Kodak's Discovery of A-Bomb Testing (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/ <comment><USER2> Feynman mentions the physicist Julian Webb in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" [1]. The staff at Oak Ridge were generally kept in the dark about their role in the Manhattan Project, including the fact that the stuff they were producing (purified uranium isotopes) was extremely dangerous if handled improperly. Oppenheimer tasked Feynman with ensuring the integrity of the supply chain and sent Feynman to Oak Ridge for a frank safety discussion with the "big shots," and apparently Oppenheimer knew Webb to be technically capable enough to trust with the technical implications.

Feynman doesn't say what, if anything, he told Webb, but it's an interesting backstory -- it's possible Webb knew more than this article suggests.

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT125&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT125&lpg=PT125&dq=julian+webb+feynman&source=bl&ots=HCzYi- YNOM&sig=ACfU3U3b4Tr6QRmrPHFirEcuhTlwxDePUA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7vvmQ7sXgAhXlN30KHW3EDT0Q6AEwAXoECAAQAQ)

<comment><USER3> Offtopic, but a couple pages later is the most memorable passage of the whole book to me, a software engineer:

(about setting up the IBM machines to perform calculations for the Manhattan Project)

"Well, Mr Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you _play_ with them. They are so wonderful. [...] After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn't paying any attention; he wasn't supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly-- while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arctangent X [...] Absolutely useless! We _had_ tables of arc-tangents. But you've ever worked with computers, you understand the disease-- the _delight_ in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing. I was asked to stop working on the stuff I was doing in my group and go down and take over the IBM group, and I tried to avoid the disease."

I try to keep this in mind when I'm working. I must admit I'm not very good at avoiding that disease.

<comment><USER4> Do you know the calculator hacking community? Graphing calculators like TI-84 are commonly used in American math classes, and they are reasonably powerful general purpose computers. So the hacking community started because a bunch of highschoolers are bored enough studying math at school, and discovered programming. First it was BASIC, then Z80 assembly, and later some even started creating their own programming environment on the calculator, rediscovered many high-performance graphics hacks used by early video games. After graduating from highschools, those who still have interests in calculators have developed open source toolchains, programming languages and operating systems in college for calculator development.

However, when Texas Instruments released TI-Nspire CX, it was boycotted by the vast majority members from the hacking community because the system is locked down.

Some teachers and parents commented,

> _" one thing that [...] is NOT wrong is TI's refusal to make the NSpire a > platform for Doom or Quake or any other distraction that kids enjoy. These > things may be fun, but they aren't about learning math"_

I think it describes the same phenomenon.

<comment><USER5> And then people are surprised kids hate school and don't learn a thing.

Tinkering, fun, and being free to follow a stupid idea down a rabbit hole is how people learn and internalize stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This throws some light as to why Kodak had weapons grade uranium in one of their labs.

[https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/us/new-york-kodak- uranium/ind...](https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/us/new-york-kodak- uranium/index.html)

At the time, to me (not having had this bit of context), it seemed like overkill, but it sounds like they've had a actually been involved for a long time, with associated business concerns, with dealing with the impacts of nuclear processes.

</comment><comment><USER7> The US government undertook real and widespread environmental monitoring of radioactivity from at least 1947, and perhaps earlier. Many samples were taken of air, water, soil, vegetation, human bone and other materials to understand the extent of radioactive fallout.

There were international incidents around test fallout in the early 1950s. It was a major political issue in the early 1950s. Presidential candidates RAN on this issue. Consciousness of the problems of test fallout resulted in an above-ground test ban treaty. The US's last above-ground test happened in 1962.

So this was a problem that started in 1945, was well known to the general public within a few years, and was solved by 1962. This is obviously not perfect. But it certainly isn't the case that it was ignored until 1997 and people were only finding out about it then.

</comment><comment><USER8> In Las Vegas when there wasn't anything interesting for nerdy high school kids to do, you could always drive up the Great Basin highway with your school's Geiger counter and check out the radioactive plants north of Coyote Springs :-)

There used to be a BLM[1] camp ground up there where you could ride your dirt bikes on the trails.

Reading this makes me wonder if it still has hot spots.

[1] Bureau of Land Management - kind of like a national forest but where they care less about the land under their control.

<comment><USER3> > _[1] Bureau of Land Management - kind of like a national forest but where > they care less about the land under their control._

CGP Grey made a video on the topic recently:

[https://youtu.be/LruaD7XhQ50](https://youtu.be/LruaD7XhQ50)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Even today, X-ray film is highly sensitive [to radiation] (much more so than regular photographic film)"

In fact, that's actually been used as a feature in molecular biology. Traditionally many visualizations in biology were done by labeling molecules of interest with radioisotopes and having these form images on x-ray film. This is still done in some cases, but is being mostly replaced with fluorescent labeling.

<comment><USER10> I had radiation therapy a while ago and they were able to take X-rays just by holding a piece of film behind my back. Freaky!

<comment><USER11> Was there some kind of shutter? Because otherwise wouldn't it be very blurry?

<comment><USER10> This was done during treatment so the "shutter" was the LINAC itself.

<comment><USER12> Do you know why? Were they just confirming that you hadn't wriggled & they got the right spot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> relatedly, nytimes posted this interview yesterday with american soldiers who were exposed to a nuclear blast in the 50s, some of whom experienced health issues later in life. their description of what it was like (from close enough to be knocked over while sitting down and facing away by the blast wave) is awesome, in the old, bad sense:

[https://youtu.be/FokopVKMgdU](https://youtu.be/FokopVKMgdU)

</comment><comment><USER14> Soviet scientist Georgii Flerov figured out nuclear weapons program was about to start indirectly from the fact that nothing was being published on nuclear fission and physicists in the field didn't publish at all. That was during MAUD era before Manhattan project was started.

Flerov informed Stalin April 1942, serval months before Cambridge Five leaked the MAUD papers to Staling.

<comment><USER15> Modern day scifi version:

OpenAI stops publishing their models. There are rumors that Geoffrey Hinton wrote a letter to the president. Deep Mind,Google Brain, FAIR go all silent. AI researchers stop updating their twitter and don't respond to email. Zero publications to NeurIPS 2020 from the best groups. Then someone spots few of those guys buying coffee near NSA's Utah Data Center. That center seems to grow and grow.

In the China Baidu Research goes silent as well.

Strange lights are seen on the desert sky....

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's worth remembering that Kodak was one of the premier high technology companies of its day. George Eastman endowed MIT and other technical schools, because his fortune was built on the work of scientists and engineers. Even well into the 80s and even early 90s they had top notch scientists, engineers, and inventors working for them. The late era management is a different story entirely and serves as a cautionary tale.

</comment><comment><USER17> related reading .. The Firecracker Boys, by Alaskan author Dan O'Neil .. recommended [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_O%27Neill_(writer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_O%27Neill_\(writer\))

</comment><comment><USER18> "What he uncovered was shocking." ... Ugh

<comment><USER19> There must be a wizard in some word processor I haven't yet come across for making "clickbait articles". It must feature a template with "shocked at what he found out" and "reached out to" as mandatory fill-ins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would be interesting to correlate Kodak's... business opportunities, following the briefing. How profitable was their silence?

<comment><USER19> That's not (really) how time-series work...

<comment><USER20> I'm sure there are other tools than time-series available to us...?

Perhaps if we look at some of the potential questions we would like to answer we can find more suitable data science methods?

      Did Kodak have competitors in the X-ray film business? What happened to them?
      Did this packing material plant supply products to other companies than just Kodak?
      Did the company culture start to resemble that of another company after the briefing? (Hard but interesting.)
      Did their hiring practices change?
      Did they get cheap loans?
      Did they buy other companies?
      Was their HQ moved or renovated?
      Was someone pressured to leave due to political leanings?

etc.

<comment><USER19> Yeah because all of those can't be due to a booming postwar economy.

Cheap loans, you say? So to keep Kodak quiet, the US government put pressure on some banks to give cheap money to Kodak so that to keep a few folks in one company quiet they'd have to deal with keeping a load of analysts, bank managers, and supervisors quiet in a plethora of banks?

Pressured to leave for political leanings? You mean in an an organisation with a considerable number of possibly left-leaning academics on the eve of McCarthyism?

Did they buy other companies? Gosh, I'm sure Kodak wasn't into the whole M&A thing.

 _Et cetera_ , do you see my point?

<comment><USER20> Is your point that no investigation should be made because coincidences exist? If so, no.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who's Watching Your Porch? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/style/ring-video-doorbell-home-security.html <comment><USER2> Ring security is actually useless. We had one at our work and somebody ripped it off the door and stole it, then transferred the device to their account.

Yes Ring allows anybody to transfer the device to their account once they steal it. No confirmation email to original account owner.

Even worse, this clears all of the video from the original account holder SO YOU CAN'T SEE WHO STOLE IT!!!

The whole point of owning a security camera is gone. No footage.

Its just a fundamentally poor product. And given all the other poor privacy measures - I'll never buy one again.

<comment><USER3> This is the dumbest flaw ever. You'd think that a product so good at making everyone feel watched & raising so many privacy concerns would at least be good enough to protect _itself_... well apparently not.

<comment><USER4> >This is the dumbest flaw ever

Actually, the dumbest flaw ever would be to give all the previous footage to the new "owner".

<comment><USER5> I wonder if this also happens, anyone got a spare ring I could transfer to my account for a test?

<comment><USER6> I thought Ring didn't actually record the video to the device's storage.

<comment><USER7> But if historic video from the device is no longer associated with the original account, does it get deleted or just owner change? who is to say it doesn't get given to the new account... You'd have to try it and see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I run video surveillance at my home out of some combination of paranoia and curiosity. But I run everything myself - cameras are recorded by an in-house NVR, which is an inexpensive single-board computer with a 1TB hard disk, and 'alert' clips are uploaded to a VPS on the off chance of someone breaking in and stealing the NVR.

Although open source NVR packages are, in my experience, a massive disaster (either extremely outdated and frustrating to set up and use in the case of ZoneMinder, or extremely feature limited as in the case of the fifty Raspberry Pi-based solutions), commercial software packages like Blue Iris and Xeoma (which is even cross-platform) are inexpensive and have expansive feature sets. I use Blue Iris, which has the downside of requiring Windows, but the upside of generating MQTT messages or HTTP requests on alerts which makes for a lot of easy integration. Xeoma is cross-platform but relatively immature (although I've found the vendor to be extremely responsive to emails) and has a bizarro-land UI that's very tricky to learn to use.

On the other hand, consumers don't necessarily need to deal with any of this, because lots of vendors sell NVR appliances that are hardware and software in one product, and they're pretty cheap. Costco even regularly carries them from a couple of major manufacturers. I prefer to do things myself, but I've used appliance NVRs from Swann in a couple of cases and they work fine with extremely easy setup. More recently Ubiquiti has gotten into this space, and I haven't had the opportunity to try their system yet but their products tend to be pretty good quality and ease of use for the rock-bottom prices - and as I understand it their premises-based NVR also runs the UniFi manager, so it makes it really easy to build out a large-campus WiFi-based solution but might also be a neat trick for home use if you want to use the great-for-the-price Ubiquiti APs and/or USG.

At the end of the day, I'm not convinced that cloud-based surveillance solutions really offer much to consumers beyond being backed by vendors with very aggressive marketing. Most people know about Ring cameras but don't know that they can buy a completely non-cloud, on-prem solution-in-a-box at the big box store or even, well, from Amazon. And at the end of the day, the manufacturers of these on-premises systems don't get to loop you into a "social network of fear" and analyze your video, so their opportunities to monetize are a lot more limited, and so they charge higher up-front prices.

I think a lot of it is just awareness though - Amazon and their competition are pushing their cloud-based solutions very hard, while the on-prem surveillance vendors that have for the most part been around much longer just don't really advertise to the consumer market.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any hyperlinks to resources for those who want to go DIY-ish? Thanks in advance.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if there's a good guide, maybe I ought to try to write one. I would say the simple things to keep in mind are just to buy cameras that are ONVIF compliant, since this more or less guarantees that you will be able to use them with any "open standard" NVR you want. tbh the ONVIF spec itself is frustrating and not that much help, it's just that ONVIF compliance guarantees you that there will be RTSP streams available and that an NVR will more-or- less be able to configure automatically.

When it comes to NVRs, there's a million options and I couldn't produce reviews on all of them... but Blue Iris is probably the most popular commercial NVR and ZoneMinder and Shinobi the most popular open-source. I would describe ZoneMinder as hopelessly obsolete and Shinobi as unstable and hard to get running on other than their supported platforms, but Blue Iris is Windows only so everything has its problems.

The only "big" NVR solution I've worked with is Milestone, and I'd say it's very good and actually not that expensive, but it is pretty heavy to deploy (e.g. needs MS SQL Server) and you have to buy through a VAR which is kind of a huge hassle to go through for a license that is only around $100 (for the lowest-end package).

Also, if you run cheap no-brand Chinese made IP cameras like I do... the cameras are often pretty damn good very a very low price, but sometimes it's a real adventure figuring out how to configure them (e.g. firmware not completely translated to English, often shared between many models so half of the settings don't apply to your device) and I recommend blocking them off from the internet because some have management/cloud recording features that you can't disable and it's a little sketchy having them connect out to some white-box overseas cloud management solution all the time.

It's a best practice to put IP cameras on their own VLAN anyway and it's not really that expensive to get home equipment that can support this, e.g. Ubiquiti's routers/switches and/or the TP-Link "Easy Smart" switches (which are 'semi-managed' and handle VLANs and QoS for well below the cost of a managed switch). But the machine I run Blue Iris on right now just happens to be a weird x86 single-board machine with 2 GbE interfaces, so I have the cameras on a physically segmented network just because it was easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Those rings certainly paid for themselves in stopping the violent break in... oh. well the woman screaming for help was saved when... oh. Well how about... never mind.

Ring, and CCTV in general doesn't prevent or even deter crimes nor did it save anyone. The irony with how useless a Ring camera is, is illustrated in all those Amazon package thefts ring captures but didn't stop. The only useful thing is being able to prove to Amazon your package was stolen. A pointless system of waste for lazy people. Boon for the surveillance state.

<comment><USER11> The way I see it, they're a tool, part of a bigger picture that aids in security and safety. The issue it seems is that there isn't a proper follow up once the perpetrator gets identified and caught. There doesn't seem to be strict enough punishment for people who get caught to deter them. Or you have ridiculous laws where the thief can sue the owner of the house they broke into because they got hurt or "excessive force" was used to contain them until the police arrive.

<comment><USER12> The evidence is extremely weak that threat of punishment actually successfully deters crimes of opportunity: [https://undark.org/2016/05/16/deterrence- punishments-dont-re...](https://undark.org/2016/05/16/deterrence-punishments- dont-reduce-crime/)

Some premeditated crimes (e.g. first-degree murder, bribery) can be deterred by threat of punishment, but when people are making the snap-decision to commit a crime of opportunity, they aren't carefully weighing the risk vs reward.

<comment><USER11> Studies like this always seem to be confined to Western societies (and particularly the US). Other societies seem to be doing just fine with harsh punishments like the death penalty. There are other factors at play here, but having harsh punishments that are actually applied is one factor in the system. In other countries, serial rapists would be executed for instance. I'm not sure that's the case in the US.

<comment><USER13> Not that I'm recommending we go this route, but Singapore will literally beat you with a big stick, likely permanently handicapping you, for offenses as small as chewing gum. They have remarkably low crime.

<comment><USER14> Chewing gum is a fine. There's a lot to be said about caning in Singapore but you're not going to be caned for chewing gum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I look forward to Ubiquiti's upcoming "UniFi Access" line of access control hardware (e.g., an electric bolt controller with a front-facing door camera embedded in a nice package). Self-hosted like all UniFi gear, meaning video and data are not exfiltrated to a third-party cloud. Plus, it will be managed by and work alongside all of your other UniFi equipment.

<comment><USER3> There's definitely a need for a _secure_ (based on actual cryptography) door entry control system.

Most of what I've seen in the field is either HID iClass (no idea how secure they are) or Mifare Classic. The latter doesn't even attempt to use the card's crypto features (which are broken, but it would've at least been an attempt) and just uses the UID of the card which is broadcast in the clear and even the card's datasheet explicitly warns against using it for any kind of security.

<comment><USER16> In the commercial space, sure. In the residential space, it would be a pretty small market. A door lock is there to slow down an attacker, or to force them to make a destructive entry via a window. Going much beyond long screws to prevent kick-in, and good tolerances to prevent trivial bump keys is rarely cost-effective.

<comment><USER17> I've talked to a few people who were victims of burglaries, and the value of the stolen stuff never worried them. The violation of their home was what worried them. It messes with you when you know someone broke into your home.

So people probably don't worry about cost-effectiveness of their home security system, they just want to feel safe in their home.

<comment><USER18> Even if cost is no object, every commercial electronic entry system I've ever seen has had at least one door with a bypass with a conventional key, in case the electronic entry system fails. And any electronic lock with a manual lock in parallel with it can never be more secure against attacks like lockpicking than the manual lock alone.

Of course, there are security benefits if you have a cleaner/dog walker/whatever and want to give them access you can revoke without the cost of changing your lock. Or if you're running a commercial installation like an office or AirBnB.

Still, I don't think electronic door locks will become mass-market until someone makes one so reliable it doesn't need a mechanical bypass key, which might be impossible.

<comment><USER19> You can pin a lock that's practically impossible to pick by permanently blocking when one attempts to pick them. Yes, the owner needs to drill the lock after such a picking attempt, but it prevents non-destructive entry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you haven't checked it out, there was a Citations Needed podcast episode about this recently. It's a great show, self described as about "media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit." It's usually an interesting listen.

[https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-97-porch- pirate-p...](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-97-porch-pirate-panic- and-the-paranoid-racism-of-snitch-apps)

</comment><comment><USER21> My suggestion for porch piracy is for everybody in the neighborhood to leave a few random looking packages on their porch. It would greatly raise the effort of a thief to figure out which package is worth stealing.

<comment><USER22> I sense a business opportunity... selling decoy packages, including delivery.

<comment><USER23> There is a youtube video out where someone created a decoy package and left it on their porch until someone stole it. The theif opened the package only for it to explode glitter everywhere.

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

<comment><USER24> That was partially a hoax (the legit creator enlisted helpers, some of whom hoaxed him/us): [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yw7jej/glitter-bomb- video...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yw7jej/glitter-bomb-video-staged- fake-package-thieves-youtube-mark-rober-explained-vgtrn)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> what better way to build a surveliance state than get people to do it to them selves.

<comment><USER26> This is kind of like the classic book "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. There is a scene where a character is running down the street, and a ubiquitous tv show is on that tells everyone to look out their window for the dangerous person "Right now!" (with their photo shown) so that you can find and capture anyone running away through the city, with everyone coordinated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Banditry/highwaymen have been a feature of societies with high inequality for a long time. It's a big reason that people congregated behind city walls since time immemorial.

These cameras are our new city walls and guards, and given a continuation the trend toward greater inequality, these sorts of technologies will become even more ubiquitous.

<comment><USER28> I think bandits/highwaymen would be those who steal by physical force. Burglars steal surreptitiously.

And I think the main reason the wealthy build the walls is because they're the only ones who can afford to. Everyone's safety is improved by hiding behind some good walls.

<comment><USER27> > I think bandits/highwaymen would be those who steal by physical force. > Burglars steal surreptitiously.

Fine, add burglary to the list. The _how_ matters less than the _why_. Addressing the _why_ makes us consider how the structure of society incentivizes the crime. Camera systems are also going up in public spaces to deter robberies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://archive.md/sLqSi](http://archive.md/sLqSi)

</comment><comment><USER30> How does Nest compare to Ring ?

I have seen so many deals on Ring security system and not surprised my entire community is on Ring (since its closer to a Costco) and we are the only household without any kind of security system atm.

<comment><USER31> Quality wise, I'm very satisfied with my Nest Hello.

However Google keeps removing features and neutering functionality as they painfully absorb Nest into their Google home crap.

For once I'd like one of these vendors that isn't incompetent or evil and actually brings some value to the table :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Want some real fun? Try to set up Ring without UPNP enabled.

Let the games begin!

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/3168](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/3168)</comment>


Visual Studio 2017 Release Candidate - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/visual-studio-2017-rc/ <comment><USER2> As a .NET dev, I'm happy to see this:

"a new way of view, edit, and debug any code without projects and solutions"

Seems silly, but this solves a long time gripe w/ VS.

<comment><USER3> Good for small scripts in python etc I guess? Otherwise, when would you want the IDE's abilities but constrained to one file?

<comment><USER4> You aren't necessarily limited to editing single files without project files. Lots of projects are folder-based with tasks or commands to be run on that folder structure.

See: Rails apps, Hugo websites, anything written in Go.

<comment><USER5> Right. Directory-based projects were there from the early days of Unix and C, even before make and makefiles organized things a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Visual Studio "15" = Visual Studio 2017 = VC 15.0 Crystal clear. Why didn't Microsoft bump up VC version to 17 to sort of make VC version follow VS version. Would clear out some confusion going forward.

<comment><USER7> I am beginning to think that Microsoft's bad verison naming is entirely on- purpose.

Windows has had terrible naming since NT -- back and forth between names/numbers/years (or nonsense like "Anniversary Update" or "R2"), have a completely different scheme for Server vs Desktop, and if you look at the corresponding kernel versions of these releases[0], the major/minor bump in versions seems completely arbitrary.

.NET is even worse. Framework vs CLR is a mess [1]. Core started over at 1.0. .NET Standard brings some consistency to it all, but also introduces _another_ versioning scheme with overlapping numbers that mean different things[2].

But even other divisions do this: Xbox -> Xbox 360 -> Xbox One.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Releases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Releases)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework_version_history...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework_version_history#Overview)

[2] [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introduci...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/09/26/introducing- net-standard/)

<comment><USER8> You forgot about Windows 9. ;)

<comment><USER9> Was meant to have been skipped because it was too similar to Windows 9x (Win95, etc...).

<comment><USER7> Which wouldn't have been a problem if they followed a consistent naming convention in the first place...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The new installer is nice. Installed just a C++ environment in 5 minutes!!

<comment><USER11> Wow that's huge. My last VS2015 install took hours.

<comment><USER12> I usually do it at the end of the day, and leave it running when I end work.

<comment><USER13> Not even an option in the Windows 10 era, where our computers might reboot at any time on short notice. (work computers with group policy tweaks are something of an exception, but still)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some first impressions here: [https://blog.oz-code.com/first-impressions-of- visual-studio-...](https://blog.oz-code.com/first-impressions-of-visual- studio-2017-rc/)

<comment><USER15> Thanks! I was hoping I would be able to get rid of ReSharper, but the lack of CamelHumps in navigation and in code completion will force me to keep using.

<comment><USER14> Personally they'll have to pry ReSharper from my cold, dead, hands - I've grown to rely on more advanced features like Value Origins/Destination [https://www.jetbrains.com/help/resharper/2016.2/Code_Analysi...](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/resharper/2016.2/Code_Analysis__Value_Tracking.html) That I couldn't possibly go back.

<comment><USER16> Good God I love ReSharper. I've been using it since the mid 2000s. It's a wonderful tool. However, their more recent releases have introduced some pretty annoying regressions with code formatting and other features. They seem to be ignoring my hand-reported issues on YouTrack. I haven't been as impressed with ReSharper as in the past. Hopefully they can right the ship and put out better quality stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of the install options is "Linux development with C++"

<comment><USER18> Yes our C++ team has been investing into this area for a while now, we're building some really powerful debugging capabilities there as just one thing to mention with remote debug right out to your Linux machine or VM

<comment><USER19> Does that mean VS will support C11 features?

<comment><USER20> The Linux workload is designed to work with GCC today, so whatever standard level your GCC compiler supports is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think there is really only one feature Microsoft cares deeply about in this, and that is "Easy Azure integration". All the big fish are going to work hard to collect rent on whatever SAAS they can.

Why twist yourself in knots to be the "next X" when you can be content supplying the "next X" with a platform for expansion.

</comment><comment><USER22> Great to see some Resharper features making it in, have been waiting for MS to acquire Resharper or Jet brains :P; but why acquire when you can make your own Slack and Resharper :)

<comment><USER23> > have been waiting for MS to acquire Resharper or Jet brains :P;

Please don't. They make way too many awesome tools outside of Microsoft's area of interest, like CLion, Kotlin, RubyMine etc.

<comment><USER22> Kotlin is my fav!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm tempted, but when I tried 2015 RC shit broke like crazy when I upgraded to the actual release.

<comment><USER25> I was bitten like this with an RC of an earlier VS version (maybe 2012, I don't recall). I haven't touched a VS RC since, and doubt I ever will!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does this also mean a new C/C++ runtime library is available (i.e. vcruntime150)?

<comment><USER27> MSVC STL dev here. We're doing something different this time around. VS 2015 RTM and Update 1/2/3 were binary-compatible (as usual) while adding lots of features to the compiler and STL (unusual). VS 2017 RTM and its Updates will continue to be binary-compatible while adding features, meaning that our DLLs are still vcruntime140.dll, msvcp140.dll, etc. The versions are admittedly a mess, so here's the magic decoder ring:

VS 2015: IDE version 14, DLL version 140, toolset version 140, compiler version 19.0 (the C++ compiler is older than the Visual part of Visual C++). VS 2017: IDE version 15, DLL version 140 (same!), toolset version 141, compiler version 19.1

We still recommend that you build everything with VS 2017 consistently, as this will give you the most performance and correctness. However, you can mix in object files, static libraries, and DLLs compiled with previous versions all the way back to 2015 RTM, and things will continue to work (although you won't necessarily activate fixes in the newer version).

For more info, read the comments on [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/08/24/c1417-fea...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/08/24/c1417-features- and-stl-fixes-in-vs-15-preview-4/) where I mentioned WCFB02.

<comment><USER26> Thank you. I seem to have completely missed all the VC blog posts about the bincompat decision with regard to Visual Studio "15"/2017.

Glad to know that the VC100 to VC140 overhaul that I completed only very recently can still be considered fully up to date with the latest and greatest :).

<comment><USER27> Yeah, it makes migrating a codebase with third-party libraries built with older toolsets easier. Note that you'll need to build with VS 2017 if you want header-only improvements like the vector overhaul, and you'll need to update to 2017's VCRedist if you want DLL improvements (e.g. if you're still on 2015 RTM's msvcp DLL, you don't have the iostreams correctness/performance fix that shipped in 2015 Update 2; DLL improvements are uncommon but they do happen).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Project.json for .net core is gone, there's xproj file. How to change settings, like target framework, per-framework dependencies, build options, pre/post build steps, etc? I don't see any tooling support for that.

<comment><USER29> That went away a while ago, unfortunately... though I think yaml may have been better, the json-like structure was much easier than the xml mess for vs projects.

Hoping they added an "empty" project that is just files, closest were some of the web projects, but even then, node projects always felt like an alien afterthought... haven't seen how they are in vs2017, guessing they brought in the ntvs stuff into mainline.

<comment><USER28> project.json is still official way of configuring the projects. Dotnet cli uses that, msbuild is not there yet i think. Empty project is done with "donnet new", and it's really small and light ...

<comment><USER30> Recent versions of the dotnet cli work with both xproj and project.json for the time being, but have defaulted `dotnet new` to the xproj output. It also provides a `dotnet migrate` command to convert a project.json to an xproj.

<comment><USER30> xproj was the transitionary MSBuild scaffold, I meant csproj, things are returning to the csproj extension.

Some details of it all: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/11/16/announcin...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/11/16/announcing- net-core-tools-msbuild-alpha/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anyone know if this will work with Unity 3D?

<comment><USER32> It seems so:

Game development with Unity The Unity engine integrates into one unparalleled platform to create 2D and 3D games and interactive content. Create once and publish to 21 platforms, including all mobile platforms, WebGL, Mac, PC and Linux desktop, web or consoles. Write code quickly and with precision using IntelliSense. Navigate through your scripts easily and use powerful refactoring capabilities. Identify issues quickly by debugging your Unity games in Visual Studio.

<comment><USER33> In a similar vein, Unreal Engine 4 added support for VS "15"/2017 in yesterdays 4.14 release.

[https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal- engine-4-14-release...](https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal- engine-4-14-released)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> james-skemp I've always been hesitant to install RC's on my machine.

Does anyone know how nicely the RC's generally play with other instances of VS / if they've improved that along with the improved install/uninstall process in 2017?

<comment><USER34> In my experience, the RCs play nicely with other instances, but moving to the RTM is a complete nightmare.

<comment><USER24> Yes my 2013 and 2015RC ran very well together, but omfg when I tried to upgrade to 2015 RTM

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Looks like the download page is getting hammered.

FWIW, the download buttons on the big white panels didn't work for me. If you scroll further down the page to the list of all downloads, that worked.

<comment><USER36> Piss-poor caching mechanism that can't spit out static frontpages with relative ease. Still getting 504's.

<comment><USER35> Here are direct links. Looks like they haven't updated the names in the URL's, but this downloads the 2017 RC.

[https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Community.exe](https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Community.exe) [https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Enterprise.exe](https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Enterprise.exe) [https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Professional.exe](https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_Professional.exe) [https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_TestProfessional.exe](https://aka.ms/vs/15/release/vs_TestProfessional.exe)

<comment><USER36> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is exciting, trying out now.. installer seems pretty smooth

<comment><USER38> Happy to hear! If you have any feedback or run into any issues, go to Help > Send Feedback in the IDE. Thanks! Cathy (Visual Studio IDE Team)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Looks like MS is making mostly small changes, focusing on improving the features they already have instead of introducing lots of new changes.

<comment><USER40> They're integrating xamarin into visual studio. That's pretty big no?

<comment><USER41> Is the new xamarin going to be any less buggy?

<comment><USER42> My experience with reporting a bug in Xamarin the other day was that it was fairly quickly reproduced and fixed. If you're hitting bugs I'd really recommend reporting them if you're not already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So, when will cl support two-phase name lookup?</comment>


Parametric Press: A magazine for explorable explanations, accepting submissions - <AUTHOR> https://parametric.press/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, I've been leading the charge to put this together. Its built on Idyll [1], which I'm developing as part of my PdD at the University of Washington. You may have seen some of our articles, they appear on HN from time to time.

Please chime in if you have any questions!

[1] [https://idyll-lang.org/](https://idyll-lang.org/)</comment>


Community open letter against renaming Wikimedia to Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming <comment><USER2> Oh, it's one of those "if it ain't broken, ruin it by rebranding" moves that we've seen play out so many times, is it?

Great thinking. People know that Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia, it's in the name. Let's make it stand for many things that are not the encyclopedia.

If there was a Wikipedia article about it... Oh wait, there is one: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#Brand_extension_and_bran...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#Brand_extension_and_brand_dilution)

<comment><USER2> They are accepting comments at email@example.com

Here is what I sent them, if anyone wants to follow:

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Hello,

I am writing to you regarding the rebranding proposal to use Wikipedia for projects that are not Wikipedia.

In short: please don't. This is a plain example of brand dilution.

The brand has a clear meaning: Wikipedia stands for an encyclopedia. The trust and widespread acceptance of the brand comes from this clear association. Wikipedia doesn't stand for the news. Or for the books. Or for pictures. Or for _media_.

Wikipedia stands for an encyclopedia, which is valued as a source of knowledge, and is held to standards and format that other Wikimedia projects don't have to follow. A "Wikipedia article" is an encyclopedia article. It's not a news piece, not a book, not a picture, not a data set, not a dictionary definition, nor any of the other things that Wikimedia projects attain.

By making Wikipedia an umbrella brand for all of those, you kill the brand, plain and simple.

Please value the efforts of all people who made these projects possible, and keep Wikipedia Wikipedia.

Sincerely,

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Another option is using the talk page [1].

If you also think that Wiki _pedia_ should only stand for the encyclo _pedia_ , make your voice heard by either of the means.

[1][https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedi...](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/community_review)

<comment><USER3> Seems like the discussion is marked closed.

<comment><USER4> Ongoing discussion here: [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedi...](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having multiple great other projects with little recognition (or much less public awareness) than Wikipedia must be challenging, and for all of us, readers, unfortunate. Projects like Wikidata (basis for all knowledge graphs powering search engines), Wikinews (what could potentially be fact checked news in an age of misinformation), etc could all benefit from some raised awareness for all Wikimedia projects. Even raising money from donations, is usually targeted at Wikipedia. I do not how the governance structure of Wikimedia influences the distribution of donations, or whether renaming is meant to influence this. Overall, I see a sincere struggle to get traction around more Wikimedia projects - and I find that commendable.

<comment><USER2> Counterpoint: a "Wikipedia article" has a worldwide recognition and trust precisely because it does _not_ stand for a _news article_.

If you rebrand Wikinews to being a part of Wikipedia, the value of a "Wikipedia article" goes down, since there is less distinction between the two.

You might raise awareness. You might also kill the brand, and the project.

There are other ways of raising awareness than by rebranding.

<comment><USER6> >a "Wikipedia article" has a worldwide recognition and trust

For the average person, Wikipedia exists as a mix of trust and distrust, with its distrustful image preceding it.

It still carries the reputation of something you cant cite in school, that anyone can edit. The name itself is thrown around as a pejorative, even by people who behind closed doors consume it.

This is also a surprisingly hard claim to google, for sources. "wikipedia used as a pejorative -site:wikipedia.org -site:wiktionary.org -site:wikipedia.nd.ax" etc returns nothing I want.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps it's a surprisingly hard claim to google because it's not something that happens often? :)

I personally don't know anyone who would use it that way. Yes, people are aware that articles on controversial topics can fluctuate, but generally, people love using Wikipedia as a starting point of finding out about things.

When someone wants to find out about West Indian Manatee, they don't go to Britannica.

<comment> frosted-flakes For some things, maybe. But it seems that more often than not, the Wikipedia article is just a jumble of incomprehensible technical terms and mathematical formulae, and I end up looking elsewhere. At least for anything remotely technical.

For example, Fitts's Law[1], which is a super simple concept that the further away a target is, the bigger it needs to be to quickly and accurately reach it. It's super relevant in any sort of graphical user interface design, particularly mouse-driven ones, and you don't need to know the math behind it to understand it. But this is how Wikipedia introduces it:

> Fitts's law is a predictive model of human movement primarily used in > human–computer interaction and ergonomics. This scientific law predicts that > the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the > ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target.

And it jumps right into a bunch of complicated-looking math from there. If you're not already familiar with the topic and you're also not a mathematician, the whole thing is complete gibberish.

That was only the first topic I thought of, and I've never seen that particular page before.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law)

<comment><USER2> It's hard for me to see anything bad with this article, but I am a mathematician :)

I agree that there are problems with Wikipedia getting too technical and dry, but that's kind of expected of an encyclopedia.

Still, there is a consistent expectation, even if it's "technical mumbo jumbo".

It's very different from whatever _other_ Wikimedia projects offer. And that's the problem.

<comment> frosted-flakes It reads like a research paper, that's why it's bad. It could start off something along my description of the topic in layman's terms before getting into the technical details which are often not relevant.

Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, not directed towards any particular group of people. But many articles are written towards people that are highly-educated in the field the topic is in, which kind of misses the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see no inherent problem of confusion if this is well managed. Coca-cola has Coke Zero and Dasani in their family of products. Yet nobody confuses Dasani for Coke. Nobody even confuses Coke Zero for Coke. Sometimes it makes sense to have a strong association with the "flagship" brand and sometimes not.

Also, I suggest that maybe one should think about branding from the perspective of a naive user. Is it true that there is a well-understood distinction between Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikinews? I think not. We can't even get people to understand that Wikileaks isn't associated with Wikipedia. For the general public, if it has "wiki" in the front it's Wikipedia.

Given that, the main problem is using words that are _almost_ , but _not quite_ , Wikipedia. If you work at the Foundation, and have to explain what you do to anyone else, it's pretty annoying. I worked for the Wikimedia Foundation on MediaWiki software on a project primarily for Wikimedia Commons which is a backend for Wikipedia. It sounds like you're just doing permutation rounds of several syllables.

I'm not sure what the argument is about, other than the various wikiprojects' disdain for each other and the Foundation itself. Which I admit is sometimes earned, in every direction. The WMF isn't always the best partner. The standards for some wikiprojects are abysmal and for some they are quite high.

But when you get right down to it, that's true of all the language variants of Wikipedia too, and they literally do share the exact same name. Has that been a problem as well?

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems reminiscent of Mozilla's decision to rebrand "Firefox" as "Firefox browser" and put it together with their other products under the parent brand "Firefox."

[https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/files/2019/06/FX_Design_...](https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/files/2019/06/FX_Design_Blog_Logos_Family-1000x550.jpg)

I thought this was a poor move. Everyone know Firefox as a browser. The other products which got included under the Firefox umbrella are just unoriginal browser extensions. If they came out with another, non-browser related product, it ought to be under the Mozilla brand.

<comment><USER9> The fact that I had no prior knowledge of this shows just how useful their exercise in rebranding was. Firefox is a browser. Saying "Firefox browser" is mere tautology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The outreach and feedback KPIs were satisfied. The consultation was shared > to 122 affiliates, of which 52 responded. While it's impossible to > accurately measure the number of community members that were contacted, the > consultation was presented on email lists and web pages with thousands of > readers, and 144 community members replied. > A key performance indicator > was that over 20% of affiliates support this change, and that was met, with > 38% of the 63 affiliates that responded supporting the change, and 10% > opposing. > There were two KPIs that measured community support, which > required less than 20% of the community oppose the change, and over 20% > support it. Neither performance indicator was met, as 40% of the community > opposed the change and 14% supported it. From: > [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_bra...](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project/FAQ)

Does <40% of respondents, where most polled don't care enough to respond, seem like an awfully small show of support to anyone else? And that's on the metric which seems stronger.

<comment><USER11> It's still three times more than oppose it.

If most don't care, there's no reason to lump them in with the opposition.

<comment><USER3> I just don't get it either way. Why bother?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm pretty active on Wikidata and don't have a problem with this.

People here are arguing to stick with Wikimedia for reasons that are logically and ontologically flawless, but do not in the least matter for the purposes of branding.

When the foundation calls a politician only vaguely familiar with the internet, they will still know Wikipedia, and might be more willing to do whatever it is the foundation wants. The same is true for almost anyone except maybe their most active users.

Community opposition, even though I disagree with it, is the only valid reason not to do this. I can't really tell how represent this letter is for the community, many of whom are likely to be at least indifferent to it. But the foundation will have a better idea and certainly consider it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can we get a little bit of a title change on this? It seemed at first glance like this was people asking to rename Wikimedia into Wikipedia. Instead it's a community letter asking to _cease_ renaming Wikimedia into Wikipedia.

Can the title be changed to something like "Community open letter on ceasing renaming Wikimedia to Wikipedia" ?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's better indeed, thanks!

<comment><USER13> "Ceasing renaming" seems awkward so I reworded it. If someone suggests a better wording we can change it again.

<comment><USER14> Your wording is better than the letter's, from which I couldn't tell which way they were proposing to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I didn't know they were doing this but I agree with the sentiment of the letter. It's no different than any other social technologies... the community builds it then the company co-opts it (and usually monetizes it AND the quality degrades).

</comment><comment><USER16> I found the News section of this article helpful in understanding the context. See the recent board and execute statements. [https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_b...](https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project)

There seems to be a gap between board and executive team as to whether a rebrand has been decided.

</comment><comment><USER17> The encyclopedia seems to have been written, the mediawiki engine is working fine, so now they either have to rebrand, or work on a dark theme.

<comment><USER4> Dark times indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me of when 37Signals rebranded to Basecamp. Except at the same time they dropped all other projects until now with the release of HEY.

</comment><comment><USER19> Tandy started circling the drain when it renamed itself to RadioShack.</comment>


Ask HN: basic web design for small projects? - <AUTHOR>

As I am seriously hampered by my lack of design skills, I wonder how others cope with those small projects (like small demos) that don't warrant hiring a designer. Are there some tricks to make simple sites look good? I remember one guy writing on HN how he just found a free web design template on the web, but even that approach failed for me so far. Did I just not look in the right places? <comment><USER2> Basic design competency can be learned. Sure, you may not be able to learn to be a brilliant designer, but anyone can learn how to use Photoshop and CSS and how to produce a decent design.

I'm no designer either, yet I can make some decent designs (e.g. <http://danieltenner.com>) that, imho, look far from horrible.

The key is to practice and to get comments/criticisms from other people. It also helps to join a web designer forum and offer critiques of other people's designs. What you need is basically to train up your own internal critical engine so that you can point out the flaws in your own designs and correct them.

Being able to make things look good is a pretty useful skill in all walks of life, I'd recommend learning it rather than trying to outsource it.

<comment><USER3> Is there an alternative (on OSX) for this application (designing website/app layouts) to Photoshop? I've used Gimp in the past but they seem like completely different animals and the tutorials for Photoshop were all but useless.

I have a hard time swallowing the price of Photoshop for such a limited application, when I'd probably be using less than 25% of what it does...

<comment><USER2> I have yet to find a comparable alternative to Photoshop. There are many attempts at duplicating it, but none of them are nearly as powerful as Photoshop.

I believe there are some "lite" versions of photoshop out there for cheaper prices, though...

<comment><USER4> Gimp?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should learn basic design principles first. Start reading this book:

Non-Designer's Design Book

[http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-3rd- Designer...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-3rd- Designers/dp/0321534042/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_ex/178-9816000-2540627)

<comment><USER6> I recommend Non-Designer's Design Book too. Its the best starter book on designing.

Combine that with making a few trips to colourlovers.com for selecting your site colours - and you're set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think where one's design skills can be considered lacking, as I very much consider my own, simplicity becomes increasingly important and attractive as a design philosphy.

Plenty of white space, clear typography, showing only what is needed, and aligning vertical and horizontal edges helps hugely.

Two tools that also help enormously: <http://www.906.gs> \- a grid system for layout and <http://www.colourlovers.com> \- Colour Lovers for awesome colour palettes.

<comment><USER8> I think you mean <http://www.960.gs> (Highly recommend it by the way). <http://smashingmagazine.com> has some great articles on design.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the correction, voltageek! And Smashing Mag is an excellent resource indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If the template didn't work for you - perhaps you do just need to look around a bit - there are tons of good solid templates out there. here is 100 for starters: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/01/100-free-high- qua...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/01/100-free-high-quality- xhtmlcss-templates/)

Learn illustrator for the web or fireworks before photoshop if you want to do it yourself and nice curves work wonders.

I'm doing a slinkset site up at the moment (in my profile) which I haven't promoted yet as it need some finishing touches but it's going to be somewhere you can post for jobs like this, look for advice or find templates etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> This depends on the project. I'm a non-visual person myself. If it's open source or non-commercial then I recommend <http://www.oswd.org> \-- I have to admit your site will look very Web 1.0 but I've had luck outfitting my open source projects from here.

I'll second what others are saying: you should learn HTML, CSS (properties, selectors, box model, etc.), and become competent with Photoshop or The GIMP.

These skills let me modify (with mixed results) existing templates. They also save me money when working with a designer. I'm able to provide direction by modifying his mockups saving time (= $$$) and confusion in the process.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any pointers for good existing templates? I already know HTML and CSS, and basic Photoshop/Gimp (even created title graphics with glow and shadows and stuff back in the day). But the only "template" I have available is YUI reset- fonts-grids.css, which looks worse than nothing at first, as it removes all styles.

<comment><USER11> Don't confuse a framework with a template. I would not consider YUI a template, and even basic CSS layouts (the common 2-column, 3-column, etc.) are not complete templates. Using a true template the design decisions (graphics, colors, etc) are made for you.

I'd recommend determining what content you want on the site, find similar sites, and then that will provide a basis for design. Look at oswd.org and smashingmagazine.com as mentioned above. Do a google search for css templates, etc. Even consider templatemonster.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Minimalism can get you pretty far. Good examples: Cutline by Chris Pearson, Daring Fireball blog, Google.

</comment><comment><USER13> Most color wheels will help you pick three colors, but this isn't really necessary in basic sites. One of the things I've used to overcome this is to just use two colors. Even better is to just stick to the grey scale.

From there, learn a bit about typography. Typography can make a huge difference on whether a site looks great or looks like utter crap. I've seen a few sites that kept color choice really simply without a lot of fancy graphics that truly looked beautiful.

Another thing that will definitely help is practice. Do a couple practice mockups and breakdowns. You can follow along to a tutorial like <http://is.gd/Lpx4> or just wing it. The first design I did was a royal pain, but by the second or third design, the process became much more natural and a lot easier. Each subsequent design has gone a lot smoother as well, and I can only attribute this to practice and reading about design.

</comment><comment><USER14> The advice above is great if you have a real passion and talent for design or if you really need to save the $$$. However, as a counterpoint I'll share some compelling reasons to hire/borrow a real designer, even if that means paying some $$$ for a short-term contract: (1) It takes time to learn design skills. Can you really afford the opportunity cost? Wouldn't that time be better spent on business/hacker work? (2) For a credible product, you need a professional finish. Sure, you can go for a simple look like Google but even doing that well takes serious skills. Design is like DIY in your home - it's easy to 'get by' but hard to do a real professional job. (3) You will probably take longer to do this work than a professional. This means that not only are you spending valuable business/hacker time but you're spending even more time than a professional would.

<comment><AUTHOR> One problem I see with hiring a designer is that it becomes hard to change the site after the deed is done. It is difficult to make incremental improvements.

<comment><USER14> It's a good point. You can mitigate this by asking your designer to leave a PSD file with various UI components and teach you the basics of how, for example, to create new buttons in the site style. Of course, this doesn't help with brand-new innovative features or artwork in the same style. Artwork is where you feel this problem at its worst!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Photoshop, GIMP, CSS, etc. ara just tools. You should first get some good taste. It can be learnt. And it will pay well in the future (for example, you'll avoid hiring a bad designer).

Learn a bit of color theory, as to avoid creating horrible mashups. Don't trust just pre-baked palettes. The proportion you use of each color is even more important.

Learn some composition, read a pair of introduction books on design. The more you learn, the better.

Good design is hard to come by. In programming and in arts.

</comment><comment><USER16> Design is a subject to be learned like any other - there's whole books and schools dedicated to it. Go to the library, look through some art and design books, if you see a style you like then write it down and emulate it (don't copy it outright, just use it as a framework or guidance). If you're into what a lot of people here are calling "minimal", look at modernism and the swiss- style. Browse published graphic design poster histories and start to pay attention to how the compositions are put together and what makes styles similar and different, and typography. In no time you'll have a greater appreachiation of the craft and your own designs will look a lot better. It's a lot like programming actually.

</comment><comment><USER17> It sounds like you'd like to hire a designer, but the size of the project doesn't warrant paying for one. In this case, I'd recommend 99designs.com. Have a simple custom design created for a very reasonable price. Best of both worlds!

</comment><comment><USER18> If you are in a hurry and do not have the patience, then you will only get frustrated if you try to learn from scratch. I suggest you go with ready-made stuff - like for CSS, take a look at BlueprintCSS (it makes CSS a hell a lot easier) -- go for minimalism with nice typography. Then get a good photo and in some minimalist design and it should be good.

Or better yet, ask your friends to do it ;-) there are guys out there who are trying to build up a portfolio and will be willing to do simple jobs for free.

Just curious, do you have a URL for your site?

</comment><comment><USER19> <http://blueprintcss.org/> is much like 960.gs - a clear concise framework designed to give you nice typography with easy layout - look into it. It will save you serious time.

Get someone else to do graphics if that's not your thing.

Make sure any content (phrasing, wording, etc.) is TARGETED towards your users. As a developer, you will think you have the right content, but likely you won't.

<comment><USER20> Gotta like their sneaky "Sites using Blueprint" section that makes it look like a dozen high-profile sites are using it, when in fact it's only two little ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Probably unrelated, but I could whip up a design comp for you quickly, minus the coding (I'm REALLY busy at the moment). Nothing in return, I just like to help :)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm in the same boat and while I will ultimately design a web site for the project, right now I am using WordPress which has a lot of really nice themes.

</comment><comment><USER23> Use "Google Design": as simple as possible, no fancy css / photoshop / effects.

If worked for Google it will work for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> No question, but I still see a big difference between my layouts and the average Ruby on Rails generation layout.

<comment><USER23> There you are with the Ruby on Rails web app theme :D <http://github.com/pilu/web-app-theme/tree>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If a small demo, as you put it, is important enough that you need to show it for your career, it's important enough to either spend the time learning web design basics to make a decent looking demo, or else to enlist outside help.

(This doesn't necessarily mean hiring an expensive web designer or design firm; I regularly consult on projects for cheap or free in order to help clients, business contacts, and friends, and have found that it almost always pays off in terms of establishing better relationships with people, who in turn refer projects back to me, etc.)

So, I guess what I'm saying is, if you're not the greatest at design but need design services, then, uh, try to make friends with a good web developer with altruistic tendencies.</comment>


Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin - <AUTHOR> http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2012/04/20.aspx

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if it can still be described as 'super secret' if we're reading about it on the official DARPA blog.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, nothing about it being secret appears anywhere in the blog posting, prosaic title is:

ENGINEERING REVIEW BOARD CONCLUDES REVIEW OF HTV-2 SECOND TEST FLIGHT

And it's quite cool; of particular note is their analysis that the improvements prompted by the previous first test allowed the flight control system to keep it stable for a while as the skin was peeling off and creating nasty aerodynamic effects. And I gather they have some real world to provide the materials science types.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those interested, at mach 20 it seems to take 98 minutes to go around the equator (on the surface). In the nine minutes of sustained flight, it could have covered 3675km on the ground.

</comment><comment><USER5> Like a banana through a fence.

Seriously if you've never done it - throw a banana HARD through a fence. Quite interesting.

Yes I am insane.

<comment><USER6> I... would like to see a video of this.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVa15C0xHSo>

<comment><USER8> I love the Internets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It really sounds like the only real problem was the material that covers the aircraft not being able to withstand the forces at mach 20. I wonder what the material was and if they can find something better without a lot more materials research. I love this stuff!

</comment><comment><USER10> So given this thing goes Mach 20, how fast does it get there?

If the intention is to have a platform that can deliver 'stuff' (whether munitions, supplies or people) is there going to be a problem with g-loading on acceleration and deceleration?

</comment><comment><USER11> Are they going to continue this research or was that the last flight?

<comment><USER12> It was my understanding from previous articles that this is an ongoing project.

<comment><USER13> They should take an Fail Fast approach, why not make several test flights at 10000 and look for problems. 400 Million for the first flight seems really expensive.

<comment><USER12> They have a fair amount of experience going about it the way they do (since the X-1). It looks like it will take a while to go through all the data and figure out what material / structure changes they need to make. It also makes a couple of other countries a little antsy flying this type of beast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> it did a barrel roll at 13,000 miles per hour... and corrected itself

<comment><USER15> It was probably a roll, not a barrel roll since the latter requires a controlled pitch input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What is secret about something written about publicly?

<comment><USER17> Do you know how to build it? Me neither.

<comment><USER18> Wait a second -- neither do I! So if the two of you not knowing how to build it means it's secret (your point, right?)...then the three of us not knowing means it's... _TOP SECRET!_</comment></comment></comment>


Geeks have become their own worst enemies - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/09/19/geeks-have-become-their-own-worst-enemies/

<comment><USER2> You defined it perfectly: "we no longer know how to enjoy art without enjoying it against others."</comment>


Google posts Windows 8.1 vulnerability after 90 days - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/02/google-posts-unpatched-microsoft-bug/ <comment><USER2> This story is surprisingly hostile to Google. A 90-day window after which the bug is published is about as responsible as responsible disclosure gets. The headline really rubs me the wrong way, as though Google raced to publish this vulnerability to spite Microsoft.

Not talking about the bug doesn't mean it's not there, but talking about it sure makes people aware that they should perhaps take extra precautions until Microsoft patches the bug. The attitude that "you're giving info to the evil hackers and now we're all unsafe!11" is the very essence of the fallacy of security by obscurity - your ignorance of a bug is not guarantee of others' ignorance of it. Pinning blame on Google for putting us all at risk is the exact wrong response; Microsoft is at blame for taking more than three months to fix a critical security bug, which has been there for even longer.

This sentiment is very visible in the comment section - the story's suggestion that Google did something wrong here, and the torrent of clueless commenters raging about how evil Google is being is disheartening, to say the least. I wonder how much of that is a result of the story's tone.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, project zero publishes kiddies-ready exploits for their vulnerabilities, which is a very questionable practice for vulnerabilities which are still in the wild. Even if patches were available, it would be far better to wait for most devices to be patched before releasing a full exploit. They did this with iOS and now with Windows. We are now waiting for such useful ready-to-use exploits for major Android versions as well.

<comment><USER2> Metasploit does the same thing, and we've managed to not have the internet implode yet.

Yours is the standard argument against _any_ form of disclosure. I'm not discounting it, because no disclosure has its merits, but responsible disclosure satisfies both an ethical imperative (you can't let people believe they're secure if you know otherwise) and provides pressure on vendors to fix their software, when the vendor might otherwise deem it not worth the time or money to fix the issue, which leaves their customers vulnerable.

The basic idea behind disclosure is "we might not be the first people to find this, and we definitely won't be the last, so let's remove all doubt and rob the bad guys of the element of surprise". Responsible disclosure is intended to permit responsible vendors to fix the issue before wide publication, but an uncooperative vendor doesn't mitigate the reality that the bug exists and will eventually be found by someone less benevolent.

<comment><USER4> It's still just an excuse. Of course there's no liability in computing so no one actually have to come to terms with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why isn't the source's headline "Microsoft fails to patch privilege-escalation vulnerability within 3 months"?

<comment><USER6> Because that would cause Microsoft to shift their advertising budget elsewhere.

Just being practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's more nuanced than article or commenters on HN want it to be. If there's a constant communication channel between companies and there's a reason to believe that patch can't be created in 90 days, sticking to deadlines seems to prioritize the wrong things.

On the other hand if MS wasn't responsive enough and upfront about the time it'd take to patch and reasons for that, then sure, 90 days seems more than needed leeway for Microsoft. But I don't know how things worked and I've seen enough to assume that both scenarios are possible.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the initial principle of the disclosure policy is good, it is intended to put a bit of pressure on _bad_ vendors to fix their bugs. That said I don't think we can classify MS as a _bad_ vendor. They fix lot of critical issues every years, they certainly have their own internal teams working on security issues, they're _responsibles_.

Vendors with a quite good track record should be allowed to have some slip ups. You cannot compare a vendor who doesn't fix anything on time with one that usually fix issues promptly but occasionally shows a delay on a report. The process should take that into account. I think the binary handling by Google on this one is not very well thought-out.

</comment><comment><USER9> What a terrible linkbait headline.

<comment><USER10> We edited the title in an attempt to make it more neutral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > It is important to note that for a would-be attacker to potentially exploit > a system, they would first need to have valid logon credentials and be able > to log on locally to a targeted machine.

Are Microsoft downplaying or is this genuinely quite minor? The article discusses a disgruntled employee and since all their money comes from Enterprise presumably disgruntled employee can cause major damage is a pretty huge problem?

<comment><USER12> A not-particularly informed take:

It means that every user effectively has root privileges. Which means that every user can eavesdrop on other users, view their saved data and files (unless encrypted on disk), intercept their network communications, impersonate them, steal their passwords (system, application, external web sites).

How bad that is depends on your particular use case. But for pretty much any setup where security is a concern or there's any sensitive data at stake, this is a very serious issue.

<comment><USER13> However, in the case of Windows, this issue isn't that much severe as it would be on a unix-like, for example.

With the set up of Windows servers I've seen, only the admin logs in anyway. It's not really used as a "multi-user" system per-se, where you get different users logging in at the same time. It does happen, but it's not common.

<comment><USER12> Hahah, I figured Windows might be slightly better about this, hence the self- admitted uninformed take.

Could you clarify, though: do you mean to say Windows isn't as vulnerable because of cultural reasons (i.e. Windows systems aren't multi-user usually) or because of technical ones (they support something like SELinux out of the box)?

<comment><USER13> The _impact_ isn't as severe, for cultural reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Url changed from [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2864312/google-discloses- unpa...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2864312/google-discloses-unpatched- windows-vulnerability.html), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is going to be more common when Windows 7 is no longer supported 2015-01-13.

<comment><USER15> Windows 7 has security support through January 2020 [1]. What's ending this month is "mainstream support", which seems to mean new features, phone support, etc. [2]

[1] [http://windows.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/lifecycle](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle)

[2] See point 6 at [http://support2.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy](http://support2.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy)</comment></comment>


Magnetic Field Record Set with a Bang: 1,200 Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/magnetic-field-record-set-with-a-bang-1200-tesla <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092967).

</comment><comment><USER3> > Bigger magnetic fields have been made before, but they aren't practical or > reliably reproducible, because they rely on rather dangerous amounts of TNT.

TNT aside, would one survive a MRI at 1200 T? I estimate the resolution would be around 1/10th of a nerve fiber - would that be small enough to _really_ scan a brain?

<comment><USER4> Curious about it, too. A quick search got this from the WHO.

> _For static magnetic fields, acute effects are only likely to occur when > there is movement in the field, such as motion of a person or internal body > movement, such as blood flow or heart beat. A person moving within a field > above 2 T can experience sensations of vertigo and nausea, and sometimes a > metallic taste in the mouth and perceptions of light flashes. Although only > temporary, such effects may have a safety impact for workers executing > delicate procedures (such as surgeons performing operations within MRI > units)._

> _Static magnetic fields exert forces on moving charges in the blood, such as > ions, generating electrical fields and currents around the heart and major > blood vessels that can slightly impede the flow of blood. Possible effects > range from minor changes in heartbeat to an increase in the risk of abnormal > heart rhythms (arrhythmia) that might be life-threatening (such as > ventricular fibrillation). However, these types of acute effects are only > likely within fields in excess of 8 T._

[https://www.who.int/peh- emf/publications/facts/fs299/en/](https://www.who.int/peh- emf/publications/facts/fs299/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dumb Question: Could this tech somehow be harnessed for space propulsion?

<comment><USER6> For a magnet to be used as propulsion, you'd need something for it to pull or push against.

Finding a likely target seems impossible. The way magnetism drops off with distance means it would only be useful when you were already there (or just starting out).

Also the magnetic field in this case is only lasting a tiny fraction of a second, which would be an issue for propulsion.

<comment><USER7> From the impractical ideas dept: Could make a magnet strong enough that it would pull apart virtual particles, i.e. Vacuum polarization [0], and based on some asymmetry in the magnetic field created the particles would pull/push you forward?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The resulting current increases at an astounding 40 million amperes per > microsecond and tops out at about 4 amperes.

Could someone with more understanding of the material explain the above fragment?

<comment><USER9> The current in question increased from 0 to 4 amps in approximately 100 femtoseconds (10^-13 seconds). When generating fields this large, the coil's destruction is guaranteed, so to create a large maximum field magnitude, you have to ramp the current faster than the coil can vaporize/disintegrate. 40 trillion amps per second is pretty fast.

For reference, a back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the current ramp rate for the LVDS data lines coming from your phone's camera around a few hundred thousand amps per second (-1 to 1 mA in a few nanoseconds).

<comment><USER10> According to Maxwell's Equations: faster changes in the current generate stronger magnetic fields. 40 trillion A/s is insane!

<comment><USER11> Magnetic fields are generated by currents, not by changing currents. The current only needs to rise that fast to outpace the imminent destruction of the coil from resistive heating.

<comment><USER9> Common misconception. It is mainly _not_ resistive heating that destroys the coil; before resistive heating of a significant degree can occur, the coil physically implodes from the force, and this is gainfully used to further concentrate the magnetic flux. Please see the sixth paragraph of the linked article.

<comment><USER11> Interesting. During my BSc in physics, I did some experiments with single turn coils, and they certainly formed plasma. One of the most interesting phenomena we noticed was plasma conduction, where the metal vapor of which the coil previously consisted started to conduct, giving two distinct peaks of the magnetic field.

The setup described in the article is different, with a secondary coil, so I was mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain what are some consequences and real world applications of this?

<comment><USER10> There certainly are consequences concerning science and research of electromagnetic fields and radiation, fusion power research and application.

Direct real world applications? There are none, really. Where would you need 1000 T which basically makes everything metallic evaporate in it's vicinity?

<comment><USER13> > Where would you need 1000 T which basically makes everything metallic > evaporate in it's vicinity?

There are lots of metallic big things on different types of battlefields, like tanks or even aircraft carriers, it would be really helpful for the opposing sides to be able to "evaporate" them. Not sure how close to implementing this as a weapon we are, though, probably not that much.

<comment><USER14> > There are lots of metallic big things on different types of battlefields, > like tanks or even aircraft carriers, it would be really helpful for the > opposing sides to be able to "evaporate" them. Not sure how close to > implementing this as a weapon we are, though, probably not that much.

70 years ago</comment></comment></comment></comment>


On a wing and a prayer - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11837625&fsrc=RSS

<comment><USER2> Qantas has been doing more that its share of trial and error of late - but the 60+ year lucky streak still holds. I wonder if outsourcing maintenance to Asia might not be one of Dixon's smarter schemes.</comment>


FSU research team makes Zika drug breakthrough - <AUTHOR> https://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2016/08/29/fsu-research-team-makes-zika-drug-breakthrough/ <comment><USER2> Strange, apparently they only blinded themselves for two western blots that didn't even deserve a place in the main paper. I have found this is an _extremely_ common issue with virology studies:

>"The screening of two subsets of compounds for antiviral activity (Supplementary Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 4b) was performed in a blinded manner, whereas all other experiments were performed in a nonblinded manner." [http://www.nature.com/nm/index.html](http://www.nature.com/nm/index.html)

Also, I searched for the virus strain they used and the first thing I clicked on claimed it has issues with relevance in vivo:

>"Anyone who is using viruses termed ZIKV MR766 needs to carefully examine the sequence composition of their stocks. Multiple viruses all termed MR766 may have different sequences and biological properties.In the case of the MR766 we are using in our studies, there is a deletion in the challenge stock that is strongly selected against quickly in vivo." [https://zika.labkey.com/wiki/OConnor/ZIKV-002/page.view?name...](https://zika.labkey.com/wiki/OConnor/ZIKV-002/page.view?name=17301_mr766_challenge_comparison)

</comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR, the identified/named drug that may be repuposed to prevent Zika virus is called Niclosamide, wikipedia has already been updated[1] with its side benefit :)

Nicolsamide is also listed as WHO's "one of the most important medications needed in a basic health system."[1]

There should be more drug repurposing researches to be done but it's probably profit-prohibiting for the big pharmas :(

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

<comment><USER4> Was the "big pharma" snark really necessary? Seems to me drug repurposing would be a huge profit-maker.

See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off- label_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use)

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately since they get paid on IP, it's more like the opposite. A minor revision to replace a proved drug with a re-patentable version is a little work for a lot of money; proving a new use for an out-of-patent drug is a lot of work for very little money.

I don't necessarily agree with the snark but we'd probably be better off if more medical research were not profit-motivated.

<comment><USER6> > proving a new use for an out-of-patent drug is a lot of work for very little > money.

That's not entirely true. There are programs in the US and UK which offer "marketing exclusivity" for companies that perform trials validating new uses for existing drugs. These aren't exactly patents, but it does provide a financial incentive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yep, surprisingly, research is done here. We don't just have a football team.

<comment><USER8> Don't forget the circus: [http://circus.fsu.edu](http://circus.fsu.edu)

<comment><USER9> Wow, a place where you can run away and join the circus and fulfill your parents expectations of being a doctor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> saw this on my fb feed this morning and tbh, was glad the fsu actually got some headline room. personally not connected to fsu but I see so many MIT... that some of these other institutions doing big things get lost in the shuffle.

also really liked the search strategy. first try all the things already approved by the fda to find something, even if not 100% ideal since its so much faster than seeking fda approval of something new. Curious how this will change in the near future given the prevalence of deep learning and with some of the opentrons type testing systems.

<comment><USER11> >also really liked the search strategy. first try all the things already approved by the fda to find something, even if not 100% fast.

Yup. On the one hand it's unfortunate that they have to do this at all, on the other hand this may be a larger innovation than the Zika treatments themselves.

In the long run if this approach can be applied to other diseases it'll save many lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone else was surprised by the 584 pregnant women living in the US that are believed to have been infected, the CDC has the same number here:

[http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/pregwomen- uscases.html](http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/pregwomen-uscases.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounds great. When will we see reputable validation of their extraordinary claims?

<comment><USER14> You got downvoted for this, but this is exactly the problem with "science" and "journalism" today. They're quick to report any first publication or comment as a huge breakthrough, but they never even hint that it might be a flawed study and that the rest of the scientific process (verifying the claim independently) is still yet to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> FUCK SHIT UP team</comment>


Neural Networks Simulate Schizophrenia with Hyperlearning Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/14058-schizophrenic-simulation-computer-acts-human-disease.html <comment><USER2> Without example in- and output or at least more detailed descriptions of the actual experiments, it's hard to judge the value of the research. It's (unfortunately very) easy to write a system that spews out grammatically correct but otherwise incoherent sentences, a large part of NLP is about this precise problem. I'd like to know more about how the structure of the sentences by DISCERN match that of schizophrenic utterances.

</comment><comment><USER3> "You can't really prove anything with a computer model like this,"

Indeed, the behavior the article describes sounds like a normal failure mode for a natural language processing computer program, "spewing out a jumble of grammatically correct yet disassociated sentences".

</comment><comment><USER4> Interestingly enough, this seems to also explain why schizophrenics tend to self-medicate with cigarettes and why smoking tends to increase focus in non- schizophrenics (nicotine increases dopamine levels in the brain).

 _Edit: I misunderstood, schizophrenia seems to be caused by an elevated dopamine level, not a deficiency._

<comment><USER5> Could you elaborate on that? If the idea is that dopamine causes schizophrenia (to oversimplify things), I don't see why increasing dopamine with a cigarette would work as self-medication for a schizophrenic.

<comment><USER4> "A brain chemical called dopamine may help encode what counts as relevant information in the human brain, researchers say."

I think the theory is that a lack of dopamine is what causes schizophrenia, by making it harder for the brain to determine what information is relevant or not.

<comment><USER6> Schizophrenia is a complex disease, but most hypotheses have centered on _hyperactive_ rather than hypoactive dopaminergic activity:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_hypothesis_of_schizoph...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_hypothesis_of_schizophrenia)

There is indeed greater nicotine use by those diagnosed with schizophrenia, but the reasons are likely complex. Self-treatment of some symptoms may be involved, but they may be more associated with nicotine's anxiolytic activity or relief of some of schizophrenia's negative symptoms (e.g., apathy), rather than positive symptoms like frank psychosis.

<comment><USER4> Ah, ok I misunderstood what I read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If their theory is correct then the researchers have basically proved the inevitability of SKYNET. When the Internet becomes self aware (able parse and understand itself) its inability to forget will cause it to become schizophrenic and start issuing terrorist threats against humans.

<comment><USER8> you mean GLaDOS</comment></comment>


Google lobbying spending reached new high in early 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/21/us-google-lobbying-idUSKBN0NC1UO20150421?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

<comment><USER2> OK, that's great. Now, how has General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SAIC and Raytheon's spending been during the last 15 years?

That is to say: "Hey! Over there!"</comment>


Gov. 2.0 Fail: usaspending.gov stumbles with google charts API - <AUTHOR> http://www.intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2009/09/serious_design.html;jsessionid=D5J3WOXELJJTRQE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN

<comment><USER2> They should hire this guy to redesign their site:

<http://feltron.com/index.php?/content/2008_annual_report/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's been corrected now, due to this blog post, but it's a pretty egregious error to be live on the front page of a flagship site. Hopefully lessons are being learned here?</comment>


Bloggers, publishers and the Apple lockdown | Monday Note - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/02/20/bloggers-publishers-and-the-apple-lockdown/ <comment><AUTHOR> Point 5 is especially important: "The least acceptable part of Apple subscription policy is the impossibility for a publisher to propose a cheaper subscription elsewhere. This is probably the most legally challengeable aspect of the newer terms of service"</comment>