Another EZ work-hack, same deal. - <AUTHOR>

This is going to seem so simple, you might be quick to dismiss it as stupid.  But they teach it to fighter pilots, special forces teams and a small variation of this is taught in hospital emergency room triage training; in other words, situations where you have many variables, need to make a decision with imperfect information and your decision must lead to results ASAP.
It's called "A.C.T.E. micro-cycling" and is a practical real world application of skunkworks philosophy (keep messing up faster and more creatively until the solution reveals itself).
A. --> ASSESS the situaion rapidly.  Don't try to figure out everything.  Do something physical like walking or showering or laundry and let your "subconcious" spit out the situation IN A LIMITED TIME.  In other words, occupy your over-analytical left-side concious mind, and let your "big picture" right-side subconcious mind figure it out automatically under a tight deadline.  "By the time I'm done showering and blowdrying my hair, whatever I figure the problem is, that's what it is."  Numerous studies have shown that whatever your right-brain spits out quickly in a tight time-space while you're not "actively thinking" about the problem usually covers 70-90% of the most important issues no matter how much additional time you spend "trying to figure it out".  After that it's rapidly declining returns.  So analyze and come to an assessment, but do so using the powers of the part of your mind that knows the answer already while you get laundry done too :=)
C --> CREATE a >> simple << plan that can be immediately implemented and will bring feedback within hours at best, half-a-day or a day at most.  Not plans that need input from this guy and that guy but they're on vacation or its the weekend, just "what can I do right now with what I have at hand to see what kind of results that approach gets me so I can make another quick plan based on almost immediate, continuous feedback?"
T --> TAKE ACTION!  (self-explanatory; see my other post on why "micro-planning-acting" cycles bypasses brain's built-in resistance to taking action and tendency to get lost in procrastination loops.)
E --> Evaluate the outcome of your actions and start another micro cycle - you can actually consider this part just another "Assess" or a "re-assess."
ASSESS with right brain, CREATE a super-simple immediately doable plan that gets instant feedback, TAKE immediate action without concern for perfect resources, etc.  EVALUATE the outcome of your microcycle with whatever changes your "A.C.T." made to the environment and adjust accordingly.
No point in trying to optimize either the assess, the create plan or the action part.  The emphasis is on the speed in completing the cycle and the continuousness of one cycle to the next - ie, 4 of these micro-cycles done over 1 weekend will give you more valuable insights than a month's worth of perfect planning and getting together the perfect people/resources/etc.
But I'm sure some of you people already know this.
As a professor of mine used to say, "Sometimes efficiency is inefficient" (sometimes getting the system to become efficient takes so many resources and time and effort that it drains the energy needed to actually apply and get results from the system, so a "simple, messy, quick" method actually works more effectively than and efficient system.
Again (if you found this useful and wish to offer something of value in exchange): I am in New York City area. I want to do a startup like the rest of you. I am not a "haxor" ... but my background is in its own way completely relevant to what I want to do. Technically the idea is more of a "different use of mostly already existing technology/platforms" not a "radically new technology" thing, and from my research most of the stuff / functions can be found in open-source applications.
Nonetheless I need some techies. Connections would be appreciated. Or insights into your minds: HOW DO YOU FOLKS LIKE TO BE APPROACHED? WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU IN A STARTUP? Hours? Freedom? Dress code? Impact on the world at large and the resulting improvement in quality of life for humanity? Adrenaline rush of doing something clever and sneaky that will take people by surprise? A philosophical cause? Doing the right thing? Making the world a better place? A solid business model? Endless supply of Red Bull? Xbox 360s in the break room? Bean-bag chairs? Free beer for late night programming sessions?
Seriously, I have read past posts where people without programming backgrounds post "looking for programmers" type of posts that seem to get at best ignored or at worst trashed; how can I bypass this seemingly built-in reluctance of programmers to work with people unlike yourselves technically, but like yourselves in other ways and with different skill sets that would complement your own for a more balanced whole? If you click my profile there's an email if you wish to contact me directly.
Thanks in advance!

<comment><USER3> Hey, Good stuff!! sounds a lot like "release early, release often"

RE: approaching us folks... Your list of "whats important" didn't include equity. In this market, I think you need to be looking for a "techie" partner, more than an employee that likes your "dress code".

And on a personal note, I think of a "techie" as the guy who sets up the printers and unboxes the new LCD monitors... we are "geeks" or "coders" - <USER2>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply; I guess I took it for granted in this day and age that of course equity would be considered. But I imagine that all startups offer equity so I really wanted to get to the jist of what would get "geeks" or "coders" as you say past the tipping point. In other words, what are the top 3 things that would make a good "coder" say, "You know what? I'm going to start some specs ... as soon ... as I ... get home ... TODAY!"

The idea? The person? The impact on the world? Free Sour Skittles?

<comment><USER3> I think you've hit it... the idea + the person. They have to think YOU are competent. Most Geeks/coders appreciate competency above most other traits...

The change-the-world thing... is 50/50, in my experience. Some coders really want to change things for the better, others look no further than the screen...

The last thing I'll say is that it seems that lately... a lot of coders have gotten really judgmental about the DESIGN of the products they work on. So if you commit to having a talented designer contracted it might get you brownie points. Nothing kills the buzz like having to skin one's app with the client's sister's scribblings

 __please pardon my bluntness __

I'd be much more diplomatic (and less honest) if you were my client ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey antimattar; might I enquire as to your professional identity, if not personal than firm? I just assume when you say, "if you were my client" ...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I don't understand American healthcare – doesn't mean I shouldn't provide it - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/04/screw-you-papa-john-i-dont-understand-american-healthcare-but-thats-no-excuse/ <comment><USER4> Employer-provided health insurance is one of the worst things to emerge from the US in the past... what? 70 years? It gives far too much power in the marketplace to employers and very little to the actual users of the insurance - the insured.

Why don't employers provide auto insurance too? They'd get a much better deal via group rates, and we'd be 'better off' because we'd all 'pay less' for auto insurance, right?

The idea of 'benefits' in general being 'expected' from employers is, in itself, a bit crazy - just pay people well, and let them make their own decisions. I'd have thought 'free market' supporters would be all over that concept. Company 401K plans? Generally limit you to high-fee and substandard mutual fund options. Company health insurance plans? One or two options, not something which always fit people very well.

Employer funds in to an employee-controlled HSA was/is a decent middle ground, but HSAs in general seem like they're going to be going away or more limited in availability in the next few years under the Affordable Care Act, which is a real shame.

<comment><USER5> _Why don't employers provide auto insurance too? They'd get a much better deal via group rates, and we'd be 'better off' because we'd all 'pay less' for auto insurance, right?_

Would we pay lower rates? Auto insurance is mandatory if you want to drive. Everyone has it (well a very high percentage of drivers). There's a relatively competitive market for auto insurance. I'm not sure moving it to employers would change things all that much.

I do think that employer provided health insurance is odd, but I don't think the alternative is "free market". We have to incentivize healthy people to get insurance too, just as we have good drivers that get auto insurance. It seems like we need to make health insurance mandatory or move to universal health care. Neither are very likely in my lifetime.

Also most employers give employees the option to opt out of health insurance, and you get some amount of the money back as additional pay. Virtually no one takes this option.

<comment><USER6> >Auto insurance is mandatory if you want to drive.

No, it isn't. Unlike almost every other state, New Hampshire does not automatically require motorists to carry an auto liability insurance policy or provide some of financial backing in order to drive a vehicle within its boundaries.

<http://www.dmv.org/nh-new-hampshire/car-insurance.php>

Further more, you can avoid auto insurance by not driving in most places. You cannot leave your body at home.

<comment><USER7> So it is mandatory for residents of 49 states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Maybe it's because I'm a Brit, and we have the national health service. Every man, woman and child in the UK is entitled to free healthcare from cradle to grave. [...] America is a bigger country so free healthcare is off the table. I get that._

I don't understand this argument at all. The NHS in the UK doesn't appear magically free from the sky because we've only got 60 million people. We pay for it through general taxation. This year it will cost about £110B.

Is it really the case that there's an argument that this can't work in the US because there are more people?

<comment><USER9> No. Of course not. We have one person here per capita, just like the UK. If anything we'd get more economies of scale. But it would be socialism, and therefore inherently antithetical to the desires of every right-thinking American.

<comment><USER10> I really don't get this attitude some Americans have that any kind of public service designed to make the lives of your less fortunate peers just that little bit easier is some how a bad thing. It's as if 70 years of brainwashing that all "commies" are evil has irreparably warped their brains and now any piece of legislation that doesn't propose proverbially kicking struggling families in the "nuts" is seen as socialism and, by extension, wrong.

Capitalism is all well and good so long as peoples lives are not put in danger; and I'm not talking about luxuries here, I'm talking about whether people live or die. But what we have happening instead is a closed market dominated by a small number of monopolistic drug companies who abuse patent systems and extort their customers just because they can. Surely at some point, even the right-wings have to appreciate that neither closed markets nor putting peoples lives put in danger because of the greed of the few is neither in the spirit of capitalism nor the Christian thing to do (and I only reference the last part because of the emphasis that many right-wings place on religion).

<comment><USER11> > I really don't get this attitude some Americans have that any kind of public > service designed to make the lives of your less fortunate peers just that > little bit easier is some how a bad thing.

I think the problem is we like to have the freedom to select our charities (and charitable giving amount) rather than have them forced upon us by statute.

<comment><USER10> It's not a charity though. It's about providing a minimum service for people. Even with "free" health care in the UK, it's not free (it's paid for via National Insurance taxes and many facets still have additional costs (prescriptions, regular dressings, dentistry, etc) albeit often highly subsidised.

Surely it's better to have a subsidised minimum service than to rely on charities?

And more over, if your objection is purely because you don't want to be told that you should look after your fellow Americans, then that's either a really sad representation of how little respect Americans have for their kin, or the facet of a childish mentality where kids deliberately disobey their parents because they like to test their boundaries. Either way, it's just a terrible attitude to have.

<comment><USER12> Government-sponsored monopolies produce economy-wrecking effects. National health systems are that.

How to fix the American health system in several easy steps, from a governmental perspective:

* Stop all current governmental subsidies

* Outlaw medical insurance

* Purchase expensive medical equipment, and most importantly the means of production of such equipment, and resell to new medical enterprises at a reasonable price (most likely resulting in a severe loss)

* Provide a matching program on qualifying doctors' medical school debt

* Radically reform and/or remove medical licensing programs to focus on apprenticeship more than academics

* Reform pharmaceutical patent protections to allow drugs to proliferate freely

This will get us to a ground-up, self-sustainable medical system that is based on ordinary rules of supply and demand, without giving a blank check to the administrators of the current system, which is already irrevocably corrupted by paper-pushers. The whole thing just has to be torn down and started over.

<comment><USER10> In an ideal world I'd probably agree with you. But what you're proposing is even less likely to happen (particularly the pharmaceutical patent reform) that a national health system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Color me critical, but it seems like, basically, the point of this article was to show off exactly how informed in her 'hard-nosed' critiques, and how that is proffered as justification for the obvious bias present in the article.

I also find it interesting that despite the apparent mountains of reading, the author cannot determine _any_ good reason why one might oppose the Affordable Care Act, which tells me that either her bias refused to allow her to accept posed oppositions as valid, or that she simply doesn't care that other people do object.

I think there are plenty of valid reasons for opposing it, just as there are plenty of reasons to support it, and frankly, I think all of major justifications on either side of the argument fall into the category of fairly obvious.

That said, kudos on choosing to provide health care immediately. It _is_ a tough decision, and it _will_ affect the company's bottom line, but despite that, if you're an employer who believes that everybody should have affordable health care, it _is_ the obviously correct choice.

<comment><USER14> That was one of his points: There are no good reasons to be against the Act. I can't really judge if that is true, but basically, the idea that it is absolutely right to try to get as many people as possible insured is pretty powerful. And most of the opposition one noted was on the level of "that is socialism!" (which it isnt, and socialism isn't bad).

<comment><USER15> There are lot's of good reasons to be against the Act. How about it forcing the young and relatively poor to subsidize the old and relatively rich -- it's a giant intergenerational wealth transfer mechanism.

Young adults will pay higher premiums under Obamacare because of its age rating system. The law stipulates that the maximum variation allowed in adult premiums is a cost ratio of 3 to 1. But as Heritage research shows, "The natural variation by age in medical costs is about 5 to 1—meaning that the oldest group of (non-Medicare) adults normally consumes about five times as much medical care as the youngest group." Obamacare's "rate compression" causes insurers to charge artificially low premiums for older adults and higher premiums for younger adults. Moreover, "Actuaries estimate that the effect will be to increase premiums for those ages 18–24 by 45 percent and those ages 25–29 by 35 percent while decreasing premiums for those ages 55–59 by 12 percent and those ages 60–64 by 13 percent."

[http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd- anniversa...](http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd-anniversary- no-gift-for-young-americans/)

<comment><USER16> Remember the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Don't oppose the Act because it doesn't bring about the best possible world. Oppose it only if it's worse than the currently existing situation.

<comment><USER15> I oppose it because I think it will make the situation much worse. I prefer working in the direction of freeing healthcare not regulating it further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In Denmark we have completely free medical treatment - I used to live in Switzerland where they have a system where you have to get a health insurance. I had to visit the doctor once to remove some stitches I got from an accident while travelling. The first thing they asked for when I arrived at my doctor was for me to fill out an insurance form - before that they didn't even ask what kind of medical treatment I would need.

I have never felt more offended. I consider it a human right to have access to health care. Why would the state not provide this? Everyone needs it, you can't live without it.

<comment><USER18> If you are really interested in learning why some people think universal health care is not a "right" I encourage you to read this article:

<http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=13873>

<comment><USER19> Clearly this is nonsense:

> Your right to anything at others' expense means that they become rightless.

So let me understand this argument ... my right to anything at all removes all other rights from others? Because the UK has universal healthcare, its people have no rights?

I suggest that the truth is not that exercise of one right diminishes all others 100%, but by some fractional percent. And that life, liberty and happiness are best served by a mixture of rights and liberty, not an extreme in one direction.

<comment><USER18> In the context of the entire paragraph, the author is stating that your right to something _at another's expense_ is to the detriment of the other person's right to liberty. You may disagree but I believe there is certainly a tradeoff.

<comment><USER19> I don't think so.

To be more exact, you seem to have restated my own position, which is that your right to something at another's expense is to the detriment of the other person's right to liberty, and that there's a tradeoff. I.e. that your right to something reduces someone else's liberty, but by some fractional amount, not 100%. Hence, the trade off is a calculation you can make: how much right is worth exercising, given it costs a little liberty. Clearly here there is a sweet spot you wouldn't want to go beyond.

Where I disagree with your reply is that this is what the article says. Let's take a look at the paragraph in question:

> To take one more example: the right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely > that: the right to the pursuit—to a certain type of action on your part and > its result—not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or > even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if > your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to > satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they > do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness. Your "right" > to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., > your slaves. Your right to anything at others' expense means that they > become rightless.

My problem with this paragraph is the absolutist nature of it. There's no tradeoff here. In this paragraph, my right to anything at all means the other becomes rightless. It's all 100%, and in my opinion nonsense.

If you want to argue for a sliding scale of rights taken vs liberty given up, then I'd agree with you, but would also suggest that the article says the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One important takeaway from this piece is that putting employers in charge of providing health insurance is a terrible idea. Paul Carr shouldn't need to _make an effort_ to make sure his employees have basic health protections - that should be a solved problem.

<comment><USER21> yes unfortunately back in the 50's the big auto companies did a deal to include healthcare as part of wage negotiations. Which derailed the USA's progression to a German style model of healthcare.

If you talk to Alan Mulally and any on the AFL-CIO off the record they would agree - that in hind sight it was a bad deal both for the workers and the employers.

<comment><USER22> > German style model of healthcare.

Which has the curious drawback that those most able to contribute to it (i.e. those earning more than X €/month) are allowed to opt-out of it. I never quite understood why this would have to be the case, and the various attempts to introduce an actual public health insurance system failed so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _"This level of diligence is why when I state something on the record, I'm always — always — right."_

Warning sign #1

 _"If there's anything I can do to protect the health of my employees and their families, shouldn't I just close the fucking spreadsheet and do it?"_

Asking to use emotion instead of reason - <USER3>

 _"And — fuck you, Papa John"_

Insult or ad-hominem - <USER3>

 _"I'm going to have to work even harder to raise more money"_

Call for self sacrifice. We're done there.

This is at best a populist opinion, and _NOT_ a reasonable analysis, as per the author own suggestion to use emotions instead of reason.

Also, when someone tells you about 100% accuracy, think about Dunning–Kruger cognitive biais.

 _"If I made the wrong business decision, I'm an idiot but fewer people will get sick. If I made the right decision, I'm a genius and fewer people will get sick"_

Hey genius - that's assuming the medical care paid for will have a significant effect. Modern medicine treat all kind of things, but for some we've just not found the right answer yet. And I sleep quite well.

<comment><USER24> Thank god someone else pointed that out. I stopped reading at your first warning sign — any doubt I had about Nicholas Carr being a complete dick just went up in a puff of smoke

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Running a startup I've gone through this exact same thought process. My high level bullet points are: 1) It's insane that any business should spend so many cycles on managing this. I would have thought Republicans (pro business) might be more open to a state role in healthcare precisely so business's don't have to manage this burden. 2) Somebody who is 35 or 40 with children fully burdened is around $1200 a month or $14,000 per year. Someone who is 25 and single is $200. You think that differential never goes through our minds when assessing candidate and how much we'll pay them? That totally sucks but is a reality. 3) The wealthiest and most likely to vote Americans get their health insurance via their company. So they're entirely immune to the dysfunctional system. If ALL Americans were procuring health insurance in the private marketplace there'd be a much better system. Much less abuse. If the government (like EU/AUS) was the sole customer there would be a much better system. It's this mixture of employers, too small in aggregate to manage the demand side, + smaller individuals buying it on their own, that drives the spiraling costs here. 4) Having a startup provide your health insurance is really dumb. Startups have a much higher % chance of closing their doors. So one day you get laid off because your startup doesn't make it. Guess what, now you have to go and find a new job AND work out what you're COBRA options are. In the broader context, most people who get laid off in the US lose their job AND now have a $1000 or more (if they're family provider) costs layered on as they now have to start paying for healthcare. Like losing a war you didn't start then being forced to pay repatriation costs when your economy is at its weakest.

Politically, I think we're more likely to get universal healthcare via the state through than to ever get all employers to stop offering it and put everyone into the marketplace. So I support these efforts because the current blend is the worst.

(PS right now we're paying full costs because we lean toward hiring more mature people (read families) who understand what it would cost them in the marketplace to get it so they can balance it against their overall lowered financial compensation.)

<comment><USER26> > It's insane that any business should spend so many cycles on managing this. > I would have thought Republicans (pro business) might be more open to a > state role in healthcare precisely so business's don't have to manage this > burden.

Two things to keep in mind, with this and a lot of other issues: \- The cycles spent handling it aren't a big deal to large corporations. \- The idea that small-business interests and large corporate business interests are one and the same is one of the Big Lies of the Republican party.

<comment><USER25> Hey Justin66. Not true at all! Large corporations have to grapple with this and spend a fortune managing health care for employees. The interesting question is what % more might they pay in payroll type tax to move this onto the state.

<comment><USER26> Consider the comparative overhead of dealing with this as a percentage of income (or percentage of attention demanded of management, or any number of things) and you'll see what I mean.

The issue isn't whether large businesses spend a "fortune" on health care, the point is that their political incentives are entirely different than those of small businesses because the effect providing health care to employees has on their business is so entirely different.

<comment><USER25> Hey Justin. All you're doing is pointing out that it scales better as they get larger. Imagine how much time and effort a company with 100,000 employees spends on optimizing and managing health care. Now compare that against their non American competitor who doesn't have any of this time/cost/concern/overhead. That's why I think irrespective of size businesses would want this off their plate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think an important consideration could be freedom of the employee to spend the money he thinks is best. I think that point of view is part of US culture, but not very much of culture in Western Europe. I understand the writer of the article is from the UK and as such might not understand this point of view.

The so-called social healthcare as pushed by the government will inherently waste a lot of money because government is always wasteful with it's resources. Governments are wasteful because whenever they run out of money they have the option to tax people more. On the other hand companies that waste a lot of money will eventually be removed from the marketplace, as they are unhealthy. This is one reason why healthcare as a government responsibility might be a bad idea, because whenever money is badly used in healthcare, instead of fixing the actual issue the government is more likely to just tax people more.

I think many opponents of social healthcare feel it should be an employees responsibility to spend the money as they think is best. If they want to spend a bigger part of their earnings on healthcare, they should be able to and if they want to spend nothing at all they should be able to as well.

Proponents of social healthcare will argue that some people don't know how to spend their money wisely and as such they will find it's a task of the government to make sure a part of the earnings will be forcibly spend on healthcare. It should be understood that this will inherently remove some (financial) freedom of the employees and perhaps from the employers as well.

Here in the Netherlands social healthcare is financially becoming more and more expensive. One big issue is that people who are forced to spend part of the earnings right now won't be sure they will actually see any of it back in 30+ years when they grow old enough to need healthcare themselves due to our society having more and more ageing population and less young people to support the healthcare for this ageing population. We've pretty much got the same issue with our socialised pension plans.

If young people would be able to save some earnings for their own healthcare, they could have a better guarantee being actually able to use it when they grow older.

The book "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek explains why many socialist measures (even with the best of intentions) often risk pushing government into the same dangerous direction that Russia and Germany went in the past: <http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/custommusic2/mrsilber2.pdf>

<comment><USER28> > The so-called social healthcare as pushed by the government will inherently > waste a lot of money because government is always wasteful with it's > resources.

This just isn't the case. Healthcare/health insurance, for a number of reasons, is one place where government-provided solutions have traditionally been less wasteful than private market solutions.

One reason is that single-payer systems are monopsonies: The single payer (which need not be the government, and in some countries actually isn't the government) has much greater bargaining power than any individual or company and can negotiate better prices.

Second, the big cost drivers for health insurances are things that happen either way; the 80/20 rule applies, and most actual costs are caused by chronic illnesses, surgery, etc. These costs will occur either way and will have to be paid for. They will eventually come out of your paycheck (or somebody's paycheck), no matter who's being charged and how. There's no taxing people more or less, because most of the costs are fixed. Single-payer systems allow us to structure payment for these costs to minimize inefficiencies, medical debts, etc.; universal healthcare furthermore reduces the risk of treatment for acute conditions being delayed, which drives costs up further.

Third, healthcare/health insurance markets are less efficient than other markets. One reason is that people do not have a desire to shop around when getting sick; evaluating healthcare options takes time, and that's the last thing you have when you need treatment. Another reason is that healthcare and health insurance is simply too complex and time-consuming for patients to fully understand and to appreciate, especially with the arcane complexity of health plans as they tend to develop in a free market. Finally, insurers in a free market will do their darnedest to insure healthy people and avoid insuring sick people. All of this breaks the normal demand and supply constraints in a fairly fundamental fashion.

Health insurance in the Netherlands may be becoming more expensive, but that's because health insurance is becoming more expensive _everywhere_ as a consequence of population aging and advanced treatment options. In the end, your per capita health care expenditures are still 2/3 of that of the United States. Under the US system, you could expect to pay a couple thousand Euro more annually.

<comment><USER4> "Another reason is that healthcare and health insurance is simply too complex and time-consuming for patients to fully understand and to appreciate, especially with the arcane complexity of health plans as they tend to develop in a free market. "

Yet another reason: it's not like most simple commerce transactions with 'satisfaction guaranteed or your money back". If I choose option A over option B when looking at medical procedures, I may live or die. No going back for a refund. Or I may be permanently scarred, brain-damaged, or otherwise harmed for the rest of my life. Or... I might be cured. There's very little ability to 'shop around' and 'compare' options when talking about life-critical situations.

It's somewhat similar to housing, in that most people only buy a few houses (at most) over several decades - trying to shop around and compare options only goes so far - once you've made a decision, there's rarely ever a quick 'undo and start over' option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think I've lost count of the number of time on Hacker News (and else where) that I read about a founder that got sick and didn't have health insurance. So on top of a life threatening illness one has to worry about paying for it all. And as one who does pay for health insurance it now costs me the sum of a very good used used car every year.

Given this situation I'm frankly amazed that every business leader in this country isn't calling for socialized medicine at this point in time. At this point I see the insurance companies and the surrounding ecosystem as something that hurts us in a global economy.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's only a debate for organizations that are trying to minimize costs where quality does not matter. See the concurrent discussions about full-time employment becoming rarer for service industry jobs.

If your organization is trying to get and keep the best people and keep them productive, there is no debate. Provide health care and health insurance. I don't understand how a venture capital backed organization could be confused about this, as they should be going after huge value adds with fewer employees instead of grinding out low margin labor.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't understand why he's playing himself up so much for providing healthcare to employees. Of the 3 startups I've worked at, 2 provided healthcare and 1 provided a healthy allowance toward private coverage. All of them I suspect were smaller than NSFWCORP.

I thought this was the default, even for startups. If it's not, it should be.

<comment><USER5> I don't think he's playing himself up so much as he is presenting a struggle of whether or not to provide it and the realization that he must (not from a legal, but from a moral perspective).

And while it may be common in the tech industry (where VC money can make it easier -- and frankly its hard to recruit w/o it), it's less common outside of the tech industry.

I still think it is odd to tie health insurance to employment, but given that this is the case today, I do think that I'd do the same as a small business owner. If I couldn't afford it (at least by the medium-term), I think I'd have to question the feasibility of my business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given the US Constitution's "general welfare" clause, I'm not sure why nation health care options are such a hard thing to get passed and put in to place.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_clause#United_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_clause#United_States)

</comment><comment><USER32> Ive done a bit of research on the subject, and it seems like if you do want to offer your employees insurance and you're a biz or startup of less than 25 people, it's going to be cheaper and better incentivized than it used to be.

</comment><comment><USER33> [http://www.reasonwell.com/:06d4d5/The_Patient_Protection_and...](http://www.reasonwell.com/:06d4d5/The_Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act_is_good_for_the_people_of_the_USA)

I have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER34> The problem with the states on health insurance is that unless you are part of the 1%, you need it. Healthcare industries are huge corporations that are in it for the almighty dollar. If you go to the emergency room and do not have health insurance, you can bet you will have a bill that will run a couple grand minimum. I wish we were like other countries where we can have a national healthcare system. This is one of the most basic human needs that should be available to everyone. I am very thankful that my company offers an excellent healthcare plan, and I think everyone should have access to a healthcare plan.

</comment><comment><USER35> _What I don't get is why anyone would oppose a bill that makes affordable healthcare accessible to more people._

Ignoring the philosophical debate for the time being (something as a non- American, he at least tries to understand), his premise seems to be that Obamacare makes affordable healthcare accessible to more people. That (along with the philosophical debate) is the argument.</comment>


Strut - a new iOS game of world exploration - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strut/id606686716?ls=1&mt=8 Hey Hacker News,
We just released a new game of exploration called Strut. We'd love for you to try it out and let us know what you think.
http://strutapp.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strut/id606686716?ls=1&mt=8
(And it was written up on engadget yesterday: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/strut-tasks-you-with-exploring-planet/)
<comment>
Imagine the entire world is covered in billions of tiles. How many can you open up?
Strut is a game of exploration where you compete with other players around the world to uncover the map of the earth.
––––––
TRACK YOUR TRAVELS
Whether you walk, run, bike, drive, sail, ride a goat or take a hot air balloon, use Strut to keep track of exactly where you've been in the world. Share your map with friends, or keep your wanderings private... we won't tell.
EXPLORE YOUR SURROUNDINGS
Take a new route to work. Go down that street you never walked through. Visit every nook and cranny of your city. See more of your neighborhood – who knows what you might find?
OPEN UP YOUR WORLD
Strut around, level up and climb to the top of the leaderboards – there's a top 10 for every city, state, country, and the entire world. There are also a ton of medals to earn, so keep exploring and see what pops up in your adventures around the globe. </comment><comment>
Thank you, and keep on Struttin' Dave & Mike<AUTHOR> </comment><comment><USER2> Really cool idea, and well executed. Good job!

Too bad I only have an Android.</comment>


Question for founders: Do you own your technology? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Patents offer an illusion of protection -- their only real value is in boosting one's valuation. I think most technical barriers are an illusion too. It's ridiculously hard to create something new that actually works for users, but it's almost always trivial to clone something that exists.

Sites with no competitive technical barriers: YouTube/Flickr/MySpace/Digg/Reddit/Blogger/Slashdot/IMDB, etc.

Look how quickly video sites sprang up once YouTube showed us how to do it well. And despite the flood of more technically advanced clones, no one is making a dent in YouTube's traffic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's one thing to have a novel idea. But do you have a competitive advantage in the form of, say, a patent? Discuss!</comment>


VidAngel announces major change, filter Amazon, HBO and Netflix content - <AUTHOR> http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865681934/VidAngel-announces-major-change-allows-users-to-filter-Amazon-HBO-and-Netflix-content.html <comment><USER2> Excellent news! My family has been using their service for a long time.

Perhaps even more surprising is the level of collaboration between them and the large streaming providers. It's good to see that things can change.

<comment><USER3> There is no collaboration between VA and the streaming services. This is a rogue third party service that is not sanctioned by any of the streaming service providers.</comment></comment>


An OS 9 odyssey: Why some Mac users won't abandon 16-year-old software - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/an-os-9-odyssey-why-do-some-mac-users-still-rely-on-16-year-old-software/ <comment><USER3> They are 100% correct about the spatial Finder; 15 years later and what the current OS has is still laughable compared to some of the gems of the Classic Finder. A few years back Steve Jobs had the audacity to describe some Cocoa rewrite as a "whole new Finder" and I got excited only to realize it was still garbage. You sort of have to experience the Classic Finder to understand just how wrong the modern Finder really is. From small details (like EVERY window remembering _exactly_ how you arranged it) to not having to wonder what will happen when you click something, not to mention the pop-up tab windows from 8.5+.

Also, to this day I don't quite understand why Apple went so far away from Platinum. Today's toolbar icons and buttons are downright _ugly_ compared to the UI that was achieved with far fewer colors on Classic Macs. They "almost" had it when 10.5 Leopard managed to unify most of the OS and apps but then they started fiddling again.

While I do like the "vibrancy" effect in parts of the current OS, even that is overdone (scrolling under toolbars, really?). It would have been better to combine the vibrancy technology with more professional user interface elements reminiscent of Classic.

<comment><USER4> > From small details (like EVERY window remembering exactly how you arranged > it)

This—along with the rest of the 2d layout—is my absolute least favorite aspect of the finder. If I could completely disable that (along with the .DS_store and __MACOSX absurdities) and force everything to use three-column layout, I would in a heartbeat. It's just a recipe to PREVENT easy access to your data—how can they allow dragging icons out of the view or overlapping each other? You can't even "reload" to reset their location, and people can even send you ZIPPED FILES where the locations are broken. Coverflow is even worse for usability. I have no idea how people can work with either icons or no ability to switch up the sorting on demand—I don't think I've used my desktop except as basically a "tmp" folder for screenshots in years. Why not just use launchpad as the desktop? Does anyone actually use their desktop to store often accessed files, or is it just a replacement for ~/Documents at this point?

I wish they would give ANY love to the finder at this point. I don't care how it's written; it's gotten steadily less usable with every iteration.

<comment><USER5> And you can't even snap windows left-and-right like in other OS's. Apple is too caught up on trying to be that anti-establishment-use-different-key- combos-than-the-standard-and-forget-about-standardized-ports sort of workshop. They'd rather do it different than do it practical as it's done in Windows and Linux (well, depending on the Window manager). :)

<comment><USER6> Since the Macintosh predates Windows and Linux, it's arguably the Macintosh that set the standard and the others that are anti-establishment. :-)

Seriously, Apple is very unlikely to change the keyboard defaults to match Windows, since (among other reasons) it would unnecessarily aggravate long- time Mac users.

Edit: Long-pressing the green zoom button in El Capitan lets you move the window left or right to a half-full-screen view -- not exactly what you probably have in mind, but a reasonable approximation.

<comment><USER7> > since (among other reasons) it would unnecessarily aggravate long-time Mac > users.

As if that has ever stopped them (see: Final Cut "Pro" X)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personal reason: in many ways, the old versions are much purer expressions of the timeless concepts of software usability. It is becoming much more difficult now to separate platform convention from actual user tested, researched UX. In the old Apple machines they used to be one in the same, so I find it very useful to often compare old design to new (where applicable) in order to suss out any differences and investigate them. Many times we've simply gotten used to less usable interfaces because we upgraded and didn't think twice, and the old machines can be a useful sanity check.

Edit: when I mean separating platform convention from user-tested UX, I mean that there are some pretty obvious times when platform UX conventions haven't been user tested (or were implemented despite negative user testing results). The most obvious one to me is iOS's flat buttons. I write iOS apps and try to do as much user testing on them as possible, and I've found this to be by far the most frequent struggle for users - discerning which things are pressable and which aren't.

<comment><USER9> > in many ways, the old versions are much purer expressions of the timeless > concepts of software usability.

Maybe you are right on this. Maybe this is why I feel nostalgic of pixelartish BeOS, QNX Neutrino, maybe MacOS9 / *Step and even plan9 rio/acme or IRIX.

My UX in terms of usability and style seem to cycle: 0. get inspiration, 1. comfort, 2. fatigue, 3. back to 0 and realize the previously inspiring thing is now obsolete.

Sad thing, in 30 years, I have cycled a lot more with "computer interface" domain than I have with congas and cameras, some of my favourites having been produced in the late 80s / early 90s.

Software do not age well, yet, and there isn't much chance to keep them running, even if their features, concepts and styles are still relevant to a significant user base. That being said, I use OS, terminals and text editors whose concepts take roots in the 60s :)

As the discussion above focused on macos Finder, I miss the now unmaintained Rox Filer the same way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> After using MacOSX for a decade, I've been using Linux exclusively for 3 weeks now... after my rMBP was stolen and I can't afford a new Mac right now.

Of all the software that I used on a Mac, I have to say that I miss the Finder the most. I've tried every file manager available on Linux (you name it, I've probably tried it) and I can't find anything that's even close to Finder. Nautilus and Nemo are the closest but they are both buggy and are missing a ton of features that I loved in Finder. Everything else just doesn't have the polish or is just missing features that make using Finder such a joy.

I remember when I complained about "Classic Finder" and then about missing features in "Cocoa Finder" after the massive rewrite. Looking back, those small issues and warts are nothing when you compare it to what's available on other OSes.

Anyway, to appreciate the genius and polish of using Finder, just spend few weeks with other OSes and see how much you'll miss it :)

<comment><USER11> Agreed.

The ability to drag and drop a file or folder into a file dialog is absolutely brilliant, and one of the things I miss the most when I'm on Windows or Linux.

I have no idea why other systems haven't adopted that. Do they really expect us to awkwardly navigate the filesystem every time we open or save a file?

<comment><USER12> I _thought_ you could get a similar behavior in Windows by dragging a folder into the path bar at the top of the 'Save' modal window. (I don't have a Windows machine or VM handy at the moment to test it, though.) You can definitely achieve a similar behavior by Ctrl-C'ing a directory and then Ctrl-V'ing into the File Name text box; the result populates the File Name with the copied directory's path. (Being able to get a folder's full path by copying it and pasting into a textarea is actually pretty nice, and arguably more useful than the Mac convention of grabbing the basename.)

Since Apple screwed up the Open/Save dialogs a couple of updates back, I've actually come to appreciate the Windows open/save browser more by comparison. Being able to manipulate files from within Open/Save is a fairly neat trick, as is the ability to pull in remote files from within Open by pointing to a URI. I still can't exactly love Windows as an OS taken as a whole, but Apple's changes haven't improved things.

<comment><USER13> > Since Apple screwed up the Open/Save dialogs a couple of updates back, I've > actually come to appreciate the Windows open/save browser more by > comparison. Being able to manipulate files from within Open/Save is a fairly > neat trick, as is the ability to pull in remote files from within Open by > pointing to a URI. I still can't exactly love Windows as an OS taken as a > whole, but Apple's changes haven't improved things.

Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan) allows users to manipulate the file system from Open/Save dialogs. Right/ctrl-clicking a file will reveal additional options.

I don't think it's possible to put in an arbitrary URI, but if you have a remotely mounted volume you can navigate to those files.

From my limited understanding, being able to download a file from an arbitrary URI by invoking an Open/Save dialog seems potentially troublesome, but does seem kinda neat in principle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know I will be in the minority and say that I hated Macs before OSX. Good riddance.

Most importantly the lack of true multi-tasking as highlighted in the article. Even Windows 95 performed before. Doing software development was a chore. Never liked the Mac UI, even in OSX. The lack of focus-on-hover is still today a major pain for me. Even Windows has focus-on-hover. Hate the single menu bar on top. Yes, even after all these years using Macs, I still do not like it.

However, I just love the hardware and the fact that you can get closer to Linux (important as a dev) than you can on Windows.

<comment><USER15> Have to agree: I've used Macs sporadically for over 20 years (never by choice), and I've never liked the UI. I too hate the single menu bar, and I've also discovered that many recent converts to Mac actually don't understand its behaviour, that the single menu bar metamorphoses between system - app1 - <USER2> - system dropdowns, depending on the active window. That, and the fact that pushing the red 'x' button in the corner doesn't close an app (just hides it, only file - quit actually closes it), is exactly the same on OS9 and OSX, and it irks me the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My friend, San Francisco photographer Adrian Mendoza[1], keeps a couple PowerMacs around to run graphics software that never made the OS X transition[2]. It's interesting that certain kinds of art production[3] is becoming harder and harder because the tools are obsolete.

[1] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/amenfoto/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/amenfoto/)

[2] Predominantly [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai%27s_Power_Tools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai%27s_Power_Tools)

[3] [https://twitter.com/Amenfoto/status/765045151852924928](https://twitter.com/Amenfoto/status/765045151852924928)

<comment><USER17> I remember having a Kai's Power Tools CD in my 386/486 days. Don't remember if it came bundled with my SB16 multimedia kit or with something else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have classic Mac OS running in emulators (BasiliskII and SheepShaver) because:

a) I enjoy the nostalgia (I grew up with Macs as a kid and didn't get a PC until I was 12-13)

b) I find the underlying technology extremely fascinating (resource forks especially)

c) there are a lot of old Mac-only games that are a lot of fun (Power Pete! Spin Doctor! Slick Willie... though my emulator doesn't like that one. Plus a bunch of random games from the sampler CDs I used to collect as a kid.)

I'd never, ever use classic Mac OS as a daily driver again, but it's a lot of fun for me to play with it every once in a while.

<comment><USER19> I miss After Dark. A handful of the screensavers (four, I think?) are available for OSX, but only through some Japanese site with a distribution and payment system that's not immediately confidence-building compared to other solutions on the modern web. It's reminiscent of shareware, which I guess is kind of appropriate but doesn't make me more likely to hand them my CC number.

<comment><USER20> I miss the flying toasters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That was a nice trip down memory lane. I still have fond memories of zipping through the MacAddict magazine forums on Camino. And downloading a dozen freeware apps I didn't need through VersionTracker. Nowadays, I avoid the App Store as much as possible, it gives me so much eye strain.

<comment><USER18> Do you remember the sampler CDs that used to come with CD-ROM Today magazine in the mid 90s? They had all sorts of random games and other stuff that I had so much fun with as a kid. One of the first things I did once I got my emulators set up was to hunt down those CDs again...

<comment><USER21> Yep, I used to get CDs with my monthly issue of MacAddict. Those were a highlight for me. I still remember when I discovered Glenn's Games. I felt like I'd hit the jackpot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah I have Basilisk II running MacOS 8.1 that a friend of mine had to recompile because the libraries they used for it are out of date. It has IE 4.0 but the certificates have expired so it won't load most websites. Nobody seems to be targeting the older PowerMacs for Web Browsers and other Internet apps.

I used to use it for safe web browsing because Windows viruses don't infect it and the web browser is so old it won't run the new stuff for the latest version of IE.

<comment><USER23> This is kind of a harebrained theory of mine that I'm not sure it's possible to test: are you _more_ safe on very, very obsolete platforms because the chances of stumbling onto malware that'll target you is almost nonexistent?

If so, there's an argument for doing your day to day web browsing in SheepShaver running Classilla.. if not for the dealbreaking lack of support for any security better than SSLv3 (hopelessly broken).

<comment><USER18> I remember hearing that, at one point, there were some secure government sites that ran everything on classic Mac OS because it was one of the only operating systems that had no CLI and as such weren't vulnerable to someone getting console access and going to town.

Never verified that story, though.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure if its the same story but the US Army once used Mac OS for some of its web servers because they were judged the most secure. I cannot remember what third party web server they were using.

<comment><USER22> I used to work as a federal contractor in 1996-1997. The Army did switch to MacOS for web servers. I'm not sure what Mac web server they used. They tried Windows that got hacked, and they ran Linux but didn't always update it and it got hacked as well. I think they ran some stuff as Root in Linux. The MacOS security model was different from Linux or Windows and supposed to be more secure.

Of course social engineering meant that people can call their help desk and pretend to be someone working on the server to get the password reset. No security software is going to stop a social engineering attack. Also after people get their password reset they forget to change it and leave it "password" and other easy to remember passwords. So weak passwords mean someone can get in without using an exploit but a password dictionary attack.

<comment><USER24> And here's the article [https://tidbits.com/article/5552](https://tidbits.com/article/5552)

"The compelling aspect of this story is that as a result of the break-in, the U.S. Army has switched the machines that serve the Army's home page from Windows NT-based PCs to Power Macintosh G3s running WebSTAR from StarNine Technologies."

[edit:] I do love the speculation at the end on if Mac OS X Server will be as good security-wise as Mac OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A lot of Finder hate here, and I agree, it's a piece of shit. Forget about it.

Get Path Finder[1], you won't regret it. I have no affiliations, I'm just an over zealot fan.

1\. [http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/](http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/)

Edit: fixed a word

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the heads up on this. Looks like a neat replacement. I like that it has Git integration etc. all built in. The "Drop Stack" feature seems like a killer one (for me). I've lost count of the number of times I have copied image or icon files from several subfolders into one destination project folder. Drop Stack may mean the end of having multiple Finder windows or tabs open...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Even the 1984 Macintosh was snappy in its user interface: when you clicked a menu it opened instantly, when you dragged a window it always moved instantaneously.

Working with Windows even 20 years later was disappointing. You click the Start menu, and waited. Finally it appeared. You hovered over a menu item and waited. Finally its submenu appeared.

<comment><USER28> I recently switched back to Windows after using OS X exclusively for about five years. Windows has the ergonomics and aesthetics of a U-Haul. :)

I don't know how regular people can use Windows productively without breaking everything. All the controls and settings are so persnickety and janky, built upon strata of earlier generations that are still in the way. There are so many little things Microsoft could do to streamline the user experience and make it feel solid without alienating existing users, but they just keep adding more to the stew or throwing curve balls like Metro.

<comment><USER29> > I don't know how regular people can use Windows productively without > breaking everything.

With the keyboard. The UI changes, and the mouse handles move around, but the keyboard shortcuts still work (mostly). After using a Mac for work for almost 5 years, it still annoys me the amount of things you can't easily do without the mouse.

<comment><USER28> That's a good point. I worked at Microsoft, back during Windows 2000, and engineering management would encourage "no mouse" days to identify UI that was not keyboard friendly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The look and feel of OS 9 is still working today. And I wasn't a Mac user so no hard nostalgia feeling (compared to a Wintel box). Ironic that I was so into hyper fluid dynamic UI (css3 or other stacks) now I'm finding myself missing Win 3 / OS 9 "fixed function pipeline".

<comment><USER31> BeOS and OS 9 were well designed. I feel like we've sort of lost our way about what made those OSes good, replaced it with very "showy" graphic design. Operating systems should be a tool for information and communication, not a modern art exhibit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm surprised that they didn't talk to writers that just want to write a novel without all the distractions of a modern MacOs experience.

<comment><USER33> Okay, but using an OS without memory protection to achieve this seems dangerous. What if a buggy program accidentally blows up their work? (do they somehow install version control?)

<comment><USER34> You became conditioned to the state of the system. You would save before known problematic operations; you would have comprehensive backups. You adapted to the misfeatures of the underlying software. It's not much different, from a UX perspective, than when I was learning Unix and "rm -rf . [A-Z]*" was infuriatingly chalked up as "a learning experience".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good riddance. These nostalgia pieces forget what flaky pieces of junk OS 8 and 9 actually were. Even Apple knew that they were stop-gaps, papering over the cracks until they could get a new system out the door.

7.5.5 was pretty solid though - it ran happily on our Mac Plus from nearly a decade earlier. However I've still got a Bondi iMac running 9.2 and every time I start it up I'm glad those days are long gone.

Remember extension conflicts? I do. Having to manually remove all the extensions and put them back one-by-one, rebooting each time, to find the two (or more) which didn't like each other was a total pain.

Have you zapped the P-RAM? Did you re-bless the system folder? Cargo cult computer maintenance.

Getting a reliable TCP IP stack working? Good luck with that.

The fear of an application crash (I'm looking at you IE 5) taking down the whole system and losing work. Cross your fingers and hope you can still save after a force quit.

The ability for users to move or delete key files in the System folder. What fun.

</comment><comment><USER36> I run the DSP plugin company airwindows.com and have continued to support PPC machines, though I don't think it extends back to OS 9. Recently added Mac and PC VST (I'm told the backward compatibility on Windows tends to reach back farther: from my experiences in XCode I can believe it).

I'm understandably very curious whether there even is any DAW that can use the PPC Mac VST support I've been including in the new plugins :)

</comment><comment><USER37> My friend got an Apple IIGS in 1986 and kept it going almost this long (until about 2000 if I recall). He had it upgraded to the gills with 8MB RAM, and the TransWarp GS accelerator card. It definitely was a parallel universe from Mac OS where there were amazing graphics and sound capabilities that didn't start to land on Mac OS until the mid-90s.

</comment><comment><USER38> While we're all on the nostalgia kick - I only recently learned that parts of the System 7.1.1 source code had leaked a few years ago (notably the Toolbox stuff that went in ROM). That stuff was a fascinating read. Seeing source comments signed by Andy Herzfeld, Steve Capps, Bruce Horn and Larry Kenyon and dating back to before the Mac was even released (and lining them up with folklore.org stories) was amazingly nostalgic.

Here's a changelog line from the SystemSounds.r Rez resource file many of you might recognize the story behind...

        <3>	 3/28/91	DTY	Change the name of "Xylophone" to "Sosumi".

<comment><USER39> It is basically the source of the SuperMario ROM from the first PowerPC Macs I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It is funny that they love the spatial finder so much. Remember when Gnome did this with Nautilus? It was not a popular decision at the time.

Although it obviously did have a few very vocal proponents.

<comment><USER41> I seem to recall that Windows File Explorer could do spacial as well. The concept only really work when you have a folder depth of 2-3 nested folders tops. After that you start getting so many windows on the screen it becomes like a dropped deck of cards.

<comment><USER40> It might have had that, although I seem to remember it not remembering window placement correctly. That was a long time ago, though, so I could have the details wrong.

<comment><USER42> So far as I recall Windows 3 was the only one that actually tried to be spatial. Windows 1 and 2 were essentially tiling window managers on the opposite side of the spectrum, and Windows 95's Explorer intentionally was not spatial. There was the brief period 98 to ME that Explorer was sometimes spatial, but that seemed more an accident of Explorer's "Active" phase than intentional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43>
        > He couldn't log in to his Ars e-mail

That's unfortunate! (For British [Commonwealth?] readers, at least.)

</comment><comment><USER44> Hardware support is also one of the reasons to keep using OS9. I still use it on a 1998 Powermac almost every week as my drum scanner requires a custom PCI card and an app that ties everything together. Its vendor went under long ago and so no one to port their app to OSX. Works like a charm, with original keyboard and mouse.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm downgrading to iTunes 10.6.3 on Mac OS 10.5.8, the last version to work on PPC. Unfortunately I have to reimport all my music since 2012.

I held out at iTunes 10.7 for a long time because I don't want to lose USB sync of contacts and calendars.

My dad recently offered me an old PPC Mac Mini, and I hope I can get it to sync my iPhone 4S with iOS 6.1.3. It is possible to downgrade iOS using Odysseus, and I expect to keep this obsolete system for a while.

Apple had an ecosystem from 2001 (Quicksilver G4 running 10.5.8) to 2014 (iPhone 4S). That's 13 years, half my lifetime. iSync would "just work". Internet access is not always reliable enough for me to trust the cloud, and I prefer to manage my own Digital Hub.

I used some Platinum themes for about a year. It looks beautiful on Retina; there's so much space. Eventually I realised that my icon cache had grown to over 3GB though, so I removed them. I'm keeping an eye on the old versions though, just in case I get the urge to downgrade further at a later date.

<comment><USER46> Why do you want PPC? I'm thinking 10.6.x on the last Intel mac with Snowleopard support would be an 'upgrade' to your usecase.

Btw. what I miss most is the glory days of OSX Preview. This thing, I could just throw at it whatever I wanted and it would handle it without choking. Nowadays I have to force quit that damn thing more than I use it, just because I load some largish PNG. As a student this thing was the absolute killer feature for my mac, because I could put together conclusion papers way faster and in much higher quality than anything possible on Windows. Rectangular Text snippets being vector scalable after pasting into Pages and images keeping their original quality was just a godsend [1].

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/slstJ](http://imgur.com/a/slstJ)

<comment><USER47> Preview shouldn't be falling over ever, even if PNG is a fairly inefficient format for partial loading. File a bug at [https://bugreporter.apple.com](https://bugreporter.apple.com) or with Feedback Assistant.

<comment><USER46> Well.. is bug reporting at Apple less of a black hole nowadays?

<comment><USER47> I mean, being able to read the bug tracker for an open-source project has never made my life any better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Recording studios with Harrison Series 12s are still stuck on very old 030s for their automation...

</comment><comment><USER49> I still do my writing in the OpenDoc word processor WAV.

<comment><USER36> Oh my God, I remember that term. I used to do all my web browsing in Cyberdog. Working in OpenDoc I got used to nothing having splash screens, and it was like a glimpse of a future that never happened…</comment></comment>


AAA confirms what Tesla, BMW, Nissan EV owners suspected of cold weather - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/aaa-confirms-what-tesla-bmw-nissan-ev-owners-suspected-of-cold-weather.html <comment><USER2> FYI, all batteries drain faster in extreme cold and hot weather. It's a given. So any electric car will have to deal with that. It's one of the drawbacks of electric vehicles.

Tesla has tried to dispute this in the past but it just a fact of physics.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand how there was any question about this. Where's the surprise? This is how batteries _work_ ; this is exactly what you would expect to happen.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend good PSD to HTML service - <AUTHOR>

Hi, we need to convert our Photoshop design to XHTML/CSS. Any reccommendations ? <comment><USER2> These guys seems to be the more used <http://www.psd2html.com/>

<comment><USER3> We use psd2html at work...they do excellent work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.psd2cssonline.com/> attempts to automate the process but you need to lay out the PSD in a certain way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use and recommend <http://www.psdahtml.com>, not the cheapest one but very serious about delivery dates.

</comment><comment><USER6> I sometimes do this sort of thing. Send me an email if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER7> I do this kind of work too. Email ryandavies AT gmail.com

</comment><comment><USER8> ebizzsol.com based in Bangladesh does good work for super cheap. ($75/psd)</comment>


Get Your S--- Together - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/nyu-professor-scott-galloways-email-2013-4

<comment><USER2> That professor sounds like a jerk. There's about 1001 ways he could have said to that student, "Sampling classes in that way is disruptive," without being pompous and condescending.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love it!!! The prof is a hero!</comment>


The Unhealthy Desire for Prestige - <AUTHOR> https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-unhealthy-desire-for-prestige-is-ruining-your-life/ <comment><USER2> > _I asked John how his product was doing, and he said that he's looking to > hire a CEO with more product experience...when I talked to him further, he > said he was still looking to launch his MVP...So after 1.5 years, John > basically spent $10,000+ attending financial conferences, collected no > revenue, and hasn't even launched a working website_

Laughing at how real this is. This is exactly the situation with me and a friend. We both had an idea for different businesses 2 years ago.

He prints business cards, incorporates a business, talks about partnerships, a launch party, worries about getting too big....and has no users.

I quit my job to code away in the morning, reply to user feedback in the afternoon and emulate my competitor's marketing at night. I did this every day....and just passed 100,000 users. Hardly anybody knows what I do.

The difference between us: he works for a big tech company where everyone talks about their _app idea_ ™ over lunch and lives in a city where splashing $1000 on bottle service is seen as smart instead of foolish. I don't. Instead I grind for two simple reasons: to be free of a boss and to make something people find valuable.

I love my friend and I'm not knocking his approach, nor saying mine is better. But printing business cards before gaining users is a bizarre way to order one's priorities.

<comment><USER3> i like your naecdote but wanted to add another perspective on the business cards.

there are different paths to success. one path is through sales, in which a good prototype/demo and pitch can get you early, paying customers.

you print up business cards and product sheets--even before you have a company set up--and hand them out during sales meetings to bring a little bit of legitimacy to your venture, and that's worth the $15-20 (plus design time) it takes.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. For some markets the business cards, registered company name and _client specific_ conferences and illusion of prestige actually earns you the users to pay you up front to write the code, or are more important than the code period.

(funnily enough, I walked out on a fledgling fintech startup with a guy from a similar background to John from the article whose prestige obsession was the opposite: paying for people to write serious amounts of software to create a more mostly-cosmetically modern bespoke _internal_ document management system he was convinced he needed to get the partners he needed to take his ideas for disrupting _other aspects_ of their mostly customer marketing & relationship driven business model seriously. Frustrating when he had connections to potential needed partners anyway and they were more worried about leadgen than anything else, something he knew a fair bit about about and could have focused on instead, but something that might have resulted in falling at the first hurdle...

tbf he paid for it, stuck at it and his business is showing some signs of life these days)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To seek prestige runs far deeper in our minds than one would think. It comes from a place of uncertainty and fear.

There is an interesting theory called "social comparison" [1], which states that one way to define ourselves is to compare us with our peers, either upward or downward. It's pretty on point in my personal opinion, because I do it as well. And when I have mentioned this theory while chatting with friends, they confirmed that they do it, too.

We humans are brittle creatures that pretend to be very strong and independent in order to survive and not be vulnerable.

[1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/social- comparison-...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/social-comparison- theory)

<comment><USER6> Exactly, and it's because we, as all animals that live in groups, have a strong sense of hierarchy inside the group and our place within it. Position inside the group is a primary unit of one's perceived "value".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm glad this is brought up. ever since I left Google my parents no longer have much to brag about when taking to relatives about me. I got to spend a year doing stuff I was passionate about without having to defend my decisions to anybody and it was so liberating. Life is much more fun when you are not in the spot light, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

In my time off, I built a few profitable projects and gave away CEO title to my friends. I write blog posts anonymously so my name is never associated with anything. It was a pretty big mindset shift, but it's been pretty good so far

<comment><USER8> I would love to hear more about your experience doing this. Would you be willing to share links to your blog (perhaps privately, since your name is in your profile)?

I'm interested in doing something similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The thesis of the post was great. But then:

 _> In fact, I don't think I've cared about prestige since 2010_

Yeah, right. We're all wired to seek prestige. If we don't get it we wither and sulk. He just figured out that he's unlikely to get it via traditional means, and decided to seek it via an alternative route. Perhaps there are extremely rare mentally atypical people who really don't care about prestige, but it almost certainly isn't you or me or the blogger. Be careful about the lies you tell yourself.

<comment><USER10> Not caring about prestige means cultivating your self-esteem and confronting your insecurities.

Learn to respect and admire yourself rather than relying on society to gratify your ego. It's a lifelong process not a state to achieve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I respect financial samurai a great deal and his posts give me a lot to think about, especially when I respectfully disagree with some of his points.

Some thoughts:

1)Life is hard and humans respond to that in a variety of ways, like desire for prestige. However prestige is one thing that can be given and received freely as well. Compliments are a great way to build a culture of cost-free prestige. It's not always about climbing the stack rank.

2) Consumption as prestige is a trap created by marketing, but at the same time a signal that works well in some cultures. Signaling you desire more let's leaders know you are hungry to grow. You can think of this as unfortunate, but it's very real.

3) Sometimes it is just nice to have nice things.

I find the desire for external prestige dies when your internal sense of prestige grows. You see many wealthy people become unconcerned with showing off after achieving real goals in the world. That being said they still live in mansions and drive exotic vehicles.

<comment><USER12> > Signaling you desire more let's leaders know you are hungry to grow.

Is that really how it works? If I look at Chinese materialism as prestige, I don't see anybody signaling that they are hungry. I only see people signaling that they have stuff and that somehow having stuff equates happiness and "something good".

<comment><USER13> One interpretation of this is leaders viewing a young, "hungry" employee who likes to spend money as being more reliant on a salary than someone who's identity isn't so tied to spending money. If the hungry one needs a steady salary to maintain their lifestyle, they're more likely to be loyal to the company because they can't afford to leave. Of course that depends on the employee being someone the company actually wants to keep around and and whether the company can afford to pay them above market value.

<comment><USER11> This is the unfortunate part. But if you are concerned with scaling salary it can work to your advantage for a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Always prioritize the substance of what you're doing. Don't get caught up in the status, the prestige games. They're endlessly dazzling, and they're always endlessly disappointing." -Peter Thiel

<comment><USER8> I like the quote, and in fact, the whole source article is well worth reading. But it's hard to take statements like this from billionaires who already won the status / prestige games at 100% face value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "As a soon to be 40-year-old man, I don't give a rat's ass about prestige anymore!"

OK, great. I'm 39, I'm right there with you. But is this advice useful or actionable for people in their 20s?

<comment><USER16> Yes, because prestige runs behind what is actually valuable. Prestige is what other people _think_ is valuable.

If everyone thinks it's valuable, then there's insane competition, and you're unlikely to get meaningfully ahead (unless you're simply smarter and work harder than everyone else).

PG wrote several paragraphs about prestige here which still ring true to me:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html)

 _It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn 't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious._

(Corrolary: it was best to join YC when it wasn't prestigious, e.g. when Reddit or Dropbox did. Now that it's prestigious, it's probably less valuable. Although it could still be valuable compared to the alternatives.)

<comment><USER17> When looking at something like joining yc, wouldn't the prestige make it _more_ valuable, because of the extended network and the increased reverence shown to it by outsiders?

<comment><USER16> I'm sure the network is valuable compared to alternatives, but it's probably diluted now, compared to joining when YC had no prestige. Your peers then would have been the current leaders of YC.

Customers don't give you money because you joined a good accelerator, so in that sense the "reverence" is useless. It's also a double-edged sword, because you'll attract people who are looking to ride your coattails, as opposed to doing useful work.

Apparently this phenomenon is common enough that PG has a word for it: "playing house". People join YC and play house rather than start companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This book really shaped my views on luxury

[https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Up-Consumers-Goods- Companies-...](https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Up-Consumers-Goods-Companies- ebook/dp/B00186Z0N2)

I really liked the parts where they talk about how new luxury items are often based on some technical aspect that makes the new product much better than what was there before.

I remember one point about how the old luxury was based on rarity. People with a nice watch didn't want to see others wearing the same watch. But with high end mountain bikes it is actually very cool to see others on the trail with the same gear.

</comment><comment><USER19> Glad to see this blog pop up here. The author has great insights about investing, FIRE and careers, even though his worldview is skewed towards the SF bubble heavily.

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems to be quite a big issue for people in finance like the OP blog author was

</comment><comment><USER21> > If we can figure out how to rid ourselves of the desire for prestige, we > will become much happier in the process!

Why not just take this to the limit and become a Buddhist then?

I'll answer that question: because our desires are possibly adaptive and are what keep us alive. The problem is not prestige, it's holding the wrong things to be prestigious.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have always hated the word "prestige" or "prestigious" as it always makes me feel that the person using it wants to pick my pocket.

(I mean an advertiser or housing builder etc...I don't mean the author of this piece, or for that matter my own comment either!)

</comment><comment><USER23> korea has the highest suicide rate in the oecd, not really fair to say that antidepressant use is correlated with depression rate. similarly antidepressants are not widely available in japan (not even included in his chart) and japan's suicide rate is also very high.

</comment><comment><USER24> Prestige is just a variant of respect, but motivated by appearance rather than substance. It's basically envy. Like fame, it's shallow and derivative, and it works only when no one gets to look behind the curtain.

</comment><comment><USER25> An article about unhealthy desire for prestige has surfaced on HN, a subsidiary of a very prestigious VC firm, a site with clever upvotes and, most importantly, karma system. It strikes me as ironic.

I also think that John was a metaphorical figure. I can name a few startups that got financed early and are now attending conferences, hiring and spending a lot of money, without actually doing anything for their business.

</comment><comment><USER26> Counterpoint: [https://www.naacp.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/The.Drum.Ma...](https://www.naacp.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/The.Drum.Major.Instinct.2-4-68.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER27> The author clearly cares about prestige - his bio mentions having an MBA from Berkeley.

</comment><comment><USER28> The article is about how to get women...zzzzzzz</comment>


JDK 10 is out - <AUTHOR> https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/Java-10-032018.html <comment><USER2> "Java 9 is obsolete [...]. What? You haven't upgraded yet? Well, Java 10 is only going to last six months before it is obsolete too."

[http://blog.joda.org/2018/02/java-9-has-six-weeks-to- live.ht...](http://blog.joda.org/2018/02/java-9-has-six-weeks-to-live.html)

<comment><USER3> Yeah I was surprised by this announcement. Haven't even checked out Java 9 yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While Oracle keeps churning out newer Java versions, their products still use the obsolete version. Oracle ERP is notorious at my workplace for being the only app still relying on applets to work.

IT security guys go nuts over this. But Oracle is of no help. Their support team always deflect responsibility. Their defense is that product is deployed behind a corporate firewall. So, it should be safe to use.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why would Oracle do this to their language? It seems like a surefire way to make sure a business will never choose Java ever again. When it comes to languages, I think there's definitely a right and a wrong way to implement changes. It's been four years since I tried to do any Java programming, but I know there are many business who are trying to build codebases that last even longer than that. Are we transitioning into a workplace where language stability is a thing of the past? Is it already a thing of the past?

<comment><USER6> The plan is to release a version every six months and a LTS release every three years. If a business wants a stable version they can go with the LTS. I don't see how this changes anything from how it was done before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The worst part has yet to come: ditching JavaFX, One have to build it itself (OpenKFX), which translates to _none_ is doing it. Until now, there's no OpenJDK9/10 with JavaFX modules (including WebKit)

<comment><USER8> God I'm old. I remember when JavaFX was announced, how it was going to change the web and the way we develop.

I also remember after about 1 year later talking with someone how JavaFX was DOA.</comment></comment>


Android App Performance Tips for Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.developer.com/ws/android/programming/10-android-app-performance-tips-for-developers.html

<comment><USER2> Very useful article, however there is one thing you also have to be careful when you follow these guidelines:

 _Android App Performance Tip #3: Use the Latest Android SDK Versions, APIs and Best Practices_ \- If you use the Android 4.0 APIs now, your app will only work on Android 4.0 phones (obviously). Be extra careful what you compile your code against.

I also wrote a few guidelines about Android app building in general (usability - oriented) that I think could add some value to this post: [https://plus.google.com/104186593565516256779/posts/inERoChn...](https://plus.google.com/104186593565516256779/posts/inERoChnR9W)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Check the timing of transitions between visible elements."

I think this comment is even more valuable than the rest of the article. Coding tips are helpful, but most of these can be figured out pretty quickly by a decent programmer. The timing / UI lag issue is something that I see a lot with Android apps, but not so much on iOS. As an Android developer it's important to consider these little details, and be aware that not everybody on the market will have a phone as powerful as yours ;)</comment>


Microsoft Introduces: Send - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/microsoft-introduces-send-a-short-form-email-app-that-works-more-like-instant-messaging/#.vefvej:16at

<comment><USER2> The App Store link: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/send-microsoft-garage- projec...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/send-microsoft-garage- project/id1006837718?linkId=15758330)

Looks like it only works for email in Office 365 or some school email accounts but I like the idea of simplifying email.</comment>


Skin Effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect <comment><AUTHOR> "Round conductors are not optimal for transmitting current..." (Above Wikipedia Page is Why...)

Source: [https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/tesla-revolutionary-wiring- ar...](https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/tesla-revolutionary-wiring-architecture- robots-model-y/)

<comment><USER2> The skin effect is not applicable to DC.</comment></comment>


Mt. Gox kept exchange open despite knowledge of large-scale theft - <AUTHOR> http://www.cso.com.au/article/540432/mt_gox_kept_exchange_open_despite_knowledge_large-scale_theft_filing_suggests/

<comment><USER2> Isn't doing this against the law in the US or Japan? These things are just not acceptable. Karpeles needs to go to jail for a very long time</comment>


Mobile Development or Machine Learning? - <AUTHOR> I'm studying Computer Engineering, I just finished my freshman year and I feel really happy about my choice of uni (I'm european, so sorry for my bad english). I've been developing android apps for the last two years (nothing professional, just for fun). I find it really gratifying and rewarding. Being curious, this summer I studied Machine Learning mostly through the course on Coursera and exercises on Kaggle. I enjoyed it, but I didn't find as rewarding and fun. Working only with datasets simply isn't as exciting to me. My question is: being Machine Learning so popular now and in the near future, would it be wise to focus my attention (and possible future career) on it? I know it doesn't sound very specific, but I feel like I have to make up my mind on which technology I should study so that I can make a career out of it. <comment><USER2> Do what you love, love what you do.

If ML and working with data sets does not feel gratifying and in the same time developing for mobile does - maybe master what you love and try to build ML on top of it? For example - think about using ML to clasify data produced by your users to bring some interesting feature to your mobile app. That way you will spend most of the time working with technologies you like at this particular moment in time, but also you will leverage your skills to apply some newly gathered knowledge in real life scenario.

Would it be wise to try to move towards ML? Good question. There is a lot of traction around AI and ML at the moment though in my opinion it's not easy to get somebody who really gets this stuff (i.e. knows how to apply principles to produce something that really works). Looking at technology it looks like AI/ML will become next `Cisco Certified` type of `living the dream` job. However (again my opinion) you will get good salary in mobile development too.</comment>


Al Jazeera Announces Launch of Free Footage Under Creative Commons License - <AUTHOR> http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/12166

<comment><USER2> I am just questioning the motivation of AlJazeera. I used the word propaganda after reviewing the videos and headlines/content on their english page (which doesn't differentiate editorials from news).

Some headlines off their main page :

Gaza Tragedy: Almost 1000 Martyrs, 4525 Wounded //the number of hamas fighters out of 1000 is not given Israel hitting Lebanon with rocket fire //its obvious they are responding to rockets Gaza now Israeli weapons testing lab? The Afghan scam Ahmadinajad's Christmas message Can there be any doubt who the real terrorists are? So what have Gazans got to complain about? What is Israel's goal in Gaza? Fighting Within Obama v. Washington mythmaking

There are a few balanced headlines but they are the minority. I also noticed they specifically chose unflattering pictures of Western government/military representatives. They even devote a section to conspiracy theories on the main page.. come on.

I am not just some spammer i read the site a lot and wanted to offer my view on why they are going with creative commons. Call it a conspiracy theory if you wish.

<comment><USER3> I agree, why this footage and why now?

Unless it's mandatory to, verbally or with text, say what the footage shown is about there is no way to know what is going on. Context is important especially with highly emotional footage of the Israel/Gaza conflict, a good example is the video seen on Liveleak of a Hamas military parade where a truck carrying rockets exploded, it was said to be an attack by Israel but in fact was later found out to be an accident by Hamas.

Giving support to Creative Commons licensing is nice to see but not for spiteful reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, the article is by Creative Commons, but it is not relevant for HN. I don't want to squash these kinds of articles, but if we keep getting them, it'll politicize the HN environment, which cuts down on dialogue.

I recommend posting such things on mattmaroon's www.nonhackernews.com.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. Like it or not, this is the first time that a news network has opened their content for scrutiny, hopefully without editing which Al-Jazeera usually minimizes, letting the video speak for themselves.

<comment><USER4> I didn't mention anything about liking it or not. Explain to me how this topic's pertinence to HN outweighs its politicizing. Haven't plenty of other organizations released their content on creative commons? Why is Al-Jazeera important in this regard except for political reasons?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> the more sides the merrier. i'm all in favor of citizen journalism and open content from more organized efforts.

</comment><comment><USER2> It seems that they are increasing the reach of their propaganda by releasing content about one side of the conflict.

<comment><USER7> Holy -- what the hell HN? Let's get this guy's comment up to a score of -3 or so. His comment is not a troll, it's just unpopular.

<comment><USER8> If you look at Reddit, almost any comment saying anything positive about Israel (or negative about the Palestinians) is downmodded massively. Enough of HN is from Reddit that you're almost certain to get the same sort of thing here, too.

Disclaimer to the downmodders: I'm not pro-Israel at all--I just think this sort of downmodding the other side of an issue, regardless of the merits of the post itself, is ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> _Disclaimer to the downmodders: I'm not pro-Israel at all--I just think this sort of downmodding the other side of an issue, regardless of the merits of the post itself, is ridiculous._

Sigh, I was going to upmod you, and then you added that. That's EXACTLY the problem! You shouldn't need to kowtow to the "popular" position in order to not get downmodded! Wasn't that exactly the point of your comment?

You are basically saying that if people think you are pro-israel you will be downmodded - that's disgusting.

<comment><USER8> _You are basically saying that if people think you are pro-israel you will be downmodded - that's disgusting._

But that's the entire point of this post--that's what happened right here in this thread! People _are_ downmodding because of contrary opinions, whether we like it or not.

By the way, I'm not pro-Palestine either--I would say I'm neutral, but it's more of a case of "I could care less, and it helps me avoid wasting time on useless flamewars."

<comment><USER9> I know you recognized the problem. But why didn't you resist? Why did you add that?

 _By the way, I'm not pro-Palestine either--I would say I'm neutral, but it's more of a case of "I could care less, and it helps me avoid wasting time on useless flamewars."_

I don't need to know your position on Israel/Palestine in order to decide if I should up or downmod you. You are too used to reddit.

You had a good point, and again here, you should have stopped there.

Don't feed the people downmodding because of contrary opinions by posting your opinion if it has nothing to do with your point. Yes there are _some_ people doing that, but I think most HN's are not. Trust that they will do the right thing, and don't encourage people who will do the wrong thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Photos That Capture Incredible Moments in History - <AUTHOR> http://interestingdude.com/photos-that-capture-incredible-moments-in-history/ <comment><USER2> amazing pictures, we should look at them more often to remember</comment>


Scrapblog: Scrapbook maker - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/29/the-real-scrapblog-is-here-finally/ <comment><AUTHOR> I just want to say that this program is nuts. You can get started without being signed up so I'd say try it out. It's pretty impressive and I'm almost positive that it's built with Adobe Flex. Runs a lot like a desktop application. I've been waiting to see a good use for Flex.</comment>