C++11 in Qt 5 - <AUTHOR> http://woboq.com/blog/cpp11-in-qt5.html

<comment><USER2> Every time I touch Qt, it feels more like Java than C++. Both because it has reimplemented _everything_ and abstracted the OS completely (write once, debug everywhere). And the memory use patterns seem similar too, Qt feels very lax on how memory is used, and seems to prefer heap allocations a lot.

Those are just superficial impressions, but while Qt is terrific GUI toolkit and set of libraries, the all-encompassing framework style doesn't fit to me.

<comment><USER3> _Every time I touch Qt, it feels more like Java than C++_

I just wish they something as powerful as the GridBagLayout. No, QGridLayout is not it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> QT's move to modern C++ standards gives the "which cross-platform C++ framework should I use to create my app" another data point.

Want to use the latest C++ features? QT has your back. Not a fan of modern C++? wxWidgets has your back.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like you didn't read the article. For example rather than using 'override' if you use the Q_DECL_OVERRIDE macro it will spit out 'override' when you want to compile with C++11 and when you don't it does nothing. Not a fan of modern C++ or can't use C++11 for some project, but you can for others? Qt has your back while from your tone wxWidgets forces you to not use the new C++11 features.

<comment><USER4> My point was that QT has adopted the new ideas from C++ (like the new override operator), where as wxWidgets (last time I looked, a few years ago) has barely moved to using the STL for containers.

wxWidgets is a much more conservative framework, where QT seems to embrace the new stuff (and provide backwards compatible hooks where possible).

Of course, you could use different C++ styles and ignore "what you don't like" from either framework, but there's a little impedance mismatch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't looked at Qt in a long while. Do they still have the MOC?

<comment><USER7> Yes, Qt still uses moc. I leave it up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> I certainly don't think it's a bad thing. Seems like without a MOC the programmer would have to write more code or file all that meta data in a separate file. So it's all good.

I was just curious since I haven't touched Qt in years and this post implies it is moving toward more _standard_ C++.</comment></comment></comment>


The end of capitalism has begun - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun <comment><USER3> The author assumes we have 'capitalism' to begin with. Even talks about big banks etc.

Secondly, he's citing 'information technology' as being the death of 'capitalism'. An industry, arguably the most aggressively capitalistic.

Then he talks about corporate monopolies (anyone who's read economics 101 would tell you corporate monopolies are rarely result of unadulterated capitalism, but rather state corporatism).

He mentions big companies using public data, most of that public data is generated, collected and shared openly by private companies to start with. I'm not even sure what his point was there...

Then he talks about alternative currencies, something which bloomed in response to flailing, devaluing state currencies. Which is just about the most free-market response to state currencies...

The next paragraph he references briefly the 'sharing economy', something pioneered and spearheaded by companies such as Airbnb and Lyft. Truly great success stories of consumer capitalism.

"The solutions have been austerity plus monetary excess. But they are not working." \- What? Our public spending has increases by £50bn, how is this 'austerity'? The cuts have slowed down our public spending and even that has made us one of the strongest economies in Europe. So I'm not sure where he's getting the 'not working' from.

"Even now many people fail to grasp the true meaning of the word "austerity". - Oh, the irony.

Most of the fluffy scenarios he describes, whereby private individuals make voluntary, mutually beneficial agreements with each other, is almost the very definition of capitalism!

<comment><USER4> >Then he talks about corporate monopolies (anyone who's read economics 101 would tell you corporate monopolies are rarely result of unadulterated capitalism, but rather state corporatism).

Let's talk about this point as a whole. Firstly, I don't think it is well substantiated, and there are numerous examples to the contrary- Microsoft, Standard Oil, United Fruit, telecoms, airlines, railroads- almost anything which requires significant initial investment to grow. But, more importantly- why distinguish between capitalism and what you call "state corporatism"? The corporations who lobby the state, or coerce the state, or even cause the formation of an authoritarian state in ways that work in their favor are merely being good capitalists- they're simply better at competing than other capitalists! When United Fruit coerces the US government into supporting a foreign coup, or a corporation coerces the police or military to massacre striking workers, or big oil asks for huge subsidies- it's no different from a capitalist perspective then investing in advertising or aggressive expansion, and all are about increasing control and centralizing power. If there were no state corporatism, how long would it be before a capitalist caused it to come about? Campaign finance laws, monopoly regulations, and public opinion can be rolled back or simply ignored until power is consolidated; the inherent unequal distribution of power in capitalism means that a comparative few people will always be capable of doing this. In the words of Woodrow Wilson: "If there are men in this country big enough to own the US government, they are going to own it". State corporatism, monopology, and inevitably authoritarianism are the end game of capitalism, not a perversion. You can't put limits on the definition of capitalism so that the second anyone is any good at it, and the most obvious oppression that being good at capitalism causes is then apparent, that suddenly it's "not capitalism" anymore because they didn't play by your rules in a system where the actual rules are what those with money say they are. Hopefully, this should make you more critical of the inherent viability of capitalism.

<comment><USER5> Telecom-- a government granted tri-opoly. The FCC limits the number of organizations who can license spectrum in a given metro area.

Airlines-- government regulated, airports are local government monopolies and they limit competition.

Microsoft- Not a monopoly in any line of business

I have been waiting for a long time for someone to come up with an example of an actual natural monopoly that exercises monopoly pricing power. In every case so far, either they had competition, or government is the one that was limiting competition in the first place, usually by regulation.

<comment><USER4> Your requirements are absurd - Every business will be subject to some sort of government regulation that could limit barrier to entry. That's why your conclusions are outlandish- Microsoft was literally deemed to violate antitrust law in federal court; there are plenty of obvious historical examples (United Fruit, Standard Oil, US Steel); Pharmaceutical companies consistently exhibit price gouging in medical monopolies, etc. Furthermore, oligarchical monopolies, like the telecoms, are not somehow exempt- they operate, lobby, coerce, and consolidate power together, despite being 3 separate companies. Utilities are generally natural monopolies, not government created- the major barrier is the huge costs on upfront infrastructure, which dwarf any regulatory costs. Most importantly though, you failed to grasp the fundamental concept, that a government granted monopoly is not somehow uncapitalistic: it's hypercapitalism, the end goal of the system itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the fine article:

> individualism replaced collectivism and solidarity

I find myself wondering if I am part of a remaining few who treasure that. I value self-sufficiency over dependency, moreso as I get older. I have come to realize that there can rarely be an imposed collective benefit that didn't come at the expense of at least one individual. The answer to "is it worth it?" will be dependent on which one you ask. Likely the same for "is it moral?" if I had my guess.

That said, I don't think individualism can last forever. The fast exchange of ideas gives incredible power to well coordinated groups. Will it descend into mob rule? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. We see regular examples of internet mobs taking down powerful people and companies. The recent Pao take- down comes to mind here. People have their opinions on whether or not it was justified, and mine is irrelevant here, but to me what is most striking was the sheer effectiveness of it. Eventually "we" will figure out how much power we wield and put it to use on targets of more consequence than the CEO of a cat picture website. Occupy could have really shaken things up with the right leadership in place. They were tactically effective, but lacked a leader to put them to effective use to achieve an end.

I think the time of the collective is fast approaching. As long as it's a volunteer collective, I have no issue. If it's forced at the threat of violence, I think my opinion would differ. I am not convinced that history inspires confidence on this one.

edit: small clarification

<comment><USER7> Self sufficiency and dependency are not a 1-dimensional parameter. You can be self sufficient in some aspects, and dependent in others, and each of us can be like this in different ways.

Both aspects have their merits, and it is very easy to see that those merits are fundamental necessities. Governance is hard.

<comment><USER8> Dependency does not mean government. A homeless man can be dependent on a church for food and shelter, but that does not mean governance.

<comment><USER7> What I meant is that governance _implies_ some dependencies. Ones that people may not want, which makes it hard to know what dependencies to apply through governance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 20th century, in contrast to past centuries, was an experiment in progressivism. The idea that the state can be used by the masses to improve the well being of individuals over what can be achieved in a situation of economic liberty. So what came of this? We're finding out is that the power to regulate, is also the power to grant special favors. That giving this power, even to a well intended political class, was resulted in a poor outcome for us.

I find it interesting that the EU took over the currency, interest rates and inflation are set by state actors, and that now we're seeing articles such as this one that blame economic liberties for the failure of the system.

<comment><USER10> _The 20th century, in contrast to past centuries, was an experiment in progressivism._

Maybe from the magnetosphere. Otherwise, it's blatantly false ... well, at best limited to the coddled middle class western world, but only post WWII, and only if you exclude Vietnam, the Gulf War, and other major conflicts, the NSA's antics, and pretty much anything that happened in economics... perhaps with the exception of collateral debt and high frequency trading, which were progressing something ... I'm just not sure anyone really stood for it except its positive results on their bank accounts. I suppose Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot and the Japanese Empire were 'progressivist' by some definition, though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the article lacking. Author makes a bunch of controversial yet unsupported statements. Even if they're true (something he doesn't really bother proving), the logical links from one to the next are missing.

Ie I can't even dismiss it as typical Guardian progressive ranting - <USER2> there is no coherent story to dismiss, more of a hot-potch of terms.

Putting it down in the 'not even wrong' file.

<comment><USER12> That's more or less correct. The problem is real (we don't need that many people to make all the stuff) but the proposed solutions are no good. He's into co-ops and "local", which just don't do much in the developed world because the big guys are not inefficient. (You're not going to beat WalMart on price with your local grocery co-op.) Then there's some Marxist analysis, which doesn't help; Marx wrote when companies needed huge labor forces.

Bernie Sanders, the presidential candidate, makes an interesting point. He questions the whole idea of economic growth as a national goal. "Unchecked growth – especially when 99 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent – is absurd. Where we've got to move is not growth for the sake of growth, but we've got to move to a society that provides a high quality of life for all of our people."[1] There's something to be said for that. You get what you measure and optimize for, and US policy has been to optimize for GDP. Maybe we should be optimizing for median per capita real income per hour worked, or "how much does an hour of work buy for most people". That's a number you never used to see in the press, but it shows up more now.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/13/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/13/what- bernie-sanders-is-willing-to-sacrifice-for-a-more-equal-society/)

<comment><USER11> Thanks.

Re the Bernie Sanders quote, it's actually not true ([http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/apr/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/apr/19/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-99-percent-new- income-going-to/)).

For start it omits taxes and wealth transfers - and secondly it measures 2009-2013.

2009 was the year right after the crash when 1% experienced a sharp decline in income.

Thirdly, the huge increase in healthcare (hence insurance) costs is largely carried by employers. That's one of the main reasons for stagnant wages of late - total compensation has been increasing but the increase is flowing into benefits - thus flat income.

I have been thinking myself about the issue of inequality and think it's being obfuscated by the language used (whereby it's discussed in terms of rich vs poor instead of US poor vs foreign poor).

Ie - how are the wages for the top 1% (lawyers, doctors, bankers, etc) affecting the wages for the bottom 50%? If anything I think that immigration has been a much larger factor (for the low skilled / paid sector of the economy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Second, information is corroding the market's ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system's defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last. By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.

This is a fascinating dynamic. How do you charge for information when nearly anyone can replicate it for free?

* Novelty - sure you can get civ4 for 2 dollars, but civ5 is "more desirable".

* Punishment - hexrays blacklisting engineers that use IDApro without a license.

* Technical - DRM it is only mildly effective, but architectural solutions such as gmail or WoW have a low piracy rate.

* Rewards - benefits to compliance, such as steam backing up your saved games and giving you hats.

If a nation were to completely ignore IP law would that provide a competitive advantage to that nation?

</comment><comment><USER14> This statement seems odd to me:

 _Second, information is corroding the market's ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant._

I don't understand how this follows. Wouldn't having more information mean that prices form _more_ correctly?

<comment><USER15> Only if everyone has perfect information all of the time.

<comment><USER16> and the ability to interpret and rationally act on that information. (if rational action is what one wants)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm fairly sure people were thinking this in the 1970s, just before neoliberalism came along and destroyed all in its path.

<comment><USER18> And your point is that capitalism will renew itself once more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We've been hearing about the impending "end of capitalism" since the beginning of merchant capitalism in the 16th century. Mercantilism still thrives even when commodities are produced by non-capitalist production methods.

</comment><comment><USER20> The success of Uber, Airbnb, Ebay, Amazon underwhelms his argument. Information technology, and really the internet, have worked around traditional anti-capitalistic forces like taxes and regulation very effectively.

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome to see such an expression of technological optimism informed by social concern. A rare thing these days.

 _they have struggled to describe the dynamics of the new "cognitive" capitalism. And for a reason. Its dynamics are profoundly non-capitalist._

I believe the author refers to Yann Moulier Boutang's theory, espoused in his book _Le capitalisme cognitif_ (translated in to English as _Cognitive Capitalism_ ): [http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Capitalism-Yann-Moulier- Bout...](http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Capitalism-Yann-Moulier- Boutang/dp/0745647332) .. I actually had it sitting on my bookshelf here in China (had to wait for the translation to come out before ordering) .. must remember to read it now!

</comment><comment><USER21> It's interesting the Greece and 2008 global crises are usually brought up, but important to note that with capitalism comes a need for responsibility - especially regarding debt, and those failures were a result of irresponsiblity on the part of the governments and actors involved - not a defect of the capitalist system itself. In both cases, taking on massive debt and quite simply, living beyond one's or a state's means.

<comment><USER22> The problem with Greece isn't capitalism, that much is obvious. The problem is the EU was designed to fail. It was created in such a way to appease the dominant economic countries by guaranteeing the EU would not be a transfer union. This all but doomed weaker economies from the get go.

Tied to one currency they lost the most effective means of combating budgetary and economic issues. Worse, as they become weaker it becomes ever harder for them to generate the hard currency they need.

So if anything what happened is exactly the opposite of capitalism, they could not compete because the rules agreed by governments prevented them. Yes Greece shares fault for working the books but the EU was formed to only favor the powerful countries and protect their interest, this was no union

<comment><USER23> Preventing the EU from being a transfer union is not what doomed the weaker economies; the fact that _some of_ the weaker economies tried to turn it into such did.

The more capitalist weaker economies (note: most are poorer than Greece) seem to be doing just fine.

[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:EST:LVA:LTU&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:EST:LVA:LTU:GRC:SVK&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Full-on, spot-on, and a huge "hell-Yeah." I've said it before and I'll say it again, we need to build a really big damn space ship. (buildtheenterprise.org)

</comment><comment><USER25> Again?

</comment><comment><USER26> Good read, thx for the post.

</comment><comment><USER27> you can't run an economy on information alone. you can't eat information, or haul lumber with it. Information is just a lever that makes hauling lumber or producing food more efficient.

Author needs to get out more.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. First, it has reduced the need for work,"

The need for work hasn't reduced, it's just changed.

The issue is that someone will need to be doing the work and the people doing the work aren't going to put up with giving the majority of their pay to the rest of society (that don't need to work) for very long.

This idea will eventually lead to total wealth distribution and then the issue will be how you decide to split up the money.

Do we then need to have control on the number of kids a person can have? How about risky behavior (so health care costs aren't that high)?

Also, who decides how it's split up?

All of the articles about basic income and 'post capitalism' only take into account what will happen in the very beginning, which might seem like it's working.

They never discuss the long-term where 3 generations of families are living off of the system and the continued dependence of more and more people. What happens when the number of people on basic income vastly outnumbers the amount of people working? Will the government force people to work? A revolution? Starvation??

Capitalism is not perfect, but it's the one system that not only brought us the most technology and advancements, but also brought the most people out of poverty.

Most of these ideas aren't new. They have been tried and failed and are now just being re-packaged and prettied up into something that seems more palatable.</comment>


Ask HN: Peer Programming Without a Peer - <AUTHOR> TL;DR: Peer programming makes me productive - how can I get into the same state of mind without a peer?
So the last 3 months has taught me something about myself. Solitude makes my brain explode in inspiration and ideas very easy to explore without anyone looking over my shoulder and at home with easy access to all my hobbies and beloved gadgets. - I'm pretty sure now I could get an ADD diagnosis or maybe some other letters.
Problem is - I don't get much work done and in the end the people paying me to work will probably stop.
Procrastination is not new to me but I manage it a bit better when in the office. There I hate the noise and stress, but at least I kind of "feel" that I need to do some work.
It's frustrating - BUT - I found a solution: Peer programming.
I did have a chance to work with a colleague - a new guy who need to learn the way around old code. So he watched and listened to me sharing the desktop while I got work done - I was telling about why stuff was implemented, getting a lot of insight myself and having razor focus for 4-5 hours straight.
I was amazed! - but this was temporary. We don't use peer programming all the time and having a redundant peer who just pretend to listen is an expensive way to work.
- So my question: how can I trick my brain into this : "someone is watching and you need to keep focus" mode, where I actually enjoy working ?
I actually like what I do and I am OK at it - it's not because my work is boring - the procrastination I do is very similar to the real work I need to do.
I might just be hopeless - I might be the only one with this disorder. I see lots of people praising this work from home period, where they can work in silence and get focused. I envy this! <comment><USER2> Can you introspect on what was helpful about having a peer? Are there parts of that process you could replicate without needing a real coworker? You could talk to your engineering manager or team about how helpful it was to use pair programming.

If you've found that sporadically jumping into new work has a negative effect on your overall productivity, are there steps you can take to ignore distractions? Starting with 10 minute meditation sessions might help.[0] Be aware of when random thoughts are taking over and pulling you off task. If your higher-level goal is to focus better it will most likely require an internal change rather than an external force watching you. Although I guess software to block distracting content could help temporarily.

Building up focus and the ability to work in isolation probably takes time. It might help to write your frustrations down in a personal journal to try to identify issues and trends. Maybe the wikihow articles on how to focus would help for some focus strategies?[1]

Getting a friendly desk animal and doing some rubber ducking might help too. :D

Work shouldn't be so adversarial... The way you frame it makes your job sound like it's at odds with your personal development. Maybe your manager would have some ideas? Remote work is weird so lots of people are most likely running into things like this. Engineering people are probably the exception since having isolation for work is usually seen as a good thing.

[0] "The Mind Illuminated" is a good meditation book

[1] [https://www.wikihow.com/Focus](https://www.wikihow.com/Focus)

</comment><comment><USER3> Talking to myself! Specifically talk through what I am doing and what I plan to do next.

Also many a problem has been solve by entering the question as a slack message that I never needed to send.

WFH makes talking to myself possible now!

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you considered live streaming your desktop, e.g. at Twitch? Might give you that "someone is watching" feeling.

On the other hand, one has to be super careful about privacy, security, NDAs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have actually considered recording it - maybe make "Pomodoro" sessions where the recorder can't be stopped and record the screen and my voice. I could maybe convince myself these recordings are valuable to myself or maybe be shown to others in the future and get the "rubber duck" effect that way without burdening others. I think I need the "now were live!" state of mind somehow and this could be it. Maybe these recordings stored in a organized way could also serve as a kind of journal in the future. I will look into this.

Real streaming is not an option - the code and information on the screen is private. But for my private projects I have tried streaming to twitch and it kind of works in the same motivational way.</comment></comment>


Why Twitter Rocks the House  - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/04/10/why-twitter-rocks-the-house/ <comment><USER2> This article does not convince me that Twitter is useful... yet.</comment>


A Baby with 3 Genetic Parents Seems Healthy, but Questions Remain - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/08/523020895/a-baby-with-3-genetic-parents-seems-healthy-but-questions-remain <comment><AUTHOR> I'm often frustrated by the extremely cautious attitude some people have toward technology with the potential to have negative consequences, when it seems much more likely to create positive ones.

For example, self-driving cars and the possibility of an accident a human would have prevented.

I think sometimes we need to be a little bit better at accepting risk when it comes with positive things.

<comment><USER2> This. Society, wrongly in my opinion, seems to have converged on a 'do no harm' philosophy. Essentially we seek to minimize the risk of type 1 errors (approving a technology that causes harm) but in the process increase the number of type 2 errors (delaying or rejecting a technology that would have been safe). I think the reason is because those type 1 errors are visible and can be seen, so cause backlash, whereas the type 2 errors cannot be seen so easily. I do think we'd be better off balancing these two risks rather than just minimizing type 1s (of course this is hard as many type 2 risks are of the unknown unknown variety).

<comment><USER3> It seems to me that your reasoning comes from not caring about an increased turnover of potential effects on human lives (one such effect being death).

It's quite Mendelian an attitude, and frankly I fear people who share your view - advancement at the cost of "breaking a few eggs" \- a line not unlike what you'd hear from an evil villain in a movie, or, sadly, 2017 hackernews.

<comment><USER4> Except lots of eggs get broken today as a matter of course. If a technology saves lives, losing them to get it quicker might be a matter of balance.

<comment><USER5> > losing them to get it quicker might be a matter of balance.

This is why utilitarian math with human lives is horrifying.

You believe you can quantify the worth of a life so that it is easier to justify taking it.

<comment><USER3> I find it to be the slipperiest of all slopes. It's an insidious threat to humanity. It reminds me of moral relativism, but instead of cultural factors being used to justify absolutely anything, here it's some bizarre yet convenient calculation of worth, which by total coincidence (sarcasm), allows all the would-be human experimenters to feel good about themselves.

We haven't learned a thing from the scientific community's hype cycle. Scientists and technologists need to humble ourselves - the polar opposite of presuming to operate on humanity based on some assessment of human worth.

We don't even know what a good diet looks like, never mind grandiose agendas based on assumptions of human worth!

(I'd also like to correct what I wrote earlier - I meant Mengelian, not Mendelian.)

<comment><USER4> Again, what's this got to do with utility?

You give a sceptical commentary free of any actual examples; what are you talking about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not really following this article: what "questions remain", exactly? The child is better with the procedure than without, no? What exactly is the alternative that would leave no questions remaining?

\---

To add, I guess I understand the questions, but rather am struggling with the distinction between this procedure specifically, and the outcomes when _any_ child is born, generally.

<comment><USER7> The question is about whether the child will develop symptoms later in life, as the defective DNA was not 100% removed.

The larger questions around issues like these is whether or not the fix will last. Solving a problem 90% can actually have pretty bad consequences; If you solve a problem that causes infertility or early death only temporarily, you could create a child that grows to adulthood only to have life cut short.

Would this process still be a good thing if the child died at 10 years rather than 3? 15? 20?

Questions remain because we actually have no idea how this is going to play out.

I'm with you, this is probably a good thing, but it will be many years before we know for sure.

<comment><USER8> _The question is about whether the child will develop symptoms later in life, as the defective DNA was not 100% removed._

If he does not die by age 3, it is an improvement. Duh.

<comment><USER9> So if the child lives to age 53, but after age three it is a life full of agony and tremendous burden to society that's an improvement in your book?

<comment><USER8> You know, I have a form of Cystic Fibrosis. I was diagnosed late in life and I get accused of being insane and making shit up for talking about getting myself well. I would literally commit suicide if I thought my future was as hopeless as what doctor's promise you for Cystic Fibrosis.

Yet, I have been on email lists where parents said very touching things like "My son turned 18 today. Today, the life expectancy is age 36. When he was born, it was 18."

And I have talked to people who have had double lung transplants -- a thing I have no desire to go through and the idea of being listed fills me with horror because you basically wait for someone young and healthy to die tragically young in an accident so that you might live -- and they describe the agony they have been through and say they would do it all again and have no regrets.

The parents wanted this child. Their two previous children died by age 3 due to the genetic disorder the mother carries. It seems they felt it was better. Who the hell are you to judge?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's unfortunate that the US made this experiment illegal. At least wait for the results of the research before making a conclusion! Needless to say, put in safeguards to contain damage, if any.

<comment><USER11> What safeguards could you even put in place that wouldn't deprive the child of basic human rights? The major fear I could see is that the child could pass damaged genetic material down to their offspring that may not cause immediate harm in a single generation, but over the course of N generations the resulting genetic mutation from daily life + combination with other DNA during fertilization could potentially cause serious issues.

How do you protect against that? Stop a human being from ever having children?

The dangers of mucking with the DNA of a human are much higher putting self- driving cars on the road or splicing genes into simpler organisms like crops.

Now, to be fair: this wasn't actually genetic modification, but "simply" replacing the mitochondria of the embryo with that provided by a donor. The dangers here are minimal in reality, from what I can tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm always torn on the amount of money and resources that goes toward fertility and reproductive sciences. Money and resources that should be going towards cancer research, vaccinations in the third world, etc. I'm not trying to be overly harsh, but nature is telling you not to have kids. We shouldn't fight that.

On the other hand, as a parent, I know how wonderful kids are.

<comment><USER13> Something that baffles me is that if you take the position that we should select for healthy genes and not put resources into persisting unhealthy ones, it's "bad" because that's "eugenics". But at the same time, the people who spend $200K to get therapy like this are doing it for the sole purpose of persisting their own genome. If that wasn't true, they'd just adopt or raise foster children.

<comment><USER14> "If that wasn't true, they'd just adopt or raise foster children"

Adoption has negative connotations for some families and cultures. So it's possible there are other motives involved.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly my point. They're basically being locally racist. And somehow that's not just OK, but we treat it like an inalienable right.

<comment><USER14> Why assume racism?

Some people hope their children will be in their elder years, and adopting means the children may be more likely to bond with biological parents. Media that romanticize finding one's 'real' parents can indirectly contribute to those kinds of concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Rights for parent is one thing, but what about my rights to live in a world defined by nature, not humans? I don't want my genetic heritage to be polluted with this kind of meddling.

<comment><USER16> That's not a right you have; you're out of luck.

<comment><USER15> apparently not; apparently so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "ethical challenges"

</comment><comment><USER18> Outlaw the practice to force it overseas. Blame the physician for avoiding regulatory oversight. Yeah, that sounds like the genetic luddites alright.

</comment><comment><USER19> No, no scientific questions remain. The baby is alive and healthy as predicted, with a percentage of abnormal mitochondria too low to cause any manifestation of the disease.

Only bigotry remains.

<comment><USER20> Actually there are scientific questions in regards to life long latent effects that might manifest themselves later on.</comment></comment>


How the hell have you done it? (1961) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lettersofnote.com/2018/12/how-hell-have-you-done-it.html <comment><USER2> Western Skies Hotel. Wow. That place was quite an Albuquerque landmark in the 60s. It was one of the nicer hotels on Route 66 and many celebrities stayed there including JFK. After Interstate 40 was built and bypassed it, it fell on hard times. It was torn down in 1988.

Sorry for all the New Mexico inside baseball but this brought back memories.

<comment><USER3> I like the phrase "inside baseball". Not from the US so had to look it up. HN is all about inside baseball for every topic!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Kind of like on a related note, I like how the Internet raises the bar. I guess it only applies to certain kind of people, but at least I am constantly amazed by the engineering efforts in my field, of which I learn through here. Just as of today, I felt like I still know nothing, which certainly helps to keep pushing forward and to excel, even while there's no pressure for that in my day to day life.

<comment><USER5> The internet turns the whole world into a village. That means your "next door neighboor" is hundreds, even thousands, of people.

Hard to compete against that. Our natural impulse, for a certain kind of person, is to be the best that you know. But when you know thousands? oof

<comment><USER6> Even before today's internet the famous "geniuses" existed and what they were able to do was not achievable by the ("untrained" or "untalented") mortals. There are so many examples, but I'll take just one which is, as far as I understand, indisputable:

[https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/bobby-fisher- playing-50-opp...](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/bobby-fisher- playing-50-opponents-simultaneously-hollywood-hotel-1964/)

"At age 20, Fischer won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship with 11/11, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament."

My programming favorite is definitely:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2856567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2856567)

Knuth writes an ALGOL compiler for Burroughs in 1960.

"don claimed that he could write the compiler and a language manual all by himself during his three and a half month summer vacation. He said that he would do it for $5000." "it was taking mortal human beings 25 man-years to write compilers: not three and a half man-months." "The machine had 4080 words of memory." He did it. During the summer of 1960, receiving the computer time as the "third" (after the payroll tasks and when the people developing Fortran compiler didn't need a computer). "he had been working all summer from cards" (punched cards -- for this time a normal condition: he didn't have a terminal to "interactively" develop the program -- he had to punch the cards, one line per card).

<comment><USER5> Agree. Those were/are geniuses and it's relatively obvious that us normals can but aspire to get there. This is healthy.

Modern social media has the insidious habit of surrounding you with hundreds of relative geniuses who one-by-one are totally achievable. But as a group they expose you to tens even hundreds of breakthroughs every day.

Individual breakthrough or achievement may have taken 6 months, but when you see ten of them per day you start to wonder why you can't stack up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An actor appreciating another actor while realizing he's competing with a ghost of past accomplishment. That's certain to be true of every young person in any field; except the appreciation part. That takes some wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER8> Kirk Douglas is still alive, he turned 102 this year. He's the father of Michael Douglas. Old school Hollywood</comment>


Is Facebook Down? Yes. Outage Has Lasted An Hour And Counting - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/31/is-facebook-down/

<comment><USER2> Facebook is working just fine for me. I made sure to check various friends' profiles (timelines) and various secret groups, as well as my own profile and my home page, and it is all working fine as of 7:38pm CDT in the United States. Moreover, no one is talking about an outage among my friends, and there don't seem to be any big gaps in the times noted for various replies.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What is also interesting is that the Facebook comments box at the bottom of the article displays a

'This webpage is not available. The connection to www.facebook.com was interrupted.' error.

Wonder how many sites this is going to impact..

</comment><comment><USER3> Working fine for me, 13 minutes after the link was posted.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't log in right now. But someone else on my network (who was already logged in) reports no problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> My loading of Facebook has been incredibly slow over the last hour, with it timing out several times.

<comment><USER6> Yep, working here, but verrrrrrrry slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's definitely up for me.</comment>


Don't believe women in science face huge inequality? Here's the proof - sahin-boydas https://www.newscientist.com/article/2193119-dont-believe-women-in-science-face-huge-inequality-heres-the-proof/ <comment><AUTHOR> Paywalled :/</comment>


What to expect in OpenBSD 5.0 onwards - <AUTHOR> http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-to-expect-in-openbsd-50-onwards.html

<comment><USER2> What I personally think is interesting is that, as close as we are to OpenBSD 5.0, there are still no patches for 4.9. I don't recall a release that went without patches.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a BSD fan in general, I do wish there was a bit less fragmentation in the BSD community. With the dwindling user community of OpenBSD, and also FreeBSD to a degree, a part of me wishes these teams would join forces to a bigger extent than they currently do. I don't necessarily mean that there should be _one_ "BSD" distribution, but rather shared codebases and such, making it easier to take feature X from FreeBSD and using it in OpenBSD, and vice versa. Whenever a technology (such as ZFS) was implemented in FreeBSD, it should be extremely easy to port to OpenBSD (on that note, there may be licensing issues that keep OpenBSD from using ZFS).

<comment><AUTHOR> This already happens to a greater extent than maybe you realise. Witness FreeBSD's adoption of OpenBSD's pf, and so on. Each of the three 'main' BSDs (Free, Net, Open) have a very different focus in terms of the direction of each project, and these idealistic differences - especially when you throw people like Theo de Raadt into the mix - will mean that it's always going to be fragmented in such a manner.

I kind of like it that way, personally.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I like it that way as well. Sadly, this means that you'll always miss some _killer_ features that are available in other BSDs (FreeBSD's jails, NetBSD's puffs, DragonFly's HAMMERFS).</comment></comment></comment>


Supergiant.io – Container Platform for Stateful Applications - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/05/supergiant-container-platform <comment><USER2> Supergiant's docs suggest they are using Kubernetes but have their own mechanism for utilising Amazon EBS as persistence. Kubernetes already has such functionality[1], so it seems unclear what functionality they have added on top of Kubernetes.

I am however pleased that more people are considering using a traditional SAN (or SAN like service) for data persistence in containers as opposed to migrating actual data volumes.

[1] [http://kubernetes.io/docs/user- guide/volumes/#awselasticbloc...](http://kubernetes.io/docs/user- guide/volumes/#awselasticblockstore)

<comment><USER3> So our main focus with Supergiant is to optimize the hardware cost under your Kubernetes cluster. Our initial goal at qbox.io was to lower our hosting costs for our customers. Kubernetes was the obvious choice for us. We ended up over time writing so many augmentations to the vanilla Kubernetes build, that we ended up with a "plugin" for Kube we called Supergiant. This is what we ended up releasing to the wild. Under Supergiant, normal Kubernetes is still in play, as a matter of fact, you can use the CLI to "import" an existing Kube and deploy the Supergiant core to it. The CLI can also be used to manage (install, delete) Kubernetes clusters for you, even if you have no intention of using Supergiant.

As to your specific comment about storage augmentation from vanila Kubernetes. We needed to run stateful DB type apps (Elasticsearch) which require persistent storage for each node in the cluster. This is doable in vanilla Kube, but requires a weird setup with multiple replication controllers. (The Kubernetes team is currently working to get past this limitation.) This can be time consuming and not very easy to understand for a user less experienced with Kubernetes. Our augmentation basically allows you to specify a Supergiant component (collection of services, RCs, and pods) with a volume blueprint. When you increase the number of instances of your component, (Elasticsearch cluster nodes.) the Supergiant API will take care of all the replication controllers, and volume mounts. Our work around volumes is less about being a huge feature, and more about our approach to fixing a tough concept in Kubernetes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I read the article and the linked blog and I still can't tell what this has over plain Kubernetes deployed on AWS -- what am I missing?

> Storage for applications deployed on Supergiant is allocated on high- > availability arrays, however, it does not use Kubernetes' persistent > volumes. Currently available on AWS, Supergiant uses Amazon's Elastic Block > Store (EBS) so that volumes can move freely around the cluster.

Kubernetes has EBS support, right? What does Supergiant do better here?

<comment><USER3> Hi, please refer to the response above to "jamescun". While we do slightly augment a few features of Kubernetes, our main focus is lowering hardware cost, and providing an additional approach to understanding Kubernetes objects.(In an easy way, for new Kubernetes users.) We will be creating additional blog posts over the next few days to describe how we do this. A very advanced user may be totally comfortable using vanilla Kubernetes. Please let me know if you have more questions. Our slack channel is also listed on our website, and we would love to hear your feedback :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kubernetes has a "PetSet" proposal that looks like it has some overlap with Supergiant.

See [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/260](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/260) For the details, but the gist (as I understand it) is to support applications that depend on state and ordinal identification of nodes. So for example, a PetSet will keep a master database node and it's persistent data together.

</comment><comment><USER6> I still have to read more about this but shouldn't mounting EBS to docker container as external volume (using -v docker flag) give us similar effect?

Also, who handles application based conflicts when two same 'component' containers try to write on same volume (as they are exactly the same just replicated). I hope I am not being naive.

<comment><USER3> So, Kubernetes will not allow more then one pod (Collection of containers) to mount the same persistent volume (* in most cases, exceptions with some types of network storage.) Supergiant goes a step further and automatically ensures that multiple managed pods are provided with storage based off of a volume blueprint. This is all to say, that Kubernetes, and Supergiant automate the "-v" operation for you. Very useful when spinning up thousands of containers, then herding the cats..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see him deploy one etcd container and claim he has deployed an etcd cluster. Is that a cluster of 1 or am I missing something?</comment>


Some 4.5M Japanese aged between 35 and 54 are living with their parents - <AUTHOR> http://in.reuters.com/article/japan-ageing-singles-idINKBN17K2OQ <comment><USER3> Japan is a preview of what's coming to many developed western economies.

I found this paragraph from the article disturbingly similar to the situation here in the states:

"The rise in those shunning marriage, experts say, is due not only to more diverse life-styles but to an increase in low-paying, unstable jobs. Part- timers, temps or contract workers now account for nearly 40 percent of the workforce compared to about 20 percent in the 1980s."

I imagine this will only be accelerated with the rise of AI and increasing job automation. Already, we're seeing the average age when people get married and have kids rise with each generation. I think alot of this is due to job instability, depressed wages, rise of the 1099 worker with no benefits, etc. Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata.

So if you're a young person in the US, you're doubly screwed. All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities, but those are also the places with the highest costs of living, highest costs to own a home, to raise a kid, etc.

If you're mid 20s / early 30s person in San Fran and you're not working for GOOG/FB/APPL etc. you're basically screwed.

<comment><USER4> This is a rather narrow perspective. Lotta _cheap_ big cities with lots of jobs if you're not on the coast.

The people really screwed aren't the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte - where an average home is something like 200K and jobs can be found - they're the ones in dying small towns that have been left by businesses, or in the expensive coastal cities where they're caught up in the housing madness but without the high income or established wealth driving those prices.

They'd be better off moving to, say, the Dallas area, but that's not an option for everyone. And "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting.

(I'd also make the argument that we'd be better off getting more diverse perspectives into those cities, vs our current CA/NY/OR/WA-vs-the-rest-of-the- US silos, but that's another discussion, and a perfect example of "if you really believed that so deeply, why don't you move yourself?")

<comment><USER5> "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting.

Disagree. If your town's way of life is based on for example, coal mining, then good riddance. Another example, perhaps the town is based on agriculture but drones cut the need for labor in half, some people will have to either learn some skill that can be applied remotely or move elsewhere to efficiently allocate their labor. The government (imo) shouldn't be "promoting" any lifestyle. Let the markets operate.

<comment><USER6> It's one thing if your community is dying economically. It's a different story if your area is doing great economically, but housing is so restricted that only a narrow subset of people can live there. Especially since government (via zoning) is creating the artificial scarcity in the first place.

<comment><USER7> This is so true. The flip side of "let small towns die" is "let big cities thrive".

<comment><USER8> Only if the big cities have enough untapped jobs that let new residents thrive.

<comment><USER9> Cities usually significantly outperform when it comes to unemployment:

[http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/lPB3R7m.jpg)

<comment><USER8> That's fine, but it doesn't really address my point.

To put it in different terms... imagine a city has 1 million jobs that pay a livable wage, and you increase the city's working age population by 2 million. Even if cities are more efficient at creating new opportunities than rural areas, that does nothing to address the shortfall in the job market in the short to medium term. Also, rapidly increasing the population size of a city tends to push up the price of accommodation faster than an increase in wages, which reduces the pool of available livable wage jobs.

In short, rapidly increasing the population size of a city without the job market already set to support it isn't likely to lead to economic stability.

<comment><USER6> Those jobs get created incredibly quickly, and often the only factor in preventing them from being living wage jobs is accommodation costs. So cities should be prepared for allowing accommodation to be built quickly too instead of adding too much delay and restrictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't see the "illusions". It isn't as if these people are daily choosing their life. There aren't huge numbers of well-paid jobs out there for them or anyone else. Just because someone isn't successful doesn't mean they are under some sort of illusion. The word "parasite" also implies that these people should somehow stop living, that they are such a drain that the parasite should just let got and die rather than continue the only life available to them.

They may have made some mistakes, but in previous generations a few mistakes now and again was not a life sentence. A few years off the books wasn't a big deal in the 80s or 90s. Now any gap in your linkedin profile is interrogated. In Japan and elsewhere, anyone with a blot on their employment record is doomed. And heaven help those with any criminal convictions. Our societies today deliberately push away so many people. It is improper of us to then say that it is entirely their fault or that they suffer illusions. The illusion is ours, that by shunning and dispossessing people for slight imperfections we only amplify them.

Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn't pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard. But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army? Ability and willingness is no longer enough. (I have relatives in the Canadian Armed Forces. The application process takes at least one and sometimes many years.)

<comment><USER11> Direct quote from the first subject:

"I got used to living in an unstable situation and figured somehow it would work out"

That last bit is illusory thinking.

Also, I'd beg to differ on your suggestion that these people aren't choosing their life every single day. I'd suggest the opposite is true for most of us (leaving aside those who through incapacity have diminished options). Every single day you don't make an effort to look for work, don't volunteer for something, don't organise an activity, don't spend some time learning something, don't go somewhere to meet people, don't go on a date - you are making a choice. Living with your parents and (more importantly) living off your parents well into your fifties is not an accident. You can't accidentally do that. That is directly the result of daily choices and illusory thinking.

And while we can agreee that the term "parasite" is pejorative, I find it is deserved- at least from the perspective of the parent (who in this case is probably as much to blame for this situation).

My daughters are 20 and 18 and the expectation has long been set in our family that they will be moving out once they're in stable employment (and by that I mean any job that can pay their bills, not their dream job). When both kids are out of the house, we'll downsize and share some of the cashed out equity to help them get started on the property ladder. Then they're on their own. In our family we refer to this as "The Plan". They've been hearing about the Plan (and been onboard) since their early teens.

<comment><USER10> >>> ... they will be moving out once they're in stable employment.

Have you met any 20-somethings in stable employment? Unless your daughters are supermodels or have PHDs in biotech they are in for at least a decade of contract work and constant job-hunting. Even those at their dream jobs know they stand on the knife's edge. And the property ladder, the average home price in my area is over 500k and closer to 1m if you want to be in driving distance of any "stable" job. Even with the 20% down payment only top earners even qualify for a loan. I hope you are ready to co-sign their mortgages.

<comment><USER12> I am a 20 something who was hired for a salaried position shortly after graduation with a bachelors degree in math. I bought a house less than a year later (granted, with an FHA loan and less than the traditional 20% down).

Most of my friends in a major field of engineering or computer science are just fine as well (IT-degrees and _almost_ comp sci degrees don't fair as well).

The world is not as dismal as it may seem for millenials. It's just that demand for STEM +CS continues to grow while the demand for other fields is stagnant, relying on people leaving the workforce to create new openings.

<comment><USER13> > _I am a 20 something who was hired for a salaried position shortly after > graduation with a bachelors degree in math. ... The world is not as dismal > as it may seem for millenials. It 's just that demand for STEM + CS > continues to grow while the demand for other fields is stagnant, relying on > people leaving the workforce to create new openings._

That means you weren't around for the dot-com bust in 2001 or so. Yes, things are good right now but the situation can go south very suddenly and with very little warning and stay bad for several years.

<comment><USER12> I work at a finance company so I'm not too worried.

EDIT: In hindsight, I see the irony of that statement. But I also know we don't get involved with the sort of schenanigans that hurt firms in the last crisis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The second example was not a "parasite single," he was someone who tragically got Parkinson's disease after already having a career. The fact that the journalist couldn't find two legitimate anecdotes makes me question whether this is an actual trend in Japan.

<comment><USER15> What's the difference between tragically getting a disease and tragically failing to get a stable job? They are both conditions that lead to being a "parasite". Your comment sounds like you're blaming the victims of poverty for being poor. Not everyone is equipped to make the best personal choices for their lives. There will always be people who lack motivation and make mistakes just as there will be people who get diseases.

<comment><USER14> I think you are seriously misreading my comment; give it another glance.

The journalists's use of the pejorative "parasite" is not appropriate for someone who fell under serious misfortune as living with Parkinson's. "Parasite" implies a willful decision to live off another's resources. The first example was that: the woman decided to pursue emotionally fulfilling work without saving or contributing to a pension.

I'm criticizing the journalist, who in the attempt to document a "weird Japan" trend, just dug up a sad story which could have happened anywhere in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think it's hard for some non-US Citizens to understand how rather backwards and unwelcome the thought is for Grown Children as Adults to be living at home with their Parents. The cultural fabric of the US mentality is to grow up and achieve "Independence" as a general concept. That usually means living away from family, and having the means to do so.

Culturally, living with one's Parents in the United States, as a grown Adult, with or without a Spouse, is going to be predominately portrayed as a negative lifestyle indicator. As in, the Individual doesn't have the choice of Independence, at least not the basic financial / living arrangements type.

The "Sandwich Generation" label scares the ever loving spirit of freedom out of most US people who might find themselves caught between providing for both Kids AND Parents.

Assimilation into values such as this US type of Independence are, understandably, quite foreign to several other Large Cultures elsewhere in the World. However, on this turf, it is the prevailing attitude. No amount of "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" will turn the tide regarding this component of the US life experience, and, at least here, it's an indicator of a need to further assimilate or, unfortunately, deal with cultural push back.

To be fair to the US, this happens when US people try to ascribe their values to other cultures as well. I get it. Two way street.

<comment><USER9> I have some kind of fetish for saving interesting data images, so here's one for this (covering Europe + US):

[http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg)

<comment><USER17> It's worth noting that getting to the low percentages requires a society that subsidizes living costs. In the Nordic countries living with your parents as an adult implies some non-financial reason to do so; every adult will receive housing benefits for independent living if needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not a very informative article, unfortunately. No discussion of what caused the issue, what is being done to help these folks, or if anything can be done. A few of these folks are profiled, but one of them was diagnosed with a disease in his 40s and would have issues whether or not he lived with his parents.

The bigger issue is the tremendous waste of human capital at a time when Japan needs employees more and more. (Of course, it is the right of these individuals to live their lives as they see fit, but society would benefit if they were more productive.)

Maybe the employers need to change? Maybe the social net needs to be modified to encourage work? Not sure how to change incentives, but it certainly seems a large subset of that generation isn't headed anywhere good.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if the west will see a similar effect from the outta control property prices. Historically when people retire they have their house paid off and they can live on a low budget for the retirement years. This is likely not going to be the case for a large number of people in ~35 off years.

<comment><USER18> As far as affecting retirement, I am less worried about rising property prices and more concerned about how easy it is to access home equity. That ease makes it very tempting to dip into your nest egg when you should be paying down your mortgage. And there's always some reason to borrow.

Of course, that is only an issue for folks who've been able to buy property, but as another comment mentions, if you leave certain metro areas property becomes very affordable very quick.

<comment><USER20> The issue here then becomes what do you do at 60 when you've been unable to purchase property and can now not qualify for a standard 30 year mortgage? If you've paid 35% of your before tax income in rent since you were 20 on a standard salary, you've got maybe $150k(AUD) in savings if you were really, really dedicated, which isn't even enough to buy a house 600km out of a major city (Sydney in my example) and now have no income outside of superannuation or a government pension? Quality of retirement (in Australia) evaporates if you have to pay market rate rents...

<comment><USER21> I might be wrong since I don't know what the economy in Australia is like, but it is VERY unlikely for someone in the US to have $150k in savings and yet not own a home. In fact the opposite does happen a lot: _all_ of a person's equity is in their house, and they have $0 in savings. But then they sell their house, move to a cheaper house and used the difference to make ends meet.

<comment><USER22> Hm, that sounds an awful lot like a Ponzi scheme, if people are actually expecting that. Do you think a large percentage of people are planning on that?

<comment><USER23> That's all most Americans have, besides a small monthly Social Security benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps some of these people chose to live in a close family unit with their relatives through choice. This is how millions of people live in other cultures worldwide, caring for each other. No shame in that at all. This article appears to be pro rat race or be shamed...

<comment><USER25> That is common here, I'm an Aussie with a Japanese wife, I just invited her grandparents to live with us. (Grab spa is old and grandma has to look after him, this way we can help, and grandma can help my wife when we have a child)

<comment><USER26> isn't it their own children who should take care of them? I find it odd they skipped one generation and they are going to burden you

I think help from them with your child will be much less valuable (close to zero due to advanced age) than your help to them

<comment><USER23> Some people perform selfless acts because they're decent people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In many societies, living with your parents is nothing unusual, especially if they own their own home.

<comment><USER28> Name 3 please.

<comment><USER27> Three!

Let's do it the other way. I'll name only one where living with your parents is considered not kosher - the USA. In practically every traditional society, living in the family home is just fine, especially for those members of the family that don't have their own homes.

In fact if the family home is sizable, raising your own family inside the family home is OK too. I've seen it everywhere I've traveled - much of Africa and South America.

<comment><USER28> >raising your own family inside the family home is OK too

Sure, is OK, but is not ideal, and is done mostly by necessity, for economic reasons.

<comment><USER22> There can be big benefits to being near your family, including health and mental health benefits, besides the economic benefits. Recent parents being able to lean on the grandparents, rather than sending kids to expensive daycares that frankly don't really care about the child as much as a grandparent will, for example.

<comment><USER26> I would tend to disagree with this. Grandparent may value your child more than worker in daycare, but socialization of your child will suffer a lot, so will its development, child need to be with peers and not home with 2 old people. Same goes for playing and learning, there justisn't enough stimulation at home compared to daycare.

<comment><USER22> Who says children need constant stimulation? They've historically had no trouble filling the gaps with their imagination. If anything, I think that attention span has suffered greatly because children are never allowed to be bored anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I the only person who sees this as good news? There is a lot to learn from old people, and seniors often need the help at home.

</comment><comment><USER30> Recently I heard senator Warren speak of what she essentially described as the selling out of the middle class starting with Reagan and with the tacit support of democrats.

When you see the effects of the maturation of an economy plus globalization, it's apparent it's not as simple as saying that beginning in the '80s the establishment sold out the middle class in favor of the elite. There is more at play. Japan has been suffering from the same issues, but somewhat differently due to some structural rigidity.

Japan is, as they say, complicated. Work culture (at the extreme death from over work, but commonly getting home very late due to social obligations at work), gender roles (still difficult for women to achieve success on par with men), cost of living, hiring practices (must be hired before graduation) hyperactive brand awareness (the new cool thing minted by thirteen year olds must be had by virtually 50% of the pop) and to some degree idealization of a bohemian way of life and repudiation of their previous generations' attitudes toward work. All these things come together and result in a ~30year intractable malaise.

If they could just get themselves to address the biggest issue, make it easier for women to work and succeed (opportunities, responsibilities, salaries, time off for family and bigly social expectations) they just might have a chance at improving things, but I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER31> Your comment made sense up until the last paragraph. I honestly see no connection between giving things to women and solving any of the problems we're discussing here. In fact it could make things worse by further saturating the job market, increasing living costs (e.g. restaurants replace home-cooked meals), and so on.

Japan's biggest issue is simple demographics and capital saturation, not conservative views on women in the workplace. In the past, when the economy was roaring, their views on women were even more conservative than now, and it clear didn't hold them back at that time.

<comment><USER30> You can't have an apathetic population get involved (in society) when they have lots to lose but little to gain. Partners coming home at 11pm and leaving at 5am isn't a "partner". Why would any one want to raise a family and ensure the continuation of the society when you're in that situation.

Basically what they did and continue to do is forgo roughly half their potential workforce and half their overall potential because they could not bother to make things even semi-attractive for women to stay employed beyond 30.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I interpreted this as an allusion to this song [0]. They are seeing life from the other side now.

0\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Xm30heHms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Xm30heHms)

</comment><comment><USER26> I missed in the article what is the percentage in other countries making Japan special with 20%.

Btw. is there something wrong with it, if parents and the men are fine with that, what's the problem here? At least parents will have someone to take care of them, my wife's uncle is in similar position and I don't see it as anything bad, at least other children with better jobs no need to take care of them. Or the preffered option is to dump own parents to retirement home and stay in your own apartment, if someone has no problem with the other option?

</comment><comment><USER33> premiss is way off. it's not because they're single, but because they did not work they are in trouble... this article feels like social engineering - <USER2> juppies marry marry marry

<comment><USER8> FYI, spelling of 'premiss' is 'premise'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nobody likes killjoys, and I see so much denial in these comments, yes, you will get old and the desitions you make today matter for your future even if you choose to ignore that fact and "live for the moment".</comment>


Chrome Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://techsplurge.com/2400/11-chrome-web-apps/ Chrome Web Store has recently been opened and here's a collection of Best apps for Chrome available in the Chrome Web Store for social networking, photo editing, entertainment, Porductivity and much more <comment><USER2> I don't like the way Google are, basically, lying about what Chrome is. "You need Google Chrome to install apps". No you don't. Most of them work just fine in any other browser. And for the functionality that isn't present, what's better, writing a fallback for other browsers or locking other browsers out?

<comment><USER3> I think you may have missed the point of the Web Store, which, like Apple & the iPhone, is predicated on the idea of selling applications that are compatible with the platform -- in this case Chrome. There will obviously be some applications that are easy to port to other platforms, depending on the specific APIs used, and some that will be more difficult. (For instance, you can't actually use an application that _depends_ on the WebSocket rev76 API in Firefox 3.5/4, Opera, or Safari 6.0 or less.)

If a developer has an application that works in other browsers, then hey, they should go distribute those apps in more places than just the Web Store. But it only really makes sense to position the Web Store as a Chrome-specific application repository b/c Google is only really guaranteeing that these apps work in Chrome.

Google isn't lying, much in the same way that Apple isn't "basically, lying" when they fail to point out that you can play Angry Bird on Android just as easily as you can play it on an iPhone.

<comment><USER2> > the Web Store ... is predicated on the idea of selling applications that are > compatible with the platform ... Chrome

My point is that for the last decade we've been trying to move towards a web where any browser can be used perfectly well, and Google are now trying to reverse this trend in order to lock users in to their platform and make it unnaturally difficult for developers to port their 'apps' to other 'platforms'.

When did a browser become a platform?! I thought the web was the platform? The damage that this does in the short term is that the web is divided into the Chrome-enabled web and the rest of the web. If the idea catches on then the medium term damage is that the web is divided into the Chrome-web and the Firefox-web and the Safari-web and so on and so on.

> For instance, you can't actually use an application that depends on the > WebSocket rev76 API in Firefox 3.5/4, Opera, or Safari 6.0 or less.

There was a time when CSS3 wasn't supported in some browsers. We didn't make a 'Firefox app store' for people who wanted CSS support in their web apps, we made fallbacks for older browsers with the knowledge that the other browsers would catch up eventually. That's a good approach because over all it makes for a more open, platform-agnostic web. What Google are doing with the web store is destroying that openness in order to push their own proprietary platform.

> Apple isn't "basically, lying" when they fail to point out that you can play > Angry Bird on Android just as easily as you can play it on an iPhone.

That's totally different - the Android version is a completely different piece of code to the iPhone one. Whereas <http://nytimes.com/chrome> works just fine on firefox.

<comment><USER4> This trend of creating proprietary app stores is a bit worrying, to say the least

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whilst I am into the idea of the Chrome Web Store, at the moment it seems to just be the "Chrome Web Directory", Yahoo tried that and look where it got them...

I am more interested to see if sites can really make any money from the store, I guess we need to see Chrome OS get some traction first.

<comment><USER6> I don't think Yahoo is the best example of "since yahoo failed..." argument. There are very few things yahoo didn't fail in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> i just installed the infinite scroll one, autopatchwork. works well on google and HN.</comment>


Conservative web development - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2018/09/04/Conservative-web-development.html <comment><USER2> There are two different kinds of web development:

a) Apps where the user is expected to stay a while

b) Sites where the user is there, maybe once ever (most likely also scared off by the ads)

For Apps, I would always prefer a pre-load of JS that was built with React and downloads about 2-4 MB. If there is an update I will be forced to download it again.

On the UPSHOT, almost everything I do in that app is now a 3-8KB request. This means transitioning pages, changing states of things, all happen in about 50ms including whatever visual changes are required on the screen.

Compare that to full-screen refresh apps and I am usually waiting 200-400ms. It just feels too damn slow.

Why am I even typing this? This is the freaking whole point of an SPA. Are we not all caught up on this yet?

<comment><USER3> Your math sounds wrong, so I did it on paper and proved that it's wrong.

The average bandwidth for a mobile device in the USA is about 3.25 mb/s (26mbps). So to load your "2-4mb" Javascript library you're looking at 400ms to connect + 1000ms to download resources. That's 1400ms.

Now for the rest of the math I benchmarked my own website. My homepage is ~300kb and loaded in 461ms. The fastest you're going to get ANYTHING back from my server is about ~170ms.

Lets start with your App. 1,400ms and the app is loaded. Load another page and it takes 200ms to load another 5kb of content. Load one more page and it's another 200ms for 5kb of content. I've been waiting on your website for a total 1,800ms and viewed three "pages" of content.

Lets move on to my website. ~450ms and the site is loaded. Load another page and it takes another ~450ms to load another 300kb. Load another page and that's another ~450ms to load another 300kb. I've been waiting on my website for a total of 1,350ms and viewed three actual pages of content, but the user only had to download 900kb instead of 4mb.

So I think you proved the OP's point.

<comment><USER4> User expectations are very different for when they are starting work vs when they are in the middle of something. If it's really a SPA you can also disguise the load times with optimistic updates and such

<comment><USER5> Don't people still have data caps?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Y'know, folks complain (with some justification) that Bitcoin wastes a massive amount of energy globally. But almost noöne uses Bitcoin, or mines it; I wonder how much energy is wasted on transporting & executing useless JavaScript. It'd be interesting to know how it compares.

<comment><USER7> Your spelling of "noöne" is commendable - I love the rare occasions when I see things like coöperation these days - but "no one" is definitely two words.

<comment><USER8> Is there a term for using an ö like this?

<comment><USER9> It's a diaeresis, used when a second consecutive vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable. The New Yorker likes to use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> │ Today I turned off my ad blocker, enabled JavaScript, opened my network monitor, and

│ clicked the first link on Hacker News - a New York Times article. It started by

│ downloading a megabyte of data as it rendered the page over the course of eight full

│ seconds. The page opens with an advertisement 281 pixels tall, placed before even the

│ title of the article. As I scrolled down, more and more requests were made,

| downloading a total of 2.8 MB of data with 748 HTTP

| requests.

That's why I do that in the background with a python script and inline the contents of the hn articles into an RSS feed [1] that I read on a terminal based client [2]. Source [3].

[1] [https://damng.github.io/hackernews-rss-with-inlined- content/...](https://damng.github.io/hackernews-rss-with-inlined- content/output.rss) [2] [https://codezen.org/canto- ng/](https://codezen.org/canto-ng/) [3] [https://github.com/damng/hackernews- rss-with-inlined-content](https://github.com/damng/hackernews-rss-with- inlined-content)

<comment><USER11> I just tried [http://nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com) with both Lynx and Safari "in Lynx mode" (disabled JS, CSS, Images).

Reminded me how much I miss gopher.

Lynx's rendering was unusable, because their front page has all the nav, colophon, etc. cruft ahead of the content (in the DOM).

Safari's rendering was almost usable. It still shows fancy typeface for the headmast, etc. Huh. Then I tried to disable custom fonts. I was amused to learn they're rendered with SVG, with no alt-text.

<comment><USER10> yeah lynx needs a fork that uses dom-distiller to render things off screen, and then just uses its own renderer to show the final content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The heaviest page, the marketing page, today weighs 110 KB with a cold > cache, and 4.6 KB warm. (more comparisons between cold and warm loads)

I set HTTP cache-control immutable on my blog's image/JS/CSS URLs this weekend. Cache-Control: immutable tells the browser that this URL will never change, so don't check to see if it has. It should cut down on the warm loads more. If it does change, the timestamp in the URL path will change, so browsers will check the new URL.

[https://bitsup.blogspot.com/2016/05/cache-control- immutable....](https://bitsup.blogspot.com/2016/05/cache-control- immutable.html)

I suggest caching the main HTML, too. It would get the total warm load down to less than 1 KB.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is my most recent favorite.

[https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop](https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop)

Total download size is 6.87MB and over 6s to render it, for a page with some nonsense overview text, and four pictures. Completely ludicrous.

<comment><USER14> the 3 images have over 5MB. no optimization at all I assume.

<comment><USER15> I wish all common CMSes just did this automatically. Or do they do it, already? (WordPress, Drupal, etc.)

<comment><USER16> They've all at least got convenient extensions you can install to auto optimise images, like with EWWW Image Optimizer or Smush Image Optimiser for WordPress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not a word about why any of this matters.

I don't like the NYTimes website, but I like their reporting. If a ton of JavaScript is the price, I'll grudgingly take it. If there's a better way to pay, I'll gladly take that. But this article doesn't provide one, making it nothing more than navel-gazing.

<comment><USER18> It matters because you (generic you, not you specifically) don't pay my mobile bill.

<comment><USER17> Then don't read their website.

I'm entirely serious. If there's enough people like you, there's a good chance that it'll be noticed.

I tend to think that websites are under-optimizing for responsiveness, though I confess that I don't have evidence for that claim. However, I also think that the kind of puritanism on display in this article requires an amount of work that would be a waste (again, no evidence).

<comment><USER19> The average NYT subscriber probably doesn't understand these intricacies around how websites are built and delivered to their phones, or how network effects and scaling affect the infrastructure needed to do so.

They also probably don't care because they just signed onto the latest "unlimited" data plan with their service provider.

So there probably aren't enough people who understand the problem to make NYT notice (or care) due to boycotting.

Regarding your last point: a waste for whom? AFAICT the only people benefitting from sticky/engaging services, highly instrumented frontends and downright dark patterns are the people extracting wealth, either directly from subscriptions (not so bad) or, in a much grander sense IMO, data brokers (bad, real bad).

<comment><USER17> People notice when things are slow and annoying. They close the window and don't look at it.

You might be right that not enough people will change their behavior to make a difference. And if so, tough luck. You and I aren't entitled to a news outlet that meets our latency requirements. We are entitled to complain on HN, but no one will really listen.

Of course you also benefit via reading the news, having reporting on official corruption, and all that jazz. Contrary to your snark about wealth extraction, media outlets are typically losing money and cutting back on reporting. The NYTimes is in a better position than most, but in general, the problem is too little money, not too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > And if anyone at Google is reading, you should try recommending these > strategies for speeding up pages instead of pushing self-serving faux > standards like AMP.

They kind of do: [https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules)

<comment><USER21> They do, sure, but they don't put any teeth into it. AMP pages get special treatment in search results. It's not about promoting fast pages, it's about promoting pages which buy into Google's self-serving AMP nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So everyone should optimize their web pages? That's not really news. The fact it happens demonstrates the real problems: lack of understanding of the people uploading the content, real financial needs from ad suppliers (Beggars can't be choosers), legacy software that won't be rewritten any time soon and a load of other issues.

I don't think anyone disagrees with the theory, it's the reality we have to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately, the extent to which these sorts of guidelines will ever be followed is at most the extent to which programmers feel like putting in extra effort over and above that required to meet business requirements, and will usually require programmers to push back against business requirements in order to achieve any headway.

Those little social buttons that track every user and nobody ever clicks? You're going to have to spend as much time making the case to your boss why they're a bad idea as you would simply implementing them. Ditto ad spam, interstitials, sticky banners, and the like. And if the UX is bad but conversions increase, good luck.

These sorts of guidelines are great for small sites you control yourself. The chances of being able to follow them, even if you give a shit, on a corporate site where conversions put food on the table, is essentially nil.

</comment><comment><USER24> Amen. I would also say that Forbes is another excellent example of the ludicrous level of calls and hostile features.

<comment><USER14> why would I want to read a quote of the day before reading the article I'm interested in?

<comment><USER15> They also ban ad blockers and have a hugely hostile GDPR banner. As in "GDPR- hostile".

<comment><USER25> Forbes refuses to even load the front page if it is not allowed to store cookies on your computer.

Cookies are for keeping logged in state. They are not needed to display html.

But I don't need Forbes so it's ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> On a related note, does anyone have a good recommendation for a lightweight analytics solution?

I've looked at Piwik/Matomo and it looks pretty good. I've also been looking at NGINX Amplify, but that is more web server metrics rather than "analytics" and it's SaaS of course.

You'd think that there would be tons of NGINX plugins for stuff like this, but I haven't found any good self-hosted ones. I really would like to avoid running heavy JS on pages that are <10KB.

<comment><USER27> I did a Shown HN on Mirrorshades a while back: [http://getmirrorshades.com](http://getmirrorshades.com)

It's not self-hosted, but it's fairly lightweight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a problem of economics more than design failure. The current legal/technical system that has developed between ISPs doesn't charge parties fractionally very well.

</comment><comment><USER29> > And if anyone at Google is reading, you should try recommending these > strategies for speeding up pages instead of pushing self-serving faux > standards like AMP.

That's hardly fair, Google has been advocating the same web optimization techniques that were listed as part of their Google Lighthouse initiative. I know it's fun and trendy to hate FANG, but you could have got the same recommendations if you opened up Chrome dev console and went to the Audits tab.

</comment><comment><USER30> How do they make the money to keep the site up than. Server cost is like 5% of the expenses. Journalist salaries, writer salary all that full time salary, where do you get that from. No other business model exists.

<comment><USER30> And if any exists, not enough people are ready to commit to it to make it a worthwhile investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The Internet made copyable content essentially worthless, and we don't have an answer for it yet. If you really want to solve this problem (ultra-bloated web sites because of ad frameworks and what-not), you have to solve that, and it's pretty hard. Honestly, it's probably the case that the only way to really fix it is to nationalize it and fund it with taxes. Not ideal (conflict of interest, obviously), but it's probably better than not existing.

</comment><comment><USER32> I still contend that silver-bullet-chasing is at the heart of a lot of web bloat. You have a "startup founder" (or fortune 500 middle-manager) who believes that he has a world-changing (or next-quarter revenue generating) idea, he just needs a couple of grubby programmers to type it into the computer for him. Now, he knows that these grubby computer geeks are far, far, beneath him, and that anything they know how to do must be trivially simple to do, he just didn't take the right classes in college to know which buttons to press to make the world-changing computer thing happen. So the programmers tell him it's going to take a few months. "A few months!" He explodes. "I need this by Thursday! I thought you worthless lot called yourself computer dwee- er, programmers!" So he casts them out of his sight and starts googling "how to program really fast". He comes across Angular. He doesn't know what "Angular" means, but google says it programs really fast, and google is smarters than those dorks who can't even make a website in two days. So he says, "here, use Angular, it makes things go really fast. This is the silver bullet we're searching for". Of course, Angular depends on a few MB of libraries - mostly because when somebody was creating a table controller or whatever the hell for Angular, he or somebody who had some sway over him told _him_ that these other dependencies would let him program real fast. And so on, down the line, until finally something bottoms out into some actual javascript that actually does something. But because making web pages load quickly and be pleasant to use and not choke the internet infrastructure is a "nice to have" but getting this world-changing thing "to market" is a matter of life and death, that nerdy sounding load-testing shit is pushed off until the very end until there's no time to do it and who cares because you can't stand the sight of those slovenly programmers any more anyway and if they knew what they were doing, they'd have gotten it right in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER33> In addition to the technical concerns is the overall experience that is being designed that requires this type of implementation. This type of ad, popup, subscribe, video, etc... is ubiquitous across news/blogs.

</comment><comment><USER34> I remember when this was what progressive web development (enhancement was the term) was. I still don't quite understand how it changed into meaning web workers and all the caching and background process stuff.

</comment><comment><USER35> What's a good web design tool that doesn't put in all this crap? Blue Griffon?

<comment><USER36> Perhaps Bluefish?

[http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/features.html](http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/features.html)

<comment><USER35> That's a text editor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So how does the trick with the CSS-only expandable details view work?

<comment><USER38> [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/de...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/details)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I could write many awful things about the NYT. Misunderstanding the basics of web optimization would not be one of them.

That website is an assault by design. And it looks like a lot of people don't really notice, or even mind, being assaulted by it.

First world problems...

</comment><comment><USER40> Cool. Could someone just explain how to build [https://app.moqups.com/](https://app.moqups.com/) or [https://designer.gravit.io/](https://designer.gravit.io/) using only HTML, CSS and server-side rendering?

Otherwise I'll just dismiss this as the same cloud-oriented geriatric yelling that Hacker News has been upvoting for the last 15 years, to absolutely no purpose or result.

<comment><USER41> TBH as a user i do not see a reason for these two to be running inside a web browser. They'd be faster, more light on system resources, more capable and less locked to their developers' whims as standalone desktop applications (Electron monstrosities excluded).

<comment><USER42> Web: write once, run everywhere, the user is guaranteed to have the runtime installed.

This is _damn hard_ to beat, even with other reasonably written multiplatform toolkits like Java FX or Qt.

Also, a web page is its own environment, not intended to blend in. With "native" apps, there's always a bunch of "...but not native enough" complaints. (My idea is that some apps should _explicitly_ aim to look alien and their own, without making attempts to fit in, like e.g. Photoshop or Blender do.)

With Java FX, you have to have the user install a recent JRE. With Java 9, though, I _suppose_ you can make one fat binary with only the relevant parts of JRE and you code strung together, and the rest removed. (This has security implications, though.)

Qt means C++ which is a pain for many reasons, or e.g. Python which is a pain to distribute, though this can be alleviated (pack everything into a single fat binary). You still have to have a build per platform.

I just suppose that Web tech expertise is easier to come by, and a Web product faster to produce, at least initially. This trumps great many reasons from the _business_ perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Your bill to isp does not pay the bill for my time and make me a profit. I need to make money, and if you have a problem with my business model, you can move on.</comment>


Ask HN: Can we prevent someone from teaching a neural network how to feel pain? - <AUTHOR> And then spin up millions of instances of this network just feeling pain indefinitely?
Would this pain be equal to the pain we humans feel? Or can we ignore it?
Just a thought in my head. <comment><USER2> Obligatory Schlock Mercenary: [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-11-14](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-11-14)

But anybody who would do what you're actually suggesting would be a sadist - assuming that NNs can actually "feel" the way we can. That's a rather large assumption at this point, though...</comment>