Show HN: Web Academy – best learning resources for hackers and founders - <AUTHOR> http://webacademy.io/?ref=HN <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, everyone! I've built this project because I want to collect the best learning resources for Web Developers and Startup Founders, and make it easy to discover them. I hope you guys will find it useful!

The project is open source, you can find our repo here:

[https://github.com/raymestalez/webacademy](https://github.com/raymestalez/webacademy)

I'm actively working on making this platform better, and I would really love to hear any comments/feedback/suggestions/critique!

<comment><USER2> As a user, I am unable to efficiently differentiate between similar resources to determine which might be better or worse _for me._ Each resource appears in an identical box without supporting information - I do not know if a link leads to is a video or a pdf or a blog post or an interactive website.

It would also be useful to have information about why each is considered best and who it is best for (beginner, intermediate, advanced?). The votes don't really provide information.

Finally, the number of topics might be too broad too soon. Drilling down on one topic and getting all the details right is an alternative. Resources for ounders and web developers and backend engineers do not have a lot of overlap and the competing topics are noisy from the user's perspective...filtering by the user is not a substitute for the benefits that can come from a narrowly focused design.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your feedback!

There are tags at the bottom of each post, indicating it's type and difficulty level.

To drill down on one topic and get the details right I'm planning to use tags, like this one:

[http://webacademy.io/react-tutorials/](http://webacademy.io/react-tutorials/)

<comment><USER2> The top link has a |level:all| tag.

The difficulty may be that the website does not express clear opinions...I mean 'opinions' in the sense of Ruby on Rails where agree or disagree the number of decisions the user must make is reduced. For comparison consider Zed Shaw's _Learn X the Hard Way_. There are other ways of teaching that might be better for some learners. Those people are able to make a quick decision that Shaw's work is not for them. He does not waste their time searching and trying to be all things to all people. Rails does not try to be all things to all people either. That's good.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Coding Interview Preparation Bootcamp - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/educative/3-month-coding-interview-bootcamp-904422926ce8 <comment><USER2> Wikipedia has an excellent article on this under [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination).

Essentially, the system used to recruit candidates into the Imperial Chinese state bureaucracy was an-ever-more-elaborate progression of less- and less- relevant testing, and more- and more-gamable (and expensive) testing. If you thought getting quizzed about FizzBuzz was bad, imagine getting quizzed about Beowulf with the same degree of seriousness.

"Intense pressure to succeed meant that cheating and corruption were rampant, often outrunning strenuous attempts to prevent or defeat them."

"In the 19th century, critics blamed the imperial system, and in the process its examinations, for China's lack of technical knowledge and its defeat by foreign powers."

This doesn't amount to any huge revelation to many of us when we're seeking jobs, nor any comfort, really.

Maybe a little bit of solace that the coding interview you inexplicably failed, which had the trappings of a serious attempt to gauge your fit, but the actual behind-the-scenes decision-making progress involved the finesse you'd expect from a group of blindfolded monkeys throwing darts, will eventually pay a dividend for all the fat dumb and happy juggernauts in the bay. Amazon may be the Sears of the 21st century, but I strongly suspect it and its cohort will meet the same fate a century later and for the same reasons.

<comment><USER3> FizzBuzz is relevant to job. People complaining about izzBuzz havent had the pleasure of working with someone able to talk about development well while being unable to write simple code. Problem of FizzBUzz is that it is too easy, so folks get insulted.

I have worked who are totally passionate and read all the blogs and can talk about all new buzzwords and techniques. Who simultaneously had problem write simple code. That is incomparable to Beowulf.

<comment><USER4> I agree completely on Fizzbuzz. It has saved us from making so many bad hires. It takes 15 minutes during the interview and you learn so much about a candidate. Not only if they can do basic coding but also how they react when they encounter something that don't know or conversely how they react when they think something is "easy" or "beneath them".

10 years ago I was asked how to tell if an integer is divisible by two without using division or modulus. What they expected was to bit mask the 1s place in the integer and check for equality with 0. I'd take Fizzbuzz any day.

<comment><USER5> come on. this is so obvious. read an int at that location and see if you take a misaligned read fault. so easy.

if CPU masks it then time the read.

ok partly sarcasm but partly: this isn't a hard question. i'm sure i could enumerate ALL the possible ways to do this. maybe i'm good at puzzles.

if your comment is about how awful an interview question it is, in that case yeah i agree. but not because it's hard. anyone should be able to answer this.

<comment><USER4> I never said it was hard. I was pointing out that people have been asking easy screener type questions like fizzbuzz for at least 10 years.

Further I was pointing out I prefer fizzbuzz because it at least bears a resemblance to what would be done on a daily basis on the job.

> anyone should be able to answer this.

Anyone should be able to answer fizzbuzz yet people who look good on paper constantly fail it. This is why it is useful. And that is why it is actually not a bad interview question. (in my opinion)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I imagine that the longer you've been coding in the real world, the harder it is to justify doing all this studying for interviews to get a similar job, especially if you aren't motivated by money alone.

Recently interviewed with one of the big ones and they were enamoured with my Swift and iOS dev knowledge but I'm not great with identifying graph questions. After many long internal discussions and even a letter of recommendation they passed/asked me if I was interested in other semi- technical roles at the company. In moments like this my sentiment is 'take me or leave me'.

</comment><comment><USER7> It is sad to see the huge divergence between skills required for coding interviews and the skills required to be a good software developer/engineer.

<comment><USER8> Apparently it's still the best indicator for hiring engineers on large scale. It's proven that there is a big correlation between performing good during an coding interview and performing good during your day-to-day job.

Ofc the coding interview is bad, but it's the best of all available (viable) options.

tbh: most people say it's bad because interviewers focus on the optimal solution or something like that. Most of the time that's incorrect as an interview is literally capturing: "Can the candidate solve a difficult problem and transfer his thoughts into code, while being a nice guy to work with"

disclaimer: I'm doing interviews for a faang company.

<comment><USER9> "It's proven that there is a big correlation between performing good during an coding interview and performing good during your day-to-day job"*

*citation needed

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately it's internal. All faang companies spend a lot of time and resources on hiring to make it more fair for everybody and to get signals faster. And nobody internally enjoys doing a lot of coding interviews - it's as frustrating for the interviewer as it is for the candidate.

If there would be an easier way then these companies would definitely use it. A candidate usually has 5-7 interviews (if he is not failing the phone screen), which is 5-7 engineers spending at least 1 hour for the interview + 1 hour for the feedback. I am having 2-5 interviews per week, which means I spend between 4 and 10 hours per week just on hiring. If we could reduce this number we would definitely do it, as it's costing a loooot of money.

To be fair: there is some innovation and traction in those areas, s.t. some candidate s do a coding project at home and then present their solution (to reduce the number of interviews).

<comment><USER10> Just for context it seems the above user works at Google based on previous comments.

The idea that Google has internal research indicating this wouldn't be surprising to me.

<comment><USER11> > The idea that Google has internal research indicating this wouldn't be > surprising to me.

The problem with internal research on these matters is the nearly total lack of negative examples. Depending on the quality of the pre-on-site screening the quality of candidates at that point might be so high that random selection might be just as good.

<comment><USER8> A negative example would be someone who scored good within the interview process, but then performs bad on the job (bad performance rating). Such examples get discussed internally by the hiring committee (senior people doing the last hiring decision for every candidate).

I think the biggest issue with the current approach among faang interviews is that a lot of really good people get filtered out (false negative) - but faang get so many applications that they are ok with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Funny to read this and look back at a recently downvoted comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18445332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18445332)

</comment><comment><USER13> I should start a bootcamp to help prospective students prepare to attend a bootcamp.

</comment><comment><USER14> Who is this article aimed at?

<comment><USER15> > Who is this article aimed at? Presumably at anybody looking to 'crack' the > coding interview. Obviously not all of it is going to be relevant for every > role but I found some useful things in there. At the very least I think it > offers a structured approach on which to model your own preparation.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: iPad can run my existing apps, so what about app distribution rights? - <AUTHOR>

If Apple is letting people run apps they bought for their iPhone/iPod touch on their iPad does that mean they could release other platforms which users would automatically get their apps for without giving the developers any more money?
For example, could they release an "app emulator" for Mac which let you play your games on the desktop, etc. Most licenses either explicitly license to a person, or a device. Does this mean all apps are licensed to people?
Any thoughts/ideas about how the app store licensing actually works? <comment><USER2> The deal has always been the iTunes store APP runs on all devices synced to the iTunes account. So a single user can already be running it on a flotilla of iPhones and iPod Touches.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a similar issue to Journalists writing stuff they retained copyright on and then saw re-used for other media.

Personally, if I were an iPhone developer (which I'm not) I wouldn't have much a problem with it, and I'd do my best to release an iPad version with some extra bells and whistles that only works on the iPad, then give users that buy both a discount.

Everybody wins like that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would this be a problem? If your app costs a certain amount, Apple gives you your 70 percent cut when anybody buys it, regardless of what device it runs on.

So the fact that iPhone apps will now run on the iPad as well seems like a good thing for developers.

<comment><USER5> The issue is: If one customer has an iPhone and an iPad, do they have to buy two copies of an app or can they buy one copy and install it twice? Do app developers have any choice about this?

IIRC in the past Apple retroactively changed the terms on music after it had been sold (usually for the better, so customers didn't complain).

<comment><USER4> Based on my experience with the iPhone and Apple, both as a developer and a customer, I'd bet a lot of money that a person who has bought an app for their iPhone will also be able to run it on their iPad without paying for it again.

Right now, I'm paying for two iPhones on one AT&T account, one for me, one for a friend. If I buy an app from the app store, it will run on both phones without me having to pay for it twice.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript is the new Perl - <AUTHOR> http://ocpsoft.org/opensource/javascript-is-the-new-perl <comment><USER2> Is he trying to say that everything we write today in Javascript will probably be rewritten like everything we wrote in Perl in the 90s got rewritten? That's probably true, but it doesn't mean "Javascript is the new Perl"

Perl had zero corporate investment from a application development perspective. Java had an enormous amount -- and still does. Now take a look at Javascript. Javascript is the first language since Java to have gotten this much investment across a lot of enterprises. Google, Microsoft, of course, but also the rise of startups like Meteor. For Javascript to go away the way Perl did for app development will require too much retooling.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a weird comparison. JavaScript is obligatory and available in all common browsers. It's fairly easy to get started, and even easier to actually accomplish something with it. Not sure if Perl is as accommodating (haven't tried it though).

When all is said and done JavaScript is a very popular language. When you leave a company, having build something fairly complex - If you did your job properly, documented your code and followed common sense, the project will probably live on.

The author also speaks off everyone hating Perl. Is JavaScript really as hated? I don't get that impression at all.

<comment><USER4> Lover of Perl and JavaScript alike here.

It is a weird comparison. The two languages are used in very different ways; I guess the author is saying JavaScript will be supplanted by something nicer, like Perl has been. But Perl _hasn't_ been. Python and Ruby are cohabitors, not usurpers. A sizable chunk of the web's infrastructure is still Perl, and that is unlikely to change.

To give you an idea of the language, Perl is very easy to use, and very hard to grok. The language is large and complex, but most of the size and complexity have to do with being as helpful to the programmer as possible. If you use things in a way that seems plausible, your expectations probably won't be violated. But if you want to deeply understand how something works, be prepared to discover many details you didn't expect about how the language is silently helping you out.

It's a relatively painless experience, even if you don't know a lot of Perl, to glue a few CPAN modules together and get something working. In that respect it's similar to writing a Node.js application, though the set of Node libraries is, last I knew, laughably small by comparison.

Having maintained both large-scale JavaScript and Perl codebases, I can tell you that it's _much_ easier to deal with Perl. Having a proper module system is a huge boon, as well as sane handling of types, and some compile-time checking. Perl is dynamic, yes, but types are explicit by way of sigils—in Perl 5, essentially typed dereferencing operators.

The main difficulty in Perl is the same as in _any_ dynamic language: refactoring. It can be a pain to change things, because many of the resulting errors are not checked till runtime. A comprehensive test suite helps with this; Perl's testing culture is very good, and comparable to that of Ruby. JavaScript developers tend not, in my experience, to write tests.

So not everybody hates Perl, and not everybody hates JavaScript. People who've actually _used_ a language tend not to hate it as much as those who haven't. This article is, in that regard, just plain silly.

<comment><USER3> > The two languages are used in very different ways

I thought so too. JavaScript seems like it's filling a gap, and by doing that it's ensuring its own survival. Either that, or we're forcing it into a specific purpose (i.e event based manipulation, animation, data i/o), but the end result will probably be the same. I have a hard time imagining something else coming along, at least not as long as JavaScript is... well, everywhere.

Thank you for explaining Perl to me. A proper module system, compile-time checking and the sort has, with JavaScript, been solved by using JSLint and AMD. Well, almost. It makes the code easier to maintain. Although I'm sure Perl is superior in that regard, it still works - and it works really well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think that people's problems with perl < 5.0 was it's lack of "object oriented" features. Perl's object system is quite interesting, but orthogonal to the perceived ickiness of perl the language.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think part of the problem with JavaScript, php, perl, etc is that is there, by default, everywhere. A great many beginners do some very ugly things with it because it's already on the system they have and there's tons of not so good examples on the Internet to cut and paste. I'd bet there are plenty of people creating web sites who aren't entirely clear on where HTML stops and JavaScript starts.

Ruby, for example not only has to be installed on most older systems, you'd have to know that you wanted ruby in the first place. This alone acts as a giant filter. Anyone who knows they want to use ruby is already going to produce better code.

Edit: Please s/ruby//g with anything slightly more obscure than perl/php like python, go, object-pascal, etc. I'm not trying to be a ruby elitist here. It was just an example.

<comment><USER7> PHP is most likely not on the system they have.

I don't know about OS X but it doesn't come with any popular Linux distro and it doesn't come with Windows either. Neither does Perl.

<comment><USER6> Most people don't try to host their first web site on their windows box. They likely get a shared host for $3 a month somewhere. This probably has a little sample site with a few lines of PHP and some JavaScript on it.

When I started, I _did not know_ the difference between PHP, JavaScript and HTML. I thought it was all "web markup".

<comment><USER7> > Most people don't try to host their first web site on their windows box.

Most people dont host their first web site period. I never heard of anyone who didn't learn PHP offline, on a local Apache server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Nobody actually does plain "JavaScript" programming for the web anymore, not > really anyway. Do they use the core language? Yes. But we no longer use any > of the built-in JavaScript->HTML functionality directly.

Which is sort of a shame because there's stuff in there that totally obviates the need to haphazardly traverse the dom with jQuery.

Finding the form an input element belongs to in jQuery:

        $('input').parents('form');

        // or probably
        $('input').parent().parent().parent().find('form');

Finding the same thing using the DOM API:

        document.querySelector('input').form;

You'd want to mix those two, in a real use case:

        $('input').on('click', function(evt) {
            var form = this.form;
        });

Then you don't even need jQuery to use the FormData API:

        // where `submit` uses XHR2 to make a request
        <input type="submit" onclick="submit(this.form)">

<comment><USER9> Unless you want to support IE7, that is. <http://caniuse.com/#search=queryselector>

Not that I recommend doing so, but in many cases you don't have a choice. Or you started working on a project that originally needed to, and maintaining consistent style might lead you to use jQuery everywhere.

<comment><USER8> Of course. My main point wasn't the use of querySelector per se, but the ability to access the exact DOM element(s) you need without crazy querying or traversal.

While the DOM API isn't perfect by any means, and jQuery fills that gap really well, there are still times where the OOP nature of the DOM gets you exactly what you want with minimal faff.

The other problem is the relative obscurity of it thanks to jQuery and crowd- sourced DOM documentation (via MDN).

<comment><USER9> yeah, jQuery certainly eclipses everything else. Though I don't know what you mean by obscurity + MDN... it does seem weirdly anaemic for such a big / complex / important piece of the API, but I don't know if I'd call MDN obscure. Or, I hope it isn't, I find it wildly useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't really feel like being the next Perl is a bad thing, contrary to the article's premise.

However, the author is making a lot of unbacked and sensational claims. I feel inclined to comment on each part.

 _> everyone hates [Perl] because it's "too hard to maintain" and too "strange."_

I didn't know _everyone_ hates Perl and I also didn't know those were the reason. Surely we don't want strange languages? </sarcasm>

 _> global variables in JavaScript have been at the root of nearly every client-side security exploit to date._

Where does this information come from?

 _> In the mean time, to work around some of these issues, JavaScript is still being used much like an Assembly language._

How is javascript like assembly?

 _> We are seeing a similar explosion of packages (libraries), like Perl did, which led to the development of CPAN (you could akin this to the jQuery plugin ecosystem, which is neither as formal, reliable, nor as convenient or automated.)_

Also worth mentioning is node's NPM, in which case the above argument is not true. And also, github and great search engines did not exist at the time that CPAN came out, and it's hard to imagine it would have gained the same amount of traction, because it's simply not necessary for the most part.

 _> There's a similar explosion of JavaScript implementations on server side and in other languages, leading to issues with compatibility and runtime bugs._

What is this based on? I haven't seen many problems with compatibility and runtime bugs in the Node ecosystem at all. However I've never used Rhino, and perhaps that's what he's talking about. Does the author have any experience with Node?

 _> Still don't believe that JavaScript is the new Perl? Compare jQuery to Perl CGI. Nobody actually does plain "JavaScript" programming for the web anymore, not really anyway. Do they use the core language? Yes. But we no longer use any of the built-in JavaScript->HTML functionality directly._

Only holds limited truth for browser development. Everybody using jquery is using plain Javascript. They are interfacing with the DOM API through jQuery and using the jQuery library. But the comparison is like saying anybody who uses a 3rd party library in Java is not using the real language. A language is not the API that you're using.

 _> jQuery is the glue that holds together the JavaScript ecosystem, provides browser compatibility, and it admittedly does a pretty good job._

what?

 _> however, sooner or later, the lack of language constructs like truly enforceable namespace boundaries, and the general mess created when teams get a little bit bigger is going to set in._

Name spacing is easily solved using module loaders and proper scoping.

 _> This is seen over and over as the new wave of developers comes into corporate life: Larger companies try it out, then decide it's costing measurably, then switch back._

It would be interesting to know which large companies have been trying it out and then deciding it's costing them too much money and switching back.

 _> We ARE inherently lazy and most of us will ignore nearly any best practice or principle once "that deadline" gets too close._

Sorry, this just means you're a shitty developer and/or can't manage deadlines very well.

 _> Still, you don't see that many big Python and Ruby shops either (Google is an exception,)_

His exception is a pretty large one. And besides that, which companies has the author studied?

I'm not going to comment on any of the Java claims, since I don't have that much experience with Java.

All in all this article is incredibly biased towards Java and affected by large amount of disinformation about Javascript in general.

<comment><USER11> I agree with a lot of what you said, but I can see one area where I can see what the author is trying to say.

> _How is javascript like assembly?_

You're right that JavaScript is not like assembly; it's more like bytecode. A number of different languages compile to JavaScript (CoffeeScript, TypeKit, Fay), which is then interpreted. While the intent of JavaScript is that it should be readable by humans, in practice this does not happen thanks to production minification. This is more like bytecode. For example, you _can_ Java .class file with a hex editor, but you'll need software to do that, or a hex editor and a lot of time.

tl;dr: The author _means to say_ that JavaScript is used as a building block for other languages used to write client-side logic.

<comment><USER10> Ok, I can see that point. I guess the big difference is that not many people write in bytecode, but a lot of people (majority in my experience, which might change) write in pure Javascript

<comment><USER12> > I guess the big difference is that not many people write in bytecode, but a > lot of people (majority in my experience, which might change) write in pure > Javascript

That's purely a matter of preference. If you want, you can write in Java, C# or C++ and compile that to JavaScript, many major websites use that approach.

The fact that many people still write pure JavaScript shows the opposite of what the article says: People like it and are productive with it. If they were not, they would more often write in something else and compile to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Point 1: There is no other way to write client-side browser applications.

Point 2: Node.js allows a team of 1-2 quickly get a server-side app up and running. Once a project takes off and needs to scale to a larger team, it's extremely easy to switch to and write C++ components.

Point 3: Who cares if history is repeating itself or not. It's an impressive technology stack with huge corporate backers. Besides, Perl is still used and although nowhere near as cool, still works great for writing shell scripts.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you say Javascript is becoming an assembly language, you never coded in assembly language, it is not "impossible" to maintain a javascript project, if you can get pass that it is not java, people have been doing it for years and will continue to do so in the near future

<comment><USER15> Building on this point: there are more and more libraries and frameworks in javascript that follow best practices in keeping things modular, well separated and differentiating core-app code from DOM manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Site seems to be timing out here.

<comment><USER17> Same here. No-image Google cache version here: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QFxSoJi...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QFxSoJi4FgkJ:ocpsoft.org/opensource/javascript- is-the-new-perl/&strip=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Perl was never as popular as JavaScript has become lately,_

I don't know what to say.

Spoiler: apparently ES6 is going to kill ES5. Personally I'm shocked.

<comment><USER4> If you replace "popular" with "visible", then it makes a kind of sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We have an extensive JavaScript codebase at the large corporation I work at and by simply enforcing the use of ECMAScript 5 Strict Mode and verifying with JSLint we are able to catch most potential issues but then again, nobody there is writing large systems in JavaScript, only flourishes of browser-side interactivity...

<comment><USER20> I'm hoping Node continues to gain popularity. The idea of using the same language on the serverside and clientside seems too enticing to fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There was much more "magic" in CGI/Perl. The only "magic" in JS in fact is caused by browser vendors and have nothing to do with language itself.

</comment><comment><USER12> > a stack that is resilient enough to withstand sloppy code.

There is no such magic stack that withstands sloppy code.</comment>


Is 'social credit' coming to the US? - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7396975/Is-social-credit-coming-Report-claims-systems-like-Chinas-used-Silicon-Valley.html <comment><USER2> It already exists through other means. Any arrest (!) or conviction is likely to show up in a background check, and most employers besides very small ones conduct background checks.

If you can't get a job because you can't pass a background check, then you have a pretty low chance of affording to live. I mean sure, you can still walk around in society and book plane tickets if you somehow get money (something you can't do in China with a bad score).... but you are already teetering on homelessness, bankruptcy and re-imprisonment under our current US system.</comment>


Super Logout - <AUTHOR> http://superlogout.com/ <comment><USER2> Cool idea and seems to work, but might be good if it was activated by pressing a button rather than just a visit to the page - I am now logged out of a number these services just because I visited the page - which is not really what I wanted!

</comment><comment><USER3> Well that was annoying.

</comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't I just clear cookies to accomplish this? Or open an incognito / private session?

</comment><comment><USER5> A List of supported services: [http://imgur.com/M1wGK99](http://imgur.com/M1wGK99) You have to love NoScript :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Does nothing if the Chrome "Block third-party cookies and site data" is enabled, which means that setting is working as intended. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> What is the context here? There's no description of what this is, or what it is doing, but it looks interesting :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, a button would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lol

</comment><comment><USER10> way to troll us all, OP :)</comment>


Ask HN: What software or service is missing from your life? - <AUTHOR> In addition to the title, if you know of a product that fits someone else's request, link it and show them <comment><USER2> An RSS reader that I'm happy with. yeah, I've tried pretty much all of them.

<comment><USER3> Completely agree. Looking for one myself.

Would you have any thoughts on what Feedly could do better?

<comment><USER2> Here's what Feedly could do better. It could strip down. When I look for an RSS reader, I don't look for something that looks like the front page of HN. I do look for a simple list of feeds, with folders. That's it, nothing more. That's all I need. When I open a single feed, the articles display. Of course having filtering is nice, but not necessary. There are plenty of services out there that will do that for me. I don't read feeds based on anyone's curation, including Feedly's. I read them based on whatever I'm interested in reading that day.</comment></comment></comment>


What's it like to try to trim a 737 MAX during high speed (Video) - chupa-chups https://vimeo.com/329558134 <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting, Have been following the recent updates but's it's been tricky to visualise the actions taken within the cockpit.

As someone without much aviation knowledge, but with and interest in the engineering/process side of the 737 Max news, I've found Juan Browne's videos [1] to be very informative and well-condensed.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6SYmp3qb3uPp1DS7fDy7...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6SYmp3qb3uPp1DS7fDy7I6y11MIMgnbO)

</comment><comment> chupa-chups Some facts to consider:

\- Throttling down pitches down (i.e. pilots don't want to reduce thrust if nose points towards hard matter)

\- Throttling up pitches up

\- Memory checklist "runaway trim" is what pilots try to exercise

See also [https://www.satcom.guru/2018/11/stabilizer- trim.html](https://www.satcom.guru/2018/11/stabilizer-trim.html)</comment>


Book Review: The Tao of Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.retroprogramming.com/2011/02/tao-of-programming.html

<comment><USER2> <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html>

"Last modified 1996-04-10 or earlier"</comment>


Why men love breasts - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/23500-why-men-love-breasts.html

<comment><USER2> Someone is assuming facts not in evidence - I don't think 'men love breasts' is universally true. Even if it was it's trivial to speculate on evolutionary potential with no testing, not really worthy writing an article about.

Hardly a 'theory' more of a hypothesis - and barely one at that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do we really need a reason why?

<comment><USER4> Science sets out to answer the "why's" of the world. Why is there lightning? Why does a fungus grow a certain way? ([http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121141051.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121141051.htm))

Sometimes answering these seemingly innocuous questions leads to deep insights into natural behaviors.

"I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts."

\-- Richard Feynman

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE>

<comment><USER5> i think the gp was asking a rhetorical question</comment></comment></comment>


For $1B, Elon Musk's Tunnel to O'Hare Would Be a Miracle - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion-elon-musks-tunnel-to-ohare-would-be-a-miracle/562841/ <comment><USER2> > In Toronto, where the subway system doesn't reach the international airport, > a brand-new airport express line has fallen seriously short of ridership > expectations, even with its one-way fare of $12.35

The reason this is failing is because of awareness. I travel to Toronto for work 4-5 times every year (for the past 12 years). I heard about this extension being approved a couple years ago and I've never seen a sign for it in Pearson (there must be some somewhere). I've also asked people who live in Toronto whatever happened to this project and nobody even knows what I'm talking about.

Meanwhile, I learn from this article that it's actually up and running and they not only consider it a failure but they're using it to say other transit systems won't work. A Musk built project won't fail on awareness like this project has.

<comment><USER3> Part of why I don't use the Toronto UP link is:

\- I didn't know it was completed and operating.

\- Bulk of residential population is 30-45min+ subway ride from Union Station anyway, might have assumed people travel from their offices.

\- If due to a subway delay I miss a flight because I only paid $15 and wanted to save $30, the savings doesn't justify the risk. The independent probabilities of unavoidable delays on each leg of journey add up, where in car there are alternate routes.

\- Would consider taking train if it came with flight insurance.

\- There is no clear signage at arrivals of where the UP line is, as signage favors limousines, then taxis, then pickup, etc.

\- Any signage would need to include scheduling information as walking to train to find it's not running means never going back.

I supported the UP line in principle when they were talking about building it, but can see why their numbers aren't up yet.

<comment><USER2> > I didn't know it was completed and operating.

A new transit line is usually pretty big news in any city, but like I said... everyone in Toronto that I asked about it didn't know about it either. So they've really blown it on awareness. Thankfully, that's actually a pretty easy thing to fix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The idea of having Boring Company pay for the construction and then reap the profits strikes me as a really great idea.

When the government pays for construction, the contractors don't have a strong incentive to actually finish the project. They'll keep getting paid no matter how long it runs over or how over-budget it goes.

But in this situation, Boring Co won't make any money unless and until they get it up and running.

I know nothing about this. Has this been done successfully before? What are the potential downsides I'm not thinking of?

<comment><USER5> It is the opposite of a good idea in my opinion.

The reason you don't want to do that is because the private enterprise wants to maximize its profits. There is nothing wrong with that but in order to do so they will cut corners where ever possible and do the absolute minimum for upkeep.

Yes, this happens with poorly managed and financed public projects as well but public infrastructure can and sometimes must operate at a loss.

In fact a lot of public infrastructure does not pay for itself and is subsidized by tax dollars.

<comment><USER6> >The reason you don't want to do that is because the private enterprise wants to maximize its profits. There is nothing wrong with that but in order to do so they will cut corners where ever possible and do the absolute minimum for upkeep.

Government does this and when they do it it's much, much harder to hold them accountable. Look at the Big Dig or anything the MTA touches.

When a private company acts like this and the public notices there's at least the risk that some politicians will latch on to the issue (no politician ever lost public support by being tough on a company that was mistreating the public). When government is the wrongdoer it's needs to get incredibly bad before the other parts of government hold them accountable.

<comment><USER7> Part of the problem with the Big Dig were the government was defrauded by a materials supplier who used substandard in order to cut costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is terrible.

$25 for 12 minutes from one place in the loop to O'Hare

CTA is $2.50 for 37 minutes (the $5 is if you start _from_ O'Hare)

This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50.

$1bn or whatever absurd cost it comes out to be is much better spent on improving transit for the actual public.

Or you know, to stop shutting down schools.

EDIT: typo

<comment><USER9> > _This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20 /$22.50_

Roads suffer from induced demand [1]. You can't build your way out of traffic. The only solutions are tolls or quotas.

In any case, if you can't find anyone willing to pay to use your infrastructure (at a price that recoups the investment), that's a sign you overbuilt.

> _transit for the actual public_

Cars going through this tunnel are cars off other roads.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand)

<comment><USER10> The concept of induced demand does not say you can't build your way out of traffic. This idea seems to come up a lot in transportation discussions. Driving a car on a road is not free in either money or time, so when a new road fills up it is because more people are going somewhere they want to go and are pay a cost to do so. Yes, when you build a new road near where there are already traffic jams, the new road gets filled up. This is not some magical thing that with infinite roads people will just drive all day so that they are full. I think most people who use this phrase don't quite understand it. The have learned that cars are morally bad and induced demand is some kind of concept that says building new roads for cars is pointless. I ask you, if there was a way for people to have instant point-to-point transportation that had little environmental impact, would you support its implementation?

The whole point of Musk's tunneling project is that with tunnels you can build as many tunnels as you want without the negative aspects of roads which are mainly taking up surface space and making a lot of noise.

<comment><USER11> Infinite roads are not an option. If there is more pent-up demand than total possible road capacity, then there will never be enough capacity.

<comment><USER10> "If there is more pent-up demand than total possible road capacity, then there will never be enough capacity." That is a tautology.

With tunnels you can probably increase capacity by 100 times without going very deep. That would support some kind of crazy Hong Kong level density of people in the whole LA basin. Everyone in the US could live there. After that happens one can worry about this infinity demand potential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the article: "The Musk 'Loop' would have a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour in each direction, which is about 60 percent of the Blue Line's current, mostly-under-capacity average hourly ridership."

So that's good, right? This looks like a situation where a high-capacity line isn't actually needed and one that's lower-capacity but cheaper to build line would save money. So maybe it's appropriate use of a technology that doesn't do what mass transit does?

<comment><USER13> isn't it saying that the loop capacity is 60% of the _current ridership_ of the blue-line? not 60% of an unused maximum. Seems to me the 'loop' would be criticised for being constantly busy & over capacity.

<comment><USER14> The "ridership of the entire Blue Line" number isn't particularly interesting here; very few of those people are going to the airport. A more interesting number is entries at the O'Hare Blue Line station, which is about 10,500 per weekday, or 440 per hour. So this design could accommodate something like a 5x increase in transit-to-ORD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't believe California pays 1 billion dollars a mile just to drill out tunnels. I think the going rate in Europe (not even China!) is something like $40M/km or fifteen times less than what California is paying per mile.

<comment><USER16> Even in one of the largest cities in the country? Can you dig a tunnel in London, Berlin, or Paris for that price?

<comment><USER17> You can for a lot less than $1bn/mile. Crossrail was ~£200m/mile. Even the Channel Tunnel, under the sea, was £300m/mile. Those prices are _all inclusive_ , so that includes building stations, rolling stock etc.

Also unlike old cities, there are no archeological issues when digging under LA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > _The Musk "Loop" would have a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour in each > direction, which is about 60 percent of the Blue Line's current, mostly- > under-capacity average hourly ridership. Debatable too are the merits of > this particular project for airport-bound Chicagoans—the Blue Line works > pretty darn well..._

I'm much more of a New Yorker, but I'll admit that Chicago transit around the Loop is pretty damn good. It may not run 24/7 (IIRC) but going from downtown to either of the airports is a real pleasure compared to NYC.

<comment><USER19> The Blue Line and Red Line do run 24 hours (admittedly with like up to 30 minute headways in the middle of the night). The other lines mostly have parallel night bus routes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If I were the mayor of Chicago, I'd take that money and spend it at the airport itself. This line shaves 25 minutes off the travel time for a fairly small subset of people. The gains to be made at the airport are far greater. I get there 25 minutes faster, only to spend the next hour screwing around at the airport. If we:

1\. Staffed security such that there was never a line, 2\. Staffed the ticket counter such that there was never a line, 3\. Installed double ended jet bridges so that we could load and unload the plane twice as fast, 4\. Put moving walkways everywhere, 5\. Improved staffing and efficiency of baggage handling, such that you could drop your bag 20 minutes before the flight and have it get on the plane,

We could shave 30 minutes off the airport experience, for every user of the airport, not just the ones that happen to be coming from downtown.

<comment><USER21> This is supposedly fully funded by the Boring Company. No tax money will be put in the project. At least that's what they are saying.

The $8.5 billion O'Hare Airport expansion project is approved and underway, and it is also funded by the airlines via issuing bonds. Supposedly, no tax money will be involved either.

Block 37 is also designed to serve as a downtown "terminal". Passengers will go through security and check in luggages before they board the trains.

I don't know the regulations, but installing double ended jet bridges doesn't sound that easy to me. It's probably something FAA has to approve. Staffing issues at the ticket counter and security is also outside of the mayor's jurisdiction. It's decided by the airlines themselves, TSA, and the organization that runs the O'hare airport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really think the high costs of making rail in the US is a logistical problem, not a technology one.

</comment><comment><USER23> It is a bet. They need to prove that they are there to play the game like the rest of the competitors. If they fail for many different reasons a small budget increase is not a big deal. They are ready to pay the fines.

<comment><USER24> If they really are footing the bill themselves, what is their incentive to understate price? Closing deals before the real price of the actually-shipped tunnel is known?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It would not be a miracle.

The new 13.5 kilometer subway section in Helsinki cost 88M€ per kilometer, corresponding to $165 per mile.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article has several errors:

>The Musk "Loop" would have a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour in each direction, which is about 60 percent of the Blue Line's current, mostly-under- capacity average hourly ridership.

The RFQ[0] makes clear that the intent is to compete against taxi and ride- share services, which comprise 52% of trips in the 2015 estimate, to CTA Rail's 20%[1]. The article says "the Blue Line works pretty darn well", but revealed preferences tell a different story.

I can't find what O'Hare Xpress LLC (the other finalist) proposed, but the RFP[2] required respondents to specify "maximum passenger capacity: (i) per 15 minutes; and (ii) per hour". The JFK AirTrain was designed for 34,000 riders per day.[3]

>Most transit moves horizontally, some moves vertically; the concept for the "Chicago Express Loop" is to do both.

The tunnel will terminate at Block 37, where Chicago already has an unused, very expensive, giant subway station. This concept doesn't include elevators, as described so far.

> The writer and transportation researcher Alon Levy compiled the grim per- > mile pricing of recent tunnel projects for CityLab in January, shown below. > This table gives a sense of how extraordinary Musk's project would be on a > cost basis—and how improbable.

This cherry-picks a US price chart from an article[4] that's entirely about how tunneling is inordinately expensive in the United States compared to the rest of the world and refutes the idea that labor is the main cause. The cited article even has a pull-quote that says "There's no reason why building subways and light rail in sprawling cities should be as expensive as it is."

>If the Boring Company's cost projection of $1 billion is anywhere near accurate, that pencils out to $55.5 million per mile—far and away, the cheapest construction cost for any subterranean transit line in the U.S.

That should be $27.8 million per mile ($17.3m per km), since you'll presumably want it to go in both directions. This is low even compared to European transit,[5] but those tunnels are 2-3x the diameter.

Really, this project is a Loop mostly in name, diameter and rolling stock — it doesn't approach the ambitious concept of operations (elevators, dynamic routing, and car access) that is planned for Maryland and LA. That should alleviate a substantial part of the technical risk, leaving it mostly as a financial risk for investors.

Since (like most infrastructure) tunneling mostly consists of fixed costs, the most likely failure mode is not reaching completion at all. Once it's complete it's likely to be cash flow positive even if it has a poor or negative return on investment, so there's little incentive to shut it down. (This was echoed by Musk in the press conference.)

[0] [http://chicagoinfrastructure.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/11/...](http://chicagoinfrastructure.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/11/OES-RFQ-Complete-ADD2-Clean-20180119-2.pdf)

[1] Taxi/Uber: 5,164, CTA Rail: 2,011, Total: 9,956. _n.b. These ridership estimates are for daily one-way trips, with total daily trips being twice those in the table._ [https://i.imgur.com/naVUjnA.png](https://i.imgur.com/naVUjnA.png)

[2] [http://chicagoinfrastructure.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/...](http://chicagoinfrastructure.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/OES-RFP-Addendum-3-20180501.pdf)

[3] [https://www.bechtel.com/projects/jfk-airtrain- jfk-2000/](https://www.bechtel.com/projects/jfk-airtrain-jfk-2000/)

[4] [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so- ex...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-expensive-to- build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/)

[5] [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2013/06/03/comparative- su...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway- construction-costs-revised/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I followed the Chicago Tribune link because I wanted to read the article that provided this quote, "can build tunnels at least 14 times faster than previous efforts, which a company official acknowledged the company must still prove,"

… and I got this!

[http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/chicagotribune.com/](http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/chicagotribune.com/)

"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."

edit: I'm not complaining and I'm not trying to derail (hah, see what I did there) the topic. I was expressing my surprise, first time this has happened to me.

<comment><USER28> You could make a comment complaining about GDPR, or you could just go here to read the article (without the privacy-invading bloat JS) here: [http://archive.is/0ZmZ0](http://archive.is/0ZmZ0)

<comment><USER29> Or he could do both. It's a pain to click on a link and be redirected like that.

<comment><USER28> I wish I was so lucky as to live somewhere where sites that violate my rights blocked me instead, as the case happens. Note that while it may take a couple extra seconds to find a workaround, the archive.is site respects the user's rights, so in the end, the user benefits from this process.

I see GDPR-blocked comments are kinda like I see "paywall" comments: After a while, people noting a given site is blocked is just off-topic. It doesn't add anything people won't very quickly find out for themselves. I usually downvote them so they don't clutter up the main discussion.

Meanwhile, a comment _providing a way around_ the paywall, generally will get an upvote, because they're saving everyone else time, so we can all get to the real discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I disagree. His original vision for these types of projects was an elevator from surface to tunnel for a vehicle(likely a Tesla).

So with that in mind as kind of a barebones version, even if he was to build a 17 mile tunnel that was effectively a walkway I would consider that a success.

But a 17 mile tunnel that can accommodate autonomous Tesla 3, just as an extreme example, that'd also be a success. The autonomy would work perfectly within the tunnel, it wouldn't need a track. If there was elevators on both ends, then multiple Tesla's could go in and be queued at the destination end for the elevator back to surface.

It wouldn't be 12 minutes but it'd still be way faster than rush hour.

The electric skate version of the tunnel I think is the idealized version.

<comment><USER31> > But a 17 mile tunnel that can accommodate autonomous Tesla 3, just as an > extreme example, that'd also be a success.

Sounds like it would scale horribly compared to actual mass transit, though. The amount of space taken up per passenger would be huge if you use cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The design is bullshit. People would have their legs crushed as the car descends, and then they would fall into the hole and die.

<comment><USER33> People are very good at not being crushed by moving things or falling into massive holes. I myself fail to be crushed or fall into a massive hole literally every time I use an elevator. Or go past a building site. Or…

<comment><USER34> The hole illustrated in the Tesla video is horrendously unsafe (almost like a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster)), but I'm 100% certain the final product won't look anything like that.

<comment><USER35> Yeah because this short concept video surly is the final version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder about vulnerability to terrorism here? How easily could a sufficient bomb disable the entire system for weeks or months?

I started thinking this way while standing in line to go through security at JFK. There were about a thousand people milling about, and we hadn't gone through any sort of substantial security yet. And I was thinking that a bomb there could kill more people than taking out an airplane. Yay security theater.

<comment><USER37> It isn't the airports being protected, it is the airplanes specifically, because airplanes are extremely powerful guided missiles in the wrong hands. Prior to 9/11 even a hijacked plane was still ultimately viewed as an inconvenience at a civilizational level, but post-9/11 it is now recognized that planes are non-trivial weapons of war, the most powerful mobile thing that a civilian can hope to lay hands on. We can quibble with the exact steps taken to protect them, and the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of the steps, but ultimately, it isn't really irrational to protect them.

Especially if you are any sort of believer in arms control, like, even a little bit; if you think civilians shouldn't be in possession of RPGs, and they shouldn't be easy to get, then you should be OK with some security around planes, because they are _way_ more dangerous than an RPG. It shouldn't be possible to just stroll into an airport and casually pick up a 777.</comment></comment>


First 'three person baby' born using new method - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37485263 <comment><USER3> Sounds like mother & father's nuclear DNA, injected into the nucleus of a 3rd party's donor's egg cell, which contains its own mitochondrial DNA. Since mtDNA is normally inherited 100% from the mother (since the mother's egg cell supplies the mitochondria to the embryo), if the mother has a mitochondrial genetic disease, 100% of her children would normally inherit it.

<comment><USER4> Yes-- the inheritance of mtDNA is maternal, but interestingly not 100% of her children will inherit the disease. This is because the mother will have a mix of mutated (diseased) mtDNA and wild-type (healthy) mtDNA in each of her cells, including her eggs. Some of the eggs will have close to all mtDNA mutated, but many will have a relatively low mutational burden. (This variation amongst the mother's cells and eggs is called heteroplasmy). Most mitochondrial genetic diseases have a heteroplasmy threshold (varying by gene/pathway, between 30-90% for many); when the overall burden in a fertilized egg is above this threshold, the disease is manifested in the offspring. Thus, another way to circumvent the transmission of mtDNA diseases is by using regular in vitro fertilization, and checking one of the cells at the 16 or 32 cell stage for their heteroplasmic content.

Here are some references:

Lightowlers, R. N., Taylor, R. W., & Turnbull, D. M. (2015). Mutations causing mitochondrial disease: What is new and what challenges remain? Science, 349(6255), 1494–1499. [http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac7516](http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac7516)

Taylor, R. W., & Turnbull, D. M. (2005). Mitochondrial DNA mutations in human disease. Nature Reviews Genetics, 6(5), 389–402. [http://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1606](http://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1606)

Smeets, H. J. M., Sallevelt, S. C. E. H., Dreesen, J. C. F. M., Die Smulders, C. E. M., & Coo, I. F. M. (2015). Preventing the transmission of mitochondrial DNA disorders using prenatal or preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1350(1), 29–36. [http://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12866](http://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12866)

<comment><USER5> > checking one of the cells at the 16 or 32 cell stage

I wonder: How is an embryo dealing with missing a cell at this early? Does this error compound after a few doublings (embryo is smaller)?

<comment><USER6> AFAIK it shouldn't be issue. Some twins (identical twins) are created when a two cell organism detaches into two separate entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Notably, this prevents transmission of a disease that is "fatal to any baby conceived", which makes this as uncontroversial a case of a "designer baby" as I can imagine. After this, the ethics get much more complicated.

<comment><USER8> It occurs to me: What _are_ the ethical problems with designer babies?

<comment><USER9> In a world with "designer babies", the rich don't just get richer, they get smarter, stronger, more attractive and start to live longer.

The poor can't afford this, so fall further and further behind, perhaps eventually humanity splits into subspecies.

This is very well trod ground. See The time machine by H G Wells with the Morlocs and Eloi, A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley with the Alphas and Betas, etc, etc...

<comment><USER10> So the more powerful a technology is in changing our capabilities as human beings, the more unethical it inherently is, because poor people will have less access to it (assuming it costs money)?

I'm not arguing on the validity of this world view, but it does seems very negative to me, since it can be applied to any powerful technology (that isn't free of charge).

I mean, computers and internet access also costs money, so does this mean that the introduction of these technologies presents an ethical problem, because the poorer part of the population may not be able to afford it, thus increasing inequality?

<comment><USER11> Just today there was an article in the newspaper of a nearby town stating that the school system there would be moving to "paperless" report cards; that is, report cards would be entirely online. (It did mention that parents could request a printed copy of their child's report card at any time.)

My first thought was "not everyone has Internet access" \-- especially in this relatively small city -- and the possible ramifications of that.

Will those parents have to request a paper copy every time a report card is issued (four times per school year)? Will they eventually stop doing so? Will they stop paying attention to their child's academic progress and will the child's academic performance then suffer? Will the child slowly begin to perform worse and worse (academically) over time?

Will this "digital divide" simply continue to worsen?

<comment><USER12> Internet access should be a public utility.

<comment><USER13> Some people can't afford public utilities either.

<comment><USER14> Then perhaps that is a problem that we should tackle, instead of going all Luddite about fairly basic tech because someone cannot afford it?

I even wouldn't be surprised if it resulted in a net economic benefit, because the reduced overhead of new tech is less than amount of money you need to spend to make sure that everyone has access to it.

<comment><USER15> Libraries already tackle this. As well as other organizations. For example, when I was a kid my main internet pc was at the state extension office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I'm understanding correctly, this could be used for cloning if you could select two nuclei with non-overlapping chromosomes from a single person's sperm/eggs ... much easier to clone a man due the limits of egg extraction.

back of the envelope:

\- each gamete has 1 of 2 choices for 23 chromosomes.

\- you need to find any two non-overlapping

\- probability of non-overlap is 0.5^23 for any pair

\- number of pairs equals (n choose 2) where n is number of gametes = n!/ (2 * (n - 2)!) = 0.5 * n * (n-1) = 0.5 * (n^2 - n)

\- to get a 50/50 chance of finding the right gametes: 0.5 = 0.5^23 * 0.5 * (n^2 - n), which is equivalent to: 0 = 0.5^23 * (n^2 -n) - <USER2>

\- solved via wolfram alpha, you would need to screen 2897 nuclei non- destructively to get a 50% chance of being able to generate a clone.

I'm not aware if this is possible or not. But obviously if you can just replace chromosomes in-nucleus that is easier than screening, but if you can do that you don't really need this whole process since you can just replace the nucleus after IVF. If you could harvest a sex cell and do meiosis in a test tube, that would also get you your nuclei right away as well -- from 10 seconds of googling, I don't think we have this yet.

I think when they screen zygotes they do it after some replication has happened, so the math really works against you if you need to combine sperm+egg pre-screen because you don't get the birthday paradox effect if you have to commit to your pairings beforehand, you'd need to huge egg supply as well.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting they had to go to Mexico to perform this procedure.

<comment><USER18> From another article[0]

>Neither method has been approved in the US, so Zhang went to Mexico instead, where he says "there are no rules".

[0][https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive- world...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive-worlds-first- baby-born-with-new-3-parent-technique/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Additional background info from last year:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31594856](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31594856)

</comment><comment><USER20> > But the science does raise ethical questions, including how any child from > the technique might feel about having DNA from three people.

That's not an ethical problem. Also, not a problem since, it's not any kind of problem to consider how kids might like PB&J sandwiches either.

<comment> brian-armstrong You can't just brush it off and say it isn't a problem. Having 3 biological parents is incredibly rare and could have weird social effects for the child. It is an ethical concern if it affects how they relate to other people.

<comment><USER21> How is this different to someone who has two parents, but has had a kidney transplant from a third person?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> the original story, with more detail, is here [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive- world...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive-worlds-first- baby-born-with-new-3-parent-technique/)

</comment><comment><USER23> And polygamy is stil illegal. I can father a child with my two girlfriends but cannot marry them both. Bah!

<comment><USER24> You dodged a bullet there, trust me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Note that this will not stop some kids from getting these type of diseases, collectively known as mitochondrial myopathies.

Some of them arise sporadically [1]

      In chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia (CPEO) — a myopathy with the defining features of ophthalmoplegia and ptosis — Δ-mtDNAs are found only in muscle (implying that the deletion event occurred after fertilization in the muscle lineage of mesoderm).

How do I know ? I have a mitocondrial myopathy (CPEO). My mother was perfectly healthy and all my brothers and sisters (5) are also ok.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959762/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959762/)

</comment><comment><USER26> mtDNA is also very significant in historical migration studies... if anyone has a high level explanation of the global state of knowledge in this area I would love to see it ... trying to author a regionally focused ancient history book and piecing together the disparate pieces of supposed genetic evidence for various things is a task I am wholly unqualified for and would love some assistance with.

<comment><USER27> This book did a great job, but it might be outdated:

[https://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria- Meanin...](https://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria- Meaning/dp/0199205647)

<comment><USER28> In another of Nick Lane's books he mentions compatibility between nuclear and mitochondrial DNA as a possible reason for variation in fertility in different species. If that's true I'd expect the 3-parent process to produce fewer pregnancies per fertilized egg than the normal 2-parent method which runs at around 50%.

<comment><USER27> which book was that ? Life Ascending?

<comment><USER28> That's what I was thinking, so if you think so too then probably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So let's say in the future that the child needs a bone marrow donor. Does this cause any new wrinkles in finding a good match?

<comment><USER21> Not at all. 100% of the genomic DNA of the child comes from the two parents. This is where all the genes that determine rejection live. The mitochondria are actually a completely separate organism that live inside our cells and perform a useful function - they are often fairly diverse anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yeah, because fuck adoption. It only counts if it has your DNA, right?

<comment><USER31> OK, I'll bite...

Having a child is a very personal decision. There are many factors, and for some, they may not feel adoption is right for them.

It doesn't mean "fuck adoption," and it certainly doesn't give you the moral high ground to judge those who decide that having their own child is the right decision for them.

And I'd add that three people having one child is a better ratio than two people having one for purposes of population control if you extrapolate out the math.

<comment><USER32> Not only that, but this is important research, whether we have too many people in the adoption system or not. The success of the human species relies on pushing our boundaries, every bit as much as it relies on taking care of one another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Inshallah! What a wonderful magic, God bless these parents

</comment><comment><USER34> so science fiction of Alien Nation in a ways. so can they simply stock pile good genes and swap them out as necessary in the near future?

<comment><USER35> That strays into the eugenics region. Not there yet; the moral and legal 'obstacles' will be present for a long while.

<comment><USER36> I've never heard Eugenics defined in this way. I've only heard it used to mean selective planned breeding (as we do with livestock), but not intentional selective improvement of the parents' DNA.

<comment><USER37> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics)

Totally worth peeking into, it's interesting what many countries have considered, have attempted, and are continuing to ruminate on.

<comment><USER38> Hitler got some of his worst ideas from the Eugenics Institute in California. Such as 'humanely' gassing undesirables and 'genetic defectives'. Eugenics, from Galton on, was considered progressive, enlightened, 'scientific' thought at the time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


S&P 500 – Audit Firm and Fees - <AUTHOR> http://mstrcodr.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Data gathered from company's proxy statement, DEF 14A</comment>


How meditation killed my creativity and made me more stressed - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/life-learning/how-meditation-killed-my-creativity-and-made-me-more-stressed-c54a010f5a0a#.iyiatxm1l <comment><USER2> I think this is where learning from meditation from an experienced teacher compared to an app would probably be more likely produce a beneficial result.

It's hard to say without actually talking to this person about his experience, but it seems like he fell into a trap that many fall into (include me) about meditation in that the goal or ideal state is to clear your mind of thoughts. Forcing your mind not to follow your thoughts and interpreting the presence of extraneous thoughts as negative will not be pleasurable or helpful.

Our minds wander all of the time, and if you tell yourself doing that is bad, you're going to be feeling bad a lot of the time.

If you are trying to meditate and you notice your mind wander, you let the thoughts you have go, without any penalty. If you notice your mind hasn't wandered, you don't give yourself kudos, but you just let that thought go too. The core of meditation is the just the practice of that action.

If you're just beginning meditation, you're taking a shower, and you often spend your shower time brainstorming, you should definitely not be penalizing yourself for that. Just because your meditation app told you that the end goal is to spend your life fully in the moment does not mean you can just decide to do that today.

An experienced meditator in that situation might decide that they would be more effective focusing on showering, and then dedicating separate time to brainstorming. OR, they might decide that "brainstorming in the shower" as a whole is very beneficial experience and decide they are doing it just right for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meditation is a practice in awareness and focus. The goal is to become more aware of your own thoughts and emotions, and by doing so, wield more conscious control over them. Feeling less stressed and all the other benefits associated with meditation are merely by-products of having more awareness. Having more awareness is not mutually exclusive with having a racing mind. Simply be aware that your mind is racing, and by so doing, you are more capable of quieting the mind when necessary or desired.

<comment><USER4> You can also achieve control over thoughts and emotions without using meditation at all, simply by having an understanding of the detrimental effects of negative emotions on your physical and mental health, and stopping yourself when you identify a situation where you have an emotional response. (I think this is similar to what CBT attempts to do).

In my experience of dealing with depression/anxiety/burnout, having lots of thoughts and ideas isn't the problem. The problem is negative emotional reactions, excessive responsibilities (which itself likely boils down to a negative emotional response), and not feeling in control.

In fact having a racing mind can be helpful in dealing with stress in some ways, by engaging in flow activities.

<comment><USER5> Ultimately, there are certain patterns of thought that are both instinctive and harmful. (For example, ranting about a problem without solving it.) Becoming aware of when you in one of those patterns , via meditation or CBT or listening to your life partners, can help you think in a more helpful way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I discussed this very issue with a friend who is massively into his meditation and quite skilled at it.

He needs to be creative for his work, and he said that he stops meditating when he knows he needs to be creative. He gives it a day or two, says that's all it takes and he's back into the swing.

He's much more productive and focused the rest of the time, while he is meditating. He doesn't go on a cycle, he just recognizes when his business is facing a specific problem and he needs to find a creative solution, he stops meditating until he finds the solution, then gets back to it.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER5> What does he do where he needs creativity some weeks and not not other weeks?

<comment><USER6> He runs a weather website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _The creativity that is generated by just thinking, and reading, and thinking, and trying to see how what you read can apply to other parts of your life, now just got completely lost. This led to a very stressful state, which was made even more stressful by the fact that I did not know what I was stressing about! My life did not change much, and I was even meditating!_

I read this post hoping to learn more about what is described in these three sentences. How did meditation affect him, and why was that effect perceived as harmful.

Meditation is a set of practices. You can use different meditations practices to practice different habits. You will have different results if you practice paying attention to your thoughts versus thinking about love for those around you.

If you want to spend your life frantically thinking about your next business idea, and less time smelling the roses then spending 15 minutes a day practicing smelling the roses is probably a bad idea.

The benefits of meditation such as improved sleep, lower blood pressure, and longer life aren't magic. They are the results of a less frantic, slower paced, smell the roses type of life. It's your body shuffling resources from doing to being. It involves spending more resources on maintenance and less on keeping your body and mind going 24/7.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, discovering new areas of life you are inexperienced at (and maybe, like it seems to be the the case for this man, spent your life evolving away from), can make you feel powerless. Unfortunately this blog post doesn't even try to touch on the "How" the title suggests it does.

<comment><USER5> "How" and "Why" in headlines are standard clickbait tactics, just like "7 Ways". HN bans the latter, and should ban the former too.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you juggle your primary job while trying to create a startup? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I work during my commute. I have a 3.5 hour daily commute with 3 of those hours on the train. I'm the first stop both ways so that gives me freedom to pick my seat. I find a seat that has an electrical outlet on it and then pull out my laptop and go to town. I get a lot done because I don't have any distractions.

When I'm home, I just try to find time when my wife is watching TV as I want to spend time with her and have the obligation of dogs.</comment>