Version 11 of Mathematica - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2016/08/08/today-we-launch-version-11/ <comment><USER2> I recommend that Stephen Wolfram skeptics read this press release. I was surprised by language-level support for 3D printing:

        In Version 11 it's finally realistic to take any 3D plot, and just 3D print it.

I didn't know that I wanted this until I saw it. Generally I prefer small, simple languages. But Mathematica is my favorite large language.

I'm also happy that, even though Mathematica 11 introduces flashy features like 3D printing support and a Logo-derivative, it also includes improved support for calculus. Is there anyone else like Wolfram, i.e. a math-person who presides over a very-pragmatic, very-large programming language? That's not a rhetorical question.

A question for Mathematica-folk: does Mathematica have support for direct manipulation like Toby Schachman's works?[] I find direct manipulation more pleasant than typing characters.

[] [http://tobyschachman.com/](http://tobyschachman.com/)

<comment><USER3> > Generally I prefer small, simple languages.

I would argue that MMA is a small language hiding behind a gigantic, domain- specific library.

<comment><USER4> It helps that the huge library has some of the best documentation I've ever encountered.

<comment><USER5> If a massive standard library, or really any library, doesn't have good documentation how do you find out about it?

In some statically typed languages like C# and Java you can use an IDE's object or interface explorer to see what the classes, methods, and properties of a class lib are. If that's missing do you have to use introspection or reflection? In a REPL if the language has one?

Is it assumed a compiled language will be statically typed (though that doesn't have to be true) and if it's not the source code will come with any library so examining it is easy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somehow the mixing of computation and data sources makes me uneasy.

In classical Mathematica, you could be pretty sure that computations with future versions would give the same output. Now what happens when, for example, the average size of an egg increases over time, and then with version 12 the data is updated, and suddenly your notebooks give different results when you rerun them.

Also, where does the data come from? Can you use it as a base for scientific publications?

<comment><USER7> An even worse problem is that you occasionally lose support for some data entirely. A while back I was playing with some historical stock data and when I went to run the notebook again some time later Mathematica no longer had data for the tickers I was trying to lookup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> An open question independent of the author: What do people use Mathematica for that can't be done in R, SAS, Matlab, SPSS or Python libraries.

Is it a great innovation that other tools have caught up with, or is it still getting a lot of use at the bleeding edge?

<comment><USER9> > _An open question independent of the author: What do people use Mathematica > for that can 't be done in R, SAS, Matlab, SPSS or Python libraries._

All those don't offer a seamless environment, that's hassle free, easy to setup, with commercial support, a great GUI, great documentation and works across so many science domains and with different approaches.

So, the question is quite (but not that severely) like "what people do with excavators that you can't do with spades".

The answer is, nothing much, except tons.

<comment><USER10> We (see [https://cloud.sagemath.com](https://cloud.sagemath.com)) and others (e.g., [https://www.continuum.io/](https://www.continuum.io/)) do offer commercial support for Python (etc.) and an easy to setup environment. Of course, Matlab is also commercially supported by Mathworks, and it seems that R is now commercially supported by Microsoft ([https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/cloud-platform/r-server](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud- platform/r-server)).

[Edit: added Microsoft]

<comment><USER11> _and an easy to setup environment._

Hardly so[1] --especially for general/non-technical users.

[1] [http://doc.sagemath.org/pdf/en/installation/installation.pdf](http://doc.sagemath.org/pdf/en/installation/installation.pdf)

<comment><USER12> I think he's referring to commercial support for a Python environment at cloud.sagemath.com, for which there is zero setup. Just go to the link provided. SageMath is also available there with zero setup. You don't need the Sage installation manual to use it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is really exciting stuff. Mathematica is by far my favorite environment for doing data exploration and mathematics, and although there is a learning curve, the features of the language itself (pattern matching, symbolic manipulation) are extremely powerful. The quality and depth of Mathematica's documentation are excellent, and with these notebook interface changes things are bound to become even easier. Jupyter + tensorflow/scikitlearn comes close nowadays for machine learning, but I love having access to consistent data sets from within the environment.

</comment><comment><USER14> It now has

 _data on Pokémon and lots of other useful things_

I love this - will be able to show off my kids a tool that I use all the time for work.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a Mathematica customer for life. I have been using it for the last 6 years, and I've built only one "big" project in it. I don't like it for "software development", but any time I want to hack something together, or do some calculation, whatever the context, I open a Mathematica notebook. The standard library is astounding, and you're up to speed in no time.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great news. I'm particularly excited to see that they're implementing more thorough builtins for working with ANNs and other ML abstractions.

<comment><USER17> If you want to know more about the neural network stuff specifically there is a gallery of marketing examples at [http://www.wolfram.com/language/11/neural- networks/?product=...](http://www.wolfram.com/language/11/neural- networks/?product=mathematica) and quite a few examples at [http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NetTrain.html](http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NetTrain.html) (look under Applications near the bottom of the page).

The current selection of layers is biased a bit towards vision, but my colleague and I are working on recurrent networks as we speak, which will unlock networks that operate on text, audio, and other data of a sequential or temporal character. Hopefully that will land in a few months with 11.1.

<comment><USER16> >other data of a sequential or temporal character

Awesome! Good to hear that there will be abstractions for general data processing too, and not just audio/video/text.

reference.wolfram.com seems to be down as I write this, but I'll check back in a few hours.

If you're working on Mathematica as your comment implies, thanks for your contributions. It's a wonderful piece of software (even if closed source)!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mathematica is squarely on my "stuff I'd buy if I had cash to spare" category. I use Jupyter on a daily basis for a few different languages and it's improving steadily every month, but I kind of wish I was using Mathematica instead most of the time. As it is, I poke at it occasionally on a Raspberry Pi (which is now mostly fast enough) and wonder wistfully what it would be like to run on an i7 (or, rather, a cluster of i7 boxes...)

It does annoy me a bit that it's becoming a mix of a client environment and an online service, but Alpha does have its use.

Not really sure what to make of the Pokémon stuff, though :)

<comment><USER19> A home edition without support is $95, for the record

Correction: that is the upgrade price, my mistake

<comment><USER20> That's the upgrade price. The home version is $295 (for the record.)

[https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica-home- edition/](https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica-home-edition/)

<comment><USER19> Oh ok, sorry

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I do wonder if they have ever thought of building a Mathematica Machine like the old Lisp and Smalltalk machines?

<comment><USER22> I doubt it. I think the big take away lesson from the language specific machines was that it's not worth it. _LOTS_ of money is spent on the R&D that goes into making x86, ARM, etc. faster and better each iteration, and without the economies of scale that come with a huge install base, it's basically just a money pit. Even if a dedicated Mathematica CPU was faster now, the x86 version will be faster in a few years anyway.

It might make sense one day when when processor improvements level off even more than they already have.

On the other hand, it might be a neat idea to OEM a high end x86 system and sell it as a purpose built "mathematica machine," with Mathematica pre- installed, the best supported GPU, optimal RAM and CPU, etc.

<comment><USER23> A lot of Mathematica is already written in Mathematica. When Apple switched Macs to Intel CPUs, they included Mathematica as a flagship program, and flew their engineers out to do a port in secret. One engineer said the hardest part of the port was deciding what to do with the rest of the weekend.

<comment><USER24> source?

<comment><USER25> WWDC 2005: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcfGsOKXO5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcfGsOKXO5M)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if any of you use it recreationally, at home. Is it worth buying, assuming you have some spare cash?

<comment><USER27> No, it's not. Maybe for USD 50, but 300 is far too much when Maxima solves most of the same problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wish it wasn't so pricy! But I get why. Wolfram alpha's site answers so many of my questions.

</comment><comment><USER29> Would have been great if this version fixed the syntax.

Square brackets for function arguments makes no sense, neither mathematically, nor programming language wise :)

Same for Sin requiring a capital letter, and curly braces instead of square brackets for matrices

<comment><USER30> Square brackets – one keypress. Curly brackets – two keypresses, shift and the other bracket key.

Result: reserved key for brackets, instead of mixing brackets and numbers while making the only kind of bracket an entire key more to get to.

Evaluation: it's clean and efficient.

<comment><USER31> On most European keyboards brackets are both two keypresses.</comment></comment></comment>


Otto – successor to Vagrant - <AUTHOR> https://ottoproject.io/ <comment><USER2> I'm really looking forward to digging into this project and learning more. From having watched the keynote, I'm a bit worried that the "magic" of the simple appfile is just pushing the complexity one step away from the dev user.</comment>


Reminder: it's Firefox 3 download day - <AUTHOR>

Help set Guinness book of world record ... download today starting at 10am PDT (6pm GMT).<p>Firefox 3, which promises page loads up to seven times faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. <comment><USER2> with so much hype and press, one can only hope that there's not some mission critical bug or server issues when downloading it or something similar. this is a make-or-break release when it comes to infiltration of the non-techie market. here's to hoping nothing bad happens and there's tons of good press.</comment>


How a $2.99 recipe app became a Top 2 Paid App in the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andreaskam/how-a-2-99-recipe-app-became-a-top-2-paid-app-in-the-app-store-f7e83abbb40e

<comment><USER2> A fantastic idea with a great launch story.</comment>


Why do people leave their signature "Sent from my iPhone"? - <AUTHOR> http://liftinteractive.com/news/2010/aug/17/sent-my-iphone-and-mobile-email-signatures/

<comment><USER2> Signatures have existed preconfigured on smart phones since the beginning of time. The iPhone did not by any means change the game here. Have you never seen "Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry" before?

By default, most users are not savvy enough to realize that the signature is something that can be modified and/or removed completely.

In any event, I modify my signature to read: "Message sent from a mobile device, please excuse typos and brevity". This is a completely legitimate practice (although subjective at the same time) in that if I am replying to an e-mail, I want the recipient to know that I am not cutting them off short or am attempting to be rude - particularly if my responses to said individual are typically thorough with details.

If I am on a train ride and take the time to write a 2-3 paragraph e-mail on my mobile device, I will simply just backspace the signature and be done with it.

I am not attempting to portray a snob when I leave my signature in tact. Quite the contrary -- I simply want to get a message across to someone who took the time to write me an email in a timely fashion without offending them if my response lacks proper email etiquette and length.

<comment><USER3> I'd emphasize the brevity point. I find messages from my phone are more like text messages than full-on e-mails and some could interpret that brevity for rudeness.

Plus a brief message with a typo or two says "I don't care about you" if sent from the desktop. The same message says "you're so important that I responded right away" if it's from a cell phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I leave the "sent from my iphone" signature just to bug people who get bothered by things like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I leave it so people can understand why my responses are so brief.

</comment><comment><USER6> I change mine to "sent from phone" or something brand-neutral like that so any terse language or misspellings might be excused by the recipient.

</comment><comment><USER7> I added my phone number after '--sent from my iPhone' so people can call me while I'm on the go if they need to. I feel the signature works for me because it reminds people about brevity. The only stuff I answer from my phone is important, anything else can wait.

I guess I could change it from 'iPhone' but I don't see the point. Do I need to pretend I don't use an Apple device?

</comment><comment><USER8> The EVO is worse. It's "Sent from my HTC EVO 4G on the Super Awesome Sprint 4G Network - The World's First NOW! Network!1" or some ultra-long BS like that. I might be exaggerating a bit, but not much. I guess it's an multi-vendor arms race.

</comment><comment><USER9> I leave it because it lets people know that I'm out and about, and I'm not really going to be able to do much in terms of solving problems until I get back to my laptop.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why do most VCRs still say 12:00? People generally only change stuff that interests them or bugs them, and for most people this occupies neither category.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you really wanted to show off that you had an iPhone you'd probably at least want to say: "Sent from my White iPhone 4, 32GB with Retina Display" ;-)

But seriously, I imagine most people who have this signature in their mobile emails have no idea how/where to change or disable it. The other reasons you cite are legitimate possibilities, but probably to a much lesser extent.

</comment><comment><USER12> The iPhone component - or "Verizon Wireless Blackberry", whatever it is - infuriates me.

I changed my mobile signature on my Incredible to say "Sent from mobile." That way, people know why the spelling might be bad, but I don't feel like I'm being used for free advertising.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a friend who changed her gmail signature is "Sent from my iPhone" for reason #2.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've had to "reset" my iPhone a number of times. Sent from my iphone is one of the SMALLEST configuration details I worry about when resetting it.

This somewhat seems like someone is overly reading into something.

<comment><USER15> Whenever I see that line I can't help feeling like it's super-pretentious. I have to remind myself that it's: A)Set by default, and B)Actually kind of useful as an explanation for bad spelling and short responses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've had my blackberry for over a year and send emails from it daily.

I never knew before now that it had a signature attached to it. Now that I know, I have no idea how to change it (though trivial, I'm sure)

<comment><USER17> This article just prompted me to change my Blackberry signature: * In e-mail application, Menu key * Select Options * Select Email Settings * edit text beneath Use Auto Signature

<comment><USER16> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I rebranded mine to help build MY business - not Apple's.

</comment><comment><USER19> Summary: "They want to show off that they have an iPhone. They want to be excused for typos or short sentences"

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a friend who used 'Sent from your iPhone' for a couple days when they announced the browser exploits.

</comment><comment><USER20> Mine says: "Sent from my iPad Nano" People always get a chuckle out of that, so I leave it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Because people leave "Sent from my Blackberry" and "Sent from my Verizon Wireless yada yada"

</comment><comment><USER22> Inertia

</comment><comment><USER23> Probably cause most people don't send emails to themselves and know it's there?

<comment><USER24> You can see it in the email when you compose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> i usually reply only when there's a problem and i want the people to know i'm not at the computer so there's not much i can do :)

</comment><comment><USER26> When I asked my father this, he said that he does this so his clients can see that he's engaged in their business even when it's inconvenient for him.</comment>


ConfessionDaddy.com Facebook app to manage confession pages - <AUTHOR> http://www.confessiondaddy.com

<comment><AUTHOR> It saves facebook confession page admins from copy paste of each confession from google doc to confession page.</comment>


San Francisco Hacker News presents: Hackers the Movie - <AUTHOR>

San Francisco Hacker News (sfhackernews.com) is proud to present a special secret showing of Hackers the movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/)
Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql1uLyuWra8
We've rented out The Roxie's (roxie.com) theater to bring you this special secret showing!
If you haven't seen this movie before, you're in for a real treat. Get a taste of what the valley could be! If you have seen this movie before, get ready to finally see it in theaters, complete with popcorn, alcohol, fun, and friends!
All ticket proceeds go towards bringing you all cool San Francisco Hacker News activities like this.
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/496061830414877/
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE: http://sfhackers.eventbrite.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://sfhackers.eventbrite.com/> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql1uLyuWra8> <http://roxie.com/> <http://sfhackernews.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> I loved this movie when I was 12 and even now (27) I still enjoy watching it. Brings back lots of geeky memories likes reading 'zines about phreaking, cracking etc.

I'd love to see it in the cinema!

<comment><AUTHOR> You should definitely come out and experience it with everyone else that loved this movie growing up. Also, with whiskey and beer you'll be 12 again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, I just watched movie last week and my 14 year old watches this once a week along with Indie Game.

Anyone know about the turnout thus far?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have 16 tickets sold so far and more people purchasing. We'll probably sell out by Friday. But it's probably not going to be a crowd for kids (just in case) heh</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Charitable Donations (2020): $750k to Organizations Worldwide - <AUTHOR> https://spreadprivacy.com/2020-duckduckgo-donations/ <comment><USER2> Looks like all political organizations, several of whom advocate against DDG's competitors. No funding to free / open source software providers, except Tor.

Quite savvy.

<comment><USER3> Wait what? The EFF, the Markup, open rights group, and probably others on the list absolutely provide open source software and/or datasets.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previous Donations - [https://duckduckgo.com/donations](https://duckduckgo.com/donations)

</comment><comment><USER4> how do they even have that kind of money

<comment><USER2> 50million searches, or $.015/search in ad profit.

<comment><USER5> What are Google's or Bing's numbers? That seems high to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> DDG is 70 million. [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic)

Bing is smaller than DDG in some countries

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How are they making so much money?

<comment><USER7> Affiliate Commission

Anytime a user clicks an Amazon or eBay link and makes a purchase, DDG receives the referral commission.

<comment><USER8> How is it set up? I can't see Amazon ref links in their result page (containing plain Amazon links).

<comment><USER7> I assume the http referer header?

The claim is directly from the bottom of page - [https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/company/ad...](https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help- pages/company/advertising-and-affiliates/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it a form of lobbying? I was expecting more universal charitability like peace in the world, but it looks like a disguised investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would DuckDuckGo donate to causes like peace in the world? Even though it is a good cause, it's not related to DDG. They have a privacy first approach and have donated money to similar organisations.

They do this every year - duckduckgo.com/donations</comment></comment>


Better management of discarded produce could help forests regrow - <AUTHOR> http://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now <comment><USER2> The original paper is here: [https://sci- hub.cc/10.1111/rec.12565](https://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/rec.12565)

The original site was heavily degraded and was host to mostly a single species of invasive grass, introduced by ranchers for pasture. This invasive grass presumably was preventing native shrubs and other woody plants from re- establishing. The fruit company was permitted to dump 1000 truckloads of orange peels over 3 hectares (30,000 square meters) in exchange for donating 1,600 hectares of primary forest.

What's interesting is that the authors hypothesize that the acidity of the orange peels actually altered the soil pH enough to kill off all of the invasive grasses and allowed the native plants to reestablish themselves. Unfortunately the authors don't test this hypothesis directly, and the intertwined effects of {acidity, asphyxiation of invasive grasses by several tons of material, massive additional organic nutrient input} can't be teased out due to the experimental design. Though with effects like this, I'm sure restoration ecologists would be happy to receive 1600 Ha of old-growth forest in exchange for dumping rights on 3 Ha of disturbed pasture land, even if they don't know the exact mechanism.

<comment><USER3> Another possibility is that the soil was so degraded that only crummy grass could grow there. Perhaps the larger native plants, which are more complex organisms, need nutrients in greater quantities than the grass. So it's less about beating back the invasive grass and more about establishing necessary conditions for native growth. These more complex organisms then create shade canopy that other native species can thrive in (and which is bad for grass).

This is an extrapolation of my my experiences with composting. A greater number of plants can grow in rich soil, period.

<comment><USER2> Yes, this is what I was referring to when I mentioned "massive additional organic nutrient input". Unfortunately the authors experiment design isn't sufficient to show that this is the case since again there are other factors at play. But it's certainly a possibility.

<comment><USER3> Indeed.

The soil pH, while important in and of itself, seems like a bit of a red herring (or maybe a secondary story) when evaluating the macro-changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tangentially, if you want to reduce the waste that goes to landfill at your home, compost.

One of the best ways of composting that I know is bokashi. It works by a fermentation process. The biggest advantage of it is that you can put any organic matter into it, except maybe bones. Yes, you can even put meat, dairy, rice, pasta etc. in addition to fruit and vegetable matter. Once the bucket is full, let it ferment for a week, drain the liquid once a day, and then bury it. The fermenting for a week means that it breaks down much quicker in the ground. This means that all that waste becomes usable and useful to the bacteria and plants in the soil much much quicker than if you were to compost it the traditional way. It's a difference of weeks vs. months.

One of the biggest concerns is smell, but honestly it isn't so bad. Because it works by a fermentation process you need to keep the environment anaerobic i.e. lacking oxygen. That means keeping the bokashi bucket sealed most of the time, so you only need to smell it when you open the bucket to put your waste in once a day. Besides, the smell itself is as bad as you might expect. It's like a strong pickled smell, reminiscent of vinegar.

Also, the liquid that you drain can be used as a fertiliser. You just need to dilute it 1:100, and pore it at the base of the plants when watering.

<comment><USER5> Sources or directions? Highly interested in doing this. I have a decent garden going and I've been looking at options for composting.

<comment><USER6> It's a little corny but Austin Energy put out a youtube video with a good broad overview of composting. You'll have to ignore the Austin-specific content like the $75 rebate Austin Energy offers to subscribers that purchase a qualified composter:

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

Austin also offers in some parts of town curbside composting and we have a non-profit that also offers a compost pickup service. Those aren't likely to appeal to a gardener though.

I purchased a Yimby spin-composter which has worked great for composting organic material:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuWJWW4ZLw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuWJWW4ZLw)

The assembly is a bit involved though, because you have to screw together all of the panels in the tumbler and the ends and the stand and the hardware. Just a head's up, lots of tedious screwing of the parts together but it is very sturdy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At my buddies old house in Saratoga Ca, the soil in the backyard was super dry. What we ended up doing is just composting all the greens out back; watermelon shells, cantaloupe, onions, really just anything non-meat. To agitate the process we just went out with a shovel and stabbed the section out to make the compost smaller. By the time he sold the place the soil was super healthy.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here is an article about this posted on Princetons news site (August 22nd):

[https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/orange-new- green-h...](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/orange-new-green-how- orange-peels-revived-costa-rican-forest)

It cites an interesting court case by a rival company that occurred after the contact to dump was signed:

"But a year after the contract was signed — during which time 12,000 metric tons of orange peels were unloaded onto the degraded land — TicoFruit, a rival company, sued, arguing the company had "defiled a national park." The rival company won the case in front of Costa Rica's Supreme Court, and the orange- peel-covered land was largely overlooked for the next 15 years."

</comment><comment><USER9> The fact that this story of "dumped organic material composts and increases fertility" has gained so much reach really shows how disconnected we all are from nature.

Maybe the way for science to speak to the masses is to just pretend that every confirmation study is a brand new piece of science. "New study finds that reduced caloric intake causes weight loss!"

<comment><USER2> If you read the original study there's a bit more going on than how the article portrays it. In particular, this site was host to invasive grasses, and after the orange peel input the site was flourishing with native species. Simply introducing nutrients into a system isn't guaranteed to get rid of the invasive species, and in fact it might make the problem even worse, so the fact that this happened is quite interesting and there's probably some interaction between the soil properties, decomposers, and orange peels that made this particularly good outcome possible. See also my top-level comment for my original take on it.

<comment><USER10> Acidity of the peels affected the acidity of the soil.

<comment><USER2> This is what the authors hypothesized in the paper. They don't test it though so the causal link between orange peel acidity and forest restoration has not been established.

<comment><USER10> I'm not trying to state that as a fact. Just that the acidity was affected. Which could have affected the restoration in different ways, most likely by effects of plant affinity for soil acidity.

But I think that the main factor is simply the increase in biological matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This mirrors my experiencing gardening in Georgia. We have about half an inch of topsoil there, and below that is pure red clay with close to zero organic matter in it. If you want to have a garden, you add compost. I added a couple thousand pounds of well composted manure, and double tilled it to mix it in down to a couple of feet. The result was that I had loamy soil that grew vegetables like nobody's business.

Put enough compost on a plot and it will turn into a jungle, just like my garden did after I stopped tending it. I was afraid to go in there to pick tomatoes.

<comment><USER12> >Put enough compost on a plot and it will turn into a jungle, just like my garden did after I stopped tending it. I was afraid to go in there to pick tomatoes.

Why? Snakes maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The orange peels contributed two things for certain, a large amount of nutrients and organic matter that would hold and trap moisture. Both of those are very conducive to high plant growth.

I do wish they had ph tested the soil before so we could know whether the orange peels altered the soils acidity.

<comment><USER14> The acids in orange peels are organic; they would have been consumed by soil microbes as a carbon source pretty quickly.

<comment><USER15> Burying the weeds under an impenetrable layer of mulch causes them to compost in place. The soil deepens and you get a blank slate to start over, more like a secondary succession forest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Forests aren't always a panacea. Sure, rainforests mutually support others in similar tropic and subtropical bands with rainfall patterns, but in the melting tundra forests of Russia, there is an effort to deforest permafrost to keep it from melting using large herds of animals like bison or reindeer to kill the trees because plains are less insulated in winter than forests. Without restoration of tundra back to plains, it's likely larger swaths of land will melt and collapse into a moonscape.

<comment><USER17> Could you share any links on this? Sounds interesting.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleisto...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene- park/517779/) talks about it at length, even if it's not the main subject.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From the title I was expecting something criminal.

<comment><USER20> As far as click bait goes, this is exactly like I want to see. It inspires curiosity in a way that doesn't feel predatory. I didn't feel robbed or deceived when it wasn't criminal, and the title was truthful to exactly what the article was.

<comment><USER21> I do think "here's what it looks like now" is more predatory than either "it regrew beautifully" or "it is now a desert wasteland". Either of those would have made me more willing to click. More information in the title does not detract from clicks to _interesting_ articles. Only useless junk needs clickbait titles for the clicks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> more generally, densely planted trees can use a wide variety of biomass sources for compost: [https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest-really- real...](https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest-really-really- fast-d27df202ba09)

</comment><comment><USER23> Wonder if this would be good for where major wildfires have been such as the Lake and Butte fires in California in 2015 - the places where it burned strongest consumed all organic matter in the soil...

</comment><comment><USER24> Ugh. The result of this may be good, but please don't let this be an excuse to dump your organic waste on trails instead of packing it out.

<comment><USER25> Ok, I'll bite. So is it better for organic waste to rot in a plastic bag in a landfill? or be left outside where it can rot down & degrade. Isn't it better to pitch your apple cores, food & bio-waste etc. into the woods? Surely the only things to pack out would be non-biodegradeable stuff; packaging etc.

Every time I run trails, I see little blue or black poop bags left all over by dog owners (they never ever come back to pick them up!). Somehow I feel like it would be better if they just let their dogs crap in the woods as nature intended (not on the trails, but it can be flicked into the brush) so I don't have to look at the poop bags.

<comment><USER26> Throwing things that could be eaten by wild animals near trails or roads could draw animals closer to humans, having some unfortunate unintentional consequences.

<comment><USER25> Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating tossing food trash in the woods, but what's the difference between someones mostly eaten sandwich and an expired squirrel? or apples dropping from the apple tree (which they are doing right now!).

Isn't that what wild animals do? scavengers will scavenge?

(again, to be clear, this is not feeding the "Yellowstone bears" from the car window in the 60s, this is bits & pieces of scraps of food or bio-waste here and there in the woods).

Are we not part of nature?

<comment><USER17> Beehive = Nature

Anthill = Nature

City = Somehow magically separate from nature

I think it was originally because of God, and now it's just inertia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Its all about proper management of inputs and outputs. The best part is, it doesn't take much to use a raw input like food scrapes, you literally just toss them on a pile.

Grass clippings, Leaves, and other yard waste are the biggest input we humans like to truck around aimlessly. Chop and drop in a semi organized way, and you too can grow a forest.

#permaculture

</comment><comment><USER28> Grow food closer to face

</comment><comment><USER29> this is a ridiculous title.

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe there's a better source for this somewhere than 'blogspam copy of a clickbait site'.

<comment><USER31> It's a copy paste of

[https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange- peels...](https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a- national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now?c=ufb1)

<comment><USER32> Ok, we'll change the URL to that god help us from [http://www.the-daily- llama.com/2017/08/23/a-juice-company-du...](http://www.the-daily- llama.com/2017/08/23/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park- heres-what-it-looks-like-now/).

For revenge, and to follow [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), we've changed the title to the most boringly representative phrase from the article.

<comment><USER33> I feel like the original paper, as linked further up, might do a better job at allowing you to not have to link to Upworthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Alternate headline: A web click farm discovers composting

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder what would happen if a bunch of candy bars were dumped?</comment>


Bokken – Open-Source Reverse Code Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://bokken.re/index.html

<comment><USER2> I would LOVE to see some form of PANDA integration with a tool like this. [https://github.com/moyix/panda](https://github.com/moyix/panda) Having this kind of analysis on a PANDA replay / snapshot would be great.

The combination of the two would be a perfect reverse engineering toolbox. This is great on its own and to use side by side though.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Inguma penetrate and testing framework also is using bokken. The FAQ is here: [https://inguma.eu/projects/inguma/wiki/FAQ](https://inguma.eu/projects/inguma/wiki/FAQ)

</comment><comment><USER4> Anybody knows if there is support for LLVM IR code as well? What would be good alternatives here?

<comment><USER5> Dagger, Fracture, and MCSema are three projects that directly try to decompile to LLVM IR. The Binary Analysis Platform can also export to LLVM IR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me a lot of IDA's interface on Windows. Wish it was easier to install.

<comment><USER7> All it took for me was a `yaourt bokken`. I love Arch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it only for static code analysis, or can you link it with a debugger/vm like you can IDA Pro with qemu?

<comment><USER9> It uses radare2 behind the scenes, so I think you can do it but it might not be as pretty as you expect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pretty cool, I wonder how the features compare to IDA pro. The graph view from the screenshots looks nice.

</comment><comment><USER11> GTK for a new project instead of QT? Really? When GTK looks and feels like absolute crap on anything that's not Linux (and some would argue Linux too)...

Who ever thought this was a good idea needs to seriously re-evaluate the situation. Such a shame.

<comment><USER12> That's rich. GTK+ doesn't pretend to be seriously cross-platform. Qt does but looks horrible on anything but KDE. It tries to mimic native UI but enters the uncanny valley and is immediately noticeable as a fake. Particularly horrid on OS X.

Don't lecture us on a technical choice you don't understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is fantastic!

</comment><comment><USER14> I was really looking forward to trying this, until I read that the homebrew installation is broken and the manual installation requires installing a handful of dependencies.

<comment><USER9> It shouldn't take too long for me to whip up a homebrew formula for this. Do you want one?

<comment><USER14> if you're willing to do it I'd love that! I should probably familiarize myself with creating formulas at some point, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Co-Working: Please Build This Space...  - <AUTHOR> http://roblong.posterous.com/please-build-this-co-working-space

<comment><USER2> Are his kids really that loud? Why doesn't sound proof his office and discipline his kids for being too noisy. (I'm sure this would please his neighbours as well).

<comment><USER3> My parents would just banish us outside for the afternoon if we got noisy.

<comment><USER4> I was on a sales call once when my neighbor's kid burst into my house and started shouting in Bengali.

I managed to hit the phone's mute button while furiously gesturing at him to be quiet.

Because I don't speak Bengali, I had no idea what he wanted. I had no idea how he got into my house either. He stopped shouting, looked at me and scampered out the front door.

Turns out he was looking for his sister, who was playing with my kids, who I had banished from the house for being too loud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like this idea is best executed with a co-op instead of a profit model. That's honestly how I feel about most co-working spaces. I don't really want to work somewhere where I don't have a say in who's there (if I'm paying the rent).. unless it's an 'executive suite'

</comment><comment><USER6> I can tell you that what makes coworking magical is it's ability to connect people and create friendships that would otherwise not happen.

Coworking's weakness is the landlord business model is extremely low margin. In the suggested model in the article, $400 per member X 20 members = $8,000 per month. Now consider the rent of a warehouse downtown, utilities, paying someone to run the place, and buildout. It's a quick way to go out of business.

Now, if the coworking space is run as a loss leader for another business, that's another story.

At Conjunctured our other business is happy hours at Rio Rita's. We haven't found out how to make that profitable yet, but we're gonna' keep trying by god! :p

-Conjunctured Co-Founder

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a great space in Santa Monica called CoLoft (<http://www.coloft.com>) that sounds like exactly what you want. Startup weekend was just hosted here this past Saturday.

If anyone is in the area stop by; I've been working here for around 3 weeks and it's been great. Definitely a lot more productive than at home, and the environment, people, and networking is great. Has two conference rooms, a "kitchen area", free organic coffee...

</comment><comment><USER8> I _love_ the idea, but I'd be surprised if nice space like that can be built in Austin, for $300-$400/month, with room for profit.

<Brainstorming>

Do you have a garage? (Or, could you build another?)

Amortizing your monthly allowance, you could put some cash into the garage, and you're improving something you own.

<comment><USER9> We run into the same issues here in Chicago. Rent is so high that having a co- working space is just as expensive as leasing your own office--the ones that are cheap aren't much better than working from a home office.

I really think these spaces need to be non-profit and supported by the workers that use it. If you insert a for-profit entity, it just doesn't work...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks like the same idea as the hub:

<http://kingscross.the-hub.net>

It's a little more expensive, but that's London for you...

</comment><comment><USER11> The only thing that makes the coworking model work is the community ties. That's also what makes it better than executive suites.

This guy just wants a cave, but a cave outside of his home.

That's not coworking, that's desk rentals.</comment>


How Github Works - <AUTHOR> http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works/

<comment><USER2> Github seems to hire new people once or twice a week, yet their jobs page lists 1 or 2 openings at most and the last one, enterprise support eng was there for a long time. I'm curious how does that work?

<comment><USER3> We do a lot of hiring from personal referrals, people we know professionally, and people whose code we've used in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I asked this before, but does anyone know of other companies like github?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5182145></comment>


NewsCred was nominated for a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer Award - <AUTHOR> http://blog.newscred.com/?p=141

<comment><USER2> That is pretty cool, congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER3> hey man, congrats! must feel good after doing it full time :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks to both of you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> does this mean more users?

<comment><AUTHOR> hopefully we'll get a bit of a PR bump and it will mean more users. but either way, we're pretty happy!</comment></comment>


"Let the other 95% in" commentary - <AUTHOR> http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/06/let-other-95-of-reality-in.html?m=1

<comment><USER2> the startup lifestyle seems very unappealing to me, work 60 hour days for some lottery tickets, that will probably become diluted over time. Maybe thats not the truth but thats how it appears to me on the other side of the pond.

I'm probably one of the 95% but I make a nice little living live near the beach, work from home and basically have a nice life. not sure why I'd subject myself to silicon valley, I suspect the locals overvalue how much everyone else wants to be there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am with you. If you want to work like a dog for a small chance at fabulous riches, bless your heart. I might have been interested in this 15 years ago, but now am interested in having a life.</comment></comment>


Dive into Rails 3 - Useful Books - <AUTHOR>

Here's a bunch of links that I've come across on HN and Google searching over the last few days. I'm learning Rails at the moment, and these links look real useful.
If you have good links of your own, please add them in the comments! I would imagine many readers of HN are interested to some degree in Rails 3, so hope you find this useful.
Videos Discussing Rails 2 vs Rails 3:
http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts/rails3
Great Rails 3 Guide:
http://railstutorial.org/book (free online, paid PDF)
List of Freely Avaliable Programming Books:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books (many books lited, not just Ruby)
Free PDFs for your eBook Reader:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/172380/programming-texts-and-reference-material-for-my-kindle-creating-the-ultimate-re (again, several flavours available) <comment><USER2> <http://guides.rails.info/index.html></comment>


First sniffer dogs trained to detect digital data devices in UK unveiled - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/15/first-sniffer-dogs-trained-to-detect-digital-data-devices-in-uk-unveiled <comment><USER2> This smells fishy.

Given that the same materials are used in SD cards, thumb drives, cell phones and TV remotes, these dogs are mostly going to find lost TV remotes, IF they can smell this stuff at all.

The USA press about these dogs has been just this side of utterly disreputable, suggesting (but not stating outright) that the dogs can smell the difference between a thumb drive with your resume on it, and a thumb drive full of child p0rn, which is just a fantasy.

I don't know about the UK's legal system around search and seizure, but in the USA, it's pretty clear that Law Enforcement is using these dogs to provide the probability of guilt, so that a human can do some searching that would otherwise be illegal.</comment>


Our Chemical Eden - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-life-is-not-a-thing-but-a-restless-manner-of-being <comment><USER2> For those interested in learning more about the energetics of possible proto- biological systems, see the paper by Deamer and Weber [0].

0: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2828274/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2828274/)</comment>


Early Stage Startup. Please give your feedback. - <AUTHOR>

Here is a post which explains overall idea about netvorx - http://blog.netvorx.com/2008/12/dec-4th-release.html
Site is not yet SSL enabled and we are working on fixing existing bugs before we try to add more functionality.
If you can rate the idea and if you can suggest us to improve or add more functionality then that will be really helpful.
Please rate : http://www.netvorx.com
Revenue Model :
Site will be free for organizations or for any individual users.
We will charge in case
1. If any organization wants to use our site and if they want any special customization then we will charge for customization development.
2. If any organization wants to deploy netvorx within their network rather than using http://www.netvorx.com then we will charge for maint & support. If organization wants to just use as-is version then there won't be any charge. <comment><USER2> This is probably going to be a common sentiment - But the signup is an issue - I think people are getting increasingly intolerant of the signup/confirm email hassle... Especially now that there are sites that do it so well.

This system required 1. entering your details, 2. getting a confirm email, 3. selecting a password and 4. logging in _again_ after setting the password. That last step is bad enough, but even without that it's still too many.

The barrier to entry a lot lower (i.e. 1 step) if you considered supporting OpenID - as well as streamlining the existing process.

The style is fairly minimal, which is good, but this rendition is not really to my taste. To be honest, for me it was reminiscent of the "Microsoft ASP Verdana everywhere" style from the Office 2000 era.

Functionality wise - Well - Not sure. I wasn't sure what I was meant to do. I think the design doesn't really take you through the site. What do you see as the main use case? you should really explain these to the user and prompt them as well (e.g. You haven't entered a Profile yet - entering a Profile lets you XYZ).

I did have a click around. Not sure what environment you're running with, but it was a little slow (I'm overseas, so that might be a factor). Either way, for that kind of functionality an AJAX model would help a lot.

So... Yeah... Not really sure :) I think it needs a more fleshing out.

</comment><comment><USER3> As I understand it your product is a central place for a team to communicate within. To me, I think of it as a personal social networking site. You can have profiles, blog, image gallery, status message, etc. Also get group discussion boards to collaborate and internal messaging.

I know you are not trying to be a social networking site, but in my opinion, my first thought is, "hmm maybe I can just use a private ning account for managing a small team".

I'm not saying this is right or wrong. What I am saying is that I think you really need to provide an optimal use case. It's one of the hardest things to do, but as an entrepreneur you need to explain your product and why it benefits the user in ONE SENTENCE. What problem do I have that this simply ..SOLVES. It is very hard, but this ensures that you can convey your product in the greatest light. Note that your customers are not hackers taking the time to give you constructive criticism, they will go to your home page, say ..."i don't get it" and then click away.

All the best.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't tell me what Netvorx is "for", tell me what Netvork "does" - what it does for me, my company, my friends, my network. What's the benefit of registering, using, promoting, etc.

I had to look at your blog to get any idea of what might be behind the sign- up. That's bad. In real life (ie: not when voyeuristically looking at someone else's start-up), I'd have not stayed on the home page for 5 seconds and I'd have back-buttoned, or apple-l'd (hey, my MBP is old) away.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Purpose is to keep messages at central place and stay in touch with all user in group."

This is ridiculous. There are four grammar mistakes in that sentence alone. Why are you targeting English users if you are not native English speakers yourself? Build a service for speakers of your own language - at least they won't be put off by glaring editorial errors.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/12/yammer-reaches- beyond-c...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/12/yammer-reaches-beyond- corporate-firewalls-open-sources-iphone-application/#comment-2623930)

Well my English has grammatical mistakes but it seems like my idea doesn't have that much issue. Yammer has announced my idea ( point 2 ) today... lets see whether it came from Hacker News Posting or it came from their brain :) We will see when Yammer releases that ...

</comment><comment><USER6> You need to better present what your product does. People hate reading, a picture can say a thousand words.</comment>


The STEM education gender gap is more complex than people think - <AUTHOR> http://acculturated.com/women-calculus-gender-discrimination-claims-dont-add/ <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12225301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12225301)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll probably get a bunch of down votes for saying this, but anyway...

I suspect that is has a lot to do with the varying IQ distributions between the genders. Females tend to be closer to the mean, whereas males have wider variance. If you are of average intelligence, calculus just won't make sense to you and that will end your STEM education right there. There are just more males with above average intelligence than there are females, so naturally more males will "survive" calculus to continue in STEM fields. On the other hand, there are more males with below average intelligence than females, which is one reason why most criminals are males.

<comment><USER4> It looks like the idea has been studied:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence#Mathematics_performance)

In a 2008 study paid for by the National Science Foundation in the United States, researchers found that... while boys and girls performed similarly on average, boys were over-represented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The pendulum will swing both ways eventually. If we want a society that doesn't punish one group in disproportion to another, we're just going to have to accept that eventually the previously dominant group now needs help in certain areas.

</comment><comment><USER6> >In fact, today Title IX, the federal law that was supposed to ensure equal educational opportunity for both sexes, is known almost exclusively as a tool for advancing women's interests.

Yes, that's kind of the point. And that's ok.

<comment><USER7> > Yes, that's kind of the point. And that's ok.

I think your viewpoint is at the crux of the debate. We run into a few ethics questions with no obviously correct answers:

(1) _If_ discrimination based on sex is wrong _per se_ , then isn't it unethical for the government to engage in it? (I.e., is it okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelette? Is it okay to sacrifice one innocent virgin to spare the whole village from the volcano?)

(2) Is there an aspect of vengeance to this? And if so, isn't it collective punishment against today's young males, because of some perceived benefit their fathers had (but they don't)?

(3) If the goal is to restore some kind of equilibrium, then how would we know when to stop? And what do you say to those young males who are discriminated against during a period of over-shoot? "I'm sorry Johnny that we wouldn't spend as much time teaching you math as we would your sister, but think of all the girls who benefited!"

(4) How do we choose which supposed social good to prioritize? For example, why is it preferable to increase women's incomes, at the expense of men's opportunities?

(5) Is it truly just for the government to address one perceived inequality (by preferential treatment of girls in school), without putting equal effort into addressing areas where _men_ have traditionally been at a disadvantage (child custody, incarceration rates, etc.)? If the government's policy is only to address those inequalities where _women_ come out behind, then the end-game is apparently not equality, but something else. (Matriarchy? Vengeance? Collective punishment?)

<comment><USER6> >with no obviously correct answers.

Regardless of the point-by-point response, I think the general idea is that women have historically been disadvantaged in education, so Title IX _de facto_ helps alleviate that problem, although there are obvious negative externalities that result from a blanket application. I do think that a couple of your (x) arguments assume malice where there likely is none, but I've responded point-by-point below.

\--

(1) This is the question at the heart of any sort of redistributive action government takes -- it seems like we, as a society, have decided that it (or things analogous to it) are ok, at least some of the time.

(2) I would hope not! That's certainly not how I've thought of it, as a young male.

(3) Presumably when the indicators of discrimination are no longer so blindingly obvious (ranging from unequal pay to glass ceilings). I don't, however, suspect that it's going to be that simple. I think that a lot of the biases fueling the problem are culturally inherent, and can't be resolved just with legislation. Although the idea behind Title IX seems like a step in the right direction.

(4) By participation in a _democratic_ society. Great question though! I'd like to think that it isn't zero sum.

(5) First of all, I don't think that we necessarily have to do one at the expense of the other. I also don't think that there's any sort of fairness mechanism by which we get to make things universally better for everyone all at once. We work with the Congress we've got, and the Administration we've got, and the Supreme Court we've got (x50 for the state level!) to do the best we can. That being said, I think it's ok to prioritize some problems over others, and problems affecting ~50% of the population are generally worthy of increased scrutiny IMO.

<comment><USER8> (2) Sounds as someone who had the privileged to never been excluded and treated like a second class citizen because of your gender.

<comment><USER6> Yep - or someone who ostensibly would have been the target of the alleged 'vengeance' but doesn't feel victimized as a result of it.

I'm not saying that Title IX is perfect - nothing is, especially not redistributive policies. What I am saying, though, is that the notion that it is motivated by vengeance is a little paranoid and a little silly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why never use new Array in Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://coderwall.com/p/h4xm0w I love Javascript, but sometimes it seems it doesn't love me back. Take for instance the Array constructor function... <comment><USER2> I agree that var a = new Array(1,2,3,4,5); is an old construct and should be replaced by var a = [1,2,3,4,5];

but the form

var a = new Array(10);

can be very effective when you need an array with n elements and you are not in a position to .push() new ones in - you just need those elements to be there.

No confusion here - just lots of helpful language features.

</comment><comment><USER3> Those arrays are behaving exactly how arrays behave in any language. Can't see the problem here.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, Xuland.com - <AUTHOR>

Good morning HN,
I presented my site, Xuland a while back on HN but being a newbie the link/submission was closed for comments soon after.  I've made considerable changes since then and even started working on a mobile app - or at least a mobile "web" app that should suffice until the native Android/iOS versions are complete.
I started working on Xuland back in Oct, 2009 as a hobby/side-project.  At first, I was looking to create an alternative to Craigslist - a site with a commenting engine similar to Facebook/etc but with a map and geolocation features.  Since then I've migrated away from that idea.
I don't think the world needs another social networking site necessarily but Xuland does offer some location-based features which I think folks could really come to find useful.  Under the deals tab for instance, the Restaurant.com search is better than their own website.  I also added an affiliate ID to the deal URL's so there's a potential for monetization there.
I've gotten around 8,000 unique visitors worldwide since I went public, but going public involved nothing more than a blog post and a mention on some small sites like KillerStartups.  My blog post has risen to become the 4th most popular blog post on Adobe Feeds in the past year (http://feeds.adobe.com/index.cfm?query=byMostPopularYear) even though I'd say its contents are now probably outdated.  One point to mention:  the site is built using Flex/Flash so I apologize to iPad users in advance.  I am working on the app versions.
I'm interested in what the HN community thinks of the idea and its implementation.  Any advice or criticism?  I plan on moving forward with releasing it to the public more and more to drum up traffic if possible, stress-test and pinpoint areas for change.
I appreciate all your feedback! ;)
Sincerely, Erich
http://www.xuland.com <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.xuland.com></comment>


Finding Consulting Work - <AUTHOR> Most of the work our consulting company gets is from referrals. I am wondering how other consulting companies find work? Any websites/apps, cold emailing, etc? <comment><USER2> > how other consulting companies find work?

Many firms will have a Senior Partner that serves in Rain Maker capacity.

Get clarity around who your ideal target client is. Find a way to connect with them. Networking/Direct Sales/Marketing, etc..

Alan Weiss offers good ideas on building a consulting business. Don't let the cheesy sounding title fool you > [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260218.Million_Dollar_Co...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260218.Million_Dollar_Consulting)</comment>


The Roots of Human Genius Are Deeper Than Expected - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=creativity-roots-human-genius-deeper-than-expected&WT.mc_id=SA_printmag_2013-03 <comment><USER2> 500,000 years ago: Hunters used stone-tipped spears. Fire was already discovered and was probably used to stay warm, cook food, and scare away predators.

50,000 years ago: Peak of Ice Age. Nethanderals co-exist with our ancestors who lived in caves. Cave lions, cave bears, and cave hyenas all existed in this time too.

5,000 years ago: World human population is about 30,000,000. Height of Egypt's Old Kingdom. Agriculture, social pyramid, and a mystical cosmology are in place.

500 years ago: Roughly the time of the Renaissance which gave birth to the scientific revolution which gave birth to the industrial revolution. Together science and industry form the world as we know it today.

50 years ago: Computers are able to perform algebraic equations, the space race is in full swing, counterculture revolution is just beginning.

5 years ago: The planet's ecologic and economic systems collide. Our species is forced to re-examine our core values and start asking the big question of existence again.

What an amazing chain of events that has led to this moment in space and time. I wonder sometimes about our ultimate fate and what is our place in the cosmos, but nothing is concrete. All I know is that nature, culture, and technology must be in harmony.

</comment><comment><USER3> That feels kinda depressing. Million years from controlling fire to science.</comment>


Furious China Has Just 12-Months to Save Huawei After 'Crushing' Trump Attack - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/05/19/furious-china-has-just-12-months-to-save-huawei-after-crushing-trump-attack/#7dfdb6974ab4 <comment><USER2> So sad for bby Huawei reads communist sympathizer.</comment>


Welcome to Planet Distributed: Web Apps Need Distributed Systems Smarts Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.3scale.net/2013/05/welcome-to-distributed/

<comment><USER2> Most Gluecon talks are being posted on slideshare and tweeted out with the #gluecon hashtag.</comment>


Comparison Spreadsheet for Subscription Billing Services - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.markbao.com/2010/comparison-spreadsheet-of-subscription-billing-services/

<comment><USER2> This is awesome - thanks for creating and sharing.</comment>


Why do IT companies use Recruitment Agencies? - <AUTHOR>

I know hiring is not an easy task but why do companies use recruitment agencies where these guys have no idea about programming/IT? <comment><USER2> Companies use recruiters mostly because they feel they have no skills to perform hiring themselves, when they have no HR staff etc. Most of them are unaware that recruiters actually make quality hiring nearly impossible, through ignorance, misrepresentation of facts or open lies.

Companies seem not to know that developers generally avoid recruiters and seek a direct contact. I had it many times that recruiters ruined potential opportunities for me as a candidate, that is why I said them goodbye a long time ago.

With the way recruiters approach their work today, I'm convinced they have no place in the IT hiring process and actually do more harm than good. They have no qualifications to perform their job well and none seem to be even remotely interested in obtaining the necessary knowledge. Recruiting seems to be a short term job - today they hire programmers, tomorrow they end up in the sales department of a manufacturing company and will be selling tires, the day after that they'll be doing something else. It probably makes no sense to them to be wasting time learning something weird when they can spend this time cold-calling and selling whatever stuff they're on today.

Update. Almost forgot. Sometimes people go to recruiters to relieve themselves of the responsibilities for a potential bad hire. Employing the services of a staffing company will make the person look like acting in the best interests of the company, and if a bad hire happens here, it can easily be attributed to the failure of the staffing company, not to the mistakes of the person who hired recruiters.

</comment><comment><USER3> This will sound facetious, but maybe it's because IT companies know nothing about recruitment?

</comment><comment><USER4> > I know hiring is not an easy task but why do companies use recruitment > agencies where these guys have no idea about programming/IT?

Because most view the time of people who _do_ know something about programming/IT as too valuable to use on the early phase of hiring, so if they weren't doing that, they'd be using in-house HR staff that _also_ have no idea about programming/IT for the role for which they use recruiting companies.

Also, because the recruiters know enough about _management_ of programming/IT companies to be able to sell themselves as knowledgeable about the industry to management.

<comment><USER2> Actually, hiring new colleagues is part of the job. Developers MUST participate in it somehow, otherwise you get a team composed from totally random people who have nothing in common. You don't want to work in such a place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Full disclosure: I do staffing, but I'm also a 20-year software developer and 15 year manager, so I'm an outlier. Assuming you're talking about regular staffing companies, but here are some general reasons.

When you're hiring, you're often too busy do recruit yourself. What can hinder your chances further is believing you don't have time to educate the recruiters you've hired, and I've seen that, too. Of course, you may believe that spending time with a typical recruiter will not help your cause.

You may not have a good network, either. Whether the typical recruiter has a meaningful network depends on them, but it doesn't happen overnight. Most recruiters are very friendly and extroverted, so at least face to face it's a pleasant interaction.

You may be poor at marketing your company/open position to developers. This I see a lot, in the same way I see great developers who don't market themselves well. I recently came across a job description where the first three paragraphs were about the company and the parent company - a very big name! Even at the hiring company, there can be a disconnect about what developers care about.

Finally, there are a lot of good developers who have no problem with recruiters. What prompted me to enter staffing was the number and quality of developers who came to me for help with their job searches, but I wasn't in a great position to help. Truth is, job searches suck and if you can find someone trustworthy to help with that, it's a relief.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can get specialised recruitment agencies and I came across a few in London who focus on one area. Head hunters will use all means necessary to get details from a department of the type of people working there. They then do build up a network of people outside LinkedIn or Monster that do have relevant experience inside a specific sector. Then by employing that agency you are more likely to get the kind of candidate you're searching for.

But this only works for specialised agencies all the rest is an absolute nonsense.

One of the companies I worked for went through various agencies but also put their own ad in the Guardian UK newspaper just because the CTO happened read that newspaper. That's where I came across their job through internet searches.

I guess it's just a way of getting 'some' candidates in the hope that you'll find a polished turd in the cess pool. Or perhaps it's to make the good candidates feel like they're not the only one being interviewed.

</comment><comment><USER7> Recruiters can give you a pipeline of candidates, pretty much immediately. As head of your team you can then spend your time sifting through resumes and interviewing instead of trying to do everything yourself. This works best when you can write a good description, and discuss your needs with the recruiter. Most companies will use a few different agencies as they find which ones bring in better candidates.

Recruiting companies vary in competency. There are senior-level recruiters that are former engineers. If you get one, keep him or her. There are experienced recruiters that can roughly gauge whether you would be a good fit. Then there are pure sales types where you're just a product. All can be successful. All will have different types of networks and work with different companies.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes you need an outside Hired Gun--

Whether it's an Attorney, Accountant, Advertising/PR, Management Consulting, or some moron Recruiter. All of these experts will undoubtedly claim to have specific industry experience in the clients space. "Hey we get you!"

As with any 'profession' the good ones know just enough to be dangerous, deliver a modicum of value, and some even make a nice living.

<comment><AUTHOR> "good ones know just enough to be dangerous and some even make a nice living", liked that !

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because these days joining a IT startup is like joining a gang, this gang or that gang, they all require you to believe them, breathe them, live with them.

Recruitment agencies dilute that bad influence as the firm's boss knows after all this is a corporation not a church.

</comment><comment><USER10> Because it's hard to find developers and recruiters have the network?

<comment><USER2> >> recruiters have the network?

They do not. Their "network" comes from scraping resumes from Monster and similar sites.

They store this database of resumes and addresses then send out a wave of emails for every next position they get, then process the replies from whoever replied to those mails and there you have your candidates.

I found that unsubscribing from those staffing firm mailing lists doesn't work but in some cases. In that regard UK agencies seem to be the worst of the bunch. Eventually I had to report those emails as spam and after a while the spam filter learned to catch those email automatically saving me the trouble.</comment></comment>


Farmers Seek to Deploy Powerful Gene Drive – MIT Technology Review - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609619/to-eliminate-fruit-flies-california-farmers-eye-controversial-genetic-tool/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2017-12-11&utm_campaign=Technology+Review <comment><USER2> This seems like something deeply fraught with risk.</comment>


Coronavirus: Boris Johnson taken to intensive care - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52192604 <comment><USER2> A few weeks ago, Johnson suggested in public that the US 'take one on the chin' regarding Covid-19. How's that working out for you Boris?

I don't care if you think this is inappropriate, because I find it welcome that for once a politician has to personally face the ramifications of his fecklessness. If only more of our leaders would have to face up, we might have real leadership instead of political posturing.

<comment><USER3> He said the UK needed to do that, not the US. And in case you're in doubt, yes, it's wildly inappropriate. To wish revenge on a politician who has from the start delegated to his own scientific advisors, which is exactly what people wanted politicians to do, is a sick thing.

You can go read the same advice he was reading on gov.uk, which states the obvious very clearly: you can't stop a virus with no vaccine by keeping everyone under indefinite house arrest. Even the dubious modellers admit that lockdown doesn't really flatten the curve, it just moves it forward. There's no solution in lockdown and it's wrong to pretend otherwise.

Given the information at the time (and still now) the original "let it spread with timed and staged lockdown" strategy was very likely correct. It becomes clearer every day. The hospitals aren't overflowing, the country hasn't run out of ventilators - not even close - and yet the economy is trashed with consequent dire impacts to the future funding of the healthcare system and other public services. The country could clearly be coping with fewer restrictions than it has now.

Despite that it's no surprise that the British left may sadly rejoice at Boris' ill fortune. It's hard to forget the parties they threw when Thatcher died.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The hospitals aren't overflowing,

We've converted all private provision to NHS provision; we've cancelled most elective care; we've built more than one private hospital (NHS Nightingale in London has 4,000 new beds).

We need at least 5 staff members to safely look after each ventilated patient. That's dropped right down because of covid-19, and we've already soon big changes in staff:patient ratios.

We're not at peak covid-19 yet, and we're trying to flatten the curve with social distancing and isolation measures.

Despite all this our ICUs are overflowing.

Listen to this doctor in Wales (you only need the first minute to hear how many patients they have) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlbCmRJMW4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlbCmRJMW4)

Or this junior doctor who works in A&E, who talks about the large changes in patient flow: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN6Trgzf9kY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN6Trgzf9kY)

<comment><USER3> Someone else found UK hospital admissions data. UK ER aren't just empty right now but disturbingly so.

Part of the reason they're empty is that pneumonia and respiratory illness has hardly moved, yet cardiac, gastro and others have fallen off a cliff. That implies people with serious non-COVID problems are staying away from hospitals when they need care, because they've been told they have to "save the NHS".

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877600/EDSSSBulletin2020wk13.pdf.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this is the time for snarky comments about his politics.

He's in intensive care and his wife is pregnant. I hope he gets better soon and I hope his family are doing ok at this difficult time.

<comment><USER5> > _... his wife is pregnant._

Prime Minister Johnson is not married.

In 1987, he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. That was annulled in 1993.

Twelve days later he married Marina Wheeler.

Johnson and Wheeler finalised their divorce in February 2020.

On February 29th Johnson announced his engagement to Carrie Symonds.

He is engaged to be married, and his fiancée is expecting.

But he is not currently married.

More details: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson#Relationships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson#Relationships)

<comment><USER6> Any time someone gives the guy's full name it's a clear indicator of a certain agenda. Give it a rest. Dredge it up when he's recovered or maybe, if he doesn't survive this, after a respectful interval following his death.

<comment><USER5> I have edited my comment. It now no longer gives his full name, nor mentions all of the documented relationships.

<comment><USER7> I don't think it's the full names the parent comment is taking issues with here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I can tell you that I'm shaking hands continuously. I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know and I continue to shake hands". (March 3rd)

[https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1234828026933805057](https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1234828026933805057)

</comment><comment><USER9> He's been looking rougher and rougher as the week has worn on, I don't like the guy but wouldn't wish this on him.

</comment><comment><USER10> Where did all of these leaders get their information about covid from? Surely not from the people who were watching the crisis develop in China.

Another stupid thing: People have been burning down cell towers because they think 5G causes corona. Only to leave their area to be less covered by telephone network, possibly making it harder to reach emergency services.

edit: I know many leaders have changed their views to more realistic ones, but I do wonder how they could be so misinformed in the beginning.

<comment><USER11> > Where did all of these leaders get their information about covid from? > Surely not from the people who were watching the crisis develop in China.

The official information coming out of China was "mostly mild courses, mostly kills old people with pre-existing conditions, kind of like the flu".

Later, the official information coming out of Italy was "mostly mild courses, mostly kills old people with pre-existing conditions, kind of like the flu".

Therefore, if you're not going to make a big fuss about the flu, why make one about COVID-19? Quite a few _actual virologists_ took this stance, at least for a while. The alarmists won the battle for attention, but not because of superior information.

That was also before Italy was overwhelmed. Even experts underestimated just how virulent COVID-19 was going to be and how many people were going to get it in such short order of time.

However, the fact remains that it's mostly mild courses, mostly kills old people with pre-existing conditions - kind of like the flu.

If _the flu_ kills an otherwise healthy person, which happens all the time, it's not news. COVID-19 is an unprecedented media spectacle, with unprecedented reactions from governments across the world, mob mentality is driving more and more drastic responses.

It's _not_ a foregone conclusion that these drastic responses were the right measure. Sweden has done pretty much nothing, yet their graphs don't look any worse than those of other European countries. Perhaps they're covering it all up, but perhaps all of this social distancing, all this shutdown does very little to slow the spread of this disease if just a few people go shopping once a week, if just a few people go to work and carry it home. We _don 't know_, because we don't know how COVID-19 actually spreads.

History is written by the winners. Had COVID-19 turned out less severe, the alarmists would've been decried as oversensitive fools. Now the anti-alarmists are being portrayed as irresponsible. Yet, both acted in good faith on _the same information_. Don't forget that the price of the shutdown is a major recession, it's not a simple political decision to make. The principle of charity must be applied.

<comment><USER12> >The official information coming out of China was "mostly mild courses, mostly kills old people with pre-existing conditions, kind of like the flu".

>Later, the official information coming out of Italy was "mostly mild courses, mostly kills old people with pre-existing conditions, kind of like the flu".

In both cases, the information _also_ included extremely rapid uncontrolled spread, a much higher death rate than the flu, and overwhelming available medical resources. This was known for a _very_ long time; as far back as early January in China.

>The alarmists won the battle for attention, but not because of superior information.

I'm not sure calling the people who were correct "alarmists" is aging well. And you still are apparently dismissing it as 'luck', that they were correct, because you state their information was no better.

>Even experts underestimated just how virulent COVID-19 was going to be and how many people were going to get it in such short order of time.

I seem to recall predictions of crazy R0 values for coronavirus back in early January. I, too, thought it was probably at the "overdone" side of things, again, in early January, before we had more information. But the picture started becoming much more clear by early February, and certainly mid- February. And we continued to do NOTHING in the US, at least into mid-March. And even once we spent a month ignoring the devastating consequences in Italy, much of the US hand-waved it away, and explained that they're all old people, and it could never happen here.

Then once it started happening here, we started hearing from governors of southern states, explaining how it can't happen THERE because they're not Washington. Or California. And then it became "we're not New York". I'm sorry, but the level of _intentional ignorance_ on this matter has played out over many, many months, over and over again, in precisely the same, predictable pattern. And here you are, claiming nobody could have known, and the alarmists got lucky.

>History is written by the winners. Had COVID-19 turned out less severe, the alarmists would've been decried as oversensitive fools. Now the anti-alarmists are being portrayed as irresponsible. Yet, both acted in good faith on the same information.

Wrong.

<comment><USER11> > In both cases, the information also included extremely rapid uncontrolled > spread, a much higher death rate than the flu, and overwhelming available > medical resources.

A high death rate in the beginning isn't meaningful. Early on during the Swine Flu, mortality was estimated at 0.5%[1], later estimates were ten times lower[2].

This was described as the "tip of the iceberg" phenomenon in a Q&A on a Harvard website[3] as late as early March. That section was later removed.

As for "uncontrolled spread", we've all seen footage of masses of people storming the hospitals in an entirely unsanitary manner, we've seen people getting dragged off the streets, for the crime of having an elevated temperature, then getting force-quarantined in open halls with no regards to safety. If this was an overwhelmed healthcare system, it wasn't clear that the blame could be put on the virus.

> This was known for a very long time; as far back as early January in China.

It wasn't, but hindsight is 20/20\. In mid-January there were less than 500 confirmed cases and no good estimate on the number of unconfirmed cases. Less than thirty people had died, over the course of two months in which likely a comparable number of people in Wuhan died from Influenza, but didn't make the news.

> I'm not sure calling the people who were correct "alarmists" is aging well.

They _were_ the alarmists at the time and will forever have been so. Some of their predictions may have turned out correct, others may yet turn out correct, others may turn out incorrect.

The Swine Flu, as predicted, _could_ have killed 120 million people[4], but then it _didn 't_, even without any shutdowns.

> And you still are apparently dismissing it as 'luck', that they were > correct, because you state their information was no better.

Of course their information wasn't any better. Everyone had access to the same information. The difference is in its interpretation, not so much based on luck but personal disposition. Again, not _all_ virologists made the same dire predictions.

> I seem to recall predictions of crazy R0 values for coronavirus back in > early January. I, too, thought it was probably at the "overdone" side of > things, again, in early January, before we had more information.

Yes, you saw _predictions_ of crazy R0 values that _you yourself_ weren't ready to believe. At the time it wasn't solid information, and it never will have been.

> But the picture started becoming much more clear by early February, and > certainly mid-February.

By mid-February, less than 2000 people had died worldwide from COVID-19, compared to at least 10,000 deaths from Influenza in the US alone. I'm not saying the "flu comparison" is a valid comparison, but at that point in time, it was still allowed to be made, even by experts.

> And we continued to do NOTHING in the US, at least into mid-March.

Neither did most European countries. Even in Italy, there was no nation-wide shutdown until March 9th.

> Wrong.

Wrong how? Your comment is a good example of an inaccurate historical account, as written by those who ended up on "the right side".

[1] [https://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b2840.full](https://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b2840.full)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784967/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784967/)

[3] [https://web.archive.org/web/20200304132800/https://www.healt...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200304132800/https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/as- coronavirus-spreads-many-questions-and-some-answers-2020022719004)

[4] [https://metro.co.uk/2009/04/26/swine-flu-could-kill-up- to-12...](https://metro.co.uk/2009/04/26/swine-flu-could-kill-up- to-120m-57725/)

<comment><USER12> >Yes, you saw predictions of crazy R0 values that you yourself weren't ready to believe. At the time it wasn't solid information, and it never will have been.

You're correct. It wasn't a "gotcha" on your part. I volunteered that information to point out that I was not an alarmist, I wasn't ready to believe the most "alarming" predictions, and yet, somehow, it was _still_ clear to me and the entirety of mainstream thought in the US, how bad it was going to be, before the most contrarian commentators were willing to admit.

>Neither did most European countries. Even in Italy, there was no nation-wide shutdown until March 9th.

In the US, it was still theoretically possible to contain it with "just" 19 confirmed cases at the end of February, even though, of course, that meant likely 10 times+ as many people had it, and were spreading it, when community spread was first reported on February 29[1]

Once community spread was found in the US, and _given_ our lack of ability to test for it, it was a foregone conclusion that it would spread like wildfire in the US, because containment is impossible if you don't know who's infected but asymptomatic.

Already in that first week of March, tech companies such as LinkedIn were already sending people home for the month[2], because it was beyond clear we were going to see rapid community spread. "We are 10 days behind Italy" was a common saying in mid-March.

My own company sent us home later that first week, as we had _direct links_ to places with known community spread. It was out of an abundance of caution, as I don't believe anyone ever got infected. It was an aggressive move, but it turned out to be the right move.

10 days later, a shelter in place order was sent out for the ENTIRE BAY AREA, and then a few days later, for the entire state.

And here we are, 3 weeks later, folks in Georgia saying "we are not Louisiana" (I had to update that from "we are not California" and "we are not New York" because the states ignorant leaders compare themselves to keep shifting as one by one the dominos fall)

>By mid-February, less than 2000 people had died worldwide from COVID-19, compared to at least 10,000 deaths from Influenza in the US alone. I'm not saying the "flu comparison" is a valid comparison, but at that point in time, it was still allowed to be made, even by experts.

It was still "allowed to be made" by people who cannot perform simple extrapolation.

Yes, just because a graph is going up today does not mean it will go up tomorrow -- _absent any other evidence_

But with a known long incubation period, and roughly 1 month between infection and death, you can know for virtual fact that it's not going to stop at 2000 deaths when _known_ infections is an order of magnitude higher, and there is basically no testing, and absolutely no reason for it to have stopped spreading. (eg, no preventive measures in place, no reason to expect the virus to die off on its own, etc).

And now we have a bunch of people who listened to contrarian opinions to convince themselves that "it couldn't happen here" are going back to find "evidence" to piece together a tenuous line of thinking that could have led even an informed person to be wrong. But constructive a narrative from historically cherry-picked statements is not the same thing as having weighed the available evidence at the time.

[1][https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/three- st...](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/three-states- report-new-community-spread-covid-19)

[2][https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-tells-employees- to-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-tells-employees-to-work-from- home-over-coronavirus-concerns-2020-3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the CDC: "Mortality among patients admitted to the ICU ranges from 39% to 72% depending on the study. The median length of hospitalization among survivors was 10 to 13 days."

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope Boris gets out of this as a new leaf. It's also a real wake up call to politicians that what they say in public and their policies have serious repercussions.

Every decision they make in the current pandemic climate could take or potentially save lives. Some of them being their loved ones.

</comment><comment><USER15> Johnson, like many world leaders, vastly underestimated what he was facing:

> "I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few > coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased > to know, and I continue to shake hands," he said. "People obviously can make > up their own minds but I think the scientific evidence is… our judgement is > that washing your hands is the crucial thing."

[https://www.newsweek.com/boris-johnson-says-shaken-hands- cor...](https://www.newsweek.com/boris-johnson-says-shaken-hands-coronavirus- patients-1490214)

This may be the first crisis where shooting your mouth off about things you know little about backfires - quickly and lethally.

I suspect there will be many instances of this sort of thing in the months to come. False predictions about "light at the end of the tunnel." Panicked re- instatements of lockdowns after premature lifting. Miracle cures that turn deadly because drugs are much more complicated than they seem.

All the while cheerleaders with hidden agendas will continue to promote dangerous, ill-informed opinions.

<comment><USER16> That was weeks ago. The facts changed and he changed his mind. Yet nothing he has said since then erases the original sin apparently.

Now he's in ICU and may not survive.

Let those without sin cast the first stone.

<comment><USER17> I think "may not survive" is setting the wrong tone here since the odds of him surviving are good.

<comment><USER18> Consider that people in ICU have a much higher mortality rate than the general population, that the government is going to bias their reports towards calm and stability, and that most people would even call a 20% probability of dying pretty bad.

Saying that "he may not survive" is perfectly reasonable. It's not saying he's definitely going to die. I hope the media wouldn't sensationalize it like this, but there is definitely a chance that he will die.

<comment><USER19> There's 66% - 90% mortality after ventilator use by corona patients.

<comment><USER20> He's not on a ventilator yet as far as we know

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why no Chinese politician has contracted Corona? Did they understand the risk from day 1?

Heck, none of their other cities were impacted by it but the disease has made its way to London, NYC, and all the major other cities.

<comment><USER8> How many times have you seen Johnson, Trump, Merkel, Macron etc. in facemask?

Whenever they shown Xi Jinping in Wuhan or any member of the politburo visiting hospitals and such they were all wearing masks, sometimes even rubber gloves too.

<comment><USER14> It's not the first battle of Chinese with viruses. SARS, bird flu, swine flu. They've learnt their lessons.

I do hope they get their animal market hygiene together. It's a bit crazy how many viruses have originated from China.</comment></comment></comment>


In Defense Of The High-Frequency Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/11/in-defense-of-the-high-frequency-hackers/ <comment><USER2> That was not a very good defense, however I think the author made some good points. It seems to me that those complaining the loudest about HFT are the floor traders & market makers (rather former market makers.) Also, there is a good point in this piece about standing your ground on price (assuming you are not being stopped out,) patience would benefit many traders and investors.</comment>


Show HN: Ipynb-tex – Include Jupyter notebook cells in TeX documents - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/poulter7/ipynb-tex <comment><USER2> Is it just me or is the graph reversed? If you want super cool latex documents dont use ipynb-tex that often?

<comment><USER3> The wording is confusing. It should be something like "days since I started using ipynb-tex"

<comment><AUTHOR> Next time I'll avoid humour in a submission

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is going to be awesome for creating reports and solutions. Can use jupyter to quickly find solutions (e.g. using SymPy) then do the writeup in .tex with includes.

Good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Or in a large document/book to guarantee no break between code and executable examples

<comment><USER5> I can't test it out right now, but does it add the code as an image or as text?

<comment><AUTHOR> Code is imported as a minted import, it's properly formatted text</comment></comment></comment></comment>