Full-fat-dairy for cardiovascular health - <AUTHOR> http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/04/full-fat-dairy-for-cardiovascular.html Interesting study that suggest full fat dairy is actually healthier than low fat alternatives. <comment><USER2> Interesting. But perhaps people switch from full-fat dairy to the reduced-fat versions after they realize they've made unhealthy eating choices that have already increased their risk of cardiovascular disease? I also notice that "low-fat" foods tend to make up for the low fat in other ways, like by having more sugar and salt. So people think they are "eating healthy", but they actually aren't; they're replacing a bit of fat and its soluable vitamins with high fructose corn syrup. Not good. (And, of course, they don't exercise.)

I also notice that people tend to lump fat from their cheeseburger into the same mental category as fat from things like avocados, peanuts, salmon, and olive oil. But the monounsaturated fat from plants and fish is not particularly harmful for you, except that it's very calorie-dense. Saturated fat is bad for you beyond the number of calories you get from it. Unfortunately, dieters don't realize this, and buy their low-fat-but-high- sugar ice cream while eschewing "high-fat" salmon and peanut butter. Which is bad for you.

(Personally, I drink 1% milk, but otherwise don't bother with "low fat" things. But I do avoid sugar and salt, and that has had a measurable effect on my health. I lose weight faster now that I don't put sugar in my tea, and my blood pressure has gone down since I stopped eating so much salt. Not that either were abnormally high to begin with, though.)

Anyway, the problem with the popular notion of dieting is that you don't get anything out of micro-optimizing away one nutrient.

<comment><USER3> _Saturated fat is bad for you beyond the number of calories you get from it._

This appears to be an unsubstantiated claim, one that the study cited by the article is trying to dispel.

<comment><USER4> There is more on saturated fat from the same blog author here:

Saturated Fat and Health: a Brief Literature Review, Part I [http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/10/saturated- fat-...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/10/saturated-fat-and-risk- of-death-brief.html)

and

Saturated Fat and Health: a Brief Literature Review, Part II [http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/10/saturated- fat-...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/10/saturated-fat-and- health-brief.html)

<comment><USER5> His bias shows clearly in my view. He complains about large scale epidemiological studies (in the links you provided) and then uses what seems like a relatively small study to back up his claims (in the parent story).

Large scale epidemiological studies may have problems but they are enough to tip the burden of proof towards those who would disagree with them. It is certainly better than relying on some notions of the diet that our primitive ancestors may have had - especially considering that our current circumstances are very different and our life spans are already greater. To me this is a case of naturalistic fallacy.

<comment><USER6> "Large scale epidemiological studies may have problems but they are enough to tip the burden of proof towards those who would disagree with them."

No! Other things are often highly correlated with diet, and has massive effects on cardiovascular health (exercise in particular). Only randomized controlled dietary trials can be trusted for predictive power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seeing "1%" or "2%" on the lower-fat milks suggests a lot of fat has been taken out -- you might even naively think 98%+ of the original fat content. But in fact 'whole' milk is only 3.25-3.5% fat -- not much difference.

And, the process for creating 1% or 2% varieties involves stripping all the fat out -- taking out other things as well -- then building the milk back up to the desired fat/vitamin/milk-solid levels with additives.

<comment><USER8> This is not in conflict with your point above that nutrients are removed along with the fat in processed milk, that are then readded (e.g. vitamins A and D), but it's important to realize that those single digit percentages refer to fat in terms of weight.

Ignoring the water content of milk, and looking solely at the caloric percentages, the fat ratio is:

Whole Milk: 48% fat

2% Milk: 33% fat

Skim milk: 5% fat

Referring to fat content of foods and beverages by percent of weight is generally not a useful measure for nutritional purposes. By that thinking, if one were to drink a few glasses of water and then eat 1/2 a pound of ice cream, they could claim they had a low fat meal, because the total grams of fat from the ice cream is small compared to the total water weight of the two items they consumed.</comment></comment>


The Skill Sharing Center Allows Dofollow - <AUTHOR> http://skillonpage.com/ <comment><USER2> What do you mean "allows dofollow?"

Also, your social media buttons on the bottom don't link to anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello :D Thank you for your review. It is still under modification. I'll remove the unlinked button. Thank you. You can share your skill on that site. You are welcomed anytime. ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: ExtenduS – enabling customization and integration of SaaS platforms - nwb-ella https://www.extendus.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> It'd be interesting to hear about some example integrations / extensions / thins people might create in the future?

E.g. a Disqus alternative? Or maybe an Excel spreadsheet (sort of embedded in the main page?) ?

(PS. Minor: This image is 3.8 MB, took a while to load: [https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/011fa185757dd5ea3e9e9f...](https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/011fa185757dd5ea3e9e9ff9b445f3be074c7f6f/0859e/static/intro- firstname.lastname@example.com) — if it's smaller, the whole page will look faster, giving a better impression of the website & integration software.)

</comment><comment><USER2> I kind of understand what it tries to accomplish but more examples on the homepage would help. E.g. "Rapidly meet prospects' unique requirements" could be followed by a specific example.

<comment><USER3> Hey, Im the CTO & Co-founder of ExtenduS. That's great feedback, we are on it! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will users be aware that they are "running" in extendus? I mean does it feel like a plugin(=intercom)?

<comment><USER3> Hey, Im the CTO & Co-founder of ExtenduS. Not that much, we are aiming for the product to be fully embeddable in your SaaS, just like Auth0, Stripe, Disqus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> this looks cool, but what if a user messes up my database? how does it work?

<comment><USER3> Hey, Im the CTO & Co-founder of ExtenduS. The product is multi-tenant, your users are isolated from one to another and from your SaaS product.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand. Say, I'm a user, I want to implement an extension to reply another user's comment automatically. To do that, I need to access the database of user comments. And then I mistakenly remove all comments from the other user?

<comment><USER3> At the moment users can only customize their own account. In the future a user can install an app in their account that was build by a developer, but the app will only have access to the user account.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Raytracer in Excel - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/s0lly/Raytracer-In-Excel <comment><USER2> Wow, that's some good excel wizardry!</comment>


Test Scores and Biological Father's Income - <AUTHOR> http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/08/test-scores-and-income.html

<comment><USER2> It's important to read the original blog post: [http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/08/least-surprising- corr...](http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/08/least-surprising-correlation- of-all.html)

The author makes it quite clear there, but not in the sharing of this second graph, that the correlation does not imply a causation.</comment>


Ubuntu 15.10 is available - <AUTHOR> http://releases.ubuntu.com/15.10/ <comment><USER2> Not much is new to 15.10. It really comes off as a nice, polished, stop-gap before 16.04 -- which is when a lot of things will get interesting.

I'm expecting this release to be treated similarly to some other non-LTS releases. 12.10 has a reputation for altcoin mining. 14.04 is suggested for gaming. 15.10 will probably become the _de jure_ for Ubuntu + X.

Short blurp about changes: [http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/10/ubuntu-15-10-download- rev...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/10/ubuntu-15-10-download-review-new- features)

<comment><USER3> > 14.04 is suggested for gaming

How is the state of gaming on Ubuntu?

I know Steam is pushing the release of Linux versions for games. But how about the Win32 and .net stuff?

Has Mono got better since the big open sourcing MS did with .net? I got some .net based game servers running with Mono ~4 years ago. But didn't try much else.</comment></comment>


Apple pulls AppGratis from app store 2 months after it raised $13.5M in funding - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/08/apple-pulls-appgratis-from-app-store-2-months-after-it-raised-13-5m-in-funding/ <comment><USER2> A better post: [http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/08/ios-app- discovery-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/08/ios-app-discovery- tool-appgratis-pulled-for-violating-apples-app-store-rules)

<comment><USER3> Relevant snippet:

"On Monday, Apple confirmed to AllThingsD that AppGratis had been removed for violating not only clause 2.25 of the App Store Review Guideline — the clause stipulating that apps cannot promote other apps similarly to the App Store — but also clause 5.6. Clause 5.6 states that apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind."</comment></comment>


A large microsoft division in the bay area ? - <AUTHOR>

Actually...just a quick question here. If microsoft had ended up acquiring yahoo, then yahoo would've been a large division right in the center of all companies who compete with microsoft (oracle, google, apple, adobe etc.)<p>I wonder if this would hurt the valley in general. by bringing microsoft culture down there..Also microsoft might gain respect points among technical people as it assimilates in the area. Any comments ? <comment><USER2> Well, MSFT does actually have a fair amount of office space and employees in the Valley, so I'm not sure the effect would actually be that great. The "SVC" (Silicon Valley Campus) actually houses some interesting projects.. I think, from Googling, those include: Hotmail, MSNTV, parts of XBox, parts of PowerPoint, etc.

See the following for locations: [http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/usaoffices...](http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/usaoffices/northernca/default.mspx)</comment>


My Mom's Suicide Was Preventable - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-moms-suicide-was-preventable-1528929056 <comment><USER2> > "David later wrote a beautiful tribute to his father, offering the insight > that his dad "was impacted by the sense, so prevalent in our society, that > depression is somehow a character flaw rather than an illness." He believes > that's what kept his father, a psychologist, from seeking help, along with > many others."

Can we talk more specifically about the sense that suicide is a failure? I've seen many responses to recent public suicides about that depression is a struggle and not to be stigmatized and in the same breath write suicide off as a "selfish" choice (like somehow it's a rational decision?), a choice only for someone who has given up and is a failure.

If we want people to be open and honest about what they are struggling with we can take the stigma off of all parts of mental illness.

</comment><comment><USER3> People keep saying that "the stigma surrounding mental illness keeps many with depression from seeking treatment". This is probably true for a lot of people but it is very unlikely for Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

They were both very well to do and they were both in industries where having a psychiatrist is not stigmatized, it is practically a presumed fact.

The public is unlikely to ever know what treatment they were undergoing and what drugs they were using, but I do hope the FDA keeps track of these things. Antidepressants have been known to cause suicide.

I do not know the details, but from the little information I do know I think over treatment or improper treatment is a much more likely reason for those suicides than lack of treatment.

</comment><comment><USER4> I didn't know Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain but saw familiar threads in their suicides, as my mother took her own life at age 51.

Spade had spoken to her father the night before and was looking forward to a trip to California. Bourdain was in one of his favorite countries, France, working on his television show. My mother, struggling through her third and failing marriage, had arrived at a plan to get back on her feet, supported by friends and family.

People were shocked when Spade and Bourdain hanged themselves, she in her New York apartment, he in a hotel room in Strasbourg. No one saw it coming when -- a day after expressing optimism about her future -- my mother drove into the desert, connected a hose to her pickup's exhaust pipe, strung it through the cab's back window and died of carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Spade left a note, reportedly telling her 13-year-old daughter it wasn't her fault. My mother wrote a letter, expressing pride in her five children, telling her grandchildren she loved them, and absolving her family for her decision.

These final messages won't assuage the irrepressible sense of guilt and shame that family and friends feel after a suicide: I should have known. If only I had paid attention. I should have done something.

Except you aren't responsible. Suicide is the most personal, solitary decision a human being can make. Whether the culmination of a long decline or a shock like a thunderbolt on a clear day, suicide is often driven by depression, anxiety, drug addiction or other mental disorders. Yet it is among the most preventable causes of death in the U.S. today.

Shortly after I wrote about my mother's death in a memoir, I received a gracious email from David Axelrod. We had never met, but it turned out we had more in common than working in the White House, he for Barack Obama and I for George W. Bush. David's father died by suicide when David was 19, and police came to his college dorm room to ask him to identify the body.

David later wrote a beautiful tribute to his father, offering the insight that his dad "was impacted by the sense, so prevalent in our society, that depression is somehow a character flaw rather than an illness." He believes that's what kept his father, a psychologist, from seeking help, along with many others.

Spade talked about a continuing sadness, family members said. My mother wrote in her suicide note that she was "very tired, deep inside tired." A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that many people resorted to suicide after problems in a relationship, or amid stress over work, physical health or finances. Substance abuse is also a major trigger. Such challenges may bring on depression or make an underlying depression worse.

The stigma surrounding mental illness keeps many with depression from seeking treatment. Who would refuse treatment for any other life-threatening disease if a physician could say: "We've caught it in time, we can deal with it and you don't need to die from it"?

On the practical front, anyone who feels suicidal should ask for help before taking an action from which there is no return. The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Veterans can then dial 1. People are available 24 hours a day. The website SpeakingOfSuicide.com offers important resources. If you or someone you know feels suicidal, talk to a doctor or mental-health professional. Call family, clergy or friends. Dial 911 if necessary.

The smart woman from Kansas City with a wonderful smile created joy for many with her stylish, sophisticated handbags. The tall cook with curly gray hair and a jutting jawline introduced millions to the world's food and drink. We know their stories, but must not forget that 863 other Americans -- most of them less famous, but no less valuable as human beings -- died by suicide last week too, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

To those who contemplate suicide, realize the world won't be better for your absence. There will be a child, spouse or parent, a colleague or co-worker, neighbor or friend who will miss you more than you know. Despair can be overwhelming, but it is not permanent. We all need others to walk beside us in difficult moments. And remember, you are precious in the eyes of God and those who love you.

\---

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is the author of "The Triumph of William McKinley" (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

Credit: By Karl Rove

Word count: 773 (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

<comment><USER5> Fantastic post. Nothing to add, other than thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/my-moms-suicide-was- prevent...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/my-moms-suicide-was- preventable-1528929056)

</comment><comment><USER7> So were the deaths of a million civilian Iraqis, Mr Rove

<comment><USER8> This is getting downvoted and it makes sense, but I think that the source of this article does sort of taint the sentimentality of what's being said. It comes across differently, and this post (while definitely not 100% on topic) helped to inform my take on the submission. So maybe it's not dead-worthy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." -David Foster Wallace

</comment><comment><USER10> I wish HN would disallow paywalled submissions. One paragraph articles have no substance and cannot be discussed. Nor do the old tricks work. Normally I wouldn't post something like this, but WSJ especially and paywalled articles in general are just noise. I hope people kill this garbage.</comment>


Response to boycott threat, Elsevier agrees to make some papers free - <AUTHOR> http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/12/unique-deal-elsevier-agrees-make-some-papers-dutch-authors-free?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=elsevieroa-1407 <comment><AUTHOR> Previous news on the same thread "Elsevier":

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=elsevier&sort=byPopularity&pre...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=elsevier&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment>


What is your best programmer joke? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.hewgill.com/questions/234/075.html <comment><USER5> Archivist here. The reason this page exists is it's part of an archive of deleted Stack Overflow content: [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial- st...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial-stack- overflow-deleted-question-archive-now-available)

The "programmer joke" and "programmer cartoon" questions were two of the most highly upvoted questions that have since been removed from the site because they aren't actually programming questions. I created this archive to attempt to preserve some of this early history of Stack Overflow.

<comment><USER6> But, isn't it still there? [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/234075/what-is- your-best-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/234075/what-is-your-best- programmer-joke/)

<comment><USER5> Looks like it has been undeleted since I created the deleted question archive. The sands, they shift.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A programmer walks into a bar and orders 1.00000000001000000...897175 root beers. The bartender says, "I'll have to charge you extra; that's a root beer float". And the programmer says, "In that case, make it a double".

<comment><USER8> As someone who just recently tangled with floating point error, that was hilarious!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got one to contribute.

Q: How do you obtain a random string?

A: Put a freshman compsci student in front of a vim terminal and tell him to save and quit.

<comment><USER10> "Oh, how I wish I could quit you!" First time VIM users

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> On the way to a sales call, a salesman, a project manager, and a programmer were kidnapped. When their employer refused to pay the ransom, the kidnappers granted each a last wish before killing them. The salesman said, "I still want to make the pitch I prepared for today. It's awesome and will only take an hour." The project manager said, "I still want to present my Powerpoint for this project. It's only 92 slides." The programmer said, "Kill me first."

<comment><USER12> Another version of that joke:

A mathematician, a scientist, and a dean were kidnapped. When their university refused to pay the ransom, the kipnappers announced that they would kill them all, but only after each got his last wish.

The mathematician said he had an elegant alternative proof to the four color theorem and would like to sketch it out. It would only take 1 hour.

The scientist wanted to show his proof that the universe is flat. It would only take 2 hours.

The dean said, "Kill me first."

<comment><USER13> And a Scandinavian version of this:

A Dane, a Swede and a Norwegian are sentenced to death. The Judge asks them if they have any last wishes.

The Dane says: "Eh, could I get a beer?"

The Norwegian says: "I want to make a speech about the injustice of this ruling!"

and the Swede says: "I want to be executed before the Norwegian."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The following anecdote about Steve Jobs is from [1]:

      I was sitting in Steve's office when Lynn Takahashi, Steve's assistant,
      announced Knuth's arrival. Steve bounced out of his chair,
      bounded over to the door and extended a welcoming hand.

      "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said.
      "I've read all of your books."

      "You're full of shit," Knuth responded.

[1] - [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt)

<comment><USER14> There's a talk by Randall Munroe (xkcd) at google where this is debunked by Knuth himself. It also features him being asked questions about Python by Guido.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know one about UDP, but it's ok, I don't know if you would get it.

<comment><USER16> LOL. Is this a reference to the lack of error checking and ACK in UDP?

<comment><USER17> You didn't get it!

<comment><USER18> hahaahahahaha

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had a problem, so I thought I'd use Java. Now I have a ProblemFactory.

<comment><USER19> I believe the class you're looking for is "ProblemFactoryManagerThreadLocalSingletonBeanAdapter".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Three logicians walk into a bar...

Bartender: can I get you all a drink?

1st logician: maybe

2nd logician: maybe

3rd logician: yes

<comment><USER21> Comic version: <http://spikedmath.com/445.html>

Follow up: <http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2011/05/coffee-logic.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Q. What is the object oriented way of getting rich?

A. Inheritance

<comment><USER23> _Multiple_ inheritance.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I particularly liked this one: <http://www.projectcartoon.com/cartoon/1>

<comment><USER24> "What the digg effect can do to your site."

That cartoon must be pretty old...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hex color code jokes?

Dolphin gray: #eeeeee

Psycho killer gray: #fafafa

<comment><USER26> I don't get it...<http://hexpreview.com/fafafa(eeeeee)>

<comment><USER27> Eeeeee is the sound a dolphin makes. For the second one, please listen to Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> At IBM, there was a project to figure out what made great programmers. They were going to give a psychological profile test to a group of their programmers. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough copies of the test. Luckily, the test came in two halves, so they just gave one half of the group the first half of the test, and the other half of the group the second half. After finishing the first section, and switching sections, the psychologist read the same directions as the first half, and then (expecting no response) asked "Any questions?", and was somewhat surprised when one of the best programmers in the group raised his hand. "Yes?"

"Are we supposed to use the same personality on this as we used on the first half?"

(From Gerald Weinberg's _The Psychology of Computer Programming_ )

</comment><comment><USER28> There are two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors

</comment><comment><USER8> If comics count, I think this one's pretty funny: <http://www.explosm.net/comics/2083/>

</comment><comment><USER29> Apologies, but can someone explain this one to me?

        Q: Why don't jokes work in octal?

        A: Because 7 10 11.

<comment><USER30> The original joke goes like this:

        Why is 6 afraid of 7?
        Because 7 8 [ate] 9.

In octal, this reads "Because 7 10 11", which doesn't work because our tendency is to read it as decimal, yielding "seven ten eleven".

<comment><USER29> Thanks! now it all makes sense :)

<comment><USER31> I like another variant of the joke (which would work in octal): Q: Why was 6 afraid of 7? A: Because 7 was a registered 6 offender

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did you hear about the computer programmer who died in the shower?

He was just following the instructions on the shampoo bottle: 'Lather, rinse, repeat.'

<comment><USER32> A programmers wife asks him to get some milk while he is out, she never sees him again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Tom: Get me a sandwich. Joe: No. Tom: Sudo, get me a sandwich Joe: Okay.

<comment><USER34> <http://xkcd.com/149/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One archangel to another:

Hey Gabe! Come over here... someone on earth has found a bug in your physics program.

Dear me, I thought I'd fixed that centuries ago.

Oh well, better late than never.

'tappity, clickety, tappity'. 'make; make deploy'

There, that'll do it. Another aeon, another bugfix.

\--

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

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't know if it qualifies as a joke, but I loved and learned from the Tao of Programming -- <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html>.

Too long to paste here, but it's stood the test of time.

</comment><comment><USER12> A joke of the first order was told to a Scotchman, who was unable to see it.

The person (X) who told this joke told the story of how the joke was received to another Scotchman, thereby making a joke about a joke of the first order, and thus making a joke of the second order.

X remarked on this joke that no joke that no joke could penetrate the head of the Scotchman to whom the joke of the first order was told, even if it were fired into his head with a gun.

The Scotchman, after severe thought, replied: "But ye couldn't do that, ye know!"

X repeated the whole story, which constituted a joke of the third order, to a third Scotchman.

This last Scotchman again, after prolonged thought, replied; "He had ye there!" This whole story is a joke of the fourth order.

(from _"The Philosophy of Mr. B-rtr-nd R-ss-ll"_ , by Philip Jourdain)

<comment><USER36> Scotsman not, er, what you said. I'm saving your life here!

Also, it's whisky (whiskey is the Irish variant), not scotch.

Just FYI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Humor on Hacker News?

I thought I felt a disturbance in the source!

<comment><USER38> You can do humor on HN. It just has to be genuinely funny and original, and appropriate to the thread in question.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458155>

<comment><USER37> I loved the infocom reference!

And yes you're right, but people often complain about HN being a humorless void, when it simply isn't true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> A SQL query goes into a bar, walks over to a couple of tables, and asks, "Mind if I join you?"

One of the tables says, "Normally that would be OK, but we're only here for the view."

</comment><comment><USER12> How do you tell an extraverted programmer from an introverted one?

An extraverted programmer stares at _your_ shoes when talking to you.

<comment><USER40> The joke kind of loses something without the emphasis.

"An extraverted programmer stares at _your_ shoes while talking to you."

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Corrected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Here's my "April's Fool" joke on Stackoverflow:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2557423/how-to-limit- spee...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2557423/how-to-limit-speed-with- bmw-jsdk-on-116i)

I actually had to write a small API to make this compile.

</comment><comment><USER30> Many of these are good, but why are so many of the quotes coming out as question marks?

</comment><comment><USER42> A hacker walks into a bar. He sits at the counter for a few minutes and the bartender walks over.

He takes a look at the hacker and says "Ain't ya gonna have a drink?"

The hacker looks back almost offended "Don't you know, drinking is a sin!"

"ACK." Says the bartender, and he walks away.

</comment><comment><USER43> Q: Why did the computer programmer show up to the Halloween party in a Santa suit?

A: OCT 31 = DEC 25

</comment><comment><USER44> A programmer's wife gave her husband instructions for the grocery store: "Get a margarine, and if they have eggs get ten." He returns a while later, bringing ten margarines and saying: "They had eggs."

</comment><comment><USER39> recursion, _n_. See "tail recursion".

tail recursion, _n_. See "tail recursion".

</comment><comment><USER45> There are 3 types of people in the world, those that can count, and those that can't.

There is also the joke about someone finding a secret NASA lisp program. To prove it he sent the last 40 pages.

<comment><USER46> no there are 10 types of people does that can can count and those that can't, its a binary joke.

<comment><USER47> ... those that understand binary and those that don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those who though it was binary.

(Nice thing about this joke is that you can expand it to base-n)

<comment><USER49> There are 11 types of people in the world, those who understand unary and those who don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Writing code is like dealing with an Old Testament god. Lots of rules and no mercy.

</comment><comment><USER44> Why programmers keep confusing Halloween with Christmas? Because Oct 31 == Dec 25.

</comment><comment><USER50> Knock Knock.

Who's there? .

.

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. .

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. .

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. .

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. .

.

. .

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. .

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. .

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. .

. <USER2>
<comment><AUTHOR> This variation is better:

        - Knock Knock.
        - Who's there?
        [long pause]
        - <USER2>

        - Knock Knock.
        - Who's there?
        - <USER3>

        - Knock Knock.
        - <USER4>

<comment><USER51> \- Forth \- Knock Knock

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Once, Chuck Norris tried to code. The world went into a loop.

</comment><comment><USER53> perl is an interesting language in that it is the only one that looks the same _before_ and _after_ RSA encryption.

</comment><comment><USER54> Compiler? I don't even know her!

</comment><comment><USER12> recursive: (λ damn. damn (damn)) (λ damn. damn (damn))

</comment><comment><USER55> to be or not to be = ff

(2b OR NOT 2b)

<comment><USER33> Here is another version

question= ( to ) ? be : ! be;

<comment><USER17> 2b|!2b

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> if ((boy | girl)|Marriage){boy.freewill = false;} else if (boy != (boy | girl)) {boy.drinks = true;} else if (boy == girl){gay = true;}

</comment><comment><USER18> two foos walk into a bar...

<comment><USER18> 10 foos walk a bar ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> When reading/reviewing a particularly bad piece of code in front of the person who wrote it, say:

If your language had true garbage collection, the compiler would have deleted this program upon execution.

</comment><comment><USER56> When you have the attention of more than 3 passionate guru programmers, ask:

"Does the curley brace go on the first line of the for loop or on the next line?"

Laugh at any opinion given, calling them "silly".

</comment><comment><USER56> Programmer asks for some advice on what data structure to best map his family tree:

2nd Programmer says: For you I would suggest a "directed acyclic graph".

<comment><USER57> But that's the right answer! How many distinct ancestors do you think you have 40 generations ago? We're all inbred by the pigeon-hole principle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> When Chuck Norris throws an exception, it's across the room.

<comment><USER58> Any test for equality on ChuckNorris fails. He has no equals.

Chuck Norris invented programming. Why do you think it began with punch cards?

Chuck Norris never gets thread contention; threads cooperate if they want to live.

If Norris doesn't like your site, he duck-punches your Javascript until it works.

I attempted to kill -9 Chuck Norris and my keyboard shocked me for my impudence.

Chuck Norris can write Haskell... in assembler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Two Programmers are walking along the sidewalk when both simultaneously spot a hundred dollar bill on the ground between them. They begin a lively discussion of the nature of the problem, what is right? What is moral, what is just? What would people of various religions say? Should we split it? Does might make right? They spend hours discussing the fascinating problem and what should be done about it. They finally decide to settle things like the enlightened manner appropriate for civilized beings. A game a rock paper scissors. While performing the game, a Religious figure runs up, grabs the money, waves around a knife and disappears back into the crowd.

</comment><comment><USER59> Not programmer per se but the best one ever using _"walks into a bar"_ :

 _We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here, says the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar._

</comment><comment><USER56> Working on a coding project, one programmer asks the other who wrote up these project specifications?

Other programmer says: I can't tell you where the specs were designed, but be careful, the paper is still hot.

</comment><comment><USER56> My program won't compile, I think I've lost one of my bits, can you help me find it? I think I dropped it on the carpet over there, it may have rolled under the desk.

</comment><comment><USER56> While pair programming: "There!! It compiles!"..... SHIP IT!</comment>


First big containerships en route to the Panama Canal - <AUTHOR> http://theloadstar.co.uk/first-big-containerships-en-route-panama-canal-leaving-workhorse-vessels-bow/ <comment><USER2> For anybody interested in geopolitics: the new canal is big enough for Nimitz and Ford class carriers. Cutting travel time from NY to LA from 17 days to 7 days.

NY to Taiwan strait is now only ~14 days, previously ~20 days and LA Taiwan strait remains ~8 days. LA - Israel travel times from 18 days to 11, from NY about 7 days.

This has relatively little to do with "power projection" as carrier battle group is lot more likely to use the Suez canal in such situations. But for U.S. defense this is significant. Now nobody can start crossing the pacific with evil thoughts without taking into account every carrier battle group in Pacific _and_ _Atlantic_. And if you embark from Barents sea, you have to take into account anything floating around Hawaii or closer.

<comment><USER3> Is it easy to sabotage the canal while the battle groups are traversing it, effectively trapping them inside? Would they take that risk?

<comment><USER2> The alternative is not that much better, Drake passage at the tip of south America is stormy and "only" 1000km across and very stormy. This makes it very difficult for carrier to safely operate aircraft. Which makes it difficult to out range threats. So they pass though stairs of Magellan. Which in turn makes surprise attack with container missile more of a threat. You could fire it from container parked at Punta Arenas. [http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/club-k- container-missile-syst...](http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/club-k-container- missile-system-26146327.jpg)

Here is Nimitz at suez channel: [http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/military_service/Carrier%20in%2...](http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/military_service/Carrier%20in%20Suez%20Canal.jpg) and here in Magellan strait: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_040621-N-653...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_040621-N-6536T-066_The_Nimitz- class_aircraft_carrier_USS_Ronald_Reagan_\(CVN_76\)_cruises_through_the_Straits_of_Magellan.jpg)

Edit: added the word "stormy". Drake passage is mean business.[https://cnet4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2008/03/04/e9944d14-f4d...](https://cnet4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2008/03/04/e9944d14-f4d6-11e2-8c7c-d4ae52e62bcc/resize/570xauto/df581edfcc2b8edf0d0248c45f1cc62f/3t_global_wind.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Do the really go through the straits of Magellan that often? They did it for the first time only in 2004. [http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=13939](http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=13939)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some context (2014) [http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and- corp...](http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate- finance/our-insights/the-hidden-opportunity-in-container-shipping)

The industry's bleak economics

Transport is often seen as the harbinger of the broader economy. It certainly fulfilled that role in the recent economic crisis, as business fell off precipitously. However, shipping is now also a kind of lagging indicator: its performance is trailing the broader, somewhat erratic global recovery.

A big part of the problem is that the industry continues to add capacity. By 2015, the typical vessel delivered will handle about 10,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEU), five times more than ships built in the 1990s. Not surprisingly, pressure to fill this capacity and capture the efficiency benefits of larger vessels has led to hasty decisions by carriers. In turn, profits have become exceptionally volatile. Record losses in 2009 were followed by strong profits in 2010―and significant losses again in 2011.

The supply/demand imbalance, the larger vessels that will only make the imbalance worse, and the volatility of profits are significant problems. However we argue that they are in fact symptoms of these deeper challenges:

The market is saturated, and the industry is now in a race for market share. The quest to take share is squeezing out smaller players and has started another wave of price wars. Shipping companies are forsaking their guidelines on pricing, both in spot rates and general rate increases, and choosing not to enforce contracts with customers.

Companies are pricing at their marginal cost. That's not necessarily bad; in fact, it's the right decision for many. But for others it is irrational, and when everyone does it, the industry suffers. Many shipping companies have ineffective cost-management systems.

<comment><USER6> I used to work at a major container carrier and they actually had a pretty good handle on their operating costs (it's not hard when you only sell one thing), their problem was insane capital expenditures. When China joined the WTO in 2002 they bet big on the upward trend in demand continuing indefinitely, and when the economy crashed in 2008 they were left with a huge order book of new vessels they no longer needed. They still haven't recovered from that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought this was more interesting, using miniature models such as tiny ships for training

[http://theloadstar.co.uk/panamas-model-for-success-as- pilots...](http://theloadstar.co.uk/panamas-model-for-success-as-pilots-use- tiny-ships-to-practise/)

<comment><USER8> I want to ride that adorable little boat around all day.

<comment><USER9> The temptation to say "Toot toot!" and giggle like and idiot would be very strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I reading this right. I could HIRE a container ship for $5500 a day? A whole ship! Does not seem right to me, crew costs would have to be more than that.

> Indeed, according to Alphaliner, there are about 40 panamax container > vessels currently seeking employment on the spot market against an > unfavourable backdrop of oversupply. It said that charter rates remained > "stuck at rock-bottom levels" – typically at about just $5,000-$5,500 a day

<comment><USER11> Calling Peter Thiel, if there's about to be a glut of unwanted "old Panamax" container ships on the market for charter, maybe some will be for sale? Buy a few, strap them together and put them 13 miles off the coast of SF. What can possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER12> _13 miles off the coast of SF. What can possibly go wrong?_

13mi offshore? What can go wrong is you're still in US territorial waters; they end ~4,200 feet further out, because territorial waters are defined in nautical miles.

But even if you amend to "13 nautical miles off the coast", you run into "Hi, you're still in our exclusive economic zone." To get out of _that_ and truly be free of both territorial and economic-exploitation claims of existing states, you need to be more than 200nm from any coast. Which is ~230mi and a bit more of a hassle to commute to, supply, etc., not to mention you'd need to build a stable anchorage for them and all the natural ones are, well, within the territorial waters or exclusive economic zones of existing states.

<comment><USER13> I believe it was a reference to Neil Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I understood about 1/2 the phrases in this article. Can someone who is familiar with shipping terms tell me what Panamax strings are?

<comment><USER15> A string is just a multi-hop service/route, like Hong Kong -> Panama -> New York -> Norfolk -> Savannah -> Panama -> Hong Kong. Somewhat like a 'flight' for airlines.

From 'Dictionary of Shipping Terms' by Peter Brodie [1]:

String:

> Service offered by a shipping line involving several vessels performing > outward and return voyages between ports in two distinct geographic or > commercial areas. Also referred to as a 'service string' or 'string of > vessels'

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=sRqk- NfgEY0C](https://books.google.com/books?id=sRqk-NfgEY0C)

<comment><USER16> Just a nit, but extremely unlikely they would stop in 2 US ports due to Jones act:

"requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents."

Not a lot of those so US port to port is run a bit different. Basically Hawaii and Alaska.

<comment><USER15> But they do, and some specifically offer US flag vessels on certain routes. However, like you said, the Jones Act only applies to US-to-US shipments, whereas most cargo is coming and going from overseas -- so it's typically a non-issue.

Here's some actual schedules showing real routes calling at multiple US ports:

[1] [http://www.cosco-usa.com/fpdb/Services/schedules.aspx](http://www.cosco- usa.com/fpdb/Services/schedules.aspx) [2] PDF: [http://www.hamburgsud- line.com/hsdg/media/hamburgsd/document...](http://www.hamburgsud- line.com/hsdg/media/hamburgsd/documents_1/regionalinformation/northamerica/usa/news/2014_2/FirstSpirit_1418156439859Hamburg_Suds_new_Asia- US_service.pdf) [3] PDF: [https://www.msc.com/getattachment/dfebb208-935e-4060-b0c7-a5...](https://www.msc.com/getattachment/dfebb208-935e-4060-b0c7-a514efd1cfdd)

<comment><USER17> used to work for a container shipper, there is absolutely zero intra-US transportation via container vessels. The multiple US port calls in a string such as NY - NFK - SAV are discharge - discharge - load or something of the variant. its not picking up containers at NY and discharging same containers in SAV.

besides, I can't think of any use-cases where container shipping within US would be sensible. US company supply chains aren't designed in a way where procurement activities are dispersed and could benefit from intra-US container shipping. unless someone can think of a company?

another note: IIRC theres a lot of traffic that discharges at LA and rails to HOU. even with the expanded canal, this is the most cost efficient way to get cargo from asia to houston. trans-pacific vessels are > 10k TEU so if a supplier wanted to go through panama canal, you'd have to use smaller trans- pacific vessel which would raise shippers unit cost thus raising the suppliers cost. if you're a company that relies heavily on asian imports, your facilities are typically located on the west coast to avoid extra transportation cost anyway.

i don't think this news is that impactful

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm confused. The article implies that 'westbound' ships are headed the opposite direction of ships headed for New York. But ships traverse the Panama Canal from east to west on the way from Asia to New York.

Is there a convention of calling ships that cross Panama from southeast to northwest 'eastbound' and ships that traverse from northwest to southeast 'westbound?' Because that seems like it would be even more confusing that things already are.

<comment><USER15> They're referring to global (i.e. shipping) geography with regard to east- west, not local geography.

The convention is actually to call the Atlantic side 'north' and the Pacific side 'south'.

<comment><USER19> Because it is actually 'north' and 'south'. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Atlantic exit of the canal is actually _west_ of the Pacific exit.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you improve Google News? - <AUTHOR>

I had been reading Google News for years, and now will still look at it periodically, but I've come to realize that even though it is good at what it does, which is just collecting and categorizing the latest news in an intuitive and somewhat visually appealing manner, it sucks as a way to get the news you want. This is because they collect every version of every news story and show the latest instead of the "best" article.
Case-in-point is the top current sci/tech story "Facebook Blames Outage On Database Failure" by InformationWeek, which has a really misleading headline. It was not a database failure the way you and I would think of it; it was a config tool problem. Now many users are going to think a database was at fault, when it wasn't. The method of bringing the crappy headline up to the top is just bad, bad, bad, and I don't think that ranking by popularity would help, because the non-techs or uninformed might thumbs up such a story.
So, how could they improve it and resolve this issue? <comment><USER2> I think some of the reason Google News is the way it is has to do with balancing the line between providing free content and not paying copyright holders (Newspapers). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

That being said, you're correct about quality being an issue. It seems that there are more algorithms, and less human component, deciding what reaches the front page. I think it would work better if it were like this:

1) Algorithm "bubbles up" the best news stories.

2) A trained human (or humans) filters through them, selects the best article.

3) Said article gets posted on the front page.

The trained person would have to have good journalistic taste. Pick out articles with proper headlines, rather than link-bait titles, or titles written by someone who has little clue what he/she is talking about (e.g. there aren't many journalists who are DBA's).

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

A BIGGER problem is this: Showing only "news" and not "fluff".

Whenever there's a top-ten list, celebrity news, an op-ed piece, sports "news", reports on "marketing material" for new products/services, a puppy who fell down the well, "sharks" in the ocean (who pose no threat to you), the virgin mary appearing on a piece of toast, etc..., that's not real news. That's entertainment.

It would be nice if there was a news source that filtered all of that crap out. It might be as simple as gathering all news stories, and RegEx'ing out anything that also appears on Fark.com. ;)

The only news organization I'm aware of which does this well is PBS's News Hour. The problem is their presentation is very dry. On the plus side, they don't have "opinionated" reporters who add judgmental tones of voice and facial expressions to their presentation.

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

Another random thought goes back to Op-Ed pieces. It would be nice if all online newspapers, or some sort of services, marked them as such, visually distinguishing them from news pieces. Perhaps make the webpage background light sky blue, rather than white. Anything, in a subtle visual manner, which states "This is someone's opinion; it may or may not be true".

<comment><USER3> For a long time, i've been wanting a news site that PURELY states facts about things that happened... with absolutely no author opinion or anything else cluttering it. Yes, a lot of people might find it boring, but I also think there's a large contingent of people out there who would appreciate the ability to just read through a list of hard facts about events happening around the world and being allowed to make their own opinions on it all. It also might be interesting to combine that with user comments, so that the story itself is pure fact, and the comment section lets people discuss/debate it independently of the article author's opinions skewing the base content.

Change of this happening though? Probably close to nil.

<comment><USER2> I wonder how tough something like that would be to build?

My first thought would be how to get that factualized content. Most journalists (popular ones anyway) like to inject their own thoughts and opinions into pieces. It takes an extremely committed person with a clear set of rules to avoid doing that.

Perhaps a way to do it would be to have news articles written by an individual, and then have a few others, or a community, edit it wiki-style, and essentially act like a collaberative editor. After it passes the editing phase, it appears on the website.

Finding, empowering, and rewarding the best writers and editors would be really important. Also defining what that clear set of rules should be will be hard too, but not impossible.

StackOverflow.com did a pretty good job with that. Things are kept on topic (with occassional jokes here and there), they empower those with a high level of karma (can edit, delete others' posts), and have a good set of simple rules to follow when submitting questions to the site:

 _Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion_ \- <http://stackoverflow.com/faq>

I don't think an individual who is lacking time would find a news source thats purely factual boring. Instead it would make their lives easier and more efficient.

<comment><USER3> Something like StackOverflow or HN is pretty much how I was thinking it would work, although with less emphasis on the voting. Voting would still be there, as a "quality score" of the article, but it would be time-based listings so it's still more like a news site.

There would need to be a way to earn the right to be an editor, either by contributing in minor ways until your 'karma' has built up, or some other way, to stop too much "fluff" making it to the site. Although I guess the voting down of articles would still prevent that.

Maybe a simple news-themed version of HN with "order by date & article score > 10" and throw in StackOverflow style editing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flat design is great for mediocre designers like me - <AUTHOR> http://whoo.ps/2013/05/12/flat-design-is-great-for-mediocre-designers-like-me <comment><USER3> I wrote the tweets featured in the article and thought I'd chime in with a few more thoughts...

I think flat design is inclusive design, that is, it's not hoity-toity, impossible-to-execute, beautifully 3D-rendered and textured expensive design. It's simple and clean, sparse and understandable. In the most simple application of "flat design" trends, it's essentially one step up from a wireframe: pick a color scheme on some color scheme website, download a 200-pack of glyph icons and BAM you've moved from an abstract wireframe to something a little more sophisticated and approachable. Friendly colors, nice spacing, good typography, and you've got something.

Yes, I am saying it is quicker to execute a "flat" design than it is to execute a skeuomorphic, highly-stylized, deeply-textured design. A product manager or developer without a lot of design experience could probably use some flat design trends and one nice font and put something together that doesn't look like horse shit. I don't think that same product manager could spend an equal amount of time trying to mimic a beautifully-crafted and textured interface and have anywhere near the same luck. Using flat design trends gets you to some sort of product design quicker than if you're spending 20 minutes crafting a 5-color gradient to emulate the perfect lighting of a semi-glossy aluminum rod for your button texture.

No, I am not saying that by simply using "flat" design trends you are able to bypass all processes and thinking surrounding good whitespace, grouping, contrast, alignment, typography, usability, etc., but because "flat" design elements are graphically simpler it lets the content of the design show through and not be muddled by textures or skeuomorphic execution flaws, so your design message is clearer and cleaner by default.

Non-designers or "mediocre designers" seem to be flocking to these flat design trends the same way they flock to the excellent Bootstrap framework: because it's a simple way to jumpstart a product design out of a blank canvas or browser window into something that, even when starting out, looks pretty decent.

<comment><USER4> Your post is remarkably clear despite your inability to choose a typeface or set kerning. Using standardized symbols is the way we communicate.

Flat design is a dogma, but nearly so dependent upon revelation and faith. A five colored gradient emulating perfect lighting of a semi-glossy aluminum rod is carving saints into the tympanium - semiotics for the initiated and confirmation of one's devotion to sacred values. The word "perfect" gives the language game away.

<comment><USER5> Its not his site, he just wrote the tweets.

<comment><USER6> fwoosh

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since people who pay money for software overwhelmingly don't care about design quality (look at the most important systems they interact with every day --- VB.NET line-of-business applications, dumb terminal text interfaces, Powerschool --- to see why that is), anything that makes it simpler for application developers to get an app out the door without feeling like they have to wait until it's blessed by someone with an MFA is an unalloyed good thing.

I haven't played with flat design yet (my crutch for bad design is Bootstrap), but this is as compelling an argument for it as anything else I've read.

<comment><USER8> In the examples you list, the people who actually interact with the software aren't likely to be the ones who are making the purchasing decisions, though. My guess is that this is one of the main reasons why "enterprise" software UI is so bad.

So, there may not be a good argument for software developers to produce good design for these customers (awful design has gotten them this far, after all!) but it doesn't mean that design quality isn't still super-important in some other areas, too — namely those where the purchaser _is_ actually the user.

<comment><USER7> I think Patrick Mckenzie could tell you a thing or two about how important web design was to closing direct-to-consumer sales for a web application.

And that's consumers. Most people don't build applications for end consumers; they build tools for businesses. Businesses pay to have their problems solved. They're human beings and will swoon over beautiful pixels like anybody else, but if your application effectively solves their problem, that's what they're going to care about. If you're entering a crowded market, design might be a negative/positive differentiator... but, then, don't enter crowded markets; there's a universe of business problems nobody has effectively solved with software yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What really happens when you have flat design is that you can't hide your mediocrity behind layers of eye candy.

Assume that you give both a carpenter craftsman and an amateur instructions to build a table. You only want solid blocks of wood, nothing fancy. Would you be able to tell them apart?

It's all in the fundamentals, I doubt a mediocre designer can develop a coherent visual system on flat design.

<comment><USER10> But, you do realise that you just proved the authors point right? Sure, you would obviously be able to tell the difference, but I'm pretty sure that the difference would be a lot smaller than if you had requested table with ornaments and wooden inlays.

<comment><USER9> The difference is smaller, yes. However, when you make simple things of poor craftmanship (in design, code or anything) you can't fool anybody. That's a good thing too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK, this is the perfect thread to write a rant about flat design that I'm keeping to myself since a while.

I hate (maybe hate is not the word, but I think you get it) all these webs/apps with this type of design (not every web, there are great designs out there), think about the last couple of years, we were struggling with javascript to make round corners, all these type of fancy effects, shadows, etc., and now, that we have the opportunity to deal with those things natively and make some GREAT graphic, full eye-candy webs, the trend is flat, simple colored divs... are you kidding me?

</rant>

Thanks.

<comment> qu4z-2 Personally, I say thank god y'all grew out of your "bling" phase. Shadows are pretty up there with "Site Under Construction" bulldozers for me.

Also, I don't think flat design precludes rounded corners?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this article would have been better worded "Flat design is great for lazy designers like me."

This isn't exactly limited Flat UI, anytime you're grabbing set of premade content, be it Designmodo's flatui, Bootstrap, a word press theme, a JQuery plugin, you're outsourcing levels of your design.

You can leverage these in your favor. Sometimes this is the best choice and will enable you to focus on other aspects of the project or extend onto functionality without having to reinvent the wheel and other times you're a lazy designer.

Flat UI is just a rejection over-design, part of a cycle of design that loops. We'll edge back towards more over-design until we hit the reset button again.

<comment><USER13> First thing I thought of was Xaw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Flat design allows a designer to focus on more of the important aspects of a design in early stages. Choosing the right shadow, gradient, texture, whatever is certainly NOT going to make or break your design. Jack Dorsey has said that the best products disappear to the user, and I couldn't agree more. It doesn't matter as much what a button looks like but more what it does and that the design of that button accurately conveys what that action will be. A good design (flat or not) will bring users in but it will not retain them on it's own; functionality is clearly what makes all great products thrive. Flat designs are inherently lighter and cleaner, which allows users to focus on functionality and user experience. So then, for a novice designer, why bother trying to make complicated skeuomorphic designs that can potentially distract users? (Anyone who has tested an early product with users will know what I mean by "distract" - all those times when a tester spends most their time giving you feedback on colors, font sizes, and layouts of a design instead of the overall utility of the product.)

The thought that always comes to my mind regarding this topic is how "delete" buttons are implemented. Often times a classic "trash can" icon is used to depict the delete action. But how often do you ever see an old aluminum trash can anymore? Not very often. Eventually this icon will make absolutely no sense to users (like an old proverb that your parents used to use). However, the word "delete" will likely be around for a lot longer. Using that little trash can icon might save space and help to improve the overall aesthetic of your site/app, but it will never be as clear as a big red "delete" button.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the ramifications might be slightly deeper than that; it allows you to see if you really will get traction behind your MVP before you bust your balls over the UI, without having your site look like Craigslist.

HackerNews is the perfect example; very simple, flat, but doesn't get in the way, and allows you to use the site in a very functional way. You can add the flashy design intricacy later if you want, but I hope that most people won't. I love the simplicity.

</comment><comment><USER16> <rant> I thought programming community is so bad for being trend-chasing, UI designing is even worse, which is basically a fashion industry. Come on, why does everything has to be flat, it's not the DOS era in 80's, you have access to gigabytes of video memory and extremely powerful graphics cards.

Can't stand the group-thinking of designers. Where is your creativity? </rant>

</comment><comment><USER17> Flat design is there to stay. Google Glass, as well as most embedded UI, rely on chromeless, flat design.

<comment><USER18> yeah , what what said ugly before now is just flat,hey !

<comment> qu4z-2 Well, flat is fairly objective. So it has that advantage. I've seen lots of ugly designs that were not flat. I also don't find flat designs ugly, whereas you do, if I'm understanding you correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's worth noting that "flat design" isn't just design that's flat, or a trend toward simplification, it's a very specific design aesthetic featuring a certain palette of muted primary and secondary colors, use of color rather than depth or texture to differentiate functions, wide, open sans-serif typefaces, large areas of color with a lot of "white space" around the text, chunky icons, and a set of design patterns that work well with that style.

In fact, graphic design has been more or less flat for its entire existence up until the Xerox Star.

I'm happy to see this article calling it out for what it is: a crutch. Good design is still 90% typography and flat vs. skeuomorphic is a pointless argument of taste perpetuated by people who don't know their design history.

</comment><comment><USER20> Simple is hard. If someone can't tell the difference between a beautifully rendered minimalistic design and something generic that just happens to lack eye-candy effects, that doesn't lead to the conclusion that flat is easier to accomplish; it just means that person can't tell the difference between good design and bad design. A trained eye will pay attention to proportion, balance, color relationship, (a)symmetry, etc.

From Bauhaus to Braun, Frank Lloyd Wright to I.M. Pei, architects, artists, graphic designers and engineers have been studying and applying these concepts. Lost on many, but still perfectly valid.

</comment><comment><USER21> Flat design is the wood-paneled car of the design world. Design goes through trends. In 10 years, I don't know what websites will look like, but I doubt flat will be it.

Flat design is bad because it gives up visual cues that convey information in return for conformance to a monotonous style. Sure, it is simple to design in, but trading off visual cues is user-unfriendly, and the future is in _more_ user-friendliness. Style does matter. Flat sites offer a limited design space to explore before they seem repetitive.

<comment><USER22> "Flat design is bad because it gives up visual cues that convey information in return for conformance to a monotonous style."

So make a flat design that doesn't give up these visual cues? All these complaints are just farts in the wind, and I only single your post out because it was pithy. Not only is the term "flat design" horrendously vague and difficult to pin down, but the very idea that there is some kind of absolute scale by which to judge design–clearly implicit in your judgement–should raise a few eyebrows.

Ultimately what matters is communicating to the user how to interact with the product in question. Everything else is marketing and will be subject to trends. But you could make a delightful and useful skeuomorphic interface or a delightful and useful flat interface or any one of a million variations on those spectrums and many others.

<comment><USER21> The cues are a result of _depth_. You have given them up, by-definition when you use a flat design.

edit: To enumerate some of the affordances you lose and problems:

-What is a button? What can I interact with? A raised button used to be a good cue.

-Is that toggle on or off (depressed or no)?

-What is clickable?

-What is important? Closer things used to be more important.

-Is this a "thing" or a word? Shadows used to hint at this.

-Is this a banner or a button?

-What did I click? I don't even know!

Non-flat designs work because they use real world metaphors to build a natural vocabularly that is almost universally understood by our common experiences living in a 3D world. Now, perhaps you can re-define this naturally shared design vocabulary in the flat world. But the point is, you are _redefining_ something which people intuitively already know, and when you have to teach users your interface, that is never as friendly as when they know how to use it intuitively.

<comment><USER23> What about hyperlinks? Menus? OS X dock icons? Terminals? Folder icons? Highlighted text?

I don't think the affordance of raised buttons is really such a crucial issue.

<comment><USER24> I agree with hyperlinks and probably menus & the terminal (unless you consider it a representation of the old school console terminal PCs of the 70s and 80s) having no real life equivalent. However, folder icons would be symbolic of a real world example though. Even a dock is sort of a facsimile of having things laid out in front of you on an actual desk.

<comment><USER23> The OS X deck is 3D since Leopard, but it used to just be a rectangular array of clickable pictures. With little triangles under the "open" ones.

Humans adapt. People who grew up with console terminal interfaces find them more usable than point-and-click interfaces. The assumption that common people will be all confused and miserable if you take away the bevels from buttons seems kind of unimaginative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bad designer here. The style of UI components doesn't make me a better designer. I'm a bad designer because I don't know what to put on a page. I don't know where things should go. I can do a sales/information page because there are a thousand of those out there to copy off of. But when I do something remotely original I'm at a loss. Rounded vs. square corners doesn't factor into this at all.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mediocre designer here. Yes I had to use Bootstrap and glyph icons because my 2-man workshop has to publish software. We use flat design of course, since we really don't know what else is suitable. Any designers care to point out a path that we can make ourselves go past the stage of following what's easy and trendy? Some books to recommend or online courses would be great.

<comment><USER27> I recommend <http://hackdesign.org/>

They have collections of resources and articles curated by web designers and front-end developers focusing on user interfaces and design theories.

These aren't tutorials, but materials for you to read, learn, and apply to your designs and interfaces.

<comment><USER28> Thank you! This is some quality stuff. I just signed up for the weekly lessons.

<comment><USER27> The other nice thing is that there's no requirement to sign up for anything. You can view all the lessons here:

<http://hackdesign.org/courses>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> " _What I lack for design skills, I make up for in being good at organizing information_ " - <USER2>

You just described the purpose of flat design. The point is for the information to stand out more than the style of the elements. It's substance over style.

Some people (bad designers) take it to an extreme and make everything square and you can't distinguish what's clickable. Some people (bad designers) took skeumorphism to an extreme and arranged information incorrectly, gave everything a leather texture. Some people (bad designers) took web 2.0 / Social to an extreme and put 20 freaken social widgets on every page, neon backgrounds, and glass like shiney buttons on everything.

A design style should not be defined by the worse executors of that style. (same goes for plastic surgery)

</comment><comment><USER30> Yet picking the right colors still seems to be a big challenge for some people. I have seen application use combination of highly saturated red, brown and green.

</comment><comment><USER31> Don't forget flat design is based on Swiss style design and needs a grid with good rhythm to execute. According to Windows 8 UX team, animation is also key. See [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh77907...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh779072.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER32> At the end of the day, good design solves a problem.

Style is an expression placed over the solution for the sake of identity and brand equity.

Many designers seem to chase a style before truly understanding the problem—let alone the solution to that problem.

</comment><comment><USER13> Amazing how design memes iterate. This looks so much like the Athena Xt widget set.

<http://xawm.sourceforge.net/XawM.gif>

</comment><comment><USER33> No. Flat design is like singing a solo, live.

</comment><comment><USER34> The maturity of a designer can be measured by the importance they place on fads vs. solving problems.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hi, great read. Just FYI your link to the "The Noun Project" is broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> 99% of "design" blog articles on the web are embarrassing, and this "flat design" nonsense is really making it show.

Definitely something to be said about a proper design education vs loud mouthed Photoshop tutorial monkeys ramblings.</comment>


Possible BGP hijack - <AUTHOR> https://bgpstream.com/event/17605 <comment><USER2> OMZ Global (AS34329) is an industrial process company (eg steel, manufacturing, ship building, etc). I'm going to assume someone who shouldn't have had access to BGP is trying to use it to block GoogleDNS or similar inside the corporation.

That or some pretty hilariously heavy-handed state-sponsored hijacking.

<comment><USER3> IIRC the only commonly access service hosted in that IP block is their DNS servers. There are easier ways to hijack DNS traffic than trying to hijack the entire prefix via BGP.

A casual browse through the other entries seems to suggest that people mess up BGP announcements all the time. My favourite one below involves the AS belonging to S & S Discount Market Pvt Ltd.

[https://bgpstream.com/event/18050](https://bgpstream.com/event/18050)

Edit: It has happened previously

[http://www.bgpmon.net/googles-services-redirected-to- romania...](http://www.bgpmon.net/googles-services-redirected-to-romania-and- austria/)

<comment><USER4> > A casual browse through the other entries seems to suggest that people mess > up BGP announcements all the time.

While true, incorrect bgp announcements happen all the time, I think this is one of the cases that Hanlon's Razor probably does not apply: most of the time they are not a result of people messing up - rather the bad announcements come from spammers/malware spreaders needing new IP space because their current (likely hijacked) IP space has gotten blacklisted and is no longer effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Heads up this happened a few days ago, not currently hijacked.

Handy tool though, bookmarked it - using the event graph to display route changes as detected over time is a great visualization - would be really cool if there was the same event graph covering the entire internet (though I suspect without some cleverness in both design and implementation, the quantity of data would be prohibitively large for building a useful visualization).

<comment><USER5> There's a corresponding twitter feed:

[https://twitter.com/bgpstream](https://twitter.com/bgpstream)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I reading this right that leak lasted 2 hours?

These are often the result of mistakes. Even if OMZ were a tier 1 provider in RU, the impact would still be limited - I can't see how this could be intentional.

</comment><comment><USER7> BGPStream [1] and RIPEstat[2], indicate that they also briefly announced prefix 220.127.116.11/24, belonging to a major Italian telco.

[1] [https://bgpstream.com/event/17606](https://bgpstream.com/event/17606)

[2] [https://stat.ripe.net/widget/announced- prefixes#w.resource=A...](https://stat.ripe.net/widget/announced- prefixes#w.resource=AS34329&w.starttime=2000-08-01T00%3A00)

</comment><comment><USER8> The BGPlay visualization on that page appears to be open sourced: [https://github.com/MaxCam/BGPlay](https://github.com/MaxCam/BGPlay)

</comment><comment><USER9> * Edited: Disregard this comment *

Ok, so if OMZ is Russian, do know this:

Russia currently is 'blocking' several websites. I.e. blocking at a DNS level, so this might be half witted attempt on keeping the censorship..

And as @swiley noted: some people only use the easier to remember 22.214.171.124 (I do that for instance)

<comment><USER10> Unlikely.

Especially since that's not really how Roskomnadzors blocking works.

<comment><USER11> Roskomnadzor "works" by publishing a list of IP addresses and domain names for ISPs to download. A copy of it is leaked to [http://reestr.rublacklist.net/](http://reestr.rublacklist.net/) in real time. Each ISP implements blocking in its own way: DNS blocking, transparent Squid proxy, firewalls or nothing at all sometimes. Nobody really cares if something is actually blocked. BGP hijacking for the purpose of blocking websites is really unlikely at this point.</comment></comment></comment>


Oculus responds to ZeniMax intellectual property claims - <AUTHOR> http://www.destructoid.com/oculus-responds-to-zenimax-intellectual-property-claims-274280.phtml

<comment><USER2> "A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company." What kind of morons stop John Carmack from working on something?</comment>


EU Referendum Rules Triggering a 2nd EU Referendum - <AUTHOR> https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215 <comment><USER3> Sorry, but you cannot change the rules after the fact. Even if this did succeed, it would apply _only_ to future referendums (referenda?). It won't change what happened on Thursday.

[Update:] Aside from the fact that it's incredibly arrogant and disrespectful to have people vote until _you_ like the result. I suspect this line of thinking is partly why people wanted to leave.

<comment><USER4> I'm playing best of 3. </joke>

But.. 62.5% of British voters did not vote for leaving the EU.

When it is such a massive thing and the vote is 52% vs 48% with a 71% turnout.. it is too close to be definitive as it stands...

Also, this petition was created back in May.. So it isn't as if this was created as a response to the result.

<comment><USER5> > But... 62.5% of British voters did not vote for leaving the EU.

Um no...48% of voters did not vote for leaving the EU. People who were eligible to vote and didn't turn out are not voters.

<comment><USER4> The Scottish Independence referendum of 1979, which produced similar results with 51.6% wanting out failed because a 40% of eligible voters had to support the proposal. As the turnout was only 64%, this means that only 32.9% voted to leave - shy of the required 40% required for it to be successful.

Therefore, for _that_ referendum - eligible voters that did not vote, still contributed to the vote by inaction, and weighted towards the remain camp.

This is a much more reasonable way to hold a referendum of this sort, as the burden of change is weighted on those trying to break status quo.

Wish we did something similar for this referendum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "We're going to give YOU the choice between staying and leaving, so go ahead, choose whatever you like - leave, remain. Either one is good."

"Wait, people actually voted to _leave_? Oh, no no no, that's not good. We need a re-vote so people can vote the _right way_."

So let's assume the government (still run by the Tories) allows this to happen. Why the farce of a referendum in the first place, if they're going to re-do the vote a week later because they don't like what the people chose? Why start this discussion in the first place, or why not say that "we'd never allow this referendum to happen" if Remain is what they wanted _all along_?

<comment><USER7> To be blunt, this was a political miscalculation on behalf of the now-outgoing Prime Minister, David Cameron.

He's something of a moderniser of the Conservative party, but this leaves him open to attacks from the more traditional parts of the party. One of the ongoing issues across this divide is the UK's membership of the EU – the traditionalist faction arguing that the UK was better off outside, and that it's now hobbled by regulation/immigration etc.

In addition, there was a growing threat posed by UKIP – the 'UK Independence Party' — an essentially single-issue anti-EU party, who were siphoning off votes from both the anti-EU Conservative base but increasingly the anti- immigration parts of other voter groups.

With these factors in play, there was some pressure during the last UK general election to hold a referendum on EU membership. Cameron's political calculation was that holding this referendum would essentially allow the eurosceptic faction of his own party to be silenced, and for the issue to be put to bed for the next couple of decades. This was basically a short-term political play to help ensure re-election.

Unfortunately this has all gone pear-shaped, as there was a much stronger backing for the 'Leave' campaign that was perhaps expected – I imagine that Cameron assumed the argument could be obviously won on merit. The vast majority of politicians, economists, civil servants and so on – something of a metropolitan elite – are fully aware that leaving the EU will be a fucking disaster for the UK. Now many of those same people are desperately trying to figure out how we un-fuck the situation.

</comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Apparently the Leave supporters were so distrustful of authority that they were taking pens to mark the ballot papers[0], so retrospectively changing the rules would be like trying to put out a fire by throwing on petrol.

Unfortunately the former United Kingdom has shown it is irrevocably divided, so should get on with trying to make the best of a bad situation, e.g. (in my view) by setting up an independent Scotland and independent London[1].

[0] [http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-backers- urge-...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-backers-urge- supporters-to-vote-in-pen-because-they-fear-someone-might-rub-out-their- pencil-a3279386.html)

[1] [https://www.change.org/p/sadiq-khan-declare-london- independe...](https://www.change.org/p/sadiq-khan-declare-london-independent- from-the-uk-and-apply-to-join-the-eu)

<comment><USER8> Scotland had its chance, and decided no. London independence is just transparent elitism and will never happen.

<comment><USER4> As Sturgeon rightly pointed out, the situation has materially changed as a large part of the Scottish independence remain campaign was that the UK needed the Scottish support to stop it happening.

The UK leaving the EU would most likely make a second Scottish independence vote succeed, which would make me sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The demands of this petition will not be met. There will be no immediate replay of the Brexit referendum.

However, suppose the UK and the EU agree on terms for leaving – could there be another referendum to approve those specific terms? Obviously many of those who supported Remain will demand that; but, it's concievable even some Leave supporters might, if they don't like those terms. For example, what if the agreed terms include keeping freedom of movement between the EU and the UK, so the UK still has to accept unlimited immigration from the EU? In that case, it's plausible that anti-immigration Leave supporters might join the calls for a second referendum. There's no legal requirement for such a second referendum, but it might be politically appealling if the future post-Cameron UK Government starts to have doubts about the whole thing, or if public opinion on Brexit begins to sour. Now, the UK has voted "Yes" to a Brexit in principle, and obviously if such a second referendum got a "Yes" the UK would be out for sure. But what if the vote was "No" to the specific terms for leaving? If you want to leave but can't reach agreement on terms to do so, do you stay in by default?

</comment><comment><USER10> "You will have to vote until outcome will be pro-EU."

Just like the Ireland few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER11> AFAIK the law shouldn't work backwards, so even if they implement it, this should not apply to the recent referendum...

<comment><USER12> Actually the uk is one of the only counties in the world that has no protection against retrospective legislation - and has implemented retrospective legislation in recent history.

Having said this ignoring this vote would be very foolish.

<comment><USER13> If the economy tanks over the coming months people will be demanding another vote.

<comment><USER8> The economy is already bad enough for the people. The only ones who lost with this vote are the wealthy who rail against it on every news outlet.

<comment><USER13> I suspect the poor will loose as well, they are the ones who have been beneficiaries of the EU. Not only that but the UK effectively shifted its politics to the right on Thursday, Boris and Gove weren't fighting to leave the EU so they could shower money on the less well off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could someone knowledgeable about British politics provide commentary about whether this might actually happen?

<comment><USER12> No the uk has no direct democracy. Parliament is sovereign not the electorate. Indeed before any referendum the uk parliament has to pass specific legislation binding itself to the result+. These petitions are a relatively new thing and have never (please someone jump in and correct me if I'm wrong) lead to anything meaningful. 100,000 signatures mean that it has to be _considered_ for a discussion in parliament - it doesn't even mean the discussion has to go ahead and if it does a vote in parliament may not happen (filibustering happens on non-goverment initiated debates in parliament) and would not be binding anyway.

\+ interestingly the EU referendum was technically only advisory - <USER2> parliament would be mad to ignore it.

<comment><USER15> The apology made by Gordon Brown to Alan Turing was prompted by a petition

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology- to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology-to-alan- turing)

A complete list that were debated is at [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions?state=debated](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions?state=debated)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Some people are always trying to subvert democracy. I guess it is only democracy if they win.

</comment><comment><USER17> AFAIK people need to vote in a prime minister who would trigger Chapter 50. It's similar to the 2nd EU Referendum.

<comment><USER18> I was under the impression the next prime minister would be decided by a leadership contest within the Conservative Party scheduled later this year. As in a similar situation to how Gordon Brown came to power. Although it would be nice to be wrong.

<comment><USER17> Probably you are right, I don't know too much about the situation, as lots of important facts are always missing from news reports

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everybody who is able to sign this, you NEED to sign it.

<comment><USER20> And it's exactly that sort of disregard for the democratic process that made the right to self-determination a key point in the Brexit debate.

Wah, no fair, do over. It just comes across as intensely childish.

Also kind of irks me that most of the social media whining at the moment originates from people who probably didn't even have an opinion on the EU this time last year. Others amongst us have harboured a lingering resentment towards the institution having followed its activities for years, listened to debates from the floor of the EU parliament, read books on its history and philosophy, and yet are labelled socially deprived unintelligent knee-jerk racists. Mostly labelled by the loud but ignorant people who couldn't tell you the difference between a Directive and a Regulation, or the difference between the European Council and the Council of the European Union [sigh - yes, Twitter pests, go look those up and pretend you knew all along]

Good riddance. Here's to the Netherlands or France following suit sooner rather than later. I want everyone to leave the EU. It's doomed politically and stagnant economically with far more crisis to come in the pipeline. In time, this exit will look like a much better call than many would have us believe in the current moment.

<comment><USER7> There are a whole lot of different issues at play here, and I think it's more complex than you make out.

First, I agree that a referendum is a referendum – that's pretty much the end of it. Case closed. I suspect that current confusing and objection is rather a lot of people who hadn't previously been that invested have suddenly realised what the decision means, and are trying to figure out how to take the steps that should have been taken in the first place (e.g. a turnout threshold, a vote share threshold, a requirement for all four constitution counties to vote, that sort of thing.) It's too late for that, and it's a total fuck-up on behalf of everyone involved.

I think the complaints about 'social media whining' are a bit unfair. What you're seeing is a whole bunch of people who generally would support the EU, and whose social groups all generally feel the same. They are, understandably, quite annoyed at the outcome, even if they perhaps weren't as well-informed as they should be. I imagine that the majority of them didn't vote 'Remain' to 'prove a point' or anything like that, so much as they didn't have any particular objection to the EU.

On the flip side… I am sure that there are people like yourself who have a coherent, informed understanding of the EU and the associated institutions, and who have come to the conclusion that they don't agree the goals or methods of the project. Or maybe others who think that the economic benefits of escaping the single market are worth it. But I do not think that the majority of support for the 'Leave' campaign was aligned with this.

I would feel less annoyed about this outcome if what we had seen in the UK was a rational, informed debate about the future of the European project and if we wanted to be a member of that. I would have felt better if there had been a comprehensive blueprint for an independent UK – like the one that the Scottish government published prior to the independence referendum – that could be argued over. But we didn't have that, and instead got what I think Dimbleby described as 'post-truth politics'. We had people shouting lies at each other about economics and immigration, with research and numbers not really getting a look in. And, more than anything, the outcome seems like a protest vote caused by long-term political disengagement, rather then specifically a genuine anti-EU sentiment.

Contrasting this with the Scottish indyref – after that one, I felt much happier. I was still on the losing side of the argument, but it felt like the arguments has been made and the decision had been taken fairly; even though I didn't agree with the outcome, I didn't feel like it was unfair. I don't have that feeling today.

<comment><USER21> The Scottish government published a detailed blueprint for an independent Scotland, due to it being the SNP the ruling party in Holyrood which initiated the referendum.

There was no similar blueprint for the UK outside of the EU due to the government being essentially pro-EU, any blueprint wouldn't have been credible and easily accused of bias.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How we've analyzed our homepage without spending a single dollar - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/how-we-ve-analyzed-our-homepage-without-spending-a-single-dollar-case-study-c1defae743c6 <comment><USER2> Looks good! :) How long will it stay free?</comment>


A $500 Dry-Cleaning Machine That Fits in Your Closet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/09/heres-a-500-dry-cleaning-machine-that-fits-in-your-closet/

<comment><USER2> This appears to be more in line with [http://dryel.com/](http://dryel.com/) than what I consider traditional dry cleaning ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cleaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cleaning) )

</comment><comment><USER3> I am honestly unsure as to whether this a native advertisement.

<comment><USER2> My gut says it is. It doesn't mention other competition or compare it at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does it actually clean your clothes like real dry cleaning would? The video makes it sound like it just deodorizes your clothes and heats them up to remove wrinkles.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can't remember the last time I had a plug in my closet. Also it'd be better without the swash pod chemicals (if that's possible)</comment>


Google: We Did Not Acquire ICOA for $400 Million - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/11/26/google-did-not-acquire-icoa/

<comment><USER2> At this point, the only story I need to read is about whether anybody is going to prison for this prank.</comment>


Darpa's ElectRx Project: neuromodulation of organs to help body heal (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2014-08-26 <comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2014/08/29/darp...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2014/08/29/darpas- electrx-project-self-healing-bodies-through-targeted-stimulation-of-the- nerves/), which points to this.

<comment><USER3> thanks!</comment></comment>


Corporate Psychopaths [movie] - <AUTHOR> http://www.fisheadmovie.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Can be watched at <http://www.fisheadmovie.com/watch-the-movie> typing 'fhmovie' when asked.</comment>