How the CIA Overthrew Iran's Democracy in Four Days in 1953 (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days <comment><USER3> Most western people are very negative about countries like Iran, China and Russia because they are the 'bad guys'.

Well this article again shows that there are few countries that will not gain power over dead people. It's sad but true.

Now imagine you were living in Iran and came to know about the work of the CIA. Whould you think the USA is the greatest country in the world and democracy is the way to go?

I think it would be best if we look at people in other countries without judgement and try to understand their point of view. Leaders are to blame but most of the people in this world are just living their life.

<comment><USER4> China is harassing all of its coastal neighbours and trying to politically infiltrate just about every major country on the face of the earth.

Russia is invading neighbours, actively escalating military tensions and sabre rattling.

They don't really fit the same profile as Iran currently does.

Feel free to walk me through the 'good guy' point of view of the people who invaded my home country, shot down a passenger plane, and got away with complete impunity.

There are no good or bad guys. All the superpwers are dicks, that's how they got to being superpwers.

<comment><USER5> > Russia is invading neighbours, actively escalating military tensions and > sabre rattling.

In the specific case of Crimea, it's much more complicated than that. It is an invasion, but there's much more about it than just "Russia invading neighbors", you're oversimplifying things.

Russia invaded the Crimean Oblast within Ukraine, rather than all of Ukraine.

In the Soviet Union, Crimea was an Oblast of the Russian SFSR. First secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who was of Ukranian origin, transferred the governance of the Crimean oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 as a "symbolic gesture".

But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many Russians (an ethnic majority inside Crimea) were not satisfied with the resulting situation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea)

[https://www.britannica.com/place/Crimea/History](https://www.britannica.com/place/Crimea/History)

<comment> Const-me > Russia is occupying the Crimean Oblast within Ukraine

Russia also occupying parts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

> many Russians were not satisfied with the resulting situation, including > Russians living in Crimea

Pre-war sociology shows 38% of Crimean residents wanted to join Russia, that number declining over time: [https://www.km.ru/world/2012/09/14/polozhenie- russkoyazychno...](https://www.km.ru/world/2012/09/14/polozhenie- russkoyazychnogo-naseleniya-ukrainy/692296-rossiya-teryaet-krym) (Russian). 38% is indeed many people, but that's still a minority.

<comment><USER6> This thread is not about Ukraine, but, if we must ...

The protests in Kiev and other cities were violent and out of control. Ukraine was 6 months away from an election which they could have normally voted out their president, but, the people overthrew the government instead. Since then, the country has been so much worse off economically and socially. People have barely any money to pay their gas bills or buy luxury food items such as almonds. The GDP is currently one of the lowest of any countries in the world.

Other regions in the country such as the Donbass also never wanted to overthrow their president, which is why they began their separatist movement which led to its current civil war.

Crimea got a lucky break that it had the history that it does, and that all the Russian speaking population was there, and that there was Russian military presence there to enforce peace.

Maybe pre-sociology shows 38% pre Ukrainian protests in 2012, but, a lot changed in 2 years during that complete anarchy in most Ukrainian cities such as Kiev, Odessa, and the atempted Anarchy in Donetsk. The people of Crimea very simply just want stability and peace, like most people do.

> 97 percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation > with an 89 percent voter turnout.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum)

<comment> Const-me > were violent and out of control

Technically that's true, but it's important to remember the protest was peaceful for couple months. Then police started the violence. People have a right of self-defense.

> the country has been so much worse off economically and socially

Despite Ukraine have been fighting Russian army for almost 5 years now, what you're saying is not true: [https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/gdp-per- capita-ppp](https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/gdp-per-capita-ppp)

> one of the lowest of any countries in the world

Not true. Ukraine is near the median, doing better than India or Philippines: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita)

> which is why they began their separatist movement which led to its current > civil war

Neither of that is true. The "separatists" for the "separatists movement" were Russian military personnel or special forces. The war ain't civil, there're tons of factual evidence of direct Russian army involvement.

<comment><USER6> Again, not a post about Ukraine, but, ok ...

>Technically that's true, but it's important to remember the protest was peaceful for couple months. Then police started the violence. People have a right of self-defense.

Violent protest is not the answer, not when they had an election coming up very soon.

> Despite Ukraine have been fighting Russian army for almost 5 years now, what > you're saying is not true:

Millions of people have fled the country to work abroad in countries like Poland and Russia, among other countries in Western Europe. The common people do not have enough money to pay their gas bills, to pay for their heating in brutal winters. Your graph displaying some growth "per capita growth", have a look at this graph showing the value of their currency

[https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=UAH&to=USD&view=10Y](https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=UAH&to=USD&view=10Y)

In terms of socially, absolutely it is worse. No one can afford to buy any import goods. There are dozens of reports of mass emigration, and the people that stay now almost all own guns in fear. You can't tell me that this is socially better than how Ukraine was before the revolution.

>Not true. Ukraine is near the median, doing better than India or Philippines:

Ukraine was a developed nation. It had all the potential to be a manufacturing and tech powerhouse. It was a country filled with brilliant minds, engineers and hardworking people. Many of which have now fled the country. If you seriously want to compare Ukraine to India (where they don't have access to clean water or sanitation) and make that the bar for Ukraine then this discussion with you truly is fruitless.

>Neither of that is true. The "separatists" for the "separatists movement" were Russian military personnel or special forces. The war ain't civil, there're tons of factual evidence of direct Russian army involvement.

I think it's pretty clear that the Donbass separatists are backed with Russian aid. No one is disputing that. But it is not Russian Military doing the fighting, which is a difference.

It's the people of the Donbass fighting for their own rights. The people on the front lines are people of the Donbass. USA sends military personnel to train the Ukrainian Army, and Russia probably trains people of the Donbass as well. At the end of the day it's the people of the Donbass on the front lines fighting for their rights.

This tit for tat argument needs to end. Seriously, people in Ukraine are so much worse off today than they were before the revolution.

<comment> Const-me > Violent protest is not the answer

Too bad the old Ukrainian government didn't know it, and started to use violence against it's own people.

> Millions of people have fled the country to work abroad

The economy is global, air travel is cheap, Internet simplified things a lot. Ukraine is no exception. Globally, 258 million people, myself included, are living outside their country of birth.

> Your graph displaying some growth "per capita growth", have a look at this > graph showing the value of their currency

That graph is in USD after adjustments for purchasing power. Currency exchange rates are irrelevant.

> No one can afford to buy any import goods

In 2018, Ukraine has imported goods worth 56 billion USD, smartphones alone were just under $1B: [http://www.worldstopexports.com/ukraines- top-10-imports/](http://www.worldstopexports.com/ukraines-top-10-imports/)

> There are dozens of reports of mass emigration

There's no mass emigration, net migration is around zero: [https://blogs.elenasmodels.com/en/ukrstat-migration- statisti...](https://blogs.elenasmodels.com/en/ukrstat-migration-statistics- ukraine/)

> But it is not Russian Military doing the fighting

Russians started the war, and they did the fighting: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Strelkov_(officer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Strelkov_\(officer\)) Their armed forces are still there. It doesn't matter they deny that, way too much documentary evidence of their direct involvement, for instance read links from that article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_\(2014–present\)#Donbass)

<comment><USER6> You're now fighting with me on two different conversation threads, what seems like just for the sake of fighting at this point.

Violent protest is always greeted with crowd control. In Every Country. You seem to be forgetting that the Ukrainian population caused a revolution, instead of waiting for the election for a few more months.

Have a look at the violence from protestors just before it all fell apart.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stK3YPz6WTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stK3YPz6WTc)

The people are worse off today than they were before. Not everyone supported their revolution, and you can deny that all you want, but, the people in the Donbass don't want to be a part of the circus that is Ukraine in its current state.

> Currency exchange rates are irrelevant.

Clearly I'm beating a dead horse. I don't know where to begin explaining to you that currency is not irrelevant.

About the mass emigration, these are people who have not filed for citizenship with other countries because in a lot of circumstances they cannot. No one is coming to Ukraine looking at it as a desirable place to live at the moment. There are less jobs in Ukraine, there is less trade in Ukraine, people have no choice but to work abroad.

Yes, I am also aware of the cases of some defected ex-Russian military helping the Donbass fighters, but, again you keep ignoring the fact that 99% of the population enlisted in fighting are citizens of the Donbass...

How can you honestly argue that the status quo is better than it was before the revolution? What are you even arguing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And even nowadays that resentment against Great Britain from Iran is very much still alive, while we hear mostly about the US getting involved in these regions

<comment><USER8> For those interested, Jack Straw (former UK Foreign Secretary) wrote a book, "The English Job", about the history of the UK and Iran (but of course touching on a lot more) is very readable. Having been published in 2019, it's also pretty up-to-date.

There is apparently a joke amongst diplomats that 'Iran is the only country in the world which still regards the United Kingdom as a superpower'. There is a phrase in Iran, which translates as something like "It's always an English job", applied to something that has been botched and mishandled. I'd definitely say that for the layman, if you want to understand the relationship twixt the West and Iran (which is so much more than just the US and Iran) this book has a place on your reading list.

<comment><USER9> 'Uncle Napoleon' might be helpful too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Curious how world politics will change once electric vehicles become mainstream and there is little need for oil.

<comment><USER11> It's not about oil necessarily. It's about energy source or more generally - <USER2> valuable resource. If lithium batteries become the new "oil", then lithium rich countries will become targets and oil countries will be ignored. But I think oil will be valuable for many decades to come. Oil use is projected to increase worldwide by every regulatory body.

As long as oil is valuable, we'll fight over it. If lithium becomes valuable, we'll fight over it. Times change, but sadly people remain the same. Especially the greedy elite.

<comment><USER12> > If lithium batteries become the new "oil", then lithium rich countries will > become targets

Like Afghanistan, for example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan#Lithium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan#Lithium)

<comment><USER13> If lithium reaches a certain price point, then it will just be extracted from ocean water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think we are not that dependant on oil right now either and we are just used to continue the same failed tactics if the past. The people who make these decisions are just not making them economically and they are just used to continue the same policies.

<comment><USER15> Iran is in Israel's and Saudi Arabia's cross hairs. It is my feeling that the US is mostly antagonistic to Iran because of the influence of these two regional rivals of Iran.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> ... _in the middle of the cold war_.

<comment><USER17> And as soon as the cold war ended, in 1989, the USA invaded Panama to put their own man as president. In the process, the USA killed more than 3000 civilians. The man who ordered the invasion was George H W Bush, a former director of the CIA.

And if you're looking for more recent cases, the USA supported the military coup in Egypt in 2013. The government even refused to call it a coup because of legal implications. This was an important blow to democracy in the region. The authoritarian evolution in Turkey is partly due to this.

I'm not saying other democracies are better than the USA. I'm French, and my country still cannot face its past in Algeria. And France still supports dictators, like a 2018 bombing in Chad recently proved. But over the last couple of decades, I don't think any country killed more foreign civilians than the USA did, by a large margin. Even Saudi Arabia and UAE, with their wars in Yemen and Lybia, can't compare.

<comment><USER18> As recently as last year a USA backed coup removed the president elected by more than 50% in Bolivia because they nationalized gas and were exploiting lithium themselves.

<comment><USER19> No. Evo Morales is a would-be dictator who ignored term limits and rigged an election to stay in power. He was forced out of power because the Bolivian army refused to kill Bolivian people to suppress protests against him.

The facts to counter the propaganda:

\- [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/11/16/was-there-a- cou...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/11/16/was-there-a-coup-in- bolivia)

\- [https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodig...](https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-109/19)

<comment><USER18> No. Constitutional Tribunal allowed Evo to participate in the elections because of an international treaty that allows anyone to participate in elections. Also, right wing local magnate Camacho confessed to conspiring with police and military to oust Evo. The OAS is a know USA puppet organization and presented __no proof __of any wrongdoing in the election.

Confesión Camacho [https://www.pagina12.com.ar/238942-luis-fernando-camacho- con...](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/238942-luis-fernando-camacho-confeso-fue- mi-padre-quien-cerro-con-l)

Convencion Americana sobre Derechos Humanos 23, b) de votar y ser elegidos en elecciones periódicas auténticas [http://www.oas.org/dil/esp/tratados_B-32_Convencion_American...](http://www.oas.org/dil/esp/tratados_B-32_Convencion_Americana_sobre_Derechos_Humanos.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Mossadegh thought he was in the clear, but Roosevelt hadn't given up. He > orchestrated a second coup, which succeeded. Mossadegh was placed on trial > and spent his life under house arrest.

Never become complacent.

</comment><comment><USER21> Please if you are interested in this read more. This article is just garbage.

Start with wiki it is actually surprisingly good.

"The official pretext for the start of the coup was Mosaddegh's decree to dissolve Parliament, giving himself and his cabinet complete power to rule, while effectively stripping the Shah of his powers.[13][14][15]"

Say Boris Johnson dissolves parliament takes all of the power into his own hands and his ministers. Queen tries to relieve him(coup!!!!) has to run away to France :o He then starts imprisoning anyone who has a problem with that.

I also like the legend about CIA managing to bribe a bunch of communists party members to burn down part of Tehran trying to start revolution, at the same time they were bribing: media, army, other counter protestors, security, religious leaders. Just how many agents did they have running this masterclass operation? Nobody in in Tehran clearly had any will of their own.

<comment><USER22> Interestingly enough your surprisingly good starting point (I can't tell since Wikipedia political articles are often heavily biased, so if I trust this one as impartial I'd be suffering from Gell-Man amnesia again) has this to say:

> The Shah himself initially opposed the coup plans, and supported the oil > nationalization, but he joined after being informed by the CIA that he too > would be "deposed" if he didn't play along.

It also has this to say:

> During the coup, Roosevelt and Wilber, representatives of the Eisenhower > administration, bribed Iranian government officials, reporters, and > businessmen. They also bribed street thugs to support the Shah and oppose > Mosaddegh. ...

> Another tactic Roosevelt admitted to using was bribing demonstrators into > attacking symbols of the Shah, while chanting pro-Mosaddegh slogans. ...

Is this surprisingly good or is it laughable legend again?

<comment><USER21> In my own read Roosevelt was clearly heavily involved in the first attempt. Second one he mostly took credit for things he wish he could do.

Wiki might be incomplete but compared to npr agitprop it is much better</comment></comment></comment>


Why the name? - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.debian.org/WhyTheName <comment><USER2> Great fun. One minor nitpick - the story of "Apache Server" being originally derived from "A Patchy Server" is a long-standing myth; the name was originally intended to be a tribute to the Apache Native American peoples. The Wikipedia article on Apache ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server)) includes a link to an interview with Brian Behlendorf ([http://www.linux- mag.com/id/472/](http://www.linux-mag.com/id/472/)) where he explains how the story arose.

<comment><USER3> [http://web.archive.org/web/19970415054031/www.apache.org/inf...](http://web.archive.org/web/19970415054031/www.apache.org/info.html)

> The Apache group was formed around a number of people who provided patch > files that had been written for NCSA httpd 1.3. The result after combining > them was A PAtCHy server.

(April 1997)

The new story is not consistent with what their website was saying not very long ago.

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, that description was on the site from Oct 1996 [1] to Aug 2001 [2].

1.[http://web.archive.org/web/19961028123412/http://www.apache....](http://web.archive.org/web/19961028123412/http://www.apache.org/info.html) 2.[http://web.archive.org/web/20010803130101/http://www.apache....](http://web.archive.org/web/20010803130101/http://www.apache.org/info.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another fun that appears elsewhere but really does deserve to be in this list: Debian is named after Debra and Ian Murdock (he's the founder of the project, she was his girlfriend).

<comment><USER6> This list appears to include only software packaged _in_ Debian, but that fact does get a mention at [https://www.debian.org/intro/about#history](https://www.debian.org/intro/about#history)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The free software movement really needs to step up its name-game. No normal people want to use a program called _The GIMP_.

<comment><USER8> The iPad was mocked for sounding like a feminine hygeine product, yet it seems to have done alright for itself.

<comment><USER9> The difference is that normal people understand the meaning behind the name 'iPad' (Apple's use of 'i' prefix for mobile, the device is like a 'pad' of paper) whilst, to them, Gimp is just a bit ... weird and creepy.

<comment><USER10> Like they understand the meaning behind Microsoft Excel. Names are names, arbitrary tokens. People get used to them.

<comment><USER9> "'Excel' means to be good at something. A 'gimp' is some weird sexual bondage thing" \- this is how most people in the real world think and, whether or not they might get used to names over time and disassociate them from their original meaning, it doesn't change their first impression.

<comment><USER11> I never had that definition for Gimp. To me it had always meant someone with a minor injury or handicap. Eg "my gimp leg is acting up again"

<comment><USER12> That's what it always meant to me, never knew it had any other meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another great one is 'dd' which stands for 'Copy and Convert'. Oddly enough, cc was already taken.

<comment><USER14> Wasn't "dd" always "duplicate data"?

<comment><USER15> Nope.

[http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/6804/what-does-dd- st...](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/6804/what-does-dd-stand- for/6835#6835)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _" Giving cryptic names to software is a well-established UNIX tradition."_

Giving cryptic names to software works better if you have a big advertising budget. Otherwise, nobody has a clue what your package does.

</comment><comment><USER17> "python - is of course a Monty Python reference"

I had no idea! Makes me love it even more.

<comment><USER18> And the Python Package Index, [https://pypi.python.org/pypi](https://pypi.python.org/pypi) , is also known as the "Cheese Shop".

<comment><USER19> I never understood why you would name a package index after something that's literally got nothing to show... I know the reasoning, but it still feels strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The etymology of Unix programs: very interesting! The writers of this page also have a sense of humor:

> bc > originally a front-end for dc ("desk-calculator"); modern GNU bc is > instead a backwards-compatible byte-code interpreter for dc, but what it > stands for is still "basic calculator"

<comment><USER21> While a lot of the names have humorous origins, I don't see the humor in this particular entry at all? Can you explain?

<comment> qu4z-2 I was amused that they introduce it as a "[b]ackwards-[c]ompatible [b]yte-[c]ode interpreter". Not sure whether that's what the GP meant.

<comment><USER21> Ouch, didn't notice. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some pretty interesting explanations in this list. I personally prefer to not let the developers name things, because they usually come up with very bad names (hard to pronounce, hard to google for, have overtly sexual connotations, etc). Command line utilities are a little different because there's a culture of having short names making them easier to type. But it's still very hard to google for things like "less" because it's a common word.

<comment><USER23> It's one of the two hard problems in Computer Science:

1\. Naming things 2\. Cache invalidation 3\. Off-by-one errors.

<comment><USER24> Actually th4. Concurrencyere are three - you missed:

<comment><USER25> 4: Concurrenc4: Conc4u:r ryConenccuyrrencyy

        #include <sched.h>

        cpu_set_t  mask;
        CPU_ZERO(&mask);
        CPU_SET(0, &mask);
        result = sched_setaffinity(0, sizeof(mask), &mask);

4: Concurrency

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So "ruby" is not a play on "perl"? I don't believe it.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Giving cryptic names to software is a well-established UNIX tradition

God, this is so true! I seriously think that world would be much better already if we would just rename many of well-established binaries and C-functions to more-intuitive, better convention. Even without changing APIs that much (which would be great too, of course).

<comment><USER3> Good luck with that. We can't even give the creat() system call an 'e' at the end.

(Not that it should be used much these days; the 'creat() then open()' idiom is a race condition waiting to happen, so 'open()' has grown the ability to create-and-open in one atomic operation. That seems to handle most of the file creation that Unix programs need to do.)

<comment><USER28> creat was always create-and-open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is is just me that get 403 Forbidden error?

<comment><USER30> Nope, I don't get what this is about, either. It's an error page that says

      Forbidden

      You are not allowed to access this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> One of my favorites from the Windows world is fart.exe (Find And Replace Text).

</comment><comment><USER32> mknod: "nowadays of extremely limited usefulness"

Interesting perspective. I use it almost daily.

The syscall as well as the provided utility of same name.

<comment><USER33> I have to ask: what do you do that you need to create device nodes manually on a daily basis?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I believe that the US Navy used to use Jovial: Jules' Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language.

</comment><comment><USER35> We all know "GNU's Not Unix." But what does G stand for?

<comment><USER36> GNU is a recursive acronym

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym)

<comment><USER35> I know it is a recursive acronym. I just want to know why they chose G, instead of A, B, C, ... etc.

<comment><USER37> Stallman liked GNU because it's unpronounceable. When Europeans first discovered the animal, Africans referred to the first sound in its name as a click, which the Europeans didn't use in their languages, so the "g" in the word essentially stands for "unpronounceable sound," and is usually omitted. He used it for fun but brought back the sound in the form of a hard "g."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What is the origin of the name Chicken Scheme?

<comment><USER39> _One last question: What inspired the names CHICKEN and SPOCK? Do they mean anything, aside from the bird and the well-known Star Trek character?_

 _That question always comes up, sooner or later. ;-)_

 _I had a plastic toy of Feathers McGraw on my desk, the evil penguin (disguised as a chicken!) from the Wallace and Gromit movie, "The Wrong Trousers." Looking for a preliminary working title for the compiler, I used the first thing that came to my mind that day. I'm somewhat superstitious about names for software projects, and things were progressing well, so I didn't dare to change the name._

 _Also, there is the old philosophical question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? This applies to CHICKEN, too. The compiler is written in Scheme, so you need CHICKEN in order to compile CHICKEN._

[http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/19/chicken-scheme- spock...](http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/19/chicken-scheme-spock- part-2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "awk - see mawk"

What.

</comment><comment><USER40> missing from the list is one I've always wondered about: bamfdaemon

<comment><USER41> I assume bamf refers to x-men comics where "bamf" was the onomatopoeia for the demonic character Nightcrawler's teleportation.

<comment><USER42> Offtopic:

(1.) As someone who has only seen the movies, does Azazel (First Class) do "Bamf!" in the comics, too?

(2.) He's Nightcrawler's dad, right? (WP claims so)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43>
      parrot
      (common virtual machine for dynamic languages) named
      after an April Fool's hoax that came true:

[http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/04/01/parrot.htm](http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/04/01/parrot.htm)

What a coincident. In 2015, Perl 6 (Parrot VM) and Python 3 have difficulties to transfer their community over from the former major releases Perl 5 and Python 2.

Offtopic: We can learn from it. Like fixing a language early or never/only in small steps. Other examples: XHTML 1 and especially 2 failed, HTML5 based on HTML4 won spectacular. PHP6 failed, but won with PHP 5.3+ and now PHP 7. The transition from Visual Basic 6 and VBA 6 to Visual Basic .Net failed, J#/C# won.

<comment><USER44> Perl 6's biggest mistake was naming their language Perl. It turns out Perl-6 is a completely different language from Perl-5, although they share the surrounding ecosystem. But now that the name is taken, Perl-5 is up to version 20.2 with no clear solution in sight to communicate version numbers in the future.

I don't think any of the Perl-6 developers actually advocates switching from Perl-5. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.) The situation is quite different from Python 3, which is the newest incarnation of the Python language.

<comment><USER45> From what I've heard of it I'm guessing they would be advocating switching to Perl-6 for new projects if perl-6 had actually shipped a 1.0/6.0 type release and seemed to be succeeding as a practical language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In most cases, it's not cryptic or strange at all and makes perfect sense. This article ignores history. Back then, names were shortened to save every available byte cause ram and disk usage was so limited. It was also easier to type when you did everything from the command line. In addition, a lot of these were created in some lab somewhere, like Bell Labs, and they had no intention of you using it.

Long ago, when I heard of awk and sed, the first thing I did was ask what they stood for. I would think any seriously interested computer person would do the same thing.

<comment><USER21> _In most cases, it 's not cryptic or strange at all and makes perfect sense._

Just because it made sense and was entirely justified right then, does not mean that it is not cryptic or strange today. That's kind of the point of the explanations: to explain _why_ the names are so cryptic and strange.

 _Long ago, when I heard of awk and sed, the first thing I did was ask what they stood for. I would think any seriously interested computer person would do the same thing._

Interesting expectation. I think why I always wondered, I did not really ask that often. Firstly because when I started, there were not many places to ask for (hardly any non-students even had Internet access), second because it would get tedious after a short time.

It's entirely justified for even very serious "computer persons" to have used these commands all the time and only now learning the meaning of some of them.

<comment><USER15> It makes sense today and isn't cryptic at all. Perhaps to outsiders it is but we're not outsiders. We know it stands for something and "stream editor" should make sense. Looking it up is a matter of "man sed" or, in my case long ago, I'd turn to the guy sitting next to me and ask him.

Yes, awk is an exception, and there are others, but they aren't the rule.</comment></comment></comment>


How an App Made Me a Better Person - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/95306a3adbac

<comment><USER2> awww good article :)</comment>


Denmark to add 180% tax on electric vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-29/teslas-hit-by-180-tax-in-denmark-as-green-goals-get-left-behind <comment><AUTHOR> Denmark already has 180% tax on normal cars, and EV's have been tax-free in the past. But the government is ditching the green goals, and will phase in the 180% tax on EV's.

Ironically, a BMW i3 (pure electric) will be more expensive than the BMW i3 Rex (same as i3 but with a tiny fuel engine). This is because the i3 Rex will theoretically go 166 KM/L, and therefore you can subtract a lot from the tax (you can do that on vehicles going more than 16KM/L).

</comment><comment><USER2> "The government is defending the measures by saying they will help businesses save money and create more jobs."

That is some twisted logic, please tell me how taking money away from its citizens creates jobs, maybe they mean govt. jobs.

<comment><USER3> Simple economics: If the taxes pulled from the purchase of cars is used to facility other sectors that generates growth and that growth is greater than the contraction due to the lower demand of EVs then the net effect is positive to the economy.

For instance: In the U.S. taxing luxury, high-wealth goods and returning the money as food stamps is the number one best stimulus the U.S. can choose [0].

[0] [http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/29/news/economy/stimulus_analys...](http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/29/news/economy/stimulus_analysis/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's just plain stupid. I get it, you don't want EVs to be "tax-free", but at least make it smaller than on gas-powered cars to encourage people to buy cleaner cars. When EVs are 50% of the market, then you can make it equal, if you think you're losing money or whatever. But such high taxes already seem extreme for any car anyway.

They also eliminated the tax on NOx, even after the VW scandal. Ugh. I was wrong. This isn't stupid. Just malicious/corrupt.

</comment><comment><USER5> can't Denmark citizens just buy & register their car in another EU country? Happens all the time in the EU

<comment><USER6> Sure, but once they bring it into Denmark they'll have to re-register it and pay the tax. As far as I know that is that same across the EU.

<comment><USER7> How does that not defy the single market system within EU? If they can get taxes on cars why can't they do it for other goods as well effectively introducing tariffs which aren't supposed to exist withing EU.

<comment><USER6> Technically you can import any car you want without paying taxes (basically). But if you want to legally drive it you need to register it and get local license plates, and that is what you are taxed for. If you, for example, buy a car exclusively for racing and never take it out on the road then I think you're fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My First Job Interview was with a Billionaire - <AUTHOR> http://blonk.co/posts/yar25WjW9c9XL7Kwo <comment><USER2> Brilliant story.

That being said, Page should learn to be a better writer. Take this, for example:

 _As for my right ear, I was born deaf in it lol. This was not a fun experience to say the least._

Being born deaf in one ear is rarely a cause for "laughing out loud," and the "lol" adds nothing to the first sentence. "To say the least" is a cliché and should be eliminated.

Anyone could be guilty of these writing sins and in a large enough sample of my own writing I'm sure someone could find clichés. Nonetheless they're pervasive enough to detract from the piece. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get _Write Right!_ (my favorite short, pithy writing book) and William Zissner's _On Writing Well_.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I thought the writing was really poor and very hard to follow. One moment he's talking about losing his hearing, then his vision and then having Epstein Barr.

That being said, it seems like a pretty interesting story, good for him for fighting through his problems!

<comment><USER4> I think there's room for the perspectives offered by both formal and informal writing.

Given the informal context, reminiscing about first job interviews with friends, I feel that the author wanted to share that setting with us as readers.

It may not have been the same decision you would have made, but take it as a chance to learn a new perspective rather than opening with hard criticisms.

<comment><USER3> I disagree, I don't think the style was informal, I think it was simply poorly written. There is a difference between the two. The blogger never purported to be a good writer, so I don't fault him for it and I was able to get the gist of what he wanted to say, but it wasn't well written..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your site doesn't show anything without javascript enabled. You might want to have some graceful fallback of some kind.

<comment><USER6> This is one of my pet peeves. What makes is worse is that if I temporarily enable scripts for the page, there is nothing on it that actually requires scripting. The javascript just displays formatted text. Every HTTP service in existence already does that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently you could construct this statically (actually we used to host on S3), but we're building out the desktop app at the same time, so it made sense to host the blog on the same app. This should be rendering HTML server side soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a good general sales lesson here: "research" is not "preparation", even though they're commonly assumed to be the same thing in practice, as was the case here.

It's hard to craft a viable proposition if you don't know your target, but simply knowing your target doesn't mean you have a viable proposition. Ultimately, the OP's pitch to Moritz ("my poker success can be translate to success as a venture capitalist") was _interesting_ enough to land him a meeting, but not _compelling_ enough to close the deal.

</comment><comment><USER8> Your sign in/sign up doesn't offer an option to sign up...

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. In retrospect I should have hid it until that was ready. In the near future we'll have a desktop site to log into and use as well as mobile.

In the mean time you can also signup in the app.

Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I loved the email pitch. Seemed to the point and anyone reading it was clear who you are and what you could do.

As Mark Twain said in a letter, "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter".

Still a long way to go for me but I can see my pitches are becoming better. I happy to start with a long winded sentence now and then gradually cut it down.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cool story, but fix your site! You're missing out on valuable HN exposure because of the general feeling of incompleteness.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Stay pathologically optimistic." Love it.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Tinder for jobs" ... doublefacepalm.gif. good luck though maybe I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER13> sup bro - nice post.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice story!

<comment><USER15> thanks, much appreciated

<comment><USER16> hey, what was your screenname on pokerstars/ftp/2+2? from the timeline, i'm guessing we played together a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tom's having trouble logging in (same IP issue?), but he said to email him at firstname.lastname@example.com and he would be happy to chat.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Kill The Landline - <AUTHOR> https://www.killthelandline.com/ <comment><USER3> Interesting. I'm trying to get my parents to drop their Charter landline - which, yes, is $40/mo, and yes, they both have cell phones - but they haven't wanted to because it'd be difficult to get everyone to change the numbers.

I think the biggest aspect of this is the "redirect to two numbers" - <USER2> parents would love that, since they would both be able to get the messages.

How does it handle voicemail, though? It can't send the voicemails to both phones, presumedly.

And btw, I'm surprised by the negativity in the comments here. This is a product targeting a segment of consumers who are not as technologically adept and probably feel "trapped" with their landline - an instant out as convenient and cheap as this is much more attractive than porting their landline number to a new mobile line or trying to figure out how to get a landline to Google Voice, which is a complicated and costly process (going by [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/google-voice-a-step- by-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/google-voice-a-step-by-step- primer-on-ditching-your-land-line-while-keeping-your-number/10455))

<comment><USER4> My parents are in this exact same position. They have never heard of Google Voice but paying for an expensive landline.

I would immediately recommend a service like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting branding, good domain, strong message. Unfortunately, I can't say I like the product at all ;)

Google will let you port your landline (indirectly) to Google voice, and forward all you calls for free.

Alternatively, I could port my landline to a second line on my Cell plan, and get a dumb-phone, for the same $10/month I'd pay you.

I like the basic message, and the domain, and that you're trying to brand as a "mission", but I think the underlying product is flawed.

</comment><comment><USER6> $10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

<comment><USER7> I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can with a mobile #. I could be wrong.

Google Voice FAQ- [http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1065667)

<comment><USER8> "I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can with a mobile #."

Correct.

However you can (I did) do this:

1) Move the landline to your cell phone provider (assumes you have a family plan, if you don't convert to one for the time necessary to do the other steps).

2) Once the number is at the cell phone provider you can transfer it to google voice (and get rid of the family plan if you didn't have one). Took a few weeks.

3) You can buy an <http://obihai.com/> device if you want to be able to hook up a traditional POTS phone to get the calls. Or you can just make and receive calls at the google voice website.

Note: I did this with the cell phone provider being AT&T. I would assume it will work with other cell providers but it does with AT&T.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everyone that's saying Google Voice: You can't port landlines easily to GV. It was my first thought too but did some research and turns out they don't support it directly.

Now: To pull this off you need to make it super simple and intuitive. I want to come to your site with inviting colors, a clean layout, and a very clear call to action and easy signup. This should be so easy and inviting that I will want to do it again after I'm done. This is where good design comes into play. If you make it hard, the copy hard to understand, a pricing plan that is confusing and not straightforward, then it will scare people off. Your biggest chance of success is a UI that is so easy to use it's mindless and "just works."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Josh, we're not designers but we're seeking out help. We've already redesigned the landing page, and we'll be putting lots of careful thought and testing into the rest of the site.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, this is Brian, one of the Kill The Landline developers. We're working on this right now at Startup Weekend in Columbia, Missouri and really welcome all the feedback you can provide on our idea! We have a blog at <http://blog.killthelandline.com/> with a short survey you can fill out as well as more details about the origin of the idea.

<comment><USER10> "Contact us at [Email Protected]" does not inspire confidence.

Your pricing is too high for people who know what they're doing and probably too low for people who don't and really want it, so it's probably OK.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, Cloudflare prevents email scraping. It's firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few notes:

-I wouldn't worry about the GV question, but I would worry about understanding your target audience. If I were you I'd call up @mikeknoop's parents and show them the site to get feedback, since those are the kind of ppl who will use it. Ask them if any of their friends would use this too and talk to them.

-$10/month sounds like a lot and I wonder where you came up with it. I'd guess something closer to $20/year, but again, ask ppl who would want to use this.

-related to that, I don't understand what "$10 / month for the first 100 minutes, then $0.08 / minute after that" means. Are you gonna charge people by minute they talk for forwarding their calls? I wouldn't do that. If you want this to seem like a no-brainer, don't make people try to figure out how much they'll end up paying you. Just stick a nice pricetag on it and be done.

-your page has too many bullets, in too many fonts, colors and sizes. This is a really straightforward idea so make it simple for people - explain it in 3 lines at most, make them big, consistent and clear, and leave out the powerpoint bulletpoints.

</comment><comment><USER13> The greatest strength of the landline is that fact that it will still be up during a power outage. (Just make sure to use a corded phone, cordless uses power.)

<comment><USER14> Cell towers are on backup power in a power outage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The site looks good and the idea is useful to me. So useful that I wanted to sign up, but I really can't stand clicking "Sign Up Now" and being told "oops, we're not ready for you." If you're not ready, don't have a sign up button.

<comment><USER11> We're at startup weekend - hoping to have an MVP tomorrow for pitch. Working fervently right now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I first got a cell phone I ported my landline number over to it. It has been with me through 2 carriers now, without issue.

My grandmother did the exact same thing, again without issue.

I am thinking that the market for people doing this is finite and limited, but there is likely money to be made on making a clean experience (versus Google Voice) serving the ever dwindling population of people who actually have land lines.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was under the impression that Canadian telcos were worse than American ones, but a landline here usually doesn't cost more than $25/mo ...

<comment><USER18> Varies by area, but $40/mo sounds high for the US too. AT&T's basic landline (w/o caller-ID and other add-ons) in Texas costs $21/mo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not bad for a Startup Weekend project! Congrats to Philip and team. It'll be neat to see if this can turn into something self-sustaining!

</comment><comment><USER20> To those of you saying "But Google Voice does this!", realize that most people outside of HN/the tech community don't know this.

<comment><USER21> Almost every single person I know uses GV. My 81 year old grandfather uses it.

<comment><USER22> You keep reposting the same comment. GV has roughly 1% penetration, thus your circle friends/family is statistically highly unusual. Given the technology profile of your friends and family you should not trust your instincts for estimating market demand.

<comment><USER21> Source? And what makes your circle of friends/family any more reliable than mine?

<comment><USER22> My circle of friends/family is also unreliable for gauging market demand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember hearing a landline is useful in case of emergencies. Something about emergency services are able to connect it to an address quickly. Also a landline is less likely to get clogged and drop your call in case of mass emergency.

Are these still the case? i don't know but i keep my landline active. It's insurance I guess.

<comment><USER24> One of the advantages of a landline in emergencies is that landline phones don't require their own electricity or batteries to operate.

<comment><USER25> Interestingly, the Verizon FiOS landline that I got for free with my TV/internet package has a battery backup because it does require electricity. That is definitely true of traditional land lines, though.

<comment><USER24> Yes, copper. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Co-founder here: We are an active team at Startup Weekend Columbia. We pitch tomorrow afternoon here's more about our company:

<http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us>

We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.

<comment><USER10> Tropo is driving your costs up, compared to people with real servers running SER and similar call routers.

<comment><AUTHOR> I work on the devops team for Voxeo Labs, the company behind Tropo, so I resent the implication that we don't have real servers. :-)

More seriously, I'm familiar with the Tropo API and know that no matter what direction this product goes, Tropo is a capable platform to build it on.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Tropo wasn't capable. I meant that at scale, it's more expensive than building your own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Doesn't Google Voice allow this for free? Is the value in being able to forward to two numbers?

</comment><comment><USER26> Given the easy availability of alternatives, this feels extremely scammy. $10/month plus 8 centers per minute after 100 minutes? What a fucking ripoff. This project deserves to fail, it's nothing more than an attempt at exploitation.

</comment><comment><USER27> Landlines have long been killed. Unless you didn't notice, Magic Jack killed 'em. It is much cheaper and it just works. You have to be really crazy to be paying $48 for the landlines.

<comment><USER28> For people that use the phone a lot, and need something that just works, this isn't true. My parents use their home phone quite a bit, and the $25/month they pay for it is worth it.

I'd set them up with voip to save money, but I have tried voip setups, and even with qos I haven't been impressed with the audio quality when other people are on the internet.

<comment><USER27> When you compare MJ's cost to typical AT&T cost for landlines, I think a compromise is well worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why would I use this when I could use Google Voice at a much cheaper price and not even pay by the minute?

</comment><comment><USER30> Why not port your landline to Google Voice and then forward for free?

</comment><comment><USER31> just two things i noticed: \- the blog background color is hard to look at \- the "* Required" in your blog is red on orange background, not really easy to read.

</comment><comment><USER32> How is this better or different than Google Voice?

</comment><comment><USER33> btw, killthelandline.com doesn't work. you have to put the www there. The blog links to the non www version.

</comment><comment><USER34> no</comment>


HTML5 And Filling Gaps Between Web and Desktop/Mobile Apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudomatic.com/saas-industry-news/some-gaps-to-fill-between-web-apps-and-desktopmobile-apps/ <comment><USER2> I can not agree more on the point of the Simplified Billing and Monetization Mechanisms. In my opinion it is one of the greatest contributors of the Apple app store success and should be copied in the SaaS world as soon as possible as often as possible.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. My startup (<http://www.appstorehq.com>) is a multi-platform search and discovery site for mobile apps. One of the platforms we support is mobile web (HTML5) apps.

One thing we've quietly rolled out and are private alpha testing is a dead simple payments API. This allows mobile web app developers to monetize their apps with just one API call.

I'd love for anyone to check it out and let me know what they think (firstname.lastname@example.com). We don't have docs for it yet (since it's still private), but I created a test app for it and open-sourced that:

Fortysquires (a foursquare checkin mobile web app): <http://fortysquires.com>

On AppStoreHQ: [http://www.appstorehq.com/fortysquires- mobilewebfoursquarecl...](http://www.appstorehq.com/fortysquires- mobilewebfoursquareclient-html5web-196344/app)

And the source on GitHub: <http://github.com/iseff/fortysquires>

If anyone wants to try it out, I'd be happy to explain further how it can work for you. We hope it helps remove the payments "muck" as well as increase distribution with our hundreds of thousands of UV/month.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, so I'm in front of the comp now and these are just my thoughts. if you have something youd like to add (like an actual paragraph) leave the comment here and ill insert it+attribute you. I'm pretty sure there are more gaps and things I don't know.

<comment><USER4> Wow that blue bar looks like a mistake the way it follows the screen in Google Chrome. Probably isn't, but it is disconcerting.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a part of the theme. We might just integrate the blog into the Cloudomatic.com layout, but we think it makes sense to separate the two out.

<comment><USER5> May I suggest getting rid of the overridden arrow key behaviors? I don't mean to sound harsh, but I gave up trying to read the post because the behavior of "up" and "down" is weird, unnecessary, and comes with an obnoxious animation. I figured out what they did pretty fast, but then I'd lose my reading place by absently pressing "down" in an attempt to scroll the post.

Also, the blue bar might work better if it spanned the entire width of the right column and fixed to the top of the content area. Right now, because of the content that appears above it and all the white-space to the right of it, it feels like it's floating _over_ and blocking content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Asana is doing some lofty things in the way of streamlining connectivity through a super snappy interface that really jolts the offline advancements of HTML5.

Does anyone know what's going on with 280Atlas? I haven't heard much after they launched in beta about 4 months ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> im really excited to see what asana is doing. not only with their own product, but the open source byproducts. I think quora is using some of their ui stuff for the iphone app. it's absolutely awesome.

Not sure the timetable on 280atlas, but that's just as exciting to me. It's a great time to be building web apps.</comment></comment>


How to Become a Product Manager - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/excitingrole/want-to-become-a-product-manager-develop-these-skills-first-f42513087ce <comment><USER2> The post misses an important ingredient that separates most product managers from great product managers: strategy/vision.

The best product managers have a clear point of view on the long-term and where the product should go. You will see them engaging the CEO (depending on size of company) on core assumptions across the company. They will reshape decisions in sales and marketing re: customer selection.

Without strategy & vision, you have a PM filling in an ROI spreadsheet. What do customers want vs. what is the engineering cost?</comment>


Y Combinator's DMCA Policy - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, why did you feel it was necessary to submit a link to something that's linked on the bottom of every page on HN?</comment>


The Truth About Hard Selling Investors (and What You Can Do About It) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.goparti.com/the-truth-about-hard-selling-investors-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ <comment><USER2> I know it's in bold, but I think it bears repeating: > Sometimes, it's easy to forget that investors are human too, just like the rest of us.

Talking sports, wine, and private schools are all better topics to kick off a conversation with a prospective angel. These investments are often made on trust over math. Building trust by showing an appreciation for what the other person values is the best place to start :-)</comment>


This NFL Millionaire Lives on a $60K Budget to Save for the Future - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/money/3991687/nfl-ryan-broyles-60k-budget-financial-literacy-sports/

<comment><USER2> This man is one of the smartest pro athletes I've ever read about. He probably won't end up doing lifealert or reverse mortgage commercials when he is older.

I think he rates a bit of applause.</comment>


Market Manipulation, the 1780s Way - <AUTHOR> http://common-place.org/book/market-manipulation-the-1780s-way-what-a-letter-to-a-flour-dealer-tells-us-about-the-early-modern-political-economy/ <comment><USER2> This is quite a fascinating historical exploration of market-cornering, with ways and means (and limits) to same.

It comes only a decade after Adam Smith's possibly infamous, and much- misrepresented book on the question of Nations and their Wealth, Inqueries therewith as to cause and nature.

It's also notable that the _single and solitary_ mention of "free market" in Smith comes as a counterpoint to similar such commercially-initiated market constraints (here: woollens trade in England, with cheap imports of raw wool and prohibitions on finished goods imports) favouring woollens manufacturers.

<comment><USER3> A nice post. I think you will find Adam Smith in the fashion you described because Adam Smith ultimately sympathized with labor rather than capital, from my repeated readings of his works.

Perhaps it was his familiarity with the privileged sort combined with his Scottish naissance which rendered him thus, but likely that's only my own wishful thinking.

<comment><USER4> Why would anyone sympathize with capital over labor? At the end of the day why anyone does is efficiency. Other than that capital is simply a means to coerce labor to do work. Why would anyone side with coercion rather than the people? People worship those with capital as if there is something really special about them. At the end of the day I have observed 1/2 and 1/2, some people are really special others just lucked into capital because of the situation. There is no virtue to gaining capital and it does not say all that much about its holder.

<comment><USER5> Capital is about risk, not coercion.

<comment><USER4> I have 1 billion dollars. I spend maybe 20 million in 10 startups, I diversify the risk. How much risk have I taken?

<comment><USER5> More risk than any of workers employed in these startups have taken, unless they are compensated with equity.

<comment><USER6> A worker employed at a startup is entirely dependent upon the startup for the majority of his income. An employee is in general _all in_ with their company in most locations, which is why changing jobs is difficult.

An employee takes on more risk, simply because everything matters more to them, than it does to the owner, you can easily drop X amount and not feel a thing.

<comment><USER5> How is depending on a company for income a risk? You don't lose anything if company closes, you just find another job.

And I don't think that "feeling a thing" is relevant here; regardless of whether your net worth a million or a billion, when a company you invested in closes, you lose the same amount of money — unlike employees who got compensated for their time and work regardless.

<comment><USER7> Non-linear utility of money.

Going from $1bn to $50m (a loss of 95%) in wealth might be psychologically damaging but you're still independently wealthy. You'd lose the jet (if you chose to buy one), but you'd keep the house, the car, the neighbourhood, etc.

Going from $1m to $50k (a loss of 95%) is absolutely enormous. You've lost the house and the retirement fund and you're starting from scratch with a deposit.

The realistic case for most labourers is worse than that. How much risk is involved in moving to a new town for a job? Training in a certain discipline? Deciding to have children or not? All of those are far more impactful on the middle class than on the wealthy.

<comment><USER5> But what utility has to do with this?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: pcarrier.ca, thin dev portfolio (not for hire) - <AUTHOR> https://pcarrier.ca <comment><AUTHOR> It's inviting feedback on my ongoing side project, rdv.to, promotes some previous accomplishments, and shows some of who I am. What do you think?</comment>


C Compilers Disprove Fermat's Last Theorem - <AUTHOR> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/140

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I think this should link to: [http://blog.regehr.org/archives/161](http://blog.regehr.org/archives/161) Which is described as a updated and more accurate version of the post linked here.

<comment><USER3> Also, post 140 was discussed here previously, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310105) , when it first came out.</comment></comment>


Man spraypaints Twitter office sidewalk with abusive tweets it refuses to delete - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2017/08/07/man-spraypaints-twitter-office.html <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMTBINlLFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMTBINlLFU) might as well link to the primary source

Doing this with temporary "paint" too.

Seems pretty neat way of conveying a viewpoint to a company (bringing the stuff to the humans, instead of letting the response go through the corporate filter)

<comment><USER3> Interesting to see what the apparent reaction was. In america, i think the guy would have been locked up and charged a huge fine.

<comment><USER4> Well, he should. He's a vandal (no pun intended).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Twitter should continue to respect free speech, as long as it doesn't involve directly threatening tweets. Without it, Twitter wouldn't be as popular as it is.

People respect being able to directly confront prominent people in the world on an equal footing, without instantly being shut down if their comment is deemed too controversial.

Censoring these ideas doesn't make them go away. Leaving them up and allowing the community to debate might even change a person's mind for the better.

<comment><USER6> > as long as it doesn't involve directly threatening tweets.

Define "direct". Also, do you even speak German? What's there to _debate_ about starting to gas Jews again, and other such crap? This doesn't have shit to do with ideas, this has to do with fucked up childhoods or brain chemistry or both. Doesn't make them more victims than their actual victims.

> without instantly being shut down if their comment is deemed too > controversial.

What? People block each other at the drop of a hat, and Twitter not censoring it doesn't change that, it's not something they can help. So you gain nothing, because the bottleneck is people being uptight about actual ideas (and screaming "Judenschwein" is just _another_ , much worse form of being afraid of thought) which they already are -- and you lose not letting Nazis rampage free, using the tools of people they would prefer to kill for being too intelligent or not fucked up enough.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tapir.io CMS for Designers - <AUTHOR> http://tapir.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> Finally scratching an itch from 3 years ago, and I think it's still relevant. It's for freelance designers and small agencies so they don't have to do CMSes themselves, and can get a bit of recurring revenue from their clients.</comment>


How Stack Overflow upgraded from Windows Server 2012 - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/07/22/how-stack-overflow-upgraded-from-windows-server-2012/?cb=1 <comment><USER2> I will be honest and just say this: As a Linux guy who has negligible familiarity with the Windows Server technology, this post doesn't make much sense to me.

What is the Linux equivalent of this operation? apt-get dist-upgrade? Now that Windows 10 onward is rolling release (is it?) is this the last time SE staff is going to have to go through this?

This caught my attention:

> Putting the 2019 server into the existing 2012 cluster – as expected, this > fails due to the operating systems being different.

How can a website be this tightly coupled with the operating system it's running on? Shouldn't Microsoft be blamed that their operating systems are not backwards-compatible? To my knowledge, Microsoft goes to extreme lengths to assure backwards-compatibility of the userland apps. What went wrong here?

<comment><USER3> Windows 10 was designed for desktops, not as a server software. Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2014/2019 etc is for servers and they don't subscribe to Windows 10 rolling release. They have their release and support cycles. People rarely upgrade.

I have upgraded a website from Windows 2003, to Windows 2008, to Windows 2012 and now it is running on Windows 2019. I jumped 2014 and 2016 because upgrades weren't necessary for my needs. Each time, I only spent 1 hour maximum to migrate the system. I am not even a server guy.

<comment><USER4> You mean 2016 right, not 2014? Or are you talking about SQL versions?

<comment><USER3> Yes. I meant Windows Server 2016. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how Stack Overflow, in a market that is ripe to bash everything and anything, has no qualms about discussing running .Net and SQL Server.

I've been a software engineer for over two decades now and I've seen stuff come and go. The products Microsoft is shipping today are impressive bits of technology and, and the end of the day, do what you want them to do and do that very well. And I've been through the more difficult years where I wish I had thrown SQL Server off a cliff.

Why am I bothering to write this? Because I'm still in technology and I wish people would stop jumping on the next bandwagon or pointing to the next shiny object. There are tried-and-true technologies out there that shouldn't be ignored based on prejudices. Stack Overflow is a great example of a company who understands this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Personally, I am not a huge fan of Windows, .NET and SQL Server, but this is a good example of a company using the right tool for the task at hand, rather than copy pasting popular stacks. It would be really interesting to see some stats, benchmarks, or any interesting metrics to help understand the benefits or drawbacks of using this tooling. There is way too much focus on Linux, to the point where I am worrying that Linux itself is becoming a monopoly, and it might end up not benefiting from good competition.

<comment><USER7> Does the word monopoly even have meaning when the "product" is open source? It's not like a single company controls linux, it is contributed to and grows from input from many people and many companies worldwide, all of whom have an interest in seeing it flourish.

Is HTML a monopoly? Is JS a monopoly?

<comment><USER6> IMO it does have meaning, in the a technical sense, not necessarily commercially. JS does monopolize browser scripting. Now that you mentioned it, it's quite interesting that there are basically no competitors to JS, in the browser.

<comment><USER8> > _it 's quite interesting that there are basically no competitors to JS, in > the browser_

Because the next best way to change a standard is add another one?

For all the moaning about javascript over the past decades, it has evolved into a fairly formidable language since 2015.

I'm not even sure introducing a new language would help anything at all. It would simply be quickly adopted by those the very same abusers.

Maybe the solution instead is to have better browsers and implement better privacy policies.

<comment><USER6> I like JS, actually. It would be great to have some diversity tho. Also i agree on having better browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a big Linux fan, and use it as my daily driver but I can't understand why so many people are talking about Linux when it's been very clearly explained why the chose an MS stack.

They had already got experience with it! That's why they chose it. In my opinion go with the stack you have experience with, don't just do what everyone else is doing.

</comment><comment><USER10> Best part is the second part, where they stop upgrading to 2019 cause it destroys their SSDs:

[https://www.tarynpivots.com/post/how-stack-overflow- upgraded...](https://www.tarynpivots.com/post/how-stack-overflow-upgraded- from-windows-2012/#phase-2-the-part-where-i-broke-dev)

<comment><USER11> I'm Taryn's coworker I was involved in that part of the process very closely.

That statement is not entirely accurate. The SSDs certainly did die, but not _because_ of the 2019 upgrade, it just happened at the same time as the 2019 upgrades.

The major 2019 SSD issue was however that Intel and Dell kept passing the buck on who was to blame for not having 2019 drivers for the NVMe SSDs. Eventually I ended up having to bully Intel into giving us the drivers. We decided that "bullying Intel" was not an appropriate future tactic for getting the next version of the drivers, so that's another factor for staying on 2016 (which has drivers we've tested for years)

<comment><USER12> Interesting, how does one bully Intel? I wanna bully Intel too (/s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be interesting to get a guesstimate for the licensing costs of all this.

<comment><USER14> Around a dozen servers at [https://stackexchange.com/performance](https://stackexchange.com/performance) . Around $1k for Windows per machine, around $5k per SQL * 4 servers.

All in all, well under $50k in licensing costs. Basically a rounding error, if you compare to something like AWS billing for a website of the same scale.

<comment><USER15> > around $5k per SQL * 4 servers.

I wish. Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition (which is required if you want to use over 128GB RAM for caching data, or servers with over 24 cores) costs approx $7,000 per CPU core.

<comment><USER14> Yikes! For contrast, Buffer burns through $20k per month in managed hosting ( [https://open.buffer.com/transparent-pricing- buffer/](https://open.buffer.com/transparent-pricing-buffer/) ). Running a site at scale is an expensive ordeal

<comment><USER16> What does this SAAS has anything to do with MS server pricing

<comment><USER14> It gives perspective on how expensive running a company on the internet is, from a hosting-and-servers perspective. MS server pricing is steep, but the cost of licensing over the useful lifetime of a SQL server is not a big cost factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The full text is here:

[https://www.tarynpivots.com/post/how-stack-overflow- upgraded...](https://www.tarynpivots.com/post/how-stack-overflow-upgraded- from-windows-2012/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised by all the negative comments here surrounding how Windows Server or SQL Server makes this more complicated, or whether the license costs are prohibitive.

I worked as a .NET dev for nine years, and although I've never had to deal with upgrades at this level before, I can appreciate that at the kind of scale that Stack Overflow operate, and considering they run on physical boxes (a rarity in any stack nowadays) any kind of upgrade between major database and OS versions is going to result in its own issues.

While I don't work on the Microsoft stack any more, I've always appreciated the way that Stack Overflow build their software. Their engineers and DBA's seem to be a who's who of talent, and they both build great services and put out great content, at scale. It's doubly-surprising when so many people used to give Jeff Atwood so much shit for not delivering anything of note when Coding Horror was one of the top programming blogs on the web.

The stack might be very different to anything done in 2019, but the fact that I can't think of many times where Stack Overflow went down shows that they're doing a great job, and hopefully they'll continue to document the journey for years to come.

</comment><comment><USER19> Anyone know why systems like this aren't Linux based? Seems rather ironic when stack overflow seems to be a staple of the open source/sharing community.

<comment><USER20> Why should it be? Honest question.

<comment><USER21> Cause it is more work to manage windows servers than it is to manage Linux servers. Less work is better than more work so Linux is better for server implementations.

But I guess that is something people will argue over for a long long time.

Well... my opinion, based on my experience...

<comment><USER22> > Cause it is more work to manage windows servers than it is to manage Linux > servers.

This isn't true. I managed and supported a fleet of Windows and Linux servers for a web hosting company for 14 years. Both OS's have their time sinks and gravity wells of failure.

<comment><USER21> So both have time sinks... how does that permis effect my statement? I said one is worse. You say both suck time, which is obviously true, work takes time.

You can disagree with me ok, but if you want to convince me that I am wrong it would be nice with substantiated material.

<comment><USER23> You hadn't offered any substantive material in support of your own opinion either.

As a sysadmin with 30 years of experience running Linux and Windows servers though, I'll offer my own anecdote - I'd say that Windows is far easier to manage for many common scenarios. It's all point and click and you can basically figure out what to do without looking at any documentation anywhere.

It's so easy, you can teach a monkey how to configure a workgroup, domain, users, dns server, firewall, etc. on Windows.

Also, which Linux distro are you talking about? What with all the fragmentation, nothing is ever the same on every distro.

<comment><USER24> That's putting it mildly. A lot of the time things aren't even the same on the same distro 2 years later, which is incredibly annoying when the only documentation you can find is for the wrong version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> nice one

</comment><comment><USER26> Whenever I read something like this (and I'm not blaming MS here, most tools are like this) it seems that configuration and setup of systems is still in the chipped stone age... No services (or versions of services) talk smoothly with each other, setup is very prone to mistakes and it's just a big pain overall.

(Windows probably makes it a bit hard though)</comment>


"Ok Google" Only Giving Progressive Words - <AUTHOR> I have noticed today that if you query Google Assistant (OK Google) "Give me a random word." or "Teach me a new word." the result is invariably a progressive word. Examples are in order of what it gave me, "Prejudice" "Anti-racism" "Equality" "Prejudice" "Bigotry" "Belonging" "Microaggression" "Oppression" and so on in the same vein.
This is a very odd way to show support for the BLM movement. I used this feature to improve my lexicon, however this feature is now useless. It has a very simple and small (seems like <20 entries) diction.
I have seen no mention of this feature change on the Google dev blog or Google Assistant product updates. Is this the same for everyone? Was this mentioned elsewhere? <comment><USER2> I just gave it a go, and got "equality" so yes, I'd imagine it's the same for everyone.

As an Australian, it's interesting that this set of words are considered "progressive", or only associated with one half of the political spectrum. With the exception of "micro-aggression", all the other words are surely universally-held values of Western societies?

<comment><AUTHOR> Progressive doesn't necessarily mean liberal. That was just the best word I had to explain it.

<comment><USER3> "Politically charged", maybe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All of Amazon Alexa's jokes are curated by a single person. While they obviously get screened, the guy clearly has a lot of discretion. There is no committee. His taste in humor becomes Alexa's.

I have to imagine it's the same way at Google. There are hundreds of little voice commands. Each one curated by a single person as a passion project. You may be seeing someone's unique interests and personality poking through.

<comment><AUTHOR> The old vocabulary of Google Assistant was surprisingly extensive. It rarely gave me a word I already knew the meaning of.</comment></comment>


Julian Assange predicts Donald Trump will not be allowed to win US elections - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/julian-assange-predicts-donald-trump-will-not-be-allowed-win-us-elections-1589850 <comment><USER2> That's because if you want your party to win you nominate a moderate.

<comment><USER3> I think Assange meant "allowed by the powers that be", rather than "allowed by the voters". Which I think is a bunch of paranoid drivel, but then, my opinion of Assange was never very high...

<comment><USER2> It's just sad that right leaning moderates don't have a home anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> D'uh. The only reason Trump is there is to make Clinton look good by comparison.</comment>


Beautiful zip code visualisation - <AUTHOR> http://benfry.com/zipdecode/ <comment><USER2> Indeed zipcodes are quite beautiful. Check this, Population Density by zipcode: <http://www.uuorld.com/gallery?image=89>

</comment><comment><USER3> Lots of fun :) Reminds me of the time at a previous job when I had to incorporate distance measurement based on post codes (zipcodes, UK style). There wasn't a whole lot to do for long periods at this job (which is why I left it eventually) so I spent several days making pretty pictures from the postcode data. I was quite amused that the density of codes in London was such that I could see the Thames winding through the middle :)

I also spent a while trying to guess polygon data for the post districts from just the point data for each code. I found that quite hard at the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ben Fry is one of the fathers of Processing.org, he's done a lot of great stuff with information visualisation. He's done a lot of stuff looking at the relationships inside DNA,genes, emails and code. All of which are combination between art and information.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice work, I have been reading Ben Fry work, great source of inspiration. I recommend Processing.org.

</comment><comment><USER6> All I'm seeing is a beautiful "Java required" message.

<comment><USER7> It crashed my FF the first time around...

It's worth taking a look, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't do Hawai'i.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very Cool. Thanks.</comment>


Introducing Google AI - <AUTHOR> https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/introducing-google-ai.html <comment><USER2> So what was formerly called "Google Research" is now confusingly called "Google AI"? Which, mostly covers AI material but occasionally ventures into other fields, like quantum computing? That's what I gathered.

</comment><comment><USER3> A tweet from Princeton's Professor Arvind Narayanan on this announcement:

First Microsoft, now Google. Sends a message to researchers choosing between academia and industry that your work will be valued in the industry only if it's buzzword compliant.

[https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/993850870067548160](https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/993850870067548160)

<comment><USER4> Yeah when I started working at a big tech company I had the illusion that everyone knew what they were talking about and would have a nuanced opinion about hype/buzzwords of the time. (They must! They're technical people) I quickly learned that not only are they just as susceptible to hype as the average person but that they actively perpetuate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know about anyone else, but their animated logo in the middle of the page is incredibly distracting to me.

<comment><USER6> There's not much else of note here

<comment><USER7> The true state of the art: lots of marketing and nothing really useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> have we reached the peak yet?

I am sure there is still some research who don't use AI.

<comment><USER9> I don't see it as a question of whether the research uses AI, but rather what the subject of the research is. Putting all research under the 'AI' banner because it happens to use that technique in some of its data processing seems like a miscategorization.

<comment><USER10> If only we could build some type of automated system that teaches itself to correctly categorize for the over use of the term AI in data processing then we'd truly be on easy street.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An explicitly content-free marketing announcement relating to a contemporary industry buzzword. I know it's worth paying attention to the big fish, but this is literally a zero content 100% time wasting post. Flagged it because IMHO it's pure spam

</comment><comment><USER12> Hi everyone,

Do they have a newsletter or something? I would like to be notified everytime they published a new research.

Thanks.

<comment><USER13> You can paste this URL into any RSS/Atom reader to receive notifications of new posts:

[http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/gJZg](http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/gJZg)

If you right-click on most blogs and choose "view page source", there is usually an RSS or Atom link somewhere in the <head> section, even if the icon doesn't appear on the page itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone compare this to the AI announcements Microsoft made yesterday?

<comment><USER12> May I ask which link I need to see for the Microsoft AI announcements?

<comment><USER15> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016333)

<comment><USER14> They actually had a couple yesterday, including [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-launches-project- br...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-launches-project-brainwave- deep-153014579.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What was the point of the rebranding?</comment>


Antibiotics: Precision Strike - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/09/antibiotics

<comment><USER2> This is certainly interesting research, but killing bacteria on agar is a long way from treating humans. I'm still waiting for bacteriophage vials to be available in my local CVS.

<comment><USER3> You and me both. I'm thinking of doing my masters in wound healing and skin infections using bacteriophages. I WANT this technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool! This reminds me of a new potential cancer treatment that uses infrared light to heat gold nanoparticles inside a tumor to kill it. The crappy, winding blood vessels inside tumors tend to trap more of the nanoparticles, effectively targeting delivery right into the tumor. [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/gold- cancer-0504.html](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/gold-cancer-0504.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems like this technique would be limited to treating infection where: (1) you can reach the infection with a light source and (2) the infection is limited to the surface of an organ.

I wonder how deep the UV light can penetrate as well, since even skin infections (at least the serious ones) tend to invade deep layers of tissue where the light won't reach.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree, this is just scratching the surface, no pun intended.

The article is a good reminder of the sledgehammer approach that we still have in much of modern medicine (not just in the case of antibiotics), even as great and advanced as modern medicine is.</comment></comment>


Wildcard Pattern Search for Words and Phrases - <AUTHOR> http://www.onelook.com

<comment><USER2> This is HUGE for foreign English speakers like yours truly. Thanks OP</comment>


Show HN: I created Internet's most romantic site - <AUTHOR> https://www.mostromanticsite.com <comment><USER2> "If you're single [...]. Not for you."

Oof. I'd personally take out the "Not for you" bits; they're somewhat redundant (title above it already says that).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> MostRomanticSite.com - I created a side project to build Internet's most romantic website to prove to my wife that I am romantic. :-)

<comment><USER3> And curiously enough, two couples that have public internet presence already submitted their photos and thoughts/love messages.

They were fast:

BBQboy and Spanky (Frank&Lisette):

[https://bbqboy.net/category/africa/](https://bbqboy.net/category/africa/)

thevagabondstories (Harry&Nikita)

[https://www.instagram.com/thevagabondstories/p/Bsrf1F8AAjh/](https://www.instagram.com/thevagabondstories/p/Bsrf1F8AAjh/)

<comment><USER4> Good catch.

I have been part of digital outreach campaigns in my company where we bring many micro-influencers on board before the launch.

So, I think maybe he also would have asked few hundred people to join by mass mailing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What happens when the couple splits and wants their page taken down?

<comment><USER4> Why so negative?

<comment><USER5> It's not negative, it's a genuine questions about something that _will_ happen. The number of relationships that are permanent is not 100%, therefore the website _will_ run into this at some point.

If I had to guess, it would be much more than 50% of submissions. Who wants to have a permanent page of their past relationship for all to see?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...I don't get it.</comment>


Urinary tract infections are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/health/urinary-infections-drug-resistant.html <comment><USER2> My partner is particularly prone to UTIs. In the UK, people in her position are given a virtually endless stream of antibiotics. Often doctors end up recommending taking a small dose every time after sex. No wonder resistance is increasing!

After a lot of research and self-testing, we came across D-Mannose and had an idea [1] to help others in a similar position. We were very excited to be able to help reduce peoples' recurrent pain and to decrease overall antibiotic use.

Unfortunately it hasn't been popular as of yet. Any feedback would be appreciated!

[1] [https://chickpea.care](https://chickpea.care)

<comment><USER3> A lot of people with chronic conditions are on constant small dose antibiotics. I have a daughter that contracts pneumonia from every little common cold. She's on small-dose antibiotics every day now with good results.

Her doctors say a very good reason to keep the use of antibiotics down in the general population is _just because_ those people would be extra vulnerable to resistant bacteria. Doctors here have effectively stopped prescribing antibiotics for things they prescribed it for almost always just a few years ago, such as regular tonsillitis. That's the sort of thing that helps. Obviously a total ban on antibiotics in healthy livestock that the EU adopted is even more important. I wish we could see that in China/India soon.

<comment><USER4> Have you looked into the effects of zinc supplementation of common cold frequency and severity? I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, etc.

[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/common- cold/e...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/common-cold/expert- answers/zinc-for-colds/faq-20057769)

<comment><USER3> I haven't but I could. The part where colds turn into pneumonia is due to a congenital issue (a surgically fixed EA+TEF) so that's probably hard to do anything about except growing, but if the initial viral infection could be stopped that would be good. My saying trick for preventing colds currently is normally a lot of saying e.g "no! don't lick elevator buttons!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TIL that one of the drugs mentioned in the article has a side effect of rupturing tendons. [1]

[1] [https://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/news/20080708/fda- warni...](https://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/news/20080708/fda-warning- cipro-may-rupture-tendons)

<comment><USER6> It should be illegal to classify fluoroquinolones as antibiotics. The point of an antibiotic is that it specifically targets bacterial cells while doing no damage to multicellular organisms. Fluoroquinolones indiscriminately damage everything they touch, so they're just a really fancy and strange poison. They don't just rupture tendons, people will often experience waves of intense pain throughout their entire body for the rest of their life from the damage done to their nervous system. Many suspect that "gulf war illness" was in fact soldiers reacting to fluoroquinolone "antibiotics" which they were the guinea pigs for. Always check the acting component of an antibiotic that a doctor prescribes to you, and if it contains fluoroquinolones then you should frankly treat their act of prescribing it to you as barely any different than a murder attempt.

<comment><USER7> This is an unreasonable position to take.

Every drug has off target effects, that's why they have side effects.

Oncology drugs, particularly chemo, attacks pretty much every cell in your body. That doesn't mean they aren't effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worry that doctors are still WAY too prone to prescribe antibiotics.

I take my kids in as they've got respiratory issues that when they get the flu heir airway starts to narrow. A steroid fixes that just fine.

But man most doctors will still offer an antibiotic too ... like dude, I know that won't help, it's a virus...

<comment><USER9> Why on earth would they prescribe antibiotics for a virus? They don't seem very competent

<comment><USER10> What we've been told is that during the virus phase the child's immune system becomes so weak, that it's prone to develop a bunch of infections (most common being every toddler's favorite - ear infection), and that the pattern was so common that they would write a prescription as a preventative measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Antibiotics are available without prescription in countries like India. Not to blame the people who purchase and take them because the government provided care is a total failure and they can't afford private care. Even the private doctors prescribe antibiotics even for minor viruses without tests. So no wonder common bacteria are evolving into resistant strains.

</comment><comment><USER12> Those citrus farmers in Florida are fine with it:

> _" Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn to Antibiotics (nytimes.com)"_ > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19945233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19945233)

</comment><comment><USER13> IIRC c. auris is sometimes a culprit. And now that there's mycotic-resistant strains and very few antimycotic drug classes, it's not a good trend. We need more antimycotic drug classes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Antibiotic resistant is a huge problem that is only going to keep growing. Unfortunately very few new drugs are in the pipeline because they aren't particularly profitable to develop.

</comment><comment><USER15> "depending on a person's insurance, getting a culture can be expensive."

How is this possible?

I live in a country not famous for its low cost health treatments, but I paid the equivalent of $6 (six dollars) for an urine culture just some days ago, and it was a full price paid to a private company, no insurance, no subsidy.

How much can a culture cost in the US?

</comment><comment><USER16> The tragedy of the commons strikes again.

Luckily there's bacteriophages waiting in the wings.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> That the failing power of antibiotics is not a major national political issue says very bad things about our society.

<comment><USER17> There is a certain disconnect between "warning about antibiotic overuse" and ignoring that the same selection pressures are exerted by vaccine use.

<comment><USER18> Got any citations on that? I've never heard of pathogens evolving around vaccines.

<comment><USER19> I have no idea, but I Googled "pathogens evolving around vaccines" and got a couple of interesting hits.

Here is an article about how vaccines cause evolutionary pressure:

[https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive- pathog...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to- evolve-20180510/)

And here is a paper about how they mostly don't:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304978/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304978/)

I feel like it's weird that people say something exists and then other people say no it doesn't without ever typing it in to Google. If you are that uninterested in the topic, why even post? Surely you can't reassure yourself about your knowledge that way.

<comment><USER18> I did google it. I wanted to know what this guy would say about it. Don't be an asshole

Edit: Thanks for digging up references though. And I do feel the same way about people asking questions when they're too lazy to search. In this case I had reasons to do so.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Core rope memory, the ROM for the Apollo guidance computer - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory <comment><USER2> Well over a year ago, there was a previous discussion with a video and plenty of other links:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7656282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7656282)</comment>