Steps to start homesteading from an experienced grower - <AUTHOR> https://worldwaterreserve.com/self-sufficiency/steps-to-start-homesteading/ <comment><USER2> When we bought home, we got it with bunch of fruit tress (cherry, peach, orange, strawberry guava, lemons). And our previous owner grow 3 tomato plants for us before they left. It was a big yard with lot of fruit trees and plenty of empty space. In few years, we started growing some vegetables starting tomoato, okra, egg plant. And now in few more years we stop buying tomatos from grocery. we build bunch of raised beds and started growing more and more food and got bunch of okra and bottle guard. This year we build more raised bed by replacing/transplanting existing flowering plants and put raised bed there. And almost all the work done by us. You never believed but when you cook food from home grown vegetables, it tastes a whole different than the bought one. Give it a try and you can feel the difference. As long as you enjoy doing it, you won't feel all the pain that it comes with (i.e. hard work). Start small and as you go ahead, you will add more and more as you find it more manageable. But worth trying as long as you have space in your home (you will find time)

<comment><USER3> "You never believed but when you cook food from home grown vegetables, it tastes a whole different than the bought one"

I was always aware that store bought tomatoes had no flavor, but never had any interest in gardening. One time I took one of those store bought tomatoes and planted the seeds and what do you know, it actually sprouted and grew some more tomatoes? I don't think it's supposed to work that way, but it did. The thing I remember that always grew without any effort was rhubarb.

<comment><USER4> I think it's definitely supposed to work that way. My first year in my house, I tore out the previous owner's rose garden and planted tomatoes. Had so many that quite a few of them ended up falling off the plants and rotting into the soil. The next year, I scaled my intentional planting back but ended up with even more tomato plants because of the seeds from the previous year's decayed tomatoes. I'm not even going to plant this year, just water and hope that the same thing happens again.

<comment><USER5> I think they were surprised that store-bought tomatoes had viable seeds. I would have been kind of surprised by this too, but a quick google suggests that while some commercial fruit and veg is deliberately made sterile, it's probably much less common than I thought.

<comment><USER6> The seeds might not be sterile, but you will probably not get the same breed of plant. A lot of mass-produced veg is grown as an F1 hybrid, and the next generation (ie, from the seeds) will not have the same desirable characteristics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been a hobbyist gardener for years with gardens at various scale. Some of my better gardens have provided ample veggies for 2-3 households to share. My very short list of recommendations for someone that wants to start providing some of their own food would be. 1) Control your soil (airpots are awesome BTW). 2) Practice consistent watering [same amount, same days, same time] (basic drip irrigation is helpful here, airpots help here too). 3) Make sure you're getting enough sunlight. Do these simple things, and you might be very surprised by the results. Lastly, visit your garden often (looking for problems), and make sure you are growing in-season for your zone.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am addicted to watching various self sufficiency and off grid living YouTube channels eg Wild Wonderful Off Grid. It's like all the videos on YouTube about Tiny Homes, Treehouses and people living in stealth vans: totally absorbing.

But this article is an entirely different level of realism; this is talking about actually doing it, and taking an attitude that seems quite different from all those super great videos I mentioned.

<comment><USER9> One of the things that a lot of those videos don't convey very well is this one, inescapable fact: homesteading is work. _Hard_ work at times. A lot of videos romanticize it, but the fact is sometimes you're going to be tired and sore and cold and wet and hot and sweaty, and sometimes all at once.

I think that's something that not a lot of people really appreciate, and the linked article falls just short of touching on, which is a shame because they're almost there. The first point of "grow something - anything" is good advice, and it has the possibility of easing you into the physical labor part of homesteading.

<comment><USER10> Also a lot of the work is on its own schedule, not yours—esp. anything involving animals.

<comment><USER9> Oh yes. You gotta get the animals fed and let out when they get up, 7 days a week. And they get up when the sun gets up.

And that's why I built an esp8266-based automated chicken door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the homesteading lifestyle so unattractive from a non western perspective. The image of the lone couple battling the elements and enduring the herculean task to be self-sufficient... yikes!

Compare to the crop of Chinese youtube channels, like Lingzhi, Diaxi that show village farm life. These are more attractive because it shows self-sufficiency in the context of a larger village community. Everyone comes to help in the harvest. Everyone comes to help to slaughter a pig. Everyone comes to preserve the latest crop of fruit.

But these America homesteading channels... so dreary. You and you alone have to work sun up and sun down, why? Where is the rural communal life?

</comment><comment><USER12> > and reduce their ecological impact

I wonder if this is true. Rural living is less efficient per capita then cities. The distributed electricity and water and transportation are less efficient and they have a physically larger impact on the environment. Even the food they grow themselves requires a lot of external inputs which are shipped in via far flung transportation networks and are used less efficiently than they would be at a larger farm.

<comment><USER13> I live on a ranch. We do not grow any crops, only beef. The surrounding area is a combination of wheat farms and ranches. The reason the ranches aren't wheat farms is because the terrain is just to rugged for productive wheat farming. I can't really speak to the total efficiency but the electrical distribution is very similar to what you have in the city. In fact we export electricity to other states. Water comes from a well and the sewer is a septic tank. That means that the water we use is returned to the water table minus evaporation. I imagine each bovine exported off the property represents some amount of water. Small outfits deal with what is called a co-op to offset the problems of purchasing small quantities of external inputs. This helps us stay somewhat competitive with the large corporate run farms and ranches. Because we work on the place we live, we do not have to drive long distances to work, saving fuel that way. My particular house uses a Ground Source Heat Pump for heating in the winter. In the summer we leave the windows open all night and the house gets down into the low 60's (F). We close the windows as soon as we get up and close the shades on the side of the house the sun is on depending on the time of day. I imagine though I can't really state it as fact, our place is more efficient than the typical mcmansion you see in the cities these days.

<comment><USER14> > I imagine each bovine exported off the property represents some amount of > water.

A cow contains 100 to 200 gallons of water, by my estimate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Our suburban lot isn't well suited to growing much (it's in a wooded area, and the areas that are open are very shaded). I do, however, have a dozen maple trees on my lot (and a dozen more on an adjacent empty lot), and produce several gallons of maple syrup every spring.

It's a ton of work... By the end of March my arms are in the best shape they'll be all year (from hauling 5 gallon buckets of sap and splitting a couple cords of wood). It's also definitely not worth the time I put into it, from a financial perspective. I could earn enough money in an hour or two to buy my annual production.

It sure is tasty though...

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a neat Elixir startup that develops a CNC-controlled farming robot. They provide an app for planning your garden, and then it waters everything for you, calculates yield, and manages sensors for moisture and temperature.

I'm probably not doing the project justice with this description, because they've put together a really cool platform: [https://farm.bot/](https://farm.bot/)

A lot of their code is open-source too. They've been really huge drivers for the Nerves project: [https://github.com/FarmBot](https://github.com/FarmBot)

</comment><comment><USER17> If there are any folks that have tried homesteading, can you share your experience? Specifically, I would like to know what your starting conditions were and how successful you felt you were.

</comment><comment><USER18> I searched the article for the two works, "Hard Work"

These two words are not included in the article.

I grew up on a ranch-style property with homestead type parents. It was a great experience that involved an endless amount of physical labor.

Some examples; 1\. Every morning before school, feeding the horses and in the winter checking their water for ice. 2\. Every day after school. Feeding the horses again. 3\. Weekly shoveling of horse shit, into a manure spreader. The spreading it in the fields. 4\. Lots of work on small engines that break in the winter the Colorado winter in a cold barn. 5\. In the fall if we were lucky we would kill an Ekl. This required lots of walking around the mountains off-trail looking for an animal. Once found and killed the grueling work of and caring the meat to a vehicle on a road system. Then hours of butchering. Then more hours of hyde tanning. 6\. Winter storms can be powerful enough to rip the tin right off the roof of a hay barn. After the storm, the tins got to be put back on. More hard work. Plowing snow is less physical but still works. 7\. Spring is calving season, a calf may be born in the middle of the night. So you may be up all night supporting the birth. Then haft to go to school the next day and try learning while sleep-deprived. 8\. Summer is hay season, you might get two crops if you're lucky. There is always stress around the harvest time. It rains in the afternoons in the summer. And wet hay can not be bailed. If it rains after the hay is bailed and before it is bucked into a barn the bails must be dried. I remember being about 8 years old. So small I could not lift a bale. Me and my two brothers were sent into a 300-acre field to rotate hundreds of wet hay bails. So that they would be dry before we loaded them into the truck. It was exhausting. A few years later, when I was strong enough to lift a bail of hay. We would spend a few days lifting bails onto a flatbed trailer and then lift and stacking bails into a hay barn. It is amazing how nice cold glass of water taste after moving hay bails all day. 9\. I need to get back to work. So I will end with one last note on the work of homesteading; filling a pantry with canned goods for the winter is another major project which takes hours and hours of work 10\. Damn my tech job is so fucking easy compared to the work I did on my parents homestead growing up. 11\. Ok, one more: cutting and chopping wood for heating it the winter. We would need between 5 and 7 cords for the house depending on the winter. My Dad found a way to make sure this process was always grueling as I grew up and learned to take on more and more of it. That said, coming home from high school and splinting wood for 20min to keep the house heated for the night was relaxing after a day in class. I guess by the time I was ~15 my body had adjusted to the physical demands of my parent's homestead.

My 2 cents ~ 01

<comment><USER19> This. My father also has a farm, and I did a ton of manual labor until my mid-20s. It has zero romantic appeal to me, and I'm always amused by office workers that idealize rural living. For one thing, manual labor is incredibly mindless and repetitive. I am now a very comfortable urban dweller, and happy to not even have to shovel my front walk. I miss absolutely none of this lifestyle.

On the political front, I find idealizing farmers obnoxious because it's mostly a taxpayer-subsidized existence for extremely dubious reasons

<comment><USER20> There is not too much common with having a farm and having a homestead except (in most cases) rurality. To support your homestead financially you can be a farmer but you can be a software engineer too like I am. Farming is commercial activity to produce maximum amounts of "stuff" to sell others. Our homesteading usually produces some extra veggies too, but we share them with neighbours.

Nowadays a lot of the most boring and repetitive stuff can be optimised even in commercial farming. Chopping wood (and felling the trees with a chainsaw!) for the whole year, for example, takes less than a week of combined relatively relaxed and certainly not mindnumbing labor with modern tools. Personally I just often use an axe anyway since it gives a superb workout and I like it (I grew up in a farm so it has no novelty value for me).

Doing a lot of various small tasks that itself are boring and mindless when done commercially is really the best lifestyle I know. Of course, your idea of perfect life is allowed to be different.

There are homesteading purists who refuse to use even tractors and that stuff includes a lot more hard labour with little results. Oil has really changed the game and running a homestead doesn't have to be from zero to completely self sufficient in a year sort of thing. Especially those who haven't grown up in a farm (or homestead) need to start slowly to see if the reality of homesteading is what they really are after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nobody mentions the serious vacuum of useful information when it comes to small fruit and vegetable gardens and homestead. Thousands of websites but most lack useful info. Managing soil, pests and irrigation is really hard in mixed planting beds because you need a bunch of different chemicals for all the different pests and problems, also one screwup and you are done for the season try again in the fall or next year so learning is slow

<comment><USER2> it's not that difficult and no need to use pestisides. As long as you grew healthy plant in good soil, they can resist pests. And yes, some times you do get failure, but if you grow enough stuff, some failures won't be noticable given you have other stuff growing. And gardening is also a skill, the more you do, the better you get at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how she'd feel if she knew the stuff I was making were guns, ammo, and puppies.

</comment><comment><USER23> An alternative is CSA: Community Supported Agriculture. The power of cooperation comes into play, and if you are not interesting in gardening you can bring in other useful interests / resources.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is important now more than ever as we are at the mercy of external factors in getting infected by corona virus.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Kara Stiff holds a BS in Sustainable Agriculture from the University of > Maine.

I'm sure that education helps quite a lot.

I would love to have a small homestead (e.g. 1 acre) and I am currently in the process of finding a property to buy. I have been looking for about 6 months now for an appropriate place and it is quite difficult. Perhaps it is just the region I live in but the prices are ridiculous and the majority (like 99%) of available residential real-estate properties are cookie-cutter suburban homes embedded within suburban sprawl. The modern world is just not developed around the idea of people having gardens and chickens.

When I started looking I naively assumed I could find a rural property with high-speed internet within proximity of a small town. I even have extremely low expectations on the quality of the house and would take a quarter acre lot with a home built in the 1960's. I've been out to see probably 50 properties with my agent and it is like a non-stop crushing disappointment.

Still, the dream of living on my own quarter acre and working remotely is worth the effort. I just feel like the article glosses over the first hurdle: finding an appropriate property within a like-minded community. Depending on where you plan to live that could be significantly more difficult than you expect.

<comment><USER26> > I would love to have a small homestead (e.g. 1 acre)

> Still, the dream of living on my own quarter acre and working remotely is > worth the effort

That's just a house in a residential subdivision. A homestead should be at least 5-10 acres at a minimum IMO.

<comment><USER15> Where are you living that subdivision lots are 1 acre? Even a half acre would be a very large lot around here (in central New York).

You can do a whole lot on an acre of land. You may not support a family of twelve and twenty head of cattle, but you could produce a pretty significant amount of food.

<comment><USER27> I read it differently. They said a quarter acre was a subdivision size lot. That does sound about right.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Discovery of a 'holy grail' with the invention of universal computer memory - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100015.htm <comment><USER2> In my opinion the title of the original paper is much better, in that it's not clickbait. It's "Room-temperature Operation of Low-voltage, Non-volatile, Compound-semiconductor Memory Cells"

And it's here:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45370-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45370-1)

Moreover the abstract is probably a better foundation to base discussion on:

 _Whilst the different forms of conventional (charge-based) memories are well suited to their individual roles in computers and other electronic devices, flaws in their properties mean that intensive research into alternative, or emerging, memories continues. In particular, the goal of simultaneously achieving the contradictory requirements of non-volatility and fast, low- voltage (low-energy) switching has proved challenging. Here, we report an oxide-free, floating-gate memory cell based on III-V semiconductor heterostructures with a junctionless channel and non-destructive read of the stored data. Non-volatile data retention of at least 104 s in combination with switching at ≤2.6 V is achieved by use of the extraordinary 2.1 eV conduction band offsets of InAs /AlSb and a triple-barrier resonant tunnelling structure. The combination of low-voltage operation and small capacitance implies intrinsic switching energy per unit area that is 100 and 1000 times smaller than dynamic random access memory and Flash respectively. The device may thus be considered as a new emerging memory with considerable potential._

With all that out of the way, I find new memory tech to be one of the interesting niches of IT R&D going on today. So I hope this winds up going further.</comment>


Ask HN: SSO services, Auth0 vs Stormpath vs DailyCred - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
 I'm looking for experience/opinions on the above 3 mentioned SSO services.
The use case for the service for me is to use it for multiple small side projects that I would hope to grow in the future and would like to be able to get all the data out if needed.  I don't want to spend my time dealing with login systems, I'd rather concentrate on the products hence willing to pay some cash for a service rather than writing it all myself.
- Stormpath (www.stormpath.com) I'm currently favouring this due to a more understandable pricing model and their explicit mentioning of being able to export all the data from them if needed (even if they have limited social login options, only 2 as far as I can see).
- Auth0's (www.auth0.com) Pricing model seems strange to me (if I could predict my user login rates it might be better) but their product seems very polished.
- Dailycred (www.dailycred.com) pricing page is just confusing/weird to me and I find the web page not that friendly to learn about their product so not that enthused by it.
But all seem to fairly light on information about uptime SLAs etc.
So as I said, any current users of any of these I'd love to hear from! (or if there's better ones out there please let me know :) )
Thanks!
Paul <comment><USER2> Yo Paul,

I'm sorta biased here -- I work at Stormpath, so I think you should use us, but I did want to mention what we do which I personally think is cool (I use Stormpath myself for all my own side projects):

\- You can use us for SSO (something like having login.mysite.com).

\- You can use us to build your own user management system directly -- you can build a registration / login page on your site, and in the backend, use our open source libraries to create / manage / edit users on Stormpath.

\- You can use us to for 'hosted login' \-- basically when a user wants to register / login to your site you redirect them to us, and we'll display your own custom registration / login page, handle the authentication, then send the user back to you (new feature).

\- We have social login (although we only support two providers atm: Google / Facebook).

\- It's really easy to export your data out of us. I built a tool which does is really fast / well: [https://github.com/rdegges/stormpath- export](https://github.com/rdegges/stormpath-export)

\- Our framework integrations are top notch.

I've specifically been working on our framework integrations (check these out!):

\- [http://flask-stormpath.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://flask- stormpath.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) (Flask)

\- [http://docs.stormpath.com/nodejs/express/](http://docs.stormpath.com/nodejs/express/) (Express)

If you're using Flask or Express, there's no simpler way to do user authentication (and if there is, let me know, so I can fix it!).

Anyhow, if you do end up rolling with Stormpath, and we don't work well, let me know why. I'm not an owner or anything, but totally 100% love working on the product here. I think it's the best solution out there. I'm email@example.com (personal) if you wanna chat.

<comment><USER3> Can you guys share your stack and how do you guys managed to build this amazing product?

<comment><USER2> Definitely! We actually write about it quite often -- we're fairly well known in the security space.

You should probably check out / follow our blog: [https://stormpath.com/blog/](https://stormpath.com/blog/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend Userapp( [https://www.userapp.io/](https://www.userapp.io/) ). It has a lot of features and it is really easy to use. Also I have talked via email with the guys making the service and they offer great support. I only use a free version and not trying to advertise the service, but I really think it is the best solution for side projects/early stage startup MVP

</comment><comment><USER4> I am also doing research to select one such service and I believe the decision point comes down to this: pricing based on user count vs pricing based on activity (i.e. API calls). I think developers will chose the latter since you can somehow program you code to limit API calls but you cannot determine number of users in advance. So far Stormpath is winning b/c of this reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah I just seem to find number of API call to be more expressive to think about, but that might be because I'm a dev and think in that way. Also knowing I can easily buy more API calls enables me to make a nice graph of predicated costs which logically increases with number of users rather than having to jump up a tier of pricing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey,

Just as @rdegges said, I work on Auth0 so I'm a a little biased as well but I can give you some insights about Auth0 and tell you why I personally like it and why I joined the team.

\- Pricing: I agree with you that it's not 100% ideal. To be honest, we've been fighting to make this clearer and easier. Our basic idea here is, don't charge somebody who's starting to do something. Charge them once they have enough users so that they can start getting money in, and only charge for Users that actually USE your site (Users that have entered your site in the last 30 days at least). But I'd love to get some feedback about it, if you're willing to :). Why do you think it's confusing and how would you change it?

\- Features: I can enumerate all the features we have and all the ones I like, but the easiest way for you to decide what's best for you is just to create an account and try it out :). Put it in one of your projects. Follow the Quick start guide on [https://docs.auth0.com/](https://docs.auth0.com/) and integrate it to your app. Let me know then if this was easy and straight forward enough for you :).

\- Data Export: We don't have anything in the UI right now to show how you can export the data. However, our dashboard uses our API to show all of the information you see there, so you can just use our API to export all of the information in there. For example, for getting ALL of the users information to save it, just call [https://docs.auth0.com/api#!#get--api- users](https://docs.auth0.com/api#!#get--api-users) and get it :).

\- Why I joined Auth0: I work in Auth0 as a Developer Evangelist. The first thing you gotta know for this position is that if you don't like the product for the company you're joining, you're screwed :). What I love about it is that we use ALL standards (JWT, Open Id Connect, SAML, OAuth, etc.) which means that even if you don't like us after all, it's really easy to replace us. Also, we have TONS of stuff Open Source. I love Open Source and Openness. It's the way to go, and that's one of the main things I like about Auth0. Just go to our Github and check it out.

I don't want to make this message sound as I'm selling Auth0 to you. I haven't checked out Dailycred yet, but I do think Stormpath is also a good product. My final recommendation would be, just try all of them out, and join the one you feel more confortable with. If you have any feedback, please shoot me an email to firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com.

Cheers :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the response.

Part of my issue with your pricing strategy is that the way it is set out seems to almost go against the reason for (me) using a third party for user management, what I mean is that I just want users to be users, I don't care if they log in with social or enterprise etc, having to think about my user breakdown in that way is extra hassle and analysis that I really don't want to have to do. The more dials and knobs I have to think about for users the more complicated it gets for me. i.e. 'ok I use this plan if I have this many social users, but this plan if my users are enterprise users or this plan if etc'. And its kinda hard to tell what my user base will be until they turn up :/

Honestly ideally I want a 'dial' (or maybe 2 dials ,apps and users or whatever), whether that's API calls, unique users per month or whatever, I just want to easily know if I get <X> visitors then how much will it cost me.

I had to sit and think when I looked at your pricing page....I was trying to avoid doing that by throwing money at the problem :)

Hope that makes sense,

Paul

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You might want to look into [http://authrocket.com/](http://authrocket.com/) as well.</comment>


Russia Criminalizes the Spread of Online News Which 'Disrespects' the Government - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704600310/russia-criminalizes-the-spread-of-online-news-which-disrespects-the-government <comment><USER2> [http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012019031800...](http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001201903180022?index=1&rangeSize=1)

While it's not easy to read, because of overly complex sentence structure, it says "indecent form of disrespect".

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it will be used to shut up opposition media.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any U.N charters or resolutions that would discourage a nation state such as Russia, from simultaneously censoring its own population, and abusing free speech of another country to create strains?

<comment><USER4> No idea, but I'm all for countries which consider democracy, free speech, fighting corruption and decent labour conditions, to consider all other such countries to be preferred trading partners, and not countries that don't meet these criteria.

I think that would go a long way towards spreading these values to more countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> These types of laws are quite common throughout the world, including in developed western countries.

</comment><comment><USER6> Well that's a recipe for success!</comment>


How to Disagree - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

<comment><USER2> The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know.

This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) seem to offer the highest chance for truly profound and productive interactions.

Most often, people fail this test by not using this technique at all, or trying to pass off its doppleganger.

Such people are very easy to spot. Simply pay attention to the possible interpretations of what other people say. You are looking for the one who's always interpreting what others say in the best possible light and who runs with other's ideas, often in a delightful and surprising way.

EDIT: The fakers are easy to spot, by the their bias towards finding fault for other's ideas or their eager gravitation towards straw-man interpretations when more interesting alternatives are easily imagined.

<comment><USER3> That's an enlightening comment.

How can I stop being a "faker", as you call it? I, and probably some other HNers, are often pretty critical or take things people say more literally than they meant often, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt with a more liberal interpretation.

I realize this is usually not conducive to "profound and productive interactions", but it is almost second nature for me, something of a gut reaction and I'm not entirely sure how to go about fixing this problem. Behavior change is difficult, just seeking advice.

<comment><USER4> I think many of us here are the same way (or were at some point or sometimes still are). I love to argue. Often that comes from a good place, but often it comes from just that desire to win or to be difficult or whatever. I still have to push myself to really listen to the other view. Then my first step (when I'm in a better place) is to literally ask myself something like these questions, in roughly this order:

\+ What does this person believe?

\+ Why does this person believe those things?

\+ What would I need to believe (first) in order to convince me of those things?

Try to short-circuit evaluation: don't judge the thoughts at all. Don't ask if you agree. Just figure out _what_ they believe and _why_ they might hold those beliefs. What other beliefs seem to be required? What other beliefs would make someone think that way? This already gets you fairly far into their mindset.

<comment><USER3> Great set of questions!

Also like your last bit of advice - think about the person's point of view before evaluating what they've said. And by doing this, I see how one could also get to the root of a disagreement, rather than just the surface, and address that instead. Everything becomes philosophical from there I'm guessing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was just imagining how different hacker news would be if there were tags on each comment/post indicating what levels of disagreement hierarchy are contained within. I can't imagine a practical way to implement it but imagine the effect it would have on discourse if people were constantly reminded what they were reading/writing.

<comment><USER6> It would make _me_ feel constantly judged, arbitrarily even (because how would you ensure level-headed tagging?). It'd be as bad as downvoting, which is deliberately not possible on HN (with few exceptions).

<comment><USER7> I was assuming po meant some automatic system. If you wanted to use humans maybe you could have moderators do it.

I agree that it'd be dangerous to let anyone tag. People on YouTube usually mark anything they disagree with as spam. Hopefully it wouldn't be the same here though.

After reading your comment I realized I've seen downvoted comments but I can't downvote. Is there a karma requirement?

<comment><USER8> Yes. After you hit a certain karma threshold a down arrow shows up and you are able to downvote. The specific threshold varies, but it's below a thousand and above a hundred.

<comment><USER9> " _The specific threshold varies..._ " around 200 points if I remember correctly

<comment><USER10> 500 now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tangent: When I was reading this essay I couldn't help myself from imagining a counter essay (in satire) that argues a reverse valuing of the hierarchy of argument quality indicated by Graham. Additionally the quality of the argument to argue each tier's quality would be made using it's inverse tier's quality.

I.e. For DH0, name calling, a thorough argument would be made that it should in fact be the highest tier of argument DH6. It would be elaborate, with supporting examples and scenarios that would refute the central point of DH0 arguments being ineffective.

Then by the end, DH6's counter argument would be of quality DH0. The argument would simply be "This is just dumb, Paul Graham is a fag." [disclaimer: inline with the example given in the DH0 tier. Not actually my opinion :)]

On topic: Arguments that include DH0's tend to invoke a jerk-neck reaction from me, causing me to immediately discredit an entire (possibly well formed) argument. So much so, that even when only affiliated with such behavior good arguments lose all credibility. For example, in the 2008 election, when emails were constantly flying back and forth through the mailing list, I'd see forwarding of articles written in legitimate and well formed manner making valid statements. However, the forwarder would have prefix some DH0 level quip above the quote or article link which immediately made me write off the entire content. I.e "Barack Obama-bin-laden setting up death panels! <insert article link here>". Even if the article was bringing up valid concerns, and itself was well written--it was already sabotaged by being associated with infantile- ness.

</comment><comment><USER12> _The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation._

The only "problem" is that it may be "objectively" convincing, but it rarely convinces the person who's opinion/belief you refute, especially if there are deep emotional or irrational underpinnings, e.g. religion/fear/indoctrination, etc.

<comment><USER4> A favorite passage about argument from Robert Nozick's _Philosophical Explanations_.[1] It's a long quotation, but worth it, I think:

The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are _powerful_ and best when they are _knockdown_ , arguments _force_ you to a conclusion, if you believe the premises you _have to_ or _must_ believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much _punch_ , and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, _forces_ someone to a belief.

Though philosophy is carried on as a coercive activity, the penalty philosophers wield is, after all, rather weak. If the other person is willing to bear the label of "irrational" or "having the worse arguments," he can skip away happily maintaining his previous belief. He will be trailed, of course, by the philosopher furiously hurling philosophical imprecations: "What do you mean, you're willing to be irrational? You shouldn't be irrational because..." And although the philosopher is embarrassed by his inability to complete this sentence in a noncircular fasion - he can only produce reasons for accepting reasons - still, he is unwilling to let his adversary go.

Wouldn't it be better if philosophical arguments lef the person no possible answer at all, reducing him to impotent silence? Even then, he might sit there silently, smiling, Buddhalike. Perhaps philosophers need arguments so powerful they set up reverbarations in the brain: if the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he _dies_. How's that for a powerful argument. Yet, as with other physical threats ("your money or your life"), he can choose defiance. A "perfect" philosophical argument would leave no choice. (All emphases Nozick's.)

[1] [http://books.google.com/books?id=N4zH86WogYwC&lpg=PP1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=N4zH86WogYwC&lpg=PP1&ots=e7pynCwXH1&dq=%22philosophical%20explanations%22%20nozick&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Complementing that essay somewhat, a list of fallacies: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_falla...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_fallacies)

And cognitive biases: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_cogni...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

Although not all are equally bad.

<comment><USER14> I've found that a lot of the listed fallacies can have charitable interpretations.

A strawman argument where A proposes X and B attacks Y instead of attacking X can often be a case where X indirectly leads to Y and person B assumes that it is known that X leads to Y. Or, X is just Y in disguise. So it's not necessarily a matter of being fallacious, but fully formalizing an argument is often not feasible, so you take shortcuts. If you formalized the argument too much, it gets boring and people stop listening/reading.

<comment><USER15> I've seen this in action. I think if people would just be in the habit of saying "I believe X leads to Y" that would be sufficient, and doesn't require being too formal. But I think that habit is way above the level of discourse in America, where, near as I can tell ideologies and social news sites reinforce a partisan or "if you're not one of us you're not worth respecting" attitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you liked this list, you might be interested in:

Language in Thought and Action [http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action- S-I-Hayakawa/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-S-I- Hayakawa/dp/0156482401) by S I Hayakawa <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_Hayakawa>)

The Art of Conversation <http://www.basicincome.com/bp/artofconv.htm>

And Ben Franklin's Autobiography <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/148>

</comment><comment><USER17> The more interesting idea to explore is why people disagree in the first place. Most arguments that I witness are more about relationship positing than trying to prove a point. This includes jockeying for a better spot in the dominance hierarchy or identifying yourself as a part of a group.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sorry for offtopic, but (with all due respect to author and content) why da heck 95'ish buttons in website menu? They are burning my eyeballs and make me feel old.

<comment><USER19> The explanation is all here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1597129>

Nobody criticize the Yahoo Store buttons!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation... The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point." This is a subjective statement, presented without evidence [DH6, DH5]. In any particular discussion, the most convincing form _s_ of argument depends on the situation, the information both parties have available and their cognitive styles [DH4]. For example [DH3], sometimes highlighting a person's stake in the issue is often very effective. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156623>

As an analytical thinker, Paul seems to be projecting his own preferences to others [DH1] -- and he's left out some techniques that are extremely effective such as appealing to the emotions.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Most people don't really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can't help it."

I wish this point had been expanded upon, but I feel like I just saw a bunch of weasels sucking eggs.

It would make a very interesting essay on the origins of meanness, clearly (citation needed) it has evolutionary advantage (or is a side effect of such). I wonder if a poll could be constructed that would given to enough people would support or refute pg's claim. Given limited resources and if it comes down to me feed my family or you feed yours I'm pretty sure the past 600million years of brain development would kick in and side with meanness, but we live in a time of relative plenty and given those conditions I truly wonder where human nature falls.

</comment><comment><USER22> [2008]

</comment><comment><USER23> There's also the difference between disagreeing and trying to change the other person's opinion. Disagreeing is cheap: you just don't agree and that's it. You're not obliged to explain yourself to anyone but yourself.

</comment><comment><USER24> I haven't seen this essay for a while. I thought I'd lost it, and I could not find the bookmark which linked to it. Very useful. Thank you, rms.

<comment><USER25> You can find all of pg's essays at <http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html>. They are of good enough quality that it is worth browsing that occasionally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Older discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021060>

</comment><comment><USER27> I disagree.

</comment><comment><USER15> DH0, upvoted to 5 (while my comments are 0 and -1): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138625>

This was my first day. I stuck around for a day or two, then I just logged out and stopped participating. Just use this as a site to find links, and when you're not logged in there's no incentive to go see what people said in reply to you, and no focus on karma score or anything. I don't know if the site requires a certain level of karma to submit new items, but I don't really feel like submitting things here when I don't feel like they'll get a fair shake. (There were good discussions on some of my other comments, but another one where it became clear that I no real discussion was possible because of ideology combined with the "fucking idiot" comment were enough to have me stop participating.

This is just FYI. I'd love for there to be a place to have good discussions with people. I don't know how to make HN that place, and so I'm just going to use it as a source of articles to read.

I think all news sites that allow downvoting end up operating as a sort of "smear the queer" system for punishing people who have a minority viewpoint, without regard to how well they articulate it or even what they are actually saying (in some cases.)

Edit: Yes this topic got me to log in, and I'll be logging out now. I don't really want to debate the topic that I got attacked over, as my original comment was actually trying to defend someone else's perspective. Please whether you agree with me or not, take this as "market feedback" of what a new user experienced, and why I'm not participating. Maybe I have thin skin in your opinion, that's fine. Maybe I'm way too wordy to participate on a site like this! That's fine too.

<comment><USER28> I'd suggest not viewing karma as the reward, but rather your influence. Ad- hominem attacks and downvotes are typically a response to cognitive dissonance - your argument or facts forced someone to rethink views they are emotionally attached to, and they don't like it.

You received at least 3 upvotes, and earl received 4. (Actually, most likely you both received a mix of both upvotes and downvotes.) Since I seriously doubt that those are coming from the same people, you influenced 7 people in some way. You made 4 people uncomfortable about their views, but they were unable to rationally respond. That pushes them a little closer to changing their views.

Well done.

<comment><USER15> Thanks to you and "TheAmazingIdiot" (ugh, his name makes me call him a name, the delima!) for the feedback. I'm going to try sticking around a bit.</comment></comment></comment>


PayPal Corporation Said to Be Implicated in Withheld NSA Documents - <AUTHOR> http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/11/bfp-breaking-news-omidyars-paypal-corporation-said-to-be-implicated-in-withheld-nsa-documents/ <comment><USER2> This appears to be part of a disinformation campaign to discredit Greenwald and The Intercept, using Paypal as the sacrificial goat.

The fact that Greenwald has held back documents cannot, by itself, be held against him. The documentation handed over by Snowden contained a lot of sensitive material, and it was left to the journalists to select publishable items, balancing considerations of public interest versus national security.

As for the $250M, that is the sum invested in the First Look Media news agency, and there is nothing to suggest that Greenwald is receiving more than a regular journalist's salary.</comment>


Lunar landing via a linear accelerator (1977) - <AUTHOR> http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1988LPICo.652...26B&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES <comment><USER2> Nice idea, but is the risk of being slightly off target and having your linac destroyed by a high-speed projectile worth the savings?

<comment><AUTHOR> True.. But maybe a Aircraft carrier harness sort of system that adds a high friction carriage after you hook into it may be better.</comment></comment>


Firefox 18 - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/01/08/you-can-download-firefox-18-for-windows-mac-and-linux-right-now-official-launch-this-week/?fromcat=all <comment><USER2> I've used Firefox since the time it was called Phoenix. I still use it as my default browser, but there are two quite simple features in Chrome that I'm really missing in Firefox:

1\. Exemplary implementation of user accounts. I have a separate user account for my private Google account (Gmail, Calendar etc), a second for Facebook, a third for work (separate Twitter and Google accounts) and a third for web development. I know Firefox has a Profile manager and that it is possible to use -no-remote to run several profiles at once. But: it does not work very well at all. Not even with the [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/profileswitch...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/profileswitcher/) addon.

2\. Incognito window can run in parallel with the "normal" browsing session. This is lovely when I want to see how a website looks in a clean browser. In Firefox the private session replaces the normal session until i chose to go back to "unprivate" again.

<comment><USER3> Seconding 2). Incognito is not just for porn, but very handy to check for cookie or session related troubles too. Chrome's implementation should be the default for all private browsing sessions in browsers.

<comment><USER4> Per-window private browsing is implemented and available in Nightly according to [1] (so, most likely in Aurora after the release shift this week). So hopefully it'll be in Firefox 20.

Meta-bug for per-window private browsing in Bugzilla is [2].

[1] [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-development- highli...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-development-highlights- per-window-private-browsing-canvas-globalcompositeoperation-new-values/)

[2] <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463027>

<comment><USER2> Great news!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This isn't officially released yet.

If you're the type who would be willing to install this, you should consider using the Beta channel instead. Beta releases are generally very close to release quality, and you'd help gather telemetry data earlier.

<comment><USER6> I've been using the beta channel since FF6 (maybe) and, as you said, it's been quite reliable. It's fun because you feel like you're somehow an insider and privileged because you get features (that no one but you would care about!) earlier than everyone else. Yes, these are quite silly feelings, but what the heck.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like you might enjoy the Nightly channel, in my experience it's been pretty stable.

<comment><USER8> Aurora is a good compromise. I was on nightly for a few months, and I had one or two times where something would break. Usually it was just a GUI element getting misaligned from some change. The worst was when it broke web video for a day.

I wish there was a reliable Aurora channel on Arch. The pkgbuild system isn't well suited to keeping up to date with a moving filename target like Firefox.

<comment><USER9> There's an Arch developer named heftig who maintains a custom repository with Aurora. I've been using it successfully the last few months. I think aurora is updated daily, but I haven't watched it closely.

Info: <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=117157> Repo 32-bit: <http://pkgbuild.com/~heftig/repo/i686> Repo 64-bit: <http://pkgbuild.com/~heftig/repo/x86_64>

<comment><USER10> Another option is to download the latest build [1] and use the built-in updater.

[1] [https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox- bu...](https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox- builds/mozilla-aurora-linux64/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Initial support for the CSS Flexbox Module has been landed. It is disabled by default but can be enabled by setting layout.css.flexbox.enabled to true._

This is actually a feature I'm waiting to see on at least both Chrome and Firefox (without vendor prefixes). I haven't been tracking the spec closely enough to see how close it is to being finalized since the "new" flexbox model was adopted.

Other changes that interest me for fairly obvious reasons:

       Preliminary support for WebRTC.
       New HTML scaling algorithm.
       Performance improvements around tab switching.
       Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates.
       Support for W3C touch events impemented, taking the place of MozTouch events.

The last one for better, less specific Javascript.

<comment><USER12> Firefox implements it without prefix (it is finalized). It will be enabled by default in Fx 20. It supports both horizontal and vertical flexboxes but not yet multiline flexbox.

Opera supports it fully and without prefix too.

Webkit tends to be (very) late in unprefixing (they are the only ones with prefix for Animation, Gradients, Transitions nowadays.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Browsers that support TouchEvents: \- Chrome (desktop and mobile) \- Safari (mobile) \- Firefox (mobile, and now desktop)

Browsers that support Microsoft's proposed PointerEvents: \- Internet Explorer (desktop and mobile)

I get in theory why having a combined touch/pen/mouse API is a good idea, but MS's proposal makes handling multiple touches concurrently much harder than it should be. It'd be nice if they'd get over themselves and implement the same standard as everyone else (especially if they want to be relevant in a world where touch interactions are designed primarily for WebKit, while they have vanishingly low market share in touch-first devices.)

<comment><USER14> From what I've heard Microsoft's PointerEvents offer a better complete model, without creating a web-standard which involves risks of getting sued by Apple should you ever dare to implement it.

For once, it seems Microsoft has a better option.

And no, just because it's in WebKit doesn't make it better, much less an official standard. WebKit is the new IE and it's destructive for the web. People design for "Webkit" as if it _was_ the standard, and expect everyone else "to eventually come along". We did see how well that plays out not that many years ago, but then we did it for MSIE.

As a 5 minute user of Firefox mobile, I can attest to this happening right now. The mobile web is at this point not even usuable on a non-webkit browser.

This is bad for the web. You are doing it. Please stop doing it.

The only thing good for the web is following web-standards. If you're not complying to them, you are doing something wrong, and I don't care what your reason is: You are doing something wrong.

<comment><USER15> > For once, it seems Microsoft has a better option.

Not for the first time. * { box-sizing: border-box; } is a staple of mine.

> WebKit is the new IE and it's destructive for the web.

 _Microsoft has submitted a patch to the WebKit project to extend the open source rendering engine with a prototype implementation of the Pointer Events specification that the company is also working on together with Google, Mozilla, and Opera. ... The first specification, Touch Events, has been essentially abandoned._ [1]

> The mobile web is at this point not even usuable on a non-webkit browser. > This is bad for the web. You are doing it. Please stop doing it.

There's no need to hector web developers about this. (I assume that's what you meant by 'you'.) It's mostly up to the browser makers to hash this out. Microsoft's contribution to Webkit was an exemplary and, from what I can see, much-welcomed response to Apple's patent shenanigans over Touch. Let's just give it time.

It's worth bearing in mind that Android (which ships Webkit by default) is currently the only mainstream mobile OS that even allows unrestricted use of independent browser technology, which is partly why Firefox Mobile is only available for that platform.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/12/micros...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/12/microsoft-offers-patches-to-webkit-to-aid-touch- compatibility/)

<comment><USER13> I forgot about that. Wonder when/if it will land in Chrome...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know the state of a Modern UI (what used to be called Metro) version of Firefox. I've recently switched to Windows 8 and love it apart from the lack of a native Firefox, obviously I can run the desktop version but I'd rather use the new UI where possible.

The last release/mention I found was a preview [1] in October last year and then nothing but tumbleweed ...

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/10/04/firefox-m...](https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/10/04/firefox- metro-preview/)

<comment><USER17> (Mozilla dev here)

I can guarantee you that people are working on it. I don't know the specifics, but it's coming along. You can follow the commits here [1]. Of course because it is free software, if you are not afraid to test a early prototype, you can get a build for every push to the repo. It is a bit complicated (lots of clicks in our custom CI interface), tell me if you are interested.

[1]: <http://hg.mozilla.org/projects/elm/>, the elm branch being the repo where people work on Win8 support.

<comment><USER16> Thanks padenot, it would be great if you could point me in the direction of where to find the builds.

<comment><USER18> Hi, I'm an engineer on the Metro Firefox team. Here's the best place to get a nightly build with Metro enabled. Needless to say, these are unsupported development snapshots and are not ready yet for everyday browsing:

[http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates...](http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest- elm/firefox-20.0a1.en-US.win32.installer.exe)

We hope to enable Metro in the main (mozilla-central) nightly builds within the next few weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone confirm whether final flexbox support was added? <http://caniuse.com/flexbox> suggests that FF 18 only has support for the old version of the standard.

<comment><USER11> As referenced from Mozilla[1], Firefox and Opera support the new spec without prefix, Chrome supports it with the -webkit prefix, and Internet Explorer supports the old-flexbox.

[1]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/CSS/Using_CSS_flexi...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/CSS/Using_CSS_flexible_boxes)

<comment><USER19> That page says it's behind a developer flag, and only limited single-line support is provided. Is the page up to date, or is the feature fully implemented, and accessible to anyone, regardless of flags?

<comment><USER20> Firefox 20 will contain css3 flexbox unpreffed and unprefixed. Assuming nothing is found that would make us flip the pref to false during the Aurora or Beta cycles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > FIXED: Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages (62178).

Very nice. Check out the test page here: <https://people.mozilla.com/~bsterne/tests/62178/test.html>

Also, if you can, switch your site to default to HTTPS (redirect from HTTP to HTTPS right away), especially if you run some kind of an API. I am looking at you Google, with your Charts API. Last I checked the only way to get those via HTTPS was through one employee's epic quest to make their API's HTTPS-capable.

<comment><USER22> Huh? :-( <http://i.imgur.com/taamA.png>

<comment><USER23> The relnote is subtly wrong. The functionality has been landed behind a pref, but it's not on by default yet because there are a few UI issues to sort out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I used firefox up until I ran into a nasty Javascript bug which caused Firebug to conk out, never hitting the breakpoint. I switched to Chrome and the breakpoint was hit every time. I got the overall impression that Firefox's debugging tools weren't as good as Chrome's. Has this changed at all?

<comment><USER18> Firefox now has a built-in debugger (which appeared in Firefox 15, released in August 2012). This uses a new debugging back-end built by Mozilla's JS and devtools teams, totally separate from the older Firebug debugger code. It should be more robust, and has new features like remote debugging of code running in Firefox for Android.

More info at [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/debugger-responsive- design...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/debugger-responsive-design-view- and-more-in-firefox-aurora-15/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Please speed up SVG animations in Firefox 19. d3.js animations can be painfully slow in Firefox when they aren't in Webkit.

<comment><USER12> You should fill a bug with a demo in <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org> (with timing in Fx and in a Webkit browser to show the problem)

They won't read you here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The retina support is really welcome.

Up until now, using firefox on a retina mac was kind of disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm still using 3.5.7. What more could you want?

<comment><USER28> Security updates? The huge number of performance boosts and resource use reductions later versions have seen? The very large number of css properties and selectors added?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Firefox version numbers could hardly be any more meaningless.

<comment><USER30> Let's not have this discussion again.</comment></comment>


Fisher-Price Logic Levels for the Atari 8-bit Family - josh-wrale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNpaO7wPJM0 <comment> josh-wrale This game would be a good candidate for an in-browser or touch-screen clone. With the right design, I think a clone of this could be a great game for folks of all ages.</comment>


Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today - <AUTHOR> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality <comment><USER2> As a philosophy grad who finds this stuff mildly interesting, I wish the "rationalists" had chosen a different name for their movement. While "rationality" brings to mind Plato or Descartes, this movement appears to be a kind of hyper-empiricism informed by cognitive psychology, AI research, and Bayesian statistics. In any case, if you're going to be an empiricist, it strikes me as a pretty decent way to go.

<comment><USER3> Serious question: what would you recommend, instead of empiricism?

<comment><USER4> One thing the parent didn't bring up was there was a philosophical movement called "rationalism" that preceded the contemporary movement that refers itself by the same name. These so-called "Continental Rationalists" included philosophers like Descartes and Leibniz. The British Empiricist movement, featuring Locke, Berkeley and Hume, arose in response to the Continental Rationalists.

One of the key points of contention between these two movements was the problem of "innate knowledge". Rationalists believed that we were born with some sorts of knowledge (foundationalism). Leibniz believed that we were born with the basic mathematical knowledge and reasoning. Descartes thought he had a great deal of innate ideas -- perhaps most famously, his proof of the existence of God relied on the fact that he had an innate idea of God.

It was really only until Locke came along that anyone presented a top-down theory attempting to account for the acquisition of basic forms of knowledge (e.g. difference and similarity, truth and falsehood) while maintaining an initial "tabula rasa" state.

I wouldn't lump in the contemporary rationalist movement with either of these previous movements -- it is probably best considered as an extension of logical positivism, owing to heirs like early Wittgenstein.

However, positivism brushed up against many philosophical problems: semantics, the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, etc. Things got worse when Wittgenstein eventually wrote "Philosophical Investigations" which effectively contradicted everything he wrote in the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", the latter of which was the foundational text of logical positivism. The two schools of thought were so different that people generally refer to "Tractatus" and "post-Tractatus" Wittgenstein.

One of the key scientific critics to logical positivism was Karl Popper -- best known for formalizing the ideas of falsifiability -- eschewed the idea of induction altogether. I highly recommend his "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" (which is not to say that I agree with Popper, but he is an important figure in the philosophy of science).

Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" calls into question the very idea of there being a "scientific truth" that is independent of historical assumptions. Contemporary heirs of this kind of historically focused thought, like Ian Hacking, try to make room for the ideas of "scientific fact" in some contexts (particle physics) but question it in others (psychology). I highly recommend Hacking's "Making Up People" \-- a brilliant collection of essays which is still friendly to people who haven't read a great deal of Foucault (another important figure in recent philosophy of science).

Second to last in my brief and certainly not comprehensive list is Hilary Putnam. It's hard to precisely pin down Putnam's thought -- as a philosopher he is remarkably open to criticism -- he has written papers in response to himself. Putnam has mostly kept himself consistent with scientific realism -- which basically states that scientific theories are usually more-or-less true.. Early on, he was a metaphysical realist who became sharply opposed to the school. Frankly, I don't know where he stands today, but read his essay "Brains in a vat" if you're at all interested in Skepticism.

Finally, this list of alternatives to positivism would be incomplete without Richard Rorty. His landmark text, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature", rejects the possibility of an epistemology altogether. I can't recommend Rorty's writings enough -- I believe he stands with Foucault as the most important pair of philosophers in the last 50 years.

I hope that I've given some more background on the rationalist/empiricist debate and contemporary alternatives to proper empiricist and positivist thought. I certainly cannot give you anything comprehensive in the space of a HN comment -- my only goal has been to hint towards various schools of thought on this matter. Pierre Hadot wrote that philosophy is a way of life moreso than a domain of thought -- and I tend to believe that in life, the journey is more important than the destination. In that respect, it is impossible for me to give you a firm answer to the question you asked of the OP: "if not empiricism, then what?" \-- but I hope that my comments help you find where you stand.

<comment><USER5> > Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" calls into question > the very idea of there being a "scientific truth" that is independent of > historical assumptions.

OK, let's do this.

We have a scientific theory.

From it, we derive some engineering discipline, which uses the theory to, essentially, make predictions about what will happen if we do _this_ to _that_ , with the property that, if the predictions hold true, we'll have something useful.

The people following the engineering discipline create things.

Those things work.

Does that not, then, validate the scientific theory?

And if that scientific theory is validated, does that not knock Kuhn on his ass?

Because the forces which the artifact the engineers created is subject to don't give a rat's ass what our current culture says. They were the same billions of years ago and will be the same billions of years hence, the existence of our species or intelligent life at all notwithstanding.

OK, some fields of science don't make sense without humans to study. Right. But others will still be just as true if we're wiped out and replaced by sapient _Corvidae_ , or not replaced at all.

<comment><USER4> Kuhn never denies that there are facts about the universe that we can observe. And I agree with you about this general class of example: no number of scientific discoveries or paradigm shifts will ever make the photoelectric effect cease occurring.

Kuhn's argument is that science occasionally undergoes what he calls "paradigm shifts" \-- a low-level shift in assumptions about a certain realm of scientific thought that fundamentally changes the way we approach a particular field. One example Kuhn gives is the Copernican Revolution. Copernicus, as we all know, proposed the heliocentric solar model. Before Copernicus, most people used Ptolemy's epicycles to model the movement of planetary bodies. Initially, it worked, but the cracks started to show as observations accumulated. A major shift in our assumptions about the organization and modeling of planetary bodies had to occur before scientific progress could move forward.

In this sense, scientific knowledge progresses in giant shifts, rather than linearly or incrementally. Consider the theory of atomism how it was disrupted by the Rutherford Gold Foil experiment, or the Double-Slit experiment and what that did for physics. A dominant paradigm must always make way for a new paradigm in order for scientific progress to occur.

The upshot of all of this, according to Kuhn, is that the criteria for scientific truth are always caught up in certain historical assumptions and that we have to take these assumptions into account when assessing the veracity of a given theory. He doesn't say that there aren't facts about the universe, but rather, that the scientific approach to understanding the universe is caught up in a paradigmatic frame which makes it impossible to derive a simple, objective algorithm/process for scientific discovery.

Does that make sense?

<comment><USER6> > He doesn't say that there aren't facts about the universe, but rather, that > the scientific approach to understanding the universe is caught up in a > paradigmatic frame which makes it impossible to derive a simple, objective > algorithm/process for scientific discovery.

I don't see how he gets from A to B. How is the fact that we obviously can only build models based on the past - since the future is not accessible to us - prove that it is impossible to refine models to asymptotically approach a hypothetical fundamental truth?

We may not have a formalized algorithm. But whatever is running on human brains has worked so far.

If I boil this down it sounds to me like he's claiming that a system that takes its past states as one of its inputs (observation of the universe being another) is incapable of refining scientific theories? Which, given the fact that's exactly how scientific discovery has been done so far, seems false.

So what am I missing here?

<comment><USER4>
      I don't see how he gets from A to B

There is only so much I can do to summarize his argument in an online forum without replicating the entire book. I recognize that I'm not doing the full- text justice, but it's hard to go into much more depth without simply recommending that you read the book itself.

      If I boil this down it sounds to me like he's claiming that a system that takes its past states as one of its inputs (observation of the universe being another) is incapable of refining scientific theories? Which, given the fact that's exactly how scientific discovery has been done so far, seems false.

I wouldn't say that paradigm shifts like the Copernican revolution, the discovery of elementary particles, or the uncovering of quantum mechanics are acts of "refining" existing theories -- they largely involved throwing away a significant amount of work and starting from scratch. Scientists since Ptolemy created extraordinarily complex epicycle models to explain the movement of planetary bodies from a geocentric perspective. When the Copernican heliocentric model became accepted, all the work on epicycles became more or less useless.

Now, we didn't have to abandon Newtonian mechanics entirely, but quantum mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics in most fields dealing with particles and small numbers of atoms.

Kuhn's argument is that science has advanced, but not through a simple process of "refining". According to Kuhn, science isn't generally a linear or incremental process -- it is a cyclical one in which our existing models cease being useful and we have to find a better one.

I hope that helps! If you're interested, I highly recommend reading the text -- Kuhn was an excellent writer [1].

[1] [http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn...](http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm seriously surprised at how many people here are fans of Yudkowsky, given his lack of any real productive output beyond thought experiments and fanfiction, the distinctly weird stuff he judges as right by taking his philosophy to the extremes (e.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"), and the way he treats certain fringe positions as absolutely true despite the lack of any solid evidence to support them (for example, many-worlds theory).

<comment><USER8> >.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"),

The number in question was 3^^^3 using Knuth's Up Arrow Notation. As he explains, that's a lot of people: (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))).

If we decide that one person being tortured for 50 years is worth a quick blink by all those other people, then a still tiny amount of people (say, 7625597484987) being tortured would be worth everyone else blinking furiously for their entire lives.

So it's not about deciding one person's fate. It's about being consistent, because if you make an exception for one person, that turns into several hundred billion, then that small sacrifice everyone else was to carry now has destroyed everyone else, too.

(I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0, then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.)

Personally, I take a more negative view and see the immense possibility for suffering as a reason that we should seek to destroy the entire multiverse. It's just not very nice otherwise.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/)

<comment><USER7> > I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0, > then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.

Why not round it down to 0?

There's some level of discomfort in everyday life to start with that's effectively negligible for any normal person, simply because it's a prerequisite for interacting with the world (getting a raindrop in your eye, dealing with a minor wedgie, having an itchy nose, whatever).

<comment><USER8> If you round down before multiplying, then you get an invalid answer. First multiply it out. So in my example, torturing 7,625,597,484,987 people for 50 years, versus that many specks of dust for everyone else. (7 trillion is essentially 1, compared to 3^^^3, right?) 7 trillion specks of dust is enough to turn all those other lives into torture, as 7 trillion specks of dust is a few thousand a second, for a very long life.

That's why you can't round down first. Eliezer's entire intent there is to illustrate that by default, we suck at scale, we're scope insensitive.

Another way: If everyone in the US gave just a penny directly to a poor person, once in a lifetime, that person would be wealthy for life and be OK, right? A penny rounds down to zero, thus we can determine that the right action is to always give money directly to poor individuals, as this will cure poverty at a cost of nothing.

You're right that if the only choice, ever, in the entire multiverse was this one 50 years or 3^^^3 specks of dust, then sure, you don't need to follow the rules/math. But we're never going to be faced with just a single decision. Instead, we should be consistent and follow the numbers to determine utility.

<comment><USER7> > If you round down before multiplying, then you get an invalid answer.

Your argument here is based on the premise that the subjectively-inflicted- pain of "a whole lot of specks of dust in a person's eye" can be treated as a multiple of "one speck of dust in a person's eye", which to me is the point of absurdity that makes the whole thought exercise fall apart.

<comment><USER9> That's just basic utilitarianism. What exactly are you objecting to? That 2 dust specks in 2 people's eyes isn't exactly twice as bad as 1 dust speck?

<comment><USER7> > What exactly are you objecting to?

That some arbitrarily minimal amount of subjective pain can be presumed to be actually distinguishable from the general background unpleasantness of being human in the first place.

Edit: Rephrased to remove gibberish resulting from temporary brain/keyboard disconnect.

<comment><USER7> For some reason HN won't let me reply to Houshalter's post, but...

> objectively

How can pain be objective? The universe doesn't give a shit that some lumpy sacks of meat dislike certain experiences, and exactly the same action can be unpleasant for some people but pleasant for others. (BDSM enthusiasts, for example, often actively seek out experiences that other people would consider painful.)

<comment><USER9> >How can pain be objective?

Do you object that a pin prick is bad? Do you want to avoid being pricked?

<comment><USER7> >Do you object that a pin prick is bad?

That depends on the context. If it's acupuncture, for example, it can be quite good, even if the precise sensation is exactly the same as the otherwise unpleasant case of poking myself with a needle while sewing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Epub / mobi / PDF available from here, as well as better (IMHO) web formatting, author's notes, etc:

[http://hpmor.com/](http://hpmor.com/)

<comment><USER11> Also allows selecting text while reading. Seriously, what were the fanfiction.net guys thinking?

<comment><USER12> It's implemented for copy-protection purposes.

Yes, seriously.

[http://blog.fictionpress.com/2013/10/11/languages-for- naviga...](http://blog.fictionpress.com/2013/10/11/languages-for-navigation/)

You can get around it by disabling Javascript, but then all the text becomes annoyingly center-aligned.

<comment><USER13> You can also get around it, at least in Chrome, by going to the console and entering:

      $('div#storytextp.storytextp').css('-webkit-user-select', 'inherit');

If that doesn't work, I would also try:

      $('div.nocopy').removeClass('nocopy');

I have no idea what the 'nocopy' class actually does (in Chrome it seems to do nothing), but it seems like something to try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For those who start reading and wonder when Harry stops being an insufferable little jerk... I'm on chapter 57, now, and he's getting better.

<comment><USER15> One important thing, for those who find the main character insufferable at times: this is not a simple mary sue story.

When you notice Harry doing something dumb, oblivious, overconfident, condescending, etc. do not assume that this is the author's personality leaking through. It may be the intended reading.

<comment><USER16> I only read a little of it, but every time a character did something _dumb, oblivious, overconfident, condescending_ , I braced myself for a thought missile.

I guess you could say I found it a bit hamfisted.

<comment><USER17> In fact, Harry's personality is a Clue, or rather Bayesian evidence to use when predicting future events in the story, or deducing the true nature of the mysterious events that started the story.

<comment><USER7> Given that the early parts of the story are written in such a way that the narrative treats Harry's behavior as completely right and justified, it seems far more likely to be a retcon done years after the fact than some secret master plan Yudkowsky had in mind from the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> The ending was explicitly foreshadowed in Ch. 1, including advance quotes. And, like, all the other early chapters. Nobody familiar with HPMOR could possibly take seriously the notion that this was a retcon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm very happy about this. I got to around chapter 85, but, due to the author's time constraints, I put it down at that point. I'll have to pick it up and start over. It is well worth the read.

<comment><USER19> Almost exactly the same for me. I read it when he was on Chapter 87. Looking forward to read the whole thing from start to finish now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It was a brilliant story , loved it! and did recommend it to i think almost everyone i know at least once XD ! A bit sad its finished

<comment><USER21> Ditto. Started reading it a few weeks ago and just caught up two days before the end. Certainly ranks among my favorite novels now. Almost literally could not put it down until I finished. Thanks, Eliezer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thanks Eliezer. I loved it. People new to HPMOR will be able to gorge on it, but reading it in episodes and anticipating the next one with a bunch of people made it something special.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've recommended this book to sooo many people, I think it is one of the best ways to introduce rational thinking & understanding to people (well... at least to Harry Potter fans).

</comment><comment><USER24> Fascinating and excellent story. I was originally "eye rolling" at the diatribe against death, but I changed my mind when I realized how few people really have different and thought provoking opinions on what we think about the status quo. The rationality of the argument got past my original response, in time.

<comment><USER25> Similar here -- there are plenty of huge pitfalls there, if we don't die; but that's not the same thing as saying the pitfalls are insurmountable, and I value things that get me thinking without just hitting "oh, that's dumb" after a bit of reflection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Thank you for writing this, and also thank you for adapting the updating time to suitable times for Europe! I'm looking forward to your next project.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well done! Thank you for your time and effort to do that. I enjoyed the story and learned a thing or two along the way.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is this something you would recommend reading to non Harry Potter fans as well?

<comment><USER29> Absolutely. It makes a fair bit of fun of the original, but doesn't require that you've read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Thank you for the wild ride, Eliezer.

</comment><comment><USER31> HPMOR is available as a podcast also - [http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/](http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/).

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm wondering if this will be published as a physical book. I prefer reading more than a few pages on normal paper.

<comment><USER33> Fan fiction at best is a grey area and at worst is blatant copyright infringement.

The community seems more than happy to leave it in that place rather than put it to the test by publishing something like that or attempting to make money from that.

As soon as someone tries to make money from it, even if just to recoup self- publishing costs there will be a lawsuit and it'll be decided concretely, probably not in the community's favor.

<comment><USER7> Yudkowsky has already made money off it by gating chapters behind receiving a certain amount in donations, which is part of why I find it really strange that he's apparently now trying to explicitly get Rowling's attention.

<comment><USER33> I didn't know that, donations are baiting the lion, I suppose it helps though that his story is almost completely separate from canon. That's a very risky path to walk though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I offered to post pre-written chapters at a higher speed (1 per 2 days instead 1 per 4 days) if a medium-sized charity I cofounded many years earlier made its annual donation target during a matching grant. Beware that HPMOR has a hatedom, and don't believe everything you're told about it.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, donations to a charity and donations to an author are very different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Thank you, Eliezer. It's been a great run and the last few weeks have been indeed special

</comment><comment><USER35> Well done ! I started reading this - got around to 10 and stopped for a while - and totally forgot about it.

It continued and - finally ! - finished.

PS: Fellow readers, did it ever stop being awesome and/or become unpleasant from the perspective of the original plot ?

<comment> T-A I loved it. But I did have second thoughts when it started turning dark after I had already recommended it to a friend as adequte reading for his very young, Potter-obsessed son. After the troll incursion, I was thinking "Uh oh, what have I done?!?".

On a lighter note, I was hoping right to the end that the last transfiguration would end up producing a house elf, ideally Dobby. :D

Eliezer, if you're reading this: thanks. It was awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Every time I see anything related to Less Wrong all I can think of is Roko's Basilisk and I can't stop laughing.

<comment><USER37> Every time I see your nickname all I can think of is that time you got drunk and puked on the floor.

I'm joking of course, but that and your comment are equally smart ways of evaluating other people's deeds and ideas.

<comment><USER7> We have no way to know if homulilly got drunk and puked on the floor in public, but we do know that Yudkowsky and assorted Lesswrong visitors had a reaction to the Roko's basilisk concept that most relatively "normal" people would judge as embarrassing or humorous.

<comment><USER37> That was one situation in the long history of a community with high standards of reasoning and discussion, that produces tons of interesting and educative content. Are you _really_ going to judge the whole community by a single overreaction they AFAIR later admitted was an overreaction?

<comment><USER36> I'm not really saying anything about the community other than my own immediate reaction to it. I've read a bit of hpmor and found it fairly entertaining in an Ayn Rand sort of way but I have trouble investing the time required in online fiction as vast as it is and I've found the fanbase to be fairly obnoxious in my personal interactions.

For the record, while I wont deny that I've had more to drink than I could handle in the past, I've always made it to the toilet in time to avoid any public embarrassment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thanks Eliezer. That was an amazing journey.

</comment><comment><USER39> I read a bunch of chapters a few years ago and thought it was remarkably horrid.

<comment><USER40> Your comment could be more valuable if it included your reasoning or suggestions for improvement.

<comment><USER41> I have been following someone's critical chapter-by-chapter criticism of HPMOR for some time now, which might be illustrative. It is admittedly quite long: [http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer- Yudotter/chrono](http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono)

Among other things, I've often seen people try to sell HPMOR as, "Harry Potter fanfiction in which Harry applies the scientific method to the magical world of Harry Potter!" And that shows up _a little_ [^1] but is by and large not the content of the work. Harry does very few experiments to verify his hypotheses and is actually a broadly incurious character. For example: Harry is nominally interested in eliminating death, but never once investigates the many magical mechanisms which seem to eliminate death, preferring to just _talk_ about it instead. Similarly, he comes up with hypotheses as to how magic works, but never bothers to investigate them beyond speculation.

Additionally, a lot of the "solutions" to problems Harry has are relatively unsatisfying: Harry often circumvents a problem by "clever" applications of the rules, but because the rules of magic as given both in Rowling and in Yudkowsky are ill-defined and even self-contradictory, this seems less clever and more like arbitrary author fiat. Harry is also given a small time machine early on in the plot, and so more often than not, the solution to his problems is, "Use the time-turner again."

Finally, I personally found the writing style to be generally in need of editing—not _terrible_ but certainly not polished—but I consider that to be a smaller problem than the above plot-related issues. EDIT: All this doesn't mean that _you_ shouldn't like it! These are just problems that I had with the work.

[^1]: The bit where Harry tries to experimentally prove that P=NP is probably my favorite part of the entire thing.

<comment><USER42> While I think the line you were fed about its premise was incorrect, I don't think you read as far as chapter 28, did you?

The thing is... HPMOR isn't about the scientific method. It's about rationality. It's not a story about distilling a universal theory of magic or triumphing over death; it's a story about a kid who's had a rationalist education fumbling his way through a world that refuses to actually make sense.

<comment><USER41> I read well through chapter 70. I did imply that scientific investigation shows up _a little_ , after all! I agree that the line people gave me wasn't correct, but I've heard that line enough that I felt it was appropriate to dispel that particular notion.

Perhaps also germane is that I am not personally a believer in Less Wrong- style rationality, and so the intellectual content of the work was not relevant to me except in the detached way that philosophical or political or religious schools can be interesting to non-adherents (which is one reason I read as much as I did.) Whether the story accomplishes its _actual_ goal, then, is something I can't judge, but I can say that, as a non-rationalist (irrationalist?) I didn't find it to be a good or engaging story.

But as I said in my previous comment, this is my own reaction, and I include it for informative reasons, not because I think others should necessarily share it!

<comment><USER43> May I ask what about "Less Wrong-style rationality" you disagree with?

<comment><USER41> This is the kind of thing which could very easily turn into a flame war, and is much further off-topic. I'm not interested in that kind of argument right now, so all I will say in this thread is this:

My personal experience with Less Wrong-style rationalism, to simplify the situation aggressively, is that it has a core of good, useful tools (Bayesian reasoning, strict positivism, utilitarianism) that I have no problem with. However, when pushed too far, those tools tend to break down—but the rationalist answer to that breakdown is all too often to embrace the model and discount the reality. This general refusal to regard their core tools with suspicion results in beliefs which are paradoxically irrational: when faced with e.g., utilitarianism condoning torture to prevent mild discomfort, the rationalist response is not, "Perhaps human experience does not map straightforwardly to integers—we should re-examine our tools," but rather, "As our mathematical tools are of course correct, we must believe in this conclusion." This belief in math-over-matter is a major part (though not the only factor) in my skepticism towards the kind of rationalism promoted by Less Wrong.

<comment><USER44> And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. And no one seems to offer the rather simple solution that utility is non-linear (so dust in ones eye is really a quite small fraction as bad as a century of torture), and people who mock Eliezer's utilitarianism hypocritically do so on sweatshops built&recycled computers, clothes, and food.

The strongest argument against rationalist utilitarianism seems to be that people don't like the cognitive dissonance it imposes on hypocrites.

<comment><USER45> The linearity of utility is irrelevant to the dust specks or torture problem because you can always increase the number of people to receive dust specks so the utility of torturing a single individual for 50 years is higher.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/)

And calling people hypocrites because things like involuntary organ donation gives them "cognitive dissonance" is absurd. Also regarding hypocrisy, note that Yudkowski works for an organization whose goal is to protect humanity from Skynet, while people in Africa are starving. (I'm not personally attacking him, he can work on whatever he likes, and I think governments of wealthy nations have both the resources and responsibility to alleviate starvation, and individual efforts are mostly pissing in the wind. But parent poster brought up sweatshops &c. so I went there.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Solitaire on the new Windows 10 upgrade is now Freemium - <AUTHOR> http://core5.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/07/windows-10-hidden-solitaire-fees-100598360-gallery.png

<comment><USER2> I'm confused, it was like this in Win 8 too so what's new?

I just played a game and the only time ads showed up was after the game (and before it when choosing a game). I haven't seen any ads during games.</comment>


Verizon passes on Galaxy S II for better Samsung phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/25/exclusive-verizon-passes-on-galaxy-s-ii-but-similar-samsung-phone-launching-soon/

<comment><USER2> Thank god. There is some sense in the mobile world. Samsung makes absolute crap phones. I am glad to see a major corporation call them on their shit.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really hoping T-Mobile gets the Windows Phone version of this. With my luck it will be AT&T :/</comment>


Use any programming language on AWS lambda - <AUTHOR> https://www.komu.engineer/blogs/lambda-shim/lambda-shim <comment><USER2> I think its possible to do better than that. If you leverage Go runtime and your language has a GOB library, you can use that and avoid the speed penalty of the shim. For example here's this idea implemented for Rust: [https://github.com/srijs/rust-aws-lambda](https://github.com/srijs/rust-aws- lambda)</comment>


How SAP Has Quietly Changed Strategy on HANA and Oracle - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmfocus.com/saphana/2017/07/09/saps-change-policy-hana-oracle/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not being the author. Just found the article very interesting with a provoking point-of-view on the subject SAP HANA and it's future.</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on Sass - <AUTHOR>

Anyone using Sass in production? Do you love it? Hate it? I'm thinking of implementing in a project but I don't want to end up making a bad decision. Thoughts on Sass? <comment><USER2> We've been using Sass in production since we launched. Love it.

I've not seen any real comparison between LessCSS and SCSS (i.e. the new Sass syntax that became available with Sass version 3.0) There were some real differences before that, but that's not nearly so clear to me anymore.

At present, we've decided that there's no reason to use LessCSS as we already use Haml and there's nothing that Less offers that gives us a reason to switch from recent versions of Sass. I'm not even sure what the differences are now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you found that it produces stylesheets that are noticeably larger than what you would have written in just CSS?

<comment><USER3> My experience has been the opposite - stylesheets get smaller, because there's less repetition and fewer wasted styles. CSS has a really nasty habit of ballooning over time into an unholy tarpit of selectors and overrides and exceptions, especially when you're working with multiple people in the code.

Any bloat caused by the more verbose selectors seems to be easily offset by the lack of repetition, and the maintenance is orders of magnitude easier to manage. At the end of the day, you're still talking about maybe a couple of extra kb, which ends up being a negligible number of bytes post-gzip. In exchange, you get massively easier-to-manage stylesheets and a whole lot less developer time spent to make things happen.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been refactoring a very large stylesheet with SASS.

      Original size: 138.8k (gz: 23.5k, 16.9% original size)
      Sass-generated size: 105.9k (gz: 18.2k, 17.1% original size)

Very, very easily worth the transition, and as a bonus, the stylesheet is factored into a bunch of partials, each relevant to different parts of the site, so when I want to tweak something in comments, I just open _comments.sass and hack there, rather than trying to find the right section in a monolithic stylesheet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it genuinely addresses some of the design flaws of css (too much repetition). That can't be bad. But I'm not sure a new syntax needs to be created for the job. I'm having a little play with using plain json to represent css in a similar style: <http://github.com/twfarland/son> (on node.js/express). There are still some things I need to add (firebug integration, creating actual css files) but it seems helpful so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using it in production in multiple places, and I _adore_ it. I will never go back.

If you want to just dip your toes in, look at SCSS. It's a superset of CSS, so you can take your existing stylesheets and start using more advanced features.

That said, I prefer pure SASS. It's cleaner, IMO, forces better organization, and is less typing.

</comment><comment><USER5> I recommend checking out <http://lesscss.org/> \- haven't used SASS recently, not sure how well it compares these days. Used to be not as powerful as Less.

<comment><USER6> I like the pure javascript less.js version: no gem, no plugin, all in the browser: <http://is.gd/gOBou> and <http://is.gd/gOBpV>

<comment><USER7> As an aside, don't use minified links.</comment></comment></comment>