If money doesn't make you happy, you probably aren't spending it right [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%20(2011).pdf <comment><USER2> I recently wrote on the topic of the lack of overlap between zealotry for a cause and wealth. I think that to become super-wealthy requires a certain cluelessness when it comes to what to spend money on - or how to spend money to best effect, or more fundamentally how to use money to change the world in a way you believe in, or a lack of the vision needed to see how to spend money.

This is a social evolution sort of a thing: if you are a zealot and you _know_ how to spend money to effect the change you want, then you aren't going to stay on the money-accumulation train for anywhere near as long. You'll spend it, and make some of that change happen.

You need something like this sort of effect to explain why there are any wealthy people at all. Any one of the Forbes 100 could cure a couple of diseases, get a fair way to demonstrating a cure for aging in mice ($1 billion price tag), develop the tech to irrigate the Sahara, etc, etc. But they largely do not, and remain within the process they have built for themselves. Where they do go all out for philanthropy, there is usually a startling lack of imagination - see the Gates Foundation, for example, which is doing nothing more than business as usual in big philanthropy, or the Ellison Medical Foundation which does nothing more than replicate the NIH.

Anyway. Knowing how to spend money "right" (meaning right for you, your vision, having a vision, etc) is not compatible with accumulating money, and only the outliers will fall into both camps.

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/02/one-wealthy- zealo...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/02/one-wealthy-zealot-would- make-a-20-year-difference.php)

<comment><USER3> _Gates Foundation, for example, which is doing nothing more than business as usual in big philanthropy_

I wouldn't call things like the giving pledge "business as usual" in big philanthropy. I can't think of any prior art for it.

<http://givingpledge.org/>

<comment><USER2> It is in many ways a sign of the age - the focus on getting money, and the comparative lack of interest in explaining how to be far better at spending it to attain measurable results than the rest of big philanthropy.

Philanthropy done right looks much more like the Thiel model:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/peter-thiel- encou...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/peter-thiel-encourages- radical-philanthropy.php)

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/breakout-labs- ann...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/breakout-labs-announces- first-grantees.php)

The Gates Foundation would do far more good in the world by splitting itself up into a hundred or a thousand more directed and competing interests, focused on bottom-up change one innovation at a time.

As it is, the majority of its funds will probably eventually evaporate in the grind of top-down existing strategies that have solved nothing permanently - but have instead led to government-bound institutions that do more to perpetuate the problems they allegedly try to solve than generate good in the world, or which have turned into jobs programs for comparatively privileged individuals, disconnected from any need to achieve concrete results.

<comment><USER3> _As it is, the majority of its funds will probably eventually evaporate in the grind of top-down existing strategies that have solved nothing permanently_

I agree with much of what you're saying, but my overall outlook isn't that negative. There is a real chance that their work will help completely eradicate malaria. If that's not solving something permanently, I don't know what is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am sick and tired of the experience/possession paradigm that infects all consumer happiness research. Yes, all the evidence so far supports it. But, all the research so far has been looking for ways to support the paradigm.

I don't buy experiences, and I don't buy possessions. I buy camping gear, musical instruments and other experiential possessions. But, this concept is lost on consumer researchers, who skew young, female and IMHE, assume the whole world is choosing between a pair of shoes or nice restaurant meal.

(FWIW, I just got my masters in research psychology.)

[Edited for spelling]

<comment><USER5> Completely agree, IMO money invested in experiential possessions is an excellent bang-for-the-buck.

<comment><USER6> Yup. For example, you may buy a fancy camera, and then take tons of pictures with it. You get both the possession and experience aspects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Personally I think a better quote is, 'Money can't buy happiness, but it can help solve all your problems'

<comment><USER8> I like that a lot...and I've always heard: 'Money doesn't make you happy, but it can make you less unhappy.'

<comment><USER9> I've always heard: "money can't buy you happiness, but the lack of money can buy you misery"

<comment><USER10> I have heard that "Money is not everything. But make sure you have enough of it before you talk such nonsense"

<comment><USER11> "If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The #1 advice on this paper (experiences, not things) is very relevant for the HN community.

A corollary is "Your startup needs to sell experiences, not features":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2662671>

Previous discussions ("Money = Happiness, but when it buys experiences"):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482036>

"Spend money on experiences, not possessions"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1825525>

<comment><USER13> > _"Your startup needs to sell experiences, not features"_

Eh,

What about B2B startups? What about any utility application? Say, internet search? I'm going to kill Google (and Gabriel Weinberg) if they turn their search engine into an "experience".

Seriously, guys, can we stop the "startup == social local friend to friend mobile app thing" thing already?

<comment><USER14> Search /is/ an experience, and it always has been. Google is just making that experience suck lately.

UX is the most important feature. Canonical example: Apple. Apple "gets" usability. No other pc manufacturer comes close. Their methods are dubious and I don't agree with all of them, but their stuff works nicer than anything else right now (for the latest number of lay people.)

Other pc mfgs don't even try to design beautiful, elegant hardware and market it to everyone. They think that everyone wants cheap crap, so they deliver and iterate on that. All of Apple's offerings are premium, and you can't argue with their success. /people want nice stuff, not cheap plastic crap/ -- but it gets harder and harder to find nice stuff outside of Apple.

Who still makes a laptop with a 1920x1200 display? Apple. HP and Lenovo did too last I checked, but the industry has largely moved to the cheaper-and- worse 16x9 panels. Apple also cares about obvious stuff that other mfgs ignore. Example: trackpad texture. Even on a $3500 gaming laptop from a specialty mfg, they don't get it and the trackpad is too grippy and hurts your finer after 5 minutes.

BUILD QUALITY OR DON'T BUILD

<comment><USER15> Quality is just one corner of the triangle; speed and cost are the other two. Many people value speed or cost in their products more than quality (I am not just talking about computers). Your motto sounds great and all, but it's not how business works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The best way to spend money is to buy time with it.

<comment><USER17> This an academic article written by people who extensively studied this topic. I feel that if you want to contradict them you should at least write a sentence on why you think they are wrong.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure he is contradicting them. #1 is buying more experiences. The more time, the more [potential] experiences you have time for. Take a cab vs the bus. House cleaning, etc.

As for #2, I started backing more projects on Kickstarter. It does feel great to see people doing all sorts of cool projects. For example, I wish I had time [and skills] to make a movie with Blender, but since I can't I'll enjoy it through the work of others.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube- open...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-open-movie)

Oh, and I'm helping to build a 10" rocket engine!

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes- space...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-spacecraft)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I found it interesting how mentioning return policies in advance might actually undermine happiness. Maybe it's better not to have that "30 day refund" text on your product order page to keep your users happy.

"People seek extended warranties and generous return policies in order to preclude the possibility of future regret, but research suggests that the warranties may be unnecessary for happiness and the return policies may actually undermine it."

<comment><USER20> I found that interesting as well. The problem is that people predict that a generous return policy will make them happy, and they are more likely to purchase if you give them what they predict will make them happy, not what will actually make them happy.

Perhaps they will be more likely to refer friends to your service if you don't give them a return policy, since rationalization will kick in and they will make themselves happier with your service if they're stuck with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oddly enough, #1(buy experiences, not goods) and #2 (help others) are precisely the first topics tackled by "59 Seconds", by Richard Wiseman, which is a formidable book.

</comment><comment><USER22> This article is bullshit. Money can't buy achievement. Money can't buy competence. Money can't buy respect. Money can't buy love. Money can't buy wisdom. Money can't buy knowledge. Money can't buy creativity.

The things that make people truly happy are internal, and must be constructed by the person experiencing them. Money can remove discomfort or provide passing distraction from existential malaise, but it can never make you truly happy.

<comment><USER23> Not sure why you getting downvoted. It appears that anyone with an opinion which is not inline with the general consensus gets downvo... Nevermind..

In any case, I think the idea that true happiness comes from within, which I think is what your describing, makes sense. True happiness cannot be manufactured by buying "experiences". I don't think a laundry list, created by someone other then you, of things to do with your money can make you happy with yourself. If your not happy with yourself nothing you experience will just make you happy.

It starts with you and I'm not sure that money can buy you internal happiness.

A better idea would be to find out how people without money are able to be truly happy. I'd love to see that list...

<comment><USER24> _Not sure why you getting downvoted_

Because he takes a scientific study based on actual data, calls it "bullshit", and substitutes his own pet theory of happiness, maybe?

<comment><USER22> Their whole hypothesis is that money can buy happiness, but there is a weak correlation because people have poor consumption patterns, and if people just had better consumption patterns, money would correlate strongly with happiness. There are a couple of assumptions baked into this hypothesis that I can tear apart on the spot:

1\. This assumes that consumptive happiness is additive and unbounded, i.e. if consuming A makes you X points happier, and consuming B makes you Y points happier, consuming A and B makes you (X + Y) happier, ad infinitum. There is no evidence of this, and this is such a strong assumption that to assume it in the absence of evidence is fallacious.

2\. Their data surrounding giving does not control for interpersonal interactions, and personality characteristics. Since these two variables are both strongly confounding, their results are weak at best.

Beyond that, this is a review paper containing no new data. They are essentially taking isolated data points and playing connect the dots to generate their own pet hypothesis.

My "pet theory" of happiness is actually the distillate of the idea of happiness as established in a variety of neutral literature (from Aristotle to moderns like Layard and Lyubomirsky), informed to a degree by evolutionary biology. Do you really trust the impartiality of people publishing in journals for "Consumer Psychology"? That reminds me of health studies commissioned by cigarette companies.

Down-vote away, it only saddens me to the degree that it makes people less likely to be exposed to a dissenting but informative viewpoint. I don't care a whit for the popularity contest aspect of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is an overarching idea that people want to be numbed into a form of happiness (by using their money, but it could equally be something else). People like a challenge too, am i the only one who doesn't want to be happy all the time?

<comment><USER24> It seems to me that if you _like_ the challenge, you _are_ in fact happy being challenged...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There was a TED talk on that: "How to buy happiness " <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsihkFWDt3Y>

</comment><comment><USER27> This all makes sense. But having read through it, am I the only one who feels this reads more like an advice column disguised as science than the real deal, even with all the cited double blind studies.

</comment><comment><USER28> Thousands of years ago it was written there is nothing better than for a man to find joy in his labor. Work and stress bring unhappiness in exchange for money. If labor brings you happiness, then you are probably doing better than most in the happiness dept. Don't purchase happiness, Eliminate the unhappiness, and save money by not having to spend money on getting back to equilibrium.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is our ethos, we're Blink Collective: Experience Marketplace for the UK

Check us out: <http://blinkcollective.com/></comment>


SlideShare: Why can't I fullscreen? (Nexus 7) - <AUTHOR> http://www.imgur.com/6380B.png

<comment><USER2> need to find the embed code like this [http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/13971387?rel=...](http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/13971387?rel=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! They really need a direct link to this though</comment></comment>


Outsourceing MVP... - <AUTHOR>

What do you guys think about the idea of outsourcing your minimum viable product?
I'll explain. So, I have an idea I've been working on (design, mockup, survey potential customers, etc.) and I'm at a standstill (sort of, I am always reaching out to potential customers) until I get a technical co-founder.
I know that the end goal is having a technical co-founder with me through everything. However, it's very hard (seemingly impossible thus far) to get anyone on board without some traction, i.e. MVP and some customers.
So, it's a catch 22. I need a tech co-founder to help create the MVP, but they don't want to come on board unless one is already created!
I've been contemplating outsourcing the MVP to try and gain traction. I have a very detailed mockup already, so hopefully there wouldn't need to be much guesswork on the part of whoever I hired. Is it worth it?
The negatives:
I am out a few thousand dollars (trying to cap it at 5k). I still have no tech co-founder
The positives:
I have a minimum viable product I have something to show customers I have something that can gain traction All of the above make it easier to find a quality tech co-founder (still won't be easy, but I assume far easier than without the MVP)
What do you guys think? Is it worthwhile? Or am I thinking about this all wrong? Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the help! Btw, I can't believe I have a typo in my title! Is there any way to edit after the edit time period has ran out? It makes me look like an idiot, lol.

Anyway...

It seems like outsourcing or at least have things created are really far more important than looking for a technical co-founder at this stage.

I think if given the real chance, I could convince someone to come on board. However, I haven't had the chance to pitch anything because it's hard enough to find someone even willing to take on a pitch. Everyone is doing their own thing or is too busy, unfortunately.

Currently, I have a landing page. I will probably post it here for some advice. I've put up Google Ads and Facebook Ads and hopefully can push it myself as well. That could help me find a technical co-founder, but who knows. I really think my idea is good enough to jump on now. The timing is just right IMO... and the sooner, the better.

I am learning Javascript now, because I'm thinking I could perhaps code the front-end. However, it's just a long process to learn code, especially while I have a full-time job. I'm tempted to quit to learn to code and develop it myself, but I'm not sure.

Ultimately though, I wanted to see what thoughts were behind paying for an MVP... and you guys have been positive about the idea, so it's good to know I'm not crazy if I go that route.

Lastly... is the mockup really the hardest part? I'm glad to hear that because I did spend a ton of time on it (and need to spend a bit more time refining it down to MVP).

Ultimately, I'm not creating a new technology here. Just packing a bunch of common technologies into one business. Hopefully that fact alone means outsourcing an MVP won't be an incredibly struggle. Or if I decide to create it myself, it won't be too overwhelmingly difficult.

We will see. I appreciate all the feedback and welcome any other comments.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> When you say "learn some coding yourself" exactly how much does this entail?

For instance, I know HTML and CSS. I am slowly learning Javascript. I am fairly confident I could learn to code the front-end in a reasonable amount of time.

Is that "learning some code yourself" or do I need to know more?

If I need to know back-end (or should), how extensive? I only ask because while I'd love to really know how to code.... I know it'd take far too long to become truly proficient. So, I'm just trying to portion my time out effectively because I can spend my time on my business in a lot of other ways as well. I don't want to spin my wheels learning to code when I'll never truly be the technical guy who you go to for code (I just don't have years to learn). I just want to learn enough to be respected and know what's going on.

If anyone could give me a good resource to attain that level of knowledge, that'd be great. There just seems to be so much I could learn and if I go the wrong direction, it could be (somewhat) a waste of time and I want to avoid that.

Thanks again for the reply.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's probably tough to find a technical cofounder if you're not willing to at least try to learn how to code or spend the cash to have someone build it for you.

More than finding a technical cofounder, a minimum viable product should help you decide if the product is worthwhile to pursue - which is the biggest reason to build it. If the product won't connect with customers, you don't need to waste time finding a technical cofounder.

Why not try to build something simple yourself? Even if it's a landing page test to see if people will click the buy or download button like Eric Ries' wishes he did at IMVU?

If you're looking for someone to build the mvp, I still run ibuildmvps.com.

</comment><comment><USER3> You always want to get a MVP set up and if your idea is too amazing to wait, then go for it. I'm reminded of James Altucher who outsourced the designing and creation of Stockpickr.com for the MVP to show to investors. He hadn't even paid for the outsourced material when he got the money (he was already established, but still..)

So I would say it really depends on your idea. In my opinion, if you cannot convince or find a technical person to help you with the product you do you have an inspiring enough product or you do not have the skills as a founder/organizer. Both are killers...

</comment><comment><USER4> If you've got a mockup then you've done all the hard work. Getting a mockup into a working app is trivial for most web developers.

Here's my recommendation to you.

1\. Get yourself an account on odesk.

2\. Post your project.

3\. See what kind of quotes you get and the quality of the developers.

I would pay someone by the hour, in odesk you can see what they are doing with their time and how productive they are.

If you're not happy, pay for the hours used and stop there.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sort of in a similar situation, but now I've gotten a very strong technical co-founder onboard. Although I haven't coded in years, I've been in the IT industry for a long time now. Having read a ton of blogs about founding teams and finding co-founders, the one common denominator I see is that you'll have a better time of it if you try learn some coding yourself.</comment>


American Mercenaries Were Hired to Assassinate Politicians in the Middle East - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan <comment><USER2> 122 comments and currently on the front page: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18232961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18232961)</comment>


A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods - <AUTHOR> http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

<comment><USER2> That was a good find froo, too bad it wont be seen by anyone :-(</comment>


People really hate the Netflix price hike  - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-price-hike/

<comment><AUTHOR> The question here is whether they will offer newer movies for streaming or will continue to offer those on DVDs only. If they update the streaming library with fresh titles then who cares about the DVDs delivered via email.</comment>


Ask YC News: a good way to learn electronics/microcontrollers? - <AUTHOR>

i'll be very specific: i want to be able to make simple hardware controllers (buttons, faders, leds) that can comunicate with the software i make (software to make music), using usb or ethernet or bluetooth
so what would be a good way to learn to do this?
i'm more into hands on learning, just like the HELLO WORLD program, i like to have something working first, even if i don't understand it, and then mess around
i know only very basic stuff on electronics, assume i'm starting from zero
note #1: later i may want to learn more and more about electronics, but right now i'm focusing on learning "only" this. (i here declare that i have no idea how hard can this be, but thats why i'm asking)
note #2: i know i can buy  midi controllers, but there are some reasons to prefer the self-made controls, i'll mention only one here: more nerd-fun ;) <comment><USER2> There are a bunch of options...

I've never tried it, but Arduino sounds like a good option for you:

 _Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments._

<http://www.arduino.cc/>

It's based on an Atmega micrcontroller, which is also popular among hobbyists.

TI has a dead simple (looks like a thumb drive, plugs in USB) and cheap ($20) microcontroller programmer with microcontroller called the eZ430:

<http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/ez430tool/index.htm>

And Microchip has a pretty cheap and simple programmer for most PICs called the PICkit2:

[http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_P...](http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en023805)

As far as connecting these things to your computer, USB is probably easiest I've used the PIC18FXXX5 series which has built in USB support (just add a few cheap components and a connector!). Here's an excellent website:

<http://pic18fusb.online.fr/>

And of course since you're interested in making MIDI controllers, check out MidiBox:

<http://www.midibox.org/>

Finally, a couple good resources/forums I find helpful:

<http://ladyada.net/>

<http://forum.sparkfun.com/>

I wish I had more time to play with all this stuff...

</comment><comment><USER3> It's difficult for me to recommend a "Hello World" type introduction to electronics and microcontrollers, since I had 4 years of learning it in a university (obviously the budget is quite a bit different). I would say find some hobby you are interested in that uses LED's and switches, and find a tutorial on how to build that component. What you will find is that depending on the application, a simple button can be a lot more involved than you may expect.

For instance, if you played guitar, you could learn to make a footswitch that has LED's to tell you what channel you're on. But in this case, you'd have to look up the specs for your amp to see what type of resistance and impedance (if any) the amp expects from that channel. Furthermore, does it expect an active high or an active low signal, do you need to involve any BJT's (bi- polar junction transistors are common in simple electronics) or FET's?

Anyway, I'll not get into too much depth, because depending on what you're trying to accomplish, this may be overkill. That said, once you start building, Digikey is your friend!

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

Also, I hate to promote this book, because I really disliked the professor that wrote this (seriously, one of my least favorite classes ever), but his book really does answer any possible electronics question you'll probably ever have (though, again, it's probably a bit overkill).

[http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Compatibility- Handbook...](http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Compatibility-Handbook- Kenneth-Kaiser/dp/0849320879)

If you have any specific questions during your project, feel free to give me a shout. Admittedly, microcontrollers aren't my specialty, but I am an ME/EE.

<comment><USER3> Oh, and I almost forgot to mention... when you start building and need a microcontroller, go to whatever company you need one from and ask for a sample piece. Typically all microcontrollers companies will send you 1-5 controllers as "testing and development samples." There is usually a form that allows you to order these for free on their website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you aren't necessarily focused on tying hardware controllers to a software app (which limits you to MIDI stuff), you might consider one of the basic programmable microcontrollers, like the Parallax BASIC Stamp:

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

It is designed to be easily plugged into devices, gives you a simple programming language, and a way to interface with a computer. I bet you can snag one on Ebay for cheap.

</comment><comment><USER5> there are tons of resources for midi electronics:

www.midibox.org www.doepfer.de www.ucapps.de www.monome.org

"DIY midi" google search

get "art of electronics" by horowitz and hill as a reference

</comment><comment><USER6> buy stuff (digikey, propeller, old x86 boxen, Freescale samples + PCB kits, whatever) and start hacking, and find some good IRC channels to hang out on. I won't tell you which ones, because I don't want them to get crowded... :)</comment>


Minecraft Education Edition Worlds Available for Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/13611-minecraft-education-edition-worlds-available-for-free.html <comment><USER2> Minecraft Education Edition provides in-game coding tools for Python, JavaScript, and a MakeCode-style visual block editor! This would be a great activity to do with some children I know.

But it's only available for Office 365 Education accounts, which is a product it seems I can't purchase as an individual.

Are there any educational institutions that I can pay to give me a accounts I could use for this? Or does anyone know what's involved in spinning up your own educational institution that Microsoft will sell Office 365 for education to?

</comment><comment><USER3> Who cares. My kids love OSS Minetest. [https://www.minetest.net](https://www.minetest.net)

<comment><USER4> I wish they hadn't picked LUA for the modding language though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be clear, these are only maps for Minecraft Education Edition. The actual version of Minecraft needed for these is tied to a "Office 365 Education" account according to the official site:

[https://education.minecraft.net/get- started/](https://education.minecraft.net/get-started/)</comment>


Audio Datasets for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://lionbridge.ai/datasets/12-best-audio-datasets-for-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> IMHO the speech dataset list is missing other interesting free corpora, e.g. the TEDlium dataset, Voxforge, Common Voice. A more comprehensive (but not complete) list can be found here: [https://github.com/kaldi- asr/kaldi/tree/master/egs](https://github.com/kaldi-asr/kaldi/tree/master/egs) (download links can be found in the scripts)

</comment><comment><USER3> Also see the "Heidelberg Spiking Datasets": [https://ieee-dataport.org/open- access/heidelberg-spiking-dat...](https://ieee-dataport.org/open- access/heidelberg-spiking-datasets)

</comment><comment><USER4> Spoken Wikipedia corpus is especially impressive</comment>


The Temporary Memory Lapse of Transient Global Amnesia - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/well/mind/the-temporary-memory-lapse-of-transient-global-amnesia.html <comment><USER2> This happened to a friend of mine. He was just sitting on his recliner watching sports and poof. Boy did he get angry while experiencing the TGA symptoms. All of us were really concerned for his wife, who suddenly had this person without a "normal" working memory to care for. Fortunately the episode was really short, even if it did involve a long ambulance ride and a stay at the hospital.

Given the circumstances, mostly the timing of the events and the external pressures on him to address some big stressors on a given schedule, I guessed that stress was a key contributor in his case. Doctors seemed to want my friend to focus on that aspect.

This particular friend tends to keep things bottled up, and then grows more emotional as events arrive and progress. It's hard to watch, and I've tried to approach the _topic_ of approaching it with him, with little luck. But it has been a good lesson to me: Even if you think you are OK and life is great, continue venting information about stressors regularly. Personally I regularly word-dump into a journal or into my phone for health purposes. My journaling template[0] has evolved a lot over the years and it's still one of my top tools for moderating stress. The stress will always be there, but it seems that, perhaps depending on circumstances and individual psychology, one can do _enough_ of this kind of work to avoid some major stress-related health issues.

[0]: [https://pastebin.com/YmjnhaXp](https://pastebin.com/YmjnhaXp)

</comment><comment><USER3> As a neuroradiologist, I see these cases occasionally. People presenting with TGA sometimes have small infarcts in their hippocampus.

An example paper you can read if you are curious:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5894321/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5894321/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Something like this happened to me. My wife and I were in a serious car crash; we were almost entirely uninjured, but I apparently lost the ability to form new memories for several hours. I also temporarily forgot some older memories and permanently forgot almost everything that happened over the past 36-ish hours. The doctors checked me VERY carefully for brain injury, including a CAT scan (so I'm told!) but couldn't find anything, not even a surface bruise. Professionals I have met over the years have hypothesized either a psychological effect due to shock or some minor, hard-to-detect internal brain damage just from it sloshing around inside my skull.

The most interesting part, for me, was that while I was in hospital I was visited by a guy I'd met for the first time the previous day, during the lost 36 hours. I instantly remembered his name but was also quite sure I'd never seen him before. That was weird.

</comment><comment><USER5> If anyone has any questions about Transient Epileptic Amnesia I'm happy to share my first-hand experience with it. It's very similar to TGA (was actually diagnosed with TGA first) though there are some subtle differences: environmental memories tend to lapse, brief unresponsiveness, some form of recall is possible, hallucinations are common, and the duration is typically much shorter.

</comment><comment><USER6> Happened to my mother after a hot bath. GP knew the score and so I took care of the for the few hours that it lasted. It was quite endearing in the end with her having no idea how she got to be where she was and every couple of minutes expressing her concern about and questions about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Huh, my first thought was TGA while peaking on LSD. Or after too much alcohol.

But then I thought about zolpidem, which I take every day. I've pretty much gotten used to the idea that I won't remember much of anything after it takes effect, until it wears off, perhaps four hours later.

I always lock computer screens, before taking it.</comment>


Baapan – A Super Cool NPM Playground on the Node REPL - <AUTHOR> https://blog.insiderattack.net/baapan-6a9bf41364f4 <comment><AUTHOR> Are you a fan of Node.js REPL? Do you extensively use the REPL to try out small code snippets quickly while you are working? If so, Baapan is for you…</comment>


Rabbit: A Mac Video Sharing and Chat Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.letsrabbit.com

<comment><USER2> It seems that a facebook account is required.

I would like to try the product, but I do not have facebook.

Lost one potential customer.</comment>


How air-conditioning created the modern city - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city <comment><USER2> I would argue that the elevator is at least as influential if not more. As I look around from my 9th story office, nearly every building I see and the density provided thereof, would have been impossible without the elevator or something very much like it. (A series of escalators?) How many people want to climb 20 stories of stairs every day of their life, nevermind the transportation of equipment, etc.

<comment><USER3> Sure, let's imagine a world without elevators.

        > How many people want to climb 20 stories
        > of stairs every day of their life.

I'd guess a lot. How long does it take you to climb 20 stories if you're having to do it every single day of your life so you're used to it? Let's say a generous 10 seconds per floor, so that's around 3 and a half minutes.

Just waiting for and taking the elevator will easily take a minute at least. So we're left with just over 2 minutes.

This is on the order of time that it takes many people to walk from their parked car to the front door at work, or even just to park their car!

That would be nothing compared to the alternative of there being 1-3 floor houses everywhere, so you'd need to commute even further than that.

        > nevermind the transportation of equipment.

Almost all of the tall houses in Amsterdam built in pre-elevator times have a hook on the top floor that can be used to hoist cargo up. Some similar arrangement could be worked out for modern houses if they didn't have elevators.

<comment><USER4> "How many people want to climb 20 stories... I'd guess a lot"

I'd guess very few -- I work in a 23 story office building (on the 20th floor, coindidentally), and from my desk I can see the stairway door in the hallway.

Other than maintenance staff, I don't remember seeing a single person use that door. We have another office on the 15th floor, and I know of no one that uses the stairs to travel the 5 floors from office to office.

So I think the number of people that _want_ to climb 20 stories by stairs every day is very low.

<comment><USER5> I used to work on the 8th floor of an office building. I took the stairs. Granted, I was the only one, and 23 is 3x that. I'd still probably take the stairs and thereby skip the jogging. I'd also prefer the stairs to a long walk everywhere.

I live 270 ft up a hill, and regularly walk up. At 10 feet per story, that's 27 floors. I'm also the only one on the hill who walks up it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A/C drive westward expansion and allowed Houston (and other cities not on the East coast) to thrive.

Galveston (where I currently live) was here long before A/C. The Storm of 1900 is what drove Houston to grow. Houston is more inland and better situated to weather the threat of hurricanes than a barrier island. The railroad allowed Houston to become a nexus of trade (in cotton shipping out of Galveston originally). The oil boom continued that growth. A/C didn't come along for many years later. It fueled the cities growth but plenty of people lived on the Gulf coast to benefit from the breezes off the water. In fact, it was those breezes that drove the University of Texas to start its medical hospital, UTMB, in Galveston.

How people managed to live further inland where there was no wind is beyond me. (There are too many mosquitoes to spend too long outside or have open windows without screens - besides, even then they'll still find a way to get through.)

A/C drove folks to move where the climates are warmer but land is more plentiful. A/C, like the railroad before it, made westward expansion more doable (bearable?).

Cities like Las Vegas and other desert metropolises sprang up as a direct result of A/C.

<comment><USER7> Not sure about more desert conditions, or office buildings, but I do know that houses used to be built a lot differently before air conditioning. For example, my parents' house was built just after 1900, and they only put in central air in the last decade (so I grew up without air conditioning). Even now, they rarely turn it on, and it is quite comfortable inside Lots of trees around, smaller windows, covered porch, air flow from the basement, etc.

Compare this to the house I bought built in 1998, it is unlivable without the air turned on. And even with it running it is still uncomfortable when the temps get into the mid 90s. It has huge windows, but even with the curtains closed it was horrible -- there was just no natural airflow in it.

One of my favorite houses was one that a relative had in Mississippi, which was one roof with three separate living areas and a T-shaped breezeway running through the house. Another design item was apartments with sun rooms, where you could open various windows to always catch a cross breeze.

<comment><USER8> This.

\- Leaky ("breathable") home constructions vs. air-tight tolerances required to code now.

\- Region-specific cooling and design practices which aided in the dead of the summer (or winter!)

\- More geographically-minded decisions: Mature, treed lots for shade (double points for deciduous trees in winter which let the sun radiate through), more E/W facing vs N/S.

\- Architecture: Smaller, closed off rooms (shut the door to trap the heat/cold), breezeways, enclosed porches all seemed a lot more popular then vs. now when keeping cool (or warm, in the rooms' case) was a priority.

Of course, mileage will vary, but this is something interesting I've found comparing the house I grew up in (built 1952), my first home (1986), and our recent build (2018) which are all within <5 miles of each other. FWIW, if the HVAC doesn't run all day at the new home, it's a noticeable "stagnant air" when you get home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I live in Los Angeles, where the sun is often hot but the air is dry, and it cools down at night. You only need A/C during the hottest 2 or 3 months of the year, and many humbler homes don't have it. Those places are pretty unpleasant during peak summer.

It would be so easy to make every building comfortable. Design for high airflow - the air is not muggy. Include long awnings over all windows. This is obvious: even on the hottest day, it's usually comfortable under a tree. But the home builders have stubbornly ignored these old and simple solutions. Most houses are sealed boxes with no window shade at all. I don't understand it.

<comment><USER10> Disclaimer; I live in a very moderate climate. So I don't know how this would scale to hotter cities.

My home is equiped with what would translate to a "heatpump". Its a system that uses the warmth deep in the earth to help heating up the home in the winter, but also cools it down in the summer storing excess heat in the well drilled underneath the home or garden.

What it does in summer is basically run cold water through the underfloor heating system.

We've had some very hot days for our climate recently (35 to 38 degrees centigrade, which is around 95 to 100 Fahrenheit) and the temperature inside remained steady at a comfortable 23 degrees centigrade (around 74 Fahrenheit).

The system uses a lot less energy than air conditioning.

<comment><USER8> This is a geothermal heat pump.

There are traditional outside air conditioner units that run in reverse which use heat in the air, as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "her husband came from Wisconsin. He liked a log fire. So they would turn up the air conditioning and light one."

I found myself really unsettled by this. Light a fire, and turn up the air conditioning?

<comment><USER12> Aside the inefficiency, surely it's not necessary to 'turn up' the AC in that case? I thought that you set a target temperature once and just leave it there?

Domestic AC is very rare in the UK so I may have misunderstood.

<comment><USER13> The temperature won't be consistent throughout the room if you have a big heat source like a fire in part of the room, so you would need to set it too a lower temperature to keep it comfortable near the fire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The US expends more energy on air conditioning, for example, than the whole > of Africa does on everything. Then again, it expends even more energy on hot > water, which doesn't get the same rap.

I'd like to know where the author got that information from. I recently thought that a lot of homes (not apartment buildings) could be made energy neutral with a combination of geothermal hvac, solar water heating, and solar panels

The geothermal would help drive up the efficiency of the HVAC systems (considerably), and the solar heating would take care of the second highest energy user in the home. My guess is that with those two options most houses could then handle their other energy needs with a modest 3-5kw solar array and "small" battery bank

<comment><USER15> Sure, but even if that's true, new construction homes probably represent a minuscule fraction of the housing stock in the US. Not to mention what minuscule percentage of new construction is built in an energy neutral fashion.

<comment><USER16> Then again, new-construction homes are much more efficient. Insulation and window technology is much better than it used to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Always interesting: Historical populations of Phoenix[0] and Tucson[0] – note the huge 1960s AC booms.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Demographics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Demographics) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucson,_Arizona#Demographics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucson,_Arizona#Demographics)

</comment><comment><USER18> I was talking with my parents about what people did in New Orleans before they had air conditioning. Turns out that what they did was die. There were quite a number of heat related deaths every year before A/C came along, something like 15% of the population would die off.

In the event of the apocalypse New Orleans will be one of the first cities to go. Between losing the pumps, the oppressive heat (exacerbated by global warming), and the insects the survivors would be forced to flee the city if they wanted to survive.

<comment><USER19> I don't doubt that there were heat deaths in summer (Europe sees them every year as air conditioning is not normal for many countries) but 15% a year is insane - you'd need to be at least an order of magnitude off to have a sustainable population.

<comment><USER18> Sustaining the city required a continual influx of residents. To be fair, a lot of the deaths were from slaves, but it was something of a deathtrap between the high heat, humidity, hot nights, disease carrying insects, flooding, and hurricanes. Were it not such a valuable port the city would probably have died out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Air conditioning is anti-social. It buys its owner comfort at the cost of > shifting the surplus heat somewhere else

You could make the same argument for heating, no?

<comment><USER21> You don't usually do heating in cases where you're worried about surplus heat. You could make the same argument for every productive activity _except_ heating...

<comment><USER15> You could argue we should all be worried about surplus heat, all the time.

I heard an interesting argument about the efficiency of air conditioning the other day. It pointed out that, while removing heat from a room is of course not 100% efficient, it is merely shifting heat from one place to another (plus some waste).

Whereas heating is ALL "waste". So more waste heat should be generated from, and more energy used in, heating vs air conditioning.

We definitely have a bias to accept that the New Englander is virtuous in heating his or her home in the winter, but the Arizonan is wasteful in cooling their "inhospitable" house in the summer.

Maybe we should rethink this.

<comment><USER22> If we're talking about electrical heating, this is only true for resistive heating, which is indeed all "waste heat". But many air conditioners can run in "reverse cycle" [0], where you're transferring outside heat back in, and is much more efficient, apparently 50% cheaper to run in electricity costs.

When you run one of these systems, your New Englander and Arizonan are virtuous to the degree of the difference between inside and outside temperatures. ;)

There's even now some combined cycle AC systems which use the extracted heat to generate your hot water [1], sadly not yet available/cost-effective for small residential installations, but they're only off by a factor of 2 now (8kW is the smallest system I've seen, my central air is 4kW).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump) [1] [http://www.mitsubishielectric.com.au/air-to-water-hot- water-...](http://www.mitsubishielectric.com.au/air-to-water-hot-water-heat- pumps.html)

<comment><USER23> I actually just replaced a 20-year-old AC system that had a link to the hot water system. Installers just removed the water heater link entirely. Said that the extra resistance and energy involved in the exchange cost more than just venting the heat in modern systems with high SEER ratings. No idea if that's accurate; just what I heard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 99% Invisible (design podcast) had a story about this as well, how the American south and west became habitable due to air conditioning.

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal- delight/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/)

</comment><comment><USER25> In some climates I guess. Most of Europe doesn't even have AC, it's rarely needed.

<comment><USER26> Neither do big parts of the US. Most residential buildings in New England, New York, parts of the Pacific Northwest... even the Bay Area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Timely post as I sit in Seoul on holiday in the midst of their hottest summer. It's the hottest, muggiest, most sticky heat I've experienced and air conditioning is driving the majority of my experiences right now.

</comment><comment><USER28> I live in New Delhi, India and it can get unbearably hot here during the summer. Temperatures as high as 40 degree Celsius and above are taken for granted. Air conditioning is of immense value in a region like this. But for majority of the population, it is a luxury. Even those with air conditioning use it in moderation to keep electricity bills in check.

Having moved across three different apartments in the same locality over the past 2 years, I've experienced how even slight improvements in architecture can significantly decrease the effects of heat-wave. The author's point does hit home.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have always been fascinated by Air conditioning. Back in highschool, I wrote a paper all about how South Florida became inhabitable as a result fo AC. After college, I started an air conditioning related startup oddly enough.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've always wondered how houses would be built in hot areas if AC wasn't available.

<comment><USER31> Depends if you're talking dry or wet heat.

For dry, you see a fair number of examples in the US southwest. One of the things you do is take advantage of the fact that there are big temperature swings between daytime and nighttime. You can also use cooling towers. You get some idea from the design of the Zion Visitor's Center. [1] It's not hot-hot there (it's high but gives you some idea).

Wet hot is a lot harder. Utilize shade where you can. Lots of cross- ventilation. Basically very open buildings (subject to how big a problem biting insects are of course--though you can use screens in that case).

[1] [https://www.nps.gov/zion/learn/nature/zion-canyon-visitor- ce...](https://www.nps.gov/zion/learn/nature/zion-canyon-visitor-center.htm)

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I visited the Andrew Jackson home and there were a bunch of corridors basically designed to convey wind (though ironically they keep them shut now because the moisture would damage the home)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> LKY concurred on this as well:

> Air conditioning. Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, > perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of > civilization by making development possible in the tropics.

> Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours > or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to > install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This > was key to public efficiency.

</comment><comment><USER34> Great article but I was hoping to read arguments about why we should turn off air conditioning as the headline promised yet none were provided. I guess the author couldn't think of any despite alluding to costs and a lack of public spaces. Interesting piece nonetheless.

<comment><USER35> I guess it's quite obvious - energy consumption, particularly non-renewable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> [https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/EF/Areas/Solar/Solar- coolin...](https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/EF/Areas/Solar/Solar- cooling/Solar-cooling-air-conditioning)

</comment><comment><USER37>
      The rise of Hollywood in the 1920s would have been slowed if, as previously, theatres had needed to close in hot weather.

Reminds me of a movie theater were I grew up that had no roof at all just open sky above. Obviously only good for night time at summer.

<comment><USER38> I wonder to what extent AC contributed to the decline of drive-in theatres.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> There's no mention of cross-season heat/cold storage, in places where it's cold in the winter, and hot in the summer. I wonder why that hasn't taken off.

<comment><USER40> Perhaps because it is science-fiction?

<comment><USER39> There have been some demonstration projects.[0,1] But yeah, maybe it's not workable.

0) [https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/can-underground-heat- st...](https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/can-underground-heat-storage- replace-gas-netherlands)

1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_energy_storag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_energy_storage)

<comment><USER40> Apologies; I just find it rather absurd that thermal energy could be stored in what apparently are water tanks, for months at a time, without losing most of the energy to conduction/convection with whatever surrounds the tanks.

After all, if we could do that, then certainly the same materials could allow smaller houses in cold climates to maintain a comfortable temperature throughout an entire winter without needing any active heating.

<comment><USER41> _the same materials could allow smaller houses in cold climates to maintain a comfortable temperature throughout an entire winter without needing any active heating._

That's the general notion behind PassivHaus.

Integral design, internal thermal storage, situational orientation appropriate to site, thermal mass, extensive insulation, minimised building penetrations, and mitigations to address resulting consequences, particularly air exchange, moisture, and condensation.

The engineering is impressive. I recommend the videos, which are long, but information-dense and detailed.

[http://www.reina-llc.com/resources/presentations/](http://www.reina- llc.com/resources/presentations/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is silly. Most of European cities were build densely and with 4-5 stories buildings centuries before air conditioning.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wish the US had more ductless air conditioners. Window and wall AC's are old technology, loud, and bulky.

<comment><USER44> The US is full of large, leaky, poorly insulated houses designed without any mind paid to thermal performance. Until that changes, ductless simply doesn't work for many people.

I think ductless will come on its own as US houses improve.

<comment><USER45> Not just the US.. A friend of a friend moved to the UK and built a house the way we do in northern Europe. Her neighbors pitied her in the winter because the roof of her house was covered in snow...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> St. Petersburg is one of the finest cities and it will be so without either air conditioning or elevators. It also has 1.5M population capacity walkable urban core so car isn't needed either.

I think the same, if not more, can be said about London or Amsterdam.

But, indeed, most of America's greatest cities are land reclaimed from heat.

<comment><USER47> St Petersburg, London and Amsterdam are not "modern cities". Obviously there are tons of large cities that have been around before AC, but the article cites the rise of cities (and population) in places that were previously undesirable because of the warm climate. AC has caused a migration of sorts towards warmer places.

> Cities have boomed in places where, previously, the climate would have held > them back. In 1950, 28% of the population of the US lived in its sunbelt, > 40% in 2000. The combined population of the Gulf cities went from less than > 500,000 before 1950 to 20 million now. Neither the rise of Singapore, nor > the exploding cities of China and India, would have happened in the same way > if they had still relied on punkah fans, shady verandas and afternoon naps.

<comment><USER32> The article also mentions developments which affect even those old cities that A/C made possible -- such as the glass skyscraper</comment></comment></comment>


Jenkins Git Plugin downloads drop by 72% in January - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Git+Plugin <comment><USER2> I've been debugging an issue with the artifactory and gradle plugins, and I noticed that they also have a sharp decline in January.

Edit:

[https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/INFRA-558](https://issues.jenkins- ci.org/browse/INFRA-558)

[https://ci.jenkins- ci.org/job/infra_statistics/249/console](https://ci.jenkins- ci.org/job/infra_statistics/249/console)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe we've reached the point where everybody has it :)</comment>


Why Learning to Code Is the New Black - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@godsofmayhem/why-learning-to-code-is-the-new-black-428e1744132b

<comment><USER2> How to make people stare at your blog:

1\. Cartoon pictures of hot, well-endowed chicks.

[end]</comment>


Narcissistic CEO bully threatens lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.badera.us/2010/04/oldie-but-goodie-narcissistic-ceo-bully.html <comment><USER2> I have been sent a handful of these spammy emails. I would not be so concerned if they did not start out with a straight up lie. The emails I see always have something like, "Did you get the email I sent you last? Please confirm your speaking arrangement below."

The first time I got one I searched high and low for the "previous email" and it did not exist. I knew then to google it and that is where it was confirmed as spam in like 2006. And did I mention I am not a CIO...

<comment><AUTHOR> That was 100% my experience as well -- that opening is a pretty common spam tactic. Plus, like you, I'm the wrong audience: I wasn't even a CTO at the time, and I'm still not a CIO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm really impressed with these guys. Neat professional looking website and good social engineering on the flattery front and personal follow up emails. I wonder what their conversion rate is? I wonder how much it costs to run one of these summits, at $1000 a go it surely wouldn't take long to make back the costs!

Just to be clear, I doubt they are doing anything too illegal (how many laws do you break on a daily basis?!) but it does sound very unethical!</comment>


A French grocer fought EU food rules and won - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/2018/06/16/a-french-grocer-protested-stupid-eu-food <comment><USER2> 'French grocer' suggests a brave lone trader caused the EU to 'flinch'. Perhaps the fact that Carrefour 'operates more than 12,000 stores in more than 30 countries, boasts nearly 400,000 employees, and generates more than €100 billion in annual sales' had something to do with it.</comment>


Why do people quit their jobs at dream companies like Facebook or Google?- Quora - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/07/06/why-do-people-quit-their-jobs-at-dream-companies-like-facebook-or-google/

<comment><USER2> Answer: There is some neat stuff happening at Google, but the typical employee is doing the boring maintenance that any large business requires. As a bonus insult, they're ridiculously overqualified for grunt work and they didn't think that was what they signed up for.

For a typical software engineer at Google, it's like being a janitor at NASA. Some neat stuff is happening there, but you aren't a part of it.

Also, if you have a couple of years at Google or Facebook, future employers/investors will automatically assume you're qualified, even if you aren't. That opens lots of opportunities. It's also a big contrast from what a typical software engineer sees, where they're asked FizzBuzz on every job interview.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've met many who've jumped ship from both companies and a common narrative is they were all just fed up with feeling like they were a cog in a machine.

</comment><comment><USER4> never thought of it as a dream company. just thought it more as something to put on my resume if it were to ever happen. unless im wrong, i thought this was already the mentality of most developer/hackers at this point.

<comment><USER2> It depends on whether you are a recent college grad or not.

A recent college grad will probably believe the hype.

An experienced candidate is more likely to see it as just another job and another step in a career. (hence the preference for recent grads over experienced candidates)</comment></comment>


Show HN: JustCounts - <AUTHOR> https://justcounts.com/ <comment><USER2> In case of a change, do you send a confirmation email, or the email is the "password"? I guess in many sites it's easy to guess the email of the owner.

Note: I hate emails with tracking.

<comment><AUTHOR> You place the image link and the only thing you have access to is the count, though there is always data about your visitors being captured. If you ever decide to upgrade to the Pro version, which is just $12 per year, you can see all the data that your counter grabbed.

When you upgrade to the Pro version, you will associate your email with the counter. So there is no "password" requirement. If you go to change the text or colors of your counter, and you enter an email that isn't associated with the counter, it will just display an error message that your email address and this counter don't match.

You will get an email with the counter ID and your email association. If you want to change the color or text at any time, you just come to "home base", enter in your counter ID and email, and change it through there.

As for the "tracking" of emails, it's a service I use to send emails. That tracking data isn't actually used for anything.

<comment><USER2> The counter ID is the same as in the <img> tag? If I go to the editing page and I use

ID = 27214990

email = mattbgates_12345@12345_gmail.com

can I edit it?

[Let's try some variations like matt.b.gates matt-b-gates matt_b_gates and @hotmail.com, @live.com, @yahoo.com, @yahoo.co.uk, ... Or I could try to see if in your profile or previous projects you have a public email, but I'm too lazy.]

<comment><AUTHOR> That is the main counter so you wouldn't be able to edit that one as it is "owned" by someone else, but you can generate your own counter. If you decide to upgrade to Pro, you enable more customization. You can use your own email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A weekend project. Free to use. Unlimited counters. Just place the image on your website and it'll keep track of the visits to your pages. Works on any website, web page, and even in emails that allow HTML img tags. Pro version will allow you to customize the colors of your counter, verbiage, and see more information about your visitors. Constructive feedback welcome.</comment>


Sparsepp: improving on Google's sparsehash - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/greg7mdp/sparsepp <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Disappointed with the apparent lack of interest, considering that sparsepp is likely the best choice today when you need an unordered_map or set.</comment>


Capitalism and Socialism – Which System Gets Your Vote? - <AUTHOR> https://ourmoneymentality.com/capitalism-and-socialism-which-economic-system-gets-your-vote/ <comment><USER2> I believe that any pure "ism" is a bad thing. All of the various "ism"s I've learned about have both good and bad aspects to them.

The ideal system is a mongrel, mixing ideas from the various pure ideologies. In fact, this has largely been how the US has done things since the US started, and has been one of its greatest strengths. Looking at US history, there have been several times (including now) when the nation has veered towards an ideological purity of one sort or another. That has never gone well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Too much capitalism and workers suffer. Too much socialism and workers suffer. Both mostly because of greed. The ideal economic system system seems to be one based on capitalism but with socialist support to protect the citizens. Imo.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> With it being voting time here in the US, I figured this topic was important for me to do more research into and that it might be helpful for others too :) Hopefully it's clear and helps!

</comment><comment><USER3> That's too easy. History has shown us that both systems are disastrous, One is quite frankly beyond cataclysmic and the other is just as catastrophic but works well enough.</comment>


Apple has three main privacy drives: transparency, consent, control - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/alumyo/apple_blocks_google_from_running_its_internal_ios/efhh71y/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also known as "privacy by design".

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

</comment><comment><USER2> Hmmm... Who consented to their joining the NSA Prism program?</comment>


/r/Geopolitics styling: collapsable threads - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/7mNa2nZvUTb <comment><AUTHOR> How to present controls and styles of collapsable threads, in a manner consistent with long and complex discussions, is difficult.

/r/Geopolitics has a particularly elegant solution. I'd run across it previously but had forgotten where.</comment>


WP Engine CEO Jason Cohen replaced by COO Heather Brunner - <AUTHOR> http://wpengine.com/2013/10/04/letter-to-customers-founderceo/

<comment><USER2> To clarify: Jason is stepping down into a CTO role.

This makes sense. Like he said in the post, as a company grows, the CEO role tends to shrink farther and farther from the technical nitty-gritty.

<comment><USER3> And to further clarify, the choice use of the word "replaced" in the OP- submitted headline implies Jason was pushed aside or something, which is _very_ much not the case.

This is something that has been in the works for some time, even before Heather was brought on as COO in the Spring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a smart move and it is the sort of answer to the question, "do you want a big piece of a small pie or a small piece of a huge pie?" that every founder must decide for themselves. Ultimately the best thing is to put yourself where you can do what is best for your business, but sometimes that means not being in charge.

</comment><comment><USER5> 80 employees. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is this on hacker news front page?

<comment><USER7> I'll pretend your question is genuine. It's because of his thoughtful explanation of how the CEO role changes as startups become established businesses. (Not because of the notoriety of his business-- which I assume is the source of your sass.)</comment></comment>


Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook's Data-Mining Profit Machine? - <AUTHOR> https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/can-antitrust-law-rein-in-facebooks-data-mining-profit-machine <comment><USER3> Rather than try to apply our existing laws in novel ways to protect consumers against predatory data collection and bad behavior from entities that we couldn't have imagined when those laws were originally written we really need new laws and regulations specially targeting these new beasts. It's long overdue that our legal system catch up with the internet and the abuses it has allowed.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _Can Antitrust Law Rein in Facebook's Data-Mining Profit Machine?..._

Probably not.

But an anti - "data sharing" law can. A HIPAA like law for personal data would stop, not only FB, but all of these companies in their tracks. Just make it illegal to sell access, in any fashion, to a user's personal data.

To get the government on your side, just make it like HIPAA. Law enforcement can still access your data, _if they have a warrant, and demonstrate an urgent need_. Everyone else is SOL. Any violations should be punished in the same draconian fashion that HIPAA violations are punished. (This will make the business of selling data unprofitable in the extreme.)

<comment><USER5> In your opinion, have HIPAA laws been a success? I've worked in 2 roles where I was the part of the technical implementations of compliance... and man, the stories I could tell.

<comment><USER6> Like it was a bureaucratic nightmare or it wasn't properly implemented?

<comment><USER5> it was a checkbox in a training ledger that nobody else cared about. People were passing around unencrypted csvs on flash disks, sending them to their gmail accounts via email. Parent company at one place (healthcare provider) couldn't even reconcile how many patients they had each year. (It was under 15k, so we're not talking like millions of patients)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's difficult to imagine a government that is pro-surveillance and dedicated to its expansion is going to want dismantle / disarm its #1 partner - <USER2> or otherwise.

To think that no one of significant power / influence in Washington DC has been aware of FB's depth and breadth is naive. Things are, from that POV, exactly how they're supposed to be.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can Facebook wither as a social pariah?

<comment><USER9> Maybe, but it won't happen fast enough. No sarcasm/snark; I mean this seriously. Things are happening now and we can't wait for it to die of old age to fix them.</comment></comment>


Which programming language do you really hate? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/2846/which-programming-language-do-you-really-hate/

<comment><USER2> As expected, hatred is roughly proportional to popularity. Bjarne was right when he said "There are only two kinds of programming language: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

Actually if we compare the Stack Exchange hatred list against the TIOBE index, then we can correct for the amount of 'expected' hatred (the kind that is proportional with usage)

VBScript: Hated much more than expected

PHP: Hated more than expected

Java: Hated less than expected

Visual Basic: Hated slightly more than expected

ColdFusion: Hated much more than expected

C++: Hated much less than expected

Disclaimer, those are a bunch of vague guesses based on two sources of questionable data.

<comment><USER3> I have two guesses for why C++ garners less hatred than expected:

(1) Lots of people who would have been writing C++ 5-10 years ago have moved over to Java.

(2) Lots of people writing C++ are actually writing C with classes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Matlab. That language is what I was "encouraged" to write the bulk of my thesis in. It's essentially the VB of the scientific community. Such a horrible language with a horrible runtime and an unbelievably limited vector syntax considering that is all it was designed for.

<comment><USER5> I was gonna write something about how matlab isn't really that bad. And then I thought about how it's impossible to do anything with strings, y(0)=1; gives an error, variables from inside a function aren't stored in the workspace even if they are called from the workspace (among other stupid crap with functions), and God help your soul if you ever type the word "classdef" into an m-file. It's a good thing some of the built in functions are really powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any language that is stuck in a non-text, non-diff-compatible, or where the program is combined in the same binary file with data.

Most commonly, this is found in the files generated by desktop database products such as MS Access, Filemaker, etc.

It's a program maintenance nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please fix the link. It is a bit disingenuous to link to the subsection fragment for Java when there's stuff above it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Best criticism of Python: Any language that has whitespace as tokens needs to die. Xepoch Sep 17 at 17:51

</comment><comment><USER9> I hate Java it has the following reasons:

\- it turns programming into a typefest

\- it assumes that a project has an architect and that architect can plan everything right from the start

\- it's slow

\- it's highly inconsistent, int v.s. Integer

\- it pretends to be strongly typed, still you get a bundle of runtime errors, that it can't protect you from, also you have the Object....

I hate C# because, it's: Java + bloat.</comment>


THANKQUEUE – A New Way to Say Thank You - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thankqueue/id944588204?ls=1&mt=8 ThankQueue is a very convenient iPhone app that is designed to help you perform one of the most common tasks of a day with the press of a button, i.e., THANK YOU <comment><AUTHOR> How you say Thank You in your language or country?</comment>


Get the most byte for your buck: Who has the best 3G/4G plan? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/mobile/best-mobile-data-plans/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is for USA only.</comment>


Trump International Elite Travel Companions - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20150816235245/http://www.trumpescorts.com:80/travel-companions/ <comment><USER2> That's pretty skeevy. The rich really are different, I guess.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I leave this startup? - <AUTHOR>

Dear HNers,
I have been a reader of Hacker News for a while. This post is more of a "help needed" post. I am working right now with a social network in pacific northwest and joined this company few months back as a SDE. To give some background about me, I hold a masters from one of the good universities in pacific nw and also an undergrad in cse from india.  After school, I worked with a small company before joining this social network startup for couple of years. They got acquired and the engineering staff was told to look for other opportunities.
Not a big deal, I got couple of offers and considering that I was on a work visa, I had to accept whatever offer I got so as to stay in US, I accepted this offer.
However, after working for a couple of months, I am not liking it. I was hired as SDE but they have asked me to work as SDET. I have no problems with testing if it was 5-10% of time. I tried to take it as a challenge but the features are being launched so quickly and so many releases every week that any automation I create, starts breaking with the next release. It has gone so bad that I have been limited to doing manual QA. There are a total of 2 QA for a team of 25+ engineer and with at least two releases and many other minor releases every week, it has gone really crazy with a 75+ hours a week being a norm.
I have worked in startup earlier and I really enjoyed working in startup where I connected well with product and coded all day long, but here I just don't feel good.
Having said all these things, I want to ask good folks at HN whether this has been their experience at working for startups and if it was, did they stayed there and made it work or switched to some other position? Also, will it look ok on my resume if I stayed with an organization for a short period (3-4 months)?
Thanks for your help. <comment><USER2> I just had a discussion with someone else about fast release schedules and QA teams.

If an organization wants to ship often, then QA teams don't work. You need the developers to write and own the test system. The new feature isn't done until the developer has tests for it and all the existing tests pass (even if this means changing those tests due to functionality changes). If this is passed off to a QA team, the whole process will always be broken.

Your organization is broken, and you are setup to fail (2 QA and 25 engineers!)

You can stay and try to help fix it, but this will be hard for you, since you are new, and change needs to come from the top management, or an engineer that the team will listen to. Even the top engineer will find it hard, since a lot of programmers get used to having a QA team to avoid this process!

If it was me, I'd be looking for my next opportunity and planning to leave pretty soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> "will it look ok on my resume if I stayed with an organization for a short period (3-4 months)"

I don't think it looks bad on its own - as long as you are adequately able to explain the quick move if asked about it in an interview.

As for whether or not to leave, you only live once. If you completely don't like it and you can afford to look for something else, go look. I would probably try to line up another position before leaving this one.

<comment><USER4> I was about to write the same as above. I totally agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone else wasn't quite sure what the acronyms are:

SDE = Software Development Engineer

SDET = Software Development Engineer Testing

<comment><USER6> Thanks for that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doing QA for 2 more years will look bad on your resume when applying for an engineering job.

Your plan could be:

1\. Look for another job.

2\. Talk to your boss, tell them you'll quit if you don't get the engineering job you were hired for instead of a QA job (be clear)

3\. Quit and start at the new job.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think most tech companies understand the volatility of a startup. I was with a startup for a while until our primary investor cut ties and left us with 35 salaries, a lease and plenty of network and utility bills to pay with barely a few thousand a month income from clients. It was a disaster and the subsequent company I ended up working for cared little about the details. All I had to tell them was "it was a startup". They nodded and continued with the interview. Three years later, I'm still happy to be with them. There's plenty of startups around if that's your thing...but in the end you should be happy when you hit the sack at night.</comment>


AgileStuff.info – Agile and QA Content Delivered to Your Inbox Weekly - <AUTHOR> http://www.agilestuff.info

<comment><USER2> Very cool stuff.</comment>