that Intel is building a fabric interconnect which can serve data at DRAM-bandwidth-or-higher speeds. And that's certainly something that hasn't been done in the modern world. The headline might lead you to believe it's the architectural idea that's the new thing here, but it's really the pure technology that's the interesting bit.

<comment><USER27> >But what's actually happening is that Intel is building a fabric interconnect which can serve data at DRAM-bandwidth-or-higher speeds

Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about. It was perfectly normal to purchase systems in the 90s that worked that way. A cabinet powered by a single power node, and you plugged in CPU nodes, memory nodes, I/O nodes, etc.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_7000/10000_AXP>

<comment><USER28> Right. And yet people _stopped doing that_ when 512 bit wide cache lines pulling at 30-60MHz became the norm. The interconnect just wasn't fast enough, and everything moved onto a single board and stayed there. For almost 20 years the best we've been able to do are things like Infiniband that are far slower than on-board DRAM.

Now (apparently) there's a new interconnect that can do the job. That's news, not "same old boring stuff".

<comment><USER19> > For almost 20 years the best we've been able to do are things like > Infiniband that are far slower than on-board DRAM

The SGI shared-memory big iron machines (Origin & Altix) are more recent and can have memory-only nodes. The most recent NUMA Altix was launched in 2009, I'm not sure if the later machines managed to keep the Origin 2k era goal of having as much remote memory bandwidth as local.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMAlink></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"I'm a female chef.  how my restaurant dealt with harassment from customers." - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-my-restaurant-successfully-dealt-with-harassment-from-customers/2018/03/29/3d9d00b8-221a-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html <comment><USER2> Sounds like a really useful way to deal with harassment. Hope this gains some traction here.</comment>


Show HN: allow your users to customize their printouts (invoices, reports etc.) - <AUTHOR> https://www.actualreports.com/editor?template=1357313309&referer=hackernews

<comment><AUTHOR> Web based printouts, invoices and labels are ugly, hard to design, impossible to redesign and there is no way to integrate them. We at Actual Reports developed a fully functional, easy-to-use browser based tool to change it all. As a cherry on the cake, we offer all of our functionality through the REST API, so anyone can integrate it with their existing web-application to make their customers happy.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you get your news? - <AUTHOR> I want to keep up with politics and current events, but the bias on each end feels overwhelming with more commentary than information.<p>Any reliable sources for current events you find informative? <comment><USER2> For independent media, I suggest Media Monarchy out of Portland, Oregon and James Corbett out of Japan (Canadian living abroad):

[http://mediamonarchy.com/](http://mediamonarchy.com/) [https://www.corbettreport.com/](https://www.corbettreport.com/)

I got to meet James from Media Monarchy earlier this year and he's a pretty alright guy. Neither of those sites run ads and depend on viewers to support them.

There is, of course, Hackernews. I also use Lobst.er and, sadly, Slashdot.

I gave up on Reddit after the whole editing comments (and not resigning) along with the warrant canary .. I tried Voat, but it's just a cesspool. I'll still go on once or twice a week just to look, but it's honestly pretty toxic.

</comment><comment><USER3> For war-related news I like to use Twitter. For example for the war in Syria it seems you can get much better news from reporters on location compared to the general media. The general media (to me) seems to be much more influenced by politics.

So for this purpose I followed Harald [0] and his wife Jenan Moussa [1].

\---

[0]: [https://twitter.com/HaraldDoornbos](https://twitter.com/HaraldDoornbos)

[1]: [https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa](https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Twitter as a front page of sorts. I can quickly get a sense of what's trending and initial reactions of people whose longer form content I've found insightful.

Perhaps the worst thing to do is approach a news source as being immune to bias. You need to acknowledge it's inevitability and connect the dots yourself using several data points.

Don't forget about books too.

</comment><comment><USER5> I prefer not to.

Think about it -- is your life better if you hear about new disasters or daily political twists in the world? does it make a difference whether you know about it or not?

I quit watching tv. I no longer read newspapers, whether in print or online.

Equanimity is possible.

<comment><USER5> To the down-voters: please explain what difference it makes in one's life whether one spends an hour or more each day to absorb "the news".

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, one would assume that those who attempt to make a difference through protest, advocacy or free speech tend to follow the news.

I agree if you intend to be consistently neutral on all topics, ignorance might be bliss. But there's usually something in a person's life they want to take a position on, be informed about and act on.</comment></comment></comment>


Averaged-sized woman hugging a fashion model - <AUTHOR> http://starcasm.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/plusmodelingmag2-490x735.jpg

<comment><USER2> This and the next 3 pages are the Plus Magazine feature that shoot was for. They put information about the changing size of runway models. (NSFW) [http://issuu.com/plusmodelmag/docs/plus_model_magazine_plus_...](http://issuu.com/plusmodelmag/docs/plus_model_magazine_plus_size_january_2012/61)

</comment><comment><USER3> NSFW!</comment>


Lessons From the World's Greatest Chefs - <AUTHOR> http://adamliaw.com/2010/08/12/what-ive-learned-from-the-chefs-ive-met/

<comment><USER2> I think this one misses...

Neil Perry: The business of food can be challenging and confusing, but at the end of the day it's still all about food.

Isn't it about the diners?

<comment><AUTHOR> That depends on if you see it as a craft or maximizing revenue (seating capacity, turn over, etc.). I think the gist is that you can get lost on the business side but at the end it comes down to a compelling culinary experience. At least that's how I interpret.</comment></comment>


Is It Immoral to Not Block Ads? - <AUTHOR> http://oleb.net/blog/2015/08/is-it-immoral-to-not-block-ads/

<comment><USER2> "But, the argument goes, isn't ad blocking the new stealing? " No. No. No. Advertisers are the real thieves stealing your data and personal information all for the sole purpose of targeted advertising.</comment>


Two new peanut allergy treatments are on the verge of approval - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/682bb942-4583-11e7-8d27-59b4dd6296b8 <comment><USER2> Last year I learned that 20% of adults who were diagnosed with a peanut allergy outgrow it after childhood. It is worth getting tested again if you grew up with a peanut allergy.

I had signed up for a trial of one of these drugs. Having grown up in the 80s with a severe peanut allergy that required the use of the epipen more than a few times I was keen for anything that could help, even just something that would lessen the reaction so maybe I could choke down some benadryl rather than stabbing myself with that ~2 gauge (hyperbole) epipen that now costs a fortune.

First thing they did during the trial was give me two peanut tests, skin prick and blood test. Both came back negative despite positive results decades earlier as a child.

I would have never thought to get tested again on my own. Not being allergic has made such a huge difference in my life - I was always flippant about my allergy and had developed good safeguards to protect myself. But the amount of stress is caused me was amazing to have lifted. Hope that these drugs can bring that to others (or just get tested again and maybe you're one of the lucky ones!)

<comment><USER3> More anecdata; a friends father never had a peanut allergy, then almost died. Friend said peanuts weren't part of his fathers diet for years, his father decided to have a pbnj, bam, almost died. I had never heard of adult onset peanut allergy before.

My son has a peanut allergy, I can only hope he outgrows it as well.

<comment><USER4> Sounds more like anaphylactic shock than allergy from how your describe it...

<comment><USER5> Anaphylactic shock can be an allergic reaction, it's not an either/or distinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As the parent of a child with a severe, life-threatening peanut allergy, these treatments could be a Godsend. It's hard to describe the life change that occurs when a normal food like peanuts suddenly becomes a disguised killer that could take my child away at any moment. The speed with which it strikes is stunning; according to our allergist, we have only minutes to administer EpiPens to avoid the runaway anaphylactic reaction. And we've done so. The tragic story that begins the article seems a testament to this - if a reaction isn't countered in time, it can't be.

I miss Snickers.

<comment><USER7> While I appreciate your concern and caution, I feel like the medical community has worked the public into a bit of hysteria over peanut allergies.

So few people die from peanut allergies each year it's hard to actually get good numbers on the phenomenon. And yet I have several friends who report having someone deathly allergic to peanuts in their family. It seems incongruent.

<comment><USER8> I understand your position. But (there's always a "but") I have a friend whose kid is severely allergic, their daycare didn't take it particularly seriously(!), for reasons similar to yours. So of course one day there is a PBJ near the kid, he has a crazy reaction, the staff call the parents "we're afraid to use the epipen" at which point the mom hangs up and calls 911 herself, invoke FMLA and has to hightail to the ER

<comment><USER9> "The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States federal law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons." (Wikipedia via Google)

<comment><USER8> Thanks! As a parent working in the US, the FMLA is a fact of life, but that isn't true for everyone on HN

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And the best prevention is giving small kids peanut based foods

But since some genius thought the best course of action was not exposing kids to it, we have the present situation (especially in the US)

<comment><USER11> According to my pediatrician, research shows that exposing children to peanuts earlier decreases the likelihood of a child developing a peanut allergy.

<comment><USER3> I gave my son a bite of the peanut butter cookie I was eating, when he was six months old, nearly killed him. So this "expose them early and it's not a problem" maybe true part of the time for some allergens, but certainly not all the time for all allergens.

Edit: Down voters care to comment?

<comment><USER12> Do you think peanut butter might be the problem? As in most Americans don't eat raw peanuts but processed versions which might be more concentrated and exacerbate the allergies?

<comment><USER9> Peanut butter though is just peanuts, same concentration of everything as a peeled peanut. Large companies put lots of salt and sugar in too, I can't stand the sweet ones.

Maybe there's greater availability of some protein, or something, because of the processing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another problem related to the increase in peanut allergies is the increase in bogus science surrounding the treatment of allergies in general:

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/04/bogus- allerg...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/04/bogus-allergy- tests-causing-real-harm-say-experts)

</comment><comment><USER14> Never heard about peanut allergy here in India, looks like a first world problem.

<comment><USER15> There's something called the Hygiene Hypothesis which states that _" a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (such as the gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by suppressing the natural development of the immune system"_.[1]

In other words, it could mean that excessive hygiene in childhood could be causing allergies.

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

<comment><USER16> Probably not so much excessive hygiene, but antibiotic use. Some studies already indicate higher rates of allergies in kids who as toddlers took antibiotics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Money quotes:

> Big Pharma was unmoved, believing it would be impossible to patent a > medicine that was essentially a ground-up peanut.

> [One of the companies working on the issue] has ties to the food industry, > which has a vested interest in finding treatments for allergies.

Make of this what you will.

<comment><USER6> 1\. Companies investing hundreds of millions want to ensure a return 2\. Food companies want customers to eat (and not die from) their products.

Groundbreaking, I know.

<comment><USER17> Of course it's reasonable within the system. Inward and outward reasonableness of a system are sometimes quite orthogonal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That opening story just broke my heart. As a parent of a child with a severe peanut and tree nut allergy, it has been completely drilled into me: If my child is exhibiting an allergic reaction, administer the EpiPen and call 911 for an ambulance immediately.

</comment><comment><USER19> Another interesting read: "about 80 percent of the children who received the peanut protein plus probiotic treatment were able to consume about 0.1 ounces (4 grams) of peanut protein without a reaction. What's more, when the parents of these children were interviewed about three months after the study ended, most said that their child was still able to include some peanuts in his or her diet (varying from five peanuts to 3 tablespoons of peanut butter a week)."

[http://www.livescience.com/49638-peanut-allergy-treatment- pr...](http://www.livescience.com/49638-peanut-allergy-treatment- probiotics.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Peanut allergy is not a thing in Israel. Kids here are exposed to peanuts from a very early age through consumption of a very popular peanut snack (Bamba). Apparently this prevents the onset of peanut allergy.[1] It's funny (weird? ) people are being guided to avoid foods which causes them to be more susceptible to allergy which makes a good business opportunity for some pharma company.

[1] [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-finds- pe...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-finds-peanut- consumption-infancy-prevents-peanut-allergy)

</comment><comment><USER21> If you have a baby, introduce them to watered down peanut butter or powder between 4-6 months [1]. Many healthcare groups are still advocating for parents to wait until 12 months before introducing peanut, but that is totally wrong. My friend followed this advice from Kaiser Permanente last year and his child is allergic.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/01/05/508348588/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/01/05/508348588/new-guidelines-tell-parents-when-to-introduce-babies- to-peanut-products)

</comment><comment><USER22> My niece underwent a similar treatment the past few years, but just using trace amounts of actual peanuts and then building up to larger quantities. As far as I know, there was no commercially-produced patch or capsule involved. My sister in law blogged about it here: [http://girlvspeanut.blogspot.com/](http://girlvspeanut.blogspot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> It's funny it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to test putting peanut flour on people.

Going by first principles it's probably under $100.

</comment><comment><USER24> from the article:

About 2 per cent of American children are now allergic to peanuts, a figure that has more than quadrupled since 1997.

</comment><comment><USER16> 1\. $400+ million to turn peanut fragments into a treatment. What?!?!?!

2\. I think this treatment could potentially be a lot more deadly than the problem. It's a case of unintended side effects...in this case over-confidence vs. a strict no peanuts ever policy.

Imagine a kid has had the treatment and can eat 3 or 4 peanuts without a problem...a year or two later, maybe older & wanting to show off or over- confident, the child eats 12 peanuts...has an anaphylactic attack and dies. This case vs. a child who religiously avoids all peanuts, never considers them. A possible unintended effect related to psychology that I think should be considered.

3\. Antibiotic use in infants and toddlers have been linked to a higher risk of allergies (maybe peanut allergies though I don't know if that's been studied & maybe that's why peanut allergies are a big problem in the US but not in India where most people don't take a lot of medicines)...try to avoid them if possible in small children though please listen to your doctor's advice. Antibiotics have some side effects which aren't great but on the whole have saved an incalculable number of lives.

<comment><USER25> "3\. Antibiotic use in infants and toddlers have been linked to a higher risk of allergies (maybe peanut allergies though I don't know if that's been studied & maybe that's why peanut allergies are a big problem in the US but not in India where most people don't take a lot of medicines)...try to avoid them if possible in small children though please listen to your doctor's advice. Antibiotics have some side effects which aren't great but on the whole have saved an incalculable number of lives. "

Gonna have to back that up with a whole heap of citations there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm allergic to peanuts from the USA but not from the ones from India. I'm from India but live/work in the US and just get a few pounds of peanuts every time visit India.

With milk, I'm lactose intolerant to the milk in US but not in India. Cow vs buffalo is one difference.

</comment><comment><USER27> Never drive an emergency to the hospital. Always call an ambulance.

<comment><USER28> That seems silly. I am a 3 minute drive to the ER. Vs a 3 minute drive for an ambulance here, then a 3 minute drive back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I never knew that peanut oil was used as a vaccine adjuvant.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130368/pdf/jhy...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130368/pdf/jhyg00071-0101.pdf)

<comment><USER29> Bingo.

<comment><USER30> Going to respond to your comment too just in case you don't check replies to the parent: This is wrong. There is no peanut oil in modern vaccines. Even if there were, peanut oil is usually safe because it contains no peanut allergens. Even if it was in small concentrations, it would be used in such small quantities in vaccine doses that it would be diluted past nothing. Even if all of this were true, the proposed effect would have to be proven, and there is zero evidence for this hypothesis. But none of these things are true, and instead we are left only with propaganda.</comment></comment></comment>


Stanford: Top 10 Enduring Elements of High-Technology Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://hitechstartups.wordpress.com/2007/07/18/standford-top-10-enduring-elements-of-high-technology-entrepreneurship/

<comment><USER2> It's "Stanford" buddy. Why do so many people put a D in there?</comment>


Why Mean Squared Error? - <AUTHOR> https://danijar.com/why-mean-squared-error/ <comment><USER2> I think [https://www.benkuhn.net/squared](https://www.benkuhn.net/squared) offers a much more comprehensive view of the advantages of squared error in about the same length.

Edit: turns out that article was actually featured on HN previously! See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13032210](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13032210) for the thorough accompanying discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR:

Because it gives more weight to one big error then to multiple small ones with the same sum.

We want the errors to be noise and not systematic. Noise usually has a gaussian distribution. And in a gaussian distribution multiple small values are more likely than one big one.

<comment><USER3> An example:

Imagine these two predictors:

        Reality: 1 1 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 1
        Predic1: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
        Predic2: 3 3 3 3 3 6 3 3 3 3

        SumOfErrors(Predic1) is 16
        SumOfErrors(Predic2) is 21

So Predic1 was better then Predic2? No. Because correctly predicting the one outlier shows more predictive power then staying close to the average. Therefore we use SumOfSquerrors:

        SumOfSquerrors(Predic1) is 58
        SumOfSquerrors(Predic2) is 45

This shows that Predic2 is "better" and we are happy :)

<comment><USER4> It should be 16 & 21 and 58 & 45.

<comment><USER3> True. Fixed. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The intuitively more logical "average absolute error" doesn't necessarily have a unique solution. For example: if your samples are x1 and x2, any estimator between x1 and x2 has minimum average absolute error.

Squared error doesn't have that problem (the midpoint beteren x1 and x2 uniquely minimizes it) and (very important historically) is easy to compute for the linear regression case. That's why linear regression and squared error won. The rest, I think, is gravy. If absolute error were easy to minimize, we might even have found/invented some other properties that 'show' why that is nice.</comment>


Photos taken with Google Project Glass - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111626127367496192147/albums/5745849874061604161 <comment><USER2> I find the performance/result in the picture of him reading the NYT to be interesting. I'm curious to know the exposure parameters.

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111626127367496192147/alb...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111626127367496192147/albums/5745849874061604161/5745850104204108114)</comment>


Stripe Support Problems - <AUTHOR>

I have heard great things about Stripe overall so I am very surprised about how many support problems we are having.
First, Stripe support is via email@example.com. There is no ticketing or tracking that the user can see or cite. This appears to be making it difficult for Stripe support to track or find our requests / emails.
Second, there is no phone support. Combined with the delays and difficulties getting a response from the support email, makes it very difficult.
The only real time support I found was via IRC but the Stripe developers emphasized that they are there for technical questions, not customer support. When asking them for help, they repeatedly said 'be patient'.
Finally, I cross referenced Twitter to see that Stripe deals with customers regulary complaining about difficulties in getting responses from support, often for days.
Again I know Stripe is well respected Y Combinator company, so I would expect better from them.
Anyone experienced similar issues? Anyone who can help pass this on to Stripe management? <comment><AUTHOR> Update from Stripe on problems with support requests / ticketing:

"There are, however, a couple situations that might cause issues. For example:

\-- If you write in multiple times, multiple tickets will be created \-- If the subject is changed in the middle of a conversation, a new thread will be created"

<comment><USER2> The longest I have waited is about 3 days and the shortest was about 2 hours. Although, I haven't had but 3-4 customer support issues at most though. I really don't mind the wait, but not knowing or having a way to track status is frustrating.

That update answer though is the result of the initial problem you brought up. People get frustrated when they don't hear anything and email again which appears to add to the problem. The issue with subject being changed can be solved, or at least significantly reduced, fairly easily by using a trouble ticket system that automatically adds a ticket number. The update seems to confirm your initial assumption that whatever system they are currently using is simply not working for the size of their company and the number of requests they are receiving. I was looking at their Twitter feed based on your comment and was actually amazed at how much of a problem it apparently is for them.</comment></comment>


How culture made our brains bigger - <AUTHOR> http://muthukrishna.com/cultural-brain-hypothesis-model/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised that C-sections aren't mentioned. It's pretty clear that human head size is limited by birth canal size. Once you have a substantial proportion of C-sections, you've lifted that limitation.

Also, one of the co-authors, Joe Henrich, wrote an interesting paper about (grossly simplified) culture and population size. Best reference I could find: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4128416?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4128416?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)</comment>


William Shakespeare, Playwright and Poet, Is Dead at 52 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/23/arts/shakespeare-obituary.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0 <comment><USER2> _" Shakespeare was the most commonly used spelling in his day, but by the 18th century, the version most favored was Shakespear, and only in the 20th century did Shakespeare become the standard. Interestingly, of the six surviving signatures the great man himself left behind, not one is spelled Shakespeare."_

He must have gotten it wrong. Thank goodness we've corrected it for him. Not like he was particularly good at English.

<comment><USER3> Of the six signatures, three are abbreviations, and the other three don't coincide among themselves. Besides, he did use the modern form when he wrote his name in print, just not in his signature.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare's_name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare's_name)

<comment><USER2> Oh be quiet with your logic and evidence.

 _In the Romantic and Victorian eras the spelling "Shakspere", as used in the poet's own signature, became more widely adopted in the belief that this was the most authentic version._

I guess I lean this way. (I do acknowledge what you said about the man himself spelling his own name differently, makes me wonder why...) But I have always been perplexed about different spellings and pronunciations of proper nouns. My name is Dave in every language, I assure you. Sounds like the Elizabethans were all kinds of lax with spelling!

<comment><USER4> > My name is Dave in every language

No it most likely is not. For one it is a short form of the name David, so it has already been mangled, and then like any other written word will change how it is written to attempt to show the sounds in the written rules of that language. This can lead to additions of letters or some very strange changes to the spelling of the name.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28name%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28name%29)

"Hebrew: דָּוִד, Modern David, Tiberian Dāwîḏ ... In Christian tradition, the name was adopted as Syriac: ܕܘܝܕ Dawid, Greek Δαυίδ, Latin Davidus. The Quranic spelling is داوُد Dāwūd."

So just around the Mediterranean, where the name originated, we have (in the English alphabet) Dawid, David, Davidus, Dawud. All for the same name.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't respond to any of them. Do you understand my point? I am "Dave" (or David to my mother). That's it. You can spell or pronounce it however you want, but you're speaking of or to someone other than me.

<comment><USER5> _I wouldn 't respond to any of them._

I take it you haven't lived in a country where pronouncing "Dave" is tricky. If I was to not respond to everybody who didn't pronounce my name correctly when I lived in England it would have been some very lonely and infuriating years. At the end of the day I accepted that the exact pronunciation of my name wasn't that important as long as everybody understood who we where talking about.

<comment><USER2> I've travelled to plenty (I used to work for a large multinational and travelled to all parts of the world) and people I interacted with across many disparate cultures made the effort to pronounce my name as I was introduced (or introduced myself) to them. I also made every effort to pronounce their names as they pronounced them. Accents being what they are, it wasn't always perfect, but they never decided to call me a local translation of "Dave."

But again, I think we should call Italy "Italia" because that's how Italians spell and pronounce it. When I ask a local something about Padua and they look at me confused until I ask them about Padova, we should all be making the effort to call it "Padova."

<comment><USER5> _they never decided to call me a local translation of "Dave."_

I had a German friend in England called "Peter" and everyone always called him the English pronunciation of "Peter" no matter how he introduced himself. Maybe it's different with an English name in a non-english speaking country, since the 'correct' pronunciation is often known thanks to TV and movies.

<comment><USER2> That would have been considered disrespectful in my company, and to me personally. That said, I spent some time in Germany working with Germans, but we would only call someone "Peter" if he (or heck, she) asked to be directly.

I suppose this boils down to identity for me, having had hours to reflect on this conversation now. My name is a huge part of my identity. How it can be changed in any way without my consent is bizarre to me (respect to the untold number of immigrants that had their names changed at Ellis Island and elsewhere on a whim).

In any case, yeah, unless he asked to be called Peter, WTF?

<comment><USER5> _That would have been considered disrespectful in my company, and to me personally_

Me, I quickly realized it was about picking my battles. I could fight every day I lived in England to get people to pronounce it correctly or I could accept a reasonable best effort approximation and move on with my life. I found that most expats/immigrants with strange names took the same approach. These days when I'm in England or North America I've even started to pronounce my own name slightly wrong to speed up the whole process. Hell some people I know even preemptively changed their names to something easier to save everybody the effort.

Mispronunciations where (almost) never due to malice and my friends converged on a good pronunciation fairly quickly, and that was good enough for me. Spending a few years of your youth with most people getting you name wrong quickly desensitizes you to such minor details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In an intersection of recent topics in HN, I highly recommend the Globe's 2012 rendition of _Twelfth Night_ , in which Stephen Fry plays Malvolio. I was never so much a fan of his as most seem to be around here, but his performance was frankly good, if somewhat similar to the character from _Blackadder II_. As for the rest of the cast, they range from solid to excellent.

<comment><USER6> Cheers for that. I stumbled across their online player recently, but was a bit overwhelmed. Might give your suggestion a go:

[https://globeplayer.tv/videos/twelfth- night](https://globeplayer.tv/videos/twelfth-night)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sadly (?) the only memories I have of Shakespeare are the forced readings in my sophomore (Julius Caesar) and junior (King Lear) years in high school, both of which I hated and for which Cliff's Notes were my crutch to get through.

<comment><USER8> I thought it was illegal not to have read Hamlet by 21?

Seriously though, give it another try. Shakespeare's wide-ranging enough that there's likely to be _something_ to your taste. And with his comedies, especially, I'd recommend watching Shakespeare and not reading him- that's how his plays were meant to be experienced. Although it's nice to read an annotated version and discover all the (often dirty) jokes you didn't get.

Added benefit to reading Shakespeare: you'll understand about 40% more literary allusions (read the Bible, Ovid, Homer, and Virgil to get the rest).

<comment><USER9> As someone new to Shakespeare, you should definitely start out by watching performances, rather than reading scripts. Until you've absorbed the rhythm and the literary style, it can be very difficult to follow their plots just from a cold reading of the text; particularly for the histories. (And while King Lear is classed as a tragedy, I've personally always felt that it reads more like one of the histories)

If you do start reading the scripts for pleasure (which totally is not required!), then it's probably a good idea to start with one which you've seen performed, just to let your brain adapt itself to seeing the words in written form, and to get used to looking back and forth between the text and the annotations, without needing to worry about losing the plot.

<comment><USER10> Over the years I've seen (heard) a lot of Shakespeare plays, and I mostly agree with you. Yes, just reading the play is inadequate because the written form is so bare. Attending a live performance is a much better experience. The dialog is meant to be spoken and to be heard.

What I do recommend, and is my own practice, is reading the play _before_ going to the performance. We are especially blessed to read Shakespeare today, the internet is so very helpful. So many versions of every Shakespeare play, most have annotations about Elizabethan language that help the reader make sense of it.

Reading AOT makes it much easier to follow what's happening on stage. Even small local productions can be done well, Shakespearean plays were always meant as entertainment, go and enjoy!

I think you are right about the classification of the plays, Comedy, Tragedy, etc, don't necessarily fit our modern sensibilities. In Shakespeare's time, "Merchant of Venice" was called a "comedy", but in our era we'd say it's more tragic than not. I'd agree familiarity with the play is more important than its categorization.

<comment><USER9> It's been a long time since I was in that position; almost none of the plays are new to me at this stage. (I'll confess, though, that I've neither seen nor read Coriolanus, Cymbaline, or Timon of Athens. Or, for that matter, any of the Apocrypha) For me personally, I would absolutely do exactly the same as you; if I was going to attend a production of any of those plays which I've not yet experienced, I would read the script, first.

But for someone who isn't yet accustomed to the language, I expect that it would be a hard slog, getting through the texts without an actor's interpretation to help you along.

<comment><USER10> > But for someone who isn't yet accustomed to the language, I expect that it > would be a hard slog, getting through the texts without an actor's > interpretation to help you along.

That's the beauty of the web. The online transcripts of the plays provide many explanations of the language and its cultural context, which makes the dialog so much more understandable to people coming to it the first time.

Without doing this it will be difficult for a beginner to understand what the actors are saying or what's happening on stage. Frankly, I can have trouble with plays I've seen only once before or haven't seen in a long time, I figure it won't hurt to read it before seeing it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "To be or not to be," said Hamlet, prince of Denmark, "that is the > question." Yesterday, Hamlet's creator was; today, he is not. Of that there > is no question.

OK, so I'm moved to quote Samuel Butler:

> To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he > can never know that he is dead.

I got that (as I recall) from Peter Watts' _Echopraxia_.

It's rather comforting, because I can always imagine that I will awaken ;)

<comment><USER12> When I wake up and my first thought is "I'm alive!" It's actually going to be a good day.

<comment><USER11> Right. And when my first thought is "WTF?", it helps to think "At least I'm alive!" ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> On exactly the same date, Miguel de Cervantes, Novelist and Poet, is dead at 68.

</comment><comment><USER14> What a wretched year! Bowie, Rickman, Prince and now Shakespeare too?! Say it ain't so. Taken too soon. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER15> You know why I love Shakespeare? Because only thoughtful minds can understand his writings. Ones that can bear to get out of their technology-infested worlds and actually focus on a story that has and can keep your attention, when words meant more than simple communication.

Promises were called oaths and there were such things as enduring love, faithfulness, and trust, yet, there were still scandals and mistakes. But it was all overcome in a story that few today would venture to understand in its original context.

It takes little intelligence to comprehend what a text means, but in poetry and stories we find beautiful manifestations of every moral and in these I think we find the vulnerability of this plague we call humanity.

</comment><comment><USER16>
        Miss Hathaway had as a lover
        That infamous son of a glover
          Whatever Will said
          In their second-best bed
        She edited cover to cover

A sort of rambling article from NYT whose most notable feature was a beautiful sidenote style and the lack of a scrollbar. For those interested in Shakespeare and new media, here's a thing I've been working on [http://gavinpc.com/project_willshake.pdf](http://gavinpc.com/project_willshake.pdf)

<comment><USER17> Your PDF is thought-provoking, as was the NYT article.

<comment><USER16> Thank you. That means a lot to me.

I have worked on that project mostly in secret for over ten years, and I had resolved that yesterday had to be a release date of some kind. So yeah, I hadn't slept, and I needlessly (and foolishly) criticized the OP whose thread I'd recklessly hijacked for self-promotional purposes, hoping that a topical limerick from my college days would buy me a little good will.

I should have done a Show HN instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shakespeare

[https://cardiffshakespeare.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/william-...](https://cardiffshakespeare.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/william- shakespeare-dramen-und-apokryphen/)

[http://www.shak-stat.engsem.uni-hannover.de/](http://www.shak- stat.engsem.uni-hannover.de/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Am I the only one who finds the tense in the title a bit confusing? For a moment I was wondering whether he was actually born in 1964...

<comment><USER20> The entire article is written in present tense, as if it's a current news event; makes for a more interesting read. I don't think they're too concerned about people thinking William Shakespeare just now died.

<comment><USER21> Not necessarily. Anne Hathaway, Bill Shakespeare's wife and star of The Dark Knight Rises, was born in 1982. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> First Prince now Shakespeare?!

</comment><comment><USER23> This is wonderfully sly and humorous.

</comment><comment><USER24> Moderators, can you append [1616] to the title? This is old news.

<comment><USER25> On that note, it's pretty impressive that the NY Times already had online presence back then. This was way before Geocities and Lycos.

<comment><USER26> And way before New York, even. New Amsterdam was renamed to New York only after 1664.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't get it

<comment><USER28> I agree in that I'm wondering if this is related to Prince dying?

<comment><USER20> I'm guessing it's by chance, since it's the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, so presumably this was planned.</comment></comment></comment>


VR the biggest loser this holiday? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-29-vr-the-biggest-loser-this-holiday <comment><USER2> so a predicted 4 million VR headsets sold in 2016? That's more than I would expect from a 'loser.'</comment>


A simulation of the insurance industry: The problem of risk model homogeneity - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05954 <comment><USER2> Having worked in the finance industry developing risk models for clearing houses, I can safely say that the problem is a lot worse than the authors make it out to be.

Regulators across the globe, practically all of whom are wholly ignorant of what they regulate, demand implementations of their tabular formulas which are often highly specific rather than generalized and so become obsolete as quickly as people find gray spots in the formulations and ways to circumvent the intentions of the regulation. Basic it reads more like law than math and it doesn't work.

That means all costs go to implementing these sub-par models leaving no room for innovation.

In the end, common people will have to foot the bill and regulations will get even worse. Vicious cycle.

<comment><USER3> Agree about the regulators' (lack of) abilities.

Catastrophe risk models, however, shouldn't be be lumped together with the types of financial engineering/quant models used in capital markets. The latter are generally very theoretical, based on pretty shallow theory and little data. Academia has been spewing out a lot of quant finance models which have little bearing on real market dynamics.

Cat risk models, however, are generally more data-driven and rich in terms of science and engineering I.e. understanding of underlying hazard mechanisms. But, like any model, they still are only approximations of reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If the entire industry is exposed to the same risk and all get blown out then everyone gets a bailout or a pass on paying. That's a feature not a bug

<comment><USER5> Exactly, these are companies in business to make a profit not to provide a societal benefit. They all benefit from regulation of margins and common model/pricing, "everybody wins" except the customers.

<comment><USER3> Without the insurance and reinsurance industry, we'd be a lot worse off.

<comment><USER5> Most of the world doesn't have a Health Insurance industry (of US size and cost) and they have better outcomes with lower pricing. That doesn't mean there isn't an insurance industry in those places, it's just smaller, more properly regulated, and less profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Havn't read the paper in detail yet, but the authors' understanding of the property catastrophe market is rather simplistic. I've traded this risk as an investor for fifteen years and have used the risk models that are used by all firms in the market. Yes, there are a handful of cat risk model vendors, but their numbers are not constrained by the need for certification.

The fact is these risk models are quite sophisticated and all make use of pretty much all the science, engineering and data available with respect to the hazards in question. They still are limited in their ability to accurately estimate risk and this is taken into account when pricing transactions.

Furthermore, while all firms have access to the same models, many (who employ scientists and engineers) will apply tweaks based on their evaluation of model weaknesses/limitations. Hence, there is an inherent level of diversification in terms of how the models are used to price risk. This is what makes a market.

The objective of catastrophe risk modeling is to estimate, long-term risk as accurately as possible, while knowing full well that there remains a lot of uncertainty.

The regulators, rating agencies and other market watchers are actually ill- equipped to assess catastrophe model risk.

</comment><comment><USER6> Speaking of model risk: the model code for this paper has no tests that I could identify.

[https://github.com/INET-Complexity/isle](https://github.com/INET- Complexity/isle)

<comment><USER7> It is not uncommon for agent based models to lack on the side of good engineering practices. Given that the majority of these softwares are programmed to use and throw.

I did research in that field for about 7 years and at that time the focus was mainly on the paper that was to be published.. it is even a win to have the source available nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is too few models the issue? Wouldn't the problem be that the existing models arent good enough? Its not clear to me how an increased diversity in models addresses the problem - at the end if the day a form has to pick one to make any particular decision. If each firm is using a different model in the name of diversity, then while the few firms with more accurate models potentially do well the subpar models will underperform in general and probably increase the overall risk level of the industry. Is there something I'm overlooking from my skin through the article here?

<comment><USER9> No model is going to be perfect and given that, you want errors that models make to be as uncorrelated as possible.

In the extreme case, if all firms use a single model that underestimates the risk of an event then that event occurring poses a threat to the entire industry.

With more models, each making different errors, only parts of the industry are exposed to each error. The more models, the smaller the number of affected firms and with reinsurance between firms the risk to the whole industry is much smaller.

<comment><USER10> The basic question is whether the reinsurance companies are properly capitalized given the homogeneity of risk taken on by the insurance companies they cover.

There can be a lot of modeling homogeneity without lots of unanticipated risk (e.g., natural disasters in disparate geographic regions).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This entire paper and no reference to Nassim Taleb? They even use his language.

Any fans of Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan, etc.?

One of his main ideas, that he has followed up with Mathematics, is fragility to model error in the presence of fat-tails.

If you're interested in this kind of stuff I'd highly recommend his books.

Anyone with math chops beyond mine checked out his papers? I don't understand enough of them to endorse or critique.

<comment><USER12> That's possibly because Taleb does not have a good reputation among most experienced professionals (in my circle in the hedge fund industry). He talked a lot of sense, but then failed to put most of it into practice. In other words, he isn't earning money from what he preaches, he earns money from the preaching.

It's all nice and dandy to say "you have to be anti-fragile, expect the unexpected, yadda yadda yadda...", but putting it into practice is extremely difficult. I don't know of a single institution who did so with an audited track record. Sure, there are (were) many tail event specialized funds, but these will not be providing regular income as one would expect from most funds. Rather, they'll tend to constantly bleed money (basically an insurance premium), and then pay out larger sums when the "midden hits the windmill".

Even looking at something like 2008, it is often cheaper to just accept the occasional drawdown and weather the storm rather than buy protection against it, because of the amount of headwind your investment will face in terms of the insurance premiums.

<comment><USER13> Taleb one day got into an all out drop down twitter war with my friend Andrew Shaffer, author of books like "50 shames of earl grey" "how to survive a sharknado" etc. His personal unhinged behavior makes everyone suspect of his professional work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've wanted to see similar simulations but for the housing market. Historically housing rental prices didn't exceed renters income and yet times of rapid housing inflation (2006-2008) outpaced any income gains. Of course those reasons are known, and the subsequent housing price fall set off a cascading effect. Recent housing increases outside of the bay seem eerily similar to the previous bubble, but I haven't seen any good analytical framework to determine if it's sustainable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Should the insurance just find a way to exclude massive, correlated events? That might give buyers a more reasonable expectation of covered losses, given that coverage in such an event is smoke and mirrors anyway. It's all well and good to have liability insurance, since presumably one's own liability is fairly uncorrelated with other people's liability. Flood insurance, financial instrument insurance, etc. is more questionable to me.

<comment><USER16> That is what the reinsurance market is for. Natural disasters are when insurance is most needed, to rebuild a whole community. Disasters are locally correlated, but generally not globally correlated. The global insurance market can handle them just fine, and in fact are a great example of a place where insurance is needed - large, unpredictable, rare, and too expensive to handle by yourself. That is just the same as individual insurance, just at a larger scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you're on a phone, here's an HTML version of the paper: [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1907.05954/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1907.05954/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see simulations for Lloyds of London,where underwriters often insure each other or the the entire trail of who's responsible for what gets very tricky.

<comment><USER3> Check out the 'LMX spiral' ..

<comment><USER18> This is what I was thinking about but didn't it even had a name..</comment></comment></comment>


The lugubrious decline of the bookstore - <AUTHOR> http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/84531/end-bookstores-amazon-e-book-borders?passthru=YTI3MzgwYmE5M2JlY2ZkM2Q2Y2ZjOWYxMDRmNGFkZDg

<comment><USER2> The trouble is that, for the most part, bookstores make a selection that is market-driven, not driven by any higher purposes. To do anything else is to risk going out of business.

A small independent bookstore downtown went out of business recently and is being reconstituted as a co-op. Fundamentally, they don't have any books I want, because most of what I want to read is specialized and technical. When it comes to light reading, there's a vast "back catalog" of used books that may or may not be in print, and I'd rather pick and choose from that than buy new books. I'm particularly fond of mass market paperbacks which used to be used for serious books such as editions of Shakespeare and Issac Asimov anthologies of essays about science that are convenient to carry in a pocket or read on the bus. The new book market refuses to produce these today, giving us a choice between oversized trade paperbacks where the binding frequently cracks and overpriced hardcovers. No wonder people are flocking to e-books.

The Borders in my mall is in the process of liquidation and I'm even more turned off by the selection there. Borders has a huge stock of 'blotting paper' editions that are big books with big print designed for (horizontally) big people who live in big houses. My house isn't tiny, but I'm very sensitive to the number of cubic inches that all of my possessions take up. Sure, books are completely defeated by flash memory in that department, but I like the physical presence of books -- if they're not oversized editions for oversized Americans.</comment>


Ask HN: Free Speech Web Hosting - <AUTHOR> Wanting to find a host that protects freedom of speech, allows artistic nudity, and offers good customer service. Hopefully a server that has pings < 100ms to United States if their hosting is "offshore." I'm currently using Netlify and Github to host my sites, but they don't allow any nudity, and I can't resell hosting. Those static sites have fast load times, but I'm trying to get into web-hosting and want to work with clients that have "objectionable material."
Namecheap and many other shared hosts prohibit all kinds of nudity; whether it's art or porn doesn't matter to them. Ideally, a host would allow any legal sexual content, so that there isn't a review process to fight if my artwork is flagged as pornographic.
Appreciate any ideas. Something fast that respects freedom and is hopefully less than $50/year. <comment><USER2> I wouldn't bother with shared hosting solution, adult content aside, most of them suck and have terrible performance. I'd look into a dedicated cloud server. Both Linode and Digital Ocean have plans starting at $5/month. UpCloud also has a $5/month plan and are based in Finland. Might be a good option for a cheap overseas provider.

<comment><USER3> Both Linode and DO have vague AUP that they can cite if someone complains and they choose to de-platform you.</comment></comment>