Dear Paul - <AUTHOR> http://zedshaw.com/2015/06/01/dear-paul/ <comment><USER2> I've read HN almost every day for the last 7 years. In that seven years, I don't recall ever reading a post that said something particularly slanderous about Zed. I _have_ seen post after post about his Learning XXX the hard way, and, in fact, I've even purchased at least one as a result.

The one thing _different_ about HN is that if you even _slightly_ start to get overly negative on a post, you are downvoted into oblivion, and nobody sees what you've written.

So I'm really confused, Zed is upset that things that are negative are written about him (and I can appreciate that, who _wouldn 't_ be upset when negative things are written about them) - but the one place he criticizes, happens to be the one place on the internet (that I'm familiar with), where slanderous, objectionable, heck, off tone comments are censored by the community.

Because that's what I love about HN - the community keeps the tone civil, reasonably polite, and holds commentators accountable for their contributions, to the point of hell banning anybody who does draw too much ire.

I think Zed's criticism is a little off base this time.

<comment><USER3> That all sounds great, but then why is he so upset? It's impossible to reconcile your picture with his.

So either (a) he's imagining things, or (b) you're painting over the cracks or can't see them, or (c) the real truth is somewhere inbetween.

<comment><USER4> I imagine that it was prompted by this post [1] which was on the front page a couple of hours ago.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636605)

<comment><USER2> I just clicked on that - here was what the top comment had to say about Zed:

"Zed is known as one of the most prolific and capable software engineers around and I have heard his C code for Mongrel 2 server [https://github.com/zedshaw/mongrel2](https://github.com/zedshaw/mongrel2) described as being amongst some of the best examples of C code to study, learn and understand (trying to find the link that said that). I hold his work in high regard."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disappointing to see this at 139 points in under an hour (and still going...). It's just a lot of bile.

I like Zed when he's talking about software development. I like tptacek when he's talking about cryptography or money or cooking or any of the other several subjects he's reasonably skilled in. I like pg when he's talking about startups.

All of them are capable of getting their hackles up, getting in fights, saying things they shouldn't, or talking with authority outside their expertise. It happens.

But we shouldn't be feeding this kind of drama. pg isn't going to shut down HN because it hurt zed's feelings, zed has just introduced me and probably a bunch of other people to some video that I'd never heard about before (that I'm not going to bother tracking down), and hopefully whenever whatever's bothering zed now passes, he'll reconsider at least some of what he wrote.

Also, it's sort of odd that it was directed to pg, considering pg has made exactly one comment on HN in the last year. (...which, to me, is pretty much the severest possible indictment of the HN community, though maybe I'm reading more into it than I should.)

I'm flagging this. I know we're not supposed to say when we're flagging things, but I don't want zed getting the impression that it was pg that suppressed this. No, it was little ol' me, and, hopefully, a few other folks here.

<comment><USER6> You should only flag things that are against the guidelines. In that regard, I don't see anything about this particular post that is problematic. It has some bile, sure, but the man makes some excellent points that we would benefit a lot from openly discussing here.

The best communities are those that self-reflect. They don't sweep the criticisms under the rug -- and I perceive your flagging as an attempt to do just that.

<comment><USER7> How many little dick insults before you just consider the author to be inflammatory and small-minded? If this weren't for someone with a big name, it would have been dead on arrival.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, the RoR "community" and Zed have a history when it comes to penis-related insults. There was a time when you could add anyone you liked to a github project & they couldn't block you, so a bunch of developers thought it would be funny to add Zed's github account to a project to draw ascii penises. Every time he'd remove himself, they'd add him to another one & so on.

Puerile? Yup. Also, possibly career sabotaging if a potential future employer looks at your github project list.

See [https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1306816425.html) for some of the gory details. Github woke up, smelled the coffee & made it possible for their users to block other users shortly after this little saga.

Yes, it's easy for us to say "he should be the bigger person & not respond in kind" but on the flip side, we haven't been on the receiving end of this kind of abusive behaviour.

<comment><USER9> > Yes, it's easy for us to say "he should be the bigger person & not respond > in kind" but on the flip side, we haven't been on the receiving end of this > kind of abusive behaviour.

But he's not responding in kind, because the people he is attacking "in kind" aren't the people who attacked him. And so, insofar as Zed's abuse is "in kind" to the unrelated-to-the-issue-complained-about abuse he has previously received, we (as in the HN community) _have_ , in fact, been on the receiving end of that kind of abusive behavior _from Zed_.

Some people abusing you doesn't provide you license to abuse other people while complaining about how you hate abusive people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > I hate abusive fucks

And yet he's sitting there saying things like "[HN] is a place for men with tiny little mosquito penises".

I once heard a piece of advise (by Caitlin Moran): you should never write angrily. You may be angry, but don't write angrily. People tend to react with the same emotions, if you come across angry then people will tend to respond with anger.

The guy is obviously angry and upset, but its completely masking his point. He obviously feels something is wrong with the way HN is moderated, but based solely on his tone I'm in no way inclined to a) take his point seriously and b) actually start a discussion about the way HN is moderated. If he hadn't been swearing like a sailor, gave some example comments that support his point, etc, then people would be way more inclined to actually get involved.

<comment><USER11> Sounds like a recipe for the sterile PR speak we're surrounded by. If he's angry, why shouldn't he write angry?

And the preoccupation with swearing is just puritanical nonsense.

<comment><USER12> I feel you. Sadly, almost no one else here does. I am yet to determine as to why, but everyone prefers smoothed-out shit to blunt truth. And the topics discussed here are not even that emotional compared to other possible alternatives.

This is also said in the context of the recent 'blabla no negativity' rule.

<comment><USER13> "The rule is no gratuitous negativity. You can be negative, just try to at least be constructive about it"

"The rule is no gratuitous negativity you stupid fuck. You can be negative, just try to be constructive".

Which sentence do you think is goig to derail conversations and lead to useless but heated argument?

<comment><USER12> If people are not obsessively looking for reasons to be offended (which kind of might hint about subtle underlying psychological problems) - neither.

<comment><USER13> Calling someone a stupid fuck is clearly corrosive and going to derail threads. Do you really not see that?

And placing the blame for that on mental health problems? That's ignorant and lazy.

<comment><USER12> Why is the premises here that everything to the last letter has to be taken seriously? I'll be damned, but there's reddit? netsec and such places. They seem to fare pretty well. Relevant rules?

\- Don't create unnecessary conflict.

\- Keep the discussion on topic.

\- Limit the use of jokes & memes.

Places a bit of trust in people's hands instead of slapping 'lel no this, lel no that'.

I can't say I blame something or someone (well maybe people introducing those rules), after all it barely affects me.

<comment><USER13> You don't think that calling someone a stupid fuck is creating unnecessary conflict?

<comment><USER12> > taken seriously

It absolutely does not always do that (although you've chosen a pretty harsh phrase which has a high chance to be considered extreme).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What an odd rant. I don't see where it's coming from, and honestly, I expect better rants from Zed. So here's my response.

Dear Zed.

For better or worse you've made it; you've become a public figure. Your voice carries weight whose normal people's doesn't. Most people don't make it that far. And very few gets to enjoy the luxuries associated with that.

But as you've clearly noticed, there's a backside: All public figures, warranted or not, receive slanderous comments everywhere across the internet where internet egg-heads like ourselves can post comments.

Tough shit. It's a internet-wide problem. It's like a law of sorts. Should we call it Zed's law? The problem is that nobody knows what the solution is. Nope. None.

Blaming Paul for not making a special-case of you and comments written about you on a site who is supposed to be as open and transparent as possible (or at least likes to pretend so) doesn't make much sense. It honestly makes you look like an entitled child wanting special treatment others cannot expect.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but if your beef is how your public figure is reflected via HN, posts and drama like this is not likely to help.

Cheers.

\- Some random internet egg-head, but at least not a anon or throw-away. Hope that makes you feel better.

<comment><USER15> I don't want to be a useless +1 but this was pretty much my thoughts summarized. Zed's a great guy and his books have been very useful to me. But I remember when he dropped his Rails rant. He's a grating fellow and -- surprise -- you'll get the same response in kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The core point of this (people are jerks, especially on HN) has been a recurring theme ever since the new mods have showed up on HN, trying to clean up our act. Things seem a lot better than a year ago, and I try extremely hard to assume good faith from people on the other side of the screen when replying to comments (helps my mood a lot).

But this suffers from the same thing everything I read from Shaw: such strong language. I can't comment for him (I think I've seen him post before, would be interested), but my impression is that he's genuinely hurt by these people. Is he trying to change anything, or just venting?

> I'd like to point out that one of the reasons most of your moronic baby > penis followers hate me is because I wiped out epic amounts of Ruby on Rails > with one blog post full of truth.

This doesn't make me want to agree at all. I like HN and don't give 2 shits about RoR. I care deeply about making the internet slightly better by convincing people to stop being assholes. But hey, this is pretty rude! I won't quote the entire thing, but it's a lot of crass imagery.

Maybe this is satire, but I don't think so. I don't have a witty conclusion to reading this, just a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach

<comment><USER17> It's very inconsistent. Replace "Paul Graham" by "John Doe", "Hacker News" by "Kernel driver" and "Zed Shaw" by "Linus Torvalds" and the commentary becomes "hihi oh my, that is some funnily crass imagery".

Language is just language. Crass language exaggerates a point, an emotion. If the underlying point is poor in the first place, the only thing swearing does is amplify how stupid the whole thing is.

<comment><USER16> For the record, I think Linus' usage of crass language is just as pointless. It's totally possible to show that you're pissed without demanding that someone be shot or aborted.

Language is not "just" language, there's underlying nuance, history in usage of an expression, and overall context. There are degrees, of course, but when you start offending a large portion of your potential audience _solely_ because of the words you choose, it might be important to consider how you say things.

Though that language usage might be part of one' objective, I think Linus' objectives is furthering the development of Linux, not the advancement of cutting-edge English language insults.

<comment><USER17> I think Linus' swearing is pointless as well, but people don't get turned off from his posts because the underlying point he makes tends to be true, which is what I'm trying to say here.

<comment><USER16> having a hard time parsing your comment, and I don't want to do too much back and forth, but:

If you go back to some HN posts linking to mailing list stuff with one of Linus' rants, there's often more than one person saying "I do not want to work on Linux because of how Linus talks".

This could be exaggeration, but it's turned off people and it turns me off. Though I agree that Linus does gets brownie points due to his usual rightness on the technical domain.

In the words of the Dude: not wrong, just an asshole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do people really think HN's denizens are abusive? I remember usenet from the mid-nineties. It was really, really bad. People would routinely post very graphic messages about killing other people (and worse), and sometimes there'd be personally-identifiable information posted (like physical addresses), and all manner of other intensely awful stuff would happen. This was usually restricted to certain groups, but due to the nature of "cross-posting", it would often spread all over the place - in fact, people would quite often randomly add "nice" groups into a massive flamewar just to cause trouble.

Sometimes the police would be involved, too, but they never did anything - from what I can remember - because usenet didn't have real-life celebrities on it (apart from a few sci-fi and fantasy authors) and was fairly incomprehensible in comparison with, say, Twitter or Facebook. Also, teenagers didn't commit suicide very often from it so I suppose it was hard to turn it into a political issue.

 _But_ , Usenet also had some really great discussion on it, and with a good news client (like slrn) was vastly better than any web forum anyone has ever come up with since... and with a suitably powerful client, you could actually filter out a lot of the abuse too.

Against all of that, anyway, HN seems incredibly tame to me.

<comment><USER19> > Against all of that, anyway, HN seems incredibly tame to me.

Comparitive badness of online forums is just a variant of Dawkin's "Dear Muslima" nonsense.

<comment><USER20> Agreed in full--because X is really bad, Y should not get a pass for being mostly bad. And if laundry's going to get aired, there's a _ton_ of virulently racist, sexist, and anti-poor garbage that gets thrown around here, not even by green accounts, that actually gets voted up.

HN has a problem. I've discussed it offline with people, including dang. Nobody seems to have a solution for it, but a solution needs to exist. (I mean, the real solution is to fix the incentives that turn tech people into ravening shitweasels, but I think that's out of scope for a message board.)

<comment><USER19> Given the popularity of my comparison, I think you've already lost that battle.

<comment><USER20> I think you're right, and it makes me sad. The reflexive urge to downvote cultural criticism is a pretty bad one--we as people (not "tech people", but _people_ ) need to be forever vigilant against making the world a worse place. We do it a lot. But that responsibility is not terribly fashionable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good example of a Streisand effect.[1]

The red flag in this post is that it doesn't discuss concrete specifics, just claims "slander" and victimhood as if it's a given, then takes that all the way to "Paul Graham has created a great big slander and abuse platform."

As far as I can see this the "retraction" he's referring to: _" Zed Shaw will not kill your company. For a very poor choice of words, I apologize sincerely. It's his ideas about security that kill."_ \- @tqbf [2]

So, not really a retraction of "slander", just a clarification that the guy's ideas on security are terrible. Now I kind of want to see that video.

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

[2] [https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/7668904147](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/7668904147)

<comment><USER22> I tried to find the video, which used to be hosted at [http://www.viddler.com/explore/rentzsch/videos/31/](http://www.viddler.com/explore/rentzsch/videos/31/) but has been taken down.

If I may believe the quotes, he called Zed Shaw, djb, deRaadt etc all brilliant developers with terrible views on security.

Since most developers out there have a terrible view on security, the takeaway is that Thomas actually gave a compliment by naming Zed Shaw in the same breath as DJB and deRaadt, and that Zed Shaw is very sensitive to criticism.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure Zed feels "complimented" every time he goes to a job interview and has to defend against the assertion that he's going to kill the company if he's hired. I believe the technical term here is "tortious interference."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be interested to know how often that video got posted, and how many upvotes it got each time, and how many flags etc it got.

And Zed uses circular reasoning: he uses himself as an example of a mean poster who gets upvotes but then complains when HN downvotes or flags his meanness.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2440939](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2440939)

> Over the years here and before I started commenting people called me a > cocksucker, cock, asshole, douchebag, and every mean ass thing you can > imagine. They do it to other people too, and I sure as hell don't see anyone > getting flagged or kicked off. If you pick someone unpopular to insult > you're totally allowed to be a dick here.

i'd love to see an example comment of someone calling someone sle one of those names and not being downvoted or flagged for it (I guess with the exception of powerful people where a certain amount of punching up is tolerated). More specifically I'd like to see a post where someone made comments like that about Zed Shaw.

Here's one from six years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=703219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=703219)

And here's one from two years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806864)

Searching for [zed shaw asshole] returns a bunch of people saying that he isn't an asshole; or that he's only an asshole to people who attack him; or that he's sometimes justifiably an asshole. It also returns a lot of zed shaw calling other people assholes.

</comment><comment><USER24> What does Zed actually want to happen here? For HN moderators to remove comments critical of him or his work? This entire post and the attitude behind it seem really childish. I'm confused why anyone is voting it up.

<comment><USER25> TLDR; "I don't care what people on HN think about me. I'm concerned that other people are being treated the same was I was."

Although I haven't seen any of these supposed hate posts on HN recently (likely due to the new mods) but knowing the internet I can be certain that, from a historical standpoint, there is possibly credence to what he is saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nothing anybody ever said about Zed did Zed as much damage as anything Zed himself said. I'm flagging this because I don't think that Zed is doing himself a favour with this post.

<comment><USER27> His language and metaphors diminish him to an extent that he evidently does not appreciate. It's an obsessive habit I guess he'll never drop. I think that's something to regret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >What if I started offering to advise new coders, the millions I teach a year (yes, millions Paul) to avoid all of your company's startups?

Talk about delusions of grandeur. Just because people read advise on programming doesn't mean they will listen to political rants of yours. In fact, that's usually the quickest way to kill off your audience. Good programming insights will quickly be shadowed by talk of slobbering on Paul's balls.

</comment><comment><USER28> People can say what they want about Zed Shaw, in the end, he built things. Things used by millions of people. And he does deserve respect for that.

<comment><USER26> Building things is nice and will get you respect for building things. Attacking people and being abusive will typically undo some of that.

The tech community has a couple of other examples of people that built things and that managed to lose a lot or even all of the respect they deserved for that because of other things they did.

<comment><USER28> I would agree with that, definitely. But then I would expect both sides of the story to be expressed in a more balanced manner in the articles criticizing the contents of what has been produced. I've found that more often than not, people tend to be blindsided and go for blood because it's better shock value and helps create buzz and clicks.

Something akin to: "Zed Shaw took on a complicated task, one that hasn't been fully mastered since K&R, but he still took a swing. The author knows what he's talking about, having produced software X/Y/Z. Yet, teaching C, a language that has known worldwide adoption in all layers of software for the past 30 years or so, is such a divisive and complicated matter that I feel that even a skilled programmer such as him somehow missed the mark. Here's my opinion about the good aspects and somewhat less perfect bits of Learn C the Hard Way, so that future readers will know where to exercise caution and where to relax while unleashing C's potential".

This conveys the very same opinion, but in a way that is less polarizing and recognizes that writing a book about C programming _is_ a touchy subject, where opinions are aplenty and often strongly engrained in a long-established mindset, making any potential author a target for criticism.

But really, I absolutely agree that "You built something" is never an excuse for any behaviour, I would just like to think that it buys any person a wee bit more of the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER29> I agree with your opinion, but I also add: being accomplished gives you a microphone for both the insightful and the insulting things you have to say. It's unfortunate that sometimes smart people don't realize that not everyone's words are equally powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I randomly found this after clicking on that other C link today (Don't learn C the wrong way or something), only to realize that I had no idea what I was reading but to note that it had just been posted.

A quick overview made me realize this would reach the top of HN and that I no longer cared about the argument within. As an industry of people at the forefront of technology, why do we try to hurt each other?

<comment><USER31> I would be surprised if that news doesn't get flagged and killed(not by me I have no stakes in this).

This an old a complicated story about people with ego being a jerks to one another especially in the Rails world. Rails used to be the new shiny stuff everybody wanted a piece of it because loads of $$$ so everybody started to be mean and tried to kill other's consultancy for greed.

But the internet doesn't forget so , if you behave like an ass on the internet, 7 years after people can certainly google you and stumble upon your past deeds...

[http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a- ghetto](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto)

<comment><USER32> > I'll add one more thing to the people reading this: I mean business when I > say I'll take anyone on who wants to fight me. You think you can take me, > I'll pay to rent a boxing ring and beat your fucking ass legally. Remember > that I've studied enough martial arts to be deadly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >In fact, I had job offers from a YC startup and a non-YC startup and am looking at the non-YC startup, just because of HN.

From the tone of this article, it sounds like YC startup would end up coming out ahead in this deal. This guy sounds pretty immature and emotionally unstable. I wouldn't want to work with someone like that.

</comment><comment><USER33> 1) If every site shut down or removed commenting every time someone was personally attacked, even repeatedly, there'd be no one left. I've sustained my fair share of attacks in the past as well (not on HN), and had some abrasive interactions here as well, but the vast majority of comments on HN have nothing to do with the behaviors described. So claiming it's worthless and only serves to facilitate personal attacks seems pretty unfounded, except possibly for a few more well-known members who may be easy targets.

2) Posts like this basically show you've been worn down to a high degree of vulnerability and will likely encourage more attacks in the future. Want to see any of the involved parties hurt, or watch one side wage war on the other just for the lulz? Now it's easy: start an anonymous smear campaign against Shaw. (Though I'm not recommending this.)

My sympathies to anyone who experiences this kind of thing, but it seems a pretty counterproductive thing to post.

</comment><comment><USER34> I like Zed, and appreciate his open source work and his programming books. I think he let himself get a little carried away.

"Taking criticism in stride is just part of quality, and trying to eliminate any criticism of your ideas is a sign of both immaturity and abuse of power."

[http://zedshaw.com/2015/04/05/and-then-you-have-no- taste/](http://zedshaw.com/2015/04/05/and-then-you-have-no-taste/)

</comment><comment><USER35> This post is a prime example of why you should take a deep breath, count to ten, and make sure you _really_ want to post that long rant in a public place online.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm pretty sure I'm here for reasons other than to slander people and it's working out pretty well for me so far, so I don't think the claim that this is a place 'only' for slandering people really holds up. Drawing comparison between HN and some abortion protestors is not really a good way to make a point, either - that's just immature and insensitive.

The whole rambling post seems rather crazy and the OP probably needs some help over the (I'm sure very real) issues he faced several years ago. This isn't a healthy means of dealing with it at all.

<comment><USER17> Yeah... you'll find people being jerks everywhere. Most often, you'll find people being jerks without knowing they're being jerks.

But if it happens to _you_ , then the source is "the cesspool of the internet". I hope Zed knows he's being hyperbolic here, otherwise he's got another thing coming.

<comment><USER37> "..he's got another thing coming."

I am curious about what you think this means?

<comment><USER38> It used to be "he's got another _think_ coming", meaning "he'll have to think again." It's along the lines of "he's had a thought, now there will be another thought coming."

But it's been mutated by people who never heard the original properly and ended up misquoting it. It's like people who say "to all intensive purposes" when the original, meaningful saying is "to all intents and purposes."

It has become an idiom, an atomic phrase, not to be understood by trying to take it apart and examining the components. This is a common occurrence in linguistics.

Annoys the hell outta me.

<comment><USER39> In the simplest case, the thing referred to is 'a think', and they're entirely equivalent :)

I'd argue that this is more of an Eggcorn[1] than a malapropism, unlike your second example.

"The proof is in the pudding", or the classic "Could care less"[2] are the two worst offenders I can think of immediately.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Does pg run HN or even YC at this point?

Either way, this post applies just as much to any website which allows user content. There were Wordpress blogs calling for false police reports, tumblr and twitter feuds where posters tried to get someone fired (and occasionally succeeded), etc.

HN isn't even particularly bad in this regard or set to personally go after Zed Shaw. He has an account here and is often upvoted through the roof when he posts.

<comment><USER41> Nope. [http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over- hack...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hacker-news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> > Would I have to cost you millions before you decided it wasn't worth it to > run a shitty 1990s forum site just to listen to a bunch of grown men > complain about another grown man's choice of hobby while they jerk their > tiny puds at fake tits MILF porn?

Funny that this is a sentence in a paragraph titled "So Mature, Right?".

</comment><comment><USER43> I guess sometimes you have to act with such a personality to prove a point. It gets to a point though where you can't tell if it's pure ego or a form of expression; similar to how I would view Kanye West.

Any jokes aside, I highly respect and am thankful for what Zed has contributed to tech, but I'm not seeing the point of this post. People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given. Anything with user generated content is hard to moderate, and gets harder to moderate with popularity.

The message behind the curtain, negativity, tone, and ego is good but probably a fantasy. This is simply the world we live in.

I actually don't see too much insults on HN. They are usually voted out on to the bottom, and if anything you do get an allergic, hyper-analytical observation on posts as comments that seem offensive but that's simply how some nerds are (I say this in both jest and pride). Through back and forth some people own up to their comments as mistakes and it's pleasant to see that maturation.

It's quite a marvelous thing to see what we have here. It's more of an example of human nature than anything, and the contrast between HN and Reddit is an interesting study of itself.

Is hacker news the problem or the way people choose to behave and communicate?

TL;DR Just be nice to people. Try not to let trolls get under your skin. Put your ego aside.

<comment><USER20> _> People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given._

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. It's a given because people allow it to happen.

This is a reason I will spend some of my time thumping the occasional troll or bully around here--I realize it won't change them, but there are far more readers for the troll to hurt than trolls to reply to. I've gotten emails from readers thanking me for not letting the sort of crypto-racist or crypto-sexist or openly poor-hating rhetoric that festers around here go without refutation; I'd do it without that, but that reinforces to me the necessity of not letting shitty people do shitty things without opposition.

 _> if anything you do get an allergic, hyper-analytical observation on posts as comments that seem offensive but that's simply how some nerds are (I say this in both jest and pride)_

You seem to be invested in excusing horrible behavior because " _that_ 's how X is." No, that's how X is now, and excusing poisonous behavior (including, as it happens, Zed's) is tacit encouragement thereof. There is a powerful need to make the world not be the _that_ you feel compelled to excuse. if we're going to have a healthy future, and if you're a decent person it falls upon you to speak up and refuse the broken, mean status quo in which we continually simmer. You may not have asked for the nomination, but you cannot refuse it-- for it is vital to be good in the face of small evils as well as in the face of large ones.

Excusing common reprehensibility because it is common is complicity. Don't do that.

<comment><USER43> Good point. I commend you. Thanks. I'll try to do better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I try not to use shortcuts like this, but I'm always very wary of vitriolic posts that address the founder of a site with "Dear <first name>", thanks to Something Awful: [http://www.somethingawful.com/news/annotated-dear- richard/](http://www.somethingawful.com/news/annotated-dear-richard/) It's happened so many times over there that it became cliche, as that post indicates.

</comment><comment><USER45> > I mean fuck man we all know HN "hackers" flat refuse to buy anything except > porn, lube, and prosthetic dildos to compensate for their teeny tiny > weenies.

I feel slandered. Should I write a post and threaten the OP to cause millions of damages to him until he closes his blog?

</comment><comment><USER46> Judging from his previous rants, Zed tends to overreact to things and blow out of proportion. Idiot commentors are everywhere, you don't just shutdown the community because of that. Other than that seems like a great guy.

<comment><USER47> Don't forget that celebrity can work both ways -- positive and negative. Just saying it is hard to tell if someone is overreacting without more information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this guy understand that HN is user-submitted content? It's like reading complaints from an old-man the first time he uses the Internet and comes across something offensive.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I'm pretty sure that zedshaw, who has been an HN user for much longer than you have, understands how it works. Now why don't you try reading the piece under the assumption that he isn't a moron?

<comment><USER7> Well the other conclusion that you have to come to is that he thinks he should not be allowed to be criticized on the Internet, which is pretty naive. The same thing could happen on reddit, 4chan, etc.

<comment><USER48> Well as long as we're setting the bar so high...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I worry about Zed. He's obviously a very bright guy, a very helpful guy, and a very productive guy. But, he also seems to be dealing with a lot of pain.

It's true that the Internet hate machine focuses on Zed a lot more often than many in his position (as he notes, he isn't powerful, he isn't wealthy, he is merely nerd famous), and I'm uncomfortable with that and don't support that. I like to see the hate machine directed exclusively at powerful, or at least evil, people. Someone like Zed, as we can see from his response, can be genuinely hurt by it. And, that's unfortunate. He doesn't deserve to experience this pain, regardless of how angry or upset his tone or approach can make some folks feel.

That said, Zed's not doing himself or anyone else any favors with public meltdowns like this (this is not the first, though it may be the worst). I don't believe HN is anywhere near the worst offender, with regard to personal attacks and similar being tolerated. In fact, I can't think of a site that is more pro-active about excising personal attacks. However, sometimes there is a bit of a blind spot when personal attacks are directed at someone "famous". I don't remember any of the negative posts Zed is talking about; and I've been using HN since _very_ early, and far more regularly than is healthy. I don't know what he's talking about; what he describes is a massive, orchestrated effort to defame and insult Zed Shaw, with many participants.

I don't know how I could be so completely oblivious to something on such a scale. So, one of us is imagining the scale of the problem. It is either vanishingly small (compared to other sites with user content), as I see it, or it is the predominant tone of the site, as Zed sees it. It really can't be both. Since the reality of the site I see is so very different from the reality of the site Zed sees, I find it hard to be sympathetic to his plea for reform. I want to be sympathetic, and I don't want to deny Zed's lived experience. But, reading what he's written and making that fit into my own reality of HN just isn't working.

Finally, the tone of this rant is so far beyond acceptable that I'm even less inclined to sympathy or empathy. What he accuses HN, and pg, of doing (that I'm really finding hard to believe without references), he is _actively doing_ in this rant. This is an attack on every HN user, in addition to pg. I'm not particularly bothered by it; I've been on the Internet a long time, and I don't take any of this shit personally. And, I imagine pg is not terribly bothered by it (and he can wipe any tears away with one of his hundreds of millions of dollars). But, Zed _is_ definitely making it personal.

I have never wished Zed anything other than the best. But, this rant does make me think maybe both he and I would be happier if he took a break from the Internet for a while.

And, on that note, have I just completely missed seemingly years of sustained and intense Zed hatred on HN or is Zed imagining that it is far more pervasive than it really is?

</comment><comment><USER50> Something about penises?

Seriously, that's an impressive number of phallic references. Something on your mind?

</comment><comment><USER51> "Man who feels he is subject of slanderous ad hominem attack decides to retaliate with baseless ad hominem attacks, more at 11..."

</comment><comment><USER52> I only know of Zed because of HN. I'm aware that there are controversies about him, but overall I have a positive impression of him.

Just goes to show that other people probably don't think as much about oneself as oneself is prone to think.

</comment><comment><USER53> wait, he's upset cause something got posted to HN? why is he upset with Paul? That's like someone getting the shits with Gutenberg because a newspaper printed something.

<comment><USER54> It's more like being mad at the owner of a particular newspaper for allowing/turning a blind eye to/actively encouraging certain kinds of content to be printed in said newspaper.

Your analogy would fit if Zed was directing his post at the creator of the "online forum" in general.

<comment><USER53> ahh good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I still don't understand HN's algo. The current 1st post has 301 points in 7 hrs while this post has 301 points in 3 hours but is in the second page ??

<comment><USER56> Posts like this get massive upvotes but they also get massive flags. The upvotes make the post go up and the flags make it go down. That's what happened here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Zed, after reading this (and reading a few of your other posts) I can't help but be drawn to the honesty you put into your writing and the honesty you put out into the world. I really value that in a person. Though conversely, I can't help but feel that I'd take your advice with a grain of salt (which I think is healthy for almost EVERY piece of advice...but more-so with yours).

</comment><comment><USER58> Do things. Tell people. Ignore the hate.

I know it's hard. There are people out there who will make you regret ever making/doing something and sharing it with the community.

Like my dawg Kanye West said, "...usually when you're the absolute best, you get hated on the most.'

</comment><comment><USER59> Is HN a thing that can be abusive? This is a serious question. Don't say yes or no yet.

As far as I understand it: _people_ are abusive. Places, or groups, can only _allow_ for abuse, perhaps systematically, but cannot abuse anyone by themselves. On the other hand, places, or groups, can _prevent_ abuse themselves. (I'll get to that in a moment.)

In this case, specific people choose to act badly toward Mr. Shaw, anonymously. I would think they would continue to do this in a different venue, if their ability to do it on HN were removed. (By stating this, I'm trying to short-circuit all the talk of whether HN is a place that incentivizes or disincentivizes such talk by banning people, etc. In the end, it doesn't seem to matter if such talk is discouraged _on HN_ ; the talk will still be generated somewhere else, and will percolate around the internet until it reaches Mr. Shaw all the same.)

On the other hand, HN could help Zed figure out who is anonymously slandering him. HN could put him in touch with these people. They would probably stop after even a plain small-talk conversation, due to having generated even a shred of empathy for the man.

But is this HN's responsibility? Maybe! Right now HN is just barely moderated at all, and even that's a step up from when it was pg's hobby that he had no time for.

HN would be a very different place if it was trying to behave in a "role model" fashion toward the tech community. Maybe you'd have to tie your (long- lived, active) Facebook/LinkedIn profile to your (thus forced-to-be-unique) account, which the mods would then see even though you'd then get a choice of pseudonym. Maybe "throwaway accounts" would only be a temporary privilege granted by asking a mod to make one for you in an exceptional circumstance, and only exist within one post-thread. Etc.

I can certainly see ways in which HN could be systematically less _tolerant_ of abusive behavior—trying to stop it at the source, rather than just making it go somewhere else. But is this a fight YC wants to fight?

I could see this ending with HN being handed over to its own community under some foundation, because YC doesn't want to take responsibility for shepherding the tech community in the way I'm talking about. I could also see YC think that doing exactly what I said above would be a great PR move. What I can't see is HN being shut down: if it was, everyone here would just flock to another place (Lobste.rs?) and continue to be the same community.

<comment><USER60> _" Is HN a thing that can be abusive?"_

Absolutely. In the past I've watched karma burn as much as 30/40 points drop because I made some point that isn't what was expected. That's not the real problem. The real problem is the stream of stupid non helpful and nasty comments.

 _" HN would be a very different place if it was trying to behave in a "role model" fashion toward the tech community."_

Suggested this but what I've realised there is _absolutely_ no way this will happen. THe site has its origin in one person and translated into code where the only metric is an UP or DOWN vote. What that vote means has drifted as the site has added users over the years.

 _" What I can't see is HN being shut down"_

It will just become irrelevant.

<comment><USER23> The real abuse is what happens beyond the walls of this forum. HN has an outsized influence on the startup culture in San Francisco and the tech community across the world. People read things here and it affects how they view the technology they use and the people they interact with.

<comment><USER60> _" HN has an outsized influence on the startup culture in San Francisco and the tech community across the world."_

Difficult to tease apart HN and YC. From the outside HN may look like YC but isn't. Agree though. Didn't use to be like this. Nobody cared.

<comment><USER26> I'd argue that HN and YC used to be a lot more fused in the past than they are today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Ever since he (Zed) was a complete asshole to Bagder (of cURL) I can't take him serious. He is just an abusive asshole with some sort of superiority complex. I would link to the conversation but it was on twitter (so probably gone by now).

</comment><comment><USER62> I think rather alot of people like Zed Shaw and step to his defence.

</comment><comment><USER63> Might we be making the mistake of confusing neglect for malice?

</comment><comment><USER60> _" I would notice that about once every 6 months this video would get posted, and then the HN crowd would call me the worst shit ever."_

That's a problem.

 _" I hate abusive fucks, and right now HN is so abusive and out of control that someone has to do something about it."_

also a problem.

 _" I keep a low profile professionally, and personally because of HN."_

Another problem.

 _" It's now causing more damage than good, and a simple curated news site without comments or with only YC companies commenting is a better option."_

Good solution.

HN really has been dropping in civility. The post quality seems ok and _new_ is broken and can be improved (contact Dan if you have any good ideas) [0]

As for me, when I read about @Zed, a prolific hacker who gives so much away, being pissed-off enough to write this I think I'll spend less time here.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DanBC](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DanBC)

<comment><USER13> Don't contact me! I have nothing to do with HN. I just post a lot. Contact the other Dan, dang, who is a mod and can implement ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> ossreality, FYI you're hellbanned. All of your comments are dead.

<comment><USER13> Did you read the comments? It's pretty obvious why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Who's Paul?

<comment><USER66> Sad to see this downvoted, because Paul's full name is never mentioned in the article and someone who is using HN mainly as a news aggregator and doesn't know the full extent of YC probably never heard of Paul Graham in the first place. Get your shit together HN people.

<comment><USER15> I think that's a good litmus test to see how new you are on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I'm surprised he didn't get worked up to the point where he challenged any particular HN poster to a fight, or just any _hater_ HN regular in general. He got close on some occasions, but never all the way.

</comment><comment><USER68> Lets look at some of Zed Shaw's comments.

 _I hate abusive fucks, and right now HN is so abusive and out of control that someone has to do something about it._

I've just looked at his blog and it is full of insults and slurs about other people.

He's a hypocrite.

 _Currently the most popular way to slander someone on HN is to create a "throwaway" or "anon" account, say what you want, then slink off into the shadows like a weak limp dicked little loser._

 _I mean fuck man we all know HN "hackers" flat refuse to buy anything except porn, lube, and prosthetic dildos to compensate for their teeny tiny weenies._

 _Is it that your balls are so incredibly dirty that you periodically need to have a bunch of grown men come slob away at your scrotum every demo day?_

 _Would I have to cost you millions before you decided it wasn't worth it to run a shitty 1990s forum site just to listen to a bunch of grown men complain about another grown man's choice of hobby while they jerk their tiny puds at fake tits MILF porn?_

He loves to be macho and call people names.

 _You may be chuckling now, but I'd like to point out that one of the reasons most of your moronic baby penis followers hate me is because I wiped out epic amounts of Ruby on Rails with one blog post full of truth._

 _I also have two books that bring in more traffic in a month than probably all the traffic your bottom 80% startups bring in during a whole year._

 _What if I started offering to advise new coders, the millions I teach a year (yes, millions Paul) to avoid all of your company's startups?_

He's a narcissist.

 _I'm not physically afraid of the idiots there. I bet most of them start breathing hard when their fingers break 100WPM on their fancy "hacker" sticker coated MacBooks._

From another post of his: _I'll add one more thing to the people reading this: I mean business when I say I'll take anyone on who wants to fight me. You think you can take me, I'll pay to rent a boxing ring and beat your fucking ass legally. Remember that I've studied enough martial arts to be deadly even though I'm old, and I don't give a fuck if I kick your mother fucking ass or you kick mine. You don't like what I've said, then write something in reply but fuck you if you think you're gonna talk to me like you can hurt me.

I'll never be afraid of some pilsner fresh fat fuck who eats donut hamburgers and only gets exercise when he plays World of Warcraft on a DDR pad._

He's a thug.

 _Because after 7 years of abuse I've had to adjust my life around the raving fucking idiots on HN and the rampant abusive shit they say._

That would happen in any community he participated in.

.

I don't know why people like a person like this. He seems to be poison to most people around him. A person who will beat you into disability if you say anything that doesn't support him or you look at him the wrong way.

He may have written some things that are moderately popular, but still his behavior is harmful. A murderer does not get excused because of the work they do.

So I still don't get it. Why do people like him?

<comment><USER56> This post actually does cross the line into being a personal attack. We don't need character assassination attempts in this thread or any other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> > Currently the most popular way to slander someone on HN is to _create a > "throwaway" or "anon" account_ , say what you want, then slink off into the > shadows like a _weak limp dicked little loser_

> undescended nerd testicles

> your balls are so incredibly dirty

> their tiny puds

> your moronic baby penis followers

> their teeny tiny weenies

> men with tiny little mosquito penises

Well, from the horse's mouth: [http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zMZZPiJrBo0/maxresdefault.jpg](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zMZZPiJrBo0/maxresdefault.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER70> This article speaks at the heart of online bullying and how mediums such as HN promote it even without being aware of it it seems.

I am quite saddened that persons such as jacquesm[1] who are otherwise respectful individuals want to shove a fist in the mouth of persons who have been victims of bullying (such as he does on this thread).

And this post has disappeared from the front page in less than an hour. I am disappointed by the HN community reaction.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm)

<comment><USER26> Since you feel the need to address me by name:

I think you're mistaken about my intent, besides, calling Zed the 'victim of bullying' is in a way humorous given that Zed has personally driven a couple of good contributors away from HN.

I don't think leaving this post up does Zed any favours, it shows him as caustic, uncivil and downright hostile. For a professional that translates into 'hiring risk', and that's something Zed probably does not need more of.

Feel free to be disappointed but my memory regarding Zed's interaction with others on HN is definitely not lacking in resolution.

Zed is a fantastically productive programmer that is super sensitive to criticism of any kind and will come out swinging with all manner of insults whenever he perceives one of the conspiracies against him (for which I have yet to see proof), and this blog post is a nice example of that. It's a pity that Zed feels the need to periodically tear down the reputation he's building for himself but that seems to be his nature, this is just a re-run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Maybe I spent to much time on 4chan. As in, any time at all. But, I was more than a bit moved when I heard moot claim "People deserve a place to be wrong."

I believe that arguing is a tremendously important and valuable activity. So much so that I'd argue that even tired old arguments with idiots and assholes are worth revisiting occasionally because sometimes, on rare and special occasions, idiots/assholes have something to teach you. Not nearly as often as they like to think. But, sometimes.

Usually they don't. Usually their arguments are ill-formed, confusing, irritating, a bit scary, pretty-surely not worth the emotional investment required to confront. But, if you don't occasionally perform a genuine check on your assumption that the assholes are also idiots, you shouldn't continue to confidently move forward acting on that assumption.

I think that HN is incredibly valuable. I think it still has a fine mixture of inspirational and questionable criticism. Not a homogeneous, consistent, reliable mix, but a fine mix nonetheless. But also, not a mix that is effortlessly self-sustaining, certainly.

And so, even though I disagree with him, I'd like to thank Zed for making the personal expenditure to call out HN on some of it's bullshit. He's on the receiving end of more criticism than most. Whether that criticism is inspirational or questionable is a good question... Either way, although that's a downside that should be expected from his, let's say, 'unusual' and highly public style, expected doesn't mean easy. I certainly have no idea.

So, thanks anyway Zed, you magnificent asshole, for checking your assumption. Here's hoping you find it in you to continue checking until you learn something.</comment>


A proposal for a perfect CMS - <AUTHOR> http://www.haykranen.nl/2015/07/08/perfect-cms/

<comment><USER2> There is no 1 CMS that works for everything - it's impossible and that's why 230+ exist - everyone has they're own idea how it should work / look and be implemented - exactly the same reason there is no 1 web programming language or framework.

When I freelance; when I have to build a new site for my day job - this is exactly what I tell my customer / boss:

"This is Wordpress. This is how it looks out of the box, this is what I can make it look like and this is what the Admin panel looks like. It costs X to implement and will take X hours to do so.

"This is my custom CMS. It's written in pure PHP (no PHP frameworks used) and based on the Twitter Bootstrap framework. The reason no PHP frameworks are used is so any PHP programmer can come in and pick up where I left off. Every single page of the CMS is custom coded to the front end page it controls and nothing exists that doesn't need to be there. My custom CMS has been in development for years; constantly improving it as I've grown as a programmer; it's very easy to use and well documented. It costs X to implement and takes X hours to do so."

"How do you want to proceed?"

My custom is usually double the hours and double the fees - I explain everything; show past examples of both and let them decide.

If your not customizing a CMS to the customers needs (be it wordpress or your own home grown) your not providing a great product, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no perfect CMS for everybody.

Sometimes, there is software that solves a particular problem particularly well.

For example, it would be relatively straightforward to design a CMS/site builder that was really great for creating landing pages. It might not do ecommerce at all. If you want ecommerce, it sucks. If you want landing pages, it is amazing.

There are TONS of CMS's out there that do just that. They don't always call themselves CMS's anymore. Think Shopify, Unbounce, and even Hubspot. Under the covers, they are generating web pages and making it easier to manage a particular kind of content. None of them markets themselves as a CMS.</comment>


Show HN: Enroller.in – Host your admission portal - <AUTHOR> http://enroller.in/a/features.html <comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear your views on the page and what changes I should do to increase conversion.</comment>


Inside the mind of an autistic savant - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126881.800-inside-the-mind-of-an-autistic-savant.html?full=true&print=true <comment><USER2> for a contrary look: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=412355> link: <http://infopractical.livejournal.com/77298.html></comment>


Squirt.io – Readability Meets Spritz Speed Reading - <AUTHOR> http://www.squirt.io <comment><USER3> What I noticed using this to read a couple Ars Technica articles was it worked really well for short words. But, if a longer complicated word appeared, at say 600 wpm, I would miss it. It seems like an adaptive algorithm based on word length would improve the speed even more allowing it to go faster on short common words and slow down on longer unusual words.

Also, there is bug that sometimes causes two words to appear at once. Sometimes they are overlapping vertically which is basically impossible to read. Try reading [http://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill- agile/](http://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile/) to see what I mean.

<comment><USER4> Slow down on long words would be very helpful, I just tried it with some german news text[1] at 600wpm: Worked great except for words that occured like

        Kinderbetreuungsmöglichkeiten
        US-Geheimdienstausschusses
        Bundestags-Innenausschuss
        Bundeswirtschaftsminister
        Bundesarbeitsministeriums

[1] [http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/nachrichten.353.de.html](http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/nachrichten.353.de.html)

<comment><USER5> Do you think german words like this would benefit from automatic syllable colorization -- slightly changing the shade of grey to make the syllable boundaries more obvious?

<comment><USER4> Not sure. E.g. 'Kinderbetreuungsmöglichkeiten' means 'child care possibilities', that's three words in one. I suppose the brain just needs more time to parse that. But just counting characters to determine delay won't cut it, since 'Mississippi' is quite quick to parse.

<comment><USER6> Couldn't you split compound words so the components appear in sequence? e.g.

Kinder- -betreuungs- -möglichkeiten

<comment><USER7> One could, but most likely one would need a proper morphological analysis[2] to make it work correctly for the endless possibilities to combine words in German. Pretty hard to implement in the browser, but maybe an 80:20 like approach using a good dictionary could help for common terms in combination with slowdown on terms it doesn't know how to split.

[1] for example, one could use wiktionary data and try to extract how to properly separate common terms: [https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schifffahrt](https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schifffahrt)

Edit: [2] German demo of how that usually looks [http://www.tagh.de/demo.php](http://www.tagh.de/demo.php) (not affiliated)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> HN always likes the faster is better, I am a genius absorbing this much information quicker than you. Its been proven over and over that comprehension is way more important than speed of consumption. You guys fool yourselves into believing you can comprehend while reading at breakneck speeds, its way more fun & time saving to be able to imagine, driftaway in thought and understand what you are reading.

<comment><USER9> There isn't that much substance in most blog posts / articles I read online. Of course, I wouldn't use this to read "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach".

<comment><USER10> Agreed. The signal density in many news articles is lower than what you would expect in a journal article or even a novel. This could be a very useful tool there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure this is just a big middle finger to Spritz. In the most hilarious way possible. Or am I misinterpreting the acknowledgments? ;)

<comment><USER12> Uhm, what's the difference between Spritz an Squirt.io? I've looked at both demos and I can't see much difference in the concept. Though the Spritz website is more ... ehm ... bullshit bingo compliant it seems.

Am I assuming right that the joke lies in Spritz being a VC funded startup and squirt.io just a weekend hack?

<comment><USER13> The difference is that I can actually use Squirt.io, today. I like Spritz, but it's useless to me if I can't use it on anything but their site or the email app of the next Samsung phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've never thought much about my reading speed before, but after trying this and finding the deafault setting a bit slow, I decided to compare my natural reading speed.

I was able to read the article I chose in about 85% of the time of the default 400WPM of the bookmarklet (I read the article first with a timer, and then reread with the bookmarklet), which would put me at 470WPM. With Squirt, I was only able to get up to 650WPM before it felt too uncomfortable.

I wonder if people really read one word at a time, especially when they're short words. If people do read more than one word at a time, I think a more intelligent approach might be necessary to really make the experience both comfortable and fast.

<comment><USER15> > I wonder if people really read one word at a time

They don't. I always thought the whole point of speed reading was to ingest multiple words simultaneously.

These speed reading tools should be extended so that they can show multiple words at once rather than one word at a time. A really ambitious improvement would be to automatically recognize very common phrases and constructions and to make an effort to always show those as single groups.

<comment><USER16> For me it depends on the content and my mood. With my app [0] I read at about 5-600wpm, whether it's 1, 2 or 3 words at a time. If I'm having trouble with a particular article, changing the number of words often fixes it. Though of course, for some content, I need to drop the WPM (esp when there's a lot of technical and/or unfamiliar terms).

[0][https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hughesoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hughesoft.speedy)

<comment><USER17> Good point! The tool should create a reading difficulty score and only offer selecting wpm, if it's beneficial.

Readability tests:

        * Accelerated Reader ATOS
        * Automated Readability Index (ARI)
        * Coleman-Liau Index
        * Dale-Chall Readability Formula
        * Flesch-Kincaid readability tests:
            * Flesch Reading Ease
            * Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
        * Fry Readability Formula
        * Gunning-Fog Index
        * Lexile Framework for Reading
        * Linsear Write
        * LIX
        * Raygor Estimate Graph
        * SMOG (Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook)
        * Spache Readability Formula

Tool: [https://readability-score.com/](https://readability-score.com/) Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test#Readability_te...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test#Readability_tests)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I tried using it on a github wiki page, and it broke because github wouldn't load the external javascript. So I copied the text and made a local html file. That didn't work because of these errors:

Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND file://www.squirt.io/bm/font- awesome.css Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND file://www.squirt.io/bm/squirt.css 62 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'style' of null squirt.js:10 48 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'style' of null

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's hosted on github pages right now, and they don't do SSL. It's one many, many, many things I'd like to fix about Squirt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'll also shamelessly plug my open source implementation, OpenSpritz, which now has a healthy and vibrant community!

[https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz](https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz)

as well as the Android / Google Glass companion:

[https://github.com/OnlyInAmerica/OpenSpritz- Android](https://github.com/OnlyInAmerica/OpenSpritz-Android)

<comment><USER20> Your bookmarklet never worked right for me. It wouldn't start. I'd select WPM and.. nothing. On latest chrome. Just FYI.

<comment><USER17> same here, with Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This project may consider a name-change, as googling for this after it's gone from the HN homepage will trigger ... interesting results. Especially if you're trying to show this to a co-worker in the office.

Note to my boss: I'm sorry!

<comment><USER22> I believe that is part of the whole knock against spritz. In German, where some of the founding members of Spritz are from, spritz means a similar thing that squirt does in American culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's fun to see these ideas multiply and combine, but experts on reading comprehension seem to think RSVP didn't work even back in the 70s when it was being first tested:

[http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/not-so-fast-speed- read...](http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/not-so-fast-speed-reading-app- fails-convince-experts-n46411)

Comprehension was worse than skimming, apparently. I can see this as a thing to flash headlines/latest news to you but anything longer than a sentence or two... not so sure.

<comment><USER24> I'm the creator of Acceleread, which is a reading trainer app for iOS. [http://www.acceleread.com](http://www.acceleread.com)

Your point about comprehension is super important and often gets overlooked, so I wanted to add my 2 cents.

While the RSVP method seems to being used as a proxy for all things speed reading, it's really only one part of the picture. RSVP is definitely faster (because eye movements take time) and particularly good for people with learning disabilities like dyslexia (because the tool isolate words), but there are trade-offs.

For one, saccades (the normal eye movements you make while reading) give your mind time to process the information. You need that. Secondly, RSVP tends to lead to repetition blindness, so you can miss repeated words, which changes your understanding. Also, people tend to zone out after a while of staring at one point. All of these aspects underpin overall comprehension and show where RSVP falls short. Where RSVP shines is for short bursts of text (as the article states) and also for learning to read words in groups rather than individually, which is really really useful.

But back to my original point, speed reading isn't just RSVP. It's a collection of techniques that together help you read more effectively. Honestly, it probably shouldn't be called "speed reading" at all - it's what naturally strong readers already do. You solve for speed, comprehension and retention.

You start with the mechanics (learning to read words in groups, strengthening eye muscles, improving concentration etc) so that you aren't getting hung up on bad habits, and then assess how well you understand and remember content. In fact, when you learn to read in this way, you don't even need the tools like RSVP and moving highlighters. Yes, they are useful training wheels, but you'll already read that way anyway. You also won't be tied to one service or medium.

Believe me, I find the hyped-up, late-night infomercial, eat-cake-get-thin approach really off-putting too, in fact it's one of the reasons I made Acceleread in the first place, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Using a "let me google that for you" link on the problem with software patents seems unnecessary. Why imply your users are lazy? At first I thought the contrast between "whose patents are pending" and that link was a great bit of commentary, but that link was an unexpected slap. I was expecting an EFF link.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops—did not wake up wanting to slap you :) My thought was more along the lines of "if you're not aware that this is a problem, here's a list of big/obvious headlines to pick from, or just walk away with the sense that there is an active conversation about the issue"

<comment><USER26> I clicked the first link and wasn't convinced. Surely you would want to find the most convincing article that you could find and link to that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would. Do you have one top of mind?

<comment><USER27> [http://endsoftpatents.org](http://endsoftpatents.org) perhaps?

<comment><AUTHOR> I need something that Yogi Bear would understand :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Really like it. The only downside is that you have no idea how far along in the article you are. Would be nice if there was a % complete shown somewhere.

<comment><USER29> You would have to move your eyes to check it.

<comment><USER30> It should be possible to change the color of the selected letter to indicate where you are on the page. Alternate option could be to position the word on the (current) vertical line to indicate where you are on the whole page. I'd like to believe that if the text is reasonable amount- the transition for either would be gradual.

Hoping the open source fairy sprinkles some dust on this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'd really like to see this model with an adaptive speed. Same speed for all the words isn't always the best.

Maybe using an n-gram model to predict how probable the next word is, could pass high probability phrases at a faster rate, while slowing down for "harder" words

<comment><USER32> There's a good Google Books dataset for doing exactly that, and you can doing something in Hive to get you the lowest-entropy n-grams (with something like [https://github.com/lsb/text- entropy/blob/master/passphrase-s...](https://github.com/lsb/text- entropy/blob/master/passphrase-safety.hiveql) ), and then you can the low- entropy n-grams into a Bloom filter (like [http://www.leebutterman.com/passphrase-safety/how-it- works.h...](http://www.leebutterman.com/passphrase-safety/how-it-works.html) ) and your enormous corpus gets fitted into a few dozen megs of memory.

(That sounds like a cool idea, hit me up if you're game for hacking on something like that)

<comment><USER31> I've been using n-grams heavily in my PhD. I like a lot what you are describing. Also a simple extension is to use "cache" n-gram models, that can naively simulate longer-term "memory".

What's fascinating is that in the entropy/information-theoretic sense, instead of using wpm, one could aim for "constant" information rate of reading (as in bits/token). That's really cool as a concept. I don't know if it would work, obviously.

I'd definitely be up to for hacking this up, but currently a bit too busy. Will ping you at some point though!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome to fork it! [http://www.github.com/cameron/squirt](http://www.github.com/cameron/squirt). Would love to see such an implementation

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I always plug the same site on these threads. www.zapreader.com/reader I use that several times a week to get through lengthy articles. What I really want is something that shows all the text in the background kind of blurred out. The words should still flash on screen but with a keyboard shortcut I can make that disappear and have the word I was on hi lighted. I would like the text in the background to scroll while it is blurred out and I'm speed reading. That way if there is an image or diagram I can quickly shift back to normal reading. Or if I just need to re-read a section. Then using only keystrokes have it resume blasting the words on screen.

</comment><comment><USER34> Similar to what I did with the chrome extension Spree [1]. Though I find your pauses on periods to be a bit much. Code for Spree available on github [2]. The IIFE in spree.js can also function as a bookmarklet.

Also, Spree doesn't walk to an element's parent, which usually keeps it from getting into JS and ads, while still reading all of, say, a news article.

On another tack, quite a lovely site.

1\. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spree/aehoaolhojlm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spree/aehoaolhojlmaidnfkhdghceloolfojk)

2\. [https://github.com/wpears/spree](https://github.com/wpears/spree)

<comment><USER35> I really like the way this works - much less disruptive to jump in and out.

Any reason you cap WPM at 666, and always default to 400wpm? I want to go fasterrrr :)

edit: I made my branch do this, are you interested in contributions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Great stuff - thanks for sharing.

One note: when I drag the bookmarklet from the Install page to my toolbar, then try to use it on a page on my [http://localhost/](http://localhost/) (a dev site, for ex.), it (a) does what I expected it to do, but then (b) forwards me to [http://localhost/install.html](http://localhost/install.html) when it is finished. When I browse an actual domain-based site, it gives me the nice "You just read..." message at the end. It would be nice if both local and remote sites had the same experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Welcome to my smelly code! It's supposed to go to /install on squirt.io--and also localhost for my own dev purposes. It's a bit of a hack, but saves me from maintaining two bookmarklets. Are you a publisher? Trying to embed it on your blog/site?

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the reply. Not a publisher - I just happened to be coding on my own local site in another tab. That was the first place I tried it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I feel like it ruins the cadence, in my head anything I read with this sounds like it's coming from a robot.

<comment><USER34> You're quite correct that cadence is diminished, though that can be mitigated by adding a delay to each word based on its length.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is, in fact, a delay based on word characteristics, but it's not just length that matters, it's the uniqueness of a word's shape. Spritz has a nice blog post on the topic: [http://www.spritzinc.com/blog/](http://www.spritzinc.com/blog/).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'd be much more interested in a solution that effectively minimizes the text or uses another technique about speed reading (like diagonals, etc).

The reason why I won't be using this service is simply because it makes the eye lazier. My eyes are already lazy enough because I am in front of the computer 12+ hours a day, so my eyes muscles need movement. Staring at one point for long time can also cause side effects like losing the sense of space and time. Staring at one point is often used as hypnotizing during different kind of therapies.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am not sure that I get the point of this. When I read a long piece, I try to enjoy it. Imagine the same approach being used to "fix" food or sex in the name of efficiency.

<comment><USER39> I think the use case for this is the reading we do because we need to consume the information as quickly as possible rather than the reading we're doing for pleasure. Not that the two are mutually exclusive by any means.

I love reading but, particularly online, I'll often need to read something which contains a lot of information I need but isn't written in a style I particularly enjoy reading. For these, I can see the benefit of tools like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> There's a bug that I can't really fathom:

when reading this paragraph:

"The WEIRD mind also appears to be unique in terms of how it comes to understand and interact with the natural world. Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world. While studying children from the U.S., researchers have suggested a developmental timeline for what is called "folkbiological reasoning." These studies posit that it is not until children are around 7 years old that they stop projecting human qualities onto animals and begin to understand that humans are one animal among many. Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood."

it seems to stop displaying words directly after the U.S., string. I had to restart it after that.

Another note: words that contain hyphens or em dashes are not tokenized so you get huge words that are impossible to read at speed.

</comment><comment><USER41> While the idea is nice, I'd rather not use a bookmarklet that tracks me through a unique ID across websites and not only keeps a list of pages that I used it on, but also of pages that I _came from_ : [https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/bm/squirt.js...](https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/bm/squirt.js#L549)

</comment><comment><USER42> I've tried several of these, and I really think jetzt [https://github.com/ds300/jetzt](https://github.com/ds300/jetzt) is the best one. It has a progress bar, keyboard shortcuts, and I particularly like the way it wraps words in enclosing elements - like quotations and parentheses - when the word being displayed is within the enclosure.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is lovely, but how do I adjust the default WPM? I want to use more than 400, and having to adjust it each time is very annoying.

<comment><USER44> Just tap the WPM and it'll give you options

<comment><USER45> I think the parent wants to be able to set a default instead of having to select it each time.

<comment><USER46> Edit dispatch('squirt.wpm', {value: 400, notForKeen: true});

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Eh... I was one of the many developers that had the same idea to write a bookmarklet/extension implementation of Spritz. I completed something functional (a few hours of coding for any JS dev) and then discovered that there were at least a dozen repos in Github for the exact same purpose. Plus I realized I just couldn't get used to reading this way, so I gave up to focus on my job + other side projects.

Quite frankly this is a pretty lazy implementation. It doesn't even slow down for long words, and the highlighted letter is too far to the left most of the time. But the snazzy .io page and sleek interface probably will do way more for the tool's popularity than actually improving features, so kudos to the Author for the smart marketing.

I'm rooting for the open source versions.

</comment><comment><USER48> I prefer the UI of OpenSpritz, and it's open-source and MIT licensed, as opposed to this project which has no license. [https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz](https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz)

<comment><USER49> What does it mean when a project publishes it's source but doesn't list a license? Does that mean that it is essentially copy-write of the owner completely? Is there an implied license by sharing the source on GitHub?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I installed this on my browser bar and hasn't worked for cnn.com, highlighting specific text on cnn.com, medium.com. It worked on techcrunch...what about the HTML of the previous sites renders Squirt unusable?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question! I'll be investigating that shortly...

<comment><USER51> I checked the console and it has to do with HTTPS. When I try to use Squirt on a HTTPS site I get this error in the console: "[blocked] The page at '[https://medium.com/p/cad4a8df73cf'](https://medium.com/p/cad4a8df73cf') was loaded over HTTPS, but ran insecure content from '[http://www.squirt.io/bm/squirt.js'](http://www.squirt.io/bm/squirt.js'): this content should also be loaded over HTTPS."

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed as of tonight, though you'll have to reinstall your bookmarklet :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Nice layout for this one, a tad better than OpenSpritz.

One issue: numbers with points get split up, which is very confusing. E.g. 16.4 becomes 16. and then 4.

Another issue: It sometimes starts reading out script code, e.g. here. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/03/05/amazons- wa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/03/05/amazons-war-on- germanys-18-billion-patriarch/)

One feature request: Keyboard shortcuts to pause and maybe to step back or "zoom" out to see the whole last/current sentence before continuing.

</comment><comment><USER53> I found that while I could read and gather individual meaning from sentences that I couldn't grasp the meaning of an entire article from this. They all seemed disjoined somehow. My mind wasn't able to pause to digest what a sentence meant and how it linked back to the paragraph I was reading and the article as a whole. By seeing the entire article my mind starts to make connections between paragraphs and then to the entire article. With seeing a single word at a time this was lost.

Also I found it hard to follow sentences between brackets for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER54> Love it, I can't wait for an ePub reader though, got so many books I'd love to fly through, though novels for pleasure I think I'd read normally as I enjoy stopping and rereading passages.

<comment><USER55> This one has basic ePub support [https://github.com/OnlyInAmerica/OpenSpritz- Android](https://github.com/OnlyInAmerica/OpenSpritz-Android)

<comment><USER54> Awesome thanks for that! Brilliant simple app, does just what I wanted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Why does each user need to be given an ID? How private is this?

<comment><USER57> It uses keen.io for analytics, and it might even store the URL you're visiting. You'd better not use this if you're concerned about your privacy: [https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/js/io.js#L65...](https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/js/io.js#L65-L74)

<comment><USER41> In fact, it tracks whenever you use it and sends the URL along with all GET parameters of the page that you are browsing, including the referrer(!), your user agent and your IP to Keen.io: [https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/bm/squirt.js...](https://github.com/cameron/squirt/blob/gh- pages/bm/squirt.js#L549)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I've been using the Spreed Chrome extension ([http://goo.gl/ki49wl](http://goo.gl/ki49wl)) for about a week. They've recently added an orange focal letter (much like Spritz's red one) in that time.

Squirt has a cool UI and works across browsers, but I like Spreed's ability to see progress as I read and the keyboard shortcuts. Looking forward to seeing this tech pop up more and more and evolve!

</comment><comment><USER59> I find that i'm not visualizing what I'm reading nearly as effectively. I think contextual clues of seeing words "in place" may be underrated.

</comment><comment><USER60> Looks pretty cool. Personally prefer the Read [1] chrome extension approach, as it has a minimal UI and sits on top of the page. Also, think the red color is slightly distracting, when north of 700 WPM.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read/aiijjeoekhpdp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read/aiijjeoekhpdpfcnejiganpaaacdodko)

</comment><comment><USER61> Small complaint. The following URL doesn't work:

[http://squirt.io/](http://squirt.io/)

You should modify your apache/iis config to account for this. I'd much rather type "squirt.io" in my browser address bar than "www.squirt.io".

But kudos to you for a wonderful product. This will replace the JS I've been using for the same purpose.

</comment><comment><USER62> amazing. My feature request is PDF functionality. thanks for making this.

<comment><USER63> Upvote. Please give me a way to use this to read academic papers!

<comment><USER64> I'm working on it — [https://github.com/j6k4m8/squirt- academic](https://github.com/j6k4m8/squirt-academic)

But I won't really be able to dig in until after this weekend. Feel free to contribute, PR, list requests, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> lots of neat (and hopefully useful) things that can be added! i guess that's what OSS is for hehe.

-blink detection (using a webcam or forward facing camera?) to pause while your eyes are closed?

-hold-to-pause or hold-to-spritz button, and show context (+- a few lines) when not spritz-ing?

-point of focus slides slowly across the screen, to exercise those extraocular muscles

</comment><comment><USER66> I like the idea however it could do with filtering out HTML and Javascript.

Most pages I've tried it on so far without manually selecting text it goes through a bunch of javascript before getting to the content. That may be my bad the way I'm using it but as the site mentions readability I figured it'd chuck it through that first

<comment><AUTHOR> It uses readability if you don't make a selection. The selection logic is pretty dumb, and could use some help. Thanks for pointing this out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Awesome, I've looking for something like this for ages! Needs a bit of tuning, though. Fails when reading this article on Chrome 33 for Linux: [http://aphyr.com/posts/311-clojure-from-the-ground-up- logist...](http://aphyr.com/posts/311-clojure-from-the-ground-up-logistics)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you--added to the "problem URL" list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Awesome idea, thanks for making & sharing!

I tried it on [http://blog.eventjoy.com/post/79387694078/how-we- restarted-o...](http://blog.eventjoy.com/post/79387694078/how-we-restarted- our-company-in-two-weeks-during-y) but it choked/stopped once it came across the first linked.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the bug report! Will look into it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm not able to get the bookmarklet running in Chrome [http://i.imgur.com/4osL2Bp.png](http://i.imgur.com/4osL2Bp.png) \-- albeit I do have a number of extensions running that mainly block lots of stuff, so I suspect one of them is the culprit.

</comment><comment><USER70> How about making the entire text a single line, that scrolls right to left, like a marquee.

With a red marker, like here to mark a single fixed position on screen that the marquee text slides through to guide the eye.

This method would allow processing of local words for context rather than flashing single words.

</comment><comment><USER71> Feedback: The reading stops in the middle of the following link: [http://lifehacker.com/the-truth-about-speed- reading-15425083...](http://lifehacker.com/the-truth-about-speed- reading-1542508398)

</comment><comment><USER72> This is a terrific idea. I was blown away the first time I saw it. I have been able to consistently get high comprehension at 650WPM for general subject matter (ie non-technical articles), and plan on working my way up to 1000. Love it!

</comment><comment><USER73> I love this concept - I hope you can find a way to integrate with Instapaper on iOS!

</comment><comment><USER74> It doesn't work well. Reads out Javascript and side text/ads on websites.

<comment><USER62> highlight the text you want to read and then click the bookmarklet.

<comment><USER75> That doesn't work for me; latest Firefox. I tried a couple of random popular sites,including HN, and it didn't work on all of them.

This is a nice demo, but not a finished product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Just a heads up -- the naked version of your domain (ie squirt.io) does not resolve. Adding the www subdomain does work. Might want to tweak your configuration. I had to double check that I had the right domain...

</comment><comment><USER77> I didn't feel that comfortable about having a bookmark called 'Squirt' in my bookmark bar, so I've renamed it. I was hoping someone would release this though since I saw the app version.

</comment><comment><USER78> I put together a guide to use it with any text on your computer, not just web articles: [https://medium.com/p/cb5aee8b75e3](https://medium.com/p/cb5aee8b75e3)

</comment><comment><USER79> According to this, my current reading speed is about 750 words a minute - <USER2> I have a tendency to be able to skim or "bulk comprehend" sections of non- technical text so that might explain it.

</comment><comment><USER80> small increases in wpm can be easily achieved by beeline[1] it without the drawbacks rsvp has.

[1]>[http://www.beelinereader.com/install](http://www.beelinereader.com/install)

<comment><USER81> Really? It just makes me feel sea-sick. As my eyes scan the words, I can't help the feeling that the colours are changing and staying the same at the same time, it's a most disconcerting optical illusion.

<comment><USER80> anecdotal [1] evidence suggests it works for me, plus it works for me, plus it makes reading long tests more enjoyable and appealing, but I get where you are coming from, it could be a distraction in your case. I guess no size fits all once again.

[1] [http://www.beelinereader.com/challenge](http://www.beelinereader.com/challenge)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Thank you for this! I intend to drop the script on my blog, it might actually improve real reading rates (rather than thousands coming in from a reddit link and jumping ship after <9s ).

<comment><USER83> >> rather than thousands coming in from a reddit link and jumping ship after <9s

I think this probably has more to do with Reddit than you or your blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Services like this could benefit from eye-tracking. It would be ideal if it would pause whenever you look away from the red focus point. Samsung phones already have eye-tracking API.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can you please add 1000-2000wpm? 950 is too slow. Honestly, please.

</comment><comment><USER85> Cool. Is the idea based on any existing studies on the subject?

</comment><comment><USER86> I like this a lot, my only request would be a slightly longer pause at the end of sentences. Right now it pauses on long words so I mentally chunk all that together.

</comment><comment><USER87> Most writing has rhythm, a flow and a beat that is completely obliterated by this tool. If this appeals, why not listen to music via MIDI and speed that up too?

</comment><comment><USER88> This is very well executed. But it doesn't work on HTTPS :\

<comment><USER89> Yes, this (Chrome not allowing the script to be run) is a good thing. The bookmarklet javascript needs to be served over HTTPS and any communication it makes also need to be over SSL. Seriously if you aren't defaulting to HTTPS for your website and or service in 2014 you're doing it wrong. Plain text HTTP needs to go the way of telnet.

<comment><USER90> er.. sorry what? Squirt is using plain text HTTP. This is definitely a bad thing.

From Chrome Dev Tools:

"..was loaded over HTTPS, but ran insecure content from '[http://www.squirt.io/bm/squirt.js'](http://www.squirt.io/bm/squirt.js'): this content should also be loaded over HTTPS."

<comment><USER89> I would have thought that if you read my entire post that I meant that Chrome blocking it is a good thing. I will edit the comment to make that more clear.

<comment><USER91> Why not just replace "[http://"](http://") with "//" in your Bookmarklet code?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I usually find it hard to digest dense information at a pace of 200 wpm or more. Just because you can read fast, doesn't mean you'll think fast.

</comment><comment><USER93> Please make it work with Google Docs (maybe make one of those recently announced Docs add-ons?). I want to read PDFs like that, that I upload to Docs.

</comment><comment><USER94> Funny because when spritz was announced the other day I thought to myself how i would have paid $1-3 for this as a browser plugin.

</comment><comment><USER95> This is the "danger," I suppose, with a simple execution even when backed by substantial science. Easy to copy a UI.

</comment><comment><USER96> Why the fuck are there so many Readability apps coming out now. Why everything on internet is exploding without giving the problem much thought. It's becoming more and more of copycheetahs. Game of 2048 goes multiplier, speed- reading articles are more than 4 suddenly.

Please be of more thoughtful in your creative endeavors. If you are able to produce something like this, you might as well be capable of creating better original ideas.

<comment><USER97> How often is it repeated on HN that ideas are great and important, but implementation is the key? Why is it a problem if there is more than one version of the same concept? What if some people just aren't creative but are great when it comes to execution?

More important, who are you to complain about what other people are making?

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> This is great. To the Developers: please send any DMCA notices to /dev/null so I can use this forever.

</comment><comment><USER99> This is nice but reading speed really isn't my bottleneck when it comes to do things.

</comment><comment><USER100> I'm sorry but I just can't get past the name. Who names any product squirt?

<comment><USER101> Someone who wants to be remembered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> I think this is really fantastic

</comment><comment><USER103> There's also Jetzt, which is a fully-fledged open-source Chrome plugin. It has much better text-selection support and I've found it a better experience to use than both OpenSpritz and Squirt. [https://github.com/ds300/jetzt](https://github.com/ds300/jetzt)

</comment><comment><USER104> I don't think squirt is the best name, it brings bad thoughts to my mind.

</comment><comment><USER105> What's the hurry? Take your time and think what you read, people! :)

</comment><comment><USER106> My feature request would be that it work with the Kindle Cloud Reader.

</comment><comment><USER107> Tried this on several articles, and it was displaying a lot of markup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ick. URLs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> +1 starting from the name

</comment><comment><USER109> I don't know how Spritz can patent the <blink> HTML tag.

</comment><comment><USER110> Aw, I made a chrome extension, but this is better :(

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/grokfaster/ncjhald...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/grokfaster/ncjhaldnadgjkgbcnaobncfeigdcldcb)

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't be sad! Be glad that you're not only seeing opportunity that others find valuable, but you're capable of executing on it :) I've installed your ext, going to give it a whirl and see what I can learn from it. Keep building!

<comment><USER110> Thanks for the kind words :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> Sometimes it displays two words at a time. Otherwise, very cool!

</comment><comment><USER112> the real spritz ;;;;)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritz_(alcoholic_beverage)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritz_\(alcoholic_beverage\))

</comment><comment><USER113> Does anyone know of a speed-reading API another than Spritz?

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I'm using readability's old code (arc90) to extract text, and you can use squirt on any page you like--just embed a link with the same JS as the bookmarklet. If you want a real API, add a github issue ([http://www.github.com/cameron/squirt](http://www.github.com/cameron/squirt)) to remind me--it's on my project bucket list :)

<comment><USER113> Thanks for the reply! I thought Squirt used Spritz technology?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what "Spritz technology" is. RSVP has been around for a long time—it may be that they genuinely added to it with the centering and the red letter and the nice pauses, or it may be that they're trying to patent the equivalent of a one-click purchase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> This is awesome and it works great on iOS's Safari!

<comment><AUTHOR> Dope! Glad you figured that out. I axed the mobile install instructions because bookmarklet installation on mobile is such a mess. I designed it for mobile initially, so the layout should usable, at least.

<comment><USER114> I have to admit I was very surprised it worked so well. I was very skeptical and hopeful when trying it but I'm very glad it does. Thanks for the great work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> Am I really the only one that LOL'd at the name?

</comment><comment><USER116> This is great, but not able to read play books.

</comment><comment><USER117> you are essentially trolling spritz and it's uncool

</comment><comment><USER118> Dude, the name

</comment><comment><USER119> does it work with sites on https?

</comment><comment><USER120> They could not have picked a worse name...

<comment><USER121> On purpose, it is tongue in cheek.</comment></comment>


Obamacare security breach leaks 2,400 Americans' info - <AUTHOR> http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/01/it-begins-first-obamacare-security-breach-leaks-2400-americans-info/

<comment><USER2> Title is misleading. Someone emailed a spreadsheet with IDs (including SSNs apparently) of insurance agents to an individual insurance agent. That's an oops and a process problem, but it's not the kind of "glitch" alleged in the partisan blog.

There are a ton of new web apps being deployed. They will all have bugs. Some of those bugs might be security holes. This isn't any of those. It's just a mistake.

<comment><USER3> Which part of a properly designed system involves storing lists of social security numbers in an Excel spreadsheet in the first place?

Yes, the government employee screwed up by sending this file (in plain text no-less), but why does this file even exist?</comment></comment>


Facebook Moves to Block Ad Transparency Tools - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-blocks-ad-transparency-tools <comment><USER2> I support transparency on this topic but come on. At some point, Facebook was going to block automated simulated click events done via browser extension.</comment>