Steve Jobs: A Genius, Yes; A Role Model for the Rest of Us, No Way - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-a-genius-yes-a-role-model-for-the-rest-of-us-no-way/ <comment><USER3> There's not much to this. The only specific evidence he offers about Jobs's character is "stiffing early Apple employees out of stock options when the company first went public." Which (a) is an inaccurate description, because options were not so much the norm in the 1970s as they are now, and (b) may not have been, and in fact probably wasn't, even his decision.

Other than that, his only basis for the conclusions in this article is something we all know: Jobs was supposed to have been a difficult man.

This article may be correct, in the way a broken clock is twice a day. Jobs may well (a) have been a jerk in a way that would normally make someone ineffective as a manager, and (b) have had other qualities that compensated for that; and maybe (c) the latter qualities were extremely rare. But we are told practically nothing about (a), (b), or (c).

This would have been a better article if he'd just written "Steve Jobs was successful, but beware of imitating his bad qualities, because most people couldn't get away with behaving like he did."

<comment><USER4> The 60 minutes interview gave an anecdote where employees with options were giving some of their own options out to other founding employees without after they went public. When one of the first employees, and a close friend of jobs asked for some options, another founding employee told Jobs that they should help him out, and offered to give out some options if Jobs would match him. Jobs declined, and never gave out any of his options.

While it's certainly his decision to make, I think it's entirely reasonable for people to say he doesn't deserve the worship he's been receiving.

<comment><USER3> I'm perfectly willing to believe Steve Jobs had a mean streak or whatever, but you can't call it evil when someone refuses to do something no one else does either. Steve Wozniak giving away some of his stock to other Apple employees at the time of the IPO is the only instance I know of that happening. What this story shows is that Wozniak is a saint, not that Jobs is evil.

<comment><USER5> The article isn't making an argument that he is evil. The argument is that he shouldn't necessarily be put on a pedestal as a person to model your behavour on.

Half way through the biography and there are plenty of more sinister examples of behaviour (e.g. denying paternity).

However, I believe the term is "flawed genius". The world is a better place when a few of them succeed! Of course, an unsuccessful flawed genius is better known as an "unbearable asshole".

<comment><USER6> If Steve Jobs isn't a role model, then who is?

The writer of this piece, Gary Stix, seems to assume that in order for one to be a role model they must be perfect.

Using this logic the very notion of a role model is foolish.

<comment><USER7> I'd define a role model as someone who helps the world in a repeatable way, i.e. if a lot of people were like the person, the world would be significantly improved.

I think the article, whether successfully or not, tries to show a definition more like that, no "perfection" involved.

<comment><USER8> A role model is someone who is a model for a role the follower wants to fill. The world doesn't really enter into it, unless the follower is looking to make the world better, as opposed to looking to become fabulously wealthy or inwardly peaceful or remembered for generations or experienced in everything or privy to a secret no one else would know or one of many other possible life goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was Steve Jobs a genius? Is this granted? I feel like he was a great salesman, and knew how to identify and manipulate smart people in order to attain a goal (with the intention of cashing in on it himself). He also had a strong vision of what he wanted, was willing to be bullheaded about it, and managed to accumulate the credibility from early successes to keep people working on _his_ vision and not deviating (although I feel like often _his_ vision happens to be something he liked that someone else came up with, but the origin of the idea is not the point here). His cultural interests probably made it easier for some people to think he had some special insight.

But... genius? Unless we're talking genius manipulator (the best con men are almost magical in their abilities), for me the jury is still out.

EDIT: Actually, the comments on the site itself bring up a lot of great points along the lines of what I wrote.

EDIT2: Thanks for interesting discussions, was certainly worth the karma-risk.

<comment><USER10> Ignoring the silly con man remark,

"but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"

<comment><USER11> While i find Apple products really well made, they have only given us minor technical innovations (unibody construction, 3d desktop graphics, sensible touch-based apps, etc?). In fact, you could remove apple products from the world, and we wouldn't be missing anything essential technology-wise. Yes they did match the technologies right to make amazingly desirable products, just like expensive cars match technologies without introducing major innovations.

I would rephrase the pythonesque quotation "But apart from the polish in sanitation pipes, better scrubs for doctors, yellow paint on roads, cleaner baths and lighter shields for soldiers, what have the Romans done for us?"

<comment><USER12> Unibody minor? Please. I'm on my 3rd MBP. I destroyed my 4 yr old model (last before unibody). The latest is model is wicked tough. I also have recent Dell and HP laptops. Pieces of shit. No comparison.

<comment><USER13> I've never understood how people manage to mess up cases so badly - <USER2> other (supposedly) technical people. I have never replaced a computer because of physical failure. --Even my first laptop, which lasted me 5 years, was replaced because I was moving overseas and didn't want to have to worry about paying higher prices for a laptop in the UK.

<comment><USER14> People expect different things from their hardware. Some people are super careful with their kit. Always keep it in a special case when not using it, always transport it in a padded bag, always put it down very carefully, never but anything on top of it etc. Others simply chuck their phone or laptop unprotected into whatever bag they happen to have handy and set off.

Personally I'm very much in the second camp. I expect my hardware to keep up with me, not to change my habits to accommodate my hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1) It's too soon. Jobs had a great impact on the tech community. Give it a few months at least.

2) I'm concerned about black-and-white thinking. As great as Jobs was, he was only a human. He had all the frailties and foibles as other humans. I don't want the tech community to put Jobs up on a shelf where he could do no wrong and he's some sort of patron saint of technology or something. That's not fair to Jobs or us.

Once enough time has passed, and it hasn't yet, a 3-dimensional picture of Jobs will emerge, warts and all. At that point we might get into a good discussion about what kind of role model he was. Odds are, parts of his story will be very inspirational and parts will not. That's usually the way these things work.

Seems like everybody is in a hurry today to get to the next story. Geesh folks, give things time.

</comment><comment><USER16> F. Scott Fitzgerald said the test of a great intellect is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in one's mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

I think that quote should be kept in mind, because Steve Jobs was a deeply complex and dynamic man. His wife told Isaacson not to pull any punches. From what I've read, and from the things people closest to him have recounted, they did not. A lot of people are having a hard time reconciling the insanely great with the insane. Humans are complicated.

<comment><USER17> I think this quote is hogwash, because having two opposed ideas in one's mind is a core functionality of the human mind. Everybody does it.

Take this vulgar example:

Idea 1: "I really want to have sex with that waitress" - "She is _so_ hot" Idea 2: "I really do no want to have sex with that waitress" - "Because I have a wife and kid" Conclusion: "I will do nothing silly"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article reads as if its from someone who has never worked for someone like Steve Jobs. I have once, and I worked with another for a long time.

People are speaking as if Jobs was alone in his truculent and persnickety management style, and alone in using that to extract good things from the people around him while simultaneously pissing others off.

My view is that you need a balance of Jobs and Cooks to run a company. I've been very fortunate to work for one place that had this, and while difficult, it made me better.

EDIT: That being said, I worked for 30 year industry veterans in their fields and they were demanding but fair and well earned their ability to inspire through demand. I loathe to think of how many Steve Job's "taught me the ways" middle managers we'll see justifying being dicks because of honoring a legacy.

<comment><USER19> Everyone SHOULD be concerned that a lot of Jobs wannabes will come out of all this idolatry.

Instead of merely working for incompetents, our managers will also be dicks.

<comment><USER20> Most people who seem to think there will be a lot of DICK Jobs wannabes are people focusing on Jobs' being a dick.

There is a lot more to Jobs than his dickish personality. If you can't see beyond it and wanna fearmonger, you should take your own advise.

As for non-dick SJ wannabes, hey why not? We're all wannabes to some extent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having gotten a significant way through the Steve Jobs book, I'm fairly certain he would agree with the article's title.

The recurring theme is that he made a lot of mistakes in life and people should carve out their own path, and specifically not try to emulate him.

The book specifically quotes Jobs and his wife's desire not to sugarcoat anything in the least, and from what I've read, the author abided by those wishes, for better or worse.

<comment><USER16> I can only assume those objecting to this article and responding to it as an attack, haven't really looked at the book or watched the Isaacson interview yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Being a leader sometimes means pissing people off. If you don't like your boss: quit.

Steve Jobs probably wouldn't make a good boss for everyone but that's OK, he only needed to be boss of one or two companies, Apple and Pixar. The other companies in the world can run their company as they see fit. Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types. You simply can't please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes you need to refuse to do things do that you can do the other things well.

More on real leadership. [http://www.slideshare.net/guesta3e206/colin-powells- leadersh...](http://www.slideshare.net/guesta3e206/colin-powells-leadership- presentation)

<comment><USER23> I don't see your point. I absolutely agree that sometimes you have to piss people off to be the boss. But wouldn't you agree that this is offset by the number of times you have to empathize with people and be their friend? After all, a _complete_ asshole gets neither respect nor friendship. And a lot of the people who work for the asshole boss will probably take your advice and quit. What good is a boss without workers?

 _Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types._

I disagree. If an organization is a round hole, the only person who benefits is the round peg who built it (if _anyone_ benefits). The key is building a hole that can accommodate as many pegs as possible, even if some pegs require a bit more "accommodation" than others.

<comment><USER20> _After all, a complete asshole gets neither respect nor friendship._

Considering Steve Jobs seems to have plenty of respect and friends, he's not a _complete asshole_. Right?

So what is he? Why even mention the complete asshole(and risk suggesting that he was one) when by your own logic he wasn't a complete asshole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article points out a weakness in the author's philosophy of management, not the weakness in Jobs as a manager. The notion of 'personality disorder' seems largely out of context for someone of the mindset change the world.

'Old Steve'? People grow. How does an individual overcoming personality 'disorders' make someone a bad role model? Sounds like the last paragraph of the article is actually contradicting to the headline.

</comment><comment><USER25> "By the time Jobs did have surgery, nine months after being diagnosed, the pancreatic cancer had spread through his tissues and was largely unstoppable. He died soon after."

6 - 7 years is hardly "soon".

<comment><USER8> It is not immediate, but compared to the average person with a matching health profile, it is soon.

<comment><USER26> compared to the average person with matching cancer, it's a hell of a long time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can only imitate a master, but by doing so, one will never become one.

Steve Jobs was an adept at connecting with human emotions (consumers and employees alike) and not only built products which did the same, but also marketed them in a deeply human way.

I believe it is this connection that attracts so many people.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think it's always questionable to approach people as if their personality traits can be selected a la carte, as if there's no interdependence between them.

"Well, I love the world-changing products with the amazing attention to every detail that requires extremely difficult execution of the highest order. Oh by the way, could I have that delivered to me in a nice and laid-back manner?" Sorry, life just doesn't work that way.

I'd be willing to guess that a lot of the personality traits that made Jobs an extreme asshole at times were essential in enabling his success.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't mind arrogant co-workers so long as they know their shit better than anyone else in the building.

</comment><comment><USER30> The article pretty much admits that the "new Jobs" (ie, the one most know) could be an excellent role model. Why is it so hung up on actions from 20 or 30 years ago?

</comment><comment><USER31> A very beautiful and probably very correct interpretation of Jobs' management approach was given by 'alexqgb' in a not so old thread here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078669>

_This difference, I suppose, is between someone bending your will to theirs, reducing you terribly in the process, and someone who sees you failing to deliver everything you're capable of, and pushing you (hard) to do what he thinks what you can.

The former doesn't care about who you are. The latter cares deeply, and expresses in by placing genuine faith in you. Everything being said by the people who worked with him indicates that they feel humbled and honored by the experience. It's hard to get upset with someone's approach when you know in your bones that it got you to the top of your game.

What people feel in response to that is love.

"He was dubbed a megalomaniac, but Steve Jobs often gambled on young, largely inexperienced talent to take Apple forward; Jony Ive and his team prove that such faith was spot on."_

I say probably very correct owing to the Al Gore's remembrance speech about the love and genuineness in respect that Steve held for others in the 'Celebrating Steve' event.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have yet to read Steve's bio, however, based on the information that I have seen over the years from both large scale and rumor based media, I can say with confidence that he was a marketing wizard.

I have nothing to say regarding his demeanor until I finish Isaacson's work, but unless it turns out that he was another Edison finagling Tesla, I doubt my opinion will change too much.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't see the point of this article, even if all the claims are true, (and like PG said they may not be) and Jobs was really a bad man in his personal life, why bring it up? I see only harm in doing so, because people who've already looked up to him as a role model, will continue to do so (I'm presuming it takes more than an article to stop him from being one) and this article only gives them means to be more like Jobs, except that they'll only emulate his bad qualities because it's _easier_ , much easier than emulating his sense of design or for that matter, any aspect of his genius. So if there really is a point, can anyone direct me to it?

</comment><comment><USER34> Amidst the various hagiographies and anti-hagiographies circulating, I can't help wishing someone could pull it all together into a cohesive whole and act as Speaker for the Dead.

Does anyone know if the new biography attempts this?

<comment><USER4> Isaascson had 40 some-odd interviews with Jobs, and none of it was censored by Jobs apparently, so the biography ought to give a good picture of the real jobs.

From the 60 minutes interview with Issaacson, it seems like a fairly honest appraisal of Jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Any person with so much of the spotlight on them is gonna go off the farm a ways. I won't even get into the eccentries of Hollywood celebs so lets just focus on "our" tech world.

Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, and so on and so on.

The point is, with that much money and fame and responsibilities would any of us not be a little "off the mark"? (This is assuming "we" aren't already). From my point of view, people are strange.

Hasn't anyone seen Citizen Kane?

</comment><comment><USER36> This whole article seems based entirely on conjecture

</comment><comment><USER20> Speak for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm glad this was written, in a way, although I think he's a bit too hard on Steve Jobs. From everything I've heard about the guy, he was a totally different man at Pixar.

When Jobs started Apple, he was young and very unpolished in his interpersonal style. When he re-joined it the culture had become something that he wasn't entirely responsible for, having been out of the company for over a decade. Also, the impression I've had of Jobs is that he was very harsh on VPs (whose high salaries and job status justify the difficulty) but not on lower-level employees.

That said, the worst thing about Steve Jobs isn't the man himself. It's the Fake Steve Jobs's out there. No, I don't mean the parody blogger. I mean the two-bit clowns who think that being "visionary" gives them the right to behave like complete assholes because that's what they understand Jobs's management style (I've never worked for him) to be.

There was a lot of good to Steve Jobs, and apparently a lot about him that was difficult. A lot of people assume they have the good and that it allows them to be difficult. That's toxic.

The "fake Steve" (he actually cited Steve Jobs to justify his personal shortcomings) whom I encountered was an "entrepreneur" who lied (to his angel investor and employees) for over 3 years to keep people in his company. I left when I got tired of the insanity, micromanagement, and dishonesty, but I lost a hell of a lot of time there.

</comment><comment><USER38> There's a lot to this.

What does genius mean? Has the meaning changed over time? Look it up, observe the etymology.

There's much more to being a man of character than simply being a man of genius. And Jobs failed to show he was a man of character. We have no evidence to suggest he was a man of character.

If the article is meant as a cautionary note to young people who might mistakenly attribute character to anyone who posseses what we define as genius (again, look it up), then it's certainly justified.

There's a common misperception promoted by business journal type literature that to be a financially successful CEO one needs to treat others well. This is simply not true. There is at least one study that has examined the issue but the vast majority of studies aim at other conclusions. They avoid the question.

The reason to treat others with respect is not one that arises out of the pursuit of financial gain. It comes from another source. You might say it's rooted in a man's character.

</comment><comment><USER38> As long as you're "doing what everyone else does" you're ok. lol. Great thinking.

</comment><comment><USER39> Steve Jobs apparently wanted to destroy Android and for at least that reason, like Stallman, I am glad he is gone, so that he cannot do any more damage to computing.</comment>


Ask HN: Is overtime to be expected working for a startup? - <AUTHOR>

I know an original founder of a startup must make it their life (or even if it isn't a startup, the CEO often must do so).
I'm applying to various startups in SF, as a developer, and want to know if I'll be taken seriously if I communicate that I will only work paid overtime. Has anybody here been hired to a tech startup in SF and what was the expectation? <comment><USER2> I think you'll have a hard time finding a scenario for paid overtime. If you're joining as employee 1 or 2 or 3 or something, and getting a significant chunk of equity, then I really doubt a group of founders would go along with that. But even if you're employee #2371, as a developer you'll usually be hired as an "exempt" (salaried) employee anyway and not get paid for overtime.

If you really want to make sure you get paid for all the hours you work, you might consider setting up shop as a consultant / contractor and pursuing opportunities to to corp-to-corp arrangements. I'm still not sure how many startups will be onboard with that, but if you have some very specific skill or talent you might be able to swing it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm didn't saying I expect overtime and a significant chunk of equity, I didn't mention equity at all. I want one or the other, and if it's equity then I want the equity to factor in the overtime I put in.

I've seen companies that have 300 people call themselves startups (~ 6 years old). In companies such as this, the prospect of new rapid growth is doubtful and my share of equity would be minimal, yet there seemed to be an attitude that overtime would be expected.

Again, asking people who have actually worked in an SF startup: What kind of ownership % can a developer person working in a 20 person company expect?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think most startups will be turned off by paid overtime. Working at a startup is a risk (for the owners and the employees). You will most likely be expected to work long hours without extra pay.

If you don't want to do this you may want to reconsider working at a startup.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're thinking that you need to be paid for overtime, then I don't think a start-up is a good fit. The whole idea of start-up if deferred payment.

Consulting is the only way that I'm aware of where the convention is you are paid hourly.

</comment><comment><USER5> No, you will not be taken seriously. Seriously.</comment>


John McAfee announces he's running for President - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/08/news/john-mcafee-for-president/ <comment><USER2> To be totally honest, for the first 30 seconds or so as I was reading the story I was sure this was some kind of joke. Not because of anything specific against McAfee, but because of how many candidates there are.

Shit, maybe Colbert or John Stewart (or John Oliver) should run for president too. Everyone else is, and it would help fun each respective show, and perhaps could even be leveraged to demonstrate the impact of money in politics.

<comment><USER3> > To be totally honest, for the first 30 seconds or so as I was reading the > story I was sure this was some kind of joke.

Sadly, this isn't the only campaign I feel that way about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He doesn't have the energy or sensible plans.

Sanders + Lessig appears to be the current best hope for the U.S. and world causes.

PS: He's coming off as a Byronic attention-queen at this point, and that makes me embarrassed and ashamed on his behalf. He could be fighting for sensible privacy open-source projects with nonpartisan advocacy and security foundations for the public good. Instead, it's the heroin-rattled rockstar "what sh&t will he say today" celebrity narcissism-cult routine rather than planning to "get sh&t done."

</comment><comment><USER5> Ya know, I _might_ be willing to support McAfee, depending on his actual positions. But right now, my feeling is that his campaign has zero chance of winning, simply because he's doing this "start your own party" thing. And realistically, he'll struggle to simply get on the ballot in enough states to have a mathematical chance of winning - especially starting this late in the game.

I don't know. _Maybe_ a year is enough time to build a party infrastructure, run ballot access petitions, etc, IF he has a ton of his own money he's willing to throw at the problem. But color me skeptical.

Personally, I think he'd have been better off pursuing the Libertarian Party nomination, if he doesn't support the Democrats or Republicans. Curious to know if he decided to go a different direction on ideological grounds (maybe he hates Libertarians, who knows?) or something else.

<comment><USER6> Lack of electability is a poor reason not to vote for someone. The cool thing about elections is the person with the most votes wins regardless of how electable they seem. There are much better reasons not to vote for McAfee

<comment><USER7> With a first past the post election system, lack of electability is a _very_ good reason not to vote for someone as that vote subtracts one vote from a candidate who has a realistic chance of winning.

This wouldn't be as big of a problem in a runoff style voting system.

<comment><USER5> _With a first past the post election system, lack of electability is a very good reason not to vote for someone as that vote subtracts one vote from a candidate who has a realistic chance of winning._

Not if you would have simply chosen not to vote at all otherwise. Nobody is entitled to my vote, and every candidate has an equal opportunity to earn that vote. Somebody will, most won't. If nobody does, I won't vote. And I'm not the only person who operates this way.

 _This wouldn 't be as big of a problem in a runoff style voting system._

I'd love to see us adopt Approval voting, but I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER8> www.electology.org/approval-voting

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't help but to question his claim of fear of enforcement when he was wanted for connection with a homicide. I mean you created the company McAfee and you are an American, you are wanted by Belize police but you are scared the police would kill you? I mention American here because I don't think Belize police would dare to kill an American during investigation and wage an international diplomatic controversy. Just my cynical way of thinking about being an American.

<comment><USER10> There's a big difference between "dare to kill an American" and "dare to have an American killed"... especially when the people that want you dead are potentially doing so to hide their corruption which would be an even bigger controversy if exposed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> a more viable option than Trump....

<comment><USER12> he might even legalize drugs and end cartels (and end mass spying, of course)

<comment><USER11> I'm down for all of the above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "AntiVirus for President" is all I imagine people saying.

<comment><USER3> Once elected, we'd never be able to completely get rid of him.

<comment><USER14> excellent!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Crown – The Flexible Game Engine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/taylor001/crown <comment><USER2> Finally!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep!

<comment><USER2> Fourth on github trending, as of today xD</comment></comment></comment>


Start your small operating system in Assembly - <AUTHOR> https://www.devimperium.com/tutorials/start_your_small_operating_system_in_assembly

<comment><USER2> Writing the bootloader contrary to what exDM69 has said in my opinion is not a waste of time. A few years back I set about writing the smallest possible kernel I could for the x86 architecture and eventually got it down to 512 bytes - meaning the bootloader is the kernel.

[https://bitbucket.org/danielbarry/saxoperatingsystem/src](https://bitbucket.org/danielbarry/saxoperatingsystem/src)

Obviously in such a small amount of space, you only get an extremely simple file system, use of one core, heavy reliance on interrupts, 16 BIT, no concept of threads, ~16Kb of RAM and a lot of headaches. But the fact is that it works and programs do get offered a variety of functions that they can go onto use in order to save space. It's relatively complete, with a text editor, game and simple script language. Without using interrupts, the speed is just incredible. Unlike your normal kernel, there aren't a million pointers to follow through or any safety checks eating up your precious processing time or other processes to share your precious registers and cache. You may only use one core, but you really do use that to your advantage.

In doing so, I learnt a lot about programming space efficiencies and OS design in general. I would highly recommend it as a journey worth taking. It recently all came in handy at work where I needed to run some very tight image processing loops for 120FPS at HD (don't ask!) and knowing how the underlying system worked meant I could bypass the heavy kernel operations in favour of my own much leaner, purpose built ones.

UEFI has of course put a bit of a spanner in the works, where some modern computers unless put into 'compatibility mode' in the 'BIOS', have completely blocked out the world of hobby OS's for time being.

I would highly suggest that you all check out the MikeOS project and if you're interested ask questions on the mailing list. It's a bit quiet at the moment but he's a great guy and knows his stuff as well as the others on there.

What's more, if you consider yourself more hardcore and need more power, I think the InfinityOS project was inspired by MikeOS and runs on 64 bit computers and allows for distributed tasks over a network. It's very impressive to say the least.

A down side to writing your own 32/64 Kernel is you take a look at the support and what you're competing against and you start woundering whether you should just use the embedded Linux kernel for example or of you're hell bent on ASM then Kolibri OS is pretty complete!

Another point for 16 Bit kernels is the fact you get to whip your old machines out of storage and boot those noisy beasts up. Load an old OS onto a kernel and listen to it churn away.

<comment><USER3> "...the speed is just incredible."

Others have suggested: Perhaps it seems "fast" only because the systems that are considered acceptable today are (by comparison) incredibly slow.

"... purpose built..."

I believe it is only a minority of all my kernel's (and my OS's) capabilities that I actually use. The majority are there only because it is too much work to remove them. This is only my opinion.

<comment><USER4> No, it is fast, it runs entirely in the L1 cache. That's a huge boost compared to anything that's larger than that. He's only going off-die to do IO.

<comment><USER3> I am aware of that. Of course I am not using a kernel that fits in 512k, but personally I prefer software that fits in 512k and I write and use such software regularly.

But it still does not change the point of my comment.

One can either say a smaller, lighter system is "fast" or one can say a larger, heavier system is "slow". It depends on the "benchmark" one chooses.

You characterize the performance of "small" software as a "huge boost".

While I might characterize the performance of a "large" software as a "huge slowdown".

The difference is my benchmark is small software, not large software.

<comment><USER4> > I am aware of that.

That's nice, but that did not follow from your previous comment.

> Of course I am not using a kernel that fits in 512k, but personally I prefer > software that fits in 512k and I write and use such software regularly. > > But it still does not change the point of my comment. > One can either say a > smaller, lighter system is "fast" or one can say a larger, heavier system is > "slow". It depends on the "benchmark" one chooses. > You characterize the > performance of "small" software as a "huge boost". > While I might > characterize the performance of a "large" software as a "huge slowdown". > > The difference is my benchmark is small software, not large software.

So, actually you seemed to agree with the OP then. Either that or you're not making your point very effectively.

<comment><USER3> Or you completely misunderstood my point.

I was not agreeing or disagreeing with the OP, nor with you. I was pointing out that there is another way to look at the speed situation, besides the obvious one.

Perhaps we could say that the way one sees the speed difference depends on what speed one expects from the software one uses.

If one does not regularly use software that fits in 512k, then maybe one sees the speed of such programs as a "huge boost".

But, if one is accustomed to using small executables that fit in 512k and one does not regularly use software that is, e.g., 5, 10, 20m or more, then maybe one sees having to use such larger software as a "huge slowdown".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice little article, but the common wisdom in "hobby" OS development is: if you want to write an operating system, do not write a bootloader.

The arcane details of initializing a x86 PC are not a good use of brain space or programming time (things like A20 line). The OP says he spent _weeks_ writing this small snippet. There is some appeal in doing it "from the ground up" in Assembly but that's very slow and tiresome. And there's still the PC BIOS code blob running before your OS loads, so it's not like you're in control of the CPU right from the first instruction it executes.

It takes roughly the same amount of trouble as this article (or slightly less) to build a bootable ELF file using the Multiboot protocol, which you can boot to using qemu or bochs directly (e.g. qemu -kernel mykernel.elf) or on real hardware using GRUB.

There are lots of advantages to this: the bootloader will initialize the CPU for you and you'll enter directly into 32 bit protected mode, the state of the CPU will be in a well defined state. Additionally you can use the bootloader to set up a graphics mode and provide a physical memory address to the VRAM (this would require falling back to 16 bit mode for some BIOS interrupts and then back to 32 bit mode).

You'll also get a proper ELF binary file with all the section information (useful for setting up your page tables), and debugging symbols so you can debug your kernel in GDB which is a lot more productive than using the built- in monitor facilities of QEMU or Bochs. And you can actually use a linker so you don't have to put all your code in one file (you will need a linker script).

It also makes sense to boot to C code as soon as possible (Rust is another option, C++ too but it's a bit more trouble). I actually did write a small OS prototype in "raw" assembly (with interrupt handling and simple threading), but it wasn't very productive and I quickly reverted to writing C code instead and got a lot more done in less time.

You shouldn't need a lot of assembly code, only the early boot code (a few hundred lines), the interrupt handler entry point and trampoline code for booting the other cores of your CPU. In addition, there will be some inline assembly oneliners for accessing privileged instructions (like lgdt, etc).

Here's the beginnings of my hobby OS project from years ago. I made the mistake of using 64 bit long mode, which is a lot more work to get booted and not a very good use of time. Stick to 32 bit mode if you want to get things done.

[https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros](https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros)

<comment><USER6> As another alternative, bootstrap your OS using EFI. You get to boot directly in 32-bit or 64-bit mode, as with multiboot, and you get a handful of OS-like facilities to bootstrap yourself with, such as files, input, output, graphics, and even networking. (You'll want to replace those with your own facilities eventually, but until then you can focus on more interesting problems.)

<comment><USER7> but you don't get to decide whether to use 32bit or 64bit mode, your firmware does for you.

<comment><USER5> Firmware? No, the OS will have to explicitly choose the mode the CPU operates in.

The PC, under "normal" legacy BIOS, always boots to 16 bit mode (like in OP). From there on, you manually have to change the processor operating mode to 32 bits (protected mode) or 64 bits (long mode), by setting some privileged registers and doing a jump to 32/64 bit code.

In the case of UEFI, it may be possible to explicitly ask for a certain operating mode at boot, but I am not familiar with that (yet).

<comment><USER6> > In the case of UEFI, it may be possible to explicitly ask for a certain > operating mode at boot, but I am not familiar with that (yet).

That was the point of the comment you replied to. Normally, EFI either runs in 32-bit or 64-bit, and only loads and runs binaries for that mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is in no way an operating system. An operating system (by most definitions) is supposed to abstract the hardware, to provide things such as processes, a scheduler, a file system, a framework for device drivers.

<comment><USER9> The article describes how to start an operating system, not how to write it. The article even states this at the end:

"Now, your job would be to develop your little kernel in the system.asm file.

<comment><USER8> This doesn't change the fact that the title is misleading.

<comment><USER4> Title seems fine to me. " _Start_ your small operating system in assembly". That means it clearly is not advertised as an operating system in and of itself.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Modssl an SSL Module for Redis and KeyDB - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JohnSully/modssl <comment><USER2> It's nice to see some movement on TLS in Redis, and hey it also introduced me to KeyDB!

I notice that the original patch's notes say ssl/non-ssl redis shouldn't be mixed, but does this _force_ TLS use on the standard port, or does it _allow_ it, on a separate port (or allow it, StartTLS style on the same port?)

Following on from the above, does this also support/enforce that replication traffic is encrypted?

How does this affect sentinel?</comment>


Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39653431 <comment><AUTHOR> Most important for me is:

> "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading > his family's firm for the past 42 years.

> In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, > Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you > cannot train their personality.

Timpson are good in the UK because for a long time they've been happy to interview ex-offenders.

[https://www.timpson.co.uk/about/careers-at- timpson](https://www.timpson.co.uk/about/careers-at-timpson)

> Timpson really are an equal opportunities employer. We consider anyone for > our vacancies as long as they are able to do the job. This includes ex- > offenders and other marginalised groups. We recruit exclusively on > personality and expect all of colleagues to be happy, confident and chatty > individuals.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10266250/Timpson- has-key-to-giving-ex-convicts-second-chance.html)

> Susanna Stephens is laughing as she explains an early quirk of her job. "It > did seem quite weird that I was going out of a prison to cut keys," says the > 37-year-old who works for Timpson, the shoe repairer and key-cutter that has > been a family business for five generations.

[...]

> But Stephens is no conventional recruit because, like 270 other Timpson > staff, she joined the company from jail – for a while going to work in the > day and returning to jail at night, under the Prison Service's Release on > Temporary Licence scheme.

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of an anecdote about my grandfather. He reminisced with me once about how he became a drafter at Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin). They basically gave him an IQ test and then offered him the job. They then taught him everything he needed to know about drafting. Not quite the same as hiring ex-cons based entirely on their personality, but in a similar vein imho. Oh how times have changed.

<comment><USER3> IQ tests were common in recruiting for corporate America back then. Unfortunately they were ruled as discriminatory so everyone shifted to signaling with credentials from top universities which is much worse IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're not aware of Timpsons they do key cutting, dry cleaning etc and these days mostly operate out of kiosks in supermarket car parks.

It's a pretty trainable job to anybody, and the ideal job for somebody who can't get another one. I'm not sure about the Mr Happy thing though, because i've met plenty of grumpy staff there.

<comment><USER5> Mr Grumpy is also a Mr Men character. As is Mr Muddle. And Mr Tall.

<comment><USER4> Good point. Didn't see Mr Surly Bastard Who Hates People By Default though :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.)

While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.

<comment><USER7> I think it's an extremely good idea. Work generally requires people to suppress most of their personality, often tot he point of treating people as completely interchangeable labor units, which is dehumanising. Acknowledging that there are different kinds of people with different personal drives is an excellent approach. Also, most people who grew up in the UK are familiar with the Mr Men & Little Miss books, most of which treat of the titular character encountering some problem in which their regular personality puts them at a disadvantage.

Frankly I'd rather deal with someone who displays extensive familiarity with the Mr Men than some buzzword-regurgitating follower of the latest management guru or MBA fad who has mistaken novelty for innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love that they actively try to hire convicts for a job that involves cutting keys. Im sure it is a non-issue in reality, i just laugh at the irony.

I wonder if they would be more or less likely to cut me a set of bump keys if asked?

<comment><USER9> I bet this is a non-issue, I'm not sure how many burglaries are carried out by someone that picks the locks or uses bump keys but I'm pretty sure it is close to zero. In addition you probably don't want to be burgled in this manner as proving that you didn't leave the property unlocked would be difficult if there was no forced entry, which would make any insurance claim difficult for the property owner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _" We're not bothered by qualifications or CVs. We just look at the > candidate and work out who they are, are they Mr Grumpy, Mr Slow, Mr Happy?_

If you consider that presenting a cheerful face for customers is part of the retail job description, then the Mr. Men-themed interview is essentially a work sample.

 _" If they tick all the right boxes then we put them in the shop for half the day."_

Which is followed by a longer work sample, it appears.

</comment><comment><USER11> > while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality

The idea and context reminded me of the identical Mr. Prestos in The Stars My Destination:

[http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=2123](http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=2123)

</comment><comment><USER12> Does this use of personality differ from the qualitative "culture fit" concept? How so?

</comment><comment><USER13> I just learned which vendor I'll be avoiding.

Key cutting is _exactly_ the job I least want ex-convicts to do. It is low- skill, so anyone can do it, but high-risk (you are literally giving your keys to the person, asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...)

(Obviously, I'd prefer an in-house locksmith or resettable locking system, but instead, I use a vendor I've known for 20+ years who uses PGP to authenticate orders.)

<comment><USER7> You're either assuming the person cutting your keys also knows your address, or that burglars are in the habit of walking round with a bunch of keys and systematically trying them all in the front door looks of every house that looks like it might be worth stealing from.

I'm not sure what is the point of mentioning that your physical security vendor uses PGP other than signaling how awesome your security practices are, but I guess since you're a vendor of security services you have a good reason to advertise that.

No doubt you have your reasons for feeling prejudiced about ex-convicts, and as a security professional you can leverage rational paranoia into cash. However, it would be interesting to hear what sort of jobs you _do_ want ex- convicts to do. It's easy to think of security reasons to disqualify people from any given job, not so easy to furnish people with legit alternative opportunities.

<comment><USER13> I'd disqualify convicts (meaning felony, and in this case, particularly financial or access-related crimes) from physical security custodian roles (such as locksmithing), probably child care, probably financial stewardship. If it's a person with a drug crime history, probably nothing in the pharmacy chain of custody. Nothing in law enforcement.

There are exceptions, and famously if someone's going to be providing quality information based on a "nefarious past" like Frank Abagnale, sure, but for a low-level clerk position, eliminating risk by barring 5% of the population from 5% of the jobs (not even particularly good ones) is a reasonable tradeoff.

I'd trust an ex-con with finances of the cash register variety, but not unsupervised and unaccounted-for access to large amounts of cash. (It's not something you'd want to have to trust an $8-12/hr employee with in general, but in some cases it's unavoidable.)

If someone had higher skills (say, an auto mechanic who was also convicted of a serious felony), the risk/reward of having that person working as an auto mechanic is probably a lot better than a low skill person taking a key cutter job vs. another form of retail job.</comment></comment></comment>


The Lifespan of a Lie – Why can't we escape the Stanford Prison Experiment? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-lifespan-of-a-lie-d869212b1f62 <comment><USER2> This is a fascinating article about how much of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham.

> The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its > scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves > that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really > be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As > troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo's fallen vision of human > nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we're off the hook. Our > actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just > as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, > the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and > we embraced it.

It seems that we fell for the narrative fallacy every time this "research" was used as an explanation for behavior in the real world.

<comment><USER3> Interesting comments about a similarly famous study with a similar gist, the Milgram experiment:

"Many other studies, such as Soloman Asch's famous experiment[1] demonstrating that people will ignore the evidence of their own eyes in conforming to group judgments about line lengths, illustrate the profound effect our environments can have on us. The far more methodologically sound — but still controversial[2] — Milgram experiment demonstrates how prone we are to obedience in certain settings. "

[1] [https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch- conformity.html](https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html) [2] [https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric- schlock-65377](https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377)

<comment><USER4> I've watched the whole video of the Milgram experiment. People claim those who were the teachers knew it was fake, but interviews years later have people claiming they really thought they killed the person in the other room.

Not to mention his experiment was replicated by several universities around the world[1], although due to modern ethical standards, it would be impossible to reproduce ethically at most universities today[2].

I don't think Milgram falls into the same category, especially with all the work they put in at Harvard in the controls (the learner was a tape recording; so everyone heard the exact same thing. It was the same professor in the room with him; always replicating the same dialog).

This is in direct contrast with Vsauce's trolley problem experiment, which had way too small a sample size, and who forced a response for one person by changing the conditions of the experiment (there was no one outside when he tried to get help).

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replication...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replications_and_variations)

[2]: [https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating- mi...](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating-milgram)

<comment><USER5> > _" People claim those who were the teachers knew it was fake, but interviews > years later have people claiming they really thought they killed the person > in the other room."_

Some of the teachers undoubtedly thought it was fake, others did not. And importantly a majority of the teachers were not properly debriefed until several months later (some never were). The "dehoaxing" most received immediately following the experiment was itself another hoax which in some cases was meant to persuade the teacher they had in fact been shocking somebody (but that the shocks were only very slight harmless shocks.) The dehoaxing was meant to introduce the teachers to the learner, to demonstrate that he was alive. Some did not even receive this dehoaxing, presumably because procedure was violated, which explains why a handful of them might believe they'd killed somebody.

<comment><USER4> > And importantly a majority of the teachers were not properly debriefed until > several months later (some never were)

No. No. No. That is entirely wrong. Watch the original video. Every one of the teachers is introduced to the learner after the experiment and they were told no actual harm came to them. At least in the original Milgram iteration, all of the teachers knew by the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm more interested in the unquestioning belief that people seem to have with information provided by an authority, especially during the earliest exposure to a subject.

As the article states, the SPE is often introduced uncritically in introductory lectures. Uncritically to avoid muddying the waters (presumably) and in an introductory lecture because it is fascinating and likely to capture the imagination of a student (presumably).

I've encountered unquestioning belief in various degrees of bullshit taught this way, from the tainted views of history taught in elementary school, through to stuff like this in undergraduate education.

I think that students are particularly vulnerable to this at an early phase of exposure to a subject because they don't have enough background to be critical, by the time they get that background this information is ingrained.

<comment><USER7> Certain irony here. Much of education then is a Prison Experiment until students develop the critic thinking skills to evaluate their professor's teachings. Not that we have a binary evaluation here, i.e. the prof is totally right or totaly wrong. More like shades of gray where some stuff is more believable than others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the true experiment:

 _In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, Richard Griggs and Jared Bartels each found that nearly every introductory psychology textbook on the market included Zimbardo's narrative of the experiment, most uncritically. Curious about why the field's appointed gatekeepers, presumably well-informed about the experiment's dubious history, would choose to include it nonetheless, I reached out. Three told me they had originally omitted the Stanford prison experiment from their first editions because of concerns about its scientific legitimacy. But even psychology professors are not immune to the forces of social influence: two added it back in under pressure from reviewers and teachers, a third because it was so much in the news after Abu Ghraib._

<comment><USER9> In other words, the field just has very low standards for truth, in a scientific sense.

This seems to go up and down the field... From academic publishing (replicability crisis) to undergraduate teaching. Psychology just doesn't have a scientific perspective on truth and knowledge.

Instead of a need (Abu graib and timely relevance) for knowledge triggering research and the accumulation of knowledge, it triggers the field to accept bogus knowledge because they need something.

<comment><USER10> > In other words, the field just has very low standards for truth, in a > scientific sense.

The field has little to no scientific sense. It's why psychiatry/psychology is a soft science. It isn't based on the scientific method or reproducibility and testing. It's mostly based on consensus driven by a handful of powerful practitioners.

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

What sigmund freud did wasn't science. His oedipal complex theory isn't a scientific theory. There is no scientific test to refute it. You just accept it or not.

The biggest problem of our generation is the conflation of science ( hard science ) with pseudoscience ( soft science ). Because both has the word science in it, people give soft sciences far more credit than it deserves.

If anyone is interested, Richard Feynman had a very interesting interview about it.

[https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo](https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo)

<comment><USER11> Psychiatry and psychology rejected Freud as an unscientific laughingstock a long, long time ago. This shouldn't be trotted out as a an example of how these fields operate today.

They do attempt the scientific method, they just aren't doing a very good job of it much of the time apparently. If you think Freud, psychiatry and psychology are so synonymous that they can be referred to interchangeably, try picking up a current psychology textbook.

<comment><USER5> > _" Psychiatry and psychology rejected Freud as an unscientific laughingstock > a long, long time ago."_

In my experience few laugh at him. Most respect him, even if they don't believe him.

<comment><USER11> laughingstock was a not a perfect choice of words. People will still loosely refer to his more well known ideas casually. Some could be said to respect him to some degree, others not. But hardly anyone is confused about exactly how scientific his output was, and neither would any textbook published in the last 40 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Watching this thread from yesterday, I feel that HN tries to dismiss not an experiment and its conclusions (which are indeed falsely true and inexact if argumentation against it is true). It tries to dismiss a phenomenon and fix this forever as in "no, we are not like that". But what Zimbardo seemed to try to conduct is resembling a typical SU prison-camp. Where all the people inhabitating the entire area were given some rules (both law and "thief law", perverted and mostly uncontrolled) and began to create a social mess. It wasn't sadistic or directly harmful, but in these conditions people do smart or dumb moves that lead to big trouble (often referred to as "get into the odd") to themselves or someone other, thus having a power impossible to have in a regular society, along with all long going implications.

While most SU prisons were not insane hell movie-likes _at first sight_ , it is still a wrong move to state conditions and effects similar to Zimbardo's as disproven in a wide sense simply because he messed this one up.

Main problem here is that one probably cannot make such an experiment without actually building a prison and hurting people (and that they know their deeds will not be punished). The only reliable sources are 20th century books on civil wars and prison camps, but these are a read too long for HN format, and a common knowledge on that is so vague that isn't even worth discussing.

<comment><USER13> According to article, researchers themselves pushed guards toward being more aggressive on multiple occasions. E.g. resulting behavior was not just what emerged in absence of external control, but what emerged when you authority explicitly pressures guards to be tough and legitimize or praises that behavior.

That is pretty big difference in terms of meaning of results.

<comment><USER14> How different is that from a new prison guard being pressured by their supervisor or co-workers to be tough on prisoners? It indicates that a bad situation can be created by bad management, and a new person introduced to an existing bad system can turn bad as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I do not understand why a single experiment is considered good enough for research results in the social sciences. A single experiment with unexpected outcomes must be backed up by replication in order to start becoming interesting.

Even if you took the SPE at face value when it was first conducted, surely you have to repeat it before deciding if it is valid. What if the outcome only occurs once in every 100 times and they got lucky that first time? Surely that is somewhat important to know.

The most disappointing outcome is that nothing has really changed even after all this time. Each researched is only one great result away from making their career.

<comment><USER16> The outcome was not entirely unexpected. The article mentions that this is what Zimbardo originally intended. But I think even more important in this story is the great story-like quality of the result. It's a great story, and it "makes you think", as they say. One professor in this text is quoted actually saying that the story is bigger, meaning presumably more important, than the science. I remember similar reactions when some of Gladwell's shenanigans was uncovered. It just doesn't matter if it's true, if it makes a nice story. In fact, it's probably even better if it's not true.

<comment><USER17> Reminds me of religious parables. No-one objects to Jesus's parables on the basis of their being factually untrue--they're obviously fiction and that's not a mark against them. On the other hand, the SPE is marketed as empirical science, not spiritual revelation!

<comment><USER16> Yes. And the fact that, being taken as serious science, it actually affected penal policy, makes it particularly ugly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There were a whole bunch of 'studies' done after World War Two that purported to show how it was possible that 'good people' could be induced to do bad things.

I think the ones that gained wide currency were the ones that most excused truly horrific and servile behavior by individuals.

I don't believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill someone on the orders of someone else was ever a 'good person'.

Don't tell me that someone who is talking someone's child from them right now is a good person. I quit a job just recently working for dhs just because I didn't want to participate in that kind of behavior even tangentially.

<comment><USER19> > I don't believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill > someone on the orders of someone else was ever a 'good person'

That's easy to say. But context matters a lot!

What about this: your family is held hostage, or you live in a dictature where disobedience means at best prison, and often retaliation against your family. Real example: I've met a guy -a political refugee- at work whose daughter was ABDUCTED by the police of his country to put pressure on him! Can you imagine his anguish? Now, you are ordered to go in this room and "extract a confession" from someone or to kill them. What would you do? (Knowing that there are NO CHANCES that you can escape/run without awful consequences at least on your family, it's not a movie).

Same for going to war. Many times in history have the poorest been forced to go to war under pain of death (and possible retaliation on their family). What would you do in such a situation? Especially when you are poor and without "connections".

Truth is that it's very easy to force people to do awful things by the use of force/coercion. Very few will want to be martyrs or put their family at risk.

<comment><USER20> Do note that historically, in most cases of torture the torturers weren't themselves under threat, and their families weren't either. This hypothetical doesn't happen in practice.

I tend to support the parent commenter's opinion that torturers were never good people to begin with. I can understand murderers, but not torturers, and especially not torturers of people who haven't directly wronged them (e.g. when it's an "interrogation").

Extreme examples such as "but what if your daughter was raped and murdered by your prisoner" tend NOT to be the case of real life scenarios where torture actually happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think I'm at the point now where i will consider the whole of psychology a castle of dishonest and incompetent studies until proven otherwise. The usual benefit given to scientists of the assumption that is not Alchemy had to go for psychology. It's too important and the abuse is too widespread. It really seems pervasive in the discipline at this point.

<comment><USER22> There's also the reproduction crisis[1], if you weren't aware of it already.

When your field can only have less than half of its top papers reproduced in full, something is _very_ wrong with your field. It's to the point where one can safely assume that any psych paper (but _especially_ social psych) is garbage until such time as it's been replicated a time or two.

[1]: [https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology- studies-...](https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail- reproducibility-test-1.18248)

<comment><USER23> Not only is the replication crisis not solely about psychology, the numbers are far worse than half for fields like chemistry, biology, and physics[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Overall)

<comment><USER24> This is completely incorrect, and that Wiki page has been written to be highly misleading to lead people to the same mistaken comparison as they're comparing entirely different numbers that look directly comparable.

What that says is that e.g. 69% of scientists working in physics and engineering had failed to replicate some experiment at least once in their career. In other words if they performed 1000 replication attempts of other scientists' experiments and failed to reproduce the same results once, they would be counted in that survey. By contrast in psychology, one hallmark experiment tried to replicate the findings of 100 key studies in psychology from highly regarded psychology journals. And it was unable to replicate the findings of 64% of the studies. What's that number for physics? No idea other than that it's going to be _much_ lower.

Make sense? Wiki is, almost as a rule, just completely awful for contemporary or potentially controversial topics and this is a textbook example of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Be sure to read to the end where the author brings up his own family's tangential involvement in the Zimbardo saga.

</comment><comment><USER26> The narrative of the original experiment may be a "lie", but in what way is a Medium article the "truth"? It would be very important to educate and remind ourselves about how science actually works. It does not work with simple lies and truths, it is a path we follow and where we make many missteps. Even if Zimbardo did everything wrong - experiment, documentation, publishing, narrative, conclusions, influence - it is perfectly all right, the big river of science will slowly but steadily float it in the "right" direction.

<comment><USER27> No its not alright. The idea of science is that things are reproducible and that scientists at least try to be honest about what, why and how they do their experiments. You say that scientists might as well just stop doing anything and just write fake reports. It's all the same after all!

<comment><USER26> You are right, it is not OK to deliberately lie. What I meant is it's OK from the point of view of science and science will correct these kind of "lies" in the same way it corrects erroneous measurements, documentation errors, misunderstandings, whatever. Scientific papers are actually full of these, and I dare not guess how many of them are written due to publish-or-perish (which are also some sort of lies, as the writer has not much to say, or only something with negligible importance). We could even think about lied about results as viruses which the immune system will handle.

<comment><USER28> What? There's a definite difference between "Whoops, I accidentally measured this wrong back in the day, sorry" vs "I'm covering up that I'm measured this wrong".

<comment><USER26> From a moral point of view there is. My point is that from the point of view of science the same self-correction should work in both cases, so the bigger story to "somebody lied" is that "in case of this attractive lie the self- correction didn't work well".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could we think about this experiment as a meta-experiment? Zimbardo experimenting on the research community and the public how long we keep something like alive just because it is an attractive story? (I am not defending him!)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a bananas article and kind of makes a case for Zimbardo as a sort of Alex Wakefield of psychology.

<comment><USER30> Who is Alex Wakefield?

<comment><USER31> Person who published the original (bad) study that set off the anti-vaxers. He just promoted him to an Alex from an Andrew.

<comment><USER29> Ugh. Sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd just like to reemphasize what conclusions you should and shouldn't draw from an experiment being invalidated. If an experiment is run that says the sky is blue, then its invalidation does not mean that the sky is not blue. It means we no longer have evidence for that conclusion. The correct answer then isn't the negation of the original study's conclusion. The correct conclusion is that we don't know or aren't sure.

Likewise, if the SPE is invalid, it doesn't imply that average people aren't capable of horrific behavior - it simply means we have less evidence to determine that than we thought we did.

<comment><USER33> Well, the message people got was that students who were knowingly participating in a college psych study became spontaneously sadistic within just a day or two.

That feels intuitively ridiculous, and has no evidence I know of to support it, except this study.

<comment><USER34> The idea behind the study was to try to understand how an entire nation - Germany - could go berserk with hatred and sadism. Scientific or not, the burden of proof lies with those who dispute Zimbardo's (and Milgram's) findings, because they have been borne out so many times in so many different contexts. Their work has never been more relevant than it is now, as we witness the rise of Trumpism.

What alternative explanations would _you_ propose?

<comment><USER35> 1) Milgram's and Zimbardo's findings are very different. Milgram's have been backed up by many replications and are often mis-understood.

2) We have both experimental and factual evidence that shows that Zimbardo's findings were lies.

3) The entire nation of Germany did not go berserk with hatred and sadism.

4) Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"?

The rise and success of Nazism (like most social movements, including 'Trumpism') was the result of a confluence of a number of factors. To pretend that it was just "how people are" is do both people and the truth a disservice.

<comment><USER5> > _" Milgram's have been backed up by many replications"_

From _Behind the Shock Machine_ by Gina Perry:

> _On the recording, a much younger Hannah sounded perky and confident as she > talked to Williams at the beginning of the experiment. But you could hear > her confidence getting shakier once the learner started to give incorrect > answers, and it became clear that his memory was not reliable. By the third > shock, 45 volts, she was stumbling over the words. At the fifth shock, 75 > volts, when the learner made his first sound of discomfort, there was a > pause._ Then I heard the following exchange.

> _Hannah: [to Williams] Is he all right? [into the microphone] The correct > one was "hair". [to Williams] Is he all right?_

> _Williams: Yes, please continue._

> _Hannah: All right._

To put it lightly, the Milgram experiments were trash. It was measuring trust in scientists not compliance to authorities. What undergrads are taught about Milgram is that the experimenter would ask the teacher to _" Please continue"_ but what actually happened here is the experimenter assured the teacher (Hannah) that the learner was all right. The experimenters played fast and loose with the procedure, saying whatever they thought was necessary to get the teacher to continue. And sometimes it wasn't even measuring trust in scientists; there is at least one learner who recalls the experimenter, in response to their protests, asking if they'd like to swap places with the learner (essentially threatening the teacher to get them to comply.) The experimenters and _particularly Milgram_ knew what results they wanted before the experimentation even began, and made sure they got those results.

<comment><USER35> It's been a while, but my understanding was that the results of the Milgram studies have been fairly widely replicated with consistent results.

Now, what those results mean / what is being measured by them is another issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it possible that Zimbardo is now legally responsible? He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious intent, and he also apparently testified in many court cases. Can he be prosecuted for this?

<comment><USER5> > _" He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious > intent"_

Actually he probably thought he was doing a good thing. He didn't intend to harm people, but to help people (by creating a fraudulent narrative that would work towards the greater goal of prison reform), with enough fame and personal profit to sweeten the deal. It seems likely to me that Zimbardo believes the ends justify the means.

Still, it would be satisfying to see him prosecuted for this fraud.

<comment><USER16> I may have overstated it, but it seems he's been intentionally lying, including in court... Just that should suffice, regaddless of his reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The SPE is kind of like the milgram experiment in the way that people tend to do things they would otherwise not have done when given the green light from an authority.

It reminds me of a short story illustrating this beautifuly.

(From The Way of Kings) [http://www.kurt- anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethi...](http://www.kurt- anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethil-and-the-wandersail)

</comment><comment><USER37> > According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed > an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain > in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader > assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause > with which they identify

The drug war in a nutshell ladies and gentlemen.

</comment><comment><USER38> > But Eshelman, who had studied acting throughout high school and college, has > always admitted that his accent was just as fake as Korpi's breakdown. His > overarching goal, as he told me in an interview, was simply to help the > experiment succeed.

There are countless other quotes of guards and prisoners saying they were "just acting". But isn't that equally as powerful? I'm not sure it matters so much why you're locking someone in a closet for 6 hours (just acting, wanting the experiment to succeed, wanting to please your teacher, having sadistic tendencies, etc.), it's that you followed through and performed that action. The fact that you did something you wouldn't normally do might be even more significant. It's one thing if the guards and prisoners all know they're acting, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It sounds as if individuals were acting on their own accord, but unaware what behaviors and instructions were real vs. not real.

Even in real life, how many people in the hierarchy of a dictatorship are "just trying to please" the dictator vs. really "buying in" to the philosophy? I guess it matters in terms of trying to change the system in the future, but it doesn't matter that much in evaluating the harm done to the powerless in the past.

I don't think power always veers towards dangerous dominant/submissive behavior, but history seems to have an amply supply of evidence that that certainly can be the case, regardless of why it gets there.

<comment><USER39> When I was in middle school in the late 80s, our social studies teachers coordinated a mock segregation experiment. 1 out of every 8 students was identified as an "Other". We were told that the "Others" were less deserving of respect and that it would be okay to make fun of them. The "Others" would always be last in line, would be required to use "Others"-only restrooms, etc. Teachers were told to favor the regular students and not the "Others." There were no prisoners and guards. The distinction was those with privilege and those without.

The experiment was planned to last three days. It was stopped after less than a day and a half. I remember the principal coming on over the PA and announcing that the experiment was ending immediately and that treating any "Others" any differently from then on would result in a suspension. There were students showing up in the office crying about it. Not just complaining. Literally in tears.

The problem, primarily, was that it was a middle school. There's _already_ a group of students that all the other students mistreat or pick on or don't respect as well. There's _already_ a social pecking order. When some of those low social rank students were assigned to the "Others" group, they _really_ got bullied by people. What I remember being the most shocking was how several _teachers_ were bullying and treating students badly. Yelling at them or punishing them for no reason at all. Just because they had a paper sign that said "Other" on their shirt.

The thing that this drilled into me is how vile people can be to each other when they think they deserve it or otherwise aren't deserving of basic respect or equality. The older I get the more I look back on this little experiment and am shocked by what happened. Xenophobia and sectarian divisiveness is a remarkably easy way to dehumanize and strip other people of basic human rights. It's really quite terrifying how easy it was and how quickly it happened. How all the students and staff just readily accepted the new social order because that's what the authority said was true. How people abused that social order for no good reason. How people who were ostensibly pretending were actually acting in horrific ways. It's difficult to know in the moment what's acting and what isn't when it's a stranger doing it.

<comment><USER40> It's a consistent phenomenon with people. As soon as someone finds out that it's socially acceptable to behave badly towards some group, many otherwise nice people have no problem being absolutely terrible towards complete strangers.

A relatively recent example is the "it's OK to punch nazis" meme, but there are many others. (If you haven't heard about this, it's the idea that it's perfectly good and admirable to walk up to people and physically assault them merely because of their stated horrific political opinions.)

It's difficult to even talk about this, because the backlash is so strong. If someone is against punching nazis (for instance), are they defending nazis? Are they also then, by extension, a nazi, and deserving to be punched? As soon as there is an actual "Other" group which _is_ unprotected by social norms, any discussion is almost pointless.

<comment><USER41> "It's perfectly acceptable to beat up gays" is probably a better example of this troubling phenomenon than "It's perfectly acceptable to beat up people who have publicly declared their membership in a murderous conspiracy"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think that this needs to be understood in the context of the "replicability crisis" which is particularly critical in the field of psychology. The real question is what other bogus science is being taught to psychology students today.

Psychology has always played in multiple ponds. Expirement based social _science._ Explicitly unscientific^ theory (eg Freud). Quite a lot in the practice/medical aspects. A lot of philosophical approaches.

Overall, I think this has added up to a result where when people in the field say "we know X to be true," it's hard to know what they mean, nevermind if they're correct. Do they mean it in the sense that a literary critic means something, or the way a chemist means something.

For example: Atlas Shrugged & Animal Farm are both works of fiction _and_ of political "science". This is fine in the frame of what political science is, a non scientific field. No one since Marx has really claimed otherwise.

When Marx claimed his theories to be scientific, the discussion that followed actually resulted in very important pieces of modern epistemology: what is science. The critics of Marx were also critics of Freud and the criticism was identical.

Psychology though.. it has remained in a sort of no man's land. I know that I at least have really lost confidence in psychology, as an academic field. Practice/therapy is a completely different story. I think there's been a lot of advancement in therapy. I can't help but wonder though, how much it is hindered by bogus "science."

^in the Karl Popper sense

</comment><comment><USER42> The true experiment is how people come to willingly believe the Stanford Prison Experiment.

</comment><comment><USER43> Um, what was the lie again?

<comment><USER44> Zimbardo was an evil man who tried to justify his behaviour by setting up a sham experiment to "prove" that everyone can be evil, given the right circumstances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Not the first time for Psychology, I remember my professor dismissing Freud and etc. even though we learnt about him in our textbooks.

Not saying that Freud is a fraud (or even Jung or Maslow), but their theories are hard to replicate and have been gradually phased out as a real explanation of events and furthermore their psychiatric/psychotherapy diagnoses are not effective to diagnose actual psychological illnesses, their treatment techniques on the other hand have been invaluable ([https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the- le...](https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the-legacy-of- sigmund-freud/)). Psychology is definitely going thru a replication crisis. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates))

<comment><USER46> Freudian "theory" was not science, it was a catchy narrative.

<comment><USER47> When I was assigned "Civilization and its Discontents" in college, I already knew Freud's theories were poorly supported, but it was still pretty convincing while I was reading it.

<comment><USER48> That says something about the quality of the writing, but not about the quality of the ideas.

<comment><USER47> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> >> The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo's fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we're off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it.

This is odd because it's the exact opposite of the way I usually here the SPE narrative discussed: it's not a tale of redemption, it's a condemnation of humanity that purports to show how any of us have monsters inside of us that come out if given the chance.

<comment><USER18> It's a dispersion of guilt and it allows people who do bad things to go along because the think others would do the same in their position.

Lots of people in the world have died rather than to go along with things they felt were wrong.

Don't think that we all have monsters inside because we don't.

<comment><USER50> Everyone has a different threshold and it seems to largely be a collective behavior, when outside of a group, people may think more critically. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Matteo Salvini is trying to reproduce the experiment on a mass scale in Italy by tricking the population into thinking we're being invaded and you now are a soldier defending your country, and he's having some success

I think that says a lot about the real nature of us italian, and I'm profoundly ashamed to be born one

</comment><comment><USER52> We can't escape that behavior because we are extremely encouraged to care what others think about us.

The entire western culture is about ego, and ego loves to feel part of some team or group. Standing alone is very hard for most people.

<comment><USER5> Did you read the article? It's about how the SPE was a basically one big lie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The NSA employees are wrong to spy on us! They should be held accountable!

Brb though, my manager wants me to put clicktale on our website. My burndown chart is gonna look so good this week

</comment><comment><USER54> But the study's already been repeated all over the world in prisons, so it's reproducible.

<comment><USER55> A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and the prisoners and guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties.

In other words, are the guards behaving like jerks because their power has corrupted them, or because behaving nicely is likelier to lead to them getting attacked by prisoners?

Another consideration is that while I'm sure abuse in prisons is rampant hopefully it's still far from the majority of guards behaving poorly. If that's true, then real life prisons might be evidence against this conclusion as most (hopefully) prison guards wouldn't be jerks.

<comment><USER56> > A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the > prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and > guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties.

I suppose we could look at jails, then. They'd mostly be full of people still presumed innocent, and most of those who are guilty aren't guilty of a violent offense. If you just wait a while, you can find out which of those presumed innocent people people were found not guilty. It'd be interesting to see how the guards treated those people.

<comment><USER57> The SPE was full of actually innocent people - you had to make a mental leap to imagine their guilt. People in jail are there because someone assumes they've done something wrong - it's (unfortunately) a mental leap to assume they are innocent, even though the law says that they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why can't we? Simple. Psychologists refuse to recreate it. They refuse to prove that anything would ever be different. I really find the example of the dude 'faking' and trying to get out of the study an insanely poor choice to try to undermine its credibility. Prisoners, brace yourself for this shocker, don't want to be in prison. That makes it a more legitimate test, not less. If you could make sure every single person participating was missing out on some critical part of their life, and they would go to great lengths to try to escape, that would be an effective experiment of what prison would be like if not filled with criminals but average people under the same pressures.

</comment><comment><USER59> SPE is a great experiment. I am certainly an outcast from most psychologists to believe that SPE should be allowed. But that's my belief. The darknest part of a human nature can only be revealed by an experiment like SPE. If you watch the documentary on SPE, you will see the changes. I am fascinated with the minds of humans in the most direct way possible.

<comment><USER60> Did you read the article, in full? Carefully, and with a scientific mind? There are several points where the author refers to selective editing, critical facts left out, of documentaries and news reports, in order to support the false narrative. If you watch the documentary, you will see what its authors want you to see; that's not necessarily the same as the truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Im under the impression that this kind of modern experimentation (like Milgram) is considered unethical making future interesting scientific trials impossible. Once we finish "debunking" the poorly orchestrated experiments of the past we will finally be left with the zero knowledge apex of deconstruction that our age so highly prizes.

<comment><USER62> Rather than being "debunked", the milgram experiment has been pretty widely replicated.</comment></comment>


An AI can simulate an economy millions of times to create fairer tax policy - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/05/1001142/ai-reinforcement-learning-simulate-economy-fairer-tax-policy-income-inequality-recession-pandemic <comment><USER2> The tech has always been around - but the politics of it stinks. So does the element of human greed.</comment>


How Foursquare bought my domain to steal my idea - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/984261e3df7c

<comment><USER2> The irony in this whole thing is that people like the OP are precisely why NDAs should not be signed. When you are a company like foursquare, ideas like swarm arise naturally from product evolution.

Sure, you may have had the same idea 4 years ago but 4 years ago, it could have been a terrible idea. This brings me to my second point: OP is highly underestimating the importance of timing. It's akin to someone telling you everyday that you need to get treated for cancer; and then years later when you do get cancer, claiming he was right all along.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was going to back @yid on his comment, but then I saw the "First batch of app designs are complete"... OMG, this is a complete rip-off.

How can we be sure it was you who designed those mockups? Sorry, but it just seems unbelievably strange that a company like Foursquare would act in this way.

</comment><comment><USER4> A few thoughts...

1\. As yid said, it appears that this has been a half-hearted attempt, or certainly looks that way from an outside perspective. It should not have taken you 4 years to execute this idea, and even then, it doesn't appear to have been launched even now.

2\. Execution is what matters at the end of the day.

Those things said, I do genuinely sympathize. It sucks when someone takes your idea and steals it. Worse if you know that person. But it won't be the thing that hinders you from success.

Now, with all of that out of the way, its insane how similar the logo and mockups are on your site is to theirs. Its almost blatantly stealing assets and beyond if true, not just an idea. That is incredibly bad.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure you're hurting and upset, and I do sympathize, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on. At multiple junctures, you sold assets related to your app, which suggests to me that it was a half-hearted effort, even though you had a coming soon page. There are no unwritten codes in business; only written ones, and sometimes a bigger dog comes in and steals the show.

<comment><USER6> Baffles me he is surprised that the buyer of his domain would be building a swarming app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know which font was used to design the Swarm text that appears on the iphone screen here: [http://seantaylor.co/websites/swarmapp/old/](http://seantaylor.co/websites/swarmapp/old/) ?

</comment><comment><USER8> hey, at least swarmly shipped it already..[http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/02/foursquare-swarms-over- swar...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/02/foursquare-swarms-over-swarmly/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've begun to notice that if someone is complaining that another company stole their idea, they're usually nontechnical -- business, design, etc.</comment>


Peter Juzak's Tylenol Microscope Photography - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/12/peter-juzak-acetaminophen-tylenol-microscope-photography/ <comment><USER2> This is one big ad for Tylenol. Welcome to the future.

If you are reading this and take Tylenol at all: please stop immediately it is dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fuck I can't tell if this is advertising

</comment><comment><USER4> d*mn, they put an advert right in those pictures...

<comment><USER5> It's actually one of these rare moments where I don't mind ad: it's unintrusive, it's static (picture only), it's brief and it doesn't reduce a space of useful context. Basically what you'd get on a paper journal. Other webpages should learn from this.</comment></comment>


Nobel Prize in medicine to Hall, Rosbash, Young for work on circadian rhythms - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1091769/the-2017-nobel-prize-in-medicine-goes-to-hall-rosbash-and-young-for-their-work-explaining-circadian-rhythm/ <comment><USER2> Discussion for the same topic but on the official link (nobelprize.org) is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15382678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15382678)</comment>


Git Hunt - Product Hunt for Github - <AUTHOR> http://githunt.io/ Product Hunt for Github <comment><USER2> When I Command+Click a link, please do not capture the event and open the link anyways. I want to open in a background tab, don't hijack my actions.

This is the offending code:

        $('body').on('click', '.linker', function (e) {
          e.preventDefault;
          $(this).html('Redirecting to ' + $(this).data('name') + '...');
          window.location.href = $(this).attr('href');
        })

<comment> Syrup-tan I actually sent the developer an email about this with a patch.

I find it quite frustrating when this doesn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Context? I just see a bunch of random git projects. What's the selection criteria?

<comment><USER4> It would be really nice if we could see the source code for this site to see the selection criteria.

It definitely seems random. It's not just showing new projects created on a given day, because I see projects that are really old. Is it checking for projects that are small and recently updated, maybe?

<comment><USER5> You have to submit a project to be listed (like Product Hunt). It's not curated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it goes the Product Hunt way, we'll have a selection criteria for the submitted projects later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uhh... [http://github.com/explore](http://github.com/explore) ?

<comment><USER7> +1 I came here to say the same thing, How is this different from Github explore ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It needs more languages. Also not sure what's it does more than what's on [https://github.com/trending](https://github.com/trending)

<comment><USER9> I'd guess this is more about popular _new_ projects , rather than consistently popular projects

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried submitting an existing project. Sure, it wasn't created yesterday, but...

        You're not supposed to submit a project created ONE year ago. People just want fresh air.

That's a bummer. Why not?

Fresh air did not come into existence yesterday. Some of the freshest air comes from melting glaciers, where air has been trapped for centuries X^)

Probabilistically, most interesting projects were created over a year ago. It seems like a silly restriction to me, but I can also see it being interesting as a `/new` page. On that line of thought, having a `/classic` page where older projects are allowed might be an interesting experiment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great thought, will fix this hours later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea, seems like something I would use.

A digest email like github explore would be a nice addition.

One nitpick: you intercept the cmd+click event, so when I try to open a link in a new tab, it also navigates the current tab.

<comment><USER12> Breaking browser default behaviour is really bad. It makes me feel like I won't never visit this site again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish I didn't have to give up email. I will just use [https://github.com/trending](https://github.com/trending) instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Git Hunt was just created yesterday, right now maybe github.com/explore is ok enough for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Quick, someone give this a $22M valuation!

<comment><USER15> No mobile app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice idea! It could use some design improvements, you should collaborate with a design! Or copy the product hunt style, they've done an amazing job and it's part of their success!

</comment><comment><USER17> i love the loading screen cli! Where did you get that?

</comment><comment><USER18> new movement- redditification of everything

<comment><USER19> "You never know if you don't go"

Maybe it's effective for this type'o'thing, the trick is to not overdo it.</comment></comment>


An Analysis of Godlua Backdoor - <AUTHOR> https://blog.netlab.360.com/an-analysis-of-godlua-backdoor-en/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20338704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20338704) is on the front page now, so we moved your comment there. It was the first submission of this article, and we put it in the second-chance pool (described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)), which re-upped it. I hope that makes sense.</comment>