Dr. Bronner's Soap Is Investing Millions into MDMA Research - <AUTHOR> https://www.inverse.com/article/32376-mdma-ptsd-ptsd-therapy-dr-bronners-soap <comment><USER2> To the extent that anyone on HN knows an active philanthropist looking for potentially highly impactful but severely underfunded causes - send them this article.

I believe there's a case that funding MDMA research has very high dollar/impact returns - or at least that it's likely enough that it's worth a thorough exploration.

It sounds like they still need to raise about $10-15 million, which is shockingly small compared to the ~$1.5bn/yr NIMH budget - and all of it will come from private philanthropists, as governments aren't yet willing to fund the work and for-profit companies don't see much profit yet due to the lack of patentability.

If you're on HN and this is the first you're hearing about this research, some resources:

\- A short video excerpt from a documentary on MDMA therapy - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9iKx2MKS70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9iKx2MKS70)

\- NY Times article - [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/ptsd-mdma- ecstasy.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/ptsd-mdma-ecstasy.html)

<comment><USER3> >I believe there's a case that funding MDMA research has very high dollar/impact returns - or at least that it's likely enough that it's worth a thorough exploration.

Sort of? I'm sure there's potential, but you pay a lot of your grant money to DEA licenses. Also, MDMA might be neurotoxic.

<comment><USER4> MDMA _is_ neurotoxic. Very much so too. I'm a little busy at the moment to link to it, but there were a few studies years ago that did tests on chimps, finding ultimately that MDMA gradually destroys neuron synapse receptors. You could say that MDMA "wears out" the seratonin receptors on the neuron synapses, i think is how the MSM phrased it from the studies...

Overall this causes a lot of problems, since, well, synapses are very important! Mood, memory, motor function. You simply just get "generally more brain damaged" in all areas. If you've ever seen a problematic user of amphetamines, it's quite obvious. Microdosing, even though slightly neurotoxic, maybe have benefits that outweigh it, a bit like the addiction and general very slight brain damage that comes with Xanax and the like.

<comment><USER5> It is unfortunate that you've been downvoted. There's a bit of bias on HN when discussion of potential harms of LSD, THC, and MDMA come up.

Your comment is factually correct and is a relevant counterpoint. It should not have been downvoted.

<comment><USER6> > It is unfortunate that you've been downvoted. There's a bit of bias on HN > when discussion of potential harms of LSD, THC, and MDMA come up.

> Your comment is factually correct and is a relevant counterpoint. It should > not have been downvoted.

Sort of. I didn't downvote their comment, though I don't think it's unfortunate that they were downvoted. Their comment is partially correct, but also partially misleading/misinformed, so seems reasonable for it to be downvoted.

> HN: MDMA _is_ neurotoxic.

At certain doses

Again,

> MDMA researcher Matthew Baggott: "To the best of my understanding, doses > around 1.5-1.7 mg/kg MDMA (roughly 100 to 125 mg MDMA) are unlikely to cause > long-lasting serotonin changes. Studies by MAPS have looked for changes in > mental abilities after people participated in their studies, with some > participants receiving 125 mg followed by 62.5 mg, and have not found any > changes." MAPS study protocol involves 3 - 5 week breaks, and a total of 2 > or 3 MDMA sessions in total.

[https://rollsafe.org/mdma-side-effects/](https://rollsafe.org/mdma-side- effects/)

> Although there is considerable debate over how much MDMA it would take to > cause damage to a human user's brain, there is no real doubt that at some > dosages damage can and will occur. Fortunately, brain damage doesn't seem to > happen at moderate recreational doses.

[https://dancesafe.org/drug-information/is-mdma- neurotoxic/](https://dancesafe.org/drug-information/is-mdma-neurotoxic/)

> HN: Very much so too.

Subjective. Depends on dose. And your definition of very much.

> HN: Overall this causes a lot of problems, since, well, synapses are very > important! Mood, memory, motor function.

Doesn't appear to be true in humans [http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/harvard-study-publis...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/harvard-study-published-in-addiction-shows-ecstasy-not-associated- with-cognitive-decline-116226594.html)

> Today the journal Addiction published online the results of a neuroscience > study finding no evidence of impaired cognitive performance in users of > Ecstasy, the street name for the chemical known as MDMA.

> Since previous studies of the neurocognitive effects of Ecstasy did not > address these issues, their reports of damage to memory, strategic planning, > and other cognitive tasks may have been due to confounded study design > rather than to Ecstasy itself.

> HN: Microdosing, even though slightly neurotoxic

? I think they might be confusing MDMA and LSD/other psychedelics, microdosing MDMA is an exceptionally rare practice

\-----

To other readers, the most comprehensive summary of the research is here: [https://www.mdmawiki.org/wiki/Is_MDMA_Neurotoxic%3F](https://www.mdmawiki.org/wiki/Is_MDMA_Neurotoxic%3F)

And regarding marijuana: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana- much-more-th...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more- than-you-wanted-to-know/)

And regarding LSD: [https://tripsafe.org/lsd-side- effects/](https://tripsafe.org/lsd-side-effects/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" People are starting to understand that when a certain drug is used correctly, then it's not a big deal. They don't need to be afraid of it."_

This is the big takeaway that most of the world still doesn't understand. They think that if a currently illegal drug is used, it is by necessity abused. There is no room in their world view for illegal drug use that's not also illegal drug abuse. It's going to take a lot to change this mindset.

<comment><USER8> Can you ever use acid correctly? My understanding is the result is non- deterministic every trip for the same individual.

<comment><USER9> There's a new trend called "microdosing" where acid is used in much smaller amounts than typical to improve mood and productivity. The resulting effect is apparently not very comparable to tripping. I don't know if it's possible or practiced with other psychedelics.

<comment><USER10> _There 's a new trend called "microdosing" where acid is used in much smaller amounts than typical to improve mood and productivity._

This was also a "new trend" in the early 90's.

<comment><USER11> If they are doing it in Silicon Valley then its a game changing disruptive new trend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> MDMA is ecstasy, sure it might not be what you get in pills these days, but it started out as MDMA and it even came from therapists, then it turned into the party drug, got mixed up with other things, similar compounds such as MDA and MDEA were sold as ecstasy and then it became Molly. But ecstasy is and always will be MDMA.

<comment><USER13> Molly was a slang term for 'pure' MDMA at least as far back as the late nineties/early aughts, from 'molecule'. The usage was to differentiate from 'pressies' which were pressed-pills supposedly composed of MDMA plus binder plus whatever the presser wanted to add, usually amphetamine though sometimes DXM or methamphetamine.

Molly, in contrast, was sold in loose powder form, at least back then.

Contrary to urban legends, pressies were never made with heroin as the amount of heroin required for any appreciable effect would be cost-ineffective.

Now, who knows what your 'molly' might contain. We just had two thirteen year- olds in the area die from 'research chemicals' ordered off the internet by a friend of theirs. People are taking all sorts of weird things that have undergone zero testing, even when compared to the embargo that MDMA has faced.

<comment><USER14> I saw a documentary recently (ish). "what's in your baggie". Molly seemed to be mostly methylone which comes under "bath salts" I think in the US.

But seems to be a generic term for MDMA (like) drugs

<comment><USER15> Yup, there can be many mixed results from powder/crystal MDMA sold as "molly" that I can see why people go for pill presses much more since they are a bit more standardized in terms of reviews and experiences (e.g. pillreports).

Much easier to have a consistent result when your presses come from a popular and widely-known batch.

Unless you have a reagent test kit and want to do all that, it's best to have a trusted source or go for the presses IMO.

That being said, my first experience was with MDMA in crystal form, and it was the greatest thing ever.

<comment><USER16> Please note, when given press gain significant popularity, it's common to be replicated by other "producers", and frequently the "counterfeit" pills are containing less desirable compounds. Always test what you're about to take, irrespective of the vendor/pill reputation -- reagent tests are cheap and available even via Amazon Prime.

<comment><USER12> Yup back in the day Mitsubishi pills were the new standard in purity, then every pill became a Mitsubishi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Research into the neurotoxicity would be very extremely beneficial. The usual advice goes: "You need to protect your serotonin receptors from damage. Antioxidants like Alpha Lipoic Acid are great for this, but in a pinch, a dose of Vitamin C does the trick as well. Hence the advice to drink OJ with your molly."

However, if there was a way to completely prevent damage to the brain and eliminate tolerance, I think many many people would do MDMA every day.

<comment><USER6> To your first point: Yes, I wish we knew more.

To your second point: Quite a timely comment!

I released the results of a ~660 person study on MDMA tolerance/'loss of magic' _this morning_ \- as far as I'm aware, this is the first study of this kind.

[https://rollsafe.org/mdma-magic/](https://rollsafe.org/mdma-magic/)

If you have constructive criticism, that's always appreciated, or if you just like it and find it useful, that's nice too.

<comment><USER15> Very cool study on the loss of magic. There has always been anecdotal advice floating around about how to regain the 'magic', but it's good to have some empirical evidence on what actually works.

One of the odd factors that I've heard of but didn't see listed was the "someone new" factor. It maybe somewhat related to the "close friend" factor. Basically, some people claim to regain some magic if you do it with someone you just recently met or reconnected with who has a low tolerance (as opposed to doing it with someone you're already familiar with). Maybe its the empathy combined with the pleasure of making a new friend...

I've heard it makes a difference... but nothing beats supplements and tolerance breaks IMO. lol

We definitely need more studies like this-- there's still so much we don't know about MDMA.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the kind words.

Very good point on the someone new factor. I'll look into that in future studies.

Agreed on the desire for more research!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wait, is this the soap brand whose product labels are long crazy tracts in very tiny print? I see these at my local co-op and always set them down carefully and back away slowly.

<comment><USER18> You shouldn't, it's great soap. Yes, the writing is extremely out there, but it's unrelated. The founder was apparently somewhat unhinged (having your family killed in the Holocaust does that to some people) but it didn't affect the product, and he's dead now. The company keeps the labeling out of respect.

<comment><USER19> It also gets an Environmental Working Group score of zero, making it probably the best cosmetic product on the market of any type.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A recent SSC post [1] made some interesting observations on why it might be that there are no "traditional" psychopharmacological discoveries that have anywhere near as strong and immediate effects as MDMA and ketamine.

In summary, most clinically developed chemicals are looking for small effects with small side-effects. MDMA definitely does not have a "small effect" in the therapeutic dose range (typically 100-150mg).

[1] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/05/is-pharma-research- wors...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/05/is-pharma-research-worse-than- chance/)

<comment><USER16> Yes, but on the other hand -- recently I've had a relatively persistent flu and decided to visit a doctor. After ~10 minutes I've been prescribed Levofloxacin antibiotic (w/o even doing blood work). I've bought the antibiotic and even got some probiotics; back at home, I've decided to do basic overview and research what I'm about to administer, as (luckily) I've never been treated before w/ drugs of such group. As it turns out -- this medicine do have frightening side effects, which may occur months even years after the initial 5-day administration. The side effects are potentially life long and may cause various disabilities. There are clinical studies which do provide very strong evidences about these side effects; numerous class actions against given pharmaceutical companies and blogs, where people are writing about the hell they are going through.

I'm in EU, but FDA warns about these potential issues and recommend prescribing fluoroquinolones as last line of treatment.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levofloxacin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levofloxacin)

Honestly, I don't buy this argument about the numerous side-effects preventing further reasearch of psychedelics.

Psylocibin/MDMA should be available for research and even as last line of treatment, I believe, thousands of people will benefit.

<comment><USER20> That's a valid observation, but I'm inclined to think that doctors prescribe lots of drugs because the FDA standards are so high (arguably too high). If you essentially have zero liability for prescribing drugs because they have all been shown to be safe, then there's no reason not to.

But the bottleneck isn't what doctors are willing to prescribe, it's what drug companies are willing/able to get through FDA approval, which is a bit different.

(To be clear, I'm in full support of further research into these chemicals; just interested in all of the reasons that they are not as well researched.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 I don't think the pharmaceutical industry is turned off by the fact that the MDMA patent has expired. If they see potential in marketing MDMA, they will do it, and they will find a way to patent it somehow.

Just look at Adderall, it is just good old amphetamine, which turned out to be very effective at treating ADHD. So instead of marketing amphetamine, they marketed a specific mixture of different salts of d- and l- amphetamine. The base molecule is not patentable, but their specific formulation is.

</comment><comment><USER21> The government has made it so hard to get clean, cheap, relatively safe drugs like MDMA, that people who want to get high (which is alot of people), end up taking what they can get.

And what they can get cheap and easy is crystal meth which is anything but "relatively safe" and destroys lives and the community.

For goodness sake if the government want to stop the crystal meth epidemic, then give them legal, cheap access to clean, professionally made "relatively safe" drugs like MDMA.

People on real MDMA are not doing good things for their own personal health but they certainly aren't being violent. Well heck actually maybe all that dancing is good for their health.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm all for this but this is not what I like to see in a funder for a "research" project:

"We're going to help alleviate the pain of a suffering population, and generally I'm talking about veterans, but also individuals who are traumatized by rape and other forms of violence," Bronner tells Inverse. "That's the immediate goal. MDMA is such an incredible adjunct to therapy, and there's such an incredible need for it."

I.e., we already know it works?

</comment><comment><USER23> turns out it's the only way to get their label to make any sense.

all one!

(fantastic soap, though)</comment>


I spent 1000h on Techmeme and didn't learn a thing — I.M.H.O. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/a79d69ed8cfa <comment><USER2> You can try reddit as well. I think that in some reddit groups, you can learn and ask new things to anyone. Before HN, reddit is my best place to learn new SEO stuff.</comment>


JSCocoa Interactive Console for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://ido.nu/kuma/2008/11/22/jscocoa-interactive-console-for-iphone/

<comment><USER2> What does this gain you beyond what you can already do in a debugger? Writing Mac apps in Objective-C I got really used to just setting a breakpoint in the code in question and in gdb calling methods and even replacing variables with the output of method calls, which covers everything he seems to be doing in the sample on his page...</comment>


Things they never teach in college about programming. - <AUTHOR> http://www.makinggoodsoftware.com/2010/05/27/10-things-they-never-teach-in-college-about-programming/

<comment><USER2> "Be ready to spent 80% of your time thinking, debugging, testing, in meetings, conversations…"

I always considered thinking, debugging and testing part of coding...

</comment><comment><USER3> Two major problems I see with people straight out of their course:

1\. They've never heard of source control, let alone understand why or how it should be used.

2\. They know exactly the frameworks they've been shown during their courses, and think that anything else is either completely foreign and useless, or needs to be dived into head-first, rather than seeing any framework as just another tool to be used based on first principles. (Replace "framework" with "language" and you get the same idea on a different scale.)

Maybe these comments are specific to Australian courses?

<comment><USER4> As someone not too far out of coursework in the US -- neither I nor most of my classmates didn't use source control. For most homework assignments and projects it just wasn't a necessity. You were working with so few people and just sorta ground it out. Setting up/using version control wasn't worth the frustration and time. Had it been required and assignments were turned in by checking in our final version, then it would be second nature.

I wonder if the framework/language thing is more just a lack of experience in using new things without jumping in head first. I still have some of that. However, it was made very clear that first principles should always be used.

<comment><USER5> "Setting up/using version control wasn't worth the frustration and time."

I think the onslaught of very usable distributed source control systems with cheap and easy local repositories should make this a non-issue. I wish I had known about hg or git when I was in school - a simple repository per class/project would have alleviated a few pain points that weren't severe enough to be worth with the hassle of setting up a subversion repository.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you just at least at my school we didn't have it. I have a friend who works in the CS department now (and is one heckuva lecturer) that I'm going to mention it to.

I still don't know much about version control but perhaps a wrapper might be a good open source project or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> #4 reminded me of these two laws:

a) there is always a bug b) every program can be reduced at least by one instruction.

Hence, you can reduce every program to a single instruction which is a bug.

<comment><USER7> "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."

-C.A.R. Hoare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _1.- We're always wrong._

SometimesWereWrong + SometimesWereRight != "We're always wrong"

 _2.- If something can break, it will break._

Good thing this isn't true. I'm am continually amazed that some of the crap I have to maintain ever ran in the first place, much less that it continues to run. But it does. Sometimes for years without ever breaking. I call it "dodging the raindrops".

 _3.- All code is crap._

OP must have never seen really magnificent code for him to say this. What a shame. It's out there.

 _4.- There is always a bug._

False. The first step in writing bug-free code is believing that it's possible.

 _5.- The most important thing is the client._

Lots of things are important, but it's hard to argue with this one.

 _6.- Design on paper doesn't work._

Sure it can. Just because it usually doesn't work doesn't mean that it can't. I prefer prototyping, but blueprinting can be effective too.

 _7.- Less is more._

Generally, yes. That's what great design and refactoring are for. But there are counterexamples to this.

 _8.- Coding is only 20% of what we do._

If you actually believe this, then you're not spending enough time coding. I'd say more like 50 to 80%.

 _9.- The customer doesn't know what he/she wants NEVER!._

False. The customer often knows _exactly_ what he/she wants, but may have trouble communicating. That's when you expert analysis and prototyping skills come in handy.

 _10.- Someone has done it before._

Similar to #4, the first step in inventing something new is believing it's possible. Lots of stuff that needs to be done hasn't been done for all kinds of reasons. Maybe no one thought it was possible or no one has understood its potential. But we know better.

 _Bonus: Hey! Our job is cool!_

Yes! I agree!

<comment><USER9> "If you actually believe this, then you're not spending enough time coding. I'd say more like 50 to 80%."

If you don't include debugging and thinking in that figure (as the author does), 20% doesn't seem unreasonable. I seriously doubt that it's possible (or even preferable) to spend 50-80% of your time literally typing text into your text editor.

<comment><USER10> I think it depends on the size of the team (and related teams) and the sorts of dev cycles you experience. I'd say in my case, including testing and debugging, I code roughly 50% of the time. That doesn't mean, however, that I spend four hours everyday coding and another four going to meetings, etc, etc. The pattern is often more like: code 85% of the time for several weeks, then drift into a period of considerably less coding as we review releases, work with other teams for product hand-off, offer training, and review bugs and issues.

<comment><USER11> It's also true that we (humans) are terrible at self-reporting information like this. Not that you are lying, simply that you are most likely incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used to believe that all code was crap, and, to drive the point home, that my code was the very worst. Five years of experience forward, I think my code is rather good. I have never had impressive colleagues.

Some open source code is impressive, and to work on projects with good code is one of the few things that are great. But most open source code could have been written by my former colleagues.

I'm not really all that arrogant -- people who are actively looking for better ways to write their code are just as much a joy to work with. It's just that "my code is the worst" is the kind of "tip" or "wisdom" you find in this kind of article, yet truth be told, most of us (here on HN, there on reddit/programming, or on the c2 wiki where it used to be at) write some pretty awesome code.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd like to contend with the writer 1st answer / question: 1 - We're always wrong. Vocabulary is vital in accurately describing situation. I think dispassionate wording without using good / bad / right / wrong suits better to reflect what is really going on - process of continuous learning and continuous realigning of the information. People often get attached to ideas, ways of doing things. And they start attaching emotions to them. We should consider issues dispassionately while in analysis - this is hard: we are emotional beings. Appealing to our emotions is a way to deliver a message. However message should not be corrupted with fixed notions that some thing can be either wrong or right - as I think is happening in this article.

</comment><comment><USER9> I disagree with #1. In fact, you can almost say the exact opposite: we're always right. The difficult discussions happen when two people have different ideas that are _both_ right. I sometimes struggle with this. I might get into an argument with someone when neither one of us really realizes that neither one is incorrect, but they're both alternate ways of achieving the same goal.

</comment><comment><USER14> > 6.- Design on paper doesn't work.

Some of the very best programmers in history (Don Knuth, Jean Ichbiah) designed some of their best known programs on paper. Ah, but I forgot rule 1:

> 1.- We're always wrong.

Then it makes sense.</comment>


AppSec USA Conference Videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpr-xdpM8wG8jz9QpzQeLeB0914Ysq-Cl

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like when conferences -- particularly ones I haven't been able to attend -- post their full videos online. It's even better when there's a short feedback loop, so that the videos are online almost instantly.

It looks like AppSecUSA put their full tracks online, which is great.

OWASP is a pretty nice organization for builders and breakers trying to learn more about software security. For those of you that aren't familiar with the organization, it's a great thing to check out!</comment>


Divshot opens its public beta - <AUTHOR> https://divshot.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder what will be the real price of this tool. I don't see myself paying 120$ a year for this tool and this is only the beta pricing.</comment>


Show HN: A minimal working native WebRTC app for iOS with audio and video calls - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stasel/WebRTC-iOS <comment><AUTHOR> So I was wondering, what is the easiest way to implement WebRTC into an iOS app, after some research it looks like the WebRTC native API is great and can be easily implemented in any app.

This demo app is of course the bare minimum and to achieve production ready video/audio calling you will probably need much more effort</comment>


The big user testing mistake we now avoid - <AUTHOR> http://www.policygenius.com/blog/user-testing-mistake/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested in hearing what other user testing mistakes people have learned from?</comment>


Bacterial growth: a statistical physicist's guide - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04435 <comment><USER2> I know nothing about the two authors of this paper, but when talking about statistics and physics, the first two names coming to my mind are Delbrück and Luria, founding fathers of molecular biology and had a physics background. Also Luria's A Slot Machine, a Broken Test Tube is a joyful autobiography about his journey into science.

<comment><USER3> When talking about statistical physics you should really be thinking more along the lines of Boltzmann, Carnot and Helmholtz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Consider the following scenario: a small number of pathogenic bacteria (perhaps 10-100) enter the human body and cause an infection._

This might be a naive question, but why do we want to assume that more than one bacteria was initially introduced? Is it just to increase the chances that at least one will find a suitable habitat and begin to reproduce, or is there actually some sort of group effect happening, whereby a larger initial concentration increases the chances of infection more than random chance would imply?

<comment><USER5> It seems unlikely to come into contact with only a single cell... although a strange thing about HIV is that it seems only a single viral particle usually gets transmitted from one person to another. Even though there are millions of variants in each infected person only a single one is usually passed on:

> _" The reverse transcriptase of HIV lacks proofreading activity, the ability > to confirm that the DNA transcript it makes is an accurate copy of the RNA > code, and confers a mutation rate of approximately 3.4×10−5 mutations per > base pair per replication cycle. Since the HIV genome is an estimated 104 > base pairs in length and the baseline rate of viral production is > approximately 1010 virions per day, millions of viral variants are produced > within any infected person in a single day."_ > [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614444/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614444/)

> _" Transmission of a single viral variant occurs in about 76–90% of cases of > heterosexual transmission [2], [6], [7], in about 60% of cases of > HIV-1-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) [5], and only in about 40% of > injection drug users (IDU) who acquired HIV-1 infection [4]."_ > [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016714)</comment></comment>


2017 CUFP Keynote – Are We There Yet? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bodil/are-we-there-yet/blob/master/notes.org <comment> loup-vaillant > _We've already figured out a lot about the structure and composition of good > software_

I can't satisfy myself with such a teaser. What have we figured out? Pointers, please!

</comment><comment><USER2> Still relevant but apparently unknown to the trendy conference speakers and FP ranters:

[http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hehner/aPToP/](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hehner/aPToP/)

</comment><comment><USER3> We could start holding companies responsible for their products as opposed to suggesting they are blameless even in the face of shoddy software.

Right? That'd certainly add economic incentive to quality.

</comment><comment><USER4> > perhaps only because we haven't had a sufficiently dramatic incident of this > sort yet.

How about Therac 25 and Ariane 5?</comment>


The federal government should fund everything through inflation - <AUTHOR>

Funding everything through inflation gives every US dollar-using person in the world an incentive to get the feds to operate efficiently.
Good idea? Bad idea? Think that government officials will just issue all the money they can, convert it into a foreign currency and run? <comment><USER2> Very bad idea. For every person in the world who need not pay U.S. taxes -- which would be everyone in your system -- there is a simple way to avoid this "tax": not holding dollars. The value of the dollar would collapse instantly.

This strategy has, of course been tried before. A good example is Zimbabwe, which devalued its currency by a factor of about 10^25 (!!) in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bad idea.

Central bank independence is negatively correlated to inflation as well as variance of inflation. As such, a situation such as the United States has (with a fairly independent central bank) tends to be quite good both at reducing inflation, and at keeping the rate of inflation predictable

Further, central bank independence is also negatively correlated to average deficit as a proportion of GDP. Thus indicating that historically, the more power politicians have to overspend, the more likely they are to do it.

While I don't think the Federal Reserve system is perfect, I do think it's a vastly better system than one that essentially cedes control of the currency to whatever group happens to be governing at the moment.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Flattr.com a Ponzi scheme or good micropayment system? - <AUTHOR>

Is Flattr.com a Ponzi scheme, or a new and revolutionary social micropayment system for creating services on the web?
I recently signed up my website for Flattr.com, because I really loved the initial idea of Flattr. However, I've been thinking: Is Flattr.com really a Ponzi scheme?
Wikipedia: "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment  operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned." I'm not saying that Flattr is fraudulent, but is the Flattr system really sustainable? <comment><USER2> I don't really see anything Ponzi-like about it. I will note, however, that the similar Contenture system shut down soon after launching. [http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/21/the-anti-ad-network- content...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/21/the-anti-ad-network-contenture- shuts-its-doors/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Relevant links:

<http://flattr.com/>

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

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme></comment>


Elon Musk Lobs New Criticism at SEC: Tesla CEO says 'I do not respect' agency - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-lobs-new-criticism-at-sec-1544411580 <comment><USER2> You love him or you hate him.

Elon is likely frustrated by his limited degree of freedom in his ability to express himself given his role as a chairman and CEO of a $60B public company.

It takes a unique empathy to understand the nature of that frustration - you're super smart, super rich, well-intentioned, but you still can't do everything that you want to do because of the constraints posed by the laws of our society, which by necessity, adhere to a lower common denominator.

The solution here for Elon is relatively straightforward, though. Continue to prove out Tesla's business, and get to the point where you can take the company private.</comment>


Ng-wat - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Wp-2XA9ZU

<comment><USER2> This talk was awesome. Aaron Frost mentioned later that this talk got the first standing ovation in ng-conf history. Whether you love or hate Angular, you will be on the floor laughing your ass off.</comment>


How to read a lot of books - <AUTHOR> http://danshipper.com/how-to-read-a-lot-of-books <comment><USER2> Never got time enough to read a book completely... the only problem is that i am not able to concentrate that time into reading... i feel watching TV is better stress buster than reading... what say?

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked the article plus the comments lead me to [https://www.goodreads.com/](https://www.goodreads.com/)</comment>


Google links don't work after iOS 9.3 - <AUTHOR> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7507396?start=0&tstart=0 <comment><USER2> Safari does nothing when tapping on a story link in HN. Trying to long-hold and open in new tab locks up the app, forcing me to quit it (via the app switcher).

Chrome on iOS (which uses a Safari webview internally with some custom handlers) lets me long-hold and open in new tab, but single tapping on story links does nothing.

Similar situation on other sites. I don't have any content blocking apps installed that I know of. Seems totally random which sites work in which browser and which don't. Phone is worse than useless now.

<comment><USER3> What device and iOS version? I don't have these problems... IPhone6/9.3/Purify content-blocker

Edit: more context

<comment><USER2> iOS 9.2.1, iPhone 6, no blockers.

Going to try an upgrade to 9.3 and see what happens.

UPDATE: iOS 9.3 (13E233) Japanese Ver.

Still broken. No blockers.

<comment><USER4> Same version, iPhone 6, no problem to open HN links nor Google ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Both work fine for me. I wonder if it's to do with content blockers installed on individual devices?

<comment><USER6> This was my problem. One of the later updates to 1Blocker killed comments in HN for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "It's not done until Google doesn't run!"

<comment><AUTHOR> HN links to other sites don't work for me now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> HN story links are also busted in Mobile Safari (even after disabling JavaScript and Developer mode). Amusingly, the comments link isn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, now I see that on my phone too. Following HN links is also impossible now on my iPhone. Wow.

I can't even click on the "online support" from the Apple Support page! That is, it doesn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have had a similar issue since iOS 9.2 with my iPhone 6s Plus. Safari randomly freeze when I open a link in the background. This issue doesn't appear every time, but does appear several times(<10) a week.

I bought the 6sP this year and restored it from my local backup. Usually I have tons of tabs opened in Safari. Thus, I initially suspect this issue may related to those many tabs or some corruption in backup data.

After upgrade to 9.3, I still have this issue. Not sure whether my problem is related to the problem discussed here, though they had similar behavior.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just tried it. Both the app and the website work fine for me. :/

<comment><AUTHOR> The browser on my iPhone works bad however:

After I Google something on my iPhone, if I click on any link that is the result of the Google search, the Mobile Safari stays frozen for me. Even switching to another application (with the "big physical button") gets delayed and then occurs in sequence more times, which means that some tight loop (or the flood of priority events) prevented the processing of the button, and only later the buffered presses are handled.

I've deleted cookies, history and the website data and rebooted, nothing changes.

I don't have any ad blocker installed, unless some app installed it behind my back? The only app I've installed recently is booking.com.

There are also other forum topics with the same bug:

[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7442924?start=165&tstar...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7442924?start=165&tstart=0)

I wouldn't be surprised that some of the apps which adds some "handler" is the problem just like the Windows Explorer extensions made problem to Windows. However these can't be controlled by the user, and I would prefer not deleting all my apps and adding it one by one to discover if it would work then.

Even in Firefox for iPhone the links don't work directly. Obviously the "long hold" handling is different however: I can "open new tab" in Firefox but in Safari the whole Safari blocks and I have to kill it once I manage to wait enough for the phone to be responsive again.

<comment><USER11> It happens also to my wife's iPhone 6, but amusingly only on messages and mail, not safari. Same bug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Same for me. Google doesn't work. I was looking at rolling back. Apple updates have been regressive for a while. I am beginning to feel that it is time we lock down our phone like the good old days. The new stuff hasn't been really good for a while.</comment>


First steps with HHVM and Vagrant - <AUTHOR> http://coderoncode.com/2013/07/27/first-steps-on-hhvm.html

<comment><USER2> Speaking of HHVM, would any PHP subject matter experts be interested in submitting pull requests to add HHVM tests to our project [1]? It would be worthwhile to see raw PHP and one or two mainstream PHP frameworks on HHVM versus the existing nginx/FPM configuration of the same.

[1] [https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks/](https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting,my main goal with HHVM is to be able to run Magento which is Zend based.

I will certainly take a look, and maybe try to submit a few tests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> HHVM has a bytecode format, an intermediate language (though just via C++ AST's I believe), and a fairly clean FFI interface to C++. I would be really interested if FB opened up the details a tad more than the two txt files in docs and made it easier for non-PHP devs to play around with writing a frontend for a new/different language.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see what you mean, that would be really interesting to see and its probably not going to make sense for all languages.

PHP to C++ is an easy win since PHP is so slow compared to many modern languages and frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As promised if you want to skip the whole setup you can download the configured vagrant box by doing the following:

      - mkdir vagrant-hhvm

      - cd vagrant-hhvm

      - vagrant init

      - vagrant box add hhvmdev https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qyjkes49nk5abt/package.box

<comment><USER4> Chances are anyone using vagrant will already have a box called 'base' \-- it might be a good idea to call this one something else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last time I tried to use HH, there was no proper php5.4 support. no traits made HH a no-go. Compiled with the fact that namespacing didn't work right, it was just not viable.

That was a few months ago though, so maybe things are better now.

</comment><comment><USER6> Those bold things in the first paragraph would be _wonderful_ if they were links. As is, I was deeply frustrated by my inability to do anything other than highlight them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Link added to the first article, anything else you would like linked?

<comment><USER7> Magento and HipHop/HPHP/HHVM, at least.

<comment><AUTHOR> Links added for Magento and HHVM</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Click Farms Look Like - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/JamieJBartlett/status/1105151495773847552 <comment><USER2> How does it work? The phones seem unmanned.

<comment><USER3> bots?</comment></comment>


With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/california-drought-tulare-county.html?smid=tw-share <comment><USER2> Can someone explain why raising water rates is not a logical solution to this problem? The primary reason why Californian water utilities don't have the resources to invest in large scale reclaimation projects must be related to not charging enough enough for the product. Furthermore, water availability is far more important than water affordability.

I'm reading George Gilder's book The Israel Test, and the Israelis have made enormous improvements in the desert to sustainably farm with advanced greenhouses, and they have pioneered desalination methods. I don't know how Californian water utilities operate, but I presume that increased fees from water consumption would go directly toward improving the water acquisition and distribution network.

Now, there isn't much that can be done about private wells, but responsible water management across the state (farms) will reduce draw down and lengthen the lives of these wells.

EDIT: I see the major issue being that farms probably have private wells anyway, so utility regulation does nothing. Also, well regulation or raising rates would not put most farms out of business, but change farming practices. Total loss of water access puts farms out of business. This argument misses the big picture. Its all moot of farms can dig wells as they please. The state is seeking to implement controls. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/us/politics/desperately- dr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/us/politics/desperately-dry- california-tries-to-curb-private-drilling-for-water.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER3> Raising the water rate would reduce water usage by putting a large number of farms out of business in the short term, which is politically fraught.

Or they'd get an exemption and the brunt would fall on residential use of water which is comparatively small.

<comment><USER4> I think we should gradually raise the cost of water, especially to farms that pay orders of magnitude less than residential. If rice farmers can't stay in business if we reduce water subsidies then they should go out of business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the kind of thing that makes ambitions to colonize other planets seem silly. If we can't even maintain or control the environment of a planet that is highly livable, how are we expected to terraform Mars?

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't you say that the very existence of, say, Las Vegas, is evidence of the possibility of altering an extreme environment to be fit for human conditions?

☺

<comment><USER7> Las Vegas exists due to the Hoover Dam.

<comment><USER6> The simple idea is then to pre-ship a Hoover Dam equivalent to Mars. Some sort of huge solar array, perhaps?

<comment><USER8> Wrong benefit. Lake Mead is what gp is talking about.

<comment><USER7> Well, Las Vegas as a city of lights also exists due to the cheap electricity that the dam provided too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Solution to problem: Raise water rates. Why is this so hard? Might force people out of the state, but clearly there are too many given the present resources.

<comment><USER10> Detroit tried something similar (albeit for different reasons). Didn't work out so well for them: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/08/08/338068996/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/08/08/338068996/episode-559-detroits- water-bill)

<comment><USER9> Detroit should have immediately cut off non-paying customers for... non- payment -- instead of waiting for $90m in overdrafts to accrue.

<comment><USER11> Access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right so cutting off people who don't pay is problematic.

Cutting off farmers is politically scary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All my Palo Alto neighbors who over water their lawns everyday surely don't look very desperate... (which makes _me_ desperate)

<comment><USER13> Discussing lawn watering is a distraction. It's literally a drop in the ocean. Industry, power generation, and agriculture are where _all_ the water goes. Pretending that residential usage matters at all is to take ones eye off the ball.

<comment><USER4> More specifically agriculture is 77% and residential is 13% according to this UCLA report from 2009 (though there data looks like it is from 2005).

[http://www.environment.ucla.edu/reportcard/article4870.html](http://www.environment.ucla.edu/reportcard/article4870.html)

[http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/images/water- fig1-lrg....](http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/images/water-fig1-lrg.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is the waste water treatment process like? Is any effort being made to replenish the original sources? My understanding is that the water is brought in with pipelines from across a natural water shed that way almost none of the extracted water will return to its original place, instead it will either evaporate and carried out to the sea if used for irrigation or flushed out as waste water.

<comment><USER15> Quoting from the article: "Hundreds of these homes are hooked to wells that are treated as private property: When the water is there, it is solely controlled by owners. Because the land is unincorporated, it is not part of a municipal water system, and connecting to one would be prohibitively expensive."

So, the waster water treatment is septic, the original source is rainwater, and there are no pipelines like what you are talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does America have any state or federal infrastructure project that transfer water from water rich region to the water poor region? Like this one,

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South–North_Water_Transfer_Proj...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South–North_Water_Transfer_Project)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there any way for us to fix this? Like, climate-control style "make it rain in these spots"?

<comment><USER18> There is one way that is both extremely simple and politically impossible: start charging farmers market rates. They pay too little, use too much, and represent a gigantic portion of total water consumption.

<comment><USER19> And see the price of food go up, affecting those with the least amount of income.

<comment><USER20> I somehow doubt the price of almonds going up is going to affect those with the least income.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why We Should Really Be Concerned About the Visual Identity for Tokyo Olympics - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ianlynam/why-we-should-really-be-concerned-about-the-visual-identity-for-the-tokyo-olympics-969830d0e819#.bm95iklbj <comment><USER2> This covers a much broader range than the title indicates: A sophisticated account of the origins of Modernism, its history in Olympic design, and the intellectual property rights of designers.</comment>


Texas Judge Leaves His Patent 'Rocket Docket' to Practice Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202518061641&Texas_Judge_Leaves_His_Patent_Rocket_Docket_to_Practice_Law

<comment><USER2> I'm fascinated by their argument that the court is fair because plaintiff and defendant wins were about even now. I know nothing about the caseload, but does that make any sense?

If his district is seen as plaintiff-friendly, then those with the weakest cases would have the strongest incentive to file there. And I would expect patent trolls to be high-volume filers because their targets would be more likely to flip the bird during negotiations.

So I wouldn't a priori expect 50/50 outcomes to be a sign of fairness. Depending on caseload, I'd expect that as a sign of pro-plaintiff bias. If I'm a troll filing a lot of claims, 50/50 outcomes sounds like a reason to file as many as possible.

<comment><USER3> In a perfectly fair court, plaintiffs would win the majority of patent cases, for the simple reason that it is plaintiffs who make the decision to file, and even after they file suit they can dismiss the suit at any time and settle. Hence, many cases that would be losers for the plaintiff won't even make it to court--the patent owner's strategy with a weak patent is to go for licensing deals and avoid trials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great news. Republicans are blocking all of Obama's nominations so it will take a while to even replace this guy (there are currently 109 vacancies in federal courts). The more overloaded and clogged up the courts are the harder it is for trolls to do real damage, especially now that they've lost their go-to guy.

<comment><USER5> Um tea-party republicans shutting down the federal courts isn't really something to be happy about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I spent most of 2007 in Judge Ward's court room, all I can say is if you have never been a part of one the patent cases involving him you have missed out on quite a bit of humor.

Though he was known for being plaintiff friendly I can happily say we came out on the other side of a few of his judgements and I have known him to be mostly fair given the proper arguments. Sadly, the trolls win all too often because more often than not they have more money than the guy they are suing, good attorneys do not come cheap and the patent trolls do not mind paying for them

<comment><USER7> _and the patent trolls do not mind paying for them_

Must be nice not to have employees, supply chains, R&D, and all those other things to pay for. Just acquisition costs and attorney fees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Eastern District of Texas has no business ruling on Silicon Valley tech cases.

Frankly, I got enough of Texans raiding and looting the California economy during the Enron debacle. We don't need any more of that.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if there was any relation to this story: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/11133116225/judge-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/11133116225/judge- makes-company-pay-more-infringement-because-ceo-complained-publicly-about- patent-system.shtml)

I could see him wanting to step down before any sort of formal investigation could occur ...

<comment><USER3> His retirement was announced months ago.

As far as the Techdirt story goes, there is nothing to investigate since he did nothing even remotely wrong. Techdirt, as usual when they cover legal matters, pretty much completely botched their reporting. See the earlier HN discussion for details.</comment></comment>


Page speed really does matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.gigpeppers.com/page-speed-really-does-matter-2/

<comment><USER2> Page Speed often gets confused for a few things. Here's how it really breaks down:

1) App Server Response. How long it takes your application to issue a successful response?

2) Network Speed. A server response for a 500MB file is fast, but downloading it isn't

3) DOM Processing. Great, you've reached the user's browser, now how long does it take the page to load into the DOM

4) Page Rendering. Only done after all the "assets" are downloaded. This is _usually_ the final state of the page.

Yes, if your Google Page Speed number is super high, you've got a problem. But it helps to be able to break down each step of that number, to identify where the bottleneck is.

Also, as the author mentioned, be aware that every computer is different. One really slow internet connection will drastically affect your page speed averages.

A small benchmark for you, one of my applications has an average app server response time of about 350ms. But, one page has an average Page Speed of 5 seconds. I'm diagnosing why that page is so slow, it looks like a few external assets are causing the slowdown.

<comment><USER3> There are a couple of thing missing in your list, and those are quite important: Number of requests needed to load all your assets, latency and blocking. Browsers only load limited number of assets in parallel, so if you have a lot they will wait. Latency makes things bad (especially on mobile), but in case you have a lot of assets it makes it even worse. Also, keep in mind, that most often it is the latency that kills the speed of the loading. It does not really matter if it takes 20 or 60ms to download your asset if the latency is 10x that. Blocking: your #4 is not exactly right, browsers can start rendering the page at once, but if you try to load scripts first they will block rendering. Hence the importance of understanding where to request your css and js and how to load them.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, my list was more of a general view of the whole process. Asset latency, blocking and requests all fit in Page Rendering in my mind. Actually, DOM processing and Page Rendering are very closely related.

Actually, using your logic, #4 is right. I worded it wrong, "Only done after all the "assets" are downloaded" should be "Only completed after all the "assets" are downloaded". More often that not, you'll see high (6 seconds+) Page Speed scores because Page Rendering isn't completed due to missing or slow assets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a lot of issues with using Google Analytics for collecting performance data. As mentioned, their use of averages leads to a lot of problems and issues from outliers. GA heavily samples (1% by default) & only collects timing data from browsers that support Nav Timing. If you're looking for a way to collect more accurate timing data, Torbit Insight (<http://torbit.com>) is free and offers 100% sampling, histograms, medians, percentiles, and lots of breakdowns by browser, geography, etc.

<comment><USER5> Torbit looks great, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't 3 seconds a lot?

I try to keeps our numbers under 1 second, although we only target the USA.

The biggest improvement to our page load speed came from using a php cache (xcache) and specifying client cache lifetimes. The first got us to around 1 second and the second meant that the best case (which happened often) was about 0.5s

<comment><USER7> 3 < 20, especially when talking about dialup/dsl lines in Nigeria

<comment><USER8> But that only accounts for download size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The discussion actually misses two critical aspects - network topology and device usage in 3rd world countries.

Where is the speed issue coming into play? There are 3 areas of concern

      1) App server and backbone speed
         - This what the discussion is centering on. CDN is good.
      2) Connection speed between client and ISP
         - This is a critical issue when dealing with performance in
           3rd world countries. CDN will NOT help here!
         - As an example, there is likely a 200-300ms roundtrip from
           your servers to the CDN and customer ISP. By using a CDN,
           you remove this 200-300ms. If the customer is using GRPS
           with 5000ms latency, your CDN has done almost nothing!
      3) Customer's processing speed
         - If your customer is using an old blackberry phone, and your
           page is using complicated javascript, it could take 30+
           seconds for the page to render for the user, even if the
           content were local.

A way to get a grasp of the situation is not to filter your page load speed by country, but to drill down further and also use the user agent. Filter by country + user agent should let you know if the slowdown is caused by old Nokia phones, or if it's across Firefox and Chrome also.

In many cases, the solution is often to have a mobile WAP-alike site that has no fancy resources and just text and html fields. You can use javascript to detect if the page is loading slowly (15+ secs), and pop up a link to the special wap site.

</comment><comment><USER10> Off topic, but the as the sidebar refuses to resize it's really difficult to read this on the iPhone.

<comment><USER11> This is not a perfect solution but if you use Pocket or InstaPaper, add this to your reading list and you should be able to read much more easily. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Is there any tool where I can check the page speed of a website.

2\. for a site like <http://syncfin.com> where i have to use 4 bright images, is there any particular format I should keep the images in. Basically when there are multiple heavy images to be loaded , what would be the best strategy to optimize the page speed.

thanks in advance for any pointers to relevant articles and tips.

<comment><USER13> Use a RUM tool - Google Analytics is the easiest one but up the sample rate - Torbit, LogNormal and others are available.

Use WebPageTest.org to carry out spot tests.

<comment><USER12> Thanks youngtaff. I also googled a bit and found out <http://loadimpact.com> . It is very good . I did analysis of my site ( <http://loadimpact.com/test/view/1262390>) on this and that shows the effect of shared hosting on it. !!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you're having a problem with cache expiration use a remote monitoring app like CopperEgg[1] (free) or Pingdom[2] (paid). Not only will it monitor your site and send alerts if it goes down or is slow, it will keep your cache fresh and full.

1: <http://copperegg.com/>

2: <https://www.pingdom.com/>

<comment><USER15> Pingdom also has free option.

<comment><USER16> for only one site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well...... for some reason I'm yet to even begin to understand (I have mailed the site, got no reply at all, but even so I assume its something my end, but it doesn't happen on any other site, weird...), HN takes about 30 secs to load any page, and I don't get the CSS either, but I still use the site regularly as I value the content.

Make of that what you will.

<comment><USER18> You've been slowbanned. A moderator didn't like something you said and wants you to leave HN, but didn't feel that hellbanning you was appropriate. Instead, they want you to get frustrated with the slowness and give up.

<comment><USER19> I can't tell if this is sarcasm. Is slowbanning a thing?

<comment><USER20> It is, so is hellbanning (which means your posts don't show up to anyone but you). If you suspect having been slowbanned, just log out; if the site suddenly loads super fast consistently, and slow when you log in, you know it's that. It's petty, and rather random, which is why there is zero process I guess (no "you have been banned because you broke rule X" etc., and zero moderator accountability). When I don't get a reply to posts of mine for a while, I usually to log out and look at my posts to make sure it's not yet another hellban. If you get hellbanned, just make a new account, but make sure you deleted all ycombinator cookies before you do. Be sure to get a laugh out of it, too, or the terrorists won.

<comment><USER9> That's pretty pathetic if true. If you're going to ban someone, just man up and ban them. Passive-aggressive methods like that feel like they're straight out of a playground. Although I guess some of silicon valley acts like a playground, so that makes sense.

<comment><USER21> The point of hell-banning would be to make the user leave the community without him noticing that he was banned, because if he does notice, all he has to do would be to create a new account. This works by not showing his comments to others, which in return means that the user will not get any conversations going or any upvotes and pretty soon he'll start thinking that the others are ignoring him completely, which is in general a good incentive for someone to leave a community.

The problem with hell-banning is that for users that post a lot of comments, they'll soon realize that they are hell-banned and trolls (in particular) can only be stopped if they are genuinely ignored.

For this reason, if you want to stop trolls, slow-banning could be a good alternative by making usage of the site unpleasant. This way they can still interact with others, but it will be painful for them to do so.

I agree that these methods are passive-aggressive and shouldn't be used on non-trolls, even if such people do not comply with the community's guidelines. The problem with this site is that user accounts do not have emails attached ... as a much more effective method for making most users behave according to guidelines would be to send them a warning.

<comment><USER20> The only difference between a troll and someone who is misinformed or sloppy is intention; a troll is dense/wrong/mean on purpose, and not because they're actually ignorant or annoyed. It's an action a person can engage in; it's not really a type of person. But these days, "troll" often enough seems to just mean "too stupid to reason with", or is even just a cop out to not reason at all.. it's quite the convenient catch-all label that way.

"why did that user get banned?"

"they were a troll"

"ah, okay. that's fine then, seeing how _I_ am not banned this must be totally legit. damn trolls!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is a great promotion for Cloudflare, but it does not really explain WHY page speed matters. Of course we all want our websites to load fast. I'd be more curious to see how the speed correlates with your conversion rates.

<comment><USER23> Google and Amazon have put out studies on this, and I wouldn't be surprised if Cloudflare has done so as well. Speed absolutely ties in to conversions.

Amazon's report: "Every 100ms delay costs 1% of sales"

[https://sites.google.com/site/glinden/Home/StanfordDataMinin...](https://sites.google.com/site/glinden/Home/StanfordDataMining.2006-11-28.ppt?attredirects=0)

<comment><USER22> Well, I understand it matters for Amazon and Google, but I'd be curious to see how it works in case of OP's website. Obviously it's going to be different from Amazon. I guess the subject is a little bit misleading.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure it varies by market, so the only way to know for sure would be to set up an A/B test and introduce artificial slowness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I find myself visiting slow loading sites less often than snappy ones. The slow load times are one of the two big reasons why I stopped visiting The Verge.

</comment><comment><USER25> Speaking of which, is enabling gzip in S3 still a pain?

<comment><USER26> With S3, yes. However, the CloudFront CDN works great for gzip now with web- backed distributions, assuming things are configured properly on your end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What tool are you guys using to get the notifications?

<comment><USER28> Google Analytics alerts

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> over 2 seconds is quite bad result,

when you make new website today using modern tools, page load should be below 1 second,</comment>


11,543 Microsoft employees got swept up in a reply-all e-mail apocalypse - <AUTHOR> https://nordic.businessinsider.com/microsoft-employee-github-reply-all-email-storm-2019-1 <comment><AUTHOR> This is so obvious, I don't even know if I need to point out, but the best thing to do is to reply-all to everyone on the list and clearly ask them to stop replying-to-all!

Everyone on this list should now provide this valuable information to the other members of the list.</comment>


"All I do is work here" - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/07/all-i-do-is-work-here.html <comment><USER3> Is there a whoosh going on here or am I "playing baseball, standing out in left field?" I guess I'm a fielder!

My perspective on the entire rant/essay/insight/whatever is that it is summarized by its last line. If you want to take credit for your organization when times are good, you cannot hide behind your powerlessness when times are bad.

When I worked for K- G---- way back in the day, we built a hit product. I milked that success for years. Imagine if I had stayed on board and things had gone poorly after a few years. Could I later say, "I only work at KG, I don't make decisions, the problems were elsewhere?"

My take on Seth's point is that I can't wear KG's success like a mantle while weaseling out of association with its failures with talk of "I only worked there, other people make the bad decisions."

It's ok to just punch a clock and do a job. But if you're going to try to associate yourself with your organization during good times, you have to live with the lumps during bad times.

JM2C, you may have read something else in this.

</comment><comment><USER4> On the one hand I agree, on the other hand most people only work to earn money. They don't consider themselves to be part of a huge, cool machine and they don't see it as their sole reason of existence to enhance their employers public image.

The real question would be how to make one's employees care about the company. It's not trivial to set up a system where every employee can affect every other's employee's actions - you don't want to encourage blame shifting and mobbing, after all.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a very important lesson for startups. Most medium & big companies behave this way. Fix a customers problem, don't make excuses about it not being part of your job, or someone else didn't step up.

<comment><USER6> I mostly agree, but the reason most medium and big companies behave this way is that most employees are in fact wage slaves with little influence outside of their direct purview. This is one of the inherent advantages of small companies where a relatively high fraction of the work force has equity, and where the bureaucracy is not yet powerful.

<comment><USER7> Very true and an excellent point.

Even so, I would expect a conscientious employee to at least make the effort instead. At a bare minimum, instead of saying "That's not my job." they should say, "I am sorry, I cannot help you with that, BUT the person who can is...."

<comment><USER8> Exactly! I've worked for big companies that have done dumb things, and my bosses and co-workers have consistently taken the attitude of, "I'm sorry this has happened. I'm forwarding the information about this problem to so-and-so." Then they've followed up a couple of weeks later with, "Did so-and-so get back to you? Were they able to fix the problem?"

It's a nice example to try to live up to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Do you really think someone who worked for Bernie Madoff will go far with this line? 'I'm not Bernie, I just worked with him every day and took a great salary when times were good...' Not sure what the difference is."

To answer the question I see posted in other replies to this interesting submission (what brand is this?), I think Seth Godin is saying that people who work for companies who feel that they, or their co-workers, can't work ethically have to SPEAK UP to as many layers of management as possible, to let management know that there is a problem, and that customers, suppliers, the press, and other stakeholders are noticing.

</comment><comment><USER10> "It's a management problem..."

"It's a big company problem..."

No! It's YOUR problem if you are starting a company, building a brand, or serving customers. It's not necessary a big company issue - it's a "mentality". I've worked for a Fortune 500 where employees were too proud of the culture to ever "pass the buck" and a startup where employees had a "big company" mentality and thought it was okay to leave features broken for customers for months (to the ultimate peril of the company). _If you're a founder coming out of a big company beware of this potential blind spot._

Good company culture, good brand, happy employees - those things aren't accidental or simply the result of a lot of money and freedom, you have to cultivate it - and brand destruction or toxic culture starts with the little things, like saying, "I just work here".

In my opinion, employees who contribute nothing more than "punching the clock" should be the _best_ at towing the company line, because let's face it - <USER2> you just punch the clock your are easily replaced, especially in today's job market.

</comment><comment><USER11> I see it as a problem with the company, not the just individual. If I walked into the Nordstrom shoe department and said there was an error on my store credit card bill, I bet the salesperson would get me on the path to fixing the problem, not say, "I just work here."

I also see a problem with the individual. She is failing the basics of the sales process. She calls up a person, someone obviously influential, as she knows who he is, and asks him for something- time at the least. In return, she's not willing to offer him anything? Even the phone number of the person in the department that handles that stuff- someone in marketing that would probably like a chance to speak to Seth Godin, even if it's a chance to get some feedback from him?

</comment><comment><USER12> Who is Seth addressing? Is he talking to the individuals who 'work here'?

If so, why should they care -- they have good jobs, go home at night to their friends or families, and leave work at work. They're supposed to care about the company, brand, and 'big picture'....why, exactly?

<comment><USER13> _why, exactly_

Because if they take an indifferent attitude it shows through to the customers, who will take their business elsewhere, which will cause the company to fail, which will cause the workers to end up jobless.

<comment><USER14> It's a management failure. The employees are not going to magically get excited and proactive about PR just because some out-of-touch Internet marketing celeb thinks they should. It's management's job to make sure people are trained properly in how to handle these situations, and also, more importantly, to provide the clear vision and incentive that _makes_ people care. Finally, if employees are hurting the image of the company, it's management's job to fire them.

If a random employee starts taking up issues caused by other people in the company, and there is no culture of communication or escalation procedure then one likely outcome is that they are going to _waste their time_ and not get their job done. That doesn't mean an employee shouldn't be proactive or whatever, but just that in a large organization the solution can not come from the bottom up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone else get the feeling he's talking about Yahoo?

<comment><USER15> I suspect it's the New York Times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So this guy is a marketer. His posts are no longer than 500 words. So he sits on his computer for 20 minutes has a rant and he gets on the front page of hacker news. Has he said anything?

Oh I just work here, he sounds like a 10 year old kid having a rant about his friend.

Let me refute him. I used to work in a call centre. Some people there were pretty irresponsible, like not taking someone off the list when asked. I just did my job and got paid, so if someone wanted to be taken off the list and not be called I was glad to do it. So, I am me, I am not my company, I am an individual, and I take responsibility for my own actions, not the companies action, unless I am the CEO.

Now, what can be done about these marketers?

<comment><USER17> Godin isn't writing about some call centre. He isn't writing about people working at some random company. He's writing about people working at a _brand_. And he provides a reason for why that brand may be failing. For anyone working to establish or consolidate a brand, this is a valuable insight: your employees are an important part of your brand. Make sure they care.

This partly holds for any company: if a colleague of mine delivers bad work, people will throw nasty glances at me when they hear I work at the same company. Now you can go all "they shouldn't do that" on me, but that's just sticking your head deeper in the sand and refusing to acknowledge this reality, in which you live with people that think and judge that way. Therefore, I will criticise any colleague whose work isn't up to par.

<comment><USER18> I could picture this comment chain almost as soon as the story was posted. I'm with Ardit20, had anyone else posted the story, it would have been dismissed as a rant, but when people see sethgodin.typepad.com, it becomes a _valuable insight_.

<comment><USER19> _had anyone else posted the story, it would have been dismissed as a rant_

And that would have been a mistake, because this isn't really a rant. Its formal _structure_ is that of a complaint, but in fact it is a short essay, _in complaint form_ , about the nature of branding and company culture.

Why doesn't this count as a rant? There's no hard and fast rule. But one sign is that the company is unnamed and unidentifiable. There is a very good chance that it is fictional, or that it is a composite archetype that doesn't correspond to any specific company. None of which would change the meaning of the essay in the least.

<comment><USER20> In fact, I think that on HN a sethgodin post is more likely to piss people off.

BTW, I think that it's a bad sign how quickly these shallow dismissive comments rise to the top here. If you prefer arguments to be presented in a a logical form fine, but the information remains the same. It's not patentable, but it's worth thinking about if you feel like thinking about that sort of thing. Here's the translation:

 _A brand is presented as a brand. A way of of thinking about a collection of things (people, products, procedures, history) as a single thing. It is the psychological equivalent to a legal entity. A kind of Anthropomorphism. You can say: "Apple (the brand) did X" when obviously the reality is that a bunch of people or policies 'do'. This is a useful metaphor for letting customers interact with you. When you leverage a brand, you are working this metaphor to your advantage. But you can't say we (the brand) have excellent customer service & still say they (individuals making it up) are responsible for that bad product._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Brogrammers' challenge coders' nerdy image - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/03/BUIO1NFAMI.DTL <comment><USER2> >This brogramming thing would definitely turn off a lot of women from working" at startups, said Chipps.

How about, change women to everyone - no one wants to work with an egotistical douche who thinks he's special. Especially if he thinks he's special because he thinks he's cool.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I think most people would rather work with a geek or nerd than a 'brogrammer', even just socializing with the 'brogrammers' seems awkward based on the article.

This whole 'brogrammer' thing must stop, please think of the children^Wrest of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _"We got invited to a party in Malibu where there were naked women in the > hot tub," said Stern-Sapad, 25. "We're the cool programmers."_

To me at least, that just sounds like an insanely geeky thing to say - if you have to talk about how not-geeky you are, you are probably geekier than you think.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady This is one of the saddest things I have ever read. It sounds like something out of the Onion or a cheesy sitcom about geeks.

Why do these people feel the need to prove they are 'cool'?

<comment><USER5> _Why do these people feel the need to prove they are 'cool'?_

Because they aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are probably plenty of bros who can write code and be well-liked with the sales dept. But how many bros are willing to spend 16 hours straight to debug the latest broken distro of some open source project because only that has the feature they need to run some obscure component of their website? Truth is, nearly every great programmer I know is a masochist when it comes to figuring out difficult problems. And they're willing to sacrifice a lot to make it work.

I know some great programmers, but none of them happen to be brogrammers.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe I'm confused - I've always seen the brogrammer thing as firmly tongue- in-cheek, dripping in irony, and primarily poking fun at "bro" culture. Have I got it completely wrong, or is this one of those things where a meme peaks in popularity, and people start to take it at face value rather than ironically?

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I can't believe anyone is taking this seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh, for the days when this industry was run by grown-ups.

</comment><comment><USER10> While I appreciate anything that attempts to suppress the 'anti-social nerd' stereotype associated with programming and other specialist computing fields; I don't think it's entirely appropriate to do so by becoming the polar opposite of that. _Especially_ by using stupid terms like 'brogamming' or making portmanteaux of words starting with 'bro'.

The aspirational tone of the article is dreadful, too. So one guy listens to Swedish dubstep? That doesn't make him a role mode. Just someone who has his own routine.

In fact, I'd hate to be defined by that... I've done all this amazing work, and people remember me only because I listened to Swedish dubstep.

<comment><USER11> _So one guy listens to Swedish dubstep? That doesn't make him a role mode. Just someone who has his own routine._

No doubt. I mean, plenty of us listen to Swedish death metal and/or black metal, and we don't go around patting ourselves on that back for that. Not sure what any of that has to do with programming in the first place...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another stupid label invented by a reporter desperate for someone to read his story. All sorts of dumb. I guess 'brogrammer' sounds better than 'douchegrammer'? People are just people. There's all sorts of people and all sorts of programmers.

<comment><USER13> "douchegrammer" made my day. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> God I hate the term "brogrammer". It just conjures up an image of that narcissistic wanker on the train who talks loudly so everyone can here what "cool" things he's been doing. Grrr.

</comment><comment><USER15> Such fluff stories were also very common in 1998 and 1999. You never read such stories about car designers, do you?

</comment><comment><USER16> BREAKING NEWS: stereotypes aren't universally true and sometimes you can even find an extreme counter-example. Thank god for this brave journalist for breaking this story and not being afraid to use a portmanteau.

</comment><comment><USER17> Makes me think it may be time for a career change if this is what the industry is coming to.

</comment><comment><USER18> tongue in cheek or not, I see no problem with it. I'm a guy in my 20s who likes to code, runs his own business, and enjoys games like 'beer pong'.

it's a welcome 180 change from the typical "all computer programmers are autistic virgins" stereotype that's persisted for a while.

and nerd or no nerd, there's nothing wrong with a hot tub full of pretty girls.

<comment><USER19> You see no problem with it because you're a guy in your 20s.

Shit like this makes it painfully obvious why people, especially women, are not entering software-related fields. Fuck everything about this.</comment></comment>


Important Changes to Mandrill - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mandrill.com/important-changes-to-mandrill.html# <comment><USER2> I updated my MailChimp a/c yesterday</comment>


FCC probes Google, T-Mobile for double-whammy termination fees  - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/56523 <comment><USER2> The average consumer is _so_ clueless. Contract cancellation fees are some of the most abused tactics that typically come in the fine print.

As consumers, we want switching costs to be as low as possible. Which they should be. Two years is an insane amount of time to be chained to a particular provider. They should be worried. Verizon tried to get away with something similar, and the FCC pretty much said "no dice"

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870352350457460...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703523504574604403213404482.html)

From the PDF release by the FCC: _"I was pleased to see the Commission's Wireless Bureau pose a series of important questions in early December to Verizon Wireless regarding the company's recently increased early termination fees (ETFs) and related issues. I was surprised, as many people were, to see that Verizon elected to raise its early termination fees for certain 'advanced devices.' "Late Friday, Verizon Wireless responded to the Bureau's queries. The company's answers, however, are unsatisfying and, in some cases, troubling. In particular, I am concerned about what appears to be a shifting and tenuous rationale for ETFs. No longer is the claim that ETFs are tied solely to the true cost of the wireless device; rather, they are now also used to foot the bill for 'advertising costs, commissions for sales personnel, and store costs.' Consumers already pay high monthly fees for voice and data designed to cover the costs of doing business. So when they are assessed excessive penalties, especially when they are near the end of their contract term, it is hard for me to believe that the public interest is being well served._

</comment><comment><USER3> Oy FINALLY people are catching on to this. Ive sold cell phones since 2002 and here is the deal:

Basically non t-mobile, verizon or whatever stores are independent stores. They buy a phone, say for $500. Then a contract gives them a spiff for it, say $250. So the store charges you $300 for the phone and makes $50 off the sale. IF you terminate the contract with t-mobile or any of these companies before your contract is up AT ANY TIME, that $250 is not paid to the store, or is deducted from what the carrier owes the store. Basically the store (like google) MUST charge you $250 or they lose more money than they made off of your sale.

This is why the little cellphone stores make you sign similar agreements. Now how the company recoups the "price of the phone" by early termination fee, I don't know. The fee is pure profit for the carrier.</comment>


Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/reds-scarlet-gets-official-4k-for-under-10k/ <comment><USER2> I did a little searching and found that Panavision _rents_ its Genesis line of digital cameras for $4,000 _per day_. Granted "no one pays book rate," and that price includes accessories, and the two cameras may not be equivalent. Nevertheless, why hasn't Panavision been disrupted a long time ago? Are their cameras really that good?

<comment><USER3> In some sense the Genesis and its ilk were already disrupted by the Red One, although I question how price-sensitive this market is. Does Peter Jackson care about the difference between $4K per day and $400 per day?

<comment><USER4> Well, Peter Jackson has something like 36 epics (18 3D setups) on The Hobbit so I think he'd care a little about that if they were renting (they aren't though, as far as I know).

<comment><USER5> He certainly seems quite enthusiastic about them in this making-of promo: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apD2CFEJ0MY>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As desirable as the specs are, this comment on Canon Rumors balances things up:

"To those fawning after the Red...sure, it looks nice, but the poor color rendering, impossible proprietary workflow, and constantly-in-need-of-updates software make the camera a nightmare, imo, to use. Canon's footage has nicer skin tones than I've ever seen out of a Red. There's a reason so much tv is shot with the Alexa, rather than the red, and why dSLRs are used on ads--1080p with nice and standardized colors out of camera is much better for post. Red is cool, but what you get in terms of extra tech you pay for in having to figure out how to use it efficiently. Canon's cine camera does seem overpriced for what you get, though--in that no man's land the AF100 and F3 already inhabit except even more expensive..."

From [http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php/topic,2059.msg410...](http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php/topic,2059.msg41081.html#msg41081)

In other news, all these $10k-$20k cameras, zooms from $45k and primes for $7k make still photography look really cheap.

<comment><USER4> From someone who has processed and edited a lot of RED footage, this is pretty much complete hogwash.

RED cameras use a RAW codec called REDCODE, which records the raw sensor data with lossless compression. Almost every other camera records RGB data that has been through gamma correction, a colour curve, sharpening (ugh..), and a whole lot of other image processing. These other cameras therefore give you very little flexibility in post production for grading and so on.

This gives the _illusion_ that RED cameras have worse colour rendering - because it is not doing much image processing in camera, the un-processed image looks very flat - and it requires some skill to actually expose the image when you're shooting it, and properly process it in post production (this is a professional camera, remember). The amount of crap you see because of errors on set and in processing... But footage from somebody who knows how to shoot it properly is easily on par with the Alexa (which produces lovely skin tones but is very low resolution) and miles better than DSLR cameras with their aliasing and moire that comes from the line skipping and pixel binning that they need to do to get a decent frame rate out of a still camera sensor - not to mention the 8 bit low bitrate RGB codecs they use which are hopelessly lacking as an acquisition format.

And the workflow is sooo hard - I mean, it's such a battle to get RED footage into Premiere for example (File -> Import -> OK). And only pretty much _every single grading package, every single non-linear editor and compositing package_ supports RED footage...

<comment><USER7> As only a minor nitpick (my excuse is that this is my day job), you've got it the wrong way round - REDCODE is actually storing data as RGB, whereas 'every other camera' is almost certainly using a MPEG-based codec and storing it as YUV with chroma subsampling - somewhere between 4:1:1/4:2:0 to 4:2:2 depending on the camera in use.

As with any lossless compression, it's a compromise between having almost all of the data shot to work with versus pretty much having to always do a full grade on any content you get and the additional online storage space needed in post-production.

<comment><USER4> Are all the MPEG codecs YUV? I know MPEG2 is but I thought MPEG4/H.264 wasn't. Now that I think about it, you're probably right about that part (as for other codecs, I know the ProRes codec that the Alexa typically shoots (unless you use the ArriRAW recorder but hardly anyone does yet) definitely is YUV, but the HDCAM tapes that some of the more expensive Sony cameras shoot isn't).

But the point still stands that RGB and YUV codecs aren't RAW like REDCODE is.

REDCODE itself isn't exactly RGB. It actually is pretty interesting - it does store the red, green and blue pixels separably, but it's not usually classified as RGB since it stores two green channels for every red and blue channel (because of the way the bayer filter on the sensor is arranged - there's twice as many green pixels as red and blue), and because those channels haven't been demosaiced/debayered[1].

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "They were going to publish all this information on their website, but they're apparently under attack". What's that about?

<comment><AUTHOR> it was either a DDoS or just the fact that >25,000 fans were constantly hammering the site trying to get an update. Probably also due in large part to poor infrastructure planning on their part and inefficient software (the announcement was supposed to be made on reduser.net, a site runs that runs their PHP user forum)

<comment><USER4> Given that there have been similar announcements in the past on RedUser which have not shut the forum down, and the fact that the servers were apparently upgraded a few weeks ago in preparation for this one, a DDOS sounds likely to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How large is a two hour 4K datastream?

Hmm 50 megabytes per second x 7200 seconds = 352 gigabytes

That actually seems manageable these days with a RAID10 of 2TB drives?

I guess you could have up to ten hours of footage cut down to two.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure where the article got that 50 Mb/sec figure from, but it sounds a bit low. Uncompressed, it's more like 50 Mb per _frame_ \- 1.5 Gb/sec (4096x2160, 3 channels, each channel is 16 bits, up to 30 frames/sec).

According to their tech specs page* there are two compression options: 18:1 and 3:1. The former gets it down to about 84 Mb/sec, but it's difficult to know what kind of a quality hit you'll be taking. With the latter it's still 500 Mb/sec.

Film-makers generally want to capture source footage at the highest quality possible so I'd guess most will film at the 3:1 compression level. If that assumption holds, 2 hours of footage is approximately 3.5 Tb of data.

That is still a fairly manageable amount of data though. For comparison, The Tale of Despereaux - an animated movie which came out in 2008 and started production several years before that - filled up a 192 Tb disk cluster.

* <http://www.red.com/products/scarlet#product-tech-specs>

Edit: I think I might have made some incorrect assumptions about the REDCODE raw format, so my figures above are probably wrong. Sorry for any confusion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This announcement puts a tad bit of a damper on Canon's earlier in the day. Your cost for the Scarlet will be around $15k in shooting form. This is still cheaper than the new Canon. Canon uses cheaper media, but Scarlet has a better recording format.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Only now did I get a link to the official press release since Red's site was down for several hours starting at 6PM: <http://www.red.com/press/scarlet-all- grown-up>

</comment><comment><USER12> I was really hoping they'd deliver on the original fixed-lens "3K for $3k" version, but that was obviously too good to be true.

Now you can build a usable RED rig for $15k instead of $25k.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still holding out hope that they do target a lower market with a future model. But, since they no longer plan on announcing products before they're done, we'll have to wait and see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How should I learn to use one of these?

<comment><USER11> Fxphd has some traing material on the Epic that would work for e Scarlet probably.</comment></comment>


Solar powered plane lands at JFK, completing cross-country flight - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solar-powered-plane-has-tear-on-wing-earlier-landing-expected-in-nyc-on-final-leg-of-flight/2013/07/06/98e50c56-e69a-11e2-97c2-eee7eab7397e_story.html

<comment><USER2> 45mph at 30k feet for hours at a time has to be surreal.

<comment><USER3> I often fly (in an ultralight) at ~30 mph, and above 2000 feet or so you just feel like you're standing still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI the flight was not in one hop, but several flights over several days. This flight in particular was DC->NYC.</comment>


Ask N.YC: How to import Legacy Users? - <AUTHOR>

For the last 9 months or so my partner and I have been working on making a new, web based version of Chron X. Chron X is the originally online collectible card game, first launched in 1997. It's a great game, but the engine is sorely out of date, and we're moving to a new revenue model. When we bought the game we knew there'd be some problems, but we've had to resort to more hacks that we imagined, particularly in getting the data out of the old database.
As we approach beta, one of the problems we're facing is legacy user authentication.
The problem is that Chron X was originally designed as part of a "collectible bits" architecture, where you would receive a file on your machine to authenticate you, rather than a username and password. This worked well enough for the game at the time, but we know that 90% of the old users have most likely lost this file.
We're trying to find a way to let them authenticate without it. The first option is to let them authenticate using their email address on file. We could send a traditional password-reset mail, and let them confirm the account. Unfortunately,  since the game has been running for 11 years, I suspect that many of these addresses are no longer valid. We could allow a password-reset sent to their address, if they still have access to it.
As a fallback option, we've discussed allowing users authenticate if they remember their information, such as the address they lived in when they signed up.. We've been doing this manually by talking with them, and comparing against the DB, but obviously this solution won't scale. I'm hesitant to ask them to just type it in, since we've found that so many people don't remember exactly where which address they used, or would run into problems with spelling it, etc. The success rate for people getting the data right without prompting is sadly low. Think errors such as "Elm street", versus "West Elm Ave".
The other problem with this strategy is that many people originally registered under false information.. We have too many 123 Fake Streets- No one is going to remember exactly what they entered under such a scenario.
One idea we had was showing them the city and street for 15 random people from the database, along with their own, and asking the user to pick the correct data. I like this idea, but I can see a few problems with it..
We'd need to use some sort of hash so that we always presented the same 15 addresses, when they asked to reset that account. If we didn't do that, they could just watch to see which address didn't change. The problem is, if we did that, they might be able to just try all 15. If we instead blocked them if they tried more than 2-3, then you could preform a DOS against other accounts, by manually trying to reset their account, just to ensure that they get blocked. ;(
Has anyone had to face a problem like this before? Do you have any clever ways we could try to present data to the users, without being a wretched user-experience? <comment><USER2> One thing I have done in a situation like this was to create an artificial hash of the user info. It ended up giving me a 95% hit rate. Something like :

Hash = SoundexOfLastName + SoundexOfStreetName + First3OfZipCode

So Jim Johnson at 123 Fair Oaks Ave in 12345 would hash to:

"J525F620123"

So just let them enter their user data, hash it, and see if you have any hits against that hash column in your data base.

Pretty hard to hack, but pretty easy to hit, even with misspellings, etc., and not a lot of suffering by the user.

</comment><comment><USER3> A combination should work well enough.

1\. Obviously allow password resets to on file email addresses.

2\. If the above fails, try geocoding the address with google or geocode.us. If it successfully geocodes, ask the user for the address used to signup for the account, and tell them the zipcode the address was in so they know what address if they moved. Take the address they give you and geocode that. If they are very very close in lat-lon it is the same address (you might call this a geo-hash of the address).

3\. No email and fake address? Well, this is a consequence of lying when they signed up, so you might say TFB and let them start a new account.

I can't give you more alternatives without knowing what other info you have on them, but the first two here should cover 90% of your users who didn't lie about their address based on the statistics that I pulled from my butt.</comment>