'Daily Stormer' Termination Haunts Cloudflare in Online Piracy Case - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/daily-stormer-termination-haunts-cloudflare-in-online-piracy-case-170929/ <comment><USER2> Besides the politics, this was a very stupid move by Cloudflare. Cloudflare set up a limit to what they allow or not so now they will have to fight where that limit is. It can become death by a thousand papercuts. It'll start from the most controversial ones like child stuff and revenge porn. Then will keep moving, scandal by scandal.

Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant (e.g. nazis/terrorists), but who decides what belongs in that category is a huge problem that shouldn't be in the hands of a private tech company.

See how Google/YouTube/Twitter did mass bans and ended up including people like Jordan Peterson.

<comment><USER3> Not tolerating the intolerant makes you an intolerant too.

<comment><USER4> Nah. Read your Popper or your Rawls. Every modern moral philosopher has come to the same conclusion: intolerance of intolerance is a practical necessity to the maintenance of a tolerant society.

I could give you the canonical example of why that's the case, but I'd trip the Godwin wire.

<comment><USER5> The good thing about Popper and 'intolerance of intolerance' is with the moral high ground you can use whatever force is necessary while setting 'intolerant behavior' as a moving goalpost.

Today it's 'mildly sceptical over mass immigration'. Tomorrow it's 'not advocating for free healthcare'.

<comment><USER4> The great thing about tolerating intolerance is that you can have people shot in the streets and pretend it's nothing to do with you.

Every slope is slippery.

<comment><USER5> I dunno, that sounds like a crime though.

<comment><USER6> Which leads to other complications. Who enforces the law when the police are the law breakers?

<comment><USER7> Depending on which school of though...

If you refer to peaceful methods, then look no further than Ghandi and MLK. Protest peacefully. Make them raise their fist. And record it, tell the stories, reduce their mandate.

If you come from Malcolm X's or IRA's point of view: assassinations, military- like strikes, and generally war.

I reserve judgement on which way is better.

<comment><USER4> Then of course there's Nelson Mandela. He started with peaceful means, came to the conclusion it was ineffective in his case and turned to violence. Later he refused opportunities to leave prison that would have required him to renounce violence. Ultimately, he didn't need to fire a shot after he was released but he would have done so with a clear conscience. Non-violence can be a moral choice, but so can violence in the face of great, violent injustice.

Of course, we're assuming asymmetric warfare here. No-one honestly believes FDR was wrong to declare war on Japan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Regardless of the political causes in question, it's nice to see that the CEO is being held accountable. And he seems to be a responsible person, judging by the concern he expressed over his own actions.

It's easy to say that we should take every opportunity we can to fight Nazis. It's much harder to explain why we really should stop and think before trying to enact vigilante justice. This is one of the reasons why; vigilante justice is hard to enforce equally and fairly, and raises the question of how impartial and fair the vigilante is.

<comment><USER9> >It's easy to say that we should take every opportunity we can to fight Nazis.

We fought the Nazis in 1941-1945. These guys aren't Nazis, they're angry, misguided white people trying to look tough. Why is this an important distinction? If we as a society are going to upend core values and norms, we need to have a damn good reason.

If I were a cynic (which I sometimes am), I would say this guy was trying to ride a political wave and it is now biting him (and us) in the ass. DCMA takedown without a warrant is bad for everybody. It sounds like there is a decent chance he just squandered that to score a political point that no one will remember 6 months from now.

Politics and business don't mix, regardless of how much of a "slam dunk" it seems.

<comment><USER10> I'm a german who spent 6+ years of his school life continuously learning about nazis, lived for the first 25 years of his life in a town where i saw people in nazi attire on my way home or shopping every single day and always kept a key ring at the read, and is from a voting district that voted 20%+ for a party whose leadership explicitly hires neo nazis as security for demonstrations, a town where the lamp posts on the 200m way from my apartment to the shopping centers call for violence against foreigners.

And i have to say:

Those guys are nazis. They believe in fascism being the good and right way of the world. They hate people who're unlike them.

Don't try to sugarcoat them.

<comment><USER9> I was specifically referring to the US flavor of Neo-Natzism. I'm unfamiliar with the current German flavor. The US flavor seems to be all talk. For example, the leader of the Charlottesville protests where the lady was run over and killed, cried on the internet when he found out the cops were going to arrest him. They act fierce, but when it comes down to it, they're all talk.

<comment><USER10> Fwiw, i've read people say that that was fake to garner publicity. Part of the "spread the message to 10000 people even if it makes you look bad to most of them, if it means reaching the 10 among them who'd sympathize with it" thing.

Also, as a german again: There's no useful difference between action and talk, especially in peace times. The holocaust was at its root caused by words after all.

<comment><USER9> I think the 60 minutes interview with him did a much better job of disseminating his rhetoric. It probably had 10 million viewers on airing, and several million more after. This was of course a direct result of the antifa movement's attempt to protest / silence them in Charlottesville. I believe this is a textbook definition of irony. I guess my biggest protest against silencing groups like this is more times than not, it does the opposite.

>There's no useful difference between action and talk, especially in peace times.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Wanting to murder someone and actually murdering them has an ocean of difference.

<comment><USER10> > We'll have to agree to disagree. Wanting to murder someone and actually > murdering them has an ocean of difference.

If unopposed both lead to the same result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Booting Daily Stormer has definitely caused problems in their case, but let's be real here: 1) DS hasn't in fact been kicked off the Internet. 2) There's a huge difference between being a _possible_ copyright infringer and a _declared_ Nazi. 3) DS hasn't engaged in the kind of identity-cloaking whack- a-mole so beloved of copyright infringers.

I'm sure any competent lawyer could add another 20 points off the top of their head. In short, yeah it complicates the case, but the fat lady hasn't even cleared her throat.

<comment><USER11> DS has in fact been kicked off the Internet although not by Cloudflare (replaced with BitMitigate[1]) but by registrars/registries. They are currently on their nth domain name and these keep getting yanked.

What I wonder about is why they're not using a .us domain. Its operators should be bound by the US first amendment since they derive their monopoly from the USG. Maybe it's an elaborate troll. Especially since they're now on .cat.

Either way, the abandonment of free speech on the Internet by the companies which benefited the most from it is very worrisome.

[1] [https://bitmitigate.com/a-commitment-to- liberty.html](https://bitmitigate.com/a-commitment-to-liberty.html)

<comment><USER12> But the abandonment of free speech by _private_ company, while worrisome, is very understandable. Internet and the SV made everyone more utilitarist. A lot of CEO (or website owner) think that way: it may not be very legal, but since it reduce cost and make more people happy than it make people unhappy, it should be fine. But from an utilitarist point of view, intolerance have a huge cost and create more unhappy people (not talking about violence, just people being the target of this intolerance) than happy people. Therefore, intolerant behavior should be stopped if there is some possibility.

Now, of course this was a mistake, but this mistake is understandable.

(I'm more of a negative utilitarist myself, but this work the same way)

<comment><USER4> Consider this: spam is speech too. No-one's seriously suggesting Twitter and Facebook shouldn't clamp down on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This isn't that haunting. It's just another iteration of well-funded standard lawyer games. CEO foresaw this kind of stuff before he undertook the action.

If you're looking for a sympathetic plaintiff, Nazis aren't a good place to hang your hat.

<comment><USER14> > If you're looking for a sympathetic plaintiff, Nazis aren't a good place to > hang your hat.

Perhaps not a popular choice, but the constitution and bill of rights did not have an "unless you're a nazi" clause.

<comment><USER15> I'm not American, so I'm not going to quote the constitution, I'll say I'm comfortable not giving rights to Nazis and no there are no slippery slopes.

<comment><USER16> _there are no slippery slopes_

Of course there are. Progressives are constantly widening the definition of "Nazi" so that it now includes people like Charles Murray and Ben Shapiro. Combine that with their moral imperative to punch Nazis, and it quickly gets unpleasant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is one of those unintended consequences that highlight the value of good legal representation.

CEO shuts down website lickity split, but then claims in court he can't stop a piracy site.

I've had this happen before at work where legal has told me "if you ask that question it will come back to bite us since if something bad comes up, it will show we knew nefarious behavior was happening. Better to not ask at all."

</comment><comment><USER18> Where were these "free speech" activists when ISIS recruiters' online accounts were shut down? It's different when the lives endangered by violence-inciting speech include your own.

Germany learned a lesson on violent speech after the Holocaust, but many in the US keep their heads in the sand despite the violent oppression of blacks and gays in recent history. I blame it on the religion of Libertarianism, which promotes the nonsensical belief that the invisible hand is benevolent.

</comment><comment><USER19> > "By his own admissions, Mr. Prince's decision to terminate certain users' > accounts was 'arbitrary,' the result of him waking up 'in a bad mood,' and a > decision he made unilaterally as 'CEO of a major Internet infrastructure > corporation'

I'm actually amazed that's from the press release they put out.

<comment><USER20> _I 'm actually amazed that's from the press release they put out._

It's not, though. It's from an internal email that was leaked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Called it in the Daily Stormer thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032517)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032956)

</comment><comment><USER15> Props to Cloudflare for evicting DS and dealing with subsequent bullshit. Some people might think it's a bad move, I'll just say I'm glad you guys acted.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really like the fact he said I'm being a dick and it's a dick move but it still was at the end of the day a dick move.

Cred for saying it, it's better than most companies but still he kowtowed on such a important decision, freedom of speech and will the Valley uphold it and failed. Little sympathy really should be given. Just cred for calling it.

</comment><comment><USER23> _"I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,"_

He should be FIRED by the board. Decisions on what speech to ban should be decided by an ethics committee not by a guy that awoke up on the wrong side of the bed. Because such decisions have consequences, major ones.

edit: "Ban" was supposed to be keep off their network...and I understand the difference between state and private actions. State can't but private companies can.

<comment><USER24> He's not banning the speech lol he's not the government.

<comment><USER23> Good thing you lol-d at least. Now the lawsuit isn't it because they chose what to keep in their network ad what to boot? In other words, they editorialized.

 _he 's not the government._ I know, I guess he can legally ban the, say, the Democratic point of view out of his network. But it a wise move?</comment></comment></comment>


Shoes, a Ruby GUI toolkit, now has some sweet apps. - <AUTHOR> http://the-shoebox.org/ <comment><USER2> I just found Shoes last night, it's really interesting. I'm excited to make an app of my own for the shoebox.</comment>


Splunk aims to use augmented reality to monitor server racks and equipment - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/splunk-aims-to-use-augmented-reality-to-monitor-server-racks-equipment-to-bring-data-to-multiple-screens/ <comment><USER2> I worked on an idea like this at a Fortune 500 company several years ago. It _seems_ like a great idea, but it's not scalable at all.

A better solution is to pipe these numbers to a machine and let it worry about tracking all these values.

Then if you need to guide a human to that rack, (and for some reason you're not using rows & columns or an ordering system that _makes any logical sense_; __THEN __use Augmented Reality ...or better still, have strip lighting LED in the floor that 's controlled by the same system to guide the human there.

<comment><USER3> I helped build a POC of this precise idea at a university datacenter ~6-7 years ago.

I broadly agree that it's not super scalable if you try to use it as "all up monitoring" but there were certain instances in which I found it to be very useful.

\- We used it among other things to visualize datacenter temperature as volumentric clouds. It let us better diagnose airflow and cooling issues.

\- We previously relied on flashing lights on disk controllers to identify the bad slot of a disk that needs to be swapped. But when you have heterogenous SKUs/chassis/disks/backplanes, maintaining that infra is a PITA. AR offered avenues to do this that slightly reduced the complexity needed to provide this feedback.

Basically, even if you "piped your data into a machine" a human still had to eventually interface with systems (the datacenter, the machines within them, networking topologies) that are highly opaque without augmented guidance.

To your final point as well: I see the lighting solutions vs. portable AR as different points on the "AR spectrum" and they offer obvious tradeoffs in portability, extensibility, etc.</comment></comment>


Kanye West Said Zappos Sells "Shit Product"; This Is Their Awesome Response - <AUTHOR> http://tech.co/kanye-west-zappos-sht-product-2013-11

<comment><USER2> Ok, I think they key takeaway isn't that Kanye's "credibility goes down the drain" but that you shouldn't get in giant arguments with celebrities if you're the head of a company, even if they are known to be hot heads. I dunno, coming up with a slightly humorous retort like that won't really mitigate damage from having Kanye West rip on your company..</comment>


Fraudsters Are Buying IPv4 Addresses - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/06/fraudsters_are_.html <comment><USER2> Sometimes I am just amazed at the ingenuity of people to work around a problem... legalities aside, this is almost a public service.</comment>


Getting Hacker News'd Twice – Lessons Learned for Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> https://getpolarized.io/2019/04/02/getting-hacker-news-lessons-for-entrepreneurs.html <comment><AUTHOR> Also wanted to thank the HN crowd for all the positive feedback in the last few months!</comment>


Ask HN: What technology should I use for my new project? - <AUTHOR>

Question for my super geeky HN Friends:
I'm building an app. At a very high level, it will be an Android app that pulls and sends some JSON for a picture-rating system. I expect this to scale quite a bit and may become very popular. Given that option I am thinking I want the best technology for the job, even if it's something I don't know and will have to learn. Here are the options I'm considering:
Node.js service Asp.Net Service PHP script
Database:
Most likely MySQL or MS-SQL.
My question is, what do you guys suggest? I know that NO-SQL stuff is all the craze right now, but I don't feel really comfortable with keeping a lot of data in one of these stores without knowing a lot about them. I have extensive experience with MySQL and MS-SQL and trust both of them can do the job great.
The interface on the other hand is much more open. It's just going to be pushing text (images will be hosted on S3) so anything that serves text quickly will work. Heavily leaning towards Node.JS for this, but I'm not set yet.
Any advice or input would be great. I expect at least a couple thousand users right from the start, so it will need to be pretty fast. If it takes off it will need to scale up, which is why I may do a Node/MySQL arrangement on Linode so I can just scale up the servers as needed.
Another note: this isn't going to make much money, if any. So a pure .NET/MS-SQL solution may not be the best choice if I have to keep buying expensive servers for a project not likely to ever gain revenue.
Anyway any thoughts you guys might have would be great! <comment><USER2> Seeing as you're more experienced on the Windows stack (saw your C# posts), I'd suggest not dealing with NodeJS at all if your aim is to push out and maintain this project with less friction.

If you're thinking it'll scale, it's much better to deal with scaling problems in a stack you're familiar with. So for your server stack I'd suggest these:

\- PaaS: AppHarbor or Azure Cloud Services. You can easily scale up with them by a few clicks.

\- Server-side: Seeing as you chose NodeJS, I assume you're going to use the stack's asynchronous nature, might I suggest looking up SignalR ([http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AsynchronousScalableWebApplica...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AsynchronousScalableWebApplicationsWithRealtimePersistentLongrunningConnectionsWithSignalR.aspx))

\- ORM Layer: NHibernate

\- DB: MySQL

Again, I'm not saying not to use NodeJS because I'm some sort of Microsoft Fanboy, I'm just giving suggestions based on how much "better" you can push out your project "quicker", and maintain/support it with lesser friction.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm more experienced on the Windows Stack, but one problem I have is this is going to be a "for fun" project that's likely not going to turn a profit in any way. I would gladly throw it on an Azure instance, but I'm afraid of paying a few hundred bucks or more a month for something when I could just do it for free. If I could find a way to monetize it without pushing away fans it may be an option.

SignalR is one of the options I forgot to mention, I don't have any experience with that but it may serve my purpose well so I'll be looking into that. Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My suggestion would be to read up on the capabilities of MongoDB / CouchDB once. May be take a small programming example in the language of your choice wouldn't hurt. It will take half a day for each ("read up" also means look at the typical questions on stackoverflow, read their blogs, and articles on comparison of their usages and performances -- without all this, your "read up" isn't complete).

Secondly, read up on Redis and Memcache, and include one of these in your stack (I personally stick with Redis, but decide on your own).

If you can spend some more time in your "planning", I would suggest looking at Heroku for deploying your app. If you haven't used a PaaS in the past, this _may_ change your entire outlook on how you plan your app and its resources.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can actually spend a month or two on planning, and I explore some NoSQL options.

In-Memory databases sound nice for speed, but I also have some OLAP functionality I'm going to need as well, and may use a fast in-memory DB then dump the data into another DB nightly, but I'm not sure sure yet.

I think spending a day or more reading and developing on these DBs will be worth my time for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Parse.com might be an option. It will scale as needed automagically. It uses AWS to store the data.

</comment><comment><USER3> A note on your SQL hosting - there's always Amazon RDS (which would be free for the first year under usage limits, I think). It can also give you a scaling strategy to start with.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have an AWS account setup and used up my free year, but that may also be an option. As I mentioned cost is a big factor here because this is not going to be a moneymaker. But if it's under $100 a month or so it might be manageable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Might want to take a look at <http://www.appacitive.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This looks pretty awesome, I requested an invite</comment></comment>


One bad night's sleep may increase levels of Alzheimer's protein - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2165911-one-bad-nights-sleep-may-increase-levels-of-alzheimers-protein/ <comment><USER2> The obvious question which isn't addressed in the article - do beta-amyloid levels return to normal after some short span of good sleep?

Alzheimer's is associated with consistently elevated beta-amyloid levels, while this study was about a short-term increase. It appears on a skim of the study that the rate wasn't checked over later days, but is expected (from rodent models) to go back down reasonably quickly. That's not a criticism of the study - it's an interesting result linking the disrupted sleep patterns seen in pre-Alzheimers to the protein levels seen in Alzheimer's, and it's also the first study to directly study this link in humans.

It just seems like an important caveat because the New Scientist article is a bit fuzzy on whether individual bad sleep events are being seen as a model (yes) or a risk factor (not so far) for Alzheimer's.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who's been a chronic primary insomniac my whole life, I would not be surprised if I die young despite being very physically fit and healthy. My constant sleep deprivation has already taken a significant toll on my capacity to concentrate and it was the bane of my life during high school/university. It'd be interesting to find out what the actual physical state of my brain is after operating for several decades on 2-4 hours of sleep every night.

<comment><USER4> I find the topic of insomnia fascinating because it's so alien to me. In the Stephen King's book "Insomnia", the main character explains that you being sleepy and tired can actually be uncorrelated. It's like saying that you can't drink water when you are thirsty.

It's so weird.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly it. I'm in a perpetual state of being "tired", but rarely ever (outside of specific timing windows) in a state of being sleepy. This is partly because I also have a correlated condition called "Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder" which means my natural circadian rhythm is shifted (and unfortunately not in alignment with social norms for when I should be alert and asleep).

Sleepiness is the feeling you experience right before you actually fall asleep; the overwhelming relaxation that drags you into the unconscious. Tiredness is being too exhausted to feel or express emotion. You're awake, but mentally absent, and incapable of completing any productive task. It's one of the most frustrating feelings in the world to be unable to do something as simple as sleep. I'm extremely jealous of the people, like my roommate in college, who can seemingly will themselves into sleep within 5 minutes of laying their head down.

My insomnia was especially difficult to deal with while I was in school because it made me prone to stupid mistakes on exams. I would often misread or glaze over important details, especially on any trick or multiple choice questions, and in more than one class those little mistakes cost me grade points. It also often didn't matter how much I would study as my memory retention was horrible. Anyone who's read a book whilst tired can attest how difficult it is to not only process the words on the page, but to remember them for later.

<comment><USER4> I really want to experiment polyphasic sleep, but people that tried it always say the first 2 weeks are hell.

Sounds like your entire life looks like those 2 weeks.

What kind of task can you perform that is not immediately 10 times harder under those conditions ?

P.S: I'm like your friend, I sleep like a baby. Actually less than 7 hours of sleeps makes me feel like crap.

<comment><USER3> I don't really know if I can answer that question because I have no point of reference to what's "normal." It wasn't until high school that I found out it wasn't normal to take 3-4 hours to fall asleep every night. This is how I've been my entire life.

Athletically I was able to compete with my track and soccer teammates without issue, but lifting weights is an area I lack in because sleep is so important to the development of raw strength. It isn't something I dwell on---I've lived for it so long I've gotten over it--but I do sometimes wonder in a curious way how much more I could have achieved without these sleeping issues. I used to want to be a doctor, but with this condition achieving the grades necessary to get into medical school was impossible (on a consistent basis, anyway).

<comment><USER5> _" It wasn't until high school that I found out it wasn't normal to take 3-4 hours to fall asleep every night. This is how I've been my entire life."_

Do you drink caffeine or take any other stimulants?

They could definitely have an adverse effect on your sleep.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely zero caffeine or stimulants. Caffeine makes me feel sick so I've never gotten into the habit of drinking it and I've found it doesn't really help my "alertness" when I'm tired anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a periodic insomniac, my insomnia is often triggered by stress, but then fed by the fear of not sleeping.

I'll got to bed with my brain caught in some sort of stress loop that I can't break. Then I have the thought "Oh shit, tonight's gonna be an insomnia night, isn't it?" Just having that thought introduces a fuck ton of cortisol into my system, creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

...all of these stories about the dangers of those missed nights of sleep really don't help matters.

<comment><USER7> I find writing down with pencil in a notepad these running thoughts help. Then if you get more, add them. I keep a notepad by my bedside table.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I've been using a combination of melatonin at bedtime and meditation. Plus really good sleep hygiene: red light after 8pm, no screens after 9pm, bed by 9:30 or 10pm every night (with few exceptions) get up with out an alarm every morning (pretty consistently before 8 am) and take a vigorous 1 or 2 mile walk with the dog, no more than 1 cup or tea or coffee in the morning.

That all helps control it most of the time. But it doesn't help on those really stressed out nights when I can't seem to break the thought loop long enough to get into a meditative state.

I've tried the writing trick, but for me, my thoughts run way faster than my pen can. I often find myself coming to after half an hour of staring at a single paragraph and realizing that I've just been looping the whole time with out writing anything.

I'm hoping I'll eventually get good enough at meditating that I'll be able to break those loops, but in the mean time I tend to just try to keep stress low enough that I don't get caught in them in the first place. Life just doesn't always play along.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could this be linked to the other studies that found Alcohol to be a big contibutor to Demantia?

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43141457](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43141457)

Since Alcohol disrupts sleep

<comment><USER2> Offhand, probably not.

First, because the amyloid hypothesis is specifically about Alzheimer's-type dementia, while alcohol appears to raise the risk of other dementia outcomes as well.

Second, alcohol appears to be a much larger risk factor than other serious sleep-deprivation or sleep-disruption situations from military service to insomnia, suggesting that it's acting by some other mechanism.

Obviously this is a hard answer since we don't actually know what causes dementia - at present, we can't even distinguish "sleep deprivation causes amyloid plaques which cause Alzheimer's" from "Alzheimer's causes sleep deprivation which causes amyloid plaques". But I think there's at minimum good evidence that sleep issues aren't the primary mechanism for alcohol to cause dementia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a consequence, are people that have had children found to have higher incidences of Alzheimer's?

<comment><USER10> Anecdotal evidence in my grandmother's family indicates yes. 7 brothers and sisters, and all women who had children in the family developed dementia late in life.

<comment><USER11> perhaps there was a genetic factor here?

<comment><USER10> It's entirely possible, but it didn't go unnoticed that the women of the family who didn't have kids didn't develop dementia, and those who did have kids did end up with it later in life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It's possible this protein helps cause the condition, or instead that the > protein forms plaques in the brain in response to the disease.

So it might as well be that this protein is doing something good ...

</comment><comment><USER13> I think decreased testosterone levels due to aging in combination with lack of sleep in life causes Alzheimer's but I cannot prove it.

Sadly have several family friends who has Alzheimers.

[https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20101008/low- testoster...](https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20101008/low-testosterone- linked-to-alzheimers-risk)

</comment><comment><USER14> We have 2 kids. The youngest born 3.5 yrs ago, both of us > 40 at the time. My spouse kept track of # consecutive nights until we experienced at least 2 nights of uninterrupted sleep (defined as at least one parent with 8 hrs contiguous sleep 2 nights in a row).

489 days

Kid is 3y 9m now and still waiting for 5 consecutive days of uninterrupted sleep.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is clearly a sign on how important the glymphatic system is for the brain: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nedergaard-how- th...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nedergaard-how-the-brain- dumps-its-trash-video/)

</comment><comment><USER16> > _of 20 volunteers over the course of two nights_

Really? This is news?

</comment><comment><USER17> Correlation != causation. The headline totally neglects this to be more sensationalist.

<comment><USER18> They are testing causation. The researches deprived subjects of sleep on predetermined nights and observed the results to be a buildup of this protein.

<comment><USER17> Correlation between the proteins and Alzheimers. The headline doesn't outright state that it's causal, but leaves plenty of room for people to jump to that natural assumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> According to this article, my body is 95% Alzheimer's protein due to living as a startup founder

<comment><USER20> So many gainz</comment></comment>


Ask HN: EduBirdie sells academic fraud, why is it allowed to exist? - <AUTHOR> The site sells a service that lets students get people to write essays for them. How is this legal and why is it allowed to operate so freely? <comment><USER2> There are lots of things that should not exist. Things come and go so quickly in this age. Could be a scam site. Domain records show they have had the domain since 2015.

</comment><comment><USER3> What law is it breaking? What harm does it do? It seems like a helpful service for people who don't like school but would like to have the credentials.</comment>


Ask HN: Have there been movements to "keep the code" after layoffs? - <AUTHOR> I was recently laid off from a startup where I think we were writing some pretty awesome code.
I think many other people have felt similar things recently when, because of a layoff, they've been severed from a great codebase they were learning from.
Have there been efforts or movements to encourage employers to make their codebase available to employees they let go? <comment><USER2> What's the incentive for an employer to do this? That incentive needs to be massive in order to overcome the downside of giving company property away for free to people who you might never see again, who you might not be on good terms with because of their termination, who you have no way to oversee in the future, who now have the option to work for your competitors. No company in their right mind will agree to this.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's highly unusual unless you were employed on an open source project. Most employers would wipe your memory if they could.

<comment><USER4> > _Most employers would wipe your memory if they could._

Will work for memory wipe. In my book that's a win/win.

<comment><USER5> If Paycheck (2003) is anything to go by.

<comment><USER6> It's a driving plot component in the book Snow Crash too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a contractor, I've experienced a lot of contracts where they explicitly state that any code written on behalf of the client _belongs to the client_. It's not your code, so you cannot take it with you (legally).

</comment><comment><USER8> Zip the git repo and upload to telegram as an attachment. Network admins won't be able to tell what you did, just make sure the filename is cat_memes or teambuilding_photos.

Fuck companies.</comment>


How Google's Algorithm Rules the Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1 <comment><USER2> I always use Google to search for Microsoft technical documentation, not MSDN search, not Bing. That says it all.</comment>


New Chrome for iOS scans for beacons broadcasting URLs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.estimote.com/post/124778667895/beacons-chrome-ios <comment><USER2> As a user of Chrome on iOS, I absolutely do not want this. Is there a way to turn this "feature" totally off? I've been looking through the links and didn't see a mention of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is Jakub, founder of Estimote here.

@RexRollman: it seems Google is experimenting with that at the moment and the feature is opt-in only, so no worry.

When you download the new Chrome for iOS you "have to" include Chrome into "Today widgets" section and also Enable "Physical Web Scanning" that will show you the list nearby URLs broadcasted by beacons.

As you can see there is still a lot of efforts there and you need to turn on initially.

<comment><USER2> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One thing I've wanted to do, but is total impractical.. I want to put beacons on trees around the city that will provide information about the tree, for example what type of tree it is, when it was planted, etc. Of course, I could just put little signs on them and it would be available to more people. But it sounds cool.

<comment><USER4> Every tree maintained by the City of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) has "an email address" (in the mainstream press it's been "one email per tree"; in reality it's a single mailbox the CoM staffers respond to).

Click a tree marker on the map near the top of the Melbourne Urban Forest website ([http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/](http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/)) and you can email your selected tree to find further information, etc. A bit more info is in this Broadsheet article: [http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/entertainment/article...](http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/entertainment/article/trees- return-your-emails)

<comment><USER5> Nice - Sydney Uni have a similar thing with an iOS app: [https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/campus- flora/id918408102](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/campus-flora/id918408102)

I can't see anything there' but I _think_the app code is open source and they're encouraging reuse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, this is precisely what no user wants or needs. Slow clap to everyone involved.

<comment><USER7> Are you sure? I'd quite like to walk up to my bus stop and have my phone provide me a link to a stop-specific schedule, among other uses.

<comment><USER6> But Nextbus already knows what stop you're at using AGPS. What's the point of the beacon? Perhaps you can come up with a use for beacons, but you need to deal with the fact that users don't need or want another intrusive advertising channel.

<comment><USER8> What if I don't have Nextbus installed, or have location services disabled?

Or even if I have location enabled, what if Nexbus could figure out which stop you're at without having to spin up GPS, in turn saving battery?

<comment><USER6> Really reaching here. Nextbus is a web app. Location is in my experience always good enough without a sat lock. You don't need "to spin up GPS" to get your answer.

<comment><USER9> But Nextbus data is not available everywhere - and installing beacons on bus stops to broadcast URL addresses is fairly easy and low cost.

<comment><USER6> The infrastructure you'd need for your beacons is the same as Nextbus (i.e. trackers on public transport and a city data feed), but Nextbus requires no distributed/deployed devices. Therefore, rolling out a beacon approach must have more overhead than something like Nextbus. You really can't come up with a reason why these beacons are better for that use case.

Hell, just put up a QR code at the bus stop. What could be cheaper than that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tanuj from the Estimote team here. If you're curious about some of the under- the-hood mechanics between BLE beacons, Eddystone, and the Physical Web check out developer docs [http://developer.estimote.com/eddystone/](http://developer.estimote.com/eddystone/)

<comment><USER11> Does the indoor location feature work on time of flight, RSSI or something else? If it's time of flight, how do you convince the OS to give you accurate enough time measurements?

The website claims 3 year beacon battery life - but bluetooth has a reputation for poor power performance. How often do the beacons broadcast, for how long, and at what power output?

<comment><USER12> It works by RSSI [1], and I believe you can calibrate it with your antenna/case design. Not to mention any attenuation by the phone's antenna or your hand/body.

Quote:

"Phones or other smart devices can pick up the beacon's signal and estimate the distance by measuring received signal strength (RSSI). The closer you are to the beacon, the stronger the signal. Remember that the beacon is not broadcasting continuously—it's blinking instead. The more frequent the blinks, the more reliable the signal detection."

[1] [http://developer.estimote.com/](http://developer.estimote.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does chrome put in anything to protect against developers spamming notification center? I can just imagine putting a couple hundred of these throughout time square and making everyone really hate chrome for ios.

<comment> nevi-me On Android it does, and assuming that it uses the Push Notification API via WebServiceWorker, the user should be able to globally turn the notifications off (as they wouldn't be device-specific).

<comment><USER14> We're yet to see how Google implements this on Android. Currently it's iOS only, and the "Today" Chrome widget only, no push notifications at all.

Also, see the above comment from jimiasty about Google ranking/filtering the URLs before it shows them in the widget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Because the Bluetooth text spam and Bluetooth image spam was such a raging success!

<comment><USER16> It's like saying any information printed on paper is useless, because people hate flyers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One privacy issue I'm seeing is that it seems like the users device still needs to make a request to get the metadata? So the retailer could use fingerprinting of requests to track people around. I wasn't entirely clear on where the metadata comes from so I could have this wrong.

<comment><USER18> > information about users won't be saved until they click a link, so the > beacon owner will not know anyone was nearby until they visit the website

It sounds like the metadata is sourced from the bluetooth-broadcast, not via a separate request.

However, the specification itself[0] only has room for the URL and the telemetry data, so how they achieve this in practice is questionable.

[0] [https://github.com/google/eddystone/blob/master/protocol- spe...](https://github.com/google/eddystone/blob/master/protocol- specification.md)

<comment><USER19> The beacons them selves have proximity sensing built in, that at least how the "ibeacons" works...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#Proximity...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#Proximity_sensing)

<comment><USER20> Proximity detection is done by the receiver. An iBeacon is just a dumb broadcaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How many users actually have BT on? I never have it on, and i don't anyone else who has it on unless they pair it with their car, and even then most of them prefer the USB pairing since it charges the phone.

Also abusing an already insecure standard and pretty much stitching this onto it doesn't seem like that much of a good idea to me, I wonder what effect all that spam has on actual compliant devices....

The good thing is that it doesn't support URL's that are longer than 18 chars, and only supports 14 top tier TLD's so pretty much USA only.

The odd part is that all their examples seem to use shorthand url's provided by goo.gl, but the .gl TLD isn't supported by the standard, eh? who thought this through?

<comment><USER8> Honest question: How is Bluetooth insecure?

There are some specific insecure devices out there, and Bluetooth has some optional anonymous pairing modes, but my understanding was that the default pairing process provided a reasonable level of security for most applications.

Notwithstanding that, I thought Bluetooth LE beacons are broadcast-only, which avoids the pairing issue anyway.

And to answer your first question: I leave bluetooth on, both to pair with my car (USB connections don't give enough power to charge with GPS running, and don't provide live audio) and because it's a much lower power way of tethering my other devices to the Internet compared to WiFi tethering. Oh, and my smartwatch uses it too. As does a few other devices at home (BBQ thermometer, conference phone, headphones).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is really nice, will it also be available for Android and if so what Android versions? Right now you have to install Google's physical web app thingy on Android to get beacons so it's kinda clunky and annoying. I know Eddystone was supposed to change a lot of that but I didn't see any mention of what Android versions it will work on. Is it only 5.1 and beyond or are they going to update 4.4, 5.0, etc?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Estimote founder here. Few days ago Google released their new, open beacon format - eddystone and today just updated Chrome for iOS that can scan for beacons broadcasting Eddystone URLs. You can read more on our blog how to start broadcasting URL using beacons and how to test it on Chrome for iOS.

<comment><USER22> I'll ask the uncomfortable question: How conscious are you of how this tech will be abused as a pure advertising medium and how annoying and ugly this potentially will be for users? And how concerned are you by that? Popups were useful once upon a time.

OT: the scrolling hijack for the animation in the middle of your site is really annoying.

<comment><USER9> Hey there,

Wojtek from Estimote team here: actually, Google is approaching this very conciously when it comes to privacy and UX. You need to opt-in to see those URLs in notification center, then metadata is fetched so you know what you click, and still no tracking is possible until you actually click.

Also, they're iterating very fast with Physical Web, but it's still in experimentation phase. Physical Web for Chrome is big news, but keep in mind that Chrome on iOS has ~5% penetration.</comment></comment></comment>


[Video] of Pizza Box turning into Plates and Storage Unit - <AUTHOR> http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=52773723

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482395>

</comment><comment><USER3> It might not seem like something incredible, BUT little innovation can have large acclaim. I have met the team from ecoincorpated, they have an incredible mindset and their business will do very well... Keep them on your radar.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ya very cool. Pizza Hut will be all over this. I found this on triple pundit: <http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/can-a-pizza-box.php>

</comment><comment><USER5> for a second I thought he was also ripping of cardboard knives.</comment>


There is little research into the long-term effects of using antidepressants - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/06/dont-know-who-am-antidepressant-long-term-use <comment><USER3> I was also put on antidepressants as a teenager and am trying to get off them after well over a decade. It's a tricky task to distinguish the withdrawal effects (which can be extreme) from the difficult emotions that come with rediscovering how to face the world without the drugs. It really feels like a part of my personality was frozen in time when I went on the drugs, and that as I come off them slowly that part of me has thawed. And that can be painful, but also extremely rewarding. It forced me to acknowledge truths about myself that I resisted for many years. It forced me to be more real with people in my life. It's the realization that I was depressed for actual emotional reasons and not just because of some putative neurochemical imbalance, the idea of which in such huge numbers makes absolutely no evolutionary sense. A trait this common is not a disorder---it's a survival mechanism.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you are feeling better but while some people's problems do come from emotional sources, please don't act like the chemical imbalances in the brains of other people aren't a disorder. I promise you, I and others like me have tried our damndest to "feel better".

<comment><USER5> OP is not telling you to "feel better" \- he is saying he was only able to tackle his depression after taking a more holistic approach to monitoring and changing his brain operation.

Emotions are, quite literally, certain chemical states in animals with nervous systems of at least a certain complexity. That's where the "chemical imbalance" mantra falls apart - at best, it adds no information, and even worse, its used to peddle drugs which are developed without coherent and _predictable_ models of the neurology involved in the symptoms/diseases they're supposed to treat.

Medical doctors get at least one objective measure of your blood pressure before prescribing blood pressure medicine. When was the least time you heard of a psychiatrist only prescribing meds after performing an MRI?

<comment><USER6> What new information would current state fMRI give them?

If I'm not mistaken, a person that is depressed due to environment will have similar fMRI as a person who has messed up biology (not just neurotransmitters btw).

Also, even with acute depression, antidepressants may help to get the patient on track.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research- matters/brain-s...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research- matters/brain-scan-may-predict-best-depression-treatment)

The objective outcomes differ with different treatments even in cases of subjective success. The specific neurology (protein levels, chemical ratios, etc) should determine how exactly you intend to alter it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll tell you, with 100% conviction, that I would not be alive today without prescription antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Of course there are side effects, and it can take a while to find the right drug or combination of drugs for your particular brain chemistry. In most cases, I've considered the side effects worth the improvement to my life. Even with them, I'm still not completely "normal". These symptoms are with me for the rest of my life barring some amazing medical discovery.

Mental health issues as a whole are difficult to bring up, even to a doctor. I actually worry about writing this on my real account. It's looked down on as if "you just can't handle life" so you "just feel sad". Chemotherapy is also a very unpleasant experience, but I don't think there would be much interest in an article about some imagined overprescription of chemotherapy.

<comment><USER7> Antidepressants are overprescribed (just like how Ritalin was like 15-20 years ago) because they work so well that doctors reach for a pill as their first course of action while ignoring other less life altering options.

Some people also find themselves with side-effects like suicidal thoughts or loss of sexual functions that can be devastating, and in some cases will last beyond the use of the medicine.

<comment><USER8> Do you have any evidence for the efficacy of antidepressants that others, including their manufacturers, do not? In fact, SSRIs/SNRIs are not particularly effective -- at least no more effective than placebo.

<comment><USER7> My comment on the effectiveness of antidepressants is in reference to the way many doctors seem to view these drugs, not based on any particular studies or evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anti-depressants literally saved my life. I tried to manage my anxiety / depression for years with diet, exercise, therapy, mindfulness, and meditation without great success. 2 weeks of lexapro was a night and day difference. Don't be afraid of medication if other options fail.

<comment><USER10> > 2 weeks of lexapro was a night and day difference.

My girlfriend thought that lexapro had helped her years before she met me...

She escaped from the psychiatrists who only cared about making her feel worse with their "anti-psychotics", and got her new medical providers to prescribe lexapro instead. After a week she realized that her new rapid heartbeat was certainly caused by the lexapro. She took her last benzo (class of "anxiety" drug that makes anxiety worse over time), and it was all downhill from there...

SSRIs were approved on the basis of fraudulent science. The legal profession was recently able to secure a $3 million verdict against Glaxo Smith Klein - <USER2> rather successful lawyer jumped in front of a train after a few days on Paxil. Here's a writeup: [https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago- the-d...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-the-dolin- verdict/)

<comment><USER11> >She took her last benzo (class of "anxiety" drug that makes anxiety worse over time)

Can you elaborate here please?

<comment><USER10> basically what tptacek said... Benzos' are sometimes useful for acute anxiety, but this is not how they're commonly used.

Benzos: A Dance With the Devil - [https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/07/benzos- a-dance-with-the...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/07/benzos-a-dance-with- the-devil/)

Benzodiazepine category - [https://www.madinamerica.com/category/psychiatric- drugs/benz...](https://www.madinamerica.com/category/psychiatric- drugs/benzodiazepines/)

<comment><USER11> Wow, that's scary, the one about a grand mal seizure with Xanax in particular. I used to take that, but only for occasional acute anxiety, never on a regular basis. It seemed to help a lot, and unlike the SSRIs I've used, it didn't have any obvious side-effects at all. I never took it long enough to get any build- up though, just occasionally if I was having a really bad episode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are plenty of anecdotes here, which are fine for those wanting to share their story (I've been on two types of antidepressants myself). However, the point of this article is that there is insufficient long-term data. Anecdotes do not a longitudinal study make. And one of the major problems with depression is that it's subjective. Antidepressants have major onset side- effects, that take around a month to stabilise. So, you're feeling pretty crappy, but take the pills in the belief they'll make you better, and you have some strategies to deal with the nausea and other side-effects. In that onset month, you're probably feeling even crappier than before. But then your body/mind adjusts, the onset side-effects go away, and you feel better. So you report that you feel better after one month. Which skews the data pretty badly, as it's hard to be objective about how good/bad you're feeling at the best of times, let alone when you're in a slump and/or feeling nauseous from the drugs.

For all of those people who say that antidepressants saved or improved their lives (or the life of a loved one), spare a thought for those where antidepressants led a decrease in quality of life, or worse.

</comment><comment><USER13> This hits home as my wife was admitted to a psychiatric ward today, again, for major depression. I am lost, with a business to run, a full time job in addition, two daughters, and struggles with minor depression and anxiety myself.

She is on two antidepressants, Vyvanse (amphetamines), Provigil, and then takes trazadone to sleep. Her Dr will first increase one, then after that fails will add another or switch her. She's treated like a human Guinea pig. No one has thought to question whether the medications contribute. No one has looked at the problem holistically. Her diet is absolute shit, she doesn't exercise, she really doesn't take care of herself at all. And the medical professionals all tell her it's not her. She has a disease, she has a chemical imbalance, it is completely out of her control.

Long story short, I see both sides. There most certainly IS personal responsibility. Even more damaging though is the state of psychiatric and mental health. It's learned, and reinforced, helplessness.

<comment><USER14> Man, that sounds rough. Puts some other problems into perspective. I feel for you and hope you guys pull through. I say this as someone who has been through worse stuff in my life than most people.

</comment></comment><comment> wu-ikkyu I see a lot in here about the popular "chemical imbalance" theory, which is worth noting is more of a big pharma sales pitch at this point in time than actual objective science.

Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592645/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592645/)

Antidepressants versus placebo in major depression: an overview [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/)

<comment><USER6> You picked two articles that fit your worldview, and ignored all the critique around them. That's not objective science.

Also, even the first one of the articles you quoted clearly says in the conclusion that there is an effect to antidepressants.

Here is one of the articles the critique of the critique you mentioned: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10antidepre...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10antidepressants.html)

<comment> wu-ikkyu >fit your worldview, and ignored all the critique around them. That's not objective science.

^This is an accurate description of western psychiatry in general, ironically, because 1) psychiatry is not objective science 2) psychiatry assumes individual deviation from society's norms is the root of disorder, rather than seriously considering the disorder of society's norms at large.

>In 2013, Frances said that "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests

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

<comment><USER15> >1) psychiatry is not objective science 2) psychiatry assumes individual deviation from society's norms is the root of disorder, rather than seriously considering the disorder of society's norms at large.

I believe this is an accurate statement, and the reason for these two points being so extant is that Psychiatry is, these days, more like a state-supported official religion.

Its definitely not science. If you don't think the way society wants you to think (i.e. religion), you are cast out from it: this is Psychiatrys' job.

<comment><USER16> >2) psychiatry assumes individual deviation from society's norms is the root of disorder, rather than seriously considering the disorder of society's norms at large.

Without making a comment which either agrees or disagrees with the above, I would like to add that I believe those who downvoted comments such as this-- controversial and/or original ideas--might consider to instead offer a reason why the comment is likely to be of low value.

For example, I can readily find evidence in support & in opposition to the above comment, i.e. WebMD states a primary symptom of Paranoid Schizophrenia to be a belief that the government is spying on you[1]. Another example: gay rights activists of yesterday would be able to tell you of a time when their sexual preference was considered a disorder.

So while the idea might be controversial, I don't believe it is inherently of low value to add to the conversation.

>1) psychiatry is not objective science

There is a reasonable argument to be made that there is merit in being critical of what we do, and don't call, science. Richard Feynman talked about this fundamental, simple nature of the scientific method and the critical component being that it provides a testable hypothesis that can be observed and repeated, which shows us nature agrees with our theory[2]. As we all know, this is very hard to produce in psychology, despite their best efforts to use maths and stats to create studies which find strong correlations.

1-[http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/schizophrenia- paran...](http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/schizophrenia-paranoia#1) 2-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KmimDq4cSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KmimDq4cSU)

<comment><USER15> Indeed. It seems there is much to learn about how this pseudo-religion is used by the powers that be in order to maintain control:

[https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti- authoritarians...](https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti- authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a terrible article.

It leads with a random three paragraph anecdote about coming off an SSRI. This is a pretty well-known and well-documented phenomenon, and contributes nothing to a discussion of their safety.

And then:

        > But many experts believe these drugs
        > do more good than harm

Followed by a quote of someone saying the opposite, and nothing more to back that statement up _at all_.

        > Many SSRI users report blunted emotions

That's kind of the point

        > "They should be called anti-sex drugs
        > rather than antidepressant drugs," says
        > Jon Jureidini, a *child* psychiatrist

Seriously? They're quoting a _paediatric psychiatrist_ on the effects on libido of anti-depressants. Just a thought: if you're a child psychiatrist and your patients are having lots of sex, there may be other issues affecting their mental health.

The article gets no less sloppy. Clickbait is clickbait even when wrapped up to look vaguely scientific.

</comment><comment><USER18> They don't talk about SNRIs like venlafaxine in the article, but I can say from first had experience that the withdrawal symptoms from those are pretty extreme. This is a difficult decision, but I've decided to not take SNRIs or SSRIs to manage bipolar depression, although they are commonly prescribed because I found the side effects to out weigh the benefits

<comment><USER19> I've been on venlafaxine 75mg (prescribed 150mg, but didn't like the increased side effects) for about a year now, I felt elevated mood a bit, but it did little to address bipolar cycling in my case. Recently I was prescribed Lamictal (lamotrigine) off label by my psychitrist as a mood stabilizer. I have just this week come up to therapeutic doses. It has been a huge change. I don't feel like I have experienced any additional side effects, and my mood is much more even. If you've never tried it, you may want to do some research online. Many bipolar patients have reported similar results.

<comment><USER8> Lamictal carries the potential for severe side effects, much more so than SSRIs/SNRIs. Lamotrigine prescribing information has a black box warning about life-threatening skin reactions, including Stevens–Johnson syndrome, DRESS syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder why people care whether or not somebody else _really needs_ them.

For arguments sake, let's say they don't. Suppose they can just man up and learn to deal with their first world problems. What do you lose by them taking something to make that easier?

Do you normally fix all of your other problems in the most difficult way?

We all seek ways to get an edge, if not against others, then at least to reclaim some of our own time and well-being.

From their perspective, there are 3 kinds of people. There's the positive, motivated guy who can't wait to get out of bed and go make his mark on the world. Then, there is the similar character who has to take SSRIs or whatever to keep that going. Then there is the lethargic person who has to fight every day to pretend to give a shit, can't keep relationships together, doesn't get promotions, and doesn't feel motivated to learn new skills or hobbies.

The last person doesn't really have the option of being person #1, but they may have a choice between being #2 or #3. Since all three of them end up in the ground after a few more decades anyway, why does it matter to others how they get there? Maybe the last 10 years or so of their life will cause them complications due to longterm use. It's hard to view that as a bad trade for folks who were miserable and/or suicidal for the first 50.

<comment><USER21> >What do you lose by them taking something to make that easier?

Going with your argument, one stands to lose on at least two fronts:

1\. severe side-effects

2\. potential long-term harm stemming from chronic use (as per the present article)

>Do you normally fix all of your other problems in the most difficult way?

This is disingenuous. The argument is that fixing depression sans medication is a _better_ (= safer, more effective) way.

Granted, this argument is _far_ from being obviously correct. Things also get murkier when we admit that there are various forms of depression, but that's not the point. The point is rather that you're arguing against a straw-man.

<comment><USER20> Neither 1 nor 2 answer the question. Why do _you_ care if _they_ do it? You suffer no side effects or long term harm.

<comment><USER21> They certainly _do_ answer some of the questions you explicitly spelled out. As for the rest:

1\. I generally care if people are being pushed towards (under|in)-effective treatments. I want people to be guided towards the safest and most effective treatments for ethical reasons.

2\. I worry that there are misaligned incentives between the drug consumers and the drug suppliers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The medical model of mental and behavioral problems is a lot better than the moralistic model.

But physical health is also a poor metaphor for mental health, and this article reveals some of the reasons why. Like the doctor comparing the antidepressant use to insulin, even if the doctor was just trying to de- stigmatize the anti-depressants.

But human minds and personalities grow and change in response to the environment they're in and as part of normal aging and development.

<comment><USER23> I wish the biopsychosocial model would catch on. Maybe it needs a catchier name.

<comment><USER6> I'm building a browser game that educates people in this. There is nothing I can publish yet, but shoot me an e-mail (firstname.lastname@example.com), and I'd love to discuss it in more detail.

(I hope I don't break any HN rules with this comment - there is no landing page, and I don't have a public pitch I could share here yet).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Whether you view the drugs, and their long-term use, as a benefit, or not, here's how I see it. The pharmaceutical companies have these drugs approved. And they are being prescribed and used, long-term.

So, what's the benefit for them in doing longitudinal studies? What's the upside, versus the potential downside of discovering negative effects?

If you want longitudinal studies, you're going to have to look outside the industry.

An essential reason we need to keep government research around and well- funded.

</comment><comment><USER25> First, everyone's depression is specifically their own. While there are groups of people who react similar to each other, that doesn't at all negate the experience of other different groups and their reactions.

I take an SSRI. It's worked well for me. If the cause of my depression is a defect in the serotonin path, then I see no reason why I, with that particular problem, should wean myself off my SSRI; I don't think SSRIs repair the serotonin path, they just mitigate the defect (production or transmission).

If I had a defective leg, with no hope of repair or regeneration, I wouldn't try to wean myself off my brace.

<comment><USER26> Same with ADHD and dopamine release. It is why amphetamines are so effective at treating legitimate ADHD. Mundane chores everyone has to do go from unimaginably difficult to start to moderately rewarding with the magic of a brain releasing its pent up dopamine. It isn't even a dopamine production problem for many with ADHD, the brain just won't release it like it does for most people. You can train it to some extent, but the defect will always exist in the ADHD brain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was on various medications off and on over 6 years. I needed them before that but they helped immensely once I had them.

However, I've found that they're unnecessary and even detrimental long term, if you can tackle the underlying reason behind the depression (the side effects can be huge). For me, it was a lifestyle change that involved better diet and exercise (like everyone recommends), as well as associating myself with people that I enjoyed being around and who encouraged me to be better and disassociating myself from people who brought me down.

The most important piece, however, was that I was able to fundamentally change my thoughts and perspective on life. Instead of telling myself "I'm a failure" I tell myself "I found one way that doesn't work." Instead of "I hate myself" it's "how can I make myself better?" Instead of "they don't actually like me" it's "I don't care, because I don't need everyone's acceptance to be content." I was able to do this mainly through reading various mindfulness books but most importantly Stoic philosophy. "A Guide to the Good Life" was fundamental. The rest came through general maturity through life experience, accepting the world the way it is and coming to terms with it, as well as using that knowledge to get what I want from it.

A combination of these things, plus finally becoming financially independent and moving to a place that suits me better, has led me to believe that _for me_ antidepressants are a _temporary_ tool to help you learn to manage depression. There may be a chance that I need them again in the future but I feel very secure where I am now, and more confident and happy than I have ever been in my life previously.

What has led me to believe that the same also holds true _for most people_ is that I've known many other depressed and medicated people before in my life. What I find in almost all of them (who remain depressed and medicated) is that they view the medication AS the fix, instead of the tool that helps you find it. They _accept_ that the medication will bring them enough contentment to live out the rest of their life. Because of this, they never try to change it. They're living the same life they were, except now they aren't as miserable.

Maybe it was a good thing that the side effects were too much for me but I wasn't able to live that way, they forced me to find a way to improve my situation. I believe that many people just haven't been able to find the right ways to change their life to live without medication. Of course, this doesn't apply to the ones that _can 't_ fix their situation for whatever reason, but the reality is that a lot of people are being medicated, and most of them do have the power to change their lives to render medication unnecessary.

<comment><USER28> > they view the medication AS the fix, instead of the tool that helps you find > it

This. Professionals should explain that these medications are a tool to help you manage rather than a "fix" you should be taking your whole life. It is possible to figure this out on your own, like the OP did, but not everyone can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder how much of Sarah's issues were a "nocebo" response, thinking that withdrawal would be bad. If so it might help if doctors and pharmacies provided a "guided reduction" (e.g. you get 19mg one week, 18mg the next etc). People might feel better just thinking that an "expert" has designed this program.

<comment><USER12> I don't know about Seroxat, but I've experienced undeniable symptoms withdrawing from antidepressants: "brain zaps" that I had no idea about until I started experiencing them, then found other people who had written of experiencing them as well.

Additionally to those, I had a weird whooshing sound that I would hear whenever I moved my eyes to the top left. Took me a while to figure out the pattern/trigger (seemed random at first, and I thought I had something stuck in my ear). Actually kind of fascinating, if scary.

That was on top of the nausea etc. And this was a 'guided' withdrawl (under medical direction).

I don't discount that there might be a placebo/nocebo response in the side- effects (both onset and withdrawl) as well (as with any medication)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've been on different forms of ssri, snris since the age of seven. I'm 32 now. It's debatable my parents used medication as a way of silencing me, as I was lashing out and making suicide attempts and violent threats as a response to my father's physical and sexual abuse.

Regardless, I've been on so long I don't believe I could function without them. Every time I've gone off, whether cold turkey or under a psychiatrist's supervision, I've fell into the deepest, even catatonic, depressions of my life. Even had a psychotic break which required shock treatment.

I've been in therapy, ptsd groups, religiously exercised, meditation, journaling, and a whole lot more, but the medication has always been there. Both sides of my family have a history of suicide, alcoholism, depression, and other mental illnesses.

I feel like an addict but also justify it, in that you wouldn't shame a diabetic for taking insulin.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ok, I can't resist this.

First, chunk of the reason why SSRIs and to a lesser extent benzodiazepines are (perhaps) overprescribed is that they are _safe_ , at least in the short term. In the bad old times antidepressants were _dangerous_ , let alone antipsychotics and such.

There's some interesting literature pointing to lithium as the Stephen-Curry- mit-Keith-Jarrett standard for long-term management of treatment-resistent depression, but man, taking lithium sucks. If all I had was the garden variety blues I would sure opt for the Zitalocipraoamezaxx they advertise on TV.

Second, I think people are over-eager to blame pharma and not the doctors. These are tools, people, and power tools at that. Yes, some research released by pharma is biased in that they do not release the unfavorable studies, but there are plenty of blogs out there poring over the technicalia, as well as sharing experiences in real patient care.

Maybe some of these things are overprescribed to the gen pop but they're still useful to us.

Third, isn't funny that we're expected to be open-minded about recreational drugs and puritannical about pharmaceuticals? Effectively in many parts of the world now you can legally buy weed but cannot get Klonopin when needed unless you work through the system somehow.

This should go without saying, but fourth: the goal of psychiatric treatment is never to make you happy or realignm your chakras. A pdoc doesn't ask "are you happy, are you sad", he asks "are you functional?" Meaning first: am I able to work? (This is the first thing -- it's not good for someone mentally ill to be homeless). Next: am I able to maintain and grow my personal relationships? Is my sex life ok? Am I overall satisfied with my quality of life and my ability to take and handle new challenges? If I can't get an erection (meds sometimes impact that), that's something he can try and help. If I'm questioning the usefulness of being a knowledge worker in a society pumped by a bubble of BS? That's on me.

Your goals as a human being are still up to you.

</comment><comment><USER32> First try legitimate physical exercise, lifestyle changes, counseling.

<comment><USER26> Not trying to give you a hard time, this is of course good advice, but please never tell that to anyone you care about in a depressive episode. Time and place. Virtually every person with depression has been given this advice a million times. If it were just that, they would have done it. It took me a long time to accept that it just isn't that simple for people with long term depression. That is a huge part of fighting it long term, but those habits are hard to gain and easy to lose, putting someone back in the hole. People with depression also just need people. Support, acknowledgement of their struggle, listening, acceptance. I have a strong inclination to help people fix things. My younger self had a hard time accepting there were things I could not fix or figure out.

<comment><USER33> It's also dangerous advice. Seek professional attention _first._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> And of course the first ad in the article is for an antidepressant.

Drop the ad script in and forget it they said... Targeted ads they said...</comment>


Show HN: Polyfill for random_bytes() and random_int() in PHP 5 projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paragonie/random_compat

<comment><AUTHOR> When PHP 7 is released later this year, PHP users will finally be able to quickly and easily leverage a CSPRNG in their projects.

        random_bytes(int) - Generate a string of random bytes from the OS (e.g.. /dev/urandom)

        random_int(int, int) - Generate an unbiased random integer between two integers

We wrote this library so PHP 5.x users can import this in their project and write code that takes advantage of this new PHP 7 API. Particularly random_int(), which is suitable for random string generation (e.g. random password generator).

We cannot declare the 1.0.0 stable release until the PHP team makes a design decision about how to handle errors in their version of the library. We currently throw an Exception; they might decide to return false and raise an E_WARNING error. Until the outcome is known, we're in limbo.

This library has not been subject to a paid audit by a security team, but it has been reviewed by several prominent members of the PHP community (and a few security/crypto folks outside of PHP land).

I believe it to be more secure than any other PHP implementation of these features. That said, more review and scrutiny would be greatly appreciated! :)</comment>


The Software Paradox: The Rise and Fall of the Commercial Software Market [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/software-paradox.pdf <comment><USER2> Not sure that there's any paradox here. The rise of a freely-accessible network connecting all humans (i.e. the Internet) has just made it such that hundreds of years of cleverly and carefully assembled middle-middlemen that were required to keep the economy going are no longer required. This affects the software ecosystem that existed right before the Internet but impacts everything else as well: taxis, hotels, etc.

Moving forward, assume that middle-men are gone, unless required by legislation or differences in sovereignty (i.e. still effectively legislation). The net result is that it's cheap to build and procure yourself practically almost anything, with the surface of things you can't build/procure yourself increasingly diminishing given the network effect of large swaths of the human race rushing to the Internet to build ever increasingly sophisticated modular components with each trying to outflank each other with a lower price/barrier-to-entry.

If we can 3D print/carve materials we can buy in bulk in a cheap fashion from freely-available software/data, we are likely looking at a fundamentally different economy than the one we are in today.

<comment><USER3> > assume that middle-men are gone

Wishful thinking. In the real world, middle man competition is being replaced with middle man monopolies, e.g. Amazon between manufacturers and consumers, Apple/Google between app creators and users, Google between websites and readers, Uber between cabbies and travelers.

<comment><USER4> Interesting concept

There's a word for single seller (monopoly), single buyer (monopsony) but not for single middle man (at least not that I'm aware of)

<comment><USER5> I'm not familiar with the associated ancient Greek word for middleman (-poly and -psony come from ancient Greek), but in modern Greek "μεσαζοντας" (pronounced meh-sa-zon-das) is "middleman". So that would suggest something like "monomesazontia".

There is also "μεσίτης" (meh-see-tees) which means broker / facilitator. That would suggest "monomesitia".

But if you're willing to mix Greek prefixes with English/Germanic roots for "dealer", then I like the sound of "monomongery" :)

<comment><USER6> "Monomonger" just sounds like such a mean thing to call anybody. What would the noun form of monomesitia be?

<comment><USER5> A person practicing "monomesitia" would be a "monomesitis". I agree "monomonger" sounds pretty vulgar, but I found it humorous :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title is a half-truth: commercial software is certainly in the decline while also being a huge, profitable business. The SaaS and ad-driven vendors get most of the attention. They might even be most of the startups. Yet, there's a steady stream of companies building software that's worth paying for and making money on it. On top of that, there's always the "improve legacy systems" market where you makes something they can't get away from even better. Solutions building on Microsoft, Oracle, mainframe, AS/400, VMS, and so on all come to mind. They stay around, so your enhancement might stay around too.

The two ensure commercial software won't go away or even be marginal in terms of where the profit is. SaaS is a race-to-the-bottom due to intense competitiveness. Ad-driven model can be lucrative but is also high risk. Building a product with strong lock-in effects is the only method proven to last decades. From there, you can decide whether you want the risk of the ad model (Facebook) or the profit of commercial model (Microsoft, Oracle). One looks more appealing. ;)

<comment><USER8> [Disclosure: I'm the author] No argument that up-front, perpetually licensed software is currently a huge, profitable business. Windows and Office alone, as acknowledged, generate essentially $44B by themselves. There are also profitable businesses that pursue the traditional perpetual license model - Palantir being perhaps the most notable example (although from conversations with employees there, they are increasingly being pushed towards alternative models).

But the point of the Software Paradox is not that companies are not currently and cannot in future make money from software, and that there are no exceptions to the rule, it's that the trajectory broadly is not promising. Looking across a variety of software categories, from mobile to operating systems to infrastructure to tooling to consumer, the trendline is downward in terms of their up-front realizable revenue potential.

None of which should be taken to mean that software is going away. If anything it's becoming more important, hence the use of paradox. But developers and companies seeking to monetize software should at least be aware of the market context which is that it's becoming more difficult to make money from it the way that it was possible to even a few years ago. Even the lock-in mechanism, which is correctly cited as a method proven to monetize customers efficiently, is more easily replicated in services businesses (e.g. cloud) than it is in traditional on premise software, where open source has become both an expectation and a means of combatting lock-in.

If one looks at all of the available evidence and decides to proceed with a traditional software licensing approach in spite of the observable challenges, it is certainly not impossible for them to a) generate revenue and b) be profitable. But the degree of difficulty attached to this model has gone up considerably, and looks to only be getting worse. And this isn't just an academic theory, it's something I hear almost daily in conversations with vendors.

<comment><USER7> Appreciate your clarification. I agree that the overall trajectory is not promising in the mass market. What are your thoughts on the pay more for quality or security market for software/systems? Have those analyzing the data made this distinction to see how much the trend affects that market segment? Many that I know of still use the old model's of licensing or expensive appliances although the startups are doing things with new models. I think, if that niche had same effect, it would reinforce your claim even more. If it wasn't as impacted, it would give the best spot to invest in and market apps with profitable, licensing models. What I often called the Toyota Strategy.

"Even the lock-in mechanism, which is correctly cited as a method proven to monetize customers efficiently, is more easily replicated in services businesses (e.g. cloud) than it is in traditional on premise software, where open source has become both an expectation and a means of combatting lock-in."

I'm actually starting to agree with this more and more as I look into how they design it. Facebook is the perfect example: containing people's whole life with no easy way to move it. The cloud vendors usually allow unlimited incoming data and charge for outgoing. Tricks like that combined with low, entry barrier might make for nice lock-in over long term.

"But the degree of difficulty attached to this model has gone up considerably, and looks to only be getting worse. And this isn't just an academic theory, it's something I hear almost daily in conversations with vendors."

Oh, like I said, I buy that. Title just read like another piece on how that type of software was done altogether. The claims about the trend in the book and your comment are right on. I guess you could say that's what I really was griping about. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's really twisting things in order to fit a wierd corporate narrative on FOSS.

"Even companies like GE are helping to fund noncommercial software, having con- tributed $105 million to Pivotal, the home of projects like Cloud Foundry." Uh... they invested for a 10% stake in a for profit company which creates commercially focused free software, among other things. The corporate doublespeak runs deep.

Reminds me generally of orielly's screwy agenda [http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme- hustler](http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that is deceptive. Facebook is a great example of a company funding FOSS. Redhat is the canonical example. EnterpriseDB is another example. The defining characteristic is the difference between what they're taking from a project and what they're contributing. Most companies prefer a 95-100% one-way relationship in their favor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The tl;dr: 'The economic value of software is declining even as the strategic value of software is rising.'

When I applied this framework to Docker, the magic sauce of Docker pops out in an obvious way. I had asserted in other threads that Docker's thing is packaging ... but reading this paper, I can see why Docker is moving so fast.

And go figure, it's written by Stephen O'Grady of RedMonk.

<comment><USER11> > 'The economic value of software is declining even as the strategic value of > software is rising.'

Sometimes as a geek I feel a certain sympathy for 3rd world nations who happen to sit on a scare natural resource and are forced to give it away for a song when asked by merchants in military gear..

<comment><USER12> Nobody is forcing you to do this shit. You do it of your own free will because Mr. MBA has got a bunch of Indians working for him for a song.

<comment><USER11> I've sat in meetings where decision to dismiss an entire floor of programmers in one of the nyc building of one bank included open and frank assessment of outsourced work ("4th iteration" "crap" ...) by one of the executives.

("Mr. MBA" is just another worker, like you and me.)

<comment><USER13> I'm confused: is the executive dismissing outsourced work as crap, or is he advocating outsourcing because the entire floor of NYC programmers' work is crap? Did they make the decision to outsource the work?

<comment><USER11> He noted that it was crap, but then again the meeting was about bringing in /more/ so the floor could be cleaned up. I'm sure this equation resolves at a higher interest level, but it did not make much sense at that table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the original store page of the book: [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033325.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033325.do)

Looks like the linked PDF is with the "Compliments of PayPal", Google Cache[1] still has that version of the O'Reilly store page while now actually cost money again. So I guess someone was clever to save the download link while the promotion lasted? :)

[1]: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tTFeN8y...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tTFeN8yjqSYJ:www.oreilly.com/programming/free/software- paradox.csp%3Fcmp%3Dtw-prog-books-videos-product-na_software- paradox.csp+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=tw)

</comment><comment><USER15> From the description on the O'Reilly page I get the impression that this book is perhaps 90% hindsight and 10% helpful advice for entrepreneurs in software. Is this a correct observation?

<comment><USER16> There are lots of good lessons in history as well. Remember that trends in computing tend to be cyclic (for instance: centralization/decentralization).

<comment><USER17> Cycles are an attractive framework for thinking about technology progress, but is it true? For example, the app->Web->app apparent "cycle" happened exactly once. And there is a government jackboot on the neck of decentralization. I don't see repetition or commonality. All such supposed cycles happen on the backdrop of huge growth rates.

<comment><USER18> first computers -> timesharing, multiuser (dumb terminal) -> client-server (smart terminal) -> Web 1.0 (dumb terminal) -> Web 2.0+ (smart terminal) -> cloud (dumb terminal)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We launched in December 2012 our offline desktop software product for business and freelancers (niche market with a TAM of about 100,000 users) only as a subscription, no perpetual licenses available. Previously this project was freeware (closed source) so our 2.x version remained freeware and our 3.0 was only available as a subscription sold in chunks of 1 year-subscriptions as opposed to monthly).

In retrospect, we are very happy to have chosen the subscription model because it resembles a lot the freeware model: for maintenance you just focus on the latest version/build issues because 100% of your customer base is entitled to have it, you don't compete with yourself across paid versions and don't need marketing effort to explain customers why they should upgrade every year. Your sales effort is also lower because your price point is lower.

</comment><comment><USER20> Changing the file extension to epub or mobi works as well, btw.

<comment><USER21> [http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/software- parad...](http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/software-paradox.mobi)

[http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/software- parad...](http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/software-paradox.epub)

thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It certainly looks like there is no money to be made anymore in compilers, or software development tools in general. That market seems to have been eaten by free open source software.

I wonder if there is any advice for software tool builders? Has the money really dried up?

<comment><USER7> There's several private companies that make money selling compilers: Green Hills and PGI comes to mind immediately. Open compilers are good enough that commercial ones have to be better in general or on specific platforms to justify price. Plus, they usually integrate into other tools that do things FOSS cant or doesnt do well.

One area that's an untapped market is compilers that automatically and efficiently protect legacy code. I've seen academic and FOSS methods that do well. A thoroughly tested, supported, integrated with IDE option would probably sell well. A cross-platform even better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Commercial software may be getting a smaller piece of the pie, the pie is getting larger quickly.

I basically agree with Donald Knuth: open source (I would prefer it be libre) software will continue to be more important with passing decades. I expect that if the human species survives long term that in a few hundred years the world(s) will be run at partially by very old and very stable open source software.

I have had access to computers since about 1960 (thanks Dad!) and the improvements have been exponential. That said, in the distant future when computer science is a mature science, for many tasks rock solid software will likely be more important than the decade's latest bells and whistles.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's true that free software is eating into everyone's margins, especially unsustainable business models that run entirely by burning cash and continually raising more and more money in hopes a giant will come and swoop it off it's feet.

However, I think there's a problem with attempting to take the assumptions from macro view and drilling it to individual companies and startups. Plenty of awful software with awful websites sell like hot cakes. The age of these companies are ancient, started in mid 90s to mostly early 2000s. The people buying their software don't know what open source is, rather if they see something as free, these are the type of people that think there's something wrong with it. By the articles explanation, they shouldn't exist or they should be fending off attacks from left and right but in reality, the software part of business is actually very small. The fact is, it's a business and the people that make up the customer base. So while it is true that some industries may face fierce competition from "free software" it varies from a spectrum where one end is little to no innovative destruction mostly because of the customers to the other end which this article talks mostly about where ALL software companies are threat. There are still industries where the establishment form coalition and invent complicated "industry standards" to prevent anymore innovation happening. These are business strategies aimed to raise the cost of entry among other tactics that's harmful for the industry but great for the stakeholders.

Having said that, the article isn't without merits, there are some very important truths in there. Like almost all advices, take it with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER7> WinRAR was a good example. There were free utilities to compress files. Yet, theirs had better interface, features, and performance. The file splitting feature was particularly compelling when dialup, floppies, and CD-R's were common. So, people kept buying them. They've declined quite a bit and we have excellent alternatives such as 7-Zip today. Yet, the product is still selling because they do a job well for a reasonable price.

<comment><USER12> That's the thing about reading articles like these, they are massive generalizations that apply to big league players. There are still plenty of opportunities to be had for many other players.

<comment><USER7> That's my take. Funny that it attracts agreement on HN despite counterexamples showing up here regularly. Last one was AeroFS: a private, safer Dropbox for a monthly fee. At the moment, that one use case can (and probably does) have dozens of successful vendors whose sales teams were first to get to customer. Once deployed, they're usually hesitant to switch and have related requirements. That's both increased odds of long-term revenue plus opportunity for profitable, custom work.

That's just one out of a zillion scenarios where potential customer is unlikely to use FOSS or "The Cloud." There's also several attributes outside cost and some business models that almost nobody is pushing hard in software industry like we saw in other industries. Especially retail, which adapted like crazy all over. Anyone spotting these and jumping on them in the right way might make a killing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>