GitHub Discussions Beta - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zeit/next.js/discussions <comment><USER2> GitHub is slowly eating the surrounding cities. Github pages replaced our hosted sites. Projects replaced Trello/Waffle and friends. Actions replaced Travis/CircleCI. Sponsors is about to hit Patreon, and now Discussions aims for a piece of StackOverflow pie...

I think they are doing great in terms of performance and UI, it's hard to resist the convenience of having everything linked together in a coherent way. But this will probably backfire in the future :/

<comment><USER3> I can't wait for stack overflow to fall out of favor. There's few places as beginner-hostile as SO. If you get enough points, you get the close button, which effectively is telling newcomers to RTFM in nicer words.

<comment><USER4> That's not what the close button does and it typically requires a few confirmations from other users, so you can't close things randomly yourself. Almost all close votes are reasonable - have a look at the "close vote" moderation queue.

It may seem beginner hostile sometimes, but in practice it's mostly: you can't have a personal approach to everyone when looking through hundreds of messages.

<comment><USER3> I'm at 60k reputation so I have a decent idea of how it works. My point is that you probably _should_ have a personal approach before voting 'close'.

If you don't, there's no real harm in leaving bad questions open until there is someone else in the community willing to help out.

I find myself looking at closed questions wanting to help but unable to too many times.

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree. I just don't think this can be enforced in any way. Community defines itself. We've got 75042 people who can cast close votes. Requiring multiple votes helps, but you can't make that many people behave the same way with the same values.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> New features are great, but I wish they'd make more of an investment in improving their core code review functionality. The lack of an "interdiff" view (between revisions of a PR) and the lack of a proper way to mark PRs as dependent on one another really limit the utility compared to other code review platforms (thinking specifically of Gerrit and Phabricator/Differential here).

<comment><USER6> Github has a really great url api - you can usually do git related compares right there in the url - github.com/some/repo/compare/HEAD...comitsha is actually a thing.

And while not particularly ergonomic you can have PR against other PR since forever.

Github is built by devs for devs and has tons of hidden gems scattered in there. Do read their shortcuts help, blog and other dev sources and you might find tools for a lot of the task you can think of.

<comment><USER7> That feature breaks down in the presence of merges. But when those are not present it works OK, you see lines like this:

> force-pushed the aojea:affinity branch from 8eab3f7 to ee626e7 yesterday [0]

Where the "force pushed" links to a pretty decent UI [1], but it will include a bunch of non-import information if the person _rebased_ and force pushed, which is a common reason for force pushing.

You can see that in this [2] long lived Kubernetes PR that was rebased, the resulting "helpful" link shows me 2094 changed files [3]. In a tool like Gerrit or Phabricator this is automatically handled and it would basically ignore this operation unless the rebase changed the code being reviewed.

0 - [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/88409](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/88409)

1 - [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/compare/8eab3f73163...](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/compare/8eab3f7316381a5bc91104881d9f77ee0430e56c..ee626e77bfd2d69dd378eade3d86a297f3bbab45)

2 - [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85000](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85000)

3 - [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/compare/375873cb532...](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/compare/375873cb532942035b9e6479f044a9184cf0e5a6..ee8f410ca145b028d352be2d9498fcbcf95cb517)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One feature that is missing with this, and with every discussion forum since usenet , is a tree-view of a thread.

On my Thunderbird I still follow some usenet forums and it is so much clearer and quicker with a tree view to see who has replied at what point in the thread. Poring through reams of quoted replies just to find where in the thread the answer comes doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER9> Do you think this kind of deep-threading, or tree-nesting, encourages a forked conversation, with everyone in the discussion trying to respond to individual comments in an ever-growing tree, rather than responding to the current conversation as a whole? I find mailing list threads that are trees very hard to follow. It's probably a conscious decision.

<comment><USER10> I've found trees encourage forked conversations in a good way. While I don't find them hard to follow, I do find revisiting them to be a bit difficult. While it can seem difficult to follow the overarching topic given a set of trees, it's near impossible to have any in-depth discussions about more than one thing in flat threads.

I have given these models lots of thought and have come to the conclusion that the success/failure of hierarchical conversations is determined solely by the presentation. Common mailing lists and email UIs leave the most to be desired, while HN, reddit, sbnation community sites, etc show a path forward. But nobody has implemented the view properly enough to let you see the forest and the trees at the same time (yet).

<comment><USER9> Here's a concrete example where I think it goes wrong. You say something, and two people respond. There's one thing to say in response to both people - maybe they both misunderstood part of your point. Which comment do you respond to? On places like HN people seem to feel the need to respond to both branches, which causes exponential growth if it continues, compared to if you could respond to the two comments as one. Maybe we need a comment DAG instead? Responding to an arbitrary number of comments? Maybe comments that aren't even siblings?

<comment><USER11> > Maybe we need a comment DAG instead?

HN comments _are_ a DAG. DAGs are branchy, which is the problem. It seems like you want to merge or rebase the two comments and then reply with a new node pointing to the last of them.

<comment><USER9> > HN comments are a DAG.

Come on don't be pedantic you know what I mean - I mean a DAG that is not also a tree - so using the merging property of a DAG.

If HN were a DAG then I could make this reply to your comment and someone else's on another part of the discussion at the same time.

> merge or rebase

These are source control terms - I'm not sure how they apply here.

<comment><USER12> > These are source control terms - I'm not sure how they apply here.

Git is a DAG too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Superb. Many open source projects still bounce you to Google Groups for discussion, which is archaic at this point. Even requires Google login just to read threads.

Also it's often unclear what the policy is on raising questions in the issues tracker (smaller projects are usually fine with it, bigger projects get overwhelmed and don't want it). This will make it a much nicer separation for everyone and keep the issues tracker minimal.

<comment><USER14> Proprietary project management tools - slack, github issues, PRs, discussions, etc are terrible places to host OSS communications. Use open source tools.

<comment><USER15> Why?

It seems to me the real thing open source projects ought to have is control over their data / autonomy - having some service control your forums and publish the code they use to run them doesn't seem like much of an advantage, if you can't apply patches to their system. For instance, while it helps _Debian_ that their GitLab instance salsa.debian.org is open source, how does it help a non-Debian-affiliated project that happens to use that service?

So there are two separate things you could be interested in. One is, am I running my own service? Most people don't want to be 24/7 volunteer sysadmins, it turns out. (A few do, like the people who run salsa.debian.org: more power to them. A few open source projects can pay sysadmins, which also solves the problem.)

The other question is, can I get my project's data out of someone else's service if I want to migrate? It turns out that you can do that for many closed-source forums.

<comment><USER16> Having your OSS discussions on Slack is pretty terrible, it's a closed source silo where things can't be found via Google or even with the included search if you are above the limit. Every time I see an open source project asking people to "Join our Slack" it makes me sad.

Besides, I'm in too many Slacks already. I really don't need one Slack account for each project I want to follow.

<comment><USER15> > _it's a closed source silo where things can't be found via Google or even > with the included search if you are above the limit._

How is that different from, say, IRC? How is it relevant that Slack is closed- source?

If you want to run an open-source project on Slack, run a logger that dumps things to a publicly Googleable archive - same as you would if you were running the project on IRC or on a mailing list or whatever.

If Slack says that running a logger is a violation of their terms, then that's a reason to avoid Slack in particular - but not with closed-source services in general. It's a problem with services run by someone else, open-source or not. And in fact, Freenode (which runs an open-source ircd) has a policy that if you log, you must say so clearly in the topic and you must respond to requests to remove portions of logs.

To be clear, I think that if a project says, out of idealism we will only use FLOSS forums, and we don't care about meaningful control over it, we just want to encourage other people to run FLOSS to promote the movement, that's totally reasonable. But if your concern about non-FLOSS platforms is practical and not philosophical, I'd argue what you actually care about is control over the platform.

> _Besides, I'm in too many Slacks already._

I have this problem too, but it's not really about whether Slack is open- source or not, it's about the specific software. (Also, from experience, being in over a hundred channels in irssi is actually less manageable....)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sorely needed. Tons of projects use issues for discussions/questions..or redirect to stackoverflow.

I wonder what will be the reduction in stackoverflow due to this ?

One request - have a global "discussions search" . Repos are interconnected to each other. I don't want to have to restrict my topic search to one repository's discussions

<comment><USER18> StackOverflow actively discourages "discussion"—it is for questions and answers. If anything, I'd say it overlaps more with issues than this.

<comment><USER17> I don't know what stackoverflow discourages, but tons of projects explicitly mention "ask questions on stackoverflow with this hashtag"

Having a place to do this right next to the source code would be welcome (as long as there is global search as well)

E.g. [https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/debug-application- cluster/t...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/debug-application- cluster/troubleshooting/#help-my-question-isn-t-covered-i-need-help-now)

 _Stack Overflow

Someone else from the community may have already asked a similar question or may be able to help with your problem. The Kubernetes team will also monitor posts tagged Kubernetes. If there aren't any existing questions that help, please ask a new one!_

<comment><USER18> In terms of displaying content, asking questions is a very different thing to discussion. If you've ever had to trawl through forum threads trying to find answers, it is a nightmare. StackOverflow is much more heavily moderated and curated to keep the answers from being buried.

In general, you aren't going to be able to discuss something on SO, and people aren't going to find answers in discussion boards because they don't make it easy to find those answers.

<comment><USER17> I know what you mean, but given great search, this is not going to be massive difference. But the ability to link to source code lines/issues/pull-requests as part of the discussion is going to be good.

Here's the thing - I would bet there's an overwhelming majority of users, who "discuss" and ask on GitHub issues anyway. And half the job of repo owners is to close such issues.

So it's not like the natural behaviour of users is to go to stackoverflow for questions/discussions anyway. This just channels existing behaviour

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Definitely a welcome addition, but it's funny that after all this time the solution was just to copy-paste the Issues tab and rename it. In fact in our public repos we have a "Discussion" label for such issues and it has worked pretty well.

<comment><USER20> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER19> Finding such a "simple" and effective solution for a long standing problem is the software development dream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A problem with such products offered by GitHub is the fact that they're connected to a single repo. This is maybe suitable for monorepo situations or simple open-source libraries. However, teams work differently and need to manage backlogs across many repositories. The context is usually a team, project, etc. This requires pulling in multiple issues across repos into one backlog along with abilities to manage this backlog and calculate metrics.

I've seen some teams manage an 'issues' repository solely with tickets that are later linked to the individual repos' issues and PRs. It's quite a mess and GH does not seem to offer issue statistics and comprehensive query capabilities to manage issues.

Has anyone worked with an issue management system (not JIRA) that would be working across 100+ delivery teams and have decent integration with GH/GHE to show PR progress, issue status, releases, etc.? Any experience with FB's [https://phacility.com/phabricator/](https://phacility.com/phabricator/) for example?

<comment><USER7> Phabricator works great at the scale you are talking about. With a single monotonic issue number for your company (like Apple's Radar). You have to ditch GitHub totally though, and use Phabricator for code review or the wiki too to get the benefit. Avoid it's repo hosting and CI component (harbormaster). The thing you will miss most is the web based file editing.

My advise would be to deploy: Phabricator (issues, code review, wiki), Buildkite (CI - with your own AWS runners), gitolite (repo hosting).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congrats on shipping!

I like how quickly GitHub is shipping new features now, compared to earlier: the mobile app, Actions, Sponsors, security scanning, etc.

That said, I was a little disappointed that Discussions is essentially identical to Issues :(.

While I can't pinpoint any specific issues I've had with Issues for discussions, I was hoping GitHub found, and found solutions for, pain points that users didn't know they had with Issues.

<comment><USER20> It's a little different. You can mark which comment answers a question, and comments can be voted. We will probably find some other things we want Discussions to do differently, too, as we iterate.

<comment><USER22> Thanks Nat! I would also recommend writing a blog post announcing Discussions and its features as soon as you get the chance.

Reading this HN thread, I got the impression GitHub actually did just copy/paste Issues into a new tab, as a commenter mentioned, a belief that was backed up by a cursory look at Next.js's Discussions.

Now I see that's not fully the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Phew. I've pretty much given up subscribing to issues on well-known projects because they so often get swamped by useless posts from people desperate to take their opinions for a walk (I pity the maintainers).

Hopefully this will reduce the issue spam problem.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have no idea if my suggestion four years ago helped but am glad they finally implemented it :) [https://github.com/dear-github/dear- github/issues/44](https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/44)

</comment><comment><USER25> This links to Zeit, which seems like a kind of advert for their product?

How do we actually find out about GitHub Discussions and opting-into it? Or did GitHub only enrol one company into the beta?

<comment><USER26> It doesn't appear that GitHub has announced anything about Discussions on their site yet. My guess is that a few select large repositories (e.g. zeit/next.js) are trying out the beta to provide feedback. We'll probably get some official communication from GitHub shortly, with the ability to sign up for the beta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting, I thought this was going to have something to do with their acquisition of Spectrum, but it appears to be an entirely separate in-house feature. I wonder what's going to happen to Spectrum longer term then.

[https://spectrum.chat/spectrum/general/spectrum-is- joining-g...](https://spectrum.chat/spectrum/general/spectrum-is-joining- github~1d3eb8ee-4c99-46c0-8daf-ca35a96be6ce)

<comment><USER26> I had the same thought. Especially since the Next.js maintainers said that Discussions would eventually replace their Spectrum community.

Maybe GitHub acquired Spectrum with the intention of slowly migrating its userbase over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This looks like the perfect mechanism to help us disambiguate code-related items from discussion items. We could say something like "Close this issue and link it to a new discussion"... Will give this a hard look when it's available on our org account.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been waiting for something similar to this for a long time. There's a lot of questions & topical discussion that don't fit well into issue.

I wasn't able to find GitHub page covering this feature, so the link to to Next.js's repo discussions.

</comment><comment><USER29> Interesting. Will this be rolling out to other repositories at some point to beta-test?

<comment><USER20> Yep! We're going to try it out in a few interested communities, and if people like it, we'll make it available GitHub-wide. It's early, though, and we want a chance to learn what works and iterate on a smaller scale before introducing it to everyone.

<comment><USER30> Is there any way to apply for the beta? I'm maitaining few communities that could really use this feature!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Aren't all issues discussions in essence? I think they'd have been better of just renaming issues and adding categories like "Issue", "Discussion" etc. Some projects already do this via labels.

<comment><USER32> Not really. Issues are problems/bugs/etc that directly affect the product and are related to code. Discussions are for thing that are not related to code, like a user asking for some guidance regarding the code.

> Some projects already do this via labels.

That was an illogical hack do to limitations. Good on Github for identifying and fixing that.

<comment><USER33> So the only functional difference is that they are shown on different tabs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is there a real desire to separate these from issues? We use issues to have discussions and it's never a situation in have been unhappy with.

<comment><USER35> Issues are about bugs in the project. Discussion are about bugs in the person. It's true that it is not always evident which domain a bug exists and so some spill over is natural.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Oh love it! I'm always unsure if it's ok to ask a question via issues.

<comment><USER37> Thanks! Hopefully helps you find answers, too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'd assume that this has a similar scope to team discussions[0] released a few years ago. At the moment most larger projects have communities elsewhere, and smaller projects use issues for this king of discussion.

Compared to other community forums it's distinguishing feature will be referencing commits and issues. I'd be interested to see how many projects actually use this feature.

[0]: [https://github.blog/2017-11-20-introducing-team- discussions/](https://github.blog/2017-11-20-introducing-team-discussions/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, having worked with github orgs for since this was released, I never actually knew this existed. It actually look pretty cool, sad that it didn't get much traction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Will there be an option for internal discussion? For example ticking off the "internal" checkbox makes the thread visible to team members and collaborators only.

<comment><USER40> You can already do this with team discussions (which has been around for a few years).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm not sure if this is necessary. Github, from the beginning, is a platform where we host our source code. I've never needed a discussion board because there are other sites that are precisely serving discussion boards, like StackOverflow. The idea of having everything on the same platform sounds easy but that is also taking out the opportunity of being a simple and elegant tool. Microsoft is changing Github since they acquired.

That makes me question ( because they are Microsoft), What happens when they add everything inside Github and then they don't like it? Will they have an opportunity of closing Github? Switching it to something inside their office tool? May be office suite for developers? Combine Visual Studio with Github and discussion boards and todo lists and CI tools... ???

I'm the kind of developer/product maker who likes to use a diversity of products. That feeds my creativity and makes me think differently.. I don't want to lose that one.

Anyways...

I wanna ask something different, What do you think if StackOverFlow adds git hosting? Will it work?

</comment><comment><USER42> So, how do I join discussions beta?

<comment><USER37> We're testing it out with a ZEIT for now, working to improve things as we go.

<comment><USER43> Can we please have organizational account-wide discussions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Tangential question, is github a proof that not every complex app has to be an SPA and it can worked really well or is this legacy thing from their part?

Curious to know if they feel they could iterate faster new features for the UI if it were an SPA.

<comment><USER45> A lot of apps that started with Rails take that approach, including Github, Airbnb, Basecamp (which technically started Rails), and a few others.

Some companies start API first or mobile app first, which makes SPAs much more likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It is only natural progression here. Heck, I am surprised it took this long. Considering the fact that in many Github projects, "Issues" were being used for discussions, questions, often tangents.

</comment><comment><USER47> Github is becoming more and more diverse. the style of Github has always been a professional discussion about issues or features. But now it may be changing, Maybe because users are becoming more and more willing to use it as a forum to discuss something it's maybe not that useful on it. Now Github has opened up an area to do this, which may be a good thing while maintaining professionalism and making the community is more like a community.

</comment><comment><USER48> One problem with GitHub's version of these features is how they're tied to repos or organizations. My team works on many projects across repos and GitHub orgs and we have to use ZenHub instead of GitHub Projects because of these barriers.

This seems like it'll be great for getting Q&A and random thoughts out of issues, but it won't replace broader boards and lists.

<comment><USER49> Slack?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Concerns include record retention policy and terms of use governing redistribution of the content

</comment><comment><USER51> Hmm. So this will be like a classical forum basically?

</comment><comment><USER52> can't wait for slack being on target for GitHub

(and not just a team integration please... :D)

</comment><comment><USER53> They just need to create an integrated gitter clone now, or maybe buy it from gitlab. Also this step pretty much kills discourse, doesn't it?

<comment><USER22> GitHub bought Spectrum (spectrum.chat) in 2018:

[https://spectrum.chat/spectrum/general/spectrum-is- joining-g...](https://spectrum.chat/spectrum/general/spectrum-is-joining- github~1d3eb8ee-4c99-46c0-8daf-ca35a96be6ce)

But I would caution against integrating too many tools into GitHub. As a user, I like that GitHub errors on the side of saying no. You don't want to end up with a bloated product.

<comment><USER54> As long as they retain the option to disable certain features on a repo, I am wholly in favor of consolidating the development stack into GitHub. Easier to mandate 2FA and other security procedures when your team doesn't have to juggle several sites.

Friendly aside: the expression is "err(s) on the side of..."</comment></comment></comment>


Skype circa 1957 - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5534002748/

<comment><AUTHOR> What I love about this vintage illustration is that in fact the video phone setup is pretty much a clunky version of an iMac with the video camera on top and the screen below. On an interesting note Hughes current website proudly notes that "Hughes Electronics Corporation is the world's leading provider of digital television entertainment, and satellite and wireless systems and services." <http://www.hughes.com></comment>


Ask HN: Sass, Less, or Stylus – which do you use and why? - <AUTHOR>

See title. I've used Sass to customize a Bootstrap theme, but now I'm starting a huge project and want to use the one that's the most elegant. <comment><USER2> In a recent update of an old web application I cleaned up the relatively small but very crufty stylesheets, using Sass to reduce code duplication (simple mixins for classes with partly identical styles).

Sass looked like the most suitable among mature CSS preprocessors running on node.js.</comment>


"My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream" (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalrepublik.com/digital-marketing-newsletter/2015/05/10/my-car-does-not-start-when-i-buy-vanilla-ice-cream-said-a-man-to-general-motors/ <comment><USER2> On a related note: The case of the 500 mile email [0]

[0] [https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html](https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html)

<comment><USER3> This immediately came to mind as well and is one of my favorite stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cone-of- silence/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cone-of-silence/)

<comment><USER5> Indeed! From the article:

> _In 2010, the Pontiac Division of General Motors received..._

> _This was a cool act by General Motors especially in this world of Internet > when news can go viral in matter of seconds_

From Snopes:

> _This legend surfaced in print in 1978, but an anecdotal sighting places it > even earlier than that, in 1971._

<comment><USER6> Yes. It's a neat story, but it has that smell of an urban legend. What engineer would come back for four nights in a row rather than just figuring out why the car didn't start the first time?

<comment><USER7> Why do you think he came back four times in a row? Not everyone has a complete and accurate physical model of their car in their head.

<comment><USER6> The story, as written, says that the engineer want with the father on four different nights. I would expect an engineer to at least try to diagnose the problem rather than spending all the effort of coming back on four different nights outside of work ours. Basically the story feels made up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If the car didn't start then how did he come back the next day to get more ice cream? Surely he waited a bit and the car would start. And the timing issue would be obvious from here?

I'm also worried about his health. Should he really be having ice cream everyday?

<comment><USER9> The engineer also wouldn't wait until the next day to test again.

<comment><USER7> One of our bug reports was "if we leave the machine for more than two weeks it doesn't deploy correctly." Sometimes you can't test again until the hardware is ready.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b Reminds me of my wife's macbook air wifi that was always spotty when she was using it, and always got back to normal when I used it. She thought I had some kind of magic engineer's touch.

After much thinking, we realized that when she was using the laptop in her bed, she would put it on her lap with her legs bent, so that the computer was sitting at a 45 degree angle wrt to the floor, while I would put the computer flat on my chest. This angle made the wifi antenna much less performant.

<comment><USER10> Humans are basically bags of mostly water, and water is not god to radio signals. Have seen the exact same problem in rooms that are far away from the router. Massive difference if any of my body parts is in the way of the signal

<comment><USER11> Wifi is weird sometimes. I once had to help my nephew with his network. He had 2 adjacent rooms, but with half a meter concrete inbetween. Needless to say the signal would not penetrate from one room to the other, no matter how close we moved the router and laptop to each other in their respective rooms. But moving the router and laptop back would make it work all of a sudden. Turned out, moving them back would position them in front of the windows, and the signal would then go out of the window and bounce of the neighbouring building to the other room's window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do sites use this crappy scrolling override. I's infuriating and makes navigating the article a pain.

<comment><USER13> I just thought my ctrl-key was broken because I couldn't change the size with ctrl-mousewheel. I whish webbrowsers wouldn't allow this shit. There is no legit reason for a website to fiddle with the basic controls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My first car (bought used) had a weird bug: When it had been parked overnight on a steep slope facing downwards, the driver's electric window sometimes wouldn't go back up. Rain would increase the chance of the bug occurring.

All other windows were fine and the problem would go away after a few hours of driving. The bug never occurred if the car was parked on a flat surface.

The mechanics were clueless. I've found that there's a so-called "convenience comfort module" located under a front seat. This electronic module was responsible for controlling the electric windows (amongst other things) and was insufficiently sealed. Water could enter and disrupt certain functions. My dealer wouldn't even believe me that this module exists. :)

Turns out other people had the water problem, too: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9z7iEbg3qY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9z7iEbg3qY)

<comment><USER4> You parked your car and left the windows open?

<comment><USER14> No; after letting them down the following day, the one on the driver's side just wouldn't go back up again or would even go down by itself once the car was started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This story comes up once every few months if we get a really, really weird bug request from support. Issues like "the customer says, the app automatically buys something while he is sleeping. Please investigate where our app has automatic buying" and we just sit there and stare at this in awe

</comment><comment><USER16> The point of this story is not the ice cream, it's to take user reports of bugs seriously even if they make no sense or you can't reproduce them.

</comment><comment><USER17> Vapor lock was a thing in the time of carburetors.

This story is from the 70s, when "internet virality" was not yet on people's minds.

<comment><USER18> Interesting. Fuel-injected aircraft engines get vapor lock—shutting down to refuel and then restarting can be a serious pain—but I don't think I've ever heard of a carbureted one doing it.

<comment><USER19> In Jefferson County, Colorado, the stretch of US 40 up into the foothills from the plains used have a lot of cars stalled by vapor lock along the shoulders. But I don't think I've seen a car stalled by vapor lock in forty years.

<comment><USER18> Neat. Sounds like I'll be jumping down the rabbit hole to figure out why carbed cars vapor-lock but airplanes are the reverse. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is a GitHub repo which lists loads of interesting bugs (vanilla ice cream car, 500 mile email, etc.) with better quality writeups than this. I think it's been posted to HN before. Anyone?

</comment><comment><USER21> I once had the strange problem that shaking my Apple Magic Mouse helped to reestablish the lost blue tooth connection to my Mac. This happened quite often. It took me quite a while to figure out, why shaking the mouse should help with the bluetooth connection:

The reasons is simply that the batteries in the Magic Mouse are often loose and so shaking seems to help moving the batteries around: [https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/15709/magic- mouse-...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/15709/magic-mouse-is- frequently-losing-its-connection-to-macbook-pro)

</comment><comment><USER22> Hmm, got 500 Error code, Internal Server Error. Here is a backup:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191213101529/https://www.digit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191213101529/https://www.digitalrepublik.com/digital- marketing-newsletter/2015/05/10/my-car-does-not-start-when-i-buy-vanilla-ice- cream-said-a-man-to-general-motors/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I had a similar problem on my previous car. It would start again without issue after stopping if the pause was shorter than 15min or longer than half an hour but there was a spot in between where the car had cooled down too much and not enough at the same time to start. It's nice to see it was not just a fancy from an old car and to know the reason.

<comment><USER24> I still have this problem on my 2004 Opel Astra. When it sits for about 15-20mins I have problem starting, but I just have to start it for about 5 seconds instead of instantly. Longer or shorter pauses are ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe not important, but I would have put (2010) in the title.

The article was posted on May 10, 2015 but the story is from 2010.

<comment><USER17> more like ~1978

<comment><USER26> That's why it took the engineer so long to figure it out. He wasn't expecting a "solved" problem like heat soak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not the point of the story, but I wonder if engineers would reach the solution faster than non-engineers due to their practice debugging. As soon as I read the guy was driving to the store to pick it up I knew it had to be timing due to store layout.

<comment><USER28> If the story is to be believed then a smart engineer took several days to figure it out while it only took you a minute. I suspect there are other factors than simply being an 'engineer' that will help you arrive at the solution. I personally would never have guessed that store layout would be a factor. However, one question I had immediately was "how do you get home if your car doesn't start?" and if the reply was "I wait and eventually the car starts" then I would probably have closed in on the answer after that.

<comment><USER26> The situation described is basically a textbook perfect example of heat soak.

If you tell someone with experience repairing vehicles that your car starts fine when cold and find when you shut it off for a short while (e.g. buying gas they are going to nearly instantly hone in on "something is hot that shouldn't be".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One for Car Talk!

Actually when I read the title, my first gut reaction was "Vapor Lock".

</comment><comment><USER30> Correlation vs causation, eh?

<comment><USER31> There is causation, just not directly from ice cream to vapor lock. It's a diagram with three entities, ice cream -> time to cool -> vapor lock

<comment><USER32> That's the nature of all situations in which "correlation is not causation".</comment></comment></comment>


Bliss (image) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_(image) <comment><USER2> I just drove past there last week. California is the most beautiful place on earth.</comment>


Show HN: Backup solution for Windows Azure - <AUTHOR>

Hi, we are current and former Microsoft engineers, and we wanted simple, beautiful backup for Windows Azure. So we built Cloud Cellar.
http://www.getcloudcellar.com
Cloud Cellar allows you to back up Windows Azure Web Sites, and will soon extend to SQL Azure, MySQL and Storage. It's free to get started and does not require a credit card.
We'd love to hear what you guys think. <comment><USER2> Check out [https://www.getcloudcellar.com/Home/Support](https://www.getcloudcellar.com/Home/Support) for ways to contact us or comment on our thread!</comment>


Jet – Lightweight, Realtime Message Bus for the Web - <AUTHOR> http://jetbus.io/

<comment><USER2> I wonder about the rainy day cases of this - what if a connection is lost for a minute? will the recovery deliver all the missing messages? will it restore consistency once the connection is restored?

Also, Jet is based on installing a single router server. What about scaling that server? HA? If you install two such servers, do they communicate? Or does each create it's own communication domain?

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the difference between SocketIO and this?

<comment><USER2> Socket IO is a service, this is something you install on your server

<comment><USER4> > Socket IO is a service

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Socket.io is something you install on your server as well

[http://socket.io/download/](http://socket.io/download/)

[http://socket.io/get-started/](http://socket.io/get-started/)

<comment><USER2> I was sure socket.io is a service you use... for some reason...

But you are right - it is exactly the same, only that socket.io looks more solid.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps you're thinking of Pubnub.com ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What iPhone screen sizes should I make my app for? - <AUTHOR>

I'm making an app for iOS, and there are 3 screen sizes I should make, but is it necessary. I've seen places that use 640x960 and 320x480. Should I make it for 640x1136 too?
Which ones do you think are important?
320x480
640x960
640x1136
Also, I'm not worried about the new iPhone screen sizes that are coming out in September (probably) yet.
Thanks <comment><USER2> ALL THE SIZES.

If you were an Android developer, you'd have to design for heaps more sizes and variants than that, so be thankful and just build for all three.

Remember, the tallest one is for the newest set of phones (with the demographic of users most likely to spend the money) -- you WANT these people to like your app. Do yourself a favor and build for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <2% still living are pre-"retina" (i.e., 320x480). [[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/28/iphone-5s-represen...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/28/iphone-5s-represents-38-of- all-iphones-in-use-us-has-highest-5c-adoption-rate)]

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I thought the regular iPhone 4 was 320x480. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> No worries. I've never done iOS development, but taking advantage of the fact that the first three gens of iPhone had exactly 1/4th the resolution (1/2 in each dimension) of the 4 and 4s should allow you to save some time (e.g., they may have the same number of virtual pixels).</comment></comment></comment>


"How hard can it be?" - On coding, chess and elo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.incubaid.com/2012/02/24/how-hard-can-it-be-on-coding-chess-and-elo/

<comment><USER2> I disagree.. while there a certain similarities, especially when it comes to "becoming better" at both playing chess and programming ( it comes harder to improve at a certain level), the whole concept, motivation and purpose is different. Chess is about winning a defined game, with a defined set of moves. The motivation is, primarily, to win the game. Only very few players are playing chess professionally, but most do it as a hobby. Programming on the other hand is the contrary: it's not a competition. It's about solving problems, so your opponent is not necessarily another developer, but a problem that's complicated to solve. And the solution depends on the exact definition of the problem. I don't see where an equivalent to the elo-score would fit in here, let alone have any use whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the solution should be standardized testing?</comment>


Top Undergraduate Majors of 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rezscore.com/top-100-undergraduate-majors-2019-c9cc32b02bfc <comment><USER2> Get ready to grind LeetCode.</comment>


MP on Google tax avoidance scheme: 'I think that you do evil' - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/16/google-told-by-mp-you-do-do-evil

<comment><USER2> Google really needs to understand the culture.

No-one minds if you avoid[1] part of your tax. It's expected behaviour. But Google have taken it to extremes.

People usually say "What's the problem? They're obeying the law".

But Google (and others) might not be obeying the law. They hire expensive huge companies who specialise in tax avoidance. These schemes are borderline legal, sometimes illegal.

When the companies are caught they make a deal to repay some of the tax, and agree not to do it again.

Starbucks claim that they make no profit in England. That's clearly nonsense. Amazon paid about £3.5million in tax, but received £2.5million in government grants.

Avoid a bit of tax, just stop taking the piss.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unethical != Evil

<comment><USER4> Google's tax strategy is legal, but disguising UK sales as Irish sales is not.

 _"Google vice-president Matt Brittin insisted he stood by evidence he gave last year that all the firm's advertising in Europe was sold through its offices in Ireland.

But in a series of testy exchanges, the committee chairman, Margaret Hodge, said his claims were contradicted by documentation MPs had seen and evidence from a "stream" of whistleblowers.

"It was quite clear from all that documentation that the entire trading process and sales process took place in the UK," she told him."_

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/16/google- deni...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/16/google-denies- disguise-operates-tax)

 _"The committee had also been contacted by a senior salesman who Ms Hodge said was paid a "modest" salary, but three or four times that in commission for sales and for "closing deals".

"This is somebody, a senior salesman, who said he was making sales in the UK. This is a UK sale and should be subject to UK tax," she added.

...Mr Brittin said that although sales staff in the UK were promoting Google and encouraging people to spend money, the transaction would take place in Ireland.

But Ms Hodge replied: "We all accept the billing is in Ireland. If sales activity is taking place in the UK, you are misleading both Parliament and the taxpayers in suggesting that is not happening."_

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hmrc-are- being...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hmrc-are-being- bamboozled-by-google-mps-confront-search-giant-over-devious-attempt-to-avoid- paying-uk-tax-8618695.html)</comment></comment>


Watch the British Library Digitize One of the World's Largest Books - <AUTHOR> https://hyperallergic.com/375669/watch-the-british-library-digitize-one-of-the-worlds-largest-books/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know how much of libraries' out-of-copyright content, including rare books, is now available online? A tiny fraction? The important stuff?

Speaking more generally, despite the promise of the Internet it seems like the more valuable knowledge is inaccessible to the public - knowledge in books and scientific journals. The public is left with the dregs.

People complain about how easily bad information and deliberate misinformation spread and are accepted. In the context of my point above, is that a surprise? Remember the old saying about management and accounting systems or really any application: GIGO: Garbage in, garbage out.</comment>


Sony suing fail0verflow & geohot over PS3 jailbreak [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://geohot.com/Motion%20For%20TRO.pdf

<comment><USER2> _Finally, SCEA will likely prevail on its claim under §1030(a)(7)(B), which prohibits "intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value" by threatening "to obtain information from a protected computer without authorization or in excess of authorization or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer without authorization or by exceeding authorized access." Hotz violated this provision when, in the same post in which the published SCEA's Keys, he attempted to obtain from SCEA "a thing of value" in the form of employment: "if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me."_

geohot offers to work for them and help them build something that's actually secure, they sue him for "extortion". beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, let's see if we can summarize the story in broad outline. Sony releases the PS3 with the included functionality of installing an alternate operating system. Users purchase PS3s with this ability. Sony changes its mind about the benefits of this feature and removes it via a software update. Users take steps to regain the full functionality of the devices they purchased. Sony sues the users for this action.

<comment><USER4> If you buy hardware, you should own that hardware and be able to do with it as you please.

<comment><USER5> "Whoa there buddy, you made your own gravy for that chicken? I don't think so, you have to buy our gravy for your delicious dinner."

<comment><USER6> But what if that gravy you made is so healthy and flavorful that it gives you the energy to go on a murder rampage? Clearly being able to make your own gravy is facilitating crime, and must be prohibited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Incredibly relevant: Daeken's Hardware Hacker Manifesto: <http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto>

Sony probably has the upper hand legally here. The DMCA seems to be pretty explicit about these kind of this, at least from my non-lawyerly reading of it. Even so, this is quite unprecedented. Apple and Nintendo have both had devices hacked, often by these same people (there's at least two iPhone Dev- Team members there, four members of Team Twiizers, and, of course, geohot), but they never took any kind of legal action.

(Somewhat unrelated, but funny: even Nintendo found out "bushing"'s real name and phone number. I wonder why Sony didn't go through that trouble and referred to him pseudonymously.)

<comment><USER8> Unprecedented?

 _In this case decided in 2005, Sony received over $6 million in a copyright infringement judgment against a small online retailer who violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201 et seq., by selling computer chips that allowed unauthorized copies of PlayStation games to be played on the PlayStation console._

[http://www.patentarcade.com/2010/07/case-analysis-sony-v- fil...](http://www.patentarcade.com/2010/07/case-analysis-sony-v- filipiak.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> There was never much of a PlayStation One homebrew or Linux scene though, was there? So it'd be hard to argue that the PS1 device had any useful purpose other than piracy.

Unlike with PS2&3, where for a while there Sony pretty much endorsed alternative uses of the console.

<comment><USER8> That may improve the moral standing, but I don't see how it affects the legal situation. There's no right to homebrew in the DMCA (sadly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I personally don't think this is a good move from Sony. Apple seem to have the right stance with their hardware being compromised - pretty much just ignore it.

Bringing a legal action like this just raises the public awareness to the hack (not good for Sony). It pisses more hackers off (not good for Sony) and it doesn't fix what seems to be an unfixable problem for Sony.

I'm sure the courts will be made aware that Sony removed a "key" feature/selling point of a console and left consumers with little choice about how to re-enable that feature.

Anyway, Geohot shouldn't have been such an egomaniac, the keys/tools could have been leaked online anonymously and he wouldn't be in legal trouble. Still, I can see an out of court settlement of some kind on the horizon...

<comment><USER10> Apple makes their money from hardware -- software sales are just icing on the cake. Sony, however, has to take piracy threats (since even well-intentioned cracking will lead to piracy) very seriously because they make all of their money from software sales.

Sony's ineffectual attempts to lock down the PSP (starting with the last- minute homebrew policy reversal) probably contributed to the firmware hacking community's fervor. However, after the rampant piracy on the PSP platform, I think Sony is going to take any firmware hacks very seriously. Gamers have proven to be perfectly willing to pirate games if given the opportunity.

<comment><USER11> Sonys problem is that they make the most expensive games console hardware, but make a loss selling it.

If I were them I'd fix that first. And get rid of the ridiculous and outdated blu-ray crap. Spinny disc things? In this day and age?

<comment><USER12> I remember when Nintendo said that. You'll note that the spinny disc camp slaughtered them. Spinny discs are little sheets of polycarbonate. They're ridiculously cheap to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Various sources [1] are stating that the Sony PS3 TOS allows Sony to disable units remotely leaving them unusable for both online and offline use.

While I would be fine with being banned from their network, I believe the hardware should be mine to do with as I please - with the obvious exclusion of piracy. If I want to get Linux on there, then that should be my right as the owner of the hardware - same if I want to run custom firmware to allow me to do hobby development. Both their supposed right to unleash a ban wave, as well as their lawsuit against Geohot et al just doesn't make sense - why can a lawsuit like this even be allowed to happen? (This question is linked to the fact that Geohot purposely did not add peek/poke functionality on what he released to ensure that piracy would not be possible using his tools - even if others have since added that in)

[1] [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in- theory-p...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-psn- jailbreaking)

</comment><comment><USER14> How the heck is "if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me" extortion?

<comment><USER15> Seriously? We can argue the ethics all day, but from Sony's point of view, this series of events is isomorphic to an expert lockpicker breaking into their office building and then sending a letter saying "if you want your next building to be secure, get in touch with me."

<comment><USER16> Which is also not extortion.

<comment><USER15> I'll have to take your word for it. That literally reads as the dictionary definition of a protection racket to me.

<comment><USER17> Does it? Exactly which dictionary did you literally find that in? Do you even know what the word "literally" means?

I'm a fair man; let's do some checking. Here's one:

[http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/prote...](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/protection- racket)

"an illegal system in which criminals threaten to harm you or your property if you do not give them money"

How strange; it's not remote close to what you literally read as a dictionary definition.

I've checked other dictionaries too; same story. Here's an idea; why not open up this magical dictionary you have and see what it says under the word "literally".

<comment><USER15> I literally found a definition a lot like yours in my literal dictionary. I am sort of baffled at your comment because that sentence seems to be an accurate description of the situation I described in my analogy. Let me

A) I and my colleagues illegally broke into your thing ("harm you and your property"),

B) and you had better hire me to fix your thing ("give them money"), or

C) we'll probably do it again next time ("threaten").

I'm not sure what the source of our disagreement is.

I disagree that your fire department remark from above is a correct way of thinking about the situation, because the fire department does not start fires, nor do they charge for leaflets. What makes it seem like extortion is not primarily that geohot is offering to secure their console. It's that he's offering to be paid to do so in the next breath after helping to exploit their console.

<comment><USER12> If this were extortion, in exchange for being paid, he'd not do something. What exactly is it that you suggest he will not do, in exchange for money, given that he's already released the crack to the world?

<comment><USER15> _"if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me."_

I suggest that in exchange for being paid, he will not help crack the PS4.

(I don't actually think that was the spirit of his remark, of course, but it probably is literally true that if Sony hired him, he would likely not help crack the PS4, while as it stands, he may well do so.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Zuck should have acquired instead of Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://betakit.com/2012/05/10/drawbridge-raises-6-5m-to-drive-cross-platform-advertising?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> This isn't really a problem for Facebook since users are logged in no matter what device they're on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why? Everyone who upvoted this is an employee of that company.</comment>


Ask HN: People who watched the General Magic movie, what did you think of it? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I enjoyed it. I didn't realize that so many figures in tech had this common meeting point. Also a great demonstration of how being too early with an idea can be detrimental.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who lived through the General Magic era and got to try the device, I found the movie a total bore. It's talking heads. They skipped the most interesting part which is the device's novel UI. That and the application service frameworks were the real innovations and both were to early for their time, but there's no coverage of that in the movie.

</comment><comment><USER4> The company General Magic was before my time as a mid-30s developer. I thought the documentary was great because there was a lot of history I was not familiar with. I recommend it.</comment>


Wozniak Warns Apple Against Removing Headphone Jack - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/steve-wozniak-warns-apple-against-removing-iphone-7%E2%80%99s-headphone-jack/ar-BBw0375?OCID=ansmsnnews11 <comment><USER2> > _Users would then be required to use an accessory that would plug into the > iPhone's Lightning port to connect wired headphones ..._

Kind of like users of an Intel 80386 PC using a "SoundBlaster 16" accessory plugged into an ISA slot to obtain a headphone jack on the device of their choice. Progress!

</comment><comment><USER3> Time will tell, but I strongly agree with The Woz. IMO this will turn out to be a dumber move than New Coke.</comment>


Clean solution for nested observable objects - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to understand the current standard for observables in javascript. Here is a simple thing that I would like to do.
This is the structure of the object that we are trying to solve for var cust =  { firstname : "Gamer", lastname : "Pro", address : { line1 : "1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy", line2: "", city: "Mountain View", state: "CA", zip:"94040" } }
Q1: If I want to watch changes on the object. Lets say update the street address line 1, what would be the general format to modify it.
Should I do custObservable.set("adresss.line1") or get the address and then do a set?
Q2: In the case of Q1, what "change" would i receive on the observable? Should I get one for adress or should i get one for street address.line1? Should I get two update one for line1 and one for address
The question doesn't assume any frameworks specifically. Feel free to share how this is solved in your favorite frameworks. <comment><USER2> My approach is to extend OOP concepts with embedded types and have two types of events: PropertyChange and DocumentChange.

Curently in Shape, the public MVVM framework I have, those concepts are only partially developed.

Contact me privately for details.</comment>


Algorithmic Solution to My Insomnia - <AUTHOR> http://ilya.sukhar.com/blog/an-algorithmic-solution-to-insomnia.html <comment><USER5> My entire life, but especially in graduate school, I've had horrible sleep. Both falling asleep, and staying asleep.

I did multiple sleep studies, used sleeping medications, took supplements, tried to meditate, etc. and had no luck.

I went and did CBT-I, where they had me change my sleep hygeine (all your standard recommendations of "no TV in the bedroom", etc). But the biggest thing was they had me start off by going to bed at 1 am and waking up at 5am every day for a week or two. I'd be so insanely tired, I would start falling asleep quicker and staying asleep less interrupted (this was recorded on a worksheet). Then they had me go to bed an hour earlier, record it. After a while, we found my optimal schedule (bed at 11am, wake up at 630am), and I stick to it no matter what, every single day.

It's solved my sleep issues, full-stop. I get tired by 11 pm, and wake up at 6:30 am feeling just fine.

FWIW, grad school - with no solid schedule - was disastrous on my sleep. Moving to my 9-5 corporate job has made scheduling my sleep a whole lot better.

Just my experience.

<comment><USER6> > bed at 11pm, wake up at 630am

Interestingly, this is on a 90 minute boundary, so you should naturally be in a wakeful sleep state when you awake. I've found that 7.5 hours is best for me too, because 6 hours isn't long enough and 9 hours is too long, so 7.5 is the sweet spot (and anything not on a sleep cycle boundary and I wake up very tired). 11pm also seems to be the best time for me to go to bed, although I'm naturally a night person, but if I have to work, going to bed later doesn't leave me with enough time to get 7.5 hours and still make it to work.

So... I didn't try a process like yours to find my optimal times, but mine seems to be quite similar to yours.

Having said that, I'm not a light sleeper in that some noise doesn't bother me or wake me and I normally don't have much trouble getting to sleep, but I do find I often wake up still tired. Its mostly solved by keeping a consistent sleep schedule and sticking to 7.5 hours.

<comment><USER7> I've found the same, more than 7.5 or less and I wake up either feeling groggy or tired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have seen multiple doctors, including sleep specialists, about my insomnia, and all they wanted to do is put me on prescription sleep meds for life. Those meds are addictive. I didn't want sleep meds. As a software engineer I was more interested in finding and fixing the underling problem -- there has to be one -- as opposed to the quick fixes the doctors were offering me. But that's not how doctors think, at least the ones I saw.

After much research I believe I have succeeded in finding the root cause. Cells in your body need calcium to go into ON state, and to turn OFF magnesium needs to go in and displace the calcium. Stress depletes magnesium. When your body runs out of magnesium your cells can't turn off. Then your muscles become stiff and when your brain cells can't go into OFF state you can't sleep. The solution that works well for me: magnesium supplements, especially magnesium l-threonate, which can pass through what is known as the blood brain barrier. This solved my insomnia as well as muscle stiffness.

<comment><USER9> About three months ago, I started taking Magnesium Amino Acid Chelate 500mg, equivalent to elemental magnesium 100mg, at a dose of twelve capsules a day for three weeks, then dropping back to six capsules a day as a maintenance dose. Changed my life. I'm calmer, more emotionally resilient, I sleep better and longer and when I want. My interactions are others go much more how I'd like most of the time: that is, I feel I'm being a reasonable person.

I recently started taking 8000IU of Vitamin D per day, as I realise I hardly ever spend any time in the sun. This, along with the magnesium, seems to have made my emotional roller coaster and suicidal ideation completely evaporate.

I also regularly take zinc, C, lipoic acid.

<comment><USER10> My SO and I both read about the study that suggested an RDA of 8,000IU of vitamin D. I've started on 10,000IU every other day and haven't noticed much of an effect yet.

I too am a vampire and very pale skinned so I spend practically no time in the sun. I think I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to change that once winter is done here.

Regarding the other supplements you are taking: Do you have any links to literature/studies that support taking more Magnesium, Zinc, vitamin C, and lipoic acid? I have terrible time sleeping because I take Suboxone which disrupts my sleep something awful, so if there's anything else I could take to mitigate that effect, I definitely want to try it.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to get my blood tested for D and Iron, on the recommendation of my pain doc.

I hope you continue to get beneficial results from those supplements, I'm very glad to hear the ideation being beaten down. You rock!

Peace and Joy for the New Year

<comment><USER9> With regard to magnesium, I'd recommend you start at the Wikipedia entry for Magnesium Deficiency,[1] and read about all the common forms of magnesium supplements: Magnesium chloride, oxide, gluconate, malate, orotate, glycinate, ascorbate and citrate are all used as oral magnesium supplements.

Same with the others.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium#Deficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium#Deficiency)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I was younger, I'd be able to play intense video games and fall asleep right after.

Now, the older I get, the more I need to force myself to relax 1-2 hours before bed -- meditation, massage, quiet reading, chill music, whatever it takes -- just to be able to fall asleep.

It's a big bummer, really. It's so easy to want to code into the night -- to make that final commit at 12:30 am and then hop into bed satisfied with real progress on a project. But the reality is, I'll be wide awake until 2:30 am thinking "oh if I refactor it that way!" "what if I did _that_ as a next step" "did I account for that edge case? can't remember...".

So now I force myself to stop at 10, to give myself 2 hours to let all the thoughts fade away (and often put them in a notebook as they pop up during those 2 hours so I can let go of them), but it's frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER12> More than Insomnia I used to have sleep patterns where my mind wouldn't quiet down. After I started practising meditation, specifically the 8 point "Passage Meditation", I started experiencing a much better quality of sleep. [http://bmcm.org/](http://bmcm.org/)

For those who do not have time for meditation, you may find the second point called Mantram (repetition of holy name) useful: [https://www.bmcm.org/learn/mantram/](https://www.bmcm.org/learn/mantram/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a form of insomnia where I just can't convince myself that I should just go to sleep and stop checking YouTube, hackernews, Wikipedia, various interesting articles.

At it's core, solution presented in the article -- apart from methods for dealing with anxiousness -- is to deprive oneself of sleep, but making sure to always wake up at the same time.

My issue is that I don't have any major problems when getting little sleep and I don't have anxiety. I just want to do more than there are hours of the day.

Several days of too little sleep do end up being detrimental, however, so I would really like to break this habit.

I would love to hear if anyone here knows of a way to deal with not wanting to go asleep, because there are other more interesting things to do. How do you convince yourself that you want to go to bed most of all, and not do anything else?

<comment><USER14> I had (have) a similar problem. For me it was a few things:

1\. I did not recognize I was stressed, but I was - a lot. One day I bought a smartwatch that tracks stress levels (Garmin Vivosmart) and saw how high it was: 80-90/100 most days. That opened my eyes. You can be stressed and not know it.

2\. I manage anxiety. First step was observing when it is there, what exactly it feels like. For me, it often manifests as jaw pain, body aches, tinnitus, tunnel vision, "narrow" thinking etc.. Then strategies to lower anxiety - <USER2> smoking, meditation, more than anything building awareness of what it feels like for you so you can manage it - meditation helped with that.

3\. Crystal clear goals, detailed goal-setting, and an acceptance of/commitment to slow and steady progress. Compulsions to read "interesting" stuff came from either a desire to escape the present moment, or idea that I was not reading/learning enough - which was a vague, unreachable goal that feels forever out of reach given the infinite amount of content on the web.

4\. Feeds are designed to be addictive - stop it. Just don't do it for a few days and see how much clearer your mind is. And you will probably realize you don't "learn" anything from that kind of unstructured dopamine-seeking - it is more like watching TV all day than learning.

Basically i had forgotten what relaxation feels like, to the point where anxiety-driven thinking felt completely normal. It is not. Find ways to reduce anxiety even if you don't think you are anxious and stick with them - <USER3> thoughts, random pains, tunnel vision kind of thinking are all signs of anxiety. I'm still working on it, but this was a huge revelation to me - <USER4> idea that when you are anxious for long enough, you literally forget what calm feels like. Well actually the idea itself doesn't do much for me, but experiencing it.. that changes things.

This post is nice too (no affiliation at all):

[https://medium.com/the-strategic-review/background- ops-2-key...](https://medium.com/the-strategic-review/background- ops-2-keystone-5d068b4f56a6)

<comment><USER15> >Basically i had forgotten what relaxation feels like, to the point where anxiety-driven thinking felt completely normal.

This is a very insightful observation.

I have seen this in myself.

<comment><USER14> Thanks. If you see this - I saw you mentioned flexible working hours in your job and would really like to talk about that - can I get in touch with you over email? My email is in profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's what works for me:-

Where blue-blocker glasses 2-3 hrs before bed. This has a big impact for me.

[https://www.swanwicksleep.com/products/swannies-blue- light-b...](https://www.swanwicksleep.com/products/swannies-blue-light- blocking-glasses)

Swanwick make prescription blue-blocker glasses which I havent seen anywhere else. Try Uvex brand if you want something cheaper.

A teaspoon of magnesium powder in a glass of water (about an inch full) before bed

A hot shower about an hour before bed.

Nasal spray before bed to improve breathing.

<comment><USER17> I got mine from here:

[https://www.readingglassesetc.com/](https://www.readingglassesetc.com/)

(It took me forever to find that site when I was first looking. I don't Swanwick was making a prescription version then. Or maybe they were, but I didn't like the style.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I naturally stumbled upon this method but it's nice to have it formalized. At first I noticed how insomnia fed on itself and noticed how I start to question my ability to fall asleep and as the night comes around I start feeling anxious.

I'm familiar with CBT methods for treating other issues so I naturally tried to break the cycle by doing basically what Ilya's talking about. It worked well for me but I always reverted to my old ways when I think I'm "cured" only to have insomnia strike back.

I'm going to try to be regimented about it and see if this helps me long-term.

</comment><comment><USER19> I also have pretty serious stress induced insomnia like the author describes. This sleep deprivation stuff didn't really help me. In fact, I wonder how much it really helped the author. I know I've tried various strategies and proudly proclaimed myself cured on a number of occasions only to have the sleeplessness return the next time shit hit the fan.

I recently bought this sleep tracking thing which works really well: [https://www.beddit.com/](https://www.beddit.com/) It's a thin strip that goes under your sheets and talks to your phone. It tracks heart rate and respiration and as far as I can tell it's quite accurate.

The things I've found most helpful are cognitive restructuring and the relaxation response. Both of which are recommended in this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Say-Good-Night-Insomnia-Drug- Free/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Say-Good-Night-Insomnia-Drug- Free/dp/0805089586)

Cognitive restructuring is part of the CBT stuff mentioned by the author. You catch yourself thinking thoughts like, "Oh shit I'm going to be so stupid tomorrow" and argue against them with thoughts like, "I've managed to do my job on no sleep before and I can do it again. Worrying won't help."

The relaxation response is very similar to mindfulness meditation: you systematically relax every muscle in your body while taking slow deep breaths that expand your belly. You do this for 15 minutes at some point in the middle of the day. You can also do mini versions of it for shorter sessions integrated into your regular activities. The point is to lower cortisol levels. If your cortisol levels get elevated during the day, they tend to still be high at night which makes it hard to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER20> \- I wonder what are the best ways to treat early morning awakening. I guess the sleep deprivation technique mentioned in the article could be a possible solution. Though it wouldn't be very helpful if it didn't last long term.

\- If one's tired during the day it might be worth getting tested for sleep apnea. You can see if you're likely to have sleep apnea by answering the eight questions here: [http://www.stopbang.ca/osa/screening.php](http://www.stopbang.ca/osa/screening.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> \- Do you mean how to wake up best? If so, I can share some techniques I learned.

\- That's a really good point. I forgot that I was screened for it. I'll add that to the post.

<comment><USER20> I meant how to avoid waking up too early. (Some techniques seem more geared at helping people fall asleep.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, yeah, I found the CBT-i regimen naturally helped with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suffered from insomnia as a child and it peaked when I hit 12-14 yo. My pediatrician told me to do EXACTLY as you suggest, namely "If you're in bed for more than 20 minutes and haven't fallen asleep yet, get out and do something else.". Basically, don't use your bed as the place to TRY to sleep. Only sleep there. This worked like a charm for me and I haven't had sleep issues since.

</comment><comment><USER22> Like many people here, I've been through a long period of suffering from insomnia and tried a large number of approaches to cure it. From what I can tell, there are essentially two main causes, which can be interrelated:

1) Physiological. Things like low levels of magnesium, muscle pain, noise, temperature, light, circadian disruption, etc.

2) Psychological. Anything that leads to being anxious about not sleeping.

Both can manifest either as sleep onset insomnia (getting to sleep) or sleep maintenance insomnia (waking up in the night).

But here's the thing: sleep anxiety trumps all other causes of insomnia in terms of its power to prevent you going to sleep. Nobody ever felt a quiet nap coming on while running away from a lion.

Not everyone who suffers from insomnia also experiences sleep anxiety (at least at first). Those people are probably only one step from a cure because they can usually find a physiological cause (hence the number of comments here about magnesium or regular sleep/rise times, for example).

But grasping this fundamental point about sleep anxiety is extremely important. Regardless of whether you need more magnesium, less clocks in the bedroom, or to sleep naked etc., if you're anxious when you're trying to go to sleep then it's instantly game over.

So it follows that anything that increases anxiety about getting or maintaining sleep should be avoided, even if the underlying cause is something else. For example, CBT-I's prescription of getting out of bed after 15-20 minutes of wakefulness was counter-productive for me. It made me even more anxious about going to sleep after that. So too was sleep restriction. Waiting for what seemed like an eternity every night before being allowed to get into bed at 1:00am left me a nervous wreck. Better instead to go to bed at 11:00, stay in bed and work on something that alleviates any anxiety (I used mindfulness meditation).

So, if you suffer from sleep anxiety, prioritising strategies to reduce anxiety at night should be your number one aim. Everyone seems to find their own way in this. Mine was to follow the principles of ACT-I, but others may need different methods.

[https://contextualscience.org/acceptance_and_commitment_ther...](https://contextualscience.org/acceptance_and_commitment_therapy_for_insomnia_act)

</comment><comment><USER23> I have had also wonderful results from CBT. However, the 'sleep restriction' part requires a lot of willpower and determination and was no easy feat for me to hold on. However, after restricting my time in bed to 5 hours for 2 weeks, I had definitely no problem getting to ZZZland after crashing in bed at midnight.

By the way, there is an online digital CBT-I course available called Sleepio.

</comment><comment><USER24> I struggled to get to sleep for years until I realized I could doze off more easily when other people were around making noise. Now I listen to audiobooks and podcasts and fall asleep within 5-10 minutes most nights. Other speech seems to shut down my internal monologue and overly sensitive threat detection circuits :-D Only mentioning in case this clicks with someone else.

</comment><comment><USER25> What really helps me is to keep my mind occupied when lying in bed at night. In my case, I try to solve P vs NP. That way, I actually enjoy the "sleepless" time, and am not stressed about not being able to sleep.

One of the imho very interesting aspects of insomnia is the "self- perpetuating" feature. Can't sleep -> stress about not being able to sleep -> even more difficult to fall asleep. I think this is a common feature of several ailments. Another is not being able to get an erection for men or not being able to orgasm for women ("it doesn't work!" -> stress / adrenaline -> it works even less).

Would be interesting to find out what common "pattern breakers" are for short- circuiting the vicious cycle. Does anyone have experiences?

<comment><USER26> I'd recommend trying meditation, since it is simply training your mind to introspect so you may recognize these moments of stress and let them go with minimal effort.

But what you do can also be seen as a form of meditation, since it is also an intentional taking-your-mind-off-things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia was the biggest improvement I have ever made to my quality of life. Like OP, I struggled with insomnia my entire adult life. I didn't realize that sleep was a thing that you could see a doctor about. I was sleeping about 4-6 hours per night before CBT and 6-8 hours afterward.

One of the amazing things about CBT is that instead of building up a tolerance, like you would with a sleep aid like Ambien, it gets more effective over time. It's self reinforcing, positive feedback loop.

My sleep isn't perfect, and I still take an Ambien every once in a while like on a red eye flight. However, if you're having trouble with sleep, I can't recommend CBT highly enough.

</comment><comment><USER28> Semi related, I had occasional trouble sleeping at the designated time (I would sleep an appropriate amount, but but not when I wanted to.) After reading gwern's page on melatonin I tried it since it is easy and low risk, and now I can fall asleep consistently when I want to, by taking melatonin X minutes before.

[https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin](https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is something I discovered awhile ago as well, and it definitely works. Some people call this "sleep restriction therapy". It's not well known, unfortunately, and I agree with the OP: a lot of the advice you find are just so hackneyed.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why does the "make your target time earlier" branch have the upper limit of 0.95? There's already a "stay the course" region in [0.8, 0.9], shouldn't you move your sleep time earlier for anything above 0.9?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. In my experience there is a danger of over-optimizing, trying to get too much sleep, and then regressing again. Some of the literature agrees with you though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you have trouble with sleeping and are using computer late at night - remember to use flux[1]. It really helps from my experience.

[1] - [https://justgetflux.com](https://justgetflux.com)

<comment><USER32> Windows 10 now also has night light setting specifically to reduce blue light emitted from the screen and better sleep! With just press of a button it would automatically go to "night light" mode from sunset to sunrise. Very cool. I think iOS also has similar setting. Plus there are lot of "blue light" blocking screen protectors out there but most of them are from China and hard to tell which one really works.

<comment><USER33> Nowadays, latest versions of Android have this native (called LiveDisplay in LineageOS), macOS/iOS have this native (called Night Shift in macOS). Windows 10 have this native (as you already mentioned called Night Light). Windows was last btw.

There was a time where F.lux was basically the only way to reduce blue light. BTW, F.lux has more advanced options than any of these OSes but it requires rooted device on Android/iOS. For macOS and Windows it will work out of the box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To the author - can you please share the name of the researcher who did the CBT-i program? It would help me and many others. Email me (link in profile) if you cannot post it here. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER34> Melatonin and Vitamin D. In modern day life, our bodies do not get enough exposure to sunlight to produce D and Melatonin, which the brain and body need to sleep well.

</comment><comment><USER35> > Never get in bed and try to sleep because "it's bedtime". Only get in bed > when you are dying to go to bed

This is in contrary to my belief. I have insomnia for many years and I thought one of the reason was because I never had a regular schedule for sleep. Over the years I can only sleep when I am dying to go to bed. Yet, most of the days, I just can't sleep.

Anyway, would definitely try out the advice

</comment><comment><USER36> > _CBT_

Yes, good.

> _don't nap_

I think the authors insomnia may have been more of a disturbed sleep schedule & I would consider "sufficient sleep but not in a single nightly 7ish hour block" to be different to insomnia.

Pedantic blah blah insomnia refers to irreversible awakenings not simply trouble falling asleep blah blah.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I wasn't napping prior. I did get an urge to nap when the CBT-i started.

<comment><USER36> Rad. It never occurred to me that some people could nap in the daytime after a poor nights sleep and then struggle to get to sleep and not see the connection. Glad to see I'm wrong as h*ck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Got me to search for more:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/382vyw/a_simple_on...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/382vyw/a_simple_onehour_therapy_session_has_helped_to/)

</comment><comment><USER38> To cure my insomnia I look for >1h long philosophy talks on YouTube, set the video fullscreen, turn the phone face down and let my mind drift into the coziest of sleep.

No worries now, only post-freudian communist distopian dreams thank you Žižek.

</comment><comment><USER39> "Never get in bed and try to sleep because "it's bedtime". Only get in bed when you are dying to go to bed" This is one important thing I've learned. I try to read books until I feel sleepy and then go to bed.

<comment><USER33> If I brush my teeth (+ all other things in preparation such as locking the door, feeding the cats, etc) and go to bed, then read (without disturbing my partner) then I am ready to fall asleep as soon as I feel tired.

However, if I stay up without brushing my teeth (+ the other preps) then I cannot go to sleep right away when I'm tired. Because I still got errands to do.

When I read in the first situation I am already lying in bed horizontally. In the second situation I am sitting. Also, while you're reading, you should use an e-reader without much blue light.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> sounds like you are calculating & shifting your "dim light melatonin onset" (DLMO)

</comment><comment><USER41> Pseudoscience!

If you have sleep issues go see a healthcare professional. Don't follow advice from random strangers on the Internet.

The circadian rhythm (aka sleep cycle) is regulated by a hormone called melatonin (not to be confused with melanin). It is produced by the pineal gland after exposure to light.

Light intensity from artificial light is usually low (unless you use luminotherapy lamps), leading to melatonin production issues, which affect sleep.

You can solve that by spending a bit more time outside. If you happen to live in a place with dark winters, get a luminotherapy lamp.

Other than that, there are other aspects that have to do with how tired you might feel... nutrition, hydration, exercise, etc. You can do all of that correctly while still having insomnia.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what part you found to be pseudoscience. This technique was prescribed to me by a healthcare professional and can be found in medical journals.

And, I fully agree -- light is important. Maybe I'll add an addendum on that.

<comment><USER41> Melatonin has a strong influence on the circadian rhythm regulation and is nowhere to be found in the article.

If you suffer insomnia this is where you should be starting with.

PS: I suffered insomnia, spent a lot of time working through it, and got medical advice.

Prefer residences and offices with natural light, or take a walk outside around noon (wear sunscreen). There you go...

Then, amount of papers doesn't necessarily translate into scientific rigor. Since research universities adopted a "publish or perish" policy there's a deluge of junk science.

update: corrected typo

<comment><USER42> This algorithmic method is a useful addition to the insomniac's toolkit. Please don't berate methodologies based on logic and then describe anecdotes with poor english (wtf is "singlest"?).

<comment><USER41> Or placebo effect, we don't know. It's self experimentation, there's no control group, no accompanying data, etc.

The perceived improvement could be due to other reasons rather than the therapy itself.

Usually you establish a relationship between the therapy and results through something like statistical significance but this was not the case.

Then, it is important to be responsible when offering health related advice to people. If you are not a healthcare professional, start saying:

1) Follow this advice at your own risk

2) I am not a healthcare professional this is a casual exploration of my sleep cycle.

I think this is more responsible than implying this followed some sort of scientific approach.

PS: rather than the ad-hominem try to add value to the discussion staying on topic.

<comment><USER43> Definitely agree that people should be responsible when offering health advice - but if you're striking down advice that:

1) ultimately came from a professional 2) was linked to a program with a bunch of literature

You risk your "Pseudoscience!" claim becoming unfalsifiable. What would it take to be, in your eyes, Not Pseudoscience? A direct link to a paper on this exact algorithm?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


It Is Not Really a "Fund Drive" When They Say "Shut Up and Take Our Money" - <AUTHOR> http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/06/it-is-not-really-fund-drive-when-they.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Metafilter related. And business analysis stuff. I apologize for the terrible title. It's my third attempt and I am leaving it as is.</comment>


Noodle makeover: How one Japanese migrant made it in the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33195716 <comment><USER2> For anyone interested, Eater did a great job profiling them and their factory [1]. Sun Noodle pretty much owns the entire NYC ramen scene (with the notable exception of Ippudo). They also sell their noodles & kits at Whole Foods and Japanese grocery stores.

[1] [http://www.eater.com/2014/7/22/6184305/inside-sun-noodle- the...](http://www.eater.com/2014/7/22/6184305/inside-sun-noodle-the-secret- weapon-of-americas-best-ramen-shops)</comment>


Redis Servers with Node - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/arschles/redbrick Hey HN, I created a Node.js framework that helps you build servers that adhere to the redis protocol. Tell me what you think! <comment><USER2> The Redbrick framework lets you build Redis protocol compatible servers in node.js. This is actually more flexible than Nedis even though Redbrick has a lot less functionality as a working Redis clone.

The developer has some interesting ideas on things this could be used to build.</comment>


Ruby IDE Solutions - <AUTHOR> http://codecondo.com/top-5-ruby-ide-solutions-development-pleasure/#ide

<comment><USER2> Bro, just use a text editor like Sublime Text, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some languages benefit more from an IDE than others. e.g. I would never write Java or C++ _without_ an IDE. But for Ruby I've always been happy with a solid text editor (Sublime Text is great, but I'm keeping an eye on Atom).</comment>


Fifty Years of Minimalism (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_gph-apr15.html <comment><USER2> Paste this into the developer console to make it a bit easier to read:

        var css = 'body, .container { color: #444; background-color: #fff; } \
        body, .container, .ital { font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; } \
        a:link { color: #00f; }',
        style = document.createElement('style');
        style.type = 'text/css';
        style.appendChild(document.createTextNode(css));
        document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(style);

(Don't worry, there's no hidden unicode characters or anything. Just adds some CSS.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like to point out that lowercase music exists.

<comment><USER4> This comment is a fine example of how HN became an artist's (me) hideaway. Art related posts on HN rarely escape a dose of rational review that hardly exists anywhere else.

<comment><USER5> English is not my first language (assuming hideaway is a place one goes to hide from something). Do you mean that as a good or bad thing?

<comment><USER6> It is a good thing, the context implies it is a place where he or she has chosen to hide away. The idea of a chosen place to hide is "good" because the choice means that if it we're bad the author would not have chosen it.

Saying "hideaway from the police" would be an example of it being bad, because the police have forced the hiding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 50 years is way too much, wouldn't 1 nanosecond be more minimalistic?</comment>


How We Nearly Lost Discovery (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/ <comment><USER2> "We informed the foam technicians at our plant in Michoud Louisiana that they were the cause of the loss of Columbia..."

Facepalm, I assume they didn't feel too good about being blamed for causing the death of the astronauts. On a complex project like this you just can't blame people like that.

Pointing figures might as well be spears.</comment>


Data Hacking and Coffee - <AUTHOR> http://heypodo.com/blog/2013/04/29/data_hacking_and_coffee.html <comment><USER2> I think I'll pass : Just yesterday, I took a public commitment to stop drinking coffee (and submitted in everywhere - FB, HN, etc.)

[https://plus.google.com/109562561013887378542/posts/X8cLiHYe...](https://plus.google.com/109562561013887378542/posts/X8cLiHYefTo)

We really are overdoing coffee as hackers. You can put anything you want in your body, I'm fine with the concept- but hackers shouldn't recommend hackers to drink coffee.

There's a difference between freedom and a culturally shaped ritual (hackers get by with caffeine) especially if it's with an addictive substance.

EDIT: I'm ok with the downvote (and the hating too, I guess I'll see that soon), and I'll be the 1st to recognize I'm not really adding anything interesting to this conversation. Just burning some karma to let you know that there is no cultural imperative to drink coffee as a hacker, and that you shouldn't even care about that.

Enforcing the cliché that hackers should drink or care about coffee is just as pointless as saying hackers should all be males.

It's culturally made. You can get social capital by enforcing social norms, but you can also see how pointless they are.

Do what you want with your body, put any substance you want into it. Just don't use that to sell a concept (here "hackers") that people will somehow feel obligated to follow ("brogrammers").

<comment><USER3> Your admonishment here and elsewhere doesn't seem to offer any evidence or even a cogent argument. That's not to say I doubt an argument could be made -- there is plenty of academic ink spilled hailing coffee as both health blessing and health curse -- but it's pretty bold to say "hackers shouldn't recommend hackers to drink coffee" with nothing to back that up.

Maybe "hackers who have trouble getting enough sleep should avoid caffeine to see if that helps". Your posts sound more like religious, rather than reasoned, abstinence.

<comment><USER2> I'm not selling people the idea they should or should not drink coffee for health reasons. We don't know, there is too much conflicting data.

I'm saying :

1) I shouldn't drink coffee for health reasons

2) We also shouldn't collectively define the "hacker" identity with unrelated things like coffee.

1 and 2 are totally unrelated. Yet saying 1 makes me say 2, because defining yourself as doing something or as not doing something is just as pointless. You are not a label.

We shouldn't fight for or against coffee - just make it something unrelated to the hacker identity, a choice - like vim or emacs or Writeroom or whatever, instead of a mandate and a common identity, which will necessarily exclude some people.

EDIT: And yes this discussion is not relevant and I'm sorry about it, and I should add a third point to make that clear :

3) You drink coffee if you want to. Not my problem.

Just want to let you know it's optional and you won't be any less of a hacker if you don't, and if you don't and need support, hey I'm starting a g+ community because _I_ for sure will need some support!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as I love coffee, stupid development projects (if I were to raise my hand when asked "Have you written some stupid project in the last 3 days?" I'd stop writing, both hands up) and neat data hacks, I can't see the need for something as complex. A spreadsheet table (or even better, a plain text file and a little R, which already has plenty of word similarity libraries) would have been far, far more straightforward. But I tip my (metaphorical, I make shoes, not hats) hat for its geekiness ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree, especially because even I personally would have rather just done all the analysis in Python or R. I figured this to be a great opportunity to play with d3.js a bit, but also build some data analysis on the spot. I like that anyone could easily fork this, play with the code just a bit to fit their needs, and have the majority of their "analysis" done (I only hardcoded the "winner" markings). They can just focus on the fun of brewing. Thanks for the geekiness appreciation!

<comment><USER4> I completely understand the play bit with d3, I'm always coming up with complex concoctions to use it... Then I realised one of the simplest ways is to post the csv file generated by Python or R and write a neat front-end to display it. But I'm always coming back to the stupid or crazy plans, too so... Don't tempt me again!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice to see the AeroPress as one of the three prep methods. That wee gadget is awesome.

<comment><USER6> Get a cheap/used popcorn popper (metal chamber, not plastic). Pour in a cup of green (unroasted) coffee beans. Start popper. After a few minutes, you'll hear the beans crack (you'll know). Keep roasting. The moment you hear a second round of cracking start, dump the beans into a large cool metal pan, swirling and transferring to another cool pan often until about room temp.

Store beans in sealed container for 0 minutes to 1 week (flavor changes over time).

Grind with burr grinder to fine.

Brew thru AeroPress.

Don't drink coffee because it's a cultural obligation (per poster above). Drink coffee because, done right, it's awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This bar graph is difficult to interpret- there is way too much information on the graph leaving the viewer lost as to how flavor co-varies with value. It looks like a big jumble. Also, how do you "average impressions" when those impressions are binary?

</comment><comment><USER8> Speaking of "buttery chocolate herbal", does such a heavenly-sounding roast even exist???

<comment><USER9> "Buttery" minus the chocolate..

[http://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-to-make-your-coffee- bulle...](http://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-to-make-your-coffee-bulletproof- and-your-morning-too/)

<comment><USER10> Eh, maybe not[1].

[1]: <http://www.marco.org/2013/02/12/buttered-coffee>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would've gotten bonus points if you had implemented it with CoffeeScript

<comment><USER12> Or Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What, no Turkish coffee? Weaklings!</comment>


Road design: Sustainable safety and 'shared space' - <AUTHOR> https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/sustainable-safety-and-shared-space/ <comment><USER2> That was really interesting. I do UI design and I love reading about areas of design like this from different industries.

I found this to read more about Sustainable Safety - [https://www.swov.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/gearchiv...](https://www.swov.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/gearchiveerde- factsheet/uk/fs_sustainable_safety_principles_archived.pdf)</comment>