The Heart-Stopping Climbs of Alex Honnold - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/magazine/the-heart-stopping-climbs-of-alex-honnold.html <comment><USER2> It's a shame that the only exposure that rock climbing gets in the mainstream media is this sort of thing. "Crazy climbers risking their lives!" There's actually a little bit more to the sport than that.

It's the reason that Americans tend to ask me "you don't do any of that _free climbing_ , do you?" whenever I tell them I'm a climber. Yes, that's all I do. But you're probably thinking of "free soloing", which is much less common, and would take a lot of explaining to make you understand why it's really not as dangerous as it looks. But anyway, that's not what climbers do for the most part.

I guess for the New York Times, regular hard rock climbing and bouldering is just not that exciting. Yes, this guy is hanging by two fingertips, 30 meters off the ground and doing things with his body that most folk wouldn't consider possible. But he's not about to die so this isn't really all that interesting. Certainly not interesting enough to push a photo of a celebrity getting out of a car off of page C6.

In Europe, most regular people I meet tend to know some basic things about climbing and bouldering. In America, nobody seems to have ever heard of the sport. It's all either Mt. Everest or Crazy Free Solo Guy.

<comment><USER3> I just got into climbing a month ago, I've been to the gym about 7 times now, and am absolutely in love with it.

I think it's one of the perfect sports/activities for programmers, but like you said, nobody talks or knows much about it!

Some guy at work kept asking me to go, he had a free guest pass. One day I said why not, and went. I didn't know that there were _routes_ on the wall, and game-like rules.

When you see pictures of rock walls, you assume the climbers are just grabbing onto any hold and going up the wall -- which is really not that interesting. What people don't know is you only have certain holds you are allowed to grab, and have to figure out how to get to the top with strategy and skill.

I hate biking, running. Pilates/yoga is okay. Bodybuilding was okay. But climbing, is awesome. You are basically playing a game, getting stronger, getting in shape, and getting more skilled at something. I almost don't want to tell people about it though, because I want to keep the gym membership somewhat small ;)

<comment><USER4> Well, on real rock often climbers do just grab or stand on whatever they can to advance. But it's still interesting because there is usually not much available. The complex route tagging in gyms is so they can simulate the relative lack of "holds" on real rock, while packing a lot of routes into a small space.

Keep with it but be careful--climbing is addictive. You might find yourself quitting your job and living out of a van in Colorado to climb every day...

<comment><USER5> >be careful... you might find yourself quitting your job and living out of a van in Colorado to climb every day...

That sounds terrible, why would anyone do such a thing?

Brb, quitting job, buying van.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd recommend watching "Alone on the Wall" posted here if you want some sweaty palms: [https://youtu.be/YjMVlGx7g84](https://youtu.be/YjMVlGx7g84)

Alex's skill seems beyond human. I hope he's with us for a long, long time.

<comment><USER7> His video on risk is quite good as well: [https://vimeo.com/84716329](https://vimeo.com/84716329)

I really like his differentiation of risk and consequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Honnold does this without apparent fear, as if falling were not possible."

I've seen a few interviews with and about him. That seems to be a universal sentiment.

I'm curious about his amygdalae.

It's clear that he does feel fear, but he has an extraordinary amount of control over its expression.

"Sometimes, I have brief moments of anxiety" he says about being on a sheer cliff face hundreds of feet up with no more than finger tips anchoring him.

<comment><USER9> The samurai Miyamoto Musashi was quoted as saying, "the way of the samurai is resolute acceptance of death." When it comes to dangerous activities, you have to accept that failure is a possibility, and you have to get into a headspace of being at terms with that. No, you don't _want_ to die, but you also can't let the issue enter your mind and distract you from the task at hand.

Almost all the times I've failed something, it's been because I was terrified of failure and it ruined my ability to perform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This whole thread is full of false equivalences. There's a difference between playing Russian Roulette with a 6 chambered gun, and one with 20,000 chambers.

Yes, you can die falling out of bed. You can drown in a bucket. A meteor can hit your house. You can get into a car accident. None of these are comparable in risk to free soloing.

Skydiving as a sport has 3 million jumps per year and ~21 deaths. It's extremely safe in comparison. (only about 1/5 of mountaineering injuries end in death)

There are many ways to get extreme thrills in life or achieve a zen state and not all of them have comparable risks of dying. And many of them have a non- zero probability of injury instead of death due to safety factors from equipment.

And then there are risks that bring societal benefit, for example, those who serve in dangerous places around the world bringing humanitarian assistance, or documenting human rights abuses. These are measured risks, and they are not solely selfish. Astronauts and explorers take risks on their missions, but they do so with the best equipment and preparation they can, and often for reasons that go beyond sport.

Deliberating putting yourself into a situation by forging the usual safety equipment is being reckless.

Often, the usual response to this kind of reasoning is that you could die at anytime so why not "live life to its fullest" but that's kind of a hedonistic copout. Subjectively you could define this to mean anything, like overdosing on heroin and dying in bliss. I think if you're going to be reasonable and empathic to your loved ones, your family, your community, you should have more concerns than just getting off on your own extreme hobbies while raising the cortisol levels of everyone who loves you. Taking the best available safety precautions is the responsible thing to do.

<comment><USER11> I don't really understand what you're trying to convey. You cite many scenarios where you could die going about your everyday life, but then criticize free soloing as being significantly more risky and "reckless".

The major difference between getting into a car accident and taking a fall while free soloing is that while free soloing, you are in control of nearly all of the risk factors. Free soloing routes that are beyond your capabilities, or climbing in bad weather -- that is reckless. Free soloing routes which you have practiced many times with protection -- to me, that's less reckless than cycling to work during rush hour.

<comment><USER12> The only problem is that soloing inspires others to do the same thing and not all of them are going to be as good and some might die as a result.

True soloing should be done without filming it, I guess.

<comment><USER13> That makes no sense.

I'm pretty sure that I would die during the first play from scrimmage if I suited up and tried to stand in for a middle linebacker in the NFL. The burden in this example, as in yours, is on the idiot who is so inspired, not the one with exceptional athletic skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fantastic presentation, this is a good conversion of magazine-style articles to the web.

</comment><comment><USER15> If this sort of thing interests you, I suggest you watch the following films (assuming you can find them):

      * Hard Grit (http://www.slackjaw.co.uk/climbingfilms/hardgrit.html)
      * Committed, Volume II (http://www.hotaches.com/climbing-films/committed-vol-2/)

Committed is especially interesting, as it follows the Whittaker siblings as teenagers, doing cutting edge, dangerous grit climbs in the Peak with the parents holding the ropes. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER16> i think people have a lot to learn from alex and shouldn't just dismiss him as "inhuman". i think it's important as a human to commune with death. i grew up with someone like alex. we hung out every day, and following him forced me to constantly push my limits of fear. i grew immensely as a person thanks to him.

the most profound experiences of my life have been in moments where i could've easily died. i wouldn't want to live if i couldn't do things that could kill me.

</comment><comment><USER17> Alex does not feel fear like most of us do. I suspect he's biologically different and able to use his mental energy perfecting the technical aspect of climbing.

This woman would have a great time with him:

[http://washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2015/0...](http://washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2015/01/20/meet-the-woman-who-cant-feel-fear/)

<comment><USER3> The video mentions he spent years mastering his fear. It doesn't sound like he has that biological defect.

<comment><USER17> I don't think it's the same either, just pointing out the biology can play a role.

I simply don't believe that everyone could do what he does, even if they applied the exact same time, technique and fortitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is totally insane. I agree that we have to push our limits of fear. It is very brave of him to do such things and all. But even if there is a slightest mistake, it is guaranteed that he is going to die. I mean, why take such risks ? What do you want to achieve dying. At least, do these things with safety is what my opinion is. Life is much more than showing people you can take such risks!

<comment><USER19> > But even if there is a slightest mistake, it is guaranteed that he is going > to die. I mean, why take such risks ?

Interestingly, free soloing actually _eliminates_ quite a lot of potentially deadly mistakes. Protected climbers die usually when they make stupid mistakes in their protection routine, or when their protection fails in unlucky ways. That can't happen to a free solo climber, since he has no protection to rely on in the first place.

A (sane) free solo climber will only try to free solo a route which he has finished multiple times protected and is absolutely certain his stamina and skills are sufficient to complete, and which has no holds of dubious quality.

If you don't misjudge this, the deadly risks that remain are things you cannot really prepare for, like rockfall, cramps, or holds that come loose due to some invisible crack.

<comment><USER20> I think this is the part of the experience that I never really realized...

There's no such thing as just going out and soloing a brand new spot, is there? THAT's the kind of risk I have always pictured when hearing about free climbing... and that just doesn't happen?

Total perspective change. Thanks!

<comment><USER19> I overstated a bit. Onsight (climbing term for doing a route the first time and without getting information from others) free solo does happen (and Honnold does it occasionally), but is a rare exception and done on routes that are yet again more grades below the climber's skill level than for "normal" free solo, and sometimes people take along protection to use in an emergency.

The essential principles remain the same: never do a move you're not absolutely certain you can finish, and never climb to a point where your stamina is insufficient to either finish or climb back to a safe resting place. For an onsight route, the two combined mean that you must always be able to climb back because you might encounter a situation where you have no certain moves forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is ACTUAL risk and then there is the PERCEIVED risk:

Perceived (P) ≠ Actual (A)

Both rock climbing and startups (like everything) have different P and A risk factors and there will always be a gap between P and A.

I try to live a life where not only is P > A but P is as high as possible and I work every day to make A as low as possible. I guess you can call this Risk Arbitrage.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting, the article seems to have inaccuracy: Alex has actually free- soloed University Wall: [http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web14x/newswire-alex- honnold-uni...](http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web14x/newswire-alex-honnold- university-wall-squamish)

</comment><comment> saiya-jin "Caldwell, who is probably the world's greatest free-climber"

2 names: Adam Ondra, Chris Sharma

1 level: 9b+ (or 5.15c for US)

<comment><USER23> I think they probably mean trad climber. I guess sport climbing is technically free climbing, but a lot of people mentally equate free with trad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Joe Rogan interviewed Alex a couple years ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OusYaNWBy08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OusYaNWBy08)

</comment><comment><USER25> Dan Osman: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e0yXMa708Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e0yXMa708Y)

</comment><comment><USER26> One of my favorite quotes - thank you Alex:

"There is no adrenaline rush. If I get a rush, it means that something has gone horribly wrong. Because the whole thing should be pretty slow and controlled. I mean, it's mellow."

<comment><USER27> Alex Honnold has been a big influence in how I'm building my business. He discusses risk many times because he gets asked that question too many times. The answers are relevant outside contexts in which life is hanging is a balance.

\- Take a measured approach to risk. Building a startup is not a blind leap, more about sound analysis and knowing the limits of what you can do.

\- Do what you love doing. Continuously train, excel.

\- A very rational approach to life. Many people who attempt such adventure have somewhat irrational beliefs, believe in some force, spirituality etc. He doesn't need them. Explanations are simpler in terms of what we know, and what we don't know yet.

\- While this may not appeal to everyone, his living out of a van thing is as inspiring as anything else he does. I guess one would see success and failure differently if they experience life in that format.

<comment><USER28> Also:

\- One day, fall a huge distance and die.

<comment><USER29> I have no plans to follow him in that regard. My plan is:

\- One day, die.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A modern romance story: "She was my first fan," Honnold told me. "She'd seen the film, and she posted, like, one line on my Facebook, and I was like, Oh, my God! There's a cute chick talking to me! I posted back a smiley face, and then she did a winky face, and it was game on."

So he's definitely human.</comment>


Show HN: CAVI, how video sharing should be - <AUTHOR> http://cavi.us <comment><USER2> "Video sharing sites have been telling us what is ok and what is not ok to say. " \- not super sure about this. Examples?

The first clause is really misleading and I don't think it's completely true. I understand the fight against big tech, but I'm not convinced they block expression (unless you're in China) I get that they might screen content for appropriateness (e.g law abiding). Agreed, that they may block users, but still fairly sure people are able to post what they want.

<comment><USER3> Bulk demonitization and banning of inconvenient views inside the United States has been ongoing for about four or five years now.

I say "inconvenient views" because Google shut down Tulsi Gabbard's adwords account in the 24 to 48 hours following the first democratic debate about a year ago [0].

I think conservatives are the most vocal about this[1], but it is hard to track to total impact of something coming from an institutional level (with methods like shadow banning).

To the OP: I'd say be specific in your claims. Sweeping claims of shadowbanning aren't useful to anyone (perhaps a look here [2] will help you with composing useful copy).

If I were you, I would also reach out to the creators directly and offer your platform as an alternative.

[0] [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/25/tulsi-gabbard- sues...](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/25/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google- account-suspension-1435405)

[1] [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=youtube+shadowban+conservative+cha...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=youtube+shadowban+conservative+channels&t=ftas&ia=web)

[2] [http://paulgraham.com/useful.html](http://paulgraham.com/useful.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> In general, my main method of reaching out is to contact creators directly. I'm constantly trying to interact with content creators and victims of demonetization and complete deletion. It's hard to do in bulk, but PG has always said to do things that don't scale. Also I'm not trying to fall into the realm of only targeting "conservatives" vs "democrats." I don't think that would be necessarily helpful to our goal of reclaiming what made video-sharing so powerful prior to being heavily regulated and advertiser focused. Though conservatives have been very vocal about the said problems, conservatives aren't the only ones that are being affected. The CAVI team and I are trying to solve this problem in a more general sense, but at the same time, we will keep in mind those who were affected the hardest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will you do about hate speech, which isn't technically illegal?

Most video views are from non-subscribers, and rarely from paid subscribers. How will stay afloat given the cost of video hosting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, hate speech is technically not illegal, and as a 100% advocate for "freedom of speech" I believe that if we begin to decide on what is and what is not allowed to say, then the concept of your "opinion" is compromised. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, there is line that can he crossed. I believe that if someone says "John doe sucks and I hate him," then it's completely fine. It's his, or her, or their opinion. But if someone else says " John Doe sucks and needs to be killed. We need to kill him," that's not ok. There is a fine line between your opinion and inciting terrorism and calling to action completely horrific acts of violence. This is also the same for cyber bullying, and that is also a very sensitive topic. There are so many other edge cases that stand on that line. I and the CAVI team will try to ride this line forever. Will it offend some people, yes, but we will never block/censor/change any of our algorithms because someone has a different opinion than someone else.

Most video views will come form non-subscribers, but we have 100% belief that given the time, there will be enough paid subscribers that support our content creators. A good representation of a similar business model is twitch.tv. And also, we eliminated the running ads yes, but we have designed a way that advertisers can still advertise without killing the user experience. Also, video hosting has become easier and cheaper over the years, but yes, we need the product to work in order to keep us afloat. Hopefully that answers all your questions. Email our support (found on our website) and we can have a longer/more in-depth conversation about any of the topics you are interested in.</comment></comment>


Kiwi TCMS v6.1.1 – open source test case management - <AUTHOR> http://kiwitcms.org/blog/kiwi-tcms-team/2018/10/29/kiwi-tcms-611/#.W9cT-zibUb0.hackernews <comment><USER2> TCMS = test case management system

The linked pages doesn't say it and google isn't helpful either. I'd never seen it before, so I wasn't sure what it was.

<comment><USER3> buried a couple of levels deep in the docs... [https://kiwitcms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guide/usecase.html](https://kiwitcms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guide/usecase.html)

It seems to be a tool for managing testing that is done manually, rather than automated CI tests

<comment><USER4> kiwitcms looks promising. At my work, we have a lot of manual testing, but we have also some automated tests (that we want to run during the night using a "planning" to avoid conflicting access to shared resources). Do you know a similar product that could also manage automated test ? Or is there a API so that the automated test updates kiwi tcms ?

<comment><USER3> from the docs above, Kiwi TCMS has an API

there are many tools for running automated tests, usually known as CI (Continuous Integration) usually based around some concept of a 'build pipeline', which might start with checking code out of version control, have running the tests as one of the steps, and if they pass then do the next step

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why does it require your private email addresses even?

</comment><comment><USER6> How does Kiwi compare to Squash?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used Squash before so thank you for teaching me something new.

Both appear to be relatively similar in terms of features. Squash has a different approach as to how items are organized and probably the workflows around this organization.

Squash appears to be a Windows exe, although written in Java. Kiwi TCMS is distributed as a Docker image and is fully supported on Linux. Kiwi TCMS is written with Python and Django.

Both are open source and have online demos. For Kiwi TCMS you can register for a full-featured demo. For Squash it looks like you can use one of their pre- selected accounts.

Squash appears to have more fancier charts though.

Disclaimer: I am the project lead for Kiwi TCMS.</comment></comment>


Amazon password truncation flaw for old accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/f96w7/amazon_security_flaw_wtf/

<comment><USER2> Looks like quite a serious flaw. Better change my account p/w sharpish.

</comment><comment> T-R Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Mine was affected, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like they were using crypt().</comment>


NES Creator Masayuki Uemura on the Birth of Nintendo's First Console - <AUTHOR> http://www.usgamer.net/articles/nes-creator-masayuki-uemura-on-the-birth-of-nintendos-first-console <comment><USER2> 57 points, but no comments?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, since the change in algorithm for ranking stories I've noticed far more 'highly ranked' front page articles that have zero or very few comments.

Anyway, interesting article. Also like the linked 30 facts article, actually some bits I'd never heard before in there.</comment></comment>


Google+ seems to be appropriating shared Google Reader items - <AUTHOR> http://alexkessinger.net/2011/07/05/google-seems-to-be-appropriating-shared-google-reader-items/

<comment><USER2> broken link

[http://alexkessinger.net/2011/07/05/google-seems-to-be- using...](http://alexkessinger.net/2011/07/05/google-seems-to-be-using-google- reader-shared-items-2/)

but no links or anything other than someone thinking that they had stuff from their reader in their plus stream. zero info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything seems to be working now with the link. There is a link in that article. I don't think that my google reader share was in my google+ I know it is. I know that I shared that article in may, and google+ didn't come out till last week.

I wasn't attempting to sound alarming either, I just thought it was odd that something I shared in google reader is now appearing to be in my google+ feed, especially because I didn't choose to share my google reader shared feed in google+.

<comment><USER3> They do this with Buzz too. It's super annoying, IMO, and not clear enough boundaries between systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> and the problem is?</comment>


Coder.com: Server-Power your IDE - <AUTHOR> https://coder.com/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone tried this yet?</comment>


Stock option questions startup employees should ask - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/stock-option-questions-startup-employees-should-ask-2014-4?r=US&IR=T <comment><USER2> The effect this complexity in option and stock rules had on me is that i simply don't care about options anymore. First, you don't know if the company's going to make it, then you don't know for sure how much tax you're going to have to pay, and finaly you may still need to read the fine prints on the option and make some computations on the company's financial structure...

Do people actually realize options used to be an _incentive_ to recruit high profiles ? Bringing wall street complexity into the deal isn't going to make it more attractive...

<comment><USER3> I've heard sentiments similar to yours be expressed many times, and I find them difficult to understand.

You are a software engineer, or at least, your comment history seems to suggest that strongly. That means that you are comfortable with complexity, you are capable with assimilating incredibly abstruse information about how computers work, are comfortable with using abstractions, and also are capable of prying the abstractions open and looking inside when the situation calls for it. You are also comfortable with, when encountering some arcane shit like Unix signals, saying "well, that's what they came up with back then, and it could've been done better, but now we are just dealing with it".

Understanding the fine print of stock options and understanding how financing works has all of those components, but is _much simpler_ than large-scale software engineering. Why wouldn't you spend a weekend getting as deeply into equity as possible, and understanding the complexity? It will have a higher ROI than spending a weekend learning the new language or framework du jour.

edit: minor clarifications.

<comment><USER4> My undergrad was in comp. engineering and finance - and yes I did work in finance, although I'm now in tech. I find it hard to understand how to price many options grants, and I would still say I regard it as a gamble.

To think you can become an expert in options theory, or how to price them in a weekend is a bit ambitious (if not outright hubris).

There are people's who entire jobs is to try and figure out whether a particular option is priced correctly or not (or whether it will even make money or not). And even they get it wrong fairly often.

And that's just the pricing. Then there's all the legal mumbo-jumbo around them.

Sure, we nerds might think we're smart, but we can't become an expert in any subject just like that =).

Of course, if you happen to have a CS or engineering background, combined with a law degree and a finance degree, you might stand a chance...haha.

<comment><USER3> Did I say "expert"? I certainly don't expect one to become an expert. But basic understanding, enough not to get screwed? Yes, I expect one to understand the basics in a weekend.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/us/meth-crystal-drug.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> I'm almost glad that the meth being sold is described as "pure"... I'm tired of hearing about deaths from heroin cut with fentanyl.

Also: I would be interested to know if anyone has attempted to use a Desoxyn (pharmaceutical methamphetamine) taper to get someone out of meth addiction.

It's interesting that Desoxyn can be prescribed safely (?) to patients while crystal meth is a "killer". I'm guessing dosage and medical supervision makes a big difference in outcomes.

<comment><USER3> It's not really even clear to me that meth is that much of a killer. The article quotes 6000 deaths per year for all stimulants in the US. Alcohol related deaths per year in the US seems to be around 88,000. Obviously alcohol use is more common, but you also have confounding issues of increased risky behavior taking in general for meth users.

<comment><USER4> It's not that it's a killer, it's that it is a destroyer of lives. Produces lots of 20ish year olds with deep pockmarks, no teeth, paranoia issues, Hep C, HIV, etc. Unemployable zombies with tendencies to shoplift, drive impaired, petty theft, etc. It's in the same category as crack cocaine. Very few functional serious users. Unlike, say alcohol, mdma, ectasy, benzodiazapines, marijuana, etc.

Meth really is a nasty business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The major problem with meth is that people don't know how to use it right (e.g. you are to take much much more vitamins (A and E in particular), minerals and antioxidants, piracetam and _drink much much much more water_ (even though this will make you pee really often) if you use meth and you should never inject it but prefer taking it orally and in as small amounts as possible while still getting the effect (magnesium and piracetam can help fighting tolerance development) and you should avoid supplementing extra tyrosine/dopa). Another serious problem for those who want to use meth to improve their productivity and relief ADHD is that legal desoxyn costs enormous amounts of money and can be rather hard to get a prescription for (and is not available outside of the USA at all - if a qualified American doctor confirms you need it you will still have to use the black market to follow his advice if you travel abroad).

<comment><USER6> > people don't know how to use it right

IMHO you should not even suggest there is a "right" way to use meth. If you do you're basically advocating for drug use.

There is no right way to do drugs. Don't do drugs kids, period.

<comment><USER5> There certainly are right ways to use drugs and doctors are generally supposed to know them. And some people without a medical degree/license happen to know too though they're quite rare to meet. I don't advocate mindless illegal abuse of any substances but I don't advocate mindless falsely-moralist medical purism and all the nonsensical "war on drugs" policy either.

By the way I am about 99% sure that the main reason behind drug abuse epidemics, drug-induced degradation and deaths is lack of relevant education (the real kind, not just the scary "don't use drugs" stuff), lack of understanding and support. NO SUBJECT EVER should be made unspeakable. The more serious a problem is - the harder we are to try to actually understand it and everything relevant to it thoroughly and educate everybody to understand that. Imagine we would just teach kids not to use electricity / not to friend with those who use it and scare them about electrical shocks instead of telling them they should use it with their hands dry.

<comment><USER6> Even if there are, you should not publicly talk about them. Otherwise, what's to stop me from thinking you're a meth dealer who's advertising its product?

<comment> King-Aaron > Otherwise, what's to stop me from thinking you're a meth dealer who's > advertising its product? reply

Common sense, perhaps?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It didn't particularly ever leave. The Midwestern US is hit particularly hard with it, and has been for decades.

</comment><comment><USER8> Dosage is the critical factor for any drug and everyone is absolutely unique (and, more so, in unique life circumstances at a given point) as it pertains to mind altering substances and the actual outcome of their lives. Set and setting matter. If you're depressed and doing nothing but getting stoned, you're using weed to keep yourself busy. It offers potential for "wasting" away, by staying stoned.

Marijuana is commonly abused and does ruin lives. Washed up marijuana addicts are common, yielding lost potential for the addict and a loss for society. The unproductive stoner has long been an American cliche, but true. (file_id.diz)

Meth, on the other hand, leaves little room for responsible recreational use. I'd be shocked if more than 1% of people who've ever tried meth would call themselves "responsible casual users".

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://archive.is/NFvUI](http://archive.is/NFvUI)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is meth high different from other drugs. And if other comparably safer drugs were available legally would it decrease the usage of meth. I do believe if drugs were legalised it is a huge industry so billions would be spent of finding a safe way to get high.

<comment><USER4> It seems different because it has the addiction proclivities of heroin coupled with crazy cheap and ubiquitous availability. Any semi educated person can cook it locally.

Plus it's devastating physically. The welts, scratching, paranoia, food avoidance, tooth eating qualities, etc, are pretty unique. It wrecks your body pretty fast. Serious meth addicts seem to age at a 10x+ factor compared to other addicts. Twentyish old people look 40+ after just a year or so after getting hooked.

I'm pretty liberal, but I would fight against legalization of meth. It's really terrible. Meet a girl in her 20's that's been on it a year or two and you might see the issue. Not yet 30, but no teeth left, massive skin issues on their face/arms/upper torso from the welts/scratching, emaciated, and infertile. Also often HIV and/or Hep-C from trading sex for drugs. That shit is pure poison.

<comment><USER3> I think the effects you're describing are mostly all the result of developed behaviors / personal neglect from taking large does regularly. Taking high doses of, ex. Adderall for two years would likely have similar effects.

<comment><USER4> Maybe. I recall uppers/amphetamines (phenphen/etc) being popular in the 90's with college kids, bored/depressed housewives and high stress occupations. Bad effects for sure, but I don't recall toothless pockmarked emaciated zombies carrying serious STDs.

I do feel differently about marijuana, ecstasy, benzodiazepines, mdma, etc. They don't seem much different from alcohol, which we openly condone, despite the obvious issues. At least none of them (mostly) destroy lives in the span of a few years.

Opiates are somewhere in the middle for me. Legalization seems dangerous, but not as obviously stupid as for meth. It's in the same category as crack for me. No real casual/functioning users, really, just almost inevitable misery.

<comment><USER11> Actually MDMA is probably the most dangerous drug that people are trying to get legalized. If I had a teenager, I wouldn't be concerned at all if xanax or weed were legal. Plenty of people take these every day and get by just fine. I could totally see a stupid teenager taking MDMA 1-2 times a week for a good time, and then totally frying out their brain as a consequence. Look at what it does: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Long- term](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Long-term)

That said, I would still support its legalization as long as it could only be administered in controlled environments.

<comment> King-Aaron > Look at what it does:

> As of 2015, the long-term effects of MDMA on human brain structure and > function have not been fully determined.

MDMA in itself isn't as bad as other drugs, as has been mentioned. It's the compounds that it's cut/mixed with that poses most of the immediate dangers. In fact, the therapeutic potential of MDMA is reason enough for it's rescheduling.

[http://www.maps.org/research/mdma](http://www.maps.org/research/mdma)

<comment><USER11> That's true in aggregate, but there is still obvious evidence that when taken over long periods, MDMA results in neurodegeneration, and that this is only partially reversible. Serotonergic pathways are especially effected, which is why acute MDMA use causes short-term depressive symptoms (tolerance), and long-term MDMA causes long-term depressive symptoms (neurotoxicity).

I'm not saying MDMA is as bad as other drugs, nor that it should be illegal. My cousin's uncle's daughter's brother has taken it several times, and he thinks it definitely has a lot of potential for therapy - can't attest to PTSD, but he can absolutely see it working for couple's counseling.

What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be something you can pick up for $5 at the gas station. If MDMA were legal, I would want there to be some pseudofed- like limit to how often you could purchase it (one dose every 3 months is generally considered safe), and I would also want it to be required to take the drug immediately after purchase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pardon my curiosity but how does Meth differ from Adderall in terms of side effects? My understanding is they are very similar but meth is stronger?

Being in tech I know many people with Adderall perscriptions but none of the side effects typically reported for meth.

At low dose is it similar to Adderall? Is it only huge doses that result in scary sides?

<comment><USER13> The key difference between methamphetamine and adderall is that meth is neurotoxic at clinical doses, while adderall is actually neuroprotective. Meth use also causes negative side effects like dry mouth, dizziness, etc much more frequently and powerfully than amphetamine. Users also report that meth tends to hit much "harder" compared to amphetamine, increasing its addiction potential. It mostly is the high doses that cause the side effects, but because of the impurities in street meth, it's nearly impossible to properly weigh the amounts required for adderall-like usage(5-10mg), and even then, it's still neurotoxic. This means that most street users use large doses that cause those effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not special in any way. But I've been pretty liberal with drugs despite their stigma.

Before I talk about myself, I'd like to point out a sore spot in our classification of drug culture -- Being a "nerd" / intellectual does not include being a square / prude. Though they go hand and hand often, because up-tight people tend to keep to themselves, and avoid any risk-taking behavior. These people tend to be well-learned because reading and learning is an extremely low-risk endeavor.

But I think the truly smart people take evidence in a bayesian way, they become aware of risks, yet know to reason from first principles. The only way to yield new knowledge is to veer from the well-trodden paths.

And so, with that preamble out of the way, I take certain drugs often for medical reasons. I've done pretty much every drug under the sun in my college days, and every one of those drugs changed me in a positive way, despite the prude and straight-edged grandmas protesting that I would become addicted or go bonkers, or kill myself somehow. The psychadelics in my opinion, are the most worthwhile drugs, that only really need to be tried ONCE to have an immense effect on someones' life. I don't think someone should do acid every day -- I'm not that guy. But trying it once is definitely worthwhile. And any more than the first time, even a few times, is not even all that profound.

I take amphetamines orally, a few times a week to help me with my focus issues, when studying. I have insufflated them before, back in college, and it's not good for the noses' capillaries, the sinuses, etc.. It's just dumb, a party thing, what immediacy could be gained through faster administration is lost in the mal health effects.

I have chronic pain from multiple herniated discs from an accident. I take opiates daily to help with focus, because pain is extremely exhausting, and will wear you down. You will literally feel mentally tired from the body having to had processed pain -- you'll even need to eat more.

I disagree with synthetic opiates being prescribed. Oxycodone is stronger than heroin in receptor affinity. Addicts will even prefer it, in even oral formulations, versus heroin. Morphine on the other hand, is less pleasurable, and is the gold standard for pain. The synthetics like Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Hydrocodone, were created because the side effects of morphine were deemed too numerous. When I first took morphine, I hated it. It made me nauseous, made my poops hard, and well, it just made me dizzy and disoriented. But once I gave it another chance, it worked really well. Morphine and codeine are the poppy plants natural alkaloids. Why go with a synthetic opiate designed to have a stronger affinity than the natural one?? That is just asking for addictions.

If insurance in the United States were better, Tapentadol would actually be the drug of choice for pain relief that all doctors should prescribe. Tramadol works great for minor pain, and Tapentadol is the second revision of Tramadol, designed for moderate to strong pain, by the same drug company that discovered Tramadol. But unfortunately, it costs $1500 a bottle for the innovation. I used to take it until I lost my good insurance. It is both an opiate and a norepinephrine agonist, like Tramadol, but has stronger opioid agonism. Souped up Tramadol. Less physically addictive than pure opioids like morphine, yet stronger pain relief, drug science is amazing.

Both of these drugs, amphetamines, morphine, can be abused. But they have so much utility for people who can benefit from them. Amphetamine abuse is high in rural communities that utilize a lot of manual labor. And that naturally follows from amphetamines enabling a higher capacity to do both physical and mental work.

So when I see the blind opinion that drugs are bad..mmkay -- that they will instantly addict even open-minded rational, logical people -- I have to provide the other perspective. Responsible use. Drugs improving someones' life who would otherwise be severely tired and inefficient.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how much of the cartels switching to meth is the fact that legalization is sapping their profits from marijuana.</comment>


The Mystery of the Millionaire Hermit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-27/the-mystery-of-the-millionaire-hermit <comment><USER2> There was a homeless person who was well known in my home town (not a town that you'd typically find homeless people living in. In fact I think in the couple of decades I lived there, he was the only one I ever saw). He never seemed to beg, always politely refused any aid. He was so well known, people had offered him beds for the night, but no. He liked being outside in the fresh air.

Eventually he passed, and of course it was mentioned in the local newspaper, along with the revelation that he was, in fact, wealthy. He just chose to live that way.

<comment><USER3> There was a documentary about people who road freight trains illegally, basically hopping on them as a means to of transportation for the poor, run aways, etc.

Several people they interviewed did it even after they settled down. Something just drew them to it. They seemed to love the adventure, seeing the country, not knowing where they would end up or what they would see.

The randomness of the adventure sounded appealing.

<comment><USER4> Lots of punks in the crust and anarcho scenes do this kind of thing. I knew a couple back in the day, and watch a former one and her husband on youtube.

To be honest I wish I'd done it in my youth. It's way too risky and the legal consequences are dire. I know better now.

<comment><USER5> In your youth you had a lot more things ahead of you. If anything doing it when you are older is probably better.

<comment><USER4> Society is more willing to forgive youthful indiscretions than adult flights of fancy. And it takes a certain kind of youthful spryness and daring that I've got less of an ability and appetite for as I've gotten a bit older.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What infuriates me is the sleeze ball firms like Brandenburger & Davis who aren't even satisified with extorting 30% of an estate from relatives, but then also resort to illegal collusion.

Yah, let's keep reducing regulations so that these kind of scum bags can keep doing their thing.

<comment><USER7> A regulation is what entitles them to take the 30%.

And seriously, what do you think the percent should be? It's not that simple.

<comment><USER8> > It's not that simple.

The combination of money and family never make things simple. Not sure if you watch the movie "Million dollar baby", the back story of the inheritance/power of attorney in this movie really make me sad for our human race and our behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I met someone like this once, he used to hang out under the overpass near the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. He liked to joke that he had "Very strong opinions about very unimportant things." He was often reading a book and I talked with him about some of them. He lived the way he did because he felt that the human body was made to be nomadic rather than sedentary. If you asked if he was homeless he would say, "Nope, I live right here on this planet."

</comment><comment><USER10> > Brown didn't have a bed, just a foam bedroll tucked into the corner of one > bedroom and a military duffel containing an old uniform and medals.

I understand being frugal and admire it, but this level of frugality is harder to understand. I would hope he was at least comfortable on his bedroll. Based on what I could gather from the article, he seemed like a wonderful man.

<comment><USER11> FWIW, I have serious health issues and simply feel better sleeping on a wood floor with a couple of blankets than in a bed.

I'm actually given a very hard time by a lot of people for being willing to talk about such choices. So I think it is understandable that most frugal people don't bother to try to justify it. Most of the world isn't interested in understanding. They are only interested in treating people who aren't "like" them as freaks so as to protect their right to live "normally."

<comment><USER12> No health issues here, but have been sleeping on the floor since my teens and now whenever I sleep on a bed or anything similarly compliant I wake up with back pains.

The only time it's an issue is when it comes to dating, since practically noone here (CA) wants to sleep on the floor and I have no interest in sleeping on someone's bed.

The other benefit to using the floor is it preserves one's ability to get up and down from the floor into old age. The Japanese got this right, and it's actually had me considering learning Japanese and relocating there multiple times. I presume the aforementioned dating issues would be far less of a problem there.

<comment><USER13> Well, Japan differs from the ex-British Empire areas in many other ways in addition to sleeping habits. Some might appeal to you but some might not. :)

I also like a really firm sleeping surface — I don't have any particular health problems, I just feel stiff and sore if my bed is too soft — and right now I sleep on a typical raised bed but with a very firm futon. It satisfies me, and if my date doesn't especially like it, she at least perceives it as an odd preference, rather than as a sign of poverty or despair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The neighborhood mail carrier was the one who'd called the police. Every > day, Brown would wait for her in a chair by his door, and the two would > exchange pleasantries. But for the past five days, there'd been no sign of > him. Police did a welfare check and discovered his body in a pool of dried > blood by the toilet. Members of the coroner's office who were dispatched to > the house determined that he died of a stroke, but not before breaking his > nose in a nasty fall.

Another example of how elder falling is responsible for an astounding amount of morbidity & mortality.

<comment><USER15> Is it certain the stroke came before the fall? It may have caused the fall.

<comment><USER16> That's how I read it. He had a stroke, fell, broke his nose, and then died of the stroke.

The nose just sucks, but if you're already having a stroke...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know this once homeless, childless, single, middle-aged guy who works as a manager at a storage facility who has quite a portfolio but has all-but retreated from society.

</comment><comment><USER18> A bit upsetting that the Catholic Charities never got that money. Surely, they could have done better with it than "a Cadillac and three or four motorcycles."</comment>


Show HN: A Simple terminal-based video chat – renders in ASCII and has audio - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mofarrell/p2pvc <comment><USER2> This is awesome! Wonder how it compares with mine (github.com/billyeh/termchat). Would love to share notes with the maker, since audio was something I did not even consider while I was making it. The image processing part is fun, though!

<comment><AUTHOR> I helped create it at a recent hackathon. the ascii is rendered by calculating the intensity of any given pixel, mapping that intensity to a character based on how much that character fills up space ('@' would be bright and '.' would be dark) and then approximating the color of the pixel to fit within the 256 available

I've noticed your implementation uses websockets, which are built on top of TCP. we used UDP and encapsulated everything is a pretty simple to use (and easily the most well documented part of the project) p2plib.c. the fear was that video and audio can get backed up if we were to use TCP. so audio and video were sent via UDP packets and rendered every time a UDP packet was recieved.

<comment><USER3> You can go a bit further to get significantly higher color depths using ASCII block characters 176, 177, 178. By using the foreground and background ANSI colors and blending them by using these three characters (25%, 50%, 75%) you can achieve some quite realistic images. If you're more interested in resolution, using half block characters like 220 and 223 can allow you to double your vertical resolution at the cost of not being able to use the color trick.

<comment><USER4> I made something similar to this using a combination of 256 color mode and unicode halftone characters for "dithering" between the foreground/background colors.

[https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam](https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam)

Another thing I'd like to try to get a bit more resolution is to perhaps use the braille character set in combination with 256 color mode: [https://github.com/asciimoo/drawille](https://github.com/asciimoo/drawille)

Also, some terminals are starting to support 24bit color (iTerm2 nightlies) which could pretty drastically improve the possibilities of terminal based video: [https://github.com/frytaz/txtcam/tree/color](https://github.com/frytaz/txtcam/tree/color) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its one of the most interesting github projects that I've seen so far!

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks very cool. Sorry for nitpicking, there seems to be off by one at "ascii_values[min((intensity + 40) / 9, sizeof(ascii_values))];" :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> The audio part is cool!

I made a similar project to this (but without sound).

[https://github.com/kfei/sshcam](https://github.com/kfei/sshcam)

Which uses SSH connection, 256-colors, Unicode block characters and CIE94 algorithm to compute color distance when mapping colors to 256 palette.

Watch it in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAa- pGda9kY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAa-pGda9kY)

</comment><comment><USER8> > p2pvc does not get around NAT, so you may need to port forward. It uses > ports 55555 and 55556 for audio and video respectively.

Nice use case for IPv6.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately from what I understand, IPv6 has the option for NAT. Once it goes mainstream we'll probably find ourselves right back in this situation with multitudes of users stuck behind firewalls as second class netizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's almost _too_ high fidelity. Wow.

One request - what's the bitrate? (I know it's probably possible to measure in 1 line of shell)

<comment><AUTHOR> well it is 100x40 in number of characters and there are 10 different characters that can take on one of 256 colors. that's 4000 x (8 (256 colors can be represented in 8 bits) + 4 (10 characters in 4 bits)) = 48Kb per frame, with about 20 fps. so maybe 120 KB/s?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who needs skype when you've got ascii...

<comment><USER12> The dream of the 60s is alive in your computer

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Needs ncurses headers

sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev

<comment><USER14> Also pulseaudio headers:

sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazing. Is the image(frames of the video) converted to ascii text in the server or on the terminal?

</comment><comment><USER16> It would be awesome if it supports XMPP/SIP. And btw is there a image previewer for terminal?

<comment><USER17> I recently started looking into building a similar web cam project using WebRTC, except sending ascii images over the datachannel instead of encoded video. So, I was pleased to see this project making it happen. You could easily implement this with XMPP/SIP over WebRTC.

<comment><USER16> That's interesting. But if you already have a graphical browser which supports WebRTC, why do you still need the ascii? Or is there a terminal browser with WebRTC support?

<comment><USER17> Bandwidth: I'm often in areas where bandwidth is a premium but I'd still like to video chat with family. And besides, I absolutely hate dropped frames, rebuffering etc etc: I just want to engage in a conversation with friends and I don't care that it's HD video. Applications like Skype don't let you drop the bandwidth (for reasons I don't understand) and dropping it in WebRTC makes the compression almost unreadable. As this project has shown, ASCII video can really be quite legible and probably a lot more forgiving for lower frame rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> :( Anyone get the error

"VIDIOC_STREAMON: Invalid argument libv4l2: error turning on stream: Invalid argument

Can't seem to get it to work trying anything on github etc and want to get enough around to file a real issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually got this error as well and had to update to a newer version of OpenCV. 2.4.10 seemed to fix it

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't something like this be easier to encrypt for transmission than normal video? Plus, in the case it comes up, "that ascii representation doesn't look anything like me and you can't prove it was me."

I like it.

<comment><USER20> Why would it be any easier to encrypt? It's data just the same.

I wouldn't rely on terrible quality video for plausible deniability but if you want to there are of course many ways to make your webcam feed shitty looking.

<comment><USER19> Easier in the sense of less data, which would make it faster. One of the issues with encrypted video chat is that most implementations have a max amount of people you can chat with because of the computing overhead.

<comment><USER21> It's only less data because the resolution is low. You'd get exactly the same result with "normal" video chat by reducing the resolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This would be awesome with audio. Stream audio over ssh and into a dependency like mplayer, and you have full a full, terminal chat application!

<comment><USER23> It has audio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really cool. I like the idea a lot.

</comment><comment><USER25> Very nice!

</comment><comment><USER26> I made something like this once. Doing it in color is pretty awesome though.

</comment><comment><USER27> great project!!

I remember watching the world cup on an ASCII terminal

:)

</comment><comment><USER28> WOW

</comment><comment><USER29> That's pretty awesome, now if I can fins a decent terminal browser that supports javascript and vim keybindings and the equivalent of chromes devtools, I can spend all of my time in the terminal (save design of course, but that wouldn't even make any sense). It's probably unreasonable to think that I'll fin that, but I'll keep looking.</comment>


The paralysed man who can ride a bike - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35660621 <comment><AUTHOR> I interviewed the man behind the cure almost a year ago ([http://zidilife.com/geoff-raismen-beating- paralysis/](http://zidilife.com/geoff-raismen-beating-paralysis/)) and it's amazing to see the progress of Darak in the last 12 months. Professor Raisman was one of the most interesting people I have ever interviewed - a simply amazing man. So happy to hear of the progress in this field.</comment>


Coffee and tea consumption reduce MRSA risk - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-coffee-tea-consumption-mrsa.html

<comment><USER2> I've found the congestion I experience responsive to interventions that typically treat infection. For example, a prescription for antibiotics for an unrelated condition.

It's been extremely difficult to get doctors and other medical practitioners to respond to this information in any useful fashion. The only understanding of congestion and related symptoms that seems prevalent or understood is one of "allergic reaction".</comment>


Rasmus Lerdorf - PHP frameworks? Think again. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/29/rasmus-lerdorf-php-frameworks-think-again/ <comment><USER2> I did some consulting a few months ago. A FOAF had developed and launched a quite comprehensive online textbook, and their success was choking the the website. They don't know much programming, and had they not used a framework (and one of the slower ones at that), they wouldn't have launched. Period.

I moved in, got them off shared hosting, replaced the built-in search with a Apache Solr, tuned the cache and a few other quick wins, took my money and left them my phonenumber. They live to fight another year or two, and I'll stop by and help again then.

Scalability is not your problem, getting people to give a shit is.

[http://teddziuba.com/2008/04/im-going-to-scale-my-foot- up-y....](http://teddziuba.com/2008/04/im-going-to-scale-my-foot-up-y.html)

Frameworks helps getting people to give a shit, custom C++ extensions doesn't, so use a framework, unless Yahoo! called.

<comment><USER3> The majority of Drupal users I know couldn't write a line of C++ to save their lives. Many of them can't write a line of PHP, either. I'm constantly impressed with the patience of these people, but they get results.

In a world where every church, school, and small business could afford its own personal Rasmus Lerdorf, we'd all have much more efficient code that was lovingly hand-optimized for our specific applications. In the real world, hardware grows on trees, while Rasmus Lerdorf probably costs something like $400 per hour.

<comment><USER4> I'm a PHP dev, but I'm always surprised by how seldom I have to code anything besides a theme in Drupal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't find any further details on this claim. It wouldn't surprise me if it was true but benchmarks really do depend on the details. I want more info.

Skipping over the use of "Hello World!" in benchmarks is anyone actually surprised by this? Frameworks aren't a silver bullet. I don't think they were ever meant to be, especially when it comes to performance. There is nothing stopping you from going in to the framework code and optimising it or even taking functionality over to C++ if that's what you want.

<comment><USER6> For benchmarks with Drupal, see [http://www.opensourcery.com/blog/jonathan- hedstrom/drupalcon...](http://www.opensourcery.com/blog/jonathan- hedstrom/drupalcon-rasmus-lerdorf-php-performance-and-drupal-performance- correction)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So we should all abandon our frameworks entirely for C++ because we're going to be getting Yahoo levels of traffic, trees are people too, and no one's ever achieved 280 req/sec with a framework because things like caching don't exist.

And the semantic web is cool.

What the fuck? Why is anyone upvoting this link? It's completely insane.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ah, Rasmus. Rasmus is kind of like the last hockey player who doesn't wear a helmet and looks down on the rest of us pussies. We don't all have 500 million users, man.

He's a got a good point: PHP _is_ a framework. It's just not a very easy one. Clue, Ras: when your users ask you constantly for certain features (say, named parameters or templating) and you don't give it to them, they will go around you. Or they'll stop using your language.

<comment><USER6> You had me until you said that PHP is a framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a load of crap. Quite surprising to hear that sort of tripe come from a respected figure like Rasmus Lerdorf... but then, he did invent PHP.

First of all, requests/s per server is not a measure of performance, it's a measure of scalability. I can take the same system he's got, buy 9 other identical servers, and get 10 times the throughput. Does that mean they're higher performance? No, just higher scalability.

Secondly, scalability is not your problem. Getting people to give a shit about your site/product is your problem. Scalability is a hard problem later, but it is only worth really worrying about once it is a real problem.

Rasmus Lerdorf: -1.

<comment><USER10> He wasn't really talking about scalability but req/sec which has more to do with speed/latency.

Getting people to care about your website requires it being fast .. see Google: "Google found an extra .5 seconds in search page generation time dropped traffic by 20%." ([http://highscalability.com/latency-everywhere-and- it-costs-y...](http://highscalability.com/latency-everywhere-and-it-costs-you- sales-how-crush-it))

But then again, if you want speed why use PHP at all ;-)

<comment><USER9> From TFA:

 _He continues on by stating that PHP developers really need to think about performance for not only scalability reasons but for green reasons._

Sounds to me like he cares about performance because of scalability. That's retarded.

Upon second reading, I'm beginning to think that the writer failed to follow what was being said. I can't believe that someone like Rasmus Lerdorf would say something quite so daft, and the style of the article is erratic to say the least. So maybe it's just the writer who misinterpreted what RL said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "To get the speed that is necessary for truly massive web systems you have to use compiled C++ extensions to get true, scaleable architecture."

But at the same time, even creating a simple procedural PHP extension is a huge undertaking (much more than it needs to be), accentuated by poor and out of date documentation all around, and large parts of documentation are missing from the PHP site concerning extension creation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Rasmus is a one trick pony who sees the entire universe of programming through the prism of application performance.

<comment><USER13> Is Guido a "one trick pony" too? That's pretty disparaging language for someone who came up with such a widely used programming language.

That language is not something I'm particularly enamored of, but Rasmus is a bright guy, who created something that thousands (tens, hundreds of thousands?) of people the world over use. That's not bad for "a one trick pony".

(BTW, would you call him that to his face?)

<comment><USER12> I'm not saying he's not bright and a bad guy, or that PHP sucks.

I've been reading stuff from him since '99 when I first started working with PHP. I've seen him talk. As far as I can tell, the _only_ thing Rasmus ever really gets excited about is performance - he's been saying the same thing for _years._</comment></comment></comment>


Did a deathbed confession reveal the location of Nazi gold train? - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/11830226/Nazi-gold-train-found-live.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This just like out of a movie or something. You always hear about rumors of this kind of thing</comment>


Cephaloponderings - <AUTHOR> https://putanumonit.com/2019/07/26/cephaloponderings/ <comment><USER2> If you find this interesting "other minds" by Peter Godfrey Smith is an excellent book.

</comment><comment><USER3> > the males that detach their mating arms to keep from being eaten, and > generally they really can't mate again after that (why they bother trying to > avoid being cannibalized if they don't mate again afterwards)

Nothing prevents them to mate again. Male octopuses are able to regenerate lost arms and the Hectocotylus easily. The best known species live fast and have short lives in any case.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even if only a small % of males manage to reproduce after mating arm removal; over time, would that not lead to the gene for surving reproduction to be selected and become more common?

Great article, and indeed confusing questions. Wish we can learn more about octopuses, specially the social octopuses.

Also interesting were recent mdma experiments on octopuses.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the read. Its utterly bizarre to hear the math of it

      All this points to orphaned octopus babies having an advantage over those with living parents,
      which is easy enough to fathom. Without mom and dad around, the kids are left with more food and territory for themselves.
      However I'm still confused. Wouldn't a given gene be more likely to replicate itself residing
      in an individual that reproduced multiple times in addition to being in half the octopus babies it helped produce?

How does a gene that a parent only passes down (typically) once that inhibits survival after mating outlive a mutation that doesn't?

</comment><comment><USER6> My God, what a lovely post.</comment>


Amazon's Program to Spy on Workers' Private Facebook Groups - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azegw/amazon-is-spying-on-its-workers-in-closed-facebook-groups-internal-reports-show <comment><USER2> Could a plugin be made for a private group chat that uniquely mangled all messages, so that each participant got slightly different text, but that didn't interfere with intelligibility, so that automatic logging when it was leaked, could be traced back to the compromised participant.. it would have to be something not easily guessed and corrected, like one participants e's are replaced with 3s. It would have to be substantive, like a paraphrasing of certain parts of the message with gpt3 or something..</comment>


My terrifying five-day stay inside Seattle's cop-free CHAZ - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2020/06/20/my-terrifying-5-day-stay-inside-seattles-autonomous-zone/ <comment><USER2> This is body cam footage from when the police tried to respond when two people were shot in CHAZ, one person later died at the hospital and another remains in serious condition;

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

EMT was not able to get to them. Both victims were transported to the hospital in private vehicles. There is no description of the shooter, who is still at large.

</comment><comment><USER3> Andy Ngo is a well known far-right agitator, with a reputation for distorting events. What he recounts likely has a kernel of truth, but his reporting is suspect.

<comment><USER4> sources? evidence?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Assistant to help you fight social media addiction and do smth useful - <AUTHOR> https://douseful.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Eduard, and over the last few years I've been enrolled on many online courses to strengthen my research skills, broaden my career prospects, and to simply learn something new. Some of these courses were free, and others I paid to take part in. However, I haven't completed all of them. Often, I tried to find excuses, telling myself that "this week I'm too busy with my work", or "this week I've a lot on socially, so I don't have the time to submit an assignment…". This led me to the idea that I needed something that could help me fight procrastination. I needed regular pushes, or gentle advice from some as yet unknown source. As I tried to explore how a tool could be developed to solve this problem, I attended the summer school on behaviour change at University College London. The puzzle has developed. Why not use behaviour change techniques applied effectively to change behaviour in healthcare settings and help others to learn something new instead of wasting their time online.</comment>


Want to minimize your home's carbon footprint? Go for solar, forget the battery - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/want-to-minimize-your-homes-carbon-footprint-go-for-solar-forget-the-battery/ <comment><USER2> Would love to deploy some solar panels, but, alas, the Home Owners Taliban does not permit solar or wind power to homes on pain of a mechanical lien on the offending houses.

It is my goal, however, to downgrade my home size, an already modest 1890 sq. feet to about 1200 in the next year or so--and on my own land, so I can do what I want.

I also want to have goats for milk and cheese as well as to sell the offspring off for BBQ. By having a donkey and a few goats, I also get my land zoned "agriculture" and my tax burden is decreased by a fair margin. The goats will ensure my 10 acres never needs mowing. The donkeys are better watchdogs than actual dogs.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with legacy code? - <AUTHOR> More specifically, how do you manage to get 'green' builds when there is code that is not compliant with style or inspections?<p>In php there is phpmd and phpcs that are really hard to pass when having some legacy code. <comment><USER2> What I usually aim for is that all new code/commits conforms to style and other requirements like having tests etc. Usually it is possible to configure tools to only flag something as a bad build when the new code doesn't conform to those qualities.

However, this means that as soon as you start mucking about in the legacy code, that code need to be covered by tests and formatted to pass any style checks and linters. That is not an insignificant amount of work so plan accordingly.

Also, I find it useful to remember that even if the code is not to my liking (for whatever reason) it might be consistent. I.e. maybe it uses some coding style I am unfamiliar with and I would rather it used another it is often detrimental to start changing it to be more inline with my preferences. Consistently poor code is often easier to reason about than code that is a mix of different preferences and patterns. This also goes for when thinking about introducing new technology to an existing code base (see the lava flow antipattern).

<comment><AUTHOR> Tank you for the reply. How do you configure those tools to only flag something as a bad build when the new code doesn't conform to those qualities? Is it something specific to you build workflow?

<comment><USER3> Some will let you specify files or directories to exclude. Others let you enable/disable one rule at a time.

It took us about 18 months of gradual chipping away to get our codebase to pass a linter, enabling one rule or class of rules at a time.

We're still working on test coverage. The key is to make sure all new code is covered (enforce in code review) and then very gradually backfill the rest. Add reproduction before fixing a bug. Add end to end coverage before a refactoring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Imposing new style on legacy code can be stupid; don't do that.

You're just adding to the "activation potential" required to make a necessary fix in legacy code. Changes in legacy code should be minimal. Nobody who has to make a fix in legacy code should be asked to upgrade its style and whatnot, that is not related to the fix.

If it has its own conventions, just maintain those.

Or else, make a commitment to upgrade the legacy code to new conventions, as a separate, dedicated task, whose goal is to do it thoroughly.

The last thing you want is a hodgepodge where code that has been recently touched conforms to one set of conventions, and code that has not been touched conforms to another.

I think a good way to approach legacy code (at a high level, big picture) is to answer the question "how much of the value of what we are doing here is propped up by this legacy code?" If the fact that the legacy code works is paying your salary, respect that; maybe those people weren't idiots.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe you will be interested in the book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code".

It teaches several ways of dealing with large untested codes in edible chunks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the hint. I recently landed on a huge and very old codebase (php, >12 years old) and I am a bit scared.

<comment><USER5> Then this book may be written exaclty for you.

One of the most memorable part is that the author defines legacy code as "code without tests".

And you can handle it by the following:

0\. poke around in the code till you find a part you think you can test something in isolation. If you need some _trivial_ changes to reach that, thats okay. 1\. create some kind of test that will catch you if you break something 2\. refactor and understand

The book is about offering several tactics for dealing with points 0. and 1. and is very digestible, good read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've worked on systems that had the CI system set up to only fail style or inspection when the overall issue count was larger than the previous one. Over time, your issue count will become asymptotic toward zero. There is a gap in that if you add new code that has issues at the same time that you refactor and remove issues, you won't be alerted. So...don't do that!

Tests have also been very helpful. So say I'm in a situation where the legacy code is not style-compliant, let's forget the style-oriented analysis and double down on adding tests. Once you have good test coverage, start to clean up the styling and start to think about static code analysis as part of the build.

<comment><USER7> > I've worked on systems that had the CI system set up to only fail style or > inspection when the overall issue count was larger than the previous one. > Over time, your issue count will become asymptotic toward zero.

Yeah, that's probably not a bad approach. it also means it is acceptable to introduce new lint violations (this may be unavoidable) if the committer "pays the tax" / "pays a tithe" of fixing some existing violation that might be easier to clean up.

another way to implement this (which probably depends upon details of the version control and lint tools being used) is, for each change, query version control to identify what files have changed (or ideally subsections of files), and evaluate before/after lists of issues using the lint tool.

for example, for lint tools that only need to read the content of a source file (without e.g. executing or importing it or whatever), and support processing a single file at a time (instead of needing to scan the entire source tree) you can probably cobble something together reasonably easily if no existing tool exists.

for example, if you are dealing with a legacy python codebase that is version controlled using git, you could start using `pyflakes` that is able to analyse each file in isolation, and merely needs to read the content of the file and not import or execute it. it isnt that hard to query git to discover which files were changed in a commit (e.g. `git show --name-status <commit>`) or view the content of a file at an arbitrary revision (`git show <commit>:<path/to/file.py>`). with enough glue scripting you could use this to produce a custom report to show what the delta of issues (either a count of sets of the actual specific issues) is for each file touched by a commit, without having to scan the entire codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am currently converting a 4 year old Coffeescript codebase into modern Javascript. There are certain parts containing heavy use of super, lots of this and global variables from who knows where.

My solution is to ignore the parts that can't be easily fixed. List them up in an issue or ticket somewhere to fix later if necessary. For now, modernising the majority of the codebase is a more pressing issue than nitpicking preferences.

<comment><USER9> It's sad that a codebase that's only 4 years old is considered legacy. I really feel sorry for the project sponsors in this scenario who presumably paid good money for a solution that didn't stand up to the test of time.

<comment><USER7> if you take Michael Feather's definition of legacy code as "code without tests", it's probably the case that someone in your org is producing some new legacy code this week ;)

on the other hand, sometimes in a startup-ish scenario it is optimal from a business perspective to bash out code to add features to drive revenue and worry about tech debt for the far future hypothetical scenario of the startup turning into a profitable business that can pay to bring people in to rewrite everything.

that is, optimal in the sense of the alternative being slowly writing very well thought out and engineered code and running out of money before having enough customers to justify a longer-term engineering focus

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is the code actually bad or just different? Consider the costs of enforcing a different coding style from what previously existed - is there a business case for it?

</comment><comment><USER11> Info about dealing with legacy code: [https://www.legacycode.rocks](https://www.legacycode.rocks)

</comment><comment><USER12> > how do you manage to get 'green' builds when there is code that is not > compliant with style or inspections?

See if there is tooling to do it for you. Google seems to favor this approach, seeing as they put out YAPF for python and gofmt for Go.

</comment><comment><USER13> usually, when i have the time for it ( ask management ) i start by writing missing tests for the legacy codebase ( which, more often than not, have very little automated tests ). Then, isolate and encapsulate the hell of it, to the point that it can be replaced more easily, if/when needed.

OTOH, when there is no time available for this kind of care, i just go rodeo- style, guns blazing, code crashing and long nights... fixing the most low hanging bugs, or the most critical.

</comment><comment><USER14> All source code analyzers I tried are broken. They generate too much false positive. They don't help the programmer.</comment>


The NSA's New Risk Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/the_nsas_new_ri.html

<comment><USER2> Assuming the article's premise that "the NSA has to assume that all of its operations will become public" is correct I wonder how heavily they would really weight this 'cost'.

It seems to have been a fairly common thread in online commentary that the NSA's activities generated far less outrage than it should. They may be able to brush off the public disclosure of activities in the future.

</comment><comment><USER3> > We know that the NSA receives advance warning from Microsoft of > vulnerabilities that will soon be patched

This alone should get anybody who knows it off that OS. Seriously.</comment>


Power features in file manager nnn (Part 2) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/nnn/wiki/Power-features-2 <comment><AUTHOR> This is the second installment of the 2-part series. We decided to have a distinct section in the Wiki for these type of features which may not be very obvious to the users from the rest of the documentation.</comment>


Biggest news you've never heard: Earth isn't warming  - <AUTHOR> http://features.csmonitor.com/discoveries/2009/10/10/biggest-news-youve-never-heard-earth-isnt-warming/

<comment><USER3> I thought we were past all the definitional bullshit behind the global warming vs climate change fiasco? The theory of human-caused climate change doesn't call for a steady year-by-year, much less season-by-season, increase in temperatures everywhere. It does, however, call for dramatic extremes - <USER2> crop-killing winters here, prolonged droughts there, and some truly monstrous hurricanes in the years to come.

<comment><USER4> Importantly, it also doesn't mean the entire globe will warm. Something as major as this could be to climates will likely throw some weird outcomes in certain places, including cooling

(iirc, the Gulf Stream dissipation theory that was going to stop the flow of warm water up the Atlantic, resulting in a cooler Europe, has been disbanded, but that's the level of uncertainty involved here).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is Christian Science?

<comment><USER6> I don't have much truck with religion, but the csm is actually a pretty good paper.

<comment><USER5> Don't know the paper - will check it out. But why is it called Christian _Science_?

<comment><USER6> It's an old name, see: [http://www.allaboutcults.org/christian-science- monitor-faq.h...](http://www.allaboutcults.org/christian-science-monitor- faq.htm)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How my iPhone made me miss my first flight of the year - <AUTHOR> http://www.helmutgranda.com/2011/01/01/how-my-iphone-made-me-miss-my-first-flight-of-the-year/ <comment><USER2> While I do use my mobile's alarm app often, I've always been hesitant to use it as my -only- alarm. There are too many things that could go wrong when compared to a good ol' alarm clock.

When I need to catch those 6am flights, I set multiple alarms on my alarm clock, as well as my phone. Always have a backup.

<comment><USER3> I have had so many problems with alarms and alerts not sounding on a variety of mobile devices, going back many years, that I don't rely on them for anything important. Hotel wake-up call service has always been my backup when traveling.

<comment><USER4> I've had hotel wake up calls NOT happen. For really-must-wake-up-on-time situations, you need to diversify: phone + hotel + a tiny clock.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if this is a bug in general? Hotel wakeup calls are done by automated services these days, atleast for every hotel I've stayed in for the last 10 years.

If you think hotel wakeup calls are unreliable and they all use the same wakeup call software then the problem may be in the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Once is a fluke, but twice is a pattern:

[http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/01/iphone-alarm-bug- wake...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/01/iphone-alarm-bug-wakes-users- up-late/)

Apple is going to have to restore faith in the clock app like Google needs to restore faith in Android's SMS app.

<comment><USER7> What is wrong with Android's SMS app? I don't want to start another Google VS Apple thread, I honestly haven't noticed anything.

<comment><USER4> Valid question. There is a bug in the Android SMS app that sends your text to unintended recipients. See:

<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9392>

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/31/android-still-has- horribl...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/31/android-still-has-horrible- text-messaging-bugs-thatll-get-you-f/)

[http://www.bgr.com/2010/12/31/android-bug-that-sends-sms- mes...](http://www.bgr.com/2010/12/31/android-bug-that-sends-sms-messages-to- random-recipients-is-being-ignored-by-google/)

<comment><USER8> Interesting. I get mail addressed to people with GMail addresses that are similar to mine (gaustin vs. g.austin). I sometimes wonder if other people get emails addressed to me...

<comment><USER4> Don't worry: both these addresses are yours! See the first item in this help page:

[http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10313...](http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10313&topic=1564)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have a theory to explain the bug [1]?

[1] _Any non-recurring iPhone alarm between January 1 and 3 will not go off_

<comment><USER10> That's weird, because my alarm went off this morning at 5:30 AM and was non- recurring. Does the bug afflict only a particular software version? I'm on 4.1 on an iPhone 4.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen any official report from Apple, but if you follow the thread link below you can see most people report 4.2.1

<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2702635>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A backup that uses the same mechanism is worse than no backup at all, since it gives you a false sense of security.

<comment><USER10> Not really, since iPhones can run out of batteries, one could get turned off reflexively, they could break down during the night, etc. There are plenty of reasons to use two iPhone alarms over one that do add security.

<comment><USER11> It was an aphorism, but I'll grant you that.

But a backup that would take the same effort (a $10 alarm clock) using entirely different hardware and software would be _significantly_ more robust than just using another iphone.

The 747 has two sets of controls and four completely redundant hydraulic systems for the control surfaces, rather than two controls for a common hydraulic system. In the cockpit it looks the same, but the backend is far safer.

Two iphones share all their software and hardware. Any bug in either would affect both. Additionally, they're both connected to the internet. If they both get a SMS of death, or if AT&T's NTP server decides to tell everything that connects to it that it's January 1st, 1970, 12:00AM, or if someone with a warrant tells them to remotely shut down both phones, etc etc etc. In contrast, the only thing I can think that would take out both a cell phone and a clock radio would be an EMP, or an explosion in the same room.

<comment><USER12> > In contrast, the only thing I can think that would take out both a cell > phone and a clock radio would be an EMP, or an explosion in the same room.

Perhaps more likely: the phone is close to discharged and a blackout happens. Both devices run out of power before morning.

Of course your point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe that's the reason my wife's new WakeMate (she got it yesterday) didn't wake her up this morning either? She's like "this thing sucks!" but maybe it's Apple's fault then?

<comment><USER14> No, IIUC, the WakeMate app's got its own alarm. This only applies to Apple's built-in clock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apple support discussion:

<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2702635>

<comment><USER16> _My son has type one diabetes and is on an insulin pump. Because of this I have to check his blood sugar levels every two hours at night. I rely heavily on my iPhone 4 alarm. Last night went to bed with all my alarms set as usual. None of them went off. I woke up at 8 am in a panic not knowing what I'd find in my sons room. Thankfully he hadn't gone low in the night and died. Instead he was extremely high, which is also bad but not fatal in the short term. But still carries health problems._

My first thought was how irresponsible it is to rely on a consumer gadget for something life critical. But then I wondered, is there is any such thing as mission critical alarm clock that this person could find and afford? Can the average layperseon be expected to understand how various gadgets are prone to fail at such simple tasks? We rely on so many non-industrial grade things to not incidentally kill us: shoes, doorknobs, bubblegum, faucets, etc. Maybe it's reasonable to think of a virtual alarm clock in the same way, especially on a device that tries so hard to look and feel like an elementary object rather than a complex machine.

<comment><USER17> I use a windup mechanical alarm clock for critical wakeups. I've had batteries fail on battery clocks, and the power go out on plugin clocks. The windup ones have never failed me.

<comment><USER11> Anecdote. A mechanical clock has dozens of moving parts, and is powered by a large, fragile, spring. I wouldn't trust it for anything critical, (which "waking up on time" isn't) but then again, I wouldn't trust any single alarm.

In response to the guy behind you: I did some googling for high-reliability alarm clocks, and didn't find anything relevant. Designing one would be amusing, in the standard vein of engineering humor. (Ha ha, isn't this horribly over-designed.) Redundant power supplies! Integral UPS! Three rad- hard microcontrollers which vote on the correct time! Two displays, in case a LED segment on one fails, and gives you the impression of the wrong time! Costs $5000, and weighs 40 pounds!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, how many of you depend on an alarm to wake you up? I don't think I've used one in over 2 years.

<comment><USER19> All of us with sleep apnea do.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure that's true. I have sleep apnea and I've never used an alarm on a daily basis in my entire life. I've only been using a CPAP for about 2 years... but neither before nor after have I ever needed an alarm. I simply go to bed when my body is tired... and I sleep until I'm not tired. It usually means, for me, I sleep from about 9:30 p.m. - 5:00 a.m. and work 7-3...

Prior to using a CPAP I wouldn't expect sleep apnea folks to need an alarm because they'd already be waking up pretty frequently.. after the CPAP machine I'd expect it to be super easy to just go to sleep when tired and wake up when you wake up...

and before you say, "I have to be up at X o clock and if I slept until I was done sleeping I wouldn't be able to do it" .. I call hogwash... If you purposefully go to sleep early a few nights you can control your 'well rested' time until you get it to the right point.. and after using an alarm for a few weeks should be able to remove it and let your body wake you up... as long as you will listen to your body when you are tired.

I think this previous post talks about this type of sleep ( "free running sleep"?)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673726>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057896>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reference, I wasn't aware some one had already already reported the issue.

<comment><USER22> Still interesting to here how it affected someone - good blog btw. We have all come to rely on our phones these days - when they do fail us it leaves you feeling pretty lost!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The author can also buy one of the many alarm clock apps in the store in which will avoid this issue. It's a reoccurring issue as it happened when the time changed in the fall.

Pardon shameless plug but we have an alarm app that wakes you up & speaks the status of your airline flight(delayed, canceled or on-time). We use flightcaster.com as our data resource.

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-fm/id388631053?mt=8#>

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the plug. They can be useful. But:

1\. Why use "promotional pics" rather than screenshots of the actual program?

2\. Ugh, why use non-native controls?

3\. The Facebook and Twitter icons look low-res, which would make for an ugly appearance on my iPhone 4.

There is no chance I would buy this app without an accurate screenshot representation of it, and there's further no chance I would buy it if it really does look the way it does in the screenshots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In contrast, I bought a ticket on Continental while I was in line for Jetblue at Logan airport right after Jetblue cancelled my flight. I was panicking putting in my credit card in Mobile Safari (and still have never got a confirmation email) but I was able to get out and make it home for New Year's. I try to never rely just on my phone alarm for whatever reason, call that being overly cautious.

</comment><comment><USER25> I simply set a timer before I go to bed (specifying how many hours of sleep I want). The input merhod is much faster and less bug prone.

</comment><comment><USER26> Exact same thing happened to me this morning. I set the alarm on my iPhone and my girlfriend set hers as a backup. Woke up 45 minutes later then I was planning and was completely perplexed. Luckiy, I was not trying to catch a flight, just going skiing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Had a few friend sleep over. They experienced the same problem. I feel bad you missed your flight. My girlfriend and I always joke about the importance of "the small things." Apple really let a bunch of people down.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wouldn't have gone to bed at all. Even if the alarm had gone off I would have slept through it on so little sleep.

</comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of the time my iPhone saved my ass.

The fault was completely mine, I'd miscalculated how long it would take me to get from the apartment, onto the BART and into the gate at SFO. I could see I'd miss my flight if I tried to run to BART, so I whipped out Siri and said, "Get me a cab." Within literally a minute or two, a cab arrived at my apartment and I got to SFO with time to spare.

Technology can be a great thing, when it works. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER30> That's why I still carry around my old alarm clock wherever I go!

</comment><comment><USER31> or, "How I failed to see the thousands of blog posts and tweets telling me this was going to happen".

<comment><USER32> In his defense; While I don't have an iPhone, I'm an avid reader of all things technology and check HN multiple times daily. I also failed to see these so called "thousands of blog posts and tweets". Again, not familiar with the iPhone, but can't Apple send out notifications of some sort?

<comment><USER31> A good way to find the notification bug in iOS4! ;)</comment></comment></comment>