The Headlight of the Future Is a Laser - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/the-headlight-of-the-future-is-a-laser <comment><USER2> I've seen a few off-road-capable vehicles lately with something that looks like the bumper-mounted light bar shown in the pictures here. I don't know if it's this same product, but I can say with confidence that it _is_ blindingly bright to oncoming drivers, unlike the claims made in this article. I sit very high in my vehicle and have been painfully dazzled by these every time I encounter them.

But this strikes me as a very lazy piece anyway. There's no skepticism about the claims, or the reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. It's basically a PR piece for this product.

The opening line clued me in to how bad it was going to be, though: "Most people don't turn on their car's headlights and think, I wish they were brighter." Sure I do! But on the other hand, I also don't want to blind the cars I'm about to pass within six feet of that are coming towards me at an effective 140mph when I'm driving on a dark back country road after dark, which I do hundreds of miles of every week. That's why we have dimmable headlights in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Those light bars are usually producing a ridiculous amount of light, though. All else being equal, the way to reduce glare to oncoming drivers is to increase the area of the emitter. It's not really HIDs that have made glare a problem in modern cars, it's everybody switching to projectors. Even halogens are terrible for glare when used in a projector.

<comment><USER4> Why do you say that? Good projectors have very little glare because they actually focus a beam in the right direction. Of course they are bright if shining straight at you but that is not glare. That's just over illumination.

Here in California, the worst glare comes from people who have put high intensity bulbs into non-projector housings, people with oxidized/hazy lenses on older cars, and people who misuse fog and other auxilliary lights. The common factor is the ominidirectional emissions which are far outside the regulated light pattern.

<comment><USER3> What matters for oncoming traffic is the intensity of the light per area emitted. A projector emits all of the light from half of a 1.8 inch (typical) lens, versus a reflector light which may emit from an area 10x that. A well adjusted reflector and a well adjusted projector will both point predominantly down, but both deliberately put some light above the line, of course. And both will occasionally be pointed directly at oncoming traffic due to elevation changes of the road. The projector is much more intense and produces far more glare when you look at it. Doubly so with HID, of course.

I've seen several newer Acuras and BMWs switch from single projector to multiple, which helps, though you'd really need quite a few more to lower the glare back to a what a big reflector light produces. I kinda wonder sometimes what it would be like if we were able to emit across the entire frontal area of the car -- it might be possible to emit significantly more than current HID setups while having less glare than ever.

<comment><USER4> I guess we are bothered by different things. I don't mind that the projector lights are bright when they are actually shining straight at me, because that is usually brief and predictable so I can avert my gaze momentarily. It's the off-axis glare that continues to bother me when the car is not pointing directly at me.

In my opinion, many new cars are very comfortable with sharp cutoffs on their lights and almost no off-axis glare. They may be blinding if you're about to be run over, but from the next lane over or at normal windshield height, they are quite tame. But others are terrible and most seem to fall into the categories I mentioned above: obvious aftermarket disasters with bright bulbs mismatched to the optics, older cars with hazy lenses, and people using fog lights (or high beams) in totally inappropriate conditions, throwing light everywhere with poor cutoffs.

I'm actually starting to wonder how much of the problem is an aging population trying to compensate for their failing eyesight by blinding us with high beams and fog lights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great, so lasers are very directional and allow you to illuminate the exact area that you are interested in. What I don't agree with is that you can always exclude the eyes of the other drivers from that area.

Roads are uneven, you have curves and bumps and ramps. Unless there is an inteligent system actively tracking incoming vehicles and avoiding them, there is always a chance that you will hit someone with the full force of 10x brighter lasers. I know of no such inteligent headlight system, that needs to have close to 100% demonstrated success rate. Blinding the driver of a single bike or tractor is enough to produce a major accident.

The way the headlight arms race is going, I believe there is an opportunity for defensive technology to be invented: a liquid crystal layer in your windshield that, coupled with a camera that tracks your eyes location, is able to reduce the transparency of a very small spot in your field of view that covers the incoming vehicle. Seems like it could be implemented with 80s tech.

<comment><USER6> Reading the article and looking at SLD Laser's website leads you to believe that they are shooting lasers out the front of the emitter. They also both implicate the BMW 5 series. BMW demoed a laser headlight system to Jalopnik and it doesn't work that way at all.

The lasers are fired into a phosphorous element to excite it into emitting light which is then reflected down field. The advantages of this over LED and other tech is that it uses less power and produces less heat.

[https://jalopnik.com/how-bmws-new-laser-headlights-will- work...](https://jalopnik.com/how-bmws-new-laser-headlights-will-work-and-not- kill-y-1521586271)

<comment><USER7> I assume you know this, but most big leds used in headlights already have phosphorous elements. For example, [https://www.amazon.com/Chanzon-6000K-6500K-Intensity- Compone...](https://www.amazon.com/Chanzon-6000K-6500K-Intensity-Components- Lighting/dp/B01DBZHUXA) is a 100W LED, the yellow is the phosphorous with the LEDs embedded within.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lasers are amazingly versatile! They can do everything from vaporizing a bulldozer from 2000 feet away to delicate surgery on eyes, as long as the doctor remembers to change the setting from "Bulldozer" to "Delicate". (Dave Barry)

<comment> King-Aaron Anecdotally, I was at a recent dental tech expo in Sydney and was allowed a chance to play with one of the dental lasers on display.

The guy running the stand showed us how to peel the shell away from the membrane of an uncooked egg, before then winding the dial right up and letting me saw a lamb jaw bone in half with it.

They really are pretty impressive devices.

<comment><USER8> A decade or more I had a dentist that stayed towards the front of the technology curve, and he had an argon laser that he used for some fillings. My memory is that they were small fillings and he did it without pain killers, there was no whine from the drill, etc. I think he needed to "rough up" the hole that the laser made, which was done with the drill thing at low speed.

I really liked him, but there was a combination of his location being inconvenient, and one of his dental techs was terrible, so I switched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because LED headlights aren't blinding enough?

<comment><USER10> The subheadline literally includes "but won't blind oncoming traffic"...

> All of this luminosity leads to an obvious question: How are these devices, > which have the approximate wattage of the klieg spotlights commonly found > outside world premieres, supposed to be safely installed in the front of a > car without inadvertently blinding oncoming traffic?

> "Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the > light," said Nakamura. "You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the > beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists."

<comment><USER11> >>You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists."

So, cyclists and pedestrians just have to deal with it, as always. Just like current "automatic" high-beam, which does an "ok" job at detecting other cars but fails completely at detecting other non-vehicular road users.

<comment><USER12> Or when you're parked facing a restaurant with glass windows.

Or when it's snowing and all that directed laser light is being reflected right back at you (not mentioning reflectors which are already absurdly bright with LED and halogen bulbs).

Or when you hit a bump in the road and the redirection of light doesn't occur fast enough.

Or when the vibration of fifty-thousand miles impairs the aiming mirrors. Can you imagine the pathological case of a partially broken DLP chip?

There's too many corner cases and (literally) moving pieces for this to really be practical.

<comment><USER13> As someone who doesn't trust his car's automatic high-beam, 100% this.

Are the lasers bright enough to be a health risk? You wouldn't attach a high power laser pointer to a moving vehicle either.

<comment> semi-extrinsic AFAICT these things don't actually emit laser light, they use a high power laser to stimulate some sort of phosphorus-like material that then emits incoherent white light. The point is then that this secondary light source is very small (compared e.g. to LED with similar lumens), so the light can be much more easily focused by optics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _Laser headlights have about the same consumer costs as current LED > headlamps, in the low four-figure range._

Uh. What? Even recent model headlight assembly replacements that I can find are in the _three_ -figure range, roughly $500 for a pair, and LED bulbs themselves are something like $125 for a pair. This is several times more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER15> >>"Most people don't turn on their car's headlights and think, I wish they were brighter."

I guess I'm not "Most people" because I have desired more light since I got my license.

I've installed 100w Hella Euro projector lights for straight-line distance (appropriately calibrated as to not blind incoming traffic); and replaced my foglights (not particularly useful in Toronto, Canada) with corner beams - short distance, wide spread, installed at 45 degree angle, so I can illuminate slow speed turns into dark abyss that many drivways, hwy off-ramps, or small city streets are. At night on country roads, I never ever think "well, that's enough, I don't need more light".

<comment><USER16> Many [newer] cars have 'adaptive headlights' that angle the light towards the corner you're turning into. Works pretty well.

<comment><USER17> Citroen had that on the DS back in the stone age.

[https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-stock-photo-citroen- ds-...](https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-stock-photo-citroen-ds-detail- oldtimer-headlights-wheel-gray-image52551808)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ok so bright headlights are annoying. Why are there no more HUD like systems to improve night-time visibility? Project an IR overlay over the windscreen, tune the lights back to normal, enough for visibility and the road right in front of you.

<comment><USER19> We're _just_ getting to replacing the rear-view mirror with a camera. It will be a while before the windshield becomes (augmented) display.

<comment><USER6> Most backup cameras are rubbish. 320x480 CMOS sensors with very poor low light performance and several hundred millisecond latency. Even the Model 3, whose backup camera is amazing the first time you see it, isn't that great in low light conditions.

I'll be really sad to see cameras replace mirror on cars.

<comment><USER20> Are you sure it's the sensors and not the infotainment display? I had a 2016 model of a car and just got the 2019. The display was significantly updated for 2019 and it has a noticeable improvement over the older model.

I am almost positive they are the same backup camera. The higher resolution screen shows better detail and light. I'll look up the part number on Mopar when I get home but I'm sure the sensor is the same.

<comment><USER6> It's entirely possible that the poor image quality is the display but the poor low light performance is definitely the sensor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> After the introduction of halogen headlights, I wrote to the queensland road safety authorities asking them to include glare as a risk factor alongside brightness for car headlight specs. I didn't get a very satisfactory response.

I think glare is probably now a higher risk than lack of light, for normal road driving with lights, especially given the emergence of the SUV with higher beams and higher physical lamp placement.

Off road? specialist/military? Sure. I can see that this kind of light would be hugely beneficial. for milspec usage, it might even have a dual function (ie deliberate dazzle)

But for routine use, I need to see legislative control on bad effects of lights on cars, to match obligations to meet minimums in light levels

(the article does talk about how lasers could be directed away from drivers, so there is hope this is a minimize dazzle thing)

<comment><USER22> I'd rather have the older dimmer headlights back, the projector lamps out now are absolutely blinding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For reference, here are the IIHS headlight test criteria:

[https://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/headlight- eva...](https://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/headlight-evaluation)

</comment><comment><USER24> I wish my headlights were brighter almost any time I turn them on.

How do they avoid laser speckle?

<comment><USER25> Clean them. Modern plastic headlights oxidize and grow dimmer over time, but can be cleaned (from the inside) to restore brightness. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4QwzHOO-3lk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4QwzHOO-3lk)

<comment><USER26> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speckle_pattern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speckle_pattern)

Laser speckle has nothing to do with your headlight plastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm not so sure about this. Even if you can avoid directly blinding drivers, what about all the wasted light from reflection? Are roadways now 10X brighter than they were before?

</comment><comment> m-p-3 Is it possible to buy those in flashlight form-factor?

That would be a really nice flashlight to own

</comment><comment><USER28> I always wondered what Data had done with all those golden coins.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLFiOV8l_lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLFiOV8l_lo)

</comment><comment><USER29> As a pedestrian in NYC, I hate this. And don't even talk about the impact to wildlife. Régressive technology. If anything, provide cheap lidar one détection, etc to help driver.

</comment><comment><USER30> Great, another nuisance.

</comment><comment><USER31> Nope, the headlight of the future is a LIDAR on a self-driving vehicle.

</comment><comment><USER32> > It's another reflection of how the increasingly...

I see what you did there.</comment>


Convert github issues into pull requests - <AUTHOR> http://germanforblack.com/post/41822392266/github-workflow

<comment><USER2> Nice, it's a shame this isn't supported in the GitHub web interface.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to sync browser sessions across platforms? - <AUTHOR>

Like many fellow hackers, I use multiple devices to surf the net every day: mobile phone, iPad, laptop, desktop etc. I always face the problem of losing my browser session when I switch platforms. My straw-man solution is to manually save and restore links of open pages via Google Bookmarks. It works but is pretty inefficient. Do you know a better alternative? If not, what would an ideal cross-browser solution be like? <comment><USER2> I don't know if one exists, but a browser plugin that allows for cookie synching might be able to do this. If it doesn't exist, someone should make it.

Chrome has built in bookmark synching tied to your google account.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry for not providing a direct answer, but ...

I simply carry my laptop around.

That is, I don't surf with the mobile phone or desktop computer in the first place. When I bought my laptop, I carefully chose a model that is small enough to be carried around everywhere, but big enough for serious, daily work.

In other words: I bought a _portable working platform_ that frees me from having to switch platforms.

Of course, at home and at work I attach a monitor, keyboard and mouse to it. But I often forget to do that without even noticing, because my laptop has a very good keyboard and I'm so used to it that it feels more natural than most external keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER4> Start browser on home machine and use VNC or similar to get access to it?

<comment><USER3> That's a nice idea, but that way you effectively limit the surfing speed to the _upload_ speed of your internet connection at home.

Also, hardly any mobile phones, let alone the iPad, provide a VNC client.</comment></comment>


Why Apple removed the headphone port from the iPhone 7 - <AUTHOR> https://dhariri.com/posts/57d558cdd1befa66e5b8e05b <comment><USER2> Phil Schiller, Greg Joswiak and Dan Riccio explained the technical reasons that triggered the removal.

[http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains- headphone...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains-headphone- jack-removal/)

But no, continue with the fucking conspiracy theories, just like how they removed the floppy drive to because Job's neighbour was a floppy disk magnate and had an annoying dog, and they removed optical drives because Jonny Ive wants CD's to become worthless so he can make abstract art from used CDs.

I know, it's "cool" to bag on Apple - first it was because they were the outsider, PC-using people would make fun of Mac users because we were different - we didn't just buy a PC like everyone else; then Apple released the iPhone and became a household name, and non-Apple users would make fun of Apple-users because we were buying the 'popular' option.

Sure, I can see that the headphone jack removal will inconvenience some people. I can also see the argument that USB-C _might_ have led to less inconvenience. But that would then mean that no accessories from the last 4 years would work, and people would _still_ complain.

I've seen people posting images of Apple's old iPod/iTunes ad artwork with the silhouette and white headphones, saying "remember when Apple's marketing was all about white headphones". Do these people _seriously_ think the iPhone 7 has no ability to use wired headphones, whether Lightning or Analog?

Or is it just the same thing we always see. Find something vaguely controversial. Take a single aspect and hyper-focus on it, without context, and try to get your shit viral. I'm waiting for a less-tech-aware member of my family to say they don't want an iPhone 7 because they won't be able to use headphones with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kind of odd that the article basically argues that the main reason Apple dropped the headphone port was to make more money at the expense of its users - and was dishonest by pretending it was to make the phone waterproof... but then the author still orders the iPhone 7.

Apple's blatant marketing bullshit really rubs me the wrong way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: I was actually trying to highlight that I think the reasons were three-fold: Future-picking, Capitalism and Space-efficiency. Sorry if that wasn't clear from my writing. Thanks for the comments and yes, Apple's marketing sometimes rubs me the wrong way too.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough! I was just surprised by the ending - I agree with most of what you wrote though, and I enjoyed reading the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author forgot to list one of the _theories_ running around: DRM enforcement. It is harder to control what plays through an analog plug in contrast with controlling DRM with the closed source driver that will control the wireless headphones (or the analog adapter).

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you link to that? I hadn't heard that theory... Would the connector act as a filter for DRM content?

<comment><USER5> The idea is that something similar could happen as happened with video: With digital connections replacing analogue ones, the interfaces could require downstream devices to implement DRM protocols (HDCP in the video case), limiting high-quality signals to licensed output devices.

But for video, the benefits of digital transmission were way greater, and extracting signals from a output device is way easier with audio. Grabbing decrypted video from a TV screen's internals is really difficult, analogue audio from the cable between a audio DAC chip and a speaker is easy.</comment></comment></comment>


The Politics of Poverty in the Suburbs - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/11/rising-suburban-poverty-is-a-bipartisan-problem/506918/ <comment><USER2> It seems to me that there's many people in America who don't realize they're in poverty. The vast majority of Americans would consider themselves middle class, while the Federal Reserve found that over 40% of households don't have $400 in cash available in case of an emergency.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/25/the-s...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/25/the- shocking-number-of-americans-who-cant-cover-a-400-expense/)</comment>


I lost all my points (karma). - <AUTHOR>

When I woke up this morning my 19 points had turned to zero points.  I suspect that someone was down-modding me.  Firstly, I didn't even know there was a way to down-mod people, secondly, is there any way to get these points back and/or stop that person from down-modding me in the future.
<comment><USER2> You're right. Someone went on a downmodding spree.

I restored your karma. Now I'm going to have to write some software to prevent this kind of abuse. Great. As if I didn't have enough to do...

<comment><USER3> ~Flashback to 2002~

"Hey Paul, I keep getting all these junk email messages and they're filling up my inbox!"

"You're right. Someone went on an emailing spree. Now I'm going to have to write some software to prevent this kind of abuse. Great. As if I didn't have enough to do..."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html>

<comment><USER4> ~Flashback to 1995~

"Hey Paul, my programs keep crashing and never get updated!"

"You're right. Someone went on a desktop software spree. Now I'm going to have to write some software to prevent this kind of abuse. Great. As if I didn't have enough to do..."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/first.html>

<comment><USER5> ~Flashback to 1993~

"Hey Paul, this C++ code takes ten thousand lines to get anything done and keeps doing a fandango on core!"

"You're right. Someone went on a blub spree. Now I'm going to have to show people how to avoid subjecting themselves to this kind of abuse. Great. As if I didn't have enough to do..."

<http://paulgraham.com/onlisp.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for restoring my karma everyone.

<comment><USER6> No problem.

<comment><USER7> Ohh, pq ... will you _ever_ have positive karma? :-P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Downmodded as irrelevant to startup news.

<comment><USER4> Downmodded for being mean, and you only joined two weeks ago. Who are you to say?

 _Edit:_ I apologize for not sensing teh humorz. It was not so blatant.

<comment><USER8> Upmodded for not sensing blatant sarcasm.

<comment><USER9> There's this new tech that could be useful in helping you two communicate ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you can't downvote away people's karma, how do you make people who suck go away?

<comment><USER2> Often it's behaviors that suck, not people.

If you dislike something someone has said, the best way to deal with that is to reply explaining why. That's more work than just downmodding them, but it can pay off in the long term if you can turn someone into a useful contributor to the site instead of just making them leave.

<comment><USER10> I applaud your ability to maintain an optimistic viewpoint about humans even though all evidence points the opposite direction. What you're suggesting is completely unprecedented on the internet. What always happens is that an open forum is eventually overwhelmed by trolls and morons, and all the smart people give up. There has never been a case where a troll or a moron turned into a useful contributor because of thoughtful response from a good member of a forum. Just review the history of Digg, Slashdot, Reddit and almost any other open forum, all the way back to ancient USENET times...

Wasn't this forum created partially because reddit was overwhelmed by the hordes and all the interesting startup information was lost in the noise?

<comment><USER4> You'll very much enjoy reading <http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html>

But no, it was created primarily as a test for Arc. The fact that it's so beneficial and awesome is a wonderful side effect.

<comment><USER10> Max Goldberg, the creator of YTMND, has this to say:

"I'm straying off topic, but the point is, the users are what make YTMND. Crappy users make the site crappy, and rather than trying to delete crappy content, it would be far easier to just keep users who create crappy content off YTMND. The hard part is figuring out who to let in and who will add value to the community and the site as a whole. "</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Revactor: concurrency library that adds Erlang-like features to Ruby 1.9 - <AUTHOR> http://doc.revactor.org/files/README.html <comment><USER2> [http://www.nabble.com/Erlang-concurrency- to14747956.html#a14...](http://www.nabble.com/Erlang-concurrency- to14747956.html#a14754176)</comment>


Throttle – Control who can send you email - <AUTHOR> http://www.throttlehq.com/ <comment><USER2> This is just anonymizing of addresses. Through your throttle account, connected to a convenient browser extension, you can conveniently generate throwaway addresses which forward to the real inbox. These addresses can be shut down and since they are unique, they identify misuse.

Anonymizing isn't new. For instance Craigslist generates an anonymized e-mail address through which people interested in your ad can contact you. (Of course, if you reply to it, then you reveal your real address.)

People who run their own mail domains do this kind of thing on their own.

I have the following system: the local part of the e-mail address has a four digit security code. If I give such an e-mail address to some vendor, it serves two purposes: the address bypasses spam checks, so I'm sure to get the e-mail. (Usually transactional e-mails are important and not easy to re-send.) Secondly, I can change the code to shut down senders who abuse the the address.

Some banks offer throwaway one-time-use credit card numbers linked to your real credit card. That is very similar to this.

<comment><USER3> "Of course, if you reply to it, then you reveal your real address"

Do you ?

I am pretty sure it redirects everything through the CL email proxy and the only way for them to know your real email address is for you to give it to them (or they guess it from your "Name" which the CL relay copies from your email).

<comment><USER2> My bad! Sorry!

CL performs a decent, two-way anonymization. When you reply to a listing's anonymized e-mail, your own e-mail address is anonymized (just not your name, which I think comes from your From: header or SMTP envelope address? In any case, you control that).

Furthermore, the originating SMTP paths are mutually concealed by CL. You don't see how the mail arrived into CL, just how it came from CL to you; i.e. it's completely remailed.

Lastly, even the Message-ID is rewritten. The originator's message ID could contain clues about the mail domain and such; CL replaces it with their own.

Quite probably, they strip away the signatures from bodies as well; those could inadvertently leak identity bits.

[Source: I searched my inbox for some CL interactions, several years old, and examined the headers.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ryan-c Seems fairly similar to sneakemail[0] (which I have been using for more than a decade), but with more polish. Looks like Throttle's basic service doesn't handle attachments or replying (sneakemail does), which is unfortunate.

0\. [https://sneakemail.com/](https://sneakemail.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I discovered that when you delete your email address for a week almost all the spam and newsletters disappear. I don't know exactly how it works, but it does. So every couple years I just completely disable my email address for ten days, or whatever, while on vacation.

<comment><USER5> Everyone who sends email has to be very careful about upsetting email service providers, because they'll mark your messages as spam if they suspect you of misbehavior. Email providers use many metrics, and one of them is the number of bounced emails.

It doesn't take much to be marked as a bad actor, so companies will quickly remove you from their lists if you're jeopardizing their ability to get into the inboxes of their other users.

Source: I've worked at a couple of companies that used email as a significant part of their strategy to keep in touch with users.

<comment><USER6> Very true. I've used SendGrid and Mandrill for transactional email services and bounces count against your account's reputation.

Most of them will require warming up the account/IP you're sending the emails from in order to increase the quota of emails you can send per hour/day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Takes about 5 pages until you get to the little price tag. I wonder how many abandonments they will get. Personally I like seeing the price up front.

<comment><USER8> And you pay for a year up front at $48! That's surprising.

This product seems like a good candidate for a free trial period. Users will become invested to some degree during the trial and may be reluctant to stop using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds great but I'm nervous to trust personal communications with a company that seems to be so new – what if they fold? I lose all the emails I might be getting sent. Without information about who's behind this, I probably won't sign up

<comment><USER10> Not only are they new, they're missing a bit of polish on the site. I'd like to know how it works but the "how it works" link doesn't go anywhere. Their browser extension also failed to install for me.

I like the idea but given the obvious problems and the fact that they want four bucks a month and no trial, I'm inclined to avoid. Shame because I would use something like this.

e: seems like "how it works" is meant to link to the video

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love the concept. In fact, it's somewhat similar to the manual, ad-hoc scheme I've been using for years. It's always interesting to see exactly who is leaking your email address to spammers (whether intentionally or otherwise).

Edit: It does have the slight downside to making some human conversations awkward. "Just to confirm, the email address we have for you is... wait, what?"

</comment><comment><USER2> I like the browser plugin here which lets you generate these e-mails easily.

An open source version would really be handy for people who host their own domains.

I could use a FireFox extension which lets me click next to some e-mail field to generate an address by talking to some web shim on my server at home, which generates the alias and binds it to my e-mail address via /etc/aliases, and restarts Exim.

The generated e-mail could actually be a cookie which contains not only some random ID but an encoded version of the domain name of the site against whose page it was generated. So later, when that address is being abused, you can tell where it came from without looking up any association in any file or database.

</comment><comment><USER12> The video on the landing page doesn't play properly and surprise surprise it's Vimeo. People need to stop using Vimeo, they have incredibly bad service.

I have had problems with Vimeo for years now across multiple desktops, multiple browsers, multiple mobile devices in multiple locations (across Europe and Australia). It happens on both popular videos and videos in the long tail which aren't being linked to at that moment by popular sites. It happens on free Vimeo accounts and on premium Vimeo accounts. I give Vimeo a pass when YouTube HD videos aren't working either but most of the time YouTube HD videos are working just fine on these connections and it's just Vimeo can't stream video reliably.

In this case the video wasn't even full motion, the background is static and the keyframes and audio should have been a large slice of the bandwidth. But it was stuttering at the start and now even after letting it load in the background on a 70Mbps connection while typing this comment it's still stalling near the end of the video. What are the Vimeo alternatives besides YouTube?

</comment><comment><USER13> Am I missing something? Why not just create a filter that permanently deletes or marks emails from a certain sender as spam?

<comment><USER11> That doesn't catch the cases where the sender uses a different From: address, or shares your email address with third parties.

<comment><USER13> Ah, I see. Looks promising then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was thinking about similar service. What would be different is that I would give user subdomain and redirect all incoming traffic on SMTP SSL port to connected client. I would give access for user to get SSL cert from Let's Encrypt.

All this would give something better than promise that I would not look at private emails, but I would have to build client application that would be SMTP server inside. Handling LE automatically and all other seemingly unrelated things.

Main use would be to use generated by application unique addresses for registration purposes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know who wants to send me e-mail.

</comment><comment><USER16> No idea how it works (can't watch a video where I am and it isn't explained anywhere else), but it does seem to consolidate a few useful features that I currently get elsewhere:

-Combine mass mailings in to a single daily digest email (Unrollme)

-Find out who tries to sell your email address (Using email@example.com)

</comment><comment><USER17> To achieve the same cheaply and without lockin, simply have your own domain with a catch-all email forwarding to your real email address. Then always give out your email address for a specific site as <site>@yourdomain.com.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but this is a pain to administer. Do you have some nice tools for generating these addresses and putting them into effect in the back-end which underlies your domain, without having to whip out an SSH client, logging in to some server, editing files and re-starting services?

I have my own "yourdomain.com". I pay to keep it registered and keep a server running also. Most people don't have this; their mail domain is "gmail.com" or whatever. Sure, a lot of problems could be solved if everyone just had their own domain!

Speaking of "gmail.com"; I'm surprised Google doesn't just make this a feature of gmail. It would be fairly trivial for them to implement for the benefit of all gmail users.

<comment><USER18> It's already a feature of gmail. Just add "+whatever" to the username and it will still route to you, e.g. use "email@example.com" when you sign up at sketchysite.com.

Occasionally you'll run into a form with broken email validation that won't let you use a + character, but I've been doing this for years and it works the vast majority of the time.

<comment><USER2> Because this is implemented by a major, very popular e-mail provider, it effectively reveals your real e-mail address to spammers, who can just look for this pattern in any address in the '@gmail.com' domain and strip away the + part. It will keep only the "honest" bulk mailers out of your inbox, not hard-core spammers.

This type of thing _can_ work, but only for a small-time service provider whose plaintext encoding scheme is not widely known. (Security thorugh obscurity.) Even the hard-core spammers won't sift through millions of e-mail addresses to crack some plain text scheme that is used by two or three of them.

Also, you need the option to permanently destroy one of these, so that you never see mail from it again. No filtering bullshit. Google should control the exact set of anonymized addressees attached to your account. When you destroy any one of them, any further attempt to send to it should result in a non- delivery notice (SMTP bounce).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's been around forever but a basic free way to mask your email address is Spam Gourmet [https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl](https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl)

</comment><comment><USER20> Great, but they seem not to have plans to create recyclable emails for person- to-person communication, which is sad.</comment>


Why Won't Twitter Help Us Delete Our Tweets? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/style/delete-your-twitter.html <comment><USER2> I've used Twitter Archive Eraser[0] many times. I would loathe to think a potential employer would use a tweet, or thread against me. I would also loath a potential partner scouring old tweets to find something unsavoury. Sometimes I say things that I regret later on, and all those tweets add up over time, and can be reframed to blacken my name or otherwise defame me.

[0] [https://martani.github.io/Twitter-Archive- Eraser/](https://martani.github.io/Twitter-Archive-Eraser/)</comment>


Ask HN: Where have all the scientists gone? - <AUTHOR> Is our present system not creating any? <comment><USER2> 2006 - [https://www.the-scientist.com/uncategorized/are-we- training-...](https://www.the-scientist.com/uncategorized/are-we-training-too- many-scientists-47238) \- "Are We Training Too Many Scientists? A glut of postdocs, too few desired positions, and a faculty invested in the status quo point to a need for change. Who will take responsibility?"

2013 - [https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/too-many- scientists/5...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/too-many- scientists/5820.article) \- "Too many scientists? The proliferation of PhDs is unsustainable and damaging, says Paula Stephan."

2010 - [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-us- produ...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-us-produce- too-m/) \- "Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists? American science education lags behind that of many other nations, right? So why does it produce so many talented young researchers who cannot find a job in their chosen field of study?"

2018 - [https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/02/science- discontents-...](https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/02/science-discontents- jobs-many-scientists/) "Science and Its Discontents: Too Few Jobs—or Too Many Scientists?"

</comment><comment><USER3> What makes you say that they are gone? Are you saying that there are fewer than before? Comparatively less? Or that you just don't see many people putting on a white lab coat for work these days?

How do you even define a scientist? Is a chemist a scientist? A physicist? A mathematician? A computer scientist? A data scientist?</comment>


Ling's Cars: Subtle Brilliance and a Lesson for Design Elitists  - <AUTHOR> http://savemefrombschool.com/2010/03/lings-cars-subtle-brilliance-and-a-lesson-for-design-elitists/

<comment><USER2> Here is a related lesson on pizza flyer design: [http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002462.ht...](http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002462.html)</comment>


Pregel: a system for large-scale graph processing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.acolyer.org/2015/05/26/pregel-a-system-for-large-scale-graph-processing/

<comment><USER2> shameless self-promotion of my graph processing library on GPUs, Gunrock: Gunrock paper: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.05387](http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.05387) paper on multi-GPU graph analytics: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.04804](http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.04804) github repo: [http://gunrock.github.io/](http://gunrock.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not really related to this particular blog post but I really like the concept of »one paper per day«.

Are there any other similar series going on with cs/maths focus?</comment>


Five Years of Recurse Center - <AUTHOR> https://www.recurse.com/five-years <comment><USER2> Recurse center (nee Hackerschool) changed my life.

I was a miserable PhD student, playing around with poor-quality datasets, battling office politics and learning a bit of Python on the side. Saw Recurse Center as an opportunity to see if I might fit in with a techy crowd and perhaps provide some new inspiration.

Went, loved every minute, met wonderful people, learned loads, had a blast. Got home, quit my PhD, quickly landed a developer job and haven't looked back since. My only regret is not doing so sooner.

My story is not unusual. Apply to Recurse Center!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm the one that posted this story and I am headed to RC next month :-) So excited! What did you work on/study?

<comment><USER2> I spent a lot of time learning new languages and filling in my missing computer-science education. You can do a lot in 3 months if you have no distractions! I was probably there 60 - 70 hours a week and have never managed to hit such a sweet spot of motivation, inspiration and productivity before or since. My PhD was a colossal waste of time in comparison. Actually it made me totally re-evaluate my ideas about education in general.

A random selection from memory:

      * Emulator and debugger for a particular embedded hardware (MSP430)
      * Website that scraped Rosetta Code and displayed it in a less-annoying form
      * Genetic algorithm for graph problems
      * Nand2Tetris course
      * Two weeks trying and mostly failing to learn Haskell (took me another year to really 'get' it)
      * All sorts of other fun/dumb stuff. Boggle solver! Endless project Euler problems! Super Meat Boy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am so glad I was accepted to RC. It had a huge impact on my life. Although I was one of the least experienced programmers in my batch, the staff and fellow students made me feel very welcome. My goal was to learn how to make iPhone apps. Here are some highlights:

\- A faculty member taught himself Objective-C to help me along.

\- Several other students were extremely kind with their time.

\- I learnt that even experienced programmers struggle through the debugging process, it's just that they would find the cause of the problem in a minute and I would take an hour. That was reassuring.

\- I paired for the first time.

\- I made a bunch of new friends who are now scattered all over the world doing lots of interesting things.

\- We played lots of poker and got to see each other in a different environment (for science!).

\- RC gave me the confidence to keep plugging away at programming. It showed me that everyone has to keep learning. It taught me a frame of mind which I now apply to all programming problems.

I am forever grateful to the founders and faculty for creating the Recurse Center.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm probably going to be in the minority here, but I find something very cliquish about the Recurse Center and the many high profile alums. At the end of the day, they seem like a fancy placement agency who happened to get some good developers attend their program.

I've also heard from certain of their _non_ high profile alums and they've spoken about feeling left out (because most of the others were hacking away in Python whereas she was a Ruby developer and felt isolated). Since then I take everything said and written about the Recurse Center with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER5> (I've visited and been a resident ... I guess I'm one of the non-high-profile ones). From my N=1 anecdotes during several visits, the vast majority of attendees were not "high profile" (whatever that definition is) ... and most people spent most time heads-down doing work or pairing/in-meetings talking about work. from what i observed, there was very little showboating. it's not like a 3-month TED conference or something :)

<comment><USER6> pgbovine's profile is not as high as it deserves to be

See [http://pythontutor.com/](http://pythontutor.com/) and [http://www.pgbovine.net/cde.html](http://www.pgbovine.net/cde.html) \- but really, all of [https://github.com/pgbovine?tab=repositories](https://github.com/pgbovine?tab=repositories) is worth looking at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always thought this sounds nifty. Unfortunately, I don't have 3 months and 10K to drop on it - I also am married and the sole earner, so my actual spend would probably look closer to 20K in order to attend (not to mention flight & being away from family).

Anyway. Best of luck in the future!

<comment><USER8> Just to clarify, there is no direct cost associated with RC. It is free to attend for all participants. Grants, for those who qualify, are for living expenses.

That said, 3 months of wages is still a prohibitive cost for many would-be participants.

<comment><USER7> > 3 months of wages is still a prohibitive cost for many would-be > participants.

Or 1.5 months. I simply can't afford to _not work_ and attend a workshop in the one of the most expensive regions in the United States.

And I'm a typical nerd; I don't qualify for URM grants.

edit: Don't want to be harsh. The Recurse Center is really cool! Just that I, and many like me, can never ever go. Ah well! Such is life.

<comment><USER9> I think there are similarly awesome events / opportunities! You could go to !!con (pronounced bangbangcon) also in NYC; or attend a hack && tell meet up in your area (or something similar or start one!?)

It's not for everyone, and that's a shame - I'd love to attend too. While I could swing it (being in the area, relatively low personal/family costs), I certainly understand not being able to.

And even still, I find I can get some of the benefit just from interacting with alums like @b0rk on Twitter

<comment><USER7> There _are_ other things, yes. My area (Seattle) is more of a "beer && code" scene; the tendencies for meetups are excessive bro (or marketing), not enough hacker, IMO. Ce la vie.

Twitter is a hard medium for long-form thought, and, frankly, when I post thoughts there, they go to /dev/null unless it's a reply to a popular person. So... meh?

I keep ruminating on the idea of working on a "cyberhackerspace", dedicated to the sort of thing Recurse Center channels, but 100% online. Dedicated cluster, domain name, irc channel, forums, etc. But I can't do it alone - I have that pesky Responsibilities monkey on my back.

Ah well. Back to working on some Java.

<comment><USER9> You should check out hifi by apg: [http://us11.campaign- archive1.com/home/?u=3489d30623dcf96e5a...](http://us11.campaign- archive1.com/home/?u=3489d30623dcf96e5ac9f4d53&id=e6e34ed684)

I think you might like it, and he has been friendly if you write back. (In my experience)

<comment><USER10> I try to be friendly! If I'm not, it's probably because I'm stuck inside and it's beautiful outside, so try again another time. :)

Thanks for promoting hifi, and hack && tell for that matter! I'm no longer involved in hack && tell (I moved away from NYC and don't have the energy to do it in San Diego). The people now in charge of it are "best in show," and I'm sure will continue to push hack && tell to be even better than it ever was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats, Recurse folks! You've come a long way and done outstanding work for both your students and the community - social rules, spirit of inclusivity and the endless list of blog posts, talks, etc. which have come about as a result of your program.

Now, if only you'd start the Brain Dump meetup back up! :P (I'm being facetious, but those 2-3? events were transformative for me. I can only imagine what attending the program will do for one's personal/professional development.)

</comment><comment><USER12> This sounds very interesting. I've been professionally programming for about ~2 years (1 year co-op) in Java/Spring/Hibernate/SWT/Angular1.x and have been disheartened by the dry approach to programming taken in the projects that I've been a part of. I feel like I'm basically following templates and laying bricks and not really sharpening my skills; the days of invetiveness and fun I had during my CS days are few and far between outside of personal projects. I'm definitely considering taking a leave of absence or even quitting my current job to spend some time with wizards :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've worked in offices with dogs and it's incredibly distracting (the barking!). Is that really a good idea for a learning environment?

Oh, and I'm also _allergic to them_ , though I'd never dare mention it.

<comment><USER14> This is a small, hypoallergenic dog that I've _never_ once heard bark. She's also very cute. ;)

<comment><USER15> Can confirm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ITT: People who want to talk about their own issues and not Recurse Center.

</comment><comment><USER17> On topic, I still don't have a good sense of what Hacker School/Recurse Center _is_. I understand that they place people looking for jobs - but is that the only people who attend (enroll?) or is it more like a private club? Some of the in-group signaling sounds off to me and I can only assume it's because I'm not the target audience ("canine facilitator", tattooing an RC logo on yourself, etc.). I'm not sure if everything is intentionally vague, but I suppose my (unasked for) suggestion would be to improve the messaging around what the center is and isn't.

Tangential, but does anyone else find this (literal) page odd? It fails to load unless you load in two scripts from cloudfront, where upon it pulls down JQuery, D3, and the following 150+ modules (bundled, of course. I think most of this is for React?):

      AutoFocusUtils, BeforeInputEventPlugin, CSSProperty, CSSPropertyOperations, CallbackQueue, ChangeEventPlugin, DOMChildrenOperations, DOMLazyTree, DOMNamespaces, DOMProperty, DOMPropertyOperations, Danger, DefaultEventPluginOrder, EnterLeaveEventPlugin, EventConstants, EventPluginHub, EventPluginRegistry, EventPluginUtils, EventPropagators, FallbackCompositionState, HTMLDOMPropertyConfig, LinkedStateMixin, LinkedValueUtils, PooledClass, React, ReactBrowserEventEmitter, ReactCSSTransitionGroup, ReactCSSTransitionGroupChild, ReactChildReconciler, ReactChildren, ReactClass, ReactComponent, ReactComponentBrowserEnvironment, ReactComponentEnvironment, ReactComponentWithPureRenderMixin, ReactCompositeComponent, ReactCurrentOwner, ReactDOM, ReactDOMButton, ReactDOMComponent, ReactDOMComponentFlags, ReactDOMComponentTree, ReactDOMContainerInfo, ReactDOMDebugTool, ReactDOMEmptyComponent, ReactDOMFactories, ReactDOMFeatureFlags, ReactDOMIDOperations, ReactDOMInput, ReactDOMInstrumentation, ReactDOMOption, ReactDOMSelect, ReactDOMSelection, ReactDOMServer, ReactDOMTextComponent, ReactDOMTextarea, ReactDOMTreeTraversal, ReactDOMUnknownPropertyDevtool, ReactDebugTool, ReactDefaultBatchingStrategy, ReactDefaultInjection, ReactDefaultPerf, ReactDefaultPerfAnalysis, ReactElement, ReactElementValidator, ReactEmptyComponent, ReactErrorUtils, ReactEventEmitterMixin, ReactEventListener, ReactFeatureFlags, ReactFragment, ReactInjection, ReactInputSelection, ReactInstanceMap, ReactInstrumentation, ReactInvalidSetStateWarningDevTool, ReactLink, ReactMarkupChecksum, ReactMount, ReactMultiChild, ReactMultiChildUpdateTypes, ReactNativeComponent, ReactNodeTypes, ReactNoopUpdateQueue, ReactOwner, ReactPerf, ReactPropTypeLocationNames, ReactPropTypeLocations, ReactPropTypes, ReactReconcileTransaction, ReactReconciler, ReactRef, ReactServerBatchingStrategy, ReactServerRendering, ReactServerRenderingTransaction, ReactStateSetters, ReactTestUtils, ReactTransitionChildMapping, ReactTransitionEvents, ReactTransitionGroup, ReactUpdateQueue, ReactUpdates, ReactVersion, ReactWithAddons, ReactWithAddonsUMDEntry, SVGDOMPropertyConfig, SelectEventPlugin, SimpleEventPlugin, SyntheticAnimationEvent, SyntheticClipboardEvent, SyntheticCompositionEvent, SyntheticDragEvent, SyntheticEvent, SyntheticFocusEvent, SyntheticInputEvent, SyntheticKeyboardEvent, SyntheticMouseEvent, SyntheticTouchEvent, SyntheticTransitionEvent, SyntheticUIEvent, SyntheticWheelEvent, Transaction, ViewportMetrics, accumulateInto, adler32, canDefineProperty, createMicrosoftUnsafeLocalFunction, dangerousStyleValue, escapeTextContentForBrowser, findDOMNode, flattenChildren, forEachAccumulated, getEventCharCode, getEventKey, getEventModifierState, getEventTarget, getIteratorFn, getNativeComponentFromComposite, getNodeForCharacterOffset, getTextContentAccessor, getVendorPrefixedEventName, instantiateReactComponent, isEventSupported, isTextInputElement, onlyChild, quoteAttributeValueForBrowser, renderSubtreeIntoContainer, setInnerHTML, setTextContent, shallowCompare, shouldUpdateReactComponent, traverseAllChildren, update, validateDOMNesting, shallowCompare, shallowEqual, invariant

<comment><USER18> >> _On topic, I still don 't have a good sense of what Hacker School/Recurse Center __is_ _._

Their about page[1] should help to clear up any confusion. It wasn't easily linked from the 5-yr announcement page, and I had similar questions in the past that were answered there. I think it takes time wrap one's head around the fact that the experience is free for the participant (other than living costs) which probably raises TANSTAAFL flags in your head, but they then go on to explain their business model in their FAQ[2].

[1] [https://www.recurse.com/about](https://www.recurse.com/about)

[2] [https://www.recurse.com/faq](https://www.recurse.com/faq)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > 0% graduation rate

Any insight on what this is intended to mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Aside from what stijlist said, you can't really graduate from RC. It's not a program with a list of things to do, a certificate, or a "path" to complete. It's literally just work on and learn whatever you want for three months (or half that) and build stuff. You can't really have a graduation for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I applied when I needed it the most. Was rejected for a reason that revealed more about them than about me or my readiness for coding skills.

Now they're a _must avoid_ at all costs!

<comment><USER21> Could you share why you were rejected?

<comment><USER20> This was a few years ago. My application indicated that I wasn't looking for a job following the program and that I was only interested in becoming a "good developer".

That likely didn't fit their business model.

<comment><USER22> I also applied, and my application also indicated that I wasn't looking for a job afterwards.

I am a nobody, have never worked at any high profile tech darlings, was not returning to another job, have no money myself, and contribute nothing to diversity (white cis male).

I thought I had no chance.

I was accepted and had a great time.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER20> Sure this comment helps the cause of recurse center and that you're happily invested in that cause. Good for you. :-)

Yet, it goes without saying that they're just a fancy recruitment service. Have a good day!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > That probably isn't why.

How do you know? Which companies exactly? Advantage in that case will be ofcourse that of future sponsors. Lame.

The number of _instant_ downvotes from those "invested" in this fraud is an ample proof of the problem.

I'm outta here.

<comment><USER23> Your comments are getting downvoted properly because they're unsubstantive, insinuating, and prosecuting a grudge. Those are bad qualities for HN comments to have.

And when you go as far as to call them a "fraud" and "fake" (which is demonstrably absurd), you're breaking the site guidelines outright, and that's not ok.

Side accounts created to break the HN guidelines with are not allowed here, so please don't do any more of that.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118610) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > a fancy placement agency

This, a hundred thousand times!

<comment><USER23> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118547) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To become a "good developer" isn't vague at all.

> RC applications are about culture fit ...

No they're not. That's a standard canned response.

The total amount of time their assessor spent on the demo app I sent along with my application <= 3 seconds. That's roughly the time it takes for an above-the-average webpage to load first time on the browser.

I'm pretty clear about the recurse center program. It's fake.

And nothing more than a sales pitch of "big names" from the developer community to lure people who can fall prey for it.

Downvoters: keep 'em coming! :-)

<comment><USER23> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118683) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER20> Okay. I'm glad that the feedback was read at least once. And that they want it to be only a convenient truth from here after.

Enjoy :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft 365, Your Sending The Wrong Message - <AUTHOR> http://communicatinglongform.com/post/68995419831/microsoft-365-your-sending-the-wrong-message

<comment><USER2> It depends.

I work at home so I find that working out of the "office" helps clear my head.

I take a tablet to the gym so I can read O'Reilly books and technical documentation while I work out. It gives me a chance to think reflectively about what I do without spending more time in the chair.</comment>


AMD commits to coreboot - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.amd.com/work/2011/05/05/an-update-on-coreboot/

<comment><USER2> <http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot>

coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS (firmware) you can find in most of today's computers.

<comment><USER3> I had this running about 10 years back, and the number of boards it covers is a little bigger now but still small. Odd mix of supercomputer and embedded users. I wonder if any of the large cloud providers are using it, as it is much more reliable than a BIOS which can fail in so many ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. Especially because it offers Open Firmware and EFI payloads: <http://www.coreboot.org/Payloads>

I'm guessing that doing init work on 3rd party expansion cards is left up to the OS. This makes sense, but might be troublesome for poorly designed adapters...

<comment><USER5> What role, then, do Open Firmware and EFI play if the hardware is being initialized by coreboot?

\--hardware/low-level noob (bare with me)

<comment><USER4> The traditional x86 hardware init scheme is to run x86 machine code from ROM's on the expansion cards. This of course limits the cards to only being used in machines that can execute x86 machine code.

Open Firmware replaces this with Forth code on the card and a Forth interpreter. This is how PowerPC Macs and Sun Sparc hardware would load card drivers.

EFI's driver functionality is pretty much the same as Open Firmware, except it uses an EFI Byte Code (EBC) as it's language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anything has to be better than the giant mess which is EFI. EFI is worse in just about every way than the BIOS, which is quite an achievement considering how everyone hates the BIOS.

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with EFI?

<comment><USER6> Incredible complex. Rarely works. Doesn't solve any problems of the BIOS (with the exception of the 2TB disk limit, but that could have been solved more easily).

<comment><USER8> I've never noticed the EFI on my MacBook, it's certainly never gotten in the way -- can you elaborate?

<comment><USER6> EFI on Macbooks broke CD-ROM booting, which is pretty fundamental I'd say.

<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=527443></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Man Tries to Live an Open Source Life for a Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.shareable.net/blog/kicking-off-a-year-of-open-source <comment><USER2> I don't really understand what it means for physical items like shoes to be open source in the sense that some software is.

Users are already free to modify their shoes. And even if you had a video showing how the shoes were made, that isn't enough to replicate the shoes unless you have the machinery and dexterity to make shoes.

He also claims he wants to be open source in "how I get around." What would it mean for walking to be open source or closed source? Is it "open source" to ride a bus?

<comment><USER3> > I don't really understand what it means for physical items like shoes to be > open source in the sense that some software is.

Tangentially related, but despite the article's definition of open source: "It's definitely not just software", it's a peeve of mine nonetheless to hear the term "open source" applied in non-software/programming contexts. Especially with some of the examples you've pointed out:

> He also claims he wants to be open source in "how I get around." What would > it mean for walking to be open source or closed source? Is it "open source" > to ride a bus?

Not sure if I'm alone on this.

<comment><USER4> Why is the term "open source" not applicable to any context in which the design of a product is distinct from its final form, and in which that design is conventionally covered by copyrights or patents?

If an architect released a set of standard building plans under an open license, would that not be legitimately "open source"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Open source life for a year"

 _scroll_

Macbook.

<comment><USER6> This is strange indeed. He provides some explanation in FAQ (but I don't buy it)

*<http://yearofopensource.net/faq/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> FTA: "I'm not buying any proprietary or traditionally copyrighted products unless all other options are exhausted."

I'm pretty baffled by his mention of copyright here. The linux kernel is 'open source' by most people's standards yet the copyrights are held by thousands of people. Living a modern life with only open source products is very doable, living with only products which have no copyright would be almost impossible

<comment><USER8> Key word being traditionally

<comment><USER7> What is that even supposed to mean?

<comment><USER9> Whatever he wants it to mean, apparently. I would reckon any Disney movies would fall under this, but not the Linux kernel.

Unless we want to go really old school, before copyrights were filed. But "traditional" may not take that long to apply, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Got you covered in terms of web apps: <http://libreprojects.net>

<comment><AUTHOR> very cool resource. Thanks. Any other lists like this, for instance for hardware or desktop apps?

Or whatever else.

<comment><USER11> There's the Free Software Directory: <http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't go as far as strcitly using open source, but I've managed to improve my productivity with a lot of open source software. To me, the software I use is just well designed, quick, and hackable. The only non-open source software I still use is the one included with Ubuntu, the one in my cell phone (non- smartphone (runs java)), my appliances (Linux probably, not no source), and the code that runs in my cars computer. Could I survive without closed software? Not yet. Though I keep looking for ways to replace closed systems with open ones.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yes, good point about RMS.

Thinking about hosting a discussion about this. Seems like there's a lot of knowledge out there. Any interest?

Or maybe there is already a forum for this. Pointers welcome.

</comment><comment><USER13> I suppose he'll have to start with defining which licenses he thinks are acceptable. CC-SA? Probably. CC-BY-NC-ND? Maybe? Maybe not?

How about patents? Trademarks?

</comment><comment><USER14> ... Grows a Beard.

</comment><comment><USER15> Toilet paper. Is there open source toilet paper? I don't think anyone is 3D printing that yet.

<comment><USER16> The source for toilet paper is always available. You are free to compile your own. Personally, I prefer the "Charmin" distro. I think their current release is "squeeze".

<comment><USER15> You don't find the license restrictive?

<comment><USER16> No, but I do fold the code to allow for tail recursion. It makes deployment less resource intensive. This often prevents overflows.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure I don't want tail recursive toilet paper. That may just be me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> RMS does this every year

<comment><USER18> He also recommends not using mobile phones, and reads the web using wget. Software freedoms are all very well, but I don't think many people would consider regressing about 20 years technologically a price worth paying.

While there are abuses in the worlds of business and government today that might ( _might_ ) have been prevented if we had insisted on open code and/or open data all along, I am reasonably confident that the various power imbalances as we learn to cope with things like the Internet will have been corrected long before 2032. I don't know what the technological, social and political landscapes will look like by then, but if I were a betting man I'd go with something much more open in most respects than we have today but with a renewed emphasis on personal privacy when it matters.

<comment><USER19> Conventional mobile phones have become (some say they always were) Big Brother tracking and surveillance devices. The amount of surveillance your are subject to reduces the value of mobile phones. For some people, reduces it so much as to make them, even when balanced against their usefulness, undesirable.

As for regressing 20 years, how often are you able to pick up an incoming call right away? Your phone is 90% of the time a mini Internet tablet, not a portable version of a land-line phone.

The privacy issue isn't just theoretical. There is a blacklist of more than 3000 activist construction workers maintained by police and UK companies. Could the people on that blacklist have kept themselves under the radar by paying closer attention to communications privacy?

<comment><USER18> _Your phone is 90% of the time a mini Internet tablet, not a portable version of a land-line phone._

Your phone might be. Mine isn't.

 _The privacy issue isn't just theoretical._

No, I agree, it's not. In fact, I'm an active campaigner for privacy in various ways, and I don't share my life with on-line social networks for privacy reasons.

However, it's easy to get into a black-and-white mindset that values only complete privacy and assumes no value at all otherwise, which I don't think is helpful. Of all the ways someone could technically spy on me if they had the resources to do it, monitoring the location of my mobile phones is unlikely to be what causes me problems.

We are in an interesting and potentially dangerous time at the moment, because it's been too long since a mass of people all suffered due to a major invasion of their privacy. It is easy to dismiss the creeping invasions we see with things like CCTV, monitoring of the Internet and telecomms services, and social networking sites asking for ever more personal information, when these aren't yet causing serious consequences to most people. And of course, people often give up that information voluntarily because it benefits them in some way that they value more than any perceived intrusion. Privacy isn't about withholding data entirely, it's about controlling who know what and how they can use that information.

I think the pendulum will swing back in a few years, though things will get worse before they start to get better. As people start to find that they really can't get jobs because of some minor indiscretion, or that their credit rating is damaged, or that they simply can't get complete health insurance because they know too many people at a high risk of some lifestyle-related condition, social norms recognising the importance of privacy and the political climate that follows will rein in the likes of Facebook and Google. All that convenience won't look quite so cost-free any more. I also don't see the kind of abuses we see by governments, for example the excessively personal searches at places like airports, continuing indefinitely. These measures are unpleasant, and no matter how much the airlines/governments stick their heads in the sand publicly, the fact is that it puts some people off flying and that costs those airlines/governments some of their profits/taxes.

At the rate things are going -- even 10 years ago, Google were the new kid on the block and Facebook didn't even exist yet -- I don't think it will take 20 years for this to happen. The abuses (and resulting concerns) are already starting, and we're already starting to see savvy politicians try to get ahead of the curve on things like blocking employers from demanding to see their employees'/applicants' private social network content. The security theatre and government intrusion is getting tiresome, and ever more expensive at a time when the global economy isn't exactly doing well.

In short, I think far more powerful social pressures than open source software are going to be what preserves useful privacy and establishes new social norms for what is and isn't acceptable behaviour in the era of the Internet and big data mining. Open source may provide a valuable tool for audit purposes and watching the watchers to keep them honest, but it's only one tool in the box.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I know where my mobile downloads are coming from? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone,
Last month, my company launched its first mobile app. The team has been promoting the app all over the place (FB, Twitter, forums, email, Ads, PR, etc). As a result, we have grown to a few thousand users, which is awesome.
The problem is that we have no idea where our users are coming from. We don't know what our most effective marketing channels are. We don't know which marketing campaigns are most effective in bringing users.
How do you deal with this problem? Please list the pros and cons.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi Peter,

I have several friends who are experiencing the same pain as you.

As a result, I built a free service (Yozio, <http://yoz.io>) to solve this specific problem.

How it works:

1) Promote your app using Yozio's tracking links. (e.g. yoz.io/aBcDE)

2) When a visitor clicks on a Yozio tracking link, he is redirected to your app store landing page.

3) When the same visitor installs your app, Yozio is notified and tracks the install back to the original click.

We are getting a lot of great feedback. Please give us a try and let us know what you think.

Regards, Kevin

<comment><USER3> I see that it only takes 2 lines of code. Does that mean you need to download an SDK to make it work too? Slightly off topic, does anyone know of a good way to auto update SDKs for Objective C? Thanks. Also Kevin, I filled out your survey, please message me an invite code.

<comment><USER2> Done :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using a sort of ghetto hack, so I'm not sure if you want to copy me.

When users land on any of my marketing pages, I cookie them in safari. Then when they open my mobile app, I send them to safari, check if the cookie exists, and then redirect them back to the app. This lets me tie installs back to link clicks.

<comment><USER5> I question the accuracy because w3.org actually mentions that cookies work differently on mobile devices vs. web. However, if you're only targeting smart phones with full web browsing capabilities like the iPhone or Android (or Win7???) then it should be ok.

Source: <http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#d0e1925>

<comment><USER5> Thanks though for sharing this solution. I'll stick around to see if anything new pops up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't stuff like Google Analytics do this? At least that's what we use for our websites to track conversions. Don't know if you can do the same for mobile apps...

<http://www.google.com/analytics/features/mobile.html>

<comment><USER6> Looked a little deeper. Seems like it might only work for Android then.

"If you're an Android developer, Analytics also gives you the tools to monitor the success of mobile ads for your app. You can track activity from a click on your ad to the Android Market to app download. It's a simple way to determine what marketing efforts are most effective for you."

Nothing about iOS conversions on their page.</comment></comment>


Want to Win a Political Debate? Try Making a Weaker Argument - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/politics/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-work-64910/ <comment><USER2> The best insight here is that self-worth and fear of shaming are the main motivators for not agreeing.

A weaker argument, that is less threatening to self-worth is one way of preventing that your discussion partner goes on the defense.

Another way is to make him feel safer in the sense that he can trust that you will not hurt his feelings. This can be done by affirming that you are on the same page with him, that you and him share the same goal. You can also do this by denying what the other person might be afraid of, such as "I don't think your opinion is stupid" or "I don't want to abolish guns for hunting purposes". These methods come from "Crucial Conversations", it goes in depth on the underlying emotional motivations of conversations. Great book.

Another, cheaper tactic is to acknowledge positive characteristics of the other, making that person feel better about himself. This way, their self- worth is less vulnerable and they are more open to arguments (although this frequently fails because people distrust compliments from people that pose a threat).

<comment><USER3> Absolutely.

I would even go so far as to say that it's not about making a "weaker" argument; it's about making a more socially nuanced argument. Context counts. Subtext counts. They count _especially_ when there's an audience to the argument (real or perceived). When someone feels his face, or dignity, or credibility is on the line, he feels intense pressure to stick to his guns -- and to keep his guns blazing.

Conversational softeners ("You make some great points, but...," or "I agree about X, but have you considered...") are not necessarily about weakening your own argument. They're about lowering psychological defensiveness _to_ your argument. They increase the chances you might actually wind up with a productive dialogue, and after all, results matter more than absolute correctness. IMO, an effective argument is one that makes some headway -- ergo, this isn't really "weakening."

<comment><USER4> This feels a lot like John Cleese's advice on creativity within teams: You need to be surrounded by people who will build on ideas with you, not people who will lead with "no". The moment you have a person in the room with you who will shoot you down on an idea, trust falters and creativity dies.

Honestly, I've thought a lot lately about how I argue, and I find I get a lot more accomplished when I lead with "Yes, and". I feel like I should have taken drama instead of band when I was younger and I'd have reached this point sooner.

<comment><USER5> "Yes, and" refers to one of the techniques of improvisational theatre.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvisational_theatre#Applyi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvisational_theatre#Applying_improv_principles_in_life)

Basically you must accept the reality your scene partners put forth and build on it. Otherwise you end up with a confused, amorphous environment with no clear direction.

Improv theatre still needs tension and conflict to emerge. This comes out of the structure of the scene spontaneously. It could be some kind of repetition, pattern, contradiction, physical motion, etc. Ideally, the players don't just rehash old games but are eager to make a new, unusual play.

"Unusual" in this sense relates to the context of the world you're playing in. In a scene, it's not unusual for a coven of witches to kidnap children and boil them in a brew. But it could be unusual for a scientist to discover that brew has miraculous healing properties and to publish the results in Nature. This could be humorous to an audience, because normally there's absolutely no legitimate utilitarian imperative to mix children into a brew.

There are more interesting ideas in improv that relate to politics/business. I recommend anyone interested check out Impro For Storytellers by Keith Johnstone.

[http://appliedimprov.ning.com/profiles/blogs/7-keith- johnsto...](http://appliedimprov.ning.com/profiles/blogs/7-keith-johnstone- theories)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have also said we should talk more about first principles and less about the policy arguments at first.

Regarding gun control, the first principles at issue are these:

1\. Is life more important than liberty or vice versa? (ooh this reverses vs. the abortion issue regarding political lines)

2\. Do we trust the government to fully monopolize force? Do we trust the police? the army? Should the government be there primarily to protect us?

3\. What are the implications of one interpretatin of the 2nd Amendment on federal power or another?

(I won't go over my view here, except to say it is not a partisan view.)

The reason is that very often we can find common ground over first principles, and this helps with discussing others without putting the other side on the defensive or shaming.

<comment><USER7> Agreed about "first principles". This is how I'd frame the abortion debate:

1\. Nearly everyone agrees that a normal adult has a rights over his/her own body. Eg, a tumor cell has no right to life and the host has every right to kill it. 2\. Nearly everyone agrees that the parent of a toddler may not kill the toddler for any reason.

Given these principles, at what point in existence does one qualify as having human rights and on what basis do we identify that point?

Possible criteria include unique DNA (eg, from conception), heartbeat, ability to feel pain, a particular level of cognitive ability, etc.

If a zygote is essentially like a tumor - not yet a human life - then abortion at that stage would be no different morally than having a tooth removed.

If a fetus at 38 weeks is essentially like a newborn, then abortion at that stage would be no different morally than infanticide.

In establishing the criteria for human life, we should consider as many implications as possible. Eg, if humanity is determined by cognitive development, do intelligent people get more right to life than average or impaired people?

If we agreed on these principles and criteria, we could have consistent law. Currently we (in the US) have a hodgepodge; eg, abortion by punch to the abdomen is murder but by scalpel and consent at the same stage of development is just an elective procedure.

<comment><USER8> My thoughts on this topic have also followed this same line of reasoning. My conclusion was to use the existing standard we already accepted for legal death. There is an established standard for when a doctor can declare someone 'legally dead' (absence of heartbeat and brainwaves). We should use the inverse for a legal definition of life. If a doctor can detect a heartbeat and certain brainwaves, then a second is involved and all laws applying to humans are in effect.

<comment><USER9> But doesn't the direction matter? Not having a heartbeat because the heart is still forming seems different from not having a heartbeat because, well, the heart isn't beating anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My take away here is that we need to educate people in such a way they view ones' ability to change their position given new evidence as a positive. Like scientists do.

I guess I always felt people didn't value this trait but I needed to have it spelled out for me in this article. Why in the world would any person value themselves more having been right all along. Why wouldn't they care about educating themselves every day.

<comment><USER11> I have a couple of older relatives who were gentleman's-C athlete types at an Ivy League school. Majored in History or something. Both very successful in banking.

Some things they have in common are: they're both very slow to form an opinion, seldom have an opinion on anything they don't need to have an opinion about, very interested to hear new evidence or arguments about something they do have an interest in, and very gracious about letting you down gently if they do have to win an argument (even if they can be _colossal_ dicks in many other respects). Uninformed people think they're dumb.

tl;dr Roger Sterling is the smartest person on Mad Men.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Once upon a time, I learned to play the game Go.

One of the key insights I took away was that if you directly attacked an enemy in a weak area, the enemy would defend in that area, making him strong there. Almost always you would end up with an impenetrable wall on both sides.

There's an art to pressing your advantage in an area without making it an 'attack'.

(In the end, I never really got that good and haven't played for years, so actual good Go players may find my insight pretty naive.)

<comment><USER13> Risk has this same dynamic. Going head to head on main choke does nothing but let the other players come in and mop the floor with you and your opponent.

<comment><USER14> I agree. This also shows up in Stratego on some levels, with the interesting twist that you can't understand the size of the force in each area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Politics is the art of persuading people they already agree with you. Subtler arguments are much better than brazen ones for doing this, and getting people to change their mind - and good politicians exploit this fact whenever they're in a setting that lets them.

24/7 media, and national coverage when somebody "flip-flops," might have contributed to politicians doing this less often, but I'm not sure.

And don't forget that a political debate isn't supposed to end with either politician changing their mind; it's supposed to end up with the spectators making up their mind about the politicians (which is why in those sorts of debates, you're _supposed_ to use arguments that appeal mostly to your own supporters, assuming you have enough of them.)

</comment><comment><USER16> 'Winning an argument' is a magic bullet that doesn't exist. Otherwise it would be called 'teaching'

I'm not trying to change the person's mind when I enter into a debate, I'm trying to plant a seed of empathy for them to see things from another perspective so that their own brain begins to work against their existing bias.

I also tend to be one of those crazy people that believe their are a lot of grey areas when science isn't involved.

<comment><USER17> There are two issues that I can see with that style of debate: you assume that the other doesn't have empathy for your point of view and that he would agree with you if he had.

You leave out the possibility that you were wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A mentor explained this to me as, "If you want someone to do something, you have to let them save face. If someone screws something up and you want them to fix it, you can't humiliate them in the process."

I used to get very frustrated with shoddy work from subcontractors. I found that the more I directly documented the quality of the work, the worse they'd harden their position. I learned there are better ways to operate. (And if they still don't fix things when presented softly, it's better to fire than to try and convince someone who can't learn.)

<comment><USER19> Would you mind providing some examples? I can't really picture what you're talking about?

<comment><USER18> Example: I recommend a client to hire a specific 3rd party consulting firm that will work side by side with my team from the product vendor. The firm's salesman agrees to my methodology and deliverables. The project starts, and their project team starts making up their own methodology, and staffs it with underskilled resources. I raise this to the salesman, who raises it to the PM, who digs in. So I gather an email chain of all the mistakes his team has made. And their PM digs in even more. The client is getting antsy about missed deadlines all around. So I get an extremely detailed report on every failure their team has made, and send it to the PM, the salesman, the senior partner responsible for the client and senior partner responsible for the practice area. The PM has to save face, so all he can say is, "You're not there day to day to understand." The client meanwhile gets hosed.

In hindsight, once I humiliated the PM, he couldn't turn things around. I should have set it up that they were reporting to me, and pushed them with a "Here's how you can succeed in making the client love you guys" message rather than being confrontational. If they didn't react to that, I could have then replaced them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Or if you want to have a population with a dogmatic rigid attitude then you make everything a symbol for "who they are and what they believe in." I have been to countries that are more nationalistic than the USA and many minds are closed when it comes to even realizing that questions can be asked. The sphere of what is the truth is so large it obscures all vision.

</comment><comment><USER21> I use another tactic sometimes, somewhat related.

I make a stronger and radically (more inflammatory if you wish) than the person I am talking to. It has to be just inflammatory enough for them to start defending the weaker more moderate position, basically leaning towards the direction you'd want to persuade them originally. For example, I have some hard core Fox News watching Republicans in my extended family. So sometimes when they bring health care and how it distributes wealth to the lazy and it is not free market and such. I bring grandma so and so and how she is just mooching off our government with the medicare. She never paid all that in her life and she is part of the socialist communist system that is robbing the country. Then they usually start to backpedal -- well...you see this is different and they argue for how the country should take care of the elderly and so on...

Anyway I do it more for fun and amusement if someone makes the mistake of bringing the topic up, rather than hoping to actually convince them.

And maybe this is well studies and has a name I just don't know what it is called. "Act crazier than the crazies"?

<comment><USER22> This works well and it's called shifting the overton window: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

It has been used by politicians quite successfully. Like for example if a party wants to make abortions illegal after 3 months of pregnancy, it's better if they start from an outrageous position, like criminalizing all abortions, after which their real target starts being seen as a reasonable compromise. This also works the other way too. Many people that are anti abortions have had abortions themselves or have family members that did - throwing jail time into the conversation or other outrageous positions like criminalizing pregnancies without a license, does wonders, but of course, politicians have to be more careful otherwise they risk losing votes.

If you pay attention, this happens all the time.

<comment><USER21> Yes, thank you. I knew it has to have a name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always found it interesting that most people have really strong opinions on complex political questions to begin with.

For example, as a programmer, how do I know what the correct immigration level should be? How should I know if we should intervene in Syria?

Even if I follow the news, a few articles and news clips really aren't going to give me enough information to make an educated decision.

<comment><USER23> Based on Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, I would suggest that it is a case of substitution: We (often unconsciously) substitute a hard question for an easier question. In your examples, that might be: Did you have good experiences with immigrants? How do you feel about war more generally?

Those judgments aren't necessarily bad in themselves. For example, as a pacifist, I might be happy to err on the side of non-interventionism as long as the situation is sufficiently unclear.

These substitutions only really become problematic when we close ourselves to new data that might change our mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> >And if you're wrong about a bunch of things, you're obviously not as smart or as good or as worthwhile a person as you previously believed.

These are all true statements. Most people are not as smart or good or worthwhile as they believe, myself included. That makes true rational implementation of policy extremely unlikely .

</comment><comment><USER25> I would have liked to have seen some examples or research affirming the assertion. The research all seemed to deny the other-way-around.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is true in the short run, but in the long run you can wear people down and get through to them. Nobody said politics was easy.

</comment><comment><USER27> Funny to read knee-jerk reactions in the comment section. Many commenters missed the point completely.</comment>


Flash Bit Rot, and how WebGL can fix it - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/webgl-needs-a-home-part-ii-bit-rot-d8c5fec0ebd4 <comment><USER2> I'm the founder of itch.io which was mentioned in this article, if you want to find plugin-less web games then you can you go to the appropriate page: [https://itch.io/games/html5](https://itch.io/games/html5)

I realize that that link may have been a little hidden so I put that link into the homepage & sidebar of browse pages.

I think it's interesting how we've accumulated so many games that are dependent on a plugin. I'm looking forward to JavaScript implementations of these things in the future that will enable us to convert them over to HTML5. The good news is that these games are sitting in our database not going anywhere, so when the time is right we can make them easily available again. (classic Unity plugin games are the biggest offender right now, we have quite a few: [https://itch.io/games/unity](https://itch.io/games/unity))

<comment><USER3> Thanks for itch.io! Easiest to use platform by far for developers.

I also like itch because they have their frontend open sourced on Github with an issue tracker.

[https://github.com/itchio/itch.io](https://github.com/itchio/itch.io)</comment></comment>