Researchers propose ways to avoid blackouts with renewable energy (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://news.stanford.edu/2018/02/08/avoiding-blackouts-100-renewable-energy/ <comment><USER2> Mark Jacobson, the author of the study, files libel suits against people who disagree with him.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/2017/11/01/stanford-professor-files-libel-suit-against-leading- scientific-journal-over-clean-energy-claims/?utm_term=.204f291431f6)

<comment><USER3> So at the core of it, the previous paper depended on adding a _lot_ more turbines into existing dams so that they could be burstier, and didn't provide justification for, or even really mention the need for, the ability to add that many turbines.

This got called a "modeling error", which among other things made him mad enough to sue for libel.

Well, quality of legal decisions aside, one of the main points of the new paper is that it's "suggesting several different solutions for stabilizing energy produced with 100 percent clean, renewable sources, including solutions with no added hydropower turbines and no storage in water, ice or rocks."

<comment><USER4> While that may be problematic, it's not nearly as bad as a video that's been making the rounds of a talk that purports to show that nuclear is cheaper than using renewables for 100% CO2-free power.

What the talk actually claims is that nuclear is cheaper than renewables + short term storage (batteries, for example) for 100% CO2-free power. Long term storage, like hydrogen, changes this greatly, as the cost of the short term storage solution is dominated by foolishly using batteries for seasonal load leveling/very rare prolonged outages. It's fascinating to watch the guy in the talk dance around this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is one of those rare posts on hacker news that I'm qualified to reply to (I normally lurk - had to make an account). I work as an expert in power system operations for a national grid.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I want to say that this research is incredibly misleading, particularly when it is presented as 'ways to avoid blackouts'.

What they present is an 'adequacy' model. That means, essentially running an accounting simulation of energy in and energy out. It is what power system engineers refer to as 'copper plate' model, in that it replaces the entire transmission and distribution network with a hypothetical infinite conductor where everything connects to everything else. Such a copper plate would never have a 'blackout' as long as Energy In = Energy Out.

Therein lies the bullshit. Blackouts don't occur just because Energy In =/= Energy out. They are incredibly complicated and nuanced, and often result from multiple minor events cascading into something larger [0].

You need, at a minimum, a steady-state power flow simulation to be able to analyse power system security. Particularly when assessing low inertia power systems (such as the systems proposed in this paper). The fact that the word inertia is not mentioned in a paper advocating high-penetration of wind and solar is a massive red flag (I'm talking, Moroccan palace style large).

I laughed out loud when I read "LOADMATCH runs quickly (e.g., ~2.6 min for a 5-year, 5.3 milliontime-step, simulation on a single Nehalem 5580 3.2 GHz processor)" knowing that it takes around that time to simulate a load flow on the pan-european grid, or around that long to do a basic security assessment on a single country's grid.

I worry that policy makers will be 'informed' by this research and will unknowingly sweep a lot of complexity under the rug until blackouts become more common.

[0] - [https://www.entsoe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/_library/publica...](https://www.entsoe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/_library/publications/ce/otherreports/Final- Report-20070130.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> Reading the Do The Math blog [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu) and Low Tech Magazine [http://lowtechmagazine.com](http://lowtechmagazine.com), the obvious starting point is to consume drastically less.

My experience tells me that reducing consumption from the average American amounts by 50% to 90% is hard for the first 5% because you have to learn new ways of doing things, but then improves quality of life for the next 45% to 85%.

A negligible fraction of Americans have looked past that first 5%, let alone acted on it, but those who have keep finding more ways to improve their lives by reducing more.

<comment><USER7> Not American but I'm slightly moving toward less car. Walking takes time, but it's a systemic relationship, not a linear one.

I wake up earlier: walk or jog twice a day. It's quite relaxing if you have a park nearby, you breath better air, eat less, sleep better, and do more.

comical bonus point: saving the gym membership money.

We should invent an hybrid of modern and vintage. Go back to a lot of crafting (because it is ultra satisfying for your body and mind to have such skills), just no to primitivetechnology levels (not that I have anything against it personally). Keep a bit of modern but do more ourselves and in groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> « a remaining challenge of implementing their roadmaps is that they require coordination across political boundaries »

Maybe it's the main one ?

<comment><USER9> Indeed. Energy is like currency. It has to be under the control of a political authority with complete control over it. At the moment that structure is still the nation state. Once you step outside the nation state you need sufficient geopolitical diversity of supply between nations that you can abandon one if necessary.

As ever you need highly cohesive units, loosely coupled if you want them to be responsive to change.

<comment><USER10> > Energy ... has to be under the control of a political authority with > complete control over it.

Energy has been harvested by plants for millions of years before nation states were a thing. It is nothing like currency, which requires advanced political and technological development to exist as we have it today as a form of electronic credit. The only link at all is we can agree that both energy and currency have measurable value.

The only reason political authorities get involved in energy is to secure it for their own people, or for Safety/Environmental reasons. How energy gets used is a somewhat political question - but only in the sense that literally everything humans do is a somewhat political question. I could harvest and use energy for myself with very little state involvement, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the paper, the proposed technologies are:

"Key elements of the solution applicable to different cases are to (1) produce heat directly from solar and geothermal heat resources and from electricity; (2) store electricity as heat after current electricity demand is satisfied and electricity storage is full; (3) if thermal energy storage is used, store excess heat in water and underground rocks when current heat demand is satisfied; (4) if thermal energy storage is used, produce cold directly from electricity and store excess cold in water and ice; (5) produce hydrogen from excess electricity after all electricity and heat storage are full, and store excess hydrogen; (6) store excess CSP electricity in a phase-change material and remaining excess electricity either in pumped-hydro storage, as heat in underground rocks, or as hydrogen; (7) increase the maximum discharge rates of CSP, the number of batteries, or the maximum discharge rate of hydropower (while keeping its annual energy production constant) to help meet peaks in demand; (8) use heat pumps for cold and low-temperature heat loads wherever possible; and (9) use demand response for some loads to reduce peaks in load."

</comment><comment><USER12> The actual paper is [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148118301526)

</comment><comment><USER13> None of this will save us.</comment>


Learn how to code without leaving your browser (HTML, JS, Python, Ruby, Java...) - <AUTHOR> http://www.myasmine.com/free-sites-learn-how-to-code-without-leaving-your-browser

<comment><USER2> Great Article!</comment>


Mathematics for Physics (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.goldbart.gatech.edu/PostScript/MS_PG_book/bookmaster.pdf <comment><USER2> On the other side of the spectrum, I would recommend Spivak's Physics for Mathematicians [1] strongly. I don't think anything else could come close for a mathematician who wants to learn physics.

[] [https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Mathematicians-Mechanics- Mich...](https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Mathematicians-Mechanics-Michael- Spivak/dp/0914098322)

<comment><USER3> As someone with a mathematical background, I was wondering what were some motivations for wanting to "learn physics"? Not being argumentative, just genuinely curious on what drives people to self study textbooks on physics after college/grad school.

<comment><USER4> * I wanted to major in physics, but went into computer engineering instead.

* Physics always seemed glamorous. I know the reality is different, but studying physics makes me feel like a wizard (EDIT: in training).

* I want to be able to read pop-physics and actually be able to dissect it.

* I want to be able to simulate GR.

* I want to understand QFT

* I want to be able to simulate atoms and molecules from first-principles.

* I want to UNDERSTAND

<comment><USER5> If you haven't already, I highly recommend Feynman's Lectures on Physics: [http://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu](http://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu)

While much more advanced than typical introductory texts, it does provide deeper insights than typical introductory texts, which makes it worth the investment.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I'm a beginner, thinking about returning to school for physics, but I'm dipping in with this tome I purchased recently. He's a great explainer for someone at my level.

And I have to brush up on all of the math (and learn calculus...) in order to fully understand. It's exciting that reading him isn't just a cold hard wall. It's proving to be a great guide into what to sort of triage my studies.

I strongly second this one! (Though I have to admit that I purchased a not- cheap edition of the first volume to get started -- though I prefer reading from paper, and don't yet own an eReader and have a bit of a burgeoning library anyway. But thanks for the link! it's nice to have the rest on hand).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This feels like newer version of "Elements Of Applied Mathematics" by YA. B. Zeldovich, A. D. Myskis [1]. That book title is somewhat misleading as it is not about Applied Mathematics in modern sense, but is rather about how to apply math to solve various problems in physics.

And this is exactly what Michael Stone and Paul Goldbart did in their book as well, albeit their book is more dense/stricter and cover more advanced topics like differential geometry.

[1] - [https://archive.org/details/ZeldovichMyskisElementsOfApplied...](https://archive.org/details/ZeldovichMyskisElementsOfAppliedMathematics)

</comment><comment><USER7> So, if, let's say, one knows all the relevant mathematics, how much is left as the (theoretical) physics proper? I mean, sure, we have all these fundamental constants and elementary particles to learn about, but is there anything else that is essentially physics and not math?

<comment><USER8> as physics student you quickly come to figure out that physical intuition is not the same as mathematical intuition. there are many hacks (for lack of a better term) in physics that a mathematician would've never been able to come up with because they're physically intuitive but not mathematically (a famous example is the Feynman path integral)

<comment><USER7> Right, we know that much of mathematics grew from physics, but the question remains: what is there in the _known_ theoretical physics that is not (applied) math? (Well, I think I may already know the answer: nothing; but it does not matter, because science is not about what is known...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've used this textbook, and frankly, it's good only for people who already know the material and want a fresh look at it. The chapters on group theory and complex analysis are good. Most of the rest are not.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there anything covered in the text besides Linear Algebra that may be relevant for Software Engineering and Computer Science?

<comment><USER6> The chapter on groups is a good introduction. It is tailored for physical applications but the basic is really nicely presented and can be useful before reading, say, books on cryptography.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hahahaha, funny seeing this here. I took this course at UIUC about 6 years ago taught by Stone.

</comment><comment><USER8> this is another in the long line of math methods books that plague/bewilder/frustrate physics undergrads

standard: [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physicists- Seven...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physicists-Seventh- Comprehensive/dp/0123846544)

gentler: [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical- Science...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Sciences- Mary/dp/0471198269)

another recent addition: [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Tools-Physics- Dover-Book...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Tools-Physics-Dover- Books/dp/048648212X)

"purer" than the rest: [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Physics-Chicago- Lectures...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Physics-Chicago- Lectures/dp/0226288625)

"more fun" than the rest: [https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Physics- Introduction-Theodor...](https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Physics-Introduction- Theodore-Frankel/dp/1107602602)

this pair is probably the most rigorous and difficult of the bunch (at least from what i remember):

[https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mathematical-Physics- Dynami...](https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mathematical-Physics-Dynamical- Theories/dp/0387406158)

[https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mathematical-Physics- Walter-T...](https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mathematical-Physics-Walter- Thirring/dp/3540430784)

and the grand-daddy of them all

[https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Theoretical-Physics- Internati...](https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Theoretical-Physics- International-Applied/dp/007043316X)

<comment><USER12> Of course everyone has two grandfathers and this one should not be overlooked:

[https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Mathematical-Physics- Vol-1/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Mathematical-Physics- Vol-1/dp/047017952X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)

And for more recent books I don't think this should be overlooked:

[https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Physics-Modern- Introduct...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Physics-Modern-Introduction- Foundations/dp/3319011944/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=22SRFK5M163X1A7EHTNP)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there a similar thing for total novices?

<comment><USER14> Maybe this? [https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing- Physi...](https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing- Physics/dp/0465075681)

and/or

[https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Theoretical- Leonard...](https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Theoretical-Leonard- Susskind/dp/0465062903/)</comment></comment>


Why are apps still stored in iTunes? - <AUTHOR>

I understand there can be a developer pulling out an app (think: Flappy Bird) but since latest version of an app is generally in App Store, why bother having a local (and often obsolete) copy on HDD? I think Apple could greatly simplify this process! What do you think? <comment><AUTHOR> I've also asked on Quora :) [http://www.quora.com/Why-are-apps-still-stored- in-iTunes](http://www.quora.com/Why-are-apps-still-stored-in-iTunes)</comment>


The next housing crisis: chronic undersupply of homes for a growing country - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/3/24/11299434/next-housing-crisis <comment><USER2> > National Association of Realtors

Sounds like a group interested in a supply crunch. Afterall, prices rise in low supply, and fear can drive more sales in the shortrun. Two incentives for Realtors to push a false spin of reality.

How about this headline? "Empty homes outnumber homless 6:1" [http://www.mintpressnews.com/empty-homes-outnumber-the- homel...](http://www.mintpressnews.com/empty-homes-outnumber-the- homeless-6-to-1-so-why-not-give-them-homes/207194/)</comment>


Cloudflare uses lava lamps as a random number generator - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcodesign.com/90137157/the-hardest-working-office-design-in-america-encrypts-your-data-with-lava-lamps <comment><USER2> I'm now looking forward to a future article from security researchers:

"Prediction of a random stream from a lava lamp model constructed from entropic data inferred from encrypted packets"

</comment><comment><USER3> So they created a giant side-channel by putting their entropy-source next to a public window?

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing they use this alongside CSPRNGs. Would make sense given the theorem that states any random number XORed with even highly-ordered input maintains its entropy.

<comment><USER5> There are lots of people in the crypto world who have serious issues with XORing random sources together.

I haven't yet seen a good argument why it's a bad idea, and part of me thinks it might be a way to get more software using "rdrand" or other insecure sources unmodified.

<comment><USER4> I think the bad idea stigma stems from people XORing from the same source. That totally is a bad idea, but if two sources are wholly independent, the maximum entropy in the combined systems is maintained.

To the people that just say it's never a good idea and scoff at any reasoning I'd remind them about OTPs. They are a special case related to this principle of XORing two independent sources together where only one input is random and it is proven mathematically to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would use plasma spheres (e.g. [0], but there are lots of them out there). A single plasma sphere generates a visual display that changes much faster and is much less predictable moment-to-moment than a lava lamp -- so you wouldn't need nearly so many of them -- and uses much less power into the bargain.

[0] [https://www.scientificsonline.com/product/nebula-plasma- ball](https://www.scientificsonline.com/product/nebula-plasma-ball)

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this a perfect rng at the current state of technology? If not, why and are there currently perfect ones. What would an rng require to be perfect?

</comment><comment><USER8> Nothing new here, move along.

This was first done by SGI ages ago...

joe

<comment><USER9> Article+Cloudflare acknowledges this (although they credit Sun not SGI)</comment></comment>


A Very Sad Goodbye – OSSIC X: The first 3D audio headphones is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/248983394/ossic-x-the-first-3d-audio-headphones-calibrated-t/posts/2191862 <comment><USER2> Class action litigation is starting. See the comments on the page for more information.</comment>


Introducing the Redesigned Bitbucket - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bitbucket.org/2012/10/09/introducing-the-redesigned-bitbucket/ <comment><USER2> For a while I was a bit worried that GitHub had just ran away with the prize and no one else was bothering. It is pretty obvious that Google isn't interested in improving Google Code and that Sourceforge hasn't aged a day (that's not really fair, but it feels like it).

I think there is still a chance for BitBucket to make a splash, but I think its going to be hard to win anymore. That's fine, 2nd place makes a lot of money too (not counting places 1-10 for enterprise source control, which basically print money, and of which GitHub is chasing too).

<comment><USER3> Bitbucket had a pretty easy time of winning my business: free private repositories for small teams is a great way to draw people in.

<comment><USER4> Can someone explain whats the catch ?

Looks like I can host my $22 github account for free on bitbucket.

<comment><USER5> there is no catch. their business model is not on repo count, but collaborators count. in other words, solo devs and very small teams can freeride, if you grow bigger you start paying.

also, it's backed up by Atlassian.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't say Atlassian is an asset. Jira is horrible.

<comment><USER7> For me Jira is great, apart from the fact that our corporate install is quite slow sometimes it's the best bug tracking software I've used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To the bitbucket team:

Please keep on doing what you are doing. Your service and this new redesign is awesome, and my team and myself wouldn't be where we are without you.

We're a small team of young developers working on a startup for the past few months. We haven't launched yet so we're obviously not profitable, but the fact that you've enabled us to make it as far as we have also ensures that when we are in a position to pay for software development tools they will come from a brand we know, trust, and love: Atlassian.

Also, you should update the Atlassian Store with t-shirts and other swag.

Once again, great job, thank you, and keep on keepin' on.

<comment><USER9> > Also, you should update the Atlassian Store with t-shirts and other swag.

Launching a t-shirt store in three weeks.

<comment><USER10> Cool. Let me know when it's up. ;) Will it have Atlassian related designs? Or Git/Hg/etc. related ones?

<comment><USER9> We will have Bitbucket t-shits, Spooning t-shirts (<https://bitbucket.org/spooning/>) and other Atlassian gear.

We will make a posting on our blog about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know its not the elephant in the managed source code hosting space, but I like BitBucket better then Github. I like the option to use Mercerial for projects and I like the way they ask me to pay for things ( pay for private shared repositories ).

<comment><USER12> I like <http://beanstalkapp.com/> myself, pretty comparable to BitBucket.

<comment><USER13> We use beanstalk at work. Gets the job done, but not nearly as nice as Github or Bitbucket, and there are times page loads are pretty slow.

<comment><USER14> > and there are times page loads are pretty slow.

Then again, Github and Bitbucket routinely have the same issue as far as my experiences go (I mostly use Bitbucket, but routinely interact with github due to the project on there)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For me the experience of managing open source repositories gets worse with recent bitbucket updates to the point that I'm in process of moving my open- source to github.

How one is supposed to find what have bitbucketer done? Visit e.g. Ian Bicking's account: <https://bitbucket.org/ianb> . Is it easy to find out why are so many people following Ian? What repositories are interesting? "bbdocs" with 4 followers? From the first page of Ian's repositories I know "dozer", did Ian wrote it? Click. Oh, it's an outdated fork.

Just compare the direction Github took at its recent redesign. GitHub folks made user profiles act like resume. The repositories are visually big, it is clear what repositories are popular, what repos are active, etc. It is also clear what a person is into: repositories are sorted by 'last modified' date. There is "Explore" section with trending repos (bitbucket's Explore is a joke) and so on.

Bitbucket instead removed follower counts and fork counts from the repositories list; repositories are sorted alphabetically now; there is no way to see who the user follows or who user is followed by.

I was missing important ticket updates at bitbucket several times because the newsfeed is not "infinite"; "Inbox" messages count stops working sometimes, etc.

There are things bitbucket is better at: e.g. github links to source code lines are awful (they don't contain changeset information in URL by default and so easily become outdated); there is no way to specify repo language in github (one of my recent Python repos was in a "Top followed this week" for a C language, that's great of course but..)

Don't get me wrong, bitbucket becomes nicer and nicer, I'm still a heavy bitbucket user and we use a paid account at work; but it seems that the open source support (code discovery and presentation) is not their priority right now, or at least they act so.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm having trouble thinking of reasons why bitbucket is used so much less than github - or at least why it seems that way.

It's looking pretty damn good to me right now!

<comment><USER17> Well, Github's UI used to be much better, now it's comparable. I do wonder why Bitbucket insists on having "overview" as the standard page to go to when visiting a repository, making Code the default would be a better idea IMHO. Also because more people use Github, more people are likely to start using it so they can fork their favorite projects

<comment><USER18> You can optionally change the landing page to show the code instead.

<comment><USER19> There is something to be said for sane defaults. That being said, if the target audience is not developers, then perhaps this is a sane default. I think Bitbucket is pretty good; however, I personally prefer Github as it caters to my tastes much more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The design is very clean and appealing. I'm glad to see they're still investing significant effort. I want to see Bitbucket get more visibility and success.

I prefer Mercurial. Among other things, it has better cross platform support. Bitbucket added Git a while ago. I wish Github would add Mercurial.

Bitbucket also offers unlimited private repos. That means I only use Github for OSS projects. I use Bitbucket for everthing else. Consequently, I always recommend them to friends and companies looking for hosted repos.

<comment><USER21> Have you tried hg-git? I've been using it as my sole way of interacting (well, other than the web interface) with GitHub and I haven't run into any showstoppers.

<comment><USER22> I tried it and it blew up, complaining about "bookmarks." Couldn't commit and/or push, never figured it out.

<comment><USER14> I'm guessing it wanted you to enable the "bookmarks" extension: I believe hg- git maps git branches to hg bookmarks.

edit: the "installing" section of <http://hg-git.github.com/> confirms it.

<comment><USER23> Note that the installation instructions on that site are completely out of date. You don't need a C compiler anymore, just clone the repo and enable the extension, as described in the README: <https://bitbucket.org/durin42/hg-git>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wrote a blog post on BitBucket workflow (obviously now it's outdated) and the BitBucket team sent me a free tshirt!

[http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/1267/entry-3659-visua...](http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/1267/entry-3659-visual- studio-2010-mercurial-bitbucket-complete-workflow-tutorial/)

I love their website and how you can create free private repos. Good business practice: Unlimited private projects, limited contributers on private projects. Win-win

Github is just greedy.

<comment><USER25> >Github is just greedy.

No, Github is a business.

BitBucket is offering free private accounts as a loss leader, not out of the kindness of their hearts. This is their strategy for competing with GitHub.

A $7/month subscription for private github repos is well worth it.

<comment><USER26> 7$ a month for 5 private repos is not worth it all. I acknowledge that Github is a business but I am not about to pay a lot of money for hosting all my repositories, when I can do the same on Bitbucket for free. And when the team grows enough that I'd have to pay Bitbucket, I'll do so willingly.

<comment><USER27> Are you mad ? $7 a month is nothing for something that you are going to use countless times whilst developing your product.

And no offense but Bitbucket is still a clunky mess that lacks the most critical feature: integration with almost every open source project.

<comment><USER7> Could you elaborate on "integration with almost every open source project" ? I don't get it.

For me github (and git) is like iPhone, a place for the "cool kids", and bitbucket for the rest of us :) Mostly because some github/git/iPhone/Mac enthusiasts are rather loud and fanboy-like - this destroys git experience for me. I prefer calm mercurial/linux enviroment :)

<comment><USER25> > mercurial/linux environment

What? You mean Github (which hosts the Linux kernel repository) and runs git (written by Linus Torvalds) is not linux-like?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yay! Github's UI has been slowly getting worse over the last year, and their paid account options are terrible (limits on the _number_ of private repositories, as opposed to the disk space). I've been a paying company for years and years, but I recently scaled back from four paying accounts to one.

I don't want to have to organize my private git repositories around GitHub's idiotic account restrictions, so I'm going to give BitBucket a try with some personal repos and see if the UI works for me. If it does, you've got a new customer. :D

</comment><comment><USER29> I generally version all the things, and end up with lots of small private repos. Bitbucket's pricing model is perfect for hosting that kind of thing. Really liking the new UI.

<comment><USER30> Any particular reason you don't just tag versions instead of creating new repos?

<comment><USER31> I think he means he has a lot of small projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Awesome, I think this just heavily strengthened the future of Mercurial. I'm not trying to start any version control wars here, but personally, I found Mercurial to be the most "intuitive" approach (unlike Git/SVN, but again, that's _my_ opinion).

I've extensively used Bitbucket in the past, especially for personal projects. I love what I see here, and will continue to use the service as such. Long live Bitbucket! :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Lovely work. From peeping the source, looks like an interesting hybrid use of Backbone.js as well. If you're interested in getting the new Bitbucket listed on the Backbone homepage, just email me a brief paragraph, and I can set it up.

<comment><USER34> Thanks, Jeremy, and thanks for the offer. I'll be in touch with a paragraph for Bitbucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The new design is really great and in many ways better than GitHub's. Now people unfamiliar with the services might actually be able to find a download button for once.

Another place where GitHub is really dropping the ball is in the social aspect of their service with _terrible_ activity feeds I can't believe anyone actually uses. I wrote a rant about it here: <http://pygm.us/uGhNdcGU>.

There are many, many ways Bitbucket can beat—and beats—GitHub, so this new design makes me a lot more optimistic about the continuing competition between the two and the improvements this will result in on both sides.

I will say that I'm not sure whether I like a grey as dark as the one you use in your new design, though. :)

<comment><USER22> Do you mean that you wish they followed the fad of unreadable light grey on white text? No thanks. ;)

<comment><USER35> I just think the chosen background colour is a little too dark. Something about the colour (#F5F5F5?) is off to me.

<comment><USER22> Oh, well, that's very close to white. 96% white as a matter of fact, after checking in gimp. It needs to be at least a few percent to be noticeable as different by they eye.

Perhaps you should up the brightness on your monitor?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> A lot of people here are commenting on GitHub being 'overpriced' or 'greedy.' TPW did an interview a while ago that has insight into why their pricing structure is the way it is. It's a pretty interesting read:

<http://mixergy.com/tom-preston-werner-github-interview/>

(search for 'which metrics') to skip to the pricing part).

Money quote: "That's like buying a car based on how much it weighs. It's irrelevant."

I may be biased since GitHub does a lot to foster the developer community in my area (I nabbed a sweet contracting gig at one of their drinkups), but I'm perfectly happy with their pricing.

<comment><USER37> > Money quote: "That's like buying a car based on how much it weighs. It's > irrelevant."

Car manufacturers are constantly going on about how the latest model weighs X% less than last years. Lower weight usually means better handling and a more fun driving experience...

<comment><USER38> Owners of SUVs and off-road cars might disagree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I just found out that bitbucket has unlimited private repos. That's one HUGE point for them on Github.

<comment><USER40> It looks like the limits are by number of users, which seems fairer. But they will probably make less money. I thought most of the projects on github were <5 people.

<comment><USER26> It depends. I can see a lot of scope for small companies starting on Bitbucket to take advantage of the low costs, and then buying the larger plans as they expand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The redesigned commits view is 100 times better than Github's ever was. <http://cl.ly/image/300S2R3q2x0N>

So much more info, and even a graph like in gitx.

<comment><USER32> ...they didn't change/redesign anything on the commit view. The commit page on Bitbucket has always always looked that for as long as I can remember (been using it for a year or two now).

Also, I recall having the ability to diff. files before the new upgrade as well, although not side-by-side as they mention in the linked article.

<comment><USER42> We've had side-by-side diffing for about a year. What the redesign has (apparently) done, is bring forth those features, as we're seeing more and more people discover them today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A few months ago, I convinced my startup to try bitbucket because of the free private repos. Over the course of a month or two, there were multiple times that I could not collaborate with my teammate because bitbucket was unreachable. We have since switched to github, pay a small fee per month, and have never had this issue.

How is everyone else's up-time experiences in the past few months? I'm setting up a few personal projects and would like to give them another shot if they've improved that one aspect.

I'm not affiliated with either company.

<comment><USER44> BitBucket is a vital part of Atlassian's internal development process, all product teams use it on a daily basis and we treat it as a mission critical service, I'm really surprised by this comment as here in Sydney we rarely see any issues, I would be lying if some hiccups hadn't happened in the past but they were usually in very short duration, and usually only affect the UI so you can still pull/push using HTTP/SSH, moreover we have a 24/7 dedicated team to respond to any outages and there is absolutely no differences in terms of infra-structure of free vs. paid accounts inside Bitbucket, so rest assured that we put a lot of effort on making the site better for everyone.

We improved the architecture a few months ago and that should also contribute to the stability of the system as a whole, see more at: <http://blog.bitbucket.org/2012/08/24/segregating-services/>

And you can follow the status of the service at: <http://status.bitbucket.org>

We would love to hear more feedbacks like this through our usual support channels when it happens so we can investigate and improve our service. (Disclosure: I work on Atlassian's OnDemand team).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Surprised to not see GitLab mentioned here. GitLab is FOSS and already has almost all of these features, allowing me to host multiple private repos on a single cheap VPS. That is exactly why I chose it over Bitbucket or Github.

If Bitbucket wants to stay competitive, I think this is the least they can do -- unfortunately I don't see any _innovation_ that puts them ahead of the other players in the market.

<comment><USER46> That appears to be a pretty blatant clone of GitHub...

<comment><USER45> Exactly my point -- these 'new' Bitbucket features are a blatant clone of Github as well. I was expecting more from all the fanfare.

For instance, users are clamoring to be able to link external issue trackers of their choice (which can be done simply by URL). I think the first host to supply that feature will have a step up.

<comment><USER14> > these 'new' Bitbucket features are a blatant clone of Github as well

I think you misplaced the word "some". Inline pull-request comments are ripped off gh, but I've never seen arbitrary commit diffs there, it certainly isn't in the UI. The branch selector yes, the overview not at all. The UI organization has also, if anything, moved further away from Github's.

<comment><USER45> Arbitrary commit diffs have been in Github since March 2010 [1]. The Overview is exactly like what Redmine and GitLab call 'Activity' [2]. Github has Activity in a different manner, through notifications and the News Feed. These are useful features, but they are not innovative.

[1] <https://github.com/blog/612-introducing-github-compare-view>

[2] <http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/activity>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Am I the only one who thinks it looks exactly like Github?

<comment><USER48> Not exactly the same, but they copied a lot from GitHub.

<comment><USER49> And to my mind, that's just fine. Github gets a lot of stuff right, so making it similar makes sense. The differences are significant enough that you couldn't mistake one for the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I like it. Much better than the previous experience, and didn't try to blindly copy GitHub's designs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Switching markup from Creole to Markdown is very good news, and the preview being back in e.g. issues comments is a good thing as well.

Though I'd prefer the preview to be live...

The readme taking center stage in the "overview" page is nice. Though getting it again in the "source" page is weird

</comment><comment><USER51> It's hilarious how difficult it is to get a non-programmer on Windows setup on Bitbucket (to clone a repo and then push a commit).

I don't blame this on Bitbucket, I blame the state of Windows Git applications.

My friend who is an artist (pretty technical too but he's not a programmer and never deals with SSH) is going to do some art for me for a game project I have in Bitbucket. I added him to my repo and told him to download Gitextensions, which seems to be, arguably, the best free graphical git app for Windows.

So, he downloaded it and set it up but when he started it up for the first time there was no option to clone from a source URL other than from Github.

First you have to figure out that you need to setup your SSH key and then clone the SSH url. I know that, but a non-programmer with no experience using git before would probably have zero clue.

You have to then setup your SSH key using Putty, and I'm sure we all know how awesome it is that SSH keys generated with Putty are in a different format than SSH keys generated with ssh-keygen, so pasting your public key into the Bitbucket site leads to nothing but problems. You have to erase some stuff, add "ssh-rsa" to the front, remove the newlines, etc. You can't just copy and paste the whole thing. If you aren't experienced with SSH keys you will not be able to figure it out. The bitbucket docs for this step assume you have an SSH key generated from ssh-keygen and not from putty, so they are of no help.

Once you get your ssh key straightened out then it's not too bad.

In short, it sucks. If Bitbucket wants to capture people other than programmers they need a better Windows app. For this reason alone I would be tempted to use Github instead since they have a dedicated Windows app.

Gitextensions is open source too so they it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to just add support for Bitbucket just like they have for Github.

I've used SmartGit for Windows too but I'm not a fan of their products and I was looking for something free.

Does anyone have suggestions for getting non-programmers setup on Windows?

<comment><USER52> I'm pretty sure you can use GitHub's Windows app for BitBucket Git repositories. I've pointed it to non-GitHub repositories at work in the past. You should look into it for your friend.

<comment><USER51> Wow, it sure does look like the GitHub app supports other remote repos. Nice tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Looks great and the home page is very aesthetically pleasing, but it appears to lack any links to actual, in-use repositories.

If you look at Github's home page, the top half of the page is full of links to organisation pages and popular repositories (jQuery, rails, etc.) and there's a prominent "Explore GitHub" link with trending repos, etc.

BitBucket's home page looks like it's demoing a program they want to sell: loads of examples of how it looks and who uses it, but no links to an actual, well used repository. I had to Google for an example repository to examine since I much prefer to actually play with it rather than be told how it works.

</comment><comment><USER54> For students: you can get bitbucket's top tier (basically unlimited everything) for free with your *.edu email address:

[http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket- academic-l...](http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic- license.jsp)

</comment><comment><USER55> Just canceled my GitHub private subscription. I only recently found out a few weeks ago that Bitbucket offers git access; the last time I used them, it was Hg-only. Really happy to be using Atlassian products again, and I love the new redesign. Awesome stuff!

</comment><comment><USER56> To the bitbucket team - one quick feedback.

Many of us, use github profile pages as resumes. Your redesign focus has been towards "repository landing pages" rather than user "user landing pages".

E.g. take a look at <https://bitbucket.org/basho> vs <https://github.com/basho> and <https://bitbucket.org/basho/riak-0.9.2> vs <https://github.com/basho/riak> .

Please make the user pages a little richer and I shall be infinitely grateful. While we are on that, could you use a better Markdown parser please ?

</comment><comment><USER22> I like the new look in general, but one drawback is pretty clear. The readme is now narrow and can't expand. I like narrow columns in general, but now all of my <pre> text is much too wide and showing scrollbars. Lots of work ahead. :(

I also see there is no whitespace around my h3s and not much around h1s, and h2s. Looks quite cramped. Still nicer on the whole. I guess I can try to hack in some line breaks manually.

</comment><comment><USER57> It was very well said by gwf: This is a race to the bottom in terms of sustainable pricing. I love the free plan but who knows how it'll play long term.

<comment><USER58> It's not a race to the bottom, bitbucket's not free, they just have a different pricing scheme.

I'm a happy paying customer with 10 users and dozens of repositories. We're an agency, work on a lot of different projects, and having price be O(people) instead of O(projects) makes lot more sense for us.

As amazing as it may sound on HN, GitHub isn't best for everyone. Therefore, there are ways to compete with them that aren't price-based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I love the "Approve" button on the commits (maybe it was already there). Github needs a kick in the butt for more nice peer review features. Go BB! :)

</comment><comment><USER60> That's certainly a big a step in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER61> I host all of my private stuff on Bitbucket. I love this new redesign. Its a good way to differentiate themselves from github.

</comment><comment><USER62> This is an amazing redesign. I love Bitbucket for its support for Hg and Git, and it has free private repos. Always loved using it, now I have more and more reason to use it every day. I might move back to it for my open-source stuff, and just push stuff to github as a side thing. Or setup a hook on Bitbucket to just push for me.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm using both. GitHub and BitBucket. But actually I like BitBuckets UI more. For me it is a little bit more intuitiv.

</comment><comment><USER64> Another great thing about bitbucket is that the basic code which handles the mercurial integration has been published as a Django application (on bitbucket of course). This has allowed us to create our own specialised code hosting platform. ( <http://mbed.org/code/> )

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm loving all the various changes, but one thing I miss is the line in the footer that used to proudly proclaim the version/build of the various pieces of software (e.g., Django, piston, some oauth thing) that bitbucket runs on. Don't see it as a comment in the source either - was that moved somewhere else?

</comment><comment><USER66> Am I the only one who couldn't find a easy way to explore all public projects hosted at Bitbucket?

(<https://bitbucket.org/explore>) redirects to (<https://bitbucket.org/repo/all>)

<comment><USER9> This is on our short list of items to implement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So how do I browse projects that are hosted on BitBucket? How can I search for projects by language?

All I see on the main page are screenshots and signup links. Why should I sign up if I can't even test drive the site by browsing existing projects?

Would be nice to have an "Explore" feature similar to GitHub.

<comment><USER67> Here's a popular repo:

<https://bitbucket.org/tortoisehg/hgtk/overview>

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Looks great. I've been using Bitbucket for a while and I've always hoped they redesigned their website. Now with the pull requests and all, it looks more usable. Although I find GitHub more beautiful and usable, I'd definitely recommend Bitbucket too.

</comment><comment><USER69> Atlassian's business model is to draw in small companies with their $10 plan, and increase prices fast as the company grows. They're just following the same pricing model with Bitbucket. Free private repos for up to 5 users, paid accounts after that.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is great. I continue to use bitbucket for all of my personal repos since they provide unlimited private repos for free. I would use github for my private repos but I have lot's of small repos that make private github cost prohibitive.

</comment><comment><USER71> I never manage to figure out where is Bazaar and Launchpad in all this game...

every time I try to think of a more "friendly" git, it's Bzr that pops into my mind, not Hg, but... where does one "put it on the map" in the DVCS and related services world?

</comment><comment><USER72> Yesterday I switched to Bitbucket after using Github for about a year.

Bitbucket is absolutely brilliant.

It's a really clean interface and the free private repos suit me perfectly.

Thanks for your work - a new customer here.

Only thing I'd add is the last commit details on folder names.

</comment><comment><USER73> This interface looks great. I suggest that the landing page have several ways to get to prominent open source projects hosted on Bitbucket so people can easily see the live interface before signing up.

</comment><comment><USER74> Have been using Bitbucket for over 9 months now and find it really as good as Github for the features I need.

The pricing is such a lifesaver for small companies or hobby programmers that want some private repos.

</comment><comment><USER75> I've always disliked bitbucket, because the interface always seemed obtuse. This looks incredibly appealing! Well done, and I shall certainly be giving it a try (current, paying github user)

</comment><comment><USER76> The old layout always makes me think that they don't give a damn to BitBucket. Seems that I was wrong. BitBucket is awesome and the new layout reflects this awesomeness

</comment><comment><USER77> The thing that always bothered me about bitbucket (and sourceforge) is that the main page of any source code project should be the source code, not some overview page.

</comment><comment><USER78> I would love to use Github but I am using Bitbucket instead because I can only pay via credit card at Github and I don't want to own a credit card.

<comment><USER79> This. I am a young student from Germany and at least in my environment almost nobody owns a credit card. Why should we when you can pay everywhere with your debit card (without fees!). AWS, I'm looking at you :/

<comment><USER78> Same here. :) I asked GitHub about this via mail because I couldn't believe that they are only accepting credit cards... Sad but true. I would even send them money one year in advance to get my private repository but now I am using bitbucket for a couple of months now - even for customer projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> What a nice surprise! I like many others here host my private repositories with Bitbucket. It's one of the sites I use everyday.

</comment><comment><USER81> I just started playing around with BitBucket today and this looks amazing. Plus my team gets to use it for free. WIN!

</comment><comment><USER82> This is kind of apropos, but why do so many web apps use blue as their primary colour?

<comment><USER83> Easy on the eyes and looks good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Do the Bitbucket employees have access to your private repos(s) ? Honest question.

<comment><USER85> "Relating to Bitbucket security, we take your source code security very seriously. Nearly all of the code on Bitbucket, is private. Via the web application, no Bitbucket staff members have access to your repositories, nor can they grant themselves access to your repositories even for support reasons.

At the datacenter, VPN access limited to a very small number of engineers on our team, and we store the repositories in a hashed directory structure that makes it difficult to identify repositories by username."

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/bitbucke...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/bitbucket- users/uADX9e8VkCA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> This is the plan I want github to offer

For 5 bucks, unlimited private repos, with no collobration

</comment><comment><USER87> The dashboard no longer shows repos I actively contribute to. Thats bad mkay.

</comment><comment><USER88> Nice UI and I think it looks more like other Atlassian products such as JIRA

<comment><USER89> JIRA: never again.

<comment><USER90> Try it again in 6 months. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER91> I used JIRA too. While I don't hate it, it wouldn't be my first choice.

What is changing in 6 months?

<comment><USER92> What is better than Jira for you and why?

<comment><USER93> We usually give Jira a good fight with Gemini:

<http://www.geminiplatform.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> I'm using them for the last two years, they are awesome, great job.

</comment><comment><USER95> free private repositories rock! I will host my opensource projects on bitbucket to repay it.

</comment><comment><USER96> The code review feature is great.

</comment><comment><USER97> Choosing Bitbucket wasn't tough. I needed a private repo for the little sth (hobbyist) I was doing. Bitbucket gave it for free and there wasn't anything I missed from Github.

Oh, I forgot - I had started that in Mercurial, (/beginner/experiment/learning), though switched to Git later, and that was another huge reason.

I still have open repos on GitHub. I will either keep them mirrored at Bitbucket or might move altogether. Brining balance to the force is good :-)

</comment><comment><USER98> All my dreams are coming true. Great work guys.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you do this with a Mac? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to know how the following can be done with a Mac:
1. The equivalent of a Meta-backspace on Linux that deletes a complete word on the command-line.
2. How to tab between two xterm windows on the current virtual desktop without being moved to a different virtual desktop if you have more than two applications in total open (say Safari, Xcode, etc).
3. How to put virtual desktops in a grid.
I hope this isn't too much to ask for. <comment><USER2> I'm afraid I can't be much help but I can say that I have had exactly the same issues. The third problem was a new "feature" introduced in OS X Lion; you may find that Snow Leopard is more to your liking. For the first problem, try ctrl (or cmd) and 'w'.

As for "I hope this isn't too much to ask for", when I first got a Mac I asked on a forum how to maximize a window fully (as many windows resize to the window contents rather than full screen - not necessarily a bad feature but I also wished for a 'proper' maximize). I was perfectly polite but was flamed to death and told to "go back to Windows" (even though I had come from Linux). The community can be a little.. tense.. when you ask for features that don't exist.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Ctrl-W

2\. Type in a terminal:

      defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

and kill and restart the Dock

3\. They say there's an app called Secrets that lets you play with such config stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> You have to enable the meta character in your terminal or iterm settings.</comment>


AI that allows Mario to respond to vocal commands and act autonomously - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/mario-develops-awareness-plays-his-own-game/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8906505](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8906505)</comment>


Sprint Launches StarStar Me To Replace Your Phone Number With Your Name - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/08/sprint-launches-starstar-me-to-replace-your-phone-number-with-your-name/

<comment><USER3> This will be great for the first hundred or so people that order it. After that you'll just end up with __SARAH1254. You might as well just have a phone number.

<comment><USER4> Like email addresses? I'm glad I am not firstname.lastname@example.com...

<comment><USER3> It's better, but is "JON202555" $2.99 a month better?

<comment><USER4> No, but perhaps something like iMessage is better. No fee and it's also an email address. Seems more useful.

<comment><USER5> You can use iMessage with email addresses.

<comment><USER4> ... I know. That's why I'm suggesting it's better than Sprint's new thing.

<comment><USER6> Guys - your should really try CallmyName app. It gives a much more comprehensive solution - it includes phone number, email, address, skype ID, Twitter, FB, picture, etc And most of all it is absolutely FREE...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thought I'd give this a try to see how it worked. Upon registering and agreeing to the Terms, I received an error page with instructions to call customer service. When I called, the rep had no idea what I was talking about. "Star what?" she said.

After I was transferred to a rep who knew what it was, he said I needed to download the iPhone app for it to work. However, it states throughout the FAQs[1] that the iPhone app isn't yet available. This was further confirmed at the StarStar website[2]. His response: "That's wrong. It's definitely available. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

I'll be opting out and getting a refund today.

[1] <https://sprint.starstar.me/faq>

[2] <http://www.starstar.me/iphone-app>

</comment><comment><USER8> Most people I know don't bother memorizing phone numbers anymore anyway - <USER2> I'm not sure what problem this is solving.

<comment><USER9> This is entirely true, but our phone contact lists are essentially the internet back in the day that everyone maintained their own /etc/hosts. That is, it would be nice is there was some kind of DNS for phone numbers. I don't think this is the solution, but I understand why they're doing it. (Well, aside from the lock-in aspects.)

<comment><USER10> I think facebook is the solution most people use now.

<comment><USER8> I decided against that "solution" when Facebook took it upon themselves to promote their @facebook.com contact information over whatever users had previously setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have no idea why this isn't just your email address. For everyone I want to phone, I likely have this in my "Address book" (Gmail, outlook, whatever) already.

Let me define firstname.lastname@example.com -> some phone number (aka phone DNS?). Kind of like how Apple does it with iOS Messaging.

If you're concerned about spam, you could in the phone (or in the provider) set up a black/whitelist (allow calls from anyone in my address book).

<comment><USER12> There is an ITU standard called ENUM [1] that allows uri->phonenumber mapping to be represented in DNS, where a URI could be something like mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com. I've never heard of it being used though.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number_mapping>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _What happens to my StarStar number if I cancel it?_

 _If you have a StarStar number and then decide to cancel it, it will stop working at the end of your current billing period. It will then be returned to the pool of "available" numbers._

 _What happens to my StarStar number if I change carriers? Can I transfer or "port" it?_

 _Your StarStar number cannot be transferred or "ported" from carrier to carrier the way your regular phone number can. When you change carriers your number will be returned to the pool of "available" StarStar numbers._

      https://sprint.starstar.me/faq

Um, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER14> Customer lock-in in only four easy steps!

1\. Sarah gives out her new number to people she meets

2\. They add Star Star SARAH to their address books

3\. Two years from now Sarah wants to switch to Verizon

4\. But uh-oh! Because this is an add-on it probably isn't subject to the same portability requirements as regular numbers, so now she is stuck with Sprint.

</comment><comment><USER15> SIP[1] kinda solved this but adoption has been patchy-to-none partially due Skype's proprietary system dominating the voice and video call space. sip:firstname.lastname@example.com should call your device for voice and/or video.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol>

</comment><comment><USER16> To be clear: this is a consumer version of StarStar.co <http://www.starstar.co/> which has been around for some time.

Like every namespace, it's great if you're early and you get something short and simple, useless or at least annoying/convoluted later on.

</comment><comment><USER17> I definitely think phone numbers are the IP address of personal communications. Can you imagine if we had to type in <http://126.96.36.199/> to hit Google.com? However, I would argue that cell phones have provided a DNS-like solution for the phone number problem. It's not perfect; people can change phone numbers, and we still have to exchange numbers to be able to call each other, but this is somewhat by design. If there was a DNS for phone numbers, which this Sprint StarStar sounds like, it would be too easy for people you don't want calling you to call you (it's already fairly easy... I'm sure Justin Beiber could testify to this). A phone number is like a crappy, public password for people to call a number that may or may not be associated with you.

Just a few thoughts I had based on the last paragraph: the problem is that phone numbers are arbitrary--nothing connects people and the numbers they hold temporarily. However, a DNS system for individual phone numbers is also suboptimal because it allows everyone access to everyone. What about a password protected DNS system? Everyone gets a phone number/ip address and is able to password protect access to it? Snowball with me here people.

<comment><USER18> > A phone number is like a crappy, public password for people to call a number > that may or may not be associated with you.

A phone number is just an address. That most numbers don't have ingress filtering due to standard operating procedure (and our public commons being owned by private ad-spewing corporations) doesn't change this fact.

You can try all you want to call my GV number, it will route all callers to voicemail except for whitelested numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This isn't really solving a problem. Phone numbers are already unique, so why replace with another unique based system that has a one to one correspondence?

I'd really like to see something like DNS. You can register a "phone number" or "phone name", upon calling something, it sends a lookup to your phone provider, which then provides a lookup to whatever server houses the data for said name which resolves a unique name or series of characters (not limited to alphanumeric increasing combinations) that responds with data that the phone can digest and create an active connection. Imagine being in control of your own data, who can call you, what sort of data a subscriber can obtain when calling you, etc. Sort of an app.net for your own contact info.

</comment><comment><USER20> For anyone with a name that's prone to mis-spellings, this service doesn't seem like such a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER21> See this is a temporary solution and shows off all the problems with a global routing database.

If I could dial __sarah and it knew that I was referring to my Sarah, that would be great, but another individual identifier of global significance isn't helpful.

What sprint needs are truly separate routing databases for each client. If I dial 101 on my cellphone, I want it to ring my dad; why isn't this possible today? The answer is that it is, but it's too much of a headache for existing equipment within core carrier networks.

In short, bring on the real unified communications, woe to the impostors.

<comment><USER22> _"If I dial 101 on my cellphone, I want it to ring my dad; why isn't this possible today?"_

Is this more useful than ringing "Dad" from your cellphone, which is already possible?

<comment><USER21> In some capacities, yes.

I meant generically, being able to remove identity from phone numbers. I want to call someone, however I want to call them, and reach them because the network I'm a part of already has enough information to divine who I'm trying to talk to.

This isn't fantasy, you could realistically do this right now with all of the signals we have online about who people are. It's just that no one sees value in aggregated routing databases, only in adding additional routing databases, like star star me.

Calling 'dad' and calling '101' are just placeholders for the real intention, reaching the person who is your father. However I want to get ahold of them should be reasonable and possible to do with today's technology.

Not trying to be combative, only trying to clarify my point :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The ability to have two (or more) accounts per number might be good for separating business/personal uses on one device if they can track it that way. The limitation of (generally) one phone number per device is restrictive.

Yes, I know you can work around this a bit w/Google Voice and such, but I would prefer my phone to act more like an email client where I can send/receive from multiple accounts seamlessly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why the heck should I pay $36/yr for a service that can work only on Sprint's network when you can register your call name for FREE with a great application like CallmyName. Me and most of my friends have call-names with CallmyName and it works superbly well. I highly recommended to try it and get you call name ASAP....

</comment><comment><USER24> So, trying this, it doesn't seem to work for Text messages, at least across carriers.

It does work for Phone calls, however.

Out of curiosity, I checked, and the major services that you might want to run over a phone - __FLOWERS, __PIZZA, etc, seem to be taken.

<comment><USER25> Text doesn't work sprint-to-sprint, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For me the coolest feature is the "reply with contact info". You meet someone new and before parting, they ask for your contact info -- instead of standing around as they type in your cell or email, you just say "call __MYNAME to get my info."

<comment><USER27> That's what business cards are for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm assuming that this only works if both parties have Sprint? It seems pretty pointless if so, even without taking the namespace collisions into account.

Also: who remembers phone numbers nowadays? I already have a phone that does that for me.

<comment><USER29> "Calls may be made to StarStar numbers within the United States from any Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T mobile phone." from their official report.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> " __GOOGLE ( __466453) is in use." I wonder how many squatters are already holding these hostage. PS, I wouldn't have gone through with it.

</comment><comment><USER31> i think email tried this theory already, people still dont memorize everyone's email address. Auto-complete is what we all live by, seriously, this wont last.

</comment><comment><USER32> What we really need is straight up DNS for phones.

</comment><comment><USER33> This will make it really easy to spam people too

<comment><USER34> It's already quite easy to spam people via their phone number. Just iterate through a block of mobile numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> People still dial and remember numbers?</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg's plan for the future of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3052885/mark-zuckerberg-facebook <comment><USER3> "We are taking a data-driven, product-driven approach to doing good in the world."

If anything - if research is to be trusted - all they've done is make a billion people slightly unhappier by manipulating the way people socialize.

If Facebook has done good; show me the data.

So far the data seems to indicate that internet.org is comparable to releasing swarms of burrowing parasites upon the poorest of the world.

<comment><USER4> If Facebook hadn't existed (nor any other high profile social network) I wouldn't have been invited to half the social events I've attended. Thus, I have a lot more friends than I did. Some data.

<comment><USER5> I bet you would have just as many friends without facebook. That's limited by your capacity to make friends, not the social media you use.

<comment><USER6> Social media _expands_ one's capability to make (and more importantly, keep) friends, especially if one's busy and/or not an extrovert.

<comment><USER5> The idea that social media can do this is the central conceit of facebook. A friendship maintained solely because of an entry in a database is not the same as one driven by the memories of the participants. You are not extending your ability to make friends. You are engaging in something fundamentally different from friendship.

Look at the effects--- facebook depresses people, but meeting real people in real life makes us happy. You will say you need facebook to know where the next party is and meet those people, but that's like saying you need to smoke to meet people at bars.

Friendship isn't a token. It's a continued process of communication and exchange. You are not extending your capacity for friendship by submitting your life details to a social network.

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER7> With regards to the original guy who said he went to social events from Facebook, you completely missed the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Sandberg: Mark said, 'I'm going to make a marshmallow,' " she tells me in her conference room, which is adorned with a framed drawing of her as Spider- Woman. "I looked at my friend and said, 'He's going to make the perfect marshmallow.' Because he's going to be the one out of all of us who is going to have the patience. In order to make the right marshmallow, you can't do it right in the fire, because then it gets burnt. You can't walk away. You actually have to sit there for five to 10 minutes with the marshmallow above the flame, but not too close, so that it gets completely heated but doesn't burn. And the only person who's actually willing to do that is Mark. Because he is that focused and that determined. I've never met anyone with more perseverance than Mark Zuckerberg.

Coming soon to a VC interview: The s'mores test. Burn it and you're toast.

<comment><USER9> Honestly, that was the best anecdote they could come up with? Whatever PR person approved that should be fired. I'm pretty sure 90% of 10 year old boys would pass that test.

<comment><USER10> Also, who puts it above the flame? By the coals is where you want to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR: "I want my ads and stolen video contents in every last dug hole in the world, so you can like a starving child directly!" /s

</comment><comment><USER12> I found the article pretty hard to read...it did not have a clear structure or narrative, had some weird, pithy quotes [1] [2] [3], and generally felt more like a puff piece written by a breathless admirer than serious journalism.

But the main takeaway seems to be the "very clear" 5-10 year R&D roadmap for Oculus:

> Oculus, then, represents two big bets in one: that VR will be the next major > computing platform, supplanting phones the same way that handheld devices > usurped desktops—and that human nature won't change. "If you look at how > people spend time on all computing platforms, whether it's phones or > desktops before that, about 40% is spent on some kind of communications and > media," Zuckerberg says. "Over the long term, when [Oculus] becomes a more > mature platform, I would bet that it's going to be that same 40% of the time > spent doing social interactions and things like that. And that's what we > know. That's what we can do."

Seems logical that VR is going to be FBs next big play, and their ability to get a good product to market relatively soon will be crucial. It's astounding how much revenue they are still able to pull in from a botspammed, broken advertising model on a product that (from my observations of friends/app store comments) is declining in popularity in the US, one of the most lucrative segments.

[1] "This is not big data," says Bordes, who is wearing a T-shirt depicting a robot boxing a dinosaur. "This is supersmall data."

[2] "I personally called up the guy who's leading our laser-communications effort, who was working at [NASA's] Jet Propulsion Laboratory," he recalls. "And he said, 'What? Why are you calling me?' And I said, 'Because we're connecting the world, and I want you to come in and meet the team, and this is something that's really important to me, and I think we can make a big difference.' " Even in the retelling, Zuckerberg makes it sound urgent.

[3] Yael Maguire director, Connectivity Lab: "Our focus is technologies that can advance the state of the art by at least an order of magnitude. We don't want to make something better by a factor of two or three, because the rest of the industry is going to do that."

<comment><USER13> Agreed. The Oculus acquisition still has me scratching my head. I don't doubt that VR will be a major technology, if the Oculus manages to follow up on the promise of the DK. But it seems so very different to FB's current market and core competency.

Where are the synergies? Display ads within VR? From the reaction of visceral disgust I've seen to ads on the apple watch, I can't see anyone putting up with them in the Oculus.

Maybe they're keeping something Insanely Great up their sleeve, but from their total failure to do anything at all with whatsapp or instagram, I'm not hopeful.

<comment><USER12> I think the nature of ads is fundamentally changing from clear-cut commercials and poorly-integrated pop ups towards product placement, PR/ad firm trend manufacturing, and "native content" \- aka ads that read as serious articles without disclosure.

It would be easy to make the best ads ever through VR. Sprinkle some coke bottles and billboards into whatever first generation games come out for Oculus. For immersion's sake, of course. Create a Coke Cafe where you can talk to your friends in a virtual environment for free. The best part? You don't have to pay for physical objects or real estate. Create a few models, pay the dev studio/Facebook, and you're done.

Rather than being constrained by a screen (TV, computer, Apple Watch), VR ads could have so much room for creativity given a fully immersive and completely absorbing experience. And, just like Facebook and Snapchat have done to drive user growth, if we stay ahead of the adoption curve we probably won't see them until the tech is boring anyways.

There's a fine line between great ads, games, movies, shows, etc. - they're all different forms of entertainment w/ different agendas and different reasons for existing, but if they entertain, that's all that matters at the end of the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I do not really see Mark as much of an innovator. He has said himself that he did not sell facebook early on because he did not think he'd have an idea as great and had no use for the money given his lifestyle.

Innovation has come from the ground up with companies like Instagram - <USER2> facebook has purchased - but what has purchasing innovation done for facebook? Seems like people don't want to be at Mark's party so he went and bought the building the next party was in..

I see purchasing Oculus to try to 'own' VR kind of like buying AOL in '98 to try to own the internet.

I feel like this is taking a technology and trying to see what features you can provide rather than asking what features you need and then finding the technology necessary to provide them..

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know about the rest of you, but I know a lot of people, myself included, who have the patience to roast a golden brown marshmallow. I've only heard good things about Sandberg, but that seemed like a really weak anecdote to depict one of the world's most innovative people.

<comment><USER16> It was odd anecdote, You should roast it beside the coals. Above the flame will give you soot.

<comment><USER17> It was an odd anecdote. You should set it on fire then quickly blow it out and wolf it down.

Done is better than perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mark Zuckerberg isn't really a person.

He represents a class of extremely misguided super smart rich people who convince themselves they are doing good by getting themselves richer.

<comment><USER19> "If you are rich, you must, by definition, be doing good since you are providing a valued service that people are paying for." This is the logic; find it in this very thread.

<comment><USER20> I think there are methods of becoming rich that pretty clearly do not involve doing "good", but even so, since Facebook users are not paying for the service, the most we could conclude here is that Facebook is doing good for advertisers. That may well be true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Genuine question: Why does Facebook and Zuckerberg get such a hard time on HN when Google and Brin/Page doesn't? They basically have the same supposedly shabby business model.

<comment><USER22> Totally upsupported supposition - maybe because Zuck basically is in the same age bracket as a lot of the population on here, whereas Larry and Sergey are a bit older?

<comment><USER21> Could be. Another difference is how they came to success. Zuckerberg solved an "easy" problem building a social network web app whereas the Google founders solved a "hard" problem building search engine algorithms.

<comment><USER8> He didn't solve any problem. He stole the Winklevosses work.

<comment><USER21> The Winklevosses didn't do any work. They wanted someone to build them a dating site for Harvard students.

He was an asshole in their business relationship and should have stopped working with them the minute he was inspired to create Facebook. But he didn't steal anything that belonged to them. They would not have succeeded with their original idea even if they found a developer to do all the work for them.

<comment><USER8> The Winklevosses already had a substantial part of the project done, and it was more than a dating site. In fact, Zuckerberg copied the Winklevosses feature to connect people. In the absence of competition it seems likely that the Winklevosses product would have been successful. Zuckerberg admits they were well known on campus and would have promoted the site well. The key determining factor in the success of Facebook was not the quality of the software, or even its features, but that it was first social network introduced to the closed Harvard internal market.

[http://newslines.org/mark-zuckerberg/?order=ASC](http://newslines.org/mark- zuckerberg/?order=ASC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> All your internets are belong to us. Resistance is futile.

What was the date for Genisys to launch again? Some time in October 2017?</comment>


Facebook "Like" button declared illegal in Germany - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/facebook-like-button-declared-illegal-in-germany-19173117/ <comment><USER2> I think it's interesting that they reject it on privacy grounds, because that's not even how it seems to be used anymore.

I couldn't count on my fingers how many posters and ads I've seen from businesses asking people to "Like" them on Facebook _in exchange for_ this freebie or that one. In other words, soon this data won't really reflect anyone's true interests, it will just be a way for certain people to cash in on stuff (the modern equivalent of clipping every imaginable coupon, I suppose).

</comment><comment><USER3> That's hilarious, nice one Germany!</comment>


Whole-body cryotherapy as adjunct treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2734249/ <comment><USER2> > The subjects in the study group were additionally treated using a cycle of > 15 visits to a cryogenic chamber carried out daily from Monday to Friday.

In a 3 week study of treatment for conditions where social withdrawal is a critical element, one of the groups had three weeks of additional, mandated social participation.

One of these groups also had a unilateral, massively higher level of education (approx 1/3 of the intervention group was college educated; less than 5 percent of controls were). To the extent that education correlated to SES strongly correlates to positive health outcomes, that's not a small difference.

This is an interesting pilot, and I'd be in favor of a reasonable follow-up study. But in itself it doesn't show jack.

<comment><USER3> It's part of a respectable body of science researching the effects of heat shock protein release on autoimmune driven conditions. Both hyper and hypothermia cause the release of heat shock proteins, which trigger the immune system to dial down inflammation. This is co-option of the body's natural process for recovery after serious illness, where heat shock proteins are released in response to natural fever, triggering tnf-regulator cells and other processes.

The twist is that we are starting to appreciate and investigate the use of heat shock protein release induction directly on mood disorders. A sizeable portion of depressed people, specifically the anhedonic subtype, respond to treatments that target the immune system, or it's effects on the brain. These people tend not to respond to most classes of antidepressants, aka treatment resistant depression, or cognitive therapies, since (on the whole) you can't think your way out of an autoimmune disease.

<comment><USER2> There are a number of physiologically plausible mechanisms underlying various plausible therapies that turn out not to have clinical effects. That is why we test them empirically.

And this study was not structured to plausibly prove clinical efficacy, regardless of how plausible you feel the underlying physiological mechanism is.

<comment><USER3> Let me restate myself, then: this study is building on ones that have already presented plausibly proven clinical efficacy.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DtJGJWjDys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DtJGJWjDys)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27190490](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27190490)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027858460...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027858460700070X)

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/reports/cold- stress.pdf](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/reports/cold-stress.pdf)

<comment><USER2> So, I haven't seen this before. So I thought I'd take a look:

Sources 1 and 4 are both from the "FoundMyFitness" folks. One is a YT video, and the other is a layman's article that, from what I see, is an argument including things like "here are various physiological routes that may play a role. Therefore, it works." A lot of pointing at mice models.

Almost no reference to human studies at all. I went through it looking for what they referred to as evidence in humans, and found citations like Shevchuk 2008 ("Practical testing by a statistically insignificant number of people, who did not have sufficient symptoms to be diagnosed with depression, showed that the cold hydrotherapy can relieve depressive symptoms rather effectively"), and Gordh 1998 (an assessment of administration of 10 patients receiving epidural clonidine for pain relief, not cryotherapy), and Pertovaara 2003 (an assessment of rats getting fadolmidine, an alpha-2 agonist like clonidine).

Your link #2, Tricas-Moreno 2016, is a case study of a single young athlete with ankylosing spondylitis receiving multimodal physical therapy - "with orthopedic joint mobilization, dry needling, exercise, and whole-body hyperthermia." Not that a single case report actually means anything, but for what it's worth, he received the opposite of cryotherapy.

And source 3, Pae 2007, was a descriptive study showing that certain genetic variants for inflammatory mediators were associated with better or worse responses to antidepressants ("In conclusion, genetic variants within the genes coding for HSP-70 family proteins may affect the action of antidepressants and thus their therapeutic efficacy,") and that these markers went up or down in response to antidepressants, not that the presence of inflammation itself was causal. Nor was there any empirical assessment at all of cryotherapy as a treatment modality.

So, to summarize: Source 1 and 4 seem to be some layman's stuff that, at best, points at some studies that suggest a possible mechanism, at the 10,000-foot level of "inflammation happens, it might be involved with depression, if you do things that might mediate some types of inflammation, you might mediate depression." Source 2 is a physical therapy case study of a guy that got _the opposite_ therapy. Source 3 elaborates slightly on "inflammation may play a role in depression."

None of this at all shows any clinical efficacy, whatever. None of these are clinical studies of cryotherapy in depression.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, that was the wrong ankylosing spndylitis reference. The last link, like the first, I passed on because it is full of references to primary articles.

In any case, you don't seem to have the background in rheumatic diseases to evaluate any of this, and I don't have the time to pass on the knowledge I've garnered, as a sufferer, and also a life sciences engineer working on autoimmune and genetic engineering problems. Consequently this has already devolved into a Joe Rogan-style internet argument.

If this stuff is important to you,keep watching the news, there's a lot of good research that's going to reach outside academia in the next couple of years, regarding hyper/hypothermia, heat shock proteins, and autoimmune and mood disorders.

<comment><USER2> Your first and last links didn't have references to primary articles of _clinical assessments._ Your third article was _more of the same_. Your second article was just funny because it pointed to _the opposite therapy_.

> as a sufferer, and also a life sciences engineer working on autoimmune and > genetic engineering problems.

I wish you could join me in the irony of being a physician with an autoimmune disease being told "you don't seem to have the background" to evaluate your citations.

<comment><USER3> That _is_ ironic. Unfortunately, according to my oncologist friends, it's also commonplace.

You reviewed what I posted with an aim to _proving me wrong_ , not expanding your knowledge, and _then_ prove me wrong. Kind of a terribly attitude in a physician, and really self-destructive to those dealing with autoimmune disease.

<comment><USER4> "You reviewed what I posted with an aim to proving me wrong"

As an uninvolved reader I had the opposite impression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started cryotherapy last year. I went every day for 30 days. I know go about once a week. I'm headed to hot yoga followed by cryotherapy for the extra shocking effect.

Anecdotally, I find it helps me recover from training. This is probably too much information, but I find it is excellent for the gentlemanly bits down under.

I'm 39. Give me more of anything that makes me feel 19 again.

<comment><USER6> TRT

<comment><USER7> TRT?

<comment><USER8> Testosterone replacement therapy.

<comment><USER7> thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Side note: this is somewhat similar to the old methods of treating mental patients.

Ice-cold baths were used to treat mental patients who showed signs of low mobility and lethargy or manic-depressive psychoses. Often against their will.

<comment> atom-morgan I used to _hate_ cold showers but I now finish off my showers every morning as cold as my shower can go. If you have low energy levels in the morning I can't recommend it enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To what extent is either a cold shower or an ice bath similar to the cryotherapy used in this experiment?

<comment><USER11> "Cryotherapy" as used in this study is basically being nude in REALLY cold chambers; like -120 or -160C for fairly short periods of time. I have no idea how they came up with the idea of making the chamber that cold. I suppose someone looked at extreme saunas and tried the opposite.

You probably know about Wim Hof and the various sports/human performance things involving cold (no doubt as touted on Joe Rogan as every fruity health fad seems to be). Personally I think it probably does do something, though every individual reaction is different. I've always done the cold water at the end of the shower James Bond thing. I recently moved from the Bay Area where it is 70F all year to a place where it was recently -30F with the wind chill. The cold seems to fill me with vigor; love it. Love the Sauna as well. Generally speaking I think the human organism thrives best with a little hormesis.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, that's dangerously cold: corneal, lip and ear damage territory. Sounds like "unpleasant must be magic panacea" department unless proven with good studies.

<comment><USER13> Often these things are containers you get into that your head is not in.

Your point is well taken, but at least those 3 bits are probably safe from these types of containers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you look past the sciencese of "short-term adjuvant treatment for mood and anxiety disorders", basically:

"It feels fun to shock your body with cold"

</comment><comment><USER15> It sounds interesting, but I'm not quite sure how to feel about the conclusion that the effects here may be short-term. Anxiety and depression are generally big picture/long term issues for people rather than acute instances.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not randomized, not blinded. Likely to be a powerful placebo response. Awaiting the companion article, Steam bath as an adjunct treatment.

Also note that the 'nih.gov' link probably unduly impacts credibility - it's just the pubmed central site, not an NIH-supported trial.

<comment><USER17> Umm, what about the huge adrenalin and testosterone rush that you get?

> Apart from activating the body's system of temperature regulation, there is > also a hormonal response, which increases body metabolism and the > concentrations of adrenaline, noradrenaline, adrenocorticotropic hormone > (ACTH), cortisone, pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), and β-endorphins in blood > plasma as well as male testosterone levels

The most awesome head high I've ever experienced was jumping into a icy creek after hiking all day on a hot spring day.

<comment><USER18> I seldom do it but after I jump into icy cold water I get a very good mood for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER19> Look up the stuff Wim Hoff "Ice Man" is onto. Hot/cold shocks of any form are super fascinating.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. FDA to phase out some antibiotic use in animal production - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/fda-antibiotic-idUSL3N0JQ36T20131211 <comment><USER2> The use of antibiotics in food stock should be banned completely. Saving a few cents per pound on meat isn't worth the damage to our antibiotic stock. Wanna give antibiotics to an animal, fine, but now it can't be used for food.

<comment><USER3> It is oddly cruel to see that logic applied in organic meats. An animal might become infected. It might die a very painful and slow death. But to keep organic certification, not antibiotic maybe used on the farm.

Even for animal that will become food, I would think that kindness should be applied. If it is sick/infected, but still useful for meat, cure it and eat it. If not, just kill it. Don't let it suffer.

<comment><USER4> Organic farmers have approved antibiotics they can use (as well as natural remedies). If a dairy cow is treated with antibiotics the holding time before she is allowed back into the milking process is usually double or triple the normal holding time for a non-organic cow (10-15 days vs 5 days). Sh is still milked but the milk is poured away.

<comment><USER5> Isn't there something more useful they could do with that milk than pour it away?

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, cow milk is only useful as a human beverage.

<comment><USER7> Or a cow beverage. Could this milk be useful for feeding to calves?

<comment><USER6> Thanks, Crito. I glad someone else sees the absurdity of drinking another animal's milk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "'Because antimicrobial drug use in both humans and animals can contribute to the development of antimicrobial resistance, it is important to use these drugs only when medically necessary,' the FDA said in a release." This is long overdue. The FDA action is consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations in the United States and with agricultural regulations in the European Union. We have discussed the science behind this no-brainer recommendation several times here on Hacker News.[1]

Yes, veterinarians may need to treat animal diseases with antibiotics. Antibiotics are in several cases "natural" substances that evolved through natural selection, mycotoxins emitted by fungi, or bacterial toxins emitted by one clade of bacteria, with the effect of killing bacteria in a world full of bacteria. The bacteria susceptible to antibiotics, in turn, have long been under selection pressure to evolve resistance to antiobiotics, as some strains of bacteria did long ago in the wild. The use of antibiotics in human medicine has revolutionized several forms of medical treatment and added millions of years of healthy life to humankind's prospects, but use of antibiotics must go hand-in-hand with other forms of infection control to minimize selective sweeps of antibiotic resistance as a trait among most harmful strains of bacteria. It's a bad trade-off to use antibiotics without veterinary indications in general animal husbandry, so this regulatory step is a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, the already established multiple-drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are very worrisome,[2] and will have to be a focus of much research and urgent public-health campaigns.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040)

[2] [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230344420...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303444204577460734274201756)

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-06-23/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-06-23/news/40134749_1_stop- tb-department-mario-raviglione-jmm-meeting)

[http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2012/Facing-the-Reality-of- Drug-R...](http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2012/Facing-the-Reality-of-Drug- Resistant-Tuberculosis-Challenges-and-Potential-Solutions-in-India.aspx)

[http://www.tbcindia.nic.in/pdfs/RNTCP%20Response%20DR%20TB%2...](http://www.tbcindia.nic.in/pdfs/RNTCP%20Response%20DR%20TB%20in%20India%20-%20Jan%202012%20update.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Yeah. Not really worth it to make meat 0.6 cents a pound cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This guidelines are just voluntary? What's the point?

"'Our fear ... is that there will be no reduction in antibiotic use as companies will either ignore the plan altogether or simply switch from using antibiotics for routine growth promotion to using the same antibiotics for routine disease prevention,' said Steven Roach, senior analyst with advocacy group Keep Antibiotics Working."

<comment><USER11> My understanding with FDA guidelines is they are always "voluntary" only in name. Companies effectively have to comply or the FDA will crack down very hard on the company.

<comment><USER10> I really doubt it. The FDA is heavily influenced by whatever administration is in power and administrations are heavily influenced by lobbyists.

This is why it's a voluntary guideline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hear that the FDA will also be releasing a recommendation to close the barn door after the cows get out.

You just can't be too careful, you know.

<comment><USER13> You're right, this is long overdue, however hind sight is 20/20 and late is better than never.

<comment><USER14> The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago; the second-best time is now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Consumer demand is actually a pretty effective way to enact change in the food industry. If you punish the grocery stores and restaurants, the pain will be felt all the way up the supply chain. Walmart et al. pay very close attention to consumer demand and they can, and will, strong-arm their suppliers into complying.

(Edit: This is not to say that there shouldn't also be strict government regulations as well.)

</comment><comment><USER16> For me the big issue is the phrase "animal production".

Not farming, rearing, husbandry, but straight to the point factory industrial production.

</comment><comment><USER17> How about phasing it out immediately for vegetables and fruits?

Because learning about that has freaked me out for weeks now.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think this is when my granddad would say, "A day late and a dollar short."</comment>