Robot automation will 'take 800M jobs by 2030' (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42170100 <comment><USER3> I think the article has it backwards. The US and similar nations will be the least affected by this. Nations like India will be hit the hardest.

Humans are flexible. Machines typically aren't. The more automation exists in a facility, the less flexible it becomes.

Until we hit AGI, I think there is a cap on how automated a facility should (not can) become.

A critical piece of this is that highly automated systems are expensive, and difficult to upgrade in a piecemeal fashion. Thus, using humans to tie systems together limits the amount invested in automation, and can save you money in the long run. US manufacturers are already aware of this, as some are dealing with the effects of aging overly automated production lines.

All of this depends on what you're making and what quantity, but until we reach AGI, over-automating is a mistake manufacturers have made and will make again.

In the US and similar, we've automated about as much as we could given existing technology. Newly available technology raises the automation cap a bit, but not that much.

Contrast this with nations which are just getting to the point where mass automation is available and have a spiking per capita income. They're much more likely to see massive amounts of automation, proportional to their increasing wages.

<comment><USER4> > Nations like India will be hit the hardest.

Which is why India is banning things like self driving cars. [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40716296](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40716296)

<comment><USER5> That is not the kind of productivity that is the problem. People are talking more on the lines of factory and industrial automation. Please note in countries like India, land fragmentation, and lack of machinery to do mass farming/industrializing food production is the core of the problem.

There are also a range of things that might have to be done. Including taxing agricultural returns, defragmenting land ownerships, and changing nonsensical laws like letting only the farmers progeny be farmers. Then of course letting import of equipment to industrialize food production etc etc.

But India being India, I expect these things to happen at the very last moment. Like when everything is about to melt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Nanotech will be a trillion dollar business by 2015" -source NSF document in 2001

[http://www.wtec.org/loyola/nano/NSET.Societal.Implications/n...](http://www.wtec.org/loyola/nano/NSET.Societal.Implications/nanosi.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the yellow vest protests in Paris and other European cities is our first taste of the kind of revolt that will happen when this really starts happening

<comment><USER8> Maybe, but we've been losing jobs to robots for over 300 years now.

<comment><USER9> Up until now, they have mostly been replacing physical labor, which allowed the workforce to shift to service and mental labor.

But now the machines are replacing service and mental labor. There is no where for a human to shift to this time.

<comment><USER10> "But now the machines are replacing service and mental labor. There is no where for a human to shift to this time."

As far as I know, computers on their own are not very good engineers, programmers, physicians, etc.

I also believe creativity in general is a kind of unsolved problem. The art/music computers made so far ... not worth mentioning. (except as awesome research projects)

<comment><USER11> The number of jobs requiring that kind of creativity is very small. Of course there will be a need for engineers, and physicians, to interface with other humans and to integrate answers from narrow, specialized AIs into real-world solutions, but that's not the bulk of everyday work even in high-skill jobs. If AI cuts the amount of work someone has to do in half, the outcomes are on a continuum between two extremes: either effective hourly wage for work doubles and people work half the time, or the job market shrinks by 50%. But what would actually happen is closer to 33% less work and the job market shrinks by 25% too. "People are still smarter and more adaptable than narrow AI" is completely irrelevant. What matters is the workload reduction offered by the narrow AI.

The OP didn't say all jobs by 2030, it said 800M. Obviously there will still be lots of jobs, but not enough. Too many people unemployed and broke, combined with not enough of a social safety net for food, housing, and medical care, will result in social unrest and, if that's not dealt with well enough, it will progress to social breakdown, which either means a revolution (to institute a new government that _does_ implement appropriate safety nets) or a martial-law type of scenario, neither of which is pretty.

Below-average doctors, engineers, and lawyers will be at risk of being out of work. On-site blue collar jobs are safer, as a percentage. Robots can prefab things in factories, but it will be a long time before automated robots can build or repair anything on-site with the efficiency of humans + power tools.

ETA:

I think you overestimate the number of people required to handle most of the problems you think need work. And the current free market doesn't agree that they need more work, or it would price those jobs higher and more people would jump into those labor pools. In some cases, the jobs require serious specialization (maybe not advanced degrees, but a fair amount of training) and not just anyone can do them... in which case even the optimal labor pool size would barely scratch the surface of the coming AI-caused unemployment crisis.

Even a massive public works effort to employ tens of millions of workers to deal with aging infrastructure, or to build green tech, is not a permanent solution. Most of those jobs would be gone in a decade, and then you're right back to where you started, only worse because AI will have gotten better.

Massive government spending (including on temp public works projects) is essentially UBI for a lot of able-bodied people. I don't object to that, but it needs to be limited to public works projects that are really necessary, and then you have to figure out where you're going to get the money to pay for them when the govt is already running trillion-dollar deficits. Is 5% debt inflation per year not good enough? Should we try 10%? 15%?

<comment><USER10> "Robots can prefab things in factories, but it will be a long time before automated robots can build or repair anything on-site with the efficiency of humans + power tools. "

Thats the point. Robots are and will be for quite some time if not forever, pretty dumb amd needs human supervision for any complex task that cannot be encapsulated.

Also .. with climate change etc. etc. ... there is so much needed work to be done.

And population gets older ... and needs much more medical therapeuts, physicians etc.

So much pollution and garbage.

So much ugly things all around.

There is an endless amount of needed work around. And if the current economic system does not adjust for that, then there is something very wrong with that and not that robots doing shitty jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://outlookzen.com/2019/01/05/prosperity-comes-from- elim...](https://outlookzen.com/2019/01/05/prosperity-comes-from-eliminating- jobs-not-saving-them/)

> Prosperity Comes From Eliminating Jobs, Not Saving Them

</comment><comment> open-source-ux I'm a bit cautious about this prediction. When the web became popular, I was convinced it would be the end of Estate Agents (Real Estate brokers) and Recruitment Agents. But both have thrived in an online world and seem as numerous today as they've ever been.

Other automated changes for manual jobs would require substantial changes to infrastructure. For example, refuse collection using underground tubes to suck away rubbish is already a reality (e.g. Envac system designed in Sweden) but it's unlikely to be retro-fitted to existing housing developments. On the other hand, things like housing construction and crop picking I can imagine will continue to see improvements in automation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Robot Automation wouldn't do jack shit in the larger scale in 10 years. May be 50 years yes, not 10.

Robots right now are bulky and incredibly expensive devices which don't even come close to human dexterity, intelligence or flexibility.

Look at self driving cars. First DARPA driving challenge happened in 2004 and self driving cars are still very dumb and have killed a few people on the road. Simulation hours don't count. Real driving hours without human engagement count.

Sure in soft intelligence like speech recognition, language translation, vision we've done big advances. Deep Surveillance is going to be a real thing where every individual/car is tracked through the city.

But replacing a ~billion jobs with robots. Not going to happen.

Unless we have huge advances in bio manufacturing and computing. Doing it like DNA does it. Building machines from the same fabric we're made of. Grow the machines from watery goo at scale. Make artificial muscles that are strong, fast, accurate, light and quiet.

Now that would be the stuff of science fiction brought to reality.

</comment><comment><USER14> Robot automation will take 800M jobs, says consultancy typically brought in to reduce headcount.

</comment><comment><USER15> A lot of people are into UBI as a solution to this, but I personally don't think that will work. The social issues that would come from having that high of a level of unemployment, even with a UBI, would be enormous. I think it would be valuable to consider a more drastic departure from a capitalist system rather than applying yet another band-aid fix to it.

<comment><USER16> What social issues have been postulated?

<comment><USER17> "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." The more people that are economically sidelined, who nave nothing to do and no prospects for self-advancement, the more appealing radical ideologies will become and the more social unrest there will be. A major source of social cohesion is the belief that if you work hard you will be able to succeed, but if it's structurally impossible to find work, and all you have is a UBI which doesn't afford much, you can expect that mass stagnation to provide ample breeding ground for a colorful assortment of social ills--drug abuse, suicide, crime, and finally, once the individual angst finds collective expression and organization, revolts and political radicalization.

Work is one of the major sources of purpose people have. Earning an income and putting food on the table is fundamental to one's self-respect. Like educational achievement, it gives the impression that there is some way to advance beyond your lot. Take that away and it will cause a mass existential crisis unless there is something to fill the void. All the blights of the rust belt and other economically overlooked areas should be expected to spread.

<comment><USER18> Are you saying that, if we ever arrive at a technologically advanced, post scarcity society where there is no money and everyone has access to as much education, entertainment, and material stuff as they want without having to work, then we'll all fall into a nihilistic despair and commit suicide or become heroin junkies?

<comment><USER19> I think they're saying that's the inevitable result of the current paradigm, not the natural trajectory of a human being. I do think there are a lot of people who define themselves by their work and by the (frequently flawed) notion that what they're working toward is a promotion, a pay raise, a title- bump. In a post-scarcity world there might still be that mentality and opportunities to satisfy it, but the implication is that more people will need to redefine their personal concept of success and fulfillment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Getting replaced by a robot is a greater fear than I've ever anticipated. I've once build [https://www.replacedbyrobot.info/](https://www.replacedbyrobot.info/) for fun. It turns out, the basic version back then got visited a couple of hundred, if not thousand times per day. I've since then built a more useful interface, and the traffic just increases day by day. I've even got interviewed by Vice once about the page.

</comment><comment><USER21> Yeh but it will help move production closer to home, so it won't be as bad as most people think. Don't realize a lot of the things that american companies build oversea wouldn't need to be there if robots could do them. You'd also get faster deliveries and on-demand production.

</comment><comment><USER22> As someone who works in a product management role building automation software what I am observing is that automation is helping to automate tasks not jobs.

Jobs that humans do are being altered as a result focusing on more cognative and social tasks.

Retooling / reskilling policies should be getting more attention.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wouldn't be surprised automation has already destroyed 2 or 3 more jobs that there is inhabitants in industrial countries over the last century. What is important is the balance between creation and destruction.

</comment><comment><USER24> The total world productivity will be up and the total human labor to achieve that level will be down. This _should_ be a good thing! ... but we don't share very well.

Capital is making more money than labor. The 'hard working man' ethos makes less and less sense. You can't work your way out of poverty anymore.

No sane person is arguing for full-blown communism here, but a shift towards a more socialist system is going to become the only way to keep society from breaking down. We need the benefits of this revolution to benefit all and not just those who were born wealthy.

And it's going to be a very long road to get there, as political power today in most nations is most easily accessible to those with wealth, those who would lose out if such a shift were to take place.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ah I can't wait, I'm so excited for early retirement!!

<comment><USER26> Don't worry. Someone else will retire earlier for you so you don't have to!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There are 3.5 million truckers in the US. Think about that.

Politically, I'm fairly conservative/libertarian, and I generally accept the economic realities of things like creative destruction. And even with those overarching views, I am terrified of the social impact of autonomous vehicles.

When you take a step back, it is nothing short of disturbing how aggressively and proudly Google and Uber (et al) are pursuing the destruction of the livelihoods of those 3.5 million households in this country. Just a bunch of mostly honest, hard-working folks who live in the exurbs or rural towns, with absolutely no backup plan when a robotic truck either creates tremendous wage deflation or takes their job completely.

And for what? So we can all save a few cents at Target. So a couple billionaire founders can toss some more on the pile. So a handful of engineers can make more millions. So paper-pushing fund managers can make a few more bucks from their stock going up. It's like watching a horror movie in slow motion.

Creative destruction has been a fact of life for centuries, but overall, societies have thrived. My sense - and I have no data to back this up - <USER2> that we are approaching a tipping point where the gains from technology are accelerating way beyond society's ability to reallocate those resources to other productive places in the short and even medium-term. That steady-state of frictional unemployment caused by technology is about to be _majorly_ upended, and it just scares me. Societal problems are going to get very, very bad.</comment>


Now you don't need a pill to remember your pills - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10322710-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

<comment><USER2> From the article: _The Boston Globe profiled this gadget over the weekend (price tag is $77.50 plus a $29.95 monthly subscription charge), and the accompanying video is worth a watch. You kind of have to see Maya to believe her._

What's the subscription fee for? None of the services this thing provides need human intervention or a central server (except the e-mail, but this does not need to be THEIR server). The costs should be entirely development and production of the physical device. Why does a subscription model make any sense?

</comment><comment><USER3> Whoa. A much, much simpler version:

<http://www.rxvitality.com/>

<comment><USER4> I don't know if I'd say simpler. It's different, and both have their pros and cons.

I think it would depend on how many different pills you're taking at once. For me, I liked the way the Maya was laid out in a grid. It makes it easier to see the big picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> $80 for a pillbox is pushing it, but I can see the value in this product. But a $30/mo subscription fee? That's ridiculous.

If you pushed me, I could see $5/mo, maybe, but $30 is just silly.</comment>


Scaling with CacheObservers - <AUTHOR> http://nerds.airbnb.com/scaling-with-cacheobservers

<comment><USER2>
        class ListingCache extends CacheObserver

The rest of the code is Ruby but this isn't. Guessing this code wasn't copied and pasted but written on the fly by someone who's been doing some Java recently? :-)

<comment><USER3> ...Guilty.

Edit: fixed.

<comment><USER2> I spent a week porting a Java game to JRuby and I must admit.. I wouldn't actually mind a mixed syntax like this, but it did make do a double take ;-)

<comment><USER3> Heh. Yeah, I always find myself using the non-existent keyword now in Ruby and blowing things up by accident. It's the one place where Ruby is surprisingly unnatural.

Thanks for the catch. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        "There are only two hard problems in Computer Science:
        cache invalidation and naming things."

        -- Phil Karlton

Always helpful to see how someone else is solving the problem at scale.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do you plan on open sourcing this?</comment>


Hacked: India's National Security Guard site - Security - News - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnetasia.com/hacked-indias-national-security-guard-site-62301071.htm <comment><USER2> It is one of the common things that regularly happen.</comment>


Ask HN: Entrepreneurs.. what keeps you up at night? - <AUTHOR>

I'm very interested in hearing the specific pain point that keeps you up at night. Please include what stage you are currently at (can be pre-anything) and industry. <comment><USER2> Coffee!</comment>


Gamification: Is it game over? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121204-can-gaming-transform-your-life/1

<comment><USER2> It is to beautiful to be true. Gamification cannot be used everywhere, life is not that simple.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This has been one of the best analysis on the subject I've seen.</comment>


Show HN: A free HN iPhone/iPad app I launched a few months ago - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader-technology/id463699245?mt=8 I actually started it June 2011 to learn iOS, launched it in September, and have been steadily adding features and making improvements.<p>It's something I use every day and I hope other people find it useful. Enjoy! <comment><USER2> I'm using your app on the iPad. A few suggestions:

\- Let me see my comment history & other people's replies.

\- Get a new color scheme for the story list. It's very hard to read, maybe that's just my colorblindness. The colors don't go together well. They're too dark for my tastes. Use an app such as Instapaper or news:yc for examples of good color flow.

\- List the number of comments for each story.

\- Option for bigger text -- at least in the main story list view.

\- Adjust the username/logout thingy in the upper right corner to something more elegant. How it currently works is wonky and reminds me of the worst examples of Android UX.

\- Most importantly, charge for your app. 99 cents or 1.99 or whatever. You should gain from your work, however small. I'll be your first customer.

<comment><USER3> As a counter point, I love the colors it makes it much easier on the eyes when I'm reading in bed. I wish the rest of the pages (comments etc.) would be like that as well.

And I too would buy your app if you started selling it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really enjoy your app; nice work! One thing that would greatly improve it for me is a button to switch between the article view and the comments. I usually want to read the comments directly after reading an article, and it's a bit annoying to have to go back to the article list. Not a deal-breaker, but it's something I've grown used to in Alien Blue (the reddit client) and I miss it when I use your app. Also, I was initially confused by the back button in the article view, as it is visible even when it's impossible to go back, so the button did nothing when I first pressed it. Once I followed a link in the article it was apparent what it was for. You can easily hide it based on the result of UIWebView's -[canGoBack] method. Anyway, thanks for the app!

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been using it for a while and love it. Thanks for the back button. Is it possible to integrate the Reader function of Safari in iOS or is that only possible within Safari? Also, I would pay for this especially given the other attempts at the same app.

<comment><USER6> I too am grateful for the back button update. The day before you released the update, I followed some links and wanted to go back, only to be taken to the front page of HN. Then I saw the update and it solved the exact problem I was having.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I personally like the interface of news:yc better, except for the comments page, which can be improved. Do take a look at it and see what you can learn and improve on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do continue using the news:yc app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, I like it and I use it. Thank you for the app.

I wanted to ask, though, did you know that "upvote" and "save a story for later" means same thing on HN? What was the reason for adding "star" button in your app? Couldn't you use this instead <http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=marketer> and have just the "upvote" button?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great idea, thanks. Right now the 'star' button just creates a local bookmark, but if you're logged in, it should also send an upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In general I like the app but the comment view text is too small for me on an iPhone/iPod. I also wish that the comment view would allow for rotation (as that usually increases the font size and improves readability of text layout). These issues caused me to ultimately switch to another HN app (but I still have yours installed in the hopes that this will change).

</comment><comment><USER10> Any plans to add Instapaper support? I like your app, and use it often, but I'd like to read HN articles on the train sometimes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet, but I'll definitely look into it for the next release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for the continued work on this, the navigation improvements are great. I'll join the choir of users asking for rotation support for the HN discussion. I can read the portrait view but at times the landscape magnification would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that view should rotate. It'll be in the next update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been using this for a month or so. It's great, but I wish it would show the point value of each news story.

<comment><AUTHOR> The latest version does that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any plan to put this app on Android?

</comment><comment><USER14> marketer, great app I use it daily.. my only wish is that it included more sharing options instead of just email.. twitter would be nice, or at bare minimum the ability to copy the url of the post so I could send it around. Keep up the great work!

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is it free?

<comment><AUTHOR> This type of app is not particularly monetizable. Most people would use the actual website instead of paying $0.99 cents for an app. Plus, it was a fun project to learn iOS and it costs me very little to host or maintain.

<comment><USER16> How hard was it to interface with HN? Do they provide an API to work with?

Reddit has a very nice API, one of the killer features is that if you take any reddit page and add ".json" to the address it'll spit out pure json at you.

For example: <http://www.reddit.com/r/all> becomes: <http://www.reddit.com/r/all.json>

<comment><USER17> There is an unofficial api at <http://api.ihackernews.com/>. It use to have a lot of timeout issues, but seems to be running a lot better now.

<comment><USER18> Having sampled it, I'm not sure of the value of a broken api that might improve later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks good. One point though, the text color scheme is atrocious. Dark grey and darker grey is nearly illegible. Try an off-white text to add some contrast.</comment>


Introduction to tangzhong (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/03/26/introduction-to-tangzhong <comment><USER2> > _This Japanese technique_

No Japanese anything is called "tangzhong".

The technique is called "yudane" in Japanese: [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B9%AF%E7%A8%AE](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B9%AF%E7%A8%AE)

That's written 湯種, where "yu" and "tane" are the Japanese native words corresponding to these character. "Tangzhong" may a romanization of a Chinese re-reading of this spelling. (For comparison, the Sino-Japanese reading ("onyomi"), if there were one, would likely be "tanshu".)

By the way, we know this is of Japanese origin because the word "tane" has meanings like "material" and "leaven dough". It's written 種, but that 種 character only has that meaning when it denotes "tane" in Japanese.

<comment><USER3> There is a similar technique in Chinese baking called tangzhong. That is indeed the pinyin of 湯種.

I doubt there's enough evidence to determine if it was a Japanese or Chinese invention. Either name is acceptable.

<comment><USER4> > Either name is acceptable

Not when the origin is mixed up. If the article said "Chinese technique of Tangzhong" or the "Japanese technique of Yudane", then its fine. The person you're replying to is talking about the mix up of the origin. No one is talking about who came first.

<comment><USER5> I mean jeez, at that rate we shouldn't be calling it "Japanese" in the first place, because "Japan" is a chinese word, not a Japanese word.

<comment><USER6> Well, yeah, it's Nippon right?

<comment><USER7> Nihon

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Glad to see there are at least a few bread nerds on HN! Tangzhong is also sometimes refereed to as a water roux which I think makes a little more sense for Western cooks since any cook will hear water roux and be 99% of the way there in terms of knowing what's happening.

Anyway! This idea can work will all kinds of starches because the "trick" is to trap some additional water in a gelatinized ball and spread that throughout the dough. It makes for higher total water content while not making to dough loose to produce more steam, and the starches help the gluten trap it. You can even use gelatin itself! When you make potato bread/rolls at Thanksgiving you're using the same trick but with potato starch!

<comment><USER9> I think the point of "additional water" is key! Modernist Bread claims that tangzhong doesn't increase softness/volume. But, as I read their experiment, it sounds like they made breads with/without tangzhong but keeping the total water content constant.

<comment><USER10> That's been my experience.

I often make ciabatta with 95% hydration, of which 1/3rd comes from a water roux. Without tangzhong the dough is much sticker and harder to handle, which makes it harder to both form the loaves nicely, and to keep the large bubbles in the bread. The final product is very similar, though, but the process is easier.

The approach I take is similar to this one [http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick- coccodril...](http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo- ciabatta-bread) with 30g of flour and 150g of water pre-cooked together before the dough (batter?) is kneaded.

It also helps a lot in sticky doughs. If you like spiced fruit buns around Easter time, check out King Arthur's milk bread recipe ([https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/japanese-milk- bread-...](https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/japanese-milk-bread-rolls- recipe)) and spice and fruit to taste. Best hot cross buns I've eaten.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's video on this by Cook's Illustrated editor in chief Dan Souza. It goes a little bit into the science behind the technique and offers a microwave- based variation:

"How to Transform Flour and Water into the Fluffiest Dinner Rolls| What's Eating Dan?" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2GWOHcEBcM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2GWOHcEBcM)

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks to another bread discussion on HN, I'm a very happy user of Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat breads and Bread Baker's Apprentice books.

He does something similar with the overnight soaker/poolish/biga recipes, which have been highly successful in improving my whole-wheat bread. Is this similar, or a different technique worth trying?

Thanks!

<comment><USER13> Which thread was this, if you don't mind?

<comment><USER12> Here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21232209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21232209)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As pointed out in this post, tangzhong not only makes soft breads with a nice crumb, but it also makes them stay soft for a longer time period than you'd often find. In my opinion and from my own experience, this is the best part of this technique. In the past my loafs would not really last a week without being pretty dry, now they stay much more moist and I can have better sandwich bread with less baking

<comment><USER15> Different things. A pre-ferment (poolish, biga) is for developing some of the more complex flavors that a quick / "straight" dough won't give you.

Tangzhong is basically about packing more moisture into a dough while keeping it easy to handle. Higher hydration doughs are very sticky and take some experience to work with, but this will let you get something that is like a 75% hydration, but still handles like a 70% hydration dough. (I just made up these numbers, but you get the point).

For my part, I am fairly experienced with handling up to 80-ish% hydration, so I never bother with tangzhong, since it just adds another thing to do and creates more dishes to wash.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Tangzhong doesn't just "pack more moisture into a dough while keeping it easy to handle". It changes the loaf after baking, too. From what I understand this is because the flour that is cooked in the roux has its gluten destroyed, thus you have a paste in your dough that isn't imparting structure in the same way and holds moisture in a different way, even after baking.

So tangzhong can give you a higher hydration, but it's not necessarily the same thing as your 80-ish% hydration dough.

<comment><USER15> Meh. I've tried both and don't see the difference. TFA backs up what I'm saying. If you know of a source that claims it changes the structure in ways besides what the article says I'd be interested in reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this incompatible with a substantial crust, or can you have both in one loaf of bread? (I'm asking as a very novice baker.)

<comment><USER10> I've never had crust issues with this technique, although I do use a steam injection oven which makes it easier.

It's doesn't seem to have the same effect as enriched dough in making the crust soft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tangzhong - A technique for softer yeast bread and rolls.

<comment><USER18> Tangzhong - A technique for softer yeast bread and rolls.</comment></comment>


Safeplug: Safe, Secure, Anonymous Web Browsing From any Device - <AUTHOR> https://pogoplug.com/safeplug

<comment><USER2> I am curious if it acts like a separate network or if it is simply the Tor Browser in separate hardware (without the protection from no-script and https everywhere). Has anyone here tried it out?</comment>


Stop Treating Consumers Like Idiots - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@geoffreyweg/stop-treating-consumers-like-idiots-e9595d3ca9bc#.mcouaikcd <comment><USER2> But they are. They even vote for less protection, if you spin a carefully crafted tale.

</comment><comment><USER3> Consumers ARE idiots.

</comment><comment><USER4> 4 or 5 years ago, JC Penny (a retail clothing chain in the US) tried a pricing experiment. Round numbers ($20 instead of $19.99) and no bullshit sales. Things were priced as marked. It was wonderful and made the experience of shopping for clothes much more enjoyable because it didn't feel like the retailer was trying to fuck with me.

It was a total failure financially. It turns out too many people love to "feel" like they're saving 30%.

<comment><USER5> If I remember right Ron Johnson was brought in as CEO for JC Penny (former Apple Retail chief).

He brought in that pricing experiment. He was canned when it didn't work out.</comment></comment>


Does my data fit in RAM? - <AUTHOR> https://yourdatafitsinram.net/ <comment><USER2> Some pedantry...

Raw RAM space is not the issue... it's indexing and structure of the data that makes it process-able.

If you just need to spin through the data once, there's no need to even put all of it in RAM - just stream it off disk and process it sequentially.

If you need to join the data, filter, index, query it, you'll need a lot more RAM than your actual data. Database engines have their own overhead (system tables, query processors, query parameter caches, etc.)

And, this all assumes read-only. If you want to update that data, you'll need even more for extents, temp tables, index update operations, etc.

<comment><USER3> I often use RAM disks for production services. I'm sure that I shouldn't. It feels very lazy, and I know that I'm probably missing out on the various "right" ways to do things.

But it works _so well_ and it's _so easy_. It's a really difficult habit to kick.

Obligatory joke: "Oh boy, virtual memory! Now I can have a _really big_ RAM disk!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Funny story, about 6 years ago we got a HP DL980 server with 1TB of memory to move from an Itanium HP-UX server. The test database was Oracle and about 600GB in size. We loaded the data and they had some query test they would run and the first time took about 45 minutes (which was several hours faster than the HPUX), They made changes and all the rest of the runs took about 5 minutes for their test to complete. Finally someone asked me and i manually dropped the buffers and cache and back to about 45 minutes.

Their changes did not do anything, everything was getting cached. It was cool, but one needs to know what is happening with their data. I am just glad they asked before going to management saying their tests only took 5 minutes.

<comment><USER5> What an unfortunate cache-filling algorithm, though. With eight drive slots, 40 minutes of IO is about 31 megabytes per disk per second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even more importantly, does your data _have to_ fit in RAM?

There are tons of problems that need to process large data, but touch each item just once (or a few times). You can go a really long way by storing them in disk (or some cloud storage like S3) and writing a script to scan through them.

I know, pretty obvious, but somehow escapes many devs.

<comment><USER7> There's also the "not all memory is RAM" trick: plan ahead with enough swap to fit all the data you intend to process, and just _pretend_ that you have enough RAM. Let the virtual memory subsystem worry about whether or not it fits in RAM. Whether this works well or horribly depends on your data layout and access patterns.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. Can you provide some examples of where this is the correct approach?

<comment><USER9> This is how mongodb originally managed all its data. It used memory mapped files to store the data and let the underlying OS memory management facilities do what they were designed to do. This saved the mongodb devs a ton of complexity in building their own custom cache and let them get to market much faster. The downside is that since virtual memory is shared between processes, other competing processes could potentially mess with your working set (pushing warm data out, etc). The other downside is that since your turning over the management of that "memory" to the OS, you lose fine grained control that can be used to optimize for your specific use case.

<comment><USER10> Except nowadays with Docker / Kubr you can safely assume the db engine will be the only tenant of a given vm /pod whatever so I think it's better to let OS do memory management than fight it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem is DRAM price hasn't drop one bit.

The lowest price floor per GB has been similar for the past decade. Roughly at $2.8/GB in 2012, 2016, and 2019. And all DRAM manufacturers has been enjoying a very profitable period.

And yet our Data size continue to grow. We can fit more Data inside memory not because DRAM capacity has increase, but we are simply increasing memory channels.

<comment><USER12> Everyone knows that DRAM prices have been in a collapse since early this year, but last week DRAM prices hit a historic low point on the spot market. Based on data the Memory Guy collected from spot-price source InSpectrum, the lowest spot price per gigabyte for branded DRAM reached $2.59 last week.

[https://thememoryguy.com/dram-prices-hit-historic- low/](https://thememoryguy.com/dram-prices-hit-historic-low/)

You've selected out the low points on the graph: 2012, 2016, and 2019, most of the time DRAM has not been available at these prices. Now is definitely the time to load up on RAM.

<comment><USER11> >the lowest spot price per gigabyte for branded DRAM reached $2.59 last week.

It would be better to reference this as quoted from the article which was written in November 2019. So not really _last week_

>most of the time DRAM has not been available at these prices.

I did said price floor.

<comment><USER13> If it doesen't have to be available, i could sell one stick for $0.01 and that'd be the new floor

<comment><USER5> You sure are giving _any_ benefit of the doubt there.

Lowest massively-available price, please and thank you.

<comment><USER13> If it's lowest massively-available price then this

>most of the time DRAM has not been available at these prices.

should make it not the floor. If the floor doesen't have to be available, then what's the exact point it becomes relevant? Otherwise the price is simply misleading

<comment><USER5> Any price that is massively-available becomes relevant and _stays_ relevant forever.

A price has to be massively available _at a point in time_ to matter. It doesn't have to be available _forever_ to matter. It feels like you're conflating the two.

The price is on a downward trend, but there are hitches and setbacks. One fair way to measure it is to use some kind of average. Another also-fair way to measure it is to go by the lowest "real" price, where "real" means you can buy something like a million sticks on the open market.

When we're talking about whether we should be impressed by a price, using the lowest historical price for comparison makes sense.

(And just to be absolutely clear, you would need to adjust the metric for a product that goes _up_ in price over time. But for something on a downward trend, this metric works fine.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Legit question: I have a dataset that's a terabyte in size spread over multiple tables, but my queries often involve complex self joins and filters; for various reasons, I'd prefer to be able to write my queries in SQL (or spark code) because it's the most expressive system I've seen. What tool should I use it to load this dataset on RAM and run these queries?

<comment><USER15> Most DB engines will use what RAM is available and even if they don't, your OS's page cache will make sure stuff is fast anyways.

> What tool should I use it to load this dataset on RAM and run these queries?

The question should really be: What tool should I use to make this fast?

Postgres can be pretty fast when used correctly and you can make your data fit.

<comment><USER16> Exactly this. DBs are really good at utilizing all the memory you give them. The query planners might give you some fits when they try and use disk tables for complicated joins, but you can work around them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember back in the early 2010's that a large selling point of SAS (besides the ridiculous point that R/python were freeware and therefore cannot be trusted on important projects ) was that it can chew through large data sets that perhaps couldn't be moved into RAM (but maybe it takes a week or whatever....).

This was a fairly salient point, and remember circa 2012/2013 struggling to fit large bioinfomatics data into an older iMac with base R.

<comment><USER18> SAS Institute have long claimed this. It's been provably bullshit for decades.

In practice, an awk script frequently ran circles around processing. On a direct basis, awk corresponds quite closely to the SAS DATA Step (and was intended to be paired with tools such as S, the precursor to R, for similar types of processing).

The fact that awk had associative arrays (which SAS long lacked, it's since ... come up with something along those lines) and could perform extremely rapid sort-merge or pattern matches (equivalent to SAS data formats, which internally utilise a b-tree structure) helped.

With awk, sort, unique, and a few hand-rolled statistics awk libraries / scripts, you can replace much of the functionality of SAS. And that's without even touching R or gnuplot, each of which offer further vast capabilities.

And at an aggreable annual license fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> $2,000 each for 128GB LRDIMMs, 48 of those will be $100,000 and then you'll need another $20,000 to buy the rest of the server it goes in.

<comment><USER20> If the result is faster than a $250K Hadoop cluster then you're still ahead.

<comment><USER21> the way things today, the Hadoop cluster will be just a bit faster on that thing.

25 years ago i was suggesting clients to upgrade from 4MB to 6-8MB as it was improving their experience with our business software, these days i've already suggested a couple of customers to upgrade from 6TB and 8TB respectively ... as it would improve their experience with our business software. What's funny is that customer experience with business software back then was better than today.

<comment><USER22> Everything is way too much bloat now

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Can I afford to fit my data in RAM?" is a whole other site, I presume...

<comment><USER24> "Can you afford to not put your data in RAM" is another one.

<comment><USER25> "Did you even need all of this data?" is the one after that one

<comment><USER18> I'd argue it's the first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Short answer: It fits in RAM if it's <= 12288 GB

<comment><USER27> The original Twitter thread is funny. This site doesn't add anything. It looks like SEO more than anything, and now that HN has linked to it, it's been successful.

<comment><USER28> Could you share the link to the original Twitter thread? I guess the link was changed on HN before some of us got here.

<comment><USER29> On the linked page, it says:

"Inspired by this tweet" which links to [https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/600783770925420546](https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/600783770925420546)

<comment><USER30> Note that this is 2015, on the heyday of big data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Fine print: But it might cost you $300K CapEx or $800K/yr OpEx. Hope you have a budget!

<comment><USER32> You know what else costs? Humongous amount of servers to run silly stuff to orchestrate other silly stuff to autoscale yet else silly stuff to do stuff on your stuff that could fit into memory and be processed on a single server (+ backup, of course).

Add to that small army of people, because, you know, you need specialists of variety of professions just to debug all integration issues between all those components that WOULD NOT BE NEEDED if you just decided to put your stuff in memory.

Frankly, the proportion of projects that really need to work on data that could not fit in memory of a single machine is very low. I work for one of the largest banks in the world processing most of its trades from all over the world and guess what, all of it fits in RAM.

<comment><USER33> I really don't understand comments like this.

Yes your company's data may fit in RAM. But does every intermediate data set also fit in RAM ? Because I've also worked at a bank and we had thousands of complex ETLs often needing tens to hundreds of intermediate sets along the way. There is no AWS server that can keep all of that inflight at one time.

And what about your Data Analysts/Scientists. Can all of their random data sets reside in RAM on the same server too ?

<comment><USER34> Buy them a machine each.

$100K has always been "cheap" for a "business computer" and today you can get more computer for that money than ever.

$100K of hardware (per year or so) is small-fry compared to almost every other R&D industry out there. Just compare with the cost of debuggers, oscilloscopes and EMC labs for electronic engineers.

<comment><USER33> My company has over 400 Data Scientists and 1000s of Data Analysts.

Buy them a machine each at a cost of $40-60 billion ?

Or would it make more sense to buy one Spark cluster and then share the resources at a fraction of the cost.

<comment><USER35> I don't get your numbers, getting one for 400 people is 40M, for thousands it may be 100-999M.

Still expensive, but much less than 40 billion.

<comment><USER33> He said $100k for each user but it's a dumb idea anyway.

We have a Spark cluster which supports all of those users for $10-$20k a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The Amazon listing has an Azure instance type and links to Azure docs.

A quick search shows that you can get at least 24TiB from AWS: [https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/high- memory](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/high-memory)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing out my sloppy mistake.

I have chosen for the cloud options to only select virtual instances that can be spun up on demand. The high-memory instances you link to are purpose-build.

On the other hand, it is true, they do exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> You can fit 48 TB on a HPE MC990 X though I'm pretty sure that's got one of those NUMA architectures that SGI had with the UV 3000 or whatever.

I remember jokingly telling my team to spend the millions of dollars we did expanding our clusters with one of these and just processing in RAM. I honestly don't think I did the analysis to make sure it would be actually better.

It was 'jokingly' because we couldn't afford three of these machines anyway. The clusters had the property that we could lose some large fraction of nodes and still operate, we could expand slightly sub-linearly, etc. which are all lovely properties.

It would have been neat, though. Ahhhh imagine the luxury of just loading things into memory and crunching the whole thing in minutes instead of hours. Gives me shivers.

<comment><USER34> This is why IBM have historically done so well.

You didn't have to have all the capital. They'd rent you the machine on a long lease and you could say you'd bought a million dollar computer.

Sun tried to get into similar markets but it was always a tougher deal on minis and micros.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> IIRC, the largest IBM z15 can have up to 40 TiB of RAM.

The website needs updating.

<comment><USER20> And Superdome Flex supports 48 TB.

<comment><USER38> These seem to be the least boring x86 machines. At 16 sockets the NUMA topology must be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> ah and it is so fucking lovely to be hired by a company which has been running everything on a single machine for 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER40> I just upgraded my laptop to 3 GB. Feeling a bit behind on the times.

</comment><comment><USER41> While pithy, the implication that you are going to process 12 TB of data in RAM using mostly single-threaded tools doesn't reflect reality.

<comment><USER42> Where exactly does that implication come from? Are you from a world where you need a map reduce framework + cluster to have parallelism of any kind?

<comment><USER41> No, but I frequently see people implying that you can do your data science in Python and R as long as you can fit the data in RAM. As you mention, it's not RAM that's the limiting factor for larger data volumes, it's finding tools that exploit parallelism.

<comment><USER42> I have done plenty of parallel work in python and R, so I'm still not sure what you mean.

<comment><USER41> Yes, that's my point. It's too simplistic to say "well, the data fits in RAM", you have to add parallelism to make the workload tolerable. In the past, some people have done that using MapReduce or Spark, GNU parallel or just writing parallel code in their favorite language. But RAM by itself isn't the only limiting factor to whether a problem is solvable in a reasonable amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Telling me that my (example) 24TB data set fits into RAM, because it fits into 24TB on an AWS instance designed for SAP that's so expensive that it's price on inquiry, isn't overly helpful.

May I suggest that a) they consider applications need RAM too and b) that if the price is POI, it's probably better to mention "But you know, 188 m5.8xlarges might be cheaper"

</comment><comment><USER44> I've no idea if the intended audience here would ever run their workloads on Solaris, but like the IBM POWER systems, Oracle & Fujitsu SPARC servers also max out at 64TB of RAM. I didn't see those included here.

</comment><comment><USER45> The question of whether my storage mechanism fits budget is more relevant, no? It costs less than 4cents per hour to store 1TB on S3 but an X1 with 1TB of RAM costs $13 or so per hour on Aws. So the issue is whether what you pay for is worth the result you're computing.

</comment><comment><USER46> Pretty cool that single boxes have > 10 terabytes of RAM.

I would definitely imagine that most workloads rarely need more than a few to a few hundred TB in memory, since you may have petabytes of data but you probably touch very little of it.

</comment><comment><USER47> One of the best things you can often do for latency/throughput improvement is to just mlock() the data. Yes, it fits. Get a more expensive machine and 5x the throughput in a single day with a config change.

</comment><comment><USER48> Sure, my data fits in RAM if you take one of those example machines, which we have, and which are currently hosting dozens of production VMs, and instead dedicate the whole thing to my database. I'd love that, but it's never going to happen.

<comment><USER49> It's still way more efficient to use it for that database, than running a dozen of hadoop nodes as VMs.

<comment><USER50> We do what we must because we can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> There is AWS and Azure, but no GCP. Why?

</comment><comment><USER52> I wonder how Abe Vigoda is doing...

</comment><comment><USER53> Honestly thought this would be a page that says "yes"

</comment><comment><USER54> Looks like I'm all set with my -12PB dataset fitting in ram.

<comment><USER55> 12TiB, not PiB!

Hope you read this before you spent $50,000,000 dollars/month (although you might be able to negotiate a discount).

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ultrabook_models](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ultrabook_models)

</comment><comment><USER57> > Does my data fit in RAM?

1\. If you have to ask, then either it doesn't now, or it doesn't sometimes. So assume it doesn't.

2\. If you can use a cluster, then maybe.

3\. In some senses, it doesn't matter. How so? Reading and writing from RAM is very slow, latency-wise, for today's processors. If I can bend the truth a little, it's a bit like a fast SSD. So, if you can up the bandwidth to disk enough, it becomes kind of comparable. Well, if you can use 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes, it's roughly 24 GB/sec effective bandwidth, which is roughly half of your memory bandwidth. Now it's true that in real-life systems it's usually just 4 lanes, but it's very doable to change that with a nice card.

4\. DIMM-form-factor non-volatile memory may increase memory sizes much more.</comment>


Ask HN: How will sidechains affect Bitcoin's long term price? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It will depend on the services that are implemented on the sidechains. In the end is all about supply and demand, if the services are useful and attractive to users will increase demand.

</comment><comment><USER3> you can think of sidechains as alt-coins that are technically still Bitcoin.

If you own Bitcoins, they can now do more and are more valuable because why would people still use doge when you could have bitcoin + doge in one?</comment>


Every iPhone Ever Gets Tested Side By Side - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/29/video-every-iphone-ever-gets-speed-tested-side-by-side/

<comment><USER2> Here's just the original video that comprises all of the content in this post: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eSrdgTHhK0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eSrdgTHhK0)</comment>


Adobe: Photoshop Goes Online and Free - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/adobe/photoshop-goes-online-and-free-298520.php <comment><USER2> Well no, it is not Photoshop, only some other image editor by Adobe.

<comment><USER3> Also, "to go" would be more accurate.</comment></comment>


When Hashing Isn't Hashing (Cryptography) - <AUTHOR> https://adamcaudill.com/2016/05/23/when-hashing-isnt-hashing/ <comment><USER2> I think the word you're looking for is key stretching.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_stretching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_stretching)</comment>


Why I killed my standing desk - <AUTHOR> https://ooomf.com/blog/why-i-killed-my-standing-desk/ <comment><USER2> One problem that a lot of people have is starting some new athletic-type-thing too quickly. Standing is similar. Do an hour a day for a month. Then do two hours a day. Your body adjusts very slowly, but does adjust.

(I have this problem whenever I start running after a long break. My cardio system is in relatively good shape from cycling. But the muscles used by running aren't. So I end up with shin splits after the first run. You have to start at an insanely low intensity: walk 20 minutes, run 30 seconds. For a month. Add 10% a week after that.)

For standing, HN recommended an anti-fatigue mat. I got one yesterday, and so far, I am noticing less fatigue while standing. Who would have guessed.

<comment><USER3> Zero drop shoes (altra for my front feet specifically) and Vibram five fingers cured my shin splints. As soon as I switched I went from one mile = deadly pain to 3 miles feeling like an easy walk. Obviously I have some mechanical issue but if a funny looking pair of shoes works... Well great =)

<comment><USER4> If you go this route (which I also recommend), make sure you adjust your striking appropriately, you'll want to land mostly on the balls of your feet or your toes. Landing heel first in zero drop shoes will give you shin splints like you wouldn't believe.

<comment><USER5> I got some zero drop shoes some time ago. I've been running with a forefoot strike ever since, but with those shoes the muscles on the back of my legs start to hurt consistently about 25 minutes into the run. If I continue, the damage could take up to 2 weeks to repair before I can run again.

I still run with the zero drop shoes small distances from time to time, but it doesn't look like I'll ever be able to get the the point where I can run as fast and/or as long as with regular running shoes. Granted, I'm a relatively fast runner (usually 9km in 45min) and it may work better for lighter running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" After two weeks, I was able to stand for about four hours a day, but I still needed to take multiple breaks."_

I work as a teacher. I don't sit down much in a typical working day, so I found that sentence strange to say the least. Then I realised that _I don 't stand still_ ever in the classroom. I'm effectively walking around my patch of savannah all day like our ancestors did, occasionally sitting or squatting down to talk to students on their work.

Perhaps it is the lack of movement that is the problem?

<comment><USER7> Walking for an hour straight is so much more comfortable than standing still for even 10 minutes. Presumably because you're constantly engaging different muscles, giving the others a chance to briefly rest. Now I just have to figure out how to build some kind of treadmill desk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I switched to a treadmill desk setup in my home office about a year ago and have been pretty happy with it.

[http://imgur.com/a/zbm35](http://imgur.com/a/zbm35)

The desk itself is electric height-adjustable which makes it easy to switch between walking/standing and sitting with the push of a button, and the monitors are mounted on arms so I can move them to the correct height when I switch positions.

It took some getting used to before I could walk for extended periods of time, but now I don't really think about it anymore, I just start walking and before I know it, an hour has gone by. That said, I have found that it's hard to really concentrate while walking. If I find myself in the middle of a particularly difficult programming problem, I'll often need to sit down before I can really think about it.

But there's a lot of time throughout the day where I'm not doing anything that's super mentally challenging, like reading HN :) or catching up on email or finishing light programming tasks, and I try to walk as much as possible during those times.

At this point I typically walk between 1-3 hours total per day, and end up alternating between walking/standing/sitting every hour or so. Sometimes after sitting for a while I find myself starting to feel sleepy, switching to walking at this point usually wakes me right back up and keeps me going. Not sure, why, probably a circulation thing.

The setup wasn't particularly cheap to put together (though you could certainly do it for a lot cheaper than I did), but after a year I've concluded the cost was totally worth it considering how many hours of my life I spend (and will continue to spend) in front of a computer.

</comment><comment><USER9> What you need is a standing desk that adopts to YOU, not the other way round. Here's the one I have been using for approx. 2 years now and I can tell you I will NEVER go back to a sitting-only desk: [http://www.ergotron.com/ProductsDetails/tabid/65/PRDID/320/l...](http://www.ergotron.com/ProductsDetails/tabid/65/PRDID/320/language/en- US/Default.aspx)

There are variations of this model available, but the main points are:

1\. Screen (even if laptop) and keyboard/mouse are separated so everything is exactly at the correct height (= ergonomic, won't become a pain!)

2\. You can pull up (and push down) the whole thing very easily, with just 1 hand/no force: This means you can change whenever you feel the slightest issue. Changing every 10 minutes easily becomes a healthy no-brainer routine.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is what happens when people follow recipes blindly for something that isn't cooking: doomed to fail.

First, I'm guessing the author's standing desk was simply not the right height for him. The "$22 Ikea" is a fixed height and I suspect he never adjusted it to something comfortable, customized for his height.

Second, as someone said earlier, he approached it like it was some kind of marathon - he planned to stand at the thing all day, right away. You actually have to work up to using a standing desk -- alternate sitting and standing and slowly increase the amount of standing time.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to preempt the inevitable posting of the link to the Cornell article about standing desks. It's a complete, 180-degree misrepresentation of the study it claims to be based on.

Details here: [http://redd.it/kfjet](http://redd.it/kfjet)

<comment><USER12> There are problems with the page you cite.

1\. It seems to be referring to a very old version of the Cornell page. For instance, it says the Cornell page only cites one source. The current page cites seven sources in the references section, and one in the body of the article.

2\. The one source cited in the old version of the page was concentrating on musculoskeletal disorders. It found benefits to using an electric height- adjustable work surface. The EHAW resulted in a minor increase in musculoskeletal discomfort, and a substantial decrease in the severity of upper body musculoskeletal symptoms. The Cornell article does not contradict this. It says that they have found that standing desks increase the risk of some musculoskeletal problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Together, these are just saying that standing can help with some kinds of musculoskeletal problems, and harm with others. The Cornell article is also considering a wider range of potential problems than the EHAW study considered, and has the benefit of being written 8 years after the EHAW study and so can take into account subsequent research.

The bottom line is that sitting too much is bad for you, and standing too much is bad for you. That's the conclusion of the Cornell article, and nothing in the EHAW study (which was done by the same people that did the Cornell article) contradicts that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 2 weeks doesn't seem like that long to persist with a major change like swapping from sitting all day to standing. Would be interesting to hear from someone who persisted with it for longer to see if they were able to adjust fully. I have a desk that is adjustable from sitting to standing and enjoy it as it lets me work longer without my back annoying me.

In regards to the 135 degree suggestion, I've found this doesn't work well for me, my lower back hurts, and also it encourages me to stick my chin forward which puts pressure on your neck. Could be a result of body shape or specifics of my setup though.

<comment><USER14> One more data point: Made the switch about two years ago here. At the time I was already fairly athletic, with normal BMI and in my mid twenties.

The first two weeks were incredibly difficult. After that you could feel the adaption kicking in, and by about a month I was able to stand for six hours at a time - punctuated by the usual trips to the kitchen and toilet several times per day of course.

Forget getting into the zone in this time. Compared with my peers, I would say I'm fast to adapt physically to new 'stresses' (from weight training and running in my experience), so I would judge this to be towards the 'best case' end of the scale.

Definitely agree that the author of this post threw in the towel too early. Standing for a full day is no mean feat. You wouldn't expect to run a marathon after two weeks of training having never run before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> People have different bodies. For this guy, a standing desk did not work out. For others, it does.

Personally, I am more focused when standing. I feel more active and less likely to get bored. Also, I frequently walk a few steps when I need to think about something.

I used to have my brightest ideas when I stood up from my chair to go to the toilet, or while showering in the morning. Now I just walk a few steps from my desk and look out the window, or get a glass of water. This keeps my body busy while my mind is churning on something. It works for me.

<comment><USER16> I used a standing desk for about ten years, starting because of back problems where I couldn't sit down for more than 15 minutes. I also had a drafting stool (with a back) so that I could sit or stand. Some days I mostly stood, some days mostly sat, some very mixed. Now I have a different job and sit at a desk all day. I can't say I miss my standing desk except for its size (4' X 8') -- it was unmatched for working with two or three people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > One community in Okinawa, Japan has one fifth the risk of colon and breast > cancer and lives seven years longer than the average American.

I like it when sources are not cited, and when you compare a community to a country (sample size significance problem??) and when you forget completely about the recent scandal in Japan of having people dead for long (like people at 130-140 years old...) still registered as living (these points in the data make the average move very sensitively).

Japan's data for life expectancy is a joke, seriously.

</comment><comment><USER18> I had similar experience but with much easier solution to my troubles. I've bought bar-stool, in fact i have 2 of them - one actual bar stool and another one more like adjustable bar chair with nice leather finish. So I have 3 options to switch between - staying in front of my standing table, sit on hard stool or better to say lean on it a little bit, sitting on the edge, or sitting on comfy leather chair. This way if I am in a flow I can work however long I need, switchig chairs.

</comment><comment><USER19> The "$22 of ikea parts" approach looks like a torture device to me.

The tiniest tweak to standing desk height can make a big difference in resulting posture and comfort. (My exact height preference even changes from day to day, perhaps due to varying shoes or recent levels of other activity.)

<comment><USER20> What sort of activities do you change desk height for?

<comment><USER19> It's not strictly modal, "when doing X use height Y" – I just find my posture preference changing slightly over time.

I suppose long writing/coding is a bit more active/upright (higher), while long reading/browsing tends to involve a forward or alternating side-lean (lower). Shoes, time of day, and other recent exertion seem to be factors as well. And I alternate to seated, for hours or sometimes days at a time, for variety.

I suspect I'm more likely to start a new project or do many small independent tasks while standing, and more likely to work-through a lengthier, involved task while seated... but I haven't kept careful notes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I haven't experimented with a standing desk, but it seems like you can develop a tolerance overtime, so that eventually, you'll stop thinking about the discomfort when you're trying to concentrate. I can see where the author is coming from though. I tried to read a book when I was cycling in the gym, but it didn't go so well because I ended up spliting my concentration with the book and exercise. No gains in either activity unless I sacrificed the other. However, standing is a low-intensity physical activity, more similar to walking, so I think that overtime you'd just get used to it. It becomes a healthy active habit like taking the stairs everyday.

</comment><comment><USER22> I built myself a standing desk and used it for a couple of months. It was my feet, not my back, that convinced me to go back to sitting down. I suppose if I'd invested in some kind of special flooring or even more comfortable shoes, I might still be using the standing desk, but I don't know.

What I'd really like is some way to sit on an exercise bike (I believe they're called "stationary bikes" in some places) and still be able to use a keyboard and mouse. Not sure how that would work, but if I could figure it out I'd be rich and skinny before you know it!

<comment><USER23> I think this would be entirely ineffective, but it exists: [http://www.kickstandfurniture.com/](http://www.kickstandfurniture.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There was a walking desk near my desk at Google. I found the walking desk, with a large monitor for my laptop to be ideal when I had to catch up on email and reading. Typing while walking was not as good.

Since I normally work from a home office my wife has been trying to talk me into buying one. I probably would not use it enough because I have four different working locations at home.

One more thing: a "get up and walk timer" is a good idea. On days when I don't use a timer, I don't feel as physically comfortable at the end of a long work day.

</comment><comment><USER25> Substitute "walking" for "standing" and all these troubles go away. I have walked many 8 hour shifts with only a lunch break in between. A walking desk is not much more difficult to make. Get a treadmill from Craigslist and then find a bookshelf to put the monitor on. Or stack some boxes on a desk and put the monitor on top at eye level. Or you could even attach the monitor to the wall with an inexpensive wall mount.

</comment><comment><USER26> I used to be able to stand for 6-8 hours a day back when I worked at a coffee shop, but I can't do it anymore. Maybe it's just because I got out of the habit, or because I got older, but standing in place in the same position for more than a couple hours is exhausting.

On the other hand, walking around for hours isn't bad at all, so maybe there's something specific about standing still that creates more exertion?

<comment><USER27> In college, when I worked as a cook at Waffle House, I'd frequently do double- shifts, 16-hour days standing. But it's a lot of movement, you're constantly moving from the food stock to the griddle.

My father is on his feet all day. He delivers bread to grocery stores. He is constantly speed-walking. He usually has about a 10 minute drive between stores, where he of course sits in his truck, and spends about 45 minutes in each store.

Now that I work from home, sometimes I take a shower to think. That's only tangentially related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I thought the hotness was the treadmill desk. Why would someone want to stand around all day?

The fix for this (and most things that office people think they have discovered) is well known in the working world. You just need a tall stool to slouch on from time to time. There is a place between sitting and standing.

<comment><USER27> Came here to make the stool comment.

I had a standing desk for a while, and I also had to have a stool. Actually, I built the stool, because I didn't have any money at the time, but I did have plenty of scrap wood. I then had to move to a new city, so I no longer have access to the shop where I used to keep my desk.

I sort of miss that stool. It was terrifying to sit on, which I think of as a feature. Nobody else in the shop ever wanted to sit on it, so they could never steal it from me.

<comment><USER23> I use this at an adjustable desk: [http://store.focaluprightfurniture.com/mogo.html](http://store.focaluprightfurniture.com/mogo.html)

It rules. It encourages a lot of lateral movement, and I find myself using it about 50% of the time my desk is high.

I generally stand in the am, and then lower my desk to sit in the afternoon (I use a second-hand Aeron).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 135 degrees would never work with me, I battle all day to not stay in that position because it makes me sleepy.

When I see his photo I think I can watch a movie in that position but working I doubt it, I need to feel more "engaged" with the keyboard, the mouse, the screen, if that makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER30> The OMNI solves the issue with monotonic muscle use, that arises with classical Treadmills:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944625487/omni-move- na...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944625487/omni-move-naturally-in- your-favorite-game)

</comment><comment><USER31> The author never thought to get a drafting chair so he could continue working while sitting?

Mind boggling...

</comment><comment><USER32> I've been doing the 135-degree thing for many years, much like the picture there, but without the foot rest. I make sure to squirm around on occasion, and I get up and stretch and walk with the dog regularly. So far so good.

</comment><comment><USER33> Are those Markus chairs from IKEA really comparable to the ilk of Herman Miller et al.? I'm wondering if the road trip to try one out is worthwhile. Please share your experiences if you own one.

<comment><USER34> The herman miller chairs offer far better adjustability than the IKEA Markus chair. The Markus is a good chair for its price, but they're not comparable.

<comment><USER35> Although Herman miller chairs are more adjustable I find that the lack of a head rest causes people to fall into really bad habits. At work we have very nice Herman Miller chairs without headrests and you see most people slumped back in their chairs with their necks craned forward. I have the Markus at home and because it had a head rest it allows me to stay comfortably in a position where my head is properly balanced over my spine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> For an alternative to standing, check out the FitDesk: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CM9CBZY](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CM9CBZY)

I use it every day.

<comment><USER37> I would love that but with support for dual screens and not just a laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It worked for me very well until spring came, and I started doing sports. It's really hard to stand if you've just spent two hours working out.

</comment><comment><USER39> Step 1: Move to a house or flat about 1.5 miles from the office you work in. Step 2: Walk to work.

What's that? The accommodation near your workplace is much more expensive and so you wouldn't be able to afford your massive suburban American home?

Then sell all your cheap crap and then move, you fat American.

<comment><USER39> My apologies if this seems like a troll, it is not.

It is blazingly obvious to everyone outside of North American that their health woes are down to a reliance on cars, cities built to accommodate cars and an overconsumption of sugar.

It is incredible that they haven't managed to figure this out yet.

<comment><USER40> Since you're so all knowing maybe you can also chastise Europeans for their dramatic increase in obesity rates, too.

<comment><USER41> And Chinese, and Mexicans, and South Africans, and... [http://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2014/jan/03/ob...](http://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2014/jan/03/obesity-soars-alarming-levels-developing-countries)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Move" — a simpler programming language as a subset of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rsms/move

<comment><USER2>
      Move is a subset of JavaScript [...] The following three examples are all valid Move code while the last one is also valid JavaScript code

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

<comment><USER3> I think it is more accurately described as a superset of javascript, Just as C++ is(nt) a superset of C.

<comment><USER4> It is neither. It is another language which can be interpreted from JS through a library.

The difference in the semantics of «==» is an example. Also, it does not have things that JS has, and has other things JS doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think Javascript being too complicated is a real world problem.

<comment><USER6> Javascript isn't complicated but it does have some ugly boiler-plate. I would love to see C# style lambda's in Javascript.

C# style: var item_names = $( "li.menu_item span" ).map( x => x.innerHTML )

JS style: var item_names = $( "li.menu_item span" ).map( function( x ) { return x.innerHTML } )

<comment><USER7> CoffeeScript has C#-esque lambdas.

item_names = $("li.menu_item span").map (x) -> x.innerHTML

<comment><USER8> yeah, but the parser is messed up because it is whitespace sensitive. This would fail: compose (x)-> f(x) (y)-> g(y).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now the question is, does it meet HN's notability requirements?

</comment><comment><USER10>
        Variables need not be explicitly declared. Move will
        declare a newfound variable in the scope which it first
        was used.

How does this interact with lexical scope? For example, how would the go-to counter example (in JavaScript below) be expressed in Move?

        function makeCounter() {
            var x = 0;
            return function() {
                return x++;
            };
        }

Does Move not require declarations because it has implicit declarations whenever there's a usage of any variable? (In which case the above example couldn't be expressed without some kind of circumlocution—again, like in Python.) Or are variables always looked up in the outermost scope, so you can't have a variable whose name is shared by another variable in an enclosing scope?

        No commas required to terminate expressions. Move will
        determine when a comma is needed so you don't have to
        (and the code gets more readable).

Given that all the code has commas in the same places as in JavaScript, I'm going to assume s/comma/semicolon, and s/expression/statement, to be pedantic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Functions return the result of the last expression -> Better use CoffeeScript - it's > 1.0 - it will save you even more work.

</comment><comment><USER12> > In JavaScript, there are two different ways to define a function: using the > function expression and the function declaration statement, the latter > having subtle restrictions. Move only has function expressions.

Except using named functions will also make your stack traces useful. Because function names tell you more than line numbers.

</comment><comment><USER13> A subset? Doesn't seem so. Also doesn't seem to have anything on CoffeeScript.

</comment><comment><USER14> Step 1) Add some shortcuts to JavaScript

Step 2) Make it marginally more expressive

Step 3) ???

Step 4) Profit

<comment><USER15> Maybe Rasmus wants to make writing Kod.app plugins easier?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is really cool. I really like his take on lambda being ^.

<comment><USER17> It's lifted from C Blocks

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocks_(C_language_extension)>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What about coffeescript.

<comment><USER19> CoffeeScript benefits from the work done on other JS dialects. Last year jashkenas rolled in "features and optimizations" from Coco which is itself a dialect of CoffeeScript [1].

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2037996>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> JavaScript isn't simple enough already? I think libraries are the way to make syntactic sugar, not trying to replace the language itself.</comment>


Show HN: Bmarks – a simple tag-based bookmark manager - <AUTHOR> https://bmarks.net/ <comment><USER2> Every once in a while, bookmark managing sites/apps hit the Show HN section. This brings up some questions:

\- Is "bookmarks" a problem not yet solved?

\- What is the secret sauce of pinboard?

\- Is the success of pinboard replicable?

For me, personally, an ideal bookmark solution drills down to just search: Mark a webpage as "noteworthy", enrich it with metadata and offer a powerful search engine limited to these "noteworthy" sites. I use email the same way – no folders or tags, just search.

To OP: Congrats on the Launch! Kudos for optional email in the signup process, open sourcing your work and using Django :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah. I know the questions are tongue-in-cheek, but I started this project because I came across Pinboard and thought it did bookmarks almost exactly the way I was looking for (not an app, web-based, no fancy AJAX) but didn't want to pay $11 a year for something I could probably implement myself (very cheap of me, I know). I also wanted to work on my Python/Django skills and I think a bookmarking website is the perfect size for a side project. That's probably why there are so many of them.

Now this is all pretty obvious, but the reason I decided to post it here is I've been using it for nearly a year and even though Pinboard seems much better, bmarks works pretty well for me, so maybe cheapskates like me could find this subset of features good enough too. Also, I really wanted to have a high-density view of my bookmarks (like Chrome/Firefox's explorers).

Regarding the ideal bookmarking solution, I understand the search approach, but IMO tags can be useful if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. For instance, here's [0] a list of designers/studios I often come back to when I need some inspiration and a a list of lists of films when I need something to watch [1]. You can definitely use metadata to simulate tags though. That's what I do for my music library.

And thanks! I really appreciate it!

[0] [https://www.bmarks.net/felipecortez/tag/people+design/](https://www.bmarks.net/felipecortez/tag/people+design/)

[1] [https://www.bmarks.net/felipecortez/tag/film/](https://www.bmarks.net/felipecortez/tag/film/)

<comment><USER3> This looks awesome. I have been looking for something like this.</comment></comment></comment>


Welcome to Monowi, Nebraska: population 1 (2018) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180129-welcome-to-monowi-nebraska-population-1 <comment><USER2> GF's dad mentioned there used to be little fading towns like this all over the Midwest. A lot of them now if you drove through you wouldn't know they'd been there. Farmers used to need store within 5 miles back when they used wagons on dirt roads. When they got cars, that increased to 15 miles. And when they paved the roads it went to 30-60 miles. Same time consolidation of farms meant less people.</comment>


Ask HN: Which OLAP do you use in 2018? - <AUTHOR> Previously, there was only Redshift and BigQuery. Now, there are more Columnstores. New products like Snowflake, TimeseriesDB, ClickHouse. Which one are you using and why? <comment><USER2> Clickhouse: Having enough hardware at my disposal, I can do a lot with it at minimal relative cost. Its performance as a column store, and masterless setup are the attractive features. If I did not have hardware at my disposal, I would be using BQ, or looking at Snowflake.</comment>


Don't use BTRFS for OLTP - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pgaddict.com/posts/friends-dont-let-friends-use-btrfs-for-oltp <comment><USER2> Oh. He's using Linux 4.0? That's an _old_ kernel if you're running btrfs. I hope that he re-tests with 4.2 [0] or 4.3. I _also_ hope that he posts his benchmark settings so I can run it on my systems at home. :) I'm _very_ curious about the ENOSPC errors.

Also, the linux-btrfs mailing list thread about the rant is somewhat worth reading, if you're into this sort of thing: [http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file- systems.btrfs/48248](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file- systems.btrfs/48248)

[0] There's a mv/rm deadlock that I can trigger from time to time that was only fixed in 4.2 and later. (His description of the test stall doesn't indicate that this deadlock is the cause of his problem, mind.) Happily, this deadlock only blocks operations on the file being operated on, rather than the whole FS. Also, a reboot clears up the issue. (An umount, then mount might also clear up the issue, but btrfs is my rootfs, so I can't test that. :P)

<comment> semi-extrinsic The author adresses this issue very eloquently: if your file system requires a Linux kernel newer than 4.0 to get decent performance, it is very hard to argue that it is "mature" and "production-ready".

<comment><USER2> > The author adresses this issue very eloquently...

That would be one of the reasons why _I_ never made the claim that btrfs is ready for general use in all situations. :) I mean, in my footnote I mention that I'm running into a _deadlock_ triggered by perfectly ordinary filesystem operations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure that I was at a conference where Chris Mason explicitly commented on the irony of working at a database company (Oracle) but designing a file system that's fundamentally bad for database workloads. I think it was a Linux Foundation event, maybe an EUS in NYC. In any case, it's pretty well known that COW file systems are not a good fit for this kind of workload. A more interesting question is whether this level of (in)stability and (un)predictability is acceptable for _any_ workload other than scratch storage (which doesn't benefit from snapshots and CRCs very much). My takeaway from this article is basically that F2FS is worth another look.

<comment><USER4> While I'm obviously interested in benchmarks and performance (I'm author of the blog post referenced here), I'm perfectly OK with sacrificing some of the performance in exchange for advanced features provided by the filesystem.

For example built-in snapshotting, additional data integrity guarantees thanks to checksums (e.g. resiliency to torn pages) etc. Because you either can't get that with the traditional filesystems or it'll come at a cost (e.g. LVM adds complexity and has impact on performance).

What I'm not quite OK with is getting very unstable performance - with OLTP workloads you really want smooth behavior, not the jitter or random issues you get with BTRFS. Especially when the other COW filesystems like ZFS perform so much more sensibly.

I don't think comparing F2FS and BTRFS is entirely fair, though. Those are filesystems with very different goals, F2FS is mostly designed to work with single SSD devices (so no RAID-like stuff like BTRFS) and lacks many of the advanced features (you can't even do snapshots).

Also, it was not my intention to say that BTRFS is somehow conceptually wrong and unusable for database workloads. But the current state is not really something I'd recommend for OLTP in production - that's what the rant is essentially about.

<comment><USER3> I also take a dim view of that performance instability, with any workload. In fact, it's one of the points I address on the slides I just sent in for a mini-tutorial on storage performance (for LISA'15 in case anyone wants to see it). All I'm saying is that, even under the best of circumstances, I would consider any COW file system a dubious choice for OLTP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> wiki.archlinux.org / PostgreSQL + Btrfs

 _" Warning: If the database resides on a Btrfs file system, you should consider disabling Copy-on-Write for the directory before creating any database."_

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PostgreSQL](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PostgreSQL)

<comment><USER2> Fun fact: I have a multi-TB, largely-write-only Postgres 9.4 database on a force-compress multi-device btrfs volume. Sadly, you _must_ enable CoW to use transparent compression.

The performance is... not the best, and not _all_ of that can be blamed on either my shitty choice of indexes _long_ ago, or my decision to use firewire to attach the devices.

However, btrfs hasn't eaten any of my data, compression has given me ~2x the space to work with, and btrfs handled the sudden and unexpected loss of a device like a champ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> other benchmark from the same author ( 4month ago ) :

Tomas Vondra: "PostgreSQL on EXT4, XFS, BTRFS and ZFS"

[http://www.slideshare.net/fuzzycz/postgresql-on-ext4-xfs- btr...](http://www.slideshare.net/fuzzycz/postgresql-on-ext4-xfs-btrfs-and- zfs)

<comment><USER4> That's a first version of the benchmark, with some minor differences (newer kernel, a bit more sensible PostgreSQL configuration).

While the end results are mostly the same, the PostgreSQL changes (significant increase of checkpoint_segments) significantly improved the COW case.</comment></comment>