U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130530/AUTO01/305300045/U-S-urges-states-not-allow-general-use-self-driving-cars <comment><USER2> I'd like to see the data that the NHTSA used to conclude that the risk of a malfunction is higher than the risk of human error. Millions of crashes each year result in tens of thousands of deaths [1]. Humans drive while tired, drunk, or simply distracted, and of course, tend to have slower reflexes than computers.

Even if the technology isn't ready for mainstream adoption today, I bet we'll look back in horror at the period in our history during which humans careened unaided down highways at breakneck speeds, certified in their driving ability by nothing more than a test easily passed by your average teenager.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

<comment><USER3> It's rare for all of the human drivers on a road to make the same mistake at the same time under the same conditions, but that's a likely failure condition for automated driving software if the software and sensors are standardized. This could lead to much worse accidents then you'd get with human drivers, because all of the cars will do the same thing.

An all-human example: driving too fast in foggy/whiteout conditions and not having time to stop when the road is blocked. When this happens today, you get 100 car pileups because everyone is doing the same thing: driving along until they suddenly come upon the pileup, and smashing into it because they don't have time to stop.

What if a software error causes this same kind of behavior in more common conditions? Google's testing wouldn't expose this kind of failure mode, because (afaik) they haven't done extensive tests driving fleets of automated cars together. All of their cars have been surrounded by human drivers, and for all we know the varied reactions of the human drivers have prevented them from hitting the Google car when it does something odd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given how bad humans are at driving cars safely, it is unfortunate that we are holding self-driving cars to a higher standard than we hold humans. It will cause needless loss of life.

<comment><USER5> Regardless of how bad I or someone driving around me is, I would rather have complete control. If I'm going to relinquish that control, then the alternative better be superb. This is one of those paradigms where we need software engineering to be flawless, which history can tell us, is never the case.

Not disagreeing with you just offering an opinion which is more centered and cautious.

<comment><USER6> If you have ever been a passenger in a car, you have given up that control to an entity which is likely far less safe than the software option. (still need to see the data this was based on)

<comment><USER7> Yes, you've given up control. But you've traded it for _trust_. While Google's cars may have a flawless record, trust is an emotional thing. It's a long slow road for self-driving cars to earn our trust, even if they should already deserve it.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for understanding what I was trying to say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading the article, this doesn't strike me as inappropriate. "Self-driving vehicle technology is not yet at the stage of sophistication or demonstrated safety capability that it should be authorized for use by members of the public for general driving purposes" is probably true. The cars are good at what they do, but that doesn't mean they can handle all sorts of bizarre detour, road construction, rural roads, faded/incorrect markings, conflicting markings, control from officers/construction workers on the roadway, etc. It's a huge, promising field, but still under significant development.

They also say, "as self-driving cars improve, they will reconsider."

Seems fair.

<comment><USER9> _They also say, "as self-driving cars improve, they will reconsider." Seems fair._

It would seem fair if they pointed to any actual data regarding the safety of such vehicles versus the safety of cars driven by humans but I see no such information provided. Or, it might seem fair if there was any company trying to actively sell self-driving cars to the general public right now.

I think this is a problem that would likely work itself out without legislation surrounding it. Companies, for the most part, would probably like to provide products that don't endanger the lives of their customers. Along with that, insurance companies I'm sure would love to reduce the risk of driving while maintaining the current cost of insurance. Therefore, I'm guessing they will be heavily involved in testing self-driving cars. If the findings aren't good I'm sure insurance costs would be extreme or not available at all.

<comment><USER8> Just to address your first point, data is not actually too beneficial when it comes to general public policy making. Many people make decisions based on emotion rather than data.

For example, some people have a tremendous fear of flying. Yet flying commercially is one of the safest modes of travel: a person is far more likely to be injured on the way to the airport than to be injured in a commercial aviation accident in this country.

Likewise, the first time one of these cars misreads a signal or marking and plows into a farmer's market, the panic will be significantly greater than when an impaired driver causes the same damage; even if we have data to show that for each self-driving car injury there are 100 human-driven car injuries, it will be tough to override the "I don't have control of it, I don't understand it, I'm scared of it" emotional gut response of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can imagine that there will be a _very_ bloody political fight over self- driving vehicles as they become more mainstream, particularly when it comes to taxis and trucks, because of the vested interests of professional drivers.

<comment><USER11> Why do people on HN always jump to "vested interests?" The NHTSA is conducting a study to determine whether a new kind of vehicle should be allowed on public roads. This is the prudent course of action, whether or not anyone stands to benefit from it.

I worked at a company that does what you'd call today whitespace wireless technologies. I remember when I was young and naive, my reaction was: "why doesn't the FCC just get out of our way and let us put this stuff on the public airwaves?" And I distinctly remember when Microsoft did the test with their whitespace technology, where it couldn't handle, of all things, unlicensed wireless microphones (commonly used by churches and sporting events). And my thought was: "who the fuck cares about churches? They're standing in the way of progress!"

Then I worked for a summer at the FCC and realized: "shit, the world is really complicated." There are tons of stakeholders who use the public airwaves and it's imprudent do anything without first being sure what the impact will be (measure twice, cut once, as they say).

Self-driving cars will happen, and have to happen, the same way. The governments of the country spend $160 billion a year on the public roads, and the people of the country are absolutely dependent on them, and before they let a bunch of yahoos run computerized cars everywhere they are going to have to be convinced of what impact they will have on the system.

<comment><USER10> > Why do people on HN always jump to "vested interests?" The NHTSA is > conducting a study to determine whether a new kind of vehicle should be > allowed on public roads. This is the prudent course of action, whether or > not anyone stands to benefit from it.

Why do people on HN always make assumptions about other people's comments? I wasn't criticizing this particular NHTSA study, I was just saying that there will likely be a bloody political fight over allowing a technology that will take away a lot of blue collar jobs that can't be outsourced.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I was more using your post as a jumping-off point for my rant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "NHTSHA urges that cars have the capability of detecting that their automated vehicle technologies have malfunctioned 'and informing the driver in a way that enables the driver to regain proper control of the vehicle'"

Yes, unless the system to detect that has malfunctioned.

Past the car screaming "shit's broke, take the wheel", i'm not sure what other ways they have of informing the driver.

<comment><USER13> > Yes, unless the system to detect that has malfunctioned.

Are the systems that detect malfunction right now single-overseer systems that do sanity checks, or are they redundant driving systems that check to see if they agree?

You'd probably want both, but it seems some arrangement of the latter (maybe 3-5 systems) would be likely to provide a better failover scenario: the driving systems constantly check if they agree, if they don't, there's a majority vote for short-term action and an alert to the driver that they should take over and get the car serviced.

I'm sure there's still scenarios where that wouldn't work -- car-wide problems or outside interference impacting all systems at once, or even just improbable simultaneous failures that would happen with enough time -- but maybe it's what they have in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like the regulators think that manufacturers are eager to sell unsafe self-driving cars to consumers. I highly doubt that is the case. Bad press and reactionary legislation early on in the life of self-driving cars could significantly slow their adoption and therefore manufacturers profits.

</comment><comment><USER15> It was good to read all the comments here before I decided to write this one. There is some good nuance in the back-and-forth among the comments on this interesting article. I especially like BorgHunter's second-level comment

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5794159>

with its link to the official document related to this story.

Here in Minnesota, human driving is sufficiently lousy that I can't wait for self-driving cars to get on the roads here. I see people neglecting being aware of traffic to engage in cell phone conversations or texting conversations on every drive I take here, and even though we get snow every winter, the first few snowfalls of each winter always result in lots of crashes as people drive like they drive in summer on slippery roads until they adapt their driving habits. Bring on the self-driving cars here, I say. I'm glad that the government regulators are attempting to do empirical safety studies, but I urge them to be bold in rolling out self-driving technology as rapidly as it can come to market.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm wondering is anyone researching self driving larger vehicles and would future legislation require someone being present in the vehicle?

According to <http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm> as of 2010 over 4 million people work in transport and warehousing. A lot of which will be drivers. Self driving vehicles could mean then end for a lot of jobs especially if someone developed a retrofit kit for current vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, it does not talk about the main problem that sef-driving cars have today:

One cars works ok, as it uses an active super expensive light(Lidar) and radar sensors.

Put two cars together using the same LIDAR light or the same frequencies and you have a terrible problem.

Also using Lasers will be dangerous when people look at the thing and the thing is working near you as the power of the light could do bad things to your eyes and you don't see it.

<comment><USER18> Different vendors' autonomous cars have encountered each other in the wild, there has been nothing tragic happening. They wave to each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What will insurance companies do if people aren't crashing cars?

</comment><comment><USER20> sponsored by the us taxi association. little do they know that it will be more profitable to have self driving taxis.

</comment><comment><USER21> Also, driving in the snow and ice safety is about 3 orders of magnitude more difficult to do than driving on dry pavement.

There also needs to be an indicator: "It's snowing, please wait until the road is warm and dry, or have the carbon unit take over".

But that's no good, we have to get to where we are going, so tens of thousands of people, who havn't been practicing driving AT ALL for about 8 months now dust off their glasses and try to remember what these symbols on the dashboard mean and which petal is the "make go faster" one.

Either humans must be required to drive 20% of the time, or else the humans will be stranded when ice is encountered.

<comment><USER22> Automated vehicles also potentially means automated plowing/sanding vehicles. Roombas for the roads basically.

<comment><USER23> Not unless sensors get a lot better, as starring into white and finding the road is a rather large problem[1]. Nevermind the actual skill of those drivers, it is not an easy job.

1) GPS + Maps is not the answer as it wrong sometimes.

<comment><USER24> Since roads where it snows are always getting torn up and repaved, if automated cars do become widespread, it seems entirely feasible and realistic to line major roads on each side with radio reflectors or some other cheap system that can keep automated plows from driving off the road.

The real problem is the cost of the automated plow itself. A 10-wheel plow with salt feeder isn't exactly cheap to run with or without a driver.

<comment><USER23> Since they haven't been real successful at automating a combine (a bit of a simpler problem), I figure the plow and the expertise needed to drive one is a ways off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As a motorcyclist, I look forward to the advent/proliferation of self-driving cars more than almost anything else.

You don't quite appreciate how dangerously most people drive until you're a split second from being killed by any one of them.

</comment><comment><USER26> Industry standard is to drive 10mph over the speed limit so unless self- driving cars are allowed to break the law they may make traffic even worse. Maybe they would be good for drunk drivers and emergencies but I can barely stand letting my wife drive so self-driving cars may be too agitating for me.

<comment><USER27> I'm pretty sure self-driving cars will make traffic better, because it has been shown that most traffic jams are caused by and exacerbated by poor driving habits.

<comment><USER26> Traffic jams are caused by volume. If fewer cars pass per minute, due to driverless cars obeying the speed limit traffic will be worse. What are you citing?

<comment><USER28> The number of vehicles and the max speed at which they're willing to travel aren't the only factors that affect throughput. As the GP mentions, bad driving habits can lead to things like the Accordion effect.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion_effect>

<comment><USER26> That may be marginally helpful but only if all the cars are self-driving and if there is no traffic have fun going the speed limit the whole way. A good way to foster adoption of self-driving cars may be to let them go faster when on auto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> this is an agency trying desperately to seem relevant</comment>


21 Ideas for Software Developer - <AUTHOR> https://marinin.xyz/en/entry/21-ideas/ <comment><USER2> This list is fine for what it is but if we want to be meta and go a level higher, we would categorize the author's perspective as _" programming is a means to an end"_.

Therefore, the article is really _" 21 Ideas for Software Developers Who are Paid to Solve Clients' Business Problems"_.

Yes, that can be a valid perspective but if we already agree with that as a base premise, the 21 ideas are common sense. It's tautology.

However, _there is another perspective to programming_ which is that programming is NOT the means to an end. For some, the programming is itself the enjoyable activity. Programming is how some may self-actualize[1] and express themselves. In this case, the sentiments are reversed: any business and monetary value from programming is a side effect and the money becomes the means to an end to fund _more programming_.

Yes, the programming-is-just-a-tool perspective outnumbers the programming-as- artistic-expression but that doesn't change the fact that both exist. You just have to be aware that if you're a "programmer-artist" you will not fit in culturally at a Big Company that requires "boring software deliverables" from you.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is indeed another perspective, yet not that different after all, if we'd look at what programming _is_. At its core, it is problem solving and mashing keys on the keyboard.

I don't think that keyboard part is really meaningful to anyone who claims to love programming, so it must be problem solving coupled with complex interactions between abstract idea how to solve it with concrete pecularities of programming languages, platforms, libraries, etc. The second part doesn't go anywhere whether you solve problems for Business Folks or scratch your own itch.

That means that difference between the perspectives is only who's supplying the problems. That reminds me of another distinction, namely, the one between painters and commercial illustrators (not sure if that is proper nomenclature). The path of Painter is hard and lonely, most of the painters we know today did some kind of commercial work or lived off 'grants' from philantropists. Or you can earn your paycheck doing something else and program as a hobbyist, for its own sake. I think that this is also valid programming 'culture' that exists somewhat under the radars of 'tech industry'.

<comment><USER3> > I don't think that keyboard part is really meaningful to anyone who claims > to love programming

I'd beg to differ on that front.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > People differ and people think differently: sometimes stuff we think as > difficult seems easy to business people. That is a conflict that we have to > solve, not avoid.

This, and its inverse (things that seem difficult to business people might seem trivial to developers) was the biggest 'aha' moment of my career so far. As developers/engineers, we are the ones that have the best fine-grain understanding of the cost and complexity trade-offs of what we do. A big part of a developer's contribution to a project lies in communicating those trade- offs to stakeholders in a way they can reason about effectively.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very opinionated list of thoughts. For eg. >> often 'playing with a new framework' doesn't solve business problem.

May be we could re-articulate that as - Nothing wrong in playing with new frameworks as long as it results in improving the product.

<comment><USER6> I am fine with it the way it is, as I have seen too many 'ego' and resume- padding projects justified by nebulous claims of benefit. I was looking at a case recently, where the use of a fashionable database engine, sold on making the application more fault-tolerant in ways that did not really matter, instead impaired the exploitation of its innate parallelism.

It is not difficult for the nominal technical expert to guide a client into choosing the solution he wants, rather than the one the customer needs.</comment></comment>


Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/africa-developing-its-first-supercomputer-outside-south-africa/

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty poor headline. Africa is an enormous landmass.

Equivalent headline:

 _World developing its first supercomputer outside of countries which already have one_.

How about instead:

 _Kenya developing its first supercomputer, the first one in Africa outside of South Africa_

I think this places the focus rightly on Kenya, rather than implying that somehow this is an effort by all of Africa.

Or even better:

 _iHub developing the first supercomputer in Kenya_

That's probably the best one, since it places the focus correctly on iHub (which deserves it) and Kenya indirectly (which also deserves it). The fact that it's the first country outside ZA to do so can then be mentioned as a lead-in hook in the article, instead of delivering this silly title...

Africa is an enormous continent that is sadly very, very, very far from being able to function as a unit.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, the submission headline here is simply the original article headline, "Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa," with its subtitle (too long to be added to a headline on HN by the eighty- character rule) "The first 24-node HPC cluster should launch at iHub in Nairobi this summer." That is consistent with the Hacker News guidelines,

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

which say, "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." I generally find it is helpful for submitters on HN to submit original article titles. Then if we disagree with the original article title, as you evidently do here, we can agree to hold the person who kindly submitted the article harmless, and blame the editors of Ars Technica this time for a less than ideal title.

(For what it's worth, I have observed one case where an HN submitter submitted an original article title, which was then changed by the curators when commenters howled about it. The title changed from

[http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves- its...](http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its-own- business-model/)

to

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270>

I still think it was correct for the article to be submitted here on HN with the original title that time and this time, even if the title is subject to legitimate disagreement.)

I agree with your basic geographic point, hence an upvote from me for your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Idd Salim, one of the guys building the cluster has a pretty interesting blog: <http://www.iddsalim.com/blog>

</comment><comment><USER4> Terrible headline. This is like saying "America developing its first supercomputer outside of the US", referring to Mexico or somewhere.

<comment><USER5> No, since America can be used to refer to both the USA[1] and a continent/two continents, but there is no country commonly called just "Africa".

[1] Please don't argue with this. This is common usage in modern day English, even if you might not like it. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Also note that the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States) are commonly referred to as just Mexico, so why should there be a problem with calling the "United States of America" just "America" for short?

<comment><USER4> Err, yes. My point is saying "Africa" is so broad as to be meaningless. It's a vast and diverse continent, of which Kenya is just one country. I wouldn't expect an American to know this.

<comment><USER5> Alright, I misunderstood (But I disagree. "Up until now, no African country except SA has developed a supercomputer" gives me quite a lot of information (55 states in Africa don't have supercomputers); it's not at all meaningless.)

Also, you seriously don't expect Americans to know that Africa is made up of many countries, nor understand the difference between Morocco and Kongo (for instance)? As a non-American, that's rather shocking.

<comment><USER4> Only about 5% of Americans even have passports. They just aren't interested in the rest of the world.

<comment><USER6> Sorry where did you get this number from? This seems [0] to be a very popular myth and therefore, incorrect.

[0] [http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunki...](http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunking- passport-myth/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: It's in Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is the capital of, and the largest city of, this central-east African nation.

yay for them! :)

<comment><USER8> tl;dr It's in Washington D.C., the United States of America. Washington D.C. is the capital of, but not the largest city of, this North American nation.</comment></comment>


Sacha Baron Cohen speaks out of character about social media [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21604394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21604394)</comment>


My attempts at compartmentalization have failed. There is only one inbox. - <AUTHOR> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/03/29/aka

<comment><USER2> This is the last straw. Fashionable designers seem to prefer fonts that make my eyes itchy. Does anyone know how to disable downloadable fonts in Firefox?

I've tried setting gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled to false, but they're still getting downloaded and used.

EDIT: A browser restart seemed to be necessary - flushing the cache and a full page refresh wasn't sufficient. It looks like that about:config option does work after all.

<comment><USER3> What OS (and Firefox version) are you using?

It would be a shame to blame the font or the browser if it's your platforms font rendering that's broken.

<comment><USER4> On Windows XP and firefox 3.5.7 the font is painful to read.

<comment><USER5> It's also terrible on Chrome/Linux.

<comment><USER3> It looks fine on _my_ Chrome/Linux but that doesn't really say much because Linux fonts are so configurable.

I'd guess anyone following the Windows school of font hinting will have problems in this brave new world of web fonts because they'll only look good if someone with the requisite skills has spent a great deal of time hinting them for the pixel sizes used.

If, like another commenter, you see non-core fonts as "thin" (or "spindly" etc.) then this is probably the cause.

On Apple machines, or the way I set up Ubuntu machines (which the default seems to get closer to as time goes by) they basically ignore that hinting information, even if present and just pretend they're printing on a high pixel density device and let anti-aliasing sort it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anyone aware of what he talked about on his blog that got him in trouble with his work? (Which is what I think he's saying)

<comment><USER6> I think he's referencing this post: [http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/03/08/enough-cries- the...](http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/03/08/enough-cries-the-future)

<comment><USER3> That's the second thing he mentions, but the first is something he said on his personal blog that might have affected his work and that he got in trouble at work for, at least that's how I'm reading it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First sentence of the post:

 _Fresh from being chastised for expressing my personal opinion, on my personal blog and other strictly personal venues, about matters that may, or may not, ever intersect the realm of the impersonal a.k.a. corporate, I take a detour into the strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz. how to talk to my own children about the dangers of drugs that I myself have taken — both medicinally and recreationally — and the many others that I have not, only to receive emails and IMs via impersonal a.k.a. corporate media from strangers- but-strictly-speaking-coworkers asking if everything is OK over there in personal-land._

"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" ??

"strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz...." ??

"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" - a SECOND time ??

"strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers" ??

This tone of speech encapsulates everything that I hate about self-important psuedo-intellectuals discussing literary "theory" in the English departments of universities.

It's verbose, long-winded, and intentionally difficult to read - all in an attempt to sound intelligent and deep, while actually covering up a paucity of any original thought.

After that one "sentence", I stopped reading.

Clear writing is relatively easy, and expresses a respect for one's audience.

Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's audience.

<comment><USER8> > Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's > audience.

You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then, who basically invented Mark's style there.

<comment><USER7> > You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then

Sure I have.

I don't think much of his writing either.</comment></comment></comment>


Ageing in human cells successfully reversed in the lab (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/ageing-in-human-cells-successfully-reversed-in-the-lab-101214 <comment><USER2> I believe so many problems in our society would be solved by lifespan increasing technology. It would make people have to seriously consider the long-term ramifications of their actions, and I imagine adopt a kinder, gentler, more sustainable attitude. Climate change is a personal threat to _you_ if you're immortal, not your children or your children's children. Crime goes down, as the risks of having jail time on your record grow and grow - it's one thing to be a felon for 60 years, but to be a felon for 500 years? 1000 years? No one would risk that just for the contents of a 7/11 cash register. Being nice and kind to everyone you see makes more and more sense, because the longer your lifespan the higher the probability you'll meet some of those people again and get your kindness repaid.

The only downside is potential overpopulation issues, but (perhaps this is naive of me) I imagine most people would accept sterilization in exchange for eternity.

<comment><USER3> The show Altered Carbon described an alternative consequence of extended lifespans - the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and because the rich don't die, there's no 'reset button' at the transition between generations and the situation never changes. The rich guy's money can accumulate interest indefinitely, while the poor guy may never get past the paycheck to paycheck life (or he lives long enough to eventually figure out how to save enough to improve his situation).

<comment><USER4> It would certainly be advantageous to be a member of the first generation of immortals. Imagine entering an economy as a young twenty something competing against people who've had centuries to build their careers and accumulate wealth.

<comment><USER5> Feels like the current situation with millenials and baby-boomers taken to the n'th level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related: Recent podcast: Why We Age - And Why We Don't Have To > [https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/492-david- sinclair/](https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/492-david-sinclair/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: Fable of the Dragon Tyrant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY)

Ways to improve life expectancy:

        A. keep children alive till adulthood (mostly done)
        B. keep adults disease-free/healthy (somewhat done)
        C. keep old people alive till natural death (little done)
        D. stop natural death (possible?)
        E. reverse aging (possible?)

If natural death is just rolling constitution checks long enough to get a critical miss, then perhaps it's enough to complete C.

If natural death is some sort of cellular countdown, it may suffice to stop the time, as in D.

I think for most people, what they really want is not eternal life in a 90+ year-old body, but to be able to live in a young body, which necessitates E.

It's interesting to consider scenarios where we accomplish some but not all of these, especially where C and/or D are possible but E is not.

<comment><USER8> yeah, an interesting thought experiment would be a scenario where one could stop, but not reverse aging. The people young enough would probably stop at their prime, with the upper part of the society (those past their prime) being stuck in their respective age.

I would look at life very, very differently if I would know that I would have a significant longer life-span. I would just chill and live more in the moment and not worry about time so much (I worry about time quite a lot right now, probably because a chapter in my life just (a day ago!) ended).

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Happy birthday!

<comment><USER8> Thanks, but near miss :) I moved cities to start my masters, so my chapter of living in karlsruhe (where I moved for my bachelors) is closed, especially since I won't be coming back. I have not done everything I've wanted, stayed longer than I've thought and left some things unfinished. If only there would be more time, but your twenties unfortunatly don't have more years in them than the other decades. I probably wouldn't have started my masters yet but instead take a break and do something crazy. Like move to berlin, try to survive as a DJ and maybe get into producing music. Maybe study some philosophy. I feel like some opportunities just rush by and some doors just slowly but steadily close. And you have to decide for one, maybe two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks interesting, but very misleading headline.

"Mitochondria-targeted hydrogen sulfide attenuates endothelial senescence by selective induction of splicing factors"

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30026406](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30026406)

<comment><USER10> In what way is it misleading? The original title and abstract are beyond my knowledge.

<comment><USER9> In that they did not reverse aging. They affected one aspect of aging in a significant way, but did not completely stop or reverse it. And it was only in one type of tissue, and they don't know that there won't be dangerous side effects. There are still many other aspects of aging that they did not affect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > By using a "molecular postcode" we have been able to deliver the molecule > directly to the mitochondria, the structures that produce energy in cells, > where we think it acts, allowing us to use tiny doses, which are less likely > to cause side effects.

Is there more information on this? I want to know when I can expect a pill for this. :)

<comment><USER12> Definitely interesting and waiting for the pill as well.

Currently, there are a few pills you can take to capture a similar effect (slow down but not reverse):

1\. DHEA 2\. Niagen 3\. CoQ10

YMMV - Please consult a physician before adding any pill/altering diet in your regimen.

<comment><USER13> _CAUTION_

I am not a doctor, but I want to caution against blindly taking supplements like this.

DEHA is a steroid hormone. These are key components of signalling networks in your body, and they can up or down regulate many different things. It could definitely be pro-cancer [1]

Niagen is a precursor to NAD+. Screwing with the NAD+ metabolism might promote cancer [2]

There seems to be good concensus on CoQ10. It may not have an associated cancer risk (I couldn't find any literature), but it may lower blood pressure and that should be carefully considered [3]

Please do your homework and ask your doctor before taking any of these. There are pros and cons and a whole lot of uncertainties.

[1] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- dhea/art-203641...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- dhea/art-20364199)

[2] [https://siteman.wustl.edu/pathway-linked-slower-aging- also-f...](https://siteman.wustl.edu/pathway-linked-slower-aging-also-fuels- brain-cancer/)

[3] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- coenzyme-q10/ar...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements- coenzyme-q10/art-20362602)

<comment><USER14> That is why I also cycle up/down Sulforaphane to up-regulate NRF2 and activate several genetic expressions that increase cell autophagy and apoptosis. I also use Berberine (some use metformin) to modify p53. I also take aged garlic extract to break down the biofilm on cancer cells and bio-availability enhanced Curcumin to block metastases or the process. I also do not consume glucose, as cancer cells and tumors require glucose. Operating off Ketones is very beneficial to starving cancer cells. All of that said, based on the studies I have read, the results of CoQ10 only start to become more beneficial at older ages or in people that have had heart damage. It also helps to ensure you are not deficient in potassium and magnesium, as those are very important for mitochondria. Dr. Bruce Ames has done a lot of research in this area and has theories about "conservation" and how various longevity functions in our bodies are muted when we only get the RDA or lower of critical components. I don't have an opinion on NAD+ precursors for humans. Mice studies have produce great results, but it isn't clear yet if NR/NMN help humans AFAIK.

<comment><USER11> Do you have a starting point for me to read up on this? I'm very interested but this is so far from what I know I didn't even understand half your post. Thanks.

<comment><USER14> It is a lot of reading. A starting point would be to use google to search for various studies on nih.gov. So in google, use "site:nih.gov topic_of_interest" and don't stop with the first study you find. Some of them are well funded and sometimes for the wrong reasons. I could give a two hour talk on just reading studies on that site.

Then after reading everything you can find on each of those topics, you can also watch youtube videos with Dr. Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Bruce Ames on conservation theory. She also talks about sulforaphane at great length. She has a two hour video with another scientist and they go into some of the DoD studies being done with sulforaphane and children in reversing autism. Then for starving cancer cells, both nih.gov and youtube videos by Dr. Eric Berg (DC, not MD) and has spent the last several years researching these topics and making them more consumable by the general population. Dr. Berg sometimes leaves out important pieces of information, so keep reading on any topic he makes youtube videos about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It remain to be seen if this doesn't cause the cell (even if 1 in 10 million) to start behaving like cancer.

Great hopes! But I still think maybe it's easier for programmable nanobots with MHC complex attached to it to fix individual cells to allow us to live longer. Or maybe even change the hardware for $BRAIN_SOFTWARE.

<comment><USER16> If it were actually reversing the ageing process shouldn't cancer be less likely?

Cancer rates increase with age so younger cells in theory should mean a lower likelihood of cancer.

<comment><USER17> Or - intermittent fasting could be used for cell regeneration. [http://news.mit.edu/2018/fasting-boosts-stem-cells- regenerat...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/fasting-boosts-stem-cells-regenerative- capacity-0503)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Eric Cantona was right [https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/1167168051525095424](https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/1167168051525095424)

</comment><comment><USER19> IMO there is no point in undergoing age reversal if you haven't already been maintaining a fit and healthy lifestyle. If you're fat and 65 and treated your body like a dumpster your whole life I see no point in going back to being a slightly younger fat blob.

I also think that true age reversal will never be achievable anyway the way people think, but stopping aging may be possible. I have met some individuals who seem to exhibit qualities of negligible senescence, the only physical thing that gives away their true age is probably the quality of their skin and hair, which does not look as fresh (but still pretty good) as someone much younger.

<comment><USER20> Baseless claims. Doesn't matter how good your lifestyle was, by 80 it's genetics. Science will continue to progress despite what you believe. There are biological organisms who don't age like we do or even go back and forth; young to old then young.

<comment><USER21> >There are biological organisms who don't age like we do or even go back and forth; young to old then young.

Citations please? If we're talking about slime molds or amoebas this might be interesting trivia, but is completely irrelevant. Multicellular animal models would be more interesting.

<comment><USER22> Look into the Turritopsis dohrnii. It's a species of Mediterranean jellyfish (very definitely a macroscopic, multicellular animal) that is essentially immortal, and periodically ages in reverse, for lack of a better description.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is flagging being used as a form of censorship? - <AUTHOR> This post had incredible momentum and was rapidly approaching #1, but was suddenly erased:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12328142
https://muchweb.me/systemd-nsa-attempt
Does this story violate content policy in any way?
Snowden's documents suggested that significant resources are being spent to manipulate online discourse.
Nevertheless, we must discuss and avert security issues to protect ourselves and our customers, while our government is actively subverting our security. <comment><USER2> "Censorship" is like "terrorism", a pejorative that's relative to what people like. So if you like a post and it gets flagged, you can use "censorship" to express not liking that it got flagged.

When users flag a story, that's the community immune system rejecting it. It might be hard or annoying to see why users would reject something you posted, but in this case it's fairly easy to explain: it was dramatic without being substantive (and combined several flamewar topics to boot). Such stories mostly don't do well here. That's a good thing.

Please, though, don't add meta-drama posts on top of drama posts. At that point you're just adding noise, and we're trying to prop the signal/noise ratio up here.

<comment><USER3> On January 2011 I read about Bitcoin as a lurker on HN.

I thought it was quite a novel idea, but needed to prove its worth to the world. I didn't want to take part in it, use it, as I saw no direct benefit to me; and without an underlying economic activity, buying Bitcoins was a purely speculative Ponzi scheme. I came to learn - through HN - about Silk Road and how people were using it to animate their illegal endeavours. Bitcoin had economic sense, so in April I bought 50 euros worth of it, to give it a try.

Price went from 7euros/BTC then to 500euros/BTC now. It has been, and will ever be, my single best return on investment. You just can't beat 70x. HN has literaly made me richer.

Had I invested 1k euros 2 months earlier, my _life_ would have taken an entirely different meaning. It has taught me the importance of being bullish on novel ideas.

HN made me discover the Oculus Rift; HN made me see the unbelievable rise from the kickstarter to being bought 2B$ a year and a half later. I have been trying out a lot of great things thanks to HN.

To me, it is an early warning system about the best the future can offer.

\</comment></comment><comment>-----

It seems to me that the bitcoins of nowadays are getting buried in noise, or are no longer here. Frontpage is covered with common law, societal problems, short lived news events, click bait, and my-framework-is-better-than-yours. I am not diminishing the importance of general news, but this is not the venue for it.

Where is the good stuff? Why don't I hear more about initiatives like RISC-V (which is arguably hardware's linux moment)? Why don't I hear more about way to do some CRISPR editing mysaelf as a side project (which is arguably DNA's linux moment)?

HN is pivoting slowly towards mainstream general tasteless news; and my source of living in the future and doing interesting things in it is drying up.

\</comment><comment>-----

So, my plea to you, Dang, is: could we have public, explicit, ruthless, white- list-style, displayed-right-next-to-the-post-button definition for flagging content?

My take on it:

* It must be about the future getting materialized.

* It must have a strong technical aspect, on which HN members can readily start to work on.

* No news events of any kind, even nation-wide ones like terrorist attacks.

* No societal articles. Not even about the gender gap, which is greatly affecting us all.

* No baseless day-dreaming about what the future could be. (How many of these can we have about "AI"?)

<comment><USER2> That's a good story and an illustration of HN's influence at its best. There are many such stories, which is wonderful. Our job as caretakers is to optimize for curiosity, so we want as many of them as possible. People's visions of what HN should be are not all fully compatible, so going far in one direction would be to choose a local optimum over a global. In some ways the global optimum (or our best approximation thereof) satisfies no one, which is a little weird if you think about it.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true though:

> HN is pivoting slowly towards mainstream general tasteless news

That's one thing we're in a position to prevent and that we put a lot of effort into. Perceptions of how HN used to be in the past are pretty unreliable; there seems to be a strong nostalgia bias in most such reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm guessing it was flagged because there was nothing of substance in the article. The author provided no evidence that systemd is malware or that the NSA was involved in its writing. So it's just idle speculation with a click- bait title. If I would have seen the article, I would have flagged it for those reasons.

Also, the "[flagged]" prefix indicates that it was killed by user flags, and several users would have had to flag a 19-point article to kill it. I'd hardly call that "censorship" (unless you think that multiple HN users are acting on behalf of the government).

Finally, the HN Guidelines say that if you have questions about moderation, you should e-mail the moderators rather than posting. So don't be surprised if this post also gets flagged.

<comment><USER5> > unless you think that multiple HN users are acting on behalf of the > government

It would be naive not to think that multiple HN users are acting on behalf of the government, and I am not talking about the US government only; all governments do this on every popular site.

The question is whether there are enough users, or users with a significant impact so that any of this matters.

My personal opinion is that this is the case here, at least when it comes to stories about the NSA, surveillance, Turkey, Russia, etc. There are quite a few prominent members of the community which I personally consider government shills (and no, I won't name them, make up your own opinion).

I won't even say this is necessarily bad thing. It's inevitable, so don't take it as a criticism of the site and/or community (more than someone can criticise that water is wet).

<comment><USER6> Agree on that. And it kind of becomes too obvious once you start reading HN regularly.

<comment><USER2> I doubt that. This (apparent) phenomenon is more easily explained by people's difficulties tolerating strongly opposing views. That sounds odd, because we all think we're good at that, but really we're not.

Having strongly opposing views in your face is unpleasant, even a sort of painful, and we react to this by constructing stories about how the opponent isn't just wrong but bad (disingenuous, dishonest, astroturfing, a shill). The alternative is to accept that honest, smart, committed people might hold an opposite view to yours, but because our own views are so strongly held, that feels much less likely than it should.

In other words, claims that HN is rife with shills, etc., seem mostly to be un-self-reflective indications of how diverse the community is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Flagging is done by the HN community as a kind of self-policing. Some of us are more aware of and sensitive to the guidelines[0] (and more likely to enforce them) than others. So a post can be popular, but also violate guidelines blatantly enough that folks flag it. I think your question gets more interesting if a submission violates guidelines, but the readers who choose to flag it are actually the ones also opposed to the content on its own merits, and use their flagging rights to jettison the post.

I've seen the same situation where posts get several up-votes shortly after posting and land on the front page before disappearing suddenly. It made me curious whether up-votes can override flags in some ratio, or, whether there is a fixed trigger count that drives [flagged], or, if flagging simply gets the attention of moderators who make the call whether to [flagged] a post or not.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER2> Your description seems accurate to me. Upvotes do counter flags (and vice versa). Once the flags go above a certain threshold, [flagged] appears. That's always something users do, not moderators. Moderators sometimes downweight posts as well, but using a separate mechanism. Flagging does get the attention of moderators, even before the [flagged] threshold is reached. If there are enough flags to also kill a post, you'll see [flagged] [dead]. The software only kills a thread if it isn't very active, though.

Does that answer your questions?

<comment><USER7> Yes!

But then begs another...

Moderators may 'downweight' a post... I'm curious what types of submissions a moderator might downweight. 'Popular but violates guidelines', or 'Popular but too distasteful/offensive', or 'popular and really funny, but not consistent with HN ethic'.

How much subjectivity is there in downweighting and to what extent might it be perceived as censoring, if any.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also, I'm a bit put off that OP changed the 'Ask HN:' question after I'd commented. Formatting and spelling is fine, but the question changed significantly from (when I commented):

===

This post was briefly on the front page in the past hour, but was suddenly erased:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12328142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12328142)

Does this story violate content policy? Or do the ideas threaten the military- industrial complex?

===

To:

===

This post had incredible momentum and was rapidly approaching #1, but was suddenly erased: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12328142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12328142)

[https://muchweb.me/systemd-nsa-attempt](https://muchweb.me/systemd-nsa- attempt)

Does this story violate content policy in any way?

Snowden's documents suggested that significant resources are being spent to manipulate online discourse.

Nevertheless, we must discuss and avert security issues to protect ourselves and our customers, while our government is actively subverting our security.

===

HN courtesy dictates that after the fact modifications be indicated with 'EDIT:' or some such wording.

<comment><AUTHOR> I apologize, I will ensure my posts are immutable going forward.

PS: I also made the edit very shortly after the post, so I think the eventual consistency issue worsened my mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Too late, this article is flagged to.

Thank goodness for [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/)

<comment><USER9> I saw it when it was live but only noticed it was flagged because of [http://hckrnews.com](http://hckrnews.com). It's really the only way to browse at this point. So many flagged or dead stories (some that even have value) I never would have seen otherwise.

<comment><USER4> If you want to see all the flagged/dead stories, you can also turn on "showdead" in your HN profile. That will make them appear on the "new" page when you're browsing HN. But the vast majority of dead stories are spam.

<comment><USER8> Most dead stories I see on hckrnews.com are worthwhile.

<comment><USER4> It looks like hckrnews shows only stories that have been upvoted, even if you select "all" (I couldn't find any stories with less than 3 points). That would exclude most of the junk that you'd see on HN's "new" page (like ads for escort services, etc.).

The disadvantage of that filtering is that you'd never have the opportunity to upvote good stories that nobody else has upvoted yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Happens all the time. It only takes a handful of people to flag something early for it to get blown down the rankings and effectively consigned to oblivion. Some of the more interesting and technology-focused stories do appear to rub some cohort the wrong way and disappear rapidly.

You could get tin-foil-hatty, and think that the NSA or CIA has a handful of interns that are paid to watch reddit and hn and influence opinion. But it's probably just as likely that there are enough civilians whose livelihoods depend on inconvenient discussions not occurring.

</comment><comment><USER11> Whoever wrote this had a point: Any time I do something even slightly nefarious, I reboot into Linux.

<comment><AUTHOR> Systemd embeds its own web server:

[https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd- jou...](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-journal- gatewayd.service.html)

<comment><USER12> ... I didn't realize that. Can it read email yet, so we can just say that it finally fulfills Zawinski's law?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Flagging _is_ a form of censorship.

OTOH, "Censorship" isn't, inherently, a bad thing.</comment>


A case in defense of ES6 generators in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://nikolay.rocks/2016-05-03-case-for-generators <comment><USER2> Good read, but looking through all the examples, the callback is the easiest to read.

So we've added more constructors to get away from callback hell, but have we really gotten there?

On the other hand, I was about to promisify a library I've been working on, but have decided that generators are a better fit, for those who like working with promises :)</comment>


Claims of Himalayan glacier meltdown based entirely on a single short phone call - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

<comment><USER2> Irony: "Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as "voodoo science"." More on Pachauri here: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over- busin...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business- deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html)

Between stories like this and the release of the emails / climategate, you really have to wonder especially about the validity of some of the most alarmist claims. On one hand, I wonder how much of this is because of confirmation bias but how much is the result of outright fraud? Something else that I've been reading more about lately (because of another story here) is the reporting by Gary Taubes on 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' and I can't help but wonder about what supposed scientific consensus means and the importance of skepticism.

Obviously there's a massive body of work out there when it comes to climate science and it would be ludicrous to dismiss it all, but surely it's time to agree that we need a lot more skepticism especially when these claims are being used to advocate policies that will at least cost hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars.

<comment><USER3> The idea of skepticism is all well and good, but think about this: which psychological force is more powerful, intellectual honesty or human laziness? How much work have you personally done to try to understand our climate? While you are being skeptical, are you living with less consumption than you had before the possibility was as public, staking a middle ground between two possibilities, or are you continuing on as usual?

This is a global issue. You will find hyperbole and mistaken predictions, and yes, fraud, on both sides. Nature doesn't care. The question is: by how much can we alter the planet's ecosystem before it is unsafe? The IPCC's models predict about a 2C temperature rise in the 2090s from the 1990s if we have 450 ppm in the atmosphere. That temperature rise is further predicted to be the point we had better not go past, to avoid more severe damage. We are currently at 385 ppm, over 280 ppm from before the industrial revolution. That means we've used up 60% of the slack we had towards a pretty hard (and hardening) limit. Clearly, with the knowledge we have about the physics of greenhouse gases, there is _some_ amount of CO2, some amount of radiative forcing, that is beyond what the world can handle without risking severe changes to the ecosystem and our way of life. It is not enough for skeptics to claim 'we don't know what that amount is, we have our doubts,' if it is followed by words or actions that support business as usual. There must be some agreement towards an acceptable limit to the dumping of a disruptive chemical, in massive quantities, into a finite atmosphere on a finite planet.

For what it's worth, I think it's more likely that carbon reduction policies will create a positive, rather than negative, effect on the economy.

<comment><USER4> > There must be some agreement towards an acceptable limit to the dumping of a > disruptive chemical, in massive quantities, into a finite atmosphere on a > finite planet.

That doesn't tell us what said acceptable limit is.

<comment><USER3> I recognize this. There are different answers for different people, too. The people of the Maldives want the temperature rise regulated below 1.5 C. Certain environmentalists want atmospheric CO2 at pre-industrial levels. Perhaps Alaskans have a different view?

The point is that this is how to structure the debate. There are certain acceptable limits. They are different for every person. If we're to succeed, as a species, on a finite planet, we're going to need to figure out how to make democracy and diplomacy work for this, possibly grandest tragedy of the commons. Surely we can't risk a global temperature rise of 10 C? Right?

<comment><USER4> > The people of the Maldives want the temperature rise regulated below 1.5 C.

Do they? Or, do they want a given sea level?

Note that sea level may well be independent of CO2. (That's part of why I mentioned artic ice, which has been increasing.)

> There are certain acceptable limits.

And you're assuming quite a bit about a lot of things, such as the relationship between CO2 and temperature and sea level.

> Surely we can't risk a global temperature rise of 10 C?

I don't know and that may not be the question. I've posted links showing CO2 levels several times what it is now. What was the temperature then? (Since those times were in the past, it's absurd to argue that whatever happens at those concentrations is irreversible.)

<comment><USER3> Arctic ice seems to be trending downward, and fluctuation more rapidly.

<http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/9972_large_daily.gsia.jpg>

But that's rather immaterial since it's land based ice, as in greenland and antarctica, that will influence sea levels. Greater fluctuations will cause more permanent loss of land based ice than sea based ice.

But _that's_ rather immaterial too, since much of the expected and currently visible sea level rise comes from thermal expansion of the oceans. This is a pretty clear temperature link.

\---

Perhaps the most relevant limits of which I speak are regarding the extent to which we are willing to change our world. This is a separate question from the action of CO2 -- for example we already fix more nitrogen as all other life on this planet, and three quarters of the land based biomes on this planet have been dramatically influenced by our actions. _We have changed this planet._ Are we to become conscious of this or are we to continue claiming innocence and practicing ignorance as we accelerate our ecological impact?

A return to the atmospheric conditions of the Triassic might well be the best thing for the world, but as long as people continued to be confused, lazy and stupid about what kind of future we want, we will continue to argue about tiny details having little to nothing to do with the global atmospheric, ecological, biological climatic change that is taking place, and we will continue to be at odds as our actions annihilate biomes that we scarcely know about.

I put the question back to you. What change in the world would be acceptable to you? If we have reconcilable goals for our shared planet, then at least the debate becomes on of science, of planning, of what must be done. If, however, like many seem to think, you too believe that the changes we are making to the world are ultimately inconsequential, the loss of biodiversity acceptable, and our gambling with the ecosystem immaterial, then we are at odds that this conversation will not mend.

<comment><USER4> > Arctic ice seems to be trending downward, and fluctuation more rapidly.

Your link doesn't support that conclusion.

> But that's rather immaterial too, since much of the expected and currently > visible sea level rise comes from thermal expansion of the oceans. This is a > pretty clear temperature link.

And yet, you don't bother to provide any water temperature argument or tell us the magnitude of the sea level change from said temperature change.

> Perhaps the most relevant limits of which I speak are regarding the extent > to which we are willing to change our world.

You're assuming that we're producing significant changes.

> but as long as people continued to be confused, lazy and stupid about what > kind of future we want,

Your position appears to be "now is best" but I've yet to see any supporting argument.

> the loss of biodiversity acceptable,

There's no loss of biodiversity from CO2 unless there's climate change, so you don't get to throw that in.

> three quarters of the land based biomes on this planet have been > dramatically influenced by our actions.

That's a combination of poverty and population. Reducing poverty increases CO2 emissions. Since you oppose that, you're arguing for reducing population. Who do you think should get to live?

Which reminds me - we're not significantly changing the amount of cultivated land. That ship sailed 1000 years ago. (We are destroying it in the third world, but that's different.)

> and our gambling with the ecosystem immaterial,

and you're back to assuming man made climate change.

If, as seems increasingly likely, the CO2 changes we're making are irrelevant to climate, you're advocating spending tons of resources on non-problems.

Acting as if something in particular is happening is a huge obstacle to finding out what is going on. You claim to want to know yet ....

<comment><USER3> There is an enormous body of knowledge out there that I simply don't have time to spoon-feed to someone playing the ignorant student. Find someone else to stonewall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems extremely serious, much more than the leaked email affair. The claim in question has been _very widely_ cited. PBS Frontline even chose this glacier story to lead off their 2 hour special on climate change:

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/heat/view/1.html> (see Chapter 1, 3:30-6:30. The actual claim is at 6:00 in the video)

<comment><USER2> While serious, I don't think the ramifications of this are greater than the leaked emails - more on that here: [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100022157/...](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100022157/how- climategate-killed-peer-review/) (I suspect the words "peer review" will be treated with considerably greater skepticism in the future)

They can and will likely chalk this up to some administrative error, but the underlying contents of the leaked emails, charges of fraud of some of the most prominent authors of the IPCC reports is far more significant. More from a (formerly?) strong supporter of the IPCC reports here: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot- climate-leak-crisis-response)

<comment><USER6> That a couple of scientists said some dumb stuff in private emails does not call into question the entire peer review system.

<comment><USER2> It's not about calling the entire peer review system into question - it's about being skeptical about whether or not results can be trusted on the sole basis they've been peer reviewed - particularly in areas of scientific controversy.

From the linked article: "As Climategate has shown, [the process of peer review] became compromised – causing an instability. As seen in the leaked emails, many within the climate establishment were interrelated and working together to ensure their message of global warming wasn't diluted. There were even desires to redefine the peer review literature to punish journals that published skeptic's papers."

It's not just climate science (as I've been reading on nutritional science with Gary Taubes and Robert Lustig).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's odd to hear all this victory hooting over a single hyperbolic prediction with so many glaciers in retreat all over the world (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850>). Ah, but I suppose every claim on the page linked above is also attributable to equally bad science, or perhaps the citations were merely planted there by members of the Shadowy Underworld Global Climate Change Cabal.

<comment><USER8> I feel that, if this were the only article showing failures on the part of climate scientists, there would be no victory hooting. However, every week there's a new story about these scientists employing suspicious science to arrive at more profitable [1] conclusions. I don't know that victory hooting is necessary here, but a certain amount of "WTF?"ing is definitely called for. Whether or not global warming is a real and man-made phenomenon (vs. a natural cycle or just overinflated numbers), it's important to call attention to the fact that someone is more or less pissing on our leg and telling us it's raining.

I maintain though, as I always have, that the reduction of carbon dioxide waste is a POSITIVE aim as is anything seeking to minimize the effect of ourselves on our environment. The only things I'm calling into question are the tactics currently being employed. If this data-munging is a universal thing, I'd argue that the ends do not warrant the means. This should be a scientific debate, not an emotional one (as it has become).

[1] I say profitable because it's hard for contrarians to get grant money as they are generally believed to be 'quacks'.

<comment><USER9> > I say profitable because it's hard for contrarians to get grant money as > they are generally believed to be 'quacks'.

The energy sector and other carbon emitters would have enough available money to make the government grant money look like small change. Imagine how much it would be worth to them to discredit man made global warming. I'm sure they do fund many of the contrarians one way or another. But the fact that they aren't able to fund reputable research that supports their position really does say something about how quacky the contrarians are regarded as being.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. Here's an example of it:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagen...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Some scientists have questioned how the IPCC could have allowed such a mistake into print."

Curve fitting?</comment>


Harmful Options - <AUTHOR> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/harmful-options.html <comment><USER2> Definitely an interesting essay on the paradox of choice. Bonus points for the Progress Quest reference.</comment>


Why Programming Languages Are Hard To Teach [video] - <AUTHOR> http://oredev.org/2012/sessions/its-not-you-its-them-why-programming-languages-are-hard-to-teach

<comment><USER2> ...I think that a lot of teachers for get that the hardest part in teaching someone how to program is: _MOTIVATION, motherfucker_

people can learn anything up to a certain level if they WANT to do it, and most people need short reward feedback loops like 'do smth' and 5min later 'tadaam! cool result!'. _I think the simple fact of 'seeing cool results' is the main value of using drawing when learning people how to program._ Kids and people in general are used to GUIs and cool graphics everywhere and text is boooring to them and associated to boooring schoolwork, so graphics seems the only way to give beginners this simple feedback loop (music will probably work, but for a smaller number of people), and the fact that it might pool them towards geometry and later some cool math that can be visually explored through programming seems like a good side effect. Actually I like the idea of using programming as a platform for teaching math and these silly looking programming drawings seem like the best launchpad for something like this.

<comment><USER3> That's not true. Do you expect someone to play the opening bars to "Stairway to Heaven" after 5 minutes with a guitar? Heck, do you even expect them to play a scale? And yet, does that stop people from learning to play guitar?

Moreover, going back to the point that Zed repeatedly hammered home in that presentation, do you have any _evidence_ that this is actually what stops people from learning programming?

<comment><USER2> ...ok, you convinced me to start looking ...the _evidence_ to look for would in this case be studies that compare drop-out rates for courses using visually "augmented" total beginners programming classes vs "classic" ones for the same target ...a quick search on google scholar dind't help, but I'll retry with different keywords later in the day when I'll have some time

...if you happen to know of any such study that either approves or disproves my "intuition" please tel. on the side I happen to like Zed's "learn X the hard way" since the first language I learned was C and I too started by typing code I dind't understand at first... but I always found that the people around me were never as motivated as I was they never seemed to feel "the rewards" part of having you program running so I assume that it was because for them it was just text on a screen and this simply didn't give them the "spark" to carry on and I imagine graphics have more "spark" potential, but yeah, a spark doesn't guarantee the engine will keep on running or that they will go into the right direction...

[EDIT+: I dunno about his music analogies as I can't say I "get them" at all as I really don't get music, I never even tried to play an instrument and I'm mostly "tone deaf" and for me music is something that I just "viscerally" like or dislike, I don't even try to understand it so I totally can't relate to this area... but I can draw and do graphic design and I sometimes even find it easy to imagine equations for rough sketches of drawn shapes that I'm looking at]

<comment><USER3> _I dunno about his music analogies as I can't say I "get them" at all as I really don't get music, I never even tried to play an instrument and I'm mostly "tone deaf" and for me music is something that I just "viscerally" like or dislike, I don't even try to understand it..._

That is _exactly_ how a large proportion of people feels about programming. "I don't know about programming; I can't say that I "get it"; I've never tried to write code [...] programs are things that I just "viscerally" like or dislike."

I think that there is definitely room for study here. What sorts of things do music instructors, for example, know about keeping beginner students motivated enough to keep practicing? Can we bring over some of those ideas to programming instruction?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Zed Shaw doesn't seem to like mixing coding with its visual effect but that's how most of small to medium webdevelopment is. You make some changes in the code, refresh the page and see if that did what you wanted it to do.

Victor and Resig do the same thing, sans Alt+TAB, F5. And yes, I keep my code editor on the left and browser on the right and have no idea why.

I'd love to see more visual tools for programming. Not for designing stuff, or building algorithms out of bricks but rather inspecting what a mess I'm making.

Currently most advanced commonly used visual inspection tool for assessing whether you are ankle deep or knee deep or deeper is directory tree of your project.

<comment><USER5> One can argue that visual tools are only useful if you're building with a top- down approach.

Visual tools can help here, because developers take shortcuts and you're never developing in the perfect case, so you often end up with coupling that shouldn't be there, which creates extra complexity and in general, a "mess".

On the other hand, you can take a "bottom-up" approach to building stuff, in which you're you're building layer upon layer, such that top layers depend on bottom layers, but never the other way around. You do this by designing for each layer a domain specific language for that layer, which layers at the top can use [1] [2].

And visual tools don't really help in such a case, but on the other hand visual tools aren't really needed. In my opinion visual tools for software development (and I'm thinking primarily of UML here) are just fixing a symptom instead of the real disease, giving you a wider window for building a mess.

[1] [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs- spring-2005/video-lectures/3a-henderson-escher-example/)

[2] it can be argued that Unix was built like this

<comment><USER4> I'm not talking about UML or anything similar or designing or building. I'm talking about visual inspection tool for my code. Something like code-to-UML not the other way around that shows components and their actual interactions (of course UML is not expressive enough to display all situations encountered "in the wild" and it was designed for paper so it should be something else).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scratch is one of the visual tools he spoke about.

I'm not sure how he can bash such a tool. When you're such a beginner that you don't know what a semi-colon is then scratch is the EXACT tool you want to teach with.

It allows people to get to the logic and interesting problem solving mechanics of programming instead of worrying about including header files or curly braces.

All you do is drag/connect constructs together and you can instantly see the results.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure why but the video wasn't showing up on that page for me. Here's the Vimeo page: <http://vimeo.com/53062800>

</comment><comment><USER8> Zed has got it twisted. Khan Academy's environment was 'inspired' by Victor's 'Inventing on Principle' talk which encompassed much more than what's discussed here. Resig did not implement Victor's 'Learnable Programming' article, because the article was, in fact, a response to the Khan Academy implementation. I imagine Victor built upon Resig's work to make those little demos in the article. Victor explicitly states JavaScript is a poor educational language, and the demos are just the simplest examples of his principles, by extending the Khan Academy model. [1]

[1] <http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/> (the bottom)

<comment><USER9> I don't think much of Victor's work is built upon Resig's, mostly the other way around.

<comment><USER8> You aren't following me. 'Learnable Progamming' is 'built on' Khan Academy in that it is a response to it and it works from the JavaScript/Processing environment that Khan Academy put out. There are obviously questionable assumptions being made about it being a good environment in the first place, but it is simply used to make a point. Zed makes some straw man arguments by conflating these concepts.

<comment><USER10> From what I remember, Bret originally said some things about teaching programming with this visual interactive stuff, resig&khan academy went and actually implemented something, saying that it was inspired by Bret and then Bret wrote his big post saying that what resig & khan academy did wasn't _quite_ what we had in mind.

When I saw the talk I understood it as more of "resig implemented the interactive paradigm" then "resig implemented the things in learnable programming"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's some interesting things in this talk. Like finding bugs by reading code backwards.

I find 99% of my bugs when I ask a colleague to help me find it and start explaining to him what I am trying to accomplish with my code. It just makes me see the bug. And makes the colleague that interrupted his work wonder why I asked him to come over. :)

<comment><USER12> "One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor." — Kernighan/Pike, _The practice of Programming_

<comment><USER13> Also known as Rubber Duck Debugging:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because programming is hard to teach. Because abstract thinking is hard to teach.

<comment><USER3> Great cop out answer. "Teaching programming is hard; let's go shopping." Why is it hard? What rough edges can we sand down so that the only difficulties are essential ones, not incidental ones?

Stepping back even farther, how do we even know that programming is hard to teach?</comment></comment>


Good Mail Sorting - <AUTHOR> http://plasmasturm.org/log/mailsort/ <comment><USER2> _Any typo that aborts program execution will cost you mail. Any bug that manifests someday in the future will cost you mail. [...] For over a decade, I was so fixated on doing the mail processing during delivery that I was blind to the much simpler approach that was staring me right in the face._

So, why not even go a step further and treat maildir as append-only storage? Do the deletions, mark-as-read, and attachment inspection using notmuch. This is one of the really cool things about notmuch: it gives you a mutable view of 'immutable' mail storage.

</comment><comment><USER3> Back when I was running a disposable email service called dodgeit.com I settled on a similar approach. I would just have postfix drop the mail in Maildir style files, then had a perl script parse the messages one by one. I didn't even call it from cron--it would just finish traversing then start over again after sleeping for a second. This effectively scaled to thousands of messages an hour on a single dedicated host.

I played around with a number of approaches, like the author here. But the one that just trusted the mail daemon to do its thing and the Linux filesystem to do its thing worked best for me.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems a bit inefficient to scan through all files all the time, doesn't it? I suppose with SSD:s and enough RAM it won't do terrible things to the usability of the computer while doing a scan, but still. If I did something like this I'd probably pair it with a database of received_at + path mappings that's populated when mail is received.

</comment><comment><USER5> He mentioned Sieve in passing, I wonder what the problem with it is. I use Dovecot and Sieve, and have never had a single problem, apart from mis-written sieve rules. The syntax isn't the most concise, but how much worse could it be compared to a hand-rolled sorting program?</comment>


Unspoken Requirements of a Great SDK - <AUTHOR> http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/the-unspoken-requirements-of-a-great-sdk#axzz2FcrSADvR

<comment><USER2> For anyone currently trying to learn marketing, (like me) this is a textbook example of how content marketing works. Don't worry about what an SDK is, you just need to know that this article is content marketing promoting one.

The purpose of the article is to pitch a particular SDK called Box, but most of the words are spent talking generally about SDKs and what makes a good one. Only at the end, once we're convinced the author understands the SDK market, does he throw out the meat and show us an SDK that (surprise!) meets exactly the criteria he just laid out.

To apply this to your business, you need to get articles on your blog and elsewhere (Esp. elsewhere, backlinks are what drives SEO) with a similar format: four to six paragraphs of <Here's what I know about $MY_MARKET, look how smart and plugged in I am/we are> followed by one or two of <Look, $MY_PRODUCT fits all the things I just laid out> <link to my site>.</comment>


On Becoming the Enemy - <AUTHOR> http://bostonreview.net/politics/jason-stanley-becoming-enemy <comment><USER2> One of the greatest privileges I had while I was in school in Germany was listening to Holocaust survivors, live on stage, speak about their and their parents experiences.

When learning about the Nazi time in history class I always had some amount of emotional distance between me and the subject.

Hearing survivors' accounts made away with that. That was when I, as a German(who had a grand-grandfather who fought for the Nazis), felt deep genuine regret and sorrow for the actions(or inaction) of my ancestors.

I worry what will happen when the last survivor dies.

<comment><USER3> In kindergarten I asked a friend why "Hitler didn't like Jews". He said his grandmother was Jewish and he didn't like her, which made sense to us. When I was 9, my Jewish best friend and I had friendship armbands in neon colors, which I loved to bits, exclaiming that "I'm a Neon-Nazi". Still totally clueless, it was still all just words to me. The deeply appalled reaction of his mother was like a gut punch, probably like my innocent but horrid statement was to her.

When I was 11 and alone, I randomly changed channels (we only had the 3) and was faced with a bunch of corpses being shoved into a grave by a caterpillar. I remember that as if it was yesterday, and with everything I learned since then, that was the horrible anchor. But like you probably too, I wouldn't want to unsee it either. And I still sometimes can't help but wonder about the streets I walk through. Did some of those houses see people get dragged out and carried to their murder? How would the dead judge our too common unwillingness to speak out against injustice, even though we're very free to do so in comparison to them? There's so much, but I fear it less than I fear looking away.

While I also think testimonies, big and small, by real people (e.g. [https://www.youtube.com/user/YadVashem/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/YadVashem/videos) ) are important and need to be preserved, I can honestly say that for me, they were not really necessary, that is they came long after this had already become and integral part of me. Even "just" what can be read in books sufficed, but that's because I went looking for it, because I needed to learn. Similarly, I think it's perfectly possible for people to be so jaded to even shrug off a testimony given in person. So that's both good and bad news, I guess?

<comment><USER4> >How would the dead judge our too common unwillingness to speak out against injustice, even though we're very free to do so in comparison to them? There's so much, but I fear it less than I fear looking away.

The dead were people too, not saints. They share the burden of creating an unjust society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worry what happens when the last of those that actually remember any of this die and all we're left with is the stories and the grainy footage. Humanity's track record for repeating mistakes is not encouraging.

<comment><USER6> There have been acts of genocide since World War 2 so it's not really a memory problem. To have countries not repeat mistakes like this would need a new approach?

<comment><USER7> The trend looks good: [https://ourworldindata.org/genocides/](https://ourworldindata.org/genocides/)

According to that source, in 2012, for the first time in at least a hundred years, there were no ongoing genocides.

<comment><USER6> Not aware of that. Thanks for pointing it out!

<comment><USER8> Worth also mentioning that war itself is kind of petering out: [http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_pol...](http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/141209_Charts- armedconflicts.jpg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm genuinely curious to read more accounts of those very early days when Jewish people were first being treated like the enemy by a very small but vocal minority wielding righteous indignation as their weapon of choice.

"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats." Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

</comment><comment><USER10> I should buy a gun.

<comment><USER11> Depending on where you live, if you pay taxes you probably already have, millions of them, for atrocities on a scale that make Kristallnacht look tame.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Millions is a exaggerating

<comment><USER12> [https://www.quora.com/How-many-guns-does-the-US-military- own](https://www.quora.com/How-many-guns-does-the-US-military-own) says around 3 per military member (this is just handheld firearms). That puts it at well over 3 million with more than a million military members.

<comment> wu-ikkyu olewhalehunter said "millions" in the context of a singular "you", which is the exaggeration. Of course, _collectively_ , all the US tax payers have paid for millions of weapons.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/10/151006-energy-drink-billionaire-wants-to-power-homes-with-bikes/ <comment><USER2> I built and operated a pedal powered generator [1] It's a regular bike on a stand, with a belt turning a 110v AC motor.

I can tell you, pedaling to making electricity is _hard_. It requires a lot of effort. On the flip side, if you told people they had to pedal _before_ they could use the electricity for stuff like TV, xbox, etc., people would be doing those things _a lot_ less.

I ended up giving it to a friend who powers his house with the bike, a 70W solar panel and three old car batteries :)

[1] [http://theroadchoseme.com/smoothie- bike](http://theroadchoseme.com/smoothie-bike)

<comment><USER3> You can ask people if they want some toast, are they as strong as Robert Förstemann (hint: no, they are not):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ)

<comment><USER4> Well, he could have toasted two slices - they didn't disconnect the second slot in the toaster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An hour per day of cycling is a lot. I know it seems like good fun exercise to us decadent westerners but as Tom Sawyer would point out it quits being fun when you have to do it.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. And I'm sure you'd work up a sweat doing it. If you want a hot shower afterwards any energy gains would be totally lost in heating the water.

<comment><USER5> In India I'd probably want to turn up the air con.

<comment><USER6> Ha, yeah me too. Wouldn't want to power it by pedaling though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With the low energy requirements of LED's it would seem much easier to give people a solar panel and a battery. Manufacture everything in Africa to create local jobs.

This kid, William Kamkwamba, in Africa did it with wind power. If I were this billionaire Bhargava I'd fund this kid with a foundation in Africa, probably for the price of a single engineer in Ann Arbor. Want to bet who would get the better results?

[http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/](http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/)

<comment><USER8> While that's true, you still need sun for solar panels. I grew up in the cloud forest without electricity, and solar panels are a drag. Hydro is a much better option there.

Alternative energy isn't a one size fits all sort of deal. And it's not an either-or deal either. The more research is done in any area benefits everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You might also like this documentary about the CEO of Five-hour Energy, Manoj Bhargava.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=YY7f1t9y9a0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=YY7f1t9y9a0)

It details a lot more about his philosophy towards philanthropy and the inventions he's currently interested in. Interestingly enough, the result is something quite similar to YC Research in a way so I guess you could say YC Research is already market-validated.

Things like this give me a lot of hope for the future of humanity (though we're still honestly depressingly behind in funding for space exploration which I hope can still be fixed.)

<comment><USER10> Google had a contest years ago about landing any device in the moon but later was canceled. I believe the elite does not want to explore space because it will make clear that it was a lie that we landed on the moon on 1969.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It would be nice if there were some more (any) technical details on the bike. However, I can't see someone generating more than a couple hundred watts on something like that. Even in India, the average household power usage is apparently about 3kWh/day (less than 1/10 of the average in the US and Canada). Even if we say a very optimistic 300W generated, that's 10 hours of pedaling.

It could keep a few LEDs on with an hour of pedaling, but I have trouble seeing, "...can power a home's lights and basic appliances for an entire day."

</comment><comment><USER12> A average person is lucky to get 100W sustained for an hour. 100 Whr can probably run a tablet for 24 hrs

<comment><USER13> and a kilowatt-hour from the power company costs $0.13. As much as I love bikes and wish I were riding one right now, it just makes no sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> After you drink a 5-hour Energy, bicycling is effortless.

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of that episode of Black Mirror.

<comment><USER16> Reminds me of that episode of Rick and Morty. The one with Colbert.</comment></comment>