Ask HN: Ways to make a small amount of extra cash during the pandemic? - <AUTHOR> I thought it would be interesting to see how people have made a bit of extra cash on the side during the pandemic.
I am not talking about SaaS side projects, more exchanging time for money kind of thing. Or anything that just makes money straight away without weeks of upfront 'investment':
Here are mine:
Got invited to trial out some software for Microsoft, got a gift voucher $150.
Did some mentoring on mentorcruise.com, about $160 in total. Stopped as I didn't want to spend the time anymore, so stopped taking on new mentors then let the current ones leave once they were done.
Did some mentoring/coding on codementor.io, about $300 in total. Stopped as I didn't want to spend the time anymore. <comment><USER2> My "typical" side project is making wordclocks [0]. But my neighbor is a dentist and needed a sneeze shield for his office reception counter. So he and I came up with a design for a wooden sneeze shield stand. I've since put them on Etsy [1] and sold more than $1k worth in the last month.

I use some of the tools I bought for making my clocks. It makes me feel good to be able help a few small businesses.

[0] [http://www.finewordclocks.com](http://www.finewordclocks.com)

[1] [http://finewordclocks.etsy.com](http://finewordclocks.etsy.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> The sneeze shield is a great idea. I've seen these pop up in a lot of shops, either as a way to protect the clerk, or as a way to protect people at self- checkouts from each other while keeping them all open.

Whether it actually stops corona spread I am not so sure. It probably lowers the risk, but air is circulating in all directions so some virus could get around it. As long as it lowers the risk it's probably a good buy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Stocks and options. The drop has provided many opportunities to make some gains.

<comment><USER4> You'll have to elaborate on that. You can easily lose money too. There is more dynamic change in values, yes, so you can use that. But the overall issue is that how can one tell what to do because you don't know how the market is moving. No one does.

<comment><USER3> Yes there is risk.

You need a basic understanding of finance so you can look at the metrics like PEG or P/B and financial documents like the balance sheet. Then the only real question is 'do you see the company thriving in 5 years'.

For example, during the dip you could buy Disney for $87 or Shell for $29. They should go back to thriving and should double in price in the next 5 years. You can also buy put options on companies that you think will fail or drop significantly (like AMC).

The other thing you can do is play the odds. Almost everything has been going up since the dip. So you have a much better chance of picking a winner. Another statistical advantage is that you do know which way the market is moving - up. Over the longterm, the market only goes up. The Fed's QE and easy money is greatly helping.</comment></comment></comment>


Was 1971 The Best Year To Be Born A Geek? - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/14/was-1971-the-best-ye.html

<comment><USER2> The things he listed are very important to him BECAUSE he experienced them in that way. I'm 21, and I could concoct a similar argument based on geeky things I have experienced. Heck, I was basically growing up alongside the Internet. I was in high school during the explosion of social networking. I have watched things like podcasting and blogging get absolutely huge. Plus, I had Wikipedia at my fingertips for high school papers :) ! I got my first cell phone in high school, and my first 3g phone soon after. I can get online and talk on the home phone at the same time. It goes on and on.

As for movies, he may have me beat, but perhaps only because it takes time for films to become "geek classics." I will say that The Matrix blew my mind in middle school, I don't know how many times I watched that one.

<comment><USER3> So your generation grew up exploring Internet and social networking, and that's what you are excited about most. But I think you take devices you use as granted - computers, mobile phones. Our generation (I'm 1969) was exploring these devices themselves, how they work and how to make them work our way. We learned computer languages from listings in magazines and by trial and error. We thought AI is around the corner, we were sure computers can change our lives, but never foresaw Internet.

Edit: oh, and we thought digital electronics is an essential part of software engineering. So different now.

<comment><USER4> Well that's exactly it. Kids these days are adept at using the toys the grownups - us - built for them, but that's all they know. Ooh, another website, how _exciting_.

<comment><USER2> I think people tend to exhibit a bias toward their own childhood. What was technically different about new technology in the 70s versus such now? It's not like everything had already been invented/discovered in the 70s or 80s, and when I grew up in the 90s we were just "refining" or "recycling" ideas. And granted, much technology is more mainstream now, but I don't think actual geek culture has changed much. There's still a relatively small number of geeks that are (trying!) to keep up with the bleeding edge, just like there was in the 70s, or for that matter, presumably since the dawn of man. The base 2 number system was described over 2000 years ago, and algorithms over 1000. Schickard and Babbage designed mechanical computers 4 and 2 years ago, around the same time Leibniz and Boole were formalizing ideas of logic (all respectively). The transistor was invented in the 1920s, and by the 40s we had "modern" computers. People like Godel, Church, Turing, Shannon, and Hartley laid the groundwork for formal computer science and information theory in the 30s. Presumably the number of geeks that took interest in these developments HAS increased over time, now even to the point of being mainstream (or at least "cool"). No less, at any point in the timeline geeks could be tempted to think that theirs was the generation of true exploration and innovation, while later ones take earlier work for granted. They'd be partly right: we always take prior discovery for granted, in fact, that's why technology advances, for the good of us all. But be careful lest you think your own reference point a foundation-less foundation for all subsequent innovation. I definitely wish I shared some of the experiences of earlier geekdom, like hacking around with DOS to fit a certain app in memory, learning to program from magazines, etc., yet me and my mind thrive in the current Information Age. We children of the 90s get bad rap for being lazy, which certainly is true, but there are still those of us who are and will be fixing, studying, discovering, hacking, and inventing with all the curiosity and fervor of our technological forefathers.

<comment><USER5> That was really interesting to read and I think I agree but I'd like to offer one criticism, it was really hard on the eyes with the lack of paragraphs.

<comment><USER2> Yikes! My bad. I was typing that in a sort of stream of consciousness. I'll try to format better from now on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 81 here.

The (consumer) Internet came at the absolute perfect time for me.

I had started programming pretty young, dabbled in electronics and other stuff, but had nobody around to share the passion with. So I abandoned computers and went to play the guitar for a couple of years (I sucked).

Then at around 14 the Internet kicked in. I ordered TCP/IP Illustrated Vol. 1 and Practical Unix & Internet Security from Amazon. I started to learn Unix and network programming, made lifelong friends online, and had a magical time learning together and escaping the boredom and banality of high school back in Brazil.

I loved that time. It made a huge difference in my life. As much as I like Star Wars, I'd rather have the Internet in my adolescence.

<comment><USER7> 81 Years Old? I think the Internet kicked when you were around 65, not 14.

<comment><USER8> 1981.

2009 and Y2K rears its ugly head again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well I'm a bit older than that ('63) but I experienced all those things the same way. Star Wars, arcades, Atari, learning to PEEK and POKE on an Apple ][+ from the one-liners (255 characters) at the back of nibble magazine, Byte mag. and Robert Kurosaka's mathematical recreations, plus Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor. The birth of the Mac, the Amiga, the Jackintosh (DR's GEM), all the the CPU wars... BitNet before the Web... Many other sci-fi movies are just as geek-worthy if not more: alien, Terminator and T2 (the special effects!) the Matrix.

Pah! anytime in the last 50 or more years is a great time to be born for a geek. It continues to be great.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (The original has been smushed under the bB traffic).

I'm '76.

'71 would have allowed me to go to college and still work in a startup throughout the first bubble.

I still feel pretty lucky about my own timing, though.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not _too_ much younger (1975), and I disagree. I didn't get an internet connection until I was 21. How could a geek think not having the internet is better than having it? When I was young, if I wanted to learn something I had to go to the library, where they may or may not have had something relevant. There's lots of other tech that was not available to the '71 cohort as well. If I could have chosen my birth year it would have been later, not earlier.

As far as pop culture goes, the '71 crowd may have been able to see Star Wars in the theater, but I'd rather have a larger selection of movies on tape or DVD than get to see a few movies in the theater at a few particular times. All the SF stuff (books or movies) is still available today, and if a book or movie is really worthwhile it'll still be worthwhile a few decades later. It'll always be the same book or movie, it's not like the difference between seeing a band live in their prime and listening to a CD.

</comment><comment><USER11> Says a bunch of people born in 1971...

</comment><comment><USER12> According to Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers, 1955 was the best year for geek births. (Bill Joy, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates)

<comment><USER8> "1955 was the best year for geek births"

For outliers, maybe, but for the rest of us, NO!

I was born in 1955, on the same day as James Gosling, inventor of Java.

But I was not an outlier. I was pretty much a regular person from a middle class family who went to public school and aspired to be the first in my family to graduate college. Here's the problem with being born "too soon":

I graduated high school, college, and graduate school _without ever having touched a computer_. Think about that. Neither of my colleges even had a Comp Sci department. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, far from the leading edges of Boston and California. Nobody, I mean _nobody_ knew anything about computers. They were giant machines that sent your electric bill. Period. Unless you were fortunate to be close to the geek counter culture of Northern California or had parents with millions of dollars, forget it.

I graduated with an MBA and got a job as a restaurant manager (1978 was a lot like 2009). Then I picked up a COBOL book and practically memorized it for a difficult to get programming interview. I got the job and the rest is history.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had been born 10 or 20 years later. But it's a wasted thought. What if I had been born 10 or 20 years earlier. I'd probably be a retired car dealer now.

The great thing is that now it just doesn't matter. I took a while to get here, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Maybe that's why I'm here so often: making up for lost time.

<comment><USER7> Could you memorize a book today? How's your memory? Upgrades?

<comment><USER8> I said "practically"

My memory is as good as it ever was. So is my physical health. (I am extremely grateful for both.) I'm doing my best work ever right now.

To those who suggest you peak earlier in life, all I can say is take care of yourself and you may never peak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So, the point of having this post on HN is pretty simple: to get you to post "I was born in 19XX, and here's why it was the best year to be born a geek" (or the worst, or whatever).

Obviously there's no science in the original post.

</comment><comment><USER13> To dwell on such questions is to miss the opportunities of now. Nostalgia is a lotus plant.

<comment><USER14> I disagree, as do some of the commenters:

[http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/05/14/the-perfect-geek- age/#c...](http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/05/14/the-perfect-geek- age/#comment-147768)

Cultural climate changes with time. And it is worth asking whether all of the changes were for the better:

<http://yarchive.net/physics/effete.html>

Sometimes "nostalgia" is not an empty illusion, but is instead a longing for the days when _actual progress_ based on _original ideas_ was taking place. This longing can be a productive one, if it motivates you to invent, deviate from prevailing trends, and otherwise fight back against enforced mediocrity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1969 was the absolutely best year to be born a geek.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because why?

<comment><USER15> Because that was the year I was born.

So, what's my point? Most, if not all, of us were born during the golden era of geekdom (DOB > 1940). Picking the best year is probably a very personal and subjective exercise.</comment></comment></comment>


Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/articles/accidental-harm/ <comment><USER2> This is very interesting!

But I've seen a lot of push back against this kind of thinking in some political groups. For example saying that you should follow norms of niceness when promoting a cause - people call that tone policing.

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

You could say you should criticise the people who are tone policing rather than the people who are worked up about a cause that personally effects them so aren't managing to be very polite, but the problem is not the people who try to tone police you, it's the people who don't like your tone and don't criticise you for it - they silently just ignore your cause or vote against it.

<comment><USER3> People who criticize tone police are technically right that the content of an argument is what should matter, but that smacks of ignorance of how humans engage in conversation.

If someone is screaming at me and ending every sentence with, "you fucking moron!", there is approximately a 0% chance I'm going to take them seriously and I'm going to assume emotional outbursts will be sent in return to any responses I care to make.

How many pro-choice people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "murderer" outside of Planned Parenthood?

People have a limited amount of time to deal with all of the issues in the world. If you can't explain your argument in a calm, rational manner, people who are on the fence will shut you out.

See what Howard Dean's screaming did to his campaign.

<comment><USER4>
       How many pro-choice people do
       you think are persuaded by

Symmetrically, how many pro-life people do you think are persuaded by the people screaming "woman-hater/sexist/misogynist" outside of Planned Parenthood?

       If you can't explain your
       argument in a calm, rational
       manner,

You overestimate the efficacy of explaining in a calm, rational manner. As a university teacher with > 10 years experience, I can tell you with extreme, and reliably reproducible experience, that explaining in a calm, rational manner is also typically overrated. Year in, year out, I tell my students to test their coureswork before submission to ensure it compiles, year in, year out, I tell my students not to cheat etc etc ... and year in, year out, a _large_ number of students ignore my calm, well-argued and perfectly rational advice.

What screaming (or the university equivalent: bad grades) achieves is not so much conviction, but communicating _urgency_. How to react to urgency a different matter.

A second social function of screaming (re-)producing simple us/them group identities.

<comment><USER5> "An interesting article in The Atlantic talks about studies showing that liberals think in terms of _fairness_ while conservatives think in terms of _morality_. So if you want to persuade someone on the other team, you need to speak in their language. We almost never do that. That's why you rarely see people change their opinions...

...If your aim is to persuade, you have to speak the language of the other. Talking about fairness to a conservative, or morality to a liberal, fails at the starting gate. The other side just can't hear what you are saying."

[http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/02/15/how-to-persuade-the- other...](http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/02/15/how-to-persuade-the-other-party/)

<comment><USER6> > liberals think in terms of fairness while conservatives think in terms of > morality

i don't think this is a very accurate characterization. for one thing, fairness itself is a moral value. however, i do think liberals and conservatives tend to have different moral systems. in broad strokes, liberals tend to have more of a utilitarian perspective, while conservatives tend to be more deontological.

<comment><USER7> Jonathon Haidt has actually done some great scientific work on the real differences between liberals and conservatives. This is a shortish version: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc) There's also some more detailed and longer versions if you poke around on YouTube a bit, plus a book you can buy if you're really interested.

I don't think your characterization of either side is particularly accurate. Neither side is utilitarian, and both sides are plenty deontological, just with different rule sets. Both sides are rationalizing deeply-held instinctual beliefs, or the lack thereof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The bit I struggled with is that in many fields, either the majority are wrong/don't have the solution (Argumentum ad populum) or otherwise listening to expertise/experience can either give you too much input or, again, implies that there is more chance that experience will give you a better solution to a problem. In their example, if Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis had asked his more experienced peers about approaching the problem of infections, they would have told him he was barking up the wrong tree with hand washing.

The really difficult part of any venture is knowing _how_ to distinguish wise advice from just another opinion.

Many great solutions come from people with "crazy" thinking and I would expect they could have caused great damage (or perhaps have - jet engines) but otherwise we would be moving very slowly as a planet?

<comment><USER9> I find the claim that the majority are wrong in fields tough to believe. Not impossible, mind. Just tough.

I would think it matters on what is "right." Are they wrong in the way that Newton was wrong? Still far more correct that anyone else? (Obviously, not to that degree.)

<comment><USER8> The majority are not wrong by definition but the fallacy is that you cannot assume that the majority are right.

As far as knowledge is concerned, was Newton right for a period until we learned about quantum mechanics or was he always wrong? Was he always right but only within limits that he couldn't know in advance?

Apologies for the philosophy but this is the real complexity of an article about avoiding harm by doing various "good practice" stuff!

<comment><USER9> I don't know if I would agree that the majority can't be wrong by definition. I just find it an odd and strong claim. I suspect I misunderstand the point.

What is the claim "the majority are wrong/don't have the solution" meant to support? If I just emphasized on the "wrong" instead of "don't have the solution", apologies.

For Newton, he was always wrong based on his equations abilities to predict everything. He was just closer than many before that point such that it was undetectable for a long time.

Which is my point in asking. If folks are correct in their predictive and application based metrics, it is somewhat silly to belabor them being "wrong" in some absolute sense.

<comment><USER9> Not sure anyone is still following here. For a fun example of an entire field being wrong, look into the history of the causes of ulcers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are a couple of other issues that could be added to this list.

Credit

One of the sayings that I know to be (mostly) absolutely true is, "there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit." I have a (much more successful, and respected) friend to whom it is something of a mantra.

On the other side, seeking credit has a lot of pitfalls. The obvious one is taking credit for someone else's work; that's just bad and leads to bad results. But further, by aggressively taking credit for things you've done, you can actively force other people out of the field you're working on. Has anyone been bitten by the off-handed, "yeah, we took a look that several years ago" comment?

Further, becoming the face of some project means that you with all of your warts hanging out come to represent the project and its goals. Take care.

Goals

Choose the goals of your project carefully. For one thing, they can take on a life of their own. On one hand, our modern financial services system has the excellent goal of allocating resources where they can do the most good, but they have become so complex as to be a maze with great freakin' bear traps all over the place.

Then there's opportunity cost. Some goals are laudable, but take on too much emphasis at the expense of other, more reachable, more effective goals. Take the "reducing extinction risk" mentioned (repeatedly) in the article. Sure, somebody should probably worry a bit about the risk of human extinction, but...

" _Many experts who study these issues estimate that the total chance of human extinction in the next century is between 1 and 20%._

" _For instance, an informal poll in 2008 at a conference on catastrophic risks found they believe it's pretty likely we'll face a catastrophe that kills over a billion people, and estimate a 19% chance of extinction before 2100._ "

The risks they came up with are, molecular nanotech weapons, nanotech accidents, superintelligent AI, wars, nuclear wars, nuclear terrorism, engineered pandemics, and natural pandemics. (I'm surprised; global warming didn't make the list in 2008.)

Here's the dealy-o, though: what _actually_ is the risk of human extinction before 2100? 19%? (1 in 5, really?) Their conservative 3%?

"Nanotech" currently is at most an OSHA problem. (Don't breathe in the microparticles!) The risk of "grey goo" is likely pretty damn low, given the history of the last 30 years of nanotechnology. (First thought on hearing of the possibility of nano-machines? "Ya mean, like proteins?")

Conventional wars don't actually kill that many people; they tend to disperse too easily. I'm even given to understand that the effect of major wars is an increase in the rate of population growth. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are very, very bad...for cities. But they're unlikely to do anything noticeable to people in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the Australian outback, or Mongolia.

Pandemics have been a problem before, they'll be a problem again, but I'll let somebody else describe the problems with an infectious agent capable of killing _all_ of its hosts. Likewise, climate changes have been problems before, and have led to bad outcomes. But killing everyone isn't ever been on the table. And for AI, I'm more concerned with the AI that runs your car off the road because it's not actually able to perceive the lane markers.

Individually, each of those is bad. They'll possibly kill billions of people and possibly lead to the collapse of civilizations---some of them have done so before. But complete extinction is incredibly unlikely and "ending all life on Earth" is just silly.

But human extinction is an issue that will get attention. It'll sell newspapers. And more than some minimal level of resources spent on it means less resources for other issues. Like, say, identifying and addressing actual problems with nanomaterials or wars or infectious agents.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex I agree, humans are probably the single hardest among multicellular life to entirely wipe out. Not because we're hardier than cockroaches, or hibernate when it's cold.

There's just so many of us, and every last one of us would be hellbent on survival. At this point in our technology and understanding, I bet there could be survivors of extinction level events equaling the K-T extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.

People already have bomb shelters that can last them months; feeding people does not require sunlight, only dirt, water, lamps and electricity. Nuclear winter can't stop the flow of electricity, survivors of any event can jerry- rig surviving wind turbines, nuclear power, geothermal, or hydro to create life sustaining electricity.

Would the survivors be smart enough to accomplish such feats? Of course, assuming they could read. The internet may collapse but the abundance of printed material, even doomsday vaults containing encyclopedias can provide for entertainment and education in long post-apocalyptic nights.

These things exist: [https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/amazing-doomsday- bunkers-of...](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/amazing-doomsday-bunkers-of- the-super-rich/)

When people fret and worry about the fate of the human race.

I'm not worried. People will adapt and figure it out like they always have. The only thing people need to worry about is their own survival in harsh times.

<comment><USER11> > survivors of any event can jerry-rig surviving wind turbines, nuclear power, > geothermal, or hydro

Excepting nuclear, where do you think the energy for those things comes from?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel weirdly (perhaps irrationally) about the effective altruism people including 80,000 hours. I just can't shake the cult-y vibes they give off. Am I alone in this?

<comment><USER13> No... I, for one, would really like to know what the actual (measurable, practical) _effect_ of effective altruism is. I definitely hope that it's not just like, we do _nothing_ but more _effectively_.

I likewise question the efficacy of efforts like eradicating malaria. I can't help but feel all that money would be better spent on technology (not startups, but like fusion and other energy research, nanotech, space industry etc), even if for-profit. Like, no mater how many Africans you can save from malaria, they will keep dying or living shitty lives because of poverty, famine, wars... Only technology can _actually_ change the world (and politics, but we can't really seem to be able to do much about _that_...).

<comment><USER14> Ultimately this can all be boiled down to the idea if working smarter not harder. Unfortunately mankinds definition of smart varies as as wildly as their actual intelligence

<comment><USER13> > working smarter not harder

Not even. I think it's more about, _what to work towards_ \- i.e. the goal. I mean, feeding hungry people is definitely a worthwhile goal, but... you have to do it again, tomorrow. It's not a scalable solution.

<comment><USER15> What if feeding hungry people today is what it takes for them to feed themselves tomorrow? Africa currently has millions of entrepreneurs, and half the rare earth minerals in your computer's chips and a plurality of the beans for the daily cup of Starbucks you need to do your vastly more lucrative job with it come from there. Not only is the people of Africa not dying (or dying less fast) something that can pay dividends in the future, you directly benefit from it. (Most of the aid we send to Africa is not even remotely altruism, effective or not, although most of it is also not very effective.)

I think the goals of NGOs working in that space are generally in the right place. It's true that they seldom do anything scalable in the sense of transformational research or marked improvement in processes, but the structure (of funding) somewhat prevents them to. I think the most scalable thing we can do for poor countries right now is make information, education and food and essential medication as available and as cheap as possible for as much of their population as possible, and let these children's children save themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _Imagine a first year medical student who comes across a seriously injured pedestrian on a busy street, announces that they know first aid, and provides care on their own...but imagine that a passerby who was about to call an ambulance refrained because the student showed up and took charge_

Then he's not following his first aid training. One of the first things they taught in my first aid class is to send someone for help first -- find someone in the crowd and tell them specifically to call 911. Don't just tell the crowd in general to call for help or everyone may assume someone else is doing it, direct someone in particular to call.

<comment><USER17> That reinforces the article though.

"You take on a challenging project and make a mistake through lack of experience or poor judgment"

The student thought they were doing good, but they did not ask someone to call for help due to lack of experience / poor judgement, worsening the situation potentially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a German word for this: verschlimmbessern. This roughly translates in English to "imworsenprove". :)

<comment><USER19> [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verschlimmbessern](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verschlimmbessern)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because the desire to do a good deed causes people to discount the ramifications of detrimental effects by rationalizing with the "it was for the best" adage

<comment><USER20> The thing I hate most is the "We had to do something" statement, justifying the horrible outcomes they created in a vain attempt to do a little good.

No, you didn't _have_ to do anything. Doing nothing is actually sometimes better than doing something stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A good example of that is Germany.

They removed Nuclear from their energy sources and now need to use coal instead to compensate.

But it gets better than that.

Denmark focused primarily on wind energy with the consequence that this summers heatwave resulted in them having to get their energy from Germany who now without Nuclear had to use even more coal.

<comment><USER22> > They removed Nuclear from their energy sources

Nope, it's not 2022 yet [1].

> and now need to use coal instead to compensate.

Looks to me that wind/solar is compensating for the gradual decline in nuclear, and also for the bulk of increasing demand [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Closu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Closures_and_phase- out)

[2] [https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys- energy-c...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy- consumption-and-power-mix-charts)

<comment><USER21> It's also coal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The article seems written in a "gentle reminder," tone that implies a basic attribution error about the sort of people they are reminding. As a corollary to a famous adage, I would suggest that it is best not to attribute to ignorance what can be explained by incentives.

</comment><comment><USER24> One that has gotten me and some of my cohort is the idea that if you have a below average income you have to live in an ugly run down neighborhood.

But a few too many beautification projects and property taxes start to go up. Now you're pricing people out of their neighborhood. With renters they don't even get the benefit of selling their house.

Most of the solutions I can think of could be easily gamed by speculators, which makes me wonder if the others just have a flaw I don't see.

<comment><USER25> This only happens in unique context, though. If you were in a theoretical environment where there wasn't any demand for beautified neighborhoods the value of the housing wouldn't rise if you beautified it.

The circumstance though isn't unique and is applicable in a lot of different markets. Investing in almost _anything_ makes it more valuable. Be that housing, a country, a company, a farm or a person. That is why education is such a potent force multiplier.

Housing though has an elephant in the room being how bad the situation has gotten. Its the same class of problem as healthcare because both aren't luxury optional goods. People need housing, and that housing need requires parameters that are in conflict with one another. The worst part is that because sustainability of housing trumps all other aspects of it that means you can easily find yourself in an unsafe, insecure environment out of necessity. Beautification makes the living more enjoyable and prosperous but is trumped by the cost benefit analysis of living there. When people are already sacrificing personal safety for job security they quickly get pushed out if you make the housing more valuable for any reason _but_ enhanced job security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is an old problem :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

</comment><comment><USER27> > Everyone understands that one risk of failure is that it tarnishes your > reputation. But, unfortunately, people will sometimes decide that your > mistakes reflect on your field as a whole. This means that messing up can > also set back other people in your field.

I find this to be the case with non-profits and others attempting to make big pushes to promote local entrepreneurship. I have objected to several attempts based on the organizers focusing on the wants of donors (not the entrepreneurs), lacking any marketing plan beyond "if you build it they will come" and not having long-term plans for sustainability. Every failed attempt sets back the next one by 2-3 years but no one wants to listen to a naysayer.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting article, but I would have loved it if they touched upon how to effectively follow these principles in a world where there's competition. For instance, getting feedback, thoroughly vetting ideas, etc., is a good practice. But if you are competing against those who exploit the limited attention of investors/peers to quickly get ahead (in the short term), they _could_ get an enormous first-mover advantage. How does one deal with that?

<comment><USER29> The guide they're describing is for playing a pro-social game where everybody is trying to score points for the common good (i.e to save/better lives). In a competitive environment that is zero-sum in the short term has different rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Imagine a first year medical student who comes across a seriously injured pedestrian on a busy street, announces that they know first aid, and provides care on their own. They'll look as though they're helping. But imagine that a passerby who was about to call an ambulance refrained because the student showed up and took charge. In that case, the counterfactual may actually have been better medical care at the hands of an experienced doctor, making their apparent help an illusion."

I think this is a poor analogy. Or maybe it's an excellent analogy for the dilemma the article glosses over: would the "right" answer be for the medical student to _not_ help someone very obviously in need? Ambulances don't materialize instantaneously out of thin air, nor do they magically teleport themselves (and the patient inside) to a hospital. That hospital might be overcrowded, delaying treatment further.

Or the med student could actually try to help (or at least triage) and at the same time call an ambulance.

<comment><USER31> It is a very poor analogy given that step two of first aid after evaluating that one of the first steps is to call emergency services yourself or direct someone specifically to call (targetting bypasses diffusion of responsibility).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think a lot of this boils down to having the right amount of introspection and insight on the part of the individual.

<comment><USER33> True introspection turns into a math puzzle when you want to go really deep. (It requires constant monitoring and logging of your own mind, and requires an insane amount of tests against self deception if you want to do it properly. Both of which are constrained by memory and compute power, which will likely not be sufficient if for no other reason than that you need to allocate some of it to other priorities.) I think it's a sign of wisdom to admit that it's too big of a challenge for an individual to rely on as a substitute for resources like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Well I read a bit, then thought "things like being verbose, generic, and over- guarded in offering advice and so wasting lots of readers time without making an impact on their behaviour"?

If they'd given one direct piece of easily actionable advice the actual impact might have been far larger ...

"So what?" \- a Church sermon I heard well over decade ago, the speaker said basically if there's nothing that listeners will remember and act on then your sermon is moot. You can give a tonne of great advice, but sometimes less is more impactful.

Perhaps they do that to. The title gave me high hopes.

<comment><USER35> I get replies from Enterprise support reps of this sort. They vaguely address my question without commiting to an answer or solution.

That way the onus is on me to guess what might work for my case, and meanwhile they can mark the issue resolved.

<comment><USER36> That's terrible. A support agent should never mark an issue resolved until the client has said the issue is resolved or been unresponsive to followip communication for some time.

<comment><USER37> Unfortunately in practice, the lowly paid support agent is being bean counted on the number of outstanding tickets they have, and being told to periodically fix that problem.

"You get what you measure."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

</comment><comment><USER39> The medical field has a term for this: iatrogenic.

</comment><comment><USER40> The moral seems to be "Don't do anything, because there are always too many risks, many of which aren't obvious." If we followed this, nothing would ever get invented or done, and we'd still be hunter gatherers, so I'm not really feeling it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Naturally a pessimist on these issues. Listening to graduation speeches on how we're gonna change the world, as if it were this one weird tip discovered by a student. (Philosophers hate him!)

Bleh. You'll change the world alright. Likely, not for the better.

</comment><comment><USER42> That is not a good favicon, I was skimming for a list of '8 ways people trying to do good'.

</comment><comment><USER43> > Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid > them

Like Facebook engineers?

</comment><comment><USER44> To do good requires understanding the issue at hand and devising a measurable plan for improvement.

This is not what many, if not most people do, or want to do, when they "try to do good". They simply want to do something based on what _they_ see as 'good'.

</comment><comment><USER45> Socialism. /thread

</comment><comment><USER46> You'll never get anything done if you give in to this sort of analysis paralysis.

<comment><USER10> Sometimes getting nothing done is the best outcome.

<comment><USER46> Rare, for the individual. Common, for congress

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Thanks. You use the word 'field' 54 times and 'risk' 33 times in the article but never explain what you mean by them. I found this confusing. E.g. at one point you say that 'reducing extinction risk' is a field, but then later say that not every risk is pressing in every field. Is 'reducing extinction risk' both a field and a risk?

<comment><USER48> field: A particular field is a particular subject of study or type of activity.

So the authors are using 'field' to mean area of study which has standard usage in English I think so probably didn't need to be explained further.

When the authors wrote: "Nonetheless we think cataloguing these risks is important if we're going to be serious about having an impact in important but 'fragile' fields like reducing extinction risk."

They are talking about 'reducing extinction risk' being a field of study. And the risks of doing damage to a that new field with early research.

<comment><USER47> Thanks

> They are talking about 'reducing extinction risk' being a field of study. > And the risks of doing damage to a that new field with early research.

Then this is an unfortunately named field to introduce first, given that the article is about 'risks' which are not 'fields'

<comment><USER49> 'risk X' is a risk, and 'reducing risk X' is a field.

There is the (meta-)risk that you harm a field (the 'harming field Y' risk).

They're studying that (meta-)risk here, in an attempt to reduce it. The article is thus squarely in the 'reducing risk Z (of harming field Y (of reducing risk X)))' field.

Your misunderstanding of it poses certain risks, that this comment attempts to reduce, with a concomitant risk of failure, but that gets a bit complicated.

<comment><USER47> Ha :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just a small cut in saturated fats reduces heart disease risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/11November/Pages/Just-a-small-cut-in-saturated-fats-reduces-heart-disease-risk.aspx <comment><USER2> This is a study with a lot of weaknesses. So many I'd go ahead and add a big old " \- maybe" on the end of your headline. Otherwise, this is just the same type of sensationalist headline the tabloids love regurgitating. A better title is "Another study shows possible correlation between saturated fats and heart disease"</comment>


Scientists Find Red Wolf DNA in a Unique Group of Wild Dogs in Texas - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/scientists-find-red-wolf-dna-in-a-unique-group-of-wild-1831233985 <comment><USER2> In the book Coyote America [1] the author goes into detail about these Red Wolves. One of the problems with raising pristine Red Wolves in the wild is their penchant for mating with Coyotes. The author went on to lament the Red Wolf breeding program for culling these Red Wolf - Coyote hybrids. The author's point on the matter is that it is natural for similar species to exchange genes in order to make new species that are better suited. If what is naturally surviving in the wild are these hybrids, well then maybe we should just let the hybrids alone and accept that the Red Wolf lineage cannot survive as is in America today. Furthermore, the author even questions whether or not the Red Wolf is even its own unique species, since it could be the case that the Red Wolf is also a hybrid.

What we can tell is that there is a lot of mixing going on in the American canines. There probably always has been and to artificially try to stop it and preserve the snapshot of species that we saw when we got here is fool-hearted and against how nature works.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-America-Natural- Supernatural-H...](https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-America-Natural-Supernatural- History/dp/0465093728/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545575608&sr=8-2&keywords=coyotes)

<comment><USER3> Fully agree with you. It is the ultimate hubris to meddle with nature thinking we know best. And just foolish when we look at our track record doing that to date.

There are other good reasons to meddle, but this is not one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The red wolf population now has fewer than 40 surviving members, leaving them once again on the brink of extinction in the wild.

Maybe this discovery will lead to something positive for the their species.

<comment><USER5> >Maybe this discovery will lead to something positive for the their species.

They aren't a species. Wolves (red and grey), dogs, and coyotes are all technically the same species, since they can freely interbreed and produce fertile offspring (unlike horse-donkey offspring, mules, which are sterile).

<comment><USER6> Some mules (a very few - something like 60 in the past 500 years) are actually fertile. Does that change your mind about whether or not horses and donkeys are distinct species?

The reality is that there is no good definition of species, and cannot be. Yours is a common one, but has a lot of problems - declaring wolves and pomeranians the same species is a tough bridge to cross for most people: you've made the definition so broad it means little. Biology is messy and in the real world there are no clear-cut, convenient dividing lines.

Another problem with that definition is that there is no transitivity in real biology. Animal A and Animal B may be able to produce fertile offspring. Animal B and Animal C may be able to produce fertile offspring. But Animal A and Animal D [a sibling of Animal C, thanks KMag for that point!] may not be able to.

Of course, we also would find it strange to declare that two humans incapable of producing fertile (or any) offspring different species.

<comment><USER7> You may want to introduce a fourth individual in your example, so it's not limited to species (mostly amphibians and fish) that are able to morph sex or hermaphroditic species (some molluscs, snails, etc.). Otherwise, the example is trivially true for all mammalian species that I'm aware of; for humans, if Arthur and Betty can easily breed fertile offspring, and Betty and Clive can easily breed fertile offspring... then Arthur and Clive are going to have a very low breeding success rate without technological assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> something similar occurred with siberian wild horses of precolumbian america, which were apparently hunted to extinction by natives but survive in traces of present day wild populations:

[https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/neanderhorse/](https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/neanderhorse/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like a pack of coywolves in the making.</comment>


MySQL Minutiae & InnoDB Internals - <AUTHOR> http://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2011/03/we-store-the-vast-majority-of-our-data-at-yelp-in-mysql-during-normal-traffic-hours-were-issuing-tens-of-thousands-of-state.html#more

<comment><USER2> In addition to this blog post there is an internal presentation that Yelp has provided slides for[1] covering MySQL's transaction isolation levels, replication, InnoDB locking and so on.

[1] - [http://cloud.github.com/downloads/eklitzke/mysql- minutiae/pr...](http://cloud.github.com/downloads/eklitzke/mysql- minutiae/presentation.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice slides (linked from the article).

Since I'm MySQL ignorant, you say:

"the code wasn't sure if a row would already exist in the table, so it would issue a DELETE just in case followed by an INSERT with the correct data"

I come from a batch oriented background, so whenever I read something like this, my 'use a merge statement' light goes on.

I have literally no clue about the locking behavior of such an approach in MySQL, so I'm curious if (a) it was an option at all and (b) what locking behavior MySQL would throw into play with a merge (upsert) directly.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could use MySQL's `ON DUPLICATE KEY` syntax to work around the deadlock, which provides a syntax like `UPSERT` in some other databases. This would work because the operation would be atomic. However, at Yelp we've had replication issues with this statement serializing incorrectly into the binlog, so we generally prefer to explicitly select and then insert/update, or delete and then insert.

<comment><USER4> You could use mysql's REPLACE INTO which is basically a macro for delete + insert

less efficient than on duplicate key update because it will replace the entire row every time. But that's not any worse if you were going to do that anyway manually.

<comment><AUTHOR> In reply to your comment, and the one below, we generally avoid REPLACE INTO and ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE. I'm not 100% sure about REPLACE INTO, but the ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE syntax definitely causes replication issues, even though it's allegedly been fixed numerous times. This has been observed by us in the 5.0.87 Percona build, as well as one of the recent 5.1 releases. I couldn't tell you for sure about REPLACE INTO, but having been bitten by these things in the past I'm always a little bit wary of these SQL extensions.

As kind of a sidenote to anyone using these features, I would recommend that you regularly run mk-table-checksum against your master/slave databases.[1] This will tell you if there's inconsistent data between the master and the slaves. Depending on the type of error, you may not get replication errors when tables get out of sync, and this tool catches the case where no replication errors occur (e.g. UPDATE that modified data on the master, but failed to modify data on the slave). Running this, or a similar tool, is really the only way to know that the queries you're running are safe, regardless of Internet hearsay or what the MySQL bugzilla says.

[1] <http://www.maatkit.org/doc/mk-table-checksum.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like reading stuff like this. I deal with strange issues with MySQL all the time. It's nice to know others feel my pain and take the time to write about it. I don't usually see deadlocks anymore though thankfully.

<comment><USER6> Although we try to avoid deadlocks as much as possible at Yelp, retrying when a deadlock occurs is usually a viable strategy to take. Some deadlocks seem to be somewhat unavoidable.</comment></comment>


Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking - <AUTHOR> http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/6/1159

<comment><USER3> The author uploaded the full text here: [http://www.academia.edu/6273095/The_Pen_Is_Mightier_Than_The...](http://www.academia.edu/6273095/The_Pen_Is_Mightier_Than_The_Keyboard_Advantages_of_Longhand_Over_Laptop_Note_Taking)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm interested in _why_. The linked paper has some fascinating discussion of prior research on the "why" question, but as yet really the only data we have come from correlational studies rather than explanatory ones.

I type a _lot_ (5x-10x?) faster than I can write but I take _all_ my meeting notes by pen (I use a livescribe but it hasn't changed my workflow much). It's clearly faster in terms of retention, comprehension and relevance. But why?

I have noticed that in note taking I have my own idiosyncratic handwriting: primarily joined-up ("cursive"), with many letterforms surviving from my childhood, but with some that are formed in a way that simply seems more natural to me (especially the decenders of y and g) intermixed with some "printed" characters (for example j, as well as almost all the capital letters, to the extent that I use them at all). Definitely not designed for someone else to read again, and even in my case I often have to puzzle out what I had written -- yet still, it has a much better result than typing! I clearly have adapted my writing to reduce its overhead.

Apart from note taking I almost don't write at all: a few hand-printed notes ("don't throw this away") or addresses, and whiteboards of course. These always use separated, printed letters and seem cognitively complex to write (i.e. slow!). Typing is clearly the most effortless.

With my own n of one I have tried taking notes with a wireless keyboard on the table or my lap (so the screen isn't a barrier between me and my interlocutor) but it doesn't help. There presumably is some disjoint mechanism between handwriting and typing, and somehow the handwriting barrier is lower.

</comment><comment><USER5> Longhand ruled my course simply because, at the time there were few good options for fast equation and diagram transcription. 80-90% of our lectures were equations with short notes around them.

Occasionally we'd have lecturers who handed out dense powerpoint slides and then went through and explained them very rapidly. Good luck doing that on a laptop.

I think perhaps 3 out of 80 people used laptops. I usually wrote everything verbatim with a bit of extra stuff the lecturer was saying if something wasn't immediately obvious.

I'd then go through and convert it all to LaTeX forcing myself to understand each equation that went in (i.e. if there was a step with an integral that was omitted in the lecture, perform it). That way you know exactly how to do all the steps and you can add your own relevant comments that you may have glossed over in the auditorium. Worked well for me and I could then recycle the reams of paper that collected on my shelves.

As for distraction, we played Peggle a lot in quantum mechanics...

</comment><comment><USER6> I favour guided note taking a lot. A page, with concepts, and a blocked-off section for personal questions similar to the Cornell method. Together with diagrams and drawing lots of arrows, I know of no electronic method which is as fast as the pen.

If taking notes means essentially taking meeting minutes, the material provided by the lecturer is lacking.

</comment><comment><USER7> On the other hand, I type at least 10x faster than I write. If people learned to only take notes on as much as they would write otherwise, it seems you'd get the best of both worlds -- faster note-taking which would allow time for _deeper_ processing.

But really, the deeper problem is taking notes at all. Honestly, in what world is it efficient for a lecturer to recite, and all the students take notes? Students should be able to pay attention without being distracted, and a designated note-taker should be taking everything down, getting the professor to correct any mistakes, and then e-mailing everyone afterwards. Note-taking is an anachronism that deserves to die.

<comment><USER8> The point of note-taking is not in passing some oral tradition from the lecturer to the students. If the information exchange had been an issue then there had not been any lectures after the invention of printing process - <USER2> lectures had been printed and distributed to students. Such a process, in fact, exists but does not substitute lectures as you might already know.

The point of note-taking is that people learn better this way as this and numerous other researches show. One theory is that it's because of activation of motor cortex, which is largely dedicated to controlling hands and fingers [1]. It appears that people learn better when the larger parts of their brain are active. The same principle explains reciting as a learning technique. Speech also takes a large part of the brain and it similarly helps learning.

On the same note, I believe the failing American education can be explained by the decline of handwriting. It will be interesting to see how well Finland will fare after they stop teaching longhand in 2016 [2]

1\. [http://www.acbrown.com/neuro/Lectures/Motr/NrMotrPrmr.htm](http://www.acbrown.com/neuro/Lectures/Motr/NrMotrPrmr.htm)

2\. [http://www.savonsanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/nappaintaitoja- op...](http://www.savonsanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/nappaintaitoja-opetellaan- ekaluokalta-lahtien/1933248)

<comment><USER9> _I believe the failing American education can be explained by the decline of handwriting._

Handwriting isn't declining; cursive handwriting is. I strongly believe that writing things by hand (handwriting) is an aid to learning, but I don't think learning two different, parallel scripts increases that learning. (I don't object to cursive as an art form--in fact I love it and practice it--but that is something for older kids in art class, not something for writing papers and taking notes while you're still new to writing.)

Those who print all the time can write just as quickly, draw the same diagrams, arrows, underlining, marginalia, and so on, as those who write in cursive or in both scripts. Using a single script instead of two will not lessen the benefits of writing by hand, but using a keyboard instead of printing by hand is more problematic.

<comment><USER8> >Those who print all the time can write just as quickly

If they have studied cursive as an art form in the 3d grade then I agree. Otherwise, not really. Cursive is not an art form, it's an efficient system of handwriting. If you are seeing it as an art form - you are not using handwriting enough in my humble opinion. When I went to school, rebelling kids were developing all kinds of different ways to longhand to stand out and show their individuality. I have never seen anybody typing voluntarily. It's just not as quick.

<comment><USER9> This has been measured by researchers, and cursive provided no speed advantage over printing. That's why it's so easy and common for people who know how to write in cursive to revert to printing all the time even after years of cursive in school.

Cursive as a non-art, general writing system was developed because of the need to keep the pen nib in contact with the paper as much as possible to draw the ink drop forward. Each time the nib was lifted, you risked leaving an ink blob. Kids advancing from pencil to pen needed to also change from printing to cursive.

The shift away from liquid ink pens (quill, steel, fountain, cartridge) to polymerizing ("ball point") pens in the second half of the 20th Century obviated that need.

<comment><USER8> Have researchers ever published they research? Also, appreciate downvotes from the illiterate :)

<comment><USER9> Yes, it has definitely been published in academic journals in the education field. I apologize for being lazy about looking it up, but if you're interested, go to scholar.google.com and search for cursive writing and whatever else makes sense to you. The question of whether or not to teach cursive in school has been an ongoing controversy in the education field (in the US) for many years, so it has been formally researched in various ways.

Not surprisingly, of course, the research doesn't simply settle the policy issue. People's opinions about educational policy are strong and the general quality of research in the field is, IMO, pretty weak, so it's only quoted when it supports your opinion and doesn't change anybody else's opinions.

Also, I'll give you a couple of upvotes to hopefully neutralize any downvotes.

<comment><USER8> I actually read many articles on the topic of handwriting so saying "go to google and find my arguments for me" is wasted on me. There is no research that is simultaneously believable and saying what you are saying. Most I could find that was supporting your opinion were people comparing some canonical cursive script to other forms of cursive writing and saying that fastest writers are not using the canonical script the schools in the USA are teaching but are writing connected letters as opposite to typing each letter separately. But just to be sure I did a search as you suggested and found that cursive is now the new enemy of the Left in the US (the Common Core thing, right?). This explains the hostility and points to the futility of any further discussion so I will bow out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd be curious to see how these results change with pen-driven technology, such as the Galaxy Note tablets, or the Livescribe pens (that simultaneously write to paper, create digital copies stored in Evernote, and also record an audio version of the lecture/meeting).

I've always felt that when I need to think through concepts, walking away from the computer & working with pen & paper was a more effective way to do it, at least for myself.

</comment><comment><USER11> The abstract rings true to me. In high-school I had a fetish for heavy rewording, formatting of notes. The more I formatted it (indentation, color coding, consistent abbreviations) the more I learned indirect relationships in the content.

Out of my hat, I tend to think that digital tools aren't good for learning, for they are too symbolic. I believe native interactions stimulate the brain more and feed more data to process that is useful for newcomers.

<comment><USER12> I improved my grades in the later undergrad years by taking the notes from class and re-writing them in a nice form (like you using colour and cleaning it up) into bound notebooks, like the kind used for log books. Then, if I needed to review for a test, I just grabbed the book. Now, I have a handy set of books on my shelf.

<comment><USER11> I'll add that the constraints forced me to focus on what was new and counter- intuitive to me. Limited space meant I'll have to trim away what felt obvious, and only keep the obscure.

<comment><USER12> The only problem with trimming away something you feel is obvious is that if you need to go back to the notes quite some time afterwards, it might not appear obvious at that time. It's just like when you don't comment something in code and when you go back to it, you're wondering what you were thinking when you wrote it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Prior studies have primarily focused on students' capacity for multitasking > and distraction when using laptops.

I prefer to not multi-task at all and just pay attention.

<comment><USER3> From the study linked:

> The studies we report here show that laptop use can negatively affect > performance on educational assessments, even—or perhaps especially—when the > computer is used for its intended function of easier note taking.

<comment><USER13> What is your point? I'm saying that I simply pay attention in lectures; I don't use note taking or use my laptop. My laptop battery wouldn't last a whole lecture, anyway.</comment></comment></comment>


A Lie Told To Children - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25123570/

<comment><USER2> When it comes to sensitive issues like drinking, smoking, and other drug use, self-righteous supper-nannies feel free to throw truth and manners out the window.

Shame on all the students who accepted the administration's explanation for their callous action.

<comment><USER3> Yup. Also done in the name of education.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is relevant to PG's essay about lies told to children. It's an example.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html>

<comment><USER3> True. And they went further:

 _"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor._

Because if people really had died they'd all be, erm, traumatized?

This seems a clear declaration of intent to hurt people for their own good. School is not your friend.</comment></comment>


STEVE JOBS GOES ON MEDICAL LEAVE OF ABSENCE - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-steve-jobs-medical-leave-of-absence-2011-1 <comment><USER2> CAN WE HAVE MORE CAPITALS IN HEADLINES PLEASE I HAVE RUN OUT OF LOWER CASE LETTERS FROM MY ISP STOP NEED MORE INFORMATION ON HOW TO FORCE EVERYTHING IN UPPER CASE STOP

</comment><comment><USER3> For Apple's sake, I hope he recovers soon. Sadly, it looks like it's a good time to sell AAPL stock.</comment>


PayPal Sues U.S. Regulator over Prepaid-Card Rule - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/paypal-sues-u-s-regulator-over-prepaid-card-rule-11576182364 <comment><USER2> Full article: [https://outline.com/csC35C](https://outline.com/csC35C)

I'm not sure if anyone is using PayPal for working with large amount of money, but their hidden fees, UI dark patterns and other gray stuff are making them suitable only for small shopping endeavors. For example, good luck figuring out exchange rate they are using for a given day.

If this regulation makes them to disclose all fees, I believe this will be good for us: users, developers and shop owners.

Other than that, their API and user support is still top notch comparing to alternatives, and by that I not mean alternatives that works in small number of regions (Stripe), but everywhere else. Beside, PayPal is already established brand; even grandmas in US, China or Africa knows what it is used for.

</comment><comment> ur-whale [http://archive.is/fPunb](http://archive.is/fPunb)

</comment><comment><USER3> wow, how can you be allowed to sue a regulator

<comment><USER4> Why wouldn't you be able to?

The legislator legislates, the court rules. Since the regulator is not one of those two, why can't it be sued? The law applies equally to everyone. There are exceptions, but why should there be an exception for someone who's neither court nor legislature? What's the justification for having another exception?

<comment><USER3> the court rules on cases involving the rules, not whether the regulator can make the rule surely

<comment><USER5> Regulators don't make the _law_ , they make regulations that supposedly enforce that law. Often they do this imperfectly. The remedy is a lawsuit where a judge and/or jury decides if the regulation is proper and legal under the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we have a new rule on HN please that if you submit a paywalled or loginwalled article you have to post the full text in a comment? "Web" link not working.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't that constitute copyright infringiment?

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure, but posting a URL that doesn't serve any useful content to a public news aggregator leads to a pretty terrible user experience. I don't distinguish between different types of URLs that serve nothing but a solicitation for payment: to me, a pay walled news site is no different than any other spam site that appears to promise content but really just asks for money.

I would like to see news aggregators (and similar services, like search engines) enact policies explicitly banning such URLs, simply because it's a terrible user experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Knuth's Fantasia Apocalyptica Illustrated by Duane Bibby - <AUTHOR> https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/fai.html <comment><USER2> Bigger image of cover: [https://tmm.chicagodistributioncenter.com/IsbnImages/9781684...](https://tmm.chicagodistributioncenter.com/IsbnImages/9781684000449.jpg)

One thing I find remarkable is how so much of what Knuth does he manages to turn into a book. :-) (Including the TeX and METAFONT program source code, and the fonts themselves.) Probably a partial explanation of his phenomenal productivity.

As a "translation" of the Book of Revelation into music, this composition is _intended_ to be performed accompanied by video tracks -- the Duane Bibby illustrations, the Greek and English text etc. (example: [https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fantasia- premiere.jpg](https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fantasia-premiere.jpg)). The video from such a performance is here: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvixIGKr5sJffdfwecygY...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvixIGKr5sJffdfwecygYqhXsgz- EBCC8) (I've heard people say that the music is unlistenable without the accompanying text.)</comment>


Tell HN: an important difference between SV and Boston - <AUTHOR>

About 50 degrees.<p>Wow! It is cold here, especially after last week's awesome weather at home in Palo Alto. <comment><USER2> But it always _hot_ where you've got a T1 ...

But then the sunshine is sweeter along our Front Range. [ Colorado ]

</comment><comment><USER3> the first 3 minutes are the hardest, after that you'll adjust no matter how cold it is

<comment><USER4> Adjusting to it doesn't mean you _like_ the weather though.

I go to college near Rochester, NY (and home is near NYC) - and its around 0F right now. I love it during the late spring/summer/early fall, but I can't stand the winters and still want to get out of the state and go to SF Bay or LA area.

The temperature can be fairly important. I love to sit outside somewhere while coding, but can't exactly do that if its snowing.

<comment><USER5> It was 71 in cupertino today.</comment></comment></comment>


How Google+ Shows That Google Still Doesn't Understand Social - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Yishan-Wong/How-Google+-Shows-That-Google-Still-Doesnt-Understand-Social

<comment><USER2> I disagree with the author. I see no point in making my conversations accessable for everyone, especially if they cant actively participate in them.

There is no need in grouping your friends in any way, just create a circle with all your friends and those will behave the same way facebook does,at least if I got it right (by the time I got my invite it was already full). I think there is a difference in what I want my friends and family to know about me and what people I just know but have no deeper relationship with should know. Posting something publicly would make it accessible for everyone, twitterlike.

</comment><comment><USER3> It should be pointed out that the author currently is employed by Facebook, and is not an impartial user commenting on the rivalry.

That said, I found it hilarious that the author went on a defensive tirade for half of his post trying to somehow undermine the "Public" option when you make a post on Google+. It appears he completely missed the point of it being Public: that anyone is free to view and/or comment on it, along with your friends. That's what Public means, and there's a reason it's off by default.</comment>


Platform for the Future of Democracy Seeks Product Focused Cofounder - <AUTHOR> http://demdash.blogspot.com/2011/03/want-to-help-build-demdash.html

<comment><USER2> Hey Dan,

Not really interested in the role but have a cool technology I'd like to discuss with you that you can probably make use of. Let me know a good way to reach you so we can discuss. Write to me at lefstathiou at gmail dot com.</comment>


'Black swans' and 'perfect storms' become lame excuses for bad risk management - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/november/black-swan-risk-111612.html <comment><USER2> This is one thing to me which seems to me to be a genuine failing of an efficient market. Over the medium term, ignoring the low-frequency, high-risk event gives you a margin over your competition. Hence you succeed at their expense and they fail/get bought out by you etc.

As a simple example (the general argument applies to all sectors and all forms of risk), consider a bank ("safe bank") keeping $X in reserve to handle unforeseen events. Another bank ("risky bank") which keeps only $X/2 in reserve.

Risky bank will have a advantage over safe bank at all times except when an event requiring between $X/2 and $X occurs. Should such a rare event occur, risky bank would fail and safe bank survive.

Once the frequencies of such events drop to low enough levels (once ever 5? 10? 20? 40? years), there is no market pressure on the riskier bank to plan for the problem (and in fact the opposite, the market will destroy safe bank).

The actual time period is I think determined by how long it takes risky bank to out-compete safe bank and so drive it from the market as a significant force.

<comment><USER3> > _This is one thing to me which seems to me to be a genuine failing of an > efficient market._

You seem to assume that all risk is meant to be carried by the banks. As you note, such a thing is possible (up to the risk-bearing capacity of any given bank), but such banks would be very expensive. Consequently, most customers bank with riskier institutions and this places more of the risk back onto them.

So, in actual fact, this is the market doing what it does pretty well: solving a hyper-distributed problem with heterogenous agents with numerous complex, incompatible preferences.

Sometimes we don't like the outcome. That doesn't mean that the market has "failed"; it just means that _we don't like the outcome_.

<comment><USER4> The market is a solution to a problem (or perhaps a set of problems). In the example of in the grandparent's post, that solution does not adequately deal with the problem at hand. This makes it a _bad solution_.

Even if we can't think of a better solution right now, we shouldn't stick our collective heads in the sand when we notice errors in our current approach. Highlighting errors is important, because even if we can't fix them right now, we may be able to in the future. If we don't know about the flaws in our current approach, it it impossible to even attempt to think of ways to improve them.

<comment><USER3> The market is an emergent phenomenon. It's not a designed institution. Hayek talks about this misattribution as the root cause of a lot of misunderstanding.

People do think of ways to adjust for things about the market that they don't like. Those adjustments are generally imposed from outside by force of law and quite a few of them are later modified or removed because they had seriously unpleasant side-effects (such as the total disappearance of a market).

Being angry at an emergent phenomenon like markets is like being angry at the weather, or upset about evolution. It's pointless.

<comment><USER4> There are certainly aspects of our market economy that are emergent. Trade is as old as humanity itself, but not all aspects of the economy are so old, nor as immutable.

The modern corporation, for example, is a relatively new invention. Depending on your definition, anywhere between a few centuries and a few decades old. Compared to the time scale on which human evolution has taken place, that's practically nothing. In those decades or centuries, we and our ancestors have chosen particular shapes for our economy. Not all of those choices are final.

Whether the choices that influenced this particular example can be changed, I don't know, nor do I feel qualified to hazard a guess. However, I stand by my original point: it makes no sense to refuse to consider how we might improve the system.

<comment><USER3> Modern humans have never refused to consider how to improve everything.

But it is important to realise when we're licked. We can't solve the TSP in linear time, we can't travel faster than light and it looks like -- in both theory and practice -- markets are better at solving economic problems than planned alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> She obviously fails to grasp what Taleb calls a Black Swan, or ignores his definition for some cheap publicity: "The attacks of 9/11 were not black swans, she said. The FBI knew that questionable people were taking flying lessons on large aircraft."

They are the perfect example of a Black Swan. Quote Taleb (Black Swan, p.xxii): "... in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurence _after_ the fact, making it explainable and predictable", which is exectly what she is doing. And, one page later on 9/11: "had the risk been easily _conceivable_ on September 10, it would not have happened".

He is not advocating abandoning risk management, he is in favour of risk management that doesn't need us to predict the future, as it is harder to reliably estimate the likeliness of very unlikely events.

Concerning the second example of earthquake risk and nuclear power plants: That, again, is a post-hoc rationalization. Everybody knew that earthquakes were a risk factor for NPP and was planning accordingly. They were just not planning for a Tsunami this size, as it was very, very unlikely. So including higher error margins for earthquakes next time is nice but not enough. Taleb on this: <http://www.valuewalk.com/2011/03/nassim-taleb-black-swans/>

Consider the aviation industry: After an accident, they find the root cause and eliminate it. It is now something expected, and can be directly dealt with. But also try to improve the system (e.g. via training) to be more robust towards all the root causes the didn't anticipate.

<comment><USER3> > _They are the perfect example of a Black Swan._

I disagree.

The black swan is something that is completely unforeseeable and for which there are no previous partial or complete examples, either of the final outcome or the contributing causes.

Which is her point: 9/11 was foreseeable from the information (the failure was in connecting it) and the fact that a previous, similar plot had been tried in France. The clues were there and there was a previous partial example.

<comment><USER6> > _The black swan is something that is completely unforeseeable and for which > there are no previous partial or complete examples, either of the final > outcome or the contributing causes._

There is no such thing as something _completely_ , entirely 100% unforeseen or unforeseeable. Someone, somewhere in the world will be seeing it coming... just as some intelligence analysts saw 9-11 coming, some economists saw the financial crisis, etc. etc. What we're considering is what the prevailing and strongly established consensus well outside the fringe areas says.

<comment><USER3> This is where we start to wander into problems with classical set logic.

No, I'm not joking. Fuzzy sets are pretty much required for any meaningful discussion of "failed", "foreseeable" etc, if they are to be at all useful concepts: <http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/>

Reduce foreseeability and failure to a binary toggle and you destroy enormous amounts of information with high utility so that some syllogisms still work. Wasteful.

Taleb is a very intelligent man, but AFAICT he does often reinvent existing concepts with much cooler names. "Antifragile" sounds awesome. "Robust" sounds boring.

Take "black swan", for example. Given the technology of the day, black swans simply didn't exist. Iain Banks called these "Outside Context Problems", one might also call them "paradigm-busters".

Anyhow. I should have padded out my original definition with the usual legalese about "reasonably foreseeable".

<comment><USER5> "reasonably forseeable" is hard to define. Let us, for a moment, use being able to implement countermeasures without seeming like a crazy lunatic as a definition. As a politician in a pre-9/11 world, if you had done what would have been necessary to prevent _a_ 9/11 (not go and arrest the very guys who did it, that would have required perfect foresight), i.e. add bulletproof doors to planes, implement the very invasive searches the TSA does etc., maybe ground commercial aviation until those measures would have been in place, it would be the end of your career. The remote possibility of a terrorist attack has only become a justification for about everything after 9/11. Also, 9/11 was just one of many terrorist threats at that time, it's just in hindsight that we consider this particular one inevitable. Edit: Spelling

<comment><USER7> Hijackings had happened many times. Including with weapons. There was plenty of knowledge that could have easily justified adding secure, lockable cockpit doors. And that would have been a good, low impact way of mitigating against known risks while also taking a whole host of unknown risks off the table or substantially reducing them, including reducing the chance of 9/11 having the impact it did or even being tried.

I think that is one of the changes that more focus on mitigating risk vs. avoiding it might have produced. E.g. when faced with heightened risk of terrorist attacks, a rational response would be to not focus so much on identifying potential attackers and stopping a specific plot, but spending more resources at looking into low impact ways to mitigate the consequences of at various broad modes of attack actually getting underway.

The specifics of 9/11 was probably near impossible to predict, but another eventual hijacking was a near certainty, and an eventual building collapse for whatever reason should have been considered a near certainty, as many high- rises have failed over the years too. The failure to reduce the potential impact of those known risks are the real failures of 9/11, not the failure to prevent the specific plot, as these were broad, known risks and the actual _causes_ leading up to them would be largely irrelevant for a lot of mitigating actions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We call this phenomenon "black elephants."

You have an elephant in the room. After it explodes, everyone will say it was a black swan.

<comment><USER9> Like the Chinese housing bubble?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want to understand more about this (especially economically), Daniel Kahneman's _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ spells it out really well:

[http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel- Kahneman/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel- Kahneman/dp/0374275637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355912148&sr=8-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow)

<comment><USER11> One major reason why I disagree with the article. Social phenomena are impossible to fully compute as human beings do not just apply to comprehensible laws of physics, but there is a whole different dynamic of behavioral and social factors involved that makes statistic modelling a great deal more complex. Unlike the author I also do not think that this problem can just be resolved with technical means, there will always be uncertainty about human behavior and thus Black Swans.

<comment><USER10> Ya, this part irked me the most:

 _"Traditional financial analysis, she said, is based on evaluating existing statistical data about past events. In her view, analysts can better anticipate market failures – like the financial crisis that began in 2008 – by recognizing precursors and warning signs, and factoring them into a systemic probabilistic analysis."_

So, let's say you do provide a systemic probabilistic analysis about the impending education crisis the US is about hit? Don't you think a government would be gnawing their hands off to get that type of statistical analysis? Personally, I don't think it systematically exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://fooledbyrandomness.com/ForeignAffairs.pdf> [pdf warning]

Is a really good geopolitical paper I recently read about black swan stuff. The general gist, to my understanding, is that artificially supporting a regime makes it weaker.

</comment><comment><USER12> Taleb's emphasis in his latest book is on avoiding the naive attempt to predict the unpredictable. Instead, focus on identifying and making things "Antifragile" so that they are resistant to (or even benefit from) events that would otherwise be destructive. With that in mind, risk management becomes much less about guessing about the future. Instead, the focus is to identify the fragile (that which is highly susceptible to disruption) and take steps to make it antifragile.

[http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Gain- Disorder/...](http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Gain- Disorder/dp/1400067820)

It is an enjoyable read so far...</comment>


Levelized Cost of Energy and Levelized Cost of Storage 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/ <comment><AUTHOR> >Lazard's latest annual Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 12.0) shows a continued decline in the cost of generating electricity from alternative energy technologies, especially utility-scale solar and wind. In some scenarios, alternative energy costs have decreased to the point that they are now at or below the marginal cost of conventional generation.</comment>


Hakmem: classic programming hacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hakmem.html

<comment><USER2> Anyone interested in this will likely be interested in:

Bit Twiddling Hacks - <http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html>

The book Hacker's Delight by Henry S. Warren Jr and published by Addison Wesley - homepage at <http://www.hackersdelight.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, there's the famous Quake inverse square root hack.

<http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/>

<comment><USER4> That's a nice article-- it's good to see that there are folks who a) recognize the coolness of a hack like this, and b) take the time to try to find out who to credit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a personal favorite of mine that I wrote a while back; I like it because it does what seems to be a slightly complicated problem to SIMD (count the number of nonzero elements in a 16-element array of 16-bit values) and does it in a really small number of instructions:

      static inline int array_non_zero_count_mmx( int16_t *v )
      {
          int count;
          asm(
              "pxor     %%mm7,  %%mm7 \n"
              "movq     (%1),   %%mm0 \n"
              "movq     8(%1),  %%mm1 \n"
              "packsswb 16(%1), %%mm0 \n"
              "packsswb 24(%1), %%mm1 \n"
              "pcmpeqb  %%mm7,  %%mm0 \n"
              "pcmpeqb  %%mm7,  %%mm1 \n"
              "paddb    %%mm0,  %%mm1 \n"
              "psadbw   %%mm7,  %%mm1 \n"
              "movd     %%mm1,  %0    \n"
              :"=r"(count)
              :"r"(v)
          );
          return (count+0x10)&0xff;
      }

It is, not surprisingly, an order of magnitude faster than the C equivalent. Bonus points for understanding what the "0x10" is for at the end.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This one is amazing: <http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hacks.html#item154>

<comment><USER6> Er, I don't think so. If I understand that right, it assumes that the universe uses finite bits to represent numbers. I see no reason to assume that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mean it was real science (the physical part of it), I found it fun and amusing, like a mind trick.</comment></comment></comment>


Tiny Engine Could Make Leaf Blowers Sound Less Like Jets - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/11/tiny-engine-make-leaf-blowers-sound-less-like-jet-engines/?mbid=social_twitter

<comment><USER2> How about just leaving the leaves on the ground, because everyone hates leaf blowers, and blowing them around is pretty pointless due to this thing called wind. Never understood why apartment complexes don't just use bagging lawn mowers to basically cut their work in half and piss people off less.

<comment><USER3> I tend to agree. What about hard surfaces where leaves can cause slip hazard?

<comment><USER4> Just use a leaf rake - they work on soft and hard ground, are pretty silent, weigh less than a leaf blower, are cheaper, consume no gas, and are kind of outdoor workout.

<comment><USER5> But, much slower. And you'd need to follow it with a broom to satisfy my mother's standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You'll never hear from them again:

"We're not looking to manufacture engines," says company president Alexander Shkolnik. Instead, the company plans to continue developing the engine and work with a manufacturing partner

That's always a warning sign. To me it means they don't want to make a company, but are rather looking for a quick sale and exit.

Also: "Because so many potential applications are in the lawn care and landscaping biz, the current design runs on a mix of gasoline and oil for lubrication."

I doubt they'll be able to meet emission standards, which is another reason you'll never hear from them again.

<comment><USER7> This is pretty much how ARM works. They only design the CPU's but don't actually build them.

<comment><USER6> Designing a CPU is very difficult and building one is very difficult, so this works for ARM.

But engines are not like that, there's little money in the design - there are tons of designs, they are interchangeable for the most part and one is only slightly better than another.

And building them is not hard either, so there is little money in being just a build shop without having an IP.

Usually a design-only firm licenses themselves exclusively to one retail company - they don't sell the component, only the final product. They goes on for a few years, then the retail company buys them and that's the end of it.

That's why you'll never hear from them again, some lawnmower or whatever company will lock them up and that will be all.

If they want to make an impact (and not just a quick exit) they become a supplier and sell full engines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is neat, but it seems pretty clear to me that battery-powered electric motors are the future for this kind of application. I don't own a leaf blower, but both my lawnmower[1] and trimmer[2] are now battery-electric, and I would say both are essentially as good as any gas-powered ones I've used, and _much_ quieter. I listen to podcasts while I mow the lawn now. It's great.

[1]: [http://egopowerplus.com/products/mower](http://egopowerplus.com/products/mower) [2]: [http://egopowerplus.com/products/string- trimmer](http://egopowerplus.com/products/string-trimmer)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd point out to anyone bringing up Apex seals as a potential problem: You must not be familiar with using a conventional mini 2 stroke. Chainsaws, leaf blowers, etc require exceptional levels of maintenance and aren't exactly known to run well. Most of them are either running too rich or lean at any given point, and therefore are either building up carbon, or burning themselves out.

Not to say there aren't some good ones, but small 2 strokes that this engine aims to replace are not exactly paragons of reliability.

Also, most small 2 strokes have abysmal emissions due to running too rich/lean all the time, having badly made carburetors, poor tolerances, no catalytic convertors, low thermal mass, etc.

This looked relatively simple to assemble, and would therefore be pretty easy to disassembler. My guess is that if there were any seals that needed to be replaced, it would be a relatively trivial job compared to a standard small 2 stroke.

Source: have rebuild many chainsaws, weed whackers, and leaf blowers. Used to build go-karts.

<comment><USER10> Actually most of the emission are a result of the valveless design of the typical two-stroke. Small carb 4-strokes have the same issues you describe but have much better emissions due to the valving, but lacking a cat they will never come close to and automobile as far as emissions go.

Seals wearing out will cause lower compression and more blow-by reducing power and increasing emissions but probably not as much as a valveless two-stroke which simply has intake and exhaust ports full open during part of the cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I still like the StarRotor[1] better. No reciprocating, no problems with seals (which are a big problem/weakness in Wankel-types; rather unadressed in TFA). Biggest problem for StarRotor is that all the manufacturing chains are already super-optimized for existing engine designs and don't much care to experiment.

[1] [http://www.starrotor.com/Expanders](http://www.starrotor.com/Expanders)

</comment><comment><USER12> The article fails to explain how this will make leaf blowers sound less like jet engines. Has the author ever heard a Wankel rotary at 15,000 RPM? Not to mention, the reason leaf blowers sound like a jet is because of the giant shrouded fan that is used to generate airflow. Electric leaf blowers sound like jet engines too, and their motors are extremely quiet in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Sorry hun, I can't blow the leaves because the apex seals are shot in the leaf blower"

</comment><comment><USER14> 5 hp would actually make a great light weight moped.

I know I could really use one.

<comment><USER15> Have you looked at e-bikes recently? Interesting things going on.

<comment><USER14> A bit, and it is indeed. Also the light electric scooters are incredibly cheap now. But a combustion engine would still be great when you need the extra range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> it's called a broom!

<comment><USER17> Indeed! Leaf blowers are dreadful for the environment: ignoring the noise and combustion emissions, they blow all the coverage off the soil leaving a packed result that absorbs no water and can't support plant growth.

No leaf blowers (and low maintenance in general) on my yard leads to thick grass that doesn't need a lot of watering. My neighbors all use 'em and the strip of "lawn" next to the road on every other house looks like concrete.

I understand the gardeners like them because it's fun and empowering, but so would a flamethrower. Neither is much good for the garden.

<comment><USER18> If you've got a lot of trees and don't remove the leaves, you'll still have a lot throughout the year.

<comment><USER19> Mow them. The last time I used a rake was living on a tiny lot. Moved to a 1/2 acre lot and began to mow the leaves into tiny scraps. Now live on a much larger, exposed hilltop property and the wind takes care of the leaves for me :-)

<comment><USER20> I feel weird when I mow the leaves every year—everyone else is spending hours raking, while I take under two hours with the lawn tractor. I keep wondering why everyone doesn't do it, like I'm missing something. I also don't bag grass clippings; it seems silly to remove all of this potential fertilizer from my lawn, only to have to apply artificial fertilizer later on.

<comment><USER19> I never got the point of bagging grass clippings either, seems like useless work. Then again, I don't fertilize my lawn or spray it for weeds either. It's just grass (OK, grass, clover and dandelions in my case), why is everyone so anal about this shit?

<comment><USER20> I don't understand the obsession, either. I keep our lawn watered (no water shortages in Michigan) and mowed. Beyond that, I just let the fittest turf—whether it's regular grass, clover, or dandelions—survive. As long as it's not painful to walk on, it's fine. In fact, I like the variety.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder announces MixBit video collaboration site - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/1/4169494/mixbit-video-collaboration-site-chad-hurley-youtube-founder-announcement

<comment><USER2> will it compete with Youtube?

<comment><AUTHOR> Chad has said it wouldn't be a "direct" YouTube competitor. So you never know :)</comment></comment>


Do i have to have company to apply YCombinator or angel.co? - <AUTHOR>

do i have to have company to apply ycombinator or angel.co? because the application form asks for a company name location etc. i have a business idea but not yet established a company. <comment><USER2> If it isn't asking for a company registration number, then I think any name will do...</comment>


VMware to Acquire Zimbra - <AUTHOR> http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/zimbra.html <comment><USER2> I'm still trying to work out VMWares strategy here.

So I assume they make most of their cash selling stuff like ESX/vSphere Server (Or whatever it is now called). And they really seem to own the space (true MS shops will user Hyper-V and true OS shops Xen, but VMWare seems to be everywhere).

But what's with the aquisitions? * Springsource - Java application stack * Zimbra - Email platform

I understand they want to diversify the product line (esp if MS follow through and focus on Hyper-V), but I still don't really see where they are trying to go. A kind of Semi-Private Cloud/P-a-a-s, with email hosting? Anyone seeing what I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> >true MS shops will user Hyper-V and true OS shops Xen

That is not entirely true. I'm installing a lot of VMWare systems at "true" MS shops, which choose VM for the same reason as MS (market leader, no one ever got fired... etc.) where hyper-V is still perceived as immature product. In MS shops license cost usually is not the decisive factor, and VMware is perceived as the best technology(aksi the most expensive). It is true a lot of those places run Hyper-V as well, but they don't usually host production systems on it.

My take on it is: MS is quite good at making development tools, Exchange, Sharepoint, systems management software etc. (generaly high level stuff) The further they are kept from the hardware the better. Most people employed by MS shops know that intuitively and they welcome the opportunity to buffer MS software from the hardware even if it costs $10k per CPU license.

<comment><USER2> Sure - I should have prefaced that with some.

I've seen a couple of Hyper-V installations, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen one running linux clients (despite the code MS put into the kernel). I'm sure they exist - but for now Hyper-V is just a pure-MS play (and still behind VMWare at that).

Don't forget - MS really take a few iterations before their products begin to shine. The X360 (barring H/W issues) is a really nice piece of kit, Office took a few versions but by 5/6 was really pretty good. Windows 3.1 was when Windows started to work (although really you could declare that at a major release later 95). And XP SP2 And Vista SP2 (aka Win7) were when the OS really started to shine. Bottom line - Don't count MS out when they really put their mind to something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's hard to see VMWare's strategy on this, but here's my guess:

Maybe they've actually got some finance guys looking at their P/E which is in the 70 range. So they're probably using their premium stock price as a good way to pick up some bargains while their core business revenue is slowing down with the rest of the economy (and with tough competition).

In my mind, it makes me think that they worry about (or are at least are hedging against) their core market being eroded by other players. If they did believe it was VM/VDI for the long haul, then they'd be investing in technologies with far better synergies than the ones they're picking. I mean "cloud" technologies pretty much applies to anything these days, so it'd be a stretch to say these are really "good fit" acquisitions.

I have a feeling this could work out okay for VMWare, though it feels more like a business play than a technology one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hm... yahoo shedding some fat or is it a firesale?

</comment><comment><USER6> Good news, in my opinion -- back when MSFT was courting Yahoo many were concerned Zimbra would get shut down in the aftermath.

</comment><comment><USER7> see also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048787>

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps it was to acquire the engineers?</comment>