Low-level lead exposure and mortality in US adults - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30025-2/fulltext <comment><USER2> Same study discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16611099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16611099)

</comment><comment><USER3> From the study, _Deaths from cardiovascular disease have declined strikingly in the USA over the past 50 years, but this disease is still the leading cause of death.1 In 2013, cardiovascular disease accounted for more than 800 000 deaths in the USA (about one in every three deaths), with total costs exceeding US$300 billion annually.1_

To be clear then, this study is claiming that half of all cardiovascular deaths in the USA per year are the result of lead exposure? That seems very unlikely given rates of obesity, smoking, and other cardiovascular risk factors.

I'd also like to know what if any interest the hedge fund listed as a funding source would have in this. Plus this...

 _We declare no competing interests. BPL serves as an expert witness in plaintiff cases of childhood lead poisoning in Milwaukee and Flint, MI, USA, but he receives no personal compensation._

<comment><USER4> And extremely small lead exposure levels at that, too. Not to mention accounting for much of the SES/mortality correlation - who knew it was so simple and easy and definitely didn't involve any confounders like genetics? If you believe that, I have a lead-free bridge I'd like to sell you.

<comment><USER5> There is no safe (measurable) level of lead in the bloodstream.

Used to be considered safe below 30 µg/dL. Then 10. Now 5, last I heard. I have no reason to believe the action level will not continue dropping further.

What amount of lead would you consider acceptable in your bloodstream?

<comment><USER3> Very little, but the question raised by this study is how much lead leads to death. They're claiming the answer is very _very_ little, and further claiming that it accounts for more deaths than COPD, infections, and accidents combined. They did this based on a survey and blood levels, without taking many (if any) confounding factors into account.

As to why they'd do this, the lead author's role as an expert witness for plaintiffs in cases of lead poisoning seems suggestive.

<comment><USER6> Considering the primary adverse effect of lead poisoning is neurological, and psychiatric conditions are its fallout, if poor lifestyle choices are the result of bad decisions, perhaps low-level lead exposure fuels a simmering sub-clinical hopelessness that defies treatment, and provokes poor self care.

Everybody is such a big fan of LSD microdosing, and maybe this is the other side of that coin.

<comment><USER3> Most poeple aren't a fan of LSD microdosing, including me. I'm a fan of studies which honestly account for confounding factors and draw a line between causation and correlation. This ain't that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, that seems high -- 412,000 is 15% of the total number of American deaths in 2015 which was 2,712,630.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/deaths.htm)

But that seems to be what they're claiming:

> Population attributable fractions were calculated to show the proportional > reduction in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality, and > ischaemic heart disease mortality that would occur if recorded > concentrations of lead in blood were reduced to 1·0 μg/dL or lower (≤0·048 > μmol/L). The adjusted population attributable fraction for all-cause > mortality was 18% (95% CI 10·9–26·1), equivalent to 412 000 (95% CI 250 > 000–598 000) deaths each year (table 2). Adjusted population attributable > fractions were 28·7% (95% CI 15·5–39·5) for cardiovascular disease mortality > and 37·4% (23·4–48·6) for ischaemic heart disease mortality, equivalent to > 256 000 cardiovascular disease deaths and 185 000 ischaemic heart disease > deaths annually (figure 3).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Its amazing how little of a splash this report made in the media. I guess it is because it doesn't fit much of a narrative. The biggest sources of lead exposure were leaded automotive gas and lead-based paint, both of which were phased out decades ago. There isn't any obvious current event to tie the reporting to. But the ongoing effect is HUGE as far as medical effects go; basically second only to smoking.

<comment><USER5> There's still ongoing exposure from lead paint, which was only phased out in the US around 1979. And the soil in cities is loaded with lead. People grow stuff in that dirt and eat the plants, not realizing the risk. Dust gets tracked in and ends up ingested in various ways as well.

It's a slow burn, and like you said, not linked to well-defined current events. The most you can say is "government continues not to do much about pervasive poisoning of population".

<comment><USER8> > Dust gets tracked in and ends up ingested in various ways as well.

What's this about? Is dust bad if ingested?

<comment><USER9> (dust contaminated with lead)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> By the way, "lead-free" plumbing contains as much as 8% lead, and only in the past decade were the regulations tightened so that "lead-free" plumbing must be a weighted average of 0.25% lead or less.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Baseline data in NHANES-III were gathered between 1988 and 1994

They didn't really talk about where the lead came from, but adults living then grew up during the period when leaded gasoline was in common use (banned by the EPA in a five year phase-out period starting in 1995). As well as when lead-based paint was used in homes (it's use was banned in the US starting in 1978). I'd like to see another study in a few years for people born after 2000.

</comment><comment><USER12> This seems to me like "weasel wording":

> Although reducing the amount of lead in blood might cut a patient's risk of > cardiovascular disease mortality, it is more accurate to view this study as > estimating how many deaths might have been prevented if historical exposures > to lead had not occurred.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is anyone familiar with any other research that would allow us to compare this to other developed nations?

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't almost all developed nations have utilized and then phased out lead paints?

<comment><USER15> There was some thread yesterday that brought up that all small propeller driven planes/GA in the world use leaded fuel still because it was simpler to keep that instead of forcing a changeover. So not only is it constantly spewed out but also in miniscule quantities in every farm product that gets crop dusted in the USA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there a laymen's summary?

</comment><comment><USER17> The current headline, "lead kills 412k/year" is an inaccurate representation of the linked paper. That type of statement is not in the paper.

Keeping that type of phrasing, saying something like "Lead _might_ kill up to 412k/year" would be in the realm of reasonable.

This type of headline manipulation is how the media turns good science into bad science.

<comment><AUTHOR> The paper says: "The adjusted population attributable fraction for all-cause mortality was 18% (95% CI 10·9–26·1), equivalent to 412 000 (95% CI 250 000–598 000) deaths each year."

My opinion is still that translates better to "kills 412k per year" than " _might_ kill _up to_ 412k per year."

I could see "might kill up to 598k per year" or "kills at least 250k per year" from their confidence interval.

Why do you think it should say "might" and "up to"?

<comment><USER18> The site guidelines ask you not to editorialize in titles: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Cherry-picking one detail and putting it in the title is not just editorializing, it's the leading form of it.

If you want to say what you think is important about an article, please do so in a comment. Then your view is on a level playing field with everyone else's.</comment></comment></comment>


Erlang on Xen starts 400x faster than Linux+BEAM - <AUTHOR> http://erlangonxen.org/status/latency

<comment><USER2> If it's just a vm is the any reason it's using xen rather than $FAVOURITE_HYPERVISOR ?

Either way - pretty impressive and I like this concept.

<comment><USER3> At a guess I'd say it's because this pathway has already been mapped out by some OCaml researchers: <http://anil.recoil.org/papers/2010-hotcloud-lamp.pdf></comment></comment>


C++ Cypherpunk Toolkit for Democratization of Finance - <AUTHOR> http://opentransactions.org/docs/md__r_e_a_d_m_e.html

<comment><USER2> The claims are great but does this have any crypto audits?</comment>


The Biggest Lesson from the Sony Hack? We Need to Replace Email - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-sony-hack-proves-we-need-to-replace-email?utm_content=buffer6ca02&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

<comment><USER2> A corporate e-mail system is very different from personal e-mail. For example, you can't use a public-key cryptosystem in which only the user of an e-mail account has the key to that account. Corporate e-mail is the property of the company, and if an employee resigns, is fired or dies suddenly, the contents of their e-mail needs to be available so that their successor can carry on their business functions. (This is true for everyone from a customer service rep to the CEO.)

Also, e-mails need to be archived for legal reasons. For example, if the employees of a financial services company moved all their communications from e-mail to WhatsApp, the SEC would not be pleased at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> No we don't. Like [greenyoda]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8779346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8779346)) says, not for corporate email.</comment>


PhD students send out physical copies of their thesis to unknown persons - <AUTHOR> http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17013/is-it-usual-for-finished-phd-students-to-send-out-physical-copies-of-their-thesi

<comment><USER2> If students didn't do this, it's unlikely their works would be read by more than a handful of people in their lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER3> New kind of spam?

And why do they assume these copies would be read?

<comment><USER4> Reflex curiousity? If I got an unsolicited PhD thesis through the post I would definitely read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> American PhD here, this is a pretty alien concept to me.</comment>


Latin proverbs - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Latin_proverbs

<comment> a-priori _Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur._

Translation: "Everything said in Latin, seems deep."

<comment><USER2> With the benefit of one semester of college Latin, I understand why I can't find a good online Latin translation service (for all those little gems you run into from time to time). The language has one of the smallest vocabularies, but it's hugely dependent on complex grammar for meaning.

Anyone create a Cleeki accelerator to do lookups on this page?

<comment><USER3> Because of its rich case system, Latin has fairly free word order. This makes it much easier to parse programmatically than, for example, English, which has to mostly rely on word order and prepositions to indicate subjects and objects. The lack of machine translation tools for Latin has more to do with lack of demand than the technical challenge.

<comment><USER4> >Because of its rich case system, Latin has fairly free word order. This makes it much easier to parse programmatically

From seeing this, I couldn't help but think of the Perl language filter Lingua::Romana::Perligata by Damian Conway.

[http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-0.50...](http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-0.50/lib/Lingua/Romana/Perligata.pm)

Word order in statements means nothing and case means everything -- lvalues, for example, are designated as such by being in the dative case.

It's not terribly useful for writing real code, but it certainly was a great cerebral exercise just to read the manpage (it's been 15 years since I took high school Latin and I realized I remembered more of it than I thought!).

<comment><USER3> Ha, that's very cool, never saw that before. Thanks for posting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The mock latin section at the bottom is amusing: <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Latin_proverbs#Mock_Latin>

<comment><USER6> Excellent section xD I've used _Carpe carpio_ for years, and _used_ to have a phrase for "squeeze the carp"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gutta cavat lapidem Translation: "A drop hollows out the stone"

In Italy we study Latin for 5 years in high school if you go to what we call Liceo Scientifico (scientific high school), because it's considered a great mental exercise given it's very logical structure.

</comment><comment><USER8> What is this then? Romanes eunt domus, "People called Romanes they go the house"?

<comment><USER9> ...And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Missing "semper ubi sub ubi". Someone here had to be the first to say it. Might as well be someone who suffered through 4 years of high school latin.

<comment><USER11> No it isn't. Search - it's under the Mock Latin section.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> While we're on the subject, would "Bloggitus, ergo sumus" mean something like "We blog, therefore we are"? I hope it does, I use it as the subtitle of my kids' blog: <http://ludvig.eiman.tv/>

<comment><USER13> "Bloggitus" isn't right; it would be something like "having blogged" or "being blogged about". Also, that double g is very un-Latin. I'd think something like "Blogamus" or "Blogimus" depending on how you want the verb to conjugate; the former feels more natural to me.

If you want something a bit more Cartesian, you could make the verb "blogito" rather than "blogo", in which case you need "blogitamus" instead of "blogamus". I'm not convinced it's sufficiently nearer to Descartes to justify such a barbarous coinage :-).

The rest is fine; "ergo sumus" is indeed the right pluralization of Descartes's "ergo sum".

<comment><USER12> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Excusatio non petita, acusatio manifesta_ (main tool for Columbo)

</comment><comment><USER15> Certum quod factum. - We believe what we build.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love the conciseness of Latin.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Caesar adsum iam forte, Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic inhat"

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


Startup Quote: David Heinemeier Hansson, creator, Ruby on Rails - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/4415767423

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're not working on your best idea right now, you're doing it wrong.

\- David Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh)

<http://startupquote.com/post/4415767423></comment>


Google AI Challenge 2010: Lisp Starter Pack - <AUTHOR> http://aerique.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-ai-challenge-2010.html <comment><USER2> <http://weitz.de/starter-pack/>

<comment><USER3> From <http://weitz.de/starter-pack/>:

        >This is an attempt to help Common Lisp newcomers getting started.

That appears to be just a bundle to get new Lisp users up and running with an environment they can start developing in, similar to <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/lispbox/>.

The original link posted is a _Google AI Challenge_ Lisp starter pack. It is a starter pack for a specific application. Weitz's starter pack wouldn't be as helpful to someone who is trying to get up and running with the Google AI Challenge.</comment></comment>


Yahoo acquires Maven video $160M - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com//ci_8250173 <comment><USER2> i swear on everything that is dear to me, i have never heard of Maven.</comment>


Corporations as Uber-Citizens - <AUTHOR> http://rushkoff.com/2010/01/22/corporations-as-uber-citizens/

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted a comment directly to Doug's blog but apparently he doesn't approve of it or think it adds to the discussion. I thought that I was actually supporting some of his argument. Here it is:

Hey Doug, "Corporations" in the simplest sense are just groups of people acting together (usually towards shared goals). This is not bad or evil in and of itself. "Corporatism" as I would define it is the partnership/collusion between some of these groups and the state.

I do not believe we can or should stop cooperation between people, and placing limits on which actions cooperating groups are allowed to take is just as wrong as placing those restrictions on the people themselves.

There are many, many things wrong with the way we treat corporations here today, but this usually has to do with the privilege granted to many to be free from law and regulation that individuals and other groups of individuals who are not in partnership with the state are bound by.

*Edited to fix a typo.

<comment><USER2> _In the simplest sense are just groups of people acting together (usually towards shared goals)._

Shouldn't then these individuals contribute out of their earning from these corporations rather than the Corporations themselves?

The Supreme Court rulings always make for very entertaining reading, on another case MARCUS A. WELLONS v. HILTON HALL, WARDEN (death row case they ruled for the defendant) due to:

 _Only after the trial did defense counsel learn that there had been unreported exparte contacts between the jury and the judge, that jurors and a bailiff had planned a reunion, and that "either during or immediately following the penalty phase, some jury members gave the trial judge chocolate shaped as male genitalia and the bailiff chocolate shaped as female breasts," 554 F. 3d 923, 930 (CA11 2009)._

The supreme court site was down for me but here is the cached page [http://18.104.22.168/search?q=cache:W5J1m2YCS_AJ:www.suprem...](http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:W5J1m2YCS_AJ:www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-5731.pdf+supreme+court+ruling+chocolate+female+breast&hl=en)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, but are we going to do away with PACs, which are essentially corporations, also? If people want their influence to be heard and heeded they will just find some other place to put that pressure. My point is that this in and of itself is not what actually causes corruption and abuse, there is also the ability of the state to grant privilege and reward arbitrarily in response to pressure.

<comment><USER2> I agree that this in itself not the cause of corruption, but there is also one other difference. Suppose that a Public Company put to shareholders a motion to support a Presidential candidate's fund and 51% vote for it would you consider it right then for the Corporation to go ahead and donate the money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Shares in a corporation are a contract(read: agreement) that you have with that corporation and the other shareholders. If you think that donating to a campaign or cause is always wrong, you can seek out companies that do not do that, and only agree to invest in those types of companies. If you think that there should be a rule that any political donations must be approved by a shareholder vote then you can seek out corporations that have that in their shareholder agreement (not that I think that there are currently any in existence).

There are many corporations out there that have a specific 'agenda' that they support with their profits. Some of them are totally ridiculous (see the Trijicon story: [http://defensetech.org/2010/01/21/update-on-bible-scopes- us-...](http://defensetech.org/2010/01/21/update-on-bible-scopes-us-will- remove-as-well/)), and some of them are worthwhile(Aid to Haiti), but this is my subjective judgement of those causes, and anyone else might view them differently.

<comment><USER2> The implications are much wider how about someone invested via mutual funds or a retirement annuity, this choice might not be possible. It is fine for a Corporation to have a specific agenda even the Vatican owns businesses but supporting Politicians via this avenue just doesn't sound right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mutual funds are no different. You contract/agree with a fund that represents your investment criteria and they invest on your behalf and charge you a fee. There are already 'values' driven mutual funds in existence today. ( ex: 'green' mutual funds)

I agree that politics is different, but the different part is not that people are influencing its outcome. The different part is that the people that rise to the top control the institutions of the state.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Websites for Artists (1-man side project) - <AUTHOR> https://ezzl.art <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN. Been working on this solo project off and on for 1 - 2 years now. Looking for feedback, tips, tricks on marketing, anything really. Still several things todo, but feel it's ready enough to try and gain some traction. Built mostly on CakePHP with S3 for image data hosting.</comment>


US science agency refuses request for climate records - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/us-science-agency-refuses-request-for-climate-records-1.18660 <comment><USER2> To be fair, they're refusing to turn over scientists' communications, not the data itself. This is absolutely the right move, because scientists are people, not politicians. If any scientist has at any point said something that isn't politically expedient it is guaranteed to be used against them in a political attack which will ignore and supersede any fact-based discussion of the (peer reviewed) data/analysis. Basically, politicians who disagree with the science now want to comb over emails to find ways to politically discredit the science.

It's easy to say that the scientists should be more political in their communications, but that doesn't really make sense. Many many people work on this type of project and it only takes one person to communicate something controversial. Moreover, the ability of the scientists to internally disagree about things like the method and degree of data normalization or homogenization is essential to producing high quality results. In fact if the science is done well someone at some point in the process _should_ communicate doubts or counterpoints to proposed data handling strategies. Those kinds of internal disagreement strengthen the scientific result, but weaken it politically. Congress should not be given additional tools to conflate and confuse science and politics.</comment>


Does the Internet need Cliff's Notes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/nui4f/does_the_internet_need_cliffs_notes/ I have a huge problem with not having the time or patience to read all the online long-form content that I'd like to. Therefore, to solve this problem I set out to build a Cliff's Notes for the internet. 2 friends and I built a beta version of my vision and called it Gisto (lives at http://gis.to). Question is, what kind of mass appeal would a tool like this have? <comment><USER2> Lots of hype around summly that does this with AI I believe. <http://www.summly.com/en/technology.html></comment>


Even Akamai screws up their SSL certs - <AUTHOR> https://www.akamai.com/

<comment><USER2> Actually, they probably don't intend for people to use www.akamai.com with HTTPS. If you add an override for the bad cert, you end up getting redirected to a non-HTTPS site anyways. I don't see anything like a login link on www.akamai.com so this is probably OK. (Of course it would be nice if _everything_ were HTTPS...)

<comment><USER3> > Of course it would be nice if everything were HTTPS...

Nice try, Certificate Authorities!

<comment><USER4> >> Of course it would be nice if everything were HTTPS...

> Nice try, Certificate Authorities!

Nice try, NSA.

<comment><USER5> >>> Of course it would be nice if everything were HTTPS...

>> Nice try, Certificate Authorities!

> Nice try, NSA.

Nice try, HN.

<comment><USER6> Nice try... wait, this is not on reddit. Let's stop the joke now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This happens with almost any Akamai'zed domain, if you drop [https://](https://) in front of it you get the shared Akamai cert. Customers that pay for SSL get their own pool of IPs that respond with only their cert.

Same thing happens with any shared web host that happens to listen on SSL.

<comment><USER8> So Akamai couldn't afford to pay themselves for their own IP pool and SSL cert? Poor guys.

<comment><USER7> The customer portal is at [https://control.akamai.com/](https://control.akamai.com/)

www is literally just a sales site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Better yet, where they absolutely mean to use HTTPS they sometimes use weak keys and ciphers and get an "F" from the Qualys SSL Labs tool. Blogs.akamai.com isn't the only place this happens:

[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=blogs.akamai....](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=blogs.akamai.com)

<comment><USER10> Not the biggest crisis. Okay, they have several awful cipher suites enabled, but no sane client would ever use them. The client report shows that almost every client uses AES; a couple crappy ones use RC4 or 3DES.

They don't have PFS, either. That's bad, though unfortunately still common. As far as I know Akamai's position is that the (small) performance cost of PFS is unacceptable. They would be delighted if it was faster (which people are working on).

I think the F is because of the 1024-bit, MD5 CA. That seems to be more of an argument for clients to disable that CA certificate, especially since there's another, good trust path, but maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, it looks like that's a bug in the SSL labs rating scheme: given two trust paths, it takes the longer one.

The Baltimore root is trusted, but also signed by the old GTE 1024-bit root. It's not clear to me what harm it does to have an appendix of old roots above a well-managed, trustworthy trusted root.

<comment><USER12> No, the issue is not with the trust paths. The old 1024-bit root is in Mozilla's trust store, where it's a danger to everyone. SSL Labs reuses their store, which is why the weak root shows up in the trust paths.

Technically, the F for blogs.akamai.com was a bug (now corrected; the grade after the fix is C). I say "technically" not because I approve of export cipher suites, but because the implementation did not follow the documentation (the rating guide, linked from every report). Export suites are hopelessly weak and will be treated more harshly in the next guide revision. The new grade is certainly not something to be happy about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _chuckles_

This isn't a SSL cert screw-up, but certainly a silly misconfiguration. They should certainly have known better than to let that happen.

To be fair... when I worked there, I thought about different ways to transparently enable SSL across all domains using a CDN that would work with all existing SSL-enabled browsers and it's a freakin' hard problem. There are potential solutions, but they're not particularly cheap or simple given the IPv4 address crunch and for Akamai even more so since the edge servers are so widely distributed.

Bottom line - I never pitched the idea anyway because while I was interested in making the internet a better place, I knew that it was DOA at Akamai because they're much more interested in making it a more _profitable_ place, and I couldn't think of a strong-enough business case...

<comment><USER8> It might compete with their current, which bundles SSL with dedicated, static IPs. Although IPv6 should solve that scarcity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Only partly related: Most websites don't get proper certificates for their FQDN -- even Google [1]. That, to me, is screwed up.

[1] [https://www.google.com./](https://www.google.com./)

<comment><USER15> That works just fine for me.

<comment><USER16> Works in Chrome 32, does not work in Firefox 26.

<comment><USER17> Does not work in Chrome 26 (yeah, ancient version, I know).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The main site is basically marketing - their customer portal, which actually has sensitive content uses HTTPS sanely:

[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=control.akama...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=control.akamai.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> This issue has been hitting APM's MarketPlace website ([https://www.marketplace.org/](https://www.marketplace.org/)) for at least a year now.

Mucks up their CSS as well, best I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://twitter.com/csoghoian/status/428228534675308545](https://twitter.com/csoghoian/status/428228534675308545)

</comment><comment><USER21> I blame the keystore and the dreaded keytool.</comment>


IISc team confirms breakthrough in superconductivity at room temperature - <AUTHOR> https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/finally-iisc-team-confirms-superconductivity-at-room-temperature-pressure/article27246496.ece <comment><USER2> It's also at room pressure, not a very high (huuuge) pressure like many of the recent cases of superconductivity. (If I'd have infinity power to change the title, I'd use "IISc team confirms superconductivity at room temperature and pressure")

It has not been published, and the draft have "polemic" graphs, so don't hold your breath. It's also difficult to storage ...

It's a mix of silver and gold, probably in a nanomaterial, the article is not very clear. I didn't heard something similar before, but superconductive materias are strange.</comment>


$500k "Energy-Harvesting" Kickstarter Scam Unfolding Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://beta.slashdot.org/story/203739

<comment><USER2> I wonder why does Kickstarter even allow a project with no identifiable person/company attached to it.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is the AWS console UX so bad? - <AUTHOR> The AWS console UX is atrocious. I don't even think this is a polarized topic; I've yet to hear anyone opine otherwise. For a company and platform as large as Amazon/AWS, I would think that there would clearly be a positive ROI to investing in quality UX.
Case in point, I switched to the new Route 53 UI a few weeks ago. After using it frequently, I've concluded that it's worse in virtually every measure. There's less clarity, efficiency, and overall feels more cumbersome.
Do AWS product managers just believe their UX is sufficient or even good? Do they want to discourage console usage in favor of API configuration via Cloudformation? Are they simply optimizing for something else?
I'm genuinely curious. What is it? <comment><USER2> 1\. AWS has invested untold man-hours addressing feedback to arrive at their current solution. The number of people you "hear from" whose sentiment is unanimously negative is far smaller than AWS's fleet of focus groups.

2\. Any UX that point-and-clickifies configuration-as-code is going to suck on some level, and garner hate from technical people.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not an answer, but there's something about large companies updating their UI/UX that always makes it worse. Same goes with Jira. If there were any specific reasons to doing these re-styles, I'd love to know too.</comment>


This is how you ask for and receive feedback. - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/h8xwj/this_is_is_how_you_ask_for_and_receive_feedback/

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: someone posted about us on reddit, now I've gotta spread the word :-)</comment>


Get endorsed by publishers that love what you do: Syndicated Content Sponsorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.influads.com/blog/get-endorsed-by-publishers-that-love-what-you-do-influads-launches-syndicated-content-sponsorships.html

<comment><USER2> Conflict of interest?

Will a publisher mention that she is getting paid for reviewing the product, no mattre how much she likes it?</comment>


Time anxiety: is it too late? - <AUTHOR> https://nesslabs.com/time-anxiety <comment><USER3> The single consistent thing I have noticed in dealing with this type of anxiety is that if I spend time with people I actually like being with, it completely disappears. It's impossible to be so self-directed if there is another person in the room who I care about or love.

To that end, the fix is simple: surround myself with people that I love. Friends and family.

Easier said then done, especially in our modern world, which is why I suspect this comes up frequently.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but it's deleterious to my societal productivity. Like I'm happier spending my time with my friends. But I have less of that burning desire to build. I think I might actually be content to live just happily on the beach with the wealth I have now, so long as everyone I love is nearby and we frequently meet.

But obviously I don't want to be content with that.

<comment><USER5> Well what do you want, to be happy or to be productive?

Happy people don't make great art.

<comment><USER6> I used to believe that. These days, I'm certainly happier making art than whatever it was people wanted to pay me to do on a computer.

Why can't happy people make great art? Do we also think that sober people can't write great novels, or people who survive past age 27 can't make great music? I can think of countless counterexamples to all of these. Just because there were miserable great artists in the past doesn't necessarily mean you have to be miserable to be a great artist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know there are some people disproving parts of Malcolm Gladwell's theories, but sometime in the last year or two it occurred to me that one of the consequences of the 10,000 hours theory is that you actually have time to get expert-level good at three or four things in your life even if you spent part of it 'fucking around'.

I've expanded that into a philosophy about 'Software eats the world": the only way that doesn't end up in a dystopian hellscape is if Software Developers go out and meet the World. Dive into hobbies. Get good enough at them to be a Product Owner. Make software that supports that hobby.

You'll also have something to talk to people about at parties other than what you do for a living.

<comment><USER8> I would take it even farther than that and say that people vastly overestimate the time it takes to get good at most things. It might take 10,000 hours (or more) to be considered an expert pianist, but you could spend a tenth that much time getting good enough to impress everyone you know with a few songs at parties, and with just 50 hours of practice, you'll be better at the piano than basically everyone you know (you might not be "good", but a lot of people are also easily impressed, if impressing people is your thing.)

I think this is true of practically everything that we don't personally make a profession of. A few tens of hours doing carpentry, fiddling with plumbing, or hooking up electronics, and you'll seem super handy to someone with no experience. What passes for expert-level in a lot of arenas is more like what an actual expert would consider passing familiarity, but passing familiarity is enough to feel good and to be really helpful to your community in a lot of circumstances.

I agree completely about hobbies. I think I read somewhere long ago that we ended up with a zillion apps for ordering food because that's the kind of thing that college kids think about. If we all learn a lot more about a lot of things, we'll end up with a much more interesting tech-ecosystem.

<comment><USER9> I wrote a book on this topic: [https://first20hours.com](https://first20hours.com)

There's a ton of (replicated) psychology research that supports this thesis: the early hours of skill acquisition are very effective/efficient in terms of improvement-per-hour-invested. 20-50 hours is enough to see very substantial improvements in any skill, even if you have no prior knowledge or experience.

I wish more people focused on the early process of skill acquisition: that's what most of us will experience for most of our lives/careers.

Learning and practicing skills in many different areas is underrated: if you think of skills from an ROI perspective, spending a little time to get a _lot_ better at a portfolio of useful things has a crazy high return.

<comment><USER10> I would add on by saying from personal experience that the wider your breadth of experiences, the more you find that experiences in seemingly unrelated fields overlap and synergize to make it even easier to pick up new skills. Anecdotally I found my background in software + college coursework in signal processing gave me a huge boost with getting into music production, and in line with the ROI perspective I feel like I'm passively reinforcing my understanding of Fourier transforms and whatnot when I'm playing around with Ableton so it's akin to the effect of compounded interest

<comment><USER11> The book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range) argues a lot for this as well, and goes on to discuss numerous examples where generalists have made the breakthroughs and/or excelled in some way, due to synergy, overlap and inspiration.

<comment><USER12> I will second this recommendation. It has some great stories about people such as Van Gogh and inspired some new thoughts on machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You think too highly of yourself. Why do you think whatever you create is something special. It's most likely Shit. There is freedom in knowing you are one in 7 billion. Real creation happens when you give freedom to your mind to do whatever it wants to. There is no time constraint, no feeling that i need to get this done. It's spontaneous. You are following someone else's script here. You are equating activity with accomplishment

<comment><USER14> While I appreciate the stoicism, this isn't just about delusions of grandeur.

Examples:

* I'm too old to learn how to surf

* My relationship with my child is too far gone to improve

* It's pointless for me to save for retirement at my age

* The environment is fucked no matter what I do

These are all time anxiety type dilemmas that real people get hung up on that have nothing to do with impressing the world or building the next big thing.

<comment><USER13> I think all these examples are of thinking too much. Why not just this very moment do something you feel like. Then the next and then the next. Go learn surfing, call your child and if you are too lazy then just accept you don't care about that stuff as much and do what you care about. You care about netflix then watch netflix. Don't do what you think society or other people think is cool.

If we are completely present in the now and doing what feel rights. There is no room for all these negative thoughts.

<comment><USER15> Dispensing advice like this to someone with anxiety issues is exactly the same as telling someone with depression that they should get out of bed, meet people, be happy for what they have, or smile more.

It is the kind of swapping of cause and effect that many neurotypical people fall into when conversing with those who are suffering. All of the behaviors and habits you describe are largely the result of healthy mental states, not the cause (there can be feedback loops that make the distinction fuzzy, but those feedback loops are very fragile and require constant maintenance).

I'm sure its well intentioned, but it's just not going to be very useful advice.

<comment><USER13> What is your solution?

<comment><USER15> To the issues raised in the article? Unfortunately I don't have one to present to others. Everyone is different and my only advice is to find a professional that can talk through specifics and provide the right approach.

If you're asking more personally, I identify with a lot of the same struggles as outlined in the article and here in the comments, but I stop short of feeling the excessive anxiety. Instead I'm just paralyzed by inaction and have low energy for pursuing any ambition.

I'm currently in the process of ruling out all other possible health factors first (ADHD, hormonal imbalances, sleep deficiencies, metabolic issues), but if those end up being exhausted I'll probably explore Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Training myself to have healthier mappings between emotions <-> thoughts <-> behaviors seems to me like the best approach. And then maybe I'll be capable of applying the sort of "just do what you feel like" advice you provided above.

<comment><USER16> > Instead I'm just paralyzed by inaction and have low energy for pursuing any > ambition.

I guess that's... normal? Most people don't have ambitions, they're just content with getting through life in a relatively painless way. The ambitious people are the exception, not the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s.

In a way I was right. I'm 40 now and the things that seemed of extreme importance in my 20s are mostly gone now. In retrospect it's not that I wouldn't be able to do those things, but maybe I feared that I wouldn't want to.

Anyway, I feel much better about myself now. I would not trade this peace of mind for the raw energy of the 20s.

<comment><USER18> I'm not in my early thirties and time anxiety is actually growing stronger. I worry about the big three: children, career, and personal health. My idea is that with kids... my finace and I are aging. Are we going to do this or not? We have to know within the next 2ish years. With career... what career path do I want to take? I need to focus on schooling or professional certificates ASAP so I can utilize those as I age. With health... how many years of testosterone do I have left? I'm very skinny and would like to build a basic muscle structure, not for vanity but for general health.

<comment><USER19> This is a personal comment, but if you're like me, I bet that anxiety is not just related to time.

I would be telling myself: How can I commit to a lifelong project like children? How can I decide what career path to choose, when there are so many options and I can only pick one? How can I work out, when its basically signing up to humiliate yourself? How can I take these _risks_?

In my experience, anxiety pretends that it's useful. It feels motivational -- like you are motivated to work out, because of your anxiety about being frail.

But contrary to how it feels, anxiety can have the opposite effect. You want it _too much_ , that becomes dangerous, because you're afraid of trying and failing.

If that sounds familiar at all, my advice (since all HN comments have to have advice, right?) is to _distance yourself_ from those goals and aspirations. Perform the Stoic exercise of meditating on the worst-case scenario. Let yourself make mistakes and look stupid. Just _do it_ because you should, and damn the outcome.

<comment><USER20> I am pretty cynical when it comes to the attitudes people seem to have about children (I don't have kids so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about). You and many others use the same language to talk about attempting to publish a book or starting a company that you use for having children: words like "project". In general I don't agree with this conception of children since failure in that endeavor often has disastrous consequence for a person that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It's not merely a personal risk in the sense that somebody else will bear the costs of failure. I tend to think people should generally feel more anxious about the incomprehensibly huge responsibility of making a person, not less.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for calling that out, I'm not trying to imply that these are only personal risks. In fact, it's often the risk _to others_ that causes anxiety. So I wouldn't read too much into my use of the word "project" there. It's just meant to imply something that's a daunting, long-term commitment. (I don't have kids either, for what that's worth.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I believe the word for this is Torschlusspanik [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik) \- and sums it up nicely.

I'm a kind of morbid person by nature, but the more time goes on the more I realize that awareness of my mortality is helpful for getting me off my ass to get things done. Not necessarily work, just life in general. I wanted to live abroad "someday" and finally tried it when I was 30 (in the nick of time, it turns out). I wanted to start a company, and see now how it would've been 50 times harder to do it with a child than without. In my 20's I always thought I'd get around to going on X trip, maybe asking out Y girl, etc. and instead wasted 9 years in the same town doing not much of anything. Fortunately, the last 9 years have had a lot more going on.

<comment><USER22> I think there's a stoic principle of "Memento mori" \-- remind yourself that you'll die so that you can make the most of your life now.

<comment><USER23> Tangencial to your comment that is pretty much the spirit of the Dutch 16th century 'Vanitas' paintings.

Wealthy patrons would comission art to act as a memento of their own fragility/mortality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Time anxiety ... means that your well-being is determined to a large extent > by the importance of the value you feel you are creating with your life.

As a hacker doing mostly odd jobs and remote volunteer work for not-for- profits, I'm often consumed by the idea of whether I'll be able to "put my name on the day" when the head hits the pillow.

I have had a regular 0900-1700 job before, and it was nice to have the external validation thing to fall back on, the time-card that proves you showed up at least, or the mere fact that you're holding the job etc.

> Define what "time well spent" means to you

This is a great piece of advice. One source of metrics I found helpful to abandon is educational mobile apps / web programs etc that involve any sort of gamification. For example, I wasn't enjoying learning Japanese during the times I was redoing a lesson I didn't need to redo simply in order to make the education app make a fanfare sound and tell me that I had achieved my "daily x out of x points" ... I think measuring in time spent and effort exerted is a lot healthier, even if its complete inability to be quantified can be extremely frustrating!

</comment><comment><USER25> I agree with basically all of the points of this article, one thing I wanted to point out though is that's also important to make time to _try new things_. And I don't mean just try them once, sometimes I've found I need to form a habit out of whatever it is I'm trying before I really enjoy it. Take exercise (or running) as an example. Running when you're out of shape sucks. But give it a couple weeks of running, gradually increasing the length of time and distance you run, and it can become a very enjoyable activity.

That said, its a balancing act, and you cant spend all your time trying new things.

<comment><USER26> I do believe you need a balance of habitual activities and trying new things. Doing stuff you've never done before and going to places you've never seen has the effect of slowing down the perception of time, which is great if you have the sort of time anxiety described.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Welp, this article can't have come at a more appropriate time in my life. Definitely struggling with these exact thoughts, constantly. Finding something meaningful, and rewarding to be a part of has become obsessive. Always thinking I'm wasting time if I'm not somehow maximizing it, with the end result being I spend more time worrying about it than actually doing it.

<comment><USER25> Maybe you're like me, maybe not, but meditation and CBT helps with this a bit. Also - and I'm gonna say this may make your anxiety better, it may make it worse - think about the most influential people in the last 100 years: Einstein, Turing, FDR, Obama, etc. Now think about the most influential people in last 1,000, then the last 10,000. How many people can you name from over a thousand years ago (hopefully you're not a historian)? My point is, even the greatest people today, although their contributions were great, will probably not be remembered by very many 10,000 years from now. We all ultimately go to the same place, great or not. Time is the great equalizer.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the response, I've taken up meditation for the last couple of weeks. Definitely helps clear my head, at least for a short period of time. I'm really not concerned about being known throughout history, my only goal is that by the end of my life, I feel like I've done something fulfilling and rewarding enough to warrant the incredibly good fortune I've had being born during this time, to this family, in this part of the world.

<comment><USER25> Well my point with that response was more of: by who's metric are you measuring your warranting being here? If it isn't history's, then I think it should be your own. And if its your own, I really believe as long as you put in a good effort - not even necessarily your best effort all the time - <USER2> that should be good enough. A higher sense of purpose is excellent but you also have to understand that life is really weird and almost never works out how you expect it to.

But I'm guessing you already know all of that. At this point its probably more about moving your own metric and zeroing in on what you want to do.

<comment><USER28> _I really believe as long as you put in a good effort - not even necessarily your best effort all the time - then that should be good enough_

Do cats "put in a good effort"? Rabbits? Gazelles? Grasses? Fish?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> While reading this article I couldn't stop thinking about the cliche (which I believe happens to be useful), "today is the first day of the rest of your life". The truth is we never know how much time we have left. You could walk out your front door and get run over by a bus at any time. All we can really do is engage in activities that we find worthwhile and fulfilling. At the risk of using two cliches in the same, short post, "life is a journey, not a destination". If you are trying to find meaning in life by reaching arbitrary goal posts you're missing the point.

</comment><comment><USER30> > _Dr. Alex Lickerman, the author of The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of > Constructing an Indestructible Self, says that time anxiety stems from some > of the following questions: "Am I creating the greatest amount of value with > my life that I can? Will I feel, when it comes my time to die, that I spent > too much of my time frivolously?"_

Even before that, time anxiety stems from the idea that we're put here to do X thing or achieve Y thing, and not e.g. just enjoy life.

While the notion is ancient, many cultures don't really have time anxiety to any degree to write home about. It's more common in the US than in Europe, for example, and perhaps goes with the "winners and losers" view of society as some kind of race.

</comment><comment> non-entity > Future time anxiety: thoughts about what may or may not happen in the > future, which are the cause of worry and "what if" types of internal > questions.

gah, this has been torturing me for the past year, as I discover more and more what I wish I was doing. I'm only 21 right now, so a lot of my anxiety may be unfounded, but so many things I want to do require major risks, opportunity cost, or more importantly monetary costs. I want to stop worrying about the what-if's, but it just seems so much more complicated than that

</comment><comment><USER31> It takes a lifetime to master a craft. The earlier you start, the longer it takes.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wait until you hit 50. That's when you _really_ hear the clock ticking (I'm 51).

<comment><USER33> Don't worry, a 60 year old will be along to correct you soon enough :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> "If I never start doing some thing then I'll never have to confront how far behind / late / failure"

This is my current best try at translating a deep and very strong and very vague physiological sensation that prevents people (me) from doing almost anything of importance.

the article is as close as I've seen to something useful on this issue. partly due to avoiding even confronting the issue. Presenting an audit process to modify behavior and increase time spent in important ways +10 value.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is something that I deal with every day. You never know when you're going to die. But even when I was in my 50s, barring surprise diseases and accidents, it was far off in the distant future.

Not so much now. Especially because time is subjectively faster. Months seem like weeks used to.

But there is an advantage. Now it's a convenient excuse to avoid doing whatever I don't want to. I'm far less constrained by what others expect of me.

</comment><comment><USER36> Personally speaking, the biggest specter for time anxiety is age-related cognitive decline. Unfortunately it happens much earlier than most people think. Especially with regards to both creativity and fluid intelligence.

Tech entrepreneurs are disproportionately clustered at 20-34. The probability of making a major scientific discovery starts declining at 40. Poets peak in their early 40s, and novelists not much longer after that. Mathematicians and physicists may on average peak as early as their late 20s.

Anyway as someone in their mid-30s, who would still like to accomplish a lot more than what I have so far, this has been bothering me a lot lately. I'm happy to hear any perspective that others have here.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work- pe...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak- professional-decline/590650/)

<comment><USER37> > Tech entrepreneurs are disproportionately clustered at 20-34.

Do you have a source for this? The article you linked to quotes one 2014 HBR article and then walks it back, saying, "all studies in this area have found that the majority of successful start-ups have founders under age 50".

And there was also this more recent HBR article "The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45":

[https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a- succes...](https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful- startup-founder-is-45)

<comment><USER38> Very interesting article. It even says that founders between the ages of 50 and 60 are significantly more likely to succeed at creating "extreme startup success":

[https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2018/07/W180...](https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2018/07/W180621_AZOULAY_OLDERENTREPRENEURS-1.png)

"... it appears that advancing age is a powerful feature, not a bug, for starting the most successful firms."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think this anxiety comes from deep inside of me reminding that I've lost myself in that moment. It helps to just stop doing whatever I am doing, shut off my mind, turn to myself, and re-establish the connection with my inner self, which I tend to loose sometimes in the everyday hectic.

And what also helps me to retain and to strengthen this connection is simply love. Basically, to replace the negative thoughts, ambitions, etc. with truly positive values and things, to start caring about the people around, doing something good for the others without expecting anything in exchange and many other good things, which I'd never thought of before.

The books here have helped me to make the first step back then and are still helping me to stay on this way:

[https://allatra-book.org/](https://allatra-book.org/)

Hope they help someone else as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> The bigger problem is that time anxiety often comes together with self-doubt so you spend a lot of time doubting your choices and ideas and then bump right into time anxiety Probably the only thing you can do about it is do something that feels right for you no matter when

</comment><comment><USER41> Feels like everybody in our society feels time anxiety, in a different level.

During my 20s, it grew (and I guess to all of the Y-generation when thinking of my friends). It is interesting investigate the levels of time anxiety with different ages and different environment.

\-- lately I had an increase of time anxiety, close to my 30s and big changes in my personal life :) So thank you for the article, it makes me want to investigate it more with myself.

</comment><comment><USER42> Whenever I feel time anxiety I try to think of Ray Kroc[1]

He didn't get started on his version McDonalds until he was 64, an age that many people would be about to retire.

I'm not a great fan of McDonalds food but if you can start a company like that at 64 you can start anything at any age.

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

<comment><USER43> It's worth acknowledging that it was a different world when Ray was 64.

<comment><USER42> Of course but that's always true. It'll be a different world again when/if you or I reach the age of 64 too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> My issue with the pursuit of leisure activities, or the "If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves" quote, is that it doesn't leave room for ambition.

If I spend my years in momentary pleasure, I fear I will regret not tackling more ambitious projects. What could I have achieved if I was willing to suffer through activities that are not solely "activities you really enjoy?"

<comment><USER45> > What could I have achieved if I was willing to suffer through activities > that are not solely "activities you really enjoy?"

I feel like that's kind of the point. The answer is: you will never know. Of course it's easier said than done but I think in the long run it's much better to cherish the present instead of fearing the future. What if you suffer for years and even then the question does not disappear?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Interesting essay.

Related to time anxiety, Oliver Burkeman pointed out the paradox of "making good use of time". Taken too far, it turns time into an instrumental goal. You never really enjoy it; you're always just investing time in a future that never comes. And you suffer time anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER47> _Never, never, never give up._

\- Winston Churchill

</comment><comment><USER48> Can confirm , in my 20s and it feels like the interal pressure to create something gets greater everyday.

The worst part is that I came close a few years ago but couldnt rally my partners to continue past the research phase...

However more recently ive been calming myself by just focusing on the present

</comment><comment><USER49> Is it too late? My answer is always: I don't know, let's see. So far it hasn't.

<comment><USER50> It's later than you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think we need to make peace with "achieving" later in life than our renaissance ancestors. The same holds for the Fields Medal (with an age limit of 40): many gre at mathematicians will only achieve much later than that.

</comment><comment><USER32> What sort of person worries about having led a frivolous life? I can guarantee you that's the last thing I'll be worried about on my deathbed (assuming I have my mental faculties, which is not a done deal these days).

</comment><comment><USER52> Me after reading this article : "Now I have a time anxiety"

</comment><comment><USER53> "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne" is certainly different than 'the life too short' or 'the craft too long to learn'.

</comment><comment><USER54> > Cut out time-consuming distractions

Good idea. Time for me to close HN now.

Seriously... I spend (waste?) way too much time here.

</comment><comment><USER55> I enjoyed this. Also, I now have some vocabulary for things that bother me, which is pretty nice.

</comment><comment><USER53> "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

</comment><comment><USER56> If the best time has passed, the next best time is now!

</comment><comment><USER57> She's an ex-Googler, I trust her completely.

</comment><comment><USER58> Strange to assume that you have time which will run out. Only thing available is "now". Literally and figuratively.

Question is how do you convince your mind of this reality.</comment>


Nissan Admits Internal Emissions-Test Results were Falsified - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/nissan-admits-emission-test-data-was-falsified-1531139749 <comment><USER2> Non-Paywall archived version:

[http://archive.is/IoaKQ](http://archive.is/IoaKQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't what you think it is from the headline.

This is not a case of Nissan software engineers writing emissions test defeat code. Rather, this is some Nissan factory workers faking internal emissions test results that are done on every completed car. Only about 1,000 cars were affected, and almost all of these cars still met regulatory emissions limits - the targets they were trying to meet were Nissan's stricter internal standards.

<comment><USER4> > Other than one model still under investigation, Nissan said all of the > affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The data alterations were > made by staff to meet Nissan's own stricter internal standards, it said.

Good catch. This comment should probably be higher, because I don't think the majority is reading the news that way.

<comment><USER5> > _I don 't think the majority is reading the news that way_

More like, "I don't think the headlines are written to portray the news that way"

I put the blame, always, on sensationalist clickbait headlines from dishonest news organizations. They are competing for your attention and clicks, so the headline is often flat out _wrong_.

<comment><USER6> Quite, and the first two paragraphs of the article, which are all I can read because I'm not a WSJ subscriber - which I suspect will be the case for many here - do nothing to dispel the sensationalist interpretation.

(As an aside I'm starting to opine that posting WSJ articles here may be bad form for this very reason.)

<comment><USER7> I've only been lurking a short while, but Ive been finding WSJ to be relatively unreliable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As software engineers/computer people, we have to have ethical standards. If you participate in writing code like the one in the VW case then you are not only complacent but active in fraud.

Engineers have a code of ethics. If you were to knowingly build an unsafe bridge then you would be liable for the damage and injuries it caused if/when it failed. This is true even if your boss told you to do it. You not only have a moral/ethical obligation to not build that bridge, but also a legal one.

As we write software we need to keep these things also in mind. We are writing things that affect peoples lives. That could kill people. That affect the environment. We need to hold ourselves to the same moral obligations as other engineers. We have a duty to prevent harming people when we write our software.

If you have no stand to refuse to do the work then it is your duty to report such actions. First up the chain, and if that is rejected, then to the media. It is also your duty to report it if you have refused and you see it still happening. There are whistleblower rights in place to protect you.

<comment><USER9> Software engineers don't understand they're not professionals. I mean, they describe and think of themselves as such, but they are not legally such.

Being a "professional" legally means that you're given exclusive rights to perform some economic activity and in return for this (usually) lucrative right, you have a great number of obligations - being responsible for your work (ie, facing the possibility of never being able to perform said economic activity legally again), an enforceable code of ethics, an dispute / resolution process etc, steep fees, continuing education, an accreditation exam, etc.

Software engineers by and large do not want the obligations and restrictions of being a real profession, so no, they don't have any special ethics or rules to report or do anything in these cases beyond what a designer or secretary would do.

<comment><USER10> I've never heard of this legal definition of "professional" that you put forward. Where is this in state or federal law?

In law school, we were taught that a professional has obligations that go beyond his or her own self interest. Unlike a real estate developer or a widget manufacturer, an attorney has an obligation to do what's right for the client even if that causes the attorney to lose money or imposes a competitive advantage. Attorneys, for example, can't engage in the kinds of advertising speech that would be entirely lawful if done by a car dealership or furniture store.

This traditional definition is hundreds of years older than the bar exam or ABA code of ethics, and older than formal graduate law school (a 20th Century American invention). All of that came later, after lawyers understood themselves differently.

I would encourage people who write code -- software engineers, developers, coders, hackers, however one chooses to describe this work -- to think of themselves as professionals with obligations that go beyond their own self interest.

<comment><USER11> I would imagine OP is referring to "Professional Engineer".

[https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what- pe](https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe)

Every single design, bridge, etc is certified by a Professional Engineer. Your ass is on the line. I don't mean just being fired from your job - but jail time.

Per the website:

"A century ago, anyone could work as an engineer without proof of competency. In order to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, the first engineering licensure law was enacted in 1907 in Wyoming. Now every state regulates the practice of engineering to ensure public safety by granting only Professional Engineers (PEs) the authority to sign and seal engineering plans and offer their services to the public. "

I suspect, and hope, software used critically have the same. Yes it's more bureaucracy and overhead...but being in software, I know any joe schmoe can walk on and develop code without oversight.

I'm not saying if you're making the next twitter, that you need a PE. Or that every developer needs to have a PE license - but like other industries there is one PE per X amount of non-PE engineers.

Due to the Threac-25 incident ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25)) there are standards for medical software ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304)).

I'm not in medical so I don't know how widely adopted, or how strict it is adhered to. But it might be IEC 62304 needs to be branched out.

<comment><USER12> PEs exist for many branches of engineering. Including software. But the PE for software engineers is apparently being discontinued due to lack of interest.

<comment><USER13> Yes, NCEES (the body that administers the Engineering licensing exams nationwide in the US) is discontinuing their Software Engineering exam next year because only ~80 people have taken it since it was created in 2013.

I think the biggest problem they had was that despite having the exam, not many states actually issue Professional Engineer licenses in the Software Engineering discipline. Because of this, I don't see why anyone (in those states) would bother taking the exam if they can't actually get a license and use the title "Professional Engineer".

<comment><USER12> I forgot licenses were by state. It's probably also the case that software engineers don't normally have to "sign off" on things for regulators in a formal way as is the case in other areas of engineering. So, other than having a title to stick on your business card, taking the PE exam doesn't buy you a whole lot whereas it's virtually required for other engineering branches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The general assumption at the time when VW was put under a microscope for these issues is that everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first.

What stinks seems to be the way the regulations are being implemented moreso than what sort of detours the manufacturers can take to avoid them.

I won't be surprised when we see more auto makers added to the list, however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers.

Here's a non paywalled BBC article: [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905)

<comment><USER15> Completely agree that what is lacking here is the regulations. I have tried to argue (often unsuccessfully) that VW did not commit fraud, that the numbers reported by the tests were 100% accurate. The problem being that the way the car is tested is not even remotely similar to how people drive. The clear fix to me is to simply give normal people free leases for a short period of time and generate something similar to [http://www.fuelly.com/](http://www.fuelly.com/) . The only way to cheat that is to convince people to drive more efficiently, seems like a win.

<comment><USER16> Emissions tests are different from fuel efficiency tests, and in fact are often at odds with each other. A more efficient car doesn't necessarily have better emissions, and there's no easy way for a typical driver to measure their emissions.

<comment><USER15> Thank you for the extra insight, I may have had the wrong conclusion but I think the logic still follows. From this system I outlined, the manufacturers would be forced to alter designs to get the desired emissions during normal driving conditions. This is the whole spirit of the regulation right?

<comment><USER16> My point is that the system you outline doesn't work, because ordinary drivers can't check their own emissions. It would be fine for fuel consumption since that's easily measured, but emissions requires special equipment and careful testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So at what point do we stop trusting auto manufacturers to run these calculations and start mandating it be done by third-parties with different incentive structures?

</comment><comment><USER18> This puts a dark stain on Carlos Ghosn's previously model career. My bet would be that Renault will be outed next with similar falsification of data.

<comment><USER19> I'm totally not discounting the seriousness of what has been done but I do question how dark of a stain this will ultimately be. Especially if it turns out many other car companies have done the same thing.

<comment><USER20> How serious is it? They falsified results for _internal_ testing and the cars still passed regulations.

<comment><USER19> I was trying to avoid making a point about the seriousness of it because I don't think I'm in a position to accurately judge that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nissan has gone from being a sought after sports car brand to the second worst manufacturer in Japan. They are lucky that Mitsubishi makes cars in that respect. After Infiniti took the near premium market, Nissan went down market and now makes cars that are sold to subprime buyers en masse. I remember when the early to mid 90s 300zx turbo came out I put that car on a pedestal as a semi attainable near super car. Now they just make commodity crap cars that all look exactly the same. Sad to see this decline.

<comment><USER22> Are they crap because they all look the same? Altimas may look bland as hell but they're built to last.

<comment><USER21> Not saying that bland styling is making them crap. That is just to make them commodity cars. They are crap because they took away any sporting premise that they brand was built on by forcing CVT transmissions as the only option for most of their line up. Maybe the altima will run a long time, but it will also run with faded and sagging plastic parts, it will be a rattle trap with cheap plastic interiors and several generations old technology inside. Cars made by Kia and Hyundai that were laughed at a decade ago now FAR SURPASS nissan in quality and fit/finish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pay wall. Anyone have a link to a cached version?

<comment><USER24> Best service for paywalled articles from my experience [https://outline.com/TF7GJv](https://outline.com/TF7GJv)

<comment><USER25> Thanks! But how does one know the url?

<comment><USER26> You go to the main website and plug in the paywalled URL.

The person you are responding to is just saving others that step.

<comment><USER27> I went back up top, clicked on the example button, and it yielded [https://outline.com/6ps979](https://outline.com/6ps979) "The Fasinatng… Fascinating History of Autocorrect"

(From Wired in 2014, totally off-topic, but with a few amusing illustrations in case you need cheering up from the sadness here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just for some perspective:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks- loophole...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks-loophole- pruitt.html)

Reading that it looks to me as if VW should ask for their money back.

The double standard and hypocrisy incredible.

"One year's worth of truck sales was estimated to release 13 times as much nitrogen oxide as all of the Volkswagen diesel cars with fraudulent emissions controls, a scheme that resulted in a criminal case against the company and more than $4 billion in fines."

</comment><comment><USER29> Articles like these just makes this wikipedia page even more exciting:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_foss...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_fossil_fuel_vehicles#List_of_countries)

Are you thinking Norway hitting 2025 is unrealistic being only 7 years away? A video from last year states electric car sales there are already near 30% of new car sales:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY)

</comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone have an estimate on how these scandals would have effected down stream climate/particulate modelling? (I'm not totally sure what emissions were lowered)

</comment><comment><USER24> How rigorous are Japan's laws/punishments expected to be for this? Relative to the Volkswagen emissions scandal which, correct me if I'm wrong, led to decently harsh punishments for those involved at the top level.

<comment><USER31> > _Nissan said all of the affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The > data alterations were made by staff to meet Nissan's own stricter internal > standards, it said._

Seems unlikely that there will be any criminal liability unless Nissan wants to sue it's own employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Odd isn't it that no american companies are being dragged through hell for this.

</comment><comment><USER33> question: is it even possible to meet the emission standards and still have a decent /affordable car? Once one fakes, the others have two options, one of them is joining them.

At least the DOJ now just has to change the names from VW filings

<comment><USER34> Hybrids, plug-ins and full electrics are not new, not expensive, are more reliable, and meet all emissions standards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Isn't it possible to detect this fraud by measuring external emissions?

</comment><comment><USER36> Who is next in the emmisions scandal? Ford? GM? Tesla?

<comment><USER37> The tests are especially made for ICE cars. Tesla is electric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> At one point we need to ask if the emission requirements are realistic, if everybody is cheating on them.

</comment><comment><USER39> how much of this foul play is partially attributed to the absolutely insane 54.4 mpg fleet average?

How the hell were auto makers going to achieve this insane requirement in less than a decade?

The players like VW and Nissan and

GM played the game of plug in hybrid to change the formula of MPG by calculating in the battery daily usage into the overall mpg.

[https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press- office/2012/0...](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press- office/2012/08/28/obama-administration-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel- efficiency-standard)

Trump rolled it back to the relief of every auto manufacturer. by the way all of the auto manufacturers invested billions into America 2017-2020.

[https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/...](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/epa- roll-back-auto-fuel-economy-rules/33485969/)

</comment><comment><USER40> That's it, I'm returning my LEAF.

</comment><comment><USER41> Can we finally just admit that increased emissions standards are putting lipstick on a pig?

ICE vehicles will never be clean energy. We need to be investing more in the transition to EVs and improving electricity generation in general.

<comment><USER42> You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc...

Further the current electrical grid can not support a full migration to EV, we can barely support summer time loads in some area with A/C Running, if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid.

<comment><USER43> > You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by > Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc...

Clean when compared to an ICE in a car, yes.

e.g. If we can reduce a bad thing by 90%, your argument is that there is still 10% of that bad thing, and therefore we should not adopt the solution. That's a silly argument to make.

> if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric > grid.

Since that literally can't happen, it's a non-issue.

<comment><USER44> Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%. Coal plants with secondary steam turbines can be as efficient as 50% extracting energy from the same amount of hydrocarbons. Electric cars can have efficiency of 60% to 90%, so if tomorrow we replace all the gas cars with electric cars powered from coal power plants, we still be better off; then to that all the effort and energy that it takes to get oil from the ground, refine it and then get it to the gas tank of car, whereas in electric car its all power line transmission losses.

Coal is still bad, and there are much better alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear and natural gas; where solar wind and nuclear take no hydrocarbons, natural gas doesn't emit all the nasty things that coal plants do.

<comment><USER45> >Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%

I'm not saying a coal power plant isn't more efficient but this is a one sided fanboy comparison if there ever was one.

What's the efficiency of the coal power plant after it's been used to charge up a battery and then discharged to power a car (i.e "at the wheel")? The fact that it's being used to drive a car around is the dominant term in the efficiency equation, not the form factor of the hydrocarbons. You did touch on supply chain but lithium batteries have some pretty nasty environmental impacts. I'm not sure whether they're better or worse than supplying liquid fuel.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: College without college (idea) - <AUTHOR>

HN'ers, I had an idea about opening up education to everyone.
So if you've been to college, you know some of your profs upload content and documents like presentations, slides, notes, syllabuses, etc. to share with students.
I was wondering, why isn't this available to anyone who wants to see it? Organized/aggregated efficiently and relevantly? Why isn't it available on the web forever? Or for free?
A regular joe who isn't enrolled in university could buy the text book and follow along the lesson plan just like a freshman. They wouldn't get the kind of quality of learning that attending lectures gives, but its valuable content nonetheless.
There could be some sort of publishing platform that lets teachers openly share the lessons they have. Something as simple as a dropbox for every professor/course. Imagine having access to the lectures of some of the smartest professors out there.
Objections I could see to this:
Profs don't want their content publicly shared
Educational institutions are opposed to giving away free content
What other objections would people raise? Do you think theres a market for accessing university course content alone (rather than an immersive educational experience)?
Thanks guys <comment><USER2> I'm surprised you aren't aware of OpenCourseWare (<http://ocw.mit.edu/>). It's been around for several years now, and its existence could cause one to read your post as sardonic or tongue in cheek.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats actually what I was thinking, but on a global scale.

So not just MIT's site, aggregating content from all universities. A lot of the content on MIT's site is from 5 years ago. When you tend to have the content managed by one party, it'll get bogged down and not work as well as it should over time.

<comment><USER3> MIT's emphasis on teaching foundations means that 5 year old content is generally going to be just fine (and if it uses a prior edition of a textbook, a whole lot cheaper as well).

One thing you're not considering is just how expensive doing this is:

The content has to be captured. If you want video of the lectures, that and most of the subsequent steps get a _lot_ more expensive. And for a lot of courses lecture notes just don't cut it.

Publication rights have to be ironed out. You're got to iron this out with the professors involved, which at the very least will cost you some lawyer time plus political negotiations etc. etc. What's Fair Use (real or practical) for a classroom may not work for the web, and this kills some courses where the reading consists of a bunch of research papers. Etc.

The content has to be prepared for the web site. E.g. convert various word processor documents into PDFs.

Running the web site costs money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I pay thousands of dollars for tuition, and you don't. I earned my right to attend my school, and you didn't. I deserve access to my course material, and you don't. I would be so pissed if I went to MIT, and they just started giving things away like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point. So you think students would be opposed to having their professors/universities give open access to educational content? I personally wouldn't care. The value in a college education isn't the notes or content alone, its the teacher/student interaction.

Also, other people aren't "attending" your school (taking up class spots), and they certainly aren't graduating with a degree. I have a comment regarding elitism, but I'm not interested in a debate and I appreciate your post.</comment></comment>


Free Hardware and Free Hardware Designs (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.html <comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, what sort of "useful, practical object[s]" are people looking for?

And are there any hardware-centric sites where one can find an existing free hardware project to contribute to?

<comment><USER3> In my view, free hardware has been around forever, and it's all over the place, but folks haven't created the kinds of organized group projects like in free software.

Going back to before the computer age, scientific publication embodied free hardware design: When you reported a result, you were expected to provide enough information that a reasonably skilled person could replicate your study. This is a principle of scientific methodology that I learned from my parents, who are both scientists. I apply this principle to my projects, and it seems like a reasonable model for folks who want to create reproducible work but have not learned how to use modern project management tools like revision control.

Starting roughly a century ago, people started publishing designs in magazines, for instance in the ham radio literature. An informal tradition (reinforced by the editorial policies of some magazines) was to publish the design and parts list, but offer things like printed circuit boards, parts kits, and even finished units, for a nominal fee. I published a handful of articles in that literature, in the 1990s. By that point, hardware contained code, and the magazine would maintain a source code repository at their website.

Free software grew along the same lines: Magazines would print source code listings that people could type into their microcomputers. I'm sure that scientists shared code informally.

What I think is lacking in hardware, is the kind of organized group activity that we've seen in software: Big open-source projects like Linux or Python. Hardware people, especially hobbyists, just don't know how to create or manage a project like that. I certainly don't. But if you look in the Arduino or Raspberry Pi worlds, you'll find plenty of open hardware designs.

<comment><USER4> I thought one could consider Arduino a "big open source project" we've been working on open hardware for 11 years and we have millions of users. The big question is : Does open hardware really matter to people? The Raspberry Pi keeps getting mentioned next to Arduino but it's not open hardware but this doesn't seem to matter. The original group of OSHW enthusiasts has been diluted in the larger maker/hobbyist market which is very price sensitive and buys the cheapest HW regardless of who makes it or if they are upstanding citizens of the open source world.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, those are some good points, and a good question. My impression is that hardware hackers are largely oblivious to contemporary OSHW issues. For instance, relatively few are even aware that Arduino is open and RPi isn't, and what the actual issues are. I tend to be more concerned with being able to use a design in the future if one of my vendors vanishes or a part goes obsolete, and my solution to that problem is to make stuff that runs on multiple platforms, or can be easily ported.

I doubt it's just a matter of price. The main problem may be that open design evolved at a time when stuff was a lot simpler, and not driven by code. In 1980, I took a schematic for a guitar pedal in a magazine, and build one myself, with no copyright issues. You can't copyright a circuit, and it's damn hard to patent one. There was no EULA to prohibit me from taking my gear apart.

An issue with software is that the author has to do something proactive, in order to make it copy-able. That's probably an over-simplification, but at the very least you have to negate the implied copyright by replacing it with something permissive like the MIT license. So, there are "sins of omission" that threaten the open-ness of software (and of hardware containing software) that are only beginning to emerge in the hardware hobby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't the Arduino use a proprietary microcontroller?

<comment><USER3> Indeed, that's a good point, and I have to humbly admit that I don't completely understand the fine points of "open source" hardware. AFAIK there are some interesting differences between the Arduino and the RPi. Apparently the RPi contains a chip whose full datasheet is not available to the public. So it violates one "free software" principle, i.e., the ability to understand and modify your stuff.

Granted, I use hardware that is not considered "free," and don't worry too much about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wonderful, I often complain about the 'S' in FSF, and here it is.

Very interesting times.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the $450,000 for? It seems like a very specific number. Can anyone provide a link that gives more information on what it's for?

<comment><USER7> They go into detail here:

[https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation- releases-f...](https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-releases- fy2015-annual-report)

<comment><USER6> Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Biographies/Book recommendations that a startup founder can relate to? - <AUTHOR> I have come to appreciate biographies of successful people in their endeavors.
Had highly enjoyed Nike founder story: Shoe Dog. The personal touch with which Phil Knight wrote the story, has left a deep impression about him and the story.
Also read Bad Blood, which was pretty interesting.
Any recommendations for biographies/stories that a startup founder can relate to.
Thanks <comment><USER2> [https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups- Early/...](https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups- Early/dp/1430210788)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will check it out. Looks pretty interesting.</comment></comment>


Introduction to Square - <AUTHOR> https://squareup.com/intro

<comment><USER2> This is amazing, and has the potential to be majorly disruptive. It has that golden thing that PayPal has—the ability to take payments from regular credit cards, without the other person needing to be a user of the service. Thus, it is immediately useful to merchants, and will spread from them to non-merchant users.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how they're going to deal with people recording credit card numbers off the website, e-mails or phone, then typing them into Square to charge the customers as if they were handed the real card. That's not allowed by the card brands, and it's Square that's at risk of being terminated if they let it happen.

</comment><comment><USER4> Slick. Love it.

Though... call me paranoid, I wonder if anyones ever just taken off after having the vendor give them the iphone for signing/receipt.</comment>


Ask HN: How to write a good technical article? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to come up with a good process to write technical articles but they never seem to get over a couple of views.
It feels like the ideas are great but the writing isn't.
What's a step by step process to come up with a great article?
How do I learn to write well? <comment><USER2> I wrote an entire book on this topic: Writing for Software Developers [0]

Here is my step-by-step process once you have an idea:

1\. Identify your audience and the assumptions you're making about them. Who is reading this tutorial and why?

2\. Write an outline that hits the key points to figure out what order to present the information.

3\. Build "pylons:" code blocks, images, and other concrete aspects that readers can use in their own work.

4\. Connect these pillars with explanation and intuition. Focus on "why," let the code blocks handle "how."

5\. Edit by reading the article out loud. Make your language conversational. An approachable article reads like a conversation with a senior co-worker or professor.

[0] [https://philipkiely.com/wfsd](https://philipkiely.com/wfsd)

</comment><comment><USER3> Brainstorming is the key, take each one of your ideas and scrutinize it from all perspectives. Ask the journalists' questions (how, what, why, when, etc.) and read as much as possible. If its a technology or programming language you daily dabble in, the content should come naturally to you.

As for the problem of having the content all in your head but still being unable to put it down on paper (or laptop screen), I can understand and empathize with that problem! Writer's block can be due to many reasons but the best way to solve it is to just have a ritual of just sitting on your desk daily at a stipulated writing time. Even if writing doesn't come to you in the beginning, it will eventually flow as you make this a habit. In many trades, success is just a matter of showing up, its the same about writing.

</comment><comment><USER4> The key to writing well (code or text) is to understand that most of what you write must be discarded.

In other words, it's not good writing that is the secret. It's good _editing_, and good _re-writing_.

For me my process is to a) write down my thoughts in a more-or-less random order - just at a high level. Just a sentence or two.

b) organize those thoughts so they make sense "in order". Help to make those thoughts into a narrative that flows from one point to the next.

c) expand on each thought.

d) wait a bit, then re-read each bit. Edit where necessary.

e) re-read the whole - edit as necessary. (I find reading it aloud can help.)

f) loop to (b).

The more times you loop, the better the result. Like with code, it's not about how fast you write that matters. It's how elegant and polished the result that is important.

Refactoring 100 lines into 10 is painful, but the result is better. Deciding what to leave _out_ is more important than what to leave in.

Think of it like this - the writing part should take 10% of the time. The editing, and improving should take 90% of the time.

Lastly come back to the writing a month later, or 6 months, or a year, when it isn't so fresh. Read it again. And, as an exercise, edit it again. Learn from that for the next thing you write.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's how I do it.

1\. Note down the problem you're facing in your current project and search online for the solution.

2\. If you find the solution, read it and try to implement and understand it. If you understand it and think "oh, I could have explained it better" create a rough draft.

3\. If you don't find a solution, but rather parts of it from different resources, list down the sources and go from top to bottom on how to combine and implement these.

4\. Now the writing part. I first introduce the problem I faced and resources I found and sort of explain how they didn't fit my need and what I did to solve my problem and how to combine these.

5\. I then create a demo project for the same and go step by step with the accompanied code, some pictures/videos and a sprinkle of humour(which I just started doing tbh).

6\. Create a first draft with this and read it once or twice to see what you can reduce to make the article more succinct.

7\. If possible, give it to your friends to read and ask for their opinion on grammar, pacing, etc and modify it accordingly.

8\. Publish it when you're satisfied.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER6> I will say a good article must contain at least 350 words When writing an article make sure you explain the topic of your post a not diverting to other topics And I suggest you using Grammarly because nobody is perfect</comment>