An Interactive Map of Ulysses' 10-Year Journey in Homer's Odyssey - <AUTHOR> http://esripm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=4fc9153f4d9248b9bab7011e3950b552&webmap=962ca9da38bf4c5e9439a6acf3dd1b3e <comment><USER2> The edition of the Odyssey I have (the red Macmillan) has sharp comments here and there in the notes about "those who think they can map wonderland."

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it a bit difficult to believe that he was actually "lost". For example, after hitting "4" why did he continue going west?

A more believable story would be that he was just an adventurous guy roaming around the Mediterranean and looting seaside villages.

<comment><USER4> Just didn't want to go back home with wife and went partying/looting with friends but then someone rewrote the story to make it look better, add some gods and monsters and you have a best seller made of the stuff legends are made of.

<comment><USER5> I chuckled a bit!

It is probable that the Odyssey is some kind of navigational diary. In ancient times, ships could only sail the Mediterranean clockwise, alas westward. So it might've made sense he traveled westward.

<comment><USER6> Could you expand regarding the clockwise/westward travel? I'm curious what you mean by it and why there were limitations on the travel directions.

<comment><USER5> Ah I'm sorry, i got it a bit wrong. Currents and winds in the Mediterranean are mostly counter-clockwise.

Ancient seafaring was difficult and mostly bound to land. I mean, that they had to travel along the Coast for most of the time and usually tried to avoid high waters. It WAS possible to cross from one side to the other in certain places, e.g. from Sicily to Tunisia, as it is less than 300km apart, but it was generally avoided elsewhere.

Also, sea travel was depended a lot on weather and season. Greeks and Romans were usually advised NOT to travel during winter as winds were rough and unsteady. Even short distance travels took unusually long and were dangerous. The most famous example is of St. Paul who was shipwrecked in Malta at one point. And counter-intuitive at all: The Greeks were actually not very good at seatravel. They always were jealous of the Phoenicians for doing better sea- trade than they.

The Odyssey falls broadly in the category of Periplus. I forgot what a lot of people interpreted into Homer's story, but i guess he just wanted to say "Follow the rules, don't try to sail against the currents or bad things will happen!"

This is why maybe he sailed westward in the story and not straight back...

For a little more detail see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#The_M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#The_Mediterranean)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it a bit difficult to believe that he was actually "lost". For example, using the same data, tensorflow has not learned the concept of being lost yet.

<comment><USER7> The above comment was sarcasm. There is so much to the story that is unknown. People have already commented on just a sample of known unknowns. There are infinite paths to uncovering the unknown unknowns. Is it possible that the whole story is fiction for the purpose of teaching a lesson?</comment></comment>


What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain and Body - <AUTHOR> http://euraeka.com/articles/7923797-What-Alcohol-Actually-Does-to-Your-Brain-and-Body-Explainer-

<comment><USER2> This redirects to the lifehacker article...

What are you trying to pull?</comment>


One Fourth YC Startups Funded Before They Finish Program - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/03/23/y-combinator-matures-14-of-startups-funded-before-they-finish-the-program/

<comment><USER2> OK, I know I'm old, but really, did she have to lead with that?

<comment><USER3> Nice... :)

Would be interesting to hear how your age affected (or didn't affect) your YC experience sometime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I could be wrong, but the vibe that I'm getting on the ground is that there's a lot more funding deals being done.

I have a hunch that investor's portfolios have recovered from the roller coaster stock market of the past 2 years, and they are in the mood to start taking risks and writing checks again.

It's a good time to be an entrepreneur.</comment>


Concrete Could Make Wind Towers Taller - <AUTHOR> http://www.asce.org/CEMagazine/Article.aspx?id=23622332676

<comment><USER2> Better link with pictures: [https://www.asme.org/engineering- topics/articles/renewable-e...](https://www.asme.org/engineering- topics/articles/renewable-energy/concrete-key-taller-wind-turbines)</comment>


Datomic Update: Client API, Unlimited Peers, Enterprise Edition, and More - <AUTHOR> http://blog.datomic.com/2016/11/datomic-update-client-api-unlimited.html <comment><USER2> The big news for me is that now you can use all of Datomic's functionality at scale for free with Datomic Starter. You only pay if you want support. Until now, to go beyond 2 instances, you had to pay $3000 per process, which sounded like a nonstarter.

<comment><USER3> Datomic Starter is now limited to one year of updates, after which you can only use whatever was the current version when your maintenance expires. After that if you want updates then you need to pay $5,000.

<comment><USER4> > After that if you want updates then you need to pay $5,000.

Bummer.

$5k is less than my side project makes in a year.

And the average annual system maintenance budget for a small client.

<comment><USER5> you can go pretty far wo/ updates, for a side project could be totally OK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I bet if Datomic were open source it would get adopted at an incredible pace and become one of the go-to tools for working with data.

<comment><USER6> But would it put Rich Hickey's children through college?

This is just not something we've got a good, reliable answer for. E.g. I'm pretty confident that his creating and being the BDFL of Clojure wasn't sufficiently remunerative.

<comment><USER7> _But would it put Rich Hickey 's children through college?_

I think it would. What it wouldn't do is give Rich Hickey the control he currently has over his life and his projects. He'd likely end up getting paid to work on Datomic by some big company instead of running his own as he does right now.

<comment><USER8> Isn't Cognitect mostly a consultancy already? Revenue wise, I mean. I don't mean to discount the incredible amount of work they pour into Clojure/Script and Datomic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like many things about datomic and was in a position to use datomic for a product twice. Each time when I looked at the license it basically said cognitect will make you your bitch now and you're not allowed to talk about it to anyone. We live in a world of ridiculous software licenses, but it was the most ridiculous license I remember ever having encountered.

This for a product which required a big leap of faith already (designing your data access around a radically different DB with enormous lock-in, supplied by a small consultancy).

Thankfully on superficial inspection it seems like some of the most egregious clauses have gone (Ctrl+F for "disrepute" and "immoral" here: [https://blog.goodstuff.im/datomic_license](https://blog.goodstuff.im/datomic_license) to get a flavour).

I'm wondering though: has anyone here ever used datomic _after_ some laywer looked at their previous license? In the unlikely case anyone from datomic cares to comment: did changing the license help sales?

<comment><USER10> I've only read the blog post you linked and scanned the current license. I don't find anything unusual in them for a _proprietary license_.

Most of the cited examples in the blog post are common standard language used in license agreements. I'd say the interpretation of what they means is idiosyncratic. One could argue that the clauses were not nice, but that's a different argument to the one presented.

Their current Eula you linked is pretty short, I'd probably argue with the indemnity, but not unless I was paying enough money that someone would care. Average legal fee to discuss a license ~600 USD an hour, their license is 2,500 USD. Most people have tougher license terms in their office lease!

<comment><USER9> Well, maybe I'm wrong and the license is in fact reasonable. I'd be more inclined to believe that if you are either a laywer or can provide some examples of software licenses for non-obscure enterprise software that have similar clauses that make you swear never to perform any act or omission(!) that might adversely affect Cognitect's interests or use the software for "immoral/unethical" purposes etc. I can't recall ever seeing that in any product I evaluated. There's a bunch of other problematic stuff that would make me wary of using such a vendor, but that's not atypical (benchmarking etc.).

To be clear, I don't have a bad opinion about Cognitect (other than their choice of license).

<comment><USER10> It's the Internet so who needs skills or experience to comment!

But, I did run a commercial team (lawyers and negotiators) for a software company that handled hundreds of incoming and outgoing licenses: including ones to major software vendors like Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. I am not a lawyer though ... but, sometimes I play one on the Web.

I'm not trying to tell you the terms are "reasonable", that's a matter of opinion. I'm telling you that the way in which they are interpreted in the blog post is not in line with how they would _commonly_ be read. It is not a fair reading of the terms as far as I can see - consequently saying they have a "bad choice" of license makes no sense since the clauses are being cherry- picked.

Second, people often think licenses have to be 'reasonable', they don't. They have to be enforceable and in your businesses interests - Cognitect clearly thought those terms were in their interests.

I'm not going to comment on the clauses further, you've clearly read them one way and I was offering the observation that I would not have come at them from that perspective. I guess the best way to have found out their intent would have been to call them up and ask them, getting clarity added when you negotiated the deal terms where it was required. Most commonly, people have terms in their licenses because of specific issues they are concerned about and when you understand that something can be done to "fix" the difference of perspectives.

Finally, __the new license looks eminently reasonable __, so perhaps they noted the concerns and have now fixed them, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone curious about Datomic this site has an excellent interactive tutorial for learning how to query: [http://www.learndatalogtoday.org/](http://www.learndatalogtoday.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've written a blog post summarising the changes here: [https://danielcompton.net/2016/11/29/guide-to-datomic- licens...](https://danielcompton.net/2016/11/29/guide-to-datomic-licensing- changes). In a nutshell:

* No limits on process count

* Datomic Pro Starter is now limited to one year of usage, then you need to pay $5,000 for Datomic Pro

* Riak, Couchbase, and Infinispan are now legacy storage and only available through Datomic Enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does the "Maintenance/Updates Limited to 1 Year" bit mean that you'd have to get a new starter license after that, or that you're expected to start paying for updates after one year?

<comment><USER12> You will no longer be able to renew Starter after the 1 year period on the same account. Renewal only covers the ability to use newer versions and upgrade. The license is perpetual and as long as you are not upgrading versions -- you will be able to continue using your Starter license.

As was discussed in Datomic Slack:

"Starter was always intended as a path for customers to explore and use Datomic in a low-risk, low-cost approach as they developed their applications and moved toward production. We feel that a year is generally sufficient time to evaluate a product and develop a business application around that product. If you feel that you require a longer period to evaluate or develop against Datomic, please contact us."

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This whole thing is such a sad tale. Clojure has had lame adoption, starting with its hard to pronounce, hard to explain name. Datomic could have been a great booster for the language, but had a license that is counter to all that has been propelling the programming world. Now they have swapped that out for another confusing licensing scheme. It feels like just another chapter in the long weird saga of lisp non-adoption.

I don't understand why Rich doesn't understand that he'd make far more getting a tiny slice of the huge pie that open sourcing would provide. Yes, they've changed the licensing approach because it's obvious the previous one didn't work out at all. But they haven't done enough, and by the time they don't figure this out, people will be stuffing everything into cloud services, even if they are inferior approaches.

<comment><USER15> What is confusing about this licensing? Previously it was a mess and prohibited our use case, but this looks pretty straightforward.

<comment><USER14> "The Datomic Starter license is perpetual, but is limited to 1 year of maintenance and updates".

No updates after a year? To the new wave of developers, this is foreign. Most won't know what that means, but at first glance, it looks like you'll be paying $5,000 in a year. Even the most green developer knows you need updates. Also, it's unclear what a 'system' is without digging around, and many potential users won't bother.

The problem is that Cognitect knows how awesome Datomic is, but the world doesn't. Many potential users are not going to try software they know they're definitely going to have to pay $5,000 for in a year. Updates are critical. Cognitect should go for massive adoption and nothing else. They'll make far more money.

This thread shows continued confusion and uncertainty about the license, and if a potential user googles 'datomic license' they are likely to find this thread. After reading up and down it, they will be deterred from getting into it all. Why try Datomic and get into a potential mess with your employer over licensing issues/costs in a year when you could play it safe? I'm sure those who think this licensing approach is the right one are clear the advantages of Datomic are worth the risk, but they are not paying attention to how software is actually adopted at scale.

It's so sad it's almost 2017 and this issue's been around since 2014 ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657701) ) and this is the solution. The word Datomic means nothing to 95% of mainstream tech. This change is a modification of their old model. They need an overhaul of how they are doing this.

<comment><USER16> No offense - but if $5K is an issue for your employer, after a year of essential magic, you might have the wrong employer and they might have the wrong employee...

<comment><USER15> It seems like the latest generations of software developers (which includes myself) is hazardously opposed to spending money on software, even when it can save/make you huge amounts of time and money.

I was lucky in that my first job was at a small non-software company that forked over huge amounts of cash for Oracle because it literally enabled their business to succeed (mysql and postgresql were nowhere close to being able to do it at the time). And yet I've seen fellow developers waffle over spending $60 on something they will use literally every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wholeheartedly approve of the new licensing. The previous licensing was incredibly restrictive for microservices and for scaling out reads in an elastic way. The new model is much easier to understand and use in the ways that datomic was intended to be used.

</comment><comment><USER18> Datomic is awesome. However, I am concerned about the Datomic Starter tier which states "The Datomic Starter license is perpetual, but is limited to 1 year of maintenance and updates." Previously we could download and use Datomic without registration with some sensible limitations. This was ideal for small projects that don't need support. We could update our Datomic instance to keep up with bug fixes and feature enhancements. Are we now locked into a 1 year window of code quality and features based on our registration?

<comment><USER11> I think you are talking about the"Datomic Free" option which is still available: [http://www.datomic.com/get- datomic.html](http://www.datomic.com/get-datomic.html)

<comment><USER18> Thanks. I didn't scroll down because it isn't listed with the others.

<comment><USER19> It's unfortunate that the "free" version only supports two peers. No scaling and/or convenience for open source projects, apparently!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wish the Datomic team would release a datastore-adapter API so we can add datastores without having to wait and hope for the team to release them.

There's been an open issue for years to add support for Google Datastore to bring Datomic Google Cloud support into parity with AWS.

</comment><comment><USER21> > $5000 per system per year

But what constitutes a system? Will this end up mostly just being $5k per customer per year for cognitect?

<comment><USER22> I asked the same question on the Clojure subreddit and the answer is yes for all practical purposes.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/5fc706/datomic_upd...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/5fc706/datomic_update_client_api_unlimited_peers/daj3qse/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've deployed Datomic on AWS using cloud formation to spin up two transactors for when one goes down under pressure.

Throw out everything you ever thought about databases. It is from here you will learn a completely new way of dealing with data especially in environments where you need an immutable audit trail.

I almost feel like Datomic solves what blockchain does (immutability) really well without the drama.

Clojure was also another culture shock. I like it personally but the syntax at first was scary (but it's really simple and straightforward).

Having said that I'm not 100% sure whether I realized any productivity boost working with clojure. Finding clojure developers is tough & expensive vs Java or .NET or PHP.

Datomic has a bit of a learning curve and I still haven't fully crossed over, relying on google groups discussions and it's not a user friendly experience which I feel may be their limiting factor (they've made it far too difficult for the wandering developer to approach it) and the fact that it's closed source and proprietary but this is most likely because a lone developer hobbyist has no business using Datomic because it really makes sense in industries where you need a fully auditable trail, something that was typically available in event sourcing frameworks with some sort of CQRS wizardry that I've had trouble justifying using.

All in all, unlimited peer is a welcome news. However, datomic in all in it's shape or form, only applies to a small group of developers it seems, which is a shame because datalog queries blows SQL out of the water.

The stuff one can do with datalog on datomic tightly integrated with clojure, it's game changing, but won't apply to all use cases for folks on HN.

<comment><USER24> > I almost feel like Datomic solves what blockchain does (immutability) really > well without the drama.

Well said. Unless you need to solve the Byzantine general problem there are better ways to database audit trails than Blockchain. e.g. Datomic or time travel queries.

<comment><USER25> Datomic has a centralized transactor serializing what transactions, whereas Blockchain is decentralized. So they are at opposite ends of the spectrum, each trying to solve a completely different problem. Of course "centralized" is much less dramatic.

<comment><USER24> yes, I am aware of that, but many fintech start ups are using blockchain with centralized data stores.

and here's the link to byzantine generals' problem

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#The_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#The_Byzantine_Generals.27_Problem)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the role of an advisor in startup? - <AUTHOR> I was asked by an early stage startup to advise them on certain technical aspects due to my industry experience and network. Since, I never have taken such role formally, just wanted to set clear goals for myself prior to accepting to advise.
1. What is expected from startup advisor in terms of actual work and hours?
2. Does non-board member advisor have any legal implications / liabilities? I wont have any pay but part of equity, does that change anything?
3. What are advisor's boundary, are they suppose to advise and then let founders take it or leave it? or should they consider themselves as one of the employees?
4. Who would be an ideal advisor for your startup?
*edited for formatting. <comment><USER2> I could not not answer 1-3.

"Who would be an ideal advisor for your startup?" someone who do not give advice. who really cares about the product, understand the problem/idea at deeper level. be as a helper or friend on various matters that helps to solve many chicken-egg problems, weighting on various assumptions, the area's where entrepreneur did not foresee it. accelerate the things where founders lack at, be with them in long term, and shares success or failure along with the founders emotionally. - from my point of view.</comment>


Petition Obama adminstration to require free access to publicly funded research - <AUTHOR> http://access2research.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Theres more background on this petition at [http://svpow.com/2012/05/21/help- the-usa-into-the-21st-centu...](http://svpow.com/2012/05/21/help-the-usa-into- the-21st-century-even-if-youre-not-american/) for those who want it. The TL;DR is that the UK and the European Union are introducing long overdue mandates that all publicly funded research must be publicly accessible. At the moment, the USA has no concrete plans to do the same, but Open Access advocates have the ear of Obama's scientific advisor and think there's a good chance this could make it provided that we the people show it's an issue we care about. So please sign the Whitehouse.org petition at [https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require- fre...](https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-free-access- over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded- research/wDX82FLQ?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl)

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Does anyone have further information about the status of laws to mandate open access in the EU?

<comment><AUTHOR> The forthcoming EU mandate is not yet nailed down. The best information I've seen so far is in this article in Times Higher Education: [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=...](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=419949&c=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Direct link to petition: [https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require- fre...](https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-free-access- over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded- research/wDX82FLQ)

It only takes a minute to sign :)

Most political petitions have no impact. They are just email-gathering campaigns. This one is different: it's on the Whitehouse site and it's not for gathering emails, it's to give Open Access advocates some political cover as they craft their proposal.

So if you sign only one online petition this year, make it this one.

<comment><USER4> I'd have signed, but after signing in, the button stays grey and I can't click it. Click on the help links brings me to an 'under construction' page. Clearing my cache and ctrl-reloading the page didn't help.

<comment><USER5> I had this problem in FF, but not in Chrome. Maybe some redirect issue? Who knows.

<comment><USER4> Maybe it's an issue with signing up. I started on Chrome, but moved to Safari and it worked on Safari.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for persisting! I hope others don't have the same awkward experience and give up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please list any petitions that have resulted in changes in law?

Or are petitions just some way to keep people busy and feel like someone cares?

<comment><AUTHOR> This petition is being put together specifically in response to a meeting of Open Access advocates with Obama's Science Advisor. This administration understands the issue and wants to gauge the degree of public interest. In short: while skepticism about petitions in general is warranted, this is one that can make a real difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any research funded by the NIH has to be made publicly available within 12 months after publication. The papers have to be deposited with PubMed.

<http://publicaccess.nih.gov/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. But NIH is one of a dozen US Government departments that have research budgets exceeding $100M per year. And so far it's the only one with a public- access mandate.

<comment><USER8> The NIH has a budget of $30B, so it's not _just_ one of a dozen.

<http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm>

If I recall, it has _the_ largest research budget of any non-military US government body by far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not from the US and I don't have a lot of knowledge about US law, but it seems strange to me that the executive branch of the government is hosting petitions for what in most other countries would fall under the legislature.

Isn't it the task of Congress in the US to set policy about what requirements are attached to the expenditure of public money, does the executive branch really have any impact on stuff like this?

<comment><USER10> You have the philosophy right, but political reality has left that behind.

While the President doesn't have any official power over the legislating process, he can wield significant political pressure as de facto head of his party, via shaping public opinion from the bully pulpit and with the threat of a veto.

Presidents have, for some time now, been very active in setting/driving legislative priorities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Elsevier needs to burn. You want an awesome way to get a 10-20% increase in research funds? Cut the fat.

<comment><USER12> I'm no Elsevier fan, but I think that number is a bit over the top. Most Universities have site-wide access to pretty much any paper you can get your hands on. I have a really hard time believing that 10-20% of research funding feeds those journal databases.

<comment><USER13> It's not just about the costs to Elsevier. It's about the costs of keeping information a secret that could have a much greater financial and societal impact if it were unleashed.

This is the age of the individual contributor. Open Source has taught us all about the power of appealing to and capturing the output of people working at home, in small groups, at small startups, etc.

So this isn't so much about recapturing the piece of a fixed pie that Elsevier takes. This is about making an incredibly larger pie by opening the information up to a wider audience and allowing us to compound the benefits in a much larger ecosystem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! The real issue here is opportunity cost. Yes, we could have a much cheaper academic publishing system if we did it without the paywalls and the profiteering corporations. But that savings are as nothing compared with all the new application avenues that will open up when research is freely available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A lot of people assume that making all research that included federal grant money free to the public would be unilaterally good. I like the idea in general because I actually like to read scientific papers sometimes, but my primary interest is to maximize the amount of research that happens. Or more precisely to maximize the speed at which we acquire knowledge/technology.

Are there any existing examples of places where this has been put into practice that we can compare to see which state of affairs is better? I'm unsure it would be beneficial because most of the public wouldn't read/understand the actual journal articles anyway, and I expect most of the scientists who do work in the field already have subscriptions. I'm worried there might be harm because government mandates of all kinds very often have negative unintended consequences and I'm curious what those might be for this area.

<comment><USER15> _> Or more precisely to maximize the speed at which we acquire knowledge/technology._

Who do you mean by "we"? Because you certainly can not be referring to "we" as in mankind. Locking away knowledge behind walls of bureaucracy and artificial monopolies will certainly not speed up progress, but instead slowly grind it to a halt.

Just look at the state of the patent wars. Everyone is suing each other, or claiming to just collect patents to be able to counter-sue. Microsoft, Google, Apple, and all the other big players probably each have patents on all technologies all of them use, a good amount of those more than once and worded as ridiculously over-general claims.

So if by "we" you are referring to the few dozen mega-corps that pretty much control our shared heritage of knowledge, then yes, you are quite likely correct.

If, on the other hand, you want to maximize the rate of technological advancement for the "we" as in all of humanity, then embrace Open Access, get rid of patents and all that other nonsense, and realize that incremental, cooperative development will speed up progress by _magnitudes_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As far as I know the EU has decided that all research resulting from its 80 billion research funding program must be published open access. The US doesn't have this yet but there is a law in preparation to do just this for US government funded research. A petition might speed things up

<comment><AUTHOR> The law in question is the FRPAA (Federal Research Public Access Act), and it's a very fine thing: see [http://svpow.com/2012/02/10/d-day-going-on-the- offensive-ove...](http://svpow.com/2012/02/10/d-day-going-on-the-offensive- over-public-access/) on its importance and <http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/FRPAA2012.shtml> for more details.

The current petition is a different strategy towards the same goal, approaching the Whitehouse directly in the hope of catalysing a presidential- level directive that would jump-start the process. (Not a speculative hope, either -- relevant people have the ear of Obama's scientific advisor.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How many journal articles are not just tweaks on conference papers and the like that are already available on-line?

This is a serious question. Back when I was seriously tracking a couple of areas, I didn't care at all about journals because they were about a year behind.

Public access to data, that would be something.

<comment><AUTHOR> This varies a lot between fields. In palaeontology, conference "papers" are only 200-word abstracts with no illustrations or references, and are not considered to be science. So papers are everything. I believe it's less straightforward in maths, for example, where conferences are much more important.

<comment><USER18> It is the same in ecology - short abstracts, not considered peer reviewed, never cited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've signed it, but I have a general question: has there been any petition on the WH site which has resulted in significant change (like a new law being submitted to Congress by the WH, or a new directive being issued) ?

<comment><USER20> Closest we got, imho, was Obama speaking in support of gay rights. They made a pretty big deal of it in the petitions.

As far as I know, laws? nada

<comment><USER21> Causal relationship between those petitions and Obama speaking in favor of gay marriage is highly doubtful. Obama knew where the cards lie on this issue long ago, and was waiting for an expedient moment to revert to the position he held before he run for President. Now he decided such moment has arrived. I do not think it has anything to do with any online petitions.

<comment><USER20> Probably correct, I'm afraid to say :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I signed it, that only makes sense If the public is going to fund it, then they should be able to see the research. To be honest, I didn't even know that publicly funded research wasn't all public.

</comment><comment><USER23> Should this be extended to books that are based on publicly funded research?

<comment><USER24> Just having the research available isn't the full investment in a book that uses it. If the government further funds the book based on the research, maybe that would be appropriate. If, however, I invest time and money into writing a book that incorporates research, I'd want a return on that investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> "I invest time and money into writing a book that incorporates research, I'd want a return on that investment."

If you're an academic, you won't get it. The way academic publishing works is that you do the research, write it up, prepare the illustrations, then sign over copyright of the whole lot to a publisher such as Elsevier. They will then publish the book, make a tidy profit, and pay you: nothing. Nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I couldn't really find anything on the site on this, so the question: are non- US citizens allowed to sign? If so, are they encouraged to sign?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the slow response. Yes, non-US citizens absolutely are invited to sign -- please do! (I did, and I am British.)</comment></comment>


Skulpy - Your Best Source for inspiration - <AUTHOR> http://www.skulpy.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, is this something like dribbble or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Is "github" for designers with badges and challenges.</comment></comment>


Quick and dirty custom video player using SproutVideo and jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sproutvideo.com/quick-and-dirty-custom-player-using-jquery-ui.html

<comment><USER2> While this quick, it is very dirty. There are basic problems like the dragging the slider competes for position with the playhead. It is mostly broken on tablets, etc.

Quick and dirty HTML5 video players are a bad idea. If you want "quick and decent" just use the native playback controls.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. This was just meant as an example to show what is possible with the API for the SproutVideo player and not a definitive guide on how to make a fully formed player. Many things would need to be done differently for this to be a fully-formed UI that works just as well on mobile devices as desktops.</comment></comment>


Ghostlab introduces Device-lab for UI testing your mobile devices - <AUTHOR> http://devicelab.vanamco.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice! I need one!</comment>


The Alphabet by the-alphabet - <AUTHOR> http://the-alphabet.github.io/ <comment><USER2> Now to register all those names with the .xyz TLD...

<comment><USER3> I bet Alphabet has already registered 90% of the .xyz domains, so they don't need .com anymore.

Probably just to show PG what real power is ;)

<comment><USER2> I hear the owner of the .xyz TLD is flooded with requests, so if things aren't registered now, they will be soon enough :P

<comment><USER3> I smell an inside job. :D</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rejected by YC? Get your product ready & apply to present at SuperConf - <AUTHOR> http://superconf.net/#startup-money

<comment><USER2> Really really happy to see a great conf taking over where FOWA usually would be. It will be good for the SoFla startup scene to have this type of energy going on. Congrats on this auston.

<comment><USER3> What happen to FOWA?

I might go to this

<comment><USER4> Fowa moved to Vegas. Carson told me he couldn't find a venue big enough in Miami, which is laughable. Anyway best of luck to them in Vegas, Auston will do a great job on this in Miami. I'll make sure to rally the locals behind this (just as I did for fowa)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask them.

<comment><USER5> So we need to buy a ticket, apply and come all the way and see if get selected ? and there are just 9 slots, right ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, let me clarify. You DO NOT need to BUY ANYTHING up front. The process is as follows:

1\. Apply to be one of the 9-15 startups presenting on Day 1. The number of slots depends on the number of applications we receive.

2\. A group of 5 people will be deciding whether you will or will not be invited to present at SuperConf by Jan 1st.

3\. If you are selected to present, you are responsible for your travel costs.

4\. You present at SuperConf for a winner-takes-all Grand Prize of $17k in cash & prizes (currently working on making this number bigger).

Note: The winner is decided by a combination of the audience & the panelists listed on the site.

I hope I was able to clearly address all of your concerns.

<comment><USER6> Guy, I need between $250K and $300K to get my project going. What am I going to do with 17K and no incubation?

<comment><USER7> Start eating a whole lot more ramen :)

Seriously, if you can't see the utility of getting 17k in your pocket, you're probably not the target of the conference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Zed Shaw is there! love that guy!

<comment><USER9> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a startup based in South Florida: thanks for choosing Miami.

Typo: SuperConf is in Miami, Beach!

You mean Miami Beach.

<comment><AUTHOR> My cleverness fails me: LMFAO created a song called "I'm in Miami, B@&#H". It was a sad attempt at a play on those words.

<comment><USER11> It's not you, it's the words. They aren't homophones.

<comment><USER12> They are if you're foreign.

<comment><USER11> I'm Greek, and they're not :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome. I'm looking forward to applying!

<comment><USER13> easiest application form ever :) fingers crossed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> andrew warner is there! love that guy!

</comment><comment><USER15> When is the deadline to apply?

<comment><AUTHOR> December 31st 2010

<comment><USER15> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> you guys can instantly get thousands of applications..LOL

</comment><comment><USER17> .... and the Launch Conference (my new version of TechCrunch50!) will be Feb 23rd and 24th.

website launching shortly at www.launch.is

deadline will be January 10th, but i'm doing rolling interviews since many folks are apply for Open Angel Forum AND LAUNCH.

<http://calacanis.com/conferences/>

<comment><AUTHOR> StartupRiot is the weekend before also... Lots of conferences for startups to pick from!

<http://startupriot.com/></comment></comment>


Against Decentralization - <AUTHOR> http://pudo.org/blog/2015/11/04/against-decentralization.html <comment><USER2> _Making decentralization the only strategy for the open web is a big bet, with little evidence in it 's favor._

I mean, sure, if you don't want to count the first twenty years of the Internet, I suppose it doesn't have much evidence.

Author seems to be completely missing the other benefits, such as having a more open marketplace of ideas, of having a more robust set of different services to fall back on in case one falls over for whatever reason, and so forth.

The clincher for me was the appeal to "but but but we have to work _with_ the .gov on this". It's pretty obvious that freedom of speech and decentralized control is anathema to every .gov out there today.</comment>


Sergey Brin's Clarification On Guardian article - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/109813896768294978296/posts/44gsPvAm5a5

<comment><USER2> Imagine Apple, Facebook or whoever controlled the Internet like Google does:

 _How long would it take until they abused their power?_

If someone is dominating the web it's Google and looking at their power and how much traffic they move—their actions feel balanced and neutral compared to any other player.

<comment><USER3> Part of what has put Google in their position as the gatekeeper is that the perception of being balanced and neutral. If search was more overtly biased, Bing would step in as the neutral player.

The more they consolidate their power, the less they seem constrained by this. I don't see anything that fundamentally distinguishes google from these other companies other than their present strategic position.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I don't get your point.

You can be successful with your product on the WWW without employing any Google services, being totally independent. If people and other sites like you and link back to you your traffic will quickly skyrocket _—which feels natural._ You are not obliged to use any Google service like GA. Just use the Internet and its open standards and you are ready to go because Google left the Internet's core like it is and didn't build a walled garden around it. That's the great thing about the web: it's decentralized and everybody can contribute, Google haven't tried to change this. That's why I don't like the native app trend with the appstore, all the innovation the Internet brought us are vanished by one central and strict entity and nobody cares, Android at least tries to emulate some parts of the net (i.e. by using intents, allowing multiple appstores, with the open nature of Android, etc.), Google is regarding their marketplace Play much more relaxed than Apple.

Looking at the Appstore or the Facebook API, there are so many rules which don't follow any of the core principles of the Internet. You have to play by these rules otherwise you are banned or completely and utterly dependent of one single entities. Moreover, if you then play by Apple's or Facebook's rules you still do not get the impact as from Google traffic-wise.

Ultimately, Google haven't entered the Chinese Market which shows the company's values. Every larger western corporation have build joint venture based branches in China—every corporation, except Google—and that's distinguishes Google.

<comment><USER3> I agree that you don't get my point.

The reason Google hasn't built a walled garden around the internet because they simply don't yet have the power to do that.

You talk as if it was something they could easily have done but have chosen not to. I disagree. They just aren't in a position to do it.

It makes no sense at all to say that innovation on the web has vanished because of the Appstore. We are in in a boom time for internet startups, and we have healthy browser competition leading to web standards advancing much faster than at any time in the past.

There is room for both the open web, and for more controlled environments like the app store or Facebook to coexist and compete with one another. Each offers different tradeoffs.

The existence of different kinds of environment is a good thing. It provides a variety of different economic opportunities, and choices for consumers.

Google would naturally like to have more influence and control, but the reality is that they exist in a competitive environment.

<comment><USER2> Pardon, you are totally misleading.

Google could do this—there are multiple options to silently wallgarden the user. Just check how much traffic Google moves. If they want they could arbitrarily redirect traffic and subtly punish user's not using their tools.

But that's not their culture. Just look at their products, how far they pushing the boundaries and still stay open, give back and contribute to the community. Look at V8, Dart, Go—all open, all free, all top-notch, all following the Internet's principles and look at Apple, FB—I see no groundbreaking innovation that's free or not protecting their walled garden. Even if Google has some hidden agenda with their products (like with Chrome) the products are always best-of-breed and never deadlock the user.

The point is: Google benefits of an open Internet, their business model is fully based on an open Internet. Therefore they will do everything to keep the Internet neutral, free and decentralized. In contrast, the bizmodels of Apple and FB do not rely on these values, they need walled gardens. Enough reasons to trust them less.

RE-EDIT: Took out later added passages as wished.

<comment><USER4> Facebook have given back plenty of open source to the dev community. Scribe (their federated logging server) and HipHop (their PHP compiler) come to mind immediately, but there may be others.

<comment><USER5> Their business tactics are ridiculously sleazy though. Aside from the google smear campaign fiasco last year, do you know that facebook does not allow AdSense advertising on it's 3rd party applications? They don't want FB ads performance to be compared with Google's (more profitable ads) on the same pages.

<comment><USER4> I somewhat agree. Frankly I'm no fan off Google, Facebook, or Apple. But pretending that one of them is more "open" then the other because they open source some software now and again is a falsehood: they are all for-profit corporations, with more in common with each other then what separates them, notions of culture aside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Refreshing response from Sergey. The Guardian article made him come off very immature.

The article brought to my mind a presentation Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners) has been circulating -"10 Hypothesis for Technology Investing."

A number of the points in the presentation illustrate a challenging future for Google:

\- Index Search has peaked: Google's position of dominance on the web is fading, due largely in part to their own success.

\- Apple's App Model Threatens the World Wide Web: a walled garden, un- indexable

\- Rise of Social. Facebook owns. Again, a walled garden, un-indexable

\- Lack of searches on mobile

Similar arguments were made in Wired's "The Web is Dead" feature, and they all point towards Google's core business going downhill.

The Guardian article made Sergey seem... well... butthurt. As if recognizing his lousy position, but instead of owning it, whining about it. I've always thought of Sergey as smarter than that. He's always seemed much more pragmatic than The Guardian article made him out to be. It didn't feel like the Sergey I [don't actually] know.

Certainly Sergey has gripes with Apple and Facebook, and certainly he has self-preserving motivations for responding as he did. But I feel like giving him more of the benefit of the doubt here and calling slight nanz on The Guardian for rabble-rousing as press outlets do.

Also - kudos to Sergey for his extremely diplomatic clarification there. We've all seen much less tactful responses to press spins.

10 Hypothesis Slides: <http://read.bi/GMHoYQ>

10 Hypothesis Video: <http://bit.ly/w0qpeh>

<comment><USER7> This is an excellent deck, why have not seen this before! Was this on HN?

I agree with almost all his points, insiders are very bullish on Apple, the feeling's that %600 is nowhere near the peak, it'll be more like $1K. On the other hand, Google has started to give off the "has-peaked" vibe: the silly badmouthing of rivals, huge reorgs, half-thought out failed projects, not being clear of where to go next and milking the usual cow, etc.

One important point that he makes that I think is important to reiterate is how open the mobile area is, since non of the big guys currently have good extensions. So I think we'll see more of the Instagram-type successes (probably not on the $1B level, though).

Takeaways if you're an up and coming, young (or otherwise) developer: Learn the Apple stack (70% of your time) and learn HTML5/JS (20%).

<comment><USER6> Agreed, and yeah - it's actually the one thing I've ever submitted (I'm a relative n00b), but it didn't get any ups.

I feel strongly about pushing it and getting it out there though. What's the etiquette on resubmissions?

<comment><USER7> I think you can definitely resubmit, but pick your time wisely, there are many HN discussions on this.

<comment><USER6> Late-morning to early afternoon, I'm reading? Fuck it, we'll do it live! :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3858936>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm glad he wasn't attacking Facebook and Apple in the way it was portrayed.

I think a key issue here is that powerful incumbent corporations have always challenged the economic freedoms of smaller players and individuals operating in their space.

In the heyday that Brin refers to, those powerful corporations hadn't yet emerged. Now they have. The biggest challenge to starting a new eBay today is eBay. The biggest challenge to starting a new Google today is Google.

Going forward, what matters is the extent that a platform economically empowers its participants to create additional value. Ideological openness is just one dimension in that.

Facebook, Apple, and Google all do empower their participants in different ways and with different tradeoffs, as do startups like Square and Kickstarter.

</comment><comment><USER5> To me this is another example of a fundamental difference between the Web 1.0 entrepreneur generation and today's superstar startup CEOs. The former's ambitions ranged from data liberation, information freedom and up to interplanetary travel. The new generation's ambitions end in their stock valuations.

<comment><USER8> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection>

<comment><USER5> I believe it's more because they had the first mover's advantage and naivete

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let me paraphrase: "I bemoan the rise of Internet tollbooths and gatekeepers, such as the ones put up by Facebook and Apple. By the way, please build native apps for Android, and please use Google+ to connect with your friends and family."

</comment><comment><USER10> Pretty scary some of the proposed legislation being thrown around in the UK.

On large companies... If individuals have issues with large companies they can simply go to an alternative. However government should intervene to ensure "internet" companies comply with the same laws as "non internet".

<comment><USER11> Google's elaborate tax-avoidance schemes mean they forfeit the right to an opinion on what the UK government does.

<comment><USER10> Avoidance or evasion?

If a company is compliant then it is up to government to intervene and change laws. However law change should apply to all entities, on or off line.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. But Eric Schmidt doesn't get to whine about e.g. education in the UK, without ponying up the cash.

<comment><USER12> There's a pretty important distinction between a government-provided service and the government's infringement of a (negative) right, _especially_ when it comes to who gets to complain based on the amount of taxes they pay. The government doesn't pay money to not censor the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What new "tollbooths and gatekeepers" is he talking about? If I wanted to start an online store or search engine today, who would I be paying?

<comment><USER14> I'm certainly not saying I agree with this wholeheartedly, but I think his point is that you wouldn't get very far without (my examples here) a Facebook and Twitter presence, and an iPhone and Android app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Today, starting such a service would entail navigating a number of new tollbooths and gatekeepers.

One of them being Google.</comment>


Show HN: Short mobile LeetCode-like challenges in game-like app with leaderboard - <AUTHOR> https://solvefaction.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> My friend Gunar and I are building this app we call SolveFaction.

As devs, we know that coding interview problems are not easy. Especially when it's been a while. There's really only one way to get better. First, learn and understand. Then, practice, practice, practice. That's why we created SolveFaction – for the practice part.

We first figured there's currently no way to practice coding challenges when we're away from our computers. Also, HackerRank/Leetcode questions take 30mins minimum, and we don't always have that much time available.

So we broke down these problems into small chunks of critical thinking. If you can't answer these "building blocks", chances are you won't solve the bigger problem.

We added user rankings and a leaderboard. This competitive aspect makes it more fun and has proven to be a strong (very strong!) motivator for some of our users.

Our ultimate plan is to have SolveFaction automatically adapt the difficulty to your level. We want the app to choose just the right next question for you. But for that, we first need to have enough beta users, so that we can calibrate our difficulty system (glicko-based for those familiar). That's the dream here.

All exercise are original. We've built them ourselves. And there's enough of them for you to play for a week or 2. You might really enjoy this.

We'd love to get some feedback. If you try it out, it'd be incredibly helpful if you can share your thoughts.

Thanks and have fun! Ed</comment>


Stop Validating and Start Co-Creating - <AUTHOR> https://www.producttalk.org/2018/02/co-creating/ <comment><USER3> Summary: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And don't overoptimize before you build something.

Pretty good advice for any creative engineering discipline.

The hard part is always defining "overengineered". Is 1 day of design work enough? Is 2 weeks too much? Good taste and experience rule here, and the best engineers make the right decisions, leading to great products. Problem is, it's hard to define what makes someone good at this- though it's incredibly important for product success.

Software design is still a very creative endeavor and probably always will be.

<comment><USER4> Good advice. I'm all for getting a quick MVP version out and then iterate.

But, I also think why Apple did not do it with iPhone? They could have just built a device with phone only capabilities. Leaving aside that, they rebuilt\redesigned a ready-to-market iPhone (first version)

<comment><USER5> Go to market strategy is different for established company like Apple and small startups. Apple can afford later entry into the market, can afford to acquire innovations, product teams and spend more time on research. Also if you fail - you standup and do it again, if company like Apple fails - <USER2> goes down and many people can get hurt — different dynamics.

<comment><USER6> also, don't underestimate how much market research and focus group testing is involved. There's lots of customer feedback going on with "traditional" design, it's just done privately not publicly.

It's also not as good feedback - it's too easy to tell the focus group what to think. But done right, it can lead to the same place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> soo basically, backtracking and refactoring after having started small. Sounds nice, also sounds like something my network infra colleagues completely fucking hate.</comment>


Dexcom outage that kept patients from tracking blood sugar was complete surprise - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/dexcom-cto-our-biggest-ever-glitch-was-a-big-surprise.html <comment><USER2> It seems seriously irresponsible to be in a position where outages of any scope are "a complete surprise". Especially with a service that is key to real-time monitoring of health, the entire company should be of the mindset of "What could possibly go wrong."</comment>


Under the Hood of Revenue-Based A/B Tests: A Dynamic Solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.dynamicyield.com/2015/01/revenue-based-tests-2/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Never thought about that before</comment>


Windows 10 will keep spying on you no matter how hard you try to stop it - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2016/02/10/windows-10-spying-investigation/ <comment><USER2> It never ceases to amaze me at how hard Microsoft is trying to shoot its foot with this spying (even backporting it to Win 7 and 8).

On one hand they made tremendous progress in stability, openness to the point I would have trusted them with my personal IT but on the other hand they just waste their efforts with this spying.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just dont use it. Its like we discuss the usefulness the of LOVE virus over and over again. When you install it, whatever the original use case would be, you get spied on. As simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER4> > The most damning aspect of the entire investigation is the fact that > Microsoft is lying to us when it gives us the ability to turn certain > tracking features off.

this should be illegal, and probably is.

</comment><comment><USER5> I finally managed to wean myself from windows a year ago and switch to linux exclusively. I do have trouble speaking badly about windows though. For many years it provided a tool that I couldn't replicate in Macs and Linux no matter how much I tried. It will forever hold a place in my heart (and I almost mean that).

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11056063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11056063)

<comment><USER7> related: [http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-it-comes-to- windows-10-pri...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-it-comes-to- windows-10-privacy-dont-trust-amateur-analysts/)</comment></comment>


The sad history of the C++ throw(…) exception specifier - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180928-00/?p=99855 <comment><USER2> Who uses exceptions in C++? Better use good ol' return values like in pure C code.</comment>


Radio's Regulatory Roadblocks - How the FCC slows new wireless technologies - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/radios-regulatory-roadblocks/0

<comment><USER2> I will give 1000 tasty internet cookies to anyone who can find a short comic/pamphlet which explains how the spectrum is regulated and how it could be greatly improved. It was a great and simple explanation with pictures, but google fails me and I can't find it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This might help: <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf>

<comment><USER2> This is good but the one I'm looking for was more like comic. With examples of how say police monopolize the spectrum for emergencies now,and how they could still get priority in a more dynamic system.</comment></comment></comment>


Study: Noise During Sleep Impairs Morning Performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/007242.html

<comment><USER2> The 2nd Ave subway line started construction a few weeks after I moved in here. Just a few days sleep during a vacation made me a new man. A jackhammer makes a terrible alarm clock -- even if it's on the time you want to wake up at.

If anyone's doing a startup involving maps (e.g. google maps or earth), please put in estimation methods for ambient noise in an area.

<comment><USER3> You live in the default city, right?

<comment><USER4> Default City's in Russia :p

<comment><USER3> :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if it's the dissonance & unpredictability of this noise that contributes to the sleep impairment. Or if it's the duration of the sounds throughout the sleep period.

I make this assumption because music is known to aid sleep: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4228707.stm>

<comment><USER6> Or perhaps why a loud fan (that doesn't click or make strange noises) is great for sleeping, in my very sound sensitive experience?

<comment><USER5> Perhaps that loud fan is generating enough gentle white noise for you. A quote from the below article states:

"Some people benefit from white noise, or fans. Make sure you have effective blinds, or earplugs, if they help. It's all about reducing distractions and sending a message to your brain about your safety."

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and- families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and- families/features/dont-sleep-longer-ndash-sleep-smarter-1994018.html)

Interestingly, as I was doing my "research" (well, just some web searches really), I came across studies that claimed white noise can impair brain development in sleeping baby rats:

"When baby rats listened to white noise for prolonged periods of time, a part of the brain responsible for hearing, called the auditory cortex, didn't develop properly. However, when the noise was taken away, the young rats' brains were able to resume normal development."

[http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/97/white_noise_may_dela...](http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/97/white_noise_may_delay_babys_speech/index.html)

I haven't found any articles showing whether or not this phenomenon has been tested on humans yet.

I suppose one takeaway from all of this research is that we need to continue doing more research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I sleep with earplugs every night. It's very relaxing.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not clear from summary if you get used to it after prolonged exposure.

It does, however, tempt me to get earplugs...

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, what are the long term effects of blocking up your ears at night?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 3.6ms? Your reaction time increases from about 500ms to about 503.6ms? I'm amazed they were able to measure that at all — it must have been a huge study — but why should we care? Too bad the article didn't link to the paper.

</comment><comment><USER11> That confirms my own experience. I currently live in a noisy flat. When I started sleeping with earplugs, I started waking up way more alert and ready.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe this is why my wife hates the fact that I snore like a table saw?

</comment><comment><USER13> Who would have thought that...

Earplugs ftw or pay double the rent.

</comment><comment><USER14> False. For the last 3 weeks I've been sleeping in a place where the clock chimes on the hour and every half hour and there is constant car traffic. I feel better in this environment than I did at my old and quite place.</comment>


Awesome Berkeley Course: Intro to Starcraft (Game Theory) - <AUTHOR> http://academicearth.org/lectures/introduction-starcraft

<comment><USER2> Maybe I should have done something like this when I was in school, instead of spending all of my time in Starcraft University.</comment>


Would You Send Your Kids to a School Where Students Make the Rules? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116015/sudbury-valley-school-alternative-education-right-my-kids

<comment><USER2> No. Kids go there to learn; they don't yet know how to make the rules.</comment>


The Automation Revolution and the Rise of the Creative Economy (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/21/the-automation-revolution-and-the-rise-of-the-creative-economy/ <comment><USER2> (April 2016)

<comment><AUTHOR> Am I supposed to append the year? Done (I am still sort of new here)

<comment><USER2> When content is not recent, it helps to clarify things.

It's neither a criticism nor a value judgment about the contents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Elon Musk predicts the mass unemployment due to AI & Automation will be a large enough problem to where we'll require a "universal basic income". He then questions where people will then find _meaning_ when their labor is not needed. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6HPdNBicM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6HPdNBicM8)

Also consider Peter Diamandis discussing how we are heading toward a future of abundance in everything we need, making it significantly less expensive to "get by". [https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_f...](https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future)

While I agree we could see a universal basic income, I'd say Elon Musk puts too much weight on what people consider _meaning_. While most billionaire entrepreneurs love what they do, most of the working class see their jobs as something that _prevents_ them from doing what they love. According to the Washington Post, only 13% of people worldwide like going to work. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on- leadership/wp/2013/10...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on- leadership/wp/2013/10/10/only-13-percent-of-people-worldwide-actually-like- going-to-work/?utm_term=.0c9516fcc4f0)

So with these points of view considered, in a future where they go just as predicted, it seems like automation will force a sort of renaissance period with a massive rise in Arts and Entrepreneurship. _If_ people begin making a universal basic income that pays their bills, and machines control everything they can possibly control, suddenly we will have almost the entire automation- replaced workforce spending their time on things that robots _can 't_ do in the foreseeable future: Fine-arts, competitive sports/games, and Entrepreneurship. I believe most people who hate their jobs already find meaning elsewhere and now with empty days and no serious financial concerns, it's either do nothing or do something that robots can't. Even the laziest people will become bored of doing nothing

The pre-Renaissance period in Europe shows many similarities to what we are experiencing now on a greater scale. For one, the printing press, among other important inventions, had an enormous impact on the shaping of the renaissance; suddenly, there was no need to re-write the same pages by hand, and the world started moving much faster than they were used to. Secondly, the decline of feudalism is comparable to what Peter Diamandis's "abundance life" would cause: a sudden narrowing of the gaps between classes.

I could be wrong, but a universal basic income wouldn't change how most people find meaning; it would rather provide people the freedom to attempt what they never had time for.</comment>


PICO-8 Lighting by hand #1: the thin dark line - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/pico-8-lighting-part-1-thin-dark-line-8ea15d21fed7 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598182) and there are already 3 other parts to this series published, most posted here too, just google for those comments ;)

<comment><USER3> slightly related, am I the only one getting annoyed by links first circulating under the authors medium account and then suddenly moving to hackernoon for a second round?</comment></comment>


U.S. soldier in Afghanistan gets $16,000 AT&T bill - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20026118-71.html

<comment><USER2> This happened to me when I went to Europe in 2005. I called AT&T and inquired about and then added their international thing (I think it was $10/mo at that time), and no one told me that calls would be billed at exorbitant rates. I forget the charge per minute, but $5 seems a little high, but not by that much. Why did they neglect to mention this? I have no idea.

I didn't make many calls while I was there, but still had a $500 phone bill. AT&T split the difference with me, but it was an infuriating experience, and I'll never go back to AT&T as a result.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have little doubt that AT&T failed to mention that calls would cost $5/min. Anecdotally, I have an english friend who moved to California for 2 years a little while back. He was sold a UK-calling plan at some dollars / month (much more than 5, enough for him to assume it was all inclusive). Anyways, 3 months later he gets a multi-thousand dollar bill for call charges to the UK. Ended up having to pay it, although he was never told of the additional per minute billing.

</comment><comment><USER4> You'd think that someone within the company's customer support would be allowed to show a little initiative and realise that not writing off extortionate bills for soldiers in Iraq just _might_ be bad publicity...</comment>