Ask HN: What Is the Point of Snorkel? - <AUTHOR> I've read a bit about Snorkel, and I listened to an episode of Software Engineering Daily [1] this week, and this question has been bugging me. In Snorkel, you define labeling functions to provide labels to lots of data, rather than manually label it, and then use this data to train machine learning models. My question is, why even train a machine learning model if you have the functions to classify a dataset? You essentially have a decision tree, and it seems silly to train a model from scratch. <comment><USER2> While I haven't used the Snorkel library proper, I've used automated features in machine learning models in a similar way before.

The key insight is: _labeling functions are assumed to be noisy and inaccurate._

[https://www.snorkel.org/use-cases/01-spam- tutorial](https://www.snorkel.org/use-cases/01-spam-tutorial) is worth rereading with this in mind (IMO, it kind of buries the lede on _why_ this is an important distinction in a hand-wavy way). It's all about diminishing returns: if you're writing a manual labeling function for production, you're going to quickly get to something that may work 50-80% of the time, and you'd spend a LOT more time on the edge cases. So let a machine learning model figure out the edge cases for you!

Snorkel ensures your labeling function isn't taken as gospel; the training process will do its best to follow its guidance, but it will be willing to say "this NotSpam label provided by the function was probably totally wrong in this case, because the rest of the text content in this example feels a LOT like all the other messages that the function labeled as Spam, and boosting (literally or figuratively) the strength of my conviction on my deep-text- analysis insights, which say that horrible grammar is more spammy than not, will make me perform better on the test set overall, even if I sacrifice this example."

And you can have formalisms for how these are labels with uncertainty attached, and feed this information to the pipeline. [https://ajratner.github.io/](https://ajratner.github.io/) has a lot of peer- reviewed research on how this works, and [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00778-019-00552-1...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00778-019-00552-1?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst) has a number of figures that may be illustrative as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes a whole lot of sense, I didn't think about the "noisiness"/imperfection of the labels. That's a great point. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Running as a Key Lifestyle Medicine for Longevity - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033062017300488 <comment><AUTHOR> NYT reporting of the study: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/well/move/an- hour-of-runn...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/well/move/an-hour-of- running-may-add-seven-hours-to-your-life.html)</comment>


Vimperator - vim bindings and commands for Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.vimperator.org/vimperator <comment><AUTHOR> I switched back to Firefox from Chrome after two years because of pentadactyl. vim bindings and a command mode for my browser? Yes please.

Unfortunately pentadactyl proved to be not quite stable enough. Commands would intermittently fail and strange bugs kept popping up.

I looked around and found the older, but supposedly more stable, vimperator project. It's 100% compatible with my usage of pentadactyl (including fun things like remapping commands and keyword bookmarklets) and has been rock solid.</comment>


Visual Cheatsheet for CSS Grid Layout - <AUTHOR> http://grid.malven.co/ <comment><USER2> > CSS Grid Layout is currently supported by very few browsers and this page > may not display as intended for you.

As of right now, CSS grids is supported by 83%-86% of browsers.

Source: [https://caniuse.com/#feat=css-grid](https://caniuse.com/#feat=css- grid)

<comment><USER3> You are right, but critically it isn't supported by IE 11 which is probably what the author cares about. There is probably a majority of projects, including mine, that will have to wait for IE11 usage, especially in the corporate/enterprise sector, to sharply decline before using grid.

Microsoft intends to support IE11 until 2025.

<comment><USER4> > You are right, but critically it isn't supported by IE 11

This has always bugged me. Why does IE always lag behind in such CSS features? What kind of politics is this? Or is it that Microsoft does not have a big or smart enough browser team that can bring the IE/Edge features at par with Firefox/Chrome?

I've been so pissed off by this that I've started a micro-revolution by not caring if my blog renders well on IE/Edge. IE is pain in meeting compatibility with the CSP headers too. Hopefully more people start doing this so that people are forced to move to a better browser than IE.

<comment><USER5> IE11 does not autoupdate.

Thus it is stuck, frozen in time, a deadweight clinging onto front-end web development.

<comment><USER6> Or, viewed another way, IE developers have a stable API surface to work on that isn't a moving target every hour.

<comment><USER7> What are IE developers?

<comment><USER3> Web Developers that do enterprise software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm the original author. This was created a few years ago, at a time when very few browsers fully-supported grid, and although I still use this frequently as a reference, I never took the time to update the disclaimer at the top of the page. If I'd thought there was any chance this would pop up on HN I probably would've updated it awhile ago.

At this point, Grid Layout is well-supported in enough modern/evergreen browsers that I don't feel this disclaimer is still necessary. As others have posted IE 11 is really the only reason not to aggressively use grid for many projects. I'll be removing this warning shortly.

<comment><USER8> While I'm here, I also created a similar visual cheatsheet for Flexbox that I still find very useful: [http://flexbox.malven.co](http://flexbox.malven.co)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "CSS Grid Layout is currently supported by very few browsers and this page may not display as intended for you."

According to caniuse, CSS Grid is supported by all browsers except IE and Opera Mini.

<comment><USER10> What this kind of statement fails to acknowledge is that not everyone uses the absolute latest version of their browser. And CSS grid _is_ recent. It doesn't take too old of a version to lack support entirely.

<comment><USER11> Most browsers on windows and mac (and linux if installed without a package manager or you're using a non-stable distro) autoupdate, so most people are within 3 version of the latest, and caniuse takes browser versions into account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting: #kartoffelmos posted here that 83%-86% of the browsers support this while #irrational posted that it is supported by all browsers except IE en Opera Mini.

I never saw this but you can switch between "Current aligned", "Usage relative" and "Date relative" @ caniuse.com

The default is "Current aligned" but it might not be the best default because it doesn't show what you will target.

</comment><comment><USER13> I created a related tool for testing different combinations of CSS grid rules. [http://grids.help/](http://grids.help/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone knows if a similar cheat sheet is available with a light theme for people like me with terrible eyesight ?

</comment><comment><USER15> Just want to say, that's brilliantly simple use of css-grid. Nicely done. Thanks for the cheer sheet :)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a very old un-updated project and probably a repost

<comment><AUTHOR> actually I checked before posting and it seemed that no one had ever posted this on HN or reddit.

It might be old but it's not outdated. I have discovered it a few days ago because I'm doing something with CSS grids at the moment and I'm checking this page everyday.

EDIT: ok the warning at the top "CSS Grid Layout is currently supported by very few browsers" is outdated but the actual cheatsheet is definitely not :)

<comment><USER16> There's a difference between outdated and un-updated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> CSS is one of those things I think you bite the bullet and learn over a weekend.

Its frustrating rather than difficult + the instant gratification makes it a fun little weekend project.

EDIT: For clarity-

"Cheat sheets" in CSS IMO are more harm than good. Sure, google the occasional 'align'. But until you start typing in your own code, you really are hacking your CSS.

Taking a weekend to learn CSS is learning the syntax and applying it. After this, you will know what to google, what type of responsive problems you will be setting widths for, etc...

Its very easy to use other people's work in HTML/CSS without ever understanding it.

<comment><USER18> I've been writing CSS since the late 90's. I look up CSS syntax almost daily.

This comment is seriously unhelpful gatekeeping

<comment><USER19> There's an air of "I am very smart" about the guy who claims to have memorized the entirety of CSS in a weekend.

<comment><USER17> Who said that?

<comment><USER19> The grandparent post. After a weekend of CSS you don't even know what you don't know. The complexity isn't the syntax, its the interactions between all of the elements.

<comment><USER17> The grandparent post said nothing about memorizing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Juan de Fuca - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Fuca <comment><USER2> Well I certainly fell down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. That article lead me to the article on the strait named after him, through which I discovered that we (the US) and Canada still have active border disputes. -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Cana...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Canada_and_the_United_States)

<comment><USER3> One of the more interesting disputes - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_\(1859\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice! I never thought I'd see mention of something close to home on HN.

I grew up in Port Angeles. Ocean in your front yard, mountains in your backyard, rivers, lakes, hunting. The works.

It was a beautiful place.

<comment><USER5> Ha,did a bit of digging and found this nearby (Little James Island): [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-124.6449377,3a,75y,...](https://email@example.com,-124.6449377,3a,75y,267.24h,89.2t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNn0xUGdQutNlSlgCOXQIoOsndu8gtr87ANOYNH!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNn0xUGdQutNlSlgCOXQIoOsndu8gtr87ANOYNH%3Dw203-h100-k-no- pi-0-ya107.170586-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've lived on the strait named after him my entire life and didn't know about him and his controversy. There's also a wonderful hiking trail named after him (mentioned in the article) which is well worth visiting if you're ever on Vancouver Island. It takes most people a couple days, but it's beautiful, not too difficult, and not too busy.

So fascinating to think people explored these waters in hopes that it would connect to the Atlantic. Not even close.

<comment><USER7> Imagine their disappointment when they got to Olympia and found hordes of crust punks and crystal healers...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, but is there some context for why this is being posted, or was it just a random Wikipedia article that seemed neat?

<comment><AUTHOR> The eponymous straight is a major seaway. It's Spanish origin challenged my naive model of US historical geography when I was alongside it a few weeks ago -- I generally associate Spanish with the coast further south. At the time my wikipedia connectivity was limited. Yesterday, I mentioned having been there and was reminded of my curiosity. Partly what made the article intellectually interesting to me is the contemporary interest in discrediting Juan de Fuca's account. Partly it is that Juan de Fuca was Greek rather than Spanish. And partly it is the proximity of the straight to Seattle and Vancouver without a well known "Amerigo Vespucci" story of it's name.

<comment><USER9> There were a lot of people cruising around the Pacific coast.

In terms of Spanish names, there are also:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Blanco_(Oregon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Blanco_\(Oregon\))

* Heceta Head - named for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_de_Heceta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_de_Heceta)

The Russians had forts as far south as California.

<comment><USER10> And any resident of BC or northern Washington will be familiar with San Juan, Galiano, Valdes, and Gabriola islands; the Fidalgo, Haro, and Rosario straits; and Spanish Banks off English Bay, where Galiano's expedition met George Vancouver's, and agreed to split the naming of features in the area equally between them (as they were allies against France at the time).

<comment><USER9> I think one of my favorite "how the ...?!" geography names is the Owyhee River area of south east Oregon. It's a high, dry steppe where nothing much grows except sagebrush, and hardly any one lives.

Owyhee, though, is a different spelling of Hawaii, and the river was named for some Hawaiian explorers who set out to explore the area and were never seen again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee_River#Naming)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, while probably being a skilled navigator, he was either a serial bullshitter who may or may not have been before the King of Spain and may not have actually seen features that were later ascribed to the area, or a man wronged probably by the viceroy who may have colluded with others to get him excluded from the archives. Both possibilities are fairly bizarre.

Then there's Englishman Charles William Barkley (1759 – 1832) who ran an unlicensed, regulation-dodging trading tour out of one ship registered abroad, in collusion with some top executives at the monopolist competition! He was the one who named the strait after Juan de Fuca, so clearly the English were much more fascinated with him than the Spanish.

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems obligatory here to mention Peter Watts' _Rifters_ trilogy, the first book of which is set in and around a geothermal power station on the sea floor near the Juan de Fuca Ridge.

</comment><comment><USER13> Somewhat related — a recent short video about Puget Sound: [https://youtu.be/EJrrRPHa6-c](https://youtu.be/EJrrRPHa6-c)

<comment><AUTHOR> At 2:41 the video shows what is probably Vancouver's map labeling the straight "supposed Straight of Juan de Fuca." What I find interesting is that Vancouver's exploration was 200 years after Juan de Fuca reported being there...about as much time had passed between Juan de Fuca and Vancouver as has passed between Vancouver and us.

Even more strikingly (at least to me) is that at the time of Vancouver's expedition, clear determination that California was not an island by Juan Bautista de Anza [1] was about as recent as the founding of Google is to us...and a person was still likely to have a map showing that it was. [2]

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

[2]: [https://exhibits.stanford.edu/california-as-an- island/featur...](https://exhibits.stanford.edu/california-as-an- island/feature/history)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> And then, of course, there is the book:

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JKSHZ4](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JKSHZ4)

</comment><comment><USER15> Could somebody correct the title?

<comment><USER16> Should be "Juan de Fuca", not "Jaun de Fuca"</comment></comment>


Gizmodo is off my content rotation effective now - <AUTHOR>

I have only been a "faithful" reader of Gizmodo really since the iPhone 4 build-up.  They were a kind of Engadget-Lite, and I enjoyed how they pulled in a healthy dose of tech tangents (things that were more products of living in a techy world than the gadgets themselves).
But then 2 things happened:
1) I started reading HN (obsessively, I admit).  All of a sudden, my Gizmodo feed is full of things I already know from 3 days ago b/c they were here earlier.
2) The % of Gizmodo's NSFW content spiked.  Now, I'm no prude, but seriously I don't want to read a Fleshlight review right after a Nikon review.  And tell me how "Porn Pumpkin Carving" fits into a digitally connected life?  Or why I need to read about the "iPhone app makes anyone look naked" 3 times (it was a feature 3 times, first as a concept, second as an app-is-in-development announcement, third as an app-launch announcement)??
I think the lesson for HN-ers is that if you fragment your brand promise, you're going to lose customers.  Am I right?? <comment><USER2> I stopped reading Gizmodo awhile ago, for the same reasons you described. And quite frankly, the writing just isn't that good.

BTW, I wish this post was boticed a little more. I'd like to read what others have to say about this.

Good luck with your one man micro startup!</comment>


I Drink for a Reason (conference booze issue) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikealrogers.com/posts/i-drink-for-a-reason.html

<comment><USER2> When did we start using the word "brogrammers"? I'm really tired of hearing it. It reminds me of words like "Synergy".

<comment><USER3> I just call them "noobgrammers", it's much less gender-biased and so much more self-explanatory.

<comment><USER4> Your term describes a different type of person. The two sets may overlap, but they are not the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "People who cry "professionalism" are asking for us to represent companies and career over being ourselves. These are not the people we want at our conferences"

Then count me as not welcome at one of your conferences. I attend conferences for my business and career. Every moment I'm at a conference is a moment I'm not with my neighbors, family, and friends back home. I'd rather not waste those moments reliving frat-party days.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yep. The reason is "drinking problem." Nothing special or geeky about it and it is very common across all professions and lifestyles. It means one is at risk for alcoholism.

Not trying to be alarming, like I said, it is common. But it is a really good idea to get a grip on the drinking before it gets a grip on you.

<comment><USER7> Can you elaborate about what makes you say that? Surely alcohol loosening you up isn't anything abnormal...is it?

Or are you just talking about the early paragraph and not the real point of the article?</comment></comment>


Effective Teams vs. Murderous Alien Drones. Also Tom Cruise - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jonathanirwin/are-you-still-an-effective-team-fce203cd4df5

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting ideas on how team structures have and/or need to change towards a more lean, x-functional approach. Obv. not applicable in every scenario/company scale, but it's +++ if you're small and scrappy.</comment>


I'm rich; tax me more - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gruener-tax-the-rich-20100920,0,6399518.story

<comment><USER2> The problem is not the progressive tax system. How progressive it should be is a legitimate matter to be debated.

The problem is that and middle class pay _far too little_ in taxes, to the point where they happily allow elected officials to overspend. This is entirely rational from their perspective, since the most outrageous spending will only result in a few more dollars of taxes owed over the course of a year. It's known as a collective action problem in economics.

For example, the Iraq war should have cost the typical middle class taxpayer at least $500 in 2001, $500 again in 2002, and so on.

Instead, Bush gave a tax rebate intended to make a large swath of the population ignore the massive cost of the war.

Why shouldn't the average American pay just over $1 per day for a war? Why shouldn't he/she pay just over $1 per day for healthcare? As it stands, both of these were free so why should anyone really give them too much thought?

Bottom line: If the public actually had to pay for the grand schemes, there would be significant pressure not to waste money and taxes for everyone would be far lower than they are today.

To argue against this you either misunderstand my point and thing I'm advocating raising taxes or you think that the public being blind to spending is a good thing.

<comment><USER3> The war is just another form of elitist corporate welfare. Bush sent a bunch of poor uneducated minority kids to war and used them to fight over a country so the corporations can export our jobs to.

Don't kid yourself, the rich love socialism, but only for themselves, not for anyone else.

<comment><USER2> So you would seem to support my argument. Bush's propaganda may have been enough to get the middle class on board to support his wars, but I imagine that if it'd come with a tangible price tag the propaganda would have failed miserably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _For nearly the last decade, I've paid income taxes at the lowest rates of my professional career. Before that, I paid at higher rates. And if you want the simple, honest truth, from my perspective as an entrepreneur, the fluctuation didn't affect what I did with my money. None of my investments has ever been motivated by the rate at which I would have to pay personal income tax._

This is wrong and he's missing the point. It's not important what he feels he's motivated to do, or not do. The important part is that every additional dollar he pays in taxes is one dollar fewer he get's to invest in whatever it is he's motivated to invest in. It's the opportunity cost that we need to evaluate. And a large percentage of every dollar he pays in taxes will be lost in the inefficiencies of large government bureaucracy. He would be able to make much more efficient decisions on how to spend that money himself, and that's what's lost when when he pays a higher tax rate.

<comment><USER5> "he's missing the point"

This is what gets me about a lot of people who argue against anything related to increases in taxes despite the practicality of it. They refuse to look at it in an objective light and take up ideological arguments. Really? A 4% increase on 2% of the population is going to destroy the country? You don't even care about it. It's against your "principles" despite the fact that we're hurting and that makes it wrong.

<comment><USER6> I think you misunderstand those who argue against increases in taxes. The argument is not "principles" but practicality of it. It is never %4 on %2. For instance the "bush tax cuts" would have cut the taxes of the poorest brackets in half, but the democrats wouldn't allow that. That there was %7 on %90 or so.

High taxes are why we're hurting in the first place. It is government that has so damaged our economy. Take the housing bubble, for instance. Ideologues want to pretend that "banks" caused it, but the reality is it was clinton and bush.

During the clinton era, they decided that "lending money only to people who can pay it back is racist" and changed bank regulations to make the "american dream" available to "all". Then under bush, the interest rate-- controlled by the government via the federal reserve-- was lowered below inflation, which means you could borrow money and earn a zero-risk return on it higher than the cost of borrowing. The primary mechanism for this was the housing market.

Thus, housing bubble. Leftists like Krugman praised it claiming that the housing bubble was just what the economy needed. Meanwhile, practical people who understand economics warned against it.

Now, after half a decade of listening to political types claim there was no housing bubble, or that the bankers caused it, you're now claiming we need to raise taxes because its "practical".

I'd like to see you explain how it is practical.

One things for sure, it won't help the economy.

<comment><USER7> The CRA required the _same_ lending standards for good credit risks in minority neighborhoods, not _lower_ standards. And it didn't even apply to the shady mortgage banks who fueled the housing bubble. They were eager to write loans to anyone who could fog a mirror, because they knew they could get a bent rating and dump even the stupidest loan on Wall St.

<comment><USER8> Actually, the CRA has very vague requirements, which led it to be used as a tool in a political process whereby community activists worked to block expansion of banks which did not meet their criteria. When stuck between the requirement that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner and the vocal opposition of politically powerful groups, the regulators did the logical thing in their situation and avoided bad publicity by relaxing standards. In addition, the law was changed to require Fannie and Freddie to do more business in low to moderate income areas in the early 2000s, which defacto reduced their standards and allowed a great deal of crappy subprime paper to be stamped with an implicit (later explicit) government guarantee. If it weren't for this last part, a lot of those loans could not have been securitized. The flood of low quality mortgages did not come as a result of regulatory laxity but of legislative intent, and that is the story that is not being told.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm poor, tax me less.</comment>


From Web to WebGL: A Guide for Web Developers Entering the Third Dimension - <AUTHOR> https://tsherif.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/from-web-to-webgl-a-guide-for-web-developers-entering-the-third-dimension/ <comment><USER3> If you're a web developer looking to leave web and become a graphics programmer this is a great guide. If you're not, and you're a web developer looking to use a new technology without the headache of learning a huge amount of maths, just use three.js and let it handle the hard stuff. It's brilliant.

You'll have to sacrifice a little speed, but it's more than fast enough - <USER2> an example I used three.js to make a visualisation to plot 45,000 meteorite strikes on a globe this morning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Three.js is a great library. I used it for BrainBrowser, the neurology project I mentioned in the post. But I disagree with the attitude that because a great library exists to do something, you shouldn't learn how to do that thing yourself. It's like saying that because jQuery exists, web devs shouldn't learn how to manipulate the DOM directly. Part of my reasoning is that I think using these libraries effectively for anything non-trivial requires an understanding of how they work. The other part is that the more people understand how an open-source library works, the more they can contribute and make it better.</comment></comment>


The Nerd as the Norm - <AUTHOR> https://everythingstudies.com/2017/11/07/the-nerd-as-the-norm/ <comment><USER2> From the first link, this part is so relatable :

"They'll stop going to the company picnic if it becomes an occasion for everyone to list all the computer problems they never bothered to mention before."

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't really think his concept of a nerd works, since he lumps in lots of extraneous charateristics and values.

I think a more explanatory description would be, a nerd is somebody who is primarily interested in technical questions. That predisposes nerds to avoid ambiguity - but by no means excludes nerds like literature professors, who are absolutely obsessed with ambiguity.

It's generally a better idea to categorise people by priorities, as opposed to preferences - since preferences tend to be very variable.

<comment><USER4> I think there's several sub-categories in the nerd culture. Geeks, Dweebs, Nerds, etc.

I think Geeks are the literature/pop culture equivalent of nerds. Whereas nerds deal with more scientific obsessions Geeks deal with more cultural obsessions.

Here's a Nerd/Dweeb/Geek Venn diagram.

[https://www.popsugar.com/tech/Geek-vs-Nerd-vs-Dork-vs- Dweeb-...](https://www.popsugar.com/tech/Geek-vs-Nerd-vs-Dork-vs- Dweeb-8177870)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _It would be nice to have nerdy interests and sensibilities be the norm for > once; to get to feel as if society is organized with me in mind, and not > feel a bit like an anthropologist observing an alien civilization._

For real though...

</comment><comment><USER6> "Nobody is going to respect you for having feelings."

Funny, the inverse world.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love the idea of a name for non-nerds, but don't know how to pronounce "wamb" \- is the b silent as in lamb?

<comment><USER8> Perhaps "dren" would be a better term?

<comment><USER9> Such vulgarity!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why even try to show there is a "norm" as opposed to a multimodal distribution of traits?

These are probably different peaks in the spectrum. Unfortunately, this truth runs counter to people who want to control everyone... or at least predict.

The description of the anti-nerd would completely fall apart in Asian culture for instance.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great article. Very clever the flipping of the traits.

</comment><comment><USER11> really interesting piece.</comment>


The Story of a Rust Bug - <AUTHOR> https://thesquareplanet.com/blog/the-story-of-a-rust-bug/ <comment><USER2> Originally posted as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14313854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14313854)</comment>


Ether.Сamp Launches 2016 Hackathon in Totally Different Dimension - <AUTHOR> https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethercamp-launches-2016-hackathon-in-totally-different-dimension <comment><USER2> Registered and waiting to meet the team and other participants in the launch party on the 15th.

<comment><USER3> Great, we look forward to seeing you...Come say hi, the beers are on us!!</comment></comment>


System Integrity Management Platform (SIMP) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/SIMP <comment><USER2> As per other NSA released projects like selinux, I'm sure people here will doubt the intentions behind this project. I have only had a bit of time to look it over so far, but it looks pretty neat. I think we need to remember before doubting this, that the intentions of the NSA for the most part are to protect American citizens and businesses. Releasing tools to help them further this are generally in interest of that.

I'm sure there is some way for them to get through tools like selinux if they encounter it, but for that particular toolkit I'm sure that any potential pitfalls in that respect are far outweighed by the standard criminal hackers or state sponsored attackers, having a harder time breaking your systems.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's groups in NSA that periodically release things to benefit government and industry. This is probably one of them. It looks like the kind of straight-forward thing a small team in government would put together. However, we also know the organization poisons solutions. So, I'd either review and rebuild from 3rd party source anything in this project; or avoid it in favor of a solution from a provider with a different mission.

Besides, I'm sure the cloud and IT security communities have published better stuff elsewhere given the difficulties. If anything, NSA's IT seems behind the times again.

</comment><comment><USER4> The headline misses the most interesting part: This is released by the NSA.</comment>


The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-would-teach-machines-to-think/309529/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Date: 2013</comment>


Exercise 'doesn't slow' progression of dementia if you already have dementia - open-source-ux https://www.nhs.uk/news/older-people/exercise-doesnt-slow-progression-dementia/ <comment><AUTHOR> To me the interesting bit is the underlying study showed exercise _increased_ the dementia's progression and was actually harmful. What mechansism's behind that result?

Having gone through three parents+in laws including one we actively caretook in home with this terrible disease I'm not surprised. The progression seemed unstoppable and sickened us while not aiding the parents. The allusion to the victim in a train barrelling through a dark increasingly confusing countryside is so apt.

<comment><USER2> > To me the interesting bit is the underlying study showed exercise increased > the dementia's progression and was actually harmful. What mechansism's > behind that result?

I'm no expert, but the association I had was a podcast I listened once with someone interested in life extension (I think it was on a Tim Ferriss podcast). They spoke about "mTOR activation" (IIRC), the basic idea was that _having_ muscles is good (because they increase the need for glucose, helping the pancreas and the liver in regulating it), but _building_ muscles is potentially harmful, because it causes a release of growth hormone, and essentially speeds up metabolism (and hence aging).

Don't quote me on this, and I'm sure there's better sources of this information out there than me. Does this ring a bell to anyone?

<comment><USER3> Exercise causes the body to produce more anti-oxidants to counteract the greater oxidative stress that comes from faster metabolism, thus preventing aging over time.

<comment><USER4> It's really not clear whether antioxidants slow down aging.

<comment><USER3> Well it's not really clear if faster metabolisms speed up aging in humans either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting one (referring to the title itself and its broad message, rather than actual details which many will never read) -- because: part of me is happy to see actual research reported, regardless of how positive/negative it is to us as humans, possibly helping to balance out a lot of the (perceived) over-reporting of "x may be the cure to y". Of course, the other part of me is sad, because it likely triggers a lot of people to make false decisions (exercise is a chore to many, including me), and it's super easy to mute that motivation-to-exercise with a quick "I read it's not as healthy as they said it was anyway, so...". Considering the context people will be reading a highly-editorialsed version of this in the form of trashy glam magazines, side-columns and Facebook shares in month's time, that is.

<comment><USER6> I hope people see what this research is really showing, and that it's accurately reported.

They're pretty clear that exercise can help prevent people getting dementia.

What this research shows is that once you have dementia exercise doesn't do much to slow it down.

<comment><USER7> Or it could be the people that exercise in later life are not drawn from the same pool of people that go on to get dementia.

<comment><USER8> Or they forgot to exercise.

<comment><USER7> Given the lead time to dementia this is not so outlandish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find this phenomenon similar to many other diseases. A certain diet or lifestyle works wonders in preventing it. But if you have it, there is little you can do to treat it outside of medical treatment. Eg diabetes, kidney failure, cancer.

<comment><USER10> This is not only an important point in itself, but could be an interesting way to look at medicine: to model it as a process where something overflows. (I don't know what I mean more precisely than that.)

<comment><USER9> Like a waterfall. Once you're over the edge, it's an entirely different ball game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _It 's important to note this does not change what we know about exercise's > ability to protect against dementia. People who exercise more are less > likely to get dementia, possibly because it maintains blood flow to the > brain._

Exercise can delay the _onset_ of dementia. I wasn't aware it has been claimed to slow its progress.

<comment><USER12> This makes me wonder if there are easier ways to get more blood flow to the brain and enjoy the protective benefit, such as sleeping with your legs up every night, or showering with very warm water every morning and evening.

<comment><USER13> There is considerable nervous system involvement in safe exercise. I wonder if playing a twitchy video game would have similar cognitive effects. If hand-eye coordination can improve in teens, I don't see why it can't improve in dementia patients and improved coordination might mask some symptoms.

The assumption is exercise results in higher blood flow which does "something". I know its easier to concentrate when you have practice concentrating, and for many boring people, exercise might be their only daily experience with concentrating, aside from the rare occasional dementia testing. Possibly forcing concentration on a regular basis (via exercise, or whatever alternative) results in better cognitive test results.

I suppose a lot depends on defining exercise as staring at a TV while walking on a treadmill vs playing racquetball.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In all honesty, I'm surprised to find that exercise is not beneficial to _something._ In seemingly every case, living+exercise > living. I'm sure these researchers were thinking the same when they designed the study.

"Is he in bad shape? Eh, chuck in some exercise, that's gotta help."

</comment><comment><USER15> >The researchers said their exercise programme "does not slow cognitive decline in people with mild to moderate dementia".

> They were recruited through memory clinics – specialist services that help > people who have problems with their memory – and GP surgeries. Carers were > asked to take the decision on behalf of people whose dementia meant they > were unable to.

I think we have to be very careful about what these researchers characterize as "mild to moderate dementia". I would contend that people who are forced to seek professional help - let alone those who are unable to make decisions for themselves, are beyond the point of "mild to moderate dementia". A good argument could be made that the vast majority of people with "mild" dementia are not under professional care and do not require a caretaker to make decisions for them. They are forgetful, absentminded, and/or showing other "mild" symptoms of dementia.

<comment><USER16> Caregiver informed consent (and participant assent) for research is common when working with populations with significant cognitive impairment. Human research review committees essentially always require that to protect participants.

You're certainly right that lots of people with early stage dementia are community living and not diagnosed.

<comment><USER15> >populations with significant cognitive impairment.

"Significant cognitive impairment" should not be characterized as, "mild dementia". If it is too difficult to recruit people with mild dementia for a study, then they should report their results as being relevent to only those with "moderate" dementia.

<comment><USER16> The diagnostic criteria for mild dementia are significant cognitive impairment that interferes with activities of everyday living. There are plenty of people still living at home with a caregiver/spouse, and people living at home on their own that meet these criteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From the article:

> It's important to note this does not change what we know about exercise's > ability to protect against dementia. People who exercise more are less > likely to get dementia, possibly because it maintains blood flow to the > brain.

> However, once the brain has been damaged by dementia, exercise may not help > prevent further damage.

<comment><USER18> After reading the study, it seems like they just made some people aged over 70, with progressed dementia, get light exercise twice a week for 4 months. That's it.

Unsurprisingly, there wasn't much of a difference.

Personally I'm pissed at the way this study is presented. It makes a lot of people falsely assume that exercise is useless, while it's definitely not.

Unless you have one foot in the grave and more than mild dementia, exercise is probably still good for you. In fact the study concludes nothing for longer periods or different modes of exercise, even for people this old and with dementia already onset.

Sending an old man to the gym for "mild-to-moderate intensity" aerobic exercise is a bad idea in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "People who exercise more are less likely to get dementia, possibly because it maintains blood flow to the brain. "

Or, perhaps, people who are able to exercise and have the drive and foresight to exercise regularly for years don't have early stages of dementia. Unless a study has been done that randomized persons at age 40-50 to 'exercise' and "no exercise" groups, and followed them for 30-40 years, this is a hard question to answer. Following groups of people who self-sort themselves into exercisers and non-exercisers does not answer this question, as the exerciser group may include less early-dementia persons (ie those 20-30 years from a clinical diagnosis, but who may be experiencing early behavioral changes that are not diagnostic).

</comment><comment><USER20> A vegan diet does.

<comment><USER21> [citation needed]

<comment><USER20> [https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.livekindly.co/cnn-plant- base...](https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.livekindly.co/cnn-plant-based- dementia-prevention/amp/)

<comment><USER22> Ah yes, livekindly.co and the freelance journalist. The CNN article that's the meat (hah) and potatoes of that link suggests that it's not a vegan but a Mediterranean style diet with some dairy and also chicken, turkey, and fish included.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/110296](https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/110296)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Second Life is over, someone needs to tell Cisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/ciscos_john_chambers_in_second_life

<comment><USER2> Second Life has fried one of my Thinkpads (the video card blew up) and my T60p just can't install it for some reason.</comment>


The Death Treatment (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-death-treatment <comment><AUTHOR> I used to unequivocally support the right to euthanasia, but as I learned more about it, I realized it was a complex issue, without simple black and white answers.

One of the stories that made me reconsider my position was about a young man who was severely burned in an accident which also killed his father. He spent a long time in the burn ward, and was completely disfigured and disabled. He was in constant agony and felt he had nothing to live for.

He made a video about himself called "Let Me Die", and submitted it to his state's legislature, begging them to allow him to legally end his own life. His appeal was denied, his injuries eventually healed (to the extent that he was no longer in the burn ward, not completely), he was glad that he lived, and went on to a career of educating others about these issues.

Another story that affected me was about some island where the population discovered a readily available fruit that grew on trees on the island was deadly. So they had a rash of suicides, with teenagers killing themselves because they were told by their parents to clean their rooms or some such.

I may be confusing bits of that last story with some others that I've read. But I have read multiple stories of teenagers killing themselves over things that most mature adults consider trivial and blown out of proportion by teenage angst that the kids would most likely would have been able to put behind them as they got older, if only they hadn't killed themselves.

There are legitimate concerns about autonomy, self-determination, and paternalism. I'm the first to admit those are serious concerns, and in some extreme cases the decision to allow or even help someone take their own life is clearly ethical. But there are also a lot of cases where the ethics of the situation are not so clear-cut, and I find it disturbing that some people are so dogmatic about their position that they can't see any dillema, are unwilling to seek other ways of helping or alleviating these people's suffering, and seem to view suicide as the default answer to difficult situations.

I'm also disturbed to hear that Etienne Vermeersch, a philosopher of ethics and "the most influential intellectual in Flanders", can confidently proclaim that Belgium "stands, ethically, at the top of the world." This smacks of hubris, and is unworthy of a man or nation so distinguished.

<comment><USER2> The state of our body affects our mental state. Everyone has experienced that awkward hungry angry time that makes people a little crazy. I can't imagine the horror of being a burn victim. I agree, perhaps people in horrible pain can't actually make those decisions for themselves. The pain makes them insane.

I feel like you're arguing from the exception though. This one person suffered and made it, but i think many others suffer and do not make it. There are also others who suffer, but want to continue.

I think there's room for the state to have a limited override. It's clear this person is miserable, but the doctors are sure the misery is temporary, ok. Give doctors the power to override the patients wish for some limited time.

My personal experience is the opposite extreme. There was nothing doctors could do. My relative was stuck in a hospital for about 3 weeks before she let go. Doing that to a dog would be considered torture. I think this case is much much more common than the complete recovery you described.

IMHO, people who want to live, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, should be cared for as well as possible. People who do not want to live, who's chances are very slim, should be given the option.

<comment> nommm-nommm How would it be torture go keep a dog in the hospital for three weeks?

<comment><USER2> The pain medication didn't keep up with the pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I tend to support euthanasia, but its practice in that article scares me.

I guess I believe that people ultimately do have a responsibility to others. Her son did not ask to be born and Tom's quote "You've just taken away the suffering of one person and transposed it to another!" convinces me that euthanasia is not as clean as we might believe. What if Tom having suffered this triggering event and having a genetic predisposition to depression applies for euthanasia? It seems euthanasia for the whole family is ethically above board in Belgium, but I still feel that outcome is unacceptable.

The only thing that really bothers me is that so many ethicists in Belgium (as far as this article describes) believe this is clear cut. I generally don't have too many disagreements with most concepts of western philosophy, but if this is the end result of the application of self-determination, I definitely have plenty of reservations.

Finding out that your parent committed suicide after the fact is just unacceptable to me, especially because the parent in this article did honestly express to the doctor that she cares for them.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that I agree with your belief that voluntary termination (I prefer that term over euthanasia) can ever be clean. It is a process that is necessarily fraught with pain, even if that pain isn't visible on the outside. I'd like to believe that no doctor would take such a decision lightly, but that of course is hard to ascertain.

I do agree with your sentiment about the ethicists. The article paints a picture like the review boards and experts are closing ranks against the "outside world". It's somewhat understandable given that these are considered hard-won "victories" by the humanist camp and still under constant pressure, but it reduces transparency in an area that absolutely requires both transparency and accountability. It's almost like regulatory capture: it encourages practitioners to play it fast and loose knowing they will be backed, and that should not be allowed.

However, in this particularly case: I understand it can be very hard for next- of-kin to learn that someone close has chosen to die, and that they were not involved in the process. I've watched it happen twice from somewhat nearby, and I certainly hope never to experience it any closer. The anger, hurt and guilt from not being included in such a life-altering decision can be enormous.

At the same time, I don't see how drawing more people into the situation should be up to the physician; that choice too should be squarely in the patient's hands. For me it is enough that the doctor suggested she should contact her children.

For me, the bigger question is why these doctors felt qualified to assess her wish: it does not sound like any of the doctors that approved her request had more than a cursory involvement in her (long-term) treatment.

<comment> nommm-nommm >For me, the bigger question is why these doctors felt qualified to assess her wish: it does not sound like any of the doctors that approved her request had more than a cursory involvement in her (long-term) treatment.

Big problem. Doctor shopping is a big issue in euthanasia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Terry Pratchett made a very interesting documentary on the subject, titled: Choosing to Die. Here's a link to the documentary: [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnu340_terry-pratchett- choo...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnu340_terry-pratchett-choosing-to- die_shortfilms) \- while it lasts, I guess.

It covers the Dignitas[1] facility in Switzerland, which specializes in euthanasia (eu = good & thanatos = death), mostly for the wealthy ... if I remember correctly. It's one heck of a subject and the above documentary really hit me quite hard. For those interested in the subject (hopefully not the action), you might also find Exit International[2] pretty intriguing.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignitas_%28Swiss_non- profit_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignitas_%28Swiss_non- profit_organisation%29) 2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_International)

<comment><USER6> I'm going to have to start using the word "dysthanasia" as a euphemism more often. (dysphemism?)

<comment><USER5> Well, just avoid " _Dis_ thanasia", as I just learned of an actual Dis, which might be confused with Orcus, some deity of the underworld. I play linguist and get pushed down a Greek rabbit hole...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Old and dependent people might be pressured by their families into agreeing to euthanasia. After reading this article i think that they don't have enough safeguards that could prevent such a scenario from happening. I have come to think that any framework that allows for euthanasia is creating the possibility of abuse in similar situations. The physician in the article kept referring to the free will of the patient; now Free will in personal matters is not an absolute entity, in practice it may quite often be limited/influenced/determined by ones environment.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am a proponent of Euthanasia but regulating it in a way that prevents abuse is extremely tricky and I think there should be a lot of transparency for the remaining family who should be informed and have the right to know who made the decision and how the decision was made.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you believe there should be any limits placed on legal euthanasia? Such as who can get it or why? Are mentally ill people capable of deciding of what's in their best interests? Children?

If children are allowed legal euthanasia, should they be able to decide independent of their parents or guardians? Could their parents or guardians so decide without the child's consent? Should there be any age limit at all?

<comment><USER8> As I said. I don't have all the answers. I can see that the system in place in Belgium has some issues and I believe that there while it's important to have legal euthanasia, there's a huge potential of abuses and it's important to find a way to prevent abuses...

So, yes, all the questions you ask are really good ones. And, exactly mentally ill people and children are two categories ripe for abuse and where there needs to be tight regulations. It's extremely complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Few days ago I went through some surgery. During the recover I didn't get all the drugs I was supposed to. Then I learnt what pain is. How much pain you can feel if you don't have your dose of morphine.

It made me think a lot. I knew my pain would go away, there were drugs for it, etc. But and those who are suffering a great pain, with no drug making effect to reduce it, and knowing that the time is coming?

It's not humane not to provide an end for those who want it, those who are suffering and the end is near.

It was not my case. But I'm sure it's the case of someone else.

</comment><comment><USER10> A note on terminology: "euthanasia" is something you do to somebody/something. Euthanize is a transitive verb. You euthanize a pet.

I firmly believe in the right of anybody, for any reason, to self-terminate. But that's not euthanasia. When we start getting society involved in the business of terminating people who request it? It's another level of moral and utilitarian complexity.

I think a lot of folks are mixing it all together and demanding that my right to self-terminate should force the doctor down the street to help out. These two things do not have to be related. People have been offing themselves for eons. They will continue doing so without the medical establishment.

I don't have any easy answers for what society should do for the mentally ill. It seems obvious to me, however, that we should certainly be able to provide food, housing, and medical treatment to them before we'd consider setting up a system to euthanize them.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" I firmly believe in the right of anybody, for any reason, to self- terminate."_

So if your child was about to jump out a window or run in to a busy street you wouldn't try to stop them?

<comment><USER11> It's interesting that you jump directly to that interpretation. I would have interpreted it to mean that GP believes that the state should not restrict the right of an adult of sound-mind to self-terminate. Given the nature of the state, there would probably be forms and evaluations.

Even if I were to agree with GP, I'd probably still stop my friend high on ketamine from walking in front of a bus (if he actually exists, that is).

<comment><USER12> "anybody, for any reason" is extremely inclusive. You could argue that they meant "an adult of sound mind", or some other somewhat reasonable thing, but that's not what they said. Without a clearer specification, I think it's reasonable to push at the the edge cases to try to figure out what exactly they meant, and what limits (if any) they might like to add.

<comment><USER11> Oh, I agree. When I read GP, I was actually a bit confounded by how my reading was so automatically self-limiting.

<comment><USER10> Thanks guys. I meant adult of sound mind.

I was going to correct or reply, but I felt it would be more useful to the forum to have folks push the edges and discuss them.

I don't claim to have an in-depth analysis of those edge cases. As a suggested place to start, if the state feels that you are able to live on your own -- provide yourself food and clothing, make choices about your location and lifestyle -- you should probably be able to make the decision to self terminate. Or rather, you are able to do that whether we like it or not, the question is really whether or not we feel we should use force to stop you. I don't think we should.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have read about parents begging for euthanasia before I think - in notes about poster parents of the nazi empire or something.

</comment><comment><USER14> The author makes Tom out to be a loving son, but the mother writes a note to him saying that there was a rift between them and he didn't return her love. C'mon Tom, you spend your life ignoring your mother, then she's gone and _now_ you care about her life?

This was a bit of a hit-piece on euthanasia, but also a lesson to spend time with your family before the inevitable happens (whether intentional or not).

<comment><AUTHOR> _" you spend your life ignoring your mother, then she's gone and now you care about her life?"_

Sometime you don't realize what you have until it's gone, as the old saying goes.

Besides, whatever emotional or psychological issues existed between this person and his mother, they don't discredit the central points of this article, which were to bring attention to the complexities surrounding the question of euthanasia, to question whether euthanasia is being performed in cases which aren't hopeless after all, and to ask at what point should euthanasia be legally permitted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "Who am I to convince patients that they have to suffer longer than they > want?"

One wonders who he is to convince them that they may end their suffering.

I think that there's something very cold about a society which says, 'on net, the world is better without you in it' not to someone who is a murderer, rapist or traitor but to someone who is depressed or afflicted with cancer.

> Last year, De Standaard, a prominent Flemish newspaper, published a long > tribute to a depressed mother who was euthanized after being abandoned by > her boyfriend and becoming disillusioned by her psychiatric care. "I am > forever grateful to her that she handled this so well," her twenty-four- > year-old son told the paper. "I am so glad we were able to say goodbye in a > beautiful way."

One wonders if the son attempted to support his mother in life, rather than tell her goodbye.

> On the morning on which the euthanasia was scheduled, Boeykens's daughter, > Kerstin, said that she called De Deyn, crying, and begged him to move her > mother's 9 A.M. appointment a few hours later, so that she would have time > to drop her children off at school and then drive to the clinic. But De Deyn > said that he was booked for the rest of the day. (De Deyn denies that this > happened.) Records show that Boeykens died at 9:20 A.M., at which point De > Deyn removed her brain and performed an autopsy.

I don't really know if there's anything more to add to this vignette. It's like something out of Brave New World (a book which, incidentally, I've always found far more prophetic than 1984).

<comment><USER16> Your whole comment is kinda coming across as searching for the worst possible interpretations of statements so you can attack the person delivering them and hope it'll rub off on the argument. Maybe don't do that?

 _One wonders if the son attempted to support his mother in life, rather than tell her goodbye._

Also: when my mother was diagnosed with (terminal) cancer, she tried the treatments at first. Chemo, radiation, everything. Doctors told her at best it might buy her a few more months.

After learning what those treatments would do to her, she made the decision that a few months of _that_ wasn't worth it, and stopped treatment. Do you think it was my job as a son to try to force her to continue, out of "support" for her?

<comment><USER15> > Do you think it was my job as a son to try to force her to continue, out of > "support" for her?

No; there's a major difference between refusing further treatment and pursuing suicide.

<comment><USER17> There is not really. Refusing euthanasia to a cancer patient is essentially a sentence to a painful death or morphine overdose if that even works as a pain killer. The latter is a bit better but not too much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Bloggers, what are your tips? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to start a technical blog but I'm afraid to get started.
What about frequency of new articles ? Topics ? Internationalization (for non-English) ?<p>This is not for money and popularity, just for passion. <comment><USER2> This is a topic I suspect many people are interested in, and thinking about. There is also a lot of information out there. In terms of frequency, there seems to be no upper limit to what is good, but there is a diminishing return curve:

[http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency- benchma...](http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency-benchmarks)

And best time of day and day of week:

[http://coschedule.com/blog/best-time-to-publish-a-blog- post/](http://coschedule.com/blog/best-time-to-publish-a-blog-post/)

Note that you can still tweet or facebook the blog after it is posted, and the tweet and facebook schedule may be more relevant since that is likely how people will find it.

The thing that I really wonder about: how do you find the time to produce something good. To write even once a week you have to find a topic, think about it, write about it and then edit it.

<comment><USER3> Note that those are the best day/time _they 've_ found to post. Everyone's audiences are different, even within the same industry. Start with the average and tweak it to be optimized with your specific use case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lots of people start blogs, publish a ton of articles, don't get the traction off the bat that they are expecting, and it slowly/quickly dies. Start small. Consistently publish (whatever you can handle in terms of pace, but 1-2 articles a week published at 9am is a good start). Specializing in a niche is huge; it keeps your blog focused, and if you do a good job, people will look to you as an influencer in that space.

Getting out there on Twitter/Reddit and building a following go without saying.

This is from my experience (I run a successful sports blog, and currently launching two other ones with the same model).

Good luck!

Edit: added 'Good luck!'

</comment><comment><USER5> Frequency: You should probably shoot for at least twice a week.

Topics: Things you know well or have a keen interest in.

Internationalization: Try to learn how to avoid being implicitly exclusive and you should be okay. This will take some time, but is well worth learning about.

Passion: Figure out what you are getting out of it and if you aren't getting enough out of it, figure out what you want to get out of it and set some goals. It helps to get some feedback from somewhere. What kind and how much you need for this to be functional will depend on a lot of factors.

Be wary of overvaluing the feedback from "loud minorities." In other words, the biggest critics you have may not be representative. There may be a largely silent majority that likes what you do just fine. You need to figure out how to connect to them as best you can and get some kind of feedback that is meaningful and useful for you personally.

</comment><comment><USER6> I tech blog on my site -

[https://glenware.wordpress.com/](https://glenware.wordpress.com/)

The main reason i do it is to record and share my understanding of things, and it acts as my engineers notebook

I'm quite happy when it gets even one visitor, but if you want traffic then write articles on problems that have required a bit of work. Also new technologies can drive traffic

</comment><comment><USER7> Share excitement about products/technologies/vendors you love. This will bring you traffic, links, connections and possibly money.</comment>


Why Management is Not a Profession - <AUTHOR> http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/more-evidence-t.html

<comment><USER2> I have slowly been coming to the realization that just as the internet is doing its creative destruction thing on many obvious institutions (book distribution, music distribution, etc.) there are a lot more areas where it applies equally, although much less obviously.

Management as a career is one of those areas. Really, the whole need for managers (especially "middle" managers) is to maintain a line of communication between the leader of an organization and its producers/workers. Doesn't the internet make this type of job obsolete? In an efficient pipeline (of information), aren't they just bottlenecks?

We're certainly not there yet, quite possibly still a long way away, but once we get to the point where dissemination of pertinent information is at maximum efficiency, we won't need these arbiters of information in the system anymore.

I think this ties in to PG's thoughts on people not being meant to have a boss (<http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html>) as well as Berners-Lee's talk at TED about getting information onto the internet in as raw a form as possible.

<comment><USER3> You make a great point and I do agree to a certain extent. However, there have been some projects I've worked on where having a great manager made all the difference in the world. Having someone that deals with all of the non- technical minutia so that programmers can keep building stuff is really valuable IMHO.

Maybe software could fulfill this role one day, but as you say we're not there yet.

It may be that I'm getting too old and cynical, but when I hear arguments about eliminating the middle-man I can't help but think of a quote from Malcolm Reynolds in the show Firefly:

"About 50% of the human race is middlemen and they don't take kindly to being eliminated."

<comment><USER2> I agree completely with the quote. I may have been reading too much techdirt lately, but I believe that's pretty obviously the case with the RIAA and the rest of the entertainment industry trying to clamp down on file-sharing.

Taken to it's logical extreme, there are some other pretty radical examples of "middlemen":

* universities (another PG example, <http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html>) * banks * financial regulators (see: xbrl) * lawmaking bodies * large corporations * etc.

Are we ready for this kind of disruption? I have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In some way I think you need some form of middle-like management once an organisation gets beyond a certain size. I know Joel Spolsky has mentioned it and I agree with his reasoning. ([http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/how- hard-could-it-be-ho...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/how-hard-could- it-be-how-i-learned-to-love-middle-managers.html))

I can even see it at the startup I'm currently at. Even though the CEO/COO's door has always been "open", it's been harder and harder to enter it as the size of the company has increased. It's not a physical barrier, although the C*O's are busier now, but a psychological one in most cases, where once is (I don't want to say it but) afraid or cautious in disturbing the busy individual.

That being said the quality of the person being the manager is probably the most important detail. I can see that in the company I'm in. In the group I'm in we have a really good manager, one that's able to gather our grievances and ideas and present them to the higher ups. While the other group has a pretty lack lustre manager. The difference in morale, job satisfaction, and employee retention are striking. But none of these managers have an MBA.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a real shame, actually, because managers are essential to any project or large organisation.

However, in my experience, there are really many different kinds of managers (the term "manager" covers an enormous range of people), and not all of them are simply attempting to suck a living out of their customers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hmm, the title is a bit misleading because I thought it applied to managers in general. The best managers I've known are ones who care about their team (developers in my case) and that output in regards to the business. As part of that, they also care about product quality and customer satisfaction. Of course, these people whom I hold in high regards also never had MBA's. I recently told my friend who is going for one: "Don't become an asshole". An unhealthy focus on profiteering seems to lead there.

</comment><comment><USER7> although mentioned in the article, this article by jeffrey-pfeffer et al. (<http://www.aomonline.org/Publications/Articles/BSchools.asp>) is very, very good.</comment>


European commission backs Merkel's call for tougher data protection laws - k-mcgrady http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/15/european-commission-angela-merkel-data-protection

<comment><AUTHOR> Please take note: Merkel has behaved extremely apathetic considering that she is in the middle of a reelection campaign. This has multiple reasons, one of which is that her ideological compass indicates that "staunch support" for whatever the US does is always the right answer. For example, she always supported the Iraq invasion. Fortunately she wasn't the chancellor then.

What we see here is the absolute minimum she thinks she can get away with. However, since the criticism over here of her inactivity (and complicity) is only getting started, the situation might push her to go further than that.

<comment><USER2> Seconded. I'm also completely flabbergasted that she still claims to have known nothing of it as well as other high ranking politicians, despite the known involvement of the BND.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> At the same time, Germany's interior minister Friedrich visited the US allegedly to complain or inquire about the NSA spying, but in reality he discussed broader cooperation around PRISM and possibly more extensive access for the BND (in German: [http://www.golem.de/news/bundesinnenminister-beim-us- besuch-...](http://www.golem.de/news/bundesinnenminister-beim-us-besuch- weitere-kooperation-zu-prism-vereinbart-1307-100379.html)).

</comment><comment><USER4> The BND (German intelligence agency) has made use of the NSA data. But so far, they're saying it was just for locating German citizens who had been kidnapped abroad.

<comment><USER5> Similar (official) reason to why data retention for cell phone location data exists in Austria: To locate mountaineers who got lost in the Alps.

<comment><USER6> Well, us Germans like to joke that the Swiss are a bit on the slow side, so from them I'd buy keeping data around for 6 months for that reason.

But what's your excuse ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> All this European posturing is just that, posturing, but it's the worst of possible worlds for Obama: be it in a friendly or hostile manner, every European government can now ask for _favours_ in order to turn a blind eye to the whole mess.

Most politicians will likely ask for increased data-sharing agreements _under the table_ , while publicly decrying the sorry state of things. The EC can be a real threat for US businesses, which is why Merkel and friends needed this statement: it's the big stick to bring to the table while we speak softly to our American friends.

<comment><USER8> You're falsely assuming Obama gives a crap about how the EU reacts to the Snowden leaks. The whole point of spycraft is that it happens clandestinely.

<comment><USER7> And the whole point of diplomacy is that it produces _public_ trade agreements.

<comment><USER9> Ah, but didn't the US also pioneer secret trade agreements?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't her call addressing the wrong problem? She should be mad at the US government about the illegal wiretapping of Internet communication, instead of accusing and punishing US Internet companies for something they don't have a say into or cannot even talk about.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bureaucracy in action.

So now, EC wants American companies to tell them "what you do with the data", by law.

American law states the contrary "whatever we do is secret, you can't tell anybody, or we will send you a SWAT team to your house, and imprison you forever. Foreigners are adversaries, enemies...you are a patriot if you collaborate, a traitor if you don't, like Snowden"

Who is going to win? Obviously what happens in FB or Google headquarters is unknown to the bureaucrats, so they will continue, they are Americans after all.

<comment><USER9> I can see FB and Google splitting into a US-based main company and an EU-based subsidiary. EU users will be handled by the EU company and US users by the US company.

<comment><USER12> ...and every time the US based company prepares a new version, we can wait a few months until all the paper work had been filled out and the EU has approved it. Go VPN...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What do you want to bet these data protection laws will do a better job of protecting authorities, than they will "protecting" users?

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know whether to upvote this or not. On one hand I want tougher data protection laws, on the other hand I'm pretty sure Merkel is just "pretending" to want this to win the election (much like Obama did).

<comment><USER15> Who cares why she's doing it? You don't vote on motivations, you vote on positions because those are the only objective criteria you can hold (or attempt to hold) a politician to. Betting on motivation is a receipe for political weakness.

I supported Obama but I knew perfectly well that he was a security hawk because _he said so._ He stated perfectly clearly that we was willing to impinge on other countries' sovereignty in pursuit of his national security objectives and stuck to that position under criticism from other candidates. People that express surprise about his policy choices clearly didn't listen to what he was saying, but told themselves fairy stories about what he 'meant.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What do internet companies have to do with tapped cables?

<comment><USER17> Nothing. As a German I have the right to obtain a copy of all personal information that public authorities (§ 19 BDSG) or companies (§ 34 BDSG) store about me - for free. There are similar laws on the EU level.

The problem is that U.S. companies, even if they have their headquarter in Europe (like Facebook in Dublin) just don't care. You can read more about that on the Europe vs Facebook page. [http://europe-v-facebook.org/](http://europe- v-facebook.org/)

<comment><USER16> My point is that this is a red herring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Although Merkel is just being opportunistic, I'm optimistic that, like with ACTA, we are slowly seeing that the complete sell-out of European civil rights to US interests is no longer politically sustainable.

Whether they mean it or not, the fact that the staunchest supporters of the US feel the political need to speak out is significant in itself.

The US has gone a bridge to far by treating the citizens of a friendly nations as the enemy.</comment>