I've Picked My Job over My Kids - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/opinion/sunday/ive-picked-my-job-over-my-kids.html <comment><USER3> I made the opposite choice. I'm a single father and I've prioritised my children over my career. I'm not going to pretend it's an amazing lifestyle. If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't fascinating. However, I love them and they rely on me. I made a choice to bring them into the world and I'm not going to neglect them. I have the kids more than their mother does, and I also pay significant child support as I earn far more than her.

It's affected my career choices. I started studying Comp Sci, as I felt it's a field where I can have more flexibility than my current field. This degree is getting closer and closer to completion and it's looking 95% likely that my career will be changing in January.

It's affected my love life too but I won't go into detail here.

One thing this article misses the mark on is the quote " I also remind myself that if I were a dad, I would be getting accolades for all the times I scheduled a doctor's appointment or arranged a play date.".

My experience as a dad is that people simply don't trust my parenting skills or assume I'm simply helping the mum out. It's incredibly sexist and somewhat hurtful. There has been times I've been battling with my workload and then people drop innocent comments which feel like a knife in the back.

<comment><USER4> >If you're intellectually driven then looking after two young children isn't fascinating.

I've never understood this viewpoint - children are simply the most fascinating things!

They're born with next to no inborn knowledge and yet have the potential to learn about quantum mechanics. Someone with the same potential would only have learned about fire some hundred thousands of years ago.

In the early days you get to see a baby slowly mentally program the things we take so for granted we forget that you actually have to learn them - how to walk, how to speak, language.

YMMV but for me to see the world indirectly through the eyes of children is like rediscovering everything there is to the world we live in!

<comment> jon-wood On the scale of months and years children are amazing, and I agree it's fascinating to watch as they develop into their own people.

However, on the scale of hours and days they can be mind-numbingly boring, as anyone who's played hide and seek with a four year old who repeatedly goes and hides in their bedroom cupboard can probably attest. I love my boy dearly, but I am so, so, bored of playing the first hour of Minecraft now - he loves it though, so every few days we start up a new world, and we mine our way down to some diamonds, at which point he loses interest.

<comment><USER5> I don't think parents were ever meant to play hide and seek with their children for hours on end, but to let them go play with the other 4 year olds and relatives in the village, give them bandaids and hugs when they fall, have them be back by sundown, feed them food and tuck them into bed by 8pm.

But in todays atomized and helicopter parenting with liability world, you can't do that and thus parenting is a lot more work than it should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a single father of five who obtained full-time custody last year, and trying to balance work and parenting is a never-ending challenge.

Some of my observations:

1) Kids have a great time with other kids, so don't feel bad about daycare. Having them at home full-time past the age of 2 is, I think, more about the parent than the child.

2) Sometimes kids just suck, and work can be a glorious escape.

3) School life in my culture (NZ) is still modelled like there's always one stay at home parent, which means you'll never be able to be there for every certificate, every kapa haka performance, and kids are okay about it so long as you communicate, and do get to the occasional one.

4) You can fit a lot of effective parenting into dinner table discussions and bedtime discussions

5) I'm really glad I'm a single Dad and not a single Mum because there are very few cultural expectations of me beyond working, and everyone acts like I'm amazing for just raising my kids. It's kinda insulting to both genders.

6) It's impossible to perfectly balance a 40 hour working week and family. Best you can aim for is a kind of homeostasis where work suffers for family one week and then family suffers a bit for work the next.

<comment><USER6> And because I left it too late to edit it in.

7) You will feel, at times, like you're letting down everyone equally, workmates and children both. And you just have to ride with it.

And I've found that workmates will notice your child related late starts or early finishes, and resent them. The only solution is communication. And a decent employer.

Our work culture also assumes two people families to an extent.

<comment><USER7> > You will feel, at times, like you're letting down everyone equally

My girlfriend struggles with that quite a bit. And now that we're fully cohabitated and my work-from-home / lack-of-commute situation allows me to participate in more kids things that aren't accomodating to parents with traditional work schedules and typical commutes... I get heaps of praise from everyone, including her, for basically just not being a dick.

<comment><USER6> Eh, the bar is set low for men. Stick around, hold down a job, and actually parent, and you're considered amazing.

It's the flip side of the "women with careers are neglecting their children" and "men at the park are paedos!" mindset.

It's nice having positive feedback, but I'd prefer a society where it's unremarked upon.

<comment><USER8> Great! I find I might be in the same situation in the future. How do you do parenting around the dinner table? Heck—how do you get dinner ready for 5?! If you can, would love to hear more! :)

<comment><USER6> Everyone eats together, no screens, books, toys etc. Especially me, it's always tempting to clean while they eat, but there's so much more value just touching base.

And then we talk. Things that happened at school, on the bus, at work, in the news. Any teachable moments come up, you use them - especially good for reinforcing the values you're trying to impart by running through scenarios based on what happened.

Bedtime is the important one. Having 15 minutes alone with them, in a muted environment where they feel safe, is where they feel best able to express emotional stuff. Once again, easy to skip and do the multitude of other tasks, but too valuable.

And in terms of cooking, buying in bulk and cooking in bulk. Pastas, risottos, pies etc. I like stuff that's quick for after work, or can be cooked the night before and reheated. I'm not a very organised person so the last year has been a definite learning experience.

<comment><USER9> I think your kids are very lucky. You seem to know what's important and be determined enough to get it. The only thing I can add that I didn't see on your list is "Take care of yourself also". My dad died young because he didn't take care of himself, and his four kids thought it kind of sucked. Perhaps see yourself as just the eldest kid in the family. Easy to say, hard to do I guess.

<comment><USER6> That is hard, but I try. My partner and I (we still run separate households) cherish the time we get together - and I'm really lucky that my oldest son is able and willing to watch the others, every Saturday, when my toddler is down for her nap, my partner and I have lunch at a favourite restaurant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > I also remind myself that if I were a dad, I would be getting accolades for > all the times I scheduled a doctor's appointment or arranged a play date.

1000 times this. If I take the kids to the store, or through airport security, or pretty much anywhere, women are practically running over to "help" me. Thank you but I got it. Go help that poor mom over there with three meltdowns to deal with, she needs it a lot more than me.

The other day we had a birthday party for my daughter, and some of the moms saw me prepping food and doing work while I gave my wife a chance to relax and talk to the guests. They actually told her they were surprised that I would "allow" her to take a break like that. Seriously?! First of all, she is "allowed" to do whatever they hell she wants, and secondly, how messed up is it that their immediate expectation is that mom should be working the whole time while dad gets to relax?

But my favorite story of all was I was in the bathroom at Newark airport, changing my daughter's diaper. A man walks in wear the most "New Jersey" outfit ever -- expensive suit, slicked hair, gold chains, etc. He said, "Where's the mom?"

"Outside."

"Why isn't she changing the diaper then?"

I said, "She didn't want to?"

He didn't even know what to say after that, his mind was so blown.

<comment><USER11> This is very cultural too. Some places it's expected that dads take care of kids equally with mums.

I heard a great anecdote about a Manhattanite visiting Stockholm on vacation. Lots of men pushing prams all around town. "My goodness, look at all the young male nannies in Sweden!"

<comment><USER9> Yes, in Stockholm (and I guess most of Sweden) noone local raises an eyebrow when a dad comes pushing a pram. I think there's been a change the past 10-15 years when new parental leave requirements has forced both parents to share the parental leave (or they'll get less of it). This made it almost stupid for many dads not to go on parental leave and it's accelerated a change that would otherwise have taken some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I had picked the [trial] date, not the judge, [to coincide with my kid's > seventh birthday] because I knew that the other side wasn't ready. Delaying > even a few days would have meant losing a crucial advantage. I wasn't going > to risk it knowing what was on the line for my client.

I would just like to say that picking the most inconvenient time for all counsel involved is one of those tactics you see in the practice of law too often. And for what? So all the lawyers can miss every major holiday, and their kids birthdays? To make the other lawyers beg for the time off everyone else takes for granted? The article-writer lost me on this one, and I'm sad to see this person is a professor teaching this same toolkit of antisocial tactics to the next generation of lawyers.

<comment><USER13> Call me extremely naive but I thought the point of a trial was to expose all the facts and give both sides ample time to do so, not to try to win over a "crucial advantage" by playing games. Seems like bad ethics in addition to bad parenting.

<comment><USER14> Oh boy you should not ever go into a legal situation with that perspective. It's about gaming every possible advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Gosh. This is me. I sacrificed almost ten years of my career to be there for my sons as a divorced dad. Work travel, sales, meetings - much of it missed so the boys could have me as much as possible. Doctors, judges, lawyers, mom's were hostile & cold throughout it all. It was the single biggest contributing factor to the failure of my business this year. And... It was worth it. The boys are turning out to be fantastic young adults, our relationship is strong, and they both fought hard to get even more time with me. Hard road, great destination. The courts are total shit btw.

</comment><comment><USER16> We've made our lives around a "kids first" policy since they were born. We run our own business (together) and consistently and deliberately put this second to our children. We know it's going to hurt in a financial sense later - <USER2> are very much living for now, knowing that the eldest who is 14 may be leaving home in 4 years and the youngest who is 12 will be off in 6.

We're in a fortunate situation, in that the work we do is profitable and relatively low stress, but we also make decisions frequently that keep our work in balance. For instance, we could grow and take on employees, but have chosen not to; we consistently say no to new work even if it's hugely profitable if we know it is going to impact on holiday or family time - or our sanity!

Kids seem to me to be the single, unequivocally most important thing in the world. Creating them and nurturing them is after all what evolution is solely interested in. Making a new generation who is loved, balanced, ready to step out into the world on their own - this is, and will always be, more important to me than work.

The subtext - and it's a really important one - in the article, is about the empowerment of women. This is horribly unbalanced; for biological, social, whatever reasons. This is broken, and women get a terrible deal: this needs addressing.

But at the heart is just being with your kids and loving them, and for me that means putting work second.

I should also just add: actually, we put _us_ as a couple high up in importance too. Too many people forget this when raising children: you need time to be you and to be a couple, and it's easy to forget this after years of nurturing kids!

<comment><USER17> Even without kids I work like this. Just because I'm not a parent doesn't mean I'm going to take on work that could potentially stress me out eat into vacation time...

It seems like more of a work-life balance philosophy thing than parenting thing, I simply couldn't imagine working more than 50% of the year but others are content doing 60hr weeks with 2 week vacation.

If that's what makes them happy then power to them.

<comment><USER16> Totally agree. But I think the discussion / original article here posed the question regarding kids. Totally up for workaholic-ism if that's your bag (and it was mine when I was in my 20's and childless) - but in the case of this article I'd question why have kids in the first place if your focus is going to be entirely on work. I know sometimes this just happens but it feels dangerous to the sanity and wellbeing of the kids involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love this article. Parents today spend more than twice as much time today with their kids today than fifty years ago: [https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2017/11/27/parents-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children- as-50-years-ago). Fat lot of good that did the last couple of generations.

Parents spend too much time apologizing for prioritizing their careers, and it's particularly unfair to women. Studies repeatedly fail to show significant and durable results from different kinds of parenting styles. But you know what is shown, in study after study, as highly correlated with children's' long term prosperity? Parental income.

<comment><USER19> What's the definition of a child's long term prosperity? Is it grades or does it take into account emotional/physical well-being? And do those studies go into adulthood?

<comment><USER18> [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f239/63aabbc3053bba4c5a5e68...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f239/63aabbc3053bba4c5a5e68cfb8b0a7fd0464.pdf)

> This research examined the association between parenting style and life > satisfaction in adulthood (N=112). Participants responded to an online > survey, called the Parenting Style and Life Satisfaction Survey, which > included questions pertaining to parenting style experienced in childhood, > parenting style used in adulthood, and levels of life satisfaction. A chi- > square test was conducted to determine if there was a relationship between > parenting style experienced in childhood and the adult's own parenting > style. Analysis of variance tests were conducted to determine how parenting > style experienced in childhood was connected to life satisfaction in > adulthood and how the adult's parenting style was related to their life > satisfaction. Correlations revealed that there were no statistically > significant relationships between parenting style and life satisfaction. > Results were interpreted and implications were discussed.

<comment><USER20> Is life satisfaction the correct metric?

<comment><USER21> Yes, because that is how we determine whether or not someone needs help in the first place. If you have a better alternative, I invite you to elaborate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Pick your sacrifice" applies here. I think you need to know where your red lines are in your career and family life. Having a schedule helps you keep on track.

Other than that, my Dad once said something along the lines of, "Life is a constant juggling act; you have your work ball, your family ball etc. However, your family ball is made of glass, so if you drop it, it will shatter and you may not be able to put it together again."

</comment><comment><USER23> I am that child. My parents were very eager to make a great career. Today I suffer from the emotional neglect with some issues such as ADHD.

Being a father myself today, I do think kids can do with relatively little facetime. But the time that is devoted to them must be exclusive quality time that makes it clear you love them and that you are present. There are studies that have shown that if fathers take 30 minutes of exclusive attention for their kids every day, it has great benefits for the child's development.

<comment><USER22> It may be helpful to look into the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) test and the research around it. It helped me gain an objective perspective and overcome patterns of family dysfunction that impacted my psychology.

<comment><USER23> Interesting! Yes, childhood trauma can be one outcome of neglect. Any articles you can recommend in particular?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you have children and then choose to work over doing the legitimately full time job of being a parent (full time being at least 40 hours a week, not that you _can 't_ do anything else ever) you need to provide them at least _a_ parent to do that job or else you are neglecting them.

Psychology is pretty uniform in the observation that children need parents, preferably both, but just one is a massive developmental influence. There are minor benefits from they/them being biological but it isn't absolutely necessary, but a care worker, teacher, etc is not filling the same social niche with a child that a parent is. Its a job title in its own right that also has by far the most impact on developing functioning healthy human beings than any other. Its also a job you don't just quit or substitute for without lasting consequences, the role of a parent is to anchor children and provide an immovable stake upon their foundation.

You can absolutely hire a parent if you don't want to or have the time yourself to parent the children you make, but it is substantively harmful to deny them having parent(s) when they need them. If a mother wants to work a full time job while a spouse or even just long term domestic partner? wants to take on the job of being a (or more) parent(s) that works. If a father wants to do the same, that works. But kids still need parent(s), preferably two, and that is two full time positions to fill.

One quandary to think on is that society really doesn't organize or optimize for parental efficiency. We organize schools to lecture and teach to try to balance between quantity of children to a quality of education, but adults are just en masse making new lives and mostly playing it by ear on fulfilling parental responsibilities. We haven't tried to promote good parents to be parents by getting them more children - biological or not - to parent. As a civilization it feels backwards to me how what might be the most important job there is - developing future generations - is the one that is the least recognized for its value and importance. It isn't a career, it isn't prestigious, it isn't treated with the same scrutiny you would want to see in getting your plumbing fixed. But broken pipes are a much less substantive issue than mental malaise or physiological complications brought about by poor or absent parenting in the development of the billions to succeed us.

<comment><USER6> > you need to provide them at least a parent to do that job or else you are > neglecting them.

When am I neglecting my kids exactly? In the two hours of after school care between school ending and my coming home?

You're implying that there's a direct correlation between quantity and quality of parenting, that's a bold claim.

<comment><USER25> When it comes to panting, an important part of quality _is_ quantity. As much as some people want to think that a day filled to the brim with exciting activities is a substitute for a week of near-absence, it's just not. That's not only my experience, but the experience of many of my friends with parents who greatly prioritized their career over spending time with them.

<comment><USER25> Well I certainly didn't mean "panting"... My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My mother was amazing in that no matter when I called her on the phone, it was impossible to tell if she was in an important meeting.

I'd call her after school and chat for a while, only a to find out a bit later that she was in the middle of closing a huge deal!

This made me feel like a million bucks - to know that even though she was very busy, I was still important enough to have her full attention whenever I called her.

I always "felt" like I was more important than her work.

</comment><comment><USER27> Coincidently I just saw a convincing interview with a father from the Greatest Generation where he shares his regrets on being a famous yet absent father:

[https://youtu.be/GJMciK6xWrk](https://youtu.be/GJMciK6xWrk)

I'm not judging her preference on having a successful career - I'm the same actually - yet I don't plan to have children because of that very reason...

I remember that Dr Gabor Maté also talks a lot about the scars and potential trauma a child can be left with when neglected. I remember presence of _both_ parents to be of paramount importance. And that's not "only" a problem for the child but for society at large.

</comment><comment><USER28> I made the opposite choice. I left a 7 figure a year (but 70% travel) job to take a few years off with my kids. I'm under no illusion that my kids will be that much better for it, but I will be.

I am consuming this time with just absolute relish. A relationship is the sum of small things. And driving them to school is part of that overall cumulative time that ... just... matters. For me. I'm sure the kids would be great if their mom did it without me. But I only have one shot here, only a few years where the kids are 12 years old. So yeah, I'll spend my 7 figures a year for this. (Bezos test: would I make the same choice on my death bed looking back?)

She is in a unique situation in that she could _choose_ to live any way she wants; she's not some working stiff. And she is choosing something else. It's not going to hurt her kids, but I think it's a tradeoff she may regret later.

</comment><comment><USER29> I respect her choice but I wouldn't want to be her kid

<comment><USER30> lol, my coworker always goes off on a rant about how much it would suck being elon musk's kids. can't convince him its just a different upbringing

<comment><USER31> Does Musk even have kids?

Dang, according to wiki, he has 5 living kids.

<comment><USER32> Had to know what happened to the other kid(s) and whether it was just one:

"Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of 10 weeks."

More interestingly, the five are two twins and three triplets.

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

<comment><USER31> Wouldn't that mean fertility drugs were probably involved? Anyways, I guess he really likes kids, which is a bit surprising.

<comment><USER33> Yes:

[https://www.asrm.org/topics/topics-index/multiple-births- or-...](https://www.asrm.org/topics/topics-index/multiple-births-or-multiple- gestation/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One morning, about 2am in one of the Mission Control rooms at JSC, I was sitting next to two semi-retired flight controllers managing a simulation. They went back to Apollo.

One of my 20-something peers walked back to our row where the pizza boxes lay, ruffled through them, sighed "its all cold" and walked back to his terminal.

Now, we'd been doing this for weeks.

Old fart #1 turns to #2 and says under his breath "You know, I gave up my marriage and kids to get us to the moon"

And so they did.

<comment><USER35> You know, I think we would have still made it to the moon if those two guys spent time with their family

<comment><USER36> But it wasn't just about mankind making it to the moon. It was about getting there "before the bad guys". About making a show of willpower. About proving that no sacrifice is too large.

<comment><USER21> > About proving that no sacrifice is too large.

I would posit that this mindset is broadly a disease and not a cure.

<comment><USER37> Any yet if Britain and France had made more of a show of willpower in 1937 then Germany probably would've decided against starting WWII and about 28 million lives would've been saved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I sold my previous company and started a one man company mostly because now I can now be at home when my kids get out of school. Best decision ever. I work when they're at school. And I work when they go to bed. No stress, no guilt, no worries. It's awesome.

I grew up on a farm. My parents were home 24/7\. I liked that.

<comment><USER39> What kind of company?

<comment><USER40> Not OP, but his profile says this: "Allround developer, currently setting up a large network of agricultural communities"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I feel like the author is using one part of her story to excuse other unrelated decisions. Sure, defending a man she believes was improperly convicted and a victim of racism is important. _Very_ important. It seems perfectly reasonable to weigh that responsibility against that she owes to her kids (though I might still make the opposite choice myself). But another student to teach? Another story to write? Nope. Other people can do one, and the other might not need to be done at all. The incremental benefit to anyone but the author herself is minimal, compared to the _major_ incremental benefit of being there for her children. Which brings us to this.

> If I didn't write and teach and litigate, a part of me would feel empty.

This sounds like the real reason, and _it 's not a bad one_. Self-care is important. It's hard to be a good parent (or spouse BTW) if you're not a healthy person. But that's a different argument from the one about all of one's work being important to others. Some seems to be, and some less so. When a facile reason is given, even if good reasons also exist, it seems like unhealthy rationalization. But then, picking and promoting a most favorable narrative is exactly what trial lawyers do. I guess it's an easy trap to fall into. I just hope she's right that the choice to favor her career really will prove most fulfilling in the longer term.

<comment><USER42> I don't think it's for us to pre-judge which rationalisations are good ones and which aren't. Some of them seem pretty compelling, but for others such as the student needing help we just don't know enough about the specific circumstances to know.

Individually I can agree that yes this task is important enough to give up that event with her children. They might all be reasonable. I think the problem comes when you look at the aggregate.

One lawyer can't save every victim of injustice or teach every student. Does she actually need to get into every one of these demanding situations one after the other, with no gap? Even then, maybe the answer is yes if that's what it takes to get ahead in her career to achieve the things she wants to, but that's really the tradeoff not the individual instances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Prioritizing clients over kids seems misguided if there's a conscious choice being made, but in my childhood I think I benefited a lot from benign neglect: not having everything micromanaged by my parents who let me figure things out on my own, just because they didn't feel like they had to help me the moment I have the slightest hint of a problem. Thanks to this I could pursue things that _I_ (rather than my parents) wanted to pursue, and I had vast stretches of free time to do it. I joined a volleyball team on my own, I learned electronics and programming on my own, I've read basically all of "golden age" science fiction worth reading, I got our math teacher at school to give a few of us extra lessons to prepare for the college entrance exam, etc.

This autonomy had two interesting effects. On the one hand it definitely benefited me later in life, because I felt like I had a built-in direction. On the other I don't like it when people tell me what to do, particularly if they have an unearned position of power and don't really know what to do themselves, but have to "lead", by hook or by crook.

<comment><USER44> When given the opportunity, some kids will do what you did & others will watch TV all day long.

<comment><USER43> It's much easier to waste time nowadays, I agree (my son is a perfect example; left to his own devices he'd do pretty much what you said). My father got rid of our TV when I was 10 years old and haven't bought one since. Internet also wasn't a thing back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The title should have been "I've picked getting unjustfully condemned people out of prison, over my kids". It would make 2/3 of the comments irrelevant.

Prioritizing a more "normal" job over raising own kids is a very different subject.

<comment><USER46> If you are a bad lawyer and a good father it's way better to let someone else do the work right? ;) /jk

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> >I had picked the date, not the judge, because I knew that the other side wasn't ready. Delaying even a few days would have meant losing a crucial advantage.

Doesn't our paradigm of adversarial justice require that lawyers subscribe to an idea of fair competition? I don't see any difference between using the trial date or venue setting to attack your opponent and, say, using trick make-up and a wig to make your client look nothing like the person the witnesses saw.

<comment><USER48> I would imagine that adversarial justice would work best when each side is vigorously preparing and putting forth their strongest arguments.

We enumerate that a defendant is under no obligation to help the prosecution as just an extreme example of this. That almost all patent infringement cases were held in a backwater East Texas district is evidence that the system doesn't work as that description of "fair competition" would suggest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Disheartening.

I grew up with absentee parents. This is an unwelcome spin on that situation. I can't even give an opinion on this that doesn't immediately fly into rage. I just hope I don't try to pair off with someone who ends up getting hoodwinked by articles like this. This is disgusting.

<comment><USER18> There is a difference between parents who are absent because they don't care, and parents who are absent because they have a lot of work to do. My dad worked overseas and was gone for 30-40% of the year when I was a kid. Grew up to have a great relationship with him, because when he was here he was always attentive. (Not in the sense of spending a lot of time with us—he worked 60 hour weeks stateside. But in the sense of always calling when we got home from school and generally being loving and supportive.)

<comment><USER50> >because when he was here he was always attentive.

That doesn't sounds like the author. Kids will understand if a parent is away because they are working to make their (i.e. the kid's) life better. My father worked long hours, sometimes multiple jobs, all his life for little money, as did my mother. Even though they weren't around for some of my recitals or Christmas pageants, I respect them both that much more because I knew why they were doing it ... even as a kid. Kids aren't stupid though. If the parent is absent for selfish reasons, in order to fulfil their life and their goals, it will lead to bitterness and resentment. It will.

<comment> barry-cotter Some people are bitter and resentful and would have had the exact same childhood you did and think their parents weren't there for them. People in extremely similar circumstances feel very differently about them all the time, often enough within the same family.

<comment><USER50> You're correct, and we're all speculating because we don't know their situation. It could all be fine and the kids have other support systems ... but it doesn't sound good as written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> She sacrficed the well-being of her own children for the well-being of complete strangers. There is enough attorneys that can do her job but there is only one person that can be a mother to these two kids - and that's her.

</comment><comment><USER52> People who say men wouldn't face the same criticism are wrong. I'm almost 50 and all my friends have been guided by the song "Cats in the cradle" by Harry Chaplin. It's so prevalent even memes are based on it now.

I have sacrificed significant portions of my career to be there for my kids. There are some of my male peers that are less attentive than me but universally we would think they are simply bad fathers. I don't know anyone these days that wouldn't think that an absentee dad was also a bad dad.

If you prioritize your job over your children then by definition you are a bad parent. If you don't have the means and are forced to work then I get it, you have to do what you do. It doesn't sound like this is the case for the author. She has the privilege to chose her work over her kids which is different.

I hope she also didn't selfishly choose to have joint custody with her ex- husband only to neglect the kids for her job.

<comment><USER53> > People who say men wouldn't face the same criticism are wrong.

I'm going to challenge you on this one, especially since the post currently right above yours is from a single father of 5 with this quote:

"I'm really glad I'm a single Dad and not a single Mum because there are very few cultural expectations of me beyond working, and everyone acts like I'm amazing for just raising my kids. It's kinda insulting to both genders."

I'm not saying fathers wouldn't experience any criticism, but I still believe that there is a strong difference in cultural expectations and it would be a mistake to if ignore it: women are "generally" expected to be the primary caregivers, so sacrificing children for career is looked on relatively negatively, while men are "generally" expected to be the primary breadwinners, so any additional time spent with children is praised as being a great dad.

<comment><USER52> I'll grant your point that maybe it's cultural or depends on where you live. I live in the SF Bay Area and it's clear from the parent post that he lives in Europe or Australia/NZ based on his use of "mum". Given the author lives in the SF Bay Area I think my point stands though.

Among my dozens of friends with children, there's a couple of friends who don't spend very much time with their kids and they are universally looked on as the "shitty" dads. One likes to do his sports on the weekends and regularly abandons his children and wife to do that. The other plays video games all the time "to unwind" and his children are basically ignored.

The rest of the dads I know feel a lot of pressure trying to be good dads (and husbands) and split child duties. I don't know many females who would accept it, since they have demanding careers as well. I don't know very many dads who thinks it's okay that the mom does most of the child rearing and I'm probably 15-20 years older than the average HN reader.

Maybe at lower income levels or lower costs areas it's more true that women take more of the child rearing duties. In expensive areas like SF Bay Area, most women work except among the very rich, so you will see a complete split of duties most of the time.

At least at the same income level as the author in the same area, I don't believe that women are still considered the primary child rearer. And given the author's successes and writings, I highly doubt she would have chosen a mate who would assume that she would do most of the child rearing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So many I's.

<comment><USER27> Your short comment rings very true to me and reminded me of Adam Curtis' "Century of the Self" theory which in his latest documentary "Hypernormalization" gets developed even further. I guess you might know it but for those who don't - both freely available on youtube.

Century of the Self: [https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s](https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s)

Hypernormalization [https://youtu.be/F8YqRaZSZWo](https://youtu.be/F8YqRaZSZWo)

Adam Curtis: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Kids are not kids forever. People feel like they have infinite time when they are young/in their prime. They don't and it is too late by the time the realization dawns in. By then, they have grown and moved out and that work which feels so intellectually stimulating/meaningful now does not necessarily feel the same way then.

I love programming and that is why I got into my choice of career. However, that program I spent so much time writing/crafting, at the expense of family time, will be obsolete/decomissioned before long. Hell even I won't care about it after a while.

The kids are not going to be decommissioned though. If we don't care about them now, they don't have any obligation to care about us then.

<comment><USER56> This is the fallacy of regret. No matter what you do, you can regret what you didn't do

<comment><USER55> I have never seen anyone regret not spending more time in office instead. I'll take my chances with ungrateful kids than having missed the chance of spending more time with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> What a sad article.

It sounds like this person is like any other distant parent. She's responsible and no doubt her kids will be ok. But for her, despite her bluster and the importance of her work, I'm sad for her, and if she is like most attorneys like this, she will be too.

</comment><comment><USER58> Lots of judgemental responses here. I realize cultural expectations from women are very skewed, but I'd hope for more open-mindedness from HN users.

This choice isn't unreasonable when, as in this article:

1\. There are other loving caregivers to help fill in any gaps

2\. The job has very high value-add to others, i.e. it's not just about selfish value-capture

</comment><comment><USER59> So has most of western society. Thus the birthrate cratering. Since this woman has two kids she's picking kids over job more than most people. She's simply more honest than most about the whole thing.

I find the western disinterest in raising their own children (and having them) fascinating. There seems to be a widespread ideal of trying to leave a legacy through deeds rather than through your own children. Much of the right wing is agitated at the whole thing because this is gradually reducing the population of an ethnic group they're quite fond of.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm happy for her, she seems to know what she wants. I'm grateful my parents prioritised me, and that I've followed the example in my career choices.

Good luck lady, and good luck kids. We all bumble through this life as best we can, hope it's good enough for your family...

</comment><comment><USER54> On one dad's workshop I came across nice ideal to strive for: Be with your kid one hour a day.

Be with your kid one whole day a week.

Be with your kid one weekend a month.

Be with your kid one week a year.

And by being with your kid it is meant really to be there, fully present, attentive.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have a lot of respect for the author for writing this. I think anyone who has kids and also cares about their work finds themselves on this spectrum, and they have to decide where they're going to live on that spectrum. I'm further in the direction of kids than the author probably is, but I'm also not freeing wrongly convicted criminals. In any case, I'm very reluctant to judge another parent's choice of how to juggle work and family.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm a dad of a 10 month little dude and sacrificed a high paying Senior job so I can focus on him growing up and help with my wife with all the baby and house chores.

Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice because finding part time or freelance gigs are kinda hard right now. But at the end of the day I know I made the right decision because my little boy is just gonna be young once and I don't want to miss out on his milestones and growth.

</comment><comment><USER63> I wish my mother had spent less time hanging around. Why do people think their presence benefits their children? Think again.

<comment><USER56> We think that because decades of research shows how parents benefit children on average.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> It is hard to say from the article what kind of relationship author realy has with her kids. She seems to feel guilty, focusing on low moments. For some people the amount of time spent with family counts, others factor in the "intensity" as well.

Her comment about playing the advantage by choosing early date is a bit worring.

</comment><comment><USER65> Not everyone needs to have kids. We've got more than enough humans already!

Parenting would also be easier on people if the US had sensible maternity/paternity policies and free childcare like we ought to have.

</comment><comment><USER66> Starting a new job is hard. You have to learn the organization, the client base, and the processes.

Providing for your kids is important.

I hope that you find a rhythm in your role and are able to make more time for your family.

</comment><comment><USER67> "Neither of us pays the other support."

And why would you, if you both have jobs. However, the father should pay support _to his kids_ for sure.

<comment><USER68> She says in the previous sentence that they have joint custody. So it seems they both support them directly on their own and not through payments to the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I don't want to be too harsh, but I can't respect her decision. It's selfish, and not properly caring for the next generation is a dead giveaway of a sick society.

<comment><USER68> Unlike your father? You say in another comment the you "wouldn't ever disparage him" for work-related absences.

<comment><USER69> It's not apparent to me from the article that this woman is making a serious attempt to make up for those absences. That she wrote this almost seems like a celebration of her choice to de-prioritize them. My father would be gone for a week, but then home for a week. When he was home, he was 100% available to us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Typical New York Times, and typical for that kind of discussion.

In such discussions, the image is always of a mother resigning from an interesting and important academic job. Presumably it is mostly academics who discuss such things, and NYT readers are also mostly academics. So when they think of mothers and careers, they think of interesting academic jobs.

In reality, most women (and men) don't have such interesting jobs. The most common job for women is shop assistant, followed by nurse (or vice versa, don't remember for sure - numbers from Germany a couple of years ago). Now nurse might be reasonably interesting, but not irreplaceable like that lawyer. And arguably, you would be doing the same job as at home (changing diapers), only not with your children.

Sorry it annoys me that this women styles herself like some sort of hero, when other people are forced to make that choice out of financial necessity.

Obviously it is a valid choice to prioritize her job, like she did. The annoying part is the claim between the lines that she is somehow special and going against the societal pressure.

<comment><USER71> > Now nurse might be reasonably interesting, but not irreplaceable like that > lawyer. And arguably, you would be doing the same job as at home (changing > diapers), only not with your children

Did you seriously just equate the work that nurses do with changing diapers?

<comment><USER72> Or trivialize the job of parenting down to changing diapers..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> If you don't want to prioritise your kids over your job... _don 't have kids_.

Contraception is pretty damn effective, and people often have children for entirely selfish reasons.

A dog isn't for christmas, and your kids aren't just cute toys until you get bored of raising them.

There are plenty of people who are willing, enough that we won't have population problems.

<comment><USER18> That's terrible advice. Kids are great (they're also not, at societal scale, really optional). According to a Pew study, about 7% of people who had kids would, if they did it over again, have had no kids. By contrast, more than half of those who didn't have kids would've chosen to not have kids again: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children- norm.asp...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx). Indeed, out of people who didn't have kids, a greater proportion wish they would've had 3+ kids than people who had kids who wish they had no kids.

If you impose artificially high hurdles for parenting, you're encouraging people to possible forgo a fulfilling life choice, because they fear they can't live up to artificially inflated expectations for parenting. And that's damaging.

<comment><USER74> A thing is "inflated expectations for parenting", another thing is the person who wrote the article which has three different jobs (she could easily drop two and still manage to bring home more than enough money, but she doesn't want to for selfish reasons... Which are totally ok if you are not a divorced parent of two very young kids) and, as she herself said, prioritize all of them over her children because she prefers that way.

<comment><USER18> The "selfish" remark rings pretty hollow when you're talking about someone that is literally spending her time freeing wrongfully convicted people.

What Ms. Bazelon is doing is the opposite of selfish. She's providing for her family, serving her profession, and serving her community. She's teaching her kids good morals by example: hard work and service. What kind of terrible lesson would it be to her children if she taught them that their school camping trip was more important than those things?

<comment><USER75> > What kind of terrible lesson would it be to her children if she taught them > that their school camping trip was more important than those things?

That you can rationalize anything to fit your choices.

<comment><USER76> The more important part will the kids both understand it rationally and handle it emotionally.

Nobody can really know that without being an oracle. Neither choice is clearly superior but one is considered natural and the other is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Few days ago I saw something about "Men's rights" movement and my first reaction was to think of it as parody and laugh it off. But then I looked at few stories and videos and it was eye opening. Many people don't understand how badly some of the men are being exploited and even driven to suicide. Current laws in Western world are heavily tilted towards perceiving men as guilty party, someone who must always be making sacrifice. A women, for example, can call in police at anytime and put her husband in jail by claiming domestic violence however other way around almost never work. Women can threaten her husband of divorce and take away house, car and half of the bank savings even if she has contributed negatively by causing lot of stress or performing large spending sprees. Courts tend to give women custody of children and in some states women can claim it any way by citing reasons such as husband has (non-existent) violent behavior. Judge and jury almost always will take side with women.

I understand above are rare cases and that women gets sharp end of rope far more often. However still this would be like saying that it's ok to sacrifice those minority men who lose everything including their life's work and even their children when women simply decides to wave magic wand of law.

I don't want to derail the conversation but Western society has only accepted one side of view and sexism on other side gets laughed off to oblivion.

<comment><USER78> IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at, for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women pervades the place. It's not healthy.

But yes, suicide, custody in divorce etc are issues where men deserve recourse. That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in silence. They still suffer far more but can at least talk about it now.

When people mock Men's Rights they aren't mocking men who campaign for divorce law reform. They mock men who sit around in online communities and say "but muh feminists!"

> Western society has only accepted one side of view and sexism on other side > gets laughed off to oblivion.

Western society had tried to rectify the unfair treatment women have received for hundreds (thousands?) of years. And in areas it has overcorrected. That's fixable. It doesn't mean the entire endeavour is misguided.

<comment><USER14> > That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical > violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to > suffer in silence

Statistically, this is not true. In relationships where there is one-sided violence, the violence is (something like) 70/30 with the woman initiating the violence. In relationships where there is two-sided violence, the woman initiates the violence more than half of the time. These studies are hard to find and often have no funding because they get shouted out of the mainstream consciousness.

Here is a study that covers part of this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/)

Ask yourself why you've never heard of it.

If you are speaking historically, surely you are not suggesting incarceration of men as reparations for things we didn't do?

<comment><USER79> It doesn't seem impossible that women are just as likely to shove or slap a man they're in a partnership with, though I'd like to see more followup than this article to be convinced.

However, the statistics on murder are pretty fucking clear: [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/homicides- women/534306/). Given the frequency with which murder is preceded by a string of violence requiring medical attention, I'd wager that's similarly unbalanced.

<comment><USER14> Don't conflate the murdering men with men who have done nothing. This is the entire problem. All men don't rape, all men don't murder.

<comment><USER79> > All men don't rape, all men don't murder

As a man, I'm well aware of this! However, your comment is a non-sequitur.

<comment><USER14> Then why are you so loose in your response? Why do you conflate murder with a loose definition of domestic violence? With the looser definition, women are MORE violent than men.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> > 6) It's impossible to perfectly balance a 40 hour working week and family. > Best you can aim for is a kind of homeostasis where work suffers for family > one week and then family suffers a bit for work the next.

The article refers to things like:

> But there is always another client to defend, story to write or struggling > student who just can't wait. Here are things I have missed: my daughter's > seventh birthday, my son's 10th birthday party, two family vacations, three > Halloweens, every school camping trip.

She didn't even try to balance...

<comment><USER18> Americans assign a silly and unjustified sentimental value to things like birthday parties and school outings. Part of my wife's family is Jehovah's witnesses, who don't even celebrate birthdays. Are those kids somehow missing out? Do you think the immigrant parents that own a Chinese restaurant open seven days a week make it to any of their kids school functions or camping trips? Are they being irreparably damaged?

<comment><USER33> I had immigrant parents who had to work all the time to build and grow their business, so I didn't have birthdays and that kind of stuff. I don't care about that kind of stuff at all, not to say that I hate it or anything.

I haven't studied other children, so I can only make statements about myself. The only negative of my childhood regarding the lack of birthdays and whatnot is the inability to feign excitement for others' celebrations as much as might be expected, simply because I don't care about it for myself in the first place. It probably has hampered my ability to socialize or make networking connections in some situations where I wasn't able to fit in.

<comment><USER80> Be happy that others are happy. That's the key to empathy and sharing the pleasure. You don't have to understand why they are happy, and you don't have to agree with the cause. But you can still find joy in the fact that others are feeling wonderful.

<comment><USER33> Yes, I wish I had learned that earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Well I was watching this video of Jordson Peterson yesterday. [https://youtu.be/44f3mxcsI50?t=2537](https://youtu.be/44f3mxcsI50?t=2537)

It has some great ideas and pretty much somesup every thing. Watch little bit longer as he goes from one subject to another and then come back to point.

<comment><USER82> If you're going to link a video at least summarise the arguments so we have some idea of whether it's worth watching.

<comment><USER81> First It's not my thoughts and secondly Jordon has very profound deep understanding and I think I am not capable of summarising his thoughts as I am also trying to decipher and get.

He is clinical physiologist and he has good depth of this kind of subject and I'm not right person to translate his views. But what I get is this

"Life is sacrifice at every level (He quotes and decipher bibles story) and you have to sacrifice the some things for your family and loved ones"

But I feel these above lines do not do justice for the video as I said it has so much to get and everyone has their own perspective to get the things.

Sure you might disagree with me or him but you have your own perspective and you should decipher the meaning by yourself.

<comment><USER56> Jordan Peterson uses his psychology degree to give false authority to his political musings, to inspire a profit from his fandom of hateful harassers. There are 7 billion people on this Earth and Jordan Peterson is not more worthy of study than the othets.

<comment><USER83> > There are 7 billion people on this Earth and Jordan Peterson is not more > worthy of study than the othets.

How does that bring anything to the table ? I doubt 99% of the population would be as interesting if they gave speeches.

There are only a handful of people knowing their shit and sharing it in public for free. I don't see many people running around saying "Yoh Plato is shit no one should ever listen to him" even if they don't agree with his views.

Did you actually study him, as you seem to imply by making such strong statements ? I don't agree with a lot of his points but I have to admit that he has very interesting things to say about postmodernism, personal meaning, religions, &c. and as far as I know no one else is addressing these issues with that kind of depth in these days.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tyranny of the Power Law (and Why We Should Become Eclectic) - <AUTHOR> http://econophysics.blogspot.com/2006/07/tyranny-of-power-law-and-why-we-should.html#

<comment><USER2> A bit long and sensationalist, but the ideas are sound. Long story short: where is a power law there is also a long tail. Using the long tail in a smart way has many advantages. Most of them revolve around greater diversity, which can be surprising in a power law environment where we're used to see only concentration. Eg: few movies are blockbusters, and many are not. Instead of watching only the blockbusters you can invest effort in "mining" the movie long tail for something that matches your tastes very closely. Some interesting aplications in social sciences.

<comment><USER3> But the whole point/problem with the "Long Tail" is that it's inefficient. A single person can benefit from a single portion of the Long Tail without trouble, and all the different single persons benefiting from all the different little portions of the Long Tail add up to make something huge; but for one person to mine through the entire Long Tail isn't easy.

It's been the concept of many social networks, from Technorati to Delicious and even to HN - the Long Tail is difficult to mine, inefficient to follow-up on, and generally not worth the trouble when you can keep up with the A-list instead.

I'm sure there are some non-Blockbuster movies that would fit me _perfectly_ and that I'd enjoy them far more than my current "top 10" Hollywood moovies; but, you know what, the effort it would take to locate these, the time wasted watching billions of hours of NON-good stuff just makes it not worth it.

That's the perpetual problem with the Long Tail.

<comment><USER2> I'm more optimistic. I'd say that since we have the Internet, mining the long tail is finally possible. Yes, we don't have yet the perfect tools to do so, but it's definitely doable, and 20 years ago it wasn't even a dream. Also I'm more inclined to invest into it: I got much more enjoyment from Evil Dead then from any current blockbuster - 90% of which I don't even watch anymore).

<comment><USER3> IMHO, the internet enabled us to _discover_ the existence of the Long Tail and appreciate that it's there and is of huge potential, but is ill-suited (at least in its current format) for making use of the Long Tail. I had high hopes for "the semantic web" and unlocking the tail; but that - most unfortunately - amounted to nothing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: TinyPress – A GitHub Blogging Platform - <AUTHOR> http://tinypress.co <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys. Thanks for checking out TinyPress.

I'm cataloging feedback I receive so you all know I'm listening, and will be iteratively adding these items as we move forward over the next week or two.

You can find the list on the post below. I'll be updating this post in real time from feedback I get here, on Twitter, or through Intercom (blue button on site).

[https://tinypressco.github.io/2015/10/18/on-hacker- news.html](https://tinypressco.github.io/2015/10/18/on-hacker-news.html)

<comment><USER2> Honestly I'm not really sure how this works - but uhh.. maybe the Fork 'n Go concept could be applied for more "out of the box" ease? ([https://github.com/jlord/forkngo](https://github.com/jlord/forkngo))

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never heard of this. It's pretty clever, I'll see about utilizing this.

I know it can be confusing. I'm going to make a better gif on the landing page to help explain the entire process from start to finish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't help but think at some point GitHub will not be so friendly to free blog hosting through their system. They are a version control SAAS. If you generate to much traffic, what will happen? The market might be ripe for a git based cms/blog why not build that company and service?

<comment><USER4> I doubt Github would frown upon this. Github Pages has already been handling a quarter million req/sec. [0]

[0]: [https://github.com/blog/1992-eight-lessons-learned- hacking-o...](https://github.com/blog/1992-eight-lessons-learned-hacking-on- github-pages-for-six-months)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work. Some suggestions:

1\. Better to include a demo. If I'm using this service I'd want to know how the blog looks like.

2\. The gif doesn't really look smooth. Maybe consider using a low-quality mp4.

<comment><USER5> My video-to-GIF tool is optimized for this particular use case.

[https://github.com/minimaxir/video-to-gif- osx](https://github.com/minimaxir/video-to-gif-osx)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, perfect! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure if it's possible or not but you may try to create an organization for your application and create repositories in that organization. Maybe you can avoid requesting private repo access using this technique. (Mixpanel uses a similar technique [https://github.com/orgs/mixpanel- platform](https://github.com/orgs/mixpanel-platform))

<comment><AUTHOR> Really interesting. I had no idea about this. I'm definitely going to dig into it, thanks mate.

<comment><USER7> A feature where it creates pull-requests would even remove the need for it to have any access. Not sure if it's a good idea, as it adds more steps (and no post-in-future). Or maybe just add it as a collaborater to the project could work. I don't have a problem with how it works now, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it possible to use TinyPress with already modified Jekyll? I already host a blog on github and am using jekyll. What I would like to do is take advantage of that neat backend for writing posts.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks great! I've been thinking about developing something similar for some time. I'll definitely be contributing to this project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I'm re-building the core engine powering this using (basically all Javascript right now on Backbone) in Ruby + Javascript with an actual postgresql database behind it. Right now it's using an in memory store for things like your autosave drafts etc.

Do you think I should open source the project? Right now the Android app and the web-app (mentioned above) are closed source, but the philosophy of this platform is about open source writing - and to not have an open source application powering that seems antithetical. What do you think?

<comment><USER9> I would say it depends on your personal goals. If you're doing this as you say to open source wiring and not the application then there's your answer. If you'd like to see it develop more than you have time for theb maybe open source would be a better option or talk to some friends that find it interesting and build it together white keeping it closed. So weigh your options and what you'd like to see happen to it and go from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Neat! This is Jekyll-based right? In that case, please pop on over to talk.jekyllrb.com and share this with the community.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed! I <3 Jekyll. And alright will do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wasn't this or something almost exactly the same, posted on HN maybe 6-8 or so months ago?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. A verry rough v1 of this has been in the works for quite some time, with a few friends of mine. But they have all moved on to other projects and this is now my baby. Also, this is a completely overhauled version - hence today's HN post.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Integer Snake – Connect squares with the same number in them - <AUTHOR> http://www.integersnake.com <comment><USER2> Can't play on mobile. Trying to tap and drag scrolls the page. (iPhone 5, iOS 10, safari)</comment>


Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it? - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/06/24/734747462/instagram-advertising-do-you-know-it-when-you-see-it <comment><USER2> I'm not on Instagram, but I don't think this issue is really confined to social media. I've become quite concerned about is how advertising is drowning out useful information everywhere else as well.

We recently had a baby girl, our first, and this has lead to quite a lot of internet searching. I've been completely unable to find anything resembling an authentic answer on google. It's all commercial content trying to push products rather than give any form of useful information. The government sites, to their credit, work really well, but what happened to the actual people on the internet? People sharing their stories without getting paid to push a product?

In the end we ended up subscribing to a national NGO that does consumer testing and has an excellent decade long track record, but what good is the internet if you can't find honest information?

<comment><USER3> Try [https://millionshort.com](https://millionshort.com)

Search without the top 1m (or 100k) sites. Far from perfect, but it tunes out an awful lot of the commerce that Google prioritise. You start finding the old school forums and info sites that are mostly invisible to Google.

<comment><USER4> I try to use this as much as I can, especially if I'm looking for content from "real people" sites, i.e. blogs set up by individuals to share their thoughts.

Those are a breath of fresh air in this day and age, when 90% of blogs appearing on search are SEO-optimized solopreneur websites that hit you with cookie warnings and "free ebook" email lead gen popups the second you arrive on the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really disturbing. It made me rethink who I'm following.. I'm going to go through my feed, with a good cup of Hill Brothers cappachino mix (my favourite is the classic!) and really look hard at who's worth keeping in my followed list.

<comment><USER6> You forgot to post your affiliate link for Hill Brothers!

I jest but isn't that drink something:

Sugar, Nondairy Creamer (Partially Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Soybean Oil, Corn Syrup Solids, Sodium Caseinate (a Milk Derivative), Dipotassium Phosphate, Sugar, Mono and Diglycerides, Silicon Dioxide, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Soy Lecithin, Artificial Color, Artificial Flavor), Nonfat Dry Milk, Instant Coffee, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Cocoa Powder (Processed with Alkali), Silicon Dioxide and Sodium Aluminosilicate (to Prevent Caking), Carboxymethylcellulose, Salt.

How do we get sold into buying this stuff? Instagram? Inadvertent product placement on HN?

Seems that the product is cheaper than take out Starbucks, so it is a deal. But is it?

I drink tea (I am British) and my preference is for the cheap stuff. So that means the 40 Fair Trade bags for 50p from one store or 80 non-Fair-Trade bags for 58p ($1) from the other store. No milk, no sugar and certainly no Dipotassium Phosphate needed.

$4.99 for 15 cups? That is 33 cents per go. I am sure I could get hooked to it. To cost myself $2.50 a day or approximately $17 dollars a week more than my current beverage costs (ignoring electricity). That is getting on for $900 a year for getting Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate and the like into my arteries!

But, the Hill Brothers delicacy is still a bargain compared to one Starbucks treat a day.

<comment><USER7> > You forgot to post your affiliate link for Hill Brothers!

Pffft. Are you new to "accidental" comment product placement? It's all about brand awareness. Brands like the delicious Lavazza coffee i m drinking right now.

<comment><USER6> Actually the brand you mentioned seem to be legit, as in not one face of a vast multinational. They do just the brand you mention. They are not owned by Nestle or anyone else.

Meanwhile, Hill Bros are anything but. They were owned by Nestle but are now part of this outfit:

[http://www.mzb-group.com/en/brands](http://www.mzb-group.com/en/brands)

It is crazy how the core product is merchandised to different people around the world.

In the UK we get one of their brands at train stations and it all seems cool and locally British. But what is not so obvious is that the other coffee place at the station that seems not connected to the chain is also selling the same product with Italian branded beans. So the apparent choice is lining the same pockets of the global mega corp.

Obviously there is choice but sometimes the choice seems imagined, the megacorp can monopolise a locality such as a station.

Coffee is a product for grown ups but when you look at the MZB portfolio it seems that only in America do they treat their customers to a dumbed-down, sugared-up childish product with garish packaging. This is not just this mega- corp, if you go into a British supermarket and find a special shelf area with American products you will see some true crimes when it comes to ultrabright and childish packaging. Sometimes the cereal boxes have to have stickers over some of the nutrition claims on the pack as Trading Standards would just have those products off the shelves immediately if they weren't sanitised that bit.

The mega corp will sell the ultra adulterated products for the US market and have another brand to cater for the hipsters that want heritage, eco-whatever, taste and what not.

I think I really will be sticking with plain tea or skipping the intermediate steps and just going for sugar coated crack cocaine. It is all pulling the same levers in the brain.

<comment><USER7> I would think that the differences in american marketing is because they are selling to a market that is 4-20 times larger than any european market, so you get more common denominators. Plus they have a longer tradition of consumerist culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly OT, but I deleted my Facebook last year. Ever since, the Instagram ads I see are woefully targeted. I'm a 30 year old man living in New Delhi, India, yet in the past few weeks, I've seen ads for:

\- A real estate company in Denver, Colarado

\- Sanitary pads for women

\- A Dubai property brokerage

\- BMW Las Vegas

I really don't know what's going on with these ads because geographic and gender exclusion would be the first step in any targeting

<comment><USER9> Same here. Instagram is absolutely convinced I'm in Norway and no matter where I actually am (UK, Asia, Africa, USA) it only ever shows me ads in Norwegian... which I don't speak.

<comment><USER8> The ads in my wife's feed, who still has her Facebook account, on the other hand, are very well targeted.

This makes me think that maybe Instagram depends heavily on your Facebook data for targeting, and that deleting your Facebook (not disabling; deleting) actually does delete your data from Facebook

<comment><USER10> On facebook you explicitly provide them information on things like gender, language and basic demographics that advertisers use for targeting. On IG they may need to infer this information from your online activities if your FB is closed.

That said, I don't see this being a data gap for too long.

<comment><USER8> I just assumed that Facebook would still use my Facebook data it had already stored before I deleted my account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised no one's mentioned this yet, but the photo of Gretchen referenced as a "candid shot" at the very start of the article (and shown on right a bit lower down) is anything but.

There's at least 5 (!) different kinds of branded 'Hills Bros' merch filling the shot. It's hugely obvious that it's an ad.

Weird leading example for an article included "Do you know it when you see it?" in the title.

<comment><USER12> Oh it is obvious - in this specific case - but the main issue is that the line between original content and advertisements is blurred. I noticed the same on Facebook - if it's not actual ads, it's my FB friends raving about a movie, a game, a destination (think Disneyworld), a thing they got, etc - so basically most content is ads.

The They Live sunglasses should be an extension that can abstract these things to keywords like "CONSUME" for product promotion and "MARRY & REPRODUCE" for relationship updates / family pictures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not on Instagram, but that post was quite obviously sponsored: nobody has that much _coffee_ merchandise or talks about things they like as was done there. I'm more concerned about people who have a small but not unreasonable bias in a certain direction swaying people than sponsored Instagram posts.

</comment><comment><USER14> It is getting increasingly difficult to guage what's _native advertisment_ and what's not. It is not just social media or e-commerce websites but the enthusiast blogs, review sites, and YouTube channels doing sutble paid pieces.

The erstwhile online forums driven by volunteers and like-minded individuals are the only last known place remaining that don't seem to have hidden agendas. And I dread their demise.

The eternal october [0][1] of advertising is here. The only way I have managed to escape is firewalling them out of my home network, but that's like isolating myself in a cocoon and leaves a large part of today's internet inaccessible.

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

[1] [https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/10/google-launches- sel...](https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/10/google-launches-self- service.html)

<comment><USER15> >It is getting increasingly difficult to guage what's native advertisment and what's not. It is not just social media or e-commerce websites but the enthusiast blogs, review sites, and YouTube channels doing sutble paid pieces.

It's getting even tougher to find reviews of uncommon products. I had a family member ask me suggestions for a car DVD player. I got a fair amount of hits for different brands and players, but when I looked for reviews on these products outside of commerce sites, they were all lists with affiliate links with little blurbs likes, "10 in screens, 6 hours of battery life, headphone jack, and plays media via USB." Gee, thanks for the product description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm really surprised that someone with only 6000 followers can command such high rates. I know from listening to podcasters that they make around $20-30 per 1000 listeners per ad. She's earning between $50 and $130 per thousand (potential) impressions.

(I thought these might be multi-ad deals, but from scanning her page, I only see each product featured once.)

</comment><comment><USER17> Instagram/Facebook have some of the most sophisticated advertising technology in human history. They know my location history, they can determine the language I post in, and they surely have countless other data points they can use for advanced targeting.

And yet, Instagram is adamant that I speak Serbian and that I am in Serbia. I don't speak Serbian, and I haven't been in Serbia since I stayed in Belgrade for the month of June last year.

Good job folks.

<comment><USER9> I have the same for Norway & Norwegian, since I visited there for 3 days last summer. Instagram has access to the location on my phone and knows where I am down to the metre.

Absolutely bizarre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh, a website where I can decline tracking cookies and the punition is a plain text article? Yes please! I hope this practice spreads.

<comment><USER19> Declining tracking cookies is a requirement of the gdpr

<comment><USER20> how about they just don't give them in the first place

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My rule for Instagram is to not follow "beautiful" people that I don't know in real life.

<comment><USER22> I only follow beautiful people who I don't know.

I'm definitely NOT the target demographic for fit teas, gym bands, detox treatments, bikinis or sports drinks. The pictures accompanying said products are nice to look at though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Goes way beyond that. Ton of advertising on here, Facebook groups are probably 95% ads, half or more of the Reddit subs are ads. People who do not work in the advertising industry sometimes have no idea when they are being sold to. These people are not dumb either, they are engineers, doctors, lawyers, you name it, but all are equally prone to psychological manipulation. The Instagram article is mild in comparison to some of the other market research and sales strategies out there. Paid content advertising can be so well done that most readers won't have a clue they are being taken advantage of. Some will even go to lengths to defend the advertiser saying that the ad was relevant to them.

</comment><comment><USER24> I just assume everything is an advertisement. If one wants actual information, dig for it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was thinking of making a stock-photo site based on product placement. Instead of tricking people to buy subscriptions for downloading one image, give the image for free or very cheap with some product featured "accidentally" .

</comment><comment><USER25> I can see advertisment very clearly on Instagram. The product is always conveniently placed in a way so you can clearly see it on photo.

The coffee photo in the article is a complete overkill, one must be an idiot to not realise it's an advertisment.

</comment><comment><USER26> Clearly not, because i do not use social media, and i see no point in instagram either - because those platforms offer nothing of value to my life - other than being a platform for harvesting tons of personal data, so they can sell targeted ads towards you.

On a side note, plaintext site is a pleasure to read, and loads lightning fast - i really recommend it.

Influencers are basically a walking, breathing marketing platforms, that seem more down to earth or intimate than typical ads - basically a human version of targeted advertisement mixed with surreptitious advertising.

</comment><comment><USER27> About advertising in general: we know it is sort of a prisoner's dilemma.

If only nobody did advertising... Only trustworthy and non-promoting information about products findable by search (pull instead of push)... It would also be a lot cheaper for the companies.

<comment><USER28> It's true. And the one good solution to prisoner's dilemma is to have an external actor that precommits to punish defectors. In real-life scenarios, this external actor is very often the government.

That's why I believe that advertising industry ultimately needs to be burned down to the ground through legal means. It'll be better off for everyone - including companies, who will be able to spend much less on the little informative advertising that would be allowed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wait. I am confused. Are the types of posts like in the article considered "stealth advertising" now? Do you people regularly buy a product because someone you follow on instagram uses it?

</comment><comment><USER30> Whenever someone mentions a brand on social media you should assume it's an ad. At that point you should unfollow them. There are millions of others you can follow who aren't shills.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm in the ultra minority, but I use [https://instagram.com](https://instagram.com) on my phone and I've never seen an ad.

<comment><USER32> I have never seen an Instagram ad on my phone using both the Android and iOS apps. I don't know why, but there are certain accounts that have ads disabled (I'm not the only one [0]). I guess I just got lucky. My alternate accounts all get ads like normal. I don't think I would use Instagram if I got ads like my friends do.

[0] [https://www.fastcompany.com/90166955/i-have-a-secret-ad- free...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90166955/i-have-a-secret-ad-free- instagram-account-and-its-bliss)

<comment><USER31> That's incredible; I'll consider myself lucky and keep enjoying it for now.

Edit: I had assumed the trick was using the mobile website, since I _used to_ see ads when I used the Android app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The real question is Does it matter if you know when you see it or not? Marketing has the ability to effect your decision making, whether you know its marketing or not.

</comment><comment><USER34> Yeah, I know it. It's called going on Instagram.

To be fair, the instagram accounts of people you know IRL aren't ads. Probably.

</comment><comment><USER35> 1 in every 5 posts on IG are advertisements. Go check for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER36> It would not be difficult for FB to add a "Ad" type for posts and be strict about enforcing this.

But they won't do that because it will expose the platform for what it really is.

<comment><USER37> It is actually quite difficult to enforce. You would need to have access to bank accounts of people to make sure they didn't received money for their stories. And even then, there are other forms of benefits, such as free passes, free products, etc ("gift") which leave no trace

<comment><USER38> If Kim Kardashian gets paid to post a photo wearing a brand, is that an ad? What if she just gets paid to wear a brand for the day, and it happens to make it onto Instagram? And why stop there? If a TV show or Movie has some product placement in it, should a 'sponsored content' subtitle be displayed every time the product appears?

Trying to protect people from content is an endless rabbit hole of ineffective strategies that usually end up doing more harm than good. Why not just leave it up to people to take some personal responsibility for how they consume instagram content?

<comment><USER19> Make it a legal requirement to mark paid promotions and anyone found to be doing paid promotions without marking it is at risk of huge fines.

I recall that in the UK, TV programs are already required to do this.

<comment><USER39> The ASA rules also apply to instagram, but enforcement is necessarily sparse: [https://www.asa.org.uk/news/new-guidance-launched-for- social...](https://www.asa.org.uk/news/new-guidance-launched-for-social- influencers.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I miss forums. vBulletin, Invision, phpBB.

</comment><comment><USER41> no but it's damn good and it makes me very angry

edit: oh this isn't about their targeting ads which are very very on point and are what actually make me upset, about how good it is

<comment><USER42> I've also noticed that. Their targeted advertising is much more relevant to me than any other platform I've been on and it's kinda infuriating.</comment></comment>


The New Xbox Kinect - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4353232/kinect-xbox-one-hands-on

<comment><USER2> That is a lot more processing than I expected them to have built-in. I'm also impressed with the quality of the audio processing, which I didn't really think about before.</comment>


De-Anonymizing alt.anonymous.messages [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://ritter.vg/p/AAM-defcon13.pdf

<comment><USER2> A working link, for I ~think~ the same piece: [https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-21/dc-21-presentations/...](https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-21/dc-21-presentations/Ritter/DEFCON-21-Ritter- De-Anonymizing-Alt.Anonymous-Messages-Updated.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I just looked at a few slides but it looks like the transcript of this awesome talk at defcon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5JBMyxvuH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5JBMyxvuH8)

The big wow was that a lot of people seem to use those complicated and extreme ways of messaging.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty interesting, this research showcases the power of what can be done with just the metadata.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good work. And yes, another failed experiment.

But there is another alternative, for hardcore enthusiasts. One can use Mixmaster nyms via Tor, using nymserver and newsserver hidden services.</comment>


The Bomb-Detecting Device That Didn't Work, Except to Make Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-11/in-iraq-the-bomb-detecting-device-that-didnt-work-except-to-make-money?google_editors_picks=true

<comment><USER2> There's a special place in hell for people who do things like this.

And a special place in the corner of the room and Dunce hat for people who didn't convict them and who paid good money to buy crap when lives were at stake.

Edit: Some links

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_6](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_6)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffex)

And some food for thought by Stephen Fry

      The use of the GT200 as a means of tracking smuggled
      ivory in Kenya has also been questioned. Stephen Fry,
      who saw the GT200 being used by Kenyan rangers in an
      attempt to catch poachers, described the misinformation
      which accompanied the devices as "cynical, cruel and
      monstrous." He told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "I
      was horrified. They had spent a vast sum of money on a
      modern equivalent of a hazel twig divining rod. There
      was no possibility that such a thing could work."

<comment><USER3> Likely that beyond whatever punishment he receives under the judicial system, there will be little other consequence to him for his actions.

People do bad things, and get away with it all the time.

EDIT:

Interesting aside: Just world fallacy [1]

[1] [http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world- fallac...](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/)

<comment><USER2> Sadly, I fear you're right. At the most they'll probably get a slap on the wrist and those who were complicit in buying the Snake Oil (knowing they were bunk or not) will get scarcely above a stern word or two.

Rather depressing to think about.

<comment><USER4> As long as the process (of evaluating and purchasing the items in question) did its job, no one has to be accountable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something that isn't mentioned in the article but probably plays some role in the desire to believe that these things work in parts of the world where Islam is prevalent is the low stature of dogs in the religion. Since dogs are the typical go to bomb and contraband detecting technology in the world it's easy to see why a police department in a Muslim area might find a device that can detect bombs w/o the use of a dog attractive.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1029887/Muslims- sear...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1029887/Muslims-searched- sniffer-dogs-despite-religious-objections-say-police.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_animals#Muslims_and_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_animals#Muslims_and_sniffer_dogs)

<comment><USER6> Fairly ignorant comment you've got there. What you wrote is akin to saying Jewish men won't touch unrelated women or their own adopted children because you once met an Orthodox Jew who told you about negiah ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negiah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negiah)). Also the daily mail is full of shit.

Here's some Muslims getting along just fine with their bomb sniffing dogs: [http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/as-soldiers- leave-...](http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/as-soldiers-leave-iraq- bomb-sniffing-dogs-stay/)

What happened here was a man committing outright fraud and the fact you're blaming it on the religion out of your own ignorance is pretty sad.

<comment><USER7>
      > the fact you're blaming it on the religion

However misguided, the parent's comment amounts to 'Muslims are more gullible.' While that may not be true, it doesn't excuse a conman from defrauding someone just because they were more gullible than someone else, and I don't believe that the parent is trying to claim this either.

<comment><USER8> I don't think he is even trying to claim Muslims are more gullible, in general. He just claims this may be a weak spot for Muslims. In other areas, they may not have weak spots that others have.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't explain why Americans spent so much money buying these devices.

Or why a Lebanese general (that country is roughly 60:40 muslim:christian) believed it. Or why the non-muslim American inventor believed he had created a working detector.

It _might_ be connected to Muslim dislike of dogs. Or maybe it's just that conmen are conmen and can persuade people to buy junk regardless of religion.

<comment><USER10> > Or why the non-muslim American inventor believed he had created a working > detector.

Did he?

<comment><USER9> It's possible. That's what someone quoted by the article suggests.

People can be stupid without being malicious.

> _Although Kelly is unequivocal about the Quadro principals' fraudulent > intent—"They were con artists," he says—Murray feels that Quattlebaum, at > least, genuinely had faith in it. "I think he did believe in it—it was his > invention," he says. Quattlebaum could have fallen victim to the ideomotor > effect, the same psychological phenomenon that convinces users of dowsing > rods and Ouija boards that they are witnessing the results of a powerful yet > inexplicable force. In response to suggestion or expectation, the body can > produce unconscious movements, causing a sensitive, free-swinging mechanism > to respond in sympathy. "It's very compelling, if you're not aware of what's > causing it," Murray says._

Some of the people peddling homeopathy really do believe it works, and that's just as clearly nonsense.

<comment><USER10> Thanks, I didn't know that there was an incarnation that was not based off a novelty toy golf ball finder.

James McCormick himself clearly knew that the tool didn't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One has to wonder when law enforcement will treat polygraphs with the same disdain, they're effectively the same thing as these 'Quadro' devices. Unfortunately polygraphs are convenient low-impact torture devices, and they're also useful for measuring someone's tenacity.

<comment><USER2> That's an interesting perspective.

I've never considered polygraphs to be beyond anything more than a fancy stress meter (cause be damned), but now that I think about it, it does function quite well as such an instrument.

Goes so well as a corollary too: "If you've got nothing to hide, you wouldn't mind some mild torture to verify that fact".

<comment><USER11> I'm quite serious when I say torture, it's as much punitive as it is deterrence, both of which are irrelevant to conducting an investigation and gathering evidence of wrong-doing. It's not practical because it's impossible to deny polygraph test results, so law enforcement officers have no incentive to be truthful about the results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like this story pops up every year or so with little new information. It popped up first in 2009 it seems in the NYTimes. This article doesn't even mention that he was found guilty ~1-2 months ago.

<comment><USER13> It does on page six.

<comment><USER12> Ah well I stand corrected. Other than that it's still just mostly the old information repeated yet again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A device that actually works for most explosives, the Syft (1) Voice 200, is the size of a fridge, weighs significantly more and retails at several hundred thousand dollars. It will detect volatile organic compounds in air, and in microscopic amounts, but as far as I know does not seem to have been used for bomb detection. It seems that you need to be better at selling snake oil than at actually solving the problem to win in this space. They do operate out of the back of vans, and I can imagine them at checkpoints constantly scanning the air around cars. But I guess they are focussing on other markets.

(1): Http://syft.com/ I am a small shareholder

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is the fulltext[0] - there were 6 pages to click through!

[0] [http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/133612-in- iraq-...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/133612-in-iraq-the- bomb-detecting-device-that-didnt-work-except-to-make-money)

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't know why everyone is skipping over the obviousness of this device; it works by psychology, not by technology.

It's not a bomb detection device; it's a nervousness alerting device.

</comment><comment><USER17> I can kinda of see a use for this IF the operator knows it's fake, but the target doesn't.

Use the device and watch the person, see if they display signs of nervousness.

<comment><USER18> You can do this with any $2 trinket from anywhere.

<comment><USER17> Of course. But it works much better if you hold a huge press conference and make a big deal out of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I first read the title I assumed it would be about the body scanners in airports.

<comment><USER20> Apparently US airports and police departments also bought them. However an article about white people being dumb probably wouldn't get as many page views.

<comment><USER3> While I agree with your premise, do you have a reference to the US authorities purchasing these.

<comment><USER9> It's in the article?

> _By the end of 1995, distributors across the U.S. had sold about 1,000 > Quadro Trackers to customers including police departments in Georgia and > Illinois and school districts in Kansas and Florida. When Ronald Kelly, the > agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's office in Beaumont, > Tex., learned that a local narcotics task force had bought one, he attended > a demonstration in which a Tracker was used to find a brick of cocaine. He > wasn't impressed. "I paid reasonable attention in eighth grade science," > Kelly says now. "I pronounced this bulls—."_

In 2001 the new device was almost sold in Denver, except someone conducted a double blind test which the device obviously failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Kenya Police was also duped by the same guy [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- africa-22306632](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22306632). And the most embarassing thing is the Kenyan Police actually believed that the science-defying gadgets actually work.

</comment><comment><USER22> Duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040089)

<comment><USER23> There's no value in linking to a previous submission with no discussion to read.

<comment><USER9> There's value in seeing what URLs are and why they didn't get picked up by a dupe filter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well, I'd be a bit skeptical: "the device could effectively and accurately, from long range, detect the presence and _location_ of various types of explosives, drugs, ivory, and other substances"

</comment><comment><USER25> The first thing I thought when reading this was "man, these people should DEFINITELY be running healthcare"

</comment><comment><USER4> This is probably just a prototype for the model that will detect terrorism in Wi-Fi networks.</comment>


2-bit full adder using just thirty six 555 timers - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2011/02/28/2-bit-full-adder-using-just-thirty-six-555-timers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29 <comment><USER2> Whoa !!! Cool!

Having discontinued hardware hacking (not by choice) more years ago than I care to admit, I didn't know that those cute li'l 555s are still around !

Speaking of which, are the good ol' 741 op-amps still going too? Just curious.

(This sure brings back some fond, old memories.) :-)

<comment><USER3> 741s are still going strong! In fact, as far as I can tell (electrical engineering student) they are the most prominent op-amp in use by far.

<comment><USER4> No. Not even remotely true.

741s are around in books and in EE labs because they're what people used back in the 70s' (and perhaps cause the lab bought thousands back then). Since there was such a huge volume of designs produced using them, you can still buy them today.

No engineer in his right mind* (no disrespect intended: I know you're a student) would use a 741 for a new design today. They are slow, imprecise power hogs, and require bipolar supplies to get them to do anything. Even a jellybean LM324 outshines them.

(*) if anyone can counter this statement with a useful application of the 741 where a more modern and cheaper opamp wouldn't do better, I'd be really interested in seeing it.

[edit] It looks like the 741 has been improved quite a bit since I last looked at it. So I don't need to be so harsh, but I still can't see any good reason to use it for new designs in 2011.

<comment><USER3> Wow, well I feel a bit dumb for answering with such certainty then! Apparently I have been misled. Thanks for setting me straight!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why? Is there something special about using 555's that I don't know about? A 2 bit full adder is a really simple circuit...

<comment><USER2> Yes. What you're saying is probably because you don't (yet) know what uses can a (simple circuit built around a) 555 be put to.

Back in 1985/6, I built a (simple, ham) radio transceiver mainly utilising 555s, 741s (and some crystal oscillators + other discrete components) with which, I _actually_ communicated with people from more than 50 countries around the world, without spending the cost of international phone calls (which was prohibitive then).

Edit: And _long_ before I did that, other hackers used to do similar - or even better - things. :)</comment></comment>