Facebook must kill its news feed. Democracy depends on it - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/facebook-should-kill-its-news-feed-heres-why-7faf0cb15289 <comment><USER2> If democracy is threatened by a simple automated news feed then it's doomed to fail anyway.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The next Facebook news feed will just fill the void, and people who blindly believe what they are exposed to will be in the same situation. Killing Facebook news feed is trying to treat the symptom while completely ignoring the disease.

<comment><USER4> Magnifying gossip is the issue. It's almost as if we need a few thousand people or AI with really good domain knowlege and common sense whom can somehow handle moderating the onslaught of conspiracy theories, rumors and general BS. Seems very difficult to scale on the tech side. We might be better off finding a path to building in-real life communities whom can educate each other and discuss such things civilly.

<comment><USER5> In theory I agree, but in practice people are much more emotional than we like to admit, and we come with loads of baggage in the form of preconceptions, presuppositions, and ideologies. We also have a tendency to be wrong about things sometimes (to err is human?), even in fields where we have expertise.

Could AI fix this for us? Maybe. AI isn't entirely free of the bias of its creators tho. As far as solutions to magnifying gossip and fake news, I don't really have an answer. Perhaps you are on the right track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of this technology is new and awareness among the general public is quite low. Give it some more time and people will just ignore most of this stuff (and probably leave facebook also). Give it 2-5 years and my guess is that this fad of deriving news from social media will go away.

<comment><USER7> Personally I've started to view facebooks feed (and others) as being indistinguishable from tabloids, like the National Enquirer here in the states. Grandmother gives birth to triplets! Honeymooners abducted by aliens! What I read there is not to be trusted, it's not a reliable source. Same goes for yahoo, msn, etc. Local news is a little better, but still sensational and salacious. If I want news online I go to Bloomberg, bbc, etc.

<comment><USER6> You said it much better than I did :-) People will understand over time this is tabloid news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OK, so Facebook kills the home feed tomorrow. What replaces this?

Human-curated news? Either it'll be fast enough that people get sloppy with facts, or it'll be slow enough that people move to faster sources. Clickbait wins.

Another site? Most other sites (Google News, Quora, whatever) use clicks as an important measure of interestingness. Clickbait wins.

Broadcast TV? Have you seen what the networks do when the facts are scarce and the topic is urgent?

Eventually this all gets sorted. In the moment, fake news always wins, especially if there are organizations that are invested in producing it. That's fine. The trick is to help real, verifiable news and level-headed analysis propagate as it comes out as well.

It's a solved problem via reputation, but we've collectively decided that reputation isn't that important in the last 15 years. It's an open but in- progress question for ML / AI. There are probably other models, but we'd first need to change the consumption norms to make them appealing.

Clickbait is always appealing, so it wins when people are trying to find new information before they start to sort through it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this article meant to be serious? The newsfeed is Facebook's most profitable product. The argument here is Facebook must kill itself for the sake of democracy. That isn't a solution. Besides the fact that I don't think Zuck, FB employees, and their shareholders would like to see their multi- billion dollar product upended, It's like trying to put the formula for a nuclear bomb back in pandora's box. Are we to depend on a organizations moral code in order to protect society from the news feed highly potent propaganda machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> If the premise is accepted as true, then it shouldn't be Facebook's choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's no simple, panacea, technical solution to prevailing ignorance. Granted people can have their sentiment adjusted by captological factors, but people need to dig into issues, do credible research, learn about history and cultivate better BS detectors. Lazy, passive, clueless wallflowers do not a healthy society make.

<comment><USER5> You made me look up a new word :-)

> Captology or behavior design is the study of computers as persuasive > technologies. This area of inquiry explores the overlapping space between > persuasion in general (influence, motivation, behavior change, etc.) and > computing technology. This includes the design, research, and program > analysis of interactive computing products (such as the Web, desktop > software, specialized devices, etc.) created for the purpose of changing > people's attitudes or behaviors.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The absurdity of the headline makes every following point impossible to take seriously. Saying dumb stuff has a cost.

It sounds like "facebook needs to start being about people you know, and stop being about everything else."

That's great advice IMO, but it's not what makes money, so... don't even try.

</comment><comment><USER11> isn't groupthink/spoon feeding articles something that all feeds naturally do? e.g. reddit also suffers from similar problems, depending on what subreddits you follow. Does this mean we kill reddit?

<comment><AUTHOR> My mom and grandma (and the rest of my family) are not on reddit, so I don't care. But Facebook appeals to the masses with _much_ greater reach, thus they can do much greater harm if they are serving biased news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with the premise, but there's no way it will ever happen.

 _Most troublingly, "trending news" accelerates news in what is what is known a "feed forward" loop: i.e. the more we (and external bots and trolls) click, the more we will see an item. This reduces visibility of other news, resulting in "groupthink" that shrinks our perspective. Trending news algorithms can be adjusted but will always create "observational bias" in that we react most to what we see most._

This describes Reddit to a T. Definitely a feed forward loop if there ever was one.</comment>


The Pest Who Shames Companies Into Fixing Security Flaws - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_soghoian/all/1

<comment><USER2> No comments yet about how government agencies don't like being made to look like fools? Nothing about how the FBI seized his computer for pointing out a flaw that makes the millions spent on homeland security look like a gigantic waste?

</comment><comment><USER3> He is less a "pest", more a "hero". This guy "fights for the user", to quote Tron.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am so glad there are people like this who are effective at holding companies and government agencies accountable. I certainly don't have the courage.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _Them: You can't take these on board. They're liquids._

> _Me: No. They're solid foods. The hummous is more of a paste than a liquid._

Minor nit: the ban is on liquids, gels and pastes. (Yes, I know it's stupid.)

<comment><USER6> Actually they only added the "paste" part fairly recently.

(I had the same argument about whether my cheese counted as a liquid.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "They're not going to want someone who has a track record of speaking truth to power using _their_ soapbox to point out their flaws." This guy is wise. I liked the emphasis on the _their_.

</comment><comment><USER8> So basically, you don't have to be a great security researcher to create change, you need to be great at PR. The hacker in the shadows finding vulns for fun and getting companies to make patches is still the unsung hero.

</comment><comment><USER9> Egh, I realize this isn't really on topic, but what's with the creepy photo?

A quick search reveals a few pictures in which this guy looks perfectly normal, and one other which is similarly bizarre, and that other one is ALSO on a (different) Wired article.

Does Wired have some sort of creepyphoto fetish I just haven't noticed before?

<comment><USER10> I don't find it creepy it all. Actually, I think it's an good portrait. The viewer is definitely drawn to the eyes. Perhaps because it's in black and white that you find it so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The son of a friend of mine. Helluva family.

<comment><USER12> In what way?

<comment><USER11> My bad. They're a very talented, gifted bunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> EDIT: Something about Bradley Manning, double standards, journalistic integrity, grudge hacking and PR. Sorry.</comment>


Show HN: Export/embed a Dropbox folder as a gallery - <AUTHOR> http://fourtonfish.com/#dropshow Hi all.
I'm working on a small web app that lets you export/embed any Dropbox folder as an HTML gallery.
Some technical details: The app requires full Dropbox access, but this is only to get a list of folders and navigate through them. No files are stored on my server, everything is done through Dropbox and your browser. The whole things is done in javascript/jQuery using the "official" javascript implementation of the Dropbox API (https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core/sdk).
Usage: After logging into Dropbox and connecting the app, choose a folder with images you want to use. After it's loaded, you can either save the gallery inside the app's folder in your Dropbox (generated files will include time and date of creation) and optionally download the HTML file directly from Dropbox or click the Embed button to get the HTML code.
You can see a more detailed how-to with screenshots at www.fourtonfish.com/dropshowgallery/howto
The app is in a pretty early stage, but I would like to start getting feedback and make sure the core of the app is working. I plan to add customization options for the gallery, different styles etc.
Direct link: www.fourtonfish.com/dropshowgallery
A note: I don't think this should be a problem yet, but just in case: while the app is in development mode, only 100 users can connect to it (5 slots are already taken) - this is a Dropbox limitation.
I would appreciate any feedback on the app (design, functionality etc).
Thanks in advance, have a great day everyone :) <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all.

I'm working on a small web app that lets you export/embed any Dropbox folder as an HTML gallery.

Some technical details: The app requires full Dropbox access, but this is only to get a list of folders and navigate through them. No files are stored on my server, everything is done through Dropbox and your browser. I'm using pretty much only javascript/jQuery and the "official" javascript implementation of the Dropbox API (<https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core/sdk>).

Usage: After logging into Dropbox and connecting the app, choose a folder with images you want to use. After it's loaded, you can either save the gallery inside the app's folder in your Dropbox (generated files will include time and date of creation) and optionally download the HTML file directly from Dropbox or click the Embed button to get the HTML code.

You can see a more detailed how-to with screenshots at <http://www.fourtonfish.com/dropshowgallery/howto>

The app is in a pretty early stage, but I would like to start getting feedback and make sure the core of the app is working. I plan to add customization options for the gallery, different styles etc.

Direct link: <http://www.fourtonfish.com/dropshowgallery>

A note: I don't think this should be a problem yet, but just in case: while the app is in development mode, only 100 users can connect to it (5 slots are already taken) - this is a Dropbox limitation.

I would appreciate any feedback on the app (design, functionality etc).

Thanks in advance, have a great day everyone :)</comment>


'Oldest' computer music unveiled [2008] - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7458479.stm

<comment><AUTHOR> A selection of PDP-1 Music is also available here: <http://www.dpbsmith.com/pdp1music/>

If one goes to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View one can hear works replayed on the actual hardware by the original hacker, Peter Samson. One can listen to the recording here (scroll down to audio): [http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&...](http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&s=5&ss=3)

The PDP-1 did not have a purpose built audio synthesizer; the four flip-flop bits mentioned in the former link were actually programmed by controlling 4 LED/Lamps on the front panel and outputting their signal directly to an amplifier!

"During the course of the restoration project, original MIT hacker Peter Samson, rebuilt Spacewar! from source tapes to work with the control boxes the team built, and to use the intensity feature of our display. He also read the music data tapes, reverse-engineered their data format, and wrote a program to play them."

</comment><comment><USER2> There were plenty of programmable machines that made sounds in ancient history ... but recording was rare (until wire recorders anyway). But someone who beat that 1951 recording may turn up yet.</comment>


iOS 9.3 will turn down the blue light on your iPad to help you sleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/11/10750010/ios-93-public-beta-night-shift-color-balance-sleep <comment><USER2> What about your phone?</comment>


Infinixo – $90 personal computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.infinixo.com/ <comment><USER2> It's a computer in a cardboard box. Looks like a Rasberry Pi from one end. Screen shot shows it's possibly an Odroid, so based on the form factor could be the ODROID-C1, which is selling for ~$50 USD.

No specs or tech details on the site other than it comes pre-loaded with an operating system.

Is this what marketing has come to? A webpage with a few pictures, a video of a web browser and 30 seconds of "Game of Thrones" and please send us $90?

Sorry, not buying one, but I do like the name Infinixo.</comment>


Hacking isn't always helping - <AUTHOR> http://tommorris.org/posts/8798

<comment><USER2> A bit of pressure on #FloodHack to come up with something useful tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the trick to debugging political problems is to remove the politics and focus on the technical problem. Meaning technical in a general sense, not necessarily high tech. Then it gets down to resources. And it helps to analyze real physical resources separately from financial resources. For example, do enough sandbags or staff or volunteers actually exist within a reasonable area? I think you have to look at these situations and question the nature of money and how we use it. And obviously the structures being more about people than problems and science and technology is an outdated paradigm.</comment>


Ariana Lenarsky: "why [...] am I seeing nazi ads on [Twitter]?" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/aardvarsk/status/798709275216384000 <comment><USER2> Free speech should mean the right to be able to say the 'wrong' thing.

As an aside, Israel has nuclear weapons. They also sign-off on every US president. I don't think Jews need fear return of Nazis.</comment>


Verified business accounts - <AUTHOR> https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/26000052?lg=en&lc=US <comment><USER2> Isn't this related to an upcoming feature[1] for businesses to contact (some may read it as "spam") you on WhatsApp?

If so, the verified colors being "green" or "yellow" is really a minor detail.

A better submission would be a story of the "big picture" about businesses interacting with WhatsApp users. (E.g. Will the unsolicited commercial interactions make the platform better or drive people away?)

 _> If you'd like to stop a business from contacting you, you can block them._

I'm guessing users are not looking forward to the day when the smartphone imposes yet another housekeeping task on them.

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/news/whatsapp-spam-messages-businesses-customers-company-directly- app-a7620081.html)

<comment><USER3> You can have businesses support without spam if they only allow the chat to be started by the user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> WhatsApp is missing out in a big way. In Brazil almost every business has a whatsapp number.

Where are the tools to make using whatsApp easier for a business? The fact that I still need my phone around to use the webclient just sucks. Telegram doesn't need it, why does whatsapp?

<comment><USER3> WhatsApp need it because of the P2P technology. On Telegram, your messages are stored on their servers, so it's less secure, but you can text on multiple devices.

I agree that we need business tools. The demand for customer service via WhatsApp where I work is much higher than the ability to a single operator answer them.

<comment><USER5> It's possible to store messages on the servers and be secure at the same time (I'm not saying Telegram in particular is secure). I think it's more because Whatsapp's model is much cheaper on server expenses (they only need to store messages on the server until it's delivered).

<comment><USER3> It can be secure, but it's less secure by definition.

While it's almost impossible to crack some cryptos, it's definitely impossible retrieve data that simply isn't there.

<comment><USER5> What I'm saying is I don't think Whatsapp designed it to be secure (P2P is more likely a byproduct of their design). They designed it to save server cost. After they are successful, it's straightforward to implement P2P crypto on that design, so they added that feature because they don't store the messages on server anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And yet WhatsApp refuse to allow my work phone access to their network as they don't recognise the phone number as that of a mobile phone. After they asked to see documentation from my phone provider to show that it was indeed a mobile phone contract they ran out of excuses and fell back on "there's nothing we can do"

<comment><USER7> Yet surprisingly they allow Google voice numbers. Strange.

<comment><USER8> Not all of them. I was lucky because I ported my carrier number to Google Voice, so telecoms still think it's a cell phone number. However, you have to try a number of GV numbers before one sticks now. This is something they've changed recently.

Twilio numbers do not work, since they are now sending the verification code from a 6 digit short number, which Twilio does not support.

WhatsApp has also cracked down on a number of temporary phone number services including Burner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This will work great in Mexico. Almost all businesses here allow you to order stuff over WhatsApp. I've bought everything from car insurance to street tacos on WhatsApp.

Businesses have both FB and WA icons painted on the outside, with the FB page name and the WA number.

Partially due to the heavy cash economy, all businesses' calls to action on social media (FB/Instagram) focus on getting people to message and then place orders via WA or Messenger (instead of clicking Buy links to CC forms online). The response rates are really good, within minutes for most places. It feels like a perfected version of "chatbot AI" sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER9> As someone who uses WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family overseas, I could potentially see that as a nice support channel for businesses. However, there are several problems I see. First, you can't have more than one account linked to the app on your phone.

Second (and correct me if I am wrong), there is no way to create an account associated with a landline phone that I can figure out.

Third, it would be nice if multiple users could access the same account from their devices. Even if used as a sales tool this would limit interaction to one person.

Finally, without an API this is walled garden approach. Without being about to integrate with existing support platforms it is basically useless as a support channel.

In the end, I would like to see WhatsApp have a "business version" and would most likely be a consumer of such service, but verified accounts seems like putting the cart in front of the horse to me.

<comment><USER10> > Second (and correct me if I am wrong), there is no way to create an account > associated with a landline phone that I can figure out.

In markets like India (one of Whatsapp's largest) landline phones have been obsolete for nearly a decade now. It's not a forward-looking feature.

Tons of businesses in India are already using Whatsapp here in India. It's a huge and critical part of the economy now.

<comment><USER9> I can appreciate that. Unfortunately, here in the US most businesses still all rely on some form of landline number. For many, this is more a virtual number(s) through some VoIP provider. It would be nice to see WhatsApp integrate with some of the players in that market as an "add-on" feature to their services.

<comment><USER11> Staples (UK) didn't allow me to set up a business account because my company didn't have a landline number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> TBH I think a previous contributor hit the Nail on the head. It must be part of a new business strategy because on its own it does more damage then good.

Whatsapp will now need to allow a team to go through business verification, double check more message flags and support business customers.

Also there is talk of not allowing the deletion of messages, this brings up several questions of encryption and privacy. Something that WhatsApp have recently got down.

All of the above cost money and add very little value. There is no additional service that is acquired by a business from using a personal account.

Therefore it would be crazy for them not to have something else coming. What I hope Is a fully synchronised system with whatsapp. When this happens whatsapp/Facebook joins the realms of the giants like WeChat

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious as to how this will interact with things like state-mandated do not call registries. Currently I can register my phone number such that businesses are not permitted to cold-call me; if this were, say, Skype or Hangouts, then I would have to give ScamCo plc my account name and accept a request from them (or vice-versa), but since services like Whatsapp don't have any concept of mutual consent before contact, I don't get to be asked whether I'd like to hear from them.

I expect it also won't be too long before marketing execs start clamouring to be allowed to use "rich text" and images, and we'll all get to start receiving dodgy Javascript through Whatsapp. Ho hum.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is whatsapp making a snail paced attempt at becoming WeChat of the west?

<comment><USER15> Never going to happen at this pace.

No API

No Money Transfer (Well, not yet)

<comment><USER16> Money Transfer is going to become a feature in India. They're using a payments API that works with all bank existing accounts, so anyone using whatsapp in India could transfer money to and from anyone who's set up their account for UPI.

Source - [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india- business/w...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india- business/whatsapp-gets-nod-for-upi-payments/articleshow/59537161.cms)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Now, Whatsapp should release API access to chats so that customers can automate chats. That'll allow them to scale to an Enterprise level.

<comment><USER18> Yes! I am working on a side project that currently integrates with email and sms; I would LOVE to hook into Whatsapp as well in the very near future.

It could really replace / augment the same type of integration Facebook Messenger supports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure if it costs money to have a verified business account but frankly, this is what Twitter should have done. Have paid verified business accounts. I'd easily pay $25+/mo and have a bunch of handy business features and maybe be promoted once in a while to a relevant audience. Missed opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER20> TLDR: Copying WeChat.</comment>


Which book is the best for entering the field of game development? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/alxdhuang/status/1115198848555552768 <comment><USER2> While I haven't committed to a single book, here's a useful resource for referencing. You can find many snippets across the internet if you don't want to purchase.

[http://www.gameprogrammingpatterns.com/](http://www.gameprogrammingpatterns.com/)</comment>


Renaissance Technologies Solved the Market: Part 1 – Pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/ml-everything/how-renaissance-technologies-solved-the-market-part-1-2814eb271dc3 <comment><USER2> The people at RenTech are not going to say much about their methods, understandably. What books would you recommend for financial quants interested in trading strategies rather than derivatives pricing (the areas can overlap)? I have worked in this capacity. Here are a few books I like:

Advances in Financial Machine Learning (2018) by Marcos Lopez de Prado

Non-Linear Time Series Models in Empirical Finance (2000) by Philip Hans Franses and Dick van Dijk (covers Markov chains, used by RenTech, among other topics)

A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street (1999) by Andrew W. Lo and A. Craig MacKinlay</comment>


What Happened to the Guys Who Invested Their Life Savings in Cryptocurrency? - <AUTHOR> https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/what-happened-to-the-guys-who-invested-their-life-savings-in-cryptocurrency <comment><USER2> What's worse than losing your life savings, is those that made a huge profit on one coin, then traded that directly for another coin that then lost everything. The IRS considers that trade to be a liquidity event, and you owe taxes on the value difference (of the first coin) from when you bought to when you sold (even if it wasn't sold for cash). Now you could claim a loss on the second coin, but only if you sold it during the same year. If you sold it the next year, you can still claim it as a loss against future profits, but you still owe taxes on the original coin sale.

So now that you've lost everything, you still end up owing the IRS possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER3> I though the whol point of these currencies was anonymity? If you never cashed out gains into a currency tied to you how would anyone know anything beyond the purhase?

<comment><USER4> Many exchanges report user's activity to the IRS.

Moreover, even if your tax authority wouldn't currently have a way to know-- the penalties for cheating can be very serious so it's in your best interest to comply with your obligations.

This is essentially how all income/gains tax works in the west: Governments have very limited ability to catch people, but they scale the penalties so that the risk from audits and whistle-blowing are enough so that most voluntarily comply. After all, cash is quite anonymous especially for small amounts.

If you're constrained to spend your money only in ways that could never be found in an audit or revealed by a spurned lover, did you ever really have that money in the first place?

<comment><USER3> These people are dead broke with hundreds of thousands in back taxes. Jail might look like room and board at that point. Given the only use they made of the gains was to purchase something that no longer exists, the risk v reward in their specific instance seems well tilted towards crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bitcoin is over $10k last I checked. Unless you only bought it the short time Bitcoin peaked at $20k you probably haven't lost _that_ much, unless you sold already.

It's the altcoins that continue to get crushed right now against bitcoin. Many are still hitting all time lows against bitcoin as bitcoin's dominance has increased (officially) to 70% of the total crypto marketcap but probably higher in reality.

<comment><USER6> What are your reasons for believing that the real ratio (bitcoin:total crypto) is higher than the official or "nominal" ratio?

<comment><USER5> A lot of crypto investors will say the same thing. I'm referencing the dominance on CoinMarketCap's website but in reality there's a lot of dead projects with basically no liquidity. CMC doesn't do anything special to filter those projects from the denominator, but if you identified those projects and removed them BTC would probably be at 75-80% or higher.

<comment><USER7> A slight counterpoint that a lot of crypto investors will point out is that BTC's marketcap is artificially inflated by Tether. Tether has been printing a lot of coins (highly likely without backing) which has gone directly to buying BTC, pushing it higher than other coins trading against fiat.

Marketcap is generally a pretty poor metric to use, as it can be gamed in various ways.

<comment><USER8> Can you explain how Tether can print coins at will but still pay out $1 USD per 1 Tether? If one can cash out, doesn't that mean it's accurately pegged to the buck?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wonder what happened to those that invested in Bitcoin as soon as it made front page here in Hacker news. At that time it was selling like 40 cents for 10,000 coins, if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER10> I turned down a 3,000 bitcoin payment for a website I made in September 2011. I told the rather elderly man who suggested the exchange that I didn't accept "magic beans".

<comment><USER11> I spent about 10 bitcoins on a coffee.

I've talked to loads of people with the same sort of story. Truth is that I never believed BTC could be worth what it is and in a way I still don't. I think its valuation is ludicrous given its economic design issues and scaling problems.

My take away from the whole saga is that it's totally debunked any notion that I had that markets or their participants are rational. I honestly find it a bit depressing. Maybe I should give up trying to do useful work and invent the next pet rock fad.

<comment><USER12> I've spent several Bitcoins on pizza. I have no regrets; if nobody used the magic beans, nobody would be interested in them. In other words, if early-ish adopters hadn't "taken one for the team", we wouldn't be discussing Bitcoin now because it wouldn't exist.

In a way the person who bought that famous pizza for 10,000 Bitcoin only lost "wealth" that wouldn't have existed without the buzz generated by that transaction.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that this illustrates what's wrong with highly deflationary currencies. Who wants to spend a currency that could appreciate by over 10,000X if you just "hodl" it? That's why Bitcoin has actually been abandoned for a lot of commerce. Why spend it _ever_?

<comment><USER12> I would still spend it if it were easy. I bought my first Bitcoins when they were around 10 USD, so anything I buy is at one 1000th of the dollar price. Could it go to a 2000th? Yes, but apart from something huge like buying an apartment it would be hard to care about the difference.

But yes, this is not an answer that applies to deflationary currencies in general, nor to people who came later to Bitcoin than I did.

Edit: Although again, the only way Bitcoin can appreciate is if people _do_ spend it. Tragedy of the commons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I find interesting about this was the description of the people likely to borrow to invest.

>Borg told City Lab that they're usually educated, with some assets in their portfolio, but are worried about their retirement. "They earn more than $60,000 a year, and have at least an adequate handle on technology," reports CNBC.

I think this is very understandable from my perspective. I'm relatively young, smart and have a good job. I'm tech savvy, but I'm also numerate. Because I'm numerate I can look at the house I'd like to buy - it's £3/4/5m, I earn >£100k, but probably will never earn >£300k (numbers deliberately fuzzed for privacy reasons). So I look at my situation and say "I can never get to that house that I really want". It's not a mansion, it's just a nice detatched house in a good part of town.

From that perspective I completely understand this compulsion to start betting. The step from working middle class to comfortably well off is just an unimaginable step.

<comment><USER14> Unrealistic desires are not an excuse for betting, they're the exact reason not to bet. The road to the mansion is paved with the crippling debt of the less fortunate. Assuming you'll be the winner of a speculative bubble is not the numerate decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Surely a lot of people got burned ingesting in crypto but I know quite a few who made out like bandits as well. 7 and 8 figure payouts in their 20s and 30s

<comment><USER16> The key being they 'got out'. Most of the idiots on Reddit have convinced each other to bag-hold to the grave, if they stepped outside their echo chamber they'd see crypto is clearly dead for some time now.

<comment><USER17> But if you made 7 or 8 figures, then BTC being at 50% of it's all-time high still keeps you at approximately 7 or 8 figures.

Just saying that even if they didn't get out, they still did marvelously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> All I can see is uneducated investors taking highly leveraged positions and feeling the inevitable pain when they didn't cover the possible downside.

A lesson to us all, absolutely. Know damn well what you're doing (and prepare accordingly) before you start trading with someone else's money.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think we should hold our judgements for a bit longer. It is yet to be seen how the looming recession affects the cryptocurrency demand.

<comment><USER20> Most will probably liquidate their position.

<comment><USER21> probably the opposite will happen... if a lot of people lose confidence in the dollar

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Probably investing all your life savings into something you don't fully understand is not the best idea in any case - cryptocurrency or something else.

</comment><comment><USER23> In the same way as not many people bought Bitcoin at the beginning and sold for $20k, the stories of buying at $20k and losing 95% are equally unlikely. The crash took the whole of 2018 to happen. Did the guys with all their savings in Crypto not take any of it out while it was dropping? Seems unlikely to me

<comment><USER24> They went for bad crypto coins and ICOs...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The S&P500 Market Cap is 24.30T. Bitcoin's market cap is $184 Billion. Therefore for proper hedging, you should put 0.75% of your assets into Bitcoin. For every $100k, that's $750.

Put it another way, you should put 132x more money into stocks than you should Bitcoin. If Bitcoin were to steal market cap from the investment markets, you'd be well positioned for transition. If Bitcoin were to become worthless, you'd still be well positioned.

Bitcoin will one day become worthless but it may be a while before that happens. The speculation is whether the new universal currency will kindly be available to prior bitcoin holders as an airdrop or fork, or whether it will be a brand new cryptocurrency without any ties to Bitcoin. So far, no cryptocurrency has overtaken bitcoin and the next 10 by market cap don't look like they will overtake it soon.

Planning for the additional (and painful) tax complexity in advance is advised. If you don't how to do taxes yourself, it won't be fun to pay an bitcoin-specializing accountant $300-$800 each year because you bought Bitcoin once.

</comment><comment><USER26> In 2012 I learned about Bitcoin and I was denied a MtGox account in 2013, I wanted to buy a few thousand BTC. I don't feel bad about his anymore. I could not buy Bitcoin for a long time out of spite. Saw it coming by, every time it was worth more and more.

Finally in August 2017 I finally jumped in and made well over 500k Euro in profit, but I kept it too long so I lost 75% of that, I am really glad I took my initial investment out, even though it would have been worth more today.

I did not know anything about trading or reading charts when I started, it would have made a huge difference for me. Since the beginning of 2018 I have invested most of my free time into understanding trading / markets and programming indicators and market analysis tools. I feel much more confident in trading now and for me it is a good way to make more money.

I like the proverb 'Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

</comment><comment><USER27> Never invest in something you don't understand.

Words to live by.

<comment><USER28> Not really. Understanding comes in degrees, and most things that the average person doesn't truly understand (the market, index ETFs, your startup equity agreement) give better ROI than those you do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does this BTC valuation graph not look like a massive pump and dump or am I missing something?

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lcuf7df5km8rmn/Screenshot%202019-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lcuf7df5km8rmn/Screenshot%202019-09-08%20at%2021.22.04.png?dl=0)

<comment><USER30> Does this Nikkei valuation graph not look like a massive pump and dump or am I missing something?

[https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/nik?countrycode=...](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/nik?countrycode=jp)

<comment><USER31> Yeah, up until 1990. Then, not since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Remember the posts from people who mocked Warren Buffett for warning people away from BitCoin?

I surely do. I'm a Boglehead, I like to read that stuff.

If you are unsure of what happened (and why you should have been on the sidelines), please visit Bogleheads.org. You will learn that _anyone_ can become relatively wealthy given a little discipline and a lengthy working life. It really works.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can anyone explain why this is flagged? It's a very one-sided article, talking only about people who did dumb things and lost out. But is that a reason to censor it?

</comment><comment><USER33> My guess is they're doing fine as long as they invested in Bitcoin and avoided 90% of the other vaporware imitation crap floating around.

</comment><comment><USER34> Max: The two cardinal rules of producing are one: Never put your own money in the show.

Leo: And two?

Max: [yelling] Never put your own money in the show!

[The Producers]</comment>


A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-new-way-to-promote-your-app-on-google.html <comment><USER2> While I don't care either way if this exists or not, I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store.

Because if they improve discoverability for free, then who will buy their adverts? The worse the store is at pointing you at the correct apps, the more ads people will buy (so less work for them and more $$$, win/win).

It isn't helped by how large of a stranglehold Google has gained on the Android ecosystem. Amazon is the next largest, but still tiny by comparison. Piracy might outnumber Amazon frankly.

<comment><USER3> I don't own an Android phone, but I'm surprised that Google Play has lousy search. I expect the Apple App Store to have useless search, because Apple isn't a search company, but I'd figure Google had that part solved. This sounds like at least perverse incentives, and possibly a plain old shake-down: making their search worse, and/or burying specific results, directly makes them money. It reminds me of the bad old days of "portals," before someone made an unbiased, fast search engine called "Google."

<comment><USER4> I make apps for Android and iOS, and made my first release 2 or 3 years ago (don't remember the precise date).

Back then, iOS search was purely utter crap, finding totally unrelated things (including notoriously if you searched google maps, you would not find it... apple hardcoded the search for google maps to return google maps after all the internet poking fun at them).

And Android search was awesome, some keyword tweaking and we would soar in searches that were relevant to us (ie: people really looking for the sort of product we offer).

Then iOS made the first "discoverability improvement" change that pissed us off... they changed the interface so that instead of showing a list of results, it started to show more detailed results, but much less per page (back then some devices showed only 2 results per page depending on the orientation)

meaning that for us that were in position 50 in searches, we went from being on the fifth "finger slide" of the user, to be on the 200, 300... meaning our users on iOS sunk, fast.

Still, Android was our saviour then... so we stuck with Android (we still make iOS stuff ,but don't expect much from it).

Then it was google turn do do things, they started to "improve" their search, they "improved" so much, that now searching our company name (that is very unique), sometimes show competitors apps in first place instead.

Searching the exact name of our apps frequently don't work anymore either (back "then", 2 years ago, it searching for another app name of yours was a API usage example when you wanted to link from one app to another).

So... yep, both Google and Apple stealthly make discoverability worse, instead of better.

Now most of our income comes from third-party stores, not iTunes or Google Play

<comment><USER5> If you don't mind sharing which 3rd party stores do you have success with? I have tried Amazon with pretty much no success so I've assumed if they can't do it no one can.

<comment><USER4> Amazon is our WORST store.

We are in Samsung store (roughly same performacne as google play), several carrier stores (separated they are tiny, summed they are a good income), and we have some deals with some startups that are trying new app distribution methods, many of those startups also have deals with carriers, so we are in some carriers twice.

Anyway, our income right now looks like as if it came from dumbphone era: most of it coming from carriers, directly or indirectly.

Also we are in Yandex store, nothing impressive in terms of revenue, but stupid easy to get into (they purpusefully allow use of google play APIs, and upload methods, and whatnot... if you ever worked with google play, uploading to Yandex is VERY easy).

EDIT: Making things clearer on Amazon, they are REALLY the worst, sometimes months go by without even a single free download.

<comment><USER6> [http://i.imgur.com/le8aRmB.png](http://i.imgur.com/le8aRmB.png)

I remember finding your games here on HN quite some time ago, my 3 year old can now do your animated jigsaws herself and currently loves the game with the russian dolls. My email in my profile is also my Skype if you want to chat, maybe we can help each other out - all my downloads are for traditional jigsaws and an older audience, with children and grandchildren.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Allowing developers to pay for promoted placement is a terrible idea for Google Play's users, for app developers and for Google. Google Play users will now see more exploitative apps that are visible in search results not because they have earned high ratings from users or have a low uninstall rate, but because they are able to extract more money from each user to pay for their placement. App developers with quality products -- especially those with small development studios like my own -- will be put at a further disadvantage from the likes of King.com, Supercell and Zynga, whose high ARPU can justify this sort of promotion. And while Google will initially be able to extract more cash from the app economy than the 30% it already does, by diluting the value of Google Play search results for their users and by incentivizing developers to make exploitative rather than quality products, mobile device owners will become more motivated to migrate to other app stores and possibly other platforms.

I wish that Google would concentrate on its core strength and develop a search system for apps that directs its users to what they will appreciate and enjoy rather than what will cost them the most money, and that would encourage developers to aim for quality rather than exploitation.

<comment><USER8> Google's core strength was search but in recent years I felt it got worse and worse for the benefit of Google's other strength: Advertising.

<comment><USER9> actually, its always been about advertising!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another way for Google to tax developers:

Indie developer A has the top search result for "crazy panda game" in google play, Developer B pays to get the top sponsored result, Developer A is forced to pay up to get the spot back.

This sucks.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a huge change. I personally am very excited about it. At the moment if you want to drive installs to a mobile app, the primary channel is Facebook. It's hard to reach customers any other way. I have worked on apps with a relatively high customer LTV, and we could afford to pay for something like this, but there was no way to do it.

Generally speaking I think it will be good for consumers in the long run as well. This will surface the apps that are making money (which is in some way a proxy for providing value, usually) faster than the apps that are simply most popular.

<comment><USER12> I don't have a degree in economics and I never tried my hand at advertising, so please forgive my ignorance. To my uneducated ears, what you just said sounds like:

"Advertisements are a good thing because they help surface the products that are making money (which is in some way a proxy for providing value, usually) faster than the products that are simply most popular."

If I think of any advertisement I see, ever, then value has absolutely nothing to do with it. Axe, Jack Daniel's, any laundry detergent, McDonald's, cars.

In fact, most advertisements themselves stopped trying to pretend to be "better". Of that list, only laundry detergents talk about how they are better than competitors. Which is still complete bollocks, of course.

Since when do ads have _anything_ to do with the value of the product? How would that be any different for apps?

I'm not trying to be coy, I seriously don't understand what you said.

<comment><USER11> Engineers love to hate it, but sales & marketing matters. It works. Making a product, throwing it up on the web and walking away doesn't work. I'm not going to argue that point, it's a fact. For more on that, read Peter Theil's 0 to 1, or anything by patio11, or listen to the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us, or any one of a dozen other sources from people that have made money in the space.

If you agree with that, then my argument is that over the long term, the amount of money a company can spend on marketing is related to the amount of money they make per customer. If you sell a $1 product, you can not afford ads that cost $3 per conversion. If you sell a $30,000 product, you can afford pretty expensive ads. Of course n the short term this can get skewed. A company can dump money into ads in an unsustainable way, but that always seems to correct itself (see: Fab).

Given that a product is generally priced to some extent related to its value, the higher value products will have higher revenue per user, which will allow them to bid more for advertising.

That means we are more likely to see these ads bought by companies that make decent money on their apps. I'd love to see more high quality apps at the top of the listings, and I'd also love to be able to promote my (hopefully) high LTV apps at the top of the listings.

<comment><USER13> You are assuming that price and value are positively correlated. They aren't necessarily. Anecdotally I find price has little to do with value in the App marketplace.

Buying users, which is in fact what sales and marketing is for indirectly does not mean the marketed product is provides more value nor does it mean the app, in this case, is performing better. All it means is the marketed product has backers willing to spend more on marketing.

<comment><USER14> >Anecdotally I find price has little to do with value in the App marketplace.

I think this is what they're getting at, or at least what took from it: Valuable apps are incorrectly priced.

I'm being a devils advocate by saying this, but the paid promotion could actually force apps to start charging relative to their value, rather than everyone charging at a flat $0.99. This would put pressure on and help sort out apps that are not very valuable, while giving valuable apps a mechanism to rise to the top.

Of course, this all breaks with apps that monetize through in-app purchases, and I honestly believe there needs to be a seperate marketplace for those Skinner boxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not quite sure how much I like this. I can see my search results getting populated with a bunch of apps that I don't want, like "Game of War". This will be interesting to see how this plays out.

<comment><USER16> I'm personally hoping they target more generic keywords like genres of game or coupon or hotels or stuff like that. I'd be very annoyed if they let advertisers target specific app names like "Facebook", "Twitter", or my own app's very specific name (as long as it isn't generic)

<comment><USER17> Why wouldn't they? As somebody pointed out elsewhere, ads on various scummy sites show up if you search for "Firefox" and other things on regular Google search. I'd guess people who are searching for something specific are more likely to actually make a purchase or whatever, so they'd be more valuable to Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What Google needs to do is create a proper search engine for the apps. Filters should include:

* Age of the app

* Average rating

* Eliminate publishers X, Y, Z

* Number of installs/downloads

* Paid / in-app purchases / ad-supported / completely free

* Size in MB (sometimes my connection sucks and I want to find a small game)

* Adult content

* Category of the app (game / office / tool / etc)

</comment><comment><USER19> A New Way for Google to accept your money in an auction for placement slots (that displace actual search positions).

Obviously a winning move for google, but not really a win for anybody else (besides people trying to arbitrage ads for these new, search-result- displacing slots).

</comment><comment><USER20> Developers are already paying to get installs, Google wants another piece of the pie.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is obviously Google trying to grab a piece of advertising budgets of apps and impact of this on "discoverability* will remain to be seen as emergent property later on. Definitely not the primary driver behind this feature.

However, before we start booing Google...

Facebook already holds unarguably the biggest part of this already, and Google heading closer to the center of that particular arena will likely result in a net positive for publishers.

My guess for would be that this will push Facebook little by little to specialize in iOS ad-mongering.

<comment><USER22> _Google heading closer to the center of that particular arena will likely result in a net positive for publishers._

How so? Pay to Play (the marketing slogan for this initiative practically writes itself) seems a net negative to me. Searching for a particular game? Prepare to see nothing but Zynga, King and whatever other well capitalized companies can afford to dominate the top of the lists. Google will have even less incentive to fix natural discoverability.

Comparing Facebook's mobile ad channel (in content) to Google's mobile ad channel (in SERPs) is like more akin to comparing AdSense to AdWords. We won't see Google take a share of the pie from Facebook, we'll probably just see the pie get bigger as Google makes more ad inventory available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Will these promoted apps be as dangerous as websites promoted by browser search? I got this one just now [1]. Virustotal for "Firefox" from that site [2].

1\. [https://i.imgur.com/JDY7ptq.png](https://i.imgur.com/JDY7ptq.png)

2\. [https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/4de57439b8fe09b90440b8e82...](https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/4de57439b8fe09b90440b8e829f880b2875a93645205627aa1102005cb5a322a/analysis/1424960473/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I might be missing something here but why is everybody hating on Google for this? How is this different from having sponsored results in the search results on Google? I feel this is great for a number of reasons:

1\. This allows apps which are new to not just rely on something unreliable as App store optimization to get downloads. 2\. This will force app developers to think about monetization more seriously and possibly even get rid of free apps culture. 3\. You can get users at the point of their query. Facebook gets you passive users. For example on FB you might need to reach 100 people to find one person who has a problem solved by your app, but using this you can find the exact people looking for apps which solve the problem your app is about. 4\. The argument about Zynga and King owning the sponsored are false. It is like saying Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook are going to own the search results on Google. 5\. Improvement in organic search doesn't need to happen without starting sponsored results.

<comment><USER24> BTW forgot to add this might also mean that Google will open up the search info on Play Store just like they did for Google search to enable advertisers to choose keywords more intelligently. This alone will probably make up for any other issues people have related to this new initiative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "In fact, in the past year, we paid more than $7 billion to developers distributing apps and games on Google Play."

Do they mean when I buy someone's app and send them my money that they are taking the credit for "paying" the developer? If so then that's wrong. My bank doesn't pay my bills. I pay my bills using my bank's system.

<comment><USER26> They did a little more than a bank. They built Android and its marketplace rather than just serve as an intermediary in the payment process.

<comment><USER25> That's true and very admirable but not what I was objecting to. It's this line that I find objectionable:

"we paid more than $7 billion to developers"

No, the Marketplace enabled $7 billion in transactions between the customers and the developers, that would have been a more correct way to state it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The biggest improvement they could make is having the Apps category NOT include games. Discovering useful and/or interesting apps is so damn hard because of games being included.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is a great example of Google doing what Google does best. With one slot gone, app publishers will need to focus on an ASO much more. SEO remains one of the most effective ways of marketing on web, and so too will ASO be in the app marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER29> My gripe with this is that it further monopolizes the ad network market. On the web AdSense and AdWords are king. At least on mobile we have several choices, of which AdMob isn't even the best. I guess Google will be king of this arena too.

</comment><comment><USER30> If it were anyone else, I'd say this was pretty dubious, but Google knows better than anyone else how to make search ads work for everyone so... we'll see.

<comment><USER31> I agree - hopefully this addresses the issue of giving newer applications visibility. However, this definitely needs to be implemented tactfully. Google is probably the best bet for getting something like this to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not crazy about this.

</comment><comment><USER33> Don't be evil, amirite?</comment>


Woolly mammoth DNA may lead to a resurrection of the ancient beast - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/31/woolly-mammoth-dna-cloning

<comment><USER2> The (likely) reason for the Mammoth's extinction and the best reason for bringing them back is one and the same:

They're #$%^ing tasty.

Think about it. What would make a human being armed with sharp sticks and big rocks go up against something the size of a large, monumentally pissed off elephant? Our ancestors hunted these critters to death when there were cow- ancestors, buffalo, and deer available. That says something!

So why is this a reason for bringing them back? About a day after the first mammoth is brought back from extinction Chinese restaurants (the kind that proudly serve up Snow Tiger, Sea Snake, and Dolphin) are going to be offering tens of thousands of dollars per pound for mammoth meat. The first lab that successfully clones a Mammoth will be able to fund itself for a decade on the first mature animal they slaughter, even if they don't.

It sounds savage, I know, but this guarantees that the species will actually come back in numbers and for good instead of being a temporary curiosity the way cloned sheep were. (Dolly is very, very dead.)

Within a very short time mammoths will be farmed for meat. Zoos will, of course, likely get the first specimens, but commercial farming for meat will follow shortly after... unless they aren't actually very tasty. We hunted giant camels to death too, and I don't see many people eating camel these days.

<comment><USER3> I think it depends on the reason why they were tasty.

If it was based on what they ate themselves, we might not have that available, and end up with a sub-par product.

Then again if they are inherently delicious, with the recent advancements around In Vitro meat, we might get fantastic mammoth meat forever.</comment></comment>


The Case—Please Hear Me Out—Against the Em Dash - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2295413/

<comment><USER2> There's two points being made here and they're not all that clearly distinguished. First, excursions, where a new thought is interpolated into a sentence before the previous one is complete, can be tiring.

Second, people use em dashes where other punctuation would be more appropriate—the article illustrates this nicely, where lots of em dashes are used that would better be commas or semicolons. Em dashes are the most emphatic punctuation for communicating excursions, so the two points are related.

Indeed, em dashes should be used sparingly, as exclamation marks are, since they are visually distracting. _Chicago_ suggests that no paragraph should contain more than two em dashes, and most should not contain that many. By my reckoning, Noreen Malone packed 14 em dashes into each of two paragraphs in her article.

But the fairly mechanical task of turning dashes into other punctuation doesn't tackle the point about excessively excursive writing. And here I don't agree that they are the enemy of "truly efficient writing". Excursions can be a sign of mental disorganisation in the writer, one who isn't writing with clear purpose, but they can also be the sign of a successful reworking of complex material, to present it in the most digestible manner. I don't think that "excursions bad" is useful advice, rather I suggest "check that excursions are of clear value".

I have three excursions in this comment, and I think all pass this "clear value" test; as an exercise, you can check if you agree with me. There's an em dash too.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article makes some good points that are obscured by the ridiculous conceit of overusing the em dash. This is like arguing that since running 100 miles in a day will hurt your feet, running is a bad idea.

Even the title is a misuse of the em dash. An excursion to plead for patience on the part of the reader should only come when the beginning of the sentence is likely to irritate people. The words "The Case" aren't going to annoy readers, so pleading for people to please hear the author out is annoying. THAT is the problem with the title. Not the presence of an excursion or parenthetical remark, but the presence of an annoying and meaningless excursion manufactured to make the author seem witty. And so it is with the rest of the post, the excursions are all so blatantly manufactured and artificial, it is impossible to hold them up as examples of why the em dash is a bad idea.

To me, the article demonstrates why conceits are a bad idea. Trying to be too clever obscures your message rather than reinforces it.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't bring myself to read it. I think you summarize my instinctive/intuitive/gut-level reaction. (Literally gut level, which is why I stopped.)

This reminds me so much of what I hate about much of the pedagogy of "writing". Formulaic writing is just that, formulaic. It may work well in the artifice of a classroom; not so much in the real world.

Strictures can be useful, e.g. in technical documentation. But even there, it takes some creativity to communicate clearly and effectively. "No more than two em dashes per paragraph" simply doesn't cut it.

Oh, and to the author of the Slate article: Allow me to introduce you to the en dash –. Buwahaha...

<comment><USER2> "gut-level" - Let's say this is the stylistic equivalent of a fart joke. I think it worked well enough

Rather firm limits on the density of em dashes are fair, because there's a typographical issue of avoiding "horizontal rivers": the distracting effect of dashes varies nonlinearly with their number. An upper limit of two, per _Chicago_ , or three, is a good usage stricture; there is practically never a strong reason to violate it.

"en dash" - Fair enough, but she's following AP style, which uses em dashes.

<comment><USER4> I didn't actually use the en dash in an appropriate context, such as "1 – 7".

I don't use em dashes profusely. However, I'm reminded of bumping into arbitrary rules that mandated rewriting something into a more awkward form in order to comply with the rules.

There is a certain subset of instructors who confuse students with rules more than they aid them in learning to communicate clearly.

As for the style guides. Well, I don't know how things are these days, but there was also a not insignificant portion of pedagogy devoted to blind adherence to one or another. All the more confusing when a young student is not really working in a context that allows the student to see where, how, and why the rules make sense. Cart before the horse, I guess I might say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article makes a case against hammers by showing how ugly it is to see one bashing a skull.

Meanwhile, hammers still useful.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this article was hilarious in how it demonstrated the problems with the em dash. Honestly, I couldn't even finish it because the style was so frustrating...

But I still like it, and I know the author does too. The em dash is an artistic tool which gives a bit of humanity to the author. It makes it feel a little less calculated and a little more free-form. I respect professionalism, but even professionals like to let loose with their heart from time to time, to reveal their stream of consciousness, and the em dash is a tool in that regard. The real message here isn't that the em dash is evil, just that we should avoid over-using it.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is unreadable. And that may be the point.

</comment><comment><USER8> The author likens it with a pack of cigarette a day. It would be more apt if she compared it with wine, where a glass a day has proven to be beneficial.

She quoted it herself: _"Use a dash only when a more common mark of punctuation seems inadequate."_

 _Who are we, we modern writers, to pass judgment—and with such shocking frequency—on these more simple forms of punctuation—the workmanlike comma, the stalwart colon, the taken-for-granted period? (One colleague—arguing strenuously that certain occasions call for the dash instead of other punctuation, for purposes of tone—told me he thinks of the parenthesis as a whisper, and the dash as a way of calling attention to a phrase._

Right, so because you as a modern writer don't want to pass judgment we should stop using it? I'm on her colleague's side on this one.

EDIT: Embarassing gender confusion. Thanks for the correction.</comment>


House Costs Just $20k-But It's Nicer Than Yours - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3056129/this-house-costs-just-20000-but-its-nicer-than-yours <comment><USER2> The bulk of a "house" price in populated areas is the cost of the _land_.

That's why rundown, dilapidated, etc "homes" in the Bay Area are so expensive. You're paying for the land. So a $20k home is still going to cost you a stupid amount.

If you go out to the middle of nowhere, you can get huge, and amazing, homes for less that $100k (because no one wants to live there).

<comment><USER3> > If you go out to the middle of nowhere, you can get huge, and amazing, homes > for less that $100k (because no one wants to live there).

In flyover country, the land is pretty close to free and typically you can buy the house at a discount to what it would cost to rebuild the same structure.

<comment><USER4> Which is interesting because you can't build a new house for that price in most urban areas even if land and permits were free. The costs of an ADU are typically in the 150-200k range and once you add permits and sewer it's easily 200+

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I want to know is how we can incorporate some of the innovations that they used (such as cantilvers for the foundation) into traditionally built houses. Also, how we tweak building codes to allow for these new innovations so that the houses pass inspection without having to have days long classes to explain to inspectors that yes, they really are safe?

<comment><USER6> I don't think the cantilevers are innovations. Here's a description and explanation of cantilevered footings from a 1924 book: [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reinforced_Concrete_and...](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reinforced_Concrete_and_Masonry_Structur/EjNLAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Cantilever+Footings&pg=PA192)

I'm guessing the issue here isn't that these techniques are innovative, it's that they've done their homework and the tolerances are tighter. If you construct them properly, they're more than sufficient. Emphasis on _if_. An inspector can't just walk in and eyeball something using his 30 years of experience to judge adequacy.[1] _That 's_ the problem--the classic tradeoff between administrative efficiency vs accuracy.

[1] The irony is that an inspector circa 1950 probably would have been able to do that.

<comment><USER7> The interesting problem they solved is building with cantilevers efficiently in the context of a small home. Historically cantilevers were considered exotic and expensive with Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water being one of the few well known examples of residences using cantilevers.

<comment><USER6> Those are a different kind of structural concrete cantilever. Look at the pictures of the various houses this group has built. What they all have in common is that: 1) they sit atop tall concrete or block columns on 2) uneven terrain and 3) otherwise use straight-forward, typical wooden beams and joists for the flooring (yes, they might cantilever some, but that's neither new nor uncommon).

I'm no architect, but I think the cost savings as compared to modern techniques (but very much, if not exactly, like older techniques) is the avoidance of 1) clearing and leveling the land and 2) pouring a huge reinforced concrete slab.

Before the advent of hydraulic bulldozers it was just too cost prohibitive to clear land and pour big slabs for mass-scale housing. Instead, you would pour (or build) some small footings, and then lay some beams on the footings, possibly elevated by some short columns (or simply stones or concrete blocks). But unlike what would be common for cheap housing 50-100 years ago, building codes won't allow you to build a whole house on simple footings like that because of the potential for ground instability exacerbated by uneven weight distribution and uneven weight-bearing capacity of the soil under each footing.

But what you can do, apparently, is use "cantilevered" footings tied to a small number of deep, robust, secure pads. Those pads are what guarantee the house won't move, and all you need are some shovels and a pick-up truck, and you don't even need to level any land. You then "cantilever" some simple concrete footings off those pads using reinforced concrete beams (which I bet are probably flush with the ground and look like a gratuitous use of concrete). I'd bet money that such cantilevered footings are what are underneath many or most of those columns you see under those houses, the rest of the columns sitting directly atop the pads.

<comment><USER8> This sounds approximately right, though I would love to see a real explanation from the creators.

It signals another example of changing practices in this century due to new ideas around materials accompanied by precision machine crafting. Cross- laminated timber, for example, is very hyped now since it can withstand huge loads and charring while still being a cheap and familiar "wood, glue, preservatives and pressure" composite, capable of being shaped into panels, arches and doorframes out of the factory with a CNC machine for reduced build times. Yesterday I saw a video of a CLT passive house built in Australia: The build, while not aiming for cost, was made simpler in design by having the load bearing parts of the structure also handle most of the insulation, and it put up impressive test numbers.

<comment><USER6> Maybe I'm overthinking it and/or maybe the article is using an idiosyncratic meaning of "foundation". The article says "The foundation of the Tiny House uses cantilevers, seesaw-like joists that help save wood and concrete and actually make the house stronger than a typical foundation would." Which might be a fancy description for basic techniques[1] used to build countless old houses in Alabama and elsewhere, some of which I got to crawl under or around when working summers with my Dad, who did remodeling and other contractor work in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana. Not all those houses had footings directly underneath the permitter; the joists and walls might cantilever, while the footings were still basic and not tied together like with the cantilevered footing system. Although the cantilevers might be more extreme in these new designs.

Unfortunately, I can't find any technical material on the school's website. Here's the page for the various homes: [http://ruralstudio.org/project_tags/20k/](http://ruralstudio.org/project_tags/20k/). Notably, some of them do seem to use modern concrete slab foundations, and at least one of the pictures shows a bulldozer in the background. Looks like they have a bunch of different designs.

[1] Basically just like people build decks today. Of course, lots of decks are dangerous, shifting and collapsing, precisely because the techniques aren't very forgiving of mistakes or poor siting.

EDIT: Here's a blog post with a better description, which seems to be discussing the same house(s) depicted in the Fast Company article: "Siteworks are a major cost item and cantilevering the floor joists past the foundation piles reduces the area of siteworks. ... Cantilevered floor girders act more efficiently as beams, making smaller and less expensive timber sections sufficient. Floor joists are cantilevered from the girders for the same reason." [https://misfitsarchitecture.com/2016/08/31/architecture- misf...](https://misfitsarchitecture.com/2016/08/31/architecture- misfits-24-rural-studio/) So it seems the usage of "foundation" in the other article was misleading. And these definitely aren't new techniques, not if you count the stock of 50-plus-year-old homes built in poor, rural America (i.e. not simply the stereotypical New England farm house). So presumably what's innovative is that the students have done the proper analysis and testing to refine them, ensuring they behave as intended as well as meeting modern standards of safety and reliability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious about why they decided to design a one bedroom home. In my midwest hometown of ~10,000 people (which was also the biggest town for ~12 miles in any direction), one bedroom homes essentially don't exist (I checked Zillow and there's exactly 4 listed as for sale or recently sold).

<comment><USER9> Rural Studio typically does projects scaled to elderly, disabled and poor who would otherwise be renting mobile homes. The goal is to make them home owners with a durable asset.

Also the scale of the projects allow it to serve as a thesis project for Architecture students.

<comment><USER10> It's ironic that it's situated in Serenbe, an exclusive $300k-$1M+ 'new urban community' that, despite its efforts to appear otherwise, is designed for anyone other than the common person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What a needlessly abrasive headline.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why does a mortgage cost the bank $2300?

<comment><USER13> I'm guessing those are administrative costs related to servicing the loan. Doing due diligence on whether you're credit worthy, filing the paperwork, maybe some form of insurance.

$2,300 does still seem high for that, though. I would love to see that broken down.</comment></comment>


Hong Kong Cabinet member floats internet curbs to contain unrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/07/asia-pacific/hong-kong-cabinet-member-floats-internet-curbs-contain-unrest <comment><USER2> Protesters, upset the demands still aren't met, are pointing laser pointers at the PLA military barracks: [https://www.scmp.com/video/hong- kong/3031833/china-military-...](https://www.scmp.com/video/hong- kong/3031833/china-military-issues-warning-and-taxi-rams-crowd-tense-third- day-protests)

Carrie Lam and the HK Cabinet should propose meeting the 5 demands. To reiterate:

1 Full withdrawal of the extradition bill (format withdrawal almost completed)

2 A commission of inquiry into alleged police brutality

3 Retracting the classification of protesters as "rioters"

4 Amnesty for arrested protesters

5 Dual universal suffrage, meaning for both the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive

Apparently, some protesters feel they have no other outlet left than to surround the barracks in Kowloon. Nothing will come of it hopefully, the momentum toward universal suffrage feels so intense, I wonder if Macau will be swept in too before long.</comment>


No Sign of the FCC's Mobile Broadband Test App - <AUTHOR> http://consumersresearch.org/?p=50

<comment><USER2> I still have the iOS app installed, and it still seems to work. I recall seeing an update available a few months ago. I read a couple reviews within the App Store stating that the update was basically designed to disable the app, so I opted not to install it. Looking now, I see the FCC test app is no longer in my list of pending app updates (which makes sense if it's been pulled completely).

</comment><comment><USER3> The ratings may be hard-coded but they've certainly changed over time. This snapshot from February 2013 shows different numbers than today: [http://web.archive.org/web/20130216125824/http://apps.usa.go...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130216125824/http://apps.usa.gov/fcc- mobile-broadband-test.shtml)

<comment><USER4> That point seems to emphasize the other questions in the article. Especially, if these numbers are updating, where are they coming from? The apps don't seem to be available in the standard places, so how could statistics (other than "zero", I guess) be gathered about them?

EDIT: it seems conceivable that whoever decided to pull the app, decided not to spend the political capital required to pull its statistics.</comment></comment>


An Interview with Neal Stephenson - <AUTHOR> http://electricliterature.com/the-people-who-survive-an-interview-with-neal-stephenson-author-of-seveneves/ <comment><USER2>
        SP: Two-thirds of the way into your novel,
        Seveneves – in fact, on page 569 – you do
        something kind of crazy. The story suddenly
        skips ahead 5,000 years. What's the idea here?

It took me maybe a week to read the first 2/3's of the book, and about three weeks to read the last 1/3\. In many ways, these two parts feel like completely different books, one of which is significantly better than the other.

Also, I was occasionally distracted at the beginning when snippets of dialog from _Anathem_ were reused in the form of exposition in _Seveneves_.

But, that said, I think the book is worth reading, especially the first 2/3's.

My personal, quick, rough ranking of Stephenson's bibliography:

        * Anathem
        * Snow Crash
        * The Diamond Age
        * Seveneves
        * Cryptonomicon
        * The Baroque Cycle
        * Zodiac
        * Reamde
        * The Interface
        * The Big U

Haven't Read

        * The Cobweb
        * The Mongoliad

<comment><USER3> I haven't read Reamde, yet. I've read lots of complaints about it on Goodreads, so I'm kind of on the fence about getting it.

In your opinion, how was Reamde compared to works like Anathem, Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon? I'm asking because I like your ranking :)

<comment><USER4> Reamde was just bad. Not even on the charts. It's extremely tedious and narratively preposterous.

[http://coldewey.cc/post/26464791525/reamde-neal- stephenson-2...](http://coldewey.cc/post/26464791525/reamde-neal- stephenson-2011)

I'm going to read a few reviews of Seveneves before I read it, Reamde burned me so bad. Although now that I know this huge plot point (spoiler warning!?!?).... I don't know which way that tips the scales.

<comment><USER5> I genuinely don't understand it when people talk about their experience of a work as if their opinions are somehow objective facts. "It was bad" vs. "I didn't like it", for example. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm sorry you didn't like it, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the material, itself, or anyone else's experiences of it.

<comment><USER6> I think that is just a quirk of the English language...

For what it's worth, I also didn't like it - I thought the characters were dry and cliche. Multiple times I caught myself thinking "that makes no sense"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I still can't believe he willingly worked at Intellectual Ventures -- largely considered the most egregious (successful?) patent troll. I still purchase, read, and enjoy each of his books... but I feel a small pang of guilt knowing that some of his ideas may have originated from a shady organization.

Neal, if you're reading... perhaps you could shed some light and assuage our misgivings?

<comment><USER8> Also ripping off all his fans (including myself) on his failed kickstarter.

Stick to books Neal.

<comment><USER9> I know a lot of people feel ripped off, but as a funder, I think it was a genuine, if failed, experiment, and I was glad to fund the attempt.

Pre-kickstarter: "They told us a true-to-life sword-based simulation wouldn't be any fun. Help us make one and prove them wrong"

Post-kickstarter: "They were right"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm just getting into Neal's work. I saw _Snow Crash_ on a list of best sci-fi (maybe via HN) and started there. I then read _Diamond Age_ and just finished _Cryptonomicon_ (which I really liked—probably my favorite of the three).

I started reading _Anathem_ , which I know is seen as his "seminal work" but it's been a slow start for me: all the made-up vocabulary combined with strange names makes it a very disjointed reading experience.

I read the first chapter of _Seveneves_ back in May, so that one is on the list, as is _The Baroque Cycle_.

<comment><USER11> I had the same experience with Anathem. It is a little hard to get in at first. But about 200 pages in, it really starts rolling. Great mix of world, plot, characters, and ideas. (Ultimately, it is a mashup of Plato and quantum mechanics.)

<comment><USER10> That was my sense as well, so trying to gut through it. I had a similar problem with _Infinite Jest_ (i.e., getting into it), but know the payoff is well worth it.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, long-timescale math monasteries just seemed like an attempt to bore me to death. There's no initial event, no mystery to grab you — but when that does kick in, you're firmly grounded in this world. Then it's a great story, until that ending, which takes it even another step further out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> FYI ... we've posted some behind the scenes video as well as some illustrations at Neal's site -- [http://seveneves.lithive.com](http://seveneves.lithive.com) and will be sharing some beautiful illustrations of some of the vehicles in the next day or so.

<comment><USER14> video is interesting. thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Neal Stephenson is my favorite contemporary writer. I really think he stands apart — his ideas are big, varied, and interesting, and he doesn't limit himself to one particular corner of fiction. Definitely worth checking out, if you haven't read his work.

I'd especially recommend "The Diamond Age" to start with.

<comment><USER16> Snow Crash is much lighter fare, and my usual suggestion for people who want to try Neil Stephenson. Though with the audience here, Cryptonomicon is probably a good bet.

<comment><USER17> Zodiac is fun and lighter than Snow Crash.

<comment><USER18> Indeed. It's got some really great one liners, the kind of stuff that is a bit lower brow, but makes me so giddy I have to read it aloud. If you don't believe me:

[http://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/04/neal-stephenson- zodiac....](http://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/04/neal-stephenson-zodiac.html)

<comment><USER16> Absolutely, Zodiac was excellent. I feel like Snow Crash is slightly more representative, though I guess his range is pretty huge at this point; the difference between, say, Big U and Anathem is cavernous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really hope _Seveneves_ is the first of a series. It left a few seemingly important dangling questions and teasers.

Also, I wonder if he's angling for an RPG spinoff. Not to give too much of the last third up but the character types felt very 'rpg class-ish' to me at the end complete with complementary factions.

</comment><comment><USER20> I would pretty much buy anything Stephenson writes, but I wasn't all that happy with this book. It's very depressing in that you get a look at the deaths of billions of people, something they all know about well ahead of time. I found myself reading it the same way Cory Doctorow describes here: [http://boingboing.net/2015/06/03/neal-stephensons- seveneves....](http://boingboing.net/2015/06/03/neal-stephensons- seveneves.html)

> Stephenson builds up a sense of brutal inevitability, of humanity's > insignificance in the cosmos that had me putting the book down for hours at > a time, unable to read on (but my curiosity always overcame my sorrow).

The final (future) part of the book was more fun; I could have gone for just that with some references to what happened in the past. Indeed, there were various things that didn't feel wrapped up at the end, and I wonder if there's a sequel coming or he's just going to leave it like that.

Perhaps because I didn't care much for the first part, I found myself more critical of some of the science fiction too.

</comment><comment><USER21> I just finished reading Seveneves (his latest book, which this interview is mostly about), and quite liked it. It is quite depressing though.

<comment><USER22> I'm sort of curious how you set up "and then the moon explodes".

Is this the sort of event that has a theoretical foundation in astronomy or physics?

<comment> T-A Sorta-kinda-not-really. The closest thing to an explanation in the public excerpt [1] goes like this:

The most generally accepted theory was that the puff of dust observed by the Utah astronomer was caused by an impact. That the Agent, in other words, came from outside the moon, pierced its surface, burrowed deep into its center, and then released its energy. Or that it simply kept on going out the other side, depositing enough energy en route to break up the moon. Another hypothesis stated that the Agent was a device buried in the moon by aliens during primordial times, set to detonate when certain conditions were met.

[1] [http://www.nealstephenson.com/news/2015/04/13/seveneves- exce...](http://www.nealstephenson.com/news/2015/04/13/seveneves-excerpt/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _for the last few decades, the kinds of really smart geeks who in the 50s and 60s would have been building rockets or something have been moving to Silicon Valley and creating startups to make little apps._

Ouch! So close to home. So true. But now we've automated the process - [http://tiffzhang.com/startup/](http://tiffzhang.com/startup/) \- those people can get back to something more useful, like finally learning IPv6 to allow us to build mesh networks for swarming spacecraft to evade inbound asteroids.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm almost done with seveneves and the thing that gets me is how defensive his wrighting has become.

He explains every semi-technical concept in excruciating detail as if he expects an army of angry nerds to tear the book to shreds if he doesn't explain early research into how whips work or the theoretic underpinnings of how swarming algorithms work.

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh, Neal Stephenson, ins't that the guy from this one sword fighting game on kickstarter?

<comment><USER5> This is sort of like saying, "Oh, Richard Stallman. Isn't that the guy who sings Hungarian folk songs?"</comment></comment>


Mobile Prototyping for Designers with Xcode Storyboards - <AUTHOR> http://mindsea.com/2013/06/03/mobile-prototyping-for-designers-with-xcode-storyboards/

<comment><USER2> We've done this on a couple apps, and I think it worked well.

This biggest pain point I remember was that UIScrollViews need to be told their contentSize, which I didn't find a good pattern for our interaction designer to use. I believe she ended up just going with one size fits all, and on screens with less content there was simply a big blank space at the bottom.

The alternatives were a custom controller per scroll view, or have the controller inspect the view hierarchy somehow, making it more complex.

It can certainly get unwieldy if you add lots of screens, or have complex navigation flows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps you could use a table view with static cells (even just one cell with everything in it) instead of a scroll view in most cases. With container views, you can make the static table view a subview of another controller easily now, too.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much to charge for mobile app development as a freelancer - <AUTHOR> Starting my own company as a mobile app developer for iOS and Android and just wanted to know what a reasonable price to charge.By the hour or flat fee. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Which country?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> USA</comment>