The Errors of Our Ways: A brief history of error reports - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2015/06/the-errors-of-our-ways

<comment><USER2> A big breakthrough at Microsoft was when they applied a classifier system to sorting the error reports and automatically bringing similar ones together for analysis. That happened early in the Windows 7 era.

The other big breakthrough in error handling at Microsoft was the Static Driver Verifier.[1] This is a formal proof of correctness system which analyzes kernel level driver source code to see if it does anything that can crash the kernel. All signed drivers have passed the Static Driver Verifier.

Those two innovations made Windows 7 far more stable than previous releases. The Driver Verifier eliminated almost all crashes caused by drivers breaking the rest of the kernel. It also eliminated blaming third-party drivers for crashes that were not their fault. The automatic classification of error reports made it possible to deal with a huge volume of error reports without ignoring most of them.

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/hardware/ff...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/hardware/ff547247%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> The December 2013 Spiegel article about the NSA intercepting Windows Error reports to figure out how to break in to computers: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses- power...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful- toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html) (page 2).

</comment><comment><USER4> Natalie Tran's error reporting video: [http://youtu.be/nK0OWAXTSdM](http://youtu.be/nK0OWAXTSdM)

</comment><comment><USER5> Article should be title "The Ways of our Errors"</comment>


The 8 Hour Workday – Productive or Pointless? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.socialcast.com/the-8-hour-workday-%E2%80%93-productive-or-pointless/

<comment><USER2> "19% - My work hours are too long"

... What exactly are they suggesting is the fix for that? I see a couple:

1) Work more days per week, but fewer hours per day. - More people will hate that than what currently exists.

2) Work fewer hours per day, and fewer hours per week. - Will mean a pay cut, which most people can't afford.

I really can't see any of those working.

</comment><comment><USER3> The 8 hour work day is very much a left over from the Ford style of management and productivity experiments, not something that really works for the knowledge workers of today but very much applies to a factory environment. I guess the 8 hour work day is very much entrenched into our culture to just get rid off.

</comment><comment><USER4> it depends on the individual.

</comment><comment><USER5> currently I am in a state of having escaped from the 40hr-a-week commute-to- cubicle culture, and loving it. now in a ROWE, mobile-friendly career configuration and hope to continue it for the rest of my life.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me or is this a really terrible 'article'

<comment><USER7> Yes, itvis, but I think the title is a good starting point for a discussion on the point(lessness) of 8 hour work days, 8.30 am starts and 5 day weeks.</comment></comment>


New alerts and notification service - <AUTHOR> http://www.gugalerts.com <comment><AUTHOR> Gug Alerts allows you to monitor your personal and professional interests on the web. Email notifications are generated when there is a match. You can monitor the entire web, changes on webpages, blogs, files, social media, persons, companies, patents, domain names, etc.

We have tried to make things simpler and easier to use while still providing a lot of flexibility and functionality for a low price. The first 3 alerts are free!

</comment><comment><USER2> why should I pay when I can use Google Alerts for free? There are also thousands of free web monitor services out there. First 3 alerts for free won't cut it for me.</comment>


Fixing holes in EC2 reliability - <AUTHOR> http://mytechgossips.com/2011/12/24/fixing-holes-in-ec2-reliability/

<comment><USER2> Given my experience, you are advocating way to much reliance on EBS. The nature of block storage makes it a poor choice for cloud attached storage.

Apps should be designed for redeployment quickly via configuraiton management. Persistent data should be stored to S3 or RDS, only use EBS as a last resort.

Moving from a VPS to EC2 is more than a fork lift migration, but should be viewed as an application redesign.

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on what's so wrong with EBS? Are you thinking more about performance, or reliability?

I'm wondering in particular what you'd suggest in cases where RDS is not an option, if you're running your own MongoDB server or something like that. I don't think S3 is really an option there, is it?

Or would you tend to do everything on the instance store and periodically do a manual snapshot to S3?

<comment><USER2> EBS performance is notoriously variable by orders of magnitude. Amazon is working on this, however my personal belief is that using block storage creates an undesirable link between your storage and compute layers. Using S3, RDS or another NoSQL solution is a far more modular approach.

That being said, all apps are different and some may need block storage. I'm not saying it should not be used, however when making that decision the relation and hard dependencies created should be understood.

<comment><USER4> Er, RDS is (a) SQL (b) backed by EBS.

<comment><USER2> Understood, however AWS manages the association to block level storage, as well as the performance tuning. You can still operate with ephemeral compute decoupled from storage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr no one told him Amazon EC2 is not a VPS provider. Lots of people seem to assume it is. Instances are supposed to die, thats a feature not a bug.

<comment><USER6> This is the most important lesson here. I've heard too many stories that end badly and I've learned this the hard way myself.

<comment><USER7> Ooops sorry, downvoted by accident.

I have a question though: how do people get bitten by this lack of instance persistence?

<comment><USER8> In many cases, there are people who don't do their homework and set up regular, VPS-like web servers on EC2. What happens then, is that they have a real, established website that, weeks, months or years down the road, eventually gets rebooted, and disappears.

The EC2 instances boot to 'boot images', basically. Most of the images are like CDs, and contain just enough to get you ready to install your webserver, database, yadda yadda.

You can configure your image how you like, and then create a new 'image', which will be what your machine looks like after a reboot, but unless you use a persistent data store or external storage of some sort, you can't add new blog posts and expect them to be there after a reboot.

There are easy ways around it, and in fact, are best practices for application design, but compared to the normal shared hosting or VPS configurations that most people know, it is completely different.

<comment><USER7> Oh hah, I wasn't even thinking like that.

Yep, it's a good idea to save your work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's wrong with booting instances from EBS-backed images?

<comment><USER10> EBS-backed instances run nice and fast, until they don't.

EBS root volume instances will run just fine, until the OS needs some data from the root volume and can't get it.

Many identical copies of your EBS blocks are stored across clusters, with quorum voting. Sometimes the clusters are all fast. Then your instance will run fast. If one cluster degrades, the good clusters will vote it down, the fast clusters will answer quickly, and your instance will still run fast.

If several clusters are running slow, and there are not enough good clusters to override the slow clusters, then your instance must wait for the slow clusters to clear some backlogged I/O. You can see these kind of traffic jams in the CloudWatch monitoring tool for the EBS volume: watch the read/write latency.

If new I/O requests arrive at the block storage clusters before old requests clear, your root volume device driver will appear to be "stuck". You will not be able to complete any more I/O on the device.

If your OS wanted a memory page from your swap device, and your swap device was behind a latency-choked curtain of multiply redirected EBS blocks, your instance may now be unrecoverable without a reboot.

Although the EBS volume is still attached to your instance, and all the clusters are still online, your I/O request never returns because the complex system designed to fulfill the request has collapsed into a state of congestion that it cannot easily recover from. To clear the problem in April 2011, AWS sysadmins drove to other data centers to unrack clean cluster systems. By adding EBS capacity at the chokepoint, they broke the logjam.

Generally speaking, if your kernel enters uninterruptible code, and the resource it wanted cannot be reached, your OS is going to hang, hard.

It is a good idea to keep your operating system -- its kernel, its libraries, its application code -- as close to the running system as possible. For Amazon EC2, this (arguably) means using instance-store (aka ephemeral disk) storage.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Lambda Complex: build apps that run in AWS Lambda and SQS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/exratione/lambda-complex <comment><USER2> I'm struggling to find a good balanced framework approach to AWS Lambda. I have a dozen of small lambda functions running, but I manage each one individually using just plain CLI commands or a simple Makefile. Sharing code is a pain. I can only find simple Makefile-like (grunt?) approaches which seems to be too simple, or "monster"-like approach like JAWS that do a gazillion things at the same time (seriously, have you tried the hello world of JAWS? The amount of things it creates on your AWS account is scary to say the least).

What I need is something where I can have a bigger project, export some services/api via handlers, and then some text file where I can "draw" my framework, connecting handlers to API gateway, input sources, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> The pain point for what you want there is the versioning and deployment side of things: how you update the application as atomically as possible.

I need to get Lambda Complex into real apps for a while in order to understand what is really, actually needed around the transition of the interface with other AWS resources on update of version. Currently I'm sure it's going to be a major pain to have to write some code to redirect the flow of events to a different queue, but that's still better in my mind than to try to manage versioning with a single queue or other source of events that is not included in the CloudFormation template or has to be managed as a special case during updates.

The other pain point is monitoring of the application state and clearing up after it. Lambda functions spawn infinite log groups in CloudWatch, and they don't get deleted without some sort of automation to go do that. It isn't clear to me what the best approach is at this point in time to attach monitoring and alerting to CloudWatch Logs. I'd almost rather leave them alone and primarily monitor via SQS queue attributes, leaving the CloudWatch logs for manual inspection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We were in the middle of shifting our entire architecture to Lambda when all hell broke loose.

I had delayed Lambda function calls. S3 triggers for Lambda were taking hours to actually start the process, but the logs were showing the actions happening immediately. They weren't happening immediately. It was easy to see that the S3 files were not being moved for hours, but the logs were reporting the wrong time.

Days later, AWS us-east-1 went offline. Much of the internet went with it.

After it came online, everything was working well for me. We enjoyed near instant response times. Lambda was great, for a few days.

Then it started again. Hours of delay before the S3 events actually started the Lambda functions, and the logs once again lying.

We moved away from S3 triggers because it was unreliable. I really hope they fix the issues, but I'm not interested in relying on something that doesn't work, with zero help in the forums, and requires an expensive service contract just to report broken services.

<comment><USER4> was that during this: [https://aws.amazon.com/message/5467D2/](https://aws.amazon.com/message/5467D2/)

<comment><USER3> That event was when we noticed the problem, but the problem continues, on and off, to this day.

What is more frustrating than anything is that we have to check manually because the logs are pretending like the events are happening immediately (timestamps), but they are not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I liked this strategy and approach for Lambda, will test it out. I commented on JAWS documentation, I also think it's too hard to do something so simple. I prefer Gulp with Lambda till now, will have to test this one.</comment>


The Learning Test - <AUTHOR> http://larrycheng.com/2009/07/16/the-learning-test/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea ... but:

> Look back 3-5 years from today and ask yourself if you could have been > substantially more effective at your past job in your present form.

That assumes that the only goal of learning is to make you more effective at your job. I certainly don't make that assumption.

> Now I've come to believe that the thing to really be worried about is > looking back a few years and being impressed with your past self. If that > were to happen, it probably means your learning has stalled altogether.

Good point.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great point.

My personal motto: go to bed better (at something) than when I woke up.

It could be programming, personal relationships, health, whatever. Just make each day a productive one somehow.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yea, but I only learn to spite my co-workers.</comment>


What is the name of this operator: "--&gt"? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1642028/what-is-the-name-of-this-operator?rq=1

<comment><USER2> Hit the front page briefly a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393344)

Apparently I was the only one who noticed that time too! ;)

Aside: I can't believe that was a year ago - searched my browser history expecting to find it last month...

</comment><comment><USER3> Cute. Here's one:

int I=7;

int _p = &I;

float r = 14/_p;

What value has r? None! It doesn't compile.

<comment><USER3> Fudge. Frickin HN won't render that code right, or edit it, or delete it. Its supposed to be

      float r = 14/*p;

for pointer indirection of course.</comment></comment>


NSA Abandons "About" Searches – Schneier on Security - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/05/nsa_abandons_ab.html <comment><USER2> Do senders and receivers inherit? Suppose I'm under surveillance. Instead of sending something to C, I send it to B with instructions to relay to C. Is B --> C collected? What if I don't explicitly tell B to pass it along to C?</comment>


How the FBI Coordinated the Crackdown on Occupy (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

<comment><USER2> The link to the document obtained by the PCJF in the article is broken.

</comment><comment><USER3> Such a slanted fucking article.

Whatever happened to writing from an objective viewpoint?</comment>


Show HN: A simple HTML page that clears your mind before starting work - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gcao/fffocus/ <comment><USER2> This is something that is either simply brilliant or utterly useless -- and I have no idea which is the case. I like the idea, but it needs research to see if it makes a difference. At least the developer should write some of his experiences with using this :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the novelty of this. I think requiring keyboard input is distracting, though. Maybe you could just press spacebar when something appears on screen?

</comment><comment><USER4> What's the theory/idea behind it? To me, the spacing between the numbers seemed to big to actually capture attention, but that may be the point?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've not done any research. It's just an idea suddenly popped into my mind :-P Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

The waiting time between numbers is what requires attention.</comment></comment>


The Web Runs on Electricity and We're Running Out - <AUTHOR> http://alistapart.com/article/the-web-runs-on-electricity-and-were-running-out <comment><USER2> excellent article, thanks for sharing !</comment>


Can fish be treated with homeopathy and if so, how? - <AUTHOR> http://homeopathyplus.com.au/a-can-fish-be-treated-with-homeopathy/

<comment><USER2> Yes it works just as well on fish as it does on people. Also try prayer, which also works on fish (except for unclean shellfish and eels) and doesn't require purifying the water with UV light.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are people who don't know that homeopathy is utter BS?

<comment><USER4> Are there people who don't know that the majority of Western medicine is based on Newtonian physics, and tends not to account for quantum effects?

Yes, homeopathic medicine is extremely unlikely to contain any atoms of the active ingredient... instead, it works on a quantum level.</comment></comment>


AIX or Linux on POWER (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://gibsonnet.net/blog/cgaix/html/AIX%20or%20Linux%20on%20POWER.html <comment><USER2> I had the great pleasure of adminstrating and deploying AIX for 6 years. It really is an extremely solid OS. During that time I also worked with HP-UX, which compared to AIX felt stuck in some oldschool UNIX limbo especially concerning storage handling felt extremely clunky. As mentioned in the article AIX's LVM implementation is a joy to use giving the administrator the ability to extend and SHRINK a live filesystem and LVM mirroring with AIX was rock solid. The AIX LPAR technology was very impressive and fun to work with. Perhaps the years have given my memories a rosy taint but working solely Linux now (OpenShift), I sort of miss those days with AIX.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unless your product requires AIX to function, I recommend against AIX and POWER in general. You aren't going to be able to get cheap POWER machines for distributed computing in the future. You can't use Rust, Go, .NET at all. You can run Kubernetes unofficially, but cross your fingers that the images you want to run have a ppc64 build. Docker doesn't even officially support the platform. [0]

There are severe limitations to AIX, and everything is just enough different to make things unpleasant.

[0] [https://github.com/docker-library/official- images#architectu...](https://github.com/docker-library/official- images#architectures-other-than-amd64)

</comment><comment><USER4> The largest problem with AIX for Linux people who have never seen it are the commands can operate differentially. But installing the GNU package gets around that. Actually in this case, I find AIX quite similar to the BSDs.

One quote that was interesting/funny based upon current happenings:

"All IBM need to do is create their own Linux distribution (Blue Linux perhaps?)"

:)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> At my dj, we still have a fairly good amount of AIX, but not enough to only have to interact with a given AIX system maybe once every few days or so, so the learning curve is slowish. The OS seems much more linuxy than Sun-ny, it would seem??

</comment><comment><USER5> Aix naturally.

</comment><comment><USER6> This post, which talks about AIX 7.1 on POWER7, was published in August of 2010.

<comment><USER7> Belatedly added. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like this link needs a date included in the title, since it describes POWER7 as being new (POWER7 came out in 2010)

<comment><USER7> Belatedly added. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Firefox 63 – Tricks and Treats - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/10/firefox-63-tricks-and-treats/ <comment><USER2> > After a rather long gestation, I'm pleased to announce that support for > modern Web Components APIs has shipped in Firefox!

Finally, they are here! Great work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is one of the tricks and treats to enable forced video autoplay and remove the option to turn it off?

F you, and your trick and treats.

</comment><comment><USER4> Love the entertainment & humor factor of the release notes. The 'very fancy' comment in the custom component's italics declaration for whatever reason slays me.

Seeing the font feature reminded me of a recent web design I did that loaded a custom local font. Anyone know why Webkit and Blink browsers differ so much with local font rendering? Matching designs was a nightmare in all major browsers and OSs, and that genuinely surprised me for frontend development in 2018. Why are major browsers differing on this still?

<comment><USER5> Not everybody agrees on the best way to draw text (some people like it blurry, others like it higher contrast), so I think the target users may matter to some level. It also varies by OS, and the OS even have options to let users influence it in some way.

Have you also noticed how even color rendering varies by browser? This is less intuitive...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doing this feels like creating a react component somehow, doesn't it?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and it's great! Can't wait for Edge and Safari support and further maturation.

<comment><USER8> Apparently WebKit had this nearly _two_ years ago: [https://webkit.org/blog/7027/introducing-custom- elements/](https://webkit.org/blog/7027/introducing-custom-elements/)</comment></comment></comment>


Isohunt Not Dead Yet, Attorney Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/isohunt-not-dead-yet/ <comment><USER2> Show of hands. Who actually uses public trackers?

<comment><USER3> A lot of people. Noobs, for example. Or people who think it unwise to sign up for an account to download warez.</comment></comment>


Domain Squatters Are the Scum of the Earth - <AUTHOR> https://kevq.uk/domain-squatters-are-the-scum-of-the-earth/ <comment><USER2> I don't like domain squatters, either. They make the world a worse place.

But even if I could wave a magic wand and make domain squatters vanish from the earth, you still couldn't have had quirk.uk. Somebody else would have gotten it first. Maybe it would be an e-commerce site, or a comic book shop, or browser documentation.

The only reason it's not owned by any of them is that it belongs to a squatter who got there first. And that squatter is indeed a horrible person, who nabbed something for cheap solely because nobody else had done it yet. They're the guy who takes every single cookie on the tray and insists that it's their legal right to. The world is a crummier place because they exist.

Honestly, it's not like quirk.cc is any great internet content, either. The web page is a placeholder. I imagine you're doing email with it, or scoping your package names, or something. It makes you better than the squatter. But I'm sure there's some coffee shop going, "Man, I've got so much better use for that name."

<comment><USER3> Is a person that buys land as an investment also a "horrible person"?

<comment><USER2> No, but I've also got negative opinions about people who derail arguments with the assertion that X is exactly like Y, so that now I'm spending time talking about their analogy instead of my point.

<comment><USER3> Analogies are important to help understand the world and put things in context. Not only that, but analogies like this are commonly used in our legal system to both argue a point and justify a judicial decision. So I disagree that my comment is a derailment at all. X doesn't have to be exactly like Y for a comparison to be drawn, and I see little difference in the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What if somebody else with the same surname wants quirk.cc? All that you really have going for you is that you were there first. What if the other Quirk is somebody more prominent? What if they have a bigger family to give email addresses to, or a cooler idea for the site? It's really not faaaaaaaiiiiir that you are hogging that domain name.

Maybe you should be required to sell it to them at a reasonable price, no more than 100 quid. Or provide documentation proving you have a better use for the domain than they do.

Or maybe that's all a lot more complicated, ripe for abuse and favoritism, and centralized than the current system where the owner sets the price and you are free to either buy it, or pick from the infinite space of other options and leave them still holding it paying yearly fees on something they get zero value from. Especially in today's world where every browser's address bar is really a search bar by default, most email clients display the person's "real name" with more prominence than their email address, and a nice domain name is just a cute little bonus.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think I recall there being a process for ICANN at least, when someone has squatted on a copyrighted identifier. I could be completely wrong, but my memory on this is foggy. There's pages on ICANN's site about it, iirc.

In America, if you had a copyright on the identifier, or maybe in this case, a small business with your name in it, I believe you could make a claim against the domain.

Edit: See [https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05-03-en)

For UK audiences, see [https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is- cybersquatting-le...](https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is- cybersquatting-legal-insights-from-recent-nominet-decisions/)

<comment><USER6> That's not a bad idea.

See a domain you want that's squatted?

1\. Register a company and a trademark. 2\. Make a UDRP claim.

I didn't see anything in the UDRP that mentions that the trademark has to exist before the squatting. It seems like you can retroactively claim it.

<comment><USER7> AFAIK, the company must be "operational" which means having customers, revenue, etc... You must then be willing to pay lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The entitlement is astonishing!

It's his name, so what? Boo boo!

My name is taken by some big footballer from Australia I never heard of. I'll never get it, as he is crazy famous. And it's my fault for not getting it back in 1997.

What next, am I entitled to my birthday as an IP address? Should my government ID by a free domain?

It's free market, he bought other variations on other TLDs. This isn't 1994 when domain prospecting became a thing.

Domain squatters aren't squatters, they are investors. If you want it so bad, you need to either pay up, or try to get it when it releases.

If it were cheaper I'd just buy it out of spite.

</comment><comment><USER9> $1000 is practically cheap for a squatted domain. I'm looking at one that's requesting $4000.

Frankly I think this is a little over the top. Yeah domain squatting sucks but to claim you have some sort of rights to the domain because it's "connected to your name" is a bit ridiculous. That would lead to an absolute rat's nest of litigation around rights to domain names.

These are just some of the issues inherent to the problem of readable, unique identifiers. Scarcity is unavoidable.

Projects like [https://handshake.org](https://handshake.org) may help alleviate this, but it depends on adoption which is always tough

</comment><comment><USER7> OP didn't mention how long the previous owner had it. In this case, not long, but imagine paying for a .io domain, which used to be > $100/yr, for 10 or more years and then someone comes along complaining that they can't have it for $100. Does it really matter why they were "squatting"? How many of us register a domain, with the best intentions, for an idea we never get to and then won't let it go for less than the sunk cost + the opportunity cost?.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some folks in the comments here are missing the point or perhaps haven't read the article thoroughly enough. The article is making a reasonably valid complaint about overt domain squatters, but the writer doesn't have a problem with the owner of a domain having some kind of useful and legitimate use if it's not available:

 _" If it was being used legitimately, I'd have absolutely not problem with someone else owning the domain."_

<comment><USER11> The issue here is there are incorrect assumptions being made about what is a legitimate use of a domain here. Op seems to be communicating that legitimate use means having a website of sorts (my interpretation).

It's possible the owner is using the domain as an email (just as Op is trying to) without an actual website. Or maybe for other purposes.

Similarly, if I use Twitter to log into websites or send messages privately but don't post anything publicly on my Twitter feed, is that not considered a legitimate use because others assume my account is inactive due to no public tweets?

It's entirely possible Op's assumptions here are also correct but that doesn't mean it's a good argument for why the owner shouldn't own the domain. I can see why anyone would reasonably have reasons to complain about this (and Op isn't the first person to do so). Being upset at domain squatters isn't new. I'm just not sure I agree that someone not actively using the domain means they should forfeit the rights to it.

<comment><USER10> Ok, the author doesn't take issue with domains that are unavailable because they may be used for things that aren't visible. He takes issue with Domain Squatters, the unfortunately scumbag industry of buying up domains by the barrow load in the hope of making a tidy profit.

I'm well aware domain squatters aren't new having lost a domain to one a few years back who then wanted four figures to sell it back to me. I think he has a point and ICANN put the brakes on practices such as "Domain Tasting" to try and address this problem in the past:

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

Sure domain squatting specifically to extort money is a legit business, but legit != morally right, kinda like big city commercial landlords.

<comment><USER11> How does he know the owner originally bought it to squat on it or for some other purpose? Or that he isn't using it for other purposes that aren't visible.

Just because the owner is willing to sell it now doesn't imply that (I'm not saying he isn't a squatter either).

You take the stance that maybe folks on this thread didn't read the post but then selectively ignore the context underlying the argument the Op is making.

My point is there are assumptions here that may not be true. Calling the owner here a squatter simply because he feels entitled to the domain because it's his last name is different than making a statement that squatters in general are toxic (separate from this context).

You can't separate the two and simply ignore the situation here as if he's making "just" a general statement that squatters are bad. There is a level of entitlement and assumption being made here, or not communicated clearly, that shouldn't be ignored (for this specific context) just to go broad and argue whether we think squatters are toxic or not.

It'd be an entirely different argument if this post was about why domain squatters are toxic. But within this context, you can't even say with certainty that the owner is in fact a squatter. And that's before we discuss the issue of domain squatting.

<comment><USER10> Let me spell it out...domain squatters, in the business of buying up large numbers of domains (1000's of them), having well oiled business models and websites to try and fleece you out of an extortionate sum of money. The domains they're selling having no other use than to squat on them for profit from their sale.

I don't mean Johnny Internet bloke who acquired a few domains over the years and tries to punt them, I mean the parasitic businesses set up to profit from squatting. Surely I can't be any clearer?

<comment><USER11> I heard you the first time. You're missing my point. You are arguing about domain squatters in general.

This article is not about domain squatters in general. It's about the owner of quirk.uk leading to the Op making a generalize statement about domain squatters. The two are not equal.

Lets say someone posted to HN that Google banned them. Without Google's side of the story, and questioning if there are other details, we take the author's word and assume Google is the bad guy. But it turns out the author was a spammer and Google had good reason to ban the guy. But you don't know that and don't have context for that because none of that was posted in the author's post. Do you just jump the bandwagon and start attacking Google in general ignoring the point the author is making?

The same applies here. It's one thing to have a discussion about domain squatters (this is not it). It's an entirely different argument when this is about Op and the owner of a specific domain, leading him to make a generalized statement that none of us can even confirm is true about the owner or not.

<comment><USER10> I hate to break HN guidelines, but I think you need to re-read the article.

<comment><USER11> I just did.

At the very top it says:

`I wanted to register quirk.uk, but arsehole domain squatters are getting in the way and making that almost impossible.`

Aside from the fact that the domain is now available for sale, it does nothing to prove whether the owner originally got it to squat on it or they got it with a different intended purpose, or if they are using it at all aside from the intention of _now_ selling it.

At minimum I think we're discussing two different points on the same post here. But this is going in circles so I'm fine with leaving this be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The infamous and supremely arrogant squatter asking for > $10m:

[http://milk.com/value/](http://milk.com/value/)

<comment><USER13> He's obviously using the website, regardless of how active or frequently that is, so I don't really see the problem?

There's things everybody does that's not about the money, but everyone has a price. He's stated that he likes the domain and that's why he's keeping and continuing to use it so it's not really about the money, but he also goes ahead and names a price in case anyone really really wants it that badly.

In this case, his only crime is that he happened to buy a domain with a common name? Who cares?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't the .name TLD exist for this reason?

.UK tld domains were also reserved for the existing .co.uk owners etc for a while</comment>


Introducing SourceKit-LSP - <AUTHOR> https://forums.swift.org/t/introducing-sourcekit-lsp/17964 <comment><USER2> I've recently started adding support for the Language Server Protocol (LSP) in a language project I'm working on, and it's a godsend. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically an editor- and language-agnostic protocol for implementing typical IDE behaviours like error highlighting, code completion, hover information, find references, etc. It solves the M*N problem in which every language would have to have a separate plugin tailored towards the APIs of every editor; now you just write either to be LSP compliant and it takes care of 90% of integration effort (writing the language server itself of course is still a lot of work).

Although it's still necessary to do a little plumbing work to integrate into each editor, this is largely boilerplate that differs little between languages. Most of the functionality resides in a JSON-RPC server implemented in your language of choice.

I've found it particularly useful when used in conjunction with the Monaco code editor [1] (the engine that powers Visual Studio Code), along with a supporting plugin for talking to a remote LSP server [2]. These make it possible to build interactive coding environments into a web app which include many of the typical editing features you're used to in IDEs.

It's great to see Apple along with other language vendors adopting this as a standard.

[1] [https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco- editor](https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor)

[2] [https://github.com/TypeFox/monaco- languageclient](https://github.com/TypeFox/monaco-languageclient)

<comment><USER3> I think it's a positive, but I also question what the point is.

What I'd like, is a better IDE, not an IDE that can provide features I've had for 30 years, for 30 different languages, in a consistent manner.

I dont' _want_ 30 languages, and 1 basic lowest common denominator ide. I want 2-3 languages, and excellent ides that push the boundaries of the unique features of each language.

<comment><USER4> It's not like those sorts of IDEs don't exist. Swift and ObjC have Xcode, C# has VS, Java has IntelliJ, etc.

> What I'd like [...] not an IDE that can provide features [...] in a > consistent manner

How is providing consistent support for many languages a bad thing? This I don't understand. People love their tools, for better or worse, so why should being forced to change tools be the _only_ workflow?

Your beloved one-IDE-for-a-couple-of-languages already exist and have done for years, so no need to be a Grinch.

<comment><USER5> > excellent ides that push the boundaries of the unique features of each > language

> Swift and ObjC have Xcode

Hard disagree that Xcode falls under the category of "excellent". Is this parameter a concrete type, or a protocol? Sure would be nice if they were color coded... that's pretty low-hanging fruit.

But that's looking at the trees. The important point is that the forest is rubbish. It is 2018 and our developer experience is still fundamentally oriented around the idea of _individual text files_. This has been the fundamental unit of organization for 50 years.

A typical developer task might require examining 7 or maybe 12 small pieces of code, all of which are in different files. If this were in the physical realm, you'd grab these pieces and plop them on your desk, arrange them this way or that, think about them for a while, play with a few ideas for possible changes, settle on one, and then start implementing the changes.

About the only affordance which Xcode offers to facilitate this sort of work is command+click to jump to a definition.

I literally resort to _taking screenshots of code snippets_ and arrange them in diagramming software in order to think through a problem. Why is my IDE not facilitating this sort of work?

Edit: though if we are stuck on text-file-oriented program organization for the time being, there's still a lot which can be done to improve upon that, e.g. [https://youtu.be/0Vq2rcjWbTc?t=1429](https://youtu.be/0Vq2rcjWbTc?t=1429)

<comment><USER6> There is a nice solution for this problem. I really don't know why it did not take of. Maybe nobody knows about it?

[https://www.uni- ulm.de/en/in/pm/research/projects/inline.htm...](https://www.uni- ulm.de/en/in/pm/research/projects/inline.html)

All this "code portal" features of Inline should be found in any modern code editor! But nobody implemented them in any of the usual IDEs until now to my knowledge. That's a real pity.

<comment><USER2> That looks amazing and has given me some ideas for my project. Thankyou!

<comment><USER6> Nice to see someone noticed this one. The ideas are indeed great, so spread the word. Really want to see this features in every code editor in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very excited to see this. We will use this project to add Swift support to Sourcegraph soon so you can get hovers, go-to-definition, find-references, etc., when browsing code on GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket/Phabricator/Sourcegraph/etc.

[https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/979](https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/issues/979)

</comment><comment><USER8> LSP seems like an interesting concept, but it would be nice if it included more support for REPLs. I'm thinking of things like "evaluate highlighted section" or "recompile function under cursor".

</comment><comment><USER9> > _SourceKit-LSP is built on top of sourcekitd 23 and clangd 23 for high- > fidelity language support, and provides a powerful source code index as well > as cross-language support._

That's pretty much been Apple's motto for a while: need language support for anything other than compiling the language, like IDEs or documentation generation? Why not add it _directly into the compiler?_ This has pros and cons, but personally I like the direction Microsoft has gone: rewrite everything in JavaScript (actually TypeScript) so that it's super portable and more easily embeddable.

<comment><USER10> Seems Apple as a company is not totally hijacked by Javascript people. I am happy that Apple took some stand against Java/Flash/Javascript when it interfered with quality of user experience.

<comment><USER11> I think in this case Javascript just happens to be the most portable programming language right now.

<comment><USER12> Python and Perl too....

<comment><USER11> Python and Perl don't (yet) run in a browser. Also Javascript is probably somewhat "faster" (than CPython, at least) due to its JIT.

<comment><USER13> Perl 6 runs on Chrome: [https://perl6.github.io/6pad/](https://perl6.github.io/6pad/) Other browsers will follow soon.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's Mark Russinovich: An open source Windows is 'definitely possible' - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/03/microsofts-mark-russinovich-an-open-source-windows-is-definitely-possible/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9315277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9315277)</comment>


Why e-books will soon be obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://gyrovague.com/2012/04/30/why-e-books-will-soon-be-obsolete-and-no-its-not-just-because-of-drm/

<comment><USER2> I've read a lot of books in the author's preferred formats (PDF and HTML5 websites), and my experience has been mixed.

PDFs are amazing for technical books, and I definitely prefer them for any kind of book with diagrams, code samples or pictures. However, every time I've tried to read fiction in PDF, it's been a miserable experience because support for reflowing/resizing text in PDFs is primitive or non-existent. The vast majority of PDFs are formatted for a fixed size, and are practically unreadable if you don't have at least a ~10 inch screen and an easy way to pan around. Mobi/ePub books avoid these problems, and are readable equally well on a 15" laptop or a 7" Kindle.

HTML5 is closer to the mark for fiction, because you can make an HTML5 website look great on virtually anything that has a modern browser. Here, the problem is that the nature of HTML5 makes it hard to produce a sellable product. When I buy a book, I want it in some kind of format that I can download and take with me, not a website that I need to authenticate to. Since the author says 5 years, I guess it's possible that the changes necessary will have occurred by then, but I think that it's more likely that e-books will be published in KF8/ePub3 and read on tablets and dedicated readers using specialized software, just like they are now.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author doesn't seem to know what he wants. He complains about ePub using technology that is fourteen years old (which works fine) and then touts a 'no frills PDF' as the solution for a linear fiction novel. A novel doesn't need anything fancier than a 14 year old technology - it's paper version has been using (roughly) the same technology for ~500 years.

He also complains about Apple's App Store and its regional scope and then lump that in with eBooks too. Most ebook sellers don't care where you are buying from, as long as they get paid. I can buy a Kindle book from any Amazon domain and it works on my Kindle fine. Amazon doesn't care about this, Apple is imposing an artificial barrier on his ebooks.</comment>


Why morality doesn't need God - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2910081.htm

<comment><USER3> In fact, moral based on religion is completely arbitrary. Some years ago I read a book titled "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture" by the anthropologist Marvin Harris, where he explained that the reason why it is forbidden for muslims and jews to eat pork, is because those religions where originated in a desertic land, and pigs roll over themselves in mud where they are hot, and if there is no mud they roll over themselves in their own feces, which is a danger to health. That health rule became a part of the religious rules, and thus followers of these religions shall not eat pork even if they are living in a different place. Religion alone has caused more suffering in history than any other idea, and has lead to wars, deaths, torture, discrimination, intolerance, sexual repression, sexist discrimination to women, and a slowdown for science, culture and knowledge. How is that moral acceptable?

<comment><USER4> Bah. Religion is merely the excuse for the sort of behaviors we, in our modern context, would consider amoral. Religion's also /caused/ all of the polar opposites you list - peace, life, healing, acceptance, tolerance, openness, women's rights, and advancements of the sciences, of culture (especially art - really, are you kidding me?) and of the general wealth of knowledge in general.

Seriously. As an /atheist/, I don't have much qualms with the idea of faith. The institutionalization of superstitions , prejudices and epistemologically unsound foundations of moral judgment, sure - lots of problems there. But you can't really say with a straight face that religion's been nothing but a bummer for mankind without ignoring the vast realm of accomplishments made in its name.

But all achievements - and all tragedies - were made by human hands. Which is where at least my own stance is made: it isn't religion's fault that man is occasionally evil, as religion is nothing but a concept - and abstracts in a vacuum are value-neutral. It is, in the end, man's fault that man is, at times, evil.

<comment><USER3> Religion's also /caused/ all of the polar opposites you list - peace, life, healing, acceptance, tolerance, openness, women's rights, and advancements of the sciences,

Could you please elaborate on how did religion cause peace... LIFE????? er... HEALING???? acceptance, tolerance and opennes, women's rights and advancements of the sciences??

Ok I agree there is a lot of religious art, but that was possible because Catholic Church was (and is) veeeeeeeeeery wealthy. That doesn't mean that art wouldn't have advanced if religion did not exist at all.

"But all achievements - and all tragedies - were made by human hands." I completely agree with you on that. There are good things and there are bad things made by people, and there would be good things and bad things as well if there were not religion at all. There's a famous sentence "There's good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things, but it takes religion for good people doing bad things".

<comment><USER4> Peace: the church pushed for peace between principalities. Islam's notable for stressing nonviolence between fellow believers (at least, outside of fundamentalists, whose hypernarrow interpretation of their holy texts arguably makes them more of a deviant cult than fellow believers). Though even Buddhism isn't without its history of violence, humans being what they are, it is explicitly a religion of pacifism.

Life: The practice of medicine was often spearheaded by the churches. Most religions mandate successful propagation and child-rearing. The Judeochristian religions in particular stresses that to save one life is equivalent to saving all lives.

Acceptance, tolerance and openness: A progressive thing; the idea of trans- societal equality can be said to originate from the idea that all are equal before the eyes of the faith's deity. Buddhism especially, even without a deity, puts emphasis not on material wealth or power but the attainment of personal enlightenment, regardless of background.

Women's rights: Surprisingly true. Islam in earlier centuries actually spearheaded the idea of women having innate rights, even if said rights were often inferior to those of men. Buddhism, again, puts no special emphasis on gender. The Tao considers male and female to be equals of different properties.

Advancement of sciences: The Church outright /funded/ many pioneering scientists and experiments, if they weren't involved outright in its process. Mendel's studies of genetic inheritance was done as a monk. The Vatican was responsible for postulating the Big Bang theory of universal origin. Many scientists see their profession as a way to better understand the mind and intent of their deity.

Art: If you think I'm just talking about the stuff commissioned by the Vatican, you are /sorely/ mistaken. And Eurocentric too, so double-shame on you. The history of art is nearly inseparable from the history of religion - and the first forms of art were often means of religious expression.

Pithy sayings are just pithy sayings. It takes a bad man in good clothing to profess piety and pacifism on one hand and victimize with the other. What your quote describes is "hypocrisy," which is a universal problem in human culture, and not particularly bound by religion. Atheists have no monopoly on ethics and morality - we simply have a more concrete theory of origin on the subject, and better predictive elements on its formulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The writer is not stating that there is no God. He is stating that the premise that we need God to have morality is false. Human society intrinsically has to be moral in order to function. It is the model that best works, and when there is an exception, say a psychopath killing women, society will punish that person (whether you believe it is the hand of God or not). The idea that an atheist, or secular, society would irrevocably slide into amoral behaviour is simply illogical.

</comment><comment><USER5> Morality is a human creation. People just associate it with a god to boost up their moral arguments.

In reality, there's no good or bad. There are just imbalances in dynamics between people, seeking harmony. Which action yields that balancing outcome all depends on the circumstances, the situation, and the context. Most of that is what we can't see, until maybe in hindsight.

</comment><comment><USER6> Please don't turn Hacker News into an argumentative religious platform. We're all here for business, technology, misc. nerdiness.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma>

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't the existence of Buddhism enough to trivially confirm the thesis statement?

</comment><comment><USER9> We should stop talking about religion and faith in terms of good or evil. Religion is merely institutionalized ignorance, completely understandable. Outside of overwhelming evidence, believing what everyone else believes is completely logical. Nobody ever got fired for using choosing Microsoft right?

All of us atheists that pride ourselves on our rational thought, probably 99% of us would have been just as religious or superstitious if we were alive 500, 1000 ago.

On the other hand religion's claims on morality are just ridiculous, can't believe anyone gives it credence.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why morality doesn't need a god is a non-issue. But fear not - <USER2> demonstrate the existence of a god, and it will then be a valid question worthy of discussion. That should be easy enough, right? Else why would you believe it and expect to be taken seriously?

</comment><comment><USER11> "God is the only objective force in the universe" <\- yet its mere existence still has to be proven

Open your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER11> God is the only objective force in the universe. Humans by nature are subjective, giving into their whims and desire (most of the time wholly contrary to expert advice on what's good for them and what's bad for them).

Take homosexuality for example... as recent as a few decades back, it was an abhorrent crime, hated by society, hated by government. A few years later, it's celebrated, with countless open air marches and festivals around the world. God's position on this hasn't changed - peoples has!

Take dress code as another item.... the definition of 'modesty' holds a whole different connotation almost year on year. What's acceptable in terms of women dress wear, magazines, films, is slipping bit by bit, year on year. Again, another human whim.

The harmful nature of swine has been studied and documented to the nth degree. The bacteria it contains, and the susceptibility of the meat to transmit viruses is well known within certain research communities (do google search).

"Religion alone has caused more suffering in history than any other idea, and has lead to wars, deaths, torture, discrimination, intolerance, sexual repression, sexist discrimination to women, and a slowdown for science, culture and knowledge."

On the contrary. Human beings have killed people. Religion hasn't. All the 3 major religions are against innocent loss of life. The death toll in Iraq has gone off the scale. The death toll in Afghanistan has reached into it's hundreds of thousands. These are Atheist wars! In modern history, Atheism has killed more people than centuries of religiously motivated killings.

Religion has brought, not only moral truth, but also has cultivated the soil for humanity to be scientifically and technologically where it is at now. The Islamic Golden Age (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age>) has contributed an invaluable amount to almost every aspect of our existence today (from universities, to contracts, to music...). What has atheist brought really? than just ignorant and prejudice ideas?

<comment><USER3> "God is the only objective force in the universe" <\- yet its mere existence still has to be proven

"Take homosexuality for example... as recent as a few decades back, it was an abhorrent crime, hated by society, hated by government." <\- and in ancient greece it was normal and accepted

"Take dress code as another item" <\- Fashion in dressing has changed over the course of the centuries

"The harmful nature of swine has been studied and documented to the nth degree. The bacteria it contains, and the susceptibility of the meat to transmit viruses is well known within certain research communities" <\- The same could be said of other animals such as bovine and birds.

"On the contrary. Human beings have killed people." <\- But in the name of religion! And not only in the name of the 3 major monotheistic religions, but the monothoeistic religions happen to be less tolerant with other's beliefs. There are many examples, the crusades, inquisition, witch hunts...

"The death toll in Iraq has gone off the scale. The death toll in Afghanistan has reached into it's hundreds of thousands. These are Atheist wars!" <\- Doesn't ex-president Bush Jr told the world that the bad ones where islamic fanatic terrorists? He even wanted to call the war "Divine Justice" or something alike.

"Religion has brought, not only moral truth" <\- again, that is very debatable. Religion claims it has The Truth, yet every religion claims the same, and their truths are different from each other.

"In modern history, Atheism has killed more people than centuries of religiously motivated killings." <\- That is absolutely demagogic. Atheism hasn't killed anyone. People kills people, and in modern wars is it is always for economic reasons.

"The Islamic Golden Age has contributed an invaluable amount to almost every aspect of our existence today" <\- That is exactly correct. And during the Islamic Golden Age, muslims where not as fanatical as they are nowadays. On the contrary, on that age, christians were as fanaticals as muslims ara nowadays.

"What has atheist brought really?" <\- Freethinking, a neutral vision of nature and the universe, curiosity and the ability to ask questions and look for answers beyond "it is god's <change your deity name here> will". If it were for religion, we will still think that earth is plain.

"than just ignorant and prejudice ideas?" <\- That is exactly what I would say that religion has given to humanity.

<comment><USER9> > _"The Islamic Golden Age has contributed an invaluable amount to almost > every aspect of our existence today" <\- That is exactly correct. And during > the Islamic Golden Age, muslims where not as fanatical as they are nowadays. > On the contrary, on that age, christians were as fanaticals as muslims ara > nowadays._

I understand your point, but I seriously doubt this is correct. This sort of argument is not likely to impress anyone, least of all a religionists.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with blatant copyright infringement? - <AUTHOR> Say you developed some website/service and someone literally stripped your frontend/UI code and just replaced logos/theme colors.
Is that enforceable to protect or is this something like "Just happens, build new features to stay on top of copying"
Didn't happen to me(yet), there was a job that I backed out of after it was clear this was the intent "copy this site, replace their logo with my logo, change from red to blue, etc..." <comment><USER2> A "computer program" is a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. Copyright protection extends to all the copyrightable expression embodied in the computer program. Copyright protection is not available for ideas, program logic, algorithms, systems, methods, concepts, or layouts.

[https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf](https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf)

<comment><USER2> the comments in your code are more copyright-able than most code.

<comment><USER3> Hey I said that two years ago. Prior art. See ya' in court, bud!</comment></comment></comment>


How to tame an ornithopter - <AUTHOR> https://ukrainer.net/how-to-tame-an-ornithopter/ <comment><USER2> If we ever successfully colonize the moon, the recreational activity I'm most excited for is being able to fly by flapping wings attached to your arms in pressurized domes (or spheres, if near a space elevator instead).

We aren't strong enough to fly with artificial wings on earth gravity, but it seems like moon gravity could work pretty well.

(I think this idea is from an Arthur C Clarke novel?)

<comment><USER3> Heinlein :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menace_from_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menace_from_Earth)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! I think I read a different short story that used this idea, but it seems Menace from Earth likely predated the one I read - probably the first instance of this idea in print?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This site claims:

"For over thirty years, he has been studying, modelling, building and testing his own ornithopter — an invention that was first conceived some five hundred years ago, but is yet to be implemented successfully."

This is so falsely absurd I am not sure where to begin. Many ornithopters have been constructed that flew or fly successfully; there have even been a few successful full-scale attempts. Most were models, though.

A recent model implementation:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/274008848/metafly-a- new...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/274008848/metafly-a-new-flying- experience)

...which was inspired by a much older toy - which itself (if we're being honest) was probably based off of even older examples:

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

Then you have Paul MacCready's Pterodactyl:

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

I won't go on...

<comment><USER5> I thought the same but they apparently mean only a human-powered ornithopter, which I believe is still an open problem. And for good reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The whole site is a great collection of stories about 'unexplored' Ukraine. Their project idea is like an ethnographic expedition, visiting diverse destinations in Ukraine to collect/record people stories. Amazingly, the written content is also very well translated.

A true gem, especially given the uneasy times people of Ukraine are still going through.

</comment><comment><USER7> This story is simply fantastic. I like the idealistic stubbornness of investors like this one.

</comment><comment><USER8> PSA: Please don't put your self-signed cert on the open web. Figure out Let's Encrypt, or just go vanilla http.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just tweeted to site owners, hope they will solve it.[0]

[0] [https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1138540511713746950](https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1138540511713746950)</comment></comment>


Facebook Disables Accounts of Palestinian Editors - <AUTHOR> http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/23/facebook-disables-accounts-palestinian-editors <comment><USER2> Not sure how true this report is, I still see those 2 pages posting every hour. Why did Facebook target a specific administrator and not the rest is a question.</comment>


No evidence to back idea of learning styles - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-evidence-to-back-idea-of-learning-styles <comment><USER2> Teacher here. Unfortunately this myth is incredibly resistant to attempts to dispel it. It is still included in teacher training and professional development and many schools still require teachers to address it in their learning plans.

I feel it's hard to address because, among other reasons, 1\. Its useful for administrators. Parents and students want to feel that you are teaching them on an individual level. Learning styles is "legitimate" enough to point to for administrators.

2\. It's something of a personal belief for many teachers.

<comment><USER3> Education bias suffers insane bias. I've never seen a study (though I'm sure there are some) where the researchers rejected the teaching techniques they advocated.

Specific Example: I've been in flipped classrooms. They suck. Everyone hated it. The instructor justified it by showing studies "proving" how great flipped classrooms work conducted by people who advocate and teach in flipped classrooms

<comment><USER4> Education research was probably the first field to adopt NHST[1], so it is not surprising it is messed up. Psychology was next. The most recent (still in progress) is physics. Sometime in the middle it happened to biology/medicine. You can see the order is inversely correlated with the reliability of the modern results.

[1] See eg Gigerenzer 2004 for an intro: [http://library.mpib- berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf](http://library.mpib- berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> But lets pull out one key point from amongst all the negatives in this article: "Students will improve if they think about how they learn"

The formal frameworks we have come up with haven't been effective, and trying to put them in a classroom haven't been effective. But that doesn't mean that everyone learns the same and we should just force everyone into the same box either. Our educational systems need work. We may not have the best answers yet, but we should keep looking.

<comment><USER6> i.e. learning styles may still be bullshit, but they can get you to self- reflect on how you learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps instead of considering students to have different learning styles, it would be more appropriate to say they are more or less resistant to various "teaching styles" (used as a catch-all term for teachers' cognitive biases that leave some students behind more than others).

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been struggling with this a lot lately. I'm in a Masters program. I'm struggling. After a lot of reflection, it's due largely to the way the class is taught. I need lots of examples over the field. Don't throw a wall of math at me. Show me how to do Thing1, then Thing2, and then Thing3. I'll induce a process.

So while it's not the types of learning offered in the article, I think there is style around inductive learning and deductive learning. I think the math folk are deductive learners, and teach that way. People like more, more on the art side of software design spectrum, are inductive learners. The two don't mix.

So neuroscientists reading this post, please to to the NSF for grant money about this. We might get more masters level or PhD's if a) there is such a distinction and b) we can adjust programs appropriately.

<comment><USER9> > I'm struggling. After a lot of reflection, it's due largely to the way the > class is taught. I need lots of examples over the field. Don't throw a wall > of math at me.

Vast majority of people are this way. The current educational system is fundamentally flawed and works fundamentally differently.

<comment><USER10> Hm, true.

In school, when the material was basic, I listened to the explanations of the teachers, did a few examples and got my B or C.

In my bachelor lectures I failed most exams on the first try, because the tutors were fast as hell. They did all school math in the first week and kept that pace to the end of the semester. I switched my learning style from going to lectures to reading stuff at home at my own pace, which worked much better.

In my master I didn't even bother with lectures at all, I just started a remote degree program, where they sent me all the material so I could learn myself at home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing I notice in learning styles - is they don't seem to test retention rate months later.

I may be able to cram my brain with crap - but in 2 months time, i'll be able to remember what I can visualise, not what i heard or learnt with a lecturer yapping on about.

<comment> barry-cotter Do you really think this occurred to none of the authors of the linked document? That no one has ever tested this? When you can come up with a counter argument in less than 30 minutes on a topic that single academics have put over a thousand hours into researching the likelihood is that this specific question has been investigated.

<comment><USER11> I'm an academic.

If you have a link to a paper which tests this please do send me a link.

Note: your post came across very attacking - without adding any insight, info or sharing knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I could very well agree that there's no evidence for, but I am not convinced that there's sufficient evidence against.

I'm finding it really, really hard to believe that everyone learns the same way... and I don't trust the current system to be capable of making such an assessment, learning styles or not. It may not be written vs visual, it may be something else, maybe it's a lot more complex.

</comment><comment><USER13> Total anecdote, but I absolutely learn better when graphs/charts/drawings/illustrations are part of the instructional material.

<comment><USER14> The statement could be true, but has nothing to do with learning styles. Because everyone "learn better when graphs/charts/drawings/illustrations are part of the instructional material".

<comment><USER15> I don't. I learn better through reading. Visual aids are rarely very helpful for me, unless I already understand what I'm looking at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I guess this explains why every time I took one of those "learning style" tests, I always scored equally on each style.

<comment><USER17> Not really :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So what? It's certainly still beneficial to present and repeat information in different formats.

<comment><USER2> That's not really what learning styles were supposed to be. Commonly, with learning styles a student was considered an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner.

Timmy is an auditory leaner? He should learn to calculate voltage through lectures and song.

Timmy is a visual learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through pictures and diagrams.

Timmy is a kinesthetic learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through dance.

It's a shallow understanding of how learning really happens. No one learned how to throw a football by singing about it and no one has a strong understanding of circuits and how to design them just by listening to lectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My entire life, listening to classroom lecture has been an absolute struggle for me. It requires a monumental amount of effort and willpower to pay attention, process and retain all that info at the same time.

On the other hand, I can read something once and If I can handle the material, I typically retain it effortlessly. I know a lot of other people that cannot self-educate via reading.

This study seems to be suggesting something similar to a denial that introverted and extroverted types exist. How can they not?

Im a little suspicious of the proposition:

poor results when current matching styles to lessons = learning styles do not exist.

<comment><USER10> Is this really a problem with teaching styles?

Sounds more like a general problem that also happens to impact your learning performance.</comment></comment>


Will Robot Cars Need Windows? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/05/why-driverless-cars-dont-need-windows/389483/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> Do trains have window? Yes. Do limousines have windows? Yes. Do planes have windows? Yes.

Will robot cars have windows? Yes.

People love to look at the scenery. If anything, people will spend more time looking outside than now.</comment>


How to make money with parallel programming? - <AUTHOR>

I have experience in multithreaded/parallel programming and want to put it to good use on a side project that could generate decent revenue.
I need some help with ideas. At first I was thinking to offer up computation as a service. We already do storage as a service (see: Dropbox) and it's been wildly successful. I was hoping to find some way to frame computation as a useful service that could affect everyday users' lives. The most basic option I think is to set up a little computer farm and let people run batch jobs for some fee. But that's pretty far-removed from everyday people. So maybe this is the wrong tree to try climbing.
What about a database application that takes advantage of many-core computers? Or maybe a nice wrapper API to use with database systems already in place. Or does something like that already exist?
Summary - brainstorming lucrative ideas to do with parallel programming of many-core machines. <comment><USER2> I don't think you can really compete with giants like Amazon AWS or other big companies. They already offer that kind of services and their infrastructure is so huge they can benefit from mass scale economics.</comment>


The Efficiency Delusion - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/the-efficiency-delusion-f6a97241e1e1 <comment><USER3> An interesting aspect of efficiency is that it's often at odds with resiliency.

For example, consider an airline. Maximum efficiency would involve every airworthy plane being fully occupied making flights that are 100% full. Ok, sounds good. Now, one of your planes hits a sign on takeoff and has to return to the airport and be grounded for repairs. How do you deal with all of these passengers who expect to get to their destination? You can't, your incredible efficiency means you're fucked when something goes wrong. Now imagine that each of those people is part of some other enterprise that's 100% efficient. The failure will cascade and before long, society's only concern for efficiency will be about how to most efficiently crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside.

<comment><USER4> But, this is just one simplistic definition of efficiency. You could include as part of your model some % slack coefficient, some % of failure for each component in the network, and find some kind of allocation that maximizes expected "efficency". The problem isn't optimization, it's that your model doesn't include enough variables

<comment><USER5> Can your model ever include enough variables though?

In other words, you can stuff all the variables you want in there, but you will likely still have error - especially with complex systems (regime switches, etc.) - that you did not put in your model. I think economists tried the "model stuffing" technique, and I'm not sure how much it helped in planning something as complex as the economy.

<comment><USER6> >Can your model ever include enough variables though?

Resiliency isn't invincibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would keep in mind that efficiency/optimization is only possible _given complete knowledge of the system_. You can only truly optimize if you know all the inputs.

For any uncertainty you have not modeled, _you must have slack in the system_. This is true of your personal workflow, your professional environment, your romantic life, your business. If you aim only for optimization, you are implicitly optimizing _for the things you have modeled_ - this can often come at the cost of the things you have not.

I would say that, perhaps loosely, optimization is the delusion of overconfidence. Slightly less optimization, and more redundancy, is good caution.

More info here: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdvogC9VMAEz9Y1?format=jpg&name=...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdvogC9VMAEz9Y1?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)

<comment><USER7> That, like elsewhere, is a naive view of efficiency - in the same way trying to apply mathematical logic to reality is a naive approach. Just like reality is best modeled in probabilistic terms, optimization can be done on probabilistic models. Redundancy comes out of it naturally, if you put costs and uncertainties in your models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it a delusion? I don't think so. I've seen very real efficiency improvements thanks to tech and software. For example, do you know how frictionless it is to travel these days compared to 10-20 years ago? You can book a flight, reserve a table at a highly rated restaurant, get turn-by-turn directions, convert currency, look up foreign language translations, book a hotel or AirBNB, order delivery, take photographs and share them with friends and fam instantly, etc, etc. Much more efficient than the old way. You'd risk getting lost, disconnected, lose time to search, lose money to excessive travel expenses, etc.

And that's just vacation travel. The author casually mentions that Uber and Lyft supplanted "hailing cabs" as if it were not much of an innovation, when we all know what the experience was like if you were in any city less dense than New York...it was a pain in the ass to get a cab and it was usually way more expensive than it was worth and the cars were hardly ever clean and you had no idea what kind of driver you were getting. You were also lucky if they took a credit card.

<comment><USER9> The author isn't saying efficiency doesn't exist. The thesis is "We believe that if technology can make some aspect of our lives more efficient, we'll get back free time to do the things we actually find meaningful."

Of course things are more efficient now. But the real question is-- does that make our lives better? Is an _efficient_ vacation a better vacation? What would an "efficient" vacation look like (the idea sound gross to me. Getting lost and overwhelmed are part of the fun for me).

Simply put, efficiency taken to a logical extreme is bad and we should acknowledge that.

<comment><USER10> On the individual level: If your perspective on the world is one of efficiency, you will never be able to eat the fruits of your increase of it. You will just pack more things into less time, less space and less money. However if you are like e.g. my favourite sysadmin, you will be incredible efficient in order to have more time for the fun parts. If he weren't efficient be wouldn't be able to foxus on stuff he likes because be would constantly be out to extinguish fires. Because he is efficient, he must not.

Efficiency is about _your optimization goals,_ a guy like him is optimizing for free time that is why he optimized the rest of it to such a degree, that he can afford it without changing the whole thing for the worse.

He could easily also have used that free time to do more work, but he refused.

<comment><USER9> My stance may be a little stronger than the author's here, but it's something I wish I understood a decade ago.

I used to think that _more free time_ was a key to happiness. Turns out I don't believe that at all now, and most of my free time I spend browsing internet garbage.

I realized that I _enjoy_ challenges and _being needed_ is actually very fulfilling to me, and not something I can just artificially make happen in my free time. As such, perhaps in a more efficient world (where I don't help my neighbor fix their car, don't cook with roommates) I am less happy.

This isn't to say efficiency isn't often good, but I think some of the things it may cost (e.g. fewer possible friendships) may not be worth the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing I've noticed since moving to a city where driving is unnecessary, is how good it feels to drive occasionally. While I think a big part of that is the physical sensation, I also think doing these types of "menial tasks" can put your mind into a mode that is not possible when being entertained by a smartphone/kindle/whatever.

Currently on my 35 minute commute, I can be using a smartphone about 90% of that time. Does that sound efficient? Sure. But I think the article hits upon a real point, if we're going to "save time" on a particular activity, it had better be a worse activity than what we end up replacing it with.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Take the myth that once self-driving cars spare people from the burden of > needing to drive to work and pay attention to the road, they'll be able to > focus their attention on invigorating and rewarding activities, like reading > for pleasure during the commute. More likely, employers will expect the > workday to begin the second you enter the vehicle. Instead of being > disburdened, more productivity will be ratcheted out of us.

It does free us up to do more reading. Downside: that reading will be approximately 100 percent more email.

</comment><comment><USER13> > What really resonated is that some of the engineers you interviewed > described experiencing inefficient situations as really troubling, like > smelling something awful or tasting something gross.

Watching some people do their daily work so inefficiently makes me squirm - <USER2> look away.

However I've seen that drive for efficiency in a wide range of professions: it definitely isn't peculiar to engineers (e.g. the shortcuts a chef learns).

I also explicitly deoptimise some things so I can enjoy them more e.g. varying routes.

<comment><USER10> I think what the theme for.me and my urge to optimize is, is that I like to automate/optimize processes that I hate doing repeatedly, while processes that I like doing are allowed to be inefficient (e.g. i make.my filter coffee by hand using a hand grinder).

If you optimize things on a personal level you yourself are responsible for what to do with the newly won spare time.

On a society level this is different however, because not working means no job and no job means no money. If they make the job you did more efficient by optimizing and automating all the bits you liked and leave you with all the bits you hated (and a lower wage), you will have a hard time cheering over the optimization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are good points here. On the other hand, the world's wealth is built on efficiency improvements and in some cases they can be literally lifesaving.

I guess it's just about knowing when to turn it off.

</comment><comment><USER15> This article is spot on. Engineers increasingly define the course of our daily lives, and they've been taught, almost universally, that efficiency is not only a value in and of itself, it is the _highest_ value we can pursue. But we're all destined for the grave, and if we truly want maximum efficiency, it follows that we should promptly kill ourselves. Clearly efficiency cannot be our only guide, and I think the current technocracy has gone much too far down that dead-end.

<comment><USER9> Though I think suicide is a bad example of "efficiency," I think the larger point stands.

I think it's a good exercise to think of what a highly-efficient world might look like and whether it would be pleasant at all (one language, perfectly regular architecture, increasing isolation, more interactions with machines instead of people, less chance/wonder in life)

<comment><USER16> Reminds me of Universal Paperclips.</comment></comment></comment>


Computer Geeks: Compete to Help NASA Explain Dark Energy - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/great-dark-energy-competition/

<comment><USER2> Hopefully cosmological kludges like dark matter will fall by the wayside as better observational data is utilized.

Here's a start: [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201134158.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201134158.htm)

With triple the number of stars in the universe the balance between baryonic matter and unicorn dark matter becomes more like 60/40 with the aesthetically painful dark matter on the short side.

<comment><USER3> I'm totally with you on that. I've really always hated "dark matter" and "dark energy", as far as I'm concerned it's a terrible violation of the scientific method.

We have two observations: 1) the rotational speed of galaxies appears to be too high for the calculated mass such that the galaxies should fly apart but don't -and- 2) the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating.

From these two observations, physicists have created theories for a new kind of mass and a new kind energy that has never been detected and don't fit any of our existing models. I'm not suggesting that it's impossible that these new forms exist, but it kinda seems like religion to me - we can't detect it in any way but are supposed to have "faith" that it's there because there's no other readily available explanation for something in the world around us. It's possible, but isn't it much more plausible that we're merely missing a much more reasonable explanation? Maybe some of the things we hold as constants aren't constants (such as the mass in each galaxy).

We shouldn't dismiss dark matter outright, but we also shouldn't treat it as the only, or even the most likely explanation.

<comment><USER2> 'From these two observations, physicists have created theories for a new kind of mass and a new kind energy'

There is also gravitational lensing and some others but no direct evidence. IANAP but our not fully understanding gravity and the Flyby and Pioneer anomalies hint at some breakdown of known physics. The first and farthest craft sent by man has a distance anomaly, directed at the sun, hmm. Plus the thought of new laws on gravity is much more exciting than dark matter and there should be a slew of new findings as data analysis gets better so its anyones guess.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Foundation for Side Projects? - <AUTHOR>

I remember there was some kind of digital incubator for side projects.
The deal was that you could contribute code (and/or other assets) of your (side) project to that "foundation" which in turn provides the legal framework to run that project as part of the foundation's business.
Unfortunately, I do not remember the name.
Can anyone help me? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Assembly maybe? [http://assembly.com/](http://assembly.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Thank you!

More specific, I was looking for: [http://sideprojects.assembly.com/](http://sideprojects.assembly.com/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: A weekly email of the best entrepreneurial opportunities - <AUTHOR> http://opportunityoverload.com/ <comment><USER2> I liked the idea and the sample issue that was provided. Have even registered my email address for the same. However, I really hated the background gif on your landing page. Never been a fan of moving pictures in the background of a website.

</comment><comment><USER3> So basically an optin list building exercise.</comment>


Ford Is Fined in China - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/china-ford-antitrust-trade-war.html <comment><USER3> This is Changan Ford, meaning a JV where Ford controls exactly 49% and Changan 51%. The fine is for anti competitive behavior in setting a floor on resale values, and it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to fine.

I don't think this is very related to the trade war, as it is hurting a Chinese company just as badly as an American one.

</comment><comment><USER4> can someone explain to me this "trade war" between the u.s. and china? as far as i can tell, it is an entirely constructed thing (in terms of how it started) and is simply the new "war" just like we had the cold war, war against drugs, war against terror, etc. so now the trade war is just the u.s.'s new war fetish.

so other than the current administration's idiotic approach to anything, what was the impetus of all of this?

<comment><USER5> When Clinton granted China MFN status and then was allowed into WTO there were some (perhaps naive) assumptions of working in good faith and that while it was expected China would be granted some breaks as it caught up, eventually it would play nice abide by the rules everyone else respects. Well, it's been 30 years and China is still not playing fair in trade (ownership requirements, IP transfer, IP theft, market access, etc.)

The admin is doing something the Busch admin should have done, or at least the first Obama, but neither did because it would be too upsetting to multinationals and would also "upset" China.

Now we have someone who says times up, do what you signed up for or deal with the consequences of ignoring the rule set out.

And, to a great degree, I agree with this. Blue collar labor was thrown under the bus. That little Texan was right. A giant sucking sound did take the jobs, but not Mexico but rather China chiefly, among other labor outsourcing, to our detriment (their own too) and environmental degradation.

Now, I'm glad and it's great China took this opportunity to lift its people from abject poverty but we took too much of a hit. It should have been more measured and more fair.

<comment><USER4> but my guess is that the period of china stealing ip (which is an obvious fact that has happened over decades) is only temporary in the grand scheme of things in that it won't last forever. this is because china has stolen ideas, concepts, and direct designs to catch up but is now in many areas surpassing product design in the u.s. so this idea that u.s. design and development > chinese design and development won't last and is already breaking down. thus, the u.s. is in real danger since china has all the manufacturing ability. so yea, china has stolen and ignored ip laws, but that soon won't even matter. that's at least my prediction.

i have a friend in a u.s. technology company, and they simply cannot beat the chinese version of their product in both price and features despite being the creator of the product category decades ahead of others. the chinese companies copied the design but have now exceeded it, so the u.s. product does very poorly in china.

so what it sounds like to me is that the u.s. sees the writing on the wall, which is all due to their own actions and corporate greed over the past few decades, and so now is making a hail mary in a trade war. it doesn't seem like a good idea when it likely won't be long until china has the upper hand.

so it seems it basically comes down to trump taking his poor understanding of dynamics and abusing the u.s. government's and people's need for a "war".

<comment><USER5> (Almost) Any country can be a leader in some area even if they are not a superpower. Germany, Japan, UK, France, Taiwan: they all have leadership in some technologies even though they are small compared to the US and China.

Should they throw their hand up and say, guys and gals of the world, we can't keep up with you in all areas, please, come take our IP!

I think the answer is obvious.

<comment><USER4> i am not for sure i understand.

i was saying that it seems to me that the u.s. can't always rely on the argument and stance that "oh, it's just china making cheap copies". it seems that china has directly stolen and continues to do so, which is a major problem of course, but they will eventually have no need to. so the problem is worse than just needing to stop china from stealing. the problem is that it's possible the u.s. will be left behind because of our unconcentrated effort versus the chinese's highly concentrated economic approach.

my simple understanding is that u.s. corporation's greed and other u.s. economic factors caused a move of nearly all manufacturing to china and now everyone's saying "hey, wait a minute".

<comment><USER6> I may misunderstand what you mean. Are you saying that you believe China will stop producing inferior (made as cheap as possible) copies of desirable goods and marking the price up? Why would they stop? They have already proven that they have no interest in acting in good faith, and in the absence of morals, this practice is obviously much more profitable than innovation.

China now has all the capital & knowledge required to become the worldwide leader in innovation. However, their entire industrial culture was built to the specifications of "making cheap copies". It will be interesting to see what the side effects of those origins will be for China in the long run.

<comment><USER7> China has manufacturing facilities and capacity that far exceed any other nation. This includes making high end products based on foreign designed specifications (I.e. iPhone). GP is saying that it is not if, but when, China will have attained the baseline IP to spend remaining efforts on exceeding foreign innovation and using their domestic manufacturing capabilities to deliver on them.

Currently the "trade war" just attacks Chinese companies that have done exactly what I described above (Huawei being a primary example) - <USER2> cybercrimes, arresting executives, slamming lawsuits, barring imports, etc.

Manufacturing is not a switch that can be turned back. America had severe oversight when allowing our manufacturing capacity to head south to Mexico and east to China. We are pretending the trade war is the US "sticking it" to China. But in reality China has all the cards in this war - the US is bluffing to its citizens; the economy of the coming decades will be on China's terms.

<comment><USER4> you're exactly right. although i think the oversight was coupled with greed. corporations in the u.s. began a race to the bottom in terms of manufacturing cost, and now we're paying for both incompetent oversight and greed. consumers are to blame as well, but that blame is hard to place when consumers in the middle and lower class are getting squeezed in every direction.

it's very disappointing that the u.s. took this turn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is great news but I'm still bitter about the PowerShift debacle.

<comment><USER9> I'm still upset about the terrible transmission on the Ford I purchased. I will never support them again.

<comment><USER8> I particularly loved their insistence that "that's just how it is, there's nothing wrong with it". Perfection.

<comment><USER9> It took me four visits before they admitted that there was a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So how is this going to end?

<comment><USER11> War probably. The issue with disconnecting our economy from China is there will no longer be anything stopping a full fledged war in the South China Sea

<comment><USER12> A direct war (even conventional warfare, which can quickly escalate) between nuclear-armed states could be the demise of mankind. Please remember that.

<comment><USER11> It wouldn't be a direct war in the sense everyone is thinking. The US has several strategies published regarding war with China with the most likely strategy being one of containment, not outright invasion. I'm saying that the open markets and globalization that has happened over the last several decades (And is now being reversed) is the reason we have had relative peace (No war between larger powers) since WWII</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has this scientist finally found the fountain of youth? - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614074/scientist-fountain-of-youth-epigenome/ <comment><USER2> No.

<comment><USER3> Care to offer a more substantive dismissal, Mr. Betteridge?

<comment><USER2> Not really. I'm not Betteridging here.

Epigenomics is exciting science but there is nothing here that indicates you would be able to take this and treat people with it and extend their lives without unpredictable and ambiguous side effects.

(I work in drug discovery and am very familiar with this field; my complaint is about the headlines that massively overstate the significance of results. This is a very common problem and I generally work to make people understand the reality behind the hype.)

<comment> La-ang I'd say it's more of a clickbait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Betteridge's law says no [0]

> But just as quickly as he blows my mind, he puts a damper on the excitement. > So potent was the rejuvenating treatment used on the mice that they either > died after three or four days from cell malfunction or developed tumors

> An even broader doubt is whether the epigenetic changes that Izpisúa > Belmonte is reversing in his lab are really the cause of aging or just a > sign of it

> Wholesale rejuvenation, then, is still far off, if it will ever come at all. > But more limited versions of it, targeted to certain diseases of aging, > might be available within a few years.

Like battery tech, there's some progress and exciting results here, but no where near crossing that last mile to market.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)</comment>


Ask HN: What opinions do you hold that are unpopular among the HN crowd? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Compiling to javascript is mostly pointless and unnecessary, and should be the exception rather than the rule.

Dynamic content on the web (javascript, web apps) is not a corruption of its original intent. Running code as well as viewing static documents was always a part of the theoretical future envisioned for it.

Eternal September is a natural part of the evolutionary process of online communities, and it is not always harmful. Cultural elitism and gatekeeping, however, _are_ always harmful.

The web was not a mistake. The modern web is superior in terms of the breadth and depth of its content to the old web in many ways, and that old web wasn't the bastion of quality content and creativity that people seem to remember.

Design is not a waste of time, nor is it just eye candy and fluff. It matters. It matters a _lot._

Stallman is not always right about everything.

The Last Jedi was flawed, but in time will be regarded as the best mainline Star Wars film outside of the OT (assuming episode 9 isn't utterly _brilliant._ )

</comment><comment><USER3> This might actually be difficult to discern, as the site has "shadow banning" where an unpopular posting or comment can be banned - but not from the original poster, so they do not know it happened. I personally consider this a deceitful practice, as the person posting is being deceived into thinking other site users can see what they write but this is not true. So if someone has an unpopular opinion they might not know of its unpopularity due to this practice.

<comment><USER2> On the one hand, shadowbanning is reversible through public action now, so it's not as bad as it was. On the other hand, you can lose your ability to do so if you vouch for too many comments the mods consider divisive or low quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think most discussions of political and economic topics in here tend to go around in circles without much intellectual progress being made. Curiously I see this applying to all sides of the political spectrum; you might think naïvely that this is only a problem on the "left", but attitudes on the 'right' can be just as frustrating or even more so, they're just a bit less salient.

<comment><USER2> It happens in technical threads as well, but isn't considered "low quality" because it isn't politics or mainstream.

<comment><USER4> The difference is all in that _most_ qualifier. I genuinely have trouble finding discussions of these "non-technical" topics that are genuinely worthwhile in an "intellectual curiosity" sense. It's a bit jarring since even e.g. Reddit does a lot better once you find the right niche-subcommunities. And again, it has nothing to do with political stance, since both sides do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anything that doesn't conform to the dogma for certain "givens", it's like a religion sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER6> The same statement can be downvoted into oblivion or upvoted into orbit depending on who's on at the time. Is it unpopular to say HN is more varied in opinions than it seems?

<comment><USER2> >Is it unpopular to say HN is more varied in opinions than it seems?

Yes. Many people seem to believe HN conforms to a single political or cultural ideology, and often that the mods enforce this.

In reality, the population is diverse, and host to many conflicting "groupthinks", but people tend to segregate themselves by thread subject and time, encountering the same people and discussions over and over, making the userbase seems more homogeneous than it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Simulation hypothesis--it seems as good for explaining many phenomena and should be tested like other theories.

Monads are not hard the explanations are bad.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://n-gate.com/hackernews/](http://n-gate.com/hackernews/)

</comment><comment><USER9> ES5</comment>