Simplicity awakes - <AUTHOR> http://jehanne.io/2018/11/15/simplicity-awakes.html <comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this suffer from a race condition? What if a process requests an awake, but then gets preempted before doing the blocking system call, and then gets awakened in response to its awake request (rather than because of normal scheduling)? Its awake request was already serviced, so if it performs a blocking syscall, it will wait indefinitely.

Alternatively, if the awake request is only done when a blocking syscall is done, doesn't it then suffer from the problem that a random buggy library function could request an awake without then doing a blocking syscall (due to whatever logic bug), so then when the process does a blocking syscall that it expects to block indefinitely, it instead gets a syscall with a timeout?

Wouldn't it be better for the awake syscall to take another syscall as a parameter (pretty simple to do in assembly and should be provided as a C library wrapper), in order to guarantee atomicity?

<comment><USER3> > Wouldn't it be better for the awake syscall to take another syscall as a > parameter (pretty simple to do in assembly and should be provided as a C > library wrapper), in order to guarantee atomicity?

Plus in this case the awake call could be named something more intuitive (like syscall_with_timeout or whatever).

<comment><USER4> > Plus in this case the awake call could be named something more intuitive

This is an interesting objection.

I find awake/awakened/forgivewkp intuitive names, but I'm not a native English speaker.

I'm not going to add the syscall parameter (I considered and discarded that option during the analysis), but I welcome suggestions for a better naming.

<comment><USER3> Awake in itself is intuitive in some contexts, but it doesn't seem to describe the semantics you want in this case. First of all it's not obvious that it's related to syscalls. Secondly it doesn't really mean the process is guaranteed to awake after the specified time - if the syscall doesn't block or finishes faster, the process might well stay sleeping at the alleged awaking time. Someone who doesn't know all the details will easily get the wrong idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the implementation to be simple than the interface. Simplicity is the most important consideration in a design." \- [http://jehanne.io](http://jehanne.io)

I've been looking for examples of good comments about simplicity to help focus my own view of simple. I love the quote above.

<comment><USER6> The quote is, of course, originally from Richard P. Gabriel's 1991 essay (linked from this blog post). It's the first characteristic of "worse-is- better".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> " _In a way the so called "New Jersey style" was a rush for a minimum viable product able to minimize the time-to-market and to gain the first mover advantage._ "

Another way of looking at it is that it is an attempt to get something into existence, rather than waiting years for perfection and ending up with nothing. To paraphrase performance work, something is infinitely better than nothing.

I am somewhat interested in the comment, " _(the mindful reader will notice that alarm is still waiting to be moved to user space… the fact is that it's too boring of a task!)_ " I originally interpreted it as meaning userspace could interrupt the blocking call, but I see its actually a filesystem that interacts with kernel space.

        fd = create("/dev/alarms/new", ~0, pair_ints(getpid(), ms))

Been a long time since I have looked at Plan 9; create has some interesting arguments.

<comment><USER8> > Another way of looking at it is that it is an attempt to get something into > existence, rather than waiting years for perfection and ending up with > nothing.

Much as I liked Multics, this is what happened to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > [asymptotic graph trending towards doom]

> How many programs are you running right now? :-D

I don't even know, there are probably thousands of processes running right now, totaling hundreds of millions of lines of code.

And it all works _perfectly fine_ , especially as long as I don't update anything. I just don't do the things that don't work. The things that don't work, they generally don't work 100% of the time. The things that _do_ work, they generally work 100% of the time. Some software might fail randomly and frequently, in which case I might not use it either, unless failure is easily recovered from (which is often the case).

I don't need a system that is really simple and (as a consequence) super- reliable. I need a system that _runs my software_ and that is fault-tolerant. After all, even entirely correct software cannot prevent hardware faults (which do occur).

<comment><USER4> > The things that don't work, they generally don't work 100% of the time. The > things that do work, they generally work 100% of the time.

If you exclude the guns that kill, guns are safe.

If you exclude all security vulnerabilities of the last decade, all mainstream software is secure.

> I don't need a system that is really simple and (as a consequence) super- > reliable.

I think you are overlooking how pervasive is computing in your life.

But I can see how a user that have no programming experience could refuse to accept the sad state of today computing.

> After all, even entirely correct software cannot prevent hardware faults > (which do occur).

You are misreading the intent here: as artifacts built from fallible humans, no software can be perfect.

But if you don't even try to keep complexity low, it will soon become unmanageable and expensive.

Still, as Gabriel said in his essays, you are right that users can be manipulated to accept and even pay for crap.

It's called marketing.

But I don't like it.

<comment><USER9> > If you exclude the guns that kill, guns are safe.

There are indeed guns which are ridiculously unsafe to use and if you just count all guns in the world and average their failure rates, then "on average" guns are less safe. The kind of gun you can legally buy, properly handled, is quite safe - as far as guns go anyway.

The point I am making is that if you just average stuff out (like with the graph) it does not reflect reality. The computers systems that work in reality have very high reliability. Those that don't work > 99% of the time are simply not deployed.

> If you exclude all security vulnerabilities of the last decade, all > mainstream software is secure.

All mainstream software is "secure enough", just like all mainstream software is "reliable enough". Otherwise, we obviously couldn't use mainstream software, we would all be forced to use provably correct software that is far more expensive to develop. In practice, the biggest security problem sits at the other end of the screen and no piece of software can fix it.

> I think you are overlooking how pervasive is computing in your life.

> But I can see how a user that have no programming experience could refuse to > accept the sad state of today computing.

Believe it or not, I'm an experienced programmer and that has taught me pragmatism, above all things. I could complain about the state of computing all day, but the reality is that _it works_. It really does. You just have to admit that. Could it be better _in practice_? Maybe, maybe not. There's only so much effort in the world that can be spent on improving software and _actually deploying it_ (which is the difficult part when comes to new software).

> You are misreading the intent here: as artifacts built from fallible humans, > no software can be perfect.

> But if you don't even try to keep complexity low, it will soon become > unmanageable and expensive.

I'm not arguing against that, I'm arguing against what that particular graph insinuates. The idea that nothing works anymore when the sum of all unreliable parts creates a completely unreliable result. That doesn't happen in practice with the actual operating systems (and other systems) that we use.

Keeping things simple is of course desirable, but it's also not easy at all and it requires a great level of skill and care. We don't have that kind of skill to work with, at least not for the vast majority of software out there.

> Still, as Gabriel said in his essays, you are right that users can be > manipulated to accept and even pay for crap.

> It's called marketing.

That's just naive. It's not like users always have a _choice_ between expertly crafted high quality software and crap software, but then they choose crap because of _marketing_. They have a choice between Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, both of which are crap. They pay for Microsoft Office because it works better with what everyone already uses (Microsoft Office) or they choose LibreOffice to _save money_. That's just one example, but there are countless others.

<comment><USER4> > I'm arguing against what that particular graph insinuates. The idea that > nothing works anymore when the sum of all unreliable parts creates a > completely unreliable result.

No.

That graph shows the probability of the whole system working correctly (aka as the user expect) if each component is 99% correct.

I confirm this.

But I cannot say how severe is the bug you will face. I never said "nothing work anymore".

> That doesn't happen in practice with the actual operating systems (and other > systems) that we use.

You overlook the failures.

Each big or small failure count in that graph.

> They have a choice between Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, both of which > are crap.

Sorry I explained me badly.

Gabriel says this in a more diplomatic way: "users have already been conditioned to accept worse than the right thing".

"Conditioned" aka manipulated aka marketing.

I meant that by only proposing crap against crap you promote crap.

<comment><USER9> > That graph shows the probability of the whole system working correctly (aka > as the user expect) if each component is 99% correct.

Yes, it _shows_ that. But what's the _point_ of showing it? It _insinuates_ is that there is a problem here. There isn't. Real systems have 99%+ uptime, or they aren't deployed. With the software that we actually use, we're to the far left of that graph, not anywhere near the right.

> You overlook the failures. Each big or small failure count in that graph.

Eh, not really. It's not statistics based on real data, it's a hypothesis. No real-world failure shows up in it. Again, there are a hundreds if not thousands of processes running on your average Linux box, but failure rates are astonishingly low. Yet, Linux is the total opposite of "the right thing".

I don't see you arguing with that, because _you can 't argue with it_. It's the facts! _Not_ doing "the right thing" works. _Doing_ "the right thing" generally doesn't, because that software never ships on time. All the beautiful operating systems dreamed up inside of ivory towers never took the market. It's not because of "marketing" or "conditioning", but because that software is not actually better for the end user. It lacks features, it's more expensive, it's late. It then doesn't matter if it's _simple_.

<comment><USER4> > But what's the point of showing it?

To reason about reliability and its impact on costs.

> Real systems have 99%+ uptime, or they aren't deployed.

Uptime is not correctness.

> failure rates are astonishingly low [...] > I don't see you arguing with > that, because you can't argue with it. It's the facts!

No, it's your __perception __.

 _These_ are facts:

\- [https://www.cvedetails.com/](https://www.cvedetails.com/)

\- [https://www.debian.org/Bugs/](https://www.debian.org/Bugs/)

\- [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/query.cgi](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/query.cgi)

\- [https://bugzilla.kernel.org/describecomponents.cgi](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/describecomponents.cgi)

\- [https://bugzilla.gnome.org/query.cgi](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/query.cgi)

\- [https://bugs.kde.org/describecomponents.cgi](https://bugs.kde.org/describecomponents.cgi)

\- [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/describecomponents.cgi](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/describecomponents.cgi)

\- [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list)

do a search in any of these issue tracker and you will be overwhelmed with facts.

Now, I agree that, with huge efforts and costs, over decades many developers and companies managed to go beyond the 99% correctness on __some __projects.

But with simpler systems and designs, the __cost __of reaching such level of quality (that most of software do not even aim to reach) would be a tiny fraction.

> Not doing "the right thing" works. Doing "the right thing" generally doesn't

I wonder if you read the article at all.

I proposed a third style: _simplex sigillum veri_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Autism is under-diagnosed in women - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/women_late_diagnosis_autism <comment><USER2> Discussed several months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679469).

</comment><comment><USER3> Wikipedia states that the cause of different rates of diagnosis in men and women is not a settled question: "Boys are at higher risk for ASD than girls. The sex ratio averages 4.3:1 and is greatly modified by cognitive impairment: it may be close to 2:1 with intellectual disability and more than 5.5:1 without. Several theories about the higher prevalence in males have been investigated, but the cause of the difference is unconfirmed; one theory is that females are underdiagnosed."

I suppose if one holds the view that men and women are mentally identical on average, it would lead one to the conclusion that the gender disparity in diagnosis rates is due to social factors (or some kind of medical discrimination).

<comment><USER4> Surely a contributing factor must be it has been well-established women with aspergers are much less likely to experience problems from it. we all know how guys with aspergers end up when they are not exceptionally talented. that is not as true for girls and women with aspergers. Not that they do not experience problems, but they will have friends, partners, children eventually. because autism diagnosis relies on social problems, it is much harder to diagnose in them.

<comment><USER5> Well established where, outside of the minds of autistic men? Everything I've ever seen has shown that women on the spectrum are evaluated about twice as negatively on measures of approachability/awkwardness by their peers [1], are more likely to commit suicide[2] (even though women in the general population are less likely to), less likely to have friendships after age 10 [3], and less likely to get married [4]. There seems to be a period in early childhood where women are either better at masking or not disruptive enough to be noticed, but the long-term outcomes are worse on every measure.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/)

[2] [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge- core/c...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge- core/content/view/4C9260DB64DFC29AF945D32D1C15E8F2/S0007125000279385a.pdf/premature_mortality_in_autism_spectrum_disorder.pdf)

[3] [http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-97924-000](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-97924-000)

[4] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-007-0441-x](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-007-0441-x)

<comment><USER6> A related fact, though I don't have a citation at hand, is that masking behaviors are often associated with worse mental health and overall outcomes. Third-parties might perceive an autistic person who masks their behaviors as "higher-functioning", but it's often bad for the individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yep, often misdiagnosed as BPD or one of the Cluster B's, come to find out Asperger's is on the same spectrum. One of the most confounding situations I've ever experienced.

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

<comment><USER8> A common theme seems to be the feedback loop of attention from other people - from being unable to handle, to not being able to perceive, to seeking too much.

<comment><USER7> One of the common traits is an inability to access higher-order cognitive functions such as empathy and being unaware of their inability to do so. This often means they're in a chronic state of anxiety and confusion because the intentions of others make no sense. Conflating empathy for low affect feelings of sympathy while assuming an identity of the most empathetic and most sympathetic person in the world, maybe even thinking they're HSP. Here's one way you can find out and discover to what extent that's factoring into the mix.

Next time you find yourself in a situation where they are behaving contrary to what you would expect, don't assume malice. Make sure you carefully and clearly articulate your feelings and perspective, have them voice their concerns, and then ask them to rearticulate what you just said. Ask them to put into their own words what _you_ are thinking and feeling, to rearticulate what your perspective is and why. Ask them to explain the cause and effect of their actions. And then shut up and let them answer, see what happens. Pay close attention to how they respond, to what extent they can empathise even if it's just simply repeating back what you said. You both may be shocked -- them by the question, you by the response -- but it'll be an enlightening experience. And after a time or two of that, at least you'll know where you are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The title here is editorialised and the article provides no evidence to back it up.

<comment><USER10> If you or anyone can suggest a more accurate and neutral title, preferably using representative language from the article, we can change it again.

<comment><USER8> How about "Anecdotes from adult women who were recently diagnosed with Autism"?

<comment><USER10> "Anecdotes" has a pejorative connotation these days.

<comment><USER8> "Anec-datum aren't data" again?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title is funny but oh man, why trolling so hard.</comment>


An Updated Lead-Crime Roundup (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-roundup-for-2018/ <comment><USER2> Remember the person who discovered how bad the lead pollution was in the world from leaded gasoline while dating the age of the planet, Clair Cameron Patterson: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson)

He spent nearly twenty years fighting for lead to be removed from gasoline.

<comment><USER3> Too bad its still used by the millions of barrels in Aviation. Why do we still allow tetra-ethyl lead outside antique aircraft?

<comment><USER4> Mostly limited to pistol-powered aircraft that use 100LL, and not anything with a turbine / jet engine (which uses diesel-like Jet-A fuel (kerosene family)).

The FAA is working on it, but it seems it's not a simple problem:

* [https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/october/03...](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/october/03/faa-sees-mid-2020-completion-of-unleaded-avgas-project)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An observation: the baby boomers is one of the largest demographic cohorts out there, and they were exposed to lead a lot. So I'm wondering if the way politics was run from the 1980s onward has anything to do with impaired "executive functions that allow people to understand the consequences of their actions".

<comment><USER5> Probably, although Boomers are getting up in years and many of the most heavily impacted by lead most likely are not involved in politics either due to death, apathy, or incarceration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't know that countries in the Middle East stopped using leaded gasoline much later (90s). This short post linked from the article has interesting speculation: [https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction- te...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction-terrorism- middle-east-will-decline-half-between-2020-and-2040/)

</comment><comment><USER7> A staggering yet rather unfashionable set of studies supporting the compelling hypothesis that lead exposure in childhood contributes to an increase in violent crime later.

One gets the sense that laying blame for specific modern social issues on such external, physical (historical) forces is an uphill struggle; by not providing enough actionable insight for today, the results are too abstract and seemingly inapplicable for us to learn much from them.

Yet the evidence is overwhelming. More, it highlights the difficulty faced in acknowledging and reducing the impact of as-yet-unrecognisably dangerous substances and technologies today.

</comment><comment><USER8> >It's important to emphasize that the lead-crime hypothesis doesn't claim that lead is solely responsible for crime. It primarily explains only one thing: the huge rise in crime of the 70s and 80s and the equally huge—and completely unexpected—decline in crime of the 90s and aughts.</comment>


Ask HN: Healthcare or energy startup? - <AUTHOR> Yes, both terms are vague, but that's kind of the point.<p>Which industry would you choose to start a business in and why? <comment><USER2> Healthcare still has low hanging fruit, although you have to deal with a lot of bullshit. In fact, the bullshit is why there is still low hanging fruit.

I do not think there is low hanging fruit in energy. The astonishing story is just how long it takes for things to develop: i.e. shale gas was known about in the 1970s, the Molten Salt Reactor was expected to take 30 years to get to market in the 1970s if it was funded (and I got boos at a Thorium conference a few years ago when I took their timeline and reset it to the present.) The first hot dry rock geothermal well was drilled in... the 1970s, and they are just talking about the second now, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have examples of the low hanging fruit that you're referring to?

From an software engineering perspective, which do you think provides more interesting challenges?

<comment><USER2> One basic one is that doing the little things right consistently can save a lot of money.

For instance, if a diabetic has their blood sugar monitored, gets a good regimen of medication, and does what they can in terms of lifestyle, they can control their condition.

If they don't control it, then they need expensive interventions such as amputations.

Another one is inhaled corticosteroids for asthma. The price of a steroid inhaler is eye-popping ($200 a month) but the cost of a hospital visit for an asthma exacerabation is upwards of $8000 a month.

Now many of the problems are structural. Under a "fee for service" model, it is not as profitable to give basic preventative care than it is to do expensive exacerbation. The "Medicare Advantage" programs are mostly a scam (you see those ads on TV at the end of the year which look like something you need to keep grandma away from) but there has been some success where a medical group gets $X a year to treat a person with a chronic condition which is a great business if they manage patients well.

In general doctors are not happy with the software they work with, they aren't happy dealing with insurance companies, getting paid, etc. There is all kinds of talk about "curing cancer", etc. but very little talk about the primary care physician who provides front line treatment for everything from blood pressure to mental health issues.

Go talk to a doc and see what bugs them...</comment></comment></comment>


Why Crash Reporting Matters on Apps - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I decided to write a short post about crash reporting, if you don't use any of these I recommend crashlytics :) https://medium.com/@AimRocket/creating-better-apps-crashlytics-4c28d122c9b4 <comment><USER2> Crashlytics is now bundled with Fabric suit from Twitter. Its working well for us. I missed the custom logging feature in the Analytics, but that would evolve with time I guess.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure, I'd like to give it a try... But it doesn't have a Windows Phone (WinRT) API...

</comment><comment><USER4> Useful stuff. I've been looking into the best way to monitor crashes on the app I'm working on.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is, what I like about crashlytics it's that it also comes with a distribution platform and engagement analytics</comment></comment>


The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007 <comment><AUTHOR> Better title from one of the r/Judaism posters:

The Politicos of the Elder Chabad

This article is crazy, and sometimes I think craziness needs to be exposed. Anti-semitism sits on both sides of the isle.

<comment><USER2> I agree. Just because two people may both come from a similar religious denomination or donate to the same organization does not mean that organization is privy to potentially nefarious collaboration among parties. In addition, I agree this article appears to draw a conclusion that Chabad- Lubavitch is the nexus of a Trump-Russia connection, but fails to prove anything other than both Trump's family and many with potential ties to Putin all independently support the organization. It is also worth noting that the late Lubavitcher rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, promoted the opening of synagogues to support the diaspora of Jews where they live. In many places, a Chabad synagogue may be the only Jewish organization for miles, and especially in places like Russia. Today, they form the backbone of synagogues in Russia due to them daring to support Judaism dating back to underground work during the Soviet era. For this reason, Chabad is the movement many Russian Jews choose to support.

<comment><AUTHOR> Given Chabad's goals of reconnecting Jews and helping converts in Jewish families, of course they are going to be very large in Russia and the US. Add in Ivanka's conversion, and we should expect there to be many ties.

The article has that Jews Run the World Through Secret Organizations smell.

<comment><USER2> >The article has that Jews Run the World Through Secret Organizations smell.

Exactly, and I don't like it! I too was quite surprised it came from politico of all sources.

Similar comments on the article here: [https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/10/needs-alt-right- conspir...](https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/10/needs-alt-right-conspiracy- theories-jews-politico/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's funny: "referring to the group as 'The Chabad'"

That sounds so much more evil actually. "What kind of people were you with Friday night?!" "OK OK... with The Chabad. I admit it." "I rest my case, Your Honor."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the best advice you actually use? - <AUTHOR>

For me it was in a Paul Graham essay, the title of which escapes me now. The advice was simple: if you  have a hard time deciding whether to do one thing or the other, always choose the harder thing. That way, you rule out being lazy.<p>I can't tell you how many times I've used that piece of advice and seen the benefits.

<comment><USER2> So I once watched this nutty 70's film series on time management - 43 Folders retro. It was actually pretty good if you could get past the awful fashion. The host, a professor in horn-rimmed glasses and a bowtie, had a piece of advice I found surprising at first. It puts a different spin on doing hard things and I've found it very useful.

He said if something is truly hard to do, put it off as long as possible. But if something is merely distasteful, do it as soon as possible.

The rationale is that if something is truly hard to do, you can spend time thinking about it, researching it, gathering resources and asking others about it while doing other necessary things. Oftentimes, there will be a way to make the hard thing easier or even unnecessary.

But if something is more distasteful than hard-to-do, you need to do it right away. It's worse to put off distasteful things than just get them over with.

Anyway, that bit of wisdom has worked for me. In programming specifically, I also endorse David Heinemeier Hansson's advice: "If something is too hard it means that you're not cheating enough."

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably to avoid premature optimization. Getting a version 1 done quickly and then iterating works in so many fields besides hacking.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is a lot of good advice I use constantly that has produced great benefits for me over the years. Here is probably the best:

Get enough sleep.

Get enough sunlight.

Maintain a positive attitude.

Know a little about a lot.

Do not pigeonhole people.

Anger is counterproductive.

Keep stress to a minimum.

Exercise regularly.

Eat healthy.

Persistence overcomes a lot.

You can't control everything.

People don't remember much.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are trying to decide between two things, a good trick is to flip a coin. Assign one choice to heads and the other to tails. You'll find yourself subtly "hoping" for one choice over the other. Decision made.

</comment><comment><USER6> "if you have a hard time deciding whether to do one thing or the other, always choose the harder thing. That way, you rule out being lazy."

This has always made me uncomfortable. There is no inherent value in doing hard things. The basic argument is that doing hard things prevents you from doing easy things only because they are easy.

However, this strikes me as being very similar to the Monty Hall paradox. Let's say you have a billion options to choose from. To expect that the hardest option would be your best bet would be absurd. So why should it work any better for choosing between two options?

</comment><comment><USER7> A tie, actually best used in conjunction:

"Practice the fundamentals every day". \--not sure, but I got it from Jamie Andreas I think (guitar guru).

"The doer alone learneth." \--Machiavelli

</comment><comment><USER8> A few that come to mind:

"Never ever think of yourself as a victim, because once you've done that, you've lost." - One of the Amherst College trustees, on being the first (?) female vice-president at Morgan Stanley

"Control yourself, because you can't control others" - Sunir Shah, possibly quoted from some other source.

"Perfect is the enemy of good enough" - C2 Wiki

"Good enough is the enemy of at all" - Paul Buchheit

</comment><comment><USER9> 'If you continue to do what you do, you will continue to get what you get' -- Anon, Chinese Proverb

& a rather simple one from my Dad:

hard hard hard work!

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't criticize, condemn or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Dale Carnegie

</comment><comment><USER11> "The pencil is mightier than the pen." -Robert Pirsig on the importance of revision

<comment><USER12> Interesting axiom :)

<comment><USER11> You might be interested in _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ by Pirsig. I believe it's the source of the quotation. It's a philosophical book about "quality"-- that which makes some things "better" than others. Beware it's a rather tough read; I started it three times before realizing it wasn't a book I could read before bed but rather one I needed to read just after waking up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All receive advice. Only the wise profit from it. --Syrus

</comment><comment><USER13> Good advice I got from my mentor: "Learn to suffer fools elegantly and silently".

<comment><USER14> What's the name of your mentor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "You don't know anything, so shut up and listen."

</comment><comment><USER16> Choosing to do the harder thing may not always be productive or practical. If I think it will take me 3 years of research to (maybe) solve a problem and bring a product to market, and I know another problem I can probably solve in 6 months with the same potential financial reward, which one should I choose?

<comment><USER17> The advice wasn't "always choose the harder thing". Obviously that's not correct, even generally speaking.

Note the part where you're supposed to do this _when you have a hard time deciding_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> always wear clean underwear. always.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh. That's not really advice samb, that's something you just do.

<comment><USER19> debatable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's this:

[http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=101&q=40](http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=101&q=40)

<comment><USER21> Wow, i love that site. So sublime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Never wake a sleeping child. It's never worth it.

</comment><comment><USER11> In the long run, never half-ass anything.

</comment><comment><USER23> life is too complex for one advice

</comment><comment><USER12> Best advice: Not to take one ;)

<comment><USER8> Heh, another one along that vein: "Overgeneralization + limited life experience = Advice" -- Paul Buchheit

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Perfection is difficult

</comment><comment><USER25> "Wakey wakey!"</comment>


Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police - <AUTHOR> http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-outsmarts-police-creating-blueprint-for-other-occupations/ <comment><USER2> So their ground breaking discovery for outsmarting the police is to ... leave and then come back. And maybe play some music. The Art of War style write up is humorously grandiose for something so silly. These people take themselves entirely too seriously.

On another note, pay attention to whats happening over on Reddit and their attempt to unseat Paul Ryan in protest of SOPA/PIPA. They're putting their collective time, effort, and (most importantly) money into something that might actually have an effect. Ultimately, the 72 hours or so that Reddit has taken up this initiative is already appearing more effective than months of misguided OWS noise.

Going back even further, look at the Internet's success with GoDaddy and the few other companies changing their stance on SOPA. Get out of the streets already and go actually make a difference with some concentrated focus and brain power.

<comment><USER3> > These people take themselves entirely too seriously. > ... > look at the > Internet's success with GoDaddy and the few other companies changing their > stance on SOPA.

What exactly is your metric for success here? A sleazy company changed their stance on a bill that the public is completely unaware of and couldn't give two shits about?

I think "the internet" is taking itself too seriously.

Meanwhile a nation-wide protest movement has at the very least succeeded in planting the issue of systemic economic injustice into mainstream public discourse on a daily basis. History may show OWS to be the catalyst for the resurrection of a real progressive movement in America.

<comment><USER2> The occupy camps have been largely impotent. Whatever immeasurable metaphysical success they've found thus far is more than likely purely coincidental. The collective attitudes of all individuals tend to shift in similar directions when shit gets bad enough. If the building is on fire, most people are going to head for the exits. Claiming that it was OWS that got people talking about income inequality is kind of silly. And even if that is their one success, it's a pretty meaningless victory when shit like NDAA is being passed. "Did you hear? Corporations run this country..." / "No I didn't Bob, I'm being detained indefinitely at GITMO for arguing with a flight attendant."

> Meanwhile a nation-wide protest movement has at the very least succeeded in > planting the issue of systemic economic injustice into mainstream public > discourse on a daily basis.

Not a single person has mentioned OWS (in a non ironic sense) to me in probably more than a month. In that time, the internet fought tooth and nail to stop something they disagreed with, and they at least saw some semblance of success. And while the bill has only been delayed, it's quite clear that the 'hands on' approach to protesting is more effective than shitting in public places and getting beat up by the police.

As a disclaimer, I did originally have high hopes for OWS. The people were passionate, and they had the energy needed. But their lack of direction and purpose shortly became apparent, and their almost A.D.D. like inability to focus on something became laughable. They would become so easily distracted by petty violence and police abuse that 90% of the occupy videos on YouTube are about the police. Which of course resulted in the majority of media attention being given to local police issues and not the widespread economic corruption they original fought against.

Once it became apparent that the occupy groups weren't going to try and shift their attention or direct themselves towards a goal, the whole thing deteriorated into a repetitive circus of hide and go seek with local police. Ultimately, they succeeded in removing any momentum they had and have literally become stagnant.

<comment><USER4> I was a part of Occupy Oakland, and even though we had the worst police action, I completely agree with oldstranger. It became bizarre when Berkeley students earnestly urged everyone to help the other protestors "find a place to sleep tonight, even at your own home", when at least a third of the protestors were permanently homeless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if this is a difference between UK and US police tactics, or if it's specific to Portland - I also don't know if it's the case that the difference was caused by not caring as much or just by not being as successful: UK police have done a much better job in the past, and rendered this article nonsense.

The key difference:

 _> Since we had no clear destination, the police were unable to get ahead of us and set up roadblocks._

If the police have such small numbers that they cannot afford to take any manpower away from the back of the march then yes, obviously this is the case. But really, with police vans offering fast transport there is no reason they cannot prevent a moving demonstration from moving. Obviously, budget comes into play, for example police helicopters can help them see what is going on and help them create tactics to counter it.

An example of what I'm talking about is Kettling (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling>), a term which has only really gained popularity in the press in the last few years, but police (at least in the UK) have used this method for a hell of a long time - not always as viciously as the image most people think of for the term now, that of demonstrators being stuck and not allowed out for hours and hours.

<comment><USER6> As a Brit now living in US, I came here to mention Kettling too. _(Kettling is when the police entirely surround a protest group and will not let anyone enter or leave for many many hours)._

Unlike the other comment on this sub-thread, I don't see any reason why Kettling wouldn't work here in the US _(sadly)_ if the police used it. The density of the streets in UK doesn't come into it when you consider the Kettling that took place in Oxford Circus, London during May Day riots a few years ago.

I think the issue for Kettling in the US is that police here rely more on aggression and fear of attack (the heavy infantry, as the OP puts it) then strategy and tactical superiority. As the OP observes, this then goes horribly wrong for the Police when they are forced to assert that aggression physically on protestors.

The other issue for Kettling here in US is constitutional rights. In the UK the police will Kettle a crowd for hours - which in real terms mean they will not let you out even if you decide to give up protesting. This is frankly as a punitive action more than anything else. My guess is constitutionally the police might not be able to do this to undetained, unarrested citizens.

<comment><USER7> In my experiences with NYPD blockades as a passerby they typically forcefully imply rather than directly state you're not allowed through, and if you insist I've always seen them sheepishly give up.

<comment><USER6> The whole point with Kettling, which kinda makes it punitive, is that they are 100% clear that you are not leaving the enclosed pen they have created.

Sometimes the kettling can go on for 6+ hrs and even with protestors demanding toilet breaks, water or medical issues from standing up for so long, the police have refused them to leave.

<comment><USER8> In the US I think that might come under false arrest or illegal imprisonment by the police.

<comment><USER7> Unlawful detainment, among other things I think.

<comment><USER9> They should definitely contact the police about that unlawful behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission.

Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top.

It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tactics are _very vociferously interested_. The kinds of people who are interested in the hiring thread aren't nearly as engaged with that topic (or, those who are aren't numerous). "Real", on-topic HN threads are at a systemic disadvantage to advocacy topics like Occupy.

Flagged, for whatever good that will do.

<comment><USER11> From your comment, I'm still not clear what your exact objection is to the article. You appear to be complaining that an 'Occupy' thread is rated higher than a 'hiring' thread, yet don't explain why you feel that the Occupy thread doesn't 'gratifies one's intellectual curiosity' the way a 'hiring' thread does.

I recognise that the 'hiring' thread is valuable to some people on HN and am glad that the post appears, however for me, the 'hiring' thread does very little to 'gratify my intellectual curiosity' - I'm fortunate enough to have a job and so the thread has almost zero value for me personally.

The 'occupy' post did satisfy me intellectually - I don't have a position on the politics either way, but the explanation of 'battle tactics', how they developed by non-military people and how they can be used 'on the street' was intellectually interesting.

<comment><USER10> My politics are closer to Occupy's than to the Tea Party's, by a big margin. I'm not asking you to flag the story because I have a problem with the politics.

I'm asking you to flag this story because the argument for it being on the site is a slippery slope that also includes the fundraising dynamics of the Iowa GOP caucus.

Like I said earlier: stories like this have a systemic advantage over most real "hacker news" topics. A "Comparison of 6 USB Stick Micro Dev Boards" --- _unquestionably_ more germane to the site than this --- is welcome by everyone, but passionately supported by few. Occupy (or Tea Party) advocacy is largely unwelcome on the site _by charter_ , but passionately supported by enough people to peg stories to the top of the front page.

The result is a site that looks more like 2008 Reddit than 2008 HN. In fact, because HN is doing such a good job attracting the Slashdot "Your Rights Online" crowd, we're seeing more and more stories for which Reddit threads are _better_ than HN's.

I used to think the big problem with 'pg's guidelines were that it was squishy about politics; it should, I thought, be rewritten to say "No politics, no religion, no cute pictures, ever." I still think that. But the better thing for the guidelines to say is even simpler:

 _No advocacy stories._

<comment><USER11> I agree with your 'no politics' stance (although does SOPA opposition fall under that?), however, I read the article more as a 'tactics developed by accident' than a Occupy advocacy thread. I guess we have slightly different thresholds on the same slippery slope.

Having said that, I definitely prefer an article on micro dev boards than protest tactics.

<comment><USER10> Paul Graham clearly likes the SOPA threads. I pick my battles. He owns the site, he's entitled to use it to advance his causes. (My politics overall are leftish, but my politics on SOPA aren't within a mile of the rest of HN).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The military analogy is broken. The hack isn't to use the superiority of "light infantry" over "heavy infantry", etc. The reason the protestors can "take a park" even when the police oppose them is because they operate in a political system where the police can't fire on crowds. You probably think this is always a good thing. That's the hack.

<comment><USER13> They can't fire live rounds, but they sure can (and do) fire rubber bullets, flash grenades, tear gas, sound cannons, and tear gas.

<comment><USER8> Completely different situations:

1: worse case in current situation, I may break a bone or get a concussion followed with medical attention and bragging rights with my peers

2: fire bullets into crowd, lots of people die. Or think about using flame throwers for crowd control

<comment><USER14> As far as the less lethal situation, using impact rounds can result in death. Fluidity of the crowd, improper use of the launcher, pure dumb luck can all play a role in where rounds land.

People can, and have, died from direct fire with less lethals including the FN-303 Paint Marking launcher, various 12 gauge skip fire and direct fire munitions, 37mm gas munitions, and 40mm direct fire less lethal and gas munitions.

While some rounds are designed for close quarters direct fire, many are not, and having a 40mm CS grenade hit you upside the head can be lethal.

<comment><USER15> As some kind of thumb rule, less than lethal usually means that about 2% die and 5% don't get affected. You can make it more effective so that everybody is affected, but then the percentage of dead people rises. Or other way around. Usually police should use "less than lethal" weaponry only in situations where casualties are acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Please if you think you will ever take part in a protest, for the sake of your own safety and that of your co-protestors, don't read this article. Or if you already did, don't take it seriously.

It has a misleading title, and poor and _dangerous_ content. Protests and police columns so don't work that way that it's actually dangerous for this to be on the front page and upvoted by so many people.

I do agree with most of what Occupy is about, but if the writer of this post is trying to make any political point, he is failing.

Also, I think that a blog and an HN thread are so not the place to learn about how to safely occupy public space and how to participate in a protest, that I simply don't understand how hard some are trying for it to be that place...

<comment><USER17> >It has a misleading title, and poor and dangerous content. Protests and police columns so don't work that way that it's actually dangerous for this to be on the front page and upvoted by so many people.

Why is his content wrong? I'm not saying it isn't - I just think more people would pay heed to your warning if you can give concrete reasons (plus, I'm curious).

<comment><USER16> You can find some of my opinion about the content in my other reply in this thread. Also, the whole rummaging about light infantry and heavy infantry is completely wrong, short of some movies I really don't know where the author actually saw the kind of formation he seems to think is standard.

He also gets retreats completely wrong. If your adversary is competent he will actually _encourage_ a retreat since his objective is not decimating your forces but keeping ground, that is why it's always easy to run away from the police in protests... not because retreat "conveys a tactical superiority". If you are lets say holding higher ground, or for example participating in a siege, retreat may mean you are coming back home completely decimated.

Getting further into this would sort of actually be against my own perception of HN not being the place to discuss how to securely protest. I'll also like to keep the internet as free as possible of myself advocating civil disobedience in a country I'm not a citizen of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What annoys me most about the Occupy movement is that they aren't even intellectually active enough to study other contemporary protest movements. I'm staggered at the number of people involved in Occupy who genuinely see police as a bunch of cretinous thugs and don't imagine that they might organise international conferences or share case studies.

Public order policing has been a game of cat-and-mouse for decades, following the movements of European anarchists around the usual circuit of Mayday protests, G8 conferences and arms fairs. It's a highly evolved field and there are extensive playbooks on both sides.

This strategy was devised years ago, in response to police lines being used to control and prevent marching. A core group, usually a Black Bloc, lead other protesters in a fast march, choosing their direction only at the last possible second. The goal is to move faster than police dispatchers can react, preventing the police from establishing organised lines quickly enough. The police response in the UK is pre-emptive kettling[1], in much of the rest of the world a mix of roadblocks and simple brutality. Unless the protesters are angry enough to run into a baton charge or prepared enough to run into CS gas, it's a completely ineffective tactic.

Some commenters seem to believe that kettling would be illegal under US law; It may well be, but that hasn't stopped the extensive use of "free speech zones"[2] to pre-emptively restrict the movement of protesters. Without a Supreme Court ruling, there's nothing to stop Portland PD or anyone else from using kettles.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling> [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone>

</comment><comment><USER19> The author:

1\. Underestimates the superiority and effectiveness of the Command and Control of the police force

2\. Overestimates the superiority of a mob vs a phalanx.

3\. Makes generalized assumptions over why the police allowed them to stay.

4\. Assumes that the police will not use their formation with calvary (automobiles, aricraft, and actual horses) as a means of denying the flank or the retreat.

This reads like someone who just went through a college course in ancient combat and has little practical experience in the matter of Command and Control or strategic thinking.

</comment><comment><USER20> They're still around? Why dont they go protest where it matters in Washington infront of Congress et al instead of on private property or places that make small businesses lose business.

</comment><comment><USER21> Sounds like the way Critical Mass (cycling) rides in Chicago work - with no pre-set route the police join in and make sure no one gets hurt but they can't really push the ride in one direction or another - the 'hive' decides where to go. With 5,000 to 10,000 people it's a pretty huge event/example.

<comment><USER22> That's not specific to Chicago. All Critical Mass rides work that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wisdom would dictate reviewing the usual fate of disorganized barbarians versus Roman legions.

</comment><comment><USER24> To keep the park, one must leave the park.

Why the military tactics and metaphors? Many occupiers seem more interested in "fuckin' shit up" than expressing a message. In Oakland, the city was willing to let people assemble every day (when other people would actually _see_ their protest), but the occupiers insisted that anything less than camping in Frank Ogawa Plaza was defeat.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you want to destroy civilization, this is a pretty good start. Good practice anyway. But if you want to make positive change, forcing police to resort to brutality to restore order for people who are just trying to live their lives is stupid.

Edit: instead of downvoting, try to explain why this is a good idea.

<comment><USER26> Your argument seems to be that anything other than obedience of authority means destruction of civilization, and sounds hyperbolic and reactionary. Apply that principle to apartheid, British Raj, Tahrir, etc. and see how it looks.

<comment><USER25> Non-violent resistance to injustice is one thing. Indefinitely evading police for little other purpose, that I can see, of getting in the way is another. I'm not quite sure where the line is, but this kind of thing scares me.

If a person or group deliberately incites law enforcement to escalate the level of violence in the performance of their duty, are they not partially responsible for that violence? Are their goals worth having that responsibility? They seem to be doing it specifically to get a "PR loss by the police department". What purpose does that serve, in the long run, except to undermine people's respect for the government?

Civilization hangs on a fine thread of voluntary compliance to the government. It is supplemented by force/violence in various degrees, but most of the time it's only conditioning and conscience that keeps people in check. The restraints of force and conditioning are swept aside by just such measures as these. The article frankly uses military terminology. These are the tools of governmental overthrow, and I believe they are being used recklessly.

<comment><USER27> > Civilization hangs on a fine thread of voluntary compliance to the > government.

That sounds pretty much exactly backwards from any society I want to be a part of. I don't exist in service of a government, but can choose to tolerate a government that provides value to me.

<comment><USER25> I think you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about how to design a society, I'm talking about a necessary aspect of the relationship between government and the governed. Simply, the government cannot force you to do what it wants all the time. It's impossible, even for brutal totalitarian governments. A few slip through the nets.

For a light example, think about speeding, or carpool lane compliance. Most of the time, there is actually no one to stop or punish you for speeding or driving in the carpool lane with the wrong number of people. Most people do the right thing anyway. This is good.

So any compliance with its laws is largely voluntary, based on, among other things, the value provided by the government and the obvious benefits to everyone if everyone follows the law.

<comment><USER26> I think you'll find that obeying such things doesn't come from deference to authority, but rather peer pressure combined with a recognition of the justice of such regulations. The reason I don't speed in urban streets isn't because I want to obey the government; it's because I'll look like an ass, endangering other road users.

I think there's a deeper issue. I suspect you have confused mechanism with purpose. Government coercion is a mechanism for enforcing system goals, where hopefully those goals are agreed upon in a democratic or enlightened fashion. But it is not the government coercion that is good; it is the goals. It is right that government coercion be resisted when the goals are not noble; and doing so does not risk society falling apart, because it doesn't attack what makes society work.

It's not mere "conditioning and conscience" that keeps people in check. The biggest thing that keeps people in check is actually social norms and risking the disapproval of your peers. And those are surprisingly strong forces.

And if you think the kinds of disobedience we're talking about here risk government overthrow, you haven't seen what governments are capable of doing to stay in power. It's humorous to read about Americans thinking their second amendment right to bear arms defends themselves from the excesses of government. Governments are a lot more resilient than that. The real risk to governments comes from military avenues: mutinies, coups, invasion. A government with nuclear arms (i.e. MAD deterrence of invasion) and in control of a loyal military will not be overthrown by its citizens.

But I do agree with you that what we're seeing is corrosive to trust in government. But the answer isn't to bow one's head, go home and be a good little consumer. The answer is to demand that government changes. In a democracy, a big part of that publicity-seeking actions. Ideally, we'd be seeing dialogue and debate, not riot police and polarizing denunciations.

<comment><USER25> I guess I include peer pressure in "conditioning". It's not that I think Occupy Portland will result, directly, in the overthrow of the United States government. I said they're the tools of government, but they're not being used forcefully yet, just waved around in the air by people who don't seem to know what they're playing with. "Corrosive to trust in government" is a good way of putting what bothers me about this.

We do need to demand change in our government. If we're going to act in unison, that's where we need to do it. I just don't see the games described in the article as being anything but destructive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What drew me to this article was it's discussion of the tactics a unorganized group can do and try all at once. A neat superposition of several topics.

Like a glorified case of the wisdom of crowds.

<comment><USER28> unfortunately any mass movement is dependent on being able to apply political pressure. It might work if there is a growing momentum and you end up with an 'orange' revolution. Most likely it's going to simply die out by itself unless it can actually transform into a political force.

Being in Spain I can tell you the protests accomplished nothing, changed nothing politically and ended up dissolving themselves once it got cold.

<comment><USER29> Yes, I personally think that if these Occupy movements result in organizing long-term institutions which help people, then they're successful. Lurid riot porn is not a victory condition.

One problem is the attitude mentioned in the article: "This has been a show of bravado that has the tactical benefits of providing media coverage of the brutal methods of police and the benefit of draining the resources of the oppressor by forcing them to incur the expense of arresting and prosecuting people for trivial offenses." (Keep in mind that the US imprisons its populace far more than any other nation, so this is no joke.) I read this rebuttal recently:

 _"Getting arrested as an unavoidable consequence of standing up for a cause is noble; getting arrested as a voluntary, symbolic act is widely considered bizarre, at best. Moreover, it frustrates huge sectors of the movement who see an opportunity cost to the resources that go into unnecessary jail support, bail, and legal costs. Perhaps worst of all, voluntary arrest is seen by members of especially targeted communities as flaunting arrestees' race and class privilege."_

([http://www.zcommunications.org/pacifism-and-diversity-of- tac...](http://www.zcommunications.org/pacifism-and-diversity-of-tactics-a- compromise-proposal-by-brian-dominick))

<comment><USER30> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks>

It might be bizarre, but it is also historically effective.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, those examples are discussed in the ZCommunications article, as effective in only some situations. ( _"True as this is, don't forget that these movements were addressing state and societal brutality against entire groups of people as the primary focus of their strategy; state violence was thus an illustration of their point. In the case of a holistic movement primarily focused on elite rule instead of state repression, police violence is a distraction. It may earn you sympathies, but it does not help to make your point in any clearly illustrative manner, as it did in these examples."_ )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Get the music blaring [...]"

This piece of advice will get people fined (and possibly arrested) for violating noise ordinances in many municipalities. You're better off marching silently.

<comment><USER32> They're already violating a lot of ordinances - a few more won't matter much.

<comment><USER33> I imagine thats how tons of kids justified breaking into stores during the Vancouver hockey riots.

<comment><USER7> Those would be felonies though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >They're putting their collective time, effort, and (most importantly) money into something

The Occupy protesters put their BODIES into something. Both approaches are important.

</comment><comment><USER35> "Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." - Gen. George S. Patton

</comment><comment><USER36> I think Occupy is the most interesting (and, yes, annoying, but that's part of the method) political development in recent history. This article, however, was very long, with little meaningful content, and I don't see how it's of particular interest to HN. Flagged.

</comment><comment><USER37> Gist of the article: They don't have to occupy jobs, so they can win their war of attrition.

</comment><comment><USER38> The writer should use his superior "military style" tactics to get a job.

Maybe their plan worked because the police decided it wasn't worth wading thru their feces and syringes every few hours.</comment>


Ask HN: What 5 languages would you teach someone new to CS? - <AUTHOR> Curious what 5 languages or technologies (hadoop?) you would tell someone relatively new to CS to learn. The goal would be to give them the ability to do many things in an easy and modern way, or alternatively, to have access to lots of job possibilities. <comment><USER2> Python, Go, Clojure/Java, ClojureScript/JavaScript, C

</comment><comment><USER3> Easy programming: Python

Expanding the understanding of CS: Scheme in conjunction with SICP

Access to the most jobs: Java, JavaScript, PHP, C#, C++

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. One of scheme / common lisp / clojure

2\. One of C++ / Java

3\. Javascript

4\. One of Python / Perl

5\. Bash

</comment><comment><USER5> for CS I would go with different paradigms: ruby, haskell, erlang, go, prolog

for job opportunities, I would go by popularity: JavaScript, python, ruby, C#, php

<comment><USER6> C#, Scala, JavaScript, Python, SQL.</comment></comment>


The 10 Biggest Mistakes Made With Amazon Web Services - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/22/amazon-web-services-mistakes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER2> I invite everyone to comment and try out our service at newvem.com thanks ! Ofir</comment>


Go for App Engine is now generally available - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/2011/07/go-for-app-engine-is-now-generally.html

<comment><USER2> Go is a nice language, I've used it for 3 projects so far.

But the garbage collector needs some big improvements until I will use it for anything that gets some kind of heavy work load. I used it as a simple HTTP daemon that just collects data submitted by flash clients via POST requests and keeps some internal stats about them. It is literally just something like 200 lines of code. When I had over 30 req/s, nearly 100mb overall RAM usage and a Go heap of usually about 60-70mb, a GC run would take over 115ms. During that run, it stops all other threads (stop-the-world GC). For this particular project that was OK-ish since the clients don't see the latency. But for anything where the user is exposed to the latency (e.g. serving pages), this would be a problem. Especially since the GC latency increases faster than linearly. I'd expect a GC run to take more than 1 second with about 100 req/s and something like 500mb RAM usage.

I could probably get much better performance by reducing the heap size by avoiding using the stdlib packages like "http". They create LOTS of garbage. Strings being imutable does not help with that either.

Unfortunately even though they said the GC is being rewritten right during the first and nearly every other presentation, this is not happening. They still are using a conservative non-generational stop-the-world GC. Even though they are tuning it a fair bit, this type of GC is not really good to begin with. It's a shame :(

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm glad to say that we've also added Go support in AppScale as well for our upcoming 1.5 release (<http://code.google.com/p/appscale>).

<comment><USER4> Is AppScale already a serious alternative for AppEngine? Is anyone already using it in production?

<comment><USER3> It's been mostly driven as a research project and because GAE is so cheap to use (thus far) there hasn't been much of an incentive for people to use it as an alternative. There has been a good amount of usage within the research community though. We're looking at making AppScale more than just an alternative; something along the lines of a hybrid setup where data is replicated to your own cluster for fault tolerance and data analytics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really nice to see GAE add yet another support language, in addition to Python and Java. I'm pretty new to Python web development, but GAE seems absolutely fantastic. It's so easy to use and such robust features.

<comment><USER6> Great price too. Basically free until you get traction. You have to decide whether that's worth the flexibility you trade for it, but for a lot of projects it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty nice.

I'd also very much like to see Go on Android, but I know it's harder since the vast majority of APIs are Java-side.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great news, it will help spread the word about Go since now everybody can deploy apps to the web easily.

<comment><USER9> It's going to be neat to have a platform on AppEngine with real anonymous functions.

<comment><USER10> Clojure runs on AppEngine.

<comment><USER11> And Scala, and JRuby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I believe the most interesting thing in this is seeing how Go interfaces with the datastore: I expected a lot more boilerplate [http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/go/gettingstarted/usin...](http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/go/gettingstarted/usingdatastore.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> I hope they will also add other languages.

</comment><comment><USER14> It can hardly be called "geneally available" if there is still no Windows version of Go Appengine SDK.

<comment><USER15> Linux VPSes can be had for $10/mo. Gets rid of most of the headaches of developing with the newest OSS tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's great news for App Engine. However, ever so subtly Google is increasing developer lock-in in App Engine. GO is Google's language to rope in the developers.

<comment><USER17> Isn't the act of developing for App Engine itself "developer lock-in", regardless of language? If I could write iPhone apps in Lua or Ruby I'd still be "locked-in" to the Cocoa platform. Same with writing programs for Android, Windows, Linux, Facebook,...

<comment><USER16> There are open source replacement for most of App Engine's services and API. The old language choice Java and Python are open source. GO is Google's language just like #C for Microsoft. Currently it's really easy for me to port my App Engine apps to AWS; I'm not sure if I use GO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe AppScale supports Go, so I don't see how it's any harder to port a Go App Engine app to run elsewhere than porting Python or Java apps.

Go to Google is _not_ like C# is to MS. Microsoft's C# platform is not free and they have complete control over the language. The Go compilers and libraries are open source. You're free to take and use them as you see fit (under the terms of its BSD license). Google can't "lock you in" to using Go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm using Go for a project right now and loving it (it's running in Windows and this is by far the least pain I've had writing low level cross platform code). I'm confused between the juxtaposition (and maybe this is just a personal perception problem) between Go as a "systems language" and the large group of people using and pushing it as a web language.

Of course, I say that and my usage leverages the fact that it has nice http and websocket facilities as well as the awesomeness that is cgo and the wide world of C libraries.

<comment><USER19> Go team has stopped pushing the "systems language" label for Go, probably because discussions were derailed by philosophications about what is and isn't systems programming.

Now they refer to it simply as "general purpose programming language" although, unsurprisingly, the label still persists from the early usage.

Go isn't good at some things that some people consider systems programming so it's best to stop thinking of it that way.

Go is a programming language, good for some things (including both server and client web programming) and less good for some other things.

<comment><USER20> Alas, early-days labels persist for many years.

Git is still referred to by some as a content-addressable filesystem and not an SCM, which is what Linus wrote in his announcement email.

EDIT: and git is just an example.

<comment><USER21> Are you talking about this email? [http://marc.info/?l=linux- kernel&m=111314792424707](http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=111314792424707)

I'm not entirely sure he would disagree with with what he said here. He seems to be trying to convince people to come at the problem of content management from a different perspective, and to abandon the intellectual baggage of CVS, rather than to insinuate that they should replace EXT* with git, or that they should develop an actual FS.

If what you say is true, it seems more likely that people misunderstood the original statement and carried that into the future, where the Go people seemed very serious about it being a systems language.

<comment><USER20> Nope, I'm talking about this: <http://lwn.net/Articles/131312/>

Anyway, that was just an example. Generally, what gets written about something that is still new is what will stick in people's head for quite a long time.

I believe it's like when you hear a song that's been recorded by more than one artist: the first arrangement you hear is often the one you will end up liking the most. When you'll hear another arrangement, odds are good you won't like it as much as you like the first.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Is Suspension Trauma a.k.a. Harness Hang Syndrome? - <AUTHOR> https://www.dynamicrescue.com/blogs/news/13262417-ask-a-pro-what-is-suspension-trauma-aka-harness-hang-syndrome <comment><USER2> A similar root cause issue is developing life threatening blood clots from sitting too long. Both suspension trauma and blood clots in the legs come from a clever optimization of our circulatory system. The heart can't actually pump blood out of the legs. It counts on muscle activity to make the flow happen.

If you sit for many hours, like on a cross country or cross ocean flight, or because you are a dev or gamer with tremendous concentration and focus, the blood quite literally just sits in your legs and eventually starts to coagulate. It doesn't matter how much exercise you get the rest of your day, those 6 or 8 hours of sitting can quite literally kill you through the creation of a blood clot that then flows through your system and blocks blood flow to the heart or brain (all learned personally when I developed such a clot from routinely sitting long hours in a coffee shop with my laptop and 100% focus).

If you're like me and can focus easily for many hours straight, get a Fitbit, turn on activity tracking, and when it tells you you haven't walked around recently get up and walk around. It's much less impactful to your concentration than an emergency ER visit followed by a lifetime of prescription blood thinners to reduce the now much higher risk of a second clot.

<comment><USER3> I also learned this the hard way after a 14 hour session of Diablo 3. I went to the doctor a couple of times because my leg felt swolen and it was hurting but they didn't think much of it for some reason - only after I developed extreme difficulty breathing did I end up in the ER. The DVT had migrated from my leg into my lungs and gave me a pulmonary embolism.

<comment><USER4> What a terrible game to almost die for. I'm so sorry.

Also, 14 consecutive hours? Did you literally not get up at all in that period? Did you have enough fluids and snacks nearby that you didn't have to?

<comment><USER3> It was consecutive but I did get up from time to time for bathroom breaks, but clearly not often enough. As for fluids I'm fairly sure I was pretty dehydrated at the time. This occurred in 2015. Since this occurred and after I learned from a nurse about the leg muscles being critical to get the blood moving out of your legs I have developed a habit of constantly moving my legs around any time they have not moved in a bit. When this episode happened I remember that I would keep my legs very still during the gaming session.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am currently building a house, and there are large portions of it that have a >25ft drop from rooftop to the ground below. That means the workers on the roof or upper floor need to wear proper fall protection. Depending on the job that can often by a harness system.

I was surprised that because of the height of the potential fall, we needed a "rescue plan". In other words: arresting the fall is only half the job.

The result was quite a bit of extra expense for us (because of the site conditions, we need to keep a hydraulic lift available), but when I read about how quickly suspension trauma becomes an issue, I could understand why the safety regulations are written as they are.

<comment><USER6> It's always surprising to me how fall risks operate in the world of OSHA compared to rock climbing. There's an entire domain where people take good- sized falls as an everyday event, just sort of sitting in parallel with the domain where they're considered a major risk needing emergency-response measures.

Obviously, some of that is a real difference in situation. Construction falls are unplanned and happen under all sorts of odd circumstances, and people are quite often injured during their falls. Climbers have someone managing the other end of their rope at all times, on a system that makes lowering them to the ground straightforward.

But other differences seem absolutely pointless. The "suspended by your groin, legs hanging straight down" posture of construction harnesses massively accelerates suspension trauma, while climbing harnesses pull the legs up and keep pressure on large muscles. And there are companies starting to use that design for safety gear, so it's not a regulatory issue - it just somehow took decades to cross the gap.

<comment><USER7> I big difference between a climbing harness and a construction harness is the tie in point. Climbing it is fine to have that point in front of the user. For construction, having the rope constantly in front of you would be a real inconvenience. By tying in on the back, the harness will hold the user in a different orientation just due to the way weight is distributed.

<comment><USER6> That's definitely part of it; climbing harnesses tend to support you in a position that's great for suspension trauma, but involves a pretty inconvenient rope. They're also waist-and-hip only, and while they'll reliably hold a climber through a flip, it doesn't sound great for chaotic, confined- space falls where you might _stay_ upside down.

The newer generation of construction harnesses are still back-clipped and full-body though - a short strap runs from the waist to the back clip to redistribute weight without normally being in front of you. Presumably getting that working smoothly and safely was an extra engineering hurdle, but I'm still surprised harnesses went so long without even including waistbands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I had no idea this was a thing. I nearly blacked out the first (and only) time I went skydiving. Tandem jump with instructor. Free fall was fun. After parachute deployed the harness started feeling tight around my chest and legs. I got dizzy and it felt like I was having a panic attack, difficulty getting enough oxygen. When we landed I immediately fell to the ground where I couldn't get up for a few minutes.

My friends who jumped with me were all laughing and having a great time, they thought I was being dramatic or something.

A web search brought up tons of hits of this being discussed in skydiving forums. Apparently it's related to older harnesses. Some skydivers don't believe it's real.

Thanks for posting this.

</comment><comment><USER9> Its interesting to me as a rock climber that I've never heard of this. Its not unusual for someone to hang in their harness at an anchor for quite a while while their partner is climbing the pitch before and after. Are climbing harnesses that much more comfortable than safety harnesses that its not a problem?

<comment><USER10> Are you typically hanging with all your weight in the harness, or are you leaning off the wall?

<comment><USER6> Interestingly - all your weight is on the harness, but the wall is still what makes the difference. Suspension trauma is basically a bloodflow issue, so resting against a wall lets you keep your feet elevated and your quads active, stopping blood from pooling. The catastrophic case for suspension trauma is hanging limp and unconscious, since it lowers your feet while stopping muscle use or even fidgeting to boost circulation.

<comment><USER10> The vast majority of your weight is in the harness, but there is some portion of the force vector that's going into the wall as well.

But you're right, the weight distribution isn't really what matters in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Whenever i'm climbing outside i have a few lengths of dyneema or cordelette that i can rig into a prussick or kleinheist for self-rescue or for staying comfy at multipitch belays that don't have nice ledges.

I don't hangdog all that much, so i was actually unaware of this risk, but it's worth keeping in mind!

<comment><USER12> Dyneema is not the best choice for friction hitches due to its low melting point. This is primarily a concern when using it as a backup for abseiling or lowering, or in any situation where you may take a fall onto the friction hitch.

<comment><USER11> I know. I don't use it for raps, but it's just fine as a static or static-ish anchor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Last time I went skydiving I experienced something like this. I was doing a pair jump and you do it in a harness that's attached to the skydiver with the parachute. When the chute opens you slide down/into the harness and it compresses around your thighs. The first time I jumped, the instructor told me to step on his feet so he could put some slack in the harness, but this time the instructor didn't do that, so for the whole time between opening the chute and landing I was stuck motionless in the tight harness. I almost passed out, it was pretty scary.

</comment><comment><USER14> About a year ago, I was flying a hang glider and accidentally had a parachute deployment, and I ended up suspended in a tree, waiting for a grounds crew to come cut me down. The first thing that my friend said when I called him was "stand up if you can". Suspension trauma is a real risk for pilots who get stuck in trees, and it's a subject covered during parachute education clinics for that reason.

</comment><comment><USER15> Coincidence or what? I attended a Safety Course (Construction) this very day and was introduced to the term orthostatic trauma which is also called suspension trauma. It so happens that I also do tree climbing with ropes and am familiar with prusik knots for ascension. Everyone should experience the sensation of climbing a single rope - it is magic. And finally I suffered bilateral pulmonory embolisms that I am putting down to excessive sitting while developing. My consultant told me that "20% don't make it to hospital"! Chilling memories. This article struck me thrice.

</comment><comment> BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 A climber can reach the rope, put in a prussik and stand on it. No can do with construction harnesses. The rope's out of reach.

<comment><USER16> There are products available which enable one to self-rescue from a lanyard at your dorsal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting to see this pop up here! I'm in the process right now of getting my team Tower Safety Certified by Comtrain and this is one of the things they learn about. They also have to practice both being rescued from a tower (while hanging limp as though they were unconscious) and rescuing someone else from a tower. Gotta stay safe out there!

<comment><USER18> Given the address in your profile I'd suggest you might also want to have your team have access to non-cell communications. Sometimes you're at a tower that doesn't have great cell reception and even if the team is able to rescue an injured member they won't be able to safely transport them and be stuck sending someone to find cell coverage and call for an ambulance.

<comment><USER17> That's very true! Fortunately in our case (at least with the company I work for currently) we don't do any work outside of cell coverage or more than a few miles from a hospital. Part of the tower safety process though is to decide before climbing the tower where you will take someone if they get injured and how you'll get them them, or who/how you'll call if they can't be transported.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this somehow related to feeling uneasy from skydiving once parachute is deployed as well? I sometimes feel like I am going to pass out. I had a scary situation while practicing multiple tailspins and free-falls on a sailplane and almost blacked out after the last one (basically couldn't feel anything and landed just by vision and mechanical yoke movements I couldn't feel at all.

</comment><comment><USER20> > _as you inhale, the mediastinal intrapleural pressure becomes more negative, > leading to expansion of the lungs, and pressure drops in the RA, RV, SVC, > and IVC. Right Atrial expansion increases the pressure gradient for venous > return_

So you're saying my lung volume has implications for the chance of deep vein thrombosis or possibly even for varicose veins? Great engineering right there.

</comment><comment><USER21> I started looking into a suspension system for Virtual Reality to increase immersion. I thought it was surprising that no one had made a harness type device. Then I came across suspension trauma and realized how complex an issue it would be to make something like that and take it public.

</comment><comment><USER22> This happens also to hunters that fall from hunting in tree stands and are wearing a safety harness.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is the stuff I think about when I find myself in an overly tight airline seat.

<comment><USER24> I am constantly and intentionally contracting my leg muscles when in an airplane. Mainly due to comfort issues, but I figure it is probably also helping blood flow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yeah, interesting timing. It also seems quite similar to the effect of high (downward) G-forces.</comment>